#and it will remain incomplete until I am able to answer that question

[disastergay]

WAIT YOU WROTE THAT ONE PROFESSOR NARRATOR AND OFFICE WORKER STANLEY SMUT?? HELLO just randomly stunbled upon your blog and im just here to send my compliments to the chef! love that fic a lot and you probably changed my brain chemistry. okay thats all have a great week

hi hello yes that was me would you believe I had absolutely no fucking idea what I was doing

[itscherrylipsforme]

The missing piece: Oliver Quick x fem!reader

Part 2 here

Summary: A few months after Saltburn becomes completely his, Oliver still feels like something is missing. Without being able to put a finger on it he decides to pay a visit to Oxford, where all started, trying to find the answer between his old memories. Fate believes that a pretty and sweet student he meets in a bookstore is the piece of the puzzle he needs right now. After all everyone wants to be showered with love, don’t they?

Warnings: Post Saltburn fic, a little bit dark (it’s Oliver, what you expected?), age gap (he is around 15-17 years older), slightly innocent kin? (nothing sexual)

Words: Around 1700

Author's rambles: Okay, I feel in love with him the movie and I am kind of embarrassed about it (It’s not my fault hat the actor has pretty eyes and a gorgeous accent, fine?) For your own good, don’t aspire to have a boyfriend as toxic as him in real life. Also this is my fic on Tumblr, please be nice

Masterlist Characters I write for

Likes and reblogs are appreciated ღ

I do not authorize any of my works to be copied, translated or plagiarized ✗

There is a psychological phenomenon that claims that after achieving something we have been longing for some time instead of the sense of satisfaction we were expecting we feel incomplete, hopeless and already looking forward to our next success. After having the Saltburn's keys just for himself, Oliver experienced that piercing emotion for the first time in his life. If he was painfully unaware of it or simply decided to ignore it remains as an open question until today. The only thing that was certain for him at that time is that he needed some action, a new goal, maybe some entertainment, and specially he needed answers. That’s why he decided to go back to the place it all started nearly sixteen years ago

Oxford hadn’t changed a lot since he graduated, as he had the chance to notice it. Different names, different faces, different decades… But still the same social scheme it was back them. Groups of rich daddy’s and mommy’s children swarming around the campus, pubs where you had to drink to be accepted, and poor little nobodies who had to adapt or die in the process

He rented a large flat not so far away from the university, and in the café just below it he rediscovered a hobby he had always had, but which have been almost forgotten on those last months on the mansion. Looking at the students, being able to read through their facades while accompanied by a cup of coffee, became his new pastime. But people always talk and after some weeks spending the afternoon in the café terrace just lost in his thoughts he realized the odd glances the staff shot towards him, so he decided to hide his true interest behind a less complex and unique one. The next day he went to the closest bookstore to buy any novel that would help him with his purpose, after all, people just ask fewer questions when you are reading on your own. That was when he found you sitting on a couch, legs crossed with a book between your small and soft hands

Pretty, beautiful, gorgeous even. Young, probably still studying at Oxford. On the shy aspect, lovely and smart as he guessed correctly. Sweet smile. Bright eyes. Oh, and some soft curves he was able to peep while he seemed to be looking at the shelves by your side. Wait, was that a blush, what he saw on your cheeks? Another scholarship student as he was back then. The fact that your clothes weren’t from big and expensive brands and that you spent your afternoons in the bookshop without really buying anything was the clue he needed to be sure about it. God, you were adorable, perfect, just what he needed right now and he decided to start working on it

Time had shown him that patience and a good plan could take you far away, this is the reason why, although he was eager to come to you and straight-forward mesmerize you with his tricks, he waited. He spent the next five weeks going to the library more or less daily hoping to see you, and luckily (since he was used to building his own luck) your schedules always matched. He always sat on an armchair to read next to yours, close but not enough to be suspicious. Just after he had made sure you have not so subtly looked at him a few times, he decided to make the move

“The Secret History” a deep silky voice said from behind your seat. His face slightly near to your face which made the words linger in the air for some honey-like seconds “You have a good taste”

“Thanks… Thank you” you manged to say in sweet and shy whisper

“First time you read it?” he asked and a shake of your head was the response he got

“No, I have already read it a couple of times in pdf. But I have never owned the physical book”

“We can have that keep happening, can’t we?” he grinned, and you couldn’t remember if he was the first man who had smiled and looked at you in that way “May I have a look at it?” his large and firm hands came to hold the cover as he stood up and went straight to the cashier “Follow me, darling” the nickname rolled in his tongue, sweet as candy, and before you thought about it, you did as he said. You were obedient, good thing, he thought to himself. He pulled the money out of his wallet in merely seconds, paid for it and hand it back to you

“Thanks, but I can’t accept it” you said slightly embarrassed

“Of course, you can! It truly is an amazing novel, you deserve it” he smirked. His words have had just the reaction he had expected from you, cheeks covered with a tiny hint of pink “I have always found myself relating to Henry Winter, I just need my Camila now”

You were taken back, was that an attempt to flirt? Because if it was, he had your attention. While you tried to make any sense out of your thought, he spoke again

“I am usually on a café nearby, if you are interested you could come sometime” Another smirk, and at that moment you knew that this man was going to be the death to you. Things like this only happened to the main characters in romance movies

“I don’t even know your name”

“ You can call me Oliver, darling”

“I am y/n”

“Beautiful, beautiful y/n, it was a pleasure to meet you. Hope we see each other again”

And you did. Between coffees, books, conversations and more, he had you wrapped around his finger by the time your classes ended. Oliver was sweet, devoted, intelligent… all you could ever ask for in a man. He was straight out of your dreams, and damn he felt you were straight out of his. Innocent, easy to make blush, could keep with his ramblings and most important, you were eager to love, and he was eager to be loved

Yesterday it had been your graduation, when you left the ceremony in that beautiful dress he had insisted on buying you and wrapped your arms around him, he felt like his plan has almost completely succeeded. Almost, you wanted a fairy tale romance, and he was going to give you one. Keeping things slowly and delicate. But when he woke up and felt you laying on his chest sleeping peacefully, he couldn’t help but want to make you his. That had been the only night you had spent in his apartment in your months together. He had sworn to himself that he wouldn't rush, so he didn't. At least he was glad you were coming with him to Saltburn for a few weeks in the summer and you could bet he wouldn’t let you leave the mansion again if he could. After all, you were all that he wanted. His missing piece

Part 2 here

[forgottenyear]

I do not think anyone believed we would reenter therapy and not need to adapt to change.

We are doing something scary. We are trusting others to touch us where we were once hurt.

We are safe. It is okay.

In this one place, we are safe.

No one is obligated to present, but we need to be able to talk about ourselves.

We need help. We have not been doing well alone.

--

I feel like I am assuming the vague memories of people I once knew for my own.

Over the last decade or so, I constructed an alternate universe in this blog. I would say they were me, but always with an opt out available. I was Angela, but only in VR. Only as a character I play online.

When I log out (as if I ever do), the character waits in electronic limbo until I return.

But now, when I bring this to ask for help, the characters are doing the STNG trope of escaping VR.

--

I have a fact-based history, but it does not feel real (and I do not want for it to feel real).

