#-> au: echoes of typhoon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ydrance · 1 year

Text

draft for the 1st chapter of a Rivetra Outlander-ish AU

Here’s the draft. It’s been sitting on my computer for a while, I like to post finished work but I don’t know when I’ll feel like correcting this so I am posting is as it is, first draft and all. I’m terribly anxious, I needed something to post. I hold that story dear so it should be continued, even if now I am writing another AU after having watched Andor^^’. It’s a draft. I touched the spelling mistakes but left the holes, where I am supposed to search for words, and the strange syntaxes, etc.

Here it begins :

“The shock was rough and harsh, like the last times it happened. She expected it, like she expected the whistling winds in the leaves, the bells chime and that sudden drop like a choir of men or a double bass at its deepest. Then the … being thrown around, like a cackling sound resonating, echo here, echo there reverberating around on all the surfaces with sharp clean shocks before rebounding to another. Like in that car crash when she was little.

So little, like now, like she felt now, so so little in front of the enormity of the time and space she was traveling through, barely acknowledging anything, barely acknowledging she was moving at all or that anything happened. And yet, when with a terrific tug in her stomach she suddenly hit the ground, feeling everything suddenly stopping its wild course and typhoon-like movements, she felt the difference. Before she even opened her eyes, she could feel the difference, in the air, in the very air she breathed and could feel on her skin. It was colder, more piquant than the one she left, the scent too had that more spikey drier harsher tone to it. It was burning through her nostrils and throat and lungs, her whole chest feeling like an icy and spiky air was tearing through it. But it didn’t just physically feel different, it was on a deeper, more deeper level. She just knew, she could just feel it. She traveled, through time, eras, ages. She was back in her time, maybe, she hoped at least.

Slowly she rolled over, propping herself on her forearms and opening her eyes, finally. Her gaze fell upon burnt orange and red leaves, cracked and drier than her lips right now. Moss and soil, some branches and twigs. And her hands, on the ground, trembling a bit. Her whole body was shaking lightly. She focused on her hands, soft skin roughened by work and cold, the skin a mix of lathered and calloused but always so velvety soft. Her nails were a little dirty, the lather of the reins having tainted them with the sweat and the hours of hold, the dust and dirt of her horse. Her knuckles were red of the dry and cold hair, mixed with the past few weeks of humidity, then dry, then humid and dry again.

She finally lifted herself a bit more but kept her gaze resolutely on her hands and arms. From the edge of her vision she could see her sleeves, the ruffles not so very pretty and delicate anymore, at her elbows. She humidified her lips quickly while rising more. She closed her yes, she did not want to see. She did not want to watch around and see it all different. She knew, she could feel, smell, hear, touch even because when she left that same area it wasn’t so buzzy rustling with leaves from the trees and the humid ground.

She opened her eyes, wide to the world. The trees, the branches, the leaves, the rocks, the bushes, the grass, the twigs and bustle on the ground. The stones. All around her were the stones, still standing and still the same even if maybe a little aged, a little marked with the time that passed. Some moss and usage marks on them, a greyish more washed than grey and angles that were more round than sharp. The sky, so blue, the washed blue of autumn going into winter but blue and not grey. It was grey when she left. It had clouds, winds a strong winds, much stronger than the breeze whizzling through the vegetation and through her.

She raised up, to her knees, looking around. She took a hold for a second on her extended fingers, the time to assemble her legs beneath hersef. Her big and long skirts dragging around and tangling around her legs. They were cold and humid too, how long did she spend laying on the ground there before coming to herself again? Or was it during the travel maybe? After all, they did not know what truly happened during those travels, how long it took, where they were during it.

She took a deep breathe, finally fully rising on unsteady legs. She took a few hesitant steps, shaking and shivering a bit, and had to take hold on a nearby stone. Irony, or luck, she did not have anymore gemstones on her. Talking about it the absence of sounds was astounding now that she was paying attention to it. O she could hear the sound of life in the grounds, the trees, the diverse animals around, the wind, her own breathing even. But no wind whistling with bells chiming and a bass at its deepest ; just the absolute silence on that front.

Now she just has to walk to the civilization, with the hope that it is not too far away, she does not know what it is at this time in this area. What if it’s as isolated as back then? Will she be wandering around aimlessly until being able to stumble upon someone camping or hiking around? If she is lucky and the one she’d stumble into would not be a dangerous person. She can defend herself but in a state of fatigue, dehydration and hunger, lost in a time and space that don’t feel like her own anymore, she is not certain she’ll fare that well.

But there’s nothing else to do than tentatively steps forward, hurried and maybe a little haggard steps. She is searching her path, haphazardly going around, rushed and anxious, like she is getting more and more lost by the second. She does not want to find civilzation though, she does not want to stumble upon humans and machines of that time, and gets back in it. She doesn’t know if she can, if she even wants. But does she want to go back either? She does not really know, all she knows is to go forward, try not to end straight up in a tree, or to trip against a root or some low rocks, holes and unevenness in the ground. The soil is soft, not very glidey but still far from being stable and holding itself up very well.

Her messy and confused steps led her to bumble on a road, abruptly emerging from between the tall lanky and naked barks or the trees, in a … of leaves flailing all around, they were flopping down and over her, hiding her in a way. That’s at least how she and the driver explained why he nearly toppled her over and had to hit the brakes deeper than that bass she was hearing at the stones. His car …, turning over parallel to her, crossing the road straight. She, miraculously, did not fall down, or even had to grab a treee to hold herself up. She just bent her knees, hands in front of her, eyes wide opened in that hallucinated lost look. A car. A car. A car suddenly showed up in front of her in a …. of leaves, dirt and … sounds.

The drivers also took a second to breathe forcibly in halted breaths, shaking and shocked. His eyes were as wide as hers, despite being actually half as smaller, but shock can lead to pretty interesting uncommon things. It seems the man wasn’t alone in the car because even before he, the driver, could get out, a man opened the door from the passenger side and emerged as abruptly as she did from the tree, but much less hidden and with much more noise. His mouth was moving, forming words, noise se heard screeching at her ears. He looked angry, he was angry. His arms were moving too, big syncopated, sharp movements, body fuming and not shaking, or shaking of rage rather fear and shock. He was hunched over a bit, he was in the car that nearly either toppled a human or ended in the depth of a ravine, after all. Of course he wasn’t all confident and assured, holding himself straight up, tall, proud and confident.

Actually, the shaking, from fear this time, was beginning at his hands, now by his side. It seemed he didn’t realize it as he was still hurling insults at her copiously. And her, she could just blink, looking at im blandly. What?

The other man, the driver, finally got out it seems because his voice resonated, cutting off the small angry scared man, and her daze.

“Hey Levi calm down. I… “ he was looking at her, now himself in a daze, not hearing or not comprehending or both. “I know her… It’s.. It’s…” He holed himself fully out if the car and like she only a few seconds ago, stumbled around the front of his car, taking hold on it, his eyes were fixed on her, those icy blue orbs empty and freezing whilst full of shock and … surprise. “It’s her… It’s… It’s… It4s her “you look like you saw a ghost elbow”the first, small angry man, voice resonated

“It’s because I have. Levi, it’s her. The girl, my student, that has gone missing.”

“What? The one that disappeared for five years straight before turning in front of our car like a wild animal, nearly killing us both and herself in the process?”

A long, long pause. They were looking at each other, the white, and black, and colored, part of their eyes onto each other.

“Yeah… Yes… It’s her. Levi, it’s Petra Ral. She’s here. Right in front of us.”

Oh yeah. She was back in her time.

And that wasn’t an easy thing. The noise,a round all around all encompassing and enveloping, though not a warm embrace, not the comforting envelope of feeling safe and secure and held. The enveloping that suffocates, and drowns, and overwhelms. It was so hard, and she was in so much pain.

It all was strange,it all was too much. The cotton was burning her skin, as the hands on her, the adhesives on her, the wires on her, the bed, bench, chairs, stools under her and to her back. The cold press of the metal, or the less cold press of the plastics. Even the air was burning her skin. Or it was from the inside? She could not tell the difference right now. Like she could not even say if the ringing underwater sound was from the inside or the outside. Was her brain vibrating in her skull? Causing that ringing noise? Was she truly underwater? All blurry, the sounds, the view, the smells and touch. But underwater was nice, it was feeling nice and encompassing and enveloping, though the good one this time. The warm embrace, the comforting envelope of feeling safe and secure and safe. That still wasn’t that so it was likely she wasn’t underwater after all.

Any noises small or big startled her, leading to some pretty impressive jumps and … or sudden tensing, so strong they’d break the wood. Any flash of light, or not flash, was feeling like the astonishing sun directly pouring in her eyes and they seriously were beginning to hurt, her skull ringing too. Maybe it was the brain and the skull ringing, each on different frequencies, close to one another, vibrating to their own tempo.

The machines kept passing in front of her eyes, seeing but unseeing. It all was becoming a big mess, a big blurry mess, a big messy mess. All merging together in just a big cover of stimulations and of too much. It hurt so much, she wanted to rip her ears and eyes out, tear her skin off, close her nose.

X-rays, ethnographies, electrocardiograms, electroencephalogram and other and others. All sorts of tests one after the other, she was staring in the distance during it all, not elsewhere but not there either. She let them do it, they knew what they did. Besides, they did not know how those sorts of things really worked after all. Maybe there were physical issues and ailments linked to time travel, not that she could say so to her doctors. They were all disturbed, carving in their skulls trying to figure what had happened and why she was so healthy and well. Indeed, apart from a few carences, as expected, she was fine. Perfectly fine. They tried one of those new doctors, the one that made you talk. That listened to you talk. She did not talk. What could she say? She did not need one of those anyway. She wasn’t suffering, not mentally at least. She could not get around all the sensory stuff, and the pain of being there again, of having failed in her quest and having to integrate in a society now stranger to her. But apart from that… What they wanted to hear, she could not say. She wasn’t kidnapped, in a cult or elsewhere. She left of her own free will, not to get in a cult, and got back of her own free will – more or less ; but it was complicated – without having to escape anyone or anyone – well more or less again ; it was complicated-.

Her dad came. One day, she remembered and would remember it for the rest of her days she thinks.

The sheets under her were rapping at the skin of her thighs, and the doctors next to her asking nonsense questions was beginning to irritate her. She was tired, she could not sleep. Light and beeping, and burning sheets and air, and strong pungent anesthetic smells everywhere.

She was swinging her feet around, hunched over herself and, unaware to the doctor, her fists clenched in the sheet, as well as her jaw. Monosyllables were the only things coming out of her mouth, dragged out of her like trying to pull out some bad rampant bad herb. The medical staff was tired, apathetic, exhausted and stressed. Patience was an ideal that in reality was only applied at time, understandable after 12,16, 24 and more shifts running everywhere, doing everything, receiving nothing except more and more orders and no money. And she wasn’t easy, she knew that. But she did not feel like talking and smiling, she complied with orders but no she wouldn’t smile and speak and be relaxed and open. It was all too much for that even if she wanted to. Besides, it felt all like another world, like was going to get attacked at any instant, or something was going to fall on her. Like there were shadows and dangers lurking around in the corners; in those sharp dark shadows created by the blinding neon lights. In the tiles and corner or the hospital, the wedge of the sidewalks outside, and so many other things outside. The hospital was already worst than the darkest deepest busiest forest so outside? It was out of the question.

“How are you feeling today ?” and other questions were asked by the doctor while a nurse was doing she did not know what was on the side with medical tools, the ringing of it clouding her ears and tensing her up. Her teeth were gnashing in tension. Rasping against one another.

“hmm” “yeah” “ok” “fine” “hmm” “huhu” were all she could let escape, barely hearing her own voice in between those damn metal tools, the drawers, the pen scratching, the electricity running through the walls, the cars and sirens and people outside and inside, the halls and corridors filled with people running around , carts being pushed as well as bed. The steps kept coming and going and coming and going with voices, flash of a sudden laugh or cry.

The nurse finally seemed to have found what she was searching for because she came back toward her, her arm was taken without her consent, the nurse’s fingers pressed on her skin searching for something or testing something she did not know until she ended up with an elastic on her arm blocking the blood and a needle coming in, again without saying anything. She was used to it at that point, and did not react physically. In all honesty, even if she wanted she wasn’t sure she could. Her whole body felt so so heavy and detached from her.

She glared at the nurse though, her eyes dark and filled with indignation. Was a word too much to ask for? A whisper? The doctor was still talking, yes, but she could have said a little “hey I’m going to take your blood” or “I’m just going to collect your blood” or “here the needle”. Anything!

But the nurse didn’t answer her glare but she swallowed audibly and her grip softened a bit. Turning her head in shame, dropping her eyes at the same time, Petra mumbled a “I’m sorry” in between her teeth. The young girl looked at her quickly in between her lashes and scrunch the corner of her mouth, pinching her lips. Yes, she was sorry too. When done she rapidly stepped back, eyes cast down, and got out of their way to a small desk on the side, the one with all the drawers. She picked a pen to write on the vial of blood, capped it and came back next to the doctor to keep on her tasks. Said doctor shifted his gaze to her, half disinterested half interested. Small people and small hands, just the employees below them, pretty girl walking around in those outfits, young.

The nurse when taking another medical thing shake a bit and it nearly escaped her hands, this time the doctor fully turned to her, berating her “be careful for god’s sake!”. His hands shoot out, to help her, seemingly, even though the hand on her back close to the small or her back and her rear was a strange choice of help to catch an object trying to escape her hands. She caught the object and tumbled into the nurse, a quick brusque movement with lots of momentum in her state? Ha she could not hold herself very well! The nurse immediately reacted, catching her and pushing the doctor away in the movement as he would not be bothered to bend the down and wasn’t really in the best position to be able to really catch her. He did though started a movement toward her to help her, detaching himself from the nurse finally. They put her back on the bed, objects forgotten in regard to the patient safety. She was grumbling and mumbling, very grumpy and rasped “Can I have a glass of water please?” her eyes fixed on the nurse beautiful deep mossy green eyes. She immediately rised exclaiming loudly “oh yes yes! Right now I’ll be right back!” leaving the room in the blink of an eye before the doctor could even rise again himself.

All of it forgotten her finally rise and seated himself on the chair he had just left, arranging his clothes a bit. “Well well well mis Ral you’ll have to be more careful. What was that? I thought you were well and nothing indicate issues with your coordination or any physical ailments”

“I just los’ ma balance si’ “

“Oh, Really?”

“aye. Quick movement, A didnnae calculate well, too much momentum, I fell”.

“Hmmm. I see. If I am asking it’s for you. You have to report anything do you hear me? Anything. Because you know there’s only so much our machines and tests can attest and on them you are fine you know, but if there are any issues we’d miss …”

His voice faded away. Or she blocked it out. Her thoughts and peace were definitely more interesting than the doctor’s ramble. The nurse not being there all they had to do was wait for her to return and complete her tasks. A doctor picking up her slacks for all their benefit? Never ever!

So they waited and so he spoke and so Petra ignored him, the neon light was vacillating a bit, it was giving her a headache. She used to be annoyed at the candles and candlelights in the evening and only the sun, as hidden as he was most of the time, they had but now she would exchange anything for those candles against those artificial lights. They gave light, no doubts on that, but oh they were awful doing so. The grey of the walls and overall muted washed-out colors, if it wasn’t for those walls bricks colored blankets everywhere, weren’t helping out.

At least the grey of the walls reminded her of the grey of the sky. It had been a good last trip despite the grey sky, the strong wind and the rain, so much rain. But she should be used to it considering where she came from. But nothing in America was a quarter as good as in Scotland, nothing in common between a good Scottish rain and an American one.

Without they attention being taken by it the door opened slowly. It did make quite the noise doing so but despite that the doctor was too busy talking and thinking of himself, and not paying that much attention to his surroundings and she was too far deep remote, cut from a painful world and lost in her thoughts to really pay attention too. However, the voice that accompanied the opening of the door stirred something in her and caught her attention in a second. Her breath halted, her heart stopping before beating again.

“Petra…? Baby is that you?”

She turned, shaking. The doctor stopped his talking, simply observing the scene for a moment.

Her father was there. In front of her, holding a half open door he was halfway throuhg in. His eyes were as wide as hers were the white around his iris as apparent as the white or hers. Both they brownish golden green looking at each other in stupefaction and disbelief. He wasn’t shaking, more frozen while she elt the tremors overtake her. But he did move where she stayed in place.

