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cringeyvanillamilk · 3 years

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☕️If you had to place the black bulls in a squad that wasn't the black bulls, where would you put them and why?

Hello! I really appreciate the ask!

This concept has always been something I’d love to see more of since the possibilities are endless. I’m going to answer this prompt with the assumption that each member properly went through the magic knight exam and were chosen by a different squad captain. I’ll be explaining my thoughts in detail for each member.

More details under cut!

Crimson Lions

Asta: Crimson Lions

I think Asta’s determined and headstrong personality would work well within the Crimson Lions. The Crimson Lions seem to be a very disciplined and hardworking squad thanks to Fuegoleon’s leadership, which Asta would thrive in. I like to believe that Asta’s ambition of being Wizard King and outstanding fighting prowess during the exam would impress Fuegoleon enough to have him join his squad. Asta might also serve as a role model where it doesn’t matter what status or magic amount you have, as long as you work hard you are destined for greatness. This would align with Fuegoleon’s value. Also, Leopold would have a more consistent rivalry with Asta which would make him improve more quickly and effectively.

Zora: Crimson Lions

I think that Zora would be a refreshing addition to the Crimson Lion based on his more tactical fighting style and stance on the corrupted upper class. Having Zora would be a humbling experience for everyone. I think that Fuegoleon would appreciate Zora’s blunt and critical personality because it’ll only lead to improvement and growth. Although his pride may get repeatedly stomped on by Zora, he still values his words and learns from them. And since the Crimson Lions are most likely full of nobles, Zora will be an important key to not only showcasing that peasants are just as strong as nobles, but also point out each member's weakness. He may cause mayhem in this squad, but I think they’ll improve a lot with his presence. Zora would also respect Fuegoleon’s unbiased personality despite being a royal so he has no problem being in his squad.

Blue Rose

Noelle: Blue Rose

I specifically did not pick the Silver Eagles because I don’t believe that Noelle will consistently grow and improve in an environment where she will most likely be ridiculed or undermined. She needs to be in a squad where she can be empowered and supported by others. It’s because of these crucial factors that I think the Blue Rose is the perfect squad for her. Based on what we know about the Blue Rose, we have never seen any members discriminate against others based on class or skills (unless you’re a man RIP). I also believe that Charlotte would be a great role model and teacher for Noelle to look up to. Charlotte may also serve as a potential mother figure that Noelle probably wanted her whole life.

Finral: Blue Rose

This is basically a dream come true for Finral. A squad full of beautiful and strong women? He can finally die happy! Joking aside, I think Finral’s personality and spatial magic would meet Charlotte’s standards. Although Finral is a flirt, he is definitely not disrespectful towards women. Though his flirting may get him in trouble due to the “no dating men” rule, he can always be subtle about it like the other blue rose members. Who knows, maybe his attempts may appear charming to the other members. Finral’s spatial magic is also very reliable and makes him the squad’s favorite errand boy.

Green Mantis

Magna: Green Mantis

Magna’s small amount of magic might prevent him from being accepted by any other squads, but I think Magna’s grit and delinquent attitude might work well under Jack. Magna is no pushover and his willingness to fight might entertain Jack. And if Magna is extremely loyal to Yami, he might be the same for Jack which will stroke his ego pretty nicely. Magna basically went from mean looking captain to another lmao. And if I’ll be honest, Magna might be the key to the squad improving drastically. The squad honestly needs that toughness based on the weak-willed members we know so far from the squad. Jack would definitely leave Magna in charge of toughening up the members. They need it.

Luck: Green Mantis

The sole reason why Luck would join the Green Mantis is because of Jack. Out of all the other captains, Jack seems the most eager to slice which will peak Luck’s interest. If Jack can apparently cut anything, Luck wants to test his abilities and fight Jack. Luck already has a bad reputation and so he might not be accepted into other noble squads. Thankfully, Jack doesn’t care for reputation so Luck will be at home in his squad. It also helps that Luck is in the same squad as Magna since they seem to motivate each other to grow stronger. They’d make a good pair in toughening up the squad and entertaining Jack.

Nacht: Green Mantis

Now Nacht was very difficult for me to choose. Nacht would probably prefer to be in a squad where he can do whatever he wants and spy on the Spade Kingdom. With this in mind, I would put Nacht in the Green Mantis. This squad is one of the least noteworthy in comparison to the other squads and aren’t as formal or rigid. This becomes an advantage for Nacht since this gives him the freedom to do whatever he needs to do. If he were to disappear, the squad doesn’t have to know due to Jack’s lax leadership. Jack wouldn’t think much about Nacht’s disappearance nor would he care so it’s a win-win situation.

Coral Peacock

Charmy: Coral Peacock

I think Charmy would fit in with the Coral Peacock because of her versatile and powerful cotton magic. I like to think that Kirsch, specifically, would view Charmy’s magic as very beautiful. Her cotton magic is just like her personality, very adaptable and cute, so Charmy might end up charming Kirsch if she were to be a part of the squad. She may even be a possible little-sister figure that he’d end up doting over. Of course, Mimosa will always be his number one. Dorothy can also have a nice soft cotton bed to sleep on lmao.

Vanessa: Coral Peacock

I think Vanessa would be in the Coral Peacock due to being a fellow witch. Vanessa’s versatile and elegant thread magic would also fit with the Coral Peacock’s beautiful aesthetic. There’s no question that Vanessa would meet Kirsch’s standards because of her beauty. However, if Vanessa drinks a lot and casually wears her underwear around the base, Kirsch will suddenly become an overbearing mother. He would see such behavior as unbecoming of a beautiful person and would continuously lecture Vanessa to change her habits.This becomes an everyday thing. Being in the same squad as Dorothy can also lead them to have a closer bond due to their similar upbringing.

Purple Orcas

Gordon: Purple Orcas

It’s a big oof. Gordon would only be accepted into the Purple Orcas because of his poison and curse magic. Gueldre initially wanted Gordon to join him on his corrupted scheme, but after realizing that Gordon’s personality betrays his appearance, he (thankfully) dropped the idea. Now that the original purpose for having Gordon is meaningless at this point, Gordon would be left to do whatever he wants. Sadly, he might be lonely because the other members are too scared to approach him or even ridicule him. Thankfully, he might have someone from the Black Bulls to give him company.

Grey: Purple Orcas

Similar to Gordon, Grey’s transformation magic would be viewed as useful for Gueldre’s schemes. And just like with Gordon, Gueldre would realize that he can’t manipulate Grey into participating in his scheme and would give up on the initial plan. Once Grey is transformed, she is very unpredictable and might not listen to directions as readily. If she’s left alone, she might just transform into her other members and have fun. This is where she’d befriend Gordon and hang out together. They’ll keep each other company. Once Kaiser replaced Gueldre, they would both try and better the reputation of the squad. I can see both of them being more fond of Kaiser than Gueldre. A possible father-figure maybe!

Golden Dawn

Gauche: Golden Dawn

Despite Gauche’s past crimes, William would specifically choose Gauche because he is a reincarnation of Drowa. Gauche’s mirror magic could also be powerful in battle, but he’s definitely a controversial pick due to his criminal history and uncouth personality. Gauche would be the black sheep of the squad and he could honestly care less. As long as he receives his paycheck and spends it on Marie, he just wants to be left alone. No friends, no trouble. Alecedora and Langris will not vibe with Gauche. He isn’t afraid to shoot beams at them or anybody else. William promises that Gauche has the skill to live up to the Golden Dawn’s standards. He’s really stretching it for the sake of having him in the squad. Might try and get Gauche to improve his cooperation skills. And thus Gauche joins Klaus, Yuno, and Mimosa for mission and team building. It’s a wild dynamic.

Nero: Golden Dawn

If Nero were to join a squad as a bird, I feel like she would naturally join Asta’s squad since she likes to sit on his head. However, if she were to go through the exam as herself, she would probably be in the Golden Dawn. I’m sure Patri would at least recognize Nero and would want her by his side to keep an eye on her. Nero’s true identity will be unknown to the other members, but William will do everything he could to be close to Nero. Probably to investigate Nero’s goals. She might also be partnered up with Klaus, Yuno, Mimosa, and Gauche. Not gonna lie though, I was tempted to put her in the Silver Eagles because she’d fit the bird aesthetic.

Aqua Deer

Henry: Aqua Deer

Henry is a quirky man. A quirky man that Rill might find inspiration from! Henry might become Rill’s biggest fan because not only would Rill probably let Henry absorb his mana, but he’d show him his various art work. In return, Rill might like Henry because of his cool recombination magic! Each day his house might look different? That sounds like a potential art project in the making! Henry also attracts animals and so Rill will have a blast painting various animals that come by his house! Especially the birds! Probably the most light-hearted friendship.

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like-rain-or-confetti · 3 years

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Can you do a little text with your opinion about the Volturi members? What you like and dislike, they personality, they story... Would be interesting! Kissessss and have a great day! 💜

Imma have a little fun and throw the very young me into the mix to. Let's see child me vs adult me's opinions on the Volturiiii.

Fun fact: I wasn't team Volturi until I was like fifteen. Before that I was team edward... I don't want to talk about that 🤔😒

Also I'm a sucker for villains. If it isn't obvious already, I like the villains more than the heroes. (We all love a bad boy though, don't we?--- TIK TOK NOW IS NOT THE TIMEE.)

So everything i say is just my opinion and should be taken just as that.

Aro: Younger me was like "this...is a terrible person. There really is no need to expand on this." However adult me has been like "GUYS this guy is possibly the SCARIEST character. This man rips off heads AND SMILES ABOUT IT." He gives me child snatcher vibes (from the movies in particular). I thoroughly enjoy the power hungry persona. He's really fitting to be the puppeteer behind the Volturi. Even if he makes it seem it's a group effort with himself, Marcus and Caius. Realistically, Aro gets what he wants and isn't afraid to do what it takes to get it...sorry Didyme. What's even darker about it, WHICH I LOVE, is that he isn't heartless. Smeyer wrote that Aro genuinely loved his sister. It's all good to have a character that's a evil heartless monster but what's more terrifying to me is the ability for someone to do evil despite their love and emotions. It doesn't hold them back and that's what I find particularly frightening now that child me didn't comprehend. Micheal Sheen, from what I remember of his interview years ago, played on the idea that vampires of Aro's age kinda begin to lose their mind. Which, hell freaking yes. However there is one thing I hate for Aro's character that happened in the movies. Breaking dawn part 2. That fucking laugh. Don't get me wrong, hilarious. I can't not laugh but for his character I felt it was too 'hey hey I'm a crazy man hehe'. It was a but too much, even for an eccentric Aro. However, I'm not to mad at it because again, it was funny to watch. I thoroughly enjoy the ‘friendship’ Aro and Carlisle share and i love that it is ‘maintained’ throughout the books. I think it’s just a really nice detail. (I love lore. I am a sucker for it.) The one thing that didnt sit right with me is Aro marrying someone so that he wasnt the alone one whilst his co-leaders were very much in love? Was a little off for me but i suppose that just adds to the character.

Caius: child me would shrink into the seat because what did I do to this man? High key still think I wouldn't want to be Caius' child because imagine doing something wrong and you get that glare? No thank you! Scary angry man. As an adult... "He's an angry boi but...DAYUM WHY IS HE SUDDENLY SO HOT?" Just...don't get angry with me. You'll get annoying real quick and you're too pretty for that. I enjoy the taking-no-shit attitude he has but felt it could have been a little more prominent in BDP2 where Aro asks if Caius' is challenging him. I full believe Caius to an extend would be like "yes, yes I am. Don't be an idiot Aro. Use that braincell!" Which is why I adore the meme vibes I see every now and then of Caius hating Carlisle because why does Aro love that blonde so much? CAIUS HAS BEEN NOTHING BUT LOYAL-- Anyways, I can totally get why Aro wants him on his team. Caius is so angry and has so much hatred that he’s a good asset to the coven, even if not having a special ability.I do find it hard to imagine that Caius is a century older than Aro though. Although I cant picture him over forty years old lol. Although i do personally enjoy the whole Caius x Athenodora route. IT’S TRUE LOVE! Okay so maybe thats a little dramatic but its better than Aro’s lmao.

Marcus: movie Marcus is absolutely not nineteen years old and that's just a fact. If anything, he's the forty year old one lmao. Child me couldn't care about this man. He was the man who said nothing and slumped on a throne. That was Marcus. That was his character summed up. Then adult me rolled in and OMG NO DON'T DO THIS TO THIS SWEET MAN. LET HIM BE IN LOVE. As an adult i definitely became more attached. I feel like i was too young back then to get why Marcus was in the Volturi. He seemed very out of place and like a filler co-leader more than anything. However as i’ve gotten older (and written for him), I recognised that's the point. That’s Marcus’ evident grief. He isn’t there by choice and losing Didyme caused him to fall out of line with the coven. He’s lost point or purpose. Almost like its become meaningless because the love of his life was gone and he couldn't save her.So what was the aims of the Volturi to protect vampire kind when they couldn’t protect their own? He couldnt protect her. I had never heard of anything like bond identification and once i had- i was shook, like it became clear why he had been so necessary in the first place. That really is handy to understand everyones bonds in a coven, he could direct Chelsea and the two alone could destroy covens by bonds alone. Marcus makes the Volturi more realistic in a lot of ways. Like in a family, there is the happy times, goofy people like Felix, the twins representing a close bond. Afton and Chelsea, love that cant be divided. The list really goes on. Marcus represents love and heartbreak, pain, loss grief, the sad moments every family goes through. In that way he makes the coven seem less invincible, a group of people who at the end of the day, have their own weaknesses and immortality doesn’t mean a perfect existence. Especially when, in my opinion, Bella fantasized about immortality and how perfect it would be. Even after her change, she waited for her happy ending because that was somehow guaranteed in some level. Which in the end, she got but not everyone gets that happy ending we all want. I also personally think Marcus is the most feeling of the Volturi, despite being apathetic. A result of heartbreak. It’s shown he can still feel more in his own ways when he voted against Renesmee being destroyed. Furthermore, he advocated that vampire hybrids were a lot like vampires. He made that relation openly before anyone. Its almost as though losing Didyme helped him value a life?

Jane and Alec: Child me thought these two were badass...and that still remains in my adult life. It’s always been uncomfortable to me that someone so young is so sadistic and powerful. Jane is the older twin with the ability of pain illusion...yikes. Her ability was evident in her human life along with Alec’s. His gift is sensory deprivation and these two were my favourites in the whole Saga. Still kind of are if im honest. I thoroughly enjoy the twins backstory. It has the most detail. I have a tag for the twins. Canon!twins is the tag for the twins in their book age. Unless this tag is present, the twins have been aged up :). They are very much canon but I put a bit more emphasis on tantrums. If they get angry, they both have tantrums. So whilst (unless tagged) they aren't children they can be very childish and these tantrums are pretty deadly. They’re also very possessive? I dont even know if thats the right word i’m looking for in all honesty. Lets say they get very attached if they like you. These two are probably the most secluded out of the whole Volturi.

Felix: Felix! High ranking guard due to strength and speed. I am a major supporter of Felix being a gladiator when he was human. He as a lighter grey cloak meaning he isn’t as high ranked but is so good at what he does that he’s been kept for centuries...and a lot of them. Personality? FINALLY, WE’VE GOT ONE WITH PERSONALITY!! (Im writing these out of order and i’ve just finished a chunk of Volturi members who have personalities as invisible as Afton.) Flirtatious and Light hearted, we love flirtatious and light hearted! Basically a comedian! Helllll yes, keep it going! Extremely vicious and highly aggressive? You know what? I still like it. He wouldn’t be a Volturi without a dark side. Cold blooded murderer. Yes. 10/10. Finally, someone Smeyer seems to actually care about. He flirted with Bella a couple of times in the books and i was FOR IT ALL THE WAY. I was very sad i saw none of it in the movies but im used to heartbreak by now. Im in this fandom after all. We were robbed of a lot. Strongest vampire in the world? I believe you, he’s also a hecking treeeeee. HE DO BE A TALL BOI. He actually makes Demetri look small and that’s still hilarious to me. Demetri is actually tall. However, if it isnt obvious we clearly traded backstory for personality. I cant get both smh. So...as i said before I fully believe Felix was a gladiator back in the day, hence his physique and height and excellent fighting abilities he has even as a vampire but then it kind of ends. I will say from the dawn of time, i don’t think Felix is the most academic man, just because of his era. I also think majority of the Volturi couldn’t read of write in their human lives and had to learn much older, most learning as vampires. Felix was one of these vampires, Although even now he isnt the most great at it. Then a wonderful writer known as @wallwriterstuff included it and now it’s canon in my eyes. I fully believe Felix is a slow reader and writing isn’t his strong suit either. Wallwriter also includes the possibility that Felix could be dyslexic which im all for too. For a very long time i’ve considered writing a dyslexic reader with the Volturi but have always hesitated because i don’t have it and wouldn’t want to upset someone for any misunderstandings or inaccuracies. However what i will say is that i think vampires would be the most understanding to humans with dyslexia. Learning things like that in later development or as an adult is difficult and they wouldnt think any less of you for struggling with reading, writing, numeracy- you name it. You’ll probably find they’re with you in the struggle at least half of the time. He’s also the goofball of the Volturi, even though he’s not really a goofball in our eyes, he’s the closest to a goofball out of the whole Volturi ...Emmett beats him in the Goofball wars.

Demetri: Oh yeah, it's Demetri's turn! So Demetri was previously in Amun's coven. When Chelsea gave him the old razzle dazzle...I've said Chelsea's gift so many times at this point it's getting old. I have two characters left after Demetri 😂😂 Anyway, with that Demetri was like "welp, I'm in the Volturi now." And now that they had a better tracker the previous one was kicked out. He isn’t much of a talker, polite and formal. He’s elegant (more graceful than i could ever be) and charming...yeah he is, you can say that AGAIN. He is also very calm, when next to Felix, i think everyone is calm but you know, we’ll say he’s a very calm person. I like how he was originally in the Egyptian coven with Amun. Given Amun’s goals this a pretty nice detail. NOW LETS GO TO MY VERSION. He’s very charming, calm, polite, formal and even a lil’ but quiet, i kept him pretty canon because he actually had a description to go on :)))))))))) Moving on. Demetri can be a very successful flirt when he wants to be and does have a Casanova reputation. However beyond the charming Volturi guard who has a brutal side like the rest of them, he has a chewy centre, deep down. I added that he had a child in his human life, one he doesn’t remember and very few people know about. He remembers that they died of an illness very young (around six?) but can’t remember what they look like. For that reason he doesn’t like talking about his child, he feels awful he doesn’t remember them and the loss still hits a pang in his chest.

Heidi: Alright im ready for this one! Child me didn’t necessarily enjoy Heidi? I was rather passive about her. It was all ‘pretty vampire used for her looks’ in my eyes back then and i was never comfortable with that. I’ll get into my take on Heidi in a moment, roll on the backstory! So Heidi knew Victoria as they used to be coven mates and we’re going to continue on as though Heidi didn’t care when she was killed? Like...its genuinely a burning question in my mind! If she didn't care, could that show the extent of Chelsea’s power in action!? (can we tell im enthusiastic about this coven yet?) It’s quite smart to have someone lure in prey. I wont lie, Heidi has quite the badass role in the coven. I wouldn't have thought about that I reckon. I’ve always thought that showed a kind of superiority. Oh you guys need to hunt your prey? pfft, ours literally comes to us. Her backstory really starts with Heidi being mistreated in her human life...a common theme Smeyer has. It can get old- i wont lie but when i give it some thought it kind of makes sense. Rosalie said it herself in eclipse, if any one of them had their happy ending, they’d be six feet under but i’d love a little bit more creativity. I could go on about how male vampires ended up being changed in comparison to female vampires but i’ll swiftly move on because that’s a whole other thing alone. Heidi was changed out of pity. (Which kinda infuriates me just to type, a pity change? Really? Really Hilda? we’ll see why it annoys me when i explain my take on Heidi.) Heidi was happy in her coven with Hilda, Victoria etc, which is hell yes. We love that. This is around the time she discovered her gift. Vampires were attracted to her and humans fell prey to her easily. Yup okay. I’ll take that. After a newborn vampire caused ‘too much attention’ Aro spared Heidi and Chelsea used her gift on Heidi. Nice, very nice aaaaand that’s where it stops and im left hanging. Personality time with Smeyer! Lets goooo. From what i remember and can find- she didn’t fucking have one. Apparently being pretty is enough for everyone. Which in hindsight, fair enough on a human Bella’s perspective, its literally Heidi’s gift to lure you in no matter what. She could tell you she’s a serial killer (and technically is lmao) and is about to sell your kidneys on the black market as to which you’ll be like ‘sign me the fuck up, want my liver too? Here, let me lie on the table for you. I’m down.’ without even realising what just happened. But even beyond that...Heidi has no personality traits mentioned. In New Moon she appears to be a little flirty which im all for, why the hell not? But...thats it? Thats all I get? Then we get into fanfictions, because i read them growing up. Heidi was depicted as flirtatious, promiscuous and then it varied between manipulative or she wasnt very smart. Which i’m knocking absolutely no one for. I think you can get a badass character who is incredibly dumb. I think all characters are actually valid whether they’re a genius or flat out dumb. I love them all. However it never really sat with me. I was never quite satisfied which i was fine with until i started writing for myself. That’s when i knew i’d have to really think about what my version of Heidi would be or i’d never be happy with my work. That and you also begin to fill in the blanks? The more you write the more you flesh out a character for yourself and so that rolls into my version of Heidi! So for my Heidi, she often gets the same trope of ‘she’s pretty and rich, those types of girls have easy lives who always had everything given to them.’ Then when it’s discovered she didn’t have a good human life. It turns to the next assumption of ‘oh she’s pretty and stupid enough to be used and manipulated’. In a lot of ways, that’s what Heidi wants everyone to think. Underestimate her, please, its all the easier to manipulate you if you do. She’s actually very smart and her rough human life made her more tough and intelligent. She’s very manipulative and yes she’s very flirty. You can look but you cant touch! She enjoys the attention her beauty gets her but if only these people would care more about what she’s like as a person. She’s not a barbie doll she will play you if she needs to. The only one who’s actually gotten far enough to sleep with Heidi is Demetri and even then the two don’t see each other romantically. They’re good friends who thinks the other is very attractive but that's where it ends. They’re basically friends with benefits some times lmao. However, Demetri got that far because he see’s the intellect Heidi actually has and acknowledges it. He thinks shes a queen who should be treated as such. She could take anything she wanted, a storm that people can only hope to survive in one piece. Secretly she enjoys a family setting. Whilst she never really wanted children (especially when she was expected to when human), she couldn't help but melt inside seeing little human children with their loving parents. She wants that for all children. Whether that's because she lacked such affection growing up, no one knows. She’s also a really good friend, you bet she’ll have your back. Crappy ex? Well we’ll show them, wont we (Y/N)? She’ll be a bitch and enjoy every second of it. She also loves the single life, believe it or not, you’ll have more difficulty getting Heidi to settle down than you would Demetri which speaks volumes. So yeah, move past her gift and really get to know her and you might have a very good friend. I also don’t see Heidi having a preference between male or females and that’s in all honesty. Times have changed and if she is attracted to another female then she wont be ashamed of it. She never has been (Demetri was the first to figure that out, Felix may be the last.) Even when the times weren’t approving of different sexualities, she didn't care. She will flirt with you and find it ridiculously cute if you get flustered.

Sulpicia: Sulpicia was an orphan which i used to develop my own version of her. Sulpicia grew to love Aro which im on the fence about but yup, i’ll take it. You’ll see what happens with my version in a bit lmao. and that’s where it stops. I get no personality again but do you know what we do in this fandom? We create one and fill in the blanks baby! So i write Sulpicia very materialistic and vain, she’s most snobbish of the wives and due to the other two, also considered the meaner one. She didnt have such things as a child being an orphan so when she got the opportunity to have it-she jumped. She isnt easily impressed and married Aro not for love but for immortality, money and status. (He’s only married you for your money, princess Jasmine! HE ONLY MARRIED YOU FOR YOUR MONEY! Damn it tik tok, but make it princess Aro) Which works well, because Aro doesnt necessarily love her either, he just wanted a mate so he wasnt the odd one out.He literally created her because he was like “Yup, you’ll do.” The two recognised they made a great team and image so they kinda grew to love each other? A little bit? Sure we’ll say its love...sorta. ANYWAY, It’s a highlight to Sulpicia being locked in that tower where she doesnt need to see Aro every little moment, it’s better than having a husband who she’d need to see everyday. ...Yeah my Sulpicia is something else lmao.

Athenodora: Athenodora is one of the oldest vampires in existence which kinda has me shook but I'll take it. She met Caius when he was fleeing from the Romanians, the two travelled together until they met Aro. Whilst on their nomadic travels they seemingly became mates. That's all we know about that. As to which the Volturi coven was made. Athenodora is completely loyal to Caius as well as highly dependent on him and I think that's very realistic given her circumstances. That's where their story ends...maybe for Smeyer but not for me! 😁 So I picture Caius and Athenodora being different sides of the same coin. Athenodora really mellows Caius, she is no where near is violent and sadistic as he is but due to her unwavering loyalty and dependency, she doesn't feel inclination to go against him...also because of Chelsea and Corin but I've said that so many times in this post I think we get the point. I think she's actually more gentle and soft spoken but that being said. She is very reserved and if she were to be angered she'd very much change. She could cut you down with words alone. Caius loves it. However beyond this is someone who is very maternal. Caius would appreciate it more if the two had children but instead it has created empathy. Caius doesn't want that when he can rip their head off. She struggles a little more with the 'no second chances' and that's another reason why Caius keeps her locked away and away from it. These two love each other more than words can describe. After being through so much with someone, the love can only grow. The two would happily risk their life for the other. Caius is saddened that he could never give her the family she wanted. He knows that to this day, Athenodora tries to reign in that side of her. He's a very supportive husband who's very different around his wife. He's much more tolerant, and angry. Simply more at ease. If anything happened to Athenodora, to put it simply...there would be hell to pay.