I have a history of selected facts, that feels real because it is real (if misleadingly incomplete).

I am getting help with the history that feels wrong.

--

For an embarrassing number of years, we never questioned my grandfather’s answer when the boy asked why they were building a new garage. He said the old one was stepped on by a monster, and when we asked if it was Cookie Monster, he said yes. So, at sixteen, a friend asked why the new garage was built, we very nearly said it was because of wandering, giant Cookie Monsters.

I feel as though I am seeking help over wandering, giant Cookie Monsters. It matters little that fact-based history contains evidence that the errant monsters were real and witnessed by others, it is still a reality that I cannot accept.

--

It is best to slow down here, because I am about to take a sharp turn ahead.

--

My partner is abusive and comes a little more detached from reality each year. I can talk about DID now and again, only because my partner has memory issues. But day to day, we must remain covert.

And I wonder why there is a problem.

[monsoonblooms12]

Love Again, Prologue: Not meant to be

Summary: What if Ethan's running away to the Amazon was successful and he convinced himself that his feelings and his relationship with Pooja had been reset?

In this Chapter: When there is a conflict between reason and feelings, will he be able to make a choice?

A/N: Unfortunate angsty ideas that would not leave be alone until I wrote them. I am going to hurt myself and my babies with this, I know it. Also, I wrote this at 1 in the morning.

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey X f!MC (Pooja Sharma)

Word Count: around 1K

Rating: General

Category: Angst, WIP AU

The languid pass of a moment. That's all it took for her to become his habit.

A torturous fight of 1,461 hours. That's what took him to rub away the words etched in stone.

Her words.

Distance. 4100 miles of distance to be appropriate. Why did his heart still manage to find her and tie the thread of fate? Why couldn't he tear himself apart from those notorious reminiscences of hers?

Every day for 2 months, he repeats the same words over and over again like a chant, a spell that would help him go away from her, to leave her and the feelings, which felt like the sweet fragrance of the ambrosial bluebells amidst a drought ridden island, behind.

We're not meant to be.

But she made it to too easy, way too easy to find a way back to her. She beckons him in the sweetest of voices, teases him with those amber orbs, making him want to get lost in them. To hold her hand, which fits perfectly, way too perfectly in his, as if fitting two halves of a whole together. Because that is what they are.

Were.

Two halves of a whole.

No. It doesn't matter anymore. Whatever they are, were. It's too dangerous, the pursuit of finding the emotion which must not be named.

And he starts it again, the reset. The tiring attempts to make her his past tense, no matter how much his soul craves for her to be his present tense.

Golden poison burns his interior with the same intensity as his heart burns. It screams, terrified, but his mind refuses to put out the blazing flame.

So that only ashes of a bygone era remain scattered in the desert of his soul, so ridden of its necessities that even a cactus cannot grow in it, let alone a maple tree.

He lies down, eyes transfixed on the tumultuous drumming that the storm carries out. It has come down to wash away anything of her that remains with him, he is convinced.

In the ferocious battle between reason and feelings, he can clearly see his reason win. Even if it pains, it tears him apart.

How can something as simple as a four letter word have so much power? To put him in so much agony, that all he wants is for her to stroke his forehead like she did when she laid beside him?

Sleep was a farsighted luxury he was not allowed to enjoy. Even though he hated robots, he wished he was one of them now. Oh, how easy it would have been. All he needed to do was press a button. A single button.

Reset

His encephalon had many, many more points to present than his heart. But his heart had one, one such statement, that would put all the lists his mind presented to shame.

It was the feeling which must not be named.

If one said he hadn't really pushed all stops, they were wrong. If they think they can guess the destruction the tornado of reset was causing from his masked face, they are foolish.

Not as foolish as he himself, but still, foolish.

He had deleted her number, all those texts which were like romantic quotes to him. He had deleted all those pictures which had served as a calm to his sore eyes. She was his meditation, his serenity and he had discarded everything away.

And she didn't know.

Everytime his heart tried to wonder what story she is writing on the other half of the slate they share unbeknownst to each other, he had to drag it back like it was a 2 year old child, crying at the supermarket for its favorite chocolate.

Millions have been clever enough to put back their sorrows to embrace happiness, life, love. To become a new person.

But has anyone ever been so foolish to throw the ecstasy life offered them, to erase the happiness people crave?

It felt like carrying out a funeral. Of everything he felt for her that made no sense, no sense to him. Burying her memories down the freshly dug grave in the labyrinth of his heart, the heavy mist from the ravaging strom enveloping him, as if trying to make him stop.

But he didn't heed.

And along with pieces of her that she had left with him, like an innocent mistake, he, knowingly or unknowingly, buried a part of him. He lost those puzzle pieces of him and her that remained connected together as if the rapid current of a gushing stream had pulled them into her flow, preventing him the chance of second thought.

The thunder cackled outside ceiling to floor windows, as if making fun of his idiocracy. His heart begged him to reconsider, to take the chance and dive, before the lucid water carried the drifting maple leaf of happiness, too far away from him. The creases of his forehead dug deeper and deeper into his mind, trying to pull out the stupid reason that had started to get better of him.

But it was late. Too late.

The maple leaf of feelings that she had unknowingly gifted him with a promise of eternity was now lost behind boulders of excuses his mind had created.

If only life had a rewind button...

And now, all that was left with him was pained pieces of the half of his heart, yearning for the other half. Even if Ethan Ramsey did not realize it.

He was incomplete. Without her, he was incomplete.

And yet he chose to be broken with reason than to be complete with love. And yet he chose to leave her with gazillion guesses of a what if , one that would trouble her, tear her apart, make her run through miles of guesses, never being able to get the answer.

And yet he chose to pass on his torture to her, an endless maze of agony she would never be able to escape.

And yet, he chose to trap her in the question,

Were they really not meant to be?

PS: If you are reading this, I am very grateful for you. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day❣️

Tags (Please let me know if you want to be added or removed or if I forgot you):

Perma: @gkittylove99 @neotericthemis @udishaman @aestheticartsx @twinkleallnight @schnitzelbutterfingers @sophxwithers @sweatyrysconnoisseur @nikki-2406 @choicesfanaf @trrfanaddict @starrystarrytrouble @gardeningourmet @parkbarks @mvalentine @lovablegranny @mercury84choices @izzyourresidentlawyer @jessiembruno

Open Heart (All fics and edit): @lucy-268 @maurine07 @bellcat2010 @headoverheelsforramsey

Ethan x Pooja (fics): @aleynareads @stygianflood @choicesaddict5 @mysticaurathings @jamespotterthefirst @ilikemenbutonlyethanramsey @takemyopenheart

@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

[dying-artist-yes]

A Temporary Parting

So my friends decided to do nice things for me and I have decided to do nice things back. I will be doing these for 6 characters and this is the first character; Remi. Let’s gooooo.

