#but she is STRANGELY okay with and ready to bury someone on a whim

[oathofoaksart]

i'm not saying lei would murder if she could, i'm saying she will if she has to

#gar speaks #like it's never explicitly stated but it's implied #implied? implied where? in the silly little cartoon that plays in my head ofc #its meant to be played for laughs #the vibes are 'oh shes a little fucked up actually' #but she is STRANGELY okay with and ready to bury someone on a whim #leiko ara #yj kitsune #yj inari

[rainsongmp3]

it’s a cold and it’s a broken

Dean screws up. Cas reacts. This is the aftermath. here on ao3

The call ends. Dean feels hollow. He sits in silence until the tear tracks dry on his face. He can hear the blood pounding in his ears and the crushing quiet of the house. He knew. He knew. He knew this would happen. He would fuck up and Cas would leave. But this is what does them in? Drugs and a lie? No. That’s not it. The drugs and the lies are symptoms, not the problem. Dean is the problem. God, he knew. He’s too broken and messy and fucked up for Cas and he knew. 

Dean can’t stay here. He can’t stay in his quiet and his misery. Suddenly, it’s all too much. Jo is upstairs. Yes, Jo is upstairs. That’s good. Jo is here. He can talk to Jo. He goes upstairs and opens the door to the bedroom they’re sharing. Jo is asleep. Of course, Jo is asleep. Dean realizes that he can’t wake her up. He can’t wake her up and talk about his bullshit feelings and his bullshit heartbreak. He can’t wake her up and be a burden. Dean goes back downstairs.

Dean looks at Ellen asleep on the couch. She must’ve fallen asleep watching TV. Bobby is upstairs in their bed. Dean is struck with the thought that she has someone waiting for her. So does Jo. Everyone has someone waiting for them. Except for Dean. It’s too much. It’s all too much. Cas is gone and it’s too much. It’s all too much like a gunshot to the heart. Dean’s fingers close around a bottle of tequila in the liquor cabinet before he notices that’s where he was going. This is good. Tequila is good for being drunk. Tequila is good for turning it off. It’s all too much and Dean needs to turn it off. 

Dean unscrews the cap, squeezes his eyes shut, brings the bottle to his lips, and drinks. And drinks. And drinks. And drinks some more. The tequila burns its way down his throat. Good. Good that it burns. Dean drinks again. 

All at once, the house is stifling; stiflingly quiet, stiflingly small, stifling. 

Strange how a house with its high ceilings and large windows can become a prison cell. A house that was once a comfort, filled with friends and family, good memories, and calming ocean air now feels akin to a metal box. Confining. Dark. Air-tight. 

Dean runs.

He runs out the door. The bottle of tequila securely in his fist. No shoes, no jacket, no thought. He just goes.

Outside in the night air, everything seems just a little less. It’s less heartbreaking, less gut-wrenching, less impossible out here. Dean breathes. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Dean breathes maybe for the first time since Cas ended the call. 

The gravel driveway bites at Dean’s feet. The tequila bites at his throat. Cas bites at his heart. It’s okay. Dean deserves to be bitten. 

Waves crash, beating against the sea wall. They crash against the rock. White foam against unforgiving gray. Somehow, the foam wins. It smooths out the rocks’ sharp edges. How can something so soft cut down granite? 

It doesn’t stop. The heartbreak doesn’t stop in the night air. Dean walks down the road. He turns at the space in between houses where man meets the sea. His steps are shakier now. With alcohol burning through his bloodstream, every nerve is numbed. His body doesn’t respond the same to his brain. It’s quieter that way even if Dean’s steps are louder. He climbs the sea wall using the grooves and spaces in the stones like rungs on a ladder. It’s awkward. He’s drunk and clumsy and one of his hands is occupied. He misses steps. He slips a couple of inches down the flat surface. His foot falls out of its hold. He can’t quite get the angle to pull himself up with the alcohol in hand. It’s almost pathetic, but he makes it to the top. Fifteen feet above ground seems a lot higher to a dizzy Dean. Nearly losing his balance in the process, he sits down. 

The moon stares at him accusingly from above. Its choppy reflection in the ocean below blames him. I’m sorry, he almost wants to say. What good would it do to apologize to the moon? It’s Cas he needs to apologize to. Apologize until Cas will love him again. Scream I’m sorry until he’s blue in the face and falls to his knees at Cas’s feet. Weep there, on his knees, until Cas understands. Beg and sob and grovel until Cas takes him back. Because at the end of all of this, Dean is nothing without Cas. Dean is nothing. Cas is everything. Cas is everything good. Cas is everything light. Cas is everything happy. Cas is everything safe. Cas is everything that makes life worth living. Oh, how Dean loves him. Dean loves him so fiercely it hurts. He remembers those moments, those gentle moments, lying in bed together smiling softly and how in those moments his heart cracks open. It spills light into the lingering shadows of Cas’s room. It leeches love into the very atoms of the earth. Cas leeches him. Bloodletting in the most enticing way. How could Dean not bleed when Cas’s deep stare pulls at his soul and his smile soothes cracks? How can something so soft cut down granite? Dean sighs, pulling oxygen back into his bones, and lets it go again. He doesn’t deserve Cas. He never did. This is far from the first time he’s screwed up. He’s not built for this kind of thing— a loving, committed relationship. No wonder Cas gave up on him. Dean tries. He tries. It’s not enough. How could he ever be enough for Cas? He wasn’t enough for his dad. He wasn’t even enough for his own father. He’s never enough to make someone stay. His mom: dead. His dad: absent. His brother: preoccupied. Bobby: distracted. Ellen: disappointed. His old friends: left. All he really has is Jo now. Everybody leaves, huh?

Oh.

Everybody leaves.

Everybody leaves. He really thought Cas was going to disprove that. The exception. His stupid, dumbass exception. His exception with too-blue eyes. His exception with a gummy smile. His exception that knows too much about astrophysics to be a normal guy. (Not that he wants a normal guy. He wants Cas.) His exception who’s overly enthusiastic about bees. His exception that’s grumpy in the mornings. (Cas is garbage before 11 AM and without two cups of coffee.) His exception that indulges Dean’s stupid whims. His exception. His perfect, unfathomable exception. As it turns out, Dean was wrong. Cas is not his exception. Cas is Dean’s most grievous mistake. Not a mistake for having loved him. (No, never that. Never that.) His mistake for pushing him to this. The sight of Cas’s tear-stained face twisted in heartbreak and Sisyphean hope is an image Dean can never unburn from his memory. That would be his own rock to endlessly push up a hill. Cas’s was trying to love Dean. What did Cas do in a previous life to deserve that kind of endless torture?

Dean wishes he could sit Cas down in a coffee shop or maybe on a park bench and just explain. He’d tried, but mostly he just pleaded. Not with words. Or maybe not the right ones. Cas don’t do this isn’t the same as Cas please don’t go Cas please stay Cas please don’t leave me. Dean could explain. He could explain it all. He could tell Cas how he’s so beyond damaged. His dad might love him but it’s so buried underneath alcoholism and orders and grief that it never quite penetrates his skin. His father’s love isn’t even skin deep. It never made its way into Dean’s bloodstream. No matter how hard he tries, Dean can’t quite imagine his father telling him he’s proud of him. Not in the way fathers are supposed to. Everything always has to come second to Sam. ever since the fire, ever since take care of your brother, Dean, Sam has been his wampeter. His whole purpose. His God-given central theme. That’s so much weight to a four-year-old. A preschooler can’t do the job of Atlas. Dean can sometimes hardly stand the weight of it on his shoulders now. There is so much anger in him. It’s coiled tight: a viper ready to strike or a match a second from igniting. There is poison in Dean’s punch. It’s only a matter of time before Dean’s fist is aimed at Cas. Dean was raised with exchanging blows. What is love if not a deep, lingering bruise? It’s the kind that aches for days but you can’t help but prod at. The last thing Dean wants to do is hurt Cas. He never wants to lash out with his hands. It’s all he knows. What if he can’t keep the bubbling, boiling, lava-hot rage at bay? Dean’s lost so much, so many people. It used to keep him awake at night: the gnawing anxiety that he would lose Cas too. The fear of Cas burning sat so heavy in Dean’s bone marrow. The fear of aiming his own blaze at Cas turned every cell in his body to ice. Ice-nine. One touch and everything in him is killing blue-white frost. In those moments, Dean is scared to even lay a finger on Cas lest the blue-white frost gets him too. Dean is made of loss and violence and white-knuckling. The fear of exposing that side of him to Cas… that used to bring bile into his throat. So, Dean kept Cas at arm’s length. Even while they were chest to chest, Dean kept him at arm’s length. Keep Cas at a distance and save him from the snapping jaws waiting to tear at his flesh. Lie about the drinking. Lie about the drugs. Lie about the self-destructive timebomb. Lie about it to keep Cas safe. 

But now. Everything is different. Dean would pour out everything in him to Cas. Take his heart and tip; let his artery drip every nasty thought into a cup and give Cas the option to drink. He would do anything, give anything to just be able to hold Cas in his arms again. He would swim oceans and bottle clouds to kiss Cas again. He would scorch the Earth to just have Cas look at him with love again. 

Dean glances at the bottle still bound to his palm. More than halfway gone. Not a good way to get Cas back. Dean stares at the crashing waves. He watches them hit the stone and the sand. He watches the water caress the earth. 

Dean stands on wobbly legs. Drunk legs are sea legs. He lets his drunk legs take him to the sea. Getting down the wall is less awkward than getting up it. All he has to do is sit and let gravity do the work. He controls the semi-slide down. Sealegs meet the sand. It’s damp. Dean wiggles his toes into it. He makes his way into the water. It’s cold, but not an unforgiving cold. It’s the placating cold of a snow day. He sloshes through the surf. His foot slips on a hidden rock and the world tilts even more as he goes down. His arms go out in front of him to break his fall on instinct. The bottle of tequila hits another obscured rock. It shatters. Dean raised the broken bottle by the neck. The bottom half is gone. It’s almost comical. He holds it the same as he did before but he’s only got a piece now. The ocean took the remaining tequila. He chucks the rest of the bottle as hard as he can to the rocks far to his left. Maybe he’ll make some sea glass. 

Dean wades further into the water. The tide pulls at his hips. He lets it sway him. Everything feels cleaner in the ocean. Saltwater is good for open wounds. The ocean disinfects him. The waves pull the poison out of his blood. He is cleaner now.

Seven days later, Cas calls. 

#i am an idiot and just learned how to do the keep reading thing so here! have a fic! #this is taken directly from my life and is the first time i’ve written anything in a while so be gentle with me #cw drug use #cw alcohol #dean winchester #deancas #dean fic #destiel fanfics #spn #spn fanfic

[kenzieam]

Remember Me - Chapter One

@jewels2876​​​​  @moonbeambucky​​​​  @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123​​​​  @iammarylastar​​​​@captstefanbrandt​​​​  @badassbaker​​​​  @pinknerdpanda​​​​  @oliviastan17​​​​ @mizzzpink​​​​​

I know I’m forgetting people, sorry. If you want in, hit me.

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Rating: M

Warnings: Major angst, drama, sorrow, pain, suffering, language, my usual shit

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FEEDBACK IS LIFE, Y’ALL!

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Lev is newly born, her entire life up until the last mission gone. How does she navigate these new waters where she doesn’t remember anything anymore? And what to make of the heartbreaking way Bucky is always looking at her now?

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My head hurts and I’m getting tired of the endless questions, but the people milling around me can’t seem to accept what I keep saying, over and fucking over.

“You don’t remember me?”

I study him, if only to give the impression that I’m trying really hard to remember but it’s all a blank, just a big fucking expanse of white. Not overly tall, tailored suit and smart-ass twist to his lips. “No.”

He glances at one of the others, a quiet, introspective guy who’s been doing most of the medical shit and only receives a shrug in return.

“C’mon Banner, what the hell is going on?” The little one asks, sounding surprisingly distressed.

Who are these people and why do they care so much if I know them?

“I told you,” the one called Banner begins, voice quiet and somehow chronically sad. “She can’t remember; going by my preliminary findings, it’s most-likely post-traumatic retrograde amnesia.”

“What? She hit her head or something?” The little guy looks around at the rest of them, hands out in exasperated query.

I consider answering, something cutting and acerbic about the blood-stained uniform I wear, the bruises and cuts and cracked bones that Banner has already splinted and given me lovely drugs for, but it seems like too much effort and really, if the suit can’t deduce that something went down out there based on how I look and feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, I’m not going to waste my breath.

A tall blond who’s holding his side gingerly answers, flicking a glance at me as if he’s read my apparently scrambled mind. Judging by the way the others pay attention to him, I’m guessing he’s one of the bosses. There’s a reassuring steadiness about him and I see why he’s the one everyone looks to for answers. “Yes, Tony. She hit her head, Kozlov had a few dirty tricks laid out that we got stuck in.”

The one called Tony shrugs, looking inexplicably pissed. “The rest of you look okay.”

That was far from true, every single one of them was bleeding or bruised somewhere, but if he was referring to the fact that no one else was sitting there unable to remember anything personal, then he was right. A petite redhead, her arm in a sling, shifted her weight, throwing a dirty glance at Tony, while a handsome black guy, one whole side of his uniform scorched and torn but the skin beneath thankfully intact, scoffed, looking ready to say something in return if not for the blond glancing warningly at him over his shoulder but my attention was on the brown-haired man hovering in the shadows.

