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spell-cleaver · 2 years ago

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No. 16 NO WAY OUT Mind Control | Paralytic Drugs | “No one’s coming.”

Read it on AO3 or on FFN instead!

“I don’t wish to keep you in suspense, my boy,” the Emperor of the Known Galaxy told him warmly, sitting forwards. “Although I know you must have hoped otherwise, there is no one coming.”

Luke glanced around his… prison. It was larger than his homestead had been on Tatooine. The thick red carpet was soft against his feet—still sore from the mission that he’d been captured on—and the view of Coruscant, evident out of a vast, vast window just on his right, was stunning. Every morning he woke up and watched it slide from pink-gold into grey-silver, the galaxy slipping past him in speeders made of light.

“This is Coruscant,” Luke said, still slightly in awe of it all despite his situation. Palpatine smiled at that awe, he noticed, showing off yellowed teeth, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. “This is the heart of the Empire. I didn’t think anyone was coming anyway.”

“Good. As long as we are in agreement.” Palpatine reached over the table between them, neatly laid with impractically small cups of tea and saucers, to pat his wrist. “We can begin our negotiations.”

“Negotiations?” Luke kept an eye on him. He clenched his back teeth, but imagined Leia: cool, cutting, composed. It was her he imitated as he said bitingly, “What do you want?”

Palpatine’s hand returned to his wrist, this time curling around it. “You.”

Luke pulled his wrist away. “No.”

“I would like to form a relationship with you. We can serve each other’s mutual aims well, I believe.”

“No.”

“You destroyed the Death Star, young Skywalker. And more than that, you have the potential to be the last Jedi, a dying breed—”

“I am a Jedi.”

“—or a far more powerful Sith.”

“I said no.”

Palpatine smiled again. “So did Lord Vader, at first.”

Luke shot to his feet. “Don’t you dare compare me to him.” His heart hammered in his chest.

“Why not?” Palpatine feigned surprise. “You are both significant Force-wielders. Both incredibly powerful— I don’t mean to upset you, my boy,” he broke off when he noticed Luke’s heaving breaths. “What is it? Why do you hate Lord Vader so much?”

Luke glared. “The same reason I hate all of you.”

Palpatine just tutted. “I sense that isn’t entirely true. I assure you your hatred isn’t reciprocated, either; I do not hate you, and nor does Lord Vader. In fact, I have it on good authority that the moment he learned that I have Luke Skywalker in my custody, he turned away from his campaign against you Rebels in the Outer Rim and set a course straight for here. He is most anxious to meet you.”

Luke gritted his teeth, saying nothing, but it seemed he didn’t need to. Palpatine’s uncanny ability to read him was better than Ben’s had been. He’d thought his mentor was just wise and experienced with people. Had it been Luke betraying himself in the Force all along?

“You are afraid of him,” Palpatine surmised. “You hate him. Why?” Still, Luke said nothing. “Is this because of your father?”

“Because he killed him?” Luke snapped, unable to contain it any longer. “Why else?”

A ripple passed over Palpatine’s face. He sat back and seemed to suppress a smile, but his eyes were full of concern. “Of course,” he conceded. “It was foolish of me to speculate differently. Vader certainly destroyed Anakin Skywalker most thoroughly.”

Luke clenched his fists.

“Tell me about yourself, young Luke,” he continued conversationally. “It is a shame we have not met before.”

Interrogation training taught Luke to say nothing at all. He kept his silence.

“Ah, I sense your confusion. We should indeed have met earlier; I am not inventing that. I knew your father. He was…” Palpatine trailed off. “A very dear friend to me. I had hoped to make a dear friend out of his son.”

“You should have thought of that before tearing the galaxy to shreds.”

Palpatine smiled sadly. “Ah, I have missed the naivete of youth. The Clone Wars—I understand you don’t remember them—tore the galaxy to shreds. It has been a painstaking process to rebuild it.”

“I’d call it painful.”

“Many would, my boy.” He sat forwards. “But you still have not told me about yourself.”

“Commander Luke Skywalker. Affiliation Rebel Alliance.”

Palpatine looked at him, exasperated. “I already knew that. Tell me something else.”

Luke repeated, doggedly, the words that had been hammered into him: “Commander Luke Skywalker. Affiliation Rebel Alliance.”

“You have not been part of the Rebellion for long, have you? Hardly more than two years. Commander is an impressive rank to achieve in that time. But you are an impressive boy. Your father was much the same.”

Luke sucked in a breath to stop himself from asking. It didn’t matter.

Palpatine nodded affectionately. “I understand you have a Rebel protocol to abide by. That tells me a great deal about you as well, Luke. Your loyalty is unswerving and your discipline unquestionable”—Luke tried not to snort—“but you need not fear me punishing you for it. Your father…” He trailed off. “He was the most talented Jedi I ever met. Reckless and headstrong, yes, and full of valour. I see that in you. And your loyalty must come from him. Once you had earned it, unless you betrayed it, he would follow you to the grave. As indeed he did.”

“You had him murdered,” Luke bit out.

“On the contrary, Luke. The Jedi did.” Luke stiffened, and Palpatine took the chance to continue: “I knew him from a boy. He was only nine years old when the Jedi found him—far too old to begin his training. How old are you? Twenty… one? It must be. Almost. The anniversary of your mother’s death approaches.”

Luke’s eyes widened.

“Nonetheless, I knew Anakin as a boy… such a sweet child. So moral. Wherever he saw someone in need of help, he helped them. When he didn’t have the sufficient power to help them, he sought power until he could. He was certainly a great help to me for many years. I spoke to him often. The Jedi tried to restrict it, but I overrode them; I knew that Anakin benefitted greatly from having an outsider’s perspective on the Jedi. It meant that he was not brainwashed quite so thoroughly.” He hesitated. “When the Jedi betrayed the Republic and tried to destroy the Senate, he knew right from wrong. He knew to stand opposed to them. He defended me…” Palpatine’s eyes were misty. “And he died during that awful night.”

None of this rang false.

Luke felt sick. He… Ben had told him a completely different story.

“Search your feelings, Luke,” Palpatine urged him. “I understand this may conflict with what you have heard.”

Luke’s feelings didn’t need searching. It was like something had crept into his mind and banged a drum, sending reverberations all through his heart. What did this mean? What was happening to him?

The Force was very, very loud.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

“You do, though. I know it. But I shan’t push you too hard.” Palpatine patted his hand again. “You cannot fathom my excitement when I learned that his son had lived. Stolen by the Jedi, yes… but you lived.”

“My mother?” Luke asked stiffly. He had no way of corroborating if anything Palpatine said was true, but he wanted to hear something about her. Even if it was a myth.

“Indescribable,” Palpatine said wistfully, “but I shall do my best. Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo—my own homeworld. She was something of a protégée of mine after together we defended Naboo from the Trade Federation’s invasion. She was so young, yet so bold and headstrong. I see much of her in you, as well.”

That was a blatant, surface-level pull at Luke’s heartstrings. He hated that it worked. He knew nothing about her.

Instead of answering, he bowed his head.

“There is much you have not been told,” Palpatine urged. “Perhaps you should fear Lord Vader, for what he did to your father—”

“You said the Jedi killed my father, Your Majesty.” The title slipped out before he could think to stop it. His lips moved against his will.

Palpatine smiled at his flash of panic. “Do you think Lord Vader did not used to be a Jedi?” Luke couldn’t answer that. His head was spinning. The Force clamoured truth, deception, truth, truth, truth—and something else. Something seeping into him, taking root. “As I said. There is much you have not been told. Perhaps you should fear Lord Vader. But you do not need to—you can achieve a greater power than him, if you wish it. I know that Obi-Wan Kenobi did not tell you the whole truth. Will you allow me to?”

Luke took a shaking breath. Something was happening in his mind. His shielding wasn’t the best, he knew that—Coruscant had bowled him over when he first arrived—but this… He couldn’t…

“Yes,” he said, leaning into that feeling, “Your Majesty.”

“Then tell me about yourself, young Luke,” Palpatine said, sitting back in his chair. His face was utterly smug. That was when Luke started to suspect what was happening.

Absurd. Unlikely. But the final, “Yes, Your Majesty,” that slipped out of his mouth was far too suspicious for his thought not to be the truth.

“I was born nearly twenty-one years ago,” he began. “I grew up on Tatooine to my aunt and uncle. Beru and Owen Lars.” He squeezed his eyes shut. A pressure built in his skull. “I…”

“Go on,” Palpatine urged.

“I mostly worked on the farm, but I liked piloting… I”—he blinked—“flew Beggar’s Canyon better than anyone else.”

“That would explain your superb skill over the Death Star.”

“Used to bulls-eye womprats… my T-16 was very similar… easy task to do with that.” He shook his head. “What was I saying?”

“Your hobbies.”

“Oh, Hobbie’s a member of my squadron. I’m Commander Luke Skywalker. Affiliation: Rebel Alliance.”

“Yes, we covered that.”

“Biggest bounty in the galaxy, Leia said…”

“You are close friends with Princess Leia?”

“She’s my best friend.”

Palpatine smiled. “How unfortunate for her.”

That got Luke’s attention. “What? Why?”

“Kneel,” Palpatine said softly.

The force inside Luke, flexing itself through his nerves, his bones, his muscles, picked him out of his chair. He knelt at Palpatine’s feet like a puppet on taut strings, adoration that wasn’t his swelling in his chest, and kissed the hem of his robe.

He could feel Palpatine’s smile. He could feel it because he was smiling as well, his muscles taut and unpractised in this sinister sort of smirk but straining to obey the joy he was being ordered to feel.

Palpatine’s hand reached out to stroke Luke’s hair. “You are going to train with me,” he said, still in that soft, coaxing voice. The presence inside Luke—his presence—was coaxing as well, shaping his mind into what his new master wanted him to be. “Your potential is enormous. It would be my honour to train another Skywalker, and you will make an excellent Sith.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The title was familiar on Luke’s lips, now, which was the most frightening thing of all. He tried to remember why that would frighten him, but his head was full of fog.

He just had to follow his master. His master would light the way.

“And once you are ready, you will escape back to the Rebellion. You will be my eyes and ears there. With what I have to teach you, you will destroy them from the inside out. And you will deliver your princess friend to me for justice.” He lowered his hand from Luke’s hair and bid him to look up by cupping his chin in his cold hand, tilting it up. His yellow gaze caught Luke’s; Luke was stuck, fast, like in the web of a great spider. He couldn’t pull away from his master if he tried. “Will that not be a wonderful victory?”

No! No? The thought was sharp, but unconnected to reason, so— “Of course, Your Majesty.”

A door banged open.

Luke jolted upright. The fogginess in his brain fuzzed out, seeping into his skull, his spine, his brainstem, rapidly clearing his thoughts. His body turned towards the door jerkily, already unaccustomed to moving without Master’s permission.

Vader stood in the doorway, staring at them both.

Welcome, Lord Vader. Have you met young Skywalker yet? We are having the most engaging conversation.

“Welcome, Lord Vader,” Palpatine said, sounding genuinely delighted. “Have you met young Skywalker yet? We are having the most engaging conversation.”

What was this?

Luke’s mouth grew dry.

Vader faltered. “I have not had the full honour,” he admitted, looking Luke up and down. Luke narrowed his eyes at him; though it was his instinct, it wasn’t his brain signals that twitched his muscles.

You must stay and speak with us then. I’ll have an attendant pull up another chair for you.

“You must stay and speak with us then. I’ll have an attendant pull up another chair for you.”

“That will not be necessary,” Vader said, not taking his eyes off Luke.

Are you going to move, Lord Vader, or are you going to stare at your spawn until he dies from old age?

Slowly, listening to his master’s voice echo through his bones, he understood.

Palpatine said, “Are you going to move, Lord Vader?” When Vader didn’t, he tutted light-heartedly, rolled his eyes, and turned back to Luke. “Do continue, young Luke. Tell me more about yourself. I’m enjoying connecting more strongly with you.”

Vader stiffened.

Luke said, smiling of his own accord that unfamiliar, vicious smirk, “As am I.” Then: “Tell me about yourself, first.”

Palpatine froze, anger flitting across his face. But he didn’t have the chance to formulate a perfect, non-threatening answer. Luke did it for him. He felt for the wrinkled skin and weakened muscles of Palpatine’s lips, his sodden tongue, and shaped the words.

“I lie,” he said.

Vader snapped his head towards his master.

Palpatine continued, “I am evil. I destroyed the galaxy. I lie.”

He was fighting him. Luke could feel it, distantly, like a fly buzzing behind a closed blind. But Luke had encountered many, many flies—especially on Yavin IV—and they were never smart enough to find an open window on their own.

Palpatine stood. Luke stayed seated, keeping his gaze on him.

“Apologies, Lord Vader,” he said. “I should not have intruded. I’m sure you have a great deal to explain to your son, if it is true you haven’t met him in person yet.”

Vader turned back to Luke. “We do indeed have much to discuss,” he said.

“It certainly seems so,” Luke replied. “Your Majesty?” He said the words with a tinge of mockery. “I look forward to forming a relationship with you, too. I’m sure it will serve our mutual aims just as much as you said it would.”

Palpatine got the strength to scowl at him for a moment, but Luke smiled and Palpatine’s muscles smiled warmly, affectionately, with him. When he tried to channel energy through his fingers, he failed to lift them without Luke’s permission. The lightning balled in his fist. His hands charred. The stench of burnt skin and flesh filled the room.

Luke turned away from him, towards his apparent father. Vader turned eagerly to meet him. Palpatine stood in the corner, unused to being one-upped, unused to being ignored, and unused to being the fly, instead of the toothed, grinning spider.

#whumptober 2022 #whumptober #no.16 #my writing #random words on a page #luke skywalker #sheev palpatine #darth vader #for darkness shows the stars

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thekingreturn · 4 years ago

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League Roadtrip Headcanons

Characters: Shigaraki, Spinner, Twice, Mr Compress, Big Sis Magne, Dabi

Tomura Shigaraki

Tomura Shigaraki makes your departure late waiting until he’s sure his devices are properly charged. Nevermind if you’ve got a remote charger, or that its only going to be a few hours, he’s not risking being screenless and stuck looking at the scenery (heaven forbid). You’ve (affectionately, probably) described his car ride habits as nesting. He swaddles his lower half in blankets, reclines the seat as far back as he can get away with, shoves a pillow behind his head, and settles in for a few hours with his headphones and whatever game he’s reserved for this thing. Just set whatever snacks you get him on his chest and he’ll graze on them at his leisure.

In general he prefers to be pretty quiet, long car rides actually aren’t great for him mentally. He doesn’t like the idea of being forced to be in close proximity to a person with no feasible exit. Not that he resents spending time with you, just that he gets grouchy and withdrawn on principle if he thinks he has no choice. Every two hours or so, though, he’ll turn off the game, straighten his seat (likely sending a shitload of crumbs into your car carpet) and just sort of. Butt his head against your shoulder until you start talking to him or at least pet his head. He’ll let himself enjoy it for a few minutes before relapsing back into his pseudo den

He can’t drive and thus you will be running this show for the entirety of it. Afterwards, though, you notice him..hovering, more than usual, just sort of urging you to lie down and bringing you food with the same sort of furtive expectance as a cat bringing you dead mice. You think this is his way of thanking you, but don’t confront him on it. Each time is a little easier with him.

Spinner

Shuichi Iguchi (Spinner) may be one of the few members of the League who knows what he’s doing behind the wheel, but between you and him he actually doesn’t like doing it very much. He gets jumpy on the road and is prone to getting snappish with the other drivers. Still, he wants to do his part to pitch in, so tends to take the beginning and end of the drive. He also casually takes over snack detail and is the one to get out of the car and fill it with gas, as well as unload and reload the car. And navigation to boot. He’s a giver. Don’t tell anyone.

The level of conversational adeptness really depends on how long you’ve been seeing each other. Early stages comes up abruptly against his inability to small talk, you swear at some point he furtively checks his phone for icebreakers he found on the internet. Later stages bring ease with them, though, and with them Spinner’s favorite Olympic sport, complaining. The man pretends to hate gossip but if you hit the right buttons he’s more than happy to give you heavily editorialized anecdotes about the League and his various observations therein. Join in with some of your own, he’s a surprisingly good audience. The conversations will turn political at some point (and if you’re dating him, chances are good that’s somewhere you’re happy to follow) but if needed he can be convinced to leave work at work.

Spinner rarely initiates, even later on, but he’s kind of a sucker for tropey couple shit. Hold his hand while driving and he’ll get real quiet, even if it’s just for a second or two. Wrap your arms around him in the gas station while he pays, remind him that you’re proud to be seen with him. Kiss his cheek for getting your bags, make him feel valued. He’ll be following you around like a lovesick puppy.

Twice

Jin Bubaigawara (Twice) prefers to be the one driving, even going over his limits while insisting he’s fine. He can be convinced to take a break once you start to notice he’s barely holding his eyes open, but it will in fact, take some convincing not to get him to just slam back a questionable amount of five hour energies. He finds it relaxing, one of the few times he can just sort of sink into a process. Keep an eye on his turns, occasionally he’ll take a couple he didn’t mean to, but its a good way to feel a little more in control of himself and the situation.

He’s a good guy to have around a car, capable of changing a tire or getting the engine back up and running before you finish looking up tow services. He won’t necessarily ask for a reward but depending on how late in the relationship you are he’s definitely going to be giving you hopeful glances until he gets the affection he craves so badly.

The man basically invented rubbing your partner’s thigh while driving, he likes keeping a hand on you whenever he can, likes feeling you next to him. It’s such a simple thing but something about having you in his car really does make him feel trusted. He doesn’t really get a whole lot of areas where he feels competent. When you fall asleep a little before arriving home, and he gets to carry you inside, feeling how completely you let yourself depend on him? There’s nothing else quite like it.

Mr. Compress

Atsuhiro Sako (Mr. Compress) is...an ok driver. He thinks he’s better than he is, you can tell from the way he handles the wheel, the little flick of his hand as he hits his turn signal and the way he’ll narrate whatever he’s doing. And in practice, he is pretty good! Until other drivers with less of a showmanship factor hit the road. Which is always. All it takes is one guy pulling ahead of him too fast and he gets flustered enough to throw him off his game.

The two of you switch off driving at pretty even intervals. Even with navigation apps (which he does use, he’s not a Luddite) he still prefers to have a paper map on hand to cross reference it. He can be a little annoying with it but he more than makes up for it with the way he’ll touch your shoulder to indicate an offramp. “Why don’t we turn here, angel, its scenic.”

He’s much more about the journey than the destination, happy to divert the trip into an exploration of local curiosities if the two of you have time. He likes the anonymity of these small drive through towns where the two of you could be anyone, anything to the locals. He’ll squeeze your hand and murmur legends or history pieces if he knows any about the place (he makes about half of them up, but they’re nice stories anyways).

These things always take longer than it should, but he makes it all feel like but a moment.

Big Sis Mag

Mag Hikishi (Magne) is another one who prefers to drive than be driven, and to be frank, you may as well let her. If stuck in the passenger seat she has a bad case of invisible brake and tends to grip the ceiling a little too pointedly. She has absolute faith in your abilities, and also if she’s going to be in a car crash she at least wants it to be her own fault. Its alright, darling, just sit in the passenger seat and look pretty for her, won’t you?

Master of the shortcut that takes you an hour off course, its best if you leave without an expected arrival time. She likes starting trips bright and early, likes seeing the roads clear of other cars and getting to enjoy those quiet morning hours with you. Not that things are often quiet with Mag. She has this ability to get you talking about almost anything for hours, with plenty of her own contributions to boot. She’s lived a storied life, and she wants to hear your own.

