#giving you shitty lore in the middle of the night

[missmeinyourbones]

I’LL MAKE THIS FEEL LIKE HOME

cw: nsfw, 18+. minors and ageless blogs will be blocked for interacting. wc 6k. todoroki fam lore. bnha manga + s6 spoilers. angst and fluff and smut and love and

“Do you feel held by him? Does he feel like home to you?”

- Midsommar (2019)

Touya was eight years old when his youngest brother was born—the same age realized that his house no longer felt like home. 

And while it never fit the traditional cookie-cutter feeling of a home before then, it was comforting in its own kind of way. It was definite, something that he could hold onto and strive towards. Something that was there at the end of the day, no matter how badly his hands burned or how quiet the dinner table was. 

Because before Shouto was born, there was still a chance. 

Fuyumi and Natsuo were just as much of failures as he was—it was anyone's game. He could keep pushing, train his hand to defy the science of his body and deal with it. Become what his father wanted so badly he’d kill for. That was home, the knowledge that there was still a chance for him. 

But the moment Shouto was born, hair perfectly split the same as his flawlessly cursed body, Touya knew. 

Instantly, he knew that his time was over—that there was no saving his dream of making his father proud. He hadn’t been enough, and he would have to live with that, in a house that's no home with a family that lives in the shadow of what he never got to be. 

He carries that feeling everywhere he goes. Like an eternal kink in his neck, it weighs heavy on his shoulders and disintegrates the marrow of his bones. Forever the boy without a home, Dabi continues to do what he does best—or maybe worst—and he survives. 

But, you don’t remember when Dabi became home to you. 

Well, that's not entirely true. Like all other things, you suppose it happened slowly, then all at once. 

You remember meeting him when you shouldn’t have. Recognizing his appearance from the local news, you remember the heavy feeling in your chest, like a child who was caught doing something wrong. The fear, the confusion. The part of you that wanted to help, the other than wanted to run. 

But you don’t remember how fast it all happened. 

Sewing his wounds and scrubbing his blood from your floor. Letting him sneak in to hide out, and waking up to an empty bed. You don’t remember the days bleeding into nights, but you could never forget the way his skin felt against yours.

You remember the impact, but the falling is all a blur. The stranger sleeping on your couch who has now read all of the books on your bedside table. The one who hissed and snarled for you to stay away, now crawls home to you on his knees. 

One day he wasn't, and the very next day, he was. 

You think that’s enough for you, but Dabi knows it’s too much for him. 

…

The sound of your window creakily opening no longer scares you in the middle of the night. If anything, it brings you a sick sense of comfort. 

Dabi slides through your living room balcony with ease, far too familiar with the routine of navigating your apartment in the dark. It does the job for him—keeps him out of the cold, gives him a bed to sleep in, a roof over his head. He finds that he enjoys the perks of your shitty building complex. 

Oh, and you're there, too. But, he swears that has nothing to do with the magnetic urge that keeps pulling him back to the fire escape on the fourth floor that remains unlocked. 

He opens your cabinets in search of something, anything, to fill his stomach in the slightest. He’s thin, almost alarmingly so, if you didn't know him—didn’t know his body is constantly working against him, eagerly taking the destruction he so carelessly puts it through.

Your sudden voice doesn't scare him. He doesn't so much as flinch at your clear tone in the silence of your home. 

“Cremation.” 

He briefly looks at you over his shoulder, humorously expressionless, before turning his back to you and rummaging through the cabinet again. 

“Gesundheit,” he scoffs.  

“It’s what your name means,” you breathe, tone still devoid of any emotion he can detect—or deflect. 

The realization burns him like his quirk, oddly painless but still alarmingly there. He holds his breath without realizing it, and its not until he coughs that he mindlessly exhales. 

Dabi. Cremation. 

True, he thinks. It’s no secret by any means, but he still finds his muscles tensing up as if you’d just said something you shouldn’t have. 

He doesn’t let his facade falter as he plucks a box of saltines from your cabinet. “Doesn't take a genius to do a basic translate search.”

“It’s not your real name,” you state, addressing the elephant infiltrating the room.

And at this, he fully turns to you. You stand in the entryway of the dark kitchen, arms crossed and eyes filled with sleep (or lack thereof, Dabi isn't sure he can tell the difference just yet). 

You're not angry. No, he's seen you angry before. This is different, harder. It's almost stoic. And while Dabi can’t put his finger on the exact feeling of the pit in his stomach, he knows he doesn’t like it.

He sticks his hand in the cardboard box before plucking a cracker and plopping the snack in his mouth. The salt burns the cuts on his lips when he sarcastically speaks, “You’re on fire with the observations today.” 

He watches you shrug, expression still void of any true indication of whatever your heart is feeling. The only light in the tiny apartment comes from the stove behind him. He can just make out your silhouette and barely your face through hardened focus and adjusting eyes. 

He thinks he’s grateful for that. He doesn’t want to see the details of your dissapointment when you see the real him. 

“Figured it was a bit too coincidental,” you rest against the doorframe. Dabi takes it as a good sign, you're not stiff. 

“Quirks don’t even manifest until a few years after birth, unless you were unnamed for the first five years of your life.”

Should’ve been, he bitterly thinks. Things would've been easier that way. 

He bites his tongue. 

The only sound that can be heard is the crunching of his teeth against the cracker he gnaws on. After a moment, he offers you one. You don’t move a muscle at his extended hand. He lets it sink back slowly, defeated, as he clears his throat. 

“It fits, doesn't it?”

It’s a rhetorical question, one he doesn’t actually expect you to answer. Because his name is all that’s known of him. Of course it should fit. Because when you look at him—his peeling and charred skin and hand that wields nothing but pain—it’s evident that all he can do is cremate.

His breath hitches when you speak up. 

“To some, sure,” you decide. 

With the way his chest tightens at your declaration, Dabi decides he doesn't like your tone. 

He shields himself with his bark. “What’s that mean?”

“It means I want to call you something different,” you ache, but Dabi can read between the cracks you let falter. I deserve to call you something different, is what your heart bleeds onto the floor. I’m different. 

He refuses to let that be the truth. 

“Didn't think you’d be one for pet names, doll.” He tosses the half-eaten box back into your cabinet, lazily shutting the wood and wiping his crumby hands on his sleeves. 

“I don’t see you how they see you,” your voice is stern now, he hears the determination in your shaky words. “I want to know your name.”

Your real one, the lines read once again. But in a split second, Dabi realizes he’s come too far to ruin whatever this is now.

“Fat chance in hell,” he dismisses, brushing your shoulder as he leaves the kitchen. 

You’re quick to follow—as you always are, he’s begun to notice. You're like a mosquito constantly buzzing in his ear. No matter how many times he swats and repels, you come back stronger. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t hate it. 

“Please.”

“No,” he’s even quicker to bore. “M’not dragging you into my shit.”

Too late, the voice in the back of his mind laughs. He’s always been his own worst enemy.

“There's more to you,” you continue to press, wanting something tangible, more from him. “You're not just what they make of you. You're a person, someone's son, someone’s–”

“Don't,” a balloon bursts behind his eyelids. His voice comes louder than ever before and it unsettles you, him, and the floorboards beneath your toes. 

“Don't you ever...fucking say that again. You hear me?” With his finger in your face, Dabi shakes. He prays to whoever is listening that you see it as fury, and not what it truly is—fear. 

And based on the tears flooding your eyes, he’d bet money he doesn't have that he’s right. In the silence of your home, you nod.

Dabi decides he’s had enough for one night, done enough to make you hate him just the right amount to forget about fixing him. 

On the way out, Dabi mumbles something that sounds a lot like, “Say something stupid like that one more time and you'll never see me again.” 

…

Dabi is exhausted.

His burner rings obnoxiously through the bedroom in the middle of the night. 

You’ve begun to associate the loud melody with the feeling of a knife—the blade cruelly trickling its tip against your skin. Cold, sharp, barely applying enough pressure to make you hyperaware of its potential to rip everything you've ever known away from you with a mere movement forward.

You never know who’s on the other end of the line, and this time is no different. When the infamous sound sends a chill up your spine, Dabi answers it without a second thought. He wordlessly picks up, listens intently, and hangs up as quickly as it rang. 

Then, he’s out of bed and putting his shoes on. 

He knows you're not asleep, so there's no point in pretending to be when you crawl out of bed and follow him to the den of your home. 

He grabs the remote, flicks the television on, and eagerly surfs the channels until he lands on the local news. Endeavor runs through the barren and obliterated streets of downtown, defending the city and fighting some… creature. You don't miss the way Dabi’s eyes don't blink whenever the hero is on screen. 

He’s too focused, too emotional when it comes to him. It's unlike anything you've ever seen from him, and you're tired of pretending not to see the smothering fire in his eyes whenever the man is brought into discussion. 

The reporter on the screen flips to another battle somewhere else in the city, with other heroes and other creatures and other things that should matter right now but for some reason don't. Because when Dabi finally takes his eyes off the screen to slip into his shoes, you spill. 

“Why him?”

He harshly tightens the laces of his boot, “Huh?”

“Endeavor,” falls from your lips, and he nearly hisses at the sound of the name on your tongue. “Why him out of all heroes?”

He hesitates in the slightest. The average eye wouldn't have noticed his pause, but you know him. You see the way he clenches his jaw and fiddles with the staples sealing his chin. 

He merely shrugs before tying his other lace, “He’s number one.”

“He wasn't always,” you contest, a bit too accusatory for his liking.

“Why does it matter?” Dabi bites. Bites the hand that feels him, shelters him, listens to him and chooses to remain quiet with what it knows. He bites the hand that loves him, and he almost regrets it when he sees your slight shock.

Almost.

His stomach churns as he watches you slightly falter before finding your footing once more. “It seems to matter to you.” 

So it matters to me, your heart aches to drill into his rock-solid mind. His eyes feel hot on your skin as he shakes his head and stands from where he sits. 

“He’s not a good guy, none of ‘em are.” 

“How do you know?”

His grip on his coat tightens in frustration. “I have a ton of shit on him. He’s not the savior you think he is.”

“I don’t think he’s a savior,” you retort, and it comes out a bit childish, like a belief you wish to convince yourself of. “I don’t know him.”

“But you trust him,” Dabi is quick to jump, almost as if you've fallen right into his trap. He looks a bit wild, as if you’re prey in his hands, saying all the right things so sweetly just for him to do what a predator does and hunt. Sink his teeth into your flesh and ruin you for the thrill of it. 

“Cause he’s the face of the fuckin’ country?” he coos with a venomously fake smile. “Cause he’s big and strong and always does the good thing, right?”

He’s trying to scare you, you know this—but you’ve never been scared of Dabi. Not when he’s tried to make you be, not when he’s done unspeakable things. He doesn’t scare you, but he’s upsetting you. He’s being mean, which isn't new to you but still rare enough to sting. 

“I trust you,” your voice cracks, making his stomach churn with shame, “so if you don’t trust him, then I trust you have a good reason not to.” 

Silence overtakes the room and Dabi’s chest burns with bile rising. 

You trust him? On what grounds? What reason has he given you to just hand over your patience without a fight, without a reason? 

Most importantly, if the thought of you trusting him makes him sick to his fucking stomach, then why does he find his lips moving before he can stop himself? 

“He beats his kids.”

The television cuts to a commercial. A car drives by below, honking furiously at something or other. He says it casually, eyes looking away from yours. 

Your voice is barely heard, “His kids?” 

You didn't even know he had kids. Come to think of it, you knew of one boy. Fire and ice who attends the hero facility downtown that's always getting into trouble. Set to follow in his father's footsteps, according to the tabloids. 

Dabi’s face doesn't falter at your surprise, immune to the violence he knows lives within his words. “Wife, too.”

The pieces don't add up in your mind. Dabi’s never been one for morals, not one for evening the tides and setting the universe straight when it comes to what's right and what's wrong. He does what he wants, he’s selfish. So why on earth would he care about a tragedy that doesn't involve him? 

He interrupts your thoughts when he walks over to the front door. The sound of him fiddling with the lock makes your heart drop—because it means he’s leaving, and for how long, you never know.

“Doesn’t anymore, apparently, but he did for years,” he scoffs in disgust. “Claims he’s turned a new leaf. Wants to be father of the year, all of a sudden.”

Leaving before you can process any thoughts to convey into words, he sneaks through your door without a second thought.

“The good guys aren't actually good, y’know,” he warns as he leaves you.

You don’t see him for two weeks. 

…

Dabi doesn't fuck you with caution. 

It's the same every time. Rough, quick, desperate. You on your stomach and him towering behind you. He doesn't look at you or say much other than a grunt or curse here and there. Always pulls out, if he even cums, and always leaves right after, if not in the middle of the night. 

But that doesn't mean it’s not good. Because fuck, it's great. 

While short-lived and based on nothing but selfish, primal needs, it's a private moment of feeling nothing but him. His hands are everywhere and his teeth are never too far behind. His skin is on fire and his pace is nothing short of eager. 

Your back is arched as your face is pressed to the mattress. You feel his cock throb as it swells against the insides of your walls with every rushed and eager thrust. 

“Fuck, please,” he hears you breathily whine, and you feel his smirk against the skin of your back. 

He uses your polite desperation to reward you, snap his hips extra hard and bury himself to the hilt of your cunt. He sits and burns inside of you, grip tight on your waist as he pulls you as close to him as he can without swallowing you whole. 

His tip dances directly at the opening of your cervix, just barely brushing the overly tender spot with a feather-light prodding that somehow feels like too much and not enough. He lets himself continue to stretch you, to mold you, to enjoy the only thing he believes was made for him before he ruins it. 

He feels you repeatedly clench around him as you mewl, “Please, more please.” You’re already completely spent when you plead, “Please, Dabi.”

And just like that, a switch is flipped inside of him.

His grip on your hips tightens, “Don’t.”

He goes to pull out of you completely, but your cry from his movement halts his hips. “Oh, nnnngh, Dabi—!”

In a whirl, you're flipped onto your back and met with a harsh gaze. 

“Don’t,” he growls into your throat, “call me that.”

Frozen in place from both shock and pure need, you airily gasp when you feel his cock head brushing itself through your folds. With a scarred wrist, Dabi swipes his tip between your folds, eyes fully absorbing and watching your expression twitch with every sensitive brush. 

“Touya,” he tells you through a slack jaw, watching your eyelids flutter at the teasing.

He pushes himself into your cunt, not fully, but enough for you to cry in slight release, before pulling out to where his tip is the only part of him swallowed by you. 

“Touya,” he repeats, nearly chanting as he aches to engrain it into your system. So it’s all you’ll ever know, the only word your tongue will ever taste from now on, no matter who is sticking what inside of you. He works to make your body remember that the only thing it should think of when feeling the slight stretch of your throbbing cunt is—

“Touya,” he bleeds. It almost doesn’t even sound like a word. “Say it. Touya.”

And you do. It crawls breathy and drunk from your throat as if your lips were made to form its syllables. Like a holy mantra falling from your lips, his whole body shivers when he hears your sweet heaves. 

“Touya,” is whimpered into his lips.

He holds his breath for a beat, before shakily recollecting himself from his quickly approaching high and readjusting his grip on your jaw.

“Again, fuck.” 

“Touya,” you gasp at his now snapping hips. It’s deeper, slower, and even more desperate than you thought it was before. It's messy and tired and he cradles you in his palms as you chant his name like a prayer.

Touya. Touya. Touya.

He abruptly finishes inside of you, his spurting warmth easily sending you over the edge, too. 

While it was something that was always offered, Touya has never once come inside of you, always choosing to pull out last second, if he finished at all. You savor the moment, letting him rut his cum into you until your both dry with exhaustion. 

Breathing returns to a normal rate and Touya lets himself soften inside of you. With his head burrowed in your neck, he makes a move to pull out of you. To leave, your chest tightens at the realization, so on instinct, you let your legs wrap around his torso, crossing your ankles and keeping him as your own for just a little bit longer.

Without a fight, he lets you. He lets himself stay inside of you as he drifts to sleep in your hold.

“Touya,” he hears you coo, listens to you taste it on your tongue and determine that you like its flavor.

“S’pretty,” you decide in a sleeping daze. “Fits you better.”

Dabi drifts to sleep thinking about the irony of that statement.

…

The puzzle pieces itself together rather quickly after that. 

It turns out Endeavor does have kids—four, to be exact. Three boys and a girl, all different equations of fire and ice and grief. 

It's not hard to find articles on what happened at Sekoto Peak. What happened to Touya Todoroki, the boy who died for nothing, who you now know somehow sits alive on your couch with a bowl of ramen noodles and a wet head.

He focuses on the television before him. A cheesy horror film from the late 80s plays through the grainy screen. His feet are resting on top of the coffee table and the bowl in his lap is steaming. He uses his chopsticks to dive in regardless of its heat. 

Sitting on the opposite end of the couch, you can smell your eucalyptus shampoo in his hair from where you sit. Though his head is still damp, you can tell the color has gotten lighter. While still practically jet black all over, you're able to see the slightest tint of light peeking through his roots. You know better than to ask, but you're sure your guess is as good as any. 

Touya must feel your gaze on him because his eyes flicker to the side where you quietly admire his profile. Through a mouthful of noodles and steaming broth, he mumbles. 

“What’re you doing?”

You smile at the lack of enunciation in his words before innocently shaking your head. “Nothing.”

Unconvinced, his eyes narrow. “Why’re you lookin’ at me like that?” he accuses. 

You roll your eyes out of habit though your heart is anything but irritated, “What, I can’t look at you, now?”

He uses the next bite he takes to hide the smirk growing on his face. “Not with that stupid look on your face.”

He takes pride in watching you get flustered, scrunching your nose and giggling out a horrified, “What look?”

He reaches across the couch to close the gap between the two of you, before flicking your forehead.

“That look,” he declares.

He doesn't move back to where he was sitting. He lets himself remain next to you, your head lightly resting on his shoulder as the sound of the movie webs throughout your living room.

It’s easy, too easy. It’s natural and warm and feels like the closest thing to a home he’s ever held in his calloused and weeping palms. 

And Touya is selfish. 

He wants to grasp onto it, white-knuckled and pressing crescents into his palms—he wants to keep you. Wants to keep this. But he knows better. 

Touya knows that the stupid look on your face was one of love. Pure and undeniable. But he doesn't let himself think too much about it. 

…

The weather changes with the wind, and it’s colder in Japan when Touya gives you a piece of him you never thought you’d get. 

He’s just arrived back from god knows where doing god knows what, but you’ve learned not to question it. You welcome him in every time with a warm smile and an urge to hold him, and he thinks maybe thats why he hears himself suddenly spilling.

“Saw him today,” he breathes evenly.

His words hold no context, no prior conversation triggering his statement. It just exists in the space between the two of you on the couch, and the ball is in your court. 

Your head tilts in careful thought, “Who?”

“Downtown,” he ignores your question, “cornered him for a second and everything.”

And though you know nothing and shouldn’t be able to understand the man beside you, you do.

You feel his pain in the way his eyebrow twitches, how his fingers crack against his palms. You might not get it, but you try. You’ll always try for Touya. 

You encourage him, “And what happened?”

The wind howls outside, and you feel your home settle beneath its harsh hit. The walls crack with movement as the two of you remain seated beside one another. 

After a moment, Touya clears his throat. 

“Nothing,” he bitterly laughs to himself. “Absolutely nothing.”

The tea in your hand buzzes heat through its mug, and it feels like Touya’s touch. When he’s careful and cautious and places his hands on your stomach, treating you like glass he needs to mold. 

“Looked me dead in the eyes, felt my fuckin’ flame, and—” he cuts himself off at the emotion crawling into his words with a cough, “and nothing.”

You say nothing, but Touya knows that nothing needs to be said. He can sit on his couch with the tea you made him and the look you're giving him and he knows he can trust you. As much as he doesn't want to, he can. 

With his head hung low in shame, he rips off the only bandaid he’s ever had for the deepest wound he never got the chance to properly clean.

“He’s my old man,” he harshly swallows. 

After a moment of silence, he drags his head up from the floor. 

You're still looking at him the same, eyes dancing with love and some sick want to understand him. 

You simply reach across the cushion and squeeze his hand. 

“I know,” you whisper. 

And in what Touya imagined to be an earth-shattering conversation, he feels the corner of his mouth pulling upwards into an ironic smile.

“’Course you do,” he laughs under his breath. It's not malicious or accusatory, it's a matter of fact. 

Because of course, you know. Of course, you would see through his master puppetry and barring fangs. Of course, it wouldn't change how you see him.

Of course.

In what should be a terrifying moment, Touya lets himself smile. He shakes his head as he sighs, “Father of the fuckin’ year, right?”

…

“M’gonna do something,” Touya tells you solemnly one afternoon in bed, “and you’re gonna hate me for it.”

The freshly setting sun shines through the window, and you can feel its heat warming up your legs through the frame. The rays feel oddly contrasting to his cloudy day words. 

You open your eyes to find his. They’re already looking back at you, glasslike as they flicker across your features. Like he’s searching for something neither of you have an answer to. 

Your foot brushes against his calf as you shift to face him. 

“I could never hate you,” you softly remind him, “you know that.”

Touya fights the urge to roll his eyes, and you bite back a smile at the agitation wrinkles forming on his forehead. Your fingers move without thinking, using your thumb to iron and smooth over his delicate skin. 

“Fine,” he huffs, but you don’t miss the way he softens beneath your touch.

 “I’m gonna do something and you’re gonna yell at me for it,” he follows up more gentle this time, like a tainted whisper afraid to be too loud in the honeyed quietness of your home. 

It fills your stomach with a familiar sense of unease. 

“Well, do you deserve to be yelled at?”

He softly smiles, one equal parts of happy and sad, “Probably.”

You return the look as you sit on his words. He’s treading lightly, which is a thoughtful change compared to his usual acting on impulse.

He’s cautioning you. Preparing you for something bitter, and while you appreciate the warning, you know it can’t be anything good. It feels a lot like the breathtaking sunset before a disastrous overnight storm. 

Your voice is a whisper when you meekly ask him, “Can you tell me any more?”

And though the look on his face is regretful, his answer comes all the same. 

“No,” he swallows. 

And like the saint you are, Touya doesn’t know why he’s surprised when you merely bob your head in understanding and smile.

“Okay,” you nod.  

You expect that to be all. Because Touya’s never been one for words, let alone more than the bare minimum amount needed. And you were deemed lucky enough to get a vague warning. 

That should be the end of the conversation, but it’s not. 

Touya reaches for your wrist and his fingers dance along the bone lightly. He doesn’t remove his eyes from where they bore into yours when he breathes. 

“M’sorry.”

The words are foreign on his tongue, and his smallness unsettles you. Something feels wrong, like nausea brewing and waiting for bile to finally strike. 

You sit up, cradling his face in your palms as you coo words of reassurance. He feels cold, his body temperature ironically contrasting the heat that runs through his veins. He’s trying so hard to keep whatever he knows inside the clear cage of his mind, but you can practically hear the cracking of the glass beneath it’s weight. 

“Hey, no,” you exhale between kisses to his hairline. “No, don’t start that shit.”

Because while he doesn’t tell you everything, Touya tells you enough, and it’s more than you ever thought would be true with someone as out of reach as him. 

He may not tell you he loves you, but he says it through his eyes. He doesn’t tell you how he has so much respect for you it could swallow him whole, but sometimes, in the glimpse of his stolen glances, you can feel it. 

He can’t tell you what he’s going to do, but he can tell you he’s sorry. And that is something in and of itself. 

Touya closes his eyes at the affection. He wishes he could freeze time and savor this moment forever. Keep it as a souvenir to place on his shelf and keep him company on lonely nights to come. He doesn’t want it to end, doesn’t want to be anywhere else that isn't here, right now, with you.  

He does his best to soak in how your lips feel against his as you promise, “We’ll figure it out, yeah?”

But he’s not so sure, because while you think he’s apologizing for not being able to tell you more, Touya is apologizing for the hell he knows is to come. 

…

He’s dead. He has to be dead.

The screen in front of you feels like a cruel joke as it flashes clips of the scene. Not Dabi, but Touya, on national television—spewing venom to the entire country with a smile. . 

He speaks slowly, solemnly, like he's thought this through. Like he’s rehearsed and planned this all along. He speaks like a spiraling politician, and it cuts like a blade in your back.

You think about the television screens across the city right now.

A family whose gameshow night got rudely interrupted. A cafe whose workers are making their final lattes for the night, sweeping the floors and washing the counters as his rambling mindlessly plays in the background. You wonder if anybody is home at the Todoroki residence, if the television is on, or if it was unplugged years ago.

Touya is dead, and he warned you. 

That’s why he did this, why he planned this to unfold the way it did. He told you that you’d hate him, and like a fool, you told him he was wrong. 

A knock on the door is barely heard over your heavy breathing, and you debate on answering it.

It has to be the police, or maybe even a hero—looking for you, now an accomplice blinded by a mirror you thought was a window.

Your brain starts to spiral with thoughts that make your chest heave.

Did Touya turn himself in? Go down without a fight? Did someone see him leave your home? Had they known this entire time? 

Maybe they were waiting for the right moment to strike, for the dominoes to ripple so they can make their move when you’re too weak to defend yourself. Maybe he double-crossed you, blamed whatever he could on you before driving a getaway car in the opposite direction of your apartment. Maybe he never cared at all—maybe the realest thing you’d ever known was orchestrated from beginning to end. 

Another knock comes, this time more urgent and harsh. And there’s no point in prolonging the inevitable—so with tear-stained cheeks and shaking shoulders, you open the door.

And it’s Touya.

With white hair and soggy clothes, he stands in the hallway of your crumby apartment complex.

You want to laugh at the irony of it all. The first time he uses your actually door instead of window, he's a new man.

New hair, new name, a new look in his eye—one that swims of something you can't put your finger on. He’s alive and in front of you, and regardless of the anger overflowing your cup, you need to feel him.