As tall as the blond and heavily muscled, chocolate brown hair hung lank in a stunningly beautiful face, all the more striking because of his almost supernatural blue eyes but the most defining feature by far was his shiny, metal left arm. He looked like he was struggling with the urge to simultaneously destroy something in rage and collapse into tears, the dichotomy both fascinating and unsettling. Although heavily injured, at least to my eyes, he’d eschewed all attempts at help, insisting on everyone else being taken care of first. He’d spent most of the time here in this sterile room watching me, something indecipherable in his stare. He seemed to be taking this amnesia business far more personally than anyone else, eyes red-rimmed and swimming in tears, even as his fists, one metal and one flesh, clenched at his sides.

“I know,” the blond replies, sounding chagrined and I look his way once more, curious despite the pain in my head. He flicks his eyes to me, and I’m surprised at the distress there. “Lev took a hit meant for all of us.”

I did? Why? And is that my name, Lev?

The anguish in the metal-armed guy seems to overflow at the blonde’s words and he turns away, hammering his synthetic fist against the wall, the sound barely concealing his sob, but the group appears remarkably indifferent to his reaction, as if used to it; maybe he’s the emotional one of the team.

Or maybe, based on the way he’s been watching you; this news hurts him more.

Whatever, my head frickin’ hurts and I just want to lie down, we can all play twenty-questions later.

Banner seems to notice my weariness first and steps closer, freezing when I tense then seeming to accept my reaction almost sadly. “C’mon, let’s leave her alone. She needs to rest.”

“She can’t go to her quarters…” the redhead begins, looking between the one named Tony, Banner and the blond, glancing once apologetically at the brunette, who’s turned away from the wall to watch us again, but looks like he is barely holding on. A strange compulsion hits me, to leap off the exam table, rush to him and hold him close but it makes no goddamn sense, I don’t know this man, I need to go lie down, like Banner said.

“No.” Banner agrees, and he too flicks a look at the man, seemingly sorry to agree with the woman. “That won’t work… not right now…. Anyway, she needs to be monitored closely for the next day or so, I’d feel better if she stays here.”

Whatever, I can’t think about this, everything hurts too goddamn much. The darkness swirls up again and, rather than fighting it, I embrace it, faintly registering my body sway and tip over, the impact with the bed probably painful but I’m too gone to notice.

**********************************************************************************    Heavy breathing wakes me later and I slit my eyes open, trying to find the source. Whoever it is, they sound like they’re fighting tears and my heart cracks at the sound. I imagine the sound of anyone crying is something I don’t particularly want to hear, but something about this person’s anguish is particularly cutting.

It’s the brown-haired man, the one with the metal arm. He sits to my side, hunched over, face buried in his hands and massive shoulders shaking. It’s disconcerting to see someone so physically imposing and large looking so… broken but there’s some serious shit going on with this guy.

Before I can move though, shift my hand to brush his knee or anything really to help him, the blond appears at the doorway. I can barely make his features out, due to the dim lighting and my barely-opened eyes, but he’s not looking at me anyway. I close my eyes again, it’s easier.

“Buck, c’mon man.” He murmurs, stepping further into the room. “You need to lay down.”

Buck, okay; that’s his name.

“She’s gone, Steve.”

No, I’m not. I’m not dead.

“No, she’s not.”

Thank you, Steve.

“Her memory is! She can’t remember us; she doesn’t remember me.”

“Bruce hopes it’ll all come back.”

“What if it doesn’t?” There’s a horrible resignation in his deep voice, a stark question.

“Then we’ll deal with it.”

“She’s everything to me, Steve. She’s my life, you know this. If all we had is gone-”

“Stop it.” There’s an edge in Steve’s voice now, but I get the impression it’s not anger, but the same fear currently affecting Buck. “She will come out of this. You know as well as I do that Tony and Bruce won’t rest until they figure this out.”

Buck scoffs, but it’s half-hearted and I feel a calloused hand take mine. The touch is gentle, if a little desperate. It feels like he’s saying goodbye.

I hear Steve step in further, a hand slap lightly on a shoulder. “C’mon.” He says again and I hear the chair scratch as Buck stands. A moment later dry lips brush my forehead.

“I’ll be here when you wake up.” Buck murmurs but then my shadows are dragging me down again and if he says anything more, I don’t hear it.

**********************************************************************************        The next days pass with painful slowness, dragging like rusty blades across my skin and, based on the faint scars I find on my inner arms and thighs, that’s something the old me used to do with heartbreaking regularity.

What sort of life did I lead, that made inflicting pain on myself acceptable?

I want to stay away from the others, but it’s made difficult by their damn persistence. I’m given some space but not nearly as much as I crave. They all mean well but being asked a hundred times if some location or activity ‘triggers anything?’ gets old. And Banner, Bruce now as I’ve learned is his first name, has a thousand and one ways to try and restart my memory.

But it all remains frustratingly blank.

I remember nothing, not one thing about my life before waking up in the quinjet, everyone hovering over me looking like I’d gone and died on them a time or two.

But apparently there’s records and I spent the first few days that Bruce insisted I stay in the medical labs working my way through them.

I was an orphan, raised in a series of group homes and shoddy orphanages, fighting for scraps. Faint memories trickle back as I read this, just flashes and hints but, based on what I’m reading, that’s a good thing. Sometimes they seem little better than nightmares.

And it explains the scars.

After slumming around in dead-end jobs for a while I, seemingly on a whim, applied to SHIELD and passed the entrance exam, a surprise given my basic background, lack of higher education and chip on my shoulder regarding authority.

Following one particularly ugly assignment, where I completely disregarded orders and then told my commanding officer to go fornicate with himself, I was offered a choice.

Leave SHIELD in disgrace, or volunteer as a guinea pig, only I wasn’t supposed to call it that, even if I was.

For what exactly I had no idea, but that didn’t seem to stop me and, after a half-dozen unsuccessful tests where I nearly got my head blown off more that once testing out experimental weapons, (an expendable resource for R&D), I was offered up to Tony and Bruce.

And what a proposition they’d had for me.

For years Stark had been working on perfecting a serum similar to what his father and Erskine had used on the blond I now knew was called Steve and, with Banner’s help, he’d achieved a version he was fairly confident in.

For whatever reason, they saw something in me (that I did not and had never seen in myself) and the multiple personality and psychiatric tests that were standard at SHIELD and felt I was worthy of the opportunity. Or maybe just perfectly expendable, with no family or close friends to speak of.

And I’d apparently had no sense because I’d agreed to let them test it on me.

If the serum had failed, as it had the few other times Stark had felt confident enough to try it on a real person, I would have probably been booted out of SHIELD entirely, left to my own flawed devices; but it hadn't and I’d become the first successful recipient of serum since Rogers himself, at least for our side. There was a section included in my reading on HYDRA and their Winter Soldier program, including a group of volunteers who’d been executed by their handlers that I skimmed over, feeling the strangest sense of discomfort.

Anyway, with that came the transference to the team, and my first exposure to The Avengers.

That was as far as I got before Bruce cleared me to leave medical, despite the near crippling headaches I was still suffering from, and I was glad for it, being awakened every few hours (usually just after I’d managed to nod off again) had gotten old fast.

The topic of my quarters was still a touchy subject apparently, because I was led to a furnished but plain set of rooms to make myself at home. Steve was the one to take me and his shoulders stiffened when I asked if this was where I had lived before.

“No,” he replies quietly, not looking directly at me.

I was getting really tired of being spoon-fed inf0rmation, at the rate everyone else had decided I could handle it and there was obviously more here than Steve was willing to tell me. “Then where did I live before? Why can’t I go back there now?”

“Lev-” Although I didn’t remember this man, the look of reluctance on his face was universal. He doesn’t want to tell me.

“Goddammit, would someone tell me the truth?” I snap, slamming my fist into the wall, only a small part of me sorry for my outburst. “Why is everyone lying to me?”

“We’re not lying!” Steve almost shouts and I get the sense that this big man rarely raised his voice like this because his face went pink and blotchy and he looked away from me. “Look, Lev. This is hard for everyone-”

I snort, because really.

“No, it’s true.” He returns, finally meeting my eyes. “We just don’t want to overwhelm you.”

“By taking me to an empty room?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Its not a good idea for you to go to your old quarters.”

“Why not?”

He looks downright miserable now. “Because you share them with someone.” He lifts his gaze to me, beseeching me to stop asking, to not press him further.

To hell with that. “Who?”

“Lev.”

“Who?!”

“No,” he shakes his head and get the feeling he’s digging in his heels. “Bruce said it’s dangerous to overload you with information, I’ve already said too much. Don’t ask again.”

There’s such misery on his face I pause. “Was it you?”

He starts slightly, fighting to hide it. “No.”

I feel bad suddenly, pressing him like this. It’s not his fault I can’t remember anything (at least I don’t think it is) and he’s just the poor bastard that got tasked with showing me my new room. A headache flares up with sickening strength and I suddenly don’t care anymore who I shared space with. “Okay, thanks.” I reach for the knob, hoping to keep my face from betraying my pain.

“Lev-”

“I’m going to go lay down now, Rogers. Thanks.”

I close the door in his face before he can answer.

************************************************************************************ Murmured words against my throat.

Soft lips caress my pulse-point.

A soft, stroking touch.

Heat and weight as someone stretches out on top of me, the feeling welcoming and familiar.

A knee between my thighs, a shuddered exhale.

“I love you, baby.” A tender voice.

I wake to a dark room, cold and alone. There is nobody with me, no one whispering tenderly in my ear. Whoever they were, I trusted them completely, felt one hundred percent safe with them and…. Shit, loved them in return.

But who?

My brain has been too scrambled, my interactions with the team too awkward and stilted to give me any clues. Nobody so far has sparked anything in me like that, male or female; not that I’m prejudiced, but the weight on me, the timbre of the voice says it was a man I loved.

Steve says it wasn’t him, but that doesn’t really narrow it down. There’s apparently a thunder god running around out there somewhere I haven’t met in my new form, and his brother, plus a multitude of others, it’s all a jumbled maze in my head right now.

I could be standing right next to this person and not have a fucking clue, thanks to the tangled spaghetti in my brain.

It’s been a week since I was escorted to these empty rooms and I’ve rarely ventured out, preferring solitude to everyone’s well-meaning ‘help’. It’s not like I’m partying it up or anything, most of the time I sleep, exhausted and baby-weak, trying to remember my life when I’m awake, which usually just leads to more sleeping.

The others do get in unfortunately, because even though it’s exhausting and draining to talk with people, see the hope in their eyes that their words are going to somehow trigger some memory in me, it’s also strangely lonely by myself. I don’t have myself in my head anymore to keep me interested, the general background noise of a busily-humming brain. Mine is still shell-shocked, with no files to sort through for entertainment.

The dreams, or perhaps memories, continue. Not all the time, but enough to make me think they’re more than simple fantasy. The whispered words, the warmth of someone’s strong, muscular body. I’d sit down and try to figure it out if I didn’t now have the attention span of three-year old and the napping habits of a ninety-year-old.

“It’ll come back.” Bruce reassures me, but I’m not sure who he’s talking to, me or him.

“The memories,” I clarify. “Or everything?”

“Everything?”

“My… ties with people, friendships?”

Bruce shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know. It’s still too early to tell, but with traumatic brain injury there is always the risk of permanent damage, personality changes. You being serum-enhanced just makes it a bigger question mark. Steve has never experienced something like this, and Bucky’s amnesia was an entirely different set of circumstances.”

I’ve learned since that first strange encounter with him, that his name isn’t in fact Buck, but Bucky, and both are nicknames for his real name, James; but that’s about it. The guy avoids me like the plague, and I guess that’s fair, since Bruce just said he’s experienced something the same but different, and probably doesn’t want to be reminded about it.

Once or twice, I’ve brought up Bucky to Steve, the first time in curiosity, the second to see if I imagined the first reaction. Both times his face went red and he suddenly couldn’t speak clearly, suffering from an acute case of the mumbles.

It would be telling, his reactions, if I actually remembered the man and whether he was a frequent sufferer of such things, or if my questions are hitting a particularly sore nerve.

“How’s your headaches?” Bruce continues, watching me carefully.

“You tell me, I know you’ve got that computer thing watching me all the time, what’s it called, MONDAY?”

He smiles faintly. “FRIDAY, and it’s for your own protection. You insist on being alone but if you ever suffered a seizure or was suddenly overcome with pain or-”

“I’m fine, really Banner. Don’t need a babysitter.”

“Right now, you do. Sorry Lev, I know that offends your sense of independence.”

“I have a sense of independence?”

“Yes, you were very self-reliant. That didn’t stop you from maintaining strong relationships with the team, but you preferred to nurse any wounds or injuries only in the company of a select few.”

“Them being?”

He grimaces, the same ���oh shit’ look on his face as Rogers and we’re back into the ‘keeping Lev in the dark for her own good’ bullshit. “Lev-”

“Either tell me or leave me alone, Banner. I’m drowning in ‘what’s good for me’ around here.”

“Lev,” he looks genuinely hurt and I feel bad for a heartbeat. “We just want to help you, this is as strange and new to us as it is for you, we don’t know what will trigger memories for you, or overload you-”

“I know.” I heave a sigh because, as much as it grieves and frustrates me, I do get the sense that these people truly care about me and want what’s best for me.

“Do you feel well enough to try some exercise?”

I shrug, was that something I was into before? The toned lines of my body say yes but, as with everything, I have no memory of gym training.

“You have retrograde amnesia Lev; your personal memories are affected but not the practical ones. Your body remembers repetitive activities, you can dress and feed yourself, if you went down to the training area your body would remember your exercise routine, your muscles would take over.” He paused, weighing his next words. “No guarantees, but it might help trigger your memory as well.”

