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skye-huntress · 3 years

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RWBY Panel 2021 Reaction

I figured why not. I was up at three in the morning to watch the panel just for even the smallest sneak peak or news of Volume 9 so I might as well throw out my reactions and thoughts into the void of the internet.

Let me start off with the biggest non-news, the lack of date for Volume 9. In the back of my mind, this was something I feared to expect. Between the pandemic, the blackouts, and probably a lot of other disrupting forces I am not aware about, it’s not reasonable to expect CRWBY to be at the same place with every upcoming volume every year. Similar for the Volume 8 Soundtrack, though for that I wasn’t expecting to hear any new updates on.

I am interested in the new game, Arrowfell, though I will admit that side-scrollers are not a style of game I’ve ever found compelling. It’s RWBY though, so of course I am going to check it out. They never said anything about what platforms it would be on though.

Now for the sneaky peak:

I’ll admit, that first half of it was intense. It really brought everything back, the anxiety, the near-panic, the anticipation of what would happen. It felt fresh seeing it from Ruby’s perspective.

Maybe seeing Yang’s fall happen in realtime will get people to lighten up on Ruby and realise that she couldn’t have really done anything, but I doubt it.

It is interesting to see how the edges of Ruby’s vision light up when she’s trying to call on her silver eye powers. I’d wager she experiences other sensations as well when its working and not just the sudden fatigue we see her go through after the fact.

So Neo is still attacking Ruby on sight despite the fact this path may have already sealed both their fates. I feel I should say this, I don’t think there is any reasoning with Neo. If she’s half as smart as she thinks she is, there’s no way she genuinely believes Ruby is responsible for Roman’s death. She went after Cinder first for a reason. She’s angry and in pain, and she needs someone a little easier to stab than a rogue maiden to take out her frustrations on. Ruby’s just a convenient scapegoat for Neo. One way or another, it will end this volume.

Oscar, Yang, Penny. These are all people Ruby has failed recently. Oscar was captured and tortured and Ruby didn’t even hear of it until afterwards. Yang took the blow meant for her and was the first to fall. Penny is the Maiden and it was Ruby’s job to protect her but now she is at Cinder’s mercy and that bitch doesn’t even have the word in her vocabulary. I feel this is the volume where Ruby has to confront her failures and increasing doubts about her leadership. We’ve been building up to it for a while

All alone and unarmed on a shore, in a strange place in another world. Nothing to do but keep moving forward.

At the very least, that she landed in the same realm we saw Crescent Rose suggests all or at least some of the Fallen have ended up in the same place.

Predictions

For Ruby, I think this will be a critical volume for her. All sorts of negativity has been building up with her for a while now and with her current situation, the fate of her friends, and when the news of Penny’s death inevitably reaches her, something is going to give. This might be a break from the plot but it is also a break for Ruby to reevaluate her leadership, her choices and how she’s been handling basically everything. How this changes her will likely determine the direction of the show and how the protagonists confront Salem going forward.

For Weiss, this could also be a big volume for her. For one, she’s gained and lost a lot this volume. Atlas, for all its faults which caused her to leave it twice, was her home, and now it is rubble and those of her people that survived are now refugees in a Kingdom they are not necessarily welcome. She confronted her father, and was working on her relationship with the rest of her family, but is now separated from them. She wasn’t as close with Penny as Ruby, but she lost her, too, and now her sister has the same target on her back and is probably doomed to suffer the same fate sooner or later. She also thought she lost her other family and it will be bittersweet to find herself stranded with them if when she can find them again. It’s been a rollercoaster for her.

While on this note, I think we are due for a heart-to-heart between Ruby and Weiss. Ruby recently had a talk with both Blake and Yang about her leadership, but I think Weiss has the best chance of actually reaching her. After all, Weiss was the first one to openly express doubts about Ruby being a leader, and it was also a position she once coveted for herself. Weiss is the sceptic turned believer, and she’s not afraid to call things as they are, so I think she is and always was the best one to talk to Ruby about this, which is why I think they never had this conversation before. Now that Ruby is in this critical stage, of course this is the perfect time for her once reluctant and now devoted partner to put in her two cents.

Since everything went down with Adam and her relationship with Yang improved, I haven’t been quite sure where Blake’s character arc will go from there. When Yang fell, she nearly completely lost and it clouded her judgment. After her talk with Nora, I wonder if Blake herself needs to reevaluate if perhaps there are parts about her own life and wellbeing that she has neglected since she and Yang have gotten closer. Perhaps it’s a time for her to reevaluate her priorities, which doesn’t necessarily mean distancing herself from Yang but it could still mean she puts more effort into herself and her other relationships, especially with Ruby, Weiss and Jaune.

Yang was the first to fall and everything went to shit after the fact. She stopped a sneak attack on Ruby but she couldn’t stop Neo or Cinder, and she was not there for her team or Penny. That moment is probably also too familiar to what happened with Adam at Beacon for Yang’s comfort, not that I think there was anything she could do better in either situation besides simply being faster. I don’t know what Yang’s response to everything will be, what effect this will have on her. Plus I can’t forget that she’s probably suffering a concussion right now.

As for the Bees, despite all they’ve been through and even with the split that happened last volume, they were still closer than ever. There’s a mutual respect there for each other’s decisions. If one is going through something, the other will be there to talk them through it or even simply be a shoulder to cry on. If this is a situation that they’ll be stuck on for the foreseeable future, at least they have each other and there are worse places they could be stranded in. Despite everything that happened or maybe even because of it, it might seem the perfect setting and timing for some confessions and more.

Now to Jaune. He certainly hasn’t had it easy. From the start, he was the furthest behind among his peers, and now he’s been licensed earlier than most of them. Pyrrha helped him a lot with that, and was the first to believe in him and she was taken from him, and it seems he came to terms with that since Argus. He didn’t let his grief blind him and he stayed on task with the evacuation, and he wasn’t reckless when he did confront Cinder. He did everything right, but it wasn’t enough to save Penny and in the end he had little choice but to respect her dying wish. It had to be done, I don’t blame him for being put in that position, but it’s still got to hurt. It’s also so appropriate that his weapon, one of his most important tools as a Huntsman, was broken after spilling innocent blood, almost like a punishment(?) for his “betrayal” to what a Huntsman is suppose to be. He’s going to carry this until the day he dies, and now he has to face his friends, especially his best friend whom was the closest of all of them to Penny.

Finally Neo. Like I said, I don’t think she can be reasoned with. She abandoned any sort of rationale a long time ago, and it will take more than words to shake her out of it, if it’s even possible anymore. I doubt there will be a peaceful solution to this conflict, it feels too similar to what went down with Adam towards his end. He also refused to back down, he too insisted on making Blake his scapegoat, and despite being given every chance to walk away, he persisted until his death. Time will tell if Neo can avoid that fate, but my doubts about that have only strengthened since the sneak peak.

As for Oscar and the others, I already had my doubts about whether we’d see them at all. The way CRWBY talked about this volume, it seems clear that this is our break from the main narrative so I doubt we will be seeing much of Vacuo yet. I am more than okay with that, it’d be good to take a break from the main plot and focus and our main girls again and we’ll get more of that with a significantly reduced cast.

#rwby #rwby8 #rwby8 spoilers #rwby9 #rwby9 spoilers

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saint-14s-gay-pigeon · 3 years

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Post-Hunt Nap

Atlas lets his hair down after a long day.

"Nice work, Guardian." Crow's voice crackled to life through the comms, serving as Atlas’s signal that the hunt was finally over. It had become routine by this point to check in after every successful Wrathborn elimination, and the calm cadence of Crow’s words was a welcome relief after the incessant shrieking, wailing, and roaring that the creatures were prone to.

Atlas merely basked in it a moment while leaning against a rock to catch his breath. This particular hunt had ended up being a much more demanding ordeal than originally anticipated, and his eventual response was weighed down by fatigue despite his best efforts. "Thanks. You, too."

"How are you doing?" He hadn't managed to hide his condition very well, judging by the concern in Crow’s voice.

If Crow already knew, there was no point in lying. "Well, I'm exhausted and covered in Wrathborn gunk," Atlas admitted with a short laugh, trying to keep his complaining lighthearted. He scrunched his nose in distaste. "What is this stuff, anyway?"

There was a pause. "If you're covered in it, you probably don't want me to answer that."

"I second that," Glint chimed in.

Atlas sighed. "Lovely. Can I borrow your shower before I head out again?"

Crow wasn't entirely sure the Titan would fit inside what passed for a shower in his quarters considering even he found it cramped, but he wasn't about to say no. "Sure. Drop by the workshop when you can."

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

The water was cold and probably not much cleaner than the gunk it was washing away, and it was indeed cramped, but to Atlas it was the most refreshing shower he’d had in ages. He emerged a short time later in his civilian clothes to find Crow absentmindedly munching on a Bittersweet Biscotti while looking over the Cryptolith Lure.

"I'll admit," Atlas chuckled as he toweled at his hair with an old rag, "I thought you were lying when you said you liked them."

"They're not that bad," objected Crow, joining in the laughter as he finished his examination of the Lure. When he finally looked up at Atlas, however, he stopped short.

"Something wrong?" Atlas asked, setting the rag to the side.

Crow shook his head and swallowed, quickly coming back to himself. "I've just... never seen you with your hair down. Didn't realise how long it was." Did that sound weird? That sounded weird.

"And what do you think?" Atlas asked with a teasing grin.

"Ah… You look good. It suits you." Crow was thankful the dim light of the workshop would likely obscure the faint purple blush dusting his cheeks. He considered it a personal favour that Glint had refrained from commenting, although he could practically feel the little Ghost’s eye on him. It was probably better to change the subject before he had the chance to change his mind.

“So… that was a hell of a hunt, huh?”

To Crow’s relief, Atlas readily nodded, letting the prior conversation go without a fuss. “That’s putting it mildly. Didn’t expect two of them to show up at once,” he agreed. “At least the lure’s definitely working.”

“You did well,” Crow said, and Atlas fought through the fatigue to offer a grin in return, preening slightly at the praise. Crow couldn’t help but chuckle at the display; he hadn’t expected his words to carry that much weight.

With a tired but content sigh, Atlas slowly lowered himself to the floor of the workshop, leaning carefully against the most solid-looking of the walls. The shower was refreshing, but after so many hours of hunting, he was still thoroughly spent. He gestured to his side with a pat of the floor, beckoning Crow to join him. “Don’t sell yourself short, either,” he told Crow, smiling up at him. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Now it was Crow’s turn to be proud of himself. A grin bloomed across his face as he accepted the invitation, taking a seat next to the Titan and enjoying the grounding sense of calm that the subtle contact between their knees imparted. The workshop, for all its faults, was always better with company.

“Always happy to help,” Crow replied, casually resting his elbows on his legs. And it was true; even on days when securing the perimeter ended up being uneventful, he still enjoyed getting to see the Guardian in action. “Although you caught me by surprise today,” he admitted, thinking back on Atlas’s earlier performance. “I don’t often see you use void Light.”

“It doesn’t come naturally to me like arc does,” Atlas agreed, picking up on the unspoken question. Even now, he could feel the current of energy buzzing just beneath his skin. “I needed something more defensive, though, and Saint’s been teaching me some things. Figured it was worth a shot.”

“Saint?” Crow asked, tilting his head.

“Saint-14, Osiris’s partner,” Atlas explained. “They call him the greatest Titan who ever lived.”

“Atlas is gunning for his title,” Achilles half-joked, chiming in with an excited twirl. He never missed a chance to hype up his Guardian.

Crow laughed softly at the Ghost’s interjection, then nodded thoughtfully. “I didn’t know Osiris was in a relationship; he’s never mentioned him.”

Compared to Crow’s laugh, Atlas’s was a bright, rich sound. “That’s not surprising. Getting Osiris to share personal details is like asking Spider to donate Glimmer to charity. Hell, it took me ages to figure out he and Saint were together and I’d met both of them.” The Titan’s mouth skewed into a silly, lopsided grin of self-deprecation. “Although truth be told, I probably should’ve picked up on it sooner.”

The room fell silent after that save for the rhythmic rattling of the pipes, the conversation hanging in the air until Glint eventually spoke up.

“What about you?” he asked, dipping his shell toward Atlas. He knew what Crow was thinking, and he had no problem taking matters into his own metaphorical hands if Crow wasn’t going to say it himself. “Are you seeing anyone?”

Crow’s eyes immediately widened. “Glint!” he hissed, his gaze snapping to the Ghost.

Glint responded by shifting the sides of his shell as though shrugging. “No harm in being curious.”

Atlas merely laughed again, seemingly oblivious to the exchange. “Not these days, no. I’d like to be, but…” He tilted his head to the side as he considered how to elaborate. “This lifestyle,” he eventually settled, “is demanding, of both your time and attention. It can be hard to find someone who’s willing to live with that.”

Not that he could blame anyone for feeling that way. He thought back to his last relationship: a Hunter and fellow Awoken with pink hair and boundless optimism. The two of them were still good friends, but had mutually agreed that trying to forge a romance on top of saving a broken world had been too great an ask, even for them. He hoped she was doing well.