So you pull him through the threshold, inside of your home, and against your skin. You feel the wet leather of his jacket, and smell the ash from the battle mixed with the coffee he had before he left this morning. 

He’s here, and you love him.

“I hate you,” your cries vibrate against his chest as you weakly push and punch at his shoulders. “I hate you, I fucking hate you.”

Touya lets you sob into his shirt. It’s covered in your tears and blood that’s not his. He lets you thrash and scream and crumple beneath his hold. 

He wants to say I told you so. I told you you’d hate me. 

“How could you do that,” he makes out between your hyperventilating and sobs, “how could you do that to me?”

His throat restricts with tears that can’t come as you melt against his body, “I would have never done that to you.”

“I’m sorry,” Touya breathes, and he repeats it. Says it again and again and again until it all bleeds together into nothing but syllables and sobs. 

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m home, and I’m sorry. 

…

The bedroom is cold, the window slightly cracked open as Touya shuffles your quilted blanket off of his clammy body.

He always runs a bit hot at night, though he’s ironically ice to the touch when his quirk isn’t at work. 

Now on top of your comforter, his scarred palm lays open to you. He flinches every now and then as you delicately draw shapes into it with a painted fingernail. His eyes are closed, but he’s able to recognize the swirling form of your movements, the same ones you’ve drawn every night since he came back home to you.

He doesn’t remember the last time he’s felt this at peace. 

After everything, he’s still here. And not only is he still here, but he’s okay with that, because he’s with you. 

“I've never—” he hesitates, but the darkness illuminating the room gives him a surge of confidence. 

“I've never had this,” his voice is pained, nearly softer than silence itself.  

He feels your finger stop swirling for a moment, but it resumes just as quickly as it halted. He feels you alter your pattern, and with cleaner lines and softer edges, he’s able to recognize the heart you doodle on his skin.

“Had what?” you gently ask.

“A home,” Touya breathes, before correcting himself, “where I’m wanted.”  

You smile and Touya feels so loved he nearly makes himself sick. He feels so held, so wanted, so right in your bed and beneath your delicate fingertips. 

The stranger in your home. The outlaw who smells of your perfume. The boy who never got a second chance, but the man who got a third.

Touya has so much love for you that he doesn't know where to put it all.

But for a moment, when he looks at your smile and feels your fingertip tracing his palm, he sees it as you offering your open arms to hold any excess he can’t carry. 

He feels you grin against the scarring of his wrist. 

“Well,” you kiss the tender spot where skin meets stitching, “you might wanna get used to it.”

#i am very very proud of this pls be kind to me thank u love u muah #touya x reader #touya todoroki x reader #touya x you #touya todoroki x you #dabi x you #dabi x reader #dabi fic #touya fic #touya todoroki fic #dabi smut #touya smut #touya todoroki smut #touya angst #dabi angst #touya todoroki angst #dabi fluff #touya fluff #touya todoroki fluff

[luvsturniolo]

ー ★ !! inebriated

pairing : chris sturniolo x fem!reader

synopsis : after being dragged to a party by his brothers, chris finds himself stumbling into a very drunk girl — who looks like she's on the verge of either puking or sobbing. he can't tell which.

a/n : i haven't touched my keyboard in literal months so i wrote this purely due to the fact that i needed to get back into this writing lore ! if this is super shitty & bad, i apologize. this is ur warning !!

also ! there will be underage drinking, so if that sort of thing bothers you in any way i advise that you click off of this rn and find another fic.

also x2 , this will be switching POVs a bit. i'll put their names above each scene tho, so it's not confusing.

wc : 8k

CHRIS

"i don't know if this is a good idea." chris says, warily, as he and his brothers trudge up the stairs toward the loud dorm room. they're all the way down the hall, and he can still hear every single lyric blaring from the speakers.

"oh, don't be a fucking wuss." nick rolls his eyes, gently nudging his brother in the side with his elbow. nick laughs a bit, but when he notices the genuine uneasiness displayed on his brother's face, he feels a twinge of guilt in his gut. "okay, fine. i have an idea."

chris looks up at nick with a deep furrow in his brow, "i hope your idea involves us going back to our own dorm for the rest of the night."

"well, not exactly." nick tells him. "how about matt and i go to the party, while you wait out here in the hall all night?"

chris lets out a loud groan, twisting to sit down on the staircase. what annoys chris isn't the fact that nick is so uncharacteristically persistent about attending this stupid party. it's the fact that he offered this idea as though he genuinely expected chris to sit out in the hallway for hours.

nick rolls his eyes at chris's childish behavior, leaning against the wall of the stairwell, seeming to have completely given up on trying to convince his brother to come along with him. he simply watches with an amused face as chris throw a tantrum.

matt — who has become incredibly sick of listening to his brothers' bickering the entire walk across campus — finally decides to butt into the conversation. he sits down on the stair beside chris, draping an arm over his shoulders. chris glances at matt out of the corner of his eye.

"i have an idea, too." matt tells him with a gentle tone. "wanna hear mine?"

for a moment, chris looks uncertain. but matt is so good at comforting people that he can't help but give in, agreeing to hear his idea as well. "fine." chris mutters.

"listen. you come to the party with us for twenty minutes." he says, making chris immediately let out a fatigued sigh. but matt quickly continues to explain. "if you're still wanting to leave by then, let me know and i'll take you back to our dorm without any questions. but if you end up having fun, you'll stay with us and give us both twenty bucks for having to listen to you whine the whole way here."

chris doesn't hesitate to agree to this deal. he shakes matt's hand to solidify the agreement and the three of them continue walking to the party.

there's no way in hell chris is going to enjoy this. the booming music paired with the stench of alcohol and weed is undoubtably going to give him a splitting head ache by the end of these twenty minutes.

YOU

parties aren't exactly your cup of tea, to put it lightly. you've only been to a few throughout your entire collage career, and you've never found yourself liking them. there's always far too many people in attendance for you to be able to relax or enjoy yourself. so, you've managed to avoid them thus far.

but you've had an incredibly rough day today, and you're pretty keen on the idea of being able to drink your pain away.

you've been friends with jasmin and elaine since you guys were in middle school. the three of you were inseparable for years, and everyone knew it. you were always closer with elaine than jasmin, simply because your guys' personalities merged better. as a trio, you guys spent every single weekend together since you were kids. your families all knew one another. you gossiped together about boys and drama and school. you confided in each other, and didn't spend a second apart.

however, that all ended today. you found elaine making out with your boyfriend in your guys' shared dorm room a few hours ago.

you had been dating kade for two years now, and you introduced him to your friends immediately when you guys met. you were excited to show them the wonderful boy you'd fallen for. they seemed to like him, and you guys became a quartet. you, elaine, jasmin, and kade. it was perfect. for two whole years. but it's all ruined now.

as soon as you walked in on elaine and kade in bed together, you called jasmin to tell her the news. she seemed just as shocked and betrayed as you were, and she rushed to your side instantly. you'd been in her dorm ever since, marinating in your own pitiful sorrow.

the thing is, you've been cheated on before. yes, it hurts ; it hurts like hell. but losing elaine hurts far more than losing your silly boyfriend. plus, kade had always been a bit of an asshole. elaine was the one who disapproved of him the most. the two of them always argued and made banter playfully. god. now you feel like such a fucking idiot for not realizing sooner.

"hey," jasmin says with the softest voice imaginable.

she opens the door to the dorm with a gentle creak, carrying in your favorite candies along with her. she trudges across the room before sitting on her bed — which you've made into your own. the mattress dips under her weight before she sets all the sweets down onto the duvet.

you sit up with a quiet word of thanks. ever since the incident, you've been tangled up in jasmin's blankets with a pillow pressed over your head to drown out the noise of a nearby party being thrown a few rooms down the hall.

"where'd you get all this?" you ask jasmin as you shuffle through the candies, finding the sweetest ones and unwrapping them joyfully.

"paxton is throwing a party for his birthday, and he let me take a few things." she explains, picking up a few for herself.

you can still hear the music blaring from down the hall, along with the sounds of muffled voices and laughter. you immediately wonder if kade and elaine are there together. kade is fairly popular, so he was most likely invited. and elaine loves parties, so she would have attended with him.

the thought of them together brings a certain ache to your stomach, making you want to lurch forward and vomit everywhere. you don't, of course, but you definitely consider it.

"i really fucking love you, jaz." you say.

you look at her with nothing by admiration behind your gaze. she holds the eye contact before smiling gently. she sets down her candies and pulls you into a tight hug. you return the embrace, burrowing your face in the crook of her neck.

"you deserve someone who treats you like the most wonderful person in the whole fucking world." she says against your hair. "because that's who you are."

"i don't feel like that, right now." you tell her, pulling out of the hug to gesture at your appearance. your hair is greasy tangled, your face is puffy from crying, your clothes are twisted, and you probably smell like shit.

"how about this," jasmin says with a mischievous grin spreading across her lips, "i'll lend you one of my most gorgeous dresses, and then we can go to paxton's party together. every single person there will stop and stare, including kade."

jasmin stands from the bed and grabs you by the hands, giggling as she pulls you to your feet. despite wanting nothing more than to go back to rotting uselessly in her bed, you can't help but laugh along with her.

"let's show him what he's missing out on." jasmin declares with a glow in her eyes, that makes you feel like you're in a cheesy disney movie. but you're honestly loving every second of it.

CHRIS

"how long has it been?" chris asks, leaning against the counter behind him. he looks up at matt, but realizes that his brother is no longer in front of him. chris groans audibly. he should have assumed that he wouldn't keep his end of the deal. there's no way matt could walk him home if chris doesn't know where he is.

"it's almost ten o'clock." a random guy says from beside chris. he looks over at him and smiles gratefully, hoping he doesn't look too awkward standing by himself. "this party is shit, don't you think?"

"for sure." chris agrees, quickly. "i don't even drink, so there's nothing for me to do other than watch everyone else get shit-faced. which isn't exactly how i want to spend my saturday night."

the guy just watches chris with an amused expression. the way he's staring makes chris feel a bit uncomfortable, but he refuses to show any sign of uneasiness.

"you're nick's brother, aren't you?" he asks suddenly.

the guy has sandy blonde hair and a face splattered with freckles. his eyes are dark brown, and a bit intimidating. he has high cheekbones and a grin that would make anyone tempted to smile along with him. the stranger takes a long sip out of his red solo cup as he waits for chris to respond, setting it down on the countertop behind him without breaking their eye contact.

"yeah, one of them." chris replies, finally. "i'm christopher."

"mm. full name, huh?" the guy hums with a bit of humor laced behind his tone. chris doesn't say anything, simply nodding as a reply. "i'm paxton. this is my party, i'm turning twenty."

chris's face drops. he instantly wants to take back everything he'd previously said. oh, he fucked up big time. he knows that nick only wanted to come to this party because of the major crush he has on paxton. and chris just insulted the shit out of his birthday party, then acted passive aggressive when giving him his full name as an introduction.

god, nick is gonna kill him.

"right, well i have to go." chris says, quickly exiting the kitchen with no idea where to go next. he should probably have stayed and apologized to paxton, but he was too scared of possibly fucking up even farther.

while aimlessly wandering around the crowded dorm, chris bumps into someone. he instantly apologizes, looking down at her with remorse. but his eyes quickly soften when he recognizes her.

"y/n?" he mutters, shocked to see you. especially at a party like this, knowing how much you usually dislike them with everything in you.

"holy fuck." you reply, your voice slurred and intoxicated. "christopher owen."

YOU — fifteen minutes prior

"i don't even know what to do at a party." you complain as you examine at yourself in jasmin's mirror. she was right, you look stunning. but you don't look like you.

"we're not going to party." jasmin explains as though it's the simplest concept to understand. "we're going to make kade jealous, and then get super drunk so we're too hungover to face tonight's concequences in the morning."

she has to shout in order for you to hear her voice because she's in the bathroom, curling her hair. the bathroom door is cracked open, but yelling is still needed due to the party's music being louder than anything else.

you shrug even though she can't see you doing so. "well when you put it that way, it sounds like a lovely idea." you respond, also shouting.

"girl," jasmin says with an audible laugh, "all my ideas are lovely."

with that, she exits the bathroom. her dress is shiny and gold, contrasting beautifully against her dark skin. you watch through the mirror as she approaches you, her reflection standing directly behind your own as she begins to put on two chunky, gold earrings.

you're wearing a dress that's a bit shorter than you'd like, but jasmin claims that it's the longest one she owns. you keep pulling it down subconsciously, but it's riding up your thighs annoyingly. you're wearing shorts underneath, of course, because they make you feel less exposed by the lack of length the dress provides. jasmin also lent you a necklace, a few bracelets, and a pair of earrings to wear. the jewelry is all dainty and more jasmin's style than yours, but you couldn't deny how fucking gorgeous you looked.

"let's go!" jasmin says with a giddy smile, grabbing your hand as she pulls you toward the door. you laugh with your last remaining true friend, allowing her to drag you down toward the party. your guys' heels click against the wooden floorboards in the hallway, the sound making you laugh even harder.

jasmin doesn't even bother knocking on the door. the way you guys enter paxton's dorm unannounced makes you feel strange, until you're actually inside and realize that the arrival of two people means nothing in comparison to the amount of guests that are piled into the space.

for the first few minutes, you and jasmin walk around together, exploring. you've had a few drinks, but you're hardly feeling anything yet. you end up leaving jasmin when she starts flirting with a random girl on the dance floor, and you feel invasive to linger around with her.

now on your own, you head toward the kitchen for another drink seeing as you just finished your last one. it's kind of comforting to be in the kitchen because there aren't as many people crowding around you. it's easier to breathe on your own.

you find a cooler on the floor, wide open with ice overflowing the rim. wedged inside the ice are various alcoholic beverages to choose from. you think for a moment before bending to grab a jack daniels, deciding on something sweet rather than bitter. when you stand back up, you notice someone standing to your left. you nearly drop the drink in shock.

"god," you mutter with an airy laugh as you turn to face the person. but all traces of humor leave your face when you recognize the presumed stranger.

elaine's hair is beautifully curled, framing her pale face with elegance that makes you suddenly feel like your hair isn't done well enough. her icy blue eyes stare down at you with an expression you can't read — which pisses you off because you used to be able to read all of her emotions perfectly. but now it's like she's a complete stranger.

now feeling insecure in your own skin, you pull the hem of your dress down. elaine doesn't seem to notice, nor does she care how you feel at the moment.

"what?" you demand, clutching the bottle in your hand to ground yourself. "did you come in here just to stare at me, or what?"

"don't flatter yourself." she says bluntly, a tone she's never directed at you before. in all the years you'd known her, you guys have never gotten into a genuine argument. so it's incredibly weird to see her in this new light. "i came for a drink. and you're standing in front of the cooler."

you turn and notice that she's right. you're blocking her from reaching the cooler. you instantly feel embarrassed, but you're quick to hide it by crossing your arms and stepping to the side so she can get to the cooler.

you watch as she reaches for the strongest drink that's offered. typical. she wouldn't be elaine without being unapologetically herself.

"you might not have anything to say to me, but i have a lot i'd like to say to you." you tell her, keeping your voice level despite the way your hands tremble against your crossed arms.

"it can wait." she says, turning on her heel and exiting the kitchen without another word, her ash blonde hair swishing behind her with superiority.

"what the fuck?" you murmur, now alone in the kitchen.

your senses are suddenly overflowing with blinding rage. after years of being best friends, she sleeps with your boyfriend. and yet, she's the one avoiding you? there's no fucking way anything about this situation is logical. you're the one who's pissed, not her. she has no right to have walked away from you like that. you deserve an explanation. or at least a viable conversation.

you screw open your bottle and take a swig of the drink, deciding that you're going to need a whole lot more of this before your anger cools down enough for you to leave the kitchen. because if you were to leave now, you wouldn't trust yourself not to immediately go to elaine and start a fight that you're not sure you'd even win.

after about ten minutes of standing by the cooler, drinking away your anger, you decide to finally exit the kitchen. you leave the room, stumbling a bit as you do so. but you quickly turn back around, realizing that you left your phone on the countertop.

as you walk back into the kitchen, you bump into someone who's walking out of it. he quickly apologizes, seeming to be in quite a hurry. you decide not to look up at him, now being annoyed that someone even bumped into you. god, maybe drinking was a bad idea. now everything pisses you off, not just elaine and kade.

"y/n?" the guy mutters, sounding insanely shocked. you raise a brow before looking up to meet the man's eyes. you instantly begin smiling at the guy.

"holy fuck." you reply, your voice slurred and intoxicated. "christopher owen."

CHRIS

chris hasn't seen you since senior year of high school. and considering the fact that you guys are now in college, it has been quite a while since you've seen each other.

you guys weren't necessarily friends back then, but you knew one another well enough. you guys had math together for two years straight. you sat side-by-side, talking every day through the entire period. by the end of the year, chris had developed a crush on you, and you were completely oblivious to his feelings.

he had introduced you to his brothers and you'd hung out outside of school a few times. you spent the night at his house once or twice, when your home life wasn't the greatest. he had come over to yours a few times to study for upcoming tests.

you's met his parents, and mary lou absolutely adored you. she told you stories about her sons, including each of their middle names. following this encounter, you had begun calling chris by his full name — christopher owen. at first, you did it because you noticed how it annoyed him. but then, the name stuck. it became an inside joke between you and him, depicting a sense of intimacy in knowing his middle name. even more so since it was given to you from his mother herself.

but after graduation, you guys lost contact and haven't spoken since.

however, seeing you in front of him now, chris really wishes he had made more of an effort to stay in touch with you. you're just as gorgeous as he'd remembered, if not more so than before. your dress was incredibly flattering, and your hair was done up perfectly.

upon seeing you, he completely forgot everything that was previously plaguing his mind. he couldn't even form a sentence, leaving the two of you staring at each other wordlessly. he took on your appearance once more, suddenly coming to realize something about you.

"you're drunk, aren't you?" he says, not knowing whether or not to be surprised. on one hand, it's a college party and everyone is drunk. but on the other hand, you're you.

you were the most perfect girl he'd ever met, unaware that you were capable of having a single flaw. but as he looks at you now, completely plastered, he realizes that it's impossible for anyone to be flawless. even you. plus, there's something incredibly domestic, and human about seeing you like this. like it's illegal, like something is wrong.

"i think everyone's drunk, except you and your brothers." you tell him with a crooked grin that makes his heart begin to beat at an unhealthy speed. "plus, i deserve to drink after the day i've had."

it sounds like you're telling yourself that last bit more than you're telling it to chris. as though you're not even sure you believe it. he wants to question you, and ask what's wrong. but he decides not to. that'd be weird, wouldn't it? i mean, you guys haven't spoken in years.

"anyway," you say as your body sways from side to side, "i left my phone in the kitchen and i need to get it back before someone steals it. or even worse, before elaine steals it."

chris raises a brow at your odd behavior, but again decides not to point it out. you continue talking as if you can't help yourself. as if there's no off switch, keeping you from spilling too much. and even though you've begun to talk about random shit that means nothing, chris is listening to every single word intently.

"...but yeah, i think all alcohol should have screw on tops." you ramble, mindlessly. "if we could all simply unscrew the bottles without a problem, we wouldn't have to waste money on those shitty bottle openers. but- well, i mean, maybe that's the point. oh my god! maybe that's the reason they're made! so they can make even more money off the openers! even though we don't need to use them, and they don't need the money. it's still a profitable arrangement that they're more well off having created. oh, and-"

you keep talking and talking. and chris keeps listening and listening. the way you gesture around with your hands makes him happy, because you used to do the same thing back in high school. and the way your voice gets higher when you come to a realization is also a habit you've always had.

in the middle of your ranting, nick comes up to chris frantically. he doesn't seen to notice you as he steals chris's attention away.

"have you seen paxton?" nick asks his brother with an extremely worried expression on his face. "we were talking, and it was going good. great even. but then he left to grab a drink, and he hasn't come back. i'm scared i did something wrong to scare him away. it was going so well."

remembering his previous conversation with paxton, chris immediately is filled with guilt. nick looks so terrified of the fact that he fucked this up, not knowing chris is the one who ruined his chances.

"i saw him in the kitchen a little bit ago, but it's been a while." chris says. he's technically not lying. he did see paxton. he's simply leaving out a few details. sure, they're pretty significant details, but it doesn't hurt nick to not know. in fact, it probably would be worse if he did. he's helping them all, honestly.

"thanks," nick says hurriedly before patting chris on the shoulder and rushing into the kitchen behind them.

with nick gone, chris refocuses his attention on you. but he's taken by surprise when he sees that you're no longer in front of him. chris looks around, spinning in circles idiotically. but it's like you fucking vanished out of thin air.

YOU

you've missed nick. you haven't seen him in years. but judging by the anxiety-filled body language, you deemed that this was a brotherly conversation. quickly feeling out of place, you decided to take your leave and return to the search of your phone. but when you reach the counter it had perviously been abandoned at, you see that it's no longer there.

"there you are!" you hear someone say from behind you. the sickeningly familiar voice draws chills down your spine. even drunk, you could recognize kade's voice without having to turn around to see his face. hesitantly, you do turn around. kade is standing by the cooler, your phone held tightly in his hands.

"oh, you found it." you say casually, stepping over to your ex with an amount of false confidence that shocks even you. "i've been looking for my phone everywhere, thank you for returning it for me!"

kade clearly is taken aback by your nonchalance, making you feel extremely good about yourself. but when you reach to take your phone from him, kade holds it above his head. when you guys were dating, his height was endearing. you loved how much taller he was compared to you. but right now, it's really pissing you off.

"see, i was going to give it back." kade says, lowering the phone so it's now in front of his face. he begins to type in your password — which you haven't yet changed seeing as it all only happened this morning. "but i changed my mind."

"you're not fucking funny." you tell him. your voice comes out more emotional than you would have preferred, because now kade knows exactly how annoyed you are.

"hm," he hums, scrolling through your phone as though it were his own. "i think it is funny, to be honest. i mean, you should be thanking me. who knows who else could have found it? you wouldn't have wanted it to get in the wrong hands, would you?"

"it's too late for that." you say. "you're the worst hands for it to be in."

he laughs, audibly, at that. the sound makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. you want nothing more than to punch him in the fucking jaw.

it's so weird that your feelings could change so fast. this morning, you woke up and texted kade with enthusiasm. you guys kissed and cuddled so normally. similarly, you were hanging out with elaine at lunch today perfectly fine. but here you are now, with nothing but hatred for both of them.

"i saw you talking to that triplet guy," kade says, "i always get them mixed up. was that chris or matt? i think nick is the gay one. or is it chris who's gay? god. i can never keep them straight."

"why do you give a shit who i talk to?" you ask him, crossing your arms defiantly as kade continues to snoop through your phone with a straight face. "at least i didn't fuck your best friend while we were together."

this gets his attention.

"you know nothing about our relationship." kade tells you, an edge to his voice that would have scared you if you weren't so blinded by your anger. you watch as he tuts before turning off your phone and stuffing it into his back pocket.

"oh, so it's a relationship now?" you ask. if you weren't so drunk, you would have had the common sense to shut up and stop teasing. but your only goal at the moment is to get as far under his skin as possible. you want him to feel all the pain you felt this morning. "i thought you guys were just fuck buddies."

"i've known elaine longer than i've known you." kade snaps, taking a step closer to you. you back away, being forced to press yourself against the corner of the counter behind you. "she's the one who introduced us in the first place, you dumb fuck."

"yeah, and i'm eternally grateful for that." you say sarcastically, rolling your eyes with a light scoff.

"elaine has been my friend since middle school. we've been near door neighbors our entire lives." kade tells you, as though you weren't already made painfully aware of their intimate history together. "she means more to me than just sex."

again, anybody else would have been able to read the room by now. they would have stopped poking the bear and decided enough is enough. but you're far too inebriated for something so logical. so you continue to dig a deeper and deeper hole.

"yeah?" you question, tilting your head innocently. "you might want to make sure those feelings are requited. i saw her making out with ryan hart earlier."

you watch as kade's jaw ticks with irritation. the sight of him getting so worked up fills you with an inexplicable pleasure. you've been crying all morning over two people who betrayed you. and after arriving at the party, it's seemed like they don't even care about your pain. so yes, seeing kade get pissed off is extremely satisfying. and yes, you should have stopped there. but no, you didn't.

"she might mean the world to you, kade. but to her? you're just another quick fuck that she'll pretend never even happened come tomorrow."

this seems to have crossed a line.

before you even have time to register what's happening, you're scrambling to your feet with blood dripping from your nose. kade punched you square in the face.

now collecting yourself, you look up at kade with a scowl. but he's not there to meet you eyes. honestly, he's got it worse than you. he's currently on the floor, getting the shit beat out of him by none other than christopher owen.

chris must have seen what happened and decided to step in after you got hit.

and as immature as it sounds, you don't care stop him. you simply watch as chris tackles kade to the ground and punches him repeatedly. people are shouting at him to stop, but chris doesn't care. and nor do you. kade deserves this.

you suddenly hear someone yell your name from somewhere else in the kitchen. you look up and see matt. your guys' eyes meet, and he gives you a look that makes you feel guilty for not stopping the fight earlier.

"tell him to stop." he says wordlessly. "he'll only listen to you."

with a sigh, you end the fight with one single word. you say chris's name, and his entire body stops in an instant. it's as if you flicked a switch. he stands up, knuckles bloody, and turns to face you as the kitchen falls silent.

something you've come to like about college is the fact that people know to mind their business. they crowd around for the fight, sure. but as soon as the show is over, they leave as though nothing happened.

chris steps closer, so he's only an inch away from you now. he reaches around and pulls your dress up. you instinctively go to shove him away, but before you have the chance, he slides something into your back pocket, your guys's noses nearly touching as he does so. you feel the familiar weight of your phone in the pocket of your shorts before chris tugs your dress back down to cover them up.

"are you okay?" he asks, so quietly you nearly don't hear him.

you stare up at him, speechless. then, you glance down at his hands and decide to make a joke in order to ease some of the tension. "seems like your knuckles are in worse shape than my nose."

"you should see the other guy." chris says with a chuckle.

you crane your neck to look behind him. but kade is already gone. you're a bit disappointed that you weren't able to see the damage chris did, but you're sure everyone will be talking about it on monday when classes resume.

"let me do you a favor." you tell him, grabbing his bloody hand and holding it in both of yours. "since you did me one."

CHRIS

your favor wasn't what chris expected. when you took hold of his hand and pulled him upstairs, he thought you were going to kiss him or something. but you had other ideas — which he should have expected. from all the time he's known you, he should know better than to assume he knows what's going on inside your head. you're unpredictable. and he loves it. it's actually one of his favorite things about you.

"there should be a first aid kit under the sink." you mutter, dragging him into the bathroom and shutting the door behind you as if you were at your own house. "the code of conduct says you're required to have one under each sink in case of emergency."

"no way you actually read the fucking code of conduct." chris says with a laugh, sitting down on the closed toilet seat. he watches you with a gentle smile splayed softly across his lips.

"of course not." you say without looking at him, crouching in front of the sink and beginning to dig through the cabinet. "jasmin's roommate did, though. i've never formally met her, but jaz complains about how strict she is with rules and shit."

"right," chris says.

he's hardly listening to you, though. as much as he would love to involve himself in a conversation with you — no matter the subject — he's distracted. you look so fucking gorgeous right now, and he can't tear his eyes away. it's becoming a genuine problem. he's not only focused on your appearance, though. just the sound of your voice is enough to take his attention away from the words you speak.

it's been so long since he's seen you, and he's just trying to relish in the escapism that your presence offers.

"-- might hurt." is all he hears when he zones back in. and he doesn't have any time to think before you press disinfectant to his knuckles. the medicine against the open wound causes him to suck in a sharp breath. you watch the pained expression on his face, and you frown. "focus on something else. you have nine more knuckles to work with."

as soon as you tell him to focus on something else, his mind instantly goes to you. he pins his eyes to yours, and you return the favor. you continue to hold the eye contact as you move to the next wound. he clenches his jaw, but the pain is much more bearable this time round.

this goes on for about a minute or two. you guys stare at one another as his knuckles are slowly getting the attention they need.

this thing is, kade had piercings. and every time chris's fist wound come in contact with his nose stud or his lip ring, it would puncture his skin — creating the jagged injuries that you're treating so delicately, now.

"done," you say with a wide grin. the sight of you looking at him with a proud smile makes the stinging pain from the gauze worth every second. chris watches as you shut the first-aid-kit and place it back where you'd found it. as you stand back up, he looks down at his battered hands.

you did a great job, that much was inevitable. when you dragged him up here, they were bleeding and throbbing. but now they're numbed, and the band-aid you pressed across the hills of his knuckles are keeping them from bleeding. suddenly, chris remembers something.

"c'mere." he tells you. you look at him with a confused expression, raising an eyebrow at his sudden assertiveness. he instantly feels guilty, and quickly apologizes. "sorry, i didn't mean to snap like that. i just want to check your nose. make sure it's not broken or anything."

you let out an airy chuckle, "you don't need to do that. i'm fine."

"i insist." chris presses on, standing from the toilet seat and taking a daring step closer to you. he hears your breath hitch, and a smile tugs at his lips. "it's the least i could do after you patched me up like humpty dumpty."

you laugh at this, a bright smile lighting the dimmed bathroom as your eyes squint with joy. chris wishes he could bottle this moment up and replay it whenever he pleases.

"okay, okay," you say as your laughter dies down, "you can check my nose."

you move to sit on the toilet seat he had just recently occupied. chris doesn't crouch in front of you the way you did to him, though. he stands before you, his legs placed between your knees. he grabs you jaw, gently as ever, and tips your head up. he uses his free hand to graze your nose, feeling the damage. or lack thereof.

"yeah," his voice is so quiet you strain to hear it, "yeah, you were right. it's not broken."

despite the initial concern now being solved, neither of you attempt to move from your position. chris continues to hold your chin upward, and you continue to stare at him through your lashes. his thigh knocks against your knee, but again, neither of you aim to change anything about this moment — both of you being too afraid to lose whatever chemistry is going on.

suddenly, there's a loud banging at the door. "hurry the fuck up! some of us have to take a shit! oh my god!"

chris gets annoyed by the interruption, tempted to exit the bathroom and hurt whoever just ruined the moment. that way, his knuckles would be bloody again and you'd help him again. yeah, that sounds like a good idea to him. but just as the anger settles into his mind like a bird nesting, something rips his attention away.

you burst out in a fit of laughter. chris whips his head in your direction, desperate to watch the adorable scrunch of your nose, and the light reflect in your eyes. still laughing, you stand from the toilet and wipe at your eyes. you urge chris forward, saying it's a good idea to leave seeing as you guys have been hogging the bathroom for a while.

chris happily obliges. honestly, he would agree with anything you'd say right now. he would do anything for you, simply in the hopes that you'd glance at him for a moment as he does so.

as you both exit the bathroom and return downstairs, chris notices you stumble a bit. then it clicks in his head — you're still a bit drunk. sure, the fight may have sobered you up a great deal, but it's not instantaneous. the alcohol is still in your system, and it's still altering your actions in a slight bit.

this would explain why you're so giggly, and why your cheeks are so rosy. and for a moment. for an awful, awful moment, chris wonders if that's the only reason why you're even hanging around him in the first place.

"let me walk you back to your dorm," chris offers.

"you don't have to do that." you insist, staring up at him with wild eyes and tangled hair that he finds incredibly endearing.

"tell me where your dorm is, and i'll decide that for myself." chris says. "how about this. if you're in this building, i'll let you walk home alone. but if you're in the west wing, you have to let me take you back."

you groan with a laugh, tipping your head back as you do so. "i'm in the west wing."

"great," chris says with a smile, "let me take you home. again, it's the least i could do after everything you've done for me."

"you already made it up to me by checking my nose." you point out, tapping the bridge of your nose to prove your point. "you don't need to escort me home, i'm sure i'll be okay."

"i'm not just talking about the fight." chris says. "you've been great to me since high school."

"oh,"

YOU

the only reason you don't want chris to walk you back to your dorm is because of elaine. she's an incredible manipulator, and will talk shit about you at any chance she gets. especially if she sees you with a new boy. and you're honestly scared that chris might believe her.

but when chris brought up your guys's past, something in your gut ached. you felt an urge to hug him, and confide in him, and simply just exist with him by your side.

it's probably because you no longer feel like you have anyone to confide in. you lost your boyfriend and your best friend in the same day, and you feel bad about complaining to jasmin because she'd going through the same thing. she lost elaine today, too, and it's not fair for you to whine about it when she's probably just as upset as you are.

"thank you," you say as you and chris approach your dorm.

you guys talked the entire way there. well, more like you talked while he listened. you felt bad for speaking without giving him a chance to respond, but he insisted that he doesn't mind. and plus, you're only talking so much due to your nerves.

what if elaine tells him something bad about you, and it makes chris hate you too? what if she sleeps with him the way she did with kade? well, you and chris aren't a thing, so that wouldn't bother you. well. it shouldn't. but it does. the image of him and her? it's- ugh, it's fucking unbearable. and you have no reason to feel that way, since you guys aren't dating. i mean, he could have a girlfriend, and you wouldn't know.

"of course," chris replies as though he was doing something unquestionable.

you stand there for a second, waiting for him to leave. but he doesn't. he's waiting for you to let him in. but. god, you can't do that. what if elaine is in there? finally, you decide to bite the bullet. you fumble with your keys and unlock the door, holding it open for him to enter through.

chris thanks you quickly, walking into your and elaine's shared dorm room. it's decorated to be cozy and warm — a theme that the two of your agreed would make it homier. you love the interior designing, and it makes you happy. but now, you can't think about anything except the image of kade on top of elaine. on your guys's shared couch.

you enter after chris, not turning to facet before you lock the door with the key and stuff it into your pocket. but when you finally turn around, you instantly run into his backside. you side step, wondering what made him stop walking so abruptly. then, you see-

oh.

of fucking course.

kade is sitting on the beige-colored couch with a packs of ice pressed to his face in various spots. while elaine straddles his lap, holding the ice for him as she speaks in gentle, soothing tones. they don't seem to notice you and chris at first, seeming to be too busy flirting with one another. but this could just be an act. perhaps they're trying to look unbothered. and if so, it's working.

elaine leans forward and kisses kade passionately. it lasts long enough that you begin to feel uncomfortable. you turn to chris with a forced smile, "well. thanks for walking me back."

he looks at you with a worried expression, seeing directly through your facade. he knows you and elaine were best friends — your entire high school knew you guys to be the perfect duo. inseparable. and he also knows that kade is a dick. you're not sure if he's aware that you guys dated, but chris definitely hates his guts now, after what happened at the party.

"you can stay with me and my brothers tonight, if you want." chris offers. "we talked the school into giving us a huge dorm so the three of us could share. but it's bigger than we expected, so we have tons of room for you if you don't want to stay here for the night. and none of us would blame you, by the way."

he gives elaine and kade a side-glance. the glare that chris shoots them would likely have been deadly if they were to have looked up at him. but they're too busy with each other to even notice his eyes on them.

"i couldn't ask you to do that," you say with another forced smile, "i'll be fine for the night. you've done more than enough."

chris looks like he wants to protest against this, but he shuts his mouth and decides not to. he nods, agreeing with your decision. "i'm not going to force you, but the offer remains. even if you change your mind in the middle of the night, i'll let you in without any questions."

you smile at this. genuinely. chris has been so insanely kind to you, and you simply don't understand what you've done to deserve it. yeah, you guys were friends a few years back. but chris is being so generous.

overcome with emotion, you wrap your arms around his neck. you hug him tightly, and he hugs you back. you bury your head in the crook of his collarbone, and squeeze him as though you would break without him there to hold you together. like a vase that needs tape to stay standing.

when you finally let go, you're forced to wipe at your eyes to refrain from crying. that would be insanely embarrassing, so you refuse to let any tears fall. you're sure chris wouldn't mind, but you would. you'd rather die than let him see you sob over your ex best friend and kade. ugh. even his name makes your throat close up.

"this is so insensitive." elaine says, causing you and chris to both turn your heads in her direction. you'd forgotten about her. well, that's a complete lie. but you'd like to believe it.

she's still sitting on kade's lap, but they're no longer making out shamelessly. her arms are draped across his shoulders, and his hands are under her shirt, but it's better than before, at least.

"y'know that's the prick who did this to kade, don't you?" elaine asks, directing her question to you.

"i'm aware." you reply, keeping your voice as level as possible. the feeling of having chris behind you makes you feel ten times as more confident, knowing he'd back you up against kade. you don't feel small against her anymore like you did at the party. it's nice. having someone on your side as well. it's not 2 v 1 any longer.

"then why the fuck is he even here? it's not his dorm." kade asks with a scoff and an eye roll, as though the scoff wasn't enough. you feel as chris's posture straightens behind you, and you give him a side glance that only the two of you could notice. he understands, and instantly relaxes — knowing that this is your problem, not his.

"i was there when the fight happened." you tell her, ignoring kade's attempt to piss chris off. "where were you, elaine? having sex with damien? oh, or was it vance? sorry. i can't keep up."

elaine looks like she could explode with rage, her face turning red as her teeth clenching together. it's a sight that you'd love to relish in, but you learned your lesson earlier today. sometimes it's best not to add on more and more. that's asking for a fight.

so you simply give her a final smile, turning to chris. you give him an apologetic look before standing on your toes and pressing your lips to his.

the kiss was an attempt to make elaine and kade annoyed, but you find yourself genuinely enjoying it. you snake your arms behind chris's neck, and he places his hands on your waist, holding your firmly against him. time seems to slow around you guys, as if the universe had been waiting for this moment for as long as you were. it no longer matters who's in the room. you only care about chris.

"i'm so sorry," you whisper against his lips between kisses, "just go with it."

"don't you dare apologize for this." he says. you feel his grip on your waist tighten, and you smile against him, returning to the kiss with an entirely different intention.

before, it was just to piss off your two nemesis. but now, you're doing it for your own enjoyment. because you actually want to. because you actually have feelings for chris. well. you think? you never saw him as a crush before this. but now, you're not sure you'll ever be able to look at him in the same light.

christopher owen. your christopher owen.

@kasqnxx @lvrsparadise @prettysturniolo @strniolo @urmyslxt @cupidsturniolo @opheliaofficial07 @thetriplets3 @sturn1olo-ffics @uhnanix @deadxrx @kitaysworld @lovelysturniolo @wilmalovegood @ladylokilaufeyson5 @sturniolopepsi @strnilolo @knowingnothingnoel @its-jennarose @lea0518 @slaysturniolo @sturnlover @tcvazq @ifilwtmfc @poopydroopt @cl0esblogg @ellaynaa @itzdarling

#luvsturniolo!! #sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo #chris sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #nick sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #matt sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo x reader #party #college au #angst #angst with a happy ending #fanfic rec #youtube #youtuber

[black-rose-writings]

I've had this idea about how the show would have been massively improved by making one little change.

The show, especially it's second season, feels boring, pointless. The only driving point of the whole season 2 is to yell "Darkling Bad". They obviously don't care about established characters, the worldbuilding or lore. Definitelly not about Grisha oppression.

So, what small change would give even the slightest hint of a point and theme to it all, a theme that transcends the creators' need to shit on their most popular character?

Make Alina Aleksander's daughter.

Narratives about cycles of abuse and generational trauma are really popular these days, so instead of making it a story about shitting on the Darkling, make it a story about how Ilya being a shitty father and a mad scientist literally fucked over the rest of the world. Instead of making the show a story about destruction of Morozova's legacy, make it a story about it's redemption.

(Again, my ideal version of the story would be one that works with the themes, characters and plots of the original books and expands on them in a way LB was too much of an american lib to do, but this is "how to make the show better with as few changes as possible")

First, some tweaks to Alina's backstory to account for this change (well, giving her a backstory pre-Keramzin):

There was a more open conflict with Shu Han like 25 years ago, that required Aleksander's presence. During his stay, he spent a few nights with a local woman (possibly anonymously initially, but she did end up finding out who he was, this is important) of Shu descent (though she considered herself Ravkan). The conflict ends and much of the Dva Stolba valley falls under Shu control, giving more explanation for the tension and racism Alina experiences later. Alina's mother stays in Ravkan territory, because, again, despite her ethnicity, she considers herself to be Ravkan, and a few months after the end of that conflict, she gives birth to Alina. She does attempt to contact Aleksander, wanting him to claim the child, but he initially doesn't, both because it's impractical and because he doesn't really believe he is her father, though he does arrange for her to recieve some money.

A few years pass and Alina starts showing signs of Grisha powers, and her mother attempts to contact Aleksander again, telling him of this. She is unable to explain Alina's powers, because she knows relatively little about Grisha and has no idea how Sun Summoning would present. Aleksander does respond this time and urges Alina's mother to take her to be tested and that it would be safest for Alina to keep her parentage a secret (he still doesn't fully believe Alina is his daughter). Before Alina can be tested, however, the family gets caught in the middle of a Shu raid and Alina's mother (and maybe stepfather) are killed, and she ends up in Keramzin, now having an extra trauma reason to hide her powers (taking some inspiration from Alina's cut pre-Keramzin backstory from season 1).

Now, for the changes in season 1, those would be largely in the form of Aleksander's flashbacks and slow realisation of who Alina is. You can still keep the make-out scene/"romance" bits if you really want, because GSI (genetic sexual attraction, a syndrome/phenomenon where closely related people who have been separated for the vast majority of their life, like through adoption, deadbeat/cheating parents etc. upon meeting as adults develop an attraction to each other) is a real thing, incest in media is also unfortunately popular, of course this fucking family would do it, and antis will enjoy getting even more reason to hate Aleksander.

If we go the non-ew route, there would be some changes to the tent scene (to account for Alina being a living amplifier) and perhaps expanding/adding scenes to the journey to Os Alta, giving room to vocalize some of these differences (like explaining the living amplifier thing earlier). Maybe having Alina saying something that prompts Aleksander to be reminded of her mother, and being confused as to why at first.

Their interractions in season 1 would need to be reframed through the father-daughter lens, but it wouldn't be all that dificult, because it already has mentor-mentee undertones. Ideally, there would be a point somewhere before the Winter Fete, possibly as a catalyst for Alina's breakthrough with her powers, when he tells her who she is. It would give Alina a personal stake in the story, because she clearly doesn't give a fuck about her duties/responsibilities as a Sun Summoner in either version. She doesn't have to destroy the Fold because she's a Sun Summoner, but because she's the descendant of the Black Heretic. She's not just the savior of a country she doesn't give two shits about, but the redemption of her family.

If we want to go the "shit on Aleksander" route, nothing about his interractions with Alina would change all that much and the reveal of her parentage, at least to Alina, would come through Baghra, giving Alina more obvious emotional reason to run away and feel betrayed (especially if the almost-sex-on-the-big-map still happens, because "ew, I almost fucked my dad, who know we're related" would be infinitely more understandable of a reason to run away than what Baghra actually tells her).

Either way, the information that she isn't just a distant descendant of the Black Heretic, but his actual child, that she has a grandmother he didn't bother telling her about, that he told her they were going to redeem their family, when he only planned on continuing his work and using her for it, hits Alina like a truck. Alina going though StuffTM emotionally makes her decision to run away make a lot more sense.

Anyway, there would be very little change plotwise, just some dialogue adjustments, maybe mentioning how the Stag is her legacy, her heritage.

It would reframe Alina's fear of becoming like Aleksander, that permeates the second season, have some basis. It would give a reason for the "fuck Ilya and everything he touched and made" narrative Baghra is spinning. Baghra telling both Mal and Alina the story of her family, of why she believes now that it all much be destroyed, how her father's greed drove him to create abominations, to twist the world in unnatural ways, and she looks pointedly at the two as she says it.

Make Alina's stand against Aleksander her way of saying "the cycle of abuse in this family ends with me. I will make our family better.". Make her and Nikolai's political marriage a symbol of a new begining for Ravka in more ways than one - redemption of the Morozov(a) and Lantsov families. And bonding over "I can't tell anyone who my real dad is because it would cause trouble."

But of course, at the end, it fails, because both of them misunderstood the fundamental reason why things became as bad as they did.

IDK, I just think that changing Alina to Aleksander's daughter would improve their dynamic and a lot of the surrounding narratives massively. Even in variations other than the show.

#grishaverse #shadow and bone #shadow and bone au

[sitp-recs]

YES! I love ‘nothing happens but something is happening’ and am dying to see your recs!

Omg thank you so much for indulging me, honey love 🥺💜 convo based on @floydig’s og post!

Bright Side by @floydig (T, 2k)

It’s been one year since the war, and Draco is on probation. He lives in a shitty muggle flat in the middle of nowhere in California and delivers pizza.

Still Life, orphaned (M, 3k)

Secretly, between the shadow and the soul by @teacup-tai (T, 3k)

The thing about surrender is that once you accept the unavoidable rhythm of change, the surprising uncontrollability of life, and the astonishing inevitability of feelings, it is easy.

Even the Night by @tackytigerfic (M, 3.4k)

Featuring lots of cigarettes, a Midsummer sky, close encounters in a bath, and plenty of fireworks.

Interlude by dynamic (E, 4k)

Harry doesn’t know how to be a stranger to Draco Malfoy.

oxygen [Fic & Art] by @maesterchill (T, 4k)

Draco doesn’t smoke. Except when he needs to breathe.

The Slytherin Urn by @ICMezzo (E, 4.6k)

Nothing turns Harry on quite like redemption.

Thermodynamic Equilibrium by DorthyAnn (T, 5k)

Harry's far too hot. Draco's always cold. And somehow against all odds, together they create a perfect equilibrium.

Still Warm, Still Warm by @tsauergrass (G, 5k)

Harry is up to something. Why else would he keep giving Draco presents?

Blue Sky Is Living Here Today by ignatiustrout (G, 5k)

Draco's a father, Harry's in love with him, and it's really hard to take things slow.

Intelligence by aideomai (T, 5.8k)

“I don’t believe it,” Ginny said, voice low with venom and fury. “Did you know?” “I knew there was a spy,” Hermione said.

Stay (With Me) by @dorthyanndrarry (M, 6.5k)

Harry and Draco have been seeing each other casually, whenever they bumped into one another at Galas and Balls and other social events, always keeping one another at a careful distance. But one step forward seems to remove all space between them, sending them crashing together with an almost inevitable gravity.

Along Came Potter by huldrejenta (T, 9k)

Potter shows up at Draco’s flat. Then he shows up again, and again, and again.

Clear As Mud by scoradh (M, 9k)

Set post-war and post-Harry's-conscience...

Glowing by @cavendishbutterfly (T, 9.7k)

Harry's lived alone and vampiric in his cottage for ages, until a long-lived Draco Malfoy suddenly shows up to answer an advertisement Harry had practically forgotten he'd put in the Prophet. Cue soft blood drinking, quiet nights of reading and crocheting, and Harry thinking that maybe--just maybe--he might not be so alone anymore.

fine i'll hold my breath / til i forget it's complicated by teatrolley (NR, 11k)

Harry and Draco become friends with benefits, and Harry thinks it's more complicated than it actually is.

The Year of Non-Magical Thinking by whiskyandwildflowers (E, 13k)

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Potter. I'll think of something. So will you. But this is my journey to self-actualization," Draco managed to smirk. "You can fuck off and get your own."

How We Throw Our Shadows Down by thistle_verse (T, 14k)

Draco has finally found the perfect, rare piece to complete his collection. The only problem is that the item belongs to Harry Potter, the last wizard on earth Draco wants to ask another favour from.

With Hands Full of Dusk by @corvuscrowned (E, 15k)

Harry thought he'd found what he was searching for after the war. But as the quiet life he's earned begins to unravel at the seams, he finds himself searching instead for an elusive, mythical creature found only in lore and legend - with none other than Draco Malfoy as his companion.

World's Edge by RurouniHime (E, 15k)

In the harshest environment on earth, Harry finds that escaping is harder than simply running.

Turn and Face the Strange (time may change me) by @punk-rock-yuppie (T, 16k)

Draco and Harry and how their relationship—and themselves—change over the course of eleven years.

White as Snow by @bixgirl1 (E, 19k)

After a quick escape from danger, Harry and Draco find themselves trapped in a blizzard, a small cabin their only refuge from the storm. It's the perfect place to recover and regroup — and to have a long-overdue conversation or two.

Nice Things by aideomai (M, 22k)

The first thing that happened was Theodore Nott came back from France.

Like Lightning at Your Fingertips by potterwatch (T, 43k)

The problem with living with another insomniac is, eventually, they find out you’re one, too. When Harry and Draco return for their eighth year, they think they’ll see very little of each other. Then McGonagall assigns them to room together. And the castle starts breaking. And there’s that thing with Potter’s magic.

A Room Up There (And You In It) by @the-starryknight (T, 59k)

When Preservationist Draco Malfoy was assigned to work on Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, he was excited to delve into the gorgeous Black family antiques. His excitement quickly ended when something in the House decided it did not like his presence one bit.

#asks #nothing happens but something is happening #drarry reclist #quiet fics #my favorite kind of fic! #thehoneybeet

[collidescopeeyes]

Time is a Roulette Wheel

Viego: Pt 3

League of Legends | Viego x F!Reader

Chapters: Prologue | Viego: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Crossposted on AO3 here

SFW

Summary: Turns out that Runeterra isn't the only place that has a Void. Plucked from your world into one of a video game with nothing but stolen time powers, an inability to die and a middling recollection of lore, you're prepared to do just about anything to get back home again. You just have to find the right Champion to help.

Viego doesn't follow you while you're in public. That's probably a good call, considering his past, and especially considering you've found yourself in Bilgewater. You finally tracked down Ryze, and he had approximately fuck all useful to say. You spend the week trying to decide whether you should just steal the World Stones and hope they magically give you some insight on how the fuck to get out of here, but you're also pretty sure taking those things out of this world would end it, and you're not that far gone. That doesn't mean you’re not so miserable about the decision you spend the next few days drowning your sorrows in the most moderately priced swill Bilgewater can offer. If there's anywhere a girl can get bed, board and booze for a reasonable fee, it's here.

After Viego showing up almost daily for the last two months, you kind of miss him. Maybe that's why you get shit faced drunk on overpriced wine alone in your tavern room that night, instead of going to a bar like you have been. You have no idea if Viego has some way of knowing what you're up to before he shows up, but you're halfway through the bottle by the time his boots appear in your periphery.

“What are you doing?” He asks dryly. You blink up at him.

“Is it not obvious?” You drawl, taking a sip from the bottle before offering it to him. He stares at it, brow furrowed. “Oh, don't tell me you've never tried getting drunk, either.”

He rolls his eyes and takes the bottle. “I have. It didn't work.” He drinks, then grimaces. “What is this swill?”

“Maybe you just didn't have enough?” you suggest, ignoring his other comment. Of course he'd have opinions on wine, the elitist. He drinks again, so it can't be that bad.

“What I meant was, what are you doing drowning yourself in cheap wine?” Viego reiterates. You make grabby hands at the bottle, and he passes it back to you empty. Bastard.

“It was not cheap,” you insist, and then have the bright idea to rewind the bottle to full. “Aha!” You crow when it succeeds.

“Iso,” he says, in a tone that is attempting to be patient.