In a few steps he entered the room, let go of the door that nearly fell upon the head of the poor nurse coming back, and crossed it to her. Like in a daze his whole attention on her. He caught her in an embrace, his arms envelopping her like a bear. She lifted hers, hovering them in the air, unsure and still in disbelief to have him her in front of her. His warmth, his smell, his presence. He was pressing her against him, crushing her. A mix of cries and shakes and warm heavy caress of his hands on her back, his voice, chocked under his tears, in her ear. She felt. She really felt suddenly, her head over water but under his, smothered in his chest.

“Oh Petra… My Petra… it’s you… Mo leanabh! An seo, You are here, an seo, a gràidh! Oich is oich! My baby, you are here, you are here! Tha thu an seo mo leanabh…”

She laughed, a watery strangled laugh. Oh how she missed him, so so so much.

“Yes dad, it’s me, it’s me. I’m here, Tha mi an seo dadaih, I am here dad, I’m here…”

He put a big hand behind her head, his fingers in her mane of hair, he put his cheek to her forehead, pressing against as much as he could.

“Oh gosh, mo thruaigh mise! Aye, aye you are. My dear, I missed you much, I cannae believe it, you are here. Bha mi gad ionndrainn gu mòr! Oh god oh gosh I cannae believe it…. You are here…”

“aye dad, aye. I am here. Bah mi gad ionndrainn cuideachd. I am happy to see you too.”

Big loud cry escaped him, mixed with choked laughs. He was pressing against her, touching her, like trying to asses her presence. She was here, in flesh and bone, in front of him. And well.

They hug and kiss and repeat the same thing again and again for a few instants more. She wasn’t sure she’d ever see him anymore, if he’d even be still alive when she’d be back (because she was going to come back, she knew it from the beginning, it’s how and why she came back that doesn’t sit well with her). But he was there, in America. He showed up, came running as soon as he got the news no doubt. She did not want to imagine what he must have gone through with her disappearance. What he believed, what he hoped… What he feared. Maybe he thought she had been kidnapped, killed, sold, trapped somewhere. Maybe she left and just did not want anything to do with him anymore, or was enrolled in a cult. Who could know? How could he imagine the truth? It was one thing to have beliefs and thoughts and the reality. He must have searched for her, called the police, asked around, desperately. Maybe she’d find “wanted” papers, maybe she passed on TV, certainly, she was on the missing person list. A cold case? A closed case? And he, how he must have suffered, how he must have hope and lost hoped and grieved, now all alone with his daugther suddenly no more from this world too.

Maybe he thought he had driven her away, with affabulations, and his lack, all of his lack and how hard he could be at times, how critical, how yes sometimes he did not know how to express affection.* But right now he was here and she was here.

“I am so happy to be seeing you mo gràidh, I really feared the worst you know, when you just disappeared like that…” he took a step back, still holding her but not so close. So they could talk, because they really needed too. She lowered her eyes, not daring to look at him. “Yes I know… I’m sorry dad, I’m really sorry… I… I didn’t do it voluntarily you know, If I could, if I had been able to…

He jumped on it, tensing suddenly and brows frowning, she felt his grip harden, his hands clenching hers and his legs beginning to support him to rise up and run kill those that hurt her

“You weren’t able to? Like someone kept you from it? What is it my dear? Who hurt you mo leanabh? I’ll make them pay just tell me!”

“No no dad! No! It’s fine I am fine!” she tugged on him, having him sit down again and calm down a bit. Her eyes, now lifted, were searching his face, maybe a bit frantically.

“Calm down, please, I wasn’t hurt nor in a bad situation. I am fine, I am well. I was in a good place, I just could not contact you for logistical reasons. Ok? Logistics, not someone dad. No one kept me from you or hurt me dad.” Not that true but he did not need the details. Besides how to explain swords, fights, monsters…

“You sure my dear? No one?” She shook her head “No dad. No one. I am fine. I am fine.” She clenched his forearms with her hands, trying an assured tone, affirming

“You can see for yourself or ask the doctors but I swear I am not harmed and haven’t been in the past. I am fine.”

He was nodding his head mindlessly, following her affirmations. He was so strung up, she could literally see the tension running through him, the stress and anxiety vibrating and rumbling under his skin. He was corded with stress and knots in his muscles, his members drier than she remembered like they’d been eaten away at. He had lost weight, lots of weight, and vitality. He was grey, and not just his hair. The red, wonderful bronze, was now a muted faded nearly pink in its fading ginger. His brows were all greys, on top of his eyes were riddled with wrinkles and so so so faded themselves. The brown gold green color so dark it appeared black at times. His whole face seemed so cut and dry, full of wrinkles, and stress lines, at the same time tensed and falling down with sadness and loss of hope. But the hope, the anxious fear and waiting and hope still was there and it was like it was what was running in his veins now and not blood anymore. It had given energy to his tired body, his despaired body. She could she the thinning hairs on his arms, his freckles all faded too, a man locked in his home. Even the hold ones, imprinted by years and years of sun were having to fight to stay there. Traces of what they were. Hers were strong, the days under the sun whatever the season had heightened them and now, her arms next to her father, the contrast was hurting. As if she had taken all the life from him and he was only the ghost, despite her being the one that disappeared for five years and was actually more of a ghost if one could call a ghost someone like her.

But well.

“Dad, I am fine. And I missed you, a lot. How are you? You crossed the ocean for me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I did. I… I did.”

He paused, he was the one with the lowered eyes this time.

“I… Would”, he …. his lips, brows furrowed, “I would, you know” he lifted his eyes to her. Pain. Anger. Despair. Rage. Indignation. Disbelief. Love. “I would for you petra. I would do anything. Everything.” He nodded, a dubitative and contemplative, but bitter, look on his face now, and his eyes to the side, not to her. But only for a second as they came back right in, fixing her with an intensity “Everything Petra. Everything. Why? Huh? Why would you doubt it? Why would you ask about it? Why? Why…”

“Hi Mister Ral and Petra, I am sorry to disrupt you but…” Another voice she knew very well resonated behind them as a man, she also knew well, stepped forward. He was followed by another man, short, grumpy and angry, and the nurse, back with her glass of water, clutched to her chest. “I don’t know if you remember me Mister Ral, but I am Erwin Smith, professor at Oxford. I was Petra’s teacher and supervisor for her thesis. I am the one who found her, here with my assistant Levi, and I just… I just wanted to express my joy and relief to have found her and how happy I am for her and for you too sir. We all missed her dearly and searched for…

“Aye. A know. I was here.”

The big blond man ducked his head bashfully or at least feigning so.

“Yes yes of course you were. I…

“No disrespect sir but what are ya doin’ here? Cannae you see I’m reuniting with ma daugthe’?” er father was half turned to the man, shielding her behind him, all hackles raised and hostile as much as was possible in the situation. Not only had he been interrupted but in addition to that dashing english man was trying to was trying to talk for him?

“As I said Mister Ral, I was Petra’s teacher and a part of the search crowd. I was very afraid and deeply saddened by her disparition and am now quite happy to see her here and well and I just wanted to express that and pay my respect. Also” he extends his arm behind him, pointing to the grumpy short angry man. “Levi had some things to say and I also wanted to speak about and apologize for how we found your daughter. It was after a… let’s say a pretty eventful way of doing things.” SOMETHING HERE TO EXPLAIN? “Ya mean ya nearly killed her ba rolling over her with ya car? And that lad, what’s he want huh?” “Daddy…”

“Mister Ral…”

“He wants to say to your daughter to not fucking run on the road when the car was passing, she literally freaking threw herself under the wheels and you are angry against us”

Her dads eyebrows raised to his hairline, receding a bit, so that it to say how high they raised. He paled and froze in the same movement. Oh that wasn’t going to go well.

And indeed, he grabbed his spirits and started spurting angry words, his face suddenly turned red

“You… You! How dare…

“DADAIH”

He turned to her, and stopped in his momentum.

“Aye mo cràigh?é

“Stop it please. I am here. What is done is done. Let’s not fight. Let’s hear what Professor Smith has to say, accept his respect and be together. We have so much to talk about you said it yourself. And, I believe the doctors too, you’d like to talk to him wouldn’t you?” she, very very discretely, eyed said doctor on the side, going as far as pointing at him by a movement of the head in his direction. Her father, thankfully, caught her meaning. He mellowed down and turned toward her again, watching the doctor too.

“Aye, aye my dear. You are right. In fact you are right”. He breathed deeply before continuing, back to him. “Professor Smith Thank you a lot for what you said, and what you did in the search and in bringing back my daughter when you find her.” another breath, this time he turned toward the men. “Truly, this means everything to me. You can’t imagine what it is, what it was, to have most her and now to have her back. When I got your call I could not believe it. Thank you for that. And for organizing my trip here”.

“He organized your trip?” “You are welcome Mister Ral”

they spoke over one another which prompted Levi to snort in derision. Embarrassed, she lowered her head, her cheeks a little red, and mumbled an apology, speaking over one of her professor, and not just any but Professor Smith… His warm light laugh had her rise her head again, falling on his amicable face and nice easy smile.

“No worries miss Ral? No worries. And yes, I did. How could I not?”. He made a pause, and she could feel and see his eyes, going right through her and grabbing at her very heart and soul. “You know, Miss Ral, we really searched for you and we really missed you. That you are here now is nothing short of amiracle. So yes. When I found you and brought you here, I called your dad and organiwed for him to be able to come anc pick you. I figured he had waited long enough and that you, Miss Ral, might appreciate it too. “On another hand we also did not know what had happened to you. Who could have known after all? So we thought it best to have your dad close to you. You lnow… In case.”

She did not answer, did not know what. His gaze was freezing, icy and piercing throuhg her. She could literally feel it in her ribcage the iciness sliding through, her hurt thumping and her stomach heavy and knotted. At the same time it felt like nothing else was felt anymore, all numb her legs, her shoulders and arms. Even the rest of her face, she could not tell what expression she had. All she could see were those eyes and that man watching her. He did not have his amicable smile on anymore. Quite the contrary.

He father is the one that broke the heavy silence and brought her back to earth and this world and time.

“Enough talking, All of it is past and what is done is done as you said. Thank you again Mister Smith. Now, doctor I’d like to talk to you if that’s ok with you?”

On those words the doctor began to ramble again with her dad. She was still on Professor Smith, and his assistant, Levi.

It was strange, very strange what had all happened now that she was thinking about it. Why was her father so hostile then suddenly all teary-eyed and emotional and thanking the man (why hostile in the first place if he really was so thankful and grateful to the man?); in a way he was right, too, why was Professor Smith coming in here at that moment, at that time in that context, to say that? And bring Levi and his terrible attitude in? To insult her and blame her? (gosh what does that man has in his head? They’ll talk about how she disappeared for five years, how they were all desperate searching for her and how finding her was a miracle, like that was the whole point of it, and he was insulting her? Accusing her about how she ended up running into them?).

However, she couldn’t help but note how uncomfortable he looked. He was looking around in disinterested, nonchalantly standing with his arms crossed, one leg bent under him. He looked detached, like he did not care. But his gaze refused to fix itself upon anything, he had switched his legs a few times already, and his mouth was twisted in half scowl half what to her looked like embarrassment and not wanting to be here at all. He just exuded that feeling of not feeling well here and being disturbed too. Because he truly did not want to be there? Because their display of emotions was disturbing him…. Because he also felt the tension and the strangeness of the situation?

His gaze crossed hers, in the quick seconds it took in between her father’s dismissal and professor Smith’s answer - ”Yes. We should go Sorry for disturbing you and no worries for it all. Have a nice restf your day. Levi, come let’s go. Goodbye Doctor, Nurse …, Miss Ral.”. - Their eyes locked. Yes, him too. And him too felt that strange tug in between them. And him too did her suddenly hear the wind and the bells chime and a double bass at its deepest?”

#rivetra #rivetra fic #rivetra fanfiction #draft #fic draft #outlander au #petra ral #levi x petra

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pjunicornart · 2 years

Text

Paperjams!

I got bored and decided to draw some AU Paperjams. The credits for each of them are in the pictures under the names. The last four are mine. My girlfriend can explain the Typhoon ones if she so chooses, but I can explain the other two. By the way, if I feel like it, I’ll color them.

My version of Jock PJ - This is our version of Jock PJ for our NAJ reboot we’re doing over on the Student’s Echoes blog. If that’s something you’re interested in, check it out. It’s currently still in the development phase, and we’re posting concepts and stuff.

Pinkie Pie Jock PJ - Okay... um... let me explain... So, I created this guy as a joke character. He came to be because I was listening to “Pinkie’s Lie” by Wooden Toaster as background noise, and I got the stupid idea to draw basically Jock PJ as Pinkie Pie from MLP. He was originally meant to be a one time joke drawing... but Goddess damn it I loved this hyper goofball so I kept him around.

#undertale #paperjam #7goodangel #thegreatrouge #papercut #jock paperjam #jasper #yandere #pj's daycare #jam #sketch #myart #traditional art #bust #au #alternate universe #might color this later idk

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moonbeamsung · 3 years

Text

Sink or Swim

You plunged deep into an ocean of love for Huang Renjun, the boy who had already fallen for the sea itself.

member: renjun

au: sailor!renjun x gn!reader

word count: 2.7k

genre: angst, fluff, slightly dystopian

warnings: character death/drowning, mentions of water (one passing mention of a typhoon and a very heavy focus on the ocean), light profanity

recommended song: when i was older by billie eilish

author’s note: Not only did the lyrics to the above song inspire this fic, but so did the general mood and sound of it :) I would recommend listening while you read, since I think it really adds to the atmosphere. My creativity took quite a while to cooperate on this one but I like how it turned out and hope you do as well, feedback is highly appreciated as always. Thanks to @astroboy-lele for her help beta-reading this (like 2 hours ago), and enjoy!

taglist: @astroboy-lele @kyuwoyo @rvse-hvvck @nakamotocore @kisshim @hunjins

network tags: @kpopscape @neo-constellations @culture-cafe @dreamlab-nct @k-dinernet

The sleepy little fishing village you call home seems to sigh with the tides, waves lapping at the shore in a rhythm not unlike that of steady breaths. It’s the world’s way of inhaling the salty air, sometimes laced with the pungent scent of a fresh catch.

The sport itself is a life force here, the key to any sort of contact with the rest of civilization. Without it, the hill that the small town is nestled into might just swallow up the dozens of small brick buildings, reducing them to nothing but a memory. The murky waters would carry minuscule traces of its existence far and wide, but not even a name could break the surface.

Unfortunately, the village’s dependence on exporting fish leaves little room for the personal aspirations of its residents. At some point in your life, you’ll be called to assist with a certain aspect of the product’s distribution. The elders in charge find ways for even the most unskilled of hand and mind to participate, but they always save the hardest work for those who were born into it: the sailing families.

Quite literally, a love of the sea is in Huang Renjun’s blood.

His great-grandfather was around to see the beginnings of the seaside community, and he became the most famous fisherman known to the village by returning to the docks with large nets in tow, just bursting with sharp fins and thrashing tails. Those were the glory days, and generations later, the Huangs want their young son to follow in his footsteps, to become just as well-known for legendary angling expeditions.

But... he’s not really interested.

He would much rather take to the waves in a boat and chase the horizon, not bothering with casting a net or even a rod. To him, the ocean air is beyond suffocating, like a poison meant to expel any wanderlust from his lungs, to rip it from his soul. Renjun is a fiery spirit, and not even the crashing, slate-colored waters can dampen the adventurous spark burning bright and warm inside of him. It would take more than a typhoon to do so.

You admire that about him, too. How he holds a strong but steady resistance to the traditions of the village, the limited and meager expanse of the world that you’ve both lived in—no, been confined to—all your life.

Just think of the endless possibilities that await, beyond the hazy fog obscuring the fine line between land and sea. The faint shapes that loom in the distance, perhaps a trick of the eye but perhaps another sign of life besides you, seem so close but are still just out of your reach, teasing you both with what could lie outside this languid, ashen realm. Your heart races at the mere notion of such a thing.

The waves are impossibly blue when their image is reflected in Renjun’s dark eyes; you notice this one dreary afternoon as you let your feet dangle above the gentle ripples, sitting at the edge of one of the many docks that tangle through a mess of sailboats and fishing gear. The burnt orange of his threaded sweater stands out against the rest of the scenery, so monochromatic you sometimes swear the world is black and white.

He’s a splash of color, a splash of adventure and determination among a colorless mass of villagers who wouldn’t trade the way things are right now for anything. The dull, scuffed toes of his boots drag along the wooden planks as he trudges towards you, settling down at your side with a small gust of wind. Both anticipating and dreading the impending day when his father would teach him how to take to the seas and steer the boat that’s run in his family for generations, Renjun finds himself at the humble and rickety marina often. Anticipating because that knowledge would enable him to change the course of his own life on his own terms, and dreading because he knew of the harsh disapproval those actions would receive.

But still, Renjun stays right there on the dock next to you, diving past the shallows of his conscious mind and into the darkest, deepest abyss of his own thoughts, letting them bubble and sputter up and puff into the air like sea spray. If both your hearts are oceans of their own, they collide in this moment, as his ambitions and aspirations spill over into yours and settle on the seabed below. He’s chosen you to entrust these secrets with. You, the only other resident of the village with a familiar restlessness in your eyes when the sun disappears below the distant horizon, gaze wistful and longing to do the same.

And as if they’re the precious riches of a mythical swashbuckling pirate, you keep them there, each word a golden coin or sparkling gem hidden away in a long-lost treasure chest. The twilight sky that evening is the most vivid you’ve ever seen it, and daylight is fading fast by the time Renjun finishes telling you everything.

“I never knew there was someone who felt the same way I did about all this.”

The realization sets in late, just as the weathered surface you’re both perched on sways in the wind. You fear for a second that you might slip forward into the icy water; that’s how strong the breeze whipping through the air around you feels. That, or it’s due to the sheer force from your heart as it swells at finally meeting someone you’ve admired from afar for what feels like an eternity, ever since you understood what life was like and what it meant for you here.

Sure, Renjun’s grandfather may have been well-known in the past for one reason, but to you, Renjun is creating a legacy of his own for another, one of more than just adolescent rebellion and defiance. It’s one of undoubtable self-awareness, of an adamant refusal to conform to an existence he hadn’t chosen, and he’s finding a way to alter what he’s been seemingly destined for all his life.

“Me neither,” you shake your head, still in a small fraction of euphoric disbelief. “All that’s left to do now is stow away on a ship together in the dead of night, I suppose.” The comment is joking, but he takes it more seriously than you anticipated. The cloudy sky above brightens with his eyes.

You convene in shadowy alleys when no one’s looking, wasting away the hours as you mutually yearn for just a sliver of knowledge of the unknown, enthralled by the waves in the distance and what lies below and above and beside. Renjun sometimes whisks you away to a steep overlook that provides a panoramic view of the beach, the powdery sand so far beneath your bare feet gray enough to pass for finely packed pebbles. You find yourself melting into his embrace like the sea melts into the sky, blurring the already thin lines between air and water and between friendship and love. The way his fingers encircle your wrist with a curl like that of a cresting wave is telling enough on its own. His heart belongs to two bodies now.

You can’t help but notice all the similarities he bears to the element you’ve never lived a day of your life without seeing, without hearing the undulations of, without smelling or tasting the salty tang it brings to the air. Always moving, a force to be reckoned with, and evidently a possessor of the ability to travel far and wide on even the most fleeting of whims.

He’s utterly himself around the water, too. You’re almost positive he could effortlessly duck beneath the surface, take a breath, and his lungs would drink it in as if it was air. The only place he doesn’t feel like drowning is below the waves.

“Look!” Renjun points out an unfamiliar vessel tied down at the far end of the pier one day, sails torn in jagged lines as if they had been slashed by a larger-than-life creature. Upon closer examination, you find that the wooden bow of the sailboat is splintering and the windows into the cabin are shattered. The name carved into the hull is simply too faded for you to decipher the letters.

“This boat must’ve gone through hell and back,” you comment, your response delayed like an echo. “Who do you think it belongs to, anyway?”

He’s lost within a symphony of thoughts before he answers, “No one.”

Both incredulous and doubtful, you whip around to meet Renjun’s assured gaze. “No one ever comes and no one ever goes, it’s that simple. These same boats have been docked for years. They’ve belonged to the same families one decade after another.” The boy sighs, scanning the horizon for anything that might appear the slightest bit unusual. “The real question is where it came from.”

You have no answer for him.

“Regardless,” he speaks up again, quite matter of factly, “It’s ours now.”

“Ours?”

“Yes, ours. You said you’d sail away with me, right?”

It certainly isn’t the aspiration you would have envisioned yourself pursuing. You could have chosen to quietly obey, to live and work exactly as you were told by a community so rigid that you felt frozen to the bone. Not like the pleasant chill of the ocean, rather a restrictive pair of icy shackles, ever-tightening around your limbs and subduing your mutinous thoughts. But here you are, longing for a little something more both in life and with the only person that understands your heart’s deepest desires like they’re his own. And at their core, they are.

Without fear, Renjun takes a confident stride onto the boat’s deck, turning back to you and offering his hand as you mimic the action. “What are you waiting for?” He asks, eyes twinkling.

A warm thrill courses through your veins, growing hotter with each small preparation you make towards your inevitable departure. It’s an affair of many weeks, but at last you’ve gathered all of the necessary supplies and courage to carry out your plan.

The day finally comes, the day you’ll spring into action and take hold of your futures by the ropes, no one but yourselves telling you how or where to steer.

On the most moonlit night you’ve ever been alive to witness, you and Renjun both slip out from underneath your fraying comforters, unbeknownst to the rest of your households. Save for your two restless souls, the entire village is sound asleep, the unceasing lullaby of the tides casting its steadfast spell on bodies and minds like clockwork. Wooden floors so hollow and dusty that they barely creak under your weight, you successfully glide out your respective front doors in silence like translucent spirits.

No one else in the village had even acknowledged the foreign ship’s presence, but this shouldn’t surprise you, not in the slightest. The thick, colorless fog of life had long since settled around the shoulders of anyone and everyone who allowed it to, ensnaring them in a mind-numbing, monotonous routine. It blocks out the sun and the rain, the light and the darkness. It’s all so sickeningly the same. Empty eyes can’t pay any mind to their surroundings. Meanwhile, yours are full of hope, the brightest in the land.

In the distance, Renjun appears as vibrant and sprightly as ever. His form cascades down a flight of stone steps, leading from the sheer hills clustered with homes onto sea-level ground, and glides over the small dunes of sand separating you. He reaches the edge of the beach and your side a minute later, the thump of his heart keeping time with the tides. A nod, and you’re sprinting towards the docks, fingers trembling in excited anticipation.

It isn’t until after you’ve clumsily set sail that you see the ominous shadows of dark clouds laid out ahead, directly in your path. Even in the dead of night, a flash of distant lightning illuminates the world in a harshly jagged blaze for as far as the eye can see, as it strikes some unknown location out in front of the sailboat.

You’re certain the repairs you’ve spent days and nights working on with Renjun will be enough to keep the ship intact, despite the weather you’re sure to endure if you continue on this route. So you press on, missing the apprehension furrowing his eyebrows.

But because every force of nature has decided to convene against you both for reasons eternally unknown, the harsh winds weave their way in between the threads your careful hands had stitched on the canvas, meant to catch the breeze but being torn apart by it instead. Suddenly you’re struggling to hold on to your balance and you feel as flimsy as a leaf in a blustering current of cold, crisp wind.

Perhaps you should have practiced first. Renjun had not yet received a single ounce of training from his experienced father, and it was far from wise to leave the only life you’ve ever known without any knowledge of how to get to your next one. He’s trying to hide his panic now, wavering between the steering controls and warily glancing up at the gloomy midnight sky. One more flash of lightning, and all goes awry, all at once.

The water around you surges, as if physically drawn to the heavens, and more falls from above. Raindrops pelt down onto your arms and soak your hair, drenching the sails and filling the shallow hull almost instantly. Wave after towering wave crashes down, hard, and you’re no longer certain which way is up. About to lose your footing, you feel a pair of arms wrap around your middle like the snug hold of a life preserver.

Before all vitality can be lost and smothered by the raging ocean, a desperate Renjun holds fast to you, your thin clothes clinging to the damp skin of his hands. The storm is just too much, and there’s no way you’ll see the journey through like you had hoped. It’s difficult, excruciating even, to accept, and even more difficult for Renjun to let go of you like this. He’ll fight until the end, fight the fates and the invisible forces that life entails to hold you for just a few more seconds.

He won’t be able to live with himself, even in whatever afterlife may or may not come after the darkness he already sees, feels closing in on him, if he doesn’t sacrifice his last breath for a final moment of bliss, of you.

The sensation of Renjun’s wan lips pressing into yours overwhelms and surpasses all others, his palms tracing the edges of your figure like the tides trace the sandy shore. Urgently he draws you close up against him, trying his best to shield you from the inescapable terror of the sea. A lifetime’s worth of energy and emotion and passion is expended, making up for all the time in the world he wouldn’t and couldn’t have. The tang of saltwater meets your tongue, and you’re not sure if it’s the taste of him or of the ocean.

A weak tug on your palpitating heart, an internal scream in your ringing ears tells you that you should resent him for this, for propelling you forward in your apparently unachievable fantasies of living the life you wanted for yourself. But you don’t, you can’t. It’s no one’s fault, really. With this thought, a peaceful stillness washes over you amidst the chaos, and your awareness of the boy in your embrace fades steadily, slowly, then rapidly. Reality is getting paler, more black and white than ever, and you’re sinking further and further down towards the ocean floor miles below. The faint light of the moon becomes distorted from underneath the water, blurring with your failing vision. It all slips away, and then there’s nothing.

It’s a shame no one in the village takes notice of the two extra stars that blink into existence on that moonlit night, but yours and Renjun’s souls take their place among the rest, both a warning and a calling to anyone who dared attempt what you did. Two guiding lights pointing any other dreamers towards the hope of a better, brighter future.

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hello-im-not-a-possum · 3 years

Text

8. mystery

Mysteries at their very core are questions we have and are not answered. Questions that relentlessly itch at the back of one’s mind that cannot be scratched no matter how hard we search for them. While Inkwell ‘Inky’ or ‘the Ink Demon’ Drew never thought twice about his prophet’s oddities when he was his servant, he sure as hell was bothered by them when the masked maestro became his foe. (Set in FIFE au, timeline intentionally kept vague for spoiler reasons.)

“AAAAURRRRGHH!!”

The Ink demon screamed his head off out of frustration, ripping up false leads and throwing the confetti-fied papers into the air, bathing himself in a shower of failures and frustration. He then slammed a small, ink stained toy Bendy meant to represent Sammy down on a map of the united states, a long with an inkwell with a custom topper (shaped like his own face and body, as it was meant to represent him), A mud-stained Alice Angel doll with the halo ripped off (Allison’s rep), and a one-armed Boris toy (Tom).

He then slammed his fists over the map and plush toys over and over again instead of working on making strategies, not that anyone could blame him knowing that the former prophet had grown skilled in the arts of bullshitting his way out of situations by bullshitting himself into other situation.

“HOW IS HE- err... HOW IS IT DOING THIS?!” He buried his face in his now perfectly matched cartoon hands. “Sure, it had the lead at first, that was a given because nobody even knew it was gone until it was too late, But now?! SERIOUSLY?! HOW IS THAT STUPID EX-PROPHET OF MINE EVADING AND OUTSMARTING US AT EVERY TWIST AND TURN POSSIBLE?! HOW IS HE RUNNING CIRCLES AROUND US AND EVEN TAKING THE TIME TO TAUNT US?! IT’S A MENTALLY UNSTABLE MASKED MUSICIAN WHO’S OBSESSED WITH SHEEP FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! I THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE EASY!”

Henry, clearly woken up by the Ink Demon’s very loud shit talking his ex and wallowing in despair, wandered into the kitchen that Inky temporarily turned into his base of operation. The animator, still not awake enough to deal with this, fixed himself and the Ink demon up some midnight snacks (well, closer to 2 am snacks, but who would stop them, night snack cops?)

As the man sat down at the table, the demon leaned against him.

“Heeeeeeeeenrrrrrryyyyyyy... You’re a smart cookie and you’ve probably befriended it in several timelines. How do I get it baaaaaaaaack..?”

“The ink machine? I don’t know, guess it’s up to keeping your eyes on the news peeled and getting lucky. Sammy? Well, I don’t think you can, Inky.” Henry stated as he bit into a bologna and spray cheese sandwich. “One of the less fun parts of redemption is having to accept that not everyone can or will forgive you, especially when you’ve hurt them deeply enough and the wound’s still fresh on their end. I don’t think that Sammy’s ever going to want to see you again, unless it’s to beat you to a pulp.”

“PffftHAHAHHA! Do... do you think I cry myself to sleep over Sammy leaving me or something? That I actually MISS him?”

Henry stared at the demon blankly and raised an eyebrow of disbelief while the ink Demon’s jack-o-lantern like smile wavered.

“...Do you really think I do that?”

“Well, for someone who’s ‘completely over it and never liked it in the first place.’, you’re the most invested out of any of us in bringing him back here. And this isn’t the first time you’ve woken me up over Sammy, it’s just the first time you haven’t been woken the house up by flooding the house with the sheer force of your eyes alone.”

The Ink demon made an embarrassed face and cleared his throat, trying to brush it off.

“Well no, I’m not looking for reconciliation between us or anything, I mean, how do I bring it back here so that it doesn’t either accidentally or intentionally use its weird abilities to &%#@ the world over?”

“I... still don’t know that pal.” Henry took another bite. “Sammy might not think like a normal person does, but it’s actually pretty smart and fast on its feet, and As the prophet, it seems to be great at finding abstract solutions to problems. I’d hate to sound like a defeatist, but it seems like the best thing to do is prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

“BUT HE NEVER WAS THIS COMPETENT BACK IN THE LOOPS!”

“We aren’t in the loops anymore, Inkwell.” Henry sighed. “None of us are bound to scripts written by someone who hated our guts.”

“Okay fine. But how does this explain the teleporting?”

“...The what?”

“Teleporting! I brushed it off back in the loops but he’s doing it more and more and I’m getting really annoyed. I gave it SOME perks that only come with being my prophet, but not TELEPORTING, I’m not an idiot. And I’m like, 58-93 percent sure Joey didn’t do it either..? On one hand: he’d TOTALLY give Sammy teleporting powers JUST to peeve me off. On the other hand: WHY WOULD HE HAND GIFT SAMMY THE ABILITY TO FREELY WALK OUT OF THE LOOP WHENEVER IT %&#@ING WANTED?!”

The Ink Demon snatched a sandwich off the pile and angrily bit into it. Meanwhile behind the both of them, a dark robed figure wearing a featureless white mask wandered into the kitchen.

“I want to stay mad, but this is a really good sandwich.”

“Thank you.”

The figure looked through the pantry before pulling out a package of cookies with a sticky note written in Welsh on it.

“Good evening freed bellwether, and decent enough evening to you, false shepherd.”

“Good Evening Sleep Paralysis demon that whispers of singing the song that rebirths the universe at the foot of my bed.” Henry deadpanned.

“G’Evening masked stranger who somehow teleported into our house and has a voice and mannerisms that are suspiciously identical to my missing ex-prophet.”

The cloaked figure sat down at the table with them and passed its sleeve over the cookie package while whispering something neither of them could make out, this apparently broke a magic seal on the cookies that neither of them knew about.

The Ink demon wordlessly offered a sandwich to the figure, who hesitantly accepted it and gave a few cream and cookie sandwiches in return.

For a handful of minutes, the trio ate their food in silence until the dots in the Ink Demon’s brain connected.

“Hey wait a *$@#ing minute... SAMMY LAWRENCE?!”

“...Oh Shit.”

“Inky...” Henry grabbed onto the Ink Demon’s elbow. “Before you do anything ask yourself if

The figure froze for several tense seconds, slowly closed up the cookie package, hid it in its robes, raised the sandwich to his face as if taking a bite out of it when the mask covered its entire face and had no hole in it for it to eat out of, and it BOLTED with the sandwich stuck on where its mouth would be.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL THIS TIME?!” The Ink demon shouted after as he gave chase. “WHY IS YOUR SKIN BROWN?! WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE SKIN?! WHERE’D YOU STICK THE INK MACHINE?! HOW DO YOU COME BACK WHEN YOU’RE SUPPOSEDLY LIVING IT UP IN EUROPE?! WHY DO OTHER PEOPLE KNOW YOU WHEN THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE STUDIO?! HOW DO YOU EAT WHILE WEARING A FULL FACE MASK WITH NO HOLES IN IT?!”

