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backtobackbakubabe · 2 years

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Speak Easy Part 25

Dabi x Raeder , Bakugo x Reader

Words : 5041

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Reader has a siren quirk and has spent the past several years of her life as a captive being experimented on by “heroes” Now that she’s out she needs protection and safe place to heal. Who will be the one to put her pieces back together.

Words with ‘this’ is dialogue written in her journal rather than said out loud and and words with ~this~ is dialogue said in sign language rather than out loud.

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“What do you mean you’re going out for a bit?”

“I mean I have to leave the property today. It was bound to happen eventually.”

He had to be joking. He hadn’t let you leave his sight since reuniting with you, and this morning over breakfast, he informs you that he’s leaving.

You clenched and unclenched your fists. “So… What does that mean for me? I can’t imagine you can just leave me alone to roam free around the room.”

He nodded and pulled a key out of his pocket. “I can either lock you into the bed restraints or the cage. Either way I’m leaving the key with you in case of emergency. But Y/N.” He grabbed your hands and pulled them to his lap. “What I’m about to say is going to sound harsh, but I’m serious.” His thumb rubbed circles onto your wrist. “If it’s serious enough that you have to use the key to get yourself out… you have to kill them.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat as the instinct to argue with him festered. For obvious reasons you weren’t as casual about ending someone’s life as he was. You wouldn’t even know how to in your current state.

Dabi could see the fear brewing behind your eyes. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to yours. “I’m going to conveniently forget to give you your suppressants today before I leave. I know we’ve never talked about it… but I think we both know you could kill someone pretty easily with your quirk.”

You gave him a cold glare. You knew this conversation was going to happen eventually. Obviously, you had thought about it before, the possibility of killing someone with your siren song. But you had never tried. You were terrified of what that kind of power would do to you. The kind of person you were capable of becoming. As much as you hated to admit it, there was a small part of you who craved it. The power, the control. After everything you’ve been through… that part has only grown.

You never wanted to be at the mercy of sick men who wanted to use and control you. And you knew there was potential in your quirk that you hadn’t even scratched the surface of. Even Aizawa had been too scared to test those abilities.

You knew the second you crossed that invisible boundary there would probably never be any going back for you. And you couldn’t tell if that thought scared or excited you. The concept of reaching a potential, a level of power, that would bring men to their knees. To never have to be a passenger in your own life again. To be the one pulling the strings for once… all it would cost is your humanity… your morals… your empathy.

A shiver wracked through you. “I… I don’t know if I can do that.”

Dabi sighed. “I would be willing to bet in theory… you can. Your quirk has the capability to, and you’re strong enough with it to manipulate it in that way… but I get what you mean. Killing isn’t easy. But If it’s you or them, I need you to choose you. Do you understand me?”

You nodded and he pulled away. “Finish eating while I go get dressed. I think… I think it’d be best if you get in the cage today. It leaves you free to move and it also… keeps others from being able to get their hands on you.” You looked down at the key in your hand could feel the familiar emotional numbness start to wash through you. It was easier to deal with being treated like an animal when you didn’t have to feel.

His finger lifted your chin to look at him. “I want you to put all the pillows and blankets in there. Stock up on snacks, charge up the iPad, and pick out my comfiest shirt. Just relax today. It could be a good thing. A day to just sit around and do nothing. Maybe take a nap? I shouldn’t be gone long.”

Sighing you stood up and made your way to the bed to start stripping it of its blankets. You shoved the thick comforter into the cage and was actually surprised at how big it was. You hadn’t given it much thought before because you hadn’t expected to actually ever need to get in it. It was long and tall, but not very wide. It was almost like it was a coffin, but for your sanity you would refrain from looking too closely into that comparison.

“I want you to bring me back something… I want Ice cream.” He came up behind you wrapping his long arms around your middle and repeatedly kissed the side of your face.

“Of course you do… I’ll see what I can do.” He held you for a few moments that felt like minutes. His hesitation to leave was obvious. But both of you knew the sooner he left, the sooner he could come back.

He handed you your gag. “Make sure you keep this close enough to put on if you hear someone coming in. Hide your snacks in the pillow cases or under the blankets.” His eyes had a haunted look in them. “If you want… I have a… virtue belt… I can’t imagine it’s comfortable, but it would keep others from being able to touch you.”

You turned in his arms to face him. “What does something like that even look like?”

He sat down on the bed pulling you with him so you were now sitting in his lap. He leaned over and pulled something out of the kinky chest. He handed you what looked like heavy metal underwear. It honestly looked like a torture device. The inside looked softer and made of more of a latex material.

You flipped it over a few times inspecting how it worked. You sucked in a breath when you saw the inside of it. “Does that… go…?”

“Yes… When you pull it on that inserts here.” His fingers brushed over you entrance. “Then you lock it in place over your hips. See” He pointed at the two locks on either hip. It not only keeps any unwanted hands away from you… I can also control it from an app on my phone. Give you an orgasm or two while I’m gone.”

Your face heated up at the thought of you coming undone even when he’s miles away.

He nuzzled into your neck and you could practically feel his smirk as he pressed his lips to your neck. “Hmm does that turn my sweet girl on. And you play innocent so well… but I know what my girl likes… and my girl is a freak. I love it.”

You scoffed and pushed him away from your neck. “I never once claimed to be innocent. And…” Your eyes darted to the scary looking underwear still in your hands. “I’ll wear them… but you” You jabbed a finger into his chest. “Don’t you dare turn it on. This isn’t the time or place for your perverted tendencies.” Your face turned an even deeper shade of red… “But maybe we could take this with us when we leave…”

Dabi’s chest vibrated with a soft hum. “My perverted tendencies? You’re the one who’s dripping all over my lap at the thought of it, Love.”

You huffed and tried to crawl out of his lap but he wrapped his arms tighter around you. “Nooo, stop I’m sorry. Don’t go yet. If you get off of me, that means I have to leave… and I don’t want to leave.” He gave you the most ridiculous pouty face you had ever seen.

Rolling your eyes, you settled back into his lap. “Please don’t ever make that face again. It isn’t very flattering on you.”

He bit into your shoulder. “But it worked. I got you right back where I want you.” He kissed over his bite mark. “But seriously… Please don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone. I mean it. Please just behave. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and I need you to be in one piece when I do.”

You pushed an unruly strand of white hair behind his ear. His hair was getting so long now. Almost long enough to pull back into a small bun. “It’s not like I can cause much trouble from a cage.” You kissed his forehead. “So why don’t you get out of here already so I can take a much-needed nap.”

He groaned, “Can I at least help you put these on first?”

“Absolutely not… there’s only one way that ends and we don’t have time for that. Now go. The longer you stall here the longer you’ll be gone.”

His grip tightened briefly before gently rolling you off of him. “Alright…” He stood and made his way towards the door, grabbing his familiar black jacket on the way. “One last time before I leave. Gag on. Virtue belt on. Stay in the cage at all times. Go to the bathroom now and hide enough snacks to get through the day. Hide the key somewhere good….” His eyes looked so beyond stressed. “I’ll be back.”

He slammed the door behind him and the second you heard the lock click into place your bravado faded to fear. You knew you had to act brave in front of him or he’d never leave. A part of you knew better though. He knew you like the back of his hand, so there was little chance that he fell for your little act. But it was because he knew you, that he let it go. He knew he’d only make it worse by drawing attention to your fear.

The silence was deafening, and you could feel it swallowing you whole. You were alone. Truly alone for the first time in weeks. A shiver wracked your body. It was suddenly too cold without Dabi’s overwhelming body heat.

You skipped to the bathroom to prepare for your “day off”.

The virtue belt was extremely uncomfortable to put on and immediately you felt it begin to edge you. You almost regretted asking Dabi to not turn it on… almost.

You hung the gag around your neck but made no attempt to actually put it on. You’d lock into place if you heard someone coming. You were hoping that wouldn’t happen, but you knew you’d have to be ready. The thought of sitting helplessly and waiting for something to happen made your head hurt.

You crawled into your pillow and blanket filled cage with your iPad and snacks. You locked the cage door behind you, and you had to admit… it was almost kind of cozy.

You had thought the panic would consume you once the cage door shut, but instead you were met with an odd sense of security. You chose to have a positive outlook about all of this. Instead of being locked in a cage, you were simply locking the rest of the world out.

You queued up the kindle app and started to read. It was a book you had already read a dozen times, but it was one of your favorites and it brought you comfort none the less.

It was a cliché romance novel. It was sappy, predictable, and even a little overdramatic, but it had a happy ending which was more than you could expect in your own life.

A few hours later the words starter to blur as your eyelids drooped. Part of you craved a good nap, but another part of you, some animalistic part, screamed at you to stay awake. To stay ready for a fight.

You tucked the iPad under all of your blankets and rolled over to curl up on your side. A quick nap wouldn’t hurt. Dabi had already been gone for roughly three hours. He hadn’t specified how long he’d be gone, only that he’d be back as soon as he could. It couldn’t have been too long otherwise he would have made arrangements for someone like Kurogiri to come check on you.

You closed your eyes and tried to think about what came next. After all of this. You and Dabi never talked about it. Probably didn’t want to get each other’s hopes up. There was no guarantee the two of you would make it to the end of the day, let alone out of this mess entirely.

You’d like to think that if it came down to it, that Dabi would help the heroes take down the league. He’s mentioned on more than one occasion how much he hates them. He was taken advantage of in his youth. They saw a broken boy and turned him into a vengeful monster.

But he’d softened since he met you. Or at least that’s what you told yourself. You and he were similar in the way that you had both been used by those you thought you could trust. Maybe all you needed was a fresh start. You could move away to another country and just start over. Get a house out in the middle of nowhere, settle down.

You felt a pang of guilt at how easily you dismissed Katsuki in this made up fantasy of yours. You hugged your knees closer to you as you thought about your best friend. He loved you, these was no question about it. You knew he had to be out there right now looking for you. He was probably worried sick. You just knew he probably wasn’t eating or sleeping. He was so driven… so determined.

And here you were… sitting in a cage dreaming about running away to live happily ever after with the man who put you there.

Okay, so technically Dabi didn’t put you in the cage. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a little bit responsible for your current predicament.

At some point your drifted off. In your dream you walked down a long hallway to what looked like a…. nursery? It didn’t matter how many steps you took you could never seem to get any closer to the room at the end of the hall. Your feet felt heavy but still you ventured on.

Quiet cries echoed off of the walls and suddenly it was all you could hear. The cries of a baby… who’s baby? What it yours? Did they need you?

You tried to run, but the faster you tried to run the heavier your feet became. This was impossible. The cries grew louder, and you could feel your heart ready to beat out of your chest.

Finally, you seemed to be getting closer. The wails so loud you could feel them in your bones. You reached a hand out for the door and jumped into the room. With shaky hands and labored breath you reached into the crib. It was the only piece of furniture in the entire room.

The child you picked up was unmistakably yours… yours and Dabi’s. It was a little boy who looked like he could be Dabi’s mini me. Soft white hair and piercing blue eyes. You had no doubt this was what Dabi must have looked like as a kid… well except he had red hair back then. The only thing he got from you seemed to be his nose, and his stubborn pout. Your heart melted as the child clung to you. You hummed a sweet lullaby while you rocked him back and forth.

You felt someone walking up behind you, but based on the smell, you knew it was Dabi. He wound his arms around you as his chin rested on your shoulder. He opened his mouth to say something, but the words you heard next did not come from his mouth.

“What the fuck is all this then?”

Your eyes snapped open. You remained still as you tried to stay calm. Someone was in the room with you.

You thankfully had pulled the covers over your head as you slept, so you had time to put the gag on without them seeing.

Maybe if you pretended to be asleep, they’d leave you alone. There were so many locks that kept you safe. So many obstacles for this intruder to get to you that hopefully he would just leave.

“Shit… leave it to Dabi to lock her up. Can’t even get a good look at her.” You heard him stepping closer to the cage. You shut your eyes and tried to make it look like you were sleeping. His fingers slotted into the cage and felt around the edge until he found your blanket. With a quick tug your blanket was yanked to the side. Revealing your legs. “Damn… he even locked up her holes. Nothing to fucking play with.” His fingers found your ankle and started to drag up your leg.

You tried to contain your flinch. There was no way he should be able to reach you. It must be his quirk. “Hmmm he must’ve drugged her up real good before he left.” His fingers kept going until they got close to your hip. It took a few seconds before you realized he was trying to pick the lock to your belt.

Your blood turned cold as you heard the click of the lock. All he would have to do was unlock the other side and he could take your belt off.

You couldn’t stop yourself as your instincts kicked in. Your hand grabbed his wrist and sent pain through your quirk.

“FUCK!” He tried to pull himself from you, but your grip was tight on his rubbery hand. “Fucking bitch! Let go!” He finally managed to get his hand back from you. He paced for a few quick moment before kicking your cage a few times.

The man took an angry breath before finally letting out a throaty chuckle. “Hmm it seems we have a very naughty girl on our hands… and it looks like your master isn’t here to punish you… so I guess that means I’ll have to do it for him.”

Your eyes finally opened and met his. You had never seen this man before. Not even in the hero database, so either he was new to the scene or he was a nobody.

Your eyes hardened and you stared right at him. You weren’t going to back down from him. You refused to cower. Your hand felt around the base of the cage for where you hid the key. All you needed to do was unlock your gag and you could tell him to get the fuck out and he would have no choice but to listen.

You finally felt the ridged edge of the key when you saw the man’s hand shove into the lock and like an expert thief you heard the lock click open. His quirk evidently let him bend and stretch his body at will. You growled through your gag.

Haunting laughter filled your ears as he threw the door open so hard it almost tore off the hinge. This was a game to him. You were nothing more than a toy. A source of amusement. “Nowhere to hide now.” His hand gripped your ankle and tugged you towards him.

You lost your grip on the small hidden key.

You kicked at his hands, but he continued to wrap them unnaturally around your legs like snakes. “Come on. Don’t be like that. I just want to have a little bit of fun.” He had your lower half out of the cage now as you continued to scramble looking for the key. You needed to get the gag off.

You managed to roll your body over so you could see the bottom of the cage as your hands frantically searched through the blankets for the tiny key. You felt his hands running up over your bare back as he pushed your shirt up. You sent the feeling of overwhelming fear through your quirk, and he pulled his hands away from you immediately.

“How the hell ‘r you doin’ that?” He gave your leg another tug. “You’re supposed to be on suppressants!”

You found the key and gave him a hard kick to the stomach. You reached behind your head and made quick work of unlocking your gag and tugging it down. “DON’T TOUCH ME!”

The dirty looking man reached for you again but growled in frustration when he found he couldn’t. You knew it wouldn’t last for much longer. Your compulsion could only last a few minutes tops.

“What the hell is goin’ on here. You have a fuckin’ KEY!” His eyes narrowed at you. “AND you can use your quirk….” You could see the cogs turning in that slow head of his.

You had to do something. Dabi’s warning rang in your ears. This guy knew your secret. He couldn’t leave… he couldn’t tell anyone… but could you do it. You locked eyes with him and quickly entered his mind.

You hypnotized him long enough to slip out of the cage and go over to the entrance to the room. You made sure the door was closed and locked. You couldn’t afford anyone else sneaking in.

“You should have minded your own business.” Your voice didn’t sound like your own. It was cold and disconnected. You knew what you had to do and you knew once you did it, there would be no turning back.

“Didn’t your mother never teach you to not touch things that don’t belong to you? Your eyes locked with his again and he looked like a deer in headlights. He was reduced to prey caught in your predatory gaze. “Does it look like I fucking belong to you? Did you really think you could just stroll in here and ‘have some fun’?” Your nostrils flared at the audacity of this man. “You had to know there would be consequences… You think Dabi locked me up the way he did for shits and giggles? No… that man doesn’t share. So now… you have to die. The only question is who your executioner will be?”

You hadn’t noticed his long arm stretching behind you until his hand wrapped around your ankle and pulled so hard you fell backwards on your ass.

He wasted no time jumping to his knees to straddle you. “You fuckin’ talk too much.” His hand was squeezing your throat and not in the fun way. “You think I’m scared of you? You think I’m scared of that burnt shell of a man?” You felt his erection pressing into your upper thigh and it had panic building in your gut.

You needed to remain calm if you were going to get through this unharmed.

Your hands came up and pressed into his that were currently tightening around your neck. You shot pain into his hand but all it did was make his grip tighten. He spit in your face. “Dumb bitch I’m gonna take my sweet time with you.” He abruptly pulled your head closer to him and headbutted you in an attempt to knock you out. Blood gushed from your nose and your vision was starting to blacken around the edges.

His hand game to the hip that was still locked and within seconds he had the belt falling open. He used his legs to pry and hold yours open as he slowly pulled the belt away. He whistled at your naked body and you knew it was now or never. You had to end this now.

Your hands sprung to grab the back of his head. You laced you fingers in his hair locking his head in place so you could lock eyes with him. When you felt him freeze up you leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Die…”

His face immediately displayed the horror you felt deep in your heart. Even though you could easily convince yourself this slimy man deserved this, it still didn’t make it easier on your conscience.

His face turned red, then blue, then with a few choking breaths he fell limply on top of you.

You pushed him off of you and rolled over and threw up. Something felt off, something felt wrong. It could be shock or guilt, but you also felt like your own quirk was rebelling against your disgusting misuse of it. Your emotions were all full capacity. Your head was spinning. You just laid there crying and shaking for what felt like hours. Your body shook so hard that your muscles began to ache.

The next thing you knew you were being pulled into someone’s arms.

You kicked and screamed in an attempt to pull away. You tried to activate your quirk, but it was like you couldn’t find it. It was like that allusive light switch that you couldn’t find in the dark.

“Hey shhhh, shhhh. It’s me. I’m back. You’re safe.” He pulled a blanket over you and cradled you in his arms. “Shit. You’re freezing. How long have you been laying here?”

You shrugged and tried to tuck yourself further into Dabi.

He sighed. “We’re not going to talk about this now… but we will have to talk about it. Until then I just want you to know how proud I am of you, and there’s nothing wrong with putting your life first.” He kissed the top of your head.

He brushed a thumb over your cheek, and you winced at the slight pain it caused. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him myself.” He used the bottom of his shirt to wipe the blood from your face. Apologizing every time you hissed through the pain. “He got you good love. At the least you’re going to have a black eye, possibly even a broken nose.”

You groaned at the impending headache that was sure to come. You probably had yet another concussion. You were probably one away from permanent brain damage at this point.

Dabi made no attempt to get up. He just sat on the floor with you pulled into his lap. He gently ran his fingers through your hair and down your back. You matched your erratic breathing to his and before you knew it, your head was clearing and the pain your body was in became more prominent.

You cleared your throat, “Do you… have any pain killers?”

Dabi’s fingers froze in your hair. “You sure? I know how you feel about drugs.”

“I’m not asking for hard drugs… just like an Advil or something. My head is killing me.”

Standing up he carried you like a baby to the tiny bathroom. He set you on the toilet before bending over to look through the cabinet under the sink.

When he returned you got a good look at his shirt. It was ruined. It was covered in your blood, snot, and tears. “Sorry about your shirt…”

He scoffed as he handed two little pills to you. “You think I give a fuck about my shirt? Baby you look like hell.”

You winced at his harsh words and took the pills. “I know you’re wondering, so just to put you mind at ease… nothing happened. Sexually I mean… He tried…. But I… well you know, you saw him…”

You could see the tension practically bleed from his shoulders as he nodded. “Yes, I did see. And I know I’ve already said it once, but I’m going to say it again. I’m so fucking proud of you.”

You kissed your forehead again. “I want you to take a nice hot bath and relax. I’m going to go take care of things out there. Sound good?”

You bit your lip, but nodded anyways. You really didn’t want to be alone, but you also didn’t want to be clingy.

You sat there taking slow breaths in and out you watched him retreat back to the bedroom.

You had just started to sink into the tub when you heard the door to the bedroom slam open.

Throwing a towel around yourself you snuck over to the door. You peered out of the slightly open crack and your eyes widened.

“Hmmm I wonder what happened here?”

Shigaraki stood in the entrance looking at the dead body that Dabi had dragged towards the door. His emotionless eyes scanned the room. “Where is she? Where’s your pet?”

Dabi’s nostrils flared. “She’s cleaning up. This asshole had the fucking nerve to touch her. Bashed her face in. She’s distraught.”

Shigaraki’s head tilted as he looked over the dead body. “Interesting. So how did she manage to kill him? I know you were on assignment today Dabi. So that would mean this man broke in while you were gone.”

“I killed him. I came home just in time. Found him on top of her and lost it.”

Shigarki leaned in and took a whiff. “Is that so? Very interesting. I don’t smell burnt flesh. Nor do I see any burn marks… No, I don’t think you did kill this man.” His eyes shot in the direction of the bathroom door, and you managed to move right before he saw you. “I think your girl did… and I also think that she broke a few rules to do it… And you know how I feel about those who break the rules.”

Dabi took a step between Shigaraki and the bathroom door. “No fucking rules were broken. I killed this idiot for hurting Y/N. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Shigaraki chuckled. “Did you? Okay Dabi… then answer this… what was this man’s quirk? If you killed him then surely you know what his quirk was. I doubt he went down without a fight.”

Dabi’s hand began to heat up. “Why do I get the feeling you set me up Shiggy? I killed this sorry excuse of a man, end of fucking story.”

Shigaraki snapped his fingers and several other League members walked into the room behind him. “I’ve told you several times that your insubordination would not be tolerated. Now… you will finally learn your lesson.” He pointed to the bathroom door. “And I’ll make sure you pet does as well.”

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*The Laws* 1. No fucking shrugging 2. No drugs 3. No saying sorry for something that isn’t your fault 4.We work on communication every day 5. Wake up whenever the hell you want 6. No locked doors 7. We eat three full meals a day 8. No means no, no negotiations 9. We work on exercise every day 10. Ice cream must be kept in stock at all times 11. Accept help when it is offered 12. No lying 13. I will not initiate the sexy time without written or verbal consent.

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Tags: tags: @falling4fandoms @wifunozomi @here-in-never-land @whore-for-anime @klecksstorys @aurorahoneybuns @theunknownrandom @insane-without-delirium @frenchsfryys @officiallydarkgeek @neofixcs @music-is-all-i-need @katsukibakubabe@unadulteratedtastemakerpoetry@dabislittlemouse@aimee1602@pinkhatlizzy@kunaigirlx44 @nii-sanfucker@bestgirlb@silverstardrop @bakubby99@squichymochi @sarahschance@babayaga67@starenemy @squichymochi@soapbubblesx

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Spotify Playlist

#bakugo katsuki imagine #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #mha bakugou #bakugo katsuki #bakugo x reader #dabi my hero academia #dabi imagine #dabi #yandere dabi #dabi x y/n #dabi x you #dabi x reader #dabi bnha #mha dabi #dabi todoroki #mha fanfiction #mha x reader #my hero academia

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maddiwrites · 3 years

Text

The Hybrid (I)

Pairing: JJ x Reader

Summary: The Pogues rekindle their friendship with their old childhood best friend and JJ’s first crush, Y/N. Old feelings resurface for JJ and Y/N, possibly leading to a summer neither one of them could ever forget. Due to past trauma, Y/N is reluctant to let anyone into her heart, but JJ never backs down from a challenge, even if he knows it will come back to haunt him in the end.

Note: Thank you for being patient with me as I slowly write this series. I had this idea a long time ago and I’m not finding motivation to write it but the inspiration comes and go. I smile with every comment that is left on my fics and I’m so grateful for this community. Thank you for letting me pursue my creative writing without judgement. Love you guys! (Also, yes. If you didn’t see my last note, I based YN’s family off of the Gilmore Girls characters. That’s who I picture as them.)

Word Count: 8k

Masterlist Prologue

You wake up to someone falling on your bed next to you with a dramatic sigh. Knowing exactly who it is, you choose to ignore her and try getting back to the dreamless sleep you were peacefully having before you woke up.

That is, until she sighs again.

You flip onto your back and stare up at your ceiling fan that’s quickly spinning above you. “What, Rory?”

“How did it go with Andre and that boy?”

You look at her with one brow raised. “You woke me up to hear about Andre’s love life? That hardly sounds like you. You don’t care about high school drama or hookups.”

“You’re right,” Rory says. “But I thought I would ease you into what I actually need to tell you.”

You turn on right side and look at your sister confused. “What?”

She sighs. “The cafe’s basement flooded last night. Mom needs us there to help her clean up and take inventory on what’s salvageable.”

You turn back on you backside and close your eyes, exhaling a deep sigh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Unfortunately not,” Rory says and pats you twice on your covered thigh as she sits up. “Come on. I made you pre-cafe coffee. It’s sitting in the kitchen.”

You throw your sheets off of you and trudge to the bathroom to brush your teeth and clean your face. It’s about 8 a.m. At least you were able to get about six hours of sleep.

Last night, it was hard to let your brain rest to fall asleep. You kept tossing and turning, thinking about the blonde Pogue who walked you home. You missed how easy it was to talk to someone who you felt truly knew you. Your banter rolled off your tongue easily and you never had to worry about offending him because you knew him like the back of your hand. You knew what he could take and what he couldn't.

Talking to him brought back childhood memories you had hidden deep in your mind. How JJ would constantly poke you until you ripped into a smile on days that were grey. How you used to steal John B’s bandanas until he was chasing you around his house to get them back. How you would draw a mustache and a unibrow on Pope’s face when he fell asleep by the water.

Those days felt like they were decades ago. So far away, you didn’t know if you’d be able to reach for them again. If it was even possible to get back.

You thought about texting him. Thanks for walking me back. We should all get together soon! You had written out. But then you deleted the whole message, telling yourself it was because you didn’t know if he even had the same number. But deep down, you were just afraid of the rejection.

Its been about three years since the four of you had been together in one place. You don’t know what they’ve been through or if they’ve changed. They for sure as hell don’t know what you’ve been through. You don’t know if they're dynamic has changed. Clearly you and JJ can still joke with each other but what about John B and Pope? You heard about John B’s father disappearing at sea, most people believing he’s dead, but John B holding onto hope that’s he’s alive. You always thought about calling him to reach out and offer your condolences. But for the same reason you didn’t text JJ, you never called. It didn’t feel like your place. They had Kie for that now. A little part of you felt jealous of her, like she had replaced you and any memory of you. She seemed nice, but she wasn’t you.

“Ready?” Rory pops her head in to your room as you slip on a cropped plain white zip up jacket over your cropped black tank.

“As I’ll ever be,” You say and snag the car keys out of her hands. “Don’t even think about it. I’m driving.”

Rory rolls her eyes. “I want to get there safely.”

“And I want to get there quickly.”

“Fine. But we’re taking my car. It actually has doors.”

For your sixteenth birthday, your grandparents gifted both you and Rory your own individual cars and even let you pick them out. Rory chose a black 2020 Honda Civic for it’s safety features and reputation for longevity as if she was planning on handing it down to her future kids. And you picked out a white 2020 Jeep Wrangler with a hard top that pops off along with the doors for a very open and thrilling ride. Everyone but you called it a death trap, but you found it to be the perfect summer car.

You park Rory’s boring Honda Civic in the back of the cafe in a lot used specifically for employees. The cafe is already booming with teens and families, waiting for their morning coffees and fresh pastries. Kids your age are running around behind the counter with sweat dripping down their brow bone to get everyone’s orders out in a timely manner.

In the back of the store, your mom walks up the steps from the basement with two large trash bags and immediately notices the two of you. “Oh good. You’re here. Rory, help the girls behind the counter. The dishwasher’s broken and poor Hailey is hand washing everything. Y/N, come with me downstairs.”

“Why does Rory get the fun job?” You grumble and follow your mom back downstairs after she tosses the two trash bags.

“Because she’s actually nice to the customers.”

“Treat others how you would like to be treated. Isn’t that what everyone always says?” You smirk. You never agreed with the phrase ‘the customer is always right.’ It’s complete bullshit and being the employee shouldn’t mean letting yourself getting verbally abused by a ‘Karen’ on the other side of the counter.

