#where would you be if the magnifying glass was pointed in your direction?

[aparticularbandit]

Please don't take this as preachy - that's not what I mean - but this feels to go along exactly with what you're saying.

"3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." - Matthew 7:3-5.

no but fr we’ve all done and said problematic things. y'all need to stop believing everything you see on the internet- not only are people prone to misspeaking, they’re prone to being misinterpreted, misconstrued, taken out of context-

and it’s very important to me that everyone understands that the same can be done to them.

you do Not want to know what could/would happen if a bad actor got their hands on all the DMs you’ve ever sent, or even all the things you’ve ever posted publicly. But you’re helping perpetuate that very nightmare whenever you endorse or spread callout posts

it is very easy to manipulate events and screenshots such that they tell a very narrow narrative, and it’s easy to do this in a way that guarantees an emotional response in order to make any reader angry. it is very easy to manufacture outrage and anger. it is very difficult to repair a reputation or heal from this kind of breach of trust and common decency

who are you helping? when you call for someone to be ousted from their community, who are you helping? when you ask for someone to be punished for years-old words, who are you helping?

and where would you be if the same magnifying glass was pointed in your direction?

[theother-victoria]

graduation trip

PREVIOUSLY | NEXT

SYNOPSIS: the stars in space must grow weary of their long orbits after a while. they too deserve to rest. a shooting star has regained its tail, ready to soar across the galaxy once more.

TAGS: fluff, minor spoilers of Kaveh’s backstory, the sillies getting a well-deserved break, 4.6k wc

NOTES: I was watching honkai impact’s “graduation trip” animation and sobbing the whole time as I wrote this their cover of canon in d just hits differently

Sitting upon the outskirts of Sumeru City is a small rented house where the breeze is warm and the sunlight is golden. A small garden grows off to the side and receives plenty of love, apparent from the abundance of vegetables and the fragrant blossoms. Traces of Dendro elemental energy used to help the plants grow are visible with elemental sight. Small trinkets are scattered here and there, bearing traces of their owners' personalities. A wind chime hanging off the roof awning that is styled after the night sky. Comets and crescent moons are strung together, tinkling pleasantly in the mid-afternoon breeze. A collection of Aranara statues sit by the front porch, clearly carved from different people from the varying differences in skill. The smell of freshly-brewed coffee and Padisarah Pudding is always wafting out the open windows and the neighbors are used to the house’s frequent yet lighthearted arguing. 

If one were to peer through the large living room window with the curtains pulled open, they would see an impressive collection of books in the living room. The term “home library” did the collection a disservice; to call it an actual library would be more fitting. Two diplomas are hung side by side above the bookshelves. Cat toys are scattered across the floor and atop furniture and if they’re lucky, they can see the household’s gray cat napping in a sunbeam. 

If they were to peer through the window now, they would also see two recent Akademiya graduates in the kitchen. One was adding ice cubes to their drink, while the other sat at the kitchen table reading a book. 

“(Name), have you ever thought about taking a graduation trip?”

You look up mid-sip from your iced peach juice. Alhaitham seems calm and composed but having known him for four years and counting, you spot the subtle signs of his nervousness. You hear his foot lightly tapping against the floor and the way his fingers drum against his book cover. He avoids making eye contact and is oddly fixated on the fruit bowl. 

You look back out the window and think for a bit. You can’t say you’ve ever considered it these past four years. Money was tight as an Akademiya student and you were too preoccupied with your studies among… other things. 

But now that you’ve graduated in relatively decent academic standing with a fair amount of money earned, you suppose you could give the notion some thought. 

Alhaitham seems to take your silence as hesitation and he begins to (very subtly) panic.

“I still have enough Mora, so don’t worry about paying for anything.”

“Haitham-”

“And the location is completely up to you. I’m fine with whatever nation you choose.”

“I-”

“Of course, you can say no if you don’t want to. It’s perfectly understandable. I’m also content with spending our summer together at-”

“Haitham.”

The finality in your voice makes him stop rambling. You give him a small smile of reassurance and interlock your fingers with his across the table. It seems to calm him down and you can see the tension in his shoulders dissipate.

“Of course I want to go. I just haven’t had the time or energy to consider it these past four years.”

“Well, where to then?”

“You’re the one paying for the trip. It’s only fair that I let you decide.”

“Good point,” he admits. His eyes narrow in your direction and you squirm uncomfortably under his pointed gaze. You can hear him mumbling to himself as he goes through his list of ideas.

(Is this what Tighnari’s plant samples felt like underneath the magnifying glass and his scrutinizing eye?)

“Liyue?... No, you went there already. Inazuma sounds good, but their political state has been rocky lately… Mondstadt, then? No, there’s a national holiday coming up so it’s going to be busy and overcrowded…” 

He pauses.

“How does Fontaine sound?”

“Fontaine?” you repeat. 

“It’s nearby, so travel fees won’t be outrageous, and neither of us have been there before. The political state is stable and there’s no national holidays or anything similar coming up, meaning it won’t be as crowded as say, Mondstadt,” he reasons. “But if you’re not interested, then that’s fine-”

“Haitham, do you remember what I said earlier? I’d love to go anywhere with you. A trip to Fontaine sounds lovely.”

That seems to ease the last of his worries. His shoulders relax and he leans back into his chair. There’s a faint grin that only you have the privilege of seeing as he pulls out his notebook and begins writing down plans. 

“I’ll start making reservations now. It shouldn’t take them more than a few days. When do you want to leave?”

“As soon as possible.”

“How does the end of this week sound then?”

It’s a perfect day for traveling. The sky is clear and the air is warm but not overbearingly so. The sea should be calm as well. Thamina has been handed to a friend for pet sitting. Your bags are stacked on the front porch and you’re fiddling with the keys when Alhaitham taps you on the shoulder. 

“Before we go, I have a present for you.”

You raise your eyebrows at that. Alhaitham wasn’t much of a gift giver (at least overtly). 

He presents a simply-wrapped box. Peeling off the paper, you open the box to see a Kamera sitting inside it, and a rather fancy model at that. 

“Everyone contributed to this,” he explains as you fiddle with the expensive gadget, examining it from all angles like a curious child. “I know you’ve been eyeing the empty position of reporter at the newspaper company in town and I thought a Kamera would be a practical gift, so I began saving up for one.”

He sighs. “Word got out that I was looking for a Kamera. Everyone put two and two together and they realized it was going to be for you and they began sending me money. Even Lisa pitched in.”

“Lisa?” you repeat. “She’s all the way in Mondstadt right now!”

He lightly chuckles. “Imagine my surprise when I opened the mailbox to find a hefty pouch of Mora one day with a letter signed by her in there. She still hasn’t dropped the habit of calling you ‘cutie’, by the way.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less than that from her.”

“But with everyone’s funds combined, I was able to get a nicer model than the one I was originally going to get. Give it a go and tell me what you think of it.”

You press the shutter. It goes off with a loud click, startling you. A few moments later, it spits out a strip of film from the opening beneath the lens. You absentmindedly put it aside in a shaded spot for now. 

“It’s quite nice. And your intuition proved to be right once more. But if you got me something this expensive, surely there has to be another reason than it being a practical gift for my future job?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh? I think that’s the fastest you’ve seen through me to date.”

“You’re not exactly being subtle here.”

He sighs at your deadpan expression. “It’s nothing shameful or secretive. I just want you to be the one to document the details of our trip.”

“Entrusting such an important task to me?”

“There’s no one better suited for the job.”

Right as you’re about to leave, you remember the photo you had accidentally taken earlier. Out of curiosity, you retrieve it to see what the Kamera had captured. 

The film had developed nicely, albeit slightly blurry. Probably because you had moved out of shock when the shutter went off. It turns out you’d accidentally taken a photo of Alhaitham, but it isn’t half-bad. He’s relaxed in the photo and his eyes lack the usual piercing and cold look most people see him with.

It’s a nice shot. Perhaps you’ll keep it for yourself. 

“Welcome to the Clementine Line aquabus! This boat tour will take you to the magnificent court of Fontaine, the most important city in our nation!”

The sweet creature before you, who you quickly learned was a Melusine and was named Aeval, introduces herself and begins pointing out the sights around you- much like how a tour guide would. The aquabus is quite crowded with visitors but you sit shoulder-to-shoulder comfortably against Alhaitham.  

Many students and children are here on summer vacation with their families and you feel a pang of jealousy run through you, which quickly morphs to tension when you notice some familiar faces from these past four years. Alhaitham immediately picks up the sudden change in your mood, as he always has. Funny how people think of him as emotionally dense when he’s one of the most emotionally intelligent people you’ve ever met. 

“Who are they?” he whispers into your ear, low enough so that only you can hear it.

“No one of any importance,” you whisper back. “Just as long as they don’t ruin our trip.” 

After some time, their gaze begins to wander when they land on you. You hear the whispers quietly explode around you and the eyes that burn into your body. The sweet Melusine tour guide is as perceptive as she is sweet, for she makes eye contact with you, giving you something else to focus on other than them. 

From over your shoulder, Alhaitham silences them with a sharp glare.

(“Did something happen?” you ask him when you no longer feel their gazes boring into you. You cast a glance at them out of the corner of your eye and notice how they no longer look in your direction.

“... Let me rephrase that. Did you do something?”

He hums. “I’m unaware of what you might be implying.”

“Stop feigning ignorance,” you hiss.

“I am doing no such thing.”

There’s no such thing as winning with him around.)

The aquabus reaches its destination, and all your troubles are forgotten as you step off. The air is warm and salty from the sea and the buildings are so tall it makes your neck hurt. Mechanical beings walk the street and nobody pays them any mind except you. (You know your Kshahrewar colleagues would love to get their hands on one.) 

“Woah! Are you seeing all of this, Haitham? It’s so different from Sumeru and Liyue!”

Instantly, Alhaitham knew he made the right decision bringing you here and part of a burden is lifted off his shoulders. 

There are many things to do and see in Fontaine. You start off by exploring the city. One of the first things you do is visit a Kamera shop to get a better understanding of how your shiny new gift worked. You ended up leaving with some newfound knowledge, some gadgets, and a significantly lighter wallet. 

Fontaine has plenty of boulangeries and patisseries, each one better than the last. Your days aren’t complete without sampling the goods of several stores and you quickly see why Fontaine’s desserts are world-renowned. 

“They’re so buttery and creamy,” you remark the first time you try one. “I can’t help but feel full after just a few bites…” 

Fontaine is renowned for its stunning underwater landscapes that photos can’t do justice to. It had been on your bucket list of things to see the moment you began planning for this trip, but what nobody told you was that only Vision holders could breathe underwater. Regular people couldn’t do that unless they learned the ins and outs of using a diving suit, something both costly and time-consuming- two things you lacked.

That’s how you found yourself pouting at the water’s edge, disappointment etched into the lines of your face. 

“Let’s just go back now. There’s still other things we can do.”

Alhaitham looks at you with mild surprise. “I thought this was one of the things you wanted to do most in Fontaine?”

“It was and still is, but I don’t have a Vision, so…”

He looks back at the water, then at you beginning to get up, and finally at the reluctance in your eyes.

“Stay here,” he suddenly says. “I’ll go and make it worth your while.”

“What-”

“It won’t be long. Don’t go running off now.”

And without any hesitation, he dives straight into the waters, leaving you reeling as you watch his figure slowly disappear as he descends. 

With nothing else to do, you absentmindedly sketch the surroundings until some time passes and you hear a small splash. You watch as Alhaitham emerges from the waters, water plastered to his forehead like your cat Thamina’s fur after a bath, but more importantly, you notice what he’s carrying. You’ve seen sketches of them in some of the books you’ve read in Fontaine so far- Romaritime Flowers, Lumitoiles, Beryl Conches… he must’ve dove into some deep waters to get some of these local specialties.

“For you,” he says.

“Really?”

He nods. “I brought you part of the sea that you wanted to explore so much.”

You let the weight of his actions sink in. 

“You… did all of that? Just for me?”

“I’d swim to the bottom of Fontaine’s deepest trenches as many times as you want.”

“Willingly, at that?”

“Gladly, at that.”

Later that night, you stay up into the early morning preserving what he brought you. Your arms are tired from carrying heavy books for pressing the flowers, and the room reeks of alcohol and seafood so much that you have to open the windows while you’re drying out the Lumitoiles lest you pass out from the smell. It reminds you of the late-nighters you’d pull back in your Akademiya days, except it's for something you enjoy this time. 

You finish when the sun’s early morning rays begin to peek beyond the horizon. You’ve finally passed out in bed, barely awake, but still sleepily talking to yourself with Alhaitham lying across from you.

“Still stinks,” you mumble as your eyelids begin to close.

Alhaitham’s condition is as equally bad as yours, sleep-deprived and exhausted. He chuckles at your remark.

“Would you still want to do this again?”

“Maybe in a better-ventilated area,” you grumble. 

He loudly yawns.

“Just say the word and… I’ll bring you anything you desire…”

You can’t keep your eyes open for much longer. When you’re in this state, your mind doesn’t have a filter and you’re less inhibited. Alhaitham has a feeling of what you’ll say next. Something outlandish and unattainable.

“Even the moon and stars?”

“Only the most luminous of shooting stars for you,” he replies without hesitation.

Why a shooting star, of all celestial bodies…you groggily wonder. 

“What if it burns out and loses its tail? It’s just an ordinary rock then.”

“It’s still the same star, is it not? And shooting stars can return and regain their tail.”

Throughout all of it, you take photos. So many photos. You brought along an album for the trip and it contains photos of just about everything under the sun. The mountains in the background on your way to Fontaine. Photos of the desserts and everything you ate every day. The grandeur of the opera house when you were there to watch a play. Your pressed flowers are next to the photos of the sea. Your Lumitoiles and Beryl Conches sit in a bag, waiting to be taken home. 

Beneath each photo, Alhaitham has written little notes. Most of them are about the foods you liked and disliked for his reference.

(Name) didn’t like the Fontaine Aspic and neither did I. Who thought this was a good idea…? I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who enjoyed it. 

The Duck Confit was nice, but (Name) could only manage a few bites before they complained it was too oily. That seems to be a recurring theme…

(Name) has liked all the desserts we’ve tried so far. How hard would it be to recreate them at home?

But there’s other notes too.

A pressed Rainbow Rose sits between a photo of you both in front of the Fountain of Lucine where plenty of them were blooming and a photo of the Opera Epiclese in the evening. Strange, you don’t remember pressing this flower and placing it in this specific spot. 

All that was written beneath it was “for (Name)”. 

A few days into your trip and you’re examining a hat display while Alhaitham checks out a book display across the street when you hear a familiar voice drifting above the crowd.

“... The audacity of that client! Can you believe he backed out of the deal last minute? At least he paid me upfront…”

Your head jolts up. You look back at Alhaitham, who has done the same thing, and look toward the source of the sound in sync. 

Surely it can’t be…?

A few moments later and your suspicions are confirmed. Kaveh emerges from the crowd and… a woman who looks startlingly similar standing next to him?

“Huh? Is that… his mom?”

“He did tell me one night that his mom remarried and moved to Fontaine sometime after he enrolled in the Akademiya,” notes Alhaitham, who has moved to stand next to you. Kaveh turns and makes eye contact with you. It takes him a few seconds to process the sight before he gasps loudly, audible even amongst the crowd, and then storms over to you. 

“You!” he exclaims while jabbing an accusing finger at Alhaitham’s chest. “What are you doing here? Nice to see you again, (Name).”

“Graduation trip,” explains Alhaitham. “We-”

He’s interrupted by Kaveh’s mom rushing over. 

“You must be Alhaitham! And you must be (Name)! I’ve heard so much about you from Kaveh! Are you both busy right now, by any chance?”

“Not… particularly?”

And that’s how you find yourself out in the countryside spending the evening with Kaveh and his family. Faranak had shooed you out of the house and encouraged you to reconnect with each other until she called you back for dinner. In that time, you had found that Kaveh had made quite the name for himself within the architecture world (no surprise there) and was working on a commission for a very wealthy man before he suddenly backed out of the deal. At least he still got a hefty upfront deposit to keep. In the meantime as he decided which commission to take out of the many that were flooding in, he was reconnecting with his direct and extended family, who he hadn’t seen in years. 

“And how about you two?” he asks. “What are you both up to now?”

“Haitham is working at the library as of now, but I’ve been hearing rumors of how he might get promoted to the position of Scribe soon.”

“You probably don’t even want the position anyway,” scoffs Kaveh. “Knowing you and all.”

“Actually, I do.”

You both turn to look at him.

“Better pay, better schedule, more flexibility, and a decreased workload, to name a few,” he lists.

“... Wouldn’t being a librarian entail less work than the Scribe? And why’d you mention pay? I know how much you want a cushy life, but you seem pretty comfortable now?” Kaveh asks. 

“It’s decent, but I know we could have more.”

“We?” repeats Kaveh. He slowly connects the dots as he looks at you and Alhaitham. “Wait, don’t tell me you two are-”

“We’re living together. That’s it.”

Kaveh blinks. He looks a little… disappointed?

“Oh… that’s all? No-”

Alhaitham cuts him off with a glare that could kill. 

“Not. Another. Word,” he hisses. Then, in a whisper that only Kaveh can hear:

“Not yet, at least.”

You look at the two of them, unaware. Alhaitham clears his throat and sends one last glare at Kaveh before continuing.

“As I was saying, (Name) and I are renting a house together. However, now is a good time to become a homeowner. Mortgage rates are low, housing stock is high. It’ll be doable for me with some time and savings.”

“Geez, stop rubbing your success in our faces,” grumbles Kaveh. “You’ve already got a promotion lined up and you’ll potentially be the first homeowner in our circle. Give me a break…”

While the two grumble and bicker the same way they did back in their Akademiya days, you hang behind, fiddling with a wildflower you had picked earlier. 

While I’m glad he’s getting such a head start in life… where does that leave me then?

On the walk back, neither of you notice how Alhaitham lingers behind. Neither of you notice how Alhaitham is also doing the math for how much he has to save up each month to get a house built.

Specifically, one that’s big enough for at least two people. 

The last day of your trip has arrived. You’re outside the aquabus station waiting for it to return and take you back to Romaritime Harbor when you notice you still have some film left. 

“Here, Haitham, let’s pose for a photo. Might as well use up this remaining film.”

There’s also one last thing you’ve been meaning to do. His comments back at Faranak’s house made you feel dejected, but you tell yourself that you only live once. Might as well so you have no regrets. 

Leaving the aquabus station temporarily, you set up your Kamera in front of the large rotating fountain in front. You fiddle with the tripod’s height until you made sure that you were both in frame.

With everything all ready, you hurry back to where Alhaitham is standing. His free arm lazily drapes over your shoulder, his hand resting just above your heart.

Your heart pounds in anticipation. You wonder if he can feel it.

The light flashes red. One.

You quickly glance at him. He doesn’t suspect a thing. His shirt collar is right within grabbing range too. 

Two.

It’s now or never. 

Three.

You press your lips to his cheek the moment the shutter goes off with a loud click. He jolts upon contact and you instinctively tighten your grip on him. You can feel the smoothness of his cheek and the faint scent of his shaving cream from this morning. You feel the rush of heat to his face and it makes you smile a bit. 

Despite his intimidating stature, he still acts like a little boy experiencing romantic love for the first time.

(Probably because it is.)

The Kamera spits out a piece of film and you pray that the photo turned out alright. Your eyes are squeezed shut while his are blown wide in an uncharacteristic display of shock. It’s the perfect photo for a long-anticipated first kiss. 

Strangely, Alhaitham doesn’t say a word the entire time and you think you’ve pissed him off, until you’re on the boat back to Sumeru.

“That wasn’t fair of you.”

“... What?”

You shift a bit and see he’s scowling, but in a childish way. 

“I wanted to be the first to confess.”

It’s quite the sight. The serious and stoic Alhaitham, pouting like a child. Had you not used up the last of the film for your first kiss, you would have immediately snapped a photo.

You think a bit about what to say and quickly realize something.

“... You do realize I never confessed back there, right?”

“You kissed me,” he plainly states. “That counts as a confession in itself.”

You huff and roll your eyes. “But I never said…”

“Said what?”

“You know… those three words?”

You gesture at the space before you, hoping he gets your message. 

“I’m unaware of what you’re trying to imply.”

You stare at him in disbelief. Is this man for real?

Then you notice the teasing glint in his green eyes and it makes you want to tear your hair out. 

“You…! Fine. Ok. Shut up. Insufferable asshole. Why did I fall in love with you? You know exactly what I’m referring to. Since you’re all pouty about it, why don’t you say it then?”

He doesn’t take your jab at him seriously, instead choosing to grasp both your hands in his. 

“Najmati-”

The endearment makes your heart leap into your throat. My star. He had always called you (Name) or some other nickname, but now… 

You reach to cover your burning face but Alhaitham tightens his grip on your wrists.

“Don’t look away now. Are those two stars that hold boundless love and outshine the sun and moon, or are they your eyes?”

Since when was he so good with his words? Stupid Alhaitham and his stupidly smart self and his Haravatat degree making you feel things you’ve never felt before. 

“Boundless love for one person only. Care to guess who?”

He feigns cluelessness. “Would I happen to be that lucky recipient?”

The corners of your eyes crinkle from a smile that actually meets them. The small laugh that comes out of you reminds him of the night sky wind chime hanging off the awning that he got because it reminded him of you. 

“This confession is long overdue. You really do remind me of a shooting star; something that makes everyone stop and stare in awe. I, just like everyone else, was just as taken with you. Always radiant, always glowing, always full of energy and moving onto what lay ahead. Rather than a star, you must’ve been the sun with all the energy you had and the life you gave to everything you touched.”

“But, Haitham, I burnt myself out. Have you read what Rtawahist scholars predict will happen when the sun inevitably runs out of fuel and collapses in on itself?”

“Everything will be destroyed. And everything was destroyed two years ago. But you’re still here, aren’t you? And so am I.”

“The only one to have survived the blast and fallout with me,” you whisper, interlocking your fingers with his. Your eyes slowly trail up to his gaze, where you see something sweet swirling around in his eyes. “And you’re still here two years later when everything has finally settled down.”

“There’s no such thing as perfection in this world,” he continues. “So I sometimes think that you came here from another world because you are the closest thing to perfection I’ve ever touched.”

“But, Haitham, I have my very obvious flaws. You’ve seen them on full display and you’ve bluntly pointed them out to me several times.”

“It is because you are multifaceted and flawed that makes you more than just a star, (Name). And stars aren’t perfect or flawless either. They’re made of rock, dust, ice, and without its hallmark tail, it looks rather plain. But, my dear sun, your strengths and shortcomings make you radiant even if you’ve lost the tail that people chased after you to see.”

“If I continued to run, would you still chase me?”

“Do you still have a reason to run?

You pause and think. Your time in Fontaine made you feel warm inside. It gave you a glimpse of what life could be like now. Now that you’ve experienced it you don’t ever want to go back to what it was like before, in your familiar yet cold childhood home, its walls devoid of love and color. 

That house is not home anymore. It’s now the rented home you share with Alhaitham, where the windows don’t fully close sometimes and the floorboards creak obnoxiously. 

And you decide that you no longer have a reason to continue running across the night sky for others to see. 

“My shooting star, I’ve loved you ever since our Akademiya days. Will you be mine, as I am already yours?” 

[tildeathiwillwrite]

Writemas Day 8: Remembering

<- Previous | Masterpost | Next ->

Prompts: "Can you forgive me?" | The cusp of dawn | Blinding fury

Fandom: Original Work

Words: 1100

Tag List: (message me to be added or removed) @fourwingedsnake @whumperofworlds @pigeonwhumps @mr-orion @scaewolf

@the-ellia-west @agirlandherquill

CW: arguing, swearing, anger

Tapping in the hall signaled Altair's return, and she folded her arms, directing her full attention at him. In his free hand, he carried his blue carpetbag, his expression unreadable. "Altair Ravensworn," she asked in a severe tone, "What happened in Lerwick six years ago, that I do not remember?"

"A great many things," Altair answered, setting the bag down on a nearby armchair. He opened it and began rummaging through its contents. "Far too many to explain. No, what I need you to do is remember. And then we can figure out what happened."

He pulled out a long magnifying glass. Except... no, this wasn't a magnifying glass. The lens wasn't warped, but smooth like a window pane. He glanced at Kore, who stood beside Thea, hands on her hips. "I would ask you to leave us alone," he said, "but something tells me you won't do that."

"Observant," she remarked.

He waved at the sofa. "At least sit down, so you're out of the way."

Kore looked to Thea, who eyed Altair for a long moment before nodding. Her sister hesitated, but did as he said, though by the way her hands toyed with her skirt, she was clearly stressed. Thea didn't blame her.

"Alright," Altair said, holding up the not-magnifying glass. "Hold still."

Thea obeyed, and he began to walk in a slow circle around her, studying her through the strange, smooth lens. "What are you looking for?" she asked.

"I'm trying to figure out how it is you do not remember the event that changed us forever," Altair responded, frowning at her right hand for a moment before continuing his circuit.

"Us...?"

"You, me, Caelum. Lift your left arm. I need to see your hand."

She raised it, and Altair leaned closer, closely inspecting her fingers. Or, more accurately, her wedding ring. He hummed softly. "There it is."

"There what is?"

Altair nodded to himself before stepping away, setting the not-magnifying glass down beside the bag before looking through it again. "The evidence that Caelum did not listen to my warnings."

Thea stared at the ring on her finger. "What?"

"Oh, the ring itself is fine," Altair said, digging deeper into the bag. "Rather, he used it as a focal point for the thinnest strands I've ever seen. He did always have a way with the subtler threads. Now where did I put those shears...?"

"Strands? Threads?"

Altair made a noise of triumph, withdrawing a small pair of scissors from the bag. At first glance, it appeared to be a pair of sewing scissors, the type carved to look like a bird. But the metal caught the light oddly, reflecting the warm lamplight into a colder tint somehow.

"It will all make sense soon enough," he replied, gently taking her hand and opening the scissors, resting the lower blade on the surface of the ring. He squinted at both for a long moment. Finally, he exhaled slowly and snapped the scissors closed.

For a moment, everything was still.

And the world burst alight.

Thea gasped, stumbling back, the threads binding the world together seeming to bloom into existence before her eyes. New and yet so familiar it was like finding a treasured object from years and years ago. Memories flooded back, sudden and shocking but very much hers.

Lerwick.

The mirror.

Volantis.

The Slain.

Everything.

Everything.

It was early morning, the world on the cusp of dawn. Neither Caelum nor Thea could sleep, so they were in the sitting room, the need to talk hanging heavily over them. Heavy like when the reapers---no, the Slain---were around. The threads had been twisting on their own in a way Thea had never seen before lately.

"We need to prepare," Thea said quietly, drawing her shawl tighter around her shoulders. "I don't know why the threads twist around us now, years after we have left Volantis. But we must be ready for the summons."

"If it even is a summons," Caelum murmured, staring at the threads running up and down the wall. His expression was thoughtful, though his hands were clenched into fists. "They would not be twisted in such a way if it were simply a summons."

"What else could it be?"

He hummed softly. "The Slain approaches. The Fallen One, the Insurgent, the Iris."

Thea looked at him in shock. "How can you possibly know that? He has not been seen in millennia!"

"He seeks me. I am the Defiant, the Dahlia. I have stolen his title."

"You... you earned that title! Through no fault of your own!"

Caelum turned to her, expression hard. "It does not matter. I was made a challenger."

"Caelum...."

"There is no way around it, Thea. You know as well as I what the Slain said when we were bestowed our titles. And you know as well as I that I promised to keep you safe."

Thea's jaw tightened. "If what you say is true, there is no keeping me safe. We must prepare."

"There is no 'we'."

"Damn well there isn't!" Thea snapped, "The Iris is the Fallen One. He no longer abides by the laws of Volantis. He is weakened, yes, but he will not play fair. He will see me for what I am, perhaps try to use me against you."

"I know," Caelum whispered, "But I think I have found a way around it. A way to hide you."

"That isn't possible and you know it. Even if it was, I do not want it! If you must fight, I must fight with you! Or have you forgotten our vows?"

His expression was mournful now, and he watched her for a long moment before speaking. "Can you forgive me?"

Thea narrowed her eyes. "Forgive you for wha---?"

Blinding fury exploded from the memory as Thea realized what Caelum had done. She snatched hold of the tiny strands once wrapped around her, the threads that had somehow suppressed all memory of the best and worst years of her life. And with the memories, her ability to see and interact with the threads binding the world. The strands glowed brightly, showing themselves for what they were: energy to be harnessed.

"You..." she hissed through gritted teeth, "You fool. You clever, traitorous fool."

"Thea?" Altair asked gently, and Thea glanced up to find him a few steps away, the scissors nowhere in sight, his free hand grasping nearby strands but yet to harness them. Her eyes flicked to Kore, who was now on her feet, undisguised fear and awe on her face.

Thea took a deep breath and allowed the strands of Caelum's spell to vanish, the threads rejoining the unseen substance of the world around her. When she spoke, her voice was harsh.

"I am Amalthea Hargreaves. Amalthea the Relentless, Amalthea the Rue. And now I understand."

[dont-f-with-moogles]

hello Terra ♡

new follower here (on Val's recommendation btw) discovering your works and enjoying them a lot so far!

can I request prompt 26 secret Santa gift exchange for the Survey Corps Vets? there's no way this would go smoothly with such a bunch of weirdos, right? you can include ships (I love them all) to pep up your story if you feel like it

thank you for taking prompts and happy holidays (*^‿^*)

Festive Fics 26: Secret Santa Gift Exchange

How Mike Stole Christmas (Canon Universe) Characters: Levi Ackerman, Hange Zoe, Erwin Smith, Mike Zacharius, Nanaba, Moblit Berner 602 words 

Mike seized the final scrap of paper lying inside a squat, cardboard box. Erwin placed the empty vessel on his desk before addressing the small group before him in the same formal tones that he used during every expedition briefing.

“And so concludes the drawing of names for this year’s Secret Santa. Now, just a few reminders with regards to the rules. 5000 yen spending limit. No items which include hazardous, corrosive or highly flammable matter. No conspiring to exchange names with one another.” At this he gave a pointed stare in Hange’s direction.

There came a derisive snort from the back of the group. Heads turned towards Mike Zacharius who glanced up triumphantly.

“Hey, Hange. Seeing as you’ve got me, don’t bother buying me a gift. Just swap outpost duty with me next weekend?”

Hange blinked; their eyes magnified alarmingly behind dark, square frames. “Huh? Surely your nose doesn’t possess that level of power, Mike… unless…”

“Well…” Mike strode with his hands clasped behind him and head thrown back so that his celebrated appendage was held proudly in the air. “...not only do I know that you do indeed have me Hange, but I’ve also figured out who everyone else has too…”

Stopping abruptly, Mike gave a sudden nod of his head.

“Levi didn’t put in a name or take one out. He doesn’t want to participate.” 

Levi scowled at him. 

“Never do. How’d you figure that much out?”

“I got a whiff of ink and paper from everyone here… apart from you.” Mike’s nostrils flared. “Standing next to you, all I smell is deception.” 

“Meanwhile, Hange’s expression was just like the first time they saw Levi using ODM gear.” Mike paused to inhale deeply. “The air is thick with awe and… pheromones.”

Beneath their misted frames, Hange’s face glowed pink. “Why thank you.” 

“...but that’s just because you slipped Levi’s name in the box when he wasn’t looking and you’re excited to see who picked it.” 

Levi closed his eyes in frustration. Mike continued his course, hesitating to sniff the air beside Moblit’s ear. Hange’s subordinate gave a visible shudder.

“Increased perspiration, panic and dread. You could cut the air with it,” Mike concluded. “Moblit pulled Levi’s name. Erwin drew Moblit…” 

The Survey Corps Commander regarded Mike coolly. “I thought I kept a remarkably impassive expression and maintained my body temperature throughout the whole ordeal.”

“But you can’t fool me.” Mike tipped his finger from his forehead towards Erwin. “I saw you mouthing ‘Moblit Brenner…?’ with obvious confusion.”

Moblit sighed. “It’s Berner. Sir, I’ve served alongside you for the past five-”

“And, lastly, I caught Nanaba’s clean, refreshing aroma of relief,” Mike cut across him. “She eyed up Hange’s frog crocs immediately after she picked their name. Nanaba’s been dying for an excuse to buy them a new pair. Those old things are falling apart so badly, they’re more hole than shoe by this point.”

“B-but they’re comfy!”

“And I drew Nanaba.” Mike waved his own slip of paper. “That’s why I need next weekend off. I’ve booked a little place outside the district…” He offered her a wink.

“So Mike single-handedly sank the whole thing?” Levi’s brows were contracted in disbelief.

“So, I didn’t get picked at all?” Erwin gasped faintly. “Hange, how could you just throw my slip out…?”

“Let’s punish him.” A glint of light flashed dangerously where it caught on Hange’s glasses. “Shall we draw the names again and leave Mike out this time?” 

“Wait, wait - ” Mike’s voice caught in his throat. “You can’t blame me! Blame my nose - it’s both a gift and a curse!”

[tewwor]

STATS .

Name: F1X 1T M4N

Age: ????????

Height: 6'4'' probably

Gender & sexuality: Cis man & bisexual

Species: Human? Cyborg? Synth? Who knows at this point. He does & no, he won't tell you.

Occupation: Handyman

Fc: lee d.ong wook

ABILITIES .

Enhanced senses, strength, agility, dexterity, defense

Resistant to fire & electricity— often gravitates towards high voltage areas to purposely siphon the electricity into him. Yes, that's one method in which he feeds.

Skin is slash, piercing, and mostly blunt proof — doesn't mean bodily harm can't happen. It just takes a lot.

HISTORY .

Rumors say he's always had a compulsion to fix things from the very start. Anything broken he can get his hands on; be it small devices, vehicles, heavy machinery, relationships, people — anything. Even fixed himself, eventually. From bits and bobs to some nicer, state of the art parts.

None of that really matters, though. he's just known as the F1X-1T M4N around these parts.

MISC. FACTS .

Personality: Often times brusque and would much rather get straight to the point. Has no patience for frivolous bullshit. Easily annoyed, but stands by being truthful.

His 'relationship' with Minsoo ( aka volatile coworkers )

F1X 1T M4N is how much he values his time. When he's off hours, he's off hours. Work calls are ignored, burner phones are off, if he's with some friends ( that are sometimes clients ) he expects them to shut their trap about any issues.

That being said, in the very, very rare chance he does pick up a call, the first thing out of his mouth is the steepest extra fees tacked on with interest and some sort of bonus. Purposely makes it so outlandishly expensive to buy his time that most drop it right then and there. Though ... there have been a few that ended up paying those exorbitant fees ... somehow.

Spent an absurd amount of time and effort to retain parts that are able to feel just about every sensation. The limbs were first in this journey from human flesh to synthetic. Easier to work on, slightly less risk than diving straight into his middle. So there was a stretch of time where his body looked mismatched ( couldn’t get his hands on the newest, best replicas right at the get go — shit’s expensive ) and unfeeling.

He is able to toggle the sensation of touch so long as his head’s not damaged. From extra sensitive to normal to numb. Especially useful when he has to take his body apart to fix, or when anticipating danger / bodily harm. Also fun in steamier settings ( overstimulation is so on the table for him ).

Parts jam, especially the appendages. Thankfully, he got a good handle on the complexities of both body and cybernetics by the time he started to fiddle with major organs. But it’s through the trial and errors of his limbs that he learned from the most. So fingers and hands will malfunction from time to time. A foot will stop responding. A knee or two might freeze up. His eye’s gone haywire before. It’s not perfect, but hey — gives him more to work on.

His arms and hands are quite literally swiss army knives on steroids. Any manner of tools or utensils is in there. Screwdrivers, clippers, soldering iron, pen, comb, so many different types of knives, pincers, magnifying glass, wire cutters, lighter, etc. It’s kind of fascinating ( or gross ) to watch parts of his hands come away so he can use whatever tool.

No, he doesn’t like any questions about what he is, but he’ll be direct with his only answer of — mind your own damn business.

How does he sustain himself? Well, anything really. He’s tinkered and tweaked his ‘stomach’ and ‘power core’ ( so to speak ) enough that both regular food and electricity work. Lately, he’s been relying on the latter. Quite literally drawn to strong electrical currents and will stick his bare hand into exposed, ungrounded fuseboxes or hope he gets struck by a bolt of lightning. No, he’s not harmed by this ….. much. His skin might be a little charred, but he’s just eating a fantastic meal. Rip his clothes and hair, though.

Despite his irritable disposition, he’s actually quite social. He might not be rolling with close friends, but he does like to spend time with them often. Just don’t bring up a potential job with too many details, or else he’ll leave immediately and kill time another way.

VERSES .

Main: Just a guy that fixes any & all problems.

J.JK verse: Handyman for both tech schools & the amount of shit they break keeps him so employed, but good god these kids and teachers get on his last nerve. Also, could he be ranked as an actual sorcerer? Yes. Has he killed his fair share of curses before? Absolutely. Can he be bothered to be fully employed as such? Fuck no.

Supernatural: Still just a guy that fixes any & all problems.

[interdimensionalburnout]

Screaming

>>It's dark, as you look out from the open garage bay. Your sword slides back into its sheath as the yellow-and-black bar slides off its arm. The sky is clear for once, the poison dust blown seaward, the moon shines at you, burns at you, the magnifying glass on the ant. Fire doesn't begin to cut it. This mood hasn't taken in you in years and years, inside the timeloop OR outside it.

>>Beyond the garage is an overpass, that curves around another building. The heart of this eastern sub-city was once a market, long-buried by a tumorous, upward urban sprawl. Before the Revolutionaries took the sub-city to the north, this was a getaway locale for the rich. Luxury high-rise buildings, mansions in the sky, where the rich could "get away" from the stress of dealing with the poor, who lived on the lower floors of those towers they maintained. All connected by this little knot of overpasses, so no one ever had to even SEE their urban serfs.

>>In only two decades, the whole place has fallen by the wayside, a darkly ironic portent, answering in the draft of cold wind through rotting concrete, "what lasting monuments will we leave." The overpass out of this particular building, abandoned, without power, water, heat, all to prevent a hundred thousand homeless from having a place to sleep, that overpass has rotted at the elbow. You sniff the air, still seeking the source of this energy in your fingertips. The city is getting to you, now that it's getting THROUGH to you.

>>You turn from the half-abandoned luxury district, and step lightly into the darkness. The winter wind follows you into the raised parking garage, through the ruined metal gate, cut into a fraying hole. Sitting in the dark, a tarp thrown to the side at its rubber hooves, is a wild iron horse. Someone left their motorcycle, a custom thing, made for performance, for looking slick, for going faster than anyone could catch on equal footing. "This is no bike for the bourgeois," you think to yourself. "This beast," the words echo as you walk around it's cherry-red chassis, "Would reject you, noble scion of a worthless lord." Bare hands, marked with scars that followed you back home from beyond this time and place, caress the handle.

>>"This is better than you deserve," The decree receives only the reply of the city, the wind scattering trash and petrified leaves across crumbling pavement. It's unclear you mean by "you," as you set yourself gingerly on the seat. A spark, a jump of a live current, the very essence of your suddenly wild-feeling soul, flies from your legs. Like captured lightning, arcing between two points, the long-dormant battery comes flashing to life, and then beyond it. There's a roar, as the ignition switch is flipped. "But it'll be put to good work, regardless."

>>The garage scatters its shadows in the face of light, the first light in a decade or more that it has seen, but not the last. No, not the last. These buildings can't be left like this, and if they won't be taken by the people, they'll be given over as fuel for the fires of revolution. You go screaming into the night air, out the bay door, and off the overpass. You clear a city block, and about thirty feet of vertical space, before you land on another strip of raised road. The beast doesn't want to slow down, freed from its cage, but you take your hand off the clutch and drift to a stop, facing the building you just came from. The light from your goggles burn like searing red-hot wires, your hair blowing wild in the wind. A button, a detonator, has appeared in hand.

>>You wasted no time, but this isn't the kind of direction you plan on finishing with tonight. The button presses, two stories down from the garage you just exited, a bedroom suddenly comes alive with energy. Great, concussive force wakes up inside the plastic you left on the bed, and takes half the floor with it as it leaves. The fire, the wind, the explosion itself is nothing compared to the noise. You've made a noise that no one will ignore already, you cleaved a prison in two, vandalized symbols of power, but this is pointed.

>>Or it will be. The building lists like a hewn tree, finally yielding to the ax. The very atoms of the mighty body fall away in great chunks of concrete, the steel in the tower's bones bending fatally. The bike screams back to life under you, turning away from the first stroke of the night, and behind you, the building begins a free fall into its nearest neighbor before it can crumble from below. The second skyscraper is gouged out by the fall, and crumbles downwards like a struck man, sloughing down. The thundercrack of the explosion rings in your ears, echoes through the empty, lifeless part of the city.

>>The wind carries the noise ahead of you, even as you drive like hell, detonator gripped tightly in your hand, even as you work the clutch with white knuckles. You keep the button depressed, sending out the short-range signal as you pass by carefully-marked targets, weaving around crumbling highways faster than you can really keep up with. The storm in your body has utterly consumed you, the lightning in your blood twitches your muscle fibers, more in tune with the wind than with the mind. All around you, thunder follows.

>>Buildings spill their guts, old ghosts clutch their ears, masonry collides with masonry. This eastern detachment of this giant prison of a city, a vacation spot more than a spot of major industry, possessed few of these towers, no more than thirty truly pierce the clouds, but none of them will be left by the time the sun rises.

>>You finish the circuit, using the whipping, falling roads, pulled apart by their mighty anchors' collapse, as ramp to the even more neglected ground. The pavement accepts you with a hiss of gravel, and urges you to get out of the way of the flames that surely will follow. You speed west, towards your next target. You're death on a steel machine, a lightning storm wrapped up in a woman.

[annabelvallie]

The Regime of Gluttony and Starvation

Word count: 1.9k

I wonder if they know. Do they sip the golden bubbled concoction and think of every throat that spit cannot even comfort? If they pull seared flesh from polished forks, do they imagine the gnashing, desperate teeth of children who claw desperately at what they call “dog food”?

They call this city Eden. In school, we’re taught that we are safe from disease, agony, and sadness. Something everyone at this grotesquely overdecorated table knows nothing of. How can the pleasured know they are joyous when they have never been pained? How can the glutted know themselves satisfied if they have never been hungry? Eden was built on gluttony. We are told the outside world is sick. A type of illness that doesn't forgive but punishes. I wouldn’t call it sick—morbid maybe. I had learned that word from one of the novels we read in Lyceum education; the book ‘A Dark Hour’ was written some 500 years ago. The author called the country “hell on earth,” a place where filth and evil are magnified. Our city’s teachers reference beyond the walls as desolate nothingness, birthed from a war that was far worse than in the story. 

Rusted oranges and browns made the outside world. Kicked-up dirt filtered the air with a thick haze; irritating eyes that would never know tears; water was too precious to be wasted on emotion. The heavy sound of moans and comfortless cries carried with no destination, as did the smell of waste, constantly assaulting the hairs in your nose. Hot air thickened my throat, making it hard to breathe. Bodies discarded like statues haunted the breathing, similar to those on paper that piled into sunken earth. Every movement was strained as if they had to fight for the ability to take a step. Through the swarm of people, there was no end.

Barbed wire snatched a handful of skin from my thigh, making me wince. Before the sultry air could oxidise the gash, flies were frenzying on the crimson. 

I had never known suffocation until the day of Matia.

“Joseph, pass the grapes please.” A short man whose jaw seemed to rest slack held out his hand, motioning to the silver bowl that harboured bulbs of green and purple. Passing it to him, I watched as he pierced the skin of a grape with pearly teeth. All I could think of was the people beyond the wall who would fight one another for a cluster of what he would consume in a short moment, not out of hunger but boredom, before the main course arrived.

Praefectus Cain, the man sitting at the head of the table with a Navy Blue suit, held up his glass, motioning for silence. “Welcome, Abigail Dupont, Elijah Fournier, and Joseph Martin.” He hovered his glass in the direction of the girl on my left and the boy on my right. “We thank you for taking your position in the Imperium. We trust that after Matia today your eyes have been opened and you will continue Eden’s legacy and keep our people safe and at peace.” 

The values of Eden surround love, whether that means the effort and care of a pastry or the simple act of clearing a guest’s plate. Gratitude is more important than the act itself. The way your fork and knife lie after a meal is communication and appreciation on its own. The meal was delicious if the handles were south with their blade and prongs pointed east. Lust, the overwhelming desire of another, is praised almost as highly as a perfectly smooth-shelled macaroon. Devotion is embroidered into liquor that makes your brain twist as if it were inside a dough mixer. 

Here, to love is to feed, eat, indulge, and blur gluttony and greed into the same idea. Seared beef, vanilla sponge cake, caramel, strawberries that dribble at the corners of your mouth, thick shakes with colour dye, the peel of a mandarin, wishbones, salted butter, sherbert, pineapple that burns your tongue, appetisers, and hors d’oeuvres. The table shrank as plates piled from the kitchen-what used to be a pristine cotton tablecloth now plates of every meal imaginable. It is a special day, of course. As people began to feast, I felt as though my body had conformed to a jelly-like substance, unable to move on its own, only able to react to the drunken movement surrounding it. 

The next day I found myself focused on every passing person on my way to work. Specifically, I stared at how their mouths curled into smiles and eyes creased with joy. Stupidity and negligence are bliss. If they knew what was outside, they too would be burdened and distraught. 

A woman with blonde hair that moved like ripples around her head caught my attention. Her cheeks and lips looked to be stained with cherry juice, and she took her time letting her heels click on and drag with every step she took. At that moment I thought of how she laughed—if it was quiet and withdrawn or louder. How did she prefer her eggs—scrambled, poached, fried, or boiled? I thought about a lifetime in a minute, and during that time, I forgot about what was beyond the walls. Possibly, I could remain this way. If I mocked what everyone around me did, I might find the joy that they experienced. If I married and partied and ate, would that sickening feeling I have held with me since Matia dissipate? 

The Imperium was stationed north of Eden, just past a row of oak trees that signified the end of the orchid plantation. I would park in the furthest spot from the entrance, press through a swing door that moves awfully slowly to accommodate those who wobble more than walk, and make my way through the hallway that runs through the city wall. Even though I pass through five days out of seven, I cannot help but stare out the wall’s windows every chance I have. The small slits in the hallway that allowed tainted auburn light to flow through and the large painting-like glass in the central office reminded everyone of what we shield from our citizens. At lunch for an hour, we sat at a stretched table overlooking Eden’s farmland and feasted on whatever specials the chef had plotted, yesterday was a honeyed duck. “I don’t know what is wrong with you, Joseph; this is one of the best ducks I’ve had this year and you refuse to eat more than an appetiser,” Abigaile exclaimed after finishing off the meat. 

I replied softly, knowing more than one ear was listening. “My appetite isn’t as strong as it used to be. Thank you for your consideration” It was an uncommon phenomenon, a refusal of food. Not eating is the equivalent of vetoing oxygen. “I’m just going to use the bathroom, excuse me.” I stand, placing the folded unstained napkin on the cushioned chair. Taking a last glance at the quantity of people and the view of my city I continue down one of the hallways. Even though my stomach growled, the idea of eating repulsed me. During the day my mouth would salivate in the hope of relief, by night when all I wanted was to binge I would finally make myself something.  Tonight I may have the oysters my father brought round this morning. He works at a lease and every time I crack salt over my plate I think of him, how his skin smelt like the unfiltered water and his hands that were callus and coarse from cutting open their shells. 

Taking each step I find myself mimicking the women I see most days on my way here. Click, drag. Click, drag… and just as I do with every window, discarding the bathroom where I was headed, my eyes wander to the clear surface overlooking the apocalyptic world a mere twenty metres away from our utopia. Instead of continuing further, my body lurches to a frozen halt. Apparently, on the other side, they can’t see through the glass. To them, it looks like the stone pattern remains unbroken. I don’t believe that. Staring through the glass, I am met with another man mirroring myself. His eyes are tired but focused and unwavering from mine. His nose has a crease at the bridge as if it were broken, and his teeth are jagged with gums receding so highly that they could have been finger bones. What scared me the most was how hollow his cheeks were. As if scooped with a soup spoon. His face resembles somewhat of Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’. 

Instead of taking a step forward in concern or back in retreat, I simply stared. When I felt someone lock their knees next to me, my gaze remained on the window in a competition-like fashion.

Praefectus Cain’s firm voice began, “Joseph, is something upsetting you? Are you hungry?” 

Pulling my head back, feeling the muscles tense around every vertebra in a rehearsed sequence like piano keys in a glissando. I looked at him—at his round stomach, at his creased forehead, at his thin blond hair, at his tie bar with the words ‘Ab ovo usque ad mala’ engraved into the silver—before staring back at the window like a child and a cartoon film. I felt nauseated like I had just drunk vomitorium, a tiny ounce glass filled with yellow liquid that made you sick so you could go on eating. They usually have them at balls and galas. “I’m fine, thank you… Do…” My voice crackled as if a teaspoon of honey sat on my windpipe. “Do you ever think of helping them, the people out there?”

He thought, not about the answer but how to word it. “Yes, when I was your age.”

“I can’t think of how to describe it. I feel bad, sorry.

“Guilt.” The word was spoken as if he had been waiting to use it. 

The word was alien: “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know what that means.”

We remain facing forward, “It means you have morals, something only a few here hold. Knowledge is the heaviest of all burdens, even if it carries no weight.  

“We have food to spare.” By then the man on the other side of the wall had walked off, his feet kicking up more loose orange powder-like dirt.

“How could you choose who receives a bounty? Every living thing is bound by fate. The people of Eden are safe from hunger because they are lucky. If we were to open our resources, what would happen? They are animals, Joseph. Unlike us, their world does not have a drop of civilisation.” Through the window, two boys ran towards a bird that had fallen to the ground. With desperate efforts, the taller one had proved victorious in the feathered corpse, and the shorter one crouched over the ground, echoing the fallen animal. “Tell me, Joseph, would they eat, or would they devour? The flesh of our loved ones would be torn from their bones and they would drink like we do red wine. These animals do not know amity, love, or kindness; we are survivors, that is what separates us.”

With a sigh, I could feel the pads of my fingers tingle with anticipation of cold sweat and unease. “Then, if being inhumane constitutes our difference, are we not the same?”

[anthrofreshtodeath]

More Crossover Business

Will this fic actually ever materialize in chapter format? who knows. Find previous snippets here and here.

Booth checks his watch for the third time since the four of them arrived at the scene. The man whose dog had found the shallow grave Doctors Brennan and Isles kneel in now is long gone, and the clearing crawls with scene techs and uniforms. Booth licks his lips, taps his pen on the tops of his index cards and straightens his tie.

“Don’t rush the science,” Brennan calls over her shoulder, waving her brush in his direction even though she’s not looking at him. She doesn’t have to.

“I didn’t say anything!” Booth hangs his arms out like making himself bigger will prove his point. 

Brennan shrugs. “You didn’t have to,” she says when she hands a magnifying glass to Maura, who has brushed away the soil covering what looks like a second femoral head. “Your psychomotor agitation says it all.”

“We’re uh, we’re not rushing,” Booth argues, though apparently he’s willing to concede the point that he was in fact motoring in some kind of way. It’s late morning, which will fly right into early afternoon, which is cutting it real close… “We’d just like to, you know, expedite things as much as they can be expedited.”

Jane snickers from where she stands, drawing a little diagram on her notepad to remind herself how exactly they found the body, its bones, while she waits for developed scene photos. She’s just finished questioning the state police, too, those first on scene when the body was called in, so she’s operating on the high that comes from a plethora of initial information. When Booth throws up his hands, she clears her throat. “It’s just that the Sixers are in town, and we may or may not have tickets.”

“No may or may not about it,” Booth says, stepping forward. “We definitely have tickets. So, the quicker the better.”

“You should not have done that,” Maura, in heels and a black trench coat over a navy dress, raises her eyebrow. She runs a gloved finger over the fabric of the decedent’s shirt sleeve, a blouse in a rich purple color she perhaps would have picked for herself, now stained and torn by the elements. “Not when we’re in the middle of all this.”

“This is about sports?” Brennan is flabbergasted, though by all accounts she should not be. “I’m not rushing the science for sports.”

Jane, in the middle of her sketch, her visual brain whirring, snaps her head up. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She says, just a little louder than she should be. 

Brennan looks up, eyes right on Jane’s, blinking. Her throat is long and that deepens her voice when she asks, “What?”

“You said that kinda funny,” Jane curls one brow up and snarls. She blows right through Booth’s stop sign, the waving of his fingers under his chin. The shaking of his head and the forward press of his lips. “Why you gotta say sports like that?”

Maura bolts up. “I- I’m sure Doctor Brennan means that it’s hard to imagine sports being more important than this case,” she says diplomatically to Booth. When she turns to Jane, the diplomacy dwindles into passive aggression. “It’s hard to imagine anything being more important than this case; I’m sure you’d agree.”

Jane also blows right through the insinuation that she’s put this case above their relationship and waves Maura off. “No, no, wait a minute, here-”

Brennan dusts off her coveralls at the knee. She doesn’t give Jane’s venom a chance, and supplies some of her own instead. “Oh no, I meant that sports in general are a waste of time.”

“Oh man,” Booth mumbles. “Bones, don’t-”

Brennan does wait for him, either. “Sports shouldn’t have the importance it does to society, let alone the importance it apparently has to this unit right now,” she starts. Maura sucks her teeth and smirks. It is the first, albeit tiny, sign that Brennan views this budding crime-fighting enterprise as a team. Not a consult, not a service to be provided, but a team. Well, maybe all of the above, but most definitely the latter. 

Jane is going to explode. 

“Rizzoli-” Booth taps her elbow and Jane yanks away. 

“Are you kiddin’ me? You get trash canned by some jocks in high school? You think you’re some kinda evolved being because you don’t like sports?”

“No, no, and exactl-”

This time, it’s Booth that cuts in on his partner. “Bones, she, y’know, she has this thing. This… she thinks sports are…” he wiggles his fingers in front of his mouth, “for kids. And that the people who play them are basically, well, overgrown kids.”

“Again, are you serious?! Didn’t you-? I-” Jane flails, going red, unable to complete a damn sentence. 

Booth doesn’t need her to. “Yeah, I did. Football. Trust me, I’ve registered my complaints with the whole idea.”

“But anthropologically speaking, it’s true!” as distanced from emotion as she boasts about being, Brennan registers the heat of an argument and latches onto it. And Jane, well, she fights fire with fire. They face off close enough to share air. “Not only are athletes arrested developmentally, but so are the adults that watch them. In fact, I find that even worse.”

“Well, let me talk in a way you’ll understand: anthropologically speaking, sports are the entire skeleton of the city of Boston. Peel back the superficial layers, and the backbone looks a whole hell of a lot like the iron of Fenway,” Jane pushes her index finger in the air like she’s threatening to use it against the shoulder of the world’s foremost anthropologist, forensic or otherwise.

“That makes no sense,” Brennan posits. Maura blinks. There’s more finesse, more bite to Brennan than she originally thought. To wield passion and cold disinterest with such oscillation, such ease, requires knowledge. Intent. Despite her best intentions, Maura’s heart begins to thump for Jane. 

“Maybe not in the strictest of terms, but it’s true,” Maura tells her counterpart. “Boston makes sports a religion. Anthropologically, you can understand that, surely.”

“I’m not sure that makes it any better,” Brennan chides. 

Booth blinks, unsure what to be offended at more. “Listen, Doctor Burn-in-hell, some of us actually care about this stuff-”

“You’re comin’ for God, too?! Who pissed in your-” Jane is about to lunge, but Booth pulls her towards him.

“Ok, ok, you know what? We’re gonna go. We’re gonna go back to the city, and we’re gonna take a little break, from all the crime fighting here. You two are gonna get things ok’d to go back to the lab, and well, we’ll maybe see you before we head out. Game’s at 7:30,” says Booth, pushing Jane’s shoulders toward his car up the hill.

“I’m gonna go postal, kid, she says one more thing,” Jane growls just for him to hear, and Booth sighs, big and airy out of his rib cage.

“Yeah, I know,” he grumbles. “Just trust the process. Trust my process.”

“Really? She shits all over our entire lives and you’re gonna give me the sixer’s mantra?”

“Keep walkin’.”

—-

Maura stands over the bones they discovered this morning, having beat them to the morgue by just minutes. Now, she’s scrubbed up, with her hair pulled back with a clip, and she wears her white coat.

It is her clinician’s ensemble. 

Brennan wears loaner blue scrubs because she cares about the integrity of evidence, and because even though Maura has offered her one of the blue coats of the crime lab, it’s not her blue coat. Not the one from the Jeffersonian.

Maura supposes she understands that. 

She’s not even sure how she’d feel in Brennan’s shoes at the moment. She’s consulted, practiced medicine in corners of the world very near to the ones Brennan’s practiced forensic anthropology in. And yet, she sees how dogged Brennan is, how committed to both her cases and the pursuit of her scholarship, and she doesn’t know if she could keep up. Could she leave Boston for months at a time to consult on a case for the FBI, seeing her friends and loved ones only sporadically, if ever? Could she just up and go, pack all her belongings and live out of a suitcase in a motel for weeks at a time? Maura doesn’t have to, but in Brennan she sees a person she once was and needs to conjure up wisps of again. “I admire you,” she says nakedly as Brennan readies her station.

“Thank you,” says Brennan with the utmost confidence, looking not at Maura but at her array of instruments. Then she falters with a smile. “Why is that?”

“Well, you can uproot your life for the cause, if that makes sense,” Maura tells her. “Your commitment to the truth and to the science is… unmatched and you are the best at what you do.”

“I agree with that assessment,” Brennan says, back to her task. She snaps on a pair of purple gloves and puts on her protective eyewear. There is a long pause. “And I admire you, too.”

Maura brightens considerably, a blush spreading over her tight, grinning cheeks. “Really?”

“Yes,” Brennan says like it’s obvious, especially for two geniuses in the room. “Your position is a political one. You could let the powers that be sway you, but you make decisions based solely on the evidence in front of you and your clinical expertise. That call with the governor? I’ve seen men twice your size crumble under that kind of pressure.”

Maura thinks maybe Brennan is right. At least, it may do her well to think about herself more like Brennan does, with assuredness in her ability and a fuck-everyone-else-because-their-IQ-is-lower attitude. “I try. I can’t say I always succeed, but I do try. Working with Jane and her brother helps. Everything is like an honor competition with them,” she says, then she picks up a phalanx and arranges it on the right hand. “I’m going to have to talk about Criminalist Roberts about his eye for detail. This is unacceptable.” 

Brennan peers over Maura’s shoulder and nods in approval even though Maura can’t see her. “I usually have interns to do it, and even then I have to run through the bones again,” she tells Maura. “So this is… to be expected. Or at least, easily remedied.” She walks back to the left foot, makes another couple of changes, and sighs, picking up the fibula and staring down it like the barrel of a rifle. “Just two more. Not bad. There’s something here,” she comments, eyes zeroed in. “Booth thinks you’re sleeping together.”

Maura chokes. She sputters, with barely enough wherewithal to turn away from the bones. 

“Doctor Isles? Are - are you alright? Are you choking? Let me-” Brennan crosses the distance between them in a flash, but by then Maura has stiff-armed her.

“No no,” Maura wheezes. Then, she regains a little bit of breath. “I’m fine. I’m sorry - Booth thinks what?”

“He thinks that you and Jane are sleeping together. I told him that you were divorced,” Brennan states. 

“Well…” Maura pauses. Were they that obvious? Their private moments had been very private, and she’d been especially caustic with Jane recently. The sex brought out the bitterness. How could he…? “Agent Booth should mind his own business,” she settles on, though she knows it sounds weak off her lips.

Brennan thankfully turns back to their work. She speaks a note into her recorder then sets it back down on her work station. “He’s incapable. You know, speaking of sports, looking at this irregularity and the wear and tear on her other ankle, I’d posit she received an ORIF for this break. Booth and I have had this conversation before.”

Maura walks over to see exactly what Brennan has seen, and leans in close. “You’ve had this conversation about my marriage? Oh yes. Basketball injury almost certainly. The wire is gone, but the hole is definitely there.”

“What? No, about sports. And you aren’t married,” Brennan says.

“My previous marriage, then,” Maura tells her. “And I think it’s a right of passage between partners to argue about sports.”

Before Brennan can comment further, the doors to the autopsy suite burst open to reveal Jane. “Hey,” Jane breathes out, like every moment is of the utmost importance. She adjusts her belt around her tucked-in shirt and leans on the table closest to the door, the one next to the one occupied by their victim. “Anything yet?”

“Do you often interrupt the autopsy process?” Brennan, face schooled into cold curiosity, cocks her head at Jane when she asks.

Jane stops. She had crossed her arms, but drops them at the question. She knows her arms are long and that they’re intimidating when they’re left to rest by her sides. “You and me got a problem?” she responds, one foot forward.

Maura cuts in. “Well, Doctor Brennan found evidence of a repaired broken ankle,” she tells Jane. “And based on healed injuries on the left ankle, we’re looking at a sports injury. Probably basketball.”

“That, that girl,” Jane, suddenly uninterested in Brennan, taps her mouth with her knuckle when she turns to Maura. “The college hoops player - what was her name? The one that went missing in Amherst? Charlotte Strand. This has gotta be her.”

“Well-” starts Maura, though Brennan finishes.

“Conjecture at the table can cloud objectivity and bias the mind toward desired conclusions, not accurate ones,” she says. “We have no idea who this is yet.”

“Oh, so we do have a problem,” Jane growls. “You know, you-”

Brennan stands, unphased, unafraid, with a long bone in her hands. 

“It’s ok,” Maura literally gets between them. Jane runs extra hot, and Maura curls an eyebrow. “She’s merely pointing out what I’ve always told you. So, you can either stay objective, or stay quiet. But you are allowed to stay.” And apparently, Booth and Brennan know about the current status of their relations, so she straightens the buttons on Jane’s shirt. “If you’re good.”

Jane gives Maura a dark stare, one that Maura knows as lustful, appreciative, and angry all at once. Then, she turns that stare on Brennan. “I’m gonna go back upstairs. Please call me to discuss your pathology findings as soon as you can. I know when the hell I’m not wanted.”

And with that, Jane leaves, Maura assuming it will be the last time they see each other until the morning. There are those tickets she and Booth have. Maura checks her watch. They’ll be leaving in an hour or two. 

The door slams with as much clamor as it opened.

“She’s quite abrasive,” says Brennan.

Maura smirks, shaking her head softly as if to say really? “She’s… dedicated. As dedicated as you or me. She wants to find the answers as much as we do.”

“So I shouldn’t take it personally?”

“Oh, she means it very personally,” Maura counters. When Brennan grows quiet, grows pensive, looks at the ground when she thinks Maura doesn’t see her, Maura softens. “It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t like you.”

“I upset her,” says Brennan finally. “Even if I think what I do about athletes. And conjecture.”

Maura chuckles. “Yes, you did,” she says. “But it doesn’t take much, Doctor Brennan. You’ll probably do it again.”

___

Brennan has snapped off her gloves and changed out of her loaner scrubs, back into her jeans and blouse. She buttons her blazer at the middle, and pushes the number 3 on the elevator, instead of the 1, which would have taken her to the parking garage where her rental car was housed.

She is not… unfeeling. She also is not stupid. And a rift in the fabric of the team, of any team, doesn’t bode well for results. She knows this from her time at the Jeffersonian, she knows it from her time in Guatemala, and she knows it will apply now. Booth is here to assist, and so is she, but Jane leads this case. And, Brennan has to admit, Jane is good at leading the case. Just like Maura had said, she shows a singular dedication, a competence for procedural work that Brennan admires even if it’s based on speculation and law enforcement’s seeming obsession with the gut. 

So, Brennan must find Jane.

Luckily, Jane sits at her desk, poring over those now-developed photographs from the morning. Even more luckily, so that he doesn’t have to see this, Booth isn’t anywhere to be found in the bullpen. She pulls open the glass door quickly, hoping that she can be done before he returns. 

Jane looks up. “Hey, you uh, you here to shit on paper football next? Because Booth and I are probably going to start that up when he gets back. Kill time before we Uber to the Garden,” she grouses when she sees Brennan.

Brennan pulls her lips into a flat line and one hand fiddles with the strap of the bag over her shoulder. “I don’t know what that is. You shouldn’t play football though. Your brain-“

“Yeah yeah, the CTE. Preachin’ to the choir, here, but paper football doesn’t even require gettin’ up from your desk,” Jane says. And when Brennan stands there, all unsure and, well, fidgety, she drops the file on her desk and motions over to the chair next to it. “C’mere, I’ll show ya.”

Brennan keeps the original purpose of her visit in mind, and then takes the seat. She sets her bag on the floor when Jane brandishes the paper triangle. “This - is the football,” she announces.

“It’s a piece of paper,” Brennan curls a brow - she may have in fact overestimated Jane.

“Yes. That has been folded into a football. So, the goal here is a touchdown. And how you do that is you prop it up like this…” Jane pauses, sets up her attempt, “and bam! You flick it…” she does, and watches where it goes. “And if it gets to the edge without going over, that’s a touchdown. Wanna try?”

Jane is asking because Jane got a touchdown on her first attempt. Suddenly, Brennan is giggly and a little nervous. “Just… ok,” she thinks through it, taking the football and holding it with her index finger on the table. “Like this?”

“Somethin’ like that, yeah,” Jane tells her. “Don’t think about it, just go for it.”

“That’s impossible. I-“ 

“Just do it, Doc,” Jane orders.

Something about the authority in Jane’s register spurs Brennan forward. She does it, and flicks it right over the desk on the other side of them. “Hey! Wow! That’s good, right? It went way over!”

Jane shakes her head, but she’s laughing. Smiling. “No, kid, no points. Part of the skill is the finesse. You put too much on it. But hey, pretty good for your first try.”

Brennan licks her lips. Jane has called Booth kid several times, even though he is not a child. It appears endearing? Her stomach churns, flutters in response. “I… I came up here to apologize,” she says so she doesn’t have to pay attention to the feeling.

Jane leans back, but drops her clasped hands between her spread knees. She taps one toe on the linoleum. “Oh?”

“I find that, even if I don’t regret the content of what I said, I do regret that things feel contentious between us,” continues Brennan.

“Contentious, huh?” Jane prods.

Brennan chuckles once. “You sound like my psychologist. Well, a psychologist who is my friend. Who I suppose is also my psychologist. But yes, contentious. It isn’t conducive to teamwork.”  

“I think it can be, sometimes,” Jane counters. “Gets the blood boiling, the wheels turning.”

“I know that sports are important to you. And while I don’t understand why, I can understand that it might hurt your feelings for me to constantly dismantle their merits,” says Brennan.

Jane’s mouth drops open just a bit. “That’s a little far… but you know what? Apology accepted. Things are good.”

“They’re good?” Asks Brennan, more relieved than she thought she’d be.

Jane puts her hands up in a ceasefire. “All good,” she says.

It is then that Brennan sees the scars, reminded of the wounds that must have caused them. Her face narrows into clinical concentration. “It must have been very painful,” she says, softly and with authority. She had read about Charles Hoyt and the detective who ended him. “The number of transected nerves. You seem to carry tightness even now.”

Jane’s hands drop down again. There is less shame now, but not none. “Uh, you know, I hardly think about it anymore,” she lies.

Brennan reaches for a hand anyway. “Can I see?”

Jane folds her hands in her lap and scoots back her chair. When Brennan looks up, she sees that Boothian smile, extra handsome because it hides a lot of pain for her benefit. “No can do, Doctor Brennan.”

“Why? I can help,” Brennan reasons.

Jane sighs. She crosses her arms and leans her elbows on her desk to get closer to Brennan. “No, thank you. The last forensic scientist I let touch my hands, I ended up marryin’ ‘em. And look how well that turned out.”

Brennan laughs quietly. “Well, I can assure you we won’t be getting married. I won’t be marrying anyone,” she says.

“Oh yeah?” Asks Jane. She looks over at the desk across from her because Booth flashes in her mind and she frowns. “Why’s that?”

“Marriage is an antiquated social contract that operates on the principle that women are property, not people. I don’t need marriage to prove my love for someone,” Brennan answers with a straight spine and some conviction. 

Jane shrugs. “To each their own, I guess. I can see why Maura likes you. You have the same way of thinking about a lot of things.”

“But she married you,” Brennan counters, but it is almost kind. Caring.

“She did. Think she regrets that one, though,” Jane smirks. Brennan hears the bitterness in the vowel formants. Jane is burdened by a sadness that looks old on her. She hunches when she reads her file because it is heavy - not the information, but the melancholy. It doesn’t make empirical sense, but Brennan knows it because it’s not the first pair of strong shoulders she has watched round before her in brokenness. A few seconds of silence pass, and Jane wakes up her computer again. “Booth and Korsak are out talking to potential witnesses, but they should be back soon, if you wanna wait here for him.”

Brennan nods, but blows past it. “You know, I’ve kissed several women before.”

Jane drops the file to her desk, but recovers with just a cough or two. “Hmm, me too,” she says.

Brennan smiles wryly. “Oh, that’s funny, because you’re out and you were married to a woman.”

“You got it,” laughs Jane, who cannot help but think of Maura, “even if the past tense hurts me a little bit.”

“While I overall prefer sex with men almost exclusively, I can admit there was certain appeal in the touch of a woman. More tender. There’s more understanding,” Brennan continues.

“Sometimes,” says Jane. At that moment, the elevator doors open and she can see Booth and Korsak emerging. She tosses a glance in that direction. “Hey look, there they are. Good chat, huh? Thanks for comin’ up here. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I think I did,” Brennan says when they both stand. She touches Jane’s elbow and Jane nods. 

“Fair enough. Take this,” Jane says when she produces the paper football. “When we get back from the game tonight, make Booth teach you the rest of the rules.”

Brennan takes the paper, turning it between her fingers, surprised by the sturdiness of the simple design. “Ok,” she says, “I will.”

[excalibent]

Good Omens

I saw a post about Good Omens, so I’m making a post about Good Omens, and none of you can stop me.

Not that you would, I guess.

Spoilers for Good Omens, and slight spoilers Making Money, and Going Postal.

Searching out something in the text to have a say on is a bit difficult, given that it does an extremely good job of presenting complicated and important ideas in ways that are damn near impossible to miss when you come at it with a sledgehammer and a magnifying glass. I’m not overly familiar with the works of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, but I’ve read Making Money and Going Postal, and loved them both to bits.

The kind of symbolism that seems to hang about in the background of Good Omens is stuff like the part of Making Money where - beyond the explicit, direct, unapologetic claim that money is a representation of value rather than value itself - a character pulls a lever in a simulation of the economy, and literally makes a bunch of gold appear out of thin air. The statement is clear: money is fake, and value is fake, and the only reason valuable things exist is because we made up that value from literal nothing. We just looked at it, thought ‘hey, that’s valuable’, and so the inert, shiny chunk of rock became valued. Then, the part of Going Postal that actually planted this idea of value being linked to things with qualities beyond their material properties, that the letters themselves were indescribably valuable to the people that received them and some could have been traded for hundreds of dollars for the simple fact that they were so valued, and in this, the revelation that stories can and will impact the people that read them - not just in general, but especially if it’s a story that they were meant to hear.

Where can we find these moments of stark, important - yet, in some way, abstract - statements in Good Omens?

Frankly, they’re all over the place; there’s the idea that you don’t win if you don’t fight, and if you truly believe in your principles - healthy food, peace, a cleaner earth - you can fight, and even win. But winning doesn’t last forever, and you can’t fight forever. You’re only human. It’s a point that Death underlines, in the end; creation doesn’t mean anything without destruction. As much as we value things that are, we also need to reconcile that these things are also defined by everything that they are not. And, additionally, if you are going to ‘win’ in any meaningful way, it has to be because your children fight for that future, too. The point that, in the end, the anti-christ is human above all else, the idea that celestial beings - in the realm of human experience - are interchangeable, that fate is a book that was written centuries ago that doesn’t even end when the end of all time arrives, it’s all very interesting to think about, but it’s hard to really describe without stating what feels obvious. Again, Good Omens was very good at getting its ideas across.

The thing I’d like to look at with a more critical lens is probably a theme that does pop up explicitly, but sometimes only in the background: you reap what you sow.

For Crowley, this happens explicitly when the entire highway bursts into flame because it resembles the sigil of the great devourer of worlds. As per the text - “Crowley had built it, and now he was stuck in it.” This also hits Aziraphale; his bookshop burns down because of the candles that he lit. Obviously, he didn’t intend them to burn it all down, but the consequences of our actions are rarely apparent until you come back to see where the kindling was.

And what’s more interesting, above all, is Adam. He builds a circle of friends, and as he comes into his power, he starts trying to control them, to reshape them from the group he had lead into a group he could lead into Armageddon, but they don’t agree with any of it; regardless of the greater circumstance, Adam and his friends had assembled because of like minds, more or less, and that’s exactly what he got when his powers came to him - people that cared about health, peace, the world around them, that would really rather not burn it down - and when he rejects his powers, they return to him, because as he had chosen them, they had also chosen him. There wasn’t a greater hand moving pieces into place, it just kind of happened, and the friendship that they had was overwhelmingly more important than staying angry after Adam started going all funky in the head, when it turns out that he falls down and might be hurt.

They’re right to leave when he had taken away their freedoms, but the kindness they gave him when he needed it more than anything else was probably the most important part of the story; the people around you will support you when you treat them well.

(Obviously, Heaven and Hell had not treated Aziraphale and Crowley very well; sure, they only brought down punishment in the end, but all throughout, aside from being treated as menial workers poking about on Earth, their disagreements were entirely dismissed out of hand the moment they - Aziraphale, mainly, and repeatedly - meant to bring up whether what they were doing was what they should be doing, besides.)

[starseedfxofficial]

The Monthly Timeframe and the RBA: The Secret Weapon of Elite Traders Why Most Traders Ignore the Monthly Timeframe (And Why That's a Huge Mistake) Imagine trying to navigate a jungle with a magnifying glass. That’s what trading on lower timeframes without considering the monthly timeframe is like. Sure, you might catch tiny details, but you’re completely missing the big picture—the trends that dictate where the market is actually going. Most traders focus on hourly or daily charts, getting whipsawed by random price movements. Meanwhile, elite traders quietly rely on the monthly timeframe to gain precision, patience, and predictability—and, let’s be real, a lot less stress. Here’s the game-changer: The monthly timeframe acts as the market’s backbone—it reveals long-term institutional footprints, supply-demand imbalances, and the true direction of major currency pairs. And when you combine it with the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) interest rate decisions, you unlock one of the most powerful forecasting tools in Forex. Let’s dive into the hidden advantages of the monthly timeframe and how the RBA plays a crucial role in predicting AUD movements like a seasoned pro. The Monthly Timeframe: Your Ultimate Cheat Code to Market Trends Why The Monthly Chart is the VIP Lounge of Trading Most retail traders act like impatient shoppers during Black Friday—jumping into every trade without realizing that the real discounts (strong trends) take time to form. Here’s why you should be checking the monthly chart before making any major trading decisions: - Institutional Footprints: Hedge funds and banks trade in massive blocks, often over months. Their footprints are only visible on higher timeframes. - Strong Support and Resistance Levels: Key reversal zones are far more reliable on the monthly chart than on lower timeframes. - Market Sentiment Shifts: When the monthly trend shifts, it often signals a multi-month directional move. - Eliminates Noise: Lower timeframes give you conflicting signals. The monthly chart filters out the noise, revealing the true direction. Example: Take AUD/USD. If you looked at the daily chart in 2023, you’d see wild price swings—bullish one day, bearish the next. But the monthly chart? It clearly showed an overall downtrend driven by RBA policies and U.S. rate hikes. Would you rather take trades with long-term institutional confirmation, or get stuck reacting to daily price noise? Exactly. The RBA Reserve Bank of Australia: The Hidden Driver of AUD Moves How the RBA's Decisions Shape the Forex Market The RBA’s interest rate decisions are like the plot twists of a Netflix thriller—except only a few traders actually pay attention. Here’s how it affects AUD pairs: - Rate Hikes = AUD Bullish: Higher rates attract foreign investment, pushing the Aussie dollar higher. - Rate Cuts = AUD Bearish: Lower rates drive capital outflows, weakening the AUD. - Neutral Stance = Watch Inflation & Employment Data: The RBA doesn’t just raise or cut rates randomly—they consider inflation, employment, and global economic conditions. Real-World Example: In October 2023, the RBA signaled that inflation was still too high and hinted at potential rate hikes. The monthly timeframe on AUD/USD showed strong support at 0.6300, and by November, the price had surged nearly 500 pips. Coincidence? Not at all. The big players knew what was coming, and so can you. How to Use the Monthly Timeframe & RBA to Predict Market Moves 1. Identify Major Trends with the Monthly Chart Before placing any trade, pull up the monthly timeframe and ask yourself: - Is the trend clearly bullish, bearish, or ranging? - Are there key reversal points? - Is price near a historical support/resistance level? 2. Sync Trades with RBA’s Policy Direction - If the RBA is hawkish (raising rates), look for long entries on AUD pairs. - If the RBA is dovish (cutting rates), favor short positions. 3. Use Confluence with Technical Indicators - Monthly Moving Averages (50 & 200 EMA): When price bounces off these levels, it’s a big deal. - MACD Crossovers: Monthly MACD crossovers signal long-term momentum shifts. - Fibonacci Retracements: Identify deep retracements to high-probability reversal zones. Final Thoughts: The One Strategy That Separates Pros from Amateurs Most traders are obsessed with fast profits and lower timeframes, completely ignoring the power of the monthly chart and central bank policies. Elite traders, on the other hand, zoom out, align with macro trends, and ride massive moves with patience. Key Takeaways: ✅ The monthly timeframe reveals institutional trends, key support/resistance, and directional bias. ✅ The RBA’s rate decisions dictate long-term AUD strength/weakness. ✅ Combining both allows you to predict high-probability trades with minimal stress. Want to take your trading to the next level? Get real-time insider insights and elite strategies with StarseedFX: - Latest Economic News & Forex Updates → https://www.starseedfx.com/forex-news-today/ - Free Forex Courses & Advanced Strategies → https://www.starseedfx.com/free-forex-courses - Expert Analysis & Live Alerts → https://www.starseedfx.com/community   —————– Image Credits: Cover image at the top is AI-generated Read the full article

[kazxraval]

Motoring along through the sound had not been on the agenda. Kaz had been on boats. Most of his experience with the back and forth ferries. A few times with friends back in the day. But he'd never steered one through the sound himself.

If Feroze wasn't squirming around on the floor and muttering from behind a sock, it'd be tranquil. Relaxing. They could haul an outboard motor to the island. But it would eat up gas. Those and other thoughts hung in thick clouds over his head as they cut through water so deep it looked like ink.

Kaz felt the chill of their legs pressed together as the wind whistled over them. Emre must be freezing, he thought. So Kaz pushed the boat heavier in the direction of the island. Which was well off the route of the initial destination: Urmilla's Seattle. "I wanted us to go by your mother's place too," Kaz said. A continuation of his own thoughts, not necessarily heard and also not needing to be either.

Am I the most beautiful thing?

Caught off guard. The phrase uttered low but the power of the words like an amp cranked to 11 pounding at his chest, he felt each syllable. His gaze paused to study Emre huddled in the other bastard's hoodie. The tip of the nose with the same cold red flush as Kaz's must've had, and he smiled wide. Yes. YES! The most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on... and fucking Feroze ruined the moment with his nattering bullshit. Kaz had to tell him. Once they were off that leaky little boat and alone. He'd hang an arm around Emre's neck and grab his face with the other hand, turn his mouth into a hard kiss. And say yes, you're the most beautiful thing. The most beautiful thing to me.

When it was said Kaz would make a good roadman, the reply mimicking Emre's accent. "Fink I'd be bloody brilliant, better than you mate." Emre felt the weight of a small axe in his palm and seemed content. The same hand later took that weight and kept it at Kaz's back while they walked to the old restaurant on Whidbey.

Miss Ballion. Kaz had dreamed of the day someone said the name and his heart didn't lurch with painful memories. Today was that day. The space in his chest filled with so much more. Miss Ballion only a small curiosity now.

Of course, no way to convey it all to Emre in the moment, unfortunately. Not in those sparse few seconds where they locked eyes.

'My. Mum? I don't.' Staggered, almost a squeak of a voice. "I don't know where my mum is.' Georgie had never been the brightest bulb.

Kaz exhaled, exasperated. "It's a yo momma-- come on, Georgina."

A petulant scoff to Kaz, and then she covered her mouth. Fingernails coated in bubblegum pink, paint chipped. More than a few arm's lengths from Emre, she looked him over slowly as she walked in a safe circle around, to investigate every angle of with some kind of mental magnifying glass. Not a rake of attraction or even curiosity. More a cataloguing-- of what was not known.

After a minute, her hand dropped. She shined a beaming, deeply dimpled grin at Emre. 'Oh. I'm soooo sorry, gosh. I'm Georgie! I'm sure he's told you all about me. Us.' Mascara'ed lashed batted once. 'Feroze, what do you think?'

'I think they're two of the biggest morons I've ever met.' Irritated, Feroze lifted his tied together hands that connected to a lead, which then attached to rope around his waist. 'Otherwise, I can't do jack shit over here until you help me out.'

Georgie snapped fingers and pointed to a set of closed doors. 'Wait for us,' and Feroze complied by shuffling off to disappear, still tied. Her smile broke as she arrived to stand in front of Kaz again, so large and filled to the brim with happiness her eyes were almost entirely squinted shut. She spoke quietly on another excited bounce on her toes, their difference in height glaring. 'You did that to him. You tied him up! I know it was you, I can tell bu--'

Kaz stepped to a nearby table to upturn it, the clatter of the table top as it landed on its married chairs momentarily deafening. "The hell is going on here, Georgie! Huh?" Kaz snapped angrily, his voice reverberated from the highest eaves of the dining area. Georgie yelped and covered her ears as she cowered in place (but didn't leave his side). "Why the fuck are we even here??"

The thunderous noise and shouting attracted a flood into the room. Emre was flanked by several people in varying clothes to withstand the weather (jeans, fatigues, layers) but faceless behind gaiters and balaclavas. As they approached Kaz with nothing but force in their eyes, Georgie stepped in between. 'It's okay! It's okay." Her palms up to plead. 'He doesn't understand. Please! Let me talk to him. Give us a minute. He won't hurt me. Oh, and his friend is the guest of honor tonight.' She stole a quick look at Emre's 'tattoo', and then at him. 'If I ask your name, you're not going to say your mum again, are you?'

The tension lifted as the muscle in the room settled around the perimeter to keep a watchful eye. She stepped in to Kaz and stood on her toes again, this time to rest a hand on his cheek. Except he caught her wrist. Georgie's fingers curled into her palm and she sank to her heels with an irritated exhale.

'Fine, be that way. But I never stopped caring about you.' A pause. 'You remember how it was. How we were, together.' Kaz cast a blank glance out the nearest window. Georgie bit her lip, nothing but innocence and light flowing back. Helpful, concerned. 'I won't let anything happen to you. Or your friend. I'll tell you everything over dinner.' With her overly friendly veneer in place once more, she smiled at Emre. 'I'll give you two a few minutes. What's your favorite drink? I'll make sure you have it before our meal.' Georgie's laugh sounded airy, almost haughty as she tossed her twisted hair over a shoulder and led the others out of the room. The absence of asking Kaz the same question a noticeable insinuation. They were alone for what Kaz assumed to be a very brief moment. He stared at Emre for a few seconds and then moved in close to whisper. "All those people who came in here, Emre. I counted maybe ten, twelve of them." He rested a hand on Emre's shoulder. "She said she'd tell me what's going on in when we get in there." Kaz nodded to the door everyone had disappeared behind, where he assumed 'dinner' would be held.

"Dunno what all this guest of honor shit is. I saw her look at your wrist." A breath. "Should we try to get the fuck out of here?"

'You’re a beautiful thing, Emre Akbar.'

Things got quiet, almost serene once they settled into the boat. Feroze silenced finally with a sock in his mouth (how Feroze didn't gag, Emre didn't know. He hated that feeling. He'd hated it), his noise reduced to a scruffy struggle on the boat's floor. The hum of the motor engine blended into the sound of lapping water around them, islands with tall dark trees that shot straight up, cloaked in mist. It made Emre peaceful, bundled in Feroze's jumper that Kaz so thoughtfully stole from Feroze to drape around him. Teeth still chattering slightly, but Emre was okay, and he told Kaz as much. Kaz a little worse for the wear in Emre's opinion, but he'd never let it show.

Kaz expressed no understanding, between himself and Feroze, and Emre stared at his sullen resting face. Kaz could pin and tighten his features so taut into blankness; but when they slackened, those same features could be come so soft, plush and deceptively winsome. The warmest brown eyes, the suede of his skin, the flush plump lips...then Emre glanced over at Feroze glaring daggers at them. He shook his head. "Yeah. Never mind, darling."

Emre slid in closer, thigh leaning into Kaz's longer one. Kaz cut a hazy figure against the dark water and darker islands, rimed with white mist. No shadows on him; the sun had disappeared behind clouds, but it was still bright enough. Kaz grew up here, Emre thought. Kaz used to belong here. For as much as Kaz would hate on the island, bitter and mournful of what he'd lost (in his own Kazzy way), this wasn't what Kaz came back for, was it. He didn't want to relive his glory days in this 'Pacific Northwest'.

But it was quite beautiful.

"Am I the most beautiful thing?" Emre asked Kaz quietly. But by then Feroze managed to spit out the sock, and was back to mockery. To which Kaz snapped back - a tailgating (stern-gating?) threat that Feroze should take seriously, in Emre's opinion.

It twisted something in Emre's heart, to hear Kaz - Kaz! - get almost sentimental about the lost cutlass. Kaz might not define it that way, but Emre knew yearning well. Emre squeezed Kaz's hand on his knee, and nodded his chin towards Feroze. "I've got new weapons now, don't I. Upgrades. You'd have made a top bloody roadman, you would. Bloody hell, the brutality on my mans."

Emre still searched the duffel where Kaz directed, and tugged out a small hand axe. He hefted it in a hand; it looked good for small jobs, like chopping rope. Good enough. Emre stood over Feroze, as Kaz snapped more orders at the younger man. "Cheers, mate."

The smirk Feroze gave was meant to be unnerving and it worked; Emre looked away, out towards the island itself. Taking in the woods, the paths, the black-wood and glass buildings. Evidence of a ferry landing and streets now overgrown. A tourist's haven, Emre guessed.

'She' was waiting, and Emre frowned slightly to himself. How could Priti have gotten to Whidbey island quicker than them? Was there another route, had Feroze given them the long tour, stalling for Priti to arrive? He glanced at Kaz hauling and securing the boat, whose expression was built from steel, making his short laugh like a grinder cutting into metal - acidic, dangerous.

Emre said nothing, not then. As they walked, he rested his hand between Kaz's shoulderblades, his fingerpads pressing along the knobs of Kaz's spine. Just until they reached the restaurant, then Emre's hand dropped. He didn't know what to believe from Feroze. He found it hard to believe Priti - or anyone - would be here, alone and waiting. Emre was determined not express anything, not until Kaz had a chance to see his mother up close.

'Miss Ballion' didn't sound right though, nor did Kaz's repetition of the name. Like it was familiar, but not in the expected way.

"Kaz...?" Emre asked, but he didn't expect any clarification, not yet. He fell completely silent at the sight of a small blonde girl...no, a woman. Emre squinted when she spun to face them, trying to discern her age. Her pet name for Kaz pealed out like country church bells in the dark dining hall, pitched like a cricket ball to the stomach for Emre. A pure, high sound, eager and joyful, cupped between her small hands and paired with diamond-precision tears in her big round eyes. Emre stared at her in open disbelief, not understanding a bit of this. This ageless child-woman...and Kaz?

The cotton candy facade dropped and Miss Ballion looked her age. Still Hollywood pretty, but certainly no longer an ingenue. For a hot, burning second, Emre thought she was referring to 'KAZ' sprawled boldly on his stomach. But he quickly realized she meant the Sharpie imitation of the tattoo.

A glance from Feroze to Kaz, orange sunset illuminating them both as they bookended Emre. And Emre then responded for himself, with the only answer he could think of. "Your mum." A kiss of his teeth. "Who the fuck are you then? Miss Ballion?"

[marvelandimagine]

I think some people mad about the arm is not necessarily about the fact that Ayo disabling the arm itself, it's more of the fact that it was not necessary and the fact that Bucky had no idea they can do that. If I were to be honest, I think it was not that necessary because Ayo is well capable of taking him down without having to disarm him and she is definitely not threatened by him. I think what some people find upsetting about that scene is the fact that it kinda comes off as Ayo putting Bucky in a position where it would make him feel like he doesn't have full control of his own body after all. The Wakandans, especially Ayo, T'Challa and Shuri had every right to feel betrayed and upset but the point is they should have told Bucky about how the arm can easily be disabled like that, they didn't know Bucky was going to set Zemo free when they gave him the arm and regardless of the things they have done for him and if they were ones who gave him the arm, they should have at least told him about it, because it's connected to him, it's a part of HIS body. It doesn't matter if it was necessary to disarm him or not, the point is they should have told him about it because apart from the fact that it's his body and that it was a bit insensitive given his history, it's also a point of vulnerability, and the fact that she did it in front of Walker (and possibly Zemo) --- people who can easily turn on Bucky, could easily that to their advantage and attempt to disable it themselves. Just my thoughts on it.

Thank you for sharing your perspective, anon!

I’m going to use this long-ass reply to address this stuff with Ayo and also voice some thoughts I’ve had over the past few weeks seeing people paint Bucky into being this complete soft and harmless human that needs 25-7 protection which I don’t jive with — and this is me, a complete Bucky stan.

Many moons ago, I saw a post that compared 1940s Bucky moving with stealth and a loaded gun on the train to the Winter Soldier doing the same thing, essentially discussing the similarities and debating how much of non-brainwashed Bucky was in the Soldier. And I think the fandom forgets or chooses to neglect the following when painting him as this fragile, peace-loving guy:

Bucky was an incredibly skilled sniper in the United States Army. His job is to eliminate threats in the most efficient way possible, and he’s good at it. HYDRA gets their hands on him and + the serum, this gets magnified. It wasn’t like HYDRA turned him into someone with the ability and mental capacity to kill — that was already there. The brainwashing and torture just carved out the rest of him to leave those honed skills and an amplified ruthlessness with no moral issues, no sense of self to contend with. That ruthlessness is part of Bucky, whether people like it or not.

When Bucky is outside of HYDRA for the first time and hiding in Civil War and gets attacked, he’s so brutal in his actions that Steve Rogers, the man who literally was ready to die to save Bucky and free him when no one else believed in the good in him, intervenes because “Buck, you’re going to kill someone.” Bucky responds that he’s not going to kill anyone, but the fact remains: with or without HYDRA control, Bucky has a strong capacity for violence that hovers on brutality — again, what’s the most efficient way to eliminate or neutralize a threat? Like, I don’t want to kill you, but I’ll knock your ass out with cinder blocks to the chest.

Bucky has a good heart, he’s loyal, he’s smart, he’s caring, he’s the longest-standing POW in history and was turned into a slave for decades, put through unimaginable trauma and torture and horror with no escape. Bucky is also a strong and incredibly skilled super soldier who has a bionic arm, is a trained sniper, is unnervingly precise with knives, and self-describes himself as “semi-stable.” Zemo notes in the bar that “it didn’t take Bucky long to get back into form,” and he’s right because the ruthlessness and skill of the Winter Soldier is a part of him and always has been. We see it when he has his hand around Zemo’s neck and tells him he will kill him, when he rips the glass from his hand and throws it across the room.

And I’m sure the Wakandans know all this about Bucky, this light and his ability for hard-to-stop violence, whether from talking to Steve and Bucky or doing their own homework. And they still choose to help him out of the goodness of their hearts because he’s been put through hell and they believe they have the capacity to help him and it’s the right thing to do — they’re betting more on those positive attributes. And they put a failsafe on his arm, a literal weapon, and chose not to tell him. You know why I think that shows how much they did care about him? Because they could’ve blatantly come out and said “Hey, we don’t trust you,” and hurt him outright, but they didn’t because they’re betting on the light in Bucky to outweigh the dark or any future manipulation. That it’s a worst-case scenario function they hope to never have to use — so they’re prepared if shit hits the fan, and if it doesn’t, Bucky doesn’t have to be hurt feeling like he can’t be trusted. I see no issues here, they’re just being cautious.

Now coming to Ayo, my QUEEN Ayo. From that beautiful, beautiful opening scene, we get to see her support, her reassurance, her belief that Bucky will be able to work through this, even when he doesn’t believe it himself. She watches him fight and struggle and cry, and you can feel the hope in her and how moved she is when she gets to tell him it worked, he did it — he’s free. And she says it not once, but twice. And you can hear not just the comfort, but the PRIDE and warmth in her voice directed to him, who I’m sure she’s watched throughout the whole deprogramming process and gotten to know and is happy to see him work through the pain and come out on the other side.

And then she sees that same individual make a decision in freeing Zemo that she perceives as a “fuck you” not just to her country, but to her, someone who was charged with protecting her king. She could’ve just disarmed Bucky the second they met up, but she doesn’t. She takes the time to explain her side and her feelings, her guilt and her shame, and basically implies that she feels betrayed by Bucky because Wakanda helped him and now he’s doing something that’s hurting her country. And still, she doesn’t attack or just go get Zemo. She gives Bucky the benefit of the doubt and a whole 8-hour American workday to do what he has to do because again, she believes in the best of him. And then that time limit runs up, and he chooses to get in her way.

And that’s the final straw. She’s angry, she’s guilty, she’s frustrated, and she feels betrayed hurt by someone I think she did respect and care about, someone whom she worked with and helped and supported when he was his most vulnerable. Did she “need” to disarm the arm to fight Bucky? Probably not. But is she doing it in the heat of battle and adrenaline and a whole bucket ton of emotions, including what she sees as the White Wolf blatantly disrespecting her country and her as a person and even friend and she just says fuck it, I’m done? You hurt us and me, and I’m going to hurt you back? Oh yeah. And Bucky looks shocked, not because he’s a poor fragile baby and “oh no, my arm, how could you?? my TrAumA”, but in the dual realization of “oh shit, how’d you do that?!” and “oh shit, I think I crossed a line here.” And also, I don’t think a single person in that room would be able to recreate the disabling sequence other than Ayo — it’s way too targeted and specific for someone like Walker to pick it up in the whole three seconds it took.

People need to stop reducing characters to these black and white extremes of soft and hard, of good and bad. Doing so completely devalues and ignores the REALITY of the complexity of being human, and Bucky and Ayo are both great examples of that played by stellar actors who portray that range and depth extremely well. End of the day, my thought is that the failsafe in the arm was justified and people need to stop coming for Ayo based on this ridiculous narrative that Bucky is too traumatized and sensitive and too much of a fave to ever be challenged or he’ll explode into dust. Boy deserves a life of freedom and healing and mental health support, but he’s also still a formidable opponent with the capacity for violence and skillset to kill. People are more than one thing.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!!

[after-witch]

Tactical Compensation [Tomura Shigaraki x Reader]

Title: Tactical Compensation [Tomura Shigaraki x Reader]

Synopsis: “Apprehend him.” Your handler’s voice crackles over the earpiece, and you stare at the outline of the villain you’re meant to take on--all alone, in the midst of a veritable warzone. You’re a rookie, you shouldn’t be sent out on this type of mission for your first job... should you? 

Word Count: 5278

Notes: Noncon, degradation, violence, mentions of other characters’ death & corpses, dark themes in general

 Your school didn't prepare you for this. Interschool competitions and examinations and tournaments did absolutely fuck all to prepare you for this. You're not sitting back from a neat pre-determined vantage point, activating your quirk to readily take in all of the necessary information (villain location? check. civilian location? check) and relay it to the heroes with quirks that were best on the ground. 

This was not calm recon. This was not orderly. This would not be followed up by your schoolmates taking off cheesy villain masks and asking what you brought for lunch during break.

This was war. And it was real. 

Crumbling buildings and fire, blue-hot, licking and burning your legs as you dragged terrified, bleeding civilians into the closest thing to safety. 

Assuming the building you pulled them into didn't come down, too, they would... should... be okay. 

But you didn't have time to look for better spots, your brain whirling as you try to process too much information, too much stimulation, your quirk suddenly feeling useless and stupid. What good was it to see through anything, when there was so much going on that it was impossible to know what to look for?

A voice crackles over your earpiece. "You there? You there?" It's your partner. You lost sight of each other when a building collapsed and she took off in the opposite direction. "I'm at--" she continues, but you can't hear the rest.

"Where are you?" You press the button on your piece and practically hiss out the words, desperate and worried and angry--at her, at yourself, at everything--all at once. "Where are you?" But she doesn't answer. So you activate your quirk and whip your head around, penetrating the walls of crumbling concrete and plaster, see everything and yet nothing. Civilians cowering in closets, under desks. A few bodies, crushed or burnt, mouths open in shock.

You brace yourself against the wall, bend over, and puke.

Your earpiece murmurs out some static, and you feel a spark of hope that you can meet back up with your partner. It would be nice to have some firepower--literally--with you right now. But another voice comes over the earpiece, instead, one of the supervisors at the agency.

They call your name, and then: "Can you see anyone? Any of the villains? Check the buildings."

You take a few steadying breaths and try to focus, bringing your quirk-activated vision back around you with purpose this time. You check the nearest intact building and your eyes push past the concrete, past the plaster, into the winding halls and office buildings. Your eyes skim over the upturned furniture,  over the people shaking underneath their desks, until you see--yes. There. On the third floor. Someone indistinct, but surely--definitely--a villain. Dark clothes and lanky hair and not afraid, like the others still inside.

"I see someone," you say, keeping your voice as even as possible. "They're on the third floor of--that's a Commission building, isn't it?"

"What is the target doing?"

You squint, wishing your Quirk had come with some sort of magnifying powers. It might be worth it to look into special glasses for future jobs. "He's... looking through things," you answer, hesitantly, unsure of exactly what you're seeing at first. "Yes, definitely. He's opening file cabinets. He's got something in his hand. He's heading over to some computers."

There's a long pause, and for a moment you think the line's dead. But then you hear your handler's voice loud and clear: "You need to go into that building, find this villain and apprehend him... now."

"Me?" Your voice comes out meeker than you meant it, but there's no hiding the slight quiver in your tone. You were--well.  Your quirk was supportive. You were supportive. You weren't meant to take down the villains; you were meant to find them, track them, to search out civilians to save.

"I said apprehend him. You have the cuffs, don’t you? You can’t hesitate here." Their tone leaves no room for argument, and you stare at the outline of the villain that you're meant to take on, all alone, in the midst of a veritable war zone. You're a rookie. You shouldn't be sent out on this type of mission for your first job... should you?

"I--" you hesitate, then pat the pack on your hip and feel the weight of the quirk canceling cuffs inside. All you have to do is get them by surprise and slap the cuffs on, so they say. You’re good at recon, all your scores said so; so really, sneaking up on a villain confident that they’re all alone and getting the cuffs on shouldn’t present a huge problem.

… Right?

"I'm on it," you say, and you're glad no one else is around because there's nothing but anxiety in your voice as you scan around for villains before sprinting towards the building, careful of the crumbling bricks and shattered class littering the street ahead.

**

You never imagined you'd feel annoyed at terrified civilians--you should only feel the innate urge to protect them, shouldn't you?--but as you lift your finger furiously to your lips for the hundredth time, you're starting to wish they'd just keep their heads down and let you do your job. But you know it's wrong and you force your face to remain stoic and hopeful and not pissed off and frustrated because the only way you're going to get the jump on this villain is if you maintain the element of surprise.

You don't even know what kind of quirk he has. Your attempts to get an answer were met only with increasingly annoyed commands to hurry, hurry, hurry--get to the third floor, apprehend him as quickly as possible, no time to lose.

But they must have trusted that you could do this on your own, and so you have to push aside your doubts and trust yourself. The squirming feeling in your stomach has to be ignored if you're going to be a Hero, and you are, aren't you? You're signed to an agency and here you are, the only thing between a villain and civilians, the only thing between peace and utter chaos.

The hopeful thumbs up you give a group of sniffling office workers doesn't feel as fake this time, and you round the corner of the stairwell to the third floor with a renewed sense of confidence. You can do this. You have to do this. You glance up and your quirk peels through the stairwell ceiling; he's there, hunched over a computer. It's an odd angle, but you can tell that his face is obscured by something, a mask, maybe.

You exhale and begin your ascent, sliding your feet up each stair as silently as possible. With the noise of the fighting outside, and his intense focus on whatever he's doing at the computer, you should be able to sneak up on him.

As you reach the third floor landing, you realize that the door to the third floor is completely gone. Not broken off its hinges--gone. A glance down reveals piles of sooty ashes; was his quirk fire related? The thought makes your stomach clench and you wish they'd sent your partner in here with you. What could you do against fire?

The rational part of your mind screams turn back, they shouldn't be sending you in here, that this is a freaking suicide mission is what it is--but you have to push it aside. A Hero does what they have to do in order to take down a villain. And that means putting your own life at risk. You grit your teeth and remind yourself that all the people back at the agency have confidence in you; they think you can do this. So you know you can do this. You know you can do this. You know... you can do this...

The thought seems to drag heavy as you activate your quirk; it's getting harder, you're tired, worn out, and it's through sheer force of will that you've kept it going as long as you have in order to keep a close eye on this villain.

He’s facing away from you, back arched as he focuses on the computer. He’s typing something… a password, you think, but it’s not working. Good. He’ll be focused on his frustration while you sneak up and slap the cuffs on him. You slowly pull them out of your pack and click open the wrists. You have one single shot at this. If he hears you, if you hesitate and he can use his quirk, you’re done for.

Your muscles tense as you get yourself into a sprinting position. You envision yourself sprinting forwards, whipping the cuff around his wrist, then the other, and tackling him to the ground.

You can do this.

You have to be fast.

You have to be confident.

You have to be--

He turns his head slightly, and you briefly, bizarrely register that the mask obscuring his face is a hand.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, hero?”

You’re fucked.

**

It takes a few moments for your body to move, and your brain is empty of everything but simple commands as you sprint forward. Run at the villain. Subdue the villain. Be a hero.

You don’t have the forethought to realize that you’ve already hesitated, that the game is up, that you’ll never be able to do it. You let out a primal yell as your hand reaches out for his arm, something to grapple onto; only for the world to spin as something hits your stomach so hard that you can’t breathe. 

The floor flies at you as you collapse on the ground and then it’s over--it’s over and he’s shoving your shoulders back so hard that you hit the floor, your back connecting with the ground far too harshly.

The sound of the cuffs being thrown away, landing somewhere else in the room with a sharp clatter, makes your stomach drop. But then there’s crackling on the earpiece and you realize help is right there; all you have to do is reach up and ask for backup and you’ll get the support you need and right as your fingers slip on the call button, a hand rips it out of your ear and and tosses it to the side with ease.

You grunt and thrash as he straddles your body, thighs pressing hard to keep you in place. He’s close--too close, and what’s with the creepy-ass hand--and you’re not even saying words, just crying out in sheer frustration.

You were never meant to be in this position. You were never meant to be up close with a villain. But they tasked you with it and you failed because you’re too weak and not prepared and all of it makes you lash out with your arms, desperate for purchase on something, some way to get him off you and out of this situation.

Finally, he’s had enough. He huffs out an annoyed sigh and slowly reaches behind him. The unusual gesture has you calming, not in ease, but in trepidation. He grips the armrest of a computer chair and you’re confused, watching dumbly as he lays his fingers down. One, two, three, four, five. And then the chair disintegrates into dust and you realize what his quirk is and snatches of overheard conversations at your agency come flying back to you.

“Shigaraki,” you sputter. “You’re--Shigaraki Tomura.”

“That’s right.” His voice is dripping with condescension, like you’re a moron who’s finally gotten figured out the answer to the easiest question in class. “You get a point.”

The floor underneath you feels like it’s trembling. Or maybe it’s just your body, full-on shivers from your ears to your toes as you realize who is on top of you and what he can do. What he’s going to do, no doubt. You’re dead--you’ve barely lived and you’re already dead, and you’ve failed in your mission and everything and--no, no, no.

You can’t give up like that. No. So you swallow something that’s stronger than any fear you’ve felt before in your life and purse your lips and steel your expression into something that you hope resembles what you’ve practiced in the mirror many, many times.

“Then… Shigaraki Tomura, I’m here to take you into custody! You’re--”

He pushes a knuckle into his mouth and bites and laughs against it, high pitched and childish. He’s snickering at you. “Seriously? You’re still giving me the speech? Like this? You really are something…”

There’s nowhere to go as he looms in, eyes wide and buggy behind the fingers of his mask.

“Let’s get one thing straight, hero. I don’t want to hear it. Why? Because it’s bullshit.”

You start to say something and he shoves a dirty finger against your lips.

“And you look really stupid giving it to me when you’re stuck between my legs.”

You can feel whatever pluck you’d managed to dredge up drain from your face and he laughs, eyes crinkling behind the mask.

There’s an agonizing pause as he simply stares down at you. Part of you wants to tell him to get it over with. Part of you wants to beg for your life. Neither side wins out and you’re stuck in a stalemate.

“What to do, what to do…” he’s talking to himself, and not to you. His head whips back towards the computer, then back to you. Deciding. Calculating.

Outside, you can hear screams. Sirens. You wonder if someone’s coming for you yet. Maybe they’ll bust down the wall just in time and get Shigaraki off you and help you up and whisk you out of here to recover.

In the meantime, you have to stay alive. Just stay alive long enough for fellow heroes to arrive.

He’s decided taunt you with cruelty before killing you, it seems, because when he speaks up it’s with a slow, low glee that makes your chest tighten. He leans in, breath hot and puffing out from around his mask.

“Do you want to know what I did to the last hero that threw herself at me like that?”

You don’t. You really don’t.

But what’s that old tale about the woman who keeps herself alive by telling stories at night? It’s the only card you have to play. So you nod.

“O-Okay,” you barely manage to stammer it out. “Tell me.”

He seems surprised, flinching just enough for you to notice. Then he shakes his head, lanky hair framing his face, and reaches backward. The hand comes off, and you’re fronted with the face behind it. Worn and lined and chapped lips with weathered scabs from picking or cracking or both.

You can’t look away from it.

“Oh, you know. Held her down like this. Took off her clothes. And then…” He trails off, looking away, eyes narrowing. He doesn’t finish, but it’s clear what he means. You don’t know if he’s lying or telling the truth. Something tells you that he doesn’t bother with lies. Especially not to heroes who are at his mercy, who could be nothing but crumbles of dust in moments if (or is it when?) he chooses to kill them.

But you don’t want him to kill you. Not yet. You need more time. They--the team-- needs more time to reach you.

“What did you do?” Your voice is a whisper, hoarse and dry. You try to sound interested. You probably sound dead.

Now he’s looking back at you with that same surprised expression, this time unhindered by the mask. It’s more raw, more open now. But there’s annoyance in there, too. Maybe he’s figured out what you’re doing and has had enough.

Before you can come up with anything else to say, there’s a hand gripping the back of your head, winding up your hair and tugging it up until you’re forced to prop yourself on your elbows to avoid the neck strain.

“You know,” he says, voice getting more frenzied and rasping. “I’m starting to think that you hero girls are throwing yourselves at me on purpose. Your agency can’t be this stupid.” The look in his eyes is equal parts annoyed and thrilled and taunting. “Is this some sort of underground villain fetish thing that I don’t know about?”

When you don’t respond, he grips your hair tighter, so tight that it stings and you can feel strands ripping out at the root. He pulls until you’re staring at him through hot, loathing tears.

“Well?” He says, and were it not for the mask on his face, spit would hit your cheek.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. They--they told me to go after you. This is my first time out on a mission and--”

His chapped lips quirk and your lips stop moving. “They sent a total newbie to try to arrest me? One with a clearly useless fucking quirk?”

There’s annoyance in his voice. Frustration, humiliation even, with a red tint on his cheeks. Your own cheeks are burning with stress and humiliation of your situation, prickling at your stomach like sandpaper.

“My quirk isn’t useless,” you spit, and if your partner were here, she’d tell you that you never know when to keep your mouth shut.

“No?” He looms down over you, gripping your wrists with his hands, and in a flash you think--this is it this is it--but he keeps one finger on each hand carefully, deliberately lifted. “Tell me, how is that quirk of yours going to get you out of this one?” 

You look up at the ceiling and activate your quirk and yes, you can see everything up there and to the side and down below if you cared to look. But what good does it do you?

“It’s... not,” you admit, defeat sagging in your shoulders and voice and everywhere else.

“What’s that?” He leans in, leaving one wrist free while he cups his ear in a theatric gesture.

“I said it’s not going to get me out of this!”

You’re pissed but what good does anger do at a time like this? Your eyes squeeze shut and you try to calm yourself down. Your breath comes in great huffing heaves and when you open your eyes again, he’s staring down at you.

No, no at your face, but at your chest, heaving up and down. He leers in a way that makes you squirm. For the first time you realize what type of position you’re really in, what his implications from earlier really mean for you. And you’re just so damn scared.

When you look away, you see your earpiece sitting uselessly on the floor. You wonder if they’re still listening. You wonder why no one has come to rescue you yet. Surely they realized that your ambush failed and are sending backup at this very moment, even without you calling in for help.  They’ll send someone that can bumrush the horrible person straddling your legs and save you and arrest him and everything will turn rightside up soon--right?

“Kurogiri?” He says suddenly, head arching up and backwards towards seemingly nothing. “How are we doing?”

“Most of the heroes are retreating, Shigaraki Tomura. They are calling in reinforcements, but the rubble is hindering them.”

You’re confused for a moment, and then you realize that you’re not alone--you’re not alone in here--but whoever it is stays out of your line of sight.

He rubs a calloused finger on your cheek in an outward show of tenderness that has your pulse speeding up on pure instinct.

“I guess I’ve got time.”

One hand gropes at your chest, squeezing the delicate flesh beneath your costume. It’s uncomfortable and harsh and almost hurts. 

“What--” You push on your elbows, trying to move, trying to move him, trying to do something to push away the squirmy realization in your guts.

He taps all but one of his fingers on your cheek, and the uncaring disregard for how much damage he could do with a single misstep makes you freeze.

“Don’t be stupid. It doesn’t matter to me if I kill you. But I’m sure you care, right?”

You stay frozen, still, afraid to move but knowing what giving up your physical fight means is equally as terrifying as the thought of his fingers pressing down on your skin.

“You’re not as stupid as the last one,” he murmurs, leaning back to give himself more room before he unceremoniously removes his hands from your breast and cheek and yanks at your pants. The form fitting material rips away all too easily.

“Wait--please,” and the part of you that spent every morning reciting oaths and drilling rules into your head screams that you shouldn’t be begging a villain for anything, you shouldn’t be resorting to pleading for your life--or anything else. But sheer, raw, physical terror overtakes anything else. “I don’t--I haven’t--please don’t--I’m a virgin,” you admit, quickly, words tumbling out with bubbling fright.

His chapped lips are bleeding a little when he smiles. “That’s cute,” he says. “Thanks for telling me.”

This isn’t fair. You’re not even being held down anymore, not really, his hands are away and you should try to run, you should do anything you can to get out of this. But he’s faster than you and stronger than you and all it will take is a clamp down on your wrist and you’ll be dead.

So you can do nothing but watch as he unbuttons his own pants and shoves them down, boxers and all, with as little ceremony as he did yours. Time seems to go in slow motion and you stare at his face to avoid looking at anything else.

“First job as a Hero, huh,” he muses, staring at your chest as he begins to fist his cock in his hands, sliding it up and down just inches away from your underwear-covered sex. “Rookie… trying to fight the big bad villain… can’t even get away…” his words come out in breaths, his mind clearly spinning something in his head as he gets himself worked up over your helpless body.

You can’t help it.  You glance down, unable to tear your eyes away from the visceral sight of him masturbating on top of you for a few horrible moments, before you stare up at the only thing not currently reminding you of the situation you’re in: the ceiling. But then a thin hairline crack running along the center makes you wonder if it will collapse, and the idea of someone finding your dead body, half-naked, in a compromising position with a villain makes stomach acid rise in your throat.

“Aw, hey,” he coos. “You can look, I don’t mind. Is this your first time seeing a cock?”

You whimper, and the pitiful sound of it makes you want to start full-on sobbing. You feel him fumbling with your underwear, thankfully ripping it rather than using his quirk. And then there’s rough fingers touching you where no one else has ever touched you, pulling apart your folds and carelessly poking and prodding at you like you’re a piece of meat.

His thumb rubs against your clit and your body spasms in forced, harsh pleasure and it’s only the fact that he’s nestled himself between your legs, making such actions impossible, that you don’t clamp them shut.

“Don’t be prissy,” he tells you. “I’m trying to help, hero. It’ll be better if you’re wet.”

He doesn’t sound exactly mean right now and you don’t know if it’s the adrenaline and fear pumping through you but you believe him; and so you look back at his face and down at his cock and it’s there, right there, right in front of your unprotected opening, in front of his hands that are still touching and rubbing.

And he’s right, you are getting wet. In a room with broken glass, a floor above civilians crying in fear of their lives, two floors above corpses that will never go home again, you’re getting wet as a notorious villain positions his cock to fuck your pussy.

“Good enough,” he murmurs.

And then with a shove of his hips, he’s inside. And it hurts. It’s a deep, shocking ache that takes your breathe away more than any slug to the stomach. The sound you make is a wheezing, airy intake of breath that sounds more pitiful than any sound you’ve made in your life. Your fingers scrabble for purchase against the floor and find nothing but shards of ceiling material.

Tears are leaking from your eyes in moments and through your hot tears, you realize he’s not even all the way in yet. He’s going slow. You don’t know if it’s from pity for your inexperience or a desire to drag this out as long as possible, to hurt you as much as he can. Or maybe it just feels better to go slow than all at once and it has nothing to do with you at all. You don’t know what option makes you feel worse.

He pushes his hips forward again, and you feel filled in a way that you’ve never felt before. It hurts and it doesn’t. It’s violating and you don’t want this but his thumb is back on your clit, rubbing slow, languid circles that make your body jerk against him in hot twinges of pleasure.

His hand is on your chin and you feel wetness on his thumb when he pushes your head up to look at his face.

“Aren’t you doing so good,” he says, and your stomach does uneasy flips at the praise. “Newbie heroes are so good at taking villain cock. It’s like you were made for it. You’re better at this than you are fighting villains, aren’t you?”

And you do blubber, now, hurt and humiliated by his words, chest heaving with your sobs.

He hushes you carelessly and resumes his ministrations with his fingers, slowly ramping up his movements inside as you feel his cock press against your soft walls. There’s the familiar feeling of coiling inside you, hot and peaking, but instead of you curled up in your bed, it’s Shigaraki Tomura, fucking you raw while his calloused thumb forces an orgasm from a clit that’s never felt another person’s touch until now.

Your toes curl inside your boots and your legs go so tense that your muscles ache; you can’t help the guttural cry that comes out, keening and needy, as your orgasm washes over you. He groans as your pussy clenches around him, muttering something you don’t hear as he begins to thrust harder, more eagerly than before.

“Tell--the--fucking--Hero--Commission,” he pants out, thrusting into you with abandon now, making your elbows scrape against the floor with every moment. “To stop sending--ah--naive little rookies… after me.”

He speeds up, panting and thrusting, until suddenly his face is pressed against yours and a slimy tongue is licking at your lips. It’s not a kiss but an intrusion, and you can feel a scab on his mouth scraping your own as he sucks and bites on your lips. You’re briefly distracted by the unwanted intimacy when he suddenly grunts, openly moaning against your mouth. There’s unusual warmth spreading inside, mixing with the soreness and dim pleasure, and you realize that he came inside you. 

The thought should horrify you but you feel numb to everything but the present moments as they happen. A bead of his sweat dripping onto your face. The ragged look in his eyes as he catches his breath. The smell of heat and sweat and sex between you.

When begins to compose himself and he finally pulls out, you clench unknowingly at the loss of his fullness inside you. Cum leaks out from in between your folds and it feels cool when it hits the air. It makes you want to shower for hours and never stop. But you stay on the floor, beneath him, feeling too tired to do anything but wait for whatever comes next.

Will he grab your throat when he kills you? Will it hurt? How long will it take?

In the uneasy aftermath you simply stare up at him as he adjusts his pants. He only stares down at you for a moment before turning back to the computer he’d been hunched at when this all started. You stare up in what feels like disbelief as he starts typing on the screen, letting out a little hum of triumph when he’s able to access whatever he as trying to access before. He presses a button on the front and a disc pops out, which he readily shoves in his pockets.

Turning around, he leans back to the floor and picks up the hand. It slides back onto his face with ease and there’s only one red eye staring down at you.

“Think about how you came on my cock the next time you’re giving a stupid hero speech, okay?”

With that, he walks away. There’s a rushing sound, the dim feeling of an inky black presence in the room, and then he’s gone.

And you’re alone.

Minutes pass. When you’ve convinced yourself that he’s not going to come back and kill you, you force yourself to pull your legs up, pull yourself into a sitting position. Your pants and underwear are ripped beyond repair, so you slowly, painstakingly unclip the cape from the back of your uniform and wrap it around yourself like a skirt. You don’t want to touch yourself down there, so you go gingerly, slowly.

Should you leave? Should you stay? Before you can make a decision, a voice rings out, tinny and small.

“Hello? Hello?”

Your earbud on the floor is speaking again.

You find your breath, find your will to get the hell out of his, and begin crawling over to where it landed on the floor. Ceiling crumbs and glass from a broken window embed into your skin but you pay it no mind, too full of other hurts to care about scrapes and scratches.

The earpiece slides easily back into place.

“Hello?” You answer, but don’t wait for response. “I need--I need help. Is someone on the way?”

“Where is the villain?” The voice asks, ignoring your question. It’s your supervisor again.

“He--” you lick your dry lips, tasting Shigaraki on them and wanting to puke. “He got away. I wasn’t able to… apprehend him.” You pause. “Isn’t someone coming to rescue me? Communication was lost and...” You trail off, unsure of how to continue. Someone should have been here to help you by now. 

In the moments of silence that follow, you begin to feel like a failure. Your thoughts drift downwards, to the civilians on the lower floors. Did he--or one of the other villains lurking around--kill them? You want to activate your quirk to see, but you’re too weak, too worn out.

When she finally answers, your supervisor’s voice is surprisingly chipper, and the tone throws you. It’s so at odds with what you’ve just been through that you suddenly feel like it’s not even real. 

“Don’t worry about it! Whatever you did worked! We were able to wipe those files while he was distracted.”

Your eyes flick back towards the computer, towards the open, empty disc tray.

“The… files?”

There’s a cheerful lilt in her tone when she continues. “The ones on that computer he was so desperate to get. Important records, personal info about heroes, that sort of thing. Stuff the League would just love to get their hands on.” She huffs out a laugh that feels shrill over the earpiece. “I imagine he’ll be pretty upset when he checks that disc and finds it empty.”

You pull the earpiece out without saying anything more and bring your knees up, resting your cheek between them and feeling sore and sick.

It didn’t matter that your quirk was useless against him. It didn’t matter that he could’ve killed you, might have killed you, if he didn’t decide to assault you instead.

What mattered is that he didn’t get the info on the computer.

You were the bait.

You were the distraction.

You were just a fucking pawn.

[sdv-mostly-shane]

yo yo yo yo how about a scenario where farmer is a high-level employee sent from Joja and they visit the Jojamart branch in sdv for inspection and stuff and hit it off with Shane??

This is great. You can’t tell me that Secretly-a-m*soch*st-Shane wouldn’t looooovve to be bossed around by a HBIC. Hope you enjoy this, anon-I certainly did.

Joja

Summary: A surprise inspection comes knocking on the door to the local Jojamart. Morris is freaking out, but Shane sees this as the opposite of a problem. Tl;dr: Cart-riding cowboy

“Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.” The inspector absentmindedly tapped their pen against their clipboard, as they went through their mental checklist of the duty at hand. Taking a step out of their car, the inspector sized up the store at hand. This particular branch had been an eyesore on the company’s end of year report-needing a literal second flowchart beneath the rest to the showcase the severity of the steep red plunge into the negative. They slammed the car door shut with a satisfactory slam and sighed, “Alright, better get this over with.” Pulling out their retractable measuring tape, they approached the welcome sign, taking note of its hazardous position too close to the entrance.

Inside the store, Morris had watched the official vehicle roll up and had frantically tried to rearrange the papers and pamphlets on the membership booth. Oblivious to his scramble, his two employees, Sam and Shane, were preoccupied with matters of their own- The moment after he had clocked in, Shane had scrambled into one of the grocery carts and promptly fell asleep. Arms and legs dangling off the side, Sam had taken it upon himself to see just how much Joja product he could shove around the slumbering man before he woke up. Pushing the cart along as he stocked, he had managed to stack 16 pucks of pure gluten atop Shane’s snoring belly.

Morris, seeing the inspector make their way to the entrance, hissed at the two men “Get up, the inspector is about to walk in!”

His pleading fell on deaf ears- Sam was focused on attempting puck number 17. Morris was clambering toward their occupied aisle, when the automatic door opened. While he abruptly changed directions to greet the inspector, Sam hastily tried to push (the still asleep) Shane and himself out of view into the breakroom. As he was rounding the corner, gluten puck number 17 came tumbling down, tripping him in the process, sending the cart coasting out into the front aisle.

The inspector, now inside, was promptly greeted with the lovely Trojan horse. They stuck the tip of their shoe out to stop the rolling cart. With an eyebrow raised, they peered down-lowering their head to be meare inches away from the snoozing mans face. They tapped his nose with their pen, mid-snore.

Shane snorted, and opened one eye. “You can just push me over there,” he gestured in no particular direction, “wouldn’t want to get in your way.” He closed his eyes again.

“Hmmm, no I think you’re gonna come with me.”

Shane’s eyes shot open-he was already moving. The inspector had taken the helm of the cart and was making their way with him toward the registers. They paused in front of the second station-pulling out their magnifying glass from their briefcase to get a closer look.

“Pfffft, I wouldn’t get too close, that one’s Sam’s. Who knows what you’ll find on there,” he snickered.

The inspector turned to him, with shrewd eyes. He stopped snickering. “Oh yeah? So you’ve got it all figured out here, huh? Knowing all the dirty little secrets and scandals of the store?” The inspector gingerly leaned their chest over the handles with a raised eyebrow, and Shane flushed. “You’re coming with me, big guy,” they said with a smirk.

Shane, now embarrassed, tucked his legs inside of the cart and grabbed the edges to lift himself out.

The inspector playfully slapped their clipboard against his chest, stopping him. “Nuh uh. You’re staying right here with me. Sit back down, cowboy.”

Shane did what he was told; Morris palmed himself in the face in exasperation. Watching from behind the break room door where he was hiding, Sam let out a booming laugh. Morris snapped at him to get back to work, and begrudgingly followed behind the pair with his own clipboard.

As the inspector pushed Shane and the cart deeper into the store, silently picking up and replacing products and imputing sku numbers into their Jojadevice, he began to relax into the cart, and enjoyed watching the dismayed and disappointed expressions of the astute inspector. He smiled to himself as they picked up a particularly sticky and gloopy mess of a can that had exploded, and turned to wipe their hand on Morris’ apron. The inspector pretended not to notice Shane’s laughing under his breath.

They approached the back of the store, when the inspector stepped in an awful pile of dirt and debris spilling out from one of the fridges.

“That’s BINGO for you, inspector. You found the spot where Sam pushes and hides all of the dust after he sweeps.”

“Why wouldn’t he just take it to the trash?”

“There’s a weirdo farmer around here that likes to go dumpster diving. Sam doesn’t throw away the dust because he doesn’t want the farmers trash to get dirty.”

“Hm. How considerate.”

Morris groaned, and they arrived at the back of the store. The inspector took out their measuring tape once more, wanting to take note of the hazard of stacked Joja Cans and how close they were to the walkway. As they expanded their tape measure to its fullest length, they made sure to make direct eye contact with Morris as it grew. Not wanting to acquiesce into submission, he stammered out, “I spent a large sum of my recent paycheck to make improvements to the Joja store. Corporate won't give me another dime to make renovations.”

The inspector raised a heavy brow at him, and glanced around the store. “What would you consider a large sum? Two dollars and a shoestring?”

Shane fell back into the cart with a snorting ‘pffffft’ of laughter.

“You and me are having a talk in my office NOW,” Morris sneered at Shane. He reached his hands towards Shane’s wrists, intending to yank him out of the cart.

The inspector flicked his hands out of the way, shutting him down with a cool, “No thank you. That can wait-my assistant will be accompanying me for the remainder of this inspection,” and sent him away with a nonchalant wave of their wrist. They pushed off, and Shane emphasized the sentiment with a middle finger and smug little smile and wave, before Morris stomped off into his office.

Now at the freezers, the inspector read the thermometer- “Well that’s one point, at least,” they said writing on their clipboard, “a perfect 0 degrees.”

“That’s just the show thermometer. Morris says it makes guests more trusting. the real one is on the back.”

“And what does the real one say?”

“… What would be considered ‘within range’ ?”

“Colder than at least 0 Fahrenheit.”

“Yeaaaah might not wanna look back there then. You can cross off that point you gave.”

The inspector did as they were told, and set their pen stop their clipboard. Looking at Shane with scrutiny and amusement, they said “You do realize that if I fail this store, you’d be out of the job, right?”

Shane sat forward, bringing his face closer to the inspector, whispering, “that would be a dream, wouldn’t it.”

The inspector bridged the gap, leaving only a few inches between the pair. With both hands on either side of the cart, entrapping him, they made direct eye contact and purred, “Any other secrets you wanna tell me,” they very briefly paused, breaking the eye contact to let their eyes quickly travel down Shane’s body and back up, before continuing, “big guy?”

Shane boldly met their eyes, holding his breath as he felt the warm puff of the ‘b’ dance on his lips. “After closing, Morris sneaks into Pierre’s shop with our old smelly produce to switch it with his fresh ones.”

Click. The inspector clicked their pen, and, with a predatory bite of their lip, exhaled “Gotcha, Morris.” Giving Shane a wink, they finally stood up again and wrote down one final note in their clipboard. “I think I have all I need. Time to go give our friend a little talk.”

They took a few short steps ahead of the cart, headed toward the office. Shane, letting out the breath he was holding, tucked his feet in and attempted to stand up.

The inspector grabbed the edge, stopping him- “gonna come with me for the ride, cowboy?”

Shane lowered himself back down, replying with a resounding, “Oh hell yeah.”



[lu-lus-dicks]

Sigh

Explaining this all below the read more line

Tw: uh mentions of suicide (again) and traumadumping. Really bad loneliness and depersonalisation (?). Lemme know if I should add other warnings or replace some of em

To the person that doesn't exist <- referring to myself at a point in my life where I didn't feel like I was a person at all, everthing I did was repetitive and felt like I was living on autopilot like an NPC

Does hell burn your corpse? <- hell burning my corpse has multiple meanings that I'm really proud of.

First is the literal version in which I'm damned to hell and suffering for all eternity, which is exactly what I felt like at the time

The second is that in hell, I am a soul and my corpse has no need to be there, further implementing my own detachment from myself that I felt. The corpse serves as a mask I put up of myself that everyone can beat up all they want while I (the soul) watch from the sidelines and do nothing about it because hey, it's not me they hate, it's the corpse of mine

And burning a corpse is also a ritual (cremation) that is supposed to set a soul at rest. Hell burning my corpse in this version also implies that whatever hell I'm in, all the torment and hate that I show myself is actually more freeing than anything else I can feel because that self hatred will always make sure I stay a good enough person. My self-hatreed won't let my own flaws go unnoticed.

Does heaven make it feel worse? <- showing myself any sort of love felt like I was undeserving of it. Heaven in this case is the praise I got constantly from my parents because I'm the "talented" one in the family. And having those compliments directed at me made me feel really bad because I know I'm going to dissapoint them when they find out that no, I'm just not as talented as they view me

Do you find yourself you? Does it feel like a privilege or does it weigh you down too <- me having an existential crisis and having no idea who I am or am supposed to be. If I truly am what I say that I am, then the constant self-doubt and hatred would be a permanent part of me and would therefore weigh me down. But being self aware was something I prided myself on, even if that awareness came at the cost of my own mental stability, hence the "privilege"

Do you think yourself selfish for seeking a crowd? <- referring to my really bad loneliness I was in at that moment. I felt like shit for even thinking I was entitled to someones attention and that I shouldn't be seeking it. The only positive trait I saw in myself was my loyalty and kindness. Seeking others attention, wanting to vent to them and dump all my problems felt like I was going against the only two things I was proud to be.

Admire the ants through a glass while you live in a cloud <- and I thought of myself as the biggest narcissist for it. Everyone else were ants (I love ants) that worked hard, helped eachother out and lived in a community. I detached myself from that community and started to try and learn psychology so I could understand how to fit in. Hence the "through a glass". The glass here is both a magnifying glass representing my obsession with studying people and a literal glass which I put up myself to distance myself from everyone that still allows me to observe. Me being in a cloud means I'm constantly in my own thoughts and never "down to earth"

Does it ever get lonely without perception of time? <- refering to me not even keeping track of time. My memory has deteriorated so much because I just didn't care about living anymore and that frustrated me because if the concept of time doesn't exist to me then the concept of loneliness shouldn't either. Loneliness is not feeling connection over a long period of time. Time doesn't exist to me so neither should loneliness

Does prevention of living come dozen a dime? <- "dime a dozen" is a phrase that means common. By reversing the words I'm thinking that this kind of suicide is unique to me, uncommon.

To the person I see in the mirror did you make up your name? <- By refering to myself as "the person I see in the mirror" I implied that I do not precieve my own reflection as me. And making up my name very much means the same, questioning weather or not everything I've done up to this point was because of who I am or because I'm playing some kind of character I've made for myself to keep everyone else happy

If I don't exist, how can I be to blame? <- me trying to justify my own pathetic existance by saying "I was never alive in the first place". The thought was if I don't precieve myself, if I don't put myself out there, any criticism I may get as a person will be my own fault and that thought scared me because I was trying my best to be (at least come off) as a good person. This line is also one of the few lines where I directly reffer to myself as "I" because this is what I have no doubts are what I as the real me is thinking genuinely. Everywhere else I felt like I was just talking to the mask I had created for myself

And when you stay stagnant and bide by your time, is it the death of an animal or suicide? <- saying that my own detachment, laziness and generally my refusal to accept the fact that I'm alive is just me staying stagnant and standing still while life keeps moving. When I do this, I bring myself closer and closer to death of a person who I was, which is no better than suicide. And I wasn't able to tell weather my mindless automatic responses to outside events were even something I could call an action of my own conscience. Hence the "animal" since it could be just me developing instincts that I follow. If I wasn't an animal then I was a soul who was killing itself by shutting it away from the world and I wasn't sure which of the two would be the correct assumption .

To the person who just isn't yet <- me acknowledging that maybe this isn't the end of the road and being hopeful that the future will be better, that I will figure out how to deal with my own existance and insecurities.

Do you see yourself clear? <- Even if I'm trying to be positive, I don't know who I'm talking to. The person in the mirror is muddy, hazy and foggy and weather or not the reflection can read my lips is unclear.

To the person who may not yet do you know how to feel? <- me also acknowledging that yes, this could also be the end of the road, and I have no clue how to feel about this fact. I couldn't (and still can't) read my own emotions and just vaguely put them into a group of either good or bad emotions and that in itself was really hard to deal with. I felt nothing when thinking about how this could be my entire life. I've grown over-accustomed to the bad side of the emotions that it just seemed like the default. I don't know how to feel because feelings have become a foreign concept to me

Don't judge me by my cover, the pages are blank <- the cover is the version of myself I put out there to display, bur really I have no clue who I am or even if I am a person. Hence the pages being blank.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk I do not want to hear y'all start trying to get me to therapy because this was written a year ago when I was feeling the worst. I am doing much better now thank you

I have to go to work and be there all day today so I'll be busy. I dunno how to entertain y'all (at this point I think everyone in the polycule just entertains eachother without me lmao)

So for the time being you can have the poetry I wrote in 2023. Just in case

Tw: mentions of suicide (aka soupersexual)

The poem, much like it's writer, is nameless

To the person that doesn't exist

Does hell burn your corpse?

To the person that doesn't exist

Does heaven make it feel worse?

To the person that never existed

Do you find yourself you?

Does it feel like a privilege,

Or does it weigh you down too?

Do you think yourself selfish

For seeking a crowd?

Admire the ants through a glass

While you live in a cloud

Does it ever get lonely

Without perception of time?

Does prevention of living

Come dozen a dime?

To the person I see in the mirror

Did you make up your name?

If I don't exist

How can I be to blame

And when you stay stagnant

And bide by your time

Is it the death of an animal

Or suicide?

To a person that just isn't yet

Do you see yourself clear?

To the person who may not yet

Can you know how to feel?

Don't judge me by my cover

Becase the pages are blank

[alstroemeriadissonance]

The Hunt - 03

Please check the masterlist here for the other chapters

The early evening blanketed the sky with deepening sunset orange hues that gradually intermingled with the violet of the night.

Two men, both erstwhile Hunters now allied with the Duchy of Stellis, stationed themselves on the highest rampart in the settlement surrounding Chateau de Haspran, preoccupied with the task that the Duke had assigned to them.

Artem fiddled with the specially-made looking glass that Luke had attached to his flintlock rifle. "I have to say, I'm not really used with aiming through these seeing-glass things," he murmured as he peered through the lens. The looking-glass attachment enabled him to see objects more than three times the distance his naked eye could.

He pointed the sights to the street directly below them--a nondescript alley lined with equally nondescript houses where people milled along, going about their evening business.

"It's impressive, but it messes up my trajectory calculation when I shoot. I prefer my naked sight," Artem said, eyeing the details in the streets.

The house on the corner to the left has a broken window. The lodgings above that house has a couple arguing. There seemed to be clotheslines strewn haphazardly across the back alleys. A girl fed scraps to the cats in a dead end.

"Huh," Luke crossed his arms. He was perched on the rampart's balustrade, watching his friend test and assess his proposed modification to Artem's favored weapon. "I would have thought you'd appreciate being able to actually see your target instead of just looking at its general direction."

Artem snorted. "I don't just 'look at something's general direction' when I aim, Luke. If I was Rosa's long dead by now."

Luke popped a piece of dried fig into his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. "Maybe try it out more? I use it myself and it seems to work fine with how I use my firearms."

"I'd rather not depend so much on magnified sight," Artem said as he put away his rifle. "Say, maybe make adjustments to the hinges so I can attach and remove the scope at will? This is still very useful for reconnaissance."

"There's an idea," Luke said. "Will take note of that. I'm due to submit a report to Lord Vilhelm soon anyway."

Artem arched an eyebrow. "A report?"

"You know. Part of my Master-of-Arms gig here." Luke shrugged. "The vampire loves his numbers. The report is basically me suggesting improvements and additions to the armory and it's up to him to approve, how to procure, what not."

The sky had almost finished its transition to the dark purple of night. The sunset had all but completely sunk into the far-off horizon hidden behind the mountain ranges to the east.

"What do you think of him, anyway? The vampire Duke," Artem asked, his voice almost imperceptible in the night breeze.

"I'm willing to throw my lot in with him, to be perfectly honest."

"Really now," Artem looked at him warily. "You have yet to tell me why you're working for him."

"Oh, about that," Luke jumped off the balustrade he was perched on. "I essentially walked into his gate, you know, same as you guys did, but when he got out of the Chateau he just offered me the job."

Artem balked. "What?"

"Yeah, that was my reaction too." Luke chuckled at the memory. "Turns out he was reading my mind and all he saw in my noggin was my hate for our nobility and cursing my fate. He was like, 'hello, it's a pleasant night out, want to work for me instead?' And promised me enough funding so I can build all the gadgets and weaponry I can come up with." He laughed. "It was a pretty easy decision."

"Goddamn."

Then Luke turned somber. "Though yeah, he did kill the other Hunters. I mean, they did go here to outright take him out and I guess murder was the only thing he read off their minds."

"I wish Rosa and I knew. But I guess you never had the chance to tell us."

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

"I wonder how Rosa's doing. It's been almost two weeks now." Artem slung his rifle on his shoulder. "Anyway, I think we're done here. Already dark out anyway."

"Oh? You already have something in mind for Lord Vilhelm's request?"

"Yeah." Artem made his way to the tower, Luke on his heels. "But I don't think he'll like my proposal on how to defend this place."

"You never know."

===

"Artem! Luke!"

Rosa practically threw herself onto her two friends the moment they stepped foot into the Chateau's foyer, hugging both of them at the same time. "Where were you two?" She withdrew and gave both of them a disapproving look. "I've waited for a week."

"We waited for two weeks, you know." Artem reached out to muss Rosa's hair, which for some reason was braided and done up. At that very moment he noticed that something was very different about her.

"...You're wearing a dress."

"That's what you noticed about me?" Rosa gave Artem a withering gaze.

"Um, yeah."

Rosa made a moue. "But yeah, I hate wearing dresses. My nethers are practically naked. I want my breeches back."

"Um, nake--ow!" Luke winced as Artem drove an elbow to his side.

Rosa realized what she just said. "Oh. Sorry."

Artem cleared his throat. "Anyway, it's an unusual sight, but you look good in a dress." His face was still flushed red.

"Thanks, but isn't there anything else...different about me?" Rosa asked, tentatively. "I'd appreciate it if you guys can tell me.

"I can't see my reflection anymore, so."

"Ah. Right," Luke mumbled. "Vampirism is strange that way. Well..." he scratched his chin, peering at her. "Your eyes, I guess. Still the same color but it's almost like Lord Vilhelm's...I bet it would glow in the dark. And...maybe you're a bit pale? I dunno though, your skin has been fair in the first place anyway. Also...try smiling?"

Rosa half-heartedly turned up the corners of her lips, showing off a bit of teeth. It turned out to be more of a wince than a smile.

"Cute fangs."

"I like how blasé you are, Luke. Please never change." Rosa pinched his cheek, as she was wont to do during old times.

"Ow." Then Luke's face brightened up. "Oh yeah! I've been meaning to show you something...you guys come with me for a sec?"

===

Luke brought them to his special place in the Chateau, the armory.

"So yeah. This is practically my playground," Luke said, rather proudly. "Most everything you see here, either I modified, or I built from scratch."

Rosa wandered deeper into the armory, and seeing a familiar blade weapon displayed on the rack attached to the stone wall, tentatively touched its edge.

Her skin was sliced with the slightest touch. "Ah," she murmured, bringing her fingertip to her mouth.

She did not notice the way her wound almost immediately closed upon contact with her saliva.

"That's Lord Vilhelm's," Luke called out from where he stood with Artem, who was studying an array of long-range ballistics. "Do be careful with it."

"I know, he was trying to murder me with it when we first came here."

"Oh right, I forgot that's what he used--hey Rosa, did you touch it?"

"Touch what?"

"Lord Vilhelm's sword. The Moonlight."

"Oh, so that's what it's called." Rosa turned to admire it more. "Wait, why is it glowing now?"

The blade emanated a white-blue glow, same as the color of what it was named after.

Luke approached her. "Did you touch it?"

"Yeah. Accidentally cut my finger with it, in fact."

"Ahh... that explains it." Luke sighed. "Just tell Lord Vilhelm to discharge it himself."

"Discharge it?"

"You'll find out when he does it. It's a trick weapon, you see. It's not just a greatsword." Luke scratched his head. "Just remember to tell Lord Vilhelm next time you see him.

"Anyway, avoid touching stuff without telling me first, will you? I don't want you accidentally get hurt."

"Sorry about that." Rosa's gaze lingered on the sword. The ethereal soft glow made it look mystical and beautiful. Certainly fit for his hands...

Then her thoughts wandered to other things about Vilhelm's hands--how they felt on her, to be precise--and Rosa spaced out for a few seconds, blushing all the while.

"You okay Rosa?" Luke asked her, slightly worried.

Rosa blinked and shook her head vigorously, willing her mind to get out of its rut. Ah, shit. "Yeah, I'm okay," she said, giving him a small smile. I really shouldn't let my wander like that. Especially since we got a notorious mind reader here.

"If you say so...I'll make this quick then, in case you need to rest." Luke took her hand and led Rosa to the farthest corner of the armory. "Wow, your hand's cold," he remarked offhandedly. "Ah, here we go. Go ahead and open it," he said as he gestured towards a chest.

"Should I open this one?" Rosa pointed at the wooden chest.

"Uhuh."

"If you say so..." The chest lid opened with a loud creak.

Rosa gasped in delight. "Luke! Did you really...?

Inside were her previously discarded pistols and her threaded cane, all of which were polished to an incredible shine that they almost emanated a glow. Rosa reached for one of her flintlock pistols and gave it a slight shake. It did not rattle. "You tuned them for me!" She picked up another pistol and tested it--it also did not give off any rattling sound.

Each and every pistol were all tuned and Rosa knew they could now be fired with exceptional accuracy--depending on the wielder's skill.

Luke crossed his arms, looking all smug. "Of course I did. Why don't you check your cane too?"

Rosa picked up her favored weapon, the threaded cane, reverently with both hands. The wood encasing its inert form as a cane was exquisitely polished and varnished to a sheen. Then, Rosa flicked the handle to switch it to its whip form--the silver blades and chain glimmered in the nearby torchlight.

"Do you notice anything different with it?" Luke asked her, the smug grin still on his face.

"Huh...Apart from how its polished and all?"

"Yeah. I worked on that like you wouldn't believe, so if you don't notice anything different about it I'll be very very sad."

"Huh." Rosa switched it back to its inert cane mode, and gave it an experimental swing. It easily made a swoosh sound as it sliced through air, but Rosa was still unsure as to what was different about it. She turned to Luke to ask "Mind if I try swinging its whip form?"

"Oh, er...well, definitely not in here. Let's go to the back--where we test out my stuff."

===

Luke took both Rosa and Artem at the wide clearing at the back of Chateau de Haspran. It was dark out, except for the moonlight that provided just enough illumination for the two humans to make out the slight shapes of various target dummies and implements that Luke had laid out for the purposes of weapons testing.

Vampire Rosa, of course, could see through the night as if it was clear as day.

With the bladed silver whip in her dominant hand, and a fistful of her dress in the other--she was still in danger of tripping over the hem of her dress if she wasn't careful--she half ran to the nearest scarecrow staked to the ground, lashing her whip at the air in its general direction.

The scarecrow, cleanly sliced, fell off to the grassy ground with a dull thud.

Not wanting to let go of the momentum of her swing, Rosa pivoted on her heel and flicked her wrist to send the whip flying across the air. She was still raising the hem of the dress in one hand, making her look as if she was performing a ribbon dance.

Then, with a small jump, she pivoted on her hips and made yet another slice across the air with her whip, landing on tiptoe.

When she was done not only was the one scarecrow sent to the ground; most other targets within her radius were also cut down.

"Damn, Rosa," Luke exclaimed clearly surprised at the casual show of destruction. "What did you just do? If you were surrounded by enemies you would have sliced them all cleanly before they could even think of charging at you with swords."

Artem only wordlessly surveyed the wake of Rosa's dance.

"I don't know, really. I just felt light on my feet. But you're right...I wouldn't have pulled this off before..."

"It is only but of the gifts of your turning into a vampire, of course," said a mellifluous voice behind them.

"Vilhelm," said Rosa. "I was wondering when you would come out to join us. I've felt you watching us for a while now."

Vilhelm joined them in the middle of the clearing, passively examining the results of Rosa's testing of her whip. "Apologies. I did not want to intrude on your reunion with your friends."

In his hands was the holy Moonlight greatsword, whose glow rivalled the moon hanging high in the sky. "In any case, this needs to be discharged, lest it cause a possible accident in the armory.

"Give me a wide berth, will you?"

Instinctively Luke and Artem walked back a few paces, sensing how dangerous the weapon could be. Rosa however had to be pulled by the hand by Luke, clearly unaware of what to expect when the sword was to be discharged.

With one hand Vilhelm effortlessly brought the greatsword over his head, and with one swift motion he hit the ground directly below him--causing an explosion of brilliant, dazzling white light and smashed earth.

The flash of light brightly irradiated the entire clearing, so brightly as if it was daytime.

Then the light vanished as quickly as it started.

A huge crater marked ground zero of Vilhelm's strike.

"Ah. That could have been me if that thing hit me during battle," Rosa said in an impassive tone.

"Not necessarily," Vilhelm replied blithely. "I did not activate the Moonlight during our...sparring. Most it could do to your previous human form is to lop off a limb. Or permanently maim you. Or death."

"Thank you for the...demonstrative description of my possible fate back then."

"You actually suffered worse."

"Mhm. I believe so too."

"I am very sorry to hear about that."

Luke and Artem could only look on as the two vampires exchanged banter, knowing that their presences were all but forgotten at the moment.

"Ah." Vilhelm's gaze was drawn to Rosa's bare feet, soiled by bits of grass and soil, on full display as she was holding up the hem of her dress with her hand all these time. "I let your feet get sullied. I...I really am sorry about that."

"Huh?" was all Rosa could say as Vilhelm picked her up and carried her in his arms. "Wait, this is unnecessary..."

"No, this will not do," Vilhelm's tone of voice clearly did not allow any room for further argument. "I do not have any replacement shoes for you at the moment--tomorrow I shall have someone to procure a few posthaste. Let me send you back to the quarters."

"Vilhelm! No! The night is still early--I wanted to go look around at least!" Rosa tried to struggle out of Vilhelm's princess carry, to no avail.

"You wish to see the town?"

"Yes, I would very much like that. I've been cooped up in here for too long a time, Vilhelm."

He sighed. "Very well then. I shall show you around." He adjusted his hold on her so only his left arm held her close to his chest, freeing up his right arm. "Hold on tight to my shoulders."

Blushing, and not knowing what to expect, Rosa tentatively encircled her arms around Vilhelm's shoulders, stray wisps of his long silver hair brushing her cheek.

He then effortlessly scaled the stone walls of the Chateau de Haspran, using only minimal foot and handholds that his right hand and feet could grab onto.

They reached the rooftop in a matter of seconds. The rooftop was around seven storeys high, and much of the city lights were already visible from where they were standing.

"It's beautiful," whispered Rosa, still holding onto Vilhelm, holding onto him so close that her cheek was already touching his. Her vampire sight showed the surroundings in clearly defined detail, and the far off lights that dotted the surrounding town were even more dazzling compared to how it would be in human eyesight.

"This is your new home," Vilhelm said quietly. "I am glad you find it to your liking."

Rosa blushed, thankful that the moonlight washed away most of the colors. "Well, it is not like I have any other choice in the matter."

"Haha. True." Vilhelm gave her a small smile. "You wish to see more of the town?"

"If it is alright? I would take you up on that offer, if it's not too much trouble."

"Not at all. Hold on tight. Feel free to cling to my neck if need be."

"Wh--whoa!" Rosa exclaimed, throwing her arms around his neck as he suggested.

With nary a warning Vilhelm took to a running start and, upon reaching the edge of the rooftop leapt off into the air, sending them half flying, half gliding to the nearby rooftop, Vilhelm's cape fluttering behind him.

If anybody were to look up at the precise moment when Vilhelm was hopping from rooftop to rooftop, they would think that they were seening someone flying through the air.

Eventually they reached the halfway point of the town's bell tower. Vilhelm, once again carrying Rosa in one arm, scaled its stone walls with ease until they reached the belfry looking over the entire Duchy of Stellis.

"You can let go of me now, you know," Rosa said, hiding her blush from the man still insisting on carrying her in his arms. "You don't have to carry me the entire way."

"I do not want to let your feet get any more dirty than they already are," was all Vilhelm said, in that same tone that did not brook any argument.

"I said, it's fine." Rosa peered into Vilhelm's face, and noticed that his eyebrows were furrowed, as if bothered with some other matter.

At that point Rosa believed that he was not actually bothered by the cleanliness of her feet, but of something else entirely instead.

"You are correct," Vilhelm said, once again skimming off her surface thoughts.

Ah. I think there is only one thing.

"Were you...jealous?" Rosa hazarded a guess.

He kept silent.

You are, aren't you, thought Rosa, fully knowing that Vilhelm was reading her thoughts. You don't have to be. They are my friends, and my brothers in arms. You know that.

She then conjured thoughts of few memories she had with Luke and Artem, starting from when they spent their early teenager years training in the Hunter's Guild, until the years when they assumed active roles as Hunters.

"I know they are your friends, and comrades," said Vilhelm in his soft voice, now tinged with another emotion. "But I could not help feeling jealousy. This is a new thing to me, mind."

He then beheld her face, mere inches away from his. "I have never experienced this kind of need to possess another, Rosa, and this sensation...bothers me."

Rosa gazed back at him, mesmerized by the gold that looked at her with such passion, slightly obscured by stray locks of his silver tresses. She reached out to his face and gently tucked the silver strands behind his ear.

"I cannot help but feel vulnerable too, Vilhelm," she whispered, before leaning in for a soft, chaste kiss.

With a small groan Vilhelm parted Rosa's lips with his tongue and he kissed her deeply, locking his lips with hers as his tongue hungrily explored her mouth. He tightened his hold on her, pulling her ever close to him.

Rosa subconsciously held onto him by the edges of his dark cape, returning the kiss with equal fervor.

"Look at me, at me only, Rosa," Vilhelm whispered, in a small voice that was almost pleading. "I do not know what you did, or what the blood magic to turn you did to me, but I could not bear the thought of losing you to another man."

Rosa let her fingers caress Vilhelm's cheek.

"You are the only man I look at in this way, Vilhelm," she said. "And, to be honest, this...intensity scares me to no end. I have only known you for less than two weeks, and yet."

So saying, she pulled his face to hers for yet another deep, heartfelt kiss, the moonlight the only witness to their vulnerability.

===

"Welp, look at them go," said Luke wryly as he and Artem watched the silhouette of Vilhelm carrying Rosa flit from rooftop to far off rooftop.

"Show offs." Artem muttered. "He didn't even ask me about my inputs on defence."

"Rosa didn't even tell me if she managed to find out what I did with her weapon," Luke said, glumly. "How can we even compete with a flashy vampire lord?" exclaimed Luke as he clasped his hands behind his head.

Then, "Do you remember when we used to beat the shit out of each other fighting over Rosa?"

"Those were the days, eh?" Artem clapped Luke's back.

"Wanna drink?"

"Yeah sounds like a good idea right about now."