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bronzeagepizzeria · 8 months

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TEN AND ROSE: WERE THEY HAVING SEX?

Disclaimer: I absolutely support people writing whatever makes them happy; this is NOT a criticism of ten x rose smutfic/established relationship/babyfic etc, I’ve read and enjoyed several of those, this is simply my reading of their canon relationship.

Every once in a while, the Rose Tyler tag sees text posts about how, obviously, Ten and Rose were sleeping together throughout Series 2, as evidenced by their absolutely sizzling chemistry in episodes such as New Earth and Tooth and Claw.

Most of them are usually in good humour—a “can you BELIEVE this chemistry” sort of thing, but there does exist a genuine belief among some that they really were sexually intimate already.

So, let's examine this canonically, from a Tentoo lens.

Were they having sex?

Short answer: No.

Long answer?

Throughout Series 1, we pick up on hints of the Ninth Doctor’s feelings for Rose growing, as well as Rose beginning to have feelings for the Doctor. It’s quite subtle in comparison to Series 2; here’s two great friends beginning to fall in love—flirting and bantering and getting jealous of other love interests xD. It’s not a very explicit romance (and this is why Rose haters tend to prefer NineRose, but that’s a conversation for another day) but it is heavily implied, and it is sealed with a kiss in The Parting of the Ways.

When Rose looks into the heart of the TARDIS and comes back for the Doctor, this romance is made explicit. When the Doctor dies to take the vortex out of Rose, the romance is made explicit. This is no longer a crush, or simple endearment, they’re in love.

The Tenth Doctor is born out of this love. He now knows the extent of Rose’s feelings, and he knows just how far she is willing to go for him. (This is a blessing and a curse, but we’ll come back to that some other time.)

Rose’s immediate reaction to seeing Ten is asking him to change back—(something that noticeably distresses him—the fact that she might not like him anymore). She spends the entirety of The Christmas Invasion mourning him, (which is fair since he never told her the tiny little detail of his ability to regenerate. Sigh.) and only really comes around to him at the end of that episode. We can safely assume, then, that they haven’t had sex.

In New Earth, they’re still very much relearning their dynamic—how do they work together, fit together now? We learn that Rose is physically attracted to the Tenth Doctor, thanks to Cassandra, and Rose's slightly mortified reaction at hearing this from him implies that there's been no confession of the sort to him.

You could argue that maybe something happened off-screen between Episodes 2 and 3, but as Ally on the tentoo x rose server pointed out, that would be shoddy writing. A physical relationship amongst the main two leads that is never even alluded to with a chaste kiss, is odd. So we can assume this major development didn't happen.

Tooth and Claw, the one episode that is constantly subject to 'they were totally shagging' discourse, has exceptionally flirty energy, yes, but this is because Ten and Rose are both very tactile people. Make no mistake, they definitely are flirting and being more touchy-feely than strictly necessary, but it would be narratively inconsistent for the reason for this behaviour to be 'they were having sex.'

Why?

I'd like to point out this dialogue we get from Queen Victoria:

This moment is extremely important; it plants the seeds for the proper beginning of one of the main themes of S2, which is the biggest reason the two of them are not constantly shagging in the TARDIS.

From this point on, something has been re-awakened in the Doctor, the fear of outliving someone he loves again.

We have to remember the Doctor is a severely traumatised man, a man who has outlived his entire species, and the idea of this girl he loves dying and leaving him alone is unbearable.

In School Reunion we get this spelt out for us. The Doctor sees Sarah Jane again, and reality strikes. This will be Rose, one day. There’s a key confrontation that takes place in this episode, an argument that remains unresolved because there are certain things Ten cannot bring himself to say.

DOCTOR: I don't age. I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone who you…

ROSE: What, Doctor?

There is a later confrontation in the same episode, where the Doctor is tempted with the idea of never having to see anyone wither and die again.

Even the infamous The Girl in the Fireplace doubles down on these themes--the Doctor's immortality. Time running out.

The Age of Steel two-parter brings with it the “gingerbread house”. Things we want which we cannot have.

This, in fact, is the crux of their entire relationship, folks. The incompatible lifespans. Rose's mortality. Untapped desire. The unsaid.

This is why it's important and impactful that Rose, on the last day she gets to see the Doctor, ever, plucks up the courage to actually put words to what she feels. This is why the unfinished confession in Doomsday hurts so much. Because they finally, finally took that plunge but it was too late.

Assuming that they've been in a physically intimate relationship all the while takes away from the gravity of this moment.

(Not to mention it's super exploitative, considering the inherent power dynamics. To think Ten had sex with Rose all that time--entirely aware of her feelings--and didn't have the decency to say he loved her and then proceeded to force her to choose between him and another version of himself...is problematic.)

I would go as far as saying it's a fundamentally wrong reading of their entire relationship, and of the Doctor himself.

I've seen people say the "baby scare" in Doomsday is proof that they'd been physically intimate, but it is, quite obviously the Doctor being afraid Rose was pregnant with Mickey's baby, not his.

DOCTOR: You've still got Mister Mickey, then? ROSE: There's five of us now. Mum, Dad, Mickey and the baby. DOCTOR: You're not?

He is, in his not so subtle way, trying to figure out if Rose is back with Mickey. It only hammers in the fact that he's missed his chance---not that the child might be his.

DOCTOR: Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth. You're dead, officially, back home. So many people died that day and you've gone missing. You're on a list of the dead. Here you are, living a life day after day. The one adventure I can never have. ROSE: Am I ever going to see you again? DOCTOR: You can't.

Again, the narrative hammers this in. Their time is up. Rose will inevitably move on one day, without him.

All this to say…

TenRose in Series 2 is a tale of what could be. Of missed opportunities, and the lives and love we could have had.

But why is this important?

In order to understand Tentoo and Journey's End, it is vital we understand this aspect of TenRose. The yearning, the skirting around feelings in the room, the denial of gratification on Ten's part. The desire he cannot give in to.

Because Tentoo is the realisation of this desire. He is the second chance.

He is the embodiment of the Doctor grabbing hold of his one, short life and deciding to live it to the fullest. Tentoo is making a choice here--a choice to truly love Rose the way he has ached to do for years. This is why it's significant that he was able to get the words out while Ten wasn't.

This is why Rose chooses him.

This snippet of an email RTD received from Pete Bower sums it up extremely eloquently:

“In having one Doctor grieve for his lost love, while the other Doctor went off with that same lost love, you have written of that moment we all have where we make a choice. It is grieving for the love we never had (and the sex we never had) because of the choices we made.”

#my meta #needed to get this out lol #rose tyler #tenrose #tenth doctor #ten x rose #doctor x rose #tentoo #tentoorose #tentoo x rose

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arlertdarling · 1 year

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❥ WRONG PLACE, RIGHT TIME — levi ackerman x gn!reader, swearing, death, loss, mourning, modern au, angst, hurt/comfort, maybe slightly ooc levi, this is kinda sad but it has a good ending i prommy<3 PLS read the warnings and enjoy!

The columbarium looks even more miserable than usual, soaked in rain and grey under the clouded daylight. You’re standing in front of it, one hand tightly gripping your umbrella, the other gripping your late spouse’s favourite flowers even tighter. You’re wondering if it ever gets easier and holding back hysterical laughter at the same time. Of course it had to be raining on the day of the month that you’re visiting their urn, like a scene from some depressing drama.

You always knew that death is a part of life, the conclusion we’ve all had pre-written for us since the opening paragraph. And you knew it was hard. You’ve had distant relatives pass, and felt some of the weight that comes with grief and accepting death; you’ve seen and been told your fair share of how loss changes people, both temporarily and permanently. But it’s clearer now more than ever that knowing something is not the same as being prepared for it. You knew it was hard, but no amount of knowledge could ever make you understand just how hard it really was.

You know now though. When someone dies, they freeze in place and time, into a forever still-life image of what was and will never be again; a catalogue of memories that lasts for as long as you can remember them. They become a concept, an imaginary something whose existence can only be proven by what they left behind in the physical world. A name — and the anecdotes and personality traits others think of when you say it. Preserved in your mind like a pocket of air in ice, they’ll stay; never moving forward, only back to the moments and memories that make up what’s left of them.

You’ve had the same moments and memories playing on loop for weeks. Not really on purpose, they’re just kind of there. There when you wake up, when you check the fridge with an empty belly and no appetite, when you decide to put off showering for another day, when you’re alone, when you’re with friends, when you’re trying to sleep away the feelings in your chest. You feel as ghostly as the images of them that flash behind your eyes, comforting yet haunting all the same.

Wet footsteps pull you out of your thoughts. There’s sweat between your fingers where they’re still clinging to the plastic-wrapped bouquet. You tilt your head in the direction of the footsteps. A man stops some feet away from you, face concealed under his umbrella and one hand tucked into the pocket of his dress pants. If he notices your presence or stare, he doesn’t show it.

You’ve been coming here every few weeks, and every time without fail, this man is here too. At first, you thought he was a stalker, but he never approached you or stood closer than three feet, let alone looked at you, so that feeling was short-lived. He asked you for a light once, but other than that, you’ve never interacted.

You often wonder which one he is there for, who the person was, what his relationship was to them — but you never bother to entertain that thought for more than a few seconds. He never brings anything with him either, aside from the occasional lighter and cigarette packet, and tends to stay longer than you. You’re only really here to soothe a healing wound and replace the flowers once they start drooping. The ones from last month droop more than normal under the weight of their wet petals, and you hope that the heavy rainfall won’t do more harm than good to the fresh bouquet you just put up.

A month later, the sky has just a few clouds dotted across it. The weather has been hectic, so as you’re approaching the columbarium, you’re curious to see how the flowers have been holding up. Before that though, you notice him first, standing in that specific spot that’s all his own by now. He’s dressed in the usual: a long-sleeved shirt, a blazer and matching trousers, all well-ironed and spotless, and a pair of polished Oxfords. You’ve always imagined him as a lawyer or office-worker of some kind; he certainly looks the part, especially with his tired face and perfect posture. There’s so much you don’t know about him, you can’t help pondering over things like what he eats for breakfast or if he has any pets or allergies, and imagining him in scenarios like typing away on a computer at a tidy desk or yelling ‘Objection, hearsay!’ across a courtroom. You’ll never know if any of those things exist beyond your imagination, and you have no way of knowing for certain either, but you like to think about it from time to time.

Two months after that, you notice he’s had a haircut. You can never tell when his undercut starts to get thicker, but once it’s trimmed, it becomes so obvious that it was overgrown before. It’s clear that it’s done professionally, and that he must be particular about his hair in general, if the perfectly combed middle-part and licks of gel are anything to go by. He looks good, you think, but as with most thoughts about him, you drop it before anything else can follow. You watch out of the corner of your eye as he lights the cigarette between his lips, then pockets the lighter and takes in a drag. His form is slanted and controlled in an effortless kind of way. He looks good, even in your peripheral vision.

The following month, you’re switching out the flowers with a different kind than normal since your florist didn’t have your usual. You think it’s the first time he ever looks at you, at least with any sort of interest in his eyes. It seems like a trick of the light at first, the way his silver eyes dart away when you glance at him. In fact, you’re still not really sure it actually happened, but you like to think it did, if it means he’s at all as curious about you as you are about him.

Three months later is the one year anniversary of your spouse’s death. For once, you’re not on your own; their family and close friends hover near their niche, paying their respects and exchanging embraces. You’re off to one side, not feeling particularly talkative or social, which is no surprise given the occasion. He arrives as he always does, but stands further away than usual, and with a more guarded expression. You wonder if the number of people intimidates him or makes him uncomfortable, or if there’s just something on his mind. After a short while, everyone starts to head off for the memorial service. You’re the last to take your leave, looking over your shoulder at him and hoping for a second of eye contact that never comes.

The month after that, he is nowhere to be found. You don’t think much of it initially — he’s never late but sometimes you’re earlier than he is — but he never arrives. You stay embarrassingly longer than you normally would to see if he shows up. He doesn’t, and you chalk it up to some minor thing, like a change of plans or a visit cut short. It isn’t until two months later, when he still doesn’t show, that you start to worry. You’re not sure what exactly you’re worried about, or if it’s something to even worry about in the first place. You start to visit every week and convince yourself that the only reason for it is that you’re just missing your lover more these days.

The relief you feel when you see him four weeks later is monumental. You’re practically buzzing as you walk up to him and you don’t even know you’re smiling until you feel your mouth corners drop at the sight of him. He’s always had faint shadows under his eyes, but you’ve never seen them this dark before, and his gaze is so heavy that it’s akin to a dead man’s. You wonder how much sleep he’s had, if any, and if it has anything to do with why he hasn’t visited these last few months. You wonder and you wonder but none of it leaves the confines of your mind. You’re just strangers, after all; two strangers who regularly see each other, but strangers nonetheless. All you can do is sigh, the joy of seeing him subsiding, and go to switch out the flowers.

“You’re later than usual today,” he says so quietly that you almost think it’s just a voice on the wind that you hallucinated in your desperation to speak to him. You stare at him, waiting for any sign that his low, hoarse words weren’t just a figment of your imagination. He just stares back at you, one eyebrow arched and his eyes expectant.

“Um, yeah,” you say, slowly, just in case you imagined the look on his face too. “I missed my bus so…” You trail off, tempted to smile at the fact that you’re actually, finally speaking to him. The swarm of unanswered questions that you’ve been trying to avoid suddenly floods you all at once. “It’s been a while since I last saw you here,” you say on impulse, but nothing else makes it past your lips. Lingers of why is that? and where have you been? and are you doing okay? die on your tongue.

He sighs. “Shit happens, I guess,” he mutters. His tone is void of all emotion, apart from maybe the exhaustion of someone who has been carrying too much for too long. You’re not sure what to say, about to opt for a hum of agreement when he speaks again. “I just needed some time away. Got two of these to take care of now, after all.”

You swallow nervously, trying to think of how, if at all, you should respond. How could he say that so casually? Like a comment on the weather or an arbitrary greeting? Your stomach hollows at the thought alone. Two urns; two whole people. That’s two names, two different faces and personalities, two lifetimes full of memories and smiles and tears, two amounts of habits and mannerisms, two lists of likes and dislikes and hobbies and pet peeves, of favourite films and colours and animals. That’s two whole people that he knew and he’s standing here like he hasn’t lost them both.

“Spare me,” he says, the flame of his lighter dancing over the tip of his cigarette. “My mother died when I was just a kid, so I don’t remember her. And that old bastard’s lived long enough, if you ask me. It was about time he kicked the bucket.” He tucks his lighter away and exhales some smoke, staring at the cigarette between his fingers. “Besides, it gets pretty tiring hearing the same shit the second time around, let alone the first.” His lips purse as he breathes in and pulls out the cigarette again, along with a slow trail of smoke. His eyes are on you as he says, “You, of all people, should know what I mean.”

Your gaze gravitates toward the flowers beside your partner’s urn. He’s right. It’s comforting the first few times — the condolences, the ‘sorry for your loss’s, the sympathetic glances — but after a while, it loses its warm touch. It starts to feel like an awkward finger, prodding at a bruise to point it out, even though you know it’s there, and all you wish is for it to heal already.

“Levi,” he says next, and all you can do is look back at him, puzzled.

“What?”

“My name,” he says through another trail of slithering smoke. “It’s Levi.”

You smile at this break in character, this rare show of warmth. You might not really know this Levi guy, but you get the impression that he doesn’t do things like this — whatever ‘this’ is — very often.

“I’m (Name),” you say, and that’s all it takes for the rest to pour out. “It’s good to officially meet you, by the way. I know we’ve technically known each other for over a year now but, also not, I guess…” You chuckle awkwardly. “Since this is the first time we’ve properly spoken to each other and… I don’t know. I suppose it’s just nice, is what I’m trying to say? If that makes any sense?”

Levi just takes another drag of his cigarette and for a second you think this is it — you’ve fucked it up by being weird, you could not have made it more obvious how deprived you were of human interaction if you tried — but then he turns to face you. You get a good look at his eyes, almost appearing sunken in by the dark shade of purple under them, and the dips in the hollows of his cheeks that make themselves known in the change of lighting. Then you spot the creases in his suit and shirt, his loose, ungelled hair, the scuff marks on his shoes. And that’s when you think: who am I kidding? This is a man who is mourning a second person before he could understand how to mourn the first. He is just as deprived and sad and lonely as you are; if anyone is to understand you, it’s him.

“The feeling is mutual,” he says. Then he smiles, faint and fatigued, and it feels like a shift. Right then, you feel your heart nudge forward. For the first time since your partner’s death, you feel really, truly present; like all this time you’ve been on autopilot with your consciousness trapped in the memories of your lost love, stuck in moments long gone. You know the deceased are chained to who they were, unmoving and silent and still, but somehow you’ve only now realised that you don’t have to be. You’re allowed to move on.

So you decide to take the leap. “Do you…” you start, and figure it’s too late to go back now. “Do you want to go get a coffee or something?”

Levi lowers his head as if thinking. “Well, I’m more of a tea guy myself,” he says before dropping his cigarette to the ground and stepping on it. He smiles again, and your heart nudges forward some more. “But sure. Let’s go get coffee. Or something.”

After that, the rest is history.

Sometimes you wonder if he ever would have spoken to you at all, if not for you being late because of that bus, or if the entanglement of your lives was inevitable from the beginning; pre-written since the opening paragraph. You were two lost people whose paths happened to cross — and maybe it was the wrong place, but God, was it the right time.

#divider by benkeibear #cw death #tw death #tw loss #tw mourning #aot fic #levi fic #levi fanfiction #levi angst #levi hurt/comfort #levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #levi x y/n #levi x you #levi x gender neutral reader #x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #{♡} juno writes !!

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amysteryspot · 4 years

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Don’t know how to stop - Thomas Shelby x Fem!Reader

Prompts: 40. “I wasn’t lying when I said that I loved you.”; 69. “What do you want me to say?” + "Don't Know How to Stop" by Halestorm

Requested by: @sighonahurricane

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Changretta!Reader

Summary: “Or what, Thomas?” she interrupted him, defiance in her eyes as she glared back at him. “We both know you won’t kill me. You want revenge, want to see me suffer or you would have already killed me that night at the warehouse, in front of my father.”

Warnings: Smut/NSFW/+18, mentions of violence, swearing, there's a very brief implied reference to rape

Word Count: 2510

A/N: Not even going to try and find an excuse as to why this is longer than it should be, all you need to know is that I was in the mood. I absolutely loved to write this, but I'm feeling anxious about what you all are going to think of it. Really hope that you like it. For reference, reader is a Changretta and this is set between season three/four. Feedback is very much appreciated as always.

(Y/N) = Your Name | (Y/N/N) = Your Nickname

English is not my first language and this wasn’t proofread by a beta.

If you want to be tagged in my stories, just send me a message.

She had been the one that faced the Devil. Down on her knees in front of him, begging for her father’s life as he held the knife to her throat.

“One life for another,” she had offered, fingers curling into the fabric of his waistcoat. “You can have me. Do anything you want with me, just spare his life.”

The deal had been made that night, for reasons that Tommy still couldn’t understand, even after all these years. He wasn’t even sure if he had really considered the possibility of killing her, despite the rage clouding his mind at the time.

Vicente walked free, dragged out of the room in tears, at the expense of leaving his daughter behind, a prisoner of war.

Tommy confined her to the guest wing of Arrow House. He didn’t want to see her and be reminded of the reason why he slept in an empty bed now. It was easier to ignore her existence if he didn’t have to see her every day.

His son had other plans though. Somehow, Charlie found a way to escape his nanny and ended up finding (Y/N). Tommy knew something was wrong the moment he stepped into his son’s room to find it empty. It was safe to say that he was seeing red as he climbed down the stairs, calling for Mary and asking about the whereabouts of the nanny and the baby.

The door to her room hit the wall with a loud bang that startled both the women in there and Charlie, who was all curled up in (Y/N)’s arms.

Tommy looked at the nanny, ordering, “Take Charlie back to his room.”

She did as commanded, quickly, even though the boy didn’t seem very pleased with the idea of leaving (Y/N)’s arms. Tommy walked straight up to her, grabbing her tightly by the jaw, and almost lifting her from the ground.

“You don’t get to talk to him. You don’t even look his way or else…”

“Or what, Thomas?” she interrupted him, defiance in her eyes as she glared back at him. “We both know you won’t kill me. You want revenge, want to see me suffer or you would have already killed me that night at the warehouse, in front of my father.”

His hold on her had gone lax but he still kept his hands on her.

(Y/N) continued, “The boy came to me, I’m not going to blame a child for sins that aren’t his.”

Tommy observed her in silence for a minute. The rise and fall from her chest, the way both her hands were circling his wrist, how she didn’t show any sign of fear even though the imbalance in power was evident. He let her go, leaving the room without another world, only to be haunted by the image of her in his dreams.

“Are you going to kill her or fuck her?” Polly’s voice got him out of his trance.

He looked up at her but did not answer, because he didn’t know what to say.