Didyme: Married to Marcus and Aro’s biological sister. Cute, me likely, keepy going. Her gift was happiness induction. VERY ADORABLE- Dont be as menacing as your brother...please. She was born several years after Aro and was changed by Aro ten and a half years after he was turned. (Dont tease me with all this lore Smeyer, I know what you’re gonna do) Aro was deeply disappointed her gift was just to make people happy- its okay Didyme, we love you. Aro is just...Aro. Her gift made many fall in love with her and its so freaking cute i CANT- but she only felt the same feelings for Marcus. MY HEART IS SO WARMMMM. Unfortunately they were so happy together that they lost interest in anything Volturi and were ready to leave. (Uh oh.) Aro, being the sneaky fellow he is, was like “I’m really happy for y’all of course you can leave. I love you my babies. My best friend and my sisterrrrrrr, I am the captain of this SHIP.” but was actually like “wait, no, no, no, not my Marcus. D-D-Did-Didyme I NEED him.” Think Sid the Sloth from ice age in the first movie when Sid really wants the baby. So this man is like...gonna have to do it to em and murder. He killed Didyme secretly (dunno how he pulled the secret part off- like i know how he did it but how did no one hear or see anything or even suspect anything IT WAS LITERAL FRIENDLY FIRE but we love the drama so continue.) Ironically enough she was very close with Aro and the two actually did love each other, Aro is just...murderous apparently, to the extent that even his sister isnt safe. And that’s it. That’s Didyme. Which im like...alright Smeyer i see you. I like this and expanded on this with my Didyme. i get the vibes that Didyme is the most innocent and kind of all the Volturi. Losing her meant losing the consciousness within the Volturi making them all the more ruthless because there was no one to say. “Guys, maybe lets rethink this? and quickly because i cant get Caius to put down the torch thats currently on fire.” Losing Didyme made Marcus mostly become passive and would rarely stop anything that happened. I often wonder if that provoked a lot of guilt for Marcus later on. (However thats a spoiler for something im currently writing...;) ) I also think of her as a major daydreamer and the most soft, gentle person anyone will ever meet. Like its difficult not to like her despite being in the Volturi, even the Romanians would have struggled if they met her. So in the long run...i hate nothing about Didyme, only find more and more love lmao.

Corin: So im going to be honest and tell you i have no idea what Corin would look like. I’ve got nothing and when i was younger i wasnt even sure if Corin was male or female. Like a lot of these names, i had never heard of the name ‘Corin’. I dont write for her as of yet because im still trying to figure her out. I think she’s quite quiet, she lets her gift do most of the work for her in keeping the wives, Chelsea and Caius when he doesnt get to go on a rampage, content. She was brought in also after Didyme died but Marcus refused her gift.That’s all i’ve got for her. Her gift is amazing, pretty underrated in my personal opinion since like Chelsea, she really helps keep the Volturi unified but other than that, I dont have much to say about her. :(

Afton: Another character i basically filled the blanks in for myself. So what we’re told is that he’s Chelsea’s mate and has the ability to disappear . Whilst thats a pretty cool trick...the volturi dont necessarily need it but they have to keep Chelsea happy and she demands that Afton stays so welcome to the family Afton! I also recently learned that if you hide behind Afton and he goes invisible infront of an opponent, you too will also be invisible. I figure that is until the opponent moves and basically changes their perspective but i could be wrong with that last part. That’s all we get so time for my unnecessary input! SO AFTON IS A TOTAL SWEETHEART. He’s very shy but polite. This is a complete opposite to his mate Chelsea. It’s actually what she liked about him. At first is was just be flirtatious to the shy vampire but when she actually got to know him... she fell hard. It was also Chelsea who had made the first move since Afton was so shy. Of course she’d never say so and Afton would never want to embarrass her so that was never really disclosed to anyone who wasn’t around at that time. She brings Afton out of his shell a lot and it wasn’t long before the two were mates. Chelsea is the light of his life. Hands down. He puts up with a lot for her and is happy to do so. She could ask anything of him and he’d do it and she doesn’t even need to use her gift. He buys are anything she wants almost instantly. He cant help but adore her passionate personality, like how hooked she can get on era’s such as the 1920′s, her love for jazz music and her ability to gush on and on about anything. The two had what the other lacked and that made them an excellent team. I love their relationship. I cant help it. However, as i said before Afton is very shy and tends to keep to himself. Sadly that, paired with Chelsea’s demand to keep him in the Volturi has left Afton a little bit outcasted. All the other permanent guards were wanted and considered important whilst Afton...not so much. Although that isn’t to say the other guards are mean to him or anything. They aren’t! (Except the twins who are...the twins.) Felix and Demetri tried to include him a lot but it was very difficult to break him out of his shell. That doesn’t mean to say they wont invite Afton when he’s around. Chelsea always appreciates their efforts. Afton is notably good friends with Santiago, who often preferred solitude as well.

(Guard to the left is who I imagine Afton is)

Chelsea: So supposedly Chelsea’s original name is Charmion? When i was younger i didnt really care much about her. I only really knew her gift and that she was the reason Afton was kept in the Volturi, since they were mates. From what im aware Chelsea basically wasnt in the movies/not identified. There wasnt much said about her in the books either. So since then i’ve kind of developed my own persona of Chelsea that could be completely inaccurate to canon but canon was my foundations with characters like these. She was always a red head in my eyes with ringlets, a copper kind of red head. I also pictured her to be small. However the newest addition to her character would have to be the mid-Atlantic accent. I blame Poppy Hill for this one. That character screamed Chelsea to me. She was very close to how i imagine Chelsea to be. So now Chelsea has an accent that i have no clue how she managed to maintain being in Italy so long and being born in Greece. LMAO. We’ll say she was very attached to that time. However, I think the time she joined the Volturi was actually very good for the story. She first came around just after Marcus had lost Didyme and Aro had her use her ability to keep Marcus in the coven. it’s really cool how she could really make or break the coven. Although, Aro was smart enough to not fully rely on her, using Corin’s ability on Chelsea to make sure she’d be happy and stay within the Volturi. Thats where the information on Chelsea really ends Over the years Chelsea has appeared in my writing and so beyond this point, Chelsea’s character is only my depiction. I figure Chelsea is a talker, like she can talk her way in and out of situations with ease. She enjoys being manipulated and even more so, being needed.Much like her gift, she gets under people’s skin- not in terms that she’s annoying but more so she can figure out people very well. Her mate is the complete opposite and so she often speaks on the behalf of them. Chelsea is very social and charismatic. She along with Heidi are the only two Volturi members who will be out and interacting with humans if necessary. Heidi for her ability but Chelsea purely for her social skills. She’s also the most interested in human culture. She loves the parties- the 1920′s being her favourite era in terms of fashion. She has no issue changing her name and has done so multiple times when the names run out of fashion.It’s like playing dress up! I’d actually love to write more about her. I’ve really grown to love her character, even if i filled in some blanks for myself. I think she and Afton’s relationship is one of the best, up there with Carlisle and Esme- despite the two being very different. It’s a part of their dynamic!

(I always imagined Chelsea to be a red head but Poppy Hill from THOHH is a very close depiction to Chelsea in my eyes)

Renata: A stressed little bean that lives on stress. I remember thinking when i was younger she was the big threat since she was Aro’s shield but now that im older i see...a stressed little five foot bean. I have no idea what she looks like but always imagine her dark hair tied in a tight bun, looking almost painful. Another who wears heels, like Heidi but she is very rigid just as she has been described. Her uncle is a bit of an ass considering he begged her to go with the Volturi so there wouldn’t be a threat. Dude, can you not just...hand over your niece? At least hesitate! Just like that, thanks to Chelsea, she’d give her life to protect Aro and...I have nothing else. Yes it does drive me mad that there are two named guards i know next to nothing about.

Santiago:So what’s known about Santiago is that he doesn’t actually have an ability. He’s just very good at battle techniques and fighting which is why he’s kept around. If they need fighters, they’re top three are Felix, Demetri and Santiago...in that order. Santiago is also much faster than a regular vampire (as shown in breaking dawn part 2- he caught up to Jacob and Renesmee quite fast despite the two having a running start and wolves supposedly being very fast- much like a vampire) That’s all we know of him so then i got in there and this is how I write Santiago. I gave him the background of coming from a superstitious family. Like he would be told tales of demons and witches growing up as well as things like voodoo. He knew an awful lot of urban legends and whilst he stopped believing in the bad luck his family taught him, he still held interest and couldn’t help the instinct of unease when witnessing such things as rituals. It’s ironic really. However Santiago always deems that humans have it all wrong. These forces are beyond human understanding and shouldn’t be played with. In that way, perhaps Santiago still has some belief in things such as superstition. He’s very secretive about it and would never clarify it for you. Santiago keeps to himself and can be quite standoffish. He can also be blunt even if it’s insulting- he doesn’t tend to care. Although he and Afton became quite good friends since the Afton was an outcast and Santiago didn’t enjoy large groups, or most people in general.

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michael-langdon-appreciation · 4 years

Text

Apocalypse After (Part 11)

Pairing: Michael Langdon x fem!reader

Summary: There was never any hope of saving Michael Langdon, never a chance to stop the apocalypse. The Antichrist was already too intertwined with his destiny when the reader met him all those years ago. But Mallory can go back and make things right and when the reader travels with her, an opportunity sparks to try and make things right after all.

Words: 2.4K

Warning: Character!Death, violence, the afterlife, religious references

A/N: Time for another long awaited update! We’re getting into some BACKSTORY here and I hope everything is still making sense. We get some drama in this chapter hons, so I hope you are READY!

(The Apocalypse After masterlist is up to date, so if you are new you can read the whole series there!)

Descending is peaceful. It’s pretty much dying, except you get a sliver of hope that somehow you might return. Your body goes completely weightless, as if you’re gliding through water as you materialise inside your own hell.

Metal pokes at me, glass rains down on my face.

I will myself to be calm.

It isn’t real. Not this time.

The car engine whirs something horrid as I try and inch myself out of the wreck, but I’m stuck. My leg has been crushed in the fray and no matter how I scream I can’t get free and no one is coming to save me.

Fear floods me, the claustrophobia and the knowledge that my pursuers are also dead in the backseats. Blood coats the driver’s headrest, the body-shaped hole in the glass is my biggest indicator that whoever was driving crashed.

‘HELP!’ I shove my body weight against the steering wheel, gripping on as I try and ease myself free.

I can’t move my leg.

The goons, sent to get me.

Fiona.

‘HELP ME!’ I scream louder, begging for anyone to come.

I don’t know how long I try and work myself free, it could be seconds or hours.

I could be dead again and never know.

My magic is useless.

‘MICHAEL!’

‘Now this is interesting.’ A face looms in at me, through the cracked windshield. The cracked visage, those coal-red eyes that can see into your very depths. ‘Of all the people I thought would come for a visit, you are not one I thought would be back.’

‘Papa,’ My breath leaves me, mystified as the Loa reaches a hand through the hole and cups my chin. ‘Did…who sent you?’

‘Despite your death occurring once before, you have tried again knowing that your fate will be the same.’ He purrs, ‘Suicide? After all I did for you?’

‘This is not suicide.’ I say, unable to look away from those penetrating eyes.

Understanding dawns and then settles, twinkling in those eyes, ‘The boy. You follow on his command?’

‘I didn’t have a choice.’

‘You said the spell yourself.’ He warns, ‘You do not have to be here, living the worst time of your life over and over.’

I swallow, wishing I could wrench myself from his cold touch, ‘He’ll come find me.’

‘You trust him?’ Papa’s head tilts to the side, ‘He is the Antichrist, no?’

I hesitate, ‘Not anymore.’

‘No.’ Papa’s yellowed teeth appear as his lips stretch into a smile, ‘You corrected that part of him. Despite my very clear warning.’

‘I didn’t break our contract.’ I insist, ’The deal was you’d give me another life so long as I never interfere with a soul that belongs to you. Michael never belonged to you.’

‘Not to me.’ Papa withdraws his hand, ‘But to another, far more powerful than I.’

I hadn’t thought it through.

In trying to keep Michael safe, I’d delivered both of us right to someone far more sinister than Mallory.

’They want to see you,’ Papa elaborates, his hand rising. The car and our surroundings dissolve, leaving us in a white box.

I’m paralysed, incapable of getting up despite my freed leg. ‘Where is Michael?’

‘He’s back in the land of the living.’ Papa breezes past me, towards a door I hadn’t seen before. He takes out a key ring with more keys than seem possible, glowing a spectrum of colours. He inserts a distinct white key into the door and with a clack, it opens. ‘He did ask after you, but I have orders and thanks to you, the boy is no longer in a management position.’

There goes my window of opportunity.

The escape I’d been banking on.

‘Come, now.’ There’s no arguing or fighting Papa Legba. I follow him out into corridors of polished black marble, gloomy after such stark whiteness. We walk for an indeterminable amount of time, past doors upon doors upon doors. There are no numbers, but as we travel along occasionally Papa will insert a key, open a door and peer inside. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that doors with a dark coloured key a someone’s personal hell. The screams of terror of confirmation enough. Every so often, Papa will produce a pastel key, open a door to which there is silence.

Those doors unnerve me even more.

What could make a person be completely silent in hell?

‘We have seen the work you have been doing,’ Papa comments after closing another of these doors. He keeps the key ring in hand as we continue walking, ‘Freeing the souls of the damned.’

‘No one should be stuck in eternal torment.’

‘You no longer have voice in those matters.’

‘I still have my power.’ My voice stings with defensiveness, I can barely control my shakes. ‘So long as I have it I’ll defy them.’

We emerge into a foyer, more elaborate than the endless corridor and turn left, down a side hallway. ‘Between you and I’ Papa says, ‘I have rather enjoyed your efforts.’ That takes me by surprise as a deep chuckle emerges from the Loa, ‘It has been a long time since I saw them so…rattled.’

He raps once on a door and then sets back down the corridor, ‘I hope to see you again, Y/N. Under better circumstances.’

The door opens and I suck in a breath.

Manicured nails drum against a desk. I slip into the office, trying to compose myself before they turn around. They consult a whiteboard, head tilting in observation before connecting a line in red marker to another. ‘Close the door.’

I do as I’m told, but stay close enough to try and get some semblance of a head start if I need to. The marker clatters to the floor, a feminine giggle rising between us, ‘Running, you’re better than that.’

I haven’t seen them adopt this form in years, but we all know she remains one of their preferred physical forms. The simple black dress, the habit that hides blonde hair and the infamous, tell-tale lipstick sitting on the desk. Blue flashes orange as finally, they turn round with a face full of glee. ‘You’ve come home to us, finally.’

‘A pleasure.’ I say, still not moving.

‘Tea?’ They cast a hand over the desk, where a teapot, sugar sachets, creamer and a spoon appear, ‘Or coffee?’

A Starbucks Frappuccino materialises and I’m almost surprised, still I walk over and start sucking on it. ‘A new acquisition?’

‘Took long enough didn’t it?’ Satan is pleased with themselves, perching on the desk. ‘Such a corrupt corporation, such capitalism and they only just pledge themselves to me. It will never fail to impress me how much people are influenced by greed.’

I know what they’re getting at.

‘I wasn’t greedy.’ I say, ‘I love him.’

’Still greed.’ They counter, spinning a finger at me. ‘You could not resist meddling. My son was doing well enough on his own.’

‘I thought after four days, if you weren’t going to bother…’

Satan re-applies a fresh coat of scarlet, ‘I was teaching him to not be so fucking soft. Pathetic, piss-dribble of a boy couldn’t even tie his own shoe laces without applause.’ They take in a breath, a tight smile back in place, ‘Nevertheless, we are here.’

‘I really got under your skin, didn’t I?’ I say it as it dawns on me, Satan’s barely just restraining themselves from lashing out at me. Their grip is too tight on the lipstick, their smile so far removed from a genuine humane smile. Even my Starbucks has gone acrid, sour and makes me want to vomit.

‘Tell me why I shouldn’t slit that little throat, set you alight and use your blood for my next bath?’

‘I don’t work for you anymore.’ I say, trying to remain brave despite how my voice tremors. Satan’s pushed themselves right up in my face, Starbucks shoved to the side and splattered on the chair meant for me. ‘My deal with Papa exonerated from you.’

‘All the fallen work for me.’ Satan snarls, ‘As it has always been.’

‘You’ll try again.’ I’m working towards an angle, ‘You always try again. If you’re anything it’s committed. Regardless of me, Michael would still be dead. You’d still have no Antichrist.’

I’ve got them there. Satan stalks back to their desk and throws themselves in the chair, those blue eyes are now a permanent orange. I can see the whiteboard now, behind which is a very detailed plan, written in cursive red marker. I follow the lines to a set of names with a black ring around them. ‘It’s happening,’ I murmur. ‘You’ve already done it.’

‘It will take time.’ Satan never takes their eyes off me, ‘2020 is the next prime year.’

‘But you still face the same problem Michael had.’ I counter, feeling a little more confident. I inspect the work laid out, following a black tangent that connects to a name I’m all too familiar with, ‘You’ll never succeed until you end the witches entirely. Especially, the Supreme.’

‘I am aware.’

‘Then do it yourself.’ I say, ‘Stop making your children do you work for you. You have the capability.’

‘Always more fun to entice men and women to their own dirty deeds.’ Satan echoes, a smile back on their face. ‘All are corruptible, even you.’

‘Your efforts are pointless until you finally get off your ass and do it yourself.’ I head for the door, ‘You’ve told me what I need to know, Michael is no longer the Antichrist. He’s free of you and all this.’

‘But you are not.’

The voice is a whisper in my ear. When I turn round Satan is right behind me. They seize my shoulders, lifting me a couple centimetres off the ground as if I were a feather. ‘My son is as dispensable as a fly, but you-

‘I don’t belong to you anymore.’ I hiss, feet dangling. ‘Your father saw to that himself.’

‘You will kill them.’ Satan murmurs. The echo of my hiss manifests, till there is nothing but hissing all around me. The floor has turned to snakes, writhing with their mouths open, fangs bared to snap at me. ‘The witches. The Supremes, all of them.’

‘No.’

‘And if you refuse me,’ Satan sings, ‘I will drag that fucked up, useless brat of mine beyond the veil where not even your God could find his mangled carcass.’

The office door bangs open. Both Satan and my head snaps towards the figure standing in the door.

Mallory seizes my wrist, dragging me out of the room, ‘We need to go, now.’

‘You…’ My brain can’t catch up, as Mallory drags me further away from Satan. The devil does nothing but offer a simple wave, before returning to their calculations. ‘The snakes?’

‘No snakes.’ Mallory says, ‘Just magic, Y/N run.’

My feet start running, the two of us racing back into the foyer and down the endless corridor of torment. No one follows us, but the voices inside every room are louder, their screams and pleas for sanctuary right on our heels as we run for our lives. ‘You shouldn’t have come back for me.’ I tell her.

‘And let you die?’ She shoots back, ‘Baby Alpha is already crying, you think I want to live with that?’

‘Baby what?’

I collide with something so hard, we all go sprawling on the floor.

‘OW!’

‘Michael?’ I breathe, shoving my hair out of my eyes to see the Boy Wonder rubbing the back of his head.

‘You didn’t come back.’ He’s a mess, eyes bloodshot with fresh tear tracks running down his cheeks. ‘Why did you do it!’

‘I wanted to protect you.’

‘From me?’ Mallory picks herself up off the floor, ‘I just saved your life.’

‘Well it’s not exactly in your character, is it?’ I snap back at her, ’Have you lost your penchant for four-wheel drives?’

Her face distorts into a snarl as Michael puts himself between the two of us. I catch my breath as Michael studies Mallory, ‘You, tried to kill me.’

Mallory puts her hands up, ‘I had to.’

Michael’s eyes blaze, but I yank him back, using his arm to clamber back to my feet, ‘Don’t.’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ He growls, ‘I never did anything to you.’

Mallory’s eyes dart to me, ‘You will.’

‘No he won’t.’ I say firmly, ‘He isn’t…that’s not part of him anymore.’

Michael turns to eye me, ‘Did she try and hurt you?’

My silence is a fraction too long. Michael’s eyes gleam with vengeance as Mallory’s chant dies, her throat clasped firmly in Michael’s grasp. ‘MICHAEL.’ I press forwards, trying to push him off her but Michael sends me flying back against the wall. He squeezes hard, but to her credit Mallory lets out no sound. I fight against Michael’s magic as her eyes bulge, bullfrog like. Colour seeps out of her, lips turn blue.

Neither of us spot the flash of silver till after Mallory’s struck. Blood seeps from Michael’s throat and he staggers back, releasing her. I move on pure instinct, seizing the knife as it falls between Mallory and Michael. I drive it into her so hard I’m sure it must be sticking out the other side. Blood sputters from her lips as I shove her back against one of the doors to hell. I clamp my hand over Michael’s throat, failing to stem the gushing flow of blood as Mallory takes a final breath.

There’s laughter all around, shrill and deep and manic and full of such much mirth.

Papa peers over Mallory’s body, his eyes meeting mine once more. He holds up a finger - my final chance.

My body convulses, trying to cram air back into my lungs as I surge upwards. Faces peer at me and I push them away and wheel round. Michael too has risen, clutching at his throat as he gargles and screams. The Warlocks are all over him, trying to calm the boy down. We lock eyes, equal terror reflected back in the other.

Cordelia’s scream is petrifying, she sinks to her knees as Mallory’s body disintegrates.

Just like Misty Day, all those years ago.

The Supreme quakes as Zoe tends to her, wrapping her up in a tight hug.

Myrtle remains as stoic as ever, fixing a crease in her gloves as she casts her eyes over each of us ‘Now, that’s a sorrowful turn of events.’

New Tag-List: @sojournmichael @duncvns @elizabethbennett @mochitheruby @dyns33 @xavierplympton @emmyrosee @brattylovee @guiltyfiend @lizhomitz1984 @pppsssyyyccchhhiiiccc @blakewaterxx @satansfavouritesons @dark-mei-rose @wroteclassicaly @ritualmichael @lvngdvns @so-langdon @codyfernmorelikedaddyfern @langdxn @fckinsupreme @xavierplympton @venusxxlangdon @rocketgirl2410 @sweetlangdon

TAG LIST IS OPEN IF YOU’D LIKE TO BE ADDED!

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itsthemoofacewriting · 4 years

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I know you’re tired (why don’t we go back home)

That’s right, I’m not done with Whole Cake Island, nor Sanji’s vulnerability, so buckle in kiddos. This is a standalone and has nothing to do with my other story involving the WCI arc.

Summary: Sanji is quiet. Far too quiet, considering his kitchen is half burned down and Nami’s having none of it. Rating: T

Warning: This story mentions abuse and the aftereffects of that on Sanji- some very negative thoughts. So please know your limits and exit if you have to, I don’t want to upset anyone. But I will say the ending is happy, because I like to toe at the dangerous line of emotional but not too much.

The title is from the song ‘Tired’ by Astyn Turr.

Can also be found on AO3 and FFN.

Enjoy.

Sanji’s standing in his beloved kitchen, eyes calculating as he takes in the damage and he doesn’t need to get out his abacus to know this will cost an arm and a leg to repair. The worst of the damage is centered around the stove. The countertop is now black instead of the beautiful cream and gold finish it once had. There’s also god knows what stuck to the top of the stove. At this point it looks like it’s melded to the metal grates and he knows that’s going to take some elbow grease to get out.

Unsurprisingly, the fridge is as good as new. Nami had told him it had been the first thing Luffy had saved when the fire had broken out.

There’s no salvaging the cupboards surrounding the stove though. Fire’s licked away all the colour and has eaten away at the wood- he’s slightly surprised to see the remaining cupboard doors are even still on. He hasn’t worked up the courage to look in the cupboards yet, to see whether he has any cooking equipment or utensils left. He will look, just not yet. He wants to see how much of the black soot he can get rid of and whether he can get any of the black sludge off of his stove first.

Currently, he’s on his hands and knees, cleaning the floor around the stove and has been cleaning for the last few hours. The kitchen is nowhere near clean enough but it’s a whole lot better than the eyesore from before; most of the soot is gone and the black sludge is slowly lifting- it only loosened on his third attempt and at some point, he’ll have to ask what the hell it is.

That’s how Nami finds him. He heard the door open and the distinct sound of heels clicking about the hard wood floor, which then changed to tiles, so he knows she’s making her way towards him.

He spins, ready to put on a show and fall into his Nami-swaaan~ routine but the look she’s giving him stopped him on the spot and he’s preparing for the worst. It’s rare to see that look on her face, a mixture between angry and stern. Many of the crew would say she always looked like that, but he knows her well enough, watched her for long enough, to know the small differences.