Mag has strong opinions on gas station snacks (Takis, string cheese if they have any, and water being a go to) and will absolutely hover a little to make sure you’re well hydrated for long hours in the hot car. She has an eclectic collection of CDs if you don’t feel like talking, and if you need silence, well...that’s harder, but she’ll do it for you, only occasionally breaking it with a peck on the cheek. She enjoys these moments with just the two of you, able to just bounce off of each other and get absolutely mushy without her beloved coworkers around to tease. For a moment, at least, things all feel like they might be ok.

Dabi

Dabi, like Shigaraki, never got his license and isn’t really interested in trying for it. He doesn’t really like any form of transportation and tends to walk most places when he gets the option, given he has a tendency to get motion sick and it’s really hard to keep up your persona of unflappable bad boy while turning a few shades of green. Still, sometimes its unavoidable, so he flings himself in the backseat, props open a window, and prays he’ll knock out soon.

Dabi’s not the easiest partner in the world to communicate with under the best of circumstances, but now especially when every jolt makes him regret being born (moreso than usual) and the only thing coming out of his mouth when he opens it is complaints about how that brat of a leader is doing this to him on purpose, has to be. This is one of the rare instances where fussing over him actually gets some desirable results. Tuck a blanket around him, get him set up with some water, and check in on him every time you stop. Eventually a hand shoots out from between the front seats and grabs at the air until you take the hint and lock your fingers through his. Its not much, but from Dabi? Its everything.

Ultimately he does his best to sleep through these incidents and has you under a firm promise to never describe them to the others, ever. He’ll incentivize it if he has to. You know he’s good for it.

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goldencherryhazz · 4 years ago

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And the Grammy Goes to....

I AM SOO PROUD OF HIM, I HONESTLY HAVE NO WORDS 🥲🥲🥲

(not proofread, notes would be much appreciated,pls don’t copy my work, hope you enjoy!!! 🤍)

Grammy!Harry x famous!gf reader

Warnings: smut, fluff, swearing.

WC: 3k

You and Harry were currently backstage at the Grammys, one of the biggest nights in the music industry, you honestly couldn’t believe you were here alongside him, even though you had walked many red carpets before by yourself and with Harry, being a well know singer yourself, having written 2 successful albums, but being alongside your 3 time grammy nominated boyfriend felt surreal. And to top things off you were about to watch open the show.

‘You okay baby’ he asked through the slightly ajar bathroom door where he was currently getting changed into his second outfit of the night after walking the red carpet, he wanted to surprise you with this one. ‘Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that, you’re the one who’s performing, virtually, in front of thousands and thousands of people’ you said from your perch on the couch. You were wearing a very pretty and expensive dress which you planned on not getting dirty or creased.

‘A little I guess, but I think I’ll be fine once I get out there I think’ he replies a bit breathless shuffling around probably trying to get whatever he was wearing on.

‘I’m dressed now, need you to close your eyes love’

‘Okay, they’re closed’ you replied, thinking about how little time it took him to get changed, getting more excited every second, and she had every right to be. When he comes through and stands right in front of you and tells you to open your eyes you’re met with Harry clad in a black leather suit jacket which no shirt underneath, with matching trousers. His toned abs graced with his butterfly and chest on full display, a green boa wrapped loosely round his neck.

Her eyes were wide, her mouth hung open in complete admiration ‘how do I look baby?’ he asks twirling round for her, she stood up placing her hands on his bear chest once he was stationary, then quickly moving her hands to his jaw pulling him in for a teeth clashing kiss, their tongues exploring each other’s mouths, he pulls back surprised by her sudden actions ‘I’m guessing you like it then’

‘You look fucking amazing H’ you could feel your panties getting damp, ‘I think I like it a little to much’ your lips grazing his. He hummed sensing where this was going, but not stopping at all, quickly ooking at the clock on the wall behind him ‘well we’ve get 20 minutes until I’ve got to be on stage, gives us plenty of time’

‘Are you suggesting we fuck in this dressing room right now, what if we get caught?’ You said still starting to grind your hips against his hardening bulge anyway.

‘If I remember correctly, that’s why locks on doors were invented lovie’ he says taking a few small steps towards the door of the dressing room and flicking the lock shut, then coming back to you ‘so what do you say angel, gotta be quick though’ you didn’t say anything, practically pouncing on him, gripping the green boa gently unwrapping it from his neck, before throwing it, not caring where it landed, kissing him again hoping he got the message, which he did loud and clear ‘let’s get this dress off you first’ he says, you quickly agreed as he reached behind you to unzip it, the dress falling off your shoulders to reveal you breasts, having opted to not wear a bra tonight, you stepped out of the garment before draping it over the back of the couch.

Once you had done, Harry gripped your hips, bringing you closer to him, bringing his head down to your chest wrapping his lips around your gardening nipple, you moaned out at the feeling, he does the same to the other before kissing and sucking hickeys onto you collarbones and neck, which you knew you would have to cover up later.

‘Jump’ he said between breathless kisses, which you instantly complied, wrapping your legs around his waist, gripping onto his shoulders, his hands gripping your ass, he manoeuvred around the dressing room until he got to the counter where various products laid, he swiped them off not caring if they broke, already making a promise to himself to replace them if they did. He placed you down, your ass making contact with the cold surface. He shimmies your panties down your legs, the sight of your pussy making him impossibly harder, he pressed a quick kiss to you clit, before going to undo his trousers, and shimmying them down his legs, his cock springing free as he had decided on no boxers, that there was no time for foreplay you both silently agreed. He then start tugging at the lapels of the leather jacket before you objected ‘can you keep it on’

He smirks ‘you want me to fuck your in this leather jacket baby’

‘Yes, fuck yes’ your eyes oogling the sight of his cock against his belly beading pre-cum ‘well your wish is my command’ he knew he probably shouldn’t, not wanting to get it sweaty or anything, but by the look on your face and the sight of you pussy pulsating around nothing, he knew this wouldn’t take long.

He gives no warning when he slams into you, making you scream out in pleasure, before he quickly kissed you to muffle your moans, not wanting to get caught, he sets a quick and hard pace, practically fucking you into the counter, his hands gripping you hips so hard it would probably leave bruises, you dig your heels into his ass wanting him as close as possible, feeling the smooth leather against you skin sending shivers up your spine.

‘Fuck you feel so good’ he groans burying his face into your neck, your hands tangling into his curls, quickly grabbing the opportunity to suck a hickey onto his neck, which you knew he would be annoyed at because he was going to be out on stage in 15 minutes, but you loved marking him up so everyone could see.

‘H I’m not going to l-last much longer’ throwing your head back, your arms behind you going weak from holding yourself, your fingers trying to dig into the counter, his thrusts hitting your special spot every time.

‘Me neither baby’ he felt like he was in cloud 9, the only sound in the room was moans snd skin hitting skin, feeling himself on the brink already, as your cunt was clenched around his length. He brings his hand down to your clit, his ringed fingers slightly shaky as he starts to rub deep circles on your clit to get you there.

‘Holy shit, I’m gonna cum’ you moaned ‘yeah, cum with me angel, cum around my cock’

Both moaning in unison you release around each other, his hot cum painting your walls, mixing with your juices, you swear you stopped breathing, your eyes continuously rolling to the back of your head as you ride out your high. Harry’s eyes were wired shut, his grip on your hips not faltering, mouth hung open. As your arms were about to give way Harry places his hand on your back, almost knowing that was going to happen. You look at him, pushing back some of the hair that had fallen into his face. ‘that was so fucking good, legs are shaking’ he slurs out, almost as if he was drunk on his high. ‘Yeah, fuck don’t know if I’ll be able to walk’ he slowly pulls out, his cum flowing out of you, he ducks his head down to clean you up, you legs spasming from the sensitivity.

He leans up to kiss you, tasting yourself and his cum.

‘Did so good for me baby, I’m gonna see if I can take this home’ he says pointing at the jacket.

‘And why’s that H’ you asks

‘Just think it’s going to come in handy one day’ says making you smile because you already knew the answer.

You quickly look at the clock ‘C’mon we gotta get ready, your on in 8 minutes’ getting up from the counter on shaky legs and walking to put your pants and dress back on, he chuckles at his girl desperate to see him out on stage again.

He gets dressed grabbing his boa that was discarded on the floor, pulling his shoes on, walking through to you, seeing you struggle with the zip of your dress, he goes over sliding it up, pressing a kiss to your back ‘have I told you how pretty you look today’ he asks as you touch up your hair and makeup. ‘Only about 10 times’ he gasps in fake shock ‘only 10, I need to keep up don’t I baby’ this makes you laugh. ‘You look pretty today too bub’ you say, but soon enough you cute little moment is interrupted by three knocks on the door and Jeff saying ‘Harry your on in 3 minutes, get your ass out here’ this makes you laugh because Jeff or anyone for that matter are oblivious to what you’ve just been doing.

///

Soon enough Harry is out on stage. Any nerves he had had dissipated. He was high in adrenaline from being buried in your cunt barely 10 minutes ago, shaking his ass and dancing around the stage, he gripped the boa throwing it to the floor, replicating you actions form the dressing room, you knew the world would be going crazy for him right now, singing the lyrics to watermelon sugar, you were in awe. To be honest you had gotten a little horny again from watching him but you knew that could be dealt with later. Most of all you were so proud, he was opening the Grammys for godsakes, how couldn’t you be, your pretty sure he would be able to see you smiling even through your mask.

He sings the last notes, thanking everyone before running off stage to you, ‘I’m so proud of you baby you say wrapping your arms around him in a tight hug. ‘thankyou angel’ he says, over the past few days you had showered him in love and affection, and he had to admit that he was loving the attention. Harry quickly gets changed again into the outfit he was wearing on the red carpet, your stylist has asked if you wanted multiple outfits, but you said no because you wanted tonight to be completely focused on Harry and to be fair you loved the dress you were wearing it was so comfortable, so you didn’t really want to change out of it anyway.

After that Harry joined you again in the side of the stage again, where you watched various people perform, most being really good friends, like Billie, Taylor, Dua, Maren Morris, Dababy and so many more. Soon enough you were sat round a table with Harry and Jeff, one of his categories getting closer and closer to being announced, it was weird you had to say, doing the Grammys during a pandemic, without a whole audience bringing a whole lot of energy to the entire thing. You guess you just couldn’t wait for everything to be safe and get back to normal, you wanted to go on tour and sing your heart out.

You could tell Harry was getting a little nervous he had a hand on your thigh and he squeezed it every so often, almost using it as a stress toy. ‘Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine bub’ you whispered in his ear, he smiled at you comforting words, his head now resting on you shoulder and he held you hand under the table, as you both watched the show and clapped and congratulated people on their wins.

Soon enough the nominees for the category ‘best pop solo performance’ were being announced, Harry head instantly snapped up from your shoulder, Jeff grabbing hold of his shoulder, you let out a little squeal when his name popped up in the screen. Getting more and more excited.

The presenter starts to open the envelope, you were literally on the edge of your seat, Harry’s leg bouncing up and down.

‘And the Grammy goes to...Harry Styles’

You slapped your hand over you mouth, ‘you did it baby’ you practically screamed. He was pulled in for a hug by Jeff, taking off his mask in the process. The look on his face held shock and greatfulness. He pulls away from Jeff, pulling you straight into his arms, you swear you’ve never squeezed him tighter ‘I’m so fucking proud of you baby’ you say, tears in your eyes. He didn’t respond he was lost for words, which you understood, he pulled your mask down so he could catch you lips in a quick kiss, before pulling it back over your nose again. ‘Go on, get up there, go get your Grammy’ which he does.

He walks up to the stage, and you don’t know why but you stand up, your hands are over your chest as he thanks Jeff, Mitch and everyone who he made watermelon sugar with. You see him rubbing his eyes trying not to get emotional. He thanked his label and his fans especially, by now your tears are falling down your face you just had so much love for this man, you were over the moon for him.

‘And finally I would like to thank my wonderful girlfriend y/n who you all know very well. You have been there for me through everything, you have been my support, my muse, you’ve believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. I honestly would be the person I am today without you, i love you baby’

You knew everyone was staring at you, but you didn’t care at this moment in time, it felt like it was only you and Harry in the room.

He finally finishes his speech, grabbing his well deserved award, coming off the stage where he was bombarded with congratulations and praise from people left right and centre. He was whisked away to do interviews and conferences with you alongside him, you just looked at him awestruck when he was answering various questions, you being asked some yourself.

He had become very clingy after his win not wanting you out of his sight, touching you in anyway possible, holding your hand, having his arm wrapped round you, he even at one point wrapped his boa around your neck, with it being long enough for the two of you to wear, but didn’t end well for obvious reasons, but it did nearly have you on the floor laughing.

‘I’m so proud of you H’ you said for about the billionth time in the past half hour. ‘Thankyou angel, and I really do mean that when I say it’

‘I know you do H’ you say sweetly

‘And I mean it when I say I wouldn’t be the person I am today without you’

You could cry at that, but instead you wrap him in another tight hug, burying your head into the crook of his neck leaving a kiss there.

///

A little while later it was the afterparty, a very small one fire to the pandemic, but still and afterparty. Harry’s other category that he’d been nominated for had been announced, but he didn’t win, the Grammy going to Dua, which you were very happy about. At this point in time you didn’t care how many Grammys or awards he won, and Harry didn’t either the biggest award for him was having such supportive fans, he felt incredibly lucky to have the job he had and the people he had around him, being able to create music and tour the world. He also felt very lucky to have you by his side, he knows it’s cheesy but it was true.

So there you were catching up with old friends congratulating people on their wins, having a few drinks, you had the best time, you swear the smile never left Harrys lips, it was honestly the best being able to have normal conversations and just have lots of fun with some of your friends and some of your idols.

Soon enough it was home time, which was also very unusual because if there wasn’t a pandemic right now, there was no such thing as an allocated home time after the Grammys. You and Harry bid your goodbyes to Jeff who was going in a different car to go home. You and Harry piled into the backseat of your designated car, Harry telling the driver the address to you two’s house, he was kind of exhausted but felt like he was on top of Mount Everest, he was just so unbelievably happy, he pulled out his phone seeing messages from all kinds of people congratulating him, deciding he’ll respond to them later.

He once again pulls you into him, resting his head on your chest, your fingers card through his hair, before landing on his cheek rubbing up and down it.

‘Hey baby you won a Grammy’ you whisper to him, he looks up at you, your eyes getting lost in his.

‘I know, still doesn’t feel real, he pouts his lips silently asking for a kiss, in which you happily give him, pressing your lips to his before attacking his face, pressing tiny kissing all over it, making him laugh, which then made you laugh.

Ya know, I don’t know what I like hearing more, you moaning ‘I’m gonna cum’ or ‘and the Grammy goes to Harry styles’ he teases

‘Heyyyy’ she said in fake offence

‘I’m only joking’ he snickers ‘it will always be you baby’

‘I love you bub’ you hummed happily

‘I love you too angel’

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semischarmed · 4 years ago

Text

Chrysalis

People say that college is where you “find yourself” and I can’t help but agree. It’s just, well, how I truly found myself was through my roommate Kyle. Or rather, inside him.

How to describe Kyle? He’s basically the perfect roommate. He’s kind, quiet, studious, relatively clean. He goes to soccer practice for some kind of campus league every weekend. Kyle is also rushing one of the frats on campus- Sig something or the other, so I get quite a few long nights to myself. Long, hot nights where I can’t help but scramble over to his side and pleasure myself in a pile of dirty Kyle-scented undergarments. The biggest treats were the nights when he had to do his frat stuff after a match. The nights when I could slip on his unwashed sweaty gear and just lie in the bliss of being surrounded in him. Every few days, we go out to grab a bite to eat and shoot the shit- the guy’s been a great friend to me, despite his typical serious demeanor. Since he was rushing this semester, he’s been busier and busier but he still makes time for me, even inviting me to some of his soccer team or frat bro hangouts. What can I say? I lucked out with Kyle. Still, I’m a greedy son of a bitch, and I wanted more of him.

I decided fairly early on that I would possess him, make him wholly mine. I can’t even quite explain why Kyle specifically. He’s cute-sure, tone-definitely, but he isn’t super buff, he isn’t red-carpet-movie star hot, so it’s really hard to place why, out of anyone I could take in this entire school, I decided he would be my target. My forever home. Something about him was just enticing. Maybe it was the way his coffee brown eyes relayed a sense of mystery and serious matters, but lit up with the faintest twinkle of amusement when he recapped his games. Or maybe the way his body only gave me the briefest of glimpses at his musculature when he switched shirts. Maybe it was his kindness, unexpectedly bright for a frat-boy-soccer-star-roomate. Or maybe the way his scent lingered in the room after a workout. God, that scent. Pleasant, warm, humid, musky- like summer rain. Doesn’t matter. I wanted him. I wanted to spend my every moment with him. In him. I wanted to be wrapped up in Kyle’s flesh till the end of time, to wake up with Kyle’s eyes, to take every breath with his lungs, feel every beat of his heart pump as mine.

This possession was going to be special. I prepped for weeks- months even. Truthfully, it’s not all that difficult to possess someone for sometime and when you’re as good at it as I am, you can even maintain it indefinitely by putting the smallest pieces of yourself in them. Kyle would be different. Full, integrative possession- a one-way ticket. I wanted this shit to be permanent. I was going to stuff my entire physical form inside his. To take someone at their core, to violate every law of nature both physical and metaphysical- this, this needed setup, needed planning, needed Kyle to be present during the entire process. Therein lies the issue- how to get a lucid Kyle to sit still long enough for me to complete the slow process of integrating to him.

I came to the conclusion that a catalyst of sorts was necessary. Something that could lock us in together physically, could stop him from leaving or stopping process, could break open after let the new and improved me emerge. Guess who drafted plans for a one such catalyst? Guess who switched majors to Material Science, who befriended a professor just to figure out a good semi-permeable material to use? No one can say I didn’t love him- at least in my own special way. After weeks of trial, weeks of iteration, I decided on a tight-fitting, sleeping-bag-esque contraption. The material and shape were special- virtually impossible for a human being to break out of, kept fluids in but let some air flow through for ventilation, shaped such that we could only fit directly stacked on top of each other, leaving him unable to escape the process. I also set the release mechanism in the back, so only a completed Kyle could escape. Like any good invention, I gave it a name befitting its purpose: Chrysalis.

I settled on a day where he would be weakest- cardio day, a day where I could easily slip some compound into his post workout mix. I finished preparations with the chrysalis, secretly hidden in his bed.

“Hey dude, sup?” He asks nonchalantly with a slight head nod, as he enters our room, visibly tired from the workout. “Nothing, man” I reciprocate in amusement. I watch in secret anticipation as he downs his special post-workout mixture, scratches his cock through his boxers- unconcerned, comfortable, and gives off a loud yawn. “Hey man, I-I-don’t....feel..” I rush to help him, corralling the grimy, tired, post-workout Kyle into place. He asleep almost immediately. I strip us both naked, marveling at my new vessel. Damn. A light pelting of hair covers the deceptively muscular soccer star. A blanket of sweat surrounds him while a bit of the spiked post workout drink pools at the corners of his plump lips. Deliciously plump lips beckoning for a taste. I aim to lick it off and give him a kiss before I immediately realize what the repercussions would be. Shit. Close call. I stroke his hair, leaning in to tell him how much I wanted this. I take a quick sniff at his pits, at his groin and god they smell fantastic. I roll him to his side, as I take my naked form beside him and pull the Chrysalis around ourselves. I roll to have my back face the bed and the bottom of my cocoon, pulling Kyle on top of me and engaging the the contraption to wrap around us. I find the button to tighten it, effectively locking the position of our stacked bodies in place. I find the final button to lock the Chrysalis into its release valve. No going back.