I nod absently because I’m wondering the same thing. There’s small bits and flashes that I remember now, but they only come if I’m not trying to remember. My mind needs to be blank and floating, basically concentrating on the opposite of thinking and sometimes I’ll get a little hit, some quick blip. Mostly it’s early memories so far, before I joined SHIELD or the team, but I’m starting to get a sense of the scrappy orphan I was, fighting more often than not, learning street smarts more than books.

I don’t feel like talking anymore and if the old me felt the need to exit conversations gracefully, the new one doesn’t. I stand, surprising Bruce and force a smile. “Okay, see you later?”

He recovers quickly and smiles. “Yes, Lev. Later, and I’m here anytime you need to talk, okay?”

Start actually answering my questions and I will, I think bitterly as I leave.

I find gym clothes in the bag someone packed for me, as well as a set of earbuds. Huh, maybe I’ll get more of sense of who Lev was if I listen to her music choices too.

The training area is empty when I get there, which is better than I’d hoped for. I don’t want anyone watching me right now or, even worse, trying to help.

I jab experimentally at the display on the treadmill and start walking. Bruce’s right, the practical shit is still here, I can work a treadmill, but if you asked me what my favourite colour was, I’d be lost.

Oh well, at least this gives me something to do besides sleep.

After a while, I speed up, moving into a jog. Even though I’m still stiff and sore, it feels good to move, and my body seems to remember doing it and doing it well. I catch sight of me in the mirrors and can’t help but smile. I don’t know how much is hard work and how much is the serum, but I love this body, it’s toned curves and latent strength… if only my brain would catch up.

The doors open and I look up, turning down some bass-heavy rap song that old me used to listen to and stumble on the track.

He looks as surprised to see me as I do him.

The infamous and rarely glimpsed Bucky.

He dithers at the door, clearly torn between continuing what he was doing or turning and leaving before setting his square jaw and marching inside. He nods once to me, averting his eyes and heads directly to the weights section.

I try not to stare as he gets started, putting in his own set of earbuds and grabbing a large set of dumbbells. Sweet baby Jesus, but the man is a work of art, and strong as an ox to boot.

I turn up my treadmill and music, forcing myself to look away because, damn.

But, despite myself, my eyes occasionally track back over.

Sweat darkens his tank top, his metal arm shining under the lights. His skin glows with good health and effort, each muscle cut and sharply defined. Small tendrils escape his man bun, sticking to his cheeks and the back of his neck. I can’t hear him over my music, but I imagine a very manly series of grunts as he works, straining at the weights, pushing for each rep. Maybe he swears too, the occasional gasped ‘fuck’ that wouldn’t be out of place in bed either-

Jesus. Calm the fuck down.

My fingers fly over the controls and some program flashes across the screen, something with lots of hills and valleys, whatever and, for awhile, I’m too busy trying to keep up to worry about Bucky. Then, movement nearby makes me flinch, a completely unexpected reaction.

Bucky, a few treadmills away, freezes at my response, something sad crossing his face, dimming the hope I see there, it looks like he was approaching me tentatively, perhaps to talk, and I had to go and spaz instead. I swallow, trying to think of something to say, a feat in itself since this program I chose is actually quite demanding and I’m working my ass off to keep up but, before I can think of anything, everything swirls grey and my knees give out. A loud thump hits my ears and I wonder if it’s my body bouncing off the track, but it doesn’t matter, because the comfort of oblivion has wrapped around me again and nothing else matters.

Raised voices wake me later, that and another monster of a headache. This is getting old, fast and I struggle to make sense of what’s going on around me.

“We need to tell her; she needs to know!”

“She needs to know, or you need her to know?”

It’s hazy, but I recognize the voices, Bucky and Steve, apparently arguing about something I need, or Bucky needs me to know. But then another voice weighs in, Bruce this time.

“We can’t rush her; this seizure just proves how fragile she still is.”

“No, the seizure was because someone told her she was okay to go to the gym!” Bucky snaps. “Who the fuck said that?” The way he asks it says he already knows and through slitted eyes, I see him squared off with the quiet doctor, his face a stormcloud of emotion, scary even. Steve intervenes, stepping deliberately between them. Tony appears, seemingly out of nowhere and the whole tense stand-off is dragged outside the medical lab, the doors cutting off any sound.

I can’t keep up with this shit and I let the darkness take me once more. Sleep is infinitely better right now than cryptic conversations I clearly was not meant to hear.

The next time I wake, my head is better, but my body still aches; what did I hit on the way down and I seriously consider just trying to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but there’s someone sitting beside me again.

It’s Bucky and he’s staring blankly at my hand, which is currently twined with his, tears in his eyes. He looks like sitting here beside me is absolutely killing him, or is it me? Something about me is hurting him. Does he feel bad I fell in the gym in front of him? Were we friends before all this happened?

I swallow painfully and the motion startles him back to life. He looks at me with indescribable pain in his eyes, like he’s dying to say something but can’t, maybe won’t. He’s the one I heard saying I needed to know earlier, what did he mean, what is so earth-shattering that the others seem to think I don’t need to hear yet?

His other hand reaches up and, I must still be semi-dreaming, because he strokes my forehead gently, an easy intimacy, like he has a right to my body and then he murmurs, so softly I almost don’t hear it.

“Baby.”

I jolt, but before I can get myself together enough to speak, he stands, giving me one last heartbreaking glance before leaving and I lay there for a long time in shock.

His voice; the few times I’ve heard him speak it was always in anger, arguing with Bruce or Steve or someone; I’ve never heard him tender, speaking softly and, now that I have, more questions flood into my tangled brain.

His voice is the one I hear in my dreams, the one that makes me feel safe and loved.

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes angst #bucky and lev #bucky and levi #bucky barnes drama #the avengers

[secretlywritings]

Deceive [1/?]

Synopsis: What happens when Sirius Black approaches a Ravenclaw girl in his year, in hopes of fake dating her to make his and her crush jealous?

Word count: 514 words

Pairing: Sirius Black x reader 

Warnings: Nothing

Requested: Yes/No

A/N: This is garbage but oh well (I didn’t proofread this by the way)

She doesn’t know how she found yourself in her current predicament, cornered by one of the infamous Marauders, being asked a very strange favor.

“So, what d’ya think?” Sirius Black’s obnoxious voice cuts her line of thought. 

“No, absolutely not! I’m not going to fake date you for your own gain. Go find someone willing to do that and bugger off!” She exclaims, trying to walk past him. She doesn’t get far before she feels his hand close on her wrist, tugging her back to his body. 

“Just hear me out! I know you like that bloke Timmy-”

“His name is Thomas.” She interrupts him, her heart beating faster at the thought of the blond Ravenclaw boy. 

“Whatever, you get what I mean. This will totally work, and not only will I start going out with Marlene, you will start dating Titus-” 

“Thomas.” She glares at him. 

“And we’ll both be living happily ever after.” The boy continues, ignoring the interruption, grinning at the exasperated girl in front of him. “Come on you know you want to do this.” He tries convincing her. She looks into his silverly eyes, pondering whether she should go on with his idea or not. Because it is a very stupid idea, but what’s the worst that could happen? 

“Okay! Fine!” She relents, twisting her arm out of his grip and instantly regretting her decision when she truly realizes what she has signed up for. The mischievous boy gives her a toothy grin, seeing the despair in her eyes, swiftly solidifying his plan before she has time to back out,

“I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me, love.” He throws in the pet name, leering at her when she glowers at him. “What? Since we’re dating now we have to act like a real couple, no?” He chuckles at the Ravenclaw girl. 

“You are insufferable, I already regret this.” She huffs, not bearing the thought of being around the boisterous Gryffindor for more than 3 hours. “Let’s set this straight, Brown, no kissing. And I mean it.” She emphasizes her point by thrusting her pointer finger into his chest, trying her best to keep her face level with his. The brunet faux pouts at her, but relents when he realized that he’s already lucky enough to have gotten her in with the idea. 

“That’s alright with me, I will carry on with the pet names, Babe” He insists, content with the fact that he has won her over, because honestly? He didn’t think she’d agree to this, he brought up her long-time crush on a whim, in hopes of convincing her. 

“Whatever.” She mumbles, the conversation having worn her out mentally. She pushes past the smug boy and begins her trek to the Ravenclaw common room, ready to bury herself under the soft blankets on her bed and forgetting the entire ordeal. 

“See you tomorrow at breakfast, Dear!” Sirius enthusiastically hollers at her retreating form, chuckling when he sees her giving him the finger from behind. 

#harry potter #hogwarts #the marauders #sirius #sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #sirius black x y/n #sirius black imagine #fake dating

[chaoskirin]

Short Story--Afraid

Luka deals with the aftermath of trauma by coming to terms with her fears. Letting go requires a trust that she barely feels ready to give. Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy Rating: PG-13 for some blood/gore Word Count: 3689/10 pages

Okay to reblog.

Afraid

"What are you afraid of?" Vilo asked. He sat across from her in a high-backed chair, its style somewhere between ornate and common. Upholstered in scarlet, its wavy legs tapered downward into clawed feet. Luka counted the multitude of tiny brass studs on the edges of the cushions and the scratches in the gold leaf. She focused on the dangling red threads which had accumulated from years of use. None of that really mattered, but it did give her a reason to avoid answering the question.

"Luka."

"You ask this every week," she answered, glancing up at him. His stylus remained poised over his terminal.

"And I think it's time you answered," Vilo said, setting the terminal aside. He folded his hands on his lap, patient as ever, and offered a smile. When Luka met his eyes, she noticed the tell-tale green shine indicating his...

Condition.

All therics could see it. Some people got away with telling their friends and family that they had elvish blood to explain the strange cast to their eyes, but therics saw something deeper. Something no one else could see, which set them apart from everyone else. Vilo would never be able to deny what he was to Luka, no more than she could deny it to him.

It's why she chose him above all the others. He possessed a unique perspective that other therapists lacked. And sure, her mandated recovery and treatment plan involved seeking out a psychologist and coming to terms with her trauma, but Luka refused to settle for the in-house counselors the hospital threw at her. If she intended to recover, she was going to do it properly. And if that meant seeking out a theric--who also happened to be a counselor--in the next town over, that's just what she'd do.

But she hated that she could see that emerald shimmer. That emerald reminder...

"What do you want me to say?" she asked. "You know what I'm afraid of."

"I chose to become what I am," Vilo said. "You were attacked. I don't share your fears."

No one might ever suspect. He really could have had elvish blood, after all, with his long black hair and ashy skin. He was older, but not old. Sophisticated, with barely a hint of the tell-tale wrinkles and lines that might give away his age. He bore a sharp contrast to Luka, whose hair at one temple started coming in grey not a week after her mauling. She hadn't slept a full night in so long that the hollows around her eyes were permanently dark.

But Vilo's expression always held a gentle cast, which Luka found comforting even when her doubts started to take over. She couldn't for the life of her figure out why he'd chosen to give up long life and a successful career to become a monster.

No. He said she shouldn't think of therics as monsters. Shapeshifters could be dangerous if they wanted to be, but the general population didn't consider people like Vilo and Luka an outright threat. Sure, therics were held with some contempt and a healthy dose of suspicion, but they were no longer run out of town. They weren't considered beasts and horrors. People were wary, but not terrified.

Usually.

Luka wrapped her arms more tightly around herself.

"You seem tense. Are you in danger of shifting?" Vilo asked.

The gentle question drew Luka out of her thoughts, and she shook her head. "No. No, I have that under control." It had, after all, been half a year--or thereabouts--since she was attacked, and she hadn't accidentally shifted for the last couple months. "Anyway..." she added, trailing off as she tried to decide whether or not to go on. "I starve myself before our sessions--"

"Luka!"

"I don't want to take the chance, all right? It hurts!"

"Luka, if you have it under control, you need to trust yourself," Vilo said. "The emotion-fueled changes stop once your blood adapts. You're at that point. Please. You don't have to take extra precautions anymore. Especially not those that hurt you."

Her stomach growled in protest. Vilo sighed, pulled open his desk drawer, and retrieved a granola bar. "Even if you're afraid of Emosis, this is barely enough to fuel a change. Please. Is that also why you're tired?"

After a moment of hesitation, Luka accepted the offering, tearing open the paper wrapping as slowly as possible to avoid eating it. "If I'm tired... If there's not enough energy..."

Vilo pressed his lips together.

She supposed she shouldn't exhaust herself, either. "I can't sleep anyway. I always..." She trailed off, curling her lip.

Bitterly, she tore at the paper.

As soon as the scent of honey reached her nose, Luka could no longer resist. She'd pushed herself to the point of near-collapse. Everything within her screamed for relief. Somehow, the granola bar disappeared, though she barely remembered devouring it.

"Better?" Vilo asked.

"No," she snapped, petulant.

He chuckled. "Well, we've covered one fear. Promise you'll be fed and well-rested next time?"

Not one to lie, Luka said, "I'll think about it."

Vilo shrugged a bit and reached for his terminal. That was all the answer he'd get for now. "Well, then. I guess that's as good as I can ask for."

He waited. This was the part where she was supposed to talk.

Somehow, Luka felt that if she kept those fears inside, she could prevent them from becoming real. Even though he denied it, Vilo must have some idea of her worries. Every theric--from the most dangerous tiger to the sweetest, tamest deer--feared becoming feral, after all, and she knew she'd at least mentioned those fears in passing. How could she accept this terrifying reality without addressing those fears in detail?

Fine. Fine.

"If my friends find out..." she started.

She waited for Vilo to interject. He didn't.

"If they find out, there's people who... Well. Theric history..." Usually, Luka spoke with eloquence, if not a bit of sarcasm and bite. Today, though, words failed her. She imagined them as a torrent locked behind a dam, with only a tiny trickle spilling through a minute fissure. Her thoughts existed en masse, but there were far too many to properly express.