“I'm just–” you stop, take an excessively long swig, and then slump back against the wall. Your cramped room doesn't have anywhere to sit save for the bed. Maybe you should've gone to a bar. “I'm stuck. I'm stuck in this shitty world and I'm never going to get back home because no one fucking knows anything and I have tried everyone. I've tried the mages, the Voidspawn, the chosen of the fucking gods, I've tried you–” you gesture agitatedly at him. “--and no one knows a single goddamn thing that can help me! And even if I could figure out how to get back into the Void and survive a second trip, I'd probably just end up in some other shitty fucking world!” You fail your arms out emphatically, and Viego takes this opportunity to snag the bottle from you before you spill it.

“How did you come to be here?” He asks. “In this world?”

Your lips thin with discomfort. “I can't tell you,” you say reluctantly.

He looks almost offended. “You have been inexplicably aware of my most painful and humiliating moments, even ones I myself do not remember, and you refuse to share your own story?”

“That's not–” you cut yourself off with a frustrated noise. “I mean I literally can't tell you, it doesn't…” he looks like he doesn't believe you. You sigh deeply. Maybe it'd work this time. It's not like he's alive, after all. “Alright, have it your way, but I'm only trying this once. I was–” and there it is, the burning, stabbing pain rending your throat into ribbons. You gag on your own blood, and Viego lurches towards you as you begin to cough up the shard. His hands are on your arms as he drops to his knees before you, looking so fearful you almost feel bad for him, even though you're the one eating glass right now.

It passes quickly enough. You grimace as you wind your timeline back to before your little demonstration, the blood and pain vanishing in a heartbeat. Only the mirror shard remains, which you cast aside with disgust.

He looks stricken. “I–are you injured? What was that?”

“I'm fine now,” you assure him, a little sheepishly. “It's just…my powers have rules. That's one.”

He lets out a breath, hands lowering from your biceps to rest on your forearms. “Do not do that again,” he orders harshly. “I do not care what the circumstances are.”

“You don't have to tell me twice,” you say with a shrug.

He gives you an unimpressed look. “Don't I? Why in the name of good sense would you possibly do that, simply because I asked?”

You shift uncomfortably. “I thought it might work this time,” you say, and your voice sounds small. “And if anyone could understand what I went through, it'd be you.”

He just looks at you for a moment, but you can't quite bring yourself to meet his eyes. Then, he stands, only to throw himself onto the bed next to you. The wine is in his hand again, though you have no idea where it went before. “Have you tried writing it?” He suggests.

“Doesn't work,” you say morosely, only to squint incredulously at his big armored boots. “Boy, get your fucking boots off my bed.”

He blinks at them like he's only just remembered he's wearing them. “Apologies,” he says, passing you the wine. The whole armored shin debacle is apparently held in place by a few buckles, and somehow seeing Viego's socks is more surreal than the fact that he's here at all.

“Have you considered wearing something that isn't what you died in?” You suggest, poking at a frayed lapel.

He blinks at said lapel, picking at the tattered clothing with a frown. “Is that what happened?”

Right. He didn't remember. “I mean, I assume you weren't rocking the half shirtless look for fun,” you say, poking him in the exposed midriff. He's not cold like you were expecting–save for being as pallid as a ghost, he feels perfectly human. You do it again, because huh, he's actually built, which you knew because of the shirtless thing and the abs and all but it's a little different when his abdomen feels like a fucking rock–He catches your hand, and you realize that oh yeah, you're drunk and should probably be thinking better of harassing the guy with the giant sword.

“Iso,” he says warningly. That's a new look on his face–Viego is no stranger to inner turmoil, but this time he also sort of looks like he can't believe this is a situation he actually has to deal with. Which, same.

You pull your hand back with a shrug, sipping your wine instead. “Just saying.”

He gives you an unreadable look, then demands the wine with an imperious beckoning gesture. “I must be able to summon the Mist unimpeded in battle,” he says before taking a sip, gesturing to the pitch cavity in his chest.

“So we bring you to a tailor who can make you a titty window,” you say easily. Viego chokes on the wine and then on his laughter. He's handsome when he's happy, you note.

He's looking at you oddly, his expression somewhere between strained and flustered. “I said that aloud, huh?” You note.

“How much of this have you had?” He asks, holding up the bottle and swishing its contests. You're grateful for the change of subject.

“Uh. Most of it?” You shrug. “I don't hold my alcohol well, historically.”

“Can't you just…” he makes a spinning gesture you realize is meant to evoke a clocks hand.

“If I wanted to be sober I wouldn't have gotten drunk,” you point out. To prove your point, you snatch the bottle back.

He does a little mouth shrug. “A fair point.” For a moment, he just looks at you, and hell if you've ever known what goes on in Viego's head but he looks almost discouraged. “Is it so bad, staying here?”

You slump. “I…” you don't know how to answer that. You scrub a hand over your face, trying to find an answer you're allowed to give. “The only thing that's kept me going is getting back to them. To my family. Everything, the pain and the endless fighting and all the times I thought I couldn't get back up again and then I did, it was for them. And now I…” your breath catches.

“You don't know how to live without a purpose,” Viego says like he understands, and you guess he would. “Without someone to live for.”

You rub your face. “I just…what was the point of it all? Why am I still here at all, if I can't go home?”

“There is no point,” he says calmly. “Life is cruel and senseless, and there is no reward for enduring the pain it so keenly inflicts on us. But we are not yet dead, so we must go on.”

You slide a sideways glance at him, at the hole in his heart. “I don't think I can die,” you say morosely.

He gives you a crooked half smile. “Then I suppose you and I will just have to find something to live for, hm?” He reaches for the bottle, and then grimaces. “Starting with some better wine.”

—

You smuggle him into a wine shop, using an oversized cloak (turns out he can turn the magic crown thing off, but he does not like it and will not specify why beyond making a face) and a pair of sunglasses you picked up on a whim in Piltover (“What are these things? Iso, I cannot see.”). Once you get to the shop, he spends the next forty minutes trying to explain the difference between a dry and sweet wine to you. He then spends another twenty arguing with the sommelier about trying to pass off a Malbec for Merlot. You're pretty sure his shitty disguise does not hold up for the time he spends leaning over the counter emphatically gesturing at the man, but this is Bilgewater, and if the sommelier knows who he is, he doesn't give a shit beyond the fact that he's trying to haggle.

You walk back with Viego at your side, still grumbling about the sub-par availability. You point out that they are under constant siege not only by huge murderous fish, but also by undead armies, which probably affects trade routes. You ask whether that's something he can, y'know, stop, and he sighs.

“The mist is as alive and hungry as the rats in that gutter,” he says, nodding at said gutter. “It is outside my control, unless you want me to usher in another Harrowing and make things worse. I'm very talented at making things worse, you see.” He spreads his arms with a self depreciating grin. The bag of bottles he's carrying clinks concerningly.

“Can't you, iunno, command the wraiths to chill out or something?” You try.

You can't see his eyes past the ridiculous sunglasses you have him in, but you're sure he's rolling them. “Can you command the gutter rats?”

You shoot him a reproachful look as you open the door to your inn room. Luckily, it faces out to the street, so you don't have to go through the attached tavern. “Hey, have some respect. They're trapped in eternal undead torment because of your fuckup, remember?”

He seems abashed for a moment as he follows you in. “I did not mean…” he sighs, taking off his sunglasses and tossing them on the table. “If you took the rats and put them in, say, someone's house, they would panic and start biting, yes? Because they are scared and hungry and all they know how to do is to hurt or to run. It is the same with the wraiths. I can bring the mist to a place, and the mist brings them, but I can only directly control a scant few from a horde.” He gestures up at his crown, which he apparently rematerialized when you were distracted. You suppose that's how the possession thing worked in the game, too. He hesitates a moment, then continues in a reserved tone, “I know their plight is because of me, but I have no way to undo what I have done, for them or myself–” and then he pauses, fingers on the clasp of his cloak, staring at you.

“Can I help you…?” You say slowly as the silence drags on.

“Yes,” he says. “I think you can. When we met, you made me human.”

Your eyes widen. “Is that…something you want?”

He pauses as if he's not sure how to answer that, then shakes his head. “Not for me, for the wraiths. If I bring their souls to you, can you restore them?”

“I…” you pause, considering. “I guess? I mean, it'll be harder the longer they've been like that, but if it worked on you I don’t see any reason it wouldn't on them.”

He nods sharply, and all of a sudden Viego is on one knee in front of you with a beseeching look on his face. “Come back to the isles with me.” You stare, and the look he’s giving you is almost pleading. “You were looking for a purpose, and I am looking for redemption. We could find it together. Please.”

“Why?” You say, blunt as anything.

His brow furrows. “What do you mean, why?”

You lean forward, looking him dead in the eye. “Viego, the Shadow Isles are ancient and the dead are countless. What you're asking of me will take years, and making them human again doesn't undo all of the suffering they've already been through.”

“Do you think I don't know that there is no fixing this wretched mist?” He shoots back, clearly affronted. “You restored my humanity, once, and my heart ached no less fiercely for it.”

“So why? For Isolde? Do you think she'll somehow forgive you, if you ‘undo’ what you did?” you persist. You know you're pushing too hard, but somehow the thought of him asking this of you for her irritates you.

“Isolde is gone!” He snaps, and you realize he's trembling. “She is gone, and every day my traitorous heart forgets a little more of the pain of losing her. I know there is no forgiveness for what I have done, in the dead or the living, but is it so wrong to do as she would have wanted in her memory?”

“I–” you realize, looking at his shaking hands, that you're being an asshole. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. You…you know you can't be mad at yourself for moving on, right?” You ask gently. “You’ve grieved for long enough. Not hurting when you think of her doesn't mean that you didn't love her, that you don't love her still.”

He looks up at you for a moment, gaze oddly vulnerable, and then rests his forehead on your knees. “I know this in my heart. It is my mind that thinks it is a betrayal.”

“Well, stop it,” you say, and he gives a laugh that is almost a hiccup. “If you're betraying your wife by being happy then I'm betraying my family by not suicidally flinging myself into the Void on the vanishingly slim chance that I'll end up back home.”

He rolls his head to the side so he can give you a narrow look. Incidentally, this also means his head is now fully resting on your lap. “That's ridiculous.”

“Exactly,” you say. “But if you're going to hold yourself to an insane standard of authenticity in pain then you're going to have to hold it against me too, so checkmate.” He smiles ruefully, and before you can think better of it you card your fingers through his hair. It is insanely soft, and you can't help but be jealous because there's no way there's hair care products in the Shadow Isles. Does that mean you'd have to import some? Wait, why are you assuming you're agreeing? You had some great ethical standpoint about this a minute ago–oh, right, not letting him use you for free moral absolution. “Tell me again. Why do you want me to come with you?”

His eyes, which at some point closed while you were playing with his hair, slide open. “Because it is within our power to help. Because they were my people and my responsibility, and I failed them. And, to be very honest, because having you with me eases my heart, and I am at my core a selfish bastard.”

You laugh disbelievingly, and he smiles hopefully up at you. Maybe it's the look in his eye. Maybe it's the lingering wine in your system, or the fact that he's right and you have nowhere else to go. Maybe it's just that you inexplicably have a soft spot for him. Whatever it is, you say yes, and he smiles so brightly you instantly understand why Isolde married him on the spot.

Then he insists on trying to educate you on wine, and you get through 3 out of 4 bottles before he is forced to admit you simply have no taste.

(You also get so shitfaced drunk that you fall asleep on his chest, trying to see if he still has a heartbeat. He must also be, because he lets you.)

—

You give Viego a week to find a dozen of the most recently reaped souls, while you make other preparations. It's difficult to convince any ferry to come to the Shadow Isles, but you need a way for the freshly risen to make it back to civilization. You agree that he'll wait offshore for a day, and when you light a lantern he'll come to shore for the passengers. He makes you pay half upfront because he thinks you'll die.

When you appear at Viego's castle, he is instantly by your side. “Iso,” he greets, as if he's relieved you came after all. You think he's made some sort of effort to clean up, because he shows you to a room that is downright nice. He's clearly gone to some effort to find furnishings mostly unravaged by time and the Ruination, including the bed you restored; if the lost kingdom of Camavor had one thing going for it, it was apparently talented carpenters supplied with good quality wood. He assures you that he'll provide everything you need to assist with your work–he still has access to the coffers, after all, and Bilgewater merchants don't ask questions if there's gold on the table. He doesn't know what kind of food you like, but if you let him know he'll do his best to acquire it. His posture is ramrod straight and his accent is out in full force, and you are inexplicably reminded of coming over to a friend's messy apartment while they scour through their pantry looking for something edible to serve because they're too embarrassed to admit they've been getting takeout for a week.

“Viego,” you interrupt his stream of courtly assurances as you walk back to the main hall. “What are you so nervous about?”

His nose wrinkles, affronted. “Nervous? Me?” He repeats skeptically.

“Iunno, whatever you want to call the fussing,” you say, waving a hand at him.

“Fussing–” he repeats, offended. You give him an unimpressed look, and he relents. “I…suppose I might be a little on edge. If I had hosted such an important guest with such poor hospitality when I was a prince, I would be a laughing stock.”

You mutely point at yourself, baffled. He rolls his eyes, and there's the Viego you know–haughty, single-minded, and a little bit of a bitch. “Yes, of course you. You are healing the wound I made in the world for no reward but the deed itself. If the kingdom of Camavor still lived, you would be lauded as a saint and courted as an asset to the kingdom.” He pauses, looking into the middle distance. “If I am remembering correctly, I believe father would probably have tried to marry us.”

You blink, utterly unsure of what to make of that information. “He would've?”

Viego shrugs. “I was quite charming then, and seducing you would be a convenient way to secure your allegiance to the kingdom.”

“What, implying you're not charming now?” You tease.

He stops and turns to look at you, and you almost run into his shoulder. You brake in time to avoid a collision, but it leaves you much closer than anticipated. When Viego looks down at you there's an oddly searching look in his eyes, but it quickly vanishes from view as he leans down to murmur in your ear. “Should I be, to keep you by my side?”

You shiver without meaning to and hope he doesn't notice. “Alright, point taken, heartbreaker,” you say, quickly stepping past him and praying to any god who will listen that he doesn't see the flush on your face.

---

The first lot of souls Viego summons for you aren't hard. You lay your hands on the filmy substance of their being and spin their time back, back, to the sharp rending tear where they became something else. There is a strange ripping sensation you can't describe as their physical bodies snap back into place around their souls, summoned from whatever flotsam graveyard they were in at Bilgewater, and then there is a trembling woman in front of you. She immediately begins to weep, thanking you profusely and begging incoherently to be allowed to go home, and you cast Viego a deeply uncomfortable look.

He looks no more at ease with the situation than you are, but he steels himself and says in a far gentler voice than you expected, “You are safe now. No harm will come to you here. I cannot give back the time and pain that was taken from you and for that I am sorry, but you will return to your home and your family unharmed.”

She looks up at him, voice choked and shaky. “Y-you're him, ain't you? The Ruined King? Y-you’re letting us go?” Her eyes flick to you, and a realization flashes in them. “T-then you must be the Queen he was looking for! C-congratulations, your majesties, I'm happy, I'm truly happy for youse–” and she dissolves into hiccuping sobs that you don't feel comfortable interrupting just to say ‘no, actually, we're just friends’. At the same time, you're stricken with the completely inappropriate realization that that wouldn't even be entirely true if you did say it, because if he wasn't grieving his double-dead wife you probably would've tried some horrendous pickup line on him by now.

None of those are thoughts you're ready to deal with however, so you turn and restore the next soul.

—

After the shaken crowd is delivered to a shellshocked ferryman, it occurs to you that he didn't correct her, either. You ask, over a dinner of roast meat and veg (he's very remorseful about you cooking your own food, but you flat out refuse to leave it in the hands of a wraith he's pretty sure used to be a chef).

His eyes slide away from yours uncomfortably. “I thought it might be easier for them to believe in my intentions that way.” He looks down, idly pushing a wedge of potato with his fork, which is very unlike him because Viego usually has impeccable table manners. “And it is true, in a way. I am a changed man, because of what Isolde said to me, and because of what you have done for me.”

“What, are you gonna propose to me?” You joke, your mouth running ahead of your mind in a desperate attempt to break whatever this strange tension is.

He blinks at you. “Would you like me to?”

You try for a smile. “I’m joking, Viego.”

“I am not,” he says evenly.

You squint at him, trying to figure out which of Viego's insane personality traits you're up against now. Maybe he just didn't know how to have close relationships that weren't, in one way or another, legally family? Then you recall your conversation in the hallway earlier. “You don't have to marry me to get me to stay, calm down. Plus, can you imagine trying to get a priest out here?” You try for humor, and then belatedly remember that you should probably track down Yorick while you're at this ‘freeing the damned’ thing. Though he's been dead for a long, long time, and he could probably wait until you've found everyone who still has living relatives. “Wait, is that even how weddings work here?”

“Yes. At least, it was in Camavor. A priest and a ceremony and a grand party,” he says, looking almost wistful. “What does courtship look like, where you are from?”

“I mean, the same as here, I guess?” You hazard. “You meet someone, you spend time with them, go on dates, y'know, get dinner and walks in the parks and stuff like that?” He seems oddly unsatisfied by that answer, and you shrug. “I wasn't exactly royalty, so my relationships were probably a little more casual than whatever you were imagining.”

He raises a brow. “I have had my share of casual relationships in the past, you are aware?”

You almost choke on your food. The smile on his face is almost rogueish, and when you look at it like that, you can perfectly picture him flirting his way through the castle staff. “So you were perfectly capable of being normal about it, but you just decided to immediately propose to Isolde on the spot?”

He shrugs. “I know my heart, and I knew I wanted to give it to her. For now it, and all the weight it carries, is mine alone once more.” You're about to ask about the for now part, but he looks up at you seriously. “You know that they will not all be so receptive, the wraiths. There will be those who are angry and vengeful, and those who have been so broken by the mist for so long that they will not know how to be any other way.”

“I know,” you say. “I did think this through before I agreed to it.”

“You were also very drunk, and reportedly part of your reasoning was that I am ‘cute when I'm begging’,” he makes air quotation marks to ensure you know that he is directly quoting you, and his wolfish grin lets you know exactly how much he's enjoying your obvious dismay.

You blanch. “I said that part aloud too, huh?” He responds by laughing at you. You groan. “Look, be that as it may, I had a whole week to change my mind, and here I am.”

“Here you are,” he agrees, and there's something so terribly affectionate in his voice you think you must be imagining it, but it's there in his face when you glance at him too. Gods, he really is handsome.

You hurriedly return to your food, before you can say anything stupid like, say, suggesting he show you the other other blade of the Ruined King. Viego is your friend. Viego’s defining personality trait is being a widower. Viego is not someone you can casually proposition, even he's decided that teasing you is a form of high entertainment, the fucker. God, maybe you just need to get laid–spending all your time around the near-shirtless ghost king was doing numbers to your psyche.

—

You do not find the opportunity to seek a no strings attached hookup, because your time is taken up either sleeping or restoring the souls of the damned. Viego was right when he warned you–in the next lot, a burly man waits long enough to get used to having limbs again before throwing himself at you with a howl. You barely have time to blink before Viego intercepts him, blade at the ready. He swings, and you cringe, expecting a spray of blood, but at the last second Viego glances at you and twists his blade so that he strikes the man with the flat of it instead. It's still an incredible amount of force behind solid (ghost?) steel, so the man goes sprawling, wind knocked out of him.

“You will show her respect,” Viego hisses, standing over him. “I understand your rage and your hate towards me, and I cannot blame you for that, but she has saved you from damnation and you will not raise a hand against her.”

The man spits at his feet. Viego lets out a hissing breath, but otherwise doesn't react as the man picks himself up–only to once again throw himself at Viego, who easily bats aside his wild swing before grabbing him by the throat. “I do not want to do this, but if you cannot behave yourself–” Viego says in the approximation of calm, mist curling up and around the man's head into a glowing crown. All at once, the man stops struggling, and as Viego releases him he complacently goes back to his place in the crowd. The others look at him nervously, an uneasy whisper circling through them.

A woman in a heavy woven shawl steps forward. “Um, your majesties,” she begins nervously, because apparently something about you and Viego just screams ‘married couple’ to the newly risen, “Is he…okay?” Her eyes flit between the crown on the man's head and Viego’s sword, as if she's not sure which is more worrying.

“He will return to himself after you leave the Isles,” Viego explains placidly. You nudge his side and give the sword a significant look, and he glances at it like he forgot it was there before vanishing it into mist. “I will ask the ferryman to keep an eye on him, do not worry.”

She looks at the man for a moment, then ducks her head gratefully. “Well, I thank you for your graciousness. I'm sure he will too, after he comes to his senses.”

After that, he stands a little closer to you while you raise the shades.

—

“How does it work?” You ask, after Viego has seen the risen off to the ferry and you've had a chance to stop swaying on your feet. You like to sit in the gardens, and Viego thins the mist enough to let a soft glow of sunlight through. Viego sits next to you on the stone bench, so close you're almost touching. He’s by your side pretty much constantly these days, save for when you're sleeping or bathing–though, you also wouldn't be surprised if he watched you sleep just to have company. “The whole…possession thing?”

Viego looks up at you from the book he was reading. “It simply does.”

You turn to him, incredulous. “What, that's it?”

He shrugs noncommittally. “I cannot explain how I summon my sword or compel the mist to move, and the crown is the same. I wish it to be so, and so it is.” You squint at him, and he shuts his book with a soft sound. It always boggled your mind that he perfectly remembered what page he was on without any bookmarks. “How does your manipulation of time work?”

You open your mouth, and then realize he's got you cornered, because you're not sure how to explain that either. “You could find out,” you challenge instead.

His brows knit. “You don't mean…?”

“I do,” you confirm.

He frowns. “No.”

“What, you'll marry me but you won't put a crown on my head?” You joke. “C'mon, I'm giving you my explicit permission.”

“That is not–” he begins, then shakes his head. “Everyone I have used my crown on seemed quite distressed by the experience. I would not do the same to you.”

“Was that because of the crown, or because of the sudden and unexpected loss of bodily autonomy paired with you using them to try and kill people?” You say dryly. He frowns, but doesn't answer. “Look. I'll admit, I'm curious, but more importantly…if I'm unconscious or otherwise incapacitated, and we need my powers, I want you to be able to use them. So, please.”

He goes very still, and you belatedly realize exactly what he's picturing–you, unconscious and hurt, unable to rewind your own wounds. “If I were able to deny you anything, it would be this,” he says, sighing deeply. You eagerly turn to face him, crossing your legs on the bench like a kid. For a moment he just looks at you like he's regretting all the choices that brought him to this point, and then begins to strip his gauntlets off. You're sure he could avoid stabbing you with their pointed ends, but Viego also treats you like you're made of glass sometimes.

He cups your face between his palms, and his hands are so much warmer than you expected. You're suddenly stricken with the intimacy of this pose, with you two so close. His eyes flick down to your lips, and for a moment you think he's going to kiss you–

And then a cold sensation snakes it's way into your blood, like drinking ice water. It spreads throughout your limbs until you feel numb from it, and Viego’s eyes glaze as the crown forms on your head.

“How strange,” he says distantly. “It's as if the entire world is singing a song only you can hear.”

You try to move your hand, but nothing happens. Still, you can still distantly feel his hands on your face, as if your skin was so chilled it barely recognizes the touch. You try to project the thought that you're fine, that it's a bit weird but honestly not that bad, but you have no idea if it gets through. “I can feel it, when you struggle against me,” he says softly, and, hm, maybe it's for the best that he can't hear your thoughts, because you've gone somewhere absolutely filthy with that. “I have never held a soul that trusted in me so, that did not rail to reclaim itself.” There's a strange look in his eyes, somewhere between awed and something much darker and deeper, and it occurs to you that you have willingly placed an insane amount of power in his hands. Then again, you already offered him everything you could think to give, and he said no.

Viego sits back, and unbidden your hand raises to one of the shattered pots in the garden. You feel second hand as he fumbles along its time, his brow furrowed in concentration, before slowly winding it back. When it sits whole again, the chill fades, and your body is your own once again. You flex your hands and wiggle your toes, feeling sort of like your limbs had just fallen asleep but without the pins and needles. You then realize Viego is looking at you anxiously.

“If we ever go to Shurima, you're doing that to me,” you say casually.

“Excuse me?” He says, bewildered.

“It was like going into a nice cool swimming pool,” you describe, tapping your chin as you try to find the words. “Or opening a fridge. Wait, you don't know what that is.” You frown. “Also, I hope you recognize how good I am at this time stuff now, it is not easy.”

He laughs, instantly relaxing. “Of course, my heart, I am forever in awe of your talent and grace,” he gives you an exaggerated little head-bow, and you're so busy preening that the pet name doesn't even register until a moment later. Then, you promptly find it very important to start rambling about how, you know, you should try replanting something in this garden, since it's getting sunlight anyway. The indulgent look on his face as he agrees yes, whatever you want, does nothing to still your heart.

—

“Are you sure–” Viego begins.

“Where do you intend to find a chef who's gonna come to the Shadow Isles?” You ask pointedly.

He blinks. “I'm sure that for enough coin…” he catches the look on your face, then sighs. “Very well, I see your point.”

“If you want to help, I'm not going to say no,” you suggest instead. He looks down at the carrots as if he's never seen one before. “You've never cooked before,” you realize, and he has the grace to look a little abashed. His discomfort with you cooking your own meals makes a little more sense–he must feel like he's making you do servants work, from his lofty frame of reference as literal fucking royalty. “Okay, here. Wash your hands.”

He blinks. “You want me to…?”

“To wash your hands and then help me cook,” you confirm. “I'm not a guest, Viego, I live here. I know you've got your own ideas about what hospitality looks like, but where I'm from, if you're cooking for someone they damn well better help you chop the veggies.”

He looks bemused, but complies. You gesture for him to take your place in front of the cutting board. “Hold the knife like this, cut off the ends, slice them like so.” You demonstrate, hip bumping into his as you lean across to the board, and then hand him the knife.