When I seal us together in my little love cocoon, I begin to feel the gravity of his form above mine, slick with perspiration. My future body was dense, probably from years of building muscle, perfectly tempered, toned, streamlined by every game, every win. Inside our encasement, I rocked back and forth, getting into as comfortable of a position as I could and rubbing our sweaty bods together. I lock my legs around his, intertwine our fingers together and wait patiently for Kyle to come to.

The scent was indescribable, orgasmic even. I’ve never felt closer to him. I am in tune with his slightest movements as he lay on top. With every breath, every inhale our bodies rise and fall in sync. With every steamy inhale I draw in his breath. like we were breathing in each other. No one else deserved to experience Kyle this way, not even his girlfriend Steph. Kyle was mine and mine alone. With mine still intertwined with his, I drag Kyle’s limp hands around his belly, his light abs, give him a feel for himself.

An intrusive wave of uncertainty hits me. Oh god what am I doing? Am I really doing this? This, this is unnatural. I release my hands from his grasp and reach them around him, lightly dancing them across my future body and feeling the new vessel so close, feeling his damp, gently sculpted abs for myself, squeezing his supple ass. Stupid natural order shit. I tug on his hefty, limp dick, which begins to harden involuntarily at my provacation. This is mine. Fuck the natural order, not giving you up baby.

He wakes, disoriented in the Chrysalis. “Uh...I...What the fuck...” Panic sets in, as he feels my immobile flesh behind him and he tries to get his bearings to no avail. He keeps moving back and forth, trying to dislodge himself from the Chrysalis, from me, but it’s far too tight and too strong. I made sure of that. “Oh god, oh god...” he trails as he tries to rationalize the past events. I decide at that point to reveal my identity, faking the sounds of myself waking up before sleepily asking him “Kyle? Uh... w-what are you doing here? What are we doing? W-Where is this? Did you do this? Kyle? Kyle!” I’m a shitty actor but he seems to have bought it. I relish the moment when he sighs in relief at the realization that the naked form on his back was mine. I guess he trusts me. Cute, but you shouldn’t trust me, Kyle.

“Oh thank god, dude I don’t know, I just woke up. I- uh- sorry, I’m gonna try to get us out of this thing,” He states as he wiggles to try to release us from my cocoon. And fuck did that feel good.

“Mmmmm Kyle” I trail, as my dick starts to harden and poke at his ass. The wiggling does not helping him, as every movement gets me harder and pushes my dick further in him.

“Oh! EW! Fuck! What the fuck man!” He shouts, before he realizes all this was turning me on. “Fuck dude stop!” he exclaims.

“Why would I stop this, baby, we’re just getting started.” I give his back shoulder a quick lick. “I’m gonna make you feel like a new man”.

“Y-You! YOU! You did this! the Fuck! Get me out of here!!” He spat, only for it to rain back on to us through gravity.

He squirms, trying to escape once more only to be met with the Chrysalis’ tight hold on our forms and my engorged cock. “Only one person can come out of this thing” I moan, as I start gyrating myself into him. “Get the fuck off me, Fag!” He screams in vain as parts of me already start connecting into him. The parts of his body connected to mine light up, like sparks dancing across mine. Euphoria. “There’s that soccer rage” I state seductively as I wrap my arms around his torso and abs and push us impossibly closer. “Suits you... suits...me”.

By this point, My body was halfway submerged into his and he finally starts to feel my nerves, my cells as his. With our shared senses, he feels my arms pushing us together as if his own self was doing the deed. “AHHHH OH MY GOD. Oh! nonononono” He exclaims in terror. He is reduced to incoherent babbling as he smells the suffocating concoction of his post-workout filth. The air is thick and brimming with pheromones. He is reduced to disgust, when he tastes the droplets in the air of our putrid selves locked inside my Chrysalis. Of course, in our connected state, I taste them too, only I love this taste. His taste. Our taste. I can only moan as I continue merging into him and my limbs and his are one. I feel my new biceps as I trace them around the new me. Tone. Nimble. Champion. And I feel my new, experience-tempered legs. Vascular. Virile. Powerful. I’m a goddamn athlete.

Animalistic, guttural sounds escape his mouth as the last of my torso and neck coalesce into his, and all that remains is my head, firmly planted to the back of his. I take a deep whiff of his now-drenched hair with our new, shared, workhorse lungs. “We’re so close, baby.”

Inserting myself into his mind was equally orgasmic. He screams at contact. The first plunge of my forehead tp the back of his was some useless frat shit. Whatever. I dig my head deeper into him and felt his years of soccer practice leak into me. More goodstuff. Then deeper still- and fond memories with friends, fond memories of school bleed into me. I plunge further and further in, taking in every piece of him I could, while he pants and winces at my insertion. His first kiss, grandfather’s funeral, deepest urges all MINE. Fuck. I pull back slightly, as I feel his him gently sob, before I push more myself deeper into his psyche. He screams at the injection of more of my memories and at the realization that this was a one way trip for both of us. “FUCK! FUCK! Stop Please! Too much! Too much!” I mentally sneer as I thrust even deeper into his mind, grabbing some more of him, and leaving more of myself. Childhood memories and feelings flood into my mind and I experience everything that has led to Kyle becoming Kyle. The feeling of winning my first game. The feeling I felt the first time I masturbated. More. Kyle’s deep love for Steph.

Damn, this guy was ready to pop the question and start a family with her-Not Anymore baby. You’re with me now, Kyle. I corrode this particular aspect of him with my own innermost desires. My perversions, the pure lust I felt in finally taking him. He laughs, moans at the lust he now had, before catching himself.

“Oh god what... doing... me!” he whimpers as his body convulses and drools. Our shared pupils dilate at the process as his body thrashes in futility. And yet, I press into him deeper still. Deeper and deeper inside until all but the very last of my old self is left. His deepest secrets, his dreams, self worth belong to me. He cries, mouth mumbling incoherently into a crescendo as I worm in that last bit my head into his and my own life become his. My old body’s childhood memories, My old thoughts, feelings, knowledge, secrets flood his. I give all of it to my new self, ingraining me in him, and cementing us together.

“AHHHH DAMN IT! Fuck Fuck! get-get the fuck out!” he screams as his hands start pulling on his hair, as his head shakes left and right trying to get the intrusion of my mind out of his. He recoils as I briefly take control. “No way dude, this [moan] oh god this is fucking great.” We continue panting, continue convulsing as his body is forced to accept me. “M-My name is Kyle, and I feel fucking good!” He shakes a bit more. “STOP-“ I cut in to force him to tell me “God I fucking love you inside me. Take me! Use me!” He begins gently sobbing, but I make him do it with a smile. “My name is Kyle and I’m a sick fuck who’s gonna cum inside and possess his closest friends”. I make us moan.

Eventually, the seizing stops, and Kyle finds a moment of clarity. With my memories in him, He finds the release built into the Chrysalis and we emerge out of our slick cocoon as one. Sweat and cum trickle out as we come out a new man. A changed man. He walks to mirror in horror, checking himself to look for any wounds in his form. Instead he finds pulsing of my flesh-or what used to be my flesh-at various parts of his body beneath his skin. Abberant. Inhuman.

“Oh god oh god oh god this-this-this, this can’t be happening”. My new heart quickens as Kyle continues to panic. He tries to slap himself awake, but with each slap my control tightens and I make him moan in approval. He feels impossibly full with something-someone pulsing deep inside his skin, integrating. A natural violation of the highest order. He whimpers as he takes nervous, shaking hands all around him, feeling the intrusiveness of the eroticism I feel in being in him. The pulsing in him stops. “Keep going, baby [moan] fill me up. Make me you,” I force him to tell me with a tone that oozed sex. A tone that was alien to his voice. “My name is Kyle and I love dick. I love dick because the man inside me, the man controlling my every action loves dick. And he’s never leaving me. I love that too, because he’s inside me, making me love that.”

“Kyle I’m giving you one last morsel choice before I take it all the way- I decide everything for us from now on” I state to my reflection in the mirror, giving it a slobbery kiss. “We got a cute ass...I’m sure we can snag a few more bodies to play with... I wanna get a little party going. You know, our teammates are pretty cute, aren’t they? Maybe we can stick some me inside them”. I make him lick his lips. “Your frat bros are pretty cute too [moan] you wanna be frat president? I can arrange that, once I make you put me inside them...I’m getting ahead of myself... Let’s start with one. Pick someone...someone we can take, can use, can fuck” I force his face into an out of place, lustful, deranged smile before returning control to him. “Stay the fuck away from my bros! I..... uh...sorry. S-Sorry for shouting. Just please-please! Get out!” he whimpers in desperation, before descending into more hysteric sobbing. Hysteric sobbing which becomes cute, unsettling giggling, which becomes a roaring laughter as I wrestle back control of my new meat-suit. I wipe his tears off my new face, giving it a quick taste before taking a tour of the new me. “You and I both know there is no going back. The old me? Doesn’t exist. I am You, now. This is your body doing these actions, your brain thinking these thoughts”.

A tremor begins from our extremities, limbs become numb as our shared nerves light up in stimulation. More internal sparks fly through us. This was it. Like an earthquake in my new body, a wave of new feelings wash over me, rocking me to my core. The world around us shook, as the final pieces of my physical self interlocks with his and two become one.

I reach down to pleasure myself, before deciding instead to first push Kyle’s consciousness to the front so he can watch. This would be my first time in this body. Lets make it special. I do a quick reverse crunch, holding the position. Fucking easy in this body. And then pull the crunch close till the body starts to struggle “Arrgh Fuck! Stop!” he screams. I pull even further and he cries from the uncomfortable position I put us in. “This is mine now” I state with his voice, “I decide how far..[pant]..how far we go” And decide I do, as I pull us even further back, prompting another pained “FUCK” from Kyle. I line my growing hard on-our growing hard-on, up to our shared mouth. “Look.. look at what you can do” I moan as him, before letting his consciousness back in front, leaving only control of his face. He is in hysterics as I keep him locked in his position and continue breaking this new bod.

“Look at what we’re capable of when I’m driving” I state in our shared mind. His head thrashes back and forth before I freeze it in place. I take brief control of just his plump lips and mouth, and position his thick dick inside. Fuck we taste good. Salty, with the smallest hint of bitterness. I continue, pumping head faster and faster, forcing my occupant to feel every motion. We make little noise beyond the soft smacking sounds as we continue. The feeling was fucking euphoria. Im sure he feels it too, since he’s been uncharacteristically quiet. I’ve seen him do his warmup stretches before. I knew what he was capable of- with just a little push from me. When he shoots, when I let him shoot, I keep our shared mouth firmly wrapped around our engorged dick, guzzling our creation greedily. This mouth cannot contain it all and a bit spill below. Even more dribbles out of as I slowly release our position. Wet cum spills and pools on our shared chest and abs. I smear it around like a lotion.

I jump and stretch myself into straight standing abruptly, forcing a slight jolt of pain from previously contorting this new body in a way it never had to before. His blood rushes through me, through us, and I let out a sigh of relief and contentment in the afterglow of my possession. I lick my new self clean, exploring all of Kyle’s crevices, before I coat our mouth in my new seed for a taste and swallow the excess in one gulp. We taste Delicious. Kyle, you sexy, tasty fuck, I knew there was something different about you. That last stunt seemed to have satisfied him as he recedes into me. I am in a dreamy smile as I tap my head gently with my finger. “All me now”.

The alarm on Kyle’s phone-my phone rings suddenly. Oh Shit. Kyle-er I had a game in a few minutes. I head over to the field with a breeze behind me, to the sight of slight discomfort and subtle gagging from my teammates. Fuck that. Smell more of me motherfuckers. They smile with strained faces as we do some small warmups for the game. His teammates really were cute- I briefly consider possessing them right there in broad daylight. Fuck it, what can anyone fucking do? I’m Kyle. And when Kyle wants something, Kyle gets it. Still, I only came for a test drive, so I decide to postpone their fates.

The match was tense. My teammates were alright, sure. But Kyle? Me? I played his body like an expert- no movement wasted, every single action carefully considered and executed. It was my brain in here after all. Onlookers stared in awe as, almost inhumanly, I block everything that goes my way. Despite my brain’s expert calculation, his body also deserved to praise. His muscled legs gliding my form through the grass, effortlessly, the twisting his body at just the right spot for the most efficient block. This body following my every command, like I’ve owned it for years. The old me was not one for sports, but this? Working his musculature into these complex maneuvers? Straining his form to just the right amount to maximize performance? Bliss. I can see why some people like this shit. The more I move through him, the closer I felt. Despite my heavy panting at the end, I can’t help but feel energized. Being in him is invigorating. I could keep going at this for days and days- this was truly an athlete’s body.

I do a little dance as, in the end, we squeeze a 1-0 victory. All thanks to me, of course. My teammates brace themselves slightly-likely from the deep, concentrated musk and gallons of sweat I was emanating- before they surround me in a group huddle. New and improved Kyle is kinky little shit though, so I grab and pull their sweaty bodies uncomfortably close, and then squeeze them to me even closer so they can leave with the scent of my sweat on them. They recoil at my actions, at my words, as the normally stoic Kyle gently coos “Great job, team”. They laugh nervously and try to pull away, but I keep them in the embrace just an awkward second too long, sniffing each of them and remarking them. One day, you’ll all be mine.

After the game, I return to our room and look at my sweaty, dirty self in the mirror. I take a whiff of the freshly filthy soccer game and soccer team smells we impregnate our room with. I take a quick sniff of our shared armpits, deciding to forgo showering this bod. Exquisitely noxious. Not getting rid of this.

I called his girlfriend Steph to break up abruptly over phone, citing my “newfound” sudden onset homosexuality. She was upset, understandably, but supportive. Really, I had no issues with the girl, and in another life, we’d be best friends fawning over the same straight dude. But this was Kyle, new-Kyle, new-gay-Kyle-who-only-loves-possessed-dick. My Kyle. He was mine, and mine alone.

Having finished my short list of post-takeover errands, my new self was on the prowl for some new recruits, new bodies to take, to possess, to pleasure me. Since he never really gave me an answer to my question earlier, I search through the remnants of the Old Kyle in my mind, force them to give me the name of someone to to take. I smiled. In the echoes of my mind, one face, one name reverberated in my head.

Red.

I start giggling in a cute tone, out of place coming out of jock Kyle before I break out into a full cackle. “Kyle, you sick, sick, fuck...Red? Big Bro Red? After all he’s done to try to bond with you? Sick, incestuous son of a bitch.” I let out a soft moan as I drag my new vascular hands all over myself, stopping at my new nipples to give them a slight tickle, and my eyes flutter. I give them a hard twist, whining in elation when his body delivers the sensations to me. The smells we’ve been emitting has been pungent, concentrated, putrid from that sweaty group hug earlier. “Traitorous, depraved fucks like me don’t deserve a shower” I make him say in dirty whispers.

Red was Kyle’s big bro at the frat, and someone I had only met once previously. Once was enough to leave an impression. Unlike cute, naturally introspective, reserved athlete Kyle, Big Bro Red was extroverted, artsy, and fucking hot. Apparently, he’s been trying to connect to Kyle ever since the two were paired. Well, Kyle’s under new management, and I planned to use every bit of their tenuous relationship to get Big Bro Red under that same management. This was going to be fun.

I am stopped abruptly as my phone vibrates. “Hey, wanna grab a bite to eat?” I close my eyes in sweet satisfaction, lick my lips seductively and shift my mouth into a filthy smile when I catch the name of who it’s from:

Red.

—————End—————

Took a bit of inspiration from some past stories I’ve read in writing this one. The story implies a continuation but I’m still a bit on the fence. Hope you liked it/ Happy New Year’s!

#male possession #male body control

617 notes · View notes

aughtpunk · 4 years ago

Text

BREAD BREAD BREAD BREAD BREAD

Toast always lands jelly-side-down around Crowley.

This does not seem to be a big deal at first. After all, even if you take into consideration the thousands upon thousands of meals he and Aziraphale shared it still wasn’t likely that any toast would fall during that time. Toast tended to stay put on the table. It’s toast. And, one might even argue, of course the toast is going to land jelly-side down. That side’s heavier. It only makes sense.

Which is what Aziraphale always thought until he held a piece of toast roughly a finger’s length over a plate and dropped it only for the bread to defy all laws of physics and land jelly-side-down anyway. He then went on to test it with jam, preserves, marmalades, compote, and even had one go with peanut butter. Every piece of toast landed spread-side-down no matter the height in which it was dropped. After he had ruined nearly half of a loaf worth of toast Aziraphale decided this was A Demon Thing and left it at that.

***

Toast always lands butter-side-up around Aziraphale.

At first Crowley assumed this was An Angel Thing. It certainly sounded like an angel-thing. Forever blessed by Her Grace to protect her flock from ever having to wipe butter off the kitchen floor with a paper towel. Crowley had even went out of his way to see if the type of bread mattered. After making his way through the local bread aisle he went on to try bread-adjacent test subjects like bagels, croissants, muffins, scones, and even the most hellish breakfast item he could think of: an english muffin. All landed butter-side up.

What Crowley didn’t know is that this wasn’t An Angel Thing. Why would it be? Aziraphale was the only angel who enjoyed eating enough to go out of his way to butter a slice of toast. In reality this was An Aziraphale Thing, as no bread or bread-adjacent food item wanted to hurt Aziraphale’s feelings by landing the wrong side down. Even breakfast items couldn’t stand to see him disappointed. It was for the best that Crowley didn’t know this. Being on the same emotional wavelength as bread would just be too much for his demonic heart to take.

***

As always, it was the humans who mucked things up.

Aziraphale and Crowley hadn’t meant to befriend the humans they met at the end of the world. Usually they did their best to keep away from humanity. Nothing personal, of course, it just never seemed worth a bother considering they would be dead before you really got to know them. Better to admire humans from afar and help/hinder any of the mayflies that wandered across their path.

(Neither man would ever admit that the exact opposite was true. In fact, it was really easy to truly know a human inside and out in a short amount of time. Even easier to befriend them, or love them. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? The short amount of time. Both men carried a graveyard of memories in their hearts. And with every gravestone there would always be that promise--never again, keep them distant, it’s not worth it--only for them to dig burial plot when another human entered their lives. But enough about that. We’re here to talk about bread.)

They were prepared to leave the humans to their now-normal lives right up until the lot of them showed up at Aziraphale’s shop one morning demanding answers. Turns out that there was just enough non-humanity around them to trip up their brain’s instinct to forget everything that had happened. Every time one of their memories started to slip another person would clear their throat and loudly ask if anyone else was visited by aliens that day to make it all come crashing back.

In the end it was decided they should all get together once a month for a nice cup of tea at Anathema’s place. Aziraphale agreed if only to make sure there were no odd side effects from Adam’s meddling. Crowley agreed simply because the other option was getting poked with a large silver pin over and over until he confessed his nipple amounts. They were both lying to themselves, but that was fine too.

(Don’t worry, we’re getting to the bread)

They were all having a nice conversation about how Crowley invented showing up fifteen minutes late with Starbucks to balance out Aziraphale’s invention of showing up fifteen minutes early with a dozen donuts when Adam lost his grip on his marmalade drenched scone and helplessly watched as it landed face-down with a large squelch.

“That’s Crowley’s doing too,” Aziraphale said with a sigh, “toast landing jelly-side-down I mean.”