Polly continued, “Because these are the two available options with you. You are either going to kill her or you’re going to fuck her. Considering that you are mourning, I would bet on the second, or you would have killed her already.”

She took a drag from her cigarette, taking her time in exhaling the smoke, before saying, “You men start wars because of your uncontrollable ego, and in the end, is always the women who pay the price of it.”

In the end, both Polly and (Y/N) were right. He didn’t kill her. His aunt’s words have made him realize something better to put a definitive end to this war between them and the Italians: a wedding. What could be worse for Vicente than having to marry his only daughter to a Shelby?

After a year of mourning, Thomas married (Y/N) Changretta, sealing the pact she had made with him for good.

They slept in separate rooms at opposite ends of the corridor. Since she was his wife now, Tommy had to get used to the idea that Charlie would have to be around her, or people would get suspicious. He had never been one to care about what people thought of him, but sometimes it was easier to maintain the appearances than to go against the norm.

If Tommy was worried about having to see her more often now that they shared the same corridor, he was wrong. (Y/N) was like a ghost. He rarely saw her outside of brief encounters whenever he was at home at the time the meals were served, the occasions when he found her in Charles’s nursery, or when she had to accompany at events.

On those occasions, (Y/N) was the image of a perfect, dutiful wife. She was well mannered and educated, making it easy for her to hold conversations with the most different people. Her charm and beauty helped her, and Tommy was surprised at how good she was at making people believe that their marriage wasn’t a sham.

His family and the staff of the house knew better though—all (Y/N) was was spoils of war.

They were surprisingly civil to each other, posing for the public eye as the perfect couple and avoiding each other like the plague at home. When they met at home, occasionally, a polite conversation could end up in a fight. Except for that night when Tommy found Charlie in (Y/N)’s arms for the first time, their arguments never turned physical.

Until one night when Tommy was especially pissed off by something business-related and ended up pressing her up between his body and the wall of her the drawing-room.

(Y/N) had never backed away from a fight, never showed any signs that she was afraid of him. But that night, that night the way she flinched when he touched her and the look of pure horror on her face as she looked at him, made Tommy let go of her immediately.

As he watched her ran away from the room, Tommy realized what must have crossed her mind, and the mere thought of it made his blood boil. The glass of whiskey that was on his desk exploded in a hundred pieces on the wall, before he retired to his room, plagued by the sight of her running away from him.

He tried to be more careful around her after that, always seeking some kind of consent from her before getting too close or touching her. Tommy would never force her to have sex with him, not for revenge, not because she was his wife.

They crossed the line from civil to friendly at some point, maybe after she sassed him because of Lizzie in front of the whole family, making everyone laugh, but he was not sure. What he did know for sure was that he started to see her as more than someone who was there because of a casualty of war somewhere along the way.

It was hard to ignore her after that. It was hard to ignore the beautiful woman navigating the corridors of his house, playing with his son in the garden, handling the staff, helping with the business. It was hard to ignore the woman he tried to avoid for so long, the woman he didn’t want to acknowledge.

He wasn’t sure at what point he had started to consider the idea to fuck her, it just happened. One night, after they arrived from a gala, fighting about something that Tommy didn’t even remember anymore, they fucked against the vanity in her room.

After that first time, it all went downhill. It was like getting high for the first time and then not being able to control the need to take another hit. (Y/N) was warm, soft, willing, and available, and Tommy decided that he wasn’t going to deny himself or his needs searching for other options when he had her right there.

Things escalated quickly and they developed some kind of silent agreement, another deal. During the day, they acted like old acquaintances, respectful, and civil to each other. But after dawn, they would seek each other out, drowning together in a desire that seemed to have no end.

That had been a long time ago, so long that he didn’t remember how it was not to have her around. Long enough for some unrequited feelings to show up.

He did his best to ignore the guy talking to (Y/N). They were hosting a dinner at Arrow House, the man talking to her was some rich bachelor from London that was being a little too friendly to Tommy’s liking. He downed the whiskey in one gulp and noticed Polly watching him, but his attention is quickly drawn back to his wife.

At the end of the night, after all the guests either left for home or to the guest wing and all that is left are the Shelby’s at the parlour, Tommy revels in the feeling of (Y/N) sitting beside him, reclining against the arm he rested behind her shoulders. From the other side of the room, Polly looks at him and smiles, like she knows something that he doesn’t.

It happens the week after the gala. They’re both getting ready for a family meeting. His room became their room, unofficially, because her things were scattered all over the place—her perfume and jewelry on the bedside table, dresses on the wardrobe, lingerie on the drawers, even the sheets smelled like her.

“Tommy,” she exclaimed in a reprehensive tone, as he pressed himself against her back, arms sneaking around her waist and preventing her from running away as his lips trailed down her neck. “What are you doing?”

“Giving some very due attention to my wife,” he answered, casually, walking them both closer to the bed.

“In broad daylight?” (Y/N) gasped, something between surprise and a protest, although she was doing very little to resist his advances.

“Want to see you,” he stated, before turning her around to kiss her.

“Your family is downstairs waiting for you,” she warned against his lips, breath uneven and fingers clutching onto his shirt.

“My family is downstairs waiting for us,” he corrected, nibbling her earlobe and smiling because of the sound she made. “Let them wait. They’re probably too occupied drinking, anyway.”

Any pretense of resistance from her part vanished when Tommy started to unbutton her dress. He was desperate to feel her skin against his, to taste her, and be inside of her. When they were both finally naked and pressed against each other on the bed, it felt like some kind of miracle.

Tommy drank her in, from the blush on her cheeks to the way her toes curled when he touched a sensitive spot on her body. All the scars, the birthmarks, the dips and curves, the softness of her skin, the heady taste of her on his tongue, and how wet she could get for him. He wanted it all, needed all of her.

He was tired to fight against it, tired of pretending that this feeling gnawing on his chest was something else.

“(Y/N/N),” he breaths against her skin, the feeling of her short nails scratching his back driving him crazy. “I love you.”

Her eyes open to stare right into his, something between surprise and uncertainty on her features. Tommy kisses her, gripping her tights a little harder to dive deeper into her.

The whimper of need that comes out of her lips makes him wild. All he can think about is how she feels, how good she feels, how right she feels. Here, underneath him, crying out his name, welcoming him into her body, scratching his back as the both of them get lost in pure pleasure.

All it takes to make her unravel is for him to press the engorged nub at the apex of her thighs. (Y/N) comes undone and brings him down with her, just a few trusts later, her walls milking him from his orgasm, his seed taking place deep inside of her for the first time in a long time because they were too lost in each other to care.

One more time they pretended, dressing in silence and walking down the stairs as nothing more than acquaintances. If his family suspected of something, they didn’t show it.

The meeting went uneventful, as planned. (Y/N) found a way to sneak out of the parlour before him and when Tommy went upstairs to his room—their room—he found it empty.

Sighing, he made his way to the other end of the corridor. He knocked one time, before letting himself in. (Y/N) was sitting in front of the vanity, taking the pins out of her hair. She was already dressed to sleep, the silk nightgown revealing her legs and a bit of the lace underneath. Their gazes met through the mirror as Tommy closes the door behind him.

“I wasn’t lying when I said that I love you.”

(Y/N) takes a deep breath, still not turning around to face him.

“Tom…”

“We’ve been dancing around this for too long, it’s time to face it.”

She sighs, a hand running through her face as she says, “What do you want me to say?”

He is in her in a heartbeat, pulling her up and pressing her against the vanity, just like the first time they had sex. Tommy takes her face in between both of his hands, nose brushing against her as he mumbles against her lips,

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Tom, I can’t. We can’t,” she protests, weekly, eyes closed and hands holding his wrists.

“A little too late for that because I don’t know how to stop this.”

“Your brother blinder my brother, Tommy. Your wife was killed because of that. I’m only here because you wanted my father that and I made a bargain with you. How this is supposed to work. What people will think?”

“Fuck what people think. We are already married, (Y/N). What happened, happened. We can’t change it. But this thing between us, this thing is real. I’ve denied myself that long enough, not going to keep pretending anymore. I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time now and I know, I know that you feel the same, so stop fighting against it and say it.”

Tommy’s lips brush against hers as he repeats himself, half plea, half command, “Say it.”

“I love you,” she whispers, eyes closed tightly as if the words will be less real if she can’t see him.

“Say it again,” he commands, nose bumping into hers while his thumbs caress her cheeks.

“I love you.”

“Again,” the sound is music to his ears and Tommy just can’t get enough of it.

(Y/N) opens her eyes, looks him in the eye, and professes, “I love you, Thomas Shelby.”

He smiles, for what feels like the first time in years, and confesses, “I love you too, Mrs. Shelby.”

Taglist: @stressedandbandobessed7771 @internalmess3 @theshelbyclan @giowritess @captivatedbycillianmurphy

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gureishi · 3 years

Note

I love reading your opinions on Saeyoung! I know I’ve thought about this in regards to Zen so I’m curious what your headcanons are in regards to Saeyoung’s future relationships post game with each member of the RFA and Vanderwood??

Ohhhh, thank you for this wonderful question, dear Lea! The characters’ relationships with one another vary so much depending on the route and the timeline. Even though it makes me sad (because of the glaring absence of one beloved character), I’ll write these for the SE timeline.

Headcanon: Saeyoung’s relationships with RFA+Vanderwood post-game

Yoosung

Saeyoung and Yoosung’s relationship is endlessly fascinating to me. They’re close—they’d both tell you that, if you asked—but their friendship in the game is actually very surface-level. Saeyoung keeps Yoosung at arm’s-length, and Yoosung honestly has too much going on in his own head to devote much energy to trying to break down those walls.

The fight they have toward the end of Saeyoung’s route is a huge turning point for both of them. Yoosung is genuinely hurt to learn that his friend had never planned on sticking around, and Saeyoung is surprised to find that anybody actually cares enough to be mad about it. He never really thought too hard about what would happen if (when) he inevitably had to disappear from his friends’ lives—but when he did think about it, he honestly didn’t think he’d be missed.

It is a huge deal that Yoosung gets mad, because it shows Saeyoung that his existence has had an impact on people. It’s after this conversation with Yoosung that Saeyoung tells you he’s willing to try and open up to you, too; Yoosung is the one who shows him that there is value in letting another person become close to you.

Later, I am absolutely certain that they are able to develop a real friendship: one that’s grounded in trust and mutual understanding. When you’re living in the bunker with Saeyoung and Saeran, if there is one member of the RFA who’s showing up unannounced with a backpack full of sweets and a big grin on his face—it’s Yoosung.

Jaehee

Jaehee needs to feel secure in her understanding of the things and people around her. She likes to be able to think to herself, “oh, here is why this person behaves this way.” And it’s for this reason that Saeyoung drives her absolutely crazy.

She respects him, of course—but begrudgingly, because he is an anomaly, a little piece of chaos in her perfectly-ordered world.

It is your love for him that allows her to wrap her mind around his peculiar existence—because Jaehee cares deeply for you (almost immediately), and she recognizes the look you get in your eyes when you talk about him. She may not understand him (or even want to)—but she understands about love.

Jaehee and Saeyoung are never going to be best friends. But in this timeline, Jaehee is one of your dearest friends—and for you, they will both try. Jaehee will make honey butter cookies for his birthday, and she’ll smile softly when she sees the look of utter delight on his face. He’ll ask her to bring him her laptop, and she’ll complain as he sweeps it from her hands—but when he returns it to her working ten times better than it ever did before, she’ll clasp his hands in hers, her eyes shining.

If she ever gets around to opening her cafe in this timeline—and I’d like to believe that she does—you and Saeyoung will go in often. He’ll annoy her by doodling cat faces on all the napkins—but he’ll always tip her 200% of the bill.

Zen

In this timeline, Zen immediately takes you in as a sort of younger sibling (yes, even if you’re older than him), and he's ready to go to battle for you, if he needs to. Like Jaehee, he feels almost instantly that you are someone special. He doesn’t quite understand why—but he knows that he wants to keep you safe.

A consequence of this protectiveness, of course, is that he becomes very suspicious of Saeyoung. He’s never trusted him (and for good reason: Saeyoung may be trustworthy, but 707 is anything but). Zen is worried that you won’t be safe with Saeyoung—and he’s not entirely wrong.

But: when Saeyoung reveals his real name, Zen is one of the first to use it—and he uses it repeatedly. Every time I play the Secret Ends, and the Vday DLC, I am hyper-aware that Zen is making a massive effort to call Saeyoung by the right name. And this speaks volumes to me.

If you let Zen in—even just a little—he will accept all of you (and he’ll do it with his whole heart). Zen understands what it means to feel like you don’t belong anywhere—to hide your true self behind a mask of pretense and positivity—to become someone else so you don’t have to look too closely at who you really are.

No matter which timeline we’re in, Zen’s success is going to skyrocket—so he’s not going to be around all the time. But when he is, it’s a party: these are the times that the whole RFA gets together again (and if you listen closely, you’ll hear the way he speaks to Saeyoung now—like he actually admires him. The feeling is mutual).

Jumin

This timeline is one of the roughest for Jumin, without a doubt.

The game doesn’t show us how deeply he is grieving—but he is. He has lost the two people who have ever made him feel comfortable in his own skin, and he no longer has anyone he can turn to. I’m not gonna sugar-coat it and say that everybody’s happy in this ending: they’re not, and even months (years) later, Jumin is suffering.

But here’s the thing: Jumin’s not the only one who loved Jihyun.

It takes Saeyoung time to sort through the complicated feelings he has for Jihyun, after everything that’s happened. He doesn’t forgive him right away—and even as he mourns him, he’s angry, too. But time passes.

I imagine that there comes a day—weeks or months or even years later—that Saeyoung and Jumin find themselves talking to each other about the person they both loved. Perhaps they are in Jihyun’s apartment, sorting through his things—or they find themselves alone together at a group event and—at last—one of them acknowledges the grief that permeates the negative space between them.

Jihyun leaves a gaping hole in both of their lives that nothing can fill. But I’d like to think that an understanding develops between them: they may never completely get one another, and it’s okay that they don’t. There is a deep and unwavering affection there—the kind of mysterious and unbreakable bond you only feel for someone who has become your family.

Vanderwood

In my personal post-SE timeline, Vanderwood sticks around for a while to help the twins deal with their father. I’ve written about it a bit (in my Human Again series): if they are able to find the records Jihyun was keeping about Saejoong, it would not be too difficult for them to take him down in this timeline. He has no leverage, here. With the brothers working together, they can expose him—and then, of course, they can really be free.

But Vanderwood doesn’t stick around forever—they wouldn’t want to. They have a whole life outside of taking care of Saeyoung; they have a hometown, and possibly even people there who are waiting for them.

But at least once a year—and never with any notice—Vanderwood shows up at your home. "Just wanted to see with my own eyes that the kid actually managed to keep himself alive,” they’ll say—and they’ll grunt and roll their eyes and maybe blush a little when you throw your arms around them and thank them for being the reason he stayed alive as long as he did.

Vanderwood really respects you, because when you tell Saeyoung to be quiet or sit down or clean up after himself, he does it. They respect you, too, for your bravery and your strength and your resilience.

Neither one of them will ever admit it, but for a long time, Saeyoung and Vanderwood really did only have each other.

You’ll invite them to your wedding, of course. They won’t RSVP—but they’ll be there.

Saeran

I could write a literal novel about their relationship in this timeline and how it develops (and ummm maybe eventually I will), but I’ll try and keep this brief.

SE Saeran is so very tired. It takes time—so much time, exponentially more than the game shows us—for him to even begin to feel comfortable living in his brother’s home. He is physically sick, for a long time, as a result of the drugs he was being fed and the torture he was enduring. There isn’t enough space for forgiveness: there is barely enough space for living at all.

There’s no one moment when the two of them start to feel like brothers again: love and hate are so much more complicated than that. And Saeran has had no agency in his life; every choice has been made for him—his newfound “freedom” doesn’t feel like freedom at all. He feels he has been shuffled from one cage to another: his brother’s horrible, windowless home is no different.

But it is the small things: walking in the grass outside the bunker and feeling the sun on his skin; the way you speak to him, like you trust him; the annoying way Saeyoung follows him around, wide-eyed, trying far too hard to win him over—gradually, he begins to feel that he has a home, after all.

In this timeline, I do believe that all three of you keep on living together for the rest of your lives. You certainly don’t stay in the bunker forever—but when you move, you do it together.

And what’s most important here, of course, is that Saeran chooses this. It is perhaps one of the first choices that he makes for himself—and it sneaks up on him, taking him by surprise one day: he wants to keep on living together.

And this—living with his brother in a home that’s warm and full of love—is the only thing Saeyoung has ever wished for.

#mystic messenger #saeyoung choi #707 #headcanons #asks #quirky-and-kind #fwends 🥺#post-game relationships #se timeline

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robotslenderman · 3 years

Note

Sascha! :3

:DDD

SPECIAL INTEREST TIME, BITCHES

How I feel about this character

I used to not give a shit but then you sucked me into them how dare you

They are baby

Mass murdering horrible torturer baby

They've... been through a hell of a lot of trauma and have to process it. They were stuck in that trauma for centuries. Now Ilias is apparently back but he died in their arms, they saw him turn to ash and they have to be dealing with the trauma of that, too.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Ilias cel Frumos, Beckett (but like in a snarky enemies to lovers kind of way), and ofc my own OCs Rose and Nastasya. Wasn't sure about Nastasya/Sascha for a while but suddenly something seemed to click the other night and I think they'd actually work very well together -- their personalities complement each other, I think. Ilias is warm to Sascha's cold, extroverted to Sascha's introvert, but Nastasya is playful to Sascha's seriousness, joyful to their solemnity, vibrant to their reserved nature.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Even before Rose became a romantic partner I shipped the two of them nonromantically too.

Also I like the idea of Sascha being a tsundere Vitriolic Best Buds with Beckett.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I think that they would have responded far, far worse to the appearance of Elias Athanasios than I see fandom talk about (sorry, Ry XD). Like, not even as bad as I've mentioned before -- way worse.

(SORRY RY I'M HAVING A SPECIAL INTEREST MOMENT)

To start: there is no way in hell they're not dealing with hella trauma after the Dracon. That everyone agrees on, but lemme go into detail:

Like imagine not just seeing your lover die in your arms but being unable to really process it because your consciousness just got smooshed with someone else's, with someone who's mourning his own lovers and didn't really care about yours. Oh, and that person's a suicidal but also sadistic psychopath.

So you spend a few centuries torturing people, shit you wouldn't have done before except in extreme circumstances (if at all) and quite enjoying it, and then --

And then you get separated from the part of you that was okay with it because oh, it was actually the other guy who was cool with that stuff, and you were trapped with the brain of the guy who enjoyed everything you did and you felt everything he did as you did it and thought you wanted it, thought you enjoyed it, thought it was you who decided it, but because you were so enmeshed you don't know that you DIDN'T, maybe it WAS you, can you really blame the Dracon?

And maybe it was really you who made those decisions, because after that long fused together... sure, you're separated physically.

But are you really?

You've been together for centuries. After that long you can't have known where one of you began and the other ended, and it must have influenced your true personality. I mean, stick people in a room of people different to them and they adapt their personality and beliefs pretty quickly, like weeks to months, without outside influence.

Like, how much fucking worse would that be if you were actually stuck inside their head, for CENTURIES???

You're apart now, but in a sense you'll always be together.

Stick the both of you in a room and you'd probably talk like a pair of Creepy Twins. You'll finish each other's sentences because you'll both be on the same wavelength, you'll have the same idiosyncratic habits -- scratching your nose with the same finger of the same hand, tilting your head the same way when you think somebody's being annoyingly obtuse, tapping your fingers the same way on the desk when you're thinking.

You've been intertwined for so long that you probably have the same impulses now, the same thoughts, with only the most foundational aspects to the both of you separating you -- the Dracon's still got his sadism, and Sascha is still introverted, so that'll influence subtle differences.

But it'll be buried under seven hundred years of habits you developed together, opinions and thoughts and aversions and passions you developed together, working in sync for every second of existence, dreaming the same dreams, moving the same hands and fingers, doing the same deeds.

You were a gestalt. Are you no longer one just because you're apart? Are you really separated when you were one for so long? Are you even two people any more, or are you just one person with two bodies, now?

It's going to take decades to bring yourself back to a functional level after the identity crisis that causes, and that's not even counting the trauma of the Eldest, or the Dracon's trauma that you remember just as vividly as if it were your own, or the trauma of what Symeon did to you.

You will probably never, ever recover.

There's traumatic events people went through that follow them for decades that only happened over a few hours at most.

How can you come back from seven hundred years?

In a way, it would have been emotionally better for them to have stayed fused to the Dracon forever. At least they would have thought they were themself, then. At least they were used to it. At least they didn't have a conscience. At least they didn't feel as used because half of them was doing the using, if initially unwillingly. They were one; there was no conflict, just two people so in sync they may as well have been one.