Break it down.

Carefully. Brick by brick.

"Back before people knew the cycle," she began, chipping away at the barrier. "When it all seemed random. When therics would... Go crazy."

"Feral," Vilo reminded her. "It's part of what we are. An avoidable part of what we are. But regardless, it's not crazy or insanity. No different than migrating birds, or the songs of whales."

Luka felt 'crazy' was a more appropriate descriptor. Sure, those who went feral didn't do so on purpose. They were at the whim of their very nature. But a feral theric was a deadly theric, no matter how you framed it, which meant she'd have to be careful for the rest of her life. Besides, 'crazy' seemed to be the term every non-theric preferred; perhaps if Luka labeled herself as such, the rest of the world would accept her?

But she'd play Vilo's game. "When they used to go feral, they'd kill people. That's what everyone remembers, isn't it? Everyone talks about Besef the Insane. Davir the Forest Shadow. Even the one who attacked me, they're calling him--"

"The one who attacked you," Vilo interrupted. "You're worried you'll become like him."

"If I forget," Luka agreed. "Just once. If I forget just once--I know it's not likely right now, but if I get too comfortable or too... complacent. In a few years, maybe..."

"Turn your fear into a warning," Vilo said. "Ground yourself with it. Use it to remind yourself of the rules. The limits."

"But if..." Luka repeated. "I could hurt someone. I could kill someone. And I'm a Null Magic, and--I mean people are afraid of spiders as it is. But a giant spider, with venom..."

"I can't say it will never happen. But that's why you're here. To learn. To temper your fears. To do your best to prevent it."

The fear manifested as a painful stinging in all her senses as tears tried to form. She bit down on her lip to force the emotion away. To bury it. "I could be so careful," she said. "But one little slip-up... If I trusted someone enough to tell them, they might not trust me anymore. They could leave. And if I shift in front of someone..."

"If someone learns about you and abandons you, were they worth knowing in the first place?"

"Maybe?" Luka muttered. "Some people don't know much about thericry. If they'd learn, maybe it'd be different. But if I wasn't goin' through this, I know I'd be just like everyone else. Thinking about old superstitions and the ones who've gone feral and... I've only just learned about all the advances and the treatments. But I can't ask anyone else to read everything I have. Even if I did, I could still end up alone."

Vilo was silent for a long time, then he asked again, "What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid he'll find out," Luka said, unbidden.

"Who?"

"Claey. My brother. My twin. I have this dream..." She shook her head, waving the sentiment away with a slash of one hand. "It's hard to describe. It's more like... I feel it."

"I am a mage of Nebula," Vilo said. "I find it comes in handy when my patients are dealing with traumatic dreams." He stood, grabbed the arms of his chair, and dragged it closer. The clawed feet made a gentle prrrrrt sound against the low-pile rug. Once he was a mere arm's reach away, he re-settled himself and held out his hand. "May I?"

"Will I see...?"

"I'm afraid so. Yes."

But she wouldn't have to describe it. She wouldn't have to tell it from her own perspective. To give it to an outside observer to interpret...

He withdrew his hand. "It's okay. When you're ready--"

"No," Luka interrupted. "I am. I just..."

He reached toward her again. As she took his hand, she felt a gentle peacefulness fall over her. Not quite sleep, but something just on its outskirts. Her breathing came easier for just a moment, before the swirls of pleasant color became something much darker.

---

Memories stored themselves in different ways, depending on whether you were a human, faun, harpy, or anything else, really. And each species had their own unique boundaries to navigate in order to get to those memories.

Nothing ever disappeared. Sentient minds contained more storage space than even the most sophisticated terminal. Had more processing power than a linked caustal server. The only thing that could rival a sentient mind in sheer wonder was another mind--the astrally-linked consciousness of a dragon. Such a wonderful computer had no need to delete its data; even at death, the natural mind would have room enough within its folds to store another ten lifetimes, each memory preserved as a pristine treasure.

It was one of the primary reasons Vilo studied Nebula's magic.

Even dreams remained in their full sensory splendor, tucked away within the deep subconscious. Sometimes he spent hours searching for them, following the faded trails of fear or concern or sometimes even resoluteness.

But Luka's dream swirled right at the forefront of her mind, so he only needed to coax the sharpness of it with the slightest thought.

Dreamsearching, as far as Vilo was concerned, came with a single unfortunate caveat: he always experienced everything through the perspective of the dream's originator. Better mages could create an invisible vessel for themselves within the dream and hide in plain sight, so as not to alter the memory of the person with whom they were dreamsearching. He wished he had that talent, but this would do.

And so he stared through Luka's eyes upon a trail of blood, which led down a hill and into a shadowy copse of trees. In all his years as a therapist, he'd never seen a more violent image.

He felt her concern and confusion and hesitation. As Vilo was a middling mage of Nebula at best, he could do nothing to block the dream from her. He tried, but as the image started to darken within his own sight, he gave up and allowed the dream to continue.

And so the horror played back as it always had, recurring in its entirety.

Week after week.

They passed a severed leg. An arm. All that was left of Luka's twin, according to the reports.

When they finally reached the treeline, Claey met them and prevented them from going further. Incomprehensibly, he still had both arms and both legs, which made a twisted sort of sense since Luka had never seen him otherwise. Dreams contradicted themselves terribly at times, like a poor liar caught in his own trap.

Bloodied and torn, Claey appeared as if he'd been through a grievous battle. His wounds shifted, like red-worm gashes meandering macabre paths across his skin. Occasionally, pearl-white bones would appear, glowing through the forest's shadow.

Neither Claey nor Luka said a word, but the understanding passed between them that this was Luka's fault. Had she not begged him to accompany her to collect the charged stones--glowing rocks suddenly appeared around them on the hill--this wouldn't have happened. They both knew a feral theric hunted the hill near their home, but Luka made them take that chance anyway. Selfish. Selfish Luka. Didn't you care about anyone else?

Claey extended an arm to point, an accusing scowl on his face. Behind him, in the darkest shadows of the trees, an indistinct, vaguely bear-shaped creature tore at him with serrated claws. Wherever the beast touched skin, parts of Claey would fade away into nothing. Eventually, he hung between the trees like a ghost, as the creature prowled around his faded remains.

"I will tell them about you," Claey finally said, his voice hollow. "I will warn them so this never happens again."

"I won't," Luka said. "I wouldn't..."

"I will tell them," he repeated. "It must not happen again."

"I'll be alone," Luka said.

And once more, Claey spoke. "I will tell everyone that you are a killer."

---

As the images faded, Luka had only enough energy to stare blankly ahead.

It took Vilo a few seconds longer to return. His draping sleeves rustled against the chair as he cradled his head in both hands.

Perhaps seeing the dream again had been worth it, if she could share the trauma. At least one person believed her--one person understood why sleep came to her with such difficulty. Because when she was alone, it was all she could think about. And if she closed her eyes, she saw...

"I'm sorry," she said. "I should have warned you."

Vilo sat up, taking a deep breath. It took him quite some time to recover. Between breaths, he explained, "I lack the magical talent of other mages, but I do pride myself on being able to separate my patient's dreams from my own feelings. It's all right. It's like watching a film, really."

He still looked shaken, and Luka still felt bad.

"That must be very hard for you," he finally said. "I can see why you think it's your fault."

"It is," Luka insisted. "If I hadn't--"

"Can you predict the future?"

She shook her head. "But I knew there was a theric around."

"Did you call it? Make it come to you?"

"Of course not."

"And if everything had gone fine and you both went home safe, would you have said you predicted that, too? Because if you're able to predict all the bad things in life, you must be able to foresee the good, too."

"I don't... I don't think I would have thought about it at all."

Vilo nodded. "Maybe you made a bad judgment call. But you didn't cause what happened to happen. The universe operates based on the decisions of billions. Trillions. And unless you effected every single decision that led up to that very moment... Claey's death wasn't your fault. And what happened to you... That wasn't your fault, either."

It infuriatingly made sense. An ugly sort of sense. One Luka could still poke holes in and argue against. "But now I--"

"Ah! Now! Yes. Concentrating on the present. We've got you out of the past. Excellent."

"That's not what I meant!"

Vilo shrugged. Getting to his feet, he moved the chair back a few steps and reached for his terminal again. "Go on, then."

She narrowed her eyes. "Now I have to worry about what people think. What my friends think." And there weren't many of them. Luka kept people at arm's-length, not out of any personal necessity or fear, but because her focus tended to wander toward her projects. Her mechanima. Living creations with artificial intelligence that rivaled life.

"They can't think anything if you don't tell them anything. They can't support you if you cut them out."

Maybe it was time. "There's someone--But if he finds out. If he sees the scars..." She scratched at the most obvious one, a pair of slashes on her lower left arm, still healing and angry-red. But etched across her back, covered by two layers of clothing--just in case--stretched a mosaic of pain. Injuries caused by a theric might heal on the inside, but the scarring would last forever. And if someone saw, just the quickest of glimpses, they would know.

And they'd judge her.

Luka rubbed her shoulder, where the were-bear clamped its teeth down all the way to the bone. It still hurt and limited her mobility, but the underlying tissue damage would heal completely with time. A lot of time. But if her shirt collar slipped sideways just a little bit, someone could see the scars...

"You have to have friends," Vilo said. "Everyone needs companionship."

"If they find out--"

"The might. But if you don't trust people, you'll never know how they'll react. They could help you. They could support you. Have your best interests at heart."

"Or they could... Do the opposite. Of that."

"But we can't predict the future. You can't live in fear because you're afraid."

"But..." She hesitated. "Claey--"

"Claey is gone. He's out of your life." The words were harsh, cutting straight to the point. "Even the mightiest necromancer couldn't bring him back."

Right or not, it hurt to hear. Curling her lip, Luka jumped to her feet and faced Vilo, hands clenched so tightly that her fingernails cut into her palms. Before--weeks ago, when she was first hurt, this sudden temper would have triggered a change. She would have started shifting. But with as much control as she had over it now, she felt nothing, even after devouring the granola bar. It defused the explosive anger. Not entirely, but enough. "He's always here!" she snapped.

"Who is he really?" Vilo asked, infuriatingly calm. "In your dream."

"What?" Luka demanded. Honestly, it was the last question she expected, especially because he'd just seen it. Every piece of it, every blood-soaked blade of grass. Every cut and bruise. Every piece of her twin she'd left behind.

She sat back down.

"Besides mages of Nebula, who can affect your dreams?"

"But he's there... He's so real."

"Who is he really?" Vilo asked again.

Why hadn't the answer been obvious before? "It's me?" Luka asked. Then with more confidence, repeated, "It's me."

"Is your brother going to return and tell your friends what happened to you? Is he really out there, waiting for you to get close to someone so he can warn them about what you are?"

She hesitated, the what if still on her mind. Even if he could--even if the 'mightiest necromancer' could resurrect Claey and bring him back, would he really hurt her like that? Would he really blame her for his death?

"No," Luka said.

---

Processing her session took a couple days, during which Luka both denied the truth and came to terms with it. Claey died. He was gone. He wasn't coming back. And her life and every action she took had to fall under her own responsibility. She had to live now. Not in the past, which she couldn't change, nor in the future, of which she had no control.

She picked up her pocket terminal several times, only to set it back down again. Frustrated one night, and trapped in her room because of her affliction, she spun a web around it and threw it out the window as far as she could lob it. Retrieving it later was a labor of necessity and love.

To distract herself, she created.

As the sun set one night, she set her project aside, picking up a shard of charged stone instead. It was the same stuff she'd dragged Claey out to gather the night they were attacked... With the right wiring, a bit of directive and a starter personality, the tiny, fingernail-sized chip could power one of her steel and wire creatures for years. It glowed faintly in her hand as she rolled it between her fingers.

She couldn't undo the past. She couldn't put the stone back where she found it and fix everything. She couldn't negate her loss out of sheer will.

Setting the stone aside, Luka turned her attention to her terminal. If she called someone, she couldn't predict what would happen. Maybe it wouldn't work out. Maybe she'd be hurt again, or maybe... "Goodbye, Claey," she muttered. They'd talk again one day. But right now, he was gone, and she had to take care of herself.

On her terminal, she entered a code she'd dialed so many times, she had it memorized. Until this night, though, she never managed to complete the call. Out of fear, out of reluctance, out of an overabundance of caution... She really couldn't say. This time, though, as her heart skipped a beat, Luka tapped transmit...

#the bestiary #fantasy #modern fantasy #monster #myth #mythology #sci-fi #mythological creature #ck's art #ck's original art #ck writes #Luka Ivrian #theric #werecreature #lycanthropy #werewolf #spider #were spider #shapeshifter #shapeshifting

[queenofcats17]

Hey.. I'm trying to get back into writing for my AU again. So I thought I'd send in a story idea I had. I always loved reading the things you wrote for my AU and the characters so I thought maybe sending in a prompt would help me get comfortable with writing again.. sorry if that sounds confusing. My idea was a story with Stage 4 Henry and Allison and Tom, at their safe house. I just thought it would be interesting. You don't have to write this if you don't want to.. It's fine.

I kind of missed your prompts, honestly. I’m sorry you’re not feeling so great right now, but I’m happy to write this for you.

Tom and Allison didn’t encounter many people in the studio. They tended to stay on the lower levels, avoiding anyone who could tell Joey of their location. Occasionally they’d run across Sammy on the level most of the Lost Ones resided at, but they’d all agreed that the Lost Ones’ village was a neutral zone. Regardless, there weren’t a lot of people who sought them out for any reason. Which was why it was so surprising when Bendy the Dancing Demon came running to them with what appeared to be a half-dead human on his back. This in itself was strange. They didn’t see humans too often. 