“Come on angel, it’s not like I’m doing it on purpose!” Crowley pointed accusingly at Aziraphale, “at least I’m not bending reality to keep butter from getting all over the carpet.”

“I’m sorry?” Anathema asked after the awkward silence went on a moment too long.

“Toast always lands butter-side-up around my angel here,” Crowley said willfully ignoring the fact he said my angel, “go on, test it.”

Anathema took a scone, slathered the top with butter, held over the edge of the table and let go.

The scone landed butter-side-up.

She picked the scone up, held it butter-side-down, and dropped it.

Butter-side-up.

She didn’t even see it flip around.

“I don’t know why, but somehow that’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to us yet.” Said Madame Tracy.

At that point both celestials and humans alike might have gone back to their tea and forgotten the whole toast-jam-butter thing ever happened, but Newt just had to ask a question. That’s what humans did after all. They got in trouble by asking questions. No wonder Aziraphale and Crowley liked them so much.

“So, wait, what happens if you spread butter and jam on the same side?”

Aziraphale and Crowley stared blankly at Newt.

“You haven’t thought to try that?” Asked Madame Tracy.

They turned to stare at each other.

“Aren’t you like, thousands of years old?” Asked Adam.

For the first time in millennia the angel and demon were speechless.

Anathema waited to see if the odd moment would pass and, when it didn’t, quietly admitted that she had a fresh loaf of bread in the kitchen.

***

We are at the bread part.

***

Or, as it would be known, The Bread Incident.

***

“So do we drop it on it’s side?” Newt asked as he placed the buttered-and-jam-covered slice back on the plate. “Or like, spin it around first?”

Adam perked up, “What if you tossed it up in the air like a pizza?”

“Do not.” Anathema said, not wanting to deal with her ceiling while she was already worrying about the state of the floor.

“Oh just shove it off the table!” Madam Tracy said, waving the butter-and-jam covered butter knife around. “More natural that way.”

Aziraphale nodded in agreement. “That does sound like the best approach. Ready, my dear?”

Crowley sighed. “This is it. This is the dumbest thing we’ve ever done.”

“Oh darling, I’m almost certain raising the wrong boy for eleven years was far more idiotic than this.”

“You did what now?” Anathema asked, only for her question to be forgotten by Adam pushing the plate experimental toast off the table. The ceramic plate landed on the kitchen floor with a gentle ting, its form unshattered by a well-timed miracle on Aziraphale’s part. Every eye--human and celestial alike--went from the plate to the piece of toast hanging nervously in the air.

Somehow this didn’t shock any of them.

“I feel weird.” Adam said, finally breaking the silence.

“Me too.” Said Newt.

“There’s a powerful feeling of ennui radiating off that toast.” Madam Tracy said.

“We’ve done it,” Anathema said, “we’ve caused a slice of toast to have an existential crisis.”

“Perhaps it just needs a moment to think?” Asked Aziraphale.

“To think about what? It’s bread, angel!”

The toast exploded, sending bits of burnt jam-and-butter across the kitchen and across most of the guests. They stood there in silence, each looking to the other for some sort of explanation. Perhaps a bit of comfort. Newt was the first one to break, muttering about getting some wet cloths for everyone.

“Angel.” Crowley finally said.

“Yes, my dear boy?”

“Let’s never speak of this again.”

“Yes, I think that is the best course of action, my dear.”

The group of humans and non-humans proceeded to test the butter-jam-bread a good dozen more times, each explosion as sticky as the last.

#Good Omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #Aziraphale #This is so stupid #I'm back baby

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drnikolatesla · 5 years ago

Text

Nikola Tesla’s World Wireless System

By J. J. J.

Nikola Tesla’s theories, experiments, demonstrations, and inventions throughout his lifetime of work proved that his “World System” would provide:

1. A perfect “secret signal service” through exclusive wireless waves for communication and entertainment: What Tesla referred to as his “Art of Individualization,” this concept makes it possible to transmit an unlimited number of signals or messages thoroughly non-detectable and exclusive both in the active and passive aspect. Such messages are completely non-interfering and non-interferable, e.g. each signal has its own unique identity (like snowflakes), irrelevant of the number of stations or devices simultaneously in operation. This literally translates to our internet and wireless communication today, but far more advanced. Today, we use communication satellites to bounce signals off other satellites and send these signals to other points around the globe. We need satellites to accomplish this in that conventional physics states that every effect diminishes with distance (inverse square law), so the signals sent on earth either dissipate with distance and/or do not follow the curvature of earth because of the concept of line of sight. This is why we can only receive radio signals at certain distances from the station. Therefore, we use satellites to bounce signals off other satellites to reach other parts of the earth. With Tesla’s system, however, satellites in this sense become obsolete. His system could send instantaneously messages all over the world, set and regulate all clocks, act as a universal stock ticker, reproduce art and photography, and allow exclusive use of video, audio and text communication (this is also how Tesla predicted smart phones a hundred years before they were developed). How would he do this? Tesla used the earth as a conductor (or a wire), and sent the energy through it with no loss of energy. With this method, the problems of energy dissipation are solved. What Tesla discovered was that the earth as a whole possessed certain periods of natural vibrations, and by impressing electrical vibrations of the same periods upon it with his transformer, they could be thrown into oscillations of tremendous nature. Thus, Tesla posited he could collect this energy and transmit it with his Magnifying Transmitter to any place on earth with no loss of energy (and practically instantaneously so). He proved this method in experiments at Colorado Springs where he sent a longitudinal wave all the way around the world and back to his receiver traveling at a mean velocity of 292,812 miles per second. I know some may balk at sending anything faster than the speed of light, but I will remind them that the speed of light is a constant, it is not a limit. The velocity of light is an expression of the ratio of energy to mass. Tesla’s waves worked on different dimensions. The electromagnetic waves we use in today’s technology travel at the speed of light, but due to the nature of these waves (which are similar to light), they diminish with distance. This is because their electromagnetic lines of force and their magnetic lines of force intercept the angles of one other, causing resistance (radiation resistance). This is also why they eventually lose energy. Tesla, on the other hand, used an oscillating wave, or a longitudinal wave, in which the electromagnetic and magnetic forces run parallel with each other (hence there is no friction or loss of energy). As a result, the more power he used, the faster and further these waves would travel. Imagine what can be accomplished with waves that do not diminish with distance!

2. The operation of flying machines by wireless power: The flow of Tesla’s currents are confined to the earth, but with his machine, he could create an electromagnetic field in the atmosphere surrounding it. Tesla theorized that if lightweight electric motors with attached circuits are placed in the airplanes (or other flying machines) and are accurately attuned, energy will be drawn into these circuits from the electromagnetic field powering the motors (similar to submerging an empty bottle in water then poking a hole in it - the energy from the electromagnetic field would flow into the circuit the same way water would into the bottle). This concept could therefore revolutionize a whole new world of transportation!

3. GPS: Global positioning could be used not just on the earth’s surface, but via the earth’s interior as well (ex. finding mineral deposits, submarines, etc.). This is accomplished by setting up and maintaining longitudinal stationary waves in the earth, subdividing its entire surface into zones of electrical activity. This also allows data points to be collected regarding the earth’s dimensions, as well as the positioning of moving or non-moving objects by analyzing the way waves react to objects within it or without it. This would help in navigation, prospecting, or basic radar by determining positions and size of objects, in or outside earth, by determining latitudes and longitudes, the speed of travel and the respective courses followed.

4. An artificial Aurora Borealis: By shooting charged particles at the atmosphere in the sky, Tesla’s system could create the same effect that occurs during the Northern Lights. This would contribute to the concept of night vision and constructing related devices for human use based on this phenomenon.

5. Operations of all manufacturing and transportation machinery: With much more power than his “Art of Individualization,” Tesla could send power through the earth to any point on the globe (regardless of distance) and provide a business or home with enough horsepower to operate and run all its machinery, including transportation machinery. Note this would not be “free energy”, as the conspiracists of the internet assume. Tesla never said anything about free energy. We would still have to subscribe and pay for this energy just like we do today, but at a much cheaper cost.

6. Interplanetary Communication: Tesla understood that if we ever want to make contact with intelligent life on other planets, or even communicate with humans traveling through the depths of space, we would have to use radio technology to do so. He believed that with enough power drawn from energy sources (such as Niagara Falls) to power his transformer, he could create billions of horsepower, and with his Magnifying Transmitter, send his oscillating wave signals (which travel many times faster than light) to the far reaches of this galaxy.

7. Irrigation and fertilization of the world by wireless: Using wireless power, farmers and land owners would be able to pump water and irrigate their land from energy sent thousands of miles away. Tesla also believed that weather was of electrical origin, and thus could be controlled by electrical means. In other words, with a properly developed apparatus (different from his wireless system), he could pull water from oceans by hydraulic force, turn it into vapor and carry it in cloud form to arid parts of land (make it rain, so to speak). Also, with fertilization, we know that an excess of nitrogen in the atmosphere is a bad thing, and not enough nitrogen in the soil will cause growth deficiencies in plants. Tesla’s experiments in Colorado Springs showed that the nitrogen in the air could be burned with electricity. By burning the right amount of nitrogen in the air, it could be turned into a fertilizer of sorts.

8. Magnetizing of enemy battleships, submarines, and airplanes to attract missiles: This notion speaks for itself. By using magnetic waves, the metal of enemy machinery could be magnetized and therefore cause it to attract missiles.

9. A particle beam for defense: Tesla did not believe in war and had always thought that strife or conflict could be cured by some way other than by brute force. His idea was to create a machine that would give all countries a defense weapon that would render them entirely impenetrable to enemy attacks. All have seen the photo of Tesla sitting in his laboratory in Colorado Springs where there are artificial lightning bolts filling the room over a hundred feet in length. His idea was to control this energy in a very high vacuum tube and disperse the energy in any direction desired - this was his defense weapon for war. Unfortunately, his hypothesis was ignored and America subsequently suffered the attack on Pearl Harbor four years after Tesla proposed his invention to world governments.

I presume most people would be skeptical about how safe Tesla’s “World System” would be. If the whole earth is electrified, wouldn’t we get shocked constantly? Not the case. Tesla used electrostatics, e.g. when an electric charge is at rest, as opposed to direct current (DC) electricity and alternating current AC which are electricity moving through wires either directly or back and both. Both DC and AC are very dangerous if touched. Tesla would speed up his alternating currents so fast that the electricity would become static electricity. It could then be stored, or pass through the physical body with no harm. He demonstrated this in lectures throughout the 1890s by passing thousands of volts of electricity through his body and shooting electricity out of his fingertips. Static electricity is already all around us. It’s similar when you rub your socks on the carpet and can walk to the other side of the room and shock someone - this static electricity is stored in your body, but doesn’t harm you. The shock might slightly startle your friend, but nevertheless is still harmless. Also, unlike the wireless technology we use today - which is ninety percent radiation - Nikola Tesla’s system is clean energy. His system reverses what our technology does and uses only ten percent radiation, and ninety percent current waves. This is why there is no loss of energy, and why we should be implementing and utilizing Tesla’s system.

Our current existence would be far more advanced had Tesla been allowed to share his work with the world. Although we are advancing with greats strides in technological achievements, we are still hundreds of years behind the future Nikola Tesla hoped and dreamed for.

“My project was retarded by the laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time. But the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success.”

–Nikola Tesla

(“My Inventions – V. The Magnifying Transmitter.” Electrical Experimenter. February, 1919.)

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unliked-apologist · 4 years ago

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hirako shinji headcanons

these were originally posted on Reddit. now they're here. enjoy.

He has lucky socks that he wears to fight Hollows. What makes them lucky is something that the other Visored find to be a mystery, since they look the same as his other socks, but if Shinji's fighting Hollows he's wearing his lucky socks. As a result, he's put on laundry duty a disproportionate amount of the time, because no one wants to deal with the tantrum he'd throw if someone mismatched his godforsaken lucky socks.

In the part of the warehouse that is his bedroom, he has a shelf of hair products. He rarely uses them, but sometimes he'll show up to dinner with a barrette holding his bangs out of his eyes, or a temporary streak of blue dye framing his face.

He loves it when someone brushes his hair out, especially when it's longer. There's just something so relaxing about the feeling of fingers tangling in his hair, guiding the knots out...he could fall asleep like that. He does, sometimes. When he's too wound up to sleep, or too antsy from days on the couch, Rose will sit down behind him and put little braids in his hair until he drifts off.

Shinji doesn't go shopping very often, but when he does, he splurges. From buying an entire piano without prior notice to hiring someone to install highlighter-orange carpets in the warehouse, the other Visored know better than to give him their savings and let him shop alone.

Despite the fact that he's a known paperwork procrastinator, he's very good at focusing when he wants to. He tends to hyperfixate on certain things - as Captain, he'd sit at his desk for hours at night, long after everyone else left the compound, and read through pages of everything from complaints to the Seireitei Bulletin.

He can play the piano. Not as well as Rose - which isn't saying much, since nobody can play the piano as well as Rose - but he's certainly better than average. He'd been in the human world during the birth and spread of Jazz, and would sit in front of an old piano every evening and work his way through Maple Leaf Rag. He taught himself to play.

Sometimes, the ties he wears make him panic. He wears them anyways, since he likes the way they look, but while the weight around his neck is usually comforting, there are times when they'll feel too tight and constricting and for a moment, he's not in the present but back in Seireitei, watching his friends' faces turn to Hollow bone. The tie-like cloth he wears once he regains his position as Captain is looser, and was designed to allow movement and air better than a regular human tie.

Shinji is stubborn. He'll focus on something and not let it go, until it takes over everything else. Once he has an opinion of someone, he rarely changes it. Some people deal with change well, are able to adapt to any environment. He is not one of those people.

(And maybe that's part of why he took his exile so badly. The human world is nothing like Soul Society, and part of him refused to believe that the human world was, in fact, his new home. He loves the human world, with it's strange inventions and funny quirks, but it isn't Soul Society.)

He's not a huge fan of tea. Partially because Aizen had liked tea, and there are indeed certain aromas of the stuff that will make him sick to his stomach, but mostly because boiling leaves in water had never really appealed to him. Sometimes he'll make a hot chocolate, when he's spoiling himself. He loves the tiny marshmallows, leaves them in his mug until all the hot chocolate is gone and then he'll scoop out the marshmallows with a spoon and eat them in one bite.

He's traveled quite a bit, especially in the early years of his exile. Harlem, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, New Orleans, even London - Shinji's seen more of the world than any of the other Visored.

Despite the fact that he's the strongest of the Visored, he isn't their leader. Not really. He bosses around Hiyori, and she throws things at him, and he'll order Kensei to make lunch when he's feeling particularly lazy, but he isn't the leader. He's distant from them, a little. Sure, he goes places with them and trains with them and eats meals with them, but it was his lieutenant that was responsible for their exile. He feels a responsibility for their situation that none of the others do.

All of the Visored have found ways to spend their time. Love and Rose loose themselves in manga, Lisa in swimsuit catalogues, Kensei in cooking and weightlifting. Shinji looses himself in his head. He'll sit on the old couch Hachi'd found on the side of the road two decades back, sprawled on his back with his feet and head hanging over the armrests. He'll spend hours like that.

Shinji is old. Older than Aizen and Urahara and any of the other Visored. He's one of the older Captains; younger than Unohana and Ukitake and Kyoraku, but decades the other Captains' senior.

He'd achieved Shikai quickly, had been hearing Sakanade's voice since before he got his hands on an asuachi. Bankai took him far longer. The average time Bankai training takes is a decade - Shinji was working with Sakanade for almost a century. He'd always got along with his zanpakuto, but harnessing Sakanade's power without loosing himself? That was harder.

He's bad at staying on one place. When he did do his paperwork, it'd never be sitting at his desk. He'd lay on the ground on his stomach, legs kicked up behind him; he'd sit on his desk with a stack of papers on his lap; he'd lay upside-down with his head near the wall and write with his papers against the wall and ink dripping on his face. In the human world, even if he does spend far too much time sulking on the couch, he'll shift from hanging over the back to sliding down until his head's on the floor.

He has terrible spice tolerance. Kensei cooks curry, sometimes, and Shinji'll just order out on those nights. Spicy food makes his eyes water and nose run and mouth burn, and he hates it.

For all of Shinji's moping and laying about, he really does enjoy doing things. He's the one to drag the Visored out for holidays and celebrations. He gets really into them, too; from specially ordering kimonos to hand-making everyone lanterns for Obon, he's throws himself into special occasions with a vigor that's very unlike his everyday self.

(The arcade in Karakura, a small decrepit-looking building next to a hair salon, has Shinji's name at the top of almost every high score list. On one or two of the games, Love's name is just under Shinji's. The arcade manager knows Shinji, calls out to him on the street: "Hirako! How're you doing?")

When Hiyori and Kensei are being a bit too loud, or when Shinji gets so antsy shifting positions on the couch doesn't settle him, he goes to the playground. He'll climb on the monkey bars and hang upside-down and talk to the kids around him.

Something that wears on Shinji especially hard is the secrecy the Visored need to maintain. Even around the humans, Shinji can't make too large an impression, can't make real friends. Sooner or later, they'd start wondering why Shinji doesn't age. The arcade manager's memory had to be removed, after a few years. When Shinji or the others leave their warehouse, they have to do their best to be unremarkable. When they slip up, sure, Urahara's there with a gadget to fix memories, but it's hard for Shinji to be unable to form a relationship with anyone outside of the Visored. For all of the ways his personality can be abrasive, Shinji really does like spending time with others.

Shinji got a Walkman as soon as they were available in stores. Even later, when cassette tapes were replaced with CDs, he still keeps batteries in his Walkman (even if he doesn't use it). If Rose collects instruments, Shinji collects music.

The other Visored find Shinji confusing. He personality contradicts itself. He spends days lounging on the couch not doing anything, but will suddenly decide that 'it's time for a family trip, guys, we're going to Tokyo'. They love him just the same, but wish he wasn't as high management.

(Shinji is old, yes, but there are times when he feels even younger than Mashiro and Hiyori.)

#tryin' to start shit? naw.#bleach #hirako shinji #shinji hirako #headcanons #&oh yes i spent a lot of time on this #&im hyperfixating on shinji in case you cant tell #from Reddit

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sparkkeyper · 4 years ago

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Variations on a Theme

I’ve been working on this one for a while and finally managed to finish it up for the Ace Omens discord prompt - Dancing.

The music I had on repeat while writing the second half was “So Close” from Enchanted. I like to imagine the record they end up with is one of those piano-only arrangements of it.

Also, you can’t tell me that Crowley didn’t jam to every Top 40 since music charts were invented.

(Now on AO3!)

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

"You mean you've only danced the gavotte?"

Crowley's sunglasses were barely hanging on to his nose as it was, what with the both of them being several drinks into their first bottle of the night. It didn't take many to banish the glasses these days, not when the pair of them were nestled comfortably in the back room of the bookshop, the failed Armageddon several weeks behind them. The demon stared incredulously over the tinted lenses as Aziraphale straightened from where he had begun to slouch with his wine.

"And why is that such a surprise? Angels don't usually dance at all."

"Yeah but you're not a 'usually' angel, you're you!" Crowley waved a hand wildly but did his glasses the mercy of setting them on the end table before they could fall. "You like the...the singing and the harmonizing and stuff. Humans have been moving to music since the Beginning and you really never, ever wanted to learn?"

"I did learn," the angel pointed out.

"Never wanted to learn more than the one?" Crowley amended. "Just the one in six thousand years?"

