#writing it felt like a fever haze. i think i literally did have a fever when i got aubrey’s beta edit notes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

whoree321 · 3 years ago

Note

Hey, I believe your requests are open, so, could you please write smth were reader and Tech are friends with benefits?

Also, I’m in the same dilemma as you, cause everyone already forgot tbb and I’m still obsessed??? Like, were is everybody excitement about the show, it was gone so fast…

Anyway, thank ya <3

hello friend! this is a delicious request and i am more than happy to oblige! i’m not sure if you wanted like pure angst or like sexy successful fwb but above all else i am a dirty dirty slut for happy endings so i went light angst, heavy fluff, mild smut to get a little of everything lmaooooo. this also got a little out of control and i’m not sorry.

and literally i am suffering so much in this ever increasing drought of bad batch excitement. like i feel like the person at a party when everyone else is tired and wants to leave who’s still just way too hyped and is like “NO WAIT GUYS LETS HAVE MORE SHOTS AND PLAY TRUTH OR DARE COME ON ITLL BE FUN”. i am in absolute agony. but anyways!

a mutually beneficial arrangement (tech x gn!reader)

it was purely sex. just two friends helping each other relieve some stress occasionally. just two friends who happened to have sex with each other. until it wasn’t.

warnings: fwb, mild smut, reader is gender/genital neutral but they are penetrated by tech (amab)

word count: no idea but it’s pretty long

***

In hindsight, it really shouldn’t have shocked you that this was how things played out.

It’s not like you’d ever been friends with benefits with someone before. It’s not like you didn’t know how easily you could develop feelings for people. It’s not like you didn’t know you were maybe just a little too interested in Tech non-platonically before any of this even started.

No, you knew all of those things going into it. You made the conscious decision to be the biggest dumbass in the galaxy.

When Tech had first suggested a friends with benefits situation, it seemed like a much better idea than it actually was. You had been assigned to Clone Force 99 for a few weeks at that point and had already developed fast friendships with all of them (Crosshair even sometimes acknowledged your presence with neutrality and that definitely felt like at least an acquaintanceship). You were closest with Tech, and one tipsy night at 79’s found the two of you making out in a hallway near the bathroom. You could still remember the way his mouth tasted like whiskey as he pressed you up against the wall

He paused his assault on your lips to look at you, breath fanning lightly across your face. You whined at the loss of contact, not noticing in your haze the intensity in his eyes as he studied you, as though if he took in enough of you he would have the answer to an imposssible question. He migrated lower, planting kisses and sucking lightly on your neck until he made his way to your ear.

“Have you ever heard of people being platonic sexual partners?”, he asked low in your ear. You shuddered at the feeling of his breath and the deeper tone to his voice before you answered.

“You mean like friends with benefits?”

“Yes, that is exactly what I mean,” Tech clarified as he moved to once again nibble on the sweet spots of your neck. Had you had a little more sense, you would have warned him not to leave any noticeable marks, lest you suffer the teasing of the rest of the boys.

“I’ve heard of it, I’ve never done it before though. Why?”

“Well, given our current circumstance,” his response was punctuated by his ministrations on your pressure points, “it may be mutually beneficial for us to enter into that type of arrangement.”

You stopped him for a moment, and lifted his face so that you could make eye contact. Tech stood up a little straighter, hands running up and down your sides lightly as he gazed down at you.

“You think that we should be friends with benefits?”

Tech nodded, one hand moving to brush a strand of hair out of your face.

“I believe it would be an advantageous relationship. We could have relations while still maintaining our successful platonicity, thus eliminating the need to alter the dynamic of the squad with the complications of some trivial romance. It would also be physically beneficial. Sexual intercourse has been shown to successfully alleviate stress, as well as…”

He kept going, explaining the health benefits of sex, but it was hard to pay attention to his rambling while you tried to clear your head of the alcohol and the intoxication of his touch and figure out where you stood on his proposition. In that moment, everything he said made total sense. Granted, that part about “trivial romance” stung a little, but you could still fuck him without ruining the squad or your friendship with him, and Maker did you want to fuck him…

Uncharacteristically cutting off his rant, you responded. “I accept your offer. I would love to be friends with benefits with you.”

Tech grinned, a lust forming in his eyes at the new promise of the benefits the night was leading to.

“Splendid”

From that (mind-blowing) night, sex became a very regular thing. A mission went poorly? Frustrated sex. A mission went well? Celebratory sex. The Batch got leave time? Vacation sex. The Batch hadn’t gotten leave time in too long? Cabin fever sex. It really had started out pretty platonically, but after the first few times you could feel yourself falling head over heels for him. You knew you should stop it, Tech would never hold it against you or be upset if you changed your mind. You told yourself again and again that you would just break it off with him, but then his hands and his lips and his body would be on you, and the hungry way he looked at you would knock the air, and any ideas of making him stop, out of you.

In your defense, it wasn’t like you were the one who had suggested it. Tech had to know the likelihood that your “platonic sexual relationship” would only stay platonic for so long. Actually, you were surprised he hadn’t done a little more analysis of the situation. If he had taken into account all of the factors (the rate of failure in friends with benefits situations, each of your levels of emotionality and past relationships, the effects of living and working in close quarters, etc), you can’t imagine he would have thought it was a smart idea. If Tech had crunched the numbers like he normally would, it wouldn’t have produced favorable results. So for him to want to do it anyway, or to not even analyze it beforehand, must mean he had some sort of feelings for you, right?

This was one of the various problem in your current situation. Tech would always do things that were just on the line between “friends” and “more than friends”. He would go out of his way to do little things for you, he would share info and jokes and side comments with you that he never tried to share with brothers, he would blush when you complimented any of his work, he would stand just a little too close to you or let his touch linger just a little too long. He would suggest a sexual relationship that was highly statistically improbable to be successful.

And while Tech offered nothing but mixed signals, you took it a step further and let those mixed signals fester in your brain until you had warped them into one very clear signal: he liked you as more than a friend. You were so sure of it too. Why would he do all of those things if he didn’t like you like that? It’s not even like he treated you like some one night stand when he fucked you. He cared about making you feel good (usually it seemed like he cared more about you getting off than him), he would clean you up after and you always stayed the night together, cuddled and whispering late into the night about nothing and everything.

There was nothing friendly about your intimate nights together, come to think of it. Friends that just fucked would never treat each other so tenderly or lovingly. It’s not that completely unbelievable to think you would accidentally blurt out that you love him. Tech should have expected that.

But it was out there, unfortunately. You had committed the cardinal sin of being friends with benefits and you couldn’t take it back.

Tech’s brutal pace never faltered as he pumped in and out of you, your moans growing louder and louder as you began to approach your peak. He gazed down at you, locking eyes, and the emotion you could feel behind them was overwhelming. You could tell that he was close, with all the experience you had with him you knew his body better than your own, and he brought his hand up to softly caress your cheek.

“You’re so beautiful. I can’t believe I get to see you like this,” he huffed out, brow furrowing as the rhythmic slamming of his hips against you brought him closer and closer to the edge.

At his words, you reached your climax, and as you came undone words of ecstasy slipped from your lips between wails of pleasure.

“Kriff Tech… ah…. Tech..fuck…I love you”

You didn’t even realize it at first, too caught up in the moment, but Tech did. His eyes grew impossibly wide, and he was finishing inside you before either of you could fully process what you had just said.

As you both came down from your high, the gravity of your admission settled between you. Tech pulled out and flopped down next to you wordlessly, and for a few minutes you both just stared at the ceiling in torturous silence. And then he got up and walked to the refresher, not even looking at you once, and you felt like that was all the confirmation you needed that you woefully misinterpreted your entire relationship with him.

You lept out of his bunk, threw your clothes on, and left as silently as possible, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill down your cheeks. At least you could spare yourself the embarrassment of your words in that moment, and both of you could just forget it and move on.

Of course, you knew that pretending it didn’t happen would be impossible. You told him you loved him, and he said nothing. For several minutes. And then hid in the fresher. That was a clear rejection, and while it devastated you, you were still hoping that the two of you could just move on and be friends like you were before the benefits were added.

Apparently to Tech, you had offended him beyond repair. He never spoke to you (unless it was specifically mission oriented), he rarely looked at you or acknowledged your presence, and he positioned himself as far from you as possible at every opportunity. It had been two weeks since your slip up, and he hadn’t even made eye contact with you once.

It was agony. You missed him. You didn’t even really know what it was like to be on this squad without keeping him company while he made repairs or asking him questions about the next place you were going just to hear him talk. You missed making snide jokes with him. You missed admiring the way his goggles magnified his gorgeous caramel eyes.

The other boys noticed the shift very quickly. They had suspected the two of you had some sort of arrangement, and they knew how close you were, so to see it change so abruptly was concerning. Hunter had tried talking to you about it a few times, but you just reassured him that everything was fine and it was nothing he needed to worry about. Wrecker and Crosshair tried to pick up the slack, and started filling in the holes in your routine that Tech used to occupy. Crosshair would sit next to you in the mornings and during briefings, sometimes trying to make little comments in your ear like Tech would. On missions, Wrecker would always aim to pair up with you, and afterwards would try to do something fun like find a sweet treat or rent a good movie.

You appreciated so much what they did for you. But no matter how hard they tried, nothing could take your mind off the wall of ice Tech had built between you. You loved the other boys, but trying to share happy moments with them when all you could think about was how much better it would be with him was becoming unbearable. You didn’t want to leave them, but you couldn’t stay with Tech being so close to you and yet lightyears away.

As you filled out your transfer paperwork, you chuckled wryly to yourself. Even without the “trivial romance”, the squad was still disrupted. In a bittersweet way, it felt good for Tech to be wrong.

***

Tech had really done his best to analyze the evidence and make an informed decision based on his findings. He had been crunching his numbers with you since the day you joined the Batch, after all. Back then, it was the probability of your attraction to each of them. Tech was fascinated with you, and right off the bat he wanted to know his odds- just out of curiosity of course (for the record, they were pretty highly in his favor).

He knew there were pros and cons to the possibility of a relationship with you. First of all, it was technically against regulation for any clone to be involved in a romantic relationship. Second of all, it was likely that such a relationship would have the potential to cause countless rifts and points of weakness among his squad (regardless of the relationship’s success). Then there was also the very possible chance that the relationship wouldn’t work out anyway, leaving both of you hurt and irreparably damaging your friendship. As much as Tech may have wanted you, the costs unfortunately outweighed the benefits.

But then he kissed you at 79’s. And you kissed him back. And there he was, kissing you at 79’s, memorizing the sweetness of your lips on his. And he knew he should stop. He had studied the data and it’s conclusions were not very good, and if he had any sense at all he would stop. But he pulled away and looked at you, took in the flush on your cheeks and the dazed look accompanying your dilated pupils and the swell of your bruised lips. And he couldn’t bring himself to part ways with you. So he offered the closest thing to a relationship he could think of: friends with benefits.

A friends with benefits arrangement would be a more than adequate solution, Tech had decided. He could be physical with you in the proper moments, and then outside of those moments everything would be just as it was before. The squad’s dynamic and mission proficiency would remain consistent, and technically no regulations were being broken since they only specified romantic relationships. Of course, it wasn’t truly what he wanted, but in this arrangement he would get to enjoy you so much more than he currently was.

Unfortunately, he had made a critical oversight. In the dim haze of the club hallway, Tech had only considered how casual sex would compare to a full blown relationship. He didn’t think to analyze it singularly. And he certainly didn’t calculate the logistics of a friends with benefits agreement when one of the friends in question already had romantic feelings for the other friend.

But Tech knew himself. He knew he could have feelings for you and not let them get in the way. He could accept what he was able to have and make peace with what he couldn’t. Casual sex seemed like a good idea when his emotions were the only ones he took into account.

He wasn’t expecting you to fall in love with him.

When you had said it, Tech thought his heart was going to stop right then and there. In the heat of the moment, he couldn’t have imagined more precious words falling from your lips, and instantly it had him spiraling over the edge into ecstasy. But then the moment ended, and you didn’t say anything. He wanted to end the silence, to find out if you really meant it, but his brain was moving too fast to figure out what to say because he really hadn’t considered this would happen. It was naive of him, he supposed, but he really had thought the two of you could have done it without the emotional complications. Part of him, of course, was thrilled, but the other part of him, the logical part, was thrown into absolute chaos at the implications of your statement and what it would mean and all the statistics and probabilities he had calculated and

And you still hadn’t said anything. Tech could see you out of the corner of his eye, face red and chest heaving with emotion. You looked embarassed, regretful, and the realization that maybe you didn’t mean it hit him like a brick to the face. Maybe it was just something that slipped out, something your orgasm-addled mind had conjured up against your will and now you didn’t know how to take it back, didn’t know the right way to tell him you don’t actually love him.

It was too much for him to process at once, and he ran to the refresher in the hopes that he could clear his head and actually think coherently about the situation for a moment. Tech couldn’t have been in there long, maybe a few minutes, just long enough to splash some water on his face, look himself in the eye, and come to the conclusion that he needed to just have a conversation with you instead of playing with hypothetical numbers in his head. But then he came back out and you were gone, and that seemed like all the answer he needed. You didn’t mean it.

That was good, right? You didn’t mean it, and the two of you could keep going the way you had been.

But the ache in Tech’s heart said otherwise. You didn’t love him. He loved you, he knew he did, and he could be ok with pretending he didn’t when he didn’t know how you felt. But he knew now. And it hurt.

It hurt everytime he talked to you, so he stopped talking to you. It hurt everytime he was near you, so he stopped being near you. It hurt everytime he looked at you, so he stopped looking. The squad’s performance hadn’t been altered, so Tech concluded that the awkwardness could be tolerated until your presence didn’t feel so much like a blaster shot to his chest.

But just like pretty much every other choice Tech had made in regards to you, that plan only worked until it backfired horrifically.

***

The Batch were back on Kamino in between missions. Tech had been vaguely aware of Hunter being called in to a meeting of some sort, but he offered his full attention as Hunter stormed back into their room and huffed his way to Tech’s workbench.

“I don’t know what you did, but you need to fix things with Y/N. Now”

At the mention of your name, Tech pretended to return to his work, fiddling with a tool and avoiding eye contact.

“I do not know what you are referring-“

“Like hell you don’t Tech! The two of you haven’t even looked at each other in weeks and now they’ve put in a request to be transferred to another unit, so don’t tell me there’s nothing going on between you.”

Tech shot up, tools abandoned and stool knocked over with the force of his standing.

“They requested a transfer?”

“Yeah, they did. Now, I don’t know what happened, but I know your little silent treatment has been hurting them a lot. I don’t want to see them go, and you don’t either. So go talk to them and fix it, or I’ll have you transferred instead,” Hunter ordered, finger pointed at Tech’s chest. The threat was empty, of course, but it had fallen on deaf ears regardless.

Tech all but sprinted out into the hall, desperate to change your mind before you left them for good. As much as it pained him to be near you, the thought of being without you was somehow so much worse. He reached your quarters and unceremoniously burst in, barely giving the doors enough time to slide open before he was moving past them.

You jumped at his sudden entrance, hand coming up to clutch your chest.

“Maker, Tech you scared me!”

“Please don’t leave”

You stared at him, taking in his appearance for the first time. His chest was heaving, like he’d just run a marathon, and his eyes were frantic and impossibly wide behind his goggles. You didn’t think you’d ever seen him so disheveled, even when you’d slept with him.

You wanted to look away, but you were conscious of the fact that this was the first time you had made eye contact in Maker knows how long and you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

“Tech, I-I can’t stay with the way things are. I’m sorry about what I said, I know it was just supposed to be a friend thing and I shouldn’t have fallen in love with you. I really tried not to, but I did and I ruined everything and you can’t even look at me anymore so how can I-“

Tech took step closer, cutting off your rambling as his brow furrowed.

“You fell in love with me?”

He spoke so quietly, it was barely above a whisper. You nodded, confused at his surprised considering the whole issue was that you told him you loved him and he didn’t feel the same. That was the issue, right?

You could practically see the smoke coming out of his ears as he tried to process what was happening.

“I thought… I thought you didn’t mean it”

Now it was your turn to be confused.

“Why would you think that?”

“Y-you didn’t say anything. You confessed your affections for me while in a compromised state and didn’t say anything else afterwards. Your body language indicated regret and-and you left. I concluded that you said it by accident, and did not actually mean it,” he explained as calmly as he could in his rattled state.

“I left because I told you I loved you and you locked yourself in the fresher! And then you wouldn’t talk to me so I figured you were mad at me because I have feelings for you and you don’t feel the same way!”

Tech’s face broke out in a huge grin, and just as you were about to ask him why he was so happy all of a sudden, he rushed forward and passionately slotted his lips against yours. You gasped into him before immediately reciprocating the kiss, and you tangled your hands in his hair as his fingers desperately clutched your hips. Of all the kisses you had shared with him, none had felt the way this one did. There was an emotion pouring into it, one that had always been on the verge of spilling over but never had before. Eventually you broke apart, and you cursed your lungs for needing air.

He leaned his forehead against yours as you both caught your breath, and broke the silence after a few moments.

“I love you, too. I have for a significant amount of time. When you left that night, I incorrectly assumed you did not share my affections. I avoided you after because I… I was hurt. I apologize for misinterpreting your actions, and for allowing you to think that I was upset with you. I assure you, that could not be further from reality.”

You laughed giddily, bumping his nose with yours as you relished in his confession.

“If you loved me, why did you just want to be friends with benefits?”

Tech blushed and look down, a sheepish look overtaking his features.

“Well, I performed a cost-benefit analysis on engaging in a romantic relationship, and the potential complications were too great. A platonic sexual partnership offered a less risky alternative. Although, I must admit that I failed to properly calculate the possible outcomes of such an agreement between two individuals in our specific situation,” he elaborated.

“We might be the two dumbest people in the galaxy,” you joked with a giggle.

“Technically, it is statistically impossible for that to be true, given-“

You cut him off with another deep kiss, your hands coming to rest on his arms as they kept you in his iron-clad grip. He had never loosened his hold, as though he thought if he let you go, you would disappear.

Abruptly, the kiss ended as Tech pulled back slightly to look at you.

“Does this mean you are no longer transferring out of our squad?”

You grinned.

“That depends. Does this mean we can have a real relationship, not just sex?”

Tech brought one hand to rest on his jaw as he looked upwards and pretended to be deep in thought.

“Well, according to my calculations, we have already experienced nearly all of the possible complications of pursuing a romantic relationship, so I have no objection to enjoying some of the benefits,” he concluded with a playful smile.

You leaned up to kiss him again, pausing just before your lips made contact with his to make a sly comment.

“And we know how good we are at some of those benefits already”

#the bad batch #bad batch #tbb #tbb tech #tech tbb #the bad batch tech #tech the bad batch #tbb tech x reader #tech x reader #the bad batch tech x reader #tech x y/n #tech x you #the bad batch x reader

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archonanqi · 4 years ago

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fragile as dust / 12 - smile

a/n: Please let me know if you’d like to be added to a taglist for this story. Thank you all for the kind comments! ;-; @fishyfish-y @writingmi @just-some-stars @kawaiitinybunny @juhlydrawsblog @cherryvane @kaenyas @loadingrat

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ch 11 | dreameater

For a minute or so, you stared at the dragon’s tooth. Reached out to touch it, every scratch and indentation on its smooth surface exactly the same as you remembered. You ran your finger around the blackened, charred ring around it, remembering how you had plunged the tooth into the blazing shield of fire, how the Abyss Mage had screamed.

You winced at the memory of the past… day? Two days? You weren’t sure how long you had slept, and each time you tried to call upon any memories, your head hurt terribly.

“Zhongli,” you barely managed to whisper.

As though he had been waiting just outside your room, the door swung open almost immediately. Zhongli strode in, though the relief you felt at his presence was quickly overshadowed by the fear of what you’d done, of how he might punish you for it. “Hansi,” he said, voice carefully composed as always, but you had known him just long enough to pick out a slightly different note of— worry? “You slept for two days.”

“Oh no, I missed work,” you deadpanned, desperate to dredge even the smallest of smiles from Zhongli. Zhongli’s frown didn’t even quaver. The very idea of Zhongli being annoyed at you sent chills down your spine. Just then, a memory came back to you, and suddenly, you were desperate for something else. “OH— work… Xiangling—!” You tried to throw back the covers to stand up, but the sudden movement sent hot and cold chills through your veins and almost sent you retching over the side of the bed.

“When you mentioned Qingxin,” Zhongli said. “I knew at once that she wasn’t bringing you to Cuijie. That girl knows the flora and fauna of Liyue almost better than I.” You remembered his slight unease the morning you left, that odd exchange that you thought nothing more of.

Of course, Zhongli would have known the whole time; how foolish of you to think you could keep anything from his calculating gaze.

“But what reason would she have had to lie?” Zhongli continued, “and so, though I did not want to intrude upon your expedition, I paid Jueyun Karst a visit with Chef Mao when you two did not return. We found her halfway up the mountain.”

“Is she— is she okay now?” You could barely bear to hear the answer, “I need to go and see her.”

“I don’t believe you’ll be able to go anywhere in your current state,” These were stronger words than you’d ever heard Zhongli utter at you, and it finally snapped you out of your haze of panic. Blinking the sleep from your eyes, you noticed his stiff posture, his slightly furrowed brow, and felt a pang of guilt. You had acknowledged that he might worry over your disappearance, but not to such a degree.

“If it puts you at ease,” Zhongli started, “I visited Xiangling this morning. Dr. Baizhu personally saw to her, and she is well on her way to recovery. She was similarly distraught about you, and she mentioned that you tried to hold off the monster on your own for her sake. Is this true?”

You nodded.

“Admirable,” Zhongli said, and you noted that his voice had not lost its edge, “if not extremely rash. You could not have known what a powerful artifact the tooth was, though it is partly my fault for not explaining it to you. If I had not shown up when I did—”

You blurted the first thing you were sure of. “I’m sorry for putting you in danger.”

Zhongli let out an audible breath, and shook his head. When he next spoke, his voice was tinged in disbelief. “To think that after everything, that’s your takeaway from this? What you and Xiangling did was incredibly dangerous. I believe that I’ve made more than clear to you, how dangerous Jueyun Karst is to mortals.”

“I’m sorry,” you said again, the guilt rearing its head in the pits of your stomach..

Sighing softly, Zhongli held your gaze. “Though, I also miscalculated. Xiangling would have been able to handle no less than a Mitachurl; perhaps even a Lawachurl, but these intelligent creatures — Abyss Mages? It’s quite troubling that they’ve begun to appear in Liyue, so soon after Rex Lapis’ departure.”