Then to add insult to injury, right after the Dracon's pulled from you, a guy identical to the lover you witnessed die in your arms shows up trying to get your attention. That timing is suspicious AF, and any hope Sascha might have had of coming to terms with Ilias's death on their own time comes crashing down as this redhead just casually waltzes on in and just mashes Sascha's trauma buttons by existing, by looking just like him and acting like him and sounding like him and having the same interests as him and and and --

And now half of them is gone. But also -- not gone, never going, never leaving, who are they now? They're missing half of themself but also probably feeling like they'll never be their real self again. Were they ever really Sascha, when that was a name they took on side by side with the Dracon? But how can they be Myca when Myca is seven hundred years away, when he died the moment Ilias did?

Maybe it was Myca who died in his lover's arms, not the other way around.

I think on the outside Sascha would pretend to be furious at Elias Athanasios for posing as their lover, for having the gall to pose as someone they saw turn to ash, but deep down?

I think they're fucking terrified of him.

Because of the traumatic memories he brings back. Because he knows so much about Ilias and Sascha can't figure out who he "really" is and what his true motivations are.

Because after everything Symeon did, after everything the Dracon and the Eldest did, after the evidence in front of Sascha's eyes that Ilias was dead, dead, dead, how can they not be terrified that this isn't another attempt to manipulate them and put them at the complete and utter mercy of another Methuselah or Elder or worse for another few centuries, when they were only JUST set free?

Their nights as the Angel of Caine are done. They've been manipulated so long and now there's someone else using the person that they loved the most as bait to draw them out. Someone they know for certain did not survive. For their own survival, they can't do anything but disappear because given the forces that has had power over them before, they can't take any risks with this one. Sascha keeps trying to find out who he really is and if he's working for someone, what his angle is, but this time their brilliance is getting them nowhere and they cannot find a single scrap of a clue who Elias Athanasios really is, because all evidence points to him being the real thing but he can't be because THEY SAW HIM DIE.

And here Athanasios is, continuing to try to lure them out.

He's convinced Beckett, one of the smartest people Sascha knows, that he's the real deal.

He's convinced Rose that he's the real deal.

He's convinced Sascha's dumbass Vykosovich descendants that he's the real deal -- particularly the descendant that's their biographer, the descendant whose made it her life's work to know everything there is to know about Sascha Vykos. And Athanasios has direct access to her.

He's getting closer and closer to Sascha.

The walls are closing in again.

So, my unpopular opinion?

Sascha Vykos is the most terrified they've ever been in their existence.

(Second opinion, which I don't know if it's unpopular or not, but -- since they used their deadname for centuries before changing it I reckon they'd actually be pretty fine with Ilias still calling them Myca. But, you know, only Ilias, and anyone else gets turned inside out. Not even Rose would get that privilege.)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Not exactly answering the question but I am dreading the release of the V5 Sabbat book because I'm so scared they're going to completely ignore what BJD did with Sascha and go back to making them a villain.

Also worried that Sascha's canonically followed the Beckoning. I reckon they'd nope the fuck out of it after what happened in BJD. Something strange trying to manipulate them again? Fuck no.

#VTM #Sascha Vykos #headcanon #Ilias cel Frumos

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morningstar-descended · 4 years

Note

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Mammon was an accomplished soldier in the Celestial Realm

Belphie used to be a little Lucifer Mini-Me when he was a young Angel

Lucifer would sing his siblings to sleep, Before

He didn’t tell his brothers about Lilith because he didn’t want them to interfere with her new life. It was hard enough for him not to.

Diavolo’s older brother, Beleth, has a scar covering the left side of his face from where Dia ground him into the dirt to try and get him to yield.

Their formal fight for the crown lasted three days.

Diavolo’s younger brother, Amaymon, is Asmo’s sugar daddy.

Diavolo’s Mom is also still alive, she has her own estate in another part of the Devildom. She can suplex him.

Lucifer will absently neaten up his brother’s clothes for them while he’s lecturing them.

Lucifer has fed demons and unruly Witches to Cerberus before.

Mammon has never had a partner in any sense of the word.

Satan was ‘born’ as a baby.

Asmo used to dress Satan up in little outfits when he was small.

Satan can repeat almost everything he’s read verbatim.

Lucifer has to double check that he knows where all of his brothers are before he can rest at night, unless he passes out.

All the brothers wore their hair long as angels. Lucifer’s the only one who’s never grown it back out since their fall.

It took Lucifer around six hundred years to develop proper feelings for Diavolo.

Lucifer is deathly afraid of Diavolo’s father.

Barbatos is possibly--not counting Diavolo--Lucifer’s only friend.

The Sport Beel plays is a type of Wrestling mixed with MMA and Capture the Flag. It’s played topless.

Lucifer will occasionally ask Levi to explain the plot of an anime or game to him if he wants to zone out for a while. He’s listening, but because following what Levi is talking about takes a lot of concentration, it’s almost like meditating.

Lucifer’s hair got its white / gray streaks when they lost Lilith.

Lucifer actually does have some wrinkles, he just hides them most of the time.

No matter how hard he tries, Lucifer just can’t get good at video games.

Lucifer will write out bits of sheet music when he’s bored.

Lucifer has more demon markings on his body than just the diamond on his forehead.

Lucifer’s hands are very scarred, mostly from dealing with small child Satan.

Beel’s sport is unnamed because in Infernal, it literally just is called “The Sport” since there’s only one.

Almost all of the siblings have physically torn an opponent to shreds and or consumed them. Asmo and Mammon are notable exceptions.

Satan went through a phase where he spoke solely in riddles.

Levi was hardcore into theater before animation became more of a thing. he still has a lot of opinions about it.

Belphie spent most of their early fallen years either half asleep, or completely asleep.

Beel is incapable of chewing gum or sucking on a jaw breaker properly. He impulsively swallows whatever goes in his mouth.

Lucifer has been summoned to the human world successfully only twice in his existence. He killed both summoners for the audacity.

The entire garden around the house of lamentation was of Lucifer’s design.

Mammon has the best control over his shape-shifting--able to stay in a false form for longer, and able to retain his humanoid form despite high emotions.

The brothers are, quite literally, Devildom Celebrities.

Diavolo has never kept a pet before.

Lucifer is ambidextrous, but prefers his left hand.

Mammon is left handed.

Gluttony demons tithe to Lord Beelzebub on his birthday in the form of whatever food they fixate on.

The first angel Lucifer killed after his fall was one he didn’t actually recognize.

The first angel Mammon killed was one of his friends from the Celestial Guard.

Lucifer will never forgive the other Archangels for turning their back on him.

Lucifer has only ever had two partners in any sense of the term in his entire life.

Beel used to be the smallest, before he hit his growth spurt and overshot all of them.

Lucifer swears almost exclusively in celestial, when he’s pissed off enough to actually swear.

Satan doesn’t really have any of Lucifer’s memories, but he retained the emotions based around them. It’s confusing.

Lucifer can cook just fine, but he can’t bake to save his life.

The Longest Lucifer has stayed awake without any rest was about a month. It wasn’t pretty.

Half of the time Lucifer says something funny it’s unintentional.

Most of the Devildom’s current infrastructure was pioneered by Diavolo’s father.

King Diavolo’s real name is Ba’al.

Lucifer can play basically any instrument that’s been invented, apart from electronic only ones.

Levi’s skill in painting could put any of the great masters to shame.

Lucifer isn’t a fan of a poultry, ironically.

The fact that they can get Belphie to wear his complicated RAD uniform everyday while being the Cardinal Sin of Sloth is a point towards how well Belphie controls his sin.

Being a shutin used to be cool and mysterious-- Levi mourns that social shift often.

Lucifer considers Levi the easiest brother to handle because he doesn’t really leave his room.

Mammon, while definitely being guilty of lots of grifts and get rich quick schemes, actually has at least five jobs on top of his stipend for being a Sin.

Lucifer has been trying to figure out how to kill those three witches for causing him problems by proxy, but he hasn’t figured out a legal way to justify it yet.

Amaymon is Diavolo’s youngest sibling. Lucifer can’t stand him.

Flower arranging is one of Asmo’s hobbies.

Asmo also has the best eye for interior design aesthetics, even if he uses them to make a room look... Like That.

For Centuries Lucifer couldn’t even begin to talk about his interests without Diavolo flooding him with related gifts. He’s gotten better about it since.

Lucifer and Diavolo’s relationship was purely physical at first.

Beel often uses the fact that his brothers think he’s stupid for his own gain. Most of the time it’s to get more food, but whatever works works.

Lucifer is completely fire proof now as a demon, inside and out.

He has nightmares of fire, though.

In one of the battles of the Celestial war, The Archangel Michael did his Signature “Step on Lucifer’s face/head trick” And Lucifer nearly took his leg off for it.

All demons can both purr and growl.

Lucifer’s back is heavily scarred from his fall and Satan’s creation both.

Mammon physically regenerates the fastest, and Belphie the slowest.

Levi, due to Envy’s ability to constantly and unintentionally buff the demons around him, is always helping his brothers in some small way whether he means to or not.

Beel still has specific nightmares of Lilith’s death, and will often crawl into Belphie’s bed to hold him after.

Satan never knew Lilith, but he’s emotionally attached to her because of the vague memories he inherited from Lucifer.

Asmo’s hair, if he grew it out, would be loosely curly.

All Lust type demons are Incubi / Succubi / Concubi.

Wrath type demons are the ones who cause classic hauntings.

All sleep paralysis demons are Sloth demons, though.

Pride type demons are the most prone to possessing humans in power, despite Lucifer having never possessed a human before.

Barbatos is actually a little bit older than Diavolo, but not by much.

Luke is basically Michael’s son.

Simeon is the younger brother of the Archangel Jophiel (the Angel of Beauty).

Asmo, if given the chance to defect back to the Celestial Realm, would seriously consider it.

Mammon acts like a fool, but isn’t one himself.

Belphie and Beel aren’t quite telepathic, but they always know where the other is, or if they’re in trouble.

The Cardinal sin of Wrath traditionally writes all of the punitive legislation in the devildom, so Satan is the one who writes out what crime gets what punishment.

The Devildom’s economy has never flourished so much before Mammon became the sin of Greed.

A good 60% of the work Lucifer does is paperwork that should actually be handled by one of his brothers.

Asmo’s painted his nails with his own venom before, and then used it to kill people who piss him off.

The only person Lucifer can accept losing to is Diavolo.

Lucifer isn’t a functional person until around 2 hours after he’s woken up. Luckily he tends to get up around 4:30a.m. / 5a.m. so when normal people have to interact with him, he’s mostly aware.

Mammon likes to over-saturate his foods with toppings and sauces, which is why Beel can’t stand his cooking.

Asmo likes the taste of straight vodka.

Lucifer once slapped another demon’s head clean off when they spoke back to him while he was addressing Diavolo’s court.

Lucifer and Diavolo’s first real “Date” was in the Royal Garden.

Any part of an Archdemon is worth a small fortune, as they’re rather potent spell ingredients.

If you talk shit about Mammon near a Greed type demon they WILL beat your ass.

Diavolo loved Lucifer on sight. Or, well, he loved the look of him.

#{ Mun Post }#Ask Meme #{ fuck you. never challenge me again ghdhghsdhg }#Anonymous #long post #dialuci

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cadykeus-clay · 3 years

Note

Would you mind sharing your thoughts about vex and Beau being cross campaign foils?

so!!!! first things first: apologies for taking weeks to answer this, finals + having adhd sometimes makes my brain turn to mush and forget every ask ive ever recieved. second of all, i’m assuming you sent me this bc of what i said in my vm vs. m9 how they view the world meta. and i’ll be real with you. i have exactly 0 memory of what was going through my head when i wrote that line, so i am simply going to type out a bunch of thoughts that i have on the similarities and differences between beau and vex and i hope that lives up to what you were expecting jsdflksjdksld

I'll detail some specifics in a moment, but overall, I think beau and vex share a very similar kind of trauma of exclusion in their formative years, that's caused them to have a lot of similar traits that manifest in different ways - for vex, she maintains control through her material posessions and beau finds an emotional control in her asshole-ness. I've broken this down into 5 points on which I think comparing the two really emphasizes that claim:

1. daddy issues: both beau and vex have awful no good terrible very bad dads. both syldor and thoreau can suck my ass. they both raised their kids with little love and impossible-to-meet expectations, alientating them and leaving them with lifelong feelings of inferiority and unbelonging. If beau and vex were to meet, i think they would have a very friendly toast to shitty dads, and then have a good drunk vent about it an hour later.

but, at the same time, the actual minutae of their trauma and the ways it manifests are nearly polar opposites. syldor wanted nothing to do with vex, or else wanted her to somehow become a full elf. her issue was that she would never be able to belong, despite her desire to, and as she grew up it lead to her being overly protective and even possessive of the people she found who DID accept her as she was.

With beau, rather than exclusion, her father created an environment of toxic inclusion. He created a role for beau to belong in, disregarding her distate for actually fulfilling it. And, as such, she ended up making herself into someone who could have no expectations and pushed away anyone who tried to set them up for her. In the end, they both came to love themselves by abandoning the woman their father wanted them to be but for vex it was the laying down of an impossible dream and for beau it was the picking up of a mantle she had feared to wear.

2. brothers: now, on the topic of family, I also think its really interesting how their interactions with their brothers play out. We've got vex and vax, tied at the hip til the very end and then some; and then we've got beau and TJ - decades apart and with beau barely acknolwedging TJ's existence. But, even that distance between beau and TJ didn't stop her caring for him when they actually met. She gave him lucky Jade, and she entertained the idea of kidnapping him to get him away from her stinko dad.

And I'd espeically like to talk about what she said outside the hag's hut - "I think Luc and TJ could be best friends", in comparison to the way Vex reacted when Vax told her was going to Zephrah with Keyleth for the year break. There's an aspect to the way they interact with their brothers that lets them slip back into those bad habits they formed growing up (NOT that i'm claiming vex and vax were like toxic for each other. but even good relationships can have unhealthy moments).

With Beau, when she offers to give her happiness so TJ can grow up safe, she's trying to take on the role she's ""supposed"" to fill - the big sister, the protector - because she failed to fill the one her father set out. And with Vex, when she grows jealous of Vax, it's because she's afraid that his leaving with keyleth is a sign that she no longer belongs in his inner circle, and she falls back on that childish, desperate desire to do anything to be accepted unconditionally.

3. romance: spoilers for 5 or so most recent m9 eps (115-120) if you haven't watched them ahead!!!! at this point, both vex and beau have an endgame romance - percy and yasha respectively. Obviously as the m9's campaign is still playing out, that could change, but like. yasha wrote her a love letter and they're officially going on a date so i'm counting that as at least endgame-track rather than just random flirting. What's interesting to me is that they both seem to flip between the SAME roles between their (in-game) general perception and their actual pursual of romance.

Vex gets characterized as a pretty big flirt, right? She's got the winks, the casual "darling". She's flashed grog her boobs on multiple instances with little prompting. Beau, similarly, has easily the most game out of anyone in the m9. She's slept with two guest characters and at least one more npc in the events of the game. Caleb made her a fuck mirror in her room in the mansion. And yet, in both of their actual romantic endeavors, they became the shy, uncertain type.

Vex only confessed her feelings when Percy was laying dead before her, and not an hour of game play before percy kissed her in the woods, she had a talk with vax about how she was pretty sure he didn't like her that way and she didn't want to pursue it. Beau, similarly, spent a very long time convinced that yasha wasn't looking for love after zuala, especially not in anyone like her, asked everyone in the party if they thought yasha ACTUALLY liked her, just to be safe, and then still terrified to ask her out after recieving a literal love letter. I'd argue this shift comes from that same sense of unbelonging - they're very good at pretending they fit a role but doubt their actual right to take it when the opportunity is presented. This time, the role is the lover rather than the daughter.

4. authority: Both vex and beau grew up shunned by the upper crust of society, and grew to mistrust those kinds of people. And yet, both of their arcs result in them assuming such a position. Vex, thrown out of high society gets her place as a baronness, and Beau, running from leadership of her father's business ends up a top member of the Cobalt Soul. There's not a lot here, but I find it interesting how both of their stories involve them shedding their baggage regarding authority and power and assuming it in a way that they feel comfortable in - invitation by someone she trusts for vex, and a promise of freedom of will and control for beau.

5. their deadliest sins: this is the point at which their similarities culminate and transform to a fundamental difference. despite everything they share - shitty childhoods, the small piece of family that's still good, flirtiness masking shy love, and a mistrust of those in power - vex and beau are such different characters because of their biggest vices. Vex, both in game and out, is "the greedy one". She's stingy with money, she haggles for everything, she mourns the loss of physical objects. Beau is "the mean one". She cares little for people's feelings if they're not in her immediate circle, she focuses on her tough guy image, she laughs at things she knows she shouldn't.

And, over the course of the campaign, as they find unconditional acceptance, they grow away from these traits (I won't say they grow out of them) because they heal from the things causing these vices to begin with. I've always been vocal about vex's greed being a manifestation of her class insecurity, and beau's asshole-ness stemming from her fear of being forced back into another position of complacency. And I stand by that now - all the similarities in their backstories are what tally up to these different women.

Despite her careful tally of party funds and her reflexive bargaining, vex is not cruel. she is not angry on her own behalf. She saves two boys from the market in the city of brass at great personal cost, she relinquishes an entire dragon's hoard to the devastated city of Westruun, she took the time to save a baby bear from a cage when she could have just cut and run after escaping her own. She's the first one most people go to when they need a shoulder to cry on, and she's devastated when they don't (thinkin about when Scanlan left). She carved "forgiveness" into the bow she stole from a man after killing him by proclaiming how much she loved someone, because she knew anger had no place in her heart.

And Beau, Beau is a bitch and she's harsh, but she doesn't hoard or protect like vex did. she spends her money without much of a second thought. She pitches in to help her friends buy a ton of glowsticks, and she loves to indulge in material desires like drink and good food and the nicer inn room. She's a member of an organization that's about making knowledge public rather than guarding it. And, though this may be controversial, I think her position with bowlgate of "its not our problem what cali wants to do with it", her long-standing mistrust of their alliance with the bright queen and and more recently with the tomb takers of "i want to go in and talk, rather than assuming they're antagonistic, even if it puts us at a disadvantage" are both examples of this non-possessiveness too - she has no need or desire to get involved in controlling what other people are doing.

so, i guess the general conclusion here is: vex struggles to let go of things, of money, of people. beau struggles to let herself be known in case she gets wrongly interpreted again. they both fight feelings of inadequacy, they both fight the feelings of not belonging, of 'doing it wrong', they fight the perception of them as shitty people because of the shells they hide in despite their absolute hearts of gold. but at the end of the day, vex's story is one of having to lay down what could never be hers so she can carry what is, and beau's story is one of allowing herself to be known so a place can be made for her.

#hope this is what you and that other anon were looking for jdsflkdsajfsaldfsa #critical role #vexahlia #beauregard #long post

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ot7always · 4 years

Text

Fractured (part 1)

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Word Count: 2.8k

Pairing: OT7 x Reader (platonic); future Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Mafia AU, angst, fluff, (future) smut

Chapter Warnings: Mentions of violence including murder (non-explicit). Mentions of sex (non-explicit). Mentions of drugs, guns, neglect, physical abuse, parental death. Toxic household, implicit mentions of mental illness (depression).

Rating: 18+

Summary: You’d always known something was strange and different about your “family,” but it wasn’t as though your environment encouraged curiosity from you. You thought you wanted to know all the answers, but nobody ever told you that the more you learned the more pieces of yourself you would leave behind.

A/N: This is my first story in this fandom, and I haven’t written anything for any fandom in years. This plot came to me all of a sudden last night and I decided I needed to write it. Please let me know what you think!

Masterlist

You used to be naive.

You were 11 when you first held a gun.

12 when you first made every shot through the centre of the target.

13 when you first noticed the fathers’ proud eyes rather than empty ones.

14 when you first defeated one of the boys in a spar.

15 when you first learned the details of why this was all necessary.

16 when the boys last saw you smile for real.

17 when you first participated in a mission, knuckles bloody for the first time.

18 when you first gave yourself to a man, only to later drug him and strangle him in his sleep.

They say ignorance is bliss, and you can’t help but to agree. Knowledge is not always power – you understand that better than anyone. Because the day you sought more knowledge was the last day you might have considered yourself truly happy.

“I said no. You’re not going anywhere.” The man looked at you, stone-faced in the doorway to his office. You had sought him out for permission to attend a classmate’s birthday party, but already regretted trying. It wasn’t as if you were ever allowed to go anywhere but school and back, escorted by the man’s driver.

Your neck had to crane upward to give him the pleading looks that often worked on his wife, but to no avail. With your head barely reaching the man’s waist, his cold stare had your six-year-old heart pounding, tears filling your eyes.

“But-“ you started, however it appeared there was no room for negotiation. The door was slammed in your face, door rattling in the frame. The noise was enough to make you jump, hands rising to wipe away the wetness that you could no longer hold back after being denied again.

Wanting to hide under your covers for the rest of the night lest you run into the man again, you turned around but instantly collided with another body. Gasping, your eyes immediately fell to the floor, hands falling to your sides.

“I’m sorry,” you uttered with as clear of a voice as you could manage, unwilling to invite the anger of another in the household, especially not the other adults. But the response was not one you expected.

“Y/N?” a soft voice questioned, reaching for your trembling hands. Your eyes rose to meet those of Namjoon’s, who only looked at you with more concern once he properly saw your state. His eyes swept over you quickly, assuring himself you weren’t hurt. He was only a few years older than you, but he worried for you greatly. “What happened?”

Hearing a kind voice after such an icy rejection only caused you to cry harder, stepping forward to wrap your arms around Namjoon’s waist, head buried in his chest. He accepted you without hesitation – it isn’t as though this is the first time this has happened. His hand rose to rub at your back, his warm touch calming you down some. But still, you did not offer an explanation. You knew the rules in this house, and it was your own fault for wanting more, after all. As you begun to pull away, still seeking the safety of your bed to avoid the rest of the world, Namjoon’s hands remained on your shoulders.

“Did my father say something to you again?” he questioned, sympathy in his gaze. You breaking eye contact was answer enough for him. And while he wished he could do something more for you, approaching his father about this would only invite him to unleash his anger on both of you.

Instead, he grabbed your hand, lacing his fingers with your own. When you peered at him inquisitively, he was glad to see that while your eyes were shiny and nose runny, you were no longer crying. Unwilling to let you mope for the rest of the day, he begun leading you away.

“I’ll make you some pasta, okay? I’m sure you haven’t eaten dinner yet,” he said, continuing the long trek from the upstairs rooms down to the kitchen.

While no, you hadn’t eaten, the last time you ate Namjoon’s pasta you ended up throwing up into the toilet hours later. But unwilling to reject his kindness, you allowed him to seat you at the dining table as he looked for ingredients in the fridge. You had planned to sit and watch him quietly, until you felt somebody collide with you from behind, arms wrapping around your neck.

“Y/N! We need one more person for Mario Party!” an excited voice yelled right by your ear, making you wince. After giving you the appropriate 0.3 seconds to formulate a proper response, hands begun shaking you at the shoulders hard enough to whip your head forward and back.

“Taehyungie…” you started, ready to deny him, unsure if you could handle the raucous of three young boys yelling at each other for stealing stars.

“Pleeeeeease! Please please please pleaseplease,” he begged, rocking your smaller body back and forth in the chair. His enthusiasm had you cracking your first smile since returning home from school.

“Y/N! We’re waiting for you!” a softer voice called from the living room. While you had been thinking about denying Taehyung, you never would’ve been able to deny Jimin. While mischievous, he had never been anything but kind to you growing up, leaving a huge soft spot in your heart for him.

Namjoon let out a small laugh from the stove, where he was stirring a pot that seemed to be letting out a suspicious amount of smoke for what he claimed to be pasta.

“You’d better join them or you’ll never hear the end of it,” he chuckled, giving you a wide grin when he saw you looking significantly happier than before. He was thankful that even if each of their parents might give you a hard time, at least you had seven brothers who only wanted to make you happy.

By the time you were ten years old, you had grown to accept that your life would not be like the lives of your classmates. You would not bake cookies at other girls’ houses, you would not join the after-school volleyball team, and you would not walk with friends to the ice cream shop down the street from school. That isn’t to say you hadn’t been invited. You had, years ago, but a child can only be told no so many times before they stop trying. After all, who wants to ask a question knowing the answer will always be rejection?

You were friendly with your classmates, but they knew you were some type of untouchable. You heard the whispers. She says she likes us, but why won’t she hang out? Why does the same car with tinted windows pick you up everyday? Why were you always alone on Parents’ Day?

While others had always wondered about your life, nobody dared to ask you. Whenever anyone mentioned family, the friendliness stopped. “It’s none of your business,” you would always answer, ending the conversation then and there. If your teachers ever tried to get information out of you, you would tell them not to worry. You always had an excuse for your parents not being there.

“They’re away on a trip.”

“My mother is ill.”

“They need to work during the day.”

The staff at school thought your parents were government officials, and you had likely been instructed not to talk about it. They were half right – your entire living memory you have been instructed not to talk about your family or your living situation no matter what.

It was easy to lie about why your parents weren’t there when your parents were dead. After all, who was there to refute your claims when the only family you had to speak of wasn’t even related to you by blood? The seven young boys – teenagers now, you supposed – had always been close to you, but you weren’t family.

No, you had been told that your parents were business associates of the seven families, but they had unfortunately died in an accident shortly after your birth. Unwilling to send their friends’ newborn to an orphanage, they instead took you in and allowed you to live with their families, where they raised you.

If raising you was the right term. In fact, many of the boys’ fathers ignored your existence. Namjoon’s father seemed to loathe you, though you didn’t think you did anything to cause such hate. However, you supposed that since he was not a kind man to his own son either, you could not complain. He was the head of the household, after all. You didn’t dare anger him, preferring to keep out of his way than to risk his booming voice and hard gaze.

It was not an ideal life. This much you understood, after seeing your classmates boast of their grades to their parents, happily shoving their report cards in their faces. When you see fathers raise their sons above their head, making obnoxious noises and pretending they’re an airplane, something deep inside you mourns something you’ve never had. You’ve never laughed at your father’s jokes, nor picked out an outfit with your mother.

It was not an ideal life, but at the very least you had the boys. They were perhaps the only people you could ever call a friend. They were loud and annoying, but also the only people who made you feel that you had a home.

By the time you were eleven, you had become curious. After all, every television show you’ve seen only had one family in one house, sometimes two. Seven was unheard of as far as you knew, and your adolescent brain with a newfound passion for science and mystery novels needed to know why this was. Of course, nobody could know about his goal of yours. This was top secret.

It started with casual eavesdropping. Before, you had tried to avoid the men in the house at all costs. Their serious looks scared you, and though the majority never specifically targeted you with their anger, you dared not risk it. However, you knew the men of the house frequently gathered behind closed doors, sometimes their wives too. It almost seemed like a business meeting, based on the dramas you’ve seen Seokjin watching in his spare time.

It was surprisingly easy to sneak around in the house, considering your presence was ignored by most. Even the maids didn’t look twice at your antics, knowing how teenagers always seemed to play weird games.

It was difficult to listen well, and you didn’t want to risk getting caught. You’ve only heard snippets of conversation, but it was enough to raise suspicion. The words you’ve been able to catch recently – “mission,” “warehouse,” “armed,” had you furrowing your brows, but what confused you most was “Bangtan,” or what you thought was Bangtan. You didn’t know what that meant. But what surprised you most was how often the others boys’ names seemed to come up, particularly Seokjin and Yoongi, the two eldest.

Your sleuthing continued through the weeks, but the words were hard to hear and you didn’t gain much from it. In fact, you considered giving up and trying to figure things out based on what you already had, but you figured one more try couldn’t hurt.

Perhaps you should have stayed in your room. Not that you knew now whether that could have helped you or not.

On one Wednesday after school, you returned home quicker than normal, traffic having been light for some reason. You figured you may as well use the opportunity to listen to any conversations that might be going on. After all, you made it home earlier than expected, so perhaps nobody would think you to be there to hear anything at all. Not that anyone paid attention to your schedule at all.

So there you sat – squatted, more accurately – outside Namjoon’s father’s office. You heard two muffled voices inside, but could not place who the other belonged to. What you did not expect, however, was to hear your own name coming from their lips.

“We’ve waited long enough. Y/N is useless right now, a liability more than anything,” a gruff voice said. The domineering tone itself told you it was Namjoon’s father, even if you couldn’t see anything at all.

“She’s still young-”

“And your son was years younger than her when he learned of everything. Stop babying her.”

Hearing a conversation centered around you was definitely not the norm. You leaned closer, hoping to hear better, but that was your downfall. Your shoulder brushed against the door – barely a touch at all, but enough to shake the door, and clearly noticeable to the men inside. Before you could even think to stand up, the door swung open, your eyes meeting those of Taehyung’s father like a deer in the headlights.

You felt as though your chest was going to explode, bracing yourself for the worst berating of your life. Would they kick you out? Would they hit you?

“I-I’m sorry,” your voice trembled along with the rest of you, “I thought I heard my name and I was curious, I promise I didn’t mean to,” you let out all in one breath, flinching and preparing yourself for the yelling, the fists, for anything.

What you didn’t expect was laughter. Namjoon’s father’s laughter, to be exact.

“The choice has been made for us,” he declared, directed toward Taehyung’s father.

“Sit.” he instructed you harshly, gesturing toward a chair across from his desk. There was just enough distance between you and him to feel that you were miles away. It made the man seem even more powerful than before.

“Do you remember what we told you about your parents?” he said as he fixed his stare on your wide eyes, more a demand than a question. You nodded, afraid a verbal answer would only get caught in your throat.

“Then you know we were in the same business,” he continued. You nodded again. This is the nicest he’s ever been speaking to you, and that had you relaxing some.

“You see, the boys here are all involved in this business as well. That is their responsibility to their family. Their duty. And it is time for you to fulfill your duty as well. This is what your parents would have wanted, and it is what we need from you in return for sheltering you all these years,” he went on, taking in your expression. The confusion and wariness must have been apparent on your face, because he kept on without waiting for a reply.

“You will train. After school for four hours everyday. You will become part of this business. The boys will help you,” he stated firmly, and you clearly knew these were not requests. These were commands, and you had no place to deny them, despite the questions you wanted to ask. You turned your head to look at Taehyung’s father, who had been one of the only people in the house who treated you as human. He nodded at you reassuringly, hiding his own hesitation well.

“Yes, sir,” you managed to get out, the first words you’d spoken since you entered the room. Even those were a struggle considering your shock.

“Good. You start tomorrow. Now leave.”

And train you did.

You were 11 when you first held a gun.

12 when you first made every shot through the centre of the target.

13 when you first noticed the fathers’ proud eyes rather than empty ones.

14 when you first defeated one of the boys in a spar.

15 when you first learned the details of why this was all necessary.

16 when the boys last saw you smile for real.

17 when you first participated in a mission, knuckles bloody for the first time.

18 when you first gave yourself to a man, only to later drug him and strangle him in his sleep. That was the first night you’d made yourself vulnerable in years, sobbing into Hoseok’s arms lamenting what you had done.

19 when you finally seemed to earn the respect of Namjoon’s father.

19 when you finally seemed to realize you would never be happy, never hold a real job, never get a real education.

You were no longer just part of the house, invisible to the powerful men and their wives who lived there. You had skill, talent.

No, you were no longer just a thing. You were a weapon, an asset. A tool to be used.

But a tool can only be used for so long before its shine fades.

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#bts fanfic #bts series #bts x reader #bts mafia au #ot7 x reader #yoongi x reader #bts angst #bts fluff #bts fic

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blacknailpolishonguitarstrings · 3 years

Text

From Above

Magic was a very interesting thing. Powerful but fickle. Healing and caring in the right hands, yet wicked and deadly in the wrong ones. Dangerous. Magic was convenient, but used to its full potential only by a select few, and more often than not, by the ones in the wrong rather than by the deserving ones. As such, magic held many secrets that had yet to be discovered. Amongst those many unexplored areas, ghosts and death were some of the most obscure branches of magic. Wizards and witches knew next to nothing about the Afterlife. Ghosts were the imprints of departed souls, and could of course stay in the world of the living if they wished to do so, but they were forever attached to one place. What no one knew, or at least, remembered, was that if one poured enough emotion into the remembrance of a certain deceased person, their soul would be able to perceive what was happening in the world of the living at that precise moment. The souls of the dead had constant access to their past, of course, they were capable of thoughts and feelings, and they could see what was happening to everything and everyone in the world of the living, but as time passed, that connection grew feebler and feebler. The Dead distanced themselves from the Living more and more the longer they were gone, drifting further away from that thin barrier of Reality, and only a strong emotional connection could bring them back. That is how James and Lily Potter found their old friend Remus Lupin at their grave.

“James,” said Lily softly, resting a hand on her husband’s shoulder.

The logistics behind their ability to touch and feel each other were still unbeknownst and confusing to her, yet they were both ever so glad for it. Being dead…well it wasn’t fun. You merely existed. A lone, wandering soul. Yes, one was able to see the world and witness just about anything they wished, but that connection was unstable and weak at best. Both Lily and James felt themselves slipping away a tiny bit more with each day that passed, and it was an underlying knowledge, a cold hard truth, that someday they would simply cease to exist and fade into nothingness. But for now, they held on, with every bit of strength left in them to the real world. They had the urgent need to stay “alive” as best as they could, given their condition, for Harry, the son they would never see grow up, for Remus, their best friend, who was all alone now, and for Sirius, the one person who was slowly but surely getting dreadfully closer to James and Lily with every minute he spent in that cell, isolated, lost, in pain.

“What is it, love?” Asked James, looking up from the concert taking place in a small pub in London he was watching.

“Look, over there,” replied Lily, pointing into the far distance.

The world stretched beneath them like a small map they could observe closer whenever they felt like it, skipping from place to place in a matter of seconds. In the direction Lily was pointing towards, a grey, cold, graveyard stood in the middle of a town, namely, Godric’s Hollow. And among the marble tombstones, a lone figure kneeled in front of two joint headstones which shone bright and white in the evening, brand new, adorned with wreaths of white lilies.

Remus Lupin. In front of their graves. Behind her, James gasped.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” He whispered, already knowing the answer.

“I think so…James, do you feel it? The connection?”

“Yeah, I think I do, it’s almost as if he were…pulling us in.”

Suddenly, they found themselves right above the graveyard, with a direct on-look on it.

“I…I feel close to him, I think his magic is calling us towards him or something. Merlin, this is so strange, how does this even work?” Said Lily, puzzled and slightly frustrated.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much more than you. It must be some form of ancient magic, or maybe Death magic, who knows…in any case nothing we were taught at Hogwarts,” answered James thoughtfully.

His wife nodded in agreement, remaining quiet as she watched her best friend below her. Remus’ shoulders were sagging under an invisible pressure, it appeared as if he would sink into the ground on which he was kneeling at any given second. His hands were hidden in the depth of his old, brown, worn-out coat’s pockets.

“They’re probably balled into fists,” thought Lily knowingly.

Oddly enough he wasn’t crying, and he did not look particularly afflicted. On the contrary, he seemed…numb. He was just there. With no purpose, no emotions, no hysterics, no cries, nothing, he was just there.

“I wish we could talk to him, or at least know what’s going on in his mind,” said James abruptly, interrupting her train of thought.

At that precise moment, Remus pulled out his wand and waved it briefly over the headstones. The fresh flowers on the two graves disappeared in small puffs of sparkles, telltale signs of magic, which hung around fleetingly in the air before vanishing as well. He waved his wand again, and several dark green sprouts spurted from its tip, softly dropping to the ground, small roots snaking into the mushy earth. The plants began to grow in size, intertwining until they formed a complex woven arch of spikes and leaves stretching across the two graves. Here and there, pearlescent white flowers bloomed. White roses.

“He remembers,” murmured Lily, tears welling up in her non-existent eyes, pricking her skin, sliding down her cheeks.

“Oh, love, of course, he does. Besides, those lilies were truly atrocious,” James laughed, but through the rumble of his chuckles, Lily could hear the affliction and the sorrow, thick and overwhelming.

She sighed, hugging him.

“If only we could communicate somehow,” she repeated her husband’s words.

There was another curious thing about magic: it had the uncanny knack to listen to one’s feelings, and sometimes, it was lenient and amalgamated. That is how Lily and James found themselves right next to Remus, still invisible, still unperceived, but there nonetheless, with him, instead of above him. They were both too troubled to think about the trick behind it, and for a fleeting moment, it felt as if they were real again. If Lily hadn’t known any better, she would have sworn she felt the chilly autumn wind whisper through her formerly auburn hair, she would have sworn she felt the gravel crunch and roll under her feet, she would have sworn she felt her tears slide down her cheeks and freeze on her clammy skin right before they tipped past her chin, and she would have sworn she felt the texture of Remus’ wool coat under her hand as she placed it longingly on his shoulder, heat radiating from him under her palm. But she knew it was nothing more than a mere wish, sometimes she even wondered if she ever truly felt James’ touch, or if it was yet another fragment of her imagination, a shard of her shattered past. Neither of them was sure anymore, if they still resembled their former selves and had a partly physical form or if they were simple spirits, shadows of people, slivers of energy.

Lily and James stood there for long minutes beside their friend, quiet, not daring to move, just watching him, being there with him. Lily would have given anything to know what was going on in his mind, but he remained silent. Finally, as the last few pale rays of sunlight tinted the grey sky a light golden before being swallowed by the night’s shadows, a hoarse whisper escaped his lips:

“I miss you…I…I’m so alone now and I don’t know what to do.”

His head hung low, dull chestnut curls hiding his face, but Lily could tell he was crying by the slight shake of his shoulders. Her heart tightened, clenched by pain, that is if it still existed somewhere.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he continued with more vehemence. “I don’t want to live like this anymore!”

Remus had almost shouted the last few words and looked as if he were about to say something else when the sudden crack of Apparition cut him off. Albus Dumbledore appeared between the gravestones, dressed in dark blue robes, looking tired, eyes wary.

“Remus, I assumed I would find you here. I am very sorry but I must interrupt your mourning, there is an urgent matter I must discuss with you. Will you—“

“Professor,” interrupted Remus, finally looking up.

His eyes were puffy and red, and ill-defined traces of tears lined his hollow, bony cheeks. Lily couldn’t help worriedly noticing how much thinner he had gotten, bones pocking out from beneath his coat.

“Do you believe Black killed James and Lily and Peter?”

Next to her, James flinched at the question; Remus hadn’t called Sirius by his last name in years.

“I…I am afraid all the evidence point to that, nothing is indicating otherwise,” answered Dumbledore quietly but resolutely.

“NO!” Vociferated James. “SIRIUS DID NOT KILL US, PETER, THAT TREACHEROUS RAT DID! SIRIUS WOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS! HE IS MY BROTHER! HE ISN’T CAPABLE OF MURDERING ANOTHER HUMAN BEING!”

“James! James! They can’t hear you, my love, as unjust as this is there is nothing we can do!” Said Lily sadly, attempting to calm her husband down, yet her voice shook with contained fury.

Remus said nothing for a while, looking pensively into the distance, watching as the sun finally set, but something in his gaze had hardened.

“So he killed them,” he declared at last. “Black killed his best friends, those who gave him everything, and he abandoned me and betrayed me too…”

“No! Remus! Listen, it’s false! It’s not what it looks like! Dammit, Remus, listen to me!” Begged James desperately, trying to grasp his friend’s shoulders, but his hand went right through him, slicing through the air.

“He killed them,” repeated Remus bitterly. “I guess the Black in him won, after all, joined Voldemort, didn’t he?”

“I suppose so, yes,” nodded Dumbledore.

The words hit Lily like a punch in the gut as James sunk with a defeated and miserable sigh next to her.

“Old fool,” he mumbled.

#marauders fanfiction #James and lily are dead #jily #albus dumbledore #remus lupin #remus lupin fanfiction

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simmonsofshield · 4 years

Text

The Last Thing

Pairings: Y/N Stacy & Peter Parker

Summary: Peter is not dealing with his friend’s death very well. Loosely based on true and personal events.

Words: ~2900

Warnings: Mentions of death. Yelling. Blaming.

A/N: AU, Peter and Gwen are friends. Y/N is Gwen’s older sister. Gwen is an Avenger and has been in all the fights instead of Peter. This is for @jbbarnesnnoble‘s mental health awareness challenge. I chose “How do you even begin to move on?” It won’t be a quote, but it’ll be in bold. Takes place after Endgame.

Dear Peter,

I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’ve never been known to anyways. If you’re reading this, that means I’m either dead or in some sort of close-to-death coma, probably the former.

I’m writing this the day before I leave for Berlin. Sorry I didn’t tell you about it but Tony Stark came to me so I’m assuming it has to stay on the DL. Yeah, you read that right. Tony freaking Stark! He hasn’t told me much but I’m assuming some sort of drama with the Accords. Why he came to me and not you, I’m not sure. Maybe just because I go out more and there’s more youtube videos of me than you. Or maybe he didn’t want the “friendly neighborhood Spiderman.” He wanted someone tougher. Haha just kidding.

Anywho... back to the reason for this letter. I want you to take my place. Queens still needs someone to take care of it, and since I’m no longer around, it’s gotta be you. We were both in that lab and got bit by those radioactive spiders. Who thought making spiders radioactive was a good idea anyways? We went through all the weird hardships with these new powers together and managed without anyone finding out….except my sister. (and apparently Tony Stark.)

Speaking of Y/N, I’m putting her in your care. You are now responsible for her. I’m only kind of sorry. She’s the only one that knows about this letter.

Hopefully you don’t have to read this immediately following this impromptu trip to Berlin, or at all in 2016. Or, you know, ever. Hopefully I can grow old and retire SpiderGwen. Wait, those are two different things, let me rephrase that: hopefully I can stop saving the day around 25 and then retire when I’m old and wrinkly and burn this letter so you never have to even know it existed.

If you are reading this and made it this far, I want you to know that I believe in you. It is hard being a hero. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions, but you’re a smart guy. I know you will be great. Better than me, probably.

You’re the best basically-brother I could ever ask for. Spiderman is destined for great things. I know it.

Gwen

Present day, May 2023

When it first happened - when half the universe was brought back - Y/N came looking for Peter immediately. After that first weird day back to school, she found him..and that was weird too. She used to only be one year older than him and Gwen, and now she was clearly 6 years older than him. She’d asked if he’d seen her in class, and he said no. She covered her mouth and started crying right there. It confused him at the time, but in hindsight, he realized she knew at that moment that Gwen was dead. Her family got the call from Nick Fury himself that night.

Besides the big bad, Thanos he thinks, there were only two casualties. “Only” two on the heroes side, when there’s usually zero. They were Gwen and Tony Stark. So not only did Peter lose his best friend, he lost his idol as well, and even though he never got to meet him, it still hurts. A little. He died bringing back the half of humanity that was blipped, a truly heroic act, but Gwen died so that that could happen. She’s hardly ever mentioned in news reports or anything.

It’s been almost two months. TWO.

Peter read the letter again. He did almost once a day. The fold creases were already very worn and the page had been stained with tears many times over. He still just couldn’t believe she was actually gone. Being brought back after getting blipped was enough to deal with but now his closest friend was dead. What was the most frustrating was that he didn’t know how. He wasn’t allowed to. SHIELD classified it and only the immediate family could know. You hadn’t told him everything, but you did say something about her getting caught in some crossfire. That’s all you were allowed to say.

He sat in the stairwell of his and Aunt May’s Queens apartment while he waited for you to arrive. He was zoned out thinking and didn’t even hear you come up the stairs.

“Peter?” he snapped back to reality and looked at you, eyes sad, “you ready?”

He nodded and stood up, shoving his hands in his shorts pockets. He trudged down the stairs and met you at the landing, then walking side by side down the rest to ground level. Exiting the complex, you put your arm around his shoulders walking the already too familiar route. What had happened was still fresh and you two had decided to visit Gwen’s grave once a week, tell her what had been going on, if anything.

The first few times were okay, but recently, Peter hadn’t been saying anything. He just kneels in front of her grave, head down, and cries. You really felt for the kid, you did. His parents died when he was 6, his uncle Ben 3 years ago (since he was blipped), and now his best friend-basically-sister. He’s only 16 and has dealt with more death than anyone at that age should. How do you even begin to move on? The gaps are big, but that doesn’t make any of them hurt less. Especially when they’re all family.

After a few minutes of silent sobs, you place your hand on his shoulder. He stands up and steps aside, so you can have your time. You look at him and give him a soft smile of thanks. He looks at you for a millisecond before looking back at the ground, wiping away stray tears.

You approach her gravestone, putting your hand on it, brushing your fingers along it and tracing the letters of her name. You speak softly, as if just to her. “Gwenny, I need help. Your help. This has been hard on Peter. You were his best friend and now he just seems like a lost puppy without you around. I know he has Ned and MJ, but a big chunk of him is missing without you here,” you cough out a sob, “I just want the old Petey back. I don’t expect it tomorrow, or next week, or even next month, but I need it. I want some sort of normalcy back in my life,” your next sob comes out with a little bit of a laugh, “look at me, talking to a grave like I’m talking to an actual human. You’d totally give me crap for this.” you sigh, “It’s just-- being six years older than him now instead of just one makes it hard. We’re in such different places in our lives. He just finished his freshman year of high school, and I’m in college now...” you trail off, forgetting where you were going with it. Standing up, you give one last tap to the gravestone. “Bring him back. Oh-” You dig in your purse and pull out a charm bracelet. You crouch back down and lay it right next to the base where the grass is a little bit taller. You wear an identical one. “Mom and dad are doing fine..well, as well as you could expect. There are some rough nights, but we’re managing.”

Emotions were still running high at home. You’d lost your sister, and your parents, their youngest child. There was a lot of fighting and blaming, despite heroism being Gwen’s choice. She’d told you once that she’d been given the powers for a reason. If bad things happened and she did nothing, it was basically her fault. You never really agreed with the sentiment, but she insisted and went on helping out the people of Queens, eventually roping Peter into it.

A lot of the time the blame fell on you, your father wondering why you weren’t with Gwen and Peter the day they got bit. You take it, as it’s his way of mourning and relieving his anger. He’s looking for answers that he’ll never get. Your mom is mostly silent, save for the fights. You two usually end up drinking a bottle or two of wine before tottling off to bed, drowning your sorrows.

The walk back is silent, as usual. You were both mourning and it was always emotionally draining after a visit and hard to make conversation. You’re about 2/3 of the way back before you decide to try. “I, uh, noticed you had the letter in the stairwell.” You feel a shift and see as his hand goes to his pocket. “Pete, why?” You sigh, not in disappointment, mostly in exhaustion but a little bit of curiosity too.

He looks down, an exhale coming from his nose, “It’s the last thing I have of her.”

You let out a soft gasp. That hadn’t even crossed your mind, it was the last physical thing Gwen had touched and given - by way of you - to him. “Oh, Petey.” You run your fingers through his hair a few times before letting your arm rest limply over his shoulders. He pushes it off, stopping in his tracks and looks at you with an expression you don’t recognize. He mumbles something and you stop waking as well, leaning forward a little. “Peter?”

“Tony did this.”

“To-”

“Tony Stark! He’s the one who recruited her. He’s the one that put her on this path.” he paces back and forth in anger. “If it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t be a part of the Avengers and she wouldn’t be dead.”

“Peter...” you know what he’s doing. In fact, you went through and did the same thing just a couple weeks ago. “You know he’s not to blame. She’s the one who wanted to help the community, just like you,” you reasoned, “it was only a matter of time before she caught the eye of the Avengers.”

He ignored you, turning on his heels. “I need to talk to him.”

“Y-you can’t. Peter..” you stand there, stunned for a moment, “Peter.” you call out. He doesn’t respond and you quickly move from your place on the sidewalk and jog a little to try to catch up. You forgot how quickly he could walk when he was on a mission. “Peter!”

“What?!” he turns around, fire in his eyes. You actually cower a little, never hearing this tone come out of his mouth before.

“Uhm..” your voice is meek at first as you try to figure out what to say and recover from the surprise his outburst gave you, “you can’t go talk to Tony.”

“And why not?”

“He,” you swallow the lump in your throat, speaking softly not out of fear now, but to bring down the information as delicately as you could, “he died that night too. Remember?”

He blinks and there seems to be a flicker of remembrance and realization. It quickly changes back to anger and he looks you dead in the eyes, pointing. “Then it’s your fault!”

“W-what?”

“Yeah. You’re the one that let her go to Berlin. She would’ve listened to you. If you had told her no, she wouldn’t have gone. It’s your fault!” he continues pointing his finger at you, his voice rising as he talked. You hadn’t even realized you were moving until you were suddenly backed into the wall of a corner store, or maybe a restaurant, you didn’t really take the time to figure out where you were on the street.

You could feel your breath beginning to shallow the more he talked. You had no idea what was going to happen, and with him being enhanced, he was unpredictable. “Peter...” was all you could muster up, hoping just saying his name would somehow take him out of this trance he was in. It didn’t work and if you hadn’t looked down to look away from his face, you wouldn’t have noticed his other hand beginning to ball into a fist. Your eyes widened and you looked back at him, tears threatening to fall. “Peter, please.”

It didn’t phase him. “It’s your fault!” he yells and you see his fist rise and you dodge out of the way in the nick of time, now in a crouched position.

You hear his fist connect with the wall, “Fuck!” Under different circumstances, you’d be surprised and sarcastically scold him because you’ve never heard him swear, ever. At the moment though, you’re now seated against the wall, breathing hard and tears falling silently.

“Y/N?” He crouches down and puts a hand on your shoulder, which you slink away from. At this point, as if it were a movie, mother nature decided it had to rain. All you hear is the soft pattering of the rain on the sidewalk for a moment before you hear some soft whimpering. You look around, and see a few feet from you, Peter sitting and hugging his knees, head down.

You stand up, and walk over to him, not announcing your presence in any way, and sit next to him. Taking his hand in yours, you begin inspecting his knuckles. “You’re lucky you have super strength. Otherwise that wall would have done a number on your hand. More than just some scratches and it looks like probably some bruising.” The only reply you get is some breathy sobs. “Okay,” keeping his hand in yours, you stand up and urge him up too, “let’s get you home.”

He doesn’t argue and slowly begins to walk home, with your aid. Your arm is once again around his shoulders and he doesn’t push it away this time. The whole walk back is silent, as expected. The both of you now more tired than before, physically and emotionally.

When you arrive back at Peter’s apartment, you enter, May leaving it unlocked. She’s on the couch watching tv. She turns around with a smile to greet you guys, but it quickly turns to a frown when she sees the state the two of you are in. You see her mouth open about to ask a question and you shake your head. She closes it and stands, walking over to Peter’s bedroom door and opening it for the two of you. You nod a thank you and walk in.

Peter still seems to be in a daze when you sit him down at his desk. You scan his room looking for a towel, seeing clothes and books strewn about, assuming he ‘lost’ his backpack again. “Well, I see you have a project for tomorrow,” you try to joke, despite the fact that you began picking up his clothes and putting them in the hamper in his closet. You hear a soft hmm? and look over at him. He’s looking at you, eyes red but only a little puffy.

You finally find his bath towel, halfway under his bed. Picking it up, you shake it a couple times to get any dust bunnies off and walk over to him. You can feel his eyes on you as you dry the rain off his arms and legs, but you continue. You dab off his neck and rub his hair a few times, getting as much off as you can before moving to his face. He jerks away and wipes his forehead with his arm before looking at you, as if studying you. You sit back a little, unsure, wondering what he’s going to do.

He takes a deep breath like he’s trying to gather the courage to speak to you. It takes a couple more seconds before he does. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh Peter,” you coo softly, “it’s okay.”

He slaps his hand on his desk, “No it’s not!” seeing you jump, he realized what he did, “s-sorry.” he says barely above a whisper.

“It’s not,” you agree, “but you’re mourning. I’m going through the same thing at home. You know this. I can take a few angry words.”

“But I blamed you, tried to hurt you.”

You nod, “I will admit I was a little scared when you tried to hit me,” he looks down, scared to make eye contact, “but,” you use your finger to lift his chin, “I got out of the way and you didn’t. Guess I gotta thank Gwen for taking me to some of those self defense classes so I could help her train.” You say the last part with a smile.

For what you’re pretty sure is the first time that night, Peter smiles too. You use your hand and wipe away the remaining tears on his face. “There he is.”

You get up on your knees, about to stand up, when he pulls you into a hug. You let out at squeak of surprise but quickly melt into it. Then, you suddenly begin to cry.

“Y/N?” he doesn’t pull out of the hug but you can hear the concern in his voice.

You sniffle and wipe away your tears, letting out a kind of cry-laugh. “I’m just glad, that at least for tonight, you’re back to the Peter that I know. I’ve missed your smile.” You feel him hug you a little tighter.

For Avory

#JBBNNMHAMChallenge #Peter Parker x reader #(platonic yall)#peter parker & reader #gwen stacy #spiderman #spider man #spider-man #spidergwen #spider gwen #peter parker

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aphasene · 4 years

Text

The Commander's Neice A Levi x reader fanfiction.

I never understood the true meaning of safety. Even while staying in the inner walls of wall Sina. There was always danger at hand, no matter how hard my parents tried to hide it. It was always in the back of my mind like a parasite, ready to attack at any moment. Despite me never seeing a titan in my entire life, there was always a different type of danger waiting for me.

My story isn’t an overly happy one, I must warn you now. Not for me, nor the people around me. I fell in love, I made so many wonderful friends. That being said; it is a necessary one, for me and for the thousands of others whose story may not be told, I refuse to be another forgotten wilted flower, trampled by the heroes who weren’t as brave as I was.

I lived in the inner walls of wall Sina until the age of Ten, at that time I was still pretty young, not too young to be aware of the dangers that followed my family and I. we lived a rather happy life, living in one of the wealthiest places in the wall. My mother was a researcher in an underground organisation which sought the study and capture of not only titans but the politicians who kept the information to themselves. She was paid a large sum of money for the service. My father worked as a soldier for the military police, mainly as a spy from the organisation.

One day, however, everything changed. My mother was murdered and I was taken from wall Sina to the outer district; Shiganshina. But, before I left, my mother gave me a small pendant on a chain. There was a small keyhole in it, she told me to wear it around my neck and to never take it off under any circumstances.

My father and I fled to Shinganshina where he worked as a merchant, going from district and district, selling salts, furs and other endangered items. Despite him making a fair amount of money from these strange things, my father and I lived a very humble life.

All seemed alright until that fateful day…

***

The ground blurred beneath me. I continue running for what felt like longer than it should have. The steady pound of my footstep’s echoes into my ears. I feel beads of sweat roll down my forehead and splatter to my chin. The only things that could hander me from my survival were my physical limits and my doubt. I clutch the small loaf of bread in my jacket. The soles of my shoes hit the ground in stings of pain, but I wasn’t giving up. There was no way I was going back to my father empty handed.

I turn a corner sharply, only to slam straight into a wall. I had cornered myself in an alleyway. I spin around to see a group of three slightly older boys advancing slowly, trapping me in this alley.

“Get away from me!” I cry, in one last attempt to hide my fear and panic.

“Come on no, (Y/N).” The ringleader snarls. “All you need to do is give us that loaf of bread you have tucked in your pocket.”

“No!” I scream, “That bread is for my father and I.”

“Your father is a merchant. Surely you could afford so much more than that. Why not give that small loaf to someone who needs it.” He shoots me a menacing toothy grin.

“That’s not the point. Bullying someone just because you want a small loaf of bread is low!”

He growls. “I’m going to ask you one more time: hand over the bread.”

“No!” I yell.

“Fine.”

The three boys move in closer and closer, closing the gap between us. This is the end. I think to myself. I close my eyes and braced or impact.

“Hey you!”

I open my eyes at the unfamiliar voice and see a boy around my age dashing towards the boys with an unhuman speed. Beside him was a girl with jet black hair and a look of thunder and a boy with blonde hair and bright blue eyes behind them.

“What is it now-!” The boys stop in their tracks when they see the three of them. “Oh shit, it’s her!”

The boys scramble away, seemingly forgetting about my measly loaf.

“And stay away from her!” The brown-haired boy bellows. He turns to me with an apologetic look. “Sorry about those goons. Did they hurt you?”

I shake my head and take my loaf from my jacket. It was a little crushed but still good enough to eat.

“I’m Eren by the way, this is Mikasa and Armin.” He gestures to the others who smiled and waved.

“I’m (Y/N). Nice to meet you.” I say shyly. I had seen the three of them before. They caused a lot of havoc in the time I had been here, which is only a few months.

Eren offers me a welcoming hand. “You should totally come with us. Armin here, has a book he wants to show us.”

Armin nods. “It’s about the outside world.”

My eyes widen in awe. “I’d love to!”

***

The four of us sit, cooped in a corner beside the river that runs through the district, all huddled over this book that contained a future that was never meant to be.

“It says here.” Armin begins, “That there is a huge source of water called the ‘ocean’. Apparently, there’s so much salt that not even all the merchants in the world could collect it all.”

“My father’s a merchant!” I respond. “I bet that would be heaven on earth for him.”

“No way, that’s so cool!” Eren claps his hands in glee. “So, he like, goes to different places in the walls?”

“Yeah, we used to live in wall Sina, but there were issues concerning my safety so we decided to live here.” It wasn’t necessarily a lie but one wrong move could blow our cover for the both of us.

“What was Wall Sina like?” Mikasa asks, her voice soft and quiet.

“It was huge! There were huge buildings around the districts. It was a land of silver where everything sparkled.” I say as I recall the place, I once called home. “But there are evil people crawling the place.”

“The military police.” Eren snarls.

“Not really, my father used to be an MP. But you’d be surprised how secretive you’d have to be. You could never be too careful. But it was certainly cleaner.”

“Also,” Armin had only been paying half attention to my story, he had been flicking through his book. “There are huge fields of sand. I think they’re called…Deserts?”

“We have to go there!” Eren squawks, “Just you wait, when I join the survey corps, we’re going to see all those things!”

“The Survey Corps?” I shudder. “There’s no way in hell! I’m never joining those suicidal maniacs.”

“They’re not suicidal!” Eren protests.

“Well, they kind of are.” Armin shuts his book.

Mikasa remains silent, though I can see her face contort.

“They’re not! And I can prove once and for all that they’re true heroes.” He glares at us through his fringe, “Besides, I have a mission to kill every last titan in existence.”

“Good luck with that.” I say rolled my eyes fondly. “Anyway, I’m going home. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

The trio nods, smiling sweetly at me, before I stroll down the streets.

***

“Father, I’m home!” I yell, letting myself inside.

Over my shoulder, see him standing over the sink peeling a pile of potatoes that we had grown in our tiny garden. He looks over at me and beams.

“Ah, (Y/N). You’re back. Did you get the bread?”

I nod, placing the loaf in the middle of the dining table. “Uh huh. Those boys gave me a bit of trouble though.”

“What did they do this time?” Father looks at me with genuine concern.

“The same as they always do, but I made some new friends though.”

“That’s good to hear.” He ruffles my hair and places our supper on the table, two bowls of vegetable broth. “I was beginning to worry about your ability to make friends.”

“It’s not my fault that the people in Shiganshina are difficult to talk to.” I sit in my seat and feel the fragrance of the soup and the bread mixed together, my stomach growls hungrily.

“Whatever, I’m glad you’re finally hanging out with someone that isn’t me.” He chuckles taking a sip.

I look down at my pendant, a mixture of confusion mourning.

“Still thinking about Mother?” Father asks, it’s clear that I had been quiet for a little too long.

“Yeah.” I say simply. “It’s still a little difficult.”

“I know honey.” He reaches over the table to touch my shoulder. “I miss her too but I’m sure wherever she is right now, she’s so proud of you.”

“Speaking of which.” My eyes flicker to my pendant, “I’ve been having a think about this pendant…”

My father smiles. “You’re still wondering what it truly is, aren’t you?”

“Why was it even given to me?” I ask, still fiddling with it.

Father smiles knowingly at me. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

***

The next morning, I trot down the street, the sun shining brilliantly on my back. I see Eren, Mikasa and Armin sitting in a circle on a nearby pavement. Eren waves at me earning a smile from the others.

“Morning (Y/N).” Mikasa says patting a space next to her. “Eren was telling us about the scouts again.” I see a little roll of her eyes.

“Don’t say it like that!” Eren protests. “And don’t pretend that you weren’t sold on joining them too.”

“I’m not.” Mikasa huffs.

“Hey (Y/N), what’s with the necklace?” Armin asks.

“Oh this?” I look down to my necklace. “Well before my Mother died, she gave me this, she told me that it was vital that I didn’t take this off. She told me that it was important for humanity, but I never knew what.”

“So, it’s the only thing that you have to remember her?” Eren asks.

Mikasa slaps Eren’s shoulder.

“Ow! What was that for!?” He scowls.

“Don’t be so insensitive!” Mikasa scolds.

“It’s fine, really. It’s kind of nice to have something that’s been entrusted to me.”

“Don’t you think that it-.”

“Titan!”

We hear a panicked voice echo over the entire district. I jump to my feet, in an attempt to see over the shoulders of the crowd.

“What is it?” Mikasa asks.

“I don’t know.” I say hopping on the balls of my feet, “I’m going to get closer look.”

“I’m coming too.” Eren says.

“So am I.” Mikasa and Armin say in unison.

The four of us dash down the cobblestone road, pushing past the groups of people, I search the scene in front of us, then I see it.

I watch as a titan slowly appears over the wall, it was grotesque and twisted, as if the skin had melted off its face, despite it’s lack of expression, it moved with purpose, sending a jolt of dread through my entire being.

“It’s peering over the wall.” Armin cries. “It has to be around 50 metres.”

The crowd remains silent for what feels like an eternity, when suddenly I hear a mighty crash! Beside us stands another titan, it looks like it had armour from head to toe.

I stumble back, bumping into a few people, a few flashes of figures of titans run through my vision. I have to find my father!

I run, my feet slapping the land. Perhaps a little while ago I would have scoffed at the idea of running so far and fast, now I push myself forward in the search of my father. Only now, I am born to run, it’s as if my life depends on it, a few titans jump in front of me but I dodge their grasp, I cannot be killed today.

I run down our street, I see father staggering into the clearing, clutching his side. He’s alive!

“Father!” I yell, catching up to him, but as I get closer, I notice his despairing face. “Father I-!”

The second I come within reach of him, he grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me into another alley.