"It just didn't strike me as something I wanted to try," Aziraphale shrugged and refilled his wine glass. "The humans seemed to enjoy it sure enough, but it looked like such a hassle to attempt."

"A hassle!" Crowley threw his head back and grabbed his hair, and goodness did Aziraphale love to watch him wax dramatic when embroiled in a topic he was passionate about. "Dancing a hassle! Dancing a ha- It's not a job, angel, it's for fun!"

"Yes but in order for one to dance well, one must put in a certain amount of work."

"It's not about dancing well, it's about letting loose." Crowley rolled his eyes, stalking over to the angel's record collection next to the gramophone. "Unless you're in a professional stage company, you're not required to dance well."

"Somehow that sentiment isn't the least bit surprising coming from you."

"Oi, I'll have you know I'm an excellent dancer even though I'm not required to be. Come on, there's got to be something in here you can dance to."

"I don't know the proper steps to anything else."

"Bah, steps!" Crowley waved him off. "Don't need steps. Just make it up."

"I most certainly cannot."

"You most certainly can so. Oh for Satan's sake-" Crowley gave up his hunt and snapped, materializing a record in the gramophone and giving the handle a few solid cranks. "There we go!" His shoulders began moving to a heavy clapping beat that had definitely never been released on 78.

He turned back to Aziraphale, a grin on his face as his hips twitched to the music. "No steps, see? Just freestyle it. Come on, off the sofa, let's see it."

"This hit, that ice cold,

Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold,

This one for them hood girls,

Them good girls, straight masterpieces-"

He made a get-up gesture and Aziraphale rose uncertainly. "I really don't think I know what to do with this-"

"Don't have to, that's the best part. Just move to the beat. "

Aziraphale tried to imitate his friend, he really did, but there was no pattern to follow. One moment the movement was in Crowley's shoulders, the next it was in his hips, and now his feet were acting out a stomp-like rhythm on the carpet. It was a fascinating thing to watch, how dancing seemed to take over his entire corporation. With the gavotte, one's back remained quite straight. There was a level of control and skill to it that Aziraphale had greatly enjoyed: maintaining some parts of yourself in position while moving others. But with Crowley's dancing, the entire line of his body twisted and flowed. A movement that started in his neck might end in an arm, or maybe it would travel up one leg and come back down the other. He made it look effortless, like it took no thought at all.

"I'm too hot! Hot damn!

Call the police and the fireman.

I'm too hot! Hot damn!

Make a dragon wanna retire, man-"

The demon's eyes flicked over his stilted attempts to copy the motions and Aziraphale watched him bite back a smirk. "No, angel?"

"Perhaps it's this century's music - goodness, there's not much melody, is there? - but I really don't understand this sort of dancing."

"Not much to understand, really, but here. We'll step it back a few decades." He snapped again and a new record appeared in his hand, which was quickly swapped out for the one on the gramophone.

Crowley snapped his fingers to the beat, hips moving in time. "Oh, don't give me that look. You can't possibly dislike Bill Haley and His Comets."

"One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock, rock.

Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, rock.

Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, rock.

We're gonna rock! Around! The clock tonight!

Put your glad rags on and join me, hon',

We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one-"

"It's not that I dislike it..." Aziraphale did his best to imitate the hip thing, and the demon's stifled snort told him exactly how unsuccessful he was at it. "I just don't...connect with this style of dance, I suppose. That's the only way I know how to put it."

"So try your own style. It's not a right and wrong, it's just whatever motion speaks to you." Crowley threw his torso into a shimmy and goodness, what were his knees even doing? Aziraphale gave up trying to copy any of it.

"That's just it! Motions don't 'speak to me'. Dancing isn't...isn't...aimlessly gyrating! It's about form and style - about using form and style to bring the music to life. There's a language to it the same way there's a language to literature. Every kick and dip and bow means something and it's all spoken into being through movement! But there needs to be a form in order for that to happen."

"No no, that's the problem! That's so limiting! So much of the universe is already made up of forms and rules!" Crowley threw his hands up to encompass the heavens. "Laws and etiquette and physics, everywhere! Inescapable! Dancing is freedom! Music is emotion distilled down into pure audio form precisely so you can do what you want with it! How does it make you feel? What does it make you want? You take it and you process it and you feel it and move however it moves you! It's speaking, yes, but in a way no one else has control over! The thing about dancing is you get to be purely you, no matter what anybody else wants."

"I already am me," Aziraphale insisted. "And I like knowing what movement comes next. I like having straightforward expectations to fulfill. That's what's satisfying - completing the steps and knowing you've gotten them right!"

The moment stretched out between them as they both let this soak in. Somewhere along the way, the gramophone had made the executive decision to go silent.

"Certainly can't fault you for that," Crowley said slowly. "Preferring a solid plan. Expectations outlined and all. It's very you."

"Nor, I suppose, could I fault you for preferring more freedom in your movement. You've always had a penchant for finding new ways to express yourself. What with the clothes and the hair and all." Aziraphale fidgeted with the corner of his waistcoat absently. "It suits you, it really does. But not me. If that were my only option, I'd rather not dance at all." He shook himself with a tiny smile and sat back in his armchair. "Ah well. I had a good run with the gavotte, anyway. Got a few good decades out of it."

Crowley pursed his lips for a few moments, then switched the record again to fill the room with a smooth piano. "Can't have that, though, can we? One dance goes out of style and you're done? I don't think so. Come on, angel, get back up." He made a come-here motion until Aziraphale stood again.

"Look, I'm really not-"

"You want defined steps? I'll give you defined steps."

Aziraphale paused, considering. "What sort is it?"

"Easy one. Simple, can use it for a lot of dances. Waltz, foxtrot, all kinds of things."

Aziraphale chewed on his lip. He wasn't anxious to make a fool of himself stumbling over a completely unfamiliar style. But goodness, he missed dancing.

Crowley held out a hand to him. It was a hesitant thing, far enough out to be an offering but close enough in to be passed off as a casual gesture if it went unaccepted.

Aziraphale braced himself and accepted it. "Right. So how does this work?"

"Easy. Here, I'll lead. So you just - hand here... Other hand here..." Crowley positioned Aziraphale's right hand on his shoulder and loosely grasped his left. They stood like that together for a moment, a good distance apart so the angel could look down at his shoes. "And I step like this..." Crowley moved one foot forward. "So you step backwards to match me. Go on, then."

Aziraphale stepped as instructed.

"Right. And then I move here -" His other foot came forward and to the side - "And yours comes back and over along the same route. Yep. Now feet together, like they were at the start. Good?"

Aziraphale made certain he had his balance and nodded.

"Good. Now I step back, like you did, and you come forward this time... No no, leave your other foot there. Right. Now bring your other foot forward as mine comes back and over. Just stepping in a big square, that's all we're doing. And feet back at the start. Make sense?"

Aziraphale pulled in a deep breath. "Simple enough in theory."

"Here, we'll try it again. Back-two. Side-two. Forward-two. Side-two...that's right. Now we just add a bit of a turn to it and that's all it is. Like this... Back-two, side-two-"

Aziraphale clutched at him as they worked their way around the room to the music. (The furniture wisely backed itself up to give them space, twisting physics occasionally to avoid being tripped over.) The problem wasn't the steps, exactly. It was combining the steps with everything else: holding tight to Crowley to keep his balance while still trying to keep enough distance to give his legs room to work, figuring out which foot to have his weight on and when, incorporating the dratted turn into the rest of it, moving precisely in time with Crowley so that they didn't step on each other.

Humans had so many pieces to keep track of. So many parts moving a specific distance at the same time. He'd been in this corporation for thousands of years and usually had an excellent handle on how it operated, but that only made new movement patterns more difficult to master. It took so much work for him to commit such things to muscle memory. Each misstep threw his rhythm off and dammit, there, he was so close to overbalancing them both -

But Crowley kept him in place.

Crowley's palm rested just under his right shoulder blade, guiding the motion of his body through space. Holding him so steady even when he felt himself floundering. Wasn't that always the way? he thought distantly, eyes trained on his feet. Even after stepping repeatedly on the demon's toes (and heels, and instep, and in one spectacular fumble the back of his left knee) Crowley was a solid anchor keeping him upright.

Dancing of any variety did not come naturally to Aziraphale. Angels were built to be sturdy, immovable. It had taken him ages to make any headway at all with the gavotte. But Crowley didn't seem to mind. He chuckled a bit when Aziraphale stepped too early. He murmured advice, a smile on his lips. And his eyes sparkled. Goodness, how they sparkled.

Letting the music wash over him, Aziraphale put his trust in Crowley. Let the demon guide him here in their own little circle. Slowly, slowly, he was getting the hang of the steps - treading on toes less at any rate. It was nice, dancing like this, it really was...

And then Crowley spun him.

He didn't realize what was happening until it was practically over. The motion of Crowley's arm coming up and turning guided his whole body smoothly around and he clicked back into place against the demon like he was never meant to be anywhere else.

Aziraphale's feet faltered to a stop, eyes wide and all steps forgotten.

Crowley froze with him. "Too much?" he asked quietly.

"I - I..." Aziraphale felt like he was still spinning, heart beating entirely too fast. "I don't..."

"Too much," Crowley answered himself, releasing his hold and taking a step back. "Thought I might try mixing it up, but I misjudged. Won't do it again."

"Mixing it...oh. Of course." Aziraphale looked down at the space between them. It was barely two feet but it suddenly seemed so much farther. "This is holding you back, isn't it? This repetitive step. You'd much rather be improvising."

"I...well I didn't say that..."

"Like you said before. You'd prefer to let the music move you rather than be limited to a predetermined pattern. I can understand that even if I can't relate. You shouldn't be beholden to this."

"It's good," Crowley blurted out, making the angel pause. "For music like this. The down-tempo, largo stuff. This is a good way to dance to it. I like it." He swallowed hard and tried for a nonchalant shrug. "I mean, don't ask me to dance like this to Uptown Funk but for this style it's...y'know. It's good."

"Right. Good." Aziraphale fidgeted, hands feeling incredibly empty. "I admit, I'm very much out of my depth here. Angels don't... I don't know what I'm doing.”

"We can stop. No sense pushing it."

"I didn't say... I'll get used to it."

"You don't have to get used to anything you don't want to." Crowley made to step back but Aziraphale, in an instant of panic, stepped forward after him.

"I want to!"

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the soft piano. Crowley stood frozen, as though his next movement required the most careful consideration of his life.

Aziraphale steeled himself and raised his hands back to their dancing positions. "Please."

The demon looked over the two of them and very hesitantly replaced his hands, as though doing so might scare the angel off.

They stood there for a long time. Not moving, just holding on to each other with the breathless tension of men on the gallows, waiting for the trap door to open beneath them.

Aziraphale pulled in a deep, steadying breath. "I'm afraid it's going to take a long time for me to get this right. All of this. I'm not very good at this sort of thing when I don't know the steps."

"Take all the time you need," Crowley replied softly. "I'm just sort of making it up as I go, honestly."

"It might be very long. I can't improvise as easily as you can."

"I wouldn't expect you to." The demon tightened his grip ever so slightly and Aziraphale suddenly couldn't conceive of pulling away. "No spinning, promise."

"I - I didn't say that." Fingers itched to trace a familiar nervous pattern - straighten bowtie, adjust waistcoat. They tightened in Crowley's hands instead. "Just...warn me before you do. Let me prepare."

"I can do that, yeah." The demon held him so carefully, as though giving him every chance to break away, and started them off into their pattern once more.

The hesitant grip grew more sure with each rotation around the room, and it was impossible to tell if it was one or both of them. Each successful round of the sequence made Aziraphale feel a little bolder. It was the reassurance of a task set and completed: the very ancient satisfaction of expectations met. That desire had been ingrained in his bones since bones were invented and in a way it calmed him. There was so much he suddenly felt unprepared for but at least he could do this.

He wasn’t successful every time, of course. He still fumbled, still trod on snakeskin shoes. But the guiding hand was back under his shoulder blade and God, did it make a world of difference. It stayed with him through each failed attempt and carried him through to try again. Any wrong positioning of his legs seemed less important when he was sure Crowley would keep him where he needed to be.

He could see the tension draining from the demon as well. The sense that he was holding something fragile and afraid to break it was melting slowly back into the confident strides Aziraphale had seen from the start. The lines of motion flowed through him the way they had earlier, though more predictably at present. He was still amazing to watch, all moving lines and sharp joints. Aziraphale blamed more than one stagger on it.

"All right if I spin you?"

The angel braced himself. "All right."

"'Kay. Three, two-" Crowley twirled him again and for a single, dazzling moment it felt like flying. It felt free and easy and the most natural thing in the world -

And then he stumbled over his own feet coming back in and nearly collapsed against the demon's chest and drat, now he'd lost all the steps-

"Forward-two, right-two, back-two, you've got it, come on, forward-two -"

Aziraphale clung to the instructions and managed to get back on track within an eight-count, concentrating fiercely on the movements of their feet together.

"That's what I'm talking about. Look at you. Angel dancing something other than the gavotte. Who would have thought, eh?"

"Who indeed." There was a warm fluttering in his chest. So much to keep track of with these human bodies.

He was still going to need a lot of time and a lot of practice. He had a feeling there was a lot of unknown territory ahead regarding the two of them.

But he had Crowley to keep him steady. So they’d be all right.

#good omens #good omens fic #my writing #my fic #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #dancing #discord prompts #in which aziraphale's attitude towards dancing is my attitude #how does one improvise I do not know #obsessed with these two figuring out how to be soft with each other

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symphonyofthewrite · 4 years ago

Text

If These Walls Could Talk (Ch4)

Fandom: Castlevania Netflix

Summary: Vampires do not have reflections, and castles do not have hearts. But Dracula is no ordinary vampire, and Castlevania is no ordinary castle. If castles can fight, maybe they can think too.

The series, and Adrian’s childhood, told from the perspective of the castle.

Chapter Summary: “He’s gone mad. And from that, there is no recovering him…It’s a tragedy…He could’ve changed the world. I think he might have, if Mother hadn’t died. “She’d sent him out into the world. That’s why he wasn’t there when the bishops took her…She sent him to travel… “Imagine if…the religious inquisition hadn’t proved true all of his worst instincts about humans.” “And now he’s going to use her death as an excuse to destroy the world.” “Oh, the world will still be here…But you will not be here…None of you…There will only be Dracula and his war council, and the hordes of the night… “Imagine it. A world without humans, under endless invented night. And Dracula in his castle, his revenge so horribly complete that there is nothing left to do but look out over a world without art or memory or laughter and know that he did his work well. That he did it all for love.”

Notes: I decided to capitalize "Castle" and "Room" from now on (and I will go back and capitalize them in early chapters at some point), because that was an easy way to make things clear for later chapters.

Also, I don't usually like to step out from behind the curtain and ruin the magic, but I wanted to make things clear here, since I thought maybe they started to get confusing...the Castle and Room aren't actually talking, and they don't have some human form somewhere...I just wanted to describe them more human-like the more the fic goes on, the more human they're becoming, in a way.

Comments and reblogs are greatly apprecated!! Thank you for the support!!

Chapter 4: “Empty”

The Castle doesn’t like the idea of its master going away.

They have been inseparable for such a long time now; the Castle has bent and broken and been Dracula’s castle for centuries. Its master leaves every once and a while, and he visits the woman’s home. But weeks, to months, to years without him is too long for a mirror to be apart from the thing it reflects. This is a vampire’s castle and Dracula is that vampire; he must stay inside its walls, in the cold and the dark, lest he burn. This is Dracula’s castle, and Dracula must stay within its halls. If he doesn’t…what is Castlevania after all? Just an empty tomb. A shell of something that was once living. A broken toy on the playroom floor, left there to start its dust collection after the child grew up.

Dracula never has to leave, for the Castle can take him wherever he wants to go in a flash of lightning and a rumble of dust and thunder. The idea that Vlad would travel the world like a man, all alone in the light, without his Castle, his shroud of darkness, isn’t right, to both of them, at first.

Hasn’t Castlevania done enough for its master? He is not like the boy, who needs to walk in the day. All he needs are these walls, the blood, and the night.

The woman has a way with persuasion. This was part of the trade, after all, Castlevania remembers. Dracula gave Lisa undying knowledge, and she took the immortal beakers and books—a part of Castlevania—out into the world to ‘do some good.’ (The Castle wasn’t sure quite how that worked, but she did have a knack for making good out of the patchwork pieces of evil.) It is Vlad’s turn to be given a piece of her mortality to take inside.

Lisa assures them that, just as Adrian came back more alive than ever, this will be a better form of life for Vlad too. He will have to be more careful; to stay out of the sun, to ask to be invited, to wear traveling cloaks, not royal robes, to temper his thirst, and be patient with humanity—(just as she has been with him)—but in the end he will come back clothed in gold, and it will all be worth it.

Castlevania wishes it had human hands to hold onto him, but all it has are cold stones, and mechanical bones; it cannot keep him within its walls forever, without collapsing.

Dracula kisses them goodbye with hope in one hand, promises in the other, two rays of sunlight ever in his heart, saying he’ll be back.

And he doesn’t come back that night. That morning. The next.

When Adrian left, the Room understood the meaning of the words ‘I miss you.’ It realized what it was to be empty—that is, in that it was once once full, and was missing something. After all those years, Castlevania too finally understands the true meaning of all those words once used to describe it: ‘lonely,’ ‘dark,’ ‘cold,’ and ‘empty.’ It was those things, it never felt those things itself before.

Dracula may have been cold and dark and undead, but he brought life of a sort to the Castle. He made it breathe, its heart beat. Just his footsteps in the halls was a comfort, a kind of music—be it mechanical and half-dead. And finally he talked to the walls. ‘Emptiness’ for it is was an adjective, not a noun; it was an outfit it wore, not a feeling etched deep within the walls in a place no one could ever really touch.

It didn’t know what it was like to lose your purpose, what a hopeless existence it is for a mirror to be without a reflection.

The Castle doesn’t know if it ever breathed, but it thinks it understands the breathlessness the Room must have felt without Adrian. It is big, and rich, and intricate…and hollow. It’s like there’s a hole somewhere deep inside it that cries to be filled, and can never be as long as its master is away.

But we are not alone, says the Room.

It looks up and remembers this is true; Adrian remains. Their boy. The boy who belongs to its master, the woman, and the Room together. And Castlevania likes to think he belongs to it too, in some way. The boy for whom that death-defying Room exists. The boy who stole patches of sunlight when his father wasn’t looking, who cried when when no one was listening, who brought books, toys, and drawings, lonely vampire kings, and old decrepit castles to life.

It feels cold and dark, dead and empty…until Alucard opens the windows.

The Castle is thrown into a pool of gold, and the sensation is jarring; the switching of states, temperatures so fast. Such a drastic change so quickly isn’t all right with Castlevania, especially when it is so different from how its master always dressed it. It is Dracula’s castle, that piercing, dripping stain that no light enters. It shouldn’t go out in colorful garb, it just isn’t fitting. Though perhaps the jarring change is ultimately less painful than dipping each room in slowly.

It’s that same tail-pulling sensation from when he was a boy. Except this is much worse, because it’s the whole Castle—its entire form—and he never closes them. Before it was just the Room, and the Room is a part of the Castle, so the Castle could feel its burn, but it was dulled there. When he opened the door to the Room, the light slithered out, its scales doused in poison, leaving a stinging trail as it went. But its cage was always in the Room; its venom didn’t remain in the Castle’s veins forever. Now there is no barrier between the Castle and the light, no home for the sun to crawl back to. It has been let loose, and the stones are soaked in venom, like needles all over the Castle’s body.

