#for context of how 'prepared for emergencies' my dad likes to be

[tj-crochets]

Hey y'all! Weird question time again! Do any of you have advice for where to buy good paper copies of road maps, specifically of the eastern united states? I'm thinking like the east half of Tennessee and parts of the surrounding states. Some context: I saw that post about using our phones for everything being a single point of failure (true) and my dad is very hard to find presents for but appreciates being prepared for emergencies (he spent most of his 20s as a firefighter in wildfire territory) so I think he'd appreciate having paper copies of maps he could like keep in the car in case his phone ever doesn't work. The problem: I do not drive, and I have absolutely zero idea what features make paper maps easier or more difficult to use, so idk how to narrow it down to which one(s) I should get him

#the person behind the yarn #fire mention #zero details just in the context of 'my dad was a firefighter when he was younger' #I do not drive because I have what you might call 'Might Pass Out Disease' and passing out while driving #is generally a Bad Idea for both the people in the car you are driving and anyone else on the road #so I do not do it #my dad is so hard to find presents for that he'll actually use #we usually default to board games as a 'something we can do as a family' #but after a certain point like...there is only so much board game storage #but I think he might really like paper maps! #for context of how 'prepared for emergencies' my dad likes to be #we have the normal house first aid kit #and then his first aid go bag which is a duffel bag entirely full of meticulously organized first aid supplies

[cheesybadgers]

Narcos Fic: Old Habits Die Hard (Chap. 16)

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Pairing: Javier Peña x Horacio Carrillo

Words: 9,337

Summary: In the aftermath of chapter 15, Javier returns to Laredo, reuniting with Horacio once and for all. Whilst they make up for lost time, questions about their future arise now they're at a crossroads, and after the phone call they had been waiting years for. Meanwhile, Chucho once again has some words of wisdom for his son.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY. Discussions of canon-typical violence, hurt/comfort (with the emphasis very much on the comfort), romantic sex, religious themes and symbolism (including in a sexual context), PTSD symptoms including dreams/nightmares and insomnia, discussions of grief and parental loss, smoking, swearing, drinking.

Notes: Well, I did it, guys...Operation Happy Ending is officially happening after all this time and I am emotional 😭😩 Chapter 17 is going to be in a similar vein to this chapter, as 16/17 were originally supposed to be one chapter. But, you know me, I can't shut up about these two 😂 Chapter 17 is largely done, it just needs some more tweaking/editing but should hopefully be posted soon!

Thank you as always to those still reading/commenting/making moodboards/tagging me in inspo posts or just sending me lovely messages. It genuinely warms my heart ❤️

Oh and I’ve added to my OHDH trivia post to cover this chapter if anyone is interested. 

Whilst obviously I do not own Narcos or its characters, please do not copy, re-post, or plagiarize this fic in any capacity on this or other platforms. If you wish to create any fan works inspired by it, please provide a credit or send me a message if in doubt.

Chapter 16: Like a Prayer

The taxi pulled up in front of the closed steel gates, its engine left running whilst Javier retrieved his bag from the trunk and paid the driver. Once the car was out of sight, the tranquillity of the Laredo countryside re-emerged, a stark contrast to the chaos he had left behind.

Following a brief phone call, he was expected but had insisted on making his own way back. He wasn’t ready just yet for the small talk that a long drive would no doubt have prompted, more from his Pops than Horacio. Horacio posed an entirely different problem if they had reunited in public.

There was no greeting from the dogs this time, but as soon as he opened the door to the farmhouse, Javier was hit by the distinctive aroma of epazote.

Chucho was standing over the stove stirring a bubbling clay pot, but abandoned his station to greet his son.

“Pops.” Javier dropped his bag by the door and went in for a hug.

“Javi.” Chucho patted him on the back a couple of times, pleasantly surprised at Javier’s reluctance to let go straight away as was the usual custom. “Welcome home, Mijo.”

When Javier eventually pulled away, he inhaled with concentration etched into his brow. “Frijoles de la Olla?”

“Of course. I’m making enchiladas later to go with it, but yesterday’s leftovers are in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

“Thanks, I’m good for now.”

“Flights go okay?”

“Yeah. Although, I wouldn’t recommend the chairs in Houston for getting any shut-eye.”

“And how about you?”

Of course, Chucho was going to ask. Javier had been expecting it, even though he had no answer prepared. “I’m fine.” He could see from the look in his dad’s eye he hadn’t hit a convincing tone. “Well, er, y’know. Better than I was.” Now that was closer to the truth.

Chucho merely nodded in response before returning to the stove, not wanting to push it further. Between everything he had seen in the press, his conversations with Horacio, and filling in the blanks, he knew enough without needing to hear the specifics.

“You can say I told you so if you want.” Javier wasn’t sure where that came from. There was nothing in Chucho’s demeanour to warrant being defensive. He hadn’t pried or pushed or passed judgement. He hadn’t even asked what happened or why. And yet part of Javier would have preferred if his Pops had given him both barrels.

“I could, but what good would that do, hmm? I’m guessing you’re already punishing yourself enough as it is. I’m just relieved you’re home and safe. And I know I’m not the only one.”

“Where—”

“He’s been spending a lot of time in the fallow field; by the windmill. He’s up there now with Luna. Sol and Leo are with the ranch hands, but they should be finishing up for the day soon.”

“Right, thanks. I’ll take one of the trucks. See you for dinner?”

“I’ll leave some for you both to warm up.” There was a glint in Chucho’s eye as he tried to stifle what looked suspiciously like the beginnings of a smirk.

Chucho’s shrewdness never faltered, no matter how much time passed. A fact that Javier, now rather warm-faced, concluded was both a blessing and a curse. He grabbed a couple of items from the farmhouse and climbed into the faded blue truck parked up in the nearest garage, butterflies taking flight as it hit him. He really was going home now.

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

Horacio was hammering the last post on the lower perimeter fence when he heard an engine in the distance. He had needed to keep busy since Javier’s phone call, a nervous energy buzzing through him as he waited. Waiting was all he’d done lately, yet the last few hours were somehow the worst.

The bluebonnets from the spring were gone, but the weather was mild and more comfortable for physical labour than in the height of summer. Still, Horacio had become accustomed to wearing his Stetson when working outdoors, especially as he left his sunglasses somewhere back at Carlos Holguín and had never gotten around to replacing them.

Give or take a few days, it was a year since they had arrived here, and the months before Javier left for Colombia felt like a distant dream. As the beaten-up blue truck came into view on the crest of the hill, Horacio would have been forgiven for thinking he was about to wake up at any second.

Luna, who had been dozing a few minutes ago, was now barking at the incoming vehicle. Although the noise switched from a warning to a greeting once Javier killed the engine and got out.

Horacio waited patiently for Luna to receive her obligatory head pats and ear rubs, using the extra time to take in Javier’s appearance. The hair at the nape of his neck had grown to the perfect rugged length for Horacio to run fingers through, and untidy yet inviting stubble dusted his chin. His eyes were covered by aviators, but Horacio could see the exhaustion in the rest of his face and posture. However, the smile he gave Luna as he greeted her was different, looser, and more relaxed. Usually, the tension in his jaw was visible, like a vice clamping his mouth in place. But that was no more.

Once Luna was satisfied, Javier stopped and looked up at Horacio, neither moving nor speaking.

Javier took his aviators off and put them in the pocket of his pink shirt, which sat beneath a brown corduroy jacket. He needed to see Horacio unfiltered, and fuck, was that the right decision. His eyes roamed up and down, admiring the fact Horacio was dressed much like he had been that night in the guesthouse kitchen. Only with a few additions Javier certainly wasn’t complaining about.

“Hey,” Javier offered, his throat still husky from travelling.

“Hey yourself.”

They held each other’s gaze again, eyes swimming with a myriad of emotions that probably wouldn’t be unpacked for days, weeks, or months. But none of that mattered for now. Because this was it. They may have taken the long route and been thrown off course multiple times, but they had finally made it here.

It was a thought that seemed to occur to them simultaneously as they rushed forwards, closing the gap within several feet. Arms circled each other in a tight embrace, and lips fused together until they were forced to pull apart to catch their breaths.

“Nice hat, cowboy,” Javier teased, the brim of it jutting against him as he peppered kisses across Horacio’s nose and cheeks.

“You can borrow it if you want. What’s mine is yours, remember.” Horacio made to take it off, but Javier batted his hand away.

“Uh-uh, keep it on. It suits you.”

Their lips met again, reacquainting themselves with each other’s taste and scent as they clung together like they were one another’s life raft. And in so many ways, they were.

They soon moved to the back of the truck, which Javier had parked closer to the row of trees skirting the ranch boundary with the river bank beyond. They weren’t expecting anyone to come by this way, but it gave them extra privacy, just in case.

Not that they had got any further than wrapping themselves around each other, fully clothed, whilst resuming the kisses from earlier. There was a luxury in taking their time, savouring the rush each swipe of a tongue or gentle nip gave them after so long with no physical contact.

“Fuck, I’ve missed this,” Javier murmured against Horacio’s mouth once they had simmered down.

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.” Javier pressed his forehead to Horacio’s and let himself breathe, slow and steady. “I should never have fucking left.”

Horacio hushed him, fingers stroking through his hair. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

Javier leaned into Horacio’s touch with a contented purr, the breeze a mere whisp in their hair every now and then and the trees above providing just enough shade. Neither spoke much, the silence comfortable and almost meditative. The perfect sleeping conditions, Javier thought as his muscles relaxed one by one. It was only now he noticed just how tight and sore they were. No wonder he had fallen victim to so many tension headaches.

The adrenaline that was vital to his survival back in Colombia had gradually drained away from his body, leaving behind a weary, aching shell. He curled closer against Horacio’s chest, arms encasing him and a soothing rhythm he never took for granted pulsing in his ear. Steady, grounding, home.

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

Somewhere between Javier's dozing and waking, the light had faded, and the temperature had dropped, leaving behind a clear sky and a sea of stars. He hadn't meant to fall asleep for so long, but it was the first time in months he felt safe enough to let his guard down. And Horacio made the perfect pillow, apparently.

Horacio, meanwhile, had stayed awake, cradling Javier’s head against him, his fingers caressing unruly strands of hair. Perhaps it was Luna’s influence, but he saw it as his duty to keep watch over Javier, to reassure him the danger was over. To let his body and mind rest. Horacio might not have been able to protect Javier from whatever nightmare had unfolded in his absence, but he was here now.

It probably wasn’t as late as it seemed. But light pollution away from civilisation was scarce, giving the illusion it could be the dead of night any time after sunset. It was enough to lull Luna asleep across the front seats after Javier fed her the leftovers he had pilfered from the farmhouse fridge.

Whilst Horacio checked on her, he noticed a familiar item on the passenger seat next to Javier’s travel bag. “Handy this just happened to be in here.” He held up the offending item, knowing full well it was the same blanket Chucho had draped over him in the farmhouse.

“I don’t know what you’re insinuating.”

“Well, driving out here with the means to keep warm suggests premeditation.” Horacio dusted off his most convincing authoritative tone but still had to fight the curl of his lips when he caught Javier’s eye.

“I can think of better ways to keep warm, to be honest.” Javier nuzzled himself against Horacio’s neck as they lay back down, now nestled beneath the blanket.

Horacio chased the scrape of Javier’s moustache, shuddering at the contact despite the extra layer of warmth they shared. “Shouldn’t we be heading back for dinner soon?”

“I don’t think Pops was expecting to see us for a while. He was gonna leave us some enchiladas to reheat.”

“Oh, well, in that case…” Horacio shifted to face Javier, their lips and limbs drawn together like magnets. Not urgent, yet fervid and thorough, like they were making up for lost time. So much time wasted when they should have been doing this.

Zips and buckles clinked under the blanket whilst shirts were shed above it, their breaths fogging fleetingly in the space between them now that the air was brisk.

As Javier rolled onto his back, Horacio followed, landing on top of him. However, the burst of movement made Javier wince before he scrabbled beneath him to locate the source of discomfort.

His hand re-emerged, holding his police badge like a loaded grenade. “I signed my gun back in on my last day, but I was supposed to give this to Messina. Never got the chance with everything else going on.” He ran his thumb over the blue and gold lettering, stifling a cynical laugh at how the word justice had lost all meaning. “I’ll post it back to DC tomorrow.”

“If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

“Aren’t you gonna ask why I did it?”

“Did what?”

There was no holding a scoff back this time. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Horacio hadn’t expected this conversation to come so soon, assuming Javier wouldn’t want to talk about it. And Horacio wasn’t going to ask. But he slid off Javier, retrieving his jeans from the side of the truck where they had landed by chance. He didn’t put them back on but searched through the pockets until he found what he was looking for.

He wasn’t such a heavy smoker these days, but when it was just the two of them like this, it wasn’t a habit to be broken but an intimate ritual to uphold.

They slotted back under the blanket now that they were undressed and exposed to the elements. Javier accepted both the cigarette and the light Horacio held out for him. He took a much-needed drag and closed his eyes as he exhaled, his last smoke at the airport whilst waiting for a taxi a distant memory now.

They passed the cigarette back and forth several times until Horacio broke the silence. “If I had a good reason or something to lose, it’s what I would have done too. But…Javier, you really don’t have to do this now.”

“I know, but I want to. I think I need to.”

Horacio caught the pleading look in Javier’s eye, but it wasn’t just that. There was something else there, something he had seen flashes of before. The last time was here the previous Christmas, in the hay barn and by the fireplace. The first time, or at least the first time he noticed, was in Javier’s apartment the night Horacio returned from Madrid.

Horacio raised himself on his left elbow whilst his right hand stroked along Javier’s chilled skin.

“Did you ever meet Bill Stechner?”

Horacio expelled a sharp sneer, sending a trail of vapour up into the sky. “Unfortunately. Back in my SOA days in Panama and Fort Benning. When he was known as Mr Green. He was mostly an instructor for the Nicaraguan students. But he never missed a chance to lecture everyone on his favourite subject.”

He rolled his eyes at the memories of being stuck in a stuffy box of a room listening to Stechner drone on about the Cuban revolution. And that it was a civic duty to weed out communists at every turn.

“I bet that was…enlightening.”

This wasn’t the first time they had discussed their parallel histories involving the School of the Americas. In fact, it was one of their earliest icebreakers when Javier arrived in Colombia. Horacio attended multiple training courses courtesy of the SOA, at home and overseas. However, his path never crossed with Javier, who was required to complete the counternarcotics courses when he took the DEA transfer several years later.

During one of their first shared stakeouts, they talked of how they were looked down upon by the all-American soldiers for being police rather than military, and for being bilingual. They talked about how many of the classes were little more than propaganda and an excuse to further imperialism. A view that Horacio hadn’t expected from the latest gringo recruit to be thrown his way.

But then Javier always was an anomaly. Never in a million years did Horacio expect a DEA agent to become the most trustworthy person in his life. Let alone that it would be a longstanding friend and colleague who would be the one to betray him instead.

“Oh, it was.” The sarcasm dripped thickly off Horacio’s words, as he realised that the only real upside to the experience was the connections it gave him to senior members of the Colombian military. A relationship that would later come in handy both professionally and personally. “Why do you ask, anyway?”

Javier worked his jaw back and forth, gearing up for what was about to come. He took one last drag on their cigarette and explained everything. Even when his instincts told him to leave details out, he ignored his mind’s protest and continued anyway. Whilst Tolú was akin to a confession being extracted from him under duress, this was unprompted, freeing, purging.

Horacio said very little as he listened, the tension mounting in his jaw and the tightness gripping his chest more ferociously with each detail Javier revealed. Despite their surroundings, heat rose from his cheeks to his forehead and behind his pupils. A dense pressure hammered into his skull, threatening to overwhelm him if he gave it the release it was looking for. “I should have been there. I should have stopped those fuckers.” He closed his eyes to quell the sting, his voice shaking even as he attempted to tether it.

“Hey, come on.” Javier took hold of Horacio’s hand and gently squeezed. “There’s nothing you could’ve done that wouldn’t have got you killed. Or court-martialled.”

Not strictly true, Horacio thought. If he had been there and just happened to end up alone with Stechner, they could have gone for one of those helicopter rides Stechner was overly keen to promote. The ones used to intimidate captives that were usually one-way trips, unlike Gato, who had finally broken the pattern. But Horacio was confident he could make an exception for Stechner in the circumstances, so maybe it was for the best he wasn’t there after all. Although he made a mental note to buy Steve a drink – or several – the next time he saw him.

“I know,” Horacio conceded in the end. “I just hate to think of you dealing with it alone.”

“No chance with Steve and Trujillo around. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Someone needs to take care of you.” Easy banter was intended, but the rawness of Horacio’s voice and the delicate way he kissed Javier’s hand as though it was made of glass told another story.

Javier instinctively brushed his thumb over Horacio’s lips, allowing Horacio to capture it. “I know I should’ve told you everything. I’m sorry I shut you out whenever I called. I’m so sorry for all of this.”

Horacio hushed against Javier’s thumb. “Stop, it’s okay.” Another kiss, another brush of Javier’s thumb catching on Horacio’s bottom lip, followed by a more thorough kiss. “I know. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay. You deserved the truth then. And…you deserve it now.” Javier withdrew his thumb and moved closer until they lay face to face, nose to nose and heart to heart.

Javier wanted to do this as soon as he got here, but he couldn’t whilst he was still so clandestine. Whilst he was still carrying so much baggage. But as he had laid everything out in the open now, there was no reason to keep it in any longer.

He took a deep breath, his palm cupping Horacio’s cheek. “I love you. So fucking much, Horacio.” He moored his forehead against Horacio's, eyes closed to halt the glassy sheen misting his pupils. But it was no use. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t say it sooner.”

Horacio caught the hitch in Javier’s breath, and attempts to swallow the lump in his throat were fruitless. “Better late than never,” he managed to get out eventually with a choked-up laugh that Javier matched. “I love you too, Javier. More than anything or anyone.”

It didn’t matter that the temperature had dropped further or that their clothes were tossed in all directions. The heat between them swelled and burned fiercely in their chests, spreading like molten lava through their limbs, all the way to their fingers and toes. A heat that had endured and grown over the years, shifting and transforming in ways they could never have expected. A heat that cut straight to the core, breaking them open and laying them bare. Forcing them to surrender, to sacrifice their mission rather than their lives, to give it all up for each other.

Horacio resumed his place atop Javier, once he had retrieved the strategically placed lube from the travel bag on the front seat.

“You really did think of everything, didn’t you?” Horacio rasped, his hand wrapped around their lengths whilst Javier’s slicked fingers probed and stretched in return.

“I wasn’t waiting ‘til we got back to the guesthouse.”

“And yet we’ve been here for hours.”

Javier added an extra finger and was met with the quivering gasp he was looking for. “Just think of it as extended foreplay.”

“So, you were trying to seduce me, then?”

“Like I need to try.”

Horacio kept his fist around them, swapping steady strokes for shallow, teasing thrusts. “Tell me what you do need, Javier.”

For several glorious seconds, Javier’s only response was to arch his back and make the most of any friction he could get. But it wasn’t enough. Not even close. “I need you to fuck me ‘til I can’t think straight.”

With that, Horacio re-adjusted, sinking down inch by inch and groan by groan. There he held still, basking in being filled with a throbbing heat and feeling Javier’s shaky breaths beneath him.

Javier’s hands shot up to Horacio’s hips, but Horacio lifted them back and above Javier’s head, pinning him against the truck in one fell swoop. And still, he didn’t move up or down or from side to side; he simply anchored Javier in place.

Time slowed to an agonising pace for Javier as the release they both needed was within touching distance. So near, yet so far as he was balanced on the precipice. It was so close he could taste it on Horacio’s lips and fevered skin. He could smell it in the warm breath they shared and the lingering scent of Horacio’s aftershave mixed with fresh grass. But the longer this went on, the less patience he had. He wanted to chase it, run to it, let it consume and devour him, allow his mind to be reduced to a blank slate.

But he couldn’t. Each time he attempted to buck his hips upwards, the muscle in Horacio’s thighs responded and secured Javier down even tighter. The fingers laced between his own gripped harder, their palms fused together, one indistinguishable from the other.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you. Just let go.”

Javier didn’t know if it was the words themselves or the man whispering them into the crook of his neck between scattered kisses. But it was the vocal permission he needed. The catalyst to still his hips and allow the fight to go out of his hands and arms.

With each passing second, Javier was rewarded with Horacio clenching and unclenching around his cock in almost imperceptible spasms. It was just enough to light the fire in Javier’s belly, the flames licking enticingly at his synapses before they were gone again.

It was the most exquisite agony Javier had ever experienced, and the urge to rebel bubbled under the surface of his skin. But he resisted. He didn’t want to disappoint Horacio. He needed Horacio to know he trusted him to the hilt. That he gave Horacio permission to take control. That he wanted him to.

No sooner had Horacio squeezed around Javier than he stopped once more, gauging when to ease off from the speed of Javier’s breathing. Or the way his bottom lip pouted as a sigh or a moan rumbled up from his throat. And sometimes, not moving was for Horacio's own benefit, the sight of Javier so pliant and at his mercy too tempting to resist.

“You’re beautiful like this,” Horacio praised as he leaned forwards. He captured Javier’s mouth, the change in angle causing sudden movement that had them swallowing each other’s whines.

Javier was torn between lapping up Horacio’s words of affirmation and needing him closer in any way possible; he didn’t care how. Before he could stop himself, he pushed upwards, breaking free of Horacio’s hold, but only to bring him into his lap. He was expecting some resistance, but Horacio went willingly, seemingly sharing the same visceral need for more skin-on-skin contact.

With cool metal pressed between their chests, they gripped at each other’s backs and shoulders for balance, Horacio’s legs wrapped around Javier and their foreheads connected.

It could have been minutes or hours they held each other, Horacio bringing them to the edge and back again and again. And Javier let him, never once bucking upwards or pleading for more. Trusting Horacio to give him what he needed, to take care of him and relieve the burden of all decisions and actions.

Javier’s hands mapped Horacio’s bare skin, noticing the extra muscle in his arms gifted to him this past year on the ranch. His fingers paused over Horacio’s right shoulder, skirting over the blemished scar and down to the centre of his chest. Javier held his palm in place until he felt a rhythmic thrum dancing in time with his own pulse.

In return, Horacio brought one hand to Javier’s chest, clutching at the chain around his neck, needing to feel the defined edges of the cross to ground himself. To remind him that this was real and not another vivid dream he would wake from to find he was alone.

“I want you to keep it,” Horacio whispered, the fragile timbre of his voice cutting through the laboured breaths he was trying to keep in check.

“What? But you said—”

“It’s yours, Javier.” I’m yours. “It was always yours.” I was always yours.

No words could form on Javier’s tongue. A small part of him still wanted to protest that he didn’t deserve it. That it had too much sentimental value to Horacio and that Horacio’s father would disapprove from beyond the grave. But those irrational doubts were overridden by the knowledge that this wasn’t just Horacio giving him a family heirloom. He was giving him his heart, a gift not easily or carelessly given where Horacio was concerned. So, Javier did the only thing he could; he accepted it.

His mouth covered any part of Horacio he could reach. It was his way of saying thank you, I accept, and I’m yours in return. A message received loud and clear by Horacio.

Their faces nudged against each other, lips, noses and chins scraping over coarse bristles, their wanton panting signifying it couldn’t last much longer.

But instead of increasing his motion, Horacio completely stilled. He kept them clasped as close together as possible, his length bobbing against Javier’s abdomen in sync with their breaths. The concept of time had no meaning; all they knew was the heat of each other, the simple logic of their bodies joining as one after too much time being forced apart.

Javier’s head lolled back, overwhelmed by the intensity and novelty of being surrounded so thoroughly by Horacio. His eyelids fluttered open as he looked to the heavens above. Maybe he was delirious, but the night sky had never looked brighter in all the years he had gazed up at it. It was as though he was seeing it for the first time again, only now with new clarity. A long overdue acceptance. A realisation that it wasn’t his to command and never had been. That his present and future weren’t written in the stars, but they were right here, in front of him. On top of him, under his skin, in his heart and soul, and on the verge of ecstasy.

With heads resting together and fingernails sunk into flesh, their intertwined form spasmed and trembled. Relentless torrents of white-hot pleasure surged through every nerve ending in their bodies until they almost blacked out. A release that wasn't just needed now, or even for the last year, but far beyond that. One they feared to even dream of in case they tempted fate or pushed their luck. But now it really was over. And they were safe, together, home.

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

Sunlight was beginning to creep in through the gaps in the curtains when they stirred, slow and feline movements beneath the covers where they lay tangled.

Neither wanted to be the first to break the spell but nature called, and Javier unravelled himself from Horacio with a grumble.

Horacio watched Javier make his way to the bathroom with a hand cradling the base of his neck. His head tilted from side to side to shake out years, if not decades, of knots and tension.

Once Javier returned, he continued to stretch his arms and neck with a grimace.

“Did I injure you last night?”

“No, it’s been like this for months. Although…last night probably didn’t help.”

“Well, I’m not sorry about that.”

Javier climbed back into bed and hovered just above Horacio’s lips. “Neither am I.” The gap was closed as they shared a kiss as unhurried and lazy as their morning.

“I can help now, though.”

“Oh yeah? How’s that, then?”

“Lie on your front, and I’ll show you.”

That was a proposition Javier couldn’t refuse, so he shuffled onto his stomach, his arms wrapped around the pillow his head rested on.

Horacio took his turn in the bathroom and came back with a bottle in his hand.

Javier tried to read the label, but it was no use from this angle. The mattress dipped behind him, and he was greeted with warm thighs braced on either side of his body.

The lid from the mysterious bottle unscrewed. “This might feel a little cold at first.”

As the oil drizzled across Javier’s back, he tensed at the icy contact. “No fucking kidding.”

Horacio leaned forwards for a second and smirked against Javier’s neck. “Just lay back and relax. I’ve got you.” Much like the night before, his words glided into Javier’s ear with a smoothness that matched his ministrations.

The sweet scent of almonds drifted through the bedroom, filling Javier’s senses and encouraging him to close his eyes. “Where did you get this stuff anyway?”

“I was running some errands in town yesterday. Thought you might need this when you got back.”

“So, I guess I’m not the only one who thought of everything.”

Javier lay his head on the pillow and let Horacio work in silence, bar the odd contented hum or sigh as thumbs pressed deeper and circled over trigger points. The more Horacio worked, the looser and lighter Javier’s body became, his lips gently parting as his jaw muscles finally took a break. He tended to forget just how much tension he carried there, the ache suddenly palpable as he unclenched his teeth and relaxed his face into the pillow.

By the time Horacio was finished, Javier was boneless yet sore. But he could rotate his neck further than he had been able to in a while, and the dull throb that had become a permanent fixture at his temples was no more.

Somewhere in his blissed-out state, Javier was manoeuvred into the shower. The heat gradually eased his aches and pains as Horacio washed away the massage oil with deft, soapy hands.

Horacio's thoughts floated to the aftermath of Diana Turbay and their first weekend together after Madrid. He felt compelled to replicate the level of care Javier took of him, not to erase what had happened because what was done was done. But as an expression of gratitude for the lengths Javier was prepared to go to. To protect Horacio. To protect them. It was an acknowledgement that Javier was just as prepared to walk away from his duties as Horacio if the price was too high. If the price was each other.