Mum, I’m sorry for how this starts off. I promise it gets fluffier later okay? @alyssoujo​

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How long had it been since she’d left him? Since God had so cruelly torn his beloved away from him? Lucifer still remembered it clearly as if it had happened yesterday. He remembered it often. He would replay it over and over until she returned. He had been in his office, working away at the latest stack of paperwork dropped onto him. With Barbatos gone, he and Diavolo were having to cover for him as well and so, their normal paperwork was doubled. He had been frustrated and irritated for at least 3 days now. Not primarily because of work but because he had an argument with Remi. Yes, they’ve bickered before but it was just that; bickering. Never had she raised her voice with him like that. Through their pact, he knew she had regretted it almost immediately but not once did she call in the 3 days that had followed. He hadn’t reached out to her for the first few hours, thinking they both needed time to cool off so they could talk about what had just happened and reconcile but a message never came from her. He sent her so very many but she didn’t even see them. He grew frustrated, thinking she was ignoring him still due to their argument and stopped texting and attempting to call her after a while of being ignored. He just concluded that when she’d had enough of ignoring him, she’d call him. Yet that never came. It had been 3 days and not so much as a peep from her. She hadn’t even been online in the past 3 days. This made Lucifer worried but, of course, he was basically bound to his desk until he finished working. That’s part of what had been frustrating him; his inability to check up on his wife and see if she was alright. To be able to see for himself that she was just ignoring him longer than usual because he had been insensitive towards her two male friends.  Seems he need not wait any longer. He could feel a tug, a very strong one, pulling on the back of his right hand, where his pact mark with Remi rested. ‘Finally...’ He thought to himself with a soft sigh before responding to the summon, expecting to be hugged by his wife or something of the sort but what greeted him made his entire world come crashing down. He was in a dark room he didn’t recognize, far from Paris as far as he could tell. When he first appeared, Lucifer’s thoughts were ‘Why would she come to a place like this?’ His question was answered all too soon as the moment he looked in front of him, he was greeted by the dying form of his wife.  “REMI!”  Panicked took ahold of him as he picked up her bloodied form, cradling her in his arms. He muttered every healing spell he knew, anything that could keep his wife from leaving him. She was sickly pale, a hole in the middle of her chest as though someone had ripped something out, and had been soaking in a pool of her own blood. “H-Hang on...! You will be fine...!” His voice broke as he said this but he didn’t care. All he cared about was making sure she would see the light of day. That his light wouldn’t leave his side. Why was she here? Who did this? All these questions ran through his head but were brought to a halt when he felt his wife’s cold hand on his cheek.  “Luci...fer... It’s... too late...” Came her weak voice and his eyes widened as he heard her words. Why didn’t he check sooner? Why didn’t he keep trying to reach out to her? He could’ve gone to Paris to visit her. He should’ve gone to talk to her. “I... am sor...ry... I...” She was struggling just to speak and Lucifer shook his head, letting the tears fall as he gently brought her head up to press his forehead against hers. “Shhh... I should be the one who’s sorry... I should have come to check on you... I should have come to you...” He mumbled as the tears kept falling. Remi weakly tried to wipe them away as she shook her head to the best of her abilities. “I... should ha...ve... summon...ed... y-you... sooner...” She got out weakly and with every breath she took, Lucifer could feel more life leave her. She was dying in his arms and he was helpless just as he had been the past 3 times. She was slipping out of his grasp and he couldn’t do anything. He was too late to save the woman he loved above all else. The woman who became his world. “Remi please... D-Don’t leave me too... Please...” He was begging. He wouldn’t do this but if it meant she lived, he would beg anyone, even his Father he despised above all else. He couldn’t lose her too. He couldn’t lose her like he had lost Lilith.  “I-I’m... sorry... about... our argu...ment... I-I was... too harsh... I-I had... so much... to tell... you...” She too was crying now as her death approached her. “P-Please... G-Grant this one wish... of mine...” She said weakly as Lucifer looked at her desperately. The tears wouldn’t stop it no matter how much he wanted them to and once again he found himself cursing his pride. Had he just reached out to her when he felt her regret and sorrow, perhaps this could have been avoided. “What... What is it dearest wife...?” He got out weakly. “P-Please... F-Find me again... I-I know... i-it is sel...fish... b-but... p-please... wait for... me... a-and f-find me... l-like you promised...” She said, whimpering quietly as more tears flowed down her cheeks. “Of course... You forget who you have for a husband... You are mine for all eternity, just as I am yours... So no matter how long it takes, I will find you once again... I will find you as many times as needed... We shall be together in every life given to you...” He said softly, placing her hand against his cheek.  She gave him a weak yet fond smile as she weakly caressed his cheek. He leaned into her cold touch. “Thank.. you... I love you...” She said, barely above a whisper before she fell limp. It took him a moment to register that she had truly left him. However... “This is just a temporary parting... I will ensure it...” He said softly as he held her lifeless body in his arms. He had remained like this for a while until Diavolo had appeared behind him. Upon seeing his friend grieving like this, the prince’s heart broke. “Lucifer...” “I am fine Diavolo.” He said as he stood up with Remi in his arms. Even in death, she looked serene and beautiful to him. Even if she had been torn away from him in this life, he’d ensure no one could do so in the next. 

He sighed, opening his eyes. He remembered the concerned looks his brothers had given him. He remembered throwing himself into work. Even if he knew she would return somehow, it still hurt. There was still a hole in his heart. He still felt incomplete. He would read her letters. He would look at the small figurine she had gotten him. Listen to the song she’d made for him. Everything she’d given him, he would look over because they were little parts of her he still had with himself.  Of course, he hadn’t forgotten the promise he’d made with her. He’d spent the last 600 years searching for her but to no avail. What was Father doing with her soul for the past 600 years? Keeping it hostage? He let out a frustrated sigh and hid his face in his hands. He needed tea. He needed to calm down so he could focus on work again. However, before he could even get up to brew the tea, the doors to his office burst open to reveal everyone’s favorite neighborhood angel; Simeon. 

Lucifer pulled his face out of his hands and normally would have glared at him for barging in like this but he noticed the urgent look on his face. He raised a brow in a questioning manner and the angel just took a moment to catch his breath. “I... I have something. For you.” Simeon got out in between his many pants. Lucifer didn’t quite understand what could warrant this reaction out of the normally calm and collected Simeon but he nodded and gestured for Simeon to bring whatever it was he had found. Simeon gestured for a Little D to come in and Lucifer’s eyes widened. “Is that...” “A bouquet of blue roses? Yes. Someone left it at the Angel’s Halo along with a letter addressed to you.” Simeon said as he searched through his pockets before pulling out a baby blue envelope from his pocket.

Lucifer swiftly took the letter but was very careful in opening it. The first thing he saw had almost made him feel as though his breath had been caught in his throat. It was a picture. A picture of a young woman smiling with a bouquet of blue and red roses. Straight black hair, unlike her previously half and half black on the left and white on the right hair, and straight bangs. It was still waist length, just less wavy. Her skin tone was more towards porcelain now than pale ivory but the one thing that hadn’t been altered about her, left untouched completely, were her eyes. Her striking blue eyes he remembered peering into only to see love and adoration for himself. The eyes that would shine whenever they saw him. The eyes that belonged to his wife. 

There were various pictures like this. About 10. Whoever took the pictures seems close with her. He then pulled out the letter and opened it to read the contents of it. The letter read;

“Hello Lucifer,

It has been 600 years since you’ve seen the lovely young lady in the picture, yes? Well~ She was finally reborn~ She’s a lovely young demon born in Canada. I made sure her parents named her Remi so you don’t have to get used to another name. You would think that being reborn would mean she has no memories of her past life and yet your influence has not left her in the slightest.

