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helliontherapscallion · 3 years

Text

Why Couldn’t it Have Been Me?

Part 2

Paring: Wilbur Soot x reader (past), Ghostbur x reader

Disclaimer: This contains major spoilers for Tommyinnit’s 4/29 lore stream

Warnings: swearing, violence, death, near death, cheating, 4/29 lore stream, grief, blood, injury, panic attack

Word count: 6,737

(A/N): So in this, you’re Schlatt’s twin and Puffy’s your older sister. Also, sorry for any mistakes, I typed a good 2/3 of this on my phone

This was your own personal hell: being trapped within cement walls with your ex fiance, your asshole of a brother, and a Dream wannabe that seemed to never lose any energy. Your life was like a trope in a novel alive you would’ve liked, however being cursed to live in it made you absolutely loathe any and all mention of it.

Alive you would’ve killed to hang out with your brother again, not the one that turned to the bottle. Alive you would’ve craved the sweet melodies that streamed from Wilbur’s mouth. You would’ve swooned and maybe, just maybe, you would’ve forgiven him. Alive you would’ve perhaps liked this ‘Mexican Dream’ guy, you would’ve perhaps become the best of friends.

However you despised the three locked up with you with your whole heart.

Your ex fiance was someone you adored. Hell, you even idolized him when you were alive. The Wilbur you knew was sweet, loving, attentive, and just all around someone that you swooned over. You could still remember how your heart exploded when he first asked you out under the setting sun by the ocean. You remembered every song he's written for you, every word and rhythm by heart, even after all these years.

You remembered how you felt your heart completely shatter when you found the songs he had in his drafts for someone that wasn't you. Someone by the name of 'Sally'. After a heated argument you had broken up with him, taking the engagement ring off from your finger and throwing it deep into the ocean. You stayed on L'Manberg's side even after all that, too loyal and proud towards the country you helped forge to drop it. You wouldn't let some stupid boy or rabid tyrants prevent you from raising your beautiful nation up from the ashes.

That had been your downfall. You should've listened to Puffy and left the country behind when you had the chance, now you paid the ultimate price for your deep rooted loyalty and devotion towards independence. And your sacrifice didn't even matter in the end! Your deranged ex blew it all to smithereens. If you didn't despise him before, you absolutely did after your dumbass twin told you about his little 'escapades' while you were gone.

Every little thing Wilbur did, no matter how small it was, made you hate him even more. Every time he would shuffle those damned cards, it made you want to rip them to shreds and throw them across the train tracks. Every time he would sing or even breathe, you wanted to strangle him. You were absolutely certain that Schlatt felt the same.

Oh, your twin was a real card. Always boasting about how his horns were bigger than yours (who even cares anymore? Yours grew in first anyways), telling the others about your shortcomings through crude jokes, even going as far as fighting you through headbutting; you could still feel the pain of being beaten to death before respawning immediately. Schlatt hadn’t known that you respawn even in the afterlife, so you knew he was serious about killing you. You just wanted Puffy, she was far more tolerable than your twin.

The rustling of his suit jacket and his small grunts and pants resonated within the walls as he did various forms of exercising. You now knew about all of the differing variations of a pushup and you hated yourself for listening to his explanations. He would beg you, Mexican Dream, and Wilbur to stand on his back while he did his endless routines. The only one to readily take him up on that offer was Mexican Dream.

That man was arguably the only one you slightly tolerated, and you said that very lightly. He was still annoying as all hell, but he was a new face. Well, one that you didn’t know well enough to have a grudge against while you were alive. It was slightly refreshing, in a sense. When he first got here, his songs, stories, and humor gave you a nice break away from Wilbur’s depressing songs and Schlatt’s crude jokes. However when you spend eleven years trapped in a cage with one person, everything they do becomes the bane of your existence.

You were running out of things that kept you sane in this dump. You've read the same novel, counted the same ceiling and floor tiles (32 ceiling tiles and 57 floor tiles exactly), traced the same cracks in the walls, temporarily killing the same cellmates, you've done anything and everything that this cesspool had to offer. You've done everything billions of times over, a never ending cycle of monotony.

Tommy joining your group of miserable has-beens was perhaps the highlight of your fifteen, almost sixteen, years spent in this shithole. Though he finally dropped the brave facade and showed just how broken down he was after everything he’s been through, having him around was the saving grace to your sanity. He told you how your sister was, how your nephews were, and most importantly what you missed. You knew about all of the events leading up to Mexican Dream's death, but you were left in the dark with everything past that. Ender, you missed so much since you died; It baffled you how much you missed.

When the train actually stopped at your cell instead of just passing by and it's doors opened, you were just expecting another poor soul to be dropped off here. You could imagine everybody's surprise when none other than Dream stepped out of those doors. The nephew that had betrayed you without a second thought, that had murdered you, that had your severed head displayed on his mantle (you weren't sure the truth of that last statement, Tommy has a habit of over exaggerating. Though, Schlatt did say that your body was found with a missing head when you first forced him to tell you what you missed). Tommy talked to you about how he died only once, so you knew just what your nephew has been up to. It infuriated you knowing that your adult nephew was manipulating and abusing this young teenager.

While you were releasing your pent up frustrations on the masked man, he merely brushed past you and drug Tommy into the train by the arm. You could remember Wilbur banging on the doors begging for Dream to return his little brother and his angered screams echoing down the railways as the train sped off back towards the land of the living.

Lucky Tommy, he got to live out the rest of his life and actually age. You and your crew of intolerable jesters were stuck together once again.

Everybody was silent for a few months, reeling at the newly discovered fact that Dream could actually resurrect people. During those three months, they were quiet and tolerable. In a way, the talks that came out of it was like one of those family therapy sessions your older sister would hold in the living room (you remembered how she would grab you and Schlatt by the horns if either one of you refused to go). You would kill to attend one of those therapy sessions again, and this is the closest you were going to get to it.

You all talked about the things you regretted most while you were alive. Mexican Dream's was that he didn't protect his girlfriend Mamacita well enough. Schlatt's was choosing alcohol and power over his family (tears were especially shed over Tubbo, he really did regret abandoning him to be raised by you). Yours was that you were too loyal to a cause that would be absolutely decimated a short while after you sacrificed everything for it. Surprisingly, Wilbur's was that he had hurt you.

He had begged and groveled for forgiveness, telling you that he just didn't feel that special connection with you anymore. That didn't take away from the fact that he was seeing another while you two were still dating and that he blew up your life's work. He had stolen everything from you, and you would never forgive him for that.

After you made your thoughts on him completely clear, he had started treating you like you treated him in the last few months. Tension was building up between you two that had laid dormant for thirteen and a half years like a rope pulled taut about to snap.

Everybody had slowly returned to their annoying selves slowly but surely. Schlatt resumed his workout routine, Mexican Dream had started loudly singing and ranting about Mamacita's everlasting beauty again, and Wilbur eventually started up his solitaire and songwriting once again.

The three of them made you want to rip off your twisting horns and shove them in your ears in hopes of muffling them, but you knew that whomever put you here would restore your hearing and make your horns regrow. You knew that first hand after you spent a couple of years alone in this hellhole; breaking your horns off by repeatedly banging your head against the dull stone walls in a manic state was never fun. The regeneration of the keratin only slightly stung, it was like you were a kid and they were growing in for the first time again.

You felt your eye twitch as Wilbur sang about that damned train for the umpteenth time since he arrived. It’s always ‘train this' and ‘train that' and quite frankly you were sick of it. You were sick of him.

“Shut the fuck up about that damned train,” Schlatt seethed. You never once thought you would ever agree with your twin, but here you were nodding in agreement and shooting a glare at Wilbur’s direction. The brunet merely stopped his singing and reshuffled his cards, the sound making an ugly cacophony and grating at your ears.

“Not my fault you two don’t want to talk to me. I’m just making due with what I’ve been given.” He dealt the cards out in piles and started yet another game of solitaire. Seriously, how many games of solitaire can one play before they lose it? You supposed that you’d find out soon, Wilbur has been playing that monotonous card game nonstop for thirteen and a half years.

“Yeah, let the hombre chill! I like his music.” The masked man reached up to stroke his goatee, the scratching sound further penetrating your focus on your book.

Everything was quiet before Mexican Dream's voice pierced it, "hey, did I ever tell you guys how beautiful my Mamacita was?"

"You told us millions of times, fuckface. You narrate entire love letters daily, so how could we not know how 'beautiful' she was?" You complained, not once looking up from your book. Schlatt snorted to himself and returned to his workout. Mexican Dream crossed his arms in anger, cursing you out under his breath. Wilbur merely glanced at you and rolled his eyes. "You know, I'm tired of your bitchy attitude. Let him talk about Mamacita, it's not his fault every time you think you love someone it fails."

Your grip on your book tightened impossibly. If it were physically possible, the book would be crumbling to dust in your voice grip. You practically see red as you slowly dog-eared the worn page you were on and put your book down.

"Oh shit," you heard Schlatt mumble and move away from you, Mexican Dream following suit. When you both were alive, your anger was always something you knew Schlatt feared. However, you knew that he's never seen you this angry; nobody has. The majority of what you've been holding in for almost fourteen years is about to be unleashed.

"You know what I'm sick of, Wilbur?"

"Oh, do enlighten us."

"I'm sick of each and every single one of you. You three have been absolutely intolerable ever since you arrived. I was doing just fine alone and the universe just had to fuck everything up for me, just like it always does."

"There you go again," Wilbur laughed sardonically, "making everything about yourself." He gathered his cards and shuffled them repeatedly.

"I make everything about myself?! Do you even hear yourself? Mr. Oh-I'm-such-a-disappointment-to-Philza, you wallow in self pity twenty-four seven! You fucking write every single song about yourself!”

"I didn't want to come here, okay?! I didn't think it was gonna be like this! God, I might as well be in hell with you here."

"Believe me, my hell started fourteen years ago when you guys started showing up," you growled out, your ears flattening to the sides of your skull.

"Have you ever stopped to think that you're our hell? All you've done since we came here was complain and be a massive douche to all of us." He fluttered through the deck more and more as the argument escalated, the noise making you want to scream until you tasted blood.

"I'm the one that's in the wrong here? You fucked up my entire life. He," you pointed at Schlatt, "keeps beating me to death. And he," you jutted your chin towards Mexican Dream, "never shuts the hell up… Would you stop with that damn deck?! You're literally so fucking annoying."

He narrowed his eyes, "make me."

A mixture of an animalistic growl and a guttural scream left your lips as you charged at him, your head tilted downwards so he could feel the brunt of your horns. He moved out of the way just in time, the side of your horn brushing against his arm. You crashed head first into the stone wall before you stabilized yourself and looked at the brunet with seething hatred.

He was staring at you in shock, "how're you-" You used his shock to your advantage, throwing a right hook at his face. His head whipped to the side and his body followed, sending him to the ground in a heap.

"How am I still conscious? I'm a ram hybrid, dumbass. What'd you expect?" You huffed angrily before you pried the cards out of his hand and stalked over to the tracks.

He scrambled up to stop you, but before he could even reach you, you held the deck over the tracks and looked down at him. You could just imagine how your horizontal pupils were blazing with fury.

You reveled in the betrayal and animosity gleaming in his eyes as you dangled the thing he held dearest in this hell over the railroads. If you were to drop them, he'd never be able to see them again.

"We promised not to touch belongings on our first day here!" He yelled at you, his hands wrung in front of him nervously hiding the slight tremor. "Our first day here?" You scoffed, "the last time I checked, I was here for two years before any of you showed up." You gestured around the room in one angry swipe, the cards slipping slightly with how sweaty your hands were. It was then that you saw the fear in Schlatt's eyes. Good, that bastard should be scared of you. "If anything, you all are in my domain."

Wilbur flinched at the sight of the cards slowly slipping out of your hand, his breath hitching and panic stricken across his features. Mexican Dream stood up from his place and put his hands up. He was slowly approaching you like you were a cornered wild animal, making sure that you saw his every move.

He nervously chuckled, "let's just put the cards down and have a nice talk. Doesn't that sound better than this, mi amigo?"

You shook the cards once again, taking in Wilbur's silent anguish with glee. "I'm not your friend, I'm anything but. Don't tell me what to fucking do or else that picture of Mamacita is the next to go."

"...Okay, you're in charge, man. Do what you want." He reluctantly sat back down next to Schlatt. The ram was watching in fear, yet it looked like he was entertained with what was happening. You couldn't blame him, the last interesting thing that happened was three full months ago when Tommy was taken. That and you probably looked feral at the moment.

"You understand that if you drop those, they're lost forever right?"

You threw your head back and laughed, "of course I know, why do you think I only have one sock? I already tried that shit out before you came." You hummed to yourself in thought, then grinned. Wilbur was going to love this.

While you shuffled the deck, you kept a close eye on the movement happening inside the cell. Another perk to being a ram hybrid was that you had a nearly 360 degree scope of everything around you. The only movement happening was the panicked breaths from Wilbur, good. You huffed in amusement, "alright Wilbur, let's do a card trick. I'd ask you to pick a card, any card, but I don't want to risk you fucking shit up again. So, I'm just going to draw for you." You drew a card from the middle of the deck and showed it to him. "The eight of clubs, how fitting."

"(Y/n), I don't know what you're getting at, but if you don't give me those cards right now-"

"Shut it, I'm not done. I'm going to shuffle this back into the deck, watch the hands." You kept eye contact with him as you shuffled the cards rigorously, the card you pulled long since hidden with the slight of a hand. After a bit of shuffling and reshuffling, you had sneakily put the card between the two halves and bridged them until the cards were in one pile with the eight of clubs on top.

You chuckled and pulled the top card, once again showing it to him. "Is this your card?"

He nodded slightly, never once taking his eyes off from the deck. "Yes, now give it back to me!" The angry and anxious undertones were like music to your ears.

You tapped your chin in thought, "hm, I don't think I will. You've taken so much from me, it's only fair that I get some revenge." Without another word, you threw the cards behind your head and smiled widely at the sound of the fluttering down to the tracks.

Wilbur launched himself forward with a frantic yell, his hands flailing to catch all of the cards before they were lost forever. He only succeeded in catching a few.

His breath shuddered as he stared at the three cards in his hand: the five of diamonds, the four of spades, and the seven of hearts. The fate of the universe was on your side for once, perhaps preternaturally so.

"You- do you realize what you just did?!" He spun around to face you. If humans could froth at the mouth, a full waterfall would be streaming through his gritted teeth. His eyes held the rage of a man that had just lost everything in one singular instant, the resentment swirling in his dark brown orbs. Several veins were bulging in his face and neck, painting the skin in a red hue.

You walked over to your book and plopped yourself down. "Yeah," you said with a nonchalant shrug of your shoulders. You opened up your book and started reading it again, leaving the man to his grief.

Everything was quiet once more much to your delight. Though you read this book from cover to cover thousands of times, enough to know most of the words by heart, you were never able to fully enjoy and immerse yourself in it with them around. You took this time to reclaim your designated corner and spend some quality time reading.

You spent hours with your nose buried deep in your book, savoring the peace. That was until it was snatched out of your hands and ripped away from you. You looked up in slight shock at the sight of Wilbur snapping it shut and walking over to the tracks.

No. No. Nononono he can’t. That was the only thing keeping you sane. He can't just get rid of it when he's done so much towards you when you were alive.

A wail left your mouth as you tackled him to the ground, your arms wrapped around his midsection. He crashed to the ground with a grunt, his forehead smacking against the painted yellow stone. You straddled his back and ripped the book away from him, throwing it across the room and away from the tracks.

You grabbed a fist full of his hair after yanking off his beanie and tossing it into oblivion with his precious cards. You pulled his head up and leaned close to his ear, "you try that shit again and your hat and cards won't be the only things lost to the void." Venom was seeping through your every word, "do you understand me?"

He merely jerked his head to the side, colliding it with your nose and mouth. You shouted in surprise and let him go in favor of holding your aching nose. You could feel the warmth of the blood pouring from it. Through teary eyes, you looked up at Wilbur as he grabbed your book and flung it against the wall of the opposite side of the tracks. You scampered to the edge and watched in horror as it disappeared into the void.

Without warning, you were forced to the ground, a hand holding you by a horn and a knee between your shoulder blades. You struggled before a dark chuckle was heard, "if you keep moving, you'll slip! Do you really want that?" You begrudgingly stopped, realizing that he had all the power in this situation. If he wanted to, he could just slide you off from the platform and toss you away like throwing a piece of paper into the trash.

"Good, you're not as stupid as you were earlier today." He slid you forward, holding your upper body over the tracks by the horn. You came face to face with the swirling abyss that was the void, small shapes appearing from your eyes adjusting to the sudden lack of visual stimulant. Your breathing picked up as he lowered you slightly, "you don't wanna do this."

"No, I do. Thirteen and a half years of having to be around you was hell, but the shit you pulled today just put the icing on the cake. Do you have any last words before you go?"

You grunted as he shook your head slightly, a slight pain coming from the base of your horn. "Fuck you."

"How appropriate, now let's see if you'll come back this time. It'll be our fun little science experiment!"

He dropped your horn without a care in the world, sending you plummeting to your demise. A terrified scream ripped it's way out of your throat and you screwed your eyes tightly shut in preparation for the void. Your body came to a jerking halt as you held your breath, preparing for… whatever awaited you. However, nothing came.

You cracked open an eye only to be met with the uncanny inkyness, the invisible mist freezing your face and its frostbitten arms opened wide for you. But you never fell into its embrace.

Instead, you were pulled back onto the platform. You laid on your stomach with your horn supporting your head staring at the wall, tracing every single nook and cranny of the bricks. Your chest heaved as you greedily gasped for air. You never thought you'd be so relieved to see the cement walls you've been trapped in for over a decade and a half.

You were once again pulled up into a now sitting position and leaned against the wall, your back touching the cool cement. Across from you, you saw Mexican Dream pinning a struggling Wilbur down to the floor. Wilbur's crazed eyes met you, piercing through your very being. However, that didn't affect you in the slightest; you almost were just wiped from existence completely, you stared into the abyss and it stared back at you.

You felt… strange, to say the least. While icy fear and adrenaline coursed through your veins, you felt warmth blossoming in you at the same time. It was like the void was an actual person, politely giving you some form of relief from the hell you've been subjected to for over a decade and a half. It was so welcoming, not terrifying like you initially thought it was. When your fingertips grazed its surface it felt freezing to the touch, yet you felt the staticky power it was showing you. In that split moment of touching it, you had already accepted the power it held over you.

A hand softly slapped your cheek, "c'mon, (y/n). Talk to me." Your eyes drifted lazily to your twin. He was extremely pale, his eyes frantically searching your face for any sign of responsiveness. When you looked at him, he visibly relaxed. "It was so… so beautiful, Schlatt."

"Yeah, what the actual fuck did you just say? You almost just- just died for good dumbass." He looked at you incredulously, you could just see the cogs in his brain working hard to process what the hell he was seeing.

You looked back at Wilbur, he had stopped struggling slightly and was instead looking at you with a hint of confusion shining through the crazed daze. Mexican Dream tilted his head, the mask skewing slightly to the side of his face. "Thank you, Wilbur. You've shown me that there's… there's more to this hellhole than suffering. There's beauty in the darkness." His struggling had come to a complete halt, now staring at you with the most confusion you've ever seen from him. You also saw a very small hint of fear from deep within his irises.

A calloused hand gripped your chin and forced you to look back at your twin. "What are you on," he hissed lowly, "the stuff that's comin outta your mouth right now is actually batshit insane. He almost just permanently murked you and you're fucking thanking him."

"I haven't felt this at ease in nearly two decades. I feel ethereal, Schlatt, and it's all thanks to him." You let your eyes drift over to Wilbur. Giving him a content smile, you nodded your thanks at him.

The next few days went by tensely for the others, eyeing your every move and keeping you away from the ledge. You had only peered over the ledge once since then, it was just so alluring to you. It was nothing, yet everything at the same time. Mexican Dream had pulled you back to the opposite end of the room by your horns. The part that disturbed the three men was that you said absolutely nothing about it. You didn't even struggle against it, you just laid limp and let it happen.

With each passing second you spent away from the void, the feeling of utter peace was rapidly draining from your body; instead being replaced by icy fear, paranoia, and the realization that you were almost completely swallowed whole by the void.

After coming back to your senses, you didn't allow anybody near you. Your instincts going haywire and screaming that they were going to hurt you if they came close. The last time Schlatt tried touching you, you damn near took his finger off. They didn't bother trying to approach you anymore, instead glancing at you from the corners of their eyes. Wilbur was perhaps the one you feared the most, you knew that if he didn't hesitate to toss you away the first time, he would surely do it a second time. He spent most of his time staring at you, you didn't know if he was zoned out or not.

Everybody was against you, you knew it. You just knew it. They were plotting to toss you back into the void. That thing- or was it an entity? Whatever it was held a power over you that you didn't know was possible. That trance that it put you in, the craving you felt, was something that was repeating like a broken record in your mind. You could still feel the void calling out to you, it was terrifying.

