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raineydays411 · 3 years

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Oh, what am I supposed to do without you

Loki x daughter!reader

Summary: Loki thought he was in a good place. He was married, happy and having a child. He should’ve known the universe wasn’t that kind.

A/N: God I’m so sorry about this one lol. Not much of the reader but I will be making a second part. I hope yall like this one though. Inspiration came from “Mr, Loverman” and this fic.

Master list

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The silence was rattling. It creeped into the room, slowly,menacingly. Threatening to make him go mad. It wrapped around his body like a familiar friend. Making it hard for him to breath as it suffocated him. He knew they were staring at him. Trying to figure out what he would do next, whether he would break or not. Truthfully he didn’t know what he would do. For now he just starred as well. Not at them, of course not. He stared at the one thing that mattered. His reason for waking up and living. The one person in this entire universe who gave his world color. He reached out to touch her. Touch the hands that were always so warm against his cold skin. Hands that held his firm and sure as she pulled him along behind her, a smile on her beautiful face. Hands that were now cold and limp, the radicant glow she had been known for gone dark. The colors she brought to his world dimmed to dull, gre, muted hues. Then a sound broke through the silence. two sounds actually. One a wail of new life, a baby taking her first breaths, and another. A wail of a man who has lost everything. A wail of agony and pain.

As the healers bustled around him, Loki had only one thought in his head.

“What am I supposed to do without you”

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Three months later and Loki still felt the emptiness left by his love. He heard her at night, humming sweet melodies as she stroked his hair. He hears her heartbeat as he eventually falls asleep, worn out by his constant tears. His room is in shambles, his clothes strewn about the floor, furniture smashed, everything is destroyed. Except for the things that belong to her. Her silk dresses that draped on her body perfectly were still hanging, untouched. The books she spent hours reading and re-reading remained on the shelf, collecting dust as they were no longer used. He doesn’t let anyone in their chambers. The space where they both shared. Space where they fought, made up, made love. To let someone else in would be tainting it. Soiling the memories they made together. That was one thing he could never do.

Another was look at the little monster who is responsible for this tragedy.

It was a girl. The daughter of one Loki Odinson and his beloved.

Ironic. This child was supposed to bring happiness with its birth. Not even cleaned and it already managed to take away Loki’s light. He can barely stand looking at it. He tried, of course he tried. But within minutes he had to call the nurse to take it away. Why?

Because she has her mothers eyes.

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“Loki”

“Get out”

“Loki, it's been nine months since your child was--”

“THAT THING IS NO CHILD OF MINE”

Frigga was taken aback. She knew her son was heartbroken, devastated at the loss of his wife. But to disown his daughter, that was something she didn’t see coming.

“Loki, you are being unreasonable.”

“Unreasonable? My wife has died because if that creature--”

“It is a child. A babe who has no idea who her father nor her mother is.”

“And as far as I’m concerned she never will!” Loki shouts, finally looking up at his mother.

Frigga heart breaks for her son. She sees the utter agony he is in, the inner torment going on in his soul. Even if she didn’t see it in his face, the state of his room and self gives it away. He looks like he hasn’t bathed in the nine months that has passed. His clothes were rumpled and wrinkled, hair unkempt and wild. His face was pale and hollow, as if he was only eating enough to survive. He had dark bags under his eyes that showed that he hasn’t been sleeping well. He truly was a man who was broken, almost beyond repair.

“My son” Frigga said carefully,” I can never understand the pain you are going through, I pray to Valhalla I will not have to anytime soon. But please if not for yourself or that child, for the memory of her, attempt to see your daughter before making a rash decision.” And with that, she walked out of his chamber, leaving Loki to the silence again as he stared at the spot his mother stood. considering her words, he got up. picked up his room, went to bathe and walked out of the room for the first time in nine months.

His face held no emotion as he walked down the hallways. He saw the servants stop and stare at him, shock filled their face as they saw the prince. He glared at them, sending them scurrying at the dark glance. He reached the nursery, the maid who oversaw the nursery tried to stop him.

“My lord, you--”

“Where is the child.” He said, calm and cool. The maid looked at him in fear, not knowing how to respond. At her silence, Loki scoffed and pushed her away, marching into the nursery. Upon entering he froze, memories of him and his beloved discussing the design they wanted for their child

**“Darling, why does the color shade matter? It’s not like the child has expectations.”

Laughter fills the air, “Loki, we must put every effort into showing our child they are loved. That includes finding the perfect shade of green to go with the room”

Loki looks at his wife, gently smiling.”If you say so my dear”**

The room was perfect. The walls were a beautiful shade of green that allowed the light into the room. There were vines and flowers crawling up the walls and draped over curtains. A white and gold crib stood in the middle of the chamber. A veil draped over it, preventing Loki from seeing the child inside. He was thankful as he worked up the courage to walk up to it. He looked out the window, seeing the stars that covered the sky, the lights of Asgard covering the earth.

She would have loved it.

He took a deep breath and walked toward the crib. He pulled back the veil only to see that there was no child in there.

“The babe is with your mother my lord.”

He turned to the maid. Embarrassed that she might have witnessed him reminiscing.

“And where is my mother” He asked

“In-in the dining hal--”

He walked away before she was able to finish her sentence. He took long strides to the hall, wondering his his mother had tricked him into eating with the family.On the way, he passed a window overlooking the garden. He thinks of the times where he used to sit in it and listen to her read.

*** “...exquisite, in question more. These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows”

“My love, why do you insist on reading these midgardian stories?”

Her laughter reaches his ears, “Because beloved, it's a different perspective to something familiar”

“Oh? and what is that ?”

“Love” ***

“oki--”

Hearing his name, Loki is brought back to present times once more. He looks to see Thor, watching him with careful eyes.

“Brother, it is wonderful to see you.”

“I wish I can say the same.”

Thor laughs, a soft chuckle compared to the booming laughter Loki knows he is capable of.

“Ah Loki, your dry wit has been missed”

Loki rolls his eyes and starts walking and Thor follows. The two walking in silence.

“What is it like?” Loki says softly. Thor looks at him in confusion.

“It?”

“The child.”

“Oh brother, Y/n is--”

“Y/n?”

That was the name she wanted. If they were to have a girl. She was determined, seeing the name in the book she loved to read. He remembers when they were telling his family she was with child.

*** Everyone was seated, servants bustling around the long table. Laughter filled the hall as the sun was setting.

“Loki, you said you had news to tell us” Frigga said, taking a sip of her wine.

Loki smiled, looking at his wife. Her face absolutely radiant as she flashes a smile of pure joy.

“ Well,” Loki waits till Thor has taken a large swig of ale, “ My beloved and are are expecting a child.”

Gasps fill the room as well as Thor's hacking, ale being spewed on the table.

“Oh Loki that is wonderful!!” Frigga exclaims standing from her seat to embrace him. “Oh my dear, this is the most wonderous news,”

“BROTHER I can’t believe it!” Thor exclaims, lifting Loki in a crushing hug. And for once, he didn’t mind it. He turns to her and hugs her more gently. “ You are just full of surprises aren’t you, starlight”

Laughter, “Thor, I thought I told you to stop calling me that”

Silence fills the hall as Odin clears his throat, “ Loki, you have made me proud.”

Loki smiles as his love beams at him.

“Thank you father.”**

They reached the dining hall. A cold feeling formed in the pits of his stomach. He can see his mother, talking with a maid as she bounces the child. He can’t see it, as Frigga's back is turned to him. Odin’s presence is notably absent, a small relief on Loki's part.

Thor notices his brother’s nerves, he pats him on the back and says, “You can do this Loki.” Then walks off to join his mother. He kisses his mothers cheek and smiles at the child. He picks her up, bouncing her a few times prompting a small laugh. Loki gimances at the sound.

Thor walks up to him with the baby.

“Loki, this is Y/n Odinson”

He looks at the child. He takes in its features, Beautiful curly hair, already thick and voluminous even at this age. Brown skin, unblemished and clean. Cheeks, chubby with baby fat. And...its eyes. Those damn eyes, he could barely stand it, (e/c) eyes, the same as his lost love. In fact, almost all it’s features that once belonged to his darling. A pain filled his body. He really couldn’t stand looking at this child.

Not when his beloved wasn’t there to gaze upon their child as well.

No, this was not his child. Not anymore.

“Get rid of it.”

Shock filled the faces of both Thor and Frigga.

“Loki you cannot be serious.”

“Brother..”

“I SAID GET RID OF IT” Loki shouts. “I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THAT LITTLE MONSTER.”

And with that he leaves the dining hall. Leaving behind his mother, brother and the last piece of his wife he had. He hears it’s cries fill the silence.

He had only one thought in his head as he entered his chambers.

“What am I supposed to do without you”

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#loki x daughter!reader #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #marvel x reader #thor x reader #thor odinson #loki imagine #angst #fanfic #mcu loki #mcu imagine #tom hiddleston #poc #poc reader #reader insert #Loki x poc!reader

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rosethornewrites · 3 years

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Fic: the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break, ch. 15

Additional Tags: Pre-Slash, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Secrets, Crying, Masks, Soulmates, Truth, Self-Esteem Issues, Regret, It was supposed to be a one-shot, Fix-It, Eventual Relationships, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, wwx needs a hug, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Filial Piety, Handfasting, Phobias, Sleeping Together, Fear, Panic Attacks, Love Confessions, Getting Together, First Kiss, Kissing, Boys Kissing, Family, and they were married, Bathing/Washing, Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing, Feels, Sex Education, Implied Sexual Content, First Time, Aftercare, Morning After, Afterglow, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Torture, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Hand Jobs, Chronic Pain, Biting, Conversations

Summary: The conversation continues, and the Jiang siblings react.

Notes: This chapter was hard to write, but I finally got there! Lots of dialog, which had to be balanced. Updates are slow. Life is busy. Lots of responsibilities, and non-productive insomnia. Honestly, the most research I did for this chapter was on family and martial family names.

AO3 link

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

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Wei Ying’s words only seem to echo in the courtyard, their gravity giving them weight that feeds the illusion. The Jiang siblings stare at him, looking concerned but puzzled.

“But you found her,” Jiang Wanyin says slowly. “She restored my core.”

“I never found her,” Wei Ying says, looking at his bowl on the table rather than his brother. “I didn’t know what to do, A-Cheng—you wanted to die!”

The words are said in a rush, with remembered grief. For once, Jiang Wanyin seems struck dumb, and Lan Wangji is glad of it—Wei Ying needs no interruptions. Already his posture is defensive.

“I looked for a way. Went through Wen Qing’s whole library. And I found a theory.”

His voice breaks at the last word, and Lan Wangji squeezes his hand, letting Wei Ying know he is here for him. He knows this reminds his husband of the decision he made, to what for most would seem like an impossible choice.

“A-Xian, what theory?”

Jiang Yanli, despite her makeup, looks wan and afraid.

“In her papers. Treatments she’d theorized,” Wei Ying clarifies. “It was the only place I found any options. And I didn’t know what else to do.”

He’s stalling, but inadvertently drawing out the pain. Lan Wangji squeezes his hand again, unable to resist the urge to comfort him.

Zidian sparks and Jiang Wanyin glares, his patience spent.

“What did you do?” he hisses.

Lan Wangji is fairly certain they’ve already realized and are hoping they’re wrong. He rubs the back of Wei Ying’s hand with his thumb.

“It was a theory about core transplants,” Wei Ying says.

The shifting of emotions on Jiang Wanyin’s face makes his understanding clear. Jiang Yanli’s brows furrow, her expression one of confusion.

“Tell me you didn’t,” he hissed. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

Wei Ying flinches—he can tell him no such thing, at least not without lying, because he did. Instead he silently holds his free wrist out to Jiang Wanyin, as he had only days before with Xichen, inviting him to see the truth himself.

The Jiang sect leader recoils, physically leaving his seat and backing from the table, his face a mask of horror.

“No,” he whispers, his voice hoarse.

And so it is Jiang Yanli who reaches forward, sends her qi through Wei Ying’s meridians, and finds the emptiness where his core once sat. Lan Wangji can tell the moment she realizes, as tears spill over, cutting furrows in her makeup.

Wei Ying immediately panics, pulling his hand from Lan Wangji’s grip, dabbing at her face with his sleeves.

“Shijie, you’ll ruin your dress. It’s okay, don’t cry.”

“It’s just a dress,” she says, her voice hitching. “And it’s not okay, Xianxian. Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you let us help you? You’ve been suffering for so long and…”

She lets out a sob so deep it seems like it comes from her soul. Wei Ying lets out a little distressed noise, his hands fluttering helplessly, as though he wants to hug her but fears sullying her wedding dress.

“Wei Wuxian, why?” Jiang Wanyin asks, his chest heaving as he fights his emotions. “I didn’t ask you to do that!”

He’s still standing backed away from the table, unwilling or unable to come closer.

“You wanted to die,” Wei Ying says helplessly. “You said if you couldn’t avenge Lotus Pier alive or dead you’d rather be dead. You’re my brother—what else could I have done?”

Lan Wangji knows there is more, implied—after losing so much, how could Wei Ying stand to lose his brother? How much family could he stand to lose, losing his parents young, and then his entire martial family with the fall of Lotus Pier?

“I’d rather lose my golden core than that,” he finally whispers. “You could rebuild the sect with my core.”

“You could’ve rebuilt the sect with your core,” Jiang Wanyin retorts with a scowl.

Wei Ying smiles, but it’s a twisted, broken thing.

“No. I’ve always been whatever the gentry decides I am: the worthless son of a servant overreaching, sect leader’s secret bastard, weapon of war, and now Yiling Laozu. No one would accept me rebuilding the Jiang sect, even without the demonic cultivation, A-Cheng. I’d be a usurper at best, never taken seriously.”

“You would’ve proved them all wrong!” Jiang Wanyin protests.

Wei Ying shakes his head.

“Nothing will ever be enough. I’d never be able to restore the Jiang sect to its full glory. Only you could do that, A-Cheng.”

“He is correct,” Lan Wangji interjects when it looks like Jiang Wanyin might argue over it. “They have never accepted him, even after he helped win the war. Wei Ying has never been thanked or shown respect, only belittled and vilified. He would never have been permitted to be sect leader.”

Jiang Wanyin frowns at that but doesn’t try to argue. He cannot deny the truth.

“If they knew I took you to Wen Qing and you had died in her care, they’d say I killed you myself for power, that I worked with the Wens to destroy Lotus Pier, even. I’d have been executed, and shijie would be all alone and without a sect.”

There’s a touch of bitterness in his husband’s voice, and Lan Wangji touches his elbow, just to remind him he is there for him.

“Lotus Pier was my fault, so I guess they’d be part right,” Wei Ying mutters, the naked grief in his voice heart-wrenching.

Lan Wangji wonders if perhaps Wei Ying’s difficulty after the war was being in a place filled, at least metaphorically, with the ghosts of those for whose deaths he felt responsible. He had, by his own admission to Xichen, spent much of the time following the war drunk, until he liberated the work camp, using it as a way of coping with his trauma—from the fall of Lotus Pier, from the surgery, from Burial Mounds, from the resentful energy, from the war… All of it.

Perhaps rescuing these people has been his way of trying to even the scales on a debt that isn’t truly his.

“A-Xian, it wasn’t your fault. They were always going to attack Lotus Pier,” Jiang Yanli protests. “A-Niang would never have tolerated a supervisory office in our home.”

She’s still crying, and Wei Ying mops at her face so her tears won’t ruin her dress. Her eyes seem to search his face, desperate for a sign he believes her.

“It was never your fault,” she insists.

Wei Ying swallows hard.

“Madam Yu said—”

“A-Niang was wrong,” Jiang Wanyin snarls.

“And I know a-die told you to protect us, but who was going to protect you?” Jiang Yanli asks.

When he avoids her gaze, she reaches forward to cup his cheek.

“We didn’t protect you. You’d been whipped with zidian and lost your home, too, but you’re the one who took care of us. No one took care of you, but you’re our brother, my sweet didi.”

Wei Ying’s breath hitches, and instinctively Lan Wangji pulls him close, holds him from behind gently, hopes he can take strength from the embrace. It’s not a full embrace, the position awkward, more of a press of chest against back, his hand a light pressure on his hip, but it seems to help, regardless. It takes a few moments for Wei Ying to compose himself enough that he is willing to release him, and during that time Lan Wangji avoids looking at his siblings, not wishing to see their reactions.

A-Yuan is abruptly tugging on Wei Ying’s robes.

“A-Die sad? A-Die need a hug?”

Somehow Wei Ying manages a smile for the boy and pulls him up on his lap.

“Ah, my sweet son. That’s exactly what a-die needs.”

The child is happy to oblige, and then he lets Wen Ning take him back.

“You told him to call me guma, not shigu,” Jiang Yanli points out softly. “A-Cheng called him zhizi, not shizhi. And you told him to call A-Cheng shushu, not shishu. You know you’re our brother.”

She sounds almost forlorn, a sharp contrast from her fire when she claimed him as her didi on Phoenix Mountain to Jin Zixun.

Jiang Wanyin takes a step toward the table.

“Lotus Pier is rebuilt, and so is the Jiang sect,” he interjects. “You’re coming back. I’m giving it back. We’ll undo it.”

The offer is startling, something Lan Wangji didn’t expect from him, and the soft gasp from Wei Ying tells him it is a surprise to him as well. Wei Ying shakes his head.

“I don’t think it’s possible,” he says tiredly.

“Why the hell not?!”

He seems almost affronted by the rejection. Lan Wangji can feel Wei Ying shiver, knows he’s struggling. His husband has had to have so many difficult conversations in quick succession, and this one is the hardest so far. And the offer to return the golden core seems to have thrown him.

“Scarring,” Lan Wangji answers for him, remembering Wen Qing’s words.

Silence reigns for a moment, the Jiang siblings looking upset, clearly wanting more detail.

Wei Ying speaks haltingly, tells the tale he hasn’t told Lan Wangji, of being caught in the tea house in Yiling, of trying to escape, of Wen Zhuliu punching him right in the lower dantian, his stitches tearing at the impact. Of being beaten by Wen Chao’s men and burned by Wang Lingjiao.

“I had to get them to leave Yiling,” he said. “If they caught you coming down the mountain, it would’ve all been for nothing. I thought they’d toss me in a cell in Qishan. I didn’t expect Burial Mounds.”

Much of the rest of the story is the same as he told Xichen, this part having been omitted before likely to avoid having to talk about the Core-Melting Hand. This time, though, he also talks about the sword from the Xuanwu cave, the one filled with resentful energy, how it helped him survive Burial Mounds, that he crafted the seal from it during the war to help win it. Not, as the rumors suggested, from Xue Yang’s still-missing piece.

Much of this is new information to Lan Wangji, painting an even clearer picture of how incredibly impossible the odds were against Wei Ying’s survival.

Wei Ying continues to dab at his sister’s face with his sleeve as he talks, keeping her makeup from running onto her dress as she cries. In the quiet that follows, her soft crying seems to echo in the courtyard.

A-Yuan vocalizes that she needs a hug, and Wen Ning murmurs softly about her special dress that needs to be kept clean.

“Later,” Wen Ning says, and A-Yuan is assuaged.

Jiang Wanyin has, during the course of the telling, returned to the table to sit heavily. The customary pinched expression normally on his face is gone, his anger drained away for the moment.

“All those times I harassed you about your sword, about carrying it and polishing it,” Jiang Wanyin whispers, his voice choked.

“It’s too heavy for me to wield for more than a minute or so,” Wei Ying says hollowly. “Even to polish it.”

He had taken joy in his cultivation and even having given it up willingly, Lan Wangji knows it’s still something that hurts him deeply. He himself remembers the joy of crossing swords with him on the rooftop, what feels like a lifetime ago now. Bittersweet, never to happen again.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jiang Wanyin finally asks. “You convinced me to expel you from the sect, dammit. Why would you tell Lan Wangji and not us? After he wanted to take you back to Gusu for punishment!”

“He did not tell me until I discovered his golden core was missing,” Lan Wangji says.

Wei Ying is guiltless in that, and he will not let him be blamed.

“I wished to take him to Gusu for protection and healing, not punishment,” he adds.

Lan Wangji could see, throughout the war, that Wei Ying was suffering, that something was wrong, had wanted desperately to help him. He wonders if Jiang Wanyin is partly behind Wei Ying’s misconceptions about that, and tries not to be peeved—how much heartache could have been prevented?

“Wei-g-gongzi did not intend to t-tell anyone,” Wen Ning contributes.

His voice is sad, with a hint of disapproval for Wei Ying’s decision to withhold it. A-Yuan seems to decide he, too, needs a hug, throwing his arms around the fierce corpse’s neck.

“Then how do you know?” Jiang Wanyin demands.

“Wen Ning assisted Wen Qing with the core transplant,” Wei Ying says before Wen Ning can answer. “They were the only people who knew, until Lan Zhan found out.”

He does not, Lan Wangji notes, tell how, clearly sparing Wen Ning more ill-placed ire from Jiang Wanyin. It feels odd to be grateful his husband was injured, but without it, he might have walked away, down the mountain, ignorant of Wei Ying’s suffering.

“Is that why you stayed, Lan-er-gongzi?”

Jiang Yanli’s gaze is level despite her tears, her eyes sharp, and Lan Wangji feels as though she is weighing him still.

“En,” he answers simply. “I could only help him if I stayed.”

He had known for some time that his uncle was unlikely to help Wei Ying heal, that hiding him in Gusu would stifle him and destroy him just as it had destroyed his mother. Lan Wangji could continue to walk away, or he could stay.

“And the marriage?”

Lan Wangji isn’t quite certain what she is asking—perhaps the reason he told Wei Ying of the handfasting?

“It could protect him, even if it was simply political.”

She smiles, but it’s tight.

“No, I mean would you have told him, if you hadn’t learned?”

He doesn’t need time to consider the question; he assumed Wei Ying would reject him, as he had rejected the prospect of coming with him to Gusu. He had miscommunicated and misunderstood.

“No,” he says, welcoming her judgment, as he judges himself. “I expected it would be a burden to him, unwelcome.”

Wei Ying startles at the admission, glancing at him. Lan Wangji hates that he sees guilt in his expression over the misunderstanding, runs his hand across his shoulder to comfort him.

And realizes when his husband’s eyes go a little glassy that he’s run his hand over the hidden bite mark.

How could he have thought this would be unwelcome?

Jiang Wanyin snorts, and Lan Wangji’s ears burn at the sense of being seen doing something illicit.

“The way he mooned over you? Talked about you all the time.”

He sounds long-suffering, as though Lan Wangji should have been aware of Wei Ying’s regard. Now, of course, he can see nothing else. But before...

“And then after the war, he didn’t,” Jiang Yanli murmurs.

After Wei Ying had survived Burial Mounds and come out scarred and afraid.

“When I told him, Wei Ying tried to convince me he was unworthy,” Lan Wangji says. “I disagreed.”

Wei Ying tried to push him away before, when they were reunited after his disappearance, and Lan Wangji now knows it was out of a belief that he would somehow taint him.

“He feels himself unworthy of protection and love,” he adds.

A troubled look passes over Jiang Wanyin’s face, and Jiang Yanli just looks sad.

“That would be a-niang’s influence again,” she says softly. “A-Xian, we should have protected you better.”

Wei Ying shakes his head as though to deny their culpability, and she takes his hands.

“No, A-Xian. She was wrong about your worth, and I hate that she cut you and A-Cheng down so much.”

Jiang Wanyin looks uncomfortable, and Lan Wangji doubts it’s because of his sister’s lack of filial piety.

“She always compared me to you,” he grates after a moment. “I was never good enough, because you were better. And now you’ll always be better.”

Lan Wangji bristles on Wei Ying’s behalf, but his husband speaks first.

“I didn’t do it to compete with you, A-Cheng,” Wei Ying says tiredly. “What the fuck was the point of competing when you were dying? I just wanted you to live.”

“And what about you?” Jiang Wanyin retorts. “What about your life? You think I want it to be a competition, you asshole? You told me to abandon you, but you wouldn’t tell me the truth! You keep trying to throw yourself away!”

Wei Ying cringes, and Lan Wangji returns to holding him, his own anger fizzling out as he recognizes the feelings behind Jiang Wanyin’s.

“You didn’t expect to live this long, did you?”

The Jiang sect leader’s tone implies it’s not really a question but a realization, and Wei Ying’s flinch implies he’s right. Lan Wangji can’t stop his hold from tightening on Wei Ying, Jiang Wanyin’s words making him feel ill.

He has known his zhiji didn’t expect to live as long as he has, but neither of them has spoken of it. Wei Ying managed to survive Indoctrination and the Xuanwu, the fall of Lotus Pier and massacre of most of his adopted clan, the removal of his golden core, the fall and entrapment in Burial Mounds, the war… Lan Wangji hates that Jiang Wanyin is right in this, and hates even more that Wei Ying has faced so many situations that could have killed him.

“You keep protecting other people, but you won’t let anyone protect you!”

Jiang Wanyin is practically panting in anger.

“You always need to be the hero, Wei Wuxian! But all the heroes die!”

He sounds dangerously close to tears, and his words send a jolt of dread through Lan Wangji—just the idea of Wei Ying dying sends his stomach plummeting. He can feel Wei Ying shiver against him.

Jiang Yanli lets out a long breath, trying to compose herself. She gives Jiang Wanyin a warning look, and he scowls, looking away but clearly making an effort to calm down.

“We can only move forward,” she says. “A-Xian will just need to learn to let us protect him.”

“He is learning,” Lan Wangji tells her.

She manages a watery smile.

“When you’re hurt, it hurts us, Xianxian. Please let us help you.”

Wei Ying seems beyond words, and just nods. A tremor runs through him, and Lan Wangji knows he’s exhausted what energy he had left for the day with this conversation. His sister seems to sense this.

“A-Xian, you look tired.”

Again, Wei Ying only nods, but Lan Wangji is of the opinion there should be no more secrets.

“He was nearly possessed by a resentful spirit a few days ago,” he supplies.

Jiang Yanli gasps, and he tries not to be pleased that she will want to fix this, too. It will strengthen her resolve.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying protests, but it seems more of a token protest.

“Fortunately, xiongzhang was visiting. He calmed it with Liebing. There are now talismans where we sleep.”

“It tried while he was sleeping?” Jiang Cheng almost demands. “Is it still so dangerous there?!”

“I fought her,” Wei Ying murmurs, almost petulant. “She was liberated in the end.”

“Not the point, Wei Wuxian!”

“A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli scolds. “We can talk about this later. I need to change so we can go with him and talk to Wen Qing. I expect she will have more to say about it, as well.”

“J-jiejie needs some items from the market, so we need to b-buy them before we go back,” Wen Ning offers.

Jiang Yanli nods firmly.

“Then we’ll meet you in the market. And then I’ll be finally able to get a hug from my zhizi.”

A-Yuan beams at her, already recognizing himself as her nephew, and she stands and shakes out her cloak to don it. Jiang Wanyin packs the tureen back in the basket.

“Get this idiot to eat the rest of his bowl,” he says gruffly. “He’s too fucking skinny.”

“A-Cheng, language,” Wei Ying says almost automatically.

“Jiang-shushu said a bad word?” A-Yuan asks.

Jiang Wanyin looks almost panicked for a moment, then frowns.

“Yeah, yeah, Jiang-shushu said a bad word. Don’t be like Jiang-shushu.”

He gestures to the boy, who immediately climbs off Wen Ning’s lap and runs over, latching onto his leg, and he reaches down and rubs A-Yuan’s head affectionately.

“Get your a-die to eat the rest of his soup before he goes shopping, okay?”

A-Yuan nods emphatically, happy to be given such a task, then rushes to his a-die’s side, climbing up onto the seat Jiang Yanli vacated.

Jiang Wanyin stares at Wei Ying for a long while.

“We’ll fix this. We’ll figure something out,” he says heavily. “I owe you.”

Wei Ying shakes his head, obstinate.

“You don’t. I owed the Jiang sect everything.”

That proclamation doesn’t seem to sit well with his brother, who scowls.

“No. No debts between family. It’s not a debt I owe, and you didn’t owe me your Golden Core. It’s what you deserve as my brother. I let Jin Guangshan’s stupid mind games get to me.”

Jiang Yanli, back in her cloak, her wedding robes and headdress hidden, approaches him and touches his elbow, murmurs his name. Jiang Wanyin glances at her, and nods, taking the basket from her.

“We’re the Twin Heroes of Yunmeng, Wei Wuxian, and our sect motto is to attempt the impossible. We’ll find a way.”

Jiang Wanyin sweeps out of the courtyard with Jiang Yanli, and Lan Wangji can’t help but wonder if he spends his free time planning dramatic exits.

Wei Ying releases a long breath, sagging against him the moment they’re gone.

“Always needs to have the last word,” he murmurs.

It’s almost a mirror of what Lan Wangji is thinking, and he can’t help a huff of amusement. Wei Ying turns to him with a tired smile.

“Aiya, all that was missing was a cape for him to swish dramatically.”

Lan Wangji has seen some of those capes, and can easily imagine such a thing.

“Wei Ying also has a flair for the dramatic,” he comments.

“Yeah, but I have style,” he retorts with a snort.

He turns to the soup, thankfully not needing prompting. Lan Wangji had expected it would have gone cold by now, but it’s still steaming. Likely the scent aroused Wei Ying’s hunger. He suspects the bowl has a talisman affixed to or carved onto the bottom, meant to keep the contents warm. Somewhat extravagant, but it allows his husband to enjoy hot soup even after all the arguing, so he is grateful for the forethought.

They will have some time, he knows. Jiang Yanli’s robes are intricate and will need to be removed with care to avoid damage, and the headdress will also be complex to remove. She will need to wash the makeup from her face as well.

Time enough for Wei Ying to finish eating, to dawdle a little while shopping to account for the exhaustion he undoubtedly feels, to take a breath before more difficult conversation.

They have time, a gift Wei Ying apparently didn’t expect to have, and Lan Wangji will work to ensure he has much more.

The Twin Prides, after all, now have the support of the Twin Jades.

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dilfdoctordoom · 4 years

Note

What do the JL think of Bette? Specifically Barry, Hal, Clark, Arthur, Ollie, and Diana

I very much love that you included two of my favourite characters here.

Barry:

Bette spent many of her formative years in Gotham, so you can bet your ass that this girl is ACAB

Now, I don’t know if you’ve been called a bastard by a thirteen-year-old in a red dress, but Barry Allen has

Life-altering experience

He spends an hour asking Bruce what he did wrong, why does Bat-Girl hate him? He hasn’t even spoken to her yet what could he have done

And Bruce just... the fun explanation that she hates all cops. Instantly. Oh you’re a CSI that must be fun, it doesn’t matter, it’s already on sight for you

Like, okay, in Gotham? Pretty much every cop is dirty. Gordon, Montoya & Bullock are the only ones that Bette knows aren’t & she still doesn’t really trust them

So she’s not gonna be particularly nice to Barry Allen & Bruce literally has to tell her to behave

(Kathy is very amused by it all)

There’s a moment where Barry thinks she just hates speedsters, but then she & Wally seem to be getting on great. Like, Kid Flash is awesome, cool fast guy. Flash is a cop & therefore she cannot trust him

Bat-Girl: I can respect you as a hero but I do not like you as a person

So, yeah, Barry’s, uh, iffy on her. He’s sure she’s a great hero & she seems nice to the others, but he’d really rather not work with her, even when she’s Flamebird/Hawkfire. Especially when she’s Flamebird/Hawkfire, then she’s got tasers & flamethrowers

Hal:

Very different from how she interacts with Barry

Mainly because she first meets Hal after Kathy’s died & she goes to Coast City as part of her whole ‘run away from her emotions’ thing

She’s always loved the beach & Coast is supposed to be so nice. Plus, they’ve got Green Lantern; they’re not gonna need her to suit up, are they?

And then there’s an incident with Manhunters & like, Hal’s got this handled, no doubt about it, but also, Bette is impulsive & has a massive hero complex & yes she does suit up & help out. She does it because it’s right, because she’s angry, just because

But Hal kinda freaks out? Because she’s a kid and yeah, that might fly in Gotham where Batman can keep an eye on her, but oh god, what if he was fighting Sinestro? That’s low key terrifying to him, he doesn’t wanna put a kid in danger

He’s still good with kids. Like, that’s canon, he’s just good with them. So he & Bette do get along & after he gets over the initial ‘please do not fight mass murdering robots you need adult supervision & idk if I qualify for that’, they do actually spend time together!

Mainly because Hal isn’t too comfortable letting a teenage vigilante who just experienced a massive lost be alone & honestly? He’s right. Like, Kathy has just died & Bette threw herself into an extremely dangerous fight... red flags all around, my dudes

So they do work together while she’s in Coast. She only stays a few weeks before she moves on, but she does kinda like Green Lantern?

And the feeling’s mutual. They don’t really keep in contact but Hal keeps an eye on the news to make sure she’s okay & not, uh, dead

They don’t actually meet face to face until a dumb Justice League party years later & then they discover that Bruce finds Hal annoying... he finds the concept of Bette & Hal even being acquaintances annoying... he’s given them the ultimate weapon. Bruce Wayne goes grey earlier and it’s because Hal & Bette spend an entire night pretending that they went on a massive space adventure, full of danger & peril, solely to drive up his blood pressure

Hal doesn’t look into her identity all that much, but thinks she’s fun. Anyone who annoys Bruce for fun is cool in his book

(And I know this is supposed to focus on his feelings about her but consider: Bette meets the Green Lantern of Coast City & he lets her stay in his shitty rundown apartment. Everything that can go wrong for him seems to, but he’s still there, making jokes and saving people and doing the right thing. His willpower keeps him going, even on the darkest of nights and maybe, just maybe, Bette’s stubbornness picked up a little bit of inspiration for somebody along the way)

(And maybe, maybe, she joins the fight against Parallax and realizes just how far her heroes can fall)

Clark:

Um, well, I absolutely headcanon that Clark gave Bette the name Flamebird. Like, told her the story, made a series of not-so-subtle mentions that she should take up the name...

So, yes, Clark knows Bette

She’s Bruce’s cousin, after all, and he’s his best friend. Of course, their paths would cross, especially with how often Clark seemed to work with Batman & Robin when they first started out

He’s worked with her a lot when she’s Bat-Girl & every single time, Bette is starstruck because oh my god, that’s Superman, she’s talking to Superman, she’s working with Superman

He tells her the legend of Nightwing & Flamebird when she’s a kid & she loves the concept of Flamebird. She’s only twelve at the time, but something about it clicks with her

And when she gives up on being Bat-Girl, but is still determined to be a hero, he suggests Flamebird

(Bette absolutely tears up at this)

They don’t really work together when she gets older, except on big, world ending disasters that require the entire Justice League’s attention, but he still sends her one of Ma Kent’s apple pies for the holidays

Clark’s just the cool uncle from when was younger

She stills freaks out a little every time he talks to her, though

She’s never gonna get over knowing Superman

Arthur:

It took me a while to think about this but, yes, Arthur likes Bette

Mainly because Bette is a friend of La’gaan’s. That’s pretty much how he knows her

He doesn’t even know she’s a part of the Batfamily for years, because she’s always seen with the Titans

So, like, he doesn’t really know her that much, but she’s a good friend to one of his sidekicks & La’gaan’s already made passing mentions to crashing at her & Gar’s place, so. Yeah. She got Aquaman’s seal of approval

Though Arthur is always gonna be entertained by how much teasing Flamebird is allowed to get away with. Most of the League may not be aware of her Special Cousin Privilages, he isn’t either, but it’s absolutely hilarious to see her tear into Batman at random

11/10, good friend to La’gaan, very entertaining. Would be better if she could keep a goldfish alive

Ollie:

Okay, so, Ollie is, like, shown to be nicer to the younger heroes, Kyle excluded because he’s dating his son, so she’s gonna be nice to her. Or, at least, Ollie nice. Hm.

He thinks she’s way too small when she first starts out because even when she’s eleven, Bette still looks like she’s nine, but she’s got two heroes looking out for her & with a kid sidekick of his own, he’s not in a place to judge

Aside from one poor team-up between Green Arrow & Speedy and Batwoman & Bat-Girl, where Ollie & Kathy absolutely butted heads, oh my god, they’d hate each other, he didn’t see much of her. He works in Star, she works in Gotham, when are their paths gonna cross

While she works less with most Leaguers the older she gets, she actually ends up working more with Ollie when she’s older

Mainly ‘cause she’s friends with Roy & Cass may be friends with Connor, but that doesn’t mean she can drive so sometimes she’ll get Bette to bring her to Star

Which is honestly what Ollie knows her most as: Batgirl’s older sister who’ll lend a hand whenever she’s in Star

She’s good with kids, efficient & a little showy, but he really can’t judge that last part. Got Roy & Dinah’s stamp of approval, though, & that goes a long way with him

They never, like, exclusively work together, but she’s good to call on in an emergency

He did do a double take when she called Deathstroke ‘uncle’ though because... well, look, at Flamebird. Now look at Deathstroke. Do you see his confusion? It only grows when Slade lets out the most exasperated sigh, mutters something about how he wishes he could kill her without Addie getting mad, and then Bette sticks her tongue out to him & makes some joke about the shitshow he married into

Well. At least his family will never involve Deathstroke

Diana:

Diana gave Bette the shovel talk

This is when DonnaBette is happening & close to figuring out each other’s identities & probably the biggest hint for Bette is Wonder Woman flying down to tell her that if she breaks Wonder Girl’s heart, she’ll have her to answer to

So. Diana’s first impression of Bette is Flamebird having an anerysm on a rooftop in Gotham because she just realized she’s dating Wonder Girl

The absolute dumbassary of DonnaBette, unparalled

Diana likes Bette, thinks she’s probably a great person, but it is her legal job as Donna’s big sister to make it clear that if anything happens to her baby sister, it means war

They end up meeting later, after Donna & Bette have had their mutual break-up, when Diana is working with Kate & Bette is still unable to form a full sentence. Wonder Woman oh my god, oh my god, her brain doesn’t work that’s actual literal Wonder Woman oh my go-

Bruce did later let it slip that after the Maxwell Lord incident, Bette was 100% on Wonder Woman’s side, which she honestly didn’t expect, but eh. Bette’s not as big on the whole no killing as her cousin

Diana mainly knows Bette in the capacity of her being Donna’s girlfriend

Definitely prefers her to some of Donna’s other partners ie Terry because I don’t csre what anyone says, that relationship was trash & I will not pretend that miss Diana Prince was okay with her nineteen-year-old sister dating a divorcee in his thirties that was also her professor

#bette kane #q & a #this is bad but it took me forever so idc

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superman86to99 · 4 years

Photo

Superman #83 (November 1993)

Funeral for a Friend: uh, that one Green Lantern supporting character who died when Coast City got blown up (Joe? Gary?). In this issue DC’s superheroes pay tribute to the tragedy of Coast City while also deciding what the hell to do with the giant engine that’s now in its place. Weird early ‘90s Hawkman! Dr. Fate with boobs! Already-slightly-psychotic Hal Jordan! EVERYONE IS HERE.

(Nice one, Guy.)

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor Jr. is also sneaking around Engine City, supposedly to prevent it from falling into the ocean and killing some of Aquaman’s friends, but in reality he just wants to look into the Cyborg Superman’s computer to see if he can find a recipe for making kryptonite. As the heroes argue about what to do with Engine City (Hal says drop it into the water, screw the fish), some leftover Warworld aliens start attacking them, like the holdout Japanese soldiers who never found out WWII was over.

The attack precipitates the city’s fall into the water and the heroes have to think fast to prevent a fish holocaust. Their solution is for all the Green Lantern-related characters (Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, Alan Scott, Alan’s daughter Jade) to “detoxify” the debris with their powers before it falls into the ocean. And it works! These guys should totally open a carpet cleaning business.

As for Lex Jr., he does find the recipe for kryptonite inside the crumbling city, but just as he’s about to write it down (he wasn’t carrying any floppy disks, apparently), Supergirl yanks him out of there to prevent him from burning alive. What an unsupportive girlfriend. Anyway, Superman then takes some of the debris and builds a giant memorial for Coast City’s 6,999,999 anonymous lost souls, and Gary. Sweet Gary. You will be missed.

Creator-Watch:

If the art looks different that’s because this is the first issue inked by Joe Rubinstein, ending Brett Breeding’s classic two and a half year run as Dan Jurgens’ main inker (so classic that it feels a lot longer than that). Breeding will be back for Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey and other stuff, though. As for Rubinstein, Don says: “At the time, I had trouble with the transition, being soused to Brett Breeding’s finishes over Jurgens’ pencils, but looking at it now, the art looks great. It doesn’t look as smooth or blocky as Breeding’s finishes, but Rubinstein’s hatchier style serves Jurgens pretty well, even if it takes some getting used to.”

Plotline-Watch:

At the start of the issue, Superman goes to pick up Batman to take him to Coast City, only to find him wearing a different costume, acting differently, and sounding like a different guy. That’s because that’s not really Bruce Wayne in the suit anymore, but the replacement he got after Bane broke his back. That’s right: freakin’ Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught.

Superman gives a speech about how superheroes must work together to prevent another tragedy like Coast City from happening, but when Guy asks him if that means he’s going back to the Justice League, he’s like “uh, not yet.” Wisely, he’s gonna wait for Grant Morrison to get there first.

Hal Jordan’s characterization in this issue is interesting. In Green Lantern #47 (which came out the same month), he’s bummed about Coast City but still hopeful and serene, while here he’s already going Parallax on us. Wonder if Dan Jurgens knew more about what DC was planning for Hal than the other comic’s writer.

There’s a cute scene where Superman is flying by Kansas on his way to Coast City and quickly drops some flowers for Ma Kent. (That, or Flash picked this moment to hit on a random older woman.)

Former TV exec/crime boss Morgan Edge has released an autobiography where he trashes the Daily Planet’s Cat Grant for using her sexiness (and, you know, sex) to get dirt on him and send him to jail. He also accuses Cat of being a crappy mother to her son Adam. He kind of has a point there, because what kind of mom would let her kid play with an Atari in the early ‘90s?! The SNES and the Genesis were already out!

Believe it or not, Morgan Edge’s pervy dad in that screenshot above isn’t the creepiest thing in that scene. Don: “Very spooky how the guy dangling outside of Cat’s apartment goes without mention. An ominous foreshadow of one of the very few missteps of Jurgens’ run.”

But the most ominous part of the issue is at the end, when Clark Kent accepts Jimmy Olsen’s offer to become roomies, since Clark lost his apartment on account of being dead and all. Don wants you to know that “Jimmy is still in that towel by the way” in the scene below. I hope.

Patreon-Watch:

Shout out to our patrons Aaron, Murray Qualie, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, and a warm welcome to Samuel Doran! Last month our patrons got to read an article about Superman’s bizarre first Elseworlds appearance ever, the Kamandi: At Earth’s End miniseries, and got a veeeeeery early look at this post you’re reading right now (since Don finished his part way before I did mine). Right now I’m preparing this month’s Patreon-only article, which involves Superman wearing pointy ears and Luthor wearing make up. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99

Oh, and in case you missed it, we’ve been posting Don’s new commentary for older issues on the Patreon as free posts (click above and scroll down to see them). EVEN MORE from Don after the jump!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

Another classic issue, and such a nice wrap-up to the "Death and Return" storyline (as well as being a much-needed check-In on the DC Universe at large). We start with the cover, and it’s a very good one, letting the reader know right away that it’s a big team-up issue. (It also is a real showcase for 90s costume design, and how weird the JLA lineup was at this point).

The opening splash is a neat image of a rarely seen pairing, Superman and Commissioner Gordon. Jurgens draws James Gordon a little heavier and more Pa-Kent like than I’m used to seeing him, but it’s still neat to see him interacting with Superman. A page later, we get another rare pairing—the returned Superman with the imposter Batman, Jean-Paul Valley. The tension in the interaction between “AzBats” and Superman comes across well in their exchange, as does Superman’s doubts about who he was really speaking to.

It’s a dreamy looking Superman crossing the country from Metropolis to Coast City, and I daresay that they’re trying to channel Dean Cain a little as he approaches Kansas.

The best panel of the issue though is the two page spread of all the heroes gathering at the wreckage of Coast City, and there’s so much to love here. The body language, and facial expressions speak volumes about each of the characters: Superman looking swashbuckling and upbeat, Green Lantern brooding like a man barely holding on, Green Arrow all attitude and shadow. Just a great spread.

Another cool image is Aquaman showing up late, and emerging very royally in protection of his ocean (undercut masterfully by a legitimately funny couple of lines from Guy Gardner). Page 14’s Hal Jordan is a great drawing, and this whole storyline seems like a table setter for the "Emerald Twilight" story coming up.

The sequence of a firelit Luthor at the computer is a good look at his madness, but it does beg the question of just how little Supergirl seems to take in. He was JUST talking aloud about Kryptonite, and she emerges seeming not to hear. The image of Supergirl flying Lex away as he struggles against her psychic grab is a good one, even if her uniform is depicted as a little clingier than I imagine it to really be.

Superman floating above his obelisk with his arm in front of his face like Dracula is a cool look, even if it is a little dramatic.

Lastly, the image of Clark turning up the stereo is a good one, even if his hair length is wildly shorter here than in Coast City (and I usually dislike it when they mention real world bands, as it comes off trying too hard to be hip).

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

I have to love how meta it is to have Superman outright saying that Batman is dressing more “threatening” these days, on page 2. I guess he couldn’t come right out and say “you have an extreme new look, and it’s totally badass! Batman the next generation!”

Last we saw of Supergirl she was storming out of the party on Lex’s Zeppelin after Lex II was getting all horned up at the sight of Lois Lane, but it appears here they’ve mostly patched things up as they fly to Coast City.

More meta-stuff: Jimmy clunkily complimenting Lois on her new hair by saying she “oughta be on TV or something!”. This whole exchange is very expository, really, “Clark must be pretty mad… though he’s busy worrying about where he’s going to bunk…” Anything else to get in there, Jimmy?

The harshness some of the heroes have for Lex Junior seems a little out of place, especially since he’s still known to most of the heroes as an ally from "Panic in the Sky", and the "Doomsday" storyline. Superman’s comment was borderline, but where is all this anger Flash is showing coming from?

Being as familiar as we are with these writers, there are certain phrases or ideas that a certain writer will go to way, way too often. Byrne had a number of stories where Superman would “ionize” something with his heat vision, and it occurred to me that maybe he just liked that word. I would submit that Dan Jurgens likes the word “atomize”. It was used by the Cyborg Superman when talking about Doomsday, and is used a bunch just in this issue.

I find it hilarious that Hawkman appears so prominently in this issue, but doesn’t get any lines. This issue is an interesting time capsule—I had almost forgotten about the de-aged Starheart powered Alan Scott era.

Speaking of lines, they don’t give Captain Marvel much to do in this issue, but I always like seeing him, even if his only contribution is the odd “Holy Moley!”

Colouring error on page 12, where Hal’s ring has a red centre (maybe the colourist had Alan Scott’s red and green look on the brain?)

A raging Hal standing by Green Arrow is a sad foreshadowing of their confrontation to come in Zero Hour.

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moon-yeongjun · 4 years

Text

Fathers and Sons || Mu Jun

Summary: This takes place the Taekwondo weekend! Mu-yeol and Yeong-jun drink together and open up to each other. It’s Very Good i love this thread

@baenxietydad

tw: mentions of cancer, death, also alcohol

MARLIN: Jun made the mistake of conceding when the two of them went back and forth about who was going to pay for the alcohol. Mu-yeol would have let Jun pay if he didn’t already feel like rot about him having to pay for the hotel, and if he actually suspected Jun would buy enough to even get Marlin drunk in the first place. A fairy’s alcohol tolerance was no joke; especially a healing talent fairy. It was almost like he needed an alcohol IV to get enough into his bloodstream to get him good and proper pissed. There was no way in hell he’d tell Jun to go out and buy that much alcohol. He’d do it himself and look like he had a drinking problem instead. When he got back to the room, he waited with a smirk and his back turned to Jun for Jun to insist he had gone too hard at the off-licence.

JUN: Jun was already a bit drunk. Of course he was at least a little drunk! His little brother had won, dragging all those other kids across the mat and making the Moon family proud. He’d shouted himself nearly hoarse, almost cried when he was hugging Tae, and could not stop smiling whenever he caught sight of the medal that Jun was forcing Tae to wear throughout dinner. So yes, celebratory drinks! Such things were mandatory when you were the hyung of the T.A.G.B Tae Kwon-Do Cadet English Championship Finalist! They ate a horrid amount of food, Jun had some fancy cocktail he couldn’t remember the name of, and soju, of course soju, they all, even Tae-yah and Nam-min-ie, had a little soju. Just a little. Now the boys had gone back to their room to stuff their mouths full of sweet and salty snacks and pass out. Jun, however, just a little drunk, asked his hyung-nim if he would like to keep drinking with him. It was a night of nights, eh? The weather was perfect for drinking. Now though? “Yahhhhhhhhh,” Jun exclaimed and then laughed. “What are you doing? Are you trying to drown me? This is enough for Tae-yah’s whole taekwondo team!”

MARLIN: Marlin laughed and shook his head. Oh, Jun. You’ll see. Soon enough, you’ll see. “You won’t be saying that for long.” Mu-yeol said with a devious grin. “You’ve obviously never tried drinking with a fairy before.” It would take him probably an entire bottle of liquor and some change to feel a buzz, more to be proper drunk, and even more to wake up with a hangover the next morning. He was trying to drink in the proper drunk range, but there’s no telling. Maybe Jun is a surprisingly fun drinking buddy and he’ll lose track of how much he’s drinking. “I can’t drink in public because I get cut off before I even get drunk.” JUN: He rolled his eyes at Mu-yeol, but he reached for a bottle of the soju and beckoned for him to sit down. They did not have a proper table in this hotel room-- just a desk, the one desk chair, their two beds, and a small nightstand between the beds. Thus, Jun had determined the nightstand to be their table of sorts, with both of them using the beds as seats. Jun put the soju glasses down and poured Mu-yeol’s drink. “Ah, you fairies, eh, must you be better at everything?” he joked as he poured. “Should get ahead of me then, I’ve not been drunk since--” When was the last time? Jun scoffed and laughed, shoulders shaking. “I don’t even remember.”

MARLIN: Marlin chuckled when Jun instinctively poured his soju. Damn, Jun really was Korean. Though he was more surprised that Jun acknowledged the fairy thing with a joke so comfortably. “Depends on the fairy. Like, my sister and one of my brothers get drunk a little quicker because they aren’t healing fairies. Nemo needs me to heal his nose when he breaks it, but when I drop kegs on my toe at work it heals itself.” He explained with a shrug. He smiled sadly at Jun. of course it had been a long while since Jun was able to proper drink. He had to become his father so fast. “May 18th, 2006.” Three days after So-yeon was murdered. He left Nam-min with his parents for the night while he and his siblings went to human Daegu and they let him get embarrassing, crying, incoherent drunk. He wanted to get completely pissed just once under the watchful eyes of his dongsaengdul.

JUN: “Aish, well that’s longer than me. Can’t believe you remember the date.” Jun said, laughing. 2006! Jun was-- how old? He had moved to Swynlake. Must be 14 or 15? He hadn’t gotten drunk yet. The first time for him had been when his hal-moni died. He huddled alone in his room, having stolen beer from the store. He drank and drank, can after can, eyes wet with tears, until everything spun and Jun passed out. He woke up hours later only to go vomit. Eomma found him and scolded him, though quietly, tears still in her eyes. Because Jun might have lost his hal-moni, but Eomma lost her own eomma. Drinking was selfish. He got drunk outside of the house then. Not often. When he did drink though, Jun liked to black out and spend the next day in complete misery for his stupidity. The punishment fit the crime. Tonight though, for once, he drank to celebrate. He kicked back a shot.

MARLIN: “Yeah, I mean, I still lived in Daegu and my parents were watching the baby.” He said, shrugging a shoulder. Conveniently, he left out why he got plastered that day. He knocked back his shot and went ahead and poured himself another, promptly taking that one as well. Believe him, Jun. He needed it. It suddenly occurred to him as he poured himself another shot, and poured on for Jun, that neither of them were talking. “Have you told Tiffany about Tae’s win yet?”

JUN: Jun also went for another shot. The soju burned pleasantly, lingering long enough for the body to crave another. Such was the appeal of soju-- much better than vodka, which seared like gasoline. He downed it and then peered at the one remaining drop that had clung to the bottom of the glass. “Eh? Who?” he asked, still staring at that drop.

MARLIN: Who? That wasn’t what he was expecting when he brought up Jun’s girlfriend. From what Eun-jung said they were made for each other. Not that she said much but what the normal Korean parent would say. Oh, she’s going to be a doctor, she’s so intelligent, and so Korean! Jun was going to be a doctor too. That hurt him to think about, how Jun had had to give that up to run Moon Market. “Uh, Tiffany? Your girlfriend? Your mother’s talked about her before. Unless, uh, that was an old girlfriend?”

JUN: “Eh?” Jun grunted again, blinking. And then Tiffany snapped into place, firing off the correct neurons. “Oh! Yes, yes, Tiffany. My girlfriend,” Jun confirmed with several more nods as he put the glass down on the table. He had forgotten to tell Tiffany about Tae’s tournament at all, to be honest. When was the last time they had spoken on the phone? Aish, who cared? It wasn’t like they needed such things. Tiffany was quite busy and they had a very pleasant email correspondence going on… “No, I-- s’busy day.” He waved a hand. “I’ll tell her tomorrow! She’s still at her clinic right now, I’m sure. And this sort of thing isn’t, not really her thing.” He shrugged. “She’s an only child, you know how it is.”

MARLIN: “It sounds…” Marlin trailed off, wondering if he should say it. He was going to say ‘like she’s not your thing’ but decided against it. That was best kept in his head. “Boring. Being an only child.” He said, knocking back his fourth shot and pouring another. “Only children in the traditional sense aren’t a thing in fairy culture.”

JUN: That didn’t make much sense. But much of fairy culture did not make sense, the little he heard of it. It sounded-- too nice. Jun could not trust something that was so nice. Fairies themselves were nice too, very very nice, nice to a fault. Of all the Magicks, he supposed he’d like to hang out with a fairy more than anything else, but that didn’t mean he would trust them. There was always a catch to kindness. He just had never figured out what it was when it came to fairies. Or maybe they were just naive, the poor dears. “Your son is an only child,” Jun said then bluntly, like Marlin forgot.

MARLIN: He smiled sadly. “Not by choice, of course.” And waved a hand dismissively as if to etch-a-sketch away the sad thing he said. Marlin cleared his throat to explain. “Typically if a fairy is widowed, we’re expected to, if not find another partner or two, combine households with another widowed fairy and raise your fledglings as siblings. Alternatively, if your Talent is considered rare - like my mother’s - or highly essential, like mine, you are expected or enter into a Promise with another fairy of that same talent and have a child in hopes of it being that Talent. If you don’t go into a love Promise, you should have a strategic one, for the good of the Hollow.” He took his fifth shot. “Promise is like our version of marriage. You can have 1, 2, I’ve even seen a fairy have 3 Promise partners. And you can’t have children outside of your Promise. Anyway. I’m a healing Talent, basically a fairy doctor. It’s actually considered incredibly strange that I didn’t either enter into a Promise with another healing Talent and try to have a healing Talent child; or, just combine households with another widowed fairy. Selfish, even.” Marlin sighed and poured himself another shot. “Nemo and I aren’t very popular in the Hollow as you can imagine.”

JUN: It was a very good thing that Jun was about half a bottle of soju in, plus the drinks he had at dinner. If he were sober, his impulse would be to stop this conversation at once. He had no interest in fairy culture. The less he knew, the better. That was the best thing about fairies, eh? Unlike other magicks, they kept their business to themselves and in their Hollow. They did their thing-- and humans did theirs. Everyone lived in harmony, which was what fairies were all about. But he was drunk, his curiosity floating to the surface. His face screwed up at how bizarre it all sounded. “Aish, that’s a headache waiting to happen,” said Jun. “Three partners?! One is already hard enough, you’re probably better off on your own!” He sucked his teeth. “Ah, but they shouldn’t be so hard on you, being a single parent should be-- it’s like--” he searched for his words. “Being a warrior. You deserve a medal.”

MARLIN: “Fairies don’t see it that way. There’s much I love about fairy society, in fact I love everything about it except that. But I have had much more exposure to human society and culture than the fairies in either Hollow I’ve lived in.” Marlin explained. “An acceptance of single parents kind of crept in by osmosis.” He knocked back his sixth shot, then his seventh right after, and poured the eighth. “It is almost offensive to many in the Hollow that my son and I live alone. But I worried we’d speak English in the home if I combined households with another widowed fairy. Then Nam-min wouldn’t know any Korean.” After taking his eighth shot, he clicked his tongue and said. “Still no buzz. Aish.” And poured his ninth. “In my home Hollow, Promise pairs or sets could produce three children without permission from the Pixie Queen. Here, it’s two, so our homes are made to house four fairies. And it is the height of selfishness ours houses two.” JUN: Stupid. All of what Mu-yeol was saying was stupid and Jun honestly didn’t know why they were talking about it. Not because he was uncomfortable, but because tonight, wasn’t it supposed to be a celebration? His brother was a winner! Jun and Tae had not gotten into one single fight all weekend (even if sometimes Jun had wanted to slap the back of his brother’s head). Even Mu-yeol seemed rather happy, eh? He and his son were cute, and Jun knew that they’d been fighting because of that damn vampire. So why talk about things that could not be changed? “Well who cares about them,” Jun said. The soju sloshed into his glass. “Don’t pay them any mind. You should get more human friends.” Jun said and pointed the lip of the soju bottle at Mu-yeol. “Not that people aren’t just as annoying but still, none of that 개소리 (gaesori) about being selfish. We humans love being selfish. And you can afford to be selfish sometimes! Eh? Like my eomma, she usually comes to these things. But I’ve been away so long. Over a decade you know, because medical school, aish, so exhausting. Tae hated me for missing his tournaments. And I hated me too! Did he think I was doing it on purpose?! I wanted to come, I tried, I really-- but there was so much work all the time.” Jun sighed and he shot back the glass. He poured more, forgetting his manners now. Some sloshed over the side of the glass. “So I told Eomma-- my turn. I’ll take him. I’ll close the damn store for a weekend if I have to, no matter what Abeoji says, ohhh, he’s so mad at me for that-- says we never close the store, never. So I upset him. Of course I upset him. But too bad. For once, I do something for me. My little brother…” Jun was drunker than he thought. “So-- there you go. Do something for you, hyung. We work hard, eh?”

MARLIN: Jun was very drunk. He knew he was very drunk, because he accidentally called him hyung, just plain hyung, and not hyung-nim. Adding -nim still put distance between them. Hyung meant they were actually friends. “Yeah, fuck-- fuck it.” Marlin said, taking his ninth shot, then drinking the about half-shot worth that was in that bottle straight from it and opening another. Knocking back his tenth shot, he smiled and said. “Ten and a half, I should finally start feeling something. You can imagine how expensive this would be if we drank in public.” Bottles of liquor in the hotel was the way to go.

JUN: Jun laughed, shaking his head. “You better not be lyin’ about this fairy tolerance, ‘m not cleaning up after you.” Jun said, leaning forward a little and pointing at him with a finger. Though ah, that was a lie. Even drunk, Jun would drag Mu-yeol to the bathroom if he needed to. He’d wipe his chin and force water down his throat and tuck him into bed like a child, if he had to, because Jun did not know how to be anything else. He wanted to be, though. For one night. Jun reached for another soju bottle. “You’re an appa, eh?” He cracked open the top. “What’s the secret? Mm? To be a good son? Because I’m really trying.” Jun touched his own chest.

MARLIN: Mu-yeol snorted and shook his head. “Mate,” the single word in English sounded off in the middle of comfortable Korean. “You’ll wish I was bullshitting.” At what Jun said next though, his heart lurched painfully in his chest. He never understood why human fathers couldn’t just tell their sons they were proud of them. It was four words and they prevented a lot of frustration and heartache. A part of him understood Mr. Moon. They were both immigrants and just wanted to push their children to be able to survive without them one day in this country that would always be foreign to them, that would never quite be their home. But as fairies, Marlin and Nemo easily could express their feelings toward each other. Nemo hugged him when he wanted to show his affection and occasionally hopped up on his toes to kiss his cheek goodbye as he scurried out the door. Marlin would curl up next to Nemo when he sensed he needed appa snuggles and played with his hair like he’d done since he was a toddler. To fairies it was ‘a little childish’ at worst, and ‘just normal’ in most cases. “Jun...I’m not in your father’s head, but. You are a very good son. You gave up your life to run the store, and you’re putting yourself through a relationship you aren’t invested in just to please your Korean parents that want a Korean daughter-in-law. You are the dictionary definition of a filial Korean son.” Marlin said. “And your father is the stereotypical Korean immigrant father who loves you but can’t seem to say it.” Had Yeong-seok said with his own words to him that he loved Jun? No, no but he didn’t have to. As a father himself, he could recognize the older man’s love where his children wouldn’t. “Korean immigrant human father.” He clarified. “We-” meaning fairies “-tend to be very open about our feelings. It just isn’t in human masculine culture. And that isn’t fair to you, I know. But you are a good son. You love your parents, and your sisters, and your brother, and you’ve sacrificed your own aspirations for them. That is the most selfless--” He cut himself off and downed his eleventh shot. “I think your father can’t say it because he hates that you had to do it. He wanted you to be a doctor so badly. He never stopped talking about how well you were doing in medical school, but then he got sick, and kept getting sicker, and here you are.” JUN: He didn’t believe Mu-yeol about this either. He could think in the most logical part of his brain that yes, Appa loved him, and yes, Appa was proud. A few years ago, before his cancer, he’d come close to saying similar things to Jun when Jun came home on one of his brief weekends he could spare, and ended up assisting his abeoji with some task. Usually working in the garden. His abeoji loved the family garden more than anything else and would have lived his happiest life if he could go out day after day and simply tend to the rows of greens and vegetables. When Jun worked in the garden with him, there was peace between father and son...a beautiful, clean silence, only broken occasionally by Yeong-seok when he decided he had something to share. Jun liked the garden too. He liked working with his hands, the cool, wet dirt against his work jeans. It was the opposite of sterile clinic rooms. The smell of pulled roots and fertilizer nothing like disinfectant. He always thought of his abeoji when he gardened now. His appa spent many mornings out, sitting in his garden, but no longer had the strength or energy to even weed. And so now there were no more opportunities for his abeoji to say anything kind. Instead, there was a neverending list of everything that Jun did wrong. Abeoji mad at him for coming home too early, Abeoji mad at him for partnering with a different, cheaper distributor, Abeoji angry about hiring Eric (he had called Jun lazy-- could Jun disagree with him?) Jun knew that the man he’d never truly known, as hard as he tried to, would die disappointed in him. He drank his soju. He shook his head. “Abeoji and I…it’s different. I don’t think I was ever his son.” He squinted, looking past Mu-yeol’s shoulder. “How can you feel those things eh, for a boy you don’t know? He was a stranger to me too. The first year I lived in Swynlake with him, aish, I kept wanting to call him Ahjussi. Abeoji kept catching on my tongue, like saying this was disrespectful to the man who took my eomma and me in.” Jun chuckled, though this wasn’t funny. “As if my parents weren’t married!” “I have to work much harder for him to call me his son, I think. He got to see Tae-yah and my sisters grow up, so it’s easier to love them. I’m not complaining,” Jun added quickly. He blinked, and his eyes were wet. Because he was tired, that’s all, he wasn’t sad. “He would have liked to know me as a boy. He sacrificed that for me and Eomma, so ‘m not mad. It’s simply how it is. Maybe if I had a son of my own, it’d be a second chance.” He blinked again, his chest burning and tight, and his voice wobbled as he said, “It’s too late though, isn’t it? He’ll never know my son.”

MARLIN: “Jun.” Marlin said, eschewing all the rules of human masculinity and reaching to grab one of Jun’s hands in his. “You were always his son. He wouldn’t have left to lay a foundation for you and Eun-- your eomma if you weren’t his son. I can promise you, as a father myself, that it tore him apart inside to not get to raise you himself. And fathers, we...kind of suck at dealing with our own pain. Especially when its related to our children.” He laughed bitterly to himself, thinking about how he’s absolutely fucked Nam-min up for life. “He’s probably hard on you because he just wants to know you’ll turn out all right despite him not having been there for you. And I know it isn’t fair to you, and I know from where you’re standing you don’t feel his love for you, but Jun. Yeong-seok loves you.” And it was unfair that Jun would never get the chance to actually know that. Because Jun was right. It was much too late. For months now Mu-yeol had physically felt Death on the patriarch of the Moon family. It clung to him like dried wood glue that stuck to your skin no matter how much you tried to rub it off. The treatments only ever made the intensity of the weight of Death fluctuate but never come close to leaving him. “Oh, Junnie.” Marlin cooed, going from his bed to Jun’s and impulsively cradling him in his arms. “Jun, I know. I know it's not fair.”

JUN: The room was swimming. Jun blinked slowly, his eyes coming to focus on Mu-yeol’s hand on his, though he did not really feel it. He was just aware of its warmth, but it could have been anything. His eyes closed briefly, only half of his hyung-nim’s words reaching him through this own stupid alcohol blanket. How could he explain? There was so much distance in Jun’s life between himself and the people that he cared about, his abeoji most of all. He’d grown up talking to Abeoji on the phone and that’s how it had felt now, even when they were in the same room. They did not really look at each other; they could not exactly see. There was a flaw in their timing as was always the case with phone conversation, Jun and Yeong-seok trying to talk at the same time, stopping, and then falling into a hesitated silence. Jun might have started rambling about phone conversations and maybe if Facetime had been invented when he was a small boy then it’d be all different, oh the joys of modern technology-- but then Mu-yeol’s weight fell on the other side of him. And he was being held. What the hell? Jun wanted to pull away, but instead he leaned into Mu-yeol’s grip, his face twisted and his eyes closing even tighter than they had before. “This is stupid,” he croaked but still didn’t pull away. And he wanted to say other things-- That cancer was stupid. That it was hilarious and cruel that he could be a doctor, in a relationship with an oncologist, and still be unable to help his abeoji. And despite how sad he was, there was a part of him that was relieved. Relieved to be home. Relieved to be back in the Moon Market, where he spent his adolescence. And it was this part of him that he hated most of all, that he was certain his parents saw and were ashamed. Instead, he remained in Mu-yeol’s arms and he said in his voice still thick with tears, “Hyung...hyung, can I call you hyung?” He already was, of course, but he was much too drunk to register.

MARLIN: Mu-yeol shook his head and pat Jun’s back. “No it’s not. Having feelings and being hurt isn’t ridiculous. It isn’t fair to you to always be the one to keep it together for your family.” He could stand to take a page from Jun’s book, however. “Yeah, that’s okay.” He said, biting back an awkward chuckle at Jun remembering his politeness even now. He kind of wished he were Olaf because then at least hugging Jun would have provided some amount of genuine comfort. JUN: Was he crying? Jun could not tell. How embarrassing if he was, and he grimaced at himself and pulled away from Mu-yeol’s arms, though they still sat side by side, close enough for their shoulders to brush. He hoped that he was drunk enough to forget this. It was fine, as long as he forgot the whole thing, even if Mu-yeol didn’t. He tried not to think about how much it meant to him, to have a hyung of his own. He should thank Mu-yeol for his pity, ha. “Bah, enough of me. I’m sick of me. Talk about yourself.” Jun instructed and he drank from his soju bottle, the alcohol burning quite pleasantly.

MARLIN: Mu-yeol chuckled low in his throat and grabbed another bottle of soju and drank straight from it. Talk about himself? He was never good at that. “Well, what should I say, huh?” He laughed. “What could distract you for a night?”

JUN: “Anything,” said Jun at once. He groaned a little, lifted a hand to his forehead to rub with two fingers. This was why he didn’t cry, eh? Crying was painful, he hated it so much. “Tell me-- tell me about Daegu, eh? I never visited. I never went anywhere though, eh, just stayed in Boseong and South Jeolla,” rambled Jun. “We went to a few...surrounding towns and things, to put my eomma’s pottery in cafes. She is a talented potter, you know.” Mu-yeol did; he’d known Eun-jung for years after all. Even now, Eun-jung had some of her ceramics displayed in Hatter’s, [name redacted], and there was a shelf in the store. She did not sell many things, but what she did sell, she was proud of.

MARLIN: “She’s very talented. Your mother always seemed like an artist, even before I knew.” Mu-yeol said. “Have you ever been to Seoul? I lived there for a while too. Daegu is more beautiful, and feels more like home, but Seoul was...until the end, Seoul was good to me.” “Daegu is surrounded by mountains, it sometimes feels like you’re straight out of a fairytale. Like the modern Korean city was plucked out of the works and placed in a storybook setting. I miss Seoul. I miss Daegu more, even if Seoul was where I lived with Nam-min’s mother. Daegu is where I fell in love with her.” He sighed and smiled sadly before he drank straight from a bottle of soju. That was all so, so long ago now. He hoped Tiffany made Jun as happy as So-yeon made him. He knew she didn’t. “I wonder if I would recognize the city if I went back. Or the Hollow that I grew up in.”

JUN: Jun hadn’t been to Seoul. When he met other Koreans, whether first or second or third generation, this was a question that came up. Not so much second-generation, but still. He always felt fake when he admitted that he’d never been to his country’s capital...that there was much of his home he never saw. Most of the Korean families he met anyway came from the city areas up north. When he mentioned Boseong, they always nodded before saying anything else. Jun could hear their thoughts: ah, from the country. Ah, he’s not educated. Such judgments always pushed Jun harder to work on his doctor’s license. That was why Eomma and Abeoji always pushed him, wasn’t it? Their family came from humble means, and South Korea was stratified by class like most of the stupid world. Jun had to prove that he was more than just a boy from the tea fields. For a while, the ruse had worked, but the world had now beat Jun back into place. He chuckled sadly. A fairy had even been to Seoul. A fairy. And he hadn’t. “I hope the fields are how I remember them,” Jun commented instead of revealing the depth of his own inadequacy. “So green. And it smelled amazing. I still brew green tea when I miss home, just to smell it.” He sighed and looked at Mu-yeol. “Daegu sounds beautiful.” A beat. “I’m sorry...you lost so much.”

MARLIN: “I’ve never been to Boseong, but I’ve spent time in other parts of the countryside. Country people are the kindest people. Don’t let people who can only speak in a Seoul dialect talk down on your family for being from the country. Or worse - people who can only speak English.” He smiled almost devilishly and slipped purposely into his own native dialect, curious if Jun could follow Daegu dialect Korean. He’d lived in Korea for ten years, his parents spoke in a regional dialect when they weren’t careful, so Mu-yeol suspected Jun may be able to. “You know there were probably Hollows, at least one, around Boseong. Hollows usually thrive in the countryside, but my home Hollow in Daegu is as ancient as the Korean Peninsula. The city was born and our Hollow never moved. Ironically, the war breathed a new life into it. Refugees from the North, including my father, flocked from firebombed Hollows, fleeing Soviet, North Korean, and Chinese soldiers killing any fairy they saw. Dictatorships and their soldiers don’t take kindly to magicks of any sort.” He sipped from his bottle of soju and sighed wistfully. “It was beautiful. And so was-” he almost said ‘she’, but god, that would make this so sad, wouldn’t it? This wasn’t about him. This weekend was about Tae and Jun. Jun was one whose father was dying. Mu-yeol’s wife had been dead for over a decade. He didn’t get to whine. Then Jun gave him the opportunity and he wondered if he was cleverly using his grief to avoid his own. Well, he wasn’t selfish. He’d not burst into tears and make this a woe is Mu-yeol, the maladjusted widower, the shame of Daegu moment, but he’d give Jun permission to eventually access the full tragic backstory. That’s what friends do, after all. And Jun had called him hyung. “Humans measure time in B.C.E. and C.E. My metric is before May 15th, 2006, and after. I should stop whining that I didn’t have So-yeon for longer and just be grateful I got to have her for the ten years I did. Some people get even less time.” Mu-yeol sipped more soju, the pleasant burn made talking about this easier. “But I’m not that big of a person. My anger’s too big.” He smiled sadly at Jun. “I hope someday you are as happy as I was, before the fifteenth of May. And I hope you get to stay that way for a long time.”

#para #mu jun #and if this is one of my favorite threads???#sniff

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imagineclaireandjamie · 5 years

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Hey!!! I really love Come Hell or Helwater! You have done a wonderful job with the story I'm really excited to see where it goes with LJG in the picture. Do you have any plans to continue it? Thanks!!

anonymous asked: Hi! Is there gonna be more of Come hell or Hellwater? I miss it 😬

Claire comes back to the past with Brianna and arrives at Helwater looking for Jamie—but must confront the a few of the Dunsanys first.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six

Come Hell or Helwater - Part Seven

Claire was stunned silent, staring at Lord Melton and his brother.

Major Grey stepped forward, conciliatory. “It was my brother who spared your husband’s life after Culloden,” he explained. “It was in payment of the debt I incurred shortly before the battle at Prestonpans when he spared mine.”

Blinking, Claire stared at him and mentally subtracted the intervening years. “You broke your arm,” she recalled, at last recognizing him.

“Indeed. And you set it for me. It healed beautifully, I might add. It never gives me any trouble.”

“Right. Would you allow us to escort you back to the main house, Mrs… Mackenzie?” Lord Melton interrupted, conceding to the necessity of addressing her by the false name.

Claire glanced down at her stained skirt and her empty basket.

“You should go on ahead, Hal,” Major Grey said. “I’ll assist Mrs. Fraser in the task we interrupted and will ensure she gets back safely.”

“You don’t need—” she began to object, but Major Grey handed the horses’ reins to his brother and began picking a new batch of berries. “Thank you,” Claire said, giving up.

“Madam,” Lord Melton nodded before remounting and walking the horses back to the road leading up to the main house.

“Are the berries for a particular remedy?” Major Grey asked, depositing another fistful into Claire’s basket.

“Not exactly. Lady Dunsany was suffering from a cough this morning… among other complaints. There’s a tea I believe will soothe her throat and I thought the berries would complement it nicely. Having more fruits and greens in her diet is more likely to ease her complaints than worsen them,” Claire explained. “That’s the case for many people, actually.”

“Watercress,” Grey murmured. “Jamie said he’d got the idea of it stopping scurvy from you.”

“He told me you were governor at Ardsmuir while he was there and that he served as a sort of ambassador for the prisoners. He didn’t tell me the pair of you talked about me,” Claire informed Grey.

“He didn’t talk of you often or much—pained him to most of the time. But the pain of loss was one we shared. One I am… happy… to learn he no longer suffers from on your account,” Grey remarked, straightening after depositing a final handful of berries into Claire’s waiting basket.

“I’m sorry for your own loss, Major. And thank you for your assistance.”

“Shall we take the road back?”

“I’ve only recently arrived so I’m still learning the lay of the grounds.”

“Then allow me to take you by a favorite walk of mine,” Grey suggested, gesturing in the direction he meant them to take. Claire nodded and followed his lead.

“You are familiar enough with Helwater to have a favorite walk?” she inquired.

“My father was friends with Lord Dunsany and so our families were close, especially when I was young. Their late son, Gordon, was only a little older than I. We played at being soldiers together when we were boys. He joined the army when I was still too young… and was killed at Prestonpans.”

Claire held her tongue as she followed Major Grey through the underbrush and along edge of the trees to a half-plowed field.

“It’s a prettier walk in the late spring when the grasses are starting to get tall and the wildflowers bloom. But it gets turned over and planted with wheat—as you can see,” Grey explained as he picked his way over the rows. The sun above was already baking the moisture out of the dark, recently-dug earth, changing the color from a rich, muddy brown to a bleached and cracked variation.

“You said you’re here for the wedding.”

“Yes. We’re hoping to stay for three weeks if we don’t get called back from leave sooner.”

“Lady Dunsany spoke of other family friends who would be coming to stay…”

“I don’t expect you’ll know any of the other guests,” Grey responded lightly. “Unless you made the rounds of London society before you married Jamie…? Not that it makes much difference. The Dunsanys largely withdrew after Gordon’s death and though Lady Geneva is to marry the Earl of Ellesmere, he is respected more than he is liked. There are likely to be many regrets sent along with the gifts.”

“I shouldn’t like to think that our recent arrival was putting additional strain on the family when they’ve so much already to worry about,” Claire fibbed. Truthfully, she worried that the more people the Dunsanys had to stay, the busier both she and Jamie would be leaving them less time with one another and a greater strain on Brianna as she continued to adjust to more than just the change of scenery.

“Here we are,” Grey announced, smiling as he came to a stop as the land began to tilt.

Claire paused beside him and took in the view. It was a gentle slope down through several fields and toward the main house, a broad expanse comprising most of the cleared land that made up the Helwater estate. The fields became horse paddocks and gardens, then met with the shorter buildings housing the stables, outdoor kitchens, and along one side, the cottages that included the one the Frasers now called home. They were all dwarfed by the main house itself, sitting comfortably on a slight elevation making it easier for those within to monitor the workings of those without.

“I can see why this way is your favorite,” Claire said.

Grey made a small hum of acknowledgment and then began to descend the slope, keeping to the flat path along the edge of the field. It was a trajectory that would take them toward the stables—and Jamie.

“Your husband believed rather adamantly that you were dead, Mrs. Fraser,” Grey remarked. “Might I inquire as to what would cause him to believe that? And how it is you came to rejoin him here at Helwater?”

“He sent me away before the battle at Culloden,” she admitted. “Loss that day—or one soon after—was inevitable and he wanted me to be safe. When we parted… it was with the understanding that he wasn’t likely to survive. And for the last ten years that’s what I thought had happened. So many died that day and in the following days and weeks—not just the soldiers of the army, but many left behind supposedly safe at home… I had no hope for him as he had no hope for himself. I couldn’t contact his family when I had finally found my way forward again. I suppose that’s why he believed me lost as well,” she equivocated as the truth began to brush against what couldn’t be shared.

“And when you learned he lived, you came for him.”

“He would have come for me if he could,” she asserted.

Grey chuckled. “That he would.”

They were near enough to the paddock for the figures of the horses and grooms to take recognizable shapes. Jamie had firm hold of a lead rope and was walking an older gray mare about in slow circles. Brianna sat stiff and awkward as she experimented riding sidesaddle, her ruddy hair bouncing wild down her back with each step.

Grey stopped dead at the sight, his head whipping to Claire.

“You see now why he sent me away,” she said. “And why I let him.” She walked ahead, waving to catch Jamie and Brianna’s attention. Jamie lead horse and rider to meet Claire at the fence.

Grey was pale but soon recomposed himself and took halting steps to join the small family.

“It’s not as scary as I thought,” Brianna told her mother as Jamie helped her down. “But I don’t think I want to ride that way all the time.”

“Practice will build yer confidence but ye needna push yerself if it’s no what ye want,” Jamie said, color rising self-consciously up his neck. Claire gave him a smile of encouragement and offered the two of them a few berries from her basket.

“Care to come with me up to the kitchens to clean these and make them into something for Lady Dunsany to have with her tea?”

Brianna shook her head. “She came down to meet her guests and will have her tea with them. There isn’t enough here for all of them, I don’t think.”

“Major,” Jamie said warmly, as Grey approached. “They said Lord Melton had arrived wi’ an extra horse. Said ye’d be along but no that ye’d come this way before ye went up to the house.”

“Mackenzie,” Grey greeted Jamie, his eyes sliding to the groom standing in the barn doorway. Still, he was relaxed once again, the color returning to his face. “We encountered your lovely wife on our way and startled her I’m afraid. I offered to see her back and give her a brief tour of the grounds as she said she is still newly arrived.”

“You’ve been a charming tour guide,” Claire thanked him.

“And I’ve enjoyed the pleasure of your company as well… but if I don’t make my appearance at the house shortly, I will have my brother to answer to. I will speak with you again soon.”

“We’ll have a game of chess if ye wish,” Jamie offered.

Grey smiled. “Indeed. You may beat me as often as my brother, but you’re more considerate and crow less when you do.” He touched his hat and strode off toward the house.

“Gave ye a fright did he?” Jamie asked, his voice low and his mouth twitching into a smile.

Claire showed him her stained skirt and heard Brianna snort next to him.

#Anonymous #;mod lenny #come hell or helwater #Featuring: Lord John Grey #featuring: hal grey #featuring: bree #canon divergence

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actuallylorelaigilmore · 5 years

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thanks to a conversation with @declermontdiana i’m now thinking about the end of riverdale s2 and where all the characters were at after the chaos in town and the black hood reveal, and i think it’s time to talk about the fact that alice was perfectly positioned to be pulled into a cult.

because while she was vulnerable to the farm because of how traumatized she was, i’ve never seen a discussion of the way that she was also incredibly, horribly alone in the face of nearly being murdered by her husband and finding out he was the source of the town’s terror for all that time.

yes, we know that betty was trying to look after her, but not being able to pull herself together around betty could only have added ‘i suck as a mom’ feelings to alice’s emotional problems in the immediate aftermath. despite what betty thinks because she’s spent her life trying to be everything to everyone, alice would actually be a worse parent if she were using betty for friendship and emotional support, because that shouldn’t be her teenage daughter’s role.

and yes, polly also came and offered her support and potential help. but despite being a mom already, polly is her teenage daughter too, who she shouldn’t expect to lean on, so it makes sense that alice would be more likely to throw all her trust in with the adults in the cult that polly eased her into.

but why, after everything she had been through, would she decide to trust and get help from total strangers? we focus so much on the fact that she was an easy target, like her instability after hal and fake-charles and even polly is the only factor. but alice’s openness to the cult because of what happened to her is just part of it--the world around her matters too.

and the reality of it is that alice let the farm become her most trusted support system because nobody else was there for her.

alice doesn’t have a single female friend in riverdale. though she and sierra probably have the least antagonistic dynamic, that doesn’t make them friends...and hermione, mary, and penelope make it very clear how they feel about her. obviously there are valid reasons why she’s not well-liked, but having made more enemies than friends doesn’t change the fact that alice is a mess after hal and in need of sympathy and support.

arguably, the two people in town who you’d most expect might care about how alice is doing after she’s nearly strangled to death by her husband are fp and fred. with fp, there’s all the history and obvious feelings that s3 showed us were still there even after their affair ended...and fred has both known her forever and is a genuinely nice guy. he may snark back when alice is being a jerk about archie, but it’s hard for me to believe that he wouldn’t check in on his next door neighbor who’s just been through a tragedy.

however, that’s where the events of s2 really conspire to leave alice totally isolated. fp’s son is in the hospital barely alive, and fp dove into a losing fight with a rival gang--he’s in no shape to immediately rush to her side, even once word does reach him about hal. meanwhile, fred was hal’s first victim. he nearly died thanks to alice’s husband, which i imagine would make it hard to offer her unsolicited support, even though fred assures betty she’s not to blame when it comes up.

now personally for the sake of human decency, i think it’s totally crappy that alice was left alone in that house to suffer. i don’t care how little she was liked in town, anybody who’s nearly murdered should get checked on by someone. but as far as we’re aware, that doesn’t happen. after hal tries to kill alice, the only people who come to her door are reporters looking for more scandal. (you could argue that this part is a twisted kind of karma given how often alice’s reporting reveled in others’ pain, but that shouldn’t mean she’s also without other visitors.)

when you really think about it in context, alice and the farm make even less sense. the last thing alice cooper should want to do is trust a stranger just because her daughter vouches for him--the last time she did that, she had to bleach her whole kitchen! and by the end of s2, she’s found out that she can’t trust the last twenty years of her life, the most intimate partner she had, or her own judgement.

only desperation can explain her throwing herself into the arms of polly’s new friends, when she must have the worst trust issues she’s ever had in her life.

but honestly, of course she’s desperate. her entire carefully-crafted life unraveled a piece at a time over the last three years. she lost her older daughter to the blossoms, her younger daughter to the serpents, her husband to madness or evil or both depending on how you look at it, her credibility at her job once her history was revealed, and her rekindling with fp because they’re both idiots who can’t get it together. she wasn’t even left with a shred of normalcy--or the facade of it that made her life worthwhile before.

alice smith became alice cooper who reinvented herself again and again once things started falling apart, and it’s not clear if even she knows who she really is deep down. so she’s heading fast toward middle age, with very little to show for it, living in a house full of ruined memories with no one to talk to, and no reason to believe any of the other adults in riverdale would be there for her if she did reach out.

in the aftermath, all she has is one daughter she didn’t protect from her own father, who she never knows how to save...and another who’s offering her hope.

it’s terrible that she took it, as is everything alice has done since the farm became the center of her world. i don’t know anyone who’s blindly trying to defend her s3 behavior, or who isn’t expecting an awful reckoning someday.

but at the same time, of course she accepted the help that edgar evernever was reaching out to her, during the absolute lowest period in her life.

he was the only one who offered.

#riverdale #meta #alice cooper #my favorite fabulous unstable mess of a woman #team alice idec #long post #mine

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new53 · 6 years

Text

changes to main canon

a comprehensive list

last edited on 3/14/18

batfam:

bruce wayne: batman & the patriarch of the family. started this whole bat thing

stephanie wayne: the first batkid. adopted by bruce wayne at age 13 after directly aiding in the arrest of her dad. when steph started her senior year of high school, bruce died, causing her to be batman. she’s been spoiler & batman.

jason todd: brought in at age 16 (a few months after steph was adopted) and became batboy. after discovering that he was the long-lost twin brother of cassandra cain, immediately started to reconnect & discover the truth of their parents. this crusade, unfortunately, led to the deaths of both jason & cass at the hands of the joker.

cass cain: discovered a few weeks after jason todd was adopted and brought in, only to discover that she & jason were twins. she became batgirl & along with her brother, aimed to figure out who their parents were. she died before she could discover that it was shiva & cain. lady shiva teamed up with talia al ghul to bring cass back to life so cass could join the league of assassins and/or shadows, as she was the best fighter known to either woman. this backfired on them, and now cass roams gotham as the red hood, seeking revenge for her brother’s death & trying to have a healthy & functional relationship with her siblings & outlaws.

damian wayne: the son of bruce wayne & talia al ghul. arrived at the manor shortly before the death of bruce. after bruce’s death insisted it was his destiny to be batman, then was given the role of nightwing. he’s been nightwing ever since.

olive silverlock: brought in after damian started at gotham academy & sybil silverlock died. steph was batman at the time & it was her decision to invite olive to live with them. olive accepted and is now flamebird.

duke thomas: after the mysterious disappearance of the second batboy, duke started the WE ARE BATBOY movement and was brought in by batman himself. for a while he trained and decided what he wanted to do, and was offered the spoiler mantle after steph took the batman role. after batman came back, steph offered to take batgirl up but duke offered her the spoiler role and he’s now the official batboy.

superfam:

lois lane: sent to earth from kryton as a child and raised with the lanes, kala jor-el becomes superwoman after learning about her true heritage. kala--lois--is a reporter who turns down opportunities to write about superwoman day after day because she wants to write “real” news.

kara zor-el: cousin of kala, kara was sent to earth to look after her cousin but knocked off course along the way. she landed when lois had already been superwoman for several years, but was quick to join up as supergirl. kara has been adopted by lois and in her civilian life goes by kara lane.

conner lane: kon is lois’s clone. he initially started fighting crime as supergirl red, but once figuring out that he was a boy, became superboy instead. he lives with kara & lois in wayne manor, and goes to school with steph at gotham university

flashfam:

iris west-allen: after jumping in front of her friend barry before a bunch of chemicals got stuck on him, she was hit by lighting and granted with superspeed, becoming the flash. since then, she’s married barry, helped found the justice league, and is thinking about settling down (for a little while) to have kids (she knows it’s gonna happen sometime). for now, though, she’s decided to continue to be the flash and resist the urge to ask bart how pregnancies work if you have superspeed and your kids are going to, too.

barry allen: the regular dude husband of iris. he loves his wife dearly and sometimes wishes he could help out, and has settled in the role of providing food for the speedsters all around him. turns out he makes a pretty good chef!

wally west: the nephew of iris who gained his powers by asking her, repeatedly and excitedly, how she got hers. after obtaining these powers, he proceeded to make himself a costume and go as KID FLASH. he fell ill due to puberty with super speed, but has since recovered and became another flash. barry & iris adopted him when he became kid flash

bart allen: a time traveler from the future, bart’s orgins are pretty much the same. he likes to hang out with the titans and cook with barry and play tag with wally (tag with speedsters is. fun.) he’s impulse.

avery ho: she got superspeed for reasons unknown to anyone just yet and was brought in by iris & wally. since she had perfectly able parents she wasn’t adopted but she was given the role of kid flash. now she helps iris or bart or wally and hangs out with the titans and goes to family dinners at the west-allen house.

wonderfam:

diana trevor: wonder woman & an amazon warrior who’s hundreds of years old. she’s been on themescyra for years but has recently emerged after a pilot on the way to vietnam crashed landed on her island, leading her out to try and help resolve the conflicts. in doing so, she helped with the situation in the vietnam and helped found the justice league. she’s currently an ambassador who works for peace and tries to spend time with her husband.

steve trevor: the pilot who crash-landed on themescyra. he’s married to diana and has retired from the air force and now helps veterans and people with psd. he has a service dog named willy.

donna trevor: the daughter of diana & steve & current wonder woman. she was adopted and gained amazonian powers after marching up to olympus and demanding them. she received them after completing some trials and feats, and she now defends the earth from supervillians while her mom defends the earth from the evil in regular people.

cassie sandsmark: diana worked at a museum as a hobby and picked up cassie as a sidekick. the role was solidified when helena died in an explosion and donna managed to save cassie’s life. she took cassie in after discovering that cassie’s father is zeus and cassie became wonder girl after gaining her powers.

canaryfam:

dinah lance: the head of the star city vigilantes, who were a ragtag bunch of kids with slingshots when she found them and adopted them and invited them to crash on her couch.

connor lance: connor & his adopted sister mia were inspired by the crazy guy with the arrows who talked about some island or something, and they started to try and do arrows and whatever themselves. it failed at first, but now they have a cool mom and even more siblings.

mia lance: she used to be a sex worker but connor & crazy arrow guy helped her get out of it, and then dinah adopted her and connor and they became the arrow canaries. which is kinda a dumb name but also kinda cool. sometimes mia looks out the window and wonders where the heck arrow guy went, but oh well.

emiko queen-lance: emi escaped from her mom and went to star city hoping to find her brother after rumors of him being alive resurfaced, but instead got brought in by black canary and arrow canaries and red arrow and now she’s red arrow. go figure.

roy harper-lance: roy left the navajo reservation to get his hands on some drugs, but then he was kicked out for good and stuck on the streets, and then black canary showed up and decided to take him in, which is cool, and now he’s red canary and has to manage a bunch of random kids dinah thought it would be a good idea to adopt. which is fine.

lanterns:

hal jordan: the first green lantern of earth, now a crotchety old man who lives in the city and shakes his fist at the teens and really wants some peace and quiet. the other human lanterns come visit him, at least one visit a week, and they’re saving up to buy him a plane (but shhh, don’t tell him)

alan scott: the second green lantern of earth and hal’s husband. they’re both retired and have both pretty much adopted the other human lanterns & like to ask them when they’re gonna have kids so alan and hal can have grandkids already.

john stewart: [tbd]

guy gardner: [tbd]

kyle rayner: [tbd]

jessica cruz: she used to be the green lantern of earth, but now she’s the personal-representative/bodyguard of princess koriand’r of tamaran. that’s just how things go sometimes. jess and simon are in love but also great at communicating, so it’s okay if jess flirts back when kori does.

simon baz: the only green lantern of sector 2814. he likes to defend earth and call jess and flirt with alien girls (or boys, depending) and check on kori’s kid for her.

aquafam:

mera: the queen of the seas. she rules in atlantis and is much beloved in her kingdom.

marella: aquawoman & the wife of mera. she does justice league stuff while mera rules over atlantis.

arthur curry: the husband of david hyde, who was devastated after his husband went evil. arthur is a human who lives by the sea in hawaii, and he resides there with his son. he’s a close friend of mera & marella and lets them stay with him if they need to.

jackson curry-hyde: when his second dad turned evil and returned to the sea was about when jackson discovered his own powers. turned out he was adopted from atlantis & is atlantean. he’s kind of a part-time aqualad who works with marella sometimes

dolphin: aquagirl! she’s marella & mera’s adopted daughter and she lives in the castle & works as aquagirl ! ! ! she loves her moms & they love her & she’s workin on learnin asl!

garth: he works for mera in the castle & is her apprentice in wizardry

catfam:

kate kane-kyle: after getting kicked out the army for being a big fat lesbian, kate was a little lost until she met selina kyle at an lgbt support fundrasier. it was pretty much love at first sight, and now they’re married and live in bludhaven.

selina kyle-kane: selina was already catwoman when she met kate, but after falling in love decided that maybe being a criminal wasn’t what she wanted to do. she revealed her identity to kate, and they decided to remake catwoman’s image in another town, so they moved to the sister city of budhaven, where both women became catwoman.

harper row: right before leaving gotham, the kyle-kanes picked up harper & cullen on the streets. they adopted them and took them to bludhaven with them, and now harper is catgirl with her moms.

cullen row: cullen lives with his moms and sister in bludhaven. he’s catboy and is constantly annoyed with the jokes harper likes to make about their household being split into bis and gays. he does like going to pride as the catfam, though.

the clovers: claire and her brother hank were inspired by the cats and decided to become heroes themselves, due to a combination of claire’s ballet skills and hank’s wrestling skills. they were quite frankly awful at hero-ing, but selina felt bad for them and decided to train them. hank and claire moved in next door to the kyle-kanes and were all but adopted by selina & kate. claire is night and hank is shadow.

the gordons:

jim gordon: he’s the comissioner of the gcpd. it’s the same thing as regular

barbara gordon: after babs was shot she became oracle, dragging her brother with her. they live in a crappy apartment in gotham together with babs’s niece, and babs is a librarian by day and oracle by night. she and dick operate outside of the bats’s sphere of vigilantes.

dick grayson-gordon: gcpd cop under his dad by day, delphi by night and devoted father in the evenings, dick has it all. cute boyfriend, great sister, sweet kid, life couldn’t be better.

mar’i grason-gordon: the daugher of dick & kori. she loves her dad(s) and she misses her mom, but she’s sure that her mom will come back soon, or they’ll invent intergalactic skype, one or the other.

james gordon, jr: listen ill b honest idk a thing about him but he’s basically the same except he has an older brother and he resents dick cause he feels like dick took his place in the family that’s all i know

the outlaws:

red hood needed some magic, so she sought out fellow outcast, raven. this escalated into them moving in together and falling in love. one day they sought out ravager for a laugh. this escalated into the three of them falling in love and causing trouble in gotham together.

misc:

tim drake: after he quit being batboy and after the death of his father, tim retreated to titans tower to become the gatherer, a self-made hero who’s salty about the bats and in love with superboy.

courtney whitmore: she discovered she was a she had powers when she moved to keystone. she started sneaking out and practicing with her powers, & when a aestroid almost fell on keystone, courtney slapped on a mask and stopped it with her bare hands. she took the star-gold from within the aestroid and with her beams of light fashioned them into a belt and staff, which helped her harness her powers. since then, she’s become stargirl and nowadays she likes to hang around gotham and flirt with spoiler (the OG one, not the duke one)

koriand’r: starfire crash-landed on earth, kissed the first police officer she saw, fell in love with him, and had a kid. now she’s in space with jessica cruz, negotiating peace on tamaran and flirting with green lantern, waiting to return home to her daughter.

the kents: after clark & lana got married, they moved to metropolis for a fresh start. lana works at a florist shop & clark’s a reporter--the reporter who gets all the superwoman stories, actually. they have two daughters, carol and mia. mia, the younger of the two, is secretly a meta and she can fly. her dream is to be a superhero one day like her hero, superwoman. carol’s dream is for her sister to stay safe and for carol to grow up to be just as awesome as her hero, lois lane.

kathy kent: she was sent down to earth after the destruction of her planet. after her grandfather died, she lived with lois for a time but then was adopted by clark & lana, who are normal enough to take proper care of her and loving enough to be good parents for her. she’s around mia’s age and loves her sisters and new parents.

klarion the witch boy: he was sealed from his own dimension and stuck on earth for the time being. he’s currently rooming with steph and looking for ways to get back home, of course getting into trouble while he waits.

zatanna and john: a week after zatanna ran away from her father, she ran into john and they started running together. they grew up on the run, weaving in and out of dimensions and trying to master magic. these days they help klarion or the justice league. neither of them are members of the jl but they are the primary resource on magic (they’re also in love)

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hellomissmabel · 7 years

Text

Only if for a night

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Chris Evans x reader, Hal Carter x reader

Summary: the prompt was “my relationship status” for @emilyevanston her cards against humanity challenge. Y/N finds herself intriguid by a summer stranger and reflects on her life. Loosely based on the series “The Affair”.

Word count: 3.424 (magic number!)

Warnings: Mentions of loss of a child, drowning, cheating and sexual activity. There’s unprotected sex, too, so please wrap it before you tap it. People under 18, this is not your cup of tea.

A/N: Florence and the machine fans will know...

Tag list is open for any and all of my stories

I live in a small town where everybody knows everybody. A small town that lives off tourism and the “summer people”, those folks who only show some kind of interest in our lives for as long as the summer keeps them from returning to their Upper East side life. To be honest, I expected him to be just like that. Do nothing but spend his money and chill on the beach with his filthy rich friends for the entirety of two months. He was a writer, a Hollywood screenwriter residing in Boston during half of the year with his family and in New York for the other half to work on his next big project.

We met for the first time at one of the events some Wall Street hotshot organised on a weekly basis for his fancy friends. My bestie Grace and I were working as cocktail waitresses, much to my dismay. I didn’t want to take the gig but since we’ve been short on money for a while now and it’s a debt the summer people are unlikely to pay off for me. The thing about summer people is that they’re just that, summer people, people here for the summer. They judge us, the people that live in town, with our ordinary lives and our ordinary occupations. Yet at the same time they are happy to profit from our goods and services. But not him.

He was nursing a glass of Jack Daniels, sitting on the far end of the terrace, nearby the pool. Grace had noticed him throwing glances my way every now and then and every so often made a comment about it herself. “Look at the summer stranger and his heart eyes” or “I wouldn’t mind a beard burn from that man”. Yet it wasn’t her sexually suggestive commentary that enticed me to take the plunge and go over to him, this summer man with his summer clothes and his summer money, looking for an innocent flirtation.

It’s because he’s just like me, an outsider in their inside world. He belongs, with his summer clothes and his summer money, to the establishment that can afford to live the high life ever year for two months straight. But just because he has the clothes or the money doesn’t mean his mind follows the set of rules that is culturally and socially associated with that kind of wealth. He seemed more down to earth than all the other summer strangers just passing through.

“Hi there,” I greeted him with a small yet kind smile.

“Hello,” he replied softly, romantic blue eyes settling their gaze on my lips as I spoke to him. “I was wondering when you were going to come over.”

I sat with him on the edge of the pool, our feet dipping into the cold and soothing water, long after the party had ended and the guests had vacated the premises. He knew the man hosting the party and knew he probably wouldn’t mind us hanging around a little longer, probably too drunk off his ass to give a shit.

“Did you enjoy the party?,” I asked him, trying to break the ice, twiddling with the hem of my high-waisted shorts that gladly replaced the little black dress I wore for the occasion.

He shook his head, chuckling. “No. I didn’t enjoy the party.” He took a sip of his drink, looking at me from the corner of his eye, seemingly amused. “Let’s just talk about something else, shall we?”

So we talked. We talked about his job and how his writing was going. Turns out it wasn’t going at all. He lacked inspiration. He lacked a muse. I chose to indulge him and listened to him speaking about how his last script got rejected due to a lack of suspense. His editor didn’t like the ending he delivered because it was different from what he had first promised him. But, so he said, sometimes the story takes over and the writer loses control and that’s exactly what happened. He was stuck on an ending that wasn’t going to make the cut. So here he was, talking to a pretty summer girl in a pretty summer dress, hoping to find the right ending.

“I divorced my wife a little while ago. I still see the kids every now and then. They live in Boston and I live in New York,” he explained to me in his gentle voice. “She has always been my inspiration and so when I left my wife, I left my muse behind as well.”

“What happened?,” I inquired as the curious little creature I am.

“I cheated on her.”

His voice didn’t give away any sign of remorse. He stated it as a fact, a fact that he expected to disgust me. But it didn’t, because he’s a summer man and a lot of the summer men I’ve encountered during these many past summers have cheated on their wives, their girlfriends or their paramours at some point. But only a few of them actually file the divorce papers, afraid to lose their high-maintenance image and the perfect family life that’s anything but perfect.

When he couldn’t find any sign of disgust or surprise laced in my expression, he tilted his head in my directions and levelled me up from head to toe, intrigued. “I cheated on her last summer with a waitress.”

Very early on, I had already sensed that our conversation was heading that way. Maybe he liked me for my body or my potential to be a great summer fling. And maybe I came up to him for the exact same reason, a summer lover on a hot summer night. “If this is your way of getting into my panties,” I laugh lightly, my eyes trained on his still, “You should know a something about me first.”

He nodded, his interest peaked. “My guess is that it’s about your relationship status. You’re seeing someone, aren’t you? A beautiful woman like yourself is rarely available.”

“Your guess is correct. I am a married woman.”

“But you’re so young,” he counters in his defence.

“I married young,” I replied casually, continuing with my story.

I told him how my husband and I got hitched right after high school. How he had taken up a job at his father’s ranch to provide for us and to be able to pay off my college debts. And then his father died and he inherited the ranch. It was a lot of work, it still is a lot work, and almost all of our money goes to that ranch. But he loves it just as much as he loves me, so we keep it for as long as we’re allowed to.

“It’s been a struggle. A struggle that has dragged our marriage downhill.”

Of course there’s a huge chunk of information I didn’t disclose with this summer stranger. I somehow forgot to mention that when I got pregnant, I couldn’t go all the way to school anymore and certainly not once the baby was born. So anyway, I had to drop out and my husband thus took on a second job to keep us afloat. When our son was big enough, I found a part-time job at one of the local restaurants as a waitress, which is where I met my best friend Grace.

And then my boy died. My son drowned.

I always blamed my husband for not paying enough attention even though he was only distracted for a couple seconds. You see, he took our boy to the beach to collect sea shells and to see if they could perhaps spot some exotic sea creatures. But he just had to take his stupid brother along with him, always nagging on and on about how he was going to make the big money and get the hell out of here. How he was going to make it to the big city and one day show up here with all the other summer people, too. My husband was getting sick of it and told him to just stop talking and enjoy this day out. As he was reprimanding his brother, he lost sight of our boy for just a couple seconds too long, my baby drifting further into the water in pursuit of a fish. And then the big wave came.

“Where is your husband now?,” the summer stranger asked, oblivious to the personal tragedy playing in my mind.

“At home, playing cards with his buddies.”

“So he won’t miss you for another hour?”

“Probably not,” I sighed softly, watching intently the waves my feet produced as they wandered through the clear-blue, chloric water of the pool.

“Let’s go for a swim then,” he suggested, standing up and offering his hand for me take. “Come on,” he encouraged, “Let’s go to the beach and have a swim.”

Despite my fear for the water that swallowed my son’s soul, his calloused hands wrapped protective around my own made me feel like I had been afraid of nothing more than my own imagination. He radiated strength, masculinity and a certain softness these summer men rarely disclose. He only let go of my hand to shed himself of his clothes and strip to his boxers. I followed suit and unbuttoned my shorts and sleeveless blouse. When you’re living so close to the sea, you’re used to wearing your bikini or swimsuit underneath your clothes in case you’re invited to an impromptu party at the beach.

Stepping into the waves, his back turned to me, I could clearly make out the well-defined muscles on his back. They rippled deliciously with every move he made, reminding me of my husband. Men like him, men like this summer stranger and my husband, they are used to female attention. They thrive underneath the gaze of many young and old women longing for a taste of their divine. I have learnt to put up with the constant sideway glances I receive from women who think I’m less than what my husband deserves. All the summer women who think of him as nothing but a piece of meat, an extramarital dessert to their husband’s main course. Or the local women who know of our history and put the blame on me. If I hadn’t been such a bad mother, I would’ve gone with my husband and his brother to keep an eye on my boy.

And suddenly he was facing me, capturing me with his strong embrace and twirling me in the water. “You look so damn sexy,” his voice echoed with the splatter of water. My hearty laugh filled the night-time air and caused the moonlight to clear up his features. Then he put me down again and cupped my face, kissing me sweetly on the lips. Pulling back again for air, he gauged my reaction but wasn’t given much time before I laced my hands around his neck and crashed my mouth to his again.

We kissed and as we did so, his fingertips danced to my butt and he lifted me up so I could hook my legs around his waist. Walking from the cold water of the sea to the hot sand of the beach, he sat me down on a nearby rock and moved to stand between my legs.

“You’re married,” he exhales breathlessly, tucking a strand of my sea-soaked hair behind my ear.

“You’re divorced,” I answered cheekily, leaning into his touch as he cradled my cheek in the palm of his hand.

“I cheated on my wife. It shook up my entire life. I don’t want to ruin yours the same way I ruined hers.”

“Don’t worry about me. Tomorrow is a new day.”

“My house is just five minutes down the beach.”

Turns out summer men are excellent lovers. I’ve heard stories, many very detailed stories. From girls I work with that hook up with summer men after closing time and girls that come to the ranch with their summer sugar daddies. Somehow my husband never asked me if I ever fancied one of those summer men. Like I mentioned before, I knew very well that most of the women in town and practically all of the summer women wanted my husband, wanted sexual favours from my husband like he’s just some stable boy straight out of a B-list movie. But that’s the thing about losing a child, it breaks a marriage just as much as it mends it. Losing my boy didn’t make me love my husband any less. Losing my boy didn’t make my husband love me any less. It just made our marriage suffer.

As the sheets surround me and my summer lover, we began our mutual quest. He insisted on getting me off first, placing my legs onto his shoulders as he sucked gingerly on my clit. Engulfing my entrance with his mouth, his tongue teased my wet folds. My heath welcomed the wanted intrusion of his fingers pumping slowly, hitting that sweet spot with perfect precision as he curled them over and over again. He was eager to drink up my juices and sucked his fingers clean afterwards, a proud smirk plastered on his handsome face.

Crawling up my body, he peppered kisses all over the scars that time and childbirth have left on my skin. Even though some of them are quite visible, the darkness of night and the intimacy of the moment kept him blind to them. I told him not to leave any marks or any bruises before we embarked on our sinful adventure.

When our lips met in a fiery kiss, he rolled us over so I was on top. Sitting back, straddling his legs, I brushed away the hair in front of his eyes and leaned in for another passionate kiss. Then it was my turn to give him the pleasure he sought after upon our first meeting earlier the same evening. From base to tip, I licked his proud cock, stroking his stomach with impatient desire. He tried to swallow his moans when I close my lips around him, but he failed at such endeavours once I started bobbing my head. Sucking him off with fervour, I took him as far as I can without gagging, relaxing my throat and massaging his balls to speed up the process of his release. He came rather quickly, his hot cum leaving a salty aftertaste on my tongue.

But just like my husband, he wasn’t completely satisfied unless his partner is. Quickly switching positions again, he pressed his lips to mine in a needy kiss, the tip of his cock nudging my labia and spreading my arousal to ensure he was able to ease himself inside me gently. When he was finally fully sheathed, stretching me out with his well-endowed length, the summer stranger allowed me to take as much time as I needed to adjust to his generous size. Luckily, so I told him, my husband is a big boy himself and soon he started to thrust languidly but deeply, building up to a pleasure so pure it should be forbidden.

My fingernails dug into the strong flesh of his shoulders and back whilst he kept my hips in place as he picked up the pace, going from soft and tender sex to a straight-up punishing pace. With laboured breaths, he pounded into me and I spread my legs as far as possible to feel as much as possible.

“Fuck, you are so tight,” he whispered into my ear, nibbling shortly on my earlobe before ghosting his hot breath over my throat. “I want to take you from behind. Smack that gorgeous ass of yours as I cum,” he ordered with shallow, low grunts.

Pulling out of me entirely, he swiftly turned me onto my stomach. “Take me whatever way you want. I’m yours,” I panted heavily.

Resuming his rough ministrations, he buried himself to the hilt, one hand clutching my breast while the other snaked underneath me to play with my clit. “That’s it baby, moan for me. Moan for daddy.”

His impressive strength, insatiable stamina and muscle built allows for multiple orgasm in various positions. “You never asked me for my name,” he growled when our third orgasm sent us both to seventh heaven once again.

“You didn’t ask for mine either,” I cried out as I threw my head back, screaming in pleasure with a string of profanities on my lips.

His thrusts faltered as he rode out our orgasms, moaning loudly with pornographic impact. “The name’s Chris. Chris Evans.”

As he slid off me, I laughed heartily. “Nice to meet you, Chris Evans. Thank you for giving me the best fuck in a long time.”

Chris walked over to the bathroom to fetch us some wet wash cloths to clean us up and I watched him intently, sitting on the edge of the bed. “The name’s Y/N. Y/N Carter.”

“Well, Y/N. I guess I should thank you for providing me with enough inspiration to rewrite my ending,” he called over his shoulder. “Do you mind if I keep you around as my muse?”

“Your mistress, you mean,” I corrected.

“My muse,” he stressed, turning around and leaning against the bathroom sink. “You fuck your mistress and call it a day,” Chris explained with a mischievous smile, “But you fuck your muse and come up with one hell of a story.”

When I come home, my husband Hal is waiting for me, sitting in his chair at the kitchen table. He taps the wood of the table impatiently, his eyes lost in thought until they lock with mine. “Y/N! Where were you?,” he asks urgently, eyes wide with distress. “The party ended hours ago.”

“I’m sorry. Grace and I went for drinks at the beach after,” I lie smoothly, dropping my bag on the floor and moving to sit in his lap. His arms encase me protectively and his lips are drawn to mine like magnets. Even after losing our only son, there’s still that connection. Although we don’t have a much sex as much as we used to, we are still positively addicted to one another.

“I love you, baby,” he whispers in that rough, deep voice of his. My fingertips play with his chestnut hair as I look into his light grey eyes. “I missed you, okay?,” he confesses tentatively, biting his lower lip and gazing at me from behind thick, long and lush eyelashes.

The thing with Hal Carter is that he’s every woman’s wet dream. Sculpted chest. Chiselled, well-defined muscles. A smile that breaks all the hearts. And he’s a sweet talker. But he’s incredibly faithful, too. You’re his girl, his woman, his wife and ain’t nobody gonna change that. “I missed my baby.”

Smiling warmly, endeared by the golden heart underneath is tough, bad boy exterior, I tenderly move my lips against his in a soft kiss. “I’m tired, Hal. I’m going to bed, you joining me?”

“Of course, baby,” he obliges quickly, melting like wax to a burning candle underneath your touch.

What you’ve done earlier tonight, sleeping with a summer man, sleeping with Chris, it’s wrong and you know it. But you needed to get it out of your system, all the rage and the self-blame and the tears you’ve been keeping to yourself. You’ve been stitching yourself up for what seems like an eternity. But the featherlight touches on your skin, the imprints Hal leaves on your skin, they’re forever. This thing with Chris isn’t and that’s why the guilt will never eat you alive.

As you guide your husband Hal with you to the upstairs bedroom, he gently squeezes your hand and you look over your shoulder to see him staring back at you lovingly. You’re happy you said no to Chris when he asked you to be his muse. You can’t be someone’s mistress and you certainly can’t be anyone’s muse. You can be his one-night-stand and that’s all there is to it. You consider it to be grief counselling, one night of unadulterated hot summer sex with a hot summer lover. A cleansing of some sorts. In with the new and out with the old.

So when your legs hit the side of the bed and you collapse onto the soft mattress, Hal’s body hovering over yours, you ask him the one thing you couldn’t ask of him until now. “Make love to me, baby. I’ve missed you, too. Make me yours again.”

@beccaanne814-blog @avengerofyourheart @a-little-hell-to-raise @marvelingatthewonder @mrshopkirk @hardcorehippos @knittingknerdy @winterboobaer @italwaysendsinafightt @viollettes @hymnofthevalkyries @feelmyroarrrr @justareader @austinamelio @volklana @4theluvofall @bovaria @themcuhasruinedme @theoneandonlysaucymo @caplanbuckybarnes @hymnofthevalkyries @nenyakj @amrita31199 @emilyevanston @minervaem @howlingbarnes @buchananbarnestrash @austinamelio @youandb @you-and-bucky @fvckingsteverogers @thatawkwardtinyperson @that-sokovian-bastard @abovethesmokestacks @justareader @marvelrevival @marvel-fanfiction @justanotherbuckydevotee @barnes-heaven @heartmade-writingbucky @buckyywiththegoodhair @captnbarnesrogers @mellifluous-melodramas @its-not-a-phase-hux

#kate's cards against humanity challenge #chris evans #chris evans x reader #hal carter #hal carter x reader #fan fic writing #fan fiction #marvel fan fic #my fan fiction #marvel fan fiction #fanfic #marvel fanfiction #my fanfiction #fanfiction

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lopithecusfanfiction · 7 years

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The End of the Star: Epilogue [End]

Author: Lopithecus Pairing: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne Rating: Explicit Word Count: 2140 Alternate: AO3, fanfiction.net Author's Note: N/A

Epilogue:

~4 Years Later~

It’s been a long 4 years. A lot has happened, but Bruce never forgot. His heart never stopped aching for what once was. At night, he dreamed of Kal and their time together. Brucie became a sham. People were paid to say they slept with him, when in fact, he slept alone. His constant project, never forgotten, lays in front of him. He can’t give up, it’s not in his nature. Despite the constant heartbreak, he continues to hope.

Bruce tightens the last screw on the sphere and closes it up. He’s been working with the device for a long time. It’s become familiar to him, his only reminder of Kal. He’s been working through trial and error in order to figure things out. This time feels different. It echoes in his bones. This will be the attempt that works. With his heart beating fast, he gets up from where he is sat and places the device on the floor. The workshop he’s in is part of the Watchtower. No one bothers him here. The Justice League formed three years ago, but even they know not to intrude on this private space.

Holding his breath in anticipation, Bruce presses the indentation on the sphere, and steps back. After a few seconds, nothing happens. Bruce frowns, the familiar feeling of bitter disappointment fills his chest. He was sure it would work this time. He has checked every part in the device, every thread of circuitry, every connection. The alien device seems to mock him as it sits there, not responding to his command. Part of him wants to kick the malfunctioning sphere, but it’s his only link to… he can’t even think of the name without his throat closing up. Sighing and shaking his head, he leaves the room. He has made a miscalculation, or there must be something else he can do, but he rarely makes mistakes with this project. He makes his way to the cafeteria, needing a coffee and something to eat. He hasn’t had food in hours and is currently starving.

Batman looks through the doorway and sees Diana’s eyes on him, he knows she sees that he looks tired. He can’t imagine the weight of the years she bears. She knows of his project, knows of his determination. It rivals her own. Bruce grimaces. He can’t hide anything from Diana. Her damn clever eyes and wisdom see through his sham, every time. Even from the beginning, she never took his shit. Even now, as her eyes land on him, he feels the empathy emanating from her. It’s like a gouge in a raw wound. He wants to ignore it, but can’t. Instead he looks away, not meeting her gaze.

It’s been years now. Bruce knows she wants to tell him to give up but his mind throws up a picture of Steve and Diana, and his throat closes up. She instinctively understands his pain, even if she hasn’t told him the whole story. He’s no fool, and his detective skills when he tracked her down, gave him an insight to her that he can’t forget. Just as he can’t forget the glass etching he sent her. Inside, he see’s her heart break all over again. Every time. For Diana. For Steve. For Bruce and his lost love. Wordlessly, she moves to comfort the Batman with a touch. They know each other well, and mere words are not needed between the two. Broken hearts recognize each other.

Just as he is about to brush Diana aside, the alarms on the Watchtower go off. He activates the interface on his gauntlet, and locates the disturbance. The workshop, where the sphere sits, is lit up. Going into full alert, he runs back to the room which he just left. The Meta’s of the League are already crowding the doorway by the time he arrives. Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg are staring at a swirling portal. They all stand in defensive postures, ready to defend the Watchtower.

“Stand down,” Bruce tells them as he approaches. He pushes past the Justice League members who are looking at him in question. Bruce takes a step towards the portal and pauses, his heart beats rapidly in his chest. “Come on,” he mouths. “Come on.” When nothing comes out of the portal, Bruce starts feeling an all too familiar sinking sensation. There’s only one explanation as to why Kal would not be near the portal, in order to use it. Kal is surely dead. Bruce hangs his head, he feels scraped raw. Diana places a hand on his arm. She knows that defeated look all too well. Bruce can’t look at her. The pain is overwhelming. He pushes down a sob. He hasn’t given up, he can’t. The yearning in his heart pulls at his core. He wishes, he hopes, he wants, he needs.

Suddenly, there is a loud sound and Bruce looks up, startled. A foot appears through the portal. Bruce has to stop himself from running towards it. Slowly, the rest of the person starts appearing, and Bruce’s eyes widen when he sees who it is. “Kal!” he lets himself say the name that has haunted his dreams. The name doesn’t cross his lips anymore, except for his cries at night. He finally allows himself to run towards the Kryptonian stepping out of the portal, catching him as he collapses to the ground. He reaches over and presses the indentation on the top of the sphere, closing the portal. “Kal? Kal?” He grabs a hold of Kal’s face and forces the alien to look up at him. The Kryptonian is just as handsome as Bruce remembers. Kal’s blue eyes are bright, his lips plump. Kal’s skin is paler than Bruce remembers but still smooth to the touch. Grime and dirt cover Kal’s face in splotches. He can tell Kal is groggy. Bruce’s heart fills with warmth and he can barely breathe with seeing his love once more. He wants to wrap the Kryptonian in his arms tightly, pulling Kal close to kiss him. “Hey, hey, it’s me.” Bruce reaches up and pushes the cowl back, revealing his face. “It’s me Kal.”

“Bruce?”

Bruce nods. “Yeah, yeah I’m here. I’ve got you.”

“Bruce.” Tears start to form in Kal’s eyes and he begins to shake. “Zhao.”

His heart is beating wildly. It’s Kal, his beautiful Kal. The last four years come crashing down upon him and he can barely hold the form in his arms. As close as he is to collapse, he won’t let go. He will never let go again. Bruce smiles at him. “Zhao, Kal. Zhao.” He scans Kal’s body with his eyes, and notices Kal is holding onto a bleeding wound. “You’re hurt.”

A smile breaks out on Kal’s face. “Vrrosh :Dokhahsh, remember?”

Bruce nods, feeling pure relief and love erupt in his chest. “Yeah, yeah I remember and I’m going to patch you up, okay?” Kal nods. “You’re going to be okay.” He rubs his hand against Kal’s cheek. “I’ve missed you.”

“I miss too.”

Bruce cups Kal’s face and leans down to peck him on the lips. He’s missed him so much; missed his touch, his warmth, his voice, his everything. He feels the world tilt as he looks down. It’s his Kal, his precious Kal. Words want to tumble from his mouth, the thoughts he’s had over the long years. His chest clenches painfully at the contact of their lips. Those remembered lips, the ones that haunted his dreams since returning to Earth. All his hopes have come to fruition, and he’s holding the man he loves in his arms. Finally. When he pulls away, he says, “Let’s go take care of that.” He helps Kal to stand.

When he turns and faces the whole Justice League, they look even more confused than they had previously. “What’s going on?” Hal asks.

“Holy shit, you’re Bruce Wayne,” Barry says.

“Who the hell is Bruce Wayne?” Hal asks Barry.

Barry looks at the Green Lantern in astonishment. “You don’t know who Bruce fucking Wayne is? Billionaire playboy? Ring a bell?”

Hal’s head shakes. “Nope.”

“Playboy?” Kal asks from beside him and Bruce rolls his eyes, moving to take Kal away from the group and towards the infirmary.

“He got kidnapped four years ago?” Barry continues.

Hal’s head quirks to the side. “Still don’t know who he is.”

Bruce ignores them and exits the room, one of Kal’s arms slung over his shoulders. Once in the infirmary, he helps Kal out of the Kryptonian clothes. They are the same ones Kal wore the last time, Bruce remembers. They are tattered, torn, the frills along the side are ripped or worn off. He tucks a blanket around the naked and dirty lower half. As he begins to stitch Kal’s wound, he warns the Kryptonian that it will hurt. The stitches go in quickly, and Kal only flinches a couple of times. When he’s finished, Bruce muffles the blanket around the rapidly cooling man before he takes a seat next to the bed. Holding onto the hand he’s only remembered in his dreams, he asks “Are you okay?”

Kal nods. “I much better now. I with you again.” He then frowns. “How long?”

Bruce looks at their conjoined hands. “Four years,” he whispers. Bruce meets Kal’s eyes.

“Long time?”

“Yeah, that’s a really long time Kal.”

“Vrrosh :Dokhahsh no time. Feel like years.” He gives Bruce a small smile. “Still zhao?”

Bruce chuckles, cupping Kal’s cheek. “Yeah, still zhao. You?”

“Still zhao.”

Bruce squeezes Kal’s hand. He needs to keep reminding himself that this is real. Kal is really here. Kal is alive. “The device was broken. I’ve been trying to fix it. I couldn’t imagine you trapped there, or worse. I never gave up Kal. Not once.”

“I not give up on you either, Bruce. Knew would find me.”

Bruce kisses Kal’s knuckles but then frowns. “Your parents? Aunt? Uncle?”

Kal’s head shakes. “Try convince come. Not want to.” The Kryptonian sounds sad and tired. “I go anyway because want be with you.” Tears start forming in those beautiful blue eyes, rolling down his cheeks. Bruce reaches over and wipes them away. “All gone Bruce. Every Kryptonian but me and Kara. Whole planet gone.”

Bruce continues to rub at Kal’s cheek. “I know, and I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop it.”

“Not fault. You say in beginning not sure if could. I just… I miss them.”

Bruce nods in understanding. “Two years ago, one of my sons died. He was killed, and it was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. I can’t even begin to understand what it feels like to lose my entire species and your world, but I can understand a little bit. It hurts, I know, but Kal, it gets a little easier everyday. I promise.”

“Especially when with someone you zhao?”

Bruce smiles warmly at him, trying to convey to Kal just how much he loves him. “Yeah, especially then.”

“I sorry about your son.”

“Me too.” Bruce swallows the lump that has formed in his throat, trying to push past his grief. “But I have also gained another son. He’s… a clever boy. Hard working and determined that’s for sure.” Bruce brushes some hair off of Kal’s forehead. “You can meet him, and my eldest son, when you’re ready. My butler too; the father figure I told you about.”

“On… Earth?” Fear is shining in Kal’s eyes.

“Only when you’re ready. I was thinking you could live with me. It would make the transition easier for you.”

“I… think like that.” He gives Bruce a wary smile, blowing out a puff of air. “I scared.”

“Now you know how I felt when I got to Krypton.” Kal chuckles along with Bruce. “But don’t worry, Kal, I’m going to be with you every step of the way. And, a few months after landing back on Earth I managed to find Kara, so you’ll have her too. You’re not completely alone Kal, and there are people willing to help you. You don’t have to get over your grief right away, or ever because, trust me, I know sometimes you can’t. And of course there’s the matter of the powers you’re going to have.”

Kal’s head tilts and oh, how Bruce has really missed that. “Powers?”

Bruce smiles at him, wide and excited. “We’ll get to that later, but for now, rest. Don’t worry about anything. I’m going to be right here when you wake up. I won’t ever leave you again.” He leans down and hovers his face above Kal’s. “Zhao.”

Kal’s eyes fill with love, and a warm smile graces his face. “Zhao.”

Bruce kisses him, reminding both of them again, that this is truly real.

A/N: This is the end. Thank you everyone who read this. I hope you all enjoyed. Don’t forget to go check out the art that goes with this story!!

#DC Comics #SuperBat #Superman #Batman #Clark Kent #Kal El #Bruce Wayne #The End of the Star #My Fanfiction #sfw

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sweetdollfromhell · 7 years

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So I know it's either too early or too late for that but… Here are my theories and wishes for riverdales season 2.

1. Chip Cooper: I'm excited to see Betty's brother but I hope we will not get the same stupidity as in gossip girl. I don’t want FP to be the father of Alice's baby. But he does not have to be the son of Hal necessarily. I would also like him to be a badass as in comics (He is an FBI agent). Finally, I know that the casting is not always accurate for the age of the characters but I have my doubts about Ross Lynch be the lost brother of Betty and Polly: he look to young and it ruins the suspense. I think he is a red herring and will play another character to let us by surprise by the revelation.

2. Fred will not be dead (for now). Probably in the comas but I believe that in the end, he will die. It's a way to keep Archie in Riverdale, His mother, without being perfect, does not seem to be of the sort to separate his son from his father in such a tragic situation.

3. We'll see Gladys and Jelly Bean. I think Jelly Bean will be sick because Jughead to talk about hospital bill with no reason. FP would very well join the serpents to pay the care of his daughter. This would also make the behavior of Jughead's mother more understandable. If she alone can look after a seriously ill child, she may not be able to take care of her son too + she may sincerely not know how bad the situation of Jughead is. But if I'm wrong, look at me well come with the signs I hate Glady Jones. Oh and Jelly Bean will probably wrap the fandom around her little finger.

4. I believe Hiriam will be good for make us forget that he is not a good person. He will be a good husband, a good father, maybe even a good friend but definitely not a good person. I think he's trying to separate his daughter and Archie too. I also believe he will be an antagonist over several seasons.

5. I would like the show to explore Betty's mental illness problems and in a way realistically please.

6. Jughead will definitely find his dark side too. Whether Betty will follow him or leave him remains to be seen. (I hope they stay together but I understand if it happens).

7. I think Veronicas will become darker too, she will clearly be placed in a difficult situation between her father, her mother, Archie, Betty and the others. There will be no easy solution to satisfy everyone.

8. More Pussycats please: Josie, Valerie and Melody need more love and screen times!

9. It seems that we will have an episode centered on Kevin (yeah!!!!). I think he will have drama in his romantic life (Moose does not seem to want to get out of the closet and his heart was wounded by Joachim). We are supposed to learn more about her mother too. I have three theories about her: 1) She died under really odd circumstances and this will be one of the plots of this season. 2) She is in the army and that was the reason for her absence (Kevin is the son of two soldiers in comics). 3) She did not accept the homosexuality of her son and left them for it. I do not think we often see stories or it is the father who accepts the homosexuality of his son rather than the mother. In addition, if we lose Fred, we need a new good dad.

10. I hope the new Regiss will be as good as the previous one. As there are rumors of parring with Josie, I hope we get a jerk with a heart of gold for his personality.

11. For Sabrina, I read that she would be a human escaped from a cult perhaps played by Dove Cameron. Again I see 2 possibilities: 1) Your classical cult with a good inspiration of the chilling adventure of Sabrina with explain his bizarre beliefs. 2) She comes from a cult like the Latter-day Saints or batterros church and to believe in Wicca is his personal rebellion. (think Misty Day but not a real witch). For her aunts, I'm really split: one side I like the creepy aunts but it well cool too sees Zelda and Hilda be as a couple rather than sister and being a good family for Sabrina and Jughead.

12. Veronicas or Cherryl be bisexual. The two actresses said to be interested in played a character bis and if it is not just for the fanservice I am on board for that!

13. Now we need to talk about Chuck: I know this was a last minute replacement for a Reggis bow but that remains problematic. Two possibilities: 1) Give to him an enormous Freudian excuse and a redemption arc which makes him go through hell. Or 2) He has a cousin, brother, random guy who looks much more character and we forget not Chuck.

14. New characters we could see: Midge (I hope she will be a nice girl who serves as a beard for Moose voluntarily) Richy Rich (He can be a rich asshole or a good guy, dam you could make his father an expy by Donald Trump who is an opponent of Josie's mother),Raj Patel (we have seen his sister after all) Nancy (For a bow of redemption for Chuck or better, make her the talented artist!)Brigitte Reilly (Who would not love a girl proud of her curves and a talented musician; she could even make a duet with Archie).

15. For the new school of Jughead and by extension the snakes: Toni Topaz (She has already confirmed and she is a good friend of Jughead in the comics) Fang Fogarty (He is a bully in comics and Fang sounds a nickname someone who is trying to be frightening) Jinx Malloy (Only for the nickname again and for a character who is supposed to be unlucky, to be born on the wrong side probably counts) Cricket O’Dell (A girl who desperately needs money and seeks it by all means for more tragic reasons this time) Ambrose Pips (He was in little Archie, so making it a former childhood friend would be doable + It would be easy to merge the character with Sabrina's cousin who bears the same name, perhaps he helped his cousin escape from the cult ?) Trula Twiyst (she was fun in comics but with retreat, she is terrifying: She manipulates people to get what she wants, play with their heads and her behavior with Jughead can be close to yandere territory) Sassy Thrasher (Replace his skateboard with a motorcycle and you'll get a rebel punk with bad temper) Harvey Kinkle (I do not think Sabrina will be a snake but her boyfriend could be and you can keep the story about escaped from the sect with him).

16. DON’T YOU DARE KILL POLLY OR THE BABIES!!!!!!!!!! If you want to put them in the background or them all live on a farm with Nana Rose, very well. Just not use their dead for cheap drama.

17. I think it would be fun if the Halloween episode was based on one of Archie's horror stories: Legend about zombie, that Riverdale is a trial story for witchcraft, werewolf or vampire with our heroes having an ancestor victim of it respectively Betty and Cheryl, Jughead, Josie.

18. A flashback episode with the parents (maybe played by their children?)

Sorry, I had a lot to say (and I had to make a million mistakes) Thank you for reading me and do not hesitate to respond or say your ideas :)

#riverdale #season 2 #archie andrews #betty cooper #veronica lodge #jughead jones #cheryl blossom #josie mccoy #kevin keller #sabrina spellman

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lostinafictionaluniverse · 7 years

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Riverdale 1x09 thoughts

Under the cut bcos its super long, read at your own risk

Jughead’s opening narrative

Blossoms have controlled the maple syrup business since the town’s founding? No mention of the Cooper’s/ Hal grandpa

AAAnnnd we don’t hear Jason speak yet again.

The sickly, sweet smell was inescapable - allusion to the Blossom’s influence on the town, how all-pervading their power is? And how they leave their mark on everything? That last comment by Cheryl after she kisses Archie - about her lipstick being Maple Red and the sweet taste being because of it? Was it really necessary? Is it some sort of clue? I love how Maple Syrup stands for so many things in this town - For the Blossoms, its obviously power and legacy; and its also the symbol for slut shaming so does that link slut shaming to the Blossom clan somehow? Its sweet, its sticky, its red - hmmm, blood is sticky and red too....

Bughead scene in Betty’s room

THEY’RE SITTING ON HER BED LITERALLY ON TOP OF EACH OTHER (*DYING WHALE NOISE*)

SHE IMMEDIATELY AIRS HER CONCERNS TO HIM

HE’S HER ROCK, HE’S THERE TO LISTEN AND HELP HER AND ASSUAGE HER FEARS AND BUILD HER UP AND SHE KNOWS THIS!

WE’LL FIGURE IT OUT - BETTY IS NOT ALONE ANYMORE, JUGHEAD IS WITH HER IN ALL OF THIS SHIT SHE’S GOING THROUGH

COME HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (BRB - BUSY DYING)

HER SMILE AND LEANING TOWARDS HIM, HIS HAND SLIDING DOWN HER THIGH, HER HAND GOING UP TO HIS FACE, HIS SMILE, THE KISS

ALICE COOPER, I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!

THE STARTLED JUMP, HURRIEDLY BREAKING APART, THE LOOK OF IRRITATION ON BETTY’S FACE!

Alice shows no surprise at Juggie being there, means she knows, or she let him in. So Bughead already has the stamp of approval from Mama Cooper! It could be that Alice saw how their extreme disapproval had affected Polly (and Jason) and hence she decided not to do the same to Betty? Or maybe she genuinely likes Juggie like Madchen has said?

Her deciding to go after the Blossoms reeks of anger about her own failure to get her daughter back. She talks about the Cooper-Blossoms feud, but its really something else, something we will know only in ep 12. What the Blossoms really did to the Coopers. Why would Alice hate the Blossoms so much for what they did to her husband’s grandpa? This is personal (Hal says as much)

“According to your milquetoast father”- what’s with Alice calling Hal all these coward names? What did Hal do or didn’t do that was so cowardly? She brought this up earlier - when Betty questioned Hal if he had killed Jason - she said he wouldn’t have the stomach for it.

