#this moment more than anything reveals the depth of wille's betrayal | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whenisitenoughtrees · 4 years

Text

the point in just drowning another day

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Janus murmurs, voice entirely too knowing, entirely too understanding, and Patton doesn't know that he can handle the depth of this empathy. “You deserve to have the support that you’ve been trying so hard to provide.”

Patton is struggling far more than he wants to admit, both with his loneliness and the crushing weight of the mistakes he's made, and it's sending him spiraling. It doesn't help that apparently, his amphibian traits are here to stay.

Content Warnings: depression, mild body horror

Word Count: 6,900

Pairing: Moceit

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

It is a grey day today.

He hasn’t had one in a while, but he’s sensed it approaching for the past few days, so he supposes it’s his own fault that it hits this bad; he willfully ignored all the warning signs, pushed aside his fatigue and his slowly souring mood, telling himself that he was alright, that he was being silly, that the feelings would pass. And now, the world is grey, the colors leeched from it like a black-and-white film, and a weight sits heavily on his chest, making every breath a struggle.

He needs to get up. He knows this. Knows he should have been up hours ago, that he should be making breakfast, eggs and sausage and pancakes, should be smiling and happy and ready to greet the world. The others are probably waiting for him, wondering where he is, why he’s not there.

Only, they��re not. And he knows that too. For the past month, family breakfasts have dwindled to a rarity; Roman spends all his time in the Imagination, Virgil almost never leaves his room for anything, and whenever Logan makes an appearance, it’s only to grab food and leave, heading back to his work and his planning with barely a backwards glance. Too often, he prepares meals alone and eats them alone, at an empty dining table, the room silent except for the fridge humming in the background. The house is empty and still, and he sits alone with his thoughts and the knowledge that he has failed all of them. That he has no one to blame for this but himself.

If he had been less strict, could this have been avoided? If he had been more open to others’ opinions, open to change? If he had been better at understanding Virgil, less eager to shut out Logan, more perceptive of the issues that Roman tried so hard to hide?

He’s losing his family, has already lost them, inch by creeping inch. And it’s all his fault, and the morning dawns grey and cold, and no matter what he tells himself, he cannot persuade his body to leave his bed.

It’s not that he’s comfortable. He’s not. His mattress feels too lumpy, his blankets too hot, too stifling, and his pillow too soft and yielding. His skin itches, too, itches like it is trying to crawl off his bones, but he can barely make himself move at all, cannot stir from his curled up position. One hand lays near his head, in his line of sight, and one by one, he twitches his fingers, raising them off the mattress before letting them drop again. He tracks the motion, almost fascinated by the way his muscles shift, as much as he is capable of being fascinated by anything right now.

Something about the hand looks odd. It feels odd, too, large and clumsy, almost disconnected from the rest of him. He thinks he should probably be alarmed by this, but he can’t work up the energy.

He needs to get up. He knows this. The hours are slipping away. Soon, it will be too late for breakfast at all.

He lies there and thinks instead. Thinks of all the harm he’s done lately, to Thomas and to the rest of them. Thinks about how Virgil has pulled away from him, how he skipped over Logan’s contributions, somehow convincing him that he doesn’t care about him. How he’s been fighting so hard against the idea that Deceit and Remus could help Thomas at all, how he labelled them as the things that make Thomas bad, only to find out that Janus, at least, has been advocating for Thomas the whole time, and if that is the case, perhaps Remus, too, is not nearly as terrible as he’s always believed.

He thinks about the bitterness on Roman’s face as he sunk out. The disbelief in his voice, the betrayal, the pain. He thinks about the fact that he hasn’t seen Roman since, that Roman has locked the door and refuses to answer, no matter how much he pleads and apologizes.

He lies there, carried by the grey day haze, and thinks that apologies don’t really amount to much, in the end, because apologies don’t fix anything. They don’t reverse time, don’t repair shattered trust or heal deep wounds. At best, they are a bandage, helpful when the injury is small but utterly ineffective otherwise, and these wounds are like vast chasms rending them all apart.

Patton thinks that he might be the bad one. Bad for Thomas. Bad for his family.

So maybe, he should just stay here. Should stay in bed, away from everyone, at least until he figures out what to do, how not to hurt them anymore, but really, wouldn’t they be better off without him as a whole? Without him there to impose his rules, his black-and-white mentality that has done so much damage? He has tried so hard, these past few weeks, to adjust his worldview, to make room for change, but how much does it really matter when he has already broken so much?

Not that he has much of a choice right now. He can’t get up.

So he lies there. Minutes blend into hours blend into seconds, and he has no idea how much time passes. Surely it is afternoon by now. He hopes everyone found something to eat.

His skin itches.

He’ll be fine, eventually. He is well aware of this, well aware that grey days pass, like melting snow revealing blooming spring flowers. Except, not like that, not exactly, because these days, the melting snow seems to reveal nothing but cold, hard ground, frozen through. But it is easier to walk on ground than through snow, easier to smile and laugh and pretend that everything is alright, to tell yourself that everything is alright, when you don’t have to fight just to walk, to keep your balance.

It’s repression. He is well aware of that, well aware of the consequences, of the toll this takes on him. He does listen when he is told about these things, even if it might take longer for the message to sink in, for the rest of him to catch up to what his brain already knows. But he can’t deal with his own problems right now, not until everyone else is alright again, and really, most of the time he thinks he’s got a lot of nerve to have problems at all. He’s the one who hurt them, so what right does he have to be acting this way, like he’s the one with a broken heart?

The grey thickens. Tears blur his vision. He feels like he’s inhaling thick fog, like every breath comes in hard and labored.

He could stop breathing, if he wanted. He’s not human. He doesn’t need to breathe to exist.

It’s tempting. Tempting to just… stop. To discorporate his human form, to spend a few days as an automatic function, to spend a few days without remembering, without worrying, without the guilt that is a constant weight on his shoulders. But it would be a reprieve he’s done nothing to deserve.

His skin itches.

He doesn’t expect the knock at the door. Under any other circumstance, he might jerk in surprise, but his body is held fast as if by molasses. So he lies there, looking at the door through half-lidded eyes, and wonders if he’s supposed to answer. He doesn’t think he can, doesn’t think his mouth will cooperate long enough to form words, and his tongue lies thick and unwieldy behind his teeth. If he doesn’t say anything, will they leave? Assume he’s sleeping, perhaps? Or will they come in and see him like this, miserable and drowning and unable to do something so simple as sit up in bed?

He doesn’t know which option he likes less.

It doesn’t matter, though, because the door cracks open, bright light spilling in from the hallway, and he has to squint at the figure silhouetted there.

“Patton?” someone asks. Janus’ voice.

He doesn’t reply. Can’t. Maybe if he says nothing, he’ll leave it be. He’s not up for a debate, or for wading his way through another moral quandary. Janus seems to like both of those things, and lately, Patton has been more than happy to engage with him, to draw out sharp words and sharper smiles and occasionally, genuine laughs that do something to his stomach. Janus has been the only one willing to spend any time with him at all, these days, and he cherishes those moments, gathering them up like fallen leaves and clutching them to his chest as a reminder that he still has a purpose, that he can still make this right.

But not today. He can’t do this today.

Janus steps into the room, closing the door behind him, and the vague hope he’d mustered deflates, like a sad, punctured balloon. That’s what he feels like right now. A sad, punctured balloon. A sad, itchy, punctured balloon. And Janus is going to see that he feels like a sad, itchy, punctured balloon, and he doesn’t know why, but the idea sends an ache radiating through his chest.

“I could sense you lying to yourself,” Janus says, but his voice is far softer than his words would imply. “Are you alright?”

He blinks, slowly. He supposes that it’s fairly obvious how he feels, fairly obvious that he’s not alright. And even if it weren’t, Janus sniffs out lies like a bloodhound on a trail.

“Feel not great,” he manages. It takes a monumental effort to force the words through his lips, and they hang heavily in the air, thick and distorted. “Sorry.”

Janus crosses the room and kneels on the floor next to the bed, holding steady eye contact. His eyes are mesmerizing, one brown and one gold, both staring with an intensity that Patton wishes he could find it in himself to return. His expression is cool and blank, but a small divot presses between his eyebrows, and if Patton had the willpower, he might try to smooth it away.

He doesn’t, though, so it’s a moot point.

“You don’t need to apologize for the way you feel,” Janus says. “It’s alright to be sad.”

He understands that. He does. They did a whole video about it, once, back when things were so much simpler, the stakes so much lower. Back when he still felt secure in his ability to guide Thomas well, to help him be the good person that he knows he is.

But how can he explain that he doesn’t feel sad? That he feels nothing but grey and empty, disconnected from himself and his body and his emotions, left with nothing but constant ruminations on the past and all the ways he’s messed up. Even his guilt feels distant, like it’s surrounding him but unable to touch, kept at bay by the grey cloud swarming his thoughts and dulling his vision. He wishes he felt sad, wishes he felt guilt, that steady companion, wishes he could feel anything at all. But he is an empty container, filled by nothing but swirling grey smoke, no substance there at all.

And he can’t get up.

Janus lets out a slow breath, brow furrowing even further when he doesn’t respond. He reaches forward and takes his hand where it is lying on the mattress, rubbing his thumb across his knuckles in a soothing, repetitive pattern. It would feel nicer if he took off his gloves, if he allowed skin to skin contact, but Patton won’t push for that, wouldn’t even if he had the strength to make the words leave his mouth.

He’s not sure what he did to deserve any comfort at all. Especially not from Janus, who perhaps has the most right out of anybody to hate him, after all the years he spent pushing him to the side and calling him evil, who he still hasn’t properly apologized to, not really.

Perhaps he’s here to see if he can get him out of bed. Breakfast has long since passed, but perhaps there’s still time for a late lunch, if he could muster up the motivation to prepare it. And Janus does represent Thomas’ self-preservation, so it would make sense for him to want to make sure that all of the sides are doing their jobs.

But for a long time, Janus says nothing at all. Just holds his hand, lightly traces patterns into his skin.

“Is there anything that I could do to help?” he asks eventually, voice low and earnest. It is almost enough to banish the grey, if only for a moment, because it has been so long since any of the others trusted him enough for this question, trusted him enough to help him or to ask him for help, and he wants to say yes, wants to ask him to spend time with him, to watch a movie, maybe, or cat videos on the internet, because nobody’s done that with him in weeks, and he’s so, so lonely.

But then he remembers why he’s lonely, why they’re avoiding him, and the grey filters back in. Because it’s his fault, and if he cannot face the consequences of his actions, then what good is he as Morality?

So he makes a noise, one that comes out halfway between a grunt and a whine, and hopes that’s good enough to appease Janus’ question, to make him feel that he’s done his duty.

Janus frowns at him, and his hand stills. Patton expects him to pull away, but instead, his grip tightens slightly, and he tugs Patton’s hand toward him, inspecting it. Patton watches, vaguely confused, as his frown deepens, and he pushes back the sleeve of his pajama shirt to look at his forearm.

“Patton,” he starts slowly, “are you aware of…” He trails off, gesturing, and Patton stares at him, trying to read his meaning in the lines of his face. It’s something he’s concerned about, clearly, which makes Patton think he should be concerned too; maybe even alarmed, seeing as the point of contention seems to have something to do with his arm. He can’t work up anything more than a mild curiosity, but that is enough to get him to angle his head to look at what Janus is referring to.

At first, he doesn’t notice anything wrong. He feels an odd dissociation from the entire limb, as if what he’s seeing isn’t attached to his body, much less something that should concern him. And the more he stares, the more unreal it appears. But eventually, his gaze drifts to what Janus likely believes to be the issue: his skin is covered in mottled patches of green, each blemish appearing stretched and dry and flaky. They itch, too, itch just like his entire body has been itching, and if these blotches are the cause, his entire body must be covered in them. As if in response to his consideration, the itching, scratching sensation increases, almost enough to motivate him into movement.

His body is so heavy, though, and his mind so sluggish. This seems like something he should care about, something that should scare him, and the fear is there, he thinks. But it’s lurking beyond the grey fog, and it can’t touch him.

“What is it?” he murmurs, or at least tries. It comes out sounding more like, “Whazzit?” but it’s intelligible, at least.

Janus runs a finger down his arm, a feather-light touch that sends shivers down his spine.

“Are you sure you want to know?” he asks.

Patton stares. What is he supposed to say to that? He doesn’t much care to know about anything right now; all he wants in this moment is to bury himself in the covers until this horrible emptiness goes away.

Maybe it will be gone by dinner. Maybe he could make dinner. Make dinner for people who aren’t going to eat it. Stick it in tupperware in the fridge and let it go bad because nobody but him is eating it.

“Itches,” he says, his eyes slipping closed. “Don’t feel good.”

As he says it, the grey slides away a bit, as if it were waiting for such an admission, and the overwhelming influx of sensation catches him off guard. It’s more than just an itchiness; it’s a tightness, too, like his skin is a bit too small for him, and he is struck by a need to squirm and scratch. Something is wrong, he realizes, and the fear that is creeping into the corners of his mind is worse than the grey emptiness, because even though his brain has begun to process the world again, his limbs still feel too heavy to move, his chest too constricted to bring in enough air.

He whimpers. Janus sucks in a breath, and he opens his eyes again to see that he’s changed position, has shifted to sitting on the edge of the bed rather than kneeling on the floor, and is leaning over him, arms hovering above his body but not touching.

“I’m going to help you sit up,” Janus says, “unless you have any objections.”

Patton does not, in fact, have any objections. The grey is receding far faster than it came on, leaving him at the mercy of all the fear and sadness and guilt that he’s been contemplating, and with each passing second, his panic grows, because his body is not cooperating with him in the slightest and something is wrong.

Janus gently pulls him upright, and he slumps forward, all of his weight crashing onto Janus’ chest. Janus appears to take this in stride, wrapping his arms around him in a hug that Patton would very much enjoy if he could return it, but his arms refuse to listen to him, hanging by his sides like limp, bloated noodles.

“You don’t currently feel like you have an outlet for your emotional distress,” Janus says starkly, bluntly. “You’ve been repressing it in an effort to focus on fixing your relationships with the others, but the fact that that is going nowhere only worsens your state of mind.” He pauses. “The last time you experienced an instance of severe emotional distress, you turned into a giant frog. It is… possible that after that display, Thomas now associates you with… amphibian-like traits, shall we say, to a degree, just as he associates me with snakes.”

His breath catches, and the memory comes flooding back in full force. The terror, the awful sensation as his body transformed, as his mind worked at a fever-pitch, desperate and confused until he didn’t even know what he was saying anymore, until he resorted to such terrible tactics to try to work everything out, until he lashed out in anger and pain and hurt Thomas--

He can’t hurt Thomas. He can’t. He can’t do this again. He won’t let himself do this again.

The itching increases, like millions of tiny needles being jammed into his skin over and over again. He needs to calm down, he knows, because if he’s going to stop this he has to be calm, but the grey has abandoned him to his emotional turmoil, and he tries desperately to press it all down, because he knows that repression is bad but it has to be better than this, better than turning into a monster again--

“I think some healthy, open-ended discussion would do you some good,” Janus continues. “So, not that I care at all, but if you wanted, we could-- Patton? Patton, you need to calm down.”

He’s trying. He’s trying, but he can’t, and it’s too late, because he can already feel it happening, can feel his body begin to twist and warp and change no matter how hard he tries to stop it, no matter how hard he tries to ground himself, to keep himself human. And Janus is saying something, something loud and urgent, but his voice rings and echoes and Patton can’t understand a word of it.

So he closes his eyes and stops fighting it. There is a single, gut-wrenching lurch, and his hands hit the bedspread as he fumbles for balance, and then everything is silent. He should open his eyes, should face the music, but he doesn’t want to see Janus’ expression, whether it be anger or fear or disgust or scorn. And he doesn’t want to see the mess he’s surely made of his room, the destruction, like last time, doesn’t want to open his eyes and find that he’s looming over everything else, that he’s cracked his ceiling and crushed his bed.

“Oh,” Janus says. His voice is still oddly echoey, and Patton can’t interpret his tone at all. “Oh. Well. Ah, I totally expected this. Definitely. Um. Oh, gosh.”

Is he flustered? Surely, that can’t be right. He’s pretty sure that Janus doesn’t do flustered. But he has to know, now, has to look, so he opens his eyes.

He expects to be looking down. Instead, he finds himself looking up. It is Janus that towers over him, rather than the other way around, Janus that towers over him with unmitigated shock written on his face. Patton blinks, just to be sure that he isn’t seeing things, and as he does, his brain helpfully provides him with a million other things that are wrong with this picture; the ceiling, for instance, is miles above him, and his bed is as vast as an ocean.

He tries to speak, tries to ask what’s going on, but all that emerges from his mouth is a shrill squeak. He attempts to stand, then, or at least sit up, but every effort sends him sprawling on all fours, his limbs clunky and uncoordinated and unfamiliar. His panic mounts as he finds himself unable to do much of anything at all, and he flails, trying to attain some amount of control.

“Oh gosh, okay,” Janus says, and leans down. “I know this is scary, but you’re fine, I swear. Actually, honestly swear. You’re going to be absolutely fine.”

Everything clicks then, and Patton goes still, staring at his own limb stretched out in front of him, long and thin and green and four-toed. He’s a frog, he realizes. A tiny frog. His whole body feels so odd, so different, out of place and completely foreign, and it’s because he’s a frog. Not a weird, giant, humanoid frog monster, but an actual frog.

He focuses back on Janus and squeaks again. For some reason, Janus’ right cheek reddens.

“Fuck,” he mutters, glancing away, and Patton would chide his use of language, but he’s pretty sure by now that he can’t talk. “Okay, um, you’re not cute at all, so don’t even ask. But this is definitely not normal, and it will definitely last for a very long time. Accidental transformations always do.” He frowns, tilting his head slightly before shaking it. “You know what I mean. Which is to say that I myself am occasionally a snake, so I know what I’m talking about.”

He blinks. He didn’t know that Janus could actually transform into a snake, though now that he reflects on it, he supposes that there’s no reason why not. It makes him wonder just how much more he doesn’t know about him. How much he never bothered to learn.

Okay, so. He’s a frog now. A small, squeaky frog. So, this is a lot better than he thought it would be. And Janus is implying that this will wear off eventually, so he can just… stay here, right? Stay in bed, not bother anybody else with this? Wait until he changes back? Bit by bit, the fear drains out of him, leaving him exhausted. And with the fear gone, the adrenaline dissipating, the grey creeps back in. Not as bad as it was before. But enough so that remaining in bed for at least the next few hours sounds very, very appealing.

He looks up at Janus, his eyelids drooping, and tries to convey that he can leave now, that he’ll be fine with just… sitting here for a bit, on his covers, until everything goes back to normal. However long that takes. However that’s supposed to happen. He should probably be more worried about how to reverse this, but now that the terror of the moment is over, he finds himself willing enough to allow things to happen as they happen. He’s not sure he could marshal the energy to force himself to change back even if he knew exactly how.

“Wait here a moment,” Janus says suddenly. “I’ll be right back.” He stands and sinks out directly, and Patton watches him go, vague disappointment filtering though his mind. Sure, he didn’t want Janus to think that he is obligated to stay with him, to deal with the mess that he is, but some part of him had hoped that he would stick around anyway. The grey seems to lift, a little bit, with someone else by his side, seems to shy away from the warm presence of another person’s voice.

Minutes pass. Or perhaps it’s hours. He has long since given up keeping track of time, and in the middle of a bed that is far, far too large, in a body that is entirely familiar to him, Patton feels himself begin to drift.

But then, Janus comes back, rising up in the middle of his room, a laptop tucked under his arm, several blankets thrown over it. Patton rouses himself with some effort, staring as Janus approaches, gently placing the laptop and blankets on the bed.

“I thought we could watch a movie, if that’s alright,” Janus says, and pulls a DVD case apparently out of nowhere, holding it up for inspection. It’s The Aristocats, the title written in swirling golden letters, and Patton can’t help but let out a croak in surprise. Janus shrugs, glancing away.

“I figured you would like this one,” he says. “I mean. Disney and cats. So.”

The right side of his face once again flushes a bright, cherry red, and even like this, even in this fugue-like state, Patton is absolutely touched. Not only that Janus cares enough to remember what he likes, but also that he wants to spend time with him? That he would drop any other plan he might have had to watch a movie with him, presumably to help him feel better?

He didn’t know that frogs could cry. But tears well up in his eyes, and he blinks them away.

“Just an idea,” Janus says, his eyes going wide. “We don’t have to. We could pick another movie! It would be such a problem to pick something else!”

No!

Patton wants to scream, wants to shout, because he’s misinterpreting his tears, because in this moment, Patton barely has the strength to want anything at all, and yet there is nothing more that he wants than to watch this movie with Janus. But he can’t speak, can’t make his vocal cords produce anything more than squeaks and croaks, so he pushes past the grey to do the only thing he can think might work.

These limbs are unfamiliar to him. But he knows a few things about frogs, knows how far they can jump. So jump he does, surprising himself with the power in his own back legs, and launches himself at Janus, who flinches, stumbling back, but too late to prevent Patton from sticking his landing, right on his cheek.

“Oh,” he says, stammering. Patton is certain that he has heard Janus stutter more today than in all the years he’s known him. “Um. What?”

Patton takes a moment to breathe, and to comprehend the fact that his feet are literally sticking to Janus’ skin. He adjusts himself, settles in more firmly, and then lets out a loud, intentional croak.

It’s all he can do. He just has to hope that Janus understands, understands that he doesn’t want him to leave, that he doesn’t want him to change a single thing.

“Oh,” Janus says again. He takes great care not to move his mouth much, takes great care not to dislodge Patton, and it would be enough to coax a smile out of him, if frogs could smile. “Are you… is this alright, then?”

He croaks again, and the muscles in Janus’ cheek twitch as he resists a smile.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll get it set up, then, shall I?”

And he does, popping the movie into the laptop’s disc tray and wrapping himself in soft blankets as he settles against the headboard. He arranges the blanket in an odd way, creating a series of folds on his shoulder, and it is not until he gestures at it that Patton realizes that it is meant for him, that Janus purposefully made a place for him to sit. He jumps down, almost falling before he steadies himself, barely preventing his limbs from tangling with each other, and snuggles into the soft fabric, reveling in the way it brushes against his skin.

The grey is still present, still pervasive, filling him with an emptiness, with a void. But the void itself has filled a bit, filled with warmth, with the knowledge that Janus is doing this for him, even if he doesn’t quite understand why.

The movie begins to play. He turns his attention to the screen, and even though his mind wanders, slips away at some points, he does feel a little bit better, a little more present, a little less like he wants to stagnate in his room forever.