Not answering any of those questions, the masked figure ran like mad with the full force of the inky typhoon at its heels, the latter tearing through everything behind it and the demon conducting it still shouted questions as he chased his prey.

“HOW THE %*#@ DO YOUR ABILITIES WORK?! WHAT’S WITH ALL THE PLANT $#*! YOU’VE BEEN DOING?! AND WHAT’S WITH ALL THE GREEK AND BIBLICAL MYTHS IN YOUR BASES?! DOES MUSIC EFFECT YOUR MAGICAL ABILITIES OR NOT?! DO YOU EVEN HAVE MAGIC OR ARE YOU JUST REALLY $(@*ING GOOD AT SLIGHT OF HAND STUFF NOW?!”

The pair briefly paused to open the window without breaking it, climbed through, the figure reminded the Ink Demon to close it on the other side, and the pair continued to LEG IT and the Demon continued to shout questions.

“WHY DO YOU EVEN COME BACK WHEN YOU ALWAYS LEAVE WITHOUT EXPLANATION?!”

He shouted to the empty air, completely losing the figure to the outside wilderness and being answered by nothing but the echo of his own question.

“W-why...” The demon slunk down to the grassy floor. “Why does my chest hurt so much when I think about us and how we used to be?”

“I’m pretty sure that feeling is guilt.” Henry offered as he threw a blanket over the disheartened demon’s shoulders.

“YEah..” The demon’s voice cracked with emotion. “ThAT’s probably it...” he sniffled.

“C’mon.” Henry brought the demon back up to his (feet? foot? tail?) brought the demon off the ground. “Let’s go back inside.”

“...Hey Henry?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think you can answer the other questions I have for Sammy too?”

“Some of them, maybe.”

As the pair walked back to their house, the masked figure let out a sigh of relief.

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #ink demon #on model ink demon #Henry Stein #sammy lawrence #ink demonth #fanfic #batim fife au

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dragonsinkwell · 3 years

Text

Snippet #74

More playing around with the Full Circle!AU, mostly because after all the cute from the last piece and the heavy NSFW piece I wrote and showed to the server I decided a little horror would be a fun next bit to play with. This links to some degree with the bit I wrote back in the half-finished Screamtober 2020, bringing in that Silent Hill setting for some true terror. I have a second half to this I'm working on, but it'll be a while before that gets posted I'm sure. It definitely is a horror piece, and there's mentions of blood, violence, fire, and death, so take that as your warning if any of those make you uncomfortable. If not, head forth and enjoy some chills in this summertime heat.

Soon enough, you find the strength to breathe properly again, though you can't stop your shaking quite yet. A fresh wave of frustration causes you to slam your fist into the wall beside you once more. Why? What have you done to deserve this torture? Is it your fault? You can't fight back one more choking sob, however no more fresh tears join the ones slowly drying on your cheeks. All you want is to go home. Isn't your situation bad enough on its own without being chased?

Where are you, anyway? Despite the fact this place looks like your home, that each room and hallway seems pulled directly from your house, it clearly isn't at all the same building. It's far too large, and the longer you're trapped here and can't find a way out, the more anomalies you find. Rooms torn apart, the walls themselves cracked and rotting, though just as solid as if they were brand new. Rooms whose walls are covered in photos of you and Ren, smiling and laughing together. Rooms drenched in blood, the smell of which is strong enough to cause you to double over and vomit.

Hell is where you've taken to calling it because really, where else could you be? What other place could be so horrific and uncomprehendingly disturbing? And please, please don't even get started thinking about that... that abomination wearing Ren's face and Joker's mask. The merest thought was enough to get you to tremble even harder in fear. A monster, an absolute monster. You can't decide the worst part about it. Is it him looking like the man you loved and lost, taunting your failure? Or all the small changes? The teeth, far more than there should ever be in a human mouth, and all of them as sharp as glass? His stance, stiff and stilted until you let your guard down and then inhumanly smooth and quick? Or his voice, horrifically close to Ren's, but staler in a way you don't know how to describe, echoing back all the sweet sentiments from your love to tear at your soul? Maybe how much enjoyment he took in your pain? The second your facade of strength cracked, he took such great glee in gloating at your misery.

Another shudder wracks your body at the memory of him, and you wrench your eyes as closed as you can get them, trying to not start crying again. Now's not the time, you tell yourself desperately. You've made an escape from that wretched creature, and you have a chance to put some more distance between you. Who knows, maybe, just maybe, you can find a way out of this accursed hole in reality. You can't give up. You can't, because you don't know what you'll do if you lose that shred of hope.

You take as deep a breath as you can manage right now. Yes, that's right, you need to keep moving even with your fear. The longer you sit around weeping and shaking like a leaf in a typhoon, the closer that monstrosity grows, and you cannot handle dealing with him again so soon after your most recent encounter. Somehow, you have to keep yourself together, to buy yourself some time to shore up your spirit and try to figure out exactly how you got into this situation in the first place, and, most importantly, how to get out of it.

Taking another couple deep breaths, doing your best to reign in your emotions and settle down, you manage to lift yourself from your position kneeling on the floor and stand up, though it takes a few seconds of leaning against the wall before you feel secure. You've been down so long your feet and legs take a moment to remember how to bear your weight. With some displeasure you notice you still haven't stopped shivering, but you think you're well enough to get moving. At least you're fairly certain you aren't going to collapse crying again, which is some progress.

Better than nothing.

Slowly, you take a look around you, to see exactly where you've ended up. You arrived here in such a panic that you didn't take any consideration about the room you took refuge in; so long as the monster didn't follow you in here, and didn't find you, then it was good enough a place for you at the time you arrived. It's pretty obviously a rather close recreation of your living room, though it lacks the entrance to your dining room and the one to the hallway, and though the door behind you looks exactly like your front door, you know for certain it does not lead outside. No, freedom of that sort is apparently far too much to offer you.

Thankfully, however, though you have not been given a path to escape, this room isn't filled with any of the horrors many others have held. No blood, adequate lighting for the first time in a long time, walls and furniture intact. Sure, it's still eerily silent and the air has that stagnant staleness that buildings get without any airflow for weeks, but you'll take whatever you get at this point. Who knows, maybe for once you're being granted a token of mercy?

That'd be nice.

Carefully, you place your ear against the door you entered through, trying to see if you can pick up any sounds from the other side. Much like every other time you've tried this, all that greets you is silence, but you don't think you can bring yourself to not listen first. Honestly, you've never even run into that monster waiting for you outside a door, he seems to have more fun setting you up for scenes right out of your worst nightmares, but you don't trust him to not surprise you, so you do it anyway. Besides, whether it helps or not, the action makes you feel better, and right now that is what you need the most.

Unable to hear any sound or proof of movement from the other side of the door, you peel it open with painful slowness, shifting over merely enough to peek out of the tiny crack between the door and frame. The only thing to greet you is a pale imitation of your hallway, walls and floor the same as in your house, but the lighting is far dimmer, and the layout is unnervingly repetitive; if things didn't change so often, with each repeat, you might consider that you're stuck in a time loop. With a deep gulp of air to brace yourself, you gradually open the door further and further until it's open all the way and you feel comfortable stepping out of the room you used as a temporary shelter. You stand there for a long moment, at least a minute, remaining as still and silent as you possibly can, looking down each end of the hall and listening as acutely as a human ever could.

To your relief, there's nothing to be seen or heard, and you can't help letting out a soft sigh. You close the door with supreme caution, doing your best to stay silent. Part of you wishes you can leave it open, or mark it in some way to help you know where you have and have not been, but being stalked the way you are, that would only lead the nightmare right to you, so unfortunately that's not an option. Not that it matters; you've never tried to go backwards in this loop, and you don't know if you will ever dare. There are small... shortcuts, if you can really call them that, at times, leading to a different 'loop', or so you think. You're definitely walking in a circle through a weird maze made of the rooms of your home, but you don't entirely know where you are now in the wide screen, so who really knows.

Without any idea what lies before or behind you, there's only one thing you can do, turn to the right and start walking away while reassuring yourself this is fine. Obviously, it's quiet as can be besides the soft rustling of your clothes and the padding of your footsteps. Despite your best efforts, you've never managed to stay entirely silent, though you do your best. It helps that you go rather slowly, especially right now while you're still shaking off the last of your most recent panic-induced breakdown. Oh, you know you'll have to pick up the pace again, eventually; you need to get out of here, and as soon as you can, after all. Right now, however, any progress is good enough.

The hallway seems longer here, a larger circle, and there's fewer doors along the way. Pictures still line the walls, thankfully intact if hanging crooked, and the rooms you do encounter are ransacked but not bloodied, a real bonus. For a while it's actually quite calming, quiet and far better than some of the things you've been forced to encounter and deal with. But it's almost... boring? And really, that alone starts to ring alarms in your mind. Surely this is the sign of something wrong, isn't it?

Nothing changes as you begin to move faster, both because you do really need to find a way out, however, also because the anxiety has started to set in again. You have no issue not seeing anything horrible, and especially have no qualms not running into that monster, but there is no comfort in how quiet and peaceful everything has become. Could... could you really be close to a way out? Do you dare hope?

Do you deserve to hope?

The thought hits you out of nowhere, sneaking right through the turning gears in your head so suddenly that it causes you to stop dead in your tracks. No, no, no. Not now. You don't have time for this, you nearly howl at yourself as you force your legs to move. You have to escape!

And yet, you can't stop the new wave of trembling taking over your body, slowing your pace and swiftly bringing you to another halt, leaning against the wall with your arms wrapping around yourself. How many times have you wondered 'What could I have done? What did I miss? Is it my fault Ren died?', especially while trapped in here? Is your being here proof that yes, you could have helped him? Is that it? Maybe this really is...

No! No, I can't let this argument stop me again! What could I have done?! He was our leader! He wasn't going to let any of us take his place! What could I have ever done to save him?

Even as you think that and force your body back into moving again, the thought haunts you. Really? The love of your life, the man you promised to protect with every fiber of your being, was destined to die? You couldn't have done a single thing to help him? Not one? Or were you just a coward? Too afraid to put your own neck on the line to make sure Ren came home to you? Too arrogant to see the danger?

If you failed to save him, if you were supposed to, doesn't that mean Ren's death is your fault?

You don't realize you're crying again until you run into a wall and fall to the floor, having stopped paying attention to where you've been going in an attempt to outrun the cruel thoughts haunting you. Miraculously, you manage to keep from yelping in surprise, but you know you won't be able to keep quiet for long if you can't choke back these tears and sobs, and the longer you try to, the more you realize you aren't going to be able to do that.

So, it's Plan-B, you decide as you stand up and will your wobbling legs to carry you forward: you have to find a room and quickly. Hiding is the only way to help you right now. Making your way through the hallway isn't difficult, per se, as it is still empty, but between the biting thoughts of your own theoretical guilt and the fear of the awful abomination wearing Ren's face stalking the building you're trapped in, this otherwise simple action becomes a torture all it's own.

And you wondered why it was Joker chasing you! Because you failed him, even after saying you loved him!

The second you encounter a door you open it without another thought and throw yourself inside, slamming it shut without a care for who hears. Much like earlier you collapse to the floor and bring a hand to your mouth to mute your broken sobs as much as possible. Shaking like you've been caught in a blizzard, you can't keep yourself together, weeping and sobbing hard enough that it quickly becomes difficult to breathe at all. Ren's dead and there is no changing that, but...

Is it really your fault? Could you have stopped him? What is it that you missed? Why are you so blind that you can't see it even now? Because, in every worst way, it makes sense, doesn't it? If you were innocent, why would you be here? Why would a ghoulish mockery of Ren be chasing you through this place? So that's the proof of your guilt, isn't it?

Too absorbed in your own howling storm of thoughts and the overwhelming pain and sadness it brings, you don't notice the danger of this room until it's nearly too late. Only between two choking sobs, when you gulp in air to try and keep yourself from passing out, do you taste the smoke starting to fill the room. A burst of adrenaline shoots through you, breaking through your guilt and sorrow to flood you with panic, causing you to scramble to your feet. Desperately, you wipe at your face trying to clear your vision, trying to find out where the smoke is coming from.

It doesn't take long to spot the smoke leaking under the door you came in from and, thoroughly terrified, you scan the room with haste, and here you find the second sign that this area is not nearly as safe as you began to expect. While it is clearly your dining room, complete with table and chairs, and the cluttered buffet on the wall opposite of that, the whole room is covered in ash and soot, everything looking almost completely burnt through. Only now that you notice this does the smell hit you, and it's so strong that it causes you to reel back a step. As you bump into the door behind you and feel the increasing warmth radiating out of it, your mind returns to the present dilemma. Get the hell out of here before you burn to death.

As if you deserve better. Murderer.

In what you're going to call a miracle right now, there is a door on the wall across from you and without any more hesitation you book it towards and through it, determined to run from both the fire approaching your position and the cruel, judgmental thoughts strangling your mind. It opens without even the slightest resistance, but as you dash through it and into the next room, your situation doesn't improve any at all. Your kitchen this time, blackened and reeking of char. The smell of burnt rubber and electronics from the rubble of your appliances, the paint peeling off the walls, the acrid stench of the chemicals under the sink that got caught up in the fire; the whole room is a stark change from the last, and it's honestly hard to bear and you consider popping back into the previous room to catch your breath. But there is no time! And that is a very correct thing to tell yourself, you need to get through here quickly. Except...

Except now that you look, blinking rapidly to clear your vision of tears and ash as best you can, there is no door here. It takes three long looks around the room, barely able to breathe for fear of distracting yourself from spotting a door that has to be in this room, before the worst scenario confirms itself. The only way out of this room is the way you came, and if you go back the way you came from, you are going to run right into an advancing fire. Do you have any idea how it's behind you when all the rooms in this direction have been burnt already? No, but neither do you have any interest in finding out. If blood can leak from the walls elsewhere in this fiendish place, you aren't going to question the pathway of a blaze.

That's not the issue, you all but scream at yourself! What does it matter how the fire got wherever it is, or what direction it's going? Either way, if you don't find a way out you're going to die here, and in a very painful way!

Having lost any sense of caution in your desperation, you dash into the room proper. There has to be a way out. Has to. Right? There's a door hiding here, right? As you anxiously run your hands over every inch of the walls you can reach, trying everything you can think to find a way out of this room, you're displacing clouds of soot, knocking it haphazardly off the charred walls into the air, no longer caring at all about leaving no trace of yourself behind. You need out. Please, an exit to anywhere. Please! Before long you're clawing at the wall in a panic, unable to allow yourself to believe that there is only one way in and out of this room.

Couldn't face Joker, can't face your situation, can't face anything, can you, coward?

“Shut up!” you howl at yourself, before collapsing against the charred counter to your side, bringing your coal-black hands to your face as you struggle to clear your vision. Obviously, it doesn't help, rubbing ashes into your eyes makes your vision worse, but in your despondency you'd entirely forgotten how dirty you'd made your hands. What could you have done? What did you miss? You can't pinpoint a single action that you could have done to save Ren's life, so why? Why is this happening to you? Are you honestly that blind? That selfish? Cruel?

As you gag and sob in overwhelming sorrow and fear, you manage to stumble your way back towards the door you entered in from. You have to escape. Have to try. A rogue thought that there might be a door you missed in the previous room is all you have to hang your hope on, and you let it drive you forward. Exhausted and pained as you are, to give up on finding a way out is to give up on your life in its entirety, and you're not brave enough to entertain that thought.

Attempting to retreat turns out to be a horrible mistake, one you catch instantly despite your compromised vision. Hot smoke bursts in all around you, causing you to cough and choke while you try and cover your mouth on instinct, but it's what you see that drives you to total despair. The room before you is filled with smoke and fire, and the heat radiating in, all on top of what blasted in upon you opening the door, tells you it's too late. The blaze is too close and too strong to contend with, and this realization causes you to fall limply to the floor. You've lost. You've lost, and there's nothing you can do.

You're trapped.

