#unfortunately i have family visiting and cannot draw until after dinner

[soft-spooks]

ohhhh my god i have GOT to draw smth

#just got SMACKED in the face w a visual out of nowhere #ben walking behind mickey just like. holding the back of their shirt/coat #he is like a baby elephant to me #🎮 #unfortunately i have family visiting and cannot draw until after dinner #hdhfjdbsbs

[the-kingshound]

The third Arch Deleted Scene

The snippet here is a bit rushed at the beginning and in some other parts, as I did not want to go into even more spoiler territory. If you want to send me asks about this please be sure to advertise them as spoiler at the beginning, since not everyone will want to read them.

SPOILER

TW: blood, injury, poisoning, strong language.

3rd Arch – the seventh Trial

 Your stomach was knotted by dark swirling anxiety from the moment Arthur announced the diplomatic visit. You were familiar with the House, it kept being, after all, one of the most influent beside yours before and after the Emperor’s fall. This did not mean anything, though. Your homeland was beautiful but deadly, ready to swallow anyone whole to quickly digest them.

You promised yourself you were going to be at Arthur’s side at all times, and that’s precisely what you are doing now.

 Four days in, and the only major threat has been the amount of people wanting to interact with you. For the most part, Arthur smoothly deflects them to himself, for which you are endlessly grateful. You’re not in the mood to socialize, instead you keep on high alert, especially against the House leader and formal Ambassador.

You do not think he will pull anything while you’re here, after all you grew up together and you respected each other deeply, but one cannot be too cautious when the King is concerned – as demonstrated by the multiple scars that litter your body. You would go through all of it again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping your King safe, but all you can do for now is stay by his side and keep the risks at minimum.

For this reason, when the Ambassador proposes a meal together with both yours and his knights, you are instantly weary.

“I don’t like this one bit, Arthur.”

“Me neither,” agrees Evaine, all the while lazily making their dagger spin on the table.

“I don’t deny that is not an ideal situation. On the other hand, a wrong move on their part would jeopardise their own negotiation,” counters Arthur as Morien finally snaps, blocking Evaine’s wrist with a tight grip and hissing an irritated “stop fooling around, for God’s sake!”

Evaine pouts. Yniol ignores them in favour of the matter at hand “they are certainly going to outnumber us, but if they wanted to attack us head on they would have done so before now, there were better opportunities. MC?”

You really think it through before answering “I wouldn’t put it past the Ambassador to try something, direct or more subtle, while we’re so exposed and out of our physician. Lania is not the head of his House for nothing, but aside from that he was always particularly attached to the Empire. We can’t afford to underestimate him.”

“Yes, yes” interjects Morien, having by now freed Evaine’s hand and left the table, dismissing themselves from the meeting “I’ll be prepared in any case. I swear you manage to hurt yourselves everywhere we go.”

And so dinner begins. It is a boring affair, but you won’t let yourself relax until it’s over. You sip on your wine, closely inspecting the hosts for any sudden or unusual movement. You find none, but you stiffen and your brows furrows. There’s something strange in your mouth, something strangely… bitter.

Time seems to freeze in front of your eyes. With an uncoordinated, panicked movement you jerk on the table and bat away Arthur’s cup, spilling its content on the table.

You place your hand on the table to support you as you rise, your dilatated pupils numbly fixed on the red liquid that’s quickly staining the tablecloth. It feels like an hour but actually only a second has passed before you regain your senses.

“Seize them.”

Arthur and his Knights are no longer seated by now, but the Ambassador’s men have drawn their weapons as well and pointed them to your delegacy, effectively halting their movements. You see icy red and do not spare another glance at the man now placed on your back while you snarl in the envoy direction.

Placing your fingers on the hilt of your sword, you hiss an enchantment to track the magic residue and the culprit is revealed in front of your eyes. Ignoring the taste of iron on your tongue, you spit out another enchantment and the room’s door is locked close with a lout snap. They will not get away.

Unfortunately, you lack the ability to free Arthur and the Knights, you are now surrounded and painfully outnumbered, but you know they can hold on until you have taken care of the threat at hand. You cough blood and half crash on the floor, but you ignore the alarmed voices of your Knights and crawl in the Ambassador’s direction.

How dare he. How dare.

“My, Lord…”

“Let them,” a voice says to your back “they will not go far.”

“How dare you” your breaths are ragged, your intestines raw and burning, your voice rough for the acid that invades your throat. The Ambassador’s face is a mask of contempt and stony resolution. He watches, halting his men while they try to block you, as you half-crawl to him, gripping with iron strength the wooden chairs to keep yourself upright.

“I have the upper hand, King Arthur. I’m afraid you are in no position to make such demands.”

“Release us, and call a physician for my spouse, and I will consider letting this incident go without consequences.”

Arthur’s voice is steady, calm and there is only a hint of something sharper, at least for now.

You can’t see your King, but the sound of his voice sends shivers down your spine. They tried to kill him. The House you grew up to respect is full of nothing more than vile traitors.

As your strength start to waver, you lose your balance and crush to the ground with the chair you were pushing your weight on. Still, you get up again and you and fix your gaze on the second born, now Ambassador and traitor “I’ve had enough of you.”

You take a shuddering breath, your lungs filled with blood that’s now spilling over to your lips as you speak, but the pain you feel is nothing compared to the hot, blinding rage that’s consuming your every thought. Still, your voice is, as ever, cutting cold “you invite us here, offering a pacific discussion, and all you provide are poison in our drinks and weapons against my Knights and my King’s throat. You’ve exhausted my patience, Lania.”

You see him flinch at the use of his name. You remember a time long gone when you played together as kids, swearing you would be the ones to restore the Empire uniting your two Houses. Now these are broken promises and rotten friendships.

“MC,” the Ambassador says, “it’s over, you have to understand that.”

“Oh, you just wait,” interjects Evaine, almost immediately silenced by the Ambassador’s men.

You cough and choke on blood, and you can feel the physical weight of Arthur’s and the Knights’ worried eyes on your back, but you exhale and grip tighter your sword’s hilt. A wave of raw power invades your body and you are able to focus again.

“You know what I’m capable of, what I am willing to do for my King,” your voice is almost devoid of intonation, save for unforgiving hardness. His gaze falls on your non dominant arm and then on your throat, scarred by a thin horizontal line “I will gut you and feed you to my hounds. You’ll die like the backstabbing coward you are.”

They know as well as you do that you don’t make empty promises. There is a rustle around you that culminates in a sharp sigh from the Ambassador and swords pointed at your neck.

“Must we really do this, MC? I cared for you once, but you know that I will not hesitate to strike you down if you give me reason to do so.”

You don’t draw black nor move a single muscle, your eyes find Arthur’s blue ones and you find the King is dangerously immobile, his fingers brushing against Excalibur’s hilt in what could be mistaken for a soothing caress. When he speaks, his voice bears nothing else but firm command “you will not do that.”

Lania cocks his head to the side, appearing quite unbothered “oh?”

“How is your sister, Ambassador?”

At the same time as Lania stills, you blink. A violent cough than shakes your chest, and when your senses are fully back and you can breathe again Arthur has kept going with the same calm, calculated demeanor “I want to remind you that together with the Lord the wedded she’s now head of the Merthian feud, the nearer one to the south-eastern border.”

“What does it-“

“I am the one in control of the knights tasked with their protection. As per the arrangement we signed weeks ago, the border is under Camelot’s defence. But if I die, or if my spouse dies, my knights will retire, Ambassador.”

Oh, Arthur is not King for nothing. He is striking where it hurts the most – family – without even an drop of blood shed. You don’t hide a proud, feral smile at this. Almost immediately, blood invades your throat again, you can feel its taste on your togue, but you shove the pain back where it started in your burning stomach. You shiver. You love and hate seeing your King like this.

Lania swiftly unsheathe a long, curved dagger and you are immediately ready to bolt– swords to your throat be damned, you’ve had worse – but he makes no move in Arthur’s direction for now.

“Figured you had to hit low to get a reaction.”

“Release us,” Yniol commands, standing tall near the King.

“No” spits out Lania, his composure now fully broken “you stole our independence and our pride, Pendragon, you humiliated us and stripped our Houses of the opportunity to unite again. You are every bit of your father’s blood!”

He then turns to you, his eyes frantic, his expression pained and almost feral “I thought you were on my side!”

Blood rushes to your ears, a high-pitched whistle the only thing you’re able to hear at the moment. You feel sick. Sicker than before – sicker than what you’ve felt in years. You spit blood on the floor, your answer is weak and unnaturally subdued, “it was a- a long time ago.”

“We were like siblings!”

You can’t say anything, you only choke on your words. All that you manage to do is keep yourself upright only thanks to your sword.

“They are right, you really are your King’s hound, nothing more than Camelot’s bitch,” he tries the next word in his mouth like they were both foul and inevitable “the haghàn bajek*.”

Your vision is overcome by whit spots, your skin hot and freezing cold.

“Kill them all.”

You force yourself to focus. Protect your Knights. Protect your King.

After that it is pure, unbidden chaos. You tighten your grip on your sword, assessing where you’re needed the most. With the corner of your eye you spot Arthur, he’s a beautiful fighter, he is no match for – Lania.

Your magic flares alongside most of your nerve endings as you sprint in his direction, interjecting his blow with your own weapon. Unfortunately, the Ambassador is a skilled opponent and you’re already considerably weakened, all you can do is channel in your arms the strength of your steel determination to not let him reach your King.

“Stop trying to defend an enemy, MC!”

“Stop trying… to kill him.”

You are barely managing to defend yourself when Lania strikes back. You catch the dagger with your arm, it pierces through your skin just over your elbow but it won’t reach its intended target. No one will hurt your King while you’re still breathing. No one.

Pain paralyzes your arm, your breath is stuck in your throat together with a blood clot that feels intrusive and that fills you with panic. The finishing blow never comes, though. As you inhale again, you refocus on the room’s occupants and notice how Arthur’s Knights have the clear upper hand.

“Ah, and you thought you could beat the Round Table so easily,” Evaine all but purrs in a knight’s ear “that’s precious.”

“Stand down” Gawaine commands “you’re surrounded.”

You can hardly distinguish the shapes of your own knights, you’re nauseous, your stomach and throat are on fire. You fall down on your knees, exhausted and hurt. You feel like you’re going to throw up–

“MC’”

Where is Lania, where is –  

“Wh-where…?”

“Kai, get Morien here, please.”

Arthur’s voice is soothing, as ever, but tainted with worry. You can’t make his face out. There are arms supporting your weight, not his but equally familiar – Yniol?

“It’s going to be alright, dear.”

It’s the last thing you hear before the world goes black.

  *haghàn bajek = [REDACTED] traitor

#deleted scene #SPOILER #tw:blood #tw:injury #tw:poisoning #tw: strong language #I was quite happy with it as I wrote it #but now not so much I'm having second thoughts #if it's deleted by tomorrow you know why

[dilucslittleangel]

𝐀 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐈𝐥 𝐃𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞

Hello!! Usually I wanted to write this same thing with Scaramouche until unfortunately his canon past came out and I had to delete the whole thing- so now, while Dottore will sure take some time to appear in the game, I'm taking my chance to write how I think his past maybe looked like.

Some sentences towards the end have been taken off his artifact!

Word count: 1584

I'd like to say this may or may not fit into canon!! (however I wouldn't mind if this became canon)

So. Where to we begin?

I like to think Dottore had a golden child syndrome from a young age.

Most parents want to see their children thrive and flourish. In fact, the desire to see your child succeed is a normal desire of parenting. Moreover, even good parents sometimes have unrealistic expectations for their children.

But good child syndrome can happen when a child consistently reinforces their parent’s desires for them. These children don’t just want to satisfy their parents- they feel obligated and responsible for doing so. It becomes a significant part of their identity, meaning it affects their overall development. Either one or two of the parent role, are naracisstic.

A healthy child usually wants to succeed and make their parents proud. Golden children take it up a few notches. They may present as anxious children early in life. Similarly, they experience immense anxiety and guilt when they fail to meet certain expectations.

Despite how a golden child syndrome usually develops in a child, it was a little different in this case.

Dottore's father did not give him lots of attention at all. Just like the insane, crazy doctor / scientist he is himself now, so was his father. His father was a mad man, a man who's experiments are more important to him than his own family.

The young boy often watched his father, watching experiments a young boy like him should not see. All his father's attention went to the experiments, did he have to do the same?

The young lad did various of things, but they all were helpless. Nothing made his father even look at him, heck not even at the dinner table they talked. However he didn't want to stop trying. He had to keep on going, so he thought.

His mother? Dottore was just 7 years old when his mother started to feel worse and worse everyday. So worse even she had no other choice but to rest in bed, having a doctor visit every week as her husband was no doctor, just a scientist who couldn't care less. Why did they even marry?

Dottore brought his mother meals every day - at least whenever a helpful aunt came over. Dottore pretty much looked up to the doctor that came over every week. Did he also become so clever and brilliant to maybe help his mother? He sure thought so.

Day and night the young boy spend hours of looking into medical books, learning anything he possibly could. Often would he fall asleep on the ground, all exhausted from studying. He wanted to help his mother.

Besides studying medical stuff and trying to do anything that would make his father give any attention, he'd also spend other day and nights to get the best of grades, always did he bring good ones home. Never would you see anything below 95 points. Dottore didn't even think about having friends, they only were in his way and annoying. He had no time for friends, he only had himself.

Everytime he brought good grades home, he would bring the paper to his mother. She was more than proud of him. „One day you'll be such a handsome man, helping out so many people.. You make your mother really proud..”the sweet voice spoke. He couldn't let his mothers expactions down now could he?

More and more years have passed. Years of studying, years of writing good grades, years of wanting his father to also be proud of him. Dottore was under a pressure of making his parents be nothing, he didn't want to be a good-for-nothing, - a pressure he put himself under. He just wanted to mean something to both of his parents. He wanted to be worth living. Something cracked in the mind of his.

One day, the boy came home in the cold times of the years but he had great news, he scored the best once more in a big test, wanting to share the great news to his mother. He hadn't seen his mother since yesterday, he was happy to see his mother again. „Mother! Mother! Look!”he said proudly as he ran upstairs, he didn't even put his backpack down. „..Mother?”he asked as he entered the room. He walked over to the bed and looked at his mother. Her eyes were closed, chest not rising nor sleeping. „...?” he gently shook his mother, having his hand on the mother's arm, he felt the coldness. The heater was on, how could she get so cold? It got him worried.

„Mother??”he asked loudly, keeping on shaking her till he heard it knock on the door. He put his test paper on the bed and walked downstairs. He opened the door, looking at who was knocking. It was the doctor, wanting to check on the mother as always. „Uhm Doctor.. I don't think mother is feeling well.... She's quiet and so cold..” he spoke. The doctor looked at him. „..?..”the doctor quickly walked upstairs, of course did the boy walk after him. Dottore stood at the door frame, watching the man.

The doctor stood there silently for a few seconds, shrugging a bit together as he suddenly left the room, walking downstairs. „Where's your father kid??” he asked. „I..don't know. He was suddenly gone one day 2 years ago or so..”he answered. „..what?? Then where's your aunt, let me call her, boy.”

Dottore didn't quite understand what was going on but he knew nothing good happen. He looked back at his mother. He walked up to her, climbing onto the bed and hugging his beloved mother. He brushed away the long dark blue hair. Silently, he sank his head on the mothers chest, closing those pure red eyes. He widened his eyes a little as he heard no heartbeat. „...Mother..”. What a shame, he was just supposed to turn 14 in a few days.

Many many more years have passed. While he grew up along his aunt, Dottore had not given up what he did before. Now he had to make his aunt all proud, now that he's the oh so poor failure that couldn't save his mother hm? At least he thought that way, again.

Now being proud 20 years, living on his own in a old lab, doing various of experiments no one would like to recall. He'd just become the madman his father once was. The word "failure" does not exist for him. He cannot be a failure once more, after all.. He's such a big genius. How could a hardworking child with a great smile go to a madman with a short temper who's plans cannot go wrong?

So judgemental the god of his homeland Fontaine, so the people. Fontaine's people were disgusted of the man, afraid of him, they wanted him gone.

Chased away with pitchforks, clubs and angry words, he took fled to the all famous Sumeru Academia where he continued his crazy studies and experiments. He had so many logical theories, yet no one wanted to hear them. One would not even like to look at him. He truly was sick of everyone, of everything.

Years later again, once more the man took fled. Next day awoken, the social reject's legs have given up. Falling into the sand, with a little lake aside, he took a look at his reflection. Half of his face had gotten burn scars, had the man's charm left his side too? Hand covering half the man's face, he remembered it all.

A night of a harmless experiment with potions and fire had kept the man awake. Yet, the man had been tired. Sitting at the table, where he rest his head on his palm, the man closed his eyes. Dottore silently listened to the liquid heating up under the hottest flames. Maybe him closing his eyes was a terrible mistake which he soon got to suffer for.

The liquid had been heated up too much, the man should've turned off the fire by now but he soon was about to reach the beautiful dream realm. Glass exploding and hot liquid splashing against half his face awoke the man. Quickly the man stood up and pressed the towel against his face, sharp breaths escaping, silent cries filling the room, free hand turning off the fire.

How foolish of him, hm?

The man shook his head and closed his eyes. A grip on his shoulder made the man turn around. „..Fatui?”

"Merely an enhanced human? If your great nation can furnish me with sufficient resources and ample time, I could even manufacture that which you would call a god. What say you?"

True indeed. First of the fatui has tracked him down. In the desert that shone bright like liquid gold, he inquired of the Snezhnayan diplomat:

"Will you treat me like the Academia did? Will you call me a monster, a madman?"

"Or will you treat me as my hometown did, and chase me away with pitchforks and clubs...?"

...

"Good. Then, we are now in partnership."

"As for the matter of your title — what do you say to this..."

Taken completely by surprise by the sheer irony of the title he was given, the young man burst into hysterical laughter.

If you'd know ask the man about his theories and experiments, shall you see a sparkle of excitement...

...

(Drawing of Dottore in the age of four. From right to left -> "Daddy" "That's me!" "Mommy")

#genshin impact #genshin impact il dottore #dottore genshin #genshin il dottore #dottore #il dottore #theory #genshin theory #this is just a theory #please let this get any attention #golden child syndrome #he may be a social reject but I can fix him guys!! 🤪🤪 #i hope this makes sense #will anyone even read this #bye #will anyone care?

[softomi]

happier

lyric prompt: then only for a minute, I want to change my mind, cause this just don’t feel right to me. 

song: Happier (Stripped) by Marshmello and Bastille 

pairings: oikawa x reader, osamu x reader

general taglist: @graykageyama

special mentions: @peachysatoru

Thank you for calling Engineering The Mind, please listen to the following options and select the option that applies to you. press one if you are inquiring our Love services, press two if you are inquiring our Mental Health services, press three if you are inquiring our Synaptic Pruning services, please stay on the line for a representative to assist you.

You’ve pressed three, please stay on the line and one of our representatives will be with you shortly.

“Good morning and thank you for choosing our Synaptic Pruning service, could I get your name and date of birth?”

“Actually, I have a question?”

“Yes?”

“If I wanted to erase someone from my memory, am I able to do that?”

“Yes! As long as there is consent from both parties.”

“But can I do it myself?”

“Unfortunately, the procedure requires both parties to consent and participate, the new law states it is considered illegal to synaptically prune another person from your memory without the other party’s consent.”

“Is there a way I can notify the person without personally contacting them?”

“Of course, as long as you know their name, date of birth, and social, then we can reach out to the other party to inform them that you have started the forms for a synaptic pruning procedure and they will have 30 days from the day of their notification to begin their forms.”

“What happens if they reject?”

“If the other party rejects, then unfortunately we cannot move forward with the procedure.”

“Okay. I’d like to start a form and have them be notified.”

“Perfect, let me just quickly get the information of the other party. What is their relationship to you?”

“Ex-husband.”

“Name of the other party?”

“Oikawa Tooru.”

His luggage drags against the airport’s floor, the sunglasses on his face protects against the amount of camera flashes. Oikawa waves to the cameras, waving to fans, momentarily stopping to take in the bustling Japan airport. Home felt so distant for him.

“Is it true you’re here for a procedure?” A reporter is walking alongside him.

Oikawa merely smiles, “No. I’m just here on vacation, I missed Japan so much, the last time I was here I wasn’t able to do many of the things I wanted to. I’d appreciate it if I am treated as any other citizen.”

“There’s rumors that you’re in Japan to possibly be scouted for one of the Japanese teams, care to explain?”

Oikawa stops, staring directly at the camera, “Like I said, I’m here on vacation and on my own dime. I’m here to attend a wedding of a very close friend and have no plans on looking into other teams, but I can assure you, I plan on playing for the Argentinian team for as long as I can.”

“Do you think your previous injury will affect your current position on the Argentinian national team?”

Another reporter manages to squeeze in, “It’s been almost a year since your injury, are you considering retiring your number if your injury doesn’t improve?”

Oikawa laughs. The television screen cuts off. He’s been in Japan for almost a week now, at least that’s all you know of since he had texted you once he had arrived. From what you can gather through social media, he wasn’t in town. He was frolicking through his childhood neighborhood, meeting friends and family who haven’t seen him since the Olympics.

It’s early morning in your home, the sheets hug you with warmth, you’ve been awake for some time and if you were honest, you didn’t think you slept at all. Ever since he’s stepped foot back into the country, you haven’t been able to sleep properly.

The head on your chest stirs and the male’s breathing falls steady back into slumber. His body is entangled with yours, body weight practically all on top of you, and his breathing brings a sense of dread in you for a moment. It feels similar to him.

You lift your arms, holding out your hands in front of you to gaze at the small diamond. It’s tucked between your pinkie and middle finger, it’s bright and beautiful just like he was promising your future with him would be.

He, your current lover; the man you absolutely loved and adored. The man who spent the last five years keeping you sane.

“Osamu.” Your fingers tugged his hair lightly, “It’s time to wake up.”

“Five more minutes.” He tightens his grip around your waist, “I just want five more minutes with you.”

Your finger drags along his spine, “You say that every morning.” You slap your palm on his back and he groans, “You have to open the restaurant soon.”

He hums, eyes blinking, trying to adjust to the darkness. It’s too early in the morning, “You’re going in for a check up today?”

Your fingers that play with his hair stops, “Yes.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

It was your decision, something Osamu had reminded you a hundred times. The decision to try and erase someone from your memory; he always found it to be a hard pill to swallow. But it was something you thought about a million times, it kept you awake at night, and even when you called a few weeks ago to start the process, it felt surreal.

Osamu lifts himself, leaning on his forearm to peer down at you, his beautiful bride to be, “I can still close the shop and come with you.”

He was an absolute sweetheart, “I told you I’ll be fine. And you can’t close the restaurant every time I go to the hospital?”

He brings his lips to meet yours, “Is that a challenge?”

You laugh against his kiss, “Go get ready or else.”

“Or else what?” He straddles your legs, pressing kisses on your neck to your chest. His fingers ride up his shirt you’ve declared yours, pressing his lips along your abdomen, “Good morning.”

“Call me if anything happens.” Osamu presses a chaste kiss to your lips at the doorway, “I like you.”

Your lips are in a grin, “and I like you too.”

The door shuts behind him and you’re left alone with your thoughts. If you were correct, you’d be seeing him again. Oikawa should be meeting you at the hospital. You’ve texted him a reminder. It’s marked as read; he doesn’t bother to respond.

The sound of a buzzer makes you jump, it draws you to the look at the video cam that views the front gates. You’re grinning thinking Osamu has forgotten something, but the smile gets wiped off when it’s him. Oikawa Tooru is standing at the gates of your home.

“What are you doing here?” You speak into the microphone.

Oikawa seems to have discovered the camera, “Can’t visit anymore? I thought we could catch up.”

What reason would there be to catch up? If everything goes smoothly, you’ll be without a thought of him in the next few days. You’re reluctant to let him in, you want to tell him to go away, but you’d have to meet him later any way. The gates buzz open and Oikawa enters the front yard of the home.

It’s exactly the same to him, after all, this was his and your home first. The Oikawa residence. He bought the house without your knowledge, saved up as much of his paychecks could get him.

“May I come in?” Oikawa smiles upon seeing you.

You’re holding the front door, still small as ever, like you were guarding the home with your life, “Yes.” Your voice is tiny, giving him room to enter the house.

Oikawa takes in the smell of the place, still the same, still has your scent and he concludes you’re probably still lighting the same scented candles he liked. He wonders if he should be flattered by the information.

“Do you want something to drink?” You inquire, pulling out a mug to pour yourself water and another mug for whatever Oikawa wanted, “Peach tea?”

It was his favorite; you can remember it as clear as day. He’d drink it breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He said it paired nicely with the milk bread and he called it sweet; just like you. You shake the memory as you pour the hot water.

There was nothing but awkwardness between the both of you. You’ve distracted yourself with your morning routine and Oikawa silently sits. If he’s going to fantasize for a second, he’s pretending you’re still his wife. Shamelessly daydreaming like you were his.

“We have to be at the hospital by noon.” You say without looking at him, your head dipping back as you slip the pills into your mouth.

“Sounds good to me.” Oikawa taps his fingers against the dining table.

It brings back memories of dinner with you, on days when he would be able to find a week off practice to see you. You’d eat with him until two in the morning, trying to squeeze in as much time with him as possible before he hopped on a plane back to Argentina, and he would pretend as if he didn’t hear you crying while washing the dishes.

“So how have you been?” Oikawa asks innocently.

You drink the rest of your water, a simple nod of your head, “Fine.” Your gaze falls briefly on his knee, “And you?”

Oikawa instinctively puts a hand over his knee as if that could hide the ache, “Fine too.”

Yet Oikawa and you know, everything was far from fine. It was the same way towards the end of the marriage, communication was blurred, there was too many missed connections, and the only news you’d get of Oikawa was from the sports channels.

“Do you still work at the public library?”

You tilt your head at him, “You mean the university library? When I was doing work study?”

“Oh.” Oikawa rubs the back of his neck, “Guess you’re not”. He’s trying to think why it feels so hard to talk to you again, “How are your parents?”

You freeze and he realizes his mistake. He remembers the arguments, the sadness of the conversations, the way your parents loathed him for proposing so early. Oikawa married you fresh out of high school, he promised you happiness and yet towards the end of the marriage, he shattered your heart.

“They’re great!” You smile, “They really love my fiancé.”

You were purposely trying to hurt him.

“What’s he like?” Oikawa was curious or was he jealous?

“What do you want Tooru?” Your voice is sharp as you set down your mug, “Why are you here?” You know him too well, he doesn’t do things just because; he always has a motive, “Are you here to try and stop me? I want to move on.”

“Then why can’t you do it yourself? Why do you feel like you need to erase me?” Oikawa, he was sad. He had never felt more crushed than when he had received the phone call; you were requesting to remove him from your mind and he’d only accepted to see you again. He wanted you to look him in the face, feel the hurt that he had, “Did you not think of my feelings?”

“No, you didn’t think of mine when you naturalized as an Argentinian citizen.”

It was always the same argument, Oikawa stares at you, it wasn’t that different from years ago. When he blinks, he’s transported to seven years ago. Your eyes red as you looked at him, the fighting was reaching two hours and the bags in Oikawa’s hands signals he’d be leaving for another few month. But this day was different, the fight was wearing you down, especially when you read news of Oikawa becoming a naturalized citizen. Oikawa blinks and he’s back to the sun lit room.

“This isn’t how you move on from a relationship?” Oikawa says, “It takes time.” Time was seven years, since the divorce seven years of broken hearts have passed. Oikawa knows deep down that you still loved him and he knows in his heart that he wants to ask you to run away with him, “You know that this is wrong.”

“But it’s my choice.”

Oikawa’s eyes begin to water, “And you’re making me choose too?” Tears fall from his cheek, “It’s your choice but you’re forcing me to choose also.” His chest becomes heavy, “Please don’t do this.” He openly sobbing in front of you, “I don’t want to stop.” His wail makes your heart clench, “I don’t want to forget what it was like to love you.”

