#unsympathetic orange

[anonymous-gremlin]

Roman writes the Sanders sides scripts. That's a fact known to Thomas.

But what Thomas doesn't know is that the scripts aren't actually, it actually happens.

Roman knows how much control he has being creativity and writing the scripts.

The constant ignored Logan, the more unsympathetic actions of Patton, the coddeling of Virgil. All Roman's writing.

After an argument with Patton, he writes in the script, letting Janus impersonate Patton. Later the same with Logan.

Remus went of script by knocking Roman out and introduced himself. That was the only time someone went off script and could be because Remus is also an creativity.

Now a while later, Roman and Logan get into a massive argument that leaves Roman fuming.

He meets an certian orange side who promises to make Logan's life hell if he just lets him into an episode.

Leading to Roman writing the orange plotline including Logan being tormented by orange inside his head.

Roman is the puppet master and the other sides are his puppets.

And he isn't giving up that control soon.

#unsympathetic roman #unsympathetic orange #janus sanders #remus sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #logan angst #patton angst #virgil angst #sanders sides #tss

[fandoms-bandoms-andmentalissues]

Alone? Not Anymore

Logan is belittled, ignored, and discarded by the light sides, but until Janus and Remus help him find a new side of himself he didn’t think there was anything he could do about it. They help him make a very difficult choice suddenly very easy.

#thomas sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #ts logan #ts sides #janus sanders #ts roman #ts remus #logan sanders #patton sanders #ts patton #virgil sanders #ts virgil #the orange side #Logan is the orange side #unsympathetic patton #unsympathetic Roman #sympathetic remus #sympathetic deceit #intruloceit #referenced past Virgil x Janus x Remus #Remus x Janus x Logan

[ask-nico-and-the-sides]

Hi. Do you... do you know who these three are...? Do you remember?

(Ok so this frame is depressing so I’m doing a warning here. There’s no gore or anything ofc, but it is sad, so I’ll give a description if you’d rather not look at it)

Description: Cyrus, Logan and Virgil are all staring in silent horror at King Creativity as they realize what happened, the smoke from the sudden blast clearing up around them. King Creativity is oblivious, and says “Rage, Logic… Anxiety. What’s the matter? Why are you all looking at me like that?”

King: Why are you all looking at me like that?

#sanders sides #logan sanders #orange side #virgil sanders #curiosity arc #king creativity #unsympathetic janus

[5am-the-foxing-hour]

Unsymp Virgil: Ah my... friends.

Janus: Friends? *chuckles* I thought he said we were the enemy?

Orange: Yeah. That's what I heard~

Janus and Orange: Remus?

Remus: *dark laughter while conjuring his morning star*

#Sanders Sides #Janus #Remus #Virgil #Orange side #unsympathetic virgil #incorrect quotes #shitpost

[monkeythefander]

The drawing is below to see more tab. @thatsthat24

Have some Logan angst based on the song “Rabbit Hole” by AViVA. I like to imagine that this is what would happen if the Orange Side took control of Logan.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #fanart #logan sanders #unsympathetic orange side #logan sanders angst #digital art #sanders sides angst #orange side

[thatgenderlessentity]

Virgil- Logan, I thought you got out. If Patton sees you-

Logan- He can't! I know how this looks, but I promise, I'm here to help.

Virgil- I'm done protecting Patton! I'm done with this whole place!

Virgil- But you're one of us, Logan. I won't stand in your way.

Source: She-ra

#sanders sides #sanders sides incorrect quotes #ts virgil #virgil sanders #ts logan #logan sanders #source: she ra #dark side logan #orange side logan #unsympathetic patton #platonic analogical #ts patton

[quietrainfan]

Artificial Heart!Patton being solo is all well and good. Just a creepy little guy with a fake heart of unknown origins. We love Patton being the only villain in this Unsympathetic Patton house.

Buuuut....Logan being the one who made him the artificial heart when they were younger has a lot of potential. I think it's no secret that Logan is the family's little scientist. So when he first met Patton, he wasn't....comfortable to say the least. He had to have something to control whatever this thing was. And if creating something for him happened to help Patton with whatever chaotic plans he has, then so be it.

So long as he's easier to handle. Logan enjoys experimenting anyway so the invention of the artificial heart was challenging and very, very rewarding. Cold Scientist Logan who couldn't care less about Patton's existence and literally creating something that'll make him less of nuisance- even slightly- just cause with a Chaotic Evil Jolly Patton who has fake emotions that pops into Logan's lab to give him "affection" and ask for favors occasionally. It's glorious.

So imagine the aftermath of Patton obtaining the Orange Side's nectar and rushing into Logan's lab.

"Logan!~ I have a brilliant new idea!", He tackles him from behind mid-experiment, nearly knocking a very delicate chemical out of his hand, "But I need to borrow your big meaty brain real quick to pull it off!"

Logan is not pleased by his presence but remains apathetic nonetheless. He simply asks what he needs so he can go back to work.

Patton giggles mischievously, "Oh, you'll love it! Trust me!"

He pulls out the container holding the Orange Side's nectar.

"See this?~ It's a little something I picked up in that...forbidden palace.", He cooed with a grimace, "This sweet tasting stuff is apparently our little guy's repressed vices. Turns out it's real dangerous to consume or use if you don't do it correctly, hmm? ....Got a clue what I'm hinting at?~"

"....You tasted it?"

Patton pouted, "Don't make that scary face. My curiosity has good intentions."

"Yeah, sure it does. Get to the point."

"Kay, kay! Mr. Impatience!~", Patton slung his arm around Logan's shoulder, "I was wondering...is it possible for you to replicate that cute little trinket you gifted me all those years ago? I think having some I can implant in the others might give me a bit more of an edge....and ofcourse, you a bit more entertainment.~"

"So, let me get this straight...you want to fill replicas of your heart- which I'm not even certain I can create- with that liquid you stole from the Dark Sides so you can use it to control discourse between the others? And you want me to somehow insert these replicas in them without them knowing?"

Patton nodded, "Uh-huh.~"

....................

"Alright.", Logan took the container out of Patton's hand, "It sounds challenging. Absurdly so."

"Yay! You're the best, Lo!"

"Those 'hearts' you requested may have to be smaller than average.", Logan pondered, disregarding his praise, already starting the blueprints, "Considering your....imaginative requirements for this to work, I don't think implanting these will be a small order. I'll have to adjust some things. While also starting from scratch. .....So thanks for that."

"Oh, stop pretending you don't love this!", Patton pranced out of his lab, "I'll leave you to it!"

Yeah....so many scenarios can come of this. The possibilities are endless.

@pattonapologist

#unsympathetic patton #evil patton #artificial heart patton #unsympathetic logan #blue calamity #blue calamity twins #tw manipulation #tw human experimentation #platonic sanders sides #familial sanders sides #sympathetic dark sides #we 👏 need 👏 more 👏 blue 👏 calamity! #blue calamity my beloved #morally ambiguous logan #orange side #orange side mention

[logan-the-artist]

Hear me out Janus 10 G

(The idea is had was roceit and rem was jealous and h*rt roman)

yeah i’m not into roceit and i will not make the sides hurt each other, thanks for the ask though

#not art #i don’t mind angst like logan/orange but #i don’t draw unsympathetic sides hurting each other #especially the twins lol #log’s shit

[boosoonhao]

even death (bows before my feet)

vernon x reader 11k words supernatural au violence and death warning

You sigh, the puff of air visible as it leaves your mouth in the chill evening. The sun hangs low on the sky, a burning, orange orb hiding behind vibrant, green trees. Your heels clack against the concrete beneath your feet. Had your body been able to still feel the bites and nips of cold, you’re sure you would be freezing right now. As it is, it doesn’t matter. It’s only a matter of time before the boy is bound to show up. 

Infamous softie Joshua Hong shows up in a loud car and with a jacket he almost seems to drown in. He stops a few feet away from where you’re standing, closes his car door with a lot more force than necessary when he exits his vehicle. You’ve heard rumors about him, about the man who rescues people and demons alike, who only kills in self-defense. Even your people hold some distant, quiet sort of respect for him. Leaving him alone is an unwritten rule. 

Not so much for his companion. There’s not a lot of softness left on Joshua’s face now. 

“You want to resurrect your friend,” you say by way of greeting. Small talk doesn’t seem like much of a necessity. You both know the purpose of your meeting. You both know how many rules you’re breaking. 

“Can you do it?” He asks, sees as little a point in dawdling as you do. His hands are clenched at his sides, the syllables that drift out of his mouth stiff and tense. It’s a wonder, really, how much humans seem to care about mortality, considering their short, insignificant lives. 

“No,” you tell him earnestly. Well– mostly earnestly. You can, of course, if you pull the right strings and make the right deals. You’ve made some sort of preparations, so to speak; found the dead boy’s location and made sure the wrong creatures do not sink their claws in him. You’d rather leave the rest up to someone else. Joshua opens his mouth, probably to complain about deceit and waste of time, but you silence him with a swift palm raised in his direction. “But I know someone who can.”

~~

“And you’re sure this Hoseok guy is going to help?” Joshua asks, for the third time in as many hours. You tap a long finger impatiently against the fogged up window to you right, try not to let it show that you’re uncomfortable in your seat. You can’t really remember the last time you rode in a car, but you remember – quite vividly – where your reluctance to do so came from. Your whole body feels off-kilter, shaken and rattled by every hole in the road and by the ever present thrum of the motor. 

“I’ve already told you,” you mutter, struggle with how thick and clumsy your own tongue feels in your mouth; nausea pushing at the back of your throat. The man’s fast and careless driving does little to alleviate your motion sickness. “He owes me one. He’s going to help.” The memory of a city in flames drift to the forefront of your mind, an unwanted sort of nostalgia tickling at your bones and pulling the edges of your lips down just a fraction.

Joshua hums. There’s something discordant and unpleasant about the sound, despite the man’s soft, low tones. “And you demons sure do love your debts, huh.” 

There’s a sort of bite to his words that you deem wholly unnecessary, that makes you want to bite right back. For centuries, you’ve been content with letting the war between demons and hunters wage on without getting involved, only stepping in when it was asked of you and retreating as soon as your tasks were done. Somehow, you had not imagined that your re-entering into that feud would be on the side of the weak, temperamental humans. 

“You should be grateful,” you tell him, try to keep the poison out of your tone. You might not be human, might not be bound by the same emotional whims as the man next to you in the car, but you still remember the sting off losses of your own, and despite your reputation you’re not an emotionless, unsympathetic creature. To some extent, you do feel sorry for the guy. “Our love of debts is in your favor this time, after all.” You hope the air-quotes you can’t find the energy to physically make is visible enough in your voice. 

Joshua doesn’t respond, but when he glances over at your stiff form, his gaze has softened. You smooth your thumb over the scar along your thigh, and you swear you can feel the bumps of hastily done stitches that left protruding, circular scars on both sides of a thick, ugly line even through the fabric of your pants.

“We’ll see,” Joshua says, and you suppose you will.

~~

“Well, isn’t this an unlikely duo?” 

There’s something about Hoseok that never fails to make the back of your neck tingle. His voice might be pleasant and his expression might be bright, but there’s a distinct sense of mockery that never strays too far away from his lines and his octaves, and even as far as crossroad demons go, he might be the one who makes you the most uneasy. 

The demon in question claps his hands together over his chest, red eyes glowing almost ominously in the pale light of the morning. The hints of a sunrise peeking through the trees gives his tangerine hair a glow that reminds you, uncomfortably, of flames.

“It’s been a while, Hoseok,” you curtly reply, keep your distance as you step out of the car on wobbly legs. Joshua follows suit, stands at your side. You wonder how the demon-friendly boy is feeling now, stuck between two red-eyed monsters. “I hear you’ve been keeping yourself busy.” 

A grin spreads on Hoseok’s lips, slowly and sharply and with the distinct feel of threat reflected in his sparkling row of teeth. You remember when Hoseok was nothing but a simple deal-maker, when his antics were limited to fooling desperate humans. It’s apparent, by his square shoulders and his confident stance, that he enjoys his newfound infamy. 

He waves his hand in your direction, a low, rolling chuckle slipping past his lips. “Oh please,” he says, without an ounce of humility. “We’re not here to talk about me, I hope.” Joshua shifts, takes a step forward. You quickly put a hand on his shoulder, try not to cringe at the way his entire body seems to stiffen. You can’t really blame him, you suppose. 

“I’m here to cash in on that favor you owe me,” you tell the crossroad demon, taking great care not to let the uncertainty slip through your teeth and into the tones of your voice. Hoseok’s eyes seem to grow in intensity, and the air seems to crack as he disappears, reappearing right in front of you. His breaths fall against your nose, and somehow the demon smells like death. 

“Ain’t that interesting,” he tall man whispers, leveling you with a searching gaze that feels heavy against your skin. “I don’t suppose that favor has anything to do with this charming young man’s deceased companion?” There’s a glowing glint to his eyes that makes it blatantly obvious that Hoseok already knows about your recent visits to the underworld. Your jaw tightens, and you have to force yourself not to fold under his glare. 

“How do you know about that?” Joshua pipes up from your side, suspicion dripping from his soft voice. Your hand is still on his shoulder, fingernails digging into the fabric of his thick jacket. You hope he doesn’t notice the way your fingers twitch. 

“He’s got his fingers in a lot of pies,” you mutter, not without disdain. Hoseok takes it in stride, of course, a sort of wicked pride tugging at the edges of his mouth. 

“I do love pie,” he supplies with a jovial shrug. He takes a step back, and your stance relaxes a fraction. You never liked Hoseok much, even before he got chummy with the scum of the underworld. “I’m surprised, though,” he continues, tilting his head to the side. “That you’d use your get out of jail free-card on this human boy.” 

He’s fishing, you know, trying to dig into your head in that twisted way he does. Hoseok doesn’t just peddle in deals, and he is not above using your secrets against you if need be. You’re not about to give him any freebies, so you keep your mouth shut and in a thin line. 

“But then,” he murmurs, his voice gentle in a way that makes you feel profoundly uncomfortable. “You always had an affinity for humans, didn’t you?” 

You feel Joshua’s eyes on you. You ignore it. There’s complete silence dominates Hoseok’s crossroad, and it feels like the loudest thing you’ve ever heard. The crossroad demon’s lip twitches. 

“Not in the mood for catching up, I see,” he says with a sort of sharp intake of breath through his teeth, as if to just accentuate the awkwardness of the silence. With a crack, he’s disappeared and reappeared back in the middle of his crossroad. A waterfall of flow-y smoke falls from between his long, pale fingers, and he produces an intimidating silver knife. He drags the steel across his own palm, flicks dark, almost black blood in your direction. It splatters across the ground, sizzles and burns holes in the asphalt. 

“Twenty-four hours,” he tells you, dropping all of his playful pretenses and letting his true, low tones slip through his teeth instead. Somehow, Hoseok scares you less like this; seems far less threatening in his husky voice than in his fake pleasantries. “I hope you know what you’re doing, sweetheart.” 

And, well– that makes two of you.

~~

“I told you,” you sigh, breath fogging up the window as you lean your forehead against it, hands gripping at the plush of the passenger seat. “Twenty-three hours and you’ll have your boy back.” Joshua breathes harshly through his nose, keeps his eyes on the road. His hands grip at the steering wheel. 

“Yes,” he observes, with considerably less enthusiasm than you’d expected. “You’ve certainly made some powerful friends since the last time I saw you.” 

He addresses you as if he’s your father; as if he’s disapproving of your boyfriend or your new circle of friends. It’s strangely intimate for acquaintances, and you don’t really know how to respond to the accusation, such as it is. “I wouldn’t go that far,” you settle on, shifting your legs awkwardly in the cramped space of the car. “Anyways, I hope you didn’t have your friend cremated, otherwise this trip is completely wasted.” 

You think about the few hunter customs that you know of, of funeral pyres and of drowning your sorrows in revenge and booze. Joshua seems to have forgone all of that, but then, he’s not really a hunter, is he? He taps his fingers along the rubber of the steering wheel, eyes squinting as if he’s looking beyond the landscape rushing by and into some distant memory. 

“It was my fault we were at that river in the first place,” he says, as if he totally missed your jokey comment about cremation (which, to be fair, might have been for the best). You feel an emotional story coming, and you brace yourself. Joshua Hong might not be your least favorite human, but this trait that humans seem to all possess, this need to share, you could be without. “We were on our way to visit his sister, and I just had to stop and look for fucking rocks.” 

You blink at that, mystified by the nonsensical notion of stopping by a river to look for rocks, until you remember that the boy had, the last time the two of you met, had a collection of small, colorful stones in the pocket of his jacket. He had told you at the time, with a needle sticking into the skin of your thigh and a bottle of vodka on the ground next to him, that he needed something to collect, something to keep him grounded in all the crazy he was surrounded by. 

“He was gone before I even managed to pull him out of the water,” he says it with the sort of detachment that only someone who has spent too much time agonizing over a tragedy can manage. No wonder he looks like he hasn’t slept since; you’ve seen river spirits before, know how violent and ravenous they can get. People give demons and vampires flack for killing without a reason; water spirits kill for sport, feed on the look of pain and fear in their victims eyes. 

Truth be told, you’re not sure what to say. You’re not sure why you’re even still with the  boy, why you’re enduring yet another horrid ride in his vehicle from hell. The young man had given you a sort of glare that seemed to tell you to get in the car when Hoseok had disappeared from the crossroad, and for some reason you’d just followed along. He’s lonely, you figure; desperate for interaction after the loss of his friend. 

“There’s no use in obsessing over it now,” you tell him, for lack of a more comforting thing to say. Joshua hums, as if that’s just what he expected you to say. His hands grip a bit tighter around the wheel, but his face remains unchanged. “It’s fixed now anyways, isn’t it? You corrected whatever mistake you think you made.” 

Joshua hesitates, looks like he wants to argue, but ultimately he settles on chewing on his bottom lip and muttering a sort of quiet and demure ‘thank you’, and the rest of the ride passes in silence.

You’ve never seen anyone awaken from the dead before, though you have heard the horror stories. Most of the time, they involve vampires, and their semi-barbaric ritual of making their ‘newborns’ claw themselves out of their graves as sort of a test to see if they’re strong enough to be accepted into the coven. 

The graveyard is quiet, bathed in a soft, orange light that illuminates on top of shimmering gravestones. Birds hum in the distance and despite your inability to feel cold, goosebumps erupt along your forearms. Then again, maybe that’s just the tension from what’s about to happen.

‘Hansol Vernon Chwe’ the gravestone reads; elegant, golden letters against smooth, grey stone. The sound of dirt being shoveled distracts you from being too caught up in the solemn mood of the place, and when you level your eyes squarely on the growing hole in front of you, you see that Joshua seems to have finally hit the casket. 

“Fancy funeral for a hunter,” you remark, forget to even take into consideration that humans tend to be a lot touchier about death than demons are. Joshua stops digging, gazes up at you from his deep hole. It’s actually a bit impressive, how competent of a grave robber the pretty boy would’ve been, had he not had such a spotless moral compass. He squints up at you, and you grimace. “Sorry. Graveyards make me uncomfortable.”

“His parents didn’t know,” he supplies, kneeling down to dust dirt and pebbles off of the surface of the casket. You take a step closer to the edge of the hole to look down. Even the wood of the casket looks expensive, you muse. “They think it was some freak accident.” 

You wonder if that’s really true, or if it’s just another case of humans pretending to believe things because it’s more convenient. Whatever the case, you choose not to voice that suspicion, deciding to instead address an equally important question. “What’re you gonna tell ‘em now, then?”

Joshua exhales through his nose. It’s a long and exhausted sound, the kind of elongated sigh that sounds like it strains the lungs. When he looks up at you, a thin layer of sweat covers his forehead. “Well, you’re called the memory stealer, aren’t you?”

A muscle in your jaw twitches, and you have to fight back the urge to bite your own tongue just to keep yourself from coming with a scathing remark. You hate that name, hate the implications of it, hate that someone as soft and careful as Joshua Hong knows about it. Most of all, you hate that you can’t deny it. You don’t respond. It seems he doesn’t need you to. He pushes back up into a standing position, massages his own neck with a dirty hand and glances at the watch strapped around his wrist. It looks almost like he’s regained some gusto you didn’t know he possessed, his movements more energized, more confident. 

Humans tend to need some sort of purpose, you suppose, some goal to work towards. No wonder he’s been so obsessive in his quest to revive this ‘Hansol’. 

“I need you to help me open up the casket.”

~~

A lot of things seem to happen at once. You take hold of the roof of the casket, feel the wood resist against your pull. The clock is ticking, and by the time you get the top of the casket off, the wood creaking in pain at the forceful handling, twenty-four hours have passed. 

The boy emerges from the soft, plush inside of his not-so-final resting bed like an abused animal from a cage that’s just been opened. He flings himself over you with a force you’d be impressed with had you not been so caught surprised by it. He brings his fingers – bony and stiff with inactivity – around your neck, knocks his long, skinny body against you and makes you fall over against the walls of the hole. Dirt and grime drizzles down your face, your body, and once you’ve got your head straight again, you raise your hand to blast him back. 

“Vernon,” Joshua half-whispers, half-yells from somewhere in front of you, his voice coated in something that sounds like a bizarre mix of relief and panic. You spot the man as he puts his hands on your attacker’s shoulders, his knuckles whitening with the forcefulness of his grip. “Stop, you’re safe. You’re back.”

His grip loosens, like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing, fingertips still digging into the base of your neck. That, at least, is a good sign; that he at least still have some semblance of sanity left. He stares you down, breathes so rapidly and loudly that it sounds like it must hurt his throat. Recognition flashes in his eyes. His hair falls down his forehead, pale brown and greasy against his skin. 

“I know you,” he says, and his voice feels like being hit in the face; too low for his pretty face and too raspy for his smooth features. He lets his arms fall from your neck to hang stiffly at his sides. Joshua shoots you a suspicious glare. “You were there.” 

He doesn’t even call it by name, doesn’t need to. The mere mention is enough to send shivers down your spine. It runs through your body, makes you feel the flames lick at your skin and the screams of pain echo in your head. At least he doesn’t look as ragged as he had done down there. You wonder if that sense of victory that blooms in the pit of your stomach is anything like whatever possesses Joshua to keep doing what he does. 

“What the fuck is going on, Josh?” Vernon twists his head and upper body to face his friend, the detached, almost angry tone of his voice making the other man frown. There’s a stiffness to his body that you don’t think comes from having been dead, and you think back to the stories you’ve been told about people being brought back to life. About the man who lost his daughter, who sold his soul to get her back, only to discover it had been to late, that her sanity had been broken months ago and all that was left was a body. Not even a demon, or a ‘zombie’. Just a rabid, scared little girl. 

Hansol – or Vernon, as Joshua had called him – doesn’t seem to be quite there, but he does seem to have lost something, still. There’s a lack of an inflection when he speaks, a robotic sort of tenseness to his movements, small as they are. You wonder if, if you strip him of his black blazer and his neat, white shirt, you can still make out the wounds and scars from the razor sharp, metallic whip that the demons of the underworld seem to favor. 

“I’ll explain everything,” Joshua promises, puts his hand securely around Vernon’s upper arm. “But not here. Not right now.” His voice is hard, echoes with authority. You’re starting to realize that Joshua’s reputation as a soft, peace loving pacifist might not be completely accurate. 

He did, after all, just disobey one of the most basic laws of nature. 

Joshua clumsily helps Vernon out of the hole, both of their outfits getting smeared in filth in the process. The sun is starting to rise dangerously, and the time until they’re undoubtedly caught digging up graves is closing in on you all. Usually, you’d take this risk as your cue to leave, but somehow the blank, disinterested look on Vernon’s face and the low, terrified tones of Joshua’s voice has you hesitating. 

“Go back to the car,” you tell them both, cracking the muscles in your fingers as if to warm yourself up. The art of manipulating time and space is not an easy thing, never a pleasant experience even for you, who has all the practice in the world at it. “I’ll take care of this mess.”

It seems to dawn on Joshua, then, that he had not thought things completely through, that he didn’t really have a plan for covering up this particular mess. You try not to roll your eyes, settle instead for a raised brow and a knowing look. Cleaning up after humans seems to be a byproduct of dealing with the species. Joshua nods, and you turn back to look at the mess. You inhale. And then you work.

Getting the dirt and the soil back in it’s original place is no task at all, truly. Just a matter of some levitation and a bit of willpower; even the newest, less experienced demons with an ambition in time and memory work could do something as simple, something that basically comes down to gardening. The fact that the grave was new, fresh to begin with works to your advantage, no need for grass to sprout on top of the soil once it’s put back in it’s spot. 

Changing the inscriptions on the tombstone is a bit harder, makes the back of your eyes prickle as if someone’s poking you with needles. You replace the name with the first name that comes to mind, a name that never got a proper tombstone or a proper burial. You pretend to convince yourself that the sting in your chest comes from exhaustion. 

The last part of the spell – as people has called it – the part that fills your mouth with a coppery taste and that has blood dripping out of your mouth, is the lingering, long lasting field of manipulation around the grave. You can’t completely erase Vernon’s existence, nor the actuality of his death, but you can confuse people coming to his grave enough to distract from it.

“Neat trick,” you hear from behind you, the voice so unexpected it makes you jump. You’re faced, unsurprisingly, with Vernon’s distinct features and tired eyes, his gaze not focused on you but on the tombstone behind you. “So do I just not exist anymore or what?” 

You frown, twist your hands around to loosen the tension in your wrists. “Don’t be silly,” you tell him, more than a little bit uncomfortable with being alone with the dead boy walking. “For that I’d have to eat the heart of a newborn.”

Vernon blinks, but his face remains otherwise blank. For a moment you’re not even sure that he’s caught on to the fact that you were joking, and you suppose that’s on you for trying to crack jokes over the grave of a boy who’s been alive again for a whopping ten minutes. “Funny,” he supplies at last, but his voice is devoid of emotion. He shifts on his feet in clunky steps, looks back as if to make sure no one’s listening in on your conversation. 

“Are you going to do that to my family as well?” He asks, and normally you’d be able to gauge what response someone was looking for by the way they asked the question. Having lived as long as you have, human behavior becomes sort of predictable, after all, but Vernon doesn’t move, doesn’t raise his voice, and all you really manage to do is nod. “Good,” he mutters, and that’s that. You wonder if he’ll have the same opinion on the matter once his emotions return – if they ever do. 

“Did you tell Joshua? About Hell, I mean,” He goes on, surprisingly talkative for someone so dull and rough around the edges. There’s a raspy quality to his voice that you doubt is supposed to be there, and when you tell him that no, you haven’t talked to Joshua about Hell at all, Vernon looks the most relieved that he’s done since coming back to life. “Don’t. He doesn’t need to know.”

You don’t tell Vernon that you hadn’t intended to anyways, that you’d rather not talk or think about the underworld ever again. That’s not their business, just like Vernon’s decision is not yours. Vernon turns back to retreat towards Joshua’s car, and after one lingering glance back at the masked tombstone, you follow. You swipe your hand at the drying blood right above your lip, and you brace yourself for phase two.

(The mind is a fragile thing, vulnerable to impressions and attacks in all forms. This is true for all sentient beings, even those who dabble in memory curses and manipulation. For as easy it is to shape the mind as you want with your skills, it’s dangerous, not to mention draining, taking much more energy out of you than connecting made up memories to a place or an object. It’s a risk every time you do it, and you suppose that is how it has to be. 

Which is why you tell Joshua to join you as you stop the car in front of Vernon’s parents’ house, why reluctance bites at your skin as you get out of the car. When you turn to look back, Vernon himself is staring unblinkingly at you from his seat. 

His family is just what you’d expect from someone with such a bright and warm home, from someone who cared enough to put so much money into their son’s funeral. They greet Joshua like he’s one of their own, gentle hands and tight hugs making the both of you uncomfortable. They do not ask questions, do not put you on the spot, and for the first time in many years, you feel a pang of genuine guilt at what you’re about to do. 

Stealing memories from a person feels sort of like sucking all of the air out of the room and into your own mouth. There’s a taste to it, in a way, a flavor of longing and love and pain tickling the roof of your mouth with each emotion, each thought that fills your body and occupies the space in your head. You can’t remove Vernon’s existence completely, not when there are so many objects that tell of his presence in his family’s life, but you can remove the hurt, the death and the funeral. That doesn’t make it un-happen, doesn’t make the pain erased from the world, only moves it somewhere else.

Your heart is heavy with each thought, with the memories of black clothes and high pitches crying that forces itself into your mind, and though you do not know the boy more than you know of his presence in the car right outside, you mourn his passing as if you’ve known him since birth. You want to cry, you want to yell and throw things around, and distantly you feel a sort of self-loathing for things unsaid, words that aren’t even your own but that feels undeniably true in your heart.

The last thing you recall before the spell is complete and you fade into unconsciousness is a strong, overwhelming thought of ‘why couldn’t it have been me instead’. And then everything goes black.)

~~

When you wake up, you’re in an unfamiliar room, lying in an unfamiliar bed. The remnants of emotions and memories that aren’t yours linger in the back of your mind, makes the hair at the back of your neck stand. Your vision is foggy, your body hot and cold all at once.

”You’re awake,” comes the easily recognizable, raspy sound of Vernon’s voice from next to you, and when you twist your body around to follow the sound, you’re met with red cheeks and plump lips, pale brown curls that look a lot less lifeless after – you assume – a thorough shower. He looks down at you, looks considerable more alive than he did when you first un-buried him, but his gaze is still, for the most part, blank. That much is to be expected, but somehow, with the new surge of memories connected to the boy, it hurts to look at him. 

”Joshua’s grocery shopping,” he explains, rolls his shoulders almost as if he’s uncomfortable. You hum, let your gaze follow the lines of his face and the arch of his neck before you sit up and stretch. Outside, the sun is high on the sky; you must have been out for at least a few hours. “We’re at a motel. He said you needed rest.” 

”So you’ve just been creepily staring at me while I was sleeping, then?” you mutter, fingers clutching at your tense shoulder, nails digging into skin. Vernon exhales through his nose, drags a hand through his hair. He leans back in his chair, head slightly tilted as he watches your movements. 

”Joshua’s acting like I’m gonna burst into flames any moment,” Vernon says without really looking at you, seems to fall further into the plush of his chair. “It’s driving me crazy.” Somehow, you’re not sure if he really understands how unsettling that sentence is, considering. “Besides,” he continues, leaning a fraction closer to your spot on the bed. You feel strangely exposed, put on the spot by the sudden closeness. “I feel less dead when you’re here. Why is that?”

The confession, blunt and careless as it is, sends a shiver through your body, makes you feel off-kilter in a way that’s both completely too familiar and strange all at once. It makes you mourn for him, in a sense, to know that he still feels dead after being resurrected. It’s one of the prices you have to pay, you suppose, when you play around with something as important as life and death. It’s unfair, really, that he had to pay it, as little as he had to do with the resurrection itself. 

”I don’t know,” you tell him, leaning back on your arms for support. Your shoulders feel heavy, weighed down by the intensity of Vernon’s glare. It’s apparent that the boy’s not as easily swayed and endeared to dark creatures as his companion is. “I’m sure it’ll pass.” 

Vernon hums, a surprisingly soft sound that vibrates through his closed lips as he turns his gaze to the open window at the end of the tiny bedroom. “Isn’t it kind of funny? You’re the demon, but I’m the one who seems less human.” 

He doesn’t sound like he finds it funny at all. The inexplicable need to ease up the lines of tension in the lines of his face makes your fingers itch. 

”If it makes you feel any better,” you start with uncertainty coating your tongue and making it feel awkward in your mouth. You’ve never really been good at comfort, never been put in a position where you’ve felt like you have to consider your words and mind your tones. Vernon looks fierce, looks strong; his jawline sharp and his features more defined with the hours he’s spent back above the earth, but somehow his presence feels fragile, like a string pulled too thin. “I ripped open a casket and defiled a tombstone. As far as humanity goes, I think you’re still in the lead.”

Vernon’s lip twitches, tells in low whispers of a secret sort of smile that almost breaks out on his face. It’s a start, if nothing else. “It doesn’t,” he murmurs, with a distant sort of warmth to his low tones. “But thank you for trying.” 

The floorboards creak in the hallway, and when you snap your gaze in the direction of the barely open door, you see the flash of a figure disappearing from the opening. 

It’s hard to care about the fact that Joshua’s been eavesdropping when Vernon’s eyes shine as bright as you’ve seen them.

(The third night of your stay at the motel, you hear a garbled sort of scream coming from one of the connecting rooms. You jolt up in your own bed, sit up with your hands clutching at the sheets and your eyes squinted in an attempt at looking around the room. Your first thought is that someone’s found you, someone who does not approve of Joshua’s attempts at playing God. 

The aforementioned man himself appears in the doorway to your room, hair sticking out in every direction and face coated in a mixture of sleep and panic. 

“He’s having a nightmare,” he explains, and the organ in your chest relaxes a fraction; at least that means no demons or monsters are knocking down your doors yet. “I can’t–” he cuts himself off, a layer of shame taking over his expression. “I can’t wake him up.” 

There’s a tinge of resentment there, but underneath it you can hear the underlying tint of a question he’s reluctant to ask. You inhale, drag yourself out of the bed. Inexplicably, embarrassment burns at the back of your throat as you follow Joshua out into the hallway, the screams increasing in volume, it seems, with every step you take. Joshua pushes open the door to what you assume to be Vernon’s bedroom. 

The boy lies in his bed, knuckles as white as the sheets his fists are clutching to, and his skin shimmers brightly with a thin layer of sweat. You shoot Joshua an uncertain look, only moving into the bedroom when the man nods, presses a gentle hand to your shoulder blade. You chew on your bottom lip, approach the screaming boy and put your hands on his face. His skin feels like fire. 

“Vernon,” you murmur, realizing only after the fact that it’s the first time you’ve said his name out loud. He tries to wrestle his face out of your grip, but even in his sleeping panic, he’s got nothing on your inhuman strength. You dig your fingernails into his cheeks, force his face in your direction. You repeat his name, louder this time, more authoritative and with the barest tint of persuasive power slipping through your lips. “Wake up,” you tell him, more a command than anything else. 

When he obeys, it’s with a sharp intake of breath and a jolt as if he’s been struck by lightning. He stares at you as if he doesn’t quite recognize you, and for a moment you worry he’s about to start hyperventilating; his chest rising and falling a tad too rapidly. When at last he murmurs your name, it’s with a softness that makes you feel off-kilter and strange; not entirely an unpleasant feeling. You hear the door close behind you, and then it’s just the two of you in the darkness. 

“It was just a nightmare,” you tell him. A presumptuous statement, considering you know first hand how real dreams can turn out to be. Vernon grimaces, and when you make a move to remove your hands from his face, he moves quickly, hand coming up to grip at your wrist, keep your hand there.

“Was it, though?” He asks, eyes hooded. You feel the vibrations of his voice against your palm, and it almost makes your breath hitch. 

An affinity for humans, Hoseok had said. You thought you’d ridden yourself of that quality ages ago. The warmth that spreads through your body as Vernon sleepily leans against your palm tells another story. 

“You should sleep more,” you tell him, opting to ignore his question. He lets the hand that’s holding onto you fall, but does not loosen his grip, making your own arm fall against the mattress with it. “It’s still dark outside.” You hope he doesn’t notice the uneven quality of your voice. He falls back against his pillow. When you try to push yourself back up from your kneeling position next to the bed, his grasp around your wrist tightens, nails digging crescents into your skin. 

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t say anything, but somehow his eyes tell you everything you need to know; fear and shame battling for domination in his expression. You sit back down against the cold floor, lean your back against the side of the bed, and only then does he let go of your wrist.

You spend the rest of the night listening to the discordant song of your heart beating in your chest, almost, sort of in tune with Vernon’s breath as it evens out and he falls back asleep.)

~~

A long time ago, when you had a companion of your own, you were often told of how you carried yourself as if you were a cold, cynic being of the underworld, but that underneath you hid a myriad of too strong emotions. You used to vehemently deny this accusation, scrunch up your nose and make some sort of scathing remark.

But now, weeks into your new companionship with a makeshift doctor for demons and humans alike and a recently dead boy, you can’t really find it in you to deny it anymore. 

Vernon is starting to act more like a human being again, chuckles at your throwaway jokes and chides Joshua for his hovering with true emotion coated in his voice. He still has nightmares, still clutches at your skin after every one of them. You’ve started renting only two bedrooms at the motels you stay at. Joshua looks at you with suspicion in his otherwise gentle face, but he says nothing.

“Sometimes I still feel the lashes across my back,” Vernon whispers, his breaths hitting your face with each syllable. Joshua might keep quiet, might keep his emotions masked and his true thoughts unheard, but Vernon– Vernon talks like he’ll cease to exist if he doesn’t. He tells you about his nightmares, about how he can’t be sure whether they’re just that– dreams, or if they’re suppressed memories from his time in the underworld. You want to assure him that they’re the former, want to reach out and smooth out the wrinkles of stress on his face, but somehow the sight of him steals away your ability to move and all you can do is listen. 

You’re not sure if he even notices how touchy he becomes once he’s grown used to your presence next to him; his fingers running absentminded lines and shapes over your exposed skin, pressing into your flesh when he recalls something especially uncomfortable. It’s a strange shift, when he goes from that unintentionally restrained nonchalance that drifts over him sometimes during the day, emotions seemingly not the default setting in his brain, to that wide open, vulnerable and genuine being he is when the sun disappears behind the trees. 

You think Joshua might be jealous that Vernon somehow feels more comfortable opening up to you than he feels towards his oldest friend. You want to tell him it’s just because he wants to spare him of the gruesome details. It’s easy to think, with just one glance, that Joshua is the protective one out of the two; the truth is that the boys seem to share a bond that’s so genuine and so fiercely loyal that nothing even comes close, least of all you, the newcomer. 

So maybe, then, you’re the jealous one. 

“I want to try something,” Vernon says quietly, voice barely above a whisper and almost not loud enough to pull you out of your train of thought. When you focus your gaze back up at his face, there’s open hesitation visible in the soft lines of his face. His fingers stop at the edge of your shoulder, plays with the hem of your t-shirt. You can’t be sure if the way his gaze drops for a moment, seemingly lingering at the bottom of your face, is a trick of the light or an actual thing. Whatever the case, it makes you heart do a weird sort of jump in your chest. “If that’s okay with you.” 

“Sure,” you whisper, try to keep your voice steady. The exhale that leaves Vernon’s mouth if nothing if not relieved. And then he’s shifting on the bed, his hands coming up to rest against your cheekbones in a scene at almost perfectly mirrors the one that had started your shared living situation in the first place. At first you think that might be all he wants to do, to press his fingertips into the flesh of your cheeks and rub his fingers along the edges of your lips, but then he’s leaning closer, his eyes falling shut, and you forget how to breathe.

You’ve been kissed before, of course; by multiple people and in multiple circumstances. Some of them were slow and meaningful, others just a means to seal a deal. None of them felt quite like this. Vernon clutches at your face as if his own actions terrifies him, as if he’s not wholly sure that he should be doing what he’s doing. He breathes through his nose, sharp huffs of air against your skin, and for a moment all there is to it is a press of lips against lips. It’s nothing, all things considered, but somehow it feels like it’s everything. His pulse feels like a drum against your skin.

Somewhere between the tenth and the fifteenth beat of your heart, he seems to gain confidence, pulling at your face as if he wants to consume you, lips moving just enough to make your own hands grasp at the front of his shirt. Every inch of your body feels like it’s on fire; the feeling too much, too overwhelming, too pleasant for you even to consider what that means. When Vernon pulls his face away from yours, something that sounds partly like an exhale and partly like a giggle escapes his mouth, and your heart literally soars.

“Did you figure it out?” you ask breathlessly, head swimming and skin itching. Your lips feel cold, wet without his own pressed against them, and an impulse you barely manage to fight back urges you to lean after him. Vernon swallows thickly, his hands not leaving your face.

“I’m not sure,” he says with a sort of wonder coating the tones of his voice. He sounds more like himself, like the image of him that you stole from his parents, than he has ever done before. His gaze falls back down to your lips and he murmurs, “I think I should try again.” 

You put your fingers gingerly at the back of his ears and you pull. You let him try again. And again. And again and again until you can’t even remember what the purpose of it all was in the first place.

~~

More weeks pass, and somehow you fall into a routine. The routine consists of you telling yourself to withdraw yourself from the previous duo of two human boys, to leave before things get messy, followed by doing the exact opposite. You let Vernon tangle his fingers with your own in quiet, unnoticed moments, let him trail kisses along your jawline and press his fingernails into your hips, and you pretend that you’re not getting completely swallowed up by a boy who’s still learning how to feel again.

(Joshua, on the other hand, does not pretend not to notice, though that would’ve been the – in your opinion – more polite, less annoying thing to do.)

When two weeks pass without incident, without nightmares, you tell yourself you’re going to stop sleeping in the same bed as him. Joshua squints, glares intensely at you when you interrupt him at the counter of the next motel and tell the manager that you’ll need three bedrooms rather than two. Vernon almost doesn’t look nonchalant. 

He comes into your room later that night, whispered words of apologies and worries eager to tumble out of his mouth. Has he done something wrong, he wonders. Has he made you uncomfortable, forced his intimacy on you without caring about your wishes? He’s careful not to speak of feelings, but there’s a distinct undercurrent of the thing, nonetheless. 

(”Listen,” Joshua says, pulling you out of your clouded mind and troubled thoughts. When you look up to meet his gaze, there’s a sort of hardness to his expression that makes you feel oddly put in place, even before he’s opened his mouth. “We need to talk about you and Vernon.”)

“No,” you tell him, truthfully, with a heart that hammers too hard, feels to exposed. “I just thought, you haven’t had any nightmares lately. Figured you’d want to try sleeping on your own again.” You’re careful not to talk about your own wants, or your own wishes, scared of something you’re not ready to voice slipping through your gritted teeth. 

“And if I don’t?” He asks, as if it’s a challenge, as if he’s revealing his cards just by virtue of the question. “Will you keep sleeping with me, then?” The phrasing catches you off guard, makes your skin feel hot and your palms sweaty. His own eyes widen, his face clearly reddened even in the darkness. He mutters, almost reluctantly, “You know what I mean.” 

(”What about me and Vernon?” You ask, as if the notion of the two of you put together in a sentence is absolutely ludicrous. Joshua’s gaze sharpens, and somehow you think you’ve said the wrong thing. Unfortunately for you both, you’re not known for folding against a challenge. You put your chin in the palm of your hand, stare back at him with venom that mirrors his own harsh expression.

“Vernon’s still learning how to be alive again, he doesn’t need you confusing him,” Joshua says, and at least you can give him credit for putting it bluntly and not beating around the bush. The accusation stings, more than you expected it to, and for a moment you can’t muster up any sort of response. “I don’t mind having you here, but if you’re just playing games, you should leave.”

There’s finality in his tone, and for a second you entertain the idea. He’s right, of course, in that you should leave. Hanging around humans clearly isn’t good for your mental health, and certainly not for your reputation. But the sight of Vernon’s smile, still awkward and kind of uncertain, drifts to the forefront of your mind, and makes your breath come out as a shudder.

“You have to stop babying him, Joshua,” you murmur, attempt to make your voice as soft and smooth as possible. “Vernon’s more resilient than you think.”)

The smart thing to do, you think, is to tell Vernon to go back to his room, to get used to sleeping alone. There’s no need, really, for the two of you to share quarters anymore, and you’re sure that the reason he’s so reluctant to do so is that he’s gotten used to the shared warmth of two bodies in one bed. You tell yourself this, force yourself to believe it, because any other line of thinking undoubtedly only leads to heartbreak. But the mind; the mind is such a treacherous thing, and the thing that comes out of your mouth instead is: 

“Of course.”

You move over, make space from him on the mattress, and when Vernon climbs in with something that sounds too much like a relieved sigh, lies down and pulls you against his chest, you can’t do anything but chastise yourself for letting yourself so wrapped up in the boy that refusing him seems like such an impossibility. His arm feels heavy over your waist, his feet cold as they tangle up in your own, but somehow, sleep has never come more easily.

~~

The first time you sleep with Vernon, it’s an accident. Sort of.

You’re both more than a little buzzed, empty cans of beer littered over the floor and air hot with tension. Joshua has disappeared off to god knows where – something, you notice, he seems to do a lot these days – and the two of you are, more than ever, alone.

Vernon’s eyes are hooded, but his gaze is full of intent as he stares in you direction on the other side of the table. You try not to feel scrutinized, busy yourself with finishing off your beer. He reaches for your free hand where it lies with fingers spread over the brown wood of the table, intertwines his digits with your own and pulls. “Come here,” he murmurs, voice laced with the uneven notes of someone who’s had a tad too much to drink to be completely sharp in their pronunciations. 

You comply, pushing yourself to your feet and walking around the small table to stand in front of his own seated form. He stares up at you with a sort of twinkle you can’t be sure if comes from the dim lights in the roof of the room or from something else entirely. He snakes an arm around your waist and pulls, wraps his legs around yours and presses the side of his face to your stomach. 

It’s somehow both an oddly innocent and intimate action all at once, his fingertips slipping past the hem of your shirt to lightly skim over the skin of your back. He exhales, the sound stutter-y. When he speaks, the words vibrate against your stomach and you place your hands at his shoulders, if only because you think your feet might give out if you don’t. 

“I somehow imagined a demon to have cold skin,” he tells you, affection blatantly present in his voice as he presses his fingertips along your spine. He twists his head, his nose poking against your ribcage. The feeling makes you squirm, but it’s not wholly unpleasant. “You’re warm,” he whispers, voice muffled by the fabric of your shirt. “You have a heartbeat, too.”

You clutch at his sweater, try to stop yourself from shivering as you look down into his mess of curls. You could tell yourself it’s the alcohol that makes your heart rate speed up, that makes you want to press your thumb against the pulse in his neck and lean down to hide your face in his hair. But in this; in this honest and semi-drunken moment of intimacy, you allow yourself to be candid, if only to yourself. 

You really are falling for this silly, strange human.

“It’s just the benefits of a human host,” you murmur, not without humor, tangle your fingers into his hair, massaging his scalp in a show of affection you’ll probably berate yourself for later. Vernon hums, and you feel the upwards curve of his lips against your stomach even with the layer of fabric between your skin and his mouth. You wonder how it looks, feels a bizarre need to see how each and every sort of smile paints his face. “There’s still a scary, dark creature hiding underneath my skin.”

“Interesting,” he muses. Then he’s staring up at you, chin pressing into your stomach. His fingers inches upwards along your back, scrunching up your shirt as he goes. 

“Sometimes I feel like I’m taking advantage of you,” he confesses, cheeks red with more than just alcohol. The moment feels heavy, life-changing, somehow. His fingers inch higher, plays with the strap of your bra. “Like you’re just indulging me because of the whole… being dead thing.” 

You feel like if you were ever going to admit that you often feel the same way, that you fear that you’re abusing the soothing effect your presence seems to have on him, it would be now. That if you were going to confess that your heart seems to skip a beat every time he as much as looked your way, this would be the opportune moment.

But you never were the most courageous of demons, so instead you tell him; 

“As if a weak human boy could take advantage of a powerful demon like me.” 

Vernon laughs at that; a true laugh, a laugh that starts in his stomach and erupts out of his mouth as if it can’t help itself. It makes his mouth spread in a smile that is too wide, that makes his upper lip nothing but a thin line and that shows off a beautiful row of white teeth. That makes your heart do a strange wallop and that makes unbidden words curl your tongue in your mouth. 

Vernon stands up, his face light with humor and your shirt inch even further up your body. He takes a few steps, his face tilting slightly to angle itself against yours. “Is this okay?” He asks, pulls at your shirt as if to emphasize. You take hold of the bottom of your own shirt, pull it off in one swift movement, and once the garment is discarded, you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him into perhaps the first kiss between the two of you that you’ve initiated. 

He exhales through his nose, digs his fingers into your skin and blindly guides you in the general direction of the bed in the other end of the room. You both fall down on the hard mattress, the air knocked out of you for more reasons than the impact, and when Vernon situates himself between your legs, grounds his pelvis against yours in such a forceful, needy motion that it makes your breath catch, you can’t even muster up the will to feel bad about your choices.

(The pendant you always wear around your neck – a gift from a friend from a long, long time ago – is nowhere to be seen when you wake up to an empty bed the next day. It reappears, though, around Vernon’s neck when you find him outside chatting with Joshua. He looks at you like you’ve hung the bright, yellow sun in the sky and you can’t make yourself ask for the piece of jewelry back.)

~~

“I want to apologize to you,” Joshua says, seemingly out of nowhere, while the two of you raid the dairy aisle at the local 24 hours mart near the newest motel. The sincerity in his voice makes you pause, squinting in his direction as if you could decipher what he’s talking about if only you stared hard enough. 

“What for?” you relent at last, unable to summon up some sort of mind reader abilities out of nowhere. Joshua shrugs, grabs a carton of milk from the nearest shelf, looks around as if he’s  about to reveal some big secret. 

“For what I said about your thing with Vernon,” he tells you, and the mere mention of your… ‘thing with Vernon’ makes your face heat up. Suddenly, the laces on your shoes become intensely interesting, and you can’t quite look up from the floor. 

“Yes,” you reply, dragging out the vowel and making your tone carefully blank. You take care not to play into the confession you can tell he’s trying to drag out of you, responding instead with your natural instinct; to make a joke out of it. “I was sort of offended that you doubted my nanny-ing abilities.” Even to your own ears, the quip falls flat, and you grimace, grateful that you can’t see the look on the man’s face. Joshua hums, as he so often does whenever you’ve said something he finds interesting or telling for some reason.

“If that’s what you want to call it,” he allows, a sort of playful edge to his voice letting you know that he does not fall for your attempts at dodging the subject. He clears his throat, shuffles on his feet, and you can tell, without even looking at him, that he’s about to spout some typical human sincerities at you. “I see how the two of you look at each other. I’m sorry for misjudging you, that’s all.”

You’re about to reply, to follow up with another obviously dodgy joke, when Vernon appears from somewhere behind you, carrying a basket full of beer and snacks. He stops just a step too close for comfort following the conversation you’ve just had with Joshua, and when he presses a hand to the small of your back your neck tingles almost uncomfortably. “What’re you guys talking about?”

Joshua, to his credit, seems to catch quite quickly that you’re not wholly inclined to indulge more into the subject and lifts up the carton of milk instead, shaking it lightly with a pleasant smile on his face. “Milk,” he says, his tone so ridiculously bright that it must be the most obvious lie in the world. 

“Riveting,” Vernon replies, his thumb traveling along your spine in a slow, almost tantalizing line. Joshua rolls his eyes, strides past the both of you with a knowing look sent in your direction.

“Let’s get back to the motel,” he says, and then he’s walking towards the cashier as if he can’t get out of the store quickly enough. Once he’s out of sight, Vernon stares you down for a moment, before pressing a quick, casual kiss to your lips. It’s the sort of kiss you imagine couples must share; an afterthought more than a statement, but meaningful nonetheless. It makes you think about Vernon’s worries about taking advantage, about your own thoughts in that direction. 

You’ve dawdled too long, you conclude, watching the two men’s backs as you all retreat out of the store and back to the car. You barely even feel sick when you ride it anymore. Unease grips at your bones as you make a decision. 

It’s time to go back to your job as the memory stealer. Somehow you didn’t imagine you’d ever be your own client.

~~

You find Vernon at the top of a hill a few days later, head tilted back and with a beer in his hand. Once you step closer, you see stars reflected in his wide open eyes, his expression relaxed and neutral as he taps absentmindedly against the metal of the beer can. Your heart feels heavy, head buzzing with exhaustion and pulling at the frayed edges of reality; it’s already hard to distinguish what is real and what isn’t.

“I need to tell you something,” you say by way of greeting, stopping right next to him and making yourself comfortable on the grass. The vibrant, green strands tickle against your skin, but somehow the feeling just makes you heavier. Vernon turns his head to the side, looks at you with worry in the creases between his brows. 

“Something wrong?” he asks, and not for the first time you’re impressed with how far he’s come in terms of reading the mood. It’s easy to forget that just a mere two months ago, he barely even knew what a joke was, could not sleep without being overwhelmed by night terrors. You shrug. 

“There was a boy once,” you start, deciding to just jump right into it. You try remembering when you told this story last, when you muttered the name that now resides on a gravestone that used to read ‘Hansol Vernon Chwe’, but you come up empty. “His name was Jihoon. He was a human, too.” 

Vernon watches, his mouth pulled into a tight, carefully blank line. He does not speak. 

“We were kinda like you and Joshua, I guess; companions on the road. He hated me at first,” there’s some nostalgia there, some fondness hidden beneath all the hurt. It had been an unfortunate – not to mention ridiculous – curse that had brought you together at first, that had forced you and the temperamental, small human to travel together. By the time you found the cause of it, a bond had already formed. You tell Vernon this, explain your whole history in short, stunted sentences.

Your words start cracking once you get to the part with the vampires, with Jihoon begging you to let him die, to make sure he didn’t turn. To the part where you disregarded your friend’s – because you do not call Jihoon your lover, even if that might have been the more accurate term – wishes out of your own selfishness. “I haven’t seen him since.” 

“Sounds like you cared about him a lot,” Vernon says, his voice somewhere between understanding and something far less pleasant. He brushes his fingers along your knuckles, seems to hesitate with really touching you. “Where’s this going?” You frown, take a deep breath. No point in stalling the inevitable, you suppose. 

“I’m a curse,” you tell him, fingers grasping for strands of grass as if you need something to keep you grounded. Vernon makes a joke about being surprised that demons are superstitious, and had the mood not been so somber, you might have been proud that he seems to have adopted your penchant for cracking jokes when things get too serious. You take hold of his face, make sure to keep eye contact. “I’ll just get to the point. I’ve made Joshua forget about me.”

Vernon’s already large eyes widen almost comically. He tries to wrestle his face out from between your hands. It’s a futile attempt, of course, but you applaud him for his effort. “What the fuck?” He sputters, his fingernails digging into your wrists forcefully enough to hurt. You wince. 

“You don’t need me anymore,” you tell him, and suddenly you wish you had some sort of pre-rehearsed speech ready. The absolutely horrified look on Vernon’s face makes you feel sick, makes you want to disappear. “And I wasn’t supposed to stick around this long in the first place.” 

It’s a lie, of course; nothing but a shallow, selfish excuse. The truth is that you’re scared. That you haven’t felt something as strong as whatever it is you’re feeling for Vernon since Jihoon, decades and decades ago. And at this point, you’re not sure if it would be worse if he reciprocated those feelings, or if he didn’t.

“What the fuck does need matter?” Vernon hisses, his voice almost poisonous in his growing anger. He tries, once again, to force your hands away from their steel grip on his face. “I want you here. Joshua wanted you here. You have no right to fuck with our memories.” Your eyes feel wet, and you ponder at how long it has been since you last cried. This part, you prepared for; this part you have a response to, cruel as it might be.

“Just like I had no right to fuck with your parents’ memories?” you bite back, every word feeling like a dagger to your own chest. The scandalized look on Vernon’s face does little to help the situation. But still, you keep going. “There’s no moral high ground in these matters. This is my job.” There’s heartbreak open and visible in the lines of Vernon’s face, so genuine and so real that you almost believe in it. 

“I’m so stupidly, irrationally in love with you,” you tell him, press a dry, simple but undoubtedly meaningful kiss to his down-turned lips. You feel a strip of something wet run down your cheeks, feel the taste of salt at your bottom lip. “And I can’t stand it. I have to go.”

Vernon’s eyes turn blank, and you know that the continuous force of energy you’ve forced upon him has finally taken effect. You give him simple instructions, enough to make him get back to Joshua and the motel, but not enough to make his brain go haywire. 

And then you leave, disappearing in a cloud of smoke. For the first time in decades, you feel the taste of ashes on your tongue.

(The necklace Jihoon gave you used to be that one thing that anchored you, that made you feel real when memories tried to overtake you. The only thing you feel now when you put your hand up towards your neck is the bone at your collar and the distinct feel of loss. I love you I love you I love you echoes in your head, forceful as a punch to the face. 

It doesn’t echo in your own tone of voice.)

~~

Six months later, you get your first customer since your prolonged leave of absence.

At least, you assume it’s a customer, because only someone who comes to your new house with the right code in the form of four precise presses of the doorbell knows who you really are; The Memory Stealer. 

You’re sleepy, dizzy as you push yourself off of the couch and take the mandatory steps towards the front door. Your back complains in the form of a stinging pain with the less than ideal position you’ve been sleeping in these past few months; somehow you can’t quite get yourself to sleep in a bed.

All of that is completely forgotten when you open up the door, a familiar face greeting you on the porch. There’s something more human about his features than you’ve ever seen before, something more innocent and questioning, but the person standing in front of you is undoubtedly, heartbreakingly none other than Vernon Hansol Chwe. 

“Hiya,” he says, his voice light and airy and unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. He smiles in that way you’ve preferred to remember him; his lips stretched too thin and his teeth almost blinding. For a moment, you falter, stuck in your own lingering emotions. But then he says; “You’re the one they call the memory stealer, right?” and the bile in your throat seems to soothe, the pain in your chest lingering, but not overwhelming. ‘Right’ you murmur in response, and then he’s pushing past you, entering your home with all the gusto of someone who doesn’t know what fear feels like. It’s as heartwarming as it it frustrating.

Vernon twists his head from side to side, takes in the empty walls and the non-decorated home you live in. He turns back to look at you, tilts his head in a way that reminds you of precise kisses and whispered words.

“You sure took a long way to track down,” he tells you, fiddling with the hem of his own jacket. You try not to lean into the pleasant tones of his voice, try not to remember how much you’ve missed Vernon and his soft, plump mouth. 

“Is that so?” you reply, the question detached and not really a question. “What did you come for?”

Vernon stares at you, sizes you up and down as if he wants to fight. Then he’s grasping at a thread around his neck, and a pendant you recognize all to well appears from underneath the neck of his sweater. “Do your recognize this?” he asks, and all at once your body seems to shut down; your legs wobbling and your breath hitching so loudly and so quickly it rasps against the walls of your throat. 

“I’m so mad at you,” he says, taking a few measured steps to end up right in front of you, staring you down. He cups your face, and only then do you realize that your cheeks are wet. Vernon’s thumbs rub against the innermost parts of your cheekbones, and you feel so holy, so heavenly that you fear you might actually burst into flames.

“You’re lucky I’m so stupidly, irrationally in love with you,” Vernon says, and his smile is wide enough, bright enough to put the sun itself to shame.

#svt fanfic #seventeen fanfic #svt imagines #seventeen imagines #svt x reader #seventeen x reader #seventeen scenarios #svt scenarios

[wr-n]

Bleeding Trail

A Snare and Tag fic

683 words TW: Abuse, unsympathetic character, hurt/no comfort, blood, mention of past abuse

[PLEASE BE CAREFUL]

Blood stains slowly drip down the drain, their plip-plip-plips echo around the bathroom walls. The sink below him was dyed a caution orange, matching the small trickle from his nasal passage.

"A...ngh..." He bit his tongue to suppress the whimper clawing up his throat. He felt pitiful like all the other times he was here. But he couldn't linger, no, he couldn't tempt another punishment for being away. ____________________________________________________________

"What were you doing?" Snare snipped at him, suspicious eyes zeroing in on his form in the hallway. Tag had to swallow thickly to clear the anxious clog in his throat, "I w-was just c-cleaning my f-face."

They stood in tense silence then, but it took mere moments before Tag's mind broke down and started self-destructing. His eye lights waver as his vision swims, his body quaking like he’d suddenly caught a seizure. Please, please don’t hurt me, is all his mind could conjure up amidst the maelstrom of paralyzing fear.

He felt the beginnings of a scream claw up his throat like a wild animal desperate for escape before something snapped his head to the side. It was a moment before his sight cleared and registered that he had been slapped across the face.

“Fucking pull it together. And don’t take so long next time or I’ll give you a real reason to lose your shit.”

____________________________________________________________

Newly motivated by the memory, he reached for the roll of toilet paper and with trembling hands cleaned the blood from his face and clothes. A stain he no doubt would have to try and get out later when Snare let him be.

He made quick work of it and moved down the hall once more to see his abuser on his phone in the kitchen. He must’ve been too busy with whatever he was doing on it because Tag’s arrival hadn’t caught his attention. Tag lowered his head and moved to sit on the floor beside the stool Snare sat on, barefoot on the icy floorboards. If he had gone anywhere else, he was sure to invite more bruises.

The last time he sat in a chair was just before moving in, and then was promptly ‘educated’ once Snare was sure he’d never be able to run away. He was almost ready to spiral when a large warm hand settled on his head and his body grew rigid. What was it this time? Did he do something? Was he going to be punished again?

“Did you do your chores?”

Tag scrambled and desperately pulled at the memories to see if he had. No, he was sure he had. He always did.

“Y-Y-Yes. I-I did them like you told me t-to…”

A pause and then a hum. Uh oh.

“Like I told you to? You mean if I go in there and find them done wrong, you’re going to blame me?”

The grip on his hooded skull tightened and caused a sob to escape Tag’s throat. Fuck, no, that wasn’t what he meant.

“N-No, I w-w-would never blame you…! I-I just did them w-wrong…” He rasped desperately, eyelights fizzling into scattered particles in his mania. If he messed this up- god, he already did, didn’t he? He should just get hit now and get this over with.

But the silence was far worse than the pain that accompanied it, a firm impact to his skull left Tag’s thoughts scattered across the dining room floor. Stars dance in his vision as he tipped forward and caught himself from planting his face in the wood.

“.... Make me something to eat”, as all he said.

And that was all he needed to say for Tag’s body to go into autopilot. His mind was spiraling but his body knew the way. By the time he was functional again, he had finished eggs and sausage. He blinked dumbly down at the sizzling pan before plating the food and placing it in front of Snare.

… Maybe he’ll like the food this time.

… Maybe he won’t put his hand in the pan this time.

… Maybe he’ll let him sleep tonight.

[End.]

Phew! It's been a while since I've written a story, sorry it was short. I hope this was fun for some of you to read ^^

#wraith notes #wraith writes #Snare #Tag #abuse #unsympathetic character

[shaesinflames]

Burned Bridges

Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo’s relationship has been incredibly strained since the rainbow infection began to spread, but no pony understands why.

Rainbow Dash tapped lightly on the door with her hoof. No pony answered, but she let herself in anyways. A tray of food balanced on one of her wings, and she had to maneuver awkwardly through the door to keep it from spilling. She squinted through the darkness; all the curtains in the room had been drawn, and only the faint sunlight that managed to slip between the cracks of the fabric illuminated the room. A small orange shape was hunched in one of the shadowed corners, and it shrunk further when open door let more light in.

“Hey, Scoot,” Rainbow called softly. “Can I come in?”

“No,” Scootaloo growled. “Leave me alone.”

Rainbow frowned and took another step inside, shutting the door behind her. She carefully slid the tray off her wing onto the table by the bed, then crossed to the other side of the room and pulled the curtains open. Scootaloo groaned as her fur was washed with sunlight, and she huddled further into herself.

“I brought you some food,” Rainbow said, standing over the little heap of feathers and fur.

“I’m not hungry,” Scootaloo snapped. She flattened her ears with her hooves and screwed her violet eyes tightly shut, rejecting Rainbow Dash’s presence with all of her being.

“Pinkie said you haven’t been taking your share of the rations,” Rainbow continued, ignoring the obvious hostility radiating off of the little pony. “You’re worrying everyone, Scoot. You have to eat.”

Scootaloo didn’t respond. Her tail thumped against the floor as if it were trying to shoo an annoying fly.

A tense silence followed as Rainbow fumbled for the next thing to say, and Scootaloo tried to pretend she wasn’t there.

Rainbow scoffed, her ruffled feathers making her wings twitch in agitation.

“You know, you can’t treat me like this forever,” she said with a glare. “You don’t have the right to try and guilt trip me. I saved you, Scootaloo!”

Finally earning a reaction, Scootaloo’s head whipped around, her eyes wide and glittering with resentment as she scowled at her former hero.

“Are you serious?” she snarled. “Have you gone insane? How selfish can you possibly be?”

“That’s not fair, I-“

“Saved? You call this being saved?” She tore on without letting Rainbow Dash get a word in, the anger bubbling inside of her rousing her to her hooves. “Cloudsdale has been abandoned. Pegasi are dying. I don’t know where my parents or my aunts are, or if they’re even still alive. Equestria is falling apart around us, and it’s all because you were such a coward!”

Rainbow’s wings shot open in indignation. She was taken aback by Scootaloo’s ferocity, but the fillies anger had only sparked Rainbow’s own. She thrust her muzzles into Scootaloo’s face, her teeth bared.

“You can’t pin all of this on me!” She spat. “You can’t fly, Scootaloo, the Rainbow Factory was going to take you one day no matter what. If I hadn’t been there, you would be dead.”

“I wish I was dead!” Scootaloo screamed, her voice catching in her throat as she choked out a dry sob. Tears brimmed in her eyes but she forced them back, her legs trembling as she struggled to hold her ground. “I would die a thousand times over if it would stop the infection from ever happening! I would do anything if it meant saving everyone. The fact that you don’t understand that means you really aren’t the pony I thought you were.”

Rainbow’s anger faltered, and a familiar look of regret and guilt darkened her expression.

“I didn’t know this would happen,” she murmured. “I only wanted to protect you. I never would’ve thought that…”

“If you wanted to protect me, you should’ve done something about the factory when you had a chance,” Scootaloo glared at her unsympathetically. “You could’ve told ponies. You could’ve revealed the truth and made a difference. You could’ve saved so many pegasi, but you only ever cared about yourself. Now look. We’re doomed.”

Rainbow’s head hung with shame. A long, sorrowful sigh escaped her, and she forced herself to straighten back up.

“I can’t change the past,” she resigned. “We just have to hope that Twilight can find a cure to save whoever is left.”

Scootaloo stared at her. She sat down heavily, as if her legs had lost the will to support her, and shook her head dejectedly.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered, speaking more to herself than Rainbow. “I can’t do this…. I can’t do this… get out.”

“Scoot-“

“GET OUT!” Scootaloo shrieked, shaking her head more violently and stomping her front hooves. “GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!”

Rainbow stared at her in dismay, her mouth opening and closing as she grasped for something to say, but Scootaloo bellowed on and on without even pausing to breathe.

Rapid hoof-steps closed in from the other side of the door. With a thundering bang it flew open and slammed into the wall, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom standing in the doorway with terrified expressions.

“What in Celestia is happening?” Apple Bloom demanded.

Rainbow looked over her shoulder at them, her eyes wide with shock, but Scootaloo continued to scream as if she didn’t realize anyone had arrived.

Belle and Bloom raced over to their friend and threw themselves in between her and Rainbow, forcing the older Pegasus to take a few paces back.

“You need to leave, Rainbow Dash,” Sweetie Belle said firmly, meeting Rainbow’s eyes with a venomous glare.

“I-I-I was just-“

“You need to leave, now,” Apple Bloom reiterated, taking a step forward and forcing Rainbow further back.

She swallowed thickly and looked past them at Scootaloo. Her screaming had dwindled into a silent, breathless sob, and her entire body trembled like a leaf as she hid her face with her hooves once again.

“Okay,” Rainbow agreed, her voice tight as she backed out of the room. She paused in the hallway for a second, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Scootaloo,” she said as Apple Bloom slammed the door in her face.

#sorry if this is out of character I’ve never written any of these characters before lmao #mlp #my little pony #infection au #rainbow factory #rainbow dash #Scootaloo #sweetie belle #apple bloom #cutiemark crusaders #fanfic

[riptide-if]

Hilo Kalua Mahoe [they/them, 22] has always been content to stay on the sidelines. As long as you've known Hilo (which is like, practically your whole life) they've never been much of a talker. Often as children you often had to do the talking for them. As a teen they shifted from silence to snark, unsympathetic and snide towards anyone they feel deserves it, though you remained one of the few who they remained gentle and friendly with. One person that got that former treatment was Lee— the entire time you two were dating. You could never quite understand why.

Hilo stands at 5'10 with a slim, willowy build. They have deep olive skin. Their face is oval shaped with a septum piercing; the ring always being gold. Their eyes are dark green. They have very long, wavy, black hair. Their hair falls just past their hips; sometimes in a braid or bun, but usually down with small braids littered throughout. Their usual clothing style is flowy and calm; earthy tones, long skirts, tank tops, ruffled tops, bell sleeve tops, sandals, flowy dresses, cardigans. They're never not seen wearing at least one piece of jewelry. They wear gold earrings in multiple places in their ears; sans industrial. In their ear lobes is a pair of orange bead earrings with a gold moon charm on the left ear and a gold star charm on the right ear. On their wrists are three braided friendship bracelets; one with orange and yellow string from Aria, one with orange and navy blue string from Arlo, and the final one being from MC. A gold infinity ring is on one of their fingers. Gold necklaces are layered on their neck. They have long almond shaped acrylics; colors and designs varying. A new moon tattoo is on their upper arm.

#character intros #about: hilo kalua mahoe #sorry for long appearnce bl;urb. im crazy

[zablife]

Snowflakes on the Windowpane

Alfie Solomons x girlfriend reader

Summary: As you watch the snow fall lightly on the windowpane, Alfie can tell you want to venture outside to enjoy the beauty of the season. However, he does not share your enthusiasm for cold weather and tries without success to keep you and Cyril indoors. Will you be able to lure your grumpy bear of a man out to play in the snow?  

Author’s Note: Written for @raincoffeeandfandoms Secret Santa Event. Request was for Alfie fluff with no cheating. I decided to write about winter rather than Christmas since Alfie is Jewish. 

Warnings: language, reference to sex but nothing explicit, mention of injury (third party), fluff, tiny threat at the end (I promise it's playful and no harm intended)

The first snow of winter began during dinner and you squealed with delight when you saw it. Your mind instantly conjured fond childhood memories of snowball fights and sledding with your brothers. Even as an adult you could spend hours in the cold weather without feeling a chill.

You found the effect of the air invigorating and couldn’t help but chat animatedly about it’s benefits all throughout dinner much to Alfie’s chagrin. He nodded politely as you spoke, but you could tell he relished his warm meal and crackling fire. When he took you to bed that night, he found a way to steer your mind away from outdoor activities, ensuring all you desired was time in bed with him. As you fell asleep skin to skin, your thoughts remained on Alfie.

However, the next morning you couldn’t keep your eyes from the windows. A light snow was still falling outside, a bright white blanket covering everything as far as your eye could see. The beautiful pinks and oranges of the morning light were just dawning over the horizon, tiny crystals of snow catching the light and sparkling back at you. The quiet beauty of it beckoned to you as though you would be the first to discover it’s secrets.

Carefully opening the window next to the sofa, you lazily drew a small heart on the window sill and breathed in the fresh, crisp air. 

“What are you doing with the windows open? You’ll catch cold, dove,” Alfie said, coming to cover you with a blanket. 

“Alfie, look how beautiful it is! Have you ever seen anything like it?”

“Mmm, yes, I have. Even more breathtaking if you ask me,” he said, nuzzling his nose in your hair. You turned to kiss him, appreciative of the compliment. However, you knew he was trying to distract you from going outside. Alfie hated cold weather and would do anything to avoid it. His ideal winter day was staying curled up by the fire with a cup of tea and a good book. The problem was he wanted you right by his side.

“Alf, we always stay indoors when it snows. Please let’s go out while it’s lovely and fresh,” you begged him. 

Alfie furrowed his brow in disapproval. “Pet, you’re worse than Cyril! If we go out there, you won’t want to come back until I’ve got frostbite!”

“You’re exaggerating. One walk through the neighborhood won’t kill you!” you said and before he could protest further, you picked yourself up from the sofa and ran for the door. As you began layering on your coat and hat, you watched Alfie shuffle toward you dramatically holding his back.

“What is it now, darling?” you asked unsympathetically. 

“No, don’t worry. It’s just me sciatica playing up. You go on without me,” he said, waving his hand at you to leave him.

“That’s no excuse, old man!” you teased. “Here take your cane,” you offered, unwilling to let him get away so easily. 

“I know when you’re lying to me,” you reminded him. “You didn’t seem to have any problems last night in the bedroom,” you reminded him with a cheeky smile. 

“Well, that’s different innit?” he replied as he reluctantly grabbed his overcoat. “That was someplace I wanted to go,” he muttered.

You smacked him on his shoulder, “I heard that Alfie!”

Stepping outside you marveled at the dagger like icicles hanging from the roof. Your inner child was urging you to snap them off and you couldn’t resist, a gloved hand reaching for one overhead as the melting ice glistened in the morning sunlight. No sooner had your hand brushed it, Alfie called out to you. 

“No, no….leave it where it fucking is!” he scolded, smacking your hand away with his cane. “You go messin’ about with one and down they all go. I knew a lad at school who had a butchers at one of them bloody things and lost an eye.”

“Are you serious?” you gulped. He nodded at you solemnly.

You backed away slowly so as not to disturb the icicles or your boyfriend further. Opening the door for Cyril, you whistled for him to join you, anxious for more light hearted company. The pup came bounding down the front steps running to you and jumping with excitement. “At least someone appreciates the snow,” you remarked. 

As you watched Cyril take laps around you, you knew what was needed to brighten the mood. You reached down as though you were going to pet Cryil and stealthily made a few snowballs. Then as soon as Alfie’s back was turned, you pelted him between the shoulder blades with your expertly made weapon. As he spun around to find you, he cursed, “Fuckin’ hell!”

You snickered behind your gloved hand as he pointed a finger in your direction, “Y/n, you’re behaving like a child!”

“And you’re acting like my gran. Would you please relax and have a little fun?” you asked hitting him in the stomach with another snowball.

“Y/n, stop it!” he said, putting up a hand to defend himself against another snowball headed straight for his face. 

“I will not!” you squealed, dodging his grasp as he clutched at you. Pelting him once more with your final snowball you yelled, “Come on, defend yourself, Solomons!” as you broke out in a sprint, Alfie giving chase behind you.

You ducked behind a bush, quickly replenishing your supply. Then you carefully peeked out from your hiding spot long enough to see Alfie had found refuge squeezed behind a tree. He was fumbling to make a decent snowball as Cyril pawed at him excitedly thinking his owner was concealing a treat. Obscenities fell from his lips as he worked and you stifled more laughter.

With Alfie distracted, you advanced your position, tip toeing to the next bush before standing to launch another round. Catching sight of you suddenly, Alfie charged, throwing an enormous snowball at your shoulder. However, he tripped in the deep snow in the process, landing with a soft thud. A growl escaped his mouth as he pounded the earth with his fist and you rushed to him to be sure he was alright.

He took the opportunity to grab your lower legs. “Alfieeeee!” you cried as you felt yourself falling toward the ground. He cushioned your fall perfectly, letting out a slight wheeze as you landed on his torso, taking the breath from him. As you craned your neck to look up, you noticed a smirk playing on his lips and realized he was not only fine, but very pleased with himself having ended the game prematurely. You couldn’t be upset though, not when he smiled like that.

You sat up slowly, beginning to laugh at his antics. Alfie came to a sitting position and wrapped an arm around your shoulders, placing a kiss to the top of your head as you watched the snow fall around you. As the flurries increased several large snowflakes caught in your lashes and you attempted to blink them away.

The sight of them gave you an idea and you couldn’t resist standing to hold out your tongue and catch a few flakes.

“What's all this?” Alfie asked, coming to stand by your side with a puzzled look on his face.

“I’m tasting the delicious snow,” you replied happily.

Catching some in his hand to study it, Alfie watched it melt, replying, “It's only water, treacle."

“That’s where you’re wrong. Each snowfall tastes different,” you corrected him.

“And why is that?” he inquired.

“It’s different because of where you are and who you’re with. For example, right now I’m with you and I’m very very happy so the snow tastes exceptionally sweet today,” you said with a smile. You caught some on your tongue as you approached him, lacing a hand around his neck.

“Would you like to try some?” you asked softly. You watched the corners of his eyes crinkle in a knowing smile as he nodded, removing his hat so he could receive a kiss. You leaned in and pressed your frozen lips to his, feeling a tingle of warmth the moment his mouth gave way to your tongue. It didn’t matter how many times you kissed Alfie, the effect was always the same, your heart pounded with excitement and your limbs melted at his touch. You felt lightheaded with the euphoria of being close enough to feel his pulse and breath his scent. Being held in his arms was the closest feeling to heaven on earth you could possibly imagine. 

As you pulled away, you brushed your nose against his playfully, keeping the cloak of his body heat around yourself a moment longer. You glanced down to see snowflakes melting in his beard and reached up to touch them gently. 

He ran his large hands beneath your coat, squeezing your waist and massaging your hip bones with his thumbs suggestively. You wondered what he might say in the moment. It felt so utterly romantic. Watching his green eyes drink you in adoringly he whispered, “I can't feel my toes.” 

You rolled your eyes before huffing out, “Alfie, that was such a lovely moment and you ruined it. I’m going to fucking shoot you.” 

“Well could you take mercy on me and do it before I freeze to death?” he asked with a laugh. 

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

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#Peaky Blinders fanfic #Peaky Blinders imagine #Alfie Solomons fanfic #Alfie Solomons imagine #Alfie Solomons x you #Alfie Solomons x y/n #Alfie Solomons x reader

[ask-nico-and-the-sides]

UH OH SPGETTIO

-A

#sanders sides #logan sanders #orange side #virgil sanders #curiosity arc #unsympathetic janus

[junk-jester]

Been a long while since I last posted any Pokémon Fusions with custom Dex entries...

So, with the Infinite Fusion fangame as popular as it is and this website on the rise to go with it, I figured I'd update some of my older entries + at least one fresh face, more or less.

Pipquil, the Porcupine Pokémon Water/Fire- Type Pipquil are warm-blooded, yet live in the harsh, frigid north and south poles. To compensate for their environment, they frequently let loose bursts of small flames from their backs, keeping themselves and others warm all year around. However, these flames are known to occasionally melt icebergs, which can cause Pipquil to drop into the frigid water and become prey for any nearby Beartic and Walrein.

Prinlava, the Prince Pokémon Water/Fire- Type These Pokémon live in tight nit communities known as Trials, where they frequently hold competitions over leadership and loyalty. The Prinlava with the largest and most impressive plumage of flame is considered the strongest, and will occasionally fight with the strongest member of other Trials. The Trial leader that wins the fight will then have the loser's trial absorbed, allowing the community to grow.

Empophlosion, the King Pokémon Water/Fire- Type Sarcastic and often unsympathetic, Empophlosion battle for territory by clashing and attempting to break each other's crowns. The fire that erupts from their neck is a sign of age, with healthy flames being a brilliant red and orange, while weak, sick or dying Empophlosions only emit plumes of dark smoke seen for miles around.

Lardour, the White Wolf Pokémon Bug/Fire- Type While small in stature, this Pokémon is fiercely loyal and will leap into action if it senses its trainer is in distress. The red bands around Lardour’s ankles and on its back often create sparks when it’s agitated, and jets of flame will erupt from the emblem on its forehead when its rage has reached a critical point.

Volcadoom, the Guardian Pokémon Bug/Fire- Type With age and evolution, Volcadoom's protective instincts have only grown stronger, though not to the point of overreaction. It acts as a machine of vengeance, often purposefully nudging and guiding its trainer along on a certain path so that the pair can enact vigilante justice when night falls. When enraged, its horns merge into a flaming sword whos burns scar and scorn the wicked and ill of heart for all time.

Honedinja, the Sword Beetle Pokémon Ghost/Steel- Type A legendary blacksmith who perished at the blade of an enraged deity is said to be the origins of this Pokémon. It wanders the land like a samurai, using the blade embedded in its back to cut down any who do not earn its respect. Those who do will earn a steadfast ally for life.

Doubinja, the Twin Blades Beetle Pokémon Ghost/Steel- Type Doubinja’s sword has been split into a pair. Any that it meet will be given one sword while Doubinja itself shall wield the other as they challenge one another in a duel of honor. Legends say that no Doubinja has ever lost.

Aeginja, the Royal Beetle Pokémon Ghost/Steel- Type The twin swords it once carried have now been fused together and become part of its body, where once they only sat before. This allows Aeginja to be wielded by humans and other Pokémon alike as a weapon whilst in combat. However, it can only be wielded by those it deems worthy or had earned its respect in the past. An unworthy person or Pokémon will have their soul removed and consumed, making Aeginja's blade ever-sharper.

Zekroudon, the Omega Storm Pokémon Ground/Electric- Type Little is truly known of this Legendary Pokémon, aside from a handful of ancient texts in both Hoenn and Unova that states that, when the Original Dragon split apart, one of its pieces became blinded by an ancient fury, its armor glowing red hot and razed the earth with lightning that brought on a drought for six years straight.

#pokemon fusion #pokemon infinite fusion #piplup #prinplup #empoleon #cyndaquil #quilava #typhlosion #houndour #houndoom #larvesta #volcarona #shedinja #honedge #doublade #aegislash #zekrom #groudon

[candied-peach]

ao3: "keep your hands to yourself" rating: T warnings: kid sides, unsympathetic (?) patton (he's trying his best but oof), crying, orange is like impulsiveness genre: hurt/comfort description: Orange doesn't mean to behave badly. He just wants what's best for Thomas. Patton disagrees. (written for @treenissanderssidesstuff )

"Imp!"

The childish voice rings through the mind palace, and Orange winces, dragging himself out from behind the couch, the knees of his jeans still covered in grass stains from his impromptu romp through the Imagination. Roman let him sneak in, just for a bit, and he has a feeling that he's been busted.

"I hate that nickname," he grumbles to himself. Logan gives him a sympathetic look from his curled up position in a recliner, Encyclopedia Brown book in his lap.

"Good luck," Logan advises, looking at Orange over the frames of his circular glasses. "Patton seemed quite angry this afternoon." Orange makes a face, feet dragging on the carpet. He didn't mean to encourage Thomas to go against the teacher this morning! He just- Reading was so boring sometimes, and it was much more exciting to sneak his crayons out! Besides, Thomas was almost done with his story anyway, it's not like Ms. Mullins had to go and make such a big deal out of it! She even threatened to tell his parents!

"Imp," Patton says again, as soon as Orange comes into view. The childish side groans, shoving his hands into the pockets of his paint-splattered jeans and coming to a stop before the emotional side. Patton's been struggling a lot with who he is and how he helps Thomas. Orange knows that. He just doesn't think that he's as bad as Patton says he is. He just wants to help Thomas, like everyone else! Even-

Well. No one's allowed to talk about Green anymore. Orange barely remembers him. There was Rainbow, and then there was Red and Green, and Red is Roman, and Green is-

Green is forbidden. No one talks about Green.

"You got Thomas in trouble," Patton says. His thick black framed glasses nearly fall down his freckled nose. "You should know better. It's the fourth time this week! It's only Wednesday!"

"I know, I just-" Orange sighs. His bottom lip wobbles. "I didn't try to, I just- It was important," he defends weakly. Patton raises an eyebrow. The other one comes with it.

"Important?" Patton squeaks. "Thomas didn't need to stay out past the end of recess! Thomas didn't need to get his crayons out! You made him forget to do his work, too! You even made him get mad at Mom!" Unbidden, Patton's voice lowers, seemingly in horror. "He almost raised his voice at her!"

"Emotions are important to let out!" Orange argues. "You're Emotions, don't you get it?"

"Not like that!" Patton snaps, folding his arms over his overalls-clad chest. "And I'm more than Emotions, you know that. You keep getting Thomas into trouble. You-" Patton takes a deep breath, his chubby cheeks turning red. "You're a bad side for Thomas!"

Forgotten in a corner, Roman gasps, one hand splayed over his mouth. Orange is pretty sure that Yellow is around here somewhere, too, but he can't see hide nor hair of him. Not surprising. 

The room is freezing. Or maybe it's just Orange. His ears keep ringing with Patton's last words, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. His hands twitch and flutter at his sides.

"Take it back," Orange whispers. He feels so cold. Has it always been so cold in here? "You take that back, you know I'm not bad."

"You keep getting Thomas into trouble," Patton repeats. "You're a bad side. You- you're just like Green!"

"I am not," Orange argues, terror slowly filtering into his veins. Oh, this is bad. This is so bad. This is- he never wanted- He just wanted Thomas to have fun, why can't Patton see that? Why can't Blue see he's just trying to help?

"You can go there, too," Patton announces, marching over to Orange and grabbing his arm. His hands are shaking, but his grip is still implacable as he begins to tow Orange down the hallway. "You can't help anymore. You're bad."

"I'm not!" Orange shrieks at the top of his lungs, squirming madly, like a worm on a hook. He can't get away from Patton's grip. Logan has abandoned his book in the living room, watching the proceedings with horrified eyes.

"Indigo!" Orange blurts out. "Logan! Help me! Please! Patton's not listening!"

"I don't-" Logan falters, taking a step back. Betrayal is sharp and stinging. "Orange, I-"

"Help me!" Orange howls as Patton marches onward, dragging him behind the  moral side. "Please!"

"Be quiet," Patton says, sweat rolling down his face with determination. "Bad sides don't get to talk." For a moment, Orange is terrified that Patton has doomed him to a life of silence, but he can still hear himself cry.

The door to the basement looms, caution tape crisscrossed over the middle, and Patton opens it, shoving Orange down the first few darkened steps.

"Don't come back!" Patton orders, and the door slams, leaving a petrified Orange to stand there, sobbing his eyes out.

Green mist wreathes around his face, making him sputter. It tastes vaguely like apples. 

"Who- who's there?" Orange calls, trying not to sound as scared as he actually is. "Green? Is that you?"

"Call me...Remus," a mysterious voice whispers from the darkness. Poison green eyes open, almost in front of Orange, as a voice hisses, "Boo!" in Orange's ear.

Orange can't help it, he screams, and bursts into noisier tears.

The green mist promptly disappears as someone snaps on the light. In the sudden glare, Orange can see a side that looks only a little older than him, with wide panicked eyes, wringing his hands in front of him. He has on a ridiculous black and green costume with green frills everywhere and a plastic eyeball glued to one shoulder.

"I'm sorry!" Remus- it must be Remus- blurts out. "I just- I wanted to scare you a little, that's all, I didn't think Blue would put anyone else down here, I-"

"Do you- do you just live here all alone?" Orange asks softly. Remus nods, tears glittering in bright green eyes. He has a mustache drawn above his upper lip in eyeliner pencil.

"Don't leave," Remus blurts out. "I- I don't wanna be alone anymore."

"I don't think I'm allowed to leave," Orange says, more tears seeping down his cheeks as the reality of his situation begins to set in. Surely Patton will change his mind, Orange thinks. He can't just- He can't just keep Orange in the basement forever. He's important!

But look what he's doing to Green- to Remus, another voice whispers inside his head. Remus is important, too, or he wouldn't exist! And Patton is keeping him down here. What makes you so special?

Orange swallows hard, his throat aching.

"It's okay!" Remus blurts out, seizing Orange's sleeve and tugging him forward. "There's lots of rooms down here! We can have a sleepover! And um- um- I hope you know how to make food better than me 'cause I've been eating cereal and fruit snacks this whole time. Oh, and couch stuffing." He grins brightly, and Orange can see a gap in his front teeth.

"I kinda can?" Orange says doubtfully. "Yellow's always been better at that than me, but-" His bottom lip quivers. "Yellow's up there."

"Not for long, I bet," Remus says, with a scowl. "Blue don't like lying." He sneers, an expression that doesn't go with his freckled face.

"No, he doesn't," Orange admits.

"But it'll be okay," Remus promises, wrapping Orange up in a tight, slightly scratchy hug. "We got each other, right? We don't need anyone else!"

"Right," Orange says. His face brightens when he realizes he can still sense Thomas, just in a much more muffled way. "We can still help Thomas, too!"

"Yeah!" Remus cheers. "You think he wants to electrocute his brother for fun?"

"Maybe not that," Orange says, but he's giggling as he says it. Is there any harm, really, to making Thomas think about it? He's used to getting Thomas to do things, but he can tell that's going to be a lot harder now already.

Maybe it won't be so bad down here.

A month later, Yellow is shoved down the basement steps, cheek stinging from an open-armed slap, and is welcomed with open arms (and a fart bomb, from Remus).

Sometime later, Purple arrives. Purple is skittish and likes to hide in the shadows, but he loves Orange and Yellow and Green. Purple's only seen glimpses of the above world. Patton didn't want him there, straight off. Purple's anxious, and he makes Thomas feel anxious, too, and that won't do. Not really.

It's okay.

Orange will make sure of it.

"Thomas needs all of us," Orange says, years and years later. Virgil snorts, perched on the staircase, and Orange just flips him off without glancing his way. "He does," Orange insists. "But you're the one he's most likely to listen to. You've got the most influence out of all of us, really."

"And you," Virgil protests. Orange shrugs, eyes gleaming in the dim light.

"You heard Janus," Orange says. "I have other parts to play. You're the stepping stone. Thomas listens to you, even if he doesn't like it." He leans closer, Remus's cackling echoing in his ears.

"This will work."

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