The basement is used for the cafe’s storage, lined with wooden shelves Steve put together that hold to go cups, back up espresso machines, boxes of coffee and food and ingredients, etc. Now all the boxes are dark and sopping, creating puddles on the concrete floor.

“Oh my god. Mom. How did this happen?”

“Jenky water pipe busted in the middle of the night,” Steve walks down the stairs and passes your mom a knowing look. It didn’t surprise you that he was here. He’s the jack of all trades. Owns his own automotive shop, builds a lot of his own furniture, actually cooks a decent meal, and has the same outlook on customer service as you do. He was probably your mom’s first call. “Talked to the plumber. They can’t get here until at least noon.”

“Noon? We’ll be underwater by noon. I might as well turn all my employees into a swim team,” Your mom says.

Steve shakes his head. “I was able to hold the leak until he gets here. You should be fine.”

Steve was the first person that actually helped your mother out when's she moved to the Cut. Six months pregnant, she pushed her car into his automotive shop after it broke down on the side of the road. Their banter was similar to the one you and JJ have. He helped save your mom money by building yours and Rory’s cribs, changing table, and dressers. And ever since, the two of them had been connected by the hip, although they both refuse to admit it. You think the pair are just trying to deny the love they clearly share for each other. And you think the main reason for that is because of the incident four years ago with your mom’s ex boyfriend. No thanks to you.

“Look at you constantly building your resume,” You smirk at him.

Steve scoffs. “It’s more than what you’re doing.”

You roll your eyes. Steve is the closest thing you have to a father. He practically helped raise you with your mom. He’s the one you turn to whenever a fight with your mom goes too far, which isn't too often but it happens. He usually lets you stay at his house for the night to let you cool off. But he’ll never sugar coat his advice when it comes time for him to give it. Even if you don’t ask for it. He knows growing up with Rory has been challenging. She was clearly your mom’s favorite, or at least that’s what you thought. She has a 4.0 GPA with a realistic dream to get into Brown University and study journalism. She played by every rule, never got into trouble, and spent most of her free nights getting ahead of her school work or staying late at the cafe with an open book from the library across the street. She was an absolute angel to everyone else, making you look like her evil twin.

You glare at him before turning to your mom with crossed arms. “What do you want me to do, Mom?”

“Actually honey. Can you go to Heywards and grab more coffee filters and napkins. The water soaked right through the plastic wrapping on our last box.”

You nod, leaving your mom and Steve to clean up the basement themselves. Before heading out, you sneak behind the counter and make yourself a quick coffee to go.

“Where you going?” Rory asks as she reaches behind you to grab a banana for her customer at the register.

“Heywards to grab a couple things for Mom.”

“Oh. Make sure to grab toilet paper while you’re out. I think we’re almost out of it.”

“Got it.”

Heywards is only a short drive from your mom’s cafe. It’s the closest convenient store that isn’t crazy pricey. It’s where your mom gets all her supplies whenever she runs out of things before shipment gets there.

You use to always come here when you were younger with the boys, each of you, even Pope, stealing a small bag of chips or a candy bar here and there. Little did any of you know, Mr. Heyward caught your thieving hands every time but never said anything.

The bell above the door chimes when you walk into the store. You know this place as well as you know the cafe, finding the toilet paper and coffee filter immediately.

When Mr. Heyward looks up from the counter, his smile grows. He can pick you out of a crowd anywhere, but he hasn’t seen you in a long time. Last time he saw you, you had braces and overgrown bushy brows. Now you had bushed hair and shaved legs.

“Hi. Mr. Heyward,” You grin shyly at him. You don’t know how he’s going to react to see you, unsure of what Pope might have told him about you.

“Little Miss Y/L/N? Is that you?” Heyward smiles widely, pulling your own lips into a wider smile. “I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy with school and my mom’s cafe...” Both of those things were a lie. You just avoid the Cut to avoid the Pogues.

“How’s the fam?”

“They’re good,” You say as Heyward hands you your bags. “Mom says hello by the way. I’m actually taking these to her store now.”

“Well, don’t be a stranger. We miss your smiling face around her. Anette, too.” Heyward says, mentioning his wife.

“Tell her I said hi.”

“Of course, darling.”

Heyward and Anette always had a special place in their heart for you and Rory. They’re not one for gossip, but they knew a little bit about what your mom’s been through and have heard plenty of stories about your grandparents. They always thought, despite your mom’s background, that you and your sister were raised impressively. Anette always hoped that one day Pope and Rory would get together. Everyone always wanted their child to be with Rory.

As your about to leave the store, the bell chimes again with another customer. Only it’s not another customer. It’s Pope and John B. They don’t see you at first, and you wonder if maybe you can sneak out without them seeing you. But something about that felt wrong. Especially because Heyward would more than likely mention to them that you were here.

Pope sees you first and stops in his tracks. “Y/N?”

“Hey, guys. Long time no see,” You smile at both of them. You bite down on your lip awkwardly when you meet John B’s stare. You don’t know if you should mention anything about his dad’s disappearance. But what would you say? Sorry? What good would that do?

“How’ve you been?” Pope gives you a small side hug, then John B.

You shrug. “You know, living the dream.”

“How’s life as a Hybrid?” John B smirks.

You roll your eyes playfully and groan. “Oh god. Never call me that again.”

You may be considered a Hybrid by everyone else, but you would never put yourself into that category. You grew up a Pogue, the same way everyone else did around you. The only thing tying you to the Kooks are your grandparents.

“Why?” John B smirks. “I wish I was a Hybrid.”

You smirk back. “Maybe you will be one day. I hear you have a Kook of your own for arm candy.”

You saw a faint hint of blush on John B’s cheek at the mention of his girlfriend but you don’t mention it. “Sarah, yeah. She’s not like the other Kooks.”

“I would hope not. Her brother’s a dick.”

“Yeah,” They laugh.

“We miss you, you know.” John B says. Pope looks at you, trying to read your expression. John B’s not wrong. They do all miss you, especially Pope. He felt like you were the only one who really understood him. Of course his other friends are great, but you actually took the time to try and understand his passions. Like forensic science.

“I miss you guys too. It’s been a while.”

“Well, hey. We’re actually all getting together tonight at my place. Nothing big. Just a bonfire and a couple beers. You should stop by,” John B says.

“Yeah,” Pope says, immediately getting hopeful that you’ll show up.

Your smile falters. The invite makes your heart swell and your lungs contract. It’s an invite you’ve been wanting for three years. And now that you have it, you don’t know what to say. It’d be different if it was just the four of you like old times. But now there’s Kie and Sarah and although you have nothing against them, you’re afraid they won’t accept you. The thought of your boys picking them over you terrifies you.

“Okay. Yeah, sure. I’ll try to swing by later.”

Pope smiles wide and looks at his friend to see his reaction. John B grins and nods, almost impressed that you had agreed. But he saw the twitch in your lips when the question was asked.

“Great. I guess we’ll see you later then.”

You nod. “Okay. Bye guys.”

You suck in a deep breath when the fresh air outside of Heyward’s store brushes over you. Your heart thumps wildly with both excitement and nerves when you’re finally able to collect your thoughts. You don’t know what you’ll do tonight, but the possibilities can change your entire summer.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You spent the rest of the day mopping up the cafe’s basement and rearranging the shelves. You smelled of sweat and coffee grounds by the time you were done and dreamt of the shower you would be taking when you got home.

Rory drove you home after the two of you closed up the cafe for the day. Neither of you said much. Rory was exhausted from running around behind the counter and you were too busy thinking about whether you’d go back to the place you used to call your second home.

You took a longer shower than usual, still pondering what your night would be like. Your head was telling you to stay home but your heart pulled you in the direction of the Cut. You yearned to hear about what the future held for Pope, and listen to John B retell stories of when you were kids, and be able to stare into JJ’s bright blue eyes without him noticing.

You changed into a pair of jean shorts and a plain red cropped tank. Rory walks into your room as your brushing out your hair and looks at you as if you lost your mind.

“Are you out of your mind? You can’t wear that,” She says.

You brows scrunch together in confusion. “What are you talking about? I wear shit like this all the time.”

“Not to the Country Club, you don’t.” That’s when it hits you. Today’s been so hectic, you forgot what day it was. “It’s Sunday.”

Sunday dinner at the Country Club is now a weekly commitment forced upon you by your grandparents. Each week, your mom, sister, and you are forced to spend one dinner with your grandma and grandpa. This is basically your mom’s payment back for sending you and Rory to Kook Academy. Only they actually pay for the dinner. It’s usually the longest two hours of your entire week. It’s hard to listen to your grandfather rant about Real Estate and your grandma slyly critique your mother in almost every aspect of her life.

“Shit. I completely forgot,” You say.

“Well, you better change. We’re leaving in about five minutes,” Rory says then plucks a gold necklace from your dresser. “Oh and can I wear this tonight?”

You sigh. “Sure.”

You change into a baby blue wrap around dress and pin your wet hair into a half up half down due. It’s gonna have to work for the limited time you have to get ready. After applying a thin layer of makeup to look the least bit presentable, you meet your mom and sister by the front door.

“Finally,” Your mom says when she sees you.

“Sorry. I didn’t realize it was Sunday.”

“It’s okay, honey. I just don’t think I can handle another late remark from Mom today.” She looks you up and down and grins. “You look great.”

Despite the many fiery fights you and your mom can have, she is also your best friend. It’s kind of like a love hate relationship. Steve says it’s because you’re exactly like your mom - almost like a sixteen year old version of her.

You really hope that isn’t true. You’re not ready to have a kid in two years.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Your grandparents are already sitting at a round table in the corner of the country club by the two tall windows that reach up to the ceiling with a view looking out into the golf course. The best seat in the house for the richest a holes on the island.

“Lorelai,” Your grandmother grins, but you can instantly tell it’s sarcastic. “Did you have to walk here?”

You speak up before your mom could. “Sorry Grandma. It’s my fault we’re late.”

Your grandparents are hard on your mom but easier on you and Rory, especially Rory.

“Well, you’re here now,” Your grandpa says. He’s usually the mediator between your mom and grandma. Although he’s usually sucks at it. “Sit. Sit.”

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, JJ shuffles through his many coworkers with his apron in one hand and a piece of fried calamari from Miss Carol’s appetizer in the other.

“JJ -” She scolds and slaps his hand away from going in for a second piece.

“Good evening Miss Carol,” JJ smirks and makes his way to the area between the kitchen and dining room where most of the servers and bust boys hang out. Some of the boys slap him on the back or shove him by the shoulder, chuckling to themselves. “What’s going on boys? Busy crowd?”

“What are you doing here? You never work Sundays,” His friend, Mitch, says.

Luke Maybank was behind on several bills - worse than it’s ever been. They already shut off their electricity and JJ wanted to make sure the water wouldn’t be next.

But JJ shrugs nonchalantly. “Little extra dough can't hurt.”

“Well, you picked a good day,” Raymond walks up to the blonde, rolling his sleeves. “You got Kook Royalty and their Hybrid offsprings in your section.”

“What?” JJ looks through the small square Plexiglas on the swinging door. He knows exactly where to look and immediately sees you sitting with King and Queen Kook, looking absolutely miserable, pushing around your food with your fork.

“Damn, Maybank. Almost broke your neck - you turned so fast.”

“Shut up, Easterling. I was just seeing how crowded we were,” JJ lied. He really just wanted to see if you were here. And now that he sees you are, he’s a little nervous to do his own damn job.

Raymond Easterling chuckles. “Yeah, I know what you were looking at. But don’t get your hopes up. There’s a reason Kooks call that girl the Heart Sucker. Not even the high and powerful JJ Maybank could get a piece of that.”

The guys around JJ and Raymond chuckle and nod in agreement, hearing the stories of how you’d reject every single guy that’s ever asked you out. Sometimes you’d go on a few dates, trying to push yourself out of your comfort zone, but then things would quickly become too much, and you’d get overwhelmed.

JJ didn’t like the way Raymond talked about you or how the others laughed at your expense. His hands clenched into fists, tempted to throw a punch in Ray’s cocky face. The guy’s just being a jerk because he’s one of the guys that got rejected by you, he thought.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” JJ shakes his head and ties his apron around his waist to distract his hands.

“No?” Raymond challenges him. “You think I’m wrong? You think you could pull the infamous Hybrid over there?”

JJ glances back through the window. You’re looking at your grandma with a clearly forced grin. You’re twirling your hair between your fingers, a habit you picked up when you were little to do when you’re bored. JJ would find you doing that in school all the time.

You’re gorgeous, he thought. It’s no wonder that almost every guy on this island has tried to make a pass on you, including JJ himself, but his remarks always come off as playful, afraid of actually telling you how he feels about you. His fantasies about you went further than just getting you between the sheets. He could picture getting married, having children, and growing old together. Years ago, the two of you would talk about your future. Neither one of you cared about money or fancy jobs. All you wanted was to be free - of this island, of each other’s families, of responsibilities placed on you from birth. You hold the same values as JJ, and he’s never met another person like you.

But JJ has a hard exterior. No one other than his best friends know his true heart, and he wasn’t going to let someone like Raymond Easterling find out about his soft spot for you. He would never hear the end of it.

JJ looks at you one last time. You’re talking to Rory, your face in his direction. This time you’re smiling, probably discussing something other than your grandparent’s expectations of you. He’d kill to see that smile every single day.

What’s the worst that could happen? You reject him? Yeah, that might kill JJ inside, but maybe you’d still be his friend, or continue to be acquaintances like you are now. As long as he gets to see you, he’d be okay. There was always the future. But who knows? Maybe you’d say yes? He’ll never know unless he tries. Right?

JJ fakes the same cocky grin that Raymond wears. “I haven’t failed yet.”

The guys around him whistle and shake their heads with smiles.

“All right, Maybank. Let’s make a bet. I’ll give you one hundred dollars to get Y/N Y/L/N in the sack by the fourth of July.”

JJ scoffs. “You like giving away free money?” He ignored his racing heart at the thought of being that intimate with you.

Raymond nods. “Okay. Let’s put your money where your mouth is. Get her to say ‘I love you’ by the end of the season and I’ll raise you an extra hundred and cover all your dishwasher shifts in September.”

JJ raises his brows with surprise. No one offers to take the dishwashing shift. Sometimes the boys are pulled back there when the kitchen is short staffed and it’s easily one of the worst jobs at the Club.

This bet was almost too good of an opportunity to pass up. “Deal.” JJ says.

The boys shake hands on it and the other guys whisper to each other about how intrigued they are to see this play out.

JJ wipes his sweaty palms against his apron and pushes the door open to approach your table, hoping he can hear you over his thudding heart.

“Good evening folks. May I take those empty plates out of your way?”

You look up at the voice you know so well and a smile raises on your lips. JJ meets your eyes and he winks at you, splattering your heart in flutters.

“Please.” Your grandmother pushes her plate away from her, stuffed with filet and red wine.

“JJ,” Your mom grins up at him. Growing up, your mom always had a soft spot for the blonde Pogue. She’s heard the stories about his father, mostly from Steve, who actually grew up with Luke Maybank, his cousin. As a child, he was sent to live with Luke Maybank and his single father. Lets just say, he’s not surprised by the way Luke turned out. “Look at you. You’re all grown up now. Last time I saw you, Y/N was still pushing your head in the sand for stealing her popsicle.”

“Yeah. I quickly learned no one should mess with Y/N and her food,” JJ says.

“Never stopped you though,” You smirk at him.

“Lorelai. Who is this?” Your grandma asks, disregarding the boy himself.

“Mom,” Lorelai gives her mom a warning look. “This is JJ Maybank. He went to school with Y/N and Rory.” Lorelai knew to play it safe with her wording. She didn’t know where you and JJ stood. It’s been so long since you’ve seen him and she knew better than to ask.

“Nice to meet you,” JJ says politely. “I’d shake your hand but mine are kinda full.” He motions to the plates in his hand.

“That’s quite all right.” Your grandma’s smile is so forced, it makes you uncomfortable.

“I won’t hold you up. Has your server been around with the dessert menu?” JJ looks at you. “We have chocolate cake tonight.”

Heat rushes up your neck. Not because of the cake itself but because JJ remembered your favorite dessert. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles. It was safe to save you were a choco-holic. The boys use to make it for you every year for your birthday. It usually came out burnt, none of them ever remembering how to properly make it. But it was all you needed to feel like a very special girl.

“Your favorite,” Rory elbows you.

Your grandma cringes. “Sounds like diabetes on a plate.”

“Mom,” Lorelai scolds.

“What?” She asks, not understanding the concept of a filter.

Now heat rushes to your cheeks for an entire different reason. “He did. We’re not doing dessert tonight. Thank you, though.”

JJ nods but feels disappointed by the way your face flinched at your grandmother’s comment.

“My pleasure,” He says like he was taught to do and excuses himself to drop the plates off in the back before he can say anything else that would probably get him fired.

Your mom looks at your with raised brows. “He’s cute, honey.”

“Lorelai, please. He’s the busboy,” Your grandma says.

“He’s a good kid, Mom.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” You stand up. “I have to use the restroom.”

Rory gives you a knowing grin as you walk away from the table. When you walk into the hallway between the dining area and the front lobby, you immediately feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. Sometimes just the presence of your grandparents and their pompous judgements can be suffocating. You do your best to bite your tongue around them, excusing yourself when you feel yourself getting heated.

JJ catches a glimpse of your light blue dress out of the corner of his eye when he rounds the corner to collect the plates off a different table. He looks over his shoulder at Raymond, who’s staring at the blonde watching you, and winks.

“Hey, Y/N,” JJ says, walking up to you.

You look up from your phone and immediately smile. “Hey. I was actually hoping I’d catch you out here.”

��Yeah?”

“Yeah,” You nervously tuck a piece of hair behind your ear. “I’m sorry about my grandmother. She can be...”

JJ shakes his head. “Hey. It’s okay. I work for Kooks almost every single day. I’m use to it.”

You sigh. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Don’t apologize for something you can’t control,” JJ says. “Besides, that’s probably the nicest she’s ever been to me.”

You hide your face in your hands. “Stop. You’re making it worse.”

JJ laughs and takes your wrists in his hands, slowly pulling them away from your face. Your eyes shoot up to his, immediately feeling a tingling feeling run through your skin, straight to your heart.

“It’s okay. I promise,” He says softly. His voice is so sincere that you have no other option but to believe him. It almost makes your feel guiltier, wondering how much bullshit he’s been through with ungrateful Kooks that it’s so easy for him to forgive and forget.

“Okay,” Your voice is a whisper, taken off guard by how close he is to you and how he still hasn't let go of your hands.

In that same moment, JJ realizes he’s still holding you and gently removes his hands. He coughs awkwardly and scratches the back of his neck, where sweat begins to bubble. Why is he so nervous?

“So um...” You say, suddenly feeling nervous too. “You going to John B’s tonight?”

JJ’s eyes shoot up in surprise. How did you know that? “Yeah. I’m heading over there after work.”

“I saw him and Pope at Heywards earlier today and they invited me over. I wasn’t sure if I should come or not.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

Because it’s different now, you wanted to say. But you didn’t because you feel like the elephant in the room would only grow. And you didn’t want to admit you were nervous to meet Kie and Sarah outside of school.

You shrug. “I don’t know.”

“You should definitely come. The boys miss you.”

You pretend like a little piece of your heart didn’t just break when JJ didn’t say ‘we.’

“What time do you get off of work?”

“Around 9ish.”

You nod. “I can pick you up if you’d like and we could go together?”

Your heart races after you suggest it. What if he says no? Why were you feeling this way? This is the same kid you use to make fun of for pouring milk into his bowl before his cereal.

“Yeah. That’d be perfect.”

“Great!” Your phone pings with a text from Rory, telling you that your grandparents are wondering where you are. “Shit. I have to get back. I’ll see you at nine?”

“See you then,” JJ nods and turns back to the kitchen. When his eyes meet Raymond’s, he’s reminded of what he agreed to. Almost surprised how quickly he forgot about it. You were able to take his mind off of anything without even trying. He clears his throat to get rid of the giddy grin he was wearing after talking to you, wanting to look tough and casual in front of his coworker. “Easy.” He says to him. But that felt anything but easy. He could vomit with nerves.

“There’s still plenty of time for you to screw up, Maybank.”

JJ huffs. He’s not wrong.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You drive up to the front of the country club and park in front of the main entrance. It’s 8:57. You’re early and will look eager. So you wait until 9:06 to text him that you’re here.

You changed into a pair of dark washed denim shorts, a yellow cropped tube top, a grey flannel, and navy converse. You changed your outfit about four times before deciding on your first one, not wanting to look too casual or too dressed up.

For the last three years, you wondered when the four of you would get back together as a group. You wondered if it would ever happen. And now that two Kooks are involved, you feel more nervous than excited.

You jump when the passenger seat door opens, lost in the depth of your own head. JJ smiles, not seeing your reaction.”Cool ride,” he says and looks around the interior.

“Thanks,” you say, pulling out into the road.

“I got you something,” JJ says.

You glance at him with furrowed brows. What could he have possibly gotten you since you saw him last? A book mark from the Country Club’s gift shop?

JJ reaches into his backpack and pulls out a plate with clear wrap around it. Your mouth drops when you see the chocolate cake on a plate in his hands, the smell immediately hitting your nose with pure delight.

“You saved me a piece?” You jump in your seat excitedly.

“Had to hide it good too or else Miss Carol would have had my ass handed to me,” JJ jokes and even pulls out two forks. He undoes the wrapping and cuts off a piece. He waits until you hit a stop sign and says, “Open up.”

You look at him and immediately open your mouth. He gently places the fork between your lips and you take the piece of cake off with your teeth. Like a baby.

Your eyes close with pure pleasure. “Oh my god. That’s amazing.”

“Miss Carol does know how to bake a mean cake,” JJ says and takes a bite of his own.

“Another one,” You say, glancing at the cake again. Like you said, choco-holic. “Please.” You say when JJ teases you by holding the fork away from you.

JJ laughs. “I like hearing you beg.”

You slap him in the arm with the back of your hand. “In your dreams, Maybank.”

“You got that right, Y/L/N.”

The two of you finish the cake with only a few bites each. Small but rich in chocolate that leaves you craving more. You were gonna have to meet this Miss Carol woman.

After he puts the plate back in his bag, JJ reaches for the aux cord, but you quickly slap his hand away. “Hey. What do you think you’re doing?”

“You’re seriously gonna make me listen to this the entire way to John B’s?”

You scoff. “I’ll have you know Blink-182 is one of my favorite bands.”

“It’s also soccer moms’ favorite band,” JJ laughs at you.

You turn up the volume, blasting ‘All the Small Things’ and point to your ear. “Sorry. Can’t hear you!”

JJ rolls his eyes but laughs along with you, even bopping his head to the beat. You drive with the windows down, dancing and singing along to a bunch of throwback songs with JJ as if the two of you have been doing this forever.

You pull up to John B’s and park behind his dad’s old van, better known as The Twinkie. When you turn down the music, JJ looks at you with a shake in his head. “Next time, I’m driving.”

“What was wrong with my driving?”

“We’re in the Outer Banks, Sparky, not NASCAR.”

You scoff and follow behind JJ who’s leading the way up John B’s driveway. As you get closer, you smell the smoky scent of a bonfire nearby and eventually hear John B’s laugh mixed in with a female’s. Your smile falters as nerves gather in the pit of your stomach.

“What’s wrong?” JJ asks.

“Nothing,” You say, but JJ easily catches your lie and gives you a knowing look. “What if they don’t like me?”

“Who? Pope and John B? I’m pretty sure they like you more than me even after three years -”

“Not them, you idiot,” You shove him playfully by the shoulder as you two let yourselves inside. “Sarah and Kie.”

“Don’t you go to school with them?”

“Yeah, but we don’t talk,” You say quietly, not wanting them to hear you.

“Hm.”

“What?” JJ shrugs. “Nothing. I just didn’t think you cared about what other people thought.”

“I don’t,” You say quickly. “But they're your best friends. It’s different.”

“You don’t need their approval. You technically were here first.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been replaced,” You try to say it as a joke and even throw a smirk in there.

But JJ stops in his track and looks at you seriously. “No one can replace you. Not even if they tried.”

You open your mouth to respond, but you’re at a loss for words. It’s not a common occurrence that JJ gets all serious on you. Warmth covers you like a blanket and the longer he holds your stare, the weaker your knees become.

“JJ! Is that you?” John B calls out from the backyard.

“Yeah,” JJ yells back. He opens the fridge in John B’s kitchen. “Want a beer?” He offers to you.

You shake your head. “No thanks.”

For the first time, you take in John B’s home. It looks the same as it did three years ago, only a lot messier. The pull out couch looks like its been used recently with blankets and sheets tossed about on it. Empty beer cans and cigarette butts are thrown messily on the coffee tables and the air smells faintly of old marijuana.

JJ leads you out to the back where four people are gathered around a fire. Three out of the four immediately smile when the two of you approach them, but Kie’s eyes narrow and her head tilts with confusion.

Shit, you think.

“You came!” Pope laughs and hops up from his beach chair and embraces you in a hug.

You laugh, not expecting the embrace, but welcoming it all the same. John B’s next, giving you a quick hug and shaking his head.

“I gotta say, I didn’t think you were going to come,” John B says.

“You can thank me for that later,” JJ says jokingly.

“Actually when I heard JJ was coming, I almost changed my mind and stayed home,” You joke and smirk JJ’s way.

“Just like old times,” Pope says, looking between you and the blonde. The banter felt like the yall never separated in the first place.

“Hey, you know Sarah and Kie, right?” John B points to the girls. Sarah stands up to say hi, and eventually Kie follows her, not wanting to look rude, but stays off to the side, keeping her distance.

“Yeah,” You wave awkwardly.

“Hey!” Sarah says sweetly. “I didn’t realize you guys use to all hang out.”

“Y/N grew up down the street,” JJ explains and sips at his beer.

“You want a drink or something?” Pope asks you, not knowing JJ already did.

“No thank you,” You say again.

“You don’t drink?” Kie asks. It was the first thing she’s said to you.

“Not usually,” You say and hold her stare. You try to get a read on her, but she’s had to get a tell on. You can’t tell if she just doesn’t like you or just doesn’t know you. Either way, it makes you uneasy.

“Here, I’ll go grab you a chair,” Pope says and walks to the side of the house to grab another beat up beach chair.

As the night goes on, you feel the tension in your shoulders loosen and your body feel lighter. Most of the night was spent retelling childhood stories the four of you shared. Sarah would laugh at most of them, occasionally rolling her eyes at her boyfriend from the stupid shit he would do, although it sounds like he’s no different to you now.

You talked about the time you and JJ stole a golf cart for a joy ride on Figure Eight, or when you and John B pranked Pope by putting a dead fish in his locker, or how you and John B learned how to play guitar from youtube tutorials.

Midnight came around quickly and exhaustion was slowly taking over your body. It’s been a long day between the cafe flooding, dinner with your grandparents, and now this.

JJ was the first to notice you slowly fading.

“You okay?” He asks you quietly as everyone else is caught up in conversation.

“Yeah,” You say, lazily grinning at him.

“We can leave if you want,” He says.

“You’re not staying?” You ask. It sounded like everyone was planning to spend the night here. And as much as you wanted to, you just didn’t feel comfortable enough yet.

JJ shrugs. “My dad’s out of town tonight. It’ll be nice to have the house to myself.” Before you can say anything, he stands and brushes his hands against his pants. “All right, losers. We’re out of here.”

“Aw, you’re leaving?” Sarah pouts.

“Yeah, I’m beat and Y/N’s my ride home,” JJ says.

You were glad he didn’t call you out for being tired. You didn’t want to look lame in front of everybody, especially Kie.

“Thanks for having me,” You say to everyone. It might have been John B’s house, but it was everyone’s night you intruded on.