You spent most of the time huddled in your corner staring at the fingers that had grazed the textured nothingness. You could still feel the buzzing and popping of the power on your fingertips, that inky residue staining your skin wouldn't come off. No matter how hard you scrubbed, scratched, or scraped, it would not leave your body. It was freezing.

The oncoming train screeching to a gradual stop was perhaps the only thing you fully acknowledged outside of your safety bubble in days. You watched in shock as it stopped at the platform. The doors opened with a fwoosh, fog pouring out onto the smooth stone floors.

Out stepped Dream, the smile etched into his cracked mask sent chills to your core. Next to him was… was another Wilbur? How in the name of Ender was that even possible?

This Wilbur was different though. This one was desaturated. This one didn't have an insane glint in his eyes, this one had grief shimmering in the tears that steamed on his cheeks. This one was broken compared to the well established man against the wall. This one was defenseless.

Dream shoved him to the center of the room, the man falling to his hands and knees. Sobs escaped his mouth as steam left his skin and drifted along the sides of his face before dissolving into the air.

"Got a new plaything for you guys, this one isn't as… fun as Wilbur is though." Dream's head turned towards you before it tilted. "What happened there? Did our dear little (y/n) get too close to the void?"

"They are none of your concern, pandejo," Mexican Dream seethed at his counterpart from his position next to the train. "Why are you even here, man?"

"Oh, I'm just here to make a trade. I'm afraid that I'll have to give you guys Ghostbur here in exchange for Wilbur."

Wilbur stared at him with pure hope and glee springing up in his eye for the first time in over a decade. "Really?"

Dream chuckled, "yes, really. What, do you really think I'd lie to you?"

"I don't know, ya smiley freak. You've been known to fuck people over." Schlatt scoffed, his ear flicking in annoyance.

"I'm telling the truth this time. Wilbur, come with me."

Stars shone in his eyes as he reveled in the sight of the open train doors. He followed the masked man with a skip in his step, ecstatic giggles leaving his mouth as he boarded.

Anger flooded you as you purse your lips together and you darted towards the train. The doors were closing already, if you could just-

The door shut with a clank, blocking you from freedom. Your clenched fists banged against the window, glowering at the sight of Wilbur's happiness and Dream looking at you with a wave.

"You fucking bastard! Take me, he doesn't deserve it! He threw his goddamned life away, you're wasting your time with him!" Your angry shouts were ignored by the two however as the train once again started moving with a small hiss.

A frustrated scream left your mouth as you pummeled the iron with your fists as it moved. If only you could find a train car to jump onto-

Now. You leapt from the platform towards the junction between two of the train cars. However, your leap of faith was set to a halt midair by Schlatt holding your upper arms. You thrashed against him, desperate to get back to the land of the living, desperate to leave this godforsaken hell called the afterlife, but once again, you were torn away from what you were trying to achieve.

You fell limp as you watched the last train car pass the platform and disappear down the tracks and into the void. The next possible time it would show it’s face would be in a few months if you were lucky. You let him take you back to your corner, your feet limply being drug against the floor. After you were plopped back down, you stared at the clone of your ex. You were pretty sure Dream said that his name was ‘Ghostbur’. What a strange name, yet you supposed that it was fitting for Wilbur’s apparition.

“Are ya done with your little ‘moment’, (y/n)?” Schlatt was kneeling in front of you, his hands prepared to grab you if you made a run for it. Though his tone was annoyed, you could detect the very small worried undertone of his voice.

You nodded and watched as he took a seat next to you, also staring at the newcomer. This is the closest he’s sat next to you in years.

“...What do you think of the clone over there?” You hummed to yourself, “he looks pathetic, but I think that might be the only thing he and Wilbur share.”

Mexican Dream took a seat next to you, slinging an arm over your shoulders. Normally, you would’ve shrugged him off, but you were too emotionally drained to do so. “Si, he does look kinda weak. But I think our new hombre here has promise.”

“Promise for what?” Schlatt snorted. Mexican Dream hesitated, “...I don’t know. This is gonna be interesting, mis amigos.”

“The party’s just begun, boys. Buckle up, this is gonna be a wild fucking ride.” You mused to them, unsure of what the future would hold with the newcomer. Though after a couple of years, you were sure you were going to hate him; that is if he’s nothing like his clone. Ender help you if he’s anything like Wilbur.

As you stared at the broken man, you couldn’t help but wonder: why did he get to go back? As far as you were concerned, psychopaths like him do not deserve a second chance at life. If anything, it should be you boarding that train. It should be you getting a second chance. He was the one that so readily threw his life away while you had yours ripped away from you.

One continuous thought was circling in your mind: why couldn’t it have been me?

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

You wrung your hands together as you anxiously waited for Tommy, Ghostbur, and Friend outside of Pandora’s Vault. Ranboo and Tubbo sat next to you in the grass, giving you silent comfort with their presence. You were mainly worried for your boyfriend, his worst fear was Dream using the resurrection book on him. You had calmed him down from a panic attack prior to meeting up with the teenagers, begging him to let you go in his place. Of course, Ghostbur being the caring and brave soul he was, wove you off and ensured that he’d be okay.

When you saw someone emerging from the portal, you leapt to your feet and steadied your head on your shoulders before you examined the people emerging. Except you only saw a human and a sheep, no ghost.

Tommy looked pale and on the verge of tears as he led Friend towards you. Before he spoke, he used his sleeve to wipe at his tears.

“Hey, Tommy! How did it- where’s Ghostbur?” The enderman hybrid stretched his usually slouched back to peer at the portal, keen eyes searching for any sign of movement.

“I think he’s dead… He’s dead!”

Tubbo tilted his head and looked up at the blond in confusion, “well, yeah. He’s a ghost. Of course he’s dead.” Ranboo nodded in agreement, “yeah, he can’t die again. That just isn’t possible.”

You said nothing (not like you could in the first place, your head wasn’t connected to your body), looking into Tommy’s eyes inquisitively. They were chock full of panic, grief, and fear, staring down at the lead in his clenched hands.

“No, no you don’t understand, it’s not that he’s dead… it’s that Wilbur’s back.”

“Hold on, the Wilbur that blew up L’Manberg? That Wilbur?” Ranboo peered down at him incredulously. “Yes! C’mon, he- we gotta get to L’Manberg.”

He spun around and led Friend towards L’Manberg, walking quickly with a purpose. You, Ranboo, and Tubbo followed. You hugged your head close to your chest, your eyes peeking over your arms. It was always something you’ve done whenever you were scared or worried about something. You heard stories about Wilbur from your nephew, if the stories of his insanity terrified you, you’d hate to see the man in person.

“I was about to kill Dream, and- and Ghostbur died. Dream revived Wilbur… Fuck!” Tommy walked faster, L’Manberg far off in the distance. With one hand, you grabbed the blond’s attention and finger spelled, ‘are you serious? He’s actually gone?’

“Yes! How many times do I have to explain this?! Ghostbur isn’t with us anymore and Wilbur’s back. Wilbur’s back and we’re absolutely fucked.” He turned on his heel and resumed his beeline towards the crater in the wall. No, he couldn’t be gone. This was just a cruel prank they were pulling on you, right?

Tubbo put a comforting hand on your shoulder, giving you a small sympathetic smile. You leaned into his touch slightly and carried on, stepping into the makeshift staircase behind Tommy.

You moved your arms to cover your eyes as you stepped aside to make room for the other two teenagers. You heard a voice; it sounded exactly like Ghostbur’s voice, yet it sounded... off. You however remained hopeful and uncovered your eyes.

The man that stood there certainly wasn’t your boyfriend. Everything about him was just so wrong. The emotion in his eyes, his clothing, his smile, his stance, his hair, everything. This was a completely different person. This was Wilbur Soot.

“Hello again.” His eyes flicked around your group, his gaze lingering on you for longer than the rest. You noticed that he was staring at your neck, but that was okay. You were used to it; everybody did that. What you weren’t used to was the revulsion that flashed in his eyes. The eyes that once lovingly stared at you and reassured you that he’d love you even with your… condition were now filled with disgust.

That was what broke you, the tears that you tried to hold in came streaming out like a waterfall. Stinging pain hit you as the water worked its way through the cloth of your uniform onto your arms, leaving steam floating upwards towards the cave ceiling. You phased through Ranboo’s body and made a mad dash towards your sister’s house. You needed her, you could feel a panic attack brewing inside you. Usually you would hate to be a bother to your older sister and Ghostbur would always calm you down, but now he’s…

You pushed that thought aside and focused completely on getting to Puffy’s house in the distance. You phased through the door without a thought to knock, frantically beginning your search for Puffy.

You looked everywhere, but you couldn’t find her. Unable to cope any longer, you fell to your knees in the middle of the living room and hugged your head to your chest, your face being pushed against your uniform. Your shoulders shook with silent painful sobs, the only sound in the room being the sizzling of your skin.

Why couldn’t it have been you? It should be Ghostbur standing there in that cavern, not Wilbur. This was completely your fault, you should’ve gone instead of him. You should’ve volunteered quicker than he did, you shouldn’t have let him talk you into it with his soothing words. Now because of your complete and utter cowardice, he was stuck in the afterlife once again. You were never going to see him any time soon. Your other half was ripped away from you because of your inaction.

Between sobs, your lips repeatedly formed the same phrase: why couldn’t it have been me?

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@crybabyjabby @izzybobizzy13 @goldenstarofthunderclan @bunnyz-pxstel @averytiredfanfictionwriter @dcml04 @sparkling-gayyyy @bbigbbrainn @thaticecreambish @kiinokochii @satansphatass @bxkubitch @bxmentchildxx @roxy3457 @montygator17 @feverish-dove @the-fictionwriters-hairdo @jichuuchaeng @404rynnotfound @luluwinchester @laura--444 @the-cult-classic-bitch @youngstarfishdinosaur @nottheotheruser @ohworm-writes @localwolfanon @realitycanbeajerk @v10dw4lk3r @esylwen @seraphsema @boiled-onionrings

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#wilbur soot x reader #ghostbur x reader #jschlatt x reader #mexican dream x reader #dream smp x reader #mcyt x reader #tw: swearing #tw: death #tw: near death #tw: blood #tw: panic attack #tw: violence #tw: injury #tw: grief

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testudoaubrei-blog · 3 years

Text

Content note for discussions of eternal damnation, and all sorts of other shit that will trigger a lot of folks with religious trauma.

Before I get started I might as well explain where I’m coming from - unlike a lot of She-Ra fans, and a lot of queer people, I don’t have much religious trauma, or any, maybe (okay there were a number of years I was convinced I was going to hell, but that happens to everyone, right?). I was raised a liberal Christian by liberal Christian parents in the Episcopal Church, where most of my memories are overwhelmingly positive. Fuck, growing up in the 90’s, Chuch was probably the only place outside my home I didn’t have homophobia spewed at me. Because it was the 90’s and it was a fucking hellscape of bigotry where 5 year olds knew enough to taunt each other with homophobic slurs and the adults didn’t know enough to realize how fucked up that was. Anyway. This is my experience, but it is an atypical one, and I know it. Quite frankly I know that my experience of Christianity has very little at all to do with what most people experienced, or what people generally mean when they talk about Christianity as a cultural force in America today. So if you were raised Christian and you don’t recognize your theology here, congrats, neither do I, but these ideas and cultural forces are huge and powerful and dominant. And it’s this dominant Christian narrative that I’m referring to in this post. As well as, you know, a children’s cartoon about lesbian rainbow princesses. So here it goes. This is going to get batshit.

"All events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God." - John Calvin

“We’re all just a bunch of wooly guys” - Noelle Stevenson

This is a post triggered by a single scene, and a single line. It’s one of the most fucked-up scenes in She-Ra, toward the end of Save the Cat. Catra, turned into a puppet by Prime, struggles with her chip, desperately trying to gain control of herself, so lost and scared and vulnerable that she flings aside her own death wish and her pride and tearfully begs Adora to rescue her. Adora reaches out , about to grab her, and then Prime takes control back, pronounces ‘disappointing’ and activates the kill switch that pitches Catra off the platform and to her death (and seriously, she dies here, guys - also Adora breaks both her legs in the fall). But before he does, he dismisses Catra with one of his most chilling lines. “Some creatures are meant only for destruction.”

And that’s when everyone watching probably had their heart broken a little bit, but some of the viewers raised in or around Christianity watching the same scene probably whispered ‘holy shit’ to themselves. Because Prime’s line - which works as a chilling and callous dismissal of Catra - is also an allusion to a passage from the Bible. In fact, it’s from one of the most fucked up passages in a book with more than its share of fucked up passages. It’s from Romans 9:22, and I’m going to quote several previous verses to give the context of the passage (if not the entire Epistle, which is more about who needs to abide by Jewish dietary restrictions but was used to construct a systematic theology in the centuries afterwards because people decided it was Eternal Truth).

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

The context of the allusion supports the context in the show. Prime is dismissing Catra - serial betrayer, liar, failed conqueror, former bloody-handed warlord - as worthless, as having always been worthless and fit only to be destroyed. He is speaking from a divine and authoritative perspective (because he really does think he’s God, more of this in my TL/DR Horde Prime thing). Prime is echoing not only his own haughty dismissal of Catra, and Shadow Weaver’s view of her, but also perhaps the viewer’s harshest assessment of her, and her own worst fears about herself. Catra was bad from the start, doomed to destroy and to be destroyed. A malformed pot, cracked in firing, destined to be shattered against a wall and have her shards classified by some future archaeologist 2,000 years later. And all that’s bad enough.

But the full historical and theological context of this passage shows the real depth of Noelle Stevenson’s passion and thought and care when writing this show. Noelle was raised in Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christianity. To my knowledge, he has never specified what sect or denomination, but in interviews and her memoir Noelle has shown a particular concern for questions that this passage raises, and a particular loathing for the strains of Protestant theology that take this passage and run with it - that is to say, Calvinism. So while I’m not sure if Noelle was raised as a conservative, Calvinist Presbyterian, his preoccupation with these questions mean that it’s time to talk about Calvinism.

It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that Calvinism is a systematic theology built entirely upon the Epistles of Romans and Galatians, but only -just- (and here my Catholic readers in particular will chuckle to themselves and lovingly stroke their favorite passage of the Epistle of James). The core of Calvinist Doctrine is often expressed by the very Dutch acronym TULIP:

Total Depravity - people are wholly evil, and incapable of good action or even willing good thoughts or deeds

Unconditional Election - God chooses some people to save because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, not because they did anything to deserve, trigger or accept it

Limited Atonement - Jesus died only to save the people God chose to save, not the rest of us bastards

Irresistible Grace - God chooses some people to be saved - if you didn’t want to be saved, too bad, God said so.

Perseverance of the Saints - People often forget this one and assume it’s ‘predestination’ but it’s actually this - basically, once saved by God, always saved, and if it looks like someone falls out of grace, they were never saved to begin with. Well that’s all sealed up tight I guess.

Reading through these, predestination isn’t a single doctrine in Calvinism but the entire theological underpinnings of it together with humanity’s utter powerlessness before sin. Basically God has all agency, humanity has none. Calvinism (and a lot of early modern Protestantism) is obsessed with questions of how God saves people (grace alone, AKA Sola Fides) and who God saves (the people god elects and only the people God elects, and fuck everyone else).

It’s apparent that Noelle was really taken by these questions, and repelled by the answers he heard. He’s alluded to having a tattoo refuting the Gospel passage about Sheep and Goats being sorted at the end times, affirming instead that ‘we’re all just a bunch of wooly guys’ (you can see this goat tattoo in some of his self-portraits in comics, etc). He’s also mentioned that rejecting and subverting destiny is a huge part of everything he writes as a particular rejection of the idea that some individual people are 'chosen' by God or that God has a plan for any of us. You can see that -so clearly- in Adora’s arc, where Adora embraces and then rejects destiny time and again and finally learns to live life for herself.

But for Catra, we’re much more concerned about the most negative aspect of this - the idea that some people are vessels meant for destruction. And that’s something else that Noelle is preoccupied with. In her memoir in the section about leaving the church and becoming a humanistic atheist, there is a drawing of a pot and the question ‘Am I a vessel prepared for destruction?’ Obviously this was on Noelle’s mind (And this is before he came out to himself as queer!).

To look at how this question plays out in Catra’s entire arc, let’s first talk about how ideas of damnation and salvation actually play out in society. And for that I’m going to plug one of my favorite books, Gin Lun’s Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (if you can tell by now, I am a fucking blast at parties). Lun tells the long and very interesting story about, how ideas of hell and who went there changed during the Early American Republic. One of the interesting developments that she talks about is how while at first people who were repelled by Calvinism started moving toward a doctrine of universal salvation (no on goes to hell, at least not forever*), eventually they decided that hell was fine as long as only the right kind of people went there. Mostly The Other - non-Christian foreigners, Catholics, Atheists, people who were sinners in ways that were not just bad but weird and violated Victorian ideas of respectability. Really, Hell became a way of othering people, and arguably that’s how it survives today, especially as a way to other queer people (but expanding this is slated for my Montero rant). Now while a lot of people were consciously rejecting Calvinist predestination, they were still drawing the distinction between the Elect (good, saved, worthwhile) and the everyone else (bad, damned, worthless). I would argue that secularized ideas of this survive to this day even among non-Christian spaces in our society - we like to draw lines between those who Elect, and those who aren’t.

And that’s what brings us back to Catra. Because Catra’s entire arc is a refutation of the idea that some people are worthless and irredeemable, either by nature, nurture or their own actions. Catra’s actions strain the conventions of who is sympathetic in a Kid’s cartoon - I’ve half joked that she’s Walter White as a cat girl, and it’s only half a joke. She’s cruel, self-deluded, she spends 4 seasons refusing to take responsibility for anything she does and until Season 5 she just about always chooses the thing that does the most damage to herself and others. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, the show goes out of its way to demonstrate that Catra is morally culpable in every step of her descent into evil (except maybe her break with reality just before she pulls the lever). The way that Catra personally betrays everyone around her, the way she strips herself of all of her better qualities and most of what makes her human, hell even her costume changes would signal in any other show that she’s irredeemable.

It’s tempting to see this as Noelle’s version of being edgy - pushing the boundaries of what a sympathetic character is, throwing out antiheroics in favor of just making the villain a protagonist. Noelle isn’t quite Alex ‘I am in the business of traumatizing children’ Hirsch, who seems to have viewed his job as pushing the bounds of what you could show on the Disney Channel (I saw Gravity Falls as an adult and a bunch of that shit lives rent free in my nightmares forever), but Noelle has his own dark side, mostly thematically. The show’s willingness to deal with abuse, and messed up religious themes, and volatile, passionate, not particularly healthy relationships feels pretty daring. I’m not joking when I gleefully recommend this show to friends as ‘a couple from a Mountain Goats Song fights for four seasons in a cartoon intended for 9 year olds’. Noelle is in his own way pushing the boundaries of what a kids show can do. If you read Noelle’s other works like Nimona, you see an argument for Noelle being at least a bit edgy. Nimona is also angry, gleefully destructive, violent and spiteful - not unlike Catra. Given that it was a 2010s webcomic and not a kids show, Nimona is a good deal worse than Catra in some ways - Catra doesn’t kill people on screen, while Nimona laughs about it (that was just like, a webcomic thing - one of the fan favorite characters in my personal favorite, Narbonic, was a fucking sociopath, and the heroes were all amoral mad scientists, except for the superintelligent gerbil**). But unlike Nimona, whose fate is left open ended, Catra is redeemed.

And that is weird. We’ve had redemption arcs, but generally not of characters with -so- much vile stuff in their history. Going back to the comparison between her and Azula, many other shows, like Avatar, would have made Catra a semi-sympathetic villain who has a sob-story in their origin but who is beyond redemption, and in so doing would articulate a kind of psychologized Calvinism where some people are too traumatized to ever be fully and truly human. I’d argue this is the problem with Azula as a character - she’s a fun villain, but she doesn’t have moral agency, and the ultimate message of her arc - that she’s a broken person destined only to hurt people - is actually pretty fucked up. And that’s the origin story of so many serial killers and psycopaths that populate so many TV shows and movies. Beyond ‘hurt people hurt people’ they have nothing to teach us except perhaps that trauma makes you a monster and that the only possible response to people doing bad things is to cut them out of your life and out of our society (and that’s why we have prisons, right?)

And so Catra’s redemption and the depths from which she claws herself back goes back to Noelle’s desire to prove that no person is a vessel ‘fitted for destruction.’ Catra goes about as far down the path of evil as we’ve ever seen a protagonist in a kids show go, and she still has the capacity for good. Importantly, she is not subject to total depravity - she is capable of a good act, if only one at first. Catra is the one who begins her own redemption (unlike in Calvinism, where grace is unearned and even unwelcomed) - because she wants something better than what she has, even if its too late, because she realizes that she never wanted any of this anyway, because she wants to do one good thing once in her life even if it kills her.

The very extremity of Catra’s descent into villainy serves to underline the point that Noelle is trying to make - that no one can be written off completely, that everyone is capable of change, and that no human being is garbage, no matter how twisted they’ve become. Meanwhile her ability to set her own redemption in motion is a powerful statement of human agency, and healing, and a refutation of Calvinism’s idea that we are powerless before sin or pop cultural tropes about us being powerful before the traumas of our upbringing. Catra’s arc, then, is a kind of anti-Calvinist theological statement - about the nature of people and the nature of goodness.

Now, there is a darker side to this that Noelle has only hinted at, but which is suggested by other characters on the show. Because while Catra’s redemption shows that people are capable of change, even when they’ve done horrible things, been fucked up and fucked themselves up, it also illustrates the things people do to themselves that make change hard. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, two of the most sinister parts of her descent into villainy are her self-dehumanization (crushing her own compassion and desire to do good) and her rewriting of her own history in her speech and memory to make her own actions seem justified (which we see with her insistence that Adora left her, eliding Adora’s offers to have Catra join her, or her even more clearly false insistence that Entrapta had betrayed them). In Catra, these processes keep her going down the path of evil, and allow her to nearly destroy herself and everyone else. But we can see the same processes at work in two much darker figures - Shadow Weaver and Horde Prime. These are both rants for another day, but the completeness of Shadow Weaver’s narcissistic self-justification and cultivated callousness and the even more complete narcissism of Prime’s god complex cut both characters off from everyone around them. Perhaps, in a theoretical sense, they are still redeemable, but for narrative purposes they might as well be damned.

This willingness to show a case where someone -isn’t- redeemed actually serves to make Catra’s redemption more believable, especially since Noelle and the writers draw the distinction between how Catra and SW/Prime can relate to reality and other people, not how broken they are by their trauma (unlike Zuko and Azula, who are differentiated by How Fucked Uolp They Are). Redemption is there, it’s an option, we can always do what is right, but someone people will choose not to, in part because doing the right thing involves opening ourselves to the world and others, and thus being vulnerable. Noelle mentions this offhandedly in an interview after Season 1 with the She-Ra Progressive of Power podcast - “I sometimes think that shades of grey, sympathetic villains are part of the escapist fantasy of shows like this.” Because in the real world, some people are just bastards, a point that was particularly clear in 2017. Prime and Shadow Weaver admit this reality, while Catra makes a philosophical point that even the bastards can change their ways (at least in theory).

*An idea first proposed in the second century by Origen, who’s a trip and a fucking half by himself, and an idea that becomes the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which protestants vehemently denied!

**Speaking of favorite Noelle tropes

#she ra horde prime #she ra #she ra catra #she ra spoilers #redemption arcs #toxic religion

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nevertheless-moving · 3 years

Text

Suicidal Misunderstanding XXIII

Part I - - - - - - - - - Part XX - - - - Part XXI - - - - Part XXII

Star Wars Time Travel AU #27

The office was quiet but for the occasional shuffling of flimsi and tapping of datapads.

Bail Organa and Mon Mothma pointedly did not exchange a glance behind Padme’s back.

Senator Mothma set down her pad and broke the silence. “Padme...are you alright?” she asked softly.

“I’m fine Mon, let’s just go over the bill,” Padme responded stiffly.

Mothma hesitated. “That’s not the only reason I asked you here, Padme.”

Padme stood, chair scraping gratingly. “I see; I’ve already had the Chancellor pry me today in an attempt to exploit my ‘connections’ to the Jedi—as though they’re droids and not flesh-and-blood people who any average person could strike a friendship with—but I had thought better of you two; I suppose my faith was—”

“That’s not what I meant—” Mon pleaded.

“We’re concerned about you,” Bail insisted gently. “You don’t have to tell us anything about the Jedi that you don’t feel comfortable doing so.”

Padme paused, then reluctantly sat back down.

“My apologies,” she muttured. “It’s been...a long day. I’ve been asked by the Chancellor for help in breaking some news that...I’d rather not.”

The senators waited patiently for Padme to collect her thoughts. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “General Kenobi has suffered from...force...I really don’t think there’s a way of saying this that doesn’t sound bad.”

“I had heard rumors that he was missing at meetings the last few days...has something serious happened?” Bail asked, concerned.

Padme shuddered. “This office is...”

“It’s clean,” Mothma confirmed quietly. “I have it checked independently anytime I’m gone for more then 15 minutes, with random deep-scans.”

“Would you mind...”

Mon nodded and the three waited in silence until the Chandurllian senator’s pad trilled the all-clear.

“Master Kenobi tried to kill himself earlier this week,” Padme confessed lowly. Mon straightened up in a sudden locking of knees and elbows, face drawn into tight lines. Bail’s hands flew to his mouth, tears forming.

“Knight Skywalker got to him in time, and he was in a coma until this morning when he apparently ‘ranted about ending the one’s responsible for the war’ and then vanished, along with Anakin.”

Mon grew very pale and Bail moved both hands from his mouth to his eyes.

“Fuck,” he said softly. “Just...fuck.”

Padme nodded in agreement and Mon inhaled deeply.

Bail rubbed way tears and straightened up resolutely. “How can we help?” he asked Padme. “How does the Chancellor want to handle releasing the news?”

She smiled weakly. “He’s leaving the exact wording up to me, but wants to make the announcement during the next full Senate gathering.”

“What!” Mon half-shouted, shocked. “There’ll be a riot! Surely a bulletin—even a press conference would be better for encouraging a moderate reaction—people will be shouting before he’s through the first sentence!”

“I know,” Padme agreed with a grimace. “But he wants ‘transparency.’“

“He wants panic,” Bail fumed.

“I’m trying to decide if it would better or worse to include the part about suicide,” Padme said bitterly. “Mental health breakdown and disappearance of the Republic’s highest General doesn’t leave much room for confidence or privacy.”

Mon clutched Padme’s hand in support. “I’ll have a PR team on standby. We can prepare resources for anyone who has questions, avoid conspiracy theories from spinning out. I already had a project on the backburner to put together own set of holoclips of the Jedi working towards peace—a counter to the ‘warmongering’ narrative, so to speak. It should be easy enough to adapt.”

“The Chancellor’s going to turn this into another military spending bill,” Bail predicted grimly. “We’ll make sure there’s a proviso in there to provide actual support for the Jedi in the field; I’ll make sure to get a legal team on viper in the grass duty as soon as the responses start coming out.”

“Thank you,” Padme said, gripping Mon’s hand over-tightly in return. She turned to the Alderannian senator. “I’m sorry Bail, I know you two are close.”

Bail exhaled slowly. “This war...I’ve seen Obi-Wan survive so much, and everytime he pulls off the impossible...”

“He’s rewarded with another burden on his shoulders,” Padme finished sympathetically. “Yes, I’ve been watching the same thing happen to Anakin. It’s—if the separatist movement hadn’t resolved into such a democratic and humanitarian nightmare—”

“You should go home and get some rest, Padme,” Mon urged. “It’s late, and the we’re all going to need to be sharp tomorrow. Who knows, maybe some new information will materialize before the afternoon.”

“Why Mon, that’s almost optimistic of you,” Bail remarked dryly.

Mon flashed him a wry grin, looking at Padme out of the corner of her eye. “Well. She did say Anakin with AWOL—”

“Oh do be quiet,” Padme huffed.

Despite the ever growing desire for sleep, it was another long hour before the Senator from Naboo departed. The pair were just turning to their seats after escorting Padme out when Bail let out a startled yelp; Mon instinctively kicked at the sudden small green blur.

Fortunately, when you’re green and the height of most humanoid’s knees, you become quite experienced at avoiding such reflexive

“Master Yoda! What are you doing here? How did you even get in?” Senator Mothma staggered backwards, reverting to defensiveness to cover up her embarrassment at attempting to punt the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order.

“Has his ways, a Jedi does,” Yoda replied mysteriously. Mon Mothma nodded seriously as Bail restrained himself from rolling his eyes. He had spent far too much time around Obi-Wan for deliberate Jedi vagueness to hold much weight.

“Can I—May I offer you a seat?” Mon asked, quickly recovering her diplomatic grace. “I’m afraid that you’ve just missed Senator Amidala, but I’m sure she would be eager to return; I understand she’s...concerned for Master Kenobi.”

The wizened Master shook his head, ears flopping as he hopped onto Padme’s recently vacated chair, standing on the cusioned seat as the two senators’ settled down. The sight should, perhaps, have been comical. But the weight of his gaze...Bail held his breath. Perhaps Jedi mystique did still have some affect on him.

“Come to speak with the two of you, I did. Missed Mistress Amidala, I have, I know. Deliberate, this was.”

Mon and Bail frowned, exchanging a slow look of pointed disapproval. Bail spoke hesitantly but with touch of reproach. “I’m certain she would prefer to be here, regardless of the news—Padme has suffered for her public defense of the Jedi, I should hope that that friendship is returned, especially in hard times”

Yoda’s ears drooped. “A great Jedi, she would have made, in another life. Vibrant, she is in the Force. Loud to a Jedi, regardless of sensitivity. But needed now, quiet is.”

Yoda’s gaze pierced Bail and he warmed inexplicably. “Quiet the two of you are. Brilliant, wide but in the Force...” Yoda broke the gaze, growing contemplative.

“Unique in the force, each soul is. That can be read, rare is the mind. More difficult to discern, currents, intentions, manner, it is with some, it is with you. And now, Quiet we need.”

The two settled back, uneasily flattered. “Master Yoda—it’s an honor of course, to be considered an individual worthy of confidence, but why exactly do you have need of quiet minds? Of us?” Senator Mothma asked finally.

The diminutive Master sagged. “By actions you would do, trust you have earned. But always in motion, the future is. A heavy burden, to carry, I must ask you. Without cause, I would not ask. But once tell you this I do—”

To the politicians shock Master Yoda’s simmed to glisten with unshed tears. “—Guarantee your safety I cannot.”

The air hung warm and heavy for a timeless moment and a chill ran up both their spines. But neither were individuals particularly given to indesicion in the face of looming danger.

“How can we help?” Mon asked, the words echoing over far more than an hour.

“We know something is wrong with Obi-Wan,” Bail added softly. “Whatever we can do to right it—Obi-Wan is a friend, the Jedi are our allies, and the Republic is our duty.”

Mon nodded firmly.

Yoda stared at them each in turn, eyes searching and ancient.

“Working with the Separatists, the Chancellor is,” he said bluntly. “Evidence of this, we have, but not proof. Controlling, the Separatists, the Chancellor is. Evidence of this we have also, but not proof. The truth it is.”

“Evidence?” Bail parroted hoarsely, mentally assembling his own grim circumstantial coronation even as his understanding of the conversation’s direction fell apart.

The Jedi Master drew two small glittering objects from his pocket—a datachip and a microslide.

“In the brain of a trooper, this we found.” he said gravely. “In the brain of all clones, this lies. Orders, it contains. Evil, is it. Free will, it can control. Decode it we have. To the Chancellor, tied these orders are.”

“Force,” Mon murmured in horror, responding automatically. “He already controls the public, and the courts—”

“And over half the senate,” Bail added bitterly.

“A Sith, he is,” Yoda continued with a sigh. “A Sith he has always been. A return to an Empire, he aims.”

There was a long heady pause as the two grappled with the return of the ancient boogeyman of the Republic and the repeated derailing of their night’s direction.

“Fuck,” Senator Mothma said delicately, thinking wistfully of two hours ago when she had planned on confronting Padme yet again on her relationship with a young Jedi.

“Said the same, did we.”

The Alderannian Senator rubbed his temples, trying to come to terms with consecutive massive shocks from the already unexpected conversation. “Is Obi-Wan alright?” he asked eventually.

The small Elder hummed thoughtfully in reply. Bail tensed.

“No and yes. Suffer much, he has. Broken he is, but not shattered. A plan he has. His idea to include you, it is. The bravest man in the galaxy, he called you.” Yoda said, offering Senator Organa a sad smile.

Bail leaned back, stunned. “Me? But—why me?” he asked bewildered.

“Know not, I do,” the Jedi said with a shrug. “Seen the future, he has. A future where saved his life, you did. Saved my life. Saved something too precious to name, you did. Matters little, it does. A future that must not come to pass, it is, even as learn from it. we do.”

“...I think you’re going to have to explain that somewhat,” Mon replied sternly as Bail’s head spun.

Yoda nodded and the three settled in for a sleepless night of planning treason.

Part XXIV

#star wars #my au #star wars au no 27 #suicidal misunderstanding au #star wars au

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astermacguffin · 3 years

Text

Okay. I warn y'all that this is very much a Poast™. This is another one of Those Poasts™. You have been warned.

I very much blame (affectionate) @autisticandroids for this, since this is pretty much me trying to combine as many concepts as possible from the #mpregpocalypse tag.

In this au, Cas is pretty much just collecting babies left and right. The following stuff are all simultaneously true in this spn mpreg rewrite:

- Cas absorbs the deanlisa baby and carries the child himself. This is his first pregnancy. This is also the most "monstrous" of his children because of the godstiel stuff and the leviathans.

- For maximum effect, I don't want Cas to give birth just yet. I want Benny to see Cas with the baby bump and put the dots together in his head. I want Cas to give birth alone, after Dean and Benny already went through the rift. I want Naomi to take Cas out of purgatory and leave his child alone there. I want Cas to grieve for the loss of his child when he remembers. (We'll go back to this in the future.)

- Dean fucks Casifer at one point and impregnates Cas' body. (I mean, with Casifer peeling off his layers and thotting up the place while in the bunker? Not surprising tbh.) NOTE. I wanna be clear with something: this baby is Dean and Lucifer's nephil. I mean, biologically it's a Destiel baby, but with Cas' grace growing weaker and him being possessed by Lucifer, in terms of grace this is pretty much Lucifer's nephil. (But also not??? Because what allowed the conception to happen in the first place is Cas wanting it SO BAD.)

- No one else notices the conception of this baby because Cas hides it within himself (the same way he did with the deanlisa baby) and pauses the pregnancy at will.

- When Cas meets Kelly, they are very much BOTH pregnant with Lucifer's kid. Remember that screenshot where they both look pregnant and bonding about their babies? Yeah, this is inspired by that. When Cas touches Kelly's baby bump and they like soulbond or whatever, Kelly looks at him and goes "oh you're pregnant too?"

- Cas tells him that it's Dean's child, but leaves out the Lucifer part. They already have one Lucifer nephil in danger, he doesn't need anyone else knowing this secret (especially since he hid the nature of this child so well for so long). Kelly thinks he's hiding it because of the Dean part.

- They both know Kelly's not gonna survive giving birth, so they already have a plan: Cas will transfer the pregnancy to himself when it's almost time for Jack to come out (the same way he did with the deanlisa baby). Cas is confident that he'll survive what Kelly cannot. (His hubris, of course, always tend to bite him back.) Dean, Mary, and Sam arrive just in time to see Cas pregnant and about to give birth. Kelly catches them up on the plot.

- Cas dies of childbirth due to an unexpected complication: the pregnancy transfer triggers the birth of the other child inside him, which makes him give birth to TWO children. The strength of the explosion unfortunately kills both him and Kelly, rendering Cas' sacrifice as pointless. (As much as I wanna keep Kelly alive, the point of this au is to inflict as much damage as possible)

- Lucifer and Mary still get stuck in Apocalypse world, and now Dean and Sam have to care for TWO children, one of which is Jack (who still grows quickly) and...another baby? They have no idea who the fuck this baby is until they find two videos: one made by Kelly and one by Cas (a backup plan they made just in case one or both of them don't survive).

- In the video, Cas reveals that the child is his and Dean's nephil (again, removing the Lucifer part). Dean just takes it in stride (since they had enough sex in the later seasons for it to be a genuine possibility) and takes Cas's word.

- In any other scenario, Sam would definitely be teasing Dean for impregnating Cas. But since Cas is dead and they're still grieving, he shelves this conversation for a future time. (With so much plot happening, Sam never finds the right chance and eventually just forgets it. He's just happy that he was right all along.)

- They agree to never let anyone else learn about the baby's nature, which the baby seems to understand as well, choosing to not manifest any angelic abilities. In fact, the baby internalized Cas' instructions to keep all their secrets under wraps that the kid goes selectively mute throughout the series. (I wanna see Eileen teaching ASL to the kid.)

- The two babies scenario works great for two reasons: it satisfies my "give Dean a baby" instinct (that pretty much drives my baby jack truthing) while still keeping Jack the way that he is in canon.

- Dean lets the baby rest on Cas' chest for a short while before wrapping Cas up with the curtains. Both Dean and the baby cry over the body.

- I want to give Jack as many Problems Disorders in this au. I want him to be jealous of the way Dean treats his twin (because they're pretty much twins, right? They have the same grace-father, they got birthed by the same body, so yeah).

- Dean treats the baby with as much care and love while still treating Jack like shit. Sam once calls him out on it and says "Dean, they're both Cas' children." Dean throws out an "I can hardly look at the freak" rant. Jack wakes up Cas from the Empty, yada yada.

More fucked up shit below the cut:

- I wanna keep this as close to canon as I can, so Dean would still exhibit suicidality before Tombstone. You would think that the baby would at least hinder this instinct, but he genuinely believes that he's poison and that everyone he touches dies. (And besides, Sam is good with both Jack and the baby so they won't need me anymore, right?)

- Cas comes back, and things mostly stay the same as in canon (except there's now a baby there, who honestly won't influence much of the plot until later). Dean never really apologized that much to Jack in canon (and I still hate it) but in this au, it would work perfectly. I want Jack to believe that Dean still sees him as a freak, even if he's a bit nicer now that Cas is back. (I can and will put my entire pussy into the Dean-as-John, Jack-as-Sam parallels.)

- When Jack kills Mary, Cas hides it from Dean and Sam. We're going full Torturewife on this one, folks.

- Jack's truth spell forces Cas to confess that (1) Cas hid the fact about Jack's soullessness; (2) Cas lied about Jack killing Mary, and; (3) the Destiel baby is technically a Dean/Lucifer nephil. Chaos fucking ensues.

- Dean has to confront the fact that both of the kids (HIS kids) are Lucifer's spawn.

- Chuck doesn't really care about the baby since it never manifested any powers (yet), unlike Jack (who is a genuine threat to him).

- Moriah happens, Jack dies. (And it's even more fucked up now because despite being soulless, Jack remembers all the insecurities he got from Dean. The "It's okay, I understand" line Jack says to Dean while having a gun pointed to him is sooooooo.) Rupture happens, their divorce is finalized and Cas takes custody of the baby.

- Cas having some father-child bonding with the baby as a breather between all this fucked up stuff.

- The Trap happens, they make up, and oh? Who's this person who helped Cas escape and get the flower? It's the deanlisa baby, but now grown! Together with Emma! She was thankfully found by her big sister, Emma, when she was a baby in purgatory. She had to grow up fast and now they survive together.

- After eating Eve in order to save Cas, the deanlisa child is now technically the new Mother of monsters. Dean explains the Chuck problem, so the two choose to come with them to help.

- Cas never really explained the deanlisa baby, huh? When they get back with their now grown child (and Emma, who doesn't really hold a grudge over the entire Sam killing her thing) and Cas explains, Dean is baffled but takes it in stride. I mean, they just made up! He doesn't wanna fight with him anymore and he wants the family together again!

- They make the two stay with the baby so they'll be safe in the bunker while they try to trap Chuck with the Mark of Cain spell. It fails, of course. (But hey, at least there was sibling bonding time in the bunker.)

- Billie brings back Jack and they formulate a plan (Billie doesn't go evil in this one btw.) They strengthen Jack, Jack knows that he'll be a bomb and is totally fine with it. "Maybe if I do this one good thing, Dean won't see me as a freak anymore." Remember, Jack internalized a lot of the shit Dean said.

- Cas attempts to call out the self-sacrificial bullshit and that Dean actually loves him, but Jack insists. "You would do the same! In fact, you have done the same! (In reference to the Empty deal, which still happens here btw.) I'm just learning from all of you." If there's one thing I'm obsessed about in fics, it's when Jack calls them out for learning martyrdom from team free will.

- Dean finds out about the plan and tries to talk Jack out of it. They have a heart-to-heart, Dean finally fucking apologizes for all the complexes that he's given Jack, and Jack (for the first time) finally believes that Dean doesn't see him as a monster anymore. Jack stops the process so he doesn't become a bomb (but at least he's stronger than he was before).

- They call Billie to come up with an alternative plan. She considers the options, and says an alternative plan would be harder and would require more players in the field. "As long as we don't have to sacrifice any of our loved ones anymore, we're good," Dean says. "I don't think that's an easy request, but we'll try," Billie says, giving a pointed look at Cas. (Hmmmm, wonder how this would come to play later?)

- Billie points out that the destiel baby is in fact not powerless, but is instead choosing to supress their own power. If the child can be convinced to unlock their own capabilities, then perhaps they might stand a better chance at winning.