The concentration on his face as he tries to match your cuts is rather endearing. He glances at you for approval, and your nod and smile seems to bolster him, so you start on cleaning the mushrooms. The ingredients aren't exactly the same as what you're used to, but you've managed to put together a respectable assortment for a stir-fry. Your ferryman, Captain Brigg, was very skeptical about the crates of fresh produce you procured him to haul back, but him and his crew also treat you with an odd sort of reverence now that stops them from asking questions. Still, you've got enough of a stockpile of ingredients frozen in time to last you for a few months.

You talk Viego through what you're doing, why you should cut the carrot thin and the bell peppers thick, how you're hoping this soy-sauce like substance from Ionia works the same way as what you're used to, but it's also made from a nut so you're not sure. He asks you about food from your home, and you spend fifteen minutes complaining about having to cook rice manually. He doesn't seem to mind when you automatically slip into bossing him around–your mother always said that idle hands in the kitchen were volunteers who didn't know it yet. He does stiffen slightly whenever you pass behind him, and it takes you a bit to realize it's because you're automatically putting your hand on his lower back so you can squeeze behind him–not that the kitchen is particularly small, but rather that he is not a small man. It also takes you a bit to realize that that part of his back is bare, because he's still wearing nothing on his torso but that ripped open doublet. You've long since figured out that Viego likes being touched, but maybe that was a bit much even for him.

He hovers around even after you don't need his help with prep anymore, watching you stir and experiment with the ranges of sauce you have on hand. “Okay, try,” you announce when you're satisfied, taking a spoon of your hard work and blowing it cool before holding it up to him. Viego doesn't hesitate, and you're momentarily struck with the sensation that this, spoon feeding the Ruined King stir fry you press-ganged him into helping with, is a ridiculous situation to be in.

“It's nice,” he says, touching his lips. You try not to be distracted by the motion.

“Does it need anything? Salt, pepper?” You prompt, scooping some up for you to try yourself. Needs pepper. You look at him expectantly, and his face creases like it does when he's thinking hard.

“Pepper?” He says hesitantly, and you beam at him. He was teachable, and that was better than a majority of your exes.

—

You struggle with the corset for about three minutes before you give up. “Viego?” You call, because he's never far these days. The air goes cold on the back of your neck, but there's a suspicious silence. When you crane your neck around, he's there staring at you.

“Can you help me lace this?” you prompt, gesturing at the partially done back of your corset. The dress is a deep navy color with silver embroidery on the long flowing sleeves and skirts, and the silvery ribbons that make up the back have been making themselves a true pain in the ass.

He blinks, as if just realizing you're there. “I suppose,” he says tersely, sounding almost puzzled as he examines your work. “What have you done?”

You shrug, turning back to the mirror. “Corsets weren't common in my world, and all the ones I've worn came pre-laced. I didn't think it would be this complicated.”

He hums, and you repress a shiver as his fingers brush the space between your shoulders. He's taken to wearing his gauntlets off, when you're just around the castle. “How strange. Why the change from your travelling attire, then?”

You shrug. “This might sound strange to you, but I get tired of wearing the same things all the time, even if I can keep them clean and fresh forever.” You smooth down the front of the dress, admiring the fabric. “And this is such a nice dress.”

“It was made with skill,” Viego says. You glance back at him, and he makes a tutting noise as your hair falls across your back. You do not succeed at suppressing the shiver as he brushes it back over your shoulder. “And you look lovely in it,” he continues, and you're sure you're imagining the husk in his voice. You meet his eyes in the mirror, and they're hooded with a feeling you don't want to name, so you cast around for something to say while staring fixedly at your reflection.

“I look like I'm going to a ball,” you blurt.

“This is a dinner dress, not a dancing one,” Viego says, blessedly accepting your sudden change in subject. “At least, not in Camavor. The skirt is too long and the bodice too stiff.”

You shrug. “I've never been to a ball. Can't even dance.”

He spins you around so you can see his offended expression. “Excuse me?”

You blink at him. “We didn't really have them, where I'm from? Unless you were really rich, which, I most certainly was not.”

He waves a hand. “No, no, not that. You don't know how to dance?”

You blink, taken aback. “No?”

“Outrageous. Give me one moment,” he says, and then disappears into mist.

“What–” you have enough time to say to the empty room before he reappears, this time with a dented hunk of metal in his hand.

“If you would be so kind?” He asks, holding it out. You touch it, and the tarnished metal flickers back into the shape of a music box. “My thanks. Now…” he winds it, places the box on your dresser, and lifts the lid. In it is a beautiful figurine of a bird in flight, and out twinkles a lilting melody. You stare, flabbergasted, as he dips into a very princely bow and offers you his hand. “Lady Iso, may I have this dance?”

You laugh disbelievingly, but take his hand. “Viego, I don't know what I'm doing.”

“That is why I'm showing you,” he says easily, placing one of your hands on his shoulder and keeping the other held aloft. His other hand goes around your waist. “This one is simple, just follow my steps.” It's similar to what you vaguely remember a waltz to be, except you seem to be stepping in a pentagon rather than a square and there's a lot of spinning. Still, you feel like he's overestimating your abilities, because you struggle to match his steps.

“Eyes up,” he chides when your gaze drifts to your feet. You blink up at him, offended.

“How am I supposed to see where I'm stepping?” You ask, offended.

“Do you need to look at your feet to walk?” He retorts. You stick your tongue out at him, and you're so close you can feel it when he laughs. “Don't think so hard about it. Just listen to the music and stay with me.”

He's talking about the dance, you remind yourself. Suddenly, keeping your eyes on his is difficult, so you stare somewhere off his left shoulder instead. “How do you remember all of this?” You ask, brow furrowed as you try to match his steps without looking.

“I’ve always loved dancing, ever since I was young,” he says, sounding pleased he remembers the fact. “I remember my brothers would tease me, because I preferred my dancing lessons to my swordsmanship ones.”

You look up at him curiously. He doesn't talk about his family often, though you're not sure if that's because he doesn't want to or because he doesn't remember much about them. “I suppose you've had a lot of practice, then?”

He spins you, and you think that returns you to the first part of the steps. “Yes. I attended whatever balls I could, even the ones hosted by those on poor terms with the Crown.” He reels you back in with a little flourish. “My brothers teased me for that, too.”

You're about to ask more, but you trip over your skirt. Viego catches you easily, though you smack your face against his aggravatingly solid chest. “That is why this is not a dancing dress,” Viego says, and his tone is light but his expression when you look up at him is tinged with want. You realize you're very, very close, his arm still around your waist and your hands on the bare skin of his torso. Your chest is pressed to his, and you're abruptly aware of how much this corset emphasizes your cleavage. His eyes are half-lidded, his lips parted and looking oh so soft–

Whatever this moment between you is, it's interrupted by the dissonant click of the music box playing it's last note. Viego steps back and bows. You clumsily mimic a curtsey, and he looks up at you with a crooked smile that makes your heart ache. You staunchly refuse to examine why.

#x reader #reader fic #f!reader #my fics: tiarw #league of legends x reader #leauge of legends #league x reader #viego x reader #crossposted on ao3

[voorvore]

>be me

>14-year old inner party NEET

>spend most of life playing vidya in room at night, sleeping during the day

>parents barely fucking care about you, work nearly 24/7 as shit like sales reps for "consumers for christ" or soulless drones of the state

>your only light at the end of the tunnel is a little flash game called paraphore

>staystrongmynt.jpeg

>one day, log on to templeOS telescreen, find out that paraphore has been permablocked by the thoughtpolice

>oh shit.webp

>depressed, parents have probably either already been executed or told about your degeneracy

>think camus is bullshit, so obvious solution is suicide, to settle the ledger and wipe all the debts

>run out into street on foggy, rainy day.gif

>get hit, don't die immediately

>eventually die from blood loss

>wake up, isekai'd to pakistan

>december 2009

>standing in the middle of nowhere, see compound in the distance

>start heading toward it, starving, feel filthy

>old man walks out wearing white robes and hat, camo jacket, and long gray beard

>oh shit it's osama bin laden.png

>get nervous, don't know what to fucking say

>he starts speaking in perfectly fluent english with an american accent

>he welcomes me and says i should come into the compound with him

>confused and scared.yif

>he reassures me of his intentions, says he will only harm me if i support the american empire

>calm down, osama leads me inside comfy cave bunker

>has giant leather gaming couch, monster energy, and gaming laptops galore

>tells me to get comfortable

>sit down, he calls in some other guys

>assume they're just other al-qaeda members

>turns out to be ted kazynscki, terry davis, nick land, and hypnotist sappho

>wtf based.bitmap

>they all sit down, osama gets out the mountain dew and doritos, hands out the gaming laptops

>we play counterstrike together

>best night of my life.png

>this life continues for several months

>it's fucking great, we all feel like one little village underground, we barely ever go outside

>all we do is game, watch anime and movies, and discuss how to destroy the american imperial dog state and zionist israeli pigs

>terry keeps the glowies off our asses and pirates shit for us, ted tells us stories of life in the woods while gaming, nick writes shit for our online blog and gives us meth, osama provides everything, and sappho is our discord mommydom and we're her kittens

>paraphore is still eating at my brain.wojak

>try to see if para exists in this universe, look it

>oh shit it's popular.vrml

>9.9/10 on steam, multiple reviews in kotaku

>numerous vidya essays on it

>next day.naplps

>ask the others about paraphore

>say they haven't heard of it

>pirate it onto my gaming laptop, get a janky projector onto the back wall of the cave

>live"stream" a seven-hour playthrough of it for them

>they all watch intently

>we all laugh at the jokes

>we all share our theories

>we all cry at the mynt ending

>all of them thank me for showing them it when the credits roll, say it's the best video game story and lore they've ever seen

>far better than any triple-a game

>matpat from game theory uploads a shitty theory of it the next day, terry doxxes him

>he gets tortured and eaten alive in bohemian grove during a 72-hour long purge night and march across america

>it's been 17 months.tiff

>best 17 months of my entire life

>feel like family

>chilling out in cave bunker one day, hear knocking from above

>osama goes to check it out, opens door and gets shot

>oh fuck oh shit.jiff

>heaven's gate cultists wearing UN bluehelmets storm the compound with stg-44s

>heaven's gate was incorporated as part of the now powerful UN-'involved in peace' "peace"keepers

#paraphore #voor.txt #capitalist realism #196 #cruelty squad #horror #wojak #heaven's gate #tw death #shitpost #shitposting #osama bin laden #matpat #game theory #fnaf movie spoilers #hypnotist sappho #lolcow #ted kazynscki #anticiv #templeos #terry davis #nick land

[sixfeetinmyguilt]

The only reason that there aren’t as many sandpups and forgotten city orphans is because of what Red started.

She may be long dead, but she started the little group in zone 2.

She carefully brought in the feral siren girl and taught her how to survive with Gravity, she helped build and hide them, teached Ghost that reality is never as it seems, and it’s easily bendable.

She may have been a heartless woman who ran into the city after the death of revolutions bastards, but she did good, in the years she was alive. She’ll never be forgotten.

#giving you shitty lore in the middle of the night? who would’ve thought! #yea uhm #red was the first killjoy I made when I thought I was cis #we are mourning the death of a woman and being proud of the individual that came out of it #tonight #<3 #arsenic bubbles #Red #ocean knives #the witch’s violent #desert roses

[theveryworstthing]

So over on patreon Trevor asked for my take on the Addams Family and I grew up LOVING the Addams family movies so here we are. Instead of doing a straight up style interpretation, I decided to do a full on design challenge, using the characters as bases to make a black southern gothic Addams au. I actually drew the kids first, using the character bases of Wednesday and Pugsley to create some delightful kiddos I'm calling Sunday and Blanche. I of course then redesigned Gomez and Morticia into Carlisle and Mortesha.

The Addams have a very specific high aristocratic goth aesthetic (they've got a butler and nobody really works among other things) so in this re-imagining I wanted to go with vibes that run a little more middle class/upper middle class.  I thought it would be interesting to think about what would be considered weird and off-putting in an entirely different culture, and how being a big ol' goth is way less controversial than it used to be.

I tried to keep this short (HAHAHAHAHAHA) so I didn't spin off into an essay about villain coded families, black people in the horror genre, and normalcy as it pertains to social survival, but just...bits of that are in these designs and lore. Keep that in mind.

Also I made the kids twins because they've flip flopped in age so much in different media and also twins run in my family (i'm the daughter of one). And let's face it, I'm pulling a lot of their southern gothic traits from living as a southern goth so *shrug*.

10 thousand pounds of lore incoming loooooooooool.

The Parents

From the moment he saw her he knew that there was a 50/50 chance of him either never making it out of that swamp alive or marrying the figure that was creeping out from under the distant willow tree in a black cocktail dress. The third time she found him trussed up in one of her traps, he complimented her rope work and asked if she'd like to go out sometime after his head wound stopped bleeding.

Or while it was still bleeding.

If she was into that.

Some kids and a mysteriously burnt down Piggly Wiggly later, their love is still as strong and inescapable as a bear trap in a sink hole.

Carlisle Guillermo (now Addams through marriage but I wanted to give him two first names for a name since Gomez has two last names) makes a vaguely described living practicing ‘law’ around town. A loophole king, people come to him from miles around with contracts signed in blood, fights over chunks of hair buried in their rivals’ yard, dehydrated primate hands, memories that seemed like dreams until the evidence of their happenings became too real, and other regular Legal Items asking for counsel which he is all too happy to give. For a price. Sometimes that price is a homemade pie and sometimes it’s a million dollars, depends on who you are. Whatever you’re asked to pay it’s worth that price, and if you try to scam him out of work or he just plain doesn’t like you? Well. He knows how to twist a contract better than anything at the crossroads.

And he always gets his due.

He doesn’t just serve the local (living)humans though, there are many things that need proper legal representation in this day and age. You wouldn’t believe how many city councils try to build on sacred burial grounds even after he lets them know that his ghostly clients are totally gonna haunt the FUCK out of the ensuing shitty condos and curse their families for all eternity. At least 50% of his energy goes towards dealing with real estate bullshit.

Carl is an excitable and good natured(?) man who loves his family, cigars, dancing, and his many knife-based hobbies. People find him very charming once they get past the feeling that they’re talking to a sultry gator badly disguising itself as a human. I didn’t put a ton of deep thought into designing him, mostly I wanted to make a middle aged dude who looked like he would have been voted ‘most likely to smooch the literal devil’ in high school. Tbh he probably has, but no demonic ex’s can compare to his lovely wife~

Mortesha Addams(her name was already perfect so I just tweaked it)is a woman of many talents. A self proclaimed homemaker, she prides herself on a greenhouse full of Concerning Foliage, a beautiful wasp apiary, and a coop full of what are probably chickens that she keeps for what are probably eggs. She’s also an avid creator of the outsider art that can be seen around the estate. She has taken on the family business of selling her homemade goods in a little stall by the road just outside the swamp with her mom, and makes pretty good money doing so. A surprising amount of poison gets bought in quaint southern towns.

Speaking of poison, people who come out to the edge of the swamp to buy it are usually carrying a lot of secrets around, and Mortesha knows most of them. It’s not like she pries the truth out of people, it just so happens that many nervous hellos eventually turn into the tragic backstory power hour if she’s alone with a client for long enough. She supposes that’s just how people are. Despite the fact that the Addams are very active in the community (whether the community likes it or not) she especially, as a direct descendant of the first Addams matriarch, is seen as…Well not an outsider because the community feels A Certain Way about outsiders and despite it all the Addams are their people, but maybe something like an exception. They feel like whatever weirdness they’re hiding can’t be weirder than any given Addams, so they get a little loose with their words.

This is amusing to her, since Addams’ don’t naturally keep the kind dramatic secrets that their surface level prim and proper neighbors do. It’s much more fun to openly talk about those things.

Do they have a sadly decrepit yet terrifying grandma up in the attic? Yeah, like three. They got a tv, all the creepy porcelain dolls they could want, and they’re close to family. Where do you keep your gram-grams?

Any bodies buried on the property? Yeah some, but most are thrown to the gators.

Any creeping through the balmy summer night with ill intentions? Yeah dude, everyone loves a nice family stroll.

What about dangerous forbidden love? If an adult Addams isn’t incorporeal then they’re either queer or in a torrid romance with some person/thing mysteriously drawn to that awful swamp. Sometimes both at the same time. Most times actually.

Mortesha would know.

The current head of the Addams family is just as outgoing as her husband but a lot quieter and harder to read. She never really seems to get mad about much and always has a genteel smile for everyone whether they deserve it or not. A seven foot tall human shaped “Oh, bless your heart”. A perfectly composed Lady even when she’s, oh I dunno, burning down a Piggly Wiggly. You know. A regular southern mom. Chat her up at the hair salon for 50% off a jar of wasp honey with your next purchase of a mysterious but foreboding packet of herbs.

Designing her was pretty easy because I just drew a lankier Grace Jones and called it a day. I had some problems with her outfit simply because if we were going HARD southern gothic then she’d probably be wearing a white/cream dress with a fuller skirt but I thought keeping the silhouette and the black was more important. She’s supposed to be an anti southern gothic southern gothic character anyway. A woman who looks like she has a million secrets who is actually the most open person you could meet. For better or worse. The red hair came from a coloring error that I really ended up liking (my mom had red hair her whole childhood that only darkened up in high school so I can buy that an Addams can be naturally fire engine red) and the veil was to get more of that classic Morticia silhouette in there.

The Children

Sunday and Blanche are the twin children of Carlisle and Mortesha Addams. Some say the Addams clan got their cursed homestead when a wealthy local businessman made a deal with the devil and lost, leaving his grand mansion to his least favorite maid and cutting his losses once he realized that the swamp would do everything it could to drag the house into the water and take what was owed with its horrible curse. Others say that the family has just always squatted there and no one really cares because man, fuck that particular swamp. Have you been in there? Absolute horror show.

Anyway.

Blanche is the more outgoing sibling and quite the engineer/mad scientist in the making. He started going grey at 2 weeks old but considering he was also rocking some extra fingers, toes, and a tiny tail (he takes after his dad), his parents just put it on the 'not life threatening' pile and decided not to worry about it. He's the kind of smart that teachers find utterly infuriating, less a dog eagerly learning and obeying commands and more a hyena who keeps teaching itself how to pick locks. He has a few friends in his school's robotics club (which they honestly allowed him to make so the school could contain his... creations) but mostly hangs out with his sister exploring the swamp. They find all sorts of neat things in there! wedding rings, suspiciously lumpy garbage bags, cloaked cultists who can't read private property signs, it's an adventure every day!

Blanche is all about experimentation with his creations, his look, and his tether to this mortal coil. Is lipstick a cool thing to try? Let's find out. Can he get out of a strait jacket fast enough after being pushed into the depths of the swamp by his sister? let's find out. He's not dead yet and confused local doctors can attest to the fact that he's rarely attained more than a bad bruise so he's pretty set on continuing to kiss rattlesnakes on their cute little heads and have his sister practice her knife throwing at him until that fact changes.

Blanche is very much a country goth. Cowboy boots (customized by his mom), knife, and lighter are daily accessories. He likes to wear the crusty swamp jewelry they find (the rust adds a splash of color!) and despite appearances he does try to keep himself neat. He's just got  natural Grunge Colors and a tendency to wear clothes he likes until they fall apart. Pugsley always seemed the most modernly styled to me (which might just be because little boys clothes have been the same for a long time) so I wanted Blanche to be the most purposely fashionable Addams. Everyone else is goth by nature, but he's the only one truly familiar with goth as an alternative fashion.

I got really into designing Blanche because honestly, I find Pugsley to be the most boring member of the family. And he was hard to design! I had to mess with his vibe a lot to get him looking how I wanted. I know he's supposed to evoke an " 'evil' little boy next door who's parents never reign him in", but that's just goth Dennis The Menace.  I's 2020. We can at least go queer goth Calvin.

Sunday was much easier to design. Wednesday was my favorite as a child (of course) and I really wanted to keep the spirit of her look while adding things like billowy sleeves (it gets HOT down here), big poofy twists instead of braids, and a nice tie. She's a professional after all, been running the local pet cemetery since she was 6 and the previous groundskeeper met with an unfortunate accident after telling her that tarantulas don't have souls. Her specialty is creating beautiful naturalistic animal funerals similar to those that Maquenda (https://linktr.ee/artofmaquenda) makes, and she takes pride in creating miniature dioramas of her subjects after each burial which she uses as a kind of 3D catalog for future clients.

She really wants to try out her skills on humans one day. Well. Publicly try out her skills. Lotta random bodies float into the swamp. None of them have turned down her requests for diorama models so far. Most seem downright flattered. Plus, she usually figures out which graveyard/crime scene they floated over from and gets her parents to give them a lift back. She'll even help enact terrifying revenge from beyond the grave on whoever put them there if she's not, y'know, busy.

Besides arts, crafts, and pet based funerary arrangements, Sunday is an avid lover of archery (any ranged weapon really), books where little fantasy adventure animals die dramatic deaths, and history. She is That Kid who eagerly raises her hand when asked who Christopher Columbus was and ends up being sent out of class after 15 minutes for making 'a scene'. Her favorite party trick is just picking an item in the room and talking about how it relates to either some obscure historical figure with a buck wild life or a horrible disaster. At least one charity pancake breakfast ended with children in tears after her vivid description of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

Social-wise, while Wednesday is the girl that people ask to smile because they think she'd, "look so pretty", Sunday is rarely asked anything at all. People just kind of assume from her quiet nature (in between horrible history facts) that she's angry all the time and that she hates everyone. This is untrue. She hates some people but she's ambivalent to most everyone else and even downright friendly if you bother to talk to her like a person instead of a terrifying cryptid. Like, she IS a terrifying cryptid but she's also a little girl.  

That’s about it for now. One day I might do the other family members but for now I’m happy with the four I’ve redesigned. Making an au! Lurch in a family that doesn’t do butlers could be interesting. Over on patreon I put forth that he could just be Motesha’s mute little brother (similar bone structure) but Amy Crook had the nice idea of quote: “ a mysterious "cousin" that "helps around the house" whose origins are both long in the past and faintly unsettling. He's good for lifting heavy things, like that tank of propane you're about to throw into the burning Piggly Wiggly... “ which i now consider canon. Who's kid is he? How old is he? Not important. Anyone willing to commit arson with you is family.

Annnnyway.  This challenge was a lot of fun! I love indulging in AU’s.

#long post #the addams family #Character Design #au #design challenge #i am incapable of doing a design challenge like a normal person #oh god i forgot the cut lol

[adhdeancas]

Dean Winchester (and the script leaks last night) possessed me to write this.

Dean happens upon Chuck's latest book: Carry On. Except it ends differently than it really went, and the ending? It's really fucking bad.

tw: suicide mention, transphobia (quickly shut the fuck down) 

Dean doesn’t make a habit of going to bookstores. Not because he hates books, contrary to what Sam might think; he just prefers to buy used books. There’s something comforting about a book that has already been worn and read over and over, that already shows how much the previous owner loved it. Plus, y’know, big corporations are evil and all that. And Dean only allows himself to overlook that when his stomach or his wallet wins over his hatred of the shitty mass-produced products. 

This time it was Jack who won; he’s obsessed with this new fantasy series and the new book just came out, so there’s no way he can hunt it down on Ebay. He makes his way to the fantasy and sci-fi section, eyes roaming over the displays of new releases, and his eye catches on something that turns his blood cold. 

“Supernatural: Carry On, The Final Book of the Winchesters’ Epic Journey” takes up a whole table, the generic and overly serious cover jeering out at him. 

He storms over to the display, anger covering up for the way his body feels light as a feather and like lead all at once, and picks up a book. “Why is Sam always fucking shirtless?” he mutters, the only thought that allows itself from the mess inside his head to his mouth. 

“Book sales.” A voice behind him says. He turns to see a teenager with their arms crossed over their work polo, pierced lip fixed into a customer-unfriendly frown.

“People want to see that?”

They snort, a small grin turning up the corner of their lips. It reminds Dean of Cas. “No. But that’s what advertisers think all ‘women’ want,” They use air quotes. 

He raises an eyebrow and asks. “Women?”

They shrug and uncross their arms, leaning back against the display table behind them. Their nametag says Jadyn. “Supernatural’s biggest block of readers is queer. I’d go out on a limb and say a lot of those the marketers think of as ‘women’ aren’t, or if they are, they aren’t itching to see Sam’s six pack.” Jadyn smirks. 

Dean takes a second to digest that, then grins down at the book, thinking past Sam’s apparently badly-received nudity now. “So how’d they like it?” he asks, waving the book a bit and looking up at Jadyn. Apparently they know a lot about the fans of the books, and for once, he’s proud of the way the story ended. 

Jadyn’s face sets into all hard lines. “Most people fucking hated it.” they say bluntly, then, probably remembering that he’s a customer, correct. “Sorry. I mean, it got some good reviews, mostly from people who like Wincest, but beyond that, it had some problematic plot points.”

Dean winces at the reminder of the ship between him and his brother, then scrunches his whole face together in confusion. “Wait, what? Why?” Why would Wincest fans like it? What was problematic about their end?

Jadyn shifts from foot to foot. “I don’t wanna spoil anything for you-”

“I don’t care about spoilers, just give me the short version.” Dean says quickly. A quiet panic is rising in him, and suddenly he has a horrible feeling that he’s not holding the truth in his hands anymore. 

“Uh, okay… Well, the most obvious thing is the bury-your-gays thing, then there’s the fact that it completely contradicted the rest of the lore. And it was ableist, misogynistic, and messed up, like, every character’s arc.” they take a breath, clearly worked up by it. “Even if they changed any of the details too, it was all built on Dean’s death, and that’s just bullshit. Sorry.” they apologize again, apparently mistaking Dean’s stricken expression to be in reaction to their rant and swearing. 