John B stands up to hug you. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

You nod. “I won’t. I promise.”

Pope hugs you next. “Text me when you get back safe.”

“I will.”

“Bye!” Sarah waves and Kie exhales a ring of smoke from her blunt.

You wave at them before following JJ back to your car.

“Nuh-uh-uh,” JJ says. You didn’t realize you both walked to the driver’s side.

“What? No.”

JJ nods and holds his hands out for your keys. “I’m not dying tonight.”

“You’ve been drinking and smoking all night,” You say. You didn’t think JJ was drunk or even that high, but you were not going to let a teenager with an ounce of alcohol in his system get behind the wheel. “Next time. For now, hold on to the cupholder.”

JJ sighs dramatically and goes to the other side of the car and hops in the passenger seat.

This time you keep the music quiet, listening to the hum of the radio instead of your phone.

“Take a left,” JJ says.

“JJ, I know where you live. And it’s not left.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

You snicker. “Not in the slightest.”

JJ rolls his eyes. “Just take the left.”

You hold your hands up in surrender and take the left turn. He directs you for a couple more miles until he has you park in front of a 24 hour diner.

“What are we doing here?” You ask.

“I’m in the mood for a milkshake.”

“We just had cake!” You say.

“Come on, Sparky. Show me what that mouth can do,” JJ smirks.

You go to hit him again but he takes off running to the front entrance and pulls the door open. You chase after him, almost running into his back at the front host stand where JJ safely smirks at you in triumph.

“Two please,” He says to the hostess.

The old cranky woman leads you to a booth off to the side next to a window without a word.

A couple minutes later, a waitress walks by and asks if you’re ready to order.

“Yes. One chocolate milkshake and one black and white milkshake,” JJ orders for both of you, already knowing what flavor you’d want.

“And fries, please.” You say. The waitress nods, takes your menus, and walks off. JJ raises his brow at the extra order. “What?” You shrug. “Just showing you what my mouth can do.”

JJ scoffs. “What a tease.”

You playfully kick his shin under the table.

“Did you have fun tonight?” JJ asks.

“Yeah,” You answer. “Felt like old times. The girls are nice too.”

You were about to only mention Sarah, but you didn’t want to cause any issues with Kie. Not yet at least. Maybe she just needed time to warm up to you.

“See? I told you they wouldn’t bite.”

A couple minutes later, the waitress comes back with your milkshakes and fries.

“How’s John B doing? You know, with the whole Big John thing?” You ask delicately, unsure of how JJ would react to you pestering about John B’s business. “I didn’t want to ask and bring the mood down,” You explain yourself although you don’t need to.

JJ shrugs. “He’s in denial I think. Won’t sign a death certificate until he sees a body. He could be worse, though.”

“Yeah,” You say softly. You don’t know what you would do if you were in that situation. In a way you felt lucky that you never knew your dad at all. It would be harder to lose him, knowing who he was.

You take a fry and dip it into your milkshake before taking a bite. This makes JJ freeze and look at you like you have two heads.

“What?” You say with your mouth full.

“I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” You say and give him a look to do it.

JJ reluctantly picks up the fry and dunks it into his milkshake. He looks at the fry questioningly before popping it into his mouth. Somehow the sweetness of the milkshake and the saltiness of the french fry complement each other beautifully and his widen in pleasant surprise.

“Oh wow,” JJ says.

“Told you,” You smirk.

You spend the next hour catching up, trying to fit the last three years into an hour. JJ does most of the talking because you want to know more about what John B, Pope, and JJ have been up to. Your life was so boring and depressing, you didn’t want to bore JJ with the details.

You drive JJ home and talk for a few minutes more when you park. He seems to be procrastinating getting out of the car, but you don’t mind. You could talk to him all night, suddenly not feeling tired anymore.

“All right. I’ll let you get home before the sun rises,” He says and opens the door. He pauses when his feet hit the ground and he looks back at you. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I have to work at the shop, why?”

“Well, there’s a storm coming in. John B and I might go out to surf the surge before it hits. You still surf?”

You scoff. “Do I still surf?”

JJ holds his hands up in surrender. “Just checking. You think you can handle the surge?”

“Let’s not forget who the better surfer is, JJ.”

“I didn’t. It’s still me.”

“You wish.”

“So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Now you have a point to prove. You have to show JJ that you’re still the better surfer.

“I'll see you tomorrow,” You agree.

“Great, it’s a date.” He winks and shuts the door before you can tell him otherwise.

You giggle to yourself as JJ walks up the front yard and stay there until he you see he gets in safely.

You pull out of the driveway, wishing he had asked you out on a real date. One that didn’t involve John B.

Tag list: @super-funky-bisexual @sunsetswithjj @moniamaybank @throwawayfish @poguestyle17 @5am-cigarette @jjpouggues @fly-away-from-here @buckys2thicc

#JJ Imagine #jj fic #jj maybank imagines #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank #jj obx #jj fanfiction #jj maybank imagine #outer banks imagine #outer banks imagines #outer banks fic #jj maybank one shot

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sakura-83 · 3 years

Text

Things from Anne with an e that I feel like writing down

Season 1 Episode 6: Remorse Is the Poison of Life

1. Diana having to run through the dark with nothing but a lantern and quite reasonably tripping. I never really thought about how dark it would actually be out because there’s always light.., somewhere in a modern city. It’s dark but you can usually still see

2. Every time Anne and Diana are separated they end up reunited during some great tragedy and are like “I missed you so much!!” Like yeah that’s great but. Please focus

3. It’s terrifying how easily children could die before modern medicine. They still can die very easily and that’s still terrifying but back then there was no quick fixes or easily accessible help

4. “It’s an old wives tale.” “I might be one but not the other. Evidently one doesn’t have to be either thing to know it.”

5. Anne knowing how to treat croup because all of Mrs. Hammond’s sets of twins had it

6. “I was supposed to be a boy but when I wasn’t, they decided to keep and raise me.” “How extraordinary!”

7. Minnie May almost choking to death on her own phlegm and Anne ultimately saving her because there’s no way the doctor would’ve made it all the way from Soencervale in time

8. “I believe I need a brandy.”

9. It’s really interesting how much of the script comes straight from the book

10. “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are white frosts, aren’t you?”

11. John Blythe’s love for adventure and how Gilbert undoubtedly sees it in Anne

12. Eliza apologizing for how she misjudged Anne

13. “My darling Diana”

14. “I can’t tie myself down to anything so unromantic as dishes at this thrilling moment!”

15. “Even aunt Josephine said she’d like to see you again, and she doesn’t like anyone.”

16. “Shes disinclined to stay home alone since her companion passed away.” “Her companion?” “Her best friend forever and ever.”

17. “Aunt Josephine never married. Neither of them did, they lived with each other their whole lives.” “I’d live with you forever if I could. But I know you’ll leave me the date you get married to some wealthy and handsome gentleman. I hate him already.” “How’s Gilbert?”

18. “It’s very likely Gilbert’s father isn’t going to get well, so it’s more than possible that when Gilbert finally comes back to school… he’ll be an orphan.”

19. The cut from that conversation to John Blythe’s funeral

20. Matthew grabbing Marilla’s arm because he knows how much john meant to her

21. Gilbert watching the snowflakes melt in his hand

22. Marilla’s flashback

23. Young Marilla teasing john

24. Him giving her the same hair ribbon she later gifts to Anne

25. Anne and Gilbert being just like their parents, mirroring their romance and yet achieving the love Marilla and John could never have

26. Anne trying to make Gilbert feel better but making it seem like it’s about her. I often find it hard to articulate my relation to others in a way that does sound like I’m relating and not like I’m making it about me

27. Aunt Josephine on a stroll in the woods

28. Anne’s ranting about her “extensive knowledge of being an orphan”

29. Her calling Gilbert a dumb boy and refusing to think about him

30. “Romance is a pesky business. No sense to be made of it.”

31. “May I enter your humble abode.” About Anne’s run down little shed

32. “I couldn’t be less interested in Gil- that boy!”

33. “Let your ambitions and your aspirations be your guide.” “But I have so many!”

34. “I’ve always wanted to be a bride, but I don’t really expect to be a wife.” “Interesting!” “So you see the conundrum.” “I do. I have the following thoughts to offer. First, you can get married any time in your life, if you choose to do so.” “That’s true-“ “And two, if you choose a career, you can buy a white dress yourself, have it made to order and wear it whenever you want.” “Why didn’t I think of that!? I love that idea! I’m going to be my own woman!” “I’m a proponent for making ones own way in the world.”

35. “If you become a doctor, perhaps you can discover a cure for old age.”

36. Anne calling aunt Josephine her new role model, as well as Marilla and Matthew

37. “I’m going to be the heroine of my own story.”

38. Marilla finding an old letter from John

39. The theme Unrequited Love playing during this scene

40. It’s fascinating when you come to recognize the instrumentals by name, the names actually have a lot of double meanings in relation to the show. Fire in The Town not only plays when there’s an actual fire, but also when Anne’s rumors about prissy set the town ablaze

41. “If the key to a mans heart is through his stomach-“ “Which it is!” “Then, we have to make sure that this is the best shepherds pie that Gilbert has ever had.”

42. Anne wanting a boy to loved for her brain and personality rather than her abilities to keep a home

43. “Don’t you think Gilbert looks even more handsome now that he’s sad?” “I didn’t notice.”

44. I just noticed aunt Josephines mourning clothes, I know she was grieving but I didn’t put two and two together

45. “Take the boy the godforsaken pie before I suffer a mental collapse.”

46. Anne rambling excitedly about Jane Eyre.

47. Anne almost spoiling the book, just like Gertrude used to do

48. Anne suddenly breaking down over death. I’ve done that before, far more frequently in middle school when I realized that we all die someday

49. “It must be awful beyond measure to lose someone that you love deeply. In a split second, a heartbeat, they’re gone forever… and there is nothing you can do to change it or bring them back…”

50. “Anne? You’re crying on the potatoes.”

51. “There’s nothing wrong with saying ‘I’m sorry for your loss’, Ruby. And I’m going to say it because I am.” “You’re just going to make it worse if you say that. His father!! Just died!!!” “That’s what people say when someone dies.” “I don’t want you to upset him.” “He’s already upset because his father just died!”

52. “We hope you like shepherds pie.” “Everyone LIKES shepherds pie 😡. We hope it’s a comfort to you, Gilbert.🥰”

53. Anne telling “but I would make a terrible wife!” And running out.

54. Matthew offering to help Gilbert get his farm back in order

55. Gilbert not wanting to be a farmer but having an entire farm shoved off on him when his only family does, despite being… 14 at most? 15 maybe?

56. Matthew losing all his crops when the Dal Marie sank

57. Billy wanting Gilbert back to control the “ugly orphan” and Gilbert defending Anne

58. “She’s smart, deal with it.”

59. Gilbert telling billy to read a book for once

60. “I’ll give you a tip, okay? I’m not your bud. And if you ever hassle Anne again, you’ll regret it.”

61. “What’s your problem?” “Ask me that again. No, seriously. Go ahead.” “Why you gotta be like that?” “Ask me!” “…what’s your problem?”

62. Gilbert throwing his stuff at billy to preoccupy his hands and THEN punching him straight in his stupid face

63. The boys are fighting!!!! And rolling around in the snow too that’s kind of funny looking

64. Gilbert beating billy in that fight

65. Marilla telling Gilbert about his father

66. All of Gilbert’s siblings died

67. Gilbert’s father taking him to Alberta before he died, where Gilbert was born

68. “You resemble him in many ways.”

69. “He asked you to go?” I’ll always be grateful to him for thinking I’d be brave enough. Obligation… can be a prison.”

70. Anne trying to write a letter to Gilbert apologizing for what she said

71. Anne visiting aunt Josephine for advice and accidentally interrupting her grieving

72. “Emotion is rarely convenient and often intolerable, but I find at the moment that I don’t mind it.”

73. “Grief is the price you pay for live, you see. So it’s alright.”

74. “You and I are not the marrying kind.” “Ah, but I was, in my way. And we had a full and wonderful life together, and I gave no regrets. That’s all you really have to decide Anne, to live a life without regrets.”

75. Anne kissing aunt Josephine on the cheek and running off to live said life

76. No Matthew don’t make that loan deal!!!

77. Anne sprinting to Gilbert’s house bit for the first time of many to come, being too late to reach him.

#anne with an e #renew awae #awae #anne shirley cuthbert #gilbert blythe #josephine barry #marilla cuthbert #mathew cuthbert #diana barry

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hope-grace-serenity · 3 years

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In Defense of the Deputy: Morals and Ethics in Far Cry 5

The narratives of recent Far Cry installments have been framed in a way that make the player question whether or not they’re truly playing as the “good guy.” In Far Cry 3, Jason slowly embraces the violent lifestyle on Rook Island, gradually finding the killing to be a fun power trip instead of the horrifying reality that it is. In Far Cry 4, Ajay topples a ruthless dictator, only to replace him with a revolutionary that is either a religious extremist or a person who has children kidnapped in order to make them into soldiers/slaves. In Far Cry 5, the Deputy goes up against a professed prophet in an attempt to subdue him and his cult, only to find in the end that the prophet was right about the end of the world. It is logical to think that if the Deputy would have just left the cult well enough alone, then that would have been the right choice, as it would have avoided the war between Eden’s Gate and the rest of Hope County, as possibly the Collapse itself. However, there is a different way to view it.

The purpose of this post is to convey that Joseph being accurate regarding the Collapse does not necessarily mean that avoiding confrontation with Eden’s Gate or joining them would have been the “right” thing to do. In fact, it will suggest the opposite: that the Deputy has a moral and ethical obligation to fight *against* Eden’s Gate and that the actions of the cult are firmly wrong despite the Collapse happening. While we as players can certainly feel empathy for the Seeds, their actions within the game make them the clear villains in this scenario, in my opinion. The Deputy deserves no blame for attempting to subdue the cult, and I will explain why by focusing on both in-universe rationale and looking at the narrative from a broader perspective.

The Warrant

First, we need to examine the idea of morality and ethics. Morality refers to a person’s principles of right and wrong--this is something that can be influenced by a person’s culture, religion, family, experiences, etc. Ethics refers to rules of conduct given by some kind of external source. In Far Cry 5, the protagonist is a law enforcement official with an ethical obligation to uphold the law and confront those who break it. Furthermore, from the perspective of a 21st century American--which we can assume the Deputy is, based on the setting of the game--Eden’s Gate commits several acts that cause harm and remove the personal agency of others, which provides the Deputy with a moral motivation for stopping them, as opposed to solely an ethical one.

An arrest warrant is made for Joseph Seed due to suspicion of kidnapping with an intent to harm. The Deputy choosing not to go through with the arrest would be bad from both a moral and ethical perspective. “Kidnapping with an intent to harm” is a serious charge, and can be a matter of life or death for the victim. Imagine if you were the parent or sibling of the kidnapping victim, and you found out that the law enforcement officials chose not to go through with the arrest of the suspect because they were afraid of rocking the boat. If that information was made public, the law enforcement officials would be rightly criticized for not doing their jobs, and for prioritizing their own desire for convenience over bringing justice to the victim. By arresting Joseph Seed, the Deputy made the moral and ethical decision.

As we see from the main game, the “suspicions” listed in the arrest warrant are later proven to be correct. Alex is killed, and his body is mutilated and put on public display as a warning. Hannah is tortured physically and psychologically, and is also killed due to her forced participation in Jacob’s trials. Joseph and several members of Eden’s Gate knew that they kidnapped the film crew. They knew in advance that Law Enforcement was coming. So, how do they decide to handle this? In a way befitting for characters who are meant to be viewed as villains.

Before the Reaping

Before we get into what the Deputy actually sees in-game, one thing needs to be made clear: Eden’s Gate always had an underlying darkness surrounding them. Regardless of what they looked like on the surface, they were never some peaceful hippie commune that was minding its own business before the Deputy came along. They’ve been committing crimes and getting away with them for years. They didn’t suddenly snap once the Deputy arrived--the Deputy’s arrival simply peeled back and revealed what was already there.

We know from the “Grieving Note” that Angels have been with Eden’s Gate for several years, longer than the current Faith has been with the group. Angels are humans who are exposed to an extreme amount of the Bliss drug, which causes them to lose their capacity for human thought and essentially act as a literal mindless follower. Their loss of identity and individuality is furthered by Eden’s Gate shaving the heads of the Angels and surgically removing their ability to speak. They act as slave labor--described as "beasts of burden"--and are fed dog food and garbage. The idea of becoming an angel is used as a threat to fellow cultists in the “Cult Note” in the King’s Hot Springs Hotel. The fact that Eden's Gate creates and condones the existence of these Angels is truly disturbing from a moral perspective, due to the inherent exploitation and dehumanization. When Angels die, their bodies are tossed in a pit of “boiling muck” in Horned Serpent Cave to disintegrate.

Angels aren’t the only ones thrown in the pit to disintegrate: Joseph threw the body of Lana, a previous Faith, in there as well, despite being told by him that she was “special.” There is a reason the writers chose to highlight that the bodies were disposed of in here, as opposed to the cult simply burying them. Bodies are disintegrated if you want to hide evidence, and by tossing the bodies in a location with properties dangerous enough to require a bio-hazard sign, any crimes are easily covered up. We don’t find the bodies of Selena or the other previous Faiths who were "used up and thrown away" by Joseph, but considering there are hints that point to foul play (disintegration of Lana’s body, Megan leaving out of fear of what Joseph could do after seeing that there was a new Faith, the way the position itself is dehumanized, the fact that Joseph has a designated corpse disposal spot in the first place, etc.) and absolutely zero evidence towards any kind of alternate fate for the previous Faiths, it’s easy to put two and two together and conclude that the previous Faiths met a grisly fate that was covered up as well.

Eden’s Gate was also involved in animal abuse through the creation of Judges, which were unleashed after the reaping. These animals were kidnapped and forcibly exposed to an obscene amount of the Bliss drug, which purposely causes them to act like rabid killers in the service of Eden’s Gate. According to NPCs, they were trained to hunt humans.

Let’s also not forget that Joseph personally gorged a guy’s eyes out for being a traitor. If the developers didn’t want us to view Joseph as someone who was capable of doing that, then they would have removed it from the introductory video, but they didn’t. Also, the fact that Eden’s Gate has been planning for the Reaping for a while now shows that this group had the intent to launch a large-scale attack from before the Deputy even arrived at the compound.

And last but certainly not least, YEARS before the events of FC5, Jacob sent the Cook to kidnap Jess’s family. The Cook starved the family for days before torturing the parents and children by playing sick mind games and feeding the parents' flesh to their children. After all their toes were cut off, the parents were set on fire in front of their kids. The fact that this happened years ago, and this Cook is still with the group, is quite telling and reveals a lot about the morality and priorities of Eden’s Gate. If they wanted to get rid of him, they would have.

So as we can see, Eden’s Gate has no moral high ground to stand on at the start of the game. Not only is Joseph guilty of the crime he is accused of, but he and his organization are guilty of so much more, and have been for years. These actions committed by Eden’s Gate violate numerous laws and are morally wrong, as they bring severe harm to others and/or forcibly remove another’s personal agency for the convenience of the cult. The Deputy uncovers all of this throughout the course of the game.

During the Reaping

Knowledge of Eden’s Gate’s past crimes would be reason enough to take down this cult, but the Deputy also sees the current horrors firsthand. During the Reaping, cultists kidnap, torture, mutilate, and murder numerous unwilling participants. They steal supplies and were willing to kidnap a beloved pet dog in order to perform experiments on him and turn the poor dog into a savage killer, after killing his owners. Defaced corpses are decorated and strung up as warnings. Some citizens of Hope County are fed to Judges, while others are turned into Angels or are forced to leap off a giant statue. If someone doesn’t convert to the religion of Eden’s Gate, then they are either tortured or drugged until they give in, or murdered.

The Deputy has zero incentive to walk away from this conflict. Why would they? As a deputy of Hope County, they have a moral and ethical obligation to protect the county’s citizens, and those citizens are under attack by Eden’s Gate. Eden’s Gate are the aggressors in this scenario. *They* are the ones who are kidnapping, murdering, torturing, and brainwashing the Hope County citizens. As far as the Deputy is aware at the beginning of the game, they are the only remaining police officer and only person in a position of authority to fight against the cult. It is their responsibility to fight against the people causing grievous harm to the county.

Throughout the game, the Deputy’s personal encounters with the heralds further reinforce the idea that Eden’s Gate is dangerous and beyond reason. While confessions can and should be voluntary, John does not approach it in that way. John kidnaps, terrorizes, and tortures the hardened Joey Hudson to the point of tears, and brings the Deputy to his torture dungeon where he once pried confessions under duress from prior individuals of the county. He kidnapped the Deputy in order to forcibly baptize them to the point where they might have drowned without Joseph’s interference, and captures them in order to make them confess, using the presence of Hudson as leverage (Hudson’s misery was also used as incentive on the video to draw the Deputy to the Holland region). He lures the Deputy to the church in the same way (by kidnapping their friends) and then permanently modifies their body against their will. Despite his proclaimed desire to have the Deputy atone, John also expresses desire to see the Deputy dead on occasion, such as after they destroy his sign.

While it might be easier for the player to sympathize with John due to his backstory and dynamic with Joseph, from the Deputy’s in-universe perspective, his instability represents a very real, tangible threat not only to them, but to the people of Hope County as a whole. At every turn, John has either imposed his will onto the Deputy by removing opportunities for agency and/or harming others. The Deputy owes John nothing. Any "choice" he gives of saying "Yes" is undermined by the massive amount of strings attached. It is difficult to envision a reason why the Deputy would decide to give into John’s philosophy, aside from faking it in order to protect their allies. This is a failing on John's part, not the Deputy.

Like John, Faith also expresses a desire for the Deputy to give in to Eden's Gate. But unlike John, she initially appears to the Deputy in a more pacifistic, less confrontational way. Despite this, the Deputy is still able to see her darker side due to her views on the Angels and fate of the unfortunate souls who walk the path whipping themselves and take a literal leap off of the statue of Joseph. Furthermore, she overrides the Deputy’s agency through the use of Bliss, which drastically warps one’s perception of reality. The Bliss that she now controls makes the horrific creation of Angels possible, and this Bliss is also used during baptisms, which muddles the issue of personal agency and consent to John’s process in addition to her own conversion process. The dangers of the Bliss and how it affects one’s thought process become highlighted in the Henbane region, and letters, voicemails, and NPC chatter show that Faith is not one to be trifled with. This comes to a head when Faith brainwashes the Sheriff and manipulates the Marshall into killing Virgil before killing himself. While it’s easy to have sympathy for Faith and her experiences, from the Deputy’s perspective, Faith is still a potential danger, which is why they step back when she leaned toward them during her death scene.

Jacob too removes the Deputy’s personal agency by literally brainwashing them and turning them into a tool that he can command, which eventually results in the Deputy being forced to kill a friend. He forced captives into competing against each other in life or death trials. He keeps the Deputy in a cage with a dead body and feeds them “mystery meat” after seven days of starving them while telling them a story about how he cannibalized his friend. The Judges are his brainchild that he sends to attack and kill others. Like John, Jacob also kidnapped and tortured a fellow police officer, to the point where they act like a slave to Jacob’s whims. Jacob has not done anything other than convincing the Deputy that he is a threat.

It is not the Deputy's job to fix the Seeds' personal issues--it's their job to protect Hope County. Throughout their journey, the Deputy sees various atrocities being committed, both to strangers and to themselves and the people they care about. There is zero reason for the Deputy to genuinely give in to the Seeds and join Eden's Gate, considering the horrible way they were treated and how they saw others being treated.

Joseph and the Voice

The Deputy’s presence did not *force* Eden’s Gate to start the Reaping. *Joseph* was the one to initiate it as a reaction to the Deputy’s presence, and all of Eden’s Gate followed him lockstep. When given the opportunity to finally confront and arrest the man responsible or walk away, it almost feels laughable that it’s even a choice at this point.

As leader of Eden’s Gate, Joseph oversees all parts of the Project. The buck stops with him. If he had any issues with Faith’s Angels, or Jacob’s trials, or John’s torture, he could have and would have said something--such as when he intervenes during the baptism--but he doesn’t. Because it furthers the goal of the Project, he doesn’t see any issue with these actions and feels they are justified.

Joseph’s vision of the Collapse coming true doesn’t mean that his actions throughout the game have greater inherent morality than the Deputy. It just means that he’s right about the Collapse. Regarding the Reaping, I do not believe that Joseph was motivated by a sense of cruelty, but that doesn’t change how many of the actions he participated in and oversaw *were* cruel. In real life, we see various examples of some people (not just in religious institutions, but in positions of authority in general) who commit harmful acts for the sake of a perceived “greater good.” And many of those people genuinely believe in what they are doing, believe they are in the right. But that doesn’t mean they actually are.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room: the Voice. If the Voice of God supports Joseph, then surely the deputy is automatically the “bad guy” for opposing him, right?

Wrong.

First, we have to be willing to admit that we know next to nothing about the Voice. The only things we know about it is what is conveyed to us by Joseph. We do not know the exact wording of what the Voice says, the level of detail it gives him regarding expectations (if any), or even what it is. Is it the voice of God? Satan? A real angel? Some kind of eldritch entity from another dimension? How accurate is Joseph's reiteration or interpretation? Sometimes it seems to directly tell Joseph things (hence the title, “the Voice”), other times it shows him visions. Clearly, there is some kind of supernatural component, as it allows Joseph to see the future, but since we don’t know much about it specifically, we can’t automatically assume or attribute inherent benevolence or morality to it.

Second, it’s entirely possible for a genuine prophet of God (assuming the Voice does indeed belong to a benevolent creator), or those who have/had God’s favor, to engage in morally questionable behavior, both in the eyes of God and/or in the eyes of 21st century readers. While the Project at Eden’s Gate is its own distinct religion, it takes most of its cues from Christianity, both in terms of practices and beliefs. In the Bible, King David had a man murdered so he could sleep with that man’s wife. Jonah wanted the entire population of a city to be killed off instead of having them repent. Jacob (the Biblical figure) deceives his father into giving him a birthright that belonged to his brother, and shows blatant favoritism to one son which ends up causing a lot of internal strife within the family. It’s fully within the realm of possibility that Joseph’s actions are not meant to be endorsed, either by the Voice itself or by the narrative in a broader sense.

In New Dawn, Joseph alludes to his own personal failings by saying, “My soul has become a cancer. I am a monster. I only spread suffering and death in the name of God.” The death of his son and the destruction of New Eden act as a moment of awakening for Joseph, as he finally realizes the harsh reality of his actions and how they affect others. He then expresses a desire for death and says, “There is only the justice of God’s hand.” The implication of “justice” being done indicates that the Voice (“God”) would not be happy with some of the actions that Joseph did. So while Joseph’s actions in FC5 were done with the intent of serving the Voice, his execution of these ideas was something that Joseph feels God would not like, as his actions spread death and suffering.

And thirdly, we have to remember that the Deputy and the player are viewing the idea of morality from the perspective of a 21st century human. Let’s say that, hypothetically, the Voice specifically instructed and condoned the erasure of free will/murders/kidnappings/etc. for whatever reason, and by enacting them, Joseph and Eden’s Gate were “just following orders.” Does this absolve Joseph and Eden's Gate of responsibility? No. Willing participation in the crimes committed, even if it wasn’t “their idea,” can still have legal consequences and can still be viewed as “bad” from a moral perspective because of the results of those actions.

The Collapse

It has been discussed elsewhere (on this site and in outside articles/discussions about the game) that the actions of the deputy correspond with the role of the Lamb in Revelations, and by breaking the seals, the Deputy’s actions supernaturally trigger the Collapse. This interpretation is fairly popular, and is one I personally support. However, I do not feel as though this interpretation lessens the morality of the Deputy's actions. Their decision to fight the Seeds is still the right one, regardless of whether or not their actions resulted in some kind of cosmic game of dominos.