The tempo of your breathing picks up, causing an extra sting in your lungs as your sobs quiet down into silent weeping. Your mind has gone completely blank with fear, and you can't help but sit there, frozen, with no idea what you can do. You can't retreat, the fire's taken over your path in, and there is nowhere to go from here. A deep shudder rips its way through you at the mental image of what you imagine being consumed by a fire will be like. You don't want to go like this.

Slowly, as the flames approach, you push yourself backwards across the floor, whimpering and crying as you scoot away from the fire you have no true escape from. You aren't sure what you can do anymore. You're scared beyond reason. Yet, there's no way out of here by your own effort. The howling guilt and rage have silenced themselves in the face of your impending fate and, hilariously, you're almost relieved. If you have to die, at least you don't have to go hearing your own inner demons mock you for it. At least that's something. In no time at all you've backed your way into a cabinet corner and entirely out of other options you curl up into a ball, drawing your legs up and burying your face into your knees.

As the room heats up, and the air clogs with smoke, you can hear things around you begin to catch fire, crackling and popping. Despite being so low to the floor, there's enough smoke present that your lungs have begun to burn and a vague realization that at this rate you're going to asphyxiate before burning to death. A sharp comment bounces through your mind that at least smoke inhalation might hurt less, but your train of thought is cut short when an exceptionally loud snapping noise echoes through the room and you feel a shift from underneath you. You barely have time to react, only enough to gasp and snap your head up, before another ear-splitting crack resounds around you and the floor gives out beneath you. You scream and an arm snaps out to try and grab something, anything, to save you from falling into the abyss, but your hand only catches smoke, leaving you to be swallowed by the darkness beneath you.

#snippet #persona 5 #ren amamiya #reader insert #alternate universe #full circle au

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lynne-monstr · 4 years

Text

Writers Month Day 23: Poison (tka, yuhuang)

king’s avatar shadowhunters au requested by @thorndykechristopher

summary: yu wenzhou is a warlock with a very slow spell casting speed due to a childhood injury. huang shaotian is the shadowhunter assigned as his bodyguard. Their first mission together is an unmitigated disaster but it all works out in the end.

ao3 link

With a loud, foreboding clang, the door slams shut and every window in the warehouse seals up. By the time Yu Wenzhou is able to coax his stubborn magic to his hands, it’s too late.

He’s trapped. They’re trapped.

He turns to glare at his latest Shadowhunter bodyguard, poised between Yu Wenzhou and the door with his blade raised. “I hope you’re happy now.”

Not for the first time, he laments the day Huang Shaotian roared into his life like a typhoon, loud and obnoxious and with no respect for Yu Wenzhou’s quiet life. He’s an accomplished fighter, that’s plain to see, but Yu Wenzhou has had doubts about his overall competence from the beginning. This mess of a trap has only confirmed what he suspected.

“Me?” Huang Shaotian points at his own chest with the hand not holding his mundane sword, as if Yu Wenzhou could be speaking to anyone else.

“I told you not to bring anything with adamas to this place. The warlock who owns this place hates Shadowhunters. All her worst traps are sprung by adamas.” Yu Wenzhou regrets not physically searching his new bodyguard before allowing him along on their first outing together.

He should have known better to think a Shadowhunter would listen to a warlock. It always took them a few months in his employ to learn basic respect. This one in particular seems more interested in listening to his own voice than following orders.

“Wait, wait, wait. That’s not what you said, Yu Wenz—excuse me, High Warlock Yu. If you’d said that, I would have done it. I know how to listen, I’m a great listener. You said not to bring my seraph blade or my stele and look,” he twirls in place, showing off his empty thigh and back holsters. And incidentally, a very nicely shaped backside. “I only brought the sword you gave me. See, do you see? You might be very smart, but you’re also very wrong.”

The unexpected compliment throws him but he brushes it aside. “You must have missed something because look around, the trap is sprung. We’re trapped here.”

“I didn’t miss a blade. I did what you said,” Huang Shaotian insists. After a beat, he presses his lips together in thought and pulls out a necklace from beneath his black tactical gear. “My necklace had adamas in it. Maybe next time tell me why you want me to do something, instead of treating me like an idiot and leaving me in the dark. Do you treat all your bodyguards like this?”

Yu Wenzhou searches his memories and feels a flush of embarrassment. The Shadowhunter is right. He’d specified seraph blade and stele in his preparatory instructions, not adamas. Huang Shaotian followed him to the letter. Unfortunately, he’d been chattering non-stop during their preparations, something about why everyone called him the Sword Saint. Yu Wenzhou had tried to tune it out as he went over his part of the plan but he had reluctantly learned that the ridiculous nickname was one Huang Shaotian gave himself. If Yu Wenzhou hadn’t been so irritated at nearly being late, he might have been charmed.

“I’ll take that under advisement.” Yu Wenzhou says. He pauses and adds, “My apologies, Huang Shaotian, it won’t happen again,”

It’s not just lip service. Yu Wenzhou is far from perfect but he doesn’t make the same mistake more than once. And as it turns out, Huang Shaotian is sharper than he appears at first glance.

“Apologies later. I don’t plan on dying here so let’s concentrate on not dying.” The words are barely out of his mouth before he sheaths his sword and stalks off to prowl the edges of the room, searching for weaknesses.

The warehouse is large, an old storage facility gone to seed. The weak overhead lights flicker as they open the boxes and search for anything they can use to escape. Most wards this strong are anchored by a physical object but Yu Wenzhou doubts the object is within the bounds of the wards. A powerful enough warlock could keep the object with them and the warlock who set them up was more than powerful enough.

For the sake of thoroughness, Yu Wenzhou, examines each of the sigils on the doors and windows with exploratory tendrils of magic. It confirms what he already knows. The spells used to seal the room were perfectly cast. The only curiosity is the strange variation in part of the magic. Some kind of clause for breaking it, though the terms for fulfilling it are vague.

Something about The Kiss to End Life. Talk about needlessly dramatic.

The occasional banging and tapping comes from where Huang Shaotian is probing the physical defenses of the room, chattering to himself while he works. His voice echoes off the metal walls and for a brief moment, Yu Wenzhou is struck by the horrifying thought that Huang Shaotian has managed to replicate himself into multiple copies, all of them speaking rapid-fire nonsense. Thankfully, it’s nothing but a flight of fancy and perhaps a sign that Yu Wenzhou is stretching himself too thin lately.

From the frustrated look on Huang Shaotian’s face, there won’t be any forcing their way out.

Eventually, they both give up on the main room and branch out. The only object of note is a table in the center of the largest of the secondary rooms. It probably functioned as an office when the warehouse was in use. On the shabby, dusty desk is a single vial of liquid.

Huang Shaotian brings the vial to his nose and sniffs. And curses.

“What is it?” Yu Wenzhou asked.

“Poison. Really bad poison, ugly poison. Nasty stuff.” Huang Shaotian frowns. “You ever heard of Death’s Kiss?”

Yu Wenzhou takes a step backwards before he can help himself. “Yes.”

“I figured as much. It’s deadly to warlocks.” It’s hard to say whether the amusement in his voice is a threat or merely the type of dark humor common to a race of people whose life expectancy doesn’t often exceed twenty-five. “It isn’t much better for Shadowhunters,” he adds with a laugh, and that settles that question.

The quirk about the wards tugs at his mind. The line about the kiss to end life isn’t difficult to decode. If one of them drinks the poison, the wards will come down.

Yu Wenzhou is suddenly grateful he held back that particular bit of knowledge from Huang Shaotian. He has no intention of sacrificing his bodyguard to save his own life but he can’t say for certain whether that courtesy extends both ways.

He’s still pondering the implications when Huang Shaotian picks up a folded piece that had been placed under the vial. “Looks, there’s a note.” He wrinkles his nose when a plume of dust rises up into his face. “Ugh I hate old creepy buildings almost as much as this old, stupid language.”

Yu Wenzhou peers over his shoulder and is surprised when he can’t read the writing. He’s been around for a millennia, there aren’t many languages that are a mystery to him. This one isn’t unknown to him, but in this case, his knowledge doesn’t help. “That’s a Shadowhunter language.”

Huang Shaotian nods. The crease between his brows deepens as he reads. “Oh wow, this warlock really doesn’t like you,” he says. “Is she your ex or something?”

“Or something.” Yu Wenzhou would prefer not to dwell on their history. “I might have embarrassed her when she made a bid for High Warlock of Guangzhou about fifty years ago and failed miserably.”

“I’m no expert on women but I think she still has a grudge. You should send her flowers or something. Or jewelry, that’s what they do in the dramas I—I mean, my friend—the dramas my friend watches.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, the note says that if I force this poison down your throat, the wards will drop and I can walk out of here alive.”

Yu Wenzhou goes from trying not to laugh at his bodyguard’s antics to springing backwards, his magic rushing to his hands.

Any spell powerful enough to fight off a Nephilim will take time to cast. Time he doesn’t have. Ironically, this is exactly what he needs a bodyguard for.

The sad part is that he understands why Huang Shaotian would betray him. From day one, he made it clear this assignment was a punishment from his superiors, and that he’d much rather be killing demons than playing babysitter to some stuffy warlock with slow magic, and how could a warlock even have slow magic anyway? The fact is, he has no real reason to be loyal.

Killed by his own bodyguard. Life has always enjoyed laughing at Yu Wenzhou.

Except Huang Shaotian doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t attack, he doesn’t even draw his sword. His eyes dart between Yu Wenzhou’s faintly glowing hands and his defensive stance. “What are you doing?” His nose wrinkles in a way that could almost be called cute except that he’s a trained killer by birth. “Wait, wait, wait, you don’t think—do you think I’m going to kill you?”

“You wouldn’t be the first who’s turned on me.” It’s both an answer and a warning.

Surprise fades into alertness, like Huang Shaotian is suddenly considering the need to defend himself against Yu Wenzhou. “Did you get your own note? Are you trying to kill me? Most people say it takes at least a week for the talking to make them want to do murder. This is a new record.”

Against all odds, Huang Shaotian laughs, warm and amused, the same way he does when he’s talking to himself and breaking Yu Wenzhou’s concentration. The edge of an angry black rune flashes against his collarbone in the flickering light. Who knows, maybe to a Shadowhunter, a fight to the death is amusing. They’ve always been a strange breed. Yu Wenzhou considers being offended but decides he has bigger things to worry about.

Luckily, the unexpected diversion works to his favor. He’s nearly halfway through his silent casting. Halfway towards being able to defend himself. Each passing second feels like a year but he’s slowly closing the gap.

Between them, the vial of poison sits innocuously on the table.

Something settles in Huang Shaotian’s gaze, though whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is too soon to tell. Yu Wenzhou braces himself for the worst. His magic may not be ready to use yet, but he trained extensively in mundane martial arts for exactly this type of situation. It’s not enough to defeat an armed Shadowhunters but it doesn’t need to be. It only needs to be enough to keep him alive until his spell is ready.

“You’re a powerful warlock, right? That’s what everyone says. The High Warlock of Guangzhou is scary strong, it’s too bad his magic is so slow.” When Yu Wenzhou doesn’t answer, Huang Shaotian makes a hurry up gesture. “Well, are you good at magic or not?”

“I am. What does that have to do with anything?”

Huang Shaotian’s eyes are bright, like he’s found the flaw in the neatly laid trap they’re in and is excited for the opportunity to burst it wide open. “If the wards came down, could you get us out of here? Both of us?”

Yu Wenzhou looks at him strangely, not sure where this is going. Because the wards can’t come down. The only option is the poison. Whatever Huang Shaotian is seeing is beyond Yu Wenzhou and that makes him uncomfortable.

He answers anyway. Huang Shaotian has earned his honesty, at the very least. “Yes.”

“Okay.” And with that, Huang Shaotian grabs the vial of poison and drinks the entire thing in one large swallow. “Don’t leave me behind, okay,” he mumbles, before staggering to his knees with a crunching sound that makes Yu Wenzhou wince.

He stares in shock. A tiny part of his brain is impressed; it’s been centuries since anyone managed to truly shock him.

The wards trapping them fall. There’s no outward physical difference but Yu Wenzhou can feel it humming against his skin, a pressure value suddenly released.

“Yu Wenzhou,” Huang Shaotian’s voice is barely more than a rasp, the poison already ravaging his body. “A little faster if you don’t mind.” Huang Shaotian sways forward, and it’s enough to break Yu Wenzhou out of his stupor.

He rushes forward and catches him before he can crash face first into the concrete floor. “Huang Shaotian, what did you do?”

“I thought you were supposed to be smart. I saved us. I did my job, now it’s your turn.” His forehead is drenched in sweat, his normally sharp eyes glazed. There's a faint smile lingering on his lips.

If he was a warlock he’d already be dead. As it was, he doesn’t have much time left.

Yu Wenzhou turns his concentration inwards, letting his eyes fall shut. The incantation to his previous spell is still unfinished and it’s only minor work to take the building power and twist it into a new form. The magic quivers beneath his skin, eager to be used but still too wild to be controlled. He takes a breath and calmly, quietly, coaxes it to do his bidding.

It’s harder than it should be. There’s an unexpected, persistent thread of worry and fear clouding his mind. His eyes keep glancing down to where Huang Shaotian is slumped against his chest. He’s shaking now, tremors swelling into convulsions as the poison spreads. He looks nothing like the fierce, loud Shadowhunter who told Yu Wenzhou off for keeping mission-critical knowledge from him.

He nearly sobs in relief when his magic finally flares to life in his hands. Mustering this much power for two different spells in quick succession has left him exhausted, but there isn’t time for fatigue and so he ignores it. He wraps his arms around Huang Shaotian’s back, pushing as much magic as he dares into him. It’s not an antidote and it won’t save him but it will hopefully keep him alive until Yu Wenzhou can fix this.

By the time he waves his arms in the familiar gesture of a portal, Huang Shaotian is unconscious. Even in sleep, his face is creased, like he’s still in pain.

Yu Wenzhou gathers him into his arms and takes them home.

Huang Shaotian has never been hit by a mundane car but if he was, he imagines it would feel like this. And by that he means really crappy. He aches so deep down even his bones hurt, and his head feels slow and fuzzy.

That’s alright, though. Pain means he’s alive.

The last thing he remembers is drinking poison like an idiot—and hasn’t Su Mucheng told him a million times that the biggest threat to his own safety is himself—and then nothing but agony. There’s a vague impression of strong arms and being carried and he really hopes he hallucinated that part because it’s not quite the impression he wanted to make on his first mission of his new assignment with stupidly good looking High Warlock Yu Wenzhou. His hot but stodgy boss aside, he has bigger problems. Like figuring out what happened.

Opening his eyes is a struggle, but it’s one that he wins. Of course he wins, he always wins.

The room around him is thankfully dim, but even the small amount of light makes him wince. Through the haze of his slow brain, recognition filters in. He knows this place. A rush of relief sweeps over him. He’d been pretty sure Yu Wenzhou had saved them but it’s nice to get confirmation he’s not in enemy hands. Tense muscles relax and he lets himself sink into the comfort of the very soft mattress under him.

A soft mattress. This isn’t his room at the institute (not that his room there has an uncomfortable bed, but it’s the firmer kind of mattress he prefers). This here is his room in Yu Wenzhou’s home. He tries not to spend too much time here if he can help it, but he needs to learn Yu Wenzhou’s habits well enough to fight alongside him, well enough to protect him, and that’s easier to do if they’re living under the same roof.

He blinks the haze from his eyes, taking in the weapons rack in the corner, the books on art and history and weapons lining the bookshelf, arranged by color because he likes the horrified expression on peoples’ faces when they realize.

The opposite wall is a bright, cheery blue when the lights are on, but right now it looks like a dark shadow in the poor lighting. He likes the way it stands out against the soft gray of the rest of the room’s walls. The room is decorated with photographs of far off places he’s never seen, and the occasional mounted sword. The night table next to the bed is clean except for the knife he sleeps with and a photograph of him and his friends.

He wonders if they know he nearly died. He can’t hear Su Mucheng chewing anyone out so he thinks maybe they don’t. He suddenly feels very alone in this empty room.

And then the dark lump of blankets at the foot of the bed shifts and he realizes it’s not a lump of blankets at all, but High Warlock Yu Wenzhou, sprawled forward in a chair and sleeping with his head on against Huang Shaotian’s bed.

That can’t be good for his back is, strangely, the first thing that crosses his mind.