Crow nodded slowly, his brows knitting together in an expression of sympathy. Glint had refused to give him the full rundown of Atlas’s accomplishments, but it was his understanding that there were many, and Atlas specifically was a big deal even among other Guardians. It wasn’t surprising to hear he’d given himself entirely to the cause and left little room for his own personal happiness.

Unsure of how else to respond, Crow eventually spoke in a soft voice while staring at his hands. “I... hope you find them soon.”

Atlas replied with a small smile of gratitude. It wasn’t a subject he’d given much thought recently, nor was he in any particular rush to find a partner of his own, but he appreciated the sentiment regardless. When he opened his mouth to say as much however, he was instead interrupted by a powerful yawn.

The distant melancholy of Crow’s expression quickly gave way to a concerned frown as he noticed how the Titan was now struggling to keep his eyes open. “You shouldn’t fly like this,” he said, his voice gentle but firm. The calm of the conversation had finally provided a chance for the adrenaline to wear off, it seemed.

Atlas nodded and yawned again. As rich as it was to be receiving flying advice from Crow of all people, he was right, of course, and not even Atlas was stubborn enough to try to argue it. “I’ll get some rest before I head out,” he promised.

“Good. You can stay here, if you’d like. I don’t have much in the way of bedding but I can…” Crow’s voice slowly trailed off as he registered a gentle weight on his shoulder. Atlas’s head had fallen to the side and was now resting against him, navy blue hair cascading down his arm.

One look at Atlas’s face confirmed he was already dozing off.

“Should I wake him up?” Achilles asked, hovering at a short distance. He made to approach Atlas, but Crow reached out his free hand to stop him.

Maybe he was getting used to supporting Atlas in his work, and this was somehow an extension of that. Or maybe he just enjoyed the physical contact with another Lightbearer. Whatever the reason, he found he wasn’t in any rush to chase Atlas off.

Crow chuckled quietly as he shifted on the spot, careful not to disturb the Titan as he adjusted his position to be comfortable enough to remain seated for a while. “It’s okay,” he assured the Ghost. “I’m happy to help.”

#destiny #destiny 2 #destiny the game #destiny fanfiction #the Crow #season of the hunt #my writing #my guardians #Atlas #just felt like having them hang out and be friends y'know?

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bonesofapoet · 4 years

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On the Breath of a Hurricane

[peter hale x you]

author’s note: i started rewatching teen wolf and i am shameless, this is shameless!!!! post psychotic Peter Hale: he's Working On That. blood, minor violence, swearing and a quick hostage situation

word count: 1304

ao3: here

It was dark when you woke.

A void swallowed you whole. Cold, clammy air bit into your skin, your bones, your soul. The air was damp with must and mold. Wherever you were, this place hadn’t felt the kiss of sunlight in some time.

Thick, opaque fog lingered around your thoughts, slowed your movements when you tried to stand. Wrists bound, feet bound. Ropes too tight, cutting off circulation. Skin slick with fear, sweat, and retaliation. Eyes still unseeing, but no gag. You could spit, you could scream. You could hiss at the blood trickling down your fingertips, the drip drip drip of it’s collision with the cement under your feet.

Dripping. You were in a chair. Not wooden, which could be potentially problematic.

Fuck.

Then a roar ripped through the air in front of you, around you, above you. A flinch tore through your body, then a wince. A pain in your shoulder was suddenly blinding. Seething. Consuming. Stars appeared in the darkness to accompany the unmistakable snarl of a werewolf.

Hopefully, your friends. Or, at the very least, someone to help you bust your way far, far away from here.

Footsteps sounded above you – heavy, swift and unyielding. Multiple crashes followed suit – like whoever it was left a trail in their wake. Breadcrumbs. A map for the others to follow. A warning? Maybe all of the above.

You screamed, held yourself still to keep the bleeding to a minimum, to keep the pain from pulling you back into the comfort of it’s sheltered embrace. Something had to be done on your part; waiting idly by to be saved was never your specialty, but your voice was all you had this time.

It didn’t echo. The cry for help was swallowed by the darkness, just like you. That meant you were in a room – small, enclosed. Likely with a door separating you and the action coming closer and closer with each labored breath.

That mattered little, in the world of werewolves and heightened senses. Soft, far away light suddenly flooded your holding cell. Instinctively, you cringed away and squeezed your eyes shut until the quiet settled over you, tension thick, air chilled enough to rival the ungodly stare of Medusa herself.

A silhouette – probably familiar – made your heart flutter violent and quick. Adrenaline began to stir awake within you.

A voice, unmistakable and urgent cut through the darkness. Your name was the only thing to break the spell.

Your relationship with Peter Hale wasn’t much of one. He was insufferable, and you refused to spoon-feed his narcissistic tendencies. He held a skewed morality, dramatic and burning in his hands. You tried to contain flames from scalding innocent lives, put out the little bonfires when they weren’t welcome. Rarely, did he think twice about his bloodstained hands. You tried to avoid the inevitable. The two of you didn’t quite get along, but Peter Hale never played well with others. He provoked everyone, only helped the pack when it was personal for him.

You were everything he wasn’t, and that was why he had come for you. Changing him was something you never tried; coexisting as best you could was the path you had chosen. He recognized the potential you saw in him where he tried to drown it. Tried to keep it from seeing anyone’s eyes but your own. He cringed when you tried to draw it forth on occasions. You never pushed, never pulled. Simply let it be what it was, left it to break out on it’s own.

That time was now, it seemed. He couldn’t crush it into oblivion this time. The worry. The fear. The urge to save, instead of destroy – even only if it was personal for him. He didn’t know where the fuck any of this had come from. Didn’t know how to handle it, how to shape it back into nothing.

“I can’t move,” you said to the darkness. “And I think I’ve been shot.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Figured that out for myself, thanks.” The restraints fell in heaps to the ground.

A hiss through your teeth as fresh air stung the rope burns on your wrists, the places where your skin separated into open wounds. A sharp groan as your arms fell to your sides, jerked at your apparent bullet wound.

“Can you stand?” he knelt before you, silhouette caught back in the light as your eyes adjusted. A gentle hand tilted your chin, checked for more injuries.

Things were still disjointed in your head when you tried. The darkness and the light swayed as you lifted a foot, clutched at Peter’s waiting arm when you pitched sideways.

“So that’s a no.”

“You’re not carrying me out of here.”

Harsh yelling sounded from upstairs. An arm slid around your waist.

A gunshot, loud in the silence that followed.

Another.

Then another.

It was jarring, the regroup after a fight. Adrenaline began to flood your veins again – the pain became a distant memory. Your head cleared just enough to get a sharper grip on reality. Your fingers that held you steady against Peter let go, trailed down his arm to test your balance – or lacktherof.

Peter’s arm around your waist tightened.

Were you truly so out of it, or did his breath just catch?

“I don’t think you have much of a choice, sweetheart.”

Gone was the arrogance, the playful armor he wore. It was unsettling, when he was serious.

Pain lanced up your arms, down your ankles when he lifted you, and your wrists brushed the fabric of his shirt around his neck. A grunt of pain made it past your lips when your shoulder pressed tight against his. You didn’t miss it this time, how he cringed at your pain. How he was the one causing it.

This was not the time for your feelings to shine in the dark, you reminded yourself. Guilt twinged through your chest anyway, how you seemed to make him feel – when otherwise he didn’t.

The flash of a bullet leaving the barrel, the glint off a blade, eyes that glowed replaced the lurking darkness. A strangled yell, the whoosh of an arrow stripped away the muffled silence within each moment, each step forward. The tang of blood hung in the air, but maybe that was just you, bleeding all over Peter Hale.

A knife flew your way, materializing out of thin air. Peter sidestepped with grace. A growl tore through his throat; loud when your ear was right next to the source. It was the main thing anchoring you to consciousness now – sound.

Peter – no! Get them out of here. The distant voice of an alpha – your alpha, rang above the cacophony of battle.

“This is a good time to listen to Scott, actually,” your voice was weaker than it had been when he first found you. It was harder to speak. Your grip on him loosened. The blood loss from your shoulder threatened to pull you away from yourself. Away from your friends. Away from Peter.

The fight dulled now that the darkness was coming back for you. Everything slowly fell away, and all you had was Peter Hale.

He huffed, irritated and pushed down his pride. “Don’t worry,” he said, bright blue eyes dimmed back to brown. “I won’t let you die.”

You would have laughed, if the weight of the world was not resting so heavy on your chest, crushing your heart. Atlas, maybe, in another life.

Peter glanced down when there was no reply. No quip, no laugh. Just an eerie, unsettling silence. Only the ghost of a smile and heavy eyes were there to answer him. He moved faster, tempered his want to stay and fight, to rip apart whoever did this to you – brick by bloody brick.

He couldn’t lose you. He wouldn’t.

#peter hale imagine #peter hale x reader #peter hale x you #teen wolf imagine #peter hale fanfiction #teen wolf #peter hale #kas writes

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theloyaltyofthewolves · 4 years

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changlix

oh man. this is one of those og pairs. like, if you have a soft spot for changlix, you’ve been around this fandom for a very long time.

changbin and yongbok are kind of soulmates. and yeah, okay, all of stray kids are kinda soulmates, but changbin and yongbok are complements in all the romantic kind of ways. the romeo-and-juliet wannabe kind of ways. i’ve always said that yongbok is the stardust kid. made from the universe, born in the milky-way, he carries the galaxy in his heart and on his face. so it makes sense that he’d have this love, too. the storybook love.

it’s just the way they look at each other, you know? when changbin watches yongbok, you can see his heart. right there, on his face. all bare and vulnerable and head-over-heels. yongbok has a special smile that he only uses around changbin, too. it’s just a little different, but it is special. they’re enamored with each other, you’d be blind to miss it. some friendships in skz are formed by mutual respect or trauma or similar personalities, but i swear to god, yongbok and changbin just love each other. like. it’s just love. it’s just honest-to-god love. regardless of whether you ship them together or just see it as platonic: they’re in love.

at first glance, yongbok’s the happy-go-lucky bundle of light and energy who keeps stray kids aloft in the storm. but no human being is made of one archetype and yongbok isn’t just joy. he’s the team’s sunshine, yes, but he’s also his own little raincloud. i’ve talked about this before in his individual post, but yongbok’s an old soul. for all of his messy, noisy moments on screen, there are just as many soft and somber moments off of it. he’s introspective and quiet, thoughtful and sensitive. yongbok is a worrier. unlike jisung’s frantic anxiety or seungmin’s barbed concern, yongbok is a measured and calm kind of virgo worry. his concerns run deep, the kind of deep that gets him trapped in his own unconscious. i imagine he spends quite a lot of his time staring out the window at the sky, wandering down long and winding rabbit holes of thought and getting lost. our little atlas who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.

stray kids give yongbok a chance to put that weight down. to set it aside and cast it off. give up his worries for a few hours, embrace the lightness of youth, of living wild and reckless. they remind him to breathe. to take a break. to ease off the melancholy because the world will still be just as broken in three hours, so why doesn’t he tag along to the comic café and have some fun until then?

changbin is different. changbin, despite regularly being portrayed as either the belligerent wolf or the comedic relief, has always been the anchor. he is the strongest out of all of them, our pabbit. not just physically, although there is no doubt that changbin could hold split mountains. there is a resilience to changbin that is uniquely his own. no god could move him nor force of nature shake him. he is stray kids’ rock, their solid core. that’s why they rely on him so much, why they lean on him so heavy. because changbin can take it. every void, every stone, every parasite drinking itself sick on the lifeblood of his teammates, changbin can take it. take it all and keep their heads above water because that is what he does best.

and that’s why he and yongbok are such a good match because the others may tell yongbok to put his boulders down, but changbin’s the only one strong enough to share the weight. whatever you’re carrying, give it to me. i will carry it with you. i will carry it for you. because it’s nice to escape from reality for a while, it’s great. that is how we cope, that is how we live every day. these little brief moments where we can set down our burdens and our baggage and just live in the lightness of being. but what we really want, what we crave, is someone who will not tell us to forget for a while but someone who will shoulder reality with us. and that’s what changbin is. for all of stray kids, but especially for yongbok. someone who will time and time again, offer to help with the weight. to even it out a little. to bear it with him.

yongbok and changbin’s relationship is built on sharing existence together. it always has been, even when yongbok could barely speak korean. you don’t need a shared language to feel each other living. that’s what’s so remarkable about it, because it is so innate within them. like breathing, it exists without them even trying. their relationship isn’t always serious, of course. they spend just as much time throwing all of their fire sign energy at each other. but there are moments of quiet when yongbok fades into the background, grows quiet and downtrodden. and changbin takes yongbok’s hand. an acknowledgement without a demand. a promise without pressure. not come back into the sunlight but i will be with you in your dark.

“i know you think that you’re on your own. but just know that i’m here, and i’ll lead you home if you let me.” - streetlamp manifesto

#i love them #we don't see as much of their interactions on screen #but i have no doubt that changbin remains #and will always remain #yongbok's closest confidant #changlix #changbin #felix #yongbok #stray kids #long post

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dantesinfcrno · 4 years

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trigger warnings !! suicide, suicidal thoughts, drug use / overdose, body horror, death, blood, violence, self harm, abusive relationships. most importantly, bad writing!