“No, nah, you’re… you’re okay. Uh, thanks.” he waves a hand and wanders away from them, only remembering Jack’s book when he’s almost to the register. He manages to make his way back and find the damn thing, but he’s still in a fog when he gets to the register. 

“Did anyone help you in the store today?”

“Huh?” he looks up and meets the middle-aged cashier’s gaze for the first time. Brent, from the nametag, looks at him impatiently. “Oh, yeah, uh… Jadyn. Jadyn helped me.” Brent scoffs and starts typing with a shake of the head. “Uh, is there a problem?” Dean asks, a little annoyed at this cashier’s unnecessary attitude. He usually doesn’t care if an employee’s rude, because they have to deal with assholes all the time and honestly Dean isn’t much better, but this one gives him a bad feeling. 

“No, no, sorry. It’s just - “Jadyn’s” got this idea that he’s a girl. Makes everybody call him that name now too. Just-” Brent shakes his head. “I mean, you get it. Their generation, everybody wants to be special.”

Dean glares. “No, I don’t get it, Brent.” He says through gritted teeth. “Seems to me like Jadyn probably deals with enough assholes like you that her asking for a little basic decency is the exact opposite of special. Sounds pretty normal, actually.” He can see the fear creep into Brent’s eyes, and he knows the cashier is reacting to the murderous look in his eyes more than his actual words. 

Brent hands Dean his bag of books with a quiet, “Here you go.”

Dean snatches it away. “Oh, Brent?” he checks over his shoulder to make sure they’re alone and then leans across the counter into Brent’s space. “You should find a new job, one where you don’t have to interact with other people. At least until you learn how to stop being a piece of shit.” He starts to ease away but thinks better about it. “And if you think that’s a suggestion, it’s not. My husband likes this book coming out next month that I’ll need to buy, and if I see you here when I come, well… it would be really embarrassing for you to tell all your little friends that you got your ass beat by a ‘special’ guy, huh?” He pats Brent on the cheek condescendingly and leaves with a huff. 

Damn transphobes. 

He only remembers the book once he’s back in Baby, and he takes the time to drive out of town before he pulls over to read it. It’s an old abandoned church, the cross long since fallen from the roof and the doors hanging off their hinges. He sits on the steps just because being in Baby seems claustrophobic for once in his life, and going back to the bunker to look at this is just… not happening.

Dean only skims the beginning to see that it starts the same. The ground erupting with bodies, hell spitting out its most-conveniently placed nasties, Rowena sacrificing herself, Cas leaving. His throat closes up at that, at Chuck’s description of Cas’s heartbroken expression as he climbs the stairs of the bunker. He clears his throat and skips to the end, right past Cas’s death that he doesn’t have the time to think about right now, past them defeating Chuck and then stops. He goes back a few pages, trying to find the disconnect. 

The story’s different.

After Jack takes on God’s power, in the book, he’s totally fine. Not almost vibrating out of his skin or anything, not crying like the three year old he is because he’s scared. Not like it really happened. He just smiles and leaves him and Sam, and they let him go. 

Dean scoffs, skimming over the story as it just gets more ridiculous. 

In the book, he doesn’t even try to save Cas. They barely even mention him. And they never mention Eileen, either. In fact, Dean notes disbelievingly, practically the only characters in the last few chapters are him and Sam. They’re hunting again.

“What, is Chuck trying to keep the series going?” he whispers to himself, anger flaring through him. They let Chuck live, and he decided to write obnoxious fanfiction about them? He’s gonna kill that shameless little fucker. For real, this time. He deserves it.

In the book, Sam and Dean torture some vampire mime, and they enjoy it. Dean cringes; this is really what Chuck thinks of them. Then they tussle with more vamps in a barn and- 

Dean’s brain stops working. He rereads the scene again and again. 

“There’s something in my… something in my back. It feels like it’s right through me.” 

Dean Winchester dies in a dirty barn, on a piece of freaking rebar. 

More than that, Dean realizes on his fourth read-through. This Dean? He tried to drag out his speech, Dean can tell by the way he pauses for fucking drama. He would never do that. He would never talk to Sam for fifteen hellish minutes when he could be trying. Trying to live, so he can actually get his life back on track, get his family back. No, he made that speech stalling. He made that speech so Sam wouldn’t try to save him. 

“You gotta admit, I had one helluva ride.” He was strangely calm.

Chuck made him kill himself.

Dean reads the rest of the book through blurry eyes, reading an ambiguous and nothing-ending, one where he’s somehow happy to be dead and driving around in heaven alone while Sam raises a kid into hunting and cries about Dean decades after he’s died. Eileen isn’t mentioned. Cas is mentioned once, and Bizzarro-Dean doesn’t even think about seeing him, apparently. The whole book ends with a hug between him and Sam, both dead. Both alone. 

Dean rips the ending up. He tears through the stupid paper covering and keeps ripping the pages up until they’re the size of confetti. His lower lip wobbles. He throws the whole thing against the side of the building, and it tumbles through the broken doorway and drops into a pile of dust and dirt. “That isn’t the fucking ending.” he grounds out, knocking his hand against the flimsy handrail. It gives a little under his fist and he kicks at it. “That isn’t the fucking ending!”

He’s having a panic attack. Again. He tries to take deep breaths, but they’re gulping, too big, they’re making him panic more. He scrambles back to Baby and grabs his phone, presses the first number on his favorites list and waits for him to answer on speaker phone.

“Hey Dean, what’s up?” Sam sounds like he’s been laughing. There are voices in the background, and Dean tries to convince himself one of them is Eileen. 

“Hey Sammy.” he chokes out, trying to sound normal. “You busy?”

There’s a pause, and then the sounds in the background. “Nah, Rowena’s just over.” he says casually. 

“So those voices in the background were-”

“Rowena and Eileen, yeah. They’re trying to convince me we need to go to Mexico. For the beaches.” A smile in his voice. Dean lets out a sigh of relief.  What’s up, Dean? You need something?” The smile drops, and Sam’s worried. 

Sam’s okay. Sam’s okay. “No, nah. Hey, you heard from Donna lately?” Dean just needs to triple-check.

“Uh, no, not since Sunday dinner… Dean, you okay?”

“Yeah, she just- she hasn’t been answering my texts. Just wanted to make sure.” Dean lies quickly. His breathing is still uneven, but his body is settling into uneven shakes. 

Sam sounds skeptical. “Yeah, well, she did tell us it’s been pretty busy at work lately. Y’know, everybody going out for the first time with COVID, getting stupid. Plus, y’know, nowhere’s drowning in EMTs right now.”

“Right. Yeah.” Dean takes a deep breath, a distant memory of Donna talking about that coming back to him.

“Pretty sure you were setting up a D&D session with Charlie while she was talking about that,” Sam laughs. Dean knows he means it as a subtle jab, but there’s too much relief flooding through him to care. Still, a string is pulled taut in him, and Sam can’t fix that completely.

“Gotta go, Sam,” Dean hangs up before Sam can say anything else, and goes to his next contact. It rings for far too long, and Dean’s heartbeat picks back up to thundering.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Cas,” Dean breathes out. “Cas, you know I love you, right?” He needs to test all the bounds of this, to make sure, just to make sure. Make sure Chuck isn’t still fucking with him. Because apparently, Chuck won’t let him be queer. Not in his story. Not out loud.

He can hear Cas’s eyebrow raise through the phone, and his chest is overcome with stupid fondness. “I would be a little worried if you didn’t.”

Dean grins widely. “Like, romantically. I’m in love with you. Because you’re the love of my life and I’m bisexual.” He says it all like it’s a checklist, like he expects some cosmic being to slap a hand over his mouth before he gets each next phrase out.

“Yes, Dean. We’ve been married almost two months.” Cas is smiling. It happens everytime he talks about their wedding. Dean adores it. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, now it is.” His whole body relaxes, still vibrating with leftover panic, but satisfied. “I got Jack’s book.”

“Oh, good. He’ll be so pleased.” Cas pauses. “Dean, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Dean eases off the ground and sends a last look at the dilapidated church before climbing into Baby. “Just- read a bad book. I’ll tell you about it later. When I get home.”

#i fixed it #god fucking damn it #dean winchester #destiel #saileen #saileena #sam winchester #castiel #eileen leahy #castiel winchester #jack kline #roweena #my writing #ficlet #deancas #trans dean #trans woman OC #tw: transphobia #tw: suicide mention

[headcans-oneshots-and-stuff]

Luckiest thing (Drabble)

Warnings: none, except maybe shitty writing tbh Word count: 1,5k Summary: On the fourth of July you have a little surprise for your husbands family

Requested by my amazing @sirkekselord​:  Hello my wife. Because you never write my fucking things I ask you on Whatsapp... Here I am. Just give me some Jason fluff after what you have done to me. Making me cry twice. Him happy, having a wife and a happy family. Give me the family life. Domestic stuff. Batfam being the great batfam they should be! I am done. So done. Also I'm not gonna ask you on Whatsapp this and I won't look at the fandom list but will you make an exception and write for Eddie Brock? If you don't? Love you sunshine. ♥

A/N: Two things: first, I don’t live in America and have never celebrated fourth of july so this is all just how I imagine it, second: since Gotham is a rather special place, in my fanon lore for this fanfiction there is a city wide ban on all kind of firecrackers and rockets.

It was strange, really, how on almost every other day of the year, no matter if holiday or not, Gotham's villains couldn't give two ducks about if it was a good time to rob a bank or try to bomb an orphanage, but on the week surrounding the fourth of July, the crime rate just dropped. Every year.  So, with his family being busy most of the year and unable to remember the last time they all did something together, Bruce decided that it would be a good chance to have a little get-together at the manor. With that choice made, he notified the family and handed over the preparation to Alfred who relished in planning something other than a Gala or a ball or something that would happen again in less than a month. And he wasn't the only one who was more than happy about this possibility, no, when you answered Bruce's call and accepted his invitation you were over the moon. It would be the first time since the wedding that you and Jason would meet the majority of your husband's family in one spot and it was the perfect opportunity for a little surprise.

The few weeks between Bruce's call and the fourth of July passed in a flash and soon you stood in front of the kitchen island in the beautiful house in the outskirts of the city that Bruce had gifted you for your wedding, decorating the blue, red, white cupcakes with matching toppings and little edible stars on all of them except one, which just got a single, big, silver one. "We both know that Alfred will have more than enough food prepared, you're almost offending him when you bring something too," a husky, deep voice told you from behind you, sending a warm shiver down your spine. Along with the words were arms that found their way around your hips and pulled you against a broad, muscular chest. You sighed in content, comfortable as you could be against Jason. "I know, I know," you chuckled and smiled up at him, "But it's tradition to bring something along." Your husband playfully rolled your eyes before leaning down and kissing your forehead. "We should get going soon," you hummed and helped yourself out of Jason's arms, walking over to one of the shelf to get out a transport carrier for the cupcakes, making quick work as to place the inside, while Jason nodded and went into your bedroom to get his festive leatherjacket. When the sweets were stored, you walked over to a mirror in the hall, checking over your outfit. You were wearing a flowy, blue summer dress with red ballerinas and a small red bow in your hair. It was simple, but you felt really cute in it so you just nodded at your reflection and went back to get the carrier before going into the garage to fix it to Jason's motorcycle. "Are you sure we should take the Bike and not the car? I mean-" "Don't worry your pretty little head Jason," you threw him his helmet (a normal one) and started flexing you own, careful not to destroy your hair. Before he could protest again, you jumped onto the vehicle, patting the driver's seat in front of you. You could hear the small sigh that Jason made, but he obeyed and sat down, turning on the motor.

The garden of the manor (or rather the parts of the park-like surroundings that were close to one of the backdoors) looked astonishing. There was a table placed in the middle, decorated with a blue and white tablecloth and red plates and glasses (that Alfred must've extra bought for the occasion), on the trees that were near were little blue, red and white lampions, perfectly placed, along with little star fairy-lights, and on the side stood a rather pompous grill with Alfred standing behind it, wearing a 'The Grillfather' apron. The entire family was standing around in the area. Bruce and Dick were standing the closest, only a few feet away from the backdoor, chatting about something, Tim, Steph, Duke and Cass were sitting on garden chairs in the shadow of a tree and Damian was sitting on the grass, playing with Alfred the cat and Titus (or more like he was playing with Titus and Alfred was laying in the sun). When you and Jason came out in the garden, Alfred was first to notice and come to you. "Hello Master and Misses Todd," he said, winking at you slightly when you blushed at being called Misses Todd for one of the first times since the wedding by anyone besides Jay. "Hello, Alfie-" you pushed the carrier into Jason's arms and went to hug the man "-you really overdid yourself this time, it's beautiful." "Thank you very much," he smiled and you took your cupcakes out of Jason's arms again to give him a chance to hug his surrogate Grandfather. When they parted again, Jason gave you a small kiss on the cheek before going over to Dick and Bruce who were waving over to you. "What do you have here," Alfred said with a curious gaze directed to the box in your hands, prompting you to open it and show him the cupcakes with a smile. "I know you most likely have everything prepared already, but I couldn't help myself and bring something along." "Don't be silly darling," he laughed slightly and took the box out of your hands, "You can never cook enough when cooking for this family." You continued talking for a while before he turned to bring the cupcakes to another table beside the grill that was serving as a buffet and get back to the barbeque.

The noon turned into the evening and everything was going wonderful. For a while, you went around talking to everyone while Alfred and Damian were basically glued to your side, before Alfred called for dinner and everyone sat down at the table, Jason on your right and Damian on your left. The sun was already starting to set, the Lampions were turned on and much brighter than you'd expected when you remembered your little surprise. You poked Jason's thigh under the table to get his attention and he seemed to immediately understand what you meant, smiling at you with just a glimpse of excitement in your eyes. "I know we just ate Alfred's wonderful food, but I tried a little something new for my cupcakes and wondered if you would mind tasting them?" you asked and tilted your head slightly to the side while looking at the people around you and their unknowing faces. A choir of agreement answered you and you clapped into your hands, expectantly looking at your spouse who gave you a small 'Are-you-serious'-face before pushing his chair back to get the cupcakes and placing one in front of everyone.   "Why does father get the special one," Damian huffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest, frowning at Bruce's cupcake that had the single big star on top of it. "Uhm...just because," you shrugged, aware of the thinness of that excuse. "Anyway, how about we all try on three yes? Okay," you averted the topic and continued the conversation. "One, two, three," Jason counted and on cue, everyone took a bite out of the little cakes, but your eyes were fixed on Bruce. At first, his face seemed to be very happy with the sweet and full taste, before it contorted in confusion. He pulled the cupcake away from his mouth and used his other to pull something out of it. "What the," he muttered, using his napkin to clean the object and reveal it to be a pacifier. For just a second his eyes were filled with complete confusion until they lit up with recognition. "Are you- Really-" he started and looked at you with almost tear-filled eyes attracting the attention of the others around him. "Yes," you nodded and felt tears also starting to fill your eyes, unconsciously setting your hand onto your stomach. "Whoa!"s and "What?"s filled the air until everyone understood what you and Bruce were talking about. "I'll be a grandfather," Bruce smiled proudly, running over to your side to pick you out of your chair and swirl you around. The rest of the night was filled with congratulations and people cluttering around you and Jason who soon started to slightly feel neglected with all the attention you were giving the people around you. At that moment you felt in the right place, you felt at peace and you knew, that almost running over Jason all these years ago, when you had first met him and almost immediately fell for him. was maybe the luckiest thing that could ever happen...

#Jason Todd #Jason todd x reader #domestic jadon todd #fourth of july #july4th #independenceday #batfam #batfam x reader #batfam imagine #drabble #fluff #Independence Day

[duhragonball]

Disinterpretation

I finally finished the Sarah Z video about “pro vs. anti”.   It’s pretty long, and I ended up watching it in chunks over several days, but I think it’s worth watching, especially if you’re sort of partially connected to online fandom, but not enough to be aware of all the lingo. 

As I expected, the whole thing was vague and confusing because the people involved in the conflict made it vague and confusing.   In theory, the full terms would be “pro-shipping” and “anti-shipping”, but it seems like it’s more about particular kinds of ships that could be considered controversial.  But that’s a slippery slope, and apparently the whole conflict mutated into both sides deciding that every hypothetical relationship between fictional characters is either equally valid or equally dangerous.  

Long story short, it’s just purity culture, which was what everyone on Tumblr was calling it around 2012.  But now, if you’re a sane person who genuinely asks: “Who gives a fuck about Voltron?”, these people will jump your ass and accuse you of being on the side of their enemies.  “Children have died over the importance of Lotor/Hagger!   Your callous indifference proves that you yourself must have murdered children!” 

I think what Sarah Z really hit upon in this video was that media consumption has become so ingrained in our culture that people feel like it has to go hand-in-hand with our morality.   That is, it’s not enough for me to watch Star Trek, I have to justify Star Trek as evidence that I’m a good person.  Maybe this is where the expression “guilty pleasure” comes from.   Conversely, it’s not enough for me to not watch Dr. Who, I have to somehow convince everyone that Dr. Who was invented by the devil.

I’m pretty sure the Reylo ship has a lot to do with this, since it’s kind of understood to be a dark, problematic concept, and fans either embrace its flaws or recoil in horror because of them.   Star Wars itself is a dumb story about space wizards, so people try to give the debate more weight by linking it to freedom of self expression and/or enabling real world harm.   Suddenly it’s not enough to just think two actors would look cute making out instead of fighting.   Now it’s this battlefield for the soul of civilization or something.

I grew up in the 80′s, when “concerned parents” and grifters would accuse the Smurfs and metal bands of promoting satanism and witchcraft.   I used to hear stories of teens going out into the woods in the middle of the night to do occult stuff, and all I could ever think about was: “Why would anyone bother wandering out in the woods in the middle of the night?”  Which is why “concerned parents” turned their attention to things that were closer to home, like Saturday morning cartoons.   It had nothing to do with the content; it was just about finding a safe, accessible target for their hysteria.   Some people want to go on a crusade without leaving the house, so they pick a fight with Papa Smurf instead of confronting the real evils in the world.  Even as a kid, I knew this was a con, because I’d watched the show for myself and knew it was too saccharine to be threat to anyone.

The pro/anti folks have tried to disguise this with a lot of terminology.   I wondered why they seemed to reluctant to use the full terms “pro-shipper” and “anti-shipper”, and it’s probably a couple of things.   First, the word “shipper” is basically an admission that this is pointless bullshit that doesn’t matter, and they’d like to avoid that connotation.   Second, they seem to have decided that this goes beyond shipping itself, into practically anything else they want it to involve.  It’s all part of the con, which is to make you believe that it’s “us vs. them”, and you can be part of “us” by curating specific attitudes about Steven Universe.

Seriously, “about Steven Universe” is such an incredible punchline.  You can make anything funnier by adding those three words to the end of a sentence.   “Do not interact if you blog about Steven Universe.”   “Hey, what’s up, YouTube, this is SSJ3RyokoLover69, and this is going to be kind of a serious video about Steven Universe.”   “Mrs. Johnson, the results of your biopsy are in, and I have some bad news about Steven Universe.”   It’s a fucking kids show.   “Oh no, all the characters look like the characters in all the other kids shows!”   Yeah, that’s because it’s a kids show.   Marvin looks like Garfield, this isn’t new.

The common denominator here seems to be that both sides try to wrap themselves in the flag of vulnerable groups: impressionable minors, trauma survivors, harassment victims, etc.   The “pros” want to protect those people so that they can feel free to explore weird subject matter on their own terms, and the “antis” want to protect the same people from being exposed to weird subject matter that they might not want to see.   It’s all about establishing a moral high ground.   Back in the day, it was called “sanctimony”. 

But people get roped into this, because at their core, people want approval, and this stupid conflict offers them a sense of community.  As long as you support the cause, whatever it may be, you’ll have this online friend network that appears to support anything you do.   But if you deviate from their norm, you’ll be cast out.    Does this sound familiar?

To use a more familiar example, I still sometimes find people clamoring about Gochi vs. Vegebul.   I’ve never understood this, because both ships were canon, and I never saw much direct evidence of a war between them, but people would still talk about how crazy the Vegebul shippers were, and how crazy the Gochi shippers were, and it was like some huge thing going on just over the hills.   It’s the same idea, since the idea that you could like both or neither never seems to occur to anyone involved.   I never gave a shit, because I used to see the same dumb agendas in the Harry Potter fandom.

Okay, so let me take you back.  It’s 2005 through 2011, and I’m hateblogging all seven Harry Potter novels, because fuck you, that’s why.  The funny thing I encountered was that occasionally fans seemed to want to pretend like my bashing of certain characters was proving them right somehow.    They were like “See?  He hates Ron Weasley too!  That proves that Seamus Finnegan is the coolest guy ever.”   The Slytherin stans would do this all the time, because I would constantly take the piss out of the Gryffindor characters for being self-important dopes.   I think they just liked hearing it from an outside perspective.   But I had to keep reminding them all that I hated all of them.   Every character from Harry Potter sucks ass. Voldemort was my favorite, but only because he was the one guy who wanted to kill all of the others.   But he sucks too because he failed. 

And the shippers were the same way.   I’d say something shitty about Ron, because Ron sucks, and some smartass Joss Whedon fan would be like “Yes!  Boost the signal!  That is why Harry/Hermione is the best ship!”  And I’d be like “No, Harry and Hermione suck at least as bad as Ron does.  They’re all terrible and I hate them.”   I really do think there was some sort of Stockholm Syndrome going on with Harry Potter books, where everyone secretly knows they suck, but the fans sort of latch on to one or two characters and go like “Well, he’s not as shitty as the rest.”   Like finding spaghetti in the trash and picking out the meatball with the least amount of lint on it.   Then you’d go and start a flamewar with some other starving person over whether your meatball is shittier than theirs.  This is what people mean when they say to read another book. 

Anyway, the big thing I picked up from Sarah Z’s video is “disinterpretation”, a term coined by MSNBC columnis Zeeshan Aleem.   The Twitter thread is worth a read, but the short version is that he once remarked that a Julia Louis-Dreyfus routine wasn’t very good, and someone got mad at him for insinuating that women are incapable of being funny.    They just took his dissatisfaction with one performance by one comedian as being a universal condemnation of women comedians in general.  And this sort of thing is all over the internet.   Everyone sees what they want to see and then they take it as permission to overreact.  

I ran into this myself a while back, because someone saw who I interacted with on Twitter and decided that they’re all bad guys and if I have any interaction with them, then that makes me a bad guy too.   At the time I tried to play it cool, but the more I think about it, the more it ticks me off.   And over the course of that conversation, it was said that I don’t talk about myself much, and that’s kind of funny, because all I ever do on social media is write long-ass blog posts like this one.  I don’t expect anyone to memorize them, or even read them all the way through, but when I write all this stuff and someone goes out of their way to say they don’t know anything about me, the message is that they just didn’t pay attention to what I was saying, and they didn’t bother to try.

So I’m a little jaded from that, because I got called out for a bunch of stuff I didn’t even do or say, and apparently that’s just a thing that happens.   People will reject you for completely arbitrary reasons, not because of anything you actually said or did, and you’re left thinking you made some terrible mistake.   Except, no, I’ve seen it happen to other people, people a lore more conscientious than I am, and if they can’t satisfy the bullshit purity standards, then I never stood a chance.   If the game is rigged so I can’t win, then I’m not going to play.  

And it’s that same condition that probably draws people into these online holy wars, because if you declare yourself for the pro or anti side, at least then you’ll have a posse backing you up.   Only they don’t support you, they support your willingness to support them.    Once your commitment to their agenda wavers, even in the slightest, they will turn against you.   

Sarah Z suggests that both sides of the war drop the pro and anti terms, since they lost all meaning long ago.   But that just invites a new set of useless terms to perpetuate the same cycle.   Her more useful advice is for fandom people to broaden their horizons.   She got a lot of flak for tweeting “Go outside” once, but the ironic thing is that it’s sound advice.   I had lunch with my mom yesterday and it was just nice getting away from things for a while.   People need to do that more often, and unfortunately it feels like it’s harder to do than ever before.

But “go outside” isn’t just a literal thing.   It can mean going beyond your usual haunts, reading the same books, watching the same shows, rehashing the same conversations.   I think the reason this stuff always revolves around “shipping” is because there seems to be this deep-seated compulsion to pair fictional characters off like this, and for a lot of folks it’s the only way they can consume a story, so they do.   And they do it lot, and there’s a lot of them, and they do it the same way every time, and lo and behold the same old conflicts start up.   So maybe “go outside” should mean “go outside of that cycle once in a while.”   Just a thought. 

[jangofctts]

miss keida may I ask....... how ALL the sunburst bbys got their names?? I mean sweets and kami I can kind of guess lol but.... I wanna know... give me the lore about the boys!!!!!!!! - 🪐

yES ILL GIVE YOU THAT SWEET SWEET LORE KEJHKJEH

blanche: i got an ask abt this last night but!! blanche in French means white, and due to his eye and hair blanche like scoured all the words for white and picked the coolest one kejrkejh. one time someone called him “bleach” and he had a aneurysm bUT yeah he chose his own name!

blue: when blue was little (like physically around 8 or 9) he choked on his food and turned blue and after he was rescued by blanche wekjehkew it was just a running joke like “oh haha, why so blue?” and ofc it just so happened to be his fav color and weLL, what a coINCIDENCE his squad’s color is teal and his cybernetic eye is blueish/white like ksejrhejhg like it’s funny how well that name fit for him 

jaws: literally the first day of being deployed, jaws was mauled by a nexu (funnily enough this was the same nexu that scratched bruiser’s face) like literally almost eaten, and so he has teeth mark scars all along his back and middle. jaws literally escaped the jaws of death and so that’s how his name stuck!  

sweets: I mentioned this before but shaak ti sorta named him! nothing too complicated, she just started calling him sweets/sweetheart and it stuck 

Kamikaze (kami): obviously he’s a insane pilot and wild guy kskfksjdh like, when he was learning to fly he nearly crashed into and exploded half of Kamino so like his brothers joked that he’d be a great kamikaze pilot if they ever needed that in a pinch  

fuse: fuse was...well let’s just say he was a nightmare as a cadet. like, he’d set shit on fire or make shitty rockets that would somehow always backfire. not only that, he’s always quick to anger or bicker with his brothers or his superiors, most notably when that guy named Bric screamed that “you’re gonna make me blow a fuse due to your stupidity”. that and also everyone tells him he’s got a short fuse. 

void: honestly, void is one of the best medics in the GAR. he’s been given many awards which is impressive considering how poorly they treat the clones. he’s very intimidating to people who dont know him and blanche likes to joke that the only thing between their lives and the void of the great beyond its well...void   

bruiser: this one is nOT as obvious as you might think. ok yeah, maybe he can supplex you into the mf sun, bUT he once got in a fight as a delinquent and ended up with two black eyes. he couldn't see for like a week and yeah, that’s where thAT name came from krejkekewjh

#here is some lORE #ask #keida answers #sunburst squadron #🪐

[notfairestwriting]

today i bring you ray lore

aka, how he met idia, and his motivation to have that “assistant” role uvu

1.4k words ish, beware of portrayal of shitty mom

“You haven’t gotten a haircut yet. The carriage should be getting here anytime this week, and you’re going to Night Raven like this?”