“Father, what’s wrong?”

We hear a thump, almost like a loud, large footstep.

“Oh my god.” I squeak.

“Listen to me (Y/N); it’s too late for me now, you have to go on without me.” He shakes me slightly.

“What do you mean? You look fine.”

“Sweetie, I can barely walk, let alone run. You need to get out of here, you are our only hope.”

“Hope?” I sob. “Hope for what?”

He rummages in the pocket in his jacket and hands me a small letter enclosed in an envelop with a wax seal with our family’s crest. “This will explain everything.”

I take the letter, gripping it as hard as I can. “Father-.” My voice wavers as tears pricks my vision. “I don’t want to do this.”

He brings me into a tight hug, I feel him shake violently, “(Y/N), I will always be proud of you, remember that.”

The footsteps get closer and he pushes me behind a few crates. I peak around theme, I see a slightly smaller titan with a sickening grin approaching my father, I want to scream and cry but against my better judgement I stay as quiet as I can. I watch as it grabs my father’s squirming body and walks away. I turn as quiet as I can and scramble to my feet.

My feet patter on the ground, I run as fast as I can, I think about my father, I thing about my friends, I think about the entire townspeople whose lives may have been taken away today. I hear a shrill scream coming from behind me. I blink back a few tears, as I power forward, I have to. For everyone who has faith in me.

I never knew what the world had in store for me, but one thing was for certain, it wasn’t this. Both my parents are dead and I never knew what plans they were scheming, maybe it was never really truly for me to know.

But now I have to fight for my survival, I don’t know that the world has in store for me but bring it on.

#attack on titan #levi angst #levi attack on titan #levi x reader #levi x oc #snk levi

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legendoftheghost · 4 years

Text

Wild Embers, Offering Clarity (Ghost of Tsushima, 2/2)

Pairing: Jin Sakai x Yuna

Tags: Emotional Outbreak, Vulnerability, Emotional Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Intoxication, Past Trauma, Post-Ghost of Tsushima, Smut, Girl on Top, Friends to Lovers, Anal Sex, Penetration, Cuddling, Intimacy. (more tags to come)

(Part 1 is here)

She isn’t entirely certain where he stops and she begins – Yuna only knows her body is alight with flame. Briefly, she feels the spell of feverish heat rise in her form and must quickly quell its heat in order to not annihilate them both into oblivion. Always at the whim of her body's emotion and desire, her wanton want is still a terrifying storm in the essence of her core that had to be kept at bay.

Hoisting herself up, Yuna seizes the back of Jin’s neck and pulles herself into his lap, burying her face in the crook of his neck and jaw. She peppers kisses and nips at his flesh, delighting herself in her strength and dominance and ability to make him tremble with her mouth and hands alone. Asserting herself, grabbing hold of him and forcefully bending him back with a grunt of effort, willing him to submit as she takes a moment to catch her breath.

The important people in Jin’s lives had left imprints; they may stay, or go in the impermanent realm of his memories, but no matter what the outcome, they will always be there in his heart. Because they all helped to form the Ghost’s heart, in their existence or lack thereof. There is no getting over that. The weight of it, the depth of it, all of it overwhelms him still, but nothing overwhelms him more than being pulled under by the sucking drag of the receding wave. And Jin mourns, as the rain pours, as his heart downpours, and becomes mesmerized by each other and the world around them. And how he moans, as the churning sensation of Yuna’s lips transport him right into the clashing and shimmering light of the early sun, stripped of sorrow as spinning daylight manifests in the dark.

They are young, still young and recovering from physical and emotional scars and gashes gained from the harsh world they live in. All the shared impressions, and the numerous ones even before their paths crossed make up the blueprint of who they are, and Jin finds himself searching, an exploratory hand trailing a crude scar on her stomach. The question lingers, but it’s for another time.

He finds the scalding feverous heat soar ablaze in the depths of his gut, something other than carnal lust, but unrestrained fury. In the shimmering pearl of his eyes, the thunder of his wanton need becomes the radiant bliss that lights up the muscle-corded nakedness of Jin Sakai’s being. He gently breathes into the crook of her neck, as they clasp and fold their bodies front to front, two bodies now beating as one as their hearts whisper, making sweet amends.

Time seems to slow for a moment; floating carefree around them like a feather in the air. Her lips are warm and plush and inviting, and Jin tips Yuna’s chin, making her look into the polished depth of his eyes. Scintillating, challenging, dancing with her own. A bit timid and a bit trembling, but still intense and tender. His kisses are all rich and golden, not because they’re perfect, but they are his. A quiet, pinning piece of his heart wants to stay in this place with her forever, and his fingers tangle into her thick, silky hair. It is an unrealistic feeling.

For his breath gets knocked out of him, again and again, as rapturous ardor of his devourment meets her gentle dominance, and Jin blushes, the saturated ruddy hue of the sunset painted over his cheeks, as their ornamented intimacy reaches its zenith, and the glazing sweetness of their sweat agleam, streaming the further connection between two troubled souls, coinciding in yet another troubling place that drowns both in. Yet, they would still manage to tint their hearts in amber and in honeyed sentiments. And he feels the throbbing hardness, all of his girth being penetrated deep into her. How the foundations of their being brought their souls together; a perfect fit of suffering and longing, hope and love. Their worlds merging together, blending the rivers of their lives into a great, immeasurable ocean.

As long as they passed breaths in susurrations, adorned with their love - him and her. Nothing else mattered, but their body and mind’s connection - barely a spiderweb thin, with all their shared thoughts, aspirations, and beliefs in their own importance. “Jin,” Yuna calls out, “What are you waiting for?” Jin looks up from his deep introspection, somewhere stuck in the unfurling smoke, a clump of cloud. Her body was the only reality. I hurt, therefore I am.

“Yeah, I am here. I was thinking…,” one day, the pain of staying was greater than the pain of leaving, and Jin had swallowed the shadows his hands have timed to the wall. Perhaps he was always destined to wear a deflated smile, but he wasn’t dreaming. Yuna had always been the sun that melted his exhaustion, melting his weakened wings, gently plucking him feather by feather, until he could no longer bear the excess weight. He will fly, but Jin thinks he may be safer on the ground, along with her anyway. “All I want is the sea salt to assault my skin, as hot heat melts my hair. You would become my oasis, Yuna.” He speaks, as insatiable sense of belonging causes him to plunge deeper into the engorged folds of her wet tunnel, and how liberating he feels, as the tight coil of her flesh constricts, squeezes around his length as Jin shudders right into her as the sensuous curve of his defined back slouches, melts into her.

How Jin burns, with all spindly flames, his bones and body starved. The light was a brewing storm in the depth of his brave eyes, and his body felt tighter, higher, his chin tilted up as his sliding manhood twitches, veins growing electric as the rolling of Yuna’s hips had him instinctively jut and rock his hips, gyrating, causing Jin to feel concurrently being afloat, as the waters of passion begins to rise, but drown into the currents of lapping streaks as it surges through his veins. Yuna continues to sink, with her head tilted back, nestled hands clawing across Jin’s well-built shoulders, leaving coral blossoming nail strokes.

Jin’s facial muscles melt in a glaze, as he overflows with a relieving sensation. How he sings, mantras of deepened, guttural groans intertwined with her quieted whines, as their synchronized rhythms rattle their universes. There’s so much Jin Sakai could feel as their bodies embody an eclipse, the light and dark coalescing together to cause a world of difference upon the humanity as to let their presences known, if they hadn’t done it already. On road to its pinnacle, he edges, both painfully and delectably, taking rushed skips before he is faced with the zenith of all.

Their bodies embody more like a kiln, slow to reach its boiling point, then the heat feels like a widening hole swallowing them whole and each minute movement of their rippling embers elevated to become a deafening roar as he locks in petrification. And a whole world of galaxy presents itself upon his half-lidded gaze, as his stillness extends; a stinging, explosive release that defies the gravity as strings of pearly white pulses and soars, and the spilling wetness of Yuna’s flesh saturates their connection furthermore as the warmth of her ichor coats Jin’s groin, becoming the glaze that would seal everything together.

How they continue to clash and shimmer in the light, even in the absence of natural light, beneath the chastened hours of an early sun, stripped of trauma and sorrow, as daylight spins with their entangled limbs and panting breaths. How they clasp their hands - Jin round her waist, Yuna’s own encompassing Jin’s neck - as hearts whisper, making sweet amends.

“I was scared that my unspoken words would swim inside my head, that I was going to drown by it,” Jin breathes, still out of breath as his chest heaves, as he drifts into the sea of nebulas that is Yuna’s sensuous curves. “My passion once had been diluted, until it became a surging, submerging sea after I met you. You have been my everything, Yuna, and you were exquisite.” How his eyes become the very stars drenched in every melodic moonlight, as the delicate, yet feral gaze of his hold her steady.

“Our hearts were much darker back then, I still remember you visibly struggling, aching, fighting on what seemed like a losing side of this war. There was no room for it,” Yuna pauses, kissing the bobbing length of Jin’s throat. “You were passion like explosive embers in the battleground, and for me, that was enough, until now.” She smiles, mirroring the curve of the crescent moon, smiling down at both of them.

Jin’s spine curls and ripples akin to a calm serene ocean for now in a moment of rapturous delight, as he instinctively ruts, and feels his spent member begin its pulsating retreat. The vigorous, yet slowed motion of Yuna’s hips that coil around him continue to spiral with his fluid dynamism. “I will always satiate you with eager anticipation and rapture if you talk like that.” He teases, the fullness of his lips brushing against her temple as he smirks.

#▬▬ι═══════ﺤ || the storm of clan sakai (headcanon)#▬▬ι═══════ﺤ || the legend of the ghost (iii)#▬▬ι═══════ﺤ || I wouldn't be here without you (jin x yuna)#(nsfw)#jin sakai #yuna #jin x yuna #ghost of tsushima #(I'm not as confident with this compared to the first part but now it's done)#(let me know what you think)

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chickensarentcheap · 4 years

Text

I Found (chapter 9)

Warnings: there’s filth below. Utter filth. Tyler smut. Because that’s what we deserve.

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y @alievans007 @hemmyworthy

They make love. Slow. Intense. As if their bodies and the sighs and moans of pleasure are somehow enough to convey the thoughts and the feelings that neither have the ability...or the courage...to express.

Like a long goodbye, Esme thinks, and has to screw her eyes tightly shut to rid herself of the thought and of the tears that threaten.

Afterwards she clings to him. Desperate to keep him inside of her. Her body accepting the full weight of his; fingertips and palms gliding over his arms, across his shoulders and down his back. Tracing every line of the Nordic tattoo. Finding his scars. As if committing every inch of him to memory.

There's so much she wants to say, but simply can't find the courage to. Getting the words out in the open means you can never take them back. They're out there. In the universe. Lingering like a foul stench or a bad omen. She's weak. Emotionally and mentally spent. So she hopes the soft caresses and the languid exploration does all the talking for her.

She despises the sense of doom that comes with that last kiss her gives her before pulling away. His eyes locked on hers, a sad smile playing on his lips as she cradles his face in her hands. Brushing her knuckles along his beard, using a fingertip to trace the scar that spreads over the bridge of his nose, then the one that takes up residence on the left side of his forehead. Her eyes find the one on his neck. The one that was a lasting remembrance of the day she nearly lost him. She looks away; eyes finding his face once again. And she pushes a hand through his hair. Tugging at the longer strands at the top and pulling his head back.

“I know,” he says. Voice low. Rumbling deep within his chest. “I know.”

*****

Later he lies on his back, a forearm across his forehead as he stares up at the ceiling. Listening to her soft breathing and the sounds of the apartment in the middle of the night; the settling of pipes, the distant drip of the kitchen tap, the neighbours shuffling around overhead.

He can't sleep. His body in agony. His mind on edge.

“Tyler?” her voice, soft and tiny, snaps his eyes open. She lies on her side, back towards him. Long dark hair fanned out along the crisp white pillow case.

He stretches out an arm, reaching for her. Palm coming to rest on her back. There's an overwhelming need to touch her. To stay touching her. It's desperate. All consuming. The irrational fear of if he stops touching her, she'll slip away. If he can feel her skin, feel the way her body rises and falls with each breath she takes, then she's still there. Right there in front of him.

“Yeah?” he responds.

“What are you thinking about?”

She knows him so well. Better than he knows himself sometimes. She senses when he is struggling. Whether it be physically or mentally. And he's thankful for that. It makes the burdens he carries a little easier to bear.

“Christmas,” he says, and she casts a glance over her shoulder.

“What?”

“Christmas. I was thinking about Christmas. It will be the baby's first. I was thinking about how it would be nice if we went and visited your family. I want to meet them. And your mom deserves to meet her grand daughter.”

He's had a handful of conversations with his mother in law. She doesn't like him. He's the one that had taken her baby girl away. He was responsible for breaking up the family unit. It didn't matter that he'd also played a part in giving her a grand kid. Right now her need to hate him overpowered anything else. The old man was a different story. He seemed to get it. He seemed have a better grasp on what had happened. On why Esme had made the decisions she did.

“Sometimes we do crazy shit because we're in in love,” he'd reasoned once. “And trust me, son, this isn't the craziest shit I've heard about.”

Tyler knew his tune would change when...if...the full truth ever came out.

She moves beside him, rolling over onto her back. “Are you being serious right now?”

He nods, and once more reaches for her. There it is again. The agonizing need to keep a hold on her. As if something...or someone...was waiting in the shadows to snatch her away from him. His hand finds hers; entwining their fingers together, squeezing harder than he needs to.

“You gave up everything...everyone...to stay here with me. It's only right that I meet them. By then we'll both be out of the game. We'll have a normal life. We'll be doing normal things.”

“Whatever normal is,” she muses.

“I'll have to get a job.”

“Doing what?”

“I have no clue,” he admits.

Truth be told, he'd never thought he'd live long enough where venturing down another career path seemed a necessity.

“Private security, maybe. Or construction.”

“I can see that already,” she says. “With your hard hat and your steel toed boots and those jeans I love the most on you. You know, the ones that are baggy and hang off your waist. I can see you all shirtless and sweaty.”

He grins. “Is that some kind of fantasy of yours?”

“Baby, you ARE my fantasy.”

He smiles and brings their joined hands to his lips; pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist.

“What do we tell them?” she inquires. “About what we've been up to? They're going to want to know. I can't keep dodging the questions. It's getting harder and harder to lie. To remember what I've already told them.”

“You tell them that you met me when you were here on a business trip. That you seduced me.”

A derisive snort. “Give me a break. You seduced me. With your stupid handsome face and your stupid beautiful eyes and your stupid sexy voice.”

“I thought it was the muscles.”

She heaves a long, content sigh. “Those too. Definitely those too.”

“Just tell them that I got you drunk and took advantage of you.”

“Oh yeah, right...” she laughs. “...that would go over well.”

“I don't know. Tell them that we met and you didn't know how to say no. That you fell into my bed and never left.”

“As much as that last part is true, that is not something I can tell my mother.”

“So we stick to the story they already know. You met me, we fell in love, you decided to stick around. There's no need for much detail. Just that you stayed and I got into an accident and you nursed me back to health. That's it. Then we got married. Had a baby.”

“My mom is still bent out of shape that we never told her we were getting married in the first place. I guess she feels robbed. She didn't get to do the whole mother of the bride thing. What does it matter? She has another daughter.”

“Well, you were the first girl,” he reasons. “And people have second weddings all the time,” he reasons. “Tell her that. That that's something we could do. It's not the same but it might make her hate me less.”

“She doesn't hate you, Tyler. She just doesn't know you.”

“Do you really want her to?”

“Why wouldn't I? You're a great husband. You're an even better father. You're my best friend. My lover. My confidant. Why wouldn't I want her to know you?”

“I don't mean that Tyler. I mean the other Tyler. Like you said, I can't pretend he doesn't exist. That he still isn't part of me. Do you really want her knowing that part? Do you really want her knowing what I do? What I'm capable of?”

“It's a messy thing to get into. But you shouldn't be ashamed of it.”

“You know the things I've done. You've seen the things I can do. That's the stuff nightmares are made of.”

“But you've also done a lot of good things. You've helped a lot of people. You've saved them. You nearly killed yourself doing it, but you still did it. You have a big heart, Tyler. You hide it from everyone else, but I know it's in there. I know what you're capable of. Good and bad. You have a lot of love inside of you for someone who has done the things you've done. Look at the way you love me. Look at the way you love our daughter. Look at the way you love Ovi. You're not a bad person, Tyler. You're a good person who has done bad things. To bad people who deserve bad things happening to them. I mean, you even mourned for Gaspar even though he betrayed you and turned out to be a complete fucking tool.”

His thumb brushes over hers, then along the base of her fingers. Her hands are soft. Tiny. Especially compared to his.”What about Austin?” he asks, and he feels her hand tighten around his. “He was a good person. He was pure and innocent and good and I did a horrible thing to him.”

“You can't hate yourself forever. You just can't.”

“I know...” he sniffles noisily, fighting to keep back the emotions. “...but I can't forget.”

“No one expects you to. It was a difficult decision to be in. You did what you thought was the best thing to do at the time. You were scared. You didn't want to see him suffer. And I don't blame you for that.”

“I left him,” he laments. “I left him when he needed me the most.”

“Tyler...” she pushes herself into a kneel, and he spreads his leg apart as she comes to rest on her knees between his thighs.

He likes the way her hands feel against his face. That smooth, gentle touch through his beard, the way her fingertips rub against his ears and her thumbs glide across his chin. And he manages a small smile when one of her hand tunnels in hair and her fist gently grabs hold of it, yanking his face up towards her.

“You did what you thought was the best thing to do,” she reasons. “You made a tough decision. And yes, maybe it was the wrong decision. Maybe you should have toughed it out and hung in there and stayed by his side until the end. But we don't all handle things the same way. You did what you did, Tyler. And now you have to come to terms with that. You need to move on.”

“You were there. For your dad. You were there and you were just a kid.”

“And look how much it fucked me up. Look how messed up I am. It screwed me up, Tyler. I was seventeen. And teenage years are hard enough at the best of times. Never mind something like that. And yeah, I'm grateful for the time we did get together. For the conversations we had. But it took something like that for those to even happen. That's my cross to bear. I took it for granted that he would always be around. I was an asshole teenager. I rebelled. I broke his heart. I pissed him off. And it took until he was dying to make amends for all the shitty things I'd said and did. I hate myself for that.”

“You shouldn't. You were a kid. Kids rebel. Kids do stupid shit.”

“I waited until it was too late to make a real difference. I thought I had so much more time and I didn't. So we both have our crosses to bear. We both hate ourselves for one thing or another. But goddammit, Tyler Rake. You enormous, insufferable pain in my ass. I love you. I love you so much it hurts. So much I can barely breathe sometimes. And you make all that hate and all that guilt I have so much easier to bear. So you do save people. In more ways than you could ever imagine. You don't realize it, but you...saved...me...”

She's still cradling his face when she leans down to kiss him. His lips are soft and warm and she can taste the salt of his tears.

****

His hands rest on her hips; kneading the soft, supple flesh. And when he feels the press of her tongue against his lips, they begin their descent upwards. Sliding underneath the back of the flimsy tank top that she wears, feeling that shiver that passes through her as his calloused palms glide over her rib case, slowly moving upwards towards her breasts but then retreating, coming around to her back once more. He pulls out of the kiss in order to watch her face; the flush in her cheeks, her widened pupils, the way she tucks the bottom lip between her teeth.

And he continues to watch her as he runs his fingers along her back, slowly and deliberately tracing each and every indent and bump of her spine. Taken back to a year ago in Dhaka, in that squalid, dingy hotel room, where he'd finally let down the walls he'd built up and he allowed someone in. When he finally felt something other than grief and loneliness and an overwhelming urge to put a bullet in his own brain. Two people struggling with extremely different yet eerily similar demons. Discovering among those four dirty walls and under that water stained ceiling, that they could help one another. That maybe they could each fill the holes in one another that had long ago been abandoned.

Everything had been screaming at him to stop. That demon on his shoulder telling him that there was no way this could end well. That he couldn't possibly ever be the man that she needed. Wanted. Deserved. That he didn't deserve happiness. He didn't deserve love. That he was a horrible person who'd done horrible things and nothing good ever happened to someone like that. It wasn't the right time. Or the right place. And he'd known that. But he'd been powerless to stop it. He hadn't wanted to stop it. So he'd given in. To lust. To the power it gave him knowing that someone wanted him as badly as she did. To that little voice that told him that maybe..just maybe....this could work. That he could fall in love her. And she with him. That they could actually have a future.