“Did you kill it?” You couldn’t help but ask, though you already knew the answer.

Zhongli fixed his unflinching gaze on you. “Yes.”

You had already held the evidence of its death in your hands — there was no way the creature had given up the dragon’s tooth without a fight — but still, the truth was like a slap to the face. You had scarcely been able to escape from it with your life, and yet Zhongli... You glanced him up and down. Zhongli didn’t look so much as shaken from the confrontation.

“It was a hazard to Liyue. And it had threatened you,” he added, taking your awe for confusion. “Similar monsters have been growing in rank and number… Even the Adepti are on high guard, it seems, if Mountain— if one of them has started trapping civilians. Though Xiangling can fight, I’m afraid that the situation may be too much for you to handle right now. I would ask that you limit your ventures to Liyue Harbor—”

You couldn’t stand the heavy tension of the room, couldn’t bear the thought that Zhongli might be angry at you. He had made no move to approach you, standing his usual, respectable distance away from your bedside, but anger— anger always meant someone got hurt, and usually, it was you.

Quickly, you opened your mouth to swear that yes, yes of course, anything you want, I’ll never leave again, but Zhongli held up his hand to stop you. “Think carefully before making any promises to me. Are you content with staying within the harbor for the rest of your life, Hansi?”

You hesitated. He was right. Going on ingredient hunts and seeing the beautiful mountains of Liyue had been the time of your life. You wanted to go further, wider. To see every bit that the world had to offer. And more than anything, you wanted to do it— with Zhongli.

“I will ask you one last time, then,” Zhongli said, “ do you wish to learn how to fight ?”

You couldn’t help but glance at the drawer where your Vision was, quickly dragging your gaze back to him and hoping he had not noticed. You swallowed. Yes, yes , you did. And what better teacher for your Geo Vision than Zhongli?

He had just saved your life. The least you could do was trust him with it.

Before you could respond, you were interrupted by a loud rapping at the front door.

“Just a moment, please,” Zhongli called in response. When he turned back, his expression had softened. “I… may have been too harsh. I hope you can understand that my words are borne only from concern for your well-being. How are you feeling?”

Like you had just been hit over the head with a large wooden pole, but the last thing you wanted to do was worry Zhongli more. “A lot better than two nights ago,” you smiled, hoping to ease his concern, but it came out a little more like a grimace.

“I see. You had quite a fever last night, so I requested a home visit from Bubu Pharmacy. It looks like they’re finally here. Please wait a moment.” It seemed as though Zhongli was back to his usual self, sweeping out of the room in all his regal valor. You heard him open the front door and greet whomever was there. A doctor? You grimaced at the thought of some strange man touching your body. But for Zhongli’s peace of mind, you would endure.

Finally, Zhongli returned. You looked around for the doctor— then down. A young girl, whose brow reached around Zhongli’s knees, wobbled in, holding a basket that seemed to weigh more than herself. Under her little hat was tucked a paper talisman; the kind you’d find plastered on the dead.

“Hello. Qiqi is a zombie,” she said by way of introduction. “Nice to meet you.”

—-

You stared at her, then Zhongli, wondering why he had just let a literal child wander into his house.

At the bewilderment on your face, Zhongli stepped in to explain. “Qiqi is from Bubu Pharmacy. She is indeed a zombie, though her story is perhaps one better told another time. Rest assured that she is more than qualified to treat any mortal illness. Qiqi, this is whom I was telling you about. I believe she might have a fever—”

“This room is cold,” Qiqi murmured, siddling closer to your bedside. She dug around in her basket and produced a waterskin. “Good for Qiqi, not good for a fever. Please close the window and fill this with hot water.”

“Of course,” Zhongli nodded, rushing to comply. After he left, Qiqi merely continued like she had not just ordered Zhongli around in his own house. The way she peered at you was so intent that it made you squirm, and each time she put her hand against your skin, it was so cold that you could barely resist, out of politeness, the urge to jump.

“How did you get sick.” Qiqi asked. For a moment, her voice was so monotone that you hadn’t realized it was a question. You scrambled to answer, cheeks flushing warm.

“I was… climbing a tall mountain and got caught in the rain.”

“Hmm,” she said, “not good. Bring an umbrella next time.”

“I will,” you promised quickly, watching as she produced a large wad of paper from her basket — how many things did she have in there? — and began scribbling, just as Zhongli returned with a filled waterskin and a glass of warm water. The warmth of the glass against your skin was heavenly, and you quietly sipped the drink while waiting for Qiqi to finish her writing.

“Mr. Zhongli,” she said, tugging at his sleeve for his attention. Zhongli all but bent down to meet her at eye level. “Mr. Zhongli’s wife will be okay.”

It was all you could do to keep the water inside your mouth when you choked.

“Hansi is my friend,” Zhongli corrected, gently.

Qiqi peered up at Zhongli, then at you — wrapped in what were clearly three layers of his clothing — then back at Zhongli. “Mr. Zhongli’s friend will be okay,” she amended, rifling so furiously through her papers that you were worried she would tear the pages. “She must rest for...three days. And eat wet things.” The girl squinted more closely at her notebook. “Hm. No. I meant, drink more fluids,” she amended, going right back to her scribbling. You peeked at it, but couldn’t understand a word she had written — was she drawing a flower?

Finally, she ripped the page off with surprising gusto and handed it to Zhongli, who had to once again bend down to reach her little hands. “Here is a prescription for huang’lian medicine. For the fever.” The little girl said, thumbing through her pages. “I can also prescribe Windwheel Aster syrup. But Windwheel Asters can only be found in… Mondstadt... It can cost a lot.”

“How much?”

Qiqi went completely still as she thought about it. It was a little unnerving. At last, she reached a conclusion. “One million mora.”

To your horror, Zhongli nodded. “That is acceptable,” he said. “Please give us three bottles.” You didn’t even know what to begin to say to that — you knew already that he was hopeless when it came to haggling, but three million mora was an unthinkable amount. And more ridiculously, spent on someone like you? Before you could protest, Qiqi shook her head.

“No. I will not charge Mr. Zhongli so much. Three thousand mora will be fine.”

“Won’t you get into trouble with Dr. Baizhu, my dear Qiqi?” Zhongli asked.

“Hm. I don’t care what Baizhu says,” Qiqi frowned, “Mr. Zhongli has helped me many times.”

“Well then, I will accept your offer of generosity. On behalf of Wangsheng Funeral’s accountants, thank you, Qiqi.”

“I will also prescribe... gu’fen . It will help her wrist recover faster... Oh, no.” Qiqi sighed so heavily her little body shook. “Never mind. We are out of bones.”

“ Gu’fen - powdered bones?” Zhongli asked. “What kind do you need?”

“Geovishap will work best, although hatchlings will also be okay.”

“Very well,” Zhongli said, heading for the door without a moment’s hesitation. “Please give me a few minutes.”

“Two will be enough,” Qiqi called after him, barely lifting her gaze from her notebook.

You heard the front door open and shut. “Did he—” you glanced at Qiqi, then out the window, where the unmistakable silhouette of Zhongli was striding off towards the mountains north of the harbor. You knew what Geovishaps were, Zhongli had told you of their story: descendants of the King of Dragons that had long been sealed beneath the earth by Rex Lapis. “Did Mr. Zhongli just leave to go hunt vishap bones? Is he safe?”

“Yes. He is strong,” Qiqi stated matter-of-factly. “Mr. Zhongli could not fulfill his contract… for Cocomilk… So Mr. Zhongli helps when Qiqi gather herbs... in Jueyun Karst.”

Cocomilk? Zhongli had… fudged a contract? You wanted to ask her to elaborate, but another tidbit of information caught your attention. It was undeniable, then, that Zhongli could come and go safely within Jueyun Karst. You shuddered as you remembered how overwhelmingly powerful the Adepti had been. How could Zhongli willingly set foot in there, and how can he do so unharmed? A distant memory arose, something about him… karst crawlers… protection?

Qiqi was tapping on your leg for attention, so you quickly shook yourself free of your ponderings. You could revisit them later. “Sorry. Yes, Qiqi?”

“I asked,” Qiqi said, “do you need contraceptive medicine? I can prescribe...”

“ What ?”

“Please do not be alarmed,” Qiqi said calmly, severely misunderstanding your almost-scream. “This is part of life. As a pharmacist of Bubu Pharmacy, I am able to prescribe—”

“No,” you said quickly, very quickly, “No, we really are just friends.” The word tasted sweet on your tongue. Friend — Zhongli’s friend.

“Hm, okay,” Qiqi responded, blinking upwards at you with clear magenta eyes, and though there was no inflection in her tone, you could almost hear the incredulity. “Where did you get these injuries?”

You debated lying, but she was looking up at you with such seriousness that you couldn’t find it in yourself to. “Mount Hulao,” you admit with a hint of remorse. “I went there with a friend… we both got badly hurt. It was a bad idea. I don’t remember much, other than that.”

“Baizhu was called to treat Miss Xiangling yesterday. She was your friend?” Qiqi thoughtfully waited for you to nod. “You were… also sealed in the amber? It can cause memory loss. Sweetflower tea will help... with the headaches.”

You wanted to ask how she knew about the headaches, how she knew about the amber, but the look in her eyes was answer enough. For the adepti to harm such a small child— in the pits of your stomach, you felt such a hot surge of anger that you surprised yourself. Qiqi’s small hands rested on yours, her big, earnest eyes staring right into you.

“Hmm,” she repeated, “not good. Bring Mr. Zhongli next time.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle. “I will,” you promised once more, jokingly. “Though I’m not sure how I’ll fit all that muscle into my backpack—” You trailed off at the inquisitive look on Qiqi’s face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Just friends,” she commented shortly.

“We are just friends!” you cried, stopping yourself quickly as you heard the front door swing open. A few minutes, just as Zhongli had promised. And slung over his back was a sizable sack, bulging with what you knew were dozens of bones.

“Two was enough,” Qiqi murmured as Zhongli placed the sack before her. There was no way the girl was lugging that back to the pharmacy , you thought, just as Qiqi carefully lifted it with one hand. By the Archons, what were they feeding the pharmacists at Bubu?

“I thought it would be best to err on the safe side,” Zhongli replied, “please do put any leftovers to good use at the pharmacy. And also,” he said, pulling out a vibrant strand of violetgrass from his coat, “this is for you, my dear Qiqi.”

Qiqi’s expression did not waver, but you thought that she looked just a little pleased as Zhongli tucked the flowers into her hat.

“Okay.” Qiqi said, handing Zhongli the last pieces of paper from her notebook. “Please come and collect your prescriptions tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you, Qiqi,” Zhongli answered, helping to hold the door open as the girl wobbled her way back out as unsteadily as when she came. “Have a good evening.” When he returned to stand by your bedside, you carefully eyed him. There was a smear of dirt on his left sleeve, but otherwise, it looked like he had just returned from a walk at the harbor — not from battle.

“Are you hurt, Mr. Zhongli?” You asked.

“Hmm?” He blinked, then absently said, “ah. The Geovishaps? Not at all. They are quite easy to combat, once you learn of their weaknesses.” You wondered how many he’d fought; how many things he had killed in his life, that fighting ferocious monsters was barely an ordeal of note for him.

More importantly, he had done it for you. Had been willing to pay three million Mora for your well-being. You found yourself blinking back tears once again; you would not let anyone see you cry.

“Thank you, Mr. Zhongli.” You said, and you hoped that he would understand all that you meant by it.

“Of course, Hansi. Though, before I forget, I do have a question,” he said, reaching into his coat and producing a chunk of Cor Lapis, “when I found you at Mount Hulao, you were gripping this like your life depended on it. Is this what you went there for? Why?”

Oh. The flush in your cheeks burned red hot, and you scrambled for a lie — any lie. Nothing came to mind. Finally, under his scrutinizing gaze, you withered and told him the foolish truth with slumped shoulders: “it was meant to be a gift for you, Mr. Zhongli. It’s probably… it’s probably nothing compared to the one from your friend.” You could barely lift your head to look him in the eye, and you were vaguely aware that you had begun to ramble. “But it’s the only one I could find. I ended up causing you more trouble in the end, I’m sorry.”

“Goodness,” Zhongli said, his voice thick with emotion for the first time that you’d heard. You glanced at him in surprise, but his face betrayed nothing as always.

Zhongli held the Cor Lapis up to the light, looking at it carefully. After a terribly long pause, his gaze fell back on you. “This is one of the clearest, most luminous pieces of Lapis I’ve seen in my life. Thank you for going to such lengths to get me this, Hansi.”

Your relief at his lack of anger and your pride at his praise was nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the way your heart fluttered warmly at the bright smile on his face.

“Though of course, I would have appreciated such a precious gift regardless.” Zhongli continued, walking to the door. “Now, I must ask that you rest for a little while, as per Qiqi’s orders. Will you be alright alone? Please call my name if you need anything at all—”

You were only half-listening. It wasn’t fair, how his smile could wrench the air right out of your lungs.

—-

A memory:

“There it is again, that infamous frown,” the young woman waved her hands, her billowing sleeves whipping about in the howling gales of Qingyun Peak. “Why do you never smile, Morax?”

“What is there to smile about?” he asked truthfully, because he had long since stopped trying to decipher her odd mannerisms. Below them, underneath the clouds, the war raged on.

“What is there to—?” She exhaled in exaggerated exasperation, throwing her arms out to the wind. “The birds in the trees! The clouds in the sky! It didn’t rain today for the first time in weeks, so we made it all the way up here to watch the sunset! Do none of these things mean anything to you?”

“Yet when night falls, we will once again have to fight.” His fingers twitched around empty space, every moment he wasn’t holding his polearm — at her request — almost painful. He detested being in this form, but it was cold in the mountains, and his adepti form would do little to help him with temperature regulation. “We should return soon. I hear that Osial has been rallying his forces for another attack, and we were barely able to fend off the last one.”

She sighed, and he knew that meant he had disappointed her — though he did not know how.

“Morax,” she breathed, barely audible over the wind. “What will it take to make you smile? Tell me, and I’ll do it. A contract. That’s the only kind of thing you understand, right?”

That, he did. “When the war is over,” he answered. She was leaning precariously over the edge of the cliff, and it brought about some strange, foreign feeling deep in his gut — something different to the wounds and scars he was used to. “And our people are safe from the threat of strife and war.”

A brief pause. She showed no sign of getting down from where she was standing, and in fact, had gotten on her tiptoes. “You might fall,” he warned.

“You promise? You promise that once the war is over, you’ll try to smile more?”

“You have my word,” he swore. He did not understand her intentions even a little, but promises? Those he knew better than life itself. Something so trivial as a smile seemed scarcely worthy of a contract. But it seemed important to her, and so he would honor it. “You should step away from the edge. You might fall,” he repeated.

“Oh, but you’ll catch me, won’t you?” Her pale hair whipped about in the wind, framing a wide, bright grin. There was a twinkle in her eye that he, unfortunately, knew all too well.

“Guizhong, don’t—“ he said, rushing forward, but it was too late. She tipped backwards, disappearing into the clouds below, just as his arms closed around empty wind. Muttering a series of ancient curses he thanked the heavens that Ganyu wasn’t here to hear, he leapt after her.

The transformation always hurt a little, though after meeting Guizhong (and her incomprehensible insistence that he stay in human form when in front of human children) he changed forms so often that he barely even noticed anymore. He relished the sting as lithic claws, scales and fangs tore their way out of his deplorably soft human flesh— and then, he was free to rip through the clouds and wind. Frightening and powerful, as he should be.

As he had to be.

It was not hard to locate Guizhong, especially not with the way she’d gleefully screamed all the way down. He angled himself right under her, bracing for the impact, and she landed squarely on his back with an exhilarated squeak.

“Wasn’t that fun, Morax?” She clambered up towards his head as they tore through the skies. He could feel each of her warm fingers gripping his horns tightly. “No? Still no smile?”

“What?” He growled. “You could have died.”

“You wouldn’t have let that happen,” she waved it off, “though you did let me hit a few more trees than necessary on the way down, didn’t you?”

He didn’t dignify that with an answer.

“Fine,” he could hear the pout in her voice. “When the war ends, I want to see a huuuuge smile from you, alright?”

“I already gave you my word.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Well, that is, if I’m there to see it,” she laughed lightly. “Not everyone is as big and strong and scary as you, Morax.”

There it was again, that feeling — a dull blade that pressed deep into his lungs, his stomach, his heart. Fear? No. The God of War and Contracts did not know fear.

“Of course you will. We will both be there to see this to its end.”

—-

At the end of the war, when he finally felt the searing power of the divine settle within him, Morax stood alone.

Mountains of bodies, bones picked clean by birds and sinew laid to claim by beasts, surrounded him for as far as the eye could see.

Guizhong was not among them, for she had been killed years and years ago.

He felt his lip curl into — something. It fell a little short of a smile.

—-

Outside of your room, Zhongli leaned his head against the cool wood of the doorframe, and steadied his breathing. Carefully, he placed back into his coat the Cor Lapis that you had gotten him; that you had almost died trying to get him.

How ironic, that even after exactly three thousand, seven hundred and twelve years, two months and eighteen days, he still found himself scrambling to protect someone who seemed to lack all sense of self preservation, and who surprised him to no end.

Guizhong had not been strong enough to fend off those who sought to claim her life, but you could be — if only you’d show him what you were hiding in the drawers by your bed. He could feel its resonance, each time he entered your room — the Vision he had given you; a reminder of the strength that you could use, to fight back, to protect yourself.

Guizhong had not been strong enough.

A breath in, a breath out. Zhongli closed his eyes.

He would not make the same mistake again.

#zhongli #zhongli x reader #zhongli fanfic #genshin #genshin fanfic #fragile as dust #my writing #anqi writes

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vexedtonightmares · 4 years ago

Note

Hi. I hope you have an amazing day/night. I had an idea for a fic. That Elliott saves lucas from a monster. Elliott is a demigod and tells lucas he is too and has to go to camp halfblood (percy Jackson au)

ok i’m gonna start by saying that i’m literally so sorry for taking MONTHS to answer this, but i loved this prompt so much i wanted to give it the attention it deserved 🥺now, that attention went from a small 1k fic to a roughly 20k three part fic because i have No Chill and accidentally came up with an entire plot, but at least i’m sharing it now!! i hope you enjoy!!

you can read part 1 here on ao3 or down below the cut 💖

love and other divine interventions

part i. identity (8.4k)

Look, Lucas didn’t want to be a half-blood. What the hell was that even supposed to mean? It sounded like a disease, the more he thought about it. Not that he thought about it often, he really tried not to, because most of all he didn’t care what it meant. Hadn’t killed him yet, had it?

Lucas had first been told that he was a half-blood by his mother when he was twelve. She said she was worried for his safety, and that she might have to send him to summer camp in America. He didn’t know what any of that meant, but he also knew that his mother wasn’t well sometimes, so he never thought too much about what she’d said and whether or not it meant more than he took it as.

A few years later, his mother had been put into an institution to help with her mental health, and Lucas had been sent from Paris to the states to live with an aunt and uncle he hardly knew. That was the second time someone called him a half-blood. He’d been minding his own business, walking home from school, and some kid who looked both older and younger than he was at the time had gasped, saying that Lucas was a half-blood and had to come with him if he wanted to be safe.

Lucas had learned about stranger danger, though, so instead he ran away and told his aunt and uncle what happened. Without any room for argument, his aunt and uncle packed up and moved halfway across the country. It was a bit of an excessive response, but Lucas was fourteen, he didn’t really have any say in the matter.

Something similar had happened again when he was sixteen, then seventeen, and each time his aunt and uncle packed up and moved at even the slightest hint of trouble. He knew that they were just worried about him, they’d lost their daughter, his cousin, back when she was about twelve years old, and they never found out what happened to her. Or so they told Lucas, when he asked.

He asked them what a half-blood was once, and they’d both told him to never say that word again. So, he hadn’t. He did write a letter to his mother, though, asking if she could explain what she’d meant. Everyone just thought she was crazy, but Lucas had never thought so. If she’d thought it was important for Lucas to know, it must have been.

When Lucas was eighteen, he went to university in New York. His aunt and uncle hadn’t wanted him to, but they wouldn’t let him go back to Paris, so this was the option they’d reluctantly agreed to.

Strange things had always seemed to follow him wherever he went, but those occurrences happened far more often once he was in New York. He chalked it up to the weirdness of the city itself. Like this: the man on the street who’d told him he smelled like death— which was more rude than strange, actually— or the time that he could have sworn some sort of winged demon had been following him as he walked to class.

Generally, he chalked his experiences up to a lack of sleep, because the life of a college student was quite the busy one. Even if it hadn’t been, he probably wouldn’t have slept anyways. All his life he’d been plagued by dreams so haunting and wild that he’d felt that they were real, regardless of the fact that he knew that couldn’t have been the case.

It was after a night tossing and turning in bed, visions of a pale skinned man on a throne of bones trying desperately to tell him something, that Lucas decided he needed to get some fresh air.

Lucas loved the city, he really did. Of all the places he’d lived in his life, New York was a close second to Paris. He didn’t let himself think of Paris too often, though, lest he be swept up in thoughts of his mother and how much he missed her. It was hard to keep in contact with all the moving, but he called the home that she was in every now and again to make sure she was alright. She never responded to the questions he’d written to her, but he’d more or less put all of that out of his mind.

It became clear to Lucas while he was walking through the city that someone was following him. Every time he looked back, he could have sworn he saw someone dart out of sight. So, he picked up his pace. If it came down to it, he’d throw some punches, sure, but he wasn’t the best fighter there ever was.

He kept walking, no direction in mind, and started to think that maybe he’d been overreacting, or maybe the sleep deprivation had gotten him at last. He walked so long that he made it somewhere there weren’t many people around, and even though he turned over his shoulder once more, whoever was following him seemed to have gotten bored and left him be. Finally, he thought, and paused to check his phone, blinking in surprise when he realized he’d been walking for nearly two hours. He had a tendency to get lost in his own head like that.

Lucas took a deep breath, started to turn around to walk back where he’d come from, and saw a light flash at the corner of his eye, something a bright and beautiful shade of bronze. Before he had time to react, he was pinned up against the side of an alleyway with a knife to his throat and a hand over his mouth.

By the time Lucas was able to assess the situation and look at his assailant’s face, he groaned internally to himself. Oh, fuck, he’s hot.

The assailant in question didn’t look to be all that much older than Lucas himself, his skin was pale and golden, dotted with moles like constellations. He was wearing a bright orange shirt, which Lucas didn’t know how he hadn’t seen before, and had a leather necklace with a bunch of clay beads on it, each with a different design. Six if, Lucas was counting properly.