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈 ：𝐇𝐘𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐀 .

frigidity, heartlessness ╱ the absence of love ╱ virgin mary, corrupted .

winter child with shards on its mouth –– the snow quivers before khione, goddess whose lips do not tremble. cataclysm upon birth, no life to be seen as monster opens its eyes. before words could be uttered, before a name could be given to beast, untamed, it knew of fate. worthless creature, undeserving of shedding a tear. void big enough to fill any mansion, all touch lost –– who would cradle an interrupted demon, a fallen angel? who would wipe the anguish that never created roots inside tiny body, broken?

( … )

one vivid memory: it sitting down in the floor a living room ( no house is ever the same: all empty in a pantheon of different ways ). it is invisible, as Father dreams of his own tales, as Mother unravels the world. no one holds it up. –––– galatea? –––– it calls for Her, voice too firm for a child, first words incisive ╱ poignant knife. She stares into its eyes, peering at the chaos She created –– and turns Her back.

( … )

verses wrote themselves against its skin, fairies would whisper secrets into its heart. before it could walk, small deity devoured books –– in search of a love he did not know of, this powerful feeling it could never obtain. the titans who gave birth to lucifer ╱ lilith, anew, could spare it no sweet nothings. the tutors brought in could not hold down treacherous creature, could not embrace it, could not understand it. oh, the gentle kiss that would break the curse. oh, the sweet princess that would awake humanity inside tainted guts. the choirs sang of redemption, absolution –– but they also snarled at child born with a target on its back, holy water falling at its feet. you were never meant to receive tenderness ; you shall not know what love entails. it all echoed inside this fortitude: melancholy the only tune beast ever knew ╱ maddening: to never be touched ; to never be loved without worship, without loathing.

( … )

poignant claws would drag themselves over a violin, and he interrogated the stars. who else, who else. can famine become savior? can ferocious teeth learn to taste another’s core without devouring it whole? i can try, i can try. boy, blizzard –– locking itself in the garden of eden, mortality discovered as fingers bleed, as thorns find home in the anatomy of god, interrupted. –––– you can be anything you desire, vessel. –––– serpent hisses, crawling up its core. –––– i choose to live. i choose to love all monsters, made out of darkness & concrete alike. –––– dante replies, half-smothered, half-breathing, apple tasting sanguine on his lips. ophidian smiles, knowing this end will be self-made. –––– you can’t be helped, child, you can’t be helped.

–––––– 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡 . ––––––

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐈 ：𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐀 .

resentment, anger ╱ agape ╱ your presence soothes me .

to seize the adoration one was never deserving of: a sin, an addiction. bringer of nightmares, a king crowned with madness –– and all he wants is all he can never have, prince amongst commoners, crawling through cobbled streets in search of scraps. there is relief in the tender stares he receives from older women, insisting him to turn back and find home. i don’t have one, i never had one. bones of a boy, muscles of a boy, but he –– savage, feral, bleeding life into a world that despises him.

( … )

this is what he knows of love: he must give it, even when it hurts –– somebody must be willing to rip their own flash, gift it away, and remain lacking forever. with hate, he learns this: puncture your flesh in order to feed the mouths that bite your legs ; turn your head to receive double the punishment, as it might turn you palatable ( they all want to break you, and if you shatter prettily enough, you might find gilded dregs to store inside your ribs ) ; swallow what no one wants to hear & drown in it.

( … )

being made entirely of open wounds, there is no deity capable of dragging him back to the fiery pits that gifted him life ╱ gifted him curse. lucky vessel, so close to a heart of his own. he rips one off a deer ( unfortunate as all that cross his path ) ; does not recall his face as he becomes other. the horror of inevitability is the only beauty he knows of, as he undresses, carrying only skin & blood. summer child ╱ crooked teeth, crooked smile. eris lies underneath ophelia: sweet, poisoned honey. there is an empty space, and there is laughter by its side. lord shiva, this is all i have, this is all i am. is there any other way to love, but to turn into madness? dante’s shrines are always filled with silence –– but he still brings limbs, lungs, livers as offerings to friends, lovers, foes.

( … )

light quivers through the cracks –– through the smile always perched on his lips, meaningless. he embraces the world: atlas, knee-deep in dirt, bound to shackles rooted in tartarus. he bears the weight with joyous laughter, bullet-wound on his throat. unconditional love to all but himself. –––– this is how my salvation will come. –––– he mumbles, wine-drunk, licking aphrodite’s mouth. oracle, foolish in his hopefulness. –––– i will love, love, love, until the point of murder. i will love the unlovable ; and i won’t ask for anything in return. –––– as he kisses madness into a stranger’s lips, as his body becomes a one night miracle for those who need it most. –––– i can give, and give, and give, and you won’t hear my voice begging for anything else. –––– as he lays in a bed that is not his own, as he wraps his tongue against quickened pulse, as he becomes one with a galaxy that had long disowned him. dante holds the unknown in his arms, and promises to adore it ( sweet, inescapable destiny ╱ ouroboros: we therefore commit this body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, beast to beast ).

–––––– 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐭: 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐛. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟, 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝, 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 . ––––––

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐈𝐈 ：𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐄 .

withering hope, abandonment ╱ philautia ╱ unfading love .

there is a limit to what forsaken hands can do. dante has picked stars, reached burning celestial bodies, cut his palms while tending to flowers with more thorns than petals. maybe i will encounter the lacking piece ; maybe there is half a soul to be found. a possibility is all that drives him forward, as skies turn grey and greyer. death is served, and young piece of sunshine ╱ corrupted shard of blood moon refuses to take it. i will keep on living –– i refuse to pass, i will not become more ghost than i already am. he moves around life, life runs right through him –– a sword lodged below his collarbone, forcing him to cough up blood. he is not a memory anyone can have. dante thinks about his absence in a world that already feels much like nothing: everchanging figure with a thousand names, an opaque face, a hidden mouth.

( … )

merciless crow weighs heavily on his shoulder –– that, a haunting dante can’t run away from. he pledged the remnants of his tortured soul ; promised to bloom flowers inside of his guts ; swore he would not howl when the thorns slayed him. –––– how do i love without feeling it flow in my body, how do i love without receiving it in my bloodstream? –––– fallen next to thanatos, locked away in a luxurious bathroom, he wonders and wonders. foolish messenger, victim of hubris ╱ icarus, aware the sun would burn his wings, but taking the leap of faith & crashing, drowning in saltwater. –––– who am i to challenge the gods? –––– he murmured, anguish sorrow rising and falling in the rhythm of his chest. dante remembers rain falling endlessly –– but, most of all, he remembers silence. –––– oh, dear. i am alone, aren’t i? –––– he questions a ghost, tears rupturing his flesh. what he tried to hide meets sunlight in its last breaths. miserable boy, crestfallen human –– he discovers himself once he uncovers death. soothsayer full of shame, guts filled with medicine, wrists torn by ache. what prophecy could he utter with such a defiled existence? no one will come for him, is his last rational thought. no one will remember him. dante: nothing, no one, infinitesimal. –––– all i have tried to give is all i do not have. –––– the veil falls from his face and the earth quiets.

( … )

he wakes up, bittersweet taste lingering in his body. my bones have finally shattered, he muses, not entirely awake, i have nothing else to give. his tutor does not spend the night by the side of his hospital bed ( white, everything pearlescent, pristine, sickening ), and dante doesn’t expect his parents to come –– and they don’t. ordinary, meaningless existence. he should have passed to another realm, but he had vowed to keep on living. –––– fate is anything but forgiving. –––– is what he mumbles to a kind nurse: the one individual worried for him, but only because it is her job. he holds her by the wrist one day, mouth opening and then closing. can you stay with me? can you let me go? –––– thank you. –––– and there are no other words he is able of uttering throughout his stay. alone, is all he’ll ever be, no pink hues to enlighten his days. he notices his age in a file, wrong by two years, but does not say anything about it. who cares? who cares but you? do you at all?

( … )

his scars do not turn into bird wings. what should i fear, if not death, if not desolation? the torment of being devoured –– no, that is what he loves the most. in one of many nights ( lustful, adoring, fickle ), basile fast asleep by his side, dante’s fingertips caress exposed skin –– brutal tenderness, a blade he could never inflict upon himself. –––– i think i can only ever love whatever part of me when i find it mirrored in you, mon cher. –––– he confesses, obsidian irises shining. to hold on, to make room for fragile things, to fracture in the same crevices, even with leaden bones. –––– dragons and butterflies are one in the same, aren’t they? –––– dante whispers, cherry lips dragging across basile’s ears as emerald cradles carnelian closer, closer.

–––––– 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭 . ––––––

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐕 ：𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄 .

unfortunate attachment ╱ philia ╱ i have lost all .

grief supposedly works like this: denial ; anger ; bargain ; depression ; acceptance. dante has never fell into the latter –– there was not a day he felt his mother’s absence as an axiom. galatea died in his arms, no last breath redemption gifted to her only heir, but her number remains his emergency contact. perhaps–– this is the closest he will get to love: half-ghost, half-illusion ; one he can confess all his sins to ; one that will not reprimand him no more ; one hollow image ╱ sacrilegious saint he can pour his most selfish desires onto. once her body is laid five feet underground, dante kneels. –––– i would have done you a favour, mother, had i died before you.

( … )

dante’s dismay is always reminiscent of a forest, petrichor, and a bonfire put out during the night. galatea by his side, barely addressing his existence. miles deep into the woods, birds were singing once he heard mother, titaness, whimper. dante reached for her, cradled her, hugged her –– for the first time, for the first time, for the last time. intact arrows were lodged on her throat, on her chest. what could he do? –––– stay with me, please. –––– dante begged and begged, but galatea’s eyes were no more. trembling hand holding cold fingers, desperate cries as he forced himself to walk, to search for an exit he knew no longer existed. his feet were cursed with blisters once he found a small village, his cheeks marred by dried tears, his arms covered in matriarchal blood. catatonic emptiness –– and each new fracture of his soul was a new explosion, sharp, dangerous, lost. he remained by her side, acute desperation as the reality crashed upon him, a rogue wave. –––– come back to me. –––– as he curled his body next to hers. always freezing, you were always this cold anyway. –––– come back. you have to come back. –––– as he clung to her limbs, as his eyes sunk in sorrow. does this pain have a name?

( … )

poppy’s empty room and the vacant space left by galatea were one in the same. dante lingered around her bed, head throbbing –– grief never leaves, it only evolves into smothering shadow. dante places a small bouquet atop her pillows, mumbles a prayer in a faint voice. –––– i never had much. –––– he whispers, and hopes poppy can hear him, feel him. –––– but i had you. and i will find you, baby girl. i promise i will. –––– there are no smiles to brighten up his complexion, no light shining through his ribs. this night, like many others, is spent entirely on research. who can i reach next? what can i sell of my soul to have you back?

–––––– 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 . ––––––

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕 ：𝐂𝐘𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐍 .

departure, resignation ╱ pragma ╱ all good things come to an end .

spring child, full of heartache. oh, how he wishes he could give it back: so many lives lost as he aimed for a pulse of his own, and dante now chases numbness. bodies become a blur, just in time for him to turn into a ghost. cheap whiskey and smoke mix themselves in his tongue, there are pills dissolving in his mouth, there is a stranger pressing him up against a wall. why is it not enough? why must i crave what i can never have? oh, to grow yourself a heart only for a friend to pull it out, for a friend to crush it beneath their feet. foolish boy. you should’ve been grateful for the void i gifted you, is the echo growing inside his brain, his mother’s voice a tortured ghost. to believe one could truly love him –– the most reckless of all behaviours, the pain that could extinguish him into dust. what is heavier than this emptiness? what is more consuming than this void? –––– she … she told me she was going to find someone else to go home with. –––– hollis’ words can’t be erased from his mind, and dante finally crumbles beneath their weight.

( … )

his eyes are swelled up once he reaches london. perhaps, there is a limit –– even for a demon, even for a grotesque creature. perhaps, as he crawls atop galatea’s grave, he meets his end. knife wound, love wound: it bleeds all the same. his body is freezing, even when the night is still –– there is an image replaying in an infinite cycle behind his eyelids, frozen tears clinging to reddened cheeks. –––– was saying ❝ i love you ❞ my undoing? –––– he murmurs into the night, the claws of a demon resting upon his shoulders, smothering and lukewarm, and shivers caress his spine ( tiny spiders, nails across a chalkboard, vermins crawling through a corpse ). –––– he asked me to find him, and i did. –––– there is no humour in his laughter. such unforgivable stupidity, and he can only punish himself for it. unsheathed talons lacerate his scalp: apathy as a life-threatening poison, as he sinks rotten nails inside of his flesh and hopes to come up with a crown, reborn. there is no rage as perished daisies become his halo, as dead mother becomes dead son, on his knees, forehead to the ground. cold rain soaks up his bones: a preferable fate to succumbing to loneliness –– suffering, but religious ( i am only holy when broken, i can only adore as a morgue does with a corpse ). can rose taste him in basile, he wonders? is he too fleeting to be felt, even by a tourmaline angel? –– the one that loves him, loved him, somehow. melinoe whispers in his ear ( mother of madness, but he trusts her –– who else does he have? ) : that was a lie. what does one gain from worshipping you? –– hell, fervent kisses, languid hands, consuming touch, everything, too much, nothing at all.