He feels as if he's there. Back in that room. In the swelter of the Bangladesh heat. He can hear the hustle and bustle outside of the room; blaring car horns and the shouts and chatters of people on the street. He can once again feel the sweat on his skin; beading across his forehead, dripping from his temples, gathering at the nape of his neck. He can smell her; not as she is now, but the smell of her then. Of cheap shampoo and body wash mixed with her own perspiration. How he'd thought...at the time... that is was the most beautiful thing he'd ever smelt in his entire life. His once emotional dead and weary body had come alive as his hands explored her ready and willing form; kisses blazing trails over each inch of her, tasting her on his lips and his tongue, driven by an overwhelming sense of urgency and need. He even recalls how her own hands had felt; how her voice had sounded as she whispered his name. With a tortured, begging quality that he'd never heard from a woman before. And the knowledge that she was there..wanting him as badly as he wanted her...had been too much to take.

*****

Tyler feels that now. Those same sensations that the old Tyler had felt nearly a year ago. Every nerve ending on fire; blazing hot and growing deep in his stomach. Shuddering as she moves against him; her legs now straddling his lap and her breasts pressed flush against his chest. His hands move up her back; lightly and kneading her shoulders before his palms slide down that silky smooth. Their eyes never leaving one another as her grip tightens on his hair and she aggressively yanks his head backwards. Hissing sharply as her teeth nip a path that covers the width of his collarbone, wanders over his throat and the underside of his chin. Biting down on his bottom lip and his fingers digging into her hips her uses the tip of her tongue to trace the small red marks that her teeth that had left behind. This isn't a role she commonly plays. Domineering as opposed to being utterly submissive. She prefers the latter, and he enjoys the dom role, struggling to give up control even in their sex life.

He temporarily hands over that power; his hands moving to her ass and squeezing and kneading the soft flesh while her grip tightens in his hair and he allows her to manipulate his head just where she wants it. The other reaches between them, and he lets out a long, low 'fuck' when her nails scrape down his chest just as the tip of her tongue traces the outer edge of his ear. His cock already rock hard against her when he feels gentle lips against that scar on the side of the throat. That one that serves an everlasting reminder. Like a souvenir from the gift shop in hell. And his eyes close and his head struggles to fall forward against the grip she has on his hair as her mouth furthers down onto his traps.

“Fuck sakes,” he growls, a mixture of surprise and slight pain when her teeth bite down on that spot she always seems to find. That one that always serves as her victim. “That's going to leave a mark.”

“Good,” she says, as her tongue travels over the tender spot. “Then everyone will know that you're mine.”

He briefly wonders if by everyone she exactly means Nik. Just what was the issue there? What the hell had ever happened between them? He imagined if had everything do with him. His past with one and his present and future with the other. It was the elephant in the room; one made even bigger by Nik's appearance. But then all thought of his ex conquests totally flies out the window as his wife grinds her lower body against his, feeling the telltale sign of her arousal; slick juices now marking his skin.

“Tyler...” she whispers, that same whisper she'd used so many months ago. When her hands had been desperately clutching at his hair and his shoulders, his head buried between her legs as he used his mouth and fingers to drive her wild. And he remembers how her tone and the volume of her voice had rapidly changed. From that soft hush tone to something more needy and desperate. Escalating to a full out scream; her heels digging into the mattress and her entire body arching off the bed.

She pulls back to look at him. Those dark eyes full of longing and desire. Her chest heaving, hair hanging loose over her shoulder and down her back. But there's something else in the way she regards him. As if her eyes are searching his for some kind of reassurance. A promise that everything is going to be okay. At this time next year, they will be here in this very bed. No repeat of what had happened a year ago. Just two people going on with their lives with no fear of the future. She's scared. It's right there just under the surface. Mixing in with her want and need of him.

He never looks away from her as he runs his hands over her hair, along her shoulders and down onto her arms. And he entwines his fingers with hers and smiles. It's shaky; giving away his own fears and his own worries. But he hopes it is enough. Prays that it's enough.

“It's going to be okay,” he vows. “I'm going to be okay. We're going to be fine.”

“Promise me you'll keep us safe. Promise me. Promise me you'll be okay.”

He knows he shouldn't. The last time he promised her that, he'd nearly died right in front of her very eyes. But she needs to hear it. She needs to feel safe and protected and he's the only one that can give her that.

It's a blessing and a curse.

“I'll be okay,” he manages another feeble smile. “I won't let anything to happen to you. To our daughter. And I'll be okay.”

“Because we kind of like having you around. I've sort of gotten used to waking up beside you every day and that sleepy smile you always give me. And I'd really miss that. I'd really miss that smile. I'd really miss so many things.”

He cradles her face in his hands, a thumb trailing over her lips. “I'm going to be okay,” he insists, and then he kisses her, lips moving achingly slow against hers, hands moving from her face and sliding over her shoulders and down her arms, then reaching between them to find the hem of her tank top. Fingertips brushing against her skin as he peels it off of her body, tossing it onto the bed before he leans into her; his lips never leaving hers as he uses the full weight of his body to push her down onto the mattress. He needs to feel her against him; skin to skin. He needs to be able to feel her heart beating against him. Afraid that if he doesn't play his cards right, he may never get this chance again.

Her fingernails scrape down his back; deep enough to break the surface and leave noticeable trails across his skin. Placing one hand on the mattress, he supports his weight with one arms as the other hand roams her body, mouth following in their wake. Soft, feathery kisses over her throat and across her collarbone, his hair tumbling into his eyes and grazing against her.

“Tyler...”

Fuck he loves the way it sounds coming out of her mouth. A soft, desperate plea as her body shifts beneath him; legs opening as his hand wanders over her thigh and then in between. Stroking the soft, supple flesh as he drops his head in order to take one of her nipples into his mouth. Rolling it around on his tongue, drawing it between his teeth, suckling gently. And then he pulls back, blowing a steady stream of air on the moisten flesh just as he slips a finger inside of her.

She cries out, a mixture of his name and profanities, her entire body arching off the mattress.

“Shhhh...” he whispers, as his mouth and the tip of his nose travel through the valley between her breasts, the downward journey agonizingly slow. For both of them. His body sliding against the sheets as he moves down the bed, a hand moving slowly along her thigh and around to the back of her knee. “...you have to be quiet. You'll wake the baby. And we have house guests.”

Nik and the new kid had insisted on staying the night. A hotel too far away if they got themselves into a spot of trouble. One bedding down in the nursery on a fold out cot, the other on the couch.

“You make it a little hard to keep quiet,” she argues in a harsh whisper, and then has to clamp a hand over her mouth when his tongue delves into her navel and repeats the same action he had with her breast; thoroughly moistening the area before blowing on.

“Always so good for me,” he praises, as he presses a series of kisses from the back of her knee, all the way down to her ankle. Fingertips gliding against the bottom of her foot before his mouth moves upwards. Nibbling at her skin every so often, feeling the her goosebumps against his lips and his tongue. “Right from the beginning,” he says, as his fingertips drift over that extra sensitive spot at the back of her knee. “Right from the beginning you gave me what I wanted.”

She opens her mouth to reply, all words lost when his mouth reaches her inner thighs; a strong hand pushing them open, his eyes on hers as he settles himself between her legs. The things that man can do with his mouth. And his hands. Joining together to create a very potent combination.

“You are so beautiful,” he praises, as his presses a kiss to her mound. “You're so beautiful and I love you. So much.”

She tries to respond with the same but he is eager to get to work; all thoughts and all words disappearing from consciousness as his tongue trails over her clit. The pace is slow. Torturous. Even to him. His cock aching, desperate to be inside of her again. And her limbs tense and her feet dig into the mattress and her hands fists the sheets.

“Tyler...” it's needy now. She's pleading. And he's relieved. Because even he has had enough of taking it slow.

Slipping two fingers inside of her, he immediately zeros in on that magical spot inside of her. One no ever man had been able to find. In fact, she had confessed back in Dhaka that he was the first guy that had ever made her cum. That she'd never actually enjoyed sex enough to completely and totally relax enough to allow herself to enjoy it. And previous partners had never taken the time to make it a good experience.

They hadn't worshipped her like he had. Even that first night together.

The orgasm is fast and quick. Brought on by his fingers and the incessant pressure of his tongue, and when the first hint of noise starts tumbling from her mouth, he reaches up and clamps a hand against her lips. Continuing to lick and suck until she's begging him to stop because it's all just too much. Too sensitive. Too soon. Her hands in his hair once again, attempting to pull him up.

Her eyes are closed when he surfaces, a satisfied, proud grin plastered across his face. Her juices coat his mouth and his beard, and he likes it off of his lips, enjoying the taste.

“You okay?” he asks, as he removes his hand from her mouth.

“Fuck you, Tyler Rake. Fuck you for being so good at that. For being so good at some many things.”

“Especially the naughty things, yeah?”

“Especially those.”

He sits back on his heels, a hand resting on her fluttering stomach, waiting for her to come down from her high. And when she does, she pounces on him, catching him off guard and sending him toppling onto his back.

“Not every day you managed to get one over on me, love,” he says, smirking as those greedy hands immediately go for his boxer briefs. Normally he wore nothing; enjoying bare skin against the cool sheets and the way his naked body felt against hers. But with company in the house, a little modesty was a must.

He enjoys this side of her; aggressive, not afraid to take what she wants. She'd always been a selfless lover; willing to reciprocate. Never having to be asked. Taking it upon herself to make sure he was satisfied. Even on the first night together, when he'd been surprised that she'd been so keen on returning the favour. And she was good. So fucking good. And he remembers how he'd lay there afterwards, trying to catch his breath, trying to orientate himself with his surrounding, to realize what had just happened. She had just watched him. A smirk on her face and a devilish glitter in her eyes as she swallowed every last drop.

“Fuck...” he groans when she takes him into her mouth; a hand curling around the shaft.

His eyes close and his hands burrow themselves in her hair. That soft mouth and slick tongue working together to drive him insane. Her hand pumping and stroking. She was incredible; the enthusiasm with which she tended to him, the skill in which she possessed, the way she needed nothing more than subtle guidance from those hands in her hair.

“Jesus Christ...” he breathes, when she proceeds to deep throat him. He is long and thick. Much bigger than any other man she had ever been with. He had sensed as much when she had penetrated her for the first time that night back in Dhaka and she'd winced. He'd been worried about that; he didn't want to cause her any pain. Hurting her was the last thing that he ever wanted to do.

She removes his cock from her mouth; tongue concentrating on the head as her hand continues to jerk him off. Pleased with the reaction she is getting from him; the heavy breathing, the hands gripping her hair, the movements of his hips. And his groan is much louder when she takes him fully into her mouth again. His hand painfully tight in her hair.

“I don't want to come like this,” he pants “I don't want to come in your mouth.”

“It's okay,” she assures him.

“No. No it's not,” he insists, and wrapping an arm around her waist, effortlessly picking her up and dumping her onto her back. “I'll pull out,” he says, as her legs open and he settles himself between them.”

“You don't have to,” she says. “It's okay.”

“You're sure? Because we haven't been using anything and you said you weren't ready for another baby so...”

“It's okay,” she repeats, and wrapping her legs around his waist, presses her heels into the small of his back. She curls a finger around the chain he wears around his neck, pulling him down into a kiss that muffles the cry that escapes her when he presses into her. Burying himself to the hilt; a low, feral moan escaping his lips at the sensation of being so deep.

He moves above her; forearms on the mattress supporting his weight. His eyes on her face the entire time. Their lips brushing against each other, his hair over his eyes and brushing against her forehead. Long, deep strokes that has her arching her back with each one, her heels pressing into him.

“Look at me...” he gently orders, and those dark eyes flicker open. “...you're mine,” he growls. “Mine. You always will be. Tell me. I want to hear it.”

“I'm yours, Tyler. I'll always be yours.”

He smirks in approval, then covers her mouth with his own. His tongue immediately searching for hers; kissing her hard and long and deep as he continues to move inside of her. Until her own hips are arching off the bed and meeting him thrust for thrust. And she once again yanks his head up by the hair, and he shivers as she licks a path from his Adam's apple all the way to the underside of his skin.

She licks her lips. Enjoying the taste of his cock that still lingers. And the hint of sweat.

He removes one hand from the mattress and reaches back for her leg; fingers digging into the flesh as he pulls it up onto his help. Allowing him to get even deeper. His eyes closing, head falling forward at the sheer pleasure of it.

Her hands roam his shoulders and his back; exploring every inch of those muscles. Loving the way they feel under her touch; the way they bulge and twist and turn. He's a thing of beauty. All man; musky smell, wiry body hair, sheer power and force. A specimen unlike any other she's ever been with. And she bites back a cry as he unleashes a harder thrust; harder than any of the others, one that pushes her up the bed. His stamina is the thing legends are made, but she can tell he's close. The way his eyes darken and his brow furrows, how he exhales deeply and lets it go in a long, ragged breath.

She lifts her head to kiss him. Capturing his bottom lip between her teeth. Unspoken permission to let go. And he takes it, still holding himself up on his forearm, his free hand fisting her hair, yanking and twisting it.

He angles his hip just right; so that every thrust creates contact on her clit. Removing his hand from her hair and covering her mouth when she comes; the scream muffled against his palm. An orgasm so powerful that her toes curl and her entire body stiffens and tears spill down her cheeks. And as she continues to convulse around him, he slips an arm under her and then sits back on his heels; the pressure of his fingers bruising soft skin as he yanks her towards him by the hips. The thrusts sloppy and fast, until he's coming as well. Biting back her name as it threatens to erupt from her lips. Coming deep inside of her, hot and thick bathing her womb, holding her tight against him until her clenching inner muscles drain him dry.

“Fuck...me...” he groans, and flops over onto his back. Chest heaving. A thin sheen of sweat covering his entire body. His eyes closed, arms limp at his sides.

The mattress moves underneath him, and when he opens his eyes she's beside him on her stomach, face turned towards him, smiling . That sleepy little Cheshire cat grin she always gets after sex.

“You good?” he asks.

“Well I can’t see properly and I can't feel my legs right now. But I think I'll be okay. You?”

“I think I might need to hit the gym harder. I'm losing my touch.”

“As if,” she grins, and then lets out a long, loud yawn. It was one of two things for her after sex; sleep or food. Tonight it was going to be sleep.

Raking a hand through his hair, he sits up and gathers up the top blanket, draping it around his shoulders before lying down beside her and pulling her tight against him.

“I love you,” she whispers, as one of his large palms strokes her hair. “Please don't ever doubt that.”

“I won't,” he promises. “And I love you too. More than I ever thought I could love someone. More than I ever thought possible.”

She presses a kiss to that scar on the side of his throat, then nestles her face in that spot between his neck and his shoulder.

He closes his eyes, attempting to find sleep.

But that sense of doom returns.

The sense that they are living in the calm before the storm.

#tyler rake #tyler rake smut #tyler rake fan fic #tyler rake fan fiction #I Found #extraction

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possiblyimbiassed · 4 years

Text

What happened to Sherlock? Part VIII - The Sign of the Hetero Norm (1)

Why does Mary Morstan play such a prominent role in BBC Sherlock?

I’m surely not the only one asking myself this; while she’s barely mentioned in canon after marrying Watson, she’s all over the place from TEH and onwards in Mofftiss’ adaptation. And when I recently read this excellent fic by @discordantwords, a couple of things dawned on me, that I think have been brewing in my mind for quite some time. Which brings me to the long promised continuation of my marathon meta series about what I think we’re actually seeing in this show. Because the entire point of Mary Morstan seems to be to prevent Sherlock and John from getting together in a romantic relationship - a story of hetero norm. This eighth installment will explore the ‘case’ of little Rosie, and the role she and her mother plays in this show.

This far I’ve published an intro and seven installments, each with corresponding attempts to test my hypotheses:

Introduction - The game is on (explains the method of analysis) Part I - Blog vs TV-show Part II - Re-living memories Part III - Drugs and weirdness Part IV – Heartbreak and coma (1) Part IV – Heartbreak and coma (2) Part V – Bizarre scenarios Part VI - Live and let die (1) Part VI - Live and let die (2)

Part VII - The Importance of Being Earnest (1)

Part VII - The Importance of Being Earnest (2)

This installment will also be parted in two, and the second half can be found here (X). Many of the screen caps from BBC Sherlock in this meta are from Kissthemgoodbye.net - thanks! And thanks also to Ariane DeVere for the incredibly useful transcripts!

My next hypotheses is, in and off itself, a clear and straightforward prediction that can be explicitly verified or falsified once we finally get to S5, so it will be extra fun to see what happens with it in future:

Hypothesis #8: John is not the father of Mary’s baby

(Disclaimer: My suspicion here only concerns John’s biological offspring. It would still be possible that John, and perhaps also Sherlock, might father the child - if it exists - by adoption. It does not exclude a metaphorical reading where the baby represents, for example, Sherlock’s and John’s relationship. I also want to stress that this hypothesis is an attempt at logical reasoning based on observations in the show and in ACD canon; it’s not meant to be ‘gossipy’ and has nothing to do with whether I would actually like to see this happen or not - that’s a whole other story. ;) )

This hypothesis has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now, but I don’t think it’s just a hunch; there are actually a series of reasons that have made me come to this conclusion.

(Continued under the cut)

But first of all: can we debunk my hypothesis at this stage in the story, by testing it ‘scientifically’? Well, not really, since the show doesn’t provide any reliable evidence that confirms John as Rosie’s biological father. Not even IRL would this have been possible without a DNA-test (or without physical circumstances that would have made any other option impossible). And the only thing that the show tells us about human DNA-tests is that not even this procedure is 100% reliable, as shown in ASIB:

JOHN: You were dead on a slab. It was definitely you. IRENE: DNA-tests are only as good as the records you keep. JOHN: And I bet you know the record-keeper. IRENE: I know what he likes, and I needed to disappear.

DNA is brought up in TGG (Ian Monkford’s blood) and again in TST (the identification of Charlie Wellsborough’s body), but since John’s fatherhood is never questioned in the show, little Rosie is never tested, as far as we know. The remaining evidence that speaks for John being the father is circumstantial: that John and Mary obviously must have been living together at the approximate time of conception. And that they both act as if they’re both Rosie’s parents.

So I guess that in order to get any further with this, I’ll have to start at the other end, analysing the characters and see if I can find evidence that support my hypothesis - on a textual level as well as metaphorically and on the meta level.

Mary’s function in the story

I think we can safely say that Mary is the most controversial character of BBC Sherlock. Some viewers love her, others hate her, but I can’t recall anyone claiming to feel indifferent towards her. Mofftiss have indeed managed to push forward a character who is hardly even visible in canon, once she’s married to Watson. In BBC Sherlock, however, Mary totally dominates the show from HLV and onwards. Her appearances may have been increasing in numbers and length already from her introduction in TEH. But from the point where John wakes up in HLV, there isn’t a single case where she’s not somehow involved. Up until TFP, everything is about ’Mary’. And even then, once we might have believed we’d got rid of the ghost of this hijacking protagonist, she comes back, only to once again take over the narrative with a weird and basically inexplicable voiceover. She seems like some kind of obsession; a brain ghost stuck on someone’s mind.

This is rather different from ACD canon, where Mary Morstan has extremely few lines as soon as she’s no longer a client, but Watson’s wife. Personally I find it hard to see the lovable aspect of this character in BBC Sherlock, since she constantly shifts appearance, behaviour and motivation; it’s almost impossible to pin down who she actually is. Which makes me convinced that Mary is not meant to be a real, believable character that we can relate to as such - at least not all the time. And maybe that goes for canon as well.

But what then is the purpose of her, what’s Mary’s actual function in the narrative, looking at the subtext? I think there’s basically three of them, and by no means mutually exclusive:

1. Mary is a metaphor for heteronormativity and its power over people when they internalise it

2. Mary is a façade or ‘beard’, where a straight marriage is established to cover up a story of a gay relationship

3. Mary is a mirror for Sherlock; by substituting himself with a female spouse for John, Sherlock can be with John ‘by proxy’, trying to figure out John without having to face his own real problem: reveal his emotions and risk failure.

As soon as Mary firmly puts her foot in the show, it all becomes a spectacle, a demonstration of how to keep up a straight facade at any cost. After TSoT, no-one ever assumes John and Sherlock are a romantic couple; Mary is the ultimate ’proof’ that John is indeed straight. Which is of course illogical, because why would a bi person stop being it because they married someone, no matter of which sex? Mary admits it herself by telling Sherlock that ”neither of us was the first, you know”. And Sherlock complains that John is dancing around Sholto ”like a puppet” even after the wedding ceremony. But in all the episodes after TSoT, John is happily freed from people’s assumptions regarding his sexual orientation. Gone are all the gay jokes, and John Watson is miraculously ‘cured’.

I think this is perfectly illustrated in the fic by @discordantwords that I mentioned above. The plot follows logically on TFP, as things would be if everything we’ve seen from HLV and onwards is actually meant to be ‘true’. Mary is now dead and John lives alone with little Rosie. For a case, in order to get close to the suspects, Sherlock is planning to fake his own wedding with Janine Hawkins, and John is feeling jealous and excluded – especially when he finds out that one of the murders that Sherlock is investigating had involved a wedding of a gay couple:

"Why all of this, then?" he asked. He tipped his head towards the kitchen, where Janine was fiddling with the kettle. "I could have just—wouldn't it have been easier for us to just—?"

"You're not gay," Sherlock said.