First off, when the Deputy is attempting to take down the Seeds and protect the people of Hope County, they are not doing this with the intent of playing a role in a cosmic prophecy that will result in the death of millions. They’re looking at the situation from a human perspective, and acting accordingly and sensibly. The Seeds, on the other hand, were willingly harming innocents both before and during the Reaping.

Second, if there's a need to assign blame to a human for starting the Collapse (and I personally don't think there needs to be), it would be the Seeds, not the Deputy. The Sheriff and the deputies wouldn’t have arrived with the arrest warrant if the Seeds were not kidnapping and doing other illegal actions.

And thirdly, if one does attribute blame of the Collapse to the Deputy, then one also must attribute the birth of the new world to them as well. Following along with the idea that the events of FC5 are a fulfillment of Revelations, then the Collapse is ultimately viewed as a Good Thing within in the context of the Book of Revelations, even if the player might not personally share the sentiment. The Book of Revelations describes how the new world that is supposed to emerge from the ashes of the old is meant to be much better than the one before. And if we look at the world of New Dawn--and I’m going to copy and paste something I wrote previously here---Nature is allowed to flourish, people work together and support each other in a tight community, all the social ills mentioned in the Book of Joseph (and by the characters in-game) no longer exist. The only “snakes in the garden” would be the Highwaymen, and they are abolished by the Captain, who Joseph prophesizes to be some kind of Messiah-like figure. The final scene of New Dawn is one of hope, where the characters talk about building a better future. The way Joseph and Ethan’s storyline ends also connects to the whole idea of breaking away from the past and moving forward. If one believes that the Deputy is responsible for the Collapse, then this new world shown in New Dawn and the context of Revelations complicates the idea of viewing the Deputy's actions as being inherently bad.

Some might also argue that the Deputy has responsibility for not taking Joseph's warnings more seriously. Why though? Why should the Deputy attribute more credibility to Joseph's claims than, say, those of Marshall Applewhite or David Koresh? As players who know the ending, it’s easy for us to say that the Deputy should have listened to Joseph's warning about the Collapse, but there’s no in-universe rationale for the Deputy to do so. Issues of belief aside, Eden’s Gate’s actions alone are enough to paint an extremely negative picture of the group and would be enough to make any regular person not want to associate with them.

Under the framework of the Revelations prophecy being the intended interpretation of the game events though, I personally don't feel that any character "deserves" blame for the Collapse happening, not even the Seeds. I blame the Seeds for what they do to people within the game and before the events of FC5. And my perception of the Deputy is based on what we see in the game as well. But again, the Revelations prophecy idea is simply one way to view the game. Regardless of whether or not this interpretation is the correct one, the deputy still has the moral high ground in their fight against the Seeds.

Conclusion

Joseph being right about the Collapse does not mean that his (and by extension, Eden’s Gate’s) actions during FC5 were justified, and the Deputy should not be blamed for fighting against them. Just as the Deputy made a choice to arrest Joseph, Joseph made the choice to react in the worst way possible with the Reaping. Eden’s Gate were the aggressors who were kidnapping, torturing, and murdering people throughout the county. The Deputy fights against Eden’s Gate as a direct result of *Eden's Gate's* actions. The Deputy deserves no blame or guilt for killing the Seeds and destroying their bases of operations, as they reacted in a logical way based on the quality of information they had at the time.

In New Dawn, the Deputy expresses an extreme amount of guilt, which transforms them into the Judge. This guilt is misplaced and should be attributed to the other resident of the bunker, which is something Joseph himself even alludes to during his final speech in New Dawn when he criticizes his own actions. If Eden’s Gate did not start attacking the people of Hope County, the bunkers would still be standing, and the Seeds and many other cultists would still be alive. But they did, so they’re not.

While I adore all four of the Seeds as characters and have varying degrees of sympathy for them, they are firmly villains within the context of the story due to their actions. The deputy is not a bad guy for trying to stop them. The fact the Seeds sided with a guy who kidnapped and starved a family, then fed the parents' flesh to their children while playing “this little piggy” with the parents’ toes, and then murdered said parents in front of their children should speak for itself.

TL;DR: The deputy’s decision to confront Joseph instead of walking away was the right one.

#far cry 5 #fc5 #joseph seed #jacob seed #faith seed #john seed #the junior deputy #long post #tw: canon typical violence #far cry 5 meta #fc5 meta #far cry #i do love all these characters #just to be perfectly clear lol #far cry meta

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karmaischerryred · 4 years

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🍒 NSFW 18+

🍒 Dazai Osamu from Bungou Stray Dogs

🍒 x Fem Reader

🍒 A/N: Hello! This would be my first time posting my work here. I create fan fiction on a different website but I'm linking all my R-rated chapters or one-shots here; also for y'all to enjoy, to whoever finds this.

🍒 Background:

The story I published on the other website is a book of Fem Reader x Dazai One Shots of them doing ordinary (and sometimes not-so-ordinary) things a couple would do. It's kind of parallel to the events happening in BSD, but they're not in chronological order. Every six short stories, I'll be uploading an NSFW 18+ one, and this is the first. Reader's character is consistent all throughout the stories.

🍒 My inbox is always open for suggestions, though I can't promise fast productivity because I have classes :) Enjoy! xx

Y/n took another sip from her wine.

She grimaced as she swallowed the warm liquor, disliking the smell. Normally, she'd prefer champagne over this, but she had associated the sparkling drink with parties and celebration.

And nothing was worth celebrating about tonight.

Under the dark blue glow, Y/n sat on the couch overlooking Yokohama's city skyline. The clock reading almost forty-five minutes past midnight.

She pulled her silk robe tighter to her body. Even with the air-condition off, the breeze at an hour like this still managed to make her chilly. The alcohol was only doing so little to heat up her insides, and her uneasiness wasn't helping either.

Dazai had left her a message earlier that afternoon that he'd be home late. And that could only mean the agency had assigned him a job that so much required his ability; a job that was most likely dangerous.

Y/n trusted in his ability, and himself even without them. But she still couldn't help but worry about him at times like these. She didn't want to see him suffer terrible injuries, or at worst, actually die.

A sudden clicking from the door lock fortunately snapped her out of her building worries.

"You're awake."

Y/n placed her wine glass on the small side table, not turning to look at him. Instead, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back on top of the sofa's backrest, letting out a sigh of relief. "You know I choose to wait for you to come home."

Dazai walked towards her. "Ah, I wish you wouldn't. I would always come home to you no matter what."

She felt Dazai's arms rest on both sides near her head. Opening her eyes, she was greeted by her smiling boyfriend. His eyes glinted in reflection of the city lights right outside the big floor to ceiling windows in front of them. He looked extremely handsome under the teasing of the darkness.

How did she get so lucky?

He kissed her forehead, taking the time to inhale her scent, before making his way to lay on her lap. "Seriously, you should rest. I'll be busy often so you can't keep tiring yourself."

Y/n stroked his dark, perfect hair. "What was the task tonight?"

Dazai unconsciously drew circles on her thighs, the tip of his cold fingertips leaving goosebump on Y/n's already freezing skin. "Just had to er, capture a weretiger."

"The tiger that's been on the news?"

"That's the one."

"Why did they send you after it?"

"Him," he corrected. "The weretiger's an orphan's ability even he didn't know about. Poor boy scared everyone away at the orphanage, even himself."

Y/n let him continue. He might not proudly announce or show it, but she knew that he was growing to love his work.

The side that saves people.

He sat up and stretched. "Not even a scratch on me. Okay, Y/n? There's nothing to worry about."

She hugged him by the neck and kissed him right on his jawline, the most convenient place to land a kiss considering their height difference.

"Wait." He chuckled, standing up and pulling Y/n with him. "The job was done in a warehouse, I should probably clean up."

"All right." Y/n yawned and walked towards their bedroom. "I'll head in first while you go take a shower, you do smell like dust."

Y/n hung her robe by the door before sinking to relax on her side of the bed. She was grateful Dazai had been coming home more often recently. He'd sometimes choose to stay in the agency's dorm when there was too much work or when he felt like he was being closely observed by an enemy of some sort.

She closed her eyes, still trying to keep herself awake until Dazai joins her.

The door to the room swung open and she could hear his footsteps drawing closer. Dazai likewise found himself under the cool, white sheets and spooned Y/n, kissing her on the cheek while doing so.

"Y/n, you're hot."

"Thanks," Y/n mumbled sleepily.

He smirked. "Of course you are, but I meant your body temperature, kitten. Are you sick?"

She shook her head. "I maybe had too much to drink."

"You didn't have work to take home?"

"I drank while working until you arrived," she admitted. "It helps keep myself in check."

Dazai sighed. "How many times do I have to tell you not to brood so much."

Before Y/n could answer, she felt him lightly kiss her neck, his breath teasing the shell of her ear— her weakness.

"D- Dazai," y/n warned, doing her best to suppress a moan. "Aren't you tired from the job?"

She tried to control her breathing as she felt him go hard against her butt.

"I'm not tired," he assured, pulling her closer to him by the arm as his lips continued to plant soft kisses on her neck. "Turn around."

Y/n was sure her cheeks were flustered red by now. Good thing it was a little dark, with only the glow coming from outside the windows as their source of light. She turned to face him, now laying face to face.

He cupped her face with both hands. "You're too cute when you worry, but I'm sure you stress yourself enough at your internship."

She closed her hand around one of his and kissed it by the palm. "I don't mind. I want to wait for you."

Dazai smirked. "Then we must do something to relieve that stress, no?"

"W-Wha—? Dazai!"

In one swift movement, Dazai was on top of her, pinning her down with both hands at the side of her head.

"You're always so stubborn, Y/n." Dazai's lips hovered above hers. "But it's my turn now."

His lips pushed hard against hers, Y/n struggling to suppress a smile. Dazai rarely asked for them to do 'it' and like today, he'd usually find a way to pin the need on her benefit.

"You're playing hard to get, huh?" He kissed the area between her breasts, his hand finding its way underneath her tank top.

"Why can't you ask for this like a normal person?" Y/n moaned as he continued to play with her breasts.

He hummed in amusement, now tracing a finger from her nipple down to the hem of her pajama shorts. "Because I'm not a normal person, love."

Y/n held her breath as Dazai's fingers circled around her clit.

"So I'm going to make you ask for it." He kissed her on the forehead and pushed a finger inside her without warning.

On instinct, Y/n gasped and closed her eyes at the sensation. He was too good with his hands that even though she wasn't an ability user, she could suddenly almost understand how it would feel like to be nullified by his touch.

"No." He grabbed her gently by the jaw with his free hand, making her open her eyes. "Look at me."

"Dazai..." was all Y/n could muster through her moans as he continued to flick his finger from inside, and that's only one. She barely held his gaze as her own eyes would threaten to retreat at the back of her head.

"Yes?" He stopped abruptly.

Before she could stop herself, Y/n screamed out, "No!" And immediately avoided his gaze.

Ugh.

"You were saying something?" Dazai started again, now going for slow thrusts with the same finger. It was sliding in and out easily now that her body had given in to him, betraying her mind.

"Now that you started it," she seethed. "Please."

Even though he was still climbing back to the quicker tempo he had earlier, Y/n squeezed his free left wrist, signaling to him that she was close.

Dazai's love for control flashed over his dark orbs, he loved it even more when it involved applying it to Y/n in bed. "Please, what?"

He pushed another finger inside her, his other hand teasing Y/n's bottom lip before inserting two twin fingers into her mouth.

Y/n sucked on them to conceal her moans. She was reaching a different kind of high compared to how close she was a few seconds ago.

"F-Fuck—" Y/n struggled to talk now that her breathing has quickened, mimicking the pace of Dazai's fingers, while also still trying her best not to break their gaze.

Her body went rigid as she clenched around him, her fluids slipping past his fingers and onto the bed sheets.

Dazai took his fingers out of her mouth and covered it to muffle what was almost a scream from her, while his other hand continued to work their magic from below. His weight now slightly pinned half of her body down as she squirmed, overcoming her orgasm.

Once she was done, he retrieved his fingers and stretched them out with a smirk on his face, admiring the fluid dripping from them. "Can you talk properly now?"

Tears were forming at the corners of Y/n's eyes. She was already too sensitive down there, but she wanted more of him.

It could only get better than this.

"Please," she said with a shaky breath. "Fuck me."

"I love seeing you helpless like this." Dazai pulled out his member and stroked the tip with the wetness from his fingers. "Your wish is my command."

He grabbed a pillow and placed it underneath her butt to elevate the lower part her body, since she was smaller and shorter than he was.

They kissed again as he thrust inside, slowly but hard.

Y/n gasped into his mouth but he was quick to claim it again. His elbows resting at her sides, barely pulling out of her as he continued to stroke deeper and deeper into her insides.

She grabbed his hair as they continued to make out, fortunately stifling their moans for their neighbors not to hear. Every stroke made her eyes water up more as she reached for her second orgasm.

"Dazai," Y/n whispered in between kisses. "Faster."

He pulled away and grinned.

"Good girl." He pressed his lips on hers before rising to support his weight with his hands. "Safe word if it hurts, okay?"

Y/n nodded as he picked up the pace of his thrusts. She tried to grab at the pillow underneath her head, but Dazai reached for her hand and held on to it instead.

No sound came out of her mouth as she struggled to regain proper breathing, even though she was very near screaming her brains out. Dazai, too, was close to reaching his peak with his own moans muffled on to his shoulder.

She couldn't feel anything else with the rest of her body except for the part that's being pleasured greatly down there. She was so wet she could hear the sound liquid with every stroke, together with the sound of skin slapping against each other.

She squeezed his hand to signal him again. "Dazai, fuck!"

"Me too," he said, focused. "Fuck, I love it when you're loud."

"Cum in me."

"What?" He started to thrust rougher at the same fast-paced jolts. It was starting to hurt but it turned her on even more.

And he knew this. He brought a hand up to her clit and started rubbing them.

"It's safe today," Y/n tried to catch her breath. She was dangerously close now that Dazai had done his final trick.

Her back arched as she arrived at her second orgasm, a bit more intense than the first one. She could feel Dazai empty himself into her, his jaw clenched as he slowed down.

He collapsed into her arms, whimpering in satisfaction. "You feel so good, Y/n."

She was too breathless to speak, her legs were shaking and she was throbbing down there. Y/n was in ecstasy, but the exhaustion came crashing down quickly to her.

"I'll go get you water." Dazai stood up and took a box of tissues from the dresser to clean his member off before tucking it back inside his boxers. He then left the room.

He came back with a glass of water, and assisted Y/n to sit up.

She took the glass gratefully and began chugging down the water. She then placed the glass on the bedside table once she was done, trying to get her breathing right.

Both of them shared a smile as Dazai tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "You know I fucking love you, right?"

Y/n nodded. "And you love fucking me."

#dazai osamu #dazai smut #dazai x reader #bsd dazai #dazai scenarios #bsd smut

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blackwoolncrown · 3 years

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The defining feature of conversation is the expectation of a response. It would just be a monologue without one. In person, or on the phone, those responses come astoundingly quickly: After one person has spoken, the other replies in an average of just 200 milliseconds.

In recent decades, written communication has caught up—or at least come as close as it’s likely to get to mimicking the speed of regular conversation (until they implant thought-to-text microchips in our brains). It takes more than 200 milliseconds to compose a text, but it’s not called “instant” messaging for nothing: There is an understanding that any message you send can be replied to more or less immediately.

But there is also an understanding that you don’t have to reply to any message you receive immediately. As much as these communication tools are designed to be instant, they are also easily ignored. And ignore them we do. Texts go unanswered for hours or days, emails sit in inboxes for so long that “Sorry for the delayed response” has gone from earnest apology to punchline.

People don’t need fancy technology to ignore each other, of course: It takes just as little effort to avoid responding to a letter, or a voicemail, or not to answer the door when the Girl Scouts come knocking. As Naomi Baron, a linguist at American University who studies language and technology, puts it, “We’ve dissed people in lots of formats before.” But what’s different now, she says, is that “media that are in principle asynchronous increasingly function as if they are synchronous.”

The result is the sense that everyone could get back to you immediately, if they wanted to—and the anxiety that follows when they don’t. But the paradox of this age of communication is that this anxiety is the price of convenience. People are happy to make the trade to gain the ability to respond whenever they feel like it.

While you may know, rationally, that there are plenty of good reasons for someone not to respond to a text or an email—they’re busy, they haven’t seen the message yet, they’re thinking about what they want to say—it doesn’t always feel that way in a society where everyone seems to be on their smartphone all the time. A Pew survey found that 90 percent of cellphone owners “frequently” carry their phone with them, and 76 percent say they turn their phone off “rarely” or “never.” In one small 2015 study, young adults checked their phones an average of 85 times a day. Combine that with the increasing social acceptability of using your smartphone when you’re with other people, and it’s reasonable to expect that it probably doesn’t take that long for a recipient to see any given message.

“You create for people an environment where they feel as though they could be responded to instantaneously, and then people don’t do that. And that just has anxiety all over it,” says Sherry Turkle, the director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It’s anxiety-inducing because written communication is now designed to mimic conversation—but only when it comes to timing. It allows for a fast back-and-forth dialogue, but without any of the additional context of body language, facial expression, and intonation. It’s harder, for example, to tell that someone found your word choice off-putting, and thus to correct it in real-time, or try to explain yourself better. When someone’s in front of you, “you do get to see the shadow of your words across someone else’s face,” Turkle says.

In last month’s viral New Yorker short story “Cat Person,” a young woman embarks on a failed romantic relationship with a man she meets at the movie theater where she works. They only go on one date in the story; they get to know each other primarily over text. When the affair ends messily, it reveals not only how the bubble of romantic expectations can be popped by reality’s needle, but also how weak digital communication is as a scaffolding on which to build an understanding of another person.

In an interview, the story’s author, Kristen Roupenian, said the piece was inspired by “the strange and flimsy evidence we use to judge the contextless people we meet outside our existing social networks, whether online or off.” Indeed, even for the people we already know, we increasingly rely on contextless forms of communication. This puts an unusually large burden on the words themselves (and maybe some emojis) to convey what is meant. And each message, and each pause in between messages, takes on outsize importance.

“Text messages become marks on rocks to be analyzed and sweated over,” Turkle says.

It’s not always easy to figure out what someone meant to convey by using a certain emoji, or by waiting three days to text you back. Different people have different ideas about how long it’s appropriate to wait to respond. As Deborah Tannen, a linguist at Georgetown University, wrote in The Atlantic, the signals that are sent by how people communicate online—the “metamessages” that accompany the literal messages—can easily be misinterpreted:

Human beings are always in the business of making meaning and interpreting meaning. Because there are options to choose from when sending a message, like which platform to use and how to use it, we see meaning in the choice that was made. But because the technologies, and the conventions for using them, are so new and are changing so fast, even close friends and relatives have differing ideas about how they should be used. And because metamessages are implied rather than stated, they can be misinterpreted or missed entirely.

This metamessage opacity spawns thousands of other text messages a year, as people enlist their friends to help interpret exactly what their romantic interest meant by a certain turn of phrase, or whether a week-long radio silence means they’re being ghosted. (The New Yorker parodied this collaborative textual analysis in a video in which a group of women gather, war-room style, to answer the question “Was It a Date?”)

Features intended to add clarity—like read receipts or the little bubble with the ellipses in iMessage that tells you when someone is typing (which is apparently called the “typing awareness indicator”)—often just cause more anxiety, by offering definitive evidence for when someone is ignoring you or started to reply only to put it off longer.

* * *

But just because people know how stressful it can be to wait for a reply to what they thought would be an instant message doesn’t mean they won’t ignore others’ messages in turn.

Sometimes people don’t respond as a way of deliberately signaling they’re annoyed, or that they don’t want to continue a relationship. Turkle says sometimes taking a long time to write back is a way of establishing dominance in a relationship, by making yourself look simply too busy and important to reply.

But oftentimes, people are just trying to manage the quantity of messages and notifications they receive. In 2015, the average American was receiving 88 business emails per day, according to the market research firm Radicati, but only sending 34 business emails per day. Because—who has the time to respond to 88 emails a day? Maybe someone isn’t responding because they’ve realized the interruption of a notification negatively affects their productivity, so they’re ignoring their phone to get some work done.

I find myself ignoring or procrastinating even important messages, and ones I want and intend to respond to. I had to create a bright red “Needs Response” email label to battle my own “delayed response” problem. I regularly read texts, think “I’ll respond to that later,” and then completely forget about it. Working memory—the brain’s mental to-do list—can only hold so much at once, and when notifications get crammed in with shopping lists and work tasks, sometimes it springs a leak.

“A lot of the time what’s happening is people have five conversations going on, and they just can’t really be intimate and present with five different people,” Turkle says. “So they kind of do a triage, they prioritize, they forget. Your brain is not a perfect instrument for processing texts. But it will be interpreted as though it really was a conversation, and so you can hurt people.”

* * *

Still, even though instant written communication can be overwhelming and anxiety-inducing, people prefer it. Americans spend more time texting than talking on the phone, and texting is the most frequent form of communication for Americans under 50.

While texting is popular worldwide, Baron, of American University, thinks that a strong preference for communication that can be easily ignored is a particularly American attitude. “Americans have far fewer manners in general in their communication than a lot of other societies,” she says. “The second issue is a real feeling of empowerment. I think we have become a version of power freaks, not just control freaks.”

In a survey Baron conducted in 2007 and 2008 of students in several countries including the United States, the things that people said they liked most about their phones were often related to control. One American woman said her favorite thing was “Constant communication when I want it (can also shut it off when I don’t).”

“What I have seen in this country, and I don’t know if it’s a national trait, is people wait until they think they have the perfect thing to say, as though relationships can be managed by writing the perfect thing,” Turkle says. “And I think that is something we pay a very high cost for.”

In Baron’s survey, people also mentioned feeling controlled by their phones—bemoaning how dependent they were on the devices, and how the constant connectivity made them feel obligated to respond.

But texts and emails don’t create as big of an obligation as phone calls, or a face-to-face conversation. When young adults are interviewed about why they don’t like making phone calls, they cite a distaste for how “invasive” they are, and a reluctance to place that burden on someone else. Written instant messages create a smokescreen of plausible deniability if someone doesn’t feel like responding, which can be relieving for the hider, and frustrating for the seeker.

More than anything, what the age of instant communication has enabled is the ability to deal with conversation on our own terms. We can respond right away, we can put it off for two days, or never get around to it at all. We can manage several different conversations at once. “Sorry, I was out with friends,” we might say, as an excuse for not texting someone back. Or, “Sorry, I just need to text this person back real quick,” we might say while out with friends.

As these things become normal, it creates an environment where we are only comfortable asking for slivers of people’s distracted time, lest they ever obligate us to give them our full and undivided attention.

#technology #tech #text #relationships #articles #digital media #social media

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 4 years

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Lily Evans and Severus Snape: Headcanons

So, I was asked in the ask about Sirius and Regulus what I thought about Snape and Lily. At this point people are probably going, “Oh that Carnivorous Muffin is just clearly a Snape stan who thinks he could never do anything wrong and anyone who was slightly mean to him is evil.” Shockingly, I’m actually not, I just happen to think sexual harassment and attempted murder are bad and probably worse than JKR intended (I do think she was trying to go the “boys will be boys” route versus “oh my god, they just dumped pigs blood on Carrie at the prom and then threw her at a starving vampire”)

So let’s start on Snape.

First, Snape did live an incredibly shitty life, with circumstances beyond his control, that did lead to many of his poorer choices. In no way am I saying that it was alright for Snape to have grown up in an impoverished, abusive, household and endured years of humiliation and torment at school.

That said, I believe that we all, in some respects, are responsible for our actions and our decisions. Yes, even when we come from non-privileged backgrounds. Life is hard, some people will have it much easier than you, that doesn’t excuse you becoming a domestic terrorist or tormenting and terrifying your students, young children, so much so that an entire generation comes out with a loathing and incompetence in your subject.

I guess let’s start back on his friendship with Lily Evans. We get... a really weird perspective from Snape on that friendship. Time and her tragic death have warped it into this strange worship where I’m not sure the Lily Evans that exists in his mind and memory is the one that really was there. She’s this shining Madonna idol who he failed, actively betrayed, is very very hung up about it years later.

I suspect they weren’t as good of friends as either of them thought they were and it comes down to Snape’s resentment of his own upbringing and muggles. I believe Snape was very racist towards muggles, specifically, due to his father. It was his way of grappling with his home life and only fueled by being in Slytherin. Lily was probably, in his mind, always a golden exception to the rule (Lily is the token, gold standard, muggleborn where she’s pretty, brilliant, charming, etc.) That Severus himself was a halfblood clearly caused him some angst. What I’m getting at is that I believe throughout their entire friendship, especially when they got to Hogwarts, there was an unacknowledged undercurrent of intense racism that eventually boiled up with that one incident in Snape’s fifth year.

Calling her that, while he views it as a slip of the tongue that damned him for all time, I see it more as a Freudian Slip. That sort of thing doesn’t just slip out from nowhere, not at that age when they both knew exactly what that word meant, it simmers beneath the surface, and was ultimately what he thought of her. Later, she became the Madonna figure that he views her as today (ironically perhaps even less of a person than he viewed her as at the time).

That said I think a number of factors played into the young Snape becoming a Death Eater. One, becoming friends with Lucius/that crowd who were all being sucked into Tom’s influence. Two, having his terrible home life and all the implications of Snape resenting his own blood status as well as muggles and muggle borns at large. Three, the loss of friendship with Lily (now there’s nothing to hold him back anymore, he has no reason to preserve muggleborn life). Fourth, Dumbledore’s letting Sirius, James, and Remus entirely off the hook in the werewolf incident.

That last one, especially, I imagine cemented Snape’s utter hatred of ‘the light’ (don’t get me started on the stupidity of light/dark in Harry Potter but I guess I’ll use the term) and those that cater to muggleborns. They’re hypocrites of the highest order, Dumbledore claiming to defend the poor and non-nobility, when he goes and does the exact opposite (James is the next lord Potter, Sirius is still pureblooded even if disowned, Severus Snape is a dirt poor halfblood).

So what I’m saying is I understand why Snape did become a Death Eater, I do not condone this action. Especially as, unlike Regulus, Snape never gets cold feet. He loves being a Death Eater at first, he’s living the dream, getting all the revenge he ever wanted and burning the stupid wizarding world to the ground as he scrambles for ways to climb in Tom Riddle’s graces. We don’t see any hint that he was wavering, thinking of the fact that beloved Lily might die in battle, perhaps at his hand, until the prophecy.

Now, I’m a little kinder than some about the prophecy. We know Snape overhears the first portion of the prophecy in early 1980. He eagerly rushes to the dark lord, regales him with the prophecy in both a) aid to the cause and b) in the hopes of climbing in the ranks and gaining the dark lord’s notice. At this point, Lily Evans is pregnant, perhaps knows the gender, but has not given birth. Months later, when both Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter are born at the end of July, Snape realizes he has signed Lily Evans’ death warrant (because despite Dumbledore talking, I imagine Tom always planned to kill off both children, Pettigrew just happened to make things convenient for Tom to go to the Potters first).

With Lily’s death now so inevitable, and her blood on his own hands, Snape has his existential crisis, goes to Dumbledore who puts the Potters in hiding and becomes a double agent. Snape also pleads for Lily’s life with Tom and he puts in a minimal amount of effort to spare the woman.

Then Lily dies anyway and now Snape lives in the bitter cynicism most commonly seen in characters from Game of Thrones. He’s Dumbledore’s agent and sort of a Dirty Harry character, getting to see all the nasty things that many of the other order members never have to deal with. He’s one of the more intelligent characters in the series, able to see the truth of the world he lives in, but he also doesn’t care enough to actually do anything about it. He’s a bitter, resentful, and angry protector of Harry Potter, choosing to hate a naive child for all the reminders of his own terrible life (both in Lily, for failing and betraying her, and in James his most hated rival and tormentor). He gleefully enables the favoritism of Slytherin (my god how he panders to Draco Malfoy) while tormenting poor Neville into terror (that Neville’s greatest 13 year old fear is Snape is very telling).