“Bendy, what are you doing down here?” Allison asked, kneeling down so she was eye level with the little demon. He never came this far down into the studio. And she was fairly certain she’d never seen him this distraught before. He was normally so bright and chipper, despite the current situation they found themselves in. He always found it fun to tease Tom.

“You gotta help him.” Bendy was in tears, pushing the human toward Allison and Tom. “H-He’s starting to lose it. I can’t lose him! Please! Help!” Allison turned her attention to the man on Bendy’s back, reaching out to him. Tom quickly pulled her back though.

“Tom! What was that for?” She pulled her arm away, giving him a warning look. Tom pointed to the man on Bendy’s back, making a gesture. The gesture that he’d developed to mean ‘infected’. Allison froze, looking cautiously down at Bendy and the man. 

“Bendy…Did you bring an infected creature down here?” She asked slowly, using her calmest and kindest voice. Bendy nodded, sniffling as he held the man close. 

“Please, you gotta help him.” He repeated.

“Who is he?” Tom tightened his grip on his ax. He and Allison had worked hard to stay out of Joey’s gaze and away from anything that might turn them into creatures like Allison.

“It’s Henry,” Bendy said. “He made me.”

“Henry?” Allison and Tom said together. 

“Y-You guys know him, right?” Bendy allowed himself a hopeful smile. “He’s your friend, right? So you’ll help him, right?” They certainly knew of Henry, but neither had ever actually met him. Sammy and Norman had talked about him a lot, having worked with him, but neither brought him up when Joey was around. Henry had always been a…sensitive topic when it came to Joey. The studio head’s obsession had likely only grown with the addition of black magic. 

“Look, kid-” Tom started to speak, ready to tell Bendy to take Henry back upstairs. It was too dangerous to have him around.

“We’ll take him back to the safehouse.” Allison interrupted him. “We can keep an eye on him there, okay?” Tom’s head snapped around so he was looking at Allison.

“Just trust me,” Allison said, putting a comforting hand on Tom’s shoulder. She had that look in her eyes. Allison had always been a very maternal person, so her attachment to Bendy was understandable. Bendy was just a scared little kid most of the time. So Tom didn’t argue with her when she indulged Bendy’s whims. But this…This was different. Still, when faced with her pleading gaze, he conceded. 

“Alright. But the kid has to carry him.”

And so they made their way back to the safehouse. Henry stirred a few times but mostly stayed out until they’d set him up in a makeshift cell. They didn’t like it, but they couldn’t just leave him out in the open. There was always the possibility he’d transition into stage 5 and try to attack them while they slept.

“I don’t like putting him in there,” Bendy said as Tom finished boarding up the entrance. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It’s for his protection and ours,” Allison assured him. “He can’t hurt himself in there.” And he couldn’t hurt them either. They couldn’t be infected themselves, but the Searchers tended to attack anything that wasn’t one of their own.

“You hungry?” Tom asked, stepping in to try and take Bendy’s mind off the situation. 

“A little.” Bendy nodded. 

“Hope you like soup.” Tom went to retrieve a can from their stash. “‘Cause it’s all we’ve got.”

“I do like soup.” Bendy smiled slightly.

“Why don’t you get yourself a bowl?” Allison patted his head. “I’m sure we have one around here somewhere.”

“A bowl?” Bendy’s eyes widened. “A real bowl? Joey never lets me eat out of a real bowl!”

“That’s because Joey is a big dumb stinky who doesn’t share,” Allison said. 

“Yeah!” Bendy grinned before scampering off to find the aforementioned bowl. With him gone, Allison turned her attention back to Henry, who was just waking up. 

“Wha…? Where am I?” He sat up and looked around blearily. “Am I…in a cage?”

“Well, it’s a cell.” Allison smiled apologetically. “It was too dangerous to leave you out in the open. I hope you understand.”

“I do. Don’t worry.” Henry drew into himself a bit, hugging his knees. “I don’t want to hurt anyone again.”

“Again?” A growl entered Tom’s voice.

“Tom.” Allison shot him a warning look. 

“I almost infected Annette.” Henry took a deep, shuddering breath. “I almost…I almost hurt her.” He buried his face in his hands, trying to fight back tears. 

“Who’s Annette?” Allison asked. But Henry wouldn’t answer, devolving into sobs. Bendy returned a few minutes later with a bowl and a salvaged spoon. Allison tried to direct his attention away from the distraught animator, but Bendy kept glancing back at Henry.

.

The next day, although day was a relative term when you couldn’t tell if it was light or dark, Allison tried asking about Annette again. Henry seemed a bit more stable since he’d stopped crying, although Allison had been able to hear him muttering to someone while she’d been trying to sleep. 

“Henry, who’s Annette?” She asked. 

“She’s my friend,” Henry replied. “She came here with me. I should have sent her away. I shouldn’t have let her come to this place.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Tom said. “None of us could have predicted Joey would go this far.” He was sitting a safe distance away, tinkering with his mechanical arm. Bendy had gone out to visit Sammy and the Lost Ones, so the angel and wolf had decided to get their information. 

“Tom’s right.” Allison agreed. “We came back, all of us. None of us knew how dangerous it was going to be.” 

“She’s probably safer without me there.” Henry continued. “Boris can keep her safe better than I can.” It was at this point that he finally got a good look at Allison and Tom. He frowned, tilting his head to the side. 

“Who…Who are you two?” He asked. 

“I’m Allison, and that’s Tom.” Allison gestured to herself and then Tom.

“Did you….work here?”

“Unfortunately.” Tom snorted. “I fixed machines and Alli did voices.”

“I was a voice actress.” Allison corrected him. “Joey brought me on to replace Susie as Alice Angel. You can tell how well that turned out.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“No reason for you to be sorry, kid,” Tom said. “You didn’t do this. Drew did.”

“Still, I must be causing you some kind of trouble.” Henry insisted. “I’m infected. You must be scared I’ll infect you too.”

“You don’t need to worry about infecting anyone down here.” Allison reached through the slats of the cell to put a hand on Henry’s knee. “For whatever reason, perfect toons can’t be corrupted by the ink.” Imperfect toons were another story altogether. But that wasn’t important.

“Besides, it’s not like any of us can say no to that little demon.” Tom tried to sound as though he was inconvenienced by this, but Allison could see he was smiling. Henry allowed himself to smile as well. 

“He’s pretty cute, huh?” He said, rubbing the back of his head. “I never thought I’d get to meet him in real life, but he’s just as amazing I always imagined him.”

“He’s a good kid,” Tom said. Henry felt a warmth in his chest at this, almost a surge of pride. He wondered if this was what it was like to be a parent. He’d never gotten to experience the feeling before, due to Linda’s death. The only good thing that had come out of returning to the studio was meeting Boris and Bendy. Especially Bendy. 

.

That night, Bendy slipped into the cell to sleep with Henry. Despite Allison, Tom, and Henry’s warnings, he didn’t want his ‘father’ to be alone while he was going through this. So Bendy slept snuggled in Henry’s arms. Henry couldn’t help but watch Bendy sleep in the same way he imagined a parent would watch their child sleep. Bendy looked so young when he was sleeping. 

“We could all be a family if you’d just let me in,” Joey whispered, and Henry could feel his old friend’s hands on his back. “It could be everything you’ve ever imagined. We could be happy.”

“Go away,” Henry said. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Come on, don’t you want to be a father?” Joey purred. “I know it’s something you’ve always wanted.”

“If I’m going to be a father, it will be on my terms, not yours.” Henry held Bendy a little closer. The little demon stirred a bit, burrowing closer before settling back into sleep.

“Henry, don’t be difficult.” Joey pressed his ghostly cheek against Henry’s. “I don’t want to make this any more difficult than it has to be.”

“I told you, go away,” Henry repeated. “There’s no one you can force me to infect down here. There’s no one you can make me hurt.” For a moment, Joey was silent. Then Henry felt him smile. 

“Oh, Henry. You have no idea how much pain I’m capable of inflicting.”

A moment later, he was gone. Henry was left staring at the shelves outside his cell. 

“Henry? Are you alright?” Allison’s bleary voice came from around the corner, where she and Tom slept. 

“Yeah. I’m fine.” He hoped his voice wasn’t shaking as much as he thought it was. 

“…Alright.” He could hear her shift as she rolled over, presumably to go back to sleep. Henry closed his eyes, focusing on the comforting weight of Bendy in his arms. They were going to be alright. They were going to be fine. 

#bendy and the ink machine #fanfiction #batim saudade au #henry #allison angel #tom boris #bendy the dancing demon #joey drew

[ikesenhell]

Shapes

This is Chapter 5 of I See Starlight. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: SPOILERS FOR TO HONOR AND PROTECT. If you have not read it, please go back and do so before proceeding. THIS WAS A LIVEWRITE! … at literally three-four in the morning. A very special shout out to the trio that hung out and line edited my work: @velociraptor-detective, Brie, and @stardust-and-ashes​

Mitsuhide often forgot that he couldn’t open his eyes anymore. Masamune told him this might happen. In the first few moments of bleary consciousness, his first instinct was to try and crack those eyelids apart from his cheek and the jolt of pain as he rediscovered the fused skin. That woke him up pretty well.

But this morning was unique. A rumble of something against his chest roused him first, and then came the familiar ritual with his eyes. What the devil was that? He stroked his fingertips gently downward and explored the topography of this strange new land. There was the softened ridge of her shoulder. He felt the cool drape of her hair in his fingertips, working his knuckles through it, following the river over the valley of her waist. And there--there was the offending rumble. Hideyoshi emitted a soft snore again, rolling his head to the side. Mitsuhide nearly laughed. Instead he just cupped his hand around the man’s cheek and felt the sound with his own hands. It vibrated off his skin and up his arm.

And the weight was… comfortable. When was the last time he woke up with someone else, let alone two? The question took him back far enough that he stopped trying to remember and settled instead for nuzzling his mouth down into the cold silk of her scalp, resigning himself to the melody of breath and the calming cry of sea birds outside the window.

Mitsuhide was well acquainted with his own feelings. He’d been alone with them often enough to really dig in, to crush them and use them and manipulate them to his whims. In the fragile stillness of the morning, he allowed himself to really feel them. No one was awake to watch the run of thoughts on his face. Pensive and uncertain, he walked his fingertips featherlight down the length of her arm and Hideyoshi’s neck, relishing the weight of them on his ribs despite himself.

They deserved more than this. Didn’t they? He was only half-surprised at lumping Hideyoshi in with that particular train of thought. In retrospect it wasn’t that unexpected. Not that he’d spent much time courting the company of men, exactly, but he’d never shunned the advance either. Either one suited his purposes from time to time.

But he wasn’t using them--not for services he couldn’t get elsewhere, at least--and that part had him thinking more than anything.

Hideyoshi snored again, jolting him from his thoughts. That time he did laugh. His chest jostled her enough that she stirred in his arms, rolling against him and settling her mouth against the curve of his arm.

“Mitsuhide?” She murmured sleepily, and he wondered if he’d ever heard anything better in his life. He found the curve of her cheek with his thumb and worked his hand over her face, memorizing every curve and line. Her nose had a slight ridge, only upturned the tiniest bit at the end. Her mouth was full and small (which was a trend on her in general, it seemed), her jaw soft. Without prompting, she planted a kiss into his palm and his heart surged so hard it caught his breath in the crossfire.

“Hush, little mouse,” he managed. “Comfortable?”

“Mhmmm.”

Now Hideyoshi grunted awake. His awakening was far less graceful. A snort; the familiar inhale of someone who wasn’t quite sure where he was and a long stretch. Mitsuhide imagined he’d been sleeping in that distinct Hideyoshi way: arms crossed tight over his chest, head rocked back as if he were still the bandit sleeping against a tree. “Huh?”

“You hush too,” Mitsuhide snickered, his laugh jostling her head once more. Apparently that felt funny, because she giggled too. “You’re warming my legs nicely down there.”

“Hng.” Hideyoshi grunted and made to move, but Mitsuhide worked a languid hand through the other man’s hair and he stilled again, dropping his head back onto her waist. “That’s not fair. I’ve got PT.”

“Kenshin can come and get you himself. I’m quite content being here. As for fairness, I didn’t even realize you had a thing about your hair, my friend.”

Heat radiated clear up through Hideyoshi’s scalp and Mitsuhide tried not to laugh again, utterly failing. She twisted and tried to bury her smile into the cushions, but now it caught to Hideyoshi, the familiar puff of breath he always released when grinning despite himself floating in the air. “And you’ve got a thing for people laying on you. I guess fair is fair.”

“Do I? Do I have a thing?”

“I don’t know, Mitsuhide, you’ve got two people putting your legs to sleep, no doubt.”

But the three of them lay there a long while yet, stretching in turns and waking with gentle slowness. Mitsuhide wrapped one arm over her hip and the free hand through Hideyoshi’s hair, wondering if it was half bad that he only had the touch of them to luxuriate in.

---

The three of them walked the cobblestone streets to the library. Hideyoshi carried the braille machine in his arms, its weight barely anything to him--especially with all the wild thoughts circling his mind.

What did last night mean? What did all that fond caressing mean? Was that just Mitsuhide being classic Mitsuhide, or was that something genuine? Had he overstepped his bounds with the half-awake Princess, or was she as unphased by it as she seemed? She blushed easier now. Was that good or bad? Was this going to be a reoccurring thing, or had it been a one off? If it was--

“Hideyoshi?”

He blinked at the hand in his face. She peered intently at him, her head cocked. “Are you okay?”

“Me? I’m just fine. Did you need something?”

“I asked if it was heavy. I can carry it a little.”