"Well," John paused. "No." He cleared his throat, looked back at the wall. "But everyone already thinks we're a couple. Wouldn't be that much of a stretch, really. For a case."

"No one has thought that for quite some time."

This fanfic rings perfectly true to me, considering S4 on the surface level; John and Sherlock appearing as a couple wouldn’t work after John’s own wedding in TSoT. Because gone is now every allusion to John being anything else than straight. Gone is also John’s admiration for Sherlock; from HLV and on, he hardly ever even speaks about Sherlock in a positive way. (Which also makes me wonder: was ‘The Fall’ also about Sherlock feeling he had fallen from John’s pedestal of admiration?). For the rest of the show, it’s only Sherlock whom we see suffering from (presumably) gay pining. It’s only in Sherlock’s Victorian imagination that Moriarty tells them to ’elope’ together, while John in TLD is shown to be exclusively fixed on his dead wife.

On the surface, Sherlock seems to support John’s relationship with Mary, while I’m sure he is actually suffering deeply. But I think, metaphorically, that Sherlock is acting like some kind of self-sacrificing Christ figure. (Don’t forget Irene’s words from ASiB: “I think you’re damaged, delusional and believe in a higher power. In your case, it’s yourself”). He bears the ‘cross’ of torture by seeing John with someone else, until he can’t stand it any more and trashes himself on drugs. This is what we see at the beginning of TEH, John holding hands with a woman in front of Sherlock’s grave:

Why can’t we see Mary’s face already here? I think it’s because this is from Sherlock’s POV; he’s either seeing or imagining them from behind. She might have a hidden face but a familiar shape because by the time Sherlock is recalling this, he already knows what Mary looks like. But at this point in time, maybe he didn’t? In any case, it must be devastating for Sherlock to see or imagine John with someone else, when he should be there to mourn him, Sherlock.

Thinking about John with Mary, Sherlock can’t even sleep. He is tortured on a cross and dies for all our ’sins’, doesn’t he? On the meta level Sherlock Holmes sacrifices his life, he extinguishes his true self, in the name of heteronormativity. So that John can have his straight marriage, even if it’s dysfunctional. But our worst ’sin’ as an audience, I believe - our ultimate mistake - is to buy into this narrative without questioning it. That’s literally letting the hetero norm rule.

King David the Adulterer

Mary’s ex-boyfriend David is introduced in TSoT, but after this episode he never shows up again. But this seems very random to me; why is David even there, and why is he depicted as some kind of rival to John? What is his narrative purpose? David is often blurred out in the scenes, but he is definitely present during the whole wedding reception, where his role is to be an usher (showing people their places/seats). David gives the impression to be single, since he attends Mary’s wedding without any partner as company.

Sherlock, who meets David alone at 221B during the wedding planning, deduces that he still seems to have an intimate relationship with Mary. Only recently I discovered this meta from 2014 called The Baby Problem by @abitnotgood, which brings up pretty much exactly the same suspicions I have had for quite some time now. The main points are the following:

Mary was dating David for 2 of the totally 5 years she had been undercover with the false name Mary.

They’re still close enough friends for David to attend the wedding, which might indicate their breakup was unwanted from one or both parts.

Mary’s reactions during the wedding reception indicates that she still cares for David.

Sherlock finds out that David has “offered to be her shoulder to cry on no less than three occasions.”

David sits at the same table as most other major characters, which indicates that he’s important.

David doesn’t look particularly happy while toasting for the bride and groom.

To these I could also add that Sherlock gets so suspicious about David that he threatens him with keeping a close eye on his whereabouts with Mary. From a story telling POV, when a character is suspected by the main character who is a genius detective, there should actually be some reason for this - shouldn’t it?

So who is David? Does he appear anywhere in canon? I actually think he does. In ACD’s short story The Crooked Man (CROO), the name David plays a symbolical role. The story is about a (supposed) murder of a middle-aged military officer, colonel James Barclay. It’s a classical Sherlock Holmes mystery with a door locked from the inside and the key missing. The death seems to originate from a domestic quarrel between the colonel and his wife. (Which is particularly interesting considering the Watsons’ ‘domestic’ in HLV).

Turns out the colonel died of fright when he saw his old rival Henry Wood, whom he had betrayed in the war and deliberately left to be captured by the enemy. Henry was repeatedly tortured and crippled and held prisoner for many years, until he could escape back to London and a coincidence brought his old love interest in his way, who was now married to the colonel. (Hmm... tortured by the enemy. Been away. Love interest married. Does this seem like anyone we know? ;) ). Henry was “the crooked man” of the story, who was bereft of his loved one because of James.

But the name David was mystically uttered by Colonel Barclay’s wife while quarreling with her husband - why? Holmes claimed it was a biblical reference to the drama of king David, Batsheba and Uriah. King David committed adultery with the beautiful Bathsheba, who was married to his soldier Uriah. Bathsheba got pregnant after sleeping with David, while Uriah was out fighting a war. David tried to cover up that fact by sending Uriah home, but Uriah refused to leave his comrades. Then David betrayed his rival Uriah the same way James betrayed Henry: by deliberately leaving him exposed to the enemy. The only difference was that Uriah died on the battlefield, while Henry was caught and crippled. Which leads us almost inevitably to Captain John Watson - he is a soldier who was crippled by the enemy too, wasn’t he? ;)

What about Rosie?

Although Mary is dominating the show from TEH and forwards, John’s and Mary’s daughter - little Rosie - is subjected to the opposite treatment; she has very little screen time, and we never learn about a single character trait of hers. In ACD canon the Watsons never had a child, as far as I know. And – even in Victorian times – I believe it would have seemed strange with the Doctor spending so much of his free time (besides work) together with Holmes, obviously neglecting his family duties. So since Mofftiss have introduced a totally new ingredient to their adaptation - a time-consuming baby - one would think this has to have a clear purpose, right? I would have expected Rosie to play a part of her own, someone the audience could relate to just like the other characters, if only still a baby.

But instead, Rosie is seen most of all as an obstacle. Mary is balancing her while discussing a case with Sherlock. Rosie is handed over to John like a sack of potatoes when the family goes on to solve a case with Sherlock; she doesn’t make a sound and we don’t even see her little face. We see John change Rosie’s diaper once (basically to show that he has a toy daisy behind his ear, which is apparently a good flirting device), and then we see Sherlock trying to babysit her at 221B, getting hit in the eye by her toy. We also hear her cry in the background once, and see Molly hold her once. And that’s about it.

When Sherlock texts them from the London Aquarium at the end of TST, Mary and John debate which of them is going to have to stay with the baby, but finally both of them show up at the Aquarium – without Rosie. And this happens not long after Mary has taken a ‘little trip’ around Eurasia ending up in Morocco and John and Sherlock going after her – little Rosie staying at home. Which means weeks without any of her parents. If S4 were real, I’d feel truly sorry for little Rosie.

In TLD, Rosie is more absent than her dead mother! While Mary haunts the episode, all we hear about the baby is John’s tremendous guilt for neglecting and abandoning her (which he manages to do completely). John does seem to have enough spare time and energy to go on another case with Sherlock, though, in the middle of his therapy session. At the end of TLD, all is supposedly fine again with Rosie (until John gets shot with a tranquiliser), but we never get to see it. But then in TFP John goes on a long journey with Sherlock to a far away island, and not a word about Rosie. She’s not even present when John receives Mary’s DVD at home. At the end she’s suddenly there again, though, without any comment.

Based on this, it doesn’t seem farfetched to ask if this little character is even supposed to be real. There’s a subtle hint in TLD which could point in this skeptic direction:

Sherlock: “And, of course, I hadn’t really anticipated that I’d hallucinated meeting his daughter.” “Still a bit troubled by the daughter. Did seem very real, and she gave me information I couldn’t have acquired elsewhere.”

John: “But she wasn’t ever here?”

An earlier quote from TGG could also question John’s fatherhood: ”Of course he’s not the boy’s father - look at the turnups on his jeans!” (Sherlock while watching telly with John in TGG, right after the fourth ‘pip’).

And - of course - if S4 is all imaginary, only happening in Sherlock’s head, Rosie would probably not even have been born yet.

There are also some more subtle hints about Rosie’s narrative function: John’s guilt about cheating on Mary in TLD is connected to the baby. John specifically mentions that he was “cheating” on Mary while she was taking care of Rosie: JOHN (to Ghost!Mary): “We texted constantly. You wanna know when? Every time you left the room, that’s when. When you were feeding our daughter; when you were stopping her from crying – that’s when.” This does make the (otherwise rather exaggerated) texting affair sound a bit more damning for John, doesn’t it? ;) If this is all taking place inside Sherlock’s head, it might rather reflect one of Sherlock’s (possibly) major excuses to himself for not confessing his true feelings to John; it might (once the baby is born) disrupt a whole family and affect an innocent little child.

John and Mary’s relationship

The other day I took to re-watch this little piece of extra material from S4: statements by Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington about John’s and Mary’s relationship (X). Every time I see this video I’m just laughing so hard. Please don’t miss how Martin is struggling to keep a straight face without smiling, after claiming “they’ve been through stuff already in S3 that would test any couple.” (Yep. Like the discovery that Mary is actually a contract killer who shot his best friend and hasn’t even revealed her real name to John). Or how Amanda avoids looking at the camera when she’s lying talking about Mary’s feelings towards John, closing her eyes and shaking her head. Great acting! :)

I mean, this cannot even be intended to fool anyone; I think this is meant to signal to the audience that the marriage we’re seeing is a dishonest, superficial construction made up of empty words. It’s very similar to the scene in HLV where Sherlock tells John about his ‘relationship’ with Janine. Platitudes like “we’re in a good place” are not only included, but also called out in the very same dialogue. John: “You got that from a book!” Sherlock: “Everyone got that from a book!”. In the video clip, overly sweet violin music is playing when Martin and Amanda talk about their characters’ supposed deep love for each other, but this is mixed up with sitcom-like scenes where this love is made very hard to believe in, like Mary about to give birth in the car and roaring to her husband to pull over, or John telling Mary that he simply intends to forget about a recent past where she very nearly murdered his best friend.

John’s marriage actually seems terrible from start; he can’t even keep himself off Sherlock’s blog comments during his own honeymoon. Which I believe is canon consistent; in ACD’s stories Mary Morstan even encourages Watson to never leave Holmes’ side. And the bad marriage is also confirmed in HLV by Wiggins’ and Sherlock’s deductions about John’s cycling to work and keeping his shirts ‘folded and ready to leave’ at any moment.

But what’s Mary’s position in this? Let’s say, as a mental experiment, that she knows from start about John’s feelings for Sherlock. Why would she want to be together with, and even go on to marry, a man who is obviously in love with someone else? Well, while I don’t buy the facade-climbing Ninja!Mary who tries to kill Sherlock in HLV, she could still be dishonest in her approach to John. She could still be on some sort of mission related to Sherlock, where her role simply is to get in between John and Sherlock, while she actually is together with someone else (and even carrying that someone’s child). Her aim could be to hurt Sherlock as much as possible, for a specific reason.

As far as I see in TEH, Mary seems suspiciously eager to befriend Sherlock. Instead of behaving like one would expect from someone in love who just got their special moment ruined by a rival; with anger or at least annoyance, and of course supporting the beloved - Mary immediately sides with Sherlock.

And she seems to side with him most of all on an intellectual level, taking part in his explanations of how he managed to fake his death.

“Oh, he would have needed a confidant...”

So - what can we deduce about Mary?

If everything we see in the show after TSoT only has happened inside Sherlock’s head (as I’ve tried to make a case for in this meta series), from this follows logically that in Sherlock’s ‘reality’, there is no Assasin!Mary, no SecretAgent!Mary, no Martyr!Mary and - of course - no Ghost!Mary. Because up until the wedding, Mary seemed to be just an ordinary woman. The character’s appearance from HLV and onwards would all be fabrications of Sherlock’s drug-influenced mind, albeit loaded with a lot of metaphorical meaning from his subconscious.

But Mary still seems to exist on some level, doesn’t she? She is referred to by John on his blog, talked about by other people on the blog (including Sherlock), and she even makes comments on it on no less than ten occasions. On the blog, John is clear about getting married to Mary. And after Sherlock’s final blog post ‘The Sign of Three’, it also gets obvious that Mary is now pregnant.

And – most importantly – if S4 is all-fake, this also means that in Sherlock’s ‘reality’, Mary’s drama-loaded death in TST never happened. Mary is still alive! So if Mary is a ‘façade’, a ‘beard’ and/or a mirror for Sherlock on a meta- and sub-textual level, who is she on the textual level? Well, I think there are some clues in the show, and also a lot of subtext material in ACD canon to draw from, which might have been developed into actual story line in the show.

And this will bring us to the second half of this meta, which you can find here (X).

Tagging some people who might be interested: @raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet @tjlcisthenewsexy @elldotsee @88thparallel @devoursjohnlock @sherlock-overflow-error @yeah-oh-shit

#who is mary?

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every-angel-is-terrifyingg-blog · 5 years

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Raphael

I won’t lie, I’ve wanted to put off this post.

There are a few things I need to get off my chest and a few elephants I need to address before I can really talk about my boy Raphael.

If you’ve ever spent five minutes in the Good Omens tag, then you’ve heard of the “Crowley is Raphael” headcanon. It’s compelling to some people because the Archangel Raphael is a healer who looks out for humanity and snakes have a traditional connection to healing. Not to mention we don’t see Raphael in the show.

When I first saw this headcanon, I thought it was an interesting “what if.” However, it’s a “what if” that presents complications. Crowley doesn’t perfectly align with Raphael’s lore, which I’ll be getting into today. It also presents a bit of a paradox. There would need to be a pretty good explanation for why we humans know about Raphael and why we consider him one of the Big Four Archangels (ie Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel) if he’s fallen.

I’m not here to try and change minds. I’m here to enthuse about angels. So, if you like the Raphael headcanon, please understand that you need to find a good solution to a few roadblocks to make it work. I also hope the information I’ll provide is helpful.

If you headcanon Crowley as a different named angel, any named angel, I’m happy to talk lore and give information. Again, not here to change minds. At the end of the day, I just want more excuses to talk about angels without people assuming I’m religious. Also, I sometimes worry that the Raphael headcanon will drown out other voices/ideas and, well, that’s just not cool. The wonderful thing about fan communities is creativity and the stifling of creative expression is always something to be mourned.

My personal take? I think Crowley was a worker bee angel who very accidentally got where he is today. I also kind of like the idea that he was one of the fallen angels who taught humanity about astronomy/astrology as mentioned in the Book of Enoch, but my preference is that Crowley was essentially a nobody. It’s more satisfying to me to think that a nobody became the serpent in Eden and what not. If you disagree, that’s fine.

Okay, I’ve delayed things long enough. Let’s focus on Raphael, Archangel MD. Who is he and what is he about?

Raphael (God has healed) is one of only three angels that are named in any canonical text, the other two being Michael and Gabriel. This alone makes him the third most important angel we have.

He is first mentioned in the Book of Tobit, a text that is outside of the Hebrew canon and Christians are split on (Catholics say canon, Protestants say not canon). In the Book of Tobit, Raphael heals Tobit’s blindness and acts as a travel companion to Tobit’s son Tobias. He disguises himself as a a human, claiming to be a relative named Azarias (Yahweh helps). After a long journey and some miracles, Raphael reveals that he is one of the seven Archangels who sit by God’s throne.

After the big reveal, Tobias and Raphael reach their destination. Tobias wants to marry a woman named Sarah, but the demon Asmodeus keeps killing her husbands before they can consummate the marriage (rude). Raphael tells Tobias to smoke the demon out by burning a fish’s liver and heart. It works and the two humans can get married.

Raphael is attributed as a doctor angel in a few other places. The Zohar states that Raphael is the one who is in charge of healing the earth and is a protector of humans. In other stories, Raphael helped Abraham heal from his circumcision, fixed Jacob’s leg after some celestial wrestling, and gave Noah a book of medicine.

In the apocryphal Book of Enoch, Raphael is further established as an angel of healing. After the fallen angels mucked things up on earth, Raphael was tasked with fixing the planet. Along with this, Enoch names him as a Watcher and a guide to Sheol, the underworld.

Being a very important angel, Raphael is referenced to a number of times in other stories.

It’s thought that Raphael’s equivalent in Islam is Israfil, the angel who will blow the trumpet to announce the Days of Resurrection. Some believe that he tutored Muhammad before Gabriel delivered the Qur’an and that he cries three times a day over the vision of Hell. What’s fascinating is how Israfil is depicted. He’s gigantic, hairy, covered in mouths and tongues, and has four wings: one to cover his body, one to shield him from God, one that stretches east, and another that stretches west.

Here’s what I’m wondering, are the mouths separate from the tongues or does he just stick all his tongues out of all his mouths?

The Midrash Konen says that Raphael was once the angel Labbiel. Before God created humans, there was huge argument in Heaven over whether or not humanity was a good idea at all. Labbiel and a number of other angels supported God’s desire to make humans. Because God is God, He got final say. The angels who disagreed with God were burned (rude) and Labbiel got a promotion and a name change.

In Jewish mysticism, Raphael along with the other Big Four (Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel) observe all the bloodshed in the world and watch over the Four Rivers of Paradise.

In the Testament of Solomon, King Solomon needed help building the Temple, so God sent Raphael. Raphael gave him a magic ring engraved with a pentagram (the Seal of Solomon). This ring had the power to control demons and so Solomon completed the temple thanks to demonic slave labor.

Some traditions place Raphael as a guardian of the Tree of Life, which grants immortality. He also oversees evening winds and is a champion of science and knowledge.

Raphael’s angelic rank is...tricky. He’s called the chief of Virtues, second sphere angels who ensure that miracles are preformed on earth (so, in Good Omens, are these the angels who told Aziraphale he was preforming too many frivolous miracles? I like to think so. Virtues do outrank Principalities after all.). However, he is also called a Seraph, a Cherub, a Power, and a Dominion.

I’m going to go with the rank my pal Johnny Milton gave him, which is Seraph. I also just really like Seraphim. They’re second to Thrones in my book.

Well, I invoked Milton, so now it’s time to talk about Paradise Lost.

First, Raphael is an important character in Paradise Lost because he is sent to go visit Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and tell them what’s what. Second, I’m pretty sure Adam has a crush on Raphael.

When Raphael is introduced, Milton spends a lot of time describing how beautiful Raphael’s six wings are and just how hot Raphael is in general. He’s so hot that his “glorious shape” is proof alone that he’s from Heaven and not Hell. Raphael tells Adam and Eve that he’s there to answer some of their questions. Eve decides to leave Adam and Raphael alone, presumably because Adam won’t stop making heart-eyes at the angel and it’s embarrassing.

Well, the narration says it is because Eve wants Adam to explain everything to her later, but I like my read better. It’s way less sexist and more fun.

So, Adam and Raphael sit and down to eat and this is A Big Deal. Scholars have argued for millennia on whether or not angels have physical bodies and if they operate like human ones. I’ll do a separate post on this another time, but this whole scene with Raphael is Milton making his stance known -- angels have bodies and they need to eat.

Milton also takes the opportunity to be much more woke than anyone expected. Adam gushes about how amazing sex is and asks Raphael if angels do it. After blushing, Raphael says yes. Angel sex is the kind of sex that has no lust. It is instead a celebration of love among pure entities. Some scholars believe that Milton wrote this to argue that sex can be enjoyed without shame and sex can be beautiful.

Adam asks Raphael several more questions about Heaven and the nature of existence, which Raphael does his best to answer. One question is about the movement of the stars and Raphael teaches him some quick astronomy.

(I’ve seen several people comment that Raphael has a connection to the cosmos and this is the only piece of evidence that I can find. Did everyone get this from Paradise Lost? I’m genuinely curious.)

Regardless, Raphael being the “sociable angel” tries his best to explain God in a way that Adam can understand. None of the other angels have tried to get on Adam’s level like this, so it makes him stand out. Most importantly, Raphael tells Adam about the war in Heaven and Lucifer’s fall.

This conversation takes place in Books V-VIII. So, this lasts a while.

When Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden, God sends an angel to tell Adam how much life is going to suck from now on. You’d expect it to be Raphael, but sadly, it’s Michael. Michael is a much more distant angel, so it really drives home that Adam and Eve no longer have that same personal relationship with the divine.

Also, they can never ask their angel friend TMI questions about Heaven sex or admire his hotness ever again. And that’s why they call it Paradise Lost.

Dumb jokes aside, Raphael has very much earned Milton’s title of “sociable angel.” As both doctor and angel, he is closely tied to human affairs and has excellent bedside manner.

Could he be Crowley? That’s ultimately up to you. This Internet Person says no, but I’m just an Internet Person.

Sources for this post can be found under the “My Resources” tab. Check out the “Who Am I” tab for more info on this blog and the author.

#good omens #crowley #headcanons #raphael #archangels #paradise lost #milton #holy shit this is a long post #every angel writes #i also talk a little bit about angel sex in this one if you are so inclined

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