He must still be woozy, because Yu Wenzhou pulls himself up with excruciating slowness. A popping sound echoes through the room as he twists towards one side and then the other. Once he’s straightened his glasses, he looks straight at Huang Shaotian and says, “As a matter of fact it’s not, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with magic.”

What the hell is Yu Wenzhou doing sleeping by his bedside, holding vigil like they’re friends or something? Like he’s worried. They barely tolerate each other. Surely Yu Wenzhou has better things to do with his time (and his back) than keep watch over someone who’s basically his employee.

And perhaps more urgently, “Please don’t tell me you’re a mind-reader, too. Have you been listening to my thoughts? You should ignore the ones from 3pm yesterday. And also the ones right before bed and in the shower, I take no responsibility for those, I’m still a young guy, you know. Not all of us are old and boring because we’ve been around for a thousand years.”

Yu Wenzhou laughs, he actually laughs. Huang Shaotian’s been here for nearly a month and he’s never heard him laugh before. It’s a nice laugh. A warm laugh. “No mind reading, Huang Shaotian. You spoke out loud.”

“Oh. You can just forget all that, let’s pretend it never happened.”

“Okay,” Yu Wenzhou says.

It’s annoying to try and see in the dark and so Huang Shaotian leans over and taps the fancy alarm clock he bought himself that also doubles as a light. He bites back a hiss when his body protests the movement. And yeah, he can take a hint; no more moving until he feels a little less like he nearly died. Which he did—nearly die, that is—so that’s probably a good plan on his part.

When his eyes adjust, he blinks just to make sure he isn’t seeing things.

At the foot of the bed, Yu Wenzhou looks the most rumpled Huang Shaotian has ever seen him. His glasses are askew on his face and his clothes from last night’s failed appointment are dirty and wrinkled. Even his hair is astray, sticking up on the side of his face that was laying against the bed.

He looks unkept. And worried.

And that, well…Huang Shaotian’s not sure what to do about that. He can handle an angry Yu Wenzhou and a powerful Yu Wenzhou and even a condescending Yu Wenzhou, but a concerned Yu Wenzhou is new territory for them.

Huang Shaotian deals with it the same way he deals with everything. He runs his mouth. Sue him, it’s a tried and true strategy and he’ll fight anyone who says that his words aren’t as powerful as his seraph blade. Patting the side of his own hair, he says, “Um, High Warlock Yu, your hair is…um, you might want to take a look at that. You can’t expect anyone to take you seriously looking like an escapee from an evil hair salon”

Yu Wenzhou lets out a small huff and smiles. “You saved my life, Huang Shaotian, you can use my name.”

Oh fuck, is this going to weird now? Huang Shaotian has just gotten used to the way things are. He talks and his hot boss glares. It’s a good routine and sure, it’s annoying that the guy clearly thinks Huang Shaotian is an idiot, but he;s used to being underestimated at first glance. “Alright. Yeah, I guess I did save your life, Yu Wenzhou. Don’t go getting weird on me, now. I just did my job.” He pauses and tries again “Your hair really is a mess, did you know?”

Yu Wenzhou tilts his head, the hint of a smile spreading on his lips. He doesn’t fix the half of hair that looks like a hedgehog stuck its snout in an electrical socket, and it’s very distracting. “I find it difficult to tell when you’re being sincere and when you’re backtalking. Do you do that on purpose?”

This isn’t the conversation Huang Shaotian expects to be having at—he looks over at his cool alarm clock that can simulate the sunrise and notes the time—nearly four o’clock in the morning. He laughs, a little uncomfortable. “I think you’ve got it wrong, High War—I mean, Yu Wenzhou. I’m an open book, I say exactly what’s on my mind. Anyone will tell you the same.”

“You have a lot of people fooled.”

He’s right, but Huang Shaotian is in too much pain to lower his guard enough to admit it. He grew up in an entire Institute filled with attractive people, it takes more than a nice smile to get him to crack. “What do you want me to say?”

Thankfully, Yu Wenzhou doesn’t press him. He merely nods and asks “How are you feeling?”

“Like I drank poison.”

Yu Wenzhou laughs. “You’ll make a full recovery. I had the antidote in my potions stores and we got it to you in time. The residual aches should fade in a day. Let me know if they don’t, or if they get to be too much.”

“You’re not going to dock my pay for using up your pricey potions, are you?”

“I don’t pay you. I pay your Institute.” Yu Wenzhou presses his lips together, eyes scanning over Huang Shaotian as if physically checking him over. His voice is soft when he asks, “Why did you do it? You could have been killed. What were you thinking?”

It’s the same question Huang Shaotian has asked himself more than once. Like a coward, he takes the easy way out. “I was thinking it’s my job to keep you alive. I was thinking it was our only way out. And I was right. Don’t try to tell me I’m not because I am.”

“It was my mistake that got us trapped. It was my responsibility to fix it.”

And fuck, if Yu Wenzhou goes on like this, Huang Shaotian might actually start to be attracted to his personality as much as his stupidly good-looking face. “Yeah, it was. But you seem like the kind of guy who learns his lesson pretty quick. So don’t do it again and we’ll call it even.”

Yu Wenzhou frowns, and inwardly, Huang Shaotian groans. He’s too tired for wherever this conversation is going. “You still should have waited for me. You know my magic is slow. What if I wasn’t ready in time and you died?” By the time he’s finished, Yu Wenzhou looks angry. Angry like he was when he thought Huang Shaotian didn’t follow his directions, which is…more than a little strange. It’s not like he wouldn’t get a new bodyguard if Huang Shaotian kicked it.

“As if you’d care. You’ve hated me since I got here.”

“Do you really think that little of me? Do you think because I’m a warlock I don’t value the lives of the people around me?”

And shit, shit shit, he’s going to cause a diplomatic incident after his first assignment to the High Warlock. Only he could manage that while barely able to move. Ye Xiu is going to have him cleaning stinky ichor off blades for the rest of his life if he doesn’t fix this. “That’s not what I meant, High Warlock Yu.”

He struggles to sit up and a lance of fire races through his chest. Gasping, he falls back against the pillows, his vision going dark at the edges.

“Don’t move, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

When his vision clears, Yu Wenzhou is standing at the side of his bed, a hand hovering over Huang Shaotian’s chest.

His bare chest, Huang Shaotian realizes, when he looks down to see his runes on stark display. No point being embarrassed about that now. Besides, it’s not like he has much body modesty left. Showering in the Institute barracks saw to that a long time ago. It’s just that there’s something about Yu Wenzhou’s refined demeanor that makes him feel so much more exposed than he ever has standing bare-ass naked in the same room with a dozen other Shadowhunters.

No point worrying about that now. Yu Wenzhou has seen what he’s seen and it’s a small price to pay for not being dead. He puts on a smile, the one he knows for a fact irritates people. “I already hurt myself, remember.”

“How could I forget.” And that strange, fond tone is back. Huang Shaotian isn’t sure what it means but he kind of likes it. Or maybe it’s the residual effects of the poison rotting his brain.

Yu Wenzhou withdraws his hand back to his side, but not before Huang Shaotian notices the tremor in his fingers. “High Warlock Yu, are you—”

“I told you, no titles.” His voice has a worrying rasp to it that wasn’t there while he was seated.

Huang Shaotian has seen enough. He pats the empty strip of bed beside him. “Stop being a stubborn bastard and sit down before you fall down, Yu Wenzhou.”

“I’m fine. It’s been a long night, that’s all.” This close, the tight lines around Yu Wenzhou’s mouth are obvious. As are the tremors which have reached his shoulders, He looks like he’s one deep breath away from collapse.

The sight of him sleeping slumped over Huang Shaotian’s bed replays itself in his memory and he wonders whether part of the reason he stayed was because he was too drained of magic and strength to leave. He suddenly gets the feeling it took much more power to keep him from kicking the bucket than Yu Wenzhou has let slip.

Luckily, he’s spent enough time in the medical wing of the Institute to know how to get his way with stubborn Shadowhunters. He’s betting it works on warlocks, too. “If you fall down, I’m not scraping your sorry ass up off the floor, you got that? Or do you want me to injure myself worse after you spent all this time and magic on me?”

It works like a charm. With a faint nod, Yu Wenzhou sits. The bed dips with his weight. Immediately, some of the color comes back to his face.

Huang Shaotian thinks about all the teachers who lectured him about how Downworlders are different, are inferior. He looks at Yu Wenzhou who, despite his own exhaustion, rushed to his side when Huang Shaotian was in pain, and thinks those old lessons might be more than a little bullshit. If he’s learned anything in the last ten minutes, it’s that he’d drink poison for Yu Wenzhou again.

He thinks that might be a bit much to say right now. “You can stay here the night, I don’t mind,” is what he says instead. “Wouldn’t be the first time I shared a sickbed.”

Yu Wenzhou gives him a tired smile but doesn’t commit either way.

They sit like that, nearly close enough to touch, until he hears Yu Wenzhou’s breathing calm down into something approaching normal. “Hey, about what you said before. About how I should have waited for you to be ready before downing a poison shooter like a fraternity stud in a dive bar?”

Yu Wenzhou nods. “I don’t recall phrasing it like that, but yes.”

“You’re wrong. I didn’t need to wait. I’ve been watching you for weeks. You started casting the moment I read that note because you thought I was going to kill you. Wrong, wrong, wrong, you were so wrong all night, Yu Wenzhou. And by the way, but I won’t be offended this time that you thought I’m that type of person but if you do it again I’ll be very sad. But what I mean is that I drank the poison when I did because I knew you were almost ready with your magic.”

Yu Wenzhou’s breath hitches and he can practically see him wondering if Huang Shaotian purposefully read the note aloud to facilitate his plan.

“I didn’t plan it like that,” he answers the unasked question. “But once you went on the defensive, I saw the opportunity and I took it.”

“You’re very good at that.” Yu Wenzhou says. In the next breath, he lists to one side, barely catching himself from tumbling head first into the night table.

Huang Shaotian’s hand is already reaching out to steady him, but his help isn’t needed and he lets it drop back to his side. He keeps a closer eye on Yu Wenzhou, just in case.. “I’m not just good, I’m the best.”

Yu Wenzhou’s normally sharp gaze is dulled but his words are as sharp as usual. “Your first week here, you said you noticed holes in the protections on my home.”

“I did but you didn’t want to hear them. You said, ‘Huang Shaotian, you’re here to guard me not to poke holes in wards.’”

Yu Wenzhou nods his head. “I’d like to take you up on your offer.” He scoots forward so that he can lie down. It’s strangely intimate but Huang Shaotian doesn’t feel uncomfortable. “If I were to ask you what you noticed? Would you tell me?”

Huang Shaotian can feel his own exhaustion dragging him under, but still he answers. “Will you listen this time?”

“Yes,”

“Good. Okay yeah, we’ll do that,” Huang Shaotian mumbles, and lets himself lapse into tired silence. Beside him, Yu Wenzhou’s watches over him until he can’t keep his eyes open any longer.

He doesn’t realize at the time that Yu Wenzhou isn’t just answering that specific question. He’s making a promise.

Over the next several days, once they’re both recovered, Yu Wenzhou listens to his assessment of the ward placements. It’s only the beginning.

Because he doesn’t just listen to him when they’re working, he does it all the time.

Yu Wenzhou listens to him chatter about his seraph blades while he cleans them. He listens when Huang Shaotian complains about how bitter Yu Wenzhou’s coffee is on mornings when he’s so groggy he drinks from the wrong mug. He listens to him sing while he does the dishes, even when Yu Wenzhou argues it could be done faster with magic. He listens to him yell at the television when they’re watching trashy dramas.

He listens to everything. And he never stops.

#the king's avatar #yuhuang #tka fanfic #yu wenzhou #huang shaotian #tka sh au #ha i actually write something in this verse #thanks for the prompt this was super fun #lynne writes fic

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alystayr · 3 years

Text

Playlist musicale 2021 (1/2)

Liste des chansons (playlist 2021 - part. 1)

Mise à jour : 30 juin 2021

playlist 2020 (part.2), playlist 2020 (part. 1)

playlist 2019 (part.2), playlist 2019 (part. 1)

playlist 2018 (part. 2), playlist 2018 (part. 1)

playlist 2017 (part. 2), playlist 2017 (part. 1)

playlist 2016 (part. 2), playlist 2016 (part. 1)

playlist 2015

0-9 #

AC/DC - Demon Fire (2020)

Bryan Adams - Summer Of '69 (1985)

Alabama Shakes - Hold On (2012)

America - A horse with no name (1971)

Angèle - Balance Ton Quoi (2018)

Archive - Fool (2002)

Jean-Louis Aubert - Bien Sûr (2019)

Asaf Avidan - Different Pulses (2012)

George Baker - Little Green Bag (from Reservoir Dogs) (1969)

Band Of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You (2007)

The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever (1967)

Jeff Beck (feat. Imogen Heap) - Blanket (2007)

Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive (from Saturday Night Fever) (1977)

Chuck Berry - Darlin' (2017)

The Black Keys (cover John Lee Hooker) - Crawling Kingsnake (2021)

Black Pistol Fire - Morning Star (2016)

Black Pumas - Colors (2019)

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - What Ever Happened To My Rock And Roll (2001)

Black Sabbath - God Is Dead? (2013)

Blind Melon - No Rain (1992)

Blondie - Heart Of Glass (1978)

The Blue Stones - Black Holes (Solid Ground) (2015)

The Blues Mystery - Back to the Dirty Town (2013)

Blues Traveler - Run-Around (1995)

Blur (Feat. Phil Daniels) - Parklife (1994)

David Bowie - Survive (1999)

Jacques Brel - La chanson des vieux amants (1967)

Brigitte - Battez-Vous (2010)

Francis Cabrel - Peuple des fontaines (2020)

J.J. Cale - Durango (1997)

CAN - Vitamin C (1972)

Cats on trees - Sirens call (2013)

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Distant Sky (2016)

Tracy Chapman - Give Me One Reason (1995)

Joe Cocker (cover Randy Newman) - You Can Leave Your Hat On (from 9½ Weeks) (1986/1972)

CocoRosie - Did Me Wrong (2020)

Cœur de pirate (feat. Loud) - Dans la nuit (2018)

Leonard Cohen - Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (1967)

The Cranberries - Animal Instinct (1999)

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son (1969)

Sheryl Crow - If It Makes You Happy (1996)

Eddy de Pretto - Bateaux-Mouches (2020)

Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club (2021)

Depeche Mode - Freelove (2001)

Détroit - Null And Void (2013)

Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene (1988)

Dire Straits - Expresso Love (1980)

Eels - Earth To Dora (2020)

Eminem (feat. Anderson .Paak) - Lock It Up (2020)

Endless Boogie - The Artemus Ward (2013)

Piers Faccini - Foghorn Calling (2021)

Mylène Farmer - Fuck them all (2005)

Léo Ferré – Les anarchistes (1969)

Feu! Chatterton - Monde Nouveau (2021)

Foo Fighters - Walk (2011)

Maxime Le Forestier - Saltimbanque (1975)

Foster The People - Sit Next to Me (2017)

Franz Ferdinand - Michael (2004)

Fugees - Ready or Not (1996)

Peter Gabriel - Mercy Street (1986)

Serge Gainsbourg - Requiem Pour Un Con (1968)

France Gall - Evidemment (1987)

Genesis - Invisible Touch (1986)

Girls in Hawaii - Found in the Ground (2002)

Goldfrapp - Ooh La La (2005)

Jean-Jacques Goldman - Comme toi (1982)

Grand Corps Malade & Louane - Derrière le brouillard (2020)

Juliette Greco - Le p'tit bal perdu (1961)

Greta Van Fleet - Age of Machine (2020)

Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine (1987)

Bill Haley & His Comets - Rock Around The Clock (1954)

PJ Harvey - Dress (1992)

Murray Head - Say It Ain't So Joe (1975)

Heartless Bastards - Revolution (2020)

Bernard Herrmann - Taxi Driver (theme) (1976)

The Hives - Hate to Say I Told You So (2000)

The Hollies - Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress) (1971)

Hollywood Undead (feat. Hyro The Hero) - Comin' Thru The Stereo (2021)

Romain Humeau - Echos (2020)

IDLES - Mr. Motivator (2020)

Interpol - Stella Was A Diver (2002)

Iron Maiden - Hallowed Be Thy Name (1982)

Michael Jackson - Black or White (1991)

The Jesus And Mary Chain (Feat. Hope Sandoval) - Sometimes Always (1994)