- They spread out to gather more allies: Sam goes to Rowena, Dean goes to Michael, Billie goes to Gabriel (yes, he's alive here), and the kids stay in the bunker with Cas to try and explore each other's abilities. (Since I hated the Michael-Lucifer nonsense of 15x19, none of that happens here. Lucifer doesn't go back and Michael doesn't betray them.)

- Jack finds out that he can push out all the energy he gathered for the bomb into a one-time-use blast. They find out that the baby can apparently enhance the power of whoever they're holding. And the new Eve apparently has traces of Godstiel/Leviathan still in her after being in the womb with them. (She also spends the time catching up with Cas because they've not seen each other for years.) Emma is just vibing there, adoring her powerful younger siblings and interrogating her father's...husband? Boyfriend? Ex? (She's still confused about their status.)

- This goes just like in S11, and they go all out and attack Chuck together until he's weak enough for Death's scythe. There's one shot where the kids are just holding hands to power each other for Jack to deliver a fatal blow. Billie is just around the corner, ready for the final blow, when Cas turns to Dean.

- "Dean, I need to say something." Cue the 15x18 confession scene, except this time Dean knows about the deal now. So the moment Dean realizes what Cas is doing, he tries to stop him.

- "Stop, please stop. Don't say it, you don't have to say it." Because of course, happiness is in just being, it's in just saying it. And Dean knows what true happiness would do.

- But unfortunately, Cas has to do it. (Billie talked to him about it, and her scythe won't exactly do a clean job with something as powerful as a Chuck-Amara hybrid. I don't know when or why they fused together since the bomb plan was cancelled, but it happened here okay? Yeah. So they need something that is guaranteed to be older and greater than God or the Darkness—the Empty. Billie can only go there, but she can't summon it to be on Earth. Enter Cas' deal.)

- Cas says "I love you," Dean reciprocates, they share a final kiss, and then Billie finally reaps God. The Empty arrives to take Chuck, and Cas shares one final moment with his kids before accepting his fate.

- Billie goes to the Empty to make sure the job was done, and she finally gives the Shadow the sleep that she promised. She uses her scythe on the Shadow, because death is the final slumber. (Of course, you can't exactly kill nothingness; she only destroyed an embodiment/personification of the Empty.)

- Post-fight. They're happy because Chuck is finally defeated but also...Cas. Before they even have the chance to process what the fuck just happened, Billie is back and she has Cas with her. "I just put the Shadow into sleep, so it's not like anyone would notice," she says. The problem is that Cas is still very much asleep. (He still has some grace here btw. Maybe he's not at full angel anymore, but he's not fully human either. There wasn't a need to cut out his grace without warning.)

- Dean and the kids crowd Cas' body. The baby's touch on Cas's shoulder (which burns a mark that parallels Dean's) is what wakes him up. Reunion kiss!

- Happy ending! Michael (with Adam) goes back to heaven to fix things, and they are very much implied to be a couple. Midam rights babyyyyyy! Gabriel goes back to roaming the world and occasionally visits the kids.

- Sam and Eileen organizes a hunter's network and organizes a bunch of safety protocols and rehabilitation projects with the help of the new Eve (which most monsters obey, key word most). Oh, and Saileen definitely swings regularly with Rowena (and occasionally with Gabriel when he's around).

- Emma decides that she likes hanging out with the Wayward Sisters better (and you know what? Good for her). The new Eve decides to hang out there often as well (whenever she isn't busy with monster diplomacy or something).

- When Jack finally feels safe and peaceful enough, he reverts back to his child form. The baby, who has been selectively mute this entire time, holds their brother's face in recognition and utters their first word, which is "JACK!" Dean and Cas cry in joy over this entire exchange. (That's his twin! He missed his twin!)

- They move out of the bunker to get their own house by a lake or something. Whenever the topic of pregnancy comes up again ("Dean, when do you want another baby again?"), they can now playfully joke about it and Dean says something like "Don't steal someone else's baby again, okay? The next baby to be inside you needs to be mine." They're both stupidly horny about the subject, I hate them so much.

- Whenever there's an important event, they all celebrate it in the bunker for the extra space (because their family is, indeed, very large). END.

There's something poetic to me about the Empty being the one that beats Chuck in this mpreg rewrite because technically, the Empty is the Original Womb that gave birth to God. It it the nothingness of potential, the dark water of pregnant beginnings.

All this talk about the Empty and stuff also made me stop and think about the metaphysics of spn. The fact that the Darkness and the Empty are two distinct entities says something interesting about the metaphysical reality of spn. It doesn't treat darkness as a mere absence of light, a mere nothingness, but rather a thing/substance of its own. It's a very Manichean kind of metaphysics as opposed to a Platonic/Neoplatonic one. (Oh, St. Augustine would probably have a blast trying to unravel whatever the fuck is happening with spn.)

The fact that it's also Cas' free will that brought upon God's demise? Delicious.

(If you're still reading, congratulations for finishing my very long spn mpreg rewrite. Why did you do this to yourself tho.)

(also apologies if I didn't give a name to Jack's siblings. I haven't thought of a good name for them just yet)

#spn #destiel #mpregpocalypse #long post #literally what the fuck is this post #aster writes #spn mpreg rewrite #tw suicide #tw mpreg

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skiller0dani · 4 years

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Obliviate | Draco Malfoy

M A S T E R L I S T Harry Potter Masterlist

very sad (light) smut requested requests info

this is so sad. I’m sorryyyyy. also if you wanted to set the mood more, I listened to THIS while writing it. Please listen to it, it wont be the same without the song lmao

Part 1/10 (Part 2)(Part 3)(Part 4)(Part 5)(Part 6)(Part 7)(Part 8)(Part 9)(Part 10)

Draco had thought back to every other time in his life where he had felt like this, and nothing came to mind. There wasn’t another second of his torturous life that felt like this. He tended to count his blessings where he had them, and you were a blessing in his life. One that he woke up every single day thanking God for, Draco isn’t sure he’d ever love anyone the way he loves you. But he knew from the start, that the two of you were doomed, two lovers caught on each side of the war. His Father in direct relation with the Dark Lord, and you- Harry Potter’s cousin. There was a target on your back from the second you got to Hogwarts all those years ago and when Draco had first met you- he didn’t understand just how much danger you were already in.

Nobody looked at Draco the way you did, nobody looked at him like he was worth saving. But when you looked at him, you saw something in him that he didn’t even see in himself. Draco believes that he was never a good person until he met you, and even then whether or not he was good is still up to debate. You inspire people to be better, to be good and if there is no good- you create it. You are a light in an everlasting darkness, and he doesn’t deserve you. But selfishly he wants to keep you- and he knows you’d never voluntarily leave him. He had to make the choice for you. You can’t stubbornly stand by his side if you don’t remember you’re in love with him.

The Black Lake looks darker than Draco remembered it being. The view he currently held from the astronomy tower was beautiful in it’s own way, but now that he held every memory you have of him in his hands- the beauty seemed to slip out of the world. Looking down at the small vial in his hands, the vial containing your memories of him, his bottom lip quivers. He can’t stand how emotional you make him, you make him feel both weak and strong at the same time. His hand curls around the vial, Draco knows this is what he needs to do. He never expected it to be this hard though.

Closing his eyes, Draco decided to take one last walk down memory lane before he would destroy your memories of him forever.

The first time you had met Draco was when you were stood on the steps next to your cousin, Harry. Draco was stood in front of you, and although his eyes were on Harry- the blush on his cheeks came from being so close to you. Draco had held his head high, even when you snapped at him and told him how wonderful you found Ron to be. Draco always admired your sharp tongue, your unwillingness to step down when you felt passionately about something. He’s going to miss being your voice of reason, or the hand that holds you back when you’re ready to literally fight for what you believe in. You always say what you’re really thinking, how you’re really feeling. That’s something Draco has never really had the strength to do. If he did he would have said he loved you more often, and perhaps would have told Harry that he doesn’t hate him.

Draco vividly remembers the first time you looked at him, and saw him in a way nobody else does. Not even Crabbe and Goyle. He was sat in the back corner of the Library, hiding away from everyone and everything after receiving yet another disappointed letter from his Father. You’d been gathering books to study for Potions when you spotted him sitting secluded, alone. You didn’t hesitate to go sit next to him, and when you looked over at him you saw every emotion he carefully hid from the world written plainly on his face. As if you had the only key to unlock the innermost parts of his brain. After a few minutes of gentle coaxing, Draco eventually began to open up to you about his Father and in return you opened up about your terrible parents. About how abusive they were to Harry- how much that hurt you. Draco hadn’t given it a second thought when you revealed you were muggle born. Really Draco didn’t mind, nor did it offend him in the way he acted it did but for his Father Draco must keep up appearances.

He still feels guilty remembering how you recoiled away from him when he had spat the word ‘mudblood’ in your direction. He feels guilty as he remembers the tears trickling down your cheeks. Even that feeling paled in comparison to the way Draco feels now.

Draco remembers the first time you kissed him, and yes much to his embarrassment it was you that kissed him. You always were someone who went after what you wanted. He was in the Hospital wing after Buckbeak attacked him. Despite him being the biggest prat you’d ever met, you still went to see him anyway. You sat next to Draco in the bed, seeing the tears well in his eyes at the revelation Buckbeak would be executed. Sure he was angry the stupid thing attacked him but never would he want Buckbeak killed for it. Draco wasn’t entirely surprised to learn his Father had threatened the committee in order for Buckbeak to be sentenced. It’s not Draco that his Father cared about, it’s the family image. You had cupped his cheeks, and gently pressed your lips to his. It was the only thing you could think to do to soothe him, and it worked. Draco melted against you, his sorrows briefly muted by the feeling of your lips on his own. He thinks he might have fallen in love with you right at that moment.

The first time you went to Hogsmeade with him was the following year, during the winter. Your cheeks were rosy and your hand was as cold as ice around his warmer palm. He remembers you squealing with excitement as it began to snow again, the soft flakes fluttering gently around you. You truly did look like an angel. The snow stuck to your hair as you turned to look at him, “make a snowman with me!” Your voice was lilted, almost melodic as the happiness you felt carried over into your tone. While Draco didn’t normally do silly things like making snowmen, he couldn’t fight the smile that split across his face as he helped you roll the bottom of the snowman. Before that moment, Draco never knew joy like that even existed. It was only later that he discovered that this kind of joy only existed when he was with you.

The first time the words ‘I love you’ graced the space between your lips was when you’d both met at the astronomy tower at midnight. The stars were twinkling beautifully, but even so Draco couldn’t keep his eyes off you. You blushed, refusing to meet his eye. You were always insecure, which baffled Draco immensely. How could you believe any other girl is anywhere close to being as pretty as you? There’s not another woman on the face of this Earth that compares to you, and you would often giggle and tell him to stop when he would begin his long ‘you’re the most beautiful girl’ rant. You had led Draco to believe, that maybe he and Harry could find peace. You were in fact, the only thing they had in common. The words fell right out of his mouth before he could pause to give them any thought. “I love you,” The air seemed to stiffen around him, crushing him as he watched you. You didn’t hesitate.

“I love you Draco.” It was the best moment of his life.

Draco will never forget the first time he was allowed to see the beauty of your bare skin. You’d think it would be easier to find places to be alone in this great big castle, eventually Draco had settled for the edge of the Black Lake- far from the castle. The journey out to the Lake had started innocently, the both of you quite enjoyed star gazing and spending your evenings together. You’d been sitting next to him, watching the large tentacles of the monster that lives in the Lake toss you things from the depths. You really did have a way in bringing out the good in everything, you’d even managed to befriend the monster that lives in the Lake. “Wow look at this,” your voice was quiet with amazement as you turned over a beautiful amulet in your hands. It was simple, silver chain with a white gem that shone as brightly as the moon. The Lake monster had given it to you, and Draco remembers the soft sigh that left your lips as his hands graced the back of your neck, fastening the amulet.

Draco remembers the delicate way you turned to face him, how your eyes never left his as you carefully slid onto his lap. Your hands were placed on his shoulders as your lips met in a slow and languid kiss. The searing heat built between you two and seemed to draw your most intimate parts together. Without realizing, you’d begun to gently grind against Draco- drawing out soft moans from his lips. Never before had Draco felt this kind of desire for another person. His hands slid up your back and carefully removed each layer of clothing that was in between him and your bare skin. Your skin was flushed as Draco’s lips explored your naked body, carefully turning you over so that he would hover above you. You gripped fistfuls of the grass as Draco had found his home in between your legs, laving your sensitive folds with his tongue and mouth. It felt like heaven, and he knew it did. He could see it on your face, and you looked so beautiful.

The desire burning inside you began to beat between your legs like a drum as you pulled Draco back up your body. Nuzzling his nose against yours, Draco slipped the head of his member in between your folds. The thought of hurting you made him feel sick to his stomach, but with a few gentle words of encouragement from you, he was gently working himself inside your tight heat. The feeling was incomparable, indescribable, suffocating, and intoxicating all at the same time. Draco knew that here on the grass, between your legs, was somewhere he wanted to be forever. If he could capture this moment in something more than his minds eye he would, he wants this memory to live forever. He rocked into you again and again, losing himself in the way your body felt against his. Never had Draco felt so connected to another person, you had him, mind body and soul. He was falling into that pit now, no doubt about it, and there was no way out. He was head over heels in love, not that he minded.

Draco would do anything to keep you safe, and he really means that.

Draco had grown distant from you this year, mostly because of the swirling black tattoo on his left forearm. The Dark Mark. He knew in an instant that you had to stay as far from him as humanly possible, and while he tried to stay away, he was weak and kept falling back into your embrace. He needed to convince you to stay away from him, and if he couldn’t...then he had to make you. You’d confronted him this evening, with tears in your eyes and a tremble in your hands. You wanted, needed, to know what was going on. Why he felt so far away from you. So Draco pressed a kiss to your forehead, took your hand, and led you here. To the Astronomy tower, a place where so many monumentous things happened between you. This would be the perfect place to say goodbye.

You staggered back when he lifted his sleeve. The breath was stolen from your lungs when you saw the Dark Mark, writhing and wriggling on his arm. Tears built in your eyes as you looked at him, his name falling past your broken lips. How could this have happened? How could he let this happen? You wanted to scream, to tear your hair out, to cry, to do anything but your body wouldn’t let you. You simply stood frozen before him, feeling as though the most powerful force in the world was tearing the two of you apart. The next words out of his mouth shattered you beyond repair.

“You need to stay away from me, for your own good. And for Harry’s.” It was the first time he’d ever used Harry’s first name, that’s how you knew he really meant this. But you couldn’t, you loved Draco with every ounce of your heart, how could you leave him? You shook your head vehemently, tears now free falling down your cheeks. “I-I can’t.” You gasped, watching a pained expression cross onto Draco’s face. He didn’t want to do this, he really didn’t want to do this but the thought of you getting tortured or killed by Voldemort replays in his mind. He couldn’t put you in danger, not for something so selfish, not because he loves you. It’s because he loves you that he’s willing to let you go, that he’s willing to make this sacrifice if it means keeping you safe.

When he turns to you again, his wand is raised and the look on his face is one you’ve never seen before. His hand is trembling, his eyes look hollow and his mouth is quivering. He looks desperate, he looks distraught, but most of all, he looks broken. “Draco,” You whisper, tears in your eyes as you look up at him, your hand finding the railing behind you. “You have to stay away from me.” Draco gasps, desperately fighting tears.

“Please don’t do this.” Your voice is weak, you know what’s coming next. You’re smart enough to connect the dots.

Draco’s hand wavers, “I have to.” His voice is final, but his body looks as though it’s falling apart. Thoughts of him facing what he must face, without your love, sends panic through your chest. He’ll have to endure the pain, the struggles, all of it, alone. You want to be there for him, you don’t care about the danger. Draco knows you don’t, that’s why he has to do this.

“Baby please, I love you.” You cry desperately, and Draco feels his heart burning to dust in his chest as he looks down at you. “I love you too.” He breathes, closing his eyes and steeling his nerves for what he is going to do next. “Draco!” Your voice comes out as a cry of desperation, and you lurch forward. But Draco is faster.

“Obliviate.” He whispers the word into the open air, watching as you halt, your tearful eyes locked on his. “Draco,” You whisper as a light of blue slips from your head and into the tip of Draco’s wand. Your hands drop to your sides, and your eyes fall flat, looking through him now, seeing him as everyone else does. Your face is empty, expressionless as you watch him. Lowering his wand, Draco slips your memories into the vial as you blink in confusion before sending him a nervous smile. You look around briefly, before reaching over to grab your coat. You brush past Draco without looking at him again, offering a hollow ‘goodnight’ over your shoulder as you go. Draco feels empty, emptier than he ever has. It’s only now that he lets a tear slide down his cheek.

His hands were shaking as he leaned over the railing, the cool wind chilling him. The view laid out before him doesn’t hold any beauty in it anymore, and it feels as though all the color has drained from the world. Grasping the vial tightly in his hand, Draco squeezes his eyes shut before throwing it as hard as he could over the edge of the astronomy tower. He watches with bleary eyes as the vial of your memories, the vial containing your love for him disappears into the Black Lake. This is the right thing to do, but Draco can’t fight how wrong it feels. He knows now that he’ll never be the same, but he turns anyway. Straightens his suit, wipes his tears, and begins the journey back to his common room.

#draco malfoy #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy smut #draco x reader #draco x you #harry potter #harry potter smut #hogwarts #sad smut #Sad Imagine #obliviate #gentle smut #bittersweet

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ganseybois · 2 years

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prompt for @lovelykitten2017 who requested the first romantic kiss between alfie and tommy! this takes place sometime shortly after they met

The same way that there were many different ways to have sex, there were many different kinds of kissing. There were the hungry, desperate kisses, and then there were kisses for when Tommy actually felt something—something slower, something more meaningful, something, dare he fucking say, romantic about it.

In general, Tommy considered himself to be a romantic man. The very first time he had been with Grace, he personally thought it was romantic. Not that that relationship ended up being anything worthwhile for him, in the end, but he had found himself in a very confusing, new relationship recently.

It started out as just sex—this thing between him and Alfie. They never kissed at the beginning, they just fucked, and fucked hard. Then they eventually added the kissing, but it wasn’t like anything soft or nice that Tommy had ever experienced. It was all biting and fighting. They kissed like they fucked: hard. Tommy didn’t mind, if he was being honest. One of the only things he looked forward to now was getting rough with Alfie.

“Hello,” Tommy said to the housekeeper once she finally opened the door. “I’m here to meet Mr. Solomons, he’s been expecting me.”

“Of course sir, please come in. He’s in the study.”

Tommy knew the way, and so he gave a small nod, took off his hat and shoes (Alfie fucking hated when he kept his shoes on in the house) and walked to the study, knocking twice before he opened the door and let himself in.

“Tommy,” Alfie closed his book from his armchair, removing his glasses and letting them fall on his chest, “you know mate, if you open the door without waiting for the person inside to give permission to enter, then it defeats the whole fucking purpose of knocking, doesn’t it?”

“If you’d prefer, I can leave.” Tommy shut the door, cocking his head.

“Now hold on mate, hold on. You and your fucking quick decision making. Didn’t say I wanted that, did I?” he grunted as he got up, walking over to Tommy, who leaned against the door. He liked the way Alfie walked—like he was looking for prey, it made him look so big. Tommy supposed this was one of the few instances where he didn’t mind feeling smaller than someone else.

“Hello,” Alfie kissed his cheek, surprising him. Tommy almost frowned at him, the show of gentleness was one of the most jarring things about Alfie yet.

“Hi,” Tommy cleared his throat. “What are you reading today?” he asked, feeling beyond stupid. Usually, they got right down to it. If they didn’t, they talked a bit about business, then would make fun of one another for a long while, and then have sex. Alfie never greeted him like this, softly, kindly, with a kiss on the cheek, with a friendly hello. Tommy never asked about what he was reading. They didn’t do this.

“Right, I have decided to take the leap back into my old friend Shakespeare.” Alfie walked back over to his armchair, and Tommy found himself following him. “I have chosen to reflect on Macbeth, since I have found myself in my own fucking tragedy, haven’t I? Figured I might as well reflect on it.”

“What tragedy are you in, Alfie?” he asked, grabbing the book and looking it over. It was a book that was already lived in, meaning that it was not Alfie’s first time reading it.

“Well Thomas,” Alfie sighed, sitting back down, “I have found myself, dare I fucking say, thinking about a man who thinks himself to be a fucking king, right, and I thought that perhaps I can find some kind of warning, some kind of fucking signal to point me in the right direction and tell me what to do. See Tom, books tell us where to go when we can’t fucking tell which way is left or right.”

By now, Alfie’s rants, seemingly senseless if you weren’t paying attention, were actually things that Tommy looked forward to. They were often laced with metaphors, and if they weren’t, they were one of the things that made him genuinely smile.

“So,” Tommy sat on the arm of the armchair, looking down at Alfie. “I take it that I’m Macbeth?”

“There is a resemblance, yeah there is,” he ran his hand over Tommy’s knee, “but I am hoping your life takes less of a tragic fucking turn.”

Tommy refrained from rolling his eyes. “If I had known I would have such riveting conversation, I’d have come sooner.”