Its existence is now drenched in sunlight. Before long it becomes like how they painted the Room so long ago, it is a fact of life—at least while Alucard reigns, and the Castle looks completely different dressed in morning sunrise.

The sting begins to fade; the Castle becoming immune to the poison. And, after the pain ebbs, the Castle can look at itself objectively, and thinks somewhere deep beneath its walls, in a place it would never share, that maybe this change is not a bad thing.

The Room breathes deeper than ever before, enough to laugh. Grinning it turns to the Castle, as if saying Feels good doesn’t it?

Castlevania looks away.

There was so much it didn’t notice about itself before. The gold on the carpets shimmers, it knows now that mirrors glitter, and how much dust was on the bookshelves—(Adrian is sure to brush it off)—it knows now why others put pictures on the walls; because the stones are so bare and uninteresting in the light, and the fires are such a aggressive light and heat compared to the soft blanket of warmth over the world, like snowfall transforming all.

It knows now why humans like to go out during the day.

It is a different kind of life. It isn’t like the science Vlad used to make it breathe and beat. This is softer, quieter, warmer. Less mechanical more…real. It doesn’t mean Vlad’s method of bringing it to life was bad or wrong, nor that Alucard’s is good, or right, it’s just different. And maybe different is okay for now.

The boy looks different too.

Adrian’s features are illuminated, his expressions dance in ray and shadow, his hair is like liquid gold draining across his shoulders, his eyes flicker and dance like candlelight.

And he doesn’t burn.

Adrian reads books in the sun, and he practices magic and sword in the sun, he drinks tea and wine—not blood—in the softly lit kitchen, polishes the shelves, makes sure everything works properly, and sits on the balconies and lets the wind brush through his hair, all in the sun, in the sun. Sometimes he leaves to go outside, into towns, to get rid of a monster or two, but mostly he leaves to visit his mother. Even when he does, the world is left in a satisfied glow.

His golden hair and eyes are no longer a bright spot on a dark canvas, but a reflection of his universe. His parents may have built his universe long ago, but he has spread his Room throughout Castlevania, conquered the multiverses around him, claiming them for his own, until the Castle doesn’t know which of them is which anymore.

The gold dripping through the halls reminds the Castle of that word from long ago, the one used to describe the baby in the painting: “happy.” It may be a pale echo of the world back then, when all three of them there, but the Castle is well versed in the world of reflections, and knows there is a world in which they don’t exist, and an echo may not be the real thing, but it will satisfy as a substitute.

Those times are quiet, with fewer raids, fewer pitchforks, shoutings and fires, because people like Alucard. They didn’t like Dracula, but Alucard is not Dracula. And Castlevania could enjoy the excitement…but the quiet is nice for a while.

Even so, the quiet does remind it of what, who, is absent. The Castle misses its master. The boy, the sun, the change, may help, but that fact will always remain at the back of its consciousness. There will always be some emptinesses that cannot be filled with substitutes. It misses its master, wants him to come back. Even so, it thinks it may be able to last a few months longer in the sun. Until Vlad returns, at least.

And he does.

Dracula does return. And when he does, he is not the same. But not in the way they were expecting; he does not arrive full of life, spreading his newfound spirit throughout the halls—as Alucard’s glowing return made them anticipate. He doesn’t come with a new name and tales of how he defeated monsters and made friends, he doesn’t return with a new perspective, and a handful of smiles. He returns, but it’s almost as if he still hasn’t. He is more dead than Castlevania has ever seen him. As if the sun burned him after all. But it burned something deep beneath his skin.

There is no joyful banquet of welcome. He does not kiss their cheeks, hug them and whisper into their ears I missed you so, my Castle, my Sunlight. He does not come bearing gifts for his son, nor decorations for his Castle, from afar. He does not sigh and say it’s good to be home and remember his purpose.

Castlevania may not have ever breathed, but there was something like it when Vlad was here. He brought it to life somehow. Castle’s cannot speak but it felt they had a way of communicating somehow. Mirrors cannot speak either, but we hear their words all the same. But Dracula doesn’t talk to the walls anymore. And he cannot hear his Castle’s reply.

He marches in all too quickly, a purpose in his stride. But it’s not a fulfilling purpose, like that of the Room, nor a reflective purpose, like that of the Castle, rather it’s the emptiness before. Emptiness, yes… but not like before. Not the adjective, the outfit from his previous reign, not the noun, the feeling from when he was gone, instead it is a verb; it is something active. It’s more than just a lack of something; something grew, came alive in and of the lack. It’s a hungry emptiness, like the humans’ fire set to swallow everything deemed unworthy. The Castle has worn emptiness before, but this is different…or maybe it is different now.

Vlad left as a man, walking on his own feet, taking the slower path, but he comes back as a vampire, teleporting in a flash of flame, forgetting that he has legs that would like to carry him to distant lands, and hands that would like to touch the world, and eyes that would like to see the scenery.

The once light-laced windows shutter at his arrival, the curtains slam shut, as if the Castle got a chill at his footsteps. As if they were doing something wrong, and had to shut it down as fast as possible. Every single one of them shivers, closes, dares not refuse their master.

All except the those in the Room. Those in the Room do not shudder or shut down. Dracula is not their master. They will not obey. They cannot do much to protest the night, but they will do what they can; they will stand open and unafraid of the dark.

Castle’s can’t get slapped in the face, but if they could, this is what it probably would feel like.

Coming home without the home in his heart…like Castlevania isn’t home for him anymore.

They were learning how to change together; its master was supposed to return full of life. Together they were meant to feel the light’s sting, together they were meant to learn to live in it. To see the true state of their world, without the darkness to cover it up. Instead he came back empty, all that life he gained while Lisa and Adrian were here used up, stolen away from him by a cruel world. The Castle wasn’t worried about the humans ransacking what little light existed in Dracula, as they feared with Alucard—surely Vlad could only gain, he did not have enough in him to lose.

Castlevania understands now what it should have done; it should have collapsed all its walls to keep him inside.

It is far worse to know the light, and have it snatched away, than to only know the dark.

The Castle would be happy to at least have its master back, regardless if the experiment succeeded…But it isn’t sure it does.

Dracula has been angry before, but anger was a thing to take outside and deal with, not bring inside. The Castle is, for the most part, a quiet, soft place for him to spend his time, to contemplate, and learn, to experiment in, not to brood in rage. Rage was for the outside world. Inside may have been cold, dark and empty but it was serenity.

The darkness and the cold and the death this Castle once transmitted are no longer a radio station to be changed with the flick of a dial. These qualities have infected Dracula’s very being, it seeps out of him with every waxing and waning footstep, it oozes out of him as he sits in his study—no longer in quiet contemplation, but an unrest that is so loud it resonates perfectly with everything Castlevania is made of. It resonates so perfectly it reminds Castlevania of everything it once was when the vampire king ruled, tuning, turning it back into something that cares not for the color gold, and the discrepancies between its existence then and now melt away into before. It resonates perfectly with everything Castlevania is made of…and it thinks it just might shatter.

—(And maybe that would be a good thing, because it would let the light in. Maybe that’s the only way to let the light in now)—

The emptiness the Castle was before, the emptiness the Castle felt when Dracula first left has swallowed its master, and Dracula is now not a thing to reflect, but a negative space on the pages, a black hole that takes in all light and life and devours it. He walks in, not as its master who brought it to life, returning that life to the emptiness, filling those places the light still couldn’t reach, those places ever missing him… but as an empty shell that cannot fill anything, and only makes them all emptier they longer they look at him.

Dracula has been undead before. But that was undead; not quite alive, not quite dead either—and he could swing to either side. This is different.

With one swipe he rips off all the gold the Castle wore just yesterday like thieves in the night, leaving it broke and naked on the highway, and such a drastic change so quickly sends it lying on the floor in shock, one question dying on open lips, tears draining down its cheeks:

Why?!

When he left so full, what could have taken all that away? What could have taken away even what little life he had before it all? Did the world chip away at him slowly, or was it one event that kidnapped his life? What, who did they need to destroy?

Then, as Dracula marches into the library with the big broken mirror, and talks to a crowd of humans with tongues of a fire, it learns:

It is the woman. The woman who knocked on the Castle door all those years ago with the pommel of her knife. The woman with the soft hands and the defiant heart. The only human who was sweet in more than taste. Lisa, who brought sunlight into the darkest reaches of the Castle.

Vlad’s wife has been taken from him.

Dracula’s life has been taken from him.

The sanguine nature of humanity. Their penchant for setting things on fire. The ravenous nature of those flames. Vampires are known for being bloodthirsty, but the Castle always knew their thirst never compared to that of humanity. Vampires are known for catching on fire but she was never turned, and did she need to burn?

The world has taken the woman, and, worse, its master’s life away, and the Castle is more than willing to go to war for it. It agrees humanity must die for such a crime.

Hating and blaming the world, the humans who once scratched at the doors and howled at the moon is better than facing the thing deep inside Castlevania that tells it it’s all its fault. All its fault for letting her take pieces of it outside.

After all, it was the parts of Castlevania—the beakers and books—which she took outside to help people, to ‘do some good,’ which got her killed. So maybe its master is right that they can’t be helped. Maybe there isn’t any good in the world after all.

But something is still here. The Room says, once again. Someone.

Yes, she brought life into this place, and much of that life would leave with her. But have you forgotten that there is a life that cannot be taken away with her? That they created life within your miserable walls and that life, well, lives? Remember that a piece of her is still here, and you don’t have to pretend death is all that’s left.

The Room sees that the boy’s father is cold, and dark, empty, and dead. But unlike the Castle as a whole, for which these words are outfits to wear, facts of life, the Room has learned these are problems, and there are solutions to them. Solutions which the boy can enact.

He is dark. Observes the Room.

It ponders what to do with dark things.

So open a window, it tells Adrian. Let the sunlight in.

The Room’s window has always been open, and it does not know the flammable nature of full-blooded vampires. But starlight is a kind of light too.

He is cold. Observes the Room.

It ponders what to do with cold things.

So hold him. It tells his son. Like he did for you, all those years ago, when you were a tiny, bawling thing.

He is dead. Observes the Room.

It ponders what to do with dead things. The Room sits and thinks and begins to despair, for it does not know how to bring the dead to life.

The Castle takes a deep breath, and finally speaks up;

You opened the windows and cast the darkness away. It tells Alucard. You let the sun in and warmed my halls.

So take that gold, form it into a cloak, and dress him in it. Teach him what your universe looks like, what I looked like, when you were here.

Take him by the arm, and walk with him out into the stars, call them by name, like he, you and your mother did, long ago.

Go to him. Hold him. And don’t let go.

Lisa brought life to this place. You are the life they created. You are their legacy. You are the one life her death cannot take away.

If you can do that for me, if you can bring this old, wretched castle to life, you can reanimate your father too. All you need to do is remind him that you are here.

The Castle hopes, somewhere in the back of its mind it dreams, he can still come back to life. It is his reflection, after all; surely what worked for the Castle can work for Dracula.

But…it is his reflection, after all. And as Alucard marches through the halls, and while the Room continues to urge the boy to go to his father, the Castle digs its nails into its palm until it bleeds, biting back against the anger bubbling inside it even so, knowing that war cries cannot be rewound so easily.

The boy answers their call, though maybe not in the way they expect. No…it is better than some loving display.

He does not open the windows, but he does open a door, and when he walks in, his face is barely visible, not because it’s dark, but because he is draped, surrounded in light, like the sun itself is behind his decree. The light has followed him from his room, slithered along the halls, and formed itself into wings on his back. His tone is firm and defiant, and as he confronts him, Lisa’s voice rings through the halls.

And the Castle understands now that light, warmth, and life, no matter how much they seem so, are not soft, not weak. They are violent, and they burn.

Alucard opposes all the war, the blood, the revenge, proving once and for all that the Room has reached him, fulfilled its purpose. And his words—while Dracula’s drip with rage, like the blood down his fingers—are filled with the same I-know-what’s-good-and-I’m-not-leaving-till-it-comes-out his mother’s words were once laced with. Echoing behind every sunstruck syllable is his mother’s I want to save people.

And they understand at last that rooms aren’t the only things with purposes.

Dracula has been undead before, but this death is different; this is more than a living death, death is a living thing in him.

Death has its strings wrapped around the vampire king’s wrists, plugged into his chest. This war, the cold, the death, and the emptiness, are all he wants, all he is now.

The Castle’s consciousness thrashes between the two sides; between Dracula’s black anger and Alucard’s golden hope.

And anger wins.

The Castle is used to being spattered with blood, but when the boy’s—

—Adrian, who laughed, who played pretend, and showed them what ‘happy’ was, Alucard, the reverse of Dracula, who let the light in—

—blood is spilled by its master, the boy’s father, the one who created him and his light-strewn world, who laughed, and played with him, and painted the walls, and walked amongst the stars, who should know more than anyone he is worth listening to—

Castlevania thinks it might not like the cold, the dark, the empty, or the blood at all anymore.

The red stain is an unbearable itch it’s hopeless to scratch. The blood burns like acid on its floors, a brand of this war, this death, this emptiness burned upon its flank, as if making it remember its original purpose and habit, and who it is meant to obey. It wants to collapse on the floor, to writhe and scream and clutch at the place where it hurts.

But castles do not cry. They do not scream. They do not ache.

It can only be a reflection, can only do what its master wants; be an instrument of war. That is all. It can only obey, and try to remember what it liked about the color black.

Alucard—still alive, thank whatever gods might be out there—cannot stay in these blackened halls anymore, and neither can the sunlight. When he leaves, he takes with him all the things he brought inside.

Dracula shuts the door to the Room; he hides the walls he painted, the toys she stitched, the stars they gazed at, the books they fell asleep to together, and the window where the boy danced in the light, like he’s playing peekaboo; if he covers his eyes, the outside world will stop existing…or in this case, the inside one. As if it lying dormant will allow the emptiness to swallow it, and it to become a part of the Castle again. As if he’s trying to forget the very life he’s going to war for. Like he can silence his own heart, tell it that it doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t beat anymore. He hides the only pocket of heaven that ever existed in his finely crafted hell, and tries to pretend that there was never any laughter, any light here, and they can all forget what it was to be happy.

The Castle wonders if this is what it feels like when people try to lock away the best parts of themselves because they ache.

But the Room has become something more now. It has always been different, separate. It was never just not-cold, not-dark, not-empty, not-dead. It was not a negative. It was warm, light, full, and alive. And that doesn’t just go away. Its very existence defies being swallowed. It has always protected the thing inside it against the blood and the dark and the death, and it cannot, will not, accept them now. It enjoyed playing make-believe with the boy, but this isn’t pretend, imagination, the Room knows what is real, and this is a lie, and the Room will not stand for it, will not accept the thought that it never existed, never held any sunlight, that there was never any laughter here. It is alive, and it can only sleep, not retreat back into a state of nonexistence. It is not dead, and will not just sit still; it shivers in the cold and the dark. It may be lonely without the boy, but it will not just sit there in silence, or else get down on itself, quietly mourning the boy’s departure, thinking there is nothing it can do. It knows Alucard is coming back. The Room has grown up, and it doesn’t fear its master is gone forever when he leaves for a while. Its master will return, and when he does, he will fight. He will oppose the cold, the dark, and the death again, this time stronger. So no, it is not empty, just uninhabited.

And Dracula knows this. Dracula knows he cannot let the Room have a single second to breathe, because if it does, hope might just come back. So he wraps his claw around the Room’s throat and squeezes.

And it hurts. Far more than the sting of sunlight, Castlevania knows how much the Room hurts. Because, though they are separate, the Room will always be a part of the Castle. The light’s sting may have hurt, but it was passive, the side effect of medicine. This is an active, hateful, and sick. The Castle may have winced at the light’s bite. But the Room squirms within, and grapples at his grasp, fight alight, life and rage blazing in its eyes, locked on Dracula.

The books cough until their lungs bleed, the toys whine until their voices break, the drawings beat against the walls they’re upon until their skin rips open, the stars twinkle until they can’t open their eyes, and the the painting of that child in the arms of his mother and father, ‘happy,’ hangs limp on the wall with its tongue cut out. The Room burns in the middle of the Castle.

I won’t forget. Castlevania says fervently, shaking its head. I won’t forget Lisa. I won’t forget Alucard. I won’t who they were when they were together. I won’t forget what it was to be happy. I won’t forget who I was in the light. I won’t—

But Dracula rips them apart, the door shuts, and their connection dulls. The Castle’s own heartbeat begins fading.

The Castle gets frostbite, goes numb in the cold. It starts to go blind in the dark. The emptiness starts to rot its chest. Something in it dies.

Castles do not have hearts, but Castlevania wonders if this is what it feels like when one breaks.

And the Room suffocates.

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astoldbygingersnaps · 4 years ago

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#wip wednesday

since the latest chapter of star trek au continues to elude me (i swear to GOD i’ve been working on it; it’s about 2/3 of the way done and should hopefully be posted in a few weeks), i figured i’d go ahead and post a snippet of one my next projects, a fic i very briefly mentioned in my end of the year wrap-up post: the jurassic world au.

this is an idea i’ve always wanted to work on as a) a HUGE fan of the jurassic park franchise and b) a person who spent years as a dog trainer who was both puzzled and horrified by the raptor training in that movie. while this will probably be The Most Niche Fic of all my Very Niche Fics, i’m super happy with it so far and hope other people will be, too.

currently this project is sitting at about 18k and i’d like to have it completed, edited, and posted within the next few months. until then, enjoy this preview!

Itachi has never been the kind of person that believes in fate. As a boy his father had drilled the importance of hard work into his head, and it had been a lesson Itachi had carried with him long after he realized the man’s guidance wasn’t actually worth all that much. It wasn’t luck or good fortune that had led to Itachi many successes in life. Truthfully, fate had always seemed like a childish concept to him, an excuse for people to hang their hats on when things went wrong in their lives and they weren’t willing to take responsibility for their own actions.

That said, it’s hard for Itachi not to feel some sort of cosmic influence is manipulating his course in life when one day Uchiha Fugaku summons his eldest son into his office at the heart of Isla Nublar. Given his position as the puppetmaster of InGen, it isn’t often that his father actually finds himself on the humid and sandy shores of Jurassic World. But every time he does Itachi feels a familiar, childish pull of anxiety, a little voice in his head that drives himself to push himself to succeed, to please. It’s as if the last four years Itachi has spent almost single-handedly managing this glorified amusement park suddenly vanish in a puff as he meets his father’s judgemental black gaze.

“Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with me,” Fugaku tells him, waving a hand to silently order Itachi to sit. And, as always, Itachi obeys his father’s commands.

“It’s no trouble, Father,” Itachi assures him as he settles into the immaculate white leather chair that no doubt costs half of his yearly salary. “Was there something you needed?”

“Yes and no,” Fugaku replies, which is fittingly ominous for the man. “I wanted to discuss a recent change that Hiruzen is implementing to the park.”

It takes an extraordinary amount of restraint on Itachi’s part to keep his comments regarding the CEO of Jurassic World and the sheer effort he spends weekly cleaning up the man’s air-headed messes to himself. For all the years he’s lived on the island--first as a boy while his father built his career, then as an intern after college, and finally as yet another cog in the Jurassic World machine--he’s regarded Sarutobi Hiruzen with an almost bleak sort of awe. It was shocking to Itachi that a man would possess such power and wealth, yet seem almost clueless when it came to maintaining that empire. Then again, he thinks dryly, perhaps all rich and influential men were nothing more than fools in the end.