Basically by the time we get to him in canon Snape not only isn’t happy but I think he doesn’t want to be happy. He’s accustomed to his bitterness, his cynicism, his quiet rage and moves forward out of both resignation, guilt, and a sense of obligation to a woman’s ghost. The actions he takes in canon aren’t so much for Harry as they are for the memory of Lily Evans.

Even if Snape could be happy at that point, change his life or his purpose, I do not think he would. He’s a man who has given up on life.

Now, onto Lily Evans.

You probably think I’m going to rail on her to for the sheer hypocrisy and nerve of marrying James Potter. I’m actually not. Lily Evans is one of my favorite characters in the Harry Potter series and probably the one I’d label as the most moral (though that’s a very low bar in Harry Potter, the characters are almost all assholes, but even so Lily would still be very high on the list).

You know what, I’m just going to damn myself and sound like a crazy person. Lily Evans always reads to me as a more moral young female Tom Riddle.

What the hell? You undoubtedly ask but I’ll explain.

Lily, while having a far more stable homelife than Tom Riddle, also comes from a muggleborn background. She’s exceptionally brilliant, very good looking, and very charming with a lot of people who would call her friends but no one close. Lily, aside from Snape (and that’s debatable), has no friends.

If Lily had not been a Gryffindor, and were Dumbledore not a raging misogynist, his Tom Riddle bells likely would have been ringing with her.

“But wait, that can’t be right!”

Oh, yes it can. First, as I went into above with Snape and Lily, there was something deeply wrong with that friendship. I believe they both considered themselves best friends, didn’t see many of the warning flags, but ultimately we see the giant fissure when Snape lets loose the m-word. Given all of that, I would not label them having been true friends in the first place. Just the appearance of friends.

Otherwise, while it’s very easily to canonically point out James’ friends it’s incredibly difficult to do so with Lily. First, people hardly remember Lily. We get Dumbledore talking about her like she’s the Virgin Mary, saving her son with the power of her love. We get Snape’s weird Virgin Mary impressions of her. Otherwise, it’s pretty much just Slughorn. Everyone else remembers that she married James and that was great because JAMES WAS SO COOL and that she had very striking eyes and was “nice”. Lily is less than a ghost in Harry Potter canon (sadly Harry never really realizing it).

Also, unlike James who has Sirius, Remus, and Peter to point towards (that are very important characters in canon). Lily has no one. The godmother was Alice Longbottom, a woman many years older than Lily and James who probably liked Lily well enough but I can’t imagine was a close friend. In canon there’s an offhand mention of two girls named Mary and Marlene but we don’t see much of them/Severus was always cited as Lily’s closest friend. As for Lily’s sister, well we know they’re estranged. I think it’s very telling that Lily writes a letter to Sirius, James’ best friend and certainly not hers, telling him that James is pouting over his invisibilty cloak. It’s because there was no one else to write.

So Lily Evans is a brilliant girl, who everyone likes and is very charming, but has no friends and led a very lonely and short life.

Here’s where my slack towards Lily comes in.

When she dumps Snape I completely understand why she did so. Snape dropping that word wasn’t simply a mistake, a moment of infinite regret, but something that revealed what he truly thought of her and where she came from. Lily was absolutely right in walking away.

However, without Snape, her closest friend is suddenly gone and the world is cold. As graduation approaches I imagine Lily’s career options become clearer and clearer. While very talented and smart, Lily is a muggleborn, what job she does manage to get (thanks to the sheer nepotism of the wizarding world/lack of jobs) will likely be through Slughorn if she manages to get a job at all. The world is cold and it is cruel and no one seems to even notice.

Cue James Potter. I do believe, probably until seventh year, Lily loathed James, not simply because of the horrifying things he did to Severus (and I’m sure she knew very little of it, Snape hiding most of it from her out of pride and shame), but because he’s just a giant dick. He’d make flirting with her a kind of game and joke to be shared with Sirius, something to hold over Snape’s head, like she’s a prize to be one.

However, by seventh year the werewolf incident has happened, Snape’s retreated further and further into Death Eater recruit land and she’s cut him off, and for all my “James is a dick” I do imagine he calmed down a little. Now that Snape is no longer friends with Lily/after the whole almost murder incident I imagine they didn’t bully him nearly as much as they used to. Though yes, they probably still bullied him, but Lily probably doesn’t know that now that she’s lost contact with Snape.

James is charming and very good looking. He seems a bit more mature than he used to be. Lily is desperately lonely, living in a world that rejects everything she is, and James seems like one of the few who does support her (that James is more of a ‘pretty fly for a white guy’ kind of support for muggleborns doesn’t hit until later). So Lily is charmed and makes the largest mistake of her life, she and James start dating.

Now, given their extreme youth as well as Lily’s pedigree (say what you like, I don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Potter were thrilled that their son was dating a muggleborn) I imagine the wedding was a shot gun wedding and Lily got unintentionally pregnant. Yes, go ahead and throw fruit at me or call foul, I just can’t imagine they’d want a child that young while in the middle of a war while they’re part of an active resistance movement and only just out of Hogwarts.

Then things start snowballing downhill. Lily and James have just joined the resistance movement, Lily’s son is prophesied to defeat Voldemort, they strongly suspect one of James’ close friends is a spy, and they’re forced into hiding.

In hiding is where I imagine stress runs high and their marriage begins to fall apart. We know from Lily’s letter that James was routinely leaving hiding, using the cloak, so he could meet up with Sirius and Peter (I imagine Lupin’s on the out as they suspected he was the spy). While James might not realize what a big deal that was, I imagine Lily always did, and she begins to realize just what she’s gotten herself into but there’s no way out while in hiding.

Now we go really off the rails into headcanon territory in: what the hell is up with Harry Potter?

In my stories, I often choose the unwitting god route. Harry can’t die because he is a god, he becomes the master of death and always was the master of death. This is an answer, but it’s one that makes canon Harry a god and... I would not want canon Harry as a god. JKR and Dumbledore push the “Lily loved her child so much that it deflected death... multiple times” but this always felt... unsatisfying. Many parents love their children (fathers too, JKR, let’s not make this weird Virgin Mary thing) and yet Harry Potter alone in the history of mankind survives multiple times.

Most likely, Lily pulled off some insane bullshit with absolutely no resources and minimal education AND EVERYONE IGNORES IT. We do know that Lily crafted the blood wards, wards stronger than anything Dumbledore himself can come up with/than Voldemort can break. Ones that protect Harry not only at home but away from it as it melts Voldemort for simply touching his skin. Lily pulled off the impossible in only a few months and did it right under everyone’s nose.

This makes her easily one of the most intelligent characters in Harry Potter. Probably beating out Dumbledore and maybe tying with Tom Riddle. And Dumbledore tells us, “Your Virgin Mary mother loved you so much, Harry, that it courses through your veins and lights those that would want to harm you on fire.”

So, that’s Lily for you.

Now, that said, I’m probably a bit biased and clearly very lenient with her marrying James. To be honest it took me years to figure out why the hell Lily would ever marry James after what happened with Severus and was always one of those weird canon things I never quite understood. He’s that good looking and charming, I guess, was my response.

The answer I now land on with some confidence was that the world is that cruel and bleak and Lily was utterly alone for two years.

By the way, a side note/plug, of all my stories while head canons do pop up here and there I think “October” is one where they tend to crop up more. It’s a vast AU of canon, but it gives an idea of what I think x character would do in y situation.

#headcanons #harry potter #lily evans #severus snape #october

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pink-peony-princess · 3 years

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Who Said Anything About Tact?

Violet's walk had started out like any other. She was a person of habit,very rarely did she break her routine, and so how she came to be by Old Station Bridge,she couldn't be sure. One thing had led to another, she had noticed the way the late afternoon light was hitting the trees just across the small river, the field behind it backlit perfectly. So perfectly that she'd done what she'd so rarely done before and stopped to take a photo.

She'd been warned about the presence of wolves by her mother so many times before, the whole town of Mercy Falls knew about them. There were the Cresent Moon pack, feared amongst wolves, but of zero threat to humans, in fact they were well know to help protect their human neighbours whenever necessary. And then there were the rogues, the mean, vicious, unapologetically violent, wolves that were fixated on taking the town for themselves.

Unfortunately for Violet this was who she came to be in the presence of the day it happened.

She'd taken her photo and had made it no more than 30 metres down the road when she heard the first growl. At first she ignored it, maybe it was a trick of her imagination she thought shaking her head. But she heard it again, this time closer, and she had a weird feeling as though she was being watched.

Before she had time to react, she was hanging just above the ground sharp teeth cutting into her side as she screamed to no effect for the animal to drop her, it shook her the way a dog would shake its prey to kill it, showing no sign of letting her go. She would have sworn she heard a crack of bone, but she couldn't be sure because her whole body felt like one giant punching bag. She called out for help again and again, but it was useless, no one would hear her out here, no one came along here, and for good reason she thought as she let her body go lump, accepting her fate.

Raul and his two betas- one of his brothers Peter and his friend Connor were nearly finished with their evening perimeter run of their lands when they heard it. The unmistakable rumble of growling in the distance. None of the three men recognised the tone, meaning it wasn't one (or several) of their own, which only left one other possibility-rogues.

They listened for a minute before they heard the sound of a woman shouting, begging for help over and over again before just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

The three wolves looked at one another before sprinting for the eastern boundary by Old Station Bridge. If there was a human,they were in trouble, there was no way a human could win against one rogue, let alone multiple.

Raul had dealt with his fair share of rogues in his short time as alpha, but nothing would prepare him for what they saw as they came to a stop by the bridge. A pack of 10 wolves were all circling a young brunette woman- from what Raul could see from the glimpses he was catching between the wall of wolves she around the same age as him and his brothers.

He made his way closer, careful not to bring attention to himself or his betas, he wanted the element of surprise.

He was just about to attack when the young woman looked up, as if she sensed help had come. What Raul wasn't expecting as the woman held his gaze was how it would make him feel. Initially Raul registered the terror and pain on the woman's face, the extreme helplessness, and then something hit him. It was the weirdest feeling- like warm tingling butterflies flooding Raul's entire body, his wolf- Knight- was restless, anxious really, begging to be let free, and then it happened, it clicked "Mate, mate, mate!" Knight shouted in Raul's head over and over again. There was a moment or two of elation where neither Raul or this unknown human girl moved before Raul was snapped back to reality by yet another growl from one of the rogues as they continued to circle and a small pitiful whimper from the girl.

There was no way he was going to let his mate get hurt he thought to himself as he lunged forward immediately knocking one of the wolves out of the way. Peter and Connor followed suit, just as easily dispensing another two wolves a good 10 metres from where they'd originally been. Though they got straight back up, poised to attack again.

Raul could see the girl clearly now that the circle had been broken and the sight pulled at his chest, though he wouldn't like to admit it.

The woman had a large gash on her temple which was trickling blood down the side of her head, dropping in a small pool on the ground, along with several puncture marks on her abdomen, which judging by the blood that had saturated her white shirt were deep, not to mention what looked like a very broken right wrist and scrapes covering just about every visible part of her body.

He could feel the anger rising him at what these low lives had done to the girl- his mate! His! Noone else's! And before he could think he was shifting ripping a pair of pants out of the nearest tree (thank the Lord the whole perimeter of their lands had stashes of clothes) and was running over to her.

A deep gutteral growl left his lips, stopping everyone in their tracks.

Even Peter and Connor stopped, they all knew what that growl meant, it was the possessive growl of a mated wolf warning everyone and everything in it's way to stay away- or else.

The girl flinched as Raul continued to growl as the rogues slowly backed up,clearing a path for him to get to her.

"Don't touch me," she begged, eyes wide with fear as she tried to shuffle backwards away from Raul as he bent down in front of her.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Raul spoke gruffly. "I'm trying to help you stop fighting me!" he grumbled, swinging her up into his arms effortlessly as she tried to push against him.

The way she sobbed as he moved her pulled at his heartstrings he had to admit, but right now he had a mission, get her to Shawn his other identical brother and one of the pack doctors before she past out or bled out.

"Let me go." she smacked his chest weakly,making absolutely no impact. Infact Raul barely felt it.

"Stop fighting me!" Raul snapped, feeling frustrated as he ran as fast as his legs would take him in the direction of home.

"I don't even know you! I want to go home!" the girl continued to struggle despite her injuries.

Peter who had been running behind Raul with Connor (both of whom must have shifted without Raul even realising) spoke up.

"Raul, look at her, she's terrified and in pain." Raul could tell without even looking at him that he felt bad for her, he was always such a softie, whereas Raul would rather be tactless and keep his mate alive than worry about being a gentleman.

Raul halted causing Peter to crash into him mid-step.

"Look Peter, I can either do as she asks, or I can save her life, which do you think I'm gonna choose?" he asked pointedly, glaring at his younger brother. He should know what was at stake here, afterall he'd found his mate Betty 6 months before and was absolutely besotted.

"I'm not saying you're not doing the right thing." Peter tried to backpedal. "Just maybe be a little nicer, a little more understanding, think about how you'd feel if you were in her position. She's human. Attacked by rogues and then some strange guy who also happens to be a wolf comes and picks you up and snaps at you when you try to defend yourself as you would."

"I'm trying to help her," Raul snapped again, glaring still.

"I know you are," Peter smiled sympathetically, "all I'm saying is maybe watch your tone."

"I'm sorry," he sighed, looking down at the crying girl in his arms. "My name's Raul, I know you're scared but if you don't let me help you won't be alive to go home," he explained impatiently, still walking.

"But you're a wolf. Why would you help me?" The confusion in her voice genuinely surprised him.

"Not all of us are big bad wolves," he answered, not disclosing the real reason. She was quiet for a minute except for the occasional hiss from pain.

"You are." she looked up at him waiting for a response, but Raul was so shocked that all he could do was laugh.

"You might be right you know."

...

By the time they made it to the pack house the girl, his mate had become lethargic and non- talkative. Raul wouldn't let it show, but he was really starting to panic. When he'd thought so many times before about the possibility of meeting his mate, this was so not what he'd imagined. But here he was carrying a half- limp woman with potentially life-threatening injuries through his house with everyone they came across giving him the same look of shock and confusion.

Peter and Connor had disappeared to put a search party together to deal with the rogues in question. Raul had really been quite forgiving of them over the two years he'd been in charge, but this, this was too far, this he would not forgive, he'd hunt them for the rest of his days if that's what it took to get revenge.

He would never forgive them for what they'd done to his mate. Never.

He made his way up the stairs that led to the pack hospital quicky- it had been decided when he became alpha that a whole floor of the pack house (it was a mansion really if you took the size into account) would be turned into something of a hospital. Not only was it more convenient for everyone in the pack house- rather than going to a GP or hospital they could simply walk upstairs and be seen by a doctor nearly straight away, but it was practical for all the times when werewolves would come home injured from fights or assignments and need immediate medical care. As this woman did now. When Raul reached the top of the stairs and rounded the corner to the door of the hospital he was met with a wall of people and even more curious eyes. Everyone seemed shocked to see their alpha- usually so tough and strong carrying a semi conscious woman as though she might break at any moment.

"Out of the way, fucking move!" he yelled, causing her to whimper as the sound sent shock waves through her skull. Everyone scurried, heads down not game to look their alpha in the eye. They knew just from his stance, let alone his tone that he wasn't kidding around.

"Shawn get your arse in here!" he called as he pushed his way through another door and into the consultation area.

He made his way over to a bed, putting her down as gently as he could, but she still gave a whine of discomfort.

Whether in a half-delirious state or simply trying to distance herself from him, she made a move to try and get off the bed almost immediately but he stopped her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Stay," he spoke, a little too harshly, instantly regretting it when he saw her bottom lip quiver slightly. "Sorry," he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Who's this?" Shawn asked walking through the door a moment later, he looked between Raul and the young woman on the bed. Up close Raul could see just how pretty she was, chocolate brown eyes and a few freckles here and there. She was perfect he thought.

"Took you long enough," Raul grouched "She's my mate," he spoke quickly, watching as both Shawn and the woman's eyes went wide. Shawn was the first to recover, nodding and waiting for his brother to go on as though he hadn't just mentioned something totally life changing.

"She was attacked by rogues. I'm going to fucking kill them!" he fumed pacing the area.

...

As soon as Violet heard the word 'mate' she began to freak out, her breathing became laboured. She couldn't help but claw at her throat in a desperate attempt to get air. She couldn't have this jerk as a mate, she couldn't leave her home to live with a pack of wolves, she wouldn't.

Shawn rushed over grabbing an oxygen mask and gently placing it on her face.

"That's it, nice slow breathes, you're okay," he encouraged as Raul looked on helplessly.

"Raul, get outside, cool off, you're terrifying her. Look at her," he spoke not bothering to look at his brother, still trying to coax Violet into a semi-normal breathing pattern.

Ordinarily, Raul would have kicked Shawn's arse from here to Mars for talking to him like that, but when he turned to face his mate and saw the tears of fright rolling down her face, the way she clung to his brother's hand, he was brought back to the present. Of course he could be hot-headed and he had a reputation to uphold, but that didn't mean he wanted his mate to be scared of him. Hell that was the last thing he wanted.

"Sorry," he muttered, pushing past Shawn and walking out the door.

They heard a crash of what sounded like a vase, causing Violet to jump again.

"Sorry about him," Shawn apologised. "I promise, he's really not that bad, he's a big softie really, he just gets protective of his loved ones and doesn't necessarily deal with the emotion the best way. I'm Shawn by the way," he smiled.

"V-violet," She looked at him still unsure.

"Can I have a look at your injuries?" he asked.

"Y-yeah," she answered.

He smiled before carefully assessing the surface injuries. Violet was relieved to hear that the bite wounds although nasty weren't life-threatening and would heal 'just fine' although he did get Violet to hold a piece of gauze over the area while he went about setting her up with different what felt like a 100 different leads so he could track her vitals.

"I'm just going to get you hooked up to a few monitors okay. They won't hurt, they're just so I can keep track of your heart rate and oxygen levels, things like that okay?"

She nodded, and Shawn went about making sure the slightly insane amount of leads were properly attached, before coming back over to the bed and pulling a penlight from his breast pocket.

"Looks like you gave yourself a nasty whack here," he commented, trying to be a bit more casual about it to put her at ease.

"Follow my finger," he asked as he turned the light on and shone it towards Violet, immediately making her want to recoil. "Do you remember what day it is?" he asked with a small frown, as he pocketed the light once again.

"Saturday?" she answered feeling very unsure.

"Yeah it is," Shawn smiled sympathetically at her obvious confusion and fear.

Things were quiet for a while except for the rhythmic beeping of the machines attached to Violet which were starting to lull her into sleep

"Knock, knock?" someone tapped at the door gently startling Violet, before a man who looked almost exactly the same as Shawn, except with shorter hair poked his head into the room." Hey, I just came to see how you were? The others just left to track the wolves that attacked you and Raul's downstairs sulking," he smiled as he stepped into the room, dodging Shawn who was now busy getting supplies out to deal with the nasty and numerous wounds covering Violet's body. "I'm Peter," he held out a hand.

She smiled,holding out her left non- injured hand, "Violet."

Shawn walked back over to the bed carrying a load of medical supplies which he placed on the bed beside Violet, it made her feel a bit sick thinking about it, there were bottles of disinfectant, scissors,wipes, packets of what looked like needles and tubing, sheets of protective paper and gloves.

"Try not to focus on what I'm doing, why don't you talk to Peter while I work?" he suggested, kicking a rolling stool in Peter's direction which he sat on before following suit on his own one. "I need to start an I.V. with some antibiotics okay?" he added, before picking up a packet from the bed and ripping it open.

Violet stiffened as what Shawn had said sunk in, an I.V. meant, a needle and Violet was no good with needles, the last time she had to have one she fainted in the reception area of her doctor's.

"It's okay," Shawn tried to calm her, but he could tell that she was only becoming more and more uptight.

"Hold Peter's hand if you want," Shawn suggested seeing the tears pooling in her eyes.

She took Peter's hand immediately in her good one and Shawn went about positioning her arm for the I.V., wiping her arm before lining the needle up and looking up at her. "Sharp scratch," he warned before inserting the needle quickly, but carefully.

She jumped slightly, and gave a small whimper, but overall, she thought, it wasn't too bad.

"There all done," Shawn smiled, getting up to discard the waste into a special bin. "How's your pain? I'm going to give you a local anesthetic when I clean your abdomen and head up, but I can give you a dose of pain relief if you need it," he offered.

"Please," she nodded, a few tears falling down her face.

Shawn nodded again going to get the pain relief when there was another knock on the door, this one was harder than when Peter had knocked to come in. The door opened and Raul came in, not waiting to be invited. Violet noticed straight away how much calmer he looked.

They stared at each other for a moment, before Shawn walked back into the room, stopping when he saw Rau in the doorway.

"You can come in if you're calm enough," Shawn invited him, promoting Raul to step fully into the room and close the door behind him.

"Raul, this is Violet."

Raul smiled a really genuine smile and Violet couldn't help but notice, now that he wasn't being a totally arse, just how handsome he was, how handsome all three of them were- Raul, Shawn and Peter. They were all well built, and extremely tall- towering over Violet's 5'2" frame, with curly brown hair and brown eyes. Raul was by far the most well built and intimidating with a sleeve of tattoos covering his arm and right hand as few scattered on his neck. Up close Violet could see the lip and ear piercings that only added to the tough almost gothic look. The smile on his face a stark contrast to the rest of his appearance.

...

Raul made his way over to the bed slowly, carefully, the last thing he wanted to do was scare Violet anymore than he already had. He wanted to show her the softer side of him, the side that would do anything for his mate, the side that was fiercely protective and loyal. Not the arsehole he showed her when they first met.

Peter stood up and smiled before leaving the room, the rolling stool now vacant. Raul took the opportunity to sit down, still looking at this young woman in awe.

"I'm sorry I was an arse to you," he apologised, looking down at his hands.

Violet didn't say anything, but when Raul looked up, she nodded softly signalling she'd heard him.

"Violet I'm going to start stitching your head up now okay?" Shawn interrupted their little moment.

Raul could see the panic on Violet's face as Shawn spoke and wanted so badly to comfort her, but he wasn't sure how. He felt so much pity and protectiveness at his tiny mate laying helplessly on the bed as Shawn tended to her injuries.

...

"Can I, can I hold your hand?" The softness and tentiveness of the question was so unlike Raul that both Violet and Shawn stopped, stunned momentarily. As much as Violet wanted to say no, just to prove a point that you don't get to be a complete jerk and then backflip and suddenly everything was okay again, she had to admit that an odd sense of calm had washed over her since Raul had entered the room.

She nodded again and he immediately took her hand carefully, sending shockwaves of tingles up both of their bodies. She looked at him panicked, but he just smiled reassuringly, before speaking, "It's the mate connection," he murmured, squeezing her hand gently. It felt odd to be holding someone's hand that she'd barely met and that had been so cold to her previously and yet, it felt so right.

Her thought train was interrupted by a sharp prick and then an intense stinging started on she forehead, before Shawn was pulling up her top revealing the wounds that she'd been holding pressure on. "Deep breath," Shawn warned this time before yet another prick and more stinging, the process was repeating a further two times before he discarded the needle.

"Oww, it's stinging," she whimpered.

"Shawn why'd you have to hurt her!" Raul half growled, though it was nothing on what he'd been like earlier.

"I'm not trying to, I promise, unfortunately it can be a side effect of the anesthetic. It shouldn't last long."

After she was stitched up,and her broken wrist x-rayed and plastered the two men left her to have a moment alone while they spoke outside.

"How bad?" Raul asked folding his arms.

Shawn sighed, "She's badly banged up. She'll need to be on I.V.for at least 24 hours."

"I want her in my room," Raul demanded immediately.

"Did you hear what I said?" Shawn asked.

"Did you hear what I said?" He counted harshly.

"Fine," Shawn sighed. "'I'll set her up in your room. If she agrees."

Raul nodded, a smirk on his face. They both knew he'd won the battle and there was nothing Shawn could do about it.

By the way, what were you thinking, just picking her up and bringing her here before actually talking to her?" he shook his head. "She was terrified." Raul who could hear the disapproval in Shawn's voice didn't take lightly to being spoken to by one of his pack, let alone his own brother.

"One don't talk to me like that, ever again,I might be your brother, but I'm also your Alpha and two I'm sorry, but if I hadn't have done what I did, she would be dead. Maybe that makes me harsh or whatever but I'd rather save my mate and the future luna of our pack than worry about pleasentries."

Shawn wanted to say more, but knew better than to push Raul so he simply said "I'll talk to her about staying with you, stay here." Before he left,not waiting for his reply.

...

As Shawn had expected as soon as he mentioned the idea of being in Raul's room, she shot him down pointing out that while he'd been nice to her in the last 30 minutes or so, he'd been a total jerk previously and she didn't want to be stuck with thst.

"I know he wasn't the nicest to you," Shawn agreed, "But I promise he means well, he was stressed and frustrated. He's your mate, it's his job to love and protect you and trust me he will do anything to honour that, even if it means being a bit harsh sometimes. Plus being around him will help you heal quicker, it's something that your body will recognise subconsciously, even for you as a human. It's one of our weird werewolf things. Please," he put his hands together practically begging.

"Fine," she conceeded, but if he's even the slightest bit rude I'm outta there,"

"Deal."

Half an hour later and Violet was situated in the most comfortable bed she'd ever laid in, the smell of Raul (a mixture of Sandalwood and Musk) filling her senses. She had to admit it calmed her, despite her wariness towards him.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked leaning against the doorway arms folding a smile once again gracing his face, making him look so much less scary. She jumped slightly holding a hand to her chest.

"I'm sorry I scared you," he apologised and something in the way he said it told her he wasn't just apologising for now.

"S'okay," she yawned, "but you have zero tact you know," she laughed as he frowned.

"I'm Raul Mendes, alpha of the largest pack in Canada,I can be mean, I can be ruthless,I also protect the ones I love with everything I have. But who said anything about tact? Cause it definitely wasn't me," he laughed, coming over to sit on the bed next to her, careful not to invade her space. As Violet drifted into a dream-state she could have sworn she heard him say "Sleep well, little mate," but of course when she questioned him on it the next day Raul would deny it till he was blue, well red in the face- with embarrassment that is. Maybe he wasn't such a big bad wolf afterall Violet thought.

#raul mendes #raul has zero tact #shawn mendes #shawn mendes imagine #shawn #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes imagines #shawn peter raul mendes #shawn mendes blurb #doctor!shawn #mendes triplets #werewolf!shawn #peter mendes #shawnblr

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

Note

Do you think Ruby will kill Grimm!Summer and if so, how do you think that will clash with her objection to killing Penny?

I think it's all going to hinge on a) how the story portrays Ruby reacting to Jaune in Volume 9 and b) what sort of shape grimm!Summer is in.

First, they may not have Ruby kill Summer at all. And I don't just mean that the plot will twist to ensure someone else has to (somehow, without silver eyes) do the deed because she's unavailable, thereby freeing her of that hard choice — precisely like how Ruby was conveniently in the void by the time Penny needed to die. Rather, Summer might still be able to be saved. Many (myself included) have theorized that if Ruby's eyes destroy grimm and grimm only, she might be able to destroy the portion of a grimm that possess a person (for lack of a better word), leaving the rest of them intact. That's mostly come up in Salem discussions — could Ruby remove the influence of the grimm pool, leaving human!Salem behind? — but now that same question applies to Summer too. When she used her eyes on the Hound we saw the grimm part of him get stripped away, revealing the faunus underneath, before the goo of the grimm started Venom-creeping back over the rest of him. If Ruby could give off a more powerful blast, perhaps she could erase the grimm portion entirely, all in one go, sort of akin to how they won the geist fight in Volume 4. Hit it harder, all at once, until after a single blow only the core of the beast remains. In each case the grimm would leave the thing it possessed.