“Tooru.”

“I don’t care.” Oikawa blubbers, “I’m not going to do it.” A pit grows in your stomach, “All I ever did was love you.”

Your eyes glossy, it was like you were going back to the worst nights of your life, “You stopped caring about me.”

“No, I didn’t!” Oikawa stands, “I never stopped. I was doing everything for you!” He was a tearful mess in front of you, “You left me! You abandoned me!”

“You can’t say that when you were halfway across the world!”

“For you!” Oikawa screams, “If you had waited one more year, I could have brought you over.”

You wipe the tears from your face, a sigh on your lips, “Why didn’t you just ask me to go with you in the first place?”

It was always the question that nipped at you. When he was confronted with the opportunity of staying in Japan or joining an Argentinian team, he never hesitated and you waited for him to ask you to go with him; but he left you behind with the house, sending money every two weeks like you were an afterthought.

“It was complicated.” Oikawa’s eyes soften, “I just, I didn’t want you to leave behind your life here. Your friends, your family. You would have had to quit school to come with me, to a place where you didn’t know the language or the place, and with me practicing, you would have no one.”

You shake your head, “No. You were worried about yourself. You made the decision to leave me behind without a second thought because you wanted to focus on volleyball and where has that gotten you; injured.”

Maybe that was why you wanted so badly to erase him from your memories, you still clung to the thoughts of him. Still stayed updated on his life, still worried about his health, still wondering on the what ifs with him. What if you had just left with him? What if you hadn’t gotten married to him? What if you weren’t so hopelessly still in love with him?

“Just let me be happy.” You whisper, “Just let me forget I was ever in love with you.”

The ride to the hospital ached. The cab silent and melancholy. It was only a consultation and yet it already felt like the end of everything. The waiting area didn’t make it any better, the air was thick with tension from other couples. Oikawa’s status had the two of you placed priority and it didn’t take long for a doctor to come into the room.

“I would like to inform you that we use the term ‘erasing memory’ loosely. Our procedure merely detaches you from the other party. You’ll still have the memories, but you won’t feel anything, and you won’t remember them as much as you might today.” The doctor hands you and Oikawa separate forms, “If you both sign the consent forms, we can schedule the procedure as soon as possible.”

The pen in Oikawa’s hands hover over the signature line, he can hear you scribbling against the paper and his heart is shattering. Sloppily, he signs his name on the line.

“Sorry, I forgot to ask.” You look at the doctor, “Is the procedure safe for pregnant women?”

Oikawa’s world crumbles.

“The procedure is set for tomorrow morning.” The receptionist is talking.

You smile, “Perfect, thank you.”

She prints out two different instructions for you and Oikawa to prepare for the procedure. You overlook the instructions, no longer sparing a glance to Oikawa as you walk away.

“Hey.” The voice makes your head snap up. Your fiancé walking towards you.

Instinctively, your arms wrap around his neck, “What are you doing here?”

Osamu presses a kiss to your temple, “I came to pick you up.” He looks over your shoulder, spotting the man he knows too well from various photos, “Hi.” He reaches out to Oikawa, “I’m Miya Osamu.”

Oikawa grips Osamu’s hand, “ Oikawa Tooru. It’s nice to meet you.” Oikawa says bitterly.

Osamu’s hand rests on your hip, in a matter of seconds, he’s leading you away and Oikawa is left to stand all alone.

The night is restless. It’s instructed that you and Oikawa get a good night’s rest, but who can rest soundly the night before a procedure. You sitt on the edge of your bed, your fiancé sleeping soundly, and you stare at the moon. You play with the ring on your finger and a tear lands on the back of your hand. You suck in a heavy breath, trying to quell the sound of sobs.

Oikawa sits knees to his chest on the couch of Iwaizumi’s who was gracious enough to let him stay at his place. The moon is bright, and it shines a spotlight on Oikawa. His eyes are tired, but he stares at the screen of his cell phone, finger swiping continuously through the photo album. Your smiles reflect in his eyes and even when Iwaizumi snags the cell phone from him; Oikawa looks up at him bawling.

Six in the morning, you’re sitting on a hospital bed, Oikawa laid next to you. The silence is deafening.  

“I hope you know.” Oikawa whispers, “I’m very happy for you.”

You look at him, taking in what might be the last time you feel love for him, “I love you.”

Oikawa smiles, “No you don’t,” He’s tricking himself, believing that you loathed him, that this was the better option for you, “but I love you too.”

They say, the longer the relationship, the longer the procedure takes. Similarly, the more you loved, the harder it was to subdue the memories. It required patients to stay awake, to go through every little detail, to talk about everything from the beginning to the end.

Your fingers were initially interlocked with his, something to help the anxiousness, or was it to cling to him for a moment.

“I met you when you came to cheer on the volleyball team in high school.” Oikawa stares at the white ceiling, he hears the machinery, the typing of a computer, “You looked so pretty.” The memory becomes hazy.

“He kissed me on the school’s rooftop.” Your lips curved in a smile, “He kept asking me if it was alright.” Your smile slowly falls to a thin line, “I suddenly can’t remember what I said back.”

“It took me a week to find the perfect ring.”

You laugh, “You got impatient, proposed with a paper ring on the school’s rooftop after we snuck into the school after dark.”

It feels empty, your heart feels a weight lifted. Your fingers slowly let go of Oikawa’s. He begins to weep.

“Why are you crying?” You ask.

He sniffles, “Was that the last time you felt happy with me?”

“No.” Your voice soft, “I was always happy when you came home.” There’s another weight off your heart, “You always came in running, always excited to see me. Sometimes, when the front door opens, I think it’s going to be you.” You’re hit with relief.

Four weeks pass in a blur. You honestly don’t remember much of the week after the procedure, but you stare at your loving fiancé. A hearty giggle on your lips as you move to straddle him on the bed. Your palms are squishing his cheeks and Osamu is chuckling. His hand resting on your small baby bump.

“We’re getting married!” You’re kissing him, excitedly jumping on him as though you weren’t knocking the wind out of him.

“Alright.” Osamu sits up, lips stealing your breath away, “by the end of the day, you’ll be Mrs. Miya.”

You laugh into the kiss, “I can’t wait.”

The wedding venue is bustling, everyone is itching to take a picture with the bride and groom. You’re grinning widely at the way Osamu bickers with his brother, the photographer taking photos despite the twins poking at each other.

“May we take a picture with the bride?”

Your smile grows; four men dressed in their best suits approach, “Is this a high school reunion?”

One man lingers briefly behind, your husband presses a hand to the small of your back before leaving. Oikawa takes over the place of your spouse.

“Fancy meeting you here.” Oikawa tilts his head with a beam.

You roll your eyes, “At my own wedding.”

His voice falls to a whisper, “Are you happy?”

Your eyes stare in the direction of your husband and you nod, “Yes.” When you look at Oikawa, there’s a small tug in your heart, it’s tiny enough that it disappears within moments, “Thank you.” 

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu #oikawa #oikawa scenarios #oikawa tooru #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu angst #hq #hq scenarios #hq oikawa

[mattzerella-sticks]

Ticking Photobomb, T, 1.6k

Carlos Reyes/TK Strand, Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley & TK Strand

TK loves Carlos, and wants their relationship to work out. Before they can recapture even a semblance of the bliss they shared, Carlos needs to fix his mistake and properly introduce TK to his family. Until then... Carlos deserves at least some punishment. He only hopes Buck will forgive him, for involving him in his and Carlos's first big fight as a couple.

Only it's not Buck's forgiveness he'll need.

ao3 link

based off of this post

           He’s wary. He and TK are supposed to be enjoying a delicious meal outside at a nearby park, sun high in the sky, bright but not too cruel, as they sit together on a thin, yellow blanket, and Carlos cannot enjoy any of this beautiful date because a tiny voice in the back of his mind warns him that TK’s silence is a cover for something more sinister. His boyfriend’s smile, aimed at his phone as it has been since they arrived, means trouble. The small, continuous giggles that eke free sound like alarms. Giggles offered with every bite, where he’d type a short message and then set his phone down; only to grab it halfway through its jingling ringtone – TK never usually keeps that on. Carlos remembered him complaining how he hates ringtones, prefers having his phone vibrate. Why is it on now? And why is he texting while they’re on a date? And why does his laughter make Carlos cringe?

           “Who are you texting?” he asks, finally, Carlos pushing the plastic container with his half-finished sandwich to the side.

           TK glances up from his phone. “No one.”

           “No one?”

           “Just a friend,” TK says, pinning Carlos with a strange expression that squeezes his heart. It makes the sweat pricking his temples relocate and journey down, rolling towards his chin. Carlos wipes at his face as TK adds, “seriously, you don’t have to worry.”

           It’s the way he said ‘you’ that does Carlos in. That has him dredging up what he already considered resolved since before they sat down. Discussed, at length, over the phone, with Carlos apologizing repeatedly. TK assured him they were good. “I thought we were good?”

           TK sighs, “We are good.” Then, he mumbles, “As good as any two friends can be.”

           Carlos’s frown deepens, mouth resembling a severe gash carved into his face. “I knew it!” Carlos cries, pointing at him. “You’re still mad at me.”

           “I never said I wasn’t!”

           “You said it was settled –“

           “Because it is,” TK insists, a heavy glare drawing all breath out of Carlos’s chest. The façade he wore for their date has been pulled away, and Carlos sees exactly how distressed TK remained after he introduced him to his parents as his ‘friend’. Even with Carlos promising that he would remedy the situation soon, gather his boyfriend and family together and explain the truth of his romantic life, TK clings tight to the pain Carlos caused by letting fear sway his choice, both at the farmer’s market and when he let TK walk out of his home, relationship dangling from a fraying cord. It frays ever closer to breaking. “It’s settled until you work up the nerve to have that dinner you were talking about.”

           Carlos splutters, “That’s not – you know, with the pandemic how hard it’s…”

           His excuses further irritate TK, who retreats into his phone. He texts someone else. Perhaps the same person he’s been texting this entire time. “Then it’s settled.”

           “If it’s so settled,” Carlos asks, “why even bother agreeing to our date today?” He gestures at their unfinished meals, probably cold and stale. If they weren’t, it’s not like Carlos feels like eating anymore.

           TK stops texting, smirking at Carlos. Usually, it riles Carlos up in that he wants to kiss it off of him. Right now, Carlos swallows the urge to shove his boyfriend onto his ass.  “A date?” TK asks, words languid and breezy, spaced out by palpable sarcasm. “Why would you think this was a date,” he continues, phone tapping against his chin, “we are just friends after all…”

           Anger and disappointment converge violently inside Carlos, fighting for release. Neither can, as his vibrating phone pulls his focus from TK. He opens the message on autopilot, confused since it’s from TK. Confusion then drops into the cesspool of his emotions, like Mentos in Coke, and Carlos explodes.

           “Why did you send me this?” he demands, showing TK a picture he sent to Carlos of himself. A picture they took, together, when visiting a lake one weekend long ago during the summer. A picture taken after they spent the entire afternoon swimming, bathing suits forgotten on the pier. A picture where TK’s chiseled physique was on display, skin dazzling as fading sunlight turned water droplets into diamonds, and TK’s sunglasses rested low on his nose as he smiled to the side where Carlos was. Was. As in not anymore. Only his arm, slung around his boyfriend’s shoulder, remained. Saved by being impossible to crop out. “Well?” Carlos asks again.

           TK sighs, “Oh, I must have sent that by mistake.”

           “You wanted to send me something else?”

           “No,” TK clarifies, “I sent that to you by mistake. It was supposed to go to Buck, see?” TK shows Carlos his message thread, with the picture he sent Carlos, timestamped, showing he forwarded it to Buck first, then Carlos.

           “…Buck.”

           “Yeah, Buck,” TK continues, leaving his texts and diving into his photo album. He selects a group shot of the 126, plus a few extra members. He zooms closer on one face, Buck’s, enough that Carlos can distinguish the two birthmark spots above his eyebrows. “I’m sure I told you about him.”

           “You did,” Carlos nods. He tears his gaze from Buck’s smile, fuming. “The firefighter who flirted with you.”

           “I mean, he also helped me save my dad,” TK says, “but, yeah… he also flirted with me.” TK lowers his phone, chuckling, “We’ve just been chatting back and forth – as friends do – when I realized… y’know, I told him I wasn’t interested, because I had this really awesome boyfriend who I love, but since that’s not the case anymore, we’re only friends apparetly, I figured I might as well shoot my shot. Find out if he’s still interested. Maybe once quarantine is done, I can take some time off and… see what Los Angeles has to offer.” The eyebrow wiggle was completely unnecessary. TK communicated exactly what of Los Angeles he intends to see, regardless of how his eyebrows moved.

           He’s better than this. Carlos knows what TK is doing. What the picture, and its delivery, was supposed to accomplish. What it’s succeeding at. He can win this, simply by ignoring TK’s teasing.

           Except.

           “You are not going to Los Angeles.” Carlos scowls, “Not without me. And especially not if Buck is gonna be there.”

           TK scoffs, “What are you, my boyfriend?”

           “…Yes!”

           “Says who?” he asks, “Your parents?”

           They’re outside. In public, surrounded by people who keep their distance. Unfortunately, their voices carry wide enough they draw a sizeable crowd. Carlos doesn’t notice until TK storms off and leaves him with the blanket, the abandoned food, and their audience.

           Carlos blushes, hiding behind his hands. He wishes he never fumbled back then, in the farmer’s market. He also, briefly, wishes he and Buck switched places. At least then TK would be treating him to risqué pictures. At least Carlos would be having a good time, if he were Buck. He’d be receiving sexy photos from a certified dreamboat instead of suffering because of his own mistakes.

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

           Buck stumbles over his words, stuttering, rushing out his explanation to a stone-faced Eddie. “Seriously,” he says, “I don’t – I don’t know why TK sent me that picture of him! It’s not like I asked! One second we’re talking about movies and the next thing I know – shirtless TK!”

           “Yeah, I know,” Eddie huffs, arms folded across his chest, “I saw.”

           He shouldn’t have. If Buck hadn’t left his phone on the table to help Bobby in the kitchen. If he didn’t hear his phone beep with an arriving message, almost vibrating off the table from it. If Eddie, along with Hen and Chim, weren’t climbing the stairs at the moment, and if he ignored Buck’s plea to hand him his phone. To punch in the code – which he knew, of course Eddie knew – since Buck was wrist deep in a turkey’s hole.

           Buck washed his hands immediately, drying them on his pants as he chased Eddie the few feet towards the couch.

           “So,” Eddie continues, “you and TK…”

           He and TK? “We’re friends,” he says, repeating himself after Eddie’s disbelieving stare. “Okay, I mean – he did turn me down once, when we were leaving Texas. But he said he had a boyfriend –“

           “He turned you down?” Eddie asks, “You flirted with him?”

           “No!” Buck shrugs, running his hand over his forehead, frowning at the sweat that pooled there. “Well, I didn’t think I was. But he did? And – and he left before I could say anything, but I didn’t think it mattered since he, y’know, had a boyfriend!” He stomps his foot, irritation bubbling from the pit of his stomach and out his mouth. “Besides! Why does it matter if he sends me pictures?” Nice pictures. Distracting pictures that made Buck question exactly why TK misunderstanding his friendliness was a problem. “Why are you so angry?”

           “Because… because…” Eddie looks past Buck, at the peanut gallery assembled by the kitchen. Hen and Chimney watching with interest while Bobby pretends cooking a turkey involves his whole focus. None of the seem keen to jump in and help. “Because… you…” Suddenly, Eddie stands. Buck recoils, stepping backwards. “You know what,” Eddie says, digging into his pocket, “I’m telling Marjan to unfollow you on Instagram.”

           “What?”

           “And!” he yells, phone free and on, “I’m telling her to block you!”

           “What? No – Eddie, no! Don’t!” Buck follows his friend, pleading, “C’mon, she hasn’t even liked any of my photos yet… Eddie… Eddie!”

           Eddie ignores him, furiously typing the end of Buck’s most famous connection online. In his haste, Buck forgets his phone on the counter. Eddie takes precedence over his phone.

           Later, Buck will return to it. He will respond to TK’s picture, sending a tidal wave of texts at the Texan firefighter ranging between the immense trouble that picture landed him in and how TK can repay him by convincing Marjan to follow him again.

           But that’s later. Now Buck slams his fist against the firetruck, yelling for Eddie to unlock the door.

           Eddie doesn’t.

#911 on fox #911 lone star #carlos reyes #tk strand #evan 'buck' buckley #eddie diaz #tarlos #buddie #tarlos fanfic #buddie fanfic

[weavingthetapestry]

19th March 1286: “A Strong Wind Will Be Heard in Scotland”

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

On 19th March 1286, a body was discovered on a Fife beach, not far from the royal burgh of Kinghorn. The corpse was that of a 44-year-old man, and the cause of death was later diversely reported as either a broken neck or some other severe injury consistent with a fall from a horse at some point during the previous night. It is not known exactly when this body was found, nor do we know who discovered it. But we do know that the dead man was soon identified, with much dismay, as the King of Scots himself, Alexander III.

The late king had no surviving children, only a young widow who was not yet known to be pregnant, and an infant granddaughter in the kingdom of Norway. Despite this, Alexander III’s untimely death did not cause any immediate civil strife, although it did set in motion a chain of events which eventually led to the Scottish Wars of Independence. This conflict would forever alter the relationship between the kingdoms of Scotland and England, as well as the wider course of European history.

Although Alexander III was a moderately successful monarch, he had been unfortunate over the last ten years. His first wife, Margaret of England, had died in 1275 and Alexander initially showed no immediate interest in remarriage. At first the succession seemed secure: Margaret had left behind two sons and a daughter. However the death of the couple’s younger son David c.1281, may have prompted the king’s decision to arrange the marriages of his two surviving children over the next few years. In the summer of 1281, the twenty-year-old Princess Margaret set sail for Bergen, where she was to marry King Eirik II of Norway. Her brother Alexander, the eighteen-year-old heir to the throne, married the Count of Flanders’ daughter in November 1282. Neither marriage lasted long. The queen of Norway died in spring 1283, possibly during childbirth, while her younger brother succumbed to illness in January 1284. Within a few years, a series of unforeseen tragedies had destroyed Alexander III’s family and hopes, and the outlook for the kingdom seemed equally bleak...

All was not lost however. The king was in good health and believed he could count on the support of the realm’s leading men. Steps were swiftly taken to ensure their compliance with his plans for the succession. On 5th February 1284, a few weeks after Prince Alexander’s death, an impressive number of Scottish nobles* set their seals to an agreement at Scone. In the event of the king of Scotland’s death without any surviving legitimate children, they obliged themselves and their heirs to accept as monarch the heir at law. This was currently a baby named Margaret, the only surviving child of Alexander III’s daughter the queen of Norway.

(Drawing based on a seal belonging to Yolande of Dreux, Alexander III’s second queen. She later became Countess of Montfort and, by marriage, Duchess of Brittany. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Although the bishops of Scotland were to censure anyone who broke this oath, the prospect of the crown being inherited by an infant girl on the other side of the North Sea was obviously not ideal. Her grandfather struck an optimistic note in a letter to his brother-in-law Edward I of England, writing that in spite of his recent “intolerable” trials, “the child of his dearest daughter” still lived and hoping that “much good may yet be in store”. But the king would not leave everything up to chance and in October 1285, at the age of 43, he married the French noblewoman Yolande of Dreux. As the year drew to a close, Alexander might have hoped that his misfortunes were behind him. He still had his kingdom and his health, and now, with a new queen, there was every chance that he could father another son.

In fact, the king had less than six months to live. The exact circumstances of Alexander’s death are shrouded in mystery, although most sources agree on the fundamental details. Only the Chronicle of Lanercost gives a detailed account, although much cannot be corroborated, and its author had a habit of providing moral explanations for historical events. He was convinced that the calamities which befell the Scottish royal house in the 1280s were punishment for Alexander III’s personal sins. The chronicler never explicitly names these sins, but he does hint at a conflict between the king and the monks of Durham (allowing Alexander’s death to be attributed to a vengeful St Cuthbert). The chronicler also included salacious stories of Alexander’s private life, claiming:

“he used never to forbear on account of season or storm, nor for perils of flood or rocky cliffs, but would visit, not too creditably, matrons and nuns, virgins and widows, by day or by night as the fancy seized him, sometimes in disguise, often accompanied by a single follower.”

Although this does seem to back up the king’s habit of making reckless journeys, alone and in bad weather, the chronicle’s biases are nonetheless fairly obvious. On the other hand, the man who probably compiled the chronicle up to the year 1297 does appear to have had many contacts in Scotland. These included the confessors of the late Queen Margaret and her son Prince Alexander, as well as the latter’s tutor, the clergy of Haddington and Berwick, and the earl of Dunbar. It is unclear how he acquired information about Alexander III’s death, but the chronicle’s narrative is at least plausible and correct in its essentials. Although some of the anecdotes are a little too detailed and didactic to be entirely truthful, the narrative provides some interesting insights into contemporary behaviour, such as the way medieval Scots felt entitled to address their kings. In the absence of alternative narratives, and without necessarily subscribing to the chronicler’s moral views, it is therefore perhaps worth following Lanercost to begin with, supplementing this with additional information where possible.

(The northern half of a map of Britain, drawn by the thirteenth century English chronicler Matthew Paris. Matthew Paris was based in the south of England and was not overly familiar with Scottish geography, but his depiction of Scotland as split over two islands and joined only at the bridge of Stirling, is nonetheless enlightening. The map is now in the public domain and has been made available by the British Libary (x))

On the evening of 18th March 1286, Alexander III is reported to have been in good spirits. This was in spite of the weather, which the author of the Chronicle of Lanercost described as being so foul, “that to me and most men, it seemed disagreeable to expose one’s face to the north wind, rain and snow”. The king of Scots was then dining at Edinburgh, attended by many of his nobles, who were preparing a response to the king of England’s ambassadors regarding the aged prisoner Thomas of Galloway. However when the court had finished dinner King Alexander was not at all anxious to retire early. Instead, not in the least deterred by the wind and rain lashing the windows, he announced his intention of spending the night with his new wife. Since Queen Yolande was then staying at Kinghorn in Fife, travelling there from Edinburgh would not only involve riding over twenty miles in the dark, but would also mean crossing the choppy waters of the Firth of Forth. Unsurprisingly, the king’s councillors tried to dissuade him. However Alexander was determined, and eventually he set off with only a few attendants, leaving his courtiers wringing their hands behind him.

The first part of the journey passed without incident and soon the king and his companions arrived at the Queen’s Ferry, by the shores of the Forth. This popular crossing point was named after Alexander’s famous ancestress St Margaret, who had established accommodation and transport for pilgrims there two hundred years earlier. But when the king himself sought passage, the ferryman pointed out that it would be very dangerous to attempt the crossing in such conditions. Alexander, undeterred, asked him if he was scared, to which the ferryman is said to have stoutly replied, “By no means, it would be a great honour to share the fate of your father’s son.” So the king and his attendants boarded the ferry and, notwithstanding the storm, the boat soon reached the shores of Fife in safety. As the king and his squires rode away from the ferry port, intending to complete the last eleven or so miles of their journey that night, they passed through the royal burgh of Inverkeithing. There, despite the evening gloom, the king’s voice was recognised by the manager of his saltpans, who was also one of the baillies of the town.** The burgess called out to the king and reprimanded him for his habit of riding abroad at night, inviting Alexander to stay with him until morning. But, laughing, Alexander dismissed his concerns and, asking only for some local serfs to act as guides, he rode off into the night.

(South Queensferry, as drawn by the eighteenth century artist John Clerk and made available for public use by the National Galleries of Scotland. Obviously the Queen’s Ferry changed a lot between the 1280s and the 1700s, but at least during this period the ferry was still the main mode of transportation across the Forth.)

By now darkness had set in and, despite the local knowledge of their guides, it was not long before every member of the king’s party became completely lost. Although they had become separated, the king’s squires eventually found the road again. However at some point they must have realised that they had a new problem: the king was nowhere to be found.

In the early fifteenth century, local tradition held that Alexander was at least heading in the right direction when he became separated from his companions. Although he too had lost sight of the main road, the king followed the shoreline, his horse carrying him swiftly over the sands towards Kinghorn. It was there, only a couple of miles from his destination, that the king’s luck finally ran out. Since there were no known witnesses to Alexander III’s death, it is unlikely that we will ever know for certain what happened that night. However most sources agree that the king’s horse probably stumbled and threw its rider. Alexander tumbled to the ground and snapped his neck and, at a stroke, the dynasty which had ruled Scotland for over two hundred years came to an end.

It is not known precisely how long the king’s body lay on the beach, alone under the moon while the waves crashed on the shore and confusion reigned among his squires and guides. However his corpse was discovered the next day and was swiftly conveyed to nearby Dunfermline. Ten days later, on 29th March 1286, the kingdom’s ruling elite gathered to see the last King Alexander buried near the high altar of the abbey kirk, in the company of his ancestors. Near the spot where the king’s body was allegedly found, a stone cross was later erected beside the road, which could still be seen by travellers over a hundred years later. The modern belief that Alexander III died when either he or his horse fell from a cliff*** (a tradition which is not supported by any mediaeval sources so far as I am aware) may stem from the position of this old cross, which possibly occupied the same spot as that of the Victorian Alexander III monument. This monument can now be seen at the side of the modern A921 road between Burntisland and Kinghorn, a permanent reminder of the role this seemingly nondescript location once played in the history of Scotland.

(The Alexander III monument near Kinghorn. Source: Wikimedia Commons- the photo was taken by Kim Traynor who has kindly made the image available for reuse under the  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).

The impact of Alexander’s death on a small mediaeval kingdom like Scotland, conditioned to look to its monarch for leadership, must have been great. Even the Lanercost chronicler admitted that the general populace was observed “bewailing his sudden death as deeply as the desolation of the realm.” However it is important not to exaggerate the scale of the crisis. Popular views of Alexander III’s death are inescapably informed by the accounts of fourteenth and fifteenth century writers, who depicted it as the root of all of Scotland’s later ills.

Writing in the aftermath of a century dominated by war, plague, famine, and climate change, it is perhaps unsurprising that many late mediaeval chroniclers looked back on Alexander III’s reign as comparatively peaceful. As the author of the fourteenth century “Gesta Annalia II” explained, “How worthy of tears and how hurtful his death was to the kingdom of Scotland is plainly shown forth by the evils of after times.” Meanwhile, in his “Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland” completed c.1420, Andrew Wyntoun portrayed Alexander’s reign as a Golden Age of peace and justice (when, just as importantly, oats only cost fourpence a boll). He incorporated an old song into his chronicle, perhaps written in the years following the king’s accident, which neatly encapsulates later views of the event and its impact:

“Quhen Alysandyr oure Kyng wes dede 

That Scotland led in luẅe and lé, 

Away wes sons off ale and brede, 

Off wyne and wax, off gamyn and glé: 

Oure gold wes changyd in to lede. 

Cryste borne in to Vyrgynyté, 

Succoure Scotland and remede, 

That stad [is in] perplexyté.”

Wyntoun’s younger contemporary Walter Bower, author of the “Scotichronicon”, also lamented Alexander’s premature death and even rolled out a legend about Scotland’s famous seer, Thomas the Rhymer, to reinforce his point. On 18th March 1286, he claimed, the earl of Dunbar “half-jesting” asked the Rhymer for the next day’s weather forecast. True Thomas answered gloomily:

“Alas for tomorrow, a day of calamity and misery! Because before the stroke of twelve a strong wind will be heard in Scotland, the like of which has not been known since long ago. Indeed its blast will dumbfound the nations and render senseless those who hear it, it will humble what is lofty and raze what is unbending to the ground.”