“Why aren’t you angry about your kitchen?” She demanded, crossing her arms, eyebrow raised, and he realised it’s actually a look of don’t bullshit me.

So, he shrugged and started cleaning the space between him and Nami. It’d be rude to turn his back on her and he’d never dream of doing that, but at the same time he needed to keep himself busy, he couldn’t stand the scrutiny of that look.

And she knows it. She continued to stare even though he’s trying to look busy, to politely brush off her concern and not look at her. But she’s not giving in because the silence continued to stretch in the still kitchen, and the final straw is when she started to tap her foot. It matched the seconds ticking on the clock and he started to visualise the ticking of a bomb. He’s not sure what he’s expecting when it goes off.

Doesn’t have to either because he’s giving in on the tenth foot tap.

“Well, I can imagine it was a hard journey to get here,” the ‘without me’ is unsaid but it’s there and he shrugged but all she does is continue to stare, looking expectant, so he continued, “and I couldn’t be sure of who actually did it.”

That’s weak and they both know it. Nami’s huffing and her previously crossed arms now sit at her hips as she responded, “Look around-” She pointed at the blackened walls, he hadn’t started on them yet, “-This has Luffy written all over it. You think anyone else could achieve this?”

Sanji had nothing to say to that, so he just kept cleaning, even though he’s pretty sure the spot he’s cleaning isn’t dirt anymore and is actually a scorch mark.

The foot taping started again. “Luffy wasted food,” She said bluntly, and he knows what she’s doing, she’s trying to bait him. “Cooked everything in your best pot and then tipped the pot with the food in overboard.”

He knows she’s missing out on a few key details, like the fact that the atrocious stew he made was poisonous and that had he been with them, this wouldn’t have happened. His sister had told him when she’d returned and if it wasn’t for his sister, Luffy would be dead right now. Probably the one time he’s thankful for his family’s powers, not that they ever benefitted him.

They descend back into silence and it’s suffocating, makes him want to fidget, but he stopped himself. It’s then that he realised why it’s making him so uncomfortable and itchy. It’s stifling and it screams rejection and disapproval. It reminded him of when his father would look down his nose at him, judging him and it was that silence that used to greet him back from his cell when his voice was raw from yelling.

“Well?” Her voice cut through his thoughts before they can go any further, to a much darker place when thinking about his biological family, and he flinched at the tone.

“Sanji?” The tone is soft, a stark difference to the one from before.

Briefly, he wondered why it’d changed so drastically from before when he hasn’t responded. It’s because whilst he hasn’t said anything verbally, physically he’s said enough; from the silence, to the lack of eye contact, to the flinching and belatedly, he realised he’s curled his shoulders in. To make himself look small. Something he hasn’t done since he first joined Baratie.

He’s shown his hand and to someone who’s well versed in this language.

Their pasts were fairly similar, he’d always known that, trapped in situations of abuse and it used to make him nervous. He was always waiting for her to catch on. She was so perceptive, and he was sure she was onto him in Skypiea when he’d said he was from North Blue. He’d watched her eyes narrow and her mouth had opened to voice her confusion, but they’d been interrupted, and it was never brought up again. He slightly wondered if that was on purpose, she didn’t forget the little things.

He chanced a glance at her face after he’s straightened himself and regretted it almost immediately. She looked so worried, eyes searching for something and it made him feel naked. It made him want to disappear and it’s because he’s scared that she’s going to see right through him.

Shame.

That’s what he’s feeling, and he hated it. He doesn’t want her to see all the dirt on him, all the disgusting parts of him that made his family hate him. He doesn’t want it to happen again, he can’t. Not with her. He wants her to see him as the best version of himself, always.

But he can’t anymore. Not when she’s seen where he’s come from first-hand and heard all about it from his father.

He realised he’s already naked. Laid bare before them all, against his will and it’s easier to hide away in the kitchen then let them see him for what he truly is.

His hands have stopped their idle cleaning and he’s got so lost in his self-loathing that he’s forgotten to keep his face neutral and he’s curled back in on himself. He’s laid himself bare this time and there’s no escape.

She doesn’t look disgusted though, she doesn’t sneer down at him like his family did when he was young and tell him how pathetic he was or hit him. It looked like it’s suddenly dawning on her, maybe not the full picture just yet- but the lines are in place and the drawing only needs to be coloured in.

He sees the agitation bleed out of her. Her previously tense shoulders relax; her face softened and her eyes… he doesn’t know if can continue to look directly into them just yet. They melt and there’s so much sitting in that look and it’s all for him.

Understanding. Warmth. Empathy. Affection.

For little pathetic Sanji.

He looked down again. His wall’s about to crumble and he desperately needed to leave but he has nowhere else to go. This is his safe space.

Heels click against the tiles to close the distance between them but they’re less threatening now, not so sharp and don’t send panic down his spine.

The atmosphere in the kitchen has lifted, it’s warm and he’s suddenly reminded of his mother, how he used to feel when he was around her when she was alive.

Even more so when Nami draws him in. Her hand gently pulled the dirty rag away from his blackened hands and squeezed and he thought that was going to be it. But then her arms are wrapping around his shoulders and he’s being pulled into her embrace. It’s a bit awkward, he’s still taller than her even when she’s wearing heels, so he has to slouch a bit, but he doesn’t pull away. She brings him down until his face is resting in the crease of her neck.

It’s personal and far too intimate and warm.

Like she’s protecting him.

And it’s the straw that broke the camels back.

His eyes sting because he honestly can’t remember the last time someone had hugged him like this.

That’s a lie. He can but he doesn’t let himself think about it too often because he never quite got over her death. The woman that made his childhood bearable with gentle touches and adoring looks as he showed off his latest creation; only for it to all be taken away so suddenly before he was forced into darkness.

The tears are pouring now and he’s hugging Nami back just as tightly as she is. He’d be mortified normally; that she was seeing him like this, and he was ruining her pretty dress with something he should be over by now, but he can feel matching tears running down his cheeks that aren’t his. He can feel her body shaking along with his because she’s sharing his grief with him, so he doesn’t have to do it alone.

Nami doesn’t try to sooth him or give him reassuring words, she’s just there with him in the moment. They stay like that, their hold never slackening on the other as sobs filled the quiet kitchen. Quiet ship actually, if either of them bothered to pay attention to anything other than the person in front of them.

Neither of them moved away from the embrace, but when Sanji’s arms slacken slightly, Nami took that as a sign to start running her hands up and down his back. The move brought a fresh wave of tears from his eyes but they’re silent now, just a residue of what’s left over.

They’re in his hair now and he wondered how appropriate it really was when he nuzzled into the crook of her neck, but she didn’t voice her disapproval. If anything, it encouraged her actions all the more and he could feel the rigidness wash from his body at the gesture.

With one last squeeze, he’s tentatively pulling away from her embrace. It’s time to face the music. He wasn’t expecting her to look so determined and he’s thrown for a second because he doesn’t know what to make of that look. She cupped his face and her thumbs soothe across his cheeks to wipe away the tracks of tears that remain.

“I don’t have the full picture, but I know enough. I don’t think any less of you, I want you to know that I wouldn’t- that any of us wouldn’t. If anything, I think you’re even more amazing than you already were.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

That almost brings a fresh wave of tears to his eyes because she’s so quickly and concisely got to the root of the problem. They’re words he’s never heard directly said to him and he’s slightly glad because he couldn’t imagine hearing them before now and coping with it.

Her hands are steady on his face and she doesn’t let him look down at his feet like he wanted to. As much as he wanted these words from her, the small voice in the back of his head told him otherwise.

“Judge knows nothing. For him to say all those words and believe them just proves it,” She told him fiercely, daring him to disagree. “You’re the strongest person I know, physically, mentally and emotionally. None of them are weaknesses. It’s makes you human and nothing’s worth keeping more than that.”

Nami’s words were fierce, but her expression is soft. Because the words are for Judge and the voice in the back of his head, but the softness is for him. For that dirty side of him that she now sees and apparently likes.

There’s nothing he can say. Mainly because he doesn’t trust his voice not to crack but also what could he say to that? Instead, he’s pulling her into another hug. One where he’s wrapping his arms her and trying to convey how much she means to him.

It must come across because she’s squeezing him back and he felt her breathe in deeply. What really confirmed it is the confidence in which she said, “I missed you.”

He felt like he could melt. From how adorable she’s being right now and the relief; he missed her too.

“I missed you too.”

She pulled away from him so she can see his face but stayed in his embrace, she looked serious again.

“Don’t do it again.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he uttered back softly, and his eyes drifted around her face, taking all of her in. It’s rare he got to see her up close like this and he’s savouring the moment.

And then she’s smiling at him, like he’s handed her a whole chest full of gold. Whilst Nami may seem hard and unforgiving at times, she’s also one of the softest and most understanding people he’s ever met and she’s showing that right now.

It’s a combination of everything that does it for him. The atmosphere is intimate, despite the half-burned kitchen surrounding them, they’re still holding onto each other and Nami’s eyes have gone doe-eyed, almost like she’s realised too. But she didn’t pull away, didn’t let go. Instead he watched as her gaze quickly fell to his lips before darting back up to his eyes and he copied the gesture.

They’re like magnets, slowly drawing in closer with little regard to anything else other than the person in front of them. Perhaps he’s being dramatic, but when their lips finally touch it’s like everything has fallen into place and all the wrongs in his life are suddenly right. He tilted his head to the side to find a better angle and slot himself closer to her. She hummed in agreement, like she could read his thoughts, but the action sent tingles through his lips and his new aim is to get her to do that again.

But there’s hands on his shoulders before he can fulfil that goal, they’re pushing him back and he doesn’t resist.

“Maybe now isn’t the best time to be doing this,” Nami whispered and he can feel her breath on his lips. Her hands don’t move from his shoulders, but they do relax and stroke at the fabric of his shirt.

“Why’s that?”

“I feel like I’m taking advantage, look at what we’ve just been doing,” she said, edging around the topic and he smiled because she’s trying to be delicate with him.

“If it’s you, you can take advantage whenever you want.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

She snorted and pinched his side, “I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

She gave him a bland look then, unimpressed with his joking.

“Really I am. I kissed you and I’ve wanted to for a really long time…” but then he hesitated, wondering if he’s read her wrong and maybe this was her attempting to let him down gently. “I mean, unless you don’t…?”

But then she’s firmly pressing her lips against his and, his moment of self-doubt faded into the background. He doesn’t get the chance to savour their second (second!) kiss because she’s pulling back to give him a coy smirk.

“Now, I didn’t say that.”

He smiled at her then and his hands moved to cup her jaw, his thumb stroking along it as he waited another moment for all of this to soak in.

“Can I kiss you?” He should have asked before, but he was too wrapped up in the moment, he slightly regretted that as he watched her blush prettily before him. They’ve already kissed (twice!) but somehow this embarrassed her? She’s too cute for her own good.

All she does is nod back and he brought her in closer, his lips brushing against hers, teasing her, but he doesn’t keep her waiting for much longer as he pressed his lips fully to hers. His hands move away from her jaw and into her hair, one playing with the strands whilst another stationed itself at the nape of her neck. It’s a good move on his part because she’s humming against his lips again and he felt like he could float away at the feeling.

He doesn’t though, instead he worked on keeping his cool because there’s no way he’s messing this up- he’s worked too hard to get to this point. It’s almost all thrown out of the window when Nami brushed her tongue against his lips and the sound that came from the back of his throat it definitely not something his brain preapproved, but it doesn’t stop him from opening his mouth to welcome her in.

It’s then that his brain finally registered how long they’ve been in the kitchen, in silence, alone, uninterrupted and as much as he’s focusing on her, on how soft her lips are and how good she felt, he also knew how unusual that is.

Reluctantly, he parted from the kiss but not without leaving a lingering one against her lips. When he opened his eyes, he’s met with an expression he’s never seen before on her and it makes it so much harder not to press back against her. She looked dazed and her eyes are lidded and she’s so gorgeous (Okay, so the last one isn’t new, sue him).

“Why is it so quiet?” He asked and pressed another kiss to her lips because he’s weak. Weak in the best way possible.

She blinked at him, apparently not expecting him to say that. Soon enough, her lips are curling upward, and she responded, “Luffy’s in hiding because of the state of the kitchen.”

“So he should be, what the hell was that idiot thinking?” There’s heat behind his words again but they don’t match the soft way Sanji nudged his nose against Nami’s.

“Go give him hell.” She tilted her head towards the door to encourage him.

He smiled back boyishly, his face so much lighter than before, like a burden had been lifted. He squeezed her hand in response.

“But don’t think this is over. If you ever need to talk or cry, know that you can come to me.” Nami’s face was serious as she looked at him. “Maybe even when I’m drawing maps.” Her face cracking to wink at him.

He nodded at her, leaving her with a parting kiss on the cheek but at the last second, he hesitated and looked at her longingly. Was this really more important than her?

Luckily, Nami’s well versed in Sanji.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” she breathed out, giving him a teasingly smoky look that he wanted to burn into his brain for later. That look is directed at him, him!

That’s all he needed to hear before he’s marching out of the kitchen, footsteps heavy, kicking the door open to an empty lawn deck and shouting for Luffy to show himself.

From inside the kitchen, Nami smiled. Her work was done, for now.

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

Feels like my super expensive psychology degree is finally doing something; not making me any money but helping me write fanfic- score!

I actually wasn’t going to have them kiss at first, I was only going to allude to a relationship because I didn’t want it to undermine Nami supporting Sanji, but I’m a sucker for them. Hopefully I managed to pull it off.

Please excuse any errors.

Thanks for reading.

#sanami #sannami #sana #namixsanji #opfanfic #opwriting #one piece #nami #sanji

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physical-manifestation-of-spite · 4 years

Text

The Picture Pinned on the Wall - Mp100 Fanfiction

Also read on Ao3

Beware the read-more. It’s long.

“It started with a picture, and then it got worse from there.

Reigen wasn’t supposed to get so attached.”

Reigen meets the boy when he’s ten years old, and he’s pretty sure he feels nothing. Actually, the first feeling associated towards this kid is hostility, as this juvenile swaggers to his door and bemoans the destruction of his own powers. The prank is not elaborate, nor funny, but it wastes Reigen’s time, which is always the goal for these kids. He almost slams the door in the kid’s face — he never thought of himself as good with children, having neither the patience nor tolerance for these sorts of stunts — but then the child continues. His eyes are wide and bloodshot and full of terror, and it makes Reigen pause. Kids aren’t normally such good actors. The boy holds a white knuckled-grip on the straps of his backpack, his small body swallowed up by the expanse of the doorframe, and it takes another minute for Reigen to decide that he’s not lying. Then, there’s this twist in his gut that he knows won’t go away until he hears this bowl-haired kid out. He bites at the flesh inside his cheek and invites the boy inside.

It wasn’t supposed to go further than a cup of tea and a bid farewell. The kid shares his troubles with such vivid imagination that leaves Reigen impressed. A child conjuring the idea of spirits gnawing at the safety barriers in a neighbor’s home, with the boy able to exorcise all of them with a wave of his hand and, in a horrifying realization, harm the neighbors as well — perhaps there’s some psychological trauma Reigen has no business handling. But when Reigen presses for clues, the boy speaks of his parents fondly, without a hint of distress, and his life seems otherwise normal. It’s not much to go off on, but then Reigen remembers that this kid isn’t his problem, and he’s taking up time that could otherwise be used to be speaking with clients, so he chews on a quick speech to help soothe the child’s nerves enough to send him home, a reformed man.

“Be a good person.” That was fine enough. He couldn’t go wrong with that. Nothing to twist the child’s worldview into some killer. Whatever his complex — and confidence for this child to kill another human being was something new — if he was taught that his powers were not inherently evil, but rather a tool for him to use, then he would be alright. Especially after he broke out of his fantasy.

And then the child stares at him. It unnerves him, the open expression of awe on the child’s face, like a flower turning towards the sun. He looks as though Reigen’s led him to fresh waters and he’s been dying in the desert, and Reigen takes to flexing his fingers on his tea mug. The child asks if he can come again. This, Reigen did not sign up for. He runs his fingers around the back of his neck, concocting some excuse that the kid couldn’t possibly take as an insult. Then, Reigen burns his tongue on his tea.

The cup falls out of his hand. His stomach shoots up to his throat as he grabs vainly at the cup, but it’s already begun its descent towards the kid. He shouts for the kid to get out of the way, and then the cup, the bubbles of tea — they’re all floating. They bob in the air like they’re suspended in water, five feet over the ground, and Reigen’s mind goes completely, white-hot blank as the tea politely bubbles back into the cup and drops neatly into the kid’s outstretched hand. Reigen stares.

And stares.

He asks when the kid is available each week to meet.

—

Shigeo Kageyama is his name. Reigen calls him Mob. The boy is simple. It’s evident in his appearance; bowl cut hair that hides the top of his eyes, unexpressive in regards to anything, and he always wears his grade school uniform. Mob fits, and the boy doesn’t seem to mind the nickname.

Maybe it’s dangerous, Reigen giving him a nickname. He shouldn’t get attached. But on the other hand, the boy needs to feel attached to Reigen, otherwise this won’t work and he won’t visit clients with him. But it isn’t hard, with Mob returning to Reigen’s office each day, staring expectantly at the self-proclaimed psychic as though he’s going to perform a miracle. Reigen obliges when he can, and the boy is quite easy to trick. With a wag of his finger and a few choice words, he enrages the spirits before looking expectantly to Mob to “clean them up” for him. After their screams dissipate into a puff of smoke, he concocts a speech about self-restraint, and they leave, Mob satisfied with his brilliant master, and Reigen is satisfied with a thicker wallet. They return to the office and share the news with the client, an elderly woman whose judgment relies more on superstition than wisdom. She is his favorite kind. She signs the necessary paperwork, which Reigen slides neatly into a pile and wishes her well. Before the woman goes, she glances briefly at Mob, who is seated at a makeshift desk Reigen had clawed out of his closet to create, made out of two stacks of cardboard and a long wooden slab that’s covered by a tablecloth. Reigen doesn’t even remember where he got a tablecloth.

Her smile is fond. “Does your son come here often after school?”

Reigen chokes, which is unfortunate because he wasn’t even eating anything. Reigen disguises it as a cough and pounds a fist into his chest. Mob looks at him in alarm. Reigen is waving his hand in the air to belay any concern.

“No,” he chokes again, and there’s a disgusting amount of phlegm in his throat. “No, he’s not my son. He’s more of a, uh…” He almost says “employee.” He’s definitely not.

Realization dawns on the woman’s face. “Ah, he’s your apprentice. Excuse me for assuming. He’s just so young.”

Reigen is about to wave off her apology, but he notes the change of tone at the last sentence, and he closes his mouth. The woman is staring at him intently.

“Is he compensated well?”

Maybe her judgment is not so slanted toward superstition after all. Reigen likes her a lot less.

“He’s compensated just fine.” His tone is not necessarily snappish, but there’s a warning hidden there, at the back of his throat. The woman smiles, but it’s all thin lips and tight cheeks.

“That’s always good. A boy should learn early how to make a living for his family.”

Reigen matches her tight smile. “He’s a hard worker. He’ll be ahead of his peers in no time.”

“I’m sure he already is.” The woman shoulders her purse, smooths her blouse, and pats the base of her curls. She turns and winks at Mob.

“Perhaps I’ll see you boys in the future.”

“Oh,” says Mob, who enlaces his fingers together nervously. “I hope not. That means you’ll have more spirits. That’s... bad.”

The woman’s smile doesn’t waver, but it softens under Mob’s genuine concern. “Yes,” she says, “that’s bad.” She steers her gaze back to Reigen. “But who knows? After all, 98% reduction rate… well, it’s not 100%.”

Reigen bites his tongue. His smile is plastered on his face. “Well,” he says, voice smooth as silk, “you know who to call if it ever comes to that. Have a good day, ma’am.”

Her smile is more of a sneer, but she bows to them both and ushers herself out the door. The moment it closes, Mob looks to Reigen.

“What does ‘compensated’ mean?”

Reigen really doesn’t like that woman.

———

Weeks later, they arrive back at the office late. It’s nearly dark. Reigen had hoped to get back to the office earlier and close up in time to catch dinner before rush hour, but his call volume has gone up. Word was getting out that self-proclaimed psychic Reigen Arataka could exorcise spirits legitimately. It’s certainly not a back-to-back call operation, but it is more than he has ever gotten in the past. He has calls to return.

The office is stale and hot when Reigen swings open the door; he had shut off the air conditioner before they had left. It leaves the place feeling sticky, but Reigen merely adjusts his tie and flicks the lights on. The office is bathed in a tired yellow glow.

Mob ambles to his cardboard-wood desk and pulls his backpack from under it. The balanced cardboard sways precariously. “Shishou,” Mob begins, and it makes Reigen’s hand still over his laptop. Mob started calling him that the day after their client thumbed Kageyama as his apprentice. Sure, Reigen considered the term loosely the day Mob left his office for the first time with the assurance that he would be under Reigen’s tutelage, but the use of “shishou” left Reigen’s head spinning. It meant he couldn’t get out of this easily, if he ever wanted to. Pursue his next career goal of becoming a private investigator, for example. That was stuffed further in the wastebin the more Mob used that word.

Reigen still isn’t willing to throw the wastebin out just yet, though. He blinks and forces himself to take the name in stride. He begins typing idly against the keys of his laptop.

“Hm?”

“Um,” Mob says, playing with the zipper of his backpack. “Um, I’m going home now.”

“Hm.”

“Um,” he says again. The kid is clearly waiting for Reigen to acknowledge him further, so Reigen peels his eyes away from his laptop screen to stare at Mob.

“Right. Get home safe.”

It isn’t really his responsibility to walk the kid home anyway. If Shigeo’s parents are letting their ten-year-old son walk to and from school, with pockets of no communication between then and now, Reigen isn’t going to butt in. In a way, Reigen is grateful that Mob has such laid-back parents. The wary, clingy types always complicated things.

Mob nods. Reigen waits expectantly for a moment longer, eyebrows raised as the sun dips faster below the cityscape and his laptop begins to cast a blue hue over his face. Mob flushes the more he’s under Reigen’s steady gaze, and finally he stares back at his zippers, nodding again.

“Okay. See you tomorrow, Shishou.”

Reigen starts typing at his keys again, but the black text keeps fizzing in and out of his vision as he listens to the rattle of Mob’s zippers as he slips into his backpack straps, the loose pencils in his bag rattling their muffled tune. Reigen is gnawing at the inside of his cheek, a pitted twist forming at the base of his gut, and it grows with each clack of Mob’s shoes against the hardwood flooring. He sighs just before the office door squeals open.

“Oi. Mob.”

Mob turns, his hands still wrapped around the handle of the door. Reigen is getting up from his desk. He fishes out his wallet and begins to count. The twist in his gut loosens a little bit.

“Here,” Reigen says, holding a fist towards Mob. He waits for the boy to open his palm, and then he lets the coins fall with a faint metal ring, into the center of his palm.

Mob stares at the coins. “What’s this?”

“That’s compensation.”

Mob counts. “This is three hundred yen.”

Reigen raises an eyebrow. He almost takes it back. “And you’re ten years old.”

Mob counts the coins again. He rolls them around in his palm, then pinches each one between his fingers, staring at their thickness. “It’s three hundred yen,” Mob remarks again, but it’s not accusatory. He stares at the coins in wide-eyed wonder, as if he’s never seen three hundred yen in his life.

Reigen is starting to feel uncomfortable. He clears his throat. “ Well , as I said, you’re being compensated for working under me as my apprentice. Normally, I don’t fork out this sort of money, since you’re my apprentice, not my employee, but—” Reigen waves his hand upward, gesturing vaguely above him, as if the situation that he threw himself in with this kid is somehow resting in the middle space above him, watching with impish glee, “—I ought to compensate you for your, ah, training during my job.”

Mob looks at him, enraptured. His fingers close around the coins, and they don’t make a sound when Mob bows.

“Thank you, Master Reigen.” Reigen can only see the top of the boy’s head as he bows.

Reigen’s palm feels sticky when he rests it against his neck. He really needs to turn on the air conditioning. “Right. See you tomorrow.”

When Mob straightens, he’s smiling. It’s faint, and it could be a trick of the light, the way that the shadows curve over the boy’s face. Reigen doesn’t have time to check, because the boy twists the handle of the door and leaves Spirits and Such Consultation office without another sound.

The conman stares at the empty space, palm still pressed against the back of his neck. The air conditioner is ghostly quiet, dead against the window. When he removes his hand, it takes a moment to unstick from his skin. He sits there, the glow of his laptop beginning to dull his senses.

He’s just covering his ass. He gave him a threadbare amount — pocket change — to keep the elderly clients’ mouths shut. Hell, he doesn’t even have to pay the kid. He’s ten years old. They signed no documents. He’s doing Mob a favor, letting him come with him to his jobs. Now he’s paying Mob a modest wage that no other ten-year-old is making. Reigen’s neck is starting to feel moist.

He doesn’t turn on his air conditioning that night.

—

He’s trying not to care. But it’s hard — it’s so damn hard — when Mob looks at him with such open and baring trust, as though he’s placed his heart in Reigen’s hands and knows that he’ll squeeze it to keep it beating. He does it every day, nestling his backpack between the two cardboard stands of his makeshift desk, and watches Reigen with rapt attention, analyzing every move he makes.

“How do you do it, Shishou?”