( … )

jester, conquering his way through pleasing his majesty’s body, filling his bed. oh, to be aware of one’s low worth –– never good enough, even when it came down to being used. tiring illusionist, shuffling the same cards, over and over and over… could he blame anyone for forsaking him? ares, begging to be forgotten. no more pain, no more. the heavens are deaf, however, and it continues: plague in his bones ; hunger in his chest ; torture in his skull. if he stays down for long enough, perhaps no one will bother to look for him. pitiful dead boy turns blind man, hearing his last heartbeat, moonlight on his tongue, constellations on his lips. what is there to be said at his tombstone? unknown, unloved, unmissed. this, the only way he’d ever be able to go. you may have broken my heart, but only i hold the power of shattering my own soul. water springs from his eyes: weeping angel, at home in a cemetery. –––– not even your ghost is capable of loving me, mother. and still, you’re all i have. –––– he whispers, restless, plunging prayers down the earth. love me, you should’ve loved me, love me, please.

–––––– 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞: 𝐚 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 . ––––––

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈 ：𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊 .

you will be my death ╱ eros ╱ poisonous calamity .

eros finds him –– no mercy, no mercy. mercutio picks him up from the ground, dirty and paralyzed, says nothing. dante wakes up in his bed, undressed, filthy, sore. –––– you always come back, don’t you? –––– the emerald’s voice reverberates in his head, each syllable another nail on his coffin. phobos & deimos are also children of aphrodite, is what he learns with mercutio –– standing tall, smile of a hunter, canines of a wolf. –––– i am really everything you have, huh? –––– his laughter is haunting, and the desai becomes child, forgotten –– once more, once more.

–––– i never had you. –––– dante mumbles, looking out the window. the abyss stares back, offers no answers, vanishes. –––– never had anyone at all.

( … )

when the morning comes, mercutio presses dante against a wall –– hand around his neck, vicious. dante does not blink as breaths become shallow, as lights seem to fade. –––– i’m not scared of you, fool. –––– melancholy in defiance, tone dripping in dark blue. –––– kill me. I’m all yours. –––– and he smiles only after his feet touch the ground, a slap across his cheek. bitter glory. thanatos is always lingering in his spine, never daring to break him. untouchable, even by death. sobriety in nothingness, in madness: mercutio looks inside his soul, and realizes he is messing with a demon with nothing to lose. –––– you have stepped over my guts and claimed the beast inside of me as yours. you have more reasons to fear me than anyone else, and you better start acting like it. –––– dante bows, and leaves. always an actor leaving a stage –– trickster, villain or tragedy? he doesn’t know anymore.

–––––– 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚) 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞, 𝐛) 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫, 𝐜) 𝐬𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 ? ––––––

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈𝐈 ：𝐀𝐒𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐋 .

my regrets follow you to the grave ╱ memento mori ╱ remembered beyond the tomb .

dante comes back at midnight, after four long days. there are finger marks against his trachea, there are new quicksilver lines against his body, there is new darkness pressed underneath his eyes. quiet –– inside his heart, white noise. inside his mind, an ocean in which he’s drowning. for poppy, he muses, for poppy: he must move onward for her, if not for anyone else. he can barely hear his own heart, beating, struggling. just until i find her, and then...

#𝑿𝑰𝑰 : REFLECTIONS .#𝑽 : DEVELOPMENT .#body horror tw #suicide tw #blood tw #violence tw #abusive relationship tw #?#drug use tw #overdose tw #self harm tw #suicidal thoughts tw #i couldnt fit in ludus and storge in this #but #yeh

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spectralscathath · 4 years

Text

Without Regret, I'd Offer Up My Life

In the end, both James and Fria would place their duty to the world above all else. No matter the personal cost.

or: Ironwood is the one to charge headfirst into Fria's storm.

Ao3 Link

James kept his pace as he left his office behind, leaving his Ace Operatives to keep team RWBY under control while he set off to oversee his plan. He pressed the button on the elevator doors, stepping inside as he ran through his options, trying to see clearly through the aftershocks of terror that still gripped him.

He had a job to do. Lift Atlas into the sky, and protect every citizen that stood upon the city, from the Atlesian-born to the Mantle refugees. What were those children thinking, asking people who they’d just pulled from death’s jaws to dive back in to save a city that had already fallen?

He shoved it out of his mind. There wasn’t time to ponder the morality of actions, or the reasoning behind them. An excellent philosophical discussion to be had, he was sure, but right now was a time for action.

The plan was almost damning in its simplicity. Winter would take the power of the Maiden, open the Vault, and they would create an Atlas that could survive far above Remnant, where not even the Grimm would reach them. They could create an Atlas with sustainable supplies, air, and temperature, and with the magic of the staff, it would be child’s play.

All it would take was Fria’s life, and the lives of those who his army could not evacuate in time. He would keep them running the lines between Atlas and Mantle for as long as he could, but when the time came, they’d be recalled.

There was no time, not with Salem on her way. He didn’t know how long they had.

What mattered was keeping the relics from Salem’s grasp. No matter the cost. He’d bear the burden himself, and every bit of hatred lashed at him for it would be something he could accept. He’d die for Atlas. Living as a heartless monster would be easy in comparison.

“Schnee, what’s the status of the Maiden?” Fria. It was harder to think about what was about to happen to her. He’d hoped she’d go peacefully, and Winter would be there so she didn’t go alone.

Now they’d have to use the machine, and Fria would have to die with the feeling of her soul being ripped away from her and grafted onto Winter. The amount of pain they’d both be in, all on his command.

Atlas could hate him for every order he gave. He’d join them.

He scowled when nothing came through his coms, touching them to try and clear up the signal. “Winter?”

All he heard was feedback, and dread filled his veins. In Beacon, Cinder had followed Ozpin to Amber, and taken Fall for herself.

The building shook, perfectly timed with the panic that punched him in the gut.

Danger.

He went to help, because he couldn’t fathom doing anything else. He was missing a gun and an arm and his aura had only just begun to recharge itself, but he had passed his orders on. With or without him, Atlas could live.

They just needed to keep the Winter mantle safe.

The elevator was too slow as he took the stairs to the medical floor Fria was kept safe on, the entire building shaking a second time as he reached the flight just above. His coms crackled in his ear and Winter’s voice came through, tinny and frazzled, the connection damaged.

“Sir, Fria’s activated her power!” The pain threading Winter’s words was audible even through the faulty earpiece. “I can’t get to her!”

Was this it? Was this Atlas’s fall? “Cinder?” He had to know if Fria’s life was on the line.

“Escaped. Penny went after-” the audio screeched so loud it hurt, Ironwood’s combat-honed instincts going haywire in that one moment as he ripped the earpiece out, accidentally crushing it between metal fingers.

He ran through the wreckage of a medical floor, all the lights shorted out. He could see bodies and scorch marks everywhere, damaged pieces of robots sparking with electricity. His breath began to fog as he arrived at the end of a corridor, the hall lighting up with icy blue from whatever magic Fria had unleashed.

He slowed his steps, one arm in a sling and the cold nipping at his bandages, his right hand drawing a gun that was almost emptied of bullets. The door to Fria’s room had been blown apart, replaced with a wall of solid ice. Inside Ironwood could see lights shifting back and forth, the storm inside raging with Fria at its heart.

He backed up until his heel nearly touched the far wall, placing a shot in the ice as he charged it with his right shoulder, smashing his way into Fria’s vortex.

The cold nearly stopped him right then and there, ripping the air from his lungs as he felt the chill burrow in under his uniform and gnaw at his prosthetics, the metal carrying ice right into his body with ease. He gritted his teeth, stowing his gun in its holster as he tried to shield his face with his right arm, putting all his focus into each step.

The winds alone threatened to blow him off his feet, ice nipping threateningly at his heels as his aura strained to keep him alive against winter’s might. Frost began to form on his metal wrist, his right leg beginning to creak ominously.

He could barely see, his neural implant throbbing in his forehead from the chillit transmitted into his skull. Another step, the winds growing impossibly stronger for a moment before he entered the eye of the storm. Snow crunched under his boots as he looked up at Fria, blue flame burning from her eyes as she floated gently above the ground, staring into nothing.

His heart caught in his throat as he feared that she wasn’t even in there, her power winning out against his soul as his aura burst off him into periwinkle lights, immediately stolen away by the wind. The cold was suddenly a living thing, driving daggers of white hot daggers into every part of him it could touch. The metal hewn to his body felt like death, carrying the chill straight into his core.

Ah. So he did have a heart after all. He just felt it freeze over.

It was only because his right knee joint had locked into place that he didn’t fall, ice creeping up around his boot as he buckled in place, every breath like knives dragging down his throat. He tried to reach for her, desperation all he had left now that willpower had failed him. “FRIA!”

The storm halted, every tiny snowflake caught in midair and crystallised there as the wind died, the air still as his breath came out in ragged pants of mist. Fria stared down at him, her eyes paled to ice by Maiden’s fire instead of a dark blue that matched the night sky.

He stared back, a broken man, half-bandages and frozen metal, crushed by the weight of the world. He wondered if she remembered who he was, terrified of the probability that she didn’t. “Mom.”

Fria gasped quietly, a soft intake of breath as the fire in her eyes fizzled out, clarity taking their place. “James.”

She recognised him. He let out a huff, only the remnants of his tattered composure keeping it from being a sob. She knew him. “Are you okay?”

“I… had a job to do,” she murmured, her voice far away. He hoped she wasn’t slipping again. He could withstand everything the world could throw at him, but the thought of his own mother not knowing his face shattered him in a way he couldn’t bear. “I had a duty.”

Duty. That was something she’d instilled in him. “You did.”

“I was meant to protect the power of the maiden, until I was ready.” She began to float down to the ground, all the snowflakes suspended in the air falling in one heap that covered his shoulders and hair. The air warmed enough for him to move his bionic joints, the metal parts whirring stiffly. Her sandals touched the ground and it was like all the strength her magic gave her was pulled away, leaving a frail waif behind.

“You did great,” He tried to reassure her, catching her before she could fall and gently supporting her weight as he helped her sit down. He sat beside her, knowing he’d failed his own duties as a huntsman, and hoping that just this once he could try to be a good son. “You did. Really.”

The last time he’d visited her, she hadn’t known his face.

That was the day he gave the order that Winter was the only one allowed to see Fria. He would have been a distraction, in the end. There couldn’t be a risk of her thinking of someone like him, or else the power would be lost.

It would have been better for her to forget him entirely, perhaps. No matter how much it hurt.

Fria leaned against his right side, and he was shocked at how light she was. For all his life she had been an uncompromising solidness and a gentle warmth, the two bound together like binary stars.

“I’ve been waiting for so long.” She sounded so tired and he wanted to fix it, fix everything, make a world where no one would have to feel tired or hurt or scared ever again. “I think that I’m ready now.”

He felt like he had been ripped from whatever anchored him to the world and sent spiralling into the void of space, like a piece of the shattered moon drifting off into the galaxy. His throat was tight, an uncomfortable scratching behind his eyes as he felt his stomach drop. “I’m not.”

He didn't want to say goodbye. He wasn’t ready to let go yet.

Fria blinked at him, exhaustion lining her features as some of the adamantine steel from his memories filled her eyes. “James. I know what will happen. I’ll be gone. I remember that much, at least.”

He clenched his jaw, taking short sharp breaths as his chest began to heave. “I know. It’s your duty.”

He was willing to do anything for the good of humanity, make whatever sacrifice of himself that was needed, but by the gods, not this. Please. Why did it have to be his mother?

It wasn’t fair, even though that was a child’s thought.

She smiled at him, comforting him even in her last moments of existence, and he’d never forgive himself for it. “You’re going to be okay.”

“I-” The edges of his vision blurred as his throat closed up, knowing how selfish he was with being here, when it should have been Winter. His own plan, a fragile thing built on trust, shattered by his own clumsy hand.

“Winter. Please. She has to be the next Maiden. It has to be her. I can’t save you,” gods he fucking wished, “but I can save others. I just- it has to be Winter.”

“Winter.” Fria sighed with a contented smile and the tiniest of nods, her breathing beginning to slow down to tiny wisps. “She’s such a nice girl.”

“Yes. She is.” James chuckled as warmth beaded in the corners of his eyes, his voice threatening to crack.

Fria’s eyes slid shut as her head fell against his metal shoulder, hard and unyielding, her last breath rattling out of her like a final dagger sliding in under James’s ribs. White-blue light rippled over her like waves as her aura collected over her heart, the ball of light shooting off like a comet.

He could only hope that the magic reached Winter. All he could do was sit there as the barricades of sheet metal and stubbornness he’d built around his emotions broke open, leaving him to weep brokenly in the cold, Fria Ironwood sheltered in his arms.

What if it’s true as they say, that I don’t have a heart, that I'm more a machine than a man? What would that change? Would it matter at all?

Anyway Hero's the best fucking song ever. We stan. Also this plot goblin wouldn't stop beating me over the head until I wrote it out and now I'm attached to this headcanon, whoops.