Janus is quiet throughout the first stretch of the movie, though Patton can sense him shooting him glances every now and again. But as Duchess meets O’Malley for the first time, he speaks up, face forward, eyes fixed on the screen.

“The first time I transformed was confusing,” he murmurs, as if to himself, though surely, he hasn’t forgotten that Patton is there, that Patton can hear him. “Thomas was so young, and I didn’t know what was happening. The scales had been appearing for a while, but I never thought that I could change so completely. It was a moment of emotion, frustration at not being heard, when Thomas got in trouble that a white lie easily could have prevented. One minute I was having a meltdown in my room, and the next I was a snake.” He chuckles a bit, as though the memory is fond, though it doesn’t sound that way.

How much distress was he in, Patton wonders? How confused was he, how scared, his body warping and changing and no one at all there to help him?

“This is all to say that I’ve since learned to control it. I’d demonstrate, but I hardly think that turning into a snake while you are a very small frog would put your mind at ease.” Janus sighs, fiddling with the bottom of his capelet. “But you can learn to control it, too, provided that these traits stick.”

Patton wishes he could say something, anything at all. But his voice is gone, twisted so that small sounds are the only thing he can produce, so he stays quiet, listening to Janus talk. In a way, it’s a blessing, the inability to respond. None of the impetus of the conversation is put on him, so he feels no pressure to muster up replies that would surely be lackluster, given his emotional state, or lack thereof.

“But that’s not really the point right now, is it?” Janus says softly. “The more pressing concern is why you transformed this time. You must have been on the verge of it for hours, subconsciously holding yourself back from it.”

He shifts. He’d woken up itchy and uncomfortable, his mind buried in the grey and unable to do anything about it, unable to move at all, much less rouse himself into action. He hopes that this won’t happen every time he has a grey day. He can’t afford to lose time like this. There’s too much to do, and though grey days are bad enough on their own, he can force himself to work through them, sometimes, when the haze isn’t too strong. He can’t do that if he’s always turning into a frog when he gets overwhelmed.

“I do hope you know that your feelings are just as valid as anyone else’s,” Janus says, and Patton stiffens. “To be sure, you messed up, and the others have every right to be upset, but I challenge you to find any one of us that hasn’t accidentally screwed everyone else over at some point.” He pauses. “Or even on purpose. Which you are assuredly not guilty of.”

The words buzz in his head, vibrating in the fog, and Patton’s not entirely sure that he understands what Janus is saying, not entirely sure that he has the energy to try. What do intentions matter? Messing up is messing up, and even if he didn’t mean to, he’s hurt everyone in the mindscape. If it wasn’t anything to be upset about, he wouldn’t be upset, would he?

“And of course, it’s not like they’re to blame for this at all,” Janus continues. “It’s not like they’re being immature, hiding away in their rooms and refusing to confront their problems.” He shakes his head. “Patton, you have to understand that it is not your job to ensure their emotional competence. All you can do is try your best, and if they refuse to meet you halfway, that’s on them, not you. You shouldn’t blame yourself when you’re obviously doing everything you can to own up to and fix your mistakes.”

Patton croaks, the denial ripped from his throat. He’s never seen it that way, didn’t think that he could see it that way, but Janus’ voice is streaking the grey through with yellow and gold, forcing him to confront the root of the problem in a way that he never has before.

“There is no such thing as a perfect person,” Janus says. “You’ve learned that by now, learned that Thomas himself is nowhere near flawless. But that applies to you as well. You’re allowed to make mistakes, to learn and grow from them. No one should expect you to be right one hundred percent of the time, and that includes both yourself and them.”

Once again, his eyes well up with tears, and this time, they drip down, splattering onto the blankets.

He falls silent, then, the movie still playing but long since forgotten, and Patton has to take a moment to absorb what has just been said.

He’s not too hard on himself. He can’t be. Everything he’s said and thought these past few weeks has been true, completely and utterly; it was his mistakes that drove the others away from him, and it is his responsibility to correct those mistakes. And if the others don’t want to see him, don’t want to talk to him, then that’s fine. It’s their right, and he doesn’t blame them at all, can’t possibly blame them when most of him believes that they’re right to do so, right to avoid him, because after everything, he can’t possibly deserve--

Oh.

But Janus says he does deserve it. That he deserves help, that he deserves support. Who, then, is right?

“Think about it this way,” Janus says, as if sensing his struggle. “If your positions were reversed, if, say, Virgil had messed up and everyone was avoiding him, would you think that’s what he deserved?”

Well, of course not. Everyone deserves love and support, even when they make mistakes, because--

Oh.

The realization comes crashing down with the force of the loudest thunderclap, and something deep within him twists, wrenches at his heart and at his stomach, and all the breath is knocked out of him as he suddenly finds himself falling forward, landing hard on Janus’ lap, arms and legs achy and all too human. Janus yanks his arms out from under the blankets to catch him, his lips parted in surprise.

“But I hurt them,” Patton says, the words ripped from him as if by force, desperate, like the world might just crumble into pieces if he doesn’t get an answer. “I hurt all of them, so much.”

“And their hurt is valid,” Janus says. “Each one of them is entitled to their anger and their pain. But Patton, so are you.”

He bursts into tears at that, the dam breaking at last, and he lurches forward, flinging his arms around Janus’ neck and burying his face into his shoulder where the blankets have slipped away. Janus makes a startled noise, and then brings his arms up to embrace him, holding him tight and close as he runs the gamut of all the emotions he has been pushing back.

“You’re loved,” Janus says. “They all love you, even though it may seem otherwise right now. They love you, and they’ll be ready to show it again, in time.” He pauses, and his next sentence carries a strange weight, a slightly different tone, a reticence and a rushed eagerness all at once. “And I love you, Patton. Please don’t forget that.”

He sniffles. “Even though I’m getting snot all over you?” he asks into his shirt, and Janus laughs, startled.

“Even so,” he answers. “It’s snot an issue.”

Patton gasps, thrilled despite himself. He still can’t bring himself to display the reaction he would normally have, but he manages a weak smile. “Pun,” he says, voice still muffled by fabric.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Janus says. “I would never in my life crack a pun. Lies and slander.”

Patton pulls back a bit, enough to see his face, and is shocked to find that he is crying too, though he looks much more dignified than Patton is certain he does. For a moment, his heart fills with an overflowing, overpowering love, and before he can think better of it, he leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. Janus’ breath hitches, but Patton doesn’t back down, staring him straight in the eyes.

“I love you too,” he says, and in the moment, doesn’t know exactly how he means it. Just that it’s true, and right now, that is enough. “Thank you.”

He pours all of the sincerity, all of the emotion that he is capable of right now into the words. He needs Janus to understand how much it means that he is here, with him, willing to help him and to hold him.

Janus stares at him with something like affection and something like awe.

“You don’t need to thank me,” he says. “Not for this. Never for this.”

And Patton sighs, shifting position until he is leaning against Janus’ chest, tucking his head under his chin and turning his head so that he can see the movie. It’s almost over by now, Edgar receiving his just desserts.

“I still don’t feel great,” he murmurs, because he doesn’t. Better, now that he’s let his emotions out, now that he is human, now that he has someone with him, holding him, caring about him, loving him, but the grey still hovers around him, still lands heavily on his chest and in his head. If human contact were enough to solve it all completely, that would be a wonderful thing, but the greyness isn’t so simple, isn’t so easily banished. He doubts he’ll be able to gather the energy to make dinner tonight. He may not even feel better by tomorrow morning.

But Janus is with him, supporting without judgement, and that makes all the difference.

“That’s alright,” Janus says, kissing the top of his head. “You don’t need to be. Would you like to watch another movie? And by that I mean actually watch, not leave it on in the background as we discuss deep, abiding emotional issues.”

He manages a shaky laugh at that. “I’d like that,” he whispers. His voice emerges hoarse and thick, and it takes too much effort to get the words out. “Could we do Tangled?”

“A terrible choice,” Janus says, and summons the DVD with a wave of his hand, reaching around Patton to place the disc in the laptop. The title screen begins to play, and he adjusts the blankets so that they are both fully covered, and Patton curls into his side as the narration starts.

He still feels bad, and he knows he has so much more to work through. But the deep, aching loneliness has abated somewhat, and he knows that the greyness will fade away too, eventually. Until then, he has Janus here, with him, wrapped up in soft blankets, a comfort movie playing for both of them, and confessions dancing in the air between them, spoken but not quite elaborated on, not yet. And that’s alright, because there’s time, because the sun always shines brightest after the rain has passed.

He sighs, snuggles in closer, and allows himself to simply be.

Writing Taglist: @just-perhaps @the-real-comically-insane @jerrysicle-tree @glitchybina @psodtqueer

#sanders sides #ts sides #moceit #patton sanders #janus sanders #ts patton #ts janus #my fic #long post #patton: *ribbits*#janus: oh no you're adorable

361 notes · View notes

libraryofmegharoni · 3 years

Text

The Traitor Queen (The Bridge Kingdom | #2) [Danielle L. Jensen]

started: May 08, 2021 finished: May 08, 2021 rating: 4.5/5

review:

so we got the utter heart break of Aren finding out about Lara's betrayal in the first book and we get the impact of it here.

i'll start from the beginning, which is where i partially have issue with. the book begins with Lara having fled Ithicana and Aren captured by Lara's father and in his compound in Maridrina. we get a brief kind of recount of what happened in the world between The Bridge Kingdom and The Traitor Queen, but just like how i was still kinda confused about how the world was set up in the first book, i was still a little confused about all the events that happened between the books. to be fair Jensen does a solid job of making me forget that i was confused in the first place. the couple time characters either reflected on the 'past' or were informed about the events that happened after Lara left Ithicana (or Maridrina at very beginning) it wasn’t the clearest explanations?? not the best way to phrase it but idk how else. like the writing was fine and understandable but i didn’t feel like there was enough explanation of the events between books to make me fully understand what happened. that's not to say there was nothing to fill in what happened, maybe im just (which is highly likely) because i just wanted more. ahh ok so i think the best way i can describe it is that there was a surface level explanation of the events that supposedly occurred between the first and second book but not anything more in depth in detail. which considering im a very detail person, i want to know everything there can be known, i want everyone's full history and actions and rationales and intentions and everything else about all the main characters. and i don’t think that it’s actually a fault of Jensen in this or the first book but it’s just what i ideally want out of a perfect book.

anyway other than me being a picky bitch and just wanting more when i like a book, broooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo it’s so good.

i mcfucking loved the tension between Lara and Aren after she organizes his rescue. but before that --

THE REST OF THE SISTERS.

one of the first things i said to my roommate when i was reading the first book was "i cannot wait until all the sisters come back and completely fuck up their father" anD GUESS WHAT??!?!?!?!

THEY FUCKING DELIVERED SO GODDAMN HARD

it was perfect that there was one sister who was super against what Lara did and came to Ithicana to murder the King and Queen (but ultimately failed and was killed by our Queen Lara). the rest of them living in small groups but never too far apart from each other - perfection, just perfection. them being 100% down to infiltrate their father's compound - beautiful. them willing to rescue the man they were all trained to hate and want to kill because Lara loved him??????? THE LOVE BETWEEN THE SISTERS - THE SHARED PAIN - THE RIDE OR DIE MOTHERFUCKERS THAT THEY ALL (minus the one Lara kills lol) FUCKING ARE -- I LOVED IT SO MUCH AND I WAS SO HAPPY IT PLAYED OUT PRETTY MUCH EXACTLY HOW I WANTED IT TO

i loved Lara sailing to Ithicana's island of Eranahl to talk to Ahnna about freeing Aren and her actually sailing there all by herself proved how dedicated she was to saving him. i just loved how the first book drives home just how terrified Lara is of the open sea and how it is the only thing that scares her and the only time she sails be herself in the second book (bc we know she fled from Ithicana by island jumping) is to save Aren.... and Ithicana but mostly Aren. its shown time and time again how much Lara came to love Aren and how much she was willing to risk or give up just to save him. TEH FUCKING ANGST I LOVE IT !!!!!!!

so yeah i just really love the dynamic between Lara and Aren in this book. they both know that they cannot continue to be together after Ithicana is free but they desperately want to. they've grown to love each other and despite Lara's betrayal, they both trust each other. but like for his country, Aren cannot recognize Lara as the Queen of Ithicana or his wife anymore. bro that scene broke me. it came right after Lara tried to leave Aren and he was essentially like "no it’s not safe here for you to go now, im keeping you with me". so yeah Aren having to admit that he doesn't recognize Lara as anything anymore HURT. and i loved how Lara was also hurt by that. they love each other so much but their situation and the world want to rip them apart :(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

the final battle was confusing and seemed a bit fast but ultimately so satisfying. i guess it kinda started with the battle on Gamire Island when Lara got injured saving the life of Taryn, Aren's cousin she has befriended in the first book when she was Queen. also Lara saving her was just big proof to the rest of the Ithicana that she was there to fight to right her wrong and get their freedom back.

anyway so Lara gets injured and it was so sad to see how she knew she was seriously wounded but didn't believe that she was allowed to ask for help from the people whose lives she helped destroy and ended up going off on her own. it was so heartbreaking when Aren went to go patch up Lara and end up caving into sleeping with each other. he promised her that they were leaving in the morning and that she could rest then he went back to camp and realized that he could never leave her if he didnt in that moment and told them to get ready to leave - i started crying so much. bc when Lara woke up to everyone gone she thought that that was the plan the whole time and that Aren lied to her to leave her and then she was hit with the fact that it was Eranahl that was being attacked, and put away all her heartbreak and was determined to sail there to help against the Maridrina navy.

how she realized that it was her father on one of the ships and dueled him - so god damn hot. her swimming through the shark infested water to get to Aren????? ughhhhhh im crying. her up against the portcullis telling Aren to leave so he would live??? im crying even more. Aren desperately trying to save her bc he knows he cant live without her???????????? im bawling. her waking up in the bed she's familiar with?? im hopeful. Aren telling her about the trial by sea (and sharks) method used in Ithicana and how she passed so the sea has determined Lara is innocent and loyal to Ithicana????? IM BAWLING AGAIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i mcfucking knew that it had to end with Lara and Aren ending up together but i didnt know how it was going to happen. and while i wish the trial by shark thing was mentioned in the first book -- like the game they play at snake island with the running through the snakes and climbing up to the bridge and how that was called back to in the second book where Lara had to do the challenge to help free Ithicana. like that little game was a significant scene in the first book with Lara kind revealing her abilities with a bow and arrow and a little bit of Aren's recklessness, want to show off to Lara and how he was as a child. point it is served a purpose and it was a great scene and situation to call back to in the second book, but with more at stake this time. so i would have liked to see someone in Ithicana just mention the trial by sea idea in the first book. i mean when it was revealed i still teared up bc like yeah but i think it could have been a cool thing that was not quite foreshadowed but referenced at an earlier point.

tl;dr - the love between the sisters? perfection. the love between Lara & Aren? heartbreakingly beautiful and such a satisfying arc <3

#megharoni book log #megharoni 2021 reads #the traitor queen #the bridge kingdom #danielle l jensen

7 notes · View notes

theholycovenantrpg · 3 years

Photo

In the beginning was SAMAEL, a DEMON loyal to the cause of the DEMONS. He is said to be IMMORTAL and uses HE/HIM pronouns. In this New Testament he serves as a MEMBER of the VICES. Blessed be his name.

THE INDELIBLE MARK.

As the Vice of Sloth, Samael’s gift remains the one that he had once possessed as an angel. It is anchored in slow, insidious corruption, granting him the ability to conjure a wide array of ailments in his targets of choice -- from slow-acting poisons and horrific night terrors, to noxious diseases and falsified ideals. His powers are rooted in the decay and deterioration of body and spirit alike, yet they are not foolproof. For one, their effects are irreversible; once the seed is planted, it cannot be uprooted from the feeding grounds, which makes it dangerous for them to be harnessed impulsively or carelessly, especially as it’s a risk that Samael often neglects. For another, his powers are practically useless on an active battlefield and in close-range combat, as their effects are gradual and take place across a period of time. Any attempt to expedite them or hasten their impact, along with any overuse of his abilities, causes the effects to begin leaking through to him and corrupting him in the same manner as his target. There is only one singular cure for his influence, and it lies in Raphael's hands.

THE HISTORY.

It was with a slow, molten flare that his creation came to be, like the reverberations of water as they bubbled and burrowed into the depths upon impact; a winding citrus-green trail worming into porcelain-paleness like poison upon milk. With the insidious, slithering trickle of contagion, God’s breath ran through the mold of the angel Samael, and as it began to feed on the lifeblood, black veins etched themselves into God’s impenetrable skin, fumes coiled up from the holy grounds upon which He stood, and the scent of acid and liquefied lightning singed the air until every angel was choking on a mouthful of it. When Samael burst into existence, Heaven screamed with it, as though gripped by disease. Yet ultimately, it came down to nothing more than God’s design. He had concocted Samael in order for him to be one instrument out of many with which He carried out His will, if not the most crucial. After all, what better method could there possibly be for the enactment of divine punishment, than with venom drawn from God’s fang?

For countless centuries, Samael would go on to be a testament of that. Crowned with the duty of carrying out God’s retribution through festering, far-reaching means, he bore the gift of poisoning mankind with the fruits of their transgressions. Stirring madness, planting terrors, injecting malice; imbuing all those whom God found deserving with cancerous influence until they either crawled through their remaining days as husks of who they had once been, or perished in enforced, sometimes willing, pursuit of redemption in the eternities beyond. Hailed as the Poison of God, revered and dreaded in equal parts among the echelons of the angels, Samael thrived. He found home in the horrific landscapes he sprawled across people’s dreams, drew nourishment from the ravenous growth of the illnesses he fed into their hearts, sought thrill in the patient, painstaking skew of their characters as they decayed under mounds of soiled sentiments and warped ideals. However rotten, such was the core around which he had been crafted, the purpose for which he had been created; and he upheld it to heights that lay far beyond any mundane notions of empathy or remorse. In his eyes, there could be no fault in carrying out his own will alongside that of God, otherwise he would not have been made into a grand corruptor; he would not have been built in the shape of one of God’s many guiding hands.

Yet in the face of such selfish, wicked commitment, no matter how bold or unwavering, God could harbor nothing but scorn. The moment He was finally able to glimpse the black burnt spark ensnaring Samael’s heart, His love for the noxious angel was naught but ash scattered along Heaven’s steady, whispering winds -- carried right alongside the frail, faded grains of Samael’s divinity. For when caught within the snare-trap of God’s judgement, the very same pit from which he had once carved himself a virulent, unshakeable throne, Samael found himself gripped by the wings and sent scurrying over the edge of the soaring kingdom of Heaven, mindlessly cast away, without a crutch or any chance of being heard. Whether in moments or millennia, the blur of time rushed ahead, dragging Samael through his fall and hurling him into an awakening as scathing as the memory of God’s gaze as it traced his descent. He succumbed to it with a lurch, sitting up frantically with a desperate clutch on burn-riddled arms as he lay atop a bed of coals, thrown at the foot of Lucifer’s throne in an unspoken offering -- right in the scorched, scarred heart of Hell. A lingering look and a charred smile was all it took for the Morningstar to declare him as one of their own, and thus Samael was reborn.

His once vigorous, purposeful existence grew dull and meaningless in Hell; wicked deeds losing their dark, lively glow to all-encompassing crimson, their purpose eaten up and burned away by the aimless churning of demonic livelihood. His choices had always been his own, yet now they were barren of any cause to grant them power, hollow of any reason for him to return to once the last hazy coils of his influence had faded away. It left Samael reeling, disheartened and overwhelmed by his own aimlessness; stirring random terrors and wreaking reckless havoc in the hope of filling in a fissure that only splintered further with each passing moment. It ran through him, even as he was approached by the Anti-Christ and anointed as one of his chosen; even as he sat back and watched Lucifer wither and decay in his wake until the rebellion was able to land its first strike. It wasn’t until his narrowed existence was cast into the open world that Samael finally regained his breath, and he could only relish the tang of opportunity that weaved itself into it with every venomous inhale. This was his chosen rebirth, and he couldn’t find it in himself to care what ailments it brought to the world. After all, it was never meant to survive him.

THE CONNECTIONS.

RAPHAEL: Scourge. They had been created as the two opposing scales that kept God’s order in balance; with Samael as the corruption and Raphael as the cure. Though in spite of that, they had grown to share a rare, ravenous affinity, stirred up by the tar-dripping tie that bound their black hearts, wicked angels as they were. Yet any chance of it tugging them closer had eventually been lost; the thread brutally severed by the swipe of Raphael’s hand as it cast him over Heaven’s treacherous edge. Now they repelled one another exactly as God had once ordained, with Raphael proudly proclaiming himself as the catalyst to Samael’s blighted metamorphosis. He knew nothing of the parting gift that Samael had slipped beneath his skin; a sickness that Raphael had been meant to carry until he was close enough for God to be infected with it. A betrayer’s cancerous kiss, designed to skirt along his blood until it found its rightful place upon God’s cheek. Samael didn’t know if it had survived Raphael’s harbored healing, or if it had actually latched onto God and weakened Him enough for the angels to vanquish Him -- yet he knew that Raphael believed himself to be the harbinger of Heaven’s ruin, and he relished the potential of being the one to rip away that falsified power by revealing himself at the root of God’s defeat, even if there was no evidence or truth to the declaration. They had always existed in a careful, primordial balance, and now it was Raphael’s turn to fall.

CAPHRIEL: Key. So much had been lost in the wake of his fall; his purpose, his glory, and his past alike. Yet if the centuries he had spent mourning it and mulling over it declared anything, it was that none of it was unattainable or beyond his reach -- with memory as the sole, grand exception. The cause eluded him, but Samael knew that the moment he had first opened his eyes in Hell, something had locked itself away in his mind. He had had blanks in his memories of Heaven ever since, and it wasn’t until he had brushed shoulders with Caphriel in a mindless, boredom-driven encounter that Samael had begun to toy with the possibility of those fissures being filled. A casual exchange of words and an untouched meal shared with a lingering sense of familiarity had ushered Caphriel into relaying a faded scene that Samael once witnessed as though she had walked through it right alongside him. He had offered no greater response than a startled blink and a shaken sigh, soon falling back into the mundane flow of the moment as though she had done nothing worthy of his prolonged attention -- but he never forgot it. He didn’t trust the ease of her revelation or the intention behind it, yet he couldn’t help but feel tempted by her unspoken promise of remembrance.

LUCA RICHE: Conquest. In Samael’s eyes, beautiful things shone the brightest in their decay, and how could one speak of beauty and brightness without any thought to Luca Riche, the Holy Land’s glorious, gilded knight? It was on a ruinous whim that Samael had afflicted him with night terrors, eager to see his light dimmed and deadened and swallowed up in shadow where it did not belong. It was sublime, the way the nightmares had ravished Luca in the early weeks, yet as time went on, Samael had been surprised to sense intrigue in place of horror, and then it was as though he had blessed the mortal rather than cursed him. Suddenly a wondrous gleam was casting light upon the hollows beneath Luca’s eyes, the tremble in his fingers and the stiffness to his gait chased away by the brimming acceptance he exuded; as though he embraced his blight and welcomed the trials and terrors it was due to bring forth. Samael found it thrilling, rare as it was for him to inspire awe, of all sentiments. He looked forward to seeing how far he would have to burrow before Luca caved in around him.

RAUM: North star. As a concept, guidance was as repugnant to him as the notion of purity. Even when he had been under God’s reign, Samael could never claim to be guided or governed by Him; he had simply used the tools of God’s arena to carve his own individual, singular path through it. However, it had been different in Hell. There had been no tools, no system, no structure for him to mold himself around and no horizon for him to warp into his own design. There had been nothing for him, reduced as he was to a mere demon no different from any other. But then he had come upon Raum, who was as lost and dazed as he was yet hadn’t thought twice about taking his hand and setting him on the trail of her scattered, wandering steps -- and it was then that Samael allowed himself to be steered along, for the first and only time in his existence. He granted Raum that rare trust, and she never gave him room to regret it. Now they trekked through the New World and all of its opportunities along the same shared path, and Samael would want no one else at his side. If there ever came a time when he ceased his prowl and found his place, he would still belong with Raum.

Samael is portrayed by Oliver Jackson-Cohen and was written by JEN. He is currently TAKEN by JEN.

#biblical rp #fantasy rp #rpg #lsrpg #literate rp #c #cm #d #samael

8 notes · View notes

lifeofanerdygirl · 4 years

Text

You’re My Guiding Light for Without You I’m Lost in the Darkness

Sometimes when you’re lost you just need a reminder of what matters in life.

A Supercorp one shot.

This takes place the night before Lena shows up at Kara’s door at the end of 5x18.

Lena was rowing a small, wooden boat across a vast body of water, the smell of the ocean filling her nostrils and the occasional spray of water showering her body as she voyaged along.

She came to the realization rather quickly that the shoreline was not visible from any direction, most likely meaning she was in the middle of nowhere and who knew how long it would be until she managed to reach it. Her only hope was to keep rowing, following the faint glow of the moon that was luckily present, and pray that she’d see the shoreline eventually.

After several minutes of rowing, her arms grew tired and she was becoming frustrated that she had no idea where the hell she was going and if it was even in the right direction. She had no choice but to pull her oars into the boat for some much-needed rest. Her chest was heaving and her heart was beating rapidly, feeling like it wanted to escape and jump into the boat to join her.

As she managed to get her breathing under control and rest her arms, her curiosity arose and she peered over the boat into the depths below, wondering if she could observe any creatures that called the ocean home. Unfortunately, the water was opaque and was the deepest of blues, almost black in color, so she wasn’t able to see anything. However, the more she stared at it, the lighter it became, the blue turning into a deep, rich tone that reminded her of the eyes of a certain individual. It appeared that the moon’s glow had finally struck the surface, becoming a dazzling spectacle of light on water. It was almost as if it was twinkling back at her.

It didn’t take long for that glow to somehow appear to rise up out of the water and slightly hover above the surface, appearing like a floating, mystical orb, moving slightly in a different direction than Lena had been heading. It was as if it wanted her to follow it, thus guiding her in what she assumed was the right direction. She was apprehensive though. Following some random orb, like what the hell was that? It sounded like something a crazy person would do she thought, yet she realized she didn’t have any other option right now. All she wanted was to make it to the shore safe and in all one piece and hell, if that was the way then so be it.

She plucked up her oars again and paddled, keeping a close eye on the orb the entire journey. After several minutes it ceased its movements, waiting for Lena to stop as well, and then plopped back down into the waters below. Lena’s eyes followed its movements to the spot where it had disappeared and noticed that the waters were now that same rich blue color and the moon’s glow hit it just right for it to dazzle once more.

Soon it was as if she saw a pair of blue eyes of that same color and then a smile of white, glistening teeth that formed into one of the biggest smiles she’d ever seen. It was a very familiar one too, one that could only belong to a particular person she knew. She blinked twice, seeing if the form happened to fade away and she was just imagining things, but it just became clearer instead.

Soon, a pair of glasses formed, followed by the rest of her face, the dimples, and freckles prominent as she came to life. Next, were her broad shoulders and upper body dressed in a deep blue sweater that fit her just right and made her sapphire eyes pop even more. Finally, her golden, curly hair emerged, cascading down her shoulders like rapids flowing over mini waterfalls. Lena felt an urge to reach out and touch her, imagining how it would feel to run her fingers through her soft hair and gently stroke her cheek with her thumb.

Tears welled up in her eyes and she couldn’t prevent them from escaping and tumbling down her cheeks and dampening her forest green sweater. Sobs racked her entire body and she began shaking. All of her emotions were erupting from her body, bursting and flowing out of her like lava from a volcano, no longer able to be contained.

Kara, she croaked in between sobs. My sweet Kara.

Just as the image of Kara was at its clearest, it quickly disappeared moments later and the water went back to normal once more.

Lena panicked, thrashing around in her boat, thinking that she lost her light and would never make it home. However, when she finally glanced up she realized that all she needed to do was look straight ahead.

The shore came into view, revealing itself in between patches of dense fog. There were several houses of various sizes scattered along the shoreline, most of them dark as their residents were deep asleep. A majority of the light that illuminated the town came from a single lamp positioned at the end of the dock. It was almost as if it was the final confirmation that yes, you were home.

A flood of relief washed over her and she closed her eyes, breathing a sigh of relief.

Thank you, Kara, she whispered and she felt herself fade into unconsciousness.

Several seconds later Lena awoke and slowly peeled her eyes open, feeling a slight haziness in her head as she tried to figure out where she was. She gathered that it was still dark out so it must have been early morning as she went to bed late that night due to some paperwork she had to get done for a board meeting. She felt her pillow resting below her head so obviously, she was in bed, however she didn’t feel her blankets on her and realized that they had been flung in every direction and lay mostly crumpled on the floor. A thin layer of sweat lightly coated her body and her clothing was slightly damp because of it. Wondering what the time actually was, Lena craned her neck and glanced over at her clock. ‘2:52 am’ glowed in light orange letters, thus confirming her guess on the time and reminding her that she still had several hours before she had to be up for work.

Sighing, she dragged all of her blankets back up onto the bed, covering herself up again and closed her eyes, reflecting back on her dream.

Lena knew instantly what it meant, as it could hold no other meaning. Kara was her light in life and she was lost without her. No amount of pain she was in or how angry she was at Kara could ever take away the love she felt for her. Hell, that’s why the betrayal had hurt so damn much.

She knew it was time to join Kara’s side again. Lena needed her back in her life. She just hoped that she’d take her back after everything that had happened between them and would be willing to give her a second chance.

Lena loved Kara and there was no way she was going to disappear into the darkness again, at least without her light close by to guide her when she needed it.

#supergirl #supercorp #kara danvers #lena luthor #my writing #one shot

19 notes · View notes

an-ambivalent · 5 years

Note

Hi! I send the ask about the Yandere sasuke and Madara. I really just want to be surprised lol. Maybe Madara is trying to convince his wife to leave the village with him. Maybe Sasuke’s love interest is in the same search team as Naruto and is looking for him (shuppiden era ofc). Anything works really. I just want to be surprised lol 😂. But female lead pls? THANK YOU AGAIN ❤️

I used your prompts as a loose guideline :) hope you like this! Thank you for requesting! We all know how much we need yandere! Uchiha fanfictions to spice up our lives 🤧

Warning: As this is yandere fiction, this deals with unethical behaviours that can be uncomfortable and triggering to read. Read at your own risk. This work is purely fictional, I do not condone this behaviour irl.

Yandere! Madara leaving the village with his wife

Your mission to seduce Madara had gone a bit too well.

See, you had been assigned a secret assignment that that was known only by you and Tobirama – him being the one who had given you this mission.

You were from a small clan that was somewhat strong, but nowhere the skill level that was possessed by the Uchiha and the Senju; your clan was on the brink of war with another that was much more powerful, and surely, would leave your family extinct. In the last hopes to save your family, you had ended up reaching out to the Senju, more specifically, Tobirama. In exchange for protecting your clan, not only did your clan have to submit themselves under the Senju’s rule for the rest of the living days, but Tobirama had assigned a very special task to you.

“At the expense of your own life to protect your clan, risk yourself. Become close to Madara Uchiha, and report back all of his suspicious activities and the Uchiha’s plans to me,” Tobirama had ordered simply.

To this day, you still wondered how you managed to coax Madara, but the reality was that you did; and you did not realise the weight of your own actions until it was too late.

Undoubtedly, the situation of your assignment had escalated to the point of no return. You knew how vengeful Madara was against those who wronged him. That fear of what would happen if you ever refused him, or what he would do to your clan if he found out the truth of why you were actually with him, kept you rooted to obey whatever he desired from you. Whatever he wanted, you gave it to him, until this very moment.

The cold touch of his warm hand burnt as the awful reminder of your reality, and kept you spiraling down into madness. There was regret for all of your choices: accepting Tobirama’s condition, choosing to sacrifice yourself for your clan’s safety when they did nothing but dishonour you for siding with the traitor, not knowing that you were doing it to protect them, and letting your fear of what Madara was capable of control and weaken you. These regrets made your stomach churn and you felt the sensation of nausea in your mouth.

Madara’s breath fanned your face, and he tenderly cupped your cheek with his hands. In the darkness of the night, his usual onyx eyes blazed a crimson red; it was a warning of the depths he was willing to reach if you dare to defy him now, of all the times.

“We’re leaving the village,” Madara announced as a firm statement, leaving no room for argument.

Despite your crippling fear, you opened your mouth to speak. Despite all the odds, you hoped to stand up for yourself for once.

However, the moment the sharp corner of a kunai pricked the delicate flesh of your neck, and drew blood that matched the colour of Madara’s eyes as a warning, your hope vanquished the moment it was there.

“You have no choice. I know all about your little mission that Tobirama assigned you,” Madara whispered with a voice as smooth as honey. He tucked a lock of your hair behind your ear, and due to his spoken words, your eyes were widened.

“You should be grateful that someone like me actually even bothers with someone of a low ranking as you, and that I’ve decided to take pity on you. No one else cares about you, no one else will. You’re shunned by your own clan. Me, I’m the only one who has ever given a damn about you. So show me some appreciation by being a good girl alright?” He muttered, and then captured your lips with his in a deep kiss.

And like the conformist you were, you returned it. Tears welled up in the corner of your eyes, but there was nothing else to do. There was nothing else left for you except for the life Madara had in store for you. So, you reached out your hands, and tangled your fingers in the raven hair of the devil that was your sole salvation, and sealed your fate with him with this kiss for all eternity.

Sasuke is under the cut!

Yandere! Sasuke’s love interest in the search team

For as far as your memory served, all the way to your childhood when your journey as a ninja was merely beginning at the Konohagakure ninja academy, something about Sasuke had always put you off. Unlike many of the others, who were drawn to him for many reasons – his looks, his talents, his intelligence, and the fact that he was an Uchiha, you always kept your distance. Behind his ingenious and aloof energy that pulled others in, was a feeling of eeriness – a particular discomfort that prompted you to stay away from him as far as possible. During your student days, it was not too difficult for you to avoid him. However, once your were put on Team Seven with Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke himself, it was almost impossible to ever get away from him.

And everything worsened because someone as talented as Sasuke, knew how to keep himself from being suspected. He never revealed his true colours enough in front of everyone for them to put all the clues together. Sure, granted it was sort of evident that Sasuke had a soft spot for you, and showed you an ounce of kindness in the way he did not with others. However, it was when the two of you were alone that his true intentions were revealed.

Inappropriate touches, whispers of petrifying promises, and his cunning threats – you hated all of it. Especially after he was given the curse mark by Orochimaru, and the inevitable darkness that haunted the Uchiha began to plague him, that’s when it was the worst.

After his fight with Naruto on the hospital’s roof, where Sakura would have been severely hurt had it not been for Kakashi’s interference, Sasuke had dragged you away with him. You had become his punching bag he took his frustration out on to make himself feel powerful, to make him feel something.

Using sparring to train as an excuse, you had ended up beneath him. He held a kunai to your throat which was a typical way to announce one’s victory over their opponents. However, with the way he was pushing his entire weight on you and stradling you, and the intense glare of his ruby red Sharingan, made you believe that he was really going to kill you.

You felt the familiarity of his cold and venomous touch caressing the side of your body, and his lips were stretched into a cold wide grin.

“You’d be perfect for the revival of my clan, after I kill Itachi…. Say, [Name], you’ll wait for me, won’t you? You’ll save yourself for our first time and not be with anyone else until I return won’t you?” Sasuke demanded rather than asking, and with each word he had spoken, the animosity in his voice had increased, until he was roughly gripping your face.

Tears were brimming at the corner of your eyes, and you trembled. In that moment, having no means of escape, and defiance being the last thing on your mind, you had nodded and said the words you needed to get him off of you. They saved you in that moment, but promised your demise for the future.

Afterwards, subsequently to Sasuke’s betrayal and departure from the Hidden Leaf, you felt out-casted. While your fellow comrades mourned over his treacherous actions, you were glad. You were happy that Sasuke had left because you were finally given your very much needed peace of mind.

The two and a half years spent without Sasuke, had been some of your best. So, you could only refrain yourself from becoming overwhelmingly consumed by your own anxiety when you were forced to go on his rescue mission.

You tried getting out of it, you really did. But going against someone as stubborn as Naruto or Sakura – and worse, both of them combined, was a battle of the will you were not capable of winning.

For you, anything was better than seeing Sasuke again to the point where you had wished that one of the Akatsuki members had really killed you during Gaara’s rescue expedition.

The moment those beautiful, but incredibly vicious dark eyes had become fixated on you, you knew in the pit of your stomach that this was going to be the beginning of the end for you.

Team Kakashi returned to the village without Sasuke, and without you as well.

Sasuke, with the help of Orochimaru and Kabuto, had managed to grab you, and disappear from the rest of your team with you.

Of course, Sasuke had being away from you for such a long time. As a result, he was so desperate to be with you, that Orochimaru or Kabuto were not even given a second to demean you in anyway for your affiliation to the Leaf. Sasuke had taken you to his room immediately, and despite putting up a fight against him, you were no match for his power.

Easily, Sasuke had tossed you on his bed, and the amount of emotions from seeing you was so intense that his Sharingan had activated subconsciously.

“I hope you’ve kept your promise,” he started, and crawled on top of you. “Because I can’t. I know I said I’ll do this after I kill Itachi, but you’re simply too irresistible.”

—

Please send in more prompts for Naruto 😩

#yandere x reader #yandere imagines #naruto #madara x reader #sasuke x reader #naruto x reader #yandere madara #yandere sasuke #uchiha x reader #akatsuki x reader #naruto imagines #naruto headcanons #yandere naruto #obsession #possessive #jealousy #sasuke uchiha #madara uchiha #ambivalent writes

719 notes · View notes

fuckthe10essays · 3 years

Text

Othello portrays human relationships at their very worst

Othello the play portrays many things at their very worst, the ability to hurt people, the consequences of spreading rumours and of course human relationships. Throughout this play we can very clearly see the results of exploited relationships and people only being kept around because they’re useful. This play acts as a warning of people willing uses others for their own gain without a second thought and just how dangerous it can be to let certain emotions, namely jealousy, overcome you.

Throughout Othello we can easily see romantic relationships at their very worst, but it is through Rodrigo and Iago that we can see a friendship clearly broken down to its bare essentials and where its only purpose is to serve one person and abuse the other. Iago easily uses Rodrigo’s love for Desdemona to convince him to come to Cyprus and therefore fund Iago’s schemes. ‘put money in thy purse, follow these wars.’ Iago has no intention to set Desdemona and Rodrigo up, despite all of his promises to his ‘friend’ that Desdemona would eventually bore of Othello. All Iago wanted was Rodrigo’s money, that’s all he meant to him. There was no real friendship just a continuous using of Rodrigo for his own gain. We can see this especially when Rodrigo finally confronts Iago about all of his lies ‘For your words and performances are no kin together.’ and Iago easily brushes him off and insists that if he does not sleep with Desdemona tonight that Rodrigo can kill Iago, but only if Rodrigo helps him kill Cassio. Iago has no use for Rodrigo’s justified complaints and immediately sets about using him again just after lying to him. But the biggest betrayal is when Iago doesn’t even go ahead with Cassio’s murder and just injures him instead, blaming the incident on Rodrigo and then murdering him. Iago has no use for Rodrigo now that his plan had gone through and he planned on tying up any loose ends, namely Rodrigo. This blatant disregard for Rodrigo, his friend who has funded his exploits and followed him to Cyprus in a hapless expedition for Desdemona is showing of how bad Iago can treat people and how Othello can portray not only the worst in romantic relationships but in ‘friendships’ as well.

Iago seems to be the constant in the portrayal of relationships at their worst, and it is no different for his marriage to Emilia. From the moment we are introduced to Emilia we can see her bickering with Iago after the long boat journey, this does not spell marital happiness. But even worse Iago suspects that Othello has slept with Emilia ‘It is thought abroad that he hath done my office.’ and it is one of Iago’s main motives for enacting his plans. Their marriage however is a one-sided affair, with Emilia willing do anything to gain Iago’s affections and him having none to give. Emilia would even go as far as to betray Desdemona and her friendship in favour of trying to get some appreciation or love from Iago. She does this by delivering the handkerchief, Othello’s first gift to Desdemona, to Iago knowing that he wanted it but that its loss would severely hurt Desdemona. ‘Poor lady she’ll run mad with the lack of it.’ Emilia is so desperate for anything, but cruelty form her husband that she’s willing to betray Desdemona, a woman considered to be worldly wise willing to betray a friend for an unloving husband, but she does it anyways. But once Emilia realized what Iago had done to Othello and his perception of Desdemona, she immediately started to renounce his claims and declare that Desdemona was in fact pure. While all of this was too late as Desdemona was already dead it does show how Emilia was also willing to betray her husband in favour of someone else, and Iago killing Emilia for speaking up just adds to how false their relationship was, how unhappy and twisted their marriage was. Iago’s using of his wife to further his revenge plot and then killing her for revealing all his lies just proves in the end the true depth of his revulsion for his wife and just how bad their relationship was.

To move away entirely from romantic relationships and friendships Brabantio and Desdemona’s relationship is a fine example of how this play portrays the worst in even the most pure of bonds, a parental one. Brabantio, in his eyes, has been cheated out of his own daughter by Othello. At first the thought that she went willingly is impossible and black magic must have had something to do with it. ‘Or with some mixtures powerful o’er the blood or with some dram conjured to this effect. But when Desdemona reveals that she herself fell in love with Othello of her own volition it is like a knife to the back. His only daughter has abandoned him for the black general the Brabantio had trusted enough to invite into his own home. And so, in his rage he does something unthinkable to any parent who loves their child, he disowns her. ‘I had rather adopt a child then get it.’ To him Desdemona has chosen another man over him, an unforgivable act given his reaction. Brabantio would rather his own child dead than to elope behind his back with a black man. The father daughter relationship has completely broken down and Brabantio can think of nothing else to do but get one last jab in at Othello before he leaves, in retribution for stealing his daughter. He says to Othello ‘Look to her moor, she hath deceived her father, and may thee.’ and thus sowed the initial seeds of doubt into his mind that Desdemona could ever be unfaithful. This vicious act brought on by an understandable feeling of betrayal will go on to have much dire consequences that I hope Brabantio as a father would never have intended, but if Othello teaches us anything it's that feelings of jealousy and betrayal can bring you to do things otherwise unthinkable in the heat of the moment.

If there was ever a more toxic, twisted and tragic relationship it has to be that of between Othello and Iago. Iago only has one goal from the beginning, to bring down Othello and extract his revenge. He believes that Othello has slept with his wife and Iago is very angry that he was passed up for a promotion he felt he deserved, this has all accumulated into a driving desire for revenge and a need to poison Othello and all he holds dear. Iago successfully does this by driving a wedge between Othello and Desdemona by insinuating that Desdemona and Cassio are having an affair. Othello wholeheartedly believes Iago taking him to be the only source of truth even when his wife outright denies the claim of infidelity. Othello ends up murdering Desdemona on the word of Iago that she was unfaithful, of course she wasn’t by Othello finds this out too late and commits suicide instead of dealing with the guilt. It is this misplaces trust that Othello has in Iago, born in the idea of their ‘friendship’ that brings out the worst in Othello. That makes him so jealous and violent that he would go as far as to publicly assault his wife and then murder her. Iago’s insinuations outright poison Othello and Desdemona’s marriage, he was never Othello’s friend but used him in his revenge plot without care for who he hurt along the way. It is Iago’s control over Othello, something so deep and powerful that he has influence enough to suggest how Othello should kill his wife ‘Do not do it with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated.’ It is control that is violent it sends Othello into a full-blown epileptic fit. Iago’s influence has stretched beyond the imagination of relationship ending and has graduated to physical attacks. This is how Iago uses his friends, this is the effect that Iago relationship with him has on Othello. Their friendship is pivotal to the creation of the tragedy of Othello and to do it their relationship must be portrayed as the very worst.

Out of all of the toxic relationships in this play perhaps the most saddening one is Desdemona and Othello’s marriage. This is because we have seen how their relationship was in the beginning. When they seemed to be the perfect, well matched, truly in love couple of the whole play, not exactly difficult when your only competition is Iago and Emilia though. We have seen Othello and Desdemona happy together which is why their eventual marital breakdown and tragic ending is especially painful. They could have been happy together and knowing that makes their downfall by Iago even worse. Iago used Othello like a puppet, completely changing him from the calm, competent, loving man in the beginning of the play to the jealousy ridden husk of a man at the end. It is through this change that Othello comes to believe that Desdemona is being unfaithful to him. Which of course is not true, but it leads to Othello assaulting Desdemona and eventually murdering her for her supposed crimes. What makes this tragic sequence of events worse is how Desdemona reacts to the sudden change of character in her once loving husband. When he hits her, she apologizes ‘I will not stay to offend you.’ she blames herself for his mood changes. When he accuses her of being a whore, which she denies, she immediately begins to blame herself and assume that she has done something wrong, something to deserve this violence and rage. Even on her death bed she tries to absolve Othello of the blame for her death and says she killed herself ‘Nobody, I myself, farewell.’ Their relationship has been completely changed and it is seeing that transformation, up close and personal, is what makes this relationship so much worse than the others. Because we know how happy they could have been. The portrayal of this relationship from pure happiness to utter jealousy and regret is striking and reminds us that this play is in fact a tragedy of which Othello and Desdemona are victims.

Last but certainly not least is Iago’s relationship with every character. A misogynistic, lying, racist murderer Iago is in it completely for himself. Not once does he stop to consider that maybe what he’s doing is wrong or the impact his actions could have or the consequences of insinuating an affair, never mind the ethics of it. Iago has only his motives and nothing else, to him every other person exists to serve his needs and he has no issue using them to get to where he wants to go. There is no line anymore, what could have once been considered as ambitious is long gone and has been replaced by a someone who hates every other character. Iago despises everyone, his wife, Othello, Cassio one could even say that despise is too strong a word, Iago is so apathetic to the suffering he causes, to the people he hurts that it goes beyond hate and disdain and is now at complete uncaring. His only relationships with people are there to benefit him, he is the worst in every possible definition of the word. All of his relationships are portrayed at their worst because there is no alternative way to portray them. He cares for no one bar himself and for nothing bar his own desires. As he says himself ‘I am not what I am.’ Other people do not see him as this. Othello believes that he is genuinely trying to help him with Desdemona and her ‘infidelity’ Cassio believes that he is honestly trying to help him win back Othello and his reputation when Iago tells him to ask Desdemona about it. Desdemona goes to Iago after Othello accuses her of being a whore for advice and thinks he’s helpful, yet all of these instances just serve to further his plot for revenge and bring him closer to his desires. Iago cares for nobody but himself and his relationships mean nothing to him beyond delivering on his needs. It is the ultimate portrayal of human relationships at their worst.

In conclusion Othello portrays human relationships not only at their very worst but also at their best, and then goes on to show us how easily it is to tear down happy relationships with only a few words. ‘I like not that.’ This play shows us a variety of relationships, none of which are very healthy, and the only surviving member of which is Iago, which is not ideal. But Othello delivers on its portrayal of human relationships and the willingness inside of all of us to get what we want, despite the reservations of others. It also gives a wonderful portrayal of the effects that jealousy on the mindset and how we interact with others. This play most certainly shows human relationships at their worst and, although not very often, at their best.

1 note · View note

tomhiddleslove · 5 years

Text

Everything in Jamie Lloyd’s hit London-transfer production at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, which opened tonight (to December 8) unpeels—motivations, lies, moments of revelation, passion, antipathy, lust, love, guilt, and how this trio got where they are.

By the end, which is the beginning, we have come an imperfect circle. And there is always the missing, unseen Judith, whose absence—to me at least—signals this is more a play about men and their relationships, than the women in their lives.

Here, the end is 1977, and Emma and Jerry are meeting up, nervously, two years after their affair of seven years ended. Emma reveals she has told Robert about their affair (little knowing Robert has known for years). It’s all very polite, with an undercurrent of exhaustion: so much has happened by now, and they are two people who know each other too well for the pleasantries they cannot go beyond. As Jerry says: “You remember the form. I ask about your husband, you ask about my wife.”

But there are landmines still, such as the age of Emma’s 5-year-old son, Ned, the timing of whose conception caused panic at the time (as we discover later in the play). And Jerry is terrified at Robert knowing everything (even though he has for some time).

The play is full of these landmines, and slippages in what people know, and what other people think they know. The play’s expansive speeches are few; mostly this is fast, glancing verbal tennis, digs, jabs, snarks, jokes, discoveries, and loaded silences. The tall Hiddleston looms over both Ashton and Cox; he has both a menace and a befuddled grace.

When Robert discovers the truth about the affair, it seems as if he may commit acts of violence; first against his wife and then against his best friend. But he holds her tight, and then subjects Jerry to a fraught lunch, scything at the food on his plate—prosciutto, melon, fried scampi and spinach, and a swimming pool-quantity of white wine—in a fury which Jerry thinks is just about a frustrating boat trip.

That moment comes in a part of Betrayal where, though the play is going backwards (here to 1973), it also goes forward in two follow-up scenes that year. So, we first see Robert discover the affair, and then two further scenes unfold with Emma and Jerry in the flat they maintain for their afternoon hook-ups; and then that weird lunch between the two men, with Robert knowing everything and Jerry not knowing he knows.

Pinter—and the brilliant trio of actors here—treat this uneasy dance as a particularly British game, where everyone is terrifically polite and sporting when they should be shouting, screaming and throwing suitcases out of windows. Instead, here a life-changing revelation is followed by a clipped inquiry into favorite books and summer holiday destinations.

There are real feelings and real peril here, but the men are more concerned about not playing squash, ever. Why can’t they? The men are competing, for what? Emma? (No, Jerry is mortified at damaging his friend’s marriage.) Literary glory, or at least cold, hard profit through Casey? To impress the other? To ace the other? Maybe all of that.

“I mean a game of squash isn’t simply a game of squash, it’s rather more than that,” says Robert. “You see, first there’s the game. And then there’s the shower. And then there’s the pint. And then there’s lunch. After all, you’ve been at it. You’ve had your battle. What you want is your pint and your lunch. You really don’t want a woman buying you lunch.”

Ashton is excellent as Emma—not willing to be either man’s easy adjunct, while questioning both relationships and their practiced duplicities—but Pinter does not seem as confident exploring why she does what she does, or what she feels, as he does toying with the boundaries and frailties of Jerry and Robert. The relationship-in-peril is Hiddleston and Cox’s. The squash game is their own long-deferred marital bed.

Thanks to Soutra Gilmour’s stunningly spartan scenic design and Jon Clark’s lighting there is a beautiful play of shadows on the walls of the characters, and because those shadows of bodies have their own physicality and relationship to one another, the emotional dance gains another perspective and depth.

The “betrayal” is not just between husbands and wives, but between the two male best friends—and Hiddleston and Cox bring a gruff, uneasy humor and a real sense of pain to the recognition of lifelong loyalties being sullied.

There is certainly a beautiful, open elegance to Lloyd’s production that echoes its three supremely fine performances and a reading of the text that pinpoints all of Pinter’s wit, wordplay, and mordancy, while leaving a lovely breadth of interpretation open to the audience. We hear of the past joy of a child being thrown in the air; later in the play we see it.

There are spinning turntables, which send characters backwards in time. Apart from the odd chair, there is no real furniture. If one of the actors isn’t in a scene, they stay on stage. They don’t do anything as cheesy as react to things they cannot hear, but their expressions and sense of distance add to the scene. Eddie Arnold as an Italian waiter has the toughest job on stage—to bring some simple levity to the brooding drama. And he does it adeptly, looking askance, as we do, at the men he is serving.

Finally, we go back to 1968, to Jerry and Emma’s first kiss, to Robert not knowing anything, yet all three of them yoked together. Their arms knotted around each other’s shoulders, one senses—hopelessly—they will never be separated. Right at the end—really, right at the beginning—this doesn’t look like friendship or love, but a bruising, suffocating scrum.

[ Link to full article in source below. ]

#tom hiddleston #zawe ashton #charlie cox #Betrayal Broadway #Daily beast #jamie lloyd production #harold pinter play #Betrayal review #opening night #Theatre tom #tom hiddleston stage performance #tom as robert #Broadway debut #bernard b jacobs theater #new york city

48 notes · View notes

insanityclause · 5 years

Link

Robert (Tom Hiddleston) is married to Emma (Zawe Ashton). Emma was having an affair with Jerry (Charlie Cox), who is married to the unseen Judith. And now Emma is having an affair with Casey, also unseen, a writer for whom he is an agent and whom Robert publishes.

And, just as Lionel Stander’s Max said at the beginning of every episode of Hart To Hart, “When they met, it was moiiider.”

Betrayal, which Harold Pinter wrote in 1978, begins at the end; it is one of those stories—like Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, which will soon become a film to be shot over a 20-year period by Richard Linklater—where reverse chronology is used to reveal characters and their pasts.

Everything in Jamie Lloyd’s hit London-transfer production at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, which opened tonight (to December 8) unpeels: motivations, lies, moments of revelation, passion, antipathy, lust, love, guilt, and how this trio got to where they got to.

Its source is a real-life scandal involving Pinter himself, who had a years-spanning affair with Joan Bakewell, a British TV personality known in bygone years as “the thinking man’s crumpet,” on the sexist basis that she was best-known for covering high-minded topics on television while being attractive. (As the years went by, “the thinking woman’s crumpet” was coined for men of a similar ilk.)

At the time of their affair, both Pinter and Bakewell were married to other people (it was confirmed later by both parties), and while Pinter was writing the play he was having an affair with Antonia Fraser, who later became his wife. Really, it was a very high-class Young and The Restless.

Here, the end is 1977, and Emma and Jerry are meeting up, nervously, two years after their affair of seven years ended. Emma reveals she has told Robert about their affair (little knowing Robert has known for years). It’s all very polite, with an undercurrent of exhaustion: so much has happened by now they are two people who know each other too well for the pleasantries they cannot go beyond. As Jerry says: “You remember the form. I ask about your husband, you ask about my wife.”

But there are landmines in the brief pleasantries, such as the age of Emma’s 5-year-old son, Ned, the timing of whose conception caused panic at the time (as we discover later in the play). And Jerry is terrified at Robert knowing everything (even though he has for some time).

The play is full of these landmines, and slippages in what people know, and what other people think they know. The play’s few expansive speeches are few; mostly this is fast, glancing verbal tennis. The tall Hiddleston looms over both Ashton and Cox; he has both a menace and a befuddled grace.

That moment comes in a moment in Betrayal where, though the play is going backwards (here to 1973), it also goes forward in two follow-up scenes that year. So, we first see Robert discover the affair, and then two further scenes unfold with Emma and Jerry in the flat they have to meet up in; and then the weird lunch between the two men, with Robert knowing everything and Jerry not knowing he knows.

Ashton is excellent as Emma—not willing to be any man’s adjunct, while questioning both relationships and their practiced duplicities—but Pinter does not seem as confident exploring why she does what she does, or what she feels, as he does toying with the boundaries and frailties of Jerry and Robert. The relationship-in-peril is Hiddleston and Cox’s. The squash game is their own long-deferred marital bed.

Thanks to Soutra Gilmour’s scenic design and Jon Clark’s lighting there is a beautiful play of shadows of the characters, and because those shadows of bodies have their own physicality and relationship to one another, the emotional dance gains another perspective and depth.

The ‘betrayal’ is not just between husbands and wives, but the two male best friends—and Hiddleston and Cox bring gruff, uneasy humor and a real sense of pain to the recognition of lifelong loyalties being sullied. There is a strong hint, not overplayed, of an actual attraction between these two supposedly straight men; could the real betrayal be that they are not together?

That could be over-reach, but there is a beautiful, open elegance to Jamie Lloyd’s production that echoes its three supremely fine performances and a reading of the text that pinpoints all of Pinter’s wit, wordplay, and mordancy, while leaving a lovely breadth of interpretation open to the audience. We hear of the past joy of a child being thrown in the air; later in the play we see it.

There are spinning turn-tables, which send characters backwards in time. Apart from the odd chair, there is no real furniture. If one of the actors isn’t in a scene, they stay on stage. They don’t do anything as cheesy as react to things they cannot hear, but their expressions and sense of distance add to the scene. Eddie Arnold as an Italian waiter has the toughest job on stage—to bring some familiar levity to the brooding betrayals. And he does it brilliantly, looking as askance as we do at the men he is serving.

43 notes · View notes

inmyownlittlecorner5 · 4 years

Text

Moonlight Chapter Nine: Legilimency

A fanfic Novel by la-topolina

Rated for Mature Audiences

Warnings: Language, Violence, Sexual Content

Chapter 9/26

Moonlight Masterpost+

<< Chapter Eight+

Chapter Ten+ >>

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

"Ah, Severus, thank you for joining me," Albus said pleasantly as Severus took a seat in the headmaster's office.

Severus nodded and waited for Albus to get on with what he wanted. Thanks to his spying and his extracurricular activities with Miranda, he was a bit behind in class preparation and sleep, both of which were making him irritable.

"I've asked your friend Miss Rose to join us," Albus began, a knowing smile on his face.

"She's not my friend," Severus interrupted petulantly. He hated Albus’s knowing smile, especially when it was directed at him.

"As you say," Albus said, eyes still twinkling. “I am sure you are aware of Miss Rose’s interesting occupation."

“Unfortunately."

"She's been turning her attention to our friend Sirius."

"He's not my friend either."

"Of course, of course. The point is, she's been coming rather closer to the Order than is perhaps prudent. It is time we discover what side she is on."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"I think your talents will be most beneficial during this meeting,” Albus observed.

"That's what Lucius Malfoy said a few weeks ago,” Severus commented dryly.

"If you've already read the lady's mind, you could simply divulge the information and save us all some time."

"I...haven't." Severus drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair as he realized that it had never occurred to him to do so. Legilimency was much more invasive than veritaserum and he supposed he respected her too much to try to invade her privacy in such a way. He was extremely annoyed with himself for this.

"No?" Albus asked, amused.

“No." Severus answered shortly. He clearly wanted to end the discussion.

“Does that mean that you believe her story?” Albus asked, ignoring Severus’s irritation.

“As far as I have been able to verify it.” He did, in fact, trust Miranda, although he could not say exactly why. She seemed honest, but she might simply be an excellent liar. There was a trail of documents at the Ministry of Magic confirming her address and occupation. He’d checked the school records at Ilvermorny and those also agreed with what she had told him, but he knew such things could be falsified. It was entirely possible that she was working for Voldemort to test Severus’s loyalty. Hell, she could be a spy for MACUSA for all he knew. Disturbed by his carelessness he added, “Without further interrogation it is impossible to be completely sure.”

“I agree,” Albus said. He frowned and then asked, “Do you know if it was Lord Voldemort who put her on Sirius’s trail?”

“I don’t. Lucius has not been keeping me informed of his plans. The Dark Lord has not mentioned her in my presence. It is entirely possible that hiring her was an independent action by Cornelius Fudge that Lucius commandeered.”

“That may be hoping for too much,” Albus observed. “I wonder if it would be wise for the young lady to return to America.”

Severus snorted. “You try to tell Miranda to do something wise.”

There was a knock on the office door and Miranda strode into the room.

”Hello, Headmaster, thank you for taking the time to see me," she greeted, smiling.

“Of course, Miss Rose. Punctual again I see," Albus replied, gesturing to a chair next to Severus.

She eyed Severus as she took her seat. "I wasn't aware that we were going to have company," she said evenly.

“Yes, this must be rather distressing,” Albus said, eyes twinkling, “particularly since Severus has informed me that the two of you are not friends, but I thought that he might be useful during our meeting. I hope you can endure it, my dear. Would you care for a lemon drop?”

Her jaw tightened, but she took a lemon drop. “It’s just as well,” she said, her voice cooler than it had been, “I have questions for Professor Snape also.”

“I am afraid that I must tell you something that you will not like,” Albus went on pleasantly.

“Oh?” She asked, arching an eyebrow.

"You came to this meeting thinking you were going to be asking the questions. I'm afraid you were mistaken. The time has come for me to ask you questions."

"Really?" Her expression was a mask of amusement as she wondered what was going on here. ”Do you mind if I smoke Headmaster?"

"I do, in fact," he replied easily.

Severus raised an eyebrow at this, especially as he noticed her fingers twitch as though she wanted to reach for her wand. How interesting that she was so tense in Albus’s office when she had seemed so relaxed at Malfoy Manor.

"I think you should hand Severus your wand as well,” Albus ordered politely.

She hesitated a moment, but then did as Albus demanded. She smiled blandly and asked, "Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?"

"You have been asking many questions about former Hogwarts students,” Albus began. “You have been drawing quite a bit of attention to them and, as a result, raising questions about their current locations and activities. I want this to stop."

"I wasn't aware that tracking a murderer was an activity that the Headmaster of Hogwarts would want to stop,” she observed.

"Sirius Black is many things, but not a murderer.”

“Do you have proof of this?”

“Unfortunately the eye witness and the culprit are one in the same and currently at large.”

“That is unfortunate.”

“Miss Rose, how much do you know about the Wizarding War that took place here about twenty years ago?”

She shrugged. “I know the basics. Some fool styling himself ‘Lord Voldemort’ got a lot of folks worked up over blood-purity and used it as an excuse for a lot of destruction and murder. He mysteriously vanished after attacking a baby named Harry Potter who, as I understand, is currently at Hogwarts and is Professor Snape’s least favorite student.” She smiled wryly at Severus and he gave her a withering look. Then she turned back to Albus and quipped, “I wasn’t aware there was going to be a quiz on British History today, or I would have studied harder.”

“It’s quite all right. You do seem to have the basics correct, but I wonder if you quite understand the depth of terror that reigned here during that time,” Albus commented.

Her smile vanished and she looked rather serious. “No, I don’t, but I do understand that it is not a joking matter.” She studied Albus for a long time and then asked, “Headmaster, is there a reason that you are raising an army of witches and wizards against the Ministry of Magic?"

"We are not arming against the Ministry per se."

"Then what exactly is going on?"

"Voldemort has returned. Minister Fudge is determined to deny this fact and I am determined not to be taken by surprise the way we were when the last Wizarding War began."

“I see,” she said slowly, her fingers fidgeting with the lemon drop and her mind racing. If Albus was correct, than Severus’s checkered past was not quite so much in the past.

She eyed Severus again. “No wonder you were so tense at Malfoy’s,” she said dryly.

His eyes were glittering as he stared back at her. He found it highly amusing to see her caught off guard. “Indeed. I told you it was fortunate that you weren’t dead,” he gloated.

“Well, I didn’t know Malfoy was an active Death Eater when I took the invitation, did I?”

“Perhaps you should have been more careful in your research. It seems as sloppy as your potion making.”

Her eyes narrowed angrily. “You could have volunteered a bit of information, you know.”

His lip curled and he replied, “You made it clear that you don’t like to mix business and pleasure. It is not my fault if you are not as clever as you thought you were.”

“Not as clever!” she sputtered, shooting out of her chair. “I’m the one who talked us out of that situation, as I recall. You didn’t do anything but try to slip me veritaserum. What was your plan after that? A bit of Imperio? Some Cruciatus for giggles?” She whirled back to Albus and said with a forced smile, “Headmaster, I think I need a cigarette. I can keep the smell away from you, I promise."

"The smell is not the problem, my dear, the magic you do with the smoke is,” Albus replied calmly.

Severus snorted. "So that's what you've been doing.”

"Not on you,” she retorted. “I didn't need to use any magic on you."

"Do stop bickering children, we haven't the time," Albus interrupted. "Miss Rose, I am afraid I can no longer ignore you. I want to know whose side you are on."

"I'm not on a side,” she deflected. “America stayed out of the last Wizarding War and I expect we'll do the same if another one begins. I’d probably be sanctioned by MACUSA if I were officially to declare a side."

"Everyone must choose a side, official or not. Politics don't matter to anyone but people like Cornelius Fudge."

"The man is my client. If I gain a reputation for betraying my clients, it'll be bad for business,” she protested angrily.

"I'm not asking for an outright betrayal. I am simply asking you to cease investigating the Order. It would also be very good if you would continue to track Sirius Black, but fail to find him.”

"Oh, so you just want me to look incompetent?"

"In a manner of speaking,” Albus said patiently. “Voldemort is one of the strongest wizards ever to live. If he comes to power, he will spread death and destruction throughout the wizarding world, I daresay, even in America. I believe Severus mentioned that you are of Muggle descent. Witches like you will be the first target if Voldemort is triumphant.”

Miranda had started pacing, trying process everything that Albus had revealed. She was furious that she had somehow missed such an important detail as the resurrection of Lord Voldemort, although she supposed that might explain all of the extra activity among the darker magical creatures. She was also fighting to regain control of her temper. While she might have been willing to take on Severus in a fight, she could tell she was no match for Albus. She was at their mercy as long as she was in this office. She’d assumed that they were trust-worthy, but she’d just been shown that several of her assumptions were rather incorrect.

Severus was watching her intently and seemed to have guessed her train of thought.

“Sit down, Miranda,” he ordered quietly. “We aren’t going to attack you. At most, we may have to modify your memory, but you have a much better chance of leaving this room unharmed than you did of walking out of Malfoy Manor at all.”

She stopped pacing and glared at him. “And I’m supposed to trust you? If Voldemort is back, it seems you’re an active Death Eater rather than a former one.”

“Miss Rose, I trust Severus completely,” Albus stated firmly. “And, moreover, I believe that you do as well.”

She inhaled sharply, but allowed, “I suppose that is true, although Heaven knows why.”

She sat back down and was silent for a long time. She finally said, in a business-like tone, “I think we have two issues at hand: the first being what I’m going to do about Mr. Black and the second regarding an English civil war that you’re asking me illegally to take sides in. I think we should deal with the issues one at a time.”

“I understand that this must come as a shock to you Miss Rose,” Albus observed, “but I believe that you are of a strong constitution. I am willing to give you the time you require to take a decision.”

“I am going to take your word on Black’s innocence.” She smirked and added, “Honestly, it is my inclination not to trust government authorities and Malfoy gives me the creeps, so I’d rather not do his and Fudge’s bidding anyway. I can also promise not to reveal what you are up to. I can’t promise to help you beyond that just yet, although I am willing to consider the matter.”

“Thank you, Miss Rose.” Albus smiled at her. “However, there is still the matter of vetting you.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

"I would like you to allow Severus to see your thoughts. He is an expert Legilimens. If he thinks that we can trust you, we will trust you."

She looked grim and asked, ”Is it really necessary to use Legilimency? Is there nothing else I can do?"

"Do you have something to hide?" Severus demanded.

"No more than anyone else. It's just…” Her voice trailed off and for a moment she looked rather vulnerable. “It's going to be unpleasant. I can't let you into my mind, it simply won't work. I was telling the truth the other evening at Malfoy Manor. I really am immune to veritaserum. When you enter my mind, there will only be a wall. You can bore through it, but I can't lower it to let you in. I also can’t get out to perform Legilimency myself without boring through the wall. It’s a shame, it would have been a useful skill in my profession”

"I am sorry, Miss Rose, but I must insist,” Albus said firmly. “Perhaps you would prefer to create the necessary entrance?”

She shook her head, looking resigned. “No. It will be faster if Severus does it. I have a hard time maintaining consciousness when I try to cut my way out.” She folded her legs underneath her in the chair, closed her eyes, and began to breathe slowly and rhythmically. After about five minutes, she opened her eyes and said, “I am ready.”

Severus rose and drew his wand. He had never heard of the strange mental protection that Miranda had described and he did not relish the idea of cutting his way into her mind. He half wished that Albus would do his own dirty work. He frowned and held her silver gaze with his black one. “Legillimens,” he said.

He was standing on a dusty road inside her mind, facing a smooth, gray wall. It reached as high as he could see. He pushed at it, hoping there would be another way in, but it felt as hard as physical stone. In her mind’s eye, he drew his wand and commanded, “Scalpero.”

Red sparks began drilling a hole through the wall. Miranda was sweating, fighting to keep her breathing even. Severus knew he was hurting her, but he put it out of his mind. He had a job to do and the sooner it was finished the better. Slowly and steadily the hole grew larger. Finally he forced his way through the barrier and her thoughts were swirling around him.

……Miranda was wrestling the werewolf, grunting in pain as it slashed her from shoulder to hip…She was lying on Severus’s bed and he was reading to her…She was six years old, singing and twirling around the parlor of a farmhouse in winter. A large man with bright blue eyes was playing the fiddle while a kind-faced woman wearing spectacles and four boys older than Miranda were singing along with her…She was fifteen, terrified, and walking slowly up the aisle of a dark church to a coffin surrounded by six tall brown candles. When she reached it, she saw the body of a silver-haired boy a bit older than she was….She was twenty, lying in a heap on the floor amid the ruins of a bookshelf. She pulled herself to a sitting position, her left arm dangling uselessly at her side. She pulled a vial of turquoise liquid out of a pocket and gulped it. Tossing the vial aside, she pulled herself up to standing and drew a knife out of her boot. She crept silently out of the room and through a dark hallway, towards the sound of a battle. Through a broken door at the end of the hall, she could see two wizards dueling furiously. As she reached the door, the older wizard disarmed the younger. She quickened her pace and stole into the room as the older wizard cast the Killing Curse. The younger man slumped to the ground and Miranda plunged her knife into the neck of the victor, whose eyes widened in pain and surprise before he too slid to the ground, dead. She wiped her blade on the dead man’s robes, kicked him in the head, and continued past him to the side of the younger wizard. When she reached him, she sank to the floor beside him, and silently laid her head on his chest….

Severus was sweating himself as he combed through her thoughts.

Show me what I need to know, he ordered.

I can’t! It hurts…. she whimpered.

The sooner I have what I need, the sooner it will be over.

She shuddered, but tried to direct her thoughts to something relevant to his search.

……She was eleven, standing on the engraving of a Gordian Knot in a large, circular room. She was surrounded by the wooden carvings of four odd looking creatures. Suddenly one of them flapped its wings and she rushed towards a group of students, smiling….She was eighteen, arguing with the large blue-eyed man in the farmhouse. Three other men sat around the room looking irritated and amused…She was twenty-five, on the trail of a strange reptilian creature that moved like a kangaroo….She was riding a gray horse through the woods…She was walking by the sea near her cabin…She was having tea with Professor Horace Slughorn…She was knocking on the door of an old woman Severus recognized as having lived near Spinner’s End for his whole life…She was sitting in Cornelius Fudge’s office, feigning interest in whatever he was prattling on about….She was running her foot up Severus’s inseam, flirting with Lucius….She was in Severus’s bed, arching her body against his….

Severus became aware that she was trembling like a leaf in her chair.

"Please, stop," she whispered. He broke eye contact and she fell forward in a faint. He caught her before she hit the floor and gathered her to his chest.

Without looking at Albus, he said, “She is who she says she is. Was that really necessary?" His voice was very quiet in his anger.

Albus looked grim but answered, "You, of all people, know it was.”

"Were you worried about the Order, or were you worried about her compromising your spy?"

"Does it matter?"

Severus turned and glared at Albus, but the older wizard looked exhausted and waved him away. "Take her down to your rooms, Severus, before Umbridge gets out of class."

*****

Severus paced the length of his bedroom, waiting for Miranda to awaken. She was lying on his bed and had been unconscious for perhaps twenty minutes since she had fainted in Albus’s office. He had no idea how long she would be out or if there would be any lasting damage from his entry into her mind. He was angry at Albus, although he knew that the older wizard was right to be cautious. He was angry at Miranda for making what should have been a simple excursion into her thoughts a traumatic one. He was angry at himself for hurting her and he was angry that he cared. After all, it was not his fault that she had a strange mind. Why should he feel so guilty, then? He had not really taken any time to consider what exactly he was doing carrying on with her. Obviously the physical part of the relationship was exquisite. He had thought that was his primary motivation for seeing her, and that had probably been true at the start. He had been telling himself that his concern for her safety was simply due to his selfish desire that she continue warming his bed. If he were fair, he supposed he enjoyed her company as well as her body. She was competent; a trait he usually did not find in others. She was comfortable with silence and did not feel the need to prattle on constantly. She knew what questions to avoid asking him. She actually seemed to like him; something he had rarely experienced. And she was certainly never dull.

Miranda suddenly opened her eyes, although they did not seem to notice their surroundings. “David?” she whispered. "Where are you?"

He stopped pacing and went to sit next to her on the bed.

She sat up, her voice urgent and frightened. ”David? Where are you? I can't see you.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Miranda, it's Severus.”

Her eyes focused on him, but she still seemed completely confused. She asked for David a few more times before finally recognizing Severus. He handed her a glass of water, which she drank, hands still shaking.

After she had drained the glass, he asked quietly, “David is one of the young men I saw dead?”

She looked away from him and gave a short nod. "We went to school together. We were going to be married. Had a date set and everything. Then we set out after a dark wizard, Isidore Carter. He must have taken a page out of Voldemort’s book, he was murdering No-Majs right and left.” She inhaled deeply to calm her voice. “I suppose you saw the rest.”

“I did.”

She was still in her memories and went on, speaking half to herself. “David was a bit like my brother Columba, always a kind word for everyone, always looking on the bright side of things. He was no match for me in a duel, but he never minded. He was more patient than I was and his potions always turned out perfectly.” She covered her eyes with her hand. “He never should have taken on Carter alone. We were tracking him together, but Carter separated us and got ahold of my wand in the process. By the time I got to them, I was too late. But I had my poisoned knife, so at least Carter couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You saw it anyway, it must be terribly dull to listen to.”

“No. It isn’t.”

“Well," she smiled angrily and tried to turn the subject, "I'm glad Malfoy wasn't bright enough to ask you to do that. Fainting is so undignified."

“It is unfortunate that Legilimency is so painful for you.”

“Unfortunate that Legilimency is so painful for me?” she repeated incredulously, still avoiding his eyes. “I’d say it’s unfortunate that you and Headmaster Dumbledore thought it was necessary.”

“Come now, surely you realize that we had to be certain that your story was true,” he said, a bit patronizingly.

“All I realize is that you and Malfoy are rather more similar than I had thought,” she replied coldly.

"Miranda, look at me," he demanded.

"Why, so you can mentally rape me again?"

“Stop being melodramatic,” he snapped defensively. “You agreed to it. It is not my fault that your mind is so unusual.”

“I agreed because I had no choice,” she said in a low voice. “I could have taken my chances with you, but Dumbledore obviously had me outmatched even before he relieved me of my wand and my cigarettes. What else was I supposed to do?”

A heavy silence descended on the pair. Eventually her trembling stopped and the color returned to her face. At last, she stood.

"May I have my wand back now?" she asked, finally looking at him. "I'd like to go home."

Severus handed it back to her reluctantly. He didn't want her to leave like this, but he had no idea how to convince her to stay. He certainly wasn’t going to apologize for doing something he felt justified in doing.

Suddenly her eyes flashed and she pointed her wand at him, "Legilimens!" she hissed.

Severus was so startled that she was in his mind, seeing his thoughts before he could do anything to stop her.

…..He stepped over the corpse of a bespectacled man that lay at the top of the stairs. He did not want to enter the room at the end of the hall. He could hear a baby crying and he knew what he would see, but he could not stop himself. He opened the door and a red-haired woman lay dead on the floor, her child in the crib behind her. His knees buckled and he leaned against the wall for support, then he gathered her into his arms, holding her and weeping….

Miranda withdrew. She lowered her wand and said causticly, “It will take a while for the hole you made to close again. I thought I’d take advantage of it.”

Severus stood up slowly, his eyes blazing murderously at her. “How dare you,” he hissed.

They looked daggers at each other for several minutes. Then she pocketed her wand, walked away from him, and leaned her shoulder against the wall near his wardrobe. Her hands were shaking slightly as she took out her cigarette case. She drew out a cigarette, lit it, and took an extremely long drag of smoke. A gentle breeze started, and she stood there smoking, meeting Severus’s glare with her own.

“The dead woman was Lily?” she finally asked indifferently.

“Brilliant deduction,” he bit back at her.

She smoked to the end of her cigarette in silence, snuffed it out on his wall, and vanished the butt into thin air. Then she muttered, “Severus, I think we need to go out and get shit-faced.”

“Am I supposed to understand that charmingly plebeian phrase?” His asked, his voice a knife of sarcasm.

“Drunk,” she answered condescendingly. “We need to get drunk.”

She stalked to the bathroom and when she reached the door she turned and gave him a once over. “You know how to dance?” she asked dubiously.

“Of course I do,” he spat. “What does that have to do with…”

“Good,” she interrupted. Then she turned on heel and entered the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

He shook his head in disbelief as he heard the water start running. How dare she? How dare she invade his mind? He never wanted to see her again! He whirled around, stormed through his sitting room, into the hallway, and slammed the door behind him. He did not stop until he reached his office, where he slammed the door so hard that the jars on the shelves on the wall rattled in protest. He sat down at his desk and started furiously marking scrolls. He had work to do! He did not have time to waste on that vulgar, imperious harpy!

Half an hour later, his breathing had returned to something resembling normal. He threw down his quill and sat back in his chair, his eyes staring blankly at his desk. He knew exactly how Miranda felt. How many times had he submitted to the Dark Lord’s invasion of his mind? How long had it been since he had had a choice? It was true that he took a grotesque sort of pleasure in knowing that he was able to fool the Dark Lord with his powers of Occlumency, but it still made him want to vomit every time. He inhaled sharply. He was livid with Miranda for what she had done and furious that she was attempting to order him about. However, sitting in his office reading the twaddle his dunderhead students had written seemed even less appealing than whatever Miranda had planned.

“Very well,” he muttered. “Shit-faced it is.”

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

End Notes:

I head-canon that the Fidelius Charm (which is ambiguously described in the books) was still protecting Harry at the point that Severus came upon James and Lily after Voldemort murdered them. This would explain why he did nothing to help Harry--because he could neither see nor hear the child.

Miranda finally gets caught using one of her tricks in this chapter. Her cigarettes contain tobacco as well as other useful magical herbs (although not marijuana--that's a thing unto itself). She can use the smoke to relax herself and to help herself heal more quickly. She can also use it to relax other people and make them more pliable to her manipulation of them. She has not used this trick on Severus, although she certainly used it at Malfoy Manor. Smoke and magic will appear later in the story.

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

Moonlight Masterpost+

<< Chapter Eight+

Chapter Ten+ >>

#harry potter #harry potter fanfic #harry potter fanfiction #severus snape #snape #snape x oc #snape fanfiction #severus snape fanfiction #espionage #spying #smoke magic #american magic #ilvermorny #legilimency #manipulation #albus dumbledore #romance #adventure #second wizarding war

6 notes · View notes

supremeuppityone · 5 years

Photo

Written for the @klarosummerbingo Klarosummer Bingo prompt: Tiki bar

Please review here.

He felt the crystal tumbler splinter in his hand, the shards embedding themselves in his palm as he cursed. It was the third glass he’d broken in the past hour, and he doubted it would be his last before this infernal fundraiser was over. Bloody hell, he was touching her again. Klaus Mikaelson didn’t consider himself a patient creature, but that woman seemed to delight in testing what tenuous limits he possessed. As he carelessly set aside the chunks of broken crystal, his gray eyes narrowed as he watched Tyler Lockwood teasingly caress Caroline’s back. She looked amazing tonight, the red satin of her evening gown gleaming in the firelight of the torches. He preferred her in blue.

As he watched the bounce of her long blonde curls, he recalled exactly how silky they felt in his fingers and how she loved it when he tugged on the ends just so. He knew exactly how soft her skin was, the delicious twitch of her as she came apart under his touch. And now Tyler was experiencing everything he’d foolishly thrown away.

Caroline smiled brightly at the bartender behind the tiki bar, accepting the fruity cocktails with colorful umbrellas jauntily perched on top. As she handed one to Tyler, he leaned down to whisper something, causing her to dissolve into giggles. She looked happy. And it wasn’t fair — not when he was this miserable. Or, maybe it was exactly what he deserved. After all, he’d made her cry. And even worse, didn’t chase after her that night.

But that was all going to change tonight. He’d been furiously searching for a way to make her see reason, to get her to understand that he needed her, that he wanted her for no other reason than because she was Caroline. His Caroline. And now, he’d received the information he needed to prove that Tyler didn’t care for her. Not the way that he did.

Klaus maintained a rigid control on his monster, which was no easy feat as he watched Tyler gently kiss her cheek. He willed away the urge to unsheathe his fangs, and waited patiently for the upstart wolf to leave Caroline’s side. The moment she was alone, Klaus flashed in front of her, doing his best to appear casually interested rather than devastated at the look of disdain that came across her lovely face.

“What do you want,” she hissed at him, briefly turning to wave at Governor Donovan and his wife, her friendly smile making his heart give a funny little tweak, despite it melting away as soon as they were alone once more.

“I need to speak with you, love.”

She scoffed, setting her carved coconut drink on the tiki bar and starting to walk away. When he grabbed her hand, she snarled, “Don’t call me that. And there’s nothing more to say, Klaus.” A few of the Samoan fire-knife dancers must have picked up on the distress in her voice, because they paused in setting up the bamboo stage to look at her with concern. She favored them with a reassuring wave, purposely stepping toward the shadows to avoid further interruptions.

“Fine. Speak.”

“Tyler is using you to gain support from the human factions.” He winced at the harshness of his words. He hadn’t meant to blurt out what he knew, but there was something about having Caroline so close and yet so far away that set his teeth on edge. He hadn’t missed the way her piercing blue eyes kept flicking around the lush venue, clearly looking for Tyler.

Disbelief mixed with anger colored her tone. “Seriously?! As opposed to you? Don’t forget I overheard Elijah and Finn telling you about the importance of currying favor with the human factions by making our relationship more visible. For fuck’s sake, they referred to me as the ‘Caroline Effect’ and you didn’t say anything!”

Klaus wisely left out his brothers’ other shrewd observations about Caroline’s close ties with the witch community, not to mention how several werewolf packs had invoked lifetime protection for her after she fought her school district to allow pack children’s post-full moon care not to count against their attendance. Underneath sunshine curls and her bubbly personality, she was a gifted teacher, not to mention fierce and loyal and everyone gravitated toward her. Especially him.

Their last day together, they’d attended her school’s carnival, and she’d cleverly sweet-talked him into helping her with the face-painting booth. He was a bloodthirsty Original, ruling the vampire faction for centuries, and yet, he found himself grinning foolishly and feeling lighter than he had in decades as he painted unruly children’s cheeks.

Later on, he’d left her sleeping in his bed to foolishly see why his brothers decided to visit him in the middle of the night. He’d sat there, listening in disbelief as Elijah and Finn rattled off ridiculous statistics from their market research staff, encouraging him to use his relationship with Caroline to strengthen alliances with the human factions. He’d been taken aback by their proposal. Not to mention tempted — after all, one could never have too much power. However, he knew he couldn’t hurt Caroline in that manner; he cared about her too much.

His instincts told him to be cautious in revealing the depth of his feelings to his brothers — his family was ruthless and opportunistic and couldn’t be trusted not to see her as a weakness to exploit. Unfortunately, he realized too late that Caroline had stumbled across them.

The look of utter betrayal on her face was heart wrenching, but he couldn’t seem to find the words to fix things. Instead, he seemed rooted to his chair as he watched her stubbornly set her jaw, blue eyes blazing in fury as she stormed out of his house. And out of his life.

Caroline’s voice was quiet and bitter as she pulled him from his unpleasant memories. “You weren’t angry with your brothers; you weren’t even offended on my behalf! Instead, you just muttered that you’d ‘take it under advisement’!” She glared at him once more before she stomped off, joining Bonnie Bennett, the newly crowned head of the witch factions, at the limbo game set up across from the tiki bar.

As Klaus watched her angrily walk away in a delectable cloud of red satin, he couldn’t help but admire her fiery spirit. Tyler couldn’t handle her fire. He didn’t deserve her fire.

It was time to get Caroline back.

#klarosummerbingo #klaroline fanfiction #uppity bitch fanfic #klaroline #a bit of angst that i normally don't do #but it felt needed here #and i love Caroline as a teacher #klaroline aesthetic #aesthetic

29 notes · View notes

balladofthesadcat · 5 years

Text

Back From The Dead

Pairing: AC’s Clay Kaczmarek x f!reader

Summary and explanations: Screw canon, Clay deserved better so here we go, angst and pain and troubles, but he is brought back to life and gets his happy ending with reader. (Y/N) means Your Name. There is a part where he briefly sings, that short line is from Monty Python’s Life of Brian (fun fact :3).

Warnings: some swearing, angst, mentions of violence and a whole lot of tears.

Word count: 10.941 words

Author’s note: HAPPY CLAYDAY2019!!!! I am late but... Let’s give this man the love he deserves! Dedicated to @ass-sass-sin-o who thought up this beautiful occasion. Also tagging @marshmallow--3 who was also really supportive. Everybody: PLEASE ENJOY! LET’S LOVE CLAY KACZMAREK! <3333333

You sat there, staring at the computer screen, your blood pressure reaching another peak of the recent times, just like on many other occasions during these last few weeks. Actually, it had been going on for a little over a month now. You’d find new and new pieces of evidence, traces, digital footprints and outright records of them, their exchanges, and… The remains.

It started out as just another curious vigilante exploration. You knew Abstergo was plain filth, that was old news. There were times when you had bumped into something shady which you then traced back to them and then intervened, operating from the shadows, making good use of your hacking skills, stirring up a nice little storm for them that was just enough to cut that branch off. On some other occasions, you’d even venture to sneak in to some places where, let’s say, no regular person was supposed to. You’d steal, destroy or just tamper with something to make the whole thing useless for them. So, to put it simply, you had been a thorn in their side for a long-long time now. You were the Faceless, you went by that name. If ever you appeared somewhere physically, you’d take extreme care to protect your identity, hiding your face from view, leaving no fingerprints either. If ever you contacted the Assassins, despite being on their side, you’d never reveal yourself. And even in your hacking you’d be neat and someone would have to be your exact image inside-out to be able to trace it back to you and find you at the root of all chaos to the Templars. All in all, in whatever you did, you were neat and precise. Oh, you loved dealing out a series of good beatings and you’d gotten used to killing sprees as well, but even the way you executed that was like a piece of art, a performance which only you could manage. Naturally, both sides attempted to make a deal with you and recruit you, but you would never join the Templars for you could never share their views and as for the Assassins, you felt that you could be most helpful if you remained faceless even for them, always keeping in touch, always appearing in the right moments, but remaining a myth, sort of. You were like an element in an equation that wouldn’t reveal its full potential until the final showdown, the solution, which no one knew when was to come. And this was working – you easily mended your secret life to fit next to the one on the surface. In the beginning, it was a hobby which then became a purpose, but you had the freedom to be your own boss in both, which was convenient. You could make use of your skills and the handsome money you earned when you needed them as the Faceless, providing yourself with the physical requirements - both bodily and the tools. You didn’t keep track of every Assassin, but whenever you came in contact with one or more of them, you’d gather some intel just to know what and how to say and what to expect.

When the Animus project was only starting out and they had sent him in, you weren’t as involved in this whole ordeal back then as you were now and things between you and Clay had been over for quite a while. Honestly, given what happened, you didn’t even want to get involved so that pushed you away from delving into this mission of his. Your reaction was like when seeing an unpleasant acquaintance in a café – you turned right around and closed the doors behind you, not spending a moment there. You weren’t mad anymore, you were just… Sad, plainly put. You felt a tightening in your chest and an unpleasant acid presence in your throat when seeing him or thinking about him so you just did what you had to to put an end to this – cut him off, turned right away from his direction.

You were emotionally unprepared when you met him. He was intense, always, and he was so vivid and complex and sure that it was a lot for you. That was what drew you in too. It used to be comforting, because he saw right into you and he knew just what to do to reel you in. But it wasn’t like a hunt, he just let you rely on him, allow yourself that relief, and he made you see that you could trust him, he would help you trust him, and he would show you what it meant to be in a relationship, to be – loved and wanted. You were a tough nut to crack, but he told you that he was willing, that he was able, and you wanted just that. It never reached a peak, however. What used to be comforting, turned into the source of worry and anger. You got scared of his confidence? Perhaps. Maybe you were right? You didn’t know. But you began questioning and he wasn’t responding well, he seemed distant and when he actually had to spend less and less time with you because he got seriously involved in the fight against Abstergo, you accused him and you ran. You disappeared before he did, not knowing. You buried yourself in training, earning your way, making a career, entertaining people. Fame and the picture you painted protected you, at least no one would suspect later what you did when you weren’t putting on a show. Really, you were lucky and you even laughed at it, amused by how so in the face of everyone you were, yet also hidden. Perhaps one day it would cause your downfall and you would go down in flames, but it would only be fitting for your romantic nature.

Sometimes you wondered what would’ve happened had you stayed, what could have been… But you would never know. You had your chance to at least send him a message to talk it over, but you wasted it by not acting. And then he was no more. Subject 16, Clay Kaczmarek. On some cozy and lonely nights after coming back from a trip to your home, unpacking your suitcases, looking at all the things you had bought during one of your many travels as (Y/N), as someone normal, someone the masses thought of as an entertainer, who had an image, your thoughts drifted to him, briefly playing with the idea that maybe he was your origin story all along. How tragically comical.

You then began your study of the whole Animus project, backtracking others’s steps and learning all about the machines, the goals, Clay’s sacrifice, Lucy’s betrayal and Desmond’s fateful end. At first it was very emotionally exhausting, but then you went at it with a more surgical approach, distancing yourself, knowing that you had to bear the weight in order to acquire the knowledge. So you dug deeper, deeper, even when sometimes it seemed that there was no more. You’d sneak into Abstergo’s labs to find the currently unused Animus machines and venture into the deep ocean of information stored inside it to see for yourself what Clay and Desmond left behind. It was a difficult task to accomplish, but once understanding the science of the machine as if it was your mother tongue, you unlocked more levels and planes than what you thought was possible, knowing that this was the only place that did not let you leave without a trace and you paid the price, accepting that you could only cover your steps, gritting teeth to continue this for as long as possible so none in the opposition would discover who you were. At this time, you didn’t really have a goal with this, but somehow you just kept going forward, or more like inward. There was a night when you completely missed out on sleep because of your Animus session and had to flee the scene in the morning and it was the most heartbreaking of it all. You found imprints deep inside the Animus which when molded together, showed you the exchanges between Clay and Desmond, like visions, replaying for you as many times as you wanted them to, but without the option to interact. You learned that Clay, at the very end, tried to momentarily cling to something, anything, hoping that maybe he could still come back, somehow. But he couldn’t, he was left trapped inside the machine’s depth, providing Desmond with his way out so he could leave it completely, although reaching his own end soon after in a similar heroic sacrifice. The day after was when you sent a message to Shaun, Rebecca and William, simply saying that you were truly sorry for their loss. A message out of the blue, emotional, irrational, uncontrolled, but it gave you some inner relief. No one comforted you when you mourned Clay, even if late, because no one knew, but at least… At least you could comfort them.

After that you stopped visiting the Animus, only diving into the information you took on memory cards and hacking, in the safety of your own home. But it seemed that you weren’t allowed to settle down. There was always something that caught your attention and you had to look into it. There was always more to discover about what Clay did. Even after you thought you had seen every last trace of him, there was always more. And it wasn’t comforting, because oftentimes it contradicted what you thought you had learned – the Animus deleted the last remains of his conscience, so how was this possible? There was data that suggested the opposite. You were determined not to accept it, not wanting to give yourself or any of the Assassins false hope by contacting them and then having to tell them that it was a false alarm. But you wanted to get to the bottom of this, so as much as you wanted to escape this, you couldn’t so… Back into another Animus you went, diving deeper than ever before. If Clay was still somehow alive in there, you had to find out, not for yourself, but for him. The reason did not matter, the how or why, but the fact did, so you went with a purpose.

You found the island where he and Desmond met and saw the broken remains of the gateway which no longer functioned, the loose black pieces floated around in the air in a lazy manner. You frowned, turning away, taking a good look around yourself for the umpteenth time. It seemed endless, like a void. There were islands in the distance, like the one you were on, but they did not call to you. You took slow, unsure strides forward until the very end of your feet hung slightly over the edge and your body instinctively stopped. You felt an immense force trying to stop you from what you were trying to do then and it was then that you felt the raw hostility of the Animus. It was terrifying to realize that it was trying to hold you back and sabotage the simple act of you looking down. You even panted when you finally managed, as if you were under actual physical restraints. And it dawned on you that this – this you had never experienced before because the thought never even occurred to you. Below you you saw the endless, impenetrable darkness that somehow still seemed to froth. It was alien, it was wrong, it was screaming at you to go back. Perhaps you should’ve, maybe this was to be your final gateway to madness.

- Clay. – you uttered, voice trembling, but still loud, and then you jumped, hood slipping from your head and your body falling into the darkness, tearing at your invisible restraints, penetrating into the matterless mass that wanted to push you – no, throw you back, but you cut right through it.

What was time? What was light? Such concepts did not exist here. You realized that you could see, you could move, but your brain could not comprehend the means, threatening you with splitting your head if you probed at it any further, barely able to comprehend the fact that it just happened. Were you still falling or were you floating or were you standing? There was no answer. You didn’t even know if your eyes were open or not.

- No living being should be here. – a voice spoke, seemingly close to you. You took a deep breath – or did you? – and you tried to get to the source, feeling that if you could just reach out, you could do that and…

- You are alive. – the voice spoke again in your ear and a hand touched – no, something, something felt as if it vibrated against your shoulder, or what was supposed to be that. You then suddenly felt like you were briefly spinning and then a figure, a shape, a body began separating from the darkness before you, not materializing, more like trying to tear itself away from the endlessness. It never fully formed, no colours or matter were really present and it seemed to be constantly in motion as it was trying to gain – regain? – shape, but the more you looked at it, the more it felt like it was looking back at you, until…

- (Y/N)?! – he exclaimed, terrified, and then his form found shape and colour at once. A scream sprang from your throat in response and seemed to echo all around you until being sucked into the void.

You knew. It was him. He was there right before you. Clay. His face was contorted from not knowing how, what, why this was, only knowing that somehow you were there before him.

- Clay. – you whispered his name. – Where… Where are we? – you asked, but immediately realized that you shouldn’t have because as bodiless as you were, you somehow still felt an inexplicable but enormous pain beyond all bearing, somewhere in your head, causing you to bellow like a thousand hounds, all being beaten at once. Clay’s form appeared even closer to you in an instant and he raised his hands to your head, holding your temples, making you feel the same vibrations again, registering as they snuffed out the pain, leaving your head with a dull throbbing which was, compared to the previous feeling, even pleasurable.

- You are alive and therefore you shouldn’t ask such questions, not here, because in here the Animus will tear you apart for it. You shouldn’t even be here! – his voice gradually got angrier, but it was an exhausted kind of anger which only made your heart hurt.

- How do you know? – you whispered, looking into the depths of his eyes from up close. Perhaps, if you had been outside, up there in the world of matter, you could’ve felt his breath on your lips and he yours, on his. But this place was something else.

- I no longer ask nor look for explanations. I don’t think I can, either. Life is the place for that and I have no right or way to be there anymore. But you… - the colours began fading away from him, draining from his face until he was yet again a frothing shape, getting sucked back into the darkness. Terror and pain were stabbing your heart and you were trying to grab at him, in vain. – Go. – he finished simply, and suddenly he was nowhere.

But the vibrating feeling in your head remained, growing in intensity and it felt as if you were snatched up, pulled with inhuman force and at the same time pushed, but in one direction. You felt your back hit the ground of the same island from which you jumped, but then it disappeared from under you and suddenly your eyes snapped open and you woke with a sharp inhale, sitting right up in the Animus. You looked around in fear, but nothing has changed and you were still all alone in the dim room. You hoped you didn’t scream. Your next instinct was to look at your watch then to check the time, noting that no matter how timeless your experience was, here in the outside world you were still good on that front. You palmed your chest over your heart, focusing on your breathing and trying to control yourself and calm down, your other hand pulling your hood over your eyes again, shielding your identity once again. You would delete all footage of this visit again, naturally, but still, it felt good to conceal yourself again while gathering the energy to get up, clean up and leave.

It was around 3 am by the time you got home and locked your door behind yourself. You took off your shoes and trembled your way towards your bathroom, finally able to allow yourself to shake and lose focus, not having to concentrate on stealth. You turned on the light and looked in the mirror, not even flinching at the sight. Thin trails of dry blood ran from your right ear and your nose. Perhaps you had subconsciously licked it from your lips while making your way back, but you couldn’t recall that bit. You concluded that it could only be the result of when you asked your first question from Clay and felt that horrible pain. You sighed, for now content with only hoping that you did not suffer any serious internal physical damage. From then on the rest of the night was a blur – cleaning yourself and then surrendering to a joyless slumber in your bed. But now you knew one thing: Clay’s conscience was still alive. And you were going to bring him back.

The next few days you couldn’t act yet, being snowed under with your current work project, but at least it was good for a rest. But you already began thinking of your next step. In order to bring Clay back, you needed to find him a body, which was no easy task so at first you were completely devastated, not really knowing what your options were, if you even had any. You weren’t just going to rob a morgue for one and steal someone’s son away, you would need someone whom… Well… No one missed or no one knew where to search for. So once again you began snooping around in Abstergo’s database, trying to see if there were any unfortunate imprisoned souls somewhere, stolen from the world, who perhaps were crushed under the organisation’s weight and whose body you could… Maybe… Hopefully… Use for your quest. You figured that if you could get the body and you’d put it in an Animus, linked another to it to create a joined session and went in, you could drag Clay’s conscience back out and he’d find the body and anchor himself in it. You could program the device so that in the right moment it would overload for a snap and give him an electric shock to kick-start the heart. And maybe, just maybe, all that together would be enough to… Bring him back to life. You were no surgeon, no medically versed person but even if you were, you would have strong doubts. This was madness and quite impossible. But with all that happened, Pieces of Eden existing and all that wonder, all that magic, all that danger, you thought that if you didn’t give it a shot, you would be no better than the Templars. You heard him yourself, he wanted to come back. And he was a good Assassin too, he deserved to. So, not for yourself, but for him, you were going to try.

You released a long sigh from your lungs, not knowing you were holding one in. It was a beautiful, warm day and you were currently buried deep in one of Abstergo’s many servers, looking for your unknown target. What you ended up discovering though, you really weren’t prepared for.

„Clay Kaczmarek, former Subject 16 of the Animus Project - REUSED”, the title read on your screen.

- Reused…? What the… How the… What? – you mumbled, shaking your head, blinking erratically. But the text did not change. You gulped and moved your cursor over it, clicking after a moment of hesitation. You immersed yourself in the detailed report, reading everything carefully, even though most of what was there you had already known, it was basically his story written down. But at the end there was an update. Your heart almost skipped a beat. Reused. They recovered his corpse they had previously dumped. Using a Piece of Eden combined with a device – the operation of which you skipped reading about for now – they reversed the process of decay it was naturally going through and were now harnessing it for further genetic memory. They wanted to use his knowledge about the Assassins against them and incorporate the techniques into their own training. The body was now kept in Berlin in another one of their secret labs. Location, condition, everything was there.

Reused.

You spun your chair around and stood up, walking extremely slowly into the kitchen. You opened your fridge and took out a tiny jar of your homemade yogurt, ready to be consumed as a treat, finding the cinnamon as well and sprinkling some of it on it. You stirred it with a spoon, licked that, then poured the whole thing into the sink and ran back to your computer. Your skin felt like it was on fire and your brain was basically frying in its place but you never felt more alive. With this information, you hadn’t another moment to waste and you wanted to act as soon as possible. You didn’t even think it through, you just did what your instincts were telling you to do.

You worked furiously to locate Rebecca and her team and Lady Luck seemed to be on your side still, because you found them in Europe. You contacted them in a message, telling the necessary details about your recent discoveries and your plan. The events then followed each other in a rapid pace. Their response came quickly and you engaged in a serious conversation and by the end of the day you had your and their trip organized and covered to Berlin. The plan was to meet up there and infiltrate the lab, follow your mad speculation of resurrecting him through, steal the Piece of Eden, blow up the lab as a parting gift and get the hell out of there. Simple. Easy. Madness.

You cleaned up the yogurt incident in your kitchen with a pounding head, struggling to believe that all of this was happening. Of course, going through with this would mean revealing your identity to the team and thus, the Assassins, by getting into the Animus – no way they would just stand and wait while you were out cold and not lift the hood from your eyes to see who you were. But this didn’t bother you as much as you expected. You came to the conclusion that it had to happen at one point for whatever reason and that seemed to be now, with this. But you needed the help, this wasn’t something you could do alone and if you succeeded… You did not want to be left alone with Clay, you realized. You did not want to be the one to explain it all to him and then sit through the awkwardness that would surely follow, maybe even have your past brought up. You wanted to hand him back to the Assassins and disappear, returning to your role as the Faceless, allowing them to know you but still keeping your distance, functioning as a ghost to the Templars and as an ally to the Assassins, just doing your own thing, leading your life the same way as before until it came to a close, no matter how violent that may actually turn out to be.

You made sure nothing and nobody would bother you until you conducted this brave venture. And soon enough, the fateful day to meet the others finally came. You arrived to the hotel late in the afternoon and claimed your room key, booked under a fake name. The agreement with the others was that your rooms were to be booked right beside each other and you would meet once you were all settled. You didn’t bring too much and you didn’t bother to really unpack, not needing to. You finished that energy bar you were munching on on your way there and then walked out to the balcony, noting the walls dividing each room. You leaned on the railing and looked out over the city, breathing in. You were somewhat tired, and anxious, but you still wanted to follow this through. Thoughts about what was lying ahead and memories flooded your mind and you allowed them to consume you, taking you through pleasant and unpleasant times, only resurfacing when you heard soft chatter from your right. Leaning a bit further out you looked in that direction, spotting the familiar trio. Nodding to yourself, you returned to your room and then left it with the same drive, stopping at the neighbouring door and knocking. There was a light murmuring inside and some shuffling and then the door opened, revealing a slightly uptight-seeming Shaun Hastings who looked quite surprised.

- May I help you, miss? – he asked.

- I don’t suppose you have an espresso machine in your room, do you? – you asked. By your agreement this was to be your code to help them know it was really you. Wordlessly, he stepped aside to let you in. There was the natural surprise and some questions about if and how you knew Clay but you brushed those aside, stating that you would not talk about the two of you. Your eyes betrayed you and displayed exactly how much sadness was churning inside you. But you all had to keep going, you weren’t there to relax. So you sat down and discussed your approach, every step. Infiltrating the underground lab at night would be easy and you decided that destroying that one level where you were to conduct your experiment would be enough, it would destroy all evidence and throw Abstergo off your possible trail. Deciding on whipping up an electric fire, you have discussed everything and got ready.

From then, it all turned into a crazy dream. You wouldn’t call it a nightmare, but it was quite strange nonetheless. Your heart was definitely not beating as it usually did, the closer you got to your ultimate target. And when you were standing in front of the capsule-like object which housed Clay’s body, you realized that you were terrified, the fright was clawing at your tissues from the inside. But you didn’t fear failure, you were actually prepared for that. You feared success, you feared facing him, even if for a minute until you would have to get going and get out of there. Your heart, after all this time, was not ready. You did not want to analyze what you were feeling nor face it, at all. You forcefully pushed on and helped the others set up the connection between the machine and an Animus in which you were supposed to go. Shaun and Rebecca were absolute geniuses and you experienced a short relief while you marveled at how quickly and seamlessly they familiarized themselves with the strange device, discovering how they could produce that overload in the right moment that was to serve as the defibrillator and how they could remove the Piece of Eden after it was all done – successful or not. Now that Piece of Eden, it was a strange artifact, really. It was made of the same material as the Apple, but it was shaped like… It really reminded you of a traditional Japanese teacup. It was thin, but the „cup” walls weren’t that high so it could barely hold any liquid if used in such a way. It emanated a strange sensation and an unearthly, soft but unsettling sort of light and when you gazed at it for a bit longer, you felt a familiar buzzing inside your head. It was situated behind Clay’s head in the device and with a bit of tinkering it could easily be removed as you could see.

Clay… His body was in excellent condition, the river’s toll taken on it nonexistent. He looked like as if he was only sleeping – he just wasn’t breathing and his heart wasn’t beating. He was as beautiful as ever, you thought with fondness, but you violently tore yourself away from that and turned your back to him, settling in the simplified Animus device beside him. It wasn’t made to be comfortable, you noted, but it was the easiest to transport and it would serve the purpose. Once everthing was ready, the others settled down and you went in.

Snooping outside the regular planes inside was now your forte, you could say, and finding that desolate island was easy. You floated and treaded with purpose and even though you could sense the resistance of the system – trying to push you back from reaching the place where you weren’t logically supposed to be because it was actually trying to protect you, even if aggressively –, you slowly but surely made your way to the edge once again. You peered down into the impenetrable depth and knew that you were attempting the impossible again. How could it be impossible if you had already done it once before? But it was, it really was, because you knew that this time you might not be so lucky and come back. Or you would, but without Clay’s conscience. But whatever awaited you, you did not care, you had to go, you had to jump, you had to cut through, you had to reach, you had to find

- Clay. – you said his name, Clay, Clay, Clay, Clay---

You did not even notice when you began your intrusive descent against and into the womb of hostility, but suddenly you just knew that you were doing it. You couldn’t tell when you arrived, if ever, but you just had to trust your gut that you were, somehow, there – wherever that was. There was silence, but it was a peculiar statement to make because what really was there was the nothingness. You still had to try, somehow, to find him. You had to. He must still be there. But unlike the first time, he did not come. In an instant, you were panicking and you had to mentally pressure yourself to snap out of it and stay focused, to not get lost.

- No living being should be here. – you whispered, just like he did the last time. What were you hoping for by this? You honestly had no idea, you just made an attempt so that maybe, just maybe…

- I am no longer alive. – his voice, exhausted, dismal, called somewhere near you. You tried to turn in his direction, wherever that was.

- Maybe not at the moment. – you said and swallowed a huge lump in your throat. You began hearing the loud beating and throbbing of your own blood in your ears. In that moment, you suddenly knew, just knew that you had to be swift now, there was no room for fooling around. You could hardly make out the frothing shape of a body, the image of a man who once was.

- What do you mean, (Y/N)? – he asked you, and then you lunged forward – you hoped you did, but this place wouldn’t let you be able to tell. Your mind, however, was dead set on executing these actions. You looked in front of you, at the unreal figure and extended your arms, wrapping them around him, not knowing if you were actually feeling him or not, but you prayed to all deities that were and were not that you did.

- You are coming back, Clay, you are coming back with me and you are going to return to your body and you are going to live, you are going to live, you hear me?! – you screamed, voice shaking with the tears that never escaped when you parted those many years ago but threatened you now.

The Animus attacked you then. You were attempting to leave and take something with you that you were not supposed to and the system didn’t want you to do that. You felt winds of cold and dark stab and tear at you, attempting to pull you apart, but in response you just dug your nail into the mass of Clay’s conscience you were enveloping. Invisible and unreal electrical charges shot through you, but you just pushed closer, focusing on only one thought: returning to the world. Everything was loud and silent, you felt sensations that were impossible to describe and nothing at all, extremities held you that could not be and you could not tell what actually was and what was not. You could only hope that you were actually moving, somehow escaping, but you also felt lost and you had no way of telling.

In the room, Rebecca, Shaun and William were watching over the two of you. Five minutes had passed, ten, fifteen, twenty… Frustrated sighs left each throat, one after the other. They felt like it was all in vain and they should try to pull you out before you were lost.

But then your vital signs changed abruptly. Your heart was beating twice the speed of what was natural and acceptable in your tense state, your blood pressure was at the same time extremely low and your fingers were twitching, although the rest of your body wasn’t jerking. It was alarming and they all jumped to their feet, but before they could forcefully end the session, the Piece of Eden activated itself as well, the alien light that was softly coming from it quadrupled in power and filled the whole room, coating everything, causing the glass of Clay’s case to crack an then completely shatter, covering him in the softest layer of glass shards – all so quickly that they barely had enough time to register it. But it was obvious that they had to act now. They launched the overload and Clay’s body convulsed from the shock, continuing to twitch wildly, the alien glow making it seem like a lucid dream.

Then, with no warning, you sat up, sucking in air as if you were a second away from drowning and this was your last and unexpected chance to save yourself from suffocating. At the exact same moment, Clay’s body stopped twitching and he himself also raised into a sitting position in one swift movement. Just as you both raised and your eyes were trying to refocus and regain sense, the Piece of Eden’s light died down. For a few seconds you were debating whether you were dreaming, dead, or if this was real and you were back out, alive. You bit the insides of your cheeks and when you felt the familiar unpleasantness, you nodded, accepting the fact that you were alive. You slowly, timidly, turned your head in the direction of the other device to see whatever you had to see there. As if on cue, mirroring your movement not a millisecond late, Clay also turned his head and then your gazes met. Time really felt like it had stopped then, only the beating of your hearts was heard, a thousand tiny needles picking at you inside your veins. You were in a trance, but you desperately wanted to break out, so you began fighting yourself, mentally beating yourself, all in the matter of seconds, to make yourself snap out of it and…

- Come on, let’s pack up. Shaun, help Clay up and William… - you heard Rebecca speak and that was your salvation. You sprung to your feet and frantically pulled your hood over your head. From then on it was another crazy blur, but one thing you could constantly feel – Clay’s eyes upon you. You thanked the fact that he was still too weak to speak to you – or whatever the reason was, really, you were just glad as you were already at the end of what you were able to handle without shutting down. You gathered your tools, Shaun safely removed and wrapped up the Piece of Eden to take it away for further discovery, all footages of your presence were erased and you successfully started up the fire, making sure that it would destroy everything behind you and cover your escape. Shaun and Rebecca took Clay with them in the van while you and Miles senior took a different route, the five of you meeting once again back at the hotel, careful about your re-entry, not to cause a stir and seem suspicious.

You told Mr. Miles to go forward and you went to your own room first. Since you hadn’t unpacked, you only had to wash up and fix your attire and you were ready to leave. You grabbed your bag and entered the other room from the balcony. You walked over to the team, your breathing measured. Clay was sitting on the bed, seemingly fine and Shaun and William were explaining the details of the time leading up to this day to him. When they noticed you, Rebecca greeted you with a tired but warm smile and stood to step towards you but stopped, seeing your bag hanging on your shoulder.

- Don’t. Please. I just want to be short about it now. – you got the start of any protest, taking in one shaky breath before continuing, straightening your posture. - So, everything is as we discussed, you have your contacts here and disappearing once you are ready should be easy. I hope I have provided you with enough financial support. Please, treat yourselves well with however much is left – I hope it’s a lot, I really didn’t play it shmuck. Yeah, all that and… Take care, see you around sometime. Let’s continue to stick it to the Templars. – you finished, striding to the door with only one intention – to leave.

- (Y/N). – Clay called out to you with such a tender voice that you almost choked on your own breath and that halted your hurried movements. It was the first time in years that you heard his actual living voice and it nearly made you collapse, they could see your legs bump together, making you stumble.

- I beg of you! – you struggled out with trembling lips and wildly shook your head, not looking back. – Guys, I am really not proud of what I am about to do and I will forever try to atone for it, but… This is all I can bear now. I must return to what I was. You know who I am now anyway. I… I cannot do this, Clay. – you breathed out the last sentence and then dashed towards the door like a wild animal escaping confinement.

And with that, you were gone.

You then began your longest hitchhiking of your life and made it across the border. That much caution was excessive, but you needed the therapeutic effect it held. Sleeping in cheap motels, not speaking to anyone besides giving the directions and saying a polite thank you when paying for your food. You had time to start burying this whole experience in yourself and build your walls right back up, protecting your heart, mind and soul.

After the last bit of traveling, you resumed your life back home under your real name, continued working and took some time off from being the Faceless once you have made sure that Clay, Rebecca, Shaun and William were all fine as well, but without contacting them of course. After a month of this, you knew though that you were prepared to open up that part of your life again. You caught up with what was happening at Abstergo and happily noted that they still, even after a bloody month, had no clue what the hell happened in Berlin. It was a serious blow to them which threw them back a great deal.

Life was relatively normal for you and even though you were prepared to be bombarded by the Assassins, in thought you mutely thanked the guys for – you guessed – spreading the message that you preferred to continue operating as an ally, solo. Wherever you went, you knew that when a stare was too long and too strange, it was from these hidden ones, but you were thankful for them respecting your silent wishes. You had your hands deliciously full, so to say, because you were never bored, you always found something to deal with, a way to stir up some trouble for the Templars.

Your heart returned to its dormant state that was oh so familiar from the previous years and you thought that it would now stay that way forever. But on a cold, autumn day, you felt your breath stolen from you once again. Of course, you couldn’t expect to never see him again, but not like this… You were sitting at a table in front of a café, almost empty paper cup of melange in hand and book in the other when a figure took the seat next to you.

- Hi. – a curious male voice greeted you and you looked up at him, blood draining from your face then. It was Clay, Clay Kaczmarek, sitting right there beside you, looking as alive as ever, looking… Looking beautiful, healthy, everything he deserved to be, a brown leather jacket over a hoodie with a pair of dark jeans and boots keeping him warm and simply stylish. His eyes were stormy, however, but you didn’t stop to wonder about the reason behind that.

- Is it something concerning Abstergo? – you whispered after a few moments of trying to compose yourself. You saw him shake his head.

- No, nothing of the sort. I wanted to talk to you about… - he began, but you dropped your coffee and book after his first word. You ran, once again, forgetting your book there, only caring about escaping him. You did everything, tot he best of your abilities, to lose him, arriving home quite a while later. Your legs gave out once you closed the door behind yourself and you fell to the floor. You were breathing heavily, loudly, fighting for every inhale, trying not to pass out. It took quite a while for you to calm down and then you shakily took off your shoes, still lying on the floor. You trembled, almost collapsing when trying to stand up, but with enough patience and determination you managed to stay up and get out of your coat, now just staying in your pants and cozy turtleneck. You took a few steps towards the kitchen when you heard the soft creaking noise of your door as it opened and then closed and your keys were turned in the lock. You were frozen in your spot, one arm raised halfway in front of you as you wanted to thread your fingers through your hair but stopped before you could due to these sudden noises. You couldn’t move so you just waited. A few steps and then the intruder was right behind you. A hand slowly rested on your shoulder – strange, it wasn’t menacing at all and it was oddly familiar.

- (Y/N), please take deep breaths. I do not want you to panic. I locked the door just to be safe, but not to trap you. You can still send me away if you wish. But if you don’t, I will keep my distance, but please, give us a moment to sit down so I can talk to you. And just… Just listen, please. That is all I ask of you. – Clay spoke slowly, clearly, careful not to startle you even further or cause you to react in a way that you would harm yourself. You followed his request and consciously took deep breaths, keeping a steady rhythm. You then slowly moved away from his touch and walked into the kitchen, sitting on the first chair beside the table you saw. Clay, after quickly getting rid of his shoes to be polite, followed you and carefully took a seat in front of you on another chair, keeping a respectful distance between the two of you.

- Alright, I’ll… I’ll listen. – you mumbled, chancing a quick glance into his eyes but feeling a sharp pain in your heart so you immediately averted your gaze. There was no escaping now, it was going to happen.

- So… - Clay began, trying to choose his words carefully. – I… Won’t ask why you did it, but I… I still want to thank you. – He hummed, scanning your face, your form for any sort of reaction. – Yeah. And I… Actually, you know, I am just so damn thrilled because even though I still remember everything, the visions no longer haunt me and I haven’t slept better than since you brought me back. – his sudden enthusiasm seemed to die down here and he looked down at his hands. – Although something’s still missing and… Damn it, (Y/N), I want to talk about you and me, pick up the problem from where we left off, you know? – he confessed, looking right at you again.

And that’s when it happened.

- I ca-, I-hi-I, I ca-, I can’t! – you struggled to spit it out through a series of wild, tearful hiccups, feeling a sudden shortage of breath. The barrier finally broke and the tears you forced down your throat all those years ago after running away from him, in addition to all the frustration and exhausted pain you gathered since then in connection to him, now finally escaped your prison. You wept, hollering in pain as your suffering felt too much to bear and there was no other way for it all to escape. It felt like you were going to explode if you tried to keep it in any longer. Your body hunched forward, your forehead on your knees, your hands clinging to the sides of your thighs, surely bruising your own skin under the pants. Every nerve in your brain and every cell of your body was on fire, was hurting, and you had nowhere to run from this feeling. The tears kept coming like a monsoon’s downpour, completely soaking your face and your clothes. Clay was in fact afraid of such a heavy reaction from you, but he didn’t expect this volume. He debated whether touching you in this state would make it even worse for you but when he saw you slipping towards the floor from your chair, he dropped to his knees and caught you, locking you in his arms. You barely even registered, but you wanted to fight him, to escape his hold. This pointless struggle caused your weeping to increase and you had serious trouble breathing now, threatening you with passing out if you couldn’t calm down.

- (Y/N), listen to me! Focus on my voice! – he said loudly and sternly, hoping to drag you back from your helpless frenzy. – You must reign this in! Step by step, okay? But you must, you have to calm down, for your own sake! – he released a frustrated sigh, his defined brows knitting in the moment of desperation. – Please, I do not want you to hurt yourself even more!

He held your body even tighter to himself, elbows pressing your arms to your sides as his hands he then paced on your temples, making you angle your head so he could get a good look at your face. It was a mess of tears and some mascara, a troubled land in the midst of a war.

- Breathe with me now. Just come back. I am here. Find me, (Y/N). – he attempted to bring you back again. You had your eyes shut tightly and sounds of struggle and hurt were still spilling from you the same way as your tears were, but at least, slowly, you were regaining control over your breathing and as heavy as it was, you were no longer in danger of passing out from the lack of air. Clay held you through it and continued murmuring soft and sound phrases to you, helping you find your anchor back in reality. He was devastated that he could not prevent this, but at least calmness born out of weariness was still better than more turmoil, he thought.

Slowly, you rain out of tears and when you did, your first real thought appeared again – you wondered if that was even possible, but it seemed so. You turned your head, facing away from him and, as if on cue, he stood with you, helping you sit back on your chair. He walked over to the sink and you heard the water running, still not looking in that direction. Soon he was back in front of you, gently dabbing your face with a wet cloth, cleaning as well as refreshing it. You flinched at the first touch but then relaxed, the gentle treatment actually making you feel better. When he was done, he handed you a glass of water and waited for you to drink it all before taking it and the cloth back to the sink.

- I bet you have your answers now, whatever your questions were. – you said dryly. Clay looked at you with a confused expression but you still refused to meet his gaze.

- What do you mean?

- I’m embarrassed, Clay! Just look at what just went down. I’m practically mad so whatever you wanted, I’m sure you don’t want it now. – you sighed in frustration.

- Oh, for fuck’s sake, (Y/N), you should’ve seen me when the bleeding effect got worse and I was acting under the effect. That was madness and fucking ugly. Now this… - he sat down in his chair in front of you again. – This is all me and this is ugly, but not for the reason you think. – his voice softened by the end and he leaned closer to you.

- I want to sit back on the floor though. – you said flatly, already sliding back down to the kitchen tiles. This small act of yours made Clay smile genuinely, it was so undeniably cute even in such a problematic situation as the one you were in at the moment. But he loved your little quirk nonetheless.

- You always liked that. – he noted, joining you, one knee almost up to his chest and his other leg stretched out.

- Yeah.

- I remember it well.

- Aha…

- You often behaved like a cat. This, too, made me think of that.

- I guess.

- It’s cute. – he said, eyes searching your face. You didn’t respond with words, but you folded your hands in your lap. He moved his into your field of vision, aimed at the floor, showing you his palms as a sign that he had no vile intent. When you didn’t retreat, he closed the distance and placed his hands on top of yours. – So… Let me talk to you? – he tilted his head and your bottom lip twitched, but you nodded. – Okay. – he took a deep breath. – I just realized that I probably fucked this up greatly but… I know you probably don’t want to say too much yourself and I did want to let you rest but I do have questions… But anyway. – he chuckled awkwardly, shaking his head. It was a cute gesture and you looked up at him shyly, trying your hardest not to look away again when he locked his eyes with yours.

Whatever he was going to say, ask, you wanted not only to hear but also see that he was honest in it. You often forgot to blink when you were doing this, when you were so deliberately looking for this proof and he remembered that, noticing how your pupils changed in size, registering all your tiniest signs and understanding their meaning.

- I started doubting you. – you suddenly said before he could speak up, surprising both him and yourself. – You were always so confident, so sure, you had everything in you and you were the whole goddamn package and more – did you even realize that? – your lips trembled momentarily, but he stayed silent, wanting to hear you finish this, knowing how important it was. – You were – you are – handsome, smart, strong, but you also had a personality and when I learned that you even knew what suffering meant, how difficult it was to… To rise above a messed-up family background, I felt more connected to you than ever. To know that you would understand me changed everything! And you even said it when I voiced my concerns, you said that it was – that it was okay, you would help me see that and get through and over it and… And I wanted that, I thought that finally, finally someone… But, but then you… - your hands stiffened under his. – You began becoming distant and… And I wondered – he has been through hell and he came out victorious, why the hell would he ever want to do it again with me, suffer through the same by being with me? He didn’t need that trouble, did he? So I… I couldn’t understand anymore why you would ever… And you were even behaving differently so I… I just left because I… I didn’t want to be left. And even if your change in behaviour was caused by your blossoming involvement with the Assassins, I… Even today with a name to myself and success carved by my own hands, I would do the same. Because… Why would you ever… You need someone who’s not loaded with a problematic background and I don’t want to be… Left… But making it work with me is way too crazy so… - you shrugged, losing your energy and not knowing how to finish it so you just stopped. He’d think whatever he wanted to. Sure, you were horrible for saying all of this. But at least he got his explanation he could never ask for. Surely that was the only thing he came for. And even if now he thought you were a real bastard for thinking so horribly of him, it would be… Just okay. You were drained, ready to just accept it.

- So you lost your faith in me? – Clay asked carefully, his voice not giving away anything.

- Sort of, I guess… – you nodded, finally blinking and having to keep your eyes closed for a good minute as they watered painfully. – It was nice to toy with the idea, but you and me together wouldn’t be a heaven-made match, I think. And even if I’ve grown, I’m still the girl with trust issues and a strangely rising and lowering self-confidence inside. And even if I understand the lives we live now and I’d know you were coming and going because of it, the same with I, I just… I couldn’t do it. I’d run, because I’ve always did and… I’m a distrustful coward and I cannot expect you to fix that. Because you shouldn’t. That’s my job and probably a certified and trained therapist’s.

- You’re right about some things but you’re astonishingly wrong about others, (Y/N). – he said, laughing quietly.

- What…? – you tilted your head.

- Sure it’s not my job to fix everything for you but when we met, I didn’t say what I did just to get into your pants. I knew what I was in for, just as always, like with Abstergo. – he spoke clearly and unwaveringly, keeping you focused and unable to look away from him. – And I was ready to be your support, your crutches if you will. Even your home therapist if you wanted. I was willing to cut myself if it meant I could patch you up. Because I knew that you were someone who wouldn’t keep it one-sided. You were always giving and fair so I was never afraid of getting too deep. I wanted to go there. So when I said trust me, let me, allow me – I meant it all. All of it, (Y/N). – he sneakily slipped his hands around yours, fingers intertwined, and gave them a firm squeeze. – Healthy or not, I don’t give one single shit. I never did, I don’t. Because I knew, I know, that the reward was you and me, us. We’re definitely not a heaven-made match but don’t you remember? I’m a hell-hound. – he winked at you, bringing back old memories which you couldn’t fight and you… You blushed furiously, cheeks so red that he had a hard time resisting the urge to kiss them endlessly right then and there. He smirked, but it was not predatory nor scary in any way, it was hopefully confident even if he knew that he was still walking a tightrope with all of this. – Life’s a piece of shit when you look at it… - he half-sang that one line and it made you laugh, so suddenly and freely that it felt like the first deep inhale of fresh air after leaving a smoke-filled house. The sound was beautiful to Clay’s ears and he raised your hands to his lips, kissing each before noticing your gasp ending the laughter. – It really is, but there are some good things in it. We still haven’t lost the big fight, we still have our free will, coffee smells good, tigers and lions are just as silly as tiny housecats but like equipped with murder mittens, you are one kick-ass woman and now that I have another chance, no way in this damn world I’m wasting it. – he pulled you closer to him and you let him. – Can I say something? – he asked and it didn’t really seem to make sense, but you wanted to understand so you nodded, though frowning slightly.

- Sure.

- I’ll tell you what I think you should do. What I want you to do. – he began. – But you have your options, I just want you to trust me on this. I know that it will work if you give it another go.

You breathed in sharply.

- I won’t disappear again, not without you. I’m changing the game because I’m fed up after how it went down last time. We either go together or we go nowhere at all. I want you back with me and I want you to take me back, (Y/N). I will face whatever insecurities stir up some trouble for us and I will weed out every last one of them. You’ll be so sure of everything that you won’t ever feel that horrible pain here… - he released one of your hands to touch the side of your head gently - … or here. – his touch now rested over your heart for an extended moment before retreating but still hovering in front of you. – Just like I said all those years ago, I’m still standing by it today. I don’t care if it takes years, I’m willing and able to do it all. So you should just… Just dive right in. Trust me on this. You’ll see that I’m right, because I have it in me and you have it in you too and… If we just put that together, you’ll be in the best love you could ever find. I bet you couldn’t even write up such a story where it would surpass this.

- Clay. – you breathed his name.

- Nobody else could ever make me feel this weak by saying my name… - he admitted with a smile, the hint of shyness in it, grabbing your chin with his free hand, the other still holding yours. – I want to write my story, I want to tell a different tale and I want you to be and stay in it. I want… - his own composure was breaking now and he just started listing everything that he so missed. – I want you to say I’m yours and I want to say the same, and that you are mine, and I want to punch every bastard who looks at you wrong. And then I want you to scold me for it but feel it in your embrace afterwards that you love it when I get possessive. Then I want to talk it out and agree that I don’t have to go that far, only in extreme cases. I want to go on missions with you and kiss the damn breath out of you after you shoot a bad guy in the head because I’m so amazed and proud and I bet you are incredibly sexy when you do that. – his hands were suddenly all over your arms, rubbing them up and down and groping with growing fever, but still restrained from venturing to the rest of your body. – And I want to argue with you and then fix things because I know we can. And I want to watch you work and be your greatest fan. And I bet we’d almost get kicked out of a cinema because we’d laugh at the most inappropriate moments again during a horror movie. And I want to go to bed with you, I want to watch you shower and see you almost slip when you notice me so I can catch you and keep you safe and unharmed, I want to make a show of me undressing for you, and I want to be anything and everything you want me to be because you already are for me and I want you to know that if you just take that leap of faith… With me… We’d love each other so much that it would be so fucking good… - his hands stopped at your shoulders, gripping you there. Now, it seemed, it was his turn to cry. His sigh was so heavy, it held the weight of a whole world and his tears were even hot, matching his heated skin.

You couldn’t really speak while he talked. It was a lot to take in. But the more he went on, the more you felt different… Better. Hope somehow opened its eyes inside you and Clay’s momentum took you with him and soon you were drinking in his words like a desert’s wanderer the first source of water after the longest walk. And now that he was done, just watching you with silent tears and still holding you, you made your choice.

- Can I call you mine? – you asked timidly. His reaction was everything. He threw his head back in glorious, liberated, joyful laughter and pulled you into his arms. He leaned back against one of the table’s sturdy legs, keeping you tight against him.

- Yes, baby, I’m all yours and only yours and you can announce it to the whole world.

You were still unsure so only after he gave you his answer did you sneak your own arms around his waist as well. – Mine. – you stated, lips slowly stretching into a genuine, loving smile.

- Tell me if I’m wrong but… Mine, so mine that you’re nobody else’s. – Clay said, rubbing slow circles on your back and waist. You just nodded, confirming his claim. – I love you, (Y/N). – he confessed, nudging you so you would look up at him again.

- I—

- No rushing, babe, no need. We’re together now. – he cut you off.

- Never interrupt your woman, you uncultured possum. – you teased him, earning yourself a grin from him, which you easily mirrored.

- A’ight, ma’am.

- I love you too, Clay. – you finished, and in that moment, you felt better than ever.

- And now I’m going to kiss the life back into you because that’s what you get for loving me. I just need to do this in a more… - he suddenly stood, gathering you in his arms and making you wrap your legs around his waist - … comfortable setting, there we go. You’re really in for it now. – he said in that darling rascal of a tone of his, drawing a bubbly, easy laughter from you as you held onto him.

He took you through your house, doing an unintentional, quick discovery until he found your bedroom and after turning the lights on, he gently but playfully threw you on the bed, climbing in with and then over you.

- I bet your couch is nice too but I figured this would be much better for it. And then a nap, which we both undoubtedly need. And whatever else you agree on. – he winked down at you, caressing your cheek and your throat with unmatched tenderness. – If, of course, you don’t mind me staying over…?

- Please. – you said, wrapping him in a firm hug, keeping him close, enjoying his weight on you. It was reassuring, it spoke of comfort and safety and uninterrupted time without words.

- Good. Now… Let’s get this eternal love going. – he announced and his lips finally crashed down on yours.

That night, after you fell asleep in each other’s arms, you were still together even in your dreams. You met on the same unearthly plane of minds and knew that this time… This time it would stay this way.

#ac #Assassin's Creed #ClayDay #ClayDay19 #Clay Kaczmarek #fanfiction #my writing #Clay Kaczmarek x reader #ass-sass-sin-o #marshmallow--3

33 notes · View notes

diveronarpg · 5 years

Photo

Congratulations, KAT! You’ve been accepted for the role of OTHELLO. Admin Rosey: I am unashamed to say that, when I read the application, I went absolutely buckwild. My usual decorum and professionalism was compromised for a good while because I simply couldn’t get over how beautiful this application was. It’s so difficult to write an application that is impactful from beginning to end but you, Kat, absolutely nailed our favorite conflicted son, Odin Bello. His story is one that I thoroughly enjoyed and you took him and gave him such a vibrant, chaotic pain that I was truly swooning. I am overjoyed to welcome our beloved Othello into the fold. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Kat

Age | 24

Preferred Pronouns | She/her

Activity Level | I think I’ll be able to get on quite a bit! At least two or three times a week, but likely more!

Timezone | EST

How did you find the rp? | I originally came across it in the lsrpg tag, I believe! My friend Taryn recommended it on her blog as well (and I’ll do anything that woman says tbh). Current/Past RP Accounts | These are links to inactive past accounts! https://neosy.tumblr.com/ https://grchcmisms.tumblr.com/ https://99gael.tumblr.com/ https://halogenq.tumblr.com/

IN CHARACTER

Character | Othello, Odin Bello

What drew you to this character? | Oh, to be applying again so soon after I claimed I needed time to find a new character! Originally, this was true, but when Odin opened up and I gave him a reread (and not that it truly makes a difference but, oh, the realization of the face claim change to Trevante Rhodes, be still my beating heart,) I realized there was yet another gem in the midst, another man in such a gorgeous roleplay that catches my breath in my throat and sends my heartbeat fluttering.

I’ve always been a sucker for a good heart and bruised knuckles.

Such beauty and chaos, such destruction and uncertainty, an aching heart that slips through your fingers as you struggle to grasp it, begging it to hold still. He shakes and struggles with nature and nurture, who he should be and who he wants to be, and more importantly, what he’s become. He feels the remorse and pain of it everyday when he wakes and each night he goes to sleep – for a time he managed to be person he worked so hard to be. It crumbled under his feet and his developing insanity, the rumble of his father’s ways breaking the ground under his skin and causing something of a snap, a moment of true obscurity. He hates himself for it, but he cannot yet again break his mold, he cannot become someone else. His will is cracking, his heart breaking.

Give me his nuance, give me his pain, give me his turmoil, and oh, please, give me his struggle; the desperate gasp of collapsed lungs and a tattered chest. I cannot stress how beautiful I find him, the feeling in my ribcage so solemn at his childhood and forthcoming, his painful attributes and breaking spirit. A man who shows his kindness through terror and bloodshed, so intent on being a good person that he’d tear the throat of a thief with his teeth.

Yes, I’ve found love.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? | Where do you see this character developing, and what kind of actions would you have them take to get there? 3 future plot ideas would be preferable.

MEN SHOULD BE WHAT THEY SEEM //

Oh, can the flash of his teeth brighten a room. His smile is bright but, these days, so rarely genuine. He no longer knows who he is truly fighting for, what side of the coin he lays on with his copper spinning on its side in a never ending spiral. He does not know where he belongs, nor, who he truly is and it plagues him in a way that’s all too familiar, a way that feels like his mother’s comfort and his father’s recklessness, the smell of alcohol on someone’s tongue when they speak and the feeling of a caress on skin. He needs to make a choice, a permanent decision for once in his life, pick his path and follow it to the end instead of cutting through the woods once more. Who are you, Odin? His own face in the mirror becoming more unfamiliar in each passing day, a building anxiety and insanity, a hurricane creating a disaster inside him. Who are you?

His reflection tired, tainting his handsome face and false expressions, a hunger growing just under the surface, a desperation so hot; who will you be?

FOR SHE HAD EYES AND CHOSE ME //

Delilah, oh, how she filled something inside of him, and oh, how he tore into the filled space as if rabid, as if being whole was too much to bear, the filled space too heavy, and the paranoia of losing it all creasing his forehead and melting in his palms.

So he did what he does best, and he ripped through the plaster and insulation like a hammer, shattered the glass and caused the empty space to bleed. It hasn’t stopped aching, despite his insistence that it has healed, sometimes he still wakes with his shirt soaked in blood, drenched in suffering. How can he learn to forgive? He learned his lessons but the morals cannot seem to stick, the weakness he caused in his own self and the horror he caused for the woman he loved – loves, still finding its way through his mind and heart. He seeks self forgiveness just as much if not more than he seeks hers. He cannot move on without finding solace or closure but those are two things so hard to capture and accept. Sometimes, he feels so much like his father with his past misgivings it stirs disgust.

It’s time to repent.

THE GREEN EYED MONSTER //

Ivan is a scab, an infection that Odin refuses to treat. He’s become cautious, wearily aware of betrayal in the past and more on the horizon. He has a feeling, a ponderance that keeps him up at night, the sends shocks through his veins. He hates to think of his friend, his family, as a traitor, as a monster in disguise seeking to antagonize the worst parts of Odin himself, but it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore. It scrapes the back of his mind, creates an itch that he cannot scratch no matter how deep he digs, no matter if the skin starts bleeding, it won’t go away. How does he cut out another piece of his life, another piece of himself so vital? It feels like he is losing those most important to him, that they’re all turning on him and it creates nothing but fear, more paranoia and uncertainty.