Once the soap was rinsed off, Horacio’s caretaking didn’t stop there. This time, he was on his knees, with Javier’s arms braced against the cool tiles and his ass cupped in Horacio’s hands. He worshipped ravenously with his mouth, tongue, and fingers, squeezing Javier’s cheeks further apart each time Javier whimpered, squirmed, or backed up against him. He didn’t care about the deluge of water cascading down on him; the only goal Javier’s pleasure, which he chased further by turning Javier around.

Fingers pulled and gripped wet strands of hair as Horacio mouthed at the sensitive flesh of Javier's inner thighs, burying his nose in dark curls, feasting with aplomb. As though this was his real mission and what he was put on earth to do. And Javier took it all eagerly.

It was over too soon, Horacio swallowing all Javier had to give until his writhing ceased, any remnants of tension ebbing away like an outgoing tide. The warmth of the water was replaced by the warmth of shared body heat and soft towels, by breakfast in bed and the luxury of time.

When they finally emerged from the guesthouse later that morning, Javier borrowed Chucho's typewriter. He drafted and re-drafted his resignation letter several times before slotting it into a manila envelope along with his badge. He drove downtown to the nearest post office, needing it gone now his mind was made up. Now there was no going back.

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

It was two days into December when the news came. Javier and Horacio were lounging on the porch swing at the back of the guesthouse when Chucho’s voice called across the courtyard. There was a phone call for them.

“Steve?”

“It’s over, Javi. He’s dead.”

Even though Javier heard and understood Steve’s words perfectly, it was as though he was processing them on a delay. He held the receiver against his forehead as he took a much-needed deep breath.

Arms slotted around him from behind, followed by a chin resting on his shoulder and warm breath skimming across his neck. The chest now pressed against him heaved a sigh of relief so hard it reverberated through Javier's body.

“Javi, can you still hear me?”

Javier’s free hand gripped Horacio’s as he brought the receiver back up to his ear. “Yeah, sorry. Loud and clear. Thanks for calling. You okay?”

“Me? Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” The exhaustion was evident in Steve’s voice, and Javier could tell he was distracted by whatever chaos was happening around him. “Shit’s just been crazy lately. I don’t know what fuckin’ day it even is, to be honest.”

“So, business as usual, then.”

“Well, what d’you expect when my partner runs off into the sunset?”

“Sorry about that.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Wish you coulda been here though, Javi.”

Javier took longer than usual to swallow and had to clear his throat before he was able to respond. “I know, man. Me too.”

“Listen, I gotta head back to start packing. There’s an early flight to Miami tomorrow morning I’m hoping to make, but we’ll talk properly soon. Before I go, though…put Carrillo on a sec.”

Javier passed the phone behind him, shrugging his shoulders in response to Horacio’s quizzical look.

“Colonel?”

“Trujillo?”

“I got a shot, Colonel. And I took it.”

Now it was Horacio’s turn to compose himself, his hand grasping at Javier’s even harder than it already was. “Never in doubt.” He hoped Trujillo could hear his smile down the line, even if he couldn’t see it. “You did Colombia proud, Trujillo. Never forget that.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you, Colonel. So, thank you. For everything.”

“And thank you for doing what the rest of us couldn’t.”

It was jarring for Horacio to be addressed by his rank again. Almost like someone calling him by the wrong name, despite the fact he’d worn that one with pride for a long time. But a title was just that; he knew it deep down, even though he would probably have to keep reminding himself for a while.

Their conversation was brief, with few words necessary and even fewer words able to convey how they felt after all these years. It was far easier to joke about the drink Horacio definitely owed Trujillo now.

Once Trujillo and Steve said their goodbyes and the phone was placed back in its cradle, they tightened their embrace but didn’t move, silently letting the news work its way through their bodies. It was as though someone had twisted a pressure valve in their heads that had been locked for years, triggering a chain reaction that left them dizzy and needing to sit down again. 

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

They returned to the porch swing, Horacio reclining against Javier’s chest as they celebrated with a small glass of one of Chucho’s most expensive whiskeys. Not only was the whiskey Chucho’s suggestion, he already had measures poured for them by the time they got off the phone.

“I knew he could do it.”

“If it wasn’t gonna be you, it was gonna be Trujillo.”

“I’m glad it was him. He’s got his whole career ahead of him. He can do whatever he wants now.”

“So can we, Horacio.”

“I think it’s more a case of us knowing what we don’t want.”

Javier huffed and tilted his head. “True. But it’s a start. I know I want to sit here with you until the sun goes down. I know I want to have a nice dinner and fuck your brains out tonight.” He nibbled playfully at Horacio’s neck until Horacio leaned further back with a suggestive grunt of approval at Javier’s plans. “I know I want to spend Christmas here again.”

“And then what?”

“Haven’t thought further ahead than that, to be honest.”

“Do you want to stay here in the long term?”

“I…don’t know. Pops isn’t getting any younger. Although, don’t tell him I said that. But I don’t think he’s done with this place yet. You seem to have taken to ranch life, by the way. Better than I ever did. I think you might be Pops’ favourite now.”

Horacio rolled his eyes and scooted his foot along the floor in retaliation to Javier’s teasing, causing the swing to lightly sway. “It wasn’t so bad. It was good to keep busy and feel useful again. To have a routine. Maybe one day, if you were serious about sticking around here.”

“People would talk. About us.”

“I’ve lived here for a year, Javier. I’m sure they already talk.”

“True. Everyone knows everyone around here. It’s one of the reasons I left in the first place. I know we’ll have to face the music one day, but…not yet.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to face Colombia yet, either.”

“Won’t the CNP expect to hear from you soon?”

“Yes. Protocol dictates I’d have to attend a medical review to rule whether I’m fit to return to duty. But that won’t be necessary.”

Taking a leaf out of Javier’s book, Horacio already had his resignation letter drafted, including a request for compensation for an injury sustained in the line of duty. He had approved plenty of similar requests from his men, so he knew the drill and was confident his claim would be successful.

“What about your family back home? Won’t they want to see you?”

“Eventually. I know I can’t avoid them forever.” Or avoid telling them about Javier, more like. “I just need some time first. Even if it’s only a few months. Or a year, I don’t know. I don’t care as long as it’s just you and me. No offence to your father.”

“None taken. He gives us our space, but I know it’s not the same. I want it to just be us for a while too.” Javier tilted Horacio’s chin upwards and kissed him, slow and tender.

Horacio responded in kind, temporarily distracted from what he planned to say next. He licked his lips; to steel himself and savour the heady combination of Javier and whiskey. "When I was in Madrid, I imagined us living there one day."

“Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

“Maybe. But only if it was something you wanted too.”

Javier looked out across the plains, vivid memories of his late-night conversation with Steve sitting on the same porch swing springing to mind.

“I was always so desperate to get out of Laredo. Thought leaving was the answer to all my problems. But running away just created new ones instead.”

“Tell me about it.”

Javier realised he’d put his foot in it too late. “Shit, sorry. And hey, come on, that was different, and you know it. No one was trying to kill me when I left here. Well, Lorraine probably wanted to for a while.”

“No, it’s fine. But although it felt like running away to me, like I was letting people down, like I was a coward…” Horacio trailed off, caught unawares by the traces of self-flagellation that remained. “I knew I had to do it. Maybe you need to do this too. Maybe it’s what we both need.”

“It wouldn’t always be like this.”

“Like what?”

“Us being like…this. We’ve only shared the guesthouse for a few weeks at a time. We didn’t live together in Colombia. It’d be a big step.”

“Yes, it would. But it wouldn’t be until next year. And Madrid wouldn’t have to be forever, either.”

“Never said it was a bad thing.” Javier’s eyes locked onto Horacio’s as palm met cheek. “I want to build a home with you, Horacio. Wherever that happens to be. My future is your future.”

Their lips met again, Horacio’s hand finding its way into Javier’s hair as they sunk into it, only pulling apart when necessary.

“Madrid it is, then?”

“Madrid it is.”

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

The days following Escobar’s death were something of a blur. If they switched the TV or radio on or picked up a newspaper, there was one story. Funnily enough, neither Javier nor Horacio required a blow-by-blow account of any of it. People Chucho hadn’t heard from in years suddenly called or conveniently stopped by the ranch. A couple of plucky journalists attempted the same tactic but got no further than the front gate.

One of the journalists had got wind of Judy Moncada’s 15 minutes of fame in the Miami Herald and wanted Javier to go on record. The article was published a few days after Javier left Colombia; however, it took longer to appear in the Laredo press. Luckily for Javier, his local ‘hero’ status meant few people bought it. Judy was nothing more than a desperate, washed-up criminal in their eyes. But there was a strange, conflicted part of Javier that would always be grateful to her despite everything.

Phone calls to Miami and Medellín revealed Steve and Trujillo had similar weeks. Not only did Steve have to answer questions about Escobar’s final moments, but he also had to defend his former partner. And fend off accusations from less respectable publications that he was in on it all too.

Meanwhile, Trujillo was Colombia’s new hero. He already had an offer of a promotion from Captain to Major bestowed upon him, which had Horacio smiling into the receiver again when he heard the news.

The only escape they had from the media circus was getting stuck into the jobs that needed doing on the ranch. Which was business as usual from Horacio’s point of view, but it was more of an adjustment for Javier.

But he figured he should at least try, which was why he found himself up to his eyes in paperwork alongside Chucho.

They sat at the kitchen table surrounded by neat piles of forms and invoices, stacks of files and bookkeeping records. To an outsider, it might have looked like disorganised chaos. But Chucho had been doing this for so long, and he knew where every scrap of paper and figure was recorded should he ever need to refer to them. The trouble was, Javier didn’t.

He had been leafing through a folder full of livestock inventories for the last 10 minutes, unable to find the previous month’s figures and rapidly losing patience. “You do know you can employ someone to do all of this for you.”

“I do. But even Miguel is allowed time off. Plus, I like to keep an eye on everything each month. It comes with the territory when you own a business. And I’d have thought you’d be used to boring paperwork by now.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I am," Javier mumbled as he searched through the folder until Chucho put him out of his misery, locating the missing inventory in less than a minute.

“Let’s get you some more coffee.” Chucho got up to pour two fresh cups but kept his gaze on Javier. His son seemed to be lingering even when he wasn’t being particularly helpful and would clearly rather be doing anything other than this. Which usually meant only one thing.

"Thanks." Javier accepted his refreshed cup and took a long sip to try and stimulate his senses.

“So, Madrid.” There was no point beating around the bush any longer. And there was only so much of Javier in this mood Chucho could take.

“Erm yeah. Well, in the New Year, anyway. It’s not a permanent arrangement, but we both need a change of scenery. And Horacio liked living there, so…”

“You don’t need to ask for my permission or approval, Mijo.”

“I wasn’t.” Except that’s exactly what he was doing, and of course, his dad could see right through him. “It’s just…I, er, didn’t know if you wanted us to stick around. For the ranch, I mean.”

Just as Chucho had suspected, then. “You and Horacio will always have a home here, but I don’t expect you to stay put all your lives. You’ve closed the book on a painful chapter now that monster is dead. You need to give yourselves time to heal and open a new one together. In peace, out of the spotlight and the media’s glare. And on neutral ground. Pass me the rest of those.”

Chucho gestured casually towards the remaining files piled on the table as if he hadn’t just imparted the exact words of wisdom Javier needed to hear.

Javier transferred the files across the table, a question now burning on the tip of his tongue. One he hadn’t dared to ask until now. “So, did you see that article?”

“Yes, I saw it. Didn’t think much of it, though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only you know the truth about what happened over there, but I know the truth about you, Mijo. Even when you think I don’t.”

“It wasn’t all lies, Dad. It didn’t go down like that, but…it still happened and I was involved.”

“I’m sure you were, but it wasn’t the presence of lies I was talking about. It was the absence of truth. Your truth. And when it comes to protecting the ones you love, it might not be easy or free of consequence, but it’s the simplest choice of all. And you made it.”

It was the second time in the last year that Javier’s vision had blurred whilst in this kitchen, thanks to his father, although he fought back the tears more effectively this time. Just. How his Pops always had the right words up his sleeve when Javier was so often monosyllabic, he had no clue. Maybe it was something that would come to him in old age.

“I know I’m not as young as I once was,” Chucho continued, almost like he had heard Javier’s last thought, “but I’m not done with this place just yet. And it’ll still be here waiting when that day does come. I know you’ve never taken your share, but—”

“Pops, no. I’m not taking it.”

“I’ve always set the money aside for you in case you changed your mind.” Chucho finished his sentence, ignoring Javier’s usual protest. And he wasn’t going to stop there, either. “It would give you chance to get back on your feet. Take your time to figure out what you both want. Just think about it, Javi. That’s all I ask.”

Javier had never liked taking money from his father. Not least because the medical bills had already done enough of that in his Mamá’s last few months. As soon as he received his first police paycheck, he insisted Chucho kept everything from the ranch.

But as his attention left the paperwork and fell on the view of the guesthouse through the kitchen window, even Javier had to admit it would be stupid not to re-consider.

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

In the first few weeks after Javier’s return, he and Horacio established a nocturnal routine in which they were both awake at an ungodly hour. Sometimes it was bad dreams rearing their heads again. Often, it was Javier being unable to sleep and his absence from the bed disturbing Horacio.

This time, however, it was Javier’s turn to wake alone in the darkness, blinking several times to clear the sleep from his eyes. He assumed Horacio was in the living room or kitchen. But as he adjusted to his surroundings, pale moonlight cast a silhouette at the foot of the bed.

“What’re you doing?” Javier croaked, his voice still thick with slumber. Although as he sat up, Horacio’s outline became sharper.

Horacio was kneeling on the floor, hands clasped together on the bed, and his head bowed. Until now, that was. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I haven’t seen you do that in years.” There was no judgement in Javier’s tone; it was merely a statement of fact. Now that he thought about it, the last time he had witnessed Horacio praying was in Cartagena.

“I stopped for a while; I don’t know why, really.”

“What made you start again?”

Horacio expelled a light huff. “Your father, actually.”

“Pops?” Now, Javier was intrigued, and he sat up further to give Horacio his full attention.

“He showed me the box for your mother’s altar. She was beautiful.”

“She was.” A hoarse, strained sound came out of Javier’s mouth, strangely caught off guard by his own emotions even after all this time.

“We had a home altar when I was growing up, but that was for prayer and worship. It wasn’t specifically about remembering my father. Looking back, we didn’t talk about him much at all. We all grieved in secret. I used to wait until no one was around to look through photo albums. Or sneak into my parents’ room to see my Papá’s uniform. My Mamá left it hung up for about a year.”

He didn’t like to touch it too much, not wanting to dilute any traces of his father still left on the fabric. But over time, he couldn’t help but notice it smelt more like his Mamá’s perfume than anything else.

“Pops builds an ofrenda every Día de Muertos, but he used to keep it up for weeks. Just in case he’d say because she was always running late.” He snorted, thinking about how typical it was that of all the traits he could have inherited, it had to be that one. “How was he this year?”

“Quiet. He visited the cemetery but said he was getting too old for big crowds.” Although Horacio suspected it was Chucho’s kind way of allowing him to avoid being left alone on the ranch for the best part of two days and nights. Or alternatively, being eaten alive by gossip mongers without Javier there to deflect any of the attention.

Still, Horacio was lucky enough to catch glimpses of the local festivities whilst running errands on Chucho’s behalf. It was the least he could do, given his suspicions. Downtown Laredo was adorned with decorations of every colour, and Horacio had never seen it so busy. Rows of papel picado were hung across streets bustling with preparations. Food stalls stood alongside artists offering prints and calavera face painting. Florists sold marigolds with queues around the block, and bakers tempted passers-by with pan de muerto fresh from the oven. If circumstances had been different, he would have happily stuck around for the full celebrations.

“But he cooked the same amount of food as last Christmas, so that kept the ranch staff and your neighbours fed for the week.”

“Sounds about right. Did he get the buñuelos?”

“Of course.”

“They are fucking good, to be fair. I loved that diner when I was a kid. We drove passed it on the way from San Antonio when you first got here. Haven’t been for years.”

“You looked happy in the photo taken there.”

“I was. We were.”

“I saw your father praying in front of it, on the ofrenda. That night I prayed too. To be closer to Papá, I suppose, I don’t know. I’ve been dreaming about him for months, almost like the dreams were telling me to reconnect somehow.”

“Makes sense. Does it help?”

“It’s early days, but I think so. It helped when you weren’t here. When I didn’t know if you were safe or…”

“When you were in Madrid, just after the attacks on the CNP, I knelt with Trujillo and…I prayed with him. For him, for them, for your return. And when I was on my way to 9th Street, and I didn’t know if you’d – if you were –” He cut himself off to swallow down the lump resting at the base of his throat. “I hadn’t prayed since I was a kid. Too many bad memories and so much fucking shame everywhere. I was already drowning in enough of that. Didn’t need any more. But for you…it just felt…right.”

Horacio looked up at Javier, cursing the gloom of the bedroom but knowing without it, he might not have heard that confession in the first place.

It wasn’t enough, though, and he rose off his knees to climb across the bed, but Javier was already moving to the floor.

They met next to the bed, the rug cushioning their knees as Horacio cupped Javier’s face and brought their lips together.

Javier caught their palms between their chests, enveloping Horacio's fingers with his own. Their gaze landed on their linked hands and travelled upwards until chestnut met charcoal, the moonlight reflecting a new, unspoken question across their pupils.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Javier let go for a second and lifted his hands to the nape of his neck, lowering the chain he often slept in. He re-fastened the clasp before placing his hands back where they were, only this time, the silver chain and cross were secured between them.

Now they were on their knees, streaks of light illuminated their forms, and they could see each other more clearly. Their breathing was uneven, the nervous energy between them undeniable as they took another first step together.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Javier confessed in a low whisper.

“It’s okay. Try some deep breaths first.” Leading by example, Horacio drew several slow inhales and exhales, and Javier followed suit. “And try clear your mind. Let it go wherever it takes you. I’ve got you.”

Javier couldn’t pretend he was a natural. And it took a few attempts to stop his mind from wandering or feeling waves of self-consciousness lapping at his feet, but after several minutes, it was as though a fog had cleared.

With their eyes closed and heads bowed, foreheads touching, they gave themselves over to a different higher power. Taking comfort and guidance in each other, in the memories of those they had loved and lost. They reclaimed a ritual steeped in guilt, shame, and sin for too many years. A ritual that had encouraged them to beg for forgiveness where it wasn’t required. No longer seeking absolution, their union was a sacrament of its own. They each other’s church, the cross a symbol of their commitment and devotion.

Their lips met in a silent amen, their hands now free to worship bare skin with praise and reverence as though they were praying the Rosary. Javier’s mouth kissed over fading scar tissue; he the priest and Horacio the altar. Each cry of pleasure was a hymn or psalm only they knew, their bodies the bread and their blood the wine as they found sanctuary in their shared embrace. Taking communion afterwards as a nicotine flame passed between them. One sacred act followed by another until they fell asleep, still recovering and healing from all that had gone before, but more at peace than they had been in years.

#Narcos fic #Narcos #Javier Peña #Horacio Carrillo #Carrillo #Javier Peña x Horacio Carrillo #Pedro Pascal #Maurice Compte #Narcos fanfic #Narcos fanfiction #Narcos fan fic #My Fan Fic #My Narcos Fic

[disastardly]

characters out of context game

Rules:

Include one character quote — of your choosing ⁠— from each chapter of your WIP (or as many chapters as you'd like)

Give absolutely no context, save for what's between two parts of an interrupted sentence, should that occur. You may mention who said it.

Have fun, no pressure!

@eriquin​ tagged me, thank you!!

Gonna do Emergence just because that’s the only WIP I’ve got right now with more than one chapter remotely written, haha. Buckle up, it’s a long’n, so it’s going under the break.

Chapter 1:

The apprentice added, voice squeaking, “What does this mean?”

Chapter 2:

“It’s all the magic,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Totally interrupts typical radio waves.”

Chapter 3:

“Good luck with your war.”

Chapter 4:

“Can you hear them too? The trees?”

Chapter 5: 

“So what are you gonna do now, knowing what’s out there?”

Chapter 6:

“So I guess you see us in that future, huh?”

Chapter 7:

“Nick, jesus, did you forget how keys work?”

Chapter 8:

“No comments on my skanking, got enough of that in middle school.”

Chapter 9:

"Listen, I'm not saying plants aren't great. Love the stuff. Can't get enough. But isn't botany kind of, you know… slow?"

Chapter 10:

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It all just happened so fast and I was worried what people would think.”

Chapter 11:

“No, but Xander and I had a great talk. Really aired out how I’m not wanted here.”

Chapter 12:

“They’re dating, ya ding-dong.”

Chapter 13:

“Do you even know how to drive one of these things?”

Chapter 14:

“Still can’t believe you, Madison Rocca, conned me. No one cons me. Was all that before, was that a ploy? Lull me into a false sense of security?”

Chapter 15:

“Gotopromwithme.”

Chapter 16:

“How many ‘maybe a dingo ate your baby’ jokes did you get?”

Chapter 17:

“Oh cool, it’s dirt, just like all the other dirt.”

Chapter 18:

“And yet, against all odds, you have survived, when the Darkness kills most it touches. It is a truly remarkable feat for anyone, let alone a new practitioner.”

Chapter 19:

“Toby thinks we’re getting ice cream from that fancy truck round the corner.”

Chapter 20:

"Is it still leering if we're all naked?"

Chapter 21:

“Okay, so, dark magic.”

Chapter 22:

"Hey, I think if you hit them in that big Z on their chest, they explode!"

Chapter 23:

“Hey Xan? Good catch on this one. Having a heads-up isn’t a luxury we’re gonna get often.”

Chapter 24:

“I’m gonna find that monster and I’m gonna tear it to pieces with my own hands,”

Chapter 25:

“You flaunt your power and yet it slips through your fingers so easily,”

Chapter 26:

"Very little goes on in Root Core that I do not know about. And," she added, leveling a wily smirk at them, "I too was young once. You would not believe some of the tomfoolery we engaged in at your age."

Chapter 27:

“Filled with life, joy, and power, we now declare our wills for the next year. Jump the coals, pass through the smoke, and send your will into the greater universe.”

Chapter 28:

(this chapter is all internal monologue!)

Chapter 29:

“If we’re not duly impressed, guaranteed he’ll sulk all day, so prepare yourselves.”

Chapter 30:

“You’ll have to go through me if you want them, you sick fuck.”

Chapter 31:

“My magic doesn’t work, your magic doesn’t work, there’s no way out. Good job, Dad, we’re going to die here.”

Chapter 32:

“Least this narrows down where we need to look. ‘Torture dimension’ is a lot more specific than ‘anywhere, ever.’”

Chapter 33:

"Haggling with a dying man. How noble. What would your White Witch think?"

Chapter 34:

"If it is not, it is something wearing his face,"

Chapter 35:

“Yeah, anyone else want to come out as my parent today?”

...and that’s as much as I have written right now! Currently 50 chapters on the docket, so I’m inching closer to completion (and therefore, actually posting this behemoth.)

#my writing #writeblr #tag games #Power Rangers Mystic Force #power rangers fanfiction #fanfiction

[todustwewillreturn]

The thing most pressing to learn about deep grief for myself is that it's unpredictable when it will impact me. Today I felt like I was having a panic attack at work, and I think it was just emotion suddenly turning up.

I've stumbled/waltzed right into a TikTok account in my feed that is two girls talking about losing a parent and they talk about the fact that the time people are the most attentive and desirous to help is in the frame of time you are in shock and don't need the support.

(In the modern priviledged context, getting prepared food is easy and daily chores aren't as urgent around the house, so even if you're unable to do things for yourself it's not as much of an emergency.)

And because of the timing and circumstances, I've barely taken any time off work and I've pretty much kept going with my life. I got through a week of funeral events where I missed a couple of days, but I was at my volunteer and sports commitments the day after Dad's death, mainly because I couldn't fathom just staying home with myself.

Probably when I dedicatedly kept an earbud in at work to listen to Network Effect even while being constantly interrupted, I should have realized something was going on, but that's a pretty tenuous connection to make.

Instead, at a point later in the afternoon, I had to call someone up to cover me like it was an emergency (luckily we had plenty of people on the floor) because I felt like I couldn't really breathe.

Maybe it was a mix of things--wearing a mask after not doing so for such an extended time in a while, the book going in the background while multitasking, a string of unresolved Adult Tasks weighing in the back of my mind.

But mainly, my grief was trying to come up and I couldn't let it, so my chest started to clench the same way I was emotionally white-knuckling it.

I'd like to say I went home and sat with how I was feeling. Instead I had a house meeting and played a cardgame with my housemates because I have been needing more human interaction. Even though the pitch of my interactions seems overcompensatory.

I have tomorrow off for a hockey game that's not going to happen. But it might be for the best, even if the sports endorphins are really great for keeping me leveled on most days.

Something has started to shift and the grief is catching up to me.

#actually autistic #autistic adult #autistic grief #cw grief #cw panic attack #anxiety

[friendofthecrows]

I don't think you guys get how scientifically some "witchcraft" MUST be taken or else you can face serious side effects (I am specifically talking about things that deal with herbs, minerals, or other chemical components, especially when they are meant to be ingested, applied to the skin, or inhaled).

Like, I'm locally known for my tea witchcraft, which anyone who has looked into it might more accurately call herbology or a mix of folk knowledge and biochemistry. I stay as up to date as I can on the research, and for things that there isn't enough research for at the moment but have been used for a certain ailment for centuries, I meticulously document every use, the exact procedure and recipe, and any reported effects whether they on the surface seem relevant or not.

I'm reminded of this because of the covid that has been passing around the household, and all the remedies I've been making for one symptom or another, conscious of everyone's health issues and medication. My dad says, "thank you for taking care of everyone, Hal." and I say, "no problem! :)" queue me returning downstairs for almost an hour of washing chemistry equipment.

On tumblr on the rare occasions I share any herb-based stuff I learn, it's all pretty mild. I avoid potent shit that you really need to be careful with. But note that when you get really into it, you start to realize that a lot of the more effective stuff is toxic in larger doses. Because it's like medicine. It's chemically based and it has a potent, significant effect on the human body. You can't take too much. Now, I don't mess around with that stuff irl either unless I am 100% certain of what I'm doing and the situation calls for that level. I also forage for most of my herbs/mushrooms/mosses/etc, and sometimes, the stuff I have access to is the stuff you've got to be careful with.

Did you know that foxglove is great for treating congestive heart failure and atrial fibrillation? It's used to make a prescription drug called digoxin for that specific purpose. It's also really fucking toxic, far too much to mess with it at home. More dangerously, the information on the benefits of foxglove is just a google search away! I chose a really obvious example for this, but if you just fill an infuser with any given plant that's supposed to help with [issue] and steep it, no carefully determined dilutions, temperatures (for either the denaturing of certain proteins or preventing the release of certain chemicals) and very specific steep times (mostly to prevent the release of too high of dosage toxic chemicals) you might find yourself in the emergency room or in the ground. Best case just sick for a few days. Or you might happen to be right and feel so much better!

But the point is, you've got to take this stuff seriously if your resident witch/herbologist/homeopathic healer is, and if they're not, avoid participation or do a shit ton of research on your own to make sure it's safe first. If you're doing it on your own, research, record results carefully, ask questions of those who know more, and be prepared to stop any herbal treatment you start. Don't be arrogant.