Reigen glances up from his desk, seconds after he had bit into his burger, the paper crinkling noisily in his hand. “Do what?” he says eloquently around his wad of burger.

“How do you keep it inside instead of it going out?”

Reigen’s mouth feels like paste, and he swallows the burger with difficulty. He stares at the corner of his office, searching for something to say. (A small voice tells him that he’s way over his head — another argues that he’s just a kid, really; how bad can it be?) The bun of the burger had formed a thin layer of mush behind his teeth, and he buys time by cleaning it out with his tongue.

“Well,” Reigen says, and clears his throat when his voice cracks at the end syllable. “I’m doing it just like you are now. I stay calm. Remember the knife.” He forms his hand into a fist, wiggling around an invisible knife. “I’m in control. So are you. It’s not something to fear.” He offers a small smile. “I learn to trust myself, Mob. In time, you will, too.”

And there it is again, that look of raw hope. Reigen doesn’t have the heart to discourage it, so he smiles wider, encouragingly, before retreating to his laptop, burger forgotten beside him.

An hour later, with no show of new clients, he tells Mob to go home. But even after the door closes, Reigen can’t escape that wide-eyed stare, that desperate gaze, where the ten-year-old boy places his trust in a stranger, fastening a rope between them both and never letting go.

That old pit is forming again at the base of his gut. He disregards it at hunger, and he eats the rest of his burger.

———

It’s been three months since that day they met at the consultation office. Roughly. Reigen hasn’t kept count, with the volume of clients growing and his schedule growing in tandem each week. He’s noticed that the seasons have changed, though, because Reigen doesn’t have to turn his air conditioner on nearly as often, and that cuts back on costs, which Reigen always remembers. Mob comes in later in the afternoon, bundled in a scarf but otherwise as plain as the day Reigen met him. He says hello. Reigen replies with a wave of his hand, preoccupied with the emails left in his inbox. Regardless of the internet traffic, he’s made no new clients today, and he’s sporting a migraine. He barely notices Mob staring at him expectantly at his desk.

“Nothing today, Mob,” Reigen grunts. “Feel free to… do your homework or something. Or leave.” Without pay , Reigen adds. This migraine is making him particularly moody.

Minutes pass, he thinks, as Reigen is staring blearily at his computer screen, an ache settling at the back of his eyes, scrolling up and down his read and replied files. He might have spaced out, or completely forgotten where he was, because he jumps slightly at the sound of paper sliding across his desk. He looks past his computer screen to see Mob’s eyes peek over the desk, through his mop of black hair, as a tiny hand pushes a sheet filled with scribbles toward him. Reigen picks it up and squints at it.

It’s a drawing. There’s lots of swirls — greens and blues and pinks — and shapes and a form that, after a bit of deliberation, looks like a man in a black-grey shirt with a thin wispy line of pink on his chest, with bright orange hair that’s fringed at every turn and a crooked smile in thick black crayon. Reigen looks to Mob for answers.

Mob looks embarrassed. “For you. We drew it in class.”

And then there’s a light above his head. It’s an old, dusty light stolen from a hardware store, but it flickers to life over his head as Reigen stares at the page. The squiggly man is him, smiling in front of a crooked building with too many windows but with the sign — his sign — drawn squarely at the center of the building: Spirts n Such Consoltashun.

Something gets warm in his chest — something that replaces the black stewing pit — that makes him stare at the page for a moment longer. The warmth is not explosive — just a little ember, sitting at the center of his ribcage — but it’s enough for Reigen to know.

His do-not-care policy is quickly coming to an end.

He thanks Mob, of course, and tells him it looks great, even though, objectively, it doesn’t. Most ten-year-olds grow to draw more recognizable images, so if there was an art contest, Mob would most definitively be in last place. But he keeps it. He doesn’t know why, but when Mob leaves, Reigen searches for an empty manilla folder, digging through old cardboard boxes packed in the massage room, discarding less important paperwork — taxes, mostly — to find a somewhat fresh folder. Shaking off layers of dust from himself and his papers, he presses the drawing gently into the folder, repositioning the edges so it fits perfectly inside. It’s bright and colorful and so unlike the papers he’s read for years on end.

He stares at it for a long time.

—

It is not a one-time occurrence.

It happens infrequently, but Reigen knows when he’s about to get them. Mob walks into the office in a rush, both too slow and fast at the same time, shoulders hunched but eyes wide and clear, nibbling the bottom of his lip with nervous energy. He slips his backpack down, almost toppling his desk over, and then he opens it, the sound of paper crinkling as Mob ruins his homework but oh-so-carefully withdraws a new piece of art, this time with different colors, this time with different scenery. But the characters are always the same — him and Mob, sometimes lounging in the office, sometimes exorcising a spirit in a warehouse (he shouldn’t be concerned, but he hopes Mob’s teachers don’t talk amongst themselves about Mob’s new master and his continued encouragement of these macabre fantasies of spirits and demons).

Each day Reigen thanks him for them and places them in his manilla folder, each pressed carefully over the other. He’s not sure what to do with them, so he keeps them there where they can’t be damaged by stray crumbs or toppled coffee. They stay in a cabinet next to his desk when they’re not lying on display on his desk, nestled between his lease paperwork and old client contacts. Sometimes, Reigen forgets about them completely.

Until, of course, the next drawing comes.

——

It’s sometime in winter when Reigen finally invites Mob to get ramen after work for the first time ever. It’s cold and dark and, even though there is no forecast for snow, the air smells just like the beginning of snowfall in Seasoning City, where the acrid smoke of the city clears into this sort of musky, oak-like smell. Reigen is tired and hungry and, when he looks at the clock on his phone, deliberates how exhausting it would be for him to stick a cup of noodles in the microwave and let it bake until his eyes start watering. He sighs and stares up at the night sky.

“Let’s get ramen.”

Mob makes a noise beside him, something like cough or sneeze, and his eyebrows stretch skyward underneath his hair. “Really?” he asks. His tone reminds him of the first time Reigen gave him his pay. Reigen bites the inside of his cheek and finds it difficult to stare at Mob for longer than a second.

“Yeah. I don’t want to cook anything in this weather. S’gonna be a long night, so might as well take a break while I can. Come on.”

He leads the kid to a ramen stall, where they greet the cook and settle in their seats. He orders for them both, with a decidedly smaller bowl for Mob. Mob continues thanking Reigen even when he tells him to stop, and by the fourth time, Reigen is getting annoyed.

“Oi, don’t expect me to make a habit of this. This is a one-time thing. And this is coming out of your salary.”

Mob sobers after this and eats his ramen silently, but he still radiates this warmth that stays in Reigen’s chest for a long while, so faint and threadbare that he doesn’t even notice it until he opens the door to his apartment and is greeted by grey walls and papers strewn haphazardly over his couches, his year-old lights flickering their last sputters of light, and he realizes how good he felt in that ramen store, and how tired he feels in here.

Getting ramen does not stay a one-time thing.

——

It’s an off-day again. Reigen tells Mob to go home and then closes his office early, tucking old files below his armpit to take home with him. The weather is dark and gloomy that afternoon, which always raises people’s superstitions, which always lead to more clients, but apparently everyone is of clear mind today and hasn’t felt the need to call any psychics. Reigen can weather out the lax in calls, but he may be turning off his water for a while.

When he walks into his apartment, he scrubs the crust out of his eyes with the back of his palm, leaving his vision spotty, and he bumps into his kitchen counter. He stumbles and the files spill out from under his arm like a waterfall, and Reigen’s sigh echoes against the white tile. He bends down to pick up an unusually colorful paper.

He blinks. It’s a kid’s drawing, full of scribbles and squares, with a familiar man with orange hair and a pink tie grinning at him in thick black crayon. He looks to the rest of the spilled paperwork and sees those same familiar swirls of color. He must have accidentally added the manilla folder with his bills.

He gently extracts each one from the ground, regards his kitchen counter with a frown, and scrubs a corner of it clean to rest the papers on. His bills he’s less gentle with, crinkling in his grip, and these he throws onto his couch to pool over after his shower.

He doesn’t come up with his idea until after he’s out of the shower, towel over his shoulders, scrubbing at his still-wet hair and a toothbrush dangling in his mouth, and he walks back to the kitchen to stare at the blank surface of his refrigerator. The grey and orange and green is still bright at the corner of his eye. He huffs a breath of air out of his nose, a sort of “huh” noise that’s gargled by toothpaste, and realizes that he probably could have thought of this long ago.

He tosses his towel to the side and starts rummaging through his kitchen drawers in search of magnets.

The other papers lying on the couch are long forgotten.

“Shishou?”

Mob’s hand is still on the door handle when he stops in his tracks and stares at his master, who looks a little strange. He’s balancing at the top of his rolling chair, legs shakingly supporting the older man’s weight, as he’s pulling things from the wall and letting them fall onto the ground below. His suit jacket is discarded on his desk, and his tie is thrown over his shoulder. He looks especially sweaty up there. He also looks like he’s going to fall.

Reigen glances over his shoulder, and the chair wobbles below him. “Oh! Mob. Good.” Reigen’s voice is strained, like he’s out of breath, and the mere act of swiveling his head around is using up too much energy. There are beads of sweat on his face. He motions Mob inside with a jerk of his head. “Help me out over here. Grab those posters on the floor and put them in the trash. Then grab my chair for me so I can get down.”

Mob obediently enters, setting his backpack down next to his new desk — wooden and portable, something Reigen had bought at an online auction for less than a thousand yen, and so much better than the amalgamation of cardboard and wood and scratchy tablecloth — and goes to pick up the scraps of paper lying on the floor. They all look like posters of a younger Reigen, with his smile of too-many-teeth and flashy colors behind him. One looks out of place, of a man with black hair and a vacant gaze, with a name starting with “Mo” behind him. That one is torn.

“Shishou, don’t you need these--?”

“Bah.” Reigen waves a hand. The chair gets even shakier. “Outdated. Don’t need them. Now hurry up, Mob. I’m gonna fall.”

Mob rushes to throw the posters in the waste bin, which is too small and the paper scraps pool out around it. Then he rushes over to Reigen, who is huffing and puffing as though he ran several kilos, even though all he did was stand on a chair. Mob holds it steady as Reigen slowly crawls down. He radiates sweat, and when he tries to wipe his face, more sweat from his hand replaces it.

“Good job,” Reigen pants. Mob stares at the torn posters.

“Why didn’t you just use your powers to take them down, Shishou?”

Reigen coughs and then barks out a laugh. “Oh, Mob,” he tuts. “There’s no need to use my powers for such trivial things. I can’t be reliant solely on the one thing I’m good at. Sometimes it’s good to be dependent on your own physical strength. Plus,” he coughs, “I just took down a major spirit this morning. I have to, ah, save up my remaining energy for later.”

Mob stares at his wise master and nods sagely. “Okay.” They both elect to stare at the wall which, in this case, is still not empty. “What’s that?”

An empty cork board sits on the wall before them. It must have held the rest of Reigen’s old posters and advertisements, and now it’s completely bare. It makes the room feel a lot bigger.

Reigen clasps a sweaty hand on Mob’s shoulder. “A client-satisfaction board, my apprentice. Here, we’ll fill it with photos taken with clients after our jobs. It gives future clients a piece of mind. A bit of security, knowing we do our job well.”

“Oh,” says Mob. He looks to his shoes and thinks. “But we don’t have any client-satisfaction pictures.”

“Not yet, Mob.” Reigen rummages under his jacket, which still lies on the desk, and pulls out what even Mob can recognize as a cheap plastic camera. “But we soon will. Here.” He spins the camera around to point at them and leans over to Mob, who stares unblinkingly at the camera lens. The device clicks, and Reigen spins it around to see the finished picture. All they see is a brown blur.

“Ah,” Reigen grunts. “One more time.” They take another photo. They spin it around. This time, Mob can see both him and Reigen staring at the camera, Reigen with his hair stuck to his forehead and grin crooked, and Mob in midway blink.

“Perfect,” Reigen says. He sets the camera down. “And one more thing.”

He produces a folder from under his desk. It’s plain and tan and it looks like all the rest in Reigen’s office, but when he opens it, Mob can see some familiar scribbles. He cranes his head over the desk to see what Reigen’s doing with them, as the man pulls one, two, three from the pile and then rummages in a small box of thumbtacks. Reigen crosses the office and sticks the drawings crookedly on the corkboard, in a pattern that suggests he expects to put more photos around them, with wide space between each. They gleam in the afternoon sun, his drawings from school, that feature him and Reigen eating burgers in the office and exorcising spirits in the park.

“There,” Reigen says, arms folded over his chest, satisfied. He glances over to Mob. “Look good?”

The sun strikes the pictures just right, forcing Mob to squint at them as they make the office feel brighter. The little esper looks to his master, then to the corkboard, then to the folder that sits silently at the desk. After a long moment (and Reigen is starting to sweat again), he nods. He doesn’t even realize he’s smiling.

“Yeah,” Mob says, soft and quiet in the tiny Spirits and Such Consultation Office. “Looks good.”

In Reigen’s apartment, there are still papers strewn across the couch, the walls are grey, and the air is stale and smells like old ramen. There are dirty dishes in the sink and the counter could use a good wipe, and Reigen forgot to turn off the air conditioner when he left for work.

And in the kitchen, hanging on the refrigerator by half-faded blue and pink magnets, rustling in the still-running air conditioner, are five of Mob’s drawings, shining proudly in the dying sunlight.

#fanfiction #spiteful writings #fan fiction #fanfic #mp100 #mob psycho 100 #reigen arataka #shigeo kagayama #fluff #like an enormous amount of fluff #reigen arataka is bad at expressing his affection verbally

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hikaridemina · 3 years

Text

*Quietly tucks this into the corner* I really want to keep making OC x canon snippets but my confidence wavers. Oh well.

This turned out way more sad than originally intended.

Warnings/tags: Angst, swearing, OC x Canon, OOC

-----

A dim ray of sunlight shone through the darkened bedroom from between the curtains. Fizz’s eyelids fluttered open with the light shining in his vision, his eyes steadily gaining a green glow as they powered back on. He turned over on his side in the bed and was now facing the bat demon sleeping soundly beside him.

He was the first one awake apparently, which was... new. Normally Demina was the one waking him up at the ass crack of dawn, so she must have been exhausted to still be asleep. Well, after what they had done late into the night, it wasn’t too much of a surprise. A sly smile crept over the jester’s face as he thought about it.

After a little while, he carefully slid out of the bed, trying very hard not to wake her up. He seemed to have succeeded, and with the utmost care he grabbed the edge of the blanket and pulled it up to cover her shoulders. He then made his way over to the bathroom, stepping around both of their articles of clothing, including his trademark outfit, that were strewn about on the floor.

He flicked on the light switch as he entered and leaned on the vanity counter to look at the mirror. A frown appeared on his face as he tapped on the shiny piece of metal that started from where his collar bone would be, then extended all the way up to the middle of his neck. The posture collar had a fancy heart engraved on the front, and was a shiny silver which contrasted with the off-white of his torso.

The thing wouldn’t bother him so much if it didn’t stick out like a goddamn sore thumb, but at least it was relatively hidden while he had his clothing on.

Or maybe it wasn’t the collar itself that bothered him, but the reason why it was there. He had gotten careless, let his guard down for a few seconds and it put him out of commission long enough for Demina’s life to be thrown into danger. Luckily, she had managed to get herself out of it before any real harm had happened to her, but...

Still. That event continued to haunt him no matter how hard he tried to push it from his memory, and this fucking collar did nothing else but remind him of it. Well, aside from holding his upper chest together and keeping his head attached. Honestly, he rather would have gone through the long-term repairs for that instead of this ‘quick fix’ they did on him while he was offline. He let out a sigh as he kept staring into the mirror.

Damn, feeling sad sucked. Who knew that actually, genuinely, caring for someone else would make things so complicated.

His attention was then immediately drawn to the person who just had stepped into the doorway behind him, whom appeared to have put on a black t-shirt and shorts after having gotten out of bed. He quickly turned around and forced a toothy grin as he leaned back on the counter.

“Hey Dems! Finally decided to get up, huh?”

“Yeah...” The bat let out a yawn, “What are you doing in the bathroom?”

“... Uhh.” He didn’t know how to answer that, actually. “Just, you know... things.”

Fuck. That was such a Blitzo answer.

She picked up on the awkwardness right away, especially with that fake grin of his, which she was sure if it got any wider his face would probably get stuck like that. She raised a brow at him.

Another thing that sucked was when someone else cared just as much about you and could tell when you were full of shit.

Fizz then froze completely as she walked up to him and placed a hand on his chest.

“It’s the collar, isn’t it?” She said while keeping her gaze down, running her thumb over the heart-shaped engraving.

How the heck did she know? He had never voiced to her how he really felt about it... Maybe she was just too good at figuring these things out.

“Now I know what you’re gonna say...” He gently grabbed hold of her hand to move it from his chest, his fingers lacing between hers.

“You don’t need to feel sorry for it.”

She kept her gaze down, her hand now squeezing his a bit.

“But you got hurt.”

“Well robots can’t really get hurt, so-”

He was taken aback as she shot a piercing glare up at him. Through her angry expression he could spot her bottom lip quivering, along with the dew forming in her eyes telling a completely different reaction.

She threw her other arm over around his shoulders and nestled her face into his neck.

"That's not what I fucking mean..." She took in a shaky breath to try to keep her voice from cracking, but it didn't do much.

"I know you think you can just keep getting into shit, getting fixed over and over again until one day..."

She couldn't hold it back anymore as steady streams began to flow down her face. Fuck, how did it get to this point so quickly.

"I had to-" her voice hiccupped mid-sentence and she had to gulp down her breath before continuing, "I had to fucking see you on the ground with your eyes all black, you didn't answer when I called you, you didn't move, I thought you were... Gone."

For once the jester was speechless. He had no witty remarks, no comebacks, no smartass-ness. All he could do in that moment was stand there motionless as his girlfriend hung on to him, while he continued to clutch her hand like he was never going to let go.

"Dems..."

If he could be crying himself right now, he would be. This entire time he had thought she had gotten out of that terrifying situation unscathed, but it was now apparent that wasn't the case. His free arm coiled around her waist to pull her closer into the hug.

"I... I'm sorry, okay? I couldn't let those bastards get away with trying to hurt you-"

"But you didn't have to chase them!" She interrupted him, her breath hitching again as she had to breathe through her mouth.

"We could have just ran away! We could have got away together and everything would have been fine!"

She unintentionally let out a sob as she buried her face in his shoulder, her large ears folding flat. God, she was such a mess, and now she also felt bad for practically yelling at him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to be such a bitch..."

"N-No you're not bbbeing a bitch!"

Wait, did his voice just glitch out? God fucking dammit that was supposed to have been fixed. He nuzzled the side of her face.

"I'll be more careful from now on, for you."

Demina sniffled as she wiped her face on her arm. She was finally starting to calm down.

"You have to promise, and not just for me either."

"Alright. I, Fizzarolli, promise to stop being a dumbass and scaring his girlfriend."

He smiled at the exasperated sigh he received in response from the bat still nuzzled into his shoulder.

"Stupid fucking clown." She muttered just loud enough for him to hear, a smile also having formed on her face.

"Crazy ass bat." He said playfully in return.

She moved back a bit so she could look up at him, unable to hide her smile.

"How am I crazy?"

"For crying over the stupid fucking clown."

Their smiles widened as they both leaned in to connect for a kiss. The soft moment felt good after the emotional rollercoaster they had just been through.

After the kiss, Demina let go of Fizz's hand and motioned for him to let go of her as well.

"Okay I'm gonna have to kick you out of the bathroom now."

"Oh woe is me."

He unraveled his arm from around her waist, but didn't budge from his spot in front of the vanity as he grinned at her.

"What if I wanted to stay?"

"You are not staying in here when I need it."

"Aww, you never know, I could be into that."

"Ew."

She promptly used one of her wings to push him out before slamming the door shut behind him, whilst he did that wicked chuckle of his that he does every time he acts like a little shit.

At least that unexpected morning drama was over with and he felt pretty much back to normal.

He noticed the clothes that were on the floor had been picked up and put in the laundry basket, with the exception of his jester attire which instead had been laid out at the end of the bed.

He had a different idea though and made a beeline for the closet, sliding the door open to take out a faded violet hoodie. With some effort he managed to slip it over his head, pulling it down over his body. He held his jester ears down in front of himself as he put the hood up and pulled the string to keep it in place.

Now he was perfectly content.

Fizz then moved into the living room to sit on the couch. Moments later, Demina entered the room as well and began to gather her wallet and keys.

"So I have to get some things from the store, you can come along if you want... to..."

She stopped and stared at her boyfriend sitting on the couch wearing her hoodie, which was fine, except there was something missing.

"Where's your pants?"

He shrugged in response.

"Didn't think I needed them."

"Oh for fuck's sake," she rolled her eyes as she went back into the bedroom, a few seconds later returning with his black and white striped pants in hand.

He gave her that shit-eating grin again.

"If it was for fuck's sake, I'd leave 'em offPFT-"

She had thrown the pants over his face.

Yeah, everything was back to normal, alright.

#robo fizz x oc #oc x canon #robo fizz #helluva boss #helluva boss oc #my writing

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girlofmanyfandoms · 4 years

Text

The Angel and The Siren

A/n: Based off of anon prompt that I’ll post separately so y’all can see that! Ily anon, that prompt was just *chef’s kiss*. Also I got a lotta stuff to do, so idk if this is good or not (it’s not)-

Word count: 2000

Warnings: idk mate, executive dysfunction kicked in and this happened

Writing taglist: @everyonehasthoughts @imaramennoodle @bookwyrminspiration @holesinmyfalseconfidence @percabetn @an-absolute-travesty @linhamon-roll @holesinmyfalseconfidence @linhamon2 @a-lonely-tatertot @loverofallthingssmart @vibing-in-the-void @clearlykeefitz

Linh dozed off to the side before jolting back to life. Marella shot her a concerned look, but she waved it off to the side. She had to fight through this. Sophie’s lips were moving, but all she heard was the distant calls of the wind mixing with the cries of dawn. Off in the distance, she saw a flareodon glide from the forest to the ocean, it’s beak gracing the water just enough to cause a beautiful rippling effect. Yet still, the colors blended and blended together, the world nothing but a watercolor painting fading away.

“Linh!”

“I’m alive,” she blurted out.

“Yeah, I almost couldn’t tell,” Tam muttered, grunting as he helped her up from her near-fall. “You nearly passed out.”

“I’m fine,” Linh reassured him, putting a great deal of her weight on her brother’s shoulder. “I just... need a breath of fresh air.”

“You should probably head home,” Tam suggested, though it was obvious he was restraining himself. “I’ll update you when I get there.”

Linh had an amused look playing on her face. “Tam, I’ll be alright, I’m just tired. I’ll take a walk and see how I feel, okay?”

“But-”

“I’ll go with her,” Marella offered eagerly. She flushed, and began to correct herself. “Just to make sure she’s safe.”

Linh’s face lit up and she grabbed her hand, grinning from ear to ear. Her guardian angel had arrived. “We’ll be safe!” Marella called before dragging Linh out of the house and down the porch of the vacation home.

They drew closer together, Linh examining Marella’s features in full. Oh, she was an angel alright. Her eyes held a sort of fiery determination that dared anyone to approach her, yet showed the upmost sympathy for those who struggled like her. For those who were weak and beaten down before they were strong and built up. Sunlight cascaded onto her, making her blonde locks swirl through the air like flames from a newly made campfire, warming everyone around her. Like a halo.

Marella blushed and glanced to the side. “Is there something on my face?” Linh shook her head and leaned on her a bit, pulling her into a side hug as they approached the shoreline of the tropical island hideout. “You just have a pretty one.”

Marella scoffed. “You’re talking?”

“Yeah, I am.” Linh waded into the water, letting the tides bring her underwater, just to the point where her face was above water level, hair floating around her like thin sheets of sea foam. She sat up slowly, and started swimming farther from shore, stopping to beckon Marella. Follow me, the gesture called. The beautiful siren waited patiently, a strand of hair in her face with her head at a slight tilt making her look both shy and innocent, and sly but deadly. The angel was entranced, so she kicked off her boots and followed without hesitation.

When Marella got close enough, Linh held her by the waist, ordering the water to surround them like walls. She pulled Marella close and guided her in a sort of slow dance, letting the tides carry them. Linh’s movement were fluid, and Marella followed her lead, trying to focus on mimicking her movements rather than her heart threatening to explode in her chest.

Deep breaths, she thought to herself. She’s just doing this to keep Tam and the others off her back. Linh hummed, resting her forehead on Marella’s shoulder. “I wish there was something we could do about this.”

Marella panicked. She couldn’t have meant what she thought, or rather hoped, she meant. “This meaning...”

She broke their link, bobbing up and down with the waves, gesturing around her in a vague, fragmented manner. “All of this. The Neverseen, the Treaty with the other Intelligent Species, my parents, the matchmaking system. Everything. I didn’t ask for this. I just wanted to live my life, just like everyone else. But now the adults are cowards and force a group of teenagers, two of which were banished from their society for years, to save the world. I just-” She paused, her voice cracking as she looked towards the sky to blink back tears. “I just want to be a kid. Is that too much to ask?”

Even Linh, with her sweet and innocent front, was breaking. She was crushed, and broken, and in pain, and it tore Marella’s heart into pieces. “I’m so sorry. I-if you don’t mind me asking, what was that like? Like, what happened before you got banished?”