Quincy Jones - Soul Bossa Nova (1962)

Kaleo - Backbone (2020)

Kansas - Dust in the Wind (1977)

The Killers - Caution (2020)

The Kills - The Search For Cherry Red (2020)

Kings Of Leon - The Bandit (2021)

Kiss - Heaven's On Fire (1984)

Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way (1993)

Kyo - Le Graal (2014)

Led Zeppelin - Since I've Been Loving You (1970)

Liars - Sekwar (2021)

Limp Bizkit (Feat. Lil Wayne) - Ready To Go (2013)

Louise Attaque - La plume (2000)

Mad Season - Wake Up (1995)

Manu Chao – Clandestino (1998)

Laura Marling - What He Wrote (2010)

Memphis Slim - Born With The Blues (1972)

Metronomy - Walking In The Dark (2019)

Mickey 3D - La mort du peuple (2005)

Steve Miller Band - Jet Airliner (1977)

The Mission - Wasteland (1986)

Moby - Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? (1999)

Mogwai - It's What I Want To Do, Mum (2021)

Moondog - New Amsterdam (1997)

Morcheeba - Sweet L.A. (2018)

Motörhead - Till The End (2015)

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours (2005)

Muse - Supermassive Black Hole (2006)

Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (1999)

Nirvana - All Apologies (1993)

Noir Désir - Aux sombres héros de l'amer (1989)

Claude Nougaro (cover Chico Buarque) - Tu verras (1978)

Oasis - D'You Know What I Mean? (1997)

Of Montreal - The Past Is A Grotesque Animal (2007)

The Offspring - Why Don't You Get A Job? (1998)

Panaviscope – Sham (2020)

Pigalle - Dans La Salle Du Bar-Tabac De La Rue Des Martyrs (1990)

Pink Floyd - Us And Them (1973)

The Police - Synchronicity II (1983)

Pomme (cover Mylène Farmer) - Désenchantée (2020/1991)

Iggy Pop - Dirty Little Virus (2020)

Portishead - Chase The Tear (2009)

Portugal. The Man - Feel It Still (2017)

The Pretty Reckless - My Bones (2021)

Queen - The Miracle (1989)

Queens of the Stone Age - Go With The Flow (2002)

The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldier (2006)

Rammstein - Du Hast (1997)

Chris Rea - The Blue Cafe (1998)

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Suck My Kiss (1992)

Lou Reed (cover The Drifters) - This Magic Moment (1995/1960)

R.E.M. - What's The Frequency, Kenneth? (1994)

Renaud - Mistral gagnant (1985)

Rival Sons - Too Bad (2019)

The Rolling Stones - Star Star (1973)

Royal Blood - Typhoons (2021)

David Lee Roth - Just Like Paradise (1987)

La Rue Ketanou - Le Capitaine de la Barrique (2014)

Olivia Ruiz - De Toi A Moi (2003)

Santana (cover Fleetwood Mac) - Black Magic Woman (1970)

Shocking Blue - Venus (1969)

Simple Minds - Mandela Day (1989)

The Sisters of Mercy - Emma (1987)

Slayer - Raining Blood (1986)

Sasha Sloan (feat. Sam Hunt) - when was it over? (2020)

The Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm (1993)

Patti Smith - Rock N Roll Nigger (1978)

The Smiths - Barbarism Begins at Home (1985)

Sonny & The Sunsets - Too Young to Burn (2009)

Regina Spektor - One Little Soldier (from Scandale) (2019)

Spoon - The Way We Get By (2002)

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Backstreets (1975)

St. Vincent - Los Ageless (2017)

Stereophonics - Bust This Town (2019)

Sub Urban - Cradles (2021)

Superbus - Mes Défauts (2010)

James Supercave - Better Strange (2016)

Taylor Swift (feat. Bon Iver) – Exile (2020)

System Of A Down - Spiders (1998)

Téléphone - Au coeur de la nuit (1980)

Têtes Raides - Tam Tam (2007)

Charles Trenet - Je chante (1937)

Tool - Schism (2001)

Tina Turner - The Best (1989)

U2 - Angel Of Harlem (1988)

Van Morrison - Country Fair (1974)

Laurent Voulzy - Rockollection (1977)

Tom Waits - Wrong Side Of The Road (1978)

Weezer - Beverly Hills (2005)

The White Stripes - Hotel Yorba (2001)

Amy Winehouse - Fuck Me Pumps (2003)

Woodkid - In Your Likeness (2020)

Wovenhand - Crook and Flail (2016)

Shannon Wright - Division (2017)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (2009)

Yes - Roundabout (1971)

#Musique #Listes #Playlist #2021 #Rock #Pop #Electro #Blues #Metal

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curiosity-killed · 4 years

Text

a bow for the bad decisions

canon-divergent AU from ep. 24 (on ao3)

“Shut up,” he hisses, wet. “Shut up.” Wei Wuxian falls silent and somehow that’s worse. His brother is silent, tears slipping down his cheeks, and it is worse than anything he could say aloud. “A-Cheng? Xianxian?” Swallowing, he unclenches his fingers from around Wei Wuxian’s collar and sinks back onto his heels. Released, Wei Wuxian sways and stutters back down, his eyes downcast. “What’s wrong?” a-jie asks, worry thrumming through her voice. Wei Wuxian bows his head still, leaving this confession for Jiang Cheng. Anger echoes through Jiang Cheng’s chest at the way he presents himself as if waiting for punishment. It’s what he deserves; it hurts that he thinks it’s coming.

He hesitates for a moment. As much as he scolded Wei Wuxian for the same thing, he doesn’t want to worry jiejie more than necessary. If she knows Wei Wuxian’s core is gone, she’ll not only have all that backed up worry from the war but also fresh worry every time he wanders off without one of them. She fusses over the both of them enough as is; she shouldn’t strain herself so much for them.

On the other hand, there’s no one able to persuade Wei Wuxian like a-jie. And — and he’s not sure he can keep it a secret from her. He didn’t know Wei Wuxian could; Jiang Cheng is used to being in on his pranks and lies, not kept out by them. He swallows. “Wei Wuxian’s core is gone,” he says. Distantly, he’s a little proud how steadily he says it. His voice comes out a little inflectionless, but it doesn’t shake or, gods forbid, break in a sob. Wei Wuxian’s head dips lower. His hands still hang at his sides, shoulders curved forward. He hears the hitch in jiejie’s breath, the quiet gasp, before he forces himself to look up. One hand covers her lips, the other pressed to her stomach, and she stares wide-eyed at Wei Wuxian. “A-Xian,” she breathes out. He swallows, draws his hands over his knees so that they’re both tight around the stupid flute. Jiang Cheng’s teeth grit, jaw clenching in useless anger. What right does he have to look so browbeaten, so defeated? He’s kept up this lie for years — so successfully that the whole cultivation world has no idea. Of course he would. Even mediocre, even without the golden core that impressed everyone up to Lan Qiren himself, he can bend the world to his wishes. What is impossible for Wei Wuxian? “Wei Wuxian, don’t you have anything to say?” he snaps. His throat bobs as he swallows before he shifts, straightening up on his knees so that he’s facing both of them equally. Folding his hands before him, he stretches them out and bows his forehead flat to the floor. “I am sorry, shijie, Jiang Cheng,” he says quietly. Horror shoots through Jiang Cheng’s chest at the sight. This isn’t— he didn’t— This isn’t what he wanted. “A-Xian,” a-jie says over the rustle of her skirts as she crosses the room and tugs up on his elbows. “A-Xian, stop that. You don’t need to — to apologize like that.” He rises only reluctantly and keeps his gaze down. “I can’t fulfill my duties as Head Disciple of Yunmeng Jiang,” he says, evenly like he’s reciting facts. “I am no longer fit for the title or — or position. I can leave.” “Shut up,” Jiang Cheng snaps. “Shut up. You’re not going anywhere. What the hell are you thinking? You’re our brother. Did I stop being your brother when Wen Zhulio got me?” His eyes flick to Jiang Cheng, something almost fearful in the way they dart sideways to him. He hates that as much as he hates this awful, complacent self-sacrifice. “A-Cheng’s right, Wuxian,” jiejie says. She reaches out for his wrist, giving it a squeeze. “You’re our brother no matter what. You shouldn’t have kept this from us but now that we know, we can figure it out together. We can help you.” For all that she’s never been very strong at cultivation, Jiang Cheng privately thinks a-jie knows a whole different form of magic with her words and voice. She could calm a typhoon with only the right words. Now, Wei Wuxian doesn’t look wholly convinced, but he gives a trembling nod. It’s something, at least. It’s not like Jiang Cheng knows how they’re going to fix this, either, what help they can give. A-jie’s right: they’ll figure it out together. “It’s late,” a-jie says. “Why don’t we all go to bed and we’ll figure things out in the morning?” It feels like they’re little kids again, caught throwing tantrums because they missed a nap. Still, they both rise and let a-jie guide them out of the hall, one on either side of her like overgrown guard dogs. They escort her to her rooms first, like good brothers, and she pauses at the door to reach up and cradle Wei Wuxian’s damp cheek. “A-Xian,” she says softly, “we’ll get through this. No matter what, we three will solve it together. Alright?” He gives an obedient nod, and she smiles, smoothing back his hair absently. She looks over to include Jiang Cheng in her smile and reaches out to squeeze his wrist once. He summons up an answering smile and gives her a nod. He feels heartened somehow, impossibly, by her steady calm. After saying their goodnights, he and Wei Wuxian turn back to walk to their own rooms. “In the morning, Healer Xiong should look you over,” he says a few steps in. “See if your demonic cultivation has affected your meridians or if there’s anything she can do.” He remembers, still, the burning hollow after. How it felt like emptiness was a physical thing chewing away at the stem of his heart, the fine thread of his veins. He thinks of Wen Qing, her brusque manners and stubborn care. He brushes the thought away. It’s not like she could fix his core in the end anyway. “Ai, no, there’s no need for that,” Wei Wuxian says. “I’m fine, really. There’s no sense troubling Healer Xiong, and anyway, who knows my body better than me? I can tell you my meridians are fine.” The deflection is too similar to what he said back when they first found him over Wen Chao’s wailing form. It’s said more lightly this time, but it still echoes that same words he used against Lan Wangji, and Jiang Cheng shoots him a sharp look. “Don’t be stupid,” he says. “If you actually want any chance of figuring this out, we need the best help we can get. It’s not like Healer Xiong will tell anyone anyway. She’s been with us since a-jie was born.” Wei Wuxian grimaces slightly, looking away. He worries at his bottom lip for a second, as if chewing on his words, and Jiang Cheng frowns, waiting. At last he sighs. “It’s just — I uh I used resentful energy to heal some injuries,” he admits. “Nothing bad! Just — you know Healer Xiong will see that and then give me that sad look she has like I just ran over all her herbs—” “She didn’t even yell at you when you ruined her herbs, you baby.” “—and you know how awful that look is,” Wei Wuxian continues. “It’s like she’s sad she’s somehow failed you and then you just feel terrible. It’s the worst.” Glaring at him, Jiang Cheng crosses his arms. It’s true that Xiong Chunfeng has perfected the art of looking disappointed to the point that he thinks she might have been able to stop the war if they only got her in front of Wen Ruohan at the start. Her whole face goes soft and sad, dark eyes searching like she’s trying to understand how she could have done better in order to prevent their mistakes. Just thinking about it makes his skin itch with old shame. “Fine,” he relents, dropping his arms. “But as soon as it’s cleared up, you go see her.” “Of course. Right away,” Wei Wuxian agrees readily. They continue a few steps in silence, Jiang Cheng casting searching looks out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t remember Wei Wuxian getting hurt recently. In the war, they weren’t often fighting too close to each other, but Wei Wuxian always had his corpses and ghouls and spirits spiraling out from him like the branches of a hurricane. He frowns. “How bad?” he asks. “Eh? Oh.” Wei Wuxian’s smile falters a moment, just a flicker, before he grins and waves it off. “It’s nothing. Stop worrying, Jiang Cheng, your face is going to stick like that and then who’ll ever marry you?” Jiang Cheng jerks away as Wei Wuxian loops his arm around his shoulders, cheeks heating red. He’s a sect leader, fought in a war — he shouldn’t still be flustered by something so stupid, but he can’t help the flush that burns his ears. “Shut up. I wouldn’t have to worry if you weren’t such an idiot,” he mutters. When he elbows Wei Wuxian this time, it’s gentle, barely a nudge. Wei Wuxian is silent a moment before his arm slips off Jiang Cheng’s back. He misses the familiar warmth immediately. “Jiang Cheng, don’t do that,” he says quietly.

“Do what?” Jiang Cheng snaps back. He can already feel the shame creeping up as quickly as his brief embarrassment. All their lives they’ve roughhoused and shoved each other recklessly, using their strength because they knew each other could match it. They hadn’t during the war, but Wei Wuxian had been cold and closed off, and the distance had felt wrong. It had felt like he didn’t remember how to hug the one time Jiang Cheng had embraced him, before he was scared off by Wei Wuxian’s sharp new edges. Now — now he isn’t sure how to close that distance without hurting his brother. When they were younger, he could shove Wei Wuxian because he knew he was strong enough to shove back harder. Without his core, though, he’s missing that power. It’s what started all this in the first place. “Acting like I’m going to fall apart at any second,” Wei Wuxian says. “I meant what I said. I’m not fragile or — or broken. You don’t have to act any differently. We could just — forget all this. Go back to normal.” He doesn’t sound particularly hopeful, and Jiang Cheng swallows. They can’t go back, no matter what either of them say. They can’t go back to any of it — to before Lotus Pier burned, before his parents died, before the war and Wei Wuxian’s ghostly path. Even if he never found out about Wei Wuxian’s core, they can never go back to the way it was.

#mdzs #the untamed #untamed fic #cql #yunmeng siblings #my writing #the thesis of this story: Siblings are Complicated and sometimes wanting to help does not make you actually good at or capable of helping

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bots-basket · 4 years

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#mobile info #mobile

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saltlog · 7 months

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#※saltlog #-> au: echoes of typhoon #-> sorry memes. wolfwood 1 day into his job after thinking he is about to have to deal with worst person he has ever met: wait a fck #-> roberto who was guiding meryl to run the base when she asks they now gotta keep two freaks to keep eye on them: hell #-> bernardelli are just some weird gossip group who deals info and meryl goes actually i'm tired of flying circles install the QAAM #-> i have.. too much stuff currently i need to organize em somehow..#-> i'm enjoying letting my scifi AI horror brain run free uhhh i have so much text </3 #trigun stampede

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speedy-1236 · 4 years

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Fanfics with Knux

Anon comment I came by on another Tumblr blog: "There's no fanfics with Knuckles. There's never any fic with Knuckles!"

Couldn’t exactly answer that directly, but.

Ahem.

Excuse me.

Let me rectify that.

You looking for Knux fic? Try these people:

Awdures (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/912394/Awdures)

Lots of fics with Knuckles being a (the) main character. A few examples:

Fics based on classic games and STC (Like: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3281231/1/Echoes-and-Reflections, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2638552/1/Once-and-Future)

Sonic X fics with Knux being awesome - More realistic Sonic X AU where only Sonic and Knuckles get sent to Earth and things go downhill very quickly: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2652094/1/Sojurn - Very close to canon season one fix-it/extension that make Knuckles no longer seem like an idiot: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12738653/1/Cracks - Season 3 Interlude on the Blue Typhoon: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12391171/1/Unity-in-Chaos

Knuckles and Chaos stuff in SatAM https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4895009/1/Ends-and-Means and https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5552932/1/Butterfly-Throttle

Forces AU speculating on whatever happened to the ME in Forces and how each possible version of events affected Knux: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12845939/1/One-of-Three-Things-is-True

Currently updating Mania adaption with great Knux and Team Sonic becoming friends: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13117549/1/Transitions

Netraptor (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4191/NetRaptor, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NetRaptor/pseuds/NetRaptor)

There's tons of Knuckles stuff here, in various universes. Will probably have an interpretation of the character for everyone.