The last thing Lucas looked at were his attacker’s eyes. A clear, bluish grayish color so intense, it made Lucas a little weak in the knees. Get a hold of yourself Lallemant, this guy is literally trying to kill you.

Lucas opened his mouth under the guy’s hold and in return the guy pressed his hand in even tighter. His luminescent eyes raked Lucas’ face up and down a moment until his attention was caught by something else, off to Lucas’ left.

“Stay here,” the boy said, loosening his grip on Lucas’ mouth, “And stay quiet, if you want to survive.”

Now, Lucas may not have been trained in combat, but he did know a few moves, one of which he employed the second it looked like this guy’s guard was down.

“OW! What the fuck?” the guy said in a strained voice as he fell to his knees. “Did you just knee me in the balls?”

Lucas didn’t spare the breath on answering, he just ran to the opposite end of the alley as fast as he could. He was almost away when he heard another voice join the fray. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” said a girl’s voice, “I think you should go back to where Eliott told you to stay.”

Suddenly, Lucas felt his legs moving of their own accord. He agreed with this girl, he should listen to everything she said.

The boy— Eliott— lifted his head to glare at the girl. “Lola, stop that.”

In his haze, Lucas could barely hear her mumble something about never being allowed to have any fun before he suddenly felt like he’d been dunked in a bucket of ice cold water. He looked around, wondering how he’d gotten back to where he’d run from.

“What did you— wha—” he stammered, trying to regain sense of himself, when Eliott sighed and stood up, grimacing a bit.

“I’ll explain everything,” Eliott promised, “We’re here to help you, not hurt you, you just have to please, for the love of the gods, stay where you are and shut up.”

For the love of the gods? Were these people in some sort of cult?

Lucas was nothing if not stubborn. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and frowned. “What makes you think I’ll do what you say?”

Eliott threw an exasperated glance at Lola, who simply raised her eyebrows back as if to say, should have listened to me. Eliott sighed and came back to stand in front of Lucas, holding the knife he’d very recently pressed against Lucas' neck out to Lucas to grab. “Does this make you feel better?”

“I could stab you,” Lucas said, taking it.

Eliott flashed a quick grin, holding out a hand as Lola tossed him a bow and arrows. “You won’t.”

Lucas narrowed his eyes. “Oh yeah? And what makes you say th— AHHH!”

Lucas liked horror movies, he prided himself on being hard to scare. He’d laughed nearly the entire time he’d seen the most recent It movie, and he’d chalked up all the strange things that had happened in his life to fever dreams at best, tragically large amounts of bad luck at worst. Maybe he hadn’t been scared because he either knew it wasn’t real, or refused to believe it was real. This, though, this massive beast looking moments away from eating him alive, this was real.

“Gods dammit,” Lola murmured under her breath, pulling a sword from nowhere. Lucas glanced down at the knife in his hands. Eliott and Lola weren’t paying any attention to him anymore, he could make a run for it, but his fear was that this thing in front of him would kill him if he did.

“Excuse me? What the hell is that thing?” Lucas shouted, drawing the beast’s head in his direction. Fuck. Maybe drawing attention to himself by shouting wasn’t the best move.

Neither Lola nor Eliott answered him, assuming fighting stances. Lucas tried to emulate what they were doing, but his knees felt too weak and his head felt too dizzy. He hoped to whoever might listen that this was all just a very convoluted nightmare. He pressed the blade into his hand, just to see if it hurt, wishing that it wouldn’t. It did.

There was a moment of silence where Lucas could have heard a pin drop, but then the thing made a horrifying, guttural sort of sound, and lunged. Lola charged forward, swinging her sword with the precision of a seasoned professional, but the thing was fast. It evaded her attacks, reaching out to slash her with its long claws. Lucas didn’t think, just knew that even if he didn’t trust these people, they didn’t deserve to die. He threw the knife Eliott had given him with all his might, and let out a startled breath as it embedded itself right between the thing’s eyes.

Eliott, who’d had an arrow ready to fly, lowered his weapon and stared at Lucas with a dumbfounded expression as the thing crumbled to dust, leaving only the bronze knife in its wake.

“How did you do that?” Eliott asked, searching Lucas’ face up and down. From his other side, Lola was looking at Lucas apprehensively. Lucas opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Eliott’s expression went from shocked to worried, and that was the last thing Lucas saw before he passed out cold.

***

Lucas shot up in bed in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. Of course it was all a dream; sure it had felt realistic, but why would he be in bed if everything that had just happened in his mind happened in real life? Then again…

Lucas surveyed his surroundings and groaned, before flopping back onto what he now realized was not his bed. Great, he’d been kidnapped. By a boy with eyes like the center of a storm and a girl younger than he was.

“Lucas?”

He turned his head to the voice in the doorway, not knowing what to expect. To his displeasure, it was the kidnapper himself. Eliott, was it? He didn’t look like a kidnapper, in that same offensively bright orange t-shirt and distressed jeans, light streaks in his wild hair from too much time out in the sun. Camp Half-Blood, read his t-shirt, and upon realizing this, Lucas felt like he was going to be sick.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Eliott said as he raced to Lucas’ bed, shoving a glass of an indeterminate liquid into his hands. “Drink this, you’ll feel better.”

Lucas was definitely not going to drink it, obviously. Eliott noticed this, rolled his eyes, and took a small sip from the side of the cup. “There, will you drink it now?”

“Where did you take me, and how do you know who I am?” Lucas asked instead. He could only hope that Eliott was kind of stupid, so he’d be able to outsmart him and escape.

“I’m not telling you anything until you drink that,” Eliott said stubbornly, sitting on the edge of Lucas’ bed. The more Lucas looked at the room, the more it looked like some sort of infirmary, which made even less sense. Maybe Eliott had some weird doctor-patient kink or something.

Lucas looked at the drink in his hands, then back up at Eliott, who was smiling bright as the sun. He rolled his eyes and took a sip, figuring that if the drink was safe, he’d do what Eliott said to get more information and get the hell out of there. The moment the liquid hit his tongue, he flinched back in surprise. It tasted just like his favorite meal that his mother made him when he was little. How was that even possible? Forgetting all about Eliott, he gulped down most of the rest of the drink until he started feeling a bit hot and Eliott grabbed the glass from his hands.

“Woah there, don’t want you burning up on us, not when it’s taken so much work for us to get you here at all,” Eliott said with a smile, which Lucas decided is something a psychopath would do.

He did feel better though, now that the heat had subsided. A lot better actually, better than he’d felt in a long time. He felt healthy and well rested, which was especially great if he needed to take Eliott out in order to escape. First, though, he needed answers.

“Where am I?”

“Long Island,” Eliott supplied.

Lucas glowered at him. “Where exactly am I? Why did you kidnap me?”

Eliott coughed in surprise, eyebrows shooting up and then furrowing deeply. “Kidnap? Lucas, I didn’t kidnap you!”

“Why were you following me, then? How do you know my name?”

Eliott sighed and gazed at Lucas for a second that stretched to a minute. “I know your name because I saw it on your student ID. Your wallet was in your pocket. Don’t give me that look, I didn’t steal anything, you can have your two dollars and campus card back when you’re ready to head out into camp, not that you’ll be needing either of those things anytime soon.”

Aha, Lucas had caught him. “Because you kidnapped me.”

“No I did not—” Eliott broke off, shaking his head exasperatedly. “You’re difficult, you know that?”

Lucas shrugged. “So I’ve been told.”

“You won’t be here a long time because I’ve kidnapped you, you’ll be here a long time because it’s one of the only places in the world safe for people like you. Like us,” Eliott continued, looking like he was gauging each of Lucas’ reactions. “No offense, but I’m truly and honestly surprised that you’re not already dead. Unless you’re secretly ten years old or something.”

“And who, pray tell, are we?” Lucas asked sarcastically, ignoring the latter half of what Eliott had said. The look in Eliott’s eyes went deadly serious.

“Half-bloods.”

“I think that’s, like, a slur of some sort..”

The more jovial light came back into Eliott’s eyes. “I’m sorry, what?”

“My aunt and uncle told me never to say that, because people used to call me that sometimes when I was younger. My mom did too, but when she said it, it didn’t sound like a bad thing…” Lucas trailed off, not even realizing it, consumed in thoughts of his mother, as well as his aunt and uncle, who would think him dead. Or lost, just like their daughter. He only came back to himself when he heard Eliott swear under his breath. “Excuse me?”

Eliott went red. “Sorry, it’s just… we had a bet going, about who your parent was. If your mom is mortal, that means I lose.”

“Are you going to tell me what the hell you’re talking about, or am I going to have to kick you in the balls and make a run for it again?” Lucas asked dejectedly. Eliott laughed like he was joking.

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologized, “You mean… you truly don’t know, then? What you are? Who you are?”

Lucas stared at him blankly, shrugging.

Eliott continued, “You’re a half-blood— which isn’t a slur, by the way— which means you’re half human, half something else, something that might not make much sense to you right now, or you might not want to believe, but I promise you that it’s true.”

“Ok.” What else was Lucas going to say? He was back to wondering if Eliott was a part of some weird cult.

“You’re half human, half god. Your father, whoever he is, is one of the gods of Ancient Greece. Or Rome, I suppose, but I have a feeling if you ended up here, you’re more on the Greek side of things,” Eliott concluded hesitantly, like he was waiting for Lucas to laugh in his face. Lucas sort of wanted to, but then again, if this was some weird cult thing, maybe it would be best to play along until he went under the radar and could escape.

So, instead of laughing or asking a million more questions like he wanted to, Lucas said, “Oh, is that all?”

Eliott blinked at him. “Is that a— you mean you believe me?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?” Lucas asked. Yeah, this was definitely a cult thing. “Who’s my dad, then?”

“If you don’t know, we don’t know,” Eliott said apologetically. There was a look in his eyes that made Lucas doubt, for a moment, that this was all some big cosmic joke the universe was playing on him, that there might have been some truth to what Eliott was saying. But that was ridiculous, he couldn’t let them get to him.

Instead of dwelling on it, Lucas tried to divert the conversation, “Hence the bet.”

The corner of Eliott’s mouth quirked up and he averted his eyes, giving a shrug of acknowledgement. “Hence the bet,” he agreed.

The two of them stared at each other a beat longer, then Eliott hopped up and held out his hand. “Let’s give you a camp tour then, hm? Hopefully you’ll be claimed by tonight, but Cabin Eleven always welcomes unclaimed campers, even if we haven’t had one in a while.”

“Um, ok,” Lucas said, getting out of bed without taking Eliott’s hand. In all honesty, it was more for his own sake than anything. Cultist or not, Eliott was very, very attractive, and Lucas was very, very gay.

Eliott walked with a little bit of a bounce in his step, like he couldn’t help it, and even though it sort of made Lucas want to roll his eyes, another part of him was endeared. Eliott picked up a bow and quiver full of arrows by the door and strung them over his back. Lucas had no idea what use that would be, but he was wary to find out.

Outside of the infirmary was nothing like what Lucas expected. Eliott grinned at Lucas’ face over his shoulder and said, “Welcome to Camp Half-Blood.”

It was beautiful, that was the only word for it. There was a four story mansion in front of what looked to be some sort of dining pavilion, and on the opposite side there were massive strawberry fields, an archery range, and was that a rock climbing wall with lava pouring down it? It was hard to process everything he was seeing, and even harder when he looked a bit further and saw what Eliott must have meant by ‘cabins’. Cabin was an understatement, surely. There were many massive buildings, each decorated so wildly Lucas couldn’t even imagine the purpose of them. If this was a cult, at least the leaders seemed to treat the members well, everyone looked like they were having the time of their life, even the people sword fighting to the death.

Lucas looked back at the mansion on what seemed to be some sort of front lawn, and suddenly felt like he was about to faint again. “That man has a horse body.”

Eliott followed his gaze, laughed lightly. “Yeah, that’s Chiron, he’s a centaur.”

When Lucas didn’t respond, Eliott stopped him, imploring him with his intoxicating eyes. “Wait a second. You didn’t really believe me did you, you little shit?” he laughed, again, like it was funny. “Why would I lie about your father being a Greek god? Mine is too.”

“No,” Lucas said numbly. There had to be some other explanation, maybe he was on drugs. He started to feel a bit feverish and breathless as he took in his surroundings again. A man with the legs of a goat trotted past him and his vision dotted. Great, a panic attack was exactly what he needed right now. He didn’t even realize he’d fallen to his knees until Eliott knelt beside him, looking concerned.

“Hey, Lucas, breathe for me, can you do that?” Eliott asked. Lucas tried to answer, but he couldn’t, tried to breathe, but he couldn’t. Eliott’s face in front of him was a bit blurry now, and Lucas felt numb all over, like he was outside of his body. Then, suddenly, his vision cleared, his breathing regulated, and he felt like himself again.

“What—” he began, looking at Eliott, who looked guilty.

“I’m sorry,” Eliott said, helping Lucas to his feet. “My godly parent? Apollo, the god of music, prophecy, the sun,” he paused, biting his lip. “Medicine.”

“And you’re being one hundred percent serious?” Lucas asked. “You’re not part of a cult trying to brainwash me?”

Eliott nodded. “I swear it on the River Styx.”

Lucas didn’t know what that meant, but thunder boomed in the distance, so it sounded serious. His resolve crumbled, and he had no choice but to believe this crazy story he’d been told. In some ways, it made some of the weird things in his life seem not so weird after all.

“Ok,” he conceded, “I believe you. For real this time.”

Eliott smiled, but it was shallow, and Lucas thought about what he’d just said about his own father. “So you… you stopped my panic attack, then? With godly superpowers, or whatever?”

Eliott’s face went a bit dark, “I wouldn’t call it that, necessarily. I… I differ from most of my siblings in this way. Usually Apollo’s children are more inclined towards medicine, that much is true, but we don’t necessarily have healing powers of our own.”

“But you do,” Lucas inferred, and Eliott nodded grimly.

“It helps out a lot in battle, or with physical ailments, but I—” he faltered, and looked out at the water. “I hate using it this way, for mental ailments. Treating it like it's something that needs to be fixed— which I can’t do by the way. I can get rid of your panic attack, but not your anxiety, if that makes sense. The same way I could heal a broken leg, but not make sure that leg is never broken again. It seems like a cruel joke, sometimes, considering…” he trailed off, turning red, like he’d said something he shouldn’t have.

Lucas waited for him to continue, but when he did, he didn’t pick up his last train of thought. “Point is, we all have our things, from our parents, no matter how big or small they might be. Maybe finding out what yours is will lead us to find out who your dad is.”

“Maybe my dad’s also Apollo,” Lucas wondered aloud, and Eliott let out an oddly strangled noise.

“Let’s hope not,” he said, and before Lucas could ask why, he took off across the green towards the cabins. “Come on, let’s get you acquainted with some of the campers.”

And Lucas, well, he had no choice but to follow.

Every camper they passed seemed to be a little bit enamoured with Eliott, smiling, waving, and greeting him with blushes and laughter. Once Lucas caught up to Eliott, he asked, “Why are they doing that? Aren’t we all technically related, or whatever?”

Eliott furrowed his brows. “Doing what?” he asked, just as a camper on the volleyball court blew him a kiss. Lucas raised his eyebrows and watched as Eliott’s face turned bright red.

“Oh that’s not— we’re not— The godly side of the family doesn’t count,” he explained, “There’s no DNA there, so you’re not really related in any real way to anyone, aside from your siblings. Like, a child of Poseidon and a child of Athena could date with no problem, but two children of Athena? That’s weird.”

“Oh,” Lucas said, taking it all in. It seemed he had quite a bit to learn. “Who are you dating, then?” he asked, wishing he hadn’t the minute he said it.

To his surprise, Eliott just looked over at him with one eyebrow raised and a small smirk. “No one,” he said, coming to a stop in front of what looked like a Barbie house. “Yet.”

Lucas opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by a girl with blonde hair and big green eyes bounding down the stairs in their direction. Instead of running to Eliott, like he expected, she ran right towards Lucas, smiling at him widely.

“You must be Lucas!” she said excitedly.

“Uh…” Lucas said intelligently.

“This is Daphné,” Eliott said, “Daughter of Aphrodite.”

Aphrodite. Right. Which one was she again? The one naked in a seashell? Thankfully, Daphné filled in the blanks. “Goddess of love, beauty, all that good stuff. Someone had a lot of money betting that you were one of us,” she confided in him.

Lucas tried to look at Eliott for help in this interaction, but he was looking away pointedly. “My mom is normal,” he said instead, “Mortal.”

Daphné bit her lip, like she was holding back a grin. “That’s what my sister Lola guessed, too.”

Why did that name sound familiar? “Lola…?”

“Me.” Another voice joined them. It was the girl he’d seen with Eliott, who he’d saved from being eaten by that monster. She looked at him with a bored expression.

“You’re welcome,” Lucas said, watching as her eyes narrowed, “You know, for saving your life.”

She grimaced at him, hand on the sword at her side. She started to say something, but Daphné glared at her, and she rolled her eyes, going back inside where she’d come from.

“Your sister seems nice,” Lucas observed.

Daphné waved a hand airily. “She’ll come around. You didn’t have to be a dick, either.”

“Sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t, and Daphné looked like she knew it.

Eliott jumped in, likely to diffuse some tension, “Daphné here is a master of disguise. Her skill with beauty work can really transform anyone into anything, though more in an illusion way, not a shapeshifting way. Also, her love advice rarely goes amiss.”

That all sounded fine, but not really as cool as having actual superpowers, like Eliott, Lucas thought. As if sensing what he was thinking, Eliott continued, “Some children of Aphrodite have the power of charmspeak, too. They can make anyone do anything, just by telling them to.”

Lucas thought of the weird disconnected feeling that had come over him when Lola had made him stop running away. “Lola can charmspeak?” he asked, already knowing the answer as Eliott and Daphné nodded. “Well that’s just great.”

“It is,” Daphné said defensively, “It’s saved a lot of lives.”

“Anyway,” Eliott cut in again, smiled a bit tense around the edges, “I brought you to Daph because she knows everything and everyone. She can give you the rundown on some campers and their godly parents, if you want.”

Lucas didn’t see a problem with that, especially because he was severely lacking in mythological knowledge. Before he could do so much as nod, Daphné launched into a wild spiel, pointing to people as she did.

“Well, let’s see… over there is Alexia, daughter of Iris, goddess of the rainbow, ugh she’s with Arthur again— son of Hermes, you’ll meet him soon enough if you remain unclaimed— I told her not to go down that road again, but she never learns that my love advice is to be listened to, not ignored. There’s Yann, son of Hephaestus, god of blacksmiths and fire, he’s chill, you’ll like him, and he’s with Basile, as per usual, son of Ares, god of war— which everyone is still confused by, Baz doesn’t have a warlike bone in his body— we used to date, actually, a while back, but I suppose you don’t care about that. Emma and Imane, daughters of Dionysus, god of wine, and Nike, goddess of victory, respectively. Hmm… who else… Sofiane, Imane’s boyfriend and Eliott’s brother, another son of Apollo, Idriss, another son of Nike— he and Imane actually have the same father as well, which is rare but not unheard of. Oh! There’s Maya, Lola’s girlfriend, daughter of Demeter, goddess of agriculture…”

“You seem very well informed of people’s love lives,” Lucas observed, though he supposed that made sense, with who her mom was.

Daphné glowed in response. “I mean, it’s my job as the head counselor for the Aphrodite cabin. I have a feeling love is closer than you think, by the way, for yourself.”

Lucas blinked. “Excuse me?”

Daphné shrugged, sparing a glance at Eliott, then back at Lucas. “Just a hunch. Speaking of love, I wonder where Manon is… I think she’d like you. She’s a daughter of Zeus. Maybe she’s in her cabin…”

Manon. A name Lucas hadn’t heard in years. It could be a coincidence, of course, but at the same time… “Manon Demissy?” he asked. Daphné frowned at him.

“How do you know that?”

Lucas couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “She’s my cousin. She went missing when we were twelve…” he trailed off. Had she been here the whole time? Why didn’t his aunt and uncle know that? Did they have the same godly parent?

Daphné and Eliott exchanged a glance, before Daphné took a hold of his arm and dragged him after her, Eliott stumbling along behind them trying to keep up, towards the towering cabin at the end of the path, which looked more like a mausoleum than a cabin.

“Manon!” Daphné yelled once they were outside the door. “You’d better be in there, and you’d better open up, because your cousin—”

She was cut off by the door opening, and Lucas stared into a face he only had the barest memories of. She was a lot older now, sure, but still, Lucas knew exactly who she was. Her face blanched considerably when she saw Lucas.

“Lulu?” she asked, stepping all the way outside.

Lucas shifted uncomfortably at the nickname. “Uh, no one really calls me that anymo—”

Manon pulled him into a tight hug, and Lucas melted into it. His missing cousin, apparently, was just like him. When she pulled back she searched his face. “But how are you— Are you a half-blood?”

Lucas shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Who’s your father, then?” she asked, looking to Daphné and Eliott both.

“We don’t know,” Eliott said, “He’s unclaimed.”

“At eighteen?” Manon seemed confused by his age more than anything, even though they were only about a month apart in age.

Eliott and Daphné seemed to be thinking the same thing. “How did you survive this long? Most demigods don’t make it on their own past twelve out there, and the gods are supposed to claim us all by the time we’re thirteen,” Eliott said.

“He could be the son of a minor god,” Daphné offered, “Alexia was out there until she was fifteen.”

They were all looking at him expectantly, so Lucas launched into the story of his childhood, to when he’d been sent to live with Manon’s parents, how they’d moved around any time anything strange happened, and how everything had only been able to catch up with him now that he was on his own in New York.

Manon shook her head. “It still doesn’t make sense, though.”

“Your parents think you’re dead, by the way,” he said, wondering why that wasn’t bothering her.

She looked apprehensive for a moment, then said, “Lu, my mother and her husband died when I was twelve. That’s why I came to camp. I don’t have any family out there, other than you.”

“What are you talking about? Who the hell have I been living with for years, then?” Lucas demanded, but Manon looked confused as ever.

“We need to talk to Jo,” Eliott said, and Daphné nodded. “Her mother is Hecate, the goddess of magic, if anyone can peel back the Mist on this one, it’s her.”

“Why do I have a feeling you’re not talking about actual mist?” Lucas asked as he followed the three of them across the green once again. None of them answered him, which was answer enough.

“Jo!” Eliott yelled as they came across a purple cabin with a strange energy surrounding it. “We need your expertise!”

Hardly a moment later, a girl that seemed to be a bit younger than Lucas was at the door, breathless and smiling widely. She looked at Eliott with what was either severe infatuation or admiration. “Anything for my favorite camper,” she said, looking at all of them in turn, until her eyes rested on Lucas. “You must be the newbie! You’re a lot older than I thought you’d be, how the hell did you make it out there that long?”

“That’s what we need your help with,” Manon said, explaining the rest of the situation. Jo’s expression hardened as she did so, and she nodded seriously at the end.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Then, her expression was bright again. “Come inside Lucas! I don’t bite, I promise! Unless you want me to.”

“Jo,” Eliott said, exasperatedly, like he’d had to do this a lot.

She put her hands up. “Alright, alright. Come on, let’s see if we can figure out your story.”

Lucas tried to protest as she pulled him inside, door shutting behind her, leaving Eliott, Manon, and Daphné on the outside. She looked at him sympathetically. “I know it's overwhelming, but I promise you don’t have to be scared. Your job is easy, you just have to sit there while I work my magic. Literally.”

He was led to an entirely dark room and shoved unceremoniously into a chair. Jo waved her hand and a bunch of purple orbs filled the room, glowing with light. “Just close your eyes, and think about your family— your mortal family. I’ll do the rest.”

Lucas did as he was told, first thinking about his mother, and Manon, meeting his extended family when he was young. Only… that was odd, his aunt, Manon’s mother, looked quite a bit different than she did now, though maybe that was just because she was younger. There were weird, fuzzy gaps in his brain, from when he’d had to leave Paris and come to live with his aunt and uncle, which seemed strange. There were a lot of weird, fuzzy gaps, actually, the more he thought about it. Jo gasped, and Lucas opened his eyes.

Jo sighed, looking at Lucas like she’d seen something she wished she hadn’t. “It really is a curse, being able to do the things that I do,” she said simply, holding out a hand. “Come on, we have lots to share.”

Eliott, Daphné, and Manon were all bickering when Jo opened the door to let them both out of the cabin. They looked up at Jo expectantly. Well, actually, Manon and Daphné did, Eliott looked at Lucas, searching his face with his eyes, almost like he was asking if Lucas was ok. Lucas nodded, giving him a hint of a smile, which Eliott returned with one of his own.

“I’m not sure y’all will like what I have to say,” Jo warned them all, then turned to Manon. “Can we go to your cabin? I don’t want to talk about it with a bunch of people around.”

Manon frowned, but they all followed her back to the massive cabin at the end of the row once again. While they walked, Lucas couldn’t stop thinking of what all this secrecy and worry might lead to. Bad enough he’d just found out that the people he’d been living with weren’t actually related to him, did he really need to learn that he was the son of the god of, like, toilets, or something?

When they walked in Lucas noticed that the cabin was more or less set up like a museum, not a livable space. There was a massive statue of a god that Lucas assumed was Zeus, because he was carrying a lightning bolt (hey, he didn’t know much, but he knew that much), but it was a bit unnerving, because it felt like his eyes were following them as they walked across the room.

“Where are your siblings?” Lucas asked, looking around. All of the other cabins seemed to have a great number of campers living in them.

“I don’t have any,” Manon said, opening a compartment in the wall just outside statue Zeus’ eyeline. Daphné followed like she’d been there a million times, and Eliott and Jo didn’t seem to have any hesitation, so Lucas went after them, closing the compartment behind him.

“Zeus is one of the Big Three, which includes Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades,” Manon continued as they followed her, “And a long time ago, there was this big pact between the Big Three to never sire any more demigods, because of some prophecy nonsense, or something. I don’t know, it was before our time. There was this big war, and then they decided to do away with that rule, but the children of the Big Three are more powerful than most demigods. Which makes them more dangerous, more of a liability. There were a lot of us, for a time, but then the gods decided to get rid of us in case we’d cause too much trouble. As if it was our fault for existing. Each of the Big Three was supposed to choose one child to live, and I happened to be the luckiest of the bunch, because I was just a baby. I think I technically have a sister, but she’s a Hunter of Artemis, so she was exempt from this new rule. Poseidon chose this guy who’s an adult now, living in New Rome, because he pretty much saved them from destruction a number of times and he also hadn’t had anymore demigod children after him. Hades refused to choose, and the gods banished him to Tartarus. He only had two kids, both of whom pretty much saved the gods asses a million times over, and he didn’t think they deserved to be punished for existing, rightfully so.”

They were now in a chamber that Lucas definitely thought hadn’t existed previously. It was decorated in a way that seemed somewhat recent and it looked like more of a secret hideout than a bedroom. Everyone took a seat on various furniture, Daphné and Manon’s hands tangling together as they sat beside one another on the bed. Lucas was still trying his best to take in all the information, but he got lost at Tartarus. “So… Zeus killed a bunch of his kids, is the moral of the story?”

Daphné scoffed. “It was Hera who did it. She hates all children of Zeus, because she’s the goddess of marriage. Really, she just wanted to punish him, and all those innocent kids got caught in the crossfire. She only roped Poseidon and Hades into it so the other gods would agree. Everyone knew Poseidon only had one demigod child, and no one cared enough about Hades or his kids to intervene in that regard.”

“But if they all hate Hades, why is he one of the Big Three?” Lucas asked.

“I mean, the whole concept of the Big Three is inherently sexist to begin with, because it only recognizes the male children of Kronos,” Manon said. “But that’s basically why. He’s also much more powerful than anyone gives him credit for, he could wipe us all out if he wanted to. I think Zeus knows that, which is part of why he had him banished.”

“So what’s Tartarus, then?” Lucas asked, catching on, but still hopelessly lost.

It was Eliott who chimed in this time, voice cold and somewhat afraid. “There’s the Underworld, and then there’s Tartarus, which is like the hell of all hells. Worse than the Fields of Punishment tenfold. It’s the home of all the monsters, where they go to regenerate when we kill them, and is a prison or a home for the nastiest immortal beings in the universe. The only thing deeper than Tartarus is Chaos, from which everything was borne. The good, the bad, all of it. Only three demigods have ever been inside Tartarus, and they all barely survived it. Hades is being punished there, because he refused to kill one of his children.”

Lucas looked at each of them with wide eyes. “But that’s awful!”

Manon nodded grimly. “Hades isn’t the nicest of the gods, not by a longshot, but he’s a million times better than my own father, and he definitely doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him right now.”

“Zeus isn’t my dad, is he?” Lucas asked warily.

Manon smiled sadly. “You’d be dead if he was. Hera killed my mother and my stepfather, you know, as retribution for the fact that I’m alive, even though she agreed to letting one of his children live. Don’t worry about this all too much, though, you’re probably just a child of a minor god and you’ll get some sick powers out of the deal.”

Jo sat up in her beanbag chair. “Actually… that’s what we have to talk about.”

Oh, right. Lucas had almost forgotten about her magic, and what they were trying to find out about his past. Daphné encouraged her, “Well? Spill.”

Jo sighed. “So, I was able to see through the Mist on his memories, and I’m not sure you’ll like what I found. His aunt and uncle, the ones who’ve been hiding him all these years, they’re two of the Kindly Ones.”

“Kindly Ones?” Lucas asked, but he saw everyone else’s faces had paled.

“I’d wondered why they never came after us anymore… I thought it was because of Hades…” Manon mumbled to herself, but Lucas still didn’t follow.

“The Kindly Ones, better known as the Furies, are monsters that serve Hades. They come after us, sometimes, but they mostly stick by his side and do his bidding,” Eliott explained. “If they’ve been protecting you all these years…”

“You must be a child of Hades,” Manon said, finishing both Eliott’s thought and her own.

Lucas laughed loudly, sure they were just joking around with him. Hades? No way, he was just some minor demigod, not someone who should, for all intents and purposes, be dead. These people were all crazy after all, he’d been right all along. He forced another laugh and shook his head. “Come on, guys, you can’t be serious.”

But they weren’t looking at him, they were looking just above him.

“Unfortunately, it seems that we are,” Daphné said gravely, and Lucas looked above his head just in time to see a glowing symbol disappearing.

“What was that?” he asked.

“You’ve just been claimed,” Eliott said, “By the god of the dead. Lucas, you are a son of Hades.”

And wasn’t that just fan-fucking-tastic.

Not only was he half god, he was half of a god who should have had him killed when he was a baby. He supposed that was a point in his father’s favor that he wasn’t dead, but couldn’t he have done more to keep him hidden from this world? He was a god, that should have been in his power.

“The good news for you is that you have four eyewitnesses,” Manon said, and Lucas could nearly see the wheels spinning in her head. He didn’t know how that helped anything, now there were just four other people who knew a secret that could get him killed the moment he stepped back outside into camp.

Daphné, though, seemed to understand what Manon was saying. “Four eyewitnesses who saw you claimed by any god other than Hades,” she said, and Lucas understood.

“I can’t ask you guys to do that for me,” he argued, “What if something happens to you as a result?” He didn’t even know any of them, really, he couldn’t ask them to risk themselves like this.

“If it’s a choice between seeing you live or seeing you die, I’m going to go with the former, no matter who you are,” Jo said simply, and the other three nodded beside her. Lucas appreciated this level of blind faith in him, even if he didn’t know if he deserved it. Obviously, he didn’t want to die, and it meant a lot that these four people he barely knew cared enough to make sure he didn’t. They could very well do the same with every other demigod, but every other demigod wasn’t there right now, so Lucas let himself feel this unearned love, just a little bit.

A thought struck him, then, that may put a crimp in their plan. “But how will I pretend to be the child of another god?”

Jo winked at him. “Leave that to me. My siblings are great and all, but if you really want magic done right, you come to me. I can make it look like one of the other gods has claimed you.”

“But which one?” Manon inquired, tilting her head to one side like she was working through every god in her mind. “It has to be one of the male gods, because his mother is mortal and that’s easy to prove, but it can’t be one of the ones that has obvious, testable, powers.”

“He could be Apollo,” Daphné suggested, “Apollo has a lot of different skills, so Lucas must fit into one of them.”

“No,” Eliott interjected, voice sounding a bit hoarse, like he hadn’t meant to say anything. Everyone’s heads shot in his direction and he blushed, pretending that the floor was very interesting all of a sudden. He mumbled, “Children of Apollo have certain traits that are too easy to prove Lucas doesn’t have.”

Lucas didn’t know whether to take offense to that, and he was a little bit hurt that Eliott didn’t think him worthy enough to be a son of the sun god, but he supposed that’s what he got when he was a child of a death god.

Manon snapped, taking everyone’s attention off of Eliott, for which he seemed grateful. “What about Hypnos, god of sleep? I’m fairly good friends with Lisa, their head counselor, and the only real requirement for that one is the ability to sleep.”

“I, uh, have insomnia,” Lucas admitted. Of course, he couldn’t even fit in with the sleeping god. Eliott snorted into his hand, and tried to cover it up with a cough, which weirdly made Lucas feel better.

“Ares?” Manon offered.

Lucas squinted. “The war guy?”

“What about Dionysus?” Jo chimed in, only to be cut off by Daphné.

“Mr. D literally works at this camp, Jo, absent as he is at the moment. I think he’d know who his children are.”

“Right…”

“What about Hermes?” Eliott suggested. He looked a bit uncomfortable with everyone’s attention on him again, but he continued, “I mean, he’s sort of a jack of all trades, so his kids don’t usually have any particularly defining characteristics, aside from the occasional theft.”

“I’ve stolen things,” Lucas supplied, in a way that he hoped was helpful.

Eliott smiled widely, gesturing to him. “He’s stolen things!”

“That just might work,” Daphné said with a nod, starting to smile. “And Arthur would have our back on this, should the truth come out in any way. I mean, I think we should keep it between the five of us, but we know Arthur’s trustworthy, is all. Plus, no one would question it, Hermes has lots of kids.”

“It would also make sense as to why you’ve gone this long without coming to camp. Hermes is powerful enough that some of his kids have issues in the real world, but a lot of them can make it without any problems,” Manon added.

“Well?” Eliott asked him, smile still just as bright as a second ago. “What do you say, Lucas, son of Hermes?”

Lucas nodded slowly. “I think I could do that. And you guys are sure that— that you can help me with this?” He didn’t want to ask for too much, but if they were willing, it would be nice to not be alone.

Each of them nodded in turn. “We’re a team now,” Manon promised, daring the others to disagree. They didn’t, which was a relief.

When Lucas thought about all the ways he’d thought his life would have gone, and this was so far out of anything he’d ever considered that he was still having a hard time processing it all, but it really struck him, in that moment, that it was all real, that this was his life now.

He looked at Eliott, who looked back at him with curiosity in his eyes, and it felt like a wave of understanding passed between the two of them. Lucas didn’t entirely know what that understanding was, but it comforted him. Maybe, just maybe, this would turn out all right.

#skam france #elu #elu fic #pjo au

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rosy-cheekx · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Additional Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, The Lonely Fear Domain (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical The Lonely Content (The Magnus Archives), Martin Blackwood Feels Lonely, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Tumblr Prompt, Prompt Fill Summary:

"Tea, tea, tea. Rooibos and chamomile for sleepless nights. Herbal for variety. Jon likes caffeinated teas. Maybe some chai? That’ll be good when it gets really cold…god how long will we be here? Through winter? Forever? He could stay here forever if it meant Jon was there too."

Martin can't remember the last time he drank tea. It's unsettling, the habits he picked up and habits he lost while overwhelmed by The Lonely.

Chapter Two is here! Thanks again to @ombreblossom for the prompt suggestion: “please don’t shut me out” and “we can talk through the door.”

Enjoy! (posted below too)

Jon didn’t know what to do. He was worried about Martin, had been for a while, after they had—for lack of a better word—evacuated to Daisy’s unoccupied safehouse. Jon knew Martin needed time, but it was still so strange to see a shell of the man he knew instead of the man he loves.

No, that’s not right. He loves this Martin too, there’s no doubt there. Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, doesn’t think he can put a modifier on that word. Love. “Loved” implies he doesn’t anymore, which he does. “Loves” implies present tense, which is technically true but still doesn’t sit right. It feels like it invalidates all the past versions of Martin, the ones who have waned into this one. Maybe it’s the monster in him, the eldritch being that exists out of time, that Knows and Sees everything at the same time, all the time, forever. But to say he love Martin sounds silly. There must be a better word.

He knows he has love for Martin (better?) when he finds him, quaking or shivering behind a door or in the shower or frozen under the covers. In those moments all he feels is a desperate desire to make things better, to ride out the storm alongside Martin and wish away anything plaguing him. He can’t, but tea and the biggest duvet in the house is close enough. It’ll do for now.

He can feel his love for Martin when Martin reaches out for him, clinging to his hand like a lifeline. Its rare. He’s gotten less tactile since before, well, everything. Martin was always the one to pat your shoulder comfortingly or pull you into a hug when your vision blurs from tears. Apparently people felt so warm to him, as he had told Jon in a calm moment, after he had flinched the first time. Searing hot. Something to do with the relationships they have with others heats them, like embers in their bellies. It was a debilitating reminder that Martin had given up so much, and a curse bent on keeping those relationships at arm’s reach. Literally.

“You’re not too bad,” Martin had said, a ghost of a smile reminding him of the man he knew. “T-that’s probably not good for you, all things considered. But we’ve both lost our connections, haven’t we?”

��Mmm. Everyone but you, I think.”

Jon has been too afraid to leave Martin alone. They’ve gone on a few walks together but overall neither of them has left the house. Jon’s afraid to be around people, to hear the whisper of a statement and be unable to resist the pull to Ask, to Know, to Beg for the knowledge if that’s what it takes.

The time has come, though, the day Jon dreaded. They needed to go shopping.

Jon reminded Martin over and over that he didn’t need to come, that he could stay and rest or write poetry or just take a break. But Martin was determined, it seemed, to fight his battles as much as Jon was. Maybe it would be easier to resist with Martin alongside him, his anchor to humanity.

The grocery wasn’t too busy, all things considered, but compared to the ambient silence of the house and the car, the noise was deafening. Jon felt a bit like an AI unit, using his all-powerful powers to figure out where the tinned soups, bread, and tea were stocked.

God that tea. He hadn’t meant to upset Martin, it was just that he knew how vehemently Martin despised oolong. Jon had tried to make it for him a while back at Sasha’s behest; only to return, tail tucked, with a full mug of tea in newly shaky hands. Jon had thought it was because Martin had finally snapped, lost his cool on his new boss. But Martin had stuck his head in the door, mumbling something quick about oolong and his mum and how he hated it now and he was sorry. Jon had forgiven him. He knew what it was like to be caught off guard by something from your past, whatever it was. But now he was here, staring at the spot Martin had been, shivering as a low fog pooled at his feet briefly before dissipating into the air. His connection with the Lonely was wearing off, sure, but it clearly wasn’t completely severed.

Jon vacillated for a moment. Should he stay here? Hope Martin reappears in the same spot he left? He knew that wasn’t how it worked. Martin had told him about the parallel world in which he could walk, this world but lonelier, softer, more distant. The safehouse would still exist in Martin’s world. It was probably the only place Martin could feel secure in. He couldn’t Know where Martin was going; even if he hadn’t promised he didn’t think it would work if he tried. Martin was avoiding being known and seen. He needed space, as much as Jon could give him, until he was ready to come back.

Jon paid for the groceries, grateful the teen at the till barely seemed to acknowledge his existence. No statement to give; mother on her deathbed; irrelevant, unhelpful child; girlfriend cheating with—Stop it.

Fumbling with bags of bread, fruit, tea, rice, pasta, veg, soup, anything that seemed healthy and easy enough to make between the two of them, Jon loaded everything into the car, backseat precariously filled. He drove home (how quick it was, to admit the safehouse felt more like home than anywhere Jon had lived for a while) in silence somehow more deafening than the scratchy Georgia Ann Muldrow playing from the speakers and the bustle of the tiny Scottish village. It was slow-going, half-hoping he’d spot Martin on the drive and half-dreading the idea of getting home and him not being there, willing himself to put that off as long as possible.

Jon did arrive home eventually, however, to a pant leg and shoe slipping through the front door. Martin. He wasn’t sure if the recognition was the Eye or just Jon, but either entity was certain enough in their knowledge.

Making a point to put the car in park, Jon shouted for Martin, diving out of the car as soon as he could and rushed into the house. He couldn’t tell where man he carried such love for had gone; the Eye beckoned, teased him with Knowing. Just this once. To help him. He pushed the thoughts aside and began to systematically check the usual places. The space behind the front door, next to the couch, the bedroom. As Jon closed the door to the apparently empty bedroom he heard shuffling coming from the bathroom and the unfortunately familiar sound of Martin’s suppressed crying.

Jon approached the door with the coiled tension of one approaching an injured wild animal, pressing his ear to the door. “M-Martin? It’s-it’s Jon,” Stupid, obviously. “Are you alright? I mean-I assume not. But—hmm. what can I do?”

“Leave me alone, Jon.” Martin’s voice was muffled; Jon could practically picture him, elbows resting on the sink, face in his hands. “I-I can deal with this myself.”

“I know you can, of course you can, Martin.” Jon ran a hand through his tangled curly hair, tugging on an errant curl as he spoke. “But-just, don’t shut me out. You don’t need to do this alone. You have people who—you have me. I care.” Sigh. “I-It’s the Lonely, Martin, it’s trying to trick you.”

“Its stupid. I-I don’t think I can say it to your face.”

“Then don’t. I can hear you. We can talk through the door. I certainly don’t have anywhere to go.”

Martin was quiet for a while. “It was that stupid tea, of all things.” His voice was slow, shaky; Jon could hear the effort he was taking to keep it controlled. “It made me realize how not me I was, am, whatever.” Jon didn’t speak, didn’t want to break Martin’s focus. “I haven’t drunk tea since Peter. That sounds so-so stupid to be the thing to lose my cool over but it’s more than that. I lost so much of myself, Jon, while you were gone, after my mum, after Peter-fucking-Lukas.”

Oh shit.

“It’s not just that obviously, it’s the loneliness and the touch and the anxiety I feel all the time. I changed so much, Jon, and I didn’t even realize it was happening until it was too late and then I didn’t have a choice. I haven’t felt human in so long and I don’t know what to do with myself now.”

“Martin?”

“I’m cold all the time, Jon, I used to be the warm one! I used to be the one Sasha and Tim and you would cuddle next to during movie nights in the Archives because it was freezing down there and now I can’t get warm.” Martin’s voice was escalating in tone and volume, a fever-pitch of anger and sorrow. “I just want to feel normal again! I don’t want to be lonely anymore, I want to be human!”

“Martin!” Jon had stepped back from the door, watching a faint haze seep out from under the door, thick and white, rising in front of the door. “Martin, what’s happening in there?”

“Wh—Oh!” Jon hear the click and squeak of the door opening, and the fog billowed out tenfold. He could just make out a silhouette of Martin, seemingly more solid than any way he had seemed in a while. Jon stuck out his hand, thin and tight and scarred, and felt another hand, thick and large and warm, grasp his. “Jon, w-what’s happening?”

“I-I’m not sure Martin, I can See, if you like.” He pressed his other hand to Martin’s face, treasuring how warm and soft he felt. “But I think-I think you healed yourself. Not wanting to be lonely, anymore, maybe?” Jon saw the warm, soft, exhausted smile on Martin’s face and was dimly pleased to feel it mimicked on his own.

I love you, he wanted to say. I think I have always loved you and will always love you. But there was time for that, Jon knew. There was time for sleepy love confessions and understanding exactly the right word to define how he felt for the man in front of him. Some things just need time.

(They remembered the groceries about an hour later, when Martin mentioned making a cup of herbal tea.)

#fanfic to a tea #fanfic_to_a_tea #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #the lonely #hurt/comfort #angst #prompt fics #id love some feedback!

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stellalux-universe · 5 years ago

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Notes:

Whoo-hooo! Look who's back!

I'm so sorry this took so long! December literally kicked my ass, and I tried to write, I really did. But every day I got home from work and literally passed out on my couch... so, yeah, didn't get much done over the holidays.

But I'm back and better and I'm gonna say that I'll update more regularly but we'll see. My goal is at least two chapters a month... but we'll see how that goes -hangs head in shame-

Anyways! Please enjoy and comment if you like! My resolution for 2020, besides writing more, is to comment more on fics that I enjoy instead of telling myself that I'll go back and comment later and then totally forgetting like the trash that I am.

Love you all!

-Partial smut (of fucking course with me) so NSFW friends.

Tag list of gorgeous people who requested I inform them of when I post because they’re the sweetest 😭: @smokeandmirrorz @xpoisonousrosesx and @duffshairdye

*Let me know if you would like to be added to a general tag list or just to this story and I’ll so do it!

Chapter 3: Some Like The Evil

The sunlight filtering through the windows and into the bedroom is far too bright to belong to the morning. The intense glare settles over Nikki’s eyelids, warm, orange, and irritating when all he wants to do in the world is keep sleeping. It figures that he would have been too fucked up last night to actually draw the blinds before he fell into bed.

He has nothing to do today, one of his last days off before rehearsals and preparations kick into high gear for the tour so he fights tooth and nail against returning to consciousness, desiring nothing more than to sink back into that blissful haze of slumber but it’s of no use. His mind is slowly becoming more and more aware of the world around him and as he drowsily blinks his eyelids open, he groans in annoyance when his eyes burn with the transition from darkness to light.

He wants to raise a hand to cover his eyes but as soon as he tries he finds that he can’t lift his arms, more than that, he can barely even twitch his fingers. The shock wakes him up completely enough to realize that his whole body is heavy, weighed down like lead, and an exhaustion he’s never known is suddenly apparent to him. He’s been tired before, even been exhausted before after a killer show and a long night of partying, but the bone deep fatigue that makes him struggle to even minimally move his body is unlike anything that he has ever felt before.

For a moment he thinks that he’s maybe come down with something and gotten himself seriously sick. It’s the only explanation that his tired mind can come up with because he didn’t do anything last night to explain why he’s feeling this way. He wracks his brain, going over the events of the previous day to try to find a reason for why his body feels like it’s about ten times heavier. He had felt fine when he got home, he had fucked around a bit and watched some tv, went to his studio to try to write a bit, got frustrated over not being able to write a damn thing, drank a third of a handle of Jack… passed out and went to bed. Standard practice for a night in.

But then, unbidden, his brain flashes a series of images as he tries to pinpoint an explanation; curly hair and glowing eyes looking up at him from beneath dark lashes, long slender back arched beneath him, red lips and a wicked smile and sharp teeth… no, not teeth, fangs. Fangs that sunk into the skin of his shoulders, horns tucked in amongst wild wavy brown hair, a tail that wrapped itself around Nikki’s thigh as he fucked the gorgeous demon from behind, and claws that tore down his back as he nailed him with his legs wrapped around his waist.

Remembering his dream is nothing but bitter sweet but he’s torn out of his thought process when a soft noise starts making itself known to him. That’s when Nikki finally looks down and very nearly has a heart attack at what meets his eyes.

It’s nearly impossible to him and for a second his mind is blank, he’s holding his breath and everything just stops because there, laid out and curled up on his chest, is the demon from his dream. Nikki almost thinks that he’s still dreaming but the haziness that had been over him the previous night is gone and his clarity tells him that he is more than definitely awake which also makes him realize something else.

Last night was absolutely, startlingly real.

It wasn’t a dream, or an alcohol infused fantasy, it wasn’t even a hallucination. He really spent all night fucking a demon and what’s more, it had been the single best sexual experience of his life. Even now, looking down at the demon purring, absolutely fucking purring, as he slept on his chest, Nikki thinks that he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life. In the sunlight pouring over them he can see that his long curly hair is actually a dark brown instead of black like he thought last night, his skin is olive toned and lightly tanned, one hand cutely curled up by his pretty face.

None of that seems to stop the steady panic filling him though, and he has to look back up and away from the demon, Tommy- his mind supplies out of nowhere, and try to calm himself down before he loses it.

For all that he found witchcraft and religion monumentally interesting, he didn’t actually believe a single word of it. He’d had friends growing up who went to church and his grandparents had of course tried to get him involved with theirs as a way to alter his behavior during his childhood but Nikki had made his peace with the fact that there was no way any type of god existed a long time ago. He was drawn to Satanic imagery for the pure aesthetic and used it in his music and his performances as a metaphor for rebelling against the norm, and as a fuck you to general society of course. It was dark and twisted, often how he felt himself, so of course he gravitated to it but that was the extent of his involvement.

This challenges everything he knew, everything he thought he believed and didn’t believe in because if the demon on top of him right now was real, does that mean that everything else is too? Are there angels, and a God and heaven and hell? Is there a Satan and what does that mean for him if there is? Is this creature going to wake up and just slaughter him, right here in his bed in the bright light of day and send him to hell where he undoubtedly belongs after everything he has done in his life so far? Surely fucking a demon and going multiple rounds would be a sure way to get barred from heaven even if nothing else that he has done had.

He struggles to move his body again, breathing and heart rate fast in his alarm, but he can’t do much more than squirm uselessly as his body is nearly completely unresponsive. He’s so busy fighting the muscles in his limbs to try to get them to just move that he doesn’t even notice that the soft purring has stopped until he happens to look back down to try to figure out what to do about his paralysis and sees the demon glaring up at him from beneath the fringe of his bangs and if Nikki could have jumped in his surprise, he would have.

As it is, he just freezes, green eyes wide as he watches the demon blink sleepily and sit up, both hands resting on Nikki’s chest so he can arch and stretch his back like a cat on top of him and it’s because of that movement that Nikki realizes that he’s still inside of the demon, Tommy straddled across his lap and still impaled on his now soft cock and while the idea of the creature falling asleep with Nikki’s dick inside of him is obscenely hot, it does nothing to quell his current panic. He’s definitely going straight to hell for this.

Tommy finally settles on top of him, sitting up straight on Nikki’s hips and tilting his head curiously as he looks down at him and Nikki really needs to stop thinking that this literal demon is cute right now before he has an aneurysm.

“Well, you woke me up with all your panic, so you want to tell me what’s wrong Nik?” The demon actually has the audacity to look annoyed with him, big brown eyes narrowed and actually pouting as he looks down at him. As if Nikki wasn’t having a life altering existential crisis right now.

Nikki can’t even say anything for a moment, wide eyes moving over the little black horns and the thin tail that’s now lazily whipping back and forth behind Tommy, mouth opening and closing without a word coming out because he honestly does not know what to say.

Tommy gives a little sigh of exasperation, leaning over him to flick his nose in an almost playful gesture and saying, “Hello, earth to Nikki Sixx, you alive down there dude?”

That’s enough to jolt him out of his daze, swallowing his nerves and just muttering a quiet, “You’re real.”

Tommy sits back up at that abruptly, the demon looking down at him with wide eyes and Nikki notes how brightly they shine in the light of the sun, the red glow that he’s seen a couple times gone for now, before Tommy is actually laughing. It’s a boisterous, happy noise and it almost makes Nikki smile just to hear it but he’s far too incredulous to do so at the moment.

“You really didn’t summon me on purpose did you?” The demon asks with laughter still in his voice, red lips pulled back into a wide smile that shows off one small fang as it peeks over his lip, giggling again when Nikki shakes him head mutely, “You really thought last night was some sort of fever dream or something then huh? Dream of fucking demons often, Nikki Sixx?”

Nikki is sputtering at the teasing, terrified or not, this demon was making fun of him and embarrassment is not a feeling that Nikki likes, “I don’t- I just- fuck, you’re a literal fucking demon, like a real demon, a ‘from hell’ demon. You could literally kill me right now, easy, and I’d go straight to hell-”

Tommy moves swiftly, grabs his hands and pins them to the bed above his head, bending down to nip at his already sore bottom lip, “Cool it human, if I had wanted to kill you, I would have done it last night.”

That doesn’t exactly inspire much relaxation for Nikki, however, as the demon basically just told him that he more than definitely could kill him but Nikki is already moving on to the next issue at hand, “I fucked a demon.”

Tommy gives him that same sultry smile from last night and Nikki’s eyes widen when he feels his cock twitch from where it’s still buried inside of the creature. The demon nuzzles into his neck then, nipping at the sensitive skin behind his ear and giggles again, “Yes, you really did, multiple times.”

Nikki unconsciously tilts his head a little to the side, unintentionally giving Tommy more room to mark up his neck even as he says, “That was you, you did some sort of fucking demon magic to make me fuck you.”

Tommy pulls away at that, letting go of Nikki’s hands and sitting up straight, looking down at Nikki with an extremely offended expression on his face, “You got hard for me all on your own Nikki Sixx, I just kept you that way for longer than you’d usually be able to last.”

Nikki can’t argue against that, because as soon as Tommy says it, he knows it was true. He thinks about how he had entered his bedroom last night, seeing Tommy spread across his bed just like the dream he thought that it was. He had started getting hard just looking at the demon.

Tommy glares down at him, that red glow from last night back in his eyes, claws scratching lightly down Nikki’s chest as he dips down and bites lightly at the bassist’s lip, “I didn’t make you grab me by my hair and fuck my mouth until you were cumming down my throat.”

The bassist groans, both at Tommy’s ministrations and the images his words conjure up in Nikki’s mind. He should still feel afraid, but something about Tommy is just so appealing to him that he feels that fear slipping away easily. And why shouldn’t it? Nikki has always loved dark and twisted things.

He watches with hooded green eyes when Tommy gives him a wicked grin, the demon running his lips softly over his jaw as he starts to gently rock his hips against him, “I didn’t make you fuck up into me as I rode you, or make you put me on my back and fuck me until I was crying, and I definitely didn’t make you wrestle me onto my hands and knees and fuck me from behind. That was all you Nik.”

Nikki groans again as he feels himself hardening inside of Tommy, the demon making small little whimpers as he feels it too, “I can’t go again, fuck, there’s no way.”

Tommy straightens up on top of him, hips rolling down and curls swaying with the movement of his body as he laughs breathily, “It feels like you can Nik, and this is all you too, no demon magic involved.”

“Fuck, Tommy, I can’t even move my fucking body, I can’t fuck you again. What the hell did you do to me?” Nikki grunts out, trying his hardest to move his arms, or legs, anything.

The demon on top of him slows his movement then, hips gently grinding and Nikki is surprised to see the light blush light up Tommy’s cheeks as he answers, “I- I may have taken too much energy from you last night, I’m sorry.”

Nikki looks up at him in confusion, eyes questioning as he asks, “Just what the hell does that mean?”

Tommy’s blush deepens and Nikki can’t help but be endeared at the slightly flustered disposition he’s portraying. He probably shouldn’t find it as cute as he did, but it was just so different from the absolutely playful, seductive behavior he has had up until now, Nikki just can’t help it.

“Well, I’m, I’m a sex demon right? An incubus, succubus, whatever the hell you humans call us, I get nourishment from, well from-”

“From sex.” Nikki finishes for him, finally understand a little bit about what was going on, honestly relieved that he wasn’t just dying or something more dramatic.

“From sexual energy, yeah.” Tommy nods, eyes wide and still blushing as he looks down at Nikki, “I don’t really need that much, but you were just…”

Nikki raises an eyebrow at the demon as he trails off, waiting for him to continue as Tommy’s expression becomes downright petulant, “Yeah? I was just?”

Tommy huffs out in frustration, looking away as he rocks his hips a little more insistently and whines as he completes his sentence, “You were just so good, I couldn’t stop.”

The statement and the movement of Tommy’s hips on top of him have him hissing out a curse, he’s fully hard now and at this point he couldn’t care less about Tommy being a demon or what that means for his whole philosophical outlook on life. He just wants Tommy again, as crazy as that is, and he fully accepts that for right now.

“Tommy…” Nikki groans, trying to get the demon’s attention from where he’s losing focus as he grinds down a little harder. “Tommy! Fuck, I still can’t move!”

Tommy’s eyes flutter open, the little whines that had been escaping his lips pausing as he slows his movements again and looks down at Nikki with wide eyes, “Oh… OH! I can fix that.”

The demon is suddenly biting down on his own lip, catching the flesh with a fang so that blood starts seeping slowly from the wound before he’s leaning down and kissing Nikki deep and ravenous, pulling Nikki’s tongue into his mouth to encourage the bassist to explore. Nikki does his best with the limited movement afforded to his body but as he tastes Tommy’s blood he can feel his muscles start to respond, energy flooding back into his limbs until he’s able to bring his arms up to wrap around the demon and roll them over, hitching those long legs up around his waist and thrusting into Tommy’s tight, wet heat with a groan.

Tommy’s reaction is instantaneous, arching his back sharply and sinking his claws into Nikki’s shoulders as he cries out Nikki’s name. The demon rolls his hips into the bassist’s thrusts greedily, tossing his head back when the human surges down to bite and kiss at his neck, “Nnngh, Nik, Nikki, oh, y-you’re going to use up all of you-your energy again.”

Nikki can’t help the grin that pulls at his lips as he straightens to a kneel, holding Tommy’s hips up as he pounds into the demon beneath him. The obscene moan he gets, the way Tommy’s eyes roll back and his hands pull at his own hair makes him groan at the arousing display he makes, “Fuck babe, I don’t care. If, if I’m ruining my chances of getting into heaven I ain’t gonna half ass it.”

The demon moans again before giggling, reaching up to grab at Nikki’s hair and yank him back down, licking a stripe up his neck before biting at the bassist’s ear lobe, “T-trust me Nik, fuck, heaven is overrated.”

And Nikki might just be damned already because he believes it. He believes it as he fucks the demon into another screaming orgasm and he believes it when Tommy curls up afterwards into Nikki’s side and rests his head on his shoulder and he definitely believes it when just before he passes out again he manages to catch Tommy muttering, “You really are something else Nikki Sixx.”

He believes in this demon and he really doesn’t care if fucking him means he goes straight to hell when he dies, it’s a sin that is completely worth the punishment.

But when he wakes up again in the early hours of the next morning, Tommy is gone.

#shout at the devil fic by stellalux #motley crue fanfic #terrorcest #terror twins #tommy/nikki #tommy lee #nikki sixx #chapter 3 #oh my god this took me forever #i'm so sorry #i'm trash

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pb1138 · 5 years ago

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Fictober Day 5: Build, feat. Asra and Morgana

ANGST. ALL OF THE ANGST. I LITERALLY WEPT WRITING THIS. This is about my apprentice’s last days during the plague. (It’s even more bittersweet because she’s my Muriel and my Lucio romance apprentice.)

“I don’t know why you won’t just come with me!”

Morgana pinched the bridge of her nose, anger flaring. “And if you didn��t have your head shoved so far up your ass, Asra, you would know why I can’t!”

Asra gestured angrily towards the window, towards the island. “Do you realize how bad it is? They’re dying so quickly that Lucio is building a mass grave!”

She spun around and doubled down on him, fury thickening the air between them. Angrily, she shoved a finger in his chest. “I know better than you how bad it is, Asra, because I’m out there doing something! What are you doing? Hiding! Running away, like always!”

Scowling, he rubbed the place she poked him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

She shook her head, looking at him with disgust. “You always do this. You always run away when things get tough, Asra. Well not me. Not this time.” Taking a deep, steadying breath, she stepped back, sorrow taking over her anger. “I’m staying, Asra.” She turned her head from him to hide her tears as she whispered a wobbling, “If you’re leaving, then just… go.”

“Morgana—”

“Don’t.” Shaking her head, she took another step back and hugged herself. “Don’t make this harder, Asra.”

‘Stay?’

Two pairs of violet eyes turned towards their scaly companion, peaking up out of Asra’s coat. Morgana looked towards Asra, waiting, and the silence between them stretched endlessly until Asra met her gaze, and she knew his answer. “No, Faust. It’s too dangerous to stay.”

‘Oh…’

Morgana swallowed hard as Asra reached for his pack. He made it to the door of the shop before pausing, his back to her. “Be careful, Morgana. I… I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

Squeezing her eyes shut tight, her nails dug into her arms to keep herself from crying. “I… I will…” She turned her back to the door and took a shuddering breath. “I love you, Asra.”

There was only a moment of silence before the door clicked shut, and Morgana’s resolve crumbled. Choking back bitter, trembling sobs, she made her way up to the apartment over the shop and collapsed in a weeping heap upon the bed. Meanwhile, Asra leaned heavily against the wall in the alley, hiding tears of his own in his scarf. The desire to go back inside, to take her in his arms and kiss her pain away was almost too strong to defy, an invisible compulsion pulling him by his heart to her side.

Instead, he shoved away from the wall and stumbled away hastily, a decision that would haunt him to his dying breath.

Xxx

The weeks passed in a haze, every day the same. Morgana rose before the sun, washed, dressed, made her way to the castle, descended into the dungeons below to start her days’ work alongside Julian and the other doctors. The construction on the Lazaret finished quicker than most had expected, given its height and complexity. Despite the distance out of her way, Morgana insisted on walking down to the docks every night to stare off across the skylit waters, towards the looming monstrosity. And every night, she cursed it, cursed the plague, cursed herself and her failures as a healer.

Xxx

A month after his departure came Asra’s first letter with a pressed golden wildflower within. It was simple, to the point, avoiding the heavy feelings between them, not that she would’ve hoped he’d address them in the first place.

Morgana—

I’ve gone North, and picked this flower along the way. It reminds me of the scarf you made me for my birthday last year. I found a cute little village and have been granted a little apartment over the baker’s shop. I think I’ll stay here another week or so.

I wish you were

You should see

I hope you’re doing well. Write soon— Asra

She’d made the mistake of reading this letter before she left for the castle one morning. Though the tears had more than dried by the time she stepped into Julian’s room, his reaction to the sight of her blotchy face and swollen eyes was immediate. “Morgana?” Jumping up from his desk, he enveloped her in a tight hug and inspected her for signs of injury or physical distress, even pressing a hand to her forehead to check for a fever. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Shaking her head, she sniffled and pushed the fresh wave of tears back down. “N-Nothing. I got a letter from…” Taking a shuddering breath, she stepped around him to take her seat beside his desk. “From Asra.” She took up her notepad and got to work, struggling to keep her calm. Though he was still clearly concerned, Julian respected her distance and took his own seat again, and together they set to work for the day.

Xxx

The next letter came two weeks later, another flower pressed within it, this one a soft white.

Morgana—

I feel like it’s been ages since we’ve seen each other. I worry. You are being careful, right? I hear stories in the market, that the Plague is worsening. I’ll be moving north again, to a village I visit frequently in my travels. Maybe one day we can go together.

Please be safe. I can’t I want to I hope to see you soon. We miss you. –Asra

Though the pain lingered, this time Morgana did not weep. Instead, she placed the flower upon her table beside the first and sighed. She rose from her seat, walked over to the stove, and lovingly scooped out the fire salamander. “I miss him, Benny.” Benny looked up at her and krrred at her as if he understood her pain, and when she placed him upon her shoulder, he wrapped himself around her neck and huffed, a small ember exhaled out in front of her as he did so. She nodded, feeding him a charcoal chip. “Agreed.”

With a heavy sigh, she set about packing her bag for the next weeks’ work. With the plague worsening as it had—so much so that Lucio had ordered a crematorium be built at the Lazaret—the workload on the doctors and their apprentices had doubled, meaning Morgana and Julian took turns sleeping and working. She’d only even come home to collect her mail, take care of Benny, and gather some fresh clothes. Once her bag was packed, she carefully scooped Benny into her hands and pressed her forehead against his, fresh tears welling in her eyes. “I promise, Benny, when all this is over, I’m going to give you all the wood and charcoal chips you could possibly want.”

Benny wiggled at that and skrred happily at her. She smiled sadly down at him and pressed a soft kiss to his head. “You be good, ok? Don’t burn the shop down or I shall be very cross.” At his chirping reply, she smiled and sat him back in the stove. A ring of smoke popped up at her as if he were saying goodbye, and the sight put a smile on her face as she turned to leave.

Xxx

The last letter Morgana received came two more weeks later. This one was accompanied with a vibrant violet flower and a small pouch of tea leaves.

Morgana—

Faust and I have meandered to the west. There’s a village about a day’s walk from where I am now, but this place is so peaceful. It’s just flowers, as far as the eye can see. My magic feels stronger here, like this place is otherworldly in a way. This flower was the only one of its kind in a sea of coneflowers. After I picked it, I felt bad for a moment because it’s obviously special to have grown in so differently than its surroundings, but then I decided that makes it better. It reminds me of you.

When all this is over and we’re together again, we should talk. I have something I want to ask you.

Thinking of you. Always. –Asra

Morgana smiled and sipped the tea. It was sweet above the general bitterness of tea, but its flavor was deep and rich. As she set the emptied cup down on its saucer, the thought that it would be the last cup of tea she ever drank was nowhere near her mind.

The exhaustion came first. It crept up so steadily that she had no reason to suspect it, simply wrote it off as being overworked. They were all tired, all the doctors except Valdemar of course, though Morgana and Julian tried very hard not to think of their boss. Julian didn’t notice it, either, not that Morgana could blame him. Lucio was sick now. Julian’s full attention was focused on him, as it should be. The Count is important, after all. No. She couldn’t blame him.

It wasn’t until three days before that year’s masquerade that she awoke in a cold sweat, skin ablaze and frozen all at once. Breath raspy and pained, she pulled herself to sitting and reached for the mirror Julian had forgotten upon the small wash basin.

She could not cry when the eyes looking back at her burned a brilliant scarlet, contrasting starkly with the cool violet of her irises. Instead, she pulled herself from bed, stripped the sheets, tore off a piece long enough to tie around her nose and mouth, and stepped out of the office. Julian was too busy at work to notice, too deep in his research, in his scribblings.

She did not blame him.

The flames swallowed the sheets easily, and as she sat and observed them, the idea that soon it would be her upon the fires slipped into her mind.

She should’ve been helping.

The thought came to her after a while. She should’ve gone, relieved Julian, kept working. But she was so tired. Her limbs were already so heavy with the disease. It shouldn’t have happened that quickly, she realized idly. Most cases took three days to a week to take such a strong hold. Perhaps it took hold in her faster because of her exhaustion. Yes, that made sense.

“Morgana?”

She couldn’t look away from the flames, the thoughts of her imminent demise having evolved into just a vague sense of tranquility. She couldn’t be afraid, couldn’t be angry. No. What use would that be? If she were to get angry, to throw things, to scream, to weep, it would do nothing to help. There would be no help, now.

The gloved hand upon her shoulder didn’t startle her, but she did look down at it as if it were not of this world. Was she even of this world?

Julian moved to stand in front of her then squatted to get a better look at her. When her viciously scarlet sclera turned towards him, he gasped, fell from his squat to the ground. “No…”

Though he couldn’t see it, she smiled at him, softly, serenely. Shaking her head, she patted his hand which had fallen to her knee. “It’s alright, Julian.”

“No, Morgana—” Tears were quick to build in his eyes and spill over. He pushed himself up and into her arms, his hands clutching desperately at her. “No,” he sobbed. And as she wrapped her arms so delicately, so easily around him, he repeated it again and again.

She held him for as long as she could manage until her arms were less holding him and more just hanging against him. Her strength was fading quickly. They’d seen it happen before, some patients fading in a matter of hours. Julian shook against her, his tears long since drenching her clothes, but she didn’t mind. The other doctors had come to stand witness, colleagues she’d grown delighted to call friends, most of them weeping, too. But she didn’t mind. She was too tired to mind now. “Julian,” she whispered once her head had begun to grow too heavy to hold.

He pulled back to look up at her, his eyes almost as angrily red as hers. “M-Morgana?” he blubbered.

It took some doing, the strength difficult to pull together, but she finally managed to put a serene smile on her face. “I’m going now, Julian.”

“N-No! Morgana! Morgana, please, no!”

She blinked heavily, hard, the effort to reopen her eyes feeling like running uphill in quicksand. “Tell Asra I’m sorry, ok?”

He sniffled hard and shook his head. “You’ll tell him yourself.”

Ah, another smile. She’s not even sure she managed it, but she knows Julian knew she wanted to. “It’s ok, Julian.”

And then the strength left her. Julian caught her, laid her down against the floor and shook her. As he wept over her, his head against her breast, she looked up at the ceiling. And as she looked, it morphed before her eyes, the gruesome, dank, dark stalactites transforming into rolling hills, growing bright and warm, and the smell of wildflowers filled her nose. In the distance, she could see a familiar crop of fluffy, white hair sitting up against the flowers, turning in her direction, and she smiled. “Asra?”

Xxx

The letter was found the next day. A gloved hand picked it up from inside the door to the Magician’s shop, and Julian stared down at the familiar scrawl, exhausted from weeping and grief. Tiredly, he carried himself up to the apartment over the shop, each step heavier than the last. The stove salamander poked its head out to greet his friends, but upon seeing Julian and his wretched expression, the wise animal let out a soft keening sound that drew Julian’s attention. With a trembling breath, he carried himself over and scooped the gentle creature up and sat him in his lap as he sat at the table.

The envelope was heavy, and as Julian opened it, he could see why. If he had any tears left to give, they’d have fallen as he pulled out the ring, simple and silver, and he rolled it in his hand for a minute, trying to regain the strength to read. The salamander crawled up to the table and laid forlornly against a small stack of letters all bearing Asra’s scrawling script. Sighing, Julian opened the new letter and braced himself.

Morgana—

I couldn’t wait. I keep thinking about how we left things, and I’m so angry at myself. I should’ve stayed, should be there with you. I’m coming back. At first it was just for the Masquerade but now it’s for you. This letter will find you before I do (I’ve traveled quite far these past weeks,) so I want to ask you that question now.

Morgana, I should’ve told you then how I felt, even if you know already. You said you loved me, and I hope that’s still true, because this coward loves you, too. If you’ll have me, Morgana, I would ask your hand.

Will you marry me?

I make my way to you now, my love. I hope beyond hope you’ll say yes, because I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Morgana. Come what may, I want to face it with you. I want to be courageous, Morgana, with you.

Please say yes. –Asra

Julian sat there for what felt like years trying to figure out what to do, how to get the message to Asra that he need not hurry. But Fortune, as it often does, had another idea, because upon the setting of the sun, the bell above the shop’s door chimed.

“Morgana? Morgana are you here? Did you get my letter? Oh, I have so much I want to—” Asra stopped at the top of the stairs, staring wide-eyed at Julian. “What are you doing here?” Julian swallowed hard and looked down at the letter. Asra’s eyes followed his gaze then glazed over in anger. “What are you doing? Reading Morgana’s mail now? Who do you think you are?” Asra stormed over quickly and snatched the letter and the ring from the table, casting a glare at Julian.

“Asra.”

“Well? Where is she? Is she still cooped up in that… that dungeon? Gods, man, you’re going to work her to death!”

“A-Asra.” It would seem Julian had tears to spare after all. They welled in his eyes as he pushed himself to his feet, looking at the ground.

“Save it, Julian, I’m going to go find her. She needs to have some air—”

“ASRA!”

Asra froze in place, half turned to leave. His face was turned away, but Julian could see the sagging of his shoulders. “Don’t say it.”

“She… Asra, I’m… I’m so… I’m so sorry.” Julian’s voice cracked sharply on the last word as a fresh wave of sobs overtook him, dragging him to sit back down.

Asra stood there a long time, making no movement, and for a moment, Julian wasn’t even sure he was breathing. Finally, Asra whispered a strained, “When?”

Julian sniffled and wiped his nose on a napkin. “Y-Yesterday. She… It was so fast… I couldn’t… I tried—”

“You tried? You tried?” Asra shook his head sharply, moving down the stairs. “You always try, Julian. Why don’t you do something for once?”

The door to the shop slammed sharply, leaving Julian weeping in silence, his only company the salamander.

Xxx

Asra was moving quickly, feet carrying him before his mind had even caught up. No. Julian was wrong. She’s fine. She’s just taking a walk or something. He’ll find her, he’ll hug her, he’ll kiss her, and he’ll propose properly, and they’ll spend their lives together in happy bliss.

Except she was nowhere. Not at the tavern, not at the docks, not at the marketplace, not at the palace. When he asked a passing doctor where she was, his only answer was a pained look and a soft, “You don’t know?”

No. He didn’t know. Because they were wrong. They had to be. Morgana is strong. She’s fine. This is all some sick joke. And he’d prove it.

The moon was beginning to rise as he made his way to the docks, pure spite fueling his steps now. It was easy enough securing a boat to take him across the water, and the fury within him spurred his magic, spurred the boat to fly faster than he’d normally achieve. Within minutes, he was coming ashore, the monstrous tower looming overhead. The stench of death clung to this place, worse than he’d ever experienced before. It stank of rot and burnt bodies, and ash floated down from the sky like snow. Asra wrapped his scarf about his face as he pushed his way towards the center of the island where the Lazaret loomed.

Faust was trembling inside his pocket. ‘Leave.’

“We can’t, Faust. We have to find her.” Once Asra was far enough inland, he stopped and closed his eyes. Feeling out with his magic, he searched for her magic that was by now as familiar to him as her voice.

There.

He took off sprinting in the direction his magic told him, following an invisible string connecting him to her as if it were a lifeline in a snowstorm. “I knew it, Faust! She’s here!” Laughter bubbled in his chest, manic and hysterical, but it did not live long. As he rounded a corner, he stopped dead in his tracks as he took in the sight at hand. Mounds buried in the sand at irregular intervals decorated the view as far as he could see, some older, some newer. “No…”

Trembling, Asra stepped out, following the pull of his magic. “M-Morgana?” This wasn’t happening, was it? Oh, how he’d laugh about this nightmare when he woke. Not his Morgana, not like this. Not…

Except as he approached the freshest mound, approached the source of the pull, he could no longer lie to himself. The moon hung high overhead, casting a sickening silver glow upon the sand as Asra fell to his knees. “No…” He reached out, touched the top of the mound, and as the connection spell faded out, Asra’s tears began to fall. “NO!” Screaming with violent sobs, he began to dig, his hands scraping hard at the sand. It cut at him, scraped his skin until he was sure his hands were bleeding, but still he dug, weeping, deeper, deeper, until… His hands hovered over the sack, trembling with pain and exertion. “M… Morgana…” He knew. This… This was her. His Morgana. The woman who delighted his days, whose smile lit his entire world, whose voice calmed his every hurt, whose courage and kindness served as endless guiding inspiration to him. Slowly, carefully, he pulled the sack from the sand and cradled it to his chest. His fault. This was his fault. He’d helped Lucio. He’d encouraged him. His selfishness is the reason this happened. The reason she’s gone. The reason for all of this. Him. His fault.

And as he held what remained of her, of his Morgana in his bleeding hands, the tears began to stop, his sobs began to quiet, until his pain was replaced with anger. “No.” The plan was unfolding in the depths of his mind. As he carefully—so, so carefully—put her back in the ground, Asra grit his teeth against his anger and clenched his fists. “Don’t worry, Morgana,” he whispered through a set jaw. “I’m going… I’m going to fix this. We’ll… We’ll be together again. I promise.” And as he gingerly covered her back up, he wept anew for what was to come.

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jerek · 5 years ago

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[[MORE]]

i mean for gods sake in canon garrosh calls sylvanas a bitch and implies shes no different than the lich king but in my version she was killed by a misogynistic warlock, literally demonized after her death, and mourned in a Cringy but to my younger self quietly poignant scene by a version of garrosh that only truly comes into her femininity in remembrance and admiration for the woman who she feels alienated from in both nature and values but also spent so much time with, giving an honest ear to her cruel, world-taught views.

I mean for gods sake how did i write this. I accidentally wrote Garrosh as a nonbinary lesbian with a crush on a homophobic woman. Half of what i just detailed was a metaphor for things I would later go on to experience.

And i know this was some lesbian shit because it didnt end there. My version of garrosh was a physically imposing masculine lesbian, but she herself had an alternate version.

The alternate version was smaller, more normatively feminine, and drawn as an animal. In some branches of the story, she’s a reincarnation of the main lesbian garrosh, in a world where everyone else is reincarnated as a symbolic animal version of themselves, but in the main branch she never spoke, never interacted with anyone, and haunted Nagrand like a ghost.

Also let me talk about Nagrand. Fucking nagrand. When she got there is when the REAL feminist theory started. There were three main plot points.

1. it was revealed here that sylvanas lived on in a sort of afterlife. Not the empty blank void that Blizzard sent their favorite misogynist caricature to, to reflect the way they wrote her, but a dreamlike world that floated between the lines of the universe’s rulebook— surrounded by a perpetual rose-gold haze.

Sometimes it was a grassy floating island, with a single tree and a little pool of water, sometimes it was a modern driveway and a street and a park based on my own neighborhood, and then.

Sometimes they’d travel to the furthest edge of the afterlife, and there would be no great gate. Instead, there would be a silver strip, like a metal tightrope, and Sylvanas would walk her down it on their tiptoes, with only one of each woman’s arm extended for balance because the opposite hands were holding each other.

it was a dreamlike world, and until she gave up her life and met her there, she could only ever dream of it.

2. She did, eventually.

it was for garrosh. not my female version, because she had a different name that i would randomly change, but the male garrosh, the canonical garrosh, the garrosh who was meant to escape into the timeline she found herself accidentally in.

she saw him as a big brother, but at the same time, not. he was worse than her, and she knew that, but much like sylvanas it itched in the back of her brain that she could change him, that she could show him a new way like anduin tried to, that if this giving calm existed in her it surely rested dormant in garrosh.

because after all, like a nb lesbian and her favorite male character, she and garrosh were the same person.

garrosh was killed, and she sought revenge. wielding two axes— her own, and that of garrosh, she strode up to thrall and thrust her heart to the sky as she was struck down.

she went to the afterlife, and there sylvanas would sleep atop her chest, under the tree.

3. but before that…

you know how i joke about anduin being a lesbian??

i also used to have a virulent hatred for varian, from my version of anduin— another extended metaphor, this time for how neurodivergence affected my school life and my online life back in 7th grade.

and anduin snuck off.

almost every other day, he’d sneak off; sometimes to the animal world, where instead of being reincarnated he emerged from a dark, underground labyrinth in elwynn to a world that had never heard the words “prince of stormwind”— and unknowingly, he emerged transformed into a wild, half-maned feline.

sometimes to nyalotha, where he could rest, where he could recover, where in a single psychic scream he could eliminate the pull of duty and become not what he perhaps should have been, but what he was nonetheless happy to turn into.

sometimes back to veiled stair, sometimes he would burn the valley of four winds in his black-hole suspicions— he would drink too much of something shadowy purple— and he would sleep well knowing High Queen Proudmoore would understand that though destruction is a choice, one far easier than creation, sometimes the only real choice is whether to do something stupid or just stand by.

but this time, it was him and my version of garrosh. him, and her, and varian back in stormwind.

and he would ask her— why?

she would be silent, and keep bandaging his wounds from the local wildlife. they would heal eventually.

but he wasn’t the only insane, stupid one around. like a child younger than himself, sometimes she would leave their makeshift tent, and sit in the bushes, and sulk.

does it matter, one dream showed me her asking; my thinking, if it only lasts a moment?

he didn’t understand yet, but this wasn’t the branch where he ran from the same problem— a mix of his upbringing and the failures of his brain.

she would ask— “if i feel nothing for any longer than a few minutes,” in a tone i eventually thought betrayed who she was meant to represent— “how do i know that this momentary despair, this momentary rage even matters?”

“does it matter why, if i can do good only because i forget so often my evil nature?”

she would plead— smite her, burn a hole through her eyelid as was done to sylvanas, and remove what makes her this way. what makes her any way.

perhaps when she was redeemed, honorable by both orc and human standards, she would allow herself to die.

only one tear a night fell from my version of garrosh, and though they were both unstable, anduin learned from her. she was his mentor, his aunt, his idol, and his replacing parent.

when the si:7 found him, he was alone. he was scratching in his sleep at reddened pustules around old wolf-bite scars she had helped to close, and they took him back. as they do in every branch where he survives, by trap or by net or by silent cooperation.

through the fevers, he traveled back to stormwind. through the nausea, he embraced his father.

relishing the pain of red pox all over, pain body-wide that had never let itself exist without hellscream, he stabbed his father in varian’s own throne room.

this is how it must end with wrynn kings.

he didn’t know whether the guards slew him or arrested him. he saw only a thin strip of silver, splitting the evening sky, and knew soon he would be there with the woman he felt was truly worthy of being his family.

he experienced what she did. the weight on his heart, closing his throat as he tried to get people to see why he does what he does— why he sees the world the way he does, why it doesn’t mean he’s just a naive idealist waiting patiently for reality to beat it out of him. why it doesn’t make him stupid.

being haunted by himself. the dark face of the moon she was to him was small, and spindly, and though it was striped, unlike a lion, it wore a thick, soft mane from the top of its head down to its chest. he didn’t think the dead could laugh, but here he was— because what stalked him wherever he went was so much like her. big, and strong, and when he was alone daydreaming instead of performing for the crown, he imagined it free from the alliance.

dreaming of what could be. even with his own garrosh, he felt a familiarity that ate at him— how deep and warm his voice, how bright his eyes, how quick his temper— and how breakable he felt, from the moment his father woke every morning, to that moment in draenor where he saw another towering figure in solid stance, with hair long and tied, stare down at him and ask— who are you?

and with her, he could answer that.

i am what i am, he would tell her, the moment his soul untangled from his form, and there are no words in my language to describe me.

except for one, if his new mother would see fit— if orcish surnames could pass the grave he might feel around him were he able to move.

she had once called herself garrosh, because she thought she was him.

now, though it would take courage, as all things seemed to take when done her way— he would ask if he was a hellscream yet.

honorable to orcs and humans alike.

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quartusbellum-blog · 6 years ago

Photo

ARCHIE for the role of SIRIUS BLACK, using the faceclaim BLAIR REDFORD.

Your application for Sirius is stunning, and incorporates lots of little details which flesh out the character wonderfully. You’ve portrayed the complexity of Sirius’ current situation so well, and there is some truly beautiful writing here. I am very excited to welcome you to Quartus Bellum!

ooc details

Name: Archie

Age: Twenty five

Pronouns: She/her

Activity Level: I’m a current PhD candidate, so my time is pretty strapped. I am also coming out of a writing hiatus, so I’m a little rusty, but this game was so alluring I just thought I’d be an idiot to pass up some world building and exploring. I can probably be online a few times a week, but I can promise lengthy replies in lieu of my absence. I hope that’s okay. I would definitely like to keep the mod team updated on things if I’m away for whatever reason, just so we’re on the same page and everything!

Other: No triggers! But thank you very much for asking. I’m just extremely motivated and intrigued by this plot, so I have to give major kudos to such an arresting idea. Please also note that I am applying from a mockblog I have created for the purpose of this application.

Acknowledgement: I acknowledge that the themes of this game may include triggering elements. I also acknowledge that my character may be harmed, coerced, or even killed (with player’s consent) during paras/events or may cause harm to or kill others during paras/events.

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general ic details

Name: Sirius Orion Black

Age: Twenty one (November 3rd, 1959)

Ships: Chemistry. Full disclosure, the biography given for Sirius gave me a lot of Sirius/James feelings (like, a lot), but I also really ship Sirius/Remus. I write Sirius as gay, but overall I’m pretty relaxed about writing relationships provided they’re realistically depicted and well-paced.

Gender/Pronouns: Genderfluid (he/him or they/them)

Face Claim: Blair Redford (x), Luke Pasqualino, Sean Teale * * I’ve gone back and forth between these three for ages... Ordinarily I write the Black family as POC, so after a Great Struggle™ in which I seriously admired Luke Pasqualino in “Snatch”, I decided to do something different and go with Blair Redford. Now, I do have a possible headcanon around Sirius and Regulus being half-brothers, so that can give the Regulus player some freedom around choosing a faceclaim, as I know matching ethnicities can be tricky (especially as Blair is half unspecified Native American). I will say, however, that I am open to discussing Sirius’ faceclaim, so if you’re unsure I’m happy to talk about it with you.

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biography:

Sirius wasn’t supposed to live past twenty one.

It’s a morbid, private thought, one best left for murmuring into the black velvet of late nights, supine with firewhiskey and muggle cigarettes. See, Sirius never expected to make it to sixteen, but then a certain shaggy-haired idiot named James F. Potter happened, and Sirius’ fears went out the window (literally – have you ever tried to pry open the latch of a very old semi-sentient house that doesn’t want its heir to escape? Harder than it looks). When the war started, Sirius accepted the likelihood of his imminent death with little fanfare. It was easier, anyway, to throw himself into missions and the gutsy bravado that gripped 1979 like a fever. The city was alive: subtropical clubs; the tongues of strangers; heady muggle music; the Order laughing, packed into some tiny apartment, drunk off their tits. And even before that haze dissipated, they all felt immortal. The war was real, of course, but so were they, and Sirius was young, and dumb, and he was one of the best duelers by far, so why shouldn’t he take to the streets, Doc Martens smacking the pavement, dodging after some Death Eater? The Black household was one shrouded in death, what with the dusty portraits of forgotten ancestors, their eyes following you in the gloom, and his own mother’s obsession with mortality, as if the Pox that claimed their father was a mere token of magic’s cruel whim to give and take away. The Marauders filled him with hope; the Order stoked those embers to flames. But there was always something within him, some stoic knowledge, that this was too good too last. He was a Black: his blood ran thick as oil.

If anyone asks (which they don’t, because despite his newfound control, Sirius can still be frightening), losing James was more than a sucker punch to the gut. The Order had lost so many brave witches and wizards at the height of the war, but those terrible deaths were nothing compared to James’ disappearance. No, not disappearance. Kidnapping. Theft. They stole Prongs from Sirius’ useless fingers, swept him away for good, and Sirius was powerless. Maybe that was what hurt most of all: knowing that no matter how deeply he felt for James, how fortifying and achingly tender their friendship was, it just wasn’t enough. Sirius thought he was incapable of love before he met James. But where did that get him? The yawning dark of an empty flat; shaking hands in the cold dawn light; the blood-pound of fear in his jugular, drumming hard enough to make his eyes spot black. Sirius didn’t give himself a chance to mourn, to wonder, to do anything other than drown himself in the rescue effort. The loss of Dumbledore was similarly shattering, but Dumbledore was more figurehead than individual: a manifestation of everything the Order wanted to be. James was real: he was blood and bone. He was laughter and the glossy gold of a snitch, he was private jokes and intense bravery. He was Sirius’ counterbalance. And then he was gone.

Sirius isn’t the same. None of them are. Everything they’d fought for was extinguished in twenty four hours. That might partly explain Sirius’ habitual visits to the muggle world. Disguised as Padfoot is as good as being invisible. He can slip through their ordered, ordinary world, and feel, at least for a few hours, that his pathetic excuse for an existence hasn’t been obliterated close beyond repair. Sirius tells himself they’ll claw it all back. Dumbledore, James, the Ministry. There is a terrible anger within him that is beyond anything he has ever felt. It is cavernous, infinite, far darker and bruised than any reservoir of loathing for his family. It is so intense that he cannot even speak about it. Sirius has always been a little frightened of how deeply he feels, but this redraws those boundaries. That feeling that his life is on a countdown has compounded. Sirius is willing to do anything to take back what is rightfully theirs. He spent his youth at war. It makes sense he’ll die at war too. He’s ready to throw open his arms and embrace the abyss, laughing in delirium, Is that all you’ve got? Well come on then!

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my character is:

HOW IS YOUR CHARACTER LYING TO THEMSELVES (AND HOW IS THIS SHOWN EXTERNALLY)?

Everything is fine. Everything is, of course, not fine, and is in fact irreparably fucked. But the alternative to Sirius’ externally calm demeanour is Sirius totally losing his bottle, and no one can have that, mainly because it would be the least useful thing he could do for the cause. Sirius is used to being someone people admire – there was no shortage of that in school, and even in the early period of the war: someone catching his eye hopefully, waiting for his go ahead; the mere recollection warms him with a rare, near-forgotten sense of purpose – but it’s quite another to have the final say in something. Sirius doubts himself so much. He’s not exactly a rational thinker. His vengeance is cold and cruel, that is certain, but even that type of behaviour is inherently emotional. Sirius revels in disorder: he enjoys feeling unmoored, likes not knowing. He’s not like Moony or Peter, who needed some semblance of routine to feel comfortable. Sirius quite likes feeling out of his depth; discomfort demands action. But he’s not good at communicating that, and he struggles with giving solace to someone who very badly needs to know that things are under control. Sirius hasn’t quite stooped to going, “There, there,” and patting someone awkwardly on the shoulder, but it’s close to it. He’s the first to loudly suggest a drink at some muggle pub after a disastrous mission, and he’s the last to leave, still nursing his beer long after everyone else has straggled home. Sirius isn’t eloquent like James; he isn’t calm like Moony. Hell, he doesn’t even have Wormtail’s pragmatism (before he betrayed them all, the absolute fucking bastard). Sirius is waiting for someone to catch him out. He’s not built to be a leader. The only thing he’s good for is a shag and a fun time. Right? He’s not… he’s not what they think he is. He’s useless. He’s a joke. It’s a joke. But it’s a fine joke. Ergo: everything is fine. It has to be. Otherwise he’ll drag everyone else into the flames with him, and if there’s anything Sirius is truly frightened of, it’s someone else recognizing just how deep the streak of darkness within him runs.

YOUR CHARACTER’S JOB (WHAT DO THEY DO AND HOW DO THEY FEEL ABOUT IT?)

Sirius is dedicated to the Ashen Phoenix. Even when the Order of the Phoenix still existed, when it was little more than a ragged group of idealistic Hogwarts graduates and wayward aurors, when Dumbledore’s vague effluence alternately inspired or infuriated them, back when the war seemed – well, not winnable, but certainly surmountable – even then, Sirius was too much. Too brash, too rough, too much of a muchness that made people like old Mad Eye growl under his breath about upstart sprogs. There was something to be admired in Sirius’ explosive determination, even as his reckless behaviour and breathless duels with Death Eaters was more exasperating than useful. “What?” he’d retort defensively, to a room of tired Order members. “They were asking for it.”

Sirius had always been too much. When everything – when James – when it all went to utter shite, it’s probably no wonder that Sirius lost whatever loose grip on sanity he’d ever had, and tossed it all in to band up with Mary and Lily. Lily, whom he could barely stand on a good day, who suddenly became one of the most important people standing stalwart against the uncertain scaffolding containing his so-called life. Was it really that surprising? Sirius has always privately regarded his grip on reality to be tenuous at best. Combine that with a deep, unwavering streak of hatred for blood purists, and you’ve got a terrible combination. Successful, sure; but dangerous. He can’t afford to be the rambunctious “upstart” that once semi-terrorized the Order of the Phoenix, nor can he sit about on his laurels, skulking in espionage or plotting elaborate shadowy schemes. Sirius’ patience runs thin at the best of times. No, instead he’s squashed himself into a rather uncomfortable box between “probably could be classified as a war crime” and “slightly morally questionable but still alright enough to make Evans begrudgingly admit that was a good idea”. It’s not a comfortable fit, and Sirius still isn’t sure how he ended up growing up so bloody fast, but he’ll do anything to turn back the tide of the darkness that now laps menacingly against their throats.

Aside from that, he spends quite a lot of time inadvertently posing as a muggle homeless person. Or a big shaggy dog. In comparison to being a magical fugitive, it’s almost like going on holiday.

ADDRESS THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WHAT YOUR CHARACTER IS CURRENTLY DOING AND WHAT THEY WOULD PREFER TO DO.

Sirius does not like responsibility. It smacks of adulthood, and Sirius never thought he’d live to see that, let alone become a ruddy pillar of virtue. It’s not that he intensely dislikes fussing over details for the Phoenixes, but it does not come naturally to him – he’s no James, put it that way (James, who was forever buzzing around them all in a manner simultaneously carefree and watchful, who’d jokingly suggest you get a jumper otherwise you’d get a cold, you bellend, so just go grab one, oh, and would you get him a chocolate frog on the way, thanks). Sirius actually doesn’t like people looking up to him. What does he know? He’s just some irresponsible dog who’d much, much rather zip away on his motorbike to blast You-Know-Who’s bits off, and sod the consequences. If he didn’t have Mary and Lily keeping him in check, Merlin knew where he’d be. Probably sharing a cell with Dumbledore. Knitting scarves and gossiping. Some lark like that. Instead he’s relegated to asking mundane questions like, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” and, “Wait, try this healing charm.” Sirius listens to his own blather and wants to be sick. He feels the words can no one see I don’t know what I’m doing! burning every inch of him, pounding against the underside of his skin, flaring across his pained expression. “I want James back,” he said (thoughtlessly) to Lily once; and she’d shot him a look and said, “We all do.” You don’t get it, Sirius thought. I want him back because I need him. I can’t do this on my own. I need him.

Sirius does not want to turn back the clock. Despite his irreverent mindset, Sirius isn’t a fantasist. He’s emotionally charged and often irrational, but he doesn’t indulge in make-believe. There is no way things are going back to normal. There’s not even a fragment of what they left behind: those few months after school ended and before the war began, when London was besieged by an oppressive summer humidity, and the Marauders tumbled in and out of parties, drinking and laughing, carefree and stupid; the sanctity of Hogwarts, and how innocent they’d been; even old Regulus, with his pinched, shrewd expression, but the way his eyes would loosen and warm whenever Sirius ruffled his hair and affectionately called him a tosspot. Sirius cherishes these slivers of the past, counting them out like his last coins, weighing their treasure in the palm of his hand. The memories he makes now are bleak. Undernourished effigies of a world devolved. Sirius might feel beset with fear about the future, but he is still… adaptable. He was at sixteen, when he left home on a wing and a prayer, and he is now, at twenty one. No more clever, and a great deal more out of control, but able to adapt, change, mold, mend. Sirius recognizes the strange surrounding landscape and has vowed, if silently, to learn its routes, to memorize its violent topography. Survival. That was what his parents had always taught him, right? That pure blood dominates. The Marauders taught him that too, albeit in compassionate terms of friendship and trust, things Sirius had to re-learn at eleven and still is, in a way. The Order drilled him in guerrilla warfare. Dumbledore’s capture stripped him of complacency. And James… Well, survival demands vigilance. Survival turned him into something else: someone sharper, more serious, blackened around the edges. Sirius doesn’t want to turn back the clock because that would mean leaving this new version of himself behind. And like it or not, this is the only version of Sirius sodding Black that could ever make it out the other end. So, tits up to you, Voldy. This bitch ain’t going nowhere.

OOC QUESTIONS

WRITING SAMPLE:

[ REDACTED ]

EXPLORATION:

A LONG-AWAITED REUNION — One of the major subplots for this group is, of course, the return or recapture of James. From Sirius’ perspective, I think James returning to his life would signal a number of critical things – it might even be a turning point in his characterization. I see Sirius at the moment as barely hanging on. Stress exacerbates his pre-existing feelings of insufficiency and vulnerability, so he is at a stage as a member of Ashen Phoenix where he’s strung out and exhausted, burning the midnight oil, hollow-eyed and discomfortingly stoic. The loss of James was an enormously heavy blow, and that’s no overstatement. If James was somehow returned, I think that would fill Sirius’ sails with the winds of renewal and hope. He and James were a double act; they were shadows of each other. Without him, Sirius feels like a fraud.

PLAYING NICE — Sirius has never been good at pretending. His emotions run close to the surface, flashing in his quicksilver eyes at the slightest provocation. It never used to take much for him to plunge from a euphoric high to a turbulent anger, his moodiness as tempestuous as a tide. But that’s not how you lead people. You can’t expect people to see past your thunderstorm behaviour to the reality of the situation: that Sirius has always felt a split second away from free-fall. Most people aren’t like James, or Moony, or even bloody Wormtail – they can’t see that it’s all an act; that Sirius’ vulnerabilities run swift and deep, and his bravado is just a reliable way to deflect unwanted probing. Since Mouldy Voldy started swinging his shriveled old cock around, Sirius has had an abrupt about-face. It’s never easy, and he often forgets that he’s supposed to be playing nice. In fact, one could make the argument that he hasn’t changed much at all: he’s still a moody bastard. But sometimes he takes a deep breath instead of bursting in rage; sometimes he clenches his fists instead of flying for his wand. I would like to explore Sirius working hard to keep a lid on his temper, particularly given the success of Ashen Phoenix relies, at least in part, on him keeping it together for a little while longer.

THE IMMORTALITY OF REGULUS ARCTURUS BLACK — Reuniting Sirius and Regulus is a massively important subplot for me, and I think it could have powerful consequences in this group. I’m not sure how Sirius will take Regulus’ vampirism – it’ll certainly be interesting to find out. In another context I could see him falling about in horrified laughter, because now Regulus will get to hang around with Walburga forever. But I wonder now if their prolonged absence from each other will stir within Sirius a long-buried sense of responsibility. He’ll probably start worrying about Regulus, terrified that the new Dark Ministry will hunt his brother down and exterminate him. He might even (gasp!) become horribly over-protective, hating himself all the while for needling Regulus about “feeding” and all that dosh (”Shut up!” Sirius snaps as Regulus raises a single eyebrow. “It’s not like there’s a manual about becoming a bleeding vampire, is there?” A pause. “No pun intended.”) No doubt there’s a degree of irony in an ex-Death Eater suddenly becoming the prey of his old buddies, but Sirius isn’t a masochist. As stupid as Regulus has behaved, they’re still brothers. Even before the war turned for the worst, Sirius still missed him. Yearned for him to be back. Regulus was the biggest idiot in Britain, but he was Sirius’ idiot, and if Sirius had heard more than a whisper about his brother he would have probably done something very stupid to rush to his side. Call Sirius a lot of things, but being disloyal could never be one of them.

EXTRAS:

I have created a mockblog for this group, which is the account I am submitting from. You can find it here. I have also written some general headcanons, which you can find below!

Sirius started getting muggle tattoos during the war. The first war, that is, back when they all thought it’d be over by Christmas. He’s got about seventeen, possibly a few more, all in black ink, most of them done in poky muggle tattoo parlours buried in the heart of London, but a couple of them are magical: the dragon across his left shoulder blade, for example, which sneezes fire when you tickle it just right. It’s an eclectic collection that illustrate Sirius’ natural whimsy: a series of ancient runes that Moony told him meant something cool (although Sirius has since suspected Moony was an absolute tosser, and the runes in fact spell “totally gullible gobshite”); an elaborate diagram of the planets in the middle of his back; a broom that zips around his arm (James’ fault, that one); an anatomically dubious pin-up girl (Sirius wanted a guy, but the tattoo artist looked frightening, and Sirius wasn’t in the mood to go toe-to-toe about his sexual preferences); and, for reasons best left alone, ancient constellations scattered most of his chest. There are some other tattoos squashed in here and there – a Gryffindor lion, a protection symbol that Moony literally laughed aloud at when Sirius showed it off – that are mainly impulse decisions. Sirius loves them all. The ink is so black against his brown skin, the magical designs flickering in the corner of his eye, and it all gives the illusion of him appearing alive, ever in motion, an intricate living illustration.

Sirius still owns his motorbike, although it’s too dangerous to ride it. Some arsehole (Bellatrix, probably) ratted him out, and now everyone and their mother is on the hunt for a sleek black motorbike. He isn’t stupid enough to ride it, no matter how burning the urge, although sometimes he does go out to Clapham, where he’d parked it in a muggle garage, just to linger over it for a few stolen moments. One day he’ll blaze it right over London, preferably in celebration of Balding Voldy’s bloody demise. One day. He will.

Sirius is gay. The revelation came unobtrusively. He’d always known there was… something awry. You’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to be surrounded by all of those posh pureblood birds growing up and feel nothing more than resignation at their proximity (their brothers were far more intriguing). Sirius played along for a bit at school, going out with a few girls, making out with McKinnon at more than a few parties. It was all serviceable, except for the fact it was tremendously boring, and if there was anything Sirius resented, it was feeling confined. He came out (very loudly) in his sixth year (in the middle of the Great Hall; it was quite the gossip for a week or so), and has since been perfectly content with advertising his sexuality at the nearest opportunity. He’s no blushing violet, put it that way. While Wizarding society is more or less accepting of sexuality (his parents notwithstanding: Sirius was still expected to marry and produce an heir; and that thought, of dragging some brat into the world through duty alone, turned his stomach), the fragmentation in muggle society is something else. Sirius is still too enthusiastic about muggle life to ever really fit in – he’s been asked innumerable times if he’s a tourist, which absolutely delights him – but the gay and lesbian rights movements in recent years has captured his attention. He’s kept up with the news about protests, and once apparated into an alley adjacent to a march for queer liberation. We’re here, the muggles chanted, we’re queer! We won’t disappear! The feeling was incredible. Wixen didn’t have anything like this – it was all just taken for granted. But the fight of the muggles. Their determination; their spirit. Their strength in demanding what was theirs. It left him breathless, and for the first time in his life, proud.

Sirius spends a lot of time as Padfoot these days. It’s just easier. He’s a dab hand at disguise charms – had to be, when the war started to turn truly dark and a Black blood traitor head on a spit was a coveted prize – but outside of a handful of people, Sirius’ animagus form is a secret. Lily knows, of course, as does Macdonald, but they have to. Slinking around London as a dog makes for surreptitious travel, even if he’s taken on some bad habits as a human. Fleas genuinely are the worst, alright? He can’t help scratching himself fiercely at the slightest itch.

The way Sirius dresses now is a diluted version of the summer of 1979. Back then, London was a heaving cesspool of cramped, humid clubs, gigs outfitted in leather and gelled spikes, tight chokers, and a casual, careless androgyny that made Sirius’ heart beat fast. Back then he didn’t give a toss. Now, of course, he’s no longer a naive graduate, and the world has grown dim. He usually wears a leather jacket over some band t-shirt, a pair of black ripped jeans, Doc Martens. That’s toned down, for him. While a lot of the jewellery has gone, Sirius’ fingers are still bejewelled with rows of heavy silver rings, and a dragon tooth earring swings from his left ear. His eyes, once glittering with flirtatious humour, are ringed dark with wariness; and his cutting bone structure has sharpened with one too many missed meals. Sirius is probably physically bulkier than he was at school, simply because sleeping rough and hauling arse after a dozen Death Eaters tends to fill you out, but his body is still lean, with an echo of that languid grace that whispered of pureblood ballrooms and charity galas. Sirius’ hair has grown long, and he usually ties it sloppily away from his face, but he stays clean shaven… most of the time. Lily once said he looked like a Lennon on a bad trip after Sirius reappeared after a rendezvous in Dublin for four weeks. He’s still trying to figure out if that was an insult.

#marauders rp #skeleton rp #lsrpg #marauders era rp #sirius black #quartusbellumaccept

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mikesmokelotsa · 6 years ago

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I get overwhelmed

And I do things I shouldn’t

or, more like I don’t. I don’t do the things I should.

I don’t call.

I don’t text.

I don’t engage.

I try to hide away and pretend like the people I care about exist in a vacuum, because it’s easier.

It’s easier to pretend they’re fine and not really existing, because, in some way, I’ve always done that. It’s what my life has always felt like, a revolving door of people entering and exiting and my faith in their existence being tested whenever they leave my sight.

Because it hurts me to think I can’t help them all. To think and truly understand all the pain, all the hurting, all the stories and heartache, and connecting with people is understanding that heartache, and recognizing their individuality, humanity, and personal resilience.

It overwhelms me. It overwhelmed me for years, and it still does. I’m trying to fight it, I try to keep in touch with people. I’m trying to do it all right and make sure everyone I love in my life knows it. I’m also trying to tell myself to let things go. To accept that I can’t really help anyone as much as I want to. That just being there is enough, but I’ve always felt like I’m just being here. I’ve always felt I’m just waiting, being, and waiting. It’s a feeling I’ve felt ever since I could first remember, and it’s literally never left me.

I get overwhelmed. My sister recently told me that she gets sick whenever I call or text because I only reach out when it’s bad news. I know that exact feeling so well, it sank in my stomach like a ball of lead.

2 months ago, at the beginning of May, I noticed at the movie theater I had developed a small lump on my waist/thigh that hurt. Being a fat guy, I’m used to my fair share of lumps, pimples and what have you, so I chalked it up to a cyst I’d wash and treat with some cream or something the next morning.

I woke up 30 hours later, in so much pain, I couldn’t walk to the bathroom 5 feet away. I was so sick, I was convinced I had actually gotten a fever from seeing the movie and decided to “sleep it off” more. It was on the second day that I realized something was drastically wrong, as I couldn’t move, let alone walk anymore, without agonizing, blinding pain shooting up and through my hips and into my stomach. There was a new fleshy bulge that had developed, and at this point, I had no idea if I had herniated something, or what.

Foolishly, I waited longer, deciding to “ride it out”, until the next day, when things got even worse and even more painful, that I had to be taken to the ER. The next few hours get hazy for me, because the abscess I had ignored in my foolishness, had become septic, and entered my bloodstream. At the time, I didn’t know this, but what I did know, was that my mental faculties were diminishing rapidly.

As I entered the ER, I had to be wheeled in because I physically could not walk in due to the pain, and as I felt myself lose my lucidity, I could feel my ability to speak, articulate, collate thoughts, and even write become affected. The sepsis was reaching my brain and affecting my literal mental capacity, and every single moment spent waiting in the ER, I could feel my mind going. I cannot describe to you the sheer panic and terror of knowing your own ability to express yourself, to think and to be sentient, is decaying. It is a mental death process, unlike any other pain or injury I’ve seen or even heard sustained. I could track my degradation as the hours passed in the waiting room because I had to sign multiple forms, and by the end of the ordeal of being admitted, I couldn’t speak a rational sentence, and by the very end, I couldn’t even write my own name. I had to sign consent using my initials because I literally forgot how to write my own name.

I remember crying onto the release form, because all I could think of was how my grandpa died, and how he had become too degraded by his illness to sign a paper that would have given us the house outright, instead of having it split up and ultimately sold off because we couldn’t afford to live in it.

I remembered seeing my dad trying to write a letter to my sister when he was fighting his illness. I remembered seeing him hold a pen, try to make it scratch on a piece of paper, and then I said the only thing that he could say at that time, in this moment when I too couldn’t make a scratch on a piece of paper. I said: “I can’t make the pen work.” I watched him cry, and told him I had to leave. I still hate that memory.

And I couldn’t make the pen work. I remembered it and I cried. And they gave me drugs. And they kept me on 3 IVs simultaneously for 10 days in the hospital, coursing with powerful antibiotics to keep the infection from damaging major organs.

The entire visit is a haze of pain, and bloody messes, and abuse at the hands of the hospital staff. (I will never judge a screaming patient in a hospital ever again, you don’t know how the staff has treated them, you don’t know how long that person hasn’t been asleep, you don’t know how many times they’ve been poked and prodded, tested and gouged, or violently, painfully woken up and treated poorly and all without informed consent.)

I don’t know. I read some old facebook messages from when I told Dorothy I could no longer be friends with her. They were from her then-boyfriend at the time, and he was chastising me for “ganging” up on her and whatnot. As if I was somehow the abuser, rather than just one of her friends she mistreated and emotionally abused over and over. I don’t know.

I almost died, and it didn’t fill me with joy at still being alive, or feel like every day from then on was a gift, or anything positive really. It just reminded me of how many regrets and stupid things I’d done, and how much I hadn’t accomplished, and how I’ll probably never be the person I wish I could, which is just content. I just want to be content with me, and who I am, but I honestly don’t think I ever will be, because...

I get overwhelmed.

And I do things I shouldn’t.

Or more accurately, I don’t do the things I should.

I should have been better to all of you. I should have tried more. I want to promise I will in the future. But I hate breaking promises, and I’ve learned to just stop making them.

I’m so tired.

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happy-hollow-rpg · 4 years ago

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Teach Me How To Sing || Rada Orlov || Trial Results 1 || re: Erika K, Maui, Dusky, Shaela and Trick. ATTN: Everyone.

She knew it was coming. Trick read off the results and with each word she felt the metaphorical guillotine blade clicking back another notch.

‘That is correct, however. Ava Alkaev, or rather, Rada Orlov is indeed the culprit behind this killing!’

How long has it been since she’s last heard her name? Five-- no, six years… Or was it nearing seven now? Her memory of that time is dreadfully blurry and the painful crescendo of silent screaming in the back of her mind isn’t helping matters. At least it was information shared by Trick and no one else… her single saving grace preventing the noise from immediately hitting a fever pitch.

“N-No secret… i-is worth… a life…” Rada replied bitterly to Maui through her tears. “I n-never wanted… t-to hurt anyone…ever... I d-didn’t… have a choice… I’m not… g-given one… E-Even though I… d-don’t want to die… i-if I had… b-been allowed… to instead trade… m-my own life… f-for hers… I would have...”

Rada squeezes her eyes tightly shut. The question about the charm… The implications of it still made every nerve in her body feel like it was on fire.

“A-And then… the sniper rifle… charm… it’s mi--hrk!”

Her words cut off with a choked and strangled sound. Ah ah ah, you naughty girl, you know better. Another round then-- Rada begins to cough violently, one hand pressed over her mouth while the other grips the edge of the desk to keep from falling over. No matter how hard she coughs, the feeling of water in her lungs refuses to leave… until it suddenly vanishes and she can breathe again.

“O-Oh no… I…” Rada wheezes before taking in a sharp breath, tears of both fear and pain beading up. “I… s-still c-can’t… answer that… I’m sorry... I w-want to… a-and so… m-much more… b-but I… can’t…”

“M-Miss Kimoto… a-and Miss Allaway… sh-should both… understand… the feeling... f-from the… quiz show… M-Miss Aceso… t-too… I-I’m sorry… I j-just… c-can’t do it...”

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

“Oh my, that would cause a few problems in times like this, wouldn’t it?” Trick pipes up from her seat.

“What was it again… Ah, that’s right! Songbird, speak freely and without past restrictions. That should do it.”

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

As Trick spoke, Rada looked nervously in her direction. Just what was she--

"..."

The moment she hears it, she freezes, the only movement of her body the flickering of her eyes to lock onto Trick. But she’s not kept waiting, not like usual. The haze clears rapidly and Rada blinks a few times as the words settle into her bones.

“Wait... Y-You... M-My name is…” She pauses, weighing the syllables on her tongue before trying them. “R-Rada… Orlov… O-Oh..!”

She squeaks, holding both of her hands over her mouth as tears roll down her face. “Rada Orlov, that’s my name…! I c-can… say it…!” She says with wonder before she's slammed back into the reality of her situation. She has to act quickly.

“I-If I can talk... I n-need to--.... The sniper rifle charm… i-it’s mine…"

"I w-was taken... seven y-years ago... b-by the Russian mafia... I h-had to follow orders… n-no one was ever allowed to know… wh-what I did… and i-if they found out… I-I had to… k-kill them… I c-couldn’t let... the motive here go… a-another day… where someone else… m-might get the charm too… o-or figure out… it was me… and tell everyone…”

“O-Once the conditions for… the order take… I-I can’t hold it back forever… I-It’s like trying to… dam up a geyser… the pressure just keeps building… u-until it… explodes…”

“I w-wasn’t… trying to… f-frame anyone… I n-never… lied about that…” Most of what she’d said during the trial hadn’t been a lie, although she highly doubted that anyone would believe her.

“The handkerchief… m-must have… fallen out… of my pocket… wh-when I was leaving… th-the instrument closet… I d-didn’t even… know it… was missing… until M-Miss Aceso… sh-showed me…”

“I summoned… the sandwich… s-so that… the magic… might be… mistaken… a-as poison… b-because of its presence… i-instead of… summoning… W-With the number… o-of poison… caster cards around… and other… p-possible foodstuffs that… c-could have been… l-lethally poisoned… I thought… th-that there would be… t-too much… confusion to… tie it back… t-to a single person… and that… we wouldn’t reach… a conclusion… and just… run out… th-the clock… I n-never expected… a-anyone to… e-eat something that… c-could have… b-been the… m-murder weapon… A-And for people to get… poisoned...!”