“I was a kid,” Linh smiles sadly in reminiscence. “An unhappy one, but a kid nevertheless. But when I got to Exillium... I became a monster.”

“You’re no monster.” Marella frowned. “And didn’t the group say that they feared ‘The Shade’ because he was protecting ‘The Hydrokinetic’?”

She chuckled in response. “That’s what they wanted you to think. The others were scared of Tam, definitely, but not before they were scared of me, and not for the same reason.”

Marella raised her eyebrows, daring to swim a little closer and lean on her a bit. “Care to elaborate?”

“I guess it would help to let something out.” Linh bit her lip in thought. “And... if there’s anyone I would want to tell first, it’d be you.”

She breathed for a moment, her action syncing with the swells of the ocean. “I got banished a week after the floods. We were going to Councillor Terik to see if there was any potential that would ‘save us from our fate.’ Terik said that he wanted us to meet with Quinlin and Livvy first, to view our records and check if we had any medical issues. We also had to go shopping for clothes, makeup, accessories, anything to make the two of us look different, like we were born separately. But since we both manifested relatively young, and we hadn’t gotten into Foxfire yet, we couldn’t control ourselves.”

“And that’s when the flood happened?”

“No,” she laughed. “If it were that simple, we wouldn’t have been banished. No, what happened was a combination of neglect, stress, panic, and misfortune.”

“So...”

“So something wasn’t supposed to be there, and we freaked out, and our powers crashed together and ripped the barrier open even further than it was getting.”

“It was already breaking?” Marella asked.

“It was old,” Linh shrugged, though from the way she was examining her damp clothes for lint, it was clear that the siren had told a white lie. She crossed her arms and looked down, presumably in guilt and shame, though most likely to fight off the wisps of pain and trauma that clung to her with a vengeance, like a ghost of who she once was.

The angel was conflicted, but decided to take up her own strategy. She extended her hand. “Let’s get farther away from here. See what the jungle has to offer.”

Linh hesitantly accepted it, the walls descending slowly, soon at peace with the rest of their surroundings. A pulsing of emotions ran through her, a symphony from a past life. It confused her, but despite the vapor clouding her mind, she was able to make one clear thought.

Her hands fit perfectly in mine. Linh shook her head vigorously to clear it of those irrational ideas. She’d learned the hard way what getting close to someone cost. “What are you thinking then?”

“You said you’re stressed, right? Like you can’t be free?”

She nodded, eyes narrowing.

“Let me show you what freedom looks like.” Marella let Linh guide the two of them to shore, releasing all of the water trapped in their clothes and hair back into the environment. Doing an awkward hop to get her boots back on, she raced into the jungle, using her momentum to launch herself onto the nearest tree, managing to get her arms around the lowest branch. She swung her body up and let one arm hold her, using her other hand to aid her in letting out an ear-piercing summoning whistle.

In a moment, the flareodon that had been circling the island landed on Marella’s arm like a hawk. Marella waved Linh over as it preened. “See? He’s free to go wherever he likes and do whatever he likes when he wants to do it; he’s got no calls of the sea binding him to a workbench and no looming duties of the hearth to dedicate his life to. And what does that make him?”

“A freelancer.”

“Free, Linh. That’s the key word. He’s free. And you will be too. You just have to have faith.”

“I wish I had that.” She sunk down against the tree opposite to hers, fiddling with a ridiculously large leaf that had fallen from a nearby plant. “And maybe there is some for you. But I’m a twin, and a previously banished one at that, and my life will be dictated by some stupid matchmaker trying to match me up with a stupid ‘powerful’ man that I’ll never love!”

The flareodon was startled by the quick escalation of her volume and took off. Marella, however, drew closer. “Is there a reason you know that you’ll never love that man?”

Quit the wishful thinking Marella! But still, her heart held hope.

“It’s based purely off of genetics,” she whispered, her voice betraying her.

“Linh, come on, I know it’s something deeper,” Marella insisted, bringing the girl to her feet. She diverted her eyes, refusing to even look up. “Answer me, please.”

“You know, you’ve got a lot of fire in your soul, Mare,” Linh murmured. “It’s admirable. But I think back and I analyze and there’s not a single thing like that about me. All I do is pretend to be an innocent little girl just to drag people down with me. There’s nothing admirable about that.”

“Hey, no one talks about my Linh like that, got it?”

My Linh? their minds screamed in unison. On one end, Marella’s cringe scorched at the edges of her mind. On the other, Linh was drowning in the overwhelming feeling she never dared to feel. Hope. Yet again, in the distance, she heard the wind throwing itself upon the raging waves. Though they weren’t raging anymore. They were systematically crashing together, a docile beat not so foreign to her combining with the whistling of the tree leaves to form the melody she longed to sing all along. Home. This is it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable-”

Linh tossed her leaf to the side, standing up with newfound confidence. “You didn’t. You don’t have to apologize for anything. In fact, I should thank you.”

Marella laughed nervously. “There’s nothing to thank me for.” She looked around for a change of topic. “It’s getting late, you should head home. Tam said he’d check up on you, he’ll get worried if you’re not there.”

“Tam worries no matter what.” Linh shook it off. “And besides, I don’t want to go home alone. I like... being around you.”

“I like being around you too,” Marella flushed. She glanced to the side and picked up a fallen hibiscus that was still intact, quickly braiding it into Linh’s hair. “There. Now you can have a piece of me wherever you go.”

Linh smiled sweetly, pulling Marella’s collar towards her and pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek. “I think I’d rather have all of you,” she breathed softly, before stepping back and holding her crystal up to the Sun.

“Thanks, babe!” she called, a smirk proving her pride as she stepped into the light.

Marella touched her cheek, in shock from the confession, as goosebumps travelled up her arms. Her other hand frantically searched her pockets for her leaping crystal. Biting her lip, she glanced to the side, having to squint as the sun began its journey to the other side of the world. Surely the crew wouldn’t mind if she slipped away too. Besides, there was something more important. The siren called.

#*bouncing up and down* didja like it?#probably not #but i can dream ☺️#Cade’s writing #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #marella redek #linh song #tam song #marellinh #linh x marella #linhella

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stupidsexyfandom · 4 years

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In the Study

@helsa-summer-event

Rated T // Drama

Before her coronation gala, Elsa retires to her study, where she receives an unexpected visitor. (Unexpected for her, that is. I’m sure you all know who it’s going to be.)

Written for Prompt #1 of Helsa Summer: “Don’t you dare!”

The coronation ceremony was over. The diplomats had been presented at court and shuffled off to their rooms to dress for the evening’s ball. The townspeople had dispersed back to their shops and other duties. Queen Elsa finally had a few moments to herself.

To be more accurate, this hour was devoted to the beginnings of her queenly duties. Elsa knew that a monarch’s work never truly stopped, and already her advisors had presented her with several documents that needed signing. Still, she was grateful for the brief respite from the crowds and noise and the feeling of countless eyes on her. Her already-tenuous control had been stretched nearly to the breaking point. This was an opportunity to recuperate and muster strength for the next stage of the festivities.

She sat at the large oak desk that had once been her father’s, perusing the first document that needed her attention. Satisfied with its contents, she removed her gloves and prepared her pen and ink. For the next quarter hour, she was fully engrossed in reading and signing documents. Her concentration was only interrupted when she thought she saw a flicker of movement in the top of her vision.

Looking up, she was surprised to see one of the visiting diplomats silhouetted against the large window across the room. His back was to her as he examined the woodwork, and all she could make out was the sun burnishing the copper tips of his hair. He moves like a fox, too, she thought. She had not heard him come in.

He turned almost instantaneously, and Elsa quickly tightened her slack jaw into a more regal expression. Recognition dawned on her. The Southern Isles. Population: 180,000. Chief exports: oxen and grain. Army adequate. Navy formidable. Prince… Hans, maybe? Number thirteen?

Prince Hans (or whoever he was) crossed the room. Elsa looked up at him, careful to give the impression that she was unbothered by his appearance. He stood over her like cliffs above the sea. It made her uneasy, but she could not bend. Conceal, don’t feel. After so many years, concealing her emotions felt almost like second nature. Unfortunately, not feeling was where the real trouble lay.

“May I help you?” she said, keeping her face impassive. Prince Hans sprung into action, like an automaton whose key had been released. His face lit up and he bowed with a flourish.

“Your Majesty, may I say what an honor it is to meet you at last. I am Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. My father, the king, sends his felicitations.” Elsa blinked a few times. She wanted to ask how he got in there or say that this was highly irregular, but she could not find the words. It would not have mattered if she had, for Prince Hans continued with the force of an avalanche.

“I have a petition to place before you, and I hope that you will give it due consideration. The historic bond between our two nations runs deep, and my father has every hope of its continuance through a new generation.”

Elsa found her voice and said, “If this is a diplomatic matter, please speak to my steward. He will let you know when the crown has decided to receive public petitions.” She inched her hand along the desktop toward her gloves, hoping to slip them on surreptitiously. Her discomfort had caused the temperature to drop slightly, but no snow was falling, for which she was endlessly grateful.

“If this were a diplomatic matter, I would do so. But this request is of a more personal nature.” Oh, such impudence! Prince Hans delicately perched himself on the edge of the desk, leaning slightly towards her. Elsa fought the simultaneous urges to push him back with an icy wind and to crawl under the desk.

Cursed, as always, by a tendency to inaction, Elsa merely said, “What personal matter could we possibly have?” Her voice did not shake, a small victory, and she was nearly able to reach her gloves. A few more seconds and any crisis might be averted. But she was not prepared for what the prince had to say.

“It’s simple, really. I would like to ask you to marry me.”

Elsa did not want to believe what she had just heard. She dropped her pen as a layer of frost radiated out from her hands, coating her gloves and half the papers on the desk. She immediately put her hands in her lap, but it was too late. The foreign prince had seen all. Her anxiety reached a fever pitch, but Prince Hans was unperturbed. He reached out and plucked a rigid envelope from its icy bed, turning it over to examine the patterns of hoarfrost.

“Ah, so you are not a secret invalid after all. I had wondered. Well, this makes things both easier and more pleasant for me. What say you?” The prince’s tone remained affable, but there was a hard edge in his green eyes that Elsa did not like.

“I have no intention of entertaining marriage proposals at this time. And anyway, I hardly know you,” spluttered Elsa, still reeling.

“What a shame. But that needn’t stand in our way. Plenty of royals marry without ever meeting each other. Is your refusal because of me, personally? It is said that I’m quite handsome, and my kingdom has great wealth. Many diplomatic ties. A strong military, too. We could be quite the powerful allies to an inexperienced queen.” Or powerful enemies. Elsa could feel her magic crackling at the unspoken threat. She gripped the edge of the desk until her knuckles turned white.

Sensing her discomfort, the prince continued, “Arendelle looks to be a fine land. Its fields are rich, and its people are gentle. It seems so peaceful.” It would be a shame if that peace were broken.

“Yes, I could see myself growing quite fond of it. And of you, for that matter,” said Prince Hans, staring down at her. Elsa hated feeling so small and weak. Was not a queen’s duty to be strong for her people? The thought spurred her to action.

“I’ve heard enough,” she said, and stood to call the guards. But Prince Hans was too fast. He was on his feet in an instant and held her arm in an iron grip. He leaned across the desk and pulled her towards him, so their faces were only inches apart. Snow floated in the air around them. Elsa could let this go no further.

“I could skewer you,” she hissed, “I could run you through with ice before you even knew it was happening.” She brought her right hand up to rest upon his chest. Prince Hans only laughed.

“Hardly. How would you explain my body? A corpse full of icicles in a snow drift inside your study? In June? Unless you want your secret to be known…” But he loosened his hold, and Elsa pulled away.

“Anyway,” said the prince, straightening his jacket and adjusting his glove, “physical violence is much more my brothers’ style.”

The snow had slowed to a gentle flurry. Elsa considered her options. He was right that she could not simply alert the guards. Her guardsmen were trusted to the highest degree, but the visitors for the coronation introduced too many unknown variables. Too many opportunities for information to spread through benign gossip. And that was without considering what malice the prince might introduce.

Elsa said, “Even if I were amenable to marrying you, the council would never allow it. They want to see me get my footing as queen in my own right before I marry. How can I convince my people to trust a stranger as king when they do not yet know me as queen?” That was a blatant lie. The council had specifically briefed Elsa on all the eligible bachelors attending the coronation, including Prince Hans. But Elsa had been lying since she was eight years old, and she had honed her art like fired steel.

“I’m a patient man, your Majesty. I don’t mind the wait. I have waited many years for your coronation, why should I be troubled by a few more?”

“Even when the council deems it prudent for me to marry, I highly doubt they will consider your suit.” Another lie, but this one seemed to get Prince Hans’ attention. Elsa continued, “Arendelle is indeed a fine kingdom, and it deserves a fine king. One who embodies power, wealth, and status. Not a king thirteenth in line in his own court. A king who is strong in his right, not a mere leftover.” For a fraction of a second, Elsa thought the Prince Hans looked genuinely hurt. But the next moment he had returned to his faux affable manner.

“Oh, Queen Elsa, you wound me. So, your answer remains no?”

“You know that it does.” Prince Hans turned toward the door.

“Alas, you would have made a lovely bride. But no matter! There are other routes to Arendelle’s throne.” He placed a hand on the doorknob, turning his head back toward Elsa. “There are two heirs, are there not?” The temperature dropped sharply, and the snow fell fast and thick.

“You wouldn’t dare!” said Elsa, voice barely above a horrified whisper.

“Wouldn’t I? Princess Anna is so very pretty. Nearly as pretty as you. And I imagine she would be a much more willing companion.”

“Keep away from my sister!” Elsa spat amid a howling wind, “She’ll never marry you! I’ll make sure of it!”

“Not even if she thinks it’s true love? You know, I ran into her at the docks earlier. Such a sweet girl. So naïve, so trusting. A girl with so much love to give, and nobody around to receive it. It’s a pity.”

“You don’t know the first thing about either of us!” But Elsa knew that the gale she had created testified otherwise.

“I know that I could make her love me like that,” he snapped his gloved fingers, “because she is so eager to be loved. Desperate, even. I doubt that you could convince her otherwise. You, the ice queen of a sister she barely knows.”

“If she will not listen to me as her sister, she will respect me as her monarch! You forget, Prince Hans, that while Anna is next in line for the throne, I am still sitting on it.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t dare,” Prince Hans chuckled, “not when I hold your secret in the palm of my hand. Do you think your people will trust you as queen when they learn of your unholy power? You know, it is not so many years ago that there were witch hunts in this county. No, I think you will look favorably upon a match between me and your sister.”

“I will not!”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter. Unless, of course, you consent to marry me yourself. I’m sure the council would accept a little prodding from their sovereign ruler on the matter.”

“Never! I would die first!”

“Ah well. Suit yourself.” And with a devilish grin, he was gone.

Elsa sat down at the desk and slumped over her arms. It took her several minutes to realize that her teardrops were frozen to her face. Poor Anna. Elsa did not know how to protect her from this. Either she would fall prey to the devious prince, or she would learn the truth about what happened all those years ago. Either might break her completely.

Daring. That was the heart of it. She stood at a crossroads, paralyzed by fear, unable to take any action. Once again, she could do nothing to save her sister. She would hurt Anna again because Elsa was a coward and Prince Hans was not.

***

Author’s Note: I’ve never personally subscribed to the idea that Hans is a sociopath, but it’s a fun sandbox to play in. There’s something so juicy about writing a shameless schemer of a villain. Thanks to everyone who made it this far, and I hope you’ve enjoyed my fic. Be on the lookout for more Helsa Summer fics, provided I can keep my act together that long. :)

#helsa #helsasummerevent #helsasummerevent2020 #frozen #hans #elsa #fanfic

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Reviewcaps: X-Men Evolution: Strategy X

I take my first look at X-Men Evolution the second and less famous, but no less loved, cartoon about everyones faviorite mutant outcasts. In our first episode Scott blows up a gas station, Nightcrawler finds what it feels like to have a home, Toad tries to join the x-men and both of the latter two end up nearly dying because Chuck forgot to teleport proof the one room in the house with deadly lasers. All this and football under the cut.

A few days ago I realized something weird: I hadn’t reviewed any superhero cartoons on here. What makes that weird to me, is that I realized when writing this that Superhero cartoons are what MADE me a superhero fan in the first place. I grew up as a little kid watching the spider-man and x-men animated series, and watched most marvel shows that came about as I grew, and became a lifelong fan of Green Lantern and the Flash thanks to Justice League , the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thanks to the 2003 cartoon (another franchise I absolutley adore I haven’t covered on here for some reason) and the Teen Titans thanks to well.. Teen Titans, not to mention all the great original superhero shows at the time like the legendary Danny Phantom (even if butch heartman can take a short walk into a cave full of bears lately), My Life as a Teenage Robot, El Tigre.. the list of good shit goes on. So being on an X-Men kick again lately, I decided to revisit what turned out to be one of the first of this wave, and a show I’d had the opporoutnity to binge for a while , first on hulu and then on D+, and wanted to revisit to see how it holds up, while, if not as fast as I watch them, reviewing them here to combine my two intrests. And it probably wont’ be the last marvel animated series I binge or cover here, nor the last superhero show I cover so if you have any, Marvel, DC, from other companies or completely original, shoot me an ask or reply to this and i’ll see if I can get to it. For now we’re starting the evolution. Evolution was the first X-Men cartoon, and somehow one of 5 overall not counting the hulk vs wolverine movie, pryde of the x-men pilot and various crossover apperances in other cartoons, to follow the 90′s one, which as you probably know was a huge hit that defined the x-men for a generation of young fans, was a huge sucess and launched the mostly great sorta shared cartoon universe with classics like Spider-Man the Animated Series (Which not concidentally is what made me a lifelong fan of the webslinger), The Incredible Hulk, and the second season of Iron Man and Fantastic Four.. and yes only the second as the first seasons were both by entirely diffrent creative teams and gave us things like this.

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Yes that is Johnny Storm doing an objetivley terrible hip hop song, no it dind’t cause that building to sink into the earth, and yes it is so bad it’s delcioius. Sadly the rest of hte series is more flat and boring than “bwahahahaha” but my point is made. The point is Evolution had a steep hill to climb, and with the previous cartoon compressing most of the decades long Chris Claremont era and some of what came after into 5 seasons of good if cheesy stuff, the creators clearly, if only because Ic an’t find a making of, decided to go in a diffrent route, making their own unique take on the characters and world of the x-men instead. For starters rather than being vetrans with years of experince, either from being an x-man or just from general life experince like the comics were since the 70′s aside from the ocasinal exception like Kitty Pryde and Jubilee, they’d be teens, grappling with hormones alongside blue fur, head lasers and not being able to touch anyone. This wasn’t something x-men had shied away from, New Mutants and Generation X existed, but it was the first time in decades the X-Men themselves were kids. Sure Storm and Wolverine weren’t aged down, but there were just as many missions that were just these teenagers hoping to surivive the experince and keep mutants a secret till the world was ready.. and then dealing with the fallout when an unready and hateful world found out anyway. And I honeslty like the direction: The previous series had done the mostly straight adaptation bit, there wasn’t anywhere to go and aging scott and jean back to teens, and having nightcrawler and rouge get to be ones for the first time though, was an intresting idea, as was having Kitty Pryde be a teen alongside them instead of their plucky teenage member Another intresting direction was, while Xavier’s still existed and was where the cast lived and learned to use their powers, the X-Men also went to regular high school. While it’d take till season 3 for them to actually have to deal with being out mutants in the setting, it was still an intresting tactic: The X-school in the comics, while no less studious is still an isoalted boarding school and when the New Mutants met some friends in town, most had only heard whispers about the old Xavier Mansion and were delighted to visit for a slumber party.. granted this being an x-men schindig our heroes ended up having to deal with an alien who eventually became one of their closest friends that night but still, for the x-men having the robot, or technoorganic in this case, NOT try to murder them on purpose and be a loveable 80′s sidekick instead is an easy night. While i’ts not done perfectly here from what I can remember, the main human characters we see are nightcrawlers love intrest amanda (who is thankfully NOT his adopted sister this time around thank christ), local stock blond football bully and flash thompson impersonator Duncan, and Scott’s nondiscript friend paul, who I can’t think of without thinking two things; one , what do you WANT paul:

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I mean a man so vauge just can’t be trusted. The second is that paul looks a lot like Doug Ramsey and i’m suprised they didn’t just.. make him Doug and have him go through a similar arc from the comics:A crush on kitty and the rest of the team finding out he’s a mutant and eventually bringing him into their world. For those unaware Doug Ramsey is a mutant with the ablility to translate any languge, including computer code from the get go and body laungage when he came back, an easy fix to him being the non-combatant of the group no one thought of, who died tragically in story sacrifcing himself to save his girlfriend’s life and out of story because the artist tricked the writer into killing him off. Thankfully he did come back about two decades later, took a level in badass thanks to a combination of the body language thing above meaning he could anticipate moves and dodge and computers having advanced to the point that part of his powers was now 80 times more useful, and has recently become a key part of the dawn of x relaunch. He’s also a faviorite of mine as you can probably tell and given how much the early 2000′s loved their computers, it’s weird to me they didn’t think of this and it’s even weirder he didn’t show up with the lions share of the other new mutants next season, along with Karma and Warlock which somehow has become a recurring theme thanks to the movie saving them for sequels that ended up not happening because fox stupidly put the movie in Limbo where it remains until maybe next month. But yeah even if muted a bit the idea of the x-men going to a public school alongside their training is a decent one.. sure a hero going through high school is again a cliche, but it’s a thing the x-men hadn’t done in this way before or sense, and was intresting to see in action. Most high school scnees in x-comics are usually some poor mutant having their powers manifest and either hurting someone by accident, being treated like crap for it by their class or hunted down for accidently hurting someone before the x-men show up to kick their asses and welcome this youngster. Or getting rejected by family and friends then coming to the x-men.. there’s a lot of angst directions to go in. My point is we’d never seen the x-men try to blend in and have a more standard school experince, and combining that with them hiding their powers instead of being out in the open at first made for a unique dynamic for the x-men that makes well tread ground nice nad fresh even 20 years later.