“Simply want me for a fuck, eh Tom?” he lifted his hand up to Tommy’s face, caressing his sharp cheekbone.

After that—Tommy couldn’t explain it. Suddenly Alfie was moving him, moving him so that Tommy got off the arm of the chair and was sitting on him instead, Alfie’s hands careful, feather light. He never thought in a million years that Alfie could have such careful hands. They were leaning forward then, but slower than ever. Tommy closed his eyes, and suddenly they were kissing.

But this was not one of their normal kisses.

it was unhurried, soft, it was Alfie kissing him once, for a long moment and then pulling back, smiling lightly at him, and pressing his lips against Tommy’s again. Their tongues did not touch, their mouths moved slightly against each other, but Alfie made sure to keep the pace. He kept pulling away, touching Tommy’s cheekbones, and then continuing. Tommy felt his brain become completely, and utterly quiet.

He liked it, he liked it very much.

When Alfie pulled away completely, pressing his thumb along Tommy’s bottom lip. “Let’s not make this a tragedy.”

Tommy sighed, but he also smiled. “Whatever you say Alfie.”

#lovelykitten2017

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ready-to-obeyme · 4 years

Text

[OM!] Mother!MC with Demon Brothers + Luke Headcanons

Scenario: Instead of a younger human, the Devildom welcomes a mother (with a 3-year old son in tow) into the exchange program.

intro + headcanons about how the brothers would interact with her

no romance… just uwu

bonus how the brothers would treat the son (why son? Perhaps because I too want a son)

Female reader!! (MC is referred to as she in this post)

bonus character: Luke :3c

I JUST WANT THEM TO FEEL LOVED OK

Lucifer wasn’t prone to believe in fate-- and the beginnings of the exchange program was just another reason why he did not. He let the breeze-- the wind pick a human applicant for him; and if he had gone through every application (though he wasn't completely sure he'd be sane by the end of it all) maybe this situation wouldn't have happened.

"What do you mean you can't be one of our exchange students?" Diavolo inquired, more curious than anything, an amused smile gracing his lips.

"I have a son," she said hesitantly. And there he was, peering around at the assembly room in his mother's arms that were wrapped protectively around him.

A mother and her human child, Lucifer thought blearily. One could only imagine what would happen if both of them remained here. (Which is why he never cut corners in anything he ever did ever because the one time he does, things go to shit. Damn Diavolo for enabling him.)

Lucifer

disgruntled by the adjustments made to accommodate a human child and his mother; mf will he ever rest

probably has to worry about babysitting duties delegated to his brothers

however, pleasantly surprised by MC's calm demeanor and reliable personality; finally another competent person in the house he doesn't have to really pick up after

...actually adores her and her son

accidentally does things to please her without really realizing it and hates the slight disappointment or worry he sees when he goes through sleepless nights or lashes out from anger

doesn't remember the last time he's been chastised, but he's as embarrassed as he can be when she fusses over him

the hell coffee she makes for him every morning and the snacks she brings during his breaks makes him lowkey wanna cry-- he doesn’t know how to deal with a selfless, unconditional love

is used to being a single parent ngl so taking care of her son is kinda… easy especially if the son is compliant

finds himself pressing a kiss to his forehead absently and catches himself only after he's done it (bonus points if Barbatos takes a pic of it and sends it into their trio gc)

“Barbatos, please delete this picture.”

“Oh, are you sure about that?”

“................”

ah he's attached, and so are his brothers, which kind of perturbed him a little but he’s kind of in the same boat after a short week or so

(if there was one brother who had a chance of harboring feelings for a mother mc, it’d be Luciiiiiiii uwuwuwuuwuuw; what can I say? He can’t resist the milf)

eventually, he opens up to her about the war-- because if there was any human he’d trust with his secrets, it would be MC

Mammon

he's crying

he doesn't think anyone has ever talked or held him as gently as MC

similar to the game, absolutely adores her and can't even lie about it

ok jk he's still a tsundere, but blushes every time MC looks at him with a knowing look because he can't lie convincingly enough that no, the head pats dont feel nice and no, he's just eating the lunch she made because it'll be a waste otherwise, ok?!

Her son definitely thinks he’s related to Mammon

Definitely the first one to accidentally call her “mom”

But hey don’t blame him-- he’s weak to how MC looks at him endearingly as she brushes hair out of his face motherly, like he can do no wrong

Nothing can compare to how Mammon feels when MC tells him she’s proud of him

feels legit guilty when she calls him out on his habits of stealing things to the point he remembers her voice when he tries to do it again-- basically his conscience ngl

she's like a cold hand to his feverish forehead, a cooling balm to the burn on his hand

when she defends him from his brother's insults, swears he'll protect her and her son

on that note, adores her son too and her son adores mammon!

surprisingly (or not) good with kids and treats them well; plays with them, very lively and dynamic

takes babysitting pretty seriously-- makes him consider the fact that he might actually want to be a father in the future if possible

not that he doesn’t have reckless endeavors with her son... they just end up okay so no one is none the wiser until it shows up on someone’s devilgram or spoken about through Barbatos/Diavolo

Leviathan

Honestly doesn’t know how to to react

A little miffed tbh that he finds it so easy to talk to her about…. Everything???

When he enlisted her (and her son) to get his money back from Mammon, did he expect to rant to her about all his animes and gush about his figurines to her because that was one of the first time someone’s allowed him to indulge in his hobbies and listen patiently?

No, and now he’s crying

And the fact she gently addresses his self-deprecating comments and urges him to see how she sees him (smart, witty, forgiving)---

Will probably do anything for MC and anything she says at this point; the pact is just a formality LOL

Listens to her and genuinely thinks the things she does for him is in his best interest

Had a hard time knowing how to deal with her son for a while, simply because he doesn’t know what he could do to actually entertain the child

Then finds out he could literally put up TSL or any of his favorite animes and the kid will watch it-- and ABSORB

Levi might as well be the kid’s best friend at this point-- dubbs him ‘Henry’-- which is really the greatest compliment MC thinks her son can get from him

Honestly volunteers to babysit him and proceeds to spoil him rotten

Satan

Slightly annoyed at how motherly she is at the beginning-- he takes her care and actions as if she treats him like a child

Finds it frightening how soothed he feels when he’s around her

There’s something about an older, calming presence that saps the anger from him and makes him feel like he can be himself around MC

Surprisingly the second person to accidentally call MC by “mom” probably an hour after he makes fun of Mammon for doing it (lol karma)

isn't one to seek out her attention like with levi, mammon, or asmo but is pleased whenever he does have time to spend with her because she always seems to have insight on everything and a strange wisdom that all mothers apparently do

has a lot of late night talks with her about her life, her career, what it's like having a child

often finds himself asking her for advice, and even if she doesn't have the answer, he always comes out of it thoughtful and clear minded

always willing to take care of her son; delights in reading him his favorite books and enacting the exciting scenes

always treats him like an adult to the point that their conversations are really funny to listen to

"So would you say the author's intent of the blue door was to convey the agony of grief?"

"I like the color blue."

"As did the protagonist; hm, you bring up a good point."

the son is Satan's partner in crime against Lucifer

"It's better if we do this, isn't that right?"

"Yeah!" MC’s child says, happily chewing on his favorite snack that Satan always gives to him and honestly not caring about the conversation at hand at all

"See? He agrees with me!”

And Lucifer just sighs bc he always loses in these arguments and Satan is unbearably smug

Asmodeus

similar to Satan, finds her presence in Devildom to be very pleasant and calming

she never seems to be disapproving of his past times, and Asmo is endeared by the way she never fails to say "stay safe" or "have fun!" or even "do you want me to leave the front lights for when you come back?"

the little motherly ways in which she shows she cares makes Asmo adore her

loves taking her shopping; always has a good time just gossiping, trying new clothes, or having a girls night out with self careeeee

when her son tags along, loves to have him dress up too or try on make up and it's too adorable NOT to post on devilgram

pretty sure MC's son has trended on devilgram before-- but that was the first and last time because Lucifer yelled at him for advertising the fact there was a human child in Devildom

which Asmo thinks is silly because he's pretty sure the caption under the selfie of the three of them ("So adorbs! I've only had MC's son for a day, but if anything happened to him, I would kill everyone in Devildom and then myself. Teehee!") would have deterred any demon from laying a finger on him

When Asmo has him for babysitting duties, always loves to bathe him and play with bubbles, morphing his hair into an afro or an equally fashionable hairdo

actually very attentive to the child!!

Beelzebub

Not much changes from how Beel treats MC, but does view her actions in a more motherly manner

I think one thing that would change is that-- considering MC is a mother of her own child, is actually very protective of the brothers and sensitive to their changes in moods

When Lucifer gets angry at Beel and Luke, MC is furious and furiously protective, not yielding one bit or hesitating to put herself in front of them because of her instincts-- Beel has never admired her more

Physical strength has always something he can easily understand, but it is the strength of wills and of bravery that surprises him every time

After Mammon and Satan accidentally calls you “mom” Beelzebub has no qualms with calling you by mom either-- I mean, what’s the shame in that? Everyone already thinks of you as their mother-figure anyways

MC helps him deal with the loss of his sister

With MC’s child… You know that one meme with the two ways dad deals with kids: one is softly kissing his child on the forehead as he sleeps and the other is carrying his kid by the leg with one arm

Both of them is Beel

carries the kid around in the weirdest ways sometimes, including on his head, in one hand like he's holding a trophy, upside down (dw the kid thinks it's funny)

main transport is on his shoulders though; thinks it's kinda cute how the kid puts his arms around his head

wouldn't love anything more but to nap with him, but Beel is afraid of hurting him when he sleeps

Is the softest with MC’s son--- he’s not used to being the older brother, so he takes this responsibility kind of seriously

Always makes sure the food that MC’s son eats is appropriate so he tastes/tries it first… and sometimes ends up eating all of it, but he always manages to succeed in feeding the kid so it’s all good

Belphegor

Wants to hate MC so badly the first time they meet when he’s in the attic

He’s supposed to HATE humans, damn it-- why the hell is MC trying to be so motherly and understanding, huh?? How dare she make him guilty after he lied to her like wlkjaflksjfkjasdlfj

Out of all of them, seeks MC the least; whether it’s from guilt or the fact that her presence reminds him of the things and resentment he used to hold against her

Takes a little more cajoling from MC to talk to her and explain how he’s feeling so they can move past it

He’d rather die than let anyone else know that he teared up when they talked about Lilith and how he felt about everything; urges Belphie to talk to Lucifer and seek reconciliation with him individually (because it may be a family problem, but the feud was between the two of them, don’t you think?)

Finally gets the redemption arc he deserves and feels a lot lighter knowing that everything that has happened is now in the open and he’s ready to start healing

In avoiding MC after the whole debacle, Belphie ends up spending more time with her son because he thinks Belphie is fascinating and Belphie has no clue why

Similarly to Satan, treats the kid like he would anyone else but does find it amusing if the kid chases after his tail like a cat

Always ends up napping with him whenever MC’s son takes a nap-- after all, what’s easier than looking after a kid if you’re BOTH asleep?

Keeps an eye on him by putting a hand on his torso as they nap together

Uses MC’s son as an excuse to not do something, especially when Lucifer tells him to do something he doesn’t like to do

Honestly the son is a part of his arsenal-- he knows how weak everyone is for this kid (and so is he tbh but more lowkey) so cute pics of him is like… currency (Mammon WISHES he thought of this first)

Bonus:

Luke

MC practically adopts him the moment she lays eyes on him-- how could she not? Luke may as well be her other son

Luke can’t say no, especially after she saves him from Lucifer

Definitely calls her mom by accident and the brothers tease him-- only for him to retort back that “don’t you ALL call her by mom?” and they shut up lol

Simeon still gets to tease Luke though heheh

Really really really tries hard not to refer to MC as mom, but it slips out sometimes and no one even bats an eye

Baking together is such a family bonding moment

Treats MC’s son most like his younger brother almost automatically and makes sure he doesn’t get into any trouble while he’s taking care of him (though he does anyways)

Kind of likes the responsibility of babysitting MC’s son; makes him feel trusted

(MC takes the cutest pics of them together when they fall asleep; starts thinking about maybe having another child wouldn’t be so bad)

#obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me belphegor #obey me beelzebub #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me luke #shall we date? obey me!

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bytheangell · 4 years

Text

Give It a Chance

(Read on AO3) Alec is no stranger to working out. That isn’t why he’s cringing as he pulls on a pair of sweatpants and slips his feet into socks and sneakers at the crack of dawn on a Monday morning. He’s questioning why he ever agreed to do this because he isn’t on his way to an actual workout: he’s on his way to Zumba.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” he grumbles at Isabelle, shuffling into the living room of the apartment they share with Jace. Jace, who is sleeping peacefully because he somehow managed to not get himself subjected to their sister’s guilt-trip after Clary cancels at the last minute due to some rescheduled meeting with a potential buyer from out of town. Who even wants to look at art before 9 am?!

“I don’t want to go alone and you’re already awake! Plus you love to work out.”

“I do. And if we were going to work out, I’d be ecstatic. Instead, we’re going to… I don’t even know what to call it, because it isn’t even dancing. Which I guess is good, since I hate dancing. But it isn’t working out, either.”

“You’re only saying that because you’ve never tried it before. Just wait.” Izzy grabs her water bottle off of the kitchen counter, filling it as she talks. “Magnus’ class is the most difficult class to get into in the city. It wouldn’t be this popular if it wasn’t amazing, just give it a chance.”

“It’s a fad. And if it’s so popular you should’ve been able to give this spot away to anyone. The way you talk about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some Zumba Black Market you could’ve auctioned it off on.” He follows suit, filling his own water bottle before turning back to his sister. “Let’s just get this over with.”

---

They get there early. Much earlier than Alec thinks should be necessary, but it ends up not being early enough - there’s already a line at the door and the class doesn’t even start for another 20 minutes. With pre-signed up spots, though Izzy assures him that they still want to be early enough to not get stuck in the back corner. Alec disagrees and is seriously considering going that way when the doors open anyway.

“This is ridiculous,” he starts but stops when his almost-rant earns him an elbow to the side from Izzy.

“Just shush until it’s over. Then if you still think it doesn’t live up to the hype you can bash it as much as you want.”

There’s something in the way her eyes seem to twinkle with the offer, like she knows something he doesn’t, gives him a moment of pause. “Promise?” “Promise.”

That’s a deal Alec can stick to. A few minutes of silent judgment in return for what he’s certain he can stretch into hours of commentary later.

“Deal.” Alec leans back against the wall while they wait, arms crossed over his chest. He sees a few other guys in the line, one or two of them looking about as thrilled as he is to be there, but for the most part there’s an eager chatter among the growing crowd waiting for the doors to open. Maybe he is missing something here…

Izzy’s already striking up a conversation with the girl in front of her and Alec allows himself to zone out until the doors swing open and Izzy tugs on his t-shirt to get his attention when the line starts to file into the large group classroom.

And oh.

Oh.

“Sorry about the delay, I was having some trouble with the sound system but we should be all set!” The apology comes from a man in tight black… leggings? Workout tights? Alec isn’t positive about what they are because he’s only ever seen guys working out in shorts or sweatpants around his usual gym, but he certainly isn’t complaining. They have neon orange accents that match the tank-top he’s wearing, which is ripped for style down the sides. It’s a racerback that shows off some impressive arm and shoulder muscles, and--

“I can see you won’t have any problem watching the instructor, at least.”

Izzy’s voice is light with barely-concealed amusement, a smirk spread wide on her features.

“What?” Alec asks, half to stall and half because he wasn’t entirely paying attention to what his sister was actually saying, though the tone and the look on her face filled in the blanks easily enough.

“Try not to trip over your jaw on the floor on the way in,” she teases, having the good grace to lower her voice as they get closer to the door, which also brings them closer to the gorgeous man standing next to it. He’s taking the time to welcome each person who comes in, greeting some by name, others with casual nods.

Alec is trying to pick up speed through the doorway to avoid any direct interaction but he isn’t fast enough.

“I haven’t seen you two around before,” the instructor - Magnus, Alec remembers his sister mentioning- says, glancing from Izzy to Alec. “I’m certain I’d remember if you were.”

“This is our first class,” Izzy confirms. “I’m sure you know how difficult it is to get into.”

“I’m very glad you could make it. You and your...?” Magnus trails off very clearly fishing for information. Alec, who is still trying very intently to focus on anything other than the way the light catches Magnus’ eyes and gives them hints of gold among the brown, misses the cue entirely.

“Brother,” Izzy is quick to supply. “Alec. And I’m Isabelle.”

“Brother…” Magnus repeats softly, eyes falling on Alec but not dwelling too long, aware of the rest of the line behind the siblings. “Right. Well, Alec and Isabelle, I’d love to hear what you think after the class. Grab a spot and I’ll see you in there.”

“Thanks,” Izzy says, and Alec realizes he hasn’t said anything the entire exchange, as he pushes slightly past Isabelle to go in first.

Once they’re inside he waits for her to pick their spot, knowing better than to think he’s getting away with hiding in the back corner he instinctively wants to gravitate towards.

“Anywhere but the very front,” he tells her the moment her eyes drift towards that half of the room.

“Oh, so you can speak. I was starting to wonder if you’d gone mute back there.” He can hear the smile behind her words even as she walks away from him towards the right-middle of the room.

“I was just keeping quiet like I promised. Unless you wanted me to tell Magnus all about how I’m only here because you forced me to come, and don’t actually care how popular his class is?”

“Uh-huh,” Izzy says, clearly unconvinced, but doesn’t have time to harp on it when the last of the line files in and Magnus makes his way to the front of the room adjusting the headset that indents the top of his hair.

“Testing, testing.” His voice is too soft to be heard over the music that starts up, an uptempo beat that’s energetic but not too fast for a good warm-up. Magnus fidgets with the volume for a few more seconds before striking the perfect balance. “There we go. Alright everybody, grab your spots and make sure you have enough space to move!”

Izzy moves a few steps forward but keeps them near the middle of the room, and off to the side. “You’re lucky I know how annoying it would be for you to stand in the middle and block everyone’s line of sight,” she tells him. “Otherwise I’d drag us right behind Magnus.”

Alec rolls his eyes but silently says a prayer to the genetics that graced him with his impressive height.

He’s about to say something heavily laced in sarcasm when Magnus’ voice drowns out any clever comeback he might have.

“Welcome! Y’all ready? We’re going to have a lot of fun with this one, right?”

Several people give a cheer, a few others clap, and Alec is at a loss to find who is this enthusiastic this early in the morning about a dance class.

Perhaps he would’ve cheered if he anticipated the show he’s about to get.

Magnus moves in a way that makes it very clear that he has a dancing background of some sort. The instructions start off easy enough to follow, but even when he misses a verbal cue it isn’t as if Alec has any issue with keeping a studious gaze on the instructor.

When Magnus starts a song with heavy salsa influences, all hips and fluid arm movements, Alec isn’t sure if he’s being rewarded or cursed by the universe.

Alec has to admit that this is a lot more difficult than it looks. It still isn’t his first, or second, or anywhere near his top choices for a workout, but there’s a sheen of sweat on his face by the 4th or 5th song... which is probably because he’s only just starting to follow actively along without getting lost in the left-and-rights. Up until now, he’s been tripping over his own feet too often to get into any consistent flow.

Magnus facing them now, somehow managing to mirror the steps for them to follow with impressive ease even facing this way. His eyes scan the group, giving tips here and there to people he sees struggling and cracking a few jokes with people who Alec can only assume are regulars.

“See, Thea, I told you you’d get that grapevine down after a few tries,” he says before his eyes fall on Alec.

And Alec, foolish enough to make eye contact, loses all train of thought and forgets to step right with everyone else, leaving the poor girl to his left nearly colliding into him. Magnus’ light chuckle of amusement is barely audible over the thump of the bass in the song and Alec is glad the red on his face could be attributed to the exercise and not the blush it definitely is as he scrambles to the side, ignoring the steps entirely.

With the extra eyes on him, Alec returns all his focus to the movements, forcing his eyes to look back down at Magnus’ feet instead of his face. He still can’t seem to get his own feet to remember which steps forward first, starting off backwards almost every time and eventually stopping entirely in flustered frustration.

“Don’t worry so much about doing it perfectly! First times with the routines are always a rough run-through, just keep going until there’s a good spot to fix it, like this.” Alec watches as Magnus intentionally gets off-step, going left instead of right. And then, at the start of another repetition, does a small hop to switch feet in a half-step to get back onto the right one. Alec nods to himself and waits for another rotation to do the same, looking far too pleased with himself when it works and he’s back on step.

When Alec looks up Magnus is grinning, too, and nods at him with a smile before turning his attention back to the room at large.

The rest of the class passes by much too fast now that he’s found a rhythm and is, though he’ll never admit it to Isabelle, actually starting to enjoy himself, and when the cooldown comes he’s surprised at how disappointed he feels.