(I kid you not, my brother is banned from the tea shelves since one time (for context he has tachycardia) he made himself a strong infusion of yerba mate as a study aid, which he knew to do because I make it for myself as a study aid (not now that I'm on adderall) and for those of you who don't know, it's a stimulant thanks to frankly insane amounts of caffeine *when made traditionally* (more than coffee, which my brother is not allowed to have thanks to his tachycardia). Needless to say this ended in an ER trip. (He was ultimately okay, don't worry).)

#oh it's just some herbs! #i'm very sick of people treating herbology like it's just silly beliefs that be can be taken very lightly #like yeah sure. did you check if they interfere with your medication? did you check dosage? #were you super careful to dilute it properly and steep it at the right temperature? #no? #well no shit you're experiencing side effects dumbass #just culturally #none of you take this seriously and spreading that mentality that people should just experiment with this stuff #only some of you push the reality that you have to be careful #it's not silly and any responsible herbologist will do research #please be one of the people who does research and does NOT spread the idea that it's all #'uwu witchy herb correspondences i know cause i saw a list of medicinal herbs for virgos with chronic pain on tumblr' #'measurements? i trust my intuition baybee <3' #sure that's fine with sage and garlic and peppermint and shit #but please #if you have not heard of an herb before in the context of normal culinary use #do NOT order a package of it online or look for it in your woods and then steep yourself a cup of it with no research #eventually that will bite you in the ass #I see a concerning amount of people spreading the idea that anything folk-knowledge based should AUTOMATICALLY NOT BE TREATED SERIOUSLY #wrong reaction #no you shouldn't use it as your sole treatment for a serious ailment #and no you shouldn't accept everything uncritically #but don't treat it lightly as if 'it's all fake anyways lol' #i'm gonna fucking murder someone #and i know the mushrooms to do it with #'oh what's in this' 'just some magical ingredients uwu' *it has amanita and you die in several days after an unassuming stomach ache* #i'm sorry this turned into a rant #genuinely meant to just type a short witty thing on it but that didn't happen #it also turned into a #long post

[parkers-gal]

Hey lovie, so Idk if you take requests but based on the other fic I read about Harrison having a baby sister and the boys talking behind her back can you write something about reader keeping her boyfriend a secret from the boys and she’s out with some friends and Harry sees the friends insta story and seeing reader in the corner on a boys lap and they Drive as fast a possible to the location to get haz babysister and being all protective around her like „what do you do on a random boys lap?“ and she’s like „uh, he’s my boyfriend.“

combing this with another request, hope u don’t mind :)

Hey! I've just read circles before selves and I loved it so much!! 😔 if you feel like it fits, could you write a part 2 where one of the boys has feelings for yn and really missed her during that time? Really angst? Thanks, bby! ❤❤

wc: 1.7 k

—

Through the week you’d ghosted the four of them, Tom had probably been affected the most. Being your brother’s best friend, he was very much intertwined with your life, which meant he was just as dependent on you as he was on Harrison.

The night after their apology in your apartment, Tom had come over with more take out and one of his hoodies on his arm.

“Hey… Tom?” You were surprised by his presence, standing in the doorway of the front entrance, Tom on your patio. “What’s up?”

“Can I- uh… Can I talk to you?” “Sure…” You’re still confused, but nevertheless, open the door wider for him.

Tom has always been your protector in a different way than Harrison’s ‘older-brother protective mode.’ He’s genuinely cared about your well-being, and tended to keep you out of the public’s eyes despite you not being a celebrity. He was there when you needed a ride home in the rain, and he was there when your ex-boyfriend had cheated on you with your best friend. He was there, angrily, supportively, encouragingly. Sure, he gave you butterflies, but you as another rule of the circle goes, siblings are off limits. Nobody had ever broken the rule, and you suspected Tom wasn’t here to break it either, so you dropped the thoughts from your mind, attention resorting back to the brunette in front of you.

“What’s happening?” You’re awkwardly sitting on the couch beside him until the tension fades away into nothingness. It’s never like this between the two of you, but you’re picking apart the context, pointing out in your head his demeanor — and why this time feels different.

“I, erhm,” He clears his throat. “I really missed you those past two weeks.”

“Aww,” You jutt a lip out, assuming that’s all he’s here for. Restoring those lost cuddles, huh? “I really missed you, too.” “That’s… not exactly what I mean.”

“Okay…” You lean back a bit in defeat. “What do you mean, then?”

“I mean… I’ve had feelings for you for a while.” He’s blushing profusely, scratching the back of his neck out of nervousness. Your eyes widen and he’s quick to continue, not wanting to shock you too much. “And- And I know it’s so fucking cliche — your brother’s best friend likes you — and I know that we have that stupid rule about not going out with your best friend’s siblings but I just… I don’t want to go away on- on… business or something and come back and you’re somebody else’s girl.”

You can’t help but let a grin take over your face. You can feel yourself heating up, hands coming to block your face from his view, trying to save your dignity and keep the embarrassment to a minimum despite him spilling his heart out right in front of you.

“Do… do you feel the same way?” You bite your lip before picking your head up. He’s so innocent — so sweet and so gentle and tender and pure with his words — and the glint of hope in his eyes could make your heart burst. It doesn’t, but instead flutters faster, wings flapping as it prepares to take flight. You’re afraid of where it’s going, but you decide to let it fly right in the hands of the boy standing in front of you.

“I didn’t think you’d ever feel the same way.” You confess it sheepishly. Tom’s quick to grow redder, ears turning a scarlet shade.

“The- the same way?”

“Yeah,” You breathe out a laugh. “I have feelings for you, too.” “That’s…” He trails off with a smile before remembering the hoodie he has in his hands. “Do you, uh- do you wanna be my girlfriend?” He holds the article of clothing out as an offer, widening your grin as you stand with a nod. “Yeah,” You take the hoodie from him, slipping it on smoothly. His smirk grows at the sight of you in his clothing. “You’ll be my boyfriend?”

He rolls his eyes jokingly, laughing with a happy smile. “Yeah.”

That is how you ended up here, at a bar with a few of your friends. Aisha and her girlfriend sit on your right — you’re on the inside of the crowded booth, sitting atop Tom’s lap to save space and to nuzzle closer to him. He’d told his brothers and yours that he was going up north to Manchester for the weekend.

In reality, he was secretly staying in your apartment, which was a few miles from the flat he shared with Harrison and the twins. The two of you were downtown right now, dressed for clubbing despite only downing a few shots. He’s dressed a bit differently than from his normal ‘clubbing’ outfits — you style him in dark grey slacks and a mesh shirt. His hair was slightly messy but hotter than ever, and your fingers constantly took a trip through the strands of curls, massaging his scalp while he groaned occasionally.

(Yeah fuck me, that esquire picture fucked me up for days.)

He’s holding a beer, now, one hand on your waist. Your legs are splayed across his lap, ass on his thigh comfortably while an arm wraps around the back of his neck. It’s comfortable — and intimate, but neither of you mind. It’s barely nine o’clock, and Aisha had insisted on paying for one of those stupid clubbing games. A waiter had brought the drinks over, and now each of you were going around to answer the questions as best they could with the amount of alcohol in their veins.

The two girls across from you were drinking the most, but Aisha’s girlfriend, Iridessa, was designated driver for the night, so the rest of your friend group was fine with getting wasted.

“Time for a cute pic,” Andrea announced, beckoning the cute waiter over for a favor. He took the picture on your Instagram, handing it back to you while you posted it to your story in seconds.

Your pose against Tom was cozy, and his face was hidden in the crook of your neck — you remember this fact very well, because he’d left a few open-mouthed kisses against your skin in the middle of the picture. His hair was different, and you hoped the only correlation between him and the boy your brother knew was that his lanky fingers were gripping a glass of beer.

Within a matter of minutes, each of Tom’s brothers — and your own — were replying to the post of you cuddled up with a ‘mysterious boy.’ They were currently discussing it in the Instagram groupchat, and Tom was trying to act as surprised, but he was being vague, too preoccupied with the girl in his lap.

You clicked the off button, setting your phone down on the wooden table, deciding to let them chatter away and deciphering who you were with and why. That was a mistake, because they had decided to talk about it in their kitchen, eventually deciding to drive down to the bar you were at. It was only a fifteen minute drive — what was the harm?

You were caught off guard by the door swinging open, emerging three boys searching for you. You gasped, alerting Tom and Aisha that if they did see you, your relationship would be outed. You tried to hide away in the booth, go as unnoticed as possible. You saw them go to the back of the bar, where more people were located, and breathed out in relief. They wouldn’t be leaving that room anytime soon — it was too crowded.

You remained in your seat, joining the game normally again. You missed the way Harrison had gasped, eyes widening as he pointed to you for the twins to see. They came practically marching over to your booth to get a better look at the brown-haired boy whose lap you were seated in.

“Y/N?” Harrison asked, another gasp escaping. “Tom?!” Your jaw dropped open, eyebrows raising against your forehead. You felt Tom’s hand squeeze your waist in acknowledgement — in protectiveness — and you tried to act as normal as possible.

“Hi.” You spoke meekly, something Harrison had rolled his eyes at.

“Tom?!” Harry was just as surprised. “You’re supposed to be in Manchester! For the weekend!” “Right…” He laughed sheepishly. “Surprise? I’m sorry, I lied.” He tried again, noticing Harrison’s jaw tense, clenching and unclenching.

“You’re…. You’re with my baby sister?!”

Tom nibbled his bottom lip and you placed a calming hand on his chest. “Guys, don’t freak out. You’re gonna cause a scene.” You eyed them. “Especially you, Haz.” He shifted on his feet, dominantly leaning on his right one.

“You’re breaking rule number two.”

You didn’t falter as you responded, without missing a beat. “You broke rule number one, first.”

He didn’t answer, and you could sense Aisha and Iridessa were awkwardly sitting between you and the boys. The tension was thicker than you thought it’d be, so you decided to speak again, filling the silence before Harrison had a breakdown in front of everyone.

“Look, can we just talk about this later? I’m with people right now, I can’t really have this conversation here.”

“Fine.” Harrison agreed, but he sneered closer to Tom, eyes crisp and jaw tight. “But you’re not off the hook, Tommy.”

Tom nodded nonchalantly, sipping his beer before replying. “Do you mind? My girl and I are a bit busy.”

You bit your lip at his words, knees weakening and stomach erupting in butterflies. This boy-

That seemed to tick Harrison off in a teasing way before they finally left the bar. You exhaled in relief, gasping at Tom. “That’s literally saying something to my dad like ‘you’re not the only daddy anymore!’” You compared the instances. “You’re a cheeky bastard.” You slapped his shoulder. Tom let out a loud laugh, chuckling while his hand rubbed up and down your side. “You know Harrison’s still gonna be pissed, though.” You sighed and Tom pouted, kissing your nose to grab your attention.

“It’s gonna be okay, alright?” You nodded, a bit unconvinced, and Tom clicked his tongue. “Trust me?”

You nodded again, faithfully, and he smirked, squeezing your hip again. You brought his hand to you, guiding the glass to your lips and sipping his beer. He watched you through hooded eyelids, tongue running across his bottom lip, across his teeth. You could see his pupils dilate, and you smirked from behind the cup, fingers slipping from his hand with a small smirk, turning back to the girls and continuing the game just as you had before.

#tom holland x osterfield!reader #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland smutty #tom holland fic #tom holland fluff #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fluffy #tom holland imagine #tom holland oneshot #tom holland blurb #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland smut #tom holland angst #tom x reader

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 291: The Endeavor Pamphlet

Previously on BnHA: Dabi showed up atop Gigantomachia’s back and was all “you’ll never guess who I really am!” and the readers humored him and were all “who?” and he was all “TODOROKI TOUYA” and we were all “WOW └(・。・)┘ OH MY GOSH I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED”, except for Shouto and Enji who were GENUINELY SHOCKED. Anyway so Touya was all “and guess what I’m doing right now!” and before anyone could even try, he was all, “STREAMING MY EMMY-NOMINATED MINISERIES ‘HELLO, I’M EVIL BUT ALSO TRAGIC AND SEXY, NOW LET ME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT MY DAD WHO SUCKS’’, THAT’S WHAT.” And everyone was all “oh my god” and Touya was all “ヽ(⌐■_■)ノ♪” for basically the rest of the chapter, and that’s pretty much it! Oh, wait, except for the part where he also doused himself in bleach in a fit of pure theatrics, which is actually pretty much the main takeaway from the entire chapter really because it was just wild af. ANYWAYS.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi introduces Baby Touya, the world’s most enchantingly sweet character, and is immediately all, “I sure can’t wait to tell you guys all about how his fucking jaw burnt off.” Thankfully he doesn’t (YET), and we cut back to the present pretty quickly, where Dabi explains how he took all of his brain cells that should have been used to stop him from pouring bleach over his head, and instead put them all toward his big brain plot of releasing an elaborate video detailing Endeavor’s various abuses and crimes, and even throwing Hawks under the bus as well because WHY NOT. He then leaps off of Gigantomachia’s back (like I said, no brain cells) all set to blast them with a Prominence Burn, only to be stopped by none other than THE LEGEND HIMSELF, MOTHERFUCKING BEST, PRETTIEST, NICEST, MOST OUTSTANDING MOTHERFUCKING JEANIST. Who’s no doubt outraged by the crime against hair he witnessed only moments earlier. GO GETTIM JEANY BOI.

so I haven’t had time to answer any of them because this has been the stupidest week, but I just wanted to tell you guys that I received no fewer than nine asks about Dabi’s hair. which, in a week filled with election memes and tumblr’s most cursed fandom briefly rising back up from the dead, is a pretty impressive feat for him if you ask me. like, I know I was making fun of it basically nonstop, but it sure did generate a lot of discussion so maybe I should rethink my opinions on Dabi’s PR strategies now, idk

anyway. it’s Saturday. time to catch up on this shit. let’s see how fucked the Todorokis are

OH NO HE’S CUTE

HOLY SHIT THIS IS TOO MUCH TO FUCKING PROCESS. I’M JUST TRYING TO ENJOY MY DAY HORIKOSHI, ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO TRAUMATIZE THIS POOR CHILD RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SALAD

“thanks for being all right” the fuck

who allowed this child to be so cute. I’m serious. who signed off on this

how could a child this adorable possibly want to murder his equally adorable baby brother. please, your honor. there must be some mistake here

guess how prepared I am to read all about Touya’s tragic past. mm. that’s right. zero ready. none ready

anyway. TWO THOUSAND DEGREES LOLOLOL. NO TRACE OF A CORPSE HOW CONVENIENT. A PIECE OF HIS LOWER JAW BONE FFFFMSGHKLSh. LOVELY. LOVELY

LMAOOOOO

listen you guys. I just want to take a moment to appreciate that Horikoshi Kouhei did one of two things here. either (1) he planned it out FROM THE VERY START that Touya would be born with red hair Because Fire Powers, but would then have his hair turn white due to trauma, thus making the Dabi/Touya connection very slightly less obvious, although Let’s Be Real Who Are We Kidding. OR, (2) the anime got it wrong and gave him red hair, and rather than allowing this plot hole to continue to exist, Horikoshi took it upon himself to concoct this elaborate storyline and pretend it was never a plot hole at all! in which case I sure hope someone at Bones is sending him a VERY nice Christmas card this year. got this man sweeping up all your messes for you. you’re just lucky he has some sort of wild compulsion to address these things

anyways!!

FATHER AND SON. how sweet. :| still zero percent ready for any of this btw

STOP BEING CUTE

THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I’M SO MAD RIGHT NOW. HE IS THE SINGLE CUTEST CHARACTER IN THE ENTIRE SERIES, and do you even know how many other baby characters I’m betraying in order to say that?! baby Kacchan, baby Deku, baby Ochako, baby Shouto, Eri, baby Hawks. I’M LOOKING YOU DEAD IN THE EYE RIGHT NOW AND TELLING YOU THAT BABY TOUYA IS CUTER THAN ALL OF THOSE PLEBS. AND YOU’RE LOOKING BACK AT ME RIGHT NOW ALL “YEAH IT SURE IS A PITY ABOUT HIS JAW MELTING OFF THOUGH.” THAT’S IT, I QUIT THE SERIES

and Enji’s smiling at him. he’s so proud of him. but then Touya won’t be able to do it, and Enji’s gonna stop training him, and Touya’s gonna feel like a failure and keep pushing himself in order to try and win his dad’s affections back, because that’s all kids fucking want, all they want is just love, that’s fucking it, you couldn’t just give him that?? and then he’s gonna immolate himself fflkdlskfh THERE YOU SEE HORIKOSHI, I KNOW THE WHOLE STORY ALREADY, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THE WHOLE “SHOW THEM THE DEAD DOG” THING YET AGAIN YOU PIECE OF SHIT

OH SNAP THERE GOES THE TWIN THEORY. R.I.P.

BABY FUYUMI. PRETTY CUTE. NOT AS CUTE AS TOUYA THOUGH. HEY LOOK, NO REASON TO GET MAD AT ME I’M JUST STATING A FACT HERE

YEAH THIS IS GONNA GO REAL WELL OH BOY

I keep pressing the emergency stop button but this industrial tragedy machine just keeps on chugging along anyway, I’m pretty sure this thing is not up to code

:| I am so sorry sweet boy, Horikoshi is only getting started with you

FUCKING HELL WITH THIS NARRATION

but he wasn’t actually a child to you, he was just a little puppet child for you to live vicariously through!! and then you went and did the same fucking thing with Shouto afterwards and never learned your lesson until just six months ago!! fucking hell, Enji

so now he’s all “Touya is dead, that’s an unforgivable lie” fflkdhflk motherfucker does he look dead to you. if you really think that, tumblr and twitter have got a little over five years’ worth of archived theory posts to show you

oh shit Touya’s countering with “it’s an unforgivable truth”, which, damn. I actually think Horikoshi’s dialogue is one of his weaker points as a writer a lot of the time, but that comeback was snappy as fuck

actually guys, now that I’ve seen how ridiculously fucking cute baby!Touya was, I can almost understand why Shouto and Enji never put the pieces together before lol. any passing similarities would have easily been dismissed on account of he’d need to be at least 10x more adorable in order to get the full resemblance

OH MY GOD

NOW YOU SLEEP??? SO YOU POINT BLANK REFUSED TO PASS OUT WHILE YOU WERE BUSY MAIMING ALL OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS, BUT NOW THAT THERE’S AN OPPORTUNITY TO SEE YOUR REACTION TO THE “YOUR LIEUTENANT WAS SECRETLY RELATED TO ONE OF YOUR WORST ENEMIES THE WHOLE TIME” BOMBSHELL, YOU FINALLY DECIDE TO GET YOUR FORTY WINKS. I SEE

WOW DABI

I’M SURPRISED YOU DIDN’T ALREADY HAVE YOUR ANCESTRY.COM RESULTS PRINTOUT READY TO FOLD INTO A PAPER AIRPLANE AND ZOOM ON DOWN TO HIM

LOL NEVERMIND

gotta say, so far The Endeavor Pamphlet is just about as spicy as I could have hoped

(ETA: Natsuo’s face as he watches his beloved dead brother come back to life only to literally and metaphorically set everything on fire in one fell swoop is :/. why must you do this to me Natsu. can’t you see I’m trying to throw a Welcome Back Jeanist party here.)

HAVE YOU READ THIS?! TODOROKI ENJI ABUSED HIS OWN HEIR, AND DABI WROTE IT DOWN RIGHT THERE

WELL HE’S NEVER GON’ BE NUMBER ONE NOW / NEVER GON’ BE NUMBER ONE NOW / THAT’S ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT / THAT’S ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT

btw I neglected to mention this last week, but yes I do recognize and appreciate that this is Can’t Ya See-kun himself whom Horikoshi has chosen to be the face of this existential crisis which the general public is about to experience. rip CYS-kun

OOF

excuse me. putting aside the implications of Dabi sharing this context-less murder video of Hawks with the entire world for a moment, I just have to pause for a sec here, because when exactly did he get a chance to edit this all in?? complete with voiceover that seamlessly ties in with the prerecorded footage of him with DNA test results sans shirt?? you’re telling me this motherfucker, with all the smoke that was in the room thanks to his own quirk, somehow got a PERFECT SHOT of the PRECISE MOMENT when Hawks drove his feather knife into Jin’s back, using his MAGIC CAMERA THAT HE I GUESS HAD THE ENTIRE TIME IN THE POUCH RIGHT NEXT TO HIS BLEACH BOTTLE, and then immediately somehow got this very next shot as well FROM AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ANGLE

ALL THE WHILE IMMEDIATELY RUNNING THROUGH SCRIPT REVISIONS IN HIS HEAD, WHICH HE THEN PROCEEDED TO RECORD... WHERE, EXACTLY?? WITH SKEPTIC, WHILST RIDING ON MACHIA’S BACK??

AND THIS IS ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF???

and this after I just wrote that whole long paragraph positively GLOWING about this man’s ability to plug up a plot hole. jfc. just scratch out every damn word I said lol. just forget all of it

are you fucking kidding me, the footage was from the cameras Skeptic planted on Hawks??

that’s... actually... okay you know what, it still doesn’t make any sense in the slightest, but the determination to address it nonetheless... just, dammit... I feel like I’m constantly at war with myself over whether or not I want to shake this man’s hand or slap him lmao. whatever, then!!

anyway, since Shouto and Enji can’t actually see the damage that Touya is dealing to the hero industry even as they speak, Touya is taking it upon himself to give them the highlights

I think it’s a testament to how much Endeavor cares about Hawks that he managed to zero in on that comment even amidst all the craziness of his eldest son returning from the dead to announce how he’s been carefully plotting their destruction for years and years. like, he heard “Hawks” and his face immediately went like that. you think he’s worried that Dabi did something to him? because he’d be right to worry lol

so the Endeavor Pamphlet narration is now explaining all about how Hawks totally killed the Number 3 Hero Best Jeanist as well! yep... he sure did... totally...

OH MY GOD WE’RE CUTTING TO HIM AHHHHH

Hawks, that is. lol. not Jeanist. NO, JUST MY POOR HALF-DEAD WINGLESS BABY SON

NOOOOO HIS LITTLE WING STUMPS. BUT SOMEHOW HIS FACIAL HAIR IS STILL INTACT. OH TO BE AN ANIME PRETTY BOY BEING SET ON FIRE. “HEY, TAKE IT EASY, WATCH THE FACE”

EXCUSE ME WHAT

interesting! we suspected as much, I think, with the clues that Ending dropped, and the little flashback right after the name reveal. still not clear how Dabi found out about it though!

looooool okay here we go, breaking out the heavy-handed holier-than-thou shit now

you know, I do find it interesting how trying to model themselves after All Might’s noble Symbol of Peace image has kind of ended up being the heroes’ undoing here. like, I could write a whole essay on this, but what it basically boils down to is that they were all trying too hard to be perfect. All Might went out there and did his thing and was amazing, and so the powers-that-be built an entire system centered around this seemingly-infallible person, and they acted like the system was infallible as well. and so most of the population ended up becoming complacent over the years, and meanwhile the people who were unfortunate enough to fall through the cracks understandably wound up disillusioned and perceiving the heroes as these false idols

anyway, but I think one positive takeaway from this is that the new up-and-coming generation of heroes represent a breakaway from that system. like, imo what we’re witnessing is the downfall of the Perfect Hero, and the rise of the imperfect hero. and this new generation doesn’t shy away from their failures or pretend like they never happened. they pretty much can’t pretend, because their failures are all right out there in the open for everyone to see. Bakugou Katsuki, just to name one example off the top of my very biased head, has had his own personal character journey basically play out right in front of the media’s eyes. his humiliation at the sports festival, his kidnapping by the League, and all of the fallout afterward. this isn’t someone who can ever go out there and convince the world that he’s perfect. but what he can do, instead, is show the world that he’s trying. that he’s trying with everything he has to do his best, to be the best. rather than this untouchable godlike image, it’s instead the image of someone painfully human who is nonetheless striving with everything he’s got to keep moving forward, flaws and all, and work his way to the top

and ultimately I think that’s going to be a much more positive image to send out to the world when all’s said and done. because rather than merely inspiring awe, heroes like that inspire people to take action themselves. or at least that’s what I hope! and not just Bakugou, but the others as well. we’ve got Shouto, whose own personal trauma is being aired in front of the whole nation even as I sit here ranting. we’ve got Deku, who cries at the drop of a hat, and who fought to become a hero despite being quirkless (and I think it’s only a matter of time before that eventually becomes public knowledge as well). tl;dr because I’m getting way too long-winded here, but these kids have effectively been humanized in a way that the old generation never was, and I think that’ll go a long way towards building trust between them and the people they’ll someday be protecting, and inspiring the next generation in hopefully a much healthier way

anyway so where were we. ...oh yes, Dabi was explaining that heroes only protect themselves, and is presumably building up to his grand conclusion of “therefore you should all just let the villains take over and burn down the world”

omfg. YOU GUYS

DOES CAN’T YA SEE-KUN’S SHARK FRIEND ACTUALLY CALL HIM “CAN’T YA SEE-KUN.” HE HAS A NAME YOU KNOW!! UNLESS HE LEGALLY GOT HIS NAME CHANGED TO CAN’T YA SEE-KUN. OH MY GOD

ALSO, IS THAT CAN’T YA SEE-KUN CRYING IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT THERE OMG. GIVE THIS CHILD A HUG. EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW AND HUG HIM

BAKUGOU IS BARELY HANGING ON THERE LOL. GOTTA STAY CONSCIOUS... SO MUCH TEA BEING SPILLED... FOCUS... CONCENTRATE

IIDA’S ANGLING HIS HEAD IN A WEIRD WAY, LIKE DUDE. LOOKING SUSPICIOUSLY SNUGGLY THERE. MMM THESE IIDABAKU CRUMBS

HADOU IS ALL “WHAT EVEN IS ACTUALLY GOING ON” LMAO

LASTLY, POOR SHOUTO OMFG. WHEN YOU’RE ALL FINISHED HUGGING CYS-KUN THIS CHILD NEEDS YOUR ATTENTION!!

so now Dabi’s leaping off of this ninety-foot-tall gargoyle man like that’s a normal, smart thing to do. unless he can fly too now? saw his dad doing it back at Fukuoka and was all “hmm”

OH MY GOD SOMEONE TELL ME RIGHT NOW WHAT WORD SHOUTO IS USING TO ADDRESS ENJI, THESE TRANSLATIONS LOVE TO MESS WITH MY HEAD

ENJI GET MOVING DO YOU NOT SEE THOSE TEARS!!! SNAP OUT OF IT YOU BIG TREE

AHHHHH

OH KACCHAN YOU WOKE UP A LITTLE MORE THERE, HUH

lol he and Deku both look so determined but they’re basically sitting ducks. their “oh shit” faces do look remarkably like their “TIME TO SWING INTO ACTION” faces but don’t be fooled, they have one good arm and about six pints of blood left between the two of them. looks like this one’s all on you Shouto

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH --

BAH GOD... WHAT’S GOING ON HERE... THAT’S BEST JEANIST’S MUSIC

y’all. can’t even talk right now, my brain has completely shut down lol. just. ...