So that’s our basic setup going in: The X-men wake up, go to school, then save the world or train to save the world while harnesing wonderful and dangerous powers and protecting the helpless agaist less charitable mutants. The basic x-setup with a 2000′s era superhero high school show flavor. Good stuff. But we’ll see what it does with this premise, how good it holds up and what’s still delightfuly cheesy about it as I take a nice look at the first episode Strategy X

We open at night and

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Yup Scott and Jean are at the football team where the aforementioned Duncan, guy voted most likely to peak in high school in last year’s yearbook poll, is playing some foot ball and trying to flit with Jean Grey whose the first X-Man we meet and is somehow receptive to this despite his radaiating douche and is lucky this Jean’ , unlike say the time transfered one from the comics who thought the best approach to helping Bobby Drake come out of the closet so he could help his older self do the same and be his best self, was to just blunty say he’s gay and refuse to let him explore thtt for himself or get someone more quliafied to help her. And yes that did indeed happen and yes the original x-men were brought into the present for a while and yes it was weird Moving on. Still i’m pretty sure duncan’s thoughts would read like “Man she looks good.. I want to bang her so hard she uh.. wakes up sideways.. yeah that’s it. Your a legend duncan, a total legend. “. As you can probably tell I don’t have fond memories of this character or this sorta but not really love triangle, and question why they couldn’t of just had spyke be the other man in the triangle if they wanted to do this. Granted Spyke himself is kinda annoying, but it still makes more sense to have him fill in for angel or wolverine in a jean-scott love triangle than this walking burnt end. The warren, scott one worked, as much as a 60′s love triangle could because warren was conventionally handsome and had angel wings while scott has to keep glasses on just to not murder anyone he looks at, so there’s a bit of contrast there, while with WOlverine it’s straight laced dependeble scott versus unhinged manly man Logan. You know before recently where they just decided to all bone in a pile and wolverine even goes on vacation with them. And that’s not a joke I made up, that’s actual canon. Both make logical sense while Jean would be intrested in both in the former case, as Scott was still a kind and dependable leader, and tempted in the latter case if never acting on it before recently and with her husband’s full consent and either watching from the closet or taking one up the ass for jean to watch. Duncan in contrast is just wholly unlikeable and it makes me question why use him as the third in this love triangle, ESPECIALLY since the show would later introduce another scott and jean based love triangle with Rogue wanting scott that’s way more intresting, and even people wanting those two to hook up don’t want Jean with Duncan! Instead of creating a vitable alternative to make a later love triangle more intresting or create some shipping wars or anything of value any hint jean may be intrested just wastes screentime and tests my patience and is thankfully breif here. As for why Jean’s here sh’es taking pictures for the school paper since the Daily Bugle wasn’t intrested in photos that weren’t of spider-man and they already had a teen photographer for that. Porker or something. Anyways this episode ofa low rent friday night lights knockoff is interuptted when one of duncan’s buddies on the team spots local trouble maker and ,judging by context, bully punching bag Todd Tolansky, aka Toad which is a cruel nickname turned slightly lesss cruel code name here, pick pocketing the people in the stands, and sensing a flimsy context to punch a nerd, Duncan goes to tell the coah he’ll be busy for a moment totally not carving someone’s face in again. Coach says as long as he leaves him breathing, and through a straw still counts and since their so far ahead as long as he’s back for the celebratory rampage anything goes. Also spotting Toad’s stan pines approved sticky fingers is Scott Summers, leader of x-men and all around cool guy. Scott here is a bit more emotive than he was int he comics at a time, a trait he’d have later on in the late 2000′s and even currently and a version I prefer to the “has something shoved so far up his ass you can see it when he opens his mouth” boring straightman of the 90′s cartoon. He’s a bit more impulsive, a bit more emotivie but still a good and well thought out leader and the tactical genius, at least as far as I can remember, that he’s known for being. IT’s a good portayal so far, it reminds me of 2k12 leonardo: he’s still growing into being a leader in some way but clearly has the talent and drive for it and a deep sense of heroism> That deep sense is shown here as Scott leaves to go confront toad.. and then confronts Duncan and buds when he finds them about to squish Toad. Unlike Duncan, whose “heroism” consits of a filmy excuse to beat a third hole into todd’s head, Scott wanted to stop Toad because it’s the right thing to do, and wants to stop Duncan because his actions are just as wrong: Sure Toad is stealing stuff, but it’s clear from the way he and his buddies grin widlly at seieng toad pick pocket that they just want an excuse to pummel the kid and not get in trouble for it. It’s confirmed when Scott makes a resonable offer: Since Toad still has the money and most of the lifted wallets, he can return what he stole, which Toad not wanting to die today agrees to, but Duncan refuses. Scott however gets the three thrown to the ground and while Toad escapes, with the two other idiots in persuit, an enraged duncan attacks. But since Scott Summers, even teen scott summers has batman level judo, it’s an even fight despite Duncan being bigger and more muscular.. until Jean runs in shouts scott no.. despite you know Duncan starting this and Scott merley defending himself, distracts Scott long enough for him to get shoved to the ground.. and loose his googles, sending an optic blast out before he can clamp his eyes shut, knocking duncan over and igniting a nearbye propane tank. Toasty! Also yikes. Cue the opening theme and credits. While the opening Creidts are very 2000′s, they aren’t half bad but the main draw is the theme song which.. honestly I feel is great and very close to the 90′s x-men theme in quality, only not being AS good because that one’s one of the best theme songs period. but this one’s no slouch as it’s fun, energetic and will get stuck in your head. Good stuff. After the theme we cut back to the credits where Scott is closing his eyes despeartly holding his powers in. It was a good opening and a great way to show off the premise of the show and just how dangerous mutant powers can be even accidnetally, with this followup showing it’s not inetentional. it was even shown before as while scott’s eyes flash, he notably never uses his powers in the fight and they only came about accidnetally. We also get some JeanScott ship tease as she finds his glasses ,and with Duncan having a concusion and not remembering anything, a bit that hasn’t aged well, things seem well.. except the cop seems to notice something supscious.. before help arrives in a rolls royce. Charles Xavier, voiced by the icomprable David Kaye who I feel is one of the best daviers and does a great job here and quickly makes the guy see nothing supscious, a classic use of his powers and an understdanable one: while yea going into someone’s mind isn’t a great tihng to do.. scott being possibly outed as a mutant this way would only land the poor boy in a jail cell, as it did for Bobby Drake in the comics when his own powers activated and hurt someone. We also meet storm who unlike the others isn’ aged downa nd is one of two senior staffers for the school, a touch I like as she was a great mentor figure to kitty pryde and the comics and the roll suits her, while evolution also tones down the ham 80 degrees so she’s even more like the comics; reserved but utterly confident and badass and a good #2 to xavier. Xavier also likely wiped Duncan’s memory of scott’s power triggering I figure.. I mean he could’ve got concussed but I wouldn’t be suprised if chuck manipualted that too. Jean comforts Duncan for.. again some reason. Like he was just in a fight with her best friend and she’s a telepath.. I get she’s being respectful but time and place. Scott is naturally Jelly, but Toad.. genuinely thanks Scott for the help while Scott brushes it off. It was the right thing to do and Toad is still a creep, but it’s still a nice gesture. Also toad eats a fly to show that yep he too is a mutant. Xavier and Storm go to the train station and pick up a mysterious teen clad all in robes. Ohohoo hominus. Meanwhile somewhere in the westchester area, Wolverine comes in! Snkity sknikty snoik. He’s voiced by, and dresses exactly like, Scott McNeil, a vetran and awesome voice actor who I honestly think does a better job than his prdecessor. Not that 90′s wolverine is bad, it’s just McNeil has more of a range even while keeping the gutteral growl of hte former and can tur it off at times while his previous acto rwas pretty much on snarl mode constantly. He wasn’t bad, all the 90′s voice actors were at 100 most of the time and undersndably given the hamm nature of that cartoon, but its’ still a ncie change of pace and one we’d see again with steve blum in the next cartoon. More on that obviously when i inevitably cover Wolverine and the X-Men He picks up a paper about the explosion, and sensing he must go his people need him, cuts the top off the water he ordered, because you can’t get beer on a childrens cartoon, and thanks the clerk who wonders what the fuck just happened. And it’s a weird ass scene especially because in this series the x-men are trying to keep a lid on mutants and Logan’s just .. causally cutting off a water bottle because fuck it. It fits the character a LITTLE but it’s still just weird and out of place. Speaking of weird and out of place sabertooth is stalking logan on a mountaintop because..

Thank you wrestlecrap. He dosen’t show up again and is apparently introduced several episodes from now, and sports a design similar to the 2000 movie which isn’t a terrible look apart from the long lead singer from Creed haircut. The next morning at Xavier’s scott’s annoyed at jean taking her time in the bathroom because “women amirite?”.. yeah...

On that gag. Before the two dart off for school Xavier calls them in to meet the new kid: Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler, whose blue and fuzzy as ever, though without the fully yellow eyes he usually sports, though I figure it’s less because they wanted to make him more humanoid, though his Kelso from that 70′s show hair certainly helps with that too, and more because that way his human disguise he’ll get in a bit can just be an easily just recolor and redres his civlilan design. Though why he couldn’t just have the yellow eyes in elf form and give him regular ones in transducer form, epsecially since they had to make a whole new outfit and ears for his non elf form anyway is beyond me, but whatever. At least he’s a full part of the team here and oh so adorkable. As you can probably wager by the fact there’s only 3 x-men and one asshole here, Evolution takes it’s time introducing everybody, the first few episodes using the debut queue style of storytelling and introducing the main cast about one or two per episode.. which I like a lot as it gives each of the x-men room to breathe and get a proper introduction, while usually doing the same for the latest addition to the brotherhood. IT’s a godo way to ease us into a decently sized main cast and let each get their own origin story of sorts. Good stuff.

Jean and Scott are shocked by the poor boys three fingers, but Charles helps asuage kurt.. by pointing out scott’s fuckup then berating him. Both don’t come off great: Scot whines about having two cannonballs under his eyes, which while fair is something he knew going into a situation where they might get knocked off and didn’t prepare for, while Charles lambasts him for “not having more control”.. and his tone implies it’s more about his POWERS. If it was about self control fine, that’d be godo character stuff but if it’s of his powers.. Scott didn’t use his powers at all during the breif scuffle and was only let loose by pure shock, and something you easily covered for minus the explosion part. It could just be both having a point but I dunno. But with that Xavier does show kurt that even human passing mutants like Scott have huge struggles and he no longer is alone. Jean is curious what his power is and Kurt demonstrates his teleporting, impressing both and bonding the three a bit. Xavier sends them off to school, and they’ll talk more about kurt tonight. At school Toad is getting dressed down by principle darkholme, aka mistque whose apparently also his boss.. yes while the founding x-men are two upstanding well trained, if one a bit hot headed youths, Mystque got.. a guy who pick pockets because as we later see the house she got for them looks like the ghosts of the frat who used to live there did a number on the place. Yeah easy to see why your guys later become the comic relief villians Raven. Anyways she plans to have Toad use his newfound leverage with scott to try and sneak in with the x-men before shapeshifting into a knockoff brood to scare him because she’s a dick. Also how the hell would she explain that if someone walked in and DIDN’T comically walk right back out and just explose her posing as a monster for the student body to see. Not a bad show of her powers but a really goofy and nonsenical one. Also yeah unlike the comics raven can change her shape further than just humanoid.

Back at the school Kurt is excited to see his spacious and luxrious room, his parents, whoever they were, having sent him here, and is even more excited when Xavier gives him a gift; an image inducer. This is something that actually comes from the comic: it’s a device disgused as a watch that holographically makes Kurt look like your standard human. Kurt in the comics of course used it to look like errol flynn. Naturally Chris Claremont eventually realized the implications of a person of a minority who looks diffrent masquerading as someone else to blend in and Kurt later decided to go without it, as he shoudln’t have to hide himself. Evolution does use it better though: For starters when Kurt says he’s finally normal, Ororo assures him he always was, this is just to help a bit and the idea of him needing to blend in makes sense since the x-kids are going to public high school and mutantkind is more hidden to avoid prosecution. It’s sitll a BIT shaky, but it’s at least trying to avoid a lot of the pitfalls of the concept and modernizie it a bit and I can give them credit for that.

Back at School scott’s preparing to lunch, telling paul to save him a seat. Good old Paul, when Toad comes up to him thanking him again and revealing his own mutant powers and stealing Scott’s glasses because that’s how you charm someone. Toad offers to hang but Scott wisely refuses and moves on though he does use the cafeteria pay phone to call Charles, who already found out about todd via Cerebro and despite Scott’s understandable reservations about letting a literally slimy pick pocket who talks like goddamn j-roc , know what i’m sayin, into the team, Charles in a very charles xavier move says they can’t turn their back on ANY mutant, even the assholes. Now read that in a patrick stewart voice. Your welcome. Scott wonders if he should ask Todd over to play fooseball and ask about joining his teen militia but Chalres said no need, he’ll take care of the audition himself. He then explains Cerebro to a curious kurt, global telepathic mutant tracker basically, and prepares for the audition.

That night Toad goes to the mansion.. with a costume already. And rather than evaluate all the costumes up front i’m going to do so as they show up in series. As such.. toad’s is REALLY good, a nice armor look with a small part peaking up resembling a collar of some sort , a nice update of his silver age costume’s collar. It really feels frog like and really is neat. Storm, who is watering her garden a detail I like, heads out and rains on his parade. Her costume is fine, a standard storm outfit, nothing really outstanding but still not bad. Storm then sends lighting at him to see what happens when a Toad is struck by lighting.. probably the same as everything else before he runs inside and runs into kurt.

Kurt then shows up, and while I’d forgottten this, he was already in costume from earlier having gotten his at the same time as the inducer. His costume.. is about the same as the comics except hte gloves and boots are yellow, i’m somehwat eh on it but I get doing so to have him fit with the black and yellow color scheme of most of the other x-men in some way. Though i’d love to see a black and yellow redesign of his classic oufit someday that’d look spiffy. But yeah it’s pretty good and one of the standouts of the evolution costumes. The two trade barbs thanks to toad being kind of a dick about nightcrawler and end up having a petty squabble and tussle for a bit around the mansion. Xavier still considers Toad x-men material while Storm considers not missing with lightning this time. In all seriousnes this is more good character stuff for Charles, as it shows that no matter how troublesome, he’ll welcome any mutant child in with open arms. Though I question why neither questions the fact that a mutant they just met somehow brought his own top of the line uniform, but I chalk it up to that probably not having been written into the episode and either being an error or execs wnating to show off his battle suit to have a proper superhero tussle to close out the episode. However said tussle, which is really more a hilarious fight between an asshole and a dork, is interupted when Kurt accidnetly ports them into the danger room, an x-men staple.. no really “new mutant accidently enters or finds the danger room” is old hat at this point, most iconically with Kitty in the comics shortly after she joined.

Naturally not wanting to have to clean up another set of teen corpses, he just got the Vulcan smell out of there, Xavier dispatches Cyclops and Jean to go deal with it.. since Jean dosen’t have a code name here since marvel forgets to try and get her a non phonenix one better than marvel girl and it annoys me. Anyways fashion show time again, and yes i’m aware these aren’t from strategy x, but I didn’t want to just use hte model sheet shots from the wiki so I combed for decent action shots. Scotty’s costume is decent, a bit bulky with the very 90′s shoulder pads and boots, but otherwise looks pretty good, a nice combination of his 90′s uniform and his second x-factor uniform. Even with the bulk it looks really good. On the oppsite end.. we have Jean, who easily has the worst outfit of the main x-men by a mile, with a weird lime green stripe for some reason. Maybe they were going for phonenix colors I dunno, but it just looks half assed in comparison to the rest of the gangs outfit. The gold rings and fingerless gloves are a nice touch, but this one’s still just bland in comparison. Like they couldn’t figure out how to update jeans 90′s outfit so they put her in a jassercise outfit instead.

Scott and Jean arrive with Jean saving nightcrawler, Kurt asking if sh’es an angel, she asking if he’s a demon and me asking if I can get a trashcan to vomit in. It didn’t work for George Lucas a year before this why did you think it’d work here? Anyways Kurt realizes their not in xavier’s snuff dungeon, as far as he knows and it’s simply a trianing room and tries to disarm it, but it instead nearly blasts toad who nopes outta htere, scott too injured to follow. And while when watching the episode yesterday It hought it was a bit abrubt.. it really fits. Toad is a bit of a coward from memory, bosatful and cocky.. till reality reminds him he’s freaking toad as seen with the bullies earlier and mystique after that. So of course he’d run the minute things looked dicey and it looked like xavier reguarlly put his students through the hunger games to thint he herd. Xavier bemoans that Toad simply isn’t ready.. sure he’s a mutant and xavier likely senses mistque’s involement.. but he genuilly WANTED to help todd and give him a real home and support.. its just Toad/Todd dosen’t WANT it or to put in any real work to be better, and you have to WANT help to get it. Kurt blames himself and ports out feeling he dosen’t deserve to be there and Scott goes after him while out front Toad runs into a returning Logan, whose ready to add another dead teen to the pile out back when Xavier insists he let him go... he’s not an actual threat, and as we find out later Xavier removed the schools location from his mind and probably gave it to toad in the first place, so while Logan says he’ll be back.. he has no way of coming back and there’s no sense roughing up a teenager, when that’d just draw more attention to them and give Toad an angle to work. That being said Charlie still gladly welcomes Logan back though both smell trouble on the horizon.. and also toad. He tends to leave a scent that one.

We then get what I feel is the best scene in the episode: Cyclops finds Kurt in the room with the blackbird, which this show remembers is an actual type of plane and that the x-mens is simply a souped up version of , though I can’t tell you what version he’s saying it’s superior to because I don’t know planes THAT well. But Scott comforts Kurt, saying it’s OKAY to fuck up: the entire point of this place is so they can afford to make the mistakes they can’t make out there and learn and grow as people. Everyone screws up, as Scott himself did rushing in without a plan at the start, but the point is you learn from it and do better next time and Kurt decides to stay. Welcome to the X-Men Kurt, hope you surivive the experince. Also Scott decides to show him where they hide the sodas.. which either Chuck is a dick about their pop or that’s code for booze.. or possibly both. I could see Logan really liking root beer alongisde his nightly 6 pack.

We close out with Mystque berating toad for running the hell away and for you know, getting mindwiped.. the latter is far from his fault, but the first part.. yeah Toad kinda sucks at this and Raven screams for him to get out, with her turning back into her natural form for the first time.. and then being confronted with HER boss with Magneto, from.. somewhere.. he appearas as a spooky projection but I don’t know if he’s using a device to amplfy himself or he just hides in the closet of her office all day for when he needs to consult her on their evil schemes. Probably the latter. Anyways Erik wisely consults her to be a bit easier..while toad is a bit of a dipweasel.. they can’t afford their ranks being thinned.. and really he’s not wrong. The x-men currently have them 6 to 3. Even if he’s the weakest of the three of them, they can’t afford to spare him. He then ominously says htis is only... THE BEGINING.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Strategy X is a decent start for the series but not without it’s problems, with one or two questionsable moments like the whole angel and devil exhcange or the entire “Storm stalks toad as he goes to the mansion” scene as a way of testing him, which makes both her and charles come off bad and makes me wonder how the hell that was an actual test of anything. But it’s held up by good character: While Jeans kind of a bit of wallpaper here, the rest of the x-men and our three villians are all given great character moments that show them off to the audience well and really show the writers get the characters while taking their own spins on the younger ones: Nightcrawler, who could be a bit of a dork in the comics, see here his seduction tequnique.

I mean damn if that shit isn’t still Sexy but still. They just ramped it up a bit since this version is younger and more naive, while Scott is likewise a bit more rambunctious and likely to question Xavier, while still being a good hearted guy who knows how to lead. It’s good stuff. While the quality isn’t PERFECT, it’s a good start and I look forward to watching more and EVENTUALLY reviewing more on here. If you liked this be sure to let me know and like I said above if there’s any other marvel show or any dc ones you want me to cover, and any specific episodes at that, lemme know. Comics too. And until we meet again, courage. PS.. what the hell is up with the title of this episode? No really it has nothing to do with anything. Is it Mystuues’ inflitration plan?

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revisionaryhistory · 3 years

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Three Days ~ 63

~*~Sebastian~*~

Sightseeing was not code for strip club. I have nothing against strip clubs. Having a new girlfriend and going to a strip club is a hard pass. We did go to a bar. I drank, but not enough to get drunk. I didn’t want to be hungover on a plane tomorrow. I also did not want to be dehydrated or tired. None fit with my plans.

I was up at the ass crack of dawn to make my flight. Part of the time was spent with the hotel's florist getting instructions and supplies to get my roses home with me. Sweet talking the flight attendant got them and my carry on an overhead bin of their own. I flew into the small airport near Beacon. The pain in the ass layover was more than made up for by the ease of customs and baggage claim.

My mom picked me up. The half-hour drive was filled with conversation, but it still felt like it took forever. Since I knew the key code to her CRV I threw my shit in the back and pulled the roses out of their travel box. I wrapped them in the white paper the florist gave me, stuck one side of the headband ears into my back pocket, and headed into the school. The office staff must have thought I was a delivery man because they buzzed me right in. One woman sat at the counter and another at a desk set back several feet. The one at the counter smiled, "Can I help you?"

I leaned onto one elbow, my flowers in the other arm. "I hope so. I'm here to see Emma Marcum." I whispered, "She doesn't know I’m coming." I returned to my normal voice. "Any way, you can direct me to her or take me without telling her?"

Desk lady spoke up, "Are you the boyfriend who sends flowers and cookies?"

Counter lady added, "Those were good cookies."

I smiled, "Oh good. I was hoping." I looked at the desk lady, "She liked the flowers?"

"You did good. They just got back from lunch. Emma went to her room." She pointed down the office hall. "Go out the door, turn left, and keep walking. She's the last room on the right. Her name's above the door."

I gave them my best smile. It was real. "Thank you." I headed down the hallway. "I'll send more cookies for just you two."

It had been a long time since I was in an elementary school. There was no work on the walls, but the backgrounds were still there. I looked in the rooms as I walked. Lots of little chairs on tables, carpeted areas, and bookshelves. I was excited to see Emma's room. A little nervous to see Emma. I hoped she liked surprises.

Right outside her room, I could hear music. I shoved the polka dot ears on my head and quietly walked just far enough in to find Emma. She had on black shorts, a Pearl Jam tour shirt, and her hair was hanging long down her back. I couldn’t wait to get my fingers there. Everywhere. “Cake by the Ocean" was playing and Emma was dancing and singing as she pulled laminated words off the wall. I crept a little closer, "You know this song is about sex on the beach, right?"

Emma spun around and her surprised smile lit up my world. It felt like I'd been hit in the chest with Thor's hammer. She held a hand, palm up, toward me, "And here you are."

"Were you trying to manifest a provider?" I’d be more than happy to provide any and all sex she needed.

"You're a lot more than that."

We closed the distance and I put the flowers on the nearest flat surface to get both hands on her. I don't know if it was the touch of her lips, her hand on my waist, or the one on the back of my neck, but I took another shot to the middle of my chest. When her hand moved up to my chest I covered it with mine. "You're beautiful." I smiled, shaking my head. "Fuck... I love you."

I hadn't expected that to happen.

Emma bit her lip, "Te iubesc, Sebasti-an."

To say we kissed would be an understatement. We melted into each other, a slow-motion wrapping around and holding on. Emma sighed against my mouth as our tongues touched. I pulled her in as close as possible, enjoying the feel of her in my arms, and her fingers back in my hair. I missed her touch. When we parted she ran her fingers over my beard and looked at me like I was the only person on earth.

Emma's eyes shifted to the flowers on the table, "Did you plan this?"

I blew a raspberry, "You know better. Those are the ones you sent. If I'd planned this it would have taken three days and you would have had to rescue me." She laughed with me. "But you did. When did you learn te iubesc?"

"After we hung up the morning I signed the NDA. Because I fell asleep on the plane to Atlanta before I could look it up."

I went to kiss her, stopping a breath away to say it again. "I love you, Emma."

"I love you, too."

While we kissed I heard a commotion behind us, like a group of fans coming down a hall. Then a chorus of "Ooops", "Oh shit.", and a lone "Fuck."

I back away from her mouth, "I don't think we're alone."

Emma smiled and turned her head to see them, "Longer than I expected."

A pretty blond at the front shrugged, "I tried to hold them back."

A redhead shoved her shoulder, "While leading the pack."

Emma unwrapped from around me and took my hand, "Come say hello."

The redhead gasped, "Fuck me."

I chuckled, "Elementary teachers cuss a lot more than I expected."

The four women spread out as they came closer. Emma started at the end with blonde, pointing with her free hand. "This is Mallory, Nia, Dawn, and Cindy." I shook their hands ending with the redhead, "Lunch crew, this is Sebastian."

Lunch crew tapped into a memory. I looked at Emma, "You sent me a picture of them with the cookies." She nodded. "Nice to meet you all. Glad you liked the cookies." I squeezed Emma’s hand. "Remind me to send some to the office ladies for letting me sneak back here.”

"You didn't know he was coming?" Nia looked from Emma to me.

Emma shook her head, moving a step closer and putting her free hand on my forearm. "He was supposed to be back tomorrow and I was going to him."

Looking at Emma I said, "I had Emily move tonight’s dinner to Sunday. That's why I left earlier." I looked at her friends and shrugged, "I wanted to surprise her." I let go of her hand to put my arm around her. I pulled her in and kissed her head. Not that I wasn't happy to meet her friends, but I'd just unexpectedly told her I loved her, and I was not done with the kissing. "How was lunch?"

They started telling me and talking to each other. Lunch with them would be full of laughter.

Dawn asked Emma, "You still playing tonight?"

I answered for her, "Part of why I came back early." I pointed at myself, "Head cheerleader and beer bitch." They laughed. “We do need to go shopping. All I have are work clothes. Is there a Target nearby?”

Emma nodded, “We can do that.” She looked around, “Where’s your suitcase? And how did you get here?”

“Threw my stuff in your CRV. I had my mother pick me up at the airport.” I rolled my eyes and looked at Cindy because she was the most star-struck, “Extra glamorous.”

Cindy smiled, “Life of an actor.”

Mallory reached out and touched Emma’s arm, “We’ve interrupted your reunion long enough. Pretty sure we won’t be the last.” She looked at me, “Word of a boyfriend in the building travels fast.”

“The nice office ladies outed me?”

Everyone nodded and headed out the door. Mallory was last and pulled the door closed behind her, “See you later tonight.” She gave Emma a thumbs up. No idea what that’s about.

I yelled, “Thank you,” as the door closed. I sighed, “She’s my favorite person.” I folded my arm in, bringing Emma against my chest, “Besides you.”

I laid my cheek on her head and savored the feel and smell of her. It had been a long since I’d been in love. Feels really good. It’s felt really good for weeks. Now it feels extra good. Like I want to explode good. Or pull her in to take up as little space as possible.

Emma’s hands let go of my back and I let her go. Her hands went to my face and she pulled me in for a kiss. A very long, slow, and deep kiss. I felt that kiss all over my body and everywhere inside. When she backed away I licked the taste of her from my lips. All I could do was stare at her. All I wanted to was look at her and say I love you over and over. Well, not all I want to do.

“You have a decision to make.”

“I do?”

She nodded, “I have to have the room packed before Friday. Do we stay and get part of it done now or power through tomorrow?”

“I’m a procrastinator. Option two. How far away is shopping?”

“Ten minutes. I like to get things done then relax.”

“Are you saying you want to stay here?”

Laughter filled the space between us, “Oh hell, no. Shop, go home for a couple of hours, then go play volleyball.”

“Sounds kinda boring. What are we going to do at home for a couple of hours?”

“Your laundry. Wash your new clothes before the game.”

“Have you met us?” She looked at me strangely. “We don’t have a good record of doing things, like laundry, when we see each other again.” I’m sure she understood what I meant. Our clothes don’t stay on long enough to do anything besides each other. That won’t be changing today.

Emma folded her arms around my neck, “Wouldn’t want to break our streak.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you. I have tan lines to lick.” I pressed my lips into a tight line and shook my head. She kissed me again and I slid my hands down to her ass. I mumbled against her mouth, “The sooner we leave the sooner we get home.”

The speed with which she leaped away was alarming. “Let’s go.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. “Shit, I need my purse.”

“Flowers. A lot of trouble to get them here. They need water. Do you have a vase?”