The old stuff starts with Knux being more of an antagonist and gradually coming around to be the reliable friend of Sonic's we know him as by now. Entire series is easily found here: https://archiveofourown.org/series/708225

And if you hated Boom!Knuckles? Here's your fix-it: Boom!Knuckles becoming smart and growing into a really epic guardian in his own right. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11090876/1/Knuckles-Boom-Sonic-Boom-fanfic Whole series: https://archiveofourown.org/series/793848

Sarilleny (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/514520/sarilleny, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarilleny/pseuds/sarilleny)

Love Knuckles, friendship stuff and angst? Look here:

Fractured Frequency. Mysterious stuff is happening to the Chaos Energy, and it's threatening Knuckles' life and his friends, too. Has a SatAM-ish evil Robotnik, lots of feels, lots of angst, too. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6643372/1/Fractured-Frequency

Liked Commander!Knuckles in Forces? This fic explores how he got there. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12823429/1/Unlikely

JudasFM (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/293967/JudasFm)

Lots of old fic, but there's plenty to last you a while for your Knuckles needs.

Has adaptions of classic games and a standalone series with Knux being a main character. Series starts with https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2552267/1/Secrets-of-the-Emeralds

Child at Heart Forever (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1690065/Child-at-Heart-Forever)

Great resource for all sorts of adaptions of more "modern" games. Knuckles obviously is in the Adventure 1 and 2 adaptions, Heroes adapt and in the adaption of Sonic's 06 story (and him and Tails being around all the time makes this story so much better than the original game).

DC111 (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/995413/DC111)

Knux appears in Survivor's Resolve and Red Mirror, he's not always there as a main character, but when he's there, he's great (beware of dark themes).

And, self-advertising sucks and I don't want to sound like I'm full of myself, but I have like half a million words of fanfic to my name that has Knux as a main character.That should probably count for something, too. (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1878325/)

No Knux fanfiction my ass. Is there a lot of fanfiction with Knux? Probably not by comparison. But there's lots of good fanfic with Knux, lots of long fanfic with Knux, too. If you've never seen any, I got good news for you here, friend.

But, please reblog and add your own recs, people.

#sonic fanfiction #sonic fanfic #sonic fic #knuckles #knuckles the echidna #knuckles fanfiction #rant #sonic fic rec #writing #stories #fanfic #fanfiction

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buriedincharcol · 5 years

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Familiar Warmth Chapter 1

(AU where Carmen crosses that friggin’ street in Sydney and Graham becomes the civilian boyfriend who she has to hide her criminal lifestyle from)

Despite the odd gap in memory, Graham "Grey" Smith could say with confidence that he lived an absolutely normal, mundane life.

He followed a routine that never changed and he never wavered from. Every morning he would wake up at six to get ready for his electrician job at the Sydney Opera House, go for a morning run, order a ham and swiss croissant with black coffee from his favorite cafe, spend the rest of the day at his workplace, grab a bite to eat at the nearby banh mi food truck during lunch break, and then finally he would crash at home after eating dinner at the local Indian place. The routine provided him with an anchor - a way to go on autopilot and help him not dwell too much on the lost time he could never remember. Trying too hard left him with a killer migraine which only meant that he had to waste money to buy Tylenol.

He wasn't sure what to make of the faint sensation of static on the tip of his tongue or the barely-there memory of red like aftertaste of a glass of 1787 Chateau Margaux. Like the wine, the fading echo of crimson felt... old, expensive, precious, and wasted.

Don't ask him how he knew what the wine tasted like because he really didn't remember how or why he did.

After a while, Grey settled on simply letting go of the past because if he didn't remember it, it probably didn't matter right?

That changed when he met the odd woman backstage.

She looked like an actress - all long dark curls, hidden face, and figure wrapped into a flowing red coat. He would've passed by her without a second - probably a model girlfriend of one of the actors - if she wasn't clearly sneaking around. He sighed, pretty or not, he was going to have to tell her to leave since there was expensive equipment in the dark that she might trip on or somehow get herself hurt.

When Grey approached her, he froze when her eyes met his.

They were a stormy, tumultuous grey that reminded him of the pier during a typhoon - threatening to drag him under and drown him completely. Despite her icy glare, he saw that there was a blazing inferno behind her gaze as if he had wronged her by simply existing.

The warmth of the fire felt familiar like he had once known both the comfort of it - the kindness of the hearth of a childhood home - and the wrath of it - the uncontrollable fury of a wildfire.

The woman looked at him with familiarity and asked him a series of confusing questions that threatened to trigger for another migraine which was not something he needed on a busy night so forgive him for being a little for brusque with her than necessary.

Eventually, she realized that he wasn't the person she thought he was. The way her face dropped made him upset and disappointed in a way he couldn't understand.

As he led her to the exit she gave him a curious look, "You... really don't remember me?"

He stopped in his tracks and gave her another once over to amuse her like he hadn't already checked her out.

"Fashion statement aside, mate, you'd be hard to forget."

As they continued walking, he aimed a playful smirk at her, "If there is a next time, I promise not to make that mistake again."

The woman looked at him with curiosity in her eyes where there was once hostility like she knew something that he didn't. Her ruby lips quirked up, "Guess you just, uh, remind me of someone I used to know."

Grey wondered what that poor bastard had done to deserve her ire as he held the door open for her, "Well, I have one of those faces. Enjoy the show."

He walked away quickly before he could think too much about how walking away from her felt uncomfortably familiar.

Grey kicked himself when he realized that he didn't ask her number.

A few hours into his shift, a weird power surge or something fried the soundboard towards the end of the show. He groaned as he realized that he'd have to show up early in the morning to fix it before the next performance.

There goes his off day of binge watching The Good Place. Alone.

He made himself a mental checklist: Note to self, buy a cat or something so you start your life as a lonely catlady. (Is catlady a gender-neutral term? Catman? Catguy???)

He packed his stuff up and began the late-night walk home.

#this is just the intro kids its gonna pick up soon #its either gonna be a slow burn or a freefall into oblivion because i have about 0 patience but a lot of shit to do #send me ideas for this pairing #red crackle #carmen sandiego #carmen x grey #crossposted on ao3 #i put it here so you funky lil shippers dont have to open another window to get this pairing shot directly into ur veins like me

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comedicreliefonlyworkswhenfunny · 5 years

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Villain! Deku au; chapter sixteen: A Fire In The Night

First

Midoriya ran the bar as usual that day while his teammates went over what they were to do during the infiltration. They were to attack in the evening, when the students would be tired from quirking out and the teachers would be tired of putting up with them. The only problem was the annoying wait until evening… and telling the customers that they wouldn’t be open from prime drinking time, but that was mostly just arguments. About half of the bar patrons were participating in the infiltration, reading the vague instructions that Deku had given them each. Somewhere along the line, somebody started a discussion about what they should be called- not that it mattered. “League of Villains’ Frontal Force!” Twice, a boisterous villain with a cloning quirk, chimed in. His attitude was always a bit too bubbly for a villain, but he was the appreciated working comic relief. “Nice alliteration, but that sounds stupid. We need a name that does the job; it doesn’t need to sound flashy. We should be the Attack Force,” Mustard, a B-ranked assassin with a knack for murder, argued. Unlike some of his comrades, he prefered quiet kills and using his quirk to take out enemies without a struggle. “We should be a squad! A tight knit group fighting under the same ideals! The League of Villains’ Attack Squad!” added Spinner, to describe him as outgoing wouldn’t quite cover it; he was enthusiastic, to say the least, and a justice fighter(™) to boot. His past altercations left him with an oxymoronic hatred for heroes and a love for justice. He was, most definitely, the strongest Stain fan of the group. “That’s so childish, go for something like the League of Villains’ Vanguard. It sounds so much cooler and has a meaning behind it,” surprisingly the philosophical input came from Dabi; more likely than not, he just wanted to sound smarter than the rest of the group, though. “We take action!” Toga gleefully chimed in, “Action to make the world a better place!” They could have gone on all day and never left the hideout if Midoriya didn’t chime in. “The League of Villains’ Vanguard Action Squad. We lead an action based revolution with a tight knit group. Over. Done. No further discussion,” if Deku hadn’t said anything, Kurogiri looked like he was about to resolve the conflict himself. A silent, almost invisible, nod of thanks was sent to Midoriya.

Kurogiri slowly fed the villains through a warp gate to a mountain protecting the hideout. Miscellaneous chatter soaked up the short waiting time that the villains were currently being melodramatic about. “No good, it’s just not cute!” Toga, one of the many bouncy children in the League complained aimlessly. “The abstruse administration has laid out our orders. While they don’t appear to be the most professional, their planning is sure to be sound,” Mustard argued for the sensibility of the plan. “Not that, not that. It’s just not cute,” she aimlessly complained about whatever was most prominent in her cluttered mind at the time. “Who the hell cares? We came to kill, and I want to get to it!,” Muscular was just ticked that he was the newbie of the group and was very much treated as such. He was a powerful ally to have, but he did not embody the beliefs of the league at all. He was a chaotic evil amongst lawfuls and neutrals. “Shut up, weirdos, the plan is to wait for all of us,” Dabi spoke up, looking over the see of forest. Magne, Spinner, and Moonfish all walked through the portal after taking too long to get ready. “Ambitious punks only cause more damage than they’re worth. What they need is a hit from a gang of elites,” an open mouth declaration to the rest of the squad, “Peace is ours, and they will learn that tonight.”

Eventually the time came for the mission to truly begin. Mustard and Dabi were to launch the initial attack, drawing the attention on them, while Magne and Spinner were to hunt down the Pussycats. Once the smoke was up and ready, everybody spilt. The League of Villains’ Vanguard Action Squad slunk into the forest like a snake in the grass. Mustard released his quirk, the gas swirling like a typhoon, and Dabi did his job, igniting various trees, all far enough away to spread the fire, but not too far away as he was lazy. Magne and Spinner went to target the Pussycats. Moonfish and Toga wandered the forests in search of stragglers.

Mange was the first to officially strike, pulling on of the Pussycats towards her and landing a heavy blow to Pixiebob. “We are the League of Villains’ Vanguard Action Squad, tiny UA students. Pleased to meetcha!” Spinner stupidly declared. He was a living definition of a poorly written comic book villain, always blurting out whatever comes to mind. ‘Ha ha, heroes! I (we) have (think we have) the upper hand! (we don’t) Since we’re so confident (cocky, stupid), here is the entire layout of said plan, step by step (as if we were explaining it to one of our recruits)’ type of badly written comic book villain. Magne was smarter than Spinner, holding Pixie-Bob to the ground with her weapon. “Should I crush her pretty little skull? I don’t see why not, but what do you guys think?” psychological manipulation that was to instil a feeling of helplessness. It wasn’t outwardly taking a hostage, but it was showing that she wasn’t hesitating. The problem with hostages always becomes ‘if you kill them, you have nothing,’ so having the clear ability to ignore your “advantage,” shows power. Student’s shocked faces were priceless as they gaze upon the villains. Tiger, however, was not having it. He knew the woes of being a woman, and, as a person, also wished for a similar happiness. It was no secret that the Pussycats were steadily creeping past optimal age. Pixie-Bob was taking it the hardest. “Don’t you dare!” he hissed- pun intended, with rage hot on tongue. Both Ragdoll and Tiger were happy with hero life, Mandalay was just worried about the idea of being old, but Pixie-Bob was the romantic of the group. Magne didn’t care for that though, she had her heart broken far to many times to care about the heart of a “beautiful” woman. Tired of being the “coyote ugly,” she wanted to make it so that beauty didn’t run the world. Spinner cut in as well, completely knowing Magne’s anger for those deemed “attractive.” He called out, “Don’t be hasty Big Sis Mag,” he knew she loved that nickname, for several reasons, “You, too, Tiger,” he held his arms out to stop the two readied opponents. “Holding life in your hands is the most important thing you can do! Do you not remember Stain’s teachings?”

Of course that fanboy would bring up Stain. He took every word from that man’s mouth as if it was his lifeline, after a while that was what happened. He believed heavily in justice, but was always made fun of as a kid. He wasn’t the strongest, the smartest, and definitely not the most beautiful: he wasn’t an “ideal” hero, and his strong sense of justice got him nowhere. “Stain… So these people were his followers,” Iida almost felt regret at this point, the thought that Stain had followers who quite clearly knew his face as one that brought their “teacher’s” demise. He could easily push it aside because Stain was an asshole who put his brother in intensive care, despite being a hero for the purest of reasons. “You got that right!” half right, at most; most of “Stain’s followers” weren’t actually his followers, they just believed in same or similar ideals. Shiragaki couldn’t understand that, but he was just a big man child who refused to try- a statement taken directly from fellow members of the league. “And we know all about your feats, four eyes,” Spinner looked at him with a side glance, “And how you helped bring Stain’s end in Hosu.” He placed his hand on his weapon before he continued, “I’m who they call Spinner, and I’m here to make Stain’s dreams come true!” he declared as he “unsheathed” his weapon. It was a new addition for him, made of every knife Stain left behind, with a few of his own, awkwardly tied together to create a patchwork buster sword. Spinner, still lost in the confidence of his introduction and the echoed ‘woah’s of his blade’s reveal, plucked a nerve of Tiger’s.

“That’s good for you, but,” he looked to Pixie-Bob who was lying unconscious, “Pixie-Bob, my friend and teammate, has been worried about marriage. Happiness in life is a woman’s woe! With all of it’s difficulty, she tries very hard!” at this point it was just an oration. Until Tiger got to the point, “How dare you leave an ugly scar like that on her beautiful face, and blab like that without any care?” he was yelling now, showing his true colors. “So heroes have such plain dreams, too?” Spinner was laughing at the thought. The term ‘hero’ had degraded so much, to the point when they’re worried about life after their job. Wasn’t that so funny to think about? A profession where your only purpose is to help people, and there’s a question of what comes after this? People who are trusted with lives have time to worry about marriage and their white picket fence dreams; do the people not matter? Spinner couldn’t help but laugh as he charged towards half of the Pussycats. “Tiger! I’ve sent out the order to Ragdoll to make sure the students are safe! All we need to do is hold them off here!” Mandalay relayed to the partner beside her. She turned to the students and gave them what they needed to know, “Get on your way kids! Be alert, but remember: no fighting!” she couldn’t afford to turn her back. “Keep them safe for me, Class President!” a statement to encourage Iida; being called the class president reminded him that Momo accepted the ‘Vice’ role because she trusted his decision making more than her own. “I’ll make sure we stay safe and out of the way. You heard her, time to go!” Iida rallied his peers as their fearful feet pounded down the path to safety.

Shiragaki and Kurogiri discussed the likelihood of the mission as their pawns were in play. “Do you think they can pull this off?” being honest, Kurogiri still wasn’t over the stupid naming ceremony that they held instead of preparing for battle. “Maybe, maybe,” he almost laugh, unwilling to admit that Midoriya’s words made him change his strategy. Sure, he could have thought of it on his own, and that was what he told himself, but, ultimately, it was Midoriya who told him to think of it like a video game. “I thought this was an rpg, advancing through the storyline as quickly as possible, but I was all wrong. See, when my level one party and I should have been killing slimes, we were trying to fight the boss,” he understood that his ambition got ahead of him, seeing as all the he wanted to do was defeat All Might; it was a heavy fault to admit. “Instead, I am the player, I am the GM, moving my characters and the storyline to places that will get them closer to the end goal,” he grinned at the idea of his master plan, “And to do that, we need to break a few walls to allow the chaos in. It doesn’t matter if they thrive or not, they might not even survive,” he laughed leaning back slightly. Kurogiri didn’t follow, “So they are disposable?” how would that help at all? “No, no, of course not! They’re all comrades, but what matters is the lingering fear that something could happen at any given moment. Wariness, mistrust, accusation; why fear us when they fear each other? But of course, I do hope they succeed,” he made a point. Wariness would fry their systems; who has time for self care when evil might be anywhere? Mistrust would scramble their minds; it was exactly that! Just a thought! Who’s to say if it’s wrong or right? Accusation would tear them apart: why am I suspicious? The fact that you find me suspicious is quite so. Do I even know you? Not to mention the big pawn: Deku; the young boy Izuku Midoriya. Shiragaki knew his relations to the explosive blonde boy, an ex bully who knew him as a hero fanboy. All Might himself, who had shot down the young boy’s dreams. The two students who fought Stain in Hosu, side by side with the kid who saved their lives. Shiragaki grinned as the battle raged throughout the mountains. Several unconscious and unaccounted for, injury count racking up a total; it was going just as planned.

Master

#league of villains #league of villains vaniguard action squad #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #villain!izuku #villain!deku #villain au #summer camp training arc #angst #violence

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