Having just left his room that morning, Ray shrinks before he even truly steps into the black tile floor of the kitchen -- His mother’s contralto fills the room that looked so vacant, lacking in any true decoration, as she looks up from the newspaper.

“It doesn’t look that bad.” He mutters. Gray eyes too similar to his glare at him through her glasses.

“It’s unprofessional for a man to have long hair like this, and not do anything with it.” She sighs. “It’s too short to be tied up properly, but too long to be kept neat. You can’t expect to get an internship looking like this.”

“I’m just a first year…”

Head shaking, she sighs once more. “It doesn’t matter. What if any corporations go there to scout? You already stand out enough with that eyepatch.”

Ray’s lips press into a thin line, turning his back to get a cup and a teabag from the cupboard. She looks back down onto the newspaper, no good morning, as usual, and he watches hot water spill out of the kettle she left on the counter into the white cup.

She’s not supposed to be here, or at least he thought so. Ray wishes she had a good reason for it, but judging by the sharp remark being the very first thing he heard, maybe her morning meeting was just cancelled.

Mrs. Máire is an intimidating woman who looks too much like her son.

The intimidation is a subjective one. She isn’t tall or particularly strong looking -- The Máire lineage being one of gathered health issues, a handful of which had been passed to Ray -- but there’s something on her light, silvery gray eyes, framed by the metallic rectangles of her glasses, that just made one painfully aware that they were being judged. Her long, pure white hair always done up pristinely, wavy locks around a slender, surprisingly youthful face, she’d rarely be seen out of her workwear, all black like a lady in mourning. She looked more like a ghost than a woman, and Ray supposes that had been passed down to him too.

He feels awkward, standing in his baggy sweater, hair in disarray. Even though it’s a weekend, even though he lived in that house.

The tea is ready, but it doesn’t warm his hands much. He sits by the table in tense silence, nursing the cup as he watches the bag carefully, the way it sank into the water.

“Have you heard about that Shroud boy?”

About to lift the cup to his lips, Ray sets it down again instead. It’s rare for her to make any conversation at all--

“That Shroud?” He asks. There’s a pause as she flips through the paper.

“Which other would it be?” She asks, and sets the paper down too. The name, Shroud, hangs heavily in the air. Ray doesn’t reply. “They haven’t appeared in public for a while, but the boy is going to Night Raven too. He’s apparently in your year.”

He stays quiet, and takes a sip of tea.

“You’ll have to work an internship in your fourth year.” She states, like she hadn’t done that a billion times before. “The Shroud family could use a good lawyer. If you get in that boy’s favor, you can make something out of yourself. It’s an opportunity.”

Setting cup down slowly, like he was in any risk of handling it too roughly at all, Ray continues to stare at the table’s white surface.

“I guess it is.” He mutters. The uncertainty in his voice doesn’t seem to faze her, and she checks her wristwatch.

“Get a haircut today. I’ll leave money on the counter, I need to leave for my meeting now.” She gets up, the small heels of her shoe clacking quietly against the floor as she begins to leave. “Don’t forget to talk to that boy. You know you won’t be a kid forever.”

No goodbye, either. In the cold house, Ray leeches off the warmth of his steadily emptying teacup, not even near to being enough to cure the freezing feeling that seemed to stick to him.

. . .

He stands in the corner of the room, blue flaming hair glowing even though most of Ignihyde was that color, shrinking into himself--

Ray has books and a folder in hands, just coming back with a conversation with staff regarding his extracurriculars. He’d signed up for the Science Club -- That should be fine, he knew how to work his way around potions decently, it’s a death he’d rather subject himself to than something like Track and Field.

The thought of a sports-focused club gives him chills. He doesn’t need to use String to know that would entail running straight into trees and fainting in the summer heat. If he wanted to give off any good impression at all, he couldn’t put himself through that.

Shroud taps away at his phone anxiously and Ray tries to figure out how to talk to him, staring. String tugs at his energy a bit miserably, he can’t quite find the moment he’d walk up to him yet, he’d take that long to do it, apparently.

But he doesn’t want to be harsh on himself for that. When was it the last time he spoke to a classmate? He’d spent all of middle school gladly fading into the background, so much that he’d been hoping he’d get into Ignihyde when he read up on the dorms online, before getting there.

Making friends isn’t something he does, or has ever felt the necessity to do. People wouldn’t… understand his condition, he never expected them to. The flower that Prunella boy gave him sat on his nighstand nicely now, but, that wasn’t exactly friendship. There’s a gap between that and friendliness, he’s sure.

...he shouldn’t be. It’s not like he’d know.

His finger pulls and releases the strap of his eyepatch until he can see himself walking up to Shroud and saying anything. He sees a displeased, anxious face, suspicious who are you stuttered after amber eyes look up from the phone. Well, that’s not surprising either.

Ray wonders what draws the line between friendship and networking, and that’s something he doesn’t understand at all either. At least he’d come to know the latter, soon enough…

The small heels of his loafers -- The nicest one he could get, without his mother poking any holes into the pricey purchase -- clack quietly against the floor as he makes his way to Shroud.

“Excuse me.” He speaks up, and the blue-haired boy jumps. Ray gives him a bit of a stare, sizing him up in a way.

They’re not that different looking, are they? Maybe the blue lips set them apart. But Shroud wasn’t strong, wasn’t too tall.

“W-What do you want?” He stutters out the question. Rude, Ray narrows his eye at him, but he lets it go.

“I wanted to introduce myself.” He pushes out the line like he’d been reading a script. “I’m Ray Máire. Since we’re in the same year, we may have to work together in the near future, so do feel free to rely on me.”

Ray bows his head slightly. He’s a bit out of breath when he’s done talking. He can’t tell if it’s because he’s unused to it, or he just spoke too fast.

“...right.” Shroud mutters. “Uh. It’s Idia.”

“Shroud, yes. I know you.” He nods. “I’m from the Isle too.”

His expression twists further, an extra dose of displeasure trickling.

“Um. Sure.” He says, again in that muttery voice. “I-I’m busy now, so…”

Ah. So he really is rude, isn’t he? He supposes it’s to be expected too. Shroud was from a rich family, he probably wasn’t used to being around… all those different people.

“Of course. I’ll leave you to it.”

He steps away. For some reason, he tastes something bitter on his tongue, like that had gone poorly.

Or maybe he just didn’t want to do it at all.

But, well, does it even matter, what he wants to do?

#lis writing #ray maire #ray lore series #tagging bc there will be More

[vicegrips-fr]

Pink Martinis

The night is only just beginning and the boys are trying to enjoy themselves before the evening rush when they are rudely interrupted by a man neither of them knows.

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This is the first in what I hope to be many lore posts featuring characters from both The Velvet Fang and Neo Necropolis. Apologies if this is too long for some of you and I hope you enjoy! Warnings: Language, drug mentions, alcohol, brief violence, etc. 

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- Part one -

It’s all about the thrill.

Neon lights, the smell of sweat and spilled alcohol, bodies grinding together to the sound of loud music, drugs passing between hands, and men being led to back rooms. All of these things are thrilling in their own way, but none of it comes close to the rush you get from spilling a little blood. Your blood, their blood, it’s all part of the game and the game is violence; pure and simple violence.  Azizi used to live a life of violence. That is, until he came here to the middle of bumfuck nowhere in the Wasteland. He- no, they had no choice. It was run or be killed and there’s no doubt in his mind that Chaka would have delighted in choking the life out of him. 

The thought of it, those strong hands around his throat, both disgusts and entices him.

It’s almost like you have a deathwish.

“Hey Zi!”

Azizi turns his head to the source of the sweet and familiar voice, a smile playing about his lips as he moves over from where he’s leaned back against the bar. As per usual Gogo is dressed all in neon and animal print, the colors and patterns clashing in such a way that it both draws your eyes in and repels you for fear of going blind. “Hey babe,” he replies languidly, “You look good.” At that Gogo gives a twirl, his thick wavy hair bouncing around his shoulders. “Not as good as you,” he shoots back with a girlish giggle, “But like, thanks!” Smiling, Azizi turns his attention onto the bartender, his face illuminated in the pinks, purples, and blues of the neon lights dancing all around them. “Two pink martinis, Cyr” he drawls, elbows propped up on the bar as he leans over it seductively. Cyril is a frightening man to behold. Equal parts handsome and haunting with bright pink eyes all over his body. Or, well, one can assume so anyway. Of the many eyes that cover him only the ones on his face, neck, and tail are visible; the rest are hidden beneath his smart clothing. “Sure thing,” he replies, voice lightly accented from the Starfall Isles, “Just don’t snort anything off the bar while my back is turned. I just cleaned the damn thing.” Azizi throws his head back and laughs, the gold bangles on his arms clinking together lightly as he stands up straight. “No promises, eyes,” he purrs softly, “Me and self control aren’t friends. And besides, you clean ‘the damn thing’ every two seconds.” Cyril rolls his eyes, all of them. “Addict,” he replies not unkindly. “Neat freak,” Azizi says without malice. 

They’re both right about the other. Azizi is an addict and Cyril is an obsessive cleaner. In the end habits are habits, it’s just that some come with worse consequences than others. “Mm, pink martini,” Gogo coos, mind occupied by other things, “I wonder how they like, make it pink in the first place.” Azizi quirks a brow, a look of amusement crossing over his face. “World’s greatest mystery,” he replies fondly, “So, how many tricks are banging on your door tonight?” Pausing, Gogo counts on his fingers with his tongue between his teeth. “Three too many,” he answers finally, “But like, it’s cool. At least with the regulars who book in advance you know what to expect.” Another pause. One, two, three, four seconds pass. “Although there was that one time that a regular asked me to-” “Two pink martinis,” Cyril interrupts, sliding the pretty pink concoctions in front of the boys. “Thanks Cyr,” Azizi grins, “And hey, for the record I was a good boy and kept my snow off of your bar. Do I win a prize?” Cyril snorts at that, waving a dismissive hand in his direction as if to shoo him away like a pesky cat. “How about my gratitude?” he replies breezily. “Ew, gross,” Azizi murmurs, “That’s a shitty prize.” With an impish smile he tilts his drink just enough to splash the bar with the liquid inside. “Oops,” he says, tone sharp and teasing, “My bad.” Cyril, who is busying his hands cleaning a glass that’s already spotless, frowns. He’s used to this sort of thing by now; used to how Azizi likes to push people's buttons; used to how the man enjoys getting into fights and starting shit. But Cyril never takes the bait and Azizi doesn’t expect him to anyway- he’s just being a little shit. “Asshole,” Cyril chuckles, mopping the alcohol off the bar until it shines like a diamond again. Azizi shrugs, popping the cherry from his drink into his mouth. “And yet you still love me,” he sighs wistfully, “Some might even say you’re a glutton for punishment.” Before any of them can continue their conversation, a man approaches the bar with a look on his face that promises trouble. He’s of average height with a slim build and dressed in a suit that screams this is the nicest thing in my closet. The only truly unusual thing about him is his eyes, cyan blue. It’s unusual because most of the clientele in The Velvet Fang are from around the area, their eyes various shades of threatening reds. “You two,” the strange man says, so close now that Azizi can smell the sweat beneath the cologne he’s used to try and cover it up. “I’m sorry but do I know you?” Azizi asks, nose wrinkling in disgust as he takes a step back just to get a breath of air that doesn’t make him gag. Gogo’s mismatched eyes grow wide and he follows suit, taking a step backwards and bumping into one of the barstools, sending it clattering to the floor. Neither one of them recognize this man, but it would seem he recognizes them. “Yes- Uh, I mean no,” he stutters out, the wild look in his eyes on full display in the light of the neon sign that hangs above the bar, “You’re Chaka’s boys, aren’t you? I’d recognize the two of you anywhere and-” He pauses, the expression on his face shifting from slightly wild to confused in the blink of an eye. “Say,” he continues, brow furrowing, “What the hell are you two doing all the way out here, huh?” Anger seeps into every one of Azizi’s pores. Perhaps he should be frightened, shaken up from being recognized by someone from the home he was forced to flee, but all he can manage is anger. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he snaps, gold canine catching the light as his lips peel back into a snarl. “You think you can just waltz up to us and start asking questions?” The man’s lips part again but before he can say a word Azizi holds up a hand to stop him, eyes hard. “Fuck. Off,” he snarls, the threat of violence clear in his voice, “It’s none of your fucking business why we’re here. Get lost, asshole.” Gogo lets out a whimper, hands flying up to cover his mouth. Violence is not something he likes or handles well. The sight of blood is enough to make his stomach feel queasy, the sound of bones breaking so horrific it makes him want to pass out, so all he can hope is that it doesn’t come to that. Annoyed, Azizi turns away to go back to his drink but is stopped by a hand lashing out to grab him by the wrist, forcing him to spin around again. Whoever this man is, he’s clearly on something and he’s got a lot of nerve. “Don’t speak to me like that,” the stranger growls, his grip tightening until he knows that there will be bruises left behind in the shape of fingers, “You think someone like you can say that shit to someone like-” Crack. Without hesitation Azizi drives his right fist so hard into the man’s face that the bones breaking in his nose can be heard over the music. To the shock and horror of the people around them the man falls to the floor in a heap. Gogo’s eyes immediately go to where his best friend is holding his injured hand, tail lashing anxiously behind him as he lurches forward to his side. It’s a miracle he doesn’t faint, but it’s different when it’s Azizi who’s the one that’s hurt.

  “Oh my god! Azizi!” he cries, gently taking Azizi’s hand in his own and turning around to examine the damage, “Are you like, okay? Holy shit!”

Looking down at his right hand Azizi can see where the knuckles are already beginning to swell and bruise. The bad news is that it hurts, the good news is his hand doesn’t appear to be broken. Good for him and for the tricks; such is the nature of his work.

“I’m fine, babe,” he replies to Gogo, eyeing the man on the ground like he might have to go in for round two, “Just some bruises, that’s all.”

Thinking quickly, Cyril grabs ice from behind the bar and rushes over to help the pair. If that asshole wants to try something else- and, frankly, he’s high enough that he might- then he’ll be there to put all six feet of himself between them. Finally the injured man does stand, wobbling back and forth uneasily on his feet before locking rage filled eyes with Azizi.

  “You’re gonna fucking regret that,” he grunts, “Just wait until Chaka hears what you whores have been up to. Just you fucking wait-”

“Out!” Cyril barks, “Out before I call in the big guns and have you hauled out of here by your hair!”

Grateful, Gogo mouths a thank you to Cyril before going back to fretting over his Azizi. He’s no medic but the bruising looks severe to him, so he holds the ice against the wounds in a desperate attempt to stop it from getting worse. Really he should be used to this, used to the threat of violence and the fear. How many fights has he seen Azizi gets into, heart pounding in his ears as he watches in abject horror, powerless to help or to stop it? The answer is far too many times.

  “As if Chaka would give you the time of day,” Azizi sneers, “Do your worst.”

But the truth is he is worried, if only just a little bit. If word gets back to Chaka that he’s here then-

You belong to me, Zi. Do you know what that means? It means you’re never going anywhere I don’t want you to go. You try that shit and watch what happens. It’s not just your ass on the line, is it?

Still the threat of violence, a little blood spilled... it’s thrilling, right? He feels alive, like waking up after a long nap.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, “Fuck.”

To be continued...

#flight rising lore #flight rising #flightrising #lore: the velvet fang #sorry if i missed something in the warnings! #still trying to get back into the groove of writing and posting lore on here

[thefossilwhale]

i want someone besides me and the 2 friends who know all the lore to meet my detective, but i’m too impatient to let you get to know her via fic so i filled out this questionnaire instead. she is veronica and she is so important, here is some stuff about her if you are interested :’)

QUICK READ OF YOUR DETECTIVE

Name: veronica langford

Pronouns: she/her

Sexuality: bi

Love interest: adam

Best friend: morgan

Main skill: science/technology

Secondary skill: combat/physical

Main personality trait: impulsive

Secondary personality trait: sarcastic

Why did they join the Wayhaven PD?: best use of her science skills

Relationship with Rebecca: not great

Relationship with Bobby: ex, finds it hard to be around him

Verda or Tina?: both! but she’s on verda’s branch

Murphy bite?: wrist

Murphy's fate?: captured

Rescue LI or Rescue Sanja?: sanja

GENERAL

Name: veronica “it’s been 3 years and i never gave her a middle name” langford

Nickname: just veronica. people around wayhaven called her ronny growing up, and a few still do despite her trying to grow out of it. maybe a few people from college and sometimes tina call her v or vee or something.

Birthday: please you all know i am so scared of concrete dates

Age: 26

Pronouns: she/her

Sexuality: bi

Hair color: brown

Eye color: dark brown

Height: 5′10 (178 cm)

Piercings: just one in each ear

Tattoos: something retro sci-fi on her shoulder. not a reference to anything specific, but like a little planetary landscape with a UFO in the background or something.

Clothing Style: casual. lots of tank tops and muscle tees (weather- and occasion-permitting), concert t-shirts, warm colors. flannels and leather jackets. jeans, sneakers, combat boots. think like rocker chick vibes, but cozier and more colorful.

Apartment Style: basic. she really did not plan on living there long and kept putting off decorating because it’d be a waste if she was just going to move out. this rationalization went on so long but since the end of book 1 she has slowly bought a few things to push it towards “cozy,” still pretty sparse though.

STATS

Personality:

Charming | Intimidating

Impulsive | Cautious

Sarcastic | Genuine

Friendly | Stoic

Easygoing | Stubborn

Traits:

Heart | Mind

Optimist | Pessimist

Team Player | Independent

Skills:

Main Skill: science/technology (but mostly science)

Second Skill: combat/physical

By the Book | Bend the Rules

KEY DECISIONS

Reason for joining the Wayhaven PD: best use of her science skills

Murphy bite:  Wrist | Neck | None

Murphy’s Fate: Captured | Escaped

Rescued: Love Interest | Sanja

ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP

Love Interest: adam

Why them?: for veronica it’s kind of retroactive. the way i imagine their True Canon, they don’t have any real romantic moments in book 1, so she doesn’t seriously consider that adam might have feelings for her until well into book 2. (the training scene is when she’s like “oh. ok. i get it now.”) even then it takes a few more chapters for her to really process that, figure out how she feels, and recontextualize everything. like realizing that he loves her and then thinking back on their relationship, knowing that, makes her feel so held (sorry i have no better way to say it) in a way that just makes her want to cry.

to give some actual specific reasons, it’s his dedication and his constancy and hidden care/softness. and his very specific brand of... selflessness might be just left of the word i’m looking for, but hopefully you get me.

Bold, shy, or mixed?: neither! in theory it’s closer to bold, but it’s more just earnest.

What were their first impressions of each other?: disastrous. on top of finding him condescending and unpleasant, there are also a few moments where veronica genuinely wonders whether he’s even a good person. or, like, cares about people. but once she learns the truth of things, a lot of her initial anger gets transferred to rebecca.

adam, with the benefit of knowing what’s actually happening, has a slightly more favorable impression of veronica. yes he thinks she’s difficult and reckless and too emotionally driven, yes she’s making his job absolutely miserable, but he does begrudgingly respect that her accusations are always on the right track and she’s good at her job.

What do they find attractive about each other, mentally or physically?:

for veronica: she loooves his sense of humor. and how much faith he has in the people he cares about. physically, dimples <3. but everything about his smile really. and his nose!

for adam: veronica has a very blunt, unadorned sense of kindness to her that he really loves. the way she is kind before she is nice and values directness. physically, her eyes, they’re deep brown and so expressive.

What do they do to spend time together?: they’re both competitive so anything where they can compete on the same team is fun. (competing against each other is fun too, but also like. exhausting. for them and everyone.) maybe puzzles or other things where it feels like they’re “winning” or solving something together. i have spent an embarrassing amount of thought on veronica and overw*tch esp*rts and she would absolutely make adam learn how to play main tank so they could queue as a tank duo. but most of the time i think they don’t Do specific things together; they just hang out. just talk with each other. perhaps snuggle.

What is their favorite memory together?: in current canon... lol. veronica really just treasures any time adam relaxes around her but those moments always get Ruined. even once they’re well into a relationship, i think veronica’s favorite memory would still be something small like a random time he said something funny and they both laughed together and they were outside and the sky was pretty.

What are their love languages?: acts of service for both of them, but especially adam. veronica... probably lots of words of affirmation and physical touch. they’re both bad at blocking out time for themselves in the first place, so quality time can get neglected especially at first.

How do they handle being apart from one another?: pretty well i think! once they’re in an established relationship at least, before that it’s probably harder. but adam can distract himself with work, and veronica is good at focusing on whatever’s in front of her (whether that’s work or she’s away on vacation or something). if neither of them is too busy, veronica calls every night and they stay on a while, half talking and half just keeping each other company.

Do they argue? How do they handle arguments and disagreements? How do they make up?: i think arguments are fairly rare! yes they’re both insanely stubborn, but they also understand each other pretty well (especially once in a relationship) and are very sympathetic to where the other is coming from. unless both of them are extremely stressed, one of them crumbles when they start genuinely arguing like "i don't want to fight ok, let's take a second."

What does their future look like?: who knows! i haven’t decided whether veronica will turn. i think she probably will, just because i do not want my main pairing for this IF to make me very sad all the time, but like. i’m not fully committing until i see a reason pop up in canon. as of book 3′s final demo, it’s not on her radar at all; she knows she loves adam and wishes they could Talk, but ultimately doesn’t expect or even want a relationship right now (because she doesn’t want to deal with dating one of rebecca’s agents OR with the logistics of being in a committed relationship with an immortal being). it’s just all so foreign to her current state of mind that it’s really hard to say!

Anything else you'd like to share: do you know how hard it was to answer some of these considering veronica wasn’t sure they were even, like, on decent terms for such a large portion of the canon content

BEST FRIEND RELATIONSHIP

Best friend: morgan and farah are essentially joint besties but i’ll go with M

Why them?: i think they appreciate each other’s no bullshit attitude. morgan likes that veronica doesn’t take herself too seriously and respects/relates to the way she tackles problems (quickly, head-on, and without complaint but also without pretending that it doesn’t suck?). veronica appreciates morgan’s bluntness, likes bantering with her, and in general just likes being around people that have quiet/steady presences.

What were their first impressions of each other?: neither of them had much of a first impression honestly. morgan barely thought of veronica at all beyond “she’s annoying,” and kept to herself so much that any dislike veronica had of morgan took a backseat to her dealing with the rest of unit bravo.

What do they do to spend time together?: lots of just sitting in the same room and listening to (low volume) music, veronica spends a lot of time hunting for songs morgan might like. morgan is also her go-to sparring/training buddy. and there are semi-frequent movie nights where veronica shows farah her favorite old shitty B movies, and sometimes morgan will tag along just to sit in the room with them or affectionately talk shit.

Anything else you'd like to share: i’ll talk a little about N! obviously veronica and nate respect, trust, and like each other, but she finds him the hardest of UB to connect with. they’re both people who wear their compassion on their sleeves but keep a lot of their hearts/themselves held back, so they just kind of circle each other, especially since like... nate values politeness and is very sweet in how he relates to people, while veronica values directness and is more jokey/lighthearted to put people at ease. idk how well i’m communicating this; as of the book 3 demo it’s getting easier, but their friendship is still newer/more... nebulous? than the others.

OTHER RELATIONSHIPS (Feel free to go in depth!)

Relationship with Rebecca: so strained. veronica has come to terms with rebecca’s absences throughout her childhood, but there’s newer resentment over... a lot of things, but how she handled the murphy case especially. veronica hates being kept in the dark, and even more than that she hates being rebecca’s priority. it’s difficult to reconcile her childhood and present images of rebecca, and she’s angry that rebecca is so freely and recklessly choosing her, now, to the point of endangering others if she has to, especially when she never felt like rebecca’s choice before. and incredibly frustrated/confused by how often the lines between their professional and familial relationships are blurred and what rebecca actually wants from her.

Relationship with Rook: veronica takes after rook a lot. in stat terms, the only trait they don’t share is stoic, and even then that’s veronica’s least extreme stat. people always told her how like her father she was growing up, and it’s a comparison she took/takes a lot of pride in! she looks up to him based on the stories, but more recently is uncomfortable with the comparisons. veronica would never have even come back to wayhaven if her life panned out as planned, let alone become a detective or joined the agency. that makes her doubt herself, and she feels like that doubt is letting rook down somehow.

rook is also part of the reason her relationship with rebecca isn’t as bad as it could be. she knows that rook loved her, and that he would want his family to be there for each other, so she feels obligated to at least try to make things better. but it’s really hard for her to move past everything to connect with rebecca (which also makes her feel like she’s disappointing rook).