“Great class, everyone! See you back here Friday!” Magnus says, cutting the stereo off. The sudden lack of music is jarring but the room quickly dissolves into chatter to fill the silence.

“So?” Izzy asks him before taking a long drink from her water bottle. “And don’t think you can lie to me - I saw you having fun.” “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be,” Alec admits grudgingly, wiping at the sweat about to drip into his eyes with a corner of his t-shirt.

A sudden voice behind him makes him jump.

“What a ringing endorsement.” Alec recognizes the voice immediately - how could he not, after hearing it for the past hour straight. “Perhaps after the next class I can reach ‘moderately tolerable’ status.”

Alec grimaces. “I-”

“Perhaps you could give me a few pointers on what could bring up my rating. Maybe… over coffee?” Magnus continues, not giving a chance for Alec to backtrack his original statement.

Alec takes a second to make sure he heard that right.

“Coffee?” Alec repeats, stalling because he’s honestly caught too off-guard to answer.

“Or smoothies, or proper drinks. It’s only 10 am but I don’t judge, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” Magnus adds with a wink.

Yet another comment Alec isn’t expecting. “You mean right now? Like this?” These aren’t even Alec’s best sweatpants, ignoring the fact that they’re sweatpants in the first place, and the sides of his hair stick to the side of his face from sweat.

“Are you saying there’s something wrong with the way I look?” Magnus asks.

The panic that crosses Alec’s face has Izzy laughing beside him. Magnus looks offended - but it’s exaggerated enough that Alec thinks he’s faking it just to be dramatic. Right?

“You look great,” Alec manages. “I, on the other hand…”

“Also look great,” Magnus supplies, not missing a beat. “Is that a yes?”

Alec hesitates, but a not-so-subtle nudge from Izzy’s elbow into the small of his back has him nodding.

“Yes. Yeah, sure. Coffee sounds great.”

“Coffee it is. Let me just wrap up here and I’ll meet you outside. I know a wonderful shop just a couple blocks down.

The second Magnus walks away Isabelle’s in front of him, grinning from ear-to-ear.

“While I’m thrilled you have a date, if you actually tell him what you hate and he changes his classes, I will murder you,” she says pointedly.

“You’re in luck,” Alec says. “I didn’t actually hate any of it. It was really fun.”

“I knew it!” Isabelle nearly shouts, and Alec motions for her to quiet down when a few eyes, Magnus’ included, turn their way at her exclamation.

“Ready to go, Alec?” Magnus asks, coming up beside them. “Sorry for stealing your brother away,” he adds. “I’m not interrupting any plans am I?”

“None at all,” Isabelle is quick to reassure him. “Please, steal away. In fact, you’re more than welcome to keep him.”

Alec rolls his eyes. “Iz, please,” he half-whines. It’s just coffee, just an impulsive date. Magnus doesn’t even know him. In fact, if they make it through a whole cup of coffee without Alec boring him to death he’ll consider it a win.

“I guess we’ll have to see how amenable Alec is to being kept,” Magnus says, and Alec wonders how he’s that smooth, just like, all of the time.

As it turns out, after two cups of coffee, then lunch, then an afternoon walking around the park and talking and dinner after realizing how late it was, Alec is very amenable to being kept.

#malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #isabelle lightwood #shadowhunters #i started this ages ago and meant for it to have chapters #but when I didn't have any more ideas I decided to let it live its best life as a oneshot #elle writes a few deadbeat lines #long post

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years

Text

tapestry 👑 XV

Warnings: eventual dark elements (tags to be added as fic continues)

This is dark!(king)Steve and explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: King Steven had a wandering eye but you never thought it would fall upon you.

This Chapter: The pieces begin to move.

Note: Alright I eked out another chapter so here we go, on 15! already. What the hell y’all? This is wild. I mean come on. Wowee. Anyways, I’m running out of ways to thank you guys so just read the chapter already, lol.

masterlist

There was a bench on the upper floors where you liked to sit and watch the snow fall. Since your isolation, it had become ritual. You and Marge would perch on the wooden seat and stare out into the royal gardens, the hedges barren and coated in white. The sky was a pale shade of grey and the castle wall loomed like a giant sleeping beneath the snow. You found yourself lulled but the rare sense of peace.

Close to peace. It was hard to forget all that had consumed the court with a guard at your back. It was harder to escape the fixation which had overcome all; the two kings in the single castle. Steven and T’Challa met daily and spent many hours together; whether alongside council or otherwise. And when they were apart, you were often in the presence of your king.

It was only a few days since your encounter with T’Challa. The king was well-received within the kingdom by your father’s accounts and despite the underlying scandal, there was a sense of joy left over from the yuletide; albeit, only among those able to indulge it.

Footsteps approached from around the corner and you glanced over at the shadow which appeared before its owner. Your guard turned to watch Lord Barnes as he strode swiftly through the corridor. The dark-haired noble nodded as he approached the sentinel and stopped short to bow to you in kind. He was fidgety and impatient.

“Lord Barnes,” You rose and curtsied to him as the bench separated you. “What has you in such a hurry?”

“Courtly business,” he said brusquely. “Most pressing.”

“Is that it?” You squinted. “You’ve never seemed so bothered by courtly business.”

“When it is such as this, I must be bothered,” He countered. “Why do you linger in the corridor, lady?”

“I haven’t anywhere else to linger,” You replied. “I am without my own business these days.”

“Only the king’s,” His lips curved slightly as his own quip.

“Only the king’s,” You affirmed. “As I’m sure you’ve been occupied. I’ve not seen you quite so often since the yuletide.”

“You never saw me very often before,” He returned. “My apologies if I am curt but I should be upon my way.”

“I should let you on your way if you tell me what calls you so urgently.” You watched his blue eyes as they strayed down the hall.

“I suppose… you will not hear it otherwise,” He sighed. “A warrant has been served upon Ladies Stark and Wilson. They’ve surrendered to custody this morning during their attendance of the queen. They’ve been taken to the Fort.”

“Arrested?” You gasped and looked to Marge. “For what?”

“I cannot speak further on this,” He said. “I must go and you should return to your chambers. News will reach you shortly. Good day.”

He bowed his head and turned on his heel. You blinked and scurried around the bench. “No, no, Lord Barnes,” You called after him as you followed. “I would surmise you do go to the king.”

“You would suppose correct,” He kept his strides long and harried. “And I would be overdue.”

“Then I shall accompany you for I must see him, too,” You insisted as you finally came up next to him. Marge and your guard followed behind.

“You should wait,” He peeked over at you. “He will be engaged already.”

“I tire of waiting on him,” You said. “You may tell him I forced myself upon you, but I will see him.”

“Lord, if it wasn’t for that mailed bastard behind me I’d drag you back to your chambers myself and lock you up,” He grumbled, “And I suppose that’d be the only obstacle to keep you from your intent.”

“It would,” You assured him and raised your chin as you lifted skirts to keep pace with him. “Though perhaps it would be just as amusing to have you fight my guard.”

He grunted but said nothing further. He walked silently at your side, eyes set ahead of him as his impatience radiated around you. When you reached the king’s chambers, the guards greeted you with a pair of nods and one knocked on the large wooden doors. It was opened without delay.

Barnes waited for you to enter first and several men sat already with the king; including your own father. They looked to you and stood as the king did. Confusion marred his face as he glanced between you and Lord Barnes.

“My lady, what are you– I–” He stopped himself and huffed. “My lords, if you would continue onto the council chambers, I do have matters to attend to. Lord Barnes if you would remain.”

The king crossed his arms as he waited for his commands to be obeyed. Your father rose with the five other men and passed you with a pointed look. “Mind yourself, daughter,” He breathed before he slipped through the door. The footsteps shuffled out into the hall until at last the door was closed behind you.

“I asked you to come alone, Buck,” The king said.

“I did not ask her to come, she insisted upon it,” He shook his head. “If it were up to me, I’d have strapped her down but your damned dog does follow at her heels.”

“That damned dog’s bite is keeping her safe,” The king retorted. “It doesn’t matter. She is here…” He paused and looked to you. “Why?”

“Do you think I do not grow frustrated by the oblivion you keep me in, your highness?” You neared slowly and stopped just behind the chairs which faced his large desk. “Would you blame my curiosity that I should know why you’ve have two of the queen’s ladies accosted?”

“It was their husbands who turned them in,” He said. “They came to me and they did say that their wives spoke the most traitorous words. As king, with a poisoning so recent, I cannot let them away.”

“Traitorous words? Whatever could they have said?” You asked as you brought a hand up to grip the back of the chair.

“They’ve merely been taken to be interviewed, my lady,” The king sniffed. “I did not tell you because I did hope to spare you the worry. For a time, at least. You have been so distressed, I would not further your difficulties.”

“To be interviewed? In the Fort?” You crinkled your brow. “My king, I can admit my naivete, but I will not feign stupidity.”

“Can you not guess at what they may be asked? At what they will surely admit?” Steven planted his hands on his desk as he leaned on it. “I do this to keep us safe. To keep you safe.”

“And I do know that, I do,” You clutched your hands together. “But I would not have another hurt for my well-being. And upon what suspicion? Upon what proof?”

“Upon the boy who did die upon your chamber floor,” Steven insisted. “Upon the fear that does claw at my heart constantly. For the love I have for you.”

“Your love is kind, I should hate to see it turn so cruel upon others,” You said. “Would you not have mercy upon my request?”

“Mercy cannot be had anymore,” He looked to his desk, the mess of papers atop it.

“And if they say the words you expect of them, what then?”

“Then we should interview the queen.” He shrugged and avoided your gaze.

“And should she be found to be conspiring, you would…well, what should be here fate?”

“Exile, death?” He looked up at you. “If she commits treason, she should earn whatever fate she receives. A fate that would leave us to be together.”

“And I should claim her spot knowing that is what befell her?”

“You should claim her spot loyally and with grace,” His voice deepened as he pushed himself straight. “You should heed my orders and listen to me for I am your king.”

“I have obeyed you. I have bided you, I have been patient, I–”

“You are still but an earl’s daughter,” He spat and you flinched.

“Your highness,” Lord Barnes intoned gently. You’d forgotten of his presence as he stepped forward. “You must understand her fear. She does not speak maliciously.”

“She speaks too much. I’ve seen her comfortable, I’ve her well, aliv, even,” The king ranted. “And with our union almost in sight, she would persist.”

“She would protect herself. She is young, how is she to understand all this? How is she to fathom that a queen she knew once to be kind and hospitable has turned cruel and maniacal?”

“She needn’t understand any of that, she only need love me as I do her,” Steven hissed. “For she is the only wife I would have.”

“Your highness,” You said quietly, “I did not mean… Lord Barnes is right.” You slowly rounded the desk. Cautious as you feared he would lash out in his anger. His face red with his temper. “I did not mean to rile you, I only meant to understand this all. Your highness…”

You touched his chest and felt your heart hammering. You looked at Barnes from the corner of your eye and he nodded subtly.

“If all this would go wrong, it would all be over.” You soothed as you rubbed the silk of his overcoat. “And that does worry me.”

He searched your face and slowly placed his hand atop yours. He unclenched his jaw and exhaled. “I have told you I shall see you safe, see us together. I meant it. You do not need to worry, my love.”

“I know,” You said softly. “‘But may I ask of you one thing?”

“You shall ask of me anything,” He breathed.

“If it should be that Eleanor does conspire, would you have mercy upon her? For me?”

“It would be not upon my mercy that she is judged,” The king said firmly. “There is a party of cardinals traveling now from the See. They will hold the trial, they will lay their judgement, and issue their own sentence. It is… beyond my control.”

“So… you assume there should be evidence enough for a trial?” You questioned.

“There would be,” He confirmed. “But I did not call the cardinals upon the expectation of a murder trial, merely that of an annulment.”

“Murder?” You frowned.

“The death of a servant is nothing, but intent to kill a king, that is treason,” He said softly. “Even a queen cannot commit such a crime.”

You lowered your head. Stunned. Your lip trembled as your heart stuttered. For it came upon you at that very moment that you could not delay the king forever. That all that he had done could not be reversed. And foremost, it occur red to you, that another should die to break this stalemate.

“My lady, we should rejoice,” The king brought two fingers up under your chin to raise your head. “For one day, I shall call you my wife, I am certain of it now.”

👑

That night, you sat before the hearth and thought. You had supped alone as the king tended to his business. The thought made you shiver; of all that he was orchestrating, of the role you’d played in it. For all your willful ignorance, you were just as guilty as him. Was all this worth something as low as your reputation?

There was a rap at the door as you stared at the burning long. The crust of orange embers along it, the pale smoke that billowed up into the chimney. You waved a hand at Marge as another knock sounded and you rubbed your forehead. Your obstinacy had led to this; your insistence on being above the role of mistress. The want to follow your own will when that had never been a lady’s place.

The creak of the door and Marge’s gasp irked you. You looked to the door as your servant bowed and recited a mousy “your highness.” You stood at once and made to bow.

“Don’t you bother with that,” The queen swept in, her burgundy skirts curled around her legs as she came to a stop before you. “I came to talk not to have you simper to my face.”

“I never simpered,” You protested. “I was only ever honest to you.”

“Yes, the morally unstained lady,” She scowled. “You know what he’s done?”

“I do.” You said evenly.

“And you did not try to stop him? Did I betray you so entirely you would see me thus?”

“Stop him? How should I do that when you never could?” You backed away from her and wrapped your arms around yourself. “I was hurt that you used me but I was never vengeful. If I had a hand in any of this, it was not intentional.”

“Why did you not relent to him?” She asked.

“Why did you banish me? Why did you rig my saddle?” You turned on her. “Why did you hate me for the very affair you instigated?”

“The saddle… was a mistake. I only meant to scare you away. Truly. I did not intend for you to be maimed. or worse, killed. But I did not think in my anger.” Her green eyes were like glass. “I banished you because I was humiliated. I could bear Rose and those other mistresses in my husband’s bed, but I could not bear you taking the place that even I could never reach.”

“I never meant for it and it is too late for me too. In my fear, I reassured him. In my naivety, I gave his desires credence. I am guilty, yes, of enabling him, but it does not mean I condone him,” You shook your head as your eyes stung. “And so we are both backed into a corner and we must play our parts. We must move each square within the rules and hope that neither is victorious, but that we can achieve a draw.”

“You know that will not happen,” She said grimly. “But will you not go to him? Ask him to spare me. My life, at least?”

“I did.” You said plainly. “I tried and he has reminded me of how powerless I truly am. We all are. For if he should do this to a princess born to be queen, what shall he do to me one day?”

“You…”

“I begged him and he would’ve turned on me too if I had not retreated,” You picked at your sleeve as you spoke. “His mind is set, and so too are our fates.”

“You would let him exile me?” She gasped. “Kill me, even?”

“It isn’t my choice,” You withheld the tears as your voice threatened to crack. “You know that.”

She tore her eyes away and looked down at the carpet. She sniffed and nodded as she raised her head. “I know it.” She said. “I only came here because… they’ve all left me. I have no one else.” She turned and her velvet skirts grazed the floor around her feet. “And because I want you to know, while I did tamper with your horse, I did not send you that poison.”

She stopped at the door and glanced back at you. Her eyes were glossy but determined. “I never wanted you dead, I only wanted my pride.”

“I’m sorry.” You said quietly.

“No, I am,” She inhaled and let her breath out heavily. “Goodbye. I do think this will be the last time we should speak, my lady.”

“I hope it is not, your highness.” You returned.

“Cling to that hope for as long as you can,” She bit down and swallowed back her grief. Marge stood at the ready with her hand upon the door handle. “For he will take that from you, too.”

👑

Three days after the ladies were arrested, you broke fast with your father. He was elated. The ladies were under guard in the Fort and the gaolers were about their work. The king was optimistic and so was the council. The cardinals were due in a week with good weather. Two, if poor.

You couldn’t find it in yourself to be hungry. Not your usual fear of poison but for the thought of the women in their cells. Of what they’re revelations may bring upon the queen; upon yourself; upon the entire kingdom. You pushed your food around your plate and bounced your foot nervously beneath your skirts.

Months ago, your father would’ve found any excuse to elude your presence, but now he was all too eager to be near you. You realized, as you watched his fork poke into a bit of yolk, that he only sat upon council by your fortune. That if it were not for the king’s favour for his daughter, he’d still be a lowly in earl in a single chamber.

“Has mother sent word of when she would return to court?” You asked.

“I’ve told you daughter, we must wait for the winter to pass. She is not fit to travel in the cold.” He could not hide his exasperation. “She will come as soon as the roads are clear of ice but she is better for the time with your sister and her grandchild.”

You frowned. You thought to ask if Alice should return as well but that was likely upon Edward’s will. You set your fork aside and wiped your hands with your napkin.

“Perhaps the king would permit me a visit if I were to ask him again.” You ventured. “I feel so very alone, here.”

“You cannot leave.” He scoffed. “You will soon be betrothed to the king. And upon your marriage, well, queen.” He smiled greedily. “A queen cannot hide away with her sister in some country castle.”

“Queen?” You felt ill at the thought. “Oh, father, I should just be away with my virtue and accept any marriage the king would give me.”

“Oh, don’t be foolish!” He snapped. “You’ve not played this game so long to let the crown slip away.”

“It’s not a game to me. It’s my life,” You retorted. “I never wanted to be queen, I never wanted you to be councilor upon my shoulders. And yet that is the only thing I’ve ever done that has garnered your approval; an ounce of care beyond and yet it only goes so deep as to what benefit I can achieve for you, father.”

“You’ve dragged the king this far, you will see it through.” He snarled. “And when you do, our family will be among the highest nobility. We will sit at the king’s table, we will be known across each province.”

“If the day ever comes that I sit the throne, you will not sit at my table.” You sneered. “You can sit in your charlatan’s chair on the council and be happy with that.”

“You are as foolish as you were the day you were born.” He shook his head and slammed his fist on the table. “You don’t even know how close you are.”

“The queen remains. To speak of myself in her place is as good as treason.” You stood and dropped your napkin beside your plate. “Do not count your chickens, father.”

“Oh, but they are hatching,” He said before you could turn away. “The king signed the warrant this morning.” Slowly his face darkened as his mouth curved. You had never seen a beast so hideous. “Eleanor will join her ladies in the Fort.”

#tapesty #Steve Rogers #dark steve rogers #dark!steve rogers #dark steve rogers x reader #dark!fic #dark!steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x reader #medieval au #au #fic #series #dark fic #mcu #marvel #captain america #tapestry #bucky barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes

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taylorswiftdiscographyrate · 3 years

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#120-111

120. Mary’s Song (Oh My My My) (6.356) Highest score was 9; Lowest score was 4

This was another song that for a short while had a very vocal stanbase within the fandom that has seemed to drop off now. As an album, Debut has a lot of focus around storytelling based on Taylor’s observation of the people around her, and Mary’s Song is probably the biggest example of that. This kind of observational, external storytelling doesn’t really make a full return until folklore and evermore, so while we appreciate those albums, its nice to think about where their roots lay in Debut.

Highlighted comments: @tobesolonely: “unrealistic. i am a jaded child of divorce” @onceintwentylifetimes: “It's cute. Plus I love all the personal references she puts into this other couple's story. Very folklorian.”

119. Shake It Off (6.375) Highest score was 10; Lowest score was 1.7

Taylor’s biggest hit to date! Shake It Off was inescapable when it was released, and even now it persists as an eternal bop. Say what you will, this song has longevity, and if you don’t bop to it when it comes on then I don’t trust you.

Highlighted comments: @yourivysgrows: [gives the song an 8] “Simply for being so iconic” @onceintwentylifetimes: “I've learned to respect this as a well written pop song but it's not for me.”

118. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (6.425) Highest score was 9.5; Lowest score was 1.3

Taylor evolves into her pettiest self on the 13th track of reputation, and whether I love it or not depends on my mood at the time! Also, potentially hot take here, but I know I’m right so I’m just going to say it - a large portion of this song is about Karlie and it’s about time we realised it.

Highlighted comments: @yourivysgrows: “It was fun on tour”

117. I Don’t Wanna Live Forever (6.434) Highest score was 9.5; Lowest score was 0 (@wesawbears)

This song has the benefit of being the one of the few saving graces during The Drought™, where Taylor disappeared for months, dropped this, did a couple of concerts, then disappeared again. Whether planned or not, it was a sneak peek into the darker, more intimate aesthetic and soundscape that we would eventually hear on reputation, so I suppose we have that to thank it for!

Highlighted comments: @yourivysgrows: [after saying she adored the previous song on the list] “AND THIS ONE”

116. Never Grow Up (6.534) Highest score was 9.5; Lowest score was 2.2

Taylor released (and wrote maybe? I’m not sure) this song when she was 20. I’m 20 now, and yeah, it hits.

Highlighted comments: @yourivysgrows: “This also used to make me cry”

115. closure (6.543) Highest score was 9.25; Lowest score was 3

And finally, evermore makes its first appearance! The fact that it took this long for songs from that album to show up is either a testament to its quality, or the power of recency bias (likely a bit of both!). Spoiler alert, it’s going to be a bit of an evermore bloodbath for the next few songs. closure is probably the most experimental song on evermore, with a 5/4 time signature and some industrial-style production mixed in with the typical folky sounds that feature on the rest of the album. I think it’s very much a “love it or hate it” kinda song!