“I do.” She opened a cabinet under the kid-sized sink and water fountain.

“Get a lot of flowers at work?” I hoped she could hear the humor in my question.

“Yep.” She pointed out the window. “First and fifth have a flower garden.”

While she filled the vase, I unwrapped the flowers. I showed her the little plastic thing filled with water attached to the bottom of each stem. “These had to be empty going through security. So I was in the men’s room pulling off the little rubber top, filling it with water, putting the little rubber top back on, then shoving the stem through the little opening.” I pulled one off while I talked and demonstrated shoving it back on.

She smiled, her tongue between her teeth, “Did you wear the ears on the plane too?”

“Oh shit!” I started laughing and patted the top of my head. “I forgot I put these on.” I pulled them off and looked at them. “Shit.” I opened my eyes wide then rubbed my hand across my face before letting out a groan. “I told you I loved you for the first time while wearing Minnie Mouse ears. Met your friends. And made out a little bit.” I closed my eyes, “This is so typically me.”

“Good thing I love typically you.” She stretched up and barely brushed her lips against mine. Then she yelled, “Mallory.”

The door opened, “Yep.”

I looked between them and started laughing, “How’d you know she was there? You’ve been guarding the door?”

“I got your back.” Mallory walked into the room, “What’s up?”

Emma picked her phone up off the desk, holding it out to Mallory, “Picture, please.” She took the ears from my hand and put them back on my head.

I started to protest, but quickly realized I wanted a picture of this moment too. I moved in behind her, wrapping my arm across her chest. Emma grabbed my arm and turned to smile at me before we looked at Mallory. She took the picture and walked to us to give Emma back her phone. She looked at me with a smile, “It’s ridiculous how cute you are.”

Emma hugged her, “Pick you up about five.”

We finished putting the roses in the vase, and since we were going shopping first, decided to leave them at school overnight. We’d take them home tomorrow. She gathered her purse and we headed out the door by her room, walking across the grass to the parking behind the other side of the building. It was like a U, with Emma’s room at one end.

Emma pointed to the other end of the U, “That’s Mallory’s room, where I’m moving.”

“Really is the same view from the other side.”

When we got close to the car she looked over, “You wanna drive.”

“Nope. I wanna look at you.” I opened her door and kissed her before closing it. I spoke while I buckled my seat belt, “You know I have to wear these ears to the game now.”

“Why?”

“So it looks like I meant to have them on.”

Emma backed out of her parking place and paused before putting the CRV in drive, “Are you really embarrassed?”

“Not at all.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Can I get your phone to look at the picture Mallory took?” She handed me her purse and I pulled her phone out of the side pocket. Mallory had been taking pictures the entire time she had Emma’s phone. The last one, with us looking at the camera was good, but a few pictures back was one when Emma turned to look at me. We both had the slightest smile like we had a secret no one else knew. Except anyone who saw the picture would know. The way we were looking at each was obvious. Mallory had caught a moment.

The ears made it perfect.

Target wasn’t far and I waited until we’d parked to show her the picture. “Check this out.”

Emma looked, her face instantly softening to a slight smile, “She’s my second favorite person today too.” She kissed me then her focus shifted up, “You going to wear them into Target?”

“Shit, I forgot they were there again.”

Target wasn’t my go-to clothier, but for some shorts, t-shirts, a pair of swim trunks, and some flip flops we were good. I tossed things into a cart. “Mom wants us to come over. Lay by the pool and have a barbeque.” I looked at her, “By the way, you are much more tan and much more blonde than last time I saw you.”

“Thank you?”

“Definitely.” I raised my eyebrows and smirked, nodding my head. “Tan lines.”

“I want to take something to your mom’s. Food for the barbeque.”

“Potato salad.” I started salivating at the thought. That was delicious.

“That’s what you want. What would your mom like?”

I pulled my shoulders up and spoke in a high voice, “Something lemon?”

“Lemon cupcakes or a lemon berry cake?”

My eyes lit up, “Cupcakes. Much more barbeque than a cake cake. Plus they’re fun.” She nodded and we headed toward the food aisles. “You’re gonna make me some potato salad too, right?”

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan fanfiction #fanfiction #sebastian stan X ofc #marvel actor fanfiction

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diveronarpg · 4 years

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In fair Verona, our tale begins with DAPHNE ALLARD, who is THIRTY-ONE years old. She is often called DIANA by the CAPULETS and works as a EMISSARY. She uses SHE/HER pronouns.

TW: FAT SHAMING, BULLYING

Trying to encapsulate Daphne Allard is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle, the moonlight on your eyelashes, or the ray of the sun upon your tongue. She is simply that enigmatic, so much so that there are truly those who believe her to be something otherworldly, something magical. How could they not believe it, when it seemed that SERAPHIM bowed at her feet while cherubs adorned her cheeks with sweet, rosy pink kisses? It’s not so difficult to believe since it seemed near impossible to deny anything to the apple-cheeked child that would roam up and down the grand halls of her parent’s estate. Frequently, she would pad down to the kitchen late at night to beg the patissier to grant her one or two small macarons while the glittering guests mingled in her parents’ ballroom and they were helpless to her whims, sighing begrudgingly as she plucked the treat from their palm and went merrily on her way. What they didn’t see was how she snuck out and passed her treat to the dirty, awaiting hands of those less fortunate than her, or how she stole away the blankets from her bed and placed it on the shoulders of the children who shivered on the dirty, cobbled streets day after day. All anyone would ever see is the princess whose ears were adorned with bright, glimmering diamonds -- whose bright, shining smile and glittering eyes seemed better suited to the vapid day-to-day responsibilities of a DEBUTANTE. Lock her in an ivory castle and do away with the key, for she was a child far too precious to see the vileness and hardships of life.

But the Allards could not protect her forever, try as they did to shield their precious porcelain doll. Didn’t they know that children could be just as cruel as their parents? Foolishly, they had thought that sending her out of Verona to live abroad in France would spare her from the atrocities of man, but girls could be far more wicked when left to their own devices. They knew where she came from, how the city from which she proudly came was full of roaches and demons. They wondered if her spirit would be just as difficult to kill. Day after day they would ridicule her, isolate her, HOUND her like the harpies that they were -- words sharp as knives, tongues lashing like whips. Gifts that her parents gave her, they would ruin, forcing her to hide it away, like a dragon hoarding gold. Though she spoke French impeccably, they mocked her for the way that her tongue curled around the words, how she gestured emphatically, and for every morsel that she ate. Little did they know the VENGEANCES that she took upon them, how she would steal away the money from their wallets, the odd earring and the errant ring. The fools didn’t even know what they were missing -- for a couple of hours they would huff and puff before their parents would send them something far more expensive as a salve for their wounded hearts. But Daphne would console herself for her trespasses against them by knowing that the money she had made by pawning their jewels off would allow a widow and child to keep their shoddy apartment, or that the beggars in the city square would have something in their stomachs for that night.

It became a habit of hers, the heady warmth of bettering another’s life became the most potent drug she knew. She bettered her skills, crafting them so that slipping priceless watches from the wrist of an arrogant suitor was as easy and thoughtless as brushing a comb through her hair. By the time she returned to Verona, she was determined to never relinquish that high -- though she loved her city, she did not balk from the truth: the city needed a SAVIOR. And the only way to do so was to ruthlessly weed out those that threatened to choke it; she knew that she could only do so by purging it from within. Her parents had a long-standing relationship with the Capulets, but had insisted that Daphne -- their sweet, apple-cheeked child -- could never be useful to them. What was more useful, though, than MONEY? Money could more or less buy you anything, and a place in the Capulet ranks was to be no exception. She had prepared for her ties to them to choke her, to smother out what there was of her light. But the deeper she delved into the world of the mafia, the more she thrived. It was an intoxicating thing, the power that came with ranking among the deified of the city, rivaled only by the rush of knowing that someone owed their life to you.

Being a heroine or peddling something quite like it -- she had somehow allowed both to become her POISON. And the people of the city were none the wiser. They knew her as the socialite, as the doted-on girl who was set to inherit a fortune. Their bright star, their shining light who was perhaps the one beautiful thing unmarred and untainted by the blood that ran through the streets. In a way they were right, Daphne was shining and beautiful as ever, but so was the sun and it burned just as brightly as she. It warmed and healed, it scorched and purged. She looks in the mirror each night, lips bare and eyes wide, knowing that she too has the ability to save the city or the power to rule it as she desired. They loved her, they were devoted to her, and she loved them too. Each night she feels her throat tighten with the knowledge of the power that sits at the tip of her fingers, and though she LOATHES to admit it, she has created a drug of her own making, one that gets more potent each passing day. Before she looks away from the mirror, turns away from that Aphrodite-like creature, she can’t help the brief, barely-acknowledged wish that her parents had kept her locked away in that ivory tower. Perhaps, then, the city might be saved from those vices of hers that threatened to ruin them all.

BEAU RENARD: Husband-To-Be. He is presented like Apollo -- a golden boy, a warm shining sun amidst the glittering stars of Verona. However, it would be more accurate to liken him to Hades, ruler of the dead, isolated and far too keen to wear a bone-made crown upon his head. She knows what her duty is, and she is more than happy to fulfill it. After all, marriage is nothing more than a contractual agreement between two adults and it would benefit them both. Although, it seemed like the scales were tipped a little more in his favor; he was blessed enough to be wed to the darling of Verona, after all. Still, though, there is hope that whatever frigid wall he has placed between them comes tumbling down some way or another. She looks at her parents and sees a romance more pivotal than that between the moon and the sea, so no one can blame her for the wish in her heart to have something -- someone -- to call her own, and for that person in turn to say the same and mean it.

RENZO CAROZZA: Achilles Heel. She isn’t a foolish girl conned by pretty faces and honey-sweet words, but there is something about Renzo that strikes a chord in her already bleeding heart. Perhaps it is because of the abyss that reflects in his eyes that she longs to cast out, longs to fill with something greater than that gaping maw of emptiness. He treats her as he does every other person -- with kisses upon her cheek, words that could coax the devil into whispering a prayer, touches that could lull a raging dragon into a slumber. But there are these still moments where they catch one another’s gaze and it feels as though he holds a knife pointed at her heart, as though he is witnessing the sun dawn for the first time. Then he glances away and the world breathes once more. She cannot understand why nor does she dare too, but it is there all the same and nothing she does can get him to relinquish this hold that he has over her. Daphne cannot blame him -- she can’t bring herself to either.

TAMURA CHIKO: Leverage. There are small amusements and joys that she allows herself to indulge in, and creating the mirage that is Chiko’s wealth is one of them. When she had instigated this little ploy with him, it had initially been because she thought them a better person than they were, someone who would truly make something of themselves. But, as with all things in Verona, they proved to be just as dastardly as the rest of its inhabitants -- and she became all the wiser for it. The charade that they continued to pander to seemed to place them deeper and deeper into her debt, but she was far too amused by how everyone seemed to eat it up, both Montagues and Capulets alike. Their enigmatic persona was nothing more than a thinly veiled self-made man, and yet Verona seemed to whisper about them as if they were a god. She wondered, though, if they knew how she intended to use their secret. But, for now, she was all too content to watch them and let them believe that they were a puppet without strings.

PANDORA PHAN: Wildcard. She had not intended to save them -- she had thought that they were another soul, caught in the crossfire that was the war between the Montagues and the Capulets. A young soldier was too keen to wave their gun about and Daphne had saved Pandora’s father just in time, rushing them to the hospital, ensuring that he would live and breathe another day. Then Pandora had stumbled into the room, seen her father’s forlorn form and that is what Daphne knew what she had done. Moreover, she realized the debt that was owed to her, one that would undoubtedly earn her power in the Capulets that none could hope to have. It had become an oddly satisfying thing, being in the same room as the great Pandora Phan and knowing the great power that she could hold over her head.

Daphne is portrayed by TARA LYNN and was written by ROSEY. She is currently TAKEN by DIANA.

#lsrpg #literate rp #bio rp #crime rp #shakespeare rp #daphne allard #cap #w #t #tw

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ehstarwar · 4 years

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under thy own life’s key (5/7)

They were both mostly silent during the meal, reacting to their friends antics only when prompted. Rey could feel Bens' leg against hers under the table and if she weren’t shoveling food into her mouth, she wouldn’t have been able to resist touching him.

Teasing him, more likely.

Ben and Rey engage in a friendly competition to make the day go faster. (And also tease each other until one of them breaks.)

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 4K

Read on AO3

Notes: home stretch you guys... this was the hardest chapter to write but also my favorite so far, i think? lemme know what chu think babes. thanks for reading! enjoy (･∀･)

Chapter 5: makes heaven drowsy with the harmony

Rey doesn’t feel Ben crawl back into bed that night, but she sure a hell feels him the next morning. He has her in his grasp again, his face buried in her hair and lightly snoring against her neck. His arms hold Rey to his chest, body flush with his and legs shuffled together.

She also feels him.

Hot and aching against the cleft of her ass. It takes a minute to realize exactly what she’s feeling, but when the realization crashes over her, her whole body shivers. Rey does her best to turn towards him, eventually having to lift parts of his body to turn fully over.

“Ben,” She whispers against his neck. Her hands trace the muscles that stretch his shirt in a way that should be illegal. She moves her feet so they rub against his strong calf muscles.

Ben grumbles something, not opening his eyes, but moving his face down to Rey’s and bumping their noses together.

“Good morning,” She whispers against his cheek. Ben doesn’t respond, just shifts his face so their lips press together. The kiss is slow and warm, and makes Rey feel better than any kiss ought to. Ben’s hands come around her again, one to hold onto her back and another to kneed the swells of her ass. They make out like that for a good minute, not caring about morning breath or knotty hair, just enjoying the soft intimacy of each other.

When Reys’ hand trails lower, gently tracing the outline of his morning wood, Bens’ breath hitches.

“Rey, baby,” His voice is a whine, and that just makes Rey move a little faster. She dips her hand beneath his boxers, finding him so hard that she can only imagine how painful it is. Her hand immodestly goes to work, gliding up and down on his hot skin. Their tongues tangle together, neither of them breaking the kiss for even a moment. She feels Ben clench his muscles wherever she touches him, giving her a rightful sense of power.

Ben moves his hand to come up from her ass and rub circles on her nipples that are hard and stiff against her sleep shirt. She moans against his mouth, hand moving even faster now. His thumb rubs at one, the calluses evident even over the fabric of her shirt. She wishes he would rip it off like he did to her underwear, toss it far across the room so she could feel his flesh against her.

Ben begins to mumble something against her lips, a warning, she can tell. She just shoves her tongue down his mouth and rubs his head with a little more determination. Ben’s whole body tenses when he comes, cock straining against her hand, overflowing with sticky white come. Ben is breathing so heavy that Rey works her mouth across his jaw, nipping and licking everywhere let lips land.

His come coats her hand, a little dribbling down onto her thighs and spreading his warmth even further. Rey doesn’t feel the clenching need like she did last night after he came; the need to fall over the edge with him or she was going to die. His orgasm sends a ripple of pleasure though her, but doesn’t claw at her the same way.

When Ben gets his breath under control, his mouth seeks out Rey’s once more. She still holding him, working out the last possible drop of come into her hands, feeling powerful and satisfied and adored, all in one.

“REY! BEN! WAKE UP. YOU’LL MISS BREAKFAST!”

Poe’s loud shrill breaks the silence and Rey can’t help but be reminded of last night.

“I’ll kill him,” Ben says. “I will chop his body into tiny pieces and feed him to fish in the lake. I’ll do it.” Ben says with eyes closed.

“Hux wouldn’t like that very much.”

“Fuck Hux.”

Rey smiles at Ben, watching the way she small stream of sunlight his his hair just right so it looks like a halo. On cue, her stomach rumbles. They both look down at her stomach before looking back up in silent agreement.

“Breakfast, then.” Ben says and Rey nods enthusiastically. “I’ll just… get a towel for you.” Ben gets up and walks into the bathroom quickly.

It dawns on Rey that this is the first time they’ve been sexual in broad daylight, with out the excuse of needing to get off to get to sleep. She doesn’t know why, but it feels like more. Probably because it is more. The made out last night after… everything, and this morning before they even started. Rey tries to think about what this all means, but Ben is back handing her a wet washcloth before her mind can begin to reel.

She takes it with her clean hand, but when she goes to wipe her other hand, something stops her. She looks down, her palm covered in his now-cool come. She glances down to her thighs, seeing the white blob that landed there earlier still against her tan skin. She feels Ben watching her, so she decided to be bold.

Rey licks her palm clean; every finger, every crevice, every joint. She sucks off his come before using the rag to clean her of saliva. Ben is still standing at the end of the bed, eyes dark and posture rigid as he watches her.

“I don’t need breakfast.” His words are a growl and Rey is very, very tempted to agree with him. But another rumble breaks the silence before Rey can say anything, like her body is cockblocking them now.

“I think I do,” She tells him sheepishly.

Breakfast is… an event. To say the least.

When Ben and Rey finally came up stairs to eat with the rest of their friends, the tension between them had not shifted one bit. It’s like there was a looming force around them, making them move together, reach for the same plate, brush hands whenever possible. They were both mostly silent during the meal, reacting to their friends antics only when prompted. Rey could feel Bens leg against hers under the table and if she weren’t shoveling food into her mouth, she wouldn’t have been able to resist touching him.

Teasing him, more likely.

“We have to spend all day outside today, guys. It’s our last day of full sunshine before the storms roll in tonight. If I have to go home without the epic tan I promised my office mates I would have, I’m going to personally send all of you strongly worded messages on insta,” Poe says before popping a blueberry into his mouth.

“How is that on us?” Kaydel asks, laughing at him. Poe sticks his tongue out at her.

“I don’t have an instagram,” Ben says, slicking up one of the wheat protein pancakes he bought for the trip. The only other person who dared to eat them was Phasma.

“Then I’ll send it to you via raven, Benjamin. Can we all just agree to make the most of today? Pretty please, for the blushing bride?” Poe bats his lashes at everyone and Finn throws a pancake at his face.

While a day lounging in the sun sounds wonderful after the incident yesterday, Rey can’t help but feel a little annoyed. She wants to stay inside. In her room. With her roommate. Preferably making each other come as many times as humanly possible. Maybe they’ll talk about what the hell this is. Maybe they’ll just fuck each other boneless. Rey selflessly prefers the latter.

A shared, exasperated look at Ben tells her that he wants the same thing.

The sun is hot. The drink, once filled with ice, are hot. The damn water is hot.

But all that heat is nothing compared to what Rey is feeling inside herself. Ben chose the tiniest, most ridiculously short-board shorts, that hug his taut ass just right, show off his perfectly toned long legs, and ride dangerously short on his adonis belt. Rey wants to fucking melt.

When she’d seen the low blow he pulled when he emerged with that male-equivalent of a thong, she decided pull out the big guns. And by big guns, she means the practically non-existent white bikini that shows off more skin than she’s usually okay with people seeing.

She thinks the look he gave her when he saw the white fabric bunch up in her ass was enough to get her through the rest of the day relatively smoothly. She was wrong.

Ben, it seemed, was also up for a challenge. An actual challenge, that is.

“Volleyball?” Rey questions, looking up at him from her sunbathing spot that she’d subtly been flashing her ass towards him. Kaydel, beside her, pipes up.

“Ugh, yes! I haven’t played volleyball since high school!” Jannah, Zorii and Poe seem all equally enthused. Rey wants to slap the smug grin off Bens face. Or kiss it.

Ben teams up with Zorii, Poe, and Hux (‘the celebrating couple must be on the same team.’) leaving Rey with Jannah, Kaydel, and Phasma. Rose and Finn were ‘taking a bathroom break’ for the last twenty minutes.

Ben attached the net that he’d pulled out of god knows where at Kaydel gives Rey tips on playing.

“Weren’t you like, a super gym rat in college?” Kaydel asks when Rey eyes the ball with a tenuous expression.

“I run. And swim. On occasion, I enjoy a good barre class. But my hand-eye coordination is virtually nonexistent. I tried playing baseball once and literally gave the umpire a concussion,” She admits.

“Well, there is no bats in volleyball, so just… be careful.” Kaydel gives he a goodnatured pat on the shoulder before walking off to practice serving. Rey turns to glare at Ben, who still has that smug look which Rey can’t decide if it's off-putting or unbelievably sexy.

“You know I don’t have hand-eye coordination to save my life.”

“Yes I do.”

“So you suggested that we play volleyball because you want to see me make an utter fool of myself.”

“No. I suggested we play volleyball because I found a volleyball net in one of the closets. And because I want to see what your ass looks like when you jump in that… bathing suit.” Ben’s eyes rake down her body. Rey suddenly sees the… potential this particular game has.

Only when the sun skins below the mountain tops that Rey realizes how long they’ve been playing. Well, how long she and Ben have been playing. Everyone slowly bowed out when they realized this competition was between Ben and Rey and that they each had a single minded victory to beat each other.

“Guys, we need to head in! The bugs will be coming out soon!” Jannah shouts at them. Ben is detracted enough that Reys’ serve to Ben hits him square in the chest before bouncing off into the water. Rey doubles over in laughter, seeing Ben walk towards her with determination.

“I swear… I didn’t mean…” Rey can barely talk though her laughter as she tries to justify herself. Suddenly, Rey is lifted from the sand, feeling two strong arms hoist her up. Ben carries her back towards the house, steely expression on his face.

“I think this means I won?” She taunts, poking him in the chest. She’s rewarded with a low mumble that sounds like ‘no’ and ‘you wish’.

He carries her up to the cabin, only setting her down once there outside the door where her friends laughter drifts towards them.

“Were going to eat dinner,” He says, the same determined expression still on his face. “Then we’re going to bed.”

“Okay,” Rey breaths. He pulls her inside then, practically dragging her to get her food.

“Are, uh, you guys hungry?” Finn asks as Ben load up both of their plates with militant precision.

“Yes,” Ben replies, stoically.

“Lots of volleyball. We’re both starved,” She tosses over her shoulder. Ben sits down at the dining room table and begins shoving food into his mouth like it’ll disappear if he doesn’t.

Rey joins her friends on the couch, trying to be a bit more casual than Ben. Who was now staring at her from across the room. She could feel his gaze all over.

While Ben finished his monstrous plate in record time, Rey was going at a leisurely pace. Taking time to actually chew her food instead of inhale it. Listening to her friends and laughing at the appropriate places. She could physically feel Ben loose his mind.

A hard screech across the hardwood floors made everyone turn their heads to stare at Ben.

“I’m going to bed,” He announced, eyes fixated on Rey. He stomped around the group and down the stairs, leaving the door open as a clear invitation to her.

“The fuck in up with Solo?” Zorii asked.

“Maybe he got sun poisoning. I mean, his thighs were super white. It’s possible he’s never been exposed to this much direct sunlight in his life.”

“He’s not a vampire, Kaydel. Plus, if he is pale enough to get sick by the sun, don’t you think I’d be sicker?” Hux defending Ben was still the cutest thing to Rey, even if she’d never tell him.

“Well you and Poe spent enough time canoodling in the shade, so I think you’re safe,” Kaydel retorted, causing everyone to laugh. Soon enough, the conversation drifted from Ben’s unusual state and onto other things decidedly less interesting to Rey.

“I’m going to make sure Ben is alright. I’ll… probably be going to bed too.” Rey stands up quickly, suddenly very driven to get down to Ben as fast as humanly possible.

“Tell Benjamin that I have plenty of Aloe if he needs it. And that ice baths don’t actually help,” Hux calls after her. She just gives him a thumbs up and closes the door to the stair case.

By the time Rey makes it to their bedroom door, her heart is pounding in her chest. Would this be the night they talked about whatever the hell is going on between them? Would they pretend like they have every other night that this is normal? Or would Ben sweep her off her feet before she had the door opened all the way and make her forget her own name as he fucked her into the next dimension?

There was only one way to find out.

The door squeaks open and Rey finds Ben frowning down at her suitcase and reorganizing her clothes for her. When he hears her open the door, Ben’s head snaps up and his body is coming towards her within an instant.

His lips find hers in a bruising hold, hands coming up to hold her head as his mouth pushes against hers.

“You… took… too… long.” Each word is punctuated by a kiss, his mouth not straying far from hers even to speak. He’s still shirtless, still in his abysmally tiny board shorts and Rey can feel his warm skin pressed against hers. She grips at his chest, runs her hands down his back and across his arms, anything just to feel him.

Bens’ legs are shoved between hers, pressing his thigh against her as he continues his assault on her mouth.

“You just… gonna stay here… and kiss me all night?” She teases him, voice airy and light. Ben works his mouth down her jaw to her throat, chest, stomach, until he bends down and picks her up by the legs.

“You’ve got to stop picking me up, Ben!” He deposits her on the bed, standing back now, bathed only in the light coming from the bathroom. She can see his erection in his board shorts, so she traces her foot along the length of him. She sees his jaw work and his neck tense and she’s tempted to just stick a hand down her bottoms right there.

“Rey,” He catches her foot, holding it in his warm hand, “I need you to tell me that you want this. Not to sleep. Not because you’re frustrated. But because you want this.” His eyes are filled with an intensity that she’s been exposed to quite a bit in the last few days. Her prior experiences with it do nothing to quell the nervous butterflies she gets.

“I want this, Ben. I want you.”

Ben crouches onto the floor, kissing down her leg. He spreads her apart, mouthing at the juncture between her thighs. He gently takes her swim bottoms off her legs and tosses them away, before delving into her pussy. She’s wet, embarrassingly so, but Ben doesn’t seem to mind. His mouth moves against her, pressing kisses against her folds and on her clit. She tangles her hand into his hair, same as last night, as his tongue licks strips up and down.

She’s mewling for him, bucking her hips until his palm comes around to hold her pelvis down. She clutches his hand where it rest on her skin, and his thumb rubs little circles into her. Her orgasm comes much quicker this time, probably a result of being kept on edge for the entire day. She moans his name as her body vibrates with the intensity, legs crushing his head in the process. If Ben minds, he doesn’t mention it.

He soothes her, pressing light kisses up her cunt, nuzzling the brown thatch of hair between her legs, teasing his tongue up her stomach to come circle her nipples. Somehow, Rey had managed to pull off her bikini top (not that there was much to pull), so she was laid gloriously bare before him.

When her breathing returns to normal, Ben speaks again.

“Every time you’ve come, you fall asleep right after. I don’t intend on letting you do that tonight.” His voice is deep and menacing and Rey thinks she could come just from the vibrations it makes against her skin.

“What do you plan on doing about that, Solo?” She taunts.

Suddenly, Rey is being hauled further back on the bed, with Ben coming to lay over her. His mouth is sucking at the skin of her neck, no doubt leaving enormous hickey’s that she’ll have to figure out how to cover tomorrow.

But that’s Tomorrow Reys’ problem.

Her hand trails down his torso, feeling his shorts are still on, but his cock crying desperately to get out. When Ben feels her hand on him, he quickly sheds the material, coming right back down to kiss Rey again. She tugs him a little, spreading the precome over his cock to lube him up. Not that he needs it, with the way Rey is dripping.

“I plan on fucking you so well that you forget what sleep is,” He murmurs against her skin. “That you’ll never be able to sleep again without dreaming of my cock. Of me making you come so hard you forget where we are.”

Rey can only mewl at his words, clawing at him and trying to line him up with her. Ben partially obliges, moving his hips between hers, rubbing the thick head of his cock up and down her pussy. Rey tries to move her hips to force him in her, but Ben is in control at the moment.

“Please, Ben, please. I need this… I need you, please…”

He pushes into her slowly, like he’s savoring every moment her tight, wet heat envelopes him. He’s big in her hand but somehow feels even larger inside of her. It’s not painful, he prepped her too well for that, but fulfilling in a way that makes her toes curl. Like she was made for this exact moment for Ben to push into her. When he’s fully seated inside of her, Ben rest his forehead against hers.

“Rey… fuck. You’re so fuckin… fuck, Rey. You’re prefect. Made for me. Just fucking perfect.” Ben is still inside of her. She’s not sure if its for her to adjust, or for him to control himself. Rey peppers kisses along his jaw, watching his eyes clenched shut and breath through gritted teeth.

“So good, Ben. You’re so good. You feel perfect too, baby. Just for me.” She hope her words calm him, make it easier for him, but the growl that originates from somewhere deep within his bones makes her think otherwise.

“I just need… a minute. I wanna make this good for you. Wanna make this last.” His lips are against her neck now, breathing hot breath onto her with every word. “Want to fucking live inside of you, baby.”

It’s another minute before Ben can move. Rey just cards her fingers through his hair, marveling at how his black locks can remain so silky even after a full day of sweat. His hand comes up to her jaw, and cups her face so that he can kiss her deeply, tongue going so far down her throat she thinks she might swallow it.

His hips begin moving at a snails pace; sharp, shallow thrust that make her breath hitch all the same. He forces her thighs even further apart so that he can get deeper within her, nearly bumping her cervix.

Ben’s thrust get more sure, move faster and harder. His cock brushes against a bundle of nerves that makes Rey see stars behind her eyes. It doesn’t matter if she’s just come a few minutes ago; she’s going to come again and soon.

“You gonna come around my cock, baby? You gonna come for me?” Ben asks between kisses. Rey just seeks out his mouth more, wanting every part of her to be connect with him as much as possible.

Ben sticks a hand by where their bodies meet, rubbing at her over-sensitive, over-stimulated clit, until Rey is a babbling mess. She feels hot tears of desire prick at her eyes as her hand clutches Ben’s head down to hers.

“‘m gonna come, Ben. Please, I need to come,” She whimpers against him. Ben grunts something unintelligible against her lips, but feels his whole body begin to tense up.

“Gonna come to, Rey. Gonna come in your perfect little cunt. You want that, you want me to fill you up?” Yes, yes, yes. Rey is beyond words at this point so she hopes the sloppy nodding of her head will give him the answer she’s so desperate to convey.

When Ben’s thumb catches her clit and his cock brushes against that bundle of nerves inside of her, Rey looses her mind. She sees stars and feels warmth like she’s never known and hears the most beautiful sound in the world. Ben, mumbling her name as he comes and comes. His come feels so good inside of her, a warmth that she never knew she needed until right now. His body is tense as he releases, pressing their hips flush together so hard that she thinks they may never part. She’s okay with that.

Ben sags against her, nearly crushing her with his impressive weight, but Rey loves it. She’ll hold him against her forever if he’ll let her.

Ben moves his head to kiss her again, softer this time. None of the hurried rush they’d experienced before. He’s still firmly inside of her, keeping his come warm and thick in her. She’s boneless and breathless and has never felt this high on ecstasy in her life.

Ben’s lips break away from hers and he rest his forehead on hers, looking down at her with so much emotion Rey is not mentally prepared to decipher.

“That was…”

“Yeah.”

“I meant it. Everything I said.”

“Me too.”

They’re silent for a minute, content with just staring at each other. Ben seems to realize that Rey is essentially trapped under him, so he pushes himself up, slowly pulling out of her. The rush of fluids that Rey feels escape her makes the flush in her cheeks deepen. Ben is staring between them now, watching their combined come trickle out of her.

“I probably should’ve asked this before but…” His eyes slowly ascend to hers, “do you take birth control?”

“No,” She shakes her head. Something flashes across Ben’s face that is not the fear she anticipated. “I’m on the shot.”

“Oh.” He looks… disappointed? Maybe not quite sad, but there’s a longing in his gaze that Rey isn’t used to, but thrills her all the same.

“That was a very good way to keep me from falling asleep,” She says, not nearly prepared to talk about that subject. She doesn’t even know where they stand.

“Is that your way of telling me you’re ready to actually go to bed now?” Ben’s sheepish demeanor returns and Rey is thankful that he’s on the same page as her.

“Not if you can think of something even better to keep me awake.”

Bens’ gaze darkens once more, and Rey knows that they’re in for a long night.

#so proud of them!#they made this decision all on their own and not because im an omnipotent being that controls every decision they make in this alt universe #reylo #ben solo #kylo ren #rey #ben solo x rey #kylo ren x rey #star wars #sw #fan fiction #my work #utolk #ao3 #adam driver #daisy ridley

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uozlulu · 4 years

Text

Black Clover 238 reaction and spoilers

I saw some preview images a few days ago and so let’s all hop aboard the pain train together.

Current threat level: Slyph isn’t flirting, she’s giving tactical orders while taking a protective position in front of Yuno

It’s hard to discern if Vangeance is dead from being strung up or just incapacitated. However, I’m pretty sure Klaus and Letoile are going to die. The magic bones have pierced probably Letoile’s lungs and Klaus’ stomach and intestines while their squad’s healers are either absent or too injured/dying/dead to help. If reinforcements arrive and they don’t die, they’re likely to end up like All Might and have greatly reduced organ function, which I’m not sure this medieval themed world can handle well enough to give them full lives.

Zenon has what looks like horns from two different devils and one wing, which suggests that he’s possibly borrowed multiple devils’ powers, which makes me curious how the Spade mages obtained such power. Did they eat it? Was portions of a devil’s carcass placed into their bodies? It seems like a different kind of possession from Asta’s symbiotic relationship with his devil.

I’m really looking forward to listening to how Shimazaki acts this out in the anime while also not sure I’m looking forward to watching some of these plot points in motion when we get there.

I think it’s a bit weird that the person who comes to the Golden Dawn’s headquarters first is Ralph, but his reaction to the whole thing answers a few of the questions I have rolling around in my head here.

Some post- 238 thoughts:

The flow of events of the last few chapters raise a lot of suspicion, and it makes me curious how much the Dark Triad knows. It wouldn’t surprise me if Dante is Yuno’s uncle given that historically those creating these types of successful coups are adjacent to the throne. If this is true, it might also explain why Ralph has survived successfully for the last almost seventeen years since Ralph can lead the Dark Triad to the heir (Yuno) that could possibly undo all the power they’ve gained. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ralph was able to get to Clover Kingdom the same day the Spade mages attack the Golden Dawn so the Spade mages could either ferret out the prince indirectly. It seems like Zenon was unaware someone on Yuno’s level would be with the Golden Dawn as well, which makes me think while the Dark Triad might be aware that the prince was taken to Clover Kingdom, they don’t know he’s Yuno. I was also suspicious of Ralph’s intent given the timing of all of this, but I think Ralph is genuine given his reaction to arriving at the destroyed base. I just am having trouble believing that Ralph finally able to get to Yuno just before the raid is coincidental.

Another thing I’m curious about is how did the Spade mages get to the Golden Dawn base? Yuno seemed to instinctively sense something was off when he left Hage, so why haven’t other Magic Knights also sensed a problem? Although maybe being a four leaf allows Yuno heightened mana awareness or perhaps it was just logic driving him more than the ability to sense demonic mana. It’s also possible considering almost all of the Golden Dawn became possessed by elves and played key direct roles during the possession that the Clover Kingdom let this happen. Damnatio was willing to kill Asta as a gesture but was unable to do so, which to some might have made it look as though the devils’ influence was never properly dealt with. However, it does seem a bit extreme to allow an entire Magic Knight squad to be nearly wiped out, although it does ensure that something like the elf possession cannot happen again, which might be the real goal since Damnatio does have the kingdom’s best interests in mind. That said, if someone or more than one someone did kind of allow Spade to do this, did they know what Spade was after? Or do they not care and wanted to be able to have a more direct war with Spade rather than do what the Clover and Heart joint mission group is doing? I mean on one hand it seems stupid because they would need the Golden Dawn caliber of mages to go after Spade, but on the other hand I think we can’t really rule out that maybe this was allowed to happen.

Now, for the potential deaths. I feel dueling extremes over them. Like on one hand, no not my babies. I mean I love these characters. I have strong affinity towards them. Vangeance is relatable with his back story and poor choices, Yuno reminds me of my brother, Klaus is a gift, etc…etc…Also what about Langris? Where is he in all this? What if he wasn’t at the base and he’s going to get blamed for this? It’s a lot to take in. On another hand, if Vangeance, Kalus, Letoile, etc…etc.. die, then that’s something we don’t seem to see in shounen that often, and if Yuno dies, then that’s just a straight up game changer for Jump. We’ve not really seen a Jump series do that, just kill off the main rival/brother/etc…figure and then not bring them back from the dead. I know some people have been arguing that because it comes immediately with the prince reveal that to kill Yuno would be bad writing, but I’m not sure it technically would be. The prince reveal gets Yuno out of the headquarters as the raid begins, it shows that Spade has a hope but they don’t have a face for that hope, it also might hint at there being bigger problems in Clover Kingdom than just Spade invading one of their squad’s bases. It’d all come down to how Yuno’s death could serve the narrative and also serve Asta’s character journey. I know I’ve been wondering since part two started if part of where the story is heading is not necessarily giving up but learning to adjust and keep going. I mean Asta’s never give up crush is on a nun so we know logically he’s going to have to give up on that and change focus but still likely achieve a romance with another character. Maybe Yuno dying is going to cause Asta to readjust and refocus his goals. We know Asta is politically minded and is definitely focused on becoming Wizard King, but I think a lot of that goal was wrapped up in Yuno still being there, still experiencing it, and with Yuno gone, some of that dream will have to change. I think also an indication of this was when Asta said point blank that he rejected the judicial system during his trial. Maybe to gain power like a Wizard King, Asta will have to reject a lot of that dream and mold it into something new but similar.

Another factor here is that Black Clover has a tendency to set us up for tropes and then bend them. For example, Julius and Orsi both almost died but managed not to, though typically in these types of stories the mentor and the father die. We’ve also got Noelle the princess whose power is directly linked to her desire to protect rather than be protected. We’ve got Charmy the wolf in sheep’s clothing who just wants to eat, eat, eat rather than be some nefarious mustache twirling bad guy. So I definitely wouldn’t put it past Tabata to kill Yuno since it’s expected that Yuno would live because the rival almost always lives or comes back from the dead. Yet, we also can’t rule out that there’s also a tendency for a character to be completely physically defeated. Fuegoleón lost his arm and went into a coma, Finral was near death and went into a coma but came back, Julius died and came back, so we can’t rule out that Yuno might survive and grow from this experience. That said, I think if Yuno does survive then it’s unlikely that Vangeance, Klaus, and Letoile will. We’re going to lose some faves most likely and it’s going to hurt.

Another thing that I keep coming back to is Asta. Like whether Yuno dies or not, Asta and everyone working on the joint task force will likely have to stay put especially now that Spade attacked Clover directly. I want to see Asta have to deal with this in that way, all these people died and he’s got to stay put. He’s got to process it away from the funerals and so forth. He’s got to find a way to deal with it and move forward. Again, it’s a bit of a dual feeling because I love Asta so much so it’s the writer in me going “Yeah, give me the angst,” and the fan in me going “;o; poor Astaaaa and everybody.”

Also I’m curious what will happen with Mimosa? Her squad is decimated and their captain possible dead. Does she join an existing squad? Are there enough people left in the Golden Dawn that someone would just get appointed captain of it and change the name as per typical succession like how the Gray Deer became the Azure Deer? I also want to see how she’s going to process this too, because that’s a lot of loss especially if she was close to a lot of her squad and thought of them as a kind of family potentially.

And finally, the anthropologist side of me is really curious about Clover Kingdom funerals and I’m going to be a bit bummed if we don’t get to find out what those are like considering at least unnamed characters are indeed dead.

All that said, I’m not sure if I’d say I’m rooting for any one theory (or any of them for that matter) to be true or not, and whether we get into the heavy and horrible or not, I’ll keep reading because either way it’ll be interesting. Do I want these characters to die? No, but I’m not going to sneeze at the potential character development and plot points that could come from such things.

#liveblog #manga liveblog #black clover manga liveblog #black clover manga spoilers #i'm reading ch 238 #ymmv #death talk #theory #black clover theory #black clover #long post #i don't know what to tag this #unpopular opinion #maybe

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alma-berry · 5 years

Text

Kit’s secret fire message #8

Masterlist

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

vjewfa sxvjish qk hqw awfvy cjgrj

(luminous)

Kit was arrested mid motion, his black duffle bag hung limply on his left shoulder, half open. He didn’t even notice the three pairs of socks that fell from it, nor his favorite grey shirt which was threatening to follow.

The fire message felt odd between his trembling fingers, like a foreign object, like he never in his life held a piece of paper.

Kit looked at the neatly written letters as if they were holding the answers to every single question he ever asked.. That might as well be true, he thought, if he was right in believing the message was sent by.. Ty.

Ty, just his name sent shivers down his spine, and the memory of the silver of his eyes, crackling with the reflection of the campfire near lake lynn, made Kit’s knees buckle. He dropped his bag on the floor and sent for the wall near him, steadying his legs and his heartbeat.

It’s been over a month since Ty answered Kit’s goodbye with a single “Don’t”, and Kit didn’t know how to respond to it.

The third drawer of his desk was littered with dozens of crumpled letters, heaps of poems that never felt like the right thing to say. On his defense, he never wanted to say the right thing - he just wanted to say what he felt.

Kit went from one emotion to the next in the blink of an eye; the utmost joy of knowing Ty didn’t want him to stay away filled him for a solid week until he realized how unfair it was. He exposed every single beat of his heart, presented it to Ty in the hope he will answer his feelings, or just answer at all.. and all he had to say was “Don’t”?

Then again, Ty never used five words, let alone a full sentence, when he could use one. Kit knew that, and it wasn’t fair of him to expect Ty, who he knew didn’t feel the same about him, to give away his feelings (or the lack of them) after Kit had left him the way he did.

But still, he needed more. When he finally had enough of trying to phrase himself correctly and sent his last poem, tear stricken and drenched in sweat, he fell to his bed and knew that whatever Ty answered, if he even did, Kit had given every last drop of emotion he had in him.

That night was the coldest he could ever remember, as cold as the blinking eye of a demon.

Kit stared at the six words, if they could even be described as words, and wondered what they meant. Was it a joke? No, he thought. Ty wouldn’t do that. Perhaps it was a test. A code. Yes, Kit’s heart leaped. It must be a code. And Ty had given him the clue to decipher it. luminous.

Kit remembered that day in the Los Angeles institute’s library, when they were planning a trip to the shadow market to try and collect ingredients for the spell that was supposed to bring Livvy back. A familiar ache settled itself in Kit’s chest, the same ache that bore Livvy’s name, her mischievous smile, her deep ocean blue-green eyes.

“Ah, Watson,” said Ty. “You may not yourself be luminous, but you are an extraordinary conductor of light.”

Kit’s lips rose just a little as he remembered the words of his own Sherlock.

Not my Sherlock, he started to scolded himself, before he paused. Sherlock. That’s the key.

Kit grabbed the fire message, ran out of the room and headed towards the library, where the only computer, used mostly by him, was installed.

As he made his way through the narrow corridors he heard Jem’s soft voice calling after him.

“Kit? Are you getting ready? The portal will be opening soon”.

Right. Portal. The usual trip to the London institute.

“Yeah I’m almost ready, just need to look something up first” he called and entered the brightly lit room.

The library of the Carstairs manor in Devon was one of Kit’s favorite rooms. There was a feel to it that spoke of endless possibilities, of knowledge Kit could choose to acquire, and not forced to.

He learned, in his time with Jem and Tessa, that his knowledge of the shadow world wasn’t as basic as he thought.. but nevertheless, he wanted to know more. He wanted with all his might to understand these people, these Shadowhunters that he was now supposed to be one of. He wanted to be.

He was scared, at first, that the fact that he is not living with active shadowhunters would mean his training and education will be less than what they could have been, if he lived in a regular institute, or with a regular shadowhunters family. But he couldn’t have been more wrong. Both of his adoptive parents probably knew more about shadowhunters history than any living, active shadowhunter there is. And Jem, as it turned out, was a great warrior. You didn’t think he’d be one, being 150 years old and all, but he was.. and besides, he had Jace.

Kit grinned, thinking about his cousin always made him want to be better. After he skipped the phase in which he was terrified by every little thing Jace had asked him to do (like jump off a tree with nothing to catch him) and actually started doing it, he found that his very annoying distant relative was.. actually a solid tutor.

Kit became better at being a shadowhunter than he ever thought he could be, and he knew that it was thanks to his family.

He did have to go every once in a while to the London institute, though. There were tests he had to take if he wanted the clave to recognize him as an active shadowhunter. That was the reason they were headed there right now.

Kit clicked franticly on the computer’s power button, willing it to start faster. As soon as it did, he opened the browser and searched for the only name that made sense - Arthur Conan Doyle.

He knew the code to decipher Ty’s message must be something to do with the author of his favorite books, so he wrote down every significant and insignificant detail he could find on a stranded piece of paper that he found at the near desk, just as Jem entered the room.

Kit hastily pocketed the two pieces of paper and turned to face him.

“I know, I know. Let me just get my bag..”

Jem looked at him suspiciously but with clear fondness in his eyes. “Just hurry up, Kit.. the portal will open any minute now.. and you know how Evelyn gets when you’re late”, he smirked.

Kit loved it when Jem smirked, it was so out of character for him.

“Yeah yeah, she’ll make me eat some of Bridget’s porridge”, he mumbled, the taste of the sticky goo still fresh in his memory.

“I wonder when did she got so bad at cooking. She was pretty good when I was young” Jem mused out loud.

The truth was, Bridget always gave Kit the creeps. And the fact that she was probably the most ancient thing in that institute didn’t help to improve her image, nor her cooking, as it happened.

“Where’s Tessa and Min? I want to say goodbye before we leave..” Kit stared around him, a bit disappointed that his favorite little monster didn’t come to see him out.

“Tessa just gotten her to sleep, she was running around all morning, trying to skin Church alive”.

Kit burst out laughing “That’s my girl. Plus, he could use the exercise. He wasn’t this lumpy back in LA…”

Kit felt the air catching at his throat as the flood of unwanted memories washed over him.

The beach, Ty’s beautiful fingers against the cat’s grey fur, and Kit’s clenched heart.

Jem eyed him knowingly and patted on his back. “You’re right, son. We shall buy some low fat tuna for him before we return”.

The shimmering lines of the portal had formed in front of them, and without look back, they walked through it.

—

“It is highly rude of you, you know” Jessamine declared.

“hmm? What is?” Kit answered absentmindedly.

“You hardly come to visit me anymore, and now that you have, you pay me no attention! As if I’m not even there!”

Kit have her his most dazzling smile “Well, you are a ghost, you know…”

Jessamine exclaimed as if terribly insulted. “Exactly! I’m.. bored! There’s no one here to talk to!” Kit’s grin widened, “Jessy, even if every occupant of this institute could see you, they still wouldn’t be much of a conversationalists” Jessy eyed him with disdain “As I said - rude. What is it that you’re doing, anyway?”

Kit was sprawled on the floor of the London institute’s library, scribbling simultaneously on five pieces of paper.

“I’m trying to decipher a code” he said with a troubled look.

“A code? Shadowhunters write in codes now?” She sighed “I’m far too old for these sort of things”.

Kit’s laugh felt forced even to his own ears “Not all shadowhunters.. just this one. And I’m not sure I’m making much of a progress with it anyway. I’ve read my fair share of detective novels, mind you.. and I can’t figure out how I’m supposed to crack this..”

Jessamine leaned over him, no- through him, to examine the fire message, and Kit felt as if his insides were suddenly soaked with icy water.

“Hey! Who's the rude one now?” Jessamine gave him a pointed look that made her delicate features resemble Evelyn’s.

“It looks rather complicated. In my days we would just lock our secrets in a safe and be done with it. Why do you modern people have to complicate everything?”

She really did look like Evelyn now, Kit thought, as the meaning of Jessamine’s words dawned on him. Lock their secrets.. Lock.

Kit knew locks, he knew them very well, in fact. He could pick most locks in under thirty seconds, even the complicated ones, those with a code combination. And all of a sudden, Kit knew exactly what he should do.

“It’s like a combination lock! I just need to move the letters backwards alphabetically according to the numbers on the key!”

Kit’s heart was racing, he had it! He was sure of it.

“The key? It’s a piece of paper, Christopher, not a safe, if you hadn’t noticed”

Kit’s hands were trembling and he felt as if his heart was stuck in the middle of his throat.

“A key to crack the code, Jessy. Look, he sent me a clue. Luminous. It’s from Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes was written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Now, it has to be a number. I have his date of birth, death, when Sherlock was first published.. It can even be the birth date of Sherlock himself but that one is inconclusive. He wouldn’t have used something that is not a solid fact. Right?”

He looked up at Jessamine, who stared at him as if every word he just said was in mandarin. Kit knew a little mandarin, but not enough to make a whole speech. “Nevermind, I’ll try the date of birth”.

Jessamine gave him a long, peculiar look and said “Hurry up, Kit. Jem, Evelyn and miss Mendoza are nearly done with their meeting. If you wish to know what young mr. Blackthorn had written, you must hurry”.

Kit stared at her, completely astonished.

“How.. how do you know I was talking about Ty?” Jessamine gave him a wry smile and started towards the door, “I may not know much about locks or codes, Christopher, but I know about broken hearts,” her voice was soft, and Kit felt it like a faint whisper against his skin, “...and I know you”.

For a few moments, Kit just sat there. His head felt like a beehive of thoughts, bombarding one another with fears anger, confusion and excitement, until one thought became coherent - I can solve Ty’s message.

He slowly places the heavy parchment in front of him, the torn paper with Conan Doyle’s information already in his hand. He began with copying Ty’s message, and under each letter he wrote the numbers of Conan Doyle’s date of birth, again and again, until every letter had its own number. Then he started counting the letters backwards, according to the number underneath it.

V became T, J became H, and so he continued until the first word was completed- Theres.

Kit’s heart was pounding so hard that all sounds around him were momentarily muted. He didn’t hear the scratching noise his pen made on the paper or the soft tapping of the rain on the milky white windows.

He continued to the next word; S became an N, X - O, V - T, J - H, I - I, S - N, H - G.

Nothing. There’s nothing.

Kit’s heart sank. He feared what he would find next. There’s nothing I can say to you? There’s nothing I want from you? There’s nothing between us? But none of those options fit the number of the letters left to decipher, and he felt too anxious to guess any longer.

He took a deep breath and continued. He didn’t pause as the letters formed themselves into a full sentence, didn’t dare to read until the whole sentence was written in front of him, black on white. And if there was any doubt left in Kit’s heart that it was Ty’s message, it had vanished completely.

There’s nothing if you aren’t there

#kit herondale #Ty Blackthorn #kitty #kitty blackdale #blackdale #kit x ty #tiberius blackthorn #tsc #the shadowhunter chronicles #jem carstairs #jessamine lovelace #kitty fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #kit's secret fire message

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