“Heavy?” He repeated, realizing he sounded less like a person and more like a parrot. “Oh, no, it’s not really heavy at all. Besides, I wouldn’t dream of making you carry it.”

Mitsunari was alone in the library today. He glanced up at the trio as they entered, a sweet smile on his face. “Hello!”

“Where are the glasses?” Hideyoshi asked, realizing all at once that the silver-haired man wasn’t wearing them. “Does the ocean suddenly have perfect vision?”

“Apparently!” Mitsunari grinned so wide that it made his eyes crinkle into little crescent moons. “I wouldn’t have guessed it myself. Maybe it’s less about being the ocean and more about coming back, but I don’t have any particular evidence either way.”

“See, this is why this whole ‘magic’ business completely throws me.”

Mitsuhide snickered and set his staff on the table, scooting it on his own toward the shelving for space. Hideyoshi almost went to help, but a gentle eyebrow raise from the Bookkeeper stilled him. The crash he feared never came; instead, Mitsuhide stopped just short of a collision, clapping his hands matter-of-factly. “Shall we?” “We shall!” Mitsunari flipped open a book, searching through the pages until he found something in particular. “And in fact, I think you’ll like what I’ve got in store today.”

“Oh? What is that?”

“Would you mind terribly if I didn’t tell you until after?”

Hideyoshi wondered for a long moment if he ought to press the issue, but Mitsuhide just shrugged. “I’m in your hands.”

“Aren’t you too tall for that?” The Bookkeeper quipped, realizing a second too late what she’d said. Her whole face turned a bright pink, but Mitsuhide laughed out loud.

“Such as it is. Shall we?” ---

Truthfully, he was a little anxious at not knowing exactly what he was doing. The bones of it felt the same: feeling his will inch through his body, taking charge of each muscle, the center of him surging like the glow of a lightning storm. Mitsunari guided him expertly through a world he didn’t quite understand with his words alone. All the sound of the library fell away, the familiar footing of ground lost to him.

It felt like infinity.

He’d been blind before, but it was so much worse now. Never before had he been so unseated. The urge to scream welled up in his throat, to reach out, to take something solid to moor him in this alien world. He wanted a hand. Desperate for a measure of comfort, Mitsuhide dug into the well of his memory and conjured the weight of her head on his ribs, Hideyoshi’s body draped over his legs, the ghost of a breeze over his face, the swell of his heart--

And then it was all over. Mitsuhide felt the floor beneath him again and he staggered, dropping to his knees and heaving. He felt Hideyoshi and her run to him--

Wait.

“Hold.” Mitsuhide waved his hand and they both stopped only feet from him. How did he know that? Curious and calm again, he reached out with his mind and groped along the floor, the table, the books in neat ridges along the shelving--

“I know where things are,” he gasped. “I know where everything is.”

“Uh…” Hideyoshi paused, then lifted his hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Four. Your left hand, specifically.”

A pause. Mitsunari knelt by his side and pat his back. “Are you alright? I know that couldn’t be pleasant--”

“Great.” Mitsuhide croaked, fastening that smile on his mouth. “I know where everything is. I’m bloody fantastic.”

“I’m behind you,” Hideyoshi muttered. “How did you know how many fingers? Can you physically see?”

“No.” He struggled to his feet and brushed himself off. “Hideyoshi, draw your sword.”

“What!?”

Mitsuhide reached to the side and stole Mitsunari’s with a long shnnk, raising it to a battle-ready stance. “I’m serious.”

“You’re--I--Mitsuhide.”

“If you don’t draw it, then this’ll hurt.”

The Bookkeeper gasped and dashed back against the table. Hideyoshi barely managed to parry the blow, the crash of steel on steel ringing through the library. Mitsuhide laughed with reckless abandon.

“I saw that,” he managed, “I saw that!”

Hideyoshi dropped his sword and closed the gap, wrapping him in a tight hug. Mitsuhide accepted it and they stood there a long while, rocking back and forth in the middle of the library, and for the first time in an eternity, Mitsuhide wondered if he might cry.

---

Kenshin put him through his paces with such gusto that Hideyoshi nearly ate his lip off with anxiety. Mitsuhide had never been their most stellar swordsman (though Mitsunari was always worse, despite their best efforts), but even with months off practice, he held his own. Every swipe, swing, thrust and riposte he anticipated, meeting the onslaught with a passable defense.

“You won’t die,” Kenshin pronounced at last. “Which is improved.”

Mitsuhide’s familiar smirk was a glory to behold. “Generous as always with your compliments.”

Masamune snorted. “Well, fuck. Hit me up with some of this magic bullshit.”

Yuki scowled. “I still don’t like it. Are there drawbacks?”

“Oh, undoubtedly.” Mitsuhide twirled the sword experimentally in his hands. “Mitsunari expects I’ll have terrific migraines from time to time, but we will have to see in the long run.”

“Is it reversible?”

“That I can’t say. For now, it works. That’s all I’m concerned with. I am the test subject, after all.”

Hideyoshi almost missed helping Mitsuhide navigate the world. It was bewildering to see him walk blind through the kitchen as easily as could be. There was plenty he still couldn’t do--anything flat still threw him through a loop. He was as reliant on his braille as ever.

“I can see the shape of things, not the texture or color or what have you. Even that is a little fuzzy. I have to focus.” Mitsuhide stretched in the library, playing his hand experimentally over the bookshelf a bit at a time. “And I still won’t be able to shoot. I can’t ‘see’ but a certain distance out.”

The Bookkeeper smoothed her satin skirts, settled in her desk chair. “And these… these migraines. How often do you think they’ll happen? How bad will they be? That would be a real drawback in a serious situation.”

“I’ve worked through some very severe circumstances before.” Easily as could be, Mitsuhide caught a chair under the lip and dragged it up beside hers to sit. “I can’t imagine a migraine that would put me out of commission so readily.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t worry.”

Mitsuhide grinned and teased his fingers under her chin. “Little Mouse, you don’t need to worry about me so much. You’ll start getting Hideyoshi’s eyebrow wrinkle.”

All at once, Hideyoshi realized he was wearing that exact expression. “I mean, you can’t blame us for being interested in your well being.”

Apparently their Kitsune had nothing to say to that. He just paused, cocking his head ever so slightly. “We shall see, won’t we?”

Despite Mitsuhide’s confidence, Hideyoshi still settled into the library with them. He wasn’t as invested in reading as the other man, so he watched the Bookkeeper and learned his way around her blueprints, slowly getting the hang of the drafts and measurements. Afternoon passed into night. Content with her progress on the braille machine’s final draft, she settled onto the couch beside Mitsuhide with a book, and Hideyoshi decided to occupy himself with cleaning his sword.

“So,” Mitsuhide asked at last, his low voice soft in the library. “I’m assuming we’re not all going to form a puddle again tonight?”

Silence reigned again. Hideyoshi and the Bookkeeper exchanged glances, a creeping blush overtaking both of them.

“I mean,” she started.

“Well--”

They both fell quiet and tried again at the same time.

“I didn’t--”

“If you were suggesting--”

Mitsuhide grinned like the devil and the Bookkeeper dipped her face into her hands, too embarrassed to continue. He teased a hand through her hair. “I’m only asking because I was rather fond of the setup.”

“I--” She took a deep breath and blurted out the rest of her sentence as one run-on. “I’m very self conscious because I think I like both of you and I don’t know what to do about that and it makes me think there is something wrong with me.”

Well, there it was. Hideyoshi wondered if saying nothing or everything was safer. Throat dry as the desert, he looked at Mitsuhide and imagined what it would be like to admit it.

“Let’s say I feel much the same about that sentiment,” Mitsuhide crooned. Hideyoshi waited for his face to light on fire (which it didn’t, and he frankly wasn’t sure if the distraction might have saved him). “If that were the case, Hideyoshi, then might you be on board?”

“Yes,” he managed. “Yeah. Probably.”

And that curling smile emerged. “Then let’s figure the rest out later. For tonight, I’m content just to have a few accomplices in a good night’s sleep.”

---

Mitsuhide woke in what he assumed to be the middle of the night. No birds disturbed the sweet ocean air. The icy chill of the northern wind struck to the core of him, but her head on his shoulder and Hideyoshi on his other warmed him enough. If it were a dream, it was good enough for now.

Silent and gentle, he worked his thumb over Hideyoshi’s cheek. The other man roused ever so slightly.

“Mitsuhide?” He croaked. “You need something?”

“No. I was just awake.”

“Are you sure you don’t need anything? You feel a little cold.”

A surge of affection took hold of him. He tapped a hand under Hideyoshi’s chin and guided him forward, half-expecting a fight or protest. None came. Instead he felt the warmth of lips against his, a brush of breath over his chin, the staccato shock of a man in the middle of a kiss and unsure what else to do aside from enjoy it.

“Nothing,” Mitsuhide murmured. “Nothing else.”

She stirred on his other shoulder. Obligingly, Mitsuhide combed a hand over her head and she tilted her face back. The same desire swelled inside him, and he planted a kiss on her forehead, nose, and mouth. She hummed against him and it felt so sweet that he caught the edge of her lip between his teeth, relishing the shiver of her spine.

“That was nice to wake to,” she sighed, settling back down on his chest.

“And nice to go back to sleep to.” Mitsuhide lay his head back against the pillow. “So back to sleep. Both of you. Tomorrow is another day.”

#Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen #Ikesen Fanfic #Ikesen Hideyoshi #Ikesen Mitsuhide #Bi!Mitsuhide #Bi!Hideyoshi #Fluff #Hideyoshi Toyotomi #Toyotomi Hideyoshi #HideHide #Mitsuhide Akechi #Akechi Mitsuhide #Engineer MC #I See Starlight #ISS #My writing #Shapes #Mitsunari Ishida #Ishida Mitsunari #Ikesen Mitsunari #Mage Mitsunari

[angstymarshmallow]

Wilted and Burdened (Jax x MC)

[A little note: Originally I was working on something trr related but abandoned that idea entirely and tried my hand at writing angst for Jax and MC instead. I can’t resist writing some good ol’ angst. From the way I say I love you prompts - 32 In a way I can’t return, thanks anon!] 

[Word Count:1789]

I love you.

Three little words that meant everything for a lot of people. Three little words that held a type of joy from effortlessly falling for someone. Three little words that made nothing else matter. But for others it was more complicated - too complicated to keep and more simpler to abandon. And to the rest it meant empty promises said in the heat of the moment, only for the regret to come later. 

But for Harlow, those three little words had meant the first thing. They had meant everything. A new and surreal experience she had finally realized with alarming clarity that had sent her heart racing. For her, it meant the beginning of something with the man nestled beside her.

He had been watching her sleep when she awoke and the words had tumbled from her lips after seeing his affectionate smile. A-spur-of-the-moment decision that rang with absolute clarity inside her heart despite the warning bells in her head; imploring her that it was far too early in their relationship. 

But slowly, the implications of her words dawned on her. And very quickly, I love you was becoming her ultimate demise as his eyes widened in shock.

He remained silent. 

And the words seemed to hang in the air between them; filling the room with uneasy silence left behind by his unspoken answer.

Harlow froze.

Her lips formed an o while the rest of her was still reeling from how quickly their circumstances had changed. It wasn’t long ago when the thought of vampires yet alone falling for one was inconceivable and yet here she was. 

When she met his unblinking stare, she swore the fine hairs on her skin went completely still. Unable to speak for a moment, she tried to close the increasing gap between them, wanting nothing more than to prove how much she loved him - only for him to pull back seconds before she could reassure him with a kiss.

His eyes had changed from its dark crimson back into its dark pools of abyss; eyes that she had often gotten lost in during moments like this were now looking at her strangely. 

He was staring at her in disbelief instead of echoing her sentiments. “What…” He slammed his mouth shut then opened it again. “What did you say?”

“I said I loved you.” She repeated, with more conviction this time. She had meant to be reassuring but instead her eyes caught the flash of panic staring back at her, mingled with the shadow of a pain she had seen only once before.

Was she completely wrong to tell him how she felt? Was everything she thought she felt between them was a lie?

No, she didn’t believe it was a lie.

“Jax…” Harlow trailed off. She tried to reach for him again until he shook his head. Her hand fell back to her side.

“I –” She stopped short, failing to find better words in explaining how strongly she felt for him. How far she had fallen since they met. And the more she thought about it, the more she thought those three little words weren’t nearly in describing how he made her feel and for everything he had ever done for her.  

. But saying it happened in a moment of weakness – a way for her to say she wanted forever – because being with a vampire, meant more than a temporary and fleeting whim. It was a declaration of love that she wanted with him for eternity.

And yet, watching the light she adored in his eyes snuff out – she was beginning to think that telling him the truth was a mistake. A mistake that made him stare at her as though she was a stranger instead of the woman he hadn’t spent the last few hours making love with.

She was wrong.

He hadn’t been ready to hear it – she knew that now as he got to his feet without meeting her expression. She knew that now as apprehension settled near the pit of her stomach and she rolled across the bed to try and find her bearings, to fight for composure. Blinking back tears and the sting of rejection, she tried again. She needed a reason to believe that he hadn’t felt the same, when everything he had ever done for her – seemed to tell a different story. “I don’t understand…did I do something wrong..?”

Why can’t you say it back? Why can’t you tell me you love me too?

She knew he thought about her. She could tell his feelings were strong from the amount of times she caught him staring, laughing at something she said and even from the way he held her inside his arms – there was never a moment since they grew closer with each passing day that she doubted he did.

               And yet the second she saw his panic – she wanted nothing more than to take the words back. To run to him and make some off-beat joke about how corny love confessions are; anything to bring his smile back. But she couldn’t. Even if she really wanted to, when she spoke those three little words into existence was the exact moment she had sealed her fate.