Highlighted comments: @corneliaavenue: “I'm so happy the itty bitty kitty committee got a feature banging on the pots and pans in the background!”

114. cowboy like me (6.550) Highest score was 10; Lowest score was 3

This song has actually grown on me a lot since release, I kinda feel bad for only giving it a 3 (yeah, I know, I’m sorry!). I still don’t really understand what the song is about, but there are some lovely lyrical moments and it’s a pleasant listen.

Highlighted comments: @corneliaavenue: "I want to like this song so badly, but I just cannot get into it” @yourivysgrows: “The only one I skip 👁👄👁”

113. happiness (6.560) Highest score was 9; Lowest score was 2

While a lot of the songs on evermore have grown on me (see above!), as well as the album as a whole, happiness unfortunately has not. If anything, I like it less than I did when I first heard it. It’s just... so slow and uninteresting to me. I’m sorry to all the happiness stans out there!

Highlighted comments: @liabilitys: “again, lyrically v good but production is not my fav compared to the others” @yourivysgrows: “A sad but mature bop”

112. Eyes Open (6.563) Highest score was 10; Lowest score was 1

Ah, the lesser of the Hunger Games singles. Safe & Sound really stole all its thunder, perhaps a bit unfairly, since Eyes Open is more reminiscent of the soft-rock sound that would form the album that followed it! I do like Taylor’s trend of releasing soundtrack singles that preview the sound of her upcoming album, this one was just a bit of a miss.

Highlighted comments: @yourivysgrows: “She's okay” (can we take a moment to appreciate Brittany, she left a comment for every single song which is amazing because without her I would have literally nothing to show for some of these)

111. Tell Me Why (6.581) Highest score was 9; Lowest score was 4

An underappreciated Fearless bop! According to Taylor, this song was formed from her ranting to Liz Rose about a boy that was frustrating her, and Liz wrote down everything Taylor said, and that ended up as the lyrics. I think it would be amazing, albeit probably unreleastic, to see Liz Rose return as a collaborator with Taylor, they really were a power duo back in Taylor’s yeehaw days.

Highlighted comments: @yourivysgrows: “Fuck men anthem”

#results

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winryofresembool · 3 years

Text

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 17

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: Some truths come out... and some don't.

A/N: Did you really think I'd leave you hanging for too long? Now it's finally time to find out what happens when Calypso and Percy meet. I'm a bit worried some characters may sound a bit OOC here but writing conflict has never been my piece of cake so I was a bit out of my comfort zone here. But I tried! Without a further ado, I hope you guys enjoy! And let me know what you think!

Characters in this ch: Calypso, Leo, Piper, Jason, Annabeth, Percy

Words: 1899

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / next chapter / AO3

…

“Hold on, what’s going on here?” Leo asked, finally letting go of Calypso and throwing the last piece of the cupcake in his mouth. “You two know each other?”

“Well…” Calypso started but couldn’t find the right words to explain the situation.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Percy admitted when it became obvious that she wouldn’t be able to answer. “We used to chat online.”

Leo’s eyebrows shot up. “Chat… online? As in…?”

“On Tinder, yeah. But that was a long time ago.” Percy glanced at his girlfriend varily. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

Calypso wasn’t happy about Percy’s choice of words. To her, it had been a rather big deal, because the internet had been the only way she had been able to stay in contact with the outside world and she did care about the bonds she formed there. And Percy had seemed different from most of the people she had met online. Had. Until she had discovered she was wrong, after all.

“If it wasn’t a big deal,” Annabeth frowned. “Then why do you look so nervous and why did Calypso just go bright red? I may not be quite as good at reading people as Piper is but usually that isn’t a good sign.”

“Annabeth…” Calypso answered instead of Percy. “You are my friend and I’m not going to lie to you. I did have a crush on him, but that was two years ago and we cut things off entirely when Percy told me he wanted to start dating someone else.”

“Wait… you were the girl he was seeing before me? I… how…?” Annabeth asked, her eyes wide as owl’s.

“You were still seeing Luke,” Percy said carefully. “I liked you, Annabeth, but in all honesty, I didn’t think you’d break up with him. So, I met Calypso online and she seemed nice, but…”

“But I was always just a second choice to you,” Calypso said a bit bitterly.

“Hey, I never meant any of it to happen! I didn’t want to hurt you,” Percy tried to defend himself.

“...But it just happened,” Calypso finished for him, her voice poisonous.

Annabeth ignored their arguing.

“I remember…” she addressed Percy, “before I told you about Luke and my break up, you ranted about this girl who was so pretty and sweet and lonely and you hoped to meet her because she was living in the same city. You never told me her name, though, or what happened to her. Eventually, I just kind of… forgot. And now I find out that girl is my friend. This is just so weird…”

“A small world, huh?” Percy tried to lighten the mood, failing at it.

“It’s not funny, Jackson.” Annabeth scowled at him. “So… did you guys ever meet face to face?”

“Just once,” Calypso hurried to answer. “And at the end of it? Percy told me that he only liked me as a friend.” Two years worth of in kept emotions decided to pop on the surface in that moment, and Calypso directed the frustration at Percy. “By the way, Percy, I appreciate your honesty but you really could have told me that before I arranged the whole thing. You knew the circumstances.”

Leo had listened to the whole conversation with his mouth open, his head going back and forth between the arguers, but now he felt he had completely fallen out of it, so he asked: “Woah, you guys! Calm down a bit! What circumstances?”

“It’s nothing,” Calypso said quickly.

“It’s not nothing!” Percy exclaimed but seeing Calypso’s warning glare, he quickly shut up.

Annabeth casted Percy a disbelieving look. “Wait, she talked about whatever was going on with her to you? We’ve been friends for several months now and she still hasn’t told me what happened at the mall that one time…”

“Annabeth, I couldn’t…” Calypso wanted to explain but she knew that whatever she’d say probably wouldn’t help the situation.

“Calypso, friends don’t have secrets. I’ve been trying to be patient, but I’m getting tired of this. Just tell me one thing. Based on what you just told me, you would have been ready for a relationship with Percy. Do you still like him?”

Calypso wanted to say a very unhesitant no, that that raft had sailed away a long time ago, and she might be seeing a new one on the horizon... But she realized she couldn’t say that in front of Leo because she hadn’t fully admitted that to herself yet, much less to anyone else. Besides that, she was also feeling rather intimidated by the situation, so the words escaped her. “I… uh… no.”

“That sounded pretty hesitant,” Annabeth pointed out. She looked like she wanted to say more, but thankfully, Piper decided to intervene in that moment.

“Alright, guys. To me it sounds like some of you are overreacting. So, Cal and Percy used to chat online before Percy and Annabeth started dating. To which they had every right. Calypso had a crush on Percy, which I suppose isn’t that weird even though I myself am not seeing the charm.” She gave her own boyfriend a quick smile. “They met once face to face and on that date Percy told Calypso he liked someone else instead. Doesn’t sound like the smartest idea but I guess Percy preferred telling that way instead of over a message. Right, Percy?”

“R-right,” he stammered, probably worried about how the girls would react.

“Then Calypso mentioned something about ‘circumstances’ but sounds like it’s something very personal so it’s up to her if she wants to tell us more about that. For now I’d suggest that we’d leave that topic alone.”

“Thanks, Piper,” Calypso said gratefully. “This is probably not the best moment to talk about it.”

“Fair enough,” Piper said, looking at the others challengingly, then at her watch. “Maybe it’s time for us all to go home. It’s getting kind of late.”

Agreeing mumbling could be heard from the room. When Piper put her leader mode on, no one really dared to resist her. Calypso thought briefly that she’d be an excellent boss for some company one day.

Percy and Annabeth didn’t say much when they left, perhaps their silence speaking more volumes than words could have. As the door closed, Piper sighed.

“I’m sorry this went this way. I promise I had a good time…”

“Until I messed everything up.” Calypso said quietly.

“What?” Piper asked. “I wasn’t gonna say that!”

“Yes but it’s the truth. I complicate everything. I can’t believe the first person I made friends with here… was, um, somehow connected to my past.”

“She must feel just as weird as you do,” Piper reminded. “I think it might be good for you to take a time off and ask yourself if you should let something that happened several years ago affect your friendship. You didn’t do anything wrong; Annabeth just needs to cool down a bit to be able to accept that. And when she’s ready, explain to her what really happened.”

“My girlfriend, the boss lady,” Jason, who had followed the situation quietly, said acceptingly. “You handled this situation awesomely.”

“Pfft, Grace, you just say that because I sleep with you.” Piper chuckled.

“He is not wrong, though,” Calypso was quick to add. “I think you did exactly what needed to be done. And just gave me some good advice. So thank you, again.”

“No problem. And hey, if anything comes up… you can definitely contact me. Annabeth may have been my friend longer, but you’re my friend too.”

“Yeah, thanks, I will,” Calypso said, managing a small smile.

After that Jason and Piper said their goodbyes and left Leo and Calypso alone in their flat.

“That was… pretty intense,” Leo finally broke the silence when it was about to get awkward. For some reason, he seemed disappointed about something even though Calypso couldn’t decide what. That she had ruined the evening? Or could it be… that he was upset to find out that she used to have a crush on his friend? No, that couldn’t have been it, Calypso thought, because what reason had she ever given Leo to like her? When she thought about it, she had mainly been sarcastic and kind of cold in his company, probably not something most people cared about.

“Yeah…” Calypso didn’t know what else to say. She wanted to explain, to say that she really didn’t feel much of anything towards Percy anymore, but what would that help? She’d probably only make things even more awkward than they already were. Especially if she was wrong and Leo was disappointed for example because she might have caused friction between his friends. “Listen, I didn’t mean to…”

“Whatever,” Leo stopped her, sounding a bit sharper than what Calypso was used to hearing. “I guess it’s none of my business anyway.”

Calypso understood the implications in Leo’s comment. One of the reasons why he was mad was because she wasn’t telling him the whole truth. But she could not get him mixed in the life she was trying to escape from…

The whole situation made Calypso frustrated and she took it out in a way she later regretted: “Why are you acting like that? What happened with Percy has nothing to do with you!”

“Well, it becomes my issue too if it affects my friends! Besides, I… I care about you… because you’re my flatmate, of course! And if my friend hurt you…”

Calypso was totally taken aback by Leo’s answer. She hadn’t even considered that he might actually be worried about her. Her face softened as she replied: “What happened back then… it doesn’t matter anymore. He and I were never exclusive. So really, it was my fault in the first place thinking that we could have a future. Not with… everything happening anyway.”

“There, that’s the other problem,” Leo said in a low voice. “You never tell me… Calypso, even though I may seem like it sometimes, I’m not stupid. You’re not telling us something that’s obviously very important to you. And hearing that Percy knows… well, it does feel weird.”

“Leo, think about your worst memory,” Calypso said, her eyes looking even darker than usual. “And tell me if you’d be willing to tell it to me, right here, right now. If the answer is no… well, then you might understand what I feel.”

“I…” Leo started, but then hesitated, his expression turning dark. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. I just want to…”

“Forget.” Calypso finished for him. “Guess you might understand, after all.”

“Yeah, maybe… I hope that we can be honest with each other, one day, though.”

“I hope so, too,” Calypso agreed.

“Listen, I’m gonna call it a night,” Leo finally broke the silence that had fallen into the room, combing his hair with his fingers. “Got lots to do tomorrow. So, see ya.”

“Night,” Calypso said after him. She was sad that the affection that had been there the other night as they had said good night to each other seemed almost non-existent right now. Maybe the bubble around them had broken when they voiced their issues out loud. But Calypso wasn’t someone who gave up that easily. She wouldn’t let the ghosts of the past stop her from living her life anymore.

#caleo #leo valdez #calypso #heroes of olympus #percy jackson and the olympians #trials of apollo #my fics #caleo uni au

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fistsoflightning · 4 years

Text

10: words will not suffice

prompt: avail || masterpost || other fills || ao3 mirror

word count: 2111

Hien does not understand the Steppe as well as he thinks he does.

Spoilers for 4.4 MSQ, Steppe portion! Disclaimer: if you like Hien and don’t see any problem in what he does *both damn times* he goes to the Steppe in MSQ, you probably won’t like this much. I could probably go on for an entire post about Steppe headcanons and tidbits I just get Salty about, but I don’t think anybody would want to read me ranting wildly [/sweats]

In this past sun of serving as his moon’s right hand—not so much a burden as it is an annoyance, with how Oktai cannot speak, but his fair hand and open mind even with an Oronir in his bed is not one Magnai would trade for the simplicity of his time as reigning khagan—he has seen much. A conflict, once, between the Orben and Ejinn over the rivers and their bounties, and a minor conflict with Ura traders coming into Reunion with potentially volatile ores from the peaks that quickly turned into a threat when several Gesi hunters had bought the ores and turned the Steppe into a minefield overnight.

Oktai had handled those with grace, even with his sibling and fellow khagan away fighting wars for the Eorzeans they had cast their lot with. Hardly needed to wheedle respect from those who had seen him, either; he’d the same, unfortunate bleeding heart of his adoptive sisters, and the stubborn temper of Zaya within his breast, unable to let anyone go wanting despite their demands without bowing his head. It had taken a few guiding steps, Magnai leading for the first few turns of the moon, but so easily he had fell into it so long as someone could speak his wishes for him.

He’d hardly had the rancor he’d expected when Zaya came fumbling home to help their brother succeed in another Naadam, and even less surprised when the Steppe yet again claimed them both of the land, both khagan still. So few souls on the Steppe were possessed of such strong will; if he were Dotharl—never did he truly wish that, he thinks in a huff—he might think Oktai and Zaya two halves of a warrior’s soul. Perhaps the land itself thought the same, giving them the same rights usually won and worn by one.

This, Magnai thinks, stifling a sigh when he lifts his cup to his mouth to find the last dregs of his tea gone, is hopefully not the fall of Oktai from his well-deserved seat into a spiralling loss of control.

He has never seen Oktai so irritated as he does now, taking his pointer finger and sliding it across the side of his left hand for Magnai to see; his sign for when he needs meetings to end. Magnai wishes he could grant that wish, but seeing as how the lordling from Doma is still sitting resolutely at the other end of the table, Y’shtola of the Seventh Dawn seated by his side and Sadu—damned woman, demanding a spar before they could begin just to see if he deserved to be seated as the khagan’s aide—practically ready to sear lines into the table, he shakes his head. Oktai’s face falls momentarily, the light purple bags under his eyes from a fortnight spent resolving a sickness among the Gharl painfully obvious, but Hien clears his throat loud enough to snap Oktai back to attention.

Magnai, as much as he despises Sadu and her every way, cannot help but agree in her incredulous stare. The other khans and khatuns were right to leave under veil of browsing the stalls of Reunion, for the wants of their own tribes.

“The Oronir have no hand in this,” Magnai grouses as Oktai’s fingers tap irritatedly against the wooden table. By Azim’s grace, he will need a cup of tea after this, if not a skin of kumis to drown the bells he’s wasted speaking in circles with this stubborn man in. “But this is no matter of a single tribe. Still you manage to test us all.”

“My deepest apologies,” Hien says with the authority Magnai expected of a man raised into rulership. “but there is war on the horizon, and I would not suffer either of our lands being controlled due to a lack of communication.”

He does not scoff at his words—it is a very near thing—though a quick little smirk does emerge for a moment. Controlled. How self-aware is he, Magnai wonders, watching Y’shtola quietly side-eye her companion.

Oktai taps his arm, pulling his attention back to his hands; a few quick signs that Magnai hardly has the time to mull over, then a single finger held up, slowly pulled into a fist. Together.

He nods, and clears his throat, thoughts turning to weaving Oktai’s sentiments together in a way that doesn’t seem… dismissive. “As we have said, the House of the Crooked Coin falls under no sole tribe’s jurisdiction. It is a place deemed sacred to all those blessed by the Dusk Mother, from the most devout to even the Oronir, born as we are of the radiant Azim; She still deems us Hers, gifting this land with Her aether. The pillars in the Crooked Coin are no simple matter.”

“And by my reckoning, there is no issue should I gain permission from the other tribes, yes?”

Azim be merciful, he thinks, rubbing at the edges of the scales on his forehead. It is not even as noisy as the last few meetings Magnai had held as khagan in his rule, but he finds himself with a headache of the same manner regardless.

“Yes, but you—”

“You,” Sadu says, pointedly interrupting his train of thought; if Oktai had not laid his hand on his arm, a gentle hold on, let her speak in a single touch, surely this yurt would have devolved into messier infighting than that between a khagan and a king. “have not traveled far enough into our deserts to meet the Kagon; devout worshippers of the Dusk Mother. They will have your head for daring to suggest the thought, as would I. You mean to rush something that will easily take moons.”

The Dotharl khatun’s hands twitch against her arms, faintly gleaming with an abundance of fire aether that has Magnai wondering if he should call Daidukul to bring water.

Hien, ever blind, breaks the silence. “Cirina had told—”

Oktai’s low groan, accompanied by Magnai’s eyebrow twitching, is enough to stop Hien from continuing. The quiet noises of Reunion closing stalls and retiring fill the silence, uncomfortable as it is; a wonderful evening, wasted on hours of such tedious debate. Sadu looks distinctly unimpressed, because all his arguments, eventually, circle back to the Mol—and she lies in Cirina’s bed; this, Magnai understands well enough. The fire in Cirina’s eyes was not solely her own the last Magnai saw her, no longer wholly the ethereal maiden he’d thought he’d wanted, but even then.

“The Mol are… fearful, shall we say, of those with strength.” Sadu crosses her arms, glaring intensely at him. “Cirina is brave, yes, but not stupid. She knows who and who not to anger. Including…” She raises a hand, almost dismissively in manner, towards Hien. “You. Protector of her people when Nhaama’s child fell and shrouded our lands in smog. Warrior of the Mol, who fought valiantly for their safety during that Naadam two years past. She has led you to believe, perhaps—”

“That the other tribes might fall in line, yes. I suppose,” Hien pauses, tilting his head up to the ceiling. “‘Twould have been better if I’d brought Zaya along, perhaps. They’d seemed neutral to the plan, at most.”

Y’shtola, for the first time in several bells, clears her throat. “That was because they have been ignoring every word that spills from your mouth, not because of placid agreement.” Hien almost looks scandalized, in how his shoulders fall. “Forgive my interruption, I simply thought it prudent to be truthful than impressive.”

Oktai shakes his head in a pitying sort of way, frown hardset against his face from what little Magnai can see of his mouth from this angle, where his horns cover his expression.

“Leveraging the khagan with his sibling would not change the problem,” Magnai says, voice carefully measured.

“Then what would?” The Doman lordling comes forth with a renewed determination in his voice, despite how he scrabbles so for any foothold, any respect within this sole tent. “Surely we can come to compromise at least for long enough so I might consult with the other khans and khatuns, regardless of how long it takes. Surely you understand the dangers of the Garleans enough to—”

“Hien,” Y’shtola says, her voice a sharp, unforgiving breeze among the stifling atmosphere of the Qestiri yurt. “Enough. There is yet—”

“Is there?” Hien turns to his companion, and Oktai nearly slumps over the table, a sentiment Magnai himself reciprocates by crossing his arms firmly over his chest. How could two allies be so unable to reach a solid conclusion among themselves and hope to survive against the ironmen they fear so? “You had stated the lack of crystals in the Burn yourself; I’ve little reason to doubt there being no other deposit of aether nearby strong enough—”

Through Oktai’s hand, still resting atop his own, Magnai feels a shock of furious lightning crackle up his skin; not strong enough to harm but enough for him to know that when Oktai stands up in frustration and storms out of the yurt he has truly, finally hit his limit for the needless words of alliances and compromises from a ruler that has given no quarter, so used to his own homeland being drained of its own culture and sacred lands that he no longer sees wrong in doing the same to others subconsciously.

Magnai sighs in relief. He’d expected Oktai to allow this useless conversation to drag on longer.

“The khagan has spoken,” Magnai declares, standing from his seat. His tail aches something horrid when he stretches, kinks in his tail straightening out. The sun filters in slow through the crack in the canvas flaps, dust motes gleaming and covering Hien in a stark shadow as he remains seated. “If you truly think to convince all the tribes of your duty and its needs, first you must convince him.”

Hien’s brow furrows. “I had thought our discussion a long ways from over. The alliance?”

“The little sun has misspoken.” Sadu stands, and despite the insult Magnai is inclined to agree—he has, and now the Doman princeling has assumed. “Talks of alliances will wait. The khagan has left.”

“Certainly; quite rude of him, I might add.” Hien folds his hands in his lap, eyes misted over yet still hunter sharp, seeking a weakened point. “Has he not left his lands in danger, by denying us his approval before we have even begun to travel and visit the other khans and khatuns? Would he truly be so temperamental to quit the conversation ere we have truly begun?”