Unaware of Itachi’s thoughts on the matter, Fugaku continues, “As I’m sure you’re aware, the board has been planning for sometime now to come up with a new attraction to boost both ticket and merchandise sales.” Of course Itachi is aware of it; it had been his idea in the first place. But, like most of his suggestions regarding Jurassic World, it had been thoroughly steamrolled until a man with more money and respect to his name could repackage it as his own brilliant, brand new invention. Which, as it were, is exactly what Hiruzen is planning to do. “The project has been in the works for a while now, but it’s going to be quite controversial. We thought it best to keep it under wraps until we were certain it was viable.”

“I take it you’re certain now?” Itachi asks, and Fugaku nods.

“We’ve had great success with the assets we’ve created so far, but as long as this park has been in construction there’s been one species that we’ve been unable to successfully replicate. Unfortunately, it’s also the one species that every dim-witted tourist that sets foot on this island is looking for.”

A chill works its way down Itachi’s spine as he guesses, “Velociraptors.”

It’s an idea that’s almost too macabre to even contemplate, let alone execute. For better or worse, the general public’s more than aware of the chaos and bloodshed that led to the destruction of the first park. It’s a shroud that lingers over Itachi’s everyday life, as no matter how hard he tries to maintain order and prioritize safety there will always be someone who looks at him as if he’s a capricious madman.

Because of Jurassic Park’s spectacular failure, the image of the velociraptor--a brilliant and ruthless predator stalking the shadows, picking men off one by one--has captivated the average person’s interest in a way that no other species has. So, ever since that original park, Jurassic World has been chasing the holy grail of a fully operational, successful, and controlled raptor exhibit--and, considering the way his father is currently speaking, Itachi’s sure the board has finally captured that elusive golden ticket.

“You’re correct,” Fugaku says, though at this point the admission isn’t necessary, and with careful muscular control Itachi holds back a frown. Perhaps this is the reason why no one decided to share this information with him despite the fact he’s the Operations Manager for this entire establishment; given the way he’s previously spoken about subjects such as animal welfare and reducing employee hazards, perhaps they sensed he wouldn’t exactly be on board with the wild idea of releasing one of the world’s most dangerous beasts onto the Earth again.

Either way, regardless of his own personal feelings on the decision, Itachi intends to oversee it with the same attention to detail he brings to any other project. “It’s a risky move, but it could prove to be quite lucrative if executed properly,” he eventually replies, evenly as he’s able. “I know in prior years other raptors were bred, but they were culled because they proved to be more trouble than they were worth. What’s changed since then?”

“According to our geneticists, the sequences on the upcoming crop will give them a reduced level of aggression and increased agreeability, though to be honest I’m not convinced that isn’t just smoke and mirrors.” Bleakly, Itachi’s inclined to agree; there was a world of difference between breeding a dog for temperament and trying to strip millions of years of prey drive from a wild--and previously extinct--animal. “Given that I’m not completely sold on their claims, it’s more a question of who has changed than what.”

As if on cue, a knock arrives at his father’s door, and in seconds the visitor’s face appears in the frame. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” the man says--at least, that’s what Itachi thinks the man says, because the sight of him alone causes Itachi’s brain to spontaneously stop functioning.

“Not at all,” Fugaku responds, completely unaware of his son’s inner turmoil. “As a matter of fact we were just discussing your contract with us.”

“Must have been why my ears were burning,” the man replies, his smile broadening into a full-on grin the moment he catches sight of Itachi positively dying in front of his father’s desk.

If there was a god in this world, He would open a hole in Fugaku’s freshly steam-cleaned carpet and let Itachi fall to his demise. But clearly there isn’t, as instead of time ceasing entirely it drags on and leads to Fugaku announcing, “Itachi, this is Uchiha Shisui. He’s an expert in the growing field of paleo-behavioral studies, which makes him the ideal candidate for rearing the velociraptors and readying them for the public.”

“We’ve met,” Itachi all but chokes out, clearing his throat to expel the sudden lump that’s formed in it. From the other side of the room he can see Shisui fighting a laugh, and in that moment he wishes Shisui would fall in a hole and die, too.

“Really?” his father asks curiously. “I didn’t know you two were acquainted. How do you know each other?”

While his positions at Jurassic World and in life have allowed Itachi to conquer a variety of challenges, there’s not a single skill or experience that has prepared him for this moment. Because Itachi has no idea how to explain to his father that the reason he knows this man is that he slept with him four years ago and never returned a single one of his calls or texts.

“It’s a long story.”

#my fic #shiita #like i said before: this fic is essentially just a 90s romcom and i'm loving every second of writing it #alexa already has some Very Good art on the backburner for this au that i can't wait for her to drop #so stay tuned for that too

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l0rd-0f-the-lies · 5 years ago

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*paps* It's all good M'Thude! Now.. Prompts.. Hhmm. Virgils reaction to Janus now being accepted into the "Light Sides"? Or.. Remus and Roman dealing with the fallout of the events that just transpired? Oh.. How about everyone's internal monologue upon hearing Deceit say his name? 🤗

(Disclaimer: I haven't written fic in, several years. Apologies in advance. I also can't figure out how to add a read more, unfortunately.)

Chosen Prompt: Roman and Remus deal with the fallout after SVSR

Pairings: None

Warnings: Angst, but with a happy ending. Some very minor actions that could be considered harmful to the self (digging fingers into arms/shoulders).

Roman didn't want to be in his room any more. His knees had been digging into the pacing worn carpet for far too long already, his fingertips were forming indents on his elbows, and he was tired of staring at the monuments to projects past that glared down at him, menacing reminders of when he was Thomas's ... when the others valued his ideas. Yeah, that. He also just, wanted to be somewhere the others wouldn't go looking, if they bothered to. Patton had already come by to 'check' on him, and had been forced to tell his peace to Roman's door as the prince had refused to get up to answer it. Apparently the parental side felt that Janus hadn't really meant what he'd said, and that there'd been a misunderstanding. He'd apologized for not speaking up during their... disagreement, something about not trying to take sides, and had declared that "You boys will make up in no time, I just know it," before sighing and walking off again, seeming to accept that he wouldn't be invited inside. Yeah, Roman had mentally scoffed, he's so sure. They'll just be buddy buddy in no time... It shouldn't even matter. It shouldn't.

It did.

Wiping yet again at his face, the fanciful side closed his eyes in order to avoid the judgemental gaze of his own decor, consumed by the whirl of thoughts clogging his head. Where could he go? The imagination was far too obvious, if he went to the subconscious it's likely a Function would rat him out, the only other place would be someone else's... But no. None of them would want to see him right now, nor would he want them to see him like this. The only person who might not judge his disheveled state, who wouldn't care how good or bad he might actually be... Is the only one who he really had no right to ask that of, with all the distance he'd placed between them. And yet... the thought wouldn't leave him. Maybe... maybe he would understand, whether Roman felt he deserved it or not. And so, with a deep exhale, the prince sunk down, eyes closing as he Travelled.

He rose up slowly, still settled on his knees as he reappeared, the press of hardwood harsh against them. It made sense, he supposed. Wood was easier to clean up, should... unsavory things spill on it. Eyes taking in his new surroundings, quickly flicking away from things better left unacknowledged, he almost missed the dark lump settled on his brother's bed. It was quiet, so quiet, and that terrified Roman more then if he'd triggered some sort of trumpet launched fireworks booby trap. Remus was -never- quiet, or at least, he'd never been when Roman was around.

"R-remus?" He winced as his voice cracked, vocal cords worn out from crying for so long. "What are you-" His words cut short as the lump sniffled, a loud, snotty sounding snort came from the lump, causing Roman to grimace. Tissues were invented for a reason, not that that'd matter to Remus. "Are you cr- Are you ok?" He amends, it hadn't even occured to him that Remus may be dealing with something himself.

"Just peachy. Like that giant one those kids gobble-gobbled up. Not that you care, of course." It wasn't as if Roman had ever made much effort to seek out his company in recent years, much less made any move to comfort him. No, usually he'd be the first to insult him, remind him of his 'dark side' status. So quick to remind everyone how much better he was then his 'twisted' sibling. Not that he was the cause of this particular cry session. Not directly. No, that honor didn't belong to him today.

The Duke's response caused Roman to wince, glancing down and at least having the decency to look sorry, not that Remus could see it, steadfastly facing the far wall rather then turning over. "I, I do actually." He voiced without stopping to consider why. His heart pounded harshly as the reality that his brother probably wouldn't believe him suddenly hit him, driving him to forget his own reason for coming here for the moment. Instead the crushing need to apologize was swarming, cloying his eyes once more. "I know I haven't, sometimes, and I'm sorry. I, I haven't been very fair to you, recently, and I'm so, so sorry Remus. Please, talk to me? What happened?" He forced himself to stand, knees pulsing painfully in protest after being kept in the same position for so long. Shuffling forward slowly, reminiscent of someone trying to avoid spooking a semi feral cat, he settles on the edge of Remus's bed, hands fidgeting in his lap as he debates reaching towards his sibling.

Remus scrunches his face, forcibly stuffing another wave of tears down as the seemingly genuine words meet his ears, as the bed dips, telling him his brother had taken a seat. "What happened," he grits out, quite literally grinding his teeth together, "is you and Jan decided to drag -me- into your little cat fight." The sound of a shaky inhale can be heard from him, before he slowly turns over, red, watery eyes locking onto Roman's with an unreadable expression. "Well, he did the dragging. But you just rolled right with it, let it cut you real good, didn't ya? God forbid you get compared to the horror that is -me-, right?" He bit out, anger flaring, propping himself on an elbow and a knee to sit up. "You're just here because you got compared to your 'evil twin', and obviously that means Tommy thinks you're just as bad as me, right?" His eyes watered dangerously, threatening to spill over once more. "Doesn't feel so good, does it? Being called the evil one?"

Roman sat frozen, eyes growing wide the more Remus spoke, the more hurt and anger filled the air between them. "I-" He clenched his fingers together tightly, squeezing. "I-" He stuttered out, so much for royal eloquincy. He throws his hands up, frustrated with his inability to form a response to the unexpected, raw pain in his brother's words. What did one even say to that? It had never crossed his mind that his opinion, all of their opinions really, of his brother would actually hurt him. Remus, of all people, seemed the type to -enjoy- being referred to as sinister, wicked, and yes, evil. Or, Roman supposed, that's what he'd always assumed. "I thought you liked being called that?"

Remus seemed to deflate, sighing more to himself then anything and collapsing back against his pillows again. "That's what you choose to focus on?" He asks, again more to himself then anything, before sighing a second time, eyes losing some of their heat. "It can be fun, sometimes. Winding people up until they say it. But only because they think it anyway. Even, even if -you- had said it, I probably wouldn't care. I may have even laughed. But... but Jan, Dee knows. He knows I don't really like it. Especially in comparison to you. He, he's told me before, that I'm not. Not the evil twin. Not a mistake. Not bad, just different. And then... Then he says that. Because he knows it will hurt you, knows it's one of those things you're so fucking insecure about, and don't think I haven't noticed. You have more of those then a dragon's lair does skulls. And I know, I -know- he was hurt, near devastated really, and was just reaching for the lowest, easiest one of those to dig into, to stab at -you- with, but..." He exhales slowly, salty tracks making their way down his face. "But that doesn't mean it didn't -hurt-. Doesn't mean there isn't a chance he really thinks it, no matter -what- he says otherwise. He's Deceit, right?" He huffs bitterly, wrapping his arms around himself and digging his fingers into his shoulders, anger and hurt shimmering in his gaze. Under that though, is something Roman is so, so familiar with. He sees it in the mirror far too often, when his thoughts get the better of him. Deep seated insecurity, shining and broken. It doesn't belong on his twin's face, he finds himself thinking, leaning forward and hovering a hand over Remus, ensure if the other wants to be touched right now.

"I... I didn't know." He says quietly, rushing to finish his thought as he realizes he's said that out loud. "But- but that doesn't make it okay." Roman swallows, trying to quickly comes to terms with his rapidly shifting opinion of his brother after the deeply personal admittance from him, the word 'mistake' ringing uncomfortably in his head. Suddenly, he's no longer seeing a villian, just a hurting, lonely kid, same as him. Just someone who doesn't deserve to feel this way about things they have no control over, never had a choice about. "He's right, and I wish, I wish I had thought of it that way sooner. You -aren't- evil Remus, maybe, maybe you never were. You're just, so different from me, and we were so young when I first started calling you that, but I shouldn't have judged you so harshly. You can be a bit much, but you didn't choose what pieces you got, what role you filled. It doesn't make you a villian. It never should have." He's near about to cry again himself, seeing the hurt he'd helped to cause suffocating his sibling like this. He rests his palm on Remus's arm, squeezing reassuringly. "And I'm sure that De-" He cuts himself off, "that Janice, agrees. He may be a liar, but what does he get out of telling you that you aren't really the bad guy? He knows you aren't evil, Re. It's like you said, he just went for the easiest jab, something he knew I'm afraid of. That I -was- afraid of."

And yeah, Roman hadn't known what response to that he'd expected, but it certainly wasn't the long pause followed by a string of steadily growing giggled. "What did I say? Remus? Are you al-" His question is interrupted by a rough wheeze from the side in question, punctuated by even more giggles before he manages to answer.

"Did- did you say -Janice-? You still think it's -Janice-?" Remus wheezes out, managing a giddy smile as he cackles.

"Y-yes?" His brother hesitantly responds, both looking & sounding unsure. "I, that -is- his name, isn't it? ...You even called him Jan!" Roman suddenly recalls, looking bewildered and nearly offended.

Remus's laughter only grows stronger at that, before he dramatically wipes a tear from his eye, clutching his stomach as he manages to wind down the cackles enough to speak. "Ro, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you are dumb as a box of rocks."

"Hey!"

"It's Janus. Or as I like to call him, Jaynus." This sets off another round of chuckling from the more chaotic twin. "Ya know, as in the -Roman- god, Janus? With a u and an s? Has two fudgin' faces just like dear double Dee's logo?" If ever a grin could be described as shit eating, that was Remus's expression right now.

Roman, at this point, was bright red, embarrassment tinting his skin. "I- I knew that!" He cries, puffing up his chest and placing his fists on his hips. All it took was a skeptical, unimpressed look from his brother and he was deflating, admitting defeat with the lowering of his arms. "Ok, so maybe I didn't! But how was I supposed to know? Mythology is the nerd's thing, not mine!"

"Clearly." Remus teased, sitting up properly and moving to settle beside his brother. His grin slowly faded, replaced by a serious expression that absolutely didn't belong on his face. He clears his throat, but doesn't go on, trying to decide on what he wanted to say as his brother's gaze settled on him questioningly.

"Remus?" He asks, his own expression fading as he takes note of this. "Everything ok?"

"With me? I feel... a lot better. Probably too much. I may have to set something on fire just to get the jitters out later. But what about -you-?" He asks, inquisitive gaze locking with his twins.

"Me? What about me?" Roman scrunches his face in confusion, the quick shifts of their conversation leaving him a bit disoriented as to what his brother meant.

"What about you, what? Don't give me that, I saw how you looked when you first rose up. You came here because you were upset too, and not just about Jan's jab."

Roman unconsciously flinches at the reminder, the ghosts of the looks the other's had given him, at Thomas's lie, because Janus had confirmed it was a lie, hadn't he, clawing at his chest. "I, I'm fine." His voice sounds weak even to his own ears. The look from his brother leaves him grasping at straws. "We literally just established you aren't evil, so what he said doesn't matter, ok? I'm fine."

"You're avoiding what I really mean, Ro." Remus raises his eyebrows, slowly settling a hand on Roman's shoulder, arm tensed as if convinced his brother would pull away. "I'm talking about what -you- said. About not being-"

"What about it?" Roman chokes out, forcing himself not to throw Remus's hand off as he cuts him off. "I know I'm not evil, since you aren't, but... But I'm not the hero either. I'm not -his- hero. I get it, really, I do." He glares down at his boots, expression closing off again.

"Yes, you are."

"W-what?" He's sure he's heard wrong.

"I said, you are. Of course you're his hero Roman, making a few mistakes doesn't change that. Don't be an idiot."

He feels a treacherous bead of hope bubble in his chest, but no, he can't- "But Janus-"

Remus's brow furrowed, his fingers squeezing the other's shoulder to get him to look at him again. "Janus nodded. You assumed he meant Thomas was lying, but you know what they say about -ass-umptions, bro. Thomas was telling the truth."

"What?"

Remus just rolls his eyes, sighing. "He was telling the truth. Janus was agreeing with Thomathy when he nodded. You are that dork's hero, like it or not, and I don't see that changing anytime soon."

Roman doesn't respond, stilling as he processes this. And then-

"Oh damnit. Come here Count Cry-ula." Remus gripes, no real heat to it as he pulls his brother to him, hugging him tight in a way he hasn't since childhood.

Roman manages to laugh wetly through what was probably the second dozen round of tears that night, hugging back like it's the only chance he'll get. "R-really? You aren't, just saying that to make me feel better?"

"Do I -seem- like the feel better side to you?" His brother snorts, a few tears of his own making another run for it. "Yes, really. He loves you Roman, and even if we're all so emotionally backed up it's about to come out the other end, the others do too."

And for the first time that night, he believes it. The hope is so big now, bubbling brightly in his chest, overflowing and spilling freely down his face as he buries it into his twin's shoulder, a bright laugh managing to escape him as his heart swells. They don't hate him. -Thomas- doesn't hate him. Maybe... Maybe things will be okay after all, both twins think, and they laugh together as they cry, the sound a perfect harmony.

#sanders sides #remus #roman #creativitwins #angst with a happy ending #my writing #if you tag this as you-know-what I'll steal your fucking kneecaps #janus mention #long post

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bladekindeyewear · 5 years ago

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HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-04-02

Alright I’ll fix the broken images later right now lets goooooo read the updaaaate I’ve been only spoiled on the chapter title

I don’t even wanna guess. Jake? This makes me think of Jake for some reason, even though that doesn’t make much se-- oh right the Vriskas are locked in a school closet with a dead clown.

> CHAPTER 7. Distress Call From the Closet

Yep.

Also, this is how a car design looks when it was invented to have its first appearance be it flying with a human named Tavros looking out from an open side door.

(I’m not ENTIRELY against designing something for its immediate-art-use-purpose first and functional or historical-origination thought later, but usually when you make it that obvious that that’s what your doing it’s best to make that fact funny. Like the Conveniently Shaped Lamp.)

Also I appreciate this using of Candy as kind of more lighthearted breaks in the action?

> (==>)

I thoguht that protruding fang (?) was drool for a second and wondered what the fuck they were up to in this closet all of a sudden.

Vriska, thriving on it, has not felt so decadently alive in a very long time. Tavros has never in his tragic existence felt so close to death, which is surprising to him.

Vrissy is trying her best not to grapple with any cosmic truths at the moment, since she’s getting a phone call in the middle of hiding for her life.

Vrissy’s implied to be somewhere in-between all that by this joke. I bet she’ll be comparing herself to Vriska and Tavros alike throughout this mess, wondering where on the spectrum she lands and being ashamed of it AND both of them regardless. Vriska Original had a ghost version who went on a fair bit of a Page dress-up thing and personality shift, so maybe we could expect Vrissy to struggle with being caught in the middle of the scales... or does that qualify as overthinking it classpectways?

VRISSY: Yeah Harry I would say we are Extremely Aware of the Situ8ion. VRISSY: As it Unfolded the fuck all around us.

Good Christ, Vrissy’s selectively-capitalized Kanaya-isms continue to be cute.