And fate was telling her, he was it for her. The real deal.

“Jax –”

The vampire who had often resonated quiet strength and resolve, an undeniable fierceness she admired seemed to be all but missing now. Instead, he clumsily slipped into his boxers and in his quick haste, yanked his shirt over his head to ignore her. “I should go.” He responded tersely, still avoiding her stare.

“Jax wait –” She sat upright, leaned close enough to grab his wrist – only for her fingers to come up empty.

“I shouldn’t have come by,” He continued as though he hadn’t heard her. “Coming by was a mistake. It’s unsafe for us right now…especially for you,” he took a ragged breath, finally meeting her stare with a clenched jaw. “Seeing you was selfish. Selfish and stupid.”

“That isn’t true.” Harlow said indignantly, jutting her chin at him. “I wanted to see you – you know nothing would’ve stopped me from coming to see you.” She took a deep breath for a moment, fighting the lump she felt by her throat. “Seeing you is the only thing that still makes sense in this – in this fucked up world we’re in right now.” Getting to her feet, she made quick strides to stand in front of him.

“And being with you…it’s like…” she trailed for a moment, searching his eyes. “It’s the only thing that still makes sense, especially when the rest of the world right now is falling apart.”

“Harlow –” His voice was weak, a gentle plea for her to stop as he took a step back.

“Why can’t you say it back?” She demanded suddenly, taking a step forward. She pointed her fingers to his chest until he caught her hand. “Why can’t you say you love me too?” She demanded, feeling the corner of her eyes sting. “We see each other all the time – and every moment I’ve spent in your arms, is the only time I’ve ever felt loved. Cherished.”

Eyes flashing in anguish, he looked away and dropped her hand. “You only think you do.”

“Oh no, you don’t get to do that.” Her voice was rising, spiralling out of control with the rest of her emotions. Everything had been on edge for so long, she felt as though the rest of her was on standby to fall apart. “You do not get to tell me how I feel,” she shook her head adamantly. “Even if you can’t admit it to me, I know you love me too.”

Her voice softened a fraction as she tried to cup his cheek, forcing him back to stare down at her. “Jax…why can’t you tell me how you’re really feeling – ” when he tried to interrupt, she continued quickly, “ – and not about the clanless, or the war brewing over our heads now with the Council on our tails. Why can’t you just tell me how you feel about me? Just me.”

For a moment, hope flares in her chest as she watches him. His eyes wander over her face as if he was trying to remember every detail. Then it dies just as quickly the second she felt him slip away; his eyes going carefully blank – his posture remaining stiff as he shrugged off her touch.

Placing a wide berth between them, he cleared his throat. “I have to go.” He said abruptly.

And with it, a dam inside her burst. Tears blurred her vision for a moment, and she quickly turns away from him to rub her eyes. “Okay, then go.” Her words are sharp now, buried underneath layers of hurt until he touched her arm. “Just go.”

“Harlow –”

“You shouldn’t care what happens to me anyway, I’m just some human.” She rushed on, swiping her bangs from her forehead. “And in a few weeks you’ll forget all about me –”

Jax whirled her so fast that the rest of her sentence was cut short and her gasp became muffled as she felt his lips crash against hers, molding her to him like the pieces they always knew they were – fitting together despite their differences.

A whimper escaped her throat. Her fingers made tiny fists into his hair as he slid his tongue into her mouth, deepening their kiss.

“I can’t Harlow,” he whispered against her lips. She could feel his fingers faintly rubbing across her back. “I can’t love you.” He said hoarsely.

Her heart sunk with every word he uttered. “But…but why not?”

“Because there is too much at stake.” He released her then, running his thumb over her lip. “There’s too many people counting on me. And I don’t - I couldn’t live with myself if you get hurt, because of me.”

She stared up at him. “What’s life without a little risk?”

“Safe. You need to be safe.” He continued, dropping his thumb after she pressed a kiss there. “I can’t risk this. I can’t risk you.” His brows creased, “I can’t afford to...to be distracted when my people need me.” He looked away after catching the flash of hurt inside her eyes.

“My people are too high of a price to pay for a distraction.” His voice was filled with regret, “I could see us…in another time maybe.In another place,” he muttered, “I could see you us settling down somewhere - away from all of this. I could see you being everything,” his voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “But I will not allow it. Not now. I cannot love you because my people need me. And I cannot put you over my people.”

She flinched then, feeling as though he slapped her with every word. “You need to leave.”

“Harlow I –” He tried to reach for her but she shoved him back.

“Don’t.”

Nodding slowly, Jax pulled on his pants and grabbed his jacket on his way out. Once his hand was by the door, Harlow spoke up.

“I get it.” She threw her hands in the air. “I get that you’re this badass warrior that-that has to bleed himself dry for the people he cares about,for the people that look to you for guidance – but what about what you want?” She couldn’t meet his eyes, knowing it would shatter her heart if she did. “Doesn’t that matter at all?”

“What I want....I can’t allow that to matter.” He said slowly; her heart sinking with every word. “Because until this war is over – there can never be an us. Not a real us anyway.”

-

#jax x mc #jax matsuo x harlow daniels #jax x harlow #playchoices #fic request #dialogue prompt #angsty #I hope you this tore at your heart anon #like it did mine a little #choices stories you play #playchoices fanfiction #blooudbound #bb #bloodbound fanfiction #jax x mc fanfiction #playchoices fanficiton #jax x mc fanfic #jax matsuo fanfiction #an angstymarshmallow writes

[fauxrest]

Mage’s Familiarity

@yurironpaweek

[SPOILERS FOR DANGANRONPA V3: KILLING HARMONY.]

Himiko Yumeno may have grown a few inches, but she’s not sure she’s any better. More aware, perhaps, but is that really a good thing?  (Harukawa Maki/Himiko Yumeno; can probably be read as platonic.)

Written for Day 4 of YuriRonpa Week: new beginnings. (Click here to read it on AO3!)

A/N: This was written in less than a day and I'm not sure how to feel about it, except that it's short enough that hopefully it's not much of a loss if you read it and don't like it. I had wanted to write a short OumaSai one-shot and then return to the first fic, but that one-shot ended up a lot more complex than I had intended for it to be, and I felt like writing something shorter in the meantime. So... here this is.

“Hey.” Maki Harukawa sat down on the floor, at the other side of the kotatsu, not bothering to get under the futon.

Himiko looked up from her book. It was Shuichi’s book, before, but it was a fantasy novel and he said she would like it better than he did… so now it was her book. “Nyeh… hi, Maki.” 

“No ‘Maki Roll’?” 

“I’m not allowed to call you that, right?” Himiko asked tiredly. She picked a playing card and slipped it into the pages for a bookmark. It was the three of hearts; she was sentimental lately. Whether it stood for Angie and Tenko or for her fellow survivors, she couldn’t decide, but everything good seemed to come in threes, and hearts were the one thing they had—“they” meaning the fictional characters created for the final season of Danganronpa. Himiko rubbed her eyes and tried to sit up straight. She could never completely erase the flaw Team Danganronpa built into her… but she could try to be better. Real people didn’t act like that. Not to the extent she used to do.

“No, but it’s weird for you to respect my wishes. What’s wrong?”

Himiko blinked. ‘What’s wrong’? Maki asked me that, huh…? “Nothing, Maki Roll!” Himiko perked up. “Mmmm… pick a card, okay?”

“Seriously? Card tricks again?” Maki’s lips turned up a little! Himiko smiled in turn.

“Just do it!”

…

…

…

“You got me again,” Maki commented flatly. “Can we stop now?” Himiko shook her head and readied another trick. Now that she had started, she decided, she had to practice every trick she knew at least once.

…Or at least a certain number of them. The sum of the numbers Maki had picked was three plus four plus two… so nine. “Nyeeeeh, I have six more.”

...

...

...

“…Good job,” Maki said. “How many is that now?”

“That’s the last one!” Himiko answered with a smile. “I feel better now… Thanks.” Maki nodded.

The shorter girl shifted and wrapped her arms around her chest. Even with the futon, winter was hard on her. She wanted to earn enough money to get a better apartment. They had given their reward money away. It was a statement. Shuichi had done it, so the other two followed suit. “Okay,” she said, “I’ve decided. I won’t steal Kaito’s nickname for you. He’s special, right?” Maki averted her gaze.

Then something unexpected happened, and Himiko squinted in confusion at the space where Maki was a moment ago before she was pulled up by a soft, slender hand in hers. “You’re different people,” Maki explained calmly. Without another word, she led Himiko to the bedroom the girls shared. (Shuichi had his own, smaller room, because he said he felt strange sharing a room with other people. Maki and Himiko’s beds were stationed on opposite sides of the room from each other. They weren’t particularly comfortable, but they weren’t terrible, either.)

None of them spoke to or of their families anymore. Himiko’s parents had reached out to her, but they were nothing like the single mom or her mentor from the false past she had been given, and they both liked Danganronpa. Even if the world had been changed… sort of… by what the three had done—what Shuichi and Maki had done, thought Himiko, for she had always been a follower and nothing more in the game no matter what her two friends said—there were still plenty who resisted the change. Things didn’t shift magically like that; Himiko herself was an example. 

Besides, Shuichi and Maki had no one, and so they decided to share a home; Maki’s talent was useless in the real world. There was no need for assassins, so no real organizations like Maki’s existed in the first place. And if there were, Maki had said once, she wouldn’t join them. Himiko selfishly didn’t want her best friends to be closer to each other than to her, and she wanted to help. Besides, it meant they could all attend the same school, and spend time together, and share the burdens of cooking and cleaning and everything else. Himiko wasn’t used to taking care of herself. Maki helped her a lot, with all the things Shuichi couldn’t, because he was a boy and he didn’t want to be inappropriate and he didn’t know how to do things like take care of long hair—Himiko was growing hers out, because she wanted to change in every way she could and because she wanted to be closer to Tenko.

Maki said Himiko helped her learn to be normal and have fun, and Shuichi said that it was because she was more light-hearted than either of them. Himiko was an entertainer by nature. Even if Tenko had died for her, and even if her family was fake, and even if her mentor never existed, this one part of her stayed true. At the same time, because of this, Himiko had come to realize something: the other two looked out for her.

They were always looking out for her, and that was why she couldn’t trust them when they said she was good or fun or important. It was nice to hear, but it wasn’t enough.

Maki sat on Himiko’s bed and carefully, tenderly pulled her into a very awkward Maki-style embrace. Himiko shivered and buried her head in the other girl’s clothes. Maki was still in her school uniform, which was gray and bland and reminiscent of Kaede’s from the audition tapes they had seen, although not the same.

“You need warmer clothes,” Maki muttered.

“I miss Tenko,” Himiko answered groggily.

The magician realized what she had said a second later and widened her eyes in horror, covering her mouth with her hand in what must have looked like the most clichéd gesture straight out of a TV show, but Maki nodded silently. In her arms, Himiko relaxed a little more and huddled closer. Even if Maki acted stoic and cold, she was warm on the inside. Himiko wanted to say that, for she thought it quite poetic, but instead she explained what she had been thinking about when Maki came home, when she had been trying to read Shuichi’s fantasy book and her eyes had passed absently over the words.

“I miss Tenko, but she only liked me because she was built that way. That’s why she was all obsessed and stuff. I didn’t like it back then, but now that she’s gone, and my mommy—my mom is gone, there’s nobody that needs me. Right? I mean… honestly. Really, truly needs me,” she rambled, her voice fading into a murmur at the end. She buried her face in Maki’s chest and felt the other girl’s breath get louder. Oh. That was a sigh.

“Look,” Maki said, “‘need’ isn’t important. I wouldn’t tell you that you helped me if it weren’t true. You should know that by now, but I guess you never will, huh?”

“It’s hard.”

Maki’s grip tightened, and Himiko looked up. 

The other girl was blushing.

Maki continued, “I’ll never ‘need’ anyone, but you’re important to me, and I would be...” She stopped, and so did her breath. Himiko blinked. Maki was staring at the window that looked out on the boring, busy street, but her arms were still firmly around Himiko. “I would be a lot worse off if you weren’t here. So would Shuichi, but probably… not in the same way.”

The girl lifted one hand and messed absently with a strand of her long, dark hair. “You aren’t Kaito. Our actions from now on are our own. I can’t be Tenko, either, and I wouldn’t want to be.”

Himiko felt her heart lift at those words. She nodded. “I wouldn’t want you to be, either.”

Endnotes: I wanted to write something and the fic I had been planning turned out a lot longer than I had anticipated. Zoinks.

I feel like I may have seen “three of hearts” used somewhere in a survivor fic before… or something similar with cards as a theme? Or maybe I’m getting things mixed up, but whatever the case, it’s not my intent to copy anybody. If I’m doing something too similar to someone else, I might have been unconsciously influenced by it, because I’ve definitely read a couple survivor fics before (including one or two with this pairing). So… mention it to me if you know one? I mean, even if it didn’t influence me, I might want to read it, haha. ^^

...Also, criticism is greatly appreciated, even for something I wrote on a whim and am already a tiny bit tempted to delete but probably won’t.

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 spoilers #drv3 #drv3 spoilers #ndrv3 #ndrv3 spoilers #himiko yumeno #maki harukawa #post-game #fanfiction #danganronpa fanfiction #drv3 fanfiction #again #...sort of. #harumeno #yurironpaweek #character study #or more like #study of how the survivors might have changed postgame #idk tags are hard sdfg #fluff

[wonderfulchaos69-blog]

Can you make a Servamp age au drabble for Mikuni and Jeje please???