  °˖✧◝(￣▿￣)◜✧˖°

#bnha 291 #dabi #todoroki touya #endeavor #todoroki shouto #best jeanist #hawks #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #you guys know that scene from the end of the lion king #the part where simba is walking up to the top of pride rock #and he lets out that roar as zimmer's score soars to a crescendo #yeah baby #that's the mood rn #welcome back king

[princess-of-the-corner]

Ok, so I remember Dragon coming up with a Chloe DP au, and for some reason that combined in my head with your post about Vlad and the rich kids and the S4 spoilers so... imagine Chloe at Vlad’s party during a ghost attack, feeling depressed and useless and generally just thinking about being replaced. somehow she ends up in Vlad’s lair, self reflecting in front of the portal when it gets hit by a power surge. Most of the class just sees her being carried out to the ambulance, but 2 know better

Me: “I need to work on all my other fics.”

Also me: “Time to work on several pages of Chloé half dying!!! And another bootleg version of one of Dragon’s AUs!”

Vlad and Danny are on kinda friendly terms in this mostly because I wanted to write them snarking at each other. 

Chloé was glad to get out of Paris for a while. A decision her father had made after, well. Certain incidents. Making her feel unsafe in Paris. So she was sent away to a place without Hawkmoth or Akumas.

Smoothing out the skirt of her pale yellow, nearly white, dress, she contemplated the place she ended up.

She would have been prepared for New York. But of course Audrey said she was too "Unexceptional" yet. But as Audrey had to go on a business trip to meet other rich business people at some fancy party, Chloé's dad convinced her to take her to this place. 

Not that business parties full of other rich people were something she really wanted to deal with. They were usually too condescending at best. A few of them could be creepy. Giving her looks that made her want to take a shower for a year. 

It was almost enough to make her want to stay in Paris. But the one thing that made her decide it wouldn't be too bad was who was hosting the party. 

Don't get her wrong. Vlad Masters definitely gave off some strange and downright intimidating vibes. But the few times Chloé had met him at events like this, he was one of the few adults who seemed to respect her, despite her age. And he only used his threatening vibes on any of the other men looking at her. 

That said, Chloé wasn't expecting much conversation with Vlad. They didn't usually talk much anyway, just polite conversation common at these things. And as Audrey was currently attempting to engage with him, almost as if she were blocking Chloé from getting near, it was unlikely she would.

"If you're going to commit a murder could you wait another twenty minutes? I have a bet going."

Chloé jumped, realizing someone was speaking to her. When she found who, her initial instinct was to glare. Blue eyes and black hair making her think of someone else. 

However, as she took in the rest of the context, she found someone new. And male. A boy about her age. 

"Who are you?" Chloé asked. 

"Head of security," the boy said. 

It was obviously a joke, from his tone and lopsided grin. And Chloé almost laughed at the idea of a teenager being any kind of security. 

But she noticed the way he stood, the way he analyzed her. It reminded her of Adrien, in a way. Seemingly all smiles and laid back, but far more capable than he looks. 

There was something else about him too. It actually reminded her of Vlad. The general vibes he gave off. But Vlad felt more… firey. Heat under his skin, waiting for the temper to snap. This boy felt more cold. Not emotionally, but like a snowfall that could quickly engulf you in a blizzard. 

"I think a name would be better," Chloé said. 

"Call me Danny then," the boy said, offering a hand. 

"Chloé Bourgeois," she replied, politely taking it. "So, judging by the fact that you didn't give me your last name, you don't want me guessing who you're connected to."

"You probably wouldn't know them," he said. "My family's known for their studies on the paranormal. They're scientists. And not really the kind for this kind of party."

"But you are?" She raised an eyebrow. 

"Absolutely not," he said. "But hey. Vlad's trying to buy his way to an apology by giving me money if I hang out and make sure nothing spooks the guests. Other than him, of course. Might as well put it in my college fund. So, you actually planning a murder or not?"

That almost made her laugh. A small smile on her face, Chloé's gaze drifted across the room to her mother. 

"No murder yet," Chloé said. "If I do kill someone, it'll be the local supervillain back in Paris."

"Heard something about that," Danny said. "My parents keep debating on checking it out. It's obviously paranormal and magical, but they specialize in Ghosts."

"Are they the Ghostbusters?" She did actually laugh at that one. 

"Something like that," he chuckled. 

All of a sudden, Danny stiffened up. It had to be a trick of the light, but she could've sworn a mist came out of his mouth. He frowned, looking around carefully. 

"Sorry, I have to go," Danny said. "A disturbance in the garden. See you around."

"Yeah, see you," Chloé sighed. 

As he ran off through the crowd, Chloé wondered how he knew about the "disturbance". Maybe he was actually part of the security team and had an earpiece in? 

Brushing the thought off, Chloé grabbed a drink from a passing waiter. Then she headed the opposite direction.

She wanted some time alone. It had been nice, talking to Danny. But the party was still overwhelming. She might be out of Paris, which meant less stares and whispers. But still too much interaction for her liking lately. 

Chloé headed out of the main ballroom. Few paid attention to her. Those that did were quickly dragged back to their conversations. 

As she wandered the halls, Chloé wondered if she could get lost in here. If her mother would notice. Maybe she could just. Not go home and just secretly live in Vlad's mansion. 

A tempting idea, if she could figure out how to do it. But for now, she settled for exploring. 

There was a library. Very nice. Bookshelves along every wall, except for a spot for a fireplace. Comfortable chairs and a couch to read on. 

She looked through the bookshelves. It seemed well stocked, despite the impossibility of ever reading them all. Most were nonfiction, texts on various subjects. A few seemed to be typical fiction, though Chloé didn't inspect those too close lest she judge Vlad's collection of trashy romance novels. 

What intrigued her was one large shelf, right across from the fireplace. These books actually looked well-used. Texts on the paranormal. Hadn't Danny said something about that? Between this and the familiarity with Vlad, perhaps it was a family-friend situation.

Dragging a finger along the spines of the books, she picked one at random. Pure curiosity more than actual interest. 

The book was soon dropped and forgotten when the shelf slid open to reveal a doorway. 

Now that had her curious and interested. 

A look over her shoulder at the door, and Chloé was in the new room. No, a new hall of stairs. Descending down stone steps. 

She was suddenly worried she would find some sort of kinky dungeon type place. Perhaps she should quit while she was ahead. 

It was the buzzing in her fingertips that made the decision for her. Something… familiar. 

It wasn't like the buzzing she felt near an Akuma, or near someone using a Miraculous. No, this felt more like Vlad. Like Danny. Whatever she was feeling from them, there was more of it down here. 

Eventually the stairway opened to a room. It looked like a laboratory of some kind. Weapons and tools of shiny metal and magenta accents lined the walls. There were a few that traded magenta for green, but not as if two people consistently shared a space. More like one occasionally left objects behind. 

The one thing in the room that was overwhelmingly green and not magenta was against one wall. 

It almost looked like a doorway of sorts. Or a Magic Portal, really. Swirls of green that she couldn't see into. And if she hadn't spent the last year and a half being attacked by Magical Supervillains and becoming a Hero herself, she would've assumed it was just a large tv screen embedded in the wall for aesthetics. 

The reminder of her time as a Hero brought back some bitter memories. 

She might not have been the best person, but she was a good Hero. Chloé would have gladly continued being Queen Bee, despite the risks, because she had felt like she finally found a purpose. But Ladybug told her no, she couldn't have the Miraculous anymore. For her safety of course. 

What a joke. Not only had Chloé been in more danger without it, as there was no way she could defend herself against Hawkmoth. But the other Heroes were still active, even with their identities known. 

With a sigh, Chloé attempted to distract herself. Walking around the room and investigating the weapons around the lab. They were strange. She wasn't a gun expert, but these didn't look normal. Not regular guns that shoot bullets. 

Were they alien weaponry? That didn't seem right. Chloé wasn't an expert, having never met an alien(as far as she was aware). But the weapons seemed very based on Earth designs, their sizes intended for average Human use. Maybe weapons for Humans to use on nonhumam creatures. 

Whatever it was, Chloé was now a bit curious. What did Vlad get up to when he wasn't hosting business parties like this? Did he perhaps moonlight as a superhero? With that Danny kid as the Robin to his Batman? Perhaps she should stay. Be the Jason Todd of the family. Though with less dying.

She almost laughed at the idea. But as a crack of thunder rang through the mansion, loud enough to be heard from this basement laboratory, she jumped, instinctively spinning around to look for an attack.

A second crack of thunder, and all the lights went dark.

Chloé was not afraid of the dark. She never had been, even as a child. 

But she was afraid now. Because this wasn't a normal blackout. In a mansion like this, there would be emergency generators. They didn't kick in, which meant this was likely something else. 

Amity Park was different from Paris. No Hawkmoth. No Akumas. But that didn't mean there was no danger. 

And the thing Chloé had become afraid of, after so many Akuma attacks and even Hawkmoth himself coming to her home, her room, and confronting her. The thing she was afraid of was being unable to fight back. 

Her breath began to quicken, the only noise she could hear in the dark room. Heart hammering in her chest, Chloé tried to calm herself down. This wasn't Paris. Whoever or whatever it was wasn't after her. 

But what if it was? What if this person had decided she would make a good target? What if Hawkmoth had followed her, hoping to get revenge for failing him as Miracle Queen? What if it was someone else, furious about what she had involuntarily done, knowing that if something happened here, Ladybug's Miraculous Cure would be too late?

Hands trembling, Chloé remembered the weapons on the wall. It wasn't her Miraculous, but it was something. She refused to go down without a fight. 

The only problem was that, in her panic, she had gotten turned around she couldn't remember which was she was facing. 

Blindly choosing a direction, Chloé kept a hand out in front of her, slowly moving it back and forth hoping she'd hit a wall. Her ragged breathing and the click of her heels on the floor being the only sounds. A good sign, she hoped. 

Her hand hit something. A wall, she thought. Somewhere to her left. Keeping her hand flat against it, she hoped to follow it until she found the weapon rack again. 

She kept walking, barely noting how the sound of her footsteps changed from heels-on-tile to heels-on-metal. Had the floor been metal? She couldn't remember. The stairs up had been stone so obviously she was still in the lab. 

The lights suddenly came back on, the blackout over. Yet Chloé wasn't nearly as blinded as she should have been by the sudden brightness. It was coming from behind her. Had she somehow found a different hallway out of the lab?

As she turned to head back to something familiar, a different brightness flickered on. But she was completely unaware, as all she could focus on was pain. 

Burning, crackling under her skin. Through every inch of her. Worse than anything she had ever felt, as Civilian, Hero, or Akuma. 

The pain began to subside. Not going away, but no longer the intense agony. Just an ache, but as if she had run a marathon around Paris without being transformed. Her throat still burned the worst though. Had she been screaming? She couldn't remember doing so, but it seemed likely given the pain.

Stumbling forward, she managed to find herself back in the lab. Yet her vision was blurry. So blurry, in fact, that when she looked down her white dress appeared black. 

The pain and exhaustion was too much for her. Pitching forward, everything went dark again.

--------

The next thing Chloé knew, she was somewhere soft. Everything still hurt, which made her not want to move. But she could hear two male voices arguing. 

"You should let me explain it to her."

"You will confuse and scare her with your morbid humor."

"And you'll just freak her out!"

"I have more experience in this."

"Not in explaining it!"

"I explained it to Danielle."

"And I explained it to everyone else because you had to be a fruitloop!"

"Are you still using that insult?"

"It still fits."

Registering that she should probably see what's goin on, Chloé went to get up. 

Her right arm must've slipped off whatever she was laying on, as she almost immediately slammed back down. The feeling that had her jolting upright instead of trying again to be slow, was that it felt like something hit the inside of her arm?!

Inspecting the limb, she didn't find anything wrong with it. It was there. No burns or bruises. The worst thing was a chipped manicure. 

As her gaze went further up her arm to her shoulder, she noticed something. A discoloration in her skin. It was hard to see, having to look nearly straight down and only being able to see what skin was showing. But there were thin lines across her shoulders and chest. She couldn't tell how far they went up her neck, or how much further they extended under her dress. 

The lines looked almost like lightning. It was then that she remembered the lab. The pain. But she swallowed down her fear.

"Well say goodbye to swimsuit season," Chloé muttered, her voice still a little shaky and her throat still raw. 

"Perhaps your humor will be helpful after all," one of the voices from earlier mused. 

Chloé jumped, having completely forgot that there were people in the room. One was Vlad, the other was the "head of security" kid. Danny, wasn't it? 

"What happened?" Chloé asked.

"You received quite a shock," Vlad replied. 

"Oh, and my humor is too much for her," Danny glared.

"Kind of used to puns in horrifying situations," Chloé said. "One of my best friends loves making puns to deflect dealing with things."

And okay yes she also did that. But she was not going to tell them that. Even if the looks they gave each other probably meant they guessed as much. 

"Where am I?" Chloé asked, looking around. 

"One of the guest rooms," Vlad explained. 

"Not a hospital?" She asked. 

"A hospital isn't quite equipped to handle… this," he said. 

"One of the guests was a doctor who did a general checkup," Danny said. "She was sure you probably just fainted from low blood sugar or something."

"And… and my mother?" Chloé asked. 

"She is back at her hotel," Vlad said, visibly bristling. "I may not be father of the year, but her lack of concern is appalling."

The exasperated look Danny gave him said there was a long story there. Chloé wasn't sure she wanted to hear it right now.

"So why would a hospital be bad?" Chloé asked instead. 

"That is quite a story," Vlad said. "Do you know what you were messing with in the laboratory?"

"I know it had weapons," she said. "Then the lights went out and I tried to find my way around."

"I think that makes her smarter than both of us," Danny said.

"I didn't enter an unstable device on a dare," Vlad glared. “I knew what I was doing.”

"You stuck your face right up to a prototype device not knowing if it was stable or not," he retorted. "You're lucky you only half died.".

Vlad glared at him again. Chloé could have sworn he man's eyes flashed red. It was more than just a trick of the light. 

He said a hospital wasn't a good situation for her now. He implied that he'd had something similar happen to him. And those books on the paranormal, leading to a lab… 

Vlad wasn't Human. At least not anymore. Danny wasn't either, most likely. And Chloé realized, with mounting horror, that she probably wasn't either.

Once more she focused on her hands. What… was she now? Chloé flipped through her knowledge of the paranormal. It couldn't be a Vampire or Werewolf. She didn't get bit or infected with anything. Most other creatures she could remember Humans becoming had very specific circumstances or longer processes. 

Then, she recalled something Danny had said. His family deals with Ghosts. 

As if to confirm her suspicions, her hands flickered out of existence. An involuntary whimper escaping her throat. 

"I… I'm dead, aren't I?" Chloé asked. 

"Only half way," Danny said. 

"That is nowhere as reassuring as you think it is," Vlad said. 

This time it was Danny's turn to glare. But his eyes flashed a green color instead of red. 

Meanwhile, Chloé was having a crisis. She died. She fucking died. But she was still here. 

She was vaguely aware of their voices. Both males had come closer, sitting beside her on the bed. She knew one, or maybe both of them, was telling her to breathe. To focus. 

She tried to focus on how strange it was, sitting between them. One burning, one freezing. Was that related to… This? 

It helped ground her. Remind her that she wasn't alone. 

"That's right," Danny said. "You're not alone in this. Which is already better than what we got."

"You could have had a mentor," Vlad said. 

"But you were still evil back then," he smirked.

Oh boy oh boy. This was going to get oh so complicated. 

#danny phantom #miraculous ladybug #never let Danny and Adrien in a room together they will murder everyone with puns #phantom chloé au

[theonlygamergost]

Gestures are louder than words - Fd!au

This fanfiction is based on the Family Dynamic au made by @antarctic-bay if you would like to know more, go check them out!!!

Also please bear in mind that the things written in this might not be canon!

Of course, this fic was grammatically corrected by the amazing @im-default

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To get a better context, read this first, if you don't want to, have a quick summary :)

Tommy comes back home in a very bad mood, Wilbur and Phil are concerned but end up making the situation worse, but Techno knows how to make Tommy talk : ASL (American sign language.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Warnings! Bullying, repressed anger, yelling, angst, hoo boy angst, crying, angst with a good ending, fluff and brother bonding moment :)

(The cursive and bold words are meant to be when they speak in gestures)

Enjoy~

“Ah, welcome back Tommy!” The inviting smell coming from whatever Phil was cooking welcomed him in just like his brother, both of which reminded him of his oopsie: He arrived home late.

Well… Phil did end his shift early, but arriving home after him for all of the brothers meant “they stayed out too late” since he always arrived home deep into the night.

“T-thanks...” Tommy sighed, Wilbur was on the counter, too absorbed into his algebra problems to notice him. Techno was nowhere to be seen but he wasn’t surprised, his door was closed so…you could imagine where he was, hint: when he wasn’t home his room’s door was open.

Closing himself in his room, he allowed his back to slide down the door until he sat on the floor, bringing his knees to his chest and squeezing them tight.

He wasn’t sad, he wasn’t crying, he was simply angry, hoo boy he was angry.

Taking a deep breath, he got up and sat at his desk, grabbing a notebook out of his backpack.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You go around with a plushie? Pff, what a child…” Tubbo reached out for his bee plushie “Give me Spins back!”, needlessly since another bully pushed him on the ground.

“Aw~ the doggy wants his toy?”

“Give. It. Back.” Tommy appeared behind the bullies, shoving one of them onto the ground.

“Oh my… the Ally of Justice, The Protector of the Weak!” one mocked him.

As a punch was about to hit the bully’s face, a teacher arrived and stopped both of them, blaming it more on Tommy than the real bully, sending them both home.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The music from his headphones brought him back to reality, scribbling down words for his English homework, god he was pissed.

How dare they bully Tubbo! And for his plushie Spins! Of course, he had already made a plan on how to get back at them, no one messes with his best friend without paying for it, yet he still couldn’t see that situation as a win for the bullies.

The teacher always saw him as the one at fault, he was the “Black Sheep” of the Pandel brothers, the disgrace of the fami-

A knock interrupted his train of thoughts, “Dinner is ready! Come wash your hands, you gremlin” came from behind the door, a distant “That’s kinda mean Will” accompanied it.

He sat at the table, one of the chairs was empty: Techno was missing, but what’s new? It was his habit to skip dinner, Tommy wondered if he would have skipped tonight’s one too.

“Techno! Food’s ready, come eat!” Phil half-shouted while serving the food, all of them stood quietly waiting for the response.

…

“Techno?” Phil took off the potholders and peeked into his room, a muffled “Kinda busy right now, I’ll come at the table in a minute” came his response.

Phil’s cuisine had always been better than restaurant’s in Tommy’s eyes, and the omelette with bacon and cheese he had prepared today was just like everything else he cooked: amazing.

Tommy once asked Phil where he had learned how to cook so well, his response was a simple “Mom and dad were both very good at cooking, you’d also be surprised how much you can learn from watching videos” kinda cliche, but fair enough.

“How was your day at school boys?” Phil asked after swallowing down a bite, Tommy gestured at Will to go first.

“All and all, my day went pretty well. Had a test but it was quite easy, Nikki and I also went to a bar and chatted ‘till it was time to go back, pretty chill day.” Wilbur nodded at his own thoughts and drank some water, then both of them looked at Tommy.

“What” He stared back, eyes flickering between the two brothers.

“So? How was your day?” Will encouraged him to talk, Tommy rolled his eyes. “Nothin’ special” he started, ”The history teacher scolded me for chewing a gum in class and…” after a deep breath and a couple of thoughts processed, “N-nothing else happened.” he decided to stay quiet. He couldn’t be bothered to explain the whole thing to them, especially since Phil could scold him for punching that dick-bag in the face, that would just put him in an even worse mood.

But of course, his brothers wouldn’t let that slide.

“Are you sure that’s all it happened? You don’t look like someone who had a “Nothing special” kinda day.” Will had always been curious, maybe too curious at times, Phil also nodded: They weren’t blind, they could see that Tommy wasn’t in a good mood.

“Oh come on Will, I was the one who lived my day, I’m telling you, nothing special happened!” Techno emerged from his room and grabbed a plate, no one really noticed him though. Tommy shoved a bite in his mouth to avoid saying more than he should.

“I know we are being kinda pushy Tommy but-” “Yes!!! You are being very pushy Phil!!!” At this point, he couldn’t hold it in, he wasn’t mad at them… but the rage he had suppressed before to avoid making a scene at school had to get out somehow.

“We are just worried about you Tommy! Show some appreciation!” Will stood up for Phil: the brothers didn’t like it when someone yelled at or didn’t treat their older brother well, many times Tommy had done what Wilbur was doing, but his mind wasn’t calm enough to think right now.

“Oh?! Worried?! For me?! If you would really be worried you would just LEAVE ME BE!!!” He turned around and slammed as hard as he could the door shut, the noise echoed through the Pandel house, then silence.

Tommy took his pillow and started punching it, letting the anger and tension out, after a couple of swings, he threw it to the other side of the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the Pandel brothers ate in silence, each of them absorbed into their own thoughts about the same topic: Tommy.

“So…Who is gonna go talk to him?” Wilbur broke the silence. “It’s better if no one goes talk to him right now, you heard him, he wants to be left alone.” Will looked at Phil “But we can’t leave him in that state! We have to-!” the older one finished his sentence “Help him, I know, but talking to him now will only make things worse, so let’s wait until he comes out” He stood up and grabbed Tommy’s plate, Phil moved what he left into a small container. “And if someone should talk to him” He opened the fridge, “It should be Techno, he has more chances of talking to him without an immediate rejection” Wilbur stared at the food in his plate in defeat, Techno simply nodded and ate the last bite of omelette: He even might have an idea on how to approach him.

~~~~~~~~~

Tommy left his room as Techno entered his, to put up his plan he had to stay in the living room, so that’s what he was going to do.

He grabbed what he needed to study and sat at the very end of the counter, immediately focusing on the textbook in front of him.

After Tommy looked at Techno weird since he rarely studied in the living room, he opened the fridge and grabbed a glass, filled it with milk, and went back to the sofa where he had dropped off his switch, sitting down and plugging in the earphones, he started playing “Breath of the Wild”. Tubbo had already finished it and Tommy wanted to try it out, being too broke to buy it, Tubbo lent his out of pity.

“Techno can you help me with this?” Will approached the counter with his textbook in hand, the pen in the other hand was busy scratching his head “I keep getting the wrong result and I don’t know-”

“No” He replied without taking his eyes off of his textbook, “Awww come on! I need to do this for tomorrow!” Techno sighed and patted the seat next to his, closing his homework to make room for Wilbur’s.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Almost an hour had passed and Techno had both helped Wilbur, who was now doing other work next to him and had finished his own stuff, he stretched his arms and back gaining a smile from Phil who was also working on his old pc.

After pouring a glass of milk for the rest of the brothers, including himself, he drank it all down and flopped on the sofa right in front of Tommy, who looked up to see why the seat had moved and then went back to his game.

Techno sat in a more comfortable position and started to tap on Tommy’s leg with his foot to grab his attention.

At first, all he got was some annoyed sounds, then his legs were pushing him away, and finally, he got his attention.

“What?!” He barked, eyes fixed on his smirking face. For any other person, Techno simply started waving his hands around while mouthing words, but for Tommy that was way more, that was Sign language.

What are you doing? Tommy rolled his eyes and placed his Switch on his lap, I don’t want to talk right now, Techno snickered, As if you have a choice. The younger one sighed.

At the start of the year, Tommy wasn’t doing so good with grades, his problem was that he couldn’t remember anything no matter how hard he tried. Yet Techno had noticed how he could remember fighting moves (taught to him by Deo) and other stuff pretty easily, his solution? Sign language.

The sentences were very short to gesture and way easier to remember, like that, Tommy’s grades went up in no time.

As a consequence, Techno and Tommy were the only one in the house that knew how to talk in ASl (American Sign Language), so of course, they used it to share secrets or just to annoy Wilbur since he couldn’t understand.

They also used it to talk in the cafeteria to either insult each other without getting scolded or to have a normal conversation. It was their own special way of communicating and bonding over stuff.

I know that Will and Phil bothered you about your mood, but you seriously need to let it out, his body got stiff as a self-defence mechanism, Unless you want to become a ticking time-bomb and explode near someone you care about... again.

Tommy’s eyes widened at the flashback of him shouting at Deo for something he hadn’t done came back, he was so mad he insulted his dear friend heavily, it took him an entire week to make the guilt go away and another two weeks to muster up the courage he needed to talk to him again. Deo forgave him but… to this day, Tommy still hadn’t forgiven himself.

After a minute of zoning out, he started gesturing and mouthing again:

Two students started making fun of Tubbo and I intervened, I punched one of them but… Techno’s arms were crossed as he was reading what Tommy was saying, Let me guess Wilbur looked up from his textbook and saw Techno gesturing, he wanted to yell at them to use their voices so bad… but he had to endure it this time… for Tommy’s sake.

A teacher walked in just as you punched him, blamed it on you, and sent you both home? Tommy looked at the console in his lap and slowly nodded, Techno sighed and patted the empty space next to him, smiling at the blonde boy.

Tommy crawled to the spot and hugged Techno, who just embraced him tightly while caressing his back in comfort, and the bomb, slowly defused itself: Tommy started sobbing, letting his emotions out.

“I’ll help you avenge him tomorrow” Techno whispered just before grabbing a blanket and wrapping it around the both of them, “We’ll make them pay, I promise Tommy” Tommy nodded and got even closer to Techno.

A shaky “T-thank you…” was all that came out of Tommy’s mouth before more sobs took over.

Will, who saw the whole scene, shook Phils arm lightly, pointing at the younger brothers.

He smiled at them and looked back at Wilbur, who leaned to whisper in his ear “Let them be” to then pat his shoulder.

Wilbur looked back at Techno and Tommy and smiled too.  

#ph1lza #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #technoblade #nikki #nihachu #tubbo #fd! au #fd!au #fanfiction #mcyt fanfiction #mcyt #my fanfiction #writing #my writing

[crystalninjaphoenix]

First Journey

Fantasy Masks AU: Chapter Four

A JSE Fanfic

Another one :D Chase continues to get to know everyone, and soon goes on his first mission as an official Phantom. There’s a bit of a time skip in between that, but hey, I don’t think it would’ve been too interesting to hear about every single day Chase spends at Wyvernlair. Anyway, yeah. Don’t have much to say, so just read on and enjoy ^-^

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

By the time the sun set and everyone started to head towards the cooking fires for dinner, Chase’s arms were aching from the effort of shooting a bow for hours. They felt less like part of him and more like useless things hanging from his shoulders. He was glad the day was over. The whole thing had been a lot to take in, and that training at the end had just made him exhausted physically as well as mentally.

Just like the previous night, Chase lingered around the edges of the cooking fires, instead of actually doing much mingling. It looked like almost all of the Phantoms were here, either getting food or doing the cooking themselves. Most had taken their masks off and had them in their hands or around their necks as they chattered in groups with each other. Chase, however, just waited for more people to clear up so he could feel comfortable getting food. He headed over towards the dragon leg bones that were in the area and sat down near the end, on one of the smaller bones that could serve as a bench. Some time passed, and more and more people arrived.

“Are you actually going to get something, or just sit and stare?”

Chase yelped, and twisted around to see Henrik standing behind him. “Oh. Hello.” He’d almost forgotten that Henrik had said he’d meet up with him at dinner. “How are you doing?”

“I am alright.” Henrik sat down next to him. “I would ask you the same, but I think I can tell everything by the expression on your face.”

“Do I look that bad?” Chase groaned.

“No, not bad. Just tired.” Henrik paused. “Am I right?”

“You’re right.” Chase rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m still...trying to understand everything. All this about medicine and magic and everything else. And having to prepare for combat, you know? I may be a hunter, but I’ve never fought a person. Unless you count getting into squabbles when I was a kid, and even then, it never came to blows.”

“Oh.” Henrik looked away. “Maybe I should not have insisted you do everything at once. I’m sorry. I thought it would help you to be part of the group, if you knew what you needed sooner, instead of later.”

“No, it’s fine, it’s not you,” Chase hurried to say. “It’s the whole situation. I just need time.”

“Right.” Henrik hesitated, looking like he wanted to say more. But then he shook his head a little, and said nothing.

“What? What is it?” Chase asked.

“Nevermind, if you are feeling overwhelmed, I do not want to add to it—”

“No, please, if there’s anything else, say it now. You’re right, I’d rather have everything laid out at once.”

Henrik sighed. “Well...you see, now that you are all caught up, we usually have you choose where you want to fit in. We have these—here.” His mask was hanging off his belt, and he reached down and picked it up. “You’ve noticed the symbols on the forehead by now, yes? That tells everyone what you do. It’s a helpful shortcut, since we all have different skills.”

“Ah.” Chase nods, recalling the different symbols he’d seen. There was the straight line with the curved lines wrapped around it, the circle with two dots, the X with two dots, and the card suits. “There are four, right?”

“Five, actually,” Henrik corrected. “You probably haven’t seen the fifth up close, ah...” He turned towards everyone else gathered around the cooking fires. “See, look, over there. It’s on Ana’s mask.” And he gestured towards a nearby redheaded woman, wearing a mask in the shape of a floppy-eared dog. The symbol on her forehead was a five-pointed star.

“Alright, five,” Chase nodded. “What do they mean?”

“The one I have here means medicine,” Henrik said, tapping his mask. “Or otherwise, support. We are also all birds so that we can be picked out easily in an emergency. Then the circle and cross are for combat, those are the types who go out on missions.”

“Why are there two?” Chase asked, raising an eyebrow.

Henrik shrugged. “Different skill sets. I’m not sure on the specifics, that is Jackie’s area of expertise. But circles are more direct, I believe. Like warriors. Then the star is for organization, things like records and messengers. And the card symbols mean you are a magic-wielder.”

“And why use the card suits for magic?” Chase pressed. “To my knowledge, card games aren’t magical.”

“Ah—well—w-we didn’t choose that particular symbol,” Henrik said, and then quickly moved on. “Of course, you do not have to choose now. We can put this on the shelf and you can think it over. Oh, but I should tell you now, you cannot have your own mask just yet, with your own chosen animal. You will have to use one of our extras until we get some plaster.”

“That’s fine. I don’t know what animal I’d want to be, anyway.” Chase fell silent for a minute, watching the others gathered around the fires. Someone had started playing an instrument, and the sound of strumming was soon joined in by a few people singing along. Many of them were clearly missing the notes, but they made up for that with the joy in their voices. “Yea, I’ll think about it.”

Henrik nodded, and said nothing, joining him in on watching the others. After a moment, he took a small flask out of a pouch on his belt and drank.

“That can’t hold that much ale,” Chase said. “You wouldn’t get anything out of that.”

At that remark, Henrik spluttered, and almost choked before managing to swallow the mouthful of liquid he’d just taken. “It’s not ale,” he said, voice a bit hoarse. “I-I do not—drink anything of that sort.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Chase said, embarrassed. “I was going to joke about having some, but, um, sounds like it’s...just water, then?”

“No, no.” Henrik capped the flask and put it back in the pouch. “Is medicine, actually. You would not want any.”

“Oh,” Chase repeated. He could tell that Henrik didn’t want the issue pressed any further. And who could blame him, really? Something like that was fairly personal. “Hmm...you know, I was thinking, and...I don’t actually know that much about you, do I?”

“I assure you, you know more than anyone here except Jackie,” Henrik said drily. “Most of the Phantoms know I am a doctor, but not that I travel.”

“I don’t just mean your occupation, I mean a lot more than that. Like, for example, how old are you? Do you have any family? Are you courting anyone? Things like that.”

Henrik started to smile a bit. “I am twenty-nine years old.”

“You’re a year younger than me?!” Chase gasped.

“Hey, I don’t look that old, do I?” Henrik nudged his shoulder.

“No, you don’t, really. I just...guess you seem it,” Chase said slowly. “You sound and act like you have a lot of experience.”

“Well, thank you,” Henrik said, flattered. “As for family, my parents still live in Alterde. I used to write to them, but not anymore.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Hmm.” Henrik pursed his lips. “It is a long story. What about your family?”

Chase shook his head. “Mam and Dad are gone, have been for years now. I don’t have any siblings. Stacia had a sister, but she went down into the flatlands to become a merchant. So, really, it’s only been me, Stacia, and the kids.” His heart was starting to sink the more he talked, so he quickly moved on. “Can’t help but notice you changed the subject just before you answered my last question.”

“Hmm? And what was that?” Henrik asked, clearly feigning ignorance.

“Ohhhh, I see.” A wide grin spread across Chase’s face. “So, you’re not actively courting anyone, but you’re pining. Is that it?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Henrik said, not looking him in the eye.

At that moment, someone approached the pair from the side, recognizable even from a distance because of that red cloak. “I’m missing some context, but I think I can figure out what’s going on here,” Jackie said. “Come on, Henrik, everyone knows. I thought Chase needed to be on page with everyone, riiiiight?”

“I—not like—this is—” Henrik stammered for a while, then tried to change the subject again. “What are you holding?”

“Well I saw you two being lonely out here on the edge, so I thought I’d bring you some food.” Jackie was awkwardly holding three plates, two in one hand and one in the other. “Here.” He set two of the plates down on the bone next to each of them. “I hope you like venison, Chase.”

Chase scoffed a bit. “You remember you’re talking to a hunter, right? I was raised on venison.” He picked up the nearby plate, noting the fork balanced on top of the meat. “Elders, you guys must have a lot of dishes.”

“Oh you have no idea,” Jackie muttered. “We rotate cooking and cleaning every week, so remember to check the chore notice by storage to see if it’s your turn to wash them all.”

“I’m already dreading it,” Chase assured him. “Also, I can’t help but notice Henrik still hasn’t answered my question about if he’s courting anyone.”

“Shush,” Henrik said, face slowly growing red.

Jackie chuckled. “Nothing official. He just happens to like a certain someone. But he’s not at this camp, so Schneep’s just been waiting, and I’m sure the moment they’re reunited he’s going to run right at him and profess all his feelings in a poetic—”

“Schwestern verdammit, Jackie!” Henrik threw his fork at Jackie, who just laughed and let it hit him. “Can you not do this?!”

Jackie couldn’t speak, he was too busy laughing. The best he could do was hand him his fork again.

“Well, then,” Chase muttered. “I guess that’s an answer.”

Henrik sighed. “Do not—tell anyone. I suppose everyone...knows already, but please don’t. I am not sure if he’ll...feel the same. And I want to be more sure before he finds out through rumors.”

“Alright, Henrik,” Chase said cheerfully, shrugging. “I understand. Besides, I don’t even know who you’re referring to, so I wouldn’t even know who to talk about.”

“...thank you.” Henrik let out a breath, and glared at Jackie.

“Aw, you love me,” Jackie grinned. He pushed his wolf mask off, and turned to Chase. “And if you’re going to ask me that question, the answer is no, I’m not courting anyone. Don’t have my eye on anyone either, but I don’t have a preference, so I’m sure I’ll find someone eventually. Maybe once things are less busy.”

“Good luck on that, then,” Chase nodded.

Jackie smiled wider. This was the first time Chase had seen him without the mask covering the upper half of his face. There was a small scar next to his right eye, short but straight, probably caused by a blade. And he looked...younger than Chase expected. Much like Henrik, he thought Jackie would be older than him, but he seemed to be the same age as him, if not younger. For a moment, Chase wondered how these two got mixed up in this whole rebellion situation. Were they affected by the King’s actions like he was? Or in some other way? Or something else he couldn’t come up with? And why were their masks the only ones that had color?

Before he could ask any of these questions, Henrik decided it was once again time to change the subject. “Ah, Chase, I have been meaning to ask you.” He cleared his throat. “Would you like to...learn how to read better?”

“Huh?” It took Chase a moment to return to the present. “Well, I guess. It would be helpful to know more. Why, do you want to teach me?”

“A-ah, I don’t know if I would be a good teacher,” Henrik mumbled.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you were pretty good at teaching me,” Jackie said. “And that was while you yourself were still learning the language!”

“You know most of that wasn’t me, it was—” Henrik suddenly stopped, glanced at Chase, and abruptly moved on. “There is more to teaching than just knowing the language.”

“I know, and you were pretty good at it.”

“I was going to say that we would find someone who would have more time on their hands, we are busy—”

“Not as much now that you’re not travelling anymore. Besides, I think it would work best with you two together, you already sort of know each other, and you’re getting along well. It’d just be complicated to shove Chase at someone new, he already met enough new people today.”

Henrik tried to argue further, but Jackie just looked at him, his expression a strange mix of pleading and stubbornness. So, Henrik just sighed, and turned to Chase. “Would you want me to teach you?”

After a moment, Chase nodded. “Yea. Jackie’s right, w-we already know each other, it’ll be easiest.”

Henrik looked up to the sky. “Alright, then. I will find some time, Sisters willing.”

“Great!” Jackie gave Henrik a quick one-armed hug. “Now you two should actually eat the food I brought you. It’ll get cold fast.” And with that, he disappeared back into the rest of the crowd.

Chase watched him go. “He’s...something, isn’t he?”

Henrik laughed quietly. “You are right.” Then he looked at Chase. “So, is that it, then?”

“Reading. Yea.” Chase paused. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Of course it is not. It’s my schedule that is the trouble.” Henrik shook his head. “Now, please. We should eat.”

They ate quietly, and afterwards, Chase went back to his tent. The moment he laid down, he was asleep, too tired to do anything else.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time passed. Days, at first, and then weeks. Frost started to linger on the ground, and people started wearing two jackets or cloaks to block out the cold. Personally, Chase was content with his one jacket and hat. Maybe he was more used to the cold than the other members of the Masked Phantoms. Or maybe he was just too busy to feel the chill.

It took him a few more days than expected to decide where he’d fit in. Obviously, he didn’t have any magic, so he couldn’t help with any magic-related tasks. And after thinking about it, he didn’t really have the mind for medicine. There was just so much to remember, not just about medicine itself, but also how the body worked, and he’d have to look after so many people. Sure, he might know a bit about simple injuries and common illnesses, but just the extent to which Henrik and Nemet and all the other doctors had to remember and learn...he didn’t think he was cut out for it. It was a similar case for the more administrative tasks. He’d never been very organized. It didn’t seem like a good fit.

So, instead, he turned his attention to his skills. He was a hunter. So, on some level, combat made sense. It was also the one that involved the most action. Groups and individuals were frequently leaving and returning to camp, many of them wearing masks with the circles or crosses that indicated they were fighters. That was what Chase wanted to do. Direct action. But not too direct. He wasn’t a warrior, after all. And Henrik had described the circles as being like warriors...given the process of elimination, the result was obvious.

But he figured that out quickly. The reason he hesitated to commit to that particular branch of the Phantoms...was because of Lukas. Chase picked up that Lukas and Holly were in charge of the two combat-based branches, with Lukass leading the crosses and Holly leading the circles. And Lukas continued to show a deep mistrust of him that was honestly unnerving. He brought it up with Jackie and Henrik, but they each reassured him that Lukas would learn to get along with him. But...that didn’t seem to be happening. In fact, Chase felt like Lukas was going out of his way to keep an eye on him. Every time Chase went out to the combat fields, Lukas was there, insisting that he show off his bow skills. And sometimes, Chase even thought he could see the fox-masked man following him around camp. But that last part might just be paranoia and mistaken identity. After all, there were many different animal masks at Wyvernlair.

Eventually, Chase realized he might be taking too long to decide, so he gritted his teeth, and told Jackie about his choice the next time he saw him. Jackie was excited, as he usually seemed to be, and took him to storage to pick up one of the spare masks. There were three spares marked with the crosses: a wolf, a mouse, and a hedgehog. Chase didn’t want to choose the same wolf theme as Jackie, so he went for the hedgehog. Stacia had always thought those were cute.

Of course, it turned out that his anticipation of difficulties with Lukas...was entirely correct. He seemed a bit surprised to hear that Chase had decided to join the branch he was in charge of, but he quickly got over that feeling and doubled down on his obvious distrust. Every day, he’d meet Chase at the combat fields, and give him a target range to shoot at...over and over and over. And they got more difficult each day. He said he was trying to improve Chase’s mediocre shooting ability, but Chase got the impression he wanted him to fail.

On the bright side, once he got a mask of his own, even if it was only a spare, everyone else quickly accepted that he was part of the Phantoms. And once that happened, it was easy to get to know everyone. Nemet was already familiar with him, so she’d stop by every so often to check on him, and to insist that he keep his tent in order. Holly regularly intervened when Lukas started to go a bit too far in his ‘archery practice,’ and every so often, gave Chase short lessons in self-defense. Tripp, the sorcerer, kept popping out of nowhere to strike up a conversation about some random topic before disappearing. And of course, Jackie and Henrik were always around.

Somehow, the fact that Chase was getting to know all these people seemed to upset Lukas, making him even more suspicious.

Though, there was something strange that Chase was noticing. As he became familiar with other Phantoms, he got the distinct impression that...something was missing. He wasn’t sure how else to describe it. When he talked to people, they’d sometimes start to say something, then change the subject. How’d they manage to find these dragon bones? Who came up with the idea to make the masks animals? Are there quite a lot of magic-wielders in the group? Questions like that got glossed over, and soon, Chase began to realize there was an empty hole in the Phantoms that nobody wanted to talk about. An empty hole...where a person might fit.

This realization only made him more curious about whoever-this-was who was missing. But if nobody was giving him the answers to the small questions, he doubted they’d say anything if he just bluntly asked about this person. But the thought just wouldn’t go away. Maybe...he could ask Henrik? He seemed the most likely to give him some sort of answer. Perhaps he could bring it up during one of their reading lessons.

The lessons weren’t too bad, really. Chase already knew a fair amount, so they weren’t starting from scratch. He already knew how to put together sentences and could read most commonly-used words. But oftentimes the lessons were short, as Henrik got called away to do something or other really quickly. This meant that progress was still slow, even with Chase practicing on his own.

Where he struggled most was with the new words. He recognized every one so far from speech, but his mind couldn’t match up the spelling with the sounds. Mostly because they were, in his opinion, not spelled how they sounded at all.

In one lesson, he threw the chalk he was using away and exclaimed “Why do they combine the letters?! It would be so much easier to have one letter for every sound!”

“Oh, I do not disagree with you there,” Henrik said, standing up to retrieve the chalk. They’d taken to holding the lessons on the edge of camp, where the trees of the forest once again started to appear. The chalk had hit one of said trees, and Henrik found it quickly. He walked back to his spot next to Chase, sat on the ground next to him, and handed him the chalk

Chase grumbled and pressed the chalk hard into the board they were using. Copying the letters and words was easy, even if his handwriting was a bit crooked and looked like a ramshackle hut next to Henrik’s solidly built houses of letters. But recognizing the words? “Why don’t they change it so it makes more sense?”

Henrik shrugged. “Alphabets do not just change automatically. It is something that happens slowly, over time. From what I understand, the one that most nations use today is put together by combining symbols from many different places. Of course, many nations that are farther away use their own. And even some close by are stubborn to keep their own letters.”

“We should’ve kept our own letters,” Chase muttered.

“Hmm?” Henrik’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing. That doesn’t even make sense. I’m just frustrated.” Honestly, Chase wondered if Glasúil ever had its own alphabet. The single kingdom was once home to several different clans, each with their own customs. They probably each had an alphabet, and when the kingdom was united, decided it was too much trouble to pick one or combine them, so they brought in an alphabet from beyond the island.

“Ah, I see. Well, I think you’re doing very well.” Henrik looked up towards the sky. “But unfortunately, I will have to leave soon.”

“Aw.” Chase erased the words on the board with his jacket sleeve. “Tooooo bad.”

Henrik scoffed. “Well, remember you have to practice words with those combined letters—”

“Yea, I got it, Henrik. Ancient elders, you can be a stick in the ground sometimes.”

Despite Chase’s tone, Henrik smiled briefly. “Before I go, I have to tell you something. Or, well, I should ask first. Are you ready to go on your first mission?”

Chase perked up. In the weeks he’d spent here, he hadn’t gone on one mission to help the Phantoms. The timing was perfect; he was starting to get restless. “Of course. What is it? What do I have to do?”

“Nothing too risky, not for your first time. But recently, we heard that there were...unusual visitors in the surviving mountain villages. The ones more...downhill. Farther from the Greatwoods. It may be nothing, but we should go see. Since you are familiar with the mountains, it seemed a good idea to ask you go to along.”

“It’s a group?” That made sense. If they didn’t want too much risk on his first mission, there would be safety in numbers. “Who else is going?”

“Jackie—”

“Jackie’s going? He could’ve asked me himself.”

Henrik huffed. “He was going to tell you, but he got sidetracked by business, so he asked me to tell you, since I would be seeing you first. Elin is also going, she is a sorcerer. And Kenneth, who is a doctor.”

“Four people.” Chase nodded. “Maybe you should come, too, round it up to five for luck.”

“I am delighted that you’d want my company, but...well, must I really repeat my scheduling problems?” Henrik sighed. “Besides, if Jackie is gone, someone has to be here to make sure everything goes well. I assure you, Kenneth is a wonderful doctor.”

“I’m sure,” Chase nodded. Though he was a bit sad Henrik wouldn’t be coming, he knew it would’ve been difficult. At least Jackie would be there. “When are we leaving? Did Jackie tell you?”

“Two days from now,” Henrik said.

“Oh. That’s sooner than I expected,” Chase admitted.

“You have to account for travel time,” Henrik explained. “I understand the village is three days from here, if you go straight. Possibly four.” He once again glanced up at the sky, and stood up. “Alright, I really must go now. Remember to practice.”

“Yea, I hear you. Be seeing you.” Chase waved Henrik off as he headed back towards the main body of Wyvernlair, passing in between the distant—but still large even this far away—bones of the dragon, and disappearing from sight.

Two days, huh? Chase supposed that was enough time to prepare. Sighing, he stood up, grabbing the board and chalk. And maybe enough time to finally get a hang of some of these letter combinations. He might as well get started now. Once he left for this mission, it would be a few days before he’d see Henrik again for another lesson.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two days later, Chase met up with Jackie and the two others, and they set off before the morning frost started to melt. The journey itself wasn’t too exciting. Just a lot of traveling through the woods. The other two people on the mission, Elin and Kenneth—a pair of siblings wearing near-identical goat masks—weren’t very talkative, so Jackie filled most of the silence. The most surprising thing was the number of animals Chase was seeing. The area of the woods around his town had been so empty, even for late fall. But as they moved farther from camp, he saw all kinds of woodland creatures, even a few deer. That was strange.

Something that wasn’t strange, but took some getting used to, was that everyone was carrying weapons. Chase was used to having a bow on his back and a quiver by his side, but it was strange to look at his companions and see them armed as well. Elin had a pair of daggers dangling from her belt, while Kenneth had a single, broad-bladed sword that he carried on his back. Jackie had two swords, one on his back and one on his hip. Chase found that odd, but he was sure Jackie knew what he was doing. Jackie had insisted Chase carry a knife as well as he bow, just in case. So one of the swords must’ve been a spare, ‘just in case.’

But the journey passed surprisingly quickly, and the next thing Chase knew, three days had gone by, and Jackie was gathering the three of them to talk about their approach to the mountain village, called Skytown.

“Alright, we’re going to circle around so we’re approaching from the east, that way it’ll look like we just came from downhill instead of the forest. That won’t be unusual, I understand this village gets a lot of visitors from farther down. Everyone alright with that?”

Everyone nodded slowly. “We would blend in more as visitors if we had horses,” Elin muttered. The few times she’d spoken up on the journey had all been talking about horses.

“Damn it, Elin,” Kenneth sighed. “Do we have to talk about the unsuitable terrain again?”

“No, no, I was just pointing it out.” Elin paused. “But I still don’t understand why people bring horses up into the north mountains, but not here. They’re both mountains. And the Northavens are much rockier.”

“It’s not about rocks, it’s about sudden ups and downs and the steepness of the slope. People can climb, horses can’t.”

“Alright, you two, break it off,” Jackie said. “Chase, are you on board with us?”

Chase nodded. “Um...can I say something, though?”

“What?” Jackie asked.

“I think I should stay back. If you’re planning to pretend to be visitors from the flatlands, that is.”

“Hmm?” Jackie tilted his head. “Interesting. Why?”

“Well, something I’ve noticed is that all of you from the flatlands talk differently than me,” Chase said. “Not too much, but it’s noticeable. See, just the fact that I call the rest of the kingdom ‘the flatlands’ would give away that I’m actually from the mountains. So, if you’re going to pretend to be visitors, I should stay back, because I’d give it away.”

“You could just not talk,” Elin suggested.

Chase considered this. “I guess that could work...but it might be hard.”

“Let’s talk about it again when we’re out of the forest,” Jackie said. “C’mon, get moving everyone. We’re almost there.”

By now, the colorful autumn foliage of the trees had mostly fallen off, making a carpet of brown leaves on the forest floor and leaving the branches above bare in many places. And Chase had noticed that the trees were starting to spread out, less close together like they were deeper in the forest. Jackie was right; they were almost to the edge of the forest. Though the area itself was unfamiliar to Chase, it felt similar to home.

While looking around these surroundings, he saw something move. He almost missed it, on the very edge of his vision. Chase stopped, turning to look. Was that...a deer?

“Chase! Keep up!” Jackie called.

“Sorry!” Chase looked away for a moment, hurrying to catch up with the others. When he glanced back, the deer-shaped thing was gone.

Soon, the trees thinned out, and the four of them stood on the edge of the forest, overlooking the mountain village Skytown. It was quite a bit bigger than the Hilltown Chase called home. All the buildings were solid stone, large enough for at least four rooms, with thatched roofs that hadn’t been present back in Hilltown. People still bustled about, but their clothes were a bit nicer, with less patches. Was this because Skytown was downhill, closer to the rest of the kingdom?

“Nothing looks strange from up here,” Kenneth said, shielding his eyes against the sun. “What would these unusual people look like?”

“The reports said they were dressed nicely, almost nobly,” Jackie said. “And there was at least one of them wearing the royal crest.”

Elin raised an eyebrow. “I see.”

“Alright. Chase.” Jackie turned to look at him. “Do you still want to stay behind?”

“Um...” Chase hesitated. Stalling for time, he once again looked around the forested surroundings. Back home, the trees almost curved around Hilltown, leaving only one side that was open. Here, it was the opposite. Most of the area around Skytown was open, covered in grass and rocks, and the forest was only to the west. It felt a bit strange, seeing all that wide, clear space.

Idly, Chase looked over his shoulder. And froze. There was a deer there. Some ways away, blending in with the brown forest, mostly hidden by the trunks of the trees. But its antlers...they drew his eyes. Gilded. Golden. And from there, he noticed that the deer was looking right at him.

His heart stopped.

“Chase? Is everything okay?” Jackie asked, concerned.

“Y-yes.” Chase turned back around. “I...think I’ll stay back here. I’ll be the cavalry. If something happens, just send me a sign, I’ll come running.”

“Are you sure?” Jackie asked. “You don’t want to get closer, at least?”

“No, this is the only place nearby with cover,” Chase insisted.

Jackie looked unsure, but he nodded. “Alright. We’ll send you a sign, somehow.”

“I could do that,” Elin said, wiggling her fingers.

“We won’t be long, though. Be on the lookout.” Jackie turned to the others. “Alright, masks off and hidden. We want to look normal. If there’s an emergency, put them on first before anything else.” The other two nodded, and he looked back at Chase. “We’ll be back soon.”

Chase nodded, taking a step back into the forest. “Good luck.”

He watched as they hid their masks behind their cloaks, then headed out, circling around the village, eventually shrinking into the distance. The moment they were gone, he turned back around.

The deer was still there.

In fact, it was closer.

What was he supposed to do? “Is this...is this because I almost shot you that night?” he finally asked, voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know it was you. Had I known, I never would’ve taken aim.”

The deer’s ear flicked. Its head moved side to side, as if shaking ‘no’ in response to his question.

“Then...what? What is it?” Chase waited, but didn’t get another response. He blinked. And suddenly, the deer was even closer. “I-if I’ve done something to wrong you, or any of the Elders, I-I sincerely apologize, and assure you it was done in ignorance, not malice.”

Another shake of the deer’s head. He blinked again, and suddenly it was right in front of him, close enough that he felt hot breath on his face. It was an unusually large deer. Most of the ones he’d encountered had their head reach his chest, not counting the antlers. But this...the deer’s eyes were level with his, large and unfathomably dark.

His head started to spin. The ground tilted beneath his feet, but he didn’t fall. For a moment, everything was alive. The forest floor was breathing, the rocks were mumbling, the trees were staring at him, the sky above was filled with a foreign presence. The world was vast, it was living, and he could reach out and touch the soul of everything.

Then the deer blinked. And Chase gasped, staggering backwards, losing his balance and landing hard on his back. Groaning, he sat up again. Wait a minute...had the sun changed position? He could’ve sworn it was closer to the eastern horizon a few seconds ago. The difference wasn’t large, but it was noticeable. Confused, he looked back at the deer.

It blinked again, slowly. Then it looked away from him, towards something behind him. Its head moved up...and down. Like a nod. Chase, turned around.

There was a plume of smoke rising into the sky from the village.

Chase gasped, and scrambled to his feet. He glanced back over his shoulder, but the deer was gone. What had that all been about? No, this wasn’t the time. If anything was a sign, that was it. He made sure that he still had his bow and quiver with him—of course he did—and pulled the hedgehog mask onto his face. Then, he ran.

The town wasn’t quite in chaos yet, but it was getting close. The townsfolk were shouting and pointing, but not fleeing in panic. He got more than a few baffled looks as he passed through, but he ignored them, and headed towards the fire, near the village center. And the closer her got, the more people he ran past who were, in fact, fleeing in panic.

By the time he reached the center, the air was filled with smoke. He skidded to a halt, taking a moment to breathe through it.

The center was taken up by a wide square, with a well in the middle. It was the buildings around this square that were on fire, their thatched roofs aflame...as well as the stone walls. Chase was taken aback by the familiar, strange sight. But then he turned his attention to the few people in the square.

A fight had broken out. Or, more accurately, three separate fights, one for each of his masked companions. Nearest to him, Kenneth had pulled out his sword and was dueling with a man. A man wearing a black tunic with the royal crest on the back. And it looked like this man considerably outmatched Kenneth in skill, because he kept forcing him to back up. Across the square, Jackie was also in a battle of swords, but his battle was very different. Three people—two men and a woman—were attacking him, but he was easily holding his own, dancing around them in a whirl of scarlet cloak. And he was using both swords. Chase had never seen or heard of anything like it, but the way Jackie was moving, you’d think there’d never been any other way to use a sword, other than in pairs.

The strangest fight was happening in the middle of the square, around the well. Strange because there were no weapons being used. Instead, this was a battle of magic. Elin and another woman were circling each other, with the well in the center. The strange woman had something in her hand, something glowing, and she’d pull some of that glowing light away from the object and hurl it towards Elin. The moment the glow left her hands it became a raging ball of fire, but Elin was expertly drawing water from the well in fluid streams, shaping it to shield her. She kept glancing back at the burning buildings, but when she tried to send water that way, the strange woman would throw another fireball that she had to deflect.

Nobody had noticed Chase yet. Taking advantage of that fact, he quickly pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it on his bow. He got ready to loose the arrow, but hesitated. He’d never shot at a person before.

At that moment, Elin glanced back at the fire again, and her shield of water wavered. The strange woman threw another fireball, hot enough to fly through the weak shield without disappearing. Elin screamed as it hit her shoulder.

And Chase snapped to action, shooting his arrow towards the strange woman. It landed in her back, and she screamed as well.

The man in the black tunic stopped his duel with Kenneth, spinning around. “Lady Tinechroí!” he shouted. And the moment he was distracted, Kenneth turned and fled. He ran towards Elin, who had fallen to the ground, clutching her shoulder.

The other three strangers attacking Jackie also stopped to turn, and in that moment, Jackie brought one of his swords down on one of the two men, wounding him in a splash of red. The other two cried out, and Chase nocked another arrow, shooting towards the other man. That arrow hit him in the leg, causing him to bend over, and Jackie hit him in the back of the head with the hilt of his other sword. Then he turned quickly to block an attack from the woman, the last attacker.

“You.”

The single word was filled with venom, and Chase immediately knew it was directed at him. He turned to look. The strange woman, the one he’d shot in the back, was now leaning against the well for support. In that moment, Chase managed to take in a few details about her. Pale blonde hair, pulled back in a braid. Unnaturally bright blue eyes. Wearing a purple tunic and trousers that were embroidered with gold, looking very fine. In her hand, she held a silver brooch with a red gem in the center. And then the gem started to glow. In a split second, that glow ran up the woman’s arm and into her body. She glowed bright white, and pointed her other hand at him.

Chase immediately turned and leaped behind the nearest building. A bright white bolt hit the corner near where he’d been standing, breaking off the stone, showering him in pieces of broken wall. “Shit!” he shouted, covering his face just in time to block a fist-sized stone piece.

“We need to get out of here!” Jackie yelled. Chase peeked around the broken corner at the sound of it. The man in the black tunic and the woman who’d been fighting Jackie were now helping the other, strange woman stand, supporting her. A similar situation was happening with his own companions. Jackie and Kenneth were helping Elin up, as she weakly directed streams of water from the well onto the burning buildings nearby: not fully putting them out, but making the flames smaller.

Jackie saw Chase peeking around the corner. He pointed to the left. Chase nodded, and ran, heading away from the burning.

Townfolk were also running, but they were heading towards the burning, many of them carrying buckets. Chase noted them briefly, scanning the area for Jackie and the others. He spotted them a few minutes later, heading towards the three of them as Jackie and Kenneth carried Elin between them. The moment he was within earshot, he shouted, “What happened?!”

“Later,” Jackie said, tilting his head towards the edge of town.

“Oh. Yes.” Chase glanced back towards the blaze, uncertain. The townsfolk could handle that, right? They seemed prepared. And it wasn’t that big a fire, comparatively. But still, he felt uneasy as the four of them turned away.

They reached the edge of the forest and kept going. And going. Once the town was out of sight and the trees were close together once again, they relaxed a bit. Kenneth started digging through his bag, pulling out small bottles of salves. Elin sat by one of the trees, wincing at the burn that covered most of her shoulder. Jackie sheathed the sword he still had out and breathed a sigh of relief. “That was bad.”

“What was all that about?” Chase asked once again. “You were in town for one minute and suddenly there was fire!”

Jackie gave him an odd look. “Um...we were in there for much longer than one minute.”

Really? It hadn’t seemed like it. “Well, still, what happened?”

Jackie’s expression darkened. “They knew we were coming. I’m not sure how, but they did. Maybe they saw some of our scouts a while ago? Either way, we went into town and started searching. We looked over the whole place a couple times, but didn’t go inside anywhere. Then, out of nowhere, they burst out of one of the houses and attacked us. That wizard started throwing fire everywhere, it was a disaster.”

“A wizard, huh?” Chase whistled. “Wow. Who was she? They called her Lady—”

“Tinechroí,” Jackie muttered, bitterness lining his expression and voice.

“Um...well, yes. So she’s a noble.”

“That’s not surprising, the King has many of them in his pocket.” Jackie sighed. “Thank the elders you decided to stay in the forest. Though it must’ve gotten boring, being out there for that long by yourself.”

“...no, it wasn’t, not really,” Chase said uncertainly. “To be honest, I...lost track of time. How long were you in town?”

“Not sure. An hour, maybe.”

“Ah.” That...didn’t make sense. Chase could’ve sworn he was only waiting for a minute. But...in that minute, the deer had done something strange to him. Was it possible that more time had passed, and he just didn’t realize? “Well, thank the elders.” Quite literally, perhaps.

Jackie nodded. “We should start heading back now. I think Elin is stable now, but we should get her back to Wyvernlair quickly, just in case.”

“Yea. Let’s go.”

As they headed back, Chase remained quiet, thinking about his encounter with the deer. This was the second time he’d seen it, and the first time had been the night Hilltown burned. What did the deer want? What was its goal?

He stayed silent for the entirety of the three day journey back to camp.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticegos #jacksepticeye fanfiction #septic egos #septic egos au #jacksepticeye au #chase brody #dr schneeplestein #jackieboy man #brigid writes fanfiction #fantasymasksau

[wulfies-kpop-fanfics]

One Photo → Mark Lee [6]

↳  Pairing: Mark Lee/Reader

↳  AU: Soulmate!AU - The first touch of two soulmates permanently scars their bodies.

↳  Warning: Suggestive

↳  Word count: 4,349

↳  Chapters: Prelude | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | You Are Here! | 7 | 8 | 9

⁙ Summary: For an end of the year photography project, you’re tasked with taking a photograph for your favourite group, NCT127, and coincidentally, discover your soulmate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FRIDAY - 6 - Part 2

As the two of you travel down the hallway making quiet conversation, Mark stops in his tracks. You're completely focused on him, not sure what he's looking at. The hallway goes silent, save for heavy breathing and the sound of kissing. 

Peeking out from behind Mark's back, you peer around the bend of the hallway to join your soulmate's gaze, landing on none other than Rhiannon and Donghyuck, the latter pushing her up against the wall. 

"You hypocrite!" Mark quickly covers your mouth with his hand, but it's already too late- both of them are startled enough to quickly separate and begin smoothing out their clothes. 

Once Rhiannon realizes that it's you and Mark that caught her, she grabs Donghyuck's hand. She looks completely serious, her face flushed red. "Where, need it now. Our turn." 

With your mouth still covered, you look up at Mark. He's still nearly stunned, exchanging looks with Donghyuck, who is equally frozen in place and watching all of this unfold. "Uh," Mark starts sheepishly, glancing between the couple standing before you. "End of the hall, second last room," 

Donghyuck nods and says something in Korean, and from context you assume he's done the same as Mark - prepared a room. He tugs on her hand gently, quickly leading her past the two of you - the slightly awkward moment passing as soon as Rhiannon and Donghyuck are out of sight. 

Mark removes his hand from your mouth, and you glance back for a moment. "Well," you say, swallowing thickly. "I guess I know how she feels now."

Mark smiles, barely keeping back a laugh. "Seems like it. Let’s go back to the stage before we find out if those rooms are soundproof or not." 

It was relieving to know that once you two arrived back in the arena, none of the guys even so much as made a whisper about what you and Mark so obviously left to do. Everyone was now sitting on the stage around what looked like a picnic blanket that had a spread of snacks over top of it. They all waved to greet you and Johnny helped you up on the stage when you approached. “Help yourself,” Jaehyun said, popping a piece of melon in his mouth. “We just gotta wait for Donghyuck and Rhiannon to come back and then we can do a small dance practice.” 

You and Mark happily approach the others and take your seats among them. You sigh in contentment as you chew on a piece of pineapple, finally chipping away at your post-sex appetite.

"So," Johnny begins as you're about to eat your second piece of pineapple, "we couldn't get much out of Mark, but we were all wondering why you and Rhiannon were living by yourselves off-campus in the city." 

You freeze for a moment, chewing and swallowing cautiously. Mark grabs your hand and looks at you sympathetically. 

"It's a little complicated," you answer, "but we chose to move out when we were accepted to college. I lived with her family for a while after my parents were arrested, but I feel like I made their home life a lot worse. I would have left earlier, but my inheritances and my government grants didn't arrive immediately." 

Jaehyun looked at you, eyebrows furrowed. "What happened to your parents?" 

You licked your lips and sighed. "Your general gang slash drug dealer gig. They both got hefty prison time for child neglect, drug possession and trafficking on top of harbouring fugitives." 

Everyone was silent, save for the muted sounds of eating. "That all sounds horrible," Johnny said. "I never would have guessed you came from that life."

"Sometimes I can't believe I went through any of that either," you agree, "after I left home my life got a lot better. I have Rhiannon to thank for it all. Because of her, I'm here now." You smile as best you can, picking up a mini ham and cheese sandwich triangle you spotted on the platter. 

"What are we all talking about?" Rhiannon called as she and Donghyuck entered through one of the side archways into the arena. You and Mark helped them up onto the stage where they took their places and also began picking at the food. 

"Collecting my life story," you say, watching the others nod. "I was saying that I lived with you and your family for a while until we moved out." 

"Mm, yeah. Rough few years," she commented, picking up her own sandwich triangle. "I'm so glad we moved out."

"Why?" Jungwoo asked, causing you to turn your attention to him.

Rhiannon licked her lips. "It was pretty easy going for the five of us while my mom was still around. (Y/N) and I were working to help my dad out and my mom ran a daycare. When the two of us were graduating from high school, my mom passed away from breast cancer." 

You looked down at the floor of the stage, acutely aware of the sullen silence as she paused. "Then life got bad. Mine and my sister's mental health plummeted and everyone was always arguing, especially my dad and my sister. Once (Y/N) and I were both accepted to study in the city, we moved out with her inheritance as fast as we could." 

"I'm sorry," Taeyong added. "It's better now, right?" 

"As good as it can be," you smile somberly, peeking up a little bit as Mark held your hand. "I miss our mom more and more every day, but we know she's watching over us, cheering us on. If we give up on what we've been working so hard for, she'd definitely beat our asses. Once we graduate, we will be able to build the best lives for ourselves as we can."

"Now that we have all of you, it feels like we fell out of a nightmare and ended up in a dream," Rhiannon said, chewing on another piece of food. "Now all I need to do is get (Y/N) to stop eating stuff with ketchup and I will reach nirvana."

You rolled your eyes and smiled at her. "Ketchup isn't that bad," you protest, nearly breaking out into full out laughter as Mark also makes a disgusted face toward you. 

"You like ketchup?" He asked, jokingly frowning. 

"Not as much as her sister," you point at Rhiannon, "Lindsay will eat ketchup with mac and cheese!"

"Oh God, that's disgusting!" Mark stuck his tongue out and nearly gagged. 

"We know!" Both you and Rhiannon exclaimed in unison. 

Things quieted down again as everyone finished the snacks that were laid out, and you all helped clean up once the tray of snacks was polished off. Yuta ended up being the one voted to go backstage with the dishes, but Johnny, Taeyong and Doyoung eventually offered to go and help. Jungwoo, Jaehyun and Taeil also left, you assumed to maybe go to the bathroom, leaving you, Rhiannon, Mark and Donghyuck to occupy the stage. 

Once the crowd had diminished, Rhiannon turned her attention to Mark, mischief written all over her face. You already know what's about to come out of her mouth, so you stand up and make your way onto the other side of the stage to hide behind a curtain. 

"(Y/N)? Why are you hiding?" Mark seems curious, standing up to walk over to you, but stops in his tracks when Rhiannon begins to speak. 

"So, Mark, you guys were up there for a while."

"Y-yeah…" his response was drawn out, not exactly sure where the conversation was going. You inwardly groaned. 

"Did you like (Y/N)'s boobs? Pretty big, right? Also super pretty," 

"Noona!" Donghyuck chimed in, also standing up and reaching for her arm. "That's bad!"

Mark goes beet red, looking your way sheepishly. He starts stuttering as if he's shutting down. You take a deep breath, you probably should do something. 

"Y-yeah, they were pretty great, um-" he starts, then it looks like something clicks in his head. "H-how would you know what they look like?"

Rhiannon grinned at him, her eyes shifting to the backstage entrance as Yuta and the others were all clamouring back in, "I've seen her naked tons of times. Best breasts on the market if you ask me." 

"This needs context! This really needs context!" Johnny shouted as soon as everyone else stopped in their tracks. 

At this point, Mark is so red that you think he might actually turn into a tomato. He's completely frozen and speechless, mouth hanging open in shock. Taking in a deep breath you emerge from the curtain you take Mark's hand and squeeze it gently. 

"How about we address how quickly you came back from the VIP rooms?" You question, sticking your other hand on your hip.

"Well, y'know," she starts, looking over at the small crowd of boys staring in disbelief. 

"Noona-" Donghyuck tries to stop her, but she whispers something in his ear which in turn seems to stop his protest. 

"I'm all for taking dick up my cooch but I figured a nice thigh fuck would be better to start out with. Keep them wanting more, right? Oh, he's not small, either."  She winked. 

"Noonaaaaaa," Donghyuck whines, following that up with something else in Korean you couldn't understand. Everyone in the room was completely silent, frozen in disbelief of what had just entered their ears. 

"Well, I think you got your context, John," Jaehyun was the first to utter any words. 

It definitely took a while for you to process what just happened. You knew what Rhiannon was like and you expected a small comment from her, but you were completely floored. You opened your mouth to say something, but no words came. 

"Well, let's not just stand here, we have an hour before the stylists want us," Taeyong clapped his hands politely, and that seemed to get everyone else in gear. The awkwardness still took a while to fade, so you and Rhiannon decided to sit off to the side while the boys clamoured into their positions to practice dancing. 

Once the melody of Cherry Bomb entered your ears, your heart began to thud in your chest. It was one of your favourite songs by them, and the dance was also easily one of your favourites, just behind BOSS. You sat just by the edge of the curtain, clapping along and waving whenever Mark glanced in your direction, tapping your feet against the floor. Rhiannon was outright jamming next to you, making you laugh and grin at her as you shook your head. 

When Simon Says started, you stood and (pathetically) tried to imitate the dance as you stood in your spot. Mark looked over at you for a split second as he faced you to change positions in the dance and he flashed a quick thumbs up with a smile. 

The next thing you notice though is Rhiannon, who also decided to stand up to start dancing. "Hey (Y/N), watch this," she bends her arms to a ninety-degree angle and then begins to swivel her hips like she's playing with a hula hoop. 

You can barely contain your laughter as you watch her dance and don't even notice that the music stopped, everyone turned toward her to catch her in the act. 

Yuta is holding his phone, presumably the one controlling the Bluetooth speakers that are hidden somewhere on the stage, trying not to laugh. "Neither of you know how to dance, do you?" 

"Hell no," you're wiping away a tear, watching Rhiannon' silly grin. 

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I hope Red Velvet has an opening cause I'm about to take the world by storm," she is hardly able to finish her joke before she also bursts out laughing, doubling over and holding her stomach.

"C'mere," Mark held out a hand to you, "let's all have some fun before we have to go." 

With a smile you approach your soulmate, pressing your scarred palms to his. A newer song you don't think you've heard yet starts playing over the speakers, Yuta smiling warmly in your direction. Rhiannon joins Donhgyuck and the boys slowly begin to teach you an easy dance, laughing and having fun. 

Time flew by and eventually they had to go backstage to get changed and have makeup done by the stylists. You and Rhiannon stuck around backstage for a bit, but eventually, you decided to go find your seats. You left your backpack in the stylist room with Mark, hoping you would remember it after the show. 

"Wait!" Mark caused you to stop in your tracks on the way out, turning towards him and meeting his eyes. "I have something for you." He stands up from the makeup chair he was perched in and dug around in a cardboard box in the corner of the room. He eventually comes up with an NCT127 light stick box. 

"You really didn't have to, I could have gone out to the merchandise line," you said sheepishly as Mark handed it to you with a grin.

"It's a gift," he retorted with a smile. "I wouldn't want you to be in that line long enough for you to miss any of the performances."

"Thank you, Mark, I'll wave it higher than everyone else." You looked over at the stylist. "Can I kiss him, please?"

She nodded. "We haven't done lips yet. Go ahead." 

Excitedly you lean forward to peck Mark on the lips. "I love you, see you soon," 

"I love you too, (Y/N)," Mark held your hand for a few seconds before he had to let you leave the room and return to his chair. 

Once you had taken your seat and prepared your light stick, the lights began to fade. Other fans were being let into the venue, and soon enough the concert would start. Rhiannon looked over at you with a grin, holding up a pair of earplugs. 

"Check your light stick box," she said. "If we learned anything from seeing BTS last year is that we need these, Donghyuck packed some for me. Maybe Mark did for yours."

Peering into your box, you noticed at the bottom that there was a pair of earplugs sitting there and a note in Mark's writing.

In case you forgot. Love, Mark

You smiled at the note fondly, placing it back in the box, closing it tightly. You slipped it underneath your chair, sitting down and watching the lights dim. You just finished putting the lightstick strap around your wrists, putting the earplugs in your pocket. 

Your phone buzzed as fans began to take their seats, and smiled when you read a text from Mark. 

Mark: I hope you're ready for the show tonight

You: I've been preparing myself since I bought the tickets

Mark: I wanted to ask you something before my phone gets confiscated

You: What do you need?

Rhiannon perched her chin on your shoulder and read the texts. "Ooh," she sang. "Does he sext you?" 

"No!" You quickly dispute. "I'm not sure what he's gonna ask." 

Mark: I spoke to my manager and the guys, since I leave for Vancouver tomorrow, I wanted to know if I could spend the night at your place

You: you would really be allowed to do that?

Mark: they made a special exception, I just wanted to know if you would be comfortable with it

You: of course I would be, you are more than welcome to stay with me 

"Ooooh! I hope they made that exception for Hyuckie!" Rhiannon exclaims, taking her head off your shoulder and reaching into her pocket for her phone. 

Mark: that makes me really happy, meet me in the VIP room after the show, I will bring your backpack 

You: okay, I love you, don't overdo it

Mark: I can handle anything life throws at me, dont worry :) love you too

It felt like as soon as you put your phone down, the concert started. Any concert you've ever been to has always managed to be the fastest few hours of your life. This one was no exception - you could feel your heart pound and your chest vibrate with the beat, eyes glued to the stage before you. 

You always had problems remembering everything that took place during any show. You knew every song and you sang until your throat went raw, danced with your lightstick until your arm was sore and rolled your eyes with a smile whenever Rhiannon screamed too loudly, too close to your ear. During the concert, you forgot about life outside. You forget about your problems, your exams, graduation, everything. 

Something you would never forget, though, was every time Mark looked at you. No matter how deep in concentration he was, every time he was on stage and close to you, he would smile. His face would be glistening with sweat, his chest would heave in deep breaths during a transition, but no matter what, he always managed to grin in your direction. 

Being so close to the stage and just being at any concert always gave you a special type of high, that filled your heart with music and happiness that you sometimes felt you couldn't experience. At the end, when the boys left the stage and the lights came back on, you sat down to finish soaking it all in. 

"Agh, I'm all sweaty," was the first thing Rhiannon said since everything was all over, and you couldn't help but laugh a little. 

"I wonder why," you muse sarcastically, looking up at her from your seat with a smile. 

She looked down at you and stuck her tongue out. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" She asked. 

Your eyes widened. "Yeah. Is Donghyuck going to meet you backstage?"

She nodded. "Mhm, I'll meet up with you two later. See you in a bit." 

You gave Rhiannon a quick hug before grabbing your lightstick box and attempting to move with the crowd exiting the arena. Some of the fans that catch a glimpse of you stare as you pass by- most likely noticed that you had a backstage pass lanyard around your neck. You try to avoid eye contact with them as best you can, slipping into the staircase that leads up to the VIP rooms. 

You reached the end of the hallway, gripping the doorknob and pushing it open. The curtain was still covering the window that looked over the arena, and the small coffee table was still pushed up against it, next to the bar stools. You slipped off your shoes and sat on the couch, making yourself comfortable. It would probably be a little while before Marked joined you, so you set down your lightstick box and curled up in the corner of the cushions.

The ringing in your ears slowly faded away as your mind wandered, drifting off into a light snooze. You feel comfortable and warm, the scent of Mark still was barely noticeable in the air around you. You smiled to yourself when you thought of what Mark reminded you of- a strong campfire with fresh s'mores and the sweet summer air that lingered just outside the radius of the fire's warmth.  

There was a soft clicking sound that followed the doorknob being turned. You barely perk up when Mark enters the room, clad in his Superhuman t-shirt and black jeans. It seems all of the sweat from his performances has been wiped away, but his face is still flushed. He slips your backpack off his back and gently sets it by the door. 

"Hey, sleepy," he whispers, approaching you and kneeling before you. He gently takes your hands, kissing the knuckles. "Did you have fun?"

You smile sleepily at him. "Yeah, I had a lot of fun. You don't look tired,"

Mark continued to smile at you. "Looks can be deceiving," he says. "I just have to put some things away and then we can go."

You perk up a bit as he stands, grabbing the blanket to put inside his own backpack. "Shouldn't we wait until everyone is gone?"

Mark shrugs. "We have to go back down to see the others, that should give us some extra time so that we don't get in a streetcar where we will be swarmed." 

You nod, yawning. "Okay, I trust you." 

Mark sat down beside you once he zipped up his backpack, giving you a tired smile. He looked down at his arms, idly running a finger against the scar of his arm. "I guess we will be seeing a lot of news about this soon."

You join his gaze and frown a little. "Do you think it will be bad?" You ask, chewing on your lip. 

"No, I don't think so. At least I hope. I like to think our fandom is mature enough," Mark takes your hand for a moment and squeezes it. "Shall we go?" 

You nod and unfurl yourself to stand up. You both put on your backpacks, you put on your shoes and then head out the door together. You return backstage to meet with everyone, feeling a little surreal that you can personally compliment them on their performances. When you hug each member one last time, you barely catch yourself indulging in their scents, all unique and sweet in their own way. Rhiannon is watching you with a knowing smirk as you do, and as you hug Jungwoo you manage to stick your tongue out at her. 

It felt strange but good to go home that night with Mark. It was warm and a little lonely outside compared to how it was inside the venue during the event, but it was a nice change after being inside with a few thousand screaming people. The streetcar ride and the walk back were pleasant, making idle conversation about the concert as Rhiannon and Donghyuck walked along with you. 

Once you arrive home, everyone stumbles tiredly inside. You bring Mark's backpack into your room, and all of you play rock-paper-scissors to determine who gets to use the bathroom in order. Rhiannon, Donghyuck and Mark all destroyed you in the game, so you hang back in the kitchen to make some sleepy time tea while you waited. 

You nearly fell asleep standing in the kitchen and waiting for your kettle to finish heating up the water. Just as you're finishing preparing everyone's tea, Mark emerges from the bathroom clad in soft pyjamas and sporting freshly dried hair. 

"Is that for me?" He asked, pressing a kiss to your cheek. 

You nod at him. "If you could bring the other mugs to Rhiannon and Donghyuck too, Rhi's is the purple mug and the blue one is Donghyuck's. I'm going to go freshen up." 

Mark nods at you with a smile. Briefly holding your hand as you make your way into the bathroom. You shower quickly, not bothering to pamper yourself. Once you get out, you dry your hair thoroughly with a towel, sighing at the feeling of massaging your scalp. 

Once you exit the bathroom, clad in your own pyjamas, you see that Mark is still in the kitchen, clutching his mug of tea. 

"Feel better?" He asks, taking a quick sip.

"Mm," you answer, "I'm just about ready to pass out," 

"I made you a mug of tea if you want it. Half-full." Mark smiles when you gently return his earlier cheek kiss. 

You reach forward and grab the warm Dragon Ball Z mug to take a few quick mouthfuls of perfect tea. "Thank you," you say, "I had a really great day today." 

"Me too," Mark grins sleepily, "but I'm ready to sleep."

"You and me both." You place your mug in the sink. Mark follows suit, gently taking your hand as you lead him to your room. When you pass the living room you notice it's empty, so you assume Rhiannon and Donghyuck have already both gone to sleep. 

Once you open the door to your room, you feel so much more relaxed and comfortable. You beckon Mark in, sheepishly smiling as you begin to relocate your mountain of stuffed animals. There's not much light since you hadn't turned any on, but a streak of moonlight is seeping in through your curtains, enough that some things in your room are clear to see.

"Your room is very cosy," he compliments, taking a seat on the edge of your bed and running his hand along the fabric. 

"I spend a lot of time here, so I like to make it as comfortable as possible,"

Mark nods with a small smile. "Oh, I almost forgot."

"Forgot what?" You watch him curiously as he stands and moves to his backpack, unzipping it and rummaging for a few seconds before pulling out the fuzzy polar bear plush. 

"This belongs to you," he says, tucking it under the covers before taking his seat again. "We should keep him comfy."

You grin at him, "thank you for not thinking I'm weird for asking about it,"

He shakes his head, "anything to help while I'm gone," he comments, trailing off as he continues to observe the contents of your room, and you blush once you realize Mark has spotted some photo cards stuck onto the edge of the shelf above your computer desk. 

"I see you have everyone here," he comments with a smile. "Including…"

"Day6," you answer sheepishly, inviting yourself under the covers. "Come cuddle?" 

Mark chuckles lightly and complies. He pulls back his side of the covers and slides in, immediately moving to drape an arm over your side. He blinks slowly, smiling warmly as his eyes search your face. 

You bring a hand up to lightly run your hand through his hair, massaging his scalp gently. He closes his eyes and hums with contentment.

"I love you," he whispers, pressing a kiss to your forehead. 

"I love you, too." You manage to drift off easily that night, content to sleep in Mark's arms.

#mark lee #mark lee x reader #mark x reader #nct #nct127 #nctu #nct scenarios #nct imagines #reader insert #fanfiction #kpop fanfictions #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines

[obaby-me]

Hey, uh feel free to ignore this but, could I have some headcanons on how the brothers react to an MC with really bad depression but it’s hard to spot? Like, they’re a really sweet cinnamon roll and always putting everyone before them and loves talking about anime, books, cats, music, and anything else they like. It’s hard to spot but the more time they spend with them the more the little details show, like how they never finish a meal(pt 1)

Author’s Note: No need to apologize. Really, you just handed me a bunch of starter sentences.

Lucifer

“I’m used to it,” you said with a smile.

There was nothing to smile about.

Lucifer had this whole evening planned out for the two of you. A night out at one of the finest restaurants in the Devildom, a special bottle on reserve for the two of you. He’d been prepared to take you to the skies tonight, to see the meteor shower up close tonight, and have you make wish after wish tonight.

You had been so excited for the shower. You told him of the human custom of wishing upon shooting stars over a month ago and the minute he knew the shower was coming, he made positively sure to clear his schedule for it. And yours as well.

But he’d had to break them. Diavolo had requested his presence on an emergency and he couldn’t say no. You knew that. He knew that.

And when he broke the news, while he knew you’d be understanding, he had expected at least some disappointment, maybe even tears.

He’d been prepared for that.

“The things happen all the time,” you assure him, giving him a smile. “I’ve learned to accept that. Plans are always more likely than not to be cancelled. I’ve learned not to keep such expectations.”

Lucifer felt guilt well up inside him. “My sincere apologies,” he said once again. “I did not realize I had made it such a habit to put you aside like this. I will make it up to you,” he promised.

“Oh, it’s not you,” you told him waving away his concern. “Everyone does it. It’s okay, really!” To emphasize your point, you continued, “One time, for my birthday, we were going to go to this giant indoor waterpark. But mother sort of forgot and took the family car for the day to a friend’s place. We had to cancel.”

And you laughed. You laughed and Lucifer knew that something was deeply wrong. Wrong with the people around you to treat you with such disrespect to put you aside for the most menial and selfish of reasons; and wrong with you to believe it as acceptable.

Lucifer would have to correct that. While in this particular case, because it was an absolute emergency, for the future, he made sure to keep a perfect record: every plan he made, he kept—and always perfectly on time. Nothing but Diavolo emergencies, real emergencies, could deter him. If it meant sleepless nights in preparation, or sending a brother in his stead, he would suffer it. And he made sure each brother kept their promises as well. Punishments became extremely severe should they be late when attending to you or in skipping any plans to you.

You had to know you were worth the time promised to you.

Mammon

“My church always did say I was going to hell,” you chuckled in response to Mammon when he officially, and drunkenly, proclaimed you “one of us!”

“Oh yeah?” He asked, slinging an arm around your neck and giggling drunkenly into you. “What for, troublemaker?”

“For being bi.”

Mammon gave a small snort, and waited for the rest of your list, but apparently, that was the end of your list. Or maybe he missed it. His head was spinning rather terribly. “Is that it?”

“Yes.”

Mammon laughed loudly in response, his grip on your shoulders pulling you to sway with him as the two of you walked towards the House of Lamentation. “Love ain’t a reason to be sent to hell!” What a ridiculous concept. Love wasn’t a sin, in fact, it was a kind of virtue.

You gave him a smile, smaller than you should for a night like this. Did you not believe him?

“Hey,” he said, trying to sound as sober as possible despite his drunken state. He figured it’d help if maybe he stopped walking to do so. “We really don’t judge that here,” he said. “Ya ain’t gotta worry ‘bout that.”

“I know,” you said as you tried to get him moving again.

“No, ya don’t. Ya lookin’ all sad. About bein’ bi. Ya ain’t gotta be sad ‘bout that.”

“I’m not sad that I’m bi,” you clarify.

“Ya look sad,” he insisted.

You giggled slightly in return, and he just knew the words in your brain were something emasculating, like ‘cute.’

“On the contrary, I’m happy. I’m happy you don’t mind.”

Mammon laid his head against you. “Course I don’t. They shouldn’t either.”

“Well, they do.”

“Well, I don’t. And I’m here. And they’re not.”

You gave a small laugh as he blearily babbled on about how he intended to protect you from such people, from such things. You needn’t worry about a thing with him around, he assured you.

Leviathan

“I can relate.”

“To... this?” Levi asked with some surprise, eyes averting from the screen to you cuddled into his side.

You gave a small nod, unexpressive as you watched the protagonist, having lost his match against his rival, defeatedly monologue his own existential crises to the audience. Was all their efforts for nothing? What was the point of trying for more when clearly their dreams would never be realized?

Levi was quiet for a time, watching as the hero wallow in himself, waiting for the inevitable turn around, where the hero finds the answers to his question, finds his inspiration and resolve to keep them going.

But it didn’t come, not by the end of the episode.

Offended, Levi began a tirade of criticisms for regarding the episode, his worries not for the hero despite the context—but rather, for you.

For the next week he searches for anime and manga that center around the same themes, making sure the episodes and chapters that would bring the answers and conclusions necessary were available.

You had to read them.

You had to know.

Satan

“I think I was raised by a cult,” you murmured quietly.

Satan peered over his book at you, the air of silence you two had been enjoying while you read side by side broken by the most unexpected sentence.

He had many questions, but the first to make it out of his mouth was, “what?”

“Sorry,” you apologized quickly for having broken his concentration.

“A cult?” Satan continued, curious as to where this was going. “What kind of cult?”

“I was raised to think I was my dad’s property and that to go against my parents was to go against God.” You explained quietly, embarrassed to be speaking about this topic at all. But you had been the one to bring it up, albeit by accident—your mouth converting thoughts to your external voice rather than internal.

“Not an entirely novel concept for the middle ages. Have to say I’m surprised it’s managed to stick around,” Satan responded with a frown, closing his book carefully, a marker set into place to save it.

“Do you believe that to be true?” He asked.

You shook your head. He felt relief wash over him.

“But sometimes I still feel that, sort of, guilt, you know?”

Satan shifted so that he could get his arms around you, laying himself gently against you. “I imagine it would be difficult a feeling to unlearn.”

You said nothing in return, but quietly put some of your weight against him in acceptance of his affection.

“You don’t belong to anyone. You have every right to your own choices, no matter how your parents feel.” Satan murmured reminders into you. You knew these things, but to hear it felt reassuring.

It became a running theme that when asking you out for a date, Satan would ask or simply surprise you with, “something you’ve always wanted to do that you’re parents would absolutely hate.”

Asmodeus

“My dad’s always saying how fat I am,” you explained as you decline Asmo’s offering of his parfait.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Asmo asked with a tilt of his head.

You shifted uncomfortably in your seat across from him and give a small noise that he thought you thought were words, but were entirely unintelligible once it hit the air.

“What was that, darling?”

“I said, I just don’t think I should have any.”

“Are you on a diet?”

“I mean, I should be.” You fidgeted in your seat, refusing to look Asmo in the eye. This was supposed to be a happy occasion: a special date he’d planned for the two of you out on the town trying all the most wonderful trendy treats the season had to offer.

“What do you mean you should be?”

“Well, my dad—“

Your dad, again? Why did his opinion matter to you so much? Especially when that opinion was just so wrong?

“Your dad has no right to say anything about your beautiful body, love!” Asmo protested. “If you want to diet, honey, we can go on one together. But don’t you dare say no to this parfait on account of your dad.”

For the rest of the day, and on into the evening, Asmo laid his compliments thick, and showered you with the attention your lovely body deserves.

Beelzebub

“I’m just not that hungry.”

“You said that at lunch too. And at breakfast.”

It wasn’t entirely unusual for you to skip a meal now and again. Sometimes, you just weren’t hungry after spending two hours snacking on gummies and popcorn in Levi’s room while marathoning TSL. Technically not a meal, but at least you had something in your stomach. Sometimes you were just too focused on a task that you’d forget the time all together.

But today you’d had nothing at all while holed away in your room. The few times he’d passed by, you laid curled on your side, scrolling through your phone.

A growl erupted in the room, and it wasn’t Beel’s. Your stomach was calling you out as a liar—outing you to the Avatar of Hunger incarnate.

“You should eat. I’ll pick something up for you.”

“I’m really not up to eating anything today.”

“Are you ill?”

“No,” you responded, turning your face away, as if ashamed to even look at him.

“You need to eat,” he insisted.

“I don’t want to.”

The question of why didn’t need to be asked. He only need to stare at you expectantly until you’d cave under his gaze.

“I don’t feel well,” you grumbled, contradicting yourself.

“Is it a cold? Satan does say you starve a cold and feed a fever.” He paused a moment. “Or was it the other way around?“ Beel asked himself, trying to recall the last time he and had his brothers had gotten sick. It had been centuries ago. (And it had been a disaster of each one getting sick after the other, passing it around.)

“It’s not that kind of sick.” You mumbled softly. “It’s not a body sick. It’s just... a...” You sunk further into the cocoon of your covers looking miserable. An unusual look for you.

“Sad sick?”

Not quite the way you’d put it, but it was apt enough for youYou didn’t answer. You didn’t have to.

Beel quietly joined you on your bed, wrapping his arms around your comforter wrapped form and tugging you close. He’d feed you later, he’d hug you now.

Belphegor

“My needs don’t matter.”

“They do,” came Belphie’s immediate response—cutting in a way that felt dangerous, frightening: an end to the sentence, to the thought. His eyes were stern and you shivered beneath his gaze, having both been caught off guard by how quick his response had been, and how angry it had been.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered in response, feeling guilty that you had upset him, to have ruined the lovely moment you two had been having.

Arms wrapped around you as Belphie pulled you against him. He shifted from sitting beside you, to wrapping himself around you, trapping you between his legs and his arms. “Don’t say it again. Don’t think it.”

Easier said than done, he knew that. “Belphie, it’s okay—“

“It’s not.”

“I’m sorry,” you said again, an automatic response.

“You matter,” Belphie said, his head dropped into your shoulder and neck as he curled tighter around you. “You matter to me. If you need something, you should ask it. I’ll give it to you. I’d give you everything.”

There was quiet as you thought the statement over. “I just don’t want to be a bothe-“

“You’re not.” Belphie pre-emptively answered. “You could never be. Ask me. Ask anything of me. I gave myself to you, didn’t I?”

You thought yourself so little, so unimportant, but to Belphie you were so significant, so important, so beloved—and to have you not recognize that was as disrespectful to yourself as it was to him.

#obey me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #headcanon #ouch #my heart #it's gonna be okay anon #i hope these make you feel better

[shadow--writer]

She Lives in Daydreams With me

Song title. 

Maeve x Lucas. Let’s try this again, from the top. 3.7k

TW: none!

@dela-png​

She didn’t know why she decided to walk to the beach to read. She had a perfectly good nook in her house by the windows. Perfect for reading with a little tea. Unbothered. By herself. No risk of seeing Lucas. 

But nooo she was walking to the beach. To read. Because she totally didn’t have other motives or hopes. Not her, no sir. She was only going out to get fresh air and read a little on the beach far away from the docks and any prying eyes. 

Wasn’t going to see if she could make amends with a certain someone. 

Absolutely not. 

The sun was hidden by dark clouds, and the smell of saltwater and fish overpowered the smell of rain.

She felt herself light up a little at the prospect of rain. It was always a nice change of pace from how hot it got in Vesuvia. 

Pausing her walk at the edge of the beach, she looked up at the sky once more. Though she hoped it would start later. She didn’t plan on getting rained on while she read on the beach. 

Chewing on her lower lip she lowered her gaze, picking up her skirt with her book in her hands. The sound of laughter filled the air, making her turn to locate the sound. 

Lucas. 

She flinched away. Oh no. No. He was here (of course he was, idiot, he worked here). 

The laughter paused, she peeked over through her lashes. She and Lucas locked eyes. 

They stared at one another for a moment before she quickly turned away, and started walking down the beach at a brisk pace. 

Her heels sunk into the soft surf as she walked, nose buried in her book. 

Oh no no no no-

“So, what are you doing here?” someone asked, making her jump. 

“I-Isn’t it obvious?” she replied (curse her stuttering), not looking up from her book. She knew his voice. “I’m reading. Peacefully. Not bothering anyone. On the beach since I need fresh air.”

He kept her pace, she didn’t bother looking up at him. Sure she was mad at him for taking her words out of context, and he was still mad at her for breaking things off. And of course Amani was pissed at the both of them. And this was turning into a real mess. 

Granted she wasn’t really mad. She was just annoyed. She didn’t have any right to be mad at him. 

She just wondered if she waited too long to say that.

“Why the beach of all places? You knew I’d be here. Did you just want to see me?” He poked her side. She swatted his hand away with her book, shooting him an unimpressed glare. 

“Am I not allowed to come to the beach for some quality time alone?” she asked with a tiny huff and an eye roll. “It’s going to rain soon anyways, I thought I’d come out here before it did.”

His face fell. “Rain?” His tone made it very clear he was not happy about it. 

“The rain is lovely!”

“Well maybe I don’t like it!”

“Well, we’re going to disagree on this one.”

“We’re going to disagree on a lot of things.”

Her back straightened a little. That sounded almost like a promise. Some little part of her hoped it was. 

“This is one battle you aren’t gonna win,” she said, tucking her book under her arm so she could look up at him. “The rain is wonderful. You clearly haven’t gone exploring in it. Or done anything fun.”

He made a face. “It’s dreary, lazy and makes everything seem sad.”

“Mmm but have you ever danced with someone in it? Played in the mud? Just stare up at the clouds and let it wash over your face?”

“What fantasy are you living in? The rain is sad weather. You can’t go out and do anything. You’re stuck at home with whatever thoughts you have.”

“And I thought you were the fun one,” she said, pushing back her hair a little. “But you just sound like a downer.”

“Downers don’t get sick from playing around in the rain.”

“But downers don’t get to really live.”

He paused. “You aren’t going to change my mind on this one. The rain keeps people cooped up. Sometimes it lasts for a long time. It’s miserable.”

“You clearly haven’t spent the day with someone you loved then. Rainy days are much better with people you love.” She smiled a little at the thought of her dad tackling her into the mud and then sliding down a hill. They gave her aunt a fright when they came home like that. 

“Are...rainy days better?”

“Yes. Very much so.” She turned to look out at the water, spotting a nice place to sit. She would get sand in her dress but she really didn’t care. Some sand flew up around her skirt when she sat down. 

“The view is lovely without the sun,” he offered. 

She let out a tiny sigh from where she sat. “Aren’t you mad at me?”

He stared at her in disbelief. “Mad? No. More like annoyed. What gave you the idea I was mad?”

Well...annoyed was better than mad at least. She winced, she did reject his attempt at a kiss. That had come back to bite her many times. She turned away from him. “Uh huh. Don’t you have work to do?”

He sat in the sand beside her. “Nope! Taking my break early.” He looked at her. “Hm, feels like you’re trying to get rid of me. Ouch.”

She let out a tiny chuff, crossing her legs and resting her elbow on her right knee (furthest away from him). She rested her cheek on her fist, the skin squishing a bit. “Hmph, what if I am?” She looked at him from the corner of her eye. 

He scooted closer to her, sitting in the same way but with a smile. “Well then I’ll just keep bothering you.”

She looked away again. “What if I ignore you until you have to go back to work?”

“I’ll just keep bugging you until you talk to me.”

She let out a tiny huff. “If you’re on break why are you spending it with me?”

He imitated her huff with a little grin. “Well maybe I missed you.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Maybe I missed you too.” He flicked the tip of her nose gently, she wrinkled it at the touch, making him crack a tiny smile. 

As annoyed with him as she was in that moment, she could admit she did miss him.

She wondered if Amani talked to him about what happened. 

Letting out a tiny sigh, she gave into him. She leaned into his shoulder, him leaning back. They sat there, looking at the water, pressed against one another in a small silence. It sent her heart racing a little, with heat rising to her face in a comfortable way. 

Okay yeah, maybe she missed him way more than she thought she did. 

“So...did you read the book I gave you?” he asked softly, shifting his hand over to cover hers. Her heart startled, body warming even more at the touch. It was a weird feeling, like she was cold but hot at the same time. 

“Thumbelina?”

“Mmhmm.” 

“I did.”

“Well?”

She smiled to herself. “I did enjoy it.” She looked at him, resting her chin on his shoulder. “You gave me an ugly nickname?”

His face reddened. “Look, I thought it was pretty.”

She raised her voice in pitch. “‘You shall not be called Thumbelina!’ said the spirit of the flower to her. ‘That is an ugly name, and you are much too pretty for that,” she quoted back to him. “Ugly name.”

He made a face at her, she made one back. 

“...so you just have that memorized?”

She felt her cheeks warm. “I um. I...read it?”

“You can memorize things from reading it once?!”

“N-No.”

“Then how?”

“I read it...a lot,” she muttered, turning to look away from him again. Her hair fell in a curtain around her face, disguising her red cheeks. Fine she’d admit to herself. She read it because of him. She would’ve never picked it up otherwise.

“T-Though the ending was a bit strange. It was so...happy.”

“...what’s wrong with a happy ending?”

“Sometimes they aren’t realistic.”

“...it’s a fairy tale. What fairy tales are you reading?”

“I haven’t read one since I was a kid. Why do you like fairy tales so much anyways?” she asked, staring out at the water. Anything to not meet his eyes while she fought her blush. 

She could feel him staring at her, and then he let out a little sigh. His hand was still clasped over hers. “It’s what we grew up listening to. I like them a lot because of my mom. Sometimes my aunts would read them to us, that is, if they didn’t pick fights on politics before bed.”

“Mmm, that's fun.”

“What? You didn’t get stuff read to you? Any fairy tales you like?” He prodded her side gently. She let out a tiny squeak, trying to swat him away.

“Well there’s one my momma would read to us.”

“Is it good?”

She smiled with a tiny hum. “The best.”

He pretended to settle down, she turned her head slightly to look at him again. 

He nodded at her with a smile. It made the corners of his eyes crinkle. Each of his smiles was a bit different, this one had a childlike wonder to it. “Well then, you have the stage.” 

“It’s called Tír na nÓg.”

He blinked. “Uh. Sorry I’m not familiar in uh…”

“Gaelic?” she said with an affectionate smile. The awkwardness of their situation was slowly melting away. “Most aren’t. It means uh...Land of the…” she pursed her lips. Gods what was that word? She snapped her fingers, trying to think. “Opposite of old. It’s not youth uhhh…”

“...young?”

She snapped again, grinning. “Yeah! Land of the Young. Tír na nÓg, land of the young. One of our oldest tales.”

“How does it go?”

“The most famous tale with Tír na nÓg is the story of Oisín and Niamh. Oisín was out hunting with his father when they saw something in the ocean. They feared invasion so they prepared but came to find the most beautiful woman emerge from the sea. Her name was Niamh, a fairy from the famed lands of Tír na nÓg. She was the daughter of the sea god.”

Lucas was a bit bouncy with excitement beside her, watching her intensely. She blushed, turning away. She was so very not used to the excitement. 

“T-The men were afraid of her due to her great powers. But Oisín introduced himself and they fell in love.” Her eyes softened a little as she relaxed. Her mom got so animated when she told this one. “Niamh was bound to go home, but she invited the great warrior to come with her to Tír na nÓg. No mortals could enter the fairy realm unless invited, so he bid farewell to his family and warriors and went with her.”

“Oisín was offered the wealth of treasures from Tír na nÓg. Eternal youth, everlasting beauty, health and happiness with his true love. But time came when he missed his family. Niamh gave him her horse but warned him he must not touch mortal ground or he would become mortal again and never be able to return to her.”

Lucas was starting to look...well not less interested, but a little more concerned. She liked how easy it was to read him. He was like an open book, and she wanted to read more on those pages. 

He was...a story she didn’t understand but wanted to. She always thought eyes were the windows to the soul, just like the old saying. You could tell a lot about someone based on their eyes and the way he was looking at her now sent the butterflies fluttering.

She pursed her lips to keep from stuttering again. “When he came home, he could not find his family nor his fellow warriors. Everyone had simply vanished. Eventually, he came across three men and asked where they had all gone. The three men said the same thing. His family was long since dead. Time moved much slower in Tír na nÓg, and realizing this Oisín fell to the ground in despair, immediately turning into an old man. He died later of a broken heart, never seeing Niamh or his family again.”

Lucas stopped moving and was dead silent for a moment.

Then another. 

“...that’s it?”

“Uh yeah! My mom would tell that one to us a lot.”

His words were slow as he thought them over, a frown pulling at his mouth. “Did she...ever tell you other stories? Ones with happier endings?”

“Well there was the one about Changelings. Fairies would come into homes, steal babies and replace them with something that almost was exactly like the baby but something was usually off. It usually was the eyes or teeth. They had sharp teeth. I think one she told us was how when the parents found out about the changeling it tore them to pieces. She usually told that one to get us to behave though…so no?”

He shifted closer to her, letting go of her hand to rest his hand behind her back. She missed his touch almost immediately. “How about I tell a story instead?”

She feigned offense. “What, mine not good enough?”

“No! No it was great but um...how about something without someone falling over and dying?”

She giggled. “So no stories without happy endings?”

“Life is unhappy enough,” he said with a lopsided smile. “Why should fiction be the same?”

She let out a tiny hum, resting her head on his shoulder. “Fair enough. Do go on, my good sir.”

He dramatically cleared his throat. “Once upon a time.”

“Oh wow that’s unique.”

He poked her side, making her let out a tiny squeak. “I’m telling the story,” he joked, arm going around her waist, tapping lightly on her hip. 

“Once upon a time, there lived a masked princess. She lived up high in her ivory tower, and was content with living her life alone all up high. The princess wore a mask of purple and blue, the only thing it revealed were her eyes. They were a brilliant dark blue that reflected everything she was looking at. Like mirrors. Usually they reflected a book or the stars at night.”

She chewed on her lower lip as she listened. He was a good storyteller, it came with hearing so many as a child she guessed. 

“Once upon a time there lived a knight,” he continued on. “The knight came from a proud family as well, growing up hearing stories about the masked princess in the ivory tower. The knight grew up to be a very threatening man, with a full suit of armour.”

“But he had a big heart and defended the people he loved?” she asked softly, making him jolt beside her. 

“Y-Yes,” he stuttered, not meeting her eyes as she looked up at him. He cleared his throat again, the sound more nervous this time. The tips of his ears were red. “The knight traveled far and wide to find the masked princess, for he wanted to be her protector. He had heard stories of the princess and people trying to get to her tower. But when he found the princess he was surprised to find she was in no need, or want, to be rescued or protected by the knight.”

“How rude,” she joked, making him laugh. 

“He called up to the masked lady, asking what he could possibly do to be able to protect her. He was willing to try anything. She said she wanted to be able to take her mask off around her knights, so she sent him on trials to prove himself. He did things he hadn’t done in years, shedding the armour he wore to protect himself along the way.”

“What kind of trials?”

“Stuff that made him let his guard down. Once he even stood outside her tower and just talked to her, opening up like he never had. But once he had shed all the armour weighing him down, he climbed the tower to see the princess face to face, only wearing his helmet. Seeing her up close shocked the knight for even masked, she was the loveliest thing he had seen. The legends had failed to share about her beauty.”

“Her hair was pure silver, falling over her shoulders and back. Her eyes, just like the stories said, were like blue mirrors. His final trial was just like the one on the other side of the tower, but this time he was light enough to come up to visit her. He visited her every day when he could, bringing her little gifts from his journey there. She in return shared with him her little secrets.”

“One day, he climbed the tower and the masked princess wasn’t there. The room was a mess, her bed ruined and her things thrown about. He left, panicked about the lady he was training to protect. He worried about failing her before even passing his trials. For weeks he searched for her, but he did not find her.”

His voice was a bit heavy as he spoke. He stumbled over some of his words and paused around others. 

“Then one day he did find her. All alone in the forest, dress torn and mask broken at her feet. She had been taken in the night, but the princess was a great warrior and defeated them. She was just avoiding the knight since she did not have her mask, and was scared of being vulnerable with him like he had been with her.”

“Did he take off his helmet when he saw her?” she asked, fiddling with her skirt. She was terrible to tell stories to. Asking too many questions instead of listening.

But he didn’t seem to mind. 

He nodded. “In the time separated from her the knight realized he had fallen in love with the masked princess. He just didn’t know it until she was gone. So he took off his helmet, the final piece of armour he had to shed, and asked her to come with him. Away from the forest. Away from her tower.”

“And?”

“Well, she did say yes. Eventually.” Maeve snorted. “The knight was very persuasive.”

“Oh I’m sure.”

“But he took her home with him, away from the thieves, and her isolation.”

“And they lived happily ever after?”

He laughed. “Well, something like that.”

“So did someone read that to you? Can’t say I’ve heard of it.”

His cheeks grew rosy. “My uh...mom read it to me.” 

He was lying. 

His voice got reedier when he lied. 

But why was he even lying?

There was a lull of silence. “Look...Thumbelina.” She stiffened at the nickname, looking back over at him. He let go of her waist. “I’m...sorry for getting so mad at you over the whole language misunderstanding.”

“Did Amani talk to you?”

His neck flushed as he rubbed the bandages on his hands. “...yeah. Says she talked to you too.”

“Did she...say what we talked about?”

“Nothing much. Just told me we should apologize to one another. So I thought...if I saw you at the beach it would be a good time to talk. Didn’t realize I’d see you so soon after making that promise to myself.”

“I’m sorry for trying to...well distance myself. I don’t…” She pursed her lips, looking away from him. Her voice was breathy and soft. “I’m sorry.”

“Can I...get a reason why?” 

“You got...close. And it scared me.”

“Was I too much?”

Her head snapped up. “No, no! You were fine. I was the problem.”

“I know...Gaelic is used for more than insults, I’m sorry for…”

“Jumping off a cliff to a conclusion?”

He snorted, bumping their shoulders together. “Yeah.”

She stared up at the clouds. “You’ll...come to see me again, right?”

“I want to. Do you want me to?”

“...yes. Please.” Her voice was soft even to her ears. “I would...really like to keep seeing you.”

“Then why’d you stop?”

She looked away from him, drawing in the sand with a finger. “Story for another time.”

His eyes widened in understanding. “Ah, I see. That’s okay. I’m...glad you’re talking to me again. I um...wasn’t lying when I said I missed you.”

“Me neither.”

“Amani was right,” he said with a chuckle. “We’re uhh...”

“Hopeless?”

“Exactly.”

They both looked up. “It’s going to rain soon. You can smell it,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

She opened them as she looked back at him. He seemed deep in thought. “I should get home before it starts pouring.” She got to her feet, rocking back onto her heels as she dusted some of the sand off her skirt. 

He made a face. “Yeah and I’ll be stuck in it. Working.”

She smiled. “Aww that’s too bad. Not my fault you took a job working outside by the ocean.”

He made a face, making her giggle. “I probably won’t work in the days after. Not much we can do in the rain unless we’re on boats. So, spend the day with me maybe? Without all the hostility and depressingly grim fairy tales?”

“As...friends?” she asked, holding out a hand to help him up. 

There was a flare of emotions in his eyes. Different ones. She couldn’t place them. 

“Yeah.” He almost sounded disappointed, but he covered it with a smile. He took her hand, she helped him stand. Not that he needed much help. He didn’t let go of her hand for a moment, the bandages around his palms soft against her skin. They must’ve been new. 

He let his hand drop, and offered her another smile. Lopsided. Made her heart flop in weird ways. Friends, Maeve. Friends. “As friends.”

Only as friends. 

That was more than she could’ve hoped for.

But she was glad all the same. 

#the arcana #the arcana game #maeve #lucas #maeve x lucas #maevas #my writing

[tothestarsandbackmoved]

Rant about interstellar

i have before but ill do it again!