The next morning came and went without any gales, so the earl decided that Thomas had gone mad- until a messenger arrived at precisely midday with news of the king’s death. Although Bower may have been attempting to bolster Thomas of Erceldoune’s reputation as a prophet (in response to English propagandic use of Merlin’s prophecies), the anecdote reveals the significance he attached to Alexander III’s death. Similarly for John Barbour, author of the fourteenth century romance “The Bruce”, there was no doubt that the story of his hero’s story began, “Quhen Alexander the king was deid / That Scotland haid to steyr and leid.” Following this, Barbour skips ahead to the selection of John Balliol as king, dismissing the six years in between as a time when the country lay “desolate”. In this way later chroniclers created the impression of an Alexandrian ‘Golden Age’ and that Scotland almost immediately descended into chaos after his death. Though understandable, these late mediaeval interpretations have traditionally hampered analysis of Alexander’s reign and the events of the decade following his death, despite the best efforts of modern historians.

(The coronation of the young Alexander III at Scone, as depicted in a manuscript version of the fifteenth century “Scotichronicon”, compiled by the Abbot of Incholm, Walter Bower.  Source: Wikimedia Commons)

In reality, while the king’s death was undoubtedly a deep blow, the Scottish political community rallied in the immediate aftermath. In April 1286, parliament assembled at Scone and promised to keep the peace on behalf of the rightful heir to the kingdom. Six ‘Guardians’ were to govern in the meantime- two bishops (William Fraser of St Andrews and Robert Wishart of Glasgow), two earls (Alexander Comyn, earl of Buchan and Duncan, earl of Fife), and two barons (John Comyn of Badenoch and James the Steward). Despite the oaths sworn to Margaret of Norway two years earlier, there may have been some doubt as to who the “rightful heir” actually was. Certain sources claim that Alexander III’s widow Yolande of Dreux was pregnant and the political community waited anxiously for several months before the queen gave birth in November 1286. However no male heir materialised**** and by the end of the year it seems to have been generally acknowledged that the three-year-old Maid of Norway was the rightful “Lady of Scotland”. She was destined never to set foot in Scotland, but, despite her age, gender, and absence from the realm, the country did not descend into complete anarchy in the four years when she was the accepted heir to the throne. Undoubtedly there were people who had reservations about her reign: the Bruces, for example, seem to have attempted a short-lived rebellion, though the situation was soon defused by the Guardians. By 1289 the cracks were perhaps beginning to show, with the death of the earl of Buchan and the murder of the earl of Fife removing two Guardians, who were not replaced. Nonetheless, the authority of the Guardians was recognised in the absence of an adult ruler and they generally attempted to govern competently in the four years between Alexander III’s accident and the Maid of Norway’s own death in 1290.

Having received news of this second tragedy, the Guardians again acted cautiously, deciding that rival claims for the kingship should be judged in an official court chaired by a respected and powerful arbitrator. Thus they appealed to Scotland’s formidable neighbour, Edward I of England. Despite later allegations of foul play, the English king’s eventual judgement in favour of John Balliol does appear to have been consistent with the law of primogeniture and due process. It would take years of steady deterioration before war finally broke out in 1296. By then Alexander III had been dead for a decade, and though the crisis may have indirectly grown out of his demise, it was not necessarily the immediate cause of Scotland’s late mediaeval woes. Nonetheless the events of that dark night in March 1286 would leave their mark on the popular imagination for centuries, shaping Scottish history down to the present day.

(An imprint of the Great Seal used by the Guardians of Scotland following Alexander III’s death. Reproduced in the “History of Scottish seals from the eleventh to the seventeenth century”, by Walter de Gray Birch, now out of copyright and available on internet archive)

Additional Notes:

*The assembled magnates included the earls of Buchan, Dunbar, Strathearn, Atholl, Lennox, Carrick, Mar, Angus, Menteith, Ross, Sutherland, and two other earls whose titles are illegible but who may have been Caithness and Fife.  The barons included Robert de Brus the elder (father of the earl of Carrick and grandfather of the future Robert I), James Stewart, John Balliol (the future king), John Comyn of Badenoch, William de Soules, Enguerrand de Coucy (Alexander III’s maternal cousin), William Murray, Reginald le Cheyne, William de St Clair, Richard Siward, William of Brechin, Nicholas de Hay, Henry de Graham, Ingelram de Balliol, Alan the son of the earl, Reginald Cheyne the younger, (John?) de Lindsay, Simon Fraser, Alexander MacDougall of Argyll, Angus MacDonald, and Alan MacRuairi, among others. 

** The historian G.W.S. Barrow identified this figure as Alexander the saucier the master of the royal sauce kitchen and one of the baillies of Inverkeithing. 

*** There are some variations on this local tradition too- in 1794, the minister who wrote the entry for Kinghorn parish in the Old Statistical Account claimed that the ‘King’s Wood-end’ near the site of the current Alexander III monument was where the king liked to hunt and that he fell from his horse while on a hunting trip. 

****The Guardians and other nobles may have assembled at Clackmannan for the birth. Several modern historians have accepted Walter Bower’s statement that the queen’s baby was stillborn, despite the Chronicle of Lanercost’s somewhat fantastic tale of a fake pregnancy, with Yolande being caught conspiring to smuggle an actor’s son into Stirling Castle.

Selected Bibliography: 

- “The Chronicle of Lanercost”, as translated by Sir Herbert Maxwell 

- “Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, Preserved Among the Public Records of England”, Volume 2, ed. Joseph Bain 

- Rymer’s “Foedera…”, Volume 1 part 1 

- “Documents Illustrative of the History of Scotland”, vol 1., ed. Joseph Stevenson 

- “Scottish Annals From English Chroniclers”, ed. A.O. Anderson (especially Annals of Worcester; Thomas Wykes; Chronicles in Annales Monastici) 

- “Early Sources of Scottish History”, ed. A.O. Anderson (esp. Chronicle of Holyrood, various continuations of the Chronicle of the Kings of Scotland; John of Evenden; Nicholas Trivet) 

- “The Flowers of History… as Collected by Mathew of Westminster”, ed. C.D. Yonge - Gesta Annalia II (formerly attributed to John of Fordun) in “John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish Nation”, ed. W. F. Skene 

- John Barbour’s “The Brus”, ed. A.A.M. Duncan 

- “The Orygynale Cronikil of the Scotland”, vol.2., by Andrew Wyntoun, ed. David Laing 

- “A History Book for Scots: Selections from the Scotichronicon”, ed. D.E.R. Watt 

- “The Authorship of the Lanercost Chronicle”, by A.G. Little in the English Historical Review, vol. 31 no. 122, p. 269-279 

- “The Kingship of the Scots”, A.A.M. Duncan 

- “Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland”, G.W.S. Barrow 

- “The Wars of Scotland, 1230-1371”, Michael Brown

I have extensive notes so if anyone needs a reference for a specific detail please let me know.

#Scottish history #British history #Scotland #thirteenth century #Mediaeval #Middle Ages #1280s #Alexander III #Yolande of Dreux #House of Canmore #Margaret of England #Margaret Maid of Norway #Margaret of Scotland Queen of Norway #Prince Alexander (d.1284) #Edward I of England #William Fraser Bishop of St Andrews #Robert Wishart Bishop of Glasgow #John Comyn of Badenoch #Alexander Comyn Earl of Buchan #James the Steward #Duncan Earl of Fife (d.1288) #Chronicle of Lanercost #Patrick III Earl of Dunbar #Walter Bower #Scotichronicon #Andrew Wyntoun #John Barbour #John of Fordun #Gesta Annalia II #Sources

[marauderssequels]

the petunia timeline

petunia evans is a character that I think had a lot of potential. I cannot at all commend the person she became as petunia dursley, and I wish so much that she had looked just a little harder in her heart to find space for harry. I can’t forgive her for the nearly two decades of abuse and neglect she inflicted on harry. still, like peter pettigrew and severus snape, she was a child once, before she grew into the horrible woman harry knew. so, who was petunia evans?

Part One: The Evans In Canon

the evans family is a difficult thing to find canon information on. the best we’ve dug up so far is a statement from an interview rowling made when answering if harry’s grandparents were killed. her exact words about the evans were, “...because I do like my backstory: Petunia and Lily’s parents, normal Muggle death.” now, kindly prepare for some english-major bullshit.

death. not deaths, plural. (yes, obviously this is a minute detail, but there’s really not much else to go on.) if the parents had suffered separate deaths, it should’ve been plural. keeping this noun singular suggests that one event took both parents out at once, leaving them both to experience one collective death.*

so, what collective death might they have suffered? well, considering that petunia wasn’t the most imaginative person, let’s remember that the explanation that she gave harry for his parents’ death was a car crash. that certainly fits our requirements for one event taking two people out at the same time, and it qualifies as a “normal Muggle death”. it’s not a far stretch to assume petunia took her answer for harry straight from the way her own parents died.

we know they were dead by the time lily and james died, due to petunia being lily’s only living relative for harry to go to. the conclusion we’ve drawn for petunia’s birth year (which we’ll explain in a later addition to this post) is 1957, three years before lily’s birth. going by british law, if lily’s parents had died before she was eighteen, she would’ve required a legal guardian until she was of age. (remember, 17 is only considered “of age” for wizards, something the muggle government wouldn’t be taking into consideration). since I cannot imagine rowling made the question of legal guardianship a part of lily’s narrative, we’ll set the parameters of her parents’ death for sometime after she had come of age in the eyes of muggle britain but before lily’s death.

lily would turn eighteen on january 30th, 1978, during her final year at hogwarts. her death occurred on october 31st, 1981. that leaves roughly three years for the accident to take place in.

this understanding is important to petunia’s story mainly because these parameters mean she would not be pulled into any sort of court situation regarding lily’s legal guardianship status. her story, according to pottermore, is that she left cokeworth behind forever, which suggests to us that she never once returned. obviously in the real world, this could’ve meant that she moved out permanently but still returned for visits. considering this is coming from rowling, a woman who tends to write in absolutes, it’s more likely to be the “never returning” option. this means that dealing with funeral arrangements, identifying bodies, and putting her parents’ affairs in order were not responsibilities she handled, since that would’ve entailed a return to the town she detested. instead, by the time lily turned eighteen, petunia was already married to vernon dursley and had decidedly left her life there behind. for all intents and purposes, she would’ve considered herself a dursley first and an evans not at all.

we’ll discuss this chapter of the sisters’ lives later; for now, it’s enough to have a rough idea for when petunia’s parents died. not much other information was ever provided about the parental evans, but here’s what we know:

initially, when the girls were younger, mrs. evans told lily she wasn’t allowed to use her magic. after the revelation that lily’s magic made her special, entitling her to attend a wizarding school and study to become a competent witch, both parents were thrilled. the magical world enchanted them both, and lily receives nothing but support from her parents after her acceptance to hogwarts.

young petunia could already identify class, drawing contrasts and divides between her family and the snapes. one of the first insults she punished severus with was a comment on his poor-quality clothing. she knew he came from an impoverished neighborhood and that hers was better, even if not by much. she used that information to immediately cast him in a negative light. she also had the social awareness to ensure no one was around to see lily’s magic, and to detect the insult in the word “muggle” without understanding what it meant. lily being nine years old, petunia would’ve been around twelve, so this social awareness and prideful classist view likely came from her home environment.

while the evans are hardly likely to have been as bad as the malfoys, this is evidence that petunia’s parents placed a great deal of importance on social status. lily only ever mentions her friends questioning her friendship with snape, not her family, so her parents weren’t so extreme to the point of outright forbidding her association with people of a lower status. it’s possible petunia’s younger years saw an economical shift downwards for her parents, leaving her with great pride and a snobbish attitude even once her circumstances turned less fortunate, while lily only ever remembers those circumstances.

moving forward to the next canon information we have concerning petunia, she left cokeworth for london, where she took a typing course. our assumption here is that she left after graduating secondary school, around the age of eighteen or so. once she had her diploma and was a legal adult, she would’ve moved out as soon as possible, to escape the life she hated and the family that favored lily and her magical gifts. assuming she and lily are three years apart, she would’ve left most likely the summer before lily’s fifth or sixth year at hogwarts.

from there, she found an office job, likely at grunnings, the drilling company where vernon was a junior executive, since they met at work. he proposed while lily was in her seventh year at hogwarts, so the engagement took place after lily left for school on september 1st, 1977. they were married by the end of the year and settled into a house together (as petunia tells harry in the first deathly hallows movie that she’s lived in that house for twenty years, during the summer of 1997). this is another part of her story that makes knowing the date of her parents’ death important; because we’ve determined they didn’t die until after january the following year, we know mr. and mrs. evans would have attended petunia’s wedding.

at some point before the wedding but after the proposal, petunia told vernon about lily’s magic. the couple met lily and james for dinner at a muggle restaurant, though the meeting didn’t end well. still, both were invited to the wedding, despite lily pointedly not being made a bridesmaid. afterwards, petunia appears to have sent a present for christmases, and likely birthdays as well, considering that she and vernon generally gave harry at least some type of horrible present for his birthdays. it’s probable lily returned the favor, sending christmas and birthday presents to petunia.

despite being invited, petunia and vernon didn’t attend lily’s wedding. around the autumn of 1979, both evans sisters became pregnant. petunia’s son dudley was born on june 23rd, 1980, just a month before harry’s birth on july 31st. harry’s birth announcement was the last communication petunia ever received from lily (besides the christmas presents they exchanged) before lily’s death the following year on october 31st, 1981. petunia wasn’t aware of her passing until november 2nd, when she discovered her sister’s son on her doorstep along with a letter from albus dumbledore explaining the circumstances of lily’s death and harry’s need for her as his guardian.

this is where the story picks up ten years later in the original series. this is also where our understanding of petunia’s life turns entirely from evidenced speculation and canon to headcanon and theory, unfortunately. in later additions to this post, we’ll explore our theories on petunia’s parents, as well as how her dynamic with lily changed through the years and how her character serves as a mirror to severus’s. already, we’ve made a lot of speculations based on british law, rowling’s writing, and petunia’s character, as well as lily’s, but this first part of her timeline will serve as the canon upon which we’ll be building the rest of her character. any ideas and suggestions for the evans family are more than welcome!

*obviously, this interpretation leans heavily on two large assumptions. firstly, we’re relying on the transcription of the interview having correctly recorded her words, as the link to the original video source is broken. secondly, this conclusion also requires trusting that rowling implements this basic rule of grammar into her everyday speech. any native speaker of english could probably tell you that in day-to-day language, we don’t tend to follow every single rule 100% of the time, as long as our basic meaning can be understood. considering our other deliberate deviations from her canon, however, I think it’s enough to acknowledge the reasoning behind our interpretation of her words and move on.

#petunia evans #petunia dursley #lily evans #vernon dursley #james potter #evans family #potter family #hp canon #hp meta #harry potter #hp fandom

[imjeralee]

Comfort in Despair: Chapter 14 - D R E A M I N G

Leon x F!Reader

Disclaimer: Do not own Pokemon

Summary:

Galar is rich in folklore and tales of the supernatural.

As a Pokemon Researcher who specialises in ghost types, this is a great opportunity for you to investigate and learn more about the paranormal.

Along the way, you meet Leon (in the most awkward way possible) who becomes embroiled in your adventures.

^ Basically this story is about ghosts :/

Rating: General/Teen

Notes: This chapter features a binary message

@marydragneell​ - here is the latest update

D R E A M I N G

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There’s a strange noise in the bedroom.

Opening your eyes, you struggle to see properly in the darkness of the room; Rosie’s bed stands opposite yours and you see it is empty. She is not in her bed but in fact, standing in the middle of the room in her pajamas, her Teddiursa doll discarded at her feet.

“Rosie?” you mutter groggily, sitting up and flipping on the switch of your bedside lamp, dispelling the darkness. “Rosie, what are you doing?”

Your little sister does not answer and continues to stand and sway, her eyes half-closed.

Sliding out of bed, you hurry towards her and grasp her gently by the shoulders.

“Rosie?”

Her mouth moves but her voice is very soft; as you strain to hear, you make out, “Live morf su reviled tub, noitatpmet…”

Puzzled, you can only shake her with a little more force in an effort to make her snap out of her stupor as she mumbles and mutters but to no avail, “Rosie!”

The unresponsiveness of the little girl is worrying so you quickly leave the room and slip into your parent’s which is down the hall to the right. You open their door wide and say, “Mum, dad!”

Following your cry of distress is a groan.

A tussle of the covers.

The silhouette of your father pokes out from the sheets. “Wh…what’s wrong?” he says, voice thick with sleep.

“It’s Rosie. I think she’s having another fit.”

Immediately, your mum and dad rise from bed, cursing under their breath as they follow you back into the bedroom you share with your little sister, only to see that she’s fast asleep in bed with her eyes closed and Teddiursa in her grip.

You blink in confusion, and expecting yourself to be scolded, you bite on your lip worriedly but your parents give you a reassuring pat on the shoulders and head over to Rosie’s bed where they sit on either side.

“Rosie?”

Your little sister stirs awake and opens her eyes groggily.

“Hiya sweetie, you okay?”

Whilst you stand in the doorway, Rosie fiddles and fidgets with her doll before she shakes her head.

“I had a bad dream…” she mumbles quietly.

“What happened, sweetheart?”

“…I saw a….a man,” she says, struggling with her words, pointing to the empty corner of the room. “Standing over there, staring at me. He wanted to take me away.”

…

Rosie is five years old.

She’s a smart child who likes dolls and playing tea parties with her Sinistea and Cutiefly, and she has told you and your parents many times that someone is trying to take her away; though she never explains who or what, she describes this unknown entity simply as a 'man’.

Your parents are ghost-type researchers and heavily invested in the supernatural so instead of going to the police to report this, they take you and Rosie to visit a spirit medium who lived far away from Laverre Town. This medium informs your parents that Rosie can see and hear spirits and for that reason, spirits are attracted to her. She tells Rosie to ignore them, not to respond to spirits or else risk drawing attention to herself. Essentially, they are drawn to her like a Venomoth to a flame.

The medium also predicts that you too, will soon be able to heed the spirit’s calling one day.

To your parent’s dismay, she becomes too terrified to speak of this entity which is after your sister, and cannot divulge anything more except it’s evil and not belonging to this world and asks your family to vacate your premises at once.

With no luck and no help, your parents have no choice but to take it upon their own hands to investigate and apply surveillance on Rosie on a twenty-four seven basis.

It’s usually at night-time when bizarre incidents happen, however.

And you hear the noise again at exactly three am.

As you hold your breath and listen, the sound of nails scraping against a board grows louder and louder.

Sitting up, you glance over to see Rosie missing from her bed once again and on this occasion, she is not in the room at all and the door is open. You quickly peel the covers off and rush outside into the cold landing; your attention is grabbed by the little sounds of footsteps and so you peer over the banister where you see Rosie’s pale form idling through the hallway and towards the front door which flings open as she nears.

“Mum!! Dad!!” you yell, as you trample down the stairs. “Rosie, no!!”

She leaves the house, and as you leap off the last step and to the doorway, the front door violently slams shut in your face, the walls of the house trembling in its wake.

Your parent’s bedroom light goes on and they bumble out. “What’s wrong?”

“Rosie went outside!” you yelp, trying your hardest to open the door with the keys but the handle is stuck, as though someone on the other side is holding it down. “It won’t open!”

Your father curses loudly before he joins you, trying to open the door before he angrily thumps a clenched fist against the surface. The door still does not budge and so he rushes to the kitchen where the backdoor is.

“I’ll be back soon! Don’t leave the house!”

Mum nods and as you begin to sob and wail, she brings you into her arms and you clutch onto her, scared and confused by the entire ordeal.

Outside and you can hear your father shouting, his voice muffled and growing distant.

“Rosie! Rosie, where are you?”

In the house, you sit down in the lounge with your mother where she asks you calmly to explain what happened. You tell her you woke up at three am because you heard the noise again and you tell her what the sound reminds you of: nails scraping against a chalkboard. Then you saw that Rosie had left the room and so you went out and heard footsteps downstairs. You saw the front door open and she went outside. She didn’t acknowledge you, as though she was in a trance.

Your mother nods and thanks you for your bravery and encloses you in another hug, and you huddle together for a while until the front door opens and dad enters with Rosie in his arms.

You both rush over at once with relief.

Rosie is fast asleep in dad’s arms, seemingly unharmed yet he looks troubled.

“Look,” he says, lifting the back of Rosie’s shirt to reveal claw marks on her skin.

….

“You’re getting all worked up for all the wrong reasons,” says Graves. “It was probably just a wild pokemon. Could’ve been a Drifloon or Drifblim trying to steal your little girl away.”

“We live in the suburbs, there are no wild pokemon in a two-mile radius.”

Graves sighs in response. “It could’ve been your Haunter or Sableye. You saw claw marks, right?”

“Haunter and Sableye have never harmed my family, and they were with me the entire time.”

You and Rosie play together in the living room with Sinistea and Cutiefly whilst Graves and your father sit on the leather recliners, watching the football game with beers in hands. Dad is clearly stressed, his eyes are dark and dull due to a lack of sleep. Mum prepares food in the kitchen. Graves will be staying for dinner.

You’ve never liked him.

He has an aversion to ghost-type pokemon although you and your entire family have a high affinity for (and are thus drawn to) ghost-types. Rosie doesn’t like him either and he often tries to win favor with the two of you by handing out candy. He is unfortunately your father’s best friend and thus your ‘uncle’ and since he's watched you grow up, he inevitably becomes your ‘godfather’ after Rosie’s birth.

Graves is a police officer and with his trusty Growlithe and Manectric, he quickly rose through the ranks to become Inspector of Laverre Town. He is also apparently seeing a woman called Ellen whom you've never met before but from what you gather, they have a strained relationship.

He and your father never get in each other’s way but Graves doesn’t believe in the supernatural and you wonder how they could have been friends for such a long time.

“Let me show you something,” dad says, when it’s half-time.

“But the Primarina Divas are about to come on!” Graves complains as busty, buxom women in blue and white cheerleading outfits come cartwheeling onto the pitch and the audience on TV cheer and scream raucously as they begin their routine.

“Get over here, Chris,” dad says. He’s standing at the door that will lead to the basement.

“Fine…”

Dad glances at you and beckons you to follow so you get up, dusting your palms and knees. “Rosie, go help mum in the kitchen.”

“Okay, sissy,” she says with a giggle, getting up with Cutie and Sinistea, waddling over to the direction of the kitchen.

You follow dad and Graves down the stairs; dad tells you to be careful on your way down as the stairs are steep and when you arrive at the last step, you and Graves stare at the massive pokemon that’s being held inside a glass container.

It’s a Dusknoir.

“I put an advert online if anyone was interested in trading and someone answered it,” dad says as he stops beside the glass container, “I reckon Dusknoir can help with what’s been going on lately. I’ve asked Haunter and Sableye…unfortunately none of them can help me. They don’t know what it is so I’ve resorted to this. Dusknoir should be able to help.”

“…Dusknoir?” Graves says with a brow raised, before he treks over and stops by your father's side.

The pokemon is conscious of your presences, its single red eye rolling left and right between Graves and your father, before it lands on you. And it stares, planting its large hands flat against the surface of the glass as it hovers in the air.

You gulp and take a step backwards once you feel the intensity of its unrelenting stare.

“…Dad?” you croak, but your father has moved to his desk, moving away some old cassette and video tapes to pick up a leather-bound journal which he flips open.

“Yeah. It's known that Dusknoir receive transmissions from something in the spirit world. My theory is that this 'something' is trying to take Rosie and with Dusknoir’s help, I’m going to find out what it is. I could use Dusknoir to communicate with it.”

"Communicate with it?"

"Yes, it receives signals and I've been trying to decode what type it is. I've been trying all sorts... Binary, morse code, satellite radio waves-"

“Dad!” you exclaim.

“What is it?”

“….I think you should release it,” you say quietly, “….It doesn’t look very nice.”

Dad chuckles and walks over to you, patting your head affectionately. “It’s okay, dear. Remember that ghost-type pokemon look scary but they are just lonely and misunderstood creatures, that’s all.”

“Uh, does the wife know?” Graves utters, and dad nods.

“I’ll be conducting experiments down here.”

“…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…why don’t you just ask Rosie what it is?”

“She doesn’t know, and I’m not putting my daughter in danger,” dad replies; he returns to his desk, puts down the journal and goes through his papers before he picks up a small black device which you can see is a radio.

Graves sighs. “Well…be careful,” he murmurs.

…

Since Dusknoir has joined your father’s pokemon team, albeit being encased in a glass container for the time being whilst he conducts research, you no longer hear the odd noises and there are no more incidents.

You find Rosie playing in the basement one day. She isn’t allowed in dad's laboratory without adult supervision, so you quickly rush downstairs before either your parents could find out and scoop her up and off the ground, her dolls falling out of her grip.

“Ahh, dolly!” she cries, reaching out for them.

You sigh and bend down to quickly pick them up with one hand whilst the other is wrapped around her waist tightly. “Rosie, what are you doing here?”

“He wants to play with me!” she exclaims, pointing to the glass container where the Dusknoir is.

You follow her gaze to see the large Gripper pokemon staring at you and your sister with its hands flat against the glass. It’s silent but its red eye beadily follows your every moment, watching.

You quickly look away from it, an uneasy feeling settling in the pit of your gut. “Don’t come down here on your own,” you tell Rosie, but she merely giggles.

“It’s okay, sissy,” she says with a giggle, before she glances at Dusknoir and goes, “Beep boop beep boop,” and she continues for a while but alternating between the noises.

“What does that mean?”

“You mean…Beep boop beep boop...?”

“Yeah.”

“It means…come play with me.”

“Huh?”

“He taught me,” she says, pointing to the massive Dusknoir.

“Can he even hear us?”

“Of course he can! But he’s been in a bad mood lately. Beep beep boop boop boop!! That means, ‘I only play tea party, sorry’!”

“And what does, ‘what do you want with my little sister’ mean?”

“Hmm…” Rosie ponders before she says, “Beep boop boop beep beep beep," and again, she continues reciting an extremely complicated and elongated message.

Once she finishes, Dusknoir emits a loud, aggressive roar and slams his fists against the glass repeatedly; you step backwards with fright and with Rosie in your grip, you hurry up the stairs and close the basement door shut behind you.

…

Days pass and Rosie goes to school and you go to school and when you come home, it’s warm and welcoming. Your mother is in the kitchen and she smiles and it’s the most beautiful smile you’ve ever seen and she makes you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and if you knew any better it’s the last one she will ever make for you and she asks you to take one to your dad who is in the garage and chatting to some neighbours and when it’s almost dinner, you both go back into the house and help set the table up and mum asks about school and how it’s going on and she asks you if there’s any cute boys and you shyly think about one particular lad in class who has caught your eye and when dad tries to joins in, you and mum tell him it’s girls only and you laugh and Rosie joins in, wanting to know what’s going on and then it’s time to eat dinner and you’re sitting down at the table with your family and looking around, at their smiling faces, and you look at your plate to see your mum’s made your favourite food and dad’s eating his steak with his weird protein shake again and mum is scolding him whilst Rosie sticks her tongue out with distaste because there’s vegetables on her plate and -

Screaming.

You’re awoken in the middle of the night by screaming.

Glimpsing over, you see Rosie’s bed is empty.

This isn’t like the normal nights.

Overwhelmed by a sense of dread, you exit and pass your parent’s room; neither your father or mother are inside.

Downstairs, the basement door is wide open and flashing lights flicker from within.

Screaming.

That’s where it’s coming from.

I’m here, you want to say. I’m here.

Each step is heavy, the cold wood under your feet is unwelcoming and chilling to the core. Your house is foreign to you.

In the basement, you make your way down to see the glass container has shattered and a massive swirling vortex of black, blue, purple and white has appeared in the middle of the space.

Dusknoir is halfway inside, feeding the wriggling bodies of your father and Rosie into its mouth.

Your mother lies on the ground, unconscious.

Confused and shocked, you rush towards the huge pokemon.

Stop!!!

Your voice is drowned by the noise. It turns to you, its single red eye flashing before an unseen force knocks you off your feet and your back hits the floor, your head slamming hard against the concrete ground.

You wake up when something cold splashes on your cheek and you wrench your eyes open before you sit up with a gasp, glancing around.

It’s quiet.

Your mother sits on the basement floor, her gaze empty.

Dusknoir is gone.

“Mum!” you exclaim.

She slides her eyes to you as you crawl over to her and grab her by the shoulders.

“Mum?”

She does not respond.

You let go of her and glance around the cold and dark basement. “…Dad? Rosie?? Where are you??”

“Gone,” your mum utters, “They’re gone.”

As you glance at her in bewilderment, she lifts herself off the ground and pads to your father’s desk.

She goes through the papers that have become strewn over the floor and mumbles and mutters and utters under her breath incoherently. She shakes her head repeatedly as she bunches the papers in her hands, muttering ‘no, no, no’ and ‘my baby, my poor baby’ over and over again.

You call out to her but she doesn’t respond.

Therefore, you silently pick yourself up off the floor, leave the basement and phone Graves.

You didn’t know what else you could do.

Graves arrives and it’s almost dawn. He’s brought his partner with him and he enters the house to see you at the door and your mother is surrounded by your father’s papers and obsessively skimming through them whilst seated on the sofa and when he asks what happened, your mother’s ramblings don’t appear to help but when you try to interrupt, Graves isn’t interested in what you have to say or add to the conversation. He leaves your mother in the lounge then heads to the basement, alone.

You sit with her, watching her hysterically pour through the research.

Whilst his partner stays in the lounge with you and attempts to strike up some meaningless small talk, Graves returns empty-handed.

He's confused.

They converse silently and routinely throw you and your mother concerned glances before they split up; Graves checks the rest of the house, inspecting the kitchen, dining room, the bathroom and all the bedrooms upstairs.

He thinks of all sorts of logical reasons why your father and Rosie have disappeared in the middle of the night.

It could have been…

A nasty spat between spouses.

A break-in.

Your mother is the only person who saw what really happened.

He sees that the two of you are badly shaken yet unharmed and drives you to Laverre Police Station to officially take testimony. A search subsequently begins but their outcome is not successful.

When it’s finally your turn to speak to Graves, you have sat in the police station for hours and when you’re brought in the room, it’s intimidating but you tell him what you saw in the basement; Graves stares at you silently the entire time, eyebrows scrunching and lifting everytime you detail how you saw the Dusknoir with your father and Rosie in its clutches and putting them into its mouth when they were still alive.

He remains quiet, doesn’t ask you any questions, doesn’t interrupt. The pen remains untouched by his notepad.

“Kid,” he says, after a pregnant pause following your explanation, “your mother’s said something entirely different.”

It takes a while to register this.

You sit in silence as Graves regards you intensely for a moment before he gets up to leave.

A kind-looking woman with glasses is beckoned in and she plops herself down in Graves’ seat which he has kept warm for her. She adjusts her frames, propping up a manila folder in front of her before she scoops out some documents. She asks you questions which are a little strange because they’re personal and unrelated but you soon realise it’s to assess and revaluate your current mental state. She even has your school records. Unfortunately, the more she asks and the more she doesn’t make any progress with your interrogation and you’re clean but you’re not exempted yet.

Perhaps you have a disturbed mind or Dusknoir devouring your father and sister is a metaphor for a sadistic murderer who has kidnapped them?

“After all, if the public finds out a pokemon had devoured two people, there would be madness.”

And due to the horrific nature of the crime, you had mentally blocked or changed some aspects?

“Why don’t you believe me?” you asked, “Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”

Raising your voice, you slam your bunched fists on the iron table and yell, “What’s wrong with you??? What’s wrong with all you?! I’m telling the truth!! Why won’t you believe me?!”

You receive no satisfactory answer, your words are taken with no seriousness and you and mum are informed to go home whilst the initial investigation goes underway.

“Mum, why didn’t you tell them what you saw? They think I’m lying.”

When you look at her, all the colour has left her face and you begin to feel you no longer recognize her.

“They won’t believe us,” she utters, “We’ll get your father and Rosie back ourselves.”

Stunned by her words, you can only nod limply.

You’re expected to go to school in a few days. By then, your father and sister’s disappearance have hit the tabloids. Everyone whispers and looks at you, in the school, the neighbourhood….you get stared at when you walk through the halls to your next class, you end up sitting alone in the cafeteria during lunch, even the teachers are careful around you. People think they were murdered.

There is nothing about Dusknoir.

And often, you wonder to yourself if it truly was a nightmare.

You miss your father and sister terribly and your mother inevitably begins to obsessively investigate; she spends much of her time in the basement and rarely eats, drink or sleep.

As the days passed, you become used to seeing her less and less often around the house and though you want to help, your mother brushes you off, asking you to focus on your studies.

Soon, the upkeep of the house falls in your grasp.

You make it a habit to go out to the supermarket and buy food by yourself, dragging a wheeled shopping bag with you each time when you go during the weekends, heading to the ATM when you were strapped for cash.

You look up recipes online and learn how to cook meals for yourself and your mother, leaving food for her on the desk. You eat on your own in the dining room, sitting at the large table, surrounded by three empty seats.

Graves visits as much as he can; he usually talks to your mother but sometimes he sits with you in the living room to watch football whilst your mom slaves away in the basement on her own. He tells you her appearance is turning haggard, which you are aware of.

Worried about her behaviour, you look up various kinds of available therapy which you think will benefit her, spending many late nights on your laptop browsing online and calling up various clinics to enquire but the costs are going to be high so you decide to secure a side gig tutoring some kids to pay for your mother’s treatment, placing an advert online which you didn’t think would get noticed.

Inexorably, your grades begin to fall as you balance your newfound hustle and school. That cute boy in class no longer occupies your mind. You come home late in the evening from your work, exhausted. You stop smiling and overall, you’ve mentally aged.

At night, you lie awake in your bed and glance over to Rosie’s empty bed where the sheets and pillows are unwashed, and you think about that night and you think about it a lot; you wish you could’ve done more and you begin to hate yourself for not paying enough attention to your father’s research and what he was trying to accomplish with Dusknoir. You should’ve done more to help your father. You should’ve studied alongside him.

Rising from bed, you make your way downstairs to the basement where your mother is, hunched over the desk with a black device in hands.

It’s dad’s radio.

“Mum?”

“Yes?”

You walk up to the desk, where you see your father’s old notes which have been collated into his journal with the leather-bound cover. You pick it up and open it, flipping through the pages where you see his handwriting and hold the book to your chest, closing your eyes. There is also a family photo in his study which you pluck out from the stand and hold gingerly in your hand.

On the verge of tears, you croak out, “I want to help. Please tell me how I can help. Please. Talk to me.”

Finally, she swivels round in her seat when she hears you sobbing and for the first time in a while, she embraces you.

She says, “We need to get a Dusknoir.”

Since it started with Dusknoir, your mum entrusts you with this task so you upload another advert and put up a Phantump you had caught beforehand in the PC box and send it on its way to the Kalos GPS.

A few days later, someone answers your advert and you receive a Dusclops through the GPS which evolves into a Dusknoir in process.

Satisfied that you’ve made some progress, you head to the basement with Dusknoir’s capsule in hand, wanting to show your mother. To your surprise, she’s moved from her seat and is clutching the radio in hands, smiling widely.

“Mum?”

She spots you and the smile widens, “They’re alive!” she exclaims.

You can only stare at her, stunned.

“Listen,” mum switches the radio, rotating the small, rounded knob as carefully as she can and you watch the little dial move across the screen.

The crackling static of white noise fills the quiet basement until your mum reaches eighteen ninety-eight hertz and the radio fizzes into life.

“…..hello? This is- ….I’m in a dark place, and….…”

It is your father’s voice.

As your mum grins at you, you rush over, eyes wide. “Dad? Dad! We’re here!!!”

“….I think I’ve been stuck here for three days…”

“He can’t hear us,” mum explains when your face falls. “This is a spirit radio, dear. It only works on this frequency, it picks up transmissions from the spirit world, and it’s picked up your father! He’s alive! Alive!!!”

Alive.

Stiff with shock, mum envelopes you into a hug and sobs and wails with laughter.

It’s been a while since you’ve seen her happy.

“Mum,” you utter, “I…uh…I got the Dusknoir.”

“Excellent!” mum cries as you hand her the capsule which she holds close to her chest.

“Mum…promise me you won’t do anything stupid,” you say, and she nods but somehow you don’t believe her.

…

“Mum, I’m home,” you say wearily, locking the front door behind you and removing your shoes.

You step inside the lounge only to be met with silence.

“…Mum?”

The lights are still on.

You had gone to work for four hours.

She is possibly in the basement, you think, and so you creep down the stairs only to see it is empty. She’s not in the basement, where could she be?

Your search does not last long as you breeze through the lounge and into the kitchen which is in uproar; the stools have been knocked over, there are various cassette and video tapes lying all over the surface of the counter along with an opened dusk ball. Dad’s radio lies on the floor beside a screwdriver and some scattered parts. You spot his journal and the family photo, which has fallen out from the pages.

“Mum?” you call as you pick up the journal and the radio, your voice echoing in the empty house.

“Mum?”

“Mum!”

“MUM!!!”

“…Mum?”

“Mum, please…”

“Not you too.”

Did your voice always sound so sad?

…

Professor Magnolia and Sonia enter the ward.

A girl in a white gown sits at a table with a Sinistea and Cutiefly perched on her shoulders, staring morosely at various untouched chess pieces on the surface. Her eyes hold no life, her hair unkempt, her face a grim portrait of melancholy.

There are other patients but they walk around aimlessly or yell or wail and talk to themselves and Sonia huddles close to her grandmother, wondering why she is in such a scary place.

They don’t come to Kalos often but Magnolia had received an emergency call from a Police Inspector called Chris Graves.

“She ran all the way to the police station,” Graves says, sighing. “I didn’t know what to do with her so I put her there for a while. Maybe she’ll feel better.”

“I hardly think so, Mr Graves. This girl needs proper care.”

“Listen, she had a mental breakdown…and, um…I’m her godfather…so legally, I…I’m supposed to take her in but she doesn’t want to live with me and I don’t wanna force her. I’m paying for her treatment and I’m not offended or anything ‘cos I’m not good at this stuff, I’m not fit to be a dad in any way,” Graves tells her during the phonecall, “And I know you’re her mother’s mentor and so I thought….you might be better to…I dunno, talk to her.”

“Where are her grandparents?”

“They’ve passed away. She has some relatives but they don’t want to take her in. Too much hassle, and the medication’s expensive too.”

Magnolia and Sonia walk up to this girl at the chess table, and says her name.

She looks up, her tired and sunken eyes meeting theirs.

“My name is Magnolia. I’m a Professor from the region of Galar. This is my granddaughter, Sonia. She’s the same age as you,” Magnolia gestures to Sonia who offers you a meek wave.

“Hi….”

“I’m your mother’s mentor so I knew her well, and I’ve been informed about your circumstances. Would you like to come with me?” Magnolia says, “…Would you like to live with us?”

Indifference slowly dissolves to shock as this woman called Professor Magnolia and her doe-eyed granddaughter Sonia stand before you. The chess pieces on the table blur together as you emit a quiet sniff, the corner of your eyes leaking with tears.

...

...

...

In the hospital, Leon remains by your side.

Some people came and went, namely Magnolia, Sonia and Chief Inspector Graves. He was your godfather. Who knew?

You're only allowed one visitor at a time and Leon has made it quite obvious to everyone that he will be the one to stay by your side as the two ladies came and went due to the ungodly hour, and Graves has left to talk to Chairman Rose and the Ghostbunkers and he won't be coming back anytime soon.

Leon has faithfully stayed with you as you were taken to hospital and he sits on the chair by your bed, waiting for you to wake up. You’ve fallen unconscious since you were brought in and the doctors say your condition is stable despite the blood loss and you will make a full recovery very soon. It's good news and Leon holds your hand tightly in his, closing his eyes. He silently thanks Arceus that you're unharmed and prays that you will wake up soon.

However, the door is suddenly thrown open and a blonde-haired young man in black enters the room unannounced, his head wrapped with a plethora of bandages whilst a Joltik is perched on his shoulder with a little bandage tied around its body.

"Chuck!" he yells loudly, and Leon turns round to face the newcomer.

The two men regard each other; the blonde looks at Leon, who's still donned in his torn shirt and his cape appears to be missing and although Leon doesn't quite appreciate the intrusion and the unwelcome noise, he says calmly, "Chuck? I think you've got the wrong room..."

"No, no, that's just my nickname for her, for duckie. I mean chuck. Wait-" the blonde keeps correcting himself until he says your name.

"Who are you?"

"I'm so sorry, I should've introduced myself first," the blonde tidies his act up, lowers his voice and closes the door quietly behind himself, "I'm Jace. It's nice to meet you, Sir Champion."

Jace.

So this is Jace.

Leon has seen his testimonial on your blog and you've mentioned him once or twice. Now he can finally put the name to a face and this is Jace. He must be older than the both of you and he is not bad-looking; he's tall with a thin frame, sharp jaw and chiselled features. One can tell he is friendly from a simple glance.

However, quite the opposite occurs: a surge of discomfort flits through Leon's mind when he realises you and Jace are friends and you are close. Close enough that you have nicknames for each other. The champion's expression doesn't change despite this fact though he tenses in his seat and he clinches your fist with more force than before.

The pit of his gut suddenly bubbles with an unquenchable uneasiness he hasn't experienced before; it's different. It's new, and most unbecoming. Initially, Leon ponders if it's the tension he feels before a battle...but this is indeed a wholly different sensation.

"It's nice to meet you too," Leon does his best but ultimately ends up forcing a smile at the blonde, "And there's no need to be so formal. Just 'Leon' is fine-"

Jace wheezes a little.

"-and you were with her at the art gallery, right?"

"Yeah," the blonde replies, nodding vigorously, "Sir Champion, I mean, Leon...she didn't have to take the case. She knew you had spoken to Rose and you had put in a good word for her, and it's not in her heart to turn down a client."

Leon lowers his gaze. "...I know."

"Rose isn't happy. He says we violated the terms and conditions because I used Joltik and that counts as pokemon battling, which isn't allowed on the premise. But I had to. I had to protect myself and chuck."

"I'll talk to Chairman Rose. Don't worry, I'm sure he'll come around. Thank you for protecting her, Jace."

"You're welcome..."

The room settles into silence; Jace is clearly intimidated by Leon's presence and it's then he sees that the Champion is also holding your hand very tightly.

And then there's the note on the door that says 'One Visitor At A Time'.

Three's a crowd and so Jace utters, "Right, well then, I imagine she's in good hands since you're here and all, so I'll...I'll be off now. Goodnight."

Leon nods.

Without much further ado, the blonde wordlessly leaves the room, closing the door behind him once more.

Leon is left with you and you alone, and that's the way he likes it. Upon Jace's departure, his gut loosens up and the strange swirling and jittery feeling ebbs away in a second and finally, he is able to relax. He swivels round in his seat to face you, leaning over to sweep away a loose strand of hair that's lingering over your closed eyelids. You look peaceful and he wonders what you're possibly dreaming about.

Hopefully, it's a pleasant dream.

…

#pokemon #pkmn #pokemonsword #pokemonshield #pokemon sword and shield #leon #dande #reader #reader insert #leon x reader #Leon x you #jeralee #fanfic #fic #archive of our own

[purplesurveys]

1011

1. Five facts about your current relationship OR five facts about your single life.

a) I haven’t been truly single in...around 6 years, so it’s been a bit of an adjustment.

b) It was my last day as an intern yesterday (but they hired me, so I’m staying after all, haha) and since I’ve felt like I gained a family in the last two months, I thought it would be okay to give professionalism a break and share what had actually been going on with me on my first day on the job, aka when the breakup was still fresh and I was still figuring out how to function all over again. It unsurprisingly surprised everyone and my superior said something like, “Omg it’s the [company name] curse; it’s so strong it broke you guys up before you even got hired” which got a laugh out of me.

c) I’m not interested in seeing other people.

d) Probably wouldn’t be, for a long time. My trust has been irreparably broken.

e) Seeing couples in public has now become annoying. I’m happy for them, but it’s still annoying.

2. Five facts about a past relationship.

a) I’ve known her since kindergarten, but we didn’t become friends till 7th grade and didn’t start dating until junior year of high school.

b) We were legal with her family and her parents loved me and I them. On the other hand, I was never able to come out to my family because she broke up with me before I could be able to do so.

c) She introduced me to vaping.

d) We were never able to truly travel together, which we always planned to do after graduating. The farthest we reached was Batangas.

e) She never knew where she wanted to eat whenever we were out, so I was mostly the one who decided which restaurant we were going to have lunch or dinner in.

3. Five facts about your mother.

a) She has always worked in hotels, which is great because it has always allowed us to get room and buffet discounts, heh.

b) Her family (aka my grandparents, her, and my uncles) struggled financially for a little bit when my grandpa lost his job when she was in college. When her friends would go to fast-food restaurants, my mom would always decline, saying she had schoolwork to finish. In reality she just couldn’t afford anything, and the only money she held was for public transport.

c) She is a little childish considering her age, and I cannot stand her petty tantrums. She was childish even when I was a kid, and I believe my emotional well-being suffered because of that.

d) She has a high pain tolerance and the only time I’ve seen her struggle was when she was getting a tattoo on the back of her shoulder.

e) She is also extremely religious and it especially grinds my gears when she gets hypocritical about it, which is just about all the time.

4. Five facts about your father.

a) He has only ever dated my mom.

b) He grew up extremely poor and at some point his parents actually stopped being able to afford his tuition. Instead of being kicked out, a few nuns who served in the school paid my grandparents a visit and told them my dad would be given a scholarship since he had good grades and it would have been a waste if he got expelled.

c) He was a dancer in high school, knows how to play the guitar, and he also apparently knows how to draw very well. There’s a lot I don’t know about him, considering he has worked abroad my whole life.

d) He breaks or loses his reading glasses once every few months. I know which parent I definitely take after.

e) I have never seen him cry.

5. Five facts about your sibling. If you have more than one, pick one. Or do them all!

a) She had problems crying in school until she was in around 2nd or 3rd grade.

b) She’s in college and is currently taking up digital filmmaking.

c) She’s the biggest introvert I know. I’ve never seen her be willing to do anything silly; not even with her friends.

d) She can’t handle spicy food.

e) Her main interests have shifted from Harry Potter, to One Direction, to 5SOS, and now K-pop. I believe she’s into Seventeen the most.

6. Five facts about your town.

a) The upper part of the city offers amazing views of the Metro Manila skyline, which has recently made the place a kinda popular nightlife destination.

b) There’s a lot of hidden gem restaurants here but because most people spend more time complaining about how far my city is and how difficult it is to get to than actually just making the damn ride over here, the restaurants stay hidden and uncrowded. Their loss.

c) Used to be massively underdeveloped for most of my childhood and teenage years. Now there are several malls and I can easily go to a McDonald’s, Burger King, and Starbucks right outside our village.

d) Because you basically have to drive through a mountain to get to the upper part of the city, it’s not the safest highway and fatal crashes are unfortunately common.

e) The city is known for its suman, except I hate Filipino rice cakes and this actually doesn’t do anything for me.

7. Five facts about your house.

a)  It used to have a balcony until we had that transformed into another bedroom. So technically it is still a balcony; it just hasn’t had that purpose for a while now.

b) My mom used a little cheat in our dining room and installed a huge wall mirror. Most people visiting for the first time always note how much larger it made the room (and thus the house) look.

c) I live in a neighborhood where the houses are of the same model and look (think the Squidville episode from Spongebob). That said, balconies are included in all properties. When my parents decided to renovate ours and turn it into a room, so many houses slowly followed suit as well. It was amusing to see it unfold, knowing the idea undoubtedly originated from us. It was like a revolution.

d) We don’t have a gate, which irritates me to no end because it allows noisy neighborhood kids to just march and run around our property. Sometimes they even make it to our carport and backyard, ugh. :(

e) Speaking of backyard, the landscaping for it used to be a pebble mosaic designed to look like a swan. But over the years the quality deteriorated, so my parents to opted to have the pebbles crushed into tiny rocks and embedded onto the ground. I don’t exactly know what this technique is called, but yeah.

8. Five facts about your niece or nephew. If you have more than one, pick one. Or do them all! Skip if you don’t have one. I don’t have any, but I do have a godson so I’m going with him as I don’t want to leave any section blank.

a) He was born sometime in December. I honestly don’t remember when, loooooool. Worst godmother ever.

b) He’s actually one of my first cousins, but I guess my aunt saw something in me and wanted me to be his godson. I’ve been a terrible one, though; I’ve never bought him gifts or money or anything – to be fair, I was made a ninang when I was like, 14 or 15 lmao.  But I can definitely make up for it now that I’m starting to earn my own money.

c) He’s the calmer, sweeter version of his older brother. His kuya was a pretty naughty kid when he was his age.

d) He mainly speaks English, as how most younger parents raise their kids these days. He understands Filipino of course, but he mostly communicates in English.

e) The last time I saw him, he was in the middle of a ridiculously adorable interviewing phase where he’d approach anyone in the family and start asking them a series of questions: what’s your favorite color? What food can’t you live without? What’s your favorite subject in school? Would you rather win $1 million dollars or know how to fly? It typically got exhausting after the 25th question, but it was so cute nonetheless. None of us have any idea where it came from.

9. Five facts about your education.

a) I went to a private, all-girls, Catholic school from kinder up to high school, and then moved to a public, co-educational, non-sectarian university for college. It was the very epitome of culture shock, lemme tell ya.

b) Some classes I had in my first school that might be uncommon in others have included penmanship (because my school has its own brand of cursive), environmental education, and I don’t remember what this next class was called anymore but we were basically taught how to write professionally? Like how to write cover letters and resumés and all.

c) My first school is extremely homophobic and went so far as to ‘hire’ spies  tasked to check up on who’s been in same-sex relationships, list them all down, and report them to the guidance office so that they can be called one by one and be interrogated, and for the most part, pressured to come out. I don’t know if they still do this, but the younger batches are definitely more vocal and woke now thanks to social media and I doubt those practices would still fly today.

d) My university education was a breath of fresh air. Suddenly people were wearing sleeveless tops, mobs and rallies were a common sight to me, and my instructors were now atheist and not shoving Catholicism and Jesus and salvation down my throat. I loved every single day of it.

e) The most interesting class I took in college was a course called Pornography in Electronic Media, under the broadcast communication department. Getting to tell people I take a class where we sit down to watch porn was such a fucking ride.

10. Five facts about your job.

a) I got hired last Wednesday, but I had been interning for the company for around two months before they extended the offer.

b) I’m pretty much gonna be doing the same things I did as an intern, except I’m now accountable for any boo-boos I make HAHAHAHA. Also, I’m gonna be paid a lot more, obviously, which is sweet. I really thought we interns were severely underpaid considering the work that we help with on a daily basis.

c) My role is going to be with another department which is a little scary because it means the things I learned with the department I actually interned at will be pretty much useless. I’ll be starting from scratch again, but I’m still excited.

d) It’s a work-from-home situation, which is a relief for me because I don’t have to wake up early and I don’t have to face traffic. 

e) My job interview for the position was actually a bit of a bomb because I absolutely fumbled with and messed up the first question I was asked; and since first impressions matter, I really thought I lost the gig from the very start of the interview. I made up for it as the interview continued and fortunately was able to break the ice and build a rapport with the team members who spoke with me, and I guess I did enough for them to want to take me in anyway.

For those who are curious, I blanked the fuck out when they asked “Tell me something about yourself that isn’t in your resumé.” Slowest 15 seconds of my life.

#survey #surveys

[blackdreamsoffashion]

It’s August 7th and unfortunately, things have gotten exponentially worse…. in the U.S. because the rest of the world has generally gotten their shit together.

As things continue to worsen and we wait for the ticking time bomb that is K-12 schools and universities opening for F2F instruction… prior to having a vaccine, there honestly doesn’t seem to be a real end in sight (unless I move to Canada, and I may or may not have been researching how to become a Canadian citizen).

Most of the time, I’m ok with this. I’m a big girl, I understand that life is hard, things happen, “it is what it is” (barf), but there are some days where the realization that I’ll be living through these Covid times indefinitely, truly knocks the wind out of me.

While I’m generally a home body, I do like the option of being able to leave my house. I miss being able to visit family and friends without worrying about infecting each other. I miss the gym, and coffee shops, and Marshall’s, and thrift stores. I could go on and on about what I miss, but I’ll spare you since I’m sure everyone has things they’re missing right now.

On these hard days, and throughout the pandemic in general, I’ve tried to find ways to feel somewhat “normal”, and luckily with the help of my therapist and suggestions from friends, I’ve felt ok most days and I don’t curl up and cry on the floor for hours on the hard days either (even though a good cry is always good for the soul).

So, I thought I’d share my tips.

Being a teacher and all, it’s in my nature.

1. Tip 1: Keep a loose schedule

In the beginning of the pandemic, I found that I was trying to just go with the flow. I didn’t have any sort of schedule and I quickly learning that everything just started to blend together, in a negative way. When you come from a structured life style, i.e. teaching classes, waking up, eating , working out, dissertating, etc. all at a set time, having no structure feels hard after a while! So, I created a very loose, very flexible schedule, as I found it gave me something to look forward to, while helping my life to feel more normal. For example, my days are generally: wake up around 7:30/8, listen to a podcast or two while eating, from 9 until 12 it’s open to what I want (maybe running, going for a walk, reading, cleaning, etc.). 12:30 is lunch followed by coffee and a dessert. 1-5 I try to complete some school/work related tasks. 5:30-6:30 I cook and have dinner. After dinner, we might go for another walk… or another dessert. I might dance to ratchet music for 20-30 minutes (also good for the soul, trust me), or I might do some things around the house. 9:30-11:30 I watch Netflix. So as you can see, it’s super loose, and the only things that are truly set are my meal times… otherwise I’d be eating constantly all day. The first month of covid, we spent about $600 on food….for two people…. and our budget is 250-300 a month #yikes. By having some things to look forward to though, it helps my days to run a bit smoother. But let’s be honest, we all know it’s the dessert after lunch that keeps me going LOL.

2. Tip 2: Find you hobby

Considering the way American culture and society is set up (insert side-eye here), our lives are often centered around work/school and other obligations, and we rarely have time to pursue other things. Therefore, I’ve tried to really take advantage of having to be home by incorporating some old hobbies back into my life, and even trying new ones. I’ve been flying through angsty Mangas and Animes and repurposing/revamping thrifted furniture/ people trash.

I even made a children’s book for my nephew centered around him and my sister!

I’m also trying to expand the inventories of bread I can make. I’m happily at a solid 1.5 different loaves. I say 1.5 because the second type only comes out well 50% of the time LOL.

  There are so many things you can do such as an online cooking class, a Zoom paint-with-a twist, drawing, photography, running, gardening, learning a new language or skill, becoming an indoor plant mom, etc.

I am especially biased towards activities that involve moving the body. NUMEROUS studies (no I’m not looking them up/linking them b/c I do enough of that as an academic, so you can look up studies yourself!) have found that exercise helps with anxiety and depression (I can attest to this), with mental clarity and focus (I can also attest to this), it helps you sleep better, and it also helps with your immune system, blood pressure, and hormone regulation. My moods are always consistently better when I exercise vs. when I don’t. When I don’t I can become a crazy bish….

3. Tip 3: Take social media breaks

I do this and I have several friends who do this as well. Yes it is important to be connected and social media can facilitate that. However, it is extremely important to monitor/control what we consume. The world, especially the U.S. is NOT a pretty place right now. Our feeds are filled with Black men and women losing their lives to police, families being ripped apart due to Covid-related deaths, thousands of deaths in Lebanon, a humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and the list goes on and on. Taking breaks from constant exposure to that is crucial to maintaining our mental health. I know it’s easier said than done, and studies have shown that social media is a literal addition, but I find that it helps to set small goals, which can be done easily with i-phones. Simply set a limit to the amount of time you’re able to use social media apps (through the i-phone settings), and it will lock you out of the app once you reach that time limit.

4. Tip 4: The Calm app

I cannot express how in love I am with the Calm app. I believe it’s $70 a year but given that I use it everyday, that’s essentially .20 cents a day.  Trust me, it’s wellll worth it. The app includes things like guided meditations, bedtime stories, daily mood check-ins, sound scapes, 7-days of gratitude, and help for anxiety, confidence, relationships, stress, emotions, etc. etc. TBH, you should have bought it when I said .20 cents a day! This app helped me through graduate school as I struggled with stress, anxiety, and sleep deprivation, and it continues to help me with those same things as I transition into a new work environment and of course, Covid.

Lastly, I’m not sure whether this is a tip or not due to its broadness but, if I’ve learned anything from all of this craziness, it’s to do things meaningfully and with intention. It’s soooo easy to agree to 1000 Zoom get-togethers when you’re not interacting with other humans, but it gets to a point where we’re just doing things to do them. Like social media. We scroll just because. We binge shop online (maybe just me…), we watch a million shows on Netflix, we eat ALL the cookies/make constant trips just because. Although it’s not easy, I try to be in tune with myself and my needs by being present, and asking myself WHY. Why are you going in the fridge again, Sherez? Are you hungry, or eating to eat? Why did you say yes to that Zoom hang out when you just spoke with that person two days ago (what could have possibly happened in two days during Covid LOL).

I do slip up, often, but I try my damn best. Trying helps me to make it through the hard days, and it makes the other days as close to normal as it’s gonna get, for now.

Any who, I hope this is able to help someone out there in the black void that is the internet.

Goodluck my friends! Sending back the love + light that I’ve received from so many of you. We’ll get through this, poco a poco, and we are in this together…… despite American society’s push for individualism (*cough, cough*).

Until the next one!

S.M.

Sharing is caring. 

Surviving the pandemic hard days: Tips from me + the community It's August 7th and unfortunately, things have gotten exponentially worse.... in the U.S. because the rest of the world has generally gotten their shit together.

#community #Covid #health #society #tips

[adiabolikpastel]

Losing You

Rating: PG-13 - minor sex scene & male x male

Word Count: 4461

Original Character(s): Skye Oakly & Alrick Rosenfeld 

ღ This is the first written commission I have ever gotten! Thank you to @the-sloth-woman for writing our boys together! The art for both characters was done by @minoux-draws​

An AU piece where demons have taken over, however cannot breed normal. They must use the human’s to secure linage for the future. The Rosenfeld clan captures a human girl to marry off to the head of the family, young Alrick. 

Reluctantly, the snake demon prepares for his wedding. There is just one last thing he must do. A young siren who had been his lover for quite some time. Will the two be able to maintain a connection after the big news?ღ

♬° ✧❥✧¸.•*¨*✧♡✧ ♬° ✧❥✧¸.•*¨*✧♡✧ ♬° ✧❥✧¸.•*¨*✧♡✧ ♬° ✧❥✧¸.•*¨*✧♡✧

Alrick closed the door to the penthouse with a resolute click. Anger radiated off him in waves, and it took every inch of his self-control not to rip the door off its fucking hinges. 

Why was she so goddamn frustrating!? Surely she could see that he didn’t want to be mated to her either. There were hundreds of demons who he would have been better suited with. Men and women who were thousands of times less infuriating as one stupid human girl. He would have done better to trade her off to the brothel owners. At least there she would find something to do with her stupid mouth. 

He shook his head and took a deep breath through his nose. He couldn’t think about Lilly right now, not when he had so much on his plate. There was the ceremony to arrange on top of his normal workload. And that was an enormous task altogether. Was he supposed to just appear in traditional ceremonial dress with no forethought? Please. He didn’t have time to waste fighting with humans. 

The first and most pressing matter was, unfortunately, going to be the most difficult. Alrick was an extremely popular demon lord, and living alone for so long had left him a string of paramours. There were many that he did not care about, women who were little more than one-night stands and whose memories were clouded through fogs of wine. There were demons with whom he had more established relationships with, but they would understand his predicament. They would understand how his honor demanded that he put aside his own needs for the future of his people. And even then it had been weeks since he had seen anyone who particularly struck his interest. 

But there was one person who he was dreading bringing the news to. He had been seeing Skye on and off for months, and while they had an extraordinary physical relationship, they had managed to keep it hidden from most of the ruling class of demons. Their conversation would be messy, and full of feelings that Alrick didn’t know how to handle. The cowardly part of him wanted to prolong the conversation until after the ceremony. But Alrick wouldn’t let himself be a coward, no matter how difficult it would be. 

He spent most of the day making arrangements for the ceremony. His family’s uchikake needed to be pressed and cleaned, the sake needed to be chosen, and he sent out invitations to most of the ruling class. He also ordered contraceptive tea for afterward, just in case the mating did not take hold. There was nothing worse than being forced to raise a cub with someone who was incompatible with you. 

Truthfully, he was putting off calling Skye for as long as possible. The clock on his desk slowly ticked down toward the end of the day. He had one last night of freedom before being bound to a human, and he knew he had to make the most of it. He picked up the phone on his desk with a heavy heart and rang the Sakamaki family. 

Skye’s familiar voice greeted him on the other end of the line. “Sakamaki residence, this is Skye speaking. My masters are out of the house for the evening, may I take a message?” 

For once Alrick was thankful for the human invention of the telephone. It was much faster than sending a messenger, and the person on the other end didn’t have to see the look on his face. “It’s me,” he said, not bothering to introduce himself. 

The tone of Skye’s voice changed immediately. “Alrick- I mean, Your Highness,” he gushed. “It’s so nice to hear from you. Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?” 

Alrick tried not to wince at Skye’s familiar flirting. “I need to see you tonight. Can you meet me for dinner?” 

“Tonight? Well, the Sakamakis are busy, I’m really not supposed to leave the manor unattended.” 

“Shit,” Alrick ran his hand through his hair. “Then find an excuse to leave.” Skye’s warm laugh trilled through the end of the phone. “Really Alrick, has it been so long since you last saw me that you’re resorting to ordering me around? I’ll come much faster if you ask nicely,” he teased. “You should know that better than anyone.” 

The double entendre of Skye’s words was not lost on Alrick, but his mood was too sour to appreciate them. “Please, Skye,” he rarely ever let himself plead with another person, but he was desperate. “This is urgent. I need you, and it can’t wait.” 

“O-oh,” the tone of Alrick’s voice had thrown the flirty attitude form Skye’s voice. “Yeah, sure.” 

“Great. Meet me at our usual spot in half an hour. And don’t be late.” Alrick couldn’t see it, but he knew the authority in his voice was enough to make Skye shiver. “Of course. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” 

The nerves in Alrick’s stomach were only intensified by the fact that he arrived at the restaurant ten minutes early. He ordered a bottle of wine for the table and then waited for what felt like an eternity. He fidgeted in his suit, his eyes darting towards the door every few seconds. He had no idea what he was going to say to Skye. To tell him what was going on between him and Lilly was going to be excruciating. He remembered once when they had first started sleeping together when a waitress made the mistake of flirting with Alrick. Skye kissed him so possessively afterward that Alrick thought his lips were going to fall off. 

The door to the restaurant jingled at Skye’s arrival. The scales that curved around his eyes sparkled in the setting sun and Alrick felt a pang of guilt in the pit of his stomach. He was dressed in a crisp skirt that fell just above his knees and a sweater that accentuated the curve of his waist. His hair was tied into a loose bun at the top of his head, the rest of his long tresses trailing down his back. Alrick couldn’t tell if it was one of Skye’s many wigs or his real hair, but he looked pretty nonetheless. 

“Alrick,” Skye greeted him with a warm smile. “Or is this official business? Should I call you ‘Prince Rosenfeld’ instead?” 

Alrick grimaced at the title and loosened his tie. “You don’t have to do that when it’s just us.” 

“That’s not what you said the other night,” Skye purred, throwing his arms around Alrick in a soft hug. “I seem to recall you not letting me finish if I didn’t beg for ‘Prince Rosenfeld’ to give me permission-” 

“Shhh, shh!” Alrick pressed his thumb to Skye’s lips to silence him. “Do you really want to spill all our bedroom secrets in the middle of the restaurant?” 

“Well, not all of them,” Skye’s eyes flashed invitingly and took his seat across the table. “Just the ones that really embarrass you.” 

Alrick chuckled, some of the weight on his chest lifting. “I’ve missed you.” 

“I missed you too. You look tired,” Skye eyed the cut of Alrick’s suit. “Did you come directly from work?” 

“What gave it away?” Alrick poured himself a large glass of wine. “I didn’t have time to go home and change before meeting you, I hope you don’t mind.” That was a half-lie. The real reason he didn’t want to go home was that the human girl would be waiting for him, and seeing her would just make everything much worse. 

“Alrick, when have I ever minded you in a suit? You know they’re one of my favorite things to take off you.” 

“I suppose you’re right about that,” he ran his hand in his hair. “And am I right to assume that’s exactly what you’re thinking about doing right now?” 

“Alrick! How could you accuse me of such lewd and lascivious behavior?” 

“Because I’ve been sleeping with you long enough to know how your mind works.” Skye let out a burst of giggles and covered his mouth. “You caught me, I’ve been thinking about ripping it off of you since I walked in.” 

A wide grin spread across Alrick’s face. Before he could stop himself he said, “Maybe I’ll have to let you rip it off with your teeth.” 

The gravity of what he just said hit him a few moments later. There would be no more bedtime trysts with Skye. After tomorrow he would have a mate, and whether he liked it or not he would be bound to her for all of eternity. He swallowed thickly, the weight of his honor feeling like a large burden. Alrick was the demon prince, and he had a duty to his people before himself. Skye immediately noticed the change in Alrick’s demeanor. “What’s wrong? Was it something I said?” 

“No, no,” Alrick waved his wine glass, taking a long sip. “You haven’t done anything, I promise you. Actually, you’re doing too little. Talk to me, tell me about your day.” 

“Alright...” Skye trailed off, unsure. “It wasn’t very eventful. I did all the things the Sakamaki’s asked me to. Make tea, get the mail, answer the phones. Laito had me arrange a visit to the brothel for tomorrow morning, which should be super fun to clean up after.” 

“Of course he did.” Skye looked around to see if anyone was listening in and then leaned across the table with a wicked expression on his face. “You didn’t hear it from me, but I heard that the last time he went there one of the girls was so scared off by whatever he did that she ran out into the street and almost got hit by a car.” 

“Ugh,” Alrick wrinkled his nose. “What could he even think up that would scare someone that badly?” 

“I have no idea but I wish I did. Whatever it was, I don’t think it would have scared me if it was with you.” 

Fuck. There it was again, the unspoken weight that dangled over Alrick’s head like a sword. He swallowed the last of his wine and hung his head. There was no use in prolonging it, he had to come clean to Skye. “Listen, there’s something I need to-” 

“I know.” 

“E-eh?” Alrick blinked, flabbergasted. “You know...?” 

“I know you’re upset.” Skye’s voice softened. “You’ve been getting this terrible look on your face all night.” 

“Ugh... I didn’t realize I was being that obvious.” He slumped in his seat. “Hey, hey...” Skye walked over to Alrick and slid his hand along his cheek. “Do you want to get out of here?” 

The touch of his hand was enough to make Alrick melt. “Leave...?” 

“Of course,” Skye’s thumb trailed down the side of Alrick's jaw. “We could get a hotel room, just the two of us. I think I know something that will really make you feel better.” His voice was dark with promise. 

Alrick sighed before responding. The temptation to disappear with him was strong. It would be so easy for Alrick to lose himself in Skye, to forget all his worries if only for a little while. 

The feelings that Alrick had been fighting all night suddenly swallowed him whole. “Yeah,” he said, sinking into the comfort of Skye’s touch. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.” 

The hotel rose high above the expanse of the city, almost as high up as Alrick’s penthouse. It was lavishly decorated with the finest amenities, including a huge bar on the first floor. The room itself had a wide window that overlooked the other buildings of the district: glittering patches of light that faded away to the curling fog of the mountainside in the distance. 

It was a shame that neither of them noticed any of that. Alrick’s lips were locked onto Skye’s the minute they got into the car. They crashed into the hotel room, their hands fumbling against clothing and furniture. Alrick barely had time to catch his breath before Skye descended upon him, pushing him up against the wall and kissing his way down his body. The feel of his lips was enough to make Alrick’s eyes roll back in his head with pleasure, but he wasn’t content to lose himself in his mouth alone. Alrick wanted more, he needed more. If this was going to be their last night together he had to make it count. 

He resolutely moved Skye to the bed, lowering him onto his back like he had so many times. Alrick briefly remembered the first time they had snuck away to fuck. Skye had caught his eye from across the room, flashing Alrick a sensual smile. They had barely managed to find an empty room before Skye was lowering himself onto his knees, taking him into his mouth like a holy sacrament. It was hot and unbelievably addictive. They both knew without saying that one time wouldn’t be enough. 

The memory caused a twinge of pain to stir in Alrick’s chest and he buried himself in Skye to block out the pain. He fought it off bravely, taking solace in the other demon’s hands and thighs. He found peace in the taste of Skye’s lips, bringing him closer and closer to his mouth. Underneath him, Skye met each and every one of his thrusts with ease. They had been together so many times that it was almost second nature, but that didn’t mean that Alrick wasn’t spellbound by the sound of Skye’s voice in pleasure. Just the sound of his name as he arched underneath him was enough to send Alrick over and over the edge. 

Later, when they were both spent and clinging to one another for warmth, the guilt returned to Alrick. He had spent so much time with Skye today and he still hadn’t broken the news about the mating ceremony. Perhaps it would be worse now that they had spent the evening making love. 

“You know,” Skye lazily rolled onto Alrick’s chest, his wig slightly askew. “I’m going to be so upset if I can’t sit properly tomorrow because of you. I might have to call you back and return the favor.” 

Alrick stared at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. “You always promise that but you’ve yet been able to make me that sore.” 

“That sounds like a challenge- wait, you don’t look happy about that.” Akye propped himself up onto his elbow. “Pet name,” he used his ironic term of affection, “what’s wrong?” 

It was time. Alrick sat up slowly, extracting his limbs from their tangled mess. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and avoided Skye’s confused gaze. 

Skye reached for Alrick’s shoulder and attempted to rub away his troubles. “Alrick, please... tell me what’s going on.” 

Alrick stared at the floor and took a moment before speaking. “Do you remember a few days ago when they found that human girl? The one they found at the edge of the mountainside?” 

“Of course I do,” Skye sat beside Alrick and carefully removed his wig. “It was all anyone could talk about. I just assumed she was going to be given to the demon lord who had found her.” 

Alrick’s hands were clenched into fists on his knees. “You’re not wrong.” Skye threaded his hand through Alrick’s hair. “I don’t see why that would make you this upset. Unless you wanted her for your own,” he chuckled hollowly. “Don’t tell me that you’re planning to leave me for a silly little human.” 

The silence that hung in the air was suffocating. Skye tried again, his voice tinged with panic. “You’re not really planning on abandoning me for a human. Right, Alrick?” 

“She...” Alrick’s shoulders sagged slightly. “She was found by my men. That means she belongs to me.” 

Skye’s hand froze in Alrick’s hair. “You can’t be serious.” 

“I am. She’s- we’re... I’m...” Alrick turned away, his heart feeling icy. “She’s going to be my future mate.” 

It was Skye’s turn to be silent. “Oh... Right, of course.” The resignation in his tone broke Alrick’s heart. Skye pulled away and wrapped his arms around his legs under the blanket. “Of course she is,” he continued. “You’re a prince, it’s only natural that one day you would... That we would have to end.” 

“I’m sorry... I never thought that this would happen-” 

“Don’t.” Skye cut him off. “Don’t say you didn’t know this was going to happen. You’ve always known what your role in the world is. You’re Alrick fucking Rosenfeld-” tears sprang at 

the corners of his eyes but he ignored them. “Don’t you even try to say that you weren’t going to leave me for a woman one day.” 

Alrick reeled from Skye’s anger. “Parakeet, this isn’t my fault. I wasn’t saying that this wasn’t inevitable, I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.” 

Skye barely heard him. “Who cares about that? Now, later, it doesn’t matter. I guess it’s better this way, so I don’t get too attached.” 

“Parakeet-”

“Don’t!” Skye turned on Alrick, his golden eyes blazing. “How can you still call me that when you'll be sharing a bed with her?!” 

“Skye, this isn’t my choice!”

“It’s not mine either!” Skye stared down at his body, hating every inch of himself. “It’s not fair, it’s not fucking fair...” He wiped his eyes with a shaking hand and pulled the covers up over his chest. 

“I know it’s not fair...” Alrick reached and took his hand, tugging the blanket free from his fingers. “Skye, I promise you that I didn’t plan for any of this to happen.” 

Skye’s tears fell harder at the sincerity in Alrick’s voice. He shook his head and his tears dripped onto his scales, making them shine. “It doesn’t matter if you planned it or not, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening anyway!” 

“I know!” The words ripped themselves from Alrick’s mouth. “Do you think I want this? That I want to be trapped with someone I’ve only known for two days? To be mated to a human-” he choked on the word. He felt like he was repeating the argument he had with Lilly in some sick circle that never ended. “Nothing about this is my choice, Skye.” 

“Then don’t go through with it.” Skye threw himself out of bed and knelt before Alrick, pleading. “Turn her away, give her to someone else. You’re the prince Alrick, you can be with anyone you want.” His words came in a frantic rush as he beseeches Alrick. “You don’t have to live a life that’s not yours. Say there’s something wrong with her, say she’s defective. And then we can stay together!” 

“You know I have to-“

“Why?! Why is this so important to you, more important than me?” 

“Because you know we’re dying out.” Alrick felt detached from the situation like he was viewing all from a very long way away. “Because ever since we nearly wiped out the humans we’ve been unable to have any children of our own. I have to do this so our kind can have any sort of future, even if it’s one with mixed blood.” 

Skye sagged, defeated. “It’s not fair... I hate the humans for what they’ve done to us.” Alrick slid his hand along Skye’s jaw, tilting his face to meet his. “As do I, Parakeet. They’ve ruled over us for thousands of years, it’s not right that they kill us off like this. That’s why we have to keep fighting back. And why I as the prince have to fight back hardest of all.” 

Skye’s tears finally seemed to come to a close. “You’re right,” he murmured. “For the good of the people, right...?” 

“For the good of the people,” Alrick repeated bitterly. 

“Well...” Skye folded himself beside Alrick’s legs and leaned his head on his knee. “We still have until the ceremony. I can try to be by your side as much as possible before then. I’ll convince one of the Sakamakis to send me on errands for you. And maybe it won’t be so hard by the time the ceremony comes...” He reached for Alrick’s hand, placing it atop his own head. “How long do we have before she becomes your mate?” 

Shit. Alrick was a fool. How could he have thought that prolonging telling would have made this easier? He felt sick. Sick of himself, sick of his circumstances, and sick of the human girl who he just so happened to catch. “It’s tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow?!” Skye’s head snapped back like he had been slapped. “Why did you wait until now to tell me?” 

All their promised time together came crashing down around them. After the mating ceremony, there would be no more sneaking around. Not because Alrick respected his human mate, but because he would be bound to her. Demon mating ceremonies were so much more than simple human weddings. If everything went as planned, he would want no other after her. They would be bonded for life. 

There was nothing more to say now. He could tell from the heartbroken look on Skye’s face that he made his mistake even bigger. Alrick stared past him and spoke to the opposite wall. “She was found only a few days ago, there wasn’t much time for me to-” 

“No, no! You could have told me when they found her! You could have told me when the damn council made their decision. You had days, Alrick. Days!” 

“I know!” He gave Skye a glare that stopped him from speaking. “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to fucking hurt you.” 

“C-can’t you see that this hurts me more?” Skye’s voice broke. “How can I go on knowing that this will always be our last night together? That you and I got into a fight because you were being stupid, uncaring, selfish-” 

“I’m not being selfish!”

“Yes, you are! Can’t you think about how this is affecting anyone but yourself?” “Parakeet!” Alrick cupped Skye’s cheeks and held him when he tried to jerk away. “You are the only other person who I care about right now. Not the council and definitely not her.” Alrick’s voice softened. “There is nothing in this world I would ever want to do to hurt you. Can’t you see how much I don’t want to do this? That it hurts me to hurt you like this...?” 

An explosive sob wrenched itself from within Skye’s chest. He collapsed forward into Alrick, crying freely into his arms. “I’m sorry,” Alrick whispered, tucking his head under his chin. “I’m so sorry, Skye...” 

They sat like that until Skye’s sobs became muffled sniffles. Alrick threw a glance out the window and saw the sky had lightened considerably. “Shit...” 

Skye followed his gaze. “You have to go, don’t you...?”

“I do.” Alrick sighed and felt a thousand years older. “The ceremony is in a few hours. I need to get some sleep.” 

Skye did not need Alrick to tell him what the ceremony entailed. He had seen a few himself, and he could not bear to watch Alrick fuck another woman- let alone see it on public display. “I won’t be there.” 

Alrick chuckled quietly and extracted himself from Skye’s grasp. “I wouldn’t want you to be. I don’t even want to be there myself-” he began finding his discarded clothes strewn about the room- “and I don’t have the luxury to blow it off.” 

Skye nodded and watched Alrick redress. Within minutes he was the same man who met him in the restaurant. Poised, calm, and unbearably handsome. Alrick ran a hand through his hair to smooth it back in place., completing the look. “I’m going to miss you...” 

“I”m going to miss you too, Parakeet... Swear that you’ll never forget me?” 

“How could I? I think you’ve ruined me for other men,” Skye laughed without humor. 

“Don’t say that,” Alrick stroked Skye’s cheek with the back of his hand. “Don’t let my departure ruin any of your future happiness. Promise me that.” 

“I’ll try...” 

“Thank you...” Alrick reluctantly let his hand drop. He moved to the door, his shoulders already stiff with apprehension. “I’ll see you when it’s over, Parakeet.” 

Skye did his best to smile. “You too, Pet Name...” Alrick gave Skye one last look, memorizing the way he looked under their messy bed sheets. Inside his chest he could feel his heart breaking. Alrick had been in pain many times before, but nothing so far had been as bad as this. 

He took a deep breath and buried his feelings as far down as they would go. He stepped through the door and into his new life. 

Skye did not sleep. He sat in the puddle of blankets Alrick left behind and felt utterly miserable. He wanted to cry but he had no more tears left. He wanted to scream, but his throat was raw from all the sobbing. He wanted to break every single thing in the damn room but he had no energy. All he could do was sit and feel horrible. 

There was nothing left for him to do anyway. Even without the human interfering, he and Alrick were never meant to be. He had just entertained the thought for far too long... 

He pressed a pillow to his face and fought off another round of sobs. Every fantasy he ever had with Alrick had been ripped to pieces within a few hours. He had so many dreams for the two of them, so many things that would have made him happy. And now there was nothing. 

Unless... If the human woman couldn’t produce children with Alrick she would be taken away, thrown in the brothel where she belonged. If they were a bad match she would be given to another demon, that was a possibility. Or perhaps an accident would befall her, something terrible like falling off a building. Maybe she would even do herself in. Skye heard she put up quite a fight when she was caught, and there was a rumor that her mother was one of the resistance leaders. And if all else failed, he would just have to wait. Human lives were so short compared to a demon’s. There was no law that said Alrick couldn’t take a new mate if his first one died. Skye settled into the bed, finally feeling some sort of peace. He could be patient, he could wait. And if he couldn’t there were then enough ways for him to rectify the situation. The human may have been Alrick’s mate after tomorrow, but she wouldn’t stay his mate for long. 

#commission #writing #skye oakly #sky oakly #alrick rosenfeld #the sloth woman

[shijiujun]

[ENG] History3: Trapped Novel - Chapter Two

~6,500 words (proofread by @weilongfu​)

Translation Masterpost can be found here

Disclaimer: Translations are entirely mine - these are not official translations and some phrases have been changed for better English interpretation so you’ll definitely see better/different translations elsewhere. Also keeping in mind when we translated this we aren’t exactly thinking about the style of writing and this translation is as close to the novel as we can make it XD So yes, some parts may be a little awkward to read. And yes some teeny weeny details and words may not turn up in the translation because the Chi to Eng mind acrobatics didn’t work out. If you see asterisks, scroll all the way to the bottom for notes!

Full chapter below the cut

Chapter Two

The sound of a gun’s silencer echoes from inside a black sedan, and both Wang Kun Cheng and his driver are found dead inside with bullet wounds through their right temple, just hours after their meeting with Xing Tian Meng.

Time of death, 9pm.

Meng Shao Fei lies on his bed, thinking back to the meeting with Interpol during the day, where Team 3 and Interpol exchanged information on this case. Although Wang Kun Cheng’s men insist that the person who murdered their leader was Tang Yi, but as seen from Team 3 and Interpol’s investigation, there were no signs of struggle and fights inside the club where both parties met, and   moreover, Tang Yi has a perfect alibi.

As Wang Kun Cheng was shot at close range after he left the club, it is impossible that Tang Yi, who was at another location attending an evening gala dinner — they have CCTV footage to prove that he entered the hotel at 8.30pm and left only at 1am in the morning —  was the culprit for the murder. They aren’t ruling out the possibility of a third party committing the murder at Tang Yi’s orders, but the surveillance cameras in the area were tampered with and damaged before the murder happened, so before they can find further evidence and witnesses, Tang Yi is definitely not the culprit. However, he is curious about one thing… in the 48 hours after news of Wang Kun Cheng’s death was made known, Cambodia’s drug syndicate’s leader Chen Wen Hao immediately returned to Taiwan. Both Chen Wen Hao and Wang Kun Cheng used to be members of Xing Tian Meng, especially Chen Wen Hao. Xing Tian Meng is able to grow to its scale today because it was he and Tang Guo Dong who built the organisation up from scratch.

Even after Chen Wen Hao was sentenced to prison for 24 years due to the skirmish with Si He Hui, but during this time, the person who visited him most frequently was Tang Guo Dong. From this, it is obvious that they were very close to each other and had a deep relationship. If this was so, what reason would Tang Yi, who took over Xing Tian Meng in Tang Guo Dong’s place, have to go create trouble with Chen Wen Hao’s men, and even going so far as to kill the man?

Unable to sleep no matter what he does, Shao Fei finds himself leaving the bed and walking over to his bulletin board, filled entirely with profiles of people and information related to Xing Tian Meng. Staring at the drawing he made, he mumbles, “Four years ago…”

Four years ago, Chen Wen Hao immediately fled for Southeast Asia the moment he was released from prison, and his whereabouts have been unknown ever since until now with his return to Taiwan. Four years ago, Tang Guo Dong and Li Zhen both died on that hill, and no one knew why they met in secret, and there were so many rumors about Li Zhen illegally colluding with the mob. Four years ago, Tang Yi was shot at the scene and managed to live after many attempts at trying to resuscitate him. He became the only survivor of the incident, the only witness who possibly knows what happened on that day.

Meng Shao Fei looks at Tang Yi’s portrait sketch again, and asks it, as if he’s speaking directly to Tang Yi himself, “Aren’t you going clean with the mob? Aren’t you staying away from drugs? And didn’t you say you would never kill a person? Why are you giving up on your principles NOW? Why did you go touch Chen Wen Hao’s people?”

Shao Fei cannot think of any possible answer, and scratches at his head in frustration, pacing back and forth in his apartment.

The Tang Household

Standing at the balcony and looking into the night view in the distance, in Tang Yi’s hand lies a black, metallic lighter. He recalls what Boss Tang said to him eight years ago…

“Drizzle olive oil in the wok and circle it for two rounds? Can we do three rounds?”

At that time, Tang Yi had just turned 20 years old, and the thing he liked to do most was to bother Boss Tang in his space when he could, asking him to pass his cooking skills on to him.

“That’s fine too. The point is you have to make sure the entire wok gets the same amount of heat, that’s why we circle it,” Tang Guo Dong stands next to the stove, an apron tied around his own waist and guides Tang Yi to pay more attention to cooking as he smokes.

People always say that the lines on one’s foreheads represent the passing of time and age, as it catches up with you, and with every horizontal line therein lies a story that belongs to it, but in Tang Yi’s eyes, every mark on Boss Tang’s face is the culmination of both wisdom and duty. No matter how severe the problem is, once it lands in Boss Tang’s hands, the problem can be solved easily, just like no matter how complicated the cooking and recipes are, he is always able to handle it, all the while smoking at the same time.

In comparison Tang Yi is impatient in both his personality and cooking and thus, he deeply respects this man who is both like a father and teacher to him. He wonders if there ever will be a day, where he’s able to catch up to Boss Tang and this 30 year age gap, and from Boss Tang’s mouth hear-

I feel at ease leaving everything to you.

“Don’t smoke when you’re cooking,” Tang Yi says, immediately dropping the garlic and bell peppers he’s holding and snatches the cigarette pressed between Boss Tang’s lips.

The man whose cigarette was snatched away smiles a little helplessly, then crosses his arms and continues guiding Tang Yi, “After you put in the noodles, you need to stir it in the wok, otherwise it’ll stick to the base.”

Tang Yi looks at the food cooking in his wok and says, delighted, “It looks just like yours!”

“We’ll have to try the dish to know.”

Tang Yi tastes a spoonful of the food from the wok, frowns, then picks up the spicy sauce next to him and adds another half a spoon in, “Not spicy enough.”

Tang Guo Dong, who tried the dish at the same time, is frowning on the other hand, because of the spiciness he is tasting in his mouth. “Xiao Tang, you’re eating this so spicy?”

“Strange, why is it that no matter how I cook I just cook it the same way you do?”

“To govern a country is like cooking, have you ever heard of this?”

“No.

Tang Guo Dong smiles, then opens his mouth to explain, “All these years from handling and dealing with the gang’s every single matter no matter how big or small, I felt that, when we do things, we cannot be overly impulsive and rush into things, nor can we be complacent and passive. we have to think through each detail carefully in order to do things well. Take cooking for example, every brother is like an ingredient, you need to understand each ingredient’s taste to be able to put it in a dish, and then the taste of the finished dish will be the best.”

Tang Yi is intrigued by this analogy, and also curious about how Boss Tang sees him, he asks, “So which ingredient am I?”

“Lotus root.”

“Lotus root? Why a lotus root?”

“Did you forget the first time we met, how much dirt you had all over your body? Isn’t it just like the lotus root that’s just been harvested and pulled out from the soil?”

“Oh, so you detested me this much actually,” Tang Yi says, sulking as he brings the wok over to the person who’s plating dishes at his side.

The person most important to him just called him a dirty little runt, how could anyone be happy?

Tang Guo Dong laughs and takes out his cigarette box again. “Hey, Xiao Tang, you were born into unfortunate circumstances and grew up in a terrible environment, you managed to keep your spirit and character pure. I hope you never forget this, and that you don’t ever change.”

At this, Tang Yi returns Tang Guo Dong’s smile and replies, “I got it, Lao Tang. I will keep being like this.”

As long as Tang Guo Dong likes him like this, then Tang Yi will become the person that he likes, because to him, there’s no one else in the world who’s more important to him, more important than Tang Guo Dong.

“Actually, there’s another reason in persevering in cooking,” Tang Guo Dong adds somberly, taking off his apron and walking over to Tang Yi’s side, opening a wine bottle and pouring a glass for himself.

“What is it?”

“People like us who face death every day and are used to it, we don’t even know when we’ll die and go to meet our makers. If we can’t even deal with the basic necessity and function of eating in our lives, then what more fun in our lives can we have? So we have to be serious towards every meal, and that means also that we have to live our lives seriously.

“I understand. So when I’m done learning cooking from you, I’ll let you taste my cooking.”

“Done learning? You little shit, you only just learnt this little bit and you want to represent the Tang family and con people outside already?”

“I have confidence that I don’t need too much time to learn your ways.”

Tang Guo Dong puts up his thumb and praises, “Okay, you’ve got ambition. But if you want to take the wok and metals away from me, it’s not that easy!”

“I won’t disappoint you… although-“ Tang Yi looks at the failed finished product in the wok today, and laughs, “It looks like we still have to eat this not so delicious dish, let’s hope when we are done we won’t need a trip to emergency.”

Watching Tang Yi’s back as he picks up the plate and walk towards the dining room, Tang Guo Dong, who’s lived more than half a century, stops smiling, and in his heart, he makes a decision.

At a Japanese restaurant

The various members of Team 3 are gathered at a restaurant undercover as guests and wait staff for the ongoing investigation on Wang Kun Cheng’s death. They are currently surveilling a particular guest, who’s discussing business with another person.

Suddenly, a tall figure walks into the store, and once Shao Fei, who’s seated right at the entrance of the restaurant sees him, he stands up and brings the other person to a corner in the restaurant.

“Why are you here?”

Walking into the restaurant and stunned at seeing Shao Fei, Tang Yi abandons his original intentions for coming here and turns to leave.

“Since the police are investigating a case, I will not disturb.”

On the other side of the restaurant, Zhao Li An, who’s dressed as a waiter, is just about to run over to stop Shao Fei, but Zhou Guan Zhi stops him by holding onto his arm. He eyes Zhao Zi, indicating that they should continue as planned, or they will risk ruining the mission this time.

Shao Fei grabs onto Tang Yi’s elbow, staring right into his eyes and asks, “Since you’re already here, you might as well assist us on our investigation. Do you know a person called ‘Chen Wen Hao’?”

Tang Yi’s expression suddenly becomes stiff, and this does not go unnoticed by the cop who’s been hounding him for the past four years.

“Looks like we have the same goal, we’re here for the same person,” Shao Fei continues, his eyebrows raised.

“So you killed Wang Kun Cheng just to lure Chen Wen Hao back here. And for you, Xing Tian Meng’s leader who’s also trying to wash everything clean at the moment, to care so much about a Cambodian drug syndicate leader, there can only be two reasons. Firstly, you’ve made him come back because this was Tang Guo Dong’s mission for you.Or two, Chen Wen Hao has something to do with the double homicide from four years ago.”

Shao Fei’s guesses are so close to the truth, that in that moment, Tang Yi’s repressed rage emerges again — these four years, he has wanted to kill this person who’s only ever ruined all his plans countless of times, but countless of times, Tang Yi has also had to end his murderous thoughts towards this police officer.

Such action is out of character for Tang Yi — if Hong Ye and Ah De are unable to comprehend why he’s doing this, Tang Yi himself has no idea either.

“Have I hit the nail on the head, is that why you want to run?”

“I have nothing to say to Officer Meng,” Tang Yi snaps, gritting his teeth and turning away to leave the store.

He follows the stairs outside the restaurant to where he parked his car. His tone filled with anger, Shao Fei who’s only ever seen Tang Yi’s two sarcastic and cold expressions, is momentarily stunned. He breaks out of his trance, then rushes out of the restaurant to chase Tang Yi, his hand pressing against Tang Yi’s chest and stopping him from moving forward, his eyes incredibly sharp.

“I’m getting closer to the truth, correct?”

If he isn’t getting closer to the truth, why would Xing Tian Meng’s poker-faced leader make the effort of snapping at him?

“Officer Meng has his own mission that he’s not carrying out, and instead he’s here to obstruct my freedom again?”

“If my hypothesis is correct, then following you is the only way I can find out the truth.”

Tang Yi pushes Shao Fei’s hand away and walks over to the driver’s side to open the door, but Shao Fei grabs onto his wrist instead, slamming shut the door that’s just been opened.

“I’m asking you to leave, did you not hear me? These four years my tolerance towards you has reached a tipping point. Meng. Shao. Fei! Don’t test my patience!”

He pushes Shao Fei away, hard, and settles in the driver’s seat, shutting the door behind him securely. Unexpectedly, Shao Fei circles the car to the passenger side and unceremoniously sits inside the car, holding onto the brake.

“Tang Yi, if I don’t get my answers today I’m not letting you leave!”

Tang Yi points outside and shouts, “I’m warning you for the last time, get out of my car.”

“Hmph!”

Shao Fei turns to grab for the seatbelt, obviously having no intention to leave.

“You!”

Angrily, Tang Yi swings his right fist out to restrain both of Shao Fei’s hands, reaching to his back and grabbing the young police officer’s gun, that Tang Yi knows he has usually stuffed into the back of his waist, then pressing the muzzle of the gun to Shao Fei’s temple.

Just as Tang Yi is about to throw Shao Fei out of the car, the driver’s seat door is flung open from the outside, and reflex has Tang Yi moving the hand holding onto the gun towards the person outside, but his opponent quickly strikes at his hand, the gun falling to the ground.

Losing his most useful weapon hardly means that he has no other way to defend himself. He rushes out of the car with tight fists and immediately starts to land repeated blows on his attacker, who’s clad in a black suit. Shao Fei on the other hand is also facing a similar attack by a person wearing a black baseball cap and fighting him intensely.

Eventually, both Tang Yi and Shao Fei are forced into a corner by their attackers, pressed back to back. Unconsciously, they leave their vulnerable backs to one another, exchange a glance and then simultaneously attack. Punches and kicks going against the two men with retractable batons and knives, they are soon overpowered by the weapons.

“Boss wants you to meet him,” says the man attacking Tang Yi, pushing him to the floor and pressing a knife at his jugular.

===

As the black van follows along the left and right curves of the mountainous road, the occupants of the vehicle find themselves swaying from left to right as well.

“I can’t believe I’m handcuffed by my own handcuffs.”

Tang Yi side-eyes the man next to him, and scoffs, “It’s not like this is the first time.”

“Hey do you have to speak like this? If you didn’t take away my gun, would we be in this situation?” Shao Fei retorts, holding up his right hand that is currently attached to Tang Yi’s.

“Shut up!” warns the man seated in the third row of the car, one hand holding up a knife.

Tang Yi turns around to look at the man in black seated right behind them, and says, “Kidnapping a police officer is going to get troublesome for you guys.”

The man ignores Tang Yi; instead, it is the man seated in front driving the van that shoots both hostages a look through the rearview mirror, and smiles icily, “You should worry about yourself first!”

Their hands handcuffed together, Tang Yi taps Shao Fei’s pinky finger with his own, and once their gazes meet, Tang Yi gestures at Shao Fei. Shao Fei nods in understanding, then in an irritated tone, laments, “Why is it that when you guys do bad things you always run towards the mountains? It’s not that I want to comment, but this method lacks so much creativity that it really isn’t OK-“

Shao Fei yells immediately, after ensuring that Tang Yi’s right hand is creeping towards the handbrake of the van, “NOW!”

Bam!

Tang Yi kicks at the driver’s right arm, sending the man forward against the steering wheel, and at the same time Shao Fei leans forward to pull the handbrake up. The van strikes against the walls of the mountain and the impact stops the van immediately. Before the driver can react, Shao Fei has already moved into the passenger seat and with a kick, knocks the driver out.

He sees Tang Yi getting punched in the face by the other guy in the back, and Tang Yi, with his hand movement restricted, can barely defend himself against the attack. Seeing that the other guy is rushing towards Tang Yi with a knife in his hands, Shao Fei moves back to his seat and stands between Tang Yi and his attacker, getting a slash across his arm for his trouble. Then, they use the handcuff chains between them to trap their attacker’s wrists, and Tang Yi strikes the knife in his hands to the ground.

In the chaos, Tang Yi sees Shao Fei’s wound on his right arm, bleeding profusely.

And right in that moment, Tang Yi loses all composure and logic that he is so proud of. He swings his fist repeatedly at his attacker, and doesn’t stop even when his face is all bloodied from the impact of his punches.

“We have to go!”

Shao Fei is afraid that Tang Yi will just kill the man, so he opens the door and pulls Tang Yi, who has lost all control, out of the car. They give up on moving along the visible and easily trackable roads and instead choose to head inside the dense forest to escape.

In between the trees, four other men — their attackers’ accomplices who were travelling behind them in another van — split up to look through every nook and cranny of the forest.

“Damn it, they can really hide huh?”

“Did you find them on your side?”

“No.”

“You, and you, go that side and look.”

“Yes.”

They continue their search for an hour to no avail, and they do not realise that the Xing Tian Meng leader they’re trying to find is actually hiding behind a big rock, covered in green moss.

Tang Yi is using his entire body to protect and shield Shao Fei, until the noise grows faint and more distant from their hiding spot, only then does Tang Yi heave a sigh of relief. He turns around and crouches low to the ground, using the rock as a backrest.

Maybe it’s because fleeing for their lives is an intense sport, or maybe it’s because the both of them were suddenly so close to each other earlier, so close that Shao Fei can even catch a hint of Tang Yi’s cologne, Shao Fei feels his face heating up strangely. All he can do is raise their hands up, still cuffed to each other, to distract himself.

“If only we didn’t have this.”

“Who brought it here?”

Having just experienced a life or death situation, Tang Yi’s tone as he speaks to Shao Fei has changed somewhat from before. From being ice cold and distant, Tang Yi is now talking as if he would make fun of a friend.

Unable to retort, Shao Fei rolls his eyes instead, but in the next second see Tang Yi using his right hand to pinch at this left thumb, and just as he’s about to ask, he hears the sound of a bone being dislocated.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

With his left thumb dislocated successfully, Tang Yi’s hand leaves the restraints of the handcuffs, and then easily snaps his dislocated thumb back into its original place. Shao Fei can feel how painful that action just was just by looking, but Tang Yi just did it with barely a sound and a frown.

“This can also work?”

Shao Fei, with wide eyes, watches as Tang Yi just walks off with a shake of his hands, then follows the man to hopefully somewhere more suitable to hide at, a hand covering his own wound.

===

Ding dong ding dong!

“Ah Fei!!! Ah Fei are you inside?��� Zhao Zi stands outside Shao Fei’s apartment door, one hand pressing at the doorbell and the other dialling Shao Fei’s number, but all he gets is Shao Fei’s voice message.

“This is Meng Shao Fei, if there’s anything urgent, please leave a message.”

“Ah Fei if you don’t pick up the phone, Boss is really going to throw me out!”

Zhao Zi’s pitiful complaint echoes down the empty stairway. After half an hour of no reply, all he can do is give up. He walks down the stairs, worried.

“I’m at the alley near Ah Fei’s house. He’s not at home and I can’t get through to him on his phone. Oh, okay. We’ll keep in touch. I’ll contact you guys after I find him. Okay, bye.”

Hanging up on the call with his team’s colleagues, Zhao Zi recalls how Boss always scolds him for not using his brains, and at the spur of the moment, he leaves his phone in his jacket’s pocket and pulls up the zip, then does a handstand and begins walking on the ground on his hands.

He giggles. He’s actually still pretty smart, as long as he make all the blood rush into the top of his head, and when that happens, his brain will begin to work at a higher capacity. Maybe he’ll be able to find a way to find Shao Fei like this even! Just as Zhao Zi smiles gleefully to himself, a pair of cool blue leather shoes step into his line of vision, and as his eyes follow along those long legs all the way up to see who this person is, he sees the man who he brought to the station previously. Tang Yi’s bodyguard, the man called Jack.

“Are you looking for me?”

Zhao Zi puts both his legs down and dusts his hands off, but Jack grabs him by the back of his shirt collar around his neck, and picks him up. “Let’s go!”

“Huh? What are you doing? Where are you bringing me to?”

Like a rabbit whose neck was just bitten by a wolf in the wild, Zhao Zi follows the man called Jack helpless, leaving the alley at Shao Fei’s house.

“What are you catching me for?” asks Zhao Zi later.

He doesn’t know when he was struck unconscious. All he knows is that when he woke up earlier, he found himself incarcerated in a dark room. In the room sits only a single lamp and the big bad wolf who caught him, and brought him here.

“Where did Meng Shao Fei bring my boss?”

Zhao Zi opens his mouth wide, surprised, and asks, “Ah Fei is really with Tang Yi then?”

“Are you pretending to be stupid?”

Jack, with a whole head of red hair, glares at the rookie police officer, his eyes tinged with a glint of danger and sharpness. Jack doesn’t know what tricks Zhao Zi is playing here, but he takes out his phone, and plays the surveillance footage from the camera at the Japanese restaurant’s entrance for Zhao Zi to see.

“They’re really together! I’m looking for Ah Fei urgently, do you know where they went?” He sighs. “Forget it. You definitely don’t know either, otherwise you wouldn’t have brought me here… Damn it, if we don’t find Ah Fei soon, it’ll be my turn to write 3000 words in my apology letter,” Zhao mumbles, standing up from the chair.

“Call him!” Jack commands, taking out his phone and presenting it to his ‘hostage’.

“I tried, but his phone is switched off.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I said, if I can’t get through to him, I really can’t get through to him.”

Jack holds onto his own phone, and coldly says, “Then give me his number, I’ll call.”

“I’m not going to give it to you! I’m a police officer and at the very least I need to ensure that my colleague is protected and safe, so I won’t give you Ah Fei’s number. I absolutely will not!”

Intrigued suddenly by this fearless boy, Jack circles around Zhao Zi, then stares at him head on, unnervingly.

“Even if you glare at me I won’t.”

Jack takes a step forward, approaching the boy who’s hugging his knees and curling into a ball on the couch.

“Even if you beat me to death I won’t.”

Bam!

Wrapped in fingerless leather gloves, that fist suddenly slams against the back of the couch, and the sound of something being hit echoes in the room.

“No matter what you do, I won’t!”

Zhao Zi is so afraid that he’s already covering his own ears, his entire body shaking in fear, and yet he still refuses Jack in a clear, loud voice.

Jack’s lips curve in a smile. He turns around and walks out of the dark room, and locks the door from the outside.

“Hey! Open the door! Open the door!! Don’t leave me here alone! Hey!” shouts the rookie cop at the top of his lungs as he strikes at the door, the rookie cop who’s not afraid of threats but is apparently, afraid of the dark.

On the mountains, in an abandoned structure

In order to hide from either Wang Kun Cheng or Chen Wen Hao’s men, both Tang Yi and Shao Fei chose to take temporary refuge at this abandoned house first. They started a fire earlier with the wood that Tang Yi found to keep warm, and it is the only source of light in the dark place.

“Can you really not help me open this?” Shao Fei asks, shaking the handcuff still attached to his right wrist.

Tang Yi sends Shao Fei a look, then stresses, “It will hurt!”

“Please, I, Meng Shao Fei, have survived even bullet wounds, will I be scared of this pain?”

Carelessly, Shao Fei reaches his hand over, but the moment Tang Yi grabs onto his thumb and starts to twist it, Shao Fei begins to yell out in pain, “It hurts! It seriously hurts!!”

“I thought you aren’t afraid of pain?”

“Stop twisting it!! Okay okay, I’ll just keep on wearing it then!” Shao Fei implores, his face entirely pale as he hits at Tang Yi’s arm to let him go.

Tang Yi smiles knowingly, as if expecting this outcome all along, and returns to his position by the fire. At this, Shao Fei steals glances at Tang Yi with astonishment, and mumbles, “Fuck. How can this not hurt? Does that guy have any pain nerves in the first place?”

Leaning against the wall, Tang Yi watches as Shao Fei picks up the unused wood and head towards the inside of the house, and he asks, “What are you doing?”

“The weather is so cold, I’m going to start a fire inside and at night we’ll sleep in there.”

“I’m going to take the first watch,” refuses Tang Yi.

It’s as if his rejection just erected a tall and cold wall between them both, but Shao Fei is already used to the way Tang Yi is, so he merely shrugs. He picks up the lighter sitting next to the wood, and says, “Up to you. If you’re not afraid of the cold you can sleep here by yourself, I’m going inside, and lend me this-“

“Don’t touch that!”

Suddenly, Tang Yi who was just a few seconds ago sitting next to the fire, snatches the lighter back from Shao Fei’s hands.

“Why are you so fierce? If you don’t give me the lighter how am I going to start a fire?”

Tang Yi does not reply, only picking up glowing branch from the fire and passing it to Shao Fei. He listens as Shao Fei’s mumbles return to where he was earlier, and as he looks at the lighter sitting in his palm, Tang Yi recalls…

Four years ago

“Here.”

After lighting a cigarette, Tang Guo Dong passes the lighter in his hand to the young man standing next to him.

“Why?”

“I thought you liked it?”

“No work, no reward,” Tang Yi places the lighter back in Tang Guo Dong’s hand, and seriously looks at the man. “What do you want me to help you with?”

Tang Guo Dong is stunned for a moment, and then he laughs, “”Xiao Tang, it’s really so hard to lie to you! I think you, too, know the answer to this question. Help to dismantle Xing Tian Meng, and start to move everything into legal businesses.”

“Aren’t you already doing that?”

“I need someone to continue doing it for me.”

Tang Yi frowns, and once again snatches the cigarette away from Tang Guo Dong’s mouth. “Don’t say that as if you’re going to die soon.”

“When you’re in this line of business, you must always be prepared for death.”

Tang Guo Dong exhales, then opens his left hand where the lighter rests in his palm. He asks, “So what is it? Do you dare take it?”

“Hmph. You failed at your request, so you’ve switched to challenging me instead?”

Tang Guo Dong laughs, taking the cigarette back from Tang Yi, and replies, “You’ll accept it, because you hate drugs more than anyone else. But to make sure you take care of everyone, you need to have money, that’s why no gang in the world will stay away from drugs. Since we’ve decided to call a halt to it, we must be prepared.”

“The person you’re meeting tomorrow… is there a problem?”

“No.. it’s just,” Tang Guo Dong shakes his head, then reaches out with his left arm and hooks it around Tang Yi, “Just treat it as a back up plan. Please. If one day I’m not here anymore, you have to continue with the work of washing Xing Tian Meng clean.”

Hesitantly, Tang Yi looks at Tang Guo Dong who’s speaking with so much emotion. Tang Guo Dong, who is both his father and teacher.

“Xiao Tang! Humans are really too weak, we’re always looking for excuses so we can escape, finding excuses so we can make mistakes, and even blaming our failures on fate, but we forget that for every decision and action we make, we have to pay its price. After all, the money we made from drugs is dirty money, and even if we survived long enough to earn the money, we wouldn’t get to spend it. I don’t want our brothers to live a life standing at the edge of death. I’m not afraid to be laughed at, but it took me a few decades to realise that the best life is one where we live normally.”

“What’s good about a normal life? We’ll only get bullied.”

Just like that year’s 12-year old Tang Yi and 10-year old Hong Ye, two children stranded on the streets, homeless — that was normal enough a life, was it not? But ‘normal’ didn’t feed them, and it would only ensure that they get bullied by children older than they, and if they didn’t meet Tang Guo Dong then, they probably wouldn’t have made it to adulthood. They definitely would not be like this now, having experienced the happiness of being doted on by someone.

Tang Guo Dong turns around, leaning against the railings behind him and thinks about the past. “Maybe the you right now won’t be able to understand, but some people, because of me, were robbed of the ‘normal life’ he should have had. I owe him too much, and in this life, I am unable to make amends.”

“Who? A woman?” Tang Yi asks curiously, looking at the man who, with every sentence, is becoming even more serious.

However, Tang Guo Dong has no intentions of answering that question, and instead just smiles. “One day there’ll be a certain someone who will make you understand what it means to lead a normal life, and what a beautiful feeling it is, to be able to lead this life. So, do you accept?”

The lighter is once against thrust under his nose, and this time, as Tang Yi looks at the wisps of white smoke in the air, he promises, “I promise you. If you’re not around anymore, I will still make sure Xing Tian Meng is washed clean, even if I die-“

“Hey hey hey! You’ve only got one life, don’t waste it.”

Tang Guo Dong tries to stop Tang Yi from saying such inauspicious words, but the 24-year old merely looks into the sky and repeats what the man just told him, “When you’re in this line of business, you must always be prepared for death.”

“You!”

Lines pulling at the edges of his mouth as he smiles, Tang Guo Dong looks at Tang Yi, doting.

“Lao Tang.”

“Hmm?”

Tang Guo Dong throws the butt of his cigarette on the ground and steps on it, then proceeds to light up a second stick.

“I want to ask you a question.”

“Nnn!”

“Why did you pick me? Xing Tian Meng has so many other uncles, and brothers, no? Even if you wanted to find someone younger, there’s still-“

“It can only be you.”

“Why?”

“Because only if I hand it over to you will I be at ease.”

Tears quickly fill his eyes and his vision blurs. Tang Yi looks away, because finally, he’s hearing the words he wanted to hear most.

I’ll be at ease, handing everything over to you.

On the mountains, in an abandoned structure

Tang Yi returns back to the present from his thoughts, only to see that Shao Fei is already lying on the wooden boards, prepared to sleep.

“I really envy you, you can sleep anywhere.”

Lying on the boards, Shao Fei covers his own body with his olive green jacket, as he removed the jacket earlier to treat his own wound, and says, “As human beings we need to be adaptable and take whatever comes, a young, rich master like you who can’t sleep without a bed will never understand.”

“Do you know how to train, to escape?”

Shao Fei looks at Tang Yi at his sudden, seemingly irrelevant question, not understanding why he’s bringing this up at all.

“You have to train when you’re young. First, you twist the thumb inwards. Wait for the bone to grow again and then twist it broken again. Grow, then break. You practice it repeatedly until you’re able to do it. I ask you, which rich master from any family grows up like that?”

Shao Fei looks at this man, who now seems so different from the man he imagined in his head, and asks, “Who forced you to?”

“No one forced me to, I wanted to do it myself. Being part of any gang… we are closer to death, and when you want to survive, you’ll force yourself to do a lot of things.”

“So it’s not that you can’t sleep… but you don’t dare to sleep?”

So when Tang Yi said that he would keep watch earlier, it wasn’t because he was distancing himself, or putting a wall back up in between the both of them, but because the man before his eyes doesn’t feel that he has a person he can truly rely on and trust.

At this sudden display of sensitivity from the usually impulsive and fiery character that is Shao Fei, Tang Yi is speechless. He then laughs wistfully, walking to where there should have been windows installed in this entire building. Leaning against the rusty surface and looking at the clear sky and moon, he says, “I’m only pretending to go legal with Xing Tian Meng, actually I am-“

Shao Fei gets up from where he’s seated and interrupts Tang Yi’s sarcastic monologue. Bowing, he apologises, “It’s my fault! I was wrong. I was too full of myself, to be so sure that it was you… Tang Yi, I’m sorry!”

Tang Yi looks at the man before him, and somewhere deep inside his heart, he is moved by Shao Fei’s words.

“Hey, I’ve already said so much, you should at least give me a response!”

“This is my first time seeing a monkey who knows how to reflect on himself.”

“Hey! Who are you calling a monkey? Let me tell you, even if you’re sincere in trying to wash Xing Tian Meng clean, I will be keeping my eyes on you. The moment you do anything illegal, I’ll still arrest you!”

“Keep your eyes on me?”

“Yes! Keep my eyes on you. Both eyes!” Shao Fei points his fingers at Tang Yi.

In that moment, Tang Yi’s mouth curves into a smile that Shao Fei has never seen before, and says, “Okay. Then I’ll keep on letting you keep your eyes on me.”

“Then I- I’m going to sleep. Good- good night…”

Suddenly, Shao Fei can feel his cheeks heating up again. He flees back to the corner he was lying at earlier, pulls his jacket over himself and pretends to sleep.

#history 3: 圈套 #history3圈套 #history 3: trapped #history3: trap #history3: trapped #history3 novel #translations #history3 merchandise

[xfanfics]

Destiel Fic Rec List Part 4

Last Updated in October 2014. Posted in May 2020 for posterity.  Listed in no particular order - the total rec list will have ~250 fics. Header graphic used with permission.

This part of the list contains: 31 fics.

Other Destiel Rec Lists: [1]. [2]. [3]. [4]. [5]. [6]. [7].

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The Shadow at My Window ❤ by Zombiecat E | 141k | Hot, AU, Underage, Wing!kink

As a fledgling angel, Castiel is not allowed to interact with humanity. He should be strictly observing and concentrating on learning to be a warrior of Heaven. Even so, he cannot seem to stop himself from visiting the human boy that leaves his window open at night. At first, it's only to get a glimpse of their world.. but all that changes the night he saves the boy's life.

AMAZING!!! I'm a huge fan of both wing!kink and the underage romance trope, and this hits the spot. I read this from when it was a WIP (on chapter 12), and it was so worth it.

Fearson's floating cigarette. by orange_crushed M | 11k | Fluff,  Magicians AU

"That son of a bitch," Dean says. He strangles the handful of french fries he’s been holding, and one by one their warm, helpless, potato-y insides crumble over the tops of his fingers. He feels a brief burst of irrational, almost homicidal rage. "That floppy bow-tie wearing son of a bitch.” Dean is gonna kill Jimmy Wonderman. He’s gonna shove a never-ending string of scarves down his throat. He’s gonna make him eat balloon animals until he floats off into space.

This was so sweet and charming I'm going to cry. Castiel's gentleness and pure heart is really explored in this fic, and I LOVE it.    

Sweaters & Cigarettes ❤by lemonoclefox E | 149k | Hot,  Fluff,  High SCchool AU, punk cas, nerd dean

Dean Winchester is in high school, crushing hard on Castiel Novak, the unbelievably hot goth who Dean does his very best to convince himself he hates, despite the fact that he can’t really stop staring at him. Dean tries, but when the two of them finally cross paths, their first conversation takes a surprising turn. And suddenly, they both find themselves falling harder and faster than they ever could have expected.

LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS FIC! The trope reversal is perfect, and in short, this is one of my favorite high school AUs EVER.    

Shortskirts 'Verse by twentysomething E | 22k | High School AU

So, they're in high school, and then they're in college, and it's mostly not about Taylor Swift, except when it is.

Leave My Body, Moving Up to Higher Ground by triedunture E | 17k | Alt!canon, Genderswap

Castiel must take a new vessel to return to earth, so he strikes a deal with a woman who isn't as willing as Jimmy had been. But Dean's in a bad way and Leviathan needs to be smote, so what else can he do? Wonderful and heartbreakingly lovely. Gender swap, of a sort.    

A Treatise on Longing by araftatsea T | 8k | Angst,  Alt!Canon, Aging

Set post-8x23: Cas falls and is reborn as a human infant. Dean waits for him. He wonders how he's going to explain to this guy that he was an angel, once, and he wonders whether Cas will still want him. Or if he ever did.

Oh god, this fic huuuurts. But in a good way.    

Santorum Will Pry My Porn From My Cold Dead Hands by AlreadyPainfullyGone E | 41k | Pornstar AU

President Santorum bans all pornography, and Dean decides to start his very own prohibition racket. Unfortunately, the only person he can find to 'perform' is Castiel.

Lots of porn. Complete with in denial!dean and confident!cas.    

One Night at Club Radiant by octoberskyfall E | 16k | Hot, Stripper AU, Dom!Cas

When Charlie showed up at the garage with a six-pack of El Sol and an order for him to chug them down before they reached the bar, Dean knew he was in for one hell of a night. Featuring Stripper!Cas and light Dom!Cas because of reasons. Happy Birthday, Dean!

Damn. Just um--yes. Please.  

Gargoyles on Motorcycles by mandraco E | 24k | Office AU, Socially Awkward Cas

After the latest in Dean's long string of one night stands steals the Impala and totals it, he makes a bet with Sam that he can abstain from sex while he repairs it. But Lisa and Matt's wedding is coming up and Dean needs a date he'll never be attracted to. Enter Castiel.

Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives by cymbalism E | 14k | Fluff,  Alt!Canon

After the apocalypse, Dean's living with Lisa and earning his keep by cooking dinner. Cas likes that Dean can cook. Dean likes Cas's company. But they could use a little alone time, and Dean has a lot to learn about what the rest of his life really means.

Smoke in the Mirror by letters_of_stars M | 52k

It begins with the flier hung in the library: art model needed for thesis project, will pay. Castiel figures it's an easy way to make some extra money, but modeling for Dean Winchester ends up complicating his life far beyond anything he could have imagined.

Selfie with a stranger by somuchforbaggles T | 1k | Fluff, AU

Cas lied to his family about having a boyfriend, and now they want actual photographic evidence. There's only one thing he can do - take a selfie with a stranger.

This is just adorable. Instant feel-good fic.    

Paper-Thin by snarkymonkey E | 15k | Fluff, Hot,  College AU, Dom!Cas, Sub!Dean, Professor!Cas

Dean is finishing up his master's program, heading on for a PhD in Engineering but spends most of the time silently ogling his gorgeous next-door neighbor, the new adjunct professor of English, pursuing his dissertation.So, really, no reason the two should ever interact. Except...the walls between their apartments are just so thin. And even though he swears he's seeing the guy all over campus, there's no way the exceptionally friendly Professor Novak has a thing for Dean. Right?

The Pumpkin Pie Started It by twerkstiel E | 8k | Hot, AU, Baker Cas, ABO, Omega!Dean Sub!Dean, top!cas, alpha!cas

Dean Winchester is your ordinary college student. He does his work, fixes cars, complains about being broke. Except when he visits the new campus bakery, he ends up getting more than the pie he asked for.

Just what I like in an ABO short fic: cute, porny, and hot sex ;)   

Leave My Body, Moving Up to Higher Ground by triedunture E | 17k

Castiel must take a new vessel to return to earth, so he strikes a deal with a woman who isn't as willing as Jimmy had been. But Dean's in a bad way and Leviathan needs to be smote, so what else can he do?

Wonderful and heartbreakingly lovely. Gender swap, of a sort.

Scratchmarks  by bookkbaby E | 11k | Hot, canon!verse, endverse, threesome, bottom!cas, kink

Sometimes, sex isn't a goal, but a method. A method to escape, a method to forget, or a method to communicate, and Dean doubts that his future self is listening to what Cas is saying.

Porny 2009!Dean/2014!Dean/2014!Cas with bonus feelings towards the end.    

Halfway by anythingtoasted E | 29k | canon!verse, s8, pining!dean

A Fallen!Castiel bunker fic; Castiel arrives back at the bunker after six months of being missing, with eighteen of his newly-fallen brothers and sisters in tow; shameless schmoop and angel-care ensues.

Bunker!Fic. Castiel has a flock of brothers and sisters to care for. Always a fan of the way anythingtoasted writes the dean/cas relationship development.    

Home is Where by chasingrabbits E | 15k | AU, Mental Disorders

Casual vagrant Dean Winchester blows into Palo Alto to check on his little brother. What is meant to be a quick visit ends up drawing out when he meets and accidentally ends up clicking with Sam's strange, grad student roommate Castiel.

The Graveyard by  amarillogrande E | 18k | College AU, bottom!dean, tattooed!cas

The premise is simple. You finish the bottle, you stick it up on the shelf. When you move out, you can look up and remember all the good times you had. Right?

Smooth Operator!Verse by wannaliveindeansdimples E | 15k | Fluff, Hot, AU, Long Distance Relationship, Phone Sex

Castiel is a phone sex operator and Dean is a first time caller.

Messenger Number 3 by gamesformay M | 23k | Theatre AU, Fluff

Opening night is closing in at the Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, and the play is cursed. As if that weren't enough for Dean, the head of the tech crew, to have on his mind. A tale of love, family, and iambic pentameter.

Dark Side of the Moon by imogenbynight E | 37k | Angst,  Astronaut AU, PTSD, Minor Character Death

Five months into his six month mission, an accident leaves Flight Engineer Dean Winchester stranded on the moon. It comes down to a man he has never met to bring him home.

Give All My Secrets Away by morganoconner T | 2k | Fluff,  H/C, Canon!verse

When Castiel needs to stay with Dean while the hunter is vulnerable and unable to defend himself, he doesn't expect it to end with confessions Dean doesn't mean to give.

Convenient Husbands  by Scaramouche E | 39k | AU, creature!cas, wing!kink

"It's only temporary, right?" Dean says. "Just until you're healed up, and then we'll never have to see each other again. So what do you say, Castiel, do you want to marry me or not?

Every Word a Piece of My Heart by smilla840 E | 10k | Dean/Jimmy/Cas

The war is over and Jimmy is finally free to go back to his family. Everything should be perfect – then why isn’t it?

The Parts of Our Sum by scaramouche E | 55k | AU, Friendship

Castiel, a former soldier, has worked for the Company his entire life. They've been good to him, providing clothes, shelter and new body parts whenever necessary. Now the Company's gearing up for a space exploration voyage, and Castiel's volunteered for the research team. During the preparation period, he meets Dean Winchester, who makes Castiel wonder about the things he's missed out on.

What Has Eight Tentacles and Isn't Allowed to Eat Pie? by Scaramouche T | 16k |  Fluff,  Canon!verse, tentacles

Dean watched an anime porn about this once, but real life turns out to be way less interesting. Or, the one where Dean gets turned into an octopus.

Shorten the Distance by APenToMyHeadandImDead T | 43k | Fluff,  AU, Teacher!Cas

"Nerdytr3nchcoat" and "Impala67" weren't looking for romance on the dating website called 'dateangels.com'. Castiel was looking for friends and Dean was just looking to get his nagging brother off his back. What they didn't expect to find was each other. [a long distance, online relationship fic]

Jump the Track by alysian_fields E | 83k | High school AU

It's Dean's senior year at Lawrence High, and he's already given up on himself. It takes the arrival of the strange, intense, awkward Castiel Delacroix at the school to prove to Dean that maybe his life is worth saving after all.

Blackbird Fly ❤ by artsyunderstudy E | 163k | Angst, High school AU, Sam/Jess, Drug Use, Mental Health Issues

In the wake of a mutual tragedy, the Winchester brothers befriend loner Castiel. Both brothers find something in him to hold onto as they try to remake their own complicated relationship and the home they've lost. Struggling with his own recovery, Sam finds himself drawn to the strong and lively Jess, while Castiel and Dean find comfort in one another. As consequences of their past emerge and threaten to tear apart what they've carefully rebuilt, they are all forced to reevaluate who their family really is, and what it's worth to keep it.

Oh the angst! This fic may be triggering for some, but the pros include a wonderfully portrayed sam/jess relationship, and stunning illustrations. Dean and Cas' relationship is heartbreakingly lovely and broken (but there is a happy ending).    

A Broken Man & The Dawn by n_nami E | 44k | Fluff,  COCKLES, AU,

After his brother dies in a car accident, Jensen is left to take care of his newborn nephew - and he’s in over his head. Also, he has the feeling that the guy who just moved into the apartment next door hates him because of the crying baby that keeps him up all night. As it turns out, Misha not only has that set of mesmerizing blue eyes, but also a lot of intuition when it comes to fussing, cranky babies.

Jeté by cadniganv E | 10k | AU, dancer!dean, photographer!cas

Castiel has been photographing their ballet company for two years now and he and Dean have barely exchanged six words, and yet somehow when Dean breaks his leg, it's Castiel who takes him home from the hospital and takes care of him.

#destiel #deancas #spn #spn fic rec #destiel fic rec #* #list

[web-of-fics]

Recovery

Requested by: anon (If youre comfortable writing that stuff, could you do a platonic tony x reader one where she is close friend of avengers and has a restrictive eating disorder and tony starts picking up signs about that and confronts her about it and comforts her and reassures he's gonna help her in her recovery? Thank you lots :)

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Starring: Tony Stark x she/her reader; fellow Avengers

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Fandom: MCU 

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Chronology: after The Avengers (2012) and Spider-Man Homecoming (2017)

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Warnings: reader displays symptoms indicative of restrictive food intake/food avoidance--please read at your personal discretion or stop reading if at any point you find that this narrative does not serve your mental wellbeing

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Summary: Reader pays her old friend Tony Stark a visit. He senses something is amiss and reaches out to her about it. 

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Writer’s note: Anon, I want to take a moment to thank you for submitting this request. You possess great courage for reaching out about something that can be a vulnerable topic and I hope I did it justice. :) 

    If there are elements of this prompt that resonate with you or anyone else reading this, please be kind to yourself during your personal recovery journey. Some are long and some are short, and some almost seem futile when they just keep going in circles, but no path ever goes in a straight line, and every step is progress.

    I also want to mention that I happen to be in a counseling program now, so I will do my best to write an accurate portrayal for this character. However, it is based on my knowledge rather than experience and I am still learning. I do not claim to be an expert on anything and welcome this as an opportunity for constructive criticism as well. 

    If anyone reading this is in need of professional help, I encourage you to seek it out. You deserve it. Although I cannot provide therapeutic help for anyone on here, I am willing to branch into writing mental health-related fics for those who are interested. <3

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Words: 1552

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“Y/n,” Tony said your name more like an announcement than a greeting as you entered the room. Moments before, he’d been addressing the rest of the Avengers about something or other related to impending doom. What else was new? You just hoped it it wasn’t more deep sea fish-looking alien spaceships causing mass destruction. Ever since that whole battle of New York you haven’t quite been the same.

You waved once in acknowledgment of everyone surrounding the expensive-looking lab equipment radiating a neon projection into thin air and made for the kitchen.

“Who is that?” said an unfamiliar voice belonging to an unfamiliar face as you passed by.

“Y/n,” Tony repeated before continuing his science talk.

“Is she an Avenger?”

“No,” Tony said mid-sentence.

“Then,” the person leaned forward from his seat on the couch, “what is she doing here?”

You opened the fridge and poured yourself a glass of the nearest open bottle, not bothering to see what it was. You swirled it mindlessly, watching the exchange like it was something mildly interesting on TV and you were too lazy to search for something more exciting.

Tony turned his full attention on the man.

“She’s a friend. She’s allowed in at her leisure. Open invitation.”

Tony’s mouth turned up in your direction as if laughing at a private joke between the two of you. He made eye contact briefly.

You brought the glass to your lips.

The new guy laughed in bemusement.

Tony took a step toward him. “What’s funny?”

“It took me years to be called an Avenger after we became friends but she can just... strut around our super secret complex whenever she likes?”

Soundlessly, you put the glass on the counter and draw your thick sweater tighter around yourself.

“Ah,” now Tony was smiling, but more in the sense of baring his teeth than enjoying himself. “I see your confusion.” He addressed the man directly. “We’re not friends. We,” he gestured between them, “are coworkers.”

He turned to a screen and waved his palm over it. “And I am giving a presentation. And you are listening to me with your mouth shut,” he enunciated every syllable by the end of his sentence, then shook off the interruption and continued lecturing about his discovery.

You turned away to hide a grin and strolled elsewhere in the complex to leave Tony to his business. You weren’t a fan of stopping in unexpectedly but it had been a particularly tough week. Tuesday had been your father’s birthday. Thursday had been your mother’s. 

Outside, you ran into Pepper, exchanged congratulations about their recent engagement, and offered to help prepare for the ceremony if she needed it. She shared that she was on her way to pick up lunch and offered to pick up yours as well. You declined, telling her just ate but you’d take her up on the offer another time, and is she sure she doesn’t need help ordering flower arrangements?

“I’ll let you know,” she said, smiling and waving as she summoned one of the many Stark cars and peeled away.

You shivered in the breeze despite the shining sun helping to warm the earth. Lately it seemed like you were always cold. 

You made for the library and decided to pass the time learning what you could from the first book you picked up. Unfortunately for any small talk you ever attempted to make with the Avengers, you were a professor of anthropology and not biochemistry or engineering. You flipped open the book in your hands and read the title page. Maybe learning the gist of quantum physics would help with that. 

You were on page 150 when the door opened.

“Knock knock,” Tony said.

You marked your page and stood.

“Tony!”

“Thanks for stopping in,” he said warmly.

“Anytime,” you replied. You grinned. “Open invitation.”

“Always. And,” he added, “you’re invited to stay for dinner.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Am I? Are you sure I’m not intruding on an Avengers-only occasion?”

“He doesn’t know anything,” Tony said, catching your meaning immediately. “He’s new, you’ll have to excuse him. But if he even looks at you during dinner I promise I will kick him out. This is a purely social gathering. No shop talk allowed. You’ll fit right in.”

He walked over, placed his fingers on the book and shifted it slightly in his direction. He nodded once.

“You should sit next to Romanoff. Come on,” he nodded in the direction of the door, “you can help me cook.”

“I don’t remember saying I was available,” you said, following him anyway.

“I know,” he said, “but I also know that you are, in fact, available. I had Pepper check your schedule.”

You cross from one building to another in silence. He holds the door open for you as you reenter the kitchen together and adds, “she also told me you ate lunch when I know for a fact you strolled in here, poured that,” he pointed to the glass of orange juice, still filled and gathering condensation where you left it on the countertop, “and went to read up on a topic you know nothing about for several hours.”

You laughed and picked up the glass. “I knew I forgot something! I sat down with that book and couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. And hey,” you pointed at him accusingly, “I knew nothing about quantum physics until several hours ago. Now I do know something about it.”

He raised his palms. “I wasn’t questioning your intellect.” He looked pointedly at the glass in your hand. “Your new eating habits, however, are what struck me as odd.” 

You looked at him. “I didn’t realize making a sandwich and taking it to the library was considered odd around here.”

“Uh huh,” Tony said and opened the fridge. Every ingredient remained untouched.

You didn’t say anything. His look of concern now felt like the world’s most intense spotlight. You sipped the juice, deciding a few ounces wouldn’t do you any harm and the Vitamin C ultimately made the calories worthwhile. 

“So what’s on the menu for tonight anyway? I’m famished and so incredibly curious to learn what someone like Thor considers an acceptable meal.”

Tony shut the fridge and gazed steadily at you.

“Are you? Famished?”

“I—yeah, sure,” you said, uncertain what answer he wanted and growing less sure your eating habits could still slip under his radar. Not that anything ever avoids his notice. 

He started gathering ingredients and various pans from the cabinets.

“And not that I don’t appreciate the chance visit, but why drop in today? We haven’t talked in...”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Where were you when... that... all happened?” he asked.

You knew he was talking about the bizarre invasion that destroyed the city beyond anything you’d ever seen. Like many others, you lost your family that day. You still weren’t used to spending their birthdays mourning instead of celebrating. 

You shared your experience of that day with Tony as he cooked up a Mediterranean dish and disclosed his own trauma of that day to you. You were shocked to learn he was still recovering from the effects, and his concerns were only mounting. 

“New York will never be safe again, will it?” you said quietly.

“Hey,” Tony stopped stirring and held your face gently. “New York is protected as long as we’re around.”

He returned to stirring the sauce. “We can’t save everyone all the time, but helping even one person is always worthwhile.” He pointed the wooden spoon at you. 

“Today that person is you.”

You sniffed--pretending you were interested in smelling food instead of fighting back tears--and stuck your tongue out to lick the spoon. It was warm and savory. For once, your mouth didn’t feel like cotton and recoil at the taste of sustenance. Maybe you could stomach this tonight. And maybe another meal after that. 

Tony also tasted the spoon, nodded, and set it on the counter. 

“I think it’s time we assembled for dinner,” he said. 

- - - - - -

As dinner was served, you and Natasha excitedly caught up on recent developments in your lives--hers far more action-packed than yours--but she was just as genuinely interested in listening to you ramble about faculty drama and unruly students. 

The new guy introduced himself to you and attempted to crack jokes as often as possible throughout the evening. He grew on you.

Thor ate three platefuls of whatever Tony had concocted--you still weren’t positive what the vegetable-heavy dish was called, but in the grand scheme of things it didn’t really matter.

And you were able to eat several forkfuls of food without resistance. You shrugged your sweater off and hung it on the back of your chair, accepting a cocktail from Tony as he brought a tray of them back to the table, stealing glances at you all the while and smiling to himself. 

Although dining with the Avengers was only the first step back to engaging in your regular diet, you felt better knowing you didn’t have to walk that path alone as long as you had Tony Stark by your side. And you never knew him to be a man who abandons a friend in need. 

_______________________________________________________________________

Just one more before bed? Click here for a masterlist of my fics!

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[obaewankenope]

An Angel, A Demon, and a Child Saviour go to Hogwarts: Year Two - Chapter 3

Read it Here On AO3 or below :)

Harry returns to Hogwarts alone due to… circumstances. He doesn’t understand them fully himself—in fact, he has no idea what is going on really—but when he finds Ron and Hermione in the common room he sits himself down in a comfy armchair and fills them in on what he knows.

It isn’t really a lot[1].

“Why weren’t you on the train, Harry? We looked everywhere for you,” Hermione asks and she has that frowny, concerned look on her face that has seen Crookshanks be forgiven for a number of assaults on Harry and Ron’s hands over the year[2].

“Uncle ‘Zira and I were stopped when we went through the station instead of apparating,” Harry begins to explain, tucking into the food his uncle had given him from the kitchens. “The wall wouldn’t work,” he says around a mouthful of chicken salad on tasty brown bread. He drops some crumbs in his lap and Hermione gives him a reproachful look. 

“Sorry.” Harry swallows the mouthful and focuses on explaining the situation to them instead of eating and getting judgey looks from Hermione for talking with his mouth full. “I missed breakfast and since I didn’t catch the train I haven’t eaten yet.”

“Dinner is in less than an hour,” Hermione says and Harry shrugs.

“Uncle ‘Zira said I shouldn’t wait to eat if I’m hungry since I’m growing,” Harry responds and Hermione can’t argue with him about that. She likes Aziraphale too much to go against what the school librarian says and he is right about this. Harry is growing—and making up for nearly a decade of poor nutrition and treatment by his blood relatives—and food gives his body to grow.

“Stop complaining about him eating, Hermione!” Ron exclaims, giving the girl a look that has her flushing a little in embarrassment. At least, Harry thinks it’s embarrassment. “Why wouldn’t the wall work? What happened? How’d you manage to get to Hogwarts then?”

Harry finishes off his food quickly and fishes a bottle of water from his bag. He takes a long draught of water before he answers Ron’s quickfire questions.

“I don’t really know why the wall wouldn’t work, only that uncle ‘Zira was really annoyed,” Harry says after a moment. The common room is quieter than it had been when he entered but there’s still enough ambient noise to make it difficult for anyone to hear him. “He fixed it but the train was already leaving by then. I don’t know what caused it but uncle ‘Zira seemed to know.”

“Okay, so how did you get to school then?” Hermione asks.

Harry grins. “We flew.”

“On brooms?” Ron asks and there’s wonder in the boys voice at the prospect. Flying all the way to Hogwarts on a broom is—Harry admits—really appealing. But what happened is even better. “Blimey!”

“No.”

“Then how did you fly here, Harry?” Hermione asks and she looks a little annoyed that he won’t just tell them. “Magic carpets are illegal nowadays and I highly doubt Mister Fell has one of those.” She pauses. “Professor Crowley might though.”

Harry laughs. “He might, I don’t know,” he says and his grin grows at Hermione and Ron’s faces now. “We didn’t use a magic carpet or brooms or anything else that wizards have made fly.”

Both of his friends frown.

“Then how?” Hermione demands and she sounds so very annoyed now because Harry’s not making sense and Harry loves that he doesn’t make sense but Hermione likes logic too much.

Harry looks around the common room before leaning closer to his friends who lean forward automatically. He gives them a sly smile and his green eyes spark with absolute delight. “Uncle ‘Zira has wings,” he says, “he’s an angel.”

Hermione and Ron stare at him for a long time before they both snort.

“Okay fine don’t tell us how you got here!” Ron exclaims, rolling his eyes. “Wings! Ha! Where would he even hide them? No wizards have wings!”

“Angels are Christian myth Harry,” Hermione says. “They don’t exist.”

“Neither do witches or wizards or griffins or dragons if you ask a muggle,” Harry shoots back. “Just because you haven’t seen an angel doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

“Just because you don’t understand how you got to Hogwarts doesn’t mean your uncle is an angel, either,” Hermione fires back at him. “Obviously he just used some sort of levitation spell.”

“He’s an angel, Hermione!” Harry hisses. “Why do you think he doesn’t use a wand? He doesn’t need one. Neither does uncle Crowley.”

“They’re just really good at wandless magic then,” Hermione says and Ron—who has been watching his friends argue with each other over this—leans forward.

“That’s not really how wandless magic works, Hermione,” he says sort of timidly. The girl turns a glare on him. “Don’t look at me like that! It doesn’t. Professor Crowley doesn’t use magic like the rest of us. Mister Fell either. Harry’s right about that,” he continues, giving Harry a supportive look. “I don’t think angels exist, but I do know that there’s way more powerful things than witches and wizards in the world.”

“Oh?” Hermione asks and it’s rather mocking. “Like what? Because none of the books in the library mention anything being stronger than a witch or wizard.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “That’s because those books are written by witches and wizards,” he says slowly because, really, that makes all the difference. “You don’t read books written by racists saying nice things about black people do you? Or books written by misogynists. And what about all those books that talk about eugenics like it’s a good thing!”

“But all of the books in the library can’t be wrong Harry!”

Harry snorts. “Why? Because they all say the same thing?” he asks but it’s not really a question. Hermione still opens her mouth to answer him but he continues before she can. “Hermione, all the books in the library about Voldemort that mention me all say the same thing and they’re all wrong. Half of them don’t even mention that I’m a half-blood! Just because something is written doesn’t make it true, just well-known. Books are just that, books. They have knowledge and information in them but they’re not always right. Sometimes they’re completely wrong and no one thinks to question them because they’re books. You’re smarter than that Hermione. You are.”

Hermione is staring at Harry. Ron is staring at Harry.

“Uncle ‘Zira told me that himself and you both know how much he loves books,” Harry adds and both nod at him. “Uncle Crowley once told me that knowledge doesn’t always mean understanding. That sometimes you have to decide what is really knowledge and what is just information. Not all information is right, just like not all knowledge is good. It’s why kids are told about Santa and most parents let them figure out Santa isn’t real on their own right? Because you have to decide if something is right, true, good, or the opposite.”

Hermione nods slowly, reluctantly. “Okay Harry, you’re- you’re right,” she says, biting her lip. “I don’t think I can believe you about Mister Fell being an angel but—if anyone could be one, it’d be him.”

Ron nods. “Definitely,” he agrees, “he’s definitely nice enough to be an angel.”

“Do you believe me?” Harry asks Ron and the ginger boy shrugs.

“I don’t not believe you,” he replies and Harry figures that’s good enough.

“Okay then.”

The trio drop the discussion there, shifting instead to leave the common room and head down to the Great Hall for dinner. If there is some awkwardness between them it dissipates soon enough.

Aziraphale informs Crowley as to what happened with the platform wall the moment he arrives at Hogwarts, foregoing his usual visit to the library before hunting down his demonic counterpart. It speaks to how annoyed Aziraphale is about the situation that he finds Crowley in the defence classroom and instantly goes off on a diatribe about obnoxious walls, determined creatures, and miracles designed to protect children from the wind chill factor.

Crowley is—as is typical with his angel—patently amused until he processes the general gist of Aziraphale’s rant. Then he is angry.

“It did what!”

Aziraphale pauses in his diatribe to look at the demon who is now stood up and stalking toward the angel. “I don’t think it meant to cause injury,” the angel says, realising that Crowley is angry in a Dangerous Way.

The demon—for all that he loses his temper and snaps and snarls at things—tends to not get angry in a Dangerous Way. Aziraphale has perhaps known Crowley to get that angry twice in six thousand years. Both times involved children.

This is third and it also involves a child.

Harry is not just any child however. Harry is theirs. That makes the anger even more dangerous.

“I don’t care!” Crowley snarls. “Where is it?”

Aziraphale sighs. “I sent Dobby away,” the angel answers, reaching out and touching Crowley’s arm. The demon allows the touch and Aziraphale knows that Crowley is not so angry yet that he can’t handle contact. That alone reassures Aziraphale that this won’t end in the unfortunate demise of a house-elf[3].

Possibly.

“You didn’t kill it!”

Aziraphale gives Crowley a hard stare. “No, I most certainly did not,” he says and there’s steel in the angel’s voice that draws Crowley’s attention. “It was only doing what it thought best for Harry.”

“For Harry?” Crowley spits, looking and sounding like a cat that has just been dunked in a bucket of water for a wash. “What the fuck? That- that’s bollocks!”

Aziraphale’s hand on Crowley’s arm tightens, keeping the demon close and focused on the angel himself. “Dobby is aware of a threat to Harry’s safety here at Hogwarts, although he cannot say what—because of magical ties to whatever family he serves—” Aziraphale forestalls Crowley’s snarky questions “—and believed that preventing Harry from returning to Hogwarts would protect him. Obviously, I’ve corrected the poor thing on that notion,” Aziraphale says. “He reminded me of those humans that Hawkins[4] fellow brought to England in 1554,” he confesses quietly.

Crowley’s anger burns out at the confession. “Really?” he asks and his voice is softer, more controlled, calmer. Aziraphale nods. “Shit. Thought slavery was outlawed in Britain two hundred years ago?”

“Apparently that does not extend to non-human creatures in wizarding Britain,” Aziraphale says a little bitterly.

Crowley’s features darken. “That’s not right.”

“It isn’t no, though I’m not sure what can be done about it,” Aziraphale agrees, sighing a little. “I had so hoped this awful slavery business would be done with when they outlawed it.”

“Nah, it’s not over.” Crowley shakes his head. “There’s a whole industry of slave trading—human trafficking—still going strong. Hastur got a commendation for dropping the idea into a human’s head a few centuries ago,” he explains heavily. There’s disgust in the demon’s voice.

Aziraphale echoes the disgust with his face. If there is one thing Crowley hates most of all it is the subjugation of free will. Those forced into slavery have no free will, thus Crowley hates slavery[5].

“We’re not saving the world angel,” Crowley says, looking at Aziraphale with an expression the angel can identify after thousands of years of knowing him; it’s a look that says ‘We Are Not Able To Fix Everything Even If We Want To’ and ‘I Know How You Feel And I Feel The Same But We Can’t’ with a dash of ‘If We Did This Then Where Do We Stop?’

Aziraphale—much as he wishes to do otherwise—accepts Crowley’s argument. For now. Of course, although Aziraphale accepts the demon’s logic, the angel isn’t going to just forget the topic. He may not be able to do much without causing Problems, but he can at least try and make life a little easier for a house-elf that wants to protect Harry as much as Crowley and himself do.

“Some things you can’t change,” Crowley mutters and it sounds sad and bitter and just a little bit like an admission from the demon.

“Some things you can,” Aziraphale says softly, gently, and the demon looks at him. “If you’re willing to take the risk of trying.”

Crowley shakes his head. “Sure,” he says, “because you’d know all about taking risks angel.”

Aziraphale feels the sting of those words. He feels it deeply. Because, for Crowley, Aziraphale always takes risks. They may not be the types of risks that the demon expects him too—no great shout at heaven that he’s siding with a demon—but they’re risks nonetheless. He took a risk with giving Crowley holy water. He took a risk agreeing to their Arrangement. He took a risk in not fighting a demon that had just slithered up beside him on the wall after tempting humanity to sin.

Aziraphale took risks with Crowley and he was both proud and reluctant to admit that he did such.

“When bad men combine, the good must associate,” Aziraphale says and he moves his hand on Crowley’s arm down and gently touches the demon’s hand. “Else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle[6].”

Crowley groans. “Seriously?”

Although Crowley is annoyed with him, Aziraphale notes that the demon doesn’t pull away when the angel slips his fingers between Crowley’s own and entwines their hands together.

“Fine, we’ll do something about it angel,” the demon relents and Aziraphale smiles. This is how they interact, how they work things out. This give and take, push and pull, disagree and accept.

Their relationship is one that Aziraphale still does not understand. He simply chalks it up to it being Ineffable.

Harry meets Ron’s new familiar—technically old but new for Ron—the first night back at Hogwarts. The ginger boy had forgotten to mention his familiar to Harry when the other boy had not shown on the train and then there had been that Argument about belief and knowledge and some other stuff that Ron didn’t like to really think about.

So it’s understandable that Harry is only introduced to Ron’s pet when Crookshanks tries to eat it and claws Harry’s arm when the boy grabbed the cat to prevent said eating.

Scabbers is a rat. A rat that Crookshanks wants to eat, judging by the way the cat yowls and tries to escape Harry’s firm hold on it. Ron is trying to keep Scabbers from fleeing inside his mattress when Seamus opens the door to their dorm and shouts at Harry to throw the damned cat out.

Unfortunately for Harry, Ron, and Seamus, Hermione is stood outside their dorm. She had obviously gone looking for her wayward familiar and is thus in prime place to witness Harry half drag, half throw said familiar out of the doorway while there is the sound of Ron yelling obscenities in the background.

Hermione grabs Crookshanks and gives the cat a once over, murmuring sweet nothings at the cat that has just clawed Harry and tried to murder Ron’s own pet. It is particularly typical of anyone who owns a cat.

Then she turns her attention to Harry.

“Your cat just tried to kill Ron’s pet,” Harry says immediately, before the girl can hurl any accusations at him. He did just hurl her cat out of his dorm so accusations are expected. He’s just not in the mood for them, clutching his arm and tenderly poking the deep gouges along the forearm. He’s going to have to see Madame Pomfrey for them—they’ve very deep. “And clawed me.”

“Crookshanks is a cat, Harry, that’s what cats do,” Hermione responds hotly but there’s concern in the girl’s face when she sees how tenderly Harry’s holding his arm. She might be angry at him for throwing her cat, but her anger is outweighed by her love for her friend. Thankfully. “You’re going to need to go to the infirmary for that. Kneazles are known for having highly infectious bacteria on their claws; it’s a method for weakening prey.”

Harry grimaces. “Great.”

“How’s Ron’s pet?” Hermione asks after a moment. She’s stroking Crookshanks who is calm and comfortable in her embrace—again, a typical act by a cat when it’s in the mood to annoy a victim.

“Alive,” Harry answers and Hermione lets out a sigh. “We woke up before Crookshanks could get him but it was close. I think Scabbers might be in his mattress or possibly somewhere else that he can hide.”

“I’ll try and keep Crookshanks out of your dorm,” Hermione promises and Harry nods. “There might be a charm I can use if he ignores me.”

“Maybe avoid Ron for a day or two as well,” Harry suggests and Hermione nods.

“I’ll apologise to him tomorrow, not now,” she says. “I can only guess how upset he is right now.”

Harry hums. Upset isn’t exactly the word he’d use to describe Ron’s mood right now. More like murderously angry.

“Come to the infirmary with me?” He asks instead and Hermione nods.

Harry waits at the portrait entrance for Hermione to lock Crookshanks in his carrier—magically enlarged so that he has a decently-sized space to roam—after telling Seamus he’s heading the infirmary.

Ron is still busy trying to coax Scabbers from the top of his four-poster—how he got there none of them are quite sure but it’s definitely a decent spot to hide since there’s a lot of spots to hide up there—and doesn’t accompany Harry and Hermione to the infirmary.

Madame Pomfrey is displeased to be woken up by students in the early hours of the morning—just past three o’clock—but puts her displeasure aside when she sees Harry’s arm and learns the scratches are from a Kneazle. Hermione chooses to stay in the infirmary—Madame Pomfrey giving her permission to sleep in one of the beds—and Harry is given a half-dozen potions to take and ordered into bed to sleep.

Crowley and Aziraphale hear about his attack by feline the next day when he attends classes with an arm in a sling—an undesired situation that Madame Pomfrey had given him no opportunity to refuse—and the boy is promptly cornered by them both and has to explain what happened.

Crowley promises to terrorise the cat into never entering the boys dorm again but Aziraphale tells him that’s not acceptable—the cat is Hermione’s familiar after all—and Harry is allowed to go on his way when demon and angel get distracted arguing about something the boy has absolutely no idea of.

Unfortunately for everyone, Lockhart returns to the school a day after spring term, bringing with him tales of exotic peoples and great perils that sounds like some colonialist fantasy glorifying exploitation of other civilisations. Needless to say, it doesn’t win him much favour with the staff or any student with common sense.

Harry and Ron both uniformly despise Lockhart enough that they engage in some childish pranks that causes Ron’s older brothers to pay them more attention than before[7]. It is inevitable that the twins join in with Harry and Ron’s pranks on Lockhart to the point of revealing the secret to their success as pranksters.

The Marauders map is revealed to Harry James Potter a year ahead of schedule due to the intricate changes to the universe as a result of Crowley taking the Boy Who Lived from his blood family and deciding to raise him with an angel. This is—additionally—a good thing.

“Who’s Peter Pettigrew?” Harry asks, frowning. “Is he a Gryffindor?”

Fred, or George—Harry can’t yet tell them apart—shrugs. “Don’t know,” he says, “we’re used to his name being in Percy’s dorm though not yours. Wonder why it’s there.”

“Could it be a glitch?” Harry looks at the map. “Like it’s got a fault and shows up random names?”

“Maybe, but it’s never shown us any other name and we’ve checked the student lists before to make sure,” George—or Fred—answers. “Our best guess is whoever this Peter Pettigrew is, they’re a ghost.”

“The map shows ghosts?” Ron goggles at the map. “What about animals? Does it show where everyone’s familiar is? I can see Mrs Norris there—” he points at the map, finger directing them to focus on the Astronomy tower “—so it must do, right?”

“Oh yeah, it shows ghosts and familiars. Even the house-elves in the kitchens!” Fred—or George—says grinning at their brother. “But not regular animals. Basically anything that has a name—like us, or familiars.”

“Cool,” Harry says, grinning. The Weasley twins grin back.

In the same manner that the Marauders map is revealed to Harry a year early due to changes in the Standard Flow in the universe, the first attack of the year occurs three days after spring term, giving students everywhere a significant fright and Draco Malfoy the perfect opportunity to gleefully shout about how ‘Mudbloods best watch out!’

This, naturally, riles Harry and Ron up quite a lot—Hermione is a little more level-headed than the two boys, but only just—and they hatch a plan to interrogate the Slytherin boy about this Chamber of Secrets and the monster supposedly hiding within it.

Aziraphale and Crowley make their own plans regarding the opening of the Chamber—although their plans revolve around bullying Dumbledore into telling them what the fuck the Chamber of Secrets actually is and where it is.

Both groups carry out their plans within a month of term starting and both groups hit problems along the way.

First is Harry and Ron getting detention from Lockhart for hexing Malfoy after the boy made another ill-advised comment about mudbloods. Then Crowley and Aziraphale are both waylaid with miracles and temptings to perform that require a lot more of their attention than either wish to allot to them.

Hermione manages to wrangle permission from Lockhart for a book in the restricted section and the trio get on with brewing an illegal potion in a girls lavatory that is inhabited by a teenage ghost with a mildly unhealthy interest in Harry.

Crowley corners Dumbledore in the headmasters office and gets the basics about the Chamber from the man—although Dumbledore does his utmost to dally about until Crowley tells him in no uncertain terms that he will ruin the man’s wardrobe until the end of time if he doesn’t just tell him what he wants to know.

Unfortunately for Crowley and Aziraphale’s plan, there is no actual knowledge as to where the Chamber is located and no information about whatever creature is inside it. This leaves them rather stumped as to what they can do to solve the issue.

Mrs Norris—the familiar of Argus Filch—is petrified by the creature but hasn’t died. This at least gives the demon and angel something to work with and both of them get to work trying to figure out what exactly can petrify a living thing. Naturally they consider gorgons but the last known gorgon in Europe was murdered in 302AD by a spear-happy soldier. Those that have come after don’t really have the umpf to petrify anything unless there’s several of them working together.

Crowley works with Pomfrey to try and counter the effects of petrification but finds that he can’t heal the cat because it’s not technically injured. The petrification is unfortunate but it’s something that isn’t actually harming the cat and thus he’s kind of stuck with it unless he performs a miracle and draws attention to the situation—healing is easy but reversing something that freezes an object in time gets the attention of everyone, heaven and hell; Crowley isn’t quite willing to draw that much attention to himself. Yet.

It leaves them even more stumped because that level of dilation of time is not easily achieved and Aziraphale can’t think of a single creature capable of such that isn’t an angel or demon. Divine and infernal interference is about the only thing the can rule out with absolute certainty.

The school settles back into its regular rhythm when there isn’t another attack and Harry and Ron entertain themselves with flying on the pitch whenever they can. Harry managed to get on the team as seeker but Ron—having a preference for chaser or keeper—hadn’t due to no space. It leaves Ron a little jealous of his friend but, overall, pleased when Harry lets him use the flaming broom instead of the slow school brooms.

The day the Polyjuice potion is ready turns out to be a fantastic day for infiltrating the enemy encampment—Slytherin common room—as it’s a relatively decent day outside and they overhear Malfoy telling Crabbe and Goyle that he’s going to write a letter to his mother and to not bother him in their dorm room. Harry and Ron manage to waylay the two Slytherin boys who follow Malfoy around, tricking them with cupcakes laced with a sleeping draught made by Hermione. This enables them to assume the identities of Crabbe and Goyle with little fanfare.

Hermione’s situation however is less lucrative. She takes hair from Millicent Bulstrode—a tall, imposing second year Slytherin who has singled Hermione out in class for reasons unknown. Bulstrode is hiding in the library, writing a potions essay when Hermione manages to snag some loose hair from the girls robe but the hair—it turns out—isn’t human.

Thus Harry and Ron find themselves entering Slytherin common room alone while Hermione goes and presents herself to Madame Pomfrey in her… dishevelled state.

Malfoy is—as usual—annoying and irritating, insulting them both and making snide comments about Ron’s family that have the boy turning red with anger. Harry manages to ask Malfoy the questions they want answered and are disappointed when it turns out Malfoy has no idea who the Heir of Slytherin is, what the creature is, or where the Chamber of Secrets is located. They do, however, learn that Malfoy is determined to get a broom like Harry’s in order to ‘knock Potter off his fancy broom!’.

Hermione remains in the infirmary for three weeks as opposed to the initial number of six that Madame Pomfrey had stated at the start. The reduced time in the hospital wing is the result of Crowley’s intervention in Hermione’s care.

The demon had been amused and delighted to see Hermione with feline eyes—eyes that matched Crowley’s own—but had pushed that aside when the girl had burst into tears over how she looked. That had resulted in Crowley becoming very soft and gentle in a manner not at all typical of the demon, as he had comforted the girl and informed her that it didn’t matter how she looked but how she acted. She could look like the ugliest person in the world but the only really ugly people would be the ones who picked on her for her appearance.

This—coming from someone who, depending on the day, wore dress robes or an actual dress, jeans or a rather revealing sort of shirt and very tight leather trousers—reassured Hermione in a manner that all the conversations with her parents about her looks couldn’t. Crowley was different and stood out and revelled in his difference.

He did not know it, but that conversation decided for Hermione Jane Granger something Very Important to her future.

Valentines Day arrives and the whole school is abuzz with valentines messages interrupting lessons left and right until several professors run out of patience and block any dwarf with a message from entering their classrooms.

Aziraphale simply asks them to deliver their messages a little more quietly since ‘this is a library you know’ and the dwarven messengers do as requested because they sense something about Aziraphale that they don’t sense in anyone else except the dauntingly grumpy Care of Magical Creatures professor who sicced a bunch of snakes on them the first time they went to deliver a valentines[8].

Harry and Ron are heading back to Gryffindor tower after visiting the library when they’re distracted by the sound of cursing and flowing water. They follow the noise and discover that Myrtle has flooded her bathroom again, forcing Filch to mop up a lot of water that’s flowed out into the hall. They watch the caretaker storm off—in search of another bucket incidentally—before sneaking into the bathroom and witnessing the mess for themselves.

Myrtle informs them of the reason for her flooding the bathroom and Harry—being Harry—takes the reason with him to the tower and hides away in his bed to study it. This is how Harry discovers that some books shouldn’t be touched and that he shouldn’t just Do Things because he thinks he should.

This is also how Harry learns about the Chamber of Secrets and Hagrid’s connection to it.

The diary of Tom Marvolvo Riddle tells Harry a lot of things about Hagrid’s involvement in the death of a student fifty years prior and Harry figures out that the student was Myrtle, causing him to feel somewhat sympathetic for the ghost with a strange fascination with him. The diary is also the cause of the boys dorm getting trashed the next day—mainly because someone wrecked Harry’s belongings and only the diary was missing.

It is an interesting end to the spring term and a warning that the rest of the school year is about to get a lot more messy.

[1] In Harry’s defence, the boy is only twelve and has two adults looking out for him at all times. Granted, those adults are generally awful at their own respective jobs but they happen to be very good at caring for Harry. Thus they protect him from a lot of things that, in another universe, he would have had to deal with alone. This protection affects the strands of time in the universe, shaping events in endlessly complex and contradictory ways. It is, in effect, an ineffable situation understood by only One Being.

[2] Forgiven by Hermione and only begrudgingly by Ron and Harry. Both boys have had to charm their bed covers to prevent Crookshanks from sticking a paw under them and scratching their toes.

[3] Aziraphale has no doubt that Crowley will end the existence of the house-elf without any regret if he feels the need to. In truth, Aziraphale only hesitated in ending the creature’s existence when it had shied away from him, trembling, with a sort of terror that the angel had seen before on the faces of slaves. It had made him pause long enough to think about the Why of the house-elf’s actions and to decide to send Dobby on his way with a strict warning to Stop It Now because Aziraphale would not show him such a mercy again. The house-elf had taken Aziraphale’s threat to heart—he hopes—and left quickly. Harry—fortunately—had been none-the-wiser as to the cause of his missing the train.

[4] The Hawkins fellow that Aziraphale is referring to here happens to be an Elizabethan seafarer by the name of John Hawkins from Plymouth. An Admiral and given the fancy title of Sir, Hawkins is acknowledged as the “pioneer of the English Slave Trade” in the sixteenth century. Hawkins formed a slave trading syndicate in 1554 and over four voyages is estimated to have transported 1,500 slaves from Africa across the Atlantic. He was stopped by a skirmish with some Spaniards where he lost five out of seven ships in 1568. Unfortunately he didn’t die with his ships. Hawkins is—for both Aziraphale and Crowley—an all-round detestable human being that is suffering grandly in hell and deserves every ounce of agony he is still experiencing to this day.

[5] Crowley hates slavery so much that he has gone out of his way to completely fuck up human trafficking rings, sex trafficking rings in the present day. This continues a tradition of the demon’s wherein he fucks up the lives of slavers by sinking their ships—after freeing their ‘cargo’—and sending their slavers running in terror at the sight of a giant, writhing nightmare coming at them during their ‘search’ for slaves. Aziraphale doesn’t know the specifics of Crowley’s actions over the centuries but the angel knows of some of them since he’s received memos from heaven congratulating him on Saving Souls relating to these actions.

[6] This is a saying from Edmund Burke that Aziraphale finds rather favourable to his morals. It compliments the angel’s principle philosophical stance on good and evil that Saint Thomas of Aquinas presents as The Problem of Evil. Evil contains the seeds of its own destruction as it is inherently a negative experience and cannot, therefore, succeed over good. Needless to say, whenever Aziraphale brings up these two individuals and their opinions—influential on western human society—Crowley rolls his eyes a lot and performs petty acts to irritate the angel in recompense; acts that almost always end with Crowley being ignored by Aziraphale and thus suffering himself, thereby proving Aziraphale’s point about the self-defeating nature of evil.

[7] They are able to perform several highly enjoyable pranks on the defence professor including turning his office desk into a pile of snakes—politely requested by Harry to not actually bite the man but thoroughly terrify him; something the snakes gleefully agree to—and charming his portraits to burp continuously every time the professor opens his mouth to speak. These pranks are only made possible through the use of a cloak gifted to Harry by an unknown individual. The cloak had appeared on his bed two days after term began with a note stating that it had been left in the person’s possession and belonged to Harry’s father. As such it was greatly coveted by the twelve-year-old who had yet to mention it to his uncles.

[8] Several valentines had, interestingly enough, been for Crowley from a variety of students—and one or two staff members. Those valentines had been met with a blank stare and a quiet “what the fuck is wrong with you people” before the snakes had been summarily summoned and sicced on the dwarven messengers. Only one valentine hadn’t elicited this response from the demon—it had been a message none of the students or dwarves understood but it made perfect sense to the demon: “a little less slow if you please”.

#Good Omens #Ineffable husbands #Crowley #Aziraphale #HP #Harry Potter #Absconding with Harry verse #update #kat writes #my fic #my writing

[arissayoo]

Ephemeral >> i

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Warnings: Mentions of depression 

Word Count: 1.8K

Prologue | i | l |

- i 

*******

Quiet.

That’s what my life had been and continued to be day in and day out.

In no way was I complaining. I had become used to the silence and now seemed to seek it out. It wasn’t hard in a place like this.

I walked down the bare hallway, dragging my hand along the white walls. I didn’t know how much longer I would be here but I couldn’t feel happy at the thought. I couldn’t feel anything.

I entered the lounge, the wall-length window drawing me in. This had become my go-to area after the group session ever since I arrived here. I curled up on the ledge, pressing my forehead to the glass. Bright flowers littered the grass leading up to the entrance gates of the main building. It was ironic, really, how the staff tried to maintain the liveliness within this place but it held nothing close to a lively mood.

What could you really expect from a rehab facility though?

The place naturally took on a gloomy, tired feeling, cloaking the visitors with the dark aura until they left. Countless times I watched as cars of families drove up, their bright personalities dimming as they cautiously climbed the steps of the building to visit.

I could count only on one hand the number of times my parents walked up those steps. The personality change was strongly evident in them as well.

“Um so honey, how has treatment been going?”

Every.

“Your doctor says you haven’t been participating in group activities.”

Single.

“We just want the best for you, and for you to get better. Your recovery is all that matters.”

Time.

By the fourth visit of my parents not receiving the news they wanted, their visits became nonexistent. Every month I would get postcards with excuses, all ending up in the bin beside my bed.

I didn’t feel anything though when the parents of other residents would walk the halls with their son or daughter, small smiles on their faces. I wondered if they felt as out of place as I did.

A crack of thunder sounded from outside, signaling the start of a storm. My eyes darted around, taking in the scenery in front of me. The sky mirrored the dark atmosphere I had been surrounded in for the last two months.

I breathed in, silently observing through the window. It was beautiful. Had I been more focused on the scene before me I may have missed it, but I didn’t.

The small, barely audible, breaths drew my attention from the window.

Annoying, is what I immediately thought. What about my actions seemed inviting to anyone?

However, as I turned to tell the person to get lost, the stutters in his breath became more clear. He still faced forward, almost as if he was inviting me to stare.

I don’t know why I did. He wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous nor did he emit an attractive aura.

He was simply there.

With his light features contrasted with his dark hair and eyes, he was there. He stayed well after the storm had passed until the dinner announcement was made.

No words were exchanged between us, but it didn’t matter. I was aware of his presence as he was of mine.

He was the first. The first person to come up to me. A part of me wanted to question him, the other part wanted to ignore him.

The latter won.

After dinner, he disappeared. I didn’t pay any notice to this fact and walked to my room. The doctor would be making rounds on my floor tonight, and I, unfortunately, had to be present.

As soon as I entered my hall, I could hear the nurses talking with other residents. It was usual for my floor to be silent except for periods during health rounds. There were 11 other residents in my hall, none of which I actually knew.

“How are we doing?” Dr. Kim said, looking up from his clipboard.

I fell back onto my bed, facing the ceiling. “Peachy.”

“How about group therapy?” His voice came closer.

“Amazing.”

“Mhm it is, isn’t it? You sound like you are doing well then. I’m assuming you’re doing fantastic on the social front now too.” You could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Namjoon — Doc, let’s be real.” I sat up, finally facing him. “We both know my past and what I’m up against. Why continue to drag it out?”

My words hung in the air while he stayed silent, contemplating his response.

“I know how hard dealing with something like this can be, especially for someone that has been dealing with it for as long as you. I cannot completely know what you are going through even with all the information I have received. How you are internally dealing with this, along with depression, is a secret to me and even your parents. I understand why you are expressing the thoughts you are and I don’t blame you. However, think of how far you have come, how much you can do if you beat this.

You can take it one step at a time, and I’ll be here to help you along the way. We can start by managing the depression first and move on from there. If at any point something bothers you, I am always here to listen. Not only is it my job, but I want to help you feel better and beat this.”

I stared at Namjoon, feeling mixed emotions from his words. We had always had an understanding relationship, him accepting my sarcasm and me coming to terms with him trying to do his job. However, recently we started unintentionally adopting a sibling-like bond. Namjoon acted like my older brother, and naturally, I was the rebellious younger sister.

To hear words of support and understanding was not common for me and I was left in awe. I stayed silent, letting Namjoon finish up his checkup and followed the remainder of his orders.

I was left alone in my room and grabbed a book from my shelf. I plopped back onto my bed only to stare up at the ceiling, the book opened randomly and lying on my chest.

Even the next morning I couldn’t get Namjoon’s words out of my head, forcing me to even consider speaking up at group session when they asked someone to start the discussion.

No. There was no reason for me to be feeling these things because of that damned doctor. Nobody understood my situation, even he told me that. It was because no one understood that I didn’t feel the need to keep playing all their games and pretending I was fine.

“Well if no one else wants to share,” the staff member said while looking at me “we can finish with group session today.” I watched as everyone glanced around before leaving their seats.

After most of the people left I started to head towards the lounge but stopped when I caught sight of the boy from yesterday, waiting by the entrance of the lounge. His gaze lifted from the floor and caught on my still figure.

I debated skipping the lounge and going straight to my room when he spoke.

“If I’m intruding and making you uncomfortable just tell me and I’ll leave.”

His voice was not what I would have expected and I was caught off-guard. My silence was taken by him and he searched my face before walking into the lounge. I followed behind, unsure of why my brain was freezing up. He took a seat on the couch while I made my way towards the window ledge.

I stared at the window, trying hard not to let my thoughts get the best of me and failing miserably. The lounge was not deemed as my place, but it still felt unusual to be sharing it.

He was lounging on the couch in the corner of the room, scribbling into a small notebook that I didn’t notice earlier. His pencil would occasionally stop, as if he was trying to find the right words for whatever he was writing, before returning back to the paper at a quick pace. My eyes watched him, occasionally breaking the contact to look at the window when he would look up. I became curious as to what he was writing at such a furious pace as if the words would disappear if he waited for a second longer. His mouth was slightly open with his tongue occasionally poking out, and I continued to watch.

I didn’t plan on talking to him; the thought never crossed my mind.

Yet I watched, unknowingly building his interest in me, the distant and mysterious girl. He was just as uncomfortable as me at the idea of initiating a conversation and tucked his lower lip in between his teeth.

It was awkward to say the least, both of us silently watching each other with careful eyes. My eyes finally broke away, facing the scene playing against the glass. Clouds danced along the skyline, enveloping the bright sunshine in a foggy gray. It was those clouds that I related to the most. Despite their attempts at blocking the hot rays of the sun, nourishing of our plants, and cooling the air, they were misunderstood. My eyes followed the few parents running to shelter to avoid the steady rainfall, many of them glancing towards the sky with concerned looks.

“It’s ironic right?” his voice snapped me out of my trance. I turned to see him facing the window, notebook on the couch next to him. “They complain about the heat but in times like this they complain instead of being at ease.”

“They don’t think about how well they have it compared to others. Others desperately wish for rain.” I breathed out, glancing towards the window. He got up, stepping closer until he was close enough to hold a conversation, but enough to maintain the guarded barrier.

“Yeah.” He whispered. The silence resumed, us watching the steady stream of water falling from the sky. I peeked over at him, watching his chest rise and fall ever so slowly.

“Taehyung.” He voiced suddenly, cutting my gaze short.

“Huh?”

“My name. I couldn’t decide whether or not to tell you so I just did.” He turned to me, his brown eyes boring into mine.

I stared at him before averting my gaze back to the window. I didn’t care, he knew that, yet he told me anyway.

I was unsure of how to proceed. Talking was the last thing I wanted to do but I wasn’t minding his company. I shifted on the ledge, startling Taehyung and making him look at the ground.

A beeping noise was heard from the couch where he had been sitting, causing him to walk over and grab his things. He glanced at me, before pressing his lips together and leaving the lounge.

I stared at the spot he once occupied. I didn’t care. I didn’t care that I was left alone.

He left me alone as the rain became heavier, echoing through the room.

#taehyung au #bts fanfic #bts angst #taehyung #kpop fanfiction #bts #bts au #ephemeral #namjoon #taehyung x reader #bts series #v fanfic #kim taehyung