#RWBY #James Ironwood #Fria RWBY #Winter Schnee #rwby fics #my writings #because clearly what James needs in his life is MORE pain and suffering #here's my idea for how James and Fria know each other

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honestlyfrance · 4 years

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This is Enchant in my main; for the prompt, i'mma be a monster and ask you to write a prompt where Sam falls apart (emotionally, just to clarify)... and Bucky catches him. Sorry for the angst 😣😞😞 but it could be nice imagining the C-O-M-F-O-R-T

The Catch

send me a song/prompt, I'll write under a minute!

Obviously this isn't a minute but more of 20-30 mins with hour long breaks 😫 warning: angst and slight disassociation! I have a similar fic like this theme, so you can check out that one if this doesn't suffice! thanks so much for the prompt, and wow such Angst you wanted huh

There's this endless void that stretches until imagination ceases to exist, and the matter made its presence so vividly known that it becomes the only thing you ever think about. Endless, we call it; infinity, as we dare say. Its existence threatens those vulnerable to its power, and who's to say you weren't eaten up by it?

The ceiling seemed infinite as Sam laid upon his bed, eyes staring dead into the endless void that had alluded him so much these past few days. If we look even closer to his brown orbs then we'd drown in the soft melancholic chaos in them, and we wouldn't be able to get back out from it and back into sanity.

Insanity, is that what we dare call his state of mind? Has this vulnerability of his finally collapsed? Has our Sam finally fell from the stars he pinned in the sky for himself and drowned under the oceans like an Icarus?

If we were to look inside in his head, the only thing that would clue us into thinking he was still breathing was the ringing static that revibrated from the walls of his mind, and if these walls peeled at the wallpaper, we wouldn't know. He doesn't even know. All that seemed coherent was that…

What was coherent?

His eyes dulled as he ran a hand across his hair, digging his nails into his scalp to feel something. There's that same sense of depression that wavers in him whenever he lies down to rest. It came and went whenever it pleases itself, and it's ridiculous to even sob like this, because, God, if only you knew the pain of being unable to wonder if you're still able to think, you'd understand the duress of the situation.

Maybe you do. Sam… Sam probably knew.

"You're right here," Bucky whispers as he kisses the palm of Sam's hand as the man kept his sullen expression free on his face. Bucky's lips linger on Sam's hand before taking them away. "Just so you know, you're allowed to break down. Just know that you'll always have a safe place to land,"

Sam shakes his head, his breath staggering as he murmurs nonsense, his tears stinging his eyes.

"I'll catch you if I have to, but we both know what's better," Bucky caresses Sam's hand in his. Bucky fixed himself on the bed and began to drag his metal finger across Sam's bare arm, whispering, "You're here. More so," Bucky places Sam's hand over his own heart then to Sam's, "You're both there at the same time,"

Sam breathes, shakily. "It's not that…" he whispers so low that it sounds too grave to sound human. "I… I don't even know… I don't know if I'm stressed about being Captain… Captain America because... I'm not about… I don't know if it's the work that comes with… The expectations of the people…"

Bucky smiles subtly as Sam trails off. "You're learning, and that's okay," his eyes trail away, slumping carefully next to Sam as their hands stay intertwined on the latter's heart. "I mean… It's no competition, that I know… but… it's empty…"

"Exactly."

Bucky glanced at his love, and almost gasps at the rawness of the situation. It's not everyday one of them breaks down from pressure, but it was too often that it has become like a memorial to Atlas, carrying multiple burdens of the world one shoulder at a time. Was it right to carry this like Atlas—like a curse?

"We need help," Bucky nods hastily as Sam glances at him. "No promises, but— Join me, uh, next week. Yours could be across mine if you don't have her around here,"

Sam squeezes their hands, shaking his head as his eyes fluttered open and close, gathering what coherent words he could say: "I love you," he murmurs.

Bucky smiles, brings their hands to his own lips and kisses it gently. "We love ourselves first. I love you more, but I want you to love yourself more,"

"I do."

"I like that."

"You're learning too, huh."

"I just like to help. And you too, of all people."

Sam snickers and stares back into the ceiling, but calmer this time. Instead of wallowing into the vastness, he finally sees the glow-in-the-dark stars hung above them decorated into subtle constellations within a vast milky way. It was Bucky's bed—Their bed. This thought rang in Sam's head, and finally having a coherent thought, he sighed in relief.

They'll get better. They've made good with the endless ceiling already, haven't they? What's the next endless to them?

#sambucky #sam wilson #bucky barnes #falcon #falcon and the winter soldier #captain america #winter soldier #marvel #winterfalcon #sambucky fanfiction #do not copy #send a prompt loves!!#also this is some angst 😖 & idk if its up to your standards enchant #hope ya like it tho!! 💕#france: works #france: requests #france: writing

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sasorikigai · 4 years

Text

@heamatic’s Raiden gets Fujin, a test-muse.

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🌪️ || There is no longer emptiness where they used to be; attached, vein to vein, no longer severed. Now, the tumultuously precarious world just tumbles through thickets and brambles and icy seas, for Kronika’s cleaved, shattered fragments had warped into dead space, a force greater than a black hole and erased from the history. Even the Titan’s unparalleled might could be left floating in the darkness, a mere stardust in the wind. How such mellifluous words had tainted and corrupted even the strongest and the resilient warriors of the Earthrealm; but such sentiments could serve as fragile weakness. Fujin regards such pain a higher purpose, and that somehow - in some way - they will end up happier than they have ever been, even if that means they are further scarred both physically and emotionally. For humans both taught and smothered the demigod in love when he did not think he was deserving so, although fate launched him to appreciate the strewn puzzle pieces that seem entirely familiar.

Perhaps eons ago, he was just a mortal human, going about his life as another one of those hardened warriors who would have bled to protect the weak and vulnerable. As ruinous and unpredictable the world had been, if his destiny was written long before his ascension. as the crushing whirlwind imbued with his entangled veins, before the tailwind carried him forth. Steel-boned and iron-blooded, but wearing magnanimous cleansing wind in his clouded eyes, no longer, Fujin would struggle with the chest full of unrest and turmoil, guilt-ridden as he’d finally step out from the void, as a soft sigh fills his bring like a cold wind. While perpetuated list of words dance at his disposal, the Wind God is wordless, perhaps speechless in Raiden’s sacrifice. No longer, the seas and oceans would bellow beneath their shared might, nor the manifestations of evil befall like crumbling dilapidated walls before loads of guttural outcry would come in violent spurts, rendering them split and ravaged, paralyzed and shred open as even the iron-hide of Oni would shred like fragile meat, sprawled meat piling up as they will become transparent and butchered.

“No longer, we may dance together under the light of the setting sun, brother. No longer I will be able to sugar-spun clouds whirled together as your streaking lightning echo through the valley of the Earthrealm below,” there is no disappointment etched behind Fujin’s tenor, but a simple acknowledgement. A strange unease settles in Fujin’s guts, whirling like torrential maelstrom. In that moment, he also comes to a stark realization that he is the only demigod left on earth, along with the Fire God Liu Kang; but his duty will be to construct a peaceful path through the Hourglass, for sculpting the sands of time required utmost concentration and perpetuity of time. Fujin will become the sole ascended being that would guard the Earthrealm’s sustenance and serenity. How perilous the word it could be, how burdensome, for the responsibility would sit heavy like Atlas upon his hardened, sculpted shoulders.

“How my soul weighs with barbed wire of guilt and how my soul tangles beneath it. I had longed, attempted to even rip myself apart in an attempt to escape the Void; in violence and viscerality. I knew it would be foolish, but I was too desensitized as to why I was destroying myself, but I know the reason now. I wanted to aid you, brother, with the best of my abilities, without ever failing you or the Earthrealm.” ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🌪️ ||

#✗ unwavering wind of celestial might (fujin)#✗ be calm before the storm (mk11)#(lemme know if this is okay)#(hopefully I will do fujin justice as you do with your storm bros)#(and I just want them to time displace themselves and kick shang tsung's ass)#(that's my wishlist lol. just rewrite the fucking aftermath)#heamatic

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dreamy--dolly · 5 years

Text

we can survive on dreams, can’t we?

so here’s the percyhad fic i was talking about.

warnings: major character death, non-graphic violence

If one has pretend, they can travel the world without having to leave at all. Children can play games, pretend that they are heroes travelling the expanse of the world saving maidens and defeating monsters left and right. The hero wins in the end - maybe there are breaks for when they are tired and must go to bed, but they win in the end and they are happy.

Percival has his dreams and fairytales. He has lived but not survived on playing pretend, and has joined the ranks of the heroes he wanted to be. He is a knight of Camelot, fighting for justice. This time he clutches a real sword made of metal and not a flimsy tree branch, and the helmet he wears on his head is rusted and not woven from the soft petals of flower crowns.

He has seen blood. He has seen fire. But, Percival reminds himself, he has not seen everything. He can fight and eliminate the worst the world has, because the people before him have tried and succeeded in taking small steps. The knights of the Round Table were the ones who stepped up to the challenge, and while they have not succeeded in everything their accomplishments are not null and void.

And now it is up to him and Galahad to continue - they will do so on their quest for the Grail, and then will move onto the world.

He meets Galahad when they are first very young, and then they meet again. It’s when Percival is still raised as a “she” by his mother - even when she refers to him as “he” in front of visitors that make her jaw clamp and her teeth clamp - and wears silk dresses instead of armor, and wears his dark hair in heavy braids down his back. Galahad is only nine, and he cries about the bloodied knee he has gotten. Percival has never seen the blonde, bespectacled boy before. He has no bandages or salve to treat the wound. So he does what he knows best: Plays pretend.

Bright green eyes blink at Percival as he sticks his tongue out and blinks, and the crying turns to snickering. Galahad, because that’s the boy’s name, comes back again, and that’s when Percival really has someone else to play pretend with him. They play games they can’t quite remember and can’t quite forget, but by the end Galahad always has to run back down the dirt path in the woods to where he lives and Percival is left alone again. When Percival is alone one day, he sees the angels that don’t have wings, shining in their armor, and he tells Galahad about the angels when he meets up, and how for a split moment he wondered maybe if he died he’d become one.

“Those aren’t angels,” Galahad says.

“What do you mean?”

So Galahad tells him that he has seen knights and that is when they play pretend about things they remember. They live and consume and breathe their dreams - dreams about riding through the land in shining armor, upholding chivalry and saving people and chasing away evil. Galahad says that in a few years he will leave for Camelot with his mother and he will become a knight like his father before him.

“I promise that I’ll find you so we can become knights together.”

Galahad blinks a little. “You promise?”

Percival smiles. “Promise. They’ll tell stories about us one day - they’ll tell stories about you and me.”

Percival keeps his promise.

He is twelve years old when he shows up to Camelot. He remembers how even after he had to go against the knight that invaded their home his mother still says that he is too young and that he doesn’t deserve the fate his fathers and brothers got when they were knights. Percival thinks it’s stupid, because if he is fighting to pave the way for good at least he will die doing so. So when he comes to Camelot they are already telling stories of the strange boy dressed as a girl, whose torn dress is splattered in mud and the sword he clutches in his hands is too big for him and stained with blood. The king - a man whose soft features and kindly eyes have been hardened in the storybooks Percival had at home - says that yes, Percival can become a squire.

They take him away to clean the dirt and blood matting his hair to his face and he hears whispers about how he’s a poor thing, and how it’s “incredible” that “a child” was able to endure what he did. Percival does not know what to think of being called a boy. While he does not use the word “she” and knows he is no girl, he doesn’t quite think it right to be called a boy either. Maybe there is an in-between, but for now he’s a boy and maybe later he’ll find something. But for now the word boy is enough.

They give him new clothes different from the dresses he has worn and they say that he needs to cut his hair. It is alien, Percival decides when he reaches a hand up to feel cold air against his neck, to not have his hair weigh down against his back like it has for so many years. So when his hair is cut he leaves it a little longer - he doesn’t quite think he’s a boy, and maybe he doesn’t want to completely leave behind what he has.

He is going to train as a knight under Sir Kay. Sir Kay is a tall man with dark hair that covers one eye and looks like the sort of person whose voice would be all harsh and sharp, but when he speaks his words are low and warm.

“It’s nice to meet you.” He shakes Percival’s hand and stares back at the brown eye that is visible. “I have another squire who you’ll be studying with - Galahad!” He has not even seen the squire’s face or heard his voice but Percival thinks he knows. Did he just-

Galahad - the same blonde boy with green, green eyes peering from behind glasses - comes running. He pushes past Sir Kay when he sees Percival and tackles him to the ground in a hug. They have found one another after playing pretend for so many years. This isn’t pretend, though. This is real.

“You kept your promise,” Galahad mumbles to him.

He does not see Galahad’s face, but Percival hopes he smiles. “You thought I’d break it?”

“I’m glad you’re here, though. I’m glad you made it.” The hug Percival is cradled in grows tighter, and he feels as though his ribs might snap.

“Um, Galahad?” he says. “It - sort of - hurts-”

Galahad pulls away and Percival gasps for air. A hand reaches out to help him up and he takes it. They will grow up to be heroes together, and this time they will wear real armor and fight using real swords. There is a spark of good out there in the world, and if they can help it that spark will grow into a flame and the evil they’ve fought against playing pretend will be burned away.

“Sorry,” Galahad still holds his hand, “I missed you. But like I said, I’m glad you’re here.”

Then he smiles, and it is something to see.

They are the youngest among Camelot’s knights, and people say that they are things they’re not. The women and men at court titter about how they’re rivals pitted fiercely against each other, but whenever they had played pretend before as well as now they don’t clash. At least that isn’t what they think.

Everyone else seems to make it into a competition. But the truth is Percival does not bat an eye when they talk about Lancelot’s son Galahad anymore and about how if the Holy Grail is real then he will find it when he is older. Percival is able to tune them out and force the words to become background for him. If he does not notice them they will not sting.

It all still does, though. While he does not mind being the one to fade into the background as a part of the scenery while Galahad takes the lead role, he still notices the strings that jerk him around in the play. He notices how Galahad smiles a little sadly when Arthur’s words are kind - Lancelot doesn’t say such things about him, Percival sees - and how regardless of how much he laughs whatever smile he bears fades away at the mention of his father. He notices all the murmurs about how “pure” and “innocent” Galahad is, and notices the way Galahad shudders and tries to elbow his way out of crowds when he sees the way some of the ladies look at him. His safe haven is always the chapel or with Percival, it seems, because it is there Galahad does not have a father to worry about or the weight of the world to carry on his shoulders. He does not have to be Atlas holding up the sky, for a moment he can toss the burdens aside and really be himself.

It seems as though Galahad cannot stray too far away from holding the sky up, though.

They sit near the chapel, swords tossed aside as they chomp on the apples they’d gotten earlier that day. There were far too many for them to carry, yet here they are sitting as the sun sets and the sky rusts to orange, and the apples are crisp and sweet.

“If you eat too many, you might get sick.”

Percival crunches into his - third? fourth? - apple. His hands are sticky and the grass itchy against him where he sits, but he ignores it. “Don’t worry,” he says, “‘M always hungry.” When he finishes the core is tinged yellow and brown, and he spits the pits out into his hand.

“Today was fun,” Galahad says.

“If Arthur invites again, we should go. I liked apple-picking with you and Arthur and Mordred and Laurel.”

Though Galahad smiles, Percival thinks that he is Atlas again and is reminded that he has the sky to bear on his shoulders. He remembers today - seeing Galahad carry Laurel on his shoulders so she could reach for the trees and didn’t have to hop around, him and Arthur laughing like father and son. He hasn’t seen Lancelot do that with him, he realizes, never saw Lancelot hold Galahad’s hand in his as they walked home, never greeted him and ruffled his hair the way Arthur did. Arthur is a father Galahad does not have, and Percival wishes he could understand - maybe if he had a father who hadn’t died fighting for the world he’d understand what it is Galahad misses but has never had.

This is not the way things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be far, far away from all that in the safety out near the chapel, aren’t they? They have their hopes and dreams to cling to, and those hopes and dreams will become true in the end. He should not have to bear the weight of the Grail and a ghost of a father and everything here.

Galahad tastes sweet and a little bitter like apples. Percival realizes this when he shifts and presses his lips against Galahad’s. There is a moment of Galahad unresponsive, but he reaches his hands up to touch Percival’s face - for a second Percival forgets that one day he’ll be married off to some girl whose name he will not know, and that this is not the way everyone else thinks they should be. Because for now they can play pretend when no one else knows.

A lump rises in Percival’s throat and he pulls away. Reality crashes down on him with stunning force. He can still taste apples.

Galahad blinks at him and reaches out. When he speaks his voice is hoarse and subdued. “Percy-”

But Percival leaves. Reality tastes bitter and poisons his tongue, and he runs back to the castle, his heartbeat thudding in his ears. It’s only for a moment but Percival thinks he knows what bearing the sky on his shoulders feels like.

“I’m sorry.”

The words come out small and Galahad comes close to dropping his sword.

It has been a week and they are the rivals they are made out to be. They have not forgotten playing pretend and still know that a single spark of good can envelop the world in flame, but Percival keeps his distance. He forgot that there are rules to playing pretend, and even if it is just a game he does not want to break the rules. So they play a new game, pretending that they are the rivals the court wants them to be. It is enough to make them forget Lancelot and the grail and apples and kisses for a little while - or rather, not quite forget but dulled enough.

The sun beats down too warm on Percival’s back.

“What are you sorry for?” Galahad asks. He lets his sword fall to the ground.

“Sorry for running off like that,” Percival mumbles. “Shouldn’t have. Should’ve said something. And I’m sorry for… doing that without asking you about it first.”

“It’s okay.”

Percival drops his sword. If they are not going to fight by the blade or with words, he has no need for a weapon. Although perhaps, he decides when Galahad pulls him into a pile of leaves, he should not have let his guard down.

“That’s your payment for running off like that!” Galahad’s words are supposed to be harsh, but the high-pitched laughing in his voice is most certainly not. Percival kicks around in the leaves, stirring up reds and oranges and yellows and browns as he sits up. And then he begins to laugh too.

He rolls against Galahad again and reaches his hand out to his face, but just as he is about to move in closer he stops. When he sees the nod, Percival closes the gap and they lie there in the leaves, his lips on Galahad’s. The autumn air is cold, but in the blanket of leaves and grass the two find warmth.

He pulls away but still has one hand against Galahad’s hair, the other clasping his neck. This time they actually forget that Galahad must bear the weight of the sky on his shoulders. They have their dreams and they can pretend that is not the way things are, and that is enough.

They play pretend for two years, ever since that kiss in the leaves when they’re both fourteen. Two years of sparring and training to become knights at sixteen, and everyone oohs and ahs at them and how young and new they are. They are welcomed to the Round Table, although while Lancelot shakes Percival’s hand his eyes are still cold towards Galahad, his own son. Percival knows it isn’t fair, but for now they don’t have to play pretend because they are knights now. They will both light the candle, hot and dripping with wax, and then leave it behind to burst into flames and spread good everywhere. There is a spark of good in the world, they just have to seek it and never let go.

Percival begins to wonder if it is not as easy as he thought it was. Galahad always asks if they can stay the night together. Sometimes he feels tears wet on his shirt, sometimes he hears Galahad sniffling in the darkness of the room. There are times when he enters and Galahad’s eyes are pink-rimmed, but he does not ask if he has been crying. He thinks that perhaps if he does, something - everything - will shatter. And Percy wants to preserve what he has for as long as he can.

This doesn’t happen all the time, though. Tonight, Galahad pulls him close and his face is dry when Percy cups his cheek. He shifts closer and the covers rustle over him. Winter has fallen and the heavy blankets are near suffocating, their heads cradled against pillows that are a little too plush.

“After the quest, where do you suppose you’d go?”

Percival cannot sleep, and neither can Galahad.

“Away” is Galahad’s answer. “I want to see what the country’s like outside of Camelot.”

That’s not the real answer and Percival knows it. Or rather, it is not the entire answer. He thinks Galahad means to say “I want to go as far away from this place as I can, as far away as I can from my father.” He would not call Lancelot “father”. He never does. But Percival keeps his mouth shut in favor of dreams and looking for a spark of flame in the darkness of the world.

“I’d want you to come with me,” Galahad says. “There’s a lot I haven’t seen of the world, and I’d want you to see it too.”

“Anywhere you’d suppose you’d go?”

Galahad exhales and curls his arm around Percy’s waist. “I haven’t thought much of that. I just know I want to leave Camelot. We’d get to actually live together once we get old enough, right?”

Percival does not want to sleep anymore. “Yes, we would. I’d want to have a big castle, and we could have it be near a forest-”

“Lots of trees, too, so we can go apple picking. And collect berries.” “We’d still travel, though, even if we’d live together. Even after the Grail. I want to see more of the world and have more adventures with you.”

Percival falls silent, although there are no words needed. He closes his eyes to let the warmth of sleep envelope him. Their dreams are blurry, of travelling the world on a white horse and they are laughing and smiling together. He knows he won’t remember, which is why hopes he will not wake up so soon.

The night before the Grail quest he actually witnesses Galahad cry.

He is seated on the bed, face buried in his hands as he lets out deep, shuddering sobs. If he notices Percival he does not look up. He just remains there, and it is only when Percival reaches out a tentative hand to press against his shoulder that he looks up.

His eyes are red-rimmed and the tears damp on his face have not dried yet. He still lets out muffled hiccups, and when he reaches for Percival’s hand he squeezes it as if he might slip away. He notices the bruises patterned blue and green blooming across his knuckles, but this time neither wants to speak just yet. So Galahad pulls Percival close and begins to cry again, tears wet against Percival’s shirt.

He peels away from Percival and begins to harshly rub at his face. “I shouldn’t - be crying - so much-” he forces out.

Percival pulls his hands away to wipe away the tears. He still stays silent.

Galahad laughs, creaky and forced. “I shouldn’t be crying in front of you , either. Not supposed to, I guess.”

“You don’t have to not do anything,” Percival says. “I don’t see anything wrong in you crying.”

But that’s just him, Percival realizes, and not the rest of the world. The Galahad the rest of the world puts on a pedestal is so very different - and inhuman, perhaps - compared to the one Percival knows.

“I’m just… I don’t know, Percy. Everyone tells me that I’m - that I’m better than my father, and the thing is I don’t want that. I don’t want to hear it, because he just keeps pushing me away because of it. I hate knowing that Arthur treats me more like a son than… than he ever has. And the thing is I’m not sure I want all of this. They say they like me, but what if I mess up? What if I make a mistake? I… I don’t know, I’m just scared and I’m not even sure the Grail is worth all of this anymore…”

Percival has no words to offer. He thinks that he too is subject to the prying eyes of Camelot’s court, but either he has never noticed or he has forced himself not to. He always tells himself that he has his dreams and it all goes away when he just plays pretend like they did when they were little, but is that really the right way? Because maybe turning a blind eye and pretending the pedestal he walks on may not break beneath his feet means he will not notice when one of them falls, and they’ll be too late to hold onto each other. They cling to each other and tell themselves that there is a spark of good that will grow into a flame because it is all they have, and they still fiercely hope that the spark will not be snuffed out.

It is only when he hears himself that Percival realizes he is crying, too.

“Forget the Grail,” he says when he thinks he cannot cry anymore. “Let’s just run away.”

Galahad does not answer.

“Let’s just run away like you promised we would once it ends. Let’s just go far away from here. I don’t care what happens on the quest, I just don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t know if Bors notices, I don’t know if Gawain notices, I don’t know if Arthur notices, I don’t know if anyone even wants to notice. But it doesn’t matter. There’s better ways to spread good through the world, and it’s just not like this. It shouldn’t have to be like this.”

The words feel like broken glass against the inside of his mouth, because Percival is not even sure he completely wants to leave. There is his castle back home, but he knows for sure that his mother is long gone and his sister married off, and that if they decide to leave Camelot behind right now they will be noticed. And what about Mordred? What about Laurel? He does not want to come back to Camelot after spending so many years with Galahad only to find that the little things he took for granted have slipped away. And he became a knight at Arthur’s court for the very purpose of spreading good. He cannot break the promise he had. They are trapped and forced to play their parts in this play.

They do not speak of running far away from here. They do not speak of anything. Percival lets Galahad bury his head against the curve of his neck and shoulder when they lie beneath the thin, rumpled sheets, but neither seems to fall asleep just yet. He will stay here, Percival decides, until Galahad falls asleep and he does not feel the tears half-dried on his face.

Galahad’s uneven breathing begins to slow, and he shifts a little against Percival. They will forget about the Grail and tomorrow morning in their sleep - for now it is just the two of them.

Percival begins to sit up now that Galahad’s eyes close, but before he can get out of the bed he feels a hand squeeze his.

“Don’t go, please,” he pleads.

So Percival lies back down and realizes he doesn’t want to leave either. He does not want to be anywhere else but here, where he can hear the beating of Galahad’s heart as he begins to fall asleep.

“I won’t.”

He tells himself that he is helping by going on this quest. Even though his stomach clamps at the sight of blood on his sword, Percival tells himself that he has seen it all before. It is just another quest, he tells himself, and part of his job as a knight of Camelot is to pave the path that he said he would. It is no game, no playing pretend like it was when he was a child, but this is all he has.

Once the beast is dead, its fur matted dark red, Percival falls to his knees. He waits for the prickling taste of vomit in his mouth, for his collapse. But he does not. He just stays there, trembling against the weight of the armor he wears.

Percival realizes then that if anyone is to find the Grail, it shouldn’t be him. He has dwelled on thoughts that others would say are selfish of him, with his wondering if he and Galahad could ever just run away and never look back, and he has placed the thought of his living together with someone and not having to think about his quest anymore above his faith. He is a traitor, he thinks to himself. He does not deserve to wear the armor or Camelot’s crest, he does not deserve to clutch a sword in his hands and sit at the Round Table.

If anyone deserves to find the Grail, it isn’t him.

“The beast is dead,” Bors tells him. He wipes the blood that rusts his sword.

“Sorry,” Percival mutters. “Just… tired.”

It is not a lie, but it is a dam that pushes back the entire truth.