So that's Option B: is Summer in a state where it's possible for her to recover in some way? How deep do these grimm experiments go, are silver eyes capable of destroying the grimm without killing the person? How much of the original Summer would be left without the grimm parts? etc. etc. Lots of questions we don't have any answers to. Option A, however, comes up if we're given a scenario where Summer is beyond hope. She's a grimm now, no way to fix it, killing her is seen as a mercy. And that, I think, is the crucial difference. Ruby unequivocally said no to killing Penny... but Penny also wasn't presented as having to die. It's one of the rare moments in the volume where I 100% agree with what Ruby is saying. Penny has been hacked, her order is to open the vault, and then she's set to self-destruct. So how does killing her benefit anyone in anyway? They obviously want to save Penny, so all killing her at the manor would do is hurry the self-destruct along, the thing they want to stop. They want to keep the Maiden powers safe, but killing her might risk sending them off into the world, lost, or even wind up with Cinder if her attempts to steal them formed any connection. Obviously we know now that the powers didn't go to Cinder, that Penny was able to think of Winter and send them to her, but my point is that just killing her then is a HUGE risk. Finally, there's no real danger in opening the vault. I mean yeah, they don't want Ironwood to get the staff... but like, he just wants to leave. If Ironwood were planning to use the staff to, idk, decimate all of Atlas I can understand the group considering killing Penny to be worth avoiding the potential death of an entire kingdom, but there's no threat to anyone if Ironwood does somehow snag the relic. The only threat here is that opening the vault will allow Salem to get the relic instead, but the group decides to open the vault anyway. Penny is basically going, "If you don't kill me now then I'll open the vault, which will lead to Ironwood escaping Salem with a large portion of the kingdom and standing down from his bomb threat, and then I'll die!" So you want them to kill you to avoid... other people not dying? And you want to die so you don't... die?

It's absolute nonsense.

This is basically a long-winded way of saying that killing Penny in that moment wouldn't benefit the good guys in any way, shape, or form. The fact that Penny suggests it at all is monumentally stupid. It's a Deep, Dramatic Moment that makes absolutely no sense. "You have to kill me!" she cries... even though killing her does nothing good, likely does a whole lot of bad, and absolutely does a Big Bad by hurrying along one of the major things everyone is trying to prevent: Penny's death.

Of course Ruby said no. That's the smartest Ruby is in the whole volume.

But when Jaune is faced with the question? Well, it's meant to be a very different context. I've gone on the record multiple times as saying that the show did a HORRIBLE job of justifying the need to kill Penny, but I also recognize that we're supposed to believe that was the best option on the table. Unlike at the manor, Penny's death does achieves something here: giving her the ability keep the powers safe. It's also presented as inevitable: Penny will (supposedly) die regardless, so better that she die when she chooses, preventing Cinder from getting more power, then dying in a few minutes with more risks attached. The manor death had nothing going for it. The finale death — no matter how badly executed — is meant to be justified to some extent, whether we personally agree it or not. We're still meant to realize, "Yeah, Penny is dying, no way to avoid it, so killing her will at least help keep the power out of Cinder's hands and will give her some agency over the time she has left." It's still stupid, but it's a "You wrote this scene really badly" stupid rather than a "This entire concept is nonsensical" stupid.

So Ruby has never actually been in Jaune's position. For all her insistence that she won't let anyone die, Ruby has never actually been in a scenario where killing someone would do the most good for the world, or would put someone out of their misery, or would give them some agency over their own existence — all the things that Penny's death is (again) supposed to represent. We don't know what she'd choose if death was inevitable and she was faced with providing a "kinder" death, or what she'd choose if a death was, from a practical perspective, presented as the best way forward. That's because right now the story is horribly written and Ruby isn't forced to choose anything, but if they actually brought her back to her Volume 1-5 self, I can easily see her killing her mother as an act of kindness. Summer was turned into a monster by Salem. The very thing she's spent her whole life trying to eradicate. There is no possible, other way to help her. She is a danger to Ruby and all of her friends. Perhaps, if a part of her is still lucid, she expresses that she doesn't want to continue living like this, being the thing she despises, being Salem's tool, being a danger to her daughter. So Ruby kills her as an act of mercy and love. It's presented as a release from a nightmare existence.

But that potential, future characterization depends on whether Ruby understands the choice Jaune made. Again (again, again, again) I think the story did a terrible job writing that scene and that it didn't succeed in justifying the kill, but for the purposes of what I think the story was trying to do, Ruby may well parrot all that back in Volume 9: "Yes, Jaune. Penny was dying and there was no way to save her even though your semblance is healing. There was nothing else you could have done even though you might have gotten her through the portal and saved here there. Killing her then kept the powers safe messy lore aside. You did the right thing, horrible as it was." And that acts as setup for Ruby doing the same thing for Summer later on. Either that, or she's initially furious at Jaune and comes to realize — after some messy and contradictory character arc — that he did the right thing all along and she was just too grief-stricken to realize it. Which I will hate if we get that given how badly it'll all end up lol.

So those are the two theories I'm leaning towards. Either the story, in the fashion of Volume 8, will ensure that Ruby never has to make the hard choice of whether to kill her mom or not (oh god I'm imagining a scene where Yang offers to do it instead as some act of sisterly devotion/a sacrifice so the "pure" sister remains pure no no no no), or Summer's situation is (no doubt just as badly) presented like Penny's second request for death, as a necessary act that Summer wants, will assist the heroes in some way, and is definitely the Best and Only Thing To Do.

Of course, Option C is that this is... just never resolved. It definitely speaks to my lack of faith in RWBY atm, but given how many important things we've dropped I would not be surprised if Summer is never actively introduced into the series again. RWBY may well treat this as the answer to a mystery that never existed until said "answer" arrived, the writers viewing this merely as the explanation of what happened to Summer and nothing more. Don't get me wrong, viewers are 100% right to expect more in the future. This change raises even more questions than were already attached to Summer's disappearance and the existence of the Hound absolutely implies that, in a well written story, grimm!Summer will appear somewhere down the line. But, to be blunt, RWBY is not a well written story. So if some number of years from now we look back and go, "Wow, the answer to how they'll handle this is that they... didn't. This was never brought up in a meaningful way again" I really wouldn't be surprised.

#rwby #mymetas

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cloudshapedpatch · 3 years

Text

Bells and Whistles

Happy Holidays @ghostlyhamburger, I’m your Lovesquare Obsessed Secret Santa! I hope you enjoy this very indulgent soulmate au 💚🌸

* * * *

Music. It’s all around, and yet, it never gets old. How? How does an arrangement of notes and sounds create wonderful music capable of bringing deep joy and sadness?

Everyone knows people love music. Archeologists always seem to be finding older and simpler instruments used by early humankind. People just love to create their own sounds, if not for their own enjoyment, or perhaps to attempt to share the songs in their heads with others.

For Marinette, it was no different than everyone else. Her song. The leitmotif that seemed to always play in her head. And she could not get it to be quiet. Just once, she wished to take a school test and be able to focus on her paper, and not the wispy bells meant only for her own ears.

It was a nice melody, and the universe had made it just for her (and for her soulmate, but she wasn’t too concerned with this fact at the moment). She never grew tired of it, thank kwami, but it also meant she could never go very long without hearing it. And how the universe loved to play the tune in the least convenient times.

30 chimes of bells.

What is the circumference of a circle that has a diameter of 8 inches?

30 chimes of bells.

What’s 8 times pi?

30 damned chimes of bells.

Marinette let her head drop onto her desk, letting the lone bells play out a couple more times. She only resumed her math test once it seemed it was done.

Thus was a normal occurrence for most people. It still annoyed her.

Her teacher gave Marinette a sympathetic look as she handed in her completed test, bells still ringing in her head.

“Why don’t you just go look for your soulmate?” Alya had suggested one night as they watched a movie.

“I don’t wanna rush it.” Marinette had lied a little too easily for her liking.

“You know if you do, your tune will get beautifuller and—”

“And I’ll get to control when I hear it, yeah yeah.” Marinette tossed a few unpopped popcorn kernels at Alya, a wide smile on her face. “And beautifuller isn’t a word.”

“Whatever!” Alya had laughed then, a really joyous, belly-shaking laugh. As they continued to watch their movie, Marinette could tell Alya was playing her own symphony in her head (she always smiled like the biggest love-sick goofball).

Alya was among the lucky few who found her soulmate quite young. It always brought a smile to Marinette’s face when the young couple spoke of the day they realized. Although, Marinette always had to swallow her pride because she couldn’t let anyone know she was the one who had locked them in that fateful zoo cage.

Speaking of, Alya was leading Marinette out of the classroom, saying something about the test, but Marinette didn’t hear her. She was too busy with her own thoughts about songs and soulmates.

Surprisingly, Nino was the first to notice Marinette’s dazed state. His ‘You good?’ was accompanied with a familiar smile; the one that told her she had missed everything he had said.

Marinette blinked her thoughts away. “Yeah! Yeah, just thinking. What’s up?”

“Alya and I were saying we were gonna play UMS 3 at my house, wanna come make it a tournament?”

Marinette’s sudden perfect posture didn’t go unnoticed by either of the other teens. “Sorry, I have some family things tonight. You know how Thursdays are…”

“Right!” Alya punctuated the word with a snap. “Thursdays are family nights. Funny, Adrien said the same thing.”

Nino got an elbow to his side for snickering at Marinette’s blush, but it couldn’t be helped. They bade goodbye and went their separate ways.

The chilly December air stung her heated cheeks, eliciting a breath of thanks that she lived close to the school. In truth, Marinette’s family didn’t have family nights. Thursdays were allotted for Chat Noir’s visits.

He came every Thursday, without fail, at 9pm sharp. Why? No one had any clue. Her parents always cooked for four those nights to be sure he had food (They learned early on he didn’t get much to eat. This concerned Marinette deeply, not only as his partner but also as his soulmate). She supposed the saying was true, ‘feed a cat once and they will return’. He hadn’t stopped visiting ever since she offered him a cookie one otherwise-normal Thursday night about 4 months ago.

Tonight was no different. He knocked on her balcony window at 9 o’clock on the dot, he came down and ate his plate of food, and Marinette beat him at video games with her parents.

It was only when they had gone back up to her attic room that the night turned south.

Chat was hovering over her shoulder as she sketched a dress, excitedly giving her suggestions. Sometimes they were good, other times… not (memories of the awful purple and orange clown jumper threatened to surface).

Marinette had started to hum whilst she drew. Chat was playing with her hair and whispering encouragement, and all was well.

“Whatcha humming?” He murmured, barely audible above the sound of pencil on paper.

“Hm?” His hands had frozen in her hair, the lack of movement causing a lull in her train of thought. She blinked hard as if to will her thoughts back. “Oh, just a little tune. Should I put a flower or a bow here?”

“A bow, for sure.”

As she sketched the bow on the dress’ bodice, she hummed a little louder for Chat to hear.

And he hummed the last few notes with her.

Before she could comprehend how he knew the tune, she could hear a piano in her head, playing a sweet little harmony with jazzy drums. The familiar sound of ethereal bells played the melody she knew too well. It felt as if she were surrounded by a thousand magical whistles, carrying her up and away to the clouds. And based on the look in Chat’s eyes as he spun her chair to look at her, he was hearing it too.

Damn it.

She would have gotten emotional if she wasn’t filled with terror. Finding your soulmate was supposed to be an important event in one’s life. For Marinette, now it was another secret under her hat.

He was whispering her name, eyes sparkling and the most endearing smile on his face and why is he looking at me like that? say something, anything! to get him to stop!

“Wow it’s late, time flies, you know?” She cringed at her abnormally high voice, playing off the flinch as a yawn. “I should go to bed, haha.”

Her cheeks twitched with the effort to keep the fake smile as he just stood there, staring at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

And then she was in his arms as he carried her up to bed, eyes large and kind. He set her down gently before giving a two-finger salute and jumping through her balcony window. She felt the mattress bounce slightly from his weight. Too late, she registered his parting words to her, goodnight princess.

With a pillow secured to her face, she screamed.

“Marinette! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Tikki. Just overwhelmed.” She threw the pillow down onto her knees.

“You don’t look fine.”

Neither did Tikki, if Marinette was being honest. She looked just as worried as she felt.

“I just… the ladybug and black cat miraculous are always soulmates, so I wanted Chat’s soulmate to be Ladybug, not Marinette. That makes sense, right?”

“Yes! And it was a great idea, but the universe has its own plans, and you can’t override them.”

“I know! It’s just that— I was planning— I didn’t want Marinette to be associated with Chat Noir. It’s too risky! What if people connect the dots? What if— oh no, Tikki! What if Plagg told Chat Noir about the soulmates? What if Chat Noir knows I’m Ladybug?!”

“Deep breaths, Marinette. It’s gonna be okay! I really don’t think Plagg would have told him, he’s really not fond of romance, he thinks it’s mushy.”

Marinette took a few moments to focus on her breathing, but Tikki’s unsure face didn’t calm her nerves any.

“I can go talk to Plagg if you want. And if Chat Noir really does know who you are, then we can work it all out! You make the rules now Marinette, you don’t have to choose a new partner unless you want to.”

The thought of her identity being known made her sick, but she tried to sleep anyway. A night of good rest would help her think more clearly, right?

She couldn’t help but let the song play out a few times more before she finally dozed off, only for it to echo in her sleep.

* * * *

If Marinette had been paying attention, she would have seen Adrien hovering nearby like the confused, enamoured puppy that he was. She would have noticed his lingering gaze, his soft smile. She would have noticed his internal debate over whether to say hello.

(Everyone else noticed; everyone except the object of his affections.)

Alas, she was too preoccupied with her increasing anxiety. She wasn’t sure when Tikki had left her purse, but she had checked ten minutes ago only to find she was missing. Her foot tapped at the floor at irregular intervals, matching the beat of the song in her heart (Jazz was the worst possible genre to pace her life, but then again, when was she ever regularly spaced?).

She played the whistling song in her head once more, too tired to fight her smile. She could have a much worse soulmate, that was for sure. Who wouldn’t want a sweet, considerate, objectively handsome if she really let herself think about it—

A nudge against her side let her know Tikki had phased into her purse. Almost too hastily, she excused herself to the washroom.

“So? What’s the verdict? I haven’t been able to focus all day!” She whispered, having been too anxious to wait for the door to close behind her.

“I’m so sorry, Marinette.”

Another wave of anxiety. Marinette took a shaky breath in. “What do you mean?”

Tikki’s little hands wrung each other dry as she spoke. “There was a miscommunication between Plagg and Chat Noir, and he knows you’re Ladybug now.”

Her charge slid to the floor by the sinks before her feet could give out completely. He knew? How could this have happened?

She fought the urge to cover her face and cringe. What now?

The door pushed in, Alya successfully interrupting her thoughts.

“Marinette! You okay?”

“Yeah!” Faster than a zip of her yo-yo, her hands flew to the hem of her pink jeans. “Just re-cuffing my jeans. What’s up?”

Alya gave Marinette a quirky sort-of look before shaking her head in amusement. “Miss Bustier wanted me to come get you. We’re starting the holiday party!”

“Let’s get going then!” Marinette locked arms with Alya as they walked out. If neither girl talked about the odd scene, perhaps they would both forget.

The party went well, the shiny menorah and shamash reflecting the small tree’s lights in dazzling patterns on the walls. The atmosphere was pleasant, the treats shared were delicious, and their White Elephant gift exchange went very well. The stuffed dinosaur she made ended up with Rose, and Marinette gratefully accepted a new oversized hat from Nino.

Adrien had caught her eyes a few times too many for her own comfort. It felt almost wrong to be thinking only of her partner while searching Adrien’s eyes for hidden meaning. She took his warm gaze and soft smile with a grain of salt, then turned her mind away to think of Chat Noir’s soft, affectionate gaze and his broad, warm smile that never failed to make her grin in return. For some reason, Adrien’s smile made Marinette want to listen to Chat’s song.

All too soon, the party came to a close. She bade her goodbyes, wished her friends a happy holiday break, and started to walk home in the early minutes of dusk. A fun day of sweet treats and party games left her heart warm and content. The soft tinkling of street lamps illuminating all around her brought a small spread of euphoria in her chest. Shadows danced in the corners of her eyes, drawing her gaze up to the rooftops, where her favorite pair of inhuman green eyes peered back at her. Chat leapt across the buildings in front of her, just enough to stop and look back for a moment as she walked.

Her stomach churned as they locked eyes. Feet glued to the pavement, she stared up at him, waiting for him to… well, she wasn't sure what she was waiting for. He was just looking at her, perched up four stories above her, head tilted.

Oh, she thought belatedly, he wants to talk.

With a small burst of resolution, she gave him a smile before willing her feet to move towards her house. By now the sun had set and the sky was gradually turning dark, a deep ocean encouraging her escape. As much as she longed to fall into the stars and float away, she also found herself giddy with excitement.

Their shared symphony played in her head as she opened the door to her home and excused herself upstairs, the melody almost unbidden, but she knew in her heart she had been longing to allow herself to enjoy it again.

Although, feeling ready for the next chapter of life was different than turning the page itself. There was sure to be shaky hands and stuttered words, confusion and maybe a little more bittersweet than she’d like, but, little did she know, there was going to be acceptance, overpowering emotions, tears, and many long hugs (and perhaps a few kisses), but that was life.

Besides, with her soulmate and partner by her side, she could do anything.

* * * *

Also! I may have gotten a little carried away and composed the leitmotif and the soulmate song as well~! You can listen to it here :)

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purplesauris · 3 years

Text

Fool Me Once (Fool Me Twice)

With the King of Mandalore rising to power and the Empire in shambles, the New Republic reaches out to build a relationship- using Luke Skywalker as their proxy.

Read it on AO3 here!

Yavin was muggy. The thought had stuck with Luke ever since he'd set foot on the planet again, this time to search the ruins of what was left of the Great Temple. It had been used as a base of operations during the Rebellion and decimated soon after, and despite Luke's attempts to get information while he was a pilot, he'd come up short.

Like he was now.

Luke had hoped that he could remember his way, but Artoo couldn't fight through the brush and so Luke had gone it alone, tramping through the underbrush and ducking under branches. the temple, despite being nothing more than a pile of rubble for the most part still called to him, and Luke followed the faint ache and tug in his chest that only grew worse the closer he got. His robes stuck uncomfortably to his lower back, damp with sweat, and Luke cursed himself for not wearing something lighter. He’s still begrudging his poor foresight when he breaks through the purple treeline, stopping short at the sight of the carnage in front of him. Stones are strewn about, ten times his height and just as wide, jagged and scorched by whatever explosive wreaked havoc on the structure.

Luke feels the agony of the people who died here, the resounding sadness and confusion that clings to the stones as Luke carefully picks his way through the ruins in the hope of finding something left. A book, a scroll, even a holo recording or merely a painting would suffice. Anything that Luke could use, could draw inspiration from for his own idea of what his Jedi Order might be like. Luke shivers in the afternoon heat when something in the force cries out for him, drawing his attention to a hole in the ground that when Luke walks up, peering inside, shows the lower levels of the temple. Luke knew it ran deep into the ground, but he was hesitant to drop down into an unstable hole with no way out other than the hole which would surely collapse on him if he so much as sneezed wrong.

"Well, can't go too wrong, can it?" Luke's voice echoes far louder than he means, but nothing stirs around him, not even the predators that had trailed him since he'd landed the x-wing.

Luke takes a deep breath, steadying himself before slowly picking his way down, slipping down the collapsed floor that made a somewhat decent ramp. If Luke didn't know better he'd have thought someone made it themselves. Which, upon a second glance, someone definitely did. Luke draws his lightsaber, using the green blade as an uneasy light source as he pads through the room, careful of each step but curious nonetheless. There isn't much- these look like what were once living quarters; all of the valuables were on the higher levels, including the library, but Luke can hope and the force hasn't steered him wrong yet.

Luke takes his time searching the room, avoiding the dank stairway descending further into the ground in favor of shuffling smaller bits of rubble around. Searching this temple, after all it's been through is a long shot, one that Luke knows won't pay off, but seeing the rows and rows of beds, picking up an old tattered blanket and sweeping a finger over the stitching on the edge makes him feel closer to a heritage he was only given a crash course in. Luke keeps the blanket with him, as old and moth eaten as the one edge is, and Luke is nearly finished with his slow search of the great room when he spots a stack of books bound together and tucked neatly under a rotted bed frame.

He thinks he’s hallucinating for a minute, but when he crouches down, reaching out to slide them closer the leather bound books are as real as anything else. The leather strap binding them together disintegrates when Luke slips a finger underneath them, so he opts to use the blanket, wrapping them up tightly to keep the moisture from ruining the already delicate books. Luke presses the books close to his chest, scaling the ramp that led him down into the room and breaking out into the hazy light of mid afternoon. Now that he’s gotten the books the temple is silent, only the whispers of what happened singing to Luke as he makes his way back to the ship.

He wonders if leaving the temple behind to fade into obscurity is cruel.

Much like the Jedi of old, the temple is from a time when things were wildly different, and Luke knows that even if he were to come back, to rebuild, the memories and dreams of those who inhabited it before would only haunt him and whatever students he found. No, it was better this way, to finally let the temple rest, after all it had been through to bring Luke to this moment.

His walk through the jungle back to his x-wing is just as sweaty and annoying as the trek in, but Luke’s irritation is tempered by the books pressed to his chest, the chance at something more hidden within the crumbling pages. He wants nothing more than to plop himself down in the cockpit, to crack open the first one and read until the light of the day leaves him fumbling. Luke is sweating all over again by the time he catches sight of the faded red splashed along the hull of his ship, and the ladder lowers automatically, Artoo beeping a greeting as Luke hauls himself up into the open cockpit.

He leaves the blanket and the books in his seat while he shrugs out of his heavy robe, folding it and tucking it in the space behind his chair. It leaves him in only the black fatigues underneath, but the faint breeze that rustles through the clearing he landed in is blissful and Luke sinks down into the seat with a lazy sigh.

“I found books, Artoo! Not sure what they hold yet, but I’m going to-”

Artoo whistles, makes a whirring sound, and Luke scowls.

“What do you mean there’s a communication for me?”

Sure enough the small holo relay on his dash is blinking slowly with an incoming recording and Luke groans, leaning back in his seat and staring up at the stars. He’d requested one thing from them when he’d agreed to help. One thing, something that was easily given should they choose to do so. Luke sits there a moment more, debating on if he should ignore it when Artoo beeps inquisitively, offering to turn it on for him. Luke waves a hand dismissively, sitting up with a grunt and slapping the play button. Leia’s face shimmers into view immediately, kind but pinched with annoyance, and Luke squints. The slope of her shoulders hold an undeniable tension, a worry that betrays her calm demeanor.

“Luke, the Senate has a new task for you. Please rendezvous on Coruscant at your earliest convenience.” Leia pauses, glancing at something to her left before her shoulders slump as she turns back to face the camera. “You aren’t going to like it. I’ll hold them off as long as I can- take your time coming home.”

Luke sits there mulling over the words as the holo with his sister’s face fades out. He isn’t going to like it? The thought brings with a strange pang of anxiety, curling in his gut and making his heart kick up a notch. If he’s not going to like it and Leia is willing to hold the Senate off then Luke is going to take his damn time getting back to Coruscant. As much as he wants to call it home, to let himself have a place to stop, to settle, Coruscant isn’t it. Leia is as close to home as he thinks he’ll ever get- his one constant, someone who won’t back down just because of who he is. She’s strong and smart, but where he shirks political messes, half because of the Jedi Code and half his own disinterest, Leia rises to the challenge. Blossoms with each situation she maneuvers through. The fact that she seemed so much like a wilting flower, petals all but ready to fall betrays just how badly she hates what is going to be asked of him.

“Artoo, bring us back to Coruscant. Slow and steady.” Artoo whistles merrily, bringing the cockpit down around Luke and sealing him inside. Luke slips his helmet on and straps himself in, intent to do a bit of reading before they make it to the technocity. Artoo’s ascent through the atmosphere is a bit choppy, but Luke is used to that, bracing his feet along the bottom of the ship and tensing the muscles in his stomach. He hardly moves, and only once they’re in the vacuum of space, moving toward Coruscant does he open the first book.

The spine creaks eerily in protest at being opened, and most of the ink is faded or obscured. What Luke does manage to read is mostly journal entries, from a padawan by the looks of it. The entries are sporadic, messy, but Luke follows them as best he can.

They have us lifting stones. Stones! I can crumple an entire army of people under fist and they have us lifting pebbles. I tried to tell them, to show them just what I could do, but they urged patience. That’s all they ever go on about! “Be patient, be calm, the Force guides in all ways.” Well, if this is the Force guiding me, what was guiding me before? What called me to this cursed moon to sit with stuffy old men in scratchy robes who ignore my skill level and train me with children?

Luke feels his own earlier training mirror the thoughts of whoever owned this journal before, and Luke can’t help but remember his masters. They’d been right in almost every way, in the way they were training, but Luke, like this person, was too blind to see. Luke was too blinded by emotion, by worry for his sister and his friends and everything to care. Luke still feels like it will choke him now sometimes, but he can never let the feeling quite catch up to him. He tucks the journal away for now, knowing that he isn’t going to get anything analytical from that particular volume. The next one that Luke cracks open is smaller, denser, and the ink on the paper is dark, as if fresh. The pages are crumbling at the edges, deteriorating with age, so the fact that everything else is holding up is intriguing.

Luke loses himself within the pages.

Pages upon pages of Jedi training, rituals and rites of passage- all that Luke has ever dreamed of knowing is here, in this book. His heart soars with the implications, the knowledge he holds in his hand, and he reads greedily. There are entire passages on things he can do with the force, from growing plants to healing to reading someone’s mind- Luke had already been finely attuned to feelings, but the thought that he could read thoughts? That opened a can of worms he wasn’t sure he was ready to tell anyone about. Granted, the thought of invading someone’s privacy like that leaves a sour taste in his mouth, but the thought of all that Jedi were able to do, able to specialize in, makes him giddy, flushed with anticipation and nervous all over again.

It’s almost enough to distract from the fact that whatever the Senate is about to have Luke do is dangerous and potentially life threatening. Luke flips through the rest of the book, skimming more so than reading, until Artoo whistles and chirps, alerting him that they’re about to break through hyperspace and into the artificial atmosphere around Coruscant. Luke braces himself for the descent and the flashing lights of the city, letting Artoo communicate with the tower as he brings them down to a private landing pad reserved specifically for Luke. He hardly uses it, more content to be off-world than among the smog and people who bother him for pictures and stories from the rebellion. He takes his time gathering his things and shrugging back into his robe, figuring he’ll be here long enough to at least go home. Luke wants to take his time walking to the Senate building, but he feels Leia before he sees her, and he drops from the cockpit nearly into her lap.

“Leia-” He hardly has time to steady his feet before Leia is hugging him tight, arms squeezing around his ribs and cheek pressed to his chest. There’s no hesitation in Luke’s response as his arms go around her, Luke pressing his nose into her hair and closing his eyes. He holds her there as she shakes in his arms, fingers digging into his back. “Leia…”

Leia finally pulls back, dashes her hands across her cheeks and smiling weakly. The smile doesn’t light up her eyes like it normally does and Luke pulls her into another hug, this time letting her arms go around his neck as he squeezes her. He feels her shudder again, and finally she speaks when Luke sets her down, chucking her gently under the chin.

“I don’t like what they’re doing to you, Luke. Haven’t you done enough?” Luke doesn’t let his own anxiety bleed into Leia’s, instead merely raising a brow.

“I’m the last Jedi, Leia. There are things they have to ask of me.”

“Not this. When is enough enough?” Luke feels Leia’s anger surge in her like a rising storm, but it’s tempered by her own confusion and heartache, and Luke reaches to take her hand. Leia stares down at his gloved hand, taking a deep breath before her shoulders square again, and this time when Luke looks at her, really looks, he sees the same hot-headed, determined Princess he saw on the Death Star so many years ago.

“Let’s go see what they have to say.”

Luke allows Leia to keep hold of his hand while they slip into the city, Artoo following along dutifully even as they hop from speeder to speeder. Luke’s landing pad and apartment are about as far from the Senate building as he can get without them throwing a fit, and Luke needs that distance. Craves it. Luke doesn’t miss being in the city, even with the cool breeze that’s so unlike the humidity of Yavin IV. The smog and din of people milling around him, of holorecorders snapping pictures as he moves through the crowd makes his skin crawl, and he fights the urge to pull his hood up. They’ve already gotten half a dozen pictures and headlines by now, Luke is estimating, so what’s a dozen more?

What’s one more moment stolen from him in the grand scheme of all the ones stolen before?

The Senate building looms like all the other buildings, built of twisting steel and glass and overwrought opulence. Half of the budget that went to the building could have fed planets of people, but Luke tries not to see the waste in it. Tries to pretend that stepping foot into the building doesn’t make his stomach clench with untold anxiety. Leia is a steady presence beside him, having recovered from the landing pad, and she straightens her clothes and brushes a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. Once her armor is once again set in place she squares her shoulders, pushing into the main meeting room and ignoring the way that silence falls around her.

Luke slips in behind her, hoping not to be noticed as she takes her seat. It doesn’t work, never has before, and Luke descends onto the floor as the desks of the senate rise above him in a slow wave, a sea of faces staring back. Luke folds his hands in front of him, aware that he is in no way in trouble, and projects serenity as strongly as he can manage. He sees the front row of senators relax, and knows he’s doing something right at least.

“Master Skywalker, it’s good of you to join us.”

“I’m sorry I couldn't come sooner, I was preoccupied on Yavin IV.” Luke inclines his head toward the body of the Senate, hiding the scowl that wants to furrow his brow.

“Did you find anything of import?” The question is innocent enough, curious even, but Luke can hear the double edged blade he’s balancing on, and he straightens up, giving a careful, bored shrug of his shoulders.

“The ruins of the temple were in far worse shape than I thought. It will take quite a few visits to search through the whole thing.”

“We can have a team sent, if it would ease your struggles, Master Skywalker.”

Luke smiles, easy and warm, and shakes his head at the man who has deigned to do most of the speaking. “The temple is in poor shape, and I fear sending someone nor versed in the Force would only cause it’s gradual collapse to speed up.”

“A good point. Well…” Luke watches the way the crowd shifts, all at once glancing toward Leia before glancing back at the man asking the questions. Luke has dealt with him before, many times, but for the life of him he cannot remember his name. “We have a task for you, if you are willing to undertake it.”

“I believe the Senate gave me leave to resume my search for Jedi artifacts.” Luke points out, trying not to let his irritation rise when the man nods, fake sympathy etched into the wrinkles around his mouth.

“That was… Before this newest problem had arisen.” Luke’s hands clench in front of him, fingers curling around each other, and he eases back with his right hand, careful not to crush his other fingers. Luke dips his head in a motion meant to tell them to go on, and to his annoyance and relief, they do. “There is a new king on Mandalore.”

“The glass planet? I thought it was inhospitable.”

“It was under the Empire’s control for quite some time.” The man agrees, steepling his fingers against his chin as he leans back in his chair. “But a mandalorian has claimed the Darksaber from Moff Gideon, and by extension, risen to power.”

“And what am I to do about it? Mandalore is a ghost planet, a myth more than anything else. Why bother them?”

“Mandalorians are by far the greatest warriors this galaxy has ever seen.” Luke’s eyes widen marginally, flicking to Leia only to find hers steely with resolve. Growing horror mounts within Luke, gnawing at his heart and scraping across his ribs. “They despise the Empire and Imperials nearly as much as we, but we cannot risk them doing something out of desperation.”

“So reach out to them.”

Smiles among the Senate turn sharklike and Luke feels like a piece of bait lobbied into a sarlacc pit. Waiting with resigned dread to be eaten alive. “We have. We have offered the help of our greatest asset and commander of the Rebellion to aid their fight in retaking and rebuilding their planet.”

“You aren’t seriously thinking of sending Leia with me.”

“No, Master Skywalker.” Relief floods Luke, making his knees go weak, but it’s drowned out by the sudden rushing in his ears. “We’re only sending you.”

Luke freezes at that, head emptying, stomach dropping away from him all at once. He feels hollowed out, dizzy with disbelief, and he can’t breathe standing under the lights and hungry gazes of the Senate. Luke does the only thing he can think to do: he turns on his heel, robe flaring out behind him as he turns and slips from the room, letting the door close with a final, resounding click.

He’s running after that- thoughts a blur and faces passing him by in messy smears of colors and concern. Their feelings flood in him in waves of curiosity, awe, admiration that he doesn’t deserve, and by the time Luke makes it over and down to his apartment his heart is beating from his chest. He can’t go to Mandalore- it’s a death wish, certain and swift. Luke locks himself away in his apartment, moving through the dark of the living room without needing sight, ignoring the lights and Artoo’s quiet beeping. He has to think- there has to be a way to say no, to tell them in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t feel like dying on a planet no one has set foot on in decades. On a planet so steeped in agony and death and betrayal that Luke feels sick just at the mention of it.

He knows Mandalore’s history, knows it and does not want to see it.

Luke is sitting on the floor in the living room, legs folded and eyes closed when the lock on his door beeps before the door itself slides open. There are only two people with access to the apartment, so Luke isn’t surprised when Leia’s aura brushes against his, watery and weak with sorrow as she sits across from him. He doesn’t need to open his eyes to see the way she slips into her own meditative state, breathing in and out in time with Luke to calm the raging of her heart and her emotions. Luke allows his own power to brush against hers, to gauge the way she’s feeling and offer his own steady calm in the absence of hers.

“You don’t have to go.” She whispers, voice shaking in the dark of the room.

Luke sits there for a moment, throat tight, before he answers. “You know that isn’t true. If they don’t send me, they’ll send you. And when you don’t come back they’ll send me anyway.”

“They wouldn’t hurt me. Not with the strength the New Republic holds.”

“You don’t know that.” Luke hears Leia’s mouth open to protest, but she stops short, unable to say anything truthfully and aware that if she lies Luke will feel it. “How long have they been planning this?”

“I don’t know. The rise of the new king was abrupt- one moment Mandalore was a barren planet, and the next? An old Imperial Remnant was blasting each and every Empire base into obscurity.”

“Moff Gideon’s ship.” Luke parses that much from the little the Senate gave him, and Leia makes a noise of affirmation. “How quickly did they take the planet back?”

“A matter of hours. They took out the air bases first: all the tie fighters, their best military outposts. It was a textbook take over. I doubt we could have done anything better.”

Luke huffs out something resembling a laugh. Even in the face of the unknown Leia finds something to learn from, and Luke loves her more for it. “Why me?”

“You’re a status symbol. A mark of the New Republic’s power. For you to willingly step foot on the planet, to go and talk to their king? It’s-”

“Monumental. A moment in history.” Luke finishes, words twisted and bitter on his tongue. As if he hasn’t had a lifetime of making history. Of bleeding and bleeding and bleeding for a cause.

“I tried to fight against it.” Leia says softly, voice full of iron. “You’re one man, surely they could find a contingent of people to represent us. But once your name was suggested no one listened to anything else.”

“It’s okay.” He says, even though it’s far from okay. This is the path that he’s been placed on, and there’s no way he can get out of it. He knows deep in his heart, in the very core of him that this is inevitable- like the rising and falling of the tides, Luke is on a direct course toward whatever destiny is in store for him, and he’s only holding on in the desperate hope he makes it out relatively unscathed. “Go, Leia, tell them that I’ve decided.”

“What have you decided?” Luke smiles, leaning forward to nudge Leia’s knee with a hand and shoo her up to her feet.

“You’ll hear in the morning, when I tell the council.”

#dinluke #alternate au #post chapter 16 #slow burn #prince au #Adri and I said what if luke was a prince #and here i go

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onyourmemory-ha · 3 years

Text

Chapter One

little changes can pave lanes

Auggie broadens their horizons and meets their best friend’s girl.

The seats are crammed together, packing everyone in like sardines. The sweat and general body odor seem to go along with the disgustingly fishy trend. All of that Auggie could forgive but the hollering child was where they drew the line. The demon spawn pounded its fist against the back of some poor unfortunate soul’s seat and yelled about wanting to go play.

The sole reason they don’t join in and match the child’s volume is because of Trish, the woman keeping a firm hold on their hand as if reading their thoughts. And considering the type of woman she was, they really wouldn’t put it past her if that really were the case. As it is, it helps ground them and not lose it on a literal child.

“I thought your dick of an ex was rich now,” They grumble lowly, debating if they should give in to the desire of banging their head against the headrest.

“He is,” Trish tries to hide her amusement, hiding her grin behind her drink as she pushes further. “Why would you think otherwise?”

Snorting, Auggie gestures to the hell hole they’ve been forced into. “The bastard skimped out on getting the good seats. But it’s good to know Dick is just the same.”

“We’re just lucky to have found tickets at such short notice,” She gently squeezes their hand with a wordless scolding and it’s enough to have Auggie’s frown deepening.

Flushing, they look to the cloudy sky. It’s a cruel reminder, being indebted to someone like Ken of all people. Instead, they choose to focus on the reasoning behind it, easily shifting the blame onto the person who’s truly at fault. “I’m gonna beat your son’s ass when we see him, fair warning.”

And Trish, the traitor, just laughs to herself. “I love you, honey. But I don’t think you’d like who the winner was in something like that.”

“Oh, I know,” Auggie just shrugs. “But I’d get a few good hits in there and that’s all I need to ruin his day.”

This just has Trish laughing even more though she clearly tries to fight it. When Auggie snorts as a result, she lightly slaps their knee, and they both tune back into the movie playing overhead. And when Trish begins to tear up at the lovers reuniting on-screen, Auggie just squeezes her hand tighter and doesn’t mention it.

ㅤ⠀ |♛|

It’s barely even noticeable, hidden beneath postering and a surprisingly fragile smile. If it hadn’t been for the years of knowing him or the sudden edge in Trish’s eyes, Auggie might have not even picked up on it. But they did and therein lies the issue.

The thing about Hardin was that he was similar to a horse. Big and intimidating but one good blow will end him for a long time. And so easily spooked on top of it. He wasn’t the type to confront, not when he was trying so hard to hide it like he was. They already knew how that would play out and it wouldn’t be pretty.

So, they did the only thing they really could do. They waited. Hardin wasn’t exactly someone subtle nor was he someone who bottled everything well. He was the explosive sort and that meant all Auggie needed to do was wait. Preferably without pushing him to that breaking point themselves but if they needed to, they would.

“Look at you!” Trish beams, holding his face gently. “How’ve you been, love?”

He places his hands over hers, his smile growing stronger. “Better now that you’re here. Was the flight okay?”

“Oh, it was fi—,” Trish goes to assure but they cut her off there, a screaming child flashing beneath their eyelids.

“It was absolute shit,” They announce with a proud grin. “I expect compensation, just so you know.”

Trish just shakes her head, pressing a kiss against her son’s forehead before pulling away. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“It was but you can pretend otherwise,” Auggie corrects, rocking on their heels.

He just snickers, shaking his head as he grabs Trish’s bags. “It wasn’t too bad if you’re still in high spirits.”

He walks forward without a warning, leaving the two of them to catch up. And Auggie does just that, their own bag thumping against their thigh with each step. “Of course I’m in high spirits now! I get to see my favorite white boy named Allen!”

He stops, just for a moment, and levels them a fierce glare from over his shoulder. “I’m sure they could always arrange a flight back home for you by tonight.”

“Or I could just go on with you two,” They beam, eyes wide and ready to play the innocent card.

Trish huffs at them both, her smile betraying the notion as she gestures them to hurry up. “If you two don’t play nice, I’ll ground you both!”

That has Hardin laughing, the shadows being chased away for the moment and it’s a small victory that Auggie soaks in. They walk with a purpose after that, Auggie shuffling after the mother and son duo with a smile that feels more real than any other one has in months.

ㅤ⠀ |♛|

The apartment isn’t the cleanest of places but Auggie can still tell how nice it is under it all. They wonder whether or not it was another attempt on Hardin’s sperm donor to win him over and how successful it actually was considering he accepted it. The only thing out of place, besides the strewn-about clothes, is the light that streams in through the large, modern windows. It feels like the darkness should be trapped inside by thick curtains, not released to the light. They can’t help but think that maybe that was exactly the case before Hardin left to pick them up.

“Well, here we are,” He announces with little enthusiasm. “Go ahead and get comfortable.”

“Ooh, might as well draw me a bath in that case,” Auggie teases lightly before seriously considering it themselves. The warm water really would be nice right about now. “We can make it like old times and you can join me.”

“No thanks,” He snorts, dropping the suitcases in front of what they assume is the guest room. “One almost drowning was enough for me.”

“So boring,” They tsk, flopping on the couch as Trish rolls her eyes at the pair of them.

That’s when the newcomer makes themselves known, slinking out of the bedroom with a heated glare and her hands on her hips. The first thing Auggie notices is how pretty she is. It’s the type of prettiness that can be weaponized, the kind of features that were found on the faces of the popular kids back in high school. Her blonde hair pulls upon that cliche even more, cascading over her shoulders in a gentleness thats betrayed by the poison pooling behind her teeth. And it’s with a sinking feeling that Auggie realizes who this is at the same time that Trish does.

“You must be Tessa!” She exclaims after a pause, striding across the room and pulling the other girl into a hug. “Oh, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you ever since Hardin mentioned you!”

And that is very true. When they’d discovered Tessa couldn’t make it, leading to Hardin canceling as well, the woman had almost been heartbroken. That alone would have been enough for Auggie to be on guard around her. But the already set glare and the way Hardin seemed to shrink in on himself yet attuned everything to her, that did it. So Auggie stayed where they were seated, not bothering to stand up to greet the girl that their entire body seemed to rebel against.

“Oh, I thought…” She trails off, flushing with a sheepish smile. Her eyes though, they remain sharp. “It’s so good to meet you! I was just going, though.”

“No, you can’t just go now! Please stay! At least for dinner!” Trish pleads, the desperation matched in her son’s eyes.

“I mean, I told my mom I’d be there by dark…” She trails off, guiltily looking towards the door.

“Surely it wouldn’t hurt another night. It’ll be safer to drive in the morning anyways,” Trish reasons and they don’t miss the way Hardin’s eyes begin to brighten at the prospect of her staying.

It seems to be enough to convince the girl though and she gives a weary smile as her decision is made up. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

And for some reason, Auggie highly doubts it, but they keep their mouth closed for now. Although, they do throw their head against the back of the couch and let out a big sigh. “Is that bath still an option?”

ㅤ⠀ |♛|

They end up ordering in food, the empty cabinets and fridge having given Hardin pause in his plans. And pause in conversations as well, it seems. Trish makes an effort, asking simple little questions to get to know the girl her son has become infatuated with, for some reason, while Hardin sits there staring at his plate like it spit in his face. Tessa, for her part, answers as politely as she can with a well timed smile.

The fakeness is stiffening and they all know it. Or at least, Auggie hopes they aren’t the only one picking it up. By Hardin’s awkward gazes between the blondes, they think they aren’t. So when Auggie is finally brought up, they’re pulled out of their overanalyzing thoughts about Hardin, the apartment, and the awkwardness. “What?”

“I was just saying how you and Hardin met,” Trish beams like the proud mother she is. “They’ve been with us through so much.”

“I had no idea,” Tessa enunciated slowly with an indescribable look leveled at their way. “Hardin’s never mentioned anyone other than his mother.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Auggie shrugs, trying to shake the edge in their voice before it's noticed. “Hardin always has been a private person. Plus he’s always been a momma’s boy.”

Tessa nods, glancing to her boyfriend before focusing back on the odd creature that Auggie must look like in their perfect apartment. “So what is it you do back in London?”

“Wiltshire,” They correct.

“What?” She frowns, sitting back in her seat with a deepening frown.

For some reason, Auggie finds relief in that. “It's outside of London. That’s where we’re from. But I mainly just help look after Mum and work down at the convenient store. Hoping to broaden my horizons soon and all that.”

“Oh,” Tessa trails off, looking towards Trish now like she’d somehow done something. “So you and Trish are close too?”

“Of course,” Trish answers with no hesitation, missing the way the girl’s smile tightens. “I practically raised this one and when Hardin moved away for uni, this sweet thing stepped up and moved in with me.”

“I’m basically the favorite child,” They grin ear to ear, nudging Hardin with their foot. “Isn’t that right?”

He, finally, stops staring after Tessa like a lost puppy and scoffs. “She only tells you to keep the peace in the house.”

That’s what Auggie considers a good opening, especially for what they’ve been meaning to discuss, and there’s nothing like biting the bullet head on. “About that.”

He turns his entire focus to them and almost looks scared. “What? What’s happening?”

Trish picks up on it immediately and sets down her drink softly. “Before you say anything, know that this was something I pushed.”

“Just spit it out already,” He snaps, hackles seeming to rise.

Auggie takes a deep breath. “Remember them broadening horizons? Well, I think it's time I actually do that and I’ve been talking with the Dick…”

“Ken? Why the fuck have you been talking with my Dad?” Hardin exclaims, eyes narrowing between them and his mother.

“I wanna go back to school and the only way I could afford that is if I had some help or knew someone. I ended up having both.” Auggie further explains gently.

It finally clicks in his head and his guards fall at once, his eyes widening. “You’re going to attend Washington?”

“If I can get a place to stay at,” Auggie slowly explains, clearing their throat. “I might need a place to stay while I get everything in order, though.”

“And it would be very generous and kind if you were to help Auggie out with this,” Trish adds on, eyes narrowed as if daring him to deny them this help.

Hardin just rolls his eyes, leaning back in his chair now that he knew what the conversation was about. “Don’t be stupid. Auggie can have the spare bedroom once you leave,” Then he pauses, looking towards Tessa. “If that’s alright with you.”

If it weren’t for her white knuckles around her fork, her easy expression would have fooled Auggie. She even smiles sweetly and nods. “It’s your place too. Of course they can stay for a little bit.”

“Then that’s perfect,” Auggie claps. “I packed all that I could and once Trish gets back, she can ship me my things!”

Tessa nods, her knuckles whitening and her smile stretching almost uncomfortably. “Mhmm, perfect.”

#after movie #tessa young #hardin scott #hardin x reader #chapter 1 #on your memory #fanfic #after fanfiction #hardin scott fanfic #tessa young is the worst #august sanderson #fanfiction #new chapter #fan writing #after we collided [2020]#Hardin Scott x oc #hardin scott x reader

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7-wonders · 4 years

Text

The Thrill of the Chase

Summary: Your path once again crosses with Michael’s, this time under much more dire circumstances. Life and death, specifically yours, has suddenly never been more prevalent in your mind.

Word Count: 2602

A/N: Hey y’all, this takes place after Lost In the Shadows! We’ve been talking a lot of True Blood on here lately, and when I wrote this sort of situation with Eric Northman, somebody said they could imagine this with Michael. Hence, this new work. I hope you enjoy, and please remember that likes, comments, and reblogs are what makes my world go round.

In the weeks since you had discovered that vampires are not just a myth written about in romantic novels and scary stories, and that your boss, Michael Langdon, was the first vampire and the Antichrist, life had been quieter than you were expecting. After luring Michael to your lab and forcing him to tell you about vampires, you had thought that he was going to make you go missing or force you to swear that you would remain silent. To your surprise, however, he gave you space. You had seen him multiple times since the incident had occurred, but every time he kept his distance, choosing to greet you with a simple smile before moving on to whatever a vampire CEO needs to do.

Maybe this is some predatory habit of vampires, where they bait their prey before backing off and driving them mad with anticipation before striking. If it is, you would rather Michael get whatever he’s planning over with. This wait, whether it be for something or nothing, is starting to affect your work.

Speaking of work, it’s then that you shake yourself out of your thoughts and realize nearly an hour has passed since the typical work day ends. You sigh, running a hand through your hair and looking disdainfully at the paperwork that still litters your desk. Some days, being head of R&D has its perks. Others, when you have to sift through hundreds of funding requests from developers just as idiotic as Jeff and Mutt, make you want to walk out and never come back. You doubt you’d find a job with health insurance as good as Kineros’s, though.

Deciding that a walk to clear your head will do you some good, you stand and relish in the popping noise that your shoulders make when you stretch. The building’s your favorite when it’s almost completely empty, the comforting silence a perfect work environment. Greeting one of the custodians as she mops the hall in the direction away from your lab/office, you decide to walk downstairs to give her uninterrupted time to clean without you getting in the way.

Eventually, and like always, you end up down at the main lab that Jeff and Mutt inhabit. You’ve made it a habit to come and check that everything is turned off and put back where it’s supposed to be, not trusting two men constantly high on cocaine to properly dispose of used chemicals and turn off the power source to loose wires. After getting on them numerous times about proper lab etiquette, they’ve actually become quite vigilant. Tonight, however, you can already see a bunsen burner that looks like it’s still on. While concerning, it’s not a disastrous situation. It’s not, at least, until you turn the light on and notice the ethanol-soaked rag right next to the open gas source.

That’s when the explosion happens.

It’s a perfect storm, with a combustible chemical having had plenty of time to oxidize next to a natural gas source. The heat emanating from the fluorescent lights that you turn on act as the catalyst, and you only have time to cover your eyes as the light from the rapidly-expanding flame warns you milliseconds before the explosion reaches your ears. The sheer force of velocity is enough to throw you across the room, with the all-glass interior proving no match as every surface shatters. Everything is happening so fast, yet it seems as though it’s in slow motion, an out of body experience in which you’re a passive observer watching what’s happening to you. Maybe you are having an out of body experience, since the bouncing of your head against the wall is something that you’re pretty sure knocks you out.

It’s unclear how much time has passed when you hear a voice calling your name. Long enough that the flames have started smoldering under the water of the fire alarms. You blink rapidly, trying to get your eyes to focus again. Finally, Michael Langdon comes into view. If you weren’t in a state of shock, you’d be mildly upset that of course the vampire whom you threatened last week is the one to come upon you in a state of mortal peril. Since you are dealing with a bit of shock, you can only stare at him in disbelief.

“(Y/N), can you hear me?” You nod. “What happened?”

“Cokeheads...chemicals...bunsen burner…” Damn, that sounded way more eloquent in your head. Your inability to string together a full sentence means a concussion is almost certain.

“Those fucking imbeciles,” Michael says lowly, eyes scanning you to catalogue the extent of your injuries. His eyes are dark red with veins extending to his cheeks, startling you just as much as the previous time you saw this side of him. What startles you even more is just how easily he bites into his own wrist to let blood flow, holding it out to you expectantly.

“No, I don’t wanna be a vampire.” You try to move away from Michael, but you’re in too much pain for even that.

Although your words come out slurred and confused, Michael still understands you. “You won’t, I promise. It’s a very specific ritual, and there’s not even a chance of you becoming a vampire from this. Please, just take my blood and let me heal you.”

Later, you’ll wonder if Michael had done some sort of vampire mind trick on you. That’s the only way you can justify taking his blood with so little hesitation. Regardless of the reasons why, the earnesty in his voice tells you that he’s being truthful.

Michael leans over you, slipping a hand around the back of your neck to help you up as you lower your mouth to the open wound on his wrist. While you grimace at the metallic taste when Michael’s blood first pools in your mouth, the taste changes to something much more pleasant. It’s like a new cocktail that you get at a bar; you’re not too sure of whether or not you like it, but you know that it tastes good.

By the time you notice that your head feels clearer, Michael’s deemed that you’re fully healed. To your muted horror, you realize that you don’t want to pull away, but Michael gently forces you off of him. His inquisitive eyes look you over once more, and he uses his thumb to wipe stray blood off of your lips.

“You healed me. Why?” Your head is reeling with how fast events have been moving in the span of just a few minutes, yet the one clear question you have is why Michael healed you when he could have just as easily killed you.

“Why not?”

“Well...because…”

“Are you feeling better?” Michael decides to take pity on your bewilderment, switching the subject.

“Oh!” Now that he mentions it, you do feel better. You can think in full sentences now, and the dull ache in your head has disappeared. While you hadn’t seen any cuts on your body, the thin lines of blood left behind on your arms prove that there were wounds from the broken glass. “I am, actually.”

“You sound surprised. Did you not think that it would work?”

Laughing sheepishly, you shrug. “I mean, not really.”

You look around, just now seeing the destruction around you. “You think Jeff and Mutt have insurance that covers gross negligence?”

“Oh, they’ll be paying for this out of their own pockets. They’re lucky that I won’t have them criminally charged for any of this.” Sirens sound in the distance, and Michael pulls you up from out of the rubble. “Come, the authorities will be here soon.”

“Wait!” Michael allows you to pull him to a stop. “What do I even tell the police? I’m sure there’s security footage of me getting knocked out.”

“Conveniently, the cameras were knocked out due to the explosion.” Michael winks at you before disappearing like he was never at the scene, leaving you to stand among the carnage as authorities swarm what was once a laboratory.

It’s light out when you wake up after your whirlwind night, which is what you first recognize as odd. When you arrived home last night, you don’t remember falling asleep. The next thing that can be categorized as odd is the tall, blond vampiric Antichrist standing in the middle of your bedroom. You scramble up on the bed with a surprised gasp, pulling your blankets up to your chin and staring at Michael’s smirking face.

“What--how are you here? I never invited you in.”

“A common misconception about vampires.” Michael slowly approaches the bed, his languid movements reminding you of the predator that he is.

“But what about the fact that it’s light out? Shouldn’t you be a pile of ash right now?”

“I am not the final word of vampire lore.” He kind of is, and you would retort with that, if it weren’t for the way he crawls towards you. “Your heart is beating very fast.”

“That’s because I’m not sure if you’re gonna eat me.”

“Potentially, but not in the way that you’re thinking.” If Michael couldn’t hear your heart beating before, he surely can now, especially once he leans in and kisses you.

You’ve been kissed before, enough times that you would consider yourself pretty knowledgeable about the subject. If you know a bit about kissing, then Michael Langdon is an expert on it. He manages to be sensual, yet rough at the same time, a fang nicking your bottom lip and making you shudder in surprise. Just as quickly as the droplet of blood can bead up to the surface, Michael’s licked it away, moaning at the taste of your blood.

“I don’t know how I’ve managed to go so long between tasting you,” Michael mutters against your skin, using his skill to quickly remove the shirt that you had been sleeping in.

You’re not self-conscious at Michael seeing you topless, which is unusual for you. Maybe it’s just because he knows how to treat a person right, but it’s impossible to even have those thoughts when the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen is currently kissing his way down your abdomen. Michael’s fingers ghost over the top of your pants, and you thread your fingers through his hair in response. Then, there’s a loud knock on the door.

Sitting up in bed, you’re disoriented when you realize that it’s not light out, and you don’t have a gorgeous blond vampire on top of you. Somebody knocks on the door again, and you realize that must be what woke you up from your extremely vivid, extremely wonderful dream.

“I’m coming,” you say in the loudest voice you can muster, wrapping a blanket around your shoulders to combat the cold air that the open door will let in. “Michael!”

Either this is the weirdest inception-like dream you’ve ever had, or the man you were just having a sex dream about is standing at your door. “Hello, (Y/N). I hope you won’t be too upset that I woke you at this hour.”

“Uh, you’re fine.” You open the door wider to allow Michael to enter, but he just continues to stand in the same spot. “Do I...have to invite you in? Like, is that a real thing with vampires?”

“No, I just prefer to be polite and not barge into somebody’s home without their permission.” You smirk. Of course that myth would come from the overly-polite Antichrist.

“Come in, Michael.”

“Thank you.” He steps in, quickly appraising the entryway of your apartment with the detached air of someone who’s been in homes much grander than this (he probably has; you’ve seen a couple of portraits of the French court at Versailles with a blond lord who looks suspiciously like Michael). “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”

“That would be a question I have.”

“Well, I realized that I had forgotten to mention something about taking vampire blood when injured.”

“And you couldn’t wait until the next time that you saw me to tell me this? Wait, how did you even find my address?”

“I’m the CEO, I have everybody’s records.”

“So, what did you have to tell me?”

“I’m assuming, since you were asleep, that you had a pretty...imaginative dream about me?”

The blood drains from your face. “How did you know about that?”

“I was so wrapped up in saving you, and the commotion that followed, that I didn’t get to tell you that a human drinking a vampire’s blood bonds them to that vampire.”

“What does that mean?” you ask incredulously.

“What it means,” Michael explains patiently, “is that certain things are going to happen to you now that you have a vampire’s blood in your system. Your senses will be enhanced, you’ll have heightened strength…”

“And the dreams?”

“As I said before, drinking a vampire’s blood bonds a human to that vampire. Until my blood is out of your system, I’ll be able to sense if you’re in trouble and your emotions. It can also give you erotic dreams about the vampire whose blood you’ve consumed.”

You groan, dismay evident on your face. “Great, that’s just--fantastic. So when does it stop?”

“A couple of months? Blood doesn’t cycle through the body very fast.”

“You’re kidding me,” you say with a disbelieving laugh.

“I don’t see what’s funny about this.”

“My entire life since I’ve met you has been fucking hilarious! And now I’m apparently bonded to you because you just happened to cross my path when I was mortally wounded.”

Michael glowers at you. “I didn’t have to save your life, you know.”

“Yet you did, all the while knowing what would happen when I took your blood.” You want to say all the things you’re thinking of, like how you still would have survived out of sheer hatred for him even if you did have to wait for the ambulance to arrive (which they had, clearing you after you had explained to the very confused EMTs that you hadn’t been in the lab when the explosion happened, just right outside of it; they had accepted your lie, albeit dubiously upon seeing the devastation that wrecked the first floor of Kineros), but all you can think about are his goddamn beautiful lips and how badly you want to kiss them. “Fuck, I can’t even focus on being mad at you because of the urge to kiss your stupidly perfect face!”

The anger Michael was previously feeling evaporates as he fights the upward quirk that his lips threaten to take. “We certainly can kiss, if that’s what you’d like.”

“It’s not what I’d like! It’s that stupid bond you were talking about.”

“Maybe just once will help to quell any future urges you may have?”

You’re not sure if you want to smack the cocky grin off his face or jump on him, so you settle for pointing to the front door. “Out.”

“Alright, but just remember that the offer still stands.” He produces a business card between his long, ringed fingers, and you snatch it out of his hand while still glaring at him. “Goodnight, (Y/N).”

You slam the door behind him, leaning against it to help your shaky knees. Michael’s laughter is still on the air long after he’s left, and you sigh as you wonder how on earth you’re going to get to sleep...especially when you realize that you won’t be able to take care of your little problem without Michael knowing. That laughter suddenly seems a lot louder now.

Baby tag list bc I’m lazy: @moonanonwriting @lvngdvns @wroteclassicaly @sojournmichael @chibi-lioness @ccodyfern @trelaney @xavierplympton @dyns33 @michaelsapostle @ajokeformur-ray

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clansayeed · 3 years

Text

Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ― Chapter 9: The Arrival

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ⥽

They fled New York with one purpose. Find, hunt down, and return with a way to kill a vampire god. They abandoned their loved ones and survived the City of Shadows; had their trust broken and darkest secrets brought to light. All that... and Gaius still won anyway. But now that they have nothing to lose, Nadya and her friends are finally ready to do whatever it takes to see the King of Vampires overthrown.

They just have to avoid a vampire population eager to gain favor with their new monarch, the ruthless Order of the Dawn, and whatever plans Gaius has that involve Nadya captured and brought to him alive. So... easy-peasy, right? The worlds of both dark and light hang in the balance. The time has come for the Bloodkeeper to embrace her destiny. So if anyone wants to clue her in on whatever that means, now would be great!

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing reimagining project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

TAG LIST: @googlesentmehere, @cess02, @hellyeah90sbaby, @tayab12, @saratustra4, @imnotdonewiththeelementalists, @thepotatobleh,

*join the Tag List here!

⥼ Summary ⥽

It's the night of Vlad's masquerade ball, the most prestigious social event a vampire can attend. An entire ballroom full of faces and names every vampire in Europe knows... and apparently Nadya is going to upstage them all.

content warnings: language

[READ IT ON AO3]

A pretty big chunk of their plan relies on the staff of the Tepes Estate being just as snobbish and uppity as the man they serve.

So thankfully at least something is both easily predictable and surprisingly convenient.

Staff all around, and none of them pay the pair of them much mind. Beyond the fact that they get told by more than one footman that “guests really shouldn’t be back in the staff corridors” and receive multiple warnings about how “the Count has ensured all guests for the evening, (said while looking down the biggest snooty nose in all of Prague no less) no matter their prestige, will receive adequate time to sup on the serving staff,” and that they “really shouldn’t be allowing an undisclosed human on the premises but will look the other way this time,” Nadya and Cadence are pretty much left to their own devices.

Which means scurrying out of sight before any lone particularly loyal member of the Tepes household decides to go narc and everything ends up exploding in their faces anyway.

Because there’s no way on earth these full-face masques of theirs are providing any damage cover should their plans go KABOOM!

Nadya casts another look up at Cadence as they come across their umpteenth fork in the road. Watching him decide between right or left is starting to feel as nerve-wracking as actually choosing which direction they ought to go.

“You’re sure you know where we are?” You’re sure you know we’re going the right way?

“I’m starting to feel like you have less than zero faith in me, Nadya.” He probably thinks the glance down her way is a reassuring one. But the masque over his face is almost too neutral. It’s just a mask but it feels like it’s trying too hard, you know?

“That’s not it at all. This place is just…” A lot.

He barely remembers to reach back and take her by the hand before he chooses left in a hurry. Who knows how much time they’ve wasted just trying to find their way through this seemingly endless castle.

“It takes me a moment to recall the map Serafine showed me before we left, but I’m… ninety percent sure I know exactly where we are.”

“And the other ten percent?”

“Is trying to keep an ear out for party noises. So if you’ll zip it, thank you.”

Admittedly Nadya would have a lot more faith in this plan if it wasn’t just the pair of them, proven stumbling disasters that they are, relying on the apparently flawless memory of a man who literally introduces himself as ‘the one with amnesia.’ She understands the rationale behind it, just as she understands the rationale behind everybody else going through the front door like an entourage of normal party-goers. They have three prestigious faces and what Jax and Lily lack in clout they make up for in being practically invisible as nobodies to this upper echelon of attendees.

But shoving the two bigwigs of their gang — well, the most recognizable face in any room of vampires and the obviously human girl losing her freakin’ mind amid a cluster of the heartbeat-less undead — through the staff entrance with nothing more than simple masks to disguise them and trusting them not to mess up finding their way among the rest in time for some famed big reveal they still don’t know the full-on details of…?

Well if they live through this long enough to chronicle this part of their journey, nobody is ever allowed to even so much as imply via metaphor that Nadya never trusted her friends wholly and completely.

Actually if they’re talking about chronicling stuff, better they leave these more vague and improvised parts of their master quest to the footnotes. That way they can pretend they knew what they were doing the whole time.

For example Nadya isn’t gonna let anyone write down that she got so wrapped up in her thoughts about what may or may not get written down that she walked face-first into a brick wall.

OW.

Not a brick wall, actually.

Cadence turns around and catches Nadya’s mask just before it falls and shatters on the ground. Thank you vampire super-speed.

“Are you okay?” He asks, wide-eyed and worried, hesitant to give her back her disguise to take stock of how she really looks.

That’s such a loaded question though, so Nadya ignores it and rubs the redness on her forehead instead.

“Why’d you stop?”

The vampire takes a moment to look up and down either end of the corridor and even around the next corner. When he’s satisfied they’re alone he pries his own mask off with a groan; practically peeling his flattened hair from where its been stuck to his forehead the moment he put the darn thing on.

“Because,” with pursed lips he blows his fringe out of his eyes, “I’ve been talking this entire time… and even when I ramble you usually have some two cents or other to pitch in.”

That’s fair. Nadya takes back her mask with a sheepish shrug. “Sorry, got distracted.”

“That much is obvious. Care to share?”

“Not really. Care to keep going?” Not like they’re exactly full of free time, here.

He sweeps his arm in an after you motion, but keeps pace with Nadya’s shorter stride. “I can hear the string quartet by now. We’re close, but they haven’t begun the announcements Serafine told me to wait for.” So maybe they have a bit of free time. Got it.

Only now she can’t stop thinking about what will be on the other side of the big grand ballroom doors.

And Nadya without her set of note cards to at least help her through her dumb speech all because her dumb dress has no dumb pockets.

“You know I still don’t get why they wouldn’t budge about you not being discovered.”

“You don’t see me complaining,” Cadence says with a shrug; and actually now that he points it out…

“No, I don’t.”

He doesn’t need to look at her to know exactly why she says it that way, either. It’s not the first time they’ve had this talk. Probably won’t be the last either.

His sigh sags from his shoulders to his fingertips. “‘Surprise warmonger back from the dead’ might accidentally eclipse ‘reincarnation of the vampire Goddess.’ Can’t have that, now can we.”

“Cadence.”

“Nadya.”

They turn another corner in complete silence. Nadya’s ears strain to hear this quartet of his but nope, not close enough for her poor human ears quite yet.

Finally Cadence seems to decide on something. Gathering himself up all the way to his full height while fiddling with the porcelain in his grasp. “Actually… Serafine and Kamilah gave me the option. When they talked about prestige all this week it was largely assuming I might be able to pretend just enough to add to their collective fame. But they gave me the choice as to whether or not I wanted to try.”

“And you said no.”

“Of course I said no. I don’t envy you, Nadya. You have to do this regardless of whether or not you want to. But for the first time it feels like I’m not in that position, and I want to take full advantage of it.”

His face falls, voice going somber. “Surely you can see why.”

She can. She did, in the flesh, and while he’d been useful at the time she can still close her eyes and remember how easily Cynbel had threatened Jax, hurt Adrian and Serafine; how callous he’d been with her life even though she’d agreed with him at the time… Not to mention all the implied things that come with Serafine, always calm and cool and collected, losing her freakin’ marbles every time he ended up a part of the conversation.

He continues. “I don’t think I could have pretended to be him if my life depended on it. And if you think about it, your life does depend on it in a way. I couldn’t risk you like that. Not after how kind you’ve been to me.”

Her fingers brush over his arm. Cadence either takes it the wrong way or chooses to give a purpose to something so small; he bends his elbow and lets her arm slide into his like a proper escort to a proper ball.

“A lot of people’s lives depend on me pretending to…” Nadya can’t quite say it though, so she swallows it down. “I just have no idea what I’m supposed to do when we get there.”

“Understandably.”

“Seriously,” offering him a wry and dry smile, “that’s all the advice you’ve got?”

He mulls it over for a good and proper think. The effort is more than appreciated even if it doesn’t actually yield results. At least this way she gets to vent it out before messing up royally when the time comes.

Cadence stops first — their linked arms jerk her back and to turn and face him. “I wouldn’t call it advice, per se,” gee—great, “but maybe we both suck at pretending because we ought to be accepting, instead. Accepting who we… were. Possibly, in your case. That way we still have the chance to move on.”

It’s a sweet sentiment, but Nadya can’t help the way her nose scrunches up slightly.

“I don’t think that applies to this case, Cade.”

“Fair enough. Can’t say I didn’t try.” And that makes the pair of them laugh, no matter how weakly. Something neither of them knew they needed, nor how badly they needed it.

It doesn’t last long… but it doesn’t need to.

“You’ll figure it out when the time comes Nadya. You usually do.”

Usually.

In wordless agreement she and Cadence don their pretend masques with mutual reluctance. At least he doesn’t have to breathe in his. But it’s easier this time to see what his face really says beneath that neutral doll-like expression.

She smiles at him in return. Like many things these days they can’t quite see it, but the feeling is there.

When they get close enough that Nadya’s ears no longer strain to catch the occasional tittering laughter or melodramatic voice, Cadence diverts them yet again. This time for a staircase he just so happens to catch sight of out of the corner of his eye.

He keeps her close; closer than before. Practically hovering over her like a shadow less than a step behind her the whole way up. She pauses when he pauses, she waits when he waits, and trusts him enough to know her faith isn’t misplaced but some explanation would be swell any time he’s feeling his usual chatty self.

Crouched close to the ground (which is a feat for him, for her not so much) Cadence crooks a finger at Nadya to join him in inching steps along the carpet towards the railing overlooking the main foyer below.

Nadya is, understandably, hesitant. “What if someone sees us?” What if someone smells me, hears me, all-of-the-aboves me?

“Same principle as before.”

“Keep close and your blood will cover me up?”

He nods. Not like she really has any other choice. Well, that and the more snatches of conversation she plucks from thin air the more curious she is.

And when has her curiosity ever not won out?

Cadence’s cloak comes heavy around her other shoulder and all but smothers her. She grabs the edge and pulls it tight while making sure not to jostle it from his shoulders. For some reason she can’t shake the feeling like she’s hiding behind a curtain with her feet sticking out underneath.

But they’re here, so they might as well take advantage of it. So Nadya joins him in peering through the stone balusters to the hustle and bustle happening below.

The foyer had been beautiful already during her visit with Serafine and Jax the other night — Nadya would even go so far as to assume it was nearly completed. That assumption would have been vastly incorrect.

It’s not her contacts; she’s not seeing double. Every bauble and ribbon and glittering glassy gem brought along the entire family. There’s practically no surface without something shiny added in some form or another, and in many cases that shiny thing has a shiny thing has a shiny thing of its own on top.

On their own the decorations probably look gaudy and too-much. But when you fill the room with graceful vampires all dolled up in unique fashions and splendors everything else is lost in the background. Tasteful would probably have ended up the equivalent of a fifty-buck Party Town Supply budget. So at least the Count knows his audience.

She should be looking for their friends… and she is. But Nadya tells herself it’s being a good and thorough secret agent to observe all the other guests along the way. Two birds and all that. But it’s not easy to just sweep her eyes over the assembled masses in search of a few key faces. Not when each masque is a face all its own.

You’d think there are only so many combinations of colors, designs, and styles to make before they start getting repetitive. But that couldn’t be farther from the case. She gets it now, seeing everything and everyone from way up high and afar like this. The importance of not just the masque itself, but having the right kind of masque above everything else.

Masquerade balls are about hiding and blending in; being just another face in the crowd.

Les Visages de la Gloire is the exact opposite. And even that feels like the most watered-down way to put it she can think of.

A gentle weight falls on Nadya’s back and she shudders a gasp. When had she stopped breathing? Not for fear of being caught, but at the beauty of it all that could only be described as—literally—breathtaking.

Faceless in their full face-coverings and headdresses each more ostentatious than the last; not important enough to show who they are but still in competition with each other — still with deeds to announce and reputations to uphold. Half-masks covering the left side, the right side, the top of one and the bottom of another and all of them made uniquely for a single soul and nobody else.

Some vampires have masques that match their costumes. Others clash in a way that can’t be anything other than on purpose. Even from a distance Nadya can see the difference between carefully crafted metalwork and porcelain painted with glossy lacquer; can compare wood carvings with rich varnish and contrast that with the vast rainbow of matte colors on terracotta. Most are adorned with embellishments and jewels heavy enough to make her neck hurt just by looking at them.

Nearly all take full advantage of the fact their wearers won’t end up suffocating on the other side.

And I’m supposed to show them all up without so much as a sheer ribbon over my eyes? Yeah, Nadya’s confidence takes a knife to the gut just thinking about it.

“Over there.”

Not like Cadence’s finger isn’t pointing down to a massive crowd or anything, but that’s exactly the point — forgive the pun.

Though they can’t quite see double doors leading inside the castle from the exterior from their hiding spot, the sudden hush that falls over the idle crowd offers up an equally dramatic entrance.

It’s the kind of arrival that would be filmed in slow-motion. The kind that pans up from the purposeful echo of each expensive step; dragging over the exquisite details of their costumes in one long smooth glide all the way to the big reveal. And what a reveal it is.

Kamilah’s spindly masque may be made of steel but it curls over her sharp features with all the grace of a silken thread. It’s a face covering by only the thinnest margin of definition, with too many gaps in the framework to even pretend to conceal her identity. But after taking in the rest of the crowd… it’s obvious she’s the kind of face — the kind of presence — that simply can’t go unrecognized.

Everything about Kamilah, from her posture to her raised chin to her not-at-all-faked aura of superiority, demands recognition.

On the surface she’s the woman that Nadya knows; that she trusts and cares about so so much. But look beneath, something all too easy to do — like sweeping aside a mist, it’s impossible to miss how she’s so much more.

The Bloodqueen has arrived. And the entire foyer is speechless before her.

Without even moving a muscle the closest groups stagger back several more steps. Dozens of them nearly tripping over themselves and each other in their haste.

It’s no surprise that the space is quickly taken up by the two figures flanking Kamilah’s sides.

Serafine’s masque isn’t so much a mask as it is a scrap of lace just wide enough to earn the collective approval. As if anyone here doesn’t already know who she is regardless. But that’s how she can pull the look off if Nadya is remembering her explanation right.

No one would dare partake in Les Visages without knowing—without introduction—the woman who started it all.

Some final vestiges of their psychic connection tugs Nadya towards her; not physically so much as emotionally. Even without seeing Serafine’s features up close there’s a bittersweet ache in her chest that’s definitely not Nadya’s own.

The vampiress can offer up all the scarlet-lipped smiles she wishes. They are all hollow and fake. The simple act of being here causes Serafine nothing but distress.

And then there was Adrian.

Who, in comparison to Kamilah and Serafine, makes the women nearest him seem positively giddy and gleeful to be here tonight.

He wears his tailored costume perfectly; that wasn’t in doubt. It’s the masque that leaves him stony-faced. Gold rich and dark that catches every little flame on the chandelier over his head that covers his eyes but can’t hide the tension wracking his jaw.

He and Kamilah both wear near-identical rich crimson garnets inlaid just beneath their masque’s right eye. Shared stones for a shared Maker. But along his edges are thin metal spires, short but wicked sharp, that vary from the same gold, to steel, to a coppery hue.

A second glance confirms Nadya’s suspicions; Adrian isn’t the only one with those kinds of embellishments along the edges of their masques. Scouring a few of them from the crowd, the way they carry themselves and mirror Adrian’s ramrod-straight posture answers a question she didn’t know she needed to ask.

If the garnet labels him and Kamilah both as Turned by Gaius, then the spikes are the mark of the soldier. Any soldier; but one worth recognition for their service.

Which is everything Adrian doesn’t want. Everything he had worried over, and was working now towards overcoming in the wake of his past.

Nadya ducks her head hastily to catch her tear before it falls. Thankfully she’s quick enough. If only she could wipe away the reason for it just as easily.

Pull yourself together, girl, she scolds, and it’s just enough to do the trick and pull Nadya’s focus back to everything around them. All the stillness and nothingness and the way a room full of the undead hold their collective unnecessary breath waiting for what will happen next.

Which is exactly the kind of attention-grabbing showstopper the three of them are supposed to be. All eyes turned on the prestigious trio they are together, and away from Nadya and Cadence one floor above.

All focus on who they are, why they’ve come, what they will do; and away from the practically invisible dynamic duo that slips through the crowd towards the closed ballroom doors.

Behind her, Cadence lets out an impressed little “hah” when he finally manages to pick Lily and Jax out of the crowd. “I completely missed them. Did you see them sneak in?”

“No,” answers Nadya, but that’s actually a good thing. That was the whole point.

Without a word Kamilah takes one step forward. Her aura of command acts like an invisible shield that parts the rest; holding them at a respectable distance.

But the sudden shifting of the mass of faces and their masques gets dangerous when it turns right in their direction. If even one wandering eye looks up, they’re done for!

Without a word the vampire pulls Nadya backwards, letting the force of his bulk pull them out of eyesight in the nick of time. That was a little close, huh.

Nadya doesn’t get the chance to thank him though.

The moment she opens her mouth a loud echoing clang rings out below them, followed by the distinct shuffle of something heavy being dragged achingly close to the foyer’s marble floors.

Neither of them needs to risk sneaking a look.

Right on time. The ballroom doors have finally opened, allowing the first wave of prestige to spill forth out to the grand dance floor.

And though the shuffling of boots and sharp tapping of heels fills the vacuum of stunned silence as the attendees start to move, it’s not nearly enough noise to drown out the sudden and familiar exuberant laughter of delight that echoes across every polished surface below. The kind of laughter designed to be projected across adoring crowds; and carefully rehearsed to always seem full of intriguing promise.

What Nadya wouldn’t give to borrow a little of Vlad Tepes’ seemingly endless confidence for her own performance… looming ever-closer and starting to pick up real steam.

“Remember my lovelies! Faceless and no-names, see yourselves inside. New blood and the lucky virginal attendees right beside them!”

Her full-body shiver of discomfort is more than warranted. But Nadya only wishes she could be surprised at his… unsettling word choice.

“I’m suddenly very glad to be up here.”

She snorts at the wide-eyed stare looking out from Cadence’s mask. “You and me both.”

“Yes yes darling, oh you look a treat. And you there — you must tell me the story behind that engraving later, you simply must.” It’s really to their luck and benefit that the Count likes hearing himself talk so much. They can stay far away from the railing and still keep tabs on what gauge of prestige is next to be welcomed into the bal masqué proper.

They just have to wait until everyone—Vlad included—is inside. Everyone but the most prestigious of the lot of them. And when all eyes are (once again) on the Bloodqueen herself… they’ll have no choice but to witness Nadya’s arrival.

Having Kamilah by her side might just give her the kick in the metaphorical pants to do this thing. Not the literal though. There’s no way this practically bleach-white linen getup will survive a boot print, and especially not to the rear end.

Down below there’s a momentary lull; all but shattered by Vlad’s returning laughter now pitched higher than before.

“Why there you are, Serafine! Here I worried I had somehow lost track of your arrival in the excitement.”

His words are followed by two unmistakably wet noises; which Nadya prays are just over-dramatic kisses to her cheeks.

“Surely you jest,” she teases good-naturedly; said with all the humor of someone whose smile can’t possibly reach her eyes, “I see before me you follow the old traditions quite well. Showing the prestigious their due, their arrival witnessed by all who look to them in admiration.”

“Well of course! It makes for the grandest of entrances.”

“Ah, yes,” the elder vampiress croons, “and as the illustrious host yours would be the last, non?”

“Don’t worry darling — I would never claim credit for your centuries of contribution to our dwindling community.”

“Meaning?”

Somehow Nadya just knows Vlad throws his hair back unnecessarily as he laughs again.

“You can enter just before me, of course.”

“Then when, may I ask, might you suggest my blood-kin Adrian and I make our entrance known, old friend?”

Unlike Serafine, who at least pretends to smile while enduring the torture of his conversation, Kamilah’s question is cold and clipped. It rings with all the disinterest of the Kamilah that Nadya had met so long ago — and she’d place good money on the single raised eyebrow hiked high enough to be seen over her masque, too.

But if anyone could render Vlad speechless…

Nadya struggles to hear something, anything, until she catches the faint rustle of stiff and expensive fabric moving with haste. Vlad’s gesture of greeting, no doubt.

Just like she has no doubt that Kamilah and Adrian don’t humor him as long as Serafine has. It certainly explains the flustered, hasty way his next words tumble from his tongue with practically no filter.

“All the best surprises are the ones that sweep one off his feet. My humble gathering of our kind—nay, our family—from the nearest branch to the farthest root is made absolutely resplendent by the honor of your presence!

“Your Majesty, mon cherie —” —a beat, his attention likely shifting to Adrian— “— and Sergeant Adrian Raines, just when I had resigned myself to an evening of only the old and antiquated in renown. Here you stand before me, as handsome as the day we first met.”

Nadya quickly schools her bewildered expression — too long and it might get stuck that way. But that is flirtation if she’s ever heard it. Not good flirtation, but nevertheless.

“Vlad, as… lively… as ever.” Adrian just barely recovers, but now she’s dying to know what he had almost said instead. “Hard to believe it’s been nearly seventy-five years since last we met. Time… flies so quickly.”

“Oh pish posh,” replies the Count, “you wouldn’t know it but for the calendars. My memory of those chiseled features of yours obviously needed a refresh.”

He’s barely finished speaking when he gasps, clapping his hands together delightedly. “Speaking of memory! You’ll have to forgive my fright. As you all know surely, my recollection skills are of world-renown. Yet the sight of you all almost thrust me spiraling into self-doubt.

“And not without good reason! As I could have sworn you — the both of you, that is to say — had… cast aside your former titles.”

It’s just like before. Everything that pops into his head said without a filter all the way up until what he’s saying isn’t as vapid as it was at the start.

It must be so easy to write Vlad Tepes off at first glance. Just look at the public opinion of the guy. Nadya had, she’s humble enough to admit it. But the hard truth is that he is Vlad Tepes; he is Count Dracula.

But whether he’s all the things the myths and legends claim or not it can’t go ignored that he knows what he’s doing (even if it doesn’t seem like it). He knows how to play a crowd, how to stroke an ego. He’s a master of misdirection.

Has nobody pitched a Vegas residency to this guy yet? Seriously?

But if he thinks he’s going to out-wit someone like Kamilah he must have those leather pants on just a little too tight.

She doesn’t address his comment. Brushing it aside proves a much more important point.

“Shall Adrian and I wait patiently here while you and Serafine follow through, then?”

Vlad must be used to playing the ‘host with the most’ card, because he hesitates. But Kamilah wasn’t asking — she was just being polite.

“Yes,” he finally agrees, though surprisingly less strained than Nadya would have expected. “I would not dare nor dream of presuming your prestige. Nor would I separate the grand entrance of the progeny of our King.

“The three of you will have a most celebratory announcement, I give you my word.”

Did she hear that right?

Serafine offers a gentle tittering laugh. “I see no reason why you and I should not enter together, ma puce.”

“We shall.”

Vlad’s words die to the sound of heavy heels across the foyer floor. Too many steps to be one of her friends; but certainly more than enough for them to bring a person across the length of the room to where they are gathered.

Of course something is going wrong. They should have anticipated something going wrong. They had, her brain reminds her, and probably thinks its being helpful by doing so.

She dares to inch just close enough to catch a glimpse down below and spoiler alert — it isn’t helpful at all.

With his head held high, Marc Antony makes a bold statement in taking Kamilah’s hand without it being offered. Then he goes a step further with a half-bow and a kiss pressed to the back — or the ghost of one. He barely manages it before she yanks it from his grasp — in surprise, in anger, that’s not the part that matters.

With everyone fixated on the two oldest vampires in the room, Adrian dares to steal a glance of warning up to the railing. Wide-eyed and with pursed lips, the message when he gives the tiniest shake of his head is clear.

Nadya retreats, practically crab-walking backwards.

Cadence tries to help her sudden shaking panic with an arm over her shoulders. It’s the thought that counts.

“What,” he asks worriedly, “who is it?”

“Antony,” Nadya exhales, and the man goes rigid beside her. “It’s Marc Antony.”

#bloodbound #playchoices fanfiction #playchoices #kamilah x mc #kamilah sayeed #bloodbound mc #mc: nadya al jamil #adrian raines #serafine dupont #jax matsuo #lily spencer #marc antony #oc: cadence smith #vlad tepes #fic: oblivion bound #oblv: new chapter #oblv: bound by destiny ii #; my fics

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