Relationship with Bobby: they were together for a long time and veronica thought she loved him a lot! it was her first relationship, so she wasn’t sure a) what a “bad partner” looked like, or b) how to even be in a relationship or rely on someone in that way. so they spent a lot of time together and had great superficial chemistry, but veronica didn’t have enough experience with not feeling neglected to realize how shallow it was, or notice the red flags when she did occasionally open up. the plagiarism fiasco was a slap in the face, especially because it cost her internships/grad school apps/whatever, i don’t have the details, and forced her to move back to wayhaven after school. she’s still very hurt by it and finds it hard to be around bobby.

Relationship with Verda: due to the above plagiarism fiasco, veronica was pretty depressed when she moved back home, and disliking her job didn’t help. she was extremely jealous when verda was hired and wanted to hate him. but it did not take long for that to crumble into respect/admiration, and eventually into close friendship! verda is a role model for her; they bond over science; they joke easily and have good chill fun. she was really excited to see him piecing together the truth about the supernatural and then devastated to see how he reacted. she feels insanely guilty and thinks it was selfish of her to let him figure it out, but is also cautiously optimistic about making it up to him as of the book 3 demo.

Relationship with Tina: very close! veronica isolated herself when she came back to wayhaven after school, and she is so grateful to tina for being her closest friend and link to the rest of the world during that time. hates keeping the supernatural from her, though. she didn’t like lying to tina to begin with, but she feels even worse about it now that verda knows, and now that tina has clearly picked up on something being wrong but she still can’t say anything.

Relationship with the Mayor: cannot stand him. hates the way he talks about rook, hates the way he talks to rebecca. she cooperates as necessary but doesn’t bother hiding her lack of patience/respect for him.

Relationship with Capt. Sung: basically fine. i think veronica might be a little too casual for him in the way she works, but she always gets the job done so he’s not too bothered by it. (she is ‘bend the rules,’ but more ‘strict rules aren’t important as long as you’re still doing good work’ than the ‘boooo fuck paperwork’ variety. so it’s mostly fine.) she also appreciates him as a minor link to rook.

Relationship with Haley: very friendly, but not super close. they get along great and could make pleasant conversation for hours, but ultimately don’t know each other super well despite the familiarity of growing up together.

Relationship with Elidor: such a comforting presence for veronica during her recovery! she is so grateful, so fond.

Relationship with Tapeesa/Vieno: veronica loves vieno’s cranky-yet-friendly vibe and they get along well! not close, but will stop to chat whenever they pass each other.

Relationship with Unit Alpha: loves their energy. always looks forward to the next opportunity to chat with them, and fully supports any harmless dunking on UB even if she rarely joins in.

Relationship with the Maa-alused: going through the house of mirrors and then coming home for them to appear in her apartment and infect bobby was one of thee worst experiences of her life, and it’s hard for her to get past that + the illness in general. sympathizes with them, and got them to sign the treaty, but is still kind of unsettled by everything that happened and by falk.

Do they have any other important relationships, past or present? (Relatives, friends, etc.?): some vague figures i have in mind but no one i’ve really developed. a couple friends from college, and maybe an elderly couple that lives on her childhood street and used to check in her.

PERSONAL BIO

Describe their personality: her usual demeanor is very warm and casual. sincere but private--she’s pretty blunt and likes to be direct with people, but steers conversations away from personal topics. likes to joke around and doesn’t take herself that seriously. but behind all this, she’s extremely stubborn and won’t shy away from conflict if she thinks you’re in the wrong (which is why she seems like a different person in the first half of book 1. UB is surprised by how like... chill and nice she is once they clear the air). a workaholic, self-reliant and secure but still pretty hard on herself, takes a lot of responsibility for the people around her.

Strengths: so dedicated. honest and trustworthy, has a strong moral compass and can always be counted on to do her absolute best. flexible and intuitive, her brain works really fast.

Weaknesses: cannot compartmentalize or separate herself from a case, throws herself so recklessly into everything (in terms of both physical danger and emotional burnout). doesn’t necessarily hold grudges but has a hard time letting go of hurt, still can’t think objectively about bobby or rebecca.

Where in the world is their Wayhaven?: somewhere on the US east coast idk what to tell you. perhaps a carolina or a virginia.

What is their personal history?: veronica was pretty social and well-liked around wayhaven growing up. she was known as just a really good kid; she was an overachiever and got along with almost anyone. in college, she felt like she was free of something and took a very work hard/play hard approach to life. always doing or going, whether it was for school or work or fun. she really enjoyed life during this time but crashed and burned pretty hard when she and bobby broke up; a lot of her plans were delayed until the plagiarism incident was resolved and she didn’t really have the heart to pursue them afterwards.

a year or so after graduating, she returned to wayhaven with the intention of taking one more year to regroup, and she has been stuck there longer than she meant to be and has kind of hit a wall when book 1 starts.

If they weren't a detective, what would their dream job be?: she was on track to become a biochemist and it was her dream job but then the main plot happened to her.

Anything else you'd like to share: i don’t really know enough to fully explain this, but no OC i love is a cop so like. i think maybe the job she took when she got back to wayhaven was a douglas-esque receptionist role for detective reele’s private office. then reele retired and small town politics + veronica’s history of useful contributions to cases in her downtime at work led to her being pressured to take up the mantle. it’s hard to explain why she’s a detective when she so deeply does not want to be one but i am Trying (or maybe she would have jumped at the chance to do something marginally closer to forensics?? who knows)

RANDOM FACTS

Zodiac sign: aries is what i assigned her when i first made her and i think it suits her! plus it’d be fun for her and M to be twins. this goes hand-in-hand with my birthday commitment issues though

Hobbies: music (she plays guitar and bass and sings a little), running, gaming unfortunately. i could also see her having been into boxing or some martial art but idk what exactly!

Likes: early morning stillness, DIY projects, t-shirts with inexplicable slogans and other weird thrift store finds

Dislikes: overly sweet food or drink, when cold weather lasts too long, being lied to or “protected” from the truth

Drink of choice: something with gin maybe. also feels a great fondness and gratitude for cheap wine.

Starbucks order: i truly know nothing about coffee. is it weird to order black coffee at starbucks

Favorite food: variations on spicy chicken soup! she eats a lot of crockpot meals for convenience and they’ve grown on her, and she has a few different recipes based on whatever she has on hand.

Favorite color: maybe like a rusty orange

Favorite music: she will listen to anything, but her favorite is probably folk rock, or sometimes stuff with soul or old school country vibes. big thief is a good example of an artist she’d be into i think! also was very into the indie music scene in her college town and still follows some of those bands.

Favorite genre (and favorite movie/book/etc): loves old, campy, unselfconsciously optimistic sci-fi. loves star trek tos. also a fan of documentaries of all kinds.

Favorite season: summer

Anything else you'd like to share: a kiss for you reading this mwah

#oc: veronica langford #i wrote most of this in my post-vaccine delirium and did not edit it so. apologies if that is obvious #anyway if you read all/any of this thank u!!! i would love to write more for veronica and w/ayhaven but my sole writing brain cell has- #-always been allergic to t/wc for some reason. One Day. love her so dearly tho #once again macrodosing on shame by posting a filled out oc questionnaire. thank u everyone for witnessing

[goldeneyedgirl]

jaliceweek20 day 1: human/vampire

Title: Against A Wall (Part 1)

Prompt 1: Human/Vampire

Word Count: 3,851

Note: I’m going into hospital tomorrow, and I’ve run out of time to get this finished (so, so close but I need sleep). So I cut it in half in the most logical place. 

As long as the JaliceWeek Mods don’t have an issue, I’ll finish off Part 2 and upload the whole fic to the AO3 collection around Tuesday when I’m feeling human and have a decent Wifi connection.

Fifteen.

He crouches behind Dewey’s Bar, spitting blood onto the pavement, and trying to pretend that whatever is seeping into his jeans is just water, and not runoff from the reeking dumpster beside him.

It’s Tuesday night, and Tuesdays are always the worst. Tuesdays are his mom’s night shifts at the VA hospital. Tuesdays are pay-day. Tuesdays are the only day his father doesn’t pull his punches.

His left cheek and eye are swollen and split, like overripe fruit. He can’t see real well, and the taste of aluminium foil in the back of his mouth makes him suspect another fracture around his eye.  

But was it really a Tuesday night if cerebral fluid wasn’t leaking into his mouth?

He feels bad that his mother is going to walk in at five the next morning, exhausted, to find… well, to find Hettie and Flo asleep in Ava’s bed, as Ava studies and worries. To find Jasper’s bed empty, and Lydia’s too. To find the study door locked, no matter how long she knocks.

In fact, the only thing that Louise Whitlock won’t find when she gets home from work is the god-damned strength of will to leave her fucking husband.

Last time he said that to her face, she started to cry, and that made things worse.

It’s still early, which sucks. There are hours to go until it is safe to move, to drag himself to school, to shower in the locker rooms and get some food out of the vending machine and savour the fact that another Tuesday is behind him. Sheldon isn’t big enough for the other students and the teachers not to notice the bruises on his face, but it is small enough that everyone knows Jeremiah Whitlock, and no one is going to say anything to get him in trouble.  

He could go find Lydia, hide in the tree-house, tell someone who wasn’t family or a local. But he always ends up behind Dewey’s. When he was a kid, it hadn’t just been a bar; it had been been Dewey’s Bar and Grill, and his grandfather used to take him there for fried chicken and ice cream. Dewey had been his Grandpa Jed’s best friend, but even in those halcyon days it hadn’t exactly been family-friendly.

It had become a dive bar sometime around the time Jasper finished middle-school, but it didn’t matter - by then, Dewey and Grandpa were dead, and he was too busy trying to protect himself and his sisters to eat ice cream.

He spits blood again, and rests back against the brickwork. Nothing for it; Tuesdays were always hell.

—

He tries to sleep, amongst the noise of passersby, and remain unnoticed - Jasper’s learnt the hard way that his uncles still frequent Dewey’s, and they will march him straight back home for round two, no matter what he says. Even when he came up with the strength to tell them, about Lydia and Jerry and Tuesday nights, his uncles just tell him to shut up, man up, and maybe Jerry wouldn’t have to whoop his ass.

He thinks of Lydia and hopes she’s somewhere warm and clean tonight. Lydia’s smart enough to stay away on Tuesday nights. Home is never Lydia’s first port of call any night of the week, but never, ever on Tuesdays.

He remembers the last Tuesday night she was home, two summers ago, when Lydia stormed upstairs, a twelve-year-old hurricane with fire in her eyes, and called their father a coward for beating the shit out of Jasper.

Jeremiah Whitlock hadn’t liked being called a coward. Not at all.

Now she is transient, a ghost sister who vanishes at day break; one who bunks down on couches and in treehouses before coming back to her own bed. Their mom and Ava worry about where Lydia gets her money, cigar-sized rolls of dollar bills that she keeps in a tampon box, but he knows.

He knows that his sharp and pointy little sister never let anything stop her, least of all hard work, and that a lot of people in town know that Jerry Whitlock has a lot of anger and a lot of disappointment that he tries to drown in cheap beer and cheaper whiskey. It just makes him angrier. If the only thing they can do is give Lydia Whitlock some work, well, that kid’ll cut the grass, paint the garage, and walk the dog for a few bucks and a drink from a spigot.

It’s easy to say that Lydia is the best of them, making it clear that she doesn’t need their shitty father or their tired mother, but they are all strong in different ways. Ava, who smiles and simpers at their father, waiting for that day when she can buckle Hettie and Flo into her car and take them with her to college in Houston with a middle finger raised in the air. Flo stays quiet, stays alert, darting and hiding when the moment comes, but whose slight of hand belongs to a survivalist magician. And sweet little Hettie, who never lived on the ranch and knew their parents when they were happy, is sunshine and laughter and innocence. The one that reminds them why they stick together.

He’s the boy, so his role is obvious and unquestioned: he takes the punches and slaps and kicks that were meant for their mom, for Lydia, for Flo. He mutters things under his breath so that Jerry doesn’t hear what his sisters are saying, forgets that Hettie is sniffling or that Lydia hasn’t been home in ten days or that their mother has burnt dinner.

He knows his place.

—-

If you asked anyone with the surname ‘Whitlock’, they’d tell you that the family was cursed.

Had been since the Civil War; the youngest son had run off and joined up. Tried to desert two months in, crying for his momma, and ran afoul of someone - or something. He was dead a month later, but no one was exactly sure if he’d been executed for desertion, or if he’d just got in the way of a Yankee bullet. Either way, his last letter was rambling and terrified of something he never named, and his cowardice was rewarded with his bloodline’s constant suffering.

Within the Whitlock family lore, the curse was held accountable for numerous failings - from great-great grandmother Edith running off with one of the Wilkerson boys, to little Brian dropping dead as a doornail one summer day after seven years of perfect health. It was the Whitlock Curse to blame the day the bank took the ranch away from Jasper’s own father.      

It was the curse that had four and a half strapping brothers (Uncle Wyatt only counted as half since he went to the war in the Middle East and got himself blown up before he was even old enough to drink, and left behind a high school sweetheart with a bouncing baby girl they all called ‘Puddin’) father fifteen girls, and only one lousy boy.

Make no mistake about it, Jasper was a lousy heir to the Whitlock name. All three of his uncles reminded him of this every holiday season. Whitlock men were supposed to live and breathe the ranch, were supposed to be football players and champions. They were meant to knock up the head cheerleader and serve eight years in the army, like their brothers, fathers, uncles, and grandfathers before them.

Not snivelling little momma’s boys, who cried themselves to sleep when Sirius Black died, and could charm the birds from the trees. Not boys who helped their sisters catch rabbits, and keep them as secret pets, or name the house cat Socrates. Not boys who sat up all night when their horse had colic, and sit in the stable with her, begging and praying for her to be okay.

He tried, goddamnit. So hard. He was the best shot in the family (something that Uncle Bo had nearly hit him over, that one Thanksgiving. But everyone knew that Bo had the worst temper in the family.) Before things went to shit, he’d been a good student. He’d been able to convince the animals on the ranch to do anything. He was popular, without having any particular friends or putting much effort into it. He took care of his sisters.

But none of it was ever good enough.

Nothing ever was.

—

It’s Roy Lester that chases him off, before six the next morning. Roy runs the grocer next to Dewey’s, and went to school with his father and uncles - still had beers with them ever so often. The way he threatened Jasper and chased him off home whenever he caught him in the alley made Jasper think that they talked about him, and none of it flattering.

So he has to slink home because he stinks and he’s starving. The security at school won’t let anyone in before seven; he’s tried before; it’s not like he has much choice.

In a town like Sheldon, everyone knew everyone. You started kindergarten with maybe twenty other five year olds - most you probably already knew - and spent the next thirteen years with those same kids. You watched Maude Montgomery transform from the aesthetic-equivalent of Danny Devito to Jennifer Lawrence in a single summer, thanks to a late brush with puberty; you were right there when Casey Atkinson was put in a wheelchair and spent seventh grade learning to walk again. You knew that Ariel Turner was diabetic, Marley Harris was asthmatic, and you’d seen thirteen years of peanut-free lunches and birthday parties because Joey Thompson was highly allergic.

The joy of small towns.

Everyone knew that Jerry Whitlock hit his kids and his wife, but no one talked about it - not to their faces, at least. The adults tended to march Jasper home, to face his father’s wrath. The kids tended to get uncomfortable, and look through him. The few people who tried to reach out were from out of town, and were usually passing through - the odd teacher, a new neighbour, a concerned face on the bus.

Better to go home until school opened up.

Louise is in the kitchen, her face pinched and pale, clutching a cup of coffee. She looks hopeful when he walks in, but seems to crumple in on herself when she sees his bloody, swollen face. She looks old as she puts down her mug, and moves to pull him into a hug. He pretends not to notice her shuddering, as she cries onto his shoulder, before pulling away.

“I’ll make breakfast,” she manages, sniffling. “Okay? You must be hungry.”

He grunts and nods, as he heads upstairs. As if scrambled eggs and burnt toast can fix another Tuesday night.

But Wednesdays are good - the longest possible time until another Tuesday night.

He just has to keep telling himself that.

—

Seventeen.

Another Tuesday behind Dewey’s, but this time he’s puking up the few mouthfuls of food he managed before his father hauled him out the back - only because it was his mom’s week off and they were having a big family dinner. Louise resented those mid-week dinners; after a long day at work, having to make dinner for twenty-three people, and somehow find enough plates and chairs was the last thing she wanted to do. It was the only time Lydia would cross their father’s sight line, skinny and defiant.

If it had been a normal dinner, Jerry wouldn’t have dragged him out of the house. He would have beat him in the kitchen, yelling over Hettie’s sobs and Flo’s screams, and Louise’s pleading. He’s had a serving platter smashed over his head before, as well as a beer bottle, and a ceramic pitcher - one that had been made by Grandma Lillian, and Louise had sobbed over those broken shards.

His head is spinning, and he can’t remember exactly what he said to incite his father’s rage, though he remembers Uncle Bo’s jeers when he tried to stand up. The previous week’s wounds have reopened, and are bleeding onto his last decent t shirt. There’s vomit and alley-juice all over his jeans, and he wonders if he should drag himself to the hospital because his world is still spinning.

He wonders what will happen if he dies tonight; if Roy Lester finds him here in the morning, cold and dead. Most of the cops in town are from old families, and they’ve taken Lydia and Jasper back home enough times to know what goes on. It’s easier to picture the cover-up, that they’ll blame him and a make-believe schoolyard fight. Just a tragic accident.

Maybe then someone will help Lydia, help all of his sisters. Maybe it’ll be the thing that makes his mom leave.

He falls asleep facedown in the alley, and wants to cry when he wakes up the next morning to the bellow of school kids heading to the bus stop.

He was so goddamned close to it all being over.

So close.

—

“Do you need some help?”

It’s another Tuesday night, one that has come with busted ribs and possibly a dislocated shoulder. He missed lunch because of an English project, and his father had been drinking early, so he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. It’s making him feel sick, and wondering if anyone will notice if he sneaks in the back door of Dewey’s and grab some food.

And then someone is there and talking to him.

Her voice is high and sweet, and he expects a high school girl, maybe a sorority sister.

She is neither.

She’s only as tall as Flo, with uneven black hair curling around her cheeks. She’s one of the prettiest girls he has ever seen, with huge amber-coloured eyes that remind him of Hettie’s dolls and Lydia’s manga. She’s wearing a ragged button-up over a ruffled mini-skirt and leggings, with boots that look a size too big, a heavy man’s watch that hangs from her tiny wrist, and an ancient looking cadet’s cap - the entire effect makes him think of Oliver Twist as a female circus performer.

She walks over to him, and crouches in front of him, her head cocked to the side like a bird’s. He can only stare; other than the dark smudges under her eyes that speak of many sleepless nights, she is beautiful.

“Are you okay?” she asks, looking worried.

“Yeah,” he croaks, and winches as he jars his ribs. He doubles over, and cries out. She reaches out towards him but backs off just as suddenly.

“You’re hurt,” she says, looking bewildered and frightened. “Where?”

“I-It’s okay,” he manages, trying to reclaim his dignity in front of the prettiest girl. “I’ll be fine.”

The girl huffs. “Ugh, boys,” she mutters. “Hold on a second.” She gets up and slips out of the alley before he can beg her not to get help. In reality, going to the hospital is the last thing he should do - they can’t afford the bill, and  they’ll call home and… no. Just no.

His head is spinning, so he finds it hard to tell how much time has passed, but eventually she returns. She’s clutching two bags, and marches right up to him and crouches back down.

“This will help,” she says, holding out painkillers and a bottle of water. He fumbles with the lids of both, but eventually swallows the pillows down. She watches him carefully. “Don’t drink too fast,” she advises. “Now, I can put your shoulder back in now, or we can wait. It’s up to you.”

He blinks at her slowly. “Now,” he decides.

“Okay,” she looks nervous, but moves forward. It’s all blurry in his mind, but there is something cold, then hot, angry pain, and then he’s blinking up at her again. “Sorry. But trust me, the worst is over now. At least I didn’t break it worse. Hungry?”

He blinks as she reaches for the other bag - a bag of Skittles, a packaged sandwich, two oranges, and a bag of potato chips. He’s not sure if he has a concussion or it’s an odd selection, but he’s also hungry enough that he doesn’t care.

“I nearly had to call Bella, to ask what to get - Edward never let me buy her food after the chicken incident - which was entirely Emmett’s fault - but I think I figured it out okay,” the girl jabbers, taking a seat beside him, and smiles at him. “Better no one knows where I am, anyway.”

“I… thanks,” he croaked, as he reached for the sandwich. She beams at him again, and then frowns.

“Eat, then we’ll finish patching you up. I’ve come too far to watch you die in this disgusting place,” she stretches her legs out in front of her.

The sandwich is dry, but he wolfs it down - an orange too, before he takes a breath - that hurts - and takes another look at the tiny girl beside him.

“Who are you?” he finally asks, and she looks up from her watch.

“Oh! I’m Alice,” she says. “Sorry, I forgot you didn’t know. Do you want your ribs taped now, or are you going to open those?” She points to the Skittles.

“Um, I…” he looks at the bag of candy. “Do you want some?” This feels like a fever dream; maybe he’s passed out and this is just what his banged-up brain has provided him with.

“No,” she shakes her head, and the cadet’s cap tilts a little on her head. “I can’t. They just looked nice. Happy.”

“Happy,” he echoes, looking at the red package.

“I hear that sometimes little things can help,” Alice says. “Come on, cowboy, take that shirt off and let me see those ribs.”

His side is mottled black and blue and purple, and moving in basically any direction is a new adventure in pain. Alice gasps at the sight, and then coos at him in a way that is oddly comforting as her fingers trace his ribs - the coldness of her fingers is actually wonderful against the pain. Then comes the painful stage - as she, not entirely gently enough, begins layering tape over the pain, his head is spinning.

“All done,” Alice says, and her voice is soft, and when he slumps against her shoulder, she doesn’t move away. She smells like old fashioned things, like roses and linen. It reminds him of the old family homestead. He finds his eyes closing, and his side aches in time with his heart, and then Alice’s gentle fingers are running through his hair.

“Sleep, Jasper,” she murmurs, “I’ll keep watch.”

He’s asleep before he realises he never told her his name.

—

She’s gone when he wakes up, and the Skittles are in his pocket - along with the painkillers. Happy.

It’s Wednesday morning, and it’s not exactly ‘happy’ he’s feeling, but he’s got candy in his pocket and time to go home for a shower and more food, so Alice was right - the little things do help.

—

She never turns up two Tuesdays in a row, but he does see her again. She’s always more prepared than the first time, with a bag that always seems to contain exactly what they need - in his less lucid states, he is reminded of Mary Poppins’ magic carpet bag as she produces snacks and first aid kits, and even clothing.

Her attempts at first aid are, at best, rough and she accidentally breaks two of his fingers and nearly ends up in tears when he yells in pain, and hugs him so tight, weeping into his neck, that he ends up trying to comfort her.

Sometimes he sleeps. She’s so thin and tiny that her shoulder isn’t a good pillow, and he feels like a shit man, letting such a tiny girl keep watch behind a bar. It wouldn’t take much to break her, and he can’t defend anyone in this state.

But some Tuesdays, he falls asleep anyway, breathing in that scent of fresh roses and linen, and listening to her chatter away about people he doesn’t know, about places he’s never visited, about books he’s never read.

Alice sounds like she’s living a really nice life. One week, she quizzes him on his Spanish before his examine the next day, and her accent is flawless. When her phone buzzes and buzzes and buzzes, and she ignores it, she usually swears - he doesn’t know in what language, one of the Eastern Asian ones he thinks - but it’s definitely a swear.

He wishes he could see her, talk to her, out in the real world and prove to her that he’s not just a beat-up kid. But she’s always gone on Wednesday mornings, and he doesn’t even know how to contact her anyway.

All in all, he met Alice in the reeking alley behind Dewey’s with a concussion, broken ribs, and a dislocated shoulder, and now she’s the best friend he’s ever had in the world.

He’s getting closer to that ‘happy’ concept that she mentioned the first time they met.

—

The last time he sees her, he’s bleeding and he’s pretty sure his eye socket is fractured. He’s pissed with himself because he wasn’t fast enough, smart enough, to stop his father from going after Flo. So he’d thrown a punch at his old man  for the first time because Flo is his baby sister and all haunted eyes and he’ll never forget the sounds of her wailing after the belt struck her, but hitting the bastard back just fuelled him and … fuck.

Then Alice is there, in jeans with stars on the knees and a billowy purple top that is just opaque enough to obscure the skin underneath. She looks angry and frustrated, and doesn’t just sit next to him and open her bag like she usually does.

“It’s a stupid fucking decision you’re about to make,” she stamps her foot, “and I am so mad at you right now, but Carlisle and Edward have made me promise not to interfere. Carlisle says that everything I’m doing now is enough. And I’m already in enough trouble, honestly.”

He can taste foil again - definitely a fractured eye socket.

“What?” he manages, snappish and tired. He doesn’t need this. He wants sweet Alice, who helps him patch himself back together, and gets him food, and talks him to sleep. The one who makes him laugh, even when it hurts, and seems to be light-years ahead of him but that’s okay because she’s always so happy about whatever she’s telling him.

“I’m going to say this once,” she enunciates carefully, still glaring. “I will be here every Tuesday. Don’t make a dumb decision. There is always another choice.”

“You’re making less sense than normal,” he retorts. “Either help me, or go away - I’m not in the mood.”

“Happy freakin’ birthday,” she snaps, unbuckling her giant watch, and throws it at him before she storms back the way she came, leaving him behind.

#jaliceweek20 #alice cullen #jasper hale #jasper whitlock #vampire alice human jasper #my fic: against a wall #my writing: against a wall #alice is so unhelpfully helpful