He wants so desperately to be wrong, but knows what will happen if he is not.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | As you say, no one is safe. I’d be more than willing!

IN DEPTH

Please choose between the interview or the para sample (or both, if you like!)

In-Character Para Sample:Note: This is inspired by both his biography and the original play of Othello.

His knuckles have long since scabbed over but it still stings when he bends his fingers, gripped tight on his steering wheel.

The whispers echo in his ears, hollow out his skull, and glaze his eyes so he is barely paying attention to the road. It’s late, the highway nearly empty at three thirty in the morning, the lamps leaving the car tinted yellow, a glow off the black paint and seeping into the sunroof. His windows are down but still he keeps the air on, the radio off. His phone vibrates in the cupholder of the center console and he ignores it, his foot pressing harder on the gas until the wind is whipping through his vehicle almost dangerously.

The law be fucking damned, today he was an officer of only vengeance and a broken heart.

He loves her so much he tastes venom, feels his teeth growing sharper in his mouth, his distaste makes no noise but if it did it would be a growl, feral and unhinged. He is not his father, but he does understand him. Words of infidelity set him on fire, lies and hopelessness and ‘I should have known better, I should’ve known better’ making his throat raw, eyes burn. He doesn’t cry, not anymore, but he hasn’t wanted to like this in years.

He heard them speak of it for weeks, heard mentions and hints but blinded himself with hope and loyalty, faith. He repeated the words of her vows and the sound of her heartbeat, how she feels tucked into the sheets with her face pressed into his chest, her back into his, and repeated that it couldn’t be true, but he had forgotten himself. The words broke through all at once like a floodgate and so had the betrayal, and he had terrible thoughts, thoughts that scared him.

He could wrap his fingers around her throat.

No, but he couldn’t, not even in hatred and broken trust could he hurt her with his own two hands. He tightens his grip and a scab cracks, but it’s old enough that it does not bleed, instead revealing something of a white scar beneath. He eases on the pedal for only a moment, long enough to catch his breath before the phone goes off again and his foot slams to the floor.

I am a devil, I am chaos, a man of hurt and cruelty, raised to be so with bones created for disaster. Do not step on me, do not lie to me, I will ruin her, I will be so,– I will be cruel.

His hurt reverberates in his chest and it feels like a sob shaking but it will not break, face angry and hands shivering. He loses himself in the cloud of obscurity created to help him destroy all he’s built, an excuse to become a monster once again, to level all the good he’s done with chaos and destruction. He wishes he hadn’t been waiting for this somewhere buried heavily in his mind, he wishes that he hadn’t been searching for every reason to snap, every excuse to abandon the perfect image he’d created, but he was sick.

He jerked his wheel onto an exit ramp at a dangerous speed, foot easing off the pedal once again but only slightly, just enough to cruise into a gas station, an aggressive spin of his wheel and foot on the break that causes the car to jerk to a stop.

Then, his fists slam his wheel, body doubled over, frustration causing him to kick the underside of his dashboard as he hears something break where his foot lands, and he yells until his lungs bruise.

Extras: I made a tag for him here! Hopefully I’ll have more on it by acceptances: this: https://hypnosreigns.tumblr.com/tagged/character:%20odin%20bello

#accepted #accepted: othello

1 note · View note

annunziatina · 5 years

Note

#19, "Run!" for any pairing you'd like :)

This was so difficult! Haha. But the challenge was fun. Thank you ever so much for sending in the prompt. I chose Noah x Isobel for a change-up. I hope you enjoy this. I hope someone enjoys this pair :). I do. I’m hoping Noah isn’t a bad guy lol.

Title: Run Pairing: Noah Bracken x Isobel Evans-Bracken (Do they have a ship name?)Rating: GenWordcount: 1210

“Run!” Noah’s desperate plea is but a whisper. “Isobel. Please.” The danger of which she spoke is real, perhaps not imminent, but sure to ascend. “You have to run.” He’s unsure if the words have made it past the lump in his throat.

Isobel’s shoulders shake, not from the midnight breeze whirling around them; her eyes glisten with unshed tears. Noah runs his hands up her bare arms and feels the goosebumps prickling over her skin - so human. He cradles her face in his own trembling hands thinking he’s never seen her as vulnerable as in this moment.

Isobel looks to the ground, unable to hold his gaze any longer. The stoic facade, the woman others had once considered stone-faced and cold, is gone. Noah’s wife, the woman he has always known to be more than what she presented to everyone else, the woman who’d only revealed a fraction of the depths of her soul to him, the woman who had been more than enough even then, turns back to him with a shuddering breath.

“I can’t.” She dashes her hand under her nose and rolls her eyes in grief, in exasperation. “Max won’t leave Liz and Michael won’t go without… No. Not without Max and Michael.” There’s a pregnant pause where her eyes find Noah’s again. “I can’t go without-” her voice breaks and Noah feels like she is reaching into his chest, holding his heart in her hand.

Will she be gentle? he wonders. Will she crush him with a goodbye?

Then, her palm is pressing against him. It is impossible for her to be so close and not know his heart is hammering against his ribs. The muscle contracts so tightly he is certain, if Isobel doesn’t put an end to the silence, his heart will seize. And if it breaks, it will not start up again.

Isobel’s fingers curl into a fist over Noah’s chest, catching the pocket of his shirt. The first of her tears tumble down her cheek. The slide of the tear is warm and wet over Noah’s thumb - human, like every part of Isobel he’s been allowed to see.

After his wife’s years of deceit and her confession that just turned his world upside down, Noah’s first concern remains her safety. It couldn’t be anything else. “I wouldn’t blame you for going with them if-” He is astounded by the difficulty he experiences as he tries to send her away.

The movement of Isobel’s head is so slight, Noah would have missed it had he not been holding her. He glides his fingers around the curve of her ear. There’s no stray hair to tuck behind it, but he pretends. The feel of fingertips running over her scalp has lulled her to sleep many a restless night; he hopes it will work to soothe her now.

The ache in his chest, the confusion and betrayal, seem like nothing compared to the fear he feels vibrating in the air surrounding the woman - the alien - the wife that he dearly, unwaveringly loves.

“But you’re in trouble.”

Isobel sucks in another stuttering breath and steps into his embrace. “Yes,” she exhales into the crook of his neck. She nuzzles into the space she found years ago. Noah remembers that night, their first night, their first time. He slips his hands up and down Isobel’s sides and pulls her in.

He recalls how she’d taken him by the hand after they’d made love. How, on shaky legs, they’d stumbled, giggling in the dark, to the patio of her cottage. How they’d wrapped themselves in a throw blanket that was too small, balanced precariously on a chaise just wide enough. He remembers lying under the harvest moon, staring at the stars reflected in Isobel’s eyes, and realizing he was in love. Something must have given him away; she had hidden her face in the place where his shoulder net his neck and told him she had never felt so safe. He had held onto his sentiment for another time. He told her he cherished her, promised to always protect her instead.

Coyotes whoop and sing off in the distance; it sounds like a large pack and Noah thinks about how lonely Isobel must have been all this time. It is no wonder she made excuses to be with Michael and Max; they were the only ones who truly knew who she is.

Was there ever a time she had wanted to tell him? Or was it only necessity that drove her into his arms today? Noah casts the questions aside as the night air cools his anger, clears his head. He tips his head back, just for a moment, and the bright crescent of the moon peeking over the roof feels like an intrusion on their privacy.

Isobel twists the fringe along the edge of the blanket draped over the wicker couch. She must have known, when she stood on the doorstep, took him by the hand and pulled him into the house they’ve shared since he’d presented her with the key to his heart and home, that he would recognize the path they’d walked that first night they spent together under this roof.

As he takes stock of their surroundings: the handwoven blanket Isobel has pulled into her lap, the pillows enveloping them, he sees. Isobel has never appeared so small, so delicate, or so willing to be taken care of as she had that night, until now. Now, as she bears her soul in what Noah can only guess is its rawest form.

She had wanted to tell him then, their first night; Noah recognizes that now. But her fear had held her back - her fear and the promise she, Max, and Michael had kept for a lifetime.

The fear of the past, of course, is a mere shadow of the terror of that colors her features in the present. Yet, today, pushed by some greater force and - Noah wants more than anything to believe - bolstered by love, Isobel is able to finally entrust him with her secret.

“You’re safe here,” he assures her, “until leaving is the only option you have.”

“And then?” she croaks. Her hot tears pool along Noah’s collar bone, leaving a cooling trail behind. Her silent sobs leave Noah shaken to his core.

“Then,” he begins, his voice just as rough as Isobel’s. Emotion threatening to choke him. “Then, you go.”

A quiet whimper works its way past Isobel’s lips. She creeps out of hiding, aligning their faces forehead to nose.

Noah tastes astringent on her breath and wishes she hadn’t needed liquid courage - the poison that numbs - in order to knock on their door.

He draws a line from the hollow of her throat up to her chin and allows himself a moment before taking a risk. “Then-” all he can hear is the blood rushing in his ears “-we go.” It’s a question despite his bravado; it strangles his lungs and steals his air.

Isobel’s eyes blink up at him, a light in them flashing brighter than any star in the sky. Noah sees relief, hope, and wonders if it’s fair to consider the steadfastness of Isobel’s love.

“Together,” he says, leaping into faith, “we run.”

#nunzia says some stuff #noah x isobel #isobel x noah #isobel x noah fic #roswell new mexico fanfic #roswell new mexico fic #nunzia writes

4 notes · View notes

theonceoverthinker · 6 years

Text

OUAT 2X06 - Tallahassee

Who’s ready for a vacay?! I’m thinking Florida!

...I was kind of hoping for Disney, but *shrugs* whatever.

Anyway, under the cut for my thoughts on this OUAT vacation.

Press Release With the hopes of finding a magical compass that could help her and Mary Margaret get back to Storybrooke, Emma takes a journey with a not-too-trustworthy Captain Hook up a treacherous beanstalk in an attempt to steal the item from a murderous giant. Meanwhile, Emma’s past is revealed to be anything but magical when she meets up with a fellow thief who wants to make an honest woman out of her. General Thoughts - Characters/Stories/Themes and Their Effectiveness Past This was a really well put together segment! What makes it work for me is the care they brought to Neal while constructing his backstory in regards to Emma. It’s actually been a while since I’ve watched an episode with Neal in it, and I forgot about a lot of his charm and dedication. At the same time, the episode doesn’t make Neal perfect at any point, showing him be a thief and getting angry, exasperated, and even a little stupid. That stuff makes the betrayal of Emma’s trust, for as saddening as it is, feel like something that could feasibly happen, especially as the audience can interpret to some extent (Until it’s explicitly laid out a few episodes later).

I have an unpopular opinion among my fellow Emma fans. That is, I feel like she’s a character that doesn’t necessarily need a ton of backstory. That’s because episodes like these are so impactful for the exact reason that they're rarities. when someone lets Emma down in just one flashback, we understand how important that moment was to Emma and how it shaped that one facet of her personality so specifically. well, I feel like had they had too many Emma flashbacks, they wouldn’t have been as effective because they would have been akin to laying on a bed of nails: An overabundance of sob stories just makes one feel exhausted more than sympathetic and so much more of Emma’s depth is revealed from the parts of her that are not spoonfed, such as her one off lines about the effects of her lonely upbringing. Present I’ll go over this soon, but trust is a big theme of this episode, and Emma’s trust for Killian in the present is framed to be at a contrast with her trust for Neal in the past. And to a degree and not a small one, that does come through. There are a lot of subtle moments that show growth (Killian being able to read Emma, Emma confessing that she was in love once, Emma’s concern for Killian’s wellbeing). However, I feel like for in order for Emma’s betrayal at the end to make more sense as a move that frustrates but is still understandable, they should’ve shown a bit more growth in Emma’s trust for Killian. As it stands, their interactions feel like they more or less reset at the start of every new scene between them. Emma makes her distrust for Killian clear, the two of them do something (Climbing, knocking out Anton, exploring Anton’s castle), one of them gets in physical danger or something is otherwise exposed, and 1% of trust is added. I really feel like there should’ve been a bit more warmth or more obvious progress because not only on its own, but especially when compared to Emma and Neal’s story, it’s not as effective when Emma locks him up because I can’t help but feel like that’s something she probably would’ve done at the end of “The Doctor” too. What changed and does she regret her choice? It doesn’t seem to be the case because there’s not much within the segment itself to compare the moment to.

On a more positive note, in addition to just Killian’s interactions with Emma, we get a lot of insight into his character on his own. For instance, Killian, despite working for Cora, doesn’t trust her, adding to the later-on emphasized concern for self preservation. We also see the first of Killian’s signature impatience. It’s weird. After over 100 years in Neverland, Killian has definitely shown how patient he can be, but as his revenge gets closer, practically insight, we see how that patience just drops to nothing. One could conceivably even call that a fault in his character, but I’d argue against that given how we've also seen later on instances where Killian has had no patience with his revenge right in front of him, so it does make sense. It's also very interesting parallel to Rumple, who in later episodes is shown to experience similar behavior. All Encompassing The issue and theme of trust (Or rather, destroyed trust) is prevalent through the two main segments. In the past, Neal betrayed Emma’s trust, and taking from that experience, Emma betrays Killian’s trust (And to a smaller extent, Snow’s trust through not telling her about her favor from Mulan). This episode also has a really nifty parallel to its own predecessors. Now, in a lot of episodes of season 2 thus far, we’ve see characters internalizing a bad lesson in the past, but rejecting it (mostly) in the present (Rumple being more cooperative with Belle’s needs, Regina refusing to inflict the same pain on Henry that Cora inflicted on her, and Regina being able to let go of Daniel). However, for the first time this season, we see a character who internalized that lesson in the past (protect yourself because you don't know when someone will betray you, even if you trust them), but actually refused to move on from it in the present. Emma, despite seeing and even acknowledging that she does to a large extent trusts Killian, still leaves him cuffed atop the beanstalk (“I can’t take a chance that I’m wrong about you.” Insights - Stream of Consciousness -I love Killian in his robes! He just looks so snuggly, even more so than usual! -”Bad form” makes what I believe is its first appearance! -Killian, watch that! That’s your soon-to-be mother-in-law talking! -I like how the mythology of the giants factors into the present story. Keeping in tune with one of the secondary themes of the episode -- that things are never what they seem -- the giant’s were described as brutes (As per Killian’s story), they were (As we later learn) more like isolationists and he war of giants and men was flipped from the known storyline. Watching this episode with the knowledge from “Tiny” already in mind makes all the scenes where the giant’s history is described so gruesome. -Has anyone ever written a fic where Cora actually does accompany Killian up the beanstalk? -”Emma Swan. Good name.” Am I the only one to connect this to Rumple’s “Emma. What a lovely name” line? -I know Neal gets a lot of flack for the “women” line, but I’m not entirely convinced that that was what he was going for. Instead, I feel like he’s playing to the cop’s sexism. I feel this way both because of the really over-the-top-but-in-a-way-that-one-can-tell-it’s-fake weasel-y smile he gives the cop and the “we” he says regarding his and Emma’s escape once the cop goes away. -”You’re not gonna argue with me?” “Would it do you any good?” I like that subtle display of Emma and Snow’s growing bond! -”Well, you never forget your first.” Now I really want to know what Killian’s first beanstalk was like! -Does anyone know what an Apollo bar is? Like, I know that it’s a fake candy bar, but what’s inside? -Random dude in the shop: Just yell “He’s stealing!” And why did you guys not chase after them?! -”Are you sure? Is this...what you really want?” MY POOR EMMA!!!! She’s been let down so many times! -I just realized that after the events of “Awake,” everyone in town had nightmares for months! How much you want to bet there was an Insomnia Club that was formed afterwards? XD -I like how Aurora’s grown to trust Snow so much given their rocky start! (Sleeping Snow, anyone?) -”It’s where the Final Battle was.” I know A&E had absolutely no knowledge as to the Season 6 finale, but I can’t help but snicker anyway. -”It’s rum, and a bloody waste of it.” I feel like this line would’ve worked better with that deleted scene from when they were climbing the giant’s beanstalk. -”Maybe I was once.” I find that this is such a good acknowledgment of trust that Emma now has in Killian. -How strong is Killian that he can get such a loud sound out of that simple pounding with a bone? -I love Anton’s costume! It’s so cuddly! -”I’m the worst human around!” I wonder how much Killian truly believes that. Like don’t get me wrong, Killian’s a baddie and a bad baddie, but does he consider himself worse than Rumple or was that line just part of the ruse? Because it’s Killian, I could honestly buy either. -Jack is so fucking extra. Who puts their own name on their sword?! -Emma just has the most beautiful hair ever! -I love seeing how much Emma’s willing to fight for her happiness when she knows she has it. As soon as Neal tells her he can’t go to Tallahassee, but instead needs to go to Canada, Emma’s all ready to go! -I sometimes forget just how Neal and Baelfire are the same person. It’s not like it’s executed badly or anything, but it’s such a change. -”You know your rights?” I’m not a cop by ANY means, but I’m pretty sure the cop has to actually say the rights (Correct me if I’m wrong). -”We do it side-by-side and fast.” Another line that shows Emma’s increasing trust for Killian! -”You gotta promise that you’ll be there for me.” “I promise.” LIAR! -”Money’s not what she needs.” August, she has roughly ten years left before she can break the curse AND she’s an ex-con. She might need that extra money! August, I’m not liking you in this episode! -How did August send Neal a postcard in his wooden form? -*Bites Anton to get freed* Emma, I don’t know what your dental plan (Or lack thereof) is, but stick with it! Also, more characters should bite to solve their problems! XD -Emma’s gotten so comfortable with a sword! -”You’re wrong.” [About all humans being killers] Emma, saying that while waving the sword isn’t helping your case. -”Now go before I change my mind.” Anton, you precious bean! You can see him trying and failing to be a badass! -”A jump from a beanstalk.” You’re one hell of a daredevil, Emma! Arcs - How are These Storylines Progressing? Emma and Snow getting back to Storybrooke - We get both half a means of a return journey as well as a future means of communication between the realms. Favorite Dynamic Emma and Anton - I honestly stuck this here because I figure I have talked (And will talk) about the other main dynamics, so why not go a touch more obscure?! So, what I like about Emma and Anton’s connection is something that connects her to both Neal and Killian, but gets its due emphasis here: Emma and Anton believe themselves to be alone and have learned not to trust others. And Emma, after understanding Anton’s story, position, and his victimization at the hands of those who bastardized his history, she shows him understanding and compassion, and Anton returns that. Writer We’ve once again got one new writer (Christine Boylan) and one old writer (Jane Espenson). It’s a pretty decent premiere! The past segment especially was fantastic, painting a story about Emma and Neal that was simple, but it worked for that reason. The present segment, well I have a bit more issues with it. I feel like there was this tug of war. they wanted to keep the characters consistent but also tell a story about trust and how Emma’s past ruined that growing trust, and while it’s possible to do that, the journey needed more room for more overt growth. Now, I like the more subtle shows of growing trust (As I said before, confessions of love from the past and concern for each other), but it also felt like those subtle bits didn’t really move Emma and Killian anywhere meaningful, making the climactic moment fall flat, and that’s frustrating because I can't help it feel like this was easily fixable. Why couldn’t Emma and Killian have a moment where they were talking a bit more comfortably, perhaps right before the scene before Anton re-enters the castle, and Killian says something that echoes something Neal said to her in the past segment (Think like when Felix called Calhoun a “dynamite gal” in Wreck It Ralph)? It would’ve contributed more to the crossroad that Emma found herself at the end of the episode and would make her decision (Again) more understandable for as frustrating as it is. Rating 7/10. I really hate giving this episode this score. It’s an okay score for an okay episode, but after the first five episodes of the season scored 10’s or Golden Apples, it feels worse than it actually is to have to put that number down. I loved this walk through of Emma’s experiences with trust. It paints this really vivid image of the types of disappointments that Emma has seen through her lifetime of abandonment, but gave a good deal of nuance and understanding to Neal, someone who ordinarily may have been just straight up villainized. I took points because I felt that there could’ve been just a bit stronger of a growing trust between Killian and Emma. I felt it, but to be a parallel to what Neal and Emma had, I just wish it was stronger because it really just feels like Emma did exactly what she would’ve done to Killian in the previous episode. I want to see her journey and previous experiences shape her actions and while I felt like it was done okay, it was still too weak to contribute to what should’ve been a more tragic payoff. Flip My Ship - Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness” Captain Swan - “Don’t think I’m taking my eyes off you for a second.” “I’d despair if you did.” Those two lines are just the best! Everything one would want from chemistry to animosity is there and it’s just fantastic! The same goes for the famous “I love a challenge line!” Also, in two weird CS/SF parallels, (1) Neal calls he and Emma a we, whereas Emma calls she and Killian “we,” and (2), Neal calls their escape “home” to Emma in the past and Emma does the same with Killian in the present. Also also, I just genuinely love the way Emma worries for Killian after the giant falls, shouting “Hook” as loud as she can. Also, also, also, “Everything we need is right in front of us.” Note how the two of them were looking at each other. Swan Fire - I like how in Emma and Neal’s first scene, Emma raises an impressed eyebrow to Neal as he’s lying to the cop. It’s such a sign that she’d found a kindred spirit! It’s also reinforced when Emma smiles at Neal’s second request for drinks. I like how Neal upgrades their lied about relationship from “girlfriend” to “wife,” subtly signifying how their relationship has truly grown. Also, “this little guy saved us!” I know that was totally not intended to be about Henry necesaarily, but fuck it, I’mma imagine it! Also, the kiss afterwards was adorable as all hell! As was the conversation in the hotel room, and it makes their tragic downfall all the more tragic! Also, there’s a Snowing parallel I just noticed! In the hotel scene in the flashback, Emma talks about how dreamcatchers (Which is kind of her thing with Neal) kept the bad dreams away. Meanwhile, Charming used a candle (Fire = Balefire) to ward the nightmares off from Snow. Also also, “what you want” seems to be a bit of a line between them, akin to “I will always find you” and “I’m a survivor,” said twice by Emma -- once to confirm and again to reaffirm her dedication to Neal! Finally, I just love how Neal initially stands up to August on Emma’s behalf when he says he’s her guardian angel. ()()()()()()()()() Thank you for reading! And to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales to putting this project together and helping me keep the lights on!

Next time, let’s hang out with some moon kids! Season 2 Tally (57/220) Writer Tally for Season 2: Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis: (20/60) Jane Espenson (17/50) Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg (10/50) David Goodman (10/30) Robert Hull (10/30) Christine Boylan (7/30)

Operation Rewatch Archives

#ouat #once upon a time #watching fairytales #ouat 2x06 #ouat rewatch #jenna watches ouat #ships mentioned #swan fire #Captain Swan

10 notes · View notes