“Let’s go. They’re waiting for us back at camp.” Bors begins to walk away, leaving Percival alone with the corpse of a monster in front of him.

He stands up, hands still shaking. He thinks about how he did not really even feel anything then, and did not feel anything now. The strain of adrenaline was absent, he did not feel his heartbeat thud in his ears when he saw the beast’s glowing yellow eyes and fangs dripping with spittle. He did not feel a thing at all.

And Percival thinks that is the way it should be. Even if he does not deserve what he has now.

If he just does what he is told and does not think about how undeserving he is, he will not feel pain anymore.

Even though he tries to numb himself, something happens to make everything sting all over again.

He hears shouting from inside the tents that they have set up for the night. Percival forces himself to tune it out through the tapping of the rain that falls - he has done this before with the nobles, he is doing it with the quests he has till the Grail, and he will do it now. So long as he does not think to listen whatever is happening would not even exist.

But he recognizes the voices. Galahad and Lancelot.

The mask shatters, and he listens.

“She spoke of how you were there,” Galahad shouts, “the best among them. Somewhere along the line she must not have realized the person who you really are!”

“Your mother stripped me of everything I could have been, and left me a shadow. I keep trying to fix things, but it’s all broken beyond repair because of you!”

There is Lancelot, and something burning breaks through the usual coldness of his voice

“Fix things? If anything, you do nothing but break and break and break! I keep trying to reach out to you - I want things to get better, I want things to be alright, yet you’re the one constantly turning your back on me! The family I’ve found amongst Arthur’s is because of your isolating yourself!”

“I turn my back on you because it’s your fault that I’m your shadow now! It’s all your fault!”

“I-”

“It’s all your fault.” Lancelot’s voice has grown icy again. There is silence. Then-

“Galahad-”

“Don’t bother trying to say anything, Father, You’ve said enough. I don’t even know why I call you ‘father’ - if anything, our own king is more family to me than you’ve ever been.”

The tent flaps open and Galahad walks out.

“You heard, didn’t you?” He does not look at Percival.

Percival looks at his hands. He does not want to face those green eyes, probably sharp.

“Yes.”

Galahad pulls up the hood to his cloak. He pulls Percival close and presses a kiss to his lips. It isn’t warm and sweet like the other kisses they have shared in secret. It is as cold as the rain they stand in. His hands are wet when he cups Percival’s cheeks. When he pulls away there is a ghost of a smile on his face - a smile Percival has not seen since the quest for the Grail began. It disappears, though.

“I’m going to find the Grail myself,” he says. He swallows. “I just feel like being with… him is too much for us both. He isn’t going to be proud of me in the end, I know that. But at least they’ll have found it, and maybe that’ll be enough.”

Percival remembers how they would talk about the castle they would live in once the quest came to its end. How they would travel the world together. The games they would play all those years ago in the forest.

Galahad smiles, and it is the first false smile Percival has seen him wear. “I promise to find the Grail for you, alright?”

“Even if you didn’t I wouldn’t mind that. Really. I wouldn’t.”

They know that they cannot run away now. They would be found too soon. But Galahad is not running away. He charges ahead because the only constant in his life he has had is his faith in God and his faith shared with Percival. And his smile is bright and false in the gray rain. Nothing Percival says will convince him to stay.

“Goodbye, Percival.”

He does not go after Galahad when he climbs onto his horse. He feels as though his hands are made of stone when he moves them to wave farewell one last time. This is the first time that he can remember that Galahad has not called him “Percy”.

“Goodbye.”

Something inside him breaks.

Galahad finds the Grail, and Percival finds him soon after.

He thinks that maybe if he had been there a little sooner it wouldn’t have been like this. Perhaps if he’d chased after him and begged to go with him, or forced Galahad to go back that it wouldn’t end up like this. Galahad is collapsed at the foot of the altar, so gaunt and in armor too big for his starved and broken body. It has only been two years, Galahad should be twenty now, yet he looks far older than he is supposed to. The Grail shines on the altar and Percival wants to smash it to pieces.

He pulls Galahad into his arms and stares at his hollow face and green eyes that aren’t supposed to be this dull. Galahad winces a little with every breath he takes, and there are scrapes and cuts and burns and probably more wounds beneath the armor that Percival doesn’t want to think about. Yet when he looks up into Percival’s dark blue eyes, he smiles. It is a real one, and not the sort of false grin he gave Percival when he left to find the Grail two years ago.

“You found me…” His voice is so faint Percival almost doesn’t hear him.

“It’ll be alright. We found the Grail, we can go home now, you aren’t going to-”

Galahad shakes his head. Percival clutches his hand as though he’s the one dying.

“Percy?” He blinks. He has not heard that nickname in two years. He thinks back to when he could still play pretend, back to when they were all little secret kisses and eating stolen berries. Tears distort his vision but he still forces himself to stare down at Galahad.

“Could you sing for me?”

He thinks back on all the nights before the Grail. Back when they could still play pretend, when sometimes he would hum whatever song was currently stuck in his head so that the both of them could fall asleep with music in their dreams. Sometimes Galahad would join in.

He brushes Galahad’s hair away from his face and nods.

“I will.”

It’s something he remembers that his mother would sing to him whenever she’d tuck her in. The notes are off key from how much it takes him to not cry, and the song comes out as broken and tuneless, but Percival still forces himself to sing. There are words, but their meaning is alien to him. And it is there in his tuneless, broken singing that Percival realizes the truth. Whatever spark of good there was in the world is too small to start a fire, and it may have already been snuffed out long ago. He has tried to play pretend and force himself to block out the pain of being wounded so that he can still think that a fire is possible, but in the end the flame is going to be snuffed out by the wind and he will have nothing left save for a brief afterimage of blue-tipped fire that glows in the dark before it’s completely gone. He has played naught but games with Galahad up to this point, thinking that it was all just one big play and they were the actors in it. That isn’t the way it works, though - rules are broken, people get hurt, and accidents happen.

He’s too busy singing to cry, but he does not finish when he feels Galahad shift one last time in his arms. His eyes have closed for the last time, and he reaches up a feeble hand to touch Percival’s arm. He mouths the words “thank you” and then goes limp in Percival’s arms.

Galahad dies before Percival can finish singing, a smile painted on his chapped, bleeding lips.

Percival stays there. The song has sapped him of all energy he has to cry, to move, to think beyond what there is now. All he has left is the ability to play pretend one last time. So that’s what he does.

Percival closes his eyes and plays pretend one last time

He pretends that Galahad has fallen into a heavy, dreamless sleep in his arms, and that he will wake up soon. They will wake up in the morning where he will shake Galahad awake, and it takes him dotting kisses all over his nose and cheeks for him to get out of bed. He has just fallen asleep while Percival sings to him, and that is all. The morning will continue as normal and they will go on their adventures through the castle together, and when night comes he will stay with Galahad until they fall asleep tangled in each other’s arms. It is all just another day for them back at the castle they call home.

Percival does not open his eyes when he presses one last kiss to Galahad’s forehead. His skin is cold, and even though the warmth of playing pretend has vanish Percival wonders if a kiss would be enough to wake Galahad up like in the stories. That question is snuffed out.

He does not want the other knights to find him like this. He had no control of a thing up to now, the only thing he has control of is making the mechanics of his body move again.

So with his heart making everything seem heavy, with all that has happened draining the colors from his sight, Percival cradles Galahad in his arms to carry what was once someone he loved with all his heart away from the darkness of the dungeon and towards the brightness of the sun.

#writing this tore me apart #angie writes #arthuriana #percyhad #percival (arthuriana)#galahad (arthuriana)

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stella-vinctum · 5 years

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Pain is immeasurable in a world where the senses are numb and the mind is adrift among the inky black. Once confident strides appear more careless, subdued; there isn’t much of a reason to hold his shoulders up. The loneliness that cages his heart bears the weight of his wisdom, knowledge that ultimately tore him away from those that once knew his name.

He has seen all the universe has to offer of horror, no longer fears the unknown. Each cold embrace is accepted quietly; there’s a certain sense of understanding that, perhaps, he’ll never be free of this torment. How many souls still carry him within their thoughts? Two, if memory serves him right, lately it’s been fading away much like the beautiful aura he would cast.

There are no stars, no galaxies, no warmth, not in the Void. The taps of his shoes disappear when he opens his mouth, ushers in silence that yields to not a single thing within the old astronomer’s reach. He’s beginning to prefer it that way; if his end is to come from the depths of some pocket world or layer of Hell, then so be it.

Atlas once held his world upon his shoulders, sacrificed himself for it, and can never return. Such a cruel fate for someone who gave so much and wanted nothing in return. Well, isn’t that exactly what he got? Nothing. Absolutely... nothing.

#x: The Astronomer's Journal

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ligayaniangel · 3 years

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She never really felt what it’s like to have a broken heart before all of this. Looking at the mirror, studying her features, she had always know who she is and what she has and it’s only now that she realized why she had always felt like she’s on the top of the world and no one can ever reach her. Aside from being born into privilege, she always had him…he’d always been there protecting her, carrying her in his shoulders, like the titan Atlas and she was his world. But now, he had grown tired and he finally set her down and the wolves are all out to get her.

She tried to shake off the thought as the prickly tears threatened to spill from her eyes once more. She’s so tired of it all, crying and wishing he would take back all the words he uttered, but she knows it’s too late for that and it wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t even wishing for it when it was her who has someone else who is willing to give everything to her. But the thing is, losing him…it was like losing a limb, a part of her who will always be a phantom ghost of her present. She begged him, a thing she hasn’t even done to anyone, pleaded and asked for him to stay, and she knows that’s unfair but she hoped he’s selfish enough to do so and loves her enough to settle but she was wrong.

So, now, she has to wake up each day with that hollow feeling in her chest, aching and screaming for the void to be filled by him and only him and she can’t do anything about it. There were days that even breathing was hard but she had to stay strong, she had to act tough, not let anyone see the pain she’s nursing inside to avoid hurting anyone else. She can get through this…she can try to forget..she can pretend that she hasn’t lost her first love. The love that made her see there can be innocence in desire, safety in chaos, and serenity in intensity. Maybe they weren’t just made for this lifetime, maybe the eternity they deserved together isn’t written in their stars, or maybe…he just really loved her enough to let her go and find her happiness somewhere else. Isn’t that what true love is or so they say? Selfless enough to let someone else grow and find a better path?

All these thoughts, all these pain, they swirl inside of her and even when she’s making excuses for him, trying to convince herself she understands, she still longs for him and his embrace. Because in the last 21 years that she had been alive, he had been holding her and losing that was the hardest pill she has to swallow. “I love you…” She whispered, him in her mind. The words may never reach him and saying it alone might be a crime in itself, but in this safety of her bathroom, she can be honest with herself and she can honor the grief she’s feeling deep inside.

#p.s

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portectorisms-a · 6 years

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How long had it been? How many years had past since this day had ever seen the light of it? Most of the time, he tries so desperately to keep it hidden under the many layers of guilt that encompass him. He's lost in it. The room sits empty besides his pressence. His feet rest upon the floor, the soles of his boots rest hard against the smooth surface. He's clad in fitted black jeans, his elbows rest upon them and between calloused fingers is a photo. A photo of his mother. The only photo he ever cared about keeping of her. The only one he didn't lock away in the small box full of her stuff tucked safely in the top shelf of the closet. She was healthy in it. Smiling brightly and he knows where Octavia got the shine from when she was happy. The way her features lit the room when she was geniune about something. When she was so damn passionate it becaome infectous. He mentally shakes him self and he let's a soft, deep sigh escape through slightly parted lips. His chest has grown heavy and there's lump in the back of his throat that causes his air to feel like he's choking. Swallowing has become a game to his system on if he'll die or not but he doesn't think about it. He's washed with memories of a time has has since long passed. Of a time that hadn't happened for the last so many years but it felt like just yesterday.

Aurora's flowing brunette strands cascaded down her back like a waterfall. She looked beautiful, even in the reset light of their home. Her smile was dashed in red lips and her eyes surrounded with black liner. His mother radiated what Octavia was given and he could see it in both of them. He stood at her doorway, his gaze upon her sculpted features. She looked tired. She was leaving for the night. She was always gone for the night. He couldn't remember the last time she had stayed at home and ate dinner with them as a family. Hell, he couldn't even remeber the last time she had stayed a full day in the house aside from making sure he was still alive and his sister hadn't broke anything that she'd have to pay for. That and to change her clothes for the next night out that would pass into morning. When he was a kid, he used to stay up into the long, early hours of the coming morning, worrying with guilt and concern if his mother would be home in time for breakfast. In the beginning, he hated that he was the one that had to tuck Octavia in when she was a child, asking for the mother that he almost wished they never had. He wonders how their life would've been if they had just been alone? Would Octavia had turned out differently? Neither one of them had a father and when the day grew to night, and Octavia asked questions, Bellamy was left scrambling for the right words to explain to her that they were alone. That even though they had a mother, they really only had each other. The only family that ever mattered were them. Then fate decided to be cruel. It always was.

His expression sombers. There's a bloom of heat that starts to crack inside his chest. He tries so hard to be strong. He tries so desperately to hold it all together but then he days where it's almost impossible to remind himself that he's not Atlas and he doesn't have to carry the weight of the world alone. He's not alone. He hasn't been for a long time but his body shakes and he feels the track of tears as the start the decent down his star spattered cheeks. His breath is gargled as he tries to stop the sob from escaping, his shoulders shaking in it's wake. The picture smiled at him. It gave a light that the sun couldn't but he didn't know this version of his own mother. He had never seen her like this. Even when he was an only child. He had always been alone. She left him. The only son she wanted and she left him. She would've rather had her fun than be the parent she was suppose to be. The first few years that he couldn't remember, he wonders if they were good. He wonders if she loved him then because he didn't feel that for as long as he could remember. Why would a mother love her son but then leave him alone? Why would she abuse his sister and want nothing to do with her when she made her boy happy? Was he a monster to start with or had he grown in that? Was he born with blood already on his hands? Had he been the cause of his father leaving or was that her entirely? Did she blame him for this world and the way it treated her? He was just a boy. How was he suppose to know better? How was he suppose to do anything? He was a helpless boy who should've tried harder.

The tightness in his chest grows larger, spreading through is body and the sobs come in waves now. He lets the picture fall to the floor. It's staring at him. Silently judging the son he had became. The man that was sitting on the bed, his facade breaking at it's seams. He was the monster he saw in the mirror. He let her die. He let her bleed out in his arms years ago today. He was fifteen. He couldn't do anything. He wasn't strong enough to help her. He was scared. God, was he scared. The gun had gone with it's owner. The blood ran a river of crimson under the knees of his jeans where he collapsed on the dark alleyway streets. Her breath was choked in her own blood that gave a careful line from her lips. Her eyes, they had once been so bright, now looked at him with a fading light. He reached for her, his hands lifting her to his arms. He should've saved her. He should've done /something/ to stop the bleeding but he just sat there. Holding her as she slowly died. Her final words weren't nice. A gargled angry, /do something, please./ and he knew he should. He had his phone. He could've called for help but there was no guarntee she'd survive. Nothing to save her and as the light drained from her features, he thought of his sister. He promised to protect her and he couldn't. He couldn't keep her safe from their mother and the only way he could was to let her go. And so he laid her back upon the concrete, her weak fingers grasping at the neck of his shirt, grasping for whatever hope he was suppose to give her. Whatever reassuarce was suppose to leave his lips to tell her that she was okay but there was nothing and there never would be. In his mind, her death would save Octavia from every wrong thing she ever did to her. In his mind, he was keeping the promise he made her birth. If he had to let Aurora die, then he would, but he knew, God did he know, that this was and would always be his fault.

He hadn't heard the door open, even as his body moved from the edge of the bed, he slid down it's side, collaposing to the floor. His knees are pulled to his chest and he's breaking. He doesn't break. His training has taught him to bottle this. To keep it all down inside of him and not let it see the light of day. This was a weakness in anyone's eyes but he couldn't stop the sobs as they shook his shoulders, the tears coming in waves. He feels like he can't breath and shakes his head, his tousled hair tossing around his head. He doesn't care who's going to hear him. Who walked through that door. He just wants to cry and scream out loud to the void. "It's my fault." He starts, his words are as broken as he must look on the outside. A broken boy who wants nothing more than to curl up and let death wrap him in it's darkness. He was nothing like who his mother probably wanted him to be. At least, the mother in his mind. "She died because of me." He chokes out, his arms wrapping tighter around his legs, his fingers curling, forming fists, the anger bubbling. He's mad at the world. Mad at the date, but he's mostly mad at himself for not trying hard enough to save her. To try and stop it from happening. For letting her die in his arms. What kind of son was he to let his own mother perish in his grasp? "I'm...a monster."

@wolfscldier gets an angst thing.

#wolfscldier #So I still haven't figured out what verse this is set in. Just modern. xD #My mind was thinking something like the fluff verse but not the fluff verse?#If that makes sense? lmfao #BUT HERE WE GO. This is a terrible start. I sorry.#And the name has yet to come. (TBD verse)

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xotillimgone · 4 years

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[Diary Entry]: June 31st, 2020.

Nothing. Emptiness. Void.

How long has it been since we stopped going out? 4 months. Going out was a relief, it was like a small escapism session. Walking home and viewing the Nile each day was a source of a pleasure and a small beacon of light into my day. A blessing that I’ve never appreciated enough. I’ve been stripped away of all that right now. It’s horrible to feel trapped in your own world where there is no escape. Alas, it keeps getting worse. The thoughts you’ve been running from, for over six years, they keep coming back and these are thoughts you cannot put a halt to ;they pile in all at once. How foolish of me to think I can control my own ideas and emotions. These are all attempts, some of them are successful but only for a matter of time. I cannot sit in silence, my own thoughts will devour me. Being the rock that everyone leans on when they are depressed or tired is stressful and depressing itself. I’ve helped them all to solve their issues, I picked them up bandaged their wounds. I’m not painting a picture of a heroine, I’m not a heroine. I think I just have a kind nature that wants to help everyone. No one deserves to feel sadness or loneliness, I cannot bear seeing someone feeling that way. But what about me? Helping everyone feel better must be consuming your soul. My fragile soul can only bear so little but it is trying to act tough and solid. This has always been the case. I always devote my whole self to helping people in need but it is becoming too much. Atlas never complained of carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and I will never. One question is waiting for an answer: Will I get the chance to have my own rock? I’m so tired Grandpa.. I’m so tired.

Art: Le Désespéré (The Desperate) (1843-1845) Gustave Courbet - Paris, France.

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tadhgoftheforest · 7 years

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Ronan Lynch didn't know what it meant to be physically attracted to someone. He had grown up too fast and with little guidance. Where he should have been soft, he was pointed edges.

His damning visage made sure to keep those interested in him far away. With eyes as wild as the wood he grew up in and teeth as sharp as the wolves that lived there, it wasn't surprising they jumped at his vicious bark. The hollowness of his cheeks from quickly cooked and less than nutritious meals. Eyes sunken from the night terrors that plagued him. The purpled smudges of broken blood vessels gleaming beneath his eyes from one too many nights awake. He never took his piercing gaze away first and his smile was sharper than the edge of a blade.

The façade of a bad boy drew some in, but quickly turned them right around when they discovered his disinterest. The only thing that seemed to grab his attention was Richard Campbell Gansey. The third. The glowing golden boy that tried his best to fight for things rather than having them handed to him. He was cunning enough to use his name and money to his advantage, but only within boundaries that never strayed too far. He intrigued Ronan. Like drawing a moth to a flame.

Gansey saw past the bad boy aesthetic, able to read around façades because he glued one to his face nearly every waking moment. He also saw past the disinterest and the foul moods, coupled with the violence and the unhinged terror that seemed to find him in the night. Gansey saw the small boy that was still sitting inside, waiting for a vacant mother to wake and an absent father to return as if from war. He saw the boy that needed love and a warm embrace.

The fool pushed his way in with plesantries and a no nonsense attitude. He wouldn't let Ronan's bullheadedness swerve him from his goals, from saving Ronan. Cause that's what Gansey did, save things. People. He hadn't figured out how to fix himself, so instead he put his effort into others.

It was unnerving. It made Ronan swell up against the intrusion. Shoulders rising, chest heaving, knuckles clenched bloodless. And all Gansey had to do was care. To keep showing that he cared. He listened and stored it for later, for when Ronan was least expecting it. By trial and error, he knew when to push and when to let it go, to let Ronan run himself ragged and desperate.

The careful love Gansey seemed to have extended via his upturned palm and soft smile confused Ronan. He didn't know how to feel. It felt too similar to what he felt for Declan and Matthew. It also felt like something secret, something that sent his stomach turning and made his palms sweat. Something that made him lash out and turned him mean to stop whatever it was he was feeling, to make sure no one saw.

Between the liquor and the tears and the yellowed pages of the books in Monmouth, no one but Gansey and him and the dust motes would know. Gansey would find himself holding more than just the body of Ronan, but all his secrets, his entire selfhood. An action that could have sent them sailing apart only drew them nearer as they made a bridge over that evening and moved into the future.

While the boys his age were off bragging about their bedroom conquests and which girls put out, Ronan had no such desire to partake. His otherness kept him distant from the contests regardless, but just the ire of hearing them discussed left him frustrated. Ashamed. Had his father dreamed him broken? Was he just another object to abandon amongst the Barns?

He tried. He tried a few times, but to no avail. He snuck around with girls, playing up his bad boy demeanor. He slipped through their cracks, as dangerous as the parasitic mint Gansey kept in abundance. It was perfunctionary with them. Wet mouth to wet mouth. Nimble fingers against smooth skin. He drew no pleasure from it. At all. There was a sick sense of satisfaction at pleasing them, but it left dread sitting heavily in his gut. Made his mouth taste like the morning after puking up his guts trying to drown his demons with the liquid devil.

Ronan knew there was more than just girls he could seek out. Wondered if that's why he felt so sick after each encounter. Dwelled upon if that's why he became callous and cold towards those that had shown him their softest parts after he had sullied himself some more. So he followed the other road at the fork and found himself one too many times landing hard on his knees and throwing up a day's worth of regret. He even tried to find the same softness and see if it were a lighter embrace, but ended up with the same results of feeling tarnished and worn out.

He became vicious, poisonous in his words and actions. He wouldn't let a breathing thing near him. Only relatively allowed those that Gansey deemed worthy to draw his brief attention. He stopped trying. Gave up. There was no point in the semblance of normal if he had no one to pretend for.

Ronan moved on to chasing thrill instead of skirt. He run head first into dangerous waters with Kavinsky and his wild pack of dogs, straining at their leashes. Like Kavinsky was no better. The adrenaline of sailing past, of drifting through the long deserted streets, had him in a state of euphoria. It bled over into losses and antagonizing Kavinsky into ruining him in a more violent way. Made his skin prickle and his blood pump harsher. It had Gansey praying to every God he could find to make sure Ronan's soul was still in tact after every late night drunken bedroom confessional. Had him wishing that if he could just get Ronan out of Henrietta, he could move on and be a closer to normal boy. It made Ronan bare his teeth at the reminder of his dreamed broken interior.

Noah was no help, only digging under his skin with what he could hear of Ronan's secrets. Twisting the knife ever deeper. Made him a little more wild, eyes wide and searching with teeth exposed in a simile of a smile. Egged him on into filling a void, one of the many, any of them.

Adam though. Adam wasn't what he had expected. He was just as every bit as broken as Ronan, just in different ways. Almost different enough that their fault lines could have matched up, shifting against one another.

The thrill of an argument with Adam followed by the instances of understanding companionship had him at war again. He had grown comfortable with his anger. It had grown familiar. A heavy weight, but an old friend. Maybe because Adam looked like a scared animal, terrorized by every noise and movement, is what had him trying valiantly to curb Adam's demons instead of his own. The sense of satisfaction at being able to put a smile on his face even after he shouldn't have had the wherewithall to move. It made something big fill his chest, made him try to heal after he lashed out words of fear. Made him want to be better, less empty.

The warmth of his shoulder pressed against Ronan's was like a storm breaking overhead. Another person was willing to touch Ronan, to accept his jagged edges and villainous nature. It left him spiraling in confusion again. He couldn't go through the rollercoaster of emotions and perceived attraction that he had done with Gansey. He was world weary, he didn't think he had it in him to give it another go so soon.

But Cabeswater. And Adam's magic. And Gansey's perserverance against all odds. The thousands of times he's nearly perished in both his nightmares and his dreams. They all pointed him towards a softer end, to a boy that could hold his hand without worrying about getting burned. To a boy that was softer with him than any had been before, than he had any right to deserve.

It's what led him to believing that Adam needed what every other living being needed, physical love. Closeness in body. It's what led him with a roiling gut to press chapped lips against his scabbed and raw lips, brow drawn so low he had no hope of seeing ever again; shoulders so tense that the world must have felt as light as air to Atlas; fingers straining so hard the tendons creaked like the Henrietta trees caught up in a summer monsoon.

He carried on that way, trying to hold back his sickness, trying to keep himself together. Trying to keep the black ooze of panic from leaking from long healed wounds and cuts. He wanted to put a true smile back on the lips of a terrified boy, but at what cost? The cost of his own sanity?

A confessional to rival the witnessing of his dream double being murdered, Ronan held out this secret as if it were his very own life. He wasn't pure by any means, but he felt that this continual tainting of his soul would lead him skidding to a place he wasn't willing to admit existed inside himself. It would extend his survival if he were to flee to the Barns, lick his wounds and pray he'd never fall into the trap of dreaming another broken child into existence.

But his hands were warm when he assured Ronan nothing was wrong and that his love for him was still great. It would take something more than an aversion to sexual desires to drive them apart, something more than the Dream Terrors and the men with promising guns. He would stay as long as Ronan would let him.

It wasn't the end of condemnation towards sexual physicality, but it was more than just the unending repeated track that spoke of another broken dream of Declan Lynch's and an imperfect child. It was a whisper of love, something Ronan was hardpressed to identify, something he wanted to fight to feel more of.

#pynch #ronan lynch #adam parrish #asexual ronan #tadhgwrites

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