“I didn’t know… th-that the… s-stardust… still glowed… w-with magic… once they crumbled… I thought… i-it was… inert… There was… s-some left in… th-the envelope… I p-put the powder into… It would have… very l-likely been… unnoticeable… otherwise… u-unless someone… u-used a… poison caster card… a-and risked… implicating themselves… or were… r-repeatedly casting… th-the spell M-Miss Julia… taught a few… o-of us… on everything… in sight...”

“And there was… o-only ever one… h-hemlock flower… I brought back… s-seeds from… M-Miss Julia’s… cottage… You can’t… powder… a live flower… a-and I didn’t… e-expect it to… be considered… e-evidence… since I… d-didn’t use it… t-to kill… M-Miss Davis… Otherwise… I would have… thrown it out…”

“I haven’t stolen anything… a-and I didn’t… set any of… the traps… O-Other than… k-kill Miss Davis… I haven’t… d-done anything to… hurt anyone...”

With the sheer amount of words that kept flowing from her nervous mouth, you’d think that she’d eventually run out of steam. Only now does she finally give pause, trembling as she realizes that she has no idea how much of her precious time she’s wasted already.

She’d prepared for this, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying.

Rada’s gloved hands dove back into the pockets of her black coat, slowly pulling item after item from inside of it and setting them all onto the desk before bustling around the room with a few items in hand at a time.

On her own desk, she sets down a small vial of a milky-colored liquid that swirls of an off-white shade spiral when it’s shaken in front of Erika L. “I-It’s a potion of… fingernail growth…” She notes quietly, before moving on counterclockwise.

In front of Santiago, she sets down a swiss army knife. “I-I’ve only used… the tools… I p-promise...” She squeaks.

Then in front of Dusky, Rada places a time caster card and a rounded bottle with clear blue liquid. The air space in the bottle is filled with a gray fog. “I s-still… d-don’t know what… it does… s-sorry…”

Since Kimoto has been shadowing her, she skips over Erika K’s spot and goes straight to Sully, setting down the small vial filled with a watery looking greenish liquid, as well as a beautiful necklace in the shape of two interlocking rings. “M-Miss Allaway said… i-it might be… y-yours… a-and the potion… r-really is just… a potion of joy… Th-Thank you for… always… b-being nice...” Rada mumbles.

The next table is unoccupied, so Rada moves on to Amelia and Maui. She sets her own palm sized notebook and pen down in front of Amelia (“Th-There’s some… o-of my writing… in Russian… b-but the paper is… nice…”) but in front of Maui she sets down a literal bag of marijuana, stammers “M-Mister Treat summoned it… f-for me f-for a coin… D-Don’t make me… e-explain more please…!!” and zips away.

Next, she sets down her empty leather coin pouch in front of RJ. “I-I thought… i-it might work… f-for a p-portable nest… f-for your… chick…” She mumbles towards him.

Then turning to Niro, she sniffles and places an ornate papercraft rose blossom on the table. “...Th-Thank you… for the… d-duet…” Rada squeaks before her hands fidget at the bottom of her dress on her right thigh and-- she shoves an untied garter with tiny metal sticks in it onto the space in front of him, turning bright pink. “Th-There’s a bunch a-and… they might be… d-different than… th-the ones you… a-already have… I know its… n-nice to… have extras… S-S-Sorry about… the garter...!” Rada scurries away. She’s going to die of embarrassment before she dies her actual death at this rate.

The next table is empty, so she moves on past it to Elle and Shaela.

“...I r-really wasn’t… trying to frame you… M-Miss Ambrose… and I… d-do appreciate… e-everything that… y-you tried to do… f-for me… I-I’m sorry… I r-ruined it...” Rada bites her lip and sets down a poison caster card and a luck caster card in front of Elle. On the space in front of Shaela, she sets down her black coat. “It’s a good coat… i-it should fit… if you want it… a-and there’s peppermints… in the pockets… i-if you want to… give sugar gifts… or offerings…” That’s reaaaally about the max amount of time she wants to be near Shaela, so she zips off again.

Treat and Trick each get a paper flower set in front of them, and a black ball of yarn by Trouble, before Rada heads back to her own desk to give a pair of things to Erika Kimoto. The first is a round bottle with milky white liquid, but the second item she carefully unfolds is a shawl made out of crocheted stars in pretty purple and red yarn. She speaks quietly with her for a short time before turning back to the class.

“I d-don’t know… h-how much… time I-I have left… b-but i-if there’s… a-anything I can… a-answer… I-I’ll… d-do my best…”

#chapter2 #trial2 #ic #Ava #submission

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greyred · 7 years ago

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Red Panda

Only thing I ever wanted was to Love and to be Loved.

The amount of hate, violence and pain I have had in my life in incredible.

I don’t even know anyone is history who have gone through what I have.

Do remember that I can’t possibly write about everything or even tell everything without being afraid abount my life. None of You Blue or Red or Purple eyes know this.

But I will tell you one thing.

And hopefully at some point I can say it all.

I think I got new PTSD.

The one what was supposed to come sooner or later anyway.

Some of you know this...

And now it is here.

At first my mind blocked everything away and I just remembered the facts.

Not the details.

Now, with my new sickness and constantly being in fever I have dag up the little details.

Until today I didn’t know how awful they really were.

The PTSD always hits you months, sometimes even years later. Depending the level of hardness and situation.

I think something else had to happen in order to open that door of memory. Because brain actually never forgets. The information is still there. And I think, with my new Love. It makes me more weaker. Because it makes me more human. And it takes away the masks I have held for months now.

Mon Deiu, I am shaking!

I am horrified of the details I finally remember.

They are not pretty.

It all started when I had my 21 days of insomnia...

I was passing out in streets for couple of times. One day, just before coming to my Polly Pocket I went to a club next by. I hadn’t slept for long time. I was already pushing daisies again. I just needed to get my mind off. I went there and there were people who invited me nicely to their table. I didn’t understand anything at first because when the vodka bottle was placed next to my lips, the hand didn’t let go. My insomnia and booze did the haze. Next thing I know, we are getting in car and I’ve been taken through two apartments. It all seems somewhat nice but when I’ve been telled that what I have to do, I understand it is not okay. It somewhat seems like party but is not. So i do what I have to do. I don’t want to get hurt.

That was the first time...

Next two times I can only blame myself because i went back.

But You have no idea why I chose to go back.

I was afraid.

I was still running in my insomnia. I didn’t know what is right or wrong.

I was just too afraid.

You won’t know the feeling unless You actually are there.

So the second time happened.

With every time it got worse and with every time there was more people.

I can’t ever describe second time because of the shame.

The third was the most awful.

I asked nicely: “can I say no?”

But ‘No’ was never the answer.

When I tried to escape I got beaten up. When I tried to call police, my phone was taken away and my memory was deleted. There was no escape.

I remember the last morning...

I don’t remember how many days it all took.

Mr. Croissant called me (I founded accidentally my phone from under the bed). I was so hurt, with no sleep and mentally broken down. He actually helped me to escape. He told me. Do whatever you need and get the hell out! I was with the moment of little luck, because most of the people were gone and whatever was left, was asleep. So I pulled myself together and as a small little pocket kitty-cat I was on that moment - I sneaked away. I remember the drive away. It felt like nothing I have ever felt. I AM ALIVE! I finally escaped!

And obviously after that I believed anyone who would want to take care of me. The hardest one was when my own mother blamed me that it was my own fault.

I don’t think so. I was living like in haze next weeks. I wanted to kill myself. I felt worthless. I felt like nobody will ever love me ever again. I wanted to just drink every day away. There’s what my closest ones saw but different version of what I felt. And even though I started to be super naive with Love. Because all i ever wanted was to be loved. I was the most smallest, smallest, tiniest pocket-dust-kitten.

Even tho I seemed strong, I wasn’t inside. And I think that’s when things went down with Mr. Croissant. You have to know. I never stopped loving You. You just couldn’t take it. And I don’t blame You. I was so stressed off that I was literally planning everyday different ways I could end my life. Because I couldn’t live with that feeling. What was taken away from me. Even Love didn’t help me. It was too much. Being homeless, being hurt, being sick, being fucking raped. taken away my dignity, my family not understanding (then again when have they ever?) and what ever was there to feel like living. I just wanted to die. Like I have ever wanted. I just wanted to be loved or whether to die. And because my current partner was not strong enough to get this, which neither I was myself. Then I did was I had to. I started cutting my flesh away, secretly burning myself. Secretly hitting myself. That’s how I got all the bruises. I tried drowning, I tried hanging. I tried poisoning. I still didn’t die. Not being able to die was the worse. I didn’t understand what was the reason I can’t actually pull it off. WHY CAN’T I DIE?

I remembered few months ago. When I was attacked in the street and abused, I was able to fight it off and got away with pulled out shoulder only, taken to hospital. I remembered that moment when I wasn’t able to kill myself. I am like Weeeds, I don’t die. I just must hurt. for the rest of my life probably. And it all makes sense.

All of my sickness is the reason behind what I have gone through. That’s how I wasn’t able to eat for 6 days. That’s why I wasn’t able to pull off relationship. It all eats me from inside. And now I still have to wait for another 8 weeks for my cancer test results. I am scared AF. I am finally eating again but I am still losing weight. My doctors prescribed me with such amount of medicine that I feel zombie all the time.

But I put on my 9 kilos of makeup and just try to pull myself together. FORCE myself together. And yes - I am naive with love. Because I just wish to love and be loved.

I will never forget the ugly details of 3 times of gangrape for many days. I am just lucky I didn’t get any diseases. But the mind never forgets. And so I am naive. Stupid little dust. Hoping to fade away for good. Yet happy that finally I can speak about this. Small steps...

If I will survive - I will be the most strongest person on Earth - just as I said - no one in history have gone through what I have. This is just one of my going throughts. Just one of them...

There are more. There are actually more awful things. I am still very afraid to talk. But I am gathering my braveness. There are things that actually NO ONE knows. Not even Jesus, my family, or Tiffany. And I keep everything in my mind, every single day. And that’s why I turn Loco sometimes. It is simply too much for even me.

I hope O’ (i haven’t yet thought name for you in here) will perhaps be The One. Maybe O’ will be The One. Right now I Love You and I hope I won’t lose You.

We both Love You. Me and my Evil Twin Sister. I am actually doing quite remarkable progress with handling my both sides. I think we have melted together more than ever. And that keeps me in balance. I needed to get away with those memories of today’s talk. Because they were itching my brain. And The Dark Side Of The Moon is the only place that really listens. I Love You, my Moon!

My shirt is falling away from my shoulder. I have lost weight again...

My next braveness will be when I will talk about when I was still living in the small city near Russia.

I was able to today finally remember the more awful memory.

The time i was taken to an old building from Soviet Union. It used to be some kind of office from WWII I think... It was a bit away from center city, that’s why nobody heard my screams.. I was tortured in there. That was even worse than being raped. That was physical and mental torture of only something you see from horror movies. And this is something that nobody knows. Not even Jesus.

It was living hell.

No.

Worse...

That is the root-reason why I don’t want to live.

And part of my main PTSD.

#ptsd #rape #beaten #memories #scared #naive #love #mind #moon #losing weight #torture #suicide

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rueur · 8 years ago

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Morning Pages #36 (25.02.2017)

Saturday 25th February - 6:08 p.m.

Yes, I know that it’s been an actual week without my morning pages and this is egregiously unacceptable, but I actually have a fairly decent excuse: I’ve been dying. Well not literally. I’ve been damn close to that though, at least on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, which saw me fall into what was at its peak awfulness, a thirty-eight degree fever. It’s been hell on earth. I’m going to take a break for a bit, even though I just started. I’m going to go and get some water, and then I’ll have to type this all up rather quickly because I want to go to the gym tonight, because I haven’t been all week! And it’s been torturous knowing that the gym is right next door but my condition was honestly inhibiting me from doing so much during this last week off. Oh yes. Monday will come all too soon and then I’ll be back at school after over three very long months off. So much has happened in this last three months though, I mean these holidays saw me experiencing so much more and growing so much more as a person I feel, than any other period of time I’ve had off. No I have to go and get some water. I’ll be back really soon. I might have to pee too. My period finally came after this tumultuous past few weeks/months so I’m glad that that little stability is back in my life. The only drawback is the period pain of course. And the constantly having to pee. I feel like I’ve been dispelling far too much fluid than I should be, what with not only my period but also this killer sickness I’ve been battling. NO I REALLY HAVE TO GO AND GET SOME WATER NOW, BUT I KEEP TYPING. STOP TYPING.

So it’s 7:30 p.m. now. I know. I still have a lot to say. On Thursday the 23rd of February, I performed my slam poem in the first Slamalamadingdong of 2017. I scored 28 out of 30 but it got dropped down to 25. I lost points for going over time, which I knew I would. But I wasn’t really playing to win anyway, which I let everyone know right before I started my piece: ‘Brown Girl in the Mud’. My actual words were ‘I’m here just to see if I can do it’, which people applauded. In fact, the poem was received really well altogether. People clicked and ‘ooh’-ed in the right moments and I think my message really sunk in. My nerves left me when I actually started the poem, and once I had taken that first step it was like flying, it was just so easy and liberating. Evan was there too! He asked if he could come and see me perform when we were together last Friday. We sat in the back so I had to run to the stage and then run back like as soon as I’d finished I literally ran down the steps and across the room back to him. He was so supportive honestly, it was really lovely having him there. And to think I had made plans to do this all on my own! I mean, I actually could’ve done it on my own really easily. I got to know a lot of people that night, like Charlotte and Sigrun who were two of the poets I most resonated with. Charlotte wrote and performed ‘Purple Haze’ which was a poem that so beautifully captured what it means to be a hybrid Australian, which I most definitely relate to and never tire of writing about myself. Sigrun on the other hand, was just incredibly passionate and it really showed. She got to the second round but not to the third, which was a shame I think. But everyone there was amazingly talented, really. It was so refreshing being in a room full of people I really naturally recognised as my peers, my people. The spoken word scene in Melbourne is still quite young, but it’s really finding its footing and that’s all thanks to the gorgeous and creative people I met on Thursday.

I actually almost didn’t perform, because I was still feeling really ill on the day and I had been drinking water incessantly, like every time I felt a cough coming on which was very often. Evan was very patient with me, I think. I mean he might’ve also been rather concerned for me because I’ve been in a bit of a bad headspace for a while what with everything that’s happened. My skin has been so unclear, and then I fell into that fever, and then this bloody cold. Although I’m so so grateful that my period is here honestly, because it has definitely been a weight off my shoulders. Another thing: I feel like I’m growing bolder. By the day. I mean I feel like this hasn’t been a drastic change at all. If anything, it’s probably been a very gradual process that’s been taking place of these past two years now, but I’m only really just feeling the effects of this change now. Or perhaps I’m feeling it now because I’m finally free to feel it. I’ve been free to just be alive and be myself and get to know who I am over these past few months, so I guess it makes sense that I’ve reached a stage where I now feel that I know myself more than I’ve ever known myself before. Maybe that’s why it feels so right typing right now. My fingers feel like they’re gliding across the keyboard. Funnily enough, they did up until I typed out that last sentence. My head is playing a cruel little game with me! Anyway, I say that I’ve been growing bolder namely because two things happened today that I spent a lot less time being anxious about before I actually just said ‘fuck it’ and did it. I spent the whole of Thursday in a state of intense nerves, from before I left the house to my dinner with Evan and then to the first half of the first round of the poetry slam. I gave him his birthday present too: hamburger socks. He wore them last night when I saw him. He came over to South Morang after his basketball game, to celebrate his last day of work and I guess the midway point between our birthdays. He got to South Morang station at 12:20 a.m., like a half hour after my parents called it a night, which naturally worked out perfectly for me. I took the bike out and rode it all the way to the station, locked it up and then met him. We were out from 12:20 a.m. till his train at 7:53 a.m., though I said goodbye to him at around quarter to, because we HAD just spent the last seven hours with each other in the cold and in the dark. I took him to Quarry Hills and to the Lakes, and we did walk a little into Mill Park as well, before deciding that there was more to see out in South Morang. Before I talk about last night in detail, I just wanted to say that I was out of the house all night and nobody had any idea. Except my brother, who I told just in case my parents discovered I wasn’t home. My main point is that I snuck out! For over 7 hours and I got not a wink of sleep. Actually, I did sleep later. From 8 a.m. till about 2 p.m.. Okay I’m going to go for a bit. I realised that the gym actually closes at 6 today so I wouldn’t have been able to go after typing this anyway! So I’m going for a run right now. Before it gets too too dark. It’s already quite dark. It’s getting darker earlier now. Summer’s on its way out.

It’s 10 o’clock. I feel like I’m putting off writing about last night because I just feel like I’m not going to effectively capture how lovely it really was and then the loveliness will become forgotten to me over time. I don’t know if that’s really possible though. Evan told me he loved me last night. He said he thinks he’s falling in love with me, and that the moment he met me he thought he was already in love with me, because we connected so well from the beginning. I was astounded because I thought so too. Everything he said to me, every feeling he expressed, I shared. On the way home after the poetry slam I said thank you to him for tolerating my anxiety because it had been driving me mad for most of Thursday, his birthday. It affected me the entire day. I couldn’t eat properly, and I kept leaving him during the slam for some air, but he just dealt with it all. And I was grateful so I told him. He said in a very earnest and compassionate tone that he’ll always be there for me, and will always be supportive of me. He said it in such a sure way too, like he just meant it and like saying that stuff, promising that to me, was one of the easiest and truest promises he’s made. Being with him has been a dream. He called me heavenly too! I forgot about that, but it made me blush at the time. But when he told me he loved me, and that he thinks he’s loved me perhaps from the moment he met me (he just didn’t want to freak me out by saying it too early, which was yet another feeling I had shared with him), I was just overtaken with emotion. I just kissed him, I couldn’t not kiss him. And I told him that I loved him too, and then we both said that we had a hunch we both knew the other was thinking exactly the same thing. And we were right. The level of deep care and sincere affection that Evan has shown me has been incredibly new to me. I mean I haven’t experienced this kind of intense intimacy with anybody and yet simultaneously, talking to him is so easy and natural. We watched the lights of the city under the starry midnight sky, watched the purple clouds loom overhead, and kept an eye out for the stoic silhouettes of the Quarry Hills kangaroos. We lay on the bench at the lookout, holding each other in the bitter chill. It was not a good night for my cold but I didn’t even care, when I wasn’t coughing, because the coughing was actually awful but thankfully it wasn’t too consistent either.

We also had a very honest conversation last night about how naked we got on Friday. He told me on Friday that he didn’t want to make me uncomfortable or fearful in any way, and so I asked him if he had any questions for me about my poem because the content of my poem began to delve a little into my sexual history. Well a fair bit actually. I admit to not being a virgin in it for one, but there’s more to it than that. I also admit to experiencing sexual assault, a little. And I admitted that to him last night/this morning. I said I have had some bad experiences in the past with men, and with Ikaros, well actually I mostly just spoke (very vaguely, mind) about Ikaros. I’m yet to tell him about what’s happened to me out in the world, though I suppose we’ll have time enough for me to go into detail. Anyway, he was very respectful of me, naturally. And he said that he would like to have sex with me, which was quite forward but not unwelcome because I did say to him that I recognised that he was taking his time with me on Friday and that he was being respectful, but also that I thought he was being a little too respectful, I suppose. No, that’s not possible. Okay he said he didn’t want to take the lead too much, but it’s kind of a turn on for me, being lead.

Evan stayed with me until the sun rose, and we watched the sun rise from Quarry Hills. It was majestic, to say the least. Seemingly instantaneously, the sky burst into light and the whole city woke up, pastel and sleepy. We were making out for a while so we might’ve missed a bit of the transition from night to day, but when daylight came, it just made everything feel okay. The whole world felt alive and I could see the colour of his cheeks and the little freckles on his nose. I saw the gold and brown and red streaks in the wildgrass and I saw the wisps of the pine trees that stood in a scraggly row alongside the grey gravel path. I could see the kangaroos! And I pointed them out to them, the massive herd that sits in the valley between the lookout and the first crest of the hills. Evan fell in love with the place, and the whole time he kept saying that it was unreal, that the views were of such value to him and he feels they would also be of great value to his brother, that he’ll definitely have to take a trip to South Morang with all of their gear. It made me incredibly happy, that he could share the joy that Quarry Hills brings to me, because I have been talking about the Lakes and the park for a while now. When he came to see me, it just made sense to take him to Quarry Hills, and once we’d realised we could potentially be out late enough to actually see the sun rise, it just made sense to watch it from the lookout. I should stop writing for tonight. I need to right my sleep schedule by trying to go to bed right now. My parents and I are going to Warburton in the morning, I believe. It’s a shame that my sister’s not here, nor is my brother. It’ll just be me and my parents, and my grandpa. It’ll be a bit of a lonely trip for me, but it’s not like I speak too much in car rides anyway. And maybe going with them might give me some time alone at the temple. I can send some photos of the place to Evan and maybe convince him to come along. Is it weird that...I mean I don’t think it’s weird at all, but his parents are really keen to meet me and ammi (thathi doesn’t talk too much about it) is really keen to meet him. And I am actually really excited for him to meet ammi and thathi. I mean they’re awful parents, they would be the worst inlaws and I feel for Evan so much if we maybe ever get to that level in our relationship I mean we have only known each other for a month now, I know that this is incredibly premature BUT SO WAS SAYING ‘I LOVE YOU’ AFTER JUST OVER A MONTH OF KNOWING EACH OTHER, I mean generally speaking. It would seem far too soon to say that in any other relationship, I think. But the way we kiss, so intense but also so sparing, the way we seem to be so in sync emotionally and the way we share all the same value and priorities, the same interests too to some degree, it just seems cosmic. It seems like we were meant to meet and we were meant to spend this time together. He asked me another question at one point last night, before he’d said he loves me: ‘What are we doing?’. I told him after a brief moment, that we were doing what we like. He asked ‘And what’s that?’ because I was being vague, I’ll give him that. I said ‘Being together’.

Look, I’ve been talking about this too much now I know. I just don’t want to forget anything. But more than that, I just don’t want to stop talking about him right now either because I miss him right now. He fills me with so much warmth and hope and he validates me, he’s accepting of me. I really fucking miss him. And I will see him tomorrow ON MY BIRTHDAY. I know. I mean on the 27th. I only say tomorrow because it’s actually past midnight now and it’s Sunday. I have to sleep, goddamn. Let’s see if I can get some sleep tonight. Goodness, actually I just realised I’m at the end of my fourth page for today. Yeah I spilled way over today. I think to compensate for not writing for a week. Hopefully from today onwards, I won’t be missing any more of my morning pages. Though it’s hard to say what writing these are going to be like once uni’s started.

#evan #morning pages #36 #25.02.2017

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