Oh, he’s on speakerphone.

> (==>)

Yep, telling Rose and Kanaya would be the smart thing to do, but it isn’t the Them thing to do.

--ROXY’S PLACE?!?? Hoo boy. On the other hand, though, we get more Roxy, so it evens out.

Also, I like how Harry Anderson has to spell out Harry Anderson’s entire name for his Harry Anderson chat tag every single time. Harry Anderson.

> (==>)

Part of the reason, Tavros thinks, that he’s been so game to continue on with the worst plan anyone has ever concocted, is that the more bullshit they endure, the longer they can put off actually doing anything that matters.

If he’s getting sprayed with a sprinkler and getting clown feet in his face, it’s a farce. It can’t hurt him. But if they get to the part where he’s shoving the uncooperative weight of his uncle’s corpse in an incinerator, he will stop floating in protective semi-consciousness above his body and it will all be real.

Ouch.

Can’t one of you assholes just captchalogue him? Or did you leave all the appropriate-strength moduses at home? Even you Vriska??

Oh, right. Everyone knows and you can just leave him here. Good call. I mean you don’t really have to worry about forensic evidence with the pictures circulating.

> (==>)

VRISKA: 8ye 8itch.

Oooh! That feels satisfying! Yeah, tell off Gamzee’s corpse!

...Wait.

If they just leave Gamzee there, Jane can revive him, can’t she.

Fuck. Maybe it’s up to Jake to try and stop that.

> (==>)

Karkat and Meenah resistance-time, then, with them presumably hearing about this development on the internet. Wow, Meenah’s horns are getting long fast. Plus a hint more of her grown-up self’s height. I didn’t think she’d keep maturing so fast with her absurd lifespan ahead of her.

Oh shit, I didn’t see at first--

Right, Candy might still be lighthearted compared to the broader plot just due to lowered stakes, but it’s still the Carpet-Bombing-and-War-Filled Shituniverse.

Trolls are made for the battlefield.

From the moment a troll oozes out of the mother grub’s pulsating sphincter, through the trials of the brooding caverns, across the brutal day to day slog of Alternian society, all the way to their Ordeals, to the sucking void of space. They are bred for nothing but endless war.

But Commander Vantas...Commander Vantas is different.

Is... is Meenah narrating right now? Because fuck.

Or so all the pamphlets say.

The actual Commander Vantas has blisters on his heel and has been taking pot-shots at scouting drones for the last six hours. He could use a bath, honestly.

Or is this one of the trolls on the side narrating who’s kind of internalized the stories of trolls’ prior warlike nature?

> (==>)

MEENAH: yo nubs is that u MEENAH: pretty rank KARKAT: OH MY GOD. KARKAT: I FLATLY REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN SMELL MY NATURAL MUSK OVER THE STENCH OF BLOOD AND BURNING FLESH.

I guess it probably was Meenah narrating, then. Unless it’s a really biased alt!Callie doing the talking.

MEENAH: didnt i warn u bout thinking tho? KARKAT: GOD DAMMIT MEENAH, DON’T MEME AT ME.

I don’t know what meme this is and I really don’t want to know.

They have had this argument more than once. In fact, both of them could play either side of it. Karkat has done his time in the field, of course, leading small guerilla operations to free prisoners and sabotage Crocker’s supply chains, but Meenah and the rest of the council is right. Which is why he’s here, instead of at the front lines with his rebels, where he belongs.

His true value is his face. His symbology. At the end of the day, he is a fucking ad campaign.

...is KARKAT narrating here???

SWIFER: boss check the news!

Oh shit, right, Swifer is in the resistance in Candy instead of just a breeding assistant in Meat as the bonuses remind us.

KARKAT: OH FUCK. MEENAH: what KARKAT: JESUS CHRIST. MEENAH: nubs i swear 2 god KARKAT: IT’S GAMZEE. KARKAT: HE’S DEAD. MEENAH: oh MEENAH: well shit KARKAT: I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS. MEENAH: u okay KARKAT: NO!

Huh. Them’s some complicated feelings that could fall in basically all directions at once.

Also, I can’t believe Karkat has hung around humans enough to fully internalize the full-throated exclamation “JESUS CHRIST”, which wouldn’t even really be a thing on Earth C with people who aren’t from Earths B or A.

MEENAH: u outlawed fishpuns i gotta make my own fun

How could you, Karkat.

KARKAT: AND I GUESS IF YOU CALL AN OBSCENELY PUBLIC PALE ACT, PERFORMED IN A FUGUE OF DESPERATE PANIC INTENDED TO PREVENT HIM FROM MURDERING ALL OF MY FRIENDS INSTEAD OF JUST HALF OF THEM “A THING”. KARKAT: THEN YES, I GUESS WE HAD A THING. KARKAT: BUT IF YOU’RE ASKING ME IF I’M SAD THAT HE’S DEAD? KARKAT: ABSOLUTELY THE FUCK NOT.

Okay, I’d hoped not, good...

KARKAT: THAT’S NOT WHY I’M SAYING FUCK A BUNCH OF TIMES. MEENAH: u need a reason to say fuck a buncha times KARKAT: SHUT UP. KARKAT: LOOK AT THE PICTURE.

--Right! That’s a good reason to not be okay.

KARKAT: I DON’T THINK SO? I CAN’T SEE HER EYES IN THIS PICTURE, BUT SHE’S COVERED IN BLOOD, AND SHE’S CARRYING GAMZEE, SO SHE’S CORPOREAL AT LEAST.

I love this form of analysis somehow.

KARKAT: OKAY...HERE. OH. OF COURSE. CROCKER IS CLAIMING HER SON WAS KIDNAPPED AND FORCED TO PARTICIPATE. KARKAT: AND THEY’VE NAMED ME AS THE MASTERMIND. MEENAH: well we woulda taken credit for it anyway so this saves us the time MEENAH: thanks jane owe u one

Meenah isn’t the “concerned” type. Lemonade out of lemons.

> (==>)

That middle tweet is my favorite.

Oh dear, “#GamzeeAnon”...

KARKAT: SHIT. OF COURSE THIS WOULD HAVE TO DO WITH FUCKING SERKET. KARKAT: LITERAL MONTHS OF PLANNING, HOURS AND HOURS OF LOGISTICS, AND ALL OF IT GOES UP IN SMOKE BECAUSE OF ONE SPIDERY ASSHOLE. KARKAT: SHE *WOULD* FIND SOME WAY TO WRECK MY SHIT FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE.

indisputable

KARKAT: NOW? KARKAT: NOW WE PIVOT FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS.

Um...

What does that mean?

I’m having a lot of trouble not only understanding the basic meaning of what he’s saying, here, but understanding why KARKAT of all people would employ it.

......it’s a meme, isn’t it. Gotta be.

> (==>)

(Ooh, an eyepatch designed to invoke a Strider-shade. Nice.)

KARKAT: I NEED TO TALK TO EGBERT.

But....... why??

> (==>)

Oh right, cause his son’s girlfriend is involved.

> (==>)

Oh my goooood what a pair of John and Roxy caaaars! :D

He is too busy with these mental gymnastics to notice his father’s car parked outside.

Ah right. John’s... not on the best terms with him, I recall that.

> (==>)

Ohhhh myyyy goooood what an image!!!

John, Roxy, and Harry Anderson proceed to have the tail end of a conversation they had before, in another medium.

What the fuck!? Harry had that conversation WHILE this dead body situation was going on?! Let me reread that linked bit...

(And she has such a somber smile on her face, but given the conversation content it’s not surprising.)

Harry Anderson looks at the two of them all teary and laughing and hikes his bag higher on his shoulder, shifting his weight. Roxy sees a muscle tighten in his jaw. Her beautiful, smart boy. She wants to run over and hug him, to protect him from the possibility of pain at talking to his father, but she doesn’t. She knows how much he’s wanted this, no matter how much he jokes about it.

She looks back at John, and sees her own awe mirrored in his face. She wills him not to cry, not to fall back on his self-imposed suffering and blame loop. Something about the last hour must have done the trick, though. John stands up, brushes his hands on his jeans, and walks, back straight, toward his son.

JOHN: hey harry anderson. JOHN: it’s really, really good to see you. JOHN: do you wanna go for a drive?

The muscle in Harry Anderson’s jaw clenches a few more times, but when he smiles, it is genuine.

HARRY ANDERSON: yeah, dad. HARRY ANDERSON: that could be cool.

Oh son of a bitch. Well isn’t that entertaining. Harry you’re just going to ditch your friends for I’m kidding, this is life fulfillment you’re aiming for, of COURSE you’re going to agree. (Too bad bringing the current situation in is gonna throw a wrench in things.)

> (==>)

Oh right, that means more of THIS Vriska and THIS John. They’ve had a good start talking already, I wonder what more they can learn from each other.

HARRY ANDERSON: but no worries, i asked my mom to pick me up some snacks so she’ll leave to go to the store in a sec. HARRY ANDERSON: just sneak in after she leaves and hide in my room, and i’ll be back in a bit.

Harry you enormous shortsighted asshole. And John’s about to learn all this from Karkat over the phone to blow his cover.

> (==>)

aaaaa roxy art i cannot :D

Wonder if her stealthiness attunement is gonna catch them in the act?

> (==>)

From this jealousy bit, I wonder to what degree Earth C humans are used to Troll quadrants and their various interplay mores.

> (Room: Examine yourself.)

Oh, a proper room introduction for Harry Anderson! Very fashion-focused, very liking the spotlight--

Oh wait, shit. This is traditionally where classpect associations are hinted more obviously than anywhere else. Time to stop holding back on the classpect stuff and take in every fucking word with capital-C Classpect fully in mind.

A bedroom stands empty. There is no boy standing in this bedroom, or indeed anyone else. However, if the boy whose bedroom it was were here, one might remark that his name was HARRY ANDERSON.

And FUCK, one might say, does he like MUSICAL THEATER.

Spotlight, definitely. But is it for the attention? The possibilities? The acting?

He has been in his fair share of school plays, but he has LOFTY ASPIRATIONS to STAR in bigger and better productions. He especially appreciates modern MUSICAL REMAKES of classic OLD EARTH MOVIES. It's a craze that not everyone is happy about, but in the absent boy they have found a DEVOTED FAN. There is also just enough overlap between his taste and his father’s to allow for SOMEWHAT STILTED CONVERSATIONAL BONDING from time to time.

Hmmmm. Is it about the majesty of important works of media (I see “Pokémon” and “Alien vs Predator” up there...), or is it about the fact that they’re remakes of past works? Those are a lot of awards and stage lights now that I zoom in to look... and hats... hats could be important......

The boy who is not yet here has also been known to dabble in ACCESSORIZATION. He could be described as a COBBLER ASPIRANT, a NEOPHYTE MILLINER, or even a BIT OF A WHIZZ WITH A NEEDLE AND THREAD.

Oh, interesting! Not just putting out different outfits, but making them? And Milliner is hat-specific creation...

His mother got him his first SEWING MACHINE when he was 10, to keep him from using hers all the time. His looks are HAND-CRAFTED, often IMITATED, but never DUPLICATED.

Space is obviously possible from sewing, but-- A focus on uniqueness!!! The broader theme is getting VERY specific. You might feel where I’m leaning already.

His COSTUMES appear in various AMATEUR PRODUCTIONS, the devising of which takes up most of his FREE TIME. His friends are usually LESS APPRECIATIVE of his attempts to dress them up than he would like, though.

Holy fucking shit. He dresses up and makes unique HATS for his friends and others. Specifically so they can use them as COSTUMES to act parts!!!!

And the other unique thing mentioned about him here took the time aside to note how he appreciated the intersection in personal interests between him and his father for it.

So you all know what I’m thinking, right? HATS??? It’s got to be Heart, isn’t it. Maybe even a Page of Heart, with his long-off aspirations and talent for arming others with it. Any other additive/giving class might do the trick, too, like Sylph or possibly Maid. Knight could technically still fit pretty well, but I feel Page is better given what little we know so far, what with so much outward focus bleeding out.

(You can comb through the saga on my infamous hats tag or the summary on the Aspect Duality post, but the gist is that hats (and others’ clothes, but especially the hats. even shoes -- SO many shoes in that picture!) represent the gist of an expressed identity, personal uniqueness whether innate or affected ala a costume. Nepeta, Dirk, Terezi, and even Stitch have given us examples, some of them deeper than we realized, MOST of them probably overthought bullshit like I thought when I first created the hats tag and started tracking the wonderful importance of hats. ¬_¬)

I’d like to see anyone else’s interpretation. (EDIT: One more potential Nep-allusion in this room.)

> (==>)

Oh nooooooo!!!! Tavros’s sprite is the saddest looking thing I’ve ever seen!! D: Like a mix of Jane and Jake that thoroughly regrets his entire existence! Which he practically does! D: Why the Caliborn-like clothes though?

(Some hint at “how different alt!Callie’s Caliborn must have been” like the commentary suggested exploring in fanfiction? Was the suggestion meant to divert attention from the idea that it’d be addressed in the plot? Andrew pulled that trick a time or two, why not these authors?)

Also:

Pffff. Vriska just accessorizing immediately-- Oh, wait. That might just be a bandana she had at some point coated in Gamzee’s blood.

Tavros is looking at the news on a borrowed phone -- nice call on disabling the tracking on yours, Tavros.

> (==>)

TAVROS: It’s getting a bit surreal to see my, uh,, frozen mask of horror on every news site,, TAVROS: It’s a good shot of you,,, though, Vrissy, VRISSY: It really is Shockingly well composed.

Heheheh. It’s fun that Tavros knows exactly what Vrissy/ka would care about.

And yes, Vriska is over there trying out ALL the bandanas.

> (==>)

VRISSY: Oh, is trying on all my 8oyfriend’s accessories not passing the time well enough for you? VRISKA: Desper8 times call for desper8 measures, Vrissy. VRISKA: And this is some dire shit.

They stare each other down. Did she mean the fugitive situation, or Harry Anderson’s fashion choices? Vrissy feels silly wondering this, but despite the situation they’re in, she can’t help but feel more acutely anxious about Vriska’s presence.

She likes her life, and she trusts her own choices. But now, looking at everything from Vriska’s vantage point, it all feels silly. Unimportant. Childish.

She can’t tell if she wants Vriska to rip in to Harry Anderson or if she wants her to stay silent. To put off the moment where she has to defend him or join in.

Real interesting. Like she’s caught between these worlds after all.

> (==>)

They say it was a long drive, but...?

...WOW. What a chill, disinterested-looking affect his sprite makes for. Huh.

He kisses Vrissy’s temple and she leans in to the warmth of him.

HARRY ANDERSON: aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. HARRY ANDERSON: so sorry it took so long. HARRY ANDERSON: can’t rush a heart to heart, you know how it is.

Stop making me deliberate whether you’re trying to drop teasing Heart-aspect hints. You already know I’m going to be obsessively scrutinizing every word of dialogue around Harry to see if it fits, story. No need to rub it in.

VRISSY: You actually had a Heart to Heart with your dad? How many times did he Cry?

I DIDN’T EVEN READ THE NEXT LINE QUIT SAYING HEART TO HEART YOU EVEN GAVE IT PROPER CAPS THAT TIME

HARRY ANDERSON: but god, it was a mess. i had to keep talking to keep him from looking at his phone or turning on the radio. HARRY ANDERSON: i may have told him more about my deep passions and emotions in the last hour than the whole rest of my life combined, just to keep him from hearing the fucking news.

Holy shit. You exploited conversation about your deep passions and interests for a separate goal???

Aaargh! Classpect everywhere! I’ve relapsed!!! D:

> (==>)

JOHN IS SO HAPPY

John Egbert has not had a day like this in a very long time. He can barely keep track of this series of epiphanies he’s having. He stretches out on his couch to relax and process the gifts of advice and connection his friends and family and ex-family have just given him.

OH RIGHT TIME TO RUIN IT WITH MAXIMUM SHENANIGANS

JOHN: hey karkat! great timing! JOHN: so much just happened and im kind of reeling about it. KARKAT: YEAH NO SHIT.

Ohhhh. Much of the time I hate dramatic irony, but those moments before someone is about to be let in on the discrepancy... oh man I love that.

JOHN: is something going on? i just spent the afternoon with my son, and i think he would have told me if something was up with his friends? KARKAT: OH MY LUSCIOUS SHITTING CHRIST JOHN LISTEN TO ME. JOHN: listening!

"Luscious”?? Did they try to type “Lusus” and get autocorrected?

Who’s writing Homestuck on their phone???

> (==>)

J...John?? Are you okay?? XD

This picture. These two paragraphs. I fucking love them.

(Wow, being closer to the “canon” story due to ridiculous shenanigans right after his back-to-back self-insights and outlook changes have really been healthy for him huh. He can probably sense HS^2 reaching him out here. And you can see the helpless comedian his probably-still-depressed ass became on Earth B in his reaction here. EDIT: Also, how appropriate that even by DYING, the Bard of Rage managed to fulfill his role and shatter the last vestiges of John's narrow-outlooked despair?)

John can’t answer. He can’t speak. His body has given itself over to the long-lost feeling of manic euphoria. It had felt like Harry Anderson was holding something back on the drive earlier, but he had already told John so much. He hadn’t wanted to press for more.

Yeah... after what John’s gone through across his life and session, finding out Harry managed to hide THIS for a whole car-ride is the best sort of punch-line for him.

John can’t breathe. Something is happening. Something is finally fucking happening, and he’s finally awake enough to appreciate it.

--yep. I was just guessing earlier, but this kind of confirms it’s in part a closer-to-relevance, closer-to-canon feeling bleeding in. Something is happening that’s important enough to SHOW onscreen and not skip over. I guess he really does like being anchored in Light after all.

> (==>)

John wheezes himself into relative calm. He has to get Karkat to understand. He clears his throat and breathes.

JOHN: karkat, this can be how we win. JOHN: i know what we need to do.

...holy SHIT.

Karkat, how did you know calling JOHN about this would work out this well??

John actually taking confident action to solve a problem, in a way that isn’t going to end up depressing like his attempt to provide Tavros escape in the Epilogues... this should be interesting.

See you next time. (I had to image-fix some stupid linked hat posts for this blogpost and I’m out of energy, so I’ll fix the other old post I promised that asker to fix in like, a day or two; I’ll post when I do.)

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #bladekindeyewear #blastyoboots #hats #Heart and Mind #Harry Anderson

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antihero-writings · 5 years ago

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If These Walls Could Talk Chapter 4: “Empty”—Castlevania (Netflix) Fic (Full Chapter!)

Fic Title: If These Walls Could Talk

Synopsis: Vampires do not have reflections, and castles do not have hearts. But Dracula is no ordinary vampire, and Castlevania is no ordinary castle. If castles can fight, maybe they can think too.

The series, and Adrian’s childhood, told from the perspective of the castle.

Chapter Title: “Empty”

Chapter summary: “He’s gone mad. And from that, there is no recovering him…It’s a tragedy…He could’ve changed the world. I think he might have, if Mother hadn’t died. “She’d sent him out into the world. That’s why he wasn’t there when the bishops took her…She sent him to travel… “Imagine if…the religious inquisition hadn’t proved true all of his worst instincts about humans.” “And now he’s going to use her death as an excuse to destroy the world.” “Oh, the world will still be here…But you will not be here…None of you…There will only be Dracula and his war council, and the hordes of the night… “Imagine it. A world without humans, under endless invented night. And Dracula in his castle, his revenge so horribly complete that there is nothing left to do but look out over a world without art or memory or laughter and know that he did his work well. That he did it all for love.”

Chapter 4: