#'sign my death with your teeth' is so fucking romantic to me for no reason???? “want me down to the marrow” YES PLEASE

[hallwyeoo]

I'm reminded so much of Binghe in Cixous’ 'Stigmata' (specifically ‘Love Of The Wolf’)

“For us, eating and being eaten belong to the terrible secret of love... The story of torment itself is a very beautiful one. Because loving is wanting and being able to eat up and yet to stop at the boundary." (pg 78)

"...who says or doesn’t say, but who signifies: I beg you, eat me up. Want me down to the marrow. And yet manage it so as to keep me alive... and I urge you: bite me. Sign my death with your teeth." (pg 78)

like cmon, you mean to tell me this doesn't remind you of them?

"The wolf says to the child: I’m going to eat you up. Nothing tickles the child more. That’s the mystery: why does the idea that you’re going to eat me up fill me with such pleasure and such terror? It’s to get this pleasure that you need the wolf. The wolf is the truth of love, its cruelty, its fangs, its claws, our aptitude for ferocity. Love is when you suddenly wake up as a cannibal, and not just any old cannibal, or else wake up destined for devourment." (pg 77-78)

Now while I've yet to do an in-depth analysis of Bingqiu's relationship, I have done one of Binghe and I really really love how he aligns with a concept I can't fully name. it has something to do with love as defying your nature, or the expectations set for you, or your past. Love as a choice you make, and as a conscious effort to be better.

I don't know if I'm just connecting two things I enjoy or making everything I do about the Thing I Currently Like, but I thought id put it out there anyway (cause I'm pretty sure if it doesn't apply to Bingqiu, then it applies better to another ship from danmei I've yet to read *ahem a lot of them*)

#im also pretty sure im sick? #so who knows maybe i wake up tomorrow horrified that i posted this #that is a very real possibility #I think? based on what my friends have told me about 2ha that the other danmei couple would be Ranwan??? #but anyway I had to do my semi-annual rereading of love of the wolf because I've been obsessed with it for so long #'sign my death with your teeth' is so fucking romantic to me for no reason???? “want me down to the marrow” YES PLEASE #i could be so horrifically wrong about the Ranwan thing btw #hélène cixous #stigmata #love of the wolf #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #svsss #mxtx svsss #bingqiu #mxtx #shen yuan #bingyuan #text post #meta #feel free to discuss #i mean i have my own interpretations of these characters but im also very aware that it could be me projecting #analysis #character analysis #?? ig

[duckymcdoorknob]

trigger warning if you need it; Hi im really sorry but can you do an emergency request with aizawa and a male!student!reader who's struggling with sh, neglectful parents, and struggling with inner thoughts? I need some comfort and aizawa is a comfort character for me :( (I couldn't find if you wrote for males, so if you don't gn is fine)

So sorry this took so long Aether!

I wanted to make sure I got outta my funk before I started this, you deserve content that will make you feel better.

Regardless, here you go :)

:THIS IS NOT ROMANTIC:

CW UNDER THE CUT: implied self harm, self-deprecation, reader is the big sad, blood mention.

Aizawa is notorious for noticing things about his students.

Especially the small things that no one would expect.

Yes, he has his suspicions about everyone, but over the course of a few days his suspicions were proven true.

It started in the morning on the first day, when he collected permission slips for a field trip.

Yours was filled out up until the parent signature.

“(L/N) you need a signature on this in order to go.”

He didn’t know why, but watching your face drop afterward rose some questions in him.

The next was at the end of the day when his class had a significantly difficult quiz, but nothing too awful.

He saw you with gritted teeth, death gripping your pencil as you mouthed things to yourself.

He isn’t the best lip reader, but he was able to make out “should’ve studied more you fucking idiot.” And “this is why mom and dad are the way they are with you.”

Oh that caused him to jump the gun on his suspicions.

After the quiz, you disappeared almost immediately, as if you knew he would try to confront you.

The day ends and he moves toward the teacher’s lounge to grab his belongings and get the hell home.

When he reaches the door, it’s shut and locked. He presumed for a good reason, so he waits outside.

He heard muffled voices on the inside of the wall.

All-Might’s and yours.

“I’m really sorry All-Might sensei, I just don’t think they would be able to sign it. They’re very… busy.”

“That’s quite alright dear boy, I want you to be able to have the same experience as everyone else!”

“Thank you sir.”

So that’s what it is.

Your parents are ‘busy’ so they don’t have time for you.

No that’s not it.

That couldn’t be it.

No sense in prying too soon. He’ll have to gather more evidence.

He offers you a gentle nod as you walk embarrassedly out of the lounge.

“I can’t tell you for certain, but something about that one isn’t right. I’m not sure how to approach it.”

“What do you mean?”

“His parents are just ‘busy’? That doesn’t seem true after what I saw him say to himself during my quiz.”

“Well what did he say?”

“He said that it’s his fault his parents are the way they are with him.”

Aizawa sighs in exasperation, running his head through his hands as he sits down, “Yagi what if they’re hitting the poor kid?”

All-Might’s face visibly sunk, and he had to take a minute to cool off.

“It’s safer to wait it out. All we can do is see if he comes to either of us.”

The night for him was restless, desperate to figure out how to help you the best.

The morning of the next day came and Aizawa spent the last few minutes of class passing back the quiz from the morning before.

It absolutely killed him to hand you yours with a (78) written across the top.

He saw the heartbreak and disappointment in your eyes.

“May I be excused to the restroom?”

“Yes of course.”

Good, he wants you to let your emotions out. It’s always okay to cry. He thinks.

Upon your return he notices your lightly trembling form and stiff arms.

What the hell had happened?

When the bell rang, he noticed a look of horror when you accidentally run your arm along the side of your desk.

“Hey, (L/N) can we talk?” Aizawa asks shutting his door.

You seemed quite rushed, trying desperately to hide your left arm. “I-I have to go and-“

“Please?”

“Sensei I really have to-“

He tried to interrupt again, but was shocked to find himself interrupted at the sight of red spots dotting your uniform sleeve.

“(L/N)…?”

“I-“ your eyes welled with tears, “I can’t believe I let this happen. What the hell was I thinking?”

It was more a question directed at yourself, but the stream of self-destructive words continued to spew from your lips.

“This is why I don’t do this at school I’m such a fucking idio-“

You were cut off by Aizawa pulling your head into his chest, wrapping his arms around you so tightly that it almost hurt.

“From now on, it’s just you and me. Let’s figure this out?”

His tone so hushed it was nearly a whisper, as if he was fearful the both of you would break down if he were any louder

A small nod from you was all he needed.

Aizawa sighed in relief as he rested his chin on the top of your head.

“Would you like to explain what’s going on? If not, we can wait or you can hold off telling me.”

When you spill your tale of woe, mixed in with heavy tears and choked sobs, his own heart breaks into a trillion pieces.

As if the hug couldn’t get any tighter, it seemed to. And yet, it still wasn’t enough to hurt you.

“You’re safe with me. If worst comes to worst, you can always come stay with me or one of the teachers.”

“Thank you sir.”

“You are so much more than you say you are. You are compassionate, brilliant, an incredible student and an even more incredible hero. I am extremely proud of you, and even more proud of how hard you try.”

The calm aura of the empty classroom was only filled by your slowly reducing sniffling, as Aizawa rocked you back and forth.

“My dear boy, you are a superstar. Not even your parents should let you think otherwise. One bad grade doesn’t taint my image of you, so it shouldn’t taint your own.“

“I’m proud of you, so proud. Anything and everything you do makes me pleased, and words can’t express how lucky I feel to have kids like you in my life.”

——————✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞——————

#mha aizawa #mha #my hero #my hero academia #mha emergency requests #my hero academia emergency requests #emergency requests #emergency #mha x reader comfort #mha x reader #my hero academia x reader #Aizawa x reader #shouta aizawa #aizawa shouta #shouta aizawa x reader #Aizawa imagine #aizawa x male reader #mha x male reader #my hero academia x male reader

[robininthelabyrinth]

We’ve heard Jiang Fengmian as WWX’s bio father, now it’s time for Lan Qiren as secretly his father. (Please no Wangxian for this one!)

ao3

“You want me to what,” Lan Qiren said.

“Be the father of my child,” Cangse Sanren said. Simply and straightforwardly, as if that were just a thing people said.

Casually.

To their friends.

To their – as far as he knew – platonic friends!

“You’re married,” he stressed.

“Yes, Qiren-xiong, I’m aware,” Cangse Sanren said, her eyes bright with mirth. “I was even there through some of the festivities. Though not all, of course, since the bride gets sent away far too early at these things, and of course then there was all the liquor –”

“Cangse Sanren,” Lan Qiren said through gritted teeth, wishing not for the first time that his friend had an actual name rather than merely a title – something he could use or not use to emphasize his feelings on the subject.

She laughed at him, because of course she did.

“Let me explain,” she said, probably because she sensed that he was considering stabbing her if she didn't. “Lao Wei and I –”

“Aren’t you older than he is?” Lan Qiren asked, dubious. “Possibly by several centuries?”

“Humans call their husbands that,” Cangse Sanren said, waving her hands at him. “Don’t bother me with details.”

“…you’re human, right?”

“Of course! This is the fourth time you’ve asked, and the answer hasn’t changed. Why would you ever think otherwise?”

“The way that you continuously refer to – no, I’m not letting you distract me this time. Explain yourself!”

Cangse Sanren giggled into her sleeve. “We want children,” she said. “But he can’t, you see. Wrong parts. So we need someone else to be the sire, and I want it to be you.”

“Why?”

More giggling. “Because I like you. And why not?”

“And Wei Changze agreed to this?” Lan Qiren asked, slightly appalled. He knew Cangse Sanren well enough to assume that the answer had to be yes, and yet still...

“Yes, he did, but you’re welcome to talk with him directly. In fact, I encourage it.”

“Perhaps I will,” Lan Qiren said.

Wei Changze was a pleasant person, even if he and Lan Qiren weren’t direct friends – Lan Qiren was a bit too inflexible and serious, Wei Changze a little too free-spirited and light-hearted, so they’d never entirely bonded, but they were both very fond of Cangse Sanren in all her strangeness, each in their own way, and that was enough of a basis for a decent relationship.

“I’d be honored if you would agree,” Wei Changze said when Lan Qiren asked. “You’re my wife’s favorite person besides me – why not you?”

Lan Qiren could think of many, many reasons why not.

“I don’t want to impact your relationship with her,” he said cautiously, and Wei Changze blinked at him as if to say how would it do that? “If jealousy were to arise…”

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Wei Changze said.

“…you understand that if I agree to your proposal, I would be sleeping with your wife.”

“Oh yes,” Wei Changze said. “Several times, I hope. We've got to make sure it takes, after all. On that note, can I watch?”

Lan Qiren was a man aware of his dignity. It was beneath his dignity to flail around like a teenager.

He flailed regardless.

“You don’t have to let me if you don’t want to,” Wei Changze said, but he was pouting. “I guess. I just think it’d be hot, that’s all.”

Lan Qiren put his head in his hands.

“You’re bright red,” Wei Changze observed. “Does that mean you’ll do it?”

“I don’t even like Cangse Sanren that way,” Lan Qiren said, voice muffled by his palms. “I mean, I like her, but I don’t – like her. Romantically. At all.”

“And I’m very happy about that,” Wei Changze said soothingly. “As is she, being as she married me and not you. You don’t need to have romantic or even sexual feelings about her, you just need to platonically bang her a few times.”

“…I will do it provided you never refer to it that way ever again.”

“Deal,” Wei Changze said, and grinned, waving his wife in through the door; she bounded in like a lion on the hunt, smelling blood.

“Additionally, we should be clear about what we expect regarding the child,” Lan Qiren said, even though he was already being carted along to the bed by Cangse Sanren’s excessive momentum and Wei Changze’s entirely unnecessary assistance in removing his clothing. “Obviously any child will be yours in every respect, legally and emotionally and otherwise, both of you, but if possible I would still like to see him –”

“Of course,” Cangse Sanren said agreeably, removing his pants. “Whenever you like.”

-

“Something is wrong,” Lan Qiren said firmly.

Yu Ziyuan scowled at him, even as her husband frowned thoughtfully. “Cangse Sanren is a rogue cultivator,” she said acidly. “It is not unusual for rogue cultivators to go a few months without contacting their friends in the cultivation world.”

“We have an agreement that she would come by once every season or else send word. She has not missed a single instance, and yet now she does.”

“Why would she agree to meet so regularly with you? We barely see her once a year, if that,” Yu Ziyuan asked, and Lan Qiren knew her issues with Cangse Sanren were actually issues with Jiang Fengmian, but it still irritated him to be used as a pawn in their troubled marriage.

“If you do not intend to help me search, then just say so,” he said heavily. “I fear that something has happened to her, and I intend to find her; I would like your help, but will proceed without it if need be. If all is well and she just decided not to come, and also not to send word or any other sign, then I will apologize for the inconvenience and repay you any monies expended. But if not…”

“I will help,” Jiang Fengmian said, and Yu Ziyuan looked on the verge of exploding.

“I’ll leave you to sort that out,” Lan Qiren said, shaking out his sleeves and leaving at once. As per their agreement, Cangse Sanren brought Wei Ying to the Cloud Recesses once every season or else sent word explaining her absence – the lack of any word this time was deeply troubling. After all, in the end, despite Cangse Sanren’s relatively humble goals and low-key life, there was always that doom said to be associated with those who left the immortal mountain…

He worried.

He’d planned to tell Cangse Sanren about He Kexin’s death during her present visit, had hoped that Wei Ying’s presence might help lift Lan Zhan’s mood after the loss of his mother and give him some comfort – Wei Ying was Lan Zhan’s favorite person in all the world, bar none, and he had waited so anxiously, if wordlessly, for him to arrive during the month that they expected Cangse Sanren and her family to come. And yet the days ticked by and he didn’t arrive at all…

Lan Qiren worried.

Still, with Jiang Fengmian’s help, and of course the Nie sect’s – Lao Nie hadn’t hesitated to agree, even though unlike Jiang Fengmian he did not have a personal connection to either Cangse Sanren or Wei Changze and was acting wholly on account of his friendship with Lan Qiren – they would be able to cover a great deal of the cultivation world, especially given that Cangse Sanren disliked both Lanling Jin and Qishan Wen and was unlikely to venture into either of their territories.

They would find her.

He hoped that they would find her.

-

“Well, that was a meeting full of revelations,” Lao Nie said, eyes curved into crescents of mirth. “The only thing that would have made it better is if you’d ended your sentence with ‘so fuck off’. You know, so that it would’ve been ‘Because he’s my biological son, so fuck off’.”

“It isn’t anyone else’s business,” Lan Qiren said querulously. “I don’t consider him my son – he’s Wei Changze’s son! His surname is Wei for a reason! The exact mechanics of his conception are private-”

“Are they? Too bad, I’d have liked to hear about it.”

“Lao Nie!”

“What? It’d be hot.”

“Wei Changze said the same thing,” Lan Qiren grumbled. “What is wrong with all you people? Anyway, that was not my point; we can discuss your sexual titillation later. My point is that Wei Ying should not have a shadow cast over his parentage – I should not have had to reveal that fact at any point.”

“You had no choice,” Lao Nie said, not without sympathy. “Given that Wei Changze was a former disciple of the Lotus Pier, Jiang Fengmian had the better claim to custody absent that fact. Never mind that you were Cangse Sanren’s close friend, or that they came to visit you more often; never mind that Yu Ziyuan is to this day only barely able to restrain her jealousy and hatred of the pair of them and would be made miserable by the boy’s presence on the Lotus Pier, and possibly make his life miserable in return; never mind that Jiang Fengmian already grossly favors the boy over his own children, a surefire recipe for disaster…you had to say what you said, Qiren. Wei Ying will be better off at the Cloud Recesses.”

“He’ll be a disaster at the Cloud Recesses,” Lan Qiren said, rubbing his temples. “He’s as free-spirited as his parents were. That’s the only hesitation I have…if it weren’t for all the other things you mentioned, Yu Ziyuan’s jealousy and the favoritism and all that, I would think he’d be better off among the Jiang.”

“He will make a very unique Lan,” Lao Nie acknowledged. “But he’ll be an adopted cousin to your nephews, and they’ll grow up as brothers. A-Zhan will be delighted.”

“Yes,” Lan Qiren said, acknowledging the point. At least there was that. “Yes, he will.”

“Maybe I’ll have a talk with Jiang Fengmian,” Lao Nie said, more to himself than Lan Qiren. “That poor Jiang boy, no one deserves to grow up with a real-life person being ‘another person’s child’. Perhaps I’ll see about inviting the boy over to the Unclean Realm more often. A-Sang could use a playmate…”

-

“You’re weird for a Lan,” Jiang Cheng said.

“That’s because I’m not a Lan,” Wei Wuxian laughed. “I’m a Wei! Lan Zhan’s a Lan, Xichen-da-ge is a Lan, but I’m not. Don’t let the white robes mislead you.”

Jiang Cheng coughed. “That’s not – what I meant.”

Wei Wuxian blinked at him.

“Well,” Jiang Cheng said, abruptly looking extremely awkward. “Your father’s a Lan, isn’t he? Teacher Lan.”

“Oh, that! No, he’s not. Easy mistake to make,” Wei Wuxian assured him. “Lots of people think that, what with me knowing the Lan sect rules backwards and forwards and upside down – mostly so that I can haggle my punishments down when I break them, that's how I learn them best – but actually I’m Wei Changze’s son.”

Jiang Cheng’s face was red. “But…my dad said…”

“He helped,” Wei Wuxian conceded, tapping his nose meaningfully. “That’s why I’m so pretty! But Wei Changze was the one that wanted me, Wei Changze’s the one who gave me his surname; it’s his grave I sweep during Qingming. If you like, you can think of me as having been adopted into the Wei family; that’s common enough, isn’t it?”

“I guess so,” Jiang Cheng said, blinking. And then he said, sounding doubtful, “Do you really know all those rules?”

“All of them! You have no idea how much trouble you can make with a good set of rules.” Wei Wuxian grinned. “Want to see?”

“I – can we?”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said, stepping into the room. He looked tired, as always, but Wei Wuxian thought that there was never a time when he didn’t, certainly ever since he became sect leader too early. Lan Xichen was always worrying about him, and Lan Qiren, too, and since they were worried, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had figured they might as well get in on the action. “Not in the Unclean Realm you can’t. Save it for the Lotus Pier, since the Cloud Recesses are too wise to you now.”

“No one is truly wise to my wicked ways,” Wei Wuxian boasted, and Nie Huaisang poked his head out from behind Nie Mingjue’s back and waved – he’d been dragged away to saber training, leaving Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng to try to make friends without him. Without Lan Wangji, too, which was even more unfair; how was Wei Wuxian supposed to represent the gentle snow and wild wind without his other half?

Stupid seclusion. Wei Wuxian was with his uncle in disliking it even when it was necessary.

Though Jiang Cheng was kind of cool…

-

“This is,” Lan Qiren informed Cangse Sanren’s memorial tablet, “entirely your fault.”

Despite her son’s newfound demonic cultivation skills – or his taste for revenge: he had taken the burning of the Cloud Recesses very personally, and the attack on the Lotus Pier, and so on his best friend Jiang Cheng, very nearly as badly, and that, somehow, had inspired him in new and even more uncontrolled ways – there was no response from the grave.

And yet, somehow, Lan Qiren suspected that he could hear her laughing at him.

#mdzs #lan qiren #cangse sanren #wei changze #sect leader nie #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics

[slashingdisneypasta]

Human!Freddy Krueger x Fem!Reader || Oneshot

Title: What The Fuck Now, Freddy!?

Notes:

This is not inherently romantic, at all. Or sexual. Just... Freddy being a bastard, and you are caught in the crosshairs- and are forever linked with him because of it.

I've been listening to Lizzie, a lot lately- and this is inspired by 'What The Fuck Now, Lizzie!?'

Also- I'm thinking this will have a part 2. Due to the ending not being quite enough. Maybe a part for the court proceedings!

Plot: Many will know the story of that terrible day Krueger essentially snapped- killing his wife, Loretta Krueger. She saw the basement, they say, and he didn't like that. Their daughter saw the whole thing and suffered a traumatic response to seeing the sight of her mother, strangled to death, by her father- and forgot the whole thing.

But if she were to remember something, one day.

She may remember something no one knows about that day, aside from Freddy himself.

She may remember, that someone else was there.

She may remember you.

//

Alternatively- you're being blackmailed by Freddy who found out you, another supposedly Plain Jane in Loretta's 'mothers club', is cheating on your husband and calls you up to help deal with the mess he made. Because who else did he have?

Warnings: Okay lemme see, its basically a potluck of triggers. Hm. Murder, swearing, cheating (You, on your husband. Not with Freddy), getting rid of a body, a child gets traumatised (Obviously, Kathy/Maggie), Freddy himself, mention of the basement and all that entails, reader with a very questionable moral compass. Look, I think if you can watch Freddy's Dead, you're good here.

I'm just heading out the door, to go grocery shopping - or, at least, that's the story I tell my husband. When really I don't do the grocery shop until the day after tomorrow. He never notices... - when the phone rings. By very nearly tripping over my feet in my endeavour to catch it before the ringing stops, I manage pick up the phone with very little injury besides an achy, slightly twisted ankle. "Hi! Hi, sorry, I'm here. Hello?"

Pouting, I sit down at the kitchen table; Rubbing my poor ankle to sooth the pain, which would soon diminish anyway. Still- I'm sorry, ankle. I'll try to chill.

When the voice on the other end reveals who it is who's called the house, I lose all need to be pleasant. Damn. I really need to memorise this goddamn number... so I can not answer it. "Whatcha wearin'?"

"Thank god Harrison didn't answer this, you fuck." I deeply roll my eyes. Thank god Har's out. No, this is not my mister, not the man I was going to meet just now- but its bad, enough. In an entirely different way. Its stupid, blackmailing, son of a... hundred maniacs. "What do you want?"

"What a way to answer the phone, Y/N. Gee, seems like every time I we talk, I'm learning how you really aren't in the right place, are you? Cheating on your poor husband, swearing... These aren't really signs of the perfect suburban house wife, is it?" Gritting my teeth, I keep from lashing out. I've learned, if you stay real quiet, Freddy wont have anything to pull from and will get bored quick. "Why so silent, hm?"

"... " Oh, fuck me. I cant help it. "Wondering where you get off judging me on being 'suburban', actually."

"Anywhere I like, thanks."

Oh... oh. Gross?

He doesn't see the disgust tearing my face into two perfect halves right now, but my silence must be enough as he laughs. The sound is directly into the phone, and harsh on my poor eardrums. Ugh... "Oh for gods sake... What are we? Fourteen years old?? Come on- why'd you call?"

"Uhhhh... " Quickly, midway through that drawn out 'um' sound, Freddy's voice transitions, and gets a whole lot darker. Something deep in his chest dislodging, to make it so. Perhaps, his heart. "Well... you might wanna come and see for yourself."

"Uh, I don't think so. I have somewhere to be right now- "

"Oh well you don't, anymore." And its clear what he isn't saying- or else I'll tell Harrison about Carter and set your life on fire. "Tell your boy toy you're takin' a reign check for the day. I think you'll last. In fact... after you come over here, you might be out of the game for a couple a hours at least- maybe days."

Hold on, hold on Freddy what the fuck- "What!?"

"... Believe it or not, I didn't actually mean for that one."

Moron.

~

Nevertheless, no matter how just... off setting, Freddy is, I had to when he asked. I had to jump when he said so.

Because if not, then he would tear my life apart.

So here I am, about to knock on that big red door he lives behind, wondering what I'm walking into. Where's Loretta? Where's Kathy? How long will the visit be? I told Carter I'd be an hour or two late- any longer and I wont see him at all today. Which would absolutely suck.

Just after my knuckles come down on the wood the first time, a hand comes down on my shoulder and I immediately jump out of my skin... then slowly look around.

There's Freddy, a cheeky grin on his face. It does nothing to set my nerves at ease. "Ugh... Why are you out here?"

"We're going to the backyard. Lets go." Taking me by the shoulders, he marches me around the side of the house, instead of through it for some reason, and into the familiar backyard. I've been here numerous times, as Loretta likes to hold our club meetings here - Barbecue's, tea's... that sort of thing. Just to let the kids play together and so the adults can enjoy some adult conversation. Its a nice yard... but depending on what her horrid husband is about to show me, it may not be considered as such anymore... - , but I'm now starting to develop a sick feeling in my stomach.

Honestly- I don't know much about Freddy at all. Yes, I went to school with him, but that doesn't mean much when he was a freaky loner kid the whole time. I remember he killed the class hamster once- that's about the only splash he ever made in the news pool; But it definitely stuck.

Yes, Loretta cleaned up his image a fair bit since getting married, but now he's blackmailing me, and as far as I know I'm now alone with him.

Suspicious of him suddenly, I slip out of his grip with a dirty look flashed his way. Don't touch me.

He just rolls his eyes, leading me around some hedges.

And then everything stops.

Him, me, the air; The air around me, the breeze, the breath in my throat.

There lays Loretta, on the ground. If I was really really naïve, I could imagine she were sleeping... or passed out, at least, due to the way she's sprawled out. No one would lay down like that willingly.

But... her eyes are open.

For a moment I'm tempted to kneel down; Take a closer look. Find out how, myself. Is she bleeding anywhere that I cant see now? Are her lips turning blue? If I moved some short red hair out of the way- would their be marks on her neck yet?

But then I come to my senses...

And freak. The fuck. O u t.

"What, the fuck, did you do!?" I whip around, looking at Freddy now which entirely new eyes. I mean, before I sure wasn't fond- but now I'm filled with something new, looking at him. Something a lot worse, something that makes me want to run. Run, and hide, and stay there.

And all these, even though he hasn't really changed. He still wears a mischievous smirk, stony blue eyes eating up my reactions... like always. But this time its just so so much worse. "Made some dead weight- now you're gonna help me get rid of it. So!" Finally, though its been only a matter of seconds, he turns his gaze off of me and I'm glad. That gaze is far too heavy. "Ideas?"

Only for a moment am I lost for words, struggling to push anything out. "I... I'm sorry??"

His gaze returns to mine, but this time my eyes are hard as his are dark. "Help. Me. Get rid of her. Fucking. Body. Or do you want your dirty laundry aired for the whole community to hear?"

Before I can help myself, I let out a sharp laugh, only succeeding in making Freddy's scowl deeper. "Freddy- this secret's a lot bigger, then mine. Sure, I might get divorced- but you're going to prison!" Does he get that? He's g o i n g to j a i l. Crossing my arms, I try to avoid looking at my ex-friend's body. I cant. "I'm sure as hell not gonna be in there with you, for being an accomplice."

I really cant look at her... I can only focus on Freddy. And that takes a lot of energy- its taking everything in me, in fact. Everything I have. But I have to. If its him or her, there's no choice.

But... then a creepy smile spreads across his face- a vast polarity to the frustrated glower of before. It makes my blood run cold.

"Ohhhh..." He looks almost ferocious, even in his composed state. Like a monster. Like any moment a fanged, inhuman creature is going to burst out of him and I'm going to wake up, and this will have been a nightmare. A horrible nightmare. The kind where that creature haunts me for a long time, after its over. After this over.

He's going to haunt me.

"You must think this is my first time... " My heart turns to ice, mouth hanging a little open... what the fuck have I found myself a part of!? Suddenly all the children's disappearances on the news lately come to the forefront of my brain... "Sweetheart, give a man his dues. I'm a hard working kinda guy... " I watch his gaze flicker to a door - the back door? No... The basement door, - and when a filthy smirk pulls at his mouth, my heart flies up into my throat. God, it makes me feel sick. I want to be violently ill. "My first was my adoptive Dad... pretty sick, huh?"

The fact that he didn't say anything about the basement, makes my imagination go wild. I swallow it down, though.

I just need to get out of here, and never think about this again.

And to do that I need to help Freddy get rid of this goddamn body- and... probably... testify at court... As the panic starts to finally rise up in my, right up to fill my throat, I immediately take in a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Okay... " No time to freak out. Now's the time for action.

Gaze flickering to Loretta again, I try to acclimatise to the sight. I think its a lost cause, though. "How did you get rid of him? Your Dad?"

"No, that's not gonna work. He was a drunk dead beat, and I just had to tell the police some guy's he owed money to came over to the house." Freddy grins happily at the memory, but then just as quickly, scowls at his poor deceased wife's body- that certainly cant fight back. I just tack this onto the long list of reasons I hate him. "Lore's such a goddamn goody goody- we cant do the same thing. You don't think I woulda thought of that??"

"Hey." I snap, hands braced on my hips as I flash a glare his way. "This is not the time to get defensive!"

"Whatever... "

Then- suddenly, something occurs to me. Confused, I look around; A deeply horrified feeling disturbing my stomach. "Hold on... Where's your daughter?" Seeing no sign of her anywhere, I definitely start to panic again- especially when I look to Freddy and just see a pert look in his eyes as he looks back at me, a smile that strikes something horrid inside me. My eyes narrow. "You sick fuck- where the fuck is she!??"

"Under the bed."

"What the fuck does that mean!?" I exclaim, frustrated and freaking out. He did not- he did not! Killing your spouse is one thing, but the kid?? Your own kid??

I don't wait around for him to be cryptic some more, and rush right into the house to look for her. Under the bed, under the bed, under the fucking bed...? Which fucking bed!? Forcing ferocity out of my voice, I carefully call out to Kathy. Hoping to god she answers. I try to sound normal. Maybe a little bit cheerful; Excited.

But my voice wobbles.

"Kathy?? Sweetheart, its Y/N! Are you hiding? I have something for you... " ?? You have something for her, Y/N?? God... now you have to figure out some kind of treat.

You know what? Whatever. We'll figure that out later.

Lets just hope we aren't searching for a corpse. I'd definitely be sick, seeing a child... the way Loretta is...

Shaking my head and clenching my fists, I try to focus on Kathy.

I check under the bed in the guest room because it comes into view first and she isn't there, then her bedroom and she isn't there either... and get a sick feeling as soon as I enter the last bedroom. Freddy's and Loretta's.

God, I've never been in here before but its like a museum peace now. A horrible one. Like if you would walk into the Titanic... or the Borden house.

"Kathy? You in here?" Flicking on the light I kneel down on the ground, and check under the bed.

And something immediately crashes over me, as the sight of her covering her eyes down there. It isn't exactly relief, because this whole situation is still phenomenally fucked up for her, but I am selfishly glad to not have to see her body... crumpled, just like her mother.

"Hey sweetheart," My voice quivers slightly now, but I quickly swallow. No. No. Now, you must be strong Y/N. "Its just me. Your Daddy was looking for you, and couldn't find you! It got him worried!"

"I... I don't wanna see Daddy. He hurt Mommy." Kathy doesn't remove her hands from her face, and stays firmly by the wall- too far away for anyone to grab. My heart sinks.

Slowly straightening up again, I try to take that piece of information in. Turning to the doorway, I see Freddy there. he must have followed me. I didn't even notice. Slowly, and quietly ferociously, I say; "She saw?!"

He has the good sense to look embarrassed, even if it is just to make fun of me. "It was spur of the moment... " He shrugs. "I didn't have time to get a babysitter!"

What a fucking excuse. For gods sake.

I'm definitely dealing with a psycho- if that was even a question before now.

Swiftly, I look down under the bed again, because I'm afraid that if I continue to engage with him- I'll scream, and I'll lose my breath, and I'll scare Kathy even more. She's at the forefront of my mind; That's all I can think about.

But what to do with her after I get her out from under this bed, I don't know. I cant give her back to her father... but I cant hand her over to the police either because that would involve telling them about Loretta, and... Freddy will definitely kill me, for that.

This is a nightmare of a situation.

I'm just opening my mouth to say something - what, I don't know yet, - when she speaks, instead. "Is he there?"

"... Yes." I wont lie to her; That would be treating her with not nearly as much respect as she deserves.

When she takes a deep breath and rubs her eyes, as if just trying to keep herself together, my heart clenches. God... and to think I might not have picks up Freddy's call today. I would have been leaving her with this. For the first time today, I'm morbidly glad I came.

She speaks in that loud, hissy way that kids think is a whisper. "Can he... can you please make him go away?"

Immediately I straighten back up and look to Freddy again, my eyebrows raised halfway up my forehead. Like well? "Get out."

"I don't think you're in a position to make demands here, bi- "

"Do you want Kathy to live down there now!??" I snap, trying not to be scared. Not really feeling scared, actually. Just happy to have a reason to tell him to get the hell away from me.

A deep frown creases his mouth, deeply unhappy about the situation, but steps back. I only hear him step out of the way of the door, but its good enough. Quickly, I get up and close the door - fighting with myself not to slam it, - and lock it.

Then I return to the floor, and see this time Kathy has uncovered her eyes. She looks so small, smaller then she actually is, and she looks like she's shaking. Little red bows and piggy tails in her hair are messy from crawling under the bed. "He's gone, sweetheart. And I locked the door."

She just nods, so I take the silence as a chance to offer my hand to her. "Take my hand, sweetie? Come on out from under the bed. Its cold down there, and no one wants you getting sick." I need to upkeep the family friend bit, I need to sound caring and collected. I need her to trust me.

Her big eyes, not Loretta's colour or Freddy's, look nervous as hell. And she shakes her head.

Taking a deep breath, and I conjure all the sincerity as I can. And mean it. My eyes soften and I try really hard, to resent myself as someone trustworthy- which is hard, seeing as I've never really been that. I mean, I'm cheating on my husband. I told Carter today the same lie I told Harrison when i knew I was going to be late. The only person I think who knows the truth behind all my lies is Freddy. That says something about a person, that the only person who knows them is a psychopath.

But I want to, I need to, be good for this little girl. And there's no time for me turn my life around so it has to start with this. How fucked is that?

"... I promise, I'll take care of you. He wont hurt you."

After a few whole minutes, in which I stay silent because yes she's a child, but she's still thinking, she crawls over and takes my hand, letting me lead her out. Crawling into my lap as I cross my legs under her, she buries her face in my shirt- hiding. "You promise?"

Taking a deep breath, because I've really done it now, I offer my pinky for her to see if she turned her head. I know Freddy's listening to all of this through the wall, but I try not to freak out. "Pinky swear?"

"Pinky swear." She peaks out from my shirt, and curls her little finger around mine. Okay... "Y/N... I'm scared."

"Yeah... Me too, sweetie."

What am I going to do?

#Freddy Krueger x Fem!Reader #Freddy Krueger x Reader #Slashers #Slashers x Reader #Fem Reader #Freddy Krueger #Loretta Krueger #Katherine Krueger #Kathrine Krueger #Maggie Burroughs #Oneshot #Freddy Krueger x Reader Oneshot

[bonny-kookoo]

Risk it (JJK x Reader) TEASER 1| SERIES! ☁️🎰❤️🔞⚠️

🎲Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x Reader

🎲Genre: gambling AU, Non-Idol!Jungkook, Private Detective!Jungkook, Adult, crime!AU

🎲Warnings: Mentions & detailed descriptions of Torture (mental + Physical), detailed des. Of Murder (drowning, choking, shooting, stabbing, overdose), mentions of rape & sex slavery, gambling, addictions (to gambling, porn, drugs, alcohol and other substances and/or things), blood (duh), reader is a tough cookie tho I’m telling you, detective!Kook, he out to get his gal, usage of guns, knives and a fork (what-), gangs, mtba

🎲Summary: Jungkook honestly thought you had simply run away- that he had done something to drive you away without a word. But when a strange girl asks for him on her deathbed, begging him to help her, he may finally get the answers he’s been waiting for. And it may lead him to risk it all.

He still remembered it- painfully so, as he can't help but grit his teeth, jaw clenching visibly as his coworker and mentor looks at him warily. He knows, he's trained Jungkook for years after all; in a way, he was like his son, not just someone he trained in his job. But he's unsure if the young adult knows what he may get himself into."This isn't to be taken lightly, Jeon." He rasps out, taking a drag of his cigarette. The young man in question is not looking up, and for some reason, it clearly speaks to the older man- it's a silent sign that Jungkook has already decided, a sign that there was no saving him from what he's about to do. "You saw what state Bomi was in. For all we know, your girl could already be-" But he couldn't finish the sentence, shutting his mouth without so much as moving a muscle as he watched Jungkook jump from his seat, throwing the picture he had held in his hand onto the table, pacing while running a hand through his hair.

"I know!" He yells, frustrated tears gathering in his eyes. There's something growing inside him, the need to somehow finish things up. But he doesn't know how, doesn't know which way will lead him to a destination meant for him. He's scared- absolutely terrified, of what he may find along the way. The rational side in him, the trained detective, knows that you could very well be dead. You could've been sold already, could've be in a state similar to the young girl he's seen in the hospital last friday. He knows that what he's about to dive into could very well kill him as well; erasing all possibilities of a better future for him. But there's not just his rational side involved, after all. Because at the end of the day, as cheesy as it sounded, he still loved you, and that side of him, that deeply hidden side just can't stand the thought of you suffering a second longer in this place. That side of him want's to storm over, shoot the entire place down, and break every man's bones who's dared to touch you.

It's a dangerous cocktail of emotions inside of him.

"So what will you do?" The old man asks, eyes still focused on the young man pacing around, steel toed boots echoing heavy in the small room. "Once you dive in there, I can't follow you. You'll have to do this on your own- and there's no guarantee that you'll get a happy end." He says, and Jungkook sighs, chest shuddering at the thought of you on that hospital bed instead of the girl he saw. Pictures manifest inside his head, demons swallowing your body, twisting and turning your bones until they crush, your voice screaming out to him. He knows that this isn't just a mere romantic movie gone mafia style- this could very well be his decision to die.

And it won't be a quick death he'd die.

"3 years." Jungkook speaks suddenly, voice dark. "3 Years I've asked myself if it was me. If I'd done something, anything, if it was my fault she left." He explains, taking in a deep breath. "When in reality she was fucking.. protecting me." He said, laughing bitterly. "Me, of all people." He finishes, sitting down at the only desk in the room, laptop on it illuminating his features. "Even if I can't save her; I can at least get answers." He mumbles, until he looks up again, as his superior stands up, grabbing his phone from the table.

"I'll arrange some contacts for you. I really hope you're ready." He says, brows furrowed. "Where you're going, not even rats will follow you." He says, and Jungkook nods after a moment.

Jungkook stays silent however, unknowing that he was about to throw himself into hell itself.

Taglist:

#bts imagine #bts fanfic #bts #bts fic #bts smut #jungkook imagine #bts jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook #bts reactions

[teamhook]

Emma and Killian :: Kate and Leopold CS AU for CSMM

Hello lovelies!! So I’m on a schedule and you will be getting updates for my fics. 3 per Month ;)

I want to thank @captainswanmoviemarathon and the wonderful CSMM Discord Family. My co-writer @revanmeetra87

I want to also thank @ultraluckycatnd for Beta-ing thiis thing for us.

|FFN|

|AO3|

Friday and The Weekend

Killian and David shared a guilty look. They had both behaved like children. Killian knew he had more than the other, in part due to his inebriety and the other part was jealousy of what he didn't know. Killian said goodnight to his mate and went home to ponder on his actions.

He decided he would try his best to make amends to her. So he did what he did best, put his thoughts on paper, and hoped that it would grant him redemption.

The next day, Emma woke up and got ready fast. She had to get to work and somehow fix the mess her brother and that jerk that couldn't keep his mouth shut had made.

David greeted her in the kitchen with a cup of coffee ready for her which she promptly snubbed and rushed out.

David had arranged for Emma to find the letter that Killian had dropped off earlier, but she was eager to leave the apartment. He knew they both had misbehaved and his sister was in her right to be angry at them.

He grabbed both the letter and the first fruit in the basket he could and dashed after her.

Emma had reached the street and was just about to hail a cab when she heard David's voice. "Ems! Emma, wait!"

She halted because she loved her idiot brother, and it's them against the world.

She turned to face him with her best 'you're in trouble' face.

"Before you say anything, I'm sorry. I know I fucked things up for us. I know that everything you do is for us to have a better life."

Emma stared her brother down. "I have to go clean up the mess you two made."

"Emma, I know and for whatever it's worth, I'm sorry. Here, you can't go to work on an empty stomach," David said as he handed her a papaya. "Yeah, I know that," Emma says as she looks to the street for a cab. That's when he slipped the letter into her bag. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

Emma arrived at work, waiting for the fallout of the previous night, but it never came. She was told there's a meeting with marketing, and she was the last one to arrive. She rushed into the conference room and took a seat so they could finally begin. The marketing team was going over the troubles they had come across due to the texture of the margarine. Emma peeked at her boss to see if looked angry or like the usual. She really doesn't see a change in him, but they have yet to talk. She sighed and opened her bag to pull out some papers. An envelope caught her eye and she quietly opened it.

 Dearest Emma...

I behaved as an imbecile last night, animated in part by drink, in part by your beauty, and in part by my own foolish pride and for that, I am profoundly sorry. Please accept, as a gesture of apology for my bad form, a private dinner on the rooftop tonight at 8 O'Clock.

Yours truly, Killian

 Emma felt her cheeks blush as her thoughts were interrupted by her boss.

"Emma, dear, where are we on Farmer's Bounty?" Mr. Oz asked.

Emma turned to her boss and took a deep breath. "We are good. As you know, we found our spokesperson. The response room final showed a 98 in the top two boxes. His key female descriptors were handsome, romantic, and with some write-ins of "What a babe".

Mr. Oz sullenly replied with a simple, "Great."

As they ended the meeting and everyone went back to work, Mary Margaret was waiting for her. Emma handed her assistant her bag and rushed after Walsh to say her apologies.

"Mr. Oz, I mean Walsh, I just want to apologize for what happened last night," Emma said.

"I appreciate that," he simply said.

"So are we okay?" she asks, hopeful.

"Yes, we are. Now if you would excuse me, I have to make some calls. We will talk later," Walsh said as he walked to his office.

Meanwhile, Jefferson was losing his patience at the Hospital. He just wanted to get released so he could get home and get Killian back to his time. Out of pure desperation, he thought explaining the situation to his doctor would be enough, but Dr. Hyde wasn't as receptive as he had hoped.

"I didn't jump to my death. I fell because there was no elevator," Jefferson clarified.

Dr. Hyde nodded. "And you feel it's somehow your fault?"

"Well, it stands to reason that nature would correct itself since my great-great-grandfather isn't there to invent the elevator or spawn his seed," Jefferson added matter of factly.

"Both you and the elevator would cease to exist, but clearly do," the doctor said.

Jefferson shook his head. "I can see you are a very busy man and I hate to take up your valuable time. I'm not one of those people who need your attention. Would you please just sign my release papers?"

Dr. Hyde sighed. "I'm concerned you might be a danger to yourself. State law requires that I keep you here in such cases. I'm afraid I cannot in good conscience sign your release."

Jefferson tried to open the door while balancing on crutches.

Before he could open it, the door flew open. "Dr. Hyde, is there a problem?" a lovely woman asked.

"No Priscilla, everything is fine. Could you please assist Jefferson back to his room and ensure this prescription is filled?" Dr. Hyde said to his nurse.

"Jefferson, I'm going to prescribe a mild antipsychotic. Nothing too strong."

Wandering around in circles in Game of Thorns, David looked over his notes, nerves getting worse with each lap.

"Mary Margaret, did you want - no, Mary Margaret, would you like...uggh…"

He was never going to convince her to go on a date if he tried mumbling and bumbling through his invitation. He was already humiliated, and he wasn't even asking her yet!

Outside of the flower shop, he could see Killian handing a street musician some cash as he made a request. Just what the request was, David couldn't quite hear.

Well, he had enough of his own problems to deal with, in any case.

Killian then entered the shop, and David practically pounced on him. "Listen, Killian, about the things you wrote for me here, for Mary Margaret...Some if it seems kind of…"

"Did you pick your flowers?" Killian asked, looking at him expectantly.

"Oh. Yep. Right, uhhh...here," David said, grabbing the nearest arrangement. "Now, about this speech-"

"Oh no, this will not do," Killian said, concerned.

"What, the flowers?" David looked at them for the first time. They seemed pretty enough to him. Plenty of colors. They even smelled nice.

"The orange lily suggests extreme hatred. The begonia and lavender danger and suspicion, respectively. Every flower has a meaning." Glancing around him, Killian grasped an enormous (and to David, absurd-looking) flower and held it in front of David. "Might I suggest the amaryllis, which declares the recipient a most splendid beauty. Or-" Breaking off, Killian strode forward. "- the cabbage rose…"

Sighing, hoping Killian was right about all this, David followed.

Inside her office, Emma lifted a piece of paper that was accepting Killian's invitation.

The only problem?

She hadn't written it.

Grinding her teeth, trying to pretend she was angry at her assistant and not at the fact that she did want to accept Killian's offer, Emma called for Mary Margaret.

Almost immediately, Mary Margaret poked her head in the office. "Yes?"

"What is this?" asked Emma, waving the paper in the air.

"It's your agreement to having dinner with Killian," she responded, as though there was nothing unusual about it. "I made it up for you to sign."

"I hadn't decided if I was going!" Emma cried, slapping the letter on her desk. She knew she was overreacting, but the thought of a private dinner with Killian was making her so...so stupidly nervous.

Mary Margaret lifted her chin, and a bit of fire entered her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said in the strongest voice Emma had ever heard from her. "But that is the best apology in the history of mankind, and if you don't go with him, I know you will regret it! Please, just sign it, and we can fax it to him. There is still time."

Taken aback by her usually shy assistant's firm manner, Emma closed her eyes, bit her lip, and grabbed for her pen.

Inside Jefferson's apartment, Killian was cooking the meal for his dinner with Emma. To his relief and delight, he had received the fax confirming her presence.

Taking his eyes from the stove, while still being attentive to his work, Killian watched as David paced the room nervously with the telephone to his ear.

Suddenly, with a little start, David said, "Oh, hi Mary Margaret; it's me, David. I was calling to see if you got my flowers. I mean your flowers. I mean the ones I sent?" He paused for a breath, then said "Good!" to the reply. He then looked to Killian, voice stalling.

Killian gave him a smile and a nod. "You can do this, my friend."

Pressing onward, David continued. "I was wondering if you would like to go to a movie, and then...perhaps accompany me to dinner?" Waving his free hand, he rushed on, "I-I-I-I understand completely if you are otherwise engaged. But, uh, I just wanted to say, umm…" Stopping to consult his notes, a small furrow appeared in David's brow.

"Come on. No need to be ashamed. You can do the speech as written," Killian encouraged silently.

"I wanted to say you've made an impression on me. And...and it's not only because you are so pretty. I mean, you're very pretty, but it's more than that. It's, umm...You're graceful. You know, the way you move, and speak. You just have a way with words. And I really, really like you."

There was a very long pause, during which David looked terrified. Then, responding to what Mary Margaret had said, he mumbled, "Seven? Yes! Yes, seven would be great. Would be fantastic. See you then!"

He ended the call, then jumped straight up in the air victoriously. "I did it! I am going out with Mary Margaret!"

Killian chuckled as David did a small dance.

"I gotta go get ready!" David exclaimed.

Emma arrived home and she would deny it to anyone, but she was a little excited about the dinner date with Killian. She was about to go to her room to get ready when her brother came out of his room looking very handsome. He had a silly grin on his face that she had not seen in a while.

David smiled wide at his sister as he greeted her with a quick kiss on her cheek.

"You look very handsome David. I didn't know you were going out tonight."

"Yeah, I have plans. It was unplanned until earlier today."

"So is this a big date?" she asked.

"Yeah, Ems I really like this girl."

"Who is the lucky lady?"

"Uhm, if it goes well, I'll tell you tomorrow, but I just don't want to jinx it."

Emma nodded. "Okay, good luck, and for what it's worth, she is lucky to have your attention."

"Thanks, and I think you are supposed to say that cause you are my sister."

"Just stating facts, David. You don't give yourself enough credit. You are one of the good ones."

"Ems, so are you. Have fun tonight, okay?"

She smiled. "I will. Now go before you are late for the big date!"

Finally, in her room, she opened her closet. She ruffled through the hangers, trying to find the right outfit. Her eyes landed on a pale pink dress she purchased years ago, and it never felt right to wear until now.

The dress fit perfectly and it made her feel like a true princess. She put her hair in a high ponytail with very light makeup, just enough to heighten her looks. Why was she so nervous?

It was time to make her way up to the roof.

Emma opened the roof door slowly and was astonished at the display in front of her. There were fairy lights hanging, creating a magical environment, and a man was playing the violin. The table was set with candlelight, and she could see a wine bottle next to plates and the tray with the food. Her mouth opened at the effort Killian made to please her.

"This is beautiful! You didn't have to go to so much trouble," Emma said, biting her bottom lip.

"No trouble at all, lass," Killian confirmed as he met her to guide her to her seat.

"May I?" he asked as he grabbed the chair to pull it out for her.

She nodded, unable to speak. He looked handsome wearing his old-timey outfit. Perhaps the atmosphere he created made him appear as if he was the lead in a romantic novel.

Emma stared into the night for a moment. "My mom was a true romantic." She smiled fondly. "She cried for weeks after Prince Charles and Lady Di got married."

Killian furrowed his brows. "I'm not familiar with them."

"Oh, trust me, you wouldn't want to be. A cautionary tale, proof that you can't live a fairy tale," Emma said and added, "I'm not very good with men."

"Perhaps you haven't found the right one," he said hopefully.

"Maybe, True Love only exists in fairy tales."

"My brother told me I had become a blemish on the family name due to an indiscretion from my youth, and now he tries to marry me off every chance he gets. I would be married now if I hadn't followed Jefferson. I was to announce a bride that night."

"Who?"

He sighed. "I don't know, it didn't matter to him. I suppose the one with the most money. Our family fortune is gone, and all we have is the family name."

After they finished eating, Emma stood up to start cleaning.

"What are you doing?" Killian asked.

"Just cleaning up."

"The night is not over yet. Would you do me the honor of a dance? Please?" he asked as he extended his hand for her to take.

"I'm not a good dancer," she said as she took his hand.

"There's only one rule. Pick a partner who knows what he's doing." He winked, pulling her close to him as she rolled her eyes, and they started gliding.

"Smee always told me love is a leap. I was never ready to jump until I met you."

"Killian, this was lovely but I don't know if I can leap, even if I am inspired." The lightness she had felt while dancing with him was sinking into harsh reality. And she was afraid. "I'm not...not brave enough."

Then, in the next moment, he was quoting something to her, something beautiful and flowery and perfectly Killian, and she was kissing him, warmth spreading from her chest all the way to her toes.

The next morning, after a wonderful date with Mary Margaret, David woke to the sound of Killian cooking breakfast.

They exchanged hellos, each asking how the other's date went. According to Killian, his date had also gone well.

David was pleased, but something was nagging at him. Emma was so rarely happy these days. And it was great that Killian was helping her to take down her walls, but if things were to continue...well, he wanted to make sure Emma was with someone she could really trust.

"Look, Killian, I have to ask you…" David trailed off. "Who are you? I mean, really?"

Killian spread some jam on toast, seeming confused. "What do you mean?"

"It's been a lot of fun doing the duke act with you, but...Emma's been through a lot, and I don't want her to have to deal with even more."

Killian lifted his hand. "I understand, David."

"So...Who are you?"

With a deep breath, Killian said, "I am the man who loves your sister. Who would go to the end of the world, or time, for her."

And with that, David was reassured.

David showed Killian how to master the dishwasher after breakfast was made. Killian was still in awe of the technology of the time.

"Just make sure Emma sees you push the button. Whatever you do, don't press it until she is awake to see you do it."

"Oh, clever. The proverbial tree in the woods. If a man washes a dish and no one sees it...Did it happen?"

"Exactly!" David said, excitedly.

Emma then made her appearance. Her stomach growled at the delicious scent.

Killian's smile welcomed her. "Love, a cup of coffee?"

"Yes, thank you."

David watched the pair making eyes at each other and decided not to be a third wheel and made his escape. Perhaps he could call Mary Margaret to make more plans.

Killian got a plate ready for Emma as she took her seat.

"Nine-grain toast with strawberries and mascarpone, my lady."

"Yum, this is really good," she moaned as she took bite after bite.

He hadn't seen anything as beautiful in his life.

Emma took the last bite and turned to Killian with a smile. "What should we do today?"

"Your heart's desire," Killian simply answered.

Emma and Killian get dressed, independently of course. Killian Jones was always a gentleman, after all. They set out to explore the city together.

Killian stopped at a market table full of sunglasses.

Emma snorted. "Oh no, no, no, no, no, no," she said as she took the glasses away from him, scrunched her face, and put them back on their display.

Killian looked so sad as he faced her.

"Make that face all you want, but those glasses were so inappropriate for you."

He quirked an eyebrow and they resumed their walk.

Killian gasped. "Emma, love. Emma, come!" he said excitedly as he pulled her toward a house.

"Killian, what are you doing?" she hissed.

He had gotten them inside the house; it appeared to be a museum of sorts.

"Bloody hell! This is where I lived. Good Lord. A portrait of my parents, my brother... and me." He pulled her up the stairs.

Emma looked at the portrait and gulped as she passed it. She still tried to find logic and deny what he told her was true. "Killian, I don't think that we should just be barging around here like that."

Killian held her hand as he pulled her all over the house before he stopped and stood in front of one of the rooms. He faced her with a smile. "Emma, this is my old quarters," he said as he walked to his hidden spot.

Emma looked around frantically. "What are you doing?"

He put pressure on a spot, then they heard a crackling sound. "Emma, this is the place where I put everything I most cared for. Things I didn't want Liam to touch. Like our mother's ring." He showed her a beautiful ring that he somehow knew its hiding place, and she hated to think what that truly meant for them, so she ignored the nagging pull in her heart.

Emma smiled. "Oh, it's breathtaking."

Later that evening, Emma and Killian finally end up cuddled on the sofa together after their day exploring the city.

Emma had her hand on his chest, playing with the hair there. She felt so comfortable in his arms. She sighed. "Do you..."

"Hmm, What would like to know, love?" he asked as he gently caressed her back.

She sighed and shifted in his embrace to see his face. "Do you miss where you're from?"

"Ah, I suppose I do in a way. There are things I miss, such as its rhythm."

"Is that slower like today?"

"Aye, quite a bit slower." He smiled.

She groaned. "That means that tomorrow is Sunday. I don't want it to be Sunday. What I do want is more of this." She snuggled closer to him.

He laughed heartily.

"Ooh, Monday is when we shoot your commercial so that's something exciting." She hummed comfortably from her cozy little bubble.

Not long after that, she drifted into sleep.

Killian kissed the top of her head and took out his mother's ring. He knew she had fallen asleep and it was now a lost moment. He picked her up and took her to bed, and tucked her in affectionately.

Emma said sleepily, "You're tucking me in."

"Aye."

"Huh, you're my Smee."

"Yes, I am Your Grace."

"Hey, hey, you don't have to... don't go upstairs. Stay."

He nodded and got in bed behind her, spooning her. He whispered, "I love you, Emma," in her ear before drifting off to sleep himself.

@rumdrum91 @itsfabianadocarmo @xsajx @hookedonapirate @kmomof4  @searchingwardrobes @seriouslyhooked @profdanglaisstuff @let-it-raines @revanmeetra87 @snowbellewells @hollyethecurious @kymbersmith-90 @branlovestowrite @thejollyroger-writer @shireness-says @ilovemesomekillianjones @thisonesatellite @thesschesthair @winterbythesea @stahlop @resident-of-storybrooke @superchocovian @lfh1226-linda @artistic-writer @thislassishooked @shardminds @winterbaby89 @xhookswenchx @ultraluckycatnd @gingerchangeling @laschatzi @wellhellotragic @xemmaloveskillianx @courtorderedcake @pirateherokillian @optomisticgirl @darkcolinodonorgasm @andiirivera @djlbg @nikkiemms @jennjenn615  @scientificapricot @officerrogers @imlaxdris71 @therealstartraveller776 @kday426 @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713    @donteattheappleshook @spacekrulesbians @lassluna @carpedzem @captainodonoghue @killian-will-do @jarienn972 @tehgreeneyes  @demisexualemmaswan @queen-serena88 @swanslieutenant @tiganasummertree @whimsicallyenchantedrose @bethacaciakay @ohmakemeahercules @jrob64 @klynn-stormz @mariakov81 @sals86 @elizabeethan @brooke-to-broch @hookedonhiddles @onceratheart18 @the-darkdragonfly @veryverynotgoodwrites @jonesfandomfanatic @wefoundloveunderthelight @cocohook38 @zaharadessert​​

#Captain Swan #CSMM #CSMM20 #cs ff #Captain Swan Movie Marathon

[hongism]

mists of celeste ➻ six

➻ pairing: ??? x fem reader ➻ genre: space au, pirate au, space pirate!ateez, angst, eventual smut ➻ Word Count: 3.9k  ➻ Rating: M ➻ Warnings: language, violence, guns and weaponry, blood, future warnings tba ➻ summary: Sneaking aboard the ship of a renowned space pirate may not have been the best idea, but you’ll have to make do with what fate has handed to you

⇐ previous | next ⇒

mists of celeste act one ➻ part six

​

“Wait–” you call out, and Seonghwa stops in his tracks. “I… I have a question for you before we go.”

“Ask away then, princess.” Seonghwa shrugs, pushing loose strands of black hair out of his eyes. You’re surprised that he can even see past the fringe, but you opt not to linger on that thought for very long in favor of getting on with the conversation.

“I still want to know when your dear Scourge made the decision about me. It doesn’t make sense for a man of his reputation to be so merciful, especially considering what he did to the ship I was aboard days ago. So when did he make the decision and why?” You ask the question again, still not convinced by Seonghwa’s previous answer. A half-hearted laugh leaves his lips. He turns away from you and shrouds his expression from view.

“Why is it important though, princess?” He asks in return. The hard soles of his shoes click against the metal floor as he takes a few steps forward, long legs making the strides easy to put distance between the two of you. You don’t follow after him quite yet. You are determined to stand your ground in front of every single one of these men, whether they are criminals or not. While it might not be the smartest idea on your part, you have certainly done a lot worse in your lifetime.

When you choose not to respond immediately, the tall lieutenant spins around on his heel to look back at you. Dark eyes squint, a glare passes over you, yet you can’t quite decipher the expression resting on his features.

“It doesn’t affect anything really, does it? When he made the decision? Why? So… my question for you is why is Hongjoong’s decision still weighing on you?”

“No one hands out favors like that. Especially not someone as notorious as the Scourge of the Black Sea. Of course, I would imagine that the infamous Scourge would put up a better fight.” You cock your head to the side, glaring daggers into Seonghwa’s form. “But he didn’t. So I would like to know why, and seeing as you are his right hand, I think you would know as well.”

“What do you mean by a fight? As I recall, he nearly killed you on more than one occasion. Just because his motives are not obvious doesn’t mean they aren’t there. It’s all in his mannerisms, his posture, the look in his eyes. I can’t count on one hand how many times he thought about killing you in the med bay just now. So elaborate for me: what do you mean by a fight?”

The words cause your stomach to stir a little, discomfort settling into your bones as Seonghwa speaks them, and you shift your weight from one foot to the other. Part of you wants to ask exactly how many times Hongjoong debated killing you on the spot, but you decide that some things are better left unknown, and that is most certainly one of those things.

“I can’t wrap my mind around him. He isn’t what I expected him to be, and that is what is most unsettling. Years of legend and infamy behind him – surely you understand my surprise when I find those legends to be incorrect?”

“Almost every legend is a lie, Y/N.” It’s the first time Seonghwa has used your first name, and the tone with which he says it sends a chill down your spine. It shifts again a moment later, and what seems to be his regular timbre returns. “You fixate so much on minute details. Surely you understand my confusion concerning that behavior?”

It takes a moment for realization to sink in, but once it does, your expression melts into one of anger. He is mocking you.

“Fine, then let me ask another question. Why do they call you the Lieutenant of Death?” You are hoping for the words to snag a nerve or turn the discomfort over to him, but all you get in response is a clear laugh that rings through the hall. He throws his head back, hair scattering across his forehead. When he brings his head back down to look you in the eye, his tongue glides across his bottom lip as though in preparation to taunt you again.

“Come now, princess. You have an extensive history with the military, do you not? Surely you must know the answer to that question.”

You set your jaw, teeth grinding together, and level Seonghwa with a heated glare. “I am well aware of your history and extensive criminal record, especially since I was assigned to track you down and kill you at one point,” you hiss out.

Seonghwa allows a bit of emotion to shine through his expression, eyebrows raising as you share the information, and he glances away from you. You can practically see the gears turning in his head. After a moment of pondering, he breaks into a bout of laughter. It’s a strange reaction to being told that you are his would-be killer, and the longer he laughs the more confused you become.

“W-Why are you laughing?” You stutter out. Seonghwa pauses mid-laugh, looking from the ceiling to you while teasing the corner of his mouth with the tip of his tongue.

“It’s not every day that you get to meet your would-be assassin,” he states as though the reason for his amusement is obvious. “Although, you must not have put too much effort into fulfilling that task. Especially seeing as I’ve not seen your face outside bounty papers.”

“Part of being an assassin means hiding your identity from your target,” you respond, mimicking his slight smile.

“I wonder if your most recent target saw the face of his killer before he died.” You know exactly what Seonghwa is alluding to, and you would rather not delve into that topic again so you divert the subject.

“I was assigned to your file just before I left the military,” you explain. Seonghwa hums in response, nodding his head a few times.

“So why did you leave the military?” He asks after a breath of silence. Your gaze falls into a glare once more.

“You know why.”

“That isn’t at all what I meant,” Seonghwa smirks as he takes several long strides in your direction. Your first instinct is to back up and put distance between the two of you, but you find yourself completely unable to move so Seonghwa is face to face with you within seconds. “The chains on your wrist… were they there before or after you murdered a king?”

The words spark something in you, an anger you rarely let show, and you press your forearm against Seonghwa’s throat. The strain of the movements causes your wound to sting and burn but you continue moving until you have Seonghwa pinned against the wall. He goes along with your actions even though you both know that he is more than capable of deflecting you easily.

“It fucking wasn’t murder!” You spit out, glaring up at Seonghwa. He arches a brow and matches your glare. Silence lingers after your heated words. Then, within a second, Seonghwa twists your arm behind your back and spins around so that you are the one against the wall now. Your cheek presses roughly against the cool metal, your ears ringing from the harsh impact. Seonghwa leans close to your face and looks you in the eye as he says his next words.

“What was it then? If not murder, then what? Assassination? Sure, plenty of people wanted the king dead but tell me – why would they ever turn to a soldier to do that job for them?”

“Why would you think that the military would let me go with merely a brand?” You hiss back. “If they had given me the brand after killing their king, then wouldn’t you think they would’ve made certain that I had the highest amount of security possible? Why would they ever let me out of their sight? Let me escape? Impossible. The military is stupid but they aren’t that foolish.”

“Your reputation precedes you. They call you the Ghost of Eros for a reason because supposedly you disappeared off the face of the planet after murdering the king.”

You writhe against Seonghwa’s grip. “Their king earned his death. I merely delivered the blow.”

“You keep saying that he was their king, yet he was yours at one point too. You’re so awfully defensive about this topic. You were defensive with Hongjoong too, so it’s more than obvious that something else – or someone else – is involved. There must be more to it than you’re letting on.”

“What? Are you planning to extract the information out of me? I’m afraid that has been tried in the past. You can’t ask them how it turned out because they’re dead now.”

Seonghwa releases your arm and steps back, a quiet laugh leaving his lips as he moves away from you.

“You’re so feisty, princess. If I didn’t know how dangerous you truly are, I might ask you to spar with me one day.”

You push off the wall, turning to face Seonghwa and settling him with a glare. “You’re so romantic, pretty boy. I’m sure all the ladies love when you say that.”

“All the ladies and men, in fact,” Seonghwa replies, a smirk twisting his lips, and he sends a wink in your direction. He starts down the hall again. This time, you follow after him, trailing a couple of feet behind him and watching his back as he walks. “But if you had the brand prior to… killing the king, what made you go back to Eros in the first place?”

“Which time?” You grumble, shifting your shirt back into a state of normalcy. “I’ve been back to Eros many times since I got the brand.”

“That isn’t what I meant…” Seonghwa trails off. He steps further back and looks away from you. “It seems strange that a criminal like you would return to Eros and board a military ship. That is quite ballsy if you ask me.”

All of a sudden, you remember exactly why you were on the ship in the first place. The papers… You grab at your shirt, feeling around at the band around your chest for any sign of the folds of paper, and when you can’t find them there, you pat down your pants instead. Fuck where are they? Fucking hell, after all this time of trying to get these damn papers? I lose them within the first few days?

Seonghwa glances back at you. Concern and question shine through in his gaze, although he doesn’t say anything right away until you drop your arms to your sides in defeat.

“Is everything okay?” He asks.

“Yea, yea,” you mumble back, voice trembling slightly. Did Yunho take them? Why would he take them? Did he give them to Hongjoong? Oh fuck, that’s the last thing I need. What if he uses them and puts his name on them? Shit, I shouldn’t have let them out of my sight. I shouldn’t have forgotten about them in the first place.

Seonghwa is still staring at you. He’s evidently waiting for a further response, but you’re struggling to come up with an excuse on the spot like this.

“I seem to have lost my weapons,” you say with a slight smile.

“Oh? So that’s why you were on that ship? To find your missing weapons?”

“Haha, how very funny, but no.”

“Hongjoong asked Yunho to confiscate your weapons. Can’t have you going rogue and having access to things that could kill us, no?” Seonghwa laughs a little. Despite his insistence that you are a danger, he shows no signs that he is intimidated by you in the slightest. His confidence is still rolling off him in waves, and that scares you more than the body count behind his nickname. “Yet you still haven’t answered my question.”

“I don’t plan to. That information is for me to know… and you to not know.” Your response causes Seonghwa to burst into laughter.

“So secretive, princess. If you aren’t careful, I might get intrigued by you.”

“Aw, like you aren’t interested already? You’ve been asking questions left and right as it is.”

Seonghwa comes to a halt, and for a moment you think it’s because of what you said. However, he turns to a door instead and taps at the keypad beside it. The metal slides open with a whoosh, revealing a dark room, and Seonghwa motions for you to follow him inside.

“You have piqued my interest, yes. But being intrigued is a bit different.”

“The difference being?” You inquire as you follow him into the room. The lights flicker on once he steps over the threshold, casting light over a rather simple bedroom.

“Let’s hope you don’t learn the difference,” he says before clearing his throat. He extends an arm to the room. “Your quarters, princess. I’m afraid they’re a bit simple seeing as you don’t have any belongings to put in here, but it has the basics. Bed, bathroom, dresser, mirror, bookshelf should you enjoy reading.”

“Only the best aboard The Horizon, I see.”

Seonghwa releases a huff of laughter. “We aim to please,” he says with a small lilt to his tone. “Some more than others.” You scoff, surprise coursing through you as he says the words, and yet again you find yourself shocked by the boldness of this crew.

“Aren’t you a bit too cheeky for a criminal?”

“Is there a special guide I should be following? ‘Proper ways to be a criminal’? Rule number one: don’t be cheeky with princess, it gets on her nerves.” Seonghwa pokes his tongue out, darting over his bottom lip. “Now, you can come back here later and look around some more, but for now, I need to introduce you to the other crew members. If you’re going to be working with us all, it might be smart for you to know us all before going on any missions with each other.”

Seonghwa brushes past you, shoulder just missing yours, and leads the way out of the room again. You give the room once more scan before turning to follow him. Only one exit. Not even a vent in the damn room. He really does have one of the most secure ships in the galaxy, doesn’t he?

“Now, you’ve met Hongjoong and myself obviously. Yunho as well, and San, I believe?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” you mumble, wrapping your arms around yourself in attempts to warm yourself up. The longer you are out here in the halls, the colder it becomes, and your thin shirt is doing very little to block the cold air from touching your skin.

“Hm, we need you to meet Yeosang and Jongho for certain. Wooyoung, as well, although you may not work with him too much. I think we should hold off on introducing you to Mingi, though.”

Wooyoung… That name is somewhat familiar to you. You recall it from the arguments San and Yunho shared, someone who was supposed to help Yunho with your operation but didn’t due to San’s insistence that he was not needed. It strikes you as strange that San would be so determined to hide Wooyoung yet Seonghwa, the Lieutenant, is showing zero hesitation in the slightest when talking about him.

“Wait, why hold off?” You ask, suddenly focused on the last bit of Seonghwa’s comment. He glances back at you over his shoulder, an unreadable emotion in his eyes, and you think he’s not going to respond for a moment.

“He can be a bit aggressive with new people,” Seonghwa mutters. He reaches up to touch his throat, fingers trailing over his skin as though remembering something. He shakes his head and drops his arm to his side when he catches your stare lingering. “Seeing as you are still recovering and Hongjoong set you back a little bit, I don’t think it would be wise to put you further in harm’s way.”

“That’s fair, yes.”

“Yet it still sounds like you are doubting something.”

“Your intentions,” you reply. A sigh leaves Seonghwa’s lips.

“You have issues trusting people, don’t you?”

“Can you blame me?”

“When people are doing you a favor and you respond with distrust, yes I can blame you. Hongjoong didn’t have to take you in. You could be dead right now but you aren’t. That’s more than a small favor if you ask me. The least you can do is have some semblance of gratitude. Unless that’s too much to ask for.”

You fall silent at Seonghwa’s comment, continuing to trail after him in silence as he takes you through the ship. He takes your silence as a desire not to talk anymore and doesn’t push for conversation again. In fact, he doesn’t talk for the next ten minutes or so; instead leading you and matching your silence with one of his own. When you reach your destination at long last, you are almost ready to burst because of the awkward tension lingering between you and Seonghwa. Thankfully that doesn’t last long, because a familiar Cheshire smile greets you when you look past Seonghwa’s shoulder.

“Well, well, well. Look who’s up and moving finally,” San says as he comes closer to the two of you. He pays Seonghwa almost zero attention in favor of honing in on you. “With all your limbs intact too. Here I was worried that you might lose your arm before the end of it.” The timbre of his voice is almost like a purr, soothing and alluring. He commands attention with his voice alone, although his appearance helps a bit as well. Now that you are free of your fever-induced haze, you can properly look at him without feeling as though you are going to keel over.

“San,” Seonghwa greets, still facing forward as he talks to the other man.

“Lieutenant. Giving her the tour?”

“Introducing her to the others, actually.”

“Just in time. Almost everyone is here for dinner.”

“I know. That’s why I brought her here now and not later.” Seonghwa beckons for you to follow him again, and you drag your gaze off San and his little cat-like smile in favor of glancing around the new room you’ve entered.

It’s similar to almost every military ship you’ve been aboard: tall walls, an overabundance of tables on either side of the room, and two large archways at opposite ends of the room. It’s a mess hall, although one that is ridiculously big for the amount of people in the room. Near the center of the room, two people sit at a circular table, heads down as though they don’t know that you even exist. Even at a distance, you can hear quite mumblings exchanged between the two. If, according to San, “almost everyone” is present, then Hongjoong must not have many people on his crew to begin with.

“Seonghwa,” you call out before he gets any closer to the table. “How many people are on the crew exactly?”

“Eight, including Hongjoong. I guess nine now with you.”

“That’s it?” You ask, tone incredulous. The most fucking notorious pirate in the whole damn galaxy has a crew of only seven people? Is this some kind of sick joke? What the actual fuck?

“Surprised, princess?” Seonghwa chuckles at the shock in your tone.

“I expected more,” you mumble.

“You seem to expect a lot from a man you had never met prior to today.” Seonghwa doesn’t give you the opportunity to respond. He walks off without waiting for you, forcing you to play catch up, and San trails after the two of you. “Look alive, ladies!”

The two men at the table glance up at Seonghwa, eyes wide in surprise from the sudden intrusion. Their whispering halts in an instant. Rather than looking at Seonghwa, both sets of eyes land on you.

Just from a quick glance at the one on the right, you can tell that he’s a Berserker. It’s really only because of the red hue to his irises, because otherwise he doesn’t look at all like any of the Berserkers you’ve come into contact with over the years. Nonetheless, he exudes the same intimidating aura that you remember from previous encounters with people of his kind. Head crowned with dark brown hair, he has a slightly boyish look to him, especially compared to the man at his side.

The man in question bears lengthy blonde hair, stained brown at the roots and parted down the middle. He has sharp features that are so symmetrical that it looks at though he was cut from marble. Royal. Or former royal, considering where he is and who he is aligned with. Those sharp eyes bore holes into you, clear and blueish green like the sea you grew up seeing every day.

“Y/N, that’s Jongho on the right, and here on the left is Yeosang. Berserker and Elitist respectively.” The blonde’s class fits his appearance quite well but leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth. You’ve never had good experiences with Elitists, especially since the military was overflowing with the Class, but it’s quite odd that an Elitist would be part of a band of pirates. They tend to stay on the right side of the law, which means something about this Yeosang isn’t quite right.

You once again remember exactly where you are and who surrounds you. While you don’t know what Yeosang and Jongho – or San for that matter – are known for, you do know that they are just as dangerous as the Lieutenant of Death on your left.

“You will probably be working with Yeosang quite a bit, perhaps Jongho as well.”

The blonde stands upon hearing Seonghwa’s words and steps around the table to get closer to you. He stares you down, eyes still keeping you rooted to the spot.

“Pleasure to meet you, Ghost of Eros,” he says after a moment of glancing over you. His tone is quiet, soft like silk, yet those eyes remain unblinking and unsettling. “I believe I have you to thank for the death of my former king.” You blink up at him, eyes falling into a narrow glare. He extends an arm in your direction. You barely recognize what he’s doing, but realization washes over you soon enough. It’s the military handshake; a sign of finding fellow soldiers in the field should you be on a covert mission, but Yeosang is using the wrong arm. You blink down at his arm, eyes flitting over his wrist. The skin is raised there, and the delicate pattern of chains rests on the inside of his wrist. You hesitantly meet his with yours, gripping his forearm weakly, and the brand on your own wrist brushes against his.

“Oh, how fancy. Two traitors in one room. Can’t wait to hear them exchange military stories,” San chirps from your side, glancing around your shoulder to watch you and Yeosang interact with interest.

“Aw, if I had known we were doing a meet up with the new girl, I would’ve come sooner!” A new voice resounds behind you. It causes your head to spin, a swirling of confusion, and you stumble back from Yeosang. You would fall if not for his continued grip on your arm. You jerk towards the sound of the voice, eyes finding the new form and recognizing him in an instant. Charcoal hair. Tan skin. Metal collar. It’s the little shit who plugged an anesthesia shot into your neck.

✧✧✧

a/n: hi hello it’s 5 pm on a tuesday yaknow what that means! i hope you all like this chapter, i personally feel like it’s a bit weaker and not a lot happens aofijdoij so im really sorry about that, i hope that the next chapter is better!

i forgOT TAGS IM SORRY

taglist: @faeriewoobin​ @sugarrimajins​ @atinyinwonderland​ @2504-life

rather than sending me a ko-fi, i ask that you consider donating to the BLM movement!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#kpopuniversenet #atinyforatiny #atzinc #ateeznetz #kwritersworldnet #ateez #ateez x reader #ateez smut #ateez fluff #ateez angst #ateez series #hongjoong #seonghwa #yunho #yeosang #san #wooyoung #mingi #jongho #hongjoong x reader #seonghwa x reader #yunho x reader #san x reader #wooyoung x reader #mingi x reader #jongho x reader #mists of celeste #space pirate au #pirate au

[pocketramblr]

Poll Results

Alright, that’s it, i’m tired of trying to sort the answers so yall just get the big list of all the free response answers to that quiz about ofa. be aware some are less safe for work than others.

memorable ones: OfA Snickerdoodle, I’d Give It To A Cat, So You Know Vore Right?, I’m in Love With Nana, Slicey Blood Oath, and Homoerotic Sword Fight

(My answer above is how I think it did happen, not how I want it to happen.) I personally think something along the lines of a Bruce Banner Jennifer Walker blood transfusion where the OFA holder doesn’t realize they’ve passed it on until later.

a tender kiss. perhaps loving. perhaps they're dying, and i already knew that they loved me, either platonically or otherwise, and we always knew that i'd be next. perhaps they tried so hard to make sure it never happened, and perhaps that tender kiss as an apology as much as it is a gift. sure sucks to be gay i guess 

Peacefully? By doing the do and making it a wonderful moment of lovemaking and passing on the future.. If we're in the middle of battle you bet your freaking butt I want them to kiss me dramatically, tell me they love me, and then yeet me away as they turn back to the fight. Ow but relationship goals. 

If we're not romantic because I am obsessed with the Duo Holders ship currently, blood works fine. Ingest it or have them pressing a bloody palm into a wound of mine *shrugs* Gotta pass it along somehow

Personally, I'd rather drink blood instead of hair. It feels less gross. But I'd pass it on as hair just to fuck with my successor

Hair or blood eating, but no touchy-touchy or whatever thx.

Probably a vial of blood so it’s easy and over quick

kiss 👉👈

i would like it to be blood from an already opened wound just cause it would probably less weird, ..........but knowing my luck and because irl my sister has attempted to feed me her baby teeth by shoving it to my lips and saying "eat", thats actually how i would get ofa. ( >:/ i have almost eaten at least two teeth this way because i thought she was being nice and giving me candy )

Consider: doing one of those blood oath things where you swear to be BFFs for eternity except now you also get a quirk out of it. But lbr kissing is way more romantic and you’ve made First/Second my new OTP, so I’ll stick with that for them. <3 But also, maybe to make the kiss option more romantic First thought something more along the lines of wishing he could give ~everything he has/all of himself~ to Second which counted as including his quirk, rather than specifically about giving him the power to defeat his brother?

This is going to sound gross but all ways of transferring DNA is. Just work up a sweat and have the other party drink it. It would probably be the best tasting option which is kinda a weird thing to think about. Nvm sweat doesn't contain DNA looked it up but I don't want to delete all of this so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe a scraping of skin cells

Honestly the hair is probably the way I'd want to go. That or blood. Like just swallowing it.

Look, i know realistically it was probably some desparate on-the-brink-of-death "please defeat my brother" thing and oo, magic he gets the quirk. But consider. First's last fight with afo. Second is holding his bleeding body, crying. First gently cups Second's cheek and pulls him into a bloody kiss before dying. Second pulls himself together just long enough to flip off afo, barely resisting the urge to absolutely slaughter him, knowing he would lose. He finds his successor and trains him to the best of his ability, determined to not lose another person he cared for

I mean like dead skin cells probably dont work right? Except hair works so thats not true. So like you totally could lick someone to get OFA. Like could you imagine the whole holding your hand over someones mouth to shut them up but they lick you and they somehow wind up with your quirk, like crazy. What must have been the trial and error with this stuff cause they must have kept passing it inbetween each other to figure out its dna right. How long did it take for them to realize. Like you’re eating breakfast and theres a hair in your food like ew and why am i stronger now. Overall, comedic timing for getting a quirk would be hilarious.

My apprentice lays broken and bloody beneath me as I cradle them in my arms, crying on to an open wound on their face praying the power will be enough to save them

little bit of skin like a hang nail just like put it in a sandwich and dont thing about it

Put it in my coffee.

If I received it from Nana then I would love to have received it via eating her out~ though for passing it on to others I think I would just either spit into their mouths or shove a bleeding finger down their throat until they swallow and then run and get myself killed by AfO while taunting him with "I DON'T HAVE YOUR BROTHER'S QUIRK ANYMORE! SUCK MY NON-EXISTENT DICK YOU LOSER!"

knock me out and just inject the blood. if i have to actively think abt ingesting someone elses dna im gonna yeet myself into the ocean. to pass it on i'll just spit in a cup (or in their mouth) bc im not gonna make someone eat my hair nor is anyone getting my blood

who in their right mind would trust me with a power like ofa 💀afo just looks at me funny the quirk is his. im not a mc for a reason

Sexy battle where I’m the villain, and randomly the hero thinks “I wish I could save you”. Boom I punch them with bloody knuckles and the quirk passes to me. Now the hero has to teach me how to be good again. Also we fall in love.

You know, I always assumed I would head canon it as something romantic until canon proved me wrong But these options are so varied - I had to choose the most Dramatic (tm) one As for my actual answer: a gentle kiss with full consent from both parties

I will bite a holder as a sign of affection. There's probably some dead skin cells in the arm I can swallow by accident. They are used to this and sometimes we switch the quirk around for funsies.

You know, I spent like 10 minutes trying to think of something original here, but knowing my shit luck some bastard would spit in my drink or something and cast upon me the Curse of Bone Breaking and/or.... y’know..... AFO...........

okay this is gonna sound weird but. consider this i marry a very lovely women. we are in much love. we get attacked by evil people because she is a good hero but plot twist. i am secretly her nemisis. the attackers are my minions. i wanted her to protect me because i am very smol but. my comrades were too mean. she is nearly dead. "take this" she says. she kisses me and i am one for all. fuck, i say internally, but i dont tell her. she dies in my arms. i run and become vigilante and take down my once comrades. all is not well. i die unsatisfied. i eventually pass it onto a cat in an alleyway because they are the only one who is with me when i get hit with a back alley sniper

Blood or just like. skin. You could use nail clippers to take a bit off from a really fleshy area, like just under the nail. It's that easy

Spit in my food like an underpaid fast food worker.

i have long hair so that would not be ideal, but blood seems kinda...unsanitary, but i guess it would be better if i was 100% positive i wouldn't pass on some sort of disease. so if that could be ascertained then like a few drops of blood in a glass of water or something and then down the hatch, bam ofa passed on. i know other folks are probably typing some nsfw stuff but just. no. keep it in your pants y'all.

Blood transfusion First, pick a hospital Second, steal all their blood Third, have the previous user donate their blood to that hospital Fourth, get into a major accident and need a blood transfusion near the hospital you robbed Fifth, hope either OfA will only pass onto you bc your the intended recipient, or that no one else needs a blood transfusion Sixth, get the transfusion Seventh, steal all of the previous users blood back Eigth, return all the other stolen blood Ninth, get new identities, this crime leaves DNA everywhere Tenth, die of a blood clot due to incompatible blood types (optional)

okay realistically bleeding into a cut or a drop of blood into water and drinking it would be easiest but like... what if somehow dna could be baked into like a muffin or cookie or something... like i know when cooking with wines and stuff the alcohol cooks away and evaporates out but is that process the same for like blood? like if you baked your blood into a cookie would traces of your dna still be there? basically i want an ofa cookie (snickerdoodle preferably)

no i like my bones

drink a drop of blood. it'd go down easier than hair

no

Something dramatic and desperate in the heat of battle like blood or something

First of all, I think First passed OfA as he was dying entirely on accident, because Second was badly (though not critically) injured and they'd been sort of dancing around each other's feelings and doubting their own worth, so First, knowing he was dying and that his brother was a petty bitch who would probably kill Second anyway because he knows that First cared about him, kisses Second with blood on his lips and his last thoughts before dying are about how he wants Second to have the strength to survive if his brother comes after him.

If I was given the option of getting OfA, I wouldn't take it. I'm a coward and being given something like that is a death sentence.

If it was forced, probably ingesting the previous users blood, because blood is a lot easier to choke down than hair.

If I already had it and had to pass it on, I would want it to be something suitably dramatic like collapsing on the doorstep of a trusted loved one and explaining with my dying breath who killed me and why and then raising my blood covered hand to their face like I was going to caress their cheek only for them to taste blood. They cry and try to get me take it back and when I finally die they swear vengeance over my slowly cooling corpse.

Pass it on in a non-life threatening scenario where I decide I actually don’t like the weird bone breaking power a random person gave me as they were dying and wish I could pass it to someone else and through a weird set of circumstances end up accidentally cooking some of my own hair into brownies I was making because I shed like a dog and passing it to my new neighbor I came to welcome to the neighborhood.

Either drinking a glass of milk with their saliva (no icky hair taste), or an epic sharing of blood while clasping hands like knights in a noble brotherhood!

not by eating all mights long ass hair thats for sure, why did he give midoriya one of the longest ones he had, he has shorter hair right there on the back of his head. not to mention the fact of like how i would prefer to recieve it or give it away which would be just, fucking sharing a pop or something and swaping it through the backwash??? less nasty than hair and not as weird as the other options for spit which is like straight up spitting in a drink or the other persons mouth outside of kissing. if someone told me i had to eat their hair i would straight up say no thanks, cheers for the fitness glow up tho homie

I want nana 2 kiss me, on.,, the m,,,.."#*(@÷out.h pretty lady.,

Q-tip to the inside of the cheek

Those blood pacts where you slice your hands open and do a little handshake thing. Not very creative, but idk it just appeals to me

Via consumption of blood, babey

I would want it to be with a maybe maybe not homoerotic sword fight in a Wendy's parking lot, preferably while we are both being impaled on each other's swords. The sweet pain of almost dying is a very intense moment to share isn't it?

Sweet love

Hair

If it's someone cute, a kiss. Otherwise I'd probably just swallow a hair with some water.

i'd just like. spit in their water bottle. if thats not enough dna i guess licking a paper cut it is. hair is bad idwa bc it doesn't digest and can get wrapped up in things. and like. im too aroace for kissing and such

Last option, cause first is sexy as hell

okay you know what vore is, right. and you know how blood and organ transfusions work? well...

Not at all, like?? I enjoy being alive and not having my body destroyed thank you. Literally everyone with OfA died young-ish or has suffered debilitating injuries bc of it. Like Midoriya's bones are powder, and we don't even need to go into All Might's medical history. Like thanks but no thanks no freaky dna ingestion 4 me

Had a open cut from a can lid and ofa holder had an open cut. While lamenting about fins a successor.

Blood

Assuming we can bypass the rules of canon, it would be funny as fuck is OFA was passed on by intentional physical contact. So yes, a smooch for First and Second (and Second and Third) but also. Bitchslap of destiny. Nana giving her protege one last hug. All Might ruffles Mido’s hair like a dad to pass it on. I’m sure you get it

Bleeding over an open wound

lil bit of spit in a milkshake.

I hold their hand Platonically but it's summer and we're both sweaty and they're a little loopy and having weird thoughts due to dehydration and heat lmao, literally hanging around anyone for any extended period of time guarantees you accidentally ingest SOME of their dna. Dead skin cells are floating through the air ~constantly~ and if you have a friend I promise you've inhaled their dead skin cells before. Have fun with that knowledge!!

ok so like deffo a kiss, but in canon people get weird biological urges for using their quirks, like bby Toga drinking bird blood. First has had a LOT of "spit in their drink" intrusive thoughts over the years. immediately post first-kiss he is mystified that his intrusive thoughts have disappeared entirely, but then BAM it seems that second has the stockpile now, and with it, a preoccupation with vampire lore

drink from the same water bottle?

“EAT THIS!”

Pass it on by making them lick my arm because that would make them rly uncomfortable, passed to me by spiting in my 20oz Red Bull and then chugging it

#aaaand done #this was going to be like. nicely organized in a couple different ways and i still might #but out of slots for that today so

[luxekook]

THE SEVEN || prologue

⇥ pairing: ot7 x reader

⇥ genre: supernatural au with action, angst, smut, and (trace amounts of) fluff

⇥ summary: a series in which the reader fights to survive, attracts a powerful group of demons, and causes general mayhem in a post-apocalyptic new world

⇥ word count: 1.5k

⇥ warnings: nc17, *this fic has scenes of graphic violence*, demons, bloodshed, anarchy, general apocalyptic things, cursing, eventual poly relationship, a made-up language, hints of desire to own, brief mention of abuse, an attempt at world-building

⇥ beta reader: heathy @shadowsremedy​​ - thank u so much!!! i was holding off on beginning this fic for so long, and you really helped me move forward! uwu<3

Prologue

The world has completely gone to shit, I think to myself as my blade slices right through my opponent’s eye. The responding roar of the crowd reinforces that thought as the lifeless body slumps to the ground.

Removing my bloodied knife from the man at my feet, I stand, exhaustion kicking in after yet another adrenaline-fueled fight. Gazing out at the surrounding crowd of humans and demons, I narrow my sights on tonight’s guests of honor – the seven demons who would decide if my performance was deemed worthy enough of payment.

Raising my chin in defiance, my eyes meet those of the pompous greed demon of the Ahgase Seven. Lim Jaebeom lounges on a provisional throne flanked by his six brothers. Their combined beauty is ethereal but leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. 

How is it that creatures so prone to evil can be so lovely to look at?

After glancing briefly at each brother, I finally make eye contact with Jackson Wang, the Ahgase’s pride demon. He inclines his head with a satisfied smirk, simultaneously permitting my payment and ordering my swift dismissal.

The callous disregard of my efforts never fails to ignite a familiar burn of fury within me. I fight to the death to earn a week’s worth of food and shelter, and all I get is a fucking nod in response? Complete and utter bullshit if you ask me.

My teeth grind together as I give the slightest and stiffest bow possible in the Ahgase Seven’s general vicinity and stalk out of the Pit. Reminding myself that I actively choose this fate never really helps, given that the alternatives are equally as shit – if not more-so.

Basically, since the planet lost three-fourths of its population in the Reaping, the old capitalistic way of the world is no longer. Now, the main ways to survive deal with what you have to offer as a resource – your body, your skill, your labor, your loyalty. I choose to fight because, for me, it’s the soundest option.

My prior life had been sketchy at best. I had taught Krav Maga, a form of aggressive self-defense and reflexive fighting, to teens and young adults. I also had used Krav Maga (and other more nefarious methods) on abusive parents or guardians, bullies, or romantic partners - the very reasons my students came to my classes.

My resulting ambiguously gray background probably had influenced heaven and hell’s decisions to leave me behind. Still, killing hadn’t come easy for me in the beginning, but now it seems like second nature. In this new era, there are no rules, no moral codes, no winners, no losers. There are only survivors.

And I’ll be damned if I am not one of them.

Last year, the Reaping left us all in chaos and confusion. The supernatural had become natural. Heaven took those deemed worthy and let Hell deal with the rest. But, as it turns out, Hell was just as picky.

For a few days, demons ruthlessly reaped millions of humans and dragged them below the earth. And then the reaping stopped. The humans that remained were left with burned cities, abandoned homes and a complete absence of law. They were a ruthless bunch with questionable backgrounds and ambiguous morals. It honestly made sense that they were left behind – myself included.

The short period after the Reaping brought with it a general mayhem which resulted in looting, fires, and general destruction. The remainder of society was bare-boned, with only the richest areas having luxuries like running water and electricity. I referred to this time period – the lull before the demon Sevens took over – as the pseudo-Hunger Games. I legit had to pull a full Katniss Everdeen in order to stay alive during those two weeks.

Then, finally, the demons rose again.

The demons that rose were power-hungry and desperate to prove themselves worthy to rule over the New Earth. They looked human until you got too close and felt the negative energy that emanated from them. It's almost a built-in warning for those lower on the metaphorical food-chain not to get close to a source of potential harm.

By possessing a demon of each sin category, Sevens were able to bond together and max out their powers. Often, Sevens took on courts and consorts to siphon additional power, but my intel on demons was mostly built on speculation and rumors. The general consensus seemed to be that humans joined demon factions because of the promise of protection, food, and other resources. However, no one usually survived leaving a faction led by a Seven once they had declared fealty.

I vowed to never willingly enter into a Seven’s territory. My freedom and independence were the only things I had left to hold onto. And that was how I ended up in my current situation as a fighter in the Pit, the rough, man-made arena where fighters battle to the death for winnings while the audience bets furiously on their selected victor. No one had bet on me at first, but they learned quickly.

The Pit’s existence sprung out of desperation for distraction. Humans and demons alike needed some form of entertainment away from the monotony and death embedded within everyday life. Located within the Neutral Zone, the Pit provided humans the ability to earn a living and to make a name for themselves. Those that fought in the Pit were only lower on the human totem pole to the Pit Master and to the merchants in the Neutral Zone. Below the fighters were the scavengers, the workers, the peasants, and the lost.

Marching towards the exit gate, I nod to the next competitor to enter the arena – it might be the last I’d see of them. Pit Master Agra greets me as I step through the gate’s threshold and finally out of the public eye.

“Good work,” she forces a smile that only looks like she’s in pain, “But, next time make sure there’s more blood.”

I say nothing.

Agra takes my silence as acceptance and jerks her head at the empty hallway, indicating my second dismissal of the day. “You have one week until your next fight,” she predictably calls as I make my way down the tunnel towards my makeshift room located in the fighters’ dorms.

I wave a hand carelessly behind me in a sign of recognition. Damn, what I wouldn’t give to challenge her in the Pit.

Pausing outside my room, I struggle to unhook my necklace that held my key. The blood on my fingers still has not fully dried, and I grow increasingly frustrated. I just want to bathe, goddamnit.

“Allow me,” a deep voice purrs from behind me. I shudder as two hands suddenly brush my own away from their hold on the necklace. Warm fingers brush the nape of my neck as the sound of a slight inhale meets my ears.

Fuck, I hope this person isn’t smelling me because I am almost certain the combination of sweat and dried blood is extremely unpleasant.

“There,” the voice rasps, “All done.”

My necklace is gone from my neck, and I turn to retrieve it from whoever just assisted me.

“Oh, fuck,” I hiss, taking in the demon before me. His teal hair is wild and reminiscent of a blue flame. His black eyes are large and slanted, fixed on me with a peculiar expression I just cannot place. His clothes are expensive. I peer closer, inspecting the intricate details on his patterned top. Was that Versace? 

In this economy?

His arm extends to mine. My necklace dangles from one finger carelessly. “Here, mì shaìà (my pet).”

“My name is (y/n),” I grab the necklace and shudder when our fingers brush for a split second, “Not Mishaeya.”

The demon smiles. It’s large and boxy and completely predatory. “(Y/n). Mì shaìà. It doesn’t make a difference.”

Am I missing something? 

“Listen, demon-dude, I just killed someone like five minutes ago. Can you stop being cryptic and just tell me why you’re lurking outside my room?”

“Ah, yes,” he stalks closer to me. My back hits the door to my room. He licks his lips, “I was watching you. You are quite the fighter, little one.”

“Little?” I glance down at my thick and well-muscled self, “Mhm, okay.”

“Are you not scared of me, mì shaìà?” His hand cups my chin, thumb darting out to wipe some blood from the shallow cut across my cheek.

“Should I be?” I front like my heart isn’t beating out of my chest.

“Yes,” he smiles before sucking the droplets of my blood from his thumb. “Surely someone as exquisite as you should need protecting. I’m surprised no one owns you yet, (y/n).”

My back straightens, “No one owns me. No one ever will.”

The demon’s head tilts as he silently studies me for a few moments. He looks like he almost wants to say something before he steps back and bows. “Sleep well, mì shaìà. I will be seeing you again.”

I gape as he walks away from me. A thought strikes me. “Hey!” I call after him, “What’s your name?”

He answers without looking back or breaking his stride, “V.”

a/n: i made up Deìthi, the language that the demons use in this story. i will keep a running list of translations at the bottom of each chapter as well as putting initial translations in parentheses following the first usage of the word.

Deìthi (The Language of Demons) Translation List:

Mì shaìà - My pet

© luxekook. please do not repost, modify, edit or translate.

#bangtanhq #btswriterscollective #kwritersworldnet #bangtanarmynet #btswritingcafe #btsbookclub #180knet #hyunglinenetwork #bts #bts fanfic #bts smut #bts x reader #ot7 x reader #bts au

[mortedeveles]

BEAST. [Halloween Week] [P.2]

Summary: Throughout the years you’ve known Bakugou Katsuki, he’s never celebrated Halloween with you. This year seems to be an exception, and you’re not sure if it’s a good or bad thing. One day at a scare house unravels the secrets of the friend you’ve been pining after for months, and you experience horror and fear like never before. 

THIS IS PART 2. FIND PART 1 HERE: BEAST P.1

PLEASE CHECK OUT MY OTHER HALLOWEEN WEEK FIC HERE: TILL DEATH DO US PART. 

HALLOWEEN WEEK MASTERLIST! 

Pairing: Werewolf! Bakugou Katsuki x fem!reader

Theme: Horror, fantasy, halloween, quirkless!au. [HALLOWEEN WEEK] [ONE-SHOT: PART 2] 

TWs: description of graphic violence, fighting, cursing and blood. 

Word Count: 3K (aprox. 3026 words)

A/N: Hey guys! Here’s the second (and final, until stated otherwise) part of BEAST! With this, I’ve concluded my part in Halloween Week! HOWEVER, please continue supporting the event and my fellow writers with REBLOGS, comments and likes!

If you enjoy this, please support me with REBLOGS, comments, follows and likes!! 

''Ka-Katsuki,'' your lip wobbled as you spoke. ''Are you still in there?'' 

The werewolf bared its teeth, growling lowly. Your heart raced as you weighed your options.

I need to get away from him. But if I run, he'll overpower me. Beads of sweat dripped down your forehead.

Wolves live in packs. They work with one another. Maybe, he'll still recognize me...?

With a hard swallow, you rose from the ground. Bakugou growled and his body tensed but made no attempt to rip your body apart.

''Hey,'' you said softly, slowly reaching out a trembling hand. Bakugou growled loudly, saliva dripping from his fangs. You swallowed.

Wolves can smell fear.

Straightening your posture, you licked your lips as you forced yourself to stop trembling, and stared at Bakugou at his eyes. Time seemed to slow down as you did so. Your movements were impossibly slow, sluggish and at any moment, you could make a mistake. 

''It's Y/N. You remember me, big boy?'' Slowly, you stepped closer, keeping your hand outstretched.

Surprisingly, the werewolf only grunted in response, watching your every move.

''I'm your friend. And you can be a gremlin sometimes, but you won't hurt me, right?'' 

You reached the beast. Your hand brushed against Bakugou's head, softly petting the fur. His chest rumbled and slowly, his body relaxed.

But just as the storm had calmed down, it picked up at full speed. A few feet away, you heard a howl from the bushes, followed by loud growling and the rustling of branches. 

Bakugou immediately tensed, pushing you a few feet away and snarling towards the source of the noise. His fur tips stood up, claws gleaming in the moonlight, his beastly eyes swarming with bloodlust. 

You fell to the ground- again, and staggered backward, fearing what was to come. In a blink of an eye, a large, lean werewolf leaped out of the bushes and tackled Bakugou to the ground. 

A flurry of snarls, growls, and yelps filled in the air and for a second, Bakugou's eyes met yours. And they weren't pitch black, but the shining red you loved. As he yelped, you swore you heard his voice intertwine with the whine, yelling at you to leave. 

Nearly tripping on your own feet, you raced out of the forest, even as you heard Bakugou yelp. It made your heart squeeze from the worry, but all you could think about was escaping the forest.

Branches scraped your arms as you ran through the forest, and you nearly wept out of joy when you left the trees behind and stepped onto cracked concrete. 

Your foot slapped against the road as you raced further away from the forest, following the road signs until you reached a familiar looking neighborhood. Home.

You don't remember how you must've looked as you arrived home, with scratches and scars, twigs and branches in your hair, and a look of absolute fear on your face, but surprisingly, your parents weren't home, so it was one less problem. 

Since it was the weekend, you had been planning to sleep in all day and try to recover from whatever the hell happened yesterday. The images still flashed in your mind, all of them blending together- the scare house, Bakugou's horrific transformation, the gruesome fight. Your stomach wouldn't stop churning.

Around the afternoon, the doorbell rang. You heard your parents shout and fight earlier, but ultimately left around ten in the morning. Groaning, you buried your face deeper into the blankets, deciding to ignore whoever was at the door.

But then the doorbell rang again. And again, and again, until it kept ringing consecutively for minutes.

''Go the fuck away!'' You shouted from your bed, hoping it would reach the stranger's ears.

Maybe it did, but they didn't care. The doorbell continued ringing, and you buried your mouth in a pillow and screamed into it.

After a few minutes, you regained your composure and went towards the front door. Surprisingly, they were still there. You froze when you met familiar red eyes. 

It was Bakugou. He was holding an orange plastic bag in one hand, his other scratching his neck nervously. When he saw the door swing open, his eyes widened for a second.

''Hey.'' He said gruffly. Even as he retained his cool and careless composure, you could see the sweat trailing down his forehead, and his left shoe tapping the floor anxiously. There were some stitches and bandages on his face that weren't there yesterday. 

''What- what are you doing here?'' You asked, wondering whether if this was the end of your friendship or not.

Bakugou swallowed. ''We need to talk.''

You bit the inside of your cheek before reluctantly nodding.

''Okay. Come on in.''

                                    ─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

''What do you remember?'' Was the first thing he said as the two of you sat at the dining table.

You snorted, tapping your fingers on the table. ''Bakugou, I was scared, but I didn't go into a coma. I remember...everything.'' You swallowed thickly. He remained silent. You pressed your lips in a thin line.

''What...why didn't you tell me about it before?''

He scoffed dryly, raising an eyebrow in amusement. ''Wouldja have believed me if I did?'' 

You shrugged, before pondering it for a few moments. ''Yeah, you're right. That was a dumb question.'' 

Katsuki chuckled, before shoving the mysterious object in front of you. 

''What is this?'' You questioned as you examined the bag.

''It's for you, obviously.'' His snarky comment made you smile.

When you opened the bag, your smile grew wider. It was hundreds, if not thousands of candy, the type you'd get after trick or treating at dozens of houses.

''Look, I know... yesterday didn't go as planned, a lot of weird shit happened, and I'm sorry.'' 

You giggled. ''You don't say?'' The blonde snorted and rolled his eyes. 

When he moved, you noticed how he softly winced and clutched his ribs. Your eyes widened and you leaned over the table to examine his face and chest.

''Oh god. You're hurt from yesterday, aren't you?'' 

Bakugou shrugged you off, avoiding your gaze. ''It's nothin'. Just got roughed up a bit.''

You frowned, rising from your seat and walked towards him, grabbing his face in your hands. You didn't notice how his face went warm.

''This is my fault,'' you murmured, brushing your thumb on his cheek.

''If I hadn't suggested going to that stupid scare house, you would've been at home, you would've been safe-,'' You stopped when Bakugou's hands reached for yours and wrapped around yours.

''Shut up, dummy.'' He furrowed his eyebrows. ''It's not your fault. If I hear you blame yourself one more time, I'm going to smack some sense into you. Got it?''

You laughed softly. Between soft laughter and comforting words, you hadn't noticed how close you'd gotten to him, or how easily you'd slid onto his lap.

''Bakugou...it doesn't matter. You're hurt. Let me help you.''

''No.'' His tone was firm and for some reason, angered you. ''I'm fine. Just fucking drop it.''

''No, you drop the act,'' you snapped back. ''Can't you just let me help you?''

The blonde's face hardened. ''I hid this from you for years, because it's not fucking safe for you. This is my shitty problem, so stop nagging.'' 

You slipped out of his lap, crossing your arms over your chest. ''Bakugou, even if I wouldn't have believed you, you could've told me. Look, I don't know how this works, but I could've been there for you. I could've helped.'' 

He growled and rose from the chair, meeting your determined gaze.

''No, I don't need your fucking help. I'm fine.'' 

Maybe it was his constant refusal, or yesterday's events, or the screaming match your parents had in the morning, but you lost it. You lost the reins to your control and exploded. Grinding your teeth together, you rose from his lap and stepped back. 

''You're fine?!'' You shouted, slamming a fist on the table. ''Bakugou, you're a werewolf for christ's sake! And I didn't even know until yesterday! You got hurt yesterday, you need help!'' He scowled and opened his mouth to protest, but you raised a hand.

''No. You listen to me, Bakugou Katsuki. You kept this secret for me for years, and who knows, you might be hiding something else!'' You cried out, rubbing your forehead.

''Don't you trust me?! I've been in love with you for so long, and-,'' A sudden warm and soft pair of lips pressing against yours froze your sentence midway.

Bakugou's hands slid to your hips and you quickly melted into the kiss, looping your hands around his neck. He pressed you closer, lips dancing and communicating in a way neither of you could do verbally.

''I'm sorry,'' he said breathlessly. ''It's so hard for me to say this but fuck- I'm sorry. I know that you're going through a shitty time and this isn't helping.''

Both of you pulled away, chests heaving and swollen lips.

''Shut up,'' you murmured as your hands tangled themselves in his spiky blond hair. ''Shut up and kiss me again.''

Bakugou was quick to comply with your wishes.

                                         ─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─── 

Who knew that an angry discussion would end out in a makeout session, followed by the official start of your romantic relationship with Bakugou Katsuki?

''Oi, Y/N,'' Bakugou knocked on your open door as he stepped inside your bedroom. You beamed and greeted him with a kiss on his cheek, to which he replied the same. You grinned when you saw his face redden.

''Glad you could make it. I have your costume here!'' You rushed to your closet, but Bakugou held you back and squeezed your arm. You raised an eyebrow.

''What is it, Katsuki?'' 

He scratched the back of his neck, before revealing a neatly wrapped black square. 

''I...'' He cleared his throat, averting his gaze. ''I got you something.'' 

Your heart softened. ''Oh, you didn't have to get me anything. What did you get me?''

The blonde placed the wrapped black box in your hands and shoved his hands in his pockets. He didn't respond and instead walked over to your bed and sat on the edge.

''How the fuck am I supposed to know?'' He snorted. ''It's yours, so fucking open it.''

His crude language made you snicker. You took a seat next to him and began to unwrap it. Your jaw slackened as you pulled out the brand new, expensive-looking dress and black, sleek, and shiny cloak.

''I saw that your costume...got turned to shit. So you can use that one, I tried to find the same dress.''

Shocked, you remained silent for several minutes. The dress looked far more expensive than your original one, with richer colors and fabric, as well as the cloak.

Bakugou shifted uncomfortably and you heard him scratch his neck. ''Or not. Do whatever the fuck you want with it, I don't give a-,'' You didn't give him the time to finish his sentence as you launched yourself on him, wrapping your arms around him in a tight hug.

''Thank you,'' your voice was muffled by the blonde's chest. His body stiffened by your embrace, but slowly, hesitantly returned your hug. 

''Tch. It's-it's not a problem.'' As you hugged him tightly, Bakugou was vaguely concerned whether you'd hear his racing heart, somersaulting, and fluttering at your proximity. 

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, the two of you pulled away. You quickly shooed Bakugou out of the room to dress and prepare your costume. Once you were done, you opened the door and allowed him inside once again.

''Alright, you ready to go?'' He gave you a once over and his face slightly reddened. ''You-you look good. Let's go.'' Katsuki grabbed your hand, but you stepped back.

''No!'' You said with a mischievous grin. ''You're dressing up as well.'' 

His eyes narrowed and he shook his head. ''What? Of course not. I'm not taking part in this shitty holiday.'' 

You gasped, grabbing ahold of him and pushing him down on your bed.

''It's not a shitty holiday. Now hush, while I find the perfect costume.''

The blonde grumbled and complained loudly, but made to attempt to leave. 

''You have to do this,'' you said as you fussed in your closet, digging and searching through years worth of clothing.

Bakugou scowled. ''Tch. Out of all the things you want to do, trick or treating is the most important one?'' 

You quickly turned around and beamed in agreement. ''Yeah! Yesterday was weird, to say the least,'' He snickered in response. ''But today will be different. We're going to go trick or treating, and you're going to enjoy it.'' 

The blonde huffed and smirked as he watched you move back and forth in your closet.

''Aha!'' You grinned as your hands wrapped around the year-old ears, collar, and tail, and pulled them out of the basket. Alongside, you picked up the other part of the costume, folded neatly into squares. 

''Here's your costume,'' You shoved them in Bakugou's outstretched hands.

''You've gotta be fucking kidding me.''

You cackled at his stone face. ''I'm not. Now hurry up, I want to see how you look in them.''

With a loud, animalistic growl, Bakugou marched out of your room and locked himself in the bathroom. You couldn't stop giggling as you heard him curse and mutter while dressing. 

Once the door swung open, you sat upright on your bed and waited with expectant eyes.

Bakugou marched into your room with a sneer. You nearly squealed in delight. He was wearing a pair of dark brown wolf ears, a red collar with some loose chains, a long olive green parka that was ripped at the edges, a plain white teeshirt, loose jeans, and a dark brown tail attached to his behind to top it off.

You clapped your hands slowly with an everlasting grin on your face.

''You look... divine!''

Bakugou sneered. ''Out of all the humiliating costumes you could've picked, you decided to go with the most ironic one, didn't you?'' He huffed, before shaking his head and sliding his hand into yours. ''Come on dumbass, let's go trick or treating.'' 

With an excited giggle, the two of you left the house and stepped outside. Houses were decorated with Halloween objects, orange, purple, and yellow fairy lights, hanging ghosts and skeletons, and the wealthier ones had impressive equipment such as a groaning zombie android. 

Children of all ages shuffled past you, in a swarm of hundreds of colors and costumes, each of them running toward houses with an incomparable amount of passion and excitement. You heard squeals, giggles, laughter, and the often ''Trick or treat!'' 

''C'mon, let's go!'' Tugging Bakugou forward and your orange pumpkin bag hanging on your other arm, the two of you raced forward.

Hours went by as you walked house from house, and your bag grew heavier with every house you visited. Bakugou would barely speak when approaching a house and resigned to keeping watch over you.

''Come on, Katsu, you have to enjoy the night!'' You complained as the two of you strode to a small park, deciding to take a small break and sit on the swings.

''I am.'' He replied dryly and you sighed, shaking your head.

''How much candy do you have?'' He opened his bag of candy. It was only a fourth of what you had collected. 

You clicked your tongue. 

''We can't take a break, you need more candy.'' Bakugou shook his head.

''No, I need a break from hearing those screaming brats,'' he grumbled, throwing his head back. You laughed softly.

The screams and squeals of children were distant, and the wind softly blew past you as nearby crickets chirped. Some people lingered by in the small park but weren't too close.

''You're such an old man,'' you teased with a playful grin.

Bakugou growled. ''Fuck no! I am not-what the hell?!'' Shocked, the two of you glanced back, only to see a small pomeranian dog growling, teeth clamped around Bakugou's green parka.

''You little shithead!'' The blonde growled. He abruptly stood up and attempted to grab the parka, but the dog was persistent. It growled loudly, tail wagging as it tugged at the parka.

You sputtered out a loud laugh, eyes wide as you watched the bizarre interaction. 

''Fuck off!'' Despite Bakugou's aggressiveness, you noticed how he made no attempts to harm the dog. 

''Oh my god! I'm so sorry!'' A squeaky voice interrupted your observation and you watched a young girl dressed as a bee rush forward, quickly picking up the biting dog in her arms.

''Fucking control your dog!'' Bakugou snapped as he brushed his parka. ''I don't want to see this shit again.'' 

The girl swallowed before nodding and running off. You sighed, shaking your head in disapproval.

''You could've been nicer to her, she's just a kid.'' 

The blonde grunted. He sat back down on the swing. 

'Whatever. Next time.'' You snorted. 

''I understand why the dog went after you, though.'' Swinging back and forth, you grinned at Katsuki. He raised an eyebrow, unamused. 

''One dog recognizes another, don't they?'' His eyes widened and before he could get his hands on you, you giggled and raced off, leaving the park and Bakugou behind you.

''You little sh-HEY! Get back here, Y/N!'' You laughed loudly as you raced past crowds of children and decorated houses. Just as you thought you had outrun him, a pair of strong and heavy arms wrapped around you and turned you around.

Smiling sheepishly, you looped your arms around Bakugou's neck. His vermilion eyes were still blazing, but with a playful look.

''Getting cocky now, aren't you?'' He smirked, hands grabbing your hips. You tilted your head to the side with a small smile.

''Maybe.'' 

The blonde snorted. He leaned closer, his lips brushing against yours until they were completely pressed together, chasing after each other.

A loud ''Eww!'' broke you apart and you stifled a giggle as Bakugou glared down at the child who had interrupted your moment. The child quickly scrambled away. 

 You smiled, brushing your nose against Bakugou's.

''Happy Halloween, Katsuki.'' 

PLEASE SUPPORT ME WITH REBLOGS, LIKES, FOLLOWS AND COMMENTS!!! 

If anyone’s interested in seeing BEAST extended (this is the final part), send me an ask or DM and I’ll see what I can do! 

TAGLIST: @sandwichez01​ @ur-local-simp​ @moonri3e​ 

#bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #mha x reader #Halloween Week #mha fanfiction #katsukibakugou #bakugou katsuki #bnha bakugou #katsuki bakugō #werewolf!bakugou x reader #mha x fem!reader #fem!reader #reader insert #type: oneshot #tw: violence #fanfiction #fanfic writing #My writing #creative writing #MHA students #my hero academia #my hero academia x reader #veles' writing

[private-snippers]

A Fog of Green

Soulmate September Day 4 - There is a trail of colour only you can see that marks out where your soulmate has been.

Pairings: Intrulogical, very minor anxceit (it’s mentioned in like two paragraphs at the very end

Warnings: blink and you’ll miss it self deprecation, talk of blood, gore, death (generally just Remus being Remus)

Notes: you can read Intrulogical as romantic or queer-platonic. I like to think of them as QPP’s, but there is talk of proposing at the end and I’m not sure if QPP’s get married?

ao3

Logan sighed, checking his watch for what must have been the seventh time in the past minute. If Patton has been in his position, he may have said Logan was checking his watch for the thousandth time, but he wasn’t, and Logan was not one for hyperboles.

Logan’s shift had started nearly 10 minutes ago, and they had been fidgeting endlessly ever since. He had been expecting a calm shift, looking at the fish and perhaps informing customers of a few facts. With this new disturbance, however, they thought it best that the customers simply inform themselves using the plaques attached to the walls nearby the tanks. The constantly fading trail of green smoke had their full attention.

It flowed in from the jellyfish exhibit, through the hall Logan was stationed in, and out past into the amphibians and beyond. Logan had come into the hall through the reptile exhibit, only passing the entrance to the amphibians, too engrossed in his thoughts to notice the green smoke. Even if he had noticed, however, he would have had to wait, as he did now, for the end of his shift. It was only his second day at the job, he could not afford to be flagged for missing his shift.

Instead, Logan spent their time pacing the hall, thinking of their soulmate and praying to the stars and the constellations among them that their soulmate would still be in their general vicinity when their shift finished.

Luckily for him, there was no need to wait.

Logan heard several pounding footsteps come in from the reptile exhibit, along with a few muffled apologies. His head snapped up, but not quick enough to dodge before he caught a flash of green out of the corner of his eye and someone slammed directly into him.

“Oh, fuck! Sorry! I’m looking for my–” they paused, looking at the air around Logan, “for you, apparently! Shit, that was a bad first impression. I’m Remus, she/her right now!”

“Logan, he/they. I presume that you are the source of all this green smoke everywhere?”

“So long as you’re the blue! Wait, I'm green? Please tell me I’m a good green!”

Logan laughed, “Well I certainly believe you to be. My apologies for not finding you sooner, I was planning to finish my shift before searching for my soulmate”

Soulmates. That’s what they were. Remus took a good, long look at the person standing in front of her– her Soulmate!–and grinned.

“I was too caught up in the exhibit’s to notice the smoke! They redid the reptile tanks after the last time I was here so I was reading all the new signs they put up!”

“You enjoy learning? Excellent. I am pursuing a degree in Astrophysics, with a minor in astronomy.”

“Ooh, fun! I’m gonna be a marine biologist, I’m writing a research thing on turtles! Did you know that alligator snapping turtles are a thing! They’re like alligator-turtle hybrids and they are insane! Nature is fucked! I wonder what it’d look like if they tore off someone’s head! Would it be like one clean snap, or maybe just a big, gushing tear–”

“Well I do not believe that an alligator snapping turtle would enjoy a human,” Logan interrupted, “it would certainly be interesting to research what effect their jaws and teeth have on their prey. Perhaps we could research it together over dinner?”

Remus looked up in astonishment, “You want to have dinner with me?”

“Why, of course. You are my soulmate, after all, and I do not believe that I would be given a soulmate I would dislike conversing with. The majority of soulmates develop a relationship together, do they not?”

“Well, yes, but– never mind. I’ll talk to Emile–my therapist,” Remus said after a questioning look from Logan, “about it next week.”

“If you are certain.” After a nod from Remus, Logan continued. “Why don’t you tell me more about Alligator snapping turtles? They sound intriguing, and you certainly seem to know a lot about them.”

The two continued to chat for the rest of Logan’s shift, prattling on about alligator snapping turtles, various other reptiles, and certain aspects of space that may or may not have involved explosions and flames.

~~~

It was a few weeks after the two had met, and their relationship was progressing nicely. They were texting or calling daily and meeting regularly as well. A few days ago, Remus had said that their brother wanted to meet Logan. Logan had agreed, as they saw no reason to wait any longer to meet, and as such had arranged to meet today.

Logan and Remus were standing in front of Roman’s door, a small two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a building in the middle of downtown. Logan was nervously clasping and unclasping his fist, as he often did when he was anxious.

Remus grabbed their hand, squeezing it before whispering to them. “It’s alright, Lo, Roman’s great! Don’t tell him I said this but,” Xe lowered xir voice a bit, “he’s really helped me with, well, everything, and he’s a great brother.” Xe gave Logan’s hand one last squeeze before turning and knocking erratically on the door. “He’s gonna love you.”

There was a quick and sudden tapping of feet behind the door before it swung open to reveal Roman. “Remus!” He said, double-checking xir bracelet colour–a vibrant green almost identical to Remus’s smoke colour, much to Logan’s surprise and Remus’s delight. “And–Logan? You're my brother’s soulmate?”

“Wait, you guys know each other? What the hell?”

“Yes,” Logan said, “We were project partners a couple of months ago. Roman must have moved, as I did not recognize his apartment. Wait–You were the cause of the green smoke!” He said incredulously, turning to Remus.

“I–Yes?” Remus asked. “Were you not aware of my smoke colour which only you can see?”

“No,” Logan replied, a little frustrated, “When I came over for the project, I saw a faint green smoke drifting around the kitchen and sitting room. I asked Roman whether anyone had been in the house in the past few hours, and he said no. I assumed it had been a mirage of some sort, but you were there!”

“You snuck into my apartment?” Roman said, faking outrage. “Why?”

“I wanted cookies!” Xe turned to Logan. “Ro-bro has the best chocolate chip cookie recipe! You need to have some.”

“Actually, I’m all out. You ate them all yesterday, remember?”

“You had a whole day! And this is Logan, My Soulmate, remember?” Remus said.

“I was helping Janus plan for his date? With Virgil? He’s gonna propose?”

“Oooh, yeah! How’d the planning go?” Remus bounced around the hall as he spoke, mind running a mile a minute. “Is he gonna fly a giant banner with Virgil’s face on it across the sky? Ooh, no what about fireworks that say ‘Marry me, Virgil,” except they look like blood splatters and shit! Or or or! What about painting a portrait of Virgil in fake, or real, blood and then on the back it says “Marry me!” Yes, I’m a genius!”

Roman just shook his head. “I’ll tell you inside, c’mon!”

And if years later Logan uses one or more of those exact suggestions to propose to Remus, no one said anything.

#intrulogical #remus sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #ts logan #ts remus #ts roman #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #soulmate au #snips writes #tsshipmonth2020

[theassthatquits]

Blupjeans Week Day 3 - Crush

The banners seemed to appear overnight, crowding the hallways and bathrooms and doors: “The dance is this Saturday! Ask your crush! It is the Valentine’s Day Dance after all.” Well, maybe they didn’t say all of that, but that was certainly the implication.

Barry was paralyzed with fear.

He had a crush on Lup since they were kids, pretty much starting the day on the playground when she and Taako approached him and declared that they were now Best Friends Forever and he had no choice in the matter. It was the best day of his life.

Lup and Taako had seamlessly folded into his life since then. His mother had taken an immediate liking to them and would make sure they were cared for and had everything they needed as they were moved around from place to place. The twins became a staple at the Bluejeans household, frequently staying days at a time. Barry, Lup, and Taako had become inseparable.

If he told her how he felt it could ruin everything.

--

“What the fuck is this?” Lup asked, picking up the flyer for the dance that just happened to be on her textbook sitting on the desk.

“What are you talking about now, Lulu?” Taako lazily asked, lounging on his bed filing his nails.

“This flyer for the dance. You put this here, didn’t you?”

Taako sounded bored. “I assure you, I had nothing to do with it.”

Lup groaned in exasperation. “I don’t want to think about Valentine’s Day and romantic dances. I just want to get through this year, graduate, and get the fuck out.”

“You sure you don’t want to ask a particular jeansed man out to the dance?”

Her glare would have struck fear into the heart of any other person but Taako. “I’m not asking Barry. There’s no way he would say yes and then our friendship would be ruined and I’d have to find a new best friend.”

Taako rolled his eyes. The two of them had been doing this for years and it might actually kill him. “So when are you planning on telling him, then?”

“When the time is right, I don’t know. Probably never.”

“Lulu, I love you to death and I mean this with all the kindness in my heart. I am so bored of this conversation. We’ve been having it for years. We’re graduating soon, there’s no guarantee we’re all going to the same spot, your time is running out.”

Lup crushed the flyer against her face, screaming into the void. “I know! Ugh. I’ll think about it.”

“Good. Now be a dear and pass me that polish. My nails have to look perfect for when I ask Kravitz to the dance.”

---

“You should ask her, Lucrecia. She’s a pretty cool girl and anyone would be lucky to take you to the dance.” Magnus, Lucrecia, and Barry were standing in front of Barry’s locker while Magnus was trying to convince her to ask out her crush.

“Ughhh, I don’t know, Magnus. We’ve, like barely talked.”

“That’s not true! I saw you two talking the other day.”

“Yeah, but I asked her for notes. That’s different, that’s school stuff.”

“I think I agree with Magnus, Creesh.” Barry shut his locker door and started shoving his textbook in his backpack. “She laughs at all your jokes in class, which is a great sign. I mean, we’re seniors. This is our last chance.”

Lucrecia gave him the biggest side eye. “Oh, yeah, Bluejeans? Are we talking about final chances and asking out crushes now? If you say it’s so easy, why don’t you go ask Lup?”

Barry’s face went pale. “Uhh, uhh. That’s different! Lup’s my best friend.”

“Mhmmm, okay. I’ll make you a deal, you ask Lup, I’ll ask Melora.”

“Ask Lup what?” Out of seemingly nowhere, Lup appeared in between Lucrecia and Barry. His eyes went wide and he began stammering.

“Uhh, nothing! Just one of the questions from last night’s reading.”

“Ahh, yes. Last night’s reading...which I totally did...because I definitely remembered to do it…”

Lucrecia laughed and passed Lup her notes. “Here, read through these before our class discussion.”

“Thank you thank you thank you!! You’re a life-saver.” Lup leaned in and planted a nice big kiss on Lucrecia’s cheek. Lucrecia winked at Lup as the bell rang and took off after Magnus, leaving Lup and Barry alone.

The two of them walked in uncomfortable silence, both of them wanting to say what they swore they never would. They passed by one of the many posters about the dance and Barry cleared his throat. “So the dance next week...are you going?”

“Oh, that thing? I hadn’t given it much thought at all,” Lup lied through her teeth. “I mean, it sounds like it could be fun, especially since we haven’t really gone to a dance at all.”

“Yeah! Do you...uh, do you want, um…” Barry kept stammering, his face fully red. Lup’s face lit up, hoping he was attempting to ask her to the dance.

“Do I what?”

Barry let out a deep breath to steady himself and began again. “Do you want to go -“

The bell rang loudly, cutting off the rest of his sentence. Barry swore under his breath.

“Shit, it’s like a four minute walk to calculus, I’ll catch you later?”

Lup swallowed a lump in her throat she hadn’t realized was there. “Yeah, sounds good.”

Once Barry was out of sight, she turned and rammed her body against the lockers with a little too much force.

“Lulu, that was...incredibly painful to watch.” Taako’s voice appeared behind her.

“Imagine how it felt to live it.”

“I don’t think I can, considering I walked right up to Kravitz, looked him in the eyes and said ‘you, me, dance?’”

“What did he say?”

“Yes, natch.”

“Congratulations, I’m so happy for you,” she said, not sounding happy for him at all.

He chuckled at that and grabbed her hand. “C’mon, we’re going to be late.”

—

Lup stood outside the school under the tree she always did waiting for Barry so they could walk back to his place together to do homework like they did every day. He was taking a little more time than usual but he occasionally got stopped after class to talk about nerd stuff with Lucas Miller.

“Hey, Lup.” A smarmy voice came from behind her and she turned around to see gorgeous jock Greg Grimaldis leaning against the tree, a smirk on his face.

“What’s up, my dude?”

“I don’t know if you heard, but I’m getting inducted into the school hall of fame for football this weekend.”

“Congrats?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to accompany me to the ceremony this Saturday. As my date.”

She was taken aback. Sure, Greg Grimaldis had flirted with her a lot the last four years but she was incredibly attractive, a lot of people hit on her. “Uh, Saturday is the dance.”

“Oh, that lame soirée? Yeah, I’ve been to a thousand like it, no thank you. Trust me, this is going to be a lot cooler.”

“Uhh..” Lup hesitated and then was interrupted by Barry appearing next to her.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

Greg Grimaldis ignored him, like he always did, and turned to Lup. “You know, I’ll give you until tomorrow to think about it. See you then.” He winked and then ran his tongue over his teeth, sending shivers of disgust over her.

“Woah, what was that about?” Barry asked, watching Greg walk away, stereotypically throwing a football up into the air.

“He asked me to go to this stupid ceremony with him on Saturday as his date.”

“...oh.” His voice was scratchy and squeaky and he turned away from her. “Are you going to go?”

“I don’t know...Is there a reason I shouldn’t?” Please give me a reason, please tell me I shouldn’t go.

Barry’s mouth was dry as he replied: “I mean, if you want to go you should go.”

Her heart dropped. “Uh, maybe I will go. It could be kind of fun, maybe ruin Greg’s big night.”

That got a slight, but fake, chuckle. “Sounds fun.”

They stood there in tense silence, not looking at one another before she finally broke it. “Guess we should get going, we have all that homework to work on.”

“Actually, Lup I’m not feeling too great. I kind of have a headache and my mom wants me to help out with some stuff at home, so if it’s okay with you I’ll just walk you to your place.”

Okay, that hurt. She faked a smile. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Usually their walks home are full of laughter, Lup reenacting some wild shit that had happened that day, Barry stopping to inspect weird flowers or trees, the two of them going out of their way to step on leaves and dance through the streets pretending that when they bump into one another it’s an accident.

Today, they didn’t say a word to one another.

—-

“Woah, what the fuck happened to you?”

Lup didn’t even register what Taako had said when she burst into their room, sobbing. He stood up quickly. “Okay, who the hell do I have to beat up?”

She didn’t say a word, just tackled him to his bed and buried her face in his chest. Normally, he would have complained about her ruining his shirt but he thought it best to not mention it. Until later, at least.

They sat there, Taako rubbing soothing circles on her back like he had done a thousand times until she had calmed down enough to talk. “He doesn’t like me, Ko.”

“What? This is about Barold? Oh my god.” He rolled his eyes and pushed her off of him. “How many times do we have to go through this? The two of you are ridiculous.”

“No, Ko, he really doesn’t like me. Greg Grimaldis asked me to go to this stupid ceremony with him on Saturday instead of the dance -“

“And you said no, right Lulu? Please tell me you said no.”

“- well, not exactly.”

“Oh my god.” Taako removed his arms from around her and covered his face. “I’m going to have to do so much fucking damage control.”

“I asked Barry! I asked him if he thinks I should say yes and Barry said, and I quote: ‘If you want to go, you should go.’ End quote.”

“Yeah, because he respects your autonomy as a human being. He’s not going to tell you to not go on a date because he is hopelessly in love with you. Gods, Lulu I thought you were smarter than this.”

“If he didn’t want me to go with Greg he should have said something!”

“Have you met the kid? He’s got the worst self-esteem of any of us. Lulu, please, I’m begging you as your brother: do not go out with Greg Grimaldis. Go call Barry, talk this out, please. I’m not doing this for either of you anymore, this is purely selfish. I am so tired of hearing about this.”

“I don’t want to call him! He’s made his choice, he doesn’t like me and I am going to die alone.” She flopped dramatically on the bed, covering her face with a pillow.

“You’re not going to die alone. Greg Grimaldis is going to be there.”

A pillow came flying at him. “Get out!”

“This is my room too, Lu.”

“I don’t care. I need some time. Go make googly eyes at Kravitz or something.”

Taako stood up and started walking towards the door.

“Fine, I’ll leave you to your moping. But when I get back you had better at least texted poor Barold.”

“Poor Barold???” Taako heard her voice loud and clear through the door even though he was halfway down the hall.

---

Lup spent an hour with her head under the pillow, an unrequited love playlist from fantasy Spotify playing on her phone, trying to fill the hole in her heart when all of a sudden her door burst open and Barry flew in, panting heavily like he had just run all the way here from his house.

“Lup!! Are you okay? Taako said you had a science emergency and you needed help right away or you were going to fail all your classes and die and now that I’m saying this out loud it sounds completely and totally fake.”

Lup took the pillow off of her head and turned to face him. “Barry, what the fuck is going on?”

“I could ask you two the same thing.” Taako’s voice boomed ominously from behind Barry who moved into the room to let him in. “I am done, finished, with the two of you. Neither of you are allowed to leave this room until I am satisfied with the results. Here’s some granola bars.” He purposefully aimed for Lup’s head and a couple of them bounced off. “Ciao.”

Taako left and shut the door behind him before either of them could say another word. Barry’s face was flushed red and he was still sweating from his run. “What is he talking about, Lup?”

She sighed and her voice got quiet. “Barry, I don’t want to go to the awards ceremony with Greg Grimaldis.”

If Lup had been paying any less attention she wouldn’t have noticed the light in his eyes return and the smile dance across his lips. “Yeah?” He cleared his throat, trying to cover up his happiness at that statement, then he sighed deeply. “I don’t want you to go to the awards ceremony with Greg Grimaldis.”

She smiled. “Yeah?”

“Of course not, Lup.” He moved to the bed, sitting down next to her. “I want you to come to the dance with us. We’ve gone through our whole lives together, I don’t want the first dance I go to to be without you. Who else am I going to make fun of people with?”

“Taako.”

“You know he’s going to be hanging on Kravitz all night.”

“True.” There was a brief silence. “Barry, is the only reason you want me to come is so you have someone to make fun of people with?”

Several knocks came from the closed door, making both Barry and Lup jump. “Barry I swear if you fuck this up I will cut up all of your jeans.”

Lup threw a pillow against the door. “Go away, you prick!” She turned back to Barry, his face bright red. “What does he mean by that?”

Sighing again, Barry takes out his phone and opens it. “Lup, I don’t know how to say it. But I have something that hopefully will get the meaning across. I was going to show this to you but then I saw you with Greg Grimaldis and I -” Lup put a finger up to his lips silencing him.

“What is it?”

“It’s, uh, a song. I wrote it. It’s called ‘Endless Lup’.”

He pressed play on the song and Lup was immediately transfixed. Barry could only play the piano and definitely couldn’t sing so there weren't any lyrics to follow but she could feel his affection for her nonetheless. She sat there, mouth slightly agape with tears in her eyes until the song ended. Neither of them spoke for several moments.

“Barry, that’s -”

“It’s too much, I’m sorry.” He turned away from her, running his hand through his hair.

Wordlessly, she touched his shoulder and turned him back towards her. “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

He flushed. “Good, because I wrote it for you.”

“Lup if you don’t fucking kiss this poor man, I will!!”

“Is that a promise?” Barry yelled back before Lup tackled him, bridging the distance between them.

@blupjeansweek2021

#blupjeansweek2021 #barry bluejeans #lup #taz balance #barry is both of the twins best friends

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.28

Lance looked pathetic as he sipped his bag of blood. Coran had taken a small amount in a syringe to inject Lance with pain medication. Whatever had been in it sent Lance loopy. He’d turned into a babbling mess under Keith’s watchful eye, Coran playing along with Lance’s mumblings much to Keith’s annoyance. The man wanted his Mami. Normally Keith was against kidnapping senior citizens, but Lance was really hurting and he couldn’t stay by his side. Coran ushering him out the room once Lance had finally fallen asleep, blood bag still between his teeth as he did.

Walking on the balls of his feet in an attempt to keep his footsteps light, Keith made his way into the kitchen, Allura beaming at him as he entered

“Good news, I take it?”

“There’s nothing good about Lance being sick”

Coran clamped a hand on Keith’s shoulder

“Never you mind, boy. He’ll be fit as a fiddle once these symptoms subside”

“I’m sick of this. He’s sick. He’s like sick sick. What’s happening now?”

“Well, lets take a seat then have a little talk about it. Allura, tea if you will”

The two of them seemed comfortable in Lance’s home. It irked Keith that Allura knew where everything was, she using matching cups and saucers like Lance would have. Taking Lance’s usual seat, because fuck Coran and Allura, Keith was no in the mood for the tea placed before him

“It’s chamomile”

Like that meant something to him. Tea was tea. You put a teabag in and that was that

“It’ll help soothe your nerves”

“What nerves?”

Allura giggled at him

“Your nerves over Lance, silly. He’s going to okay”

“He didn’t look very okay”

And he hadn’t wanted to be alone. Keith really should be back in the spare room making sure Lance was resting soundly

“That’s because his body is going through changes”

He got that... and that Lance was a breeder, meaning his body was changing but he didn’t get it at the same time. Coran took over the talk

“Lance’s body is changing to bear children. It’s happening faster than we expected, but he’s perfectly fine”

“He’s not fine. He’s sick and he’s in pain. And you didn’t help by making him smell my blood. He didn’t want to. He’s been trying his hardest, and you made me trick him”

“Ah, yes, well, for his own sake that was unavoidable. He needs to eat, no matter how ill he feels. I’m sure you are a great help to him”

“I didn’t even know what to do. I barely wiped his back before he was apologising”

Keith crossed his arms and glared at the steaming teacup before him. Coran and Allura were both being annoying.

“That’s because he cares for you”

Pulling out the chair, Allura sat to his right. Keith letting his cranky side show

“No, he doesn’t”

“He does. You two have such remarkable compatibility with your quintessence”

“Enough with that! What does it even mean? Lance is a vampire and I’m a hunter. Everything’s gone to shit. First Shiro dumps me here. Then Lance keeps getting sick. Miriam has a fall. Luis admits he reported his own fucking he reported in his own brother. Lance turns into a bat. And now he’s sick again. I’m sick of it. He hasn’t done anything wrong. He tried to save my life and he’s suffering, while you and Coran decide now is the perfect time for a tea party!”

Keith could have punched Allura for still smiling. Why wasn’t she angry?

“I understand it must be hard. But we cannot stop the changes. He’s strong, you know. He was tortured when he was turned, by his sires. He’s kept everyone he’s ever met since at a distance. Allowing himself friendships, let alone having someone living with him, is a large step. You could say he’s waited the last 36 years for a friend that knew him and didn’t judge him for it. He’s got such a sweet soul. The transition would be easier with fresh blood, the life is so much more alive when fresh, but he will never feed from you without permission. He’d never feed from you when offered either. He thinks rather highly of you”

Allura didn’t seem capable of giving straight answers. She looked enough like Coran to also be a fae. They both had the same tapered ears, and aura around them. Not a glowy aura, but a feeling

“If he did, he wouldn’t have tried to hide he was sick”

“Keith, Lance fears burdening you more than he already has. He doesn’t want pity or sympathy. He doesn’t want to draw even closer to you. He fears you leaving, so he’s hardening his heart so it won’t hurt when you do”

“You make it sound like we’ve known each other for years, not weeks”

“Sometimes a day or two is all it takes to decided what a person means to you”

Their first few days together had been shit. So he’d always mean shit to Lance if he followed Allura’s chain of thought

“You are allowed to befriend him, and him you. Romantical feelings can develop quite rapidly when your quintessence is so compatible”

“What now? Who said anything about romance?”

Allura sighed softly

“I misspoke. I simply mean to say that if you wish to pursue a romantic relationship with Lance...”

“I don’t”

“It’s alright to...”

“I don’t have those feelings for Lance. Stop making this into something it isn’t. There’s nothing there. He’s weird and he’s dead. We’re stuck together so whatever we’re feeling is because of that. I wouldn’t date him, even if he was the last man alive”

“I see I’ve upset you. Lance is quite fond of you, to hear you speak like that would certainly upset him”

“Because I call him weird and dead?”

He pretty much did that every day. Lance ragged on him just as much in return

“Yes. He is very sensitive about such topics. Perhaps leaving him in your care was too much”

“Allura, that is enough. Keith, please understand that what we were trying to say is that even through friendship, or something more, we would support the two of you. Matters of the heart are a complicated thing. Lance has lost many people he cares about along the way and remembers them all. He is wise and he is brave. He worked out from early age that to survive he had to hide large pieces of himself away. With you, he can be more open about those things. You are a great presence in his life”

“You make it sound like he has feelings for me”

“Perhaps he does”

Keith shook his head. Their “friendship” was complicated enough as it was. He felt as if Coran and Allura were pressuring him into something with Lance, which was the last thing Lance needed right now. He was sick and vulnerable. Besides, he didn’t have those feelings for Lance. He didn’t know what he felt, but it was nothing like romance. He was still trying to cope with the changes in his body. Once Shiro returned, he was going to request a medical to find out what was going on with his heart. The racing and the weird beats weren’t normal. He’d been in plenty of heart racing situations, but none made his chest physically ache, like it did for no good reason when Lance was around. His moods were as up and down as Lance’s. He felt sure that Lance’s bite had done something to change him physically. It was the only explanation for what was happening with his heart.

“How long’s he going to sleep for?”

“A few hours. He needs the rest. These changes are hard on his body, as well as his mind. If he’s in pain, you can try a combination of ibuprofen and a few drops of blood. Blood will help his body absorbed the painkillers, so make sure you don’t give him straight painkillers, or they’ll be ineffective”

“Wait. You’re leaving me in charge of looking after him? I don’t know how to help him”

“You can’t take away the physical pain, but your presence will help keep him calm”

“He wanted his Mami, not me”

Coran sighed softly

“Poor Miriam. She’s such a kind woman. She’s always been on Lance’s side. Lance wouldn’t have told her about Luis...”

Luis deserved to stand in a nest of fire ants for what he’d done to his brother

“Nope. That reminds me, has he always been like that?”

“Yes and no. Lance’s family all went through quite a lot after Lance was turned”

“He asked me the other day if I could find out whether Rolo and Nyma are still around”

“Fortunately, they are not, as far as I know. For a period I did keep an eye out for signs of them, but the last records are from nearly two decades ago. They’ve either wised up, or they were executed. They were listed as violent offenders, and scheduled for termination, but they’d left my jurisdiction by then”

That was good. The world didn’t need Nyma and Rolo. Though Keith was annoyed he didn’t get to kill the pair of them himself

“I’ll let him know. Maybe Shiro will know something more”

Allura took a sip of her tea, before carefully saying

“Keith, think about it carefully before you decide. There are somethings in life that you can’t unknow. We have no information on if their deaths did indeed occur. Telling Lance that they may still be out there may not be the best thing for him right now”

“He needs some kind of closure”

“Which, without facts, isn’t possible right now. Now, we need to be leaving. I’m afraid our work never seems to be done. We’ll send someone to check in with you once the weekend has passed. I’m sure you two must have plans?”

“Pidge has plans. Lance is going if he isn’t fully recovered”

Allura laughed at him. She laughed, and seeing it was straight after Keith had spoken, the only way to interpret it was that she was laughing at him. The hunter still didn’t understand how she could giggle and laugh like it was nothing. Maybe human lives didn’t matter so much when you spent your time dealing with supernatural creatures

“You sound like a concerned parent. Oh, Keith. I think I quite like you”

“Then why do you keep making fun of me?”

That sobered Allura right up

“I’m terribly sorry. That was not my intent in the slightest. I do think you and Lance quite compliment each other. I am struggling to contain my happiness over him finding an understanding friend, someone who understands him and has such compatible quintessence... I never thought it’d happen for Lance, so I can barely keep from smiling. I do believe you two will become very close”

“Is that a fae thing?”

“A touch of foresight, and a belief. Please reach out if you require anything”

Keith didn’t want to. Not when Allura and Coran were both so damn weird. What happened to people talking simply, without all these added meanings that seemed to go over his head

“I don’t have a phone number... I was going to borrow Lance’s phone and call Coran, but then both of you showed up”

“Here we go my boy. Direct line. Call anytime and you’ll be answered”

Coran drew a business card out of seemingly nowhere. Passing it over, the business card was for the bookshop side of things. Some help that was... Coran didn’t seem the kind of man who’d be above ground all that often

“Thanks... are you sure... that he’s to be okay? All of this feels kind of sudden, and now you’re both suddenly leaving... What do I do if he gets worse? What if he like... snaps?”

“Keep him calm and keep him fed... Monitor that fever and know you’re doing the best you can for him right now”

“That’s it?”

“I’m afraid so. It’s quite disheartening that we cannot do more for poor Lance. We can only guide him through his change. Now, I have one other thing for you. I believe you had no money of your own, so I’ve set this up for your account. It’s activated and ready to go”

Coran pulled another card out of his pocket and passed it over. Keith’s eyes widening at the bank card in his name

“I would say I’m surprised, but I think I’ve hit my limit on surprises. Thanks for this, now I have to convince Lance to let me use his car”

“I’m sure you’ll have no problems. Now, as Allura said, we must be going. No need to stand, we’ll see ourselves out”

Keith felt like he should thank them, they had come to Lance’s aid, but he was also kind of preoccupied with everything Allura and Coran had said. Leaving him sitting at the table, Keith really wanted to call Shiro and fill him in on everything that happened. His brother was such a huge part of his life, but now he was too busy to be there. Besides, Shiro would probably worry over Lance, when there wasn’t anything they could do about the pain of his body changing... and Keith didn’t want to have a conversation where talking about Lance’s bits and pieces was likely to mean talking about what was happening below his belt line. That was icky. Not that Keith hadn’t shared a communal shower before, but thinking about Lance’s dick was sure to only leave him feeling weird around the man. Seeing him shirtless had been weird enough as it was. He probably needed to get back to Lance, so Lance wouldn’t wake up alone and scared. Being a vampire was a lot more complicated than Keith had spent all these years thinking it was.

*

With Lance sleeping, Keith had wound up on his bed playing with his camera. He’d sat, paced, sat, then paced until he grew frustrated, before throwing himself down on his bed and pulling out his camera. Blue had come to inspect what was happening to her human, then run off when Keith went to pat her. Cats were so weird. He thought Blue had warmed up to him, but apparently not. Staring at the photo on the screen, he wished he could have seen the cavern the way Lance had. He’d probably been able to differentiate between the lines of sediment with his weird vampire powers. Lance had seen enough to know there were fish down there, which Keith found weird. He could only hazard a guess that they’d been introduced down there as emergency food reserves, then lived down there undisturbed when the mine was decommissioned. The Third World War had been a major turning point in industrialisation. Technology coming along in leaps and bounds since. The hunter still wasn’t sure that the mine hadn’t made Lance ill, seeing Lance had waded out into what had to be freezing cold water.

Sighing to himself, Keith looked over to Lance. The tea towel across his forehead would need changing by now. The vampire still looked wiped out by fever, and the scent in the room had definitely grown sweeter. Climbing off his bed, Keith’s knees nearly buckled as he tripped over air. Clumsiness coming from nowhere. Taking the tea towel off Lance’s forehead, Keith jumped as Lance’s eyes snapped open, staring right at him

“Lance?”

Reaching out, Lance grabbed him by the wrist, Keith being pulled forcibly forward as Lance rolled away from him. The vampire’s eyes closing again as Keith tried to free his wrist, only to find Lance’s grip too tight. Not physically tight around his wrist, but his hand was firm as if his muscles had seized that way

“Lance? Hey, let me go”

Half kneeling on the bed, Keith continued to try freeing his hand. Lance seemed to have fallen back to sleep, Keith not getting his hand back anytime soon. His heart was doing that racing thing, Keith sighing loudly over now being trapped. He didn’t have a choice.

Against his will, mostly, Keith realised he was going to have to wait until Lance woke up again. Climbing up on the bed, he slipped under the blanket, forced to spoon around Lance’s sleeping form thanks to his hold. Keith wasn’t used to this. He’d bunked with Shiro before, even cuddled up behind his brother like this, especially after the loss of Adam, when Shiro’s PTS got to the point he couldn’t sleep alone. But that was Shiro. His brother. Not a big sick vampire baby, like Lance. Locking his jaw, Keith ignored the way Lance wriggled back against him. His slim body seemed to meld far too well against Keith’s... something he was acutely aware of given how insistent Allura had been that they’d be something more than whatever they were now. Friends hugged friends. Keith could totally see Hunk spooning up with Lance like this, even if Lance seemed more the type to spoon. He’d be a cuddler. Like a big dopey dog or something. With his eyes scrunched, Keith tried to calm his racing heart. There was nothing wrong with this. Friends hugged friends when they were down. There was no need to complicate things by over thinking. Nope. This was fine. Everything was fine... perfectly fine...

#oncebittentwicestupid #once bitten twice stupid #ashratherose

[missfiatlux]

Chapter 5

read on reddit

Down in the Nightlife, Plutonium awoke.

“Sir,” said the messenger who had woken him. “I am sorry to report that instead of the two damned souls we were expecting, we have received 108.”

Plutonium’s face transfigured in wrath. “What the hell? Do these people think the Nightlife is some sort of ultra-adaptable cloud cuckoo land? No! I’ve got a fucking schedule to run, budgets to balance, vendors to pay, and various deities to appease! I’m under immense stress, and these Daylife folks think they can just up and die any fucking time? I’m half a mind to turn them away, but noooo, ‘we can’t let dead people wander around through the Daylife, it’s bad for morale.’ Who the fuck cares about the fucking Daylife? Not me!”

Plutonium repeated this rant nearly every day, only varying where he placed the profanity. As such, it had somewhat lost its scariness.

The messenger began again. “Sir, reports say that the change of plans was caused by a single individual, a boy-vampire named Axel Johnston. He caused his car to briefly grow aerofoils and fly over the Grand Canyon. At the same time he caused a plane carrying 108 passengers to spontaneously detach from its wings and fall into the canyon. That’s where most of the damned are from.”

Here was a problem Plutonium could solve. “Put a bounty on Johnston’s head,” he bellowed. “Five hundred million! Dead or alive!”

“Sir, are you sure? This Johnston character seems awfully powerful. Perhaps he can help you regain favor with the gods.” The messenger felt, for the first time, that he was extremely smart.

Plutonium stroked his chin. “Excellent thinking. Make sure it is clear that the bounty will be awarded only if he is captured hale and hearty.”

The messenger nodded and dashed off. Later on that day, signs went up all over the Nightlife, signs with Axel’s face (a creative rendition by the messenger, replete with horns and a mohawk), and information about how to collect the bounty. The souls of the damned observed these signs with interest. Being dead is not all that gripping, after all.

***

Drip. Drip. Drip. Hubcap listened to the persistent dripping of water out of the gutter, as she gazed at a newly posted sign on the wall. Down in the Nightlife, the air always smelled damp, and frequent fogs rolled through. Hubcap had never seen it rain here, but anything that stayed down here long enough would eventually get soaked by condensation. The sign was already wrinkling in the humidity, as was Hubcap’s white tuxedo. Dew was forming on the hellhounds’ slick black fur.

“FIVE HUNDRED MILLION FOR AXEL JOHNSTON, CAPTURED ALIVE,” read the sign. The picture showed a boy with a mohawk and two horns. Hubcap snorted. This was clearly a creation of someone’s fevered imagination. In her years of experience at bounty hunting for the Nightlife, it was quite common for the pictures on the signs to bear little or no resemblance to the person they were aiming to depict. While this initially caused her great confusion, she had now learned to contact Plutonium himself for the necessary details.

Other details about Axel included that he was a vampire, and extremely dangerous. Apparently, he had killed 108 people in a plane crash. This was either exaggerated or completely misrepresented. Hubcap tore the damp sign off the wall and stuffed it in her pocket. “Let’s go,” she said to her three hellhounds. It was time to find Plutonium.

***

“Hubcap, it is good to see you again,” boomed Plutonium. “Here to talk to a dead relative? Want to know your future? Need a divine favor?”

Plutonium knew it was none of these things. It never was. Hubcap was, for someone who had managed to make their way to the Nightlife, surprisingly pragmatic.

Hubcap smiled. “Oh, no. I am here to inquire about this wanted poster for Axel Johnston. This picture is... not an accurate depiction, is it?” She held up the imaginative poster.

“Your killer instincts are correct,” Plutonium said. “My sources say that Axel Johnston is medium height, his hair is brown, and he has vampire teeth.”

“So where is he now?”

“He’s on the move, but I think he’s somewhere in Utah.”

“Great,” said Hubcap, moving to leave. “By the way, you might think about making your wanted posters more helpful. That way you can save time by simply supplying the relevant information upfront.”

Plutonium looked somewhat hurt. “I didn’t know you disliked talking to me that much!”

Hubcap waved dismissively as she left. This was why Plutonium had lost favor with the other gods. He lost his temper frequently, was inefficient, and acted like an incorrigible flirt. Hubcap would bet all the money of the reward that this bounty had something to do with a plot to regain favor with the powers that be.

Still, obtaining the reward would be no easy feat. Axel sounded wily and smart, especially since he was already on the move. Possibly he knew that he was being pursued. In fact, he probably knew that the Nightlife existed, and could be engaging in his own ploy of trying to obtain whatever it was he wanted.

Hubcap tried to think what vampires usually wanted. A lot of them were trying to reclaim their lost kingdoms. It was kind of romantic, really; lots of kids dreamed of discovering a new land, and the urge to recover a lost kingdom seemed like the same kind of impulse for discovery, but transmogrified into something that usually made Plutonium angry, which is where Hubcap came in. Usually she felt no qualms about her vocation, but this newest case reminded her of fear.

***

A long time ago, Hubcap captured a vampire named Talfie Roskov.

Talfie was on Plutonium’s radar because she kept trying to strike deals with him to “liberate” a certain soul from the Nightlife. She brought him valuable objects and offered various services in exchange for one of the damned. Things were a lot more complicated than Talfie seemed to assume, however. First, the damned didn’t have bodies. If they were to be brought back to the Daylife, they would have to be bound to some object or person. Second, all the gods agreed that death was sacrosanct and not to be trifled with. Plutonium, forever trying to curry favor among them, was thus reluctant to help Talfie, no matter how noble her cause seemed to be.

The biggest consideration, however, was that there was no compelling reason to bring any of the damned back to the Daylife. You’d either have to exchange your own soul for their soul (hence becoming one of the damned yourself) or find someone else who was willing to exchange their soul (hence, you losing a dear friend, for who else but a dear friend would give their very soul?) Alternately, you could bind the soul to some inanimate object, but this presented the issue that inanimate objects cannot communicate, and are unsatisfying as companions.

Given these limitations, Talfie was either wholly illogical, or completely misunderstood. It was possible that her reasons for bringing back the dead were far different from what they appeared. When she first heard of the story, Hubcap thought that it was kind of like the classic tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, but what if Talfie, like Hubcap, was just a mercenary?

It didn’t really matter. Talfie eventually got tired of fruitless negotiations, and she snuck in a pack of playing cards. She found the soul that she was looking for, and she performed some rite to bind it to her deck of cards. By the time Plutonium found out, Talfie was long gone.

Chasing Talfie was the thrill of Hubcap’s life. The hellhounds ran, and sniffed, and howled, covering tens of miles of ground a day; Hubcap camped outside, sleeping in shifts with the hounds. At the end of the fifth day of hunting, Hubcap had Talfie cornered in a shabby, abandoned barn.

Hubcap was quite curious what a deck of cards with a soul looked like. So while she cuffed Talfie, she asked to see them.

Wind whistled through the cracked slats of the barn. “You’d know it as soon as you saw it,” said Talfie. “The cards are always warm. They’re ornate, you might think they’re tarot, but they’re not. Some of them have foil on their faces. I don’t know how to describe them, but they look like they’re all from some different, alternate universe, clinging to each other tightly so as not to be alone in a strange land, if you know what I mean. I lost it a long time ago.”

Hubcap shivered, then snapped the handcuffs closed. “Sorry to hear that.” She felt like a cat with a dead bird in her mouth.

***

After taking Talfie to Plutonium, Hubcap went back to her hotel room and dumped a pile of chicken entrails in the bathtub for the hellhounds to eat. She took off her dirty tuxedo jacket and sat on the bed. The excitement of the hunt was quickly dissipating, replaced with a strange, morose drowsiness.

Hubcap had seen Talfie’s deck of cards before. She had, in her own way, unintentionally asked it for a favor. And this favor had been granted. It was to this deck of cards that she owed her hellhounds. Plutonium had never asked her how she’d gotten to the Nightlife, and she hoped he never would. Otherwise she would have to make up a lie… but she was too tired for that now…

***

Hopefully Axel was one of the delusory vampires, the ones whose greatest ambition was a very, very small one, a desire to reclaim rather than make new. If not, well, Hubcap would do her very, very best to avoid getting mixed up with it. She was only into magic for the money.

#heartbreaker #hellhounds #hubcap #bounty hunter #white tuxedo #nightlife #chapter 5

[progressivestupidity]

IZ week 2020

so i wasn’t gonna do this because I didn’t think the prompts were very good for writing to, but I remembered the last day’s prompt was “role swap” so I decided to do something small and quick for it. this is all 7 days in one post. the first and last ones are drabbles and one of them is an au idea

@invader-zim-week​ here u go!!!

Day 1. Angst or Fluff 

Zim’s denial skills are god tier, but even they have their limits.

Drabble. I think this is the turning point for my eventual found family au

“When are you going to get it through your thick head that the Tallests aren’t coming?” Dib flings his arms out wide in his exasperation

“They’re just…!” Zim fumbles a bit, clenching and unclenching his fists. “The Armada is a million light years away! It takes time to travel that far, obviously. It took me six of your months to get here from Conventia and the Massive is further away from here now than that. They’ll come! You’ll see! And then you’ll be sorry!” Zim’s face is drawn tight. He’s tense all over, shoulders drawn up to his jaw, antennae pressed flat to his head, and normally Dib prides himself on reading Zim like an open book, but he’s too far gone in his own annoyance to see the warning signs.

It’s because he doesn’t see these red flags that Dib proceeds to stick his own foot in his mouth with his next words. “Maybe if you weren’t such an idiot and opened your eyes, you’d see the truth—that they dumped you here to get rid of you.”

“YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT?” Zim explodes, planting his tiny hands in Dib’s chest and shoving. The boy lands painfully on his ass. “I’m not stupid, Dib.” His name is spat like an insult. “I know they don’t care about me! Why do you think I try so hard?”

Dib gapes at Zim, looking up at him for once, stunned into silence. “I.” He swallows. “You know?”

“Of course, I know.” Zim’s voice is a low hiss and his eyes are narrowed to slits. “You don’t get banished and then just get over it. You don’t get put on trial to defend your life, forced to relive your worse mistakes, and get sentenced to death, only to be saved by freak miracle, and never acknowledge it happened.” Zim takes a deep breath and crosses his arms over his chest. Dib supposes he means for it to look intimidating, but it looks more like he’s holding himself together. “I’ve always known.”

“Why do you try so hard then? If you’ve always known there was no point?” Dib has to ask, has to know, has to hear the words from Zim’s own mouth.

Zim purses his lips and turns away. “There was always a point.” He falls silent for a moment, one antenna twitching up a bit in thought. “I just… I thought if I was just a little better, if I accomplished something important for once, that… I don’t know, that maybe I’d.” He pauses and grits his teeth. “Maybe if I actually managed to take over this filthy planet I’d be worth something for once.”

Day 2. Be Gay Do Crime (LGBTQA+ headcannons)

Dib is bi/pan/demi-ro, Gaz is lesbian, Zim is ace/demi-ro

Headcanons.

Dib seems like the kind of guy that would both take whatever kind of relationship he could get, but also appreciate it. Dib isn’t afraid to work for what he wants and isn’t afraid of things that are “not normal” so I see him being the type to not care about the gender of whoever he eventually decides to date. However, because Dib’s been burned in the past, he would need a deep and sincere emotional relationship to see someone as a potential romantic partner.

Gaz is just a big lesbian. Girls, man.

Zim is ace all the way baby!!! He’s just not interested, and sure, part of that is me projecting, but it just feels right for Zim to just… not care. He has no interest and doesn’t care for sexual attraction regardless of whether or not Irkens do/can/will have sex or not. On the other hand, Zim has expressed a softer side before and I can see him being able to maybe eventually develop romantic feelings for someone if he actually manages to get close enough to them for those kinds of feelings to even emerge. It would take a lot of time and a deep, meaningful friendship, but Zim has shown he’s capable of love. He just has to let himself feel it.

  Day 3. Fandom Appreciation

Found family fuck yeah

Headcanons.

I’m still in the process of thinking about how I wanna go about my found family au so here’s just some initial ideas

After ETF, Zim self isolates for a bit. The florpus hole was his Last Ditch Effort plan and had it succeeded, he knew he would have been destroyed too. He was okay with it. He had made peace with it. However, it failed, and now he’s forced to reflect on said failure

The Massive doesn’t escape the florpus. They’re gone, completely. If they the ship does manage to get out, it’s not in one piece

I initially couldn’t decide if The Trial should come Before ETF or After but I think im gonna say before so the Massive doesn’t have to come back lmao

Before too long, Zim jumps back into the planning/scheming swing of things, but his ideas are never more than petty crimes and being a huge annoyance

Dib gets really annoyed with him and they have a big argument

Zim finally admits to knowing of his own Defectiveness

Dib reluctantly feels bad for him and backs off a bit to let Zim have his space

Zim, however, sees this as a betrayal and redoubles his efforts to get his attention

Somewhere along the way, Skoodge comes back and Zim backs off of Dib a bit, having someone else to focus attention on

Dib eventually begins to offer Zim his hand in friendship (phrased as a truce at first) and they finally make steps towards getting along

They realize they actually really like being friends

Zim eventually realizes that he’s made a life for himself, outside of the Empire

Eventually Zim, Skoodge, GIR, Minimoose, Dib, and Gaz form their own little family and explore space and hunt cryptids

(I love cryptid hunter and space exploration aus holy shit)

Day 4. If IZ had a different setting/time period

Cyberpunk??? Sure

Potential idea maybe.

Cyberpunk dystopian future

Aliens and humans intermingle, both on and off Earth

The Irken Empire has gotten bigger

Technology is advanced and cybernetics are widely known/produced

Idk man I don’t know a lot about cyberpunk, maybe this should be more for the aesthetic

Day 5. Aesthetic

Big shrug man idk

Headcanons, thoughts.

I’m a big fan of fashion Zim, and whenever I get the chance I give him clothes that are both cute and comfortable

Galaxy print leggings are a personal favorite of mine to give him

One time I wrote a little ficlet/oneshot where he wore a skirt. I should publish that some day

Uhhhhhh okay so. Dib has veeeeeery big early 2000s emo/punk vibes tbh

Scene kid GIR always makes me laugh

Gaz could pull off pastel goth like no one’s business

I’ve been here long enough to witness emo/scene hair wig Zim and his eventual fall lmfao

Pretty much everyone that redesigned them back in the day gave Zim emo kid hair that fall perfectly over one eye it was WILD

 Day 6. What if IZ was a different Genre?

Uhhhh does “fantasy instead of scifi” count?

Potential idea maybe. (oops it ended up being a fantasy/modern magic au haha ooooops)

Instead of being an alien, I had the idea of, maybeeeeee Irkens are like. Elves maybe, or perhaps some kind of fae. (I don’t know much about fae, oops)

Okay bear with me here, this is all coming together in real time.

The Irkens (which is what I’m gonna call their clan or faction or subrace or whatever) still want to be the rulers or something over the humans/other mystical beings. This world of magic is hidden from humans and they live blissfully unaware. There are invaders all over the place, using magic and glamors to trick humans into thinking they’re also humans. Zim is one such invader and just to happens to end up in Dib’s town, whereupon he enrolls in Dib’s school, pretending to be a transfer student.

I have no idea why or how the Irkens invade or what methods they use, but since my biggest experience with elves is through DND, I’m going to say they’re functionally similar to certain DND elf races.

So anyway, Zim ends up in Dib’s class and Zim’s glamor just Doesn’t Work on Dib for whatever reason (maybe Dib passed his Wisdom saving throw while literally everyone else failed, idk) and so Dib can immediately see Zim for what he is.

Dib is still into paranormal type stuff, though in his world, he’s less about cryptids and aliens and more about the magical species/world(s) that he KNOWS exists. His big goal in his au is similar to canon in that he wants to expose it all for recognition and love from his father.

Zim, meanwhile, he just wants to prove himself, just like canon. I can’t decide how I want the Irken hierarchy to go in this au—that’s something to think about later, when I have more time—but whatever it is, Zim is either a) not very good at it, b) not suited for it, c) ridiculed for not fitting in to it, or d) a combination of any or all of these things. (or secret option e) he rejects it but has no where else to go. On the other hand, it maybe be none of these things.)

GIR is here too though he’s probably not a robot. Maybe he’s another kind of magical being, or, hell, maybe he’s just Zim’s little brother. I’d be okay with that.

Gaz can also see through glamors but she just doesn’t care. Tak shows up at some point to get revenge, and Skoodge also shows up at some point to stay with Zim and be his friend.

Zim is bad at blending in at first, but he eventually Does get better, since he’s not totally isolated from other Irkens here and he also doesn’t Look like an alien.

(I’m thinkin’ elves in this au look Mostly human but with a few differences. Since I’m biased and this is MY fantasy world, damnit, elves are just. Really Pretty. Ethereal and elegant and graceful (for the most part—there are always exceptions) and they’re also great at magic. Maybe Zim isn’t all that great at magic, I dunno. I’ll figure something out.)

This ended up being less of a genre change and more of a whole ass au, lol oops

Day 7. Role swap

Chanting: human zim au human zim au human zim au human zi

Drabble. This is for an ongoing species swap au that i’ve had in development for the last few years. i haven’t posted anything for it yet, but I’ve thought about it a lot

Dib freezes as Zim points the plastic water gun at his head. Zim’s eyes are narrowed, lips pursed, and he adjusts his grip almost nervously. Behind him, Gir is holding a bucket full of water balloons and a pair of neon green star shaped sunglasses. It’d be cute if Dib wasn’t aware of how painful Earth water is to his Irken skin.

Zim finally lowers his gun slightly. “I want some answers, alien.” He looks Dib over with critical eyes. “Who are you really, and why are you here?” He reaches back and Gir hands him a water balloon with a big smile. “And you better tell the truth or I’ll bust this over your big head.”

Dib grimaces and watches the balloon. “My name Dib, and I’m a scientist. I’m an Irken, from Irk, and I’m here to learn more about life on this planet.” He holds his hands up, hoping to placate the human gesture for surrender. “I’m not here to harm you or anyone else, promise.”

Zim huffs. “Yeah right. I bet you just came here to laugh at the locals.” He puts on a mocking voice and waves the gun and balloon as he speaks. “‘Stupid, stinking humans. They can’t even travel beyond their own moon, yet. What morons. I bet they descended from pigs with how horrible and stupid they are.’” He jams the gun against Dib’s chest. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Dib bites his lower lip and looks away. He can’t deny he hasn’t thought something similar since arriving on Earth, but Zim didn’t have to be so crude and blunt about it.

The two are at a standoff for almost a minute before Zim blows out a long sigh and steps back. He turns to put the balloon back in the bucket, gives Gir a pat on the head, and shoots Dib one last glare. “Stay away from me, Dib. I have enough problems to deal with without having to worry about whether or not it’s safe for my brother to go to school or if I need to watch my back while walking my dog.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” Dib says, a little put out.

Zim scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. I know better than to believe it.” He turns and tries to smile at Gir but it comes out a little twisted and sad. “C’mon Gir. Let’s go home and get Minimoose and take him to that dog park you like so much.”

Gir gasps and lets out a cheer. “Can we go get ice cream afterwards?”

Zim gives a little laugh, smile turning a bit more genuine. “Yeah, sounds good.”

As they walk away Dib can’t help but wonder why he ever thought Zim was an Irken himself.

#izweek2020 #invader zim #invader zim week #zim #dib #role swap #species swap #iz fantasy au #to be named later #i had nooooo idea how to write about the aesthetics prompt #it really isnt a good writing prompt #tho it's given some FANTASTIC art #i wasnt gonna do this at all bc the prompts arent very writer friendly #but i wrote the angst thing and then i wanted to write some stuff for the role swap #and now here we are #enjoy!!! #mine #kiera writes fics

[chaoticspacefam]

OC Music Meme

I was tagged for this by @actualanxiousswampwitch ! Thank you & sorry it took so long, didn’t have time to write this out before I left for holiday stuff so here we go! I shall tag: @actualanxiousswampwitch (go on give us another one XD), @a-muirehen​ , @kyber-heart​ , @thedinalixlegacy​ (no pressure as always, I know I’m kinda late now sksjkshskhs!) and anyone else who wants to do this, yes, I promise I mean you!

art is by @ ocellifera on deviantART! :D

Let’s do Aria this time, shall we! Since her playlist is the second-longest, and her and Vano’s ship playlist is the longest, we’ll have the most (probable options! Long post so goin’ under a cut. Additional TW’s for: drugs, alcohol, alcoholism, drug addiction and murder, in case I’ve forgotten to add it to the song-specific sections. If you click past this cut, know that this is what you may find there.

reminds you of them most: It was super hard to pick just three for hers, there were so many others I wanted to include here, but couldn’t, as I wanted to make sure I included songs that covered as much of her over-arching characterisation as I could. Honourable mentions to: Miss Jackson - Panic! At The Disco feat. LOLO, Wilson (Expensive Mistakes) - Fall Out Boy, Beekeeper - Keaton Henson, and Bones Of A Rabbit - Young Heretics, which can all be found (and more) on her Spotify Playlist - catch-all warning for: sex, drugs, violence and murdering of parents applies here, be aware her playlist is very dark, just as dark as Rai’s but with differing subject matter, proceed with caution if you find anything like that triggering!)

You’re Going Down - Sick Puppies :: This one is kinda self-explanatory. I heard it on a Spotify or Youtube shuffle at some point a year or so ago and immediately went “Oh, hey Aria!” so onto her playlist it went XD “Because I'm hyped up out of control If it's a fight, I'm ready to go I wouldn't put my money on the other guy If you know what I know that I know.”  don’t mess with the Tiny Sith, guys, she will put you in the medbay. She’ll do it, she’s done it before ask Vano what happened to the last guy *nods*

Liar - The Arcadian Wild :: This is a relatively “new” song in comparison, which was sent to me by a good rp/writer friend on Discord (who afaik doesn’t have other socials!) that I often discuss plot points etc. with among other things, saying “hey this reminded me of Aria thought you’d like it!”. I listened to it and yep, sure enough, it’s an Aria song. A big part of Aria’s character is that at the start, she really is quite a bad person. She’s nasty, and cantankerous and she really doesn’t care about anybody except for herself (and maybe her dad. A tiny bit.), as things progress, however, while she is still inherently quite rude and selfish, she DOES learn to value other people...provided they are people she cares about, like Vano, and her friends, and so on,  as well as (sometimes, she’s working on it still) taking the blame for her own actions and learning it’s not “weak” or bad to a) admit you care about people, b) make mistakes and c) admit those mistakes and take responsibility for them. "I sense there’s trouble ahead, it’s clear by the signs and warnings. That should tell where all blame is due, So why are they pointing at MY head? [...] I sense deception to come. Honestly, truth and I are never one. 'Cause I am the lying man and I have made you my next victim. I need you to see through my act, to tell me I'm wrong, to take off the mask, or else I'll be left in the lie. And I'll deceive my way straight to demise! Cause I’m not in the right state of mind, I just wish I had strength to admit it. My stubbornness will put up a fight! But I don’t deserve to win it... I’m left in the dark, pondering my mistakes But in the light I swear I will, deny it all...” 

I didn’t mean to post like half the song but woops it’s done so have it anyway lmao

Brutus - The Buttress :: TW: intense violent imagery in the lyrics. This one is very relevant but contains spoilers for upcoming and as of yet unposted/incomplete chapters (as in...like 3 ish chapters time at most) of Creeping Shadows, so I’ll post this quote as “explanation” and let you theorize who it’s about

“My name is Brutus and my name means “heavy” So with a heavy heart I'll guide this dagger into the heart of my Enemy! My whole life you were a teacher and friend to me Please know my actions are not motivated only by envy I too have a destiny! This death will be art! The people will speak of this day from near and afar This event will be history, And I'll be great too! I don't want what you have, I wanna be you!!“

reminds another character of them:

Where’s My Love? - SYML :: (Vano) I think the acoustic version is especially emotional : ))) Vano looked for her for years but couldn’t find her and genuinely thought Aria was dead. You can understand why she was so fucking angry when she found out that was a lie...but at the same time, she just wanted her love to come home :( “Did she run away? Did she run away? I don't know If she ran away, If she ran away, Come back home Just come home“

Mothers - Daughter :: (Myla, her mother) “Love all you need to love before it goes... When your face becomes a stranger’s that I don’t know. You will never remember who I was to you [...] I’m called “mother”, but they’re called “home”.”

Myla raised Aria for the first few years of her life, and really wanted to keep her away from both the Jedi and the Sith but as it became more and more clear that Aria’s Force affinity was as strong as her father’s, the situation rapidly spiralled out of Myla’s control. She tried to hide Aria, but in the end her father Noctis did find them and take Aria to train with the Sith. She didn’t see her daughter again until she was a teenager, suddenly turning up with the task to kill her for treason against the Empire (Myla is not the canon Imp Agent, but follows the general trajectory of the LS!Agent storyline i.e. an agent disillusioned with the Empire who eventually defects to the Republic with the help of the SIS.). Though she’s a Senator on Onderon now, Myla carried a blaster for personal protection and ofc knows how to use it, except...she couldn’t shoot her own daughter and that was all she wrote. I imagine her thought process during her final moments went something like in this song, especially the bit that I highlighted up there.

reminds you of a relationship of theirs, doesn’t have to be romantic, can be paternal, friendly, etc:

Tongues & Teeth - The Crane Wives :: Aria & Vano (Romantic). Aria’s relationship with Vano is incredibly messy and complicated. On one hand, she knows Vano deserves better, but at the same time she doesn’t want her to go anywhere else and it seems like no matter what she does to try and “warn her off” about what a “bad person” she is, Vano keeps coming back anyway. Ergo, this song. "Oh, I will ruin you. I will ruin you. It’s a habit...I can’t help it. I know that you mean so well, but I am not a vessel for your good intent. I will only break your pretty things, I will only wring you dry of everything! But if you’re fine with that, if you’re fine with that [...] You can be mine.”

Colours - Halsey :: Aria & Merak & Ziri (Friendship/Platonic Love) “You’re only happy when your sorry head is filled with dope, I hope you make it to the day you’re 28 years old...”

Aria “coped” (i.e. not very well but she did it) with the guilt of killing her mother and the stress brought on by the night terrors by self-medicating with glitterstims (spice) and alcohol, and this is how Merak in particular remembers her. Though she got clean from spice after they picked up Ziri, she still continued to drink (and still does) quite heavily, though at least it’s easier to manage that habit. Both of them supported her through this the best they could and it’s probably a big reason (other than Merak being Vano’s little brother) that they’re still Aria’s friends to this day, even if she doesn’t actively travel with them anymore.

(honourable mention to Agnes - Glass Animals which also falls under this “category” but I didn’t want this to get too crowded lmao, it is once again a super long post woops) You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid - The Offspring :: Aria & Roan/Darth Noctis (Familial/Familial Love) Listen, he may have taught her very bad emotional habits and turned her into a tiny attack dog, but her father did love & protect her the best way he possibly could. He was very proud of her and always envisioned her taking his place as a Darth one day (and it takes her a longass while, but eventually she does! Congrats dad!). That’s all I’ve got to say about this one 🤷‍♀️ Monster - Willyecho :: Aria & Satele Shan/The Jedi Order (Enemies to Begrudging Respect (eventually) “I can see the truth. No, you don’t have to lie to me. Don’t fill your head with things and think you’re free~ [...] You don’t believe in monsters, do you~?” ”Of course not!” ”Well, I do...” See me change...into something...darker....” My personal favourite from this “round”. It’s not until Ilum that Satele and the Jedi finally realise they have not “converted” Aria as they thought they did, but rather...they’ve had a Sith hiding under their noses, a Sith related to a Dark Councillor well-known for murdering Jedi no less, and that perhaps...the “deaths” she had convinced them were accidental, were in fact, not an accident at all. 😈 Aria, of course, gets her ass thrown in jail for a few years for this lmao When the schtick with the Revanites happens and Theron needs someone who can “negotiate in a civil manner with Sith”, he and his mother agree Aria is the best bet - if it works, the Sith will respond more positively to her than any other Jedi, if they kill her instead then they’re “rid of” her and don’t lose one of their own - when Lana’s point-of-contact happens to be Vano and the pair reunite after another several years apart, Aria refuses to return to the Republic after Yavin IV. By then, she’s developed enough of a begrudging respect for Satele (and vice versa) that the Grand Master lets her go (not that she was willing to try and fight Vano, Ni’kasi, Marr & Lana to try and take Aria prisoner again anyways). They haven’t seen each other since and though Aria is neutral to the Jedi who have joined the Alliance, she doesn’t care for those who are still loyal to the Republic and would rather have nothing to do with them if she can help it.

#swtor #star wars: the old republic #tagged meme #OC music meme #swtor oc: aria saal #jedi consular #ds! jedi consular #jedi consular (sith assassin) #subterfugeverse #swtor shipping #aria/vano #ariano #tw: drugs #tw: drug addiction #tw: alcohol #tw: alcoholism #tw: implied ptsd #tw: violence #lots of angst on this one i'm sorry #i didn't expect aria's to be more angsty than rai's but here we are LMAO #tumblr ate this post right as i was about to queue it when it committed die last night #so uhhh...it might not be as good as the first draft #but i tried to put back as much as i could remember #:'D