Seriously did Alice hate Jason so much just because he knocked up her daughter? She was hoping he’d rot in hell when they found his body, she was positively gloating when the coroner told her about scavenger activity and him being tortured, she thinks killing him would be a brave thing to do. This much hatred for a boy who got her daughter pregnant? Alice can be dramatic I know, but this is a bit too much, even for her.

Ronnie and Hermione

I’m glad Hermione told Ronnie exactly what was happening with Fred and how Hiram had gotten to know about them

Seriously the kids in this show seem so much more mature than the adults, Ronnie tells her mom to come clean - this is a small town, tell him before he gets to know from anyone else.

Cheryl and Archie

What’s with all this sudden interest in Archie, Cheryl? Has she always been interested? Remember Betty warning Ronnie in the pilot not to talk about Archie when Cheryl approaches them? Do they have a history? I don’t want Kevin or Reggie, I want you. She makes it seem as though it was all about him defending her to Sheriff Keller, but idk.

Ethel and Ronnie

Ronnie recognized Ethel’s poem for what it was - a cry for help. Then her confession to Kevin about what she and her BFF at Spence did to a girl called Paige (and the girl had to have therapy and transfer schools). Clearly she feels guilty as hell. Ronnie is trying to change and that’s what’s the best thing about her. She hardly ever backslides on her mission, in fact the only glimpses we see of the old Ronnie is possibly the regret laced in her voice when she talks about what they lost.

I love that she immediately talked to Ethel and offered compassion and kindness. Ronnie is such friendship goals - really!

Archie and Penelope Blossom

That far angle camera shot with both of them standing made me think they were gonna kiss! Archie - you truly are a ginger stallion offering rides to anyone who cares to get on!

Penelope brought up that jersey thing again - not only brought it up - they actually showed us that moment from the funeral when Archie offered her Jason’s jersey which makes me think this is important somehow. The fact that Penelope commented on his resemblance to Jason yet again - ‘i swear when the light hits you just right” - makes me wonder if that theory about him being the victim might not be true? Or the resemblance may not be concerned with the murder itself but to some other secrets that maybe revealed as to the truth of these kids’ real parentage? If Cheryl and Jason are not really Blossoms, then the whole legacy plot-line fails. Jason is not the heir, neither is Cheryl.

Why does everyone need to reiterate the fact that Archie is good and decent unlike everyone else in this town??? Show us, don’t tell us. We had Cheryl, Mr and Mrs Blossom all talk about his great character and his goodness. Why are they rubbing in that fact? Is it not obvious? Or is it foreshadowing that he really is not good and decent and is going to do something dastardly? Or is it that in the Blossom’s book, good and decent people can be bought and /or used to their advantage? Like maybe they used some other good and decent people? Eg; Mary Andrews. What if Penelope was barren and couldn’t have children and since it was so important for the Blossoms to have a heir, Clifford had Jason and Cheryl with Mary (they need not have slept together, IVF and surrogacy were viable options) or someone else entirely? Maybe Fred needed money to set up the business and Mary was paid handsomely for it. And Fred wasn’t entirely on board with it, hence the tension between him and Mary and also the reason why they separated years later? Could this be the secret Fred is keeping? It was said that Cheryl and Jason’s twincest would be explored in this episode, but not quite in the way we expect. Was it an allusion to Cheryl kissing Archie? I know this theory has a hole because why would Clifford and Penelope actively encourage Archie to hang out with Cheryl? But I’m excited at the possibility that there maybe a link somewhere - Archie resembling Jason cannot just be a coincidence. The theory that Archie may not really be Fred’s son but Mary and Clifford’s has already been talked about. This could also be a reason for Fred and Mary to split if he found out years later. And maybe Cliff didn’t know, Mary never told him cause she was already married to Fred or something? But they’re drawn to Archie because he reminds them of Jason. Else its hard to understand the Blossom’s fixation with him! Archie’s loyalty to his dad keeps coming up too, he was willing to give up his musical career if Cliff would help his dad’’s business. It would be poetic if Fred wasn’t really his dad, yet they have this inextricable bond.

Archie was very believably seduced by the promise of a great musical future at the Bradenburg school and who wouldn’t be?

The kids in the common room

Jughead being the first to deduce that Mrs Blossom offering something to Archie cannot be without any strings attached - he’s so razor sharp, this boy!

Okay with you being a gigolo?

Ronnie is wise - she knows its hard to get by without connections but also that these connections come with a price-tag.

She looks to Betty for support, but Betty thinks its a great idea. Throwback to Archie asking Ronnie for support when Betty was attacking him about the Grundy thing, and Ronnie sides with Betty! Methinks Betty wasn’t thinking about Archie here, she wanted someone to get info on her sister for her, which is okay!

Maple syrup tapping scene

That scroll thing was ludicrous!

Cheryl was so nervous about the tree tapping thing, Archie’s encouragement got her going. Cheryl demeanor is a facade, she’s lost and lonely and also bitter and jealous. She wanted her parents’ attention, but Jason got it, he became the Golden boy. So she resorted to wild erratic behavior to get her parents’ attention. Inside, she’s just messed up, she craves approval and attention. Like all attention hungry kids she will do whatever it takes to ensure that all eyes are on her. She loves flattery and is immediately susceptible to anyone who even shows her a modicum of kindness, which shows she hasn’t had much growing up. Her parents are horrible to her, her brother was good to her, but he died. I wonder if her yearning for her parents’ approval made her hate Jason to deep down? Or at least resent him for being the favorite? Did she inwardly rejoice when he decided to run away, knowing that now her parents would now rely on her with Jason gone? Maybe they’d even cut him off from their legacy and she could be the heir? I did support the Cheryl killed Jason theory because of this notion. She does have a motive. If it were to come out that she actually really hated Jason and was jealous of him, she would have a very good reason to do away with him. It could also be that she loved him just like she says she does, and still thinks Polly killed her brother. That’s why she reddened Polly’s face and why she was the one to ask her to come stay with them in Thornhill.

Polly thinks the Blossoms killed Jason, Cheryl thinks Polly did and the Blossoms just want their heirs aka Jason’s children that Polly’s carrying. Ugh! What a mess!

Archie standing up for Cheryl was sweet and very Archie-like but it was a tad overdone - “Don’t underestimate Cheryl”? Don’t bet against her”? I think its foreshadowing about how crazed, dangerous and vindictive Cheryl really can be if you get on her wrong side which Archie managed to do by the end of the episode! Also her prompting him about her 4.0 GPA was so Cheryl!!!

Archie gets sucked into escorting Cheryl to a banquet. And he’s going to have a suit tailor-fitted for the occasion! Poor sod!

So Ethel’s grandpa and dad are both called Manfred?

Hermione and Fred

Hermione finally came clean to Fred and told him about the land and the Lodges being the anonymous buyers. Fred was understandably pissed. Hermione is a smart cookie, maybe her business acumen is actually better than her husband’s and she’s the one calling all the shots while pretending to be this helpless, hapless woman. Didn’t Penelope say at the end that they should’ve sent Hermione to jail instead of Hiram?

So Clifford told Hiram that Hermione and Fred were together? Why? Just to gloat? Or to get him to sabotage his own building which is precisely what he did. So he knows exactly how Hiram would react. I’m curious about Hiram. If he was this cold-blooded businessman that everyone says he is, he wouldn’t react so impractically to his wife seeing Fred. He wouldn’t sabotage himself just for getting back at his wife’s lover, he could’ve thought up of other ways to deal with Fred. So Hiram loves Hermione, but does Hermione love Hiram? Was she just playing a game with Fred so he would get on board SoDale? But Fred was interested in SoDale anyway, She could’ve got him on board even without playing cootchie-coo with him. So did she really care?

Fred toughened up and asked for a 20% stake and also ended things with him and Hermione. Which was great. Showed backbone and also his - I’m sick of you people using me and my family as pawns- speaks about his righteous anger against being taken for a ride. Hermione wasn’t pleased but had to grin and bear it for now. Hiram is certainly not going to be pleased.

Back to Bughead and Cheryl (and I’m back to capslock)

POWER COUPLE WALK IN STEP

BETTY LOOKING TO JUGGIE FOR REASSURANCE SINCE SHE FINDS HER COURAGE FALTERING WHEN SHE CONFRONTS CHERYL

HE LOOKS BACK AT HER WITH A -YOU’VE GOT THIS BABE

AND OUR BABE ATTACKS - WHAT STOCKHOLM SYNDROME SPELL HAVE YOU CAST OVER MY SISTER?

JUGGIE LOOKS ON ADMIRINGLY AT WIFEY WITH A SMILE

THEN ATTACKS WITH HIS OWN - HOSTAGES DO NOT GET TO MAKE OUTGOING CALLS!

SO NANA BLOSSOM’S POWERS ARE TRUE, POLLY IS HAVING TWINS!

Cheryl mentions a Dr Patel, Is he Raj and Tina Patel’s dad? If yes, will we see them in Riverdale S2? Sidenote: Isn’t Tina one of Cheryl’s friends already?

CHERYL DID YOU JUST CALL MY SON A HOBO YOU WITCH!!! (I love Cheryl btw, she’s so extra and Madelaine plays her so well)

SHE LITERALLY CUTS THROUGH THEM, PUSHING THEM APART! I already mentioned I think this is foreshadowing that she will be responsible for the conflict that creates a rift between Bughead.

BUT FEAR NOT, IT’S ONLY MOMENTARY. SINCE OUR BOY’S HAND IS BACK ON HIS GIRL’S BACK ALMOST THE IMMEDIATE NEXT SECOND! WHICH ALSO MEANS THE BUGHEAD RIFT IS GOING TO BE VERY VERY MOMENTARY AND THEY WILL BE BACK TOGETHER ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AND STRONGER THAN EVER!

Ronnie and Ethel

Ronnie telling Ethel her dad used to buy her expensive gifts whenever he did something wrong. Poor Ronnie. Her heartbreak at finding out Ethel’s dad had attempted suicide was so genuine, that scene was powerful and Camila played it very well, pulling apart the beads from her neck, symbolically destroying her dad’s hold over her. And her finally telling her mom she as done lying for him. It was a touch choice for Ronnie to make, loyalty to family or doing the right thing. I’m so glad she had the strength of character to make the more difficult choice!

Cheryl at Archie’s house

OMG Cheryl is really so extra. She called Fred DILF!

The Icewoman cometh!

Bribing Archie with an ‘84 Les Paul in their signature colour. Swoon!

I soo love Jughead’s expressions all through this exchange!

‘My claustrophobia acts up in small houses’. Is this going to come up again? Cheryl’s claustrophobia? Is someone going to lock her up in dark, dingy closeted space and that triggers something in her? Is she the one in danger that they’re trying to rescue in that snow scene like so many have already pointed out?

Cheryl kisses Archie twice and leaves a lipstick mark in this episode - on his cheeks and lips. Is this foreshadowing/ symbolism of some sort?

‘He’s also pimping himself out to Cheryl’ - Forsythe ‘subtle’ Jones everyone!

Hal and Alice

So Hal fired Alice and blocked her password? Really? He went there? And Alice calls him milquetoast?? More like fearless warrior to me! Hal showed his petty, vindictive side too, so there’s that!

So what’s this, Hal? You hate the Blossoms more than anyone, you don’t want to raise a child with Blossom blood, you have a personal vendetta against the Blossoms from before you were even born! And you’re telling Alice you won’t support her in HER personal vendetta? What even???

Okay, theory time! We know that Alice was mad at Hal for what he did to her - the same thing he did to Polly. But he only made an appointment for Polly. He may have done the same for Alice, but does that make it obvious she actually aborted the child? Maybe she gave it up for adoption (this was a choice the Coopers were on board with even for Polly)? Maybe the child was Cliff Blossom’s and that’s why Hal’s extreme hatred for any child with Blossom blood? Maybe Cliff raped Alice and got away because of his powerful connections and that’s why Alice’s extreme hatred for Cliff? I know it sounds crazy but it could explain a lot. I initially thought that Jason and Cheryl could be Alice’s kids (with Clifford) and they gave them up to the Blossoms to raise since Penelope was barren or whatever, but then Polly and Jason incest - yewww! But it would be delicious if the twins thing were actually a Cooper family thing and not a Blossom family one like everyone’s thinking, no??

Alice certainly has rage issues, throwing a brick at your husband, calling him a bastard all in front of your teenage daughter? WTF Alice?

Bughead at the Blue and Gold!

BETTY TELLING JUGGIE ABOUT HER PARENTS FIGHTING AND HOW ALICE THREW A BRICK AT HAL. LIKE I SAID, HE’S HER ROCK AND SHE CANNOT HIDE ANYTHING FROM HIM NO MATTER HOW UGLY!

JUGHEAD BEING JUGHEAD WHEN HE SAYS I WISH I’D SEEN THAT. HIS HUMOUR AND SARCASM ARE SO PART OF HIM NOW, THEY’RE NOT AN ARMOUR ANYMORE

BETTY ROLLING HER EYES AT HIM AND HE IMMEDIATELY APOLOGIZING FOR BEING INSENSITIVE - MARRIED!!!!!

BETTY BREAKING DOWN - THE COOPERS WON’T EXIST ANYMORE. SHE’S TIRED OF FIGHTING, POOR BABY, SHE’S EXHAUSTED AND SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHERE IT’S ALL GOING AND NOTHING IS MAKING SENSE

*SUPPORTIVE BOYFRIEND MODE ACTIVATED* - YOU ARE STRONGER THAN THE WHITE NOISE, STRONGER THAN YOUR FATHER, STRONGER THAN YOUR MOTHER, YOU’RE HOLDING YOUR FAMILY TOGETHER, DON’T GIVE UP, DON’T

THAT COLLAR GRAB, THE EARNESTNESS, THE URGENCY IN HIS TONE, HE CANNOT SEE HER BREAK APART, SHE IS HIS CONVICTION, HER FIGHT IS HIS FIGHT TOO. HIS FAITH IN HER ABILITY TO HOLD HER FAMILY TOGETHER IS AN ASSERTION THAT IF HE COULDN’T DO IT SHE COULD! SHE HAS TO SUCCEED, THEN MAYBE SOMEWHERE THERE WOULD BE SOME HOPE FOR HIM TOO!

DID YOU NOTICE HE SAID YOU’RE HOLDING “THIS” FAMILY TOGETHER - NOT “YOUR” FAMILY BUT “THIS” FAMILY- HE CONSIDERS HIMSELF A PART OF HER FAMILY. SHE’S HOLDING HIM TOGETHER TOO! SHE MADE HIM WHOLE, FIXED ALL HIS BROKEN PIECES. HIS “DON’T LET GO” WAS A PLEA FOR HER NOT TO LET GO OF HERSELF - BETTY COOPER, OF WHO SHE WAS DEEP UNDERNEATH AND WHAT SHE’S CAPABLE OF AND WHAT SHE BELIEVES IN.

SHE IS IMMEDIATELY CONVINCED BECAUSE “I WON’T” IS A PROMISE SHE MAKES TO HIM. A PROMISE THAT SHE WILL BE WHOLE, UNBROKEN AND STRONG FOR HIS SAKE AND WILL CONTINUE TO KEEP HIS FAITH IN HER ALIVE!

THE HUG!

THAT’S ALL - GO HOME

Val and Archie

WHAT DID CHERYL SAY TO VALERIE??

The Blossoms are buying you!

If you have to ask - you don’t know me at all! Slay, Valerie!

Val blowing off Archie - good for you, Val!

Archie at Thornhill

Cliff Blossom thinks Archie by his daughter’s side could improve her image? Why Archie again?

What were Cheryl and her dad arguing about when Archie was dancing with Polly?

Polly was playing Nancy Drew, I was right! But she’s being foolish. She’s heavily pregnant (with twins!) and she needs to protect her babies first. She entered the enemy’s lair without a thought for her own protection? She’s scared, she doesn’t want the Blossoms to know, which means she thinks they are dangerous. Why would she put herself and her babies willingly in harm’s way just because of the Cooper penchant for sleuthing? Also don’t understand how Betty and Alice can be okay with this madcap scheme?

Cheryl again with the you’re-the-only-good-person-in-this-town which changed the minute Archie wanted to leave. So she’s susceptible to flattery and also petty and vindictive when rejected. Did she kill Jason because he was kind of ‘rejecting’ her for Polly? Or was she secretly happy he was out of the picture so now she could become the focus for her parents?

There could be 2 reasons Cheryl hates Polly. One because Polly’s kids would be the heirs to the Blossom legacy and not her. After Jason she may have thought herself to be the sole claimant. But Polly being pregnant ruined everything for her. Btw, did they do a DNA/ paternity test yet to find if Polly is telling the truth about Jason being the father? The Blossoms are just taking Polly’s (and the Cooper’s) word for it? I think they would smell something underhanded knowing the Coopers are involved. Also Cheryl could hate Polly because she still thinks Polly killed Jason and wants to exact her own revenge on Polly.

So Clifford sent Hiram to jail and that makes Hiram a suspect. But does this mean Hiram is really innocent? Or that Clifford just exposed his guilty ass?

Bughead and Alice

BETTY LOOKING AT JUGGIE TO INVITE HER MOM TO THE BLUE AND GOLD!

*SON-IN-LAW MODE ACTIVATED*

BLUE AND GOLD HAS A HIGHER ANNUAL OPERATING BUDGET THAN THE REGISTER? IS THAT POSSIBLE?

BUGHEAD BUGHEAD BUGHEAD

*SCREAMING*

BYE

ETA:

The last scene with Bughead realizing Hiram Lodge could be a suspect, Archie looking on clueless, while Betty and Jughead go back and forth completing each other’s sentences - OMG they’re so fucking attuned to each other!!

They have Hermione Lodge, the Blossoms, The Coopers, Hiram Lodge and Reggie Mantle (???? Why??) as probable suspects already. Why is FP Jones not on the murder board???? Because they don’t know about the jacket?

THE PROMO FOR 110

JUGHEAD LOOKING UPSET AT THE MENTION OF A BIRTHDAY PARTY (MAYBE HE HASN’T HAD ONE IN FOREVER BCOS OF HIS DAD OR SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED AT THE LAST PARTY HE HAD AND HE DECIDED NEVER TO HAVE ONE BCOS IT BRINGS BACK BAD MEMORIES? *SOBBING*)

BURGER CAKE

BETTY IN A CROWN SWEATER

BUGHEAD ADORING LOOKS

ETHEL LOOKING SHADY AF

CHUCK CLAYTON GETTING SLAPPED BY BETTY

JUGGIE PUNCHING CHUCK

JUGGIE BRUISED ON HIS FACE (WHO’S A BRUISER NOW, MOOSE?)

RONNIE LOOKING UP WORRIEDLY (IS SOMEONE UPSTAIRS IN THE ROOM?)

SOMEONE IN A WHITE FUR COAT UNLOCKING (OR LOCKING) A DOOR - CHERYL?

ARCHIE AND RONNIE MAKING OUT

EVERYONE IS WASTED

WTF is happening?

#riverdale reviews #my riverdale reviews #riverdale 1x09 #bughead

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