The harsh roll of Sadu’s eyes only serves to prove that, no, Magnai is not having some sort of nightmarish dream that if he pinches the scales on his nose hard enough he will awake in a Qestiri yurt instead. Shame that the only thing the two of them agree on is the merits of Oktai’s rule, and of how this discussion has long overgone its stay at this table.

Scratch the pot of tea. He will have to ask Taban for kumis if he wishes to rid himself of this horrible, horrible headache.

“If you cannot respect the time of the khagan and his people, you are not ready to speak of alliances,” he sighs. A shame; Hien is, rightfully, fit to be king—of his own people, of whom he has already earned the respect of, learned the needs and requests of like the back of his hand. “A full turn of the sun and still you have not learned, Doman, so I shall say it again.” He straightens to his full height, and Sadu barks out a laugh as she leaves the yurt, calling for Cirina and both their yols as she walks down the wooden steps. Hien, for his merit, does not turn to look bewildered at her, instead meeting Magnai’s stare.

“You have made mock of our ways since the very beginnings, Doman. Bardam’s Mettle is not a simple trial; our Naadam is not a little contest for you to win and tip the balance of our lands to win your wars. Even the Dotharl, respectful of warriors, have found you and yours wanting, and yet you continue to play at the role of magnanimous ruler. The Mol bow their heads to you out of respect for a savior and friend, not king; they let you live among them and you did not learn. Do not dare to presume so again,” he says, letting his voice rise and ring, and by the princeling’s side he sees Y’shtola shake her head. “Or you will find the khagan much less forgiving in hearing your useless words.”

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2020 #magnai oronir #sadu dotharl #hien rijin #oktai qestir #my writing #elie's ffxivwrite2020 #tales from the blue #i like hien's personality! i fucking hate that he keeps taking advantage of the entire steppe and their beliefs!!!#i Really Wanted to Punch Him and Gosetsu during the naadam!!!! i am not sorry #anyways: elie rants via fic the ffxivwrite fill #watch out naadam MSQ im coming to rewrite you and dump my steppe headcanons onto everyone sdfnsndfnsd #s: solar eclipse #f...for magnai/oktai..

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sohin-ace · 4 years

Text

Ceasar - Different Joestar

This is cross-posted from Wattpad and available on AO3. This is an old work, the writing has improved ever since.

Enjoy~

Life sure was hustly as a Joestar.

You were Joseph's sister. You both were raised by your grandmother Erina Pendleton Joestar. Joseph and you got along very well, even with your differing personalities.

You both loved to joke around and play, but you were much calmer, more careful, and thoughtful than the guy. On the other hand, he was more spontaneous, cunning and bolder than you.

You two were hamon users and this ability brought trouble to you as you got implied with the vampire Straizo and the Pillar man Santana. Things were about to go even further down, but you didn't know that.

You siblings were sent to Italy to meet the Zeppeli descendant, Ceasar.

At first Joseph wanted you to stay back in the U.S as he obviously didn't want to put you in even more danger, but eventually Speedwagon convinced him to let you accompagny them. After all, you could fend for yourself and Joseph definitely needed some of his sister's brain as his own often betrayed him.

You were currently walking the sunny streets of Italy, arms linked with the good old Speedwagon.

Speedwagon was a nice gentleman who treated you and Joseph like his own children. Even if Joseph could be blunt and rowdy sometimes, you showed love to the man for both you and your brother. And Speedwagon noticed that. You felt nothing but sheer gratitude and respect towards the old man.

You helped him walk to the plaza and decided to bring him to a bench to rest.

"Please sit down Mr. Speedwagon. I'll search for Ceasar, just tell me what he looks like."

"You are too nice, Y/N, I wish Joseph was a bit more like you." He sat down and you took his cane and put it aside. "But it's okay, your brother should be here any moment now."

Unbeknownst to you, said blonde man was looking at you both from the fountain that happened to be just next to the bench where you two were. He watched you as you cared for the old gentleman that he instantly recognized.

He couldn't help but think how beautiful you were, shaken by how exotic your hair and eyes looked, how smooth your features were, and how graceful your curves appeared.

His expression softened when he saw you take a water bottle out of your purse, opened it and gave it to Speedwagon. How considerate, it was indeed a warm day and the Italian sun was strong in the afternoon.

At the moment, Ceasar couldn't look at any other woman than you. It was like you put him under a spell, this never happened to him before. Something about you charmed him. It was not just your looks, it was something else. He was intrigued and had to figure it out.

You completely made him forget about that one woman he was currently courting.

"Ceasar? What's the matter?" the girl asked, almost hurt that his attention was stolen from her.

The blond nicely told her a cliché romantic line to make her go back to her love-struck state and she completely fell for it as she squealed, hearts in her eyes.

Not shaking you from his thoughts, he decided that he would check up on you, but when he glanced your way, you were already gone. Leaving Speedwagon who was soon talking to a tall brown haired male.

Said male then went up to sit at the fountain, and Ceasar resumed on his flirting session, guessing that man was the so called 'Joestar' Speedwagon told him about.

In circumstances, Joseph and Ceasar met, and were not very happy about one another. Turns out they fought while you were at the opposite side of the plaza, looking for the Italian man.

That night, your brother ranted about his encounter and you listened to him, amused. You couldn't help but be eager to meet that Zeppeli guy and see him for yourself.

The next day, you came to the same plaza, next to the fountain again, hoping to meet with Ceasar. Even if you didn't see him there today, you knew you'd have to meet him eventually since your were bound to train with him and Joseph and come out with a Hamon technique.

You paced close to the fountain, your fingers fumbling with your bottom lip, a habit you had when deep in thought. The green eyed Italian was sat at the fountain again that day and saw you pacing.

He recognized you as the gorgeous girl who cared for Speedwagon and his heart beat quickened. Finally he saw you again, and so soon, too!

On the other hand, you were thinking on how you would recognize the man or make him recognize you, as you still didn't know what he looked like.

"Should I make a Hamon move and see who reacts? No... Any normal person would react to Hamon...But it wouldn't hurt to try..." You muttered to yourself.

"Oh signorina!" You turned to the direction of the voice and approached it's blonde good-looking owner.

"You called me, sir?" you asked politely.

Your voice was just how he expected. Sweet and pleasant. He crushed on you harder by the second.

"Excuse my manners, bella, but you are so beautiful, I had to propose to take a picture of you in front of the fountain. Your shining eyes would put the reflecting water and sun to shame." Your face lit up for a moment, but not for the reasons Ceasar hoped.

"Oh, a picture in front of the fountain! Wonderful idea, I have to take one with my brother and my tutor!" you exclaimed, completely ignoring his compliments.

The blonde's face morphed into a surprised expression. No reaction? Oh you must be one of those dense women, how cute.

He then seized your hand in his huge one and kissed the back of it. "Let me introduce myself. My name is Ceasar Zeppeli. It's a pleasure to meet you, miss...?"

"Ceasar? Oh it's you! I was just looking for you!You can call me Y/N." You smiled brightly at him, taking a hold of his hand with you free one.

He flinched and blushed at the contact. Your hands were so soft and delicate. The way you held him like he was glass, your angelic eye smile, your sweet perfume dancing around him, everything about you sent him reeling.

Just who were you? To make THE ladykiller Ceasar Zeppeli, feel this way?

"Y-you uh... You were looking for me? Have we met?" he stuttered, which was very out of character for him, but he was just so overwhelmed and flustered.

You released the man and sat down next to him before answering. "We haven't. It's about developping my Hamon technique, We- Mr. Speedwagon and I thought you could help."

He looked at you in curiosity, but thought that it made sense that you were so close to Speedwagon if you were a Hamon user. He smiled handsomely at you, regaining his composure.

"You would like me to tutor you? How can I refuse giving special lessons to a beautiful dove like you?" You giggled slightly at his words. He was indeed a flirt, as Joseph had told you.

"Oh, would you give special lessons to beautiful doves like Jojo too?" he clicked his tongue and glared away and you laughed at his reaction.

"Ppfft, you know that man? Isn't he just the worst? No way am I helping him. I am never associating with a Joestar ever!" You flinched. You opened your mouth to speak but he continued.

"From what I can see, the Joestar bloodline is filled with weaklings and cowards. I can't believe Speedwagon is making me do this." He spoke of your family with such hatred you didn't even know where to start.

You decided to not say anything for now, as it would just be weird to tell him you were a part of that family as well.

"I... I see..." You looked away, feeling extremely awkward. Not bearing the tense atmosphere, you decided it was probably time for you to leave.

"Well then... I think I'll go now. Thank you, Ceasar." You stood up but he quickly grabbed your hand, stopping you.

"Wait bella! Already? Did I perhaps scare you?" He asked with concern.

"O-oh no, it's okay, I just... I'll leave you be..."

"I'm sorry, I got carried away. This man just frustates me so much." He paused and grabbed both your hands in his, rubbing them soothingly.

"Ah..." You yet again, glanced awkwardly around, not daring meeting his gaze, which he mistook as shyness and found your mimicks adorable.

"How ungentlemanly of me, to speak so recklessly on our first meeting." you told him that it was fine and he released you. His face suddenly lit up.

"Hey! Let's plan some time to meet again? I'll make it up to you." You looked down at him, tilting your head cutely and smirking to yourself.

You shook your head. "That won't be necessary, Ceasar. We'll definitely meet again soon. Believe me." you tapped on his shoulder, sending a tingly Hamon shockwave down his spine, and swiftly turned around and left.

He swore he could feel his heart melt like warm chocolate in his chest. His breathing was shallow and his face warmed up.

How could you have so much effect on him? How could you act so cute while being so sexy and charming?

That day when he came back, he was met with the obnoxious face of his partner, Joseph.

"Yo! You should see your face. What's wrong playboy? Broke up?"

"Shut up Joestar." He plopped down on the couch next to the brunet. "I met this super hot girl I've had my eyes on, and turns out she's a Hamon user that'll train with us."

Joseph's eyes widened and he leaned forward slightly in curiosity. A girl, that uses hamon, that will be training with them?

"Huh... Do you have her name by any chance?" Joseph asked, a bit unsure.

There was only two possibilites and one of them was already making his blood boil. Either she was a stranger and it was a big coincidence. Or...

"Pfft!" Ceasar scoffed. "Give up if you think you have a chance with her. She's mine." The blonde smirked cockily. "But if you really want to know, her name is Y/N."

Oh shit.

Joseph almost couldn't believe his ears.

"What ??!!" He tensed up, veins appearing on his arms and forehead, he was already fuming.

"Yeah I know, exotic name, fitting for such a fine lady. You should see her, she just knows how to make a man weak-"

"THAT'S MY FUCKING SISTER YOU ASSHOLE!!!" Joseph yanked Ceasar by the collar, violently standing him up. The blonde's expression fell apart.

"She's your... What ???" He grabbed onto Joseph's arm, sweating bullets.

You were Joseph Joestar's sister? That was a piece of detail that you didn't share. How come you never told him your last name? And after he trashed on your family to your face.

He fucked up, and he knew it.

"Uh... I can explain..."

"CEASAR YOU'RE A FUCKING DEAD MAN!!!" Joseph brought his fist up, ready to beat the shit out of his partner.

"What's going on here?" Speedwagon came in just in time before Ceasar's murder could happen, you following close behind him.

The old man was planning to finally introduce you officially to the Italian man, but that was already a failure. The two quarelling men looked at you both and their eyes widened. You instantly ran to your brother to stop him.

"Wait Jojo! What's happening? Are you okay?" Joseph clicked his tongue and harshly threw Ceasar on the couch. He then protectively wrapped his arm around you.

"Don't you fucking dare touch my sister if you care for your nutsacks." He spat, then looked at you. "Y/N, if he does anything to you, tell me got it ?? Don't let him do anything to you!"

"Jojo that's enough! Y/N, do something about your brother, Please!" Speedwagon was overwhelmed by the situation. He should have expected something like this would happen.

You dragged your brother out of the room as he was still trashing under his breath. You discreetly glanced behind you, mouthing an 'I'm sorry!' to Ceasar and winked at him sweetly.

He chuckled a little bit as he watched you go. He felt stupid, but couldn't help falling in love with you.

He changed his mind, you really were a different Joestar.

I pictured old speedwagon like I picture my own grandfather. I wish he lived to me being grown, I would have taken extra care of him, just like Y/N. I'll never forget his blue eyes and I miss him everyday.

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo #jjba #battle tendency #ceasar #ceasar zeppeli #reader insert #x reader #writing #jojo no kimyou na bouken #part 2 #part 2 jojo #ceasar x reader #ceasar zeppeli x reader #joestar reader

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casualcatte · 4 years

Text

RP Journal: 08/23/2020

What do you even do when someone confesses to love you… and you in no way love them back? How do you go back to being “just friends” when nothing between you will ever be the same again? I’ll question every motion, every gesture, every act of kindness -- is this the act of a friend or is this a man continuing to try to subtly woo me?

(Courtesy cut for length)

Then there were the things he said: that he reserved the right, as my friend, to tell me when I’m wrong. To tell me I’m /wrong/ like he’s the only one who knows what’s right for me. There were things he did: like expecting me to just accept this newly-brokered friendship when not moments before he’d been near weeping and upset because I’d played Brightsong for Edgard and not for him. There was the unspoken expectation that I had to /trust him/. Trust. Him. The same man who took what I’d told him about Tristane only to use it against me in an effort to illustrate how much he cared about me. He took the innermost feelings of my heart and weaponized them. And /this/ is a man I’m supposed to trust, a man I’m supposed to willingly listen to as he tells me I’m /wrong./

What if he decides that I’m wrong about Edgard or Rae-Hann? About Zunh or the Bounty Call? Twelve’s Grace, he acts more like some surrogate father than he does a friend! I’m not some girl-child that needs /anyone/ to tell me how to live my life. I think it’s time I put him back at arm’s length. Dealing with his constant mood-changes, how every experience with him is like some different facet, some entirely different person… there’s no constant in him, no stability. He’s more often a source of distress for me than he is the balm for it.

He’s left me a note to say he’s gone back to Ul’dah. Back to the place he says has nothing for him. The man must enjoy having nothing, because he almost always runs back to it like a lodestone to the north. At least in that he’s been somewhat predictable. Gods, is he infuriating, though.

I didn’t even want to stay in the same room with him after that. Everything felt awkward and uncomfortable to me -- all while he just smoothly transitions from weepy, to smiles and pleas for friendship, to argumentative and expecting me to trust him, to suddenly offering me tea with this hesitant smile. One of these faces is the real Lorrendor Hauland, but there’s no way on the Twelve’s green earth that I could have ever told you which. I don’t know him at all. And I don’t think I’ll /ever/ understand him.

I left. I left my own house because of how angry and upset I was. How confused. All I wanted or needed right now were friends. FRIENDS. I’ve made that adamantly clear that I have no intention of becoming involved with anyone now. Not when I have the Saurotaun to hunt. Not when the Saurotaun could mean my death. I know I’ve said that, multiple times, but it’s as if my feelings don’t even matter. He couldn’t even respect my boundaries on that. But I’m supposed to trust him. I’m supposed to /like/ that he does these things and accept that as friendship. All while he decides to do this the very night before a major hunt for me. Is he trying to get me killed?

Before long, I found myself at the archery butts in Tailfeather. It was one of many places in the Forelands that I went to whenever I needed space or some time to myself. I loosed a number of arrows into the target dummy, trying to quell and calm my thoughts. I didn’t need to be distracted on the hunt. I had to find my focus again.

That damnable dragoon came flying in to spear the target I was working on, nearly getting himself shot in the process! I swear if I knew that dragoon’s middle name, I’d have used it just so he knew how much trouble he was in! As it stood, Edgard Beaumont is an idiot.

But he’s oftentimes an idiot that knows what I need, exactly when I need it. After momentarily beating him with the fletched end of one of my arrows, I ranted and vented to him about all that had transpired with Lorrendor. I almost feel sorry for Ardi, this isn’t the first time he’s had to listen to me rant about that man, I doubt it will be the last. Yet, he still stood by me, beatings and all, letting me vent my spleen until I felt better.

He very gently ventured his own opinions on the matter; that perhaps Lorrendor was conflicted about what he truly wanted, even a tad jealous of the kind of friendship Ardi and I share. I don’t know what it is about Ardi that makes him so easy to talk to, maybe it’s his devil-may-care nature, or the fact that he actually listens to me, instead of trying to talk over me or down to me like I’m some little girl who knows no better. He suggested that maybe Lorrendor has some issues of his own he needs to work out. Gods, like the rest of us don’t?

I eventually told Ardi that I felt like Lorrendor would ultimately hurt me, far more than I could ever hurt him. That’s where we had a difference of opinion. He went on to say that he’d seen how dangerous a woman I was with a bow -- and a sandwich.

For a long moment, I just had to stare. The sheer ridiculousness of the statement and, yet, it’s absolute truth just caught me off-guard. I laughed. I laughed so uproariously I think they probably heard me all over Tailfeather! But it felt good and was a welcome balm for my anger and confusion. With me in better spirits, it was easy to fall into the endless dance steps of our usual banter. Parry-riposte-counter.

He went on to ask me about the Elite Hunt on the morrow. And then he presented me with a gift. It was a new hunting knife, gleaming and sharp, with blue and purple leather bound around the hilt. I knew the significance almost immediately, given that he’d chosen the same colors as I. To match, he said, fingering the Feather Token still woven into his hair. He said he doesn’t usually give gifts, but that he really wanted to do something for me since I’d gotten him the token.

Truth be told, I’ve never really gotten gifts that weren’t from Sillesti. When Rae-Hann gave me the gift of the koi in the Gold Court fountain, I thought that was endearing; he was trying to provide an experience I’d been cheated of in order to make me happy. Then there were the bracers from Lorrendor -- well, one of the Lorrendors, the side of him that I thought had been trying to change and just be a good friend -- enhanced with materia to help my shots strike true. A thoughtful gift that actually made me think he’d been listening for once.

And now this from Ardi. It was thoughtful, useful, and completely in keeping with who I am as a person. It doesn’t surprise me that he knows me well enough to make this kind of selection. What does surprise me is how we’ve come so far from those nights in Ul’dah when I thought he was little more than another smarmy ladies’ man looking for his latest overnight conquest. How did that, somehow, turn into this? Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better friend.

I rewarded his kindness with a kiss on the cheek. Granted, I had to stand on tip-toe to achieve it, damned ultra-tall elezen, but I managed. Gods, the look that crossed his face was priceless, such a myriad of emotions all in an instant: excited, goofy, embarrassed all highlighted by the definite blush that crept over that pale Ishgardian skin. Part of me wanted to laugh and say, “Got’cha!” in payback of all the times he’s gloated over me blushing in the past. The larger part of me, though, just wanted to enjoy the moment.

This change in Edgard… Ardi is such a far cry from the man I remember in Ul’dah. Of late, he’s seemed happier, more content, less burdened than I remember seeing him. When he speaks to me of his beloved Valentina, it’s oftentimes with joy and a smile, instead of frowns and displeasure. Truth be told, I can do much the same with him when I talk of Tristane. There’s an inherent feeling of trust here now, as if I could tell him anything. Sure, he might laugh and poke fun, but he’s still there for me. He still listens. And in his way, he cares.

He’s oftentimes a better friend than I am. Especially when I try to push him in the river. He’s also a worse friend, because he decided to pull me in with him! We laughed, I splashed him with water until he retreated to claim the high ground. Now soaking wet and thoroughly cheered, it was time to go back home. I somewhat dreaded facing Lorrendor again, but with Ardi alongside me I can take on dragons and whatever else the world has to offer. One Lorrendor had no chance.

As we’d gotten out of the water, Ardi flicked one of my ears with his fingers, at which I protested since my ears are highly sensitive. I swear by the Twelve, revealing any weakness to Edgard Beaumont is a lesson in mistakes made. On the walk home, he made it a point to get extremely close to my ear to whisper something salacious. Gods, it tickled! And it… nevermind. He went on to gloat about how I should never show my weaknesses to an enemy.

I countered with the observation that I had no enemies here. Only my partner. And my partner was entitled to all my truths, strengths, and weaknesses. He said he’d trust me with his weaknesses, but he had none.

Mm-hmm. We’ll see about that, Ardi. We’ll see!

In the side margins of this entry are what appear to be a song, complete with lyrics and tiny musical notations.

With eyes of frost Like frozen glass Not mirrors like in eld Lies beauty that None surpass Within which one is held Tumblr Mentions @therpperson for Edgard Beaumont @yokasaris for brief mention of Rae-Hann

#Journal: Rhythm of the Night #Aultena Sephimiri #FFXIV #FFXIV RP #FFXIV Roleplay #Balmung RP #Balmung Roleplay #Balmung Roleplayer #Crystal RP #Crystal Roleplay #Crystal Roleplayer #Character Journal #Lorrendor Hauland #Friendship: Elf-Dad Forever #Edgard Beaumont #Friendship: Pathfinder #Ship: Two Idiots One Heart

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