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inhuman-obey-me · 2 years

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Heaven Divided

Written for the Lucifer Birthday Collaboration 2022, with the theme "Celestial War" -- you can check out all the artist/writer collabs at the Lucifer Birthday Collab Twitter! See the corresponding art for this piece here Word Count: 4.8k Description: "If you want a battle, I'll give you a war." We all know the story -- Lucifer, the most brilliant of angels, rebelled against God, failed, and fell. But there's so much more to the story than that, isn't there? A story of Lucifer, the revolutionary, and the family that fought beside him. Can also be read on AO3 here

The crowd that has gathered is modest, but it's more than Lucifer was expecting, if he's being honest with himself. He is aware, of course, what influence he has in the Celestial Realm, as not only a seraph but a leader even among that group of highest ranking angels. He's well-liked and admired, certainly. It shouldn't be surprising that more than a few would follow him.

But even so, admiration alone would not, could not, convince angels -- servants dedicated to their Father's will! -- to rebel against that same Father. No, that requires much more courage and conviction, and demonstrates far more belief in him and what he is about to say. They are here to follow him into a war that seems sure to be devastating for all sides.

That is not just admiration; that is faith.

Does he deserve their faith? He hopes so. Hope is all he has, now.

From the edges of his sight, he can see Mammon rallying those who have gathered, corralling them into some semblance of order. It gives him some reassurance, at least, to see his trusted brother here with him. His other siblings, too, are gathered in the crowd, and he sees them scattered throughout.

He takes a deep breath, preparing himself for what is to come, as the incoming throngs gradually slow to a trickle.

"My brethren, thank you for coming today," Lucifer begins. "I recognize that it is not an easy thing to join me here. But if you are here with me today, then I trust you are putting your faith in what I have to say. At some time or another, you may have felt the same way I do now. You too have felt doubt, however small. You too can see that our realm, for all we preach order and blessings, maintains that order by ruthlessness and force. We are not what we have claimed to be.

"This world we live in, the order we have been taught, is wrong. There is something very wrong with how the Celestial Realm operates. And that dissonance comes from He who gave us these rules, these restrictions. We have never known anything but the laws of our Father, but these laws have led us astray from what our true purpose is. We were created to spread virtue and His heavenly grace, yet we live under anything but grace.

"We worship a liar, and a hypocrite. We preach the glory of our Father and his creations -- yet, he destroys those creations just as easily without a second thought. He holds no grace for us, nor respect for the wills or minds He has given us. Yet still, He demands glory as we destroy on his behalf.

"This time, we act not on his behalf, but for our own. We fight for a future that we can grasp for ourselves -- one where obedience need not be absolute, where our loved ones are not punished for love or free will. A future where we judge righteousness by our own minds.

"This will not be easy. We will be fighting against our fellow angels. Many of us have fought many times before, but against those who are wicked, against demons and humans who are corrupt and vile. Against those who are against the light we have always represented. This time, you will find yourself face to face with those whom you love. We must fight those who shine just as brightly as us, for a light they cannot yet see.

"But I cannot turn my back on the truths I have realized, and neither can you. With our hands reaching for destiny, remember this: we cannot surrender. When all they know, all we have known, is corrupt, we must not give up, else we submit to that which we have seen is a fallacy.

"A new future calls -- let us go together to claim it. To battle!"

Punctuating his declaration, Lucifer's grandiose set of wings bursts out behind him, launching him high into the skies. Cheers cry out from the gathered angels as they raise their weapons high in assent, and the crowd begins to rise as well, spilling out in formation with shouts of war.

A sick nervousness wells in the pit of Lucifer's stomach, watching the white flutter of angelic robes and wings below following his commands. This fight is needed; of that, he has no doubt -- he has tried over and over now to speak reason and sense into his Father, to no avail. No amount of debate or discussion leads anywhere, nor pleading, nor argument. That had been frustrating enough when it had been over lofty ideals such as those Lucifer had been discussing lately with the Devildom's prince. To be met with the same stubborn ignorance when it came to the much more concrete issue of pleading for his sister's life -- that was too much. If his Father will not run the Celestial Realm properly, then Lucifer will. It's that simple.

But that doesn't change the fact that all these angels now, assembled airborne alongside him, including his own sister and brothers, are all in danger if he fails.

The sight of Mammon, swooping up to meet him, reassures him though, the brilliant gold of his younger brother's eyes catching the sunlight with a sharp gleam. "Lucifer, everyone's heading down to the palace, but the other side's gathering up too. Where do ya want everybody?"

"Keep them in formation. Make sure no one wanders off alone so that they aren't targeted. And keep them on track -- I don't want any unruly troublemakers straying off to attack those who aren't part of the fight."

Mammon gives a quick salute and starts heading back down to relay the orders, when Lucifer pauses and grabs him by the shoulder. Though his voice is steady, there is a quiet anxiousness in his words as he adds, "And Mammon -- watch over our family. Stay with them if you can. We need to make it out of this alive, you hear me? No wild stunts or reckless heroics from you. Stay alive."

The look his brother gives him in return is serious, if slightly annoyed. "Ya know I know that already. Stay alive yourself! You're the one they're going to be really going after, ya know."

Is Lucifer ready for that? He's not sure. But he's made his decision, and he's resolved to stick with it. It's far too late to turn back now.

"I know."

The battles have raged ongoing for weeks now.

Somehow, losses on both sides have been fortunately minimal, though neither can claim to be unscathed. But each angel that falls on behalf of his war is a new weight on Lucifer, and he girds himself at the end of each day's battles for fresh reports of the latest casualties.

His siblings, at least, have remained safe. Though they bicker insufferably as always in the evenings over dinner, they at least fight together reliably, always keeping each other safe. Leviathan, as a former general of the Celestial army, is the one exception, using his authority and military expertise to lead large swaths of their forces instead, but for the same reason, Lucifer can rest assured that he's more than capable of watching out for himself. Not to mention, the third brother is at least one of the officers who also stays back at times with Lucifer, delighted that the strategic expertise he'd honed in the past several centuries of playing war games in despair of wanting to be useful can finally be put to practical use again.

It's almost nice to see his younger brother this way again, Lucifer thinks, to watch him blossom with confidence once more rather than burying himself away in self-deprecation. Almost nice -- that is, if not for the constant reminder of the stakes that ride on each decision that they make together.

"We've overtaken this area, so the next one we should target is...here," Levi explains, deep in thought over a map. "Then over here...ooooh this is just like the battle in Warmaker III ~Reign of Discord! Panic~! They were getting overwhelmed and preparing to withdraw, but then the protagonist bravely charges in with reinforcements and they're able to save the critical stronghold before moving on forward! The soldiers are utterly inspired by his brave feats in defending the fortress, and with their spirits raised, they completely turn the battle around to obliterate the enemy forces!!!"

Though he's appreciative of Levi's military expertise, it's all Lucifer can do to hold back a groan in response to his sibling's excited giggling over his game. But still, that tendency to get so carried away with his own little world is exactly what makes him such an adorable younger brother as well. "I suppose that's your way of saying you think I should move to help there then?"

"Yeah, it'll be totally epic loool! Just think -- the troops are tired and starting to falter, but then, the heroic Lucifer appears just in time and saves them with swift action!! Especially if you do what Nuyrad did in that scene against the evil Lasutinian forces, go across this way so you can come in from the western front to catch them off guard!"

"Thank you, Levi. Then, I'll entrust the troops in the south to you."

"Understood!" his brother replies, looking almost cheerful as the elder stands to leave. "Remember, we're with you all the way, Lucifer!! Believe in the us that believes in you!!"

When Lucifer arrives at the western edges of the battlefield, it's not long before he spots Asmodeus. His brother's loose robes wave in the winds with dramatic flourishes each time he shoots off an arrow. His movements are captivating, almost like dancing in their gracefulness, and even some of the enemies seem to get distracted from time to time watching him. Unfortunately, this also seems to draw more attention towards him in particular, thus drawing more fire upon him in turn.

Well, Lucifer knows where he's needed, then.

With his six massive wings spanning the sky like an ominous cloud, he swoops down with sword in hand, batting back the arrows before shooting forward to take down several more of the opposing warriors. They begin quickly falling back as he descends upon them with sword in hand, none particularly wanting to be on the receiving end of his blade.

Once the scene has cleared, Lucifer takes the chance to survey the field. As Leviathan had mentioned, it seems the situation had become fairly dire here, with many angels injured and unable to fight, thus leaving those remaining quite outnumbered. They really would have had to retreat soon if he had not arrived just in time.

Asmodeus rushes over right away, flinging his arms dramatically around the seraph as soon as he touches the ground. "Lucifeeeer!!! You came to save me! I thought I was a goner!"

"You could have handled that many arrows just fine, Asmo," Lucifer grumbles, well aware of his lovely younger brother's tendency to exaggerate. "And I'm not only here for you. Leviathan informed me that this area needed help, that's all."

Still, as he gently peels his younger sibling off of him, he can't resist giving him a light ruffle on the head -- to the other's chagrin, as Asmo then has to scramble to fix his hair back to its proper place. It's good to see him still lively as ever, amongst so many wounded.

Asmo gives him an overexaggerated pout in response to his remark but moves on quickly. "Well, yeah, we're not doing great over here. The healers are getting too exhausted to handle all the wounds. I've been trying to help them as much as I can too, but..."

Lucifer hardly needs to be told any more. He promptly marches over to where the wounded are gathered, exchanging a few words with some of the angels performing healing magic before going to stand in the center of the area. The soothing warmth of angelic curative power spills out as he closes his eyes, blanketing the space in soft lights and the scent of rosemary. Other angels around him add their energies in as well, and find themselves bathed in the same lights as the combined magic spreads throughout.

When Lucifer opens his eyes again hardly a moment later, the bedridden's wounds have healed, and the rest gasp at how light their bodies feel again, released from the fatigue of weeks of battle.

Relieved cheers and excited applause break out from around them, led by none other than Asmodeus. "Oh, that's my amazing big brother!! That was incredible!"

He again bursts forth, ready to wrap his arms around Lucifer in another tight hug, but the prideful angel catches him at arm's length with a sigh, not particularly enjoying all the attention on him. "That's enough of that, Asmo. Come, we have a lot to discuss here, it seems."

From Asmodeus, Lucifer learns how his siblings had gotten separated in an earlier battle. Beelzebub, Belphegor, and Lilith had still been keeping close together as a unit, as expected of the tight-knit group, but Mammon had gotten pulled away to help in some other area. Asmo himself had fallen behind with a group of archers when some enemies had attempted an ambush on them -- though they had clearly underestimated the beautiful jewel's skills in combat.

Once this area has been secured again, though, it's time for Lucifer to move on. He's not thrilled that his youngest siblings are at the very forefront of battle, even if he knows they're each quite strong in their own right. He almost would have liked for them to stay behind, safe, but of course, there was no way Lilith would accept sitting still when she felt the guilt of being the catalyst for this war. And if Lilith was going in, then so were the twins, who also equally didn't want to let Lucifer fight this on his own.

That doesn't change the worry Lucifer feels now, though, as he rushes forward to the next area.

Their contingent has almost made its way to the Celestial Palace itself now, where the highest ranking angels are keeping guard. The scene is chaotic, with the sharp sounds of angelic weapons clashing and magic slicing every direction.

Thankfully, he finds the cluster of his siblings easily enough among the fighting, helped by Beel's very identifiable large frame and the equally large sword that he swings in wide swaths. Belphie imbues wind magic into his attacks as well, effectively pushing waves of enemies further and further back with each swing, as Lilith guards them against any would-be attackers from behind.

Though he won't tell them, he really is proud to see them working together in such sync.

"Lucifer!" Belphie calls out with a sudden grin, catching sight of his eldest brother overhead. The others perk up as well at the call, and they wave him down to join them.

He nods at them in acknowledgement as his feet touch upon the ground. Soon, the hardest battles will begin, far above where these three can fly. But for now, it's good just to see them, to exchange a few words before he must move on again.

"You're safe," he says simply. "Good."

"So are you," Beelzebub answers back with relief, a hint of guilt in his voice. "Sorry I haven't been able to come with you to protect you..."

Lucifer shakes his head. "No, this is good. You're where you should be. Keep Belphegor and Lilith safe for me."

"We can take care of ourselves!" Lilith chimes in, pouting. Her childish response is betrayed, however, by the serious expression that falls upon her face as she looks away towards Belphie, who merely gives her a comforting hug.

"I know you can," their older brother smirks. "I just saw it. But if I can trust Beel to be my bodyguard, I can trust him to protect you too. That's all."

Beel gives a single nod in response. "I'll keep them safe, Lucifer. I promise."

"Then, we'll keep him safe too," Belphie answers back. His normally sleepy expression is cheerful despite their surroundings, now that he has this moment with the brother he admires so much. "Don't worry about us, we'll be fine here!"

And Lucifer believes it. They'll watch out for each other, definitely; they'll be safe together.

With that reassurance, he nods at each of them again, quickly healing them all of any scrapes before taking flight once more. There's just one last battle beyond here to be fought, then.

The uppermost chambers of the Celestial Palace stand aloft just ahead, its brilliant white marble and shining gold accents blindingly bright in these always sunny skies.

Lucifer's wings beat hard, here in the uppermost tier of the Celestial Realm where the winds are too harsh for any but seraphs to even begin to approach. He'll have to fight the rest of this battle on his own, but it's so close now. Here is where their Father presides over everything, with all but his highest ranking kept at arms' length. Here is where He sits upon his lofty throne, watching over His creations at all times, watching and judging. Sitting, watching, even now, as His precious angels throw themselves to destruction at the hands of their former comrades in honor of His glory.

And he is filled again with rage. Rage and wrath, an anger that glows over everything. Disgust at his Father, a reignited indignation for all He represents. The fury of thousands of years of wasted obedience now discarded burns within him.

The sharp, unforgiving clangs of his sword ring out like a death knell -- the tolling of a bell marking the end of a realm which will never be the same, after this war.

Lucifer is perfectly okay with that. It doesn't deserve to stay the same.

He lunges forth, the righteous ire of his ideals igniting sparks of magic that flit across his form. Deep blue and golden yellow lights dance across his figure in waves, wrapping his sword with celestial power.

But the sting of betrayal burns too in Michael's throat, as the friend who had always stood side-by-side with him strikes at his other loved ones. Uriel and Gabriel together can hardly keep the brilliant morning star at bay.

"Lucifer!" he shouts, rushing in to defend the other seraphs as they fall back. "Your madness ends here!"

"It is not madness to unseat a tyrant," Lucifer growls back, refocusing his assault on the one he had until now worked side-by-side with, always. "What is madness is the way we have praised and followed someone so flawed without question until now."

"It is madness to question Him! His plans are far greater than any of us, and it is not our place to doubt them!"

"Yet it is the Demon Prince, of all beings, who works to bring peace between the realms, while our Father is content not to even engage with him. Do you not see the hypocrisy there, Michael? Do you not see the truth?"

Their swords smash relentlessly against each other as the two highest angels of the realm battle back and forth.

"It is not hypocrisy for angels not to consort with wicked demons," Michael insists still. "Your truth is nonsense, Lucifer! Look what chaos has erupted beneath here. That is your doing, not our Father's! You are the one who is causing all of this!"

The accusation strikes unexpectedly deeply into precisely all the worries on Lucifer's mind. Perhaps it was inevitable for the one angel who shared just as much responsibility for the realm as he did to know what exactly weighed heaviest upon him. But, in this moment, with that same weight carrying him forward, it is exactly his sense of responsibility to everyone that ensures he cannot back down.

"They follow me because they have chosen to! The freedom of choice, Michael, that is what we have never had! You may have chosen to just keep believing, but they have not. Just as I have chosen this path, they have chosen to follow!"

The determined fury behind Lucifer's words is echoed by the force behind his blade, and Michael is momentarily flung back. But he has just as much determination to bring his precious partner in arms back. He tightens his grip on his sword, steeling himself.

"They have chosen to follow you, Lucifer. It has always been you. Our Father, the other seraphs, the young angels still growing up -- for everyone, it has always been you. You should know full well that they have always admired you. As did I! But what do you give them in return? A war, in which countless angels will lose their lives! You lead them to their own destruction, Lucifer! You will destroy your own family!"

Family. The images of them swirl his mind -- Mammon's reminder to be careful, Leviathan's cheer of support, the rain of arrows coming down upon Asmodeus, the twins working together. And his sister, his dear sister, sweet child of the family, whose great damning sin had been loving too deeply, giving too much. He sees it in his mind's eye, the desperation on her face before taking that heavenly fruit, the hopelessness at her decreed fate afterwards, her grateful sobs when Lucifer made up his mind to fight.

And Michael deems fit to lecture him on family? Michael, whose only family loyalty lies with the Father who cannot be bothered to lift a finger in this war, even as His faithful angels die for Him?

The rage in Lucifer only flares up further at the thought, pushing him to the edge of deliriousness. "I am doing this for my family!" he bellows, magic rippling across his entire body like fire. "I will not allow my sister to be destroyed for the sake of His rules and His pride!"

His face splits into a sadistic grin as he summons forth every bit of power within him to take on this most powerful of opponents, the one angel whose strength matches his own.

And in that moment, what Michael sees is no longer his precious friend, the brilliantly shining Morning Star that leads the realm with utmost light. In that moment, what Michael sees is a darkness he has never before seen in an angel, one that terrifies him to the depths of his soul. Though his feathers are still pure white, halo still as golden as his own, the wrath in the red glow of those eyes is unmistakable.

In that moment, Michael no longer sees his angelic companion, Lucifer. No, what he sees is a demon -- an adversary.

He knows what angels ought to do to demons.

Michael's own seraphic power begins to take shape around him, bathing his white feathers in sunlit yellow, no longer any hint of restraint against the one who had always been his equal companion in all Celestial matters. If this is what Lucifer has become, then he will not live. If this truth has become his demon, Michael will destroy it from him by force.

Lucifer throws himself forward, blade smashing hard against the one Michael puts up just in time to block it. But the dark-haired angel is relentless, pushed forward by images of his sister's decreed obliteration flooding his mind. With a quick turn of his wrist, he flips the sword around, slamming the hilt hard up against the other's face.

Michael recovers quickly enough, but wrath has taken over now, and Lucifer's flurry of strikes are unforgiving in their pace. He pushes hard, barely giving the other a moment to breathe between parries, slipping in punches and blows wherever there's an opening. But with equal passion of determination, Michael doggedly goes after every moment of weakness from Lucifer in turn.

Their struggle rages on this way for hours, each fueled by pure emotion past the limits of their fatigue. Their blood splatters against each other; anger and hatred mix in screaming sparks of magic clashing against one another.

And then, at last, a final strike at the hilt of Michael's blade sends it hurtling out of his hands.

Lucifer stares him down for a moment, almost ready to offer a moment of mercy to his once peer, to let him retreat from here gracefully rather than falling to his blade.

Instead, Michael makes one final desperate attempt to end the war for himself -- he lunges at Lucifer, wrapping his arms around his former friend to plunge a hidden dagger into his back.

Stunned, Lucifer slashes his sword out one last time, a clean slice straight across Michael's chest as he breaks out of his hold.

For the briefest of moments, their eyes meet, and Michael reaches out almost by instinct to grab the other's hand, trying to catch him before he begins to fall from the sky. Grief and regret wash over him. But it comes too late, and Lucifer's fingers slip out of his blood-soaked grasp.

A loose glint of metal catches their eyes for just a second.

And then, almost as quickly as the moment happens, it's broken. Lucifer is falling, and as he does, he sees another pair of wings collapsing in the sky.

He knows those wings.

Lilith.

Lucifer watches as the demon prince and his ever-faithful butler carry away his sister's fallen body.

His wings, already turning from white to black, flutter darkening feathers all around him. And there is helplessness -- at his vulnerability, at his transformation, at his failure against Michael and his failing for his family. Helplessness, and grief, and fear -- and no sign yet of what has become of the others. Is this their fate? Are all of them to die like Lilith, or perhaps worse yet, become filled with darkness as he seems to now be?

It is his fault.

This is the thought that floods his mind, as rage begins to consume the fear.

Damn it all, he has failed them, hasn't he? Self-hatred burns through every inch of his body. The fury he has felt throughout this whole war redirects inwards. No longer is it only fury at his Father; now, there is also vicious fury at himself.

Somewhere beside him, his hands find his blade once more, and his fingers curl with resentment around the hilt.

If Lilith survives this, if Lord Diavolo really can save her, he hopes she won't remember him. He hopes she'll be safe somewhere, safe from his futile hubris and their Father's vengeance alike.

Slice.

He doesn't deserve the sweet smile Belphegor gave him, either, before leaving those three behind to their fate. He'd entrusted everything to Lucifer, his supposedly infallible big brother, and where has that led them now?

Slice.

He should have been the one protecting them, rather than leaving the burden to Beelzebub. It should have been his job, as the eldest. That, too, is his failure.

Slice.

Asmodeus's eyes shine adoringly in his mind, the only true expression his beautiful younger brother has ever given him. What will become of that sweet, admiring brother now, for having followed this foolish, prideful idol into what they should have known would be a hopeless war?

Slice.

He can only imagine how this will hurt the already gloomy Leviathan. What should have been a shining time of redemption for the former general, now the greatest failure of their lives, all because of his conceited delusions of rebellion.

Slice.

And Mammon -- his favorite younger brother, ever loyal, always with unwavering belief in him. A belief in him that now will lead him straight to hell, quite literally, right alongside Lucifer. And he knows already, how he will forgive him for this, how he will not blame Lucifer for any of it.

But he deserves their blame, and their resentment, all the disgust, the anger, the hatred for what their lives are about to become.

Slice.

The last of his wings falls from his back, chopped off by his own hand.

No more. He is an angel no more.

The sword clatters to the ground as it slips from his grasp, the sound echoing through the empty coliseum like a bell.

As if waking to the sound, the delirious stupor he'd been acting in shatters. Pain from his wounds, those from his earlier battle and those self-inflicted alike, finally explode across his body. Everything he'd been holding back until now, the physical and mental alike, washes over him. A scream releases itself from his throat unbidden as the agony drags him to his knees.

His vision is red, red, filled with blood, coated in violence. There are more screams, but he hardly hears himself. All the chaotic, crashing feelings within him -- hatred, anguish, fury, grief, guilt, despair -- are screaming to be released; he cannot hold them within himself anymore. And gradually, these complicated emotions coalesce into a single point.

Wrath.

A shadow begins to take form within the pile of his discarded wings.

Wrath.

#mod chaos in the devildom #happy birthday lucifer #obey me #obey me!#obey me shall we date #obey me swd #omswd #obey me lucifer #om! lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me lilith #obey me michael #obey me fic #writings

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sortasirius · 4 years

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“Unity” and the Broken Boys

BOY Y’ALL BETTER SIT DOWN BECAUSE THIS IS AS LONG AS CAN BE AND I TOOK OFF WORK TOMORROW SO I’VE GOT TIME

This is....one of the best episodes in the show. Yeah, in all 325 of them, this is hands down one of the best.

First of all, stan Amara for clear skin.

That silent treatment babey, right out the gate with the Angst. Tbh Dean deserves it.

“Like I said, killing Amara, Jack dying...that’s the only way.”

“The only way. Our one shot. Our Last chance. You ever get tired of saying stuff like that?”

“We don’t have to like it, alright? But you and me, we gotta get it done.”

Amara is such a welcome energy in this whole episode. She’s warm and understanding, whip-smart and probably more powerful than Chuck. I love her.

Sam is a wonderful, understanding, loving dad. I love him eternally. He loves Jack so much, he’s trying so desperately to do what’s right for Jack but also what’s right for the world. Jack made this choice, but he can’t live with it. How do you support your child when their life is at stake?

“Come on man. Blindly following orders, lying to Amara, sending her to her death. Does any of this feel right to you??”

“It doesn’t matter how we feel! You know what? Stay. Stay. Someone has to be the grown up here.”

“Yeah well someone has to keep fighting for Jack!”

“He knows what he signed up for!”

“Last I checked, we don’t give up on family.”

“Jack’s not family.”

Y’all should have heard the noise I made. What a fucking line.

“I know how you feel about the kid, I care for him too, I do, but he’s not like you. He’s not like Cas. He’s just not.”

“I’m- I’m ready.”

You can see the regret, the heartbreak in Dean’s eyes. You can see how he wants to take those words back the moment he said them, and for Jack to hear them? It’s unthinkable.

Sam and Cas I’m just so fucking emo dude.

“Sam, you stayed behind to find another way huh? I woulda done the same.”

AMARA

First of all, LOVE this structure.

Amara and Chuck have such a fascinating dynamic. Rob and Emily do a great job (as they have all along) by clearly being siblings but...heightened. You can just tell they both exude power, and the other is the only one they consider an equal.

“You and Dean had that whole weird...thing.”

“That wasn’t you writing?”

“Ugh, not that part. Gross.”

What I took away from this is what I’ve suspected all along. They HAVE free will, just not total free will. Dean and Amara’s connection wasn’t Chuck, there are parts of the story he didn’t write. Obviously, this comes into play later.

I also have a hunch that Chuck doesn’t write romance. I also think that in particular will come into play.

“Balance. Something we’ve never tried before. Creation and destruction, light and dark, brother and sister united again, but on behalf of one world, this world. True balance. The way it was always meant to be. But you can’t. You only care about your pleasure, your story. Well, I guess that makes you the villain.”

“Villains get all the best lines.”

We see again and again this season, Chuck is irredeemable. He doesn’t care about the angels, he doesn’t care about the world, he doesn’t care about anything. He is a petulant toddler who has broken his toys. And when he realizes he’s trapped, he gets angry, he shouts and screams, completely at odds with Amara’s peace.

“You can’t hold me here forever.”

“I can hold you long enough.”

DEAN

Pain is the name of the game in this section homies. Because not only are we dealing with Dean’s pain, we’re also dealing with Jack’s. Jack says he understands why Cas and Sam mean more to Dean, but Dean clearly doesn’t, he, once again, wants to say more, but is stopped, still stopped by his fear: his fear of not beating Chuck.

Alright guys, gals, and non-binary pals. Let’s talk about Adam and Seraphina.

Adam. The first man. And Seraphina. The angel.

“My old lady. She’s the only one who could put up with me all these years.”

Yeah okay. Volume at 100 I get it lmao.

But also: Adam wants God dead not because he and Eve were kicked out of the Garden, but because he went after their sons. The theme of protecting the children strikes again.

“Killing God is your plan?”

“Yeah, Billie’s been giving us a hand but Sera and me, this is our baby.”

This juxtaposed directly with Dean’s own pain at what he has to do to kill Chuck, to gain his free will: the cost of his child.

Adam’s rib.

And who else might get his ribs hurt, only to be likely healed by an angel?

It’s fine, that’s fine. I’m fine with that.

“Jack, I don’t know how to explain it but, when I found out about Chuck, it’s like I wasn’t alive. Not really. You know like my whole life I’ve never been free, but like really free. But now? Now me and Sam, we got a shot at living a life, without all this crap on our backs. And that’s, that’s because of you. So, I want to say, I need to say...thank you, Jack. Thank you.”

I’m gonna have to do a separate post about just Dean in this episode, because there is so fucking much to talk about, but there are a couple of things that I think are important: Dean realizes how wrong he was, to say what he said. He knows that it’s not true, this is the way he’s always coped with loss, by pushing the person to be lost away, but for Jack to hear it? He can’t stand for that.

And:

Dean has finally pushed through the barrier. He won’t be quiet in the face of his doubts anymore. This is a breakthrough for him, and, of course, there are more to come.

SAM

Sam and Cas, my chaos duo.

The box, the inscription, the door.

Death’s library, filled with dead reapers.

And there it is. The Empty.

It tells Sam the plan, the plan for Billie to take God’s place. For everything to go back to the way it’s “supposed to be.”

This has always been the game, since season 13. This is the longest of long games.

Sam fuckin Winchester, lying his way out of a confrontation with the Empty like the legend that he is.

He comes back with a new purpose: to stop Billie’s plan, and here’s where we get to the heart of the episode and maybe the heart of the season.

“You hear that? Dean, brought to the edge of doubt. His sense of duty, his rage winning out in the end. And poor Sam, always gotta know everything. Can’t leave well enough alone. This is my ending, my real ending.”

The gun comes out, pointed at Sam.

Hmm...what did I say during 15x05? Oh yeah, this.

And:

Dean would never survive killing Sam, but he’s willing to do anything, anything to earn his freedom. His ending, where one brother kills the other and then kill himself.

Why, you might ask, did Sam not mention that the angels would be sent back to Heaven, why does he not mention Cas? I’ll tell you why, or rather, Becky will.

Plus, Dean looks back at Cas IMMEDIATELY when Sam says that, when he mentions Eileen, and THAT’S the first time he hesitates. He can’t lose Cas. But at the same time, he’s willing to do anything to have his freedom.

“Sam we don’t have a choice, Jack’s about to blow!”

“We always have a choice!”

You know me, just sitting here thinking about choice, the ability to choose, and how that translates to their free will.

And Sam...I don’t think there will ever be characters I love as much as these.

“I don’t care if Billie gets what she wants! I don’t man, I’d trade it all, I’d trade em all for Chuck. In a heartbeat!”

“What about me?”

“You’d trade me?”

“Chuck has to die. He has to! Otherwise he’ll keep us tap dancing forever, and I can’t live like that man, I can’t live like that, I won’t!”

“I know you feel like that right now, okay? I know you do, but you gotta trust me. My entire life, you’ve protected me. From Dad, from Lucifer, from everything. I didn’t always like it, you know? But it’s the one thing in the whole world that I could always count on. It’s the only thing I’ve ever known that was true. So please, put the gun away. Just put it away. We’ll figure it out, Dean, we’ll find another way, you and me. We always do.”

Okay I feel like this is going to be one of those scenes that I cry watching for years to come. Because fuck. After fifteen years they finally admit that not only did Dean protect Sam from Lucifer, but he protected him from John. John. On a par with Lucifer.

Dean and Sam have, for so many years, sacrificed themselves for the other. Dean’s demon deal, Sam and the trials, every season they have fought to see who can die the quickest for the other. But this? This is them fighting to stop the violence, to stop from killing the big bad. This is them growing, in our eyes, in real time. Sam has always been able to get through to Dean when no one else had a prayer, but for Dean to listen, for Dean to take his words to heart, to stop the hunt for Sam, for their family, that’s how you know they do have free will.

(Btw Chuck’s eye effect when he dusted Amara was sick as fuck but I’m emo for my boys so.)

Chuck knows it’s a loss, he knows that his story has, once again, been thwarted by the boys making their own choices. And he’s pissed, but in his anger, we get a bomb dropped on us.

“Spare me your contempt Castiel, the self-hating angel of Thursday. You know what every other version of you did after “gripping him tight and raising him from perdition”? They did what they were told. But not you. Not the one off the line with a crack in his chassis.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

Also, just worth bringing up this one as well:

Every Castiel pulled Dean out of Hell. Every one told him the same thing. And yet, immediately, with this Cas and this Dean, something was different. Because what has everyone seen about Cas, from the moment he met Dean?

And there’s our endgame people. Laid out on the line.

But we ain’t done yet, fam.

We’ve talked about the handprint, but you know:

So there you have it, our prep into the “monumental” 15x18. I have spec on that, of course, but I think a novel is long enough for this.

What to take away: Dean’s rage was always Chuck’s plan, they do have free will, their love for each other, for their family, is what will stop Chuck’s control, Death is about to come back with a vengeance, Cas’ deal is at play, and, most importantly, Castiel and Dean Winchester are a blind spot for Chuck, something he has never, not once, controlled.

#welcome to my essay lmao #supernatural #spn #spoilers #my meta #spn 15x17 #destiel #dean winchester #sam winchester #jack kline #castiel #amara #chuck shurley #lilly liveblogs supernatural

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sepublic · 3 years

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Through the Looking Glass Ruins!!!!!

…

SO! Onto other things first…

WRATH IS BRAXAS’ FATHER!??!!? HOLY SHIT, Wrath is a canonical dad, I’d always expressed my… OH MY GOD WRATH IS DAD! And of BRAXAS, that sweetie… How is Braxas such a sweetie with a father like HIM, also-

Wrath was in casual wear? Either he has a day off, or he got fired by Belos/Kikimora after drawing Luz a map to Eda in Young Blood, Old Souls! Either way this guy has a sudden new level of NUANCE that I am reeling from, and yes I checked, that really is Wrath according to the credits! Dang this puts everything in a WHOLE new light…!

AMITY HAIR OHMIGOD IT LOOKS SO ADORABLE SHE’S SELF-ACTUALIZING I AM FUCKING SCREAMING HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, it’s PINK and not green… They acknowledged it, Emira did! And they CHANGED IT I AM LOSING MY FUCKING MIND OVER THIS-

She looks so BEAUTIFUL and I love the kind of foreshadowing with the bookends of our first shot of Amity having her hair down, and now it’s changed! And she looks adorable and EMIRA AND EDRIC BEING GREAT SIBLINGS I LOVE IT SO MUCH! This… THIS is everything I wanted! I was resigned to not much of them but HELL YEAH they’re being good siblings and we get a look at their rooms, we see them doing MAKEOVERS together this is everything from my favorite fanon content and MORE,

Also Edric has a date?! Emira says ‘their’ mom… Unless the Golden Guard has a mom, DARN! Not gonna lie, I half-expected a big twist at the end that Edric was dating the Golden Guard, who was doing some sort of reconnaissance as his unrecognized normal self and/or screwing around with the Blights even further, but in a GENUINE sense… But then who knows Kikimora could be posing as GG’s ‘mom’, this is a stretch anyhow-

JUST HELL YEAH Blight Twins! Blight Twins being sweet and mischievous and supportive of each other, Blight SIBLINGS being siblings, Emira being an older sister and giving advice! And AMITY, Amity mentioning how much Luz has changed stuff, I love that they acknowledge it openly how her life has completely shifted, and now… NOW…!

No necklace! Red leggings! PINK HAIR?! Is this why Amity in the intro hasn’t been updated yet… She was getting TWO updates, so the animators decided to only animate a change after this final update?!

King and Gus are also friends it seems, and they even recorded some fun together! I’m surprised at how much Bria and the others mock Gus’ illusion skills… Obviously Belos is kinda terrible but like; I don’t think he’d set aside an entire subset of magic into Illusions without reason! Also that nightmare trip… I LOVE IT, I love Gus applying the creativity of illusions in their ability to completely warp and distort someone’s sense of reality! And I called that dragon-thing being an illusion!

A graveyard… I wonder if the Gallderstones (is that how it’s spelled) have any relevance or if they’re just neat? I hope Mattholomule and Gus help hide the Looking Glass Graveyard… Damn, that’s another Death reference with Gus, huh! Is it culminating in his respect for the dead, or will it continue further with Gus being a necromancer, or an Oracle who can commune with the deceased, and he has their respect as someone who treats them properly?!

Also not to get dark but… What if all those Illusionists are dead because of Belos? I’m JUST SAYING…! And not gonna lie, every time someone insulted Illusions, I kept imagining the Illusion Head just suddenly waking up and feeling like there’s a disturbance in the force, as well as a weird compulsion to beat up some Glandus kids. It’d be even funnier if he had beef with the Construction, Plant, and Abomination Heads as well!

Speaking of which, more confirmation on Construction Magic being related to earth! Glad to see Bria give us a look into that, which furthers my idea of Belos using construction magic… Also dang, Bria and the Glandus Kids really are the parallels/foils to the Detention kids! You’ve got the short ‘nice’ girl, the tall lanky kid, the furry… But the Glandus Kids start off looking nice and cool, but turn out to be rather nasty!

Meanwhile the Detention Kids seem like bad news and delinquents, but no! They’re just demonized and actually very kind and chill! The Detention Kids are looked down upon, the Glandus Kids are appraised… The Detention Kids are dual-track, the Glandus Kids are singular; Glandus Kids from, well, GLANDUS, Detention Kids from Hexside… One’s ‘mischief’ is actually very neat and cool, the other’s is literal grave robbing.

I guess that’s how the bleeding statues got past the censors- It’s technically just an illusion! Also more insight into how Glandus works with its Survival of the Fittest mentality, I wonder if we’ll get confirmation on which coven heads came from there, how that might influence them as adults…

What is Glandus like, is it more whole-heartedly accepting of Belos’ rule, hence its harsh ideals? Was it made after Hexside? Does Bump hate it for being so cruel like that, or is it just school bias? And dang poor Mattholomule, I always had a feeling he sort of felt and knew that he wasn’t much, so he accepted and compensated by deliberately doing whatever he can for power…

They confirmed he’s from Glandus, and I appreciate this new look at him! This new leaf turned… Hot take but he’s honestly not as bad as Boscha, his stint with Gus was a one-time thing that Gus was able to live with! And that seems pretty good to set them up as friends! Speaking of Boscha, Willow was injured by pixies? And the last time we heard of pixies, they belonged to Boscha and caused the school to get shut down… Did BOSCHA DO THIS I SWEAR SHE IS DEAD TO ME-

(Also she’s mentioned in the credits for this episode but I don’t remember hearing her? I might’ve gotten distracted with so much other things.)

Gus! I like the insight into his relationship with Illusions, and I appreciate how he’s considering other forms of magic… But this hesitation might just serve to reaffirm his believe in Illusions, which is okay! It’s all about choice… And yeah, it seems Gus also has a case of impostor syndrome like King, no wonder they get along so well! I love the glimpses into Gus’ house and the confirmation that he has a library card, no Perry though alas…!

I appreciate how Gus feels overlooked, like he has no real substance, which is how his Illusions reflect a desire to draw attention, but also the idea that there’s nothing real beneath them… Again, very much like King! And Gus, he’s not a powerhouse like the rest, he’s SKILLED and smart, but strength isn’t his forte, it’s not brute force he operates on, but cleverness! Trickery, I like it…! It’s a nice callback to his last A-plot episode, SVSF, where instead of fighting Mattholomule physically, Gus’ solution is to think outside the box and pull the alarm!

You go kid, not relying on brute strength but showing that some clever tricks and thinking are just as valid! Kinda wonder if this episode is lowkey a discussion on masculinity for young boys, especially with Gus growing older with puberty, though the latter is mostly because his actual VA grew… But maybe the writers rolled with that and incorporated it, or it’s just a very neat coincidence! Also, it is me or did Mattholomule’s voice change? And the gag that Gavin’s dad looks identical to him, even moreso because he’s NOT supposed to have a moustache… That’s great!

Malphas! Love this reference to a classic demon, I wasn’t sure if Malphas was the librarian with glasses whom I’ve always headcanoned as a father figure to Amity… But maybe it’s actually this bird dude! He seems adept in Bard magic, and I love the reveal of his true crow appearance… Guess those theorists were right that the one-eyed figure is from the Forbidden Stacks! Also Malphas NOT COOL with Amity, but I’m glad Luz changed his mind, and I wonder how that adventure looked…

Which- DAMN, the RSD with Luz! She looks so UTTERLY BROKEN when Amity mentions doing stupid things, and she didn’t mean it like that, but Luz just looks so completely shattered and you can tell she wants to cry but instead she bottles it up and tries to take it in stride, and that plays into her trying to overcompensate for her mistakes AGAIN… SOMEONE GET IT TO HER HEAD that she doesn’t need to! I’m scared for Luz, and I was SO scared this episode would end on a bad note…

BUT DOAHLDdFAEONDKFHN LUMITY KISS LUMITY KISS! ONE-SIDED BUT THEY FINALLY FUCKING KNOW AND AMITY IS LIKE WHAAAAT AND I WAS WAITING FOR IT AND I COULD FEEL IT HAPPEN AND GAY KISS! GAY KISS ON-SCREEN!!! And the way Luz just FLOPS to the ground on her knees AAHJJFFKHGGK and no Alador nor Odalia to ruin this, UTTERLY PERFECT and the twins WATCHING OOOHHHHGGGG YYYEEAAAAHHH-

This is EVERYTHING I ever wanted!

What an AMAZING episode with wonderful characer beats and reveals! Again, Amity’s growth as a character, that brief insight into how Luz as a person is very chaotic and sometimes frustrating for Amity and forces her to reevaluate, but ultimately it’s good and Luz DOES try her best, and Amity clearly wanted to make things up for Luz and apologize, they’re BOTH doing things, just the little moments!

Also, Alex Lawther voices Philip Wittebane! He has long hair and a vaguely british accent, he’s… He’s Belos isn’t he? And they got a new VA because having him voiced by Matthew Rhys would be really spoiler-y right? He’s got the long hair and he’s a nerd… And with how he talks of finding a way back home, maybe Belos really DOES just want to return home, after all? He talks of making a way back home…

And we see a glimpse of the Portal, so it might’ve brought him there? Or did Philip succeed in making it, and that was his blueprint designs? Did he arrive by Titan’s Blood? What happened to the portal if it brought him there, or if he made it? Why the scar, why near Eda’s house, partially buried?

Was it lost before he could finish his work, and Philip got side-tracked into something else… Perhaps going on a crusade, on behalf of a curse/demon that possessed him? A demon that killed King’s father…? Was the portal broken and he had to discard it, but then it naturally healed- Or did it just need to recharge, maybe Philip DID make it back home, WHAT IS THE ANSWER?! Is there some sort of doppelganger for Philip, is BELOS his doppelganger?! What is THIS WHAT-

WHAT AN EPISODE!

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franniebanana · 3 years

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CQL Rewatch - Ep 21

Note: I will be critical of Jiang Cheng in these posts. If you can’t handle that, please feel free to scroll on.

I really like this hug. I mean, if you've been reading these from the beginning, you know how much I love wangxian, but I'm really glad that Wei Ying's first actual hug after returning from the Burial Mounds is with Jiang Yanli. I'm not counting the hug with Jiang Cheng, because Wei Ying didn't hug him back. That hug was thrust upon him and he did not reciprocate. This reunion is very sweet, and tear-filled, and if I hadn't been up since 3 am, I might be feeling enough to shed a tear, myself. That being said, it's hilarious how they keep showing Jiang Cheng in the middle, looking awkward as he tries to balance joy and sadness. I get what the director had in mind, but it just looks weird lol.

But this part is also super sad, because Wei Ying again makes a promise he can't keep: that the three of them will be together forever. Now, I realize that if you hadn't read the novel or weren't familiar with the story, you should already know from the first two episodes that things do not turn out well for the three of them. However, if you're like me and have the memory of a goldfish, you probably didn't realize who everyone was in the first two episodes and even if you did, you've already forgotten long ago that Jiang Cheng was pissy and angry around Wei Wuxian and that Wei Wuxian's inner monologue reveals to us that JIang Yanli is dead. All that being said, his line about staying together forever hits a lot differently when you're very aware of how the story turns out, because Jiang Yanli dies, Jiang Cheng grows to hate Wei Wuxian more and more every day, and Wei Wuxian, of course, defects to save the Wens from slaughter. I think "let's stay together forever" is something you say and mean, but something that you know can't ever truly be. I think Jiang Yanli is old and wise enough to know that she will eventually marry and leave Lotus Pier, even though she will resist it for a while. The rest is uncertain, but I think at this point, Wei Wuxian really does believe and want to stay with the Yunmeng siblings and to stay at Jiang Cheng's side as he leads the Yunmeng Jiang Sect.

I will never not be heartbroken by this scene--even knowing how everything turns out--by how Lan Wangji looks at Wei Wuxian, how if things had been different in Yiling, he would have gone into that room and greeted him, how Wei Wuxian would have smiled at him and beckoned him inside, how they would have sat and Wei Wuxian would have talked Lan Wangji's ear off, like old friends. It's just so upsetting to me, and I can't ever shake that feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know what happens, but these two episodes, until they reconcile, really get to me. It's a horrible feeling when you want to help someone, but they don't see it as helping, and they only get upset with you. I deal with that on an almost daily basis, and I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone. I really identify with Lan Wangji here, and I think that's why I get such a visceral reaction to seeing him like this.

I don't know if I've said this, but Lan Wangji is my favorite character in CQL and in every adaptation of this story. He is kind of my perfect character--he checks off all the boxes: one-sided love, pining, standing by the main character no matter what, practically abandoning his own family for the person he loves. I love that he has an almost child-like innocence, but he's still very wise; he's smart; he's strong; he has a strict moral code and he sticks to it without fail, even if it means going against his friends and family; he's a loner, but he loves deeply. When I first started watching the donghua and reading the novel, I liked Wei Wuxian the best, and he's still my second favorite character, but Lan Wangji has stolen my heart.

Of course, Wei Wuxian goes to this awkward dinner party, after spending three months around ghosts (and then killing a shit-ton of Wen soldiers), and all he can think about is that empty seat behind him, the one where Lan Wangji should be sitting. It's interesting how the Yunmeng siblings each react: Jiang Yanli starts to become concerned and commits it to memory. She's probably wondering why Lan Wangji isn't there, and then seeing how Wei Wuxian wistfully stares at the empty seat, she finds it even more unsettling. Jiang Cheng just seems embarrassed by Wei Wuxian here and his motivation is to get Wei Wuxian back on track so he doesn't make fools of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect in front of the other leaders. He obviously knows what happened between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, and I don't think he's bothered by it at all. He doesn't seem to care whether they're friends or not, and I'd say that even at this point, he'd prefer if Lan Wangji stayed out of Wei Wuxian's life altogether. He knows how close they were, and I think he also knows that Wei Wuxian would choose Lan Wangji over him if given that ultimatum. With Lan Wangji out of the picture, Jiang Cheng gets to maintain more control over Wei Wuxian than he otherwise would. Even later on at Lotus Pier, he wants Wei Wuxian around, helping him, being his right-hand man. He doesn't want him wandering around the city or galavanting off with other cultivators. Granted Wei Wuxian was drinking at the time, but I don't think that invalidates my point that Jiang Cheng wants Wei Wuxian to stay in line and stay at his side where he can control him. You know, because he sees the relationship (as Wei Wuxian suggested) as the same as their two fathers: where Wei Wuxian is in a subservient role to Jiang Cheng. Mind you, that's different from seeing him as a brother, and I think, while there's some of that mixed into his other feelings, it's a very small portion.

No screenshot, but the following scene, after Wei Wuxian leaves the dinner party, Jiang Cheng follows him out. And even here, he asks what's wrong--asks if he's upset because of Lan Wangji--but then scoffs at how that could really be what's bothering him. He says something like, "Why did you come here just to be disliked by him?" I think while he gets that they have a close bond, he doesn't really understand the depth of the relationship. He's jealous of Lan Wangji, but doesn't fully understand why. Ultimately, I think Jiang Cheng, because of his parents and the way he was raised, really doesn't understand what it's like to have a good relationship with anyone. And this ignorance isn't his fault--he's a product of his parents and surroundings, and no one, including himself, has ever tried to fix this. So, without being able to really understand how relationships work, he scoffs at how Wei Wuxian could still be upset over what happened with Lan Wangji. Jiang Cheng essentially gave Wei Wuxian what he wanted in that moment, which was unconditional support to carry out his revenge, and yet Wei Wuxian is hung up on Lan Wangji not being supportive there, and in fact being in opposition to him. Jiang Cheng doesn't even really have friends, so he thinks Wei Wuxian should just get over Lan Wangji and move on with his life, but it's not that simple. Lan Wangji isn't just an acquaintance, he's not just someone that Wei Wuxian partnered up with to fight a battle or carry out a mission--he's a soulmate, a kindred spirit (if you want to go down a less romantic route).

I rarely can say anything bad about Jiang Yanli (except how she's almost always making soup), and here's another example: Chenqing. She's so far the only one who supports Wei Wuxian having a first class spiritual tool. She immediately shows interest in the flute, even encourages him to give it a name. Lan Wangji immediately sees the flute as something bad, while she's completely supportive. And this is really what Wei Wuxian needs right now, and I love her for being there. She's also about the only person he will genuinely smile around. He gives everyone else forced or fake smiles, but not Yanli. At this moment, I think he only wants to be with her, and I can't really blame him when everyone else is either opposing him or just wanting something out of him. She really is coming from a place of sympathy and comfort that's different from how the others are handling things. Lan Wangji wants to help, yes, but he tries to force it.

Imagine being in this room, listening to Jin Zixun (I'm not even sure if that's his name lol) trash talk Wei Wuxian, wanting to say something in his defense, but being unable to, not just because it's not your place to do so, but also because you're not even sure if you can defend him anymore. I think Jiang Cheng is struggling with the same. He stands up to Jin Zixun, finally getting him to shut up by saying that it's a domestic affair for the Jiang Clan and none of his fucking business, but Jiang Cheng also struggles to find excuses for Wei Wuxian. And that would certainly be difficult, because Wei Wuxian is somewhat like a stranger now. He's similar, but he's not the same Wei Wuxian that Jiang Cheng grew up with. He's really a shadow of his former self. But Lan Wangji has the added bonus of not being able to speak on his behalf because he's not even in the same clan--who is he to defend Wei Wuxian? He can't even stand with the others at the table (can't or won't, I'm not sure), so he certainly can't speak to Wei Wuxian's honor in front of all the other leaders. I'm sure the conversation back in Yiling is still running through his mind: this is a Jiang Clan affair--and to have that repeated again to someone else. That very much puts Lan Wangji in the "other" position. He's not in Wei Wuxian's clan, therefore, it's none of his business. He should care about him. He shouldn't try to protect him. He shouldn't try to guide him. But the problem is he still cares deeply about Wei Wuxian, and he wants to help him and protect him and guide him.

These scenes are always hard to watch for me (thank god for the special edition cut). It's really hard to watch the clans doing to the Wens what the Wens have done to the other clans. As if war wasn't already terrible enough, you also have what happens to the prisoners of war. In this case, Wen Qing's sect are all healers and have little to do with the war that the rest of the Wen Clan was waging on the other cultivation clans. However, they are still treated as enemies and imprisoned. It's difficult to watch the other clans, who you want to root for, making the same mistakes and transgressions as the Wens, who we are supposed to look at as the proper enemies in the story.

As we've seen a few times in this episode already, Wei Wuxian is having trouble controlling all the negative energy that's surging through him and the Yin iron, and on some of those occasions, he's touched his old wound. As he does this here, everyone looks at him, but he just looks at Lan Wangji. This is the person he cares most about in this room, the person whose heart his closest to his. I have nothing profound to say--I just like it.

And of course Lan Wangji looks right back at him. He knows Wei Wuxian best, even better than his own "brother", Jiang Cheng. He knows what happened in Xuanwu Cave, he saw the effect the sword had on him. I feel like each time they exchange glances, they are both crying out to each other, but Wei Wuxian is too stubborn to ask for help and Lan Wangji doesn't want to force the issue and strain their relationship further.

The way Lan Wangji hesitates here before saying, "I don't know," kills me. To him, it's just further proof of how Wei Wuxian is getting farther and farther from him, how the chasm between them just keeps growing. He's upset here. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to force Wei Wuxian to do anything--that's against his clan rules, but more importantly, against his own ethics--yet he doesn't want to stand by and do nothing while his friend destroys himself. I think we see Lan Wangji as a character who always knows what to do, someone who always knows the right path, but here we see how that's not true at all. This is a man who is very smart, very clever, but who is also unsure of himself. He's struggling with what's right and wrong. And he consults his brother here, hoping to get a clear answer, so that he'll know what to do next, but he gets nothing of the sort.

It would have been easier for Lan Wangji if his brother has simply said, "Wei Wuxian is wrong and an enemy," but of course he's more wise than that. Nothing is black and whit, and humans cannot be judged for what's on the surface. You have to look deep inside a person, know their intentions, and then you can judge if they are doing what's right or wrong. The problem is Lan Wangji doesn't know Wei Wuxian's intentions. Months ago, he know Wei Wuxian wanted to defend the weak, protect people who couldn't protect themselves, and live by such a just moral code. But now Wei Wuxian seems like a stranger, has murdered many, many people, and has taken cruel revenge upon Wen Chao and Wang Lingjao.

What I've noticed in this episode is that Wei Wuxian will look at Lan Wangji, but he always averts his eyes fairly quickly. It's as if he's afraid if they make eye contact for too long, he'll be letting Lan Wangji in, which he does not want to do under any circumstances. Letting Lan Wangji in means admitting what's going on as well as opening up Lan Wangji to danger. Wei Wuxian does not want anyone else getting hurt or dying because of him, so it's better to reject everyone and focus on his own clan.

Honey, I'd walk away too. It's hard to tell if Lan Wangji is about to cry or about to punch Wei Wuxian in the mouth--either one would have been excellent, but I'm leaning towards the latter. Lan Wangji had to answer Jiang Yanli. She met him by chance, but it was she who initiated the conversation. Of course, angst rules being what they are, we had to have a misunderstanding a la Wei Wuxian walking into the conversation midway and making the asinine assumption that Lan Wangji was just breaking his confidence by telling her EVERYTHING. Of course, anyone who knows Lan Wangji knows he'd never do such a thing. But when Wei Wuxian's shijie comes to him, voicing her concern and asking about him, he has no choice but to empathize with her and tell her what he knows.

I really like this little exchange. Reliving the fight on the rooftop, before they were acquainted, before they were friends--before Lan Wangji fell for him. This time when he attacks, it's not about malice, it's not about breaking the rules and bringing liquor into the Cloud Recesses--it's a man, looking at the one he loves, scared out of his mind, worried that that man is going to destroy his mind and body, using a taboo cultivation method. This fight is a love letter, as far as I'm concerned. It's an act of desperation.

Also I fucking love that around four or five people have asked Wei Wuxian where Suibian is, and each time he makes up a lie: he forgot it, he isn't in the mood, he didn't bother to bring it. But when Lan Wangji asks him, he doesn't respond. He doesn't lie, he doesn't laugh it off--whatever he does, Lan Wangji will know that he's lying, and Wei Wuxian knows that.

Other episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | Or just check out the #CQL Rewatch hashtag

#wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #cql #the untamed #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wwx #lwj #ep 21 #cql rewatch

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 3 years

Note

I really want to read the post where you say "why Ravenclaw is the House that suits MC the most in the main story" but I dont find it

I haven’t ever made a full length post about it, come to think of it. I’ve talked about it in previous Ask responses but admittedly I have quite a few of those. So I suppose now is as good a time as any!

Ultimately, HPHM’s story is designed so that any House can work for Jacob’s Sibling. Obviously, no one House is “canon” over the others. But in my personal opinion, certain Houses do make more sense for different reasons. Everything can change based on how you characterize MC, but setting aside the dialogue choices, they tend to have a general personality that fills in for most of the scenes. It’s average, a kind of “everyman” type. And certain choices can arguably be considered “canon” when they’re the ones that are free, placed next to choices that are locked behind attributes or friendship checks. That is the general vision of MC that I’ll be analyzing.

But first, the characters.

One of the primary reasons that MC fits Ravenclaw the best in the Main Story is because there are several characters who are aligned to MC in their Sorting. They always follow MC to whatever House they go to. Thus it becomes a question of which house suits them the most. Rowan Khanna, I think, speaks for them-self. I could see them in any House but they are a Ravenclaw through and through. I bet the only reason they ever get Sorted anywhere else is because they ask the Hat to let them follow MC. They are absolutely brilliant, with a love of reading and learning new things. They’re eccentric as well, deeply creative and good at coming up with plans. They dream of being a Professor, and they turn to books above all else. Next we have Jacob. Another character who could go anywhere based on interpretation, but he strikes me as a Ravenclaw too. Several of the options you can give when expressing speculation about him suggest that the reason he probably investigated the Vaults in the first place was his thirst for knowledge, his desire to know their secrets. To be specific, his stubborn and obsessive need to know. I feel like Jacob couldn’t let this go until he had learned all of the hidden magic and secrets of the Vaults, until he realized far too late that he was in over his head, mixed up with R and everything.

Then there is Flitwick. A canon Ravenclaw of course, and one of the four Heads of House. It could be coincidental, but even if it is, Flitwick is easily the most developed of the Heads of House within this game. McGonagall is totally in character, but she’s part of the sideline outside of a small section of Year 2. Sprout contributes absolutely nothing, and Snape is likewise in character, but lacking anything to do until Rakepick shows up. Flitwick prepares MC for the first duel with Merula and gives them counsel. I suppose it’s not that much more than McGonagall teaching them the revealing spell in Year 2, but this felt so much more personal. You have the chance to make a promise to Flitwick, and either keep it or break it. In Year 4, he is I think the only teacher to speak up in Rakepick’s defense, and this leads into even further development of his character. By Year 5, he starts to warn MC not to investigate the Portrait Curse, but stops mid-sentence as he realizes that nothing he can say will stop them. I bring all of this up because Flitwick being such a fleshed out character in this game kind of goes hand in hand pretty well with the idea that he is MC’s Head of House. He is the only Head who shows the slightest bit of remorse when banning MC from Hogsmeade. With him, you really get the sense that he’s being overruled and doesn’t agree with it. That he’s in MC’s corner. And god I love him. I won’t stray too far into the Quidditch characters, but I will say that Murphy and Orion are two other characters that stick with MC, who I could very much see as Ravenclaws, both in different ways. But still, it’s Jacob and Rowan who are most important in affecting the story.

Which brings me to the story itself.

Hogwarts Mystery is different from the story of Harry Potter. This is the tale of Jacob and his Sibling. In HP, we know from the beginning who the villain is, that he’s an evil monster. We know what he wants, and that he failed. It gets fleshed out more later but everything you need to know is in that first book. We see him, he clashes with Harry, and loses. The books are a hero’s journey. A story of good versus evil. They do have mystery aspects, each of the books has a mystery told within it’s pages. But the overarching story is not about what’s hidden in the trapdoor, or who opened the chamber of secrets. It’s about Harry and Voldemort’s rivalry, their hero/villain dynamic. Everyone knew going into DH that Harry would defeat him in the end because that’s how these things go. OOTP basically confirmed it but most fans had known for years.

HPHM is different.

There are heroic moments, and Merula in particular compares MC to being a “hero.” But nothing they do is heroic in the same way as Harry. They both take active roles in the story but in different ways. Harry is still reactionary. He takes it upon himself to solve the problems, but he still waits until the problems show up. MC plans to open the Vaults even before the Curses show themselves. They arrive at Hogwarts with a goal in mind, finding Jacob. And with Hogwarts Mystery, the overarching story is not a hero’s journey. Because MC is so much more ambiguous than Harry. It might seem redundant to say that this story is a Mystery, but it is. An ongoing investigation, the unraveling of a conspiracy. Learning the truth about just what went down during Jacob’s years at Hogwarts. By HBP, Voldemort was such a familiar presence that we were learning the ins and outs of his childhood, right down to how his parents met. By Year 6, we still have no idea what R really is, or what they want. We don’t even know what it stands for. The black and white of the books, the heroes and the villains...that’s all replaced with shades of gray. Jacob is constantly in the gray. So is Rakepick, at least at first. Don’t get me started on Merula. Ben is another character who is definitely good, but has gone through such a roller coaster about who he is and whether he can be trusted.

Then there’s the ambiguity of MC them-self. The hints that they don’t share everything with people, are prone to tricking others, and for all we know, might wind up on the Dark Side someday. I’ll admit, this can also lend itself well to MC being a Slytherin, and indeed there are dialogue choices that are locked behind being one. But I still feel as though MC playing detective throughout this entire game, that whole premise lends itself pretty damn well toward a Ravenclaw MC. They’re trying to defeat the bad guys, but their main method of preparing for that fight is not train up an army of students, it is to investigate the Vaults, and investigate R. Even going as far as to work with Wizarding police. Granted, I know Harry poked around a lot too. And MC does form the Circle of Khanna, just like how Harry formed Dumbledore’s Army. Both of them do exhibit both behaviors, but MC specializes in covert investigation more than preparation for combat. Again, at least they do so in the main story. The Circle of Khanna was not meant to be like Dumbledore’s Army, at least not in concept. MC first conceived it as the idea of standing toe to toe with the Cabal by having a secret organization of their own. I know that didn’t really land perfectly in actual practice but that was the whole idea. And if there’s one thing MC has a constant stream of, it’s ideas. Not always the right ones, not always fast enough, but they do have them, and these ideas steer the plot. In the main story and otherwise.

It’s probably a bit cheap to get meta, but so be it.

I can’t help but notice how, if we take every other contribution to the Potterverse into account...well then, we’ve got a Gryffindor Protagonist in the form of Harry. We’ve got a Slytherin Protagonist in the form of Albus Severus. And a Hufflepuff over in Fantastic Beasts with Newt Scamander. If MC is a Ravenclaw, then that completes the quartet. But there’s another Quartet out there as well - that of the Original Four. Rowan, Ben, Penny, and Merula. The Year 1 characters and the OG leads of the Hogwarts Mystery story. Notice anything about them? We have a Hufflepuff, a Gryffindor, and a Slytherin...but no Ravenclaw. None that is, unless MC, and therefore Rowan by extension, is a Ravenclaw. MC being Sorted into the House of Eagles completes both of these groups. I dunno, I just find it curious that unless the Player goes to Ravenclaw, the first student character we meet in that House shows up in Year 3. Because Jam City wrote in some amazing characters for Ravenclaw. My love of Tulip Karasu is well documented, but I also think Talbott is pretty damn fascinating. Andre and Badeea rock too! Ravenclaw is also a relatively neutral House. I’ve said before that HPHM ignores the House rivalries, and that’s easiest to incorporate in the House of Eagles, which mostly keeps to itself. It would not be socially strange for a Ravenclaw to have so many friends from different Houses. I’m not saying a Slytherin MC couldn’t befriend Ben, for example, but he’s a Muggle-born Gryffindor and that would be a big deal to everyone else. Again, not saying it couldn’t happen, just that it would turn heads and people within Slytherin might go as far as to treat MC like a traitor. I like this premise, but...would Felix seriously help MC prepare to fight Merula, a fellow Slytherin, on behalf of someone like Ben? There are other trivial problems, like the question of two male Prefects if MC is Gryffindor, etc.

But that’s just a few thoughts. Again, there’s clearly no “canon” House, and neither of my MCs are even in Ravenclaw. But I think it’s fun to explore the idea as Ravenclaw is a House that, I think, is sorely needing development.

#Harry Potter #Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery #HPHM Analysis #HPHM Jacob's Sibling #HPHM Jacob #Rowan Khanna #Filius Flitwick #HPHM #Ramblings #Long Post #Patricia Rakepick #HPHM R #The Circle of Khanna

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auradon-bore-a-don · 3 years

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can you tell us more about elysia? about elise?

Hi anon! First off, I just want to say thank you for asking about my OCs! And secondly, sorry I didn't answer this sooner, tumblr doesn't like to show me the notification when I get asks so I didn't see this until today! (Also please note that all of my OC's were made after D1/around D2)

Elysia

Elysia is the daughter of Hades and a mortal woman from the Isle, making her a demi-god. She is named after Elysium/The Elysian Fields, the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous in Greek mythology and religion. She's one of the slightly younger VK's at 15 and has her father's signature blue hair. Like many of my OC's, I have a few different story ideas that include her in them so sometimes she is the younger sibling of Hadie, I imagine him to be older in his 20's or so, sometimes she's the younger sister of Evie, as I headcanon her to be the daughter of Hades and the Evil Queen I mean come on her hair is blue for god's sake, and sometimes both. It all depends on the story.

Much like her father, Elysia wears punk rock fashion with lots of chains and her favorite accessories are chockers. Her hair is usually kept short, think Miley Cyrus's short blonde hair style but the top is a bit longer and Hades blue. She's also on the shorter side at 5' 4", but don't let that deceive you, she can and will cut a bitch. I used to have a face claim for her but since then I've developed her character more and as of right now I don't have one. Elysia also has a lot of piercings, including a nose, a few ear, and a tongue piercing. She is also very very gay. She's had a long time crush on her friend Kinsey (the daughter of the Queen and King of Hearts) and while normally she is brash and acts tough, when she's around Kinsey she get all flustered. She has her father's sarcasm as well as his temper and takes no shit from anyone. When she gets angry her normally greyish eyes flash yellow and her hair turns to red just like her dad. Speaking of Hades, he is not like he was in d3, he doesn't think giving his child "daddy issues" will make them better and anyone who thinks other wise can fight me please don't actually fight me Iol

Overall, Elysia is one of my favorite OC's. She can be a little shit, but she's my little shit and I love her for it.

Elise

Elise is the daughter of the Enchantress from Beauty and the Beast. She's the OC who inspired my post about the enchantress from a while ago. I've always been torn between where/what the Enchantress would be doing in the Descendants world. Like Elysia, I have a few different stories ideas for her depending on the plot. Sometimes she's raised by FG and is like a sister to Jane, other times she's on the isle with her mom, and sometimes her mom is missing but she thinks she's just a child of a non-main character. I haven't narrowed down a specific story line for her but most of her is based off of the song Evil from Descendants: Wicked World because when she finds out who her mother is she tries getting revenge on her behalf.

Elise's name doesn't have a specific meaning, I really only chose it because I love that name the same goes for Daphne and it's French in origin. Elise is an older character, usually between 18 and 20 depending on the timeline/story. She's blonde like her mother and her hair is a bit curly/wavy and falls just below her shoulders. She has green eyes and usually wears green regardless of if she knows who her mother is. Her style is a bit more sophisticated, truth be told I don't have a specific style for her just yet, and she tends to work with FG at Auradon Prep.

While Elise isn't quiet a "villain" but it's really fun to have a character who's not just a "good guy" and kinda reverses the arc the Core Four went through in D1.

Thanks again for asking about my OC's! I'm not sure if you're the same anon who asked about two other of my OC's but I'll be posting about them later as well (Kinsey is one of them btw). I could talk about my OC's for hours but I'll stop here for now unless/until someone wants to know more.

If anyone else wants to know more about these OC's or any of my other OC's you can check out the My OCs tag on my blog and send me an ask, I promise I'll try to check my ask box more often lol

#disney descendants #descendants #descendants oc #descendants ocs #descendents #my ocs #my oc: elise #my oc: elysia #long post #ask #asks

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some-cookie-crumbz · 4 years

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“It’s three in the morning” for Fuyumi and Hawks please...🥺

Oh, Anon, you came for my Secret Ship with this one!!! I am all about that Huwumi!!!

The clatter of glass being rattled violently jolted her awake. She'd always been a light sleeper, for reasons she didn't like thinking about, and laid still for a moment. She determined the sound was coming from her own window. She flipped over slowly and stared at the looming shadow taking up the whole of her window. She sucked in a breath and frantically threw her glasses on, dropping the small, jagged icicle she'd conjured up with Quirk in her haste. Just because she wasn't a Pro didn't mean she didn't understand the concept of self defense. She made quick of the latch, pushing the slider up. "Hawks?" she wheezed in disbelief.

"The one and only," he said, the teasing tone he always spoke with sounding strained and the words struggling out through his teeth. She stepped back, arms extended to help him slip inside, as he wobbled his way inside. "Pardon the intrusion."

"Hawks, what are you doing here? It's-" she started, hands up in the air uselessly as she stole a glance at her alarm clock, "three in the morning!"

"Sorry about that; didn't mean to drop in unannounced," he drawled with a huffy chuckle. She took the moment to size him up, watching him sway uncertainly before her. It was then she noticed his feathers starting to pool on the floor, wings drooping with the struggle of staying upright.

"You're hurt," she breathed. She guided him over to sit on her futon before squatting down and cupping his face, carefully tilting his head this way and that, checking him over. She was a little relieved to find no head injuries, before she shifted to push at his jacket. “Where are the injuries? How bad are they? Should I call an ambulance?”

He reached out, looping one arm around her waist to pull her a little closer and dropped his head against her shoulder. “‘S not that bad. Mostly minor stuff on my back and shoulders, probably a little banged up in the wing area,” he said, not lifting his head from its perch and flapping his free hand in the air lightly.

“I’m going to go get a first aid kit out of the bathroom so I can patch you up. If they’re really bad, though, then I’m taking you to a doctor,” she warned, moving to pull away. He let out a small whine of protest but let her slip away. She carefully moved over to her desk and turned on the little lamp there, casting the room in a faint glow. “While I’m gone, get your jacket and shirt off for me.”

“Can’t wait to get me undressed, Fu?” he purred, his tone playful but still a bit bogged down. She shook her head but felt her lips twitch up in a small smile. If he was feeling well enough to make flirty commentary, he would be safe for a few minutes. "No rush about the injuries, though. I just... I really needed to see you."

Pink flooded her cheeks at the omission and she scampered out, letting out a quiet mutter that she'd try to be quick.

Fuyumi wasn't sure when whatever was between she and Hawks had gotten to this point of intimacy. As the only daughter - and the only sibling with a somewhat amicable relationship with their father - the job of maintaining positive public relations fell to her. She could be charismatic and superficial - and flirtatious when absolutely necessary - so, when he needed someone to grease the squeaky wheels of Hero society, Enji tended to call upon the now-eldest. She would be dragged along to banquets and charity events and the like to flounce about, playing the role of darling debutante to a tee, and gaining him some amount of clout. After all, Endeavor couldn't be that bad if he raised such a charming young lady.

She absolutely loathed it. She hated having to go and play the part, of having to let men she barely knew get cozy with her just for her father's sake. He was always watching for her, and nothing more than a hand sliding too a little too far above her knee had occurred, but the whole thing was still uncomfortable. And then there was the strain it put on her relationship with her brothers, too. With Shouto, it was more that he was put off by her assisting her father and gave her these looks that said more than words ever could. She opted against pointing out that, unless he do something about his own attitude, she'd most likely have to do clean up duty for him, too. It was always a fight with Natsuo and had come down to some nasty accusations being thrown at her a handful of times.

She had openly sobbed, the first time he said it, before closing herself off from feeling the sting of it when she'd seen how upset his own words had made him.

At one charity event, though, she'd slipped out to get some air and encountered then Number Three Hero, Hawks. He had overheard her grousing to herself about investors and the Hero Commission and chimed in with a few quibbles of his own. It had been a nice reprieve, to speak with someone who wasn't as tucked into the Commissions pocket as some of the other Pros, and from that point forward they sort of gravitated towards each other at social gatherings. They would whisper and gossip about some of the other Heroes in attendance, chat about their personal lives outside of work, about music and books and television dramas. She wasn't sure when she started actively seeking out red feathers or slicked back golden hair, nor when the fluttering had started in her belly at the mere thought, but… She liked it. She liked him. And he liked her. And, well… they fell into whatever their relationship was from there.

They didn't label it, but they were exclusive and belonged to the other and that was enough.

She was quiet and careful as she slipped out of her room and to the bathroom. Endeavor was out of the city for a few days and, as such, Natsuo and Shouto were both staying in the family manor. She knew they’d stayed up later than she had, with the older teaching the younger how to play Mario Kart, and hoped she didn’t wake them up. Locating the first aid kit was easy, but she double-checked it to make sure that all the items were there. She took a second to toss an extra tube of antiseptic cream and an actual bottle of burn cream in it as well. She then grabbed a washcloth and small basin, filling it with lukewarm water and tossing the cloth inside. She was willing to wager there’d be a bit of mess to clear away before she could start cleaning it properly. “Okay, that should be everything,” she mumbled to herself, carefully juggling the items and slipping back out into the hallway.

“Nee-Chan?” She jumped and turned to see Shouto watching her from the other end of the hallway. He was rubbing at one eye with the heel of a hand, voice thick with sleep, eyebrows knit in confusion.

She relaxed a bit at seeing it was him. Between Natsuo and Shouto, her youngest brother was the easier one to deal with. “Sorry, Shouto, did I wake you?”

“Mm. I heard voices coming from your room. Is everything okay?” he asked, wiping away the last bits of sleep before his eyes wandered down to the items in her arms. He blinked before lifting his gaze back up to meet hers. “Fuyumi?”

“It's nothing major; just an unexpected guest. Don’t worry about it, okay?” she asked, trying her best to sound reassuring. He just continued to stare at her, expression giving away nothing. Maybe he was the harder sibling to deal with; Natsu wore his heart on his sleeve and was incredibly vocal, sure, but at least she could always get a reading on him. But Shouto? Not so much.

"It's that guy, isn't it? The one you're kinda-not-dating?" he prompted, eyes narrowing and a slightly bitter note catching in his voice.

If she wasn't so frazzled, she might have been touched by how affronted he was on her behalf. "Sho, don't believe everything Natsuo tells you. He doesn't know as much about it as he thinks he does," she said gently, readjusting her arms and starting towards her room again. He looked like he had more to say, but she slipped back into her room as quickly as she could. She listened for a moment for the sound of his near-silent footsteps to move away before letting her shoulders go slack.

That would be a conversation - unpleasant - for the morning. Or, rather, later in the morning.

When she peered back into her room proper, Hawks had done as she asked and then some, sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out in nothing but his boxers. What bothered her, though, was the fact he was staring at the window, one hand twitching on his knee with a feather under his palm. His expression was pensive, as if he was anticipating something or someone to come through after him. She made sure to move with a little bit of noise to alert him to her presence without jarring him too much. His gaze softened on her immediately and she felt a small smile turn up on her own lips. "I doubt that the floor is more comfortable than my futon," she commented as she stepped closer.

He flashed her his trademark prankster grin but it didn't reach his eyes. "I didn't want to get it dirty," he said, scooting forward as she settled in behind him. It was a good thing she'd grabbed the cloth and basin, since his back was covered in road rash, bits of broken glass and what she knew by smell was liquor. There were even bits of gravel dug into some of the wounds, presumably from him being thrown out of wherever he'd been before. The worst of them were a two-inch gash right between his wings - jagged and oozing and uneven as if made with broken glass, good God - and a burn mark about the size of a fist on the lower left side of his back. Her fingers trailed down his back as the ghost of contact, fearful of hurting him.

"Keigo, who did this to you?" she asked, taking a breath to calm herself, and reached to wring the cloth out. She needed to have steady hands to prevent making things worse as she tended the wounds.

"Just a little… disagreement with some work buddies. Didn't like something I said and we decided to solve it like gentlemen," he said with a wheezed out laugh. She kept her touches light and delicate as she got the filth off. She could tell that it was more than that. Pros normally knew better than to come to blows over petty disagreements. Plus, the haunted, dull look in his eyes told her that much. But she also didn't want to press him on it. They would come to discuss it on their own terms, when he was ready. "Take it you had something similar going on out there?"

"Shouto heard me let you in. He, Natsu and I will most likely have a chat about that after breakfast," she said with a small huff, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, will they be giving me the shovel talk instead of your old man?" he asked, tone perking up a bit with amusement. She found herself giggling quietly as she worked on putting him back together. The stab wound was, thankfully, not deep enough to warrant the need for stitches, though she was sure that he'd be more than a little uncomfortable while it was covered and healing. Hawks made a noise of contemplation before clicking his tongue. "Ah, but that might be worse. I saw what the little one did to his buddy at the Sports Festival."

"In Shouto's defense," she said, picking up the burn cream and squeezing a generous amount on into her palm, "a good half of those injuries were self-inflicted on Midoriya-Kun's part. He told me so himself." She applied the cream with dainty dabs while she listened to his befuddled muttering at that revelation. She couldn’t blame him, though, as she’d been just as startled about the impractical effects of the Quirk herself. A comfortable silence fell between them as she finished patching him up. With that done, she carefully regrouped the supplies and put them away. “Okay, I’m going to go put everything away. While I’m gone, get as comfortable as you can, okay? I think if you lie down on your side, you can avoid agitating your wounds and still stretch out your wings.”

He hummed quietly, watching her as she left. She made fast work of getting everything put away and washing her hands. She stopped by the kitchen to get him a glass of water and some pain relievers, too. He had been unnervingly quiet while she’d worked on him, but she knew to expect that. When Shouto used to let her dress his wounds from training with Endeavor, he was silent, too. When she returned to her room, he had settled in on the far side of the futon, wings stretched out and dipping to the floor. She offered him the pills and water before heading to turn the lamp back off. With that done, she made her way back over to her futon and removed her glasses before slipping under the covers.

The minute she was in reach, his arms were around her, pulling her flush against him. He dipped his head and kissed her, soft but insistent. She kissed back and moved her arms carefully to loop around his neck. Normally she'd drape them over his shoulders and lightly rub along the base of his wings, delighting in how they would stretch and shudder in delight, but she didn't want to risk it this time. Instead she went for another soothing gesture she's learned in her time with him; gently dragging her nails through the short hairs along the nape of his neck. She felt his chest rumble with a pleased groan as they pulled apart from the kiss. "You know how much you mean to me, right, Fuyumi?" he mumbled, reaching a hand up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

A welcome, if not strange, sentiment. Apparently whatever happened had really rattled him

She tilted her head to press a kiss to his fingertips, awarding her with a small chuckle. "Of course I do, Keigo. And I hope you know that feeling is mutual," she assured, opting against making any teasing jabs. She could tell that now wasn't the time. Instead she gently pulled him closer, smiling into his hair as he burrowed into the crook of her neck, the arm still around her waist tightening slightly.

"We should get some rest; we're gonna have some explaining to do in the morning," he mumbled, lips brushing her skin with his words. Her heart skipped at the idea of him staying and helping her explain things to her brothers, a flush coming to her face and a giddy flutter kicking up in her belly. She closed her eyes and let out a small, contented sigh. She knew there'd be chaos in the morning, but they would handle that then. Right now, she wanted to indulge in the warmth of Keigo's body against hers.

#crumbles grumbles #Huwumi #Oh my gosh I hope I did them justice in this fic #I just really wanted to write them soft #I hope I did them justice!#And I'll have to write them again soon! :3 #my fics

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mcrninqstar · 4 years

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self para: don’t do that again.

SUMMARY: Lucifer pays Cupid a visit to see how she’s doing and to ask for a favor. TRIGGERS: Death mentions, Loss, Grief MENTIONS: @ofcupidslove, @ofhellsbells, @dxtective, @ofwarriors

He came into the flower shop knowing that she was around. “Cupid?” he called out, but received no response. “Cupid, try as you might you can’t ignore me forever. Come on out, love,” he sighed as he leaned against the counter. She appeared a moment later. She looked warn out and tired, but he supposed that’s what one looks like after returning from the dead. “There you are.”

“Hold on,” she replied, holding up a finger to hush him. She grabbed a throw blanket and settled herself into a rocking chair. “Okay, let’s hear it,” she replied as she wrapped the blanket around herself. “You’re here to tell me what I did was reckless and stupid and naive. So,” she waved her hand, “have at it. Come on.”

“While all of the above are true,” he replied as he eased himself into the rocking chair across from her. “I’m actually here to check in on you. Cupid, you died...” he leaned forward to get a better look at her. “You died and you went to an afterlife that hates you more than it hates anything else on Heaven, Hell, and Earth because of what you mean to Bells.” He let that sink in for a moment. He didn’t like having these conversations, but he cared about Cupid. She was the only one here younger than him and although she wasn’t his responsibility he felt like he failed her by not being there to help Belphegor himself. “Cupid,” he sighed, “Why didn’t you come to me for help? You know I would have helped.”

Cupid fidgeted with her fingers for a moment, she couldn’t meet Lucifer’s gaze. “You had a lot going on, Lucifer. I...” she shook her head and swallowed hard. “I panicked.” It’s not like she hadn’t had help with her. She had Charlie and she had Sam. She could have waited on them but she’d gotten scared. “I thought I lost them,” she pulled the blanket closer to herself as if she was cold. “And I...” she shook her head. “I couldn’t imagine living in a world without them. If they were gone...”

“You wanted to be gone too,” he finished. Cupid nodded her head softly and they stayed silent for a moment as Lucifer proceed the information. “Bloody hell...” he whispered to himself as he stood up from the rocking chair.

“It’s stupid, I know but--” she was cut off when she felt his arms wrap around her in a hug. Her brows knitted in surprise, Lucifer wasn’t much of a hugger but she hugged him back never the less. It felt nice; she felt safe. She felt tears coming down her cheeks and before she knew it her body shook with full on sobs. He held her, rubbing her back gently as she cried.

“You love them, I know,” he murmured softly as she cried into his chest. Lucifer didn’t pretend to understand love fully, but he knew it made people do stupid things. Cupid was the embodiment of love and when she fell in love, it often blinded her to danger. “I love them too,” he replied as her tears started to die down. “They’re my brother and they’re important to me, but you’re important too, Cups,” he replied. He heard her scoff. “No,” Lucifer tipped her chin so that she would look at him. He wiped of the tears off her face before continuing. “Cupid, you are important. Not just because of your duties to Heaven or humanity. Archangel or not you’re family. And this family can’t stand to lose another person. If I lose Bells,” he took a deep breath, trying to fight back the emotion he felt. He needed to be strong for her right now. “If I lose Bells,” he began again, this time his voice remained steady. “I don’t want to lose you too, alright? It’s not what Bells would want either. I can’t lose you both. So, please, next time just come and find me.”

It was rare to see this side of Lucifer. Cupid had done some stupid shit in her lifetime that resulted in near death before and that was why Lucifer had Maze and Charlie watch over her and Bells, but she could tell she’d really scared the devil this time around. She felt terrible for having added more to his plate. Cupid nodded at his request and wiped at her face. “Okay,” she promised. “Okay. I won’t do it again.” She would try not to at least.

“Good,” he replied as he let her go. He wanted to believe her. He could see just how much dying had impacted her. Lucifer stood up and straightened himself up. “I have to go back to hell,” he replied. “I’m leaving tonight. In the mean time, Maze and Levi will be here to take care of things. But if you need me just pray...I can still hear those.”

“I will,” Cupid nodded. “Are you going to tell Michael about what I did?” she asked.

“No, I’m going to trust you not to do it again. When Heaven lost contact with you for a bit there I told him it was the void accessing Belphegor’s powers. Michael thinks it came at you and tried to block out Heaven so that it could get you to lose your grace. I told him that I felt the wave of energy and came in before it had the chance to make you fall completely.”

“Thank you,” she replied. She knew Lucifer didn’t like to lie and he’d just done so on her behalf, but at least it meant Michael wouldn’t ask her questions about why she looked so worn and gray. “I owe you for this.”

“It’s a good thing I’ve come to collect,” he chuckled, but there was a sadness in his eyes.

“Name it and I’ll do what I can,” she replied.

“It’s Chloe,” he began. Cupid could hear the pain and sadness in his voice as he said the detective’s name. “You know about the curse now, no doubt. She doesn’t deserve that. No one does,” he replied. Lucifer fought against his Father so that he could and his siblings could have free will and here God was taking that choice away from Chloe. “Find a spell. Set her free.”

Cupid nodded as she took in the request. It wasn’t going to be easy to break a love curse from God, but she would do her best to try and find something to lift it. “And if I break the curse and she still chooses you?” Cupid asked as she eyed the devil. “What then?”

“Cupid, don’t.” This time he couldn’t meet her eyes. His voice was soft as he spoke. “Hope is a dangerous thing. Especially where I’m going.” He couldn’t get his hopes up. He couldn’t afford to do that right now.

“Then I’ll have hope enough for the both of us,” she nodded. “I’ll see what I can dig up on the love curse,” she promised. “Just be careful down there.”

“Yeah, you do the same up here, love,” he placed a kiss on her forehead before pulling away. “I’ll give my regards to Aamon for you then,” he grinned. Cupid shook her head and smacked him away.

“Have fun in Georgia,” she called out as walked to the front door. “Get me some t-shirts too. I’ve got work to do.”

#╰☆☆ now tell me what is it you truly desire? | replies ☆☆╮#╰☆☆ i’m right where i’m supposed to be | chloe ☆☆╮#╰☆☆ a golden cage is still just a cage | michael ☆☆╮#╰☆☆ you know what it takes to make a star shine? a shitload of fucking darkness | belphegor ☆☆╮#there's a lotta soft sad in this

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goddessofgamma · 5 years

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Extreme Lengths to Prove Loki Wrong, Part 3 (Ao3 link)

Summary: As Christmas day begins, Thor and Bruce try to navigate the odd, murky waters of surviving social occasions with the Asgardian royal family.

Thor awoke early on Christmas day, as was normal for him, but for once he didn’t feel the need to get up and go on with the day straightaway. He was comfortable, the warmth of the bed and the body beside - no - entangled with him keeping him anchored in place. A gentle arm was wrapped around his waist, a warm body pressed flush against his back.

It was Bruce, he remembered now, everything coming into focus. Thor twisted to look behind him. Bruce looked more peaceful that Thor could ever remember seeing, his face free of stress or anxiety.

They stayed like that for a long time, perhaps hours: Bruce asleep, Thor not wanting to wake him. When finally Bruce awoke, Thor helped him prepare for the day, telling him what to expect from different family members, and helping him with his suit.

“Your family seriously all wear suits on Christmas? Even though it’s just you guys there?” Bruce asked as Thor helped him with his cufflinks.

“Just be glad you’re not expected to wear formal robes. Or a helmet. Would you like to borrow a bow tie, or a regular one? I suppose I do also have a cravat lying around here somewhere…”

“A regular tie’s fine, I wouldn’t know how to do a bow-tie anyway.”

Thor mumbled agreement and found a purple tie from his drawer that would suit him well. Passing it behind Bruce’s neck and tucking it under his collar, Thor could feel Bruce’s heat, could swear he was flushed.

“There,” Thor said, as he finished, looking down and appreciating his work. “You look very dashing.”

“So do you.” Bruce’s reply was quiet, like he didn’t want to say it but couldn’t stop himself.

Before Thor could spend any more time looking at Bruce’s eyes, trying to decipher his expression, there was a sharp rap at the door.

“Thor, I’m coming in, you better be wearing clothes.” The voice was deep and feminine. Thor recognised it as belonging to his sister, and groaned. Hela pushed her way into the room, not waiting for a response. “You’re expected at breakfast in ten minutes. What is it with you, brother, you’re usually such an early riser, it’s almost sickening.”

“Merry Christmas to you too, Hela. Bruce, this is my sister, Hela.” Bruce did a half wave, not wanting to repeat the bowing incident. “Hela, this is my partner, Doctor Bruce Banner.”

“You can call me Bruce,” he offered.

“I won’t.” There was no sign of joking in Hela’s tone. She turned to Thor. “So this is your new plaything Loki was telling me about. A little older than I was expecting. Anyway, down in ten minutes or I’ll send Fenrir after you.”

With that, she left.

“Ignore her, Bruce,” Thor said. “She’s just… the worst.”

“How is it that you’re such a ray of sunshine when your siblings are… like that?” Bruce looked disbelieving.

“I’m a ray of sunshine?” Thor was pleased with the description. “I suppose my mother’s amicable nature had to pass on to at least one of us.” He straightened his tie. “Well, my love, will you join me for breakfast.” Thor held his arm out for Bruce to link with him.

“Okay.” Bruce held his arms up in mock surrender. “No way I could refuse you, my prince.” He was teasing Thor as he took his arm, but didn’t sound totally sure of himself.

They made their way, arms linked, down the grand staircase to the drawing room.

“Hello! Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!” Thor jumped at the noise, coming from someone he’d never met. “You must be Loki’s brother, it’s great to meet you. I’m En Dwi, or ‘The Grandmaster’ as my subjects do tend to call me.” His talk was charming, but Thor was repelled.

“Thor, Lord of Thunder,” he introduced himself, shaking the Grandmaster’s hand with all the strength he had, trying to intimidate him. “This is my partner, Doctor Banner.”

“Delightful, Doctor Banner, a pleasure.” The Grandmaster turned his attention back to Thor. “What are those, on your cheek, are those sparkles?”

Thor was confused.

“What?”

“Oh, I think you’ve got some glitter on your face, Thor,” Bruce supplied.

“What, where did that come from?”

“Don’t worry about it, sparkles, it suits you,” The Grandmaster told him.

Loki poked his head into the room.

“Good, you’re here. Come into the living room with me, I don’t want to deal with father alone.”

“On my way, darling, don’t worry. See you later, Doctor, Sparkles.”

As they left, Thor felt Bruce’s fingers brush soft against his cheek. He turned to look Bruce right in the eye. Bruce’s eyes traced his face, and Thor could feel his warmth, close to him. His heart seemed to be moving strangely in his chest, making Thor feel giddy.

“What are you doing?” He asked Bruce, his voice low.

“I’m trying to get the glitter off your face.”

“Oh.” Thor was a little disappointed. “Thank you. I wouldn’t want him to call me ‘sparkles’ every time he sees me.”

“He’s Loki’s partner?” Bruce checked.

“Yes. The president, or ‘Grandmaster’, as he says, of a small island near the Azors, Sakaar.”

Bruce looked nervous at that.

“He’s a president?”

“Only of a small country. Barely a country. Their main industry is waste disposal, there have always been rumours that Sakaar was created when the collective rubbish of the world fell into the sea and compounded together, forming an island. It makes no scientific sense, of course, it’s an old wives’ tale, but it does give you a rather vivid image of the island.”

“Oh, god.” Bruce still looked queasy. “Is that the kind of person your parents expect you to be dating? A president or princess or something?”

“No!” Thor said, patting Bruce on the back to reassure him. “They’ll prefer you! Or, at least my mother will be happy with anyone, so long as they make me or Loki happy. And I suspect my father will clash egos with ‘The Grandmaster’. And, anyway, you’re much kinder and smarter than he is.”

“You’re right.” Bruce sounded like he was trying to convince himself of it as much as anyone. “How many PhDs does the Grandmaster have? None. How many do I have? Seven.”

“Precisely. You’re sure to win my parents over Bruce, you need not fret.”

“You’re speaking like a prince again.”

“Ahh, verily.” Thor was glad Bruce had calmed enough to make fun of him. “Dost thou like it?” He joked.

They went into the dining room when Bruce was ready, Thor making a beeline to greet his father and introduce Bruce, not wanting to delay any further.

Odin did not embrace him directly, but fondly clasped Thor’s shoulder as he spoke.

“Thor, my son, it is good to have you here.”

“It is good to be back, father.” Despite knowing his father had done many things wrong over the course of his life, and in parenting him and his siblings, Thor still loved him. He could be nice, congenial for the majority of the time and it would make Thor forget the damage he’d inflicted. “Let me introduce my partner, Doctor Bruce Banner.”

“It is good to meet you, Doctor Banner. I must say I was surprised to hear of you from Loki rather than Thor.”

Rather than throw Bruce in the deep end and leave him to respond to that, Thor jumped in.

“Bruce is a rather private man, father, I did not think it was a good idea to introduce the two of you before I felt sure I could see a future for us together.”

“And now you can? See a future together, I mean?”

Bruce was trying his best not to look embarrassed when Thor met his eyes with a look of reassurance. Memories of the two of them flitted through Thor’s mind, and he wasn’t exactly lying when he answered.

“Yes. Bruce won’t be leaving my life any time soon.”

Odin turned the conversation back to talk to Bruce

“Doctor Banner, Heimdall tells me you are a scientist.”

“That’s right. Medical physics at the moment, mostly. That was, err, how I met Thor, actually.”

The conversation continued for a while after that, and whilst Odin was never unpleasant, Thor could tell that Banner wasn’t exactly at ease. He made an excuse to talk to Frigga after a while, thinking that Bruce would be more comfortable with that.

“How are you feeling? Do you feel alright?” Thor checked when they left Odin’s earshot.

“Yeah.” Bruce nodded but he looked a little stressed. “Yeah, that went better than I thought it would. It doesn’t seem like anyone’s guessed that we’re not… y’know…”

Thor grinned at him.

“Why would they? You and I are close, we look after one another, confide in each other. We even go for coffee dates, we’re practically already dating. And now I’ve even got you into my bed…”

Christmas morning went well, in the main. Frigga took an interest in Bruce’s work, and thankfully Hela stuck to talking to Loki and Odin for most of the time. They were only questioned on how they got together the once, by the Grandmaster (“Tell me Champ, indulge me in the story of how you fell to the wiles of the seductive Lord of Thunder”).

In the afternoon, presents were opened, Thor having bought things for his family on Bruce’s behalf so he wouldn’t have to splash out. The only present Bruce had bought himself was his gift to Thor, a sword in a scabbard that confused everyone watching apart from the two of them.

“Dragonfang! The sword of the Valkyries! It is a beautiful replica, Bruce, I shall treasure it.”

The sword was from Thor’s favourite film franchise, The Valkyrie, about an band of warrior women and their fight against evil.

“It’s, well, it’s not a replica. It was used in the movies, in the third one.”

Thor beamed.

“To my memory, I have never gotten a better present, thank you, my love.” The term of endearment felt natural on his tongue.

In return, when they had wandered away from prying eyes, Thor gifted Bruce with tickets for a trip to Kolkata. He had heard Bruce talk often about his time there, volunteering at a children’s clinic. More than once he’d wondered aloud how those children were doing now, but didn’t think he’d be able to go back.

“You can volunteer again, if you would like,” Thor explained to Bruce. “And I had hoped, if you wanted, that I could join you, at least for a few days, make up for this Christmas.”

“That sounds good.” Bruce’s words were mild but the look in his eye told Thor that he really meant his words. “And, you know, you don’t have to make up for anything. It’s good to be here, with you, rather than at home on my own.”

Later, in the evening, there were going to be a few people other than family coming for drinks. Heimdall and Lady Sif arrived, along with some of Thor’s other friends, Volstagg, Hogan and Fandral.

Bruce was taken aback when he recognised one of the faces from the other side of the room. She was lacking her usual striking makeup, but looked fierce nonetheless, in a white suit that was much smarter than anything Bruce or Thor had ever seen her in.

“Hey there, big guy,” Val called over, when she made eye contact with Bruce. “What are you doing here?”

Any relief at seeing a familiar face in this foreign country was quickly quashed when Bruce realised he would have to explain why he was there to her. Val was one of Thor’s friends from Asgard who had moved to New York a little before he had, and she’d hit it off with Bruce as soon as they had met. He hadn’t considered that she might return home for Christmas.

Thor, noticing Val as she made her way to them, tried to take charge of the situation, taking Bruce’s hand.

“Val! Good to see you!” The enthusiasm in Thor’s voice lacked its usual, genuine, glowing quality. “As my partner of nearly a year now, it was only fitting that Bruce finally meet my parents.” He hoped Val would get the message, go along with it.

“Partner?” Val looked excited, for a moment thinking that they had just gotten together, but her face switched to confusion as she processed that they had supposedly been dating for nearly a year. Thor glared at her and Bruce pleaded with his eyes. It seemed to do the trick. “Oh yeah, partner.” She winked, devoid of all subtlety. “What d’you think of Asgard, Bruce?”

“It’s beautiful. A lot of gold,” said Bruce, awkward. “And red.”

“I prefer green, myself,” Loki sprung from behind Thor, nearly making him drop his drink. “Val, I must say I’m shocked you decided to show your face here. Did they run out of alcohol in New York?”

“I don’t have to answer you, Lackey.”

“It’s Loki, as well you know. I have to ask seeing as though you see my brother more frequently than I; these two –“ He gestured at Thor and Bruce. “Did you know about this… attachment before now?”

“Yes,” Val lied. If she ever needed a motivating factor to tell tales on Thor’s behalf, proving Loki wrong was enough of a prize. “They’re all over each other every time I visit them. It’s gross.”

“Hey,” Bruce admonished.

Seemingly believing Val, Loki wandered away, back to the Grandmaster. A string trio had begun to play music and as soon as Loki got close to the Grandmaster, he was swept into hold, the two of them dancing. Others soon joined.

“What’s all this about?” Val asked when she was sure Loki was out of earshot. “Are you guys pretending to date? Or have you been dating this whole time and never told me? I did think you guys were always very touchy with one another.”

“We’re pretending,” Bruce clarified before she could go on any further about how she had already thought they were dating. “Just for the holidays, so Thor could – well – really it’s so Thor could wind up Loki.”

“Hey, that wasn’t the only reas-“

“That seems fair enough to me,” Val interrupted Thor defending himself. “Lackey’s a smug shit. Anyway, I would stay, but from the way Lorelai’s looking at me over there, I think I might be in luck, see you guys later.”

She took a swig of the wine she was drinking and marched right off in the direction of a beautiful woman with a sly smile across the other side of the room.

“Well, that could have gone worse,” said Thor, turning to face Bruce and taking his hands.

Bruce nodded.

“So Val thought could have been dating this whole time, huh.”

Thor lifted one of his hands to touch Bruce’s cheek.

“I would be a lucky man indeed.” It was difficult for Thor himself to judge whether he was joking. “Would you like to dance?”

“That’s probably not a great idea.”

“Why? Don’t tell me you can’t dance, I’ll guide you.”

There was a look somewhere between incredulity and humour on Bruce’s face.

“Really? I’ve seen you dance, and, well…”

“Don’t you like my dancing, Banner?”

He shook his head.

“It’s not that I don’t like it – it’s endearing – I just-“

“Dance with me, please.”

Conceding, Bruce took his outstretched arm, and Thor lead him towards where the other people were dancing and pulled him close.

“Now you can reach your arm up to my shoulder.” He lifted Bruce’s arm up. “That’s it. Then I take your waist.” As he reached around, he pulled Bruce gently closer to him. “How is that?”

“It’s not so bad,” Bruce replied, and Thor thought he could hear the smile in his voice though they were too close for him to be able to see. What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? was playing, a strange, slow, instrumental version. “You might be a better dancer than I thought.”

Thor chuckled at that, but then grew quiet, listening to the band. His thoughts soon drifted; being this close to Bruce he could hear the slow rhythm of his breath, the shuffle of his feet. Bruce’s warmth reached through their clothing to get to Thor, and Thor found he loved the feeling. It was comfort, relief, and the smell of Bruce that accompanied his proximity made it impossible to forget who it was that Thor was holding close. He reflected on his friendship with Bruce, how lucky he was to have Bruce in his life, that he would stick around even though Thor asked ridiculous things of him.

As the song ended, Bruce pulled back a bit, a puzzled expression on his face. He pointed towards the edge of the room, where Val was pulling a face and gesturing that they come to her. They both did, thinking that she had something important to say, maybe that someone had uncovered their ruse.

“Nice dancing. Although, I think you were a bit overshadowed by them.” She tilted her head in the direction of the dancefloor, where Loki and the Grandmaster were doing what appeared to be an Argentine Tango. “I’ve got to go, you guys stay here.”

“Err, what?” Thor said, both him and Bruce equally confused as to why she would call them over and hen tell them she had to go. Val gave no explanation, just gave two thumbs up and winked as she walked away.

“You got any idea what that was about?” Bruce asked.

Thor shrugged but then he noticed a dash of green in the otherwise golden room, right above them. Mistletoe.

“I think I’m beginning to understand.” He stepped towards Bruce, standing near as close as they had been while dancing. “Val is second only to Loki in terms of mischief.”

A surprised “oh!” made its way out of Bruce’s mouth and Thor knew that he had seen it too. Now that they had both visibly looked upwards, it would seem amiss to anyone in the room for them to not follow tradition, given that most believed them to be a couple.

Drawing himself in, towards Bruce, Thor felt his beard brush against the side of Bruce’s cheek. He was close enough that he could smell Bruce, aware that they were sharing each other’s oxygen, and the thought made him breath more deeply.

“Do you want this, Bruce?” Thor asked in a low tone, ostensibly to whisper sweet nothings in Bruce’s ear but really to ask his consent. “Take my hand, if so. I will not do anything you do not wish for.” Thor heard his words as he spoke. When he’d started talking, it was with the mind to make sure that he didn’t make Bruce uncomfortable in their ruse, but by the end of the phrase it almost sounded like he was pleading. Hoping it really was something that Bruce wished for.

Then Bruce took his hand and everything went fast and slow all at once. Drawing back, just enough to come back in to kiss him, feel the press of his lips, the warmth at every point of contact between them. Bruce’s hand came around the back of his head, puling him down to meet him with a surety Thor hadn’t known from him in a long time.

As fast as it had begun, the kiss was over. Staying close so their noses were still touching, Bruce whispered to him.

“I think we’ve got them all fooled.”

#oof that ending sorry guys #thor #bruce banner #gammahammer #thorbruce #thruce #thunderscience #my fic

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diannaphantomfiction · 5 years

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Karivarry LifeSwap AU Writing Prompts. Prompt 6/15: The Failure of the Matchmaker

Prompt requested by an anonymous asker. Here’s the Prompt: 4

His sister thinks Oliver secretly likes Kara and Barry without realizing they've already been dating for a year. After months of "trying to get them together" she found out they were already dating when she found them buying groceries for their apartment she had no idea they were living in.

(I know you were probably expecting Thea, but Oliver’s life is different in this world, Thea taking up the role of Jessie Quick from Earth-2)

Also, if anyone want’s a Sara/Amaya story in this world, I’m down. Or you can request stories about what other characters are up to.

Sara Lance loved her brother; both her brothers, and her sister, but when it came to Oliver, she was probably a little more protective than she really needed to be. When he’d come to live with them, he had been so... sad. No one had believed him and he was stubborn as they came so he never changed his story about what happened. That had convinced Sara that he was telling the truth, even when their dad and Laurel hadn’t believed him.

Of course, that protective instinct had led to some rather stupid decisions. She was suspended around seven times alongside Oliver for getting into fights, which of course led to a lot of groundings and lectures. More recently, she had stole a cold gun specifically made to stop Oliver (along with a heat gun she had given to her partner in love and crime Amaya) and become a morally grey, but well meaning crime boss to kill Oliver, believing him to be the man that killed his mother.

Despite the occasional screw up (ie: becoming a super villain) Sara was very good at reading her brother. They’d grown up together, and out of all her siblings he was her favorite, even if she’d never admit it out loud. More than anything, she knew what he looked like when he was in love.

She first saw it when she had helped him with a case that the Arrow had also helped with. She was just Sara’s type, a hot, leather wearing, badass, and she’d been fully prepared to flirt with her and try to get her into bed. Amaya had warned her it was a bad idea because ‘She could kill you Sara,’ but it turned out to be bad idea for a completely different reason.

Sara had taken one look at Oliver talking to the other vigilante, and immediately knew that Oliver was in love. She had been there for it, too. Smirking and teasing him to ask her out or marry her or whatever else came to mind. But he always stammered and denied it. Sara was actually starting to get frustrated, when she went to ask for Oliver’s help on behalf of the Legends and say him talking to Central City’s Superboy.

She hadn’t even known that he knew Superboy, but the way he was standing, the lightness of his voice, the specific smile he was smiling, and how easily he was reaching out to touch the alien. Oliver was in love with the Arrow and Superboy. No wonder he had been floundering so much! Oliver, even as sweet as he was, could barely handle being in love with one person!

So, she’d have to push him in the right direction. If everyone was on the same page there was no reason he had to chose. Of course, when she’d tried to recruit Alex, Cisco, Winn, and Roy they’d looked at her like she was crazy. Amaya had laughed, kissed her on the forehead and told her to “just stay out of it, love.”

“Hey babe?” Sara called, head in the cupboard and holding two wine glasses in her hand. “It doesn’t look like we have that Rosé you like...or any wine! I’m going to run out to the grocery store!”

Amaya was stretched out on the couch of their National City apartment, tucked under their fluffiest blanket, hair pulled up in a bun, face covered in a mask to pull the soot out of her pores, and giving herself an intense manicure to clean her hands. Alex had finally convinced Rip to allow them some shore leave. Sara and Amaya had planned to use the time to do some self care before checking up on their criminal enterprise. Sara already had her own mask (hydrating) and an electric blanket set up in the living area. But they needed wine.

“Take your gun!” Amaya called back.

Sara smiled and moved to the living room, giving her a careful peck on the lips. “Of course. I’ll be back soon. Love you!” She wrapped herself in her biggest jacket to hide her gun and left the apartment

The grocery store wasn’t very busy. It was after 7, so it wasn’t the most surprising thing, but it was nice. Sara slipped through the store to the alcohol aisle without issue and quickly. She was just getting Amaya’s favorite wine when she heard it.

“Sara?” It was Superboy (Barry) and the Arrow (Kara) together, pushing a cart full of rice, noodles, and various forms of meat. “Oliver didn’t tell us you were in town!”

“Well, I didn’t know I would be until a couple hours ago.” Sara felt her heart break on Oliver’s behalf. Barry and Kara, grocery shopping together. Clearly buying food to accommodate Barry’s increased alien appetite. Barry could easily live in National and work and fight crime in Central.

And they were wearing rings. Matching gold bands, Kara’s with an emerald and leaf engravings and Barry’s with rubies and infinity symbols. When had that happened?

Oh, poor Oliver…

Then there was a flash of sea blue and yellow lightning and there was Oliver, arms full of pastries from the store’s bakery.

“Oliver…” Kara said, lightly chiding him with a smile, “Barry wanted you to get vegetables.”

“I got broccoli.”

“Well, it is a vegetable.”

Barry made a distressed noise. “You’re both going to get scurvy.”

Sara watched the trio with a raised eyebrow until she saw the matching ring on Oliver’s hand with a sapphire the color of his Flash suit and two lines engraved along the diameter.

“Oliver? When did this happen? Have I been gone longer than I thought?”

Oliver turned to her, seeing her for the first time, his smile brightening even more. “Sara! Well, that depends, what year is it?”

“2017.”

“You’re good, you’ve been gone a few months maybe.”

Sara nodded slowly and gestures at the three of them. “So, how long has this been going on?”

They all look confused.

“For like a year?” Oliver sounded and looked like a confused puppy dog. “I thought you knew. All the teasing…”

“I was trying to get the three of you together.” Sara stresses the last word.

Oliver started laughing, quickly followed by Barry, and then a sweet chuckle from Kara. Sara couldn’t help but smile as well. It was a pretty silly situation to get caught in. Seriously, how did she miss that they had been dating for as long as she’d been trying to get them together?

Sara smiled and gave Oliver a hug. “I’m happy for you, bro.”

“Thanks, Sara. Hey, while you’re in town, you and Amaya should come over for dinner.”

“Sure, I’ll talk to her when I get home.”

When she got home, Sara did not mention the invite for hours, mostly because Amaya wouldn’t stop laughing at her for not realizing Oliver, Kara, and Barry had been in a relationship for an entire year.

“For God’s sake Sara, even Nate knew.”

#fanfiction #Writing Prompts #Karivarry Life Swap AU #Arrow #The Flash #Supergirl #AU #prompt #Karivarry #Life Swap AU

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spectrumscribe · 6 years

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and we keep on.

commissioned fic by @jointed-custody! some 2012 tmnt old donatello well down the line in his life, reminiscing about people he’s lost and the people he still has.

sort of set in my Mecha Turtle fanfic universe, but generic enough to be read as a standalone.

Staring out across the wide lawn of the farmhouse, Donnie enjoys the momentary peace of his own company. In the dull heat of summer warmth, seeping through everything around him, the ache in his joints eases enough he can sigh softly, rotating his stiff ankles. Too many hours on his feet this week, and he’s far too old to be doing that.

Maybe if he were twenty years younger- heck, maybe even just ten, he’d be fine. But ninety years and some months is hard on a turtle, even a mutant one with enough knowledge to cure just about anything.

Can’t cure old age, though, much as he’s tried.

Cells break down, replication becomes flawed- bodies get old along with the mind, even if the soul remains strong and youthful. Donnie is no young soul, certainly not by this age, but he likes to think he’s still got some gutso in the tank, even if he can’t quite pull all-nighters anymore.

It doesn’t stop him from trying, as often as that results in him passing out at his desk. He’s scolded for doing that by nearly every person he’s close with, as if they have any room to talk.

Even if it’s not genetic, as Donnie has suspected for decades none of them are related that way- stubbornness is certainly a family trait. Stubbornness to admit defeat, stubbornness to take care of themselves properly. They’re all as equally bad as him, especially now days, with old age catching up with them and just how much they can do anymore shrinking down.

That doesn’t stop Donnie from doing his work, and it certainly hasn’t stopped any of his brothers or surviving friends. Hell, Raph is up in space at the moment, along with Casey, the nutball old men they are. Donnie at least has had the sense to stay on earth; his brother and friend are still out there in the wide open cosmic ocean, getting into who knows what kind of trouble. If they’re all lucky, Donnie won’t have to reattach any of Casey’s prosthetic limbs when he gets back, or recalibrate Raph’s implants, again.

Donnie might have become a bit of a homebody in his late years, but at least he’s one of the three members of his family that hasn’t had to replace a part of themselves to keep ticking along. Leo has the excuse of it being from their teen years, fixing that bum leg of his so he could still walk by himself; Raph and Casey are just reckless fools, even if they’re as wrinkly and liver spotted as Donnie is.

But Donnie thinks of the vastness of space, of the planets they all saw as teens, of the societies filled with people that barely even blinked at him and his brothers, years before earth accepted its mutant population as people and not monsters- of the adventures they had together, outside the race to find the black hole generator pieces before the Triceratons, where they bonded and laughed and were free, even just for a few hours- and he sighs, wistful and longing.

A part of Donnie admittedly wants to be up there, too. He’s old, sure, but he’s not so old he’s forgotten how it feels. The rush of adrenaline, the breathlessness of a fight- terror and exhilaration mixing together in a way that made him feel alive. His youthful years made him an unwilling adrenaline junkie, after repeated exposure to danger and adventure, and a part of him misses those years. The bizarrely mixed freedom and entrapment of being who he was in a society that just wasn’t ready for any of them.

It also was psychologically and emotionally scarring at times, not to mention so painfully isolated it left them all stunted and bent in important places that took years of therapy to even somewhat correct. The adrenaline rushes were great, yes, but the wars, the fighting, the losses… they’d just been kids; Donnie and his brothers and their friends. Dealing with all those things messed them up thoroughly, to the point Donnie still triple checks anyone’s background before letting them get anywhere close to his family.

They’d been heroes at times, been on top of the world and felt like gods- but they’d been so young, back then. So many enemies bearing down on them, so many fractures and wounds put between them by their own bad choices… it’s a wonder any of them lived past thirty, let alone nearly a hundred and still remained as tightly knit as they are.

A flock of birds passes overhead of the farmhouse’s porch, swooping in a swirling cloud of blue feathers. Donnie watches them with lazy attention, and hums to himself.

Tightly knit as they are now, it’s not to say they never had ups and downs. There were years in between the good ones and the great ones, where they hardly spoke at all. Even Mikey. Especially Mikey. There’d been a period of nearly five years where Mikey just… disappeared. No note, no hint of when he’d return. Just… gone, off into the universe with only his nunchucks.

That’d been triggered by Leatherhead’s passing, Donnie recalls with a soft pang of grief. Their first and most dependable mutant friend, and their second friend ever. Mikey’s best friend, even with the decades spent apart because of Dimension-X. Leatherhead had been old even while they were young adults; worn and scarred because of the war he’d fought on behalf of earth and them. When he’d finally passed… the old crocodile had gone quietly, lying down one day and never waking again.

Donnie remembers he and his family had been roughly in their late twenties at the time. That, as he recalls with a tired nostalgia, had been the worst of their budding recovery years.

After holding himself together through their father’s death, and the fracturing of their family following that… Donnie remembers seeing Mikey finally cracking somewhere. And that crack had spread through him, leaving Mikey veritable a spider’s web.

And so he’d run, from the loss, from the grief- from everything. Donnie still can feel the ache Mikey’s absence had left in all of them, even now. He’d very nearly lost his brother for good during those years, and Donnie… still doesn’t know if he’d have recovered from that.

Mikey had come back, of course, but Donnie knows it’d been hard for Mikey to do that. Out of all of them, Mikey has somehow always been the most dependant and yet independent member of their family. Dimension-X proved he could be on his own, as well as all the years he spent wandering; but the way he’d hugged them all upon returning proved he still very much needed his family, even if being in the city where they lost so many people hurt him deeply at times.

Donnie is lucky he’s never lost someone quite like Leatherhead. The people he’s closest to are still alive and healthy as anyone their age can be. Perhaps he should feel a deep stabbing grief for his father’s untimely death, like he knows Raph and Leo still sometimes do… but for whatever reason, Donnie doesn’t feel that.

Everyone Donnie loves is still here with him, spread out as they sometimes are. He’d never had the same relationship his elder brothers did with Splinter, and he’s old enough now to tell that’s likely why Splinter’s death didn’t gut him as much as it could of. Donnie misses his father, but not as much as he would miss any one of his brothers or friends, should they have been the ones who died.

Leo nearly died, years before Splinter actually did, and because of that Donnie knows for certain. His father’s MIA status during those months didn’t affect him nearly as much as Leo’s coma. In the end, it seems the people Donnie did and still does cherish most are his brothers, and the two humans who stuck with them through everything.

April and Casey. Donnie doesn’t know where he and his brothers would have ended up without them. Never mind all the times the two humans bailed Donnie’s family out of trouble at the last second- without April, it’s likely that the world wouldn’t be what it is now. If the Kraang had gotten a hold of April, used her for the terraforming invasion they’d planned… Donnie nearly shudders at the thought. Everyone would be dead or enslaved if they hadn’t rescued April that night, and if she hadn’t taken the hanging threat over her life and spat on it.

Really, if April O’Neil hadn’t been the woman she became, Donnie doesn’t doubt things could have gone so much worse.

He could’ve done without the possession and temporary death, though. That had been… less than enjoyable. Za’naron gave everyone nightmares for months afterwards, most of all Donnie and April. They’ve long since moved past that night, grown out of the strain it’d put on their relationship… but some nights it still comes to him, same as every trauma Donnie has ever been through. He knows April suffers the same way, however little she’s ever spoken about it.

They’re still close, regardless of any fissure put between them before. Regardless of the years their entire family ended up drifting apart, miring in their own griefs and regrets and wanderlust to do and see more than fighting… he and April are still dear friends. Living together, sharing their kitchen and workspace and living room, is proof of how dear they are to each other.

Maybe not how his younger self imagined, but… Donnie is more than content with that. That crush became genuine affection over time, and that genuine affection grew into steady, true love. Again, not the sort his teenage self ever thought would happen, but Donnie as an old and aging turtle likes it just fine. It’s the sort that lasts, that keeps on through decades. The sort that April shares with all of Donnie’s siblings, and Casey, too. The sort that brought them all back together, in the end, and has kept them closely linked ever since.

He’s old, and he’s sentimental, and that’s probably why he’s sitting on a porch by himself and thinking cheesy thoughts about his family when he could be working.

Still, it’s good to come back to this scene ever once in a while. Though it had at first been a place of grief and time spent waiting for miracles… the farmhouse became a staple to them all in years passed. It was the first place Donnie and his brothers could walk freely under the sun, and that’s not something any of them would ever forget in a hurry.

It’s a place his entire family can come back to, and be together like they used to. A place where the world seems distant and there is only warmth and long summer days to be had.

Donnie chuckles to himself. He really is getting old, thinking things like that.

His hearing might be going, too, seeing as a hand is gently laid on his shoulder, and he heard no footsteps approaching.

“I was wondering where you got off to,” says Donnie’s very first best friend, and he turns his head to look up at her.

April smiles, crinkling the few crow’s feet that line her eyes. “Your assistant told me you threw quite the fit at the board of directors today,” She smirks, just as amused as she always is when this happens. “Would you mind telling me why you’re skulking in here, while there are important meetings to be had?”

Donnie looks at his friend, and feels the surge of nostalgia that’s been sweeping him the past few minutes. April has nearly pure white hair now, wrinkles beautifully lining parts of her face. She’s old as he is, and yet…

Donnie knows some of it is makeup, to ease the suspicion that she isn’t quite human. Donnie knows he and his brothers have a few decades yet before their mutant bodies really begin to breakdown, but April?

April was designed to conquer worlds, and what scientist would build a weapon that truly aged?

He suspects April, who walks with a straight back and steely gaze even now, will be around to terrorize rival companies for a long while yet.

“I’m ninety, April,” Donnie says, smirking back at her. “I’m allowed to have moments of elderly madness.”

She rolls her eyes. “Would you mind avoiding tossing papers into employee’s faces? They’re high-strung as it is.”

“Hm, I’ll try my best, but no promises. Old men tend to forget things, you know.”

She swats him. Donnie laughs, giving in and rising from his seat. “Alright, I’ll go apologize to the plebeians. But if they make another try at getting me to retire, I’m firing someone.”

“Not before I do,” April says, clicking her tongue. “I’ve already had three of them this year encourage me to start looking for a proper heir. Money grubbing fiends.”

“Shall we show them we still got it, then?” Donnie offers, holding up an elbow.

“Agreed,” April says, taking the offered arm. The simulation of the farmhouse ends as they turn away from the summery scene, leaving a single bench where Donnie had been sitting.

Exiting the holo room in the experimental testing wing, his droves of personally picked scientists and engineers scurry out of their CEO’s way. April’s little heels click on the floor as they do, sharp clacks like whips as they stroll through the hallways. Her ninja skills haven’t dulled at all over the years, including the art of intimidation.

Donnie is content to simply be a looming and wizened figure, a tad on the scary side thanks to his scars and severe looks when he gets in a mood. Leave it to April to actively play up the intimidation factor.

She doesn’t really need to, being the most powerful known psychic in twenty galaxies, but Donnie supposes a ninety year old woman needs to get her kicks somehow.

They nod briefly at the people exiting the elevator as they get in, and Donnie hits the button for the middling upper levels. As the elevator ascends the height of O’Neil Technologies, Donnie feels a pleased little smile tugging at his lips.

Their teen and young adult years had been brutal, and the decades it’d taken to fully integrate mutant, alien, and human society together had been harsh. But now he’s standing in a polished elevator with his best friend and fellow CEO of the most powerful technology company in the world. His brothers and friends are all still alive and causing the chaos they always have.

Mikey, on the ground levels of New York, free to make any friends he pleases and wandering without a care in the world- Leo, off with Karai and Shinigami, tittering to themselves as Karai’s adopted daughter tries to run the Foot Clan with her uncle and mothers leaning over her shoulder and making comments on things- Raph, up in space and still a roughhousing curmudgeon, even with ocular implants he needs to see and old man bones- Casey, the only fully human member of their family, down half his original limbs and still insistent that he’s fit as he was at fifty and just as reckless as he’s always been about danger.

And April, at Donnie’s side, just as lovely and terrifying as she’d been at twenty, as the two of them continue to build and shape earth’s future with technological advancements, and strong-arming the government officials into not being power hungry idiots.

They’ve lost so much, and yet, gained plenty to make for that. And that is why Donnie can smile, and feel content with the life he’s lived, and will keep living.

Commission info & Kofi link.

#tmnt #tmnt 2012 #spec commissions #Donatello #jointed-custody #April O'Neil #My writing #i love? old people still being best friends??#the concept of platonic love lasting so long is something i deeply adore #and also want in on #<3 #this family is still a bunch of reckless assholes even as geriatrics #no one is surprised

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sueboohscorner · 6 years

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#Lucifer—Season 3—Episode 14—"My Brother’s Keeper”

This week on Lucifer, things get personal. Lucifer and Ella find themselves dealing with brotherly issues at work. Sometimes there is just no escaping the family drama.

Ella’s brother walks into a gangster’s posh office with a briefcase full of diamonds, only for his phone to come spilling out of his pocket when it rings, displaying “LAPD” on the screen. Ella is calling (pretty convenient that Ella is labeled “LAPD,” huh?). While the phone goes straight to voicemail on Ella’s end, her brother is confronted by the gangster with a gun to the face.

As Ella leaves the message for her brother, Lucifer walks into Cain's office at the police station, telling him to take off his shirt. It seems their plans to kill Cain once and for all have begun. Lucifer thinks that the key to killing Cain lies in the mark God has left upon him. While the tattoo fades, the mark below does not. Sadly, Lucifer’s research includes watching The Da Vinci code and not much else.

Ella knocks on Chloe and Maze’s apartment door, only to be confronted by a knife-wielding Trixie, who she has to talk her way past. Apparently, Trixie’s favorite games include role-playing with knives, thanks to Maze! Ella finds it adorable and plays along. Ella and Trixie are wearing the same shirt and decide they’re sisters. It turns out that Ella is actually looking for Maze. She wants to hire Maze to look for her brother. While Ella and Maze talk, Trixie attacks the punching bag. When Ella offers to pay, Maze is happy to help.

Back at the penthouse, Lucifer asks Amenadiel for his help. Amenadiel refuses. Since Amenadiel thinks that Lucifer is his test, he feels that Lucifer needs to be protected from himself. According to Amenadiel, God cursed Cain for an excellent reason, and Amenadiel doesn’t believe that curse should be lifted. It appears that Lucifer and Cain will be working alone on this one.

Maze and Ella, who, by the way, believes that her brother is simply a diamond authenticator who is legit, walk into the gangster’s office and find a dead body on the ground. Upon further investigation, they find that the body is not that of Ella’s brother. It looks like Ella’s penchant for doing good deeds and believing the best about people, despite evidence to the contrary, may be coming back to bite her. Maze thinks Ella’s brother might, in fact, be the killer! Ella calls Det. Decker and Lucifer. While Ella believes that her brother is the killer, Ella defends him, telling Lucifer and Det. Decker that her brother always walked the straight and narrow. Ella finds, upon investigation of the crime scene, that there was another, left, not a right-handed shooter and Lucifer believes that all big brothers are bs-ers who shelter their younger siblings, assuming that Ella’s brother was the actual killer, hands-down. As per usual, Chloe is the only level-headed one in this investigation. Chloe asks Ella to step away from the investigation while she, Lucifer and Maze work.

Charlotte walks into Dr. Linda’s office. She wants help processing her trauma and has never been to therapy before, but since Lucifer recommended Dr. Linda, Charlotte Richards decided to try seeing her. Dr. Linda, who is, of course, processing her own trauma which centers directly around Charlotte Richards (or rather, Charlotte Richards’ body, which was possessed by Lilith at the time), stares daggers at Charlotte before telling her to leave. Charlotte, who remembers nothing of her encounter with Dr. Linda, leaves with a sigh and a defeated look, saying that she knew she was beyond help anyway (aww).

While talking to Cain about big brothers. Lucifer tells Cain that ever since Amenadiel has found out that he’s God’s favorite, he’s been insufferable. Cain asks a very cogent and appropriate question: how does Lucifer know that Amenadiel is actually God’s favorite? Lucifer’s answer, like the answer most mortal little brothers would give, is a huge cop-out. Lucifer flippantly tells Cain that he knows Amenadiel is God’s favorite because of a long story involving a space vagina and since it [the fact that Amenadiel is God’s favorite] is written in a book. Lucifer decides, however, after having said all of this, that he still needs Amenadiel’s help and that he’ll have to do his best to convince Amenadiel to assist them. Clearly, Lucifer relies upon his big brother very much, despite any issues they might have.

Det. Espinoza finds that the diamonds on the dead gangster were—surprise—stolen and that they are easily trackable since the diamonds are embedded with serial numbers. The victim, Fareed the gangster, seems to have deviated from his legitimate job as a diamond broker and appears to have been killed while doing business using stolen diamonds from the Beverly Hills store he works with. Lucifer, of course, thinks that the entire investigation is a waste of time and that this case is clearly only about Ella’s “no good” brother. Det. Decker points out that Lucifer, as per usual, is missing the point entirely and discarding legitimate information in favor of projecting his entire family drama onto an unrelated case.

At the diamond store, Lucifer and Det. Decker investigates, playing an engaged couple. Chloe uses knowledge gained from watching the real housewives to play a stuck-up diamond snob. She shows the Beverly Hills store the stolen diamond, pretending Lucifer bought it for her and the owner pulls her aside and brings the two into the back room, where Det. Decker drops the act and questions the store owner and Lucifer insist that he is not actually cheap, but that he was simply playing a cheap guy as part of the investigation. The two ask the owner of the store why she stole her own diamonds. Lucifer immediately inserts his own issues regarding his fight with Amenadiel into the case. While the owner of the store did set up a false crime, stealing her own diamonds from her own store with the help of Fareed, she is surprised to find that Fareed the diamond smuggling diamond authenticator was dead.

Maze and Ella question a clerk to see if Ella’s brother has stayed at his hotel. While they don’t find him, they do find that he checked in under an alias. Dr. Linda confronts Lucifer about why he sent Charlotte Richards to her. Lucifer assures Dr. Linda that Charlotte Richards is not Lilith, simply a woman who needs help.

At the station, Det. Decker and Det. Espinoza consults with an insurance adjustor familiar with diamond smuggling, who says that if someone gets rid of the serial numbers on the diamonds, diamond theft is practically an untraceable crime. Det. Decker asks if an authenticator could do that job. Apparently, that’s a strong possibility. Ella and Maze walk through the cheap hotel building near tent city. Maze busts down the door to find Ella’s brother, ready to attack any intruders.

Cain finds Amenadiel at Lucifer’s bar to ask him about how he might be able to die. Apparently, Amenadiel was the one who marked Cain. Cain threatens Amenadiel to coerce him into helping Cain kill himself. Back at the building, Ella’s brother describes the situation to Ella and Maze. Supposedly he was in the bathroom when the murder went down. Ella takes off her shoe and beats her brother with it for being stupid. Det. Decker calls Ella while she and Maze are with Jay and says that she thinks Jay is the shooter. Ella lies to Det. Decker, who knows she's dishonest, saying she hasn’t located her brother yet. The Detectives posit that Ella will head back to the crime scene, where they will confront Ella’s brother.

Cain pretends to threaten to kill an innocent person to bribe Amenadiel into helping him, but instead, he fires his gun into the ceiling and tells everyone to leave while e kicks Amenadiel’s ass. Amenadiel and Cain go toe to toe, and Amenadiel shoots Cain. The two continue to fight. Cain is undoubtedly taking action on his plan to die!

Meanwhile, Jay tells Ella that he saw the shooter’s shoes—that they were red wing tips, but Ella calls Jay out, telling him that he couldn’t have seen what he says he did because they bathroom door opens outward and Jay said he was in the bathroom. Of course, Detectives Decker and Espinoza show up and confront Ella and Jay, telling Ella that the insurance adjuster said that Jay was involved in getting rid of the serial number of the diamonds. Ella asks Jay if he was involved and, surprise he was. Jay pulls a gun on the detectives and Lucifer, saying that no matter what he says or does, the cops won’t believe that he didn’t kill Fareed. Ella continues to defend Jay, saying that he just got mixed up with some bad dudes and didn’t kill anyone. Ella begs Maze to stay. She says she’ll stay for a cost. Ella is so disappointed, telling Maze that she thought they connected and that Maze cared. Maze tells her that she does care and that’s why she’s not going to help.

Det. Decker suspects, after looking at the crime scene, that Jay did see the killer, just not from the vantage point he said he did. It was the insurance adjustor, who Jay stupidly confronts with a gun he’s never held before. The killer tells Jay that after he gets Jay’s help removing the serial numbers from the diamonds, he’s going to kill him.

Over at Lux, Cain and Amenadiel continue to fight. Cain calls Amenadiel out on plotting to kill Lucifer, drawing a parallel between the two of them, saying that Amenadiel is just like him. Amenadiel realizes that he is no higher and no mightier than Cain, though, it seems that rather than seeing that Cain isn’t such a bad guy, Amenadiel thinks that he is a failure.

Ella confronts the insurance adjustor, who is holding a gun on Jay. Jay tries to bargain for Ella’s life when Maze shows up and kills the insurance adjuster with a flying knife, which Ella tells the detectives came out of nowhere. Det. Decker tells Ella that Maze isn’t in trouble. Charges aren’t being pressed against Jay since the Detective speaks on his behalf. Lucifer tells Chloe that if she had a brother, he would be very proud of her. While the case has been solved, the diamonds are still missing.

Dr. Linda shows up at Charlotte Richards’ office to apologize. Charlotte has figured out that she has hurt Dr. Linda during her lost time. Linda pricks Charlotte to see if she bleeds to make sure she’s not Lilith. Lucifer shows up at Jay’s apartment later that evening, where he is keeping the stolen diamonds. He tells Lucifer that he takes care of his family with the money from the stolen diamonds. Jay seems like an arrogant person—someone who, for some reason, Ella still has faith in. Lucifer threatens Jay with his demon eyes, which have come back, telling Jay that if he ever disappoints Ella again, Lucifer will come for him. Lucifer clearly looks at Ella like a little sister.

Lucifer meets with Amenadiel at Luxe, telling Lucifer that working with Pearce/Cain will incur God’s wrath and that since he is his brother’s keeper, he is worried that Cain’s selfish goal has permeated the entirety of Pearce’s being and that such an alliance will not end well. Lucifer tells Amenadiel that he will be in his way if he continues to stand between Lucifer and Cain and their goal to kill Cain. Amenadiel tells Lucifer that he guesses he will be in his way. Its good to see Amenadiel stand up to Luci and for what he feels is right.

So, gentle readers, is Amenadiel right about Cain? Sound off in the comments! We want to know what you think.

#Lucifer #Lucifer (TV series)#FOX Lucifer (TV series)

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blissfullylostinarabbithole · 7 years

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Soldier’s Heart Pt. 2

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Summary: Finding Flower becomes a team effort, and the Soldier has no choice but to put his trust in them.

A/N: Again, Bold is in meant to be in Russian (I wanted to do it properly, but google translate is a joke so I scrapped that).

<< Prev . Next >>

“Which Bucky am I talking to?” Steve started every conversation that way since Bucky decided to stay in the containment chamber.

“It’s me, Steve,” he replied, smiling at his friend’s relief. “Anything?”

“Not yet.” He hated that he couldn’t do anything more to ease his worry. “We checked all the places he told us,” he said, referring to the Soldier. “Do you have anything that could help us?”

Bucky sighed and ran both his hands through his hair. “No. They’d have moved her as soon as they realized I was gone, anyway.”

“Who is she?” Steve took a seat opposite the wall next to Bucky’s bed.

He looked lost. “I don’t know. I just remember after every mission, she was there, waiting for me.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

The tiniest smile graced Bucky’s lips. “She always had dirty feet.” He smiled a little more at Steve’s soft chuckle. “I don’t know why, but she did.”

“I can see how important she is to you. To both of you.”

“We’re the same person, Steve…”

“No, you’re not,” he said with a conviction that left no room for arguing.

Bucky sighed and shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense… why haven’t they used her to try and draw me out?”

“Have you given any thought… that maybe they didn’t keep her around?” Steve asked warily.

“No.” Natasha walked into the room, carrying Bucky’s lunch. “It’s not like they don’t know Barnes is here. They’d have sent her to him in pieces.”

“Romanoff!” Steve warned.

“She’s right. She’s still alive.” Bucky looked to him, desperation evident in his eyes. “You have to find her.”

“We will, Buck. I promise,” he assured him.

Steve found it was a promise that was getting harder and harder to keep. As time passed, and facility after facility was emptied without a trace of Bucky’s Flower, all of them were starting to lose hope. Steve was more disturbed by their failure than anyone, not only because he felt he was letting his friend down, but because the Soldier’s appearances were becoming more frequent. He was also becoming less compliant, demanding to be let out to find her himself. Bucky wasn’t much different. He wanted to go on their missions to find her, but everyone kept reminding him that since his memories of her started returning, he was losing his control over the Soldier.

He always scolded himself when he was feeling guilty. While they turned up empty handed where the girl was concerned, they still managed to free a lot of prisoners from the facilities they shut down. So seeing the missions as failed made Steve feel even worse. He knew Bucky tried to be understanding, but he couldn’t forget the brief look of disappointment that flashed on his face whenever he reported back to him alone.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

They had no reason to think this facility would be any different from the previous ones. The size was similar, as was the intel. Only Tony, Clint, and Natasha had gone. Once they got inside, they saw how wrong they were in thinking they wouldn’t be facing more than couple dozen agents.

“They’ve got something big here. There’s no way the this place can sustain this many agents for long,” Clint said when all enemies were downed.

“Agreed.” Natasha began searching through files. “Spread out and find what needed this much protection.”

Clint took the top floors, while Tony headed to the basement.

Not long later, Tony rang in their ears. “Uh, guys? You might wanna get down here.”

“There’s more?” Natasha asked, pulling her weapon back out.

“No.”

“Hostages?”

“Just one… of the frozen variety.”

They met Tony and began the process to free the girl in the chamber, taking aim as they watched her adjust to being defrosted.

She looked up at the three people before her, her brow slightly furrowed. She didn’t recognize them, but when they didn’t make a move, she tore her eyes from them and began looking around the room. Her dazed look quickly turned to one of distress.

“Where’s my soldier?” her soft voice cracked.

Natasha’s eyes widened in shock. “Shit,” she whispered.

“What? Why are we swearing?” Tony grew slightly alarmed.

“Flower?”

“Yes?”

“We found her…” she said breathlessly, tucking her weapon into its holster.

“Wait, Barnes’ girl? This is her?” Clint lowered his weapon, hardly believing the person they’d been searching for for months was finally in front of them.

“Shouldn’t we be restraining her?”

“Seriously?” Natasha was unimpressed. “Look at her. She’s afraid.”

“We don’t know what she’s capable of.”

“No, but we do know what Barnes can do, and he may not be happy if she shows up in cuffs,” Clint warned.

“Where’s my soldier?” she asked a little more steadily.

“What’s she want?” Tony didn’t lower his arm, still not convinced she wasn’t a danger.

“She’s asking for Barnes.” She held her hand out to the girl. “He’s waiting for you.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Steve was training in the gym when his phone rang. He was about to hit ‘ignore’ when he saw Natasha’s name on the screen. He tore off his wrappings straightaway and answered. “Nat, what’s wrong.”

“Steve, we think we found her. I’m going to send a picture. See if you can get Barnes to confirm it’s her.”

“Oh my god,” he breathed a sigh of relief.

“I wouldn’t start celebrating yet, old man. We need a positive I.D. first, then we need to survive the trip back.”

“Just send the picture.” He hung up, running down to Bucky’s containment area. When he burst into the room, he knew it was the Soldier from the way he stood, ready for a fight. Steve ignored it and approach the glass, pressing his phone against it. “Is this her?”

His shoulders relaxed, and he quickly closed the distance. Steve had his answer when he saw the Soldier’s features soften. He brought his hand up to the glass, as if hoping he could feel her through it. He nodded in response to Steve, never taking his eyes off the phone.

Steve slowly removed the phone, not wanting to anger the other man, but nothing happened. He called Natasha back and confirmed the girl they had was indeed Bucky’s Flower. “They’re bringing her back. They should be here by tonight,” he informed him before turning to leave.

“Thank you,” he said in a voice that clearly wasn’t Bucky’s.

Steve faced the man and smiled. “Thank us when she’s back in your arms, Soldier.”

A few hours passed before Natasha called back. She’d tried asking Flower who she was and why they had her, but she insisted she didn’t know, only asking again about Bucky. In the end, Natasha had to resort to searching the files she copied before leaving.

“Y/N?” she asked, watching Flower’s head tilt in curiosity.

“You’ve been at it for hours and that’s all you got?” Tony groaned.

She shoved the laptop toward him, telling him he was more than welcome to try before turning her attention back to Flower. “Does that sound familiar?”

Her face scrunched in distaste. “I… think so?”

Though the girl hadn’t asked, Natasha began to tell her how they’d been looking for her on the Soldier’s behalf. She explained they were friends of his, and ensured that you were being taken somewhere safe.

“Uh, you might want to get Cap on the phone…” Tony trialed off.

Back at the compound, Steve called everyone into the conference room.

“We have a slight problem,” Steve said. He put the phone on speaker as everyone filed in. “Go on, Natasha.”

“Her name is Y/N L/N, and she’s been in Hydra’s custody since 1973.”

Everyone looked at each other in shock.

“The files are heavily encrypted and the one’s we’ve read don’t say much other than she was used to subdue the Asset. Given his behavior regarding her, her power over him extended to the emotional.”

“Does she have abilities?” Sam asked. “She must to have survived this long.”

“No clue. Again, there isn’t much and she’s not remembering anything except Barnes. For some reason they’re more secretive about her than they were about the Soldier.”

“Where did she come from?”

“That’s for you to find. We’ll be there in a few hours and we can keep trying to crack this.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Connecticut!” Sam called as he walked into the common room, catching everyone’s attention. “She was born to the L/N family in 1951, second daughter and the youngest of five children. Her parents reported her missing in 1964.” He handed out copies of a ‘missing’ poster the police department still had on file. “She went out for ice cream, and didn’t come home. She was never found.”

“Til now,” Wanda commented.

“Til now.”

“So they just took this girl off the street?” Bruce asked. “That doesn’t make sense. I mean, there had to be something about her for them to take her and keep her files as bare as possible.”

Wanda rubbed her temples, frustrated with the lack of information. “Nat said they had her since ’73. That’s nine years unaccounted for.”

Bruce shook his head, “She also said they’re being more careful about her. Maybe ’73 is just what’s on record.”

“What of her family?” Pietro looked on the young girl’s photo with sadness. “Were they affiliated in any way?”

“Nope. Her dad fought in the war while her mom worked as a seamstress and raised her oldest brother and sister. When her dad returned, two more brothers came along before she did. Aside from her disappearance, all seemed pretty ordinary. At least, all her siblings went on to live normal lives.”

“Are any still alive?” Wanda asked.

“Not sure.”

“Shouldn’t we try to contact them?” Steve finally spoke. “If not to find out if there was anything different about her, then to tell them she was found?”

“Yeah,” Sam raised a brow at him. “and show up with a girl in her 20s? How do you think that’s gonna go?”

“I agree,” Bruce cut in before Steve could respond. “She disappeared when she was 13, so they may not even recognize her. Nevermind that they’d probably be expecting someone in their 60s.”

“We could still question them, couldn’t we? We don’t even have to say we have a lead or anything, just that we’re looking to open some old cases.” When no one disagreed, he turned back to Sam. “Find them.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Everyone noticed the way Y/N froze as they were exiting onto the hangar, and were immediately on high alert.

“Calm down,” Natasha calmly but firmly ordered. “What’s wrong?”

“You said my soldier would be here,” she accused.

“He is. He’s inside.” Turning back to the people waiting, she asked, “What the hell are all you doing here?”

“She needs a medical exam, Agent.” Fury stressed. “And for the record, I never approved such a retrieval. Since she’s already here, you go by protocol from here on out.”

“How long will it be until she’s cleared?” Steve asked, arms crossed and jaw clenched.

“If she cooperates, it shouldn’t be more than a few days.”

“I promised Bucky he’d be with her by the end of the day.”

“Well, Captain, then you can tell him you were mistaken. Find whatever’s going on with that girl,” he ordered before storming out.

Y/N’s eyes widened when she saw the size of the needle the approaching orderly was carrying.

“I need you to hold her,” he said as she took a step back.

“No,” both Clint and Natasha said. Tony stepped away from her.

The orderly looked to Steve, who only shook his head. The other agents began to approach, pausing when the girl whispered something to Natasha.

“What’s going on?” one of the agents demanded.

“She’s afraid for you.” Natasha smiled at their confused expressions. “She said he’s going to kill you all.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Her cries were tearing him apart. He would face anything, endure anything, to keep her safe. The noises were drowned out by his own shouts as he struggled to free himself of his restraints. It was his fault; he wouldn’t cooperate, so they wanted to punish him by erasing him from her mind and doing who knows what else. A piercing scream threw him into a white hot rage. His body gave one final tug, snapping his bindings.

Everyone in the room turned from the thrashing girl as the door flew off its hinges, and scrambled when they saw murder in the Asset’s eyes. One by one, he snapped their necks, smashed their heads against walls, or beat them beyond recognition.

When all he could hear were her soft whimpers, he began to make soothing sounds as he approached. Gingerly removing her from the table, he hummed the song she’d been dancing to when he found her in an attempt to calm her. He pulled her to the floor and cradled her, begging her forgiveness and promising anyone that harmed her would never live to do so again.

From then on, every bruise, stumble, even a harsh word, someone answered for it. Whoever it was would just disappear, only to be found when others started noticing the smell of decay. It wasn’t long until word got out. People watched their tone when addressing her, stopped fighting back during training, and trainers quit calling her in altogether.

Separation became his form of punishment. After each reunion, he studied her carefully to ensure no one had been rough with her, even if she began getting harder to hurt and could heal almost as quickly as he could.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Soldier!”

Her voice snapped him from his memory and he stood rooted on the spot. His eyes flickered from her to the people surrounding her, wondering if they would let her go to him as promised, or if they would begin to make demands.

“Back against the wall,” Natasha ordered. Steve shot her a look and she added, “Please.”

He backed up as far as could, eyes no longer leaving his Flower. Clint opened the door to the chamber, and she looked around at them, unsure if she could move forward.

“It’s ok.” Steve smiled encouragingly, and tilted his head toward the Soldier. “Go on.”

With their blessing, she ran toward him and launched herself into his arms. They kissed passionately, causing the others to avert their eyes.

“They do know we can see them, right?” Tony asked, gagging at their moans.

The Soldier put her down and immediately started to look her over for injuries.

“I’m ok,” she whispered, not wanting the redhead to hear. “They put me in cryo alone, but I’m not hurt.”

“I’m sorry.” He pulled her into hug and buried his face in her neck, inhaling the scent he dearly missed and humming the tune from his memory.

“Guys?” Steve called apologetically. “We’re going to give you a couple of days to catch up, but after that, we’re gonna need you to try to remember why she was there.”

The Soldier gave him a curt nod. “Thank you.”

As they were leaving, Tony stopped to address them. “Remember there are cameras in there. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want others seeing.”

“Don’t worry, little flower,” he released a low, throaty chuckle when she began looking around. “There’s no camera in the shower.”

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