Ahhh, this ask has been sitting in my inbox forever - I hope you didn’t think I forgot!! I ended up giving their first meeting a great deal of thought and decided to go that route for these two. Hence why it ended up being a longer than normal drabble~ 

@crazyanime3 It’s here!! Let me know if there’s anything you want me to fix. Your AU gives me life, have I told you that lately??

Title: Nice to Meet YouRating: G, family fluff time~Characters: Jeje, Mikuni, Misono, LilySummary: Age AU. First impressions are often incorrect. And some? Some are ridiculously accurate.

The new experience finally settling in, Misono grabbed onto his big brother’s hand. None too gentle as he held on. “It’s okay,” his brother soothed, “you’re going to like it here.” In return, Misono puffed out his cheeks, not agreeing to anything. It earned him a poke to the cheek as Mikuni laughed, “So quick to disagree. And we’re not even there yet!”

The Alicein household was well-respected in the community. Throughout the years, they had helped expand the housing developments and made impossible projects into possibilities. Their name was both loved and cursed in equal measure. Since every good deed had its demerits, as every law had a shining ray hope.

Needless to say, the heir apparent of the family had a few problems of his own with them. For one, they never had enough time to be just that - a family. His father was always off to some business venture, and often times his mother was lost in her own reverie. He missed the days where she would sit combing his hair for hours, simply content to be in his presence and letting the repetitive motions ease their worries. He wasn’t sure when it changed.

No, that was a lie. It had started exactly three years ago, those gradual changes that now befell their family. His father, staying away from home as long as he could. His mother, retreating into herself. Both refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the room as it cooed up the new big brother that he had become.

Oftentimes, in the early days, he wasn’t sure what to make of the tiny bundle swathed in blankets in the crib. He knew it was strange, that his mother wasn’t the one who brought the baby home. That it shouldn’t have been his father to show up with it, marching into the house one rainy evening, clinging tightly to a small babe as tears rolled down his face. There were many unspoken things that lay buried now since that day. All of them turning a blind eye and accepting the babe into their fractured family. As if doing so would fill a void that had formed. A gaping hole that looked back at them every day, taunting them with what ifs and could have beens.

Funny that he couldn’t blame the child for any of it, not when the first word that his little brother said was, “Mi-kun.” Only a little bit off from his name and ever the more endearing for it. With a smile and delighted laugh, he corrected with a deliberately slow, “Mi-ku-ni. Come on, Misono, you can do it!”

The baby scrunched up his nose and folded his arms, huffing as he turned his head away and ignored his big brother’s attempts. “Aww, don’t be like that,” Mikuni insisted as he ruffled the other’s hair, which earned an eep of disapproval and a wildly swung arm aimed at his face. “Careful! What will your new friends think if you’re mean to them on your first day?”

Misono tilted his head, not understanding. Not that Mikuni could blame him; having been sheltered from the world, it was only natural that he didn’t know what friends were or what a first day of anything meant. Every day was the same here. Every boring day. At least Mikuni had school to alleviate the boredom, but Misono had none of that. Stuck with seeing the same faces every day and every night.

It was with much persistence that he had talked his father and mother into giving the daycare down the street a chance, rather than relying on the overworked nanny that looked more frazzled by the day. In his excitement to see his little brother’s world expand, he had taken the honors of helping him get dressed that morning. Misono didn’t seem to like all of the ribbons he had used to make the ensemble cuter, but they were tied too well to be undone. Of that, he was smug in his victory.

“Time to go!” he cheered, picking the little one up and hoisting him onto his shoulders. “Onwards to the new adventure!”

Giving a shriek, Misono grabbed onto his brother’s hair as he took off running, burying his face into the golden locks. For it wasn’t until they were almost there that Mikuni gave a thought to slowing down. Shifting out from behind his brother’s hair, Misono caught a glimpse of the building up ahead and quickly hid back behind the curtain of gold. It was too different from what he was used to - a leap in a completely different direction.

It was a modest daycare center, humble in its origins and lackluster in its appearance. Bland, someone would say. Still, it was a nice enough of place with an even nicer staff. Mikuni had made sure of it with a charming smile that did half the talking for him. He wouldn’t have left his little brother anywhere that didn’t meet his standards.

“Now then.” He crouched down and urged Misono to slide off his shoulders, tiny feet hitting the pavement for the first time. “Let’s go make you some friends.”

The new experience finally settling in, Misono grabbed onto his big brother’s hand. None too gentle as he held on. “It’s okay,” his brother soothed, “you’re going to like it here.” In return, Misono puffed out his cheeks, not agreeing to anything. It earned him a poke to the cheek as Mikuni laughed, “So quick to disagree. And we’re not even there yet!”

Once inside, it was a sudden struggle to walk as Misono attempted to hide behind him again, pulling his hand as far back as it would go. “Eh, Misono, Nii-san kind of needs that hand …” So saying, he began to pull his hand away. He had to sign them in, after all, or they would both be going nowhere fast. He also had to take out his school id and show that to the awaiting receptionist. All the while aware that his little brother had attached to him like a sea urchin.

“We have to say goodbye soon,” he reminded Misono, taking up his hand once more. “But for now, I’ll walk you down to meet your new friends and teachers!”

It was nothing like the tutors that had been hired for their home or even the careful nanny that had raised them from mere diapers. The place was alive with a buzzing stream of chatter. Colorful and decorated in all manner of creations that the children had a hand in making.  A place as warm and welcoming as their own home was cold and daunting.

He gave Misono’s hand one last squeeze and then urged him into the room that had been assigned to him, patting him on the head as he crouched back down. “Well, time for Nii-san to head to school. Be good for your teacher, okay? I’ll be back to pick up before you know it!”

Misono didn’t seem to hear the parting words, though, already looking about the room in quiet fascination. His eyes were practically sparkling at the sight of other kids in the room. As strange as it all was, there was a sense of excitement here that even he had been swept up in. And Mikuni found he was probably the sadder one for having to leave.

Giving a half-hearted wave, already forgotten, he headed towards the door. He had lowered his head with a sigh, dissatisfied with that goodbye, and he didn’t see the person who had just stepped into the room. It ended with a collision and a crying child that he was quick to try and console, fluttering about like a butterfly, worried he had done something irreparable.

The person with the child, tall and lanky and covering most of his face with his hair, stopped the fretting by holding out his hand to the child - to which the little blond took with a sniffle and another woeful look directed at Mikuni. “Lily,” mumbled the newcomer, “my fault.”

“No! It isn’t! Jeje-nii was looking where he was going, but this -”

“Lily,” Jeje cut off the rant with a shake of his head, “accidents happen.” Leaving it at that, they tried to go around Mikuni, but he wasn’t about to be dismissed so easily. Not when he hadn’t had his say.

“Excuse me,” he said, stepping in front of them with a quick two-step, “but if it is indeed your fault, then I am going to have to ask for compensation.” With a cheeky grin, he spread his arms open wide and said, “Why, I won’t ask for much. I was ~just~ wondering if Lily-chan wouldn’t mind helping out my little brother. You see, it’s his first day here. Would that be too much trouble?”

At the mention of someone new, Lily ran over to greet the only child that stood apart from the crowd, still unsure on how to approach anyone else. It worked like a charm, the bubbly little blond dragging Misono into the center of all the kids and introducing him to everyone.

Mentally patting himself on the back, Mikuni turned back to Jeje, ready to thank him for Lily’s help. The thanks that he had let rise to the tip of his tongue fell flat as soon as he saw the glare directed his way, unbridled anger fuming behind that sheet of black hair. He snickered and quickly covered it up with a hand, feigning ignorance. “Oh my, did I do something wrong?”

“Don’t use my brother for your stupid whims.”

It was Mikuni’s turn to bristle. Because Misono would never be a “stupid whim”. “Excuse me?” he repeated. “I think I must have misheard you. Are you calling me and my brother stupid now?” A grin too sharp to be believed made its way onto his face. “You must be confused. Or maybe you don’t know who we are? Mikuni Alicein, at your service.” He swept into a bow, and would have tipped his hat had he been wearing one. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a part of his school uniform. He made due by flipping his hair.

“And my little brother, Misono Alicein.” He gestured toward the circle of kids, all of whom were asking questions non-stop of the child in the middle. “Nice to meet you!”

Jeje mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “It’s not nice to meet you. Go die,” but instead of being offended, Mikuni found it refreshing. Different. Something unlike the usual reaction when someone met him for the first time. 

He had been expecting this to be an adventure Misono would have to take on his own. A world Mikuni would never be a part of, lost to half-truths and false impressions, but now - now he was wondering if he had a chance to start over, too.

Grinning from ear to ear, he promised Jeje, “We’ll surely be seeing a lot of each other from now on.”

#servamp #servamp age au #jeje/doubt doubt #mikuni alicein #chaos writes fic #anon answered

[resonantrequiem-blog]

The Price of Life

Okay, so I’ve seen people writing stories for their Sirens, and I’ve been meaning to do the same for Ethan. There’s just some things that I can’t express without actively writing him out. Not to mention I tend to discover new things about my characters when I write for them----especially when it’s on a whim.

And as a result, tonight, we get to see Ethan feel regret for the first time.

So yeah! I hope you enjoy this lil 3am drabble. I’m gonna go pass out now. ;v;

@siren-legion

Dead.

Ethan exhaled slowly, the last few notes of his siren song echoing throughout the dressing room. A pinch of shame, probably some sort of regret he still needed to get used to feeling, swelled within him. He’d promised himself he’d try not to kill anyone anymore. But lo and behold, he was not so successful at such a seemingly simple task.

Rising from his seat, the male removed his mask with care and replaced it within his large coat pocket, the brilliant violet wings that adorned his back vanishing the instant the connection was broken. His maroon gaze became sorrowful as he looked over the corpse.

The girl had only been in her mid-twenties. And now she was dead.

With a gentleness only few knew existed within him, the brunet picked up the young lady’s body, the scent of alcohol and too-strong perfume wafting onto him. Putting his game face on, that of which was an expression of horror and panic, the Siren burst out of the dressing room shouting worriedly. 

Shouting for someone to take her to a hospital, call the paramedics, do something, because she no longer breathed.

Shouting for someone to save her.

When the ambulance arrived and it was confirmed she was dead, Ethan’s face was plastered with a mask of mournfulness.

“What happened?” asked one of the paramedics. Of course they’d question him. He’d been the last to be in her presence.

Stuttering, the male lied with ease, “I-I don’t know. Maybe it was alcohol poisoning? We were just talking, and then she had some sort of seizure and passed out--”

Sympathy flashed over the man’s face. He reassured Ethan that he didn’t have to say anymore. The Siren was grateful. He didn’t want to lie anymore.

It took a few hours, but eventually, the musician found himself walking in the darkness of the night, the streets dimly lit with lamps. The mask was practically burning a hole in his pocket; somehow, it felt like more of a curse tonight.

Ethan didn’t normally regret his kills. Most of the time, they were people he couldn’t care less about. Perhaps it was because she was a fan. She garnered his sympathy; he could see it in her eyes just how much she adored him. The way she laughed at his jokes, the way her expression brightened at the suggestion of a private audience. 

He didn’t know who she was. And he killed her.

Empathy, empathy, empathy. What a curse. A bothersome trait. Ethan didn’t used to feel this regret. Feel the ache of what must’ve been death’s cold grasp closing around you, granted by his hands alone. He hadn’t felt that bad when he first started this job. It’s just a job, after all. There are billions of people in the world; the population could do without a few.

But Karen. They’d taught him to feel---to care for another human being. To love, even. They’re the one who makes him feel most, when he’d numbed himself out of anger and hatred. And it’s because of them that he now feels empathy, sympathy, understanding.

He shouldn’t care. But he does.

He supposes he should get better at knowing when to stop, then.

When he got home, his very drowsy datemate greeted him, beckoning for him to lean down so they could peck his cheek. 

“I woke up to the sound of sirens. Did something happen?” they asked, their tired eyes glistening with concern.

“A girl at the club died. No one knows how. I had to stay to give my side of the story,” he explained, the partial lie making him hate himself. He should tell Karen the truth. About being a Siren. About his ‘second job.’

But if they knew, that’d put them at risk. He was sure of it. The risk wasn’t worth it.

“That’s horrible,” came their tired murmur, pity and sorrow flitting across their expression. He could tell they’d been up for however long it’s been since they heard the ambulances. Poor dear must’ve been worried sick about him. 

With a sigh, Ethan pulled them into a gentle embrace, resting his chin atop their head. He had no more to say. He wanted tonight to be over with already.

It didn’t take long for Karen to pull him back to their bedroom, clearly wanting nothing more than to curl up against him as they return to their slumber. Ethan wasn’t quite so ready to go to bed yet, though. So, when he entered the shared bedroom, he merely excused himself to use the restroom.

A long, scalding hot shower later, the brunet was drying his messy excuse for hair and donning his usual nightwear. Watching the gentle rise and fall of Karen’s chest as they slept calmed him, somehow. Perhaps just the thought that they were alive and well were what soothed his soul. What a strange feeling to have.

As the tall male crawled into bed, the face of that girl flashed within his mind. Were his actions not as controlled as they were, he would’ve winced. It was so bizarre. He’s never felt for a target before. Never given himself the room to empathize with them. Because he knew that if he did, the side that Karen resurfaced, the kindness buried within his heart, would tell him not to steal their life force.

But just this once, he’d let himself feel.

And he felt horrible.

As Ethan draped an arm over Karen, pulling them closer, he wasn’t surprised to find them subconsciously burying themself into his chest. Their expression softened as they felt his warmth seep into them. He breathed in their scent, letting it wash over him, letting it bring serenity to his troubled mind. 

And as he drifted into a restless sleep, he prayed to every god out there that he never feel for another target ever again.

#ic #drabbles #siren faq #violet feathers