interstellar touches me for many many reasons.

first off, the entire premise and setting and the world building in it. the dust storms, the failing crops. the protagonist does say at one point- "humanity was born on earth. they were never meant to stay here" and that just,,, hits me you know? presently we've seen the emergence of no human exploration besides the probes and the ISS. there are plans but the same curiosity just seems dead. interstellar stretches that and shows us what would happen when human curiosity and the desire to explore would die. we'd kill everyone on the planet and soon starve ourselves. the blights- the illnesses- the dead medicare- that's a very bleak future, but a very real one. the movie does both its part about scaring the viewer about it- as well as giving us hope about wormholes and quantum data and singularities and how we'd save ourselves. you can see that the old generation is talking about their days and how better or worse it would be. in the end, on the cooper satellites, you see the interviews being played- and it really breaks me. that was a generation that thought it was the end. the end of human life. the final descent and that was it. and then they see the five dimensions and getting lifted and their lives are essentially turned around. this isn't just the older people though. we see that the gen z then, like cooper's son have also mostly been brought up to *live*. we see that he tries to get into school and actually get into uni and find a job in one of the remaining sectors of the world which still offer something other than farm corn- raise family. You see that the teachers also say this? they teach them to fight blights and sustain crops because they’re losing more and more to disease each year. Humanity’s slowly being packed up and demolished and they aren’t seeing it coming. at all.

then there’s the quote which is recurring throughout the movie:

“do not go gentle into the good night”

the professor says this all the time. as they’re leaving- his last few dying words- as they’re preparing. and you know what? i’ll say it. this is where the next important theme comes in. Desperation. When he initially sends them out- he hasn’t solved gravity yet, and he knows he never will. Not without the quantum data from a black hole- something again, he can never get. Which is why he implies that there’s a Plan B and cooper can see murphy again (this is also very important- scroll down for this). He breaks all their trust- and he knows he’ll die before seeing the end of the mission- and you can’t die with guilt, not really. He knows that he can’t be held accountable because he’s dead. He’s well aware that his plan is a hail mary- and it wouldn’t have worked anyways. He’s counting on Plan B, and that’s all there is to it. He uses the quote as a reminder to himself- because he’s torn too. He isn’t inherently evil, at all. He’s the precarious thread the entire mission dangles by- but he’s willing to risk that too. He’ll be long, long dead before humanity dies- or moves- and this is his last try.

Now for the second part of this quote. As I talked about before- the quote feels more like a reminder to himself- and not actually something that inspires hope in the crewmates. But ironically, it ends up becoming what guides murph. As the professor is dying, she tells him “you’ve been doing this with both your arms tied behind your back”- that’s actually when she finds out about his whole plan. This is the failure of the professor- but at the same time, it becomes the moment he passes the torch to murph. The professor died, knowingly sending his own daughter into the reaches of space. He prioritized his need to save humanity over the love for his own daughter. But, murph isn’t like that. When she finds out about this, she remembers the promise her dad made to her.

“I’ll be back when you’re the age I am now”

and now, she knows he’s lied. But he hasn’t done it on purpose. and she understands that. She makes it HER goal that they don’t go gentle into the good night. She knows that this is probably futile, but she’s going to try. and she’s not going to try thinking that she’ll probably fail- like the professor did (in resignation for plan B)- she’s going to try to bring cooper back.

Third, coming back to desperation. A bold, bold act of desperation is what dr mann did. (I have some qualms about the actor playing estranged astronauts- anyways). Him sending out that sensor- knowing that it will bring humans back to him, while simultaneously jeopardizing the entire mission, and possibly the fate of humanity. He knows what he has done- but he has gone insane alone- and he’d betray his entire cause to see a human face again. This movie really says something about what humans are willing to do. On one hand, you have a woman who singlehandedly saves them all- for human love, and on the other, a man who is willing to commit genocide (that’s what i think it is, dont ask) to see someone else. He messes up everything, deliberately, and goes from “the greatest and bravest man to walk the earth” to a “cold and desperate villain”. This theme has a lot to do with what is happening right now too. Forgive the activism, but we do have people who knowingly exploit and burn and ravage the earth, for their own good- and they’re insane to the point that they genuinely can’t see right from wrong. Sure, you could argue that he was motivated by the need to preserve your own life. But if you give his cause *any* context, you see how wrong he is. This is flailing human desperation, pure and simple.

Now, approaching the themes that actually make it as good as it is. Dr Brand is easily my favourite character in the movie. We get to see her as a brilliant scientist initially, and her arc- is perfect, honestly. For example, take the wormhole handshake- as their going through interdimensional space- where time isn’t linear and your brain gets fried if you try to comprehend it- she recognizes a *being* in that space. If you recall that scene, she reaches out, and meets *them*- someone she knows is otherworldly and entirely above humans (we later learn it is Cooper in the matrix- and i have things to say about that too) and makes contact. She suggests, as both a human- and a scientist- that it may be love that transcends dimensions. She makes first contact with beings that may be their salvation- or destruction- and i think that is definitely the peak of human existence.

She argues that love may be what connected the crew to higher dimensions, and I'll dare to say that she’s right. Love is what made Cooper try to contact murph. Love is what made them dare to save humans. Love was what got her there. She tells them to go to Edmund's planet- not just because she loves him, but because she also makes relevant points AND her gut. It might be stretching it to say that was why she was right- but it is worth introspection. Dr Brand represents the best of humanity and she does carry it, doesn’t she? She settles on the planet for ‘the long nap’ in the end. She tries to save everyone- like on the mountain planet- and she loves. She hopes and she trusts and is unwaveringly honest and courageous. This could become a Dr Brand stan blog for all I care.

Moving on

We have the ‘them’. These are the mysterious threads that tie all parts of the movie together. A black hole to a little girl’s bookshelf. Worlds galaxies apart. A very important thing to note here is that the characters recognize that this is humanity, just very, very far out. And most importantly, wise. This is a civilization who has surpassed the ordinary dimensions, and *mortal* time. They could’ve easily saved all of humanity and given them the planet they were looking for. But their entire ineffable plan, and only putting things where they were needed- was what made them greater than just someone who helps others. Only being able to get binary signals through an intergalactic wormhole, building bookshelves that become a huge metaphor for humanity trying to claw at knowledge- and actually slowly pushing the books forward. The ‘them’ weren’t ordinary humans at all. They definitely hinted and gave me a brief, fickle glance beyond what humans could be- raw possibilities.

Then, we have cooper. This makes it hard to write for him- and do his character justice- but I will try. His character, essentially, is brought down to selflessness, love, a brutal, brutal sense of humour- and the courage- the heavy, heavy courage to sacrifice himself. He’s also the polar opposite of what Dr mann stands for. 

His first important point- in my opinion- is when the movie is starting. I didn’t walk in expecting this from him, not really. You see a dying earth- and this man is (alone in his fight, NASA doesn’t count yet) fighting the system alone. He fights for his son, tries for his father in law, and then the most important relationship- his daughter. He’s seeing an earth where not even *children* are curious, or willing, or interested in anything greater. He sees this in his daughter, though. Hence, the bookshelf- the gravity, and the plain curiosity. 

I’ll dare to say that at this point, humanity’s a dying, dying flame. And what he sees in his daughter, what we see in his daughter, is a rebirth of potential. She has the human spark, so to speak. He sees that, and he makes promises, and is willing to bring the world to its knees to protect her. And he knows he might not be there when Murph burns strong, and bright, and becomes the saviour of humanity- but he hopes.  An important element is the promise, which I mentioned earlier, but it defines their relationship. The promise that he’ll be back when they’re the same age. They both know that it’s not true. They can see the lie, but that promise also empowers them to do what they did when their paths diverge.

Cooper goes to Mann's planet with the vague hope that he’ll be back in time. Murph does most of what she does because she thinks that it’ll bring her father back. Even towards the end, when Cooper willingly jumps into gargantua, a supermassive black hole- which is the literal heart of darkness, he does it in the attempt to save his daughter, and hopes she can get the quantum data at the cost of his life. 

About Murph, we mostly see her through the eyes of Cooper in the beginning. A curious and lovable and stubborn tween who just wants to grow up with her dad and do their science experiments. Her perseverance is phenomenal- she loses her dad despite her warnings and asking- and realizes that her loss is something undefinable, but there. In a way, she grows to understand both her responsibility and her part to play, and why her father did what he did. The ‘ghost’ is another plot device- a mysterious figure who messes with the gravity and knocks her books down. And she sees a message there. She tells him about ‘don’t go’ and i can’t begin to describe how beautifully poetic and heartbreaking it is that they realize the significance of that at the same time, and how it ties together. It is hard for me to fathom that scene really- cooper is in an interdimensional matrix, inside a supermassive black hole, and he tries to tell his daughter two things. (a) trying to stop himself from going out and on the mission, which he knows is deemed to fail and (b) sending the quantum data, because that is what mattered in the end, anyways. The ghost comes full circle- and also says what he had to say, when it was most important. And for those who’ve seen the movie, i just really have to put this quote out there:

‘It was you. It was always you. You were my ghost, dad’

And in that, the movie completes itself. It talks about unfailing love, the peak and fall of humanity, and the potential of curiosity.

In this essay I will...

#nasa #interstellar #christopher nolan #did i spend an hour writing this and loved every second of it? yes #nanowrimo #i think it does count as an entry its over 2000 words #thanks for the ask #tw rant #mango pickle

[leechonspeeddial]

Midnight Shift: Carry On, Citizen Fang

Summary: Something wicked this way comes. If only Resentment could figure out if it was the same thing that stunk up the Burger King. Chapters: 2/? Read on ao3

Straight Kevin had been very understanding about my family emergency – He was super duper cool with manning the restaurant all by his lonesome. Sadly, he wasn't understanding enough to let me get away with not telling Gay Kevin about it – which wasn't very super duper cool of him, now was it?

He didn't even have the decency to offer to call for me, the fucking coward.

"Are you certain it's an emergency?"

I rolled my eyes and skipped over the muddy snow pile blocking the sidewalk. I felt a sense of kinship with the season. Besides the cold and death, Winter went all out when it came to inconveniencing the population.

"Trust me, Kev. If I wanted to blow off work, I'd do it on location. I'm not exactly in a rush to get home, ya know?"

The line went quiet for exactly five seconds and I could picture him doing that breathing exercise he did whenever he was fed up with my shit. I took the opportunity to loudly slurp my mello yello.

Delicious.

"I don't know, you could be ditching to hang out with friends or something. Teens do that. I did that." I almost laughed, as if.

"I spend all of my free time at work and everyone my age thinks I'm pregnant with an incest baby. Bold of you to assume I even have friends."

"You would get friends if you felt like it would inconvenience me. And it would really inconvenience me right now"

"Ugh. Don't be so dramatic. I don't do things just to be a general nuisance," I heard a snort that didn't come from Gay Kevin. "Wait, did you put me on speaker?!"

"What's the word, Res" Not Kevin chimed in before being shushed by Gay Kevin.

"Relax, we're loading the rental. I don't exactly have a free hand."

"So? This only needed to be like two seconds. Take a five or something."

"I'm going to level with you, our new napkin guy gives me real sketch vibes. Any second where we're not loading, it's an additional second we have to spend here. I simply refuse to die in a dilapidated warehouse, Resentment. I refuse."

I crossed the street to take the park shortcut home. A couple of high schoolers were vaping by the swings; they stared at me and I ignored them.

"I think you'd survive. You exude final girl energy"

"Have you ever watched a horror movie? I'd literally die first"

"I watched Practical Magic once" I smirked when Not Kevin groaned.

My satisfaction didn't last long, because no more than a second later, a snowball hit the back of my head. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I couldn't gloat to Edward about having the moral high ground if I murdered every minor annoyance that crossed my path.

It just sucked having to ignore my vampire senses because I had to play human. What was the point of knowing something was coming if you were unable to stop it because you had to keep up appearances? In my opinion, humans should just have to deal with the knowledge of the supernatural. They were big kids, we didn't need to coddle them anymore.

It was 2022, for God's sake.

I turned back scowling and flipped off the fuckers. I recognized High-Pony in the group and decided to give her the soggiest, saddest, AND smallest fries next time she dared enter my work.

Maybe even sprinkle some burnt ones for extra flavor.

"I know what you're doing and I'm begging you to stop. I'm the one who has to deal with him for the next two hours"

"Don't be rude. Not Kevin is a gift," I glared at the group and slowly walked away backwards. At least until they were out of my sight. The Cullens were insane for going back to high school as often as they did.

"Ha. It's nice to be appreciated"

"Truly. Short of a museum, where else are you going to find something so old?"

"Boo. Get new jokes, the material is stale," I rolled my eyes as I shook the snow from my hair. I was rapidly approaching home and I wasn't quite prepared to go in.

For one, how was I supposed to keep my new mystery to myself if that's what Alice saw? It wasn't fair. To think I had only been worried about Big Brother and his thought police...

Reflecting on it though, if Alice saw my mystery man, then wouldn't that mean he was either a vampire or a human? Ergo, something neither mysterious nor interesting.

Disappointing.

"Whatever, gramps"

"Ok, ok. Let's get back on topic –"

"You gotta start trying harder, Chucky. You're far from the only teen girl that calls me ancient on the regular."

"Why are you regularly taking to teenage girls, creep?"

"Guys –"

"That's not what–! I foster kids!"

"Yeah, sure, pervert"

"I'm NOT –"

"OK RESENTMENT, DEAL WITH YOUR FAMILY. HANGING UP NOW"

I stopped walking and stared at my phone. Despite the length of the call, there had been no new messages from my family. I was unsure if that was a good sign.

I took a sip from my drink and was disappointed to find I only had ice left. I wondered if that was thematically significant, or maybe even foreshadowing.

Sigh.

I picked up my pace and tried to empty my mind before arriving home. "No thoughts, head empty" was a good mantra when you lived with a mind reader.

The rest of the walk was fairly uneventful, save for some guy who got attacked by a flock of ducks for getting way too close without enough food. Beware, all amateur wildlife photographers, lest the same fate falls upon you, I guess.

Poor guy even lost his coat. I was happy to assume it was the first casualty under the duck assault.

I slowed down when I finally arrived across the street from my home.  The newest Cullen mansion stood foreboding before me. A concrete monument full of sharp lines and odd angles; despite all of Esme's soft touches, brutalism simply exuded hostility and soullessness. Try as she might, there was a limit to how much you could dress up a giant grey concrete block to make it look approachable – and if we were being honest, it wasn't working.

How's that for a metaphor?

Well. There was no use delaying the inevitable.

I entered the house.

[Scene Break]

Being a half-vampire meant that I always felt at a misstep with everyone around me. To me, humanity was more of a scientific field of study that I took interest in and less of a dearly held-on memento of a bygone era or something that I simply had.

From the vampire side of things, while I was clearly an abomination, my existence didn't require me to be a parasitic blood freak. That put me in a different head space from the rest of my family. For one, I didn't need to agonize over my monstrous nature; secondly, I wasn't a slave to my bloodlust if I kept myself full of human food; and thirdly, there just wasn't much precedent for me to measure up to.

For all we knew, everything I did was the best I could have done.

That was all to say, I always felt like there was something I was missing when interacting with anyone. My point of view was fundamentally a different one, and though some things I could make sense of theoretically, it wasn't the same as first-hand experience.

Standing in the living room, surrounded by my family as they continued to say nothing, I couldn't help but think that perhaps this time the context I was missing had nothing to do with my hybrid status.

Edward paced while looking constipated but everyone else stood motionless and rigidly like the statues they were. Not even Emmett tried to lighten the mood, and that's how you knew it was serious.

"So who's going to who's funeral? Please don't say any of my coworkers, I've grown quite attached to them"

"Renesmee," Edward warned. I ignore him like he ignored my preferred name.

"Is it you pops? Wanna crack open another high school girl and drink her up like grape soda?"

"For once in your life could you stop acting like a brat?" Edward snapped and I flinched.

"Takes one to know one. Maybe if you didn't raise one you wouldn't have to deal with one, dad"

"Enough!" We both turned to look at Carlisle and I could see how unsettled he was. My stomach churned.

"Maybe my vision was wrong. Maybe it wasn't him," Alice sounded desperate, almost like the time the truck transporting her latest Givenchy haul got into a freak accident and the customer service lady told her they couldn't replace her order until after whatever microtrend that had been happening at the time ended.

"No, Alice. I saw your vision. It was. No doubt about it, that face is burned in my memory"

"It just doesn't make any sense, Edward!"

"I know what I saw," he replied forcefully.

Carlisle rubbed at his eyes, and for the briefest of seconds, you could have mistaken him for human.

"What's going on? You guys are scaring me," nothing felt right and all I wanted to do was to get back to the Burger King. At least the Kevins kept me in the loop when potentially life-threatening stuff happened.

"James is back," Bella whispered and I looked at her. Out of all of the Cullens, she looked the least worried. While everyone else's expressions visibly darkened at hearing the name, Bella said the name like she would say any name that wasn't Edward's.

"Who the fuck is James?"

"He was a vampire," Jasper growled.

"So what's the big deal? I don't know if you have noticed, but all of you are vampires"

"Emphasis on the was, Nessie. We ripped apart the bastard a good 16 years ago," Emmet explained. I raised my eyebrow.

"You sure about that? Last I heard, once you killed the undead, they were dead for good. No such thing as an undead undead."

"Oh, damn sure. We tore into him like frenzied piranhas at lunchtime and then lit him like a firework on the Fourth of July," Rosalie lightly hit his arm.

"You don't have to be so graphic about it"

"So it's obviously not him," Edward made a noise filled with frustration.

"Renesmee, I know what I saw. It was him, I would bet my life on it"

"Would you bet Bella's?" was what I almost said but Edward's glare made me reconsider. Just this once.

"Dead people just don't walk around all over the place," I said instead.

"We do," Emmett chimed in.

"We're different!"

"So why not him?"

"Edward is right," Classic Carl Carlisle move. His Golden Child could never be wrong. "I might have heard of something like this happening before."

There was a brief moment of silence before everyone exploded.

"WHAT?!"

Carlisle sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You have to understand, I couldn't verify it at the time."

When he said nothing, Esme made a "well, go on" motion.

"It happened about a decade ago. I only came upon this information because of Eleazar – he had approached me about it because he thought I was involved," Carlisle walked towards a window and stared into the distance like the dramatic bitch he was.

Edward slapped the back of my head.

"He told me heard of rumors of a vampire that had died 50 years ago and who walked the Earth again. You all know about my passion for Theology and my desire to find out what waits for us on the other side, so I promised to look into it. It took a while, but eventually, I heard back from someone"

"Your trip to Carencro," Esme gasped. "You said it was a conference!"

"When was this, I don't remember this?" Carl was holding back no punches in his dramatic reveal.

"It was our semester abroad," that's what Edward like to call the half a year experiment we spent in France. He wanted to see if Bella, him, and I could be a family unit all on our own.

It failed pretty miserably, would never happen again.

"I didn't want to burden you, love. Not unless I knew for sure."

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "So what happened?"

Carlisle turned back to us and shrugged.

"I met my informant and they told me to go to this one cafe and ask for Roy. I went there and the manager told me no one with that name worked there"

"So you got pranked," Emmet said.

"I looked around town for a couple of days, and since nothing else came up after my trip to Lousiana, I felt comfortable labeling the whole thing a hoax."

Rosalie scoffed. "And you think that's what's happening here?"

"I think it could be a possibility. This is our only lead"

I thought over what Carlisle just said. Could there really be an afterlife vampires could come back from? And if that was the case, then what happened to Roy? Was Roy even the vampire Elezear heard about?

But most importantly, why now?

"Hey, Alice. Besides James, what else did you see?"

Everyone went quiet and I looked back at them confused.

"I saw us without you"

"I mean, you don't really see me in your visions," I chuckled nervously.

"When I don't see you, it's like I'm looking around something. What I saw...it felt like I would never have to deal with that interference again."

"...Oh"

That didn't sound good.

#midnight shift #twilight fanfiction #twilight saga #my writing #renesmee cullen #the cullens #fanfiction #twilight renaissance

[knivesandwives]

Can you give an excerpt (is that the word?) or a pic from the book about Hannibal and Clarice's little date thing? I'm intrigued lol

Oh lol I'm honestly still reading it! Thank you for facilitating my venting though, and I will gladly share my incomplete knowledge. I haven't even finished this scene, which continues into another chapter. I had to take a break and cool my head because it makes me want to gag like I was a 5 year old with an aversion to kissing scenes (which is not usual for me. I just. I don't know about this). I could take the time to finish reading it in the time I'm writing this buuuut I'm too heated to do so atm, even though it would spare me the embarrassment of having very incomplete context. I don't even know whether Thomas Harris intends for the reader to want them together, but his treatment of Hannibal Lecter has generally verged on salivating over him, imo, so. I'm gonna take it as implied that I should like this a bit more than I do. I could be very wrong. Under the cut because it is a Rant

-----

I’ve got the fun wacky stuff first because this book is Wild. Bonkers. Then I have semi serious stuff and Thoughts thoughts in the second half 

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

WACKY FUN STUFF PART

it is So over the top corny. Highlights so far:

-Hannibal is playing the harpsichord when Clarice walks out. In other scenes he’s played his theremin. He is insufferable

- the piece he's playing is called ‘If True Love Reigned’ and was composed by Henry VIII, which is a red flag if ever I heard one

-he dresses up in white tie for her and spends FOREVER decorating the house *just so* and inspecting the dinner table from various angles to check whether the Aesthetic is right, because the house he's rented out is only so-so and he's gotta make up for it:

I mean. He decides to add a shit ton of flowers to make it intimate and create a hanging gardens effect, realizes that this looks bad, and decides that the solution is More flowers. Maybe he’s right, but I think with the rest of the decorations this is probably looking like a mess right now.

-Uhhh if I remember correctly from the Freudian Daddy Issues chapter (hhhhh I want to have a word with Thomas Harris), the reason he makes the peonies in the flower arrangement “white as SNO BALLS” is because she has some sort of (dad-related) childhood memories about these fucking Hostess twinkie-level snacks. There are Levels to his floral arrangements

-Similarly, the cocktails he prepares for them have orange slices on the side because it’ll remind her of her father slicing oranges and Hannibal wants to be daddy

-The landlord he’s renting the house from (where he’s keeping Clarice and holding Date Night) has a fixation on Leda and the Swan, to the point that he has four statues of it and eight paintings of it in that one house alone. Hannibal likes the horniest one with the best “anatomical articulation.” Make of that what you will. There was indeed a reason for Bryan Fuller including such a pussy out painting in the set for Hannibal’s dining room. Hannibal covers the other Leda statues and paintings that don’t live up to his standards

- He brings her clothes to wear?? Special Fancy clothes for Date Night. Ugh. And I thought it was pushy and anal in SOTL when he gave her tips on how to improve her fashion

- Hannibal wears an ascot over a white shirt. No jacket. I don't know if I trust the taste level of this man. I like Freddy from scooby doo but his look seems like a stretch in this context

-he uses candelabra like he's the phantom of the opera and has this incredibly fucking extra mirror in his rented house:

-he tells her his goals for the evening in one of the trademark Long Confusing Hannibal Monologues we’re so used to seeing in the show, then asks Clarice if she understands, and her response is: no I don’t so I hope your food is good at least

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

Actual Serious Thoughts about it  (content warning: some vaguely psychosexual things involving characters’ family, drugging and non-sexual consent issues)

I think my reaction is definitely influenced by the context that's been presented so far for their relationship in this book, which includes (briefly):

--Hannibal has a fixation on Clarice as a potential replacement for/idealized version of Mischa, his dead sister. The moment he lays eyes upon her again in this book he starts having uncontrollable flashbacks that directly associate Clarice with Mischa and overlays their meanings and iconography. So... that's something. It shows up constantly whenever we get a glimpse into his POV. I have thoughts about what Hannibal finds appealing about Clarice RE as an idealized version/teacup reversal of Mischa; the book tells us he admires her courage and her spirit as a warrior despite having been victimized, and so Clarice is in some ways a version of Mischa that was capable of surviving despite the odds. That was (crudely) my working theory, anyway. Might have to reevaluate that now because I'm less certain now about Hannibal's intentions and how much his appreciation for Clarice is really *respectful* of her potential, versus how much he sees her as some sort of vehicle to replace Mischa and be some sort of walking talking idealized doll that he crafts into his dead sister. I wanted it to not be *as* weird and psychosexual as I thought it would end up being, but this book definitely leans into some weird sexualized Freudian shit, and I'm concerned that Mischa and Clarice are part of that despite my best efforts to rationalize it in a way that I would have preferred. Really, who fantasies about their lover being a reminder of their sister?

--Freudian hell part 2: Hannibal has rescued Clarice from the Verger farm (after she rescued him, which was quite dramatic) and has her drugged at his house and undergoing the type of hypnosis we see suggested with Will and Miriam Lass in NBC!Hannibal. Hannibal suggests things, she follows those suggestions with apparently little agency of her own. He probes into her history and traumas and causes her to see things. Among his goals here is to have her make peace with her dead father in some way (in a scene which strongly resembles Abigail's therapy with GJH's corpse as seen in the s3 flashbacks), and to give her some form of control over her memory of him. This is accompanied by some very squicky speculation from Hannibal about Clarice having taboo sexual associations with her father, which she projects (among other things) onto other father figures in her life like Jack Crawford or her fallen FBI partner. I didn't know before I got into this book whether it was going to legitimize the Electra complex angle on Clarice this much, and maybe I'm wrong to accept Hannibal's viewpoint as sacred, but. So far, that seems to be the take.

----

So that's the context for the leadup to this romantic dinner scene. Hannibal has decorated his house specially for this date night type thing and given her a slinky, fancy dress to wear in his fancy house. Clarice has been heavily under the influence of drugs so far, and this night is no exception. This chapter so far has been a treasure trove of the more romantic dialogue repurposed for NBC!Hannibal, but I kind of can't stand it here in this book as anything remotely romantic. It's almost entirely him talking *at* her and it seems like this is more about him and his idealized fantasy of her than it is actually about her. The text does refer to him as "the monster" more frequently in this chapter, and it calls him out directly for his vanity and self congratulation, so I'm not entirely sure if I'm even supposed to like it, but. Anyway. You asked for excerpts! This particular scene is probably the densest part of a very dense chapter (the highlights are a mess rn):

There's a lot of interesting stuff in here, some of which really raises my hackles in ways I wasn't anticipating. Clarice has just emerged in the outfit he chose for her to join him. Clarice's first question to him is to ask about how much he's invaded her privacy without her knowledge, and he has a very bullshit answer where he pretends that this situation he's manufactured, in which he drugs her and creates a fantasy world for them, is okay because it exists outside of reality. It doesn't. It's an interesting idea but it's bullshit. This is not his memory palace, this is reality and it does exist as a part of time that Clarice has had to experience (or not, as the case may be for her level of consciousness throughout this). And he turns around from this question about him being intrusive to reiterate his attraction to her. Squick at that. Her plain (possibly curt?) answer to his compliment, even though it's a thank you, causes him annoyance. This is where I really, Really start to have, like, flashbacks to Jessica Jones and the playing house plotline. Real strong flashbacks to that. Clarice's (apparently unintentional) failure to meet his standards and reciprocate in the exact way he wants her to makes him Annoyed. Clarice identifies this and holds her ground, interestingly enough, and Hannibal has a moment of awe at her stubborn individuality, but immediately falls back on self congratulatory wanking at his choice of woman. Then, there's more talking at her, to which she eventually says that she basically doesn't know what the fuck he means but she hopes he plans to make dinner worth her while. I appreciate Clarice holding her ground so well here, especially given the circumstances, and I don't know quite where this is headed, but I guess the gist of it is that in this context I just really want to slap Hannibal about and see him burn

#ramblings #knives reads thomas harris #and vents about things i shouldn't #but thank you!! i need to and i appreciate interaction #but keep in mind i am a fool who is willing to vent about this without knowing everything #just think of it as liveblogging? i guess