Every birthday she has had the past... what? 121 years now? she has only asked for one thing; blue roses. The gift you got her on her birthday all those years ago. I am certain if you go check, those are blooming again. Each and every blue rose she has received, she cherishes with her life until it wilts. She is also very fond of the color red and the color blue. Hm... I wonder why? She’s also very fond of making spicy food and warm desserts despite not liking them. Once again, I wonder why? Oh! And also, she has turned down everyone that’s ever tried to hit on her. She threatens them with a description of a man that matches yours. When I asked her where she got it from, she said she dreamt of this person and even if she was not sure whether or not he was real, the love she saw in this person’s eyes made her feel whole and so if needed, she’d spend her entire life looking for him. She’ll only accept you.

Anyways. You are probably curious as to why you haven’t bee able to find her if she’s been alive for 121 years now. Well, that would be because of your Father. Well, more Michael really. He has made sure every time you’ve come across her, she didn’t see you and you didn’t see her. I really don’t understand why but it is what it is.

I, however, do no take orders from Michael so while he is kept busy, I am ensuring you find Remi. Her memories are not gone. God did not keep her soul for 479 years for no reason. She spent all that time bargaining to keep her memories. To be born anything but a human so she would not have to leave your side again. After much insistence, He allowed it on the condition that she would only remember once reunited with you. Apparently Michael had a problem with that. Since I’m the one doing it though, he can suck it because he can’t punish me. 

She is currently visiting England, London to be specific, the last picture I sent is proof of that. That’s why I sent the bouquet of blue roses to Simeon with this letter because I knew he’d get it to you. 

Come and get your wife before Michael sticks his nose in where it doesn’t belong again.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. “Simeon-” “I’m ready to accommodate you Lucifer. You helped me when I needed to find Celes, this is the least I can do to repay that debt.” He said with a soft smile before opening his arms up. “Hug?” “... Just this once.” Lucifer said with a soft sigh before getting up and hugging Simeon, who happily hugged back. He’d finally be reunited with her again. He’d make sure she stayed this time. “Let us get going... I’ve made her wait long enough.” He said, pulling away from the hug as Simeon grinned and nodded. The two of them made their way to the human world so the Avatar of Pride’s bride could return to him, so she could return home.

Despite his many protests, Simeon insisted Lucifer stay with him and Celestina. In a way, he was glad Simeon was so stubborn. It was nice to be surrounded by Simeon’s sunny family. Before, it hurt to be around anyone’s family because all he could see was Remi but now... with her about to return, rather than seeing their family as a fleeting dream, he saw it as something he would make a reality. He would not allow anything to get in-between them this time, especially not Michael. So looking at Simeon’s sunny family and playing with his kids... it reminded him of what he will soon have.

While Simeon oversaw his kids taking care of the Angel’s Halo, Lucifer would go to scour London in order to find Remi. She was close, he could feel it. As he made his way around, a garden caught his eye. It reminded him of the garden outside of the Mausoleum where he would lay down on her lap while she ran her fingers through his hair as Cerberus played with one of his many toys. The last memory he had of that was after she’d returned from her human world trip. She noticed he had been stressed so she took him to see Cerberus. Then, when they reached the park, she had him lay his head down on her lap while she ran her fingers through his hair and sang for him.

He inhaled as he closed his eyes, remembering that scene. ‘We can make many more this time.’ He thought to himself before opening his eyes again. He was just about to continue walking when he heard soft singing coming from the garden he had previously thought empty. 

“... A ring on my finger and a promise of eternity...~ The one promise I refuse to fail to keep...~”

‘That’s...’ He recognized those lyrics. He quickly rushed into the garden and frantically looked around for the source of the singing. That’s when he saw her by the fountain in the middle of the garden, looking down at her lap which had a sketchbook on it.

“Every moment I spend with you~ My heart hammers away~ Screaming at me “Never let him go!” Oh I know, I know~ The kind of happiness I have with him~ No other could compare~ I love you I love you I love you~” “I love you~ I love you~ I love you so~”

Remi looked up from her sketchbook and towards the person who completed the chorus to the song and blinked when she saw him. She stood up, sketchbook in hand, and started walking towards him. Lucifer, in return, started walking towards her and met her at about halfway. “You’re... real, right?” Were the first words from her. Even her voice was the same. “Yes, I am real.” He responded with a smirk. “Would you like to check should you not believe me?” He asked with a raised brow. Remi hesitantly placed a hand on his cheek and immediately winced, placing her hand on her temple as she wobbled a little. Lucifer immediately wrapped his arm around her waist to steady her. “Remi...! Are you alright...?” He asked, worry settling in. Maybe he shouldn’t have come in contact with her. What if he accidentally triggered something that would end her life? What if- 

“I-I’m fine... M-My dearest Avatar of Pride...” She said smiling up at him through the pain. Lucifer could feel relief wash over him and for the first time in 600 years, he felt happy. “Just... remembering things... I would hate to not have any memories of you...” She said, leaning into his arms and resting her head against his chest. “You’re home now...” He said softly as he rubbed soothing circles on her back. “Yes... I’m home again...

... You found me.”

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Shielded. Chapter One

ANON: Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway. [John Wayne]

Since the beginning of lockdown here in the UK, I’ve been making little notes here and there and I’ve finally put something together that is hopefully interesting. It’s set from the start of our isolation back on Friday 20th March and will work its way forwards in time <3 enjoy! Mod MBD.

-- --- --

The Daily Briefing:

She left under the cover of darkness, the atmospheric sheet rain appearing out of nowhere to conceal her as she hid the doorway of a boarded up shop. The ‘closed’ signs that littered the windows of each and every shop on the highstreet illuminated as the lights flickered on, the daylight fading as night enveloped the south of England. It should have been a regular Friday evening, but it wasn’t. And despite the shock of the rest of the nation, she was more than happy for the lockdown to take immediate effect.

A couple of the pubs were still open, the last of their punters being ushered out by groups of policemen and women as the 9pm curfew approached, and though there was still some footfall through the small village, it wasn’t enough to worry her greatly.

She remembered reading YA fiction that started in a similar way and the idea that the whole population might be reduced to some dystopian teen nightmare seemed more than plausible. But at least she’d be far away from society by the time it did. Wondering whether Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth were somewhere together, raising a glass to their literary insight into such things, she pulled her jacket tighter around her neck to stop the droplets of water running down her chest.

The honk of a horn brought her out of her thoughts as she grabbed her meagre belongings and hid her face from the rain. Getting herself settled in the back of the blacked out van, there was a part of her that scoffed at the idea of danger lurking within as the plain-clothed officers escorting her smiled softly, passing her a towel to wipe the stray drips of moisture from her face. As a child she had, of course, been warned about strangers in vehicles. Now though there were more monsters lurking in her own home than there were anywhere else in the country.

“You might want to get some sleep, if you can, miss.” One of the younger officers said, breaking the silence even with his moderately quiet statement. “It’s a long drive, we’re aiming for eight hours if we can, but it will all depend on the roads.”

Nodding, she pulled a woolen blanket from one of her bags, removed her coat and curled herself against the window. Though she thought sleep impossible, she did manage to doze a little as the car made its way towards the motorway. Her mind went blank as they sped up, she’d spent weeks agonising over this choice, the solid notion of it taking root in her subconscious as the country seemed to spin towards chaos and confusion.

The virus, however, had not been her primary concern. Only her mental and physical survival had taken precedent. It was the prime minister's announcement yesterday that schools and pubs would close the following week that spurred her onwards, and she’d (rather rapidly) responded to the offer she had been levelled with.

If she wanted to disappear, now was her chance.

“John wants you to know that he’s processed the documents you’re going to need and included a shielding letter with that. This should take you until the end of June as well as the furlough payments. He also says you did the right thing.”

Making incomplete thumps against her chest, her heart stopped for a moment as the police officer spoke. She’d been warring with herself for weeks, uncertain of the best course of action. She had, of course, lived with the increasing threat for years before it had finally erupted. John had seen the outcome and had begged her to reconsider his previous offer of assistance having watched her descend into a less than perfect relationship. But she had been convinced that she’d be able to manage.

She hadn’t. An obvious change had taken hold of her husband. He wasn’t the man she married, not by a long shot, and as 2019 came to a close, so did any of his positive attributes. He was a professor, a professional man with many books to his name and he refused to believe his actions had become that of a less than ideal partner.

The first stay in hospital, however, stated otherwise.

“Will I be able to speak to him?”

The officer shook his head sadly. “No, if this is to work, you have to sever all contact with anyone you previously knew, even John. Anything that puts you at risk or could enlighten the wrong people into knowing your whereabouts would jeopardize all of the work we’ve all put in to assure your safety.”

Having had the mood suitably dulled, she lay her head against the window and let several hundred miles pass her by.  

As they crossed the border around midnight, the rain finally began to ease and she smiled at the irony. She hadn’t spent much time in Scotland, but she knew it wasn’t famous for its notoriously glorious weather. Part of her was desperate for some coffee but the further they travelled up the country, the less likely it was that the service stations were 24 hours - nor did she think her drivers would be willing to stop until they’d reached their destination.

Once off the motorway and onto the single track roads that led them further into the highlands, she started to guess at where their final destination might be. When the proposition had first been offered to her, John had given her a number of options of a safe haven - one being a flight away (by that point he had started to take her safety quite seriously). As the grey scenery passed them by, a slight pinking of the sky signalling that dawn was close, she was trying to recall the names of the places he’d suggested though her mind was as much of a blur as the greenery whooshing by the back window.

“I don’t suppose you have anything caffeinated to drink?” She asked. 

Reaching forward, she took the unopened bottle of coke from one of her escorts and relaxed back into her seat.

“Not far away now. There aren't any toilets, though.”

Fatigue was running deep, she could tell by the tiredness in his voice as he spoke and she nodded as she took a sip. The warning was clear; drink it all quickly and there would be no stopping for a break. But she was too thirsty to worry too much.

“Can I ask where we’re going?”

“Just north-west of Inverness. It’s a farm so it’s as remote as they come. It’s single occupancy, the guy who lives there runs his family business. He’s an old contact of John’s, so although there is to be no contact between you, he trusts you’re in safe hands. All shopping is pre organised and will be delivered once every two weeks to ensure neither of you are put at risk leaving the property for supplies.”

“Should I leave the house at all?” At this point she couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic or not but there was an honesty to her question that made the officers answer her quickly.

“No. You have your letter, not that there is anyone around to ask for it, but for the next 12 weeks you should remain inside at all times. No matter how far we take you away from civilization there is always the risk - even during a national pandemic and lockdown - of someone being around, seeing you and passing it on. Where we’re taking you, the owner hasn’t had another friend or family on the property for a number of years. Small communities talk so you should stay inside and out of the view of any members of the local village.”

“Noted.” Replying sadly, she replaced the cap on the half finished bottle of cola and ran her fingers along the inside of her leg. The scar there was still fresh, the heat of it making the hairs on her arms stand on end. She knew that if she wanted this to work, if she wanted to remain hidden, then she would have to obey the rules set.

They drove through Inverness just as 5am hit and the sun rose across the extensive lochs and mountains.

“It might seem far-fetched, the idea that you’ll be located, but we can’t take the risk. We did look through your file, though, and found a name we hope has some resonance to you.” *but nobody else* he thought, but did not say.

“Thank you, I really appreciate it. Please pass that on to John, I didn’t even get the chance to tell him how grateful I am. For everything.” Her intrigue had been piqued about her new identity but once she knew who she was going to be for the next few weeks, it would all become real. Whilst they still hadn’t arrived, she could sit and pretend to be existing in an in between - half way between fantasy and reality.

As they pulled off one side-road and onto another her driver passed her an envelope. She could see a small smile lift the side of his mouth as an archway came into view in front of them. “Of course I will, Claire.”

“Claire?”

“Yes,” he returned, bringing his arm up and pointing his finger at the brown packet in her hands, “it’s all in there...the rest of it. Read it, keep the ID documentation and then burn anything you don’t need to use later.”

“Claire.” She whispered to herself.

And in one breath, as a rather large white brick farm house appeared beneath the now large ivy coated arch, Elizabeth Randall died and she instantly became Claire Beauchamp.

[askaceattorney]

Off I pop

A little tribute to my dad there.  ; )

Hap’piraki once again!  Here we are at my final day as a moderator here (temporarily, at least), so...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

(Oh, jeez...  What am I supposed to say here?  Where’s a cue card when you need one?)

So, to begin with, let me reiterate that I’m planning to be gone until July -- that may change, but that’s the plan for now -- and by “gone” I don’t mean I won’t be around, just that I won’t be answering letters.  I’ll still check in every now and then to make sure things are going all right, and I’ll continue posting the remaining character essays that have been requested.  This won’t include any new requests you may have, though, so you’ll either have to ask a different mod or wait until I get back for that.

In the meantime, I’d like to share a few short things about myself, and how Ace Attorney and Ask Ace Attorney have, in my opinion, changed my life for the better.

...Beeeeeeeeeeeeeelow the cut.

So, as I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been dealing with some serious struggles in recent days.  Oddly enough, most of them haven’t been directly related to the pandemic, the political tension, or anything else 2020 brought with it.  For me, the biggest struggles have been internal ones, most of which had to do with my self-confidence.

I’m going to borrow a quote from the Mod (writing as Dahlia Hawthorne, of all people): “When a person speaks, they say whatever is on their mind.  When a person writes, they are allowed to revise and rework.  Literature is the distillation of a person’s intentions into even a single sentence.”  In other words (no pun intended), writing lets a person say things in the most polished way they can, without having to worry about things like stuttering, second-guessing, or sounding insincere.  That’s the version of me that you get here.

In the real world, I’m as human as anyone else: dealing with things like stress, anger, self-doubt, depression, anxiety, worry, lack of motivation, etc.  I’d like to say that I deal with these flaws as best as humanly possible, but that isn’t the case a lot of the time.  In the 30+ years I’ve been alive, I’ve been guilty (no pun intended) of letting my emotions get the best of me, giving up on things too easily, wasting time lamenting the past, and treating myself worse than Franziska treats Gumshoe.  I can’t claim to have been very nice to everyone else I’ve met, either.

The point of this post isn’t to whine about my shortcomings, though.  See, out of all the demons I’ve had to face, one of the worst has been the idea that I can’t do anything well enough for it to make any real difference in the world, and never will be able to.  I hope you haven’t had to struggle with this idea yourself, but if so, you have my sympathy.

Thankfully, I happened to discover a video game series and a fan-made blog that helped me realize how untrue that idea was.  Which ones am I referring to?  I’ll give you one guess.

Like many people do when they suddenly gain some new responsibility (even if it’s something they like), when I first joined the blog,  I struggled with a thing called “impostor syndrome,” which is, according to the internet, “an internal experience of believing that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be.”  Sure, I’d done some comedic writing for fun before, and I'd known about Ace Attorney and its characters for quite a while, but was I really qualified to continue the Ace Admin and the Mod’s labor of love?  And what would it mean if I wasn’t?  Over 11,000 people (minus some bots) were reading what I wrote, after all, so could I continue making the blog enjoyable for all of them?

(Trick question -- satisfying everyone is an impossible feat, it turns out.)

Questions like that bugged me consistently, but thanks to the love of Ace Attorney I shared with the fan base, and the creativity afforded by its fun characters and their incredible stories, I was able not only to power through the challenges of running a popular blog, but to help make it into something even bigger than it was before, as well as gaining some interesting insights from people about a wide range of topics: the law, morality, science, religion, history, politics, philosophy...

...hairstyles...

...and so on.  I'm not sure what I was expecting to happen when I started out, but I sure didn’t see anything like that coming.

So, in summary, this blog and the series that inspired it didn’t just help me to maintain a healthy self-image, which is something every person needs; it’s been a huge part of what kept me sane these last few years.  Athena and her psychotherapy may not be real, but being able to strengthen my writing, artistic, and comedic skills here -- and to delight so many people while doing it -- might have been the closest I could possibly get to it.

And that, my friends, is where you come in.  I’ve said it plenty of times before, but here it is again: this blog couldn’t possibly exist without you.  Whatever reason you may have had for writing a letter to me, a different moderator, or the character of your choice -- whether it was curiosity, love, criticism, or just for the heck of it -- I want you to know that it played a part in reminding me that I, like everyone else, shortcomings and all, am capable of making a difference in the world, even if it’s just for a few Phellow Phoenix Phans.  Needless to say, I’ve appreciated every last bit of it.

My hope is to be able to do something similar to this in the future, possibly on a larger scale (what exactly, I don’t know), but even if that doesn’t come to pass, I’ll always be grateful for the positive impact I was able to make here thanks to your interaction, support, and willingness to appreciate the genius of Ace Attorney alongside me.  I repeat myself, but you guys are awesome.  Never stop being that way.

And yeah, I realize this isn’t my final goodbye.  I just thought I should treat it like it was just in case.  ; )

Anyway, it’s time for one last thing this post would be incomplete without: a heartfelt...

I’ll see you ‘round, folks!

-The Co-Mod

[dsoe-masteroftheheavenlyyard]

Chapter 10–The Boy’s Choice; Scene 2

master of the heavenly yard pages 218-224

Eater landed at a point a little removed from where Ma was.

Once there Allen got down alone, and the skeleton giant flew up once more.

…Ma’s target was likely to be Nemesis. The last “Deadly Sin contractor”…So they couldn’t afford to let her get close to Ma.

Nemesis would perform certain “preparations” elsewhere. Allen had himself taken on the role of distracting Ma until those were complete.

The black vortex immediately swirled around Allen, but still at this point it didn’t appear to cause any particular harm.

He started to walk towards the origin point of the vortex.

In the very center of the forest. The place where “Evils Theater” had stood before the world was destroyed.

She was simply standing there doing nothing, not even taking any interest in the frozen soldiers.

The girl holding a doll—the “Clockworker’s Doll”.

Allen knew by now that though she was Riliane in appearance, at heart she was a different person altogether.

“Hey there, good day.” Allen gave her a light greeting as he approached, as though she were a friend. “Nice to meet you…Ma.”

She turned towards Allen in response. “…If it isn’t Allen Avadonia. Where did Nemesis go?”

“Who knows? I wonder where she’s gone.”

Allen tilted his head to the side in an affected manner.

“…If you have no intention of telling me her location, then I have no use for you. Leave at once.”

“What will you do when you meet her? It can’t be that you want to have a talk as mother and child?”

“…Which is your goal? To save your sister, or to destroy me?”

“…”

“You’ve figured it out at least a little, haven’t you? What will happen to the world once I take in Nemesis.”

“I…studied all of the world while inside the ‘Blackbox’ in heaven. And what I could glean from that process…was that all of the events of this world occur within the scope of the ‘rules’ that the gods laid down. And that the gods noticed there were those outside of them—the ‘Irregulars’. …At the same time, they were extremely cautious of these people.”

Ma appeared to take interest in what Allen was saying. “How fascinating. For many years I visited places all around the world. I found many old ruins, and items of supernaturally advanced technology within them. But I have never gone to heaven.”

“Why are the gods afraid of ‘Irregulars’? I think—it’s because when a being that doesn’t exist is made to exist, it makes the rules into a contradiction. …But then another question comes up there. –That is, why must the rules not be contradicted?”

“…Go on.”

“You can arrive at that answer when pondering the other issue of what it is that the gods are most afraid of. Naturally, I am not a god myself, and so it’s a little difficult to make a perfect theory on that…So let’s swap out ‘god’ for ‘king’. In order for a king to remain so, he needs to have a country he can govern. Without it, he won’t be a king anymore.”

“And in the same vein, the moment the world is no more, the gods will no longer be gods…That’s what you’re saying.”

“Exactly. Putting this all together—you get the conclusion that the reason why the gods are afraid of Irregulars is because they have the power to erase the world.”

“So…That is why you, an ‘Irregular’ yourself, had your soul sealed inside the ‘Blackbox’ in heaven by god.”

Allen was surprised that Ma had known about that. “You knew that much?”

“The ‘Blackbox’ that you were likely to have been in must have had an ‘Akashic Record’ in it. I…found something similar in the ‘graveyard’. It wasn’t all that difficult. I do have Levia’s memories, after all.”

“I…didn’t realize there was a ‘Blackbox’ in the ‘graveyard’ as well.”

“It was a ‘Type B’—something that Behemo made and then left there. …But there is still something I don’t quite understand from your story just now. If the gods regard ‘Irregulars’ as being dangerous—then why was Riliane left alone?”

“I didn’t know that myself…But Adam and Eve were in the theater. And when I saw them, the answer became a little clearer to me.”

“…Gallerian did say that those twins were also ‘Irregulars’…”

“This is pure speculation, but perhaps erasure via ‘Irregulars’ is something that is conditional on the twins being together. Once they are, they invoke it via taking a certain action. That’s—a ‘Re_Birthday’, I think. …But what Adam put into motion was incomplete.”

Allen looked up at the ‘Blackbox’ floating in the sky.

The “black box” was still continuing its tremors.

“So I’m sure that it will only ‘format’ those who are already inside it.”

“Gammon’s goal…was to erase the world, then?”

“No, rather, it looked to me like he was trying to save it. Perhaps he was trying to revive the world again by controlling Adam and Eve’s power. …There’s no way to know the truth at this point.”

“…”

“Let’s get back on topic. I think that…you are also an ‘Irregular’ yourself. But unlike the others, you were not born as part of a set of twins.”

“Unlike you…I never even had any beings I could call my mother or father,” Ma muttered, her face looking somewhat lonely.

“So you would need another being to set up a ‘Re_Birthday’. And that might be the seven ‘Deadly Sin contractors’. It is by absorbing them that you hope to be able to completely erase the world—”

“--You’re wrong.”

“…Huh!?”

Ma’s expression abruptly grew harsh, and she gathered lightning in her hand. “You are different from me after all. Though you may be an ‘Irregular’ like I am…You have parents and a sister. You have people who can prove that you exist. You—could never understand my suffering!”

Allen swiftly blocked the lighting she fired at him with his sword.

His illusory blade melted in an instant, and he discarded it, summoning up a new one.

“Ma…Just stop this now. There’s no meaning in what you’re trying to do—”

“My wish is not to erase the world. That is…merely an incidental side-effect. I—must prove my existence. That in itself is the destiny of us ‘Irregulars’…And yet you seem to have forgotten that fact. You aspire to know everything of this world, and yet you know absolutely nothing about yourself.”

“…It’s the same for you, isn’t it? Even if you can prove that you exist, if the world is gone then—there’ll be no one to tell it to.”

The flow of the black vortex changed, its color starting to darken at the area around Allen.

And yet it still had no impact on him. Perhaps this vortex was something that could not manifest its influence as long as Ma had yet to completely become a “pure being”…Or so he guessed.

“Allen…How many worlds can you see? For me they are—infinite. There is not just one world. I can tell that there are many different worlds, in other dimensions from this one. Even if this world is erased…I will be able to tell my ‘story’ in a different world.”

“I guess I don’t have the range of sight that you do, unfortunately. I…can only protect that which I can see around me.”

Allen readied his sword.

He raised it level with his face, and then held it towards his opponent straight out—the “bull stance” that Leonhart, his adoptive father, had taught him.

Upon seeing that, Ma gave a thin smile.

“Putting on airs as some messenger of justice? …That’s fine. I don’t mind being ‘evil’. I will prove my existence—even if that makes me a ‘pure evil’ that can erase the world.”

“…”

“Feel free to come at me, if you intend to stop me. But…Riliane and I are currently of one body. If you destroy me, then she too will—”

“…I know. I know that already.”

Once, Allen had thought little of making the whole world his enemy, if it meant protecting his sister.

…Yes, Ma did resemble his old self—He could feel that, very deeply.

This figure, not caring what else happened as long as it was for their goals.

No ethics or rules could sway them from their determination. Though there might be some who would call that “selfish”…What meaning was there in throwing yourself away and merely living?

We…are not the “dolls” of gods. We are “humans”, who have our own will.

As he faced off against Ma—

Allen recalled his old self.

<<prev------directory------next>>

[sweet-cynical-writer]

Thank you to everyone who waited patiently!!! The long overdue update is here for Soukoku's Love Child!

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: Suicide, Gore, Death

Special thanks to @soukokuwu naturally for proofreading & of course continuing to be my partner for the series! ♡

Soukoku's Love Child - Nikkō's Past

The soft piano music carried on a reminiscent sound as Dazai walked into Lupin. As he settled into his seat, a certain ginger haired mafioso let out an exasperated sigh as if he'd been expecting company for quite some time. His partner was late as usual.

“What kept you this time, shitty Dazai?”

He took his drink in hand to take a sip before replying. And naturally it made Chuuya upset. A warning glare shot towards the barkeep who was only there to do his job and nothing more. Dazai didn't mind ;In fact for as long as he'd been coming to Lupin, he was always served without having to place a single order.

“I was visiting someone along the way. Turns out, they need my help.”

His partner opened his mouth to retort that there's no way he would assist in helping him but was cut off as if it were expected.

“Chuuya. I know you don't want me to get involved in anyone's problems. But this is a special case. And it will affect you as well.”

The way he released an audible, ‘Tch’ made Dazai smirk with amusement. It was his partner's way of saying, ‘go on and explain yourself fast before I rip your head off’.

“I'm glad you understand. Now. To put it bluntly, I found out more about this kid I ran into. We should adopt him. There's too much risk keeping him in that orphanage and if someone else comes along to grab him.. well let's just say it will only create more work for us.”

Chuuya was irritated at the idea of having a child to look after. He hardly would have patience for Dazai as troublesome and childish he could be. Taking care of a real child would be a nightmare.

“Now listen here, if you think that you could just make all the decisions here and I would just go along with it, you're dead wrong.”

Sure, Chuuya was aware that when it came to making life changing decisions that Dazai had a natural gift for choosing right every time. But that didn't mean the ginger had to mindlessly agree every time something like this occurred.

The way he cooly took his drink to his lips only made him more angry. That sly smile played on his lips like he could order the mafia executive around like some second hand maid.

“Look you bandaged bastard, I mean it. If we just ignore this child and we do end up with more work, so what? We could always use an alternative to helping the kid find a stable home rather than have us watch him.”

Even given their separate roles, it would be impossible for either of them to always have visual watch on the kid. Was he expecting the two of them to play hot potato taking care of him? And then there were always the possibilities of the kid wandering off. Chuuya shook his head after drinking from his glass.

"No, Dazai. There's too much maintenance to bother having this kid in our care. I say make him someone else's problem or just forget about it.”

He knew better than to doubt Dazai's intuition. As insufferable this man was, he never made a wrong call on a long term decision. Ultimately, that was part of the pros of dating such a man. Still, no matter how sharp Dazai was in taking the lead, Chuuya refused to cooperate. This time, Dazai was asking for too much on his part.

To be honest, the burnette anticipated a reaction like this from Chuuya. He didn't look surprised in the slightest as he watched his partner express the facial expression of a stubborn dog who didn't want to move an inch. Unless his owner was going to drag him along by the leash.

“You may be against it now, Chuuya. But when I tell you what kind of capabilities this child has, you'll change your mind.”

Dazai took another sip from his glass before setting it down with a soft clink against the glass coaster. His warm chocolate gaze filled with sorrow as he parted his lips to tell the story of a child that lost everything at once.

***

The child was only six when this took place. A meeting that was long overdue on a night when the air was bone chilling. It whispered desirable sins in the ears of two lovers that tore a bond that was at wit's end. There was only a matter of time that this would happen but the way it happened was something not fit for children. So it was only natural that they waited until their son was put to bed before they took action on leaving him behind.

Nothing was going to stop them from reaching what they both wanted most. The one thing in life that was irreversible that was both feared and wanted by man. It was something that their son wouldn't understand until long after they left.

“The only thing I hope for.. is that he won't hate us if he ever finds out.”

Her silky voice came out in a soft whisper. Sweet honey coated eyes staring back into that freshly cut emerald gaze of his. They were sharp and confident the way he reassured his wife with a gentle press of his lips to hers. The moonlight shone down on them like a spotlight. They danced against death for their whole lives. But tonight? Tonight they would dance toward it.

They had decided a while back; they’d do it here, near the river, under the bridge where it’s quiet, barren. It wasn’t too far from the house, but far enough so their child would be able to sleep through it. Doing it at their home would be too much, too troublesome.

Tonight was the last time they could breathe. The last time they would see each other. Their fate was sealed with the guns they both held in each other's hands. They intertwined arms with the barrels resting on their foreheads. With a silent exchange to one another, they released the trigger.

It was roughly 6:45 A.M. that the boy had woken up from his slumber. He was in a daze, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he rolled out of bed to search for his parents. Their bedroom being empty sent his heart into a panic. Where did they go? And without him? Frantically, he opened the front door to rush to the first place he thought of. The river. It was a favored area that Nikkō loved to spend his time skipping rocks.

There were even times when he would hide from his parents to play out here. It was an obvious spot to be found, but that didn't matter to him, he always wanted to be found easily. However, this time, Nikkō's parents were the ones easily found.

Two bodies, side by side and covered in red, tainting the usual clear blue gentleness which was the river. It no longer held the innocent and kind memories of his family. Instead, it haunted him as he stared wide eyed and unmoving like a statue.

He was snapped out of his blank state to the sound of an incomplete call made out to the caller ID labeled, ‘YASU’. The cell phone was found in his mother's hand. He broke down in uncontrollable sobbing. Nikkō was there, curled in between the decaying bodies of his parents. Crying hysterically with an erratic heartbeat that was visible to the naked eye. A man who possessed blond hair and kind eyes had shown up before to tame the child before police arrived.

It was decided from the note left behind that he would be put into the orphanage for the sake of not learning of his dark past. Out of fear that the child would possibly take things the wrong way or attempt to take his own life out of guilt. His parents did not want the chance of Nikkō ever finding out about losing his family. There was also the logical fear that someday, learning about his ability that he could use it to hurt everyone around him.

As long as he remained oblivious to his ability, he could live out a full life of happiness. If he remains in the orphanage, some loving family will pick him up and raise him to be a sweet child. There were too many risk factors to expose Nikkō to such sensitive information. All they could do was hope he would never have to go through the stress and strain that came with having an ability.

Including knowing about Yasu, he was left with no choice. His parents found it too risky that one day, the truth would slip out if they allowed Yasu to raise Nikkō. Their last request of their old friend was to take him to an orphanage. No further contact was allowed with him after he was dropped off. But Yasu loved Nikkō like his own. He kept his promise to take Nikkō to the orphanage, only to go against their wishes and keep in contact with the boy by exchanging gifts and letters with him as time passed.

The moment the orphanage learned about the child's ability to manipulate emotions upon physical contact, they had him separated from the rest of the children. He was considered a walking disaster that only wanted those to suffer with him. When in actuality, the child not only had no clue he possessed an ability, but he wished for someone to explain what he was feeling. He was confused and often became docile at the mention of any word similar to ‘family’.

He was often asked many questions referring to his past like what happened to his parents and if he knew why he was there at the orphanage. Nikkō couldn't answer with certainty, given that the disturbing image of two bloodied bodies seen at a tender age made his brain block out those memories. Something in him refused to let him access his past. Telling him to keep pushing forward and never look back.

Tags for notification: @suehiro @jounos-teashop-writing @aiya-chan03 @i-am-sleepy-as-heck @tapioka-boi @wildnya @chihxru @dazedbydazai @bandaged-writer @daffodildazaiwrites @orphic-osamu

[tisfan]

The Works

Title: The Works Written by: @tisfan (3023) Square: R2 - Hydra Won (swapped square) Rating: Mature (for horror) Triggers/warnings: Tags: Hydra Won, ambiguous ending, incomplete Created for: @tonystarkbingo Word count: 2346 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23753566/chapters/59696779 Summary: It had been his last act, getting the sleep-pods onto the ship and launching it, the whole time, holding Hydra at bay, keeping her here, keeping her distracted. And then she’d struck, casting some evil magic over him, over--He couldn’t remember.

__________

¬░▒╛┐z░¬ date ┴╗╣⌐g__d morning soldier ▒¬º╖ç

The old AI wasn’t working. 

Which had been the plan, Barnes, get it together. 

The man above him -- well next to him now that Bucky had sat up -- was something like a vision. They exchanged names, greetings. The man. Tony. Had asked some questions.

Bucky’s lips were warm. Tingling. 

Tony had kissed him. To wake him up. To break the spell.

“Hydra won,” Bucky said. He wasn’t even sure he was speaking out loud, but he must have, because Tony was responding.

“That’s long since over,” Tony said. “There’s no Hydra anywhere in this sector.”

“She’s sleeping, because I was sleeping,” Bucky said. “I shut her down by shutting myself down. She might be back.”

“I didn’t see anyone else on this ship, except you and an awful lot of rabbits.”

“Rabbits?” Kobik had had some pet rabbits; a whole hutch of them. Part of the experiment. Could a space station become truly self-sufficient? The answer still looked like no, but some hutch and farm animals did function pretty well. There’d been goats at one time, too, but in the last days of the war, Bucky thought they’d all been eaten.

“They’re all over the place. My AI tells me they’re rabbits. I’ve never seen one, honestly.”

“Where th’ hell’d you grow up you ain’t never seen a rabbit,” Bucky wondered.

“I did mention the part about three hundred years, right?”

“Right, yeah,” Bucky said. “Uh, is there anything to eat?”

“There’s some mealpacks back at my ship,” Tony offered. “But unless your stuff is in permastore, I don’t think anything from here will be safe.”

“Water?”

Tony pulled out a canteen. That, at least, hadn’t changed much in form or function for centuries. Spout to put liquids in or to drink from, a standard filtration system, and a strap to carry it with. Why improve on something that was already perfect? Filters would, of course, adapt over time to whatever contaminants were in the water. “Human physiology hasn’t changed all that much,” Tony said. “I don’t think my filters will hurt you. But you have to be careful. Don’t drink from a Centurian’s canteen. They add in a lot of stims and endorphins to their water. Warrior race, but it gives the rest of us a twitchy stomach.”

“Good to know,” Bucky said. “How will I know who they are?”

“Don’t worry, they’ll usually tell you,” Tony joked. “They’re blue-skinned marsupials, with a red crown of-- head spikes, for lack of a better word.”

“Marsupials?”

“They carry their young around in a stomach pouch until they’re old enough to walk around. It’s a convenient arrangement,” Tony said. 

“Okay, then,” Bucky said. He took a few sips of Tony’s water and then returned it to him. The nanites in his system would filter anything harmful out, and if he could eat soon enough, would get him back to fighting fit. Otherwise, he might possibly go into a cyber coma. He didn’t see the need to alarm Tony just yet. It wasn’t urgent. “We can check the mess, see if there’s any supplements left. They won’t go bad.”

Worst case, he could probably chase down one of the rabbits and skin it for food. 

The whole station was both dead and alive at the same time. The hydroponics bay had escaped containment; there were vines and plants everywhere.

They’d probably grown, at least somewhat, in the remains of the dead. Bucky shuddered. 

The rabbit colony hopped in and out of the dense plant growth