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sneezefiction · 4 years

Text

making up for lost time

Daichi x fem!Reader - Scenario

@miss-rin‘s request: “Where Daichi reunites with the reader several years after highschool... She’s messed up from her last relationship, but wants to try again.... With a fluffy ending though, please!!”

a/n: eeee this was really therapeutic to write. i know it’s a little on the longer side of things i usually post, but i wanted to set it up well. enjoy some angst to fluff Daichi content bb <33333

warnings: break ups, cheating, low self esteem, slight language, general angst

wc: 3350

---

It’s strange. Staring at your textbook, your fingers brushing against its textured, thin pages, you hadn’t noticed the tiny droplets forming on the sheets below. Only when you recognized its salty taste did you realize you were the source. You lean back, using the table to tilt your chair onto its back legs, balancing there for a minute to keep your tears from staining anything else on the desk.

With all the mentions of bonds and fusions, somehow chemistry homework has brought you back into the reality of your current life crisis.

It’s not like you hadn’t expected tears, but did they have to overtake every aspect of your life?

In public. Walking through the park. At 4 in the morning.

It was cruel, really.

That even after a year of complete distance, everything insisted on reminding you of him.

---

Your ex was supposed to be a one night stand. A ploy to get over a deeply established crush. You were running from young, uncertain love, pushing it down, and drowning it all in heavy doses of pleasure. But weekend-after-weekend, your interactions with this mystery hookup turned into regular flings.

From there, you allowed something deeper to develop.

You started sharing with him.

Lying on the bed, limbs entangled, panting subsided. You released small thoughts and simple secrets into the dark of the night. Maybe he would capture those words, pondering them, making a space for them in his mind. Maybe he would let them drift by, like white noise and formless background music.

But it didn’t matter. You spoke anyway.

Nights passed and you would let out more gentle, whispering comments. Insecurities, dreams, stories.

And at some point, he started responding. Listening. Mulling over your words. Whether you meant for it to happen or not, things grew personal. He became your stand-in security blanket, pulling you in and showing you his own little world. You didn’t care if it was fabricated and make-believe.

Because for the first time, it seemed like someone reciprocated your words and actions. You were no longer relying on past passions and feelings because you were so busy drowning in the touch of a stranger. He gave you endless chances to let go of your greatest love and high school infatuation. And you took each one.

You pushed yourself to like him. You asked him to be exclusive. He agreed.

Because his touches were soothing. The way his arms wrapped around your middle, pulling you into his chest and whispering dirty, sugar-coated words into your ears. It made you feel wanted. Needed. Like maybe this could be the one. Like maybe you didn’t need the brown-eyed boy from so long ago.

Yes, your ex’s hold on you was physically tight…

But his intentions were loose and undefined. Eerily disconnected from the reality you had pictured yourself in.

In the back of your mind, you knew something was off. The puzzle pieces that tied your interactions together were either damaged or missing. Information and stories didn’t match up.

At some point, he started coming home wearing the scent of sex and perfume. Fragrances that didn’t belong to you. All of the staying out late and leaving the bed early... He was clearly cheating on you.

But ignorance is bliss... and you were swimming in it.

You now realize he only told you what you wanted to hear. Little, white lies iced with sweet, generous promises.

What did you expect? That he actually needed you? Why would this stand-in boyfriend be any different?

Finding him on top of a girl in your bedroom should’ve cut you deeper. It should have left you with your knees collapsed and your fingers painfully digging into the carpet. You could have screamed and cried, kicked something, at least outwardly shown your pain.

Yet all that came over you was a dizzying numbness. So you shut the door, closing yourself off to their shocked expressions. Cutting yourself off from another failed love attempt. A worthless endeavor.

---

You’re still fighting a losing battle against hot, streaming tears in the library.

You wish the tears stemmed from the breakup. It would be a logical justification for your pain. Yes, it would be easier to cry over something present… or at least something sensible.

But fate is fickle and so are your emotions. Fragile and nostalgic.

Because you aren’t choking on sobs in the campus library over that unloyal asshole.

No, your mind was fully centered on Daichi. The one person who had actually made you feel whole. Who regularly told you how much he wanted you.

You could’ve drowned in his warm, honey-glazed gaze. He drew you in, submerging you in a euphoric, blissfully intoxicated state.

Memories flittered back to you. How he would always comfort you, using his firm shoulder as a pillow during after school hours to cry or sleep on when life began to smother you.

How he snuck up behind you in the schoolyard, grabbing you by the waist, lighting a fire inside you that filled you with warmth and made your stomach do somersaults. It was playful. Lighthearted. So very Daichi.

And you wanted more. More than platonic. More than best friends.

His touches were nothing like your ex.

It was like gentle floating fireflies, blinking and flickering in a field at dusk. Consistent but surprising. Sensitive, feathery, and comforting. Not at all greedy or dismissive.

You didn’t have to think twice about it. Daichi still remained in the softest parts of you.

But it doesn’t matter anymore. He isn’t coming back to save you. To take you by the hand and rekindle whatever it was you two had shared back then.

Because Daichi wasn’t ready to commit.

He had told you how he felt. How he wanted you so badly that it physically hurt him. That he wanted to be there for you, by your side, hand-in-hand.

But he just wasn’t ready to follow through. Not with graduation and change so near in sight. Not with the possibility of losing you just as soon as you’d become his.

You knew he was right. College shifted you two into completely separate directions. 12 hours to be exact.

You and Daichi were at the right place at the wrong time.

But as you drifted, the words morphed and manipulated themselves in your mind. They echoed a tone that claimed that you were the faulty one. That you weren’t ready. You weren’t lovable enough. He didn’t want to commit to you.

So naturally, you equated it with not being enough for him. That it was some silly, unfounded puppy-love. Just a bunch of hormones and high schoolers.

So you tried to bury your longing for him, making countless mistakes in the process.

You had changed. This was your life now. Broken, exhausted, and weathered.

In defeat, you close up the heavy, tattered textbook, gently maneuvering it into your backpack and take your leave from the softly lit library. You’ve suffered enough for one day, so you may as well give yourself a break from studying.

As you make your way out the door, you feel an unexpected buzz in your back pocket, your phone lighting up with a notification. You reach a hand back to check it.

3:47 pm - sawamuradaichi38 followed you

You stop abruptly, feet planted in the doorway, eyes processing the words before you.

“Shit.”

Daichi…

High school Daichi.

The “I was just crying over how much I hate missing you 5 minutes ago,” Daichi.

You hadn’t spoken in over a year and suddenly this?

It was out of the blue, not to mention at one of the most pitiful moments in your life.

Broken up, red-eyed, and still helplessly in love with his brown-eyes. How could someone so wonderful have such disastrous timing?

You receive a rude awakening, the door to the library smacking you in the face, drawing you out of your thoughts and leaving you rubbing the now red spot on your forehead, the phone still clutched tightly in your palm.

Leaving the doorway, you spot a park bench and take a seat outside, your thumb still hovering over the “follow back” button.

It takes some persuading, but eventually you convince yourself it will be fine. It’s not like you’re selling your soul to him.

It’s just a simple “follow back.”

It also wouldn’t hurt to see what he looked like.

So you click.

And there he is. Several month’s worth of photos, flooding your eyes.

Party streamers, candids, squinted smiles, polaroid photo-shoots, flushed faces from tipsy weekends, throwbacks… and your heart is pounding at the sight of just how mature he looks.

He’s developed a flattering tan over the summer, giving him a golden glow. The deeper tone has either made him look more toned or he’s gained muscle in the past couple of years. Both are very likely.

You proceed your scrolling, subconsciously looking for any signs of being in a relationship, before you’re startled by another ‘ping’ noise.

Damn this stupid app.

To hell with media.

Why did he feel the need to message you? Is he messing with you, right now?

But the questions don’t keep you from opening the text.

Nerves settle in.

3:55 pm - Daichi: Y/n!

3:55 pm - Daichi: I’m in town for a while and I really want to see your face.

3:56 pm - Daichi: Only if you want to though… I know it’s been a long time.

How is it possible that your hands are already shaking? It’s just Daichi.

Just Daichi.

What the actual hell, Daichi.

3:58 pm - Y/n: Heya! I’d love to, but I have so many questions???

You have more than just questions.

4:00 pm - Daichi: I’ve got answers. So is that a yes? Bc if it’s a no, that’d be super awkward…

4:00 pm - Daichi: ...given that I’m 5 minutes from your university right now. Could I pick you up?

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL HELL, DAICHI.

4:01 pm - y/n: Well damn, ok. Looks like I don’t have any excuses. Come n get me :)

You do your best to sound smooth, sending him the corner to pick you up on, but you still looked and felt like a total wreck. Your makeup was messy, mascara staining the underneath of your eyes. Luckily, you had baby wipes and could clean up a little, but you were still left with a slightly puffy, red-tinted face.

The blush that appeared after receiving his text messages didn’t help either.

If you were being honest, you felt completely hysterical. You had finally given up all hope, tossing your dreams of being with him out the window.

And here he was, casually asking you to hangout as if you two hadn’t ever lost contact. As if you hadn’t been bawling your eyes out over him for the past several months. Real cute, y/n, you laugh, thinking to yourself.

You do your best to fix your face up with your phone camera and a little extra concealer, but if Daichi is anything like he was in high school, he’ll see through it almost instantly.

You spot his car, pulling up into a spot on the side of the road. He’s scanning for you.

Your breath hitches at the sight of him, heart skipping a beat.

He’s even prettier in person. Photos couldn’t capture something that strong and handsome. His features were still kind, but his expression showed how much he’d grown. The turn of his head, showcasing his jawline. Sharper, older. Your heart is pounding and you feel the anxiety settle in.

But as soon as he captures your eyes, you both grow soft.

You could tell from the way he was looking at you, he’d been longing for you too.

He hops out of his car, focused solely on you, and starts walking. Your pace matches his but it quickly increases. The hunger you’d felt for his embrace drives you both to move faster. He felt it too. It was magnetic. Almost like you’d been waiting your whole life for this reunion.

You practically throw yourself into his firm chest, his sturdy arms circling around your torso, the rate of your collision shaking his balance. But he managed, steadying himself one footstep at a time. One of his hands makes its way up to your neck and tangles itself into your hair, grasping locks and running his fingers through it. It was as though your bodies were making up for the lack of touch and all of your unspoken words, closing any spaces between you and affirming the reality of each other’s presence.

You notice him tucking your head into his chest... just how he used to.

It’s as though nothing had changed. Like you had both been talking and touching and breathing the same air for the past year when in truth, your relationship had mimicked radio silence.

It stays silent, your bodies choosing to take one another in. He smelled of coffee and cedar, with a dash of maple. He’d always carried a sweeter scent. It never failed to make you melt into him.

Daichi’s face is buried within your hair and he can’t help but breathe in the familiar fragrance of your conditioner. A huge swell of nostalgia passes over him like a crashing wave, causing him to pull you even closer.

The very feelings you had been protecting yourself from were overloading your senses.

So you break off the hug, opting to grasp his hands instead.

His gaze is so understanding. So full of raw emotion. It’s apologetic.

“Daichi I-”

“I’m so sorry, y/n.”

There’s a pause. You give him a wobbly smile, nodding gently to let him speak first.

He opens his mouth to speak, but he’s silenced as raindrop lands directly on your nose. You giggle, wiping it off with your hand, then placing said hand back into his.

“How ‘bout we go sit in the car?” He suggests as the rain begins to drizzle.

You follow him wordlessly, taking him by the arm, quickly crossing the road.

You’re snug in his passenger seat, one foot tucked under your other leg, torso facing him directly. Daichi takes a moment to look you over. You flush under his intent gaze. That’s when he notices your reddened eyes.

“You’ve been crying.” He states directly, hand making it’s way to your chin, lifting it while examining your face.

“A-ah yeah. You’re as observant as ever, Daichi, I’ll give you that.” You smile slightly.

“Why? What… or who did that to you?” He asks, concern lacing his voice.

You look away, head tilting out toward the grey-lit street.

Should you be honest?

That he was the reason for your tears?

You want to trust him.

To believe his words at face value.

You wanted to bare your soul, letting him absorb every moment of the last year of your life. To cry out to him and explain that you wanted him so deeply that you betrayed your own feelings for him.

But look where it got you last time.

Your ex took the most precious pieces of you and stomped all over it. He had used you. Your stories. Your secrets.

You were different from the girl that Daichi used to know.

He couldn’t love that, he couldn’t possibly-

“Y/n, I mean it. You can tell me anything. I promise I’ll just listen.”

And with that, you muster up your last ounce of courage, putting full trust in him.

It comes out in a soft mumble.

“...I still love you, Daichi.”

His eyes widen, lips parting.

“I-” You begin to choke on your own words.

The emotion of everything, from your breakup to seeing your ex with another girl, to the sad eyes in front of you. It all begins to spill out. It’s not a sob. More like a release.

“I tried to like someone else. I tried so, so hard, Daichi.” Tears drip down your face, catching on the hand still holding your cheek.

You do your best to speak slowly and coherently, but you can’t seem to prevent the stutters that emerge from embarrassment and months of pent-up shame.

“It didn’t work. I- he didn’t love me.” You pause, considering if you should share the next details.

You inhale deeply, remembering his words.

I can tell him anything.

“There were other girls and-”

Daichi’s eyes darken, realizing what you meant.

“He- he didn’t,” hiccups break up the sentences you’re already struggling to form, “I just wasn’t good enough, Daichi.” You meet his eyes, “Not for you. Not even for him.”

He rubs a thumb over your face, somber and troubled.

A wave of guilt washing over his face, his own eyes tearing up at the sight of you.

Daichi wasn’t there for you. He knows it.

He had left you high and dry, letting himself get washed up within his own pain, not considering how badly it would affect you. You both cut off communication to make things easier, assuming it would help you both to move on, but it had only made things worse.

Now he’s watching it all unfurl…

You’ve been mistreated and he wasn’t there to protect you. To save you. To hold you tightly within his arms.

But he wants to help pick up the pieces.

He wants to dry those tears, one by one.

He’s ready to make up for the lost time.

It’s time to prove that he’s ready for you now if you’ll have him.

So Daichi removes his hand from your face and grabs your hand, staring at it for a moment. He brushes his calloused fingers over your knuckles.

“Y/n, I never stopped loving you.” He half whispers.

He’s tracing the lines and divots in your palm now, but his eyes are on yours now.

“I couldn’t handle not seeing you… 12 hours is a lot.” He acknowledges.

“But it should never have stopped me from being with you. That was my mistake. It had nothing to do with you not being good enough.”

“Y/n, please, God please, promise me you’ll never say that again.” He begs.

Ah, that.

You couldn’t remember if that had slipped out, but it, in fact, had.

This lie you’ve been telling yourself seems a real as the gentle drumming of raindrops on the roof of the car. Your ex had affirmed it. The breakup sealed it.

And now you’re being told to let it go? To just believe you’re enough? Worthy of love?

If only it were that easy.

“I know you don’t believe me right now… you have every right not to. But I want you to learn to trust me again.”

He continues, “You can tell me anything. I promise I won’t leave you.”

Heavy.

The words were so heavy on your heart.

“...Okay.” Your voice cracks, another few tears slipping out.

“I- I’ll try.” You look away, pain creasing your brows.

He drops your hand on your lap and reaches toward your face, cupping it.

“I mean it, y/n. I won’t leave you.” His tone is scarily serious.

His lips brush against yours, asking permission. You lean forward, gently pressing your lips into his.

It takes a moment to adjust, but you meld together smoothly. It was always supposed to be this way. His warmth is sobering.

It’s tear-soaked and somber, but oh so real.

Noses brush. He runs a hand through your hair, tucking loose strands behind your ear, running a thumb down your neck. You tilt your head, deepening the kiss while leaning into his hand. Lips parted, rhythm slow and comforting.

No part of it is rushed. This moment wasn’t for anyone except for you.

Kiss after kiss, you’re being seen. Listened to. Re-opened.

And it may take tens of thousands of kisses. You’ll probably cry into his chest more times than you can count. You’ll have to fight like hell to escape the lie of “never being good enough.”

But Daichi will be there. Because he came back to you.

And he’ll keep coming back until he doesn’t have to anymore... because by then, he’ll hope to have you by his side forever.

---

tags: @cherryonigiri, @yams046, @kaidasen, @starfissure

#haikyuu #daichi x reader #daichi sawamura #daichi imagine #daichi scenario #hq #hq scenarios #hq imagines #hq headcanons #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu x reader #karasuno #haikyuu captains #daichi x you #daichi sawamura x reader #sneezefiction

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black-streak · 4 years

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Waiting For The Worms - The Show Must Go On

Part 4

Sooo, this isn't nearly as dark and has very little angst in comparison to the point I'd almost say it isn't? It's pretty much just an update on life in a way. Which is also part of why it took so long for me to write. Like, the struggle was real. Next chapter will go back to your regularly scheduled heartbreak.

Warnings from chapter 1, while mostly inapplicable for this part, still in effect.

The gallery: @northernbluetongue @thethirdwheelfriend @shizukiryuu @theatreandcomicfreak @michellemagic @karategirl119 @moonlightstar64 @my-name-is-michell @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @miraculousdisapointment @dorkus-minimus @jardimazul @allthebooksandcrannies @g-arya @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @persephonescat @mycupisbroken @luciferge @18-fandoms-unite-08 @dawnwave16 @alwaysreblogneverpost @kris-pines04 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @weird-pale-blonde-person @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @kokotaru @naclychilli @slytherinhquinn @clumsy-owl-4178 @ladybug-182 @darkthunder1589 @evil-elf16 @dast218 @lysslovsanime @emilytopaz @naoryllis @iloontjeboontje @thepeacetea @danielslilangel @finallyaniguana @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff @vixen-uchiha @yuulxd @bleeding-heart-romantic @magic-inthe-stars @st0rmy-w1th1n

~---~

The next year of Jason's life was hectic to say the least.

It started with the downfall of Lila Rossi. Which consequently, he had no part in. She stepped on the wrong toes, made a few too many contradictions and suddenly a pile of lawsuits were stacked against her. Her mother went completely ape shit on her and pulled her out immediately to be shipped off to a very strict boarding school. More like a juvenile detention center if the rumors were true.

For the first month, no one approached him. The guilty, stricken looks upon his classmates' faces told a million stories of apologetic remorse, but since becoming a jaded, snarky outcast, 'Marinette' was no longer the person you could give a simple apology to and expect forgiveness. And no one wanted to be the first to get shot down.

Eventually, the first apology came. Surprisingly, Alya tried to win his favor. She groveled and apologized up and down on how terrible she and Lila had been and named every reason in the book as to why she had reacted and treated Marinette the way she did in an attempt to explain herself. While it wasn't necessarily surprising that she would be the first to not fear him, it was shocking she saw the error of her ways so soon with all that bull headed ego she carried around.

Bravery got her nowhere, however, as Jason only lifted an eyebrow, arms crossed as he leaned back, and calmly replied.

"Cool story, still betrayal."

As the girl sputtered before him, he turned back towards Chloe, continuing to make their plans for the day. After two minutes had passed and Alya still stood there hunting for her words, he turned back.

"Can you leave? Sometime today would be nice."

And so the precedent was set. While it took another week for someone else to approach, they seemed spurred on by the ease of Alya's dismissal. Suppose they figured if the biggest offender only got mild verbal abuse and dismissal, things had to go more smoothly for them.

Nino came next, awkward shuffling and avoided eye contact included. He pushed through his apology, beating around the bush and trying to defuse the situation at the same time he built it up. It only served to piss Jason off. They deserve better than this. At least meet her eyes if you're going to apologize and expect me to believe it.

"Uh… Marinette? Did you hear me?"

"I'm sorry, were you talking to me? I assumed you were talking to the desk next to me and minded my business. Would hate to be accused of eavesdropping."

He flinched at the reminder and finally looked him in the eye.

"I'm sorry. What we did was wrong. What I did was wrong and I am so beyond sorry for it. There is no excuse for my behavior."

"You're right. There isn't. Do better in the future."

"I will!," he rushed to reassure Jason, voice hopeful, "Does this mean we can be friends again?"

"No. Do better for those who chose to be your friend in the future."

"Oh… okay, yeah, that's fair," Nino gave a downtrodden look and wandered off.

Next came Sabrina and Rose, who didn't so much as apologize to him, but instead tried to reattach themselves to Chloe and Juleka's sides as if nothing had happened at all. This might not have thrown Chloe in the slightest, but poor Juleka looked a moment from having an anxiety attack. Chloe made short work of both girls, dismissing them entirely and when Rose started to cry and stare at Juleka for reassurance that everything was okay, Jason pulled the goth into a hug, glaring at the little blonde girl, until eventually she received the hint and ran off, tears streaming down her face. Apparently Nathaniel gave Marc the same treatment.

Lastly Kim, Alix, Max, Ivan, and Mylene came as a group. They must've taken comfort in their numbers, hoping it would somehow protect them from him singling them out. Thought everything would go smoother that way. He could hear Juleka grumbling at his side where they sat under a tree for lunch. They both appreciated the shade and quiet peace of the place. Marc sat on her other side, writing away in a journal.

"Hey Mari, we wanted to apologize for the way we've been acting lately," Alix took the lead.

"Yeah, it was really uncool of us," Kim followed up, the others nodding along.

They looked imploring. Like they were waiting for some sort of forgiveness. He couldn't help but wonder if they thought their actions were somehow better. That he couldn't really be mad at them because they weren't the ones who lied or lead the pack against his soulmate. They didn't make harsh accusations or physically attack Marinette. So somehow, they were better and their apologies could be less.

How fucking rude. How presumptuous. How entitled to think his time, thoughts, feelings were forfeit in their need for forgiveness. Marinette deserved better in her time here than these heartless bastards. None of them ever defended her either. Or him for that matter. Not one of them tried to so much as change the subject to avoid harping on him. None cared when his soulmate never returned to her body. Maybe that wasn't fair, but at the very least they could've approached him in his grief when it was easily displayed. Everyone here had a soulmate and knew the signs of loss for when one died. Surely they knew that this person in this body lost their other half. And yet not a soul outside of his group had offered condolences.

"That's all you have to offer? That it wasn't cool?" Juleka asked, tone quiet but sharp.

"Well it's not like we-"

"Let me cut you off there, before you piss me off. You didn't personally attack me, you just watched and snickered behind hands. Joined in to the cruel jokes and snide remarks. Encouraged those who did attack. At least they had the decency to be that way to my face and let me know where we stood. You? Hiding behind others actions and grouping up to give half-hearted sorrys that you barely think of before you speak? Now you guys are the ones that truly infuriate me. Either you believed I deserved the treatment I received but refused to be singled out for it. Or you thought what was happening was wrong and were too much of a coward to step up and help me out. I'm not sure which is worse. Either way, I don't want to see a single one of you approach me again. I don't mean enough to you to make a stand? Then you don't mean enough to me to even speak to. Get out of my face."

When his little speech was done and the startled masses ran off with an added glare, protests held on the tip of tongues, Jason slumped back against the tree, taking small comforts in the silent support of his two companions.

Adrien never approached. That was for the best.

His friend group was also something new. Marc, Juleka, Chloe, and Kagami. The group technically leaned more female than anything, but after the heavy masculine energy of his old life, this turn of events felt refreshing. It helped that Marc came out as nonbinary and Jason couldn't help but relate in a way with his view of this body fitting as female, but his mind staying firmly male. Altering his soulmate's body to fit would never happen, but it also didn't match him.

The group only grew stronger and more resilient after Jason agreed to revealing identities in the team. After the loss of Mari and the stripping of the ring from Adrien, Jason found it necessary to place new permanent holders. With Kagami and Chloe having screwed up their original hero personas, the placement became a challenge.

He started out with figuring out his new cat.

Talking it over with Fu and dragging the decision out way longer than it needed to, he eventually convinced the old guardian of Kagami's worth. She took to Plagg with ease, the design of her look altering to match. The suit stayed all black but wasn't leather and had gold detailing. The ears and tail looked more realistic as well. Her hair went pitch black and eyes went to shades of gold. Kagami insisted her new name be Serval.

Next came Chloe who ended up comforting Jason the most through his despair, whether she knew the reason for it or not. Without the bee as an easy go to, he ended up giving her the Dragon. Sure, the mix wasn't the best ever, but it kept her on the offensive side and more active, so it worked the way they needed it to. Her outfit consisted of tight fitted scales in shades of black and blue. Unlike when Kagami used the dragon, her and Longg took more to the shades of blue that came with most weather. Her shock of blonde hair played nicely with the idea of lightening on a stormy day. She went with Nimbus.

Surprisingly, Marc became the next holder. Jason planned on handing off the fox to Juleka, only to realize it wouldn't quite suit the girl. She stayed in the shadows most of the time, yes, but not really by choice. She wanted to be a model and show up in photos more than anything, so it made no sense to stick her with another identity she had to hide in. Add on the fact that she wasn't necessarily the most creative and well, Jason couldn't hand off an illusion piece to her. That's when Marc came into play. The kid had creativity in spades and preferred to avoid the spotlight. Marc and Marinette grew closer with all their time spent in the art room and courtyard together and especially with Nathaniel having ditched them. With Marc starting to build a spot of their own within the group, it only made sense to pair them with the Fox.

Now that he thought about it, the whole team really stuck with black. Marc had a black velvety almost shapeless form, with white tail, ears, sash, gloves, and boots. Their eyes fell white on gray on black and gave off an eerie feel. They choose Jocular for their hero name.

Finally, Jason hunted down the perfect miraculous for Juleka. The mouse. Quiet and unseen, playing in the background until the moment was right. And then she was everywhere, a multitude taking over the scene and overwhelming the enemy in a matter of moments. Perfect for the girl who hid behind her bangs but longed for the spotlight. Mullo played to both halves of her personality. The suit that came with consisted of a deep vivid purple that matched her bangs while detransformed. While in costume, the highlights disappeared and her eyes shined purple as well. The fit was reminiscent of a belted, hooded tunic with black leggings and matching purple booties. She went with Fievel. Turns out Juleka had an interesting favorite childhood movie. Months later, they would find themselves sitting around a tv, watching the old animated musical, but in the beginning, they just took it in stride.

The last major change came in a heavier bond forming amongst his team.

When Jason agreed to reveal identities, if for no other reason than the guilt of already keeping one major secret from the group, things spiced up. For one, Juleka and Marc traded their respective miraculouses back and forth depending on their comfort level for the day. If one felt more ready for the spotlight, they took to the mouse for the battle. If one felt especially creative at the moment, they tagged in for the fox. Of course, they jumped in with whichever they had when an akuma hit while separated, but the switch off seemed to comfort them.

Secondly, Chloe started running more interference to allow them escape time if stuck up in civilian form. Her false bratty attitude and daddy issues came into play here, despite her actual maturity about both. It helped to amp it up from time to time.

Lastly, Kagami and Jason begin to switch on occasion.

Plagg hadn't been outside the ring since Jason removed him from Adrien and Kagami received him. The shock and horror on his face when Tikki told him the reality of their situation broke Jason a little more. The cat insisted on spending more time with Jason after that. His soul resonated better with the ring anyways, so the time spent as the cat holder felt soothing after so long as the ladybug, despite this body feeling more receptive towards Tikki's magic.

As an added bonus, the two kept the other's costume and attributes such as eyes and hair. Between that and the heavy magical glamour hiding their identities, no one, not even Hawkmoth, knew which one was which until their fighting style came into play at which point, it was too late. Luckily, with the sneaky aspects of the mouse and fox, the other two became quite the ambush as well. Add in Chloe showing up with one of three different powers at any given moment, and Hawkmoth's akumas became easy prey.

By the time the year ran out, their team ran as a well oiled machine. Despite the horrific heartbreak festering in his heart, Jason felt hopeful. Hopeful that they might take down the villain that had taken over his soulmate's life from so young. That this battle at least might end on a happy note. That soon he would be free to seek out justice for Marinette once and for all.

#maribat #jasonette #ml x dc #WFTW #part 4 #did i mention i never edit these?#choosing the team was a four day struggle

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 4 years

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Fawley Family - History, Head-canons, and other stuff

I’ve been delaying this post for far too long, so let’s talk about the Fawleys. This will not be canon to Remembrance, (Though I might mention spoilers from the fic, so be warned.) as I’m working on a Ravenclaw AU for Luca (Spelled “Luka” in this timeline.) that is as of yet going to remain unfinished because I want to know the full story of HPHM before I finish it - Mainly concerning Rakepick and R.

Politics

So, The Fawleys are part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. I’m inclined to think they don’t really care about their status in the Pureblood Directory, even though it’s an inherently racist document. As opposed to the Malfoys, who pride themselves on their inclusion, and the Weasleys, who can’t stand that they were put in. The Fawleys have never properly declared for one side of history or another. They never supported the Death Eaters, but they also didn’t join the Order of the Phoenix. They’ve never been hostile or dismissive to muggles, but they also mingle with the more racist pure-blood families. They keep their options open, and as a result, most people tend to enjoy their company, but don’t fully trust them. It helped that they were usually sorted into Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, and were therefore able to keep out of the school-age rivalry between the Lions and the Snakes.

Reputation

Of course, The Fawleys aren’t entirely popular either. People tend to avoid them in general, particularly if they’re superstitious and believe in things like the Grimm. This is because, for countless generations, The Fawley Family has been...well, there’s no simpler way to put it, than horribly unlucky. Misfortune seems to follow them wherever they go. It doesn’t usually affect those close to them too directly, although it can. Fawleys are known for madness, as a great number of them go off the deep end over time, even if there were no warnings signs. Far too many have committed suicide. The history of this family is a trail of blood and tears. People have noticed over time, and rumors grew that the family is cursed...and they actually are not wrong. A curse does indeed live in the blood of the Fawleys, and is unfortunately passed down genetically. It doesn’t strictly cause bad luck or anything, but the rumors are still true.

Lineage

Being one of the oldest pure-blood families in the U.K, they can trace their heritage back hundreds of years. The oldest notes about the family tree suggest that the children of Merlin and Morgan Le Fay, were in fact the Fawley’s original ancestors. There is no way to verify this, of course, and unlike some of the more pompous Wizarding families, they see no need to parade it or make any claims. If it’s true, great. If not, whatever. (In my head, this rumor is definitely true, but it doesn’t change much about them either way. It’s just fun to think about.) On the other hand, it seems to be fact that many generations of the Fawleys were hunters who lived in the woodland and caught their food, sometimes doing odd jobs for hire - this is where the name Fawley (roughly translating to “fowl”) comes from.

Signature

Several pure-blood families have some kind of motto or sigil. The Malfoys and the Blacks both have a crest, and the Fawleys do too. You might be expecting a bird, but this is not the case. During the War of the Roses, the Yorkshire muggles received some unexpected help from mysterious advisors, who became infamous for their abilities to control people and arrange the deaths of enemy soldiers before they even set foot in battle. Many were grateful for the aid, others voiced doubt, fearing and mistrusting the advisors. They seemed to vanish after the wars ended, having earned the nickname, “The Black Roses.” Sometimes derisively, sometimes approvingly, depending upon who was asked. Within the Wizarding community, however, the Fawleys never hid that they and some of their closest friends had been the Black Roses. It became their symbol.

Darkness

As stated, the Fawleys have never been Anti-Muggle, not have they favored blood supremacy. But whether or not they stand against the Dark Arts tends to vary between the generations - the Black Roses definitely used dark magic in their efforts, for example. Rarely do any of them go full-out and cross to the dark side. Most of them favor unicorn wands. Rarely do any of them turn completely evil. But a wizard who can employ both light and dark magic is a versatile one, which is advantageous in multiple ways, particularly when it comes to exploring magic itself. What is consistent across centuries of the family is that they like to experiment, they push the study of magic to it’s limits. Some of them became spell inventors. Others travel all over the world in pursuit of greater powers and secrets. More than once, a Fawley has gone off the grid and simply disappeared, never to be heard from again.

Friendships

The Sacred Twenty-Eight is composed of the core families that often inter-marry, either due to coincidence or to intentionally keep the blood pure. In the Fawleys case, it was the former. There was no rule about avoiding marriages to Half-bloods and Muggles, and sometimes these would even happen - but the number of premature deaths that occurred in this family unfortunately cut off any branches that might have formed. Most consistently, the Fawleys seemed to associate with the Burkes, the Greengrass’s, and especially the Blacks. They had a consistent, ongoing friendship and occasional rivalry with the Black family. They would explore the boundaries of magic together. Sometimes they would be mortal enemies, at others they would protect each other. Many Fawley-Black marriages occurred, and present day, Tonks is distantly related to Luka and Gail.

Abilities

The Fawleys have frequently become Healers and either worked at St. Mungos or started smaller practices and apothecaries of their own. Some say this tendency to heal is born of the anguish the family regularly faces. After all, many say the kindest people are those who have suffered the most. Others say that learning these skills became a necessity with how many tragedies there were. But regardless, they usually have talent in the Healing Arts. Typically a Fawley will be gifted in either Charms, Potions, Herbology, or some combination of the three. They are also natural fliers, despite having little interest in Quidditch itself, most of them know their way around a broom. On an unrelated note, I like to imagine the Fawleys, ever-neutral, generally keep themselves out of Quidditch culture, but would be fans of the Montrose Magpies. Finally, we know from canon that MC and Jacob are Legilimens’, so I’d say natural talent toward this magic runs in the family.

Home

In the Remembrance timeline, the Fawleys live in a small cottage off the coast of a place called Dulcimer Beach, always cloudy and with black sands. However, I like to imagine that at least one branch of the Fawley family grew up in Godric’s Hollow, perhaps just outside the cemetery. I don’t know, there’s something about growing up literally next to a graveyard, that kinda suits them in my opinion. Plus. the whole idea of them being nearby when James and Lily died, even if they weren’t at all connected to it. Not sure where I’ll put the twins in the AU, I might have each of them in one of these two places. All I know is, they have a garden with a bed of black roses, that have magical properties and are used in their potion making.

The Curse

If the Fawleys have one fatal flaw, that is consistent across the vast majority of them...it’s curiosity. This is why they’re usually in Ravenclaw. It’s why Jacob went after the vaults.They don’t thirst for knowledge but when presented with the idea of a secret they don’t know...they want to know it. This family has done terrible things over the years in their journey to learn the darkest secrets imaginable. They don’t crave power, they just want to see how powerful they can actually become. While they often use that power for good...it always comes with a price. The Curse...was their own doing. Despite spreading rumors that it was the Fault of the Blacks, the Fawleys placed the curse in their blood on themselves, centuries ago. Present day, the current inheritors of the curse don’t even know this to be true.

Heirlooms

Just one. A set of thick, fur-lined robes that are white and lined with black, as well as having a black rose emblazoned on the side, usually concealed when the robes are bundled up. Supposedly, these belonged to one of the “Black Roses” but there’s no way to know if that’s true. They could have been made years later, as a simple reference. But Luka’s father Arik had them, and his father before him. Other than that...I suppose there is the Wizard’s Chess set that they have? But it’s only a couple of generations old.

The Cabal

I’ll get straight to the point. No matter what R winds up being, no matter who they are or what they want, my personal theory or head-canon is that MC’s family has been connected to them, or at least to the Cursed Vaults, for longer than we initially thought. That Jacob and MC being sought out by them was no accident or coincidence. I believe the Fawleys are deeply involved with the Cabal, and have been all along, perhaps going back many generations. Perhaps Dumbledore or the Aurors already know this, and simply keep it from MC. This could also play in to how they never sided with the Death Eaters or The Order - they already had a faction they had pledged loyalty to.

Miscellaneous

I’ve always pictured them as Iranian, at least for the past several generations. I also think having twins is not unusual for them, since it seems to happen more consistently in certain families. However, still-born babies and miscarriages, not to mention infertility, are all the more common. As for family traits, I see the Fawleys typically having large dark brown eyes, thicker, longer hair, and smaller, button-like noses. Luka is lactose intolerant, Gail is dyslexic. As I alluded to, they love Wizard’s Chess and probably don’t like Gobstones very much. They generally don’t believe in superstitions and many will claim the Fawley Curse is a hoax, even if they know this not to be true. I also have always imagined them as being Jewish, and if I ever write a reboot fanfic of the Ravenclaw AU, I’d like to incorporate that into the story more.

Damn if you actually read all of my nonsense you deserve a cookie ☺️ If there are any questions about the Fawleys or head-canons for your own OC's family, please share them!

#Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery #HPHM Headcanons #Hogwarts Mystery OC #HPHM Jacob's Sibling #The Fawley Family #HPHM Jacob #Luka Fawley #Gail Fawley #The Fawley Twins #Harry Potter OC #Harry Potter

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thimbleswrites · 4 years

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with the lights out, it’s less dangerous | the last time

Pairing: Frankie Dalton x Original Female Character

Genre: Angst / Drama

Word count: 4k

Warnings: love/hate relationship, implied smut, suicidal thoughts

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3884773/chapters/8685547

Author’s note: I wrote this a long time ago but I’m posting all my fics on my writing blog. I explain more about the Blood Donors concept in the a/n on A03 if anyone’s interested, click the link above.

Summary:

Anita, a human that Edward has been harboring in his house for years, struggles with the isolation of living as a fugitive in a world full of vampires. With the threat of being reduced to nothing but a Blood Donor looming just outside the walls of Edward's house, she must decide whether it is time to end it all or find a way to deal with the desolation.

But is the dangerous game she finds herself playing with Frankie Dalton, Edward's human-hunting brother, the best solution to her loneliness?

Set pre-Daybreakers.

Next: honesty hour

"Goddamn it, Frankie, I have until sundown to get some sleep before a shit load of work tomorrow – I'm not having this conversation again; it's done!"

A beat of silence follows the words as the dismissal rings heavy in the air and a resounding snarl tears through the tension. Anita grimaces at the sound of footsteps up the stairs and tries to press herself back against the hinged door, into nonexistence – a thin hand clawing at the threshold as she waits with bated breath.

No matter how many arguments she heedfully witnesses, how many times Edward tells her that she is safe after Frankie blows in and out of their lives over and over again, how many times she manages to make it just one more day without being caught and forced as a Blood Donor: the dread that makes her stomach clench in an almost paralyzing sort of fear is a constant reminder that she is never safe.

The comfort of safety is not a luxury she can afford – not anymore.

The years spent hiding with a decreasing amount of fellow human who had refused vampirism had not been wasted with pointless dreams of a secure future. Those days were harsh, dirty, and cruel – but in each other there was at least a small repose of normalcy. Humans living (well surviving, because what they had been doing was not actually living) with other humans.

A human living with one (sometimes two, she remembers with a tingle up her spine) vampires, though.

She wants to laugh at the thought of such an illusion as safety for someone in her position, but seeing as it's the one thing standing between her and becoming a daily juice box, she refrains. That is if she could remember how to laugh; the muscles surrounding her mouth are usually only ever exercised into a frown and she imagines that the act of straining them upwards might be foreign and difficult.

Her attempt at becoming a chameleon is at once deemed futile under the fierce gaze of Frankie Dalton as he passes in the hall. He's only just gotten back from his most recent tour of duty and as per usual he is staying at Edward's during his break, unable to afford an apartment he would scarcely ever use.

The first few days of his return are always the worst; Edward almost never remembers the day of Frankie's arrival and the latter's mood turns sour the moment he comes home to see his welcome party consists of one: a somewhat interested (and punctual; she doesn't have much to look forward to these days and even his return on the calendar is something) Anita holding a propped open book in one hand and the world's tiniest banner reading Welcome home, asshole! in her other as she lounges comfortably on a sofa in the office room, ready to leap to her crawl space at a moment's notice.

Just as she thinks that maybe, just maybe this time he will continue to his seldom-occupied bedroom and ignore her, he stops walking and looks her down as if she is a lower species; a turkey attending the Thanksgiving dinner. There is distaste clear in his eyes, rage too, and something even darker that she recognizes somewhere in the back of her mind but does not want to dwell upon.

Anita glowers bitterly up at him, willing him to feel her disgust at him, too, for him to know that this isn't exactly the ideal living situation for her either. A small part of her feels ashamed for those sort of thoughts – the last thing she wants Edward to think she is is ungrateful. She owes him her life, however useless it may be now.

Once, a couple years back, when on a supply raid with her group she had been wounded by a lone poor, starving vampire who had found them and attacked. Her party had left her there, assuming her to be dead, so it was not abandonment – not really, she would have done the same.

Self-hatred burns her insides with the knowledge that this new world – one with the rule of vampires and the hunt of humans like livestock – has charred her soul black to the core, a sense of meaningless survival (what is the point to her life?) taking control on instinct so that she has to fight every day to remember what humanity truly means.

But with an abundance of luck and patience on Edward's part, he had found her bleeding out (thankfully not infected; she'd rather die) and managed to get them both back to his place to nurse her back to health. Her constant attempts at his life or escaping had slowed things down considerably, but she eventually healed and came to the hard realization that her pack was gone. She knew by then they would be cities away and that she was alone. It was with little hesitance that Anita had accepted Edward's offer of shelter and food. Protection, too, but that was taken lightly.

She's never been one to depend on others; she likes to pull her own weight, and her current title of hidden house guest makes her restless. When she had first began living with Edward, she had offered him her blood – not straight from her veins, obviously, but with the proper equipment she would have given him enough, regularly but not nearly as much as she'd have to if she became a Blood Donor, to cushion the blow of his blood-bill. But he had refused; said he didn't drink human, and it would have been a lie to say she was too disappointed. The same offer was never given to Frankie – probably because she knows now, and knew then, that he would not have refused.

"Well, if it isn't the root of the problem." Frankie grinds out, his jaw clenched as he takes a step towards her. "Tell me – do you think Ed sees your face on the humans at his company or just dollar signs?"

She blinks indifferently, keeping her silence. They've danced to this song before, and honestly, she's grown too phlegmatic to be baited so easily.

"Probably not the money." He adds, his voice hard. "He pities you humans too much for his own good. And you in particular, doesn't he?" He chuckles darkly and points at her with his index finger. "No, you're his favorite little stray kitten – here to stay."

At his sneering words she looks back at the small opening across the small office that leads to the crawl space she spends her time in when the sun falls and darkness resumes – a pathetic excuse for living quarters but she is none the wiser, having been in worse conditions while on the streets. At least she has the sleeping bag to herself now.

She is allowed out during the day or when Edward is home and does not have company, but rarely downstairs and always, always she must be quiet (so quiet it is like she is not even there) in case the neighbors can hear. He cooks her food mostly (something she wishes she could do for herself; Edward is an appallingly bad chef) and she is permitted to have a shower every few days even though she has to use his toiletries. She does not mind much, though – things like that have not been a problem for her in a good long while.

It is not that Edward wants to keep her on a short leash so much as he is very meticulous in ensuring that she remains hidden, for his sake and hers. Every single thing is planned and routine; if he is to buy too much extra food or household necessities or if his guest notice that he seems to be housing three occupants, it might raise unwanted suspicion that would be better to avoid entirely. Paranoid, maybe, but it works. And although she will never dare to complain, living in such circumstances is taking the wear and tear out of her.

While food comes easier now than what she has been used to (having been malnourished since she was barely a teen) she is still unhealthy; her skin too pale from the lack of sunlight and the natural growth of her body stinted by the crawl space, making her appear pinched, and so much smaller than she should, too emaciated and frail to the point where she wants to avoid mirrors at all cost on some days. The perpetual dark rims under her grey eyes from many sleepless nights give her the appearance of a ghost, and her hair is almost always in a wild tangle of mousy blonde strands, but sometimes on her more vain days, she manages to run her fingers through it enough to tame the mess. Throughout every thing that has been lost to the war of vampires against humans, vanity seems to trail behind her in a race to catch up; not quite there but never too far behind either.

She looks hollow, dead in the eyes, and it's only fitting, really – she feels the same way.

Anita wishes that she could take pride in her quiet strength – she yearns to think of herself as one of the heroines from the books she reads to assuage her boredom (Edward has books everywhere, scattered in piles in all the nooks and crannies of the house and then some), biding her time before she can join the Revolution with her fellow humans, but honestly, the fear and cowardice that is still present, hidden beneath the bitter sorrow and ferocious contempt, only makes her feel weak. Weak from the tears that wet her pillow at night when she is by herself in the crawl space, holding her arms around her middle as if it will help the sickness, left with nothing but thoughts of death and blood and the unfairness of life.

She misses her family more than she ever thought she would, and it's unbearable because it leaves a gaping, festering hole in her chest that makes her want to lie still until she just stops breathing. At those times, more than usual, it stumps her how anybody could want to live forever. It's a consuming, mindless sort of grief that leaves her breathless and exhausted, hating herself for dwelling on the past when her current standing in the food chain demands all the focus she has.

Anita hates weakness.

And Frankie makes her feel weak.

Especially when he is this close to her, his head tilted down so he can meet her wide eyes, and his body so near her that she can feel the coolness of him. She hates the terror it instills in her at the thought that he can infect her with a smile on his face and her flesh in his teeth if he so desires. And he does desire it – he's told her so, after the two brother's verbal throw down matches over Edward's aiding and abetting a human criminal in his own house, a house that Frankie inhabits ("By knowing and not saying anything it makes me an accomplice, Ed!"). Edward thinks his threats of turning them in are empty ("He won't say anything . . . he owes me." Ed told her once when she had voiced her concerns) and he hasn't yet, however, Anita wouldn't put it past him. She can't turn a corner in a house that Frankie's in without having a threat to turn her thrown in her face.

Even more than that, though, she absolutely despises the other feelings he sparks in her too. The ones that make her flush with heat in her veins and an ache between her thighs from the longing to be close to someone again. Anita despises him for being a selfish monster and she despises him even more when he's not. She despises the salacious want he infixes in her when he glances up with sharp, trained eyes from whatever he is doing to watch her walk back to the office after a shower when she is in only a towel. But more than anything, anything else she despises herself for having allowed him to toy with those feelings periodically over the last four months.

As Frankie stares at her, something akin to understanding glints in his eyes and he takes a quick step in her direction, making her fall back two. After a moment she has enough sense to worry he might have recognized the look in her eyes as more than offense at his words. There is a familiar sort of triumph in his voice as he sneers, "Something bothering you, pet?"

The sound of the taunting sobriquet he had long ago christened her coming from his lips is far too palatable for her to handle so she imagines what the screams of the humans he has hunted and forced into the Blood Revenue Agents hands would sound like instead, so loud and terrible that it can banish those bad, bad feelings that surround her off to another place where things that are wrong go to.

For the moment, it works.

"Yes – you are standing too close," Anita finally murmurs, and something frightening in her roars at the covetous flash in his eyes as they narrow at her, but she silences it by biting her tongue, unable to resist the opportunity to wipe the smirk off of his face. "And I can still smell the blood of my people marring your precious honor, sir."

The corners of his mouth twist down at her mockery and he raises his chin, trying to intimidate her with his authority, but the vampire soldier card no longer makes her shrink in fear as it once did. She has had quite a bit of time in the weeks of Frankie's absence to prepare herself for his overwhelming presence that has always had a different effect on her than Edward's. She will no longer permit herself to be a distraction for him to amuse himself with whenever he likes purely because he can. She is more than his filthy little secret, and certainly better than him.

Her lips thin and she brings herself to full height, which is only a wee few inches shorter than him, but still her neck cranes up slightly to meet his gaze. She has pushed off from the door and he moves backwards to avoid physical contact. The fact that he is the one who falls back weighs heavy on him and his frown deepens in anger.

His relentless harassment over the years has been all too entertaining for him because of the easy prey she has always presented him with. His ability to read her like an open book is almost congenital – Frankie knows Anita to her very core; her thoughts, her fears, her dreams, he knows exactly what to do to provoke her. He can send her into a furious rage with a few casual words or tear her apart by a single deliberate look. But now the game has changed. She has surprised him with this sign of defiance; this charge of offensive play, and he does not know how to react to it.

A small thrill shoots through her from his falter, and the courage it gives her comes out in the smooth words she spits into his face, "Something bothering you, Frankie?"

She can almost taste victory in her mouth when his ochroid eyes flash and he quickly leans into her, a smirk curling onto his face, making her stumble back away from him and warily glance at the protruding fangs that press into his pale lower lip. He smiles widely to show her his teeth more clearly; a wolf's grin, and watches her clenched jaw tremble beneath the unspoken threat, eyes dancing and alight with the prospect of a challenge.

"Careful now, pet, wouldn't want to cross lines you can't come back from, would you?" He cautions.

The air feels weighted with the tension, as if electricity is crackling against her skin, sending sparks through her nervous system but she holds her ground and straightens. The warning is obvious in his voice; he wants her to know that he is in control. She hates that.

He is so close she can feel his breath fanning her face, and although it makes hers come in faster than she would care to admit, Anita resists the urge to swivel her head to the side. "Fuck your lines."

The curse word feels strange on her tongue, although she is pleasantly surprised at the evenness of her tone, and she enjoys his confounded look at her having taken a page from his book – he frequently uses the crude terms, and at least one adolescent innocent tendency has always made her wince when he casually refers to them – but it had sounded sharp and primitive and she is impressed by herself. She instantly realizes that she likes how fierce it makes her feel.

"Ooh, such language, Nita. Wouldn't expect it from you." He grins at her, his tongue grazing briefly over one fang, so quickly that she barely notices it with a sweeping sensation sent straight to her toes, and continues, "And while I appreciate that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, maybe you should mind your manners for now. After all, pets who misbehave must be . . . castigated."

Her knees quake, nearly giving out at his tone: almost a teasing threat, and that realization makes her stomach flutter in equal parts fright and excitement. She inhales deeply, pulling down the frayed sleeves of her sweater past her fingers.

Frankie's smile fades as his mouth contorts into a thoughtful expression and his eyes size her up. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, but she is not sure if it is because of the dread in her stomach or the heat that flames in her cheeks and along her ears when he steps forward with his arms extended out on either side of her head, efficiently trapping her between the door and his body. He pushes a strand of hair from her darting eyes with a gentle motion; a mocked sign of affection, and lets the tip of his finger rest on her temple.

He is pushing her, stretching their interaction like a rubber band, testing to see how far he can go before she breaks. He doesn't have to push far this time – a simple movement; he bites gently and deliberately into his lower lip and his eyes drop to her mouth – and then she is shoving his arms away scathingly, hitting him with her fist as she turns to her crawl space.

Frankie catches her readily around her waist and flings her back against a wall, grabbing her wrists in his hands when she tries to struggle and pinning them above her head. His face is close enough to hers that she can clearly see the smile lines in his right cheek when the corner of his lip quirks up in that crooked grin that makes her loathe these moments with him as much as she secretly looks forward to them, although, she will never admit the hold he has on her; a strong fist around her rotting heart, forcing it to pulsate when the beats begin to degenerate.

Sometimes she wishes he would just let her die.

He thrusts a knee between her legs, pressing his body onto hers, and she can't breathe – she can't even muster the energy to ignore the way her body responds to the familiar feeling of him against her; the way her hips cant upwards into him, all but unwillingly.

And sometimes she wants nothing more than this.

"Fuck you." Anita seethes, because he looks so smug, like such a smug bastard that her blood practically boils and she feels alive.

"Hm, fuck me?" Frankie muses. "You're being rather straightforward today."

"Well, you know what they say." She returns with a sharp grin on her face that she saves just for him. "Bold is beautif – oh!"

He had ducked down into her neck, his mouth opened wide, and for only a moment she considers that he is finally making good on his threat to tear into her jugular vein, but it's not his teeth. It's his tongue, and she thinks that might be worse. He's kissing the base of her throat, ravaging the skin there (because Anita will shit a brick if she ever sees Frankie being tentative in his actions), and it almost hurts; she knows there will be a bruise there in a few hours.

There always is.

"Wait." She protests wearily, her heart beating a tattoo of his name onto her rib cage. "You said it was the last time. We agreed – we agreed the last time was it."

"I changed my mind." He says easily, his mouth trailing up to her jaw. "God, you're so fucking warm."

And the low, guttural sound of his voice makes her knees actually give out this time. He only tightens his fingers around her wrists, though, and his thigh between her legs keeps her upright, but oh – his thigh between her legs. She trembles.

Her eyes fall closed with a pleased, drawn out sigh and he lets out a breathy laugh.

"You want this just as much as I do, don't you, pet?" He taunts, scraping his fangs lightly over her skin.

Anita growls but before she can retort he presses his lips to hers and kisses her in a way that only he's ever done; hard, deep, angry. He releases her right hand and she presses her palm to the nape of his neck, holding him in place as she responds to his jabbing remark by nipping at his bottom lip. She makes a noise at the back of her throat when his tongue invades her mouth.

He's cold – all vampires are. But Anita doesn't see it like they do in the old YA novels about the then-mythical vampire, it is not just some side effect of being a dashing creature of the night like the young heroines think it is; it's one of the things she hates the most when she's with Frankie like this, because it reminds her that he is dead. He has no pulse, no heartbeat. Frankie is cold like a corpse, a walking disease.

This thought gives her resolve a burst of renewed strength and she tugs her other hand free from his grasp, holding tightly to his shirt as she pants, "We can't keep doing this." But even as the words leave her, she allows her hand to drift down towards his stomach, feeling the taut muscles of his abdomen beneath her exploring fingers.

Jesus, help me, Anita thinks desperately, he's my Kryptonite.

He's undeterred – his mouth hovering over hers, golden eyes watching her intently as his hands go to her hips and he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of her pants. "Why not?" He asks, softly, the words drifting over her lips.

She pauses, distracted by the way his fingers stroke circles onto her skin.

He smiles at her hesitancy, touching his lips lightly to hers.

The tenderness throws her into momentary surprise, but he suddenly grips the back of her thighs and lifts her up, propping her against the wall as her legs lock instinctively around his waist, and there's nothing tender about what's digging into the inside of her thigh. She gasps when his hands slide up her sweater, one at the small of her back and the other on her breast.

She kisses him fervidly, nearly slicing open her tongue on his fang, and cradles his jaw in her hands – he grins into her mouth, apparently satisfied by her response, and her body screams this is the last time, just once more.

"I'm not into necrophilia – you son of a bitch," Anita murmurs, short of breath, but even she hears the fond way the words are spoken.

"Shut up," Frankie groans as his mouth goes to her collarbone, his hand tugging one of her legs higher over his hip while his groin steadily rocks into the apex of her thighs as if to prove his next words, "D'you think I want to want this? I've taken playing with my food to an all new level."

And she doesn't even try to stop the morbid laugh that leaves her as he carries her to his bedroom.

It's the last time, after all.

#daybreakers #frankie dalton #edward dalton #daybreakers fanfiction #frankie x original charcter #michael dorman #thimbles fics

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darkobsidianquill · 4 years

Text

Harry Potter and the descent into Darkness.

Chapter Fourteen.

The ritual was not that weekend. Nor was it the next Wednesday. On Thursday afternoon, Harry tried to catch 'Moody's' eye several times, but the professor basically ignored him.

The week had felt like it was dragging on, and Harry's patience was wearing thin. He had tried to keep himself preoccupied by spending a half hour each afternoon practicing various magics – mostly dark – down in the chamber, and then spending an hour or two copying more pages of the old elven book. He still spent his late evenings in the common room with Ron and Hermione to get his classwork finished, but even they could tell he was distracted.

By Friday, Harry had twenty pages of the book copied into a bound parchment notebook and gave a copy to Hermione so she could start translating it. She had been extremely eager to start working on the translation of it. She had been devouring her copy of the Old Aldric book all week long, and had spent many of their meals raving to Harry about how fascinating the language was.

Harry had been regularly checking the charmed parchment that was linked to a counterpart in 'Moody's' possession. Nothing had appeared. To say that Harry was getting frustrated, was an understatement.

Harry was sitting in Potions, Friday afternoon, lazily stirring the Wit-Sharpening potion in his cauldron. It was currently a milky white color with inconsistent little lumps floating about, but it was supposed to turn into a translucent yellow by the time it was done. He really wasn't paying it much attention. It was a stupid-weak potion, as far as Harry was concerned. It's effects would only last for about an hour and a half hour, and you couldn't take another dose for twenty-four hours after that. How useless is that?

Harry had found several potions, spells, and rituals that had far more beneficial effects on one's wit and cleverness than the potion they were practicing that day. The thing was that most said potions, spells, and rituals were either dark, illegal, or required illegal ingredients to brew. Sooo... the potion they were brewing that day was the best anyone trying to stay on the proper side of the law, could rely on. Harry was under the impression that there were some post NEWTs level potions that temporarily aided in one's intelligence that were not illegal, but they were so difficult to brew that few could pull it off.

In any case, Harry felt he had very little interest in the potion he was currently brewing, and was only doing it as a part of the class, and not because he would ever want to use it at some point and be grateful of the knowledge.

What was even worse was that the damned potion was in it's incredibly boring stage of the brewing. He had to just sit there and stir, once, counter-clockwise every 3 minutes, and then wait thirty seconds and do five quick clockwise stirs, before waiting 3 minutes to do the counter-clockwise stirs again. Rinse and Repeat. He was very very bored.

He had just hit the three minute wait and leaned back on his stool to stretch his back a bit. He sighed heavily and glanced around at his fellow students around them. From what he could tell, Hermione was the only other Gryffindor who has at the 'stir and be bored' stage. Her potion was the same color and consistency as Harry's was. A quick glance to the other side of the room showed that at least, Malfoy, Zabini, and Greengrass were also at that stage, although he couldn't see into their cauldrons to see what color they were.

Snape swept through the center aisle and paused to glare disdainfully down at Harry. Harry rose a single eyebrow up at the man with a questioning, yet also disinterested look to him.

Snape's eyes narrowed and his lips curled, but just before he was able to open his mouth to spout something that would undoubtedly result in Gryffindor house loosing some points, a knock came at the dungeon door.

Snape's head spun around glared, curiously at the door.

"Enter," he drawled with a sneer.

At this point, just about everyone had turned on their stools to look back at the entrance to the classroom, looking at the door with notable curiosity. When the door opened, and the person responsible for the interruption was revealed, to say that everyone was rather shocked, would be an understatement.

Igor Karkaroff, walked in through the room, holding his head high, but looking decidedly nervous, if the way his eye was twitching was any indicator.

Harry's eyes narrowed and he watched the man walk straight for Snape and begin to whisper rather furiously.

Snape held up his hand and looked around at the room full of curious eyes that were trained on the two of them.

"Get back to work!" he barked and everyone quickly began to shuffle their supplies and look busy.

Snape looked exceedingly displeased with the other man's appearance, but jerked his head towards the back of the classroom and the two made their way over there.

At this point, Harry already had his wand out and in hand below his desk. He pretended to knock some random potion ingredient off of his desk so he could bend down, and while out of view, he pointed the wand at his ear and silently incanted Declamo in his mind. Next he pointed his wand at the two adults on the other side of the room, from under his desk and kept it trained on them, like a long-distance microphone.

"– are you out of your mind! What the devil do you think you are doing interrupted my class!"

"You cannot avoid me now, Severus!"

"I am not avoiding you," Snape sneered. "I have been busy!"

"Something is going to happen, Severus! It has never been so clear! Not since..."

"I know very well, you fool. Now shut up, and get out of my classroom!"

"What if he summons us!" Karkaroff hissed in a panicked voice.

"What you do is entirely your prerogative, Igor," Snape sneered, "What I do, is my business and my business alone."

"I cannot go back! He vill kill me for sure!"

"And I. Don't. Care!" Snape hissed "Now, OUT!"

Igor stood up straighter and pierced Snape with a look of pure loathing. He spun on his feet and headed back down the center aisle and out the door with a quick stride.

Harry quickly tucked his wand away and glanced at his point just in time to realize he had missed stirring it and it was turning brown.

Well, crap. He muttered to himself before sighing and banished the whole cauldron of potion with a quick flick of his wand.

– –

"So what do you think that was all about?" Ron asked in a hushed voice as he, Harry, and Hermione exited the dungeons twenty minutes later and began to make their way towards the great hall.

"What was what, all about, Ron?" Harry asked in a disinterested voice.

"What! Are you joking! That thing with Snape and Karkaroff!"

"Oh... right. That."

"Uh, yeah... THAT." Ron said, exaggeratedly.

"Do you think something is going to happen?" Hermione said in a worried tone as she looked at the other two. She seemed to hesitate and was looking at Harry while chewing on her bottom lip. "Harry?"

Harry eyed her with mild suspicion, but kept it hidden. "Yeah?"

"You... you remember when you told us about that dream you had at the end of summer? The one with You-Know-Who and Wormtail... and the other man?"

Harry's steps slowly slightly, but he kept his face impassive. "Yeah? What about it?"

"Have... have you had any more dreams like that?"

Ron's eyes were filled with quite a lot of curiosity at this as well, and was looking at Harry expectantly.

Harry simply shrugged and shook his head. "Nope. Not a thing. My scar hasn't even hurt once. I mean, Ron can attest to the dreams thing. I haven't woken up with a single nightmare all term, have I Ron?"

Ron scrunched up his face and looked thoughtful – a.k.a. constipated.

"Hmm... now that you mention it... you haven't. Not since before Halloween anyway. Didn't you have one or two of them in September?"

This time Harry twisted up his face, but then shrugged dismissively. "If I did, I don't remember them."

Hermione turned forward and the three of them resumed their journey to the great hall. She looked to be deep in thought, which as far as Harry was concerned, was never a good thing when it came to her trying to figure out a secret that involved him. But she hadn't seemed to piece anything together about him so far this term, and he'd been slipping into her head for surface scans from time to time, just to make sure she wasn't getting too close to anything dangerous.

She wasn't. She was suspicious, but she had no idea what was going on with him. She had formulated a whole slew of theories, and while some of them were mildly concerning, they still weren't even remotely close to the truth.

The trio reached the great hall, found their seats, and Ron instantly set to loading his plate with food. Hermione continued her deep-in-thought look and Harry had to repress an annoyed scowl.

He sighed and decided to deal with it after getting some food in his stomach, so he focused on his meal instead.

About fifteen minutes later, 'Moody' stomped his way into the great hall and made his wait straight to the head table, and to his usual seat. Harry glanced up at the man, and instead of being pointedly ignored, like he had for the entire previous week, the man was staring straight at him. Harry almost did a double-take, but managed to subdue it into a mild flinch.

The pair met eyes and 'Moody' did a curt nod before reaching his hand into the front inner-pocket of his robes and pulling out the slightest sight of a piece of folded parchment before it was instantly pushed back inside.

Harry's eyes lit up with an excited fire, and he only just managed to refrain from taking on an enormous eager grin. Instead he gave the other man a small smirk and an equally curt nod before looking down at his meal and continuing to eat, as if nothing had happened.

Once he was done with his food, and Ron, clearly was not, Harry pulled out his bag and fished around in it for a book. The book in question was called Defense on the Dark-side of Gray by Temerity Winickus, but the cover was charmed to look Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard.

Folded between the last two pages was what normally looked to all the world like a blank piece of parchment. Harry pulled it out and folded it, just slightly below the lip of the table to keep it out of view. He looked down and was thrilled to see 'Moody's' handwriting, where there was usually nothing.

It's tonight.

Midnight by the statue.

A wide, wicked smile had spread across Harry's lips as he stared down at the parchment. He quickly schooled his expression, and tapped the paper with his wand, clearing the text. He folded it back up and stuck it back in between the last two pages of the book.

Tonight! Tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight!

The chant ran through his head, and it was all he could do to keep his face impassive, while internally, he was dancing an insane little jig.

"Hey, Harry. What's up with you?" Ron's voice broke in through Harry's internal glee, causing him to look up with a quick snap.

"Huh?"

"You just look like you're in a pretty good mood. What's up?"

"Oh. Uh... nothing really. It's Friday. You know... just looking forward to the weekend."

Ron grinned. "Yeah, me too. I hate having Snape's class last on Fridays, but I'm glad it's over."

"Yeah," Harry said grinning. "Me too..."

– –

Harry knew he was being fidgety that evening. He was anxious and excited. He could hardly focus on any of his homework and finally he made an excuse about getting some fresh air, which Hermione and Ron knew was just an excuse for him running off to whatever place he disappeared to, but they both had learned by now that asking where he was really going was a waste of time because he just wouldn't tell them.

Harry went down to the chamber and went straight for the basilisk. He was grateful that the thing was over 50 feet long, because he was quickly decimating it's corpse with his spell practice.

He quickly lost himself in his violent dark magic assault on the beast. His mind was euphoric and utterly absorbed in what he was doing. He was exceedingly relieved for a distraction to help the time pass faster, and before he even realized it, the 'watch' on his wrist was beginning to grow hot, signaling that it had been an hour and he needed to reign his magic in.

He was panting from the exertion, and his eyes were on fire with the blazing euphoric insanity the dark magic induced. As he slowly pulled himself back together, he calmed the giggles that he often found escaped him after an especially violent session. He was going to have to move onto a new section of snake soon. He had gone through skin, muscle, and even some of the bone in the section he had been concentrating on for the last couple weeks. And apparently basilisk bone was supposed to be damn-near impenetrable. But then again, it's skin was supposed to be 'magic resistant' too, and it clearly wasn't.

It had become obvious to Harry that when people talked about things being 'magically resistant' they were talking about 'normal' magic. Neutral magic, and probably light magic too, although he admitted that he had found next to nothing on magic that was specifically 'light' in nature. He knew that the Patronus was a light spell. He had actually tried casting it a number of weeks prior, just to make sure he still could. He could.

It wasn't difficult to cast, although it did feel strange now. It felt... wrong. The taste of the magic was all sour and he didn't like it at all.

He had considered searching the school's library for books on specific light spells, but had only a mild curiosity on it, so he hadn't yet bothered. He wasn't the least bit surprised not to find any books on that type of magic down in Slytherin's study.

In any case, he seriously doubted that even high level light spells could get through something like basilisk flesh. From what he understood, light spells just weren't intended to be that destructive. It was the destructive nature of the dark that made it so powerful.

Even after his 'work out', Harry was feeling too edgy to go back up to the common room. He knew his behavior would seem really off, and if he spent time around the Gryffindors, they would notice that he was acting even stranger than usual. Instead, he settled himself down on the chaise lounge and opened up to a chapter of Tip-Toeing Through the Mind of the Unaware by Clair Videre.

He'd skimmed through the book a few times, and bothered to read all the way through a couple of the chapters. With the book, he had learned that the nifty little mind-reading trick he'd been using was something called Legilimency. What had really interested him lately, and what had made him pick the book back up, was the discovery that Legilimency had a 'brother' magic called Occlumency. While Legilimency let you read a person's mind, Occlumency taught you how to create barriers to keep others out of your head.

Tip-Towing Through the Mind of the Unaware, however, was a book on Legilimency; not Occlumency. It only had a single chapter dedicated to Occlumency, and that was what Harry was reading now.

It sounded fairly complicated, and had several levels of proficiency. The first level – the only one discussed in the book in any depth – was the act of simply clearing your mind the moment you detect an unwelcome presence. Clear the mind, and leave them in a big empty expanse so that, even though they're in your mind, they have nothing to read.

While this was fine and dandy, Harry was more interested is keeping a person from entering his mind at all, and for that, it was obvious he was going to have to find a book, specifically on Occlumency.

Harry sighed, set the book down on the table beside the chaise, and massaged his temples. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander to what was going to be taking place that night. Voldemort – the Dark Lord – was going to be performing a ritual to restore his body, and Harry was going to go voluntarily help him accomplish it.

Rationally, Harry knew he was being... very irrational. Or perhaps, he was being too rational. He wasn't really sure. He tended not to actually think about what he was really doing, all that often. He was a bit too overwhelmed by the emotions that surrounded it. He knew that on some level, it felt entirely right. His magic was pushing him towards this, and he felt insanely excited over the prospect of the Dark Lord, returning. Rationally, some tiny part inside him knew he should be screaming and running fighting tooth and nail to stop this from happening.

But then he asked himself... why? Why should he not want this? Harry opened his eyes and looked across the room at nothing in particular. It seemed like a valid exercise. Why should he want it, versus why he shouldn't. He shouldn't just let his gut drive him on this. He knew he needed to make sure he put some serious thought behind it too.

First off... reasons to be excited. Reason to want it.

Voldemort was the Dark Lord. Harry had become a dark wizard, and he liked it. He refused to even slightly regret his choices, and had come to terms with the fact that he had gone dark. As a dark wizard, he felt drawn to the dark lord – he knew that. But he was also positive that it was greater than that. He felt connected to the man in the most indescribably intimate way. He knew it was because a portion of his soul had resided in Harry for as long as he could recall – even if he hadn't realized it until recently.

So... why should he want to stop it.

Voldemort was violent... well, that was true. But Harry had become rather violent himself and it didn't seem nearly as such a bad thing to him now as it had only six months prior.

Voldemort would start the war again. Loads of people would die. Harry conceded that that was possibly a valid excuse, but Harry also had an extremely strong sense in his gut that this sort of... needed to happen. The fact that he didn't understand why, kept him from entirely agreeing with it, right out though. But he also refused to use the war as a reason to not resurrect Voldemort either. He just didn't understand enough about the true motives and needs behind the war. Without that understanding, he couldn't use it to argue for or against the resurrection.

Voldemort killed his parents.

Harry rolled his eyes. Well that was a stupid reason. For Harry, his parents were just ideas. Intangible, idealized notions that had no real substance or meaning. He had never known his parents, so their loss didn't really mean anything to him. What was tangible was the way he was raised by those filthy muggle bastards, and the man who had abandoned him there. That was tangible. And Voldemort was waging his war against that man.

At least in part.

Well, as far as he was concerned, he simply didn't have enough reasons to not help. If he helped, Voldemort would stop trying to hunt him down and kill him. He was pretty sure of that. Even with the whole 'part of his soul' and 'making him immortal' thing, Harry knew that if he continued to pose a threat to Voldemort, Harry was sure the man would still come after him. But if Harry sided with the Dark Lord... well, self-preservation was a pretty strong motivator. And in this case, it was really just a really good excuse to add on top of the fact that deep down in his gut, he really reallywanted to join the man.

So! Gut feeling, combined with desire not to die equals voluntarily aiding in the man's resurrection.

Harry chuckled to himself and rolled his eyes at the wall opposite him. He knew he was being ridiculous but really didn't care.

He cast a tempus and groaned in annoyance at the time displayed. It was only 8:30pm. But curfew was at ten o'clock, so it wasn't like he could stay down in the chamber much longer anyway.

Harry got up off the chaise and went over to the desk where he had the ancient elven book. He pulled out the copy that he'd been manually working on and opened to the last page he had worked on.

His copy and Hermione's copy were charmed together so anything he added to his would appear in hers as well. It had seemed like the easiest way for her to start work on translating it while he was still in the process of copying it.

He resumed where he left off after setting an alarm to ring once it reached nine o'clock. He would need to spend at least some time in the common room or else his friends would badger him all weekend.

– –

Two and a half hours later, Harry was sitting down in the common room, trying not to scowl at the ruckus going on at one of the large tables in the common room, that currently housed, the twins, Lee Jordan, Seamus, Ron, and a couple other Gryffindors that Harry wasn't very familiar with.

They were playing some game that had managed to be even more annoying than exploding snap – a feat which Harry had never thought possible. Apparently the twins invented it. If anyone could invent a game this obnoxious, it would be them. Harry thought bitterly to himself as another ear piercing noise erupted form the table, followed by peals of laughter.

It was eleven o'clock, which meant that Harry only had one hour left till he needed to meet 'Moody', but none of his dorm mates had gone to bed yet, and the common room was still filled with people. Since it was Friday night, none of them felt it all that important to get to bed at a reasonable hour, and had chosen, instead, to stay up watching or playing the twin's and Lee Jordan's new game.

Harry had to face the fact that they would not be going to bed before him, so he was going to have to pretend he was going to bed, rig his bed to look occupied and probably apply a sticking charm to his bed hangings, and then find a way to sneak out of the common room while it was still full of people.

His invisibility cloak would get him past everyone, but he would still need to open the portrait hole, and that would get noticed. Hermione, at the very least, would notice if it opened and closed an no one appeared to be there. She would know that Harry was sneaking out in his cloak.

Maybe he could open one of the windows up in the dorm room and fly out with his broom? That was a viable option. Harry hadn't touched his Firebolt in months, so he almost forgot he had it most days.

Harry glanced around the room, taking note of the locations of all his dorm mates. Dean was standing beside the large table, watching the game. Seamus and Ron were actually playing the game... but what about Neville...

Harry looked around, trying to find his most timid room mate. He scowled when he didn't see him. Was Neville already up in bed? That would complicate things... He was sure he'd seen Neville down in the common room a few minutes earlier.

If Neville had just gone up, then Harry might still have a chance. Neville always took a shower before going to bed at night. He apparently hated doing it in the mornings and going to breakfast with wet hair.

Harry quickly began to pack up his homework into his bag. Hermione noticed this and looked at him questioningly.

"I'm getting pretty tired... I think I'll call it a night. Besides, I think I may be getting up early tomorrow."

"Oh? Why?" she asked curiously.

Harry raised his eyebrows and gave her a pointed look. She scowled at him, rolled her eyes, and huffed. "Fine, fine. Don't tell me," she grumbled while glaring at him through narrowed eyes.

Harry smiled. "Thanks Hermione."

Her glare softened into a resigned frown and she sighed. "Fine, fine... goodnight, Harry."

"G'night," he said as he slung his bag over his shoulder and raced up the stairs. Harry entered the room just as Neville was slipping into the bathroom and Harry heaved a brief sigh. He didn't have any time to waste though because Neville wasn't much one for long showers.

He ran over to his bed and grabbed one of the pillows. He transfigured it into a dummy with scruffy black hair. It looked like a pretty ambiguous store mannequin, but it would be sufficient as long as no one actually looked at it. He pulled the covers up over it and then pulled his hangings closed and applied a sticking charm to hold them shut. He quickly dug out his Firebolt, invisibility cloak, and the map. He tapped the top of his trunk to shrink it and slipped it into his breast pocket. He'd copied a few more of the books from the chamber during the last week and figured he could take them with him.

He put his invisibility cloak on first and grabbed his broom. He made his way over to the largest window in the dorm, unlatched and opened it, mounted his broom and hovered out. Once he was floating just beyond the window, he used his wand to shut it and relatch it.

The cloak didn't completely cover the broom beneath him, nor did it conceal him from anyone standing directly below him and looking up, so he quickly descended to ground level. Once he had landed he applied the shrinking charm to his broom and put the miniaturized broom into his pocket. He still had about forty-five minutes until he had to meet 'Moody', but figured he'd may as well start heading that way.

He activated the map and made his way towards the closest entrance that would let him back inside the school.

Thirty minutes later he was leaning against the wall in the defense corridor, just down the hall from the one-eyed witch statue. He'd had to dodge Filch, Mrs. Norris, Peeves, and a couple patrolling prefects, so it had taken him longer than he had anticipated. So he was glad he'd had such a head start.

At five till midnight, Harry felt a mild disruption in the magic in the air and reached out with his magical senses. He was positive he was sensing what was probably 'Moody's' magical signature and almost pulled his cloak off before looking at the map. Fortunately he didn't. He glanced down at it to compare the location of the dot with where he thought he sensed the disillusioned wizard and nearly choked when he saw the name 'Severus Snape' by the little dot.

His eyes widened and he quickly pulled out his wand, just to be safe. He looked back at the map, searching for Bartemius Crouch and saw the man coming their way from several corridors away. Harry cast a silencing charm on his feet and began to make his way down the hall and away from where Snape had planted himself against the wall opposite the statue.

Once Harry got to the end of the hall and turned, he switched to a full-out run and headed straight for Barty. He caught up with the man's dot and was surprised to see him just openly walking down the hall and not disillusioned at all.

"Moody!" Harry whispered harshly from a few feet away.

'Moody' froze and spun around with his wand drawn. "Potter?"

"We've got a problem," Harry growled lightly as he pulled the cloak off his face enough for the other wizard to see his eyes.

"What kind of problem?" 'Moody' asked as he rose a single eyebrow.

"Snape is down by the statue, disillusioned. Did you tell him? I mean... is he invited, or something?"

"What? Snape? Of course not. What the devil is he doing there?"

"Hell if I know. But wasn't he a Death Eater?

"Snape is a spy. Whether he's Dumbledore's spy or the Dark Lords, is still up for debate. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could spit."

Harry twisted up his face, trying to fully understand that last bit, but shrugged it off. Don't trust Snape. Easy enough. I never trusted him in the first place. "A spy huh? Interesting... It can't be a coincidence that he showed up tonight like that."

"No it can't," 'Moody' growled with a deep scowl. He turned his one good eye on Harry and narrowed it. "You didn't let it slip to anyone did you?"

"No! And I cleared the parchment the second I'd read it. Not like anyone else would be able to figure out exactly which statue you mentioned. There're thousands of statues in the castle."

'Moody' nodded and scowled down the hall. "I'm going to need to do another bug sweep of my office," he grumbled. "Makes me wonder what else might have been overheard..."

"You do that. Anyway, we're really lucky I realized who he was. At first I thought he was you, coming in disillusioned like that. I'm glad I looked at the map before I took my cloak off."

"Map? The one that tells you the names of everyone in the school?"

"Yeah, that one."

"Is he still there?"

Harry pulled the map out from his cloak so that just his hands and the map were now floating in space in front of 'Moody'. Harry pointed at Snape's name with his other hand. "Still there."

'Moody' made a growling noise in the back of his throat and then pulled out a pocket watch and frowned.

"We can't sit around and wait for him to leave. We'll have to get out a different way. You wouldn't happen to know about any other secret passages, would you?"

Harry looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, there's a secret passageway that goes from the Shrieking Shack to the base of the Whomping Willow, but we'd have to go out to the Whomping Willow to get into it. There's also supposed to be one behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy, but I've never used it because I was told by the Weasley twins that Filch knows about that one and has it booby-trapped."

'Moody' snorted. "We'll take our chances with the tunnel behind the Smarmy statue. Filch is just a stupid filthy squib. Whatever 'booby-traps' he might have come up won't be a problem."

Harry nodded his head and pulled the map and his arms back under his cloak.

"I'll lead the way," Moody began, "you stay under your cloak and follow."

"Got it," Harry said.

Another five minutes and the pair of them were standing at the statue of Gregory the Smarmy. It only took 'Moody' a minute to figure out how to open the doorway behind it, which Harry was relieved for since he really had no idea how to get into this one.

Fifteen minutes of walking down a very narrow tunnel, while occasionally throwing freezing and stasis charms on whatever rudimentary alarm systems Filch had erected, and the pair felt themselves leave the boundary of the wards. 'Moody' pulled out the portkey, they both held onto it, and a second later, they were both being whisked away with a soft pop, and an uncomfortable tug behind the navel.

The two appeared in the same entry hall as last time. Harry managed to stay upright with only a little trouble this time, and once he had himself steadied, he reached into his pocket and pulled his wand out.

'Moody' instantly got on his guard when he saw Harry reaching for his wand, and was then only mildly surprised when Harry flipped the wand around in his hand so he was holding the tip of it and offered it to 'Moody'.

"I expect I still won't be permitted my wand, so I figured I'd save you the trouble of asking for it," Harry said with a smirk.

'Moody' humphed and snatched the wand away. He instantly spun around with as much grace as a man with one wooden leg could have and began to make his way through the entry hall towards a hallway.

Harry looked after him curiously for a moment before he quickly hurried after. 'Moody' led him down a couple of corridors with detailed wooden wainscoting and ornate polished lighting fixtures that had their light bulbs removed and were currently being lit with magically conjured balls of light.

Harry felt a tingling sensation in his scar appear and begin to slowly grow the further they traveled through the house, and a wide grin began to spread across his lips. He pulled his magic out and let it stretch out and around him as he tasted the magic around him. The house was originally muggle and that was obvious, but was also clear that a number of magical additions had been made to the structure. Harry was pretty sure he detected some space expansion magic from behind a few closed doors.

He sent his magic out further and instantly knew where they were heading. There was a powerful mass of magic in a room at the end of the hall. It was also the same place that the tingle in his scar told him Voldemort was.

'Moody' was about ten feet from the door when he suddenly hunched over and began to twist and clench. Harry froze, surprised by the sudden change in the man's demeanor. He was confused for all of five seconds before he noticed the man's skin bubbling and stretching. Moody began to scramble at the fake leg, releasing the belts and latches that held it in place, and slid down the wall and onto the floor. The next moment, his hand was up, clasping over his magic eye, just in time to catch it as it popped out of his socket.

Harry scrunched up his face as he watched 'Moody's' Polyjuice dose wear off, and the man slowly transformed back into his true self.

It only took a moment, but Harry was sure it was not a pleasant experience. Barty Crouch stood, unsteadily, to his feet and nudged the fake leg that now lay on the floor, over to the wall. He pocketed the fake eye and looked back at Harry.

The man standing before him looked to be about thirty years old, had pale skin, messy straw-colored hair and a light dusting of freckles on his skin. He had dark eyes that were sunken and had a wild insanity to them. As he looked back at Harry he gave him a rather mad-looking toothy grin.

"Well, Potter... now we go to our Lord. Are you ready?"

Harry returned the toothy grin and nodded his head eagerly. "I am."

Barty cackled lightly and turned back towards the doors at the end of the hall. It was a set of double-doors, but he only pulled one open and slipped in quietly. Harry hurried after him and as soon as he entered the room, he was instantly met with a kneeling Barty just a few feet in front of him.

"My Lord. I have brought back Harry Potter," Barty was saying with a reverent glee, while keeping his head bowed low.

Harry stood there for a moment, taking in his surroundings. From what he could tell, they had just come in a back entrance to a mid-sized ball room of sorts. Any furniture that might have once been there had been banished. In the center of the room was the largest potions cauldron that Harry had ever seen. It was suspended above a magical fire and the contents in it were already boiling away.

Around the cauldron were concentric circles etched into the floor, along with a number of runes and odd symbols at key points. Hunched over, and still in the process of writing some of these symbols, was none other than Wormtail. And sitting in his levitating chair, towards the side, was the Dark Lord himself. He turned and Harry saw the tiny reptilian man smirk at the kneeling Barty.

"Very good, Barty. And welcome, both of you, to my resurrection." he said with a grandiose wave of one of his tiny bony arms and a wicked cackle. Barty's head rose and a wild delight spread across his face while his eyes blazed with triumph.

Harry found himself sporting a rather similar expression, as he felt the intense anticipation in his chest growing to a breaking point.

Voldemort motioned his arm towards the only piece of furniture that remained in the room, a small, but long buffet-type table that was placed along the wall beside the door that Harry and Barty had entered through.

"Potter, there are instructions there that you should make yourself familiar with," Voldemort said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Harry bowed his head in a quick motion. "Yes my Lord," he said as he turned and took a couple quick strides to the table and picked up the parchment. He quickly read through it, his eyes widening with each additional line. His eyes darted back down to the table, where he saw the ritual dagger laying on a piece of black velvet.

He glanced back at Voldemort who had a wicked grin on his face. He rose a single questioning eyebrow at Harry as if daring him to argue. Harry rolled his eyes and began to take off his robes.

"Alright. Do I have to carve them into myself, or is Barty going to be doing this? I'd really rather it not be Wormtail, but I do realize that I don't have a lot of say in the proceedings," Harry said as he folded his school robes and began to unbutton his undershirt.

A very brief look of surprise flitted across Voldemort's serpentine features for a second before his smirk returned.

"It doesn't bother you? This will not be a pain free ordeal for you."

"I never expected anything of the sort. Besides, it says they won't scar, and that's the only thing I'd really worry about since my dorm mates would probably notice strange ancient runes-shaped scars on my body that didn't used to be there. I doubt the pain will be the worse I've ever experienced, and certainly not the worse self-inflicted pain. I think I've managed to set the bar pretty high for that already."

"Is that so? You've peaked my curiosity, Potter. Explain."

"Ever heard of Drajiou's Excellerant potion?" Harry asked as he began to slip the now unbuttoned shirt off his arms and fold it.

Voldemort's eyes grew wider now and he actually began to chuckle. "Did you finish the full process? All eight doses?"

"Yup," Harry said with a pained look before placing the now folded shirt down on folded robes.

"And you survived with your sanity in tact?" Voldemort asked with mild disbelief in his tone.

Harry laughed. He laughed hard. Then he shrugged and looked sheepish. "Well I suppose that's debatable, isn't it? But I would say I did. I actually escaped into my mindscape during the majority of it, but it was unavoidable to experience some of that pain, no matter how quickly I tried to slip inside myself once I'd taken the dose."

"They say the pain is worse than a half dozen simultaneous cruciatus curses, drawn out over a ten hour span of time," Voldemort mused with an air of mild respect. "Why would you put yourself through that, may I ask?"

"Well... I suppose that I didn't honestly expect it to be that bad, when I first set out to do it. But I really wanted to fix my body. I was just... sick of living with the results of being treated like a house elf for a decade. I mean..." he paused and waved his hand down at his now bare chest, "I'm rather fond of the results, if I'm being honest. What I looked like before the accellerant potion doesn't even compare."

Voldemort's eyes narrowed and he looked rather displeased. Harry felt a bolt of fear shoot through him, but it was fear that he had somehow managed to displease Voldemort and he had no idea why.

"What did these muggles do to you, exactly?" Voldemort hissed and Harry found himself caught off guard by the question.

"Oh... well, they tossed me in a boot cupboard under the stairs and made that my 'bedroom' up until I was eleven and got my Hogwarts letter. I had to clean their house, cook their meals, do their gardening, do the laundry, and they frequently refused to feed me as a form of punishment for not meeting their oh so high standards of perfect normalcy. Oh, and if I was ever unfortunate enough to perform any accidental magic, I was locked in the cupboard and refused food for days. As a result of spending an inordinate amount of time in a tiny, dark space without food, I ended up malnourished, short, and sickly. Even the regular meals at Hogwarts weren't enough to counteract the damage done over the previous ten years, so I was scrawny and pathetic looking. I prefer this," Harry finished, making another motion towards his chest.

"What potions did you accelerate?" Voldemort asked, looking away and trying to appear disinterested. Harry felt a burning in his scar though, and saw a glimmer of pure rage in the man's ruby eyes. He rose a single eyebrow – wondering exactly what that was about, but quickly realized that the Dark Lord had asked him a question, and that it would not be wise to keep him waiting.

"Just two. An advanced nutritional restorative potion, and a bone and muscle restructuring potion. So basically the accellerant tore apart my bones, muscles, and tendons, each time I took it, and rebuilt it. After eight doses, it was done."

"You didn't use an aging potion in the mix? You do not appear fourteen to me."

Harry blinked, surprised by the comment but quickly swallowed his surprise. "Er... thanks? Uh – my Lord."

Voldemort scoffed, but it sounded remarkably similar to a snort. "When did you do all this? If it was too recently and any of the potion remains in your system, it could complicate the ritual."

"Oh, I finished my last dose nearly two months ago. It shouldn't be a problem."

"Good. As to answer your earlier question, you must carve the runes into your own flesh, except for the ones on your back, which I will do."

"Oh," Harry said as he blinked and took this in. "Alright," Harry said with a quick breath and then a determined nod.

He returned his focus to the parchment and read it through again, paying attention to each of the symbols and where, exactly they would need to be carved into his flesh. He was glad there weren't too many of them. It could have been a lot worse. From what he could tell, the whole 'him carving runes into his flesh'-bit was the alternative to a much simpler ritual that would require Harry's entire body be sacrificed and bled dry. The pain would be unpleasant, but it was preferable to being dead.

"I do appreciate you opting to go with this version, over the one where I would have been a live sacrifice," Harry said as he continued to read.

"Yes, well the amount of extra effort on my part is very minimal, and your potential future usefulness outweighed it enough that I chose this path instead."

"Like I said. Much appreciated," Harry said, glancing up and smirking.

Voldemort rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"When you feel ready, we will begin," Voldemort said in a dismissive tone as he levitated several objects from the floor behind him and began to move towards the cauldron in the center of the room.

Harry refocused on the parchment and reached over to pick up the dagger. He balanced it in his palm for a moment before grasping it, blade facing towards him, and practiced different grips for holding it.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself and began to walk towards the circle.

He passed by Barty, who was now standing towards the outside the outermost circle, not far from Wormtail who had apparently finished his task, and was now cowering in the shadows. Barty appeared to actually be mildly impressed with Harry and was watching him with an air of intrigue.

"You will stand here," Voldemort, pointing to a spot on the floor where the runes and circles came to a certain formation. "You have ten minutes to complete the runes before we can move on to the next part. If you do not complete it in ten minutes, we will have to heal the woulds and start over. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded, but at the glaring red eyes he quickly spoke, "Yes, my Lord."

Voldemort smirked and nodded in approval.

"Once you have completed the runes on your front, hand the dagger to me and I will complete the two on your back. Begin when ready."

Harry shook his head again, took another calming breath and spent a few minutes practicing the movements necessary to carve the shapes into each of the specified spots. When to shift the dagger into different grips when he moved onto a different location, and then practiced holding it in his left hand and traced where he would carve for the rune he would need to carve into his right bicep. Once he felt comfortable with what exactly he had to do and in what order, he began.

#Harry Potter #Tom Riddle #Dark!Harry #Tomarry #Harry Potter and the descent into Darkness..

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osomagine-san · 5 years

Note

How would the Matsu react if they eavesdropped on a conversation between one of their brother and s/o where the bro asked them what did they even find in their Matsu and s/o just slumps on the table defeatedly, like "Right?", but then starts listing so many reasons why they love him with all their heart as their tone grows more and more fond?

h I’m so sorry– I’m really bad at keeping a consistent schedule!!! Life gets in the way of so much I’d rather be doing. It’s all below the cut!! Also I took a few liberties with the prompt, hope that’s okay!! Thank you so much for waiting!!

Word count (overall): 5004

“I get the feeling you don’t like me very much.”

You and Osomatsu had been dating for a few years, now, and with every day, your relationship became more serious. You and him had rented an apartment two years ago, making him the third brother to move out of his parents’ house. Choromatsu, the “straight man”, was not one of the three.

You liked to hang out with the other brothers— you and Todomatsu got together once a month to catch up; you sent pictures of kittens from the local animal shelter you walked past to get to the train to Ichimatsu any time they got a new one; and Jyushimatsu regularly invited you to baseball games. But compared to that, you hardly spoke to the third-born.

“What makes you say that?” he asked, in a tone that confirmed your suspicion.

“I mean, you’ve gotta know that I talk to your brothers on the reg,” you respond. “But I don’t think I’ve had a full conversation with you since Oso first introduced us.”

“Huh, I guess not.”

He tries to walk past you, but you stop him with a rough hand to his shoulder.

“We need to talk,” you say. It’s not often you’re so serious, but you figure that bit of your personality will appeal more to him.

He’s a bit taken aback by this– the first time he met you, you and his brother had shown up drunk. He had his arm around your waist and was loudly proclaiming that he’d had a secret partner for three months (which no one believed at first), and that he needed everyone to leave because he was ready to graduate from being a virgin (which everyone believed immediately).

He sighs.

“You just get on my nerves,” he admits with a shrug. “It’s nothing complex.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

Unbeknownst to the both of you, Osomatsu had gotten bored of waiting for you outside. He was about to barge right into the room, but the conversation happening was… well, he wasn’t good with social cues, but he felt like maybe he should stay out of this one.

Choromatsu thought for a moment. He’d really just dismissed you immediately, since his first impression of you had been so bad.

“Oso talks about you a lot,” you continue in his silence. “I mean, he talks about all of you a lot– he wants to know how you’re all doing, but especially you. You were close when you were kids. I don’t… I don’t think I see an end to our relationship, and I don’t think he does, either, so we need to at least be able to tolerate each other, don’t’cha think?”

“Tsk.” Finally, Choromatsu came up with his reasoning. “Why would you even want to stay with him? He’s lazy, has no filter! He’d be happier to roll around in the filth and dirt on the ground than he would to get a job. I don’t understand why you want to stay with the worst of us.”

His brother’s words hurt. Osomatsu clenched a fist. He couldn’t see the shock on your face, nor the way your body flinched away from his younger brother. He reached a hand to open the door, but just as his hand settled in the handle, you continued:

“What, like you’re the best? You don’t understand why I’d want a ‘dirty’ man when here you are, so clean and poised and refined? Newsflash, asshole! It’s a little late for these thoughts! But look at this– I’ve been worried about your opinion of me since I first laid eyes on you, but Osomatsu’s is clear as day. It has been since the first words he said to me. And if Oso wanted to roll around in the dirt instead of go to work, then I’d be right there with him. He’s grown, he’s bigger than he used to be. You’d know that if you took the time to, but it’d kill you to have your shitty eldest outshine you, huh?”

Choromatsu opened his mouth to counter, but before he can defend himself, you turn around.

“Good talk,” you say, and open the door.

Osomatsu has a strange look on his face; one you don’t think you’ve seen on him before. But just as soon as you’ve registered it, it’s gone. He grins, and sniffs while he scratches beneath his nose. You give him a kiss on the cheek, then give Choromatsu one last glare.

“I love you so much, y’know that, babe?”

“Hey, pass the soy sauce, will ya?”

This wasn’t the first dinner you’d had with Karamatsu’s brothers, but it was certainly the most awkward. The seven of you sat at a round table, takeout served on plates in an attempt to impress you. The Matsuno sextuplets had pulled this move too many times on you for it to keep working.

You were thankful you got along so well with all of them. You didn’t know each other particularly well, but Todomatsu giving you his number after the first dinner seemed to be a good sign.

Beers were passed between you all, and while they’d gotten enough to split evenly, Osomatsu, ever the glutton, was hogging them. The more you went over, the more the brothers became comfortable with you, and the less they tried to hide their worse qualities. This was better in theory than in practice– Ichimatsu and Choromatsu were starting to gang up on him, and you could sense a fight coming. But these sextuplets were always fighting.

“Man, how disrespectful of us,” Todomatsu said to you. “So sorry about my older brothers.”

“It’s nothing,” you responded, kind of cheerily. More a customer service kind of cheery than anything else.

“Hm, since they’re distracted,” your boyfriend began, “we can be as romantic as we want, and none of them will notice a thing.” He held your hands up, and kissed both of them. You flushed, but smiled and leaned in nonetheless.

“We’re not all distracted,” Jyushimatsu and Todomatsu said in unison, the latter shouting it.

Karamatsu flirted more at you, and the youngest two glanced at each other, trying to figure out what it was that you liked. Was it the metaphors? The shitty English? Maybe you were mistaking the pain for pleasure. They didn’t seem to need to speak to theorize together.

Suddenly, the fight between the others ended. Choromatsu cleared his throat.

“So! [Y/N], you said that you and Karamatsu have some big news?” he asked. His nose was dripping with blood, and you could already see a black eye forming.

“Oh! Right!” you exclaimed. You hadn’t had much to drink, but what little you had seemed to be messing with your head already.

You and Karamatsu exchanged a bit of a look, and you both gestured for the other to say it at the same time. You giggled together– it was very exciting! You resolved to say it at the same time:

“My brothers… [Y/N] and I are moving in!”

“Karamatsu and I have decided to move in together!”

You wrap your arms around Karamatsu’s, smiles lighting up both of your faces.

The others went quiet for a moment, but gradually warmed up with grins and congratulations, questions about how long you’ve been thinking about this to where you’ll be located. Except for Osomatsu.

The eldest brother, drunk from stolen beers, crossed his arms and slurred, “Why does Kara-chan get the cute partner when I’m sittin’ right here?”

The table goes quiet for a moment. You open your mouth to say something, that it’s fine, that you’re sure Osomatsu is just concerned at best, and shitfaced at worst, but he continues:

“Like… I really don’t understand what you see in him at all, y’know? Choromatsu agrees, don’t’cha?”

“Don’t drag me into this!”

“He’s all… painful and shit. His English is terrible, and he only says certain phrases…! He’s dumb, and plus, I’m the oldest, so I should get first dibs on a partner, especially one as cute as you!”

You and Karamatsu are similar in a lot of ways, in that you try to see the best in everyone and you can try to justify their actions in any way you can. So you’re quiet for a moment, and you detach yourself from Karamatsu’s arm. Maybe you shouldn’t be there, maybe you were better off away from them…

But one look at Kara’s face says you’re wrong. It’s that pained grin you’ve come to recognize with ease— you know he loves his brothers so very much, and hearing them talk shit about him doesn’t feel good. It’s because of this that you’re able to say,

“That’s enough.”

The other brothers hadn’t been expected that from you, since all you’d done up until that point around them was flirt with Karamatsu, and eat their food. You seemed to be just as docile as he was, and maybe you were, but you found it hard to stand by while your man was being hurt like this by his only older brother.

“He’s the sweetest and most thoughtful man I’ve ever met!” you continue. Your voice raises not quite to a yell, but it’s loud. The other brothers don’t really know what to say. “You have no right to me— if you wanted me that badly, you should have been the first brother to meet me, and it should have been you that got down on one knee to offer a rose and invite me on a date, but you didn’t. He’s passionate about his love, and the only thing you’re passionate about is getting drunk and flirting with your brother’s partners, apparently.”

It’s quiet at the table for a moment.

“…So, for dessert, we have some little cakes,” Todomatsu says.

“Yeah, [Y/N], Karamatsu, you two should get first pick,” Choromatsu adds. “Congrats again, by the way.”

“They’re in the kitchen,” Ichimatsu says, waving a hand to dismiss you.

You look at Karamatsu. You think it’s a little ridiculous that they’re making you two get up after all of that, but you aren’t part of the sextuplet hivemind. Because as soon as Karamatsu assures you it’s fine, and you two get up and leave, you hear the four you left behind yell,

“Hey, what the hell is wrong with you?!”

“…Would it be alright if I asked you a question?”

“Hm? Yeah, sure, what’s up, Ichimatsu?”

It was the day you and Choromatsu were to start living together. He didn’t want to pack until he was absolutely certain the plans wouldn’t fall through, and you knew him well enough to know it was just his personality and not a real concern about the relationship.

It wasn’t like he had much to pack, though– mostly just a lot of Nyaa merch, which he had hidden away from his brothers, hence why you were working by yourself in that room. Ichimatsu just so happened to be sitting there, too.

Maybe he was just feeling self-conscious. That wouldn’t be such a surprise or a change, but he was also feeling confrontational, which was weird. Choromatsu would be the fourth brother to move out, leaving him and Jyushimatsu in a vicious competition not to be the last. He supposed he didn’t honestly expect the three of them to last together, especially not after Choromatsu finally landed that job…

He was silent for a while after he asked. You’d turned around and continued packing.

“You’re a college graduate, right?”

You didn’t turn around– you wanted to get this done as quickly as possible. You were so excited to unpack!

“Yeah, graduated two years ago,” you replied. “Why?”

“I don’t know what he’s told you, but he hasn’t done anything like that.” He hadn’t thought before he spoke, and kind of regretted it. But more than he regretted it, he absolutely did not.

Meanwhile, Choromatsu had just finished collecting all of his merch– it took three boxes!– and was going to let you know he was going to help you as soon as he put it all in the trunk, but froze when he heard Ichimatsu speak. He had a sinking feeling that his brother wasn’t just making small talk while you worked.

“I know that.” You didn’t know Ichimatsu very well, so while it seemed hostile, maybe he was just looking out for you…?

“Okay,” he said.

Ichimatsu was done with his confrontation for the day. He went back to slouching with his chin resting on his knees.

Choromatsu was about to keep going– maybe he’d ask you about this later, if he didn’t forget about it entirely– when you continued:

“Why do you bring it up?”

Ichimatsu looked at you. He racked his brain, trying to come up with a reason.

“…Dunno,” he finally answered. He took a deep breath, and leaned back against the wall, stretching his legs out. “Maybe a guy like me will never understand it… understand why you like someone like him. What’s he got that I don’t?”

You looked down at him, and he quickly turned away.

“Ichima-”

“Don’t say my name like that,” he said. “I can hear the pity… But seriously, all that guy does is jerk off. You know he once told me that he wanted to be an idol manager only to seduce his client? Don’t you find that disgusting? I would never do that…”

Choromatsu’s face heated up in shame. He was young when he’d said that; it was way before he knew someone like you existed. If he could take it back, he would. He wants to burst into the room and apologize– that was so stupid, it was shitty, it was-

“How good are you a person if you expect a reward for being good?”

Ichimatsu opened his mouth, but you cut him off.

“I didn’t know Choromatsu back then,” you continued, “and I don’t have the context, but yeah, it’s a disgusting way to think. But how long ago was it? Was it last week? A year ago? More? Because Choromatsu gets better every day, he works hard to be better. I know for a fact that he’d never say or even think that now. You bringing that up is childish, it’s immature, and it’s shitty in its own right. So, yeah, I’m going to ask Choromatsu about it, but don’t think one comment from a jealous younger brother is going to dampen our relationship whatsoever.”

The box now full, you closed it, and headed towards the door.

“Oh and, call me easy, but his rate of masturbating has gone way, way down.”

“Are you coming or not?!”

You were ready. It was just about time… the two of you were finally in good places, both of you having held a steady job for a good while. Yes, you were ready, and you were sure that he was, too. You were getting ready to propose to Ichimatsu.

You always thought the idea of a sort of scavenger hunt would be cute– taking him through all of the most important places you’d been to: dinner where you had your first date, the alley where he introduced you to his closest friends (all cats; he was happy they took to you so well), so on and so forth, until you ended the night in the place where the two of you had first met: the park.

You didn’t want him to suspect anything, so you brought Jyushimatsu with you under the guise of it being a bonding day. You didn’t talk to his brothers very often, but hey, it had been almost two years since you and Ichimatsu had first gotten together. Might as well try.

Or so was your reasoning.

You kept Jyushimatsu close, just in case the other brothers were following you, like they tended to.

Eventually, you’d made your way back to the park. Jyushimatsu wanted to head towards the baseball field, but you told him no.

“Okay,” he said.

Despite this, he headed towards the field.

“Hey, hey! Jyushimatsu!” you called after him. “No! I’m… looking for something.”

“What are you looking for?” he asked. He stopped once you caught up to him.

“…Something,” you responded. “None of your business.”

“Ah, got it,” he said.

He turned away from you and kept going.

“Wait!” you called. He kept going. “Dammit…”

You ran in front of him, and stretched your arms out to keep him from going around you. You took a deep breath before you continued:

“Jyushimatsu, the truth is…” You turned your head and looked around, making sure that none of the other sextuplets were hiding nearby.

Five brothers would have been easier to spot than one. So that one escaped your field of vision, hiding in a bush a few feet from where you were standing. He knew it was stupid, but he was well-practised from following his brothers and their partners on their dates. He didn’t like that he couldn’t hear what you whispered to Jyushimatsu…

“…I’m going to propose to Ichimatsu,” you finished in a whisper, close to his ear.

Jyushimatsu stands still. You don’t see his facial expression change. Maybe he’s just processing… you get anxious.

“Well, sa-”

“YOU’RE GOING T-”

“SHUT UP!” You shove your fists into his mouth. He bites you. “Shit!” You glare at him. “Was that necessary?!”

“Yes,” he responds.

“And the thing I’m looking for is the bench we first met on.” You rub your hands– you’re lucky you’re not bleeding. “So you can’t go anywhere, because as soon as I find it, we’re leaving, and I don’t have time to watch you swing a bat a million times.”

“Right, right,” he nods.

The two of you keep walking. You’re a few paces ahead of him, but he’s got such a massive presence that you’d notice if he disappeared.

After a while, he speaks up:

“Why are you doing it?”

There’s a bit of a rustling in the bushes nearby.

“We’ve been dating for a while, and our lives are steady,” you respond. “We work… well together, and so it just makes sense.”

“I see.” He pauses. “So it’s not like you like him or anything.”

You look at him. You have a weird, unnerving stare, and Jyushimatsu regrets his words as soon as he says them.

“No,” you finally say. In this tense atmosphere, it sounds like a long sound. You pause.

Ichimatsu in the bushes kind of slinks into himself, sitting down.

“I love him. You know, you’re like a dog, and you have to know I’m not a dog person based on my choice in boyfriends. I would much rather have spent this afternoon out with him, because he wouldn’t need my attention every second. Not to mention that once we found the bench, I could run my hands through his hair without worrying about messing it up, and the man attracts cats like catnip– that would be one hell of an evening. Have you ever thought about toning it down? God, you got all the energy that Ichi didn’t, didn’t you? Well, all the better, because he’s cute and sleepy all the time.”

Ichimatsu doesn’t reveal himself, but hearing you say that makes him smile. It would have been much smaller if it was the day you first met– in fact, the praise might’ve made him uncomfortable. But he knows you mean every word of it. Satisfied, he creeps away from the two of you, and sprints home. Jyushimatsu pretends not to see him dart out behind you.

“So Jyushimatsu’s finally moving out, huh?”

You nod to Todomatsu’s question. It’s hard to date a sextuplet without being friends with the youngest. He makes jokes a lot about how his brothers were so defensive about his closeness with their partners, especially in the beginning stages of their relationship, but he admitted to you that he probably wouldn’t joke about Jyushimatsu. “I just don’t know how he’d react, you know?” was his explanation. You thought that was a huge part of Jyushimatsu’s charm.

“Yep!” you nod. “We’re both so excited!”

“We are too!” He takes a sip from his drink. “You know, we brothers were starting to worry that he never would.”

“I was kind of worried about that, too.” You sip in turn. You and Todomatsu just so happened to have the same favourite café, so you decided to go there to celebrate your announcement. “I mean, about myself. I’m still living with my parents, too, you know.”

“Mhmm, but your brother, Ichimatsu, didn’t move out and find a job before you.”

Well, technically, Ichimatsu did move out before you. But you understand what he means, given the whole hierarchy the sextuplets have.

“That’s true.” You laugh a bit to yourself. “What about you? You were the first to move out, weren’t you?”

“Ah, no, that was Karamatsu,” he replies. He’s a bit stiff as he says it– maybe it’s still embarrassing for him to think about. But c’mon, he’s an adult over thirty at this point.

“Right, right, right,” you nod. “Hey, at least he’s happy.”

Todomatsu nods.

There’s a bit of a silence that falls over the two of you. Not uncomfortable or awkward, really– you’d said what you needed to say. You lean out of your booth and turn around to look at the clock– 2:22 p.m… Jyushi is going to pick you up at three, and you’re going to your new apartment for one last look-around before it’s filled with furniture. That reminds you, actually–

“Say, you go to the gym, right?”

“Hey, can I ask you something personal?”

You laugh together.

“What were you saying?” Todomatsu asks.

“No, no, you first,” you insist. “I was going to ask you this, anyways.”

“Right, okay, well, I was just wondering if I could ask you a personal question,” he repeats.

“Sure,” you nod. You’re a little worried, right off the bat. That’s such an intense thing to say to someone.

“So, Jyushimatsu-niisan’s a bit of an idiot, right?”

“Uh… I guess…?”

“And he has a poor grasp on social cues.”

“Well, I mean, you could say that, I suppose.”

“And he talks a lot about baseball for someone who doesn’t really know the rules…”

“Hey, just spit it out. I’m not going to sit here and insult my boyfriend until he comes to get me.”

It’s a nice summer day– there are purple and yellow flowers blooming outside of the coffee shop. Jyushimatsu finished his practice early, and has decided to drop in on you and Totty. Why not, right? It’s his partner and his brother– they wouldn’t mind! They should be half-expecting it, honestly; it’s not the first time he’s done this. He remembers how much he’d made you laugh the last time he’d done that, and given the circumstances, he’s pretty sure he can one-up himself.

The bell rings when he enters, and he sits down at a table close to the booth you and Totty are sitting in, and looks at a menu while he waits to be noticed.

“Right, right, sorry!” Todomatsu’s voice gets quiet as he continues: “So, uh, what is it that you see in him?”

“Huh?” You’re thrown off by this question. You never thought you’d need to defend your relationship to one of his own brothers. “I mean, that is a good question…”

Jyushimatsu puts down the menu, in favour of staring at the two of you. But you’re facing away from him, and Todomatsu is distracted with how his drink swirls around while he stirs it with his straw.

You tap your fingers on the table– you’re really caught offguard with this question.

Todomatsu watches your facial expression change, as you figure out what to say. Is it that hard to pick something you like about him…? He’s a little worried about your relationship. To be honest, he wasn’t completely sure where the curiosity came from– maybe it was an old instinct to manipulate and destroy relationships.

Uh oh.

“Hey, [Y/N]…? Forget I asked- [Y/N]?!”

You suddenly slump over the table, now distracted by something completely unrelated to the topic at hand. When Todomatsu shouts your name, you sit up straight and you blurt out,

“Oh, his smile!” You clear your throat, and continue more quietly. “I like his smile.”

“Ah, well, that’s good,” Todomatsu says. “He does that a lot.”

“He sure does,” you agree. “And he’s spontaneous. I’m never, ever, ever bored around him. Or without him! Even just thinking about all the ways he might surprise me keeps me on my toes. With him, anything and everything becomes possible, you know?”

Todomatsu nods.

“Well, it’s good you know,” he says. “I was worried for a second, when you took so long to respond!”

“Ha! Well, don’t you ever worry again, because I love your brother even if it takes me a minute to come up with something more specific than ‘everything’.”

He claps his hands together, and leans his cheek against them.

“You two are so cute together!”

You look at the clock again, and this time finally notice Jyushimatsu. You grin brightly at your sunshine boy, and wave.

“Jyushi!” you call. “Come sit with us!”

He very happily makes his way over.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you guys later!”

The Matsuno brothers and their parents left yours and Todomatsu’s apartment in one big group. You waved to them, cheerily chorusing goodbyes while you held hands. The ring he’d given to you three nights ago was still heavy on your finger, reminding you it was there but only in the best possible way.

“Oh, Karamatsu, are you not heading out…?” you asked, in the most innocent voice you could muster. But you really were annoyed, not to mention tired. You’d hosted your immediate family the night before, and you had work tomorrow, too.

“After such an astounding meal, how could I just leave without helping clean up?” he replied.

“Very easily,” Todomatsu responded.

“You don’t live here, you know,” you added.

He chuckled.

You and Todomatsu glanced at each other. Clearly, Karamatsu intended to be stubborn. Totty looked like he was about three seconds from having a fit, so you sighed, and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“You take a shower and meet me in the bedroom, okay? I’ll clean up.”

He relaxed.

“Really? Aw, thank you. You love me so much!”

You giggled. “Not as much as you love me.”

“Ahem.”

What a strange thing, to have a throat cleared at you when the other person is the one being rude. This was your home, after all, and everyone else was gone.

You squeezed your finacé’s hand.

“I’ll see you soon.”

You started gathering up the dishes, and Karamatsu followed suit. You didn’t have much to say to him.

Karamatsu spoke once you were both washing dishes. You were standing close enough to one another that you could elbow him by accident if you bent your arm a certain way, but you did your best not to bend your elbows at all for the specific purpose of not touching him. The only reason you were at all aware of the closeness was because he was not as courteous as you.

“So... when did you and my brother decide to get married?” he asked. He sounded one step away from being shy, but his general body language held up well.

“I mean, we’ve been talking about it for a few months,” you replied. “But he officiall-”

“A few months,” he repeated.

“Yeah.” You handed Karamatsu a plate, and he dried it off. “You know, to make sure that we were on the same page about out relationship, and how serious we were about each other.”

He was quiet for a while after that.

You were kind of relieved to have a quiet atmosphere while you did the dishes. Karamatsu had always struck you as annoying, but the more you thought about it, the more you realized that you’d never really seen him anywhere but with his brothers. Maybe he got riled up with them and acted more foolishly with that kind of back-and-forth... maybe all of them were like that. You tried to picture Jyushimatsu reading a book. You couldn’t-- it turned into Choromatsu.

“[Y/N]...” Karamatsu spoke as if he were going to continue. Even though you looked up, he didn’t.

A few seconds went by.

“Are you, uh, going to finish your thought?”

“What is it that you see in my dearest brother?”

You tried your very best not to roll your eyes at his English. “Try” being a key word.

“What do you mean by that?” you replied flatly. You really weren’t in the mood for mind games.

“Is he sensitive, sweet?” he continued. “Does he make you smile? Does he make you swoon? Is he capable of lov-”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” you interrupted. You crossed your arms and leaned against the counter near the freshly-cleaned dishes. They were the nice sets, the kind you only used when you had company. “He’s all of that and good in bed. That’s a double-entendre, actually-- he’s fantastic at sex, and he’s warm and soft, perfect for cuddling with. He’s got a lot of friends, and we already know our wedding is going to be huge. I’m not going to say that he’s the perfect man, but you know what? He’s perfect for me. I’ve had this discussion with your other brothers when we first started getting serious, but it looks like you weren’t paying attention. Todomatsu is absolutely capable of love, and if you have, you know, eyes, you can see it everywhere.”

The kitchen went silent.

“I see...”

“Please don’t.”

“So you really do love my brother! Well, in that case, here is my sincerest welcome to the family!”

“Oh my god.”

Karamatsu left soon after that. He sighed to himself on the way home, frustrated that he never got the chance to ask for advice on how to make his own proposal.

#Osomatsu-san #Imagines #X Reader #Osomatsu #Karamatsu #Choromatsu #Ichimatsu #Jyushimatsu #Todomatsu #Osomagine #Karamagine #Choromagine #Ichimagine #Jyushimagine #Todomagine #I hope this was worth the wait!!!!!

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bat-lings · 5 years

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Hey, you mentioned in an earlier ask any Damian that Tim was also low-key sexist and tbh I'd love examples cause I feel like this has never been brought up and it's interesting??? Anyway, thanks Ur stuffs super interesting and insightful!

Thanks for your interest & nice words!

Let’s be clear tho Anon (I assume it’s the same Anon both times?), you are 200% entitled to disagree with me. Yes I am unapologetic about my opinions and write looong paragraphs of questionable pertinence to give arguments but like. The goal is to explain “why I think what I think,” never to tell you “why you should think what I think”. You’re very much welcome for the Damian post btw

Now I think Tim, precisely, shows internalized sexism. Doesn’t change the end result all that much though.

Random sequences

Let’s get the most straightforward stuff out of the way.

[Robin (1991) #1 || Robin (1993) #43 & #179 || Detective Comics (1937) #687]

Dunno about you but the first two are particularly cringey for me. That and the agenda section.

Okay to be fair: He does attempt to defend Lynx (first example) beforehand, throwing the on-point “she doesn’t have to go with you if she doesn’t want to” line. All is good for five seconds and then he goes “maybe she likes that treatment”.

We may have different sensibilities but the mere fact that that went through his head for even a second is the perfect illustration of what’s internalized sexism imo. Conscious thought & action level: A+ behavior (being able to identify a visibly wrong situation and taking action against it). Unconscious level: blatant sexism (”maybe she likes it” aka a less visible/more subtle manifestation of bigotry).

He has a… pretty specific way to regard women’s agenda. And is overall patronizing to straight-out disrespectful.

Tim’s treatment of Steph is a well-known fact but this is a call-out post so have a non-exhaustive bunch of examples:

[Robin (1993) #4, 41, 35, 44 || Batgirl (2009) #8]

On we go and see how there’s absolutely no ill-intent on Tim’s part in the next examples, yet I have a big problem with how he’s considering the ladies’ agency:

[Robin (1993) #182 || Red Robin #10]

Notice how it’s all about him whether the lady obeys him or not. His failure to impose the necessary authority or his failure to give the right directions. The girls’ choice/independence just doesn’t factor in. It’s a cop and a vigilante we’re talking about, not some civilians caught in the crossfire.

((btw it’s disputable but his apology in RR#10 is too little too late as far as I’m concerned. Tim gets a pass since Nicieza has him referring to his dumbass traitor!Steph arc but he doesn’t deserve any additional credit either. Okay no I’m being mean, he gets kudos for making a step in the right direction with Steph. Tiny kudos. It’s a tiny step.))

[Red Robin #5]

Tam? Okay. She’s the civilian who got embarked into this crazy story, she is in need of saving. But Prudence? Maybe don’t automatically assume that the assassin needs you to pat her on the back to even consider pursuing her own wishes, Timmy.

Tim can be arrogant to everyone yeah (more on that later), but I don’t remember him negating a man’s agenda like that.

[Robin (1993) #25]

Yeah the kid who will feel betrayed when Bruce tells his identity to Steph just elected to tell her name to Connor whom they both don’t know well yet. While talking in her place rather than letting her answer for herself (something he’s done on several occasions). Then he attempts to decide for her whether she has a right to participate, again. On that note: thank you Connor for putting Tim in his place, that sure doesn’t happen often.

[Robin (1993) #6 & #28]

Uh, yes you can. Give the adult woman who’s been handling Gotham’s streets since before you were born some credit, Tim?

As for Helena, the scene in itself is… well, not okay exactly. He’s basically dismissing her wish to handle a personal matter alone, which could imply he doesn’t think the other adult woman who’s been handling Gotham’s streets since before he was born can handle the case.

I’m just putting it with his constant attempts to keep Steph from participating, often to cases that concerned her directly, and how he tends to take it personally when she doesn’t obey… but he casually brushes off Helena when she’s saying she’ll handle a personal case alone. Double standard? Maybe I got too specific a reading but. I don’t remember that sort of thing happening between Tim and male characters– do call me out if I’m remembering wrong though.

And then there’s the “another vigilante” remark.

Anyway yes Tim can be arrogant towards both men and women. Much like Damian being antagonizing to everyone didn’t negate the possibility of him being sexist, Tim being generally arrogant doesn’t negate that possibility for him either.

Plus the only male characters I’ve seen him be that patronizing with are Chris Kent in World’s Finest #3, and Damian. The ten-year-old who’s regularly antagonizing him and does deserve to be put in his place. Oh yeah, and maybe Dodge, another brat. So yeah I do think there’s a slight difference between Tim’s treatment of men and women, if only in frequency. (and in intensity tbh.)

Yes, he’s been consistently disregardful to his girlfriends.

Anon, you say very rightfully that we shouldn’t automatically assume it’s due to them being girls. Please believe it’s not a conclusion I’ve come to automatically though:

A) While I realize that Tim only having canon girlfriends is due to heteronormativity & homophobia rather than a conscious writing intent to highlight any character trait, assuming that he wouldn’t have behaved better with boyfriends is pure speculation– aaand I am totally speculating he’d behave better if only because he’s never that patronizing or that dismissive of his peers’ agency (examples above) when they’re men. that’s part of why I ship tim/kon more easily than tim/steph.

B) Like with everything I brought up on this post I’m not considering his behavior with his romantic partners separately. It’s a character fault that could take its roots in several things, but Tim’s global characterization makes me think the root is sexism.

C) I understand why you’re thinking there’s no reason to conclude his disrespect is due to them being women; in the same vein I think there’s no reason to conclude it’s not. It’s kind of a stalemate and both conclusions are valid.

Skipping Tim’s habit to break up by letter or by phone, ‘cause that’s not cool and obviously disrespectful but even I think it’s more due to cowardice/inadequacy than sexism.

I don’t think I need to speak about Steph again. Let’s go with Ari. Who Tim casually cheated on by kissing Steph on several occasions.

Being a cheat is, in itself, a distinct character flaw that doesn’t always takes its root in sexism. Plus it’s something I have my reasons to assume Tim has grown out of.

It’s his reaction when he learns about Ariana “"cheating”“ on him (she went ice-skating with another dude once in the 87 times Tim stood her up) that ticks me off. Btw and unlike Tim who didn’t seem to feel all that guilty, Ariana did try to tell him about it but he fell asleep during her confession.

[Robin (1993) #15 & #17]

Two things bother me here, a lot more than the cheating in itself: the possessiveness and the hypocrisy. You really don’t have a right to go all “My Ariana” and to chew her out for the grand treachery that is ice-skating when you’ve been casually kissing Steph, Timbo. What those panels prove is that there’s a double standard in Tim’s head. Which one exactly is up to your interpretation and that’s probably where we’ll end up disagreeing. I read it as the “proper girls don’t get close to several boys at one time, but boys who get close to several girls are either ladies men or boys being boys” double-standard, hence Tim’s blatant lack of self-awareness here.

Btw and the thing that solidified my opinion here: Tim, as a rule, tends to be pretty self-aware, at least retrospectively. He puts himself into question and has no problem admitting when his judgment was clouded. I dunno take YJ #55 or Robin #119 for example (I even selected examples that both have Tim recognizing he wronged a girl!)

So if he’s generally self-aware, but doesn’t see anything wrong with his own behavior in the specific situation where he’s cheating on his girl then chewing her out? I explain it with the above double-standard. He internalized a mindset that keeps him from realizing how hypocrite he’s being in this situation. Also he doesn’t confront Ari immediately, he had time to think about it, it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. That should’ve been enough to allow him to step back and evaluate himself but he just. Didn’t.

Bonus: Jack has been hinted to be sexist, and contrary to Tim it’s safe to assume that was totally intentional.

[Batman (1940) #441 || Robin (1993) #122]

Only two occurrences in decades of canon arguably don’t make for solid basis but they still allow me to build a coherence since our parents do influence us without us realizing. And given how much Tim loved his dad (he said himself how much he got from Jack), it sure isn’t an element that could plead against him being sexist.

There’s a bunch of other sequences that I low key read as sexist, but that I’m more mitigated about or in which I gave Tim a pass for various reasons so I didn’t include them here.

All in all when I take a solid look at Tim’s global behavior, I see sexism. While it may not be a “solid canon fact” since it surely wasn’t intentional on the writers’ part, I really don’t think it’s an unreasonable thing to infer from his very canon behavior. And tbh writer intent doesn’t excuse much. Factually speaking that portrayal has been there since Tim’s early days,he’s been consistently dismissive & disrespectful of his female peers and/or of their wishes and agency. It’s part of him & his history.

It’s not incoherent with his character either– Tim has always been intended to represent a normal boy/teen (dude was legit marketed around the fact that he’s relatable). It’s not baffling or coming out of nowhere that a random teen just so happened to have internalized sexism. It’s pretty damn common, even. It’s not like Tim being sexist was a brutal turnaround that contradicted what makes the core of his character to the point of making him unrecognizable (*cough* Talia’s current characterization *cough*).

Hope this explains that.

Thanks for the asks!

#tim drake #dc comics #stephanie brown #batfam #batfamily #meta #red robin #timothy drake #tam fox #asks #zae chatters #my stuff

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theaimisjannah · 6 years

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My advice to sisters looking to travel to the Gulf to seek knowledge

About once every few weeks, I get at least one email from sisters asking for advice regarding travelling to the khalīj for ṭalab al-ʿilm, so I thought it would be convenient to write my thoughts here.

Our blessed Messenger ﷺ said in a ḥadīth that when Allāh intends good for a believer He grants him (or her) understanding of the dīn.

There is no greater good than seeking sacred knowledge—not in this world and not in the Next, for the one who is sincere of course. It is a liberating experience, one that brings with it an incomparable increase in ones īmān.

In the time we live in, there isn’t a better way to battle the different tribulations that strike this ummah at large and Muslims on an individual level than to learn about the dīn. Knowledge brings with it light and certainty. It removes the vulnerability that ignorance and doubts create.

In addition to this, now, more than ever, we are in greater need of women scholars. Women who have studied the classical sciences at the hands of reputable scholars, who are able enough to teach and guide other women.

But before anyone reaches the level that qualifies them to impart knowledge of the dīn, they need to spend a good amount of years seeking knowledge. This brings us to our concern at hand: Ṭalab al-ʿilm.

I honestly think that most people who “want to seek knowledge” do not have any idea of what it takes. Ṭalab al-ʿilm is glamourised, God knows how this happened, but it happened. Most people who want to seek knowledge have only just tasted the breeze of īmān when they attended a weekend motivational Islāmic talk, and they liked it and wanted more. They learnt “gems” that m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶i̶n̶g̶l̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ left them wanting more.

My first question to anyone who brings up this topic is: how much of the Qurʾān have you memorised where you are at the moment? Chances are it’s probably a very small amount. What guarantee do you have that in the months you plan on spending abroad you will be able to memorise more? Or more than what you can do if you stay behind?

What guarantee do you have that you will find a teacher who is able to help? Who can understand your weaknesses? Work with your strengths?

Yes there are SOME who are able to benefit a great amount by travelling to certain countries to memorise and study. But there are MANY more who you don’t hear about it, who return home with only a meagre achievement. Who return home having spent an insane amount of money with very little fruits, money that could have could have gone to better use.

Sisters often email me in a slight accusatory tone suggesting that I have it easy seeking knowledge living where I do. Ṭalab al-ʿilm is never easy no matter where you are. It's hard work, it's a lot of sacrifices and it's dedication. If a person can't do that in the West, they won't be able to do it here either.

That's why the first advice I share with sisters who email me regarding travelling to any Muslim country to seek knowledge is to stay where you are and finish ḥifḏh al-Qurʾān. If you can do it in your own country then it proves that you are capable of going to the next level.

It’s important to understand that ṭalab al-ʿilm is a privilege and an honour. You will not get the best opportunities right off the bat. You need to prove to Allāh—though He is the All-Knowing—that you are worthy of this ʿilm. I’ve spoken to sisters who consider local teachers or even online ones (ahem) beneath them, not realising that Allāh tests you with smaller opportunities to see how passionate you are about this.

Those who dismiss opportunities at hand because they’re not good enough are in effect proving themselves unworthy of any opportunity. They’re proving themselves unworthy of this precious knowledge.

I’ve met sisters who refused to seek knowledge because they wanted to get married and move to Madīnah to do it (lol). Years later, they’re still waiting while their peers have advanced by leaps and bounds.

Ṭalab al-ʿilm is taxing. Moving to a Muslim country won’t suddenly make you a better student. If you’ve been inconsistent before, chances are you’ll be even more inconsistent now given that you are on your own with more responsibilities.

A teacher can only guide your ḥifdh and studies, (s)he can’t pour knowledge into you.

If you can’t put in the hard work where you are at present, chances are moving abroad won’t change that.

Ṭalab al-ʿilm is a lonely occupation—no matter where you live. If you think that by living in a Muslim country you’ll have half a dozen of likeminded Ṭālibāt ʿilm to motivate you, think again my friend.

In the length of time that I have been doing this, I’m yet to meet a serious (female) student of knowledge in my country. Just a few years ago, no matter who would be giving the dars (and we do have the best scholars from around the world come and teach regularly) the women’s section would be empty. So much so, that my father would insist that I take my momma with me so that I don’t end up sitting on my own for hours.

It’s only in the past two years that more and more sisters are attending but even then many bring their coffee pitchers and sit in groups to chitchat. If you’re serious about the knowledge you seek, then be prepared for a life of friendlessness. Be prepared to be your own source of motivation.

Be prepared to spend a lot of time on your own repeating a few sentences until your throat is sore and your voice is hoarse.

If this isn’t for you, then by all means go and sit with the coffee pitcher group, you’ll have more momentary fun there, but it won’t make a scholar out of you.

The most important thing that we need to internalise and then live by is that knowledge is from Allāh. It can never come from having certain friends, or marrying a certain person, or living in a certain place, or even having a certain teacher.

A common mistake that so many people make is that they attach their ability to seek ʿilm to things other than Allāh.

"Having the right friends will make ṭalab al-ʿilm easy."

"Living in such and such country will make ṭalab al-ʿilm more accessible."

"Marrying a student of knowledge will give me a never ending īmān boost."

(Okay... slight exaggeration, but not too far from reality, so many sisters are convinced that they’ll only be able to commit the entire Qurʾān to memory if they marry a scholar. Believe it or not one of my students is the wife of one of my teachers. He’s busy, so he’s directed her to me.)

What happens in these instances is what we learn in our Dīn: Whoever trusts anything other than Allāh, Allāh will leave him to that thing and then obviously the person will face nothing but disappointment. This is exactly what happens. People give up every opportunity at home and put all their hopes in travelling abroad thinking that only through it they will learn and in turn face a lot of disappointment.

Knowledge is from Allāh. And He has made means to get to this knowledge. If one means is not available to you, then we do not rely upon the means rather we go to the source, Allāh, and ask Him to equip us with a better means.

How many have memorised the Qurʾān and learnt classical Arabic from scratch, having never spent more than a few weeks in a Muslim country? The only thing preventing you at present from being this person is your own self. Not your parents, not your husband, not your job, not your studies, and most definitely not the country that you live in.

Just to drive this point home. Alḥamdulillāh, I have local teachers who have the best qualifications, however the teacher from whom I’ve benefited most (in recitation) is a Saudi sheikha that I’ve never met. I’ve recited to her consistently for more than four years. Whenever any local teacher hears my recitation, they ask me the same question: Where did you learn to recite like that? Followed by disbelief when I tell them how I recited to her (online).

Remember: Knowledge is from Allāh, and He has given us many means to this knowledge. Enlist as many as you can, but don’t depend on any means. Don’t think that only by travelling to a Muslim country you’ll increase in knowledge.

Another important point to consider is that I would never ever encourage a girl to leave her parents or her husband and travel to live alone. The negative impact of this alone would surpass any positives that may come from living in a Muslim country. The pleasure of Allāh is far superior than anything else, and in each of our situations (generally speaking), the pleasure of Allāh lies in a girl staying wherever her family is. This is better for her chastity, īmān, dīn and even dunya.

If you make Riḍā Allāh your utmost concern, He will give you His most chosen gifts, and the best of these gifts is knowledge.

If you’re sincere in what you seek and are hardworking, Allāh will drive the scholars to your doorstep if you are unable to go to them.

So stay where you are and start today. Not tomorrow, not next week. Today. Work hard, stick to what concerns you, be consistent and tell me in a year's time that you haven't progressed.

May Allāh grant us His most chosen favours.

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jenoptimist · 6 years

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PT.1 | PT.2 | PT.3 | PT.4

There’s a story that everyone hears up growing and you know it like the back of your hand because, as cliché as it may be, it’s your favorite story of all time. It goes like this:

Long ago there was a couple who were madly in love with each other, the man a servant and the woman a princess. They saw no wrong in their love for one another but the members in the council thought otherwise when their relationship was uncovered. They were violently torn away from each other and he was sentenced to death. As they were being ripped away, the man had promised that he would find her, no matter how many lifetimes it would take, and prayed to the deities the night before his death. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, had taken pity on him and ensured that they would meet in all their lifetimes and would love one another as strongly as they did, so long as they remembered each other.

That’s how soulmates came to be. Allegedly when you find your soulmate you either remember all your previous lives together or you don’t. When both remember each other, it’s beautiful (or so the few friends that have met their soulmates have told you) but when one of you don’t remember, which is usually unheard of, it’s a horrible experience for the one who does. And you can see why—you don’t think you could handle remembering loving someone so strong and meeting them, only for them not to recognize you at all.

But you love the story so much. It speaks to you in loud volumes, something about it is just so familiar. You’re touched by the love they had for one another and how the great goddess Aphrodite gave them a chance, or several chances it would seem, to rekindle their love in various lives. You’re a bit of a romantic, too, which also aids in loving such a story.

You’re twenty now and you still haven’t met your soulmate, which is. Well. It is what it is. You’re not exactly hoping that every new person that you meet is your soulmate or anything, that would be ridiculous, but you do hope that it’s very soon because, and you would never admit it out loud but, sometimes you feel an immense sense of loss and loneliness that you can never quite pinpoint. The only reason why you would never tell anyone, not even your closest friend, was because you were sure that nobody else had felt this way before they met their soulmate—so it’s probably a you thing and not a soulmate thing. You don’t know which is worse.

You scroll mindlessly through your phone as you lay on your bed. It’s a never ending circle of opening an app, going through it and then closing it after twenty minutes or so before re-opening the exact same app. Although you have a day off work, you have no plans. So you intend to do nothing until you’re friend texts you, asking if you want to meet up to hang out. It’s almost embarrassing how quick you text back but you don’t think too much about it as you stand up and haphazardly throw your phone onto your bed to find clothes to wear. You settle for something comfy since the weather is cold and you aren’t that bothered to dress up.

Your phone pings and when you unlock your phone, you see that your friend says that she’ll meet you at the usual café you two frequent and you reply that you’ll be there in thirty minutes. After brushing your hair to make it at least look like you haven’t spent most of the day laying in bed and spritzing on some perfume, you grab your stuff, lock your apartment and start your twenty minute walk to the café.

The weather is cold and you’re relieved to be greeted by warmth when you enter the café tucked away from the busy streets. You quickly scan the room to see if you can spot your friend. When you don’t, you simply decide to order your usual beverage and treat yourself to one of the cakes that they have on display. There are two people in front of you but only one barista but you don’t mind, you can see that Kun is busting his ass off to complete their orders. You take the opportunity to scroll mindlessly through your phone for a few minutes before you look up to see if Kun is almost finished with the other orders.

There’s another barista, his back turned from you, and you feel creepy for knowing that it isn’t any of the regular baristas that you usually see. Instead of saying anything, you wait for him to turn and acknowledge you since he looks like he’s helping Kun in the little ways that he can. Returning to your phone, you find a text from your friend saying that she will be a little late because of traffic and you type a quick response back.

There’s a hitch in Mystery Barista’s voice when he says, “Hi, what would you like to order?”

You lock your phone and tuck it into your jacket pocket while simultaneously look up to smile at the barista. Once you recite the items that you regularly get plus one of the delicious looking cakes on display, you wait patiently for the barista to start working on your order but he does nothing. In fact, he seems frozen into place and you worry slightly that the beverage order you have given him is something that he hasn’t been taught yet. The both of you continue to stare until the person behind you coughs purposely and you see Kun slyly elbow the other barista in the ribs.

“Sicheng,” he whispers, “what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Sicheng nods mutely, stares at you with what looks like expectancy for another second or so, before pivoting around to start your order. Kun smiles at you apologetically and you dismiss him with a kind smile. You catch Sicheng eye you from time to time as he prepares your order and you tilt your head. Did he recognize you from somewhere? Seems unlikely as you weren’t really known throughout high school or middle school and you’re certain that you would have remembered someone with a name such as his. Plus your university campus is huge, you don’t think you’ve seen even half of the students.

When Sicheng completes your order, placing your mug gently onto the tray by the cash register, he rings up your order. As you fumble to take out money from your wallet, you hear both baristas talk in rapid mandarin and you can't help but wonder why Sicheng sounds so distressed. Maybe he did something wrong with your order? You never find out the answer, though, because once you pay they let you on your way to choose your seat.

You feel a pair of eyes on you the entire time.

“The new barista is cute.” You casually mention in the conversation that you’re having with your friend. She crinkles her nose and discreetly shakes her head. “He is! You probably don’t think so since you’re so enamoured by your soulmate.” She lifts her arm to pretend to hit you but doesn’t deny it, instead begins to look dreamy eyed like she usually does when Taeil is mentioned. The both of you talk until she has to leave for a dinner date and you tell her that instead of leaving, you’d like to stay for a little longer.

“To check out you’re cutie.” She teases.

“He is not my cutie!” Your reply falls onto deaf ears as she is already at the door at that point. There’s nothing much to do but use your phone as you’ve already finished what you ordered a while ago. You open up a random app and start scrolling mindlessly.

The café has calmed down considerably since you first walked in, which is the exact reason why you hear the footsteps that approach you. Your eyes travel from the black shoes up until you meet big brown eyes.

“Oh, hi Sicheng.” For some reason, you say his name like you’ve been saying it your whole life and you try not to cringe at the fact that you totally just said it like the two of you were best buddies. You’re being ridiculous! You don’t even know the guy! The blond looks startled when you say his name, something like a spark of hope in his eyes, until you say, “Is there something that you need?”

You feel horrible as he visibly deflates, biting at his lower lip as he shifts his gaze to the ground. “I, uh, need to clear the table.” He states awkwardly as he shifts from foot to foot, still avoiding your eyes as he slightly raises the black tray (that you now just notice) in his right hand.

“Oh. Okay.” Sicheng nods stiffly and gets to work, hastily placing the plates and cups onto his tray. “H-hey wait!” You call lowly. He might not even have heard you, but he turns around and that same startled look returns to his face. “If you’re not busy, would you like to sit down and talk?” You almost get whiplash at how quick his demeanor changes—one minute he looks like a startled baby animal and the next he’s smiling at you so brightly that you swear it could replace the sun.

“Yes! I mean, uh, yeah. I’ll just let Kun know.”

You can’t help but smile at his cuteness and the way the tips of his ear turn red, “Well then I’ll be right here.”

The following weeks consist of you regularly fixing your schedule so that you have time to go to the café in order to chat with Sicheng. You find that yourself feeling comfortable and safe with him, and you would be lying if you said that you aren’t the least bit attracted to him. Although you don’t seem to be the only one as almost every time you go there people swoon for him left and right, cooing at how cute he is. Sicheng pays no mind to them however, only flushes and shakes his head violently if you decide to tease him about his many admirers and suitors.

You never mention it but even though Sicheng looks very happy to see you whenever you visit, you sometimes catch him staring at you with his eyes so full of raw emotions that you feel like you can’t breathe. Whenever he gets like that, it’s never positive emotions, either. It always looks like a deep rooted sadness, combined with loss and sorrow. And with each day that passes, you can see disappointment creeping its way into the concoction of negative emotions. You want to bring it up, you really do, but you aren’t so sure that he would be comfortable with telling you just yet.

Besides that, certain dreams have started making its way to your sleep. It’s always so beautiful in the beginning while the end is the complete opposite. It always starts the same, too; you and a faceless man falling helplessly in love before being driven apart. In other instances, you find that you aren’t even in the dream; it’s just the faceless man going about his day. You think those are the worse ones, you’d much rather dream about falling in love (even though you know it never lasts) than hearing a man cry so wholeheartedly about losing a woman that he loved with every fibre of his being. More often than not, when you wake up from that kind of dream, you wake up with tears streaming down your cheeks.

“This question is personal, and you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to,” you start as you slowly place your cup onto the table. Sicheng tilts his head slightly as he waits for you to continue. “Have you met your soulmate?” The two of you have avoided talking about soulmates because whenever you bring it up, Sicheng has always changed the topic. At first you assume that it was because the two of you hadn’t known each other for long, but it’s been a couple of months now and you’re genuinely curious. You don’t want to think about it but maybe he got rejected. You hope he didn’t. He is too wonderful for someone to reject him.

Sicheng’s eyes bore into your own and usually you would back down but not this time. You aren’t exactly sure why have to know the answer but something inside you is constantly screaming that you do. It’s been bugging you for a while now really.

“Yes,” he replies after a few minutes of the two of you staring at each other silently, “I’ve met them.” There’s a chuckle that comes out after, one that’s a mix of anguish and bitterness all at once.

For someone who’s met their soulmate, Sicheng sounds awfully sad. His shoulders droop and he refuses to look at you now, instead focusing his gaze on the cup in front of him as he draws random patterns on the table. You feel extremely guilty for the fact that you feel happy that he doesn’t seem to be on good terms with his soulmate, so you try to squish any sort of emotion you feel and move on from the topic.

(“I swear to all the gods, y/n, I’ll always find you! No matter how many lives it takes, I’ll come back to you my love!”)

The dream you have has you call in sick, which your manager isn’t too particularly ecstatic about, but you don’t care. Not when you have much bigger things to do. You dress up in one of your best outfits and do your makeup to the best of your ability. You are a woman on a mission and if you look good, you’ll feel good which will hopefully aid in giving you confidence to do what you have planned.

Instead of walking to the café like you normally would, you decide to hail a taxi. There isn’t any time to waste. The driver tries to make conversation but you’re answers only come out half heartedly because you’re too lost in your thoughts, bouncing your leg as you stare impatiently out the window.

“Where’s Sicheng?” You almost demand when you reach the counter and don’t see him anywhere.

“Why? Do you need him for something?” Yukhei shoots back, his usually teasing tone replaced with rare carefulness.

“I need to talk to him, Yukhei please, this is important!” The tall male seems conflicted and you can’t understand what the big deal is. He has never had a problem with you talking to Sicheng before! In fact, none of the others have, either. “Yukhei, please.”

“He has the day off today.” Kun informs you, stepping out from behind Yukhei. Normally you would laugh at the fact that Yukhei is tall and broad enough to hide a whole other person behind him but you’re urgency overrules the whole situation. “Today is a very important day for him and he wants to spend it alone.”

“Kun please, this can’t wait any longer than it already has.”

Something about what you say makes Kun’s eyes widen and you think he finally understands you, which is great because you are so close to breaking down right now. You watch as he grabs a pen and paper from under the counter and slips it over across to you. It has an address to an apartment about three blocks from the café. You thank the both of them and head out in a rush.

#wow this is being split into #more parts than i thought #i hate myself sicheovj #nct au #nct scenarios #nct imagines #dong sicheng #sicheng au #sicheng scenarios #sicheng imagine #nct sicheng

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potrix-the-queerschlaeger · 6 years

Text

(You Are) Wanted

Part II | Part I | Tag

There’s a crash, and when Will glances up, Nursey’s standing in the kitchen doorway, mouth open, shards from a broken plate on the floor around his feet. “What the fuck, Dex?”

“Nursey!” Chowder gasps, looking scandalised. “Not in front of the baby!”

It’s a nice sentiment, and so very Chowder that Will can’t help but smile fondly, but it’s probably a lost cause, anyway. No matter where Will and the baby will end up living, pretty much his entire circle of friends consists of hockey players who regularly fund Bitty’s baking adventures with their swearing.

And Will really isn’t any better himself, either.

“I don’t think he understands just yet,” he points out, and turns a little when Chowder approaches so Chowder can see the baby’s blotchy red face. “He’s under a week old. All he does is sleep, cry, and shit himself.”

Yeah, so much for that. Oops.

“He’s so cute,” Chowder coos softly, and strokes a gentle finger over the baby’s hair. “Can I hold him?”

Will has no idea what his face is doing, but it must be telling. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Chowder—there are very few people he trusts more, in fact—but the thought of handing the baby over just doesn’t sit right with him, for some reason. It’s stupid, he’s aware of that, but he just—he doesn’t want to let him go. Not just yet.

[more under the cut]

“Maybe later,” Chowder says, easy as that, and smiles at Will’s apologetic look. He gives Will’s shoulder a supportive squeeze before stepping back. “It’s probably better that way, right? Like, he only stopped crying a second ago, I don’t want to upset him again.”

Will nudges his foot against Chowder’s, murmuring a quiet, relieved, “Thanks, C.”

Ransom, in the meantime, has apparently recovered from his initial shock, or enough so, at least, to say, “Congrats, man. Your kid’s adorable.”

“Must be the mom’s genes,” Holster teases, on automatic. Then he frowns, clearly not sure what’s off limits when it comes to the baby.

Will isn’t either, but the chirping is normal, familiar. And he can definitely do with some normality right about now.

Bitty’s mouth twists at the mention of the mother. Will shoots him a look he hopes is enough to convey that they’ll talk about it later, in private. He has zero desire to explain his fucked up family situation right now, and he is nowhere near ready to tell everyone why he isn't on speaking terms with them anymore.

“There isn't a mom,” Will says, and then, when Tango makes a confused noise and opens his mouth, he corrects, “There isn't one willing to be a part of his life. It’s just me.”

“That sucks, bro,” Holster says, and Ransom winces in sympathy. “Maybe she’ll come around?”

Will snorts. “Fat chance.”

It comes out hissed, more bitter than he intended, and makes everyone fall uncomfortably silent. Ransom and Holster turn towards each other, doing their weird eyebrow communication thing, probably trying to figure out all the things Will isn’t telling them, while Lardo watches Will intently, in that way that never fails to make Will feel like she knows more than she lets on. Chowder goes to help Nursey pick up the plate shards, with Bitty hovering close by, ready to jump in in case one of them—meaning Nursey—manages to hurt themselves.

Tango still has a somewhat perplexed expression on his face, but Will can never really tell when he actually has no idea what’s going on, and when it’s just his regular face. Or if he’s really just fucking with them all. Whiskey’s the one who makes an effort to actually meet Will’s eyes, one eyebrow raised in question. He’s the only one, apart from Bitty, who’s found out about Will, but they’ve so far had an unspoken agreement to not talk about running into each other in one of the close by gay bars on occasion. He jerks his chin minutely when Will shakes his head at him, before giving Tango a not so gentle push towards the door, muttering at him in rapid Spanish when Tango starts complaining about being manhandled.

“Uh.” Will hitches the baby a little higher, and starts rubbing his back, mostly to have something to do with his hands. Good thing the baby’s too young to realise he’s being used as a security blanket. “I’ll just,” he says, awkward, inching closer to the stairs. “Yeah.”

With that, Will makes his escape upstairs to Bitty’s room. As promised, there’s a portable crib leaning against one wall, and at least a dozen bags from Babies-R-Us sitting next to it. They look like they definitely contain more than the few emergency diapers and onesies Will’d asked for, and he makes a mental note to send Jack a thank you text later.

“Okay, buddy, here you go,” Will tells the baby as he carefully places him in the middle of Bitty’s bed. He arranges a few pillows around him, even though he’s learned last night that the baby isn’t really moving much yet. Safe’s safe, though. “There. Good?”

He has the crib set up, and is halfway through the bags when Bitty knocks on the door, before poking his head in. “How’s it going?”

“Baby’s asleep. Again,” Will says, pulling a tiny Falconers jersey out of one of the bags.

Bitty smiles innocently when Will holds it up. Will doesn’t buy it for a second.

They unpack in easy silence for a while, Bitty joining Will on the floor to un- and then refold all the clothes to his satisfaction, arranging them in a complicated pile system Will doesn’t even try to memorise. Bitty bats at him when he sees Will try and fail to hide a grin. “Babies are messy. You better get on top of everything right away, otherwise you’ll be lost in no time.”

“Too late for that,” Will sighs, absently playing with the foot of a pair of tiny snowflake tights. Knowing Bitty, there’s a whole outfit to go with them, too, for Haus Christmas. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“But you’re trying anyway,” Bitty says, bumping their shoulders together. “That’s what counts.”

Will grimaces. “Tell that to the kid when he hates me in a couple of years because I was too selfish to let him be adopted by some nice people who wouldn’t have screwed this whole thing up completely.”

“William Jacob Poindexter!” Bitty is glaring, and it’s so reminiscent of a Disappointed Parent Look that Will flushes, feeling chastised. Bitty grabs Will by the chin, forcing him to look over at him. “Do not run yourself down like this, I won’t have it.”

“Bitty, c’mon,” Will mumbles, embarrassed. He goes to turn his head away, but Bitty doesn’t let go, and raises an expectant eyebrow instead. Will grunts. “Fine, whatever.”

The way Bitty purses his lips, still scowling a little, tells Will they’ll be coming back to this eventually. Chowder has perfect timing, though, and chooses that moment to peek in through the door that’s still slightly ajar. “Do you need help with anything?”

“Want to help me change the baby for the night?” Will asks, getting up, and has to laugh when Chowder nods enthusiastically. “All right, come here. Fair warning, though, it’s going to be pretty gross.”

Chowder waves dismissively. “I have baby cousins, it’s fine. Like, this one time Vivian had some sort of stomach bug, and I swear, for a solid week, her poop looked like that time Wicks threw up after only eating Cheetos and drinking tub juice all weekend.”

They all simultaneously wrinkle their noses at the memory. Bitty’s the first to recover, reaching into yet another unpacked bag, and pulling out a foldable changing pad. “Here.” He hands it to Chowder, who hands it over to Will to spread out on the bed. “It wasn’t on your list, I know, but I thought it would come in handy.”

“At least 80% of the stuff you bought wasn’t on my list,” Will points out as he unclasps the baby’s onesie. “Tell Jack I’ll pay him back for all of it, by the way.”

Bitty’s, “Sure, honey,” is entirely unconvincing, and Will resigns himself to sneaking cash into Jack’s pockets whenever he comes to visit for the foreseeable future. Bitty narrows his eyes at Will as if he can tell what Will’s thinking, making Will look away quickly, biting back a smile.

“Okay,” he says, once he’s got the baby down to his diaper, gesturing from the baby to Chowder. “You want to do the honors?”

Chowder clearly knows what he’s doing, working fast and efficient, and doesn’t lose his cool when the baby, grumpy about being woken up, starts fussing. Will hovers by his shoulder nonetheless, ignoring the knowing, amused looks Bitty keeps levelling at him.

When he’s done, the baby all dressed again, Chowder throws his arms up in the air, waving them around, and cheers quietly. “There,” he says, grinning down at the baby, “that’s better, isn’t it?”

The baby kicks his legs, still making small, distressed sounds that aren’t quite cries. Yet. Chowder rubs his tummy, which seems to help somewhat, but Will can tell it’s not enough.

“He wants you to pick him up. I mean,” he rubs at the back of his neck, mouth quirked sheepishly, “you can. If you still want to.”

Chowder doesn’t need to be told twice. He climbs up on the bed, and scoots back so he’s reclined against the pillows, then carefully lifts the baby up to lie against his chest. He cups the back of the baby’s head with one hand, and his diapered butt with the other, talking quietly, telling the baby, all earnest and serious, “I know,” and “Yeah, being tired is no fun,” when the baby scrunches up his face.

It makes something in Will’s chest loosen, to see one of his best friends so easily accept this huge—and, as much as Will already loves that baby, inconvenient—turn Will’s life has taken over the last 24 hours. It also gives Will the courage needed to say what he’s wanted to tell Chowder for months, now.

“He’s my nephew, technically,” he blurts, and then, before he loses his nerve, continues explaining, “My older sister’s kid. She didn’t want him, because my parents would throw a fucking fit if she came home with a illegitimate kid. Especially a black one. They’re—shit, C, they’re fucked up, you know? Like, the kind of people who’d make their daughter choose between her kid, and being allowed to come back home again. Or kick out their son for being gay.”

Chowder’s eyes widen in surprise, and he looks distraught when he says, “Dex, oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

Will shrugs, jaw clenched, and averts his eyes. It’s been nearly six months, and he’d known, before doing it, what coming out would mean, what would most likely happen. It had been a conscious, planned decision after years of insecurity and fear, in the hope that it would, somehow, make it easier to be honest with himself about what he is, about who he is. And it had helped, in a lot of ways, but the tiny, dumb, foolish part of Will’s heart that had believed that his family might react differently, might love him anyway, is fucking devastated nonetheless.

Bitty knee-walks across the room, hugging Will from behind. “We love you, hon, you know that, right?” he asks, and Chowder immediately agrees, adding, “We all support Bitty and Jack, and we’ll do the same for you. You’re team. And our friend.”

Will nods, but doesn’t trust himself to say anything without doing something horrifying. Like bursting into tears. He leans into Bitty instead, lets Bitty tuck him under his chin, and closes his eyes, breathing slow and deep. Bitty starts asking Chowder about his cousins, arms still tight around Will, and neither of them mentions the way Will’s breath hitches every few seconds.

He only disentangles himself from Bitty once the baby’s fallen back asleep to lay him down in the crib. If having his back turned also gives him the opportunity to discreetly wipe at his eyes, well. He’ll take it.

Chowder makes a quick run to his own room to change into his PJs while Will’s putting the baby down, and Bitty grabs his laptop from his desk, setting it up at the foot of his bed instead, putting on an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine with the volume down low. Will gets a pair of sweats from his own bag, before he flops down next to Bitty on the bed. Chowder joins them a moment later, squishing Will between himself and Bitty.

Will gets choked up all over again over the fact that Chowder doesn’t even hesitate before cuddling up to Will, like he always does when they have sleepovers or team movie nights. Then he grunts, effectively distracted, when Bitty presses his icicle feet against his legs. Which is also pretty par for the course.

“So,” Chowder asks, once he has burrito-wrapped himself in one of the blankets, “like, does the baby have a name yet? Because I feel kind of bad just calling him the baby.”

“According to my MooMaw, my parents couldn’t agree on a name until I was almost two months old,” Bitty tisks, laughing a little. “And then they named me Eric Richard Bittle Jr.”

“I don’t want to do that,” Will says immediately. When Bitty and Chowder both look at him quizzically, he elaborates, “Name the baby after someone. My parents named me after my grandfather and my uncle, and there were always expectations that came with that, you know? I don’t want that, for the baby. He should,” he gestures a little helplessly, then shrugs, “just grow up to be himself.”

Chowder nods, thoughtful. “That makes sense.”

“It really does,” Bitty agrees, folding his arms on Will’s chest, and resting his chin on them. “Lord knows I could do without my aunties and uncles and cousins constantly comparing me to my Daddy.”

“I thought maybe Theodore?” Will half-asks. “There’s no Theo in my family, no one I know is called Theo, and I kind of like it? Just, like, the sound of it. And I don’t want anything too edgy that’ll embarrass him when he’s older.”

“I like it,” Chowder decides. “Theodore Poindexter.”

Bitty pokes Will in the side, smiling proudly. “See? You got this. One step at a time.”

“Yeah,” Will says, and can’t help but smile back. “One step at a time.”

#dexnursey #nurseydex #william poindexter #kid fic #accidental baby acquisition #pre-slash #dex & bitty friendship #dex & chowder friendship #chowder is a literal ray of sunshine #cuddle piles #slight racism #slight homophobia #i apologise for the lack of nursey in this part #he'll play a prominent role in the next one tho #wantedverse #myfics

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esperanzacboronial · 7 years

Note

Aging and Luchino for the askmeme?

I’m putting this under the cut because it’s a long one. I got carried away a little bit because I,, love them.

Aging:

A: Where did Luchino find this woman? I’ve thought a lot about it, and I feel like given Narita’s track record, since she’s not a career assassin and she’s good at fighting, she was probably either a) in the army or b) in the circus. In the Naritaverse those seem to be the main options. I’m leaning towards former army because 1) I could absolutely see her being discharged due to insubordination I mean oh my g-d, 2) seems very very very comfortable with guns, 3) would be a nice parallel to Huey picking up his followers from army defects.

B: When Death was alive the two of them were big on contests of strength. Got a few spare minutes before a mission? Push up contest. How many pullups can you do while hanging from the side of this building? I can do 30. When Death is referred to as the strongest among them Illness fumes, but Aging chortles, “I beat him at standing arm wrestling just five minutes ago, c’mon.” Empathy isn’t her thing, so she doesn’t feel anything when she finds out he’s dead, but she’s pretty bummed out because neither Life nor Illness will have these absurd competitions with her in his place.

C: Not even headcanon, but the Mask Makers are, uh… they seem to be really sexist, on the whole. Two of their strongest fighters are women, and these two get constantly put down and underestimated — and the effect that has on Illness, who doesn’t want to be good at killing people, is a lot different than the effect it has on Aging, who legitiamtely enjoys it, who sees it as her skill, her trade. She has to deal 24/7 with people ignoring and dismissing work that she’s actually proud of, but she takes it all in stride and good humour because she knows that reacting to it would only make them think less of her.

D: I can’t… really think of any headcanons that are definitely never going to happen in canon? she’s only really just gotten her start in canon. anything could happen.

Luchino:

A: Luchino being tiny as he is is a laugh when it comes to, you know, Aging deadlifting him, but when you put it into context with the fact that he’s consistently doing something causes him to be physically sick, and has been doing that thing since childhood, and does so regularly enough that he’s able to just calmly count how many times he’s thrown up in each instance — when you put that together with him being that small (smaller than Sylvie at, what, 17ish?), it seems to suggest malnourishment. I know men can reach full maturity a lot later, but given that his lifestyle is so unhealthy, mentally and emotionally and, as a result of that mental and emotional strain, physically, it seems pretty likely that he’s stunted his growth.

B: Luchino performs alone in spite of having a literal organisation full of potential magician’s assistant candidates, and that’s because he’s been there, done that and they’re all terrible at it in their own unique ways. Aging is too tall for most of the tricks (can’t fit in the box to be sawn in half, can’t fit in the box to be disappeared, can’t fit in so many boxes oh my g-d why don’t they make these in bigger sizes) and kept catching the knives during knife throwing. Illness also does that one (”you’re throwing them at me!!! what was I supposed to do??”), and the one time they tried the sawing in half trick she, uh, definitely went to a pretty bad place mentally and ended up being sick (that part isn’t funny at all, though, so moving on). Death was way too intimidating and freaked the audience out, and Life was just (sigh) in between every trick and it made for a really disheartening performance. In the end he just decides that the only way to have a decent show is to do it by himself.

C: There are a lot of criminal heirs and heiresses in the naritaverse, and they mostly fall into either a) sheltered, good-hearted, ethical, one day finds out about the truth of their family’s business and turns against it, or b) pretty aware of what their family does and throw themselves into it with vigour because they’re made of the same stuff, but the thing about Luchino is he doesn’t have the luxury of fitting into either category. Here’s a boy with a worse tolerance for death and violence than Eve Genoard who throws himself into it anyway thanks to duty (avenge Monica), expectations (points @ my post about his hyper empathy), and, honestly, a lack of options (what else is a young teenager going to do without parents, close family, or friends? he keeps his allies. he does what he has to do to keep his allies); he hates what he does, thinks it’s disgusting and impure, is painfully aware of how much it ruins him, but he never had a shot at purity. I mean, to get into the headcanon bit, to be functionally prepared to take over the Mask Makers as a young teenager (not emotionally or mentally, g-d no, but functionally), Luchino probably killed someone or something for the first time before the age of ten, or at the very least he was helping with his father’s business before the age of ten, learning the trade, learning what it takes to kill, to injure, to get information, to get what they need out of people. He seems to be intimately acquainted with some advanced levels of torture by 17 — he’s probably had blood on his hands his whole life, since he was a literal child, this kid who can’t even stomach the sight of it. He understates how much it affects him and acts professionally about it, and along with that being out of pride, I think that’s really the only way he knows how to approach thinking about it, because Luchino B. Campanella never even had a shred of childhood, even though he would be a lot more content if he was one of those good old sheltered-from-the-bad-stuff family heirs.

D: Again, I can’t actually think of anything that contradicts canon, because he’s been in canon so little, but in terms of one that wasn’t expanded upon much: I really do feel like Luchino trusted Life beyond just ‘(shrug) another mask maker’. He was stated to consider the four agonies his closest subordinates — he let all of them lead in his place when necessary, and he left Life to handle most things on the other ship while he didn’t even. tell Illness the plan. The very serious, sigh-I’m-so-professional-sigh attitude would have appealed to him a lot in a mentor figure, unfortunately, and especially when he was younger I could see him relying on his guidance heavily, unfortunately. I hope the betrayal in 2003 when he finds out the full situation is hearty.

#luchino b. campanella #aging (baccano!)#baccano!#thanks for the ask!!#some faves right there #luchino is... a mess..#someone help him #elmer please help him #agallimaufryofoddments #meme response

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bromfieldhall · 7 years

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“Redwood” - A Mentalist Fanfiction

TIMELINE: Set some time after season five episode, ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’. Goes AU from there.

SYNOPISIS: Jane and Lisbon are forced into a deadly game when they try and catch a new serial killer.

PAIRING: Patrick Jane/Teresa Lisbon - Jisbon

Previous Chapters 1, 2

CHAPTER 3

"Did you think that Cho and Rigsby were acting a little odd at breakfast this morning?" Lisbon asked Jane as they drove to see Hicks at his office in Eureka.

"Odd?" her consultant hedged as he glanced over at her and shifted a little uncomfortably on the passenger seat. "In what way?"

"Oh, I don't know. They seemed on edge and kept giving each other weird looks," she tried to explain.

They had indeed Jane acknowledged to himself as he bit back a smile and gazed out of the window. It had amused him greatly.

"Meh, they probably just got hammered last night and didn't want you to find out they had a raging hangover," he dismissed lightly. "I'm pretty certain I saw Rigsby take a couple of Advil with his orange juice."

Lisbon frowned as she thought his explanation over then finally nodded her head in agreement.

"Yeah, you're probably right.

"My dear, Lisbon, when are you going to accept that I'm always right?" he countered smugly, drawing the conversation away from further speculation on the two male agents rather unusual behaviour.

"About the time Hell freezes over," she retorted breezily.

"Well, with the ozone layer being what it is and the increasingly peculiar weather we've been experiencing over the past few years, that might become a reality sooner than you think," he stated glibly.

"Oh, please," she muttered, rolling her eyes at his words.

The journey to Eureka only took around fifteen minutes and they soon pulled up in front of the Coroner's office and got out.

"Just let me do the talking, OK?" Lisbon ordered as they entered the building.

"Of course," Jane agreed, far too easily for her liking.

She gave him a suspicious look but when he merely grinned in response, she mentally prepared herself for what was to come. They were directed to the morgue and went in to find Hicks sitting on a stool and writing in a file.

"You're bright and early, Agent Lisbon," he greeted coolly as he looked up unsurprised at their entrance. "I'm afraid I don't have much to tell you."

Out the corner of her eye, Lisbon caught sight of Jane opening his mouth to say something but she nudged him indiscreetly in the side and silenced him with a glare. He raised his eyebrows at her actions then stuck his hands into his jacket pockets and sauntered off around the room checking the names on the large metal drawers that contained the bodies.

"That's fine, Dr. Hicks," Lisbon assured the thin man as she looked back at him with a smile while trying to keep one eye on her wayward consultant. "Just tell me what you did find and let me have a copy of your report."

"Very well," he agreed, watching Jane running a finger under the typed name cards of each drawer as he slowly wandered up and down. "I retrieved three .30 calibre bullets from the chest area. Considering the amount of damage sustained, I'd say two were shot from distance. The third was lodged in the heart and, in my opinion, was taken at closer range. It was also the cause of death, naturally."

"Hardly anything natural about it," Jane commented dryly from the far side of the room.

Lisbon shot him a dark look then turned back to Hicks and queried, "Anything else?"

"Minor contusions to his legs and arms that are consistent with several falls. Other than that, nothing of any consequence to your investigation," he replied, shooting an irritated glance at the blond as well. "All the other details are in my report."

"Oh, you mean like the knife wound?" Jane enquired as he walked back over to stand next to Lisbon.

"Knife wound?" the Coroner repeated, looking at him with a puzzled expression.

"Yes," the consultant confirmed with a slight smile. "Top of his right arm. It was quite defined, you couldn't miss it."

Nor could Hicks miss the blonds' implication.

"Oh, that," he dismissed with a shake of his head as he let out a derisive snort. "You're mistaken, Mr. Jane, the mark you're referring to was just a scratch. Probably caught it on a branch when he fell."

"No it wasn't," Jane refuted confidently, his face now devoid of any trace of its previous pleasantness. "It was too precise. That wound was definitely caused by a knife."

Hicks sucked in a breath and puffed out his chest as he raised himself to his full height, which was still a good two inches shorter than the consultant.

"What makes you so sure you're right? Do you have some kind of medical training that makes you an expert on these things?" he enquired disdainfully.

"No," the consultant replied mildly. "Do you?"

"OK, that's enough," Lisbon cut in curtly when she saw Hicks turn an almost purple colour with anger. "We can easily settle this by you just showing us the body."

"I can't. It's been released to the family," the Coroner revealed defiantly as he turned away and went back to perch on his stool.

"Already?" the brunette agent questioned incredulously, beginning to feel her own irritation stirring. "Why wasn't I informed first? You should have waited until you had permission."

"I did," he retorted stiffly. "I spoke to Sheriff Newland and he gave it to me."

"Well, that was certainly convenient," Jane interjected caustically.

"And what do you mean by that?" Hicks irately demanded to know as he stood up again.

Jane looked bemused at the Coroner's temper and held up his hands in mock surrender. "Nothing. Just passing comment."

Lisbon mentally counted to ten as she reined in her irritation both at the Coroner's attitude and Jane's antagonism.

"Sheriff Newland isn't running this investigation any longer, the CBI is; so from now on you'll run everything regarding this case past me. Do you understand, Dr. Hicks?" she commanded in no uncertain terms.

The sandy haired man nodded reluctantly, his eyes showing his displeasure at being spoken to in such a way.

Not wanting to see the situation get any further out of hand, she plastered what she hoped would pass for a placating smile on her face.

"Good. Thank you for your time. We'll be in touch if we need further information," she said, trotting out the platitude with practiced ease.

She then turned abruptly and walked away with Jane in tow, the latter pausing in the doorway to give the Coroner a jaunty salute and grin before he left.

"He's obviously covering up for someone," the consultant announced as soon as they were out of the building. "But he doesn't strike me as a killer. That means he either knows who it is and he's doing it because there's some connection there, a relative maybe, or he's being paid a lot of money by someone to keep any trace evidence out of the reports."

"I know," she agreed as they got into the SUV and she started it up. "But without that body, we have no proof of anything."

"Well there must have been some photos taken at the scene," the blond mused. "If they took some of Miller then they should show the cut and as it's not mentioned in the report then we'd at least have enough to pull Hicks in for an interview."

"That's a good idea. Call Van Pelt and ask her to speak to the Sheriff," Lisbon decided as she put the car into gear and pulled away. "In the meantime, we'll go to Blue Lake and speak to Miller's parents."

Jane nodded then pulled out his phone and made the call. Van Pelt was only too happy to help and said that she and the men would go over to the Sheriff's office once they'd been to see Simmons' wife in McKinleyville.

The consultant relayed the message to Lisbon who nodded her thanks. The drive only took around twenty minutes and they soon arrived at the Miller's residence. The brunette knew the meeting was going to be difficult. Talking to relatives of any victim was a necessary evil that she always tried to handle professionally, but sometimes it was harder than others. This was one of those times.

The mother, Kate, was distraught to the point of hysteria and the father, Don, was doing his best, but failing miserably, to console her. Either way, they weren't going to get any questions answered so Jane went over and in that soothing, honey voice of his that secretly sent a tingle down Lisbon's spine, he managed to get the woman to use a breathing technique to finally calm her down.

Don gave the consultant a brief smile of gratitude then wrapped his arm lovingly around his wife's shoulders, trying hard to keep his own tears at bay.

Jane resumed his seat next to Lisbon, who shot him a grateful smile of her own, before he sat back and listened quietly as she began the interview. Usually when faced with such heart wrenching grief he preferred to make himself scarce and go and make some tea, unable to handle the painful reminder of his own personal anguish. In this case, however, as much as Kate would benefit from the calming effects of camomile, it just felt disrespectful.

He marvelled at how Lisbon navigated the turbulent waters of their sorrow with sympathy and understanding but still managed to elicit the pertinent information they needed for the investigation. Most importantly they found out that Daniel regularly used to drive to the northern part of Redwood National Park and turn off onto the Old State Highway then park up on one of its trails and complete a circuit of around eight to ten kilometres. His car had yet to be found.

Don also explained that when Sheriff Newland had visited and broken the news about Daniel, he'd hinted that their son's body would be ready for release as soon as the autopsy was complete.

It was an interesting piece to the puzzle that Jane immediately latched onto, his mind quickly producing and rejecting several innocent scenarios as to why the officer would do such a thing before the initial investigation was complete at least.

Lisbon stood suddenly, breaking his train of thoughts and the consultant quickly followed suit as soon as he realised that she was ready to leave.

"Thank you for your time," the brunette said warmly as she shook hands with each of them. "And, again, I really am sorry for your loss."

Jane saw the way the Miller's reacted to her obvious compassion and smiled to himself. No matter how many times he'd heard Lisbon give that condolence, she'd never once let it sound trite or insincere. It was an amazing feat considering how long she'd been a law officer and one that he admired greatly. It proved she still cared even after all this time and all the horrors they'd borne witness to. She really was an incredible woman.

Also one that was on a mission apparently, judging by the way she was on her phone to Van Pelt the second they left the house. He almost had to jog to keep up with her rapid gait as she strode towards the SUV. She unlocked the car then gestured for him to get in as she did the same. From what he could gather hearing just her side of the conversation and the way she suddenly frowned, the pictures appeared to be a bust. He'd suspected they would be, especially after the Miller's little revelation about the Sheriff.

She then asked whether Cho and Rigsby had found out from Simmons' wife if her husband had a regular exercise route in Redwood and her expression darkened even more if that were possible. She ended the call and put the phone back in her pocket with a growl of frustration before starting the vehicle and driving back towards Arcata.

"No luck with the widow?" he asked quietly.

"No; apparently it was the first time Simmons had ever exercised there. He usually went to his local gym. Only similarity is that his car was never found either."

"I see. And what about the photos? Or aren't there any?"

"Oh, there's photo's," she snapped in annoyance. "Just conveniently none from an angle that show Miller's right arm in any great detail."

"Hardly surprising," he commented with a shrug.

"Dammit," she cursed unhappily. "I really don't want to have go back to the Miller's and tell them that we need to take their son's body for further investigation. It's just not right."

"I know," he sympathised with a soft smile. Without thinking, he reached out then laid his hand on her arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. "But, believe me, they'll understand. They want us to catch the person who did this to their son as much as we do."

Lisbon looked down at his hand then glanced up at his handsome face before staring straight ahead at the road again. She nodded curtly and he pulled back, turning his head to look out of the window. She took in a breath and exhaled slowly as she pushed aside the little jolt of pleasure she'd received from his unexpected touch. He was just being supportive, she told herself sternly. Nothing more to it than that.

Jane clenched his fist in his lap and ignored the way his simple gesture had made him feel. He was used to it by now. The heat, the longing; it was second nature whenever he made close contact. Granted, he didn't go out of his way to touch her as often as he used to. That day in her office just before he'd pretended to shoot her, when he'd revealed how he truly felt, had made him more cautious. He just wished that she would initiate something for a change. Just once. Would they be too much to hope for? Some tiny sign of affection.

"You want to stop for some lunch?" she queried, cutting across his reverie.

He looked over at her and nodded. He hadn't realised the time; it was after one. No wonder he was feeling hungry.

They reached Arcata but just as they were about to go into a diner, Lisbon's phone went off. It was Cho.

"What's up?" she asked. There was a pause where her second in command obviously told her, then she said, "Really? The Miller's said the same. That's great, thanks. We'll take a drive along there now and check it out. Just let me know what you find out from Craig Phillips' partner, OK?"

"Good news, I take it?" Jane asked as he watched her put her phone away then insert the key back in the ignition. He let out a sigh. He'd really been looking forward to grabbing a bite to eat.

"Cho's just finished talking to Lance Williamson's family," she supplied.

"The first victim?" the consultant queried.

"Yeah. They said he used to regularly run along the Old State Highway. That's the same place as Daniel Miller."

"Two out of three so far," he murmured contemplatively as she started the engine. "If the others all exercised in the same area then we can assume Simmons also did on the day he went missing too." At her nod he then added seriously, "It's all starting to make some sense to me now but there's still one vital little thing I need before I know for sure."

"What's that?" she asked quizzically.

"Food. Could we get something to go? I'm starving," he told her with a sudden grin.

She rolled her eyes then smiled wryly and turned off the engine. They went in and bought a burger and fries each along with their preferred hot drinks then got back into the car and headed north along Redwood Highway towards their destination.

The scenery was fantastic and Jane was in his element. Trees gave way to a large lagoon and the ocean beyond drawing a smile of pleasure from the blond before they began to head inland again. Forty minutes later they reached the Old State Highway and turned onto it. Lisbon cruised down the winding road and it soon became apparent that little to no traffic used it anymore. They came to another large lagoon and she pulled over into a small lay-by, staring out across the expanse of blue water.

"Good place to dump a car or two," Jane observed, voicing her own thoughts.

"Yeah, although there are people fishing this end so it would have to be somewhere a bit more secluded," she replied as she drove off again.

"What I don't get is why a rifle?" the consultant suddenly conjectured with a frown. It was the one thing that been bothering him since they'd been handed the case.

"Why not?" Lisbon countered with a shrug.

"Serial killers like to get up close to their victims, Lisbon, you know that. They get off on the fear."

"OK, so is there a particular weapon that a possible serial killer should have in your opinion?"

"No; but it also shouldn't be as impersonal as a long-range gun nor does it tie in with the fact that the men were being kept somewhere," he responded with a shake of his head. "What reason could the murderer have if it's not to take his time killing the victims? I just can't fathom it out."

"Well, I guess…" she began only to be cut off by a loud bang and the SUV suddenly lurching to the right.

"Tyre's blown," the brunette cried out as she desperately struggled with the steering wheel to control the vehicle around the bend they were currently navigating.

Try as she might, the car just wouldn't respond quick enough and she let out a gasp of horror as it carried straight on off the road towards a large tree. It all happened so quickly that they had no time to brace themselves for the fierce impact that threw them both forward towards the dashboard, Lisbon's head cracking hard against the top of the steering wheel, knocking her out cold.

Once the car was still, Jane drew in a shuddering breath, trying to calm the adrenalin that was rushing chaotically through his system. Apart from the fright, he was unharmed and immediately turned his head to seek out Lisbon. His stomach dropped when he saw how her head lulled to one side away from him, a thin trail of blood making its way slowly down her cheek. He quickly undid his seatbelt then leaned across the centre console and reached out to gently cup her face with his hand, moving it so that he could see her injury better.

Although her face was pale, he could see a small cut just above her right eyebrow where the skin was already darkening into what he knew would be one hell of a bruise.

"Lisbon?" he called, gently tapping her cheek. "Lisbon, can you hear me?"

She remained unresponsive and he dug around in his pocket to find his phone in order to call Cho.

Suddenly, the car door behind him was wrenched open but before he could turn to see who it was, he felt something hard thrust painfully against the back of his head. He stilled immediately and drew in a sharp breath. Dread settled in the pit of his stomach like a ton weight as he gazed disconsolately at Lisbon's slack features and the silence of the vehicle was abruptly broken by the terrifying sound of the metallic click of a gun being primed to fire.

They were in serious trouble.

END CHAPTER 3

#mentalist ff #mentalist fanfiction #jisbon ff #jisbon fanfiction

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kacydeneen · 5 years

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Commission on MSD Shooting Criticizes School System, BSO

The state commission investigating what led to the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and how law enforcement responded is criticizing both the school system and the sheriff’s office, according to draft findings and recommendations being debated by the panel Wednesday in Tallahassee.

The report lists security failures, including the school leaving outer fence gates open and building doors unlocked, which allowed the killer to walk on campus with an AR-15 in a rifle bag, and walk into a building where he would kill 17 people on Feb. 14.

It says the failure of the school system to mandate safe areas, including hard corners — taped off areas in classrooms out of line of sight from a potential shooter locked out of the classroom — was a “safety breach.”

When it came to the Broward sheriff’s office, the commission lays primary blame on now-former school resource officer Scot Peterson, who they say was “derelict in his duty” for fleeing from just outside the 1200 building while others were killed, retreating to his own safe area.

The draft, portions of which will be modified before being forwarded to the governor and legislature by Jan. 1, also criticizes six deputies who arrived near campus, heard gun shots and did not immediately move toward the gun fire. That response, the document states, was “unacceptable.”

School monitors were also singled out for criticism for not immediately calling a Code Red, active shooter warning, when they saw on campus someone they believed was either armed or a potential school shooter.

That delay likely cost lives, commissioners said, because no one died or was wounded in any of the second-floor classrooms where teachers, hearing gunshots, acted as if a Code Red had been called.

On the third floor, where some assumed a fire drill was taking place after dust loosened by gunfire on the first floor set off the alarm, six people were killed and many others filing into hallways were at risk.

Here are some of the key findings, subject to change:

SCHOOLS

Cruz entered the MSDHS campus through an open and unstaffed pedestrian gate that had been opened by Campus Monitor Andrew Medina for afternoon dismissal. Cruz exploited this open and unstaffed gate and it is what allowed him initial access to the campus. This open and unstaffed gate was a security failure.

Unlocked and opened gates were regularly left unstaffed for long periods of time on the MSDHS campus. School administrators cited a lack of personnel as the explanation for the unstaffed and open gates. This explanation is unacceptable as leaving open perimeter gates unstaffed is a breach of effective security protocols.

The school district does not allow Broward County law enforcement live, real time access to its school camera systems. Law enforcement’s inability to live- view cameras in the building 12 hindered the law enforcement response and caused officer safety issues because law enforcement was unable to determine whether Cruz had departed the building.

The fire alarm caused confusion among students and staff in building 12. Some treated the event as a fire alarm (evacuation) and some treated it as an active shooter situation (hiding in place). As set forth in section 5.2, the lack of a called Code Red contributed to students and staff not treating this incident as an active shooter event and that put students and staff at risk because they used evacuation protocols, not active assailant response protocols.

The glass windows in the classroom doors allowed Cruz line of sight access to target his victims and there were no pre-designated window coverings for teachers to quickly cover their classroom door windows.

Only 2 of the 30 classrooms in the building 12 had marked hard corners. To the extent that students attempted to hide in the classrooms’ hard corners they were mostly inaccessible due to teachers’ desks and other furniture occupying the space. There was inadequate space in many classrooms’ hard corners and some students were squeezed out of the hard corners. Because classrooms lacked effective hard corners and/or students were not directed to hard corners, some students were forced to seek cover in an area visible to Cruz. Cruz only shot people within his line of sight and he never entered any classroom. Some students were shot and killed in classrooms with obstructed and inaccessible hard corners as they remained in Cruz’s line of sight from outside the classroom. The District’s failure to mandate and implement hard corners or safe areas in every classroom was a safety breach that contributed to students being shot.

Some bullets traveled through the drywall and the metal doors. Had Cruz intentionally shot through the walls or doors, the amount of casualties could have been greater. Drywall and easily penetrable doors are a safety vulnerability.

The storm resistant glass on the third floor teacher’s lounge mitigated the number of people shot because the rounds fragmented and prevented Cruz from effecting his sniper position. Despite trying to shoot from his sniper position, Cruz had 180 rounds of ammunition left when he abandoned his gun and fled the school.

The lack of a formal Code Red or similar active assailant response policy in the Broward County Public Schools led to school personnel not knowing or clearly understanding the criteria for calling a Code Red, who could call it, or when it could be called. The lack of a called Code Red on February 14, 2018, because there was no policy, little training and no drills, left students and staff vulnerable to being shot, and some were shot because they were not notified to lockdown. This was most evident on the third floor of building 12.

There were no Code Red drills at MSDHS in the year preceding the shooting.

Campus Monitor Andrew Medina was the first school employee to observe Cruz walk onto the MSD campus. Medina saw Cruz carrying a bag that was obviously a rifle bag—Medina admitted on video that he recognized the bag Cruz was carrying was a rifle bag and Medina identified Cruz as a threat. Medina failed to act appropriately by not calling a Code Red and that failure allowed Cruz to enter the 1200 building without the building’s occupants being notified to implement an active assailant response (Code Red). Further, even after hearing gunshots Medina failed to call a Code Red. There are veracity issues with Medina’s post-incident statements regarding what he knew and what he did and did not do.

Medina notified Campus Monitor David Taylor via school radio that Cruz was entering the 1200 Building. Taylor saw Cruz enter the building but Taylor did not call a Code Red. Taylor was inexperienced with guns and recognized Cruz when he entered the 1200 building as someone they had previously discussed as being a potential school shooter. Taylor’s inaction by not calling a Code Red was inappropriate and delayed notification to others of the active shooting.

BROWARD SHERIFF'S OFFICE

Former Deputy Scot Peterson was derelict in his duty on February 14, 2018, failed to act consistent with his training and fled to a position of personal safety while Cruz shot and killed MSDHS students and staff. Peterson was in a position to engage Cruz and mitigate further harm to others and he willfully decided not to do so. There is overwhelming evidence that Deputy Peterson knew that the gunshots were coming from within or within the immediate area of building 12. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that Peterson attempted to investigate the source of the gunshots. In fact, the statement of Security Specialist Greenleaf confirms Peterson did not attempt to identify the source of the gunshots and by all accounts – including surveillance video - Peterson retreated to an area of safety.

On February 14th, the BSO law enforcement response to MSDHS was hindered in part by MSDHS School Resource Officer Scot Peterson’s erroneous directions and other improper information he relayed over BSO’s main radio channel 8A to include, directing responding deputies to shut down nearby intersections and requesting no pedestrian traffic anywhere on nearby roads.

Peterson instructed deputies to stay at least 500 feet away from the 12 or 1300 buildings. These instructions conflict with current law enforcement response procedures to active shooter situations. Law enforcement officers should try to eliminate any immediate threat even if that requires approaching gunfire and danger.

Deputy Peterson responded to the area of building 12 within approximately 1 minute 39 seconds after the first shots were fired. Prior to his arrival 21 victims had already been shot, 9 of which were fatally wounded. This makes clear that seconds matter and that SRO’s cannot be relied upon as the only protection for schools. Even if there is a rapid response by an SRO, it is insufficient in and of itself to safeguard students and teachers. One SRO per campus is inadequate to ensure a timely and effective response to an active assailant situation and some campuses require additional armed personnel.

Several uniformed BSO deputies were either seen on camera or described taking the time to retrieve and put on their ballistic vests, sometimes in excess of one minute and in response to hearing gunshots. Deputy sheriffs who took the time to retrieve vests from containers in their cruisers, removed certain equipment they were wearing so that they could put on their vests, and then replaced the equipment they had removed all while shots were being fired, or had been recently fired is unacceptable and contrary to accepted protocol under which the deputies should have immediately moved towards the gunshots to confront the shooter.

Several BSO deputies arrived on Holmberg Road, just north of building 12 while shots were being fired and most of them heard the shots. These deputies have been identified as Kratz, Eason, Stambaugh, Perry, Seward, and Goolsby. These deputies remained on Holmberg road and did not immediately move towards the gunshots to confront the shooter. The deputies’ actions appear to be a violation of accepted protocol under which the deputies should have immediately moved towards the gunshots.

The Broward County Public School’s decision not to allow law enforcement live and real time direct access to the school camera systems in Broward County, including the system at MSDHS, adversely affected law enforcement efforts to locate Cruz and it hampered victim rescue efforts.

Sergeant Miller was the first responding supervisor and he arrived on Holmberg Road at least by 2:27:03. By his own statements he heard 3 to 4 shots upon arrival. Miller was not wearing his ballistic vest and took time to put it on. Miller was on scene for approximately 7 minutes before BSO’s radio throttling began; therefore, radio capacity issues did not exist at the time of Miller’s arrival. Miller failed to coordinate or direct deputies’ actions and did not direct or coordinate an immediate response into the school. Miller was observed behind his car on Holmberg Road and he did not initiate any radio transmissions until approximately 10 minutes after arriving on scene. Sergeant Miller’s actions were ineffective and he did not properly supervise the scene.

Captain Jordan failed to timely establish an incident command and was ineffective is her duties as the initial incident commander. While Capt. Jordan experienced radio problems that hindered her ability to transmit, nobody reported receiving command and control directions from Jordan in person. Jordan spent approximately the first 7 minutes after her arrival in the building 1 office and then transitioned to a position of cover in the north parking lot behind a car with Deputy Perry.

BSO deputies had some level of knowledge and familiarity with their active shooter policy. Several of them referenced that their policy states that they "may" enter a building or structure to engage an active shooter. The use of the word “may” in the BSO policy is ambiguous and does not unequivocally convey the expectation that deputies are expected to immediately enter an active assailant scene where gun fire is active and neutralize the threat.

Some deputies could not remember the last time they attended active shooter training. Some deputies could not recall what type of training they received. CSPD officers had a high level of knowledge and familiarity with their active shooter policy. Many reference that the policy sates they “shall” engage the threat. All CSPD officers remembered their active shooter training because they attend the training on an annual basis. Many of the officers praised the quality of their training and the equipment which they are provided.

FIRE AND MEDICAL RESPONSE

There is no evidence that any victims at MSDHS did not receive appropriate medical care.There is no evidence that law enforcement commander’s decision to not authorize rescue task forces affected anyone from receiving appropriate and timely medical care. Rescue task forces are only appropriate to operate in the “warm zone,” and not the “hot zone”; the building 12 was a “hot zone.” The decision not to use RTFs at MSDHS was the correct decision.

There is no evidence that any medical personnel (doctors, etc.) who arrived at the scene were inappropriately denied access to the building 12 to provide medical care or that victims were not timely and appropriately removed so they could receive medical care.

The TAC-medics followed the standard procedures of a MCI to identify, assess and tag the patients within building 12.

The first responding law enforcement officers acted appropriately and consistent with their training when they first removed victims who were verbal and/or conscious during the initial 7 to 14 minutes.

Radio communication problems, including the lack of interoperability and throttling affected the tactical operations inside of building 12, including the medical response.

911 SYSTEM

The 911 system on February 14, 2018, and the current 911 system in Parkland that has all Parkland 911 calls from cellular phones routed to Coral Springs, hinders a swift and effective police response by BSO. All Parkland 911 callers from cell phones who need police assistance have to explain their emergency to the Coral Springs dispatcher who then tells the person to standby while Coral Springs calls Broward County Regional Communications. The Coral Springs dispatcher then tells the BSO dispatcher that they have a caller on the line with a police emergency and the 911 caller repeats the reason for needing the police all over again to the BSO dispatcher. In many instances the original 911 caller hangs up before being transferred to BSO by Coral Springs and this hinders the BSO dispatcher because they are unable to speak directly to the caller needing police help in Parkland. This also creates an officer safety issue for Parkland deputies because they cannot obtain updated information while responding to the emergency because the caller hung up and the dispatcher cannot reestablish contact with the caller. Many callers also become frustrated because they have to explain their emergency a second time and they do not understand the necessity of the redundancy. This call transfer system prohibits BSO from receiving direct 911 calls from its service area in Parkland and creates a situation, as it did on February 14, 2018, where there is an information void adversely affecting an effective law enforcement response.

The system is designed for Coral Springs to transfer all 911 law enforcement calls it receives from Parkland to BSO. On February 14, 2018, Coral Springs transferred very few calls it received and this resulted in BSO, as the primary response law enforcement agency, not knowing all the information known to Coral Springs. This hindered BSO’s response.

On February 14, 2018 the Coral Springs 911 communications center initially treated the MSDHS shooting solely as a fire/EMS event because it provides fire and emergency medical services to Parkland, not police response. Coral Springs waited 4 minutes and 22 seconds from the time it received the first call of shots fired at MSDHS until it dispatched its first Coral Springs police officer. Coral Springs could not effect a quicker response by BSO because it had to transfer the call to BSO and Coral Springs could not directly communicate via radio with BSO Parkland deputies.

The decision to route all Parkland 911 calls that originate from cell phones to Coral Springs and not Broward Regional Communications (BSO) was made by the City of Parkland. The call transfer process delayed the law enforcement response to MSDHS on February 14, 2018. The City of Parkland has the authority to decide where its 911 calls are routed and the City can change the routing process at-will.

BSO brought the Parkland 911 call workflow issues to the City of Parkland in 2014 but there have no discussions resulting in a resolution since that time.

Photo Credit: NBC 6 Commission on MSD Shooting Criticizes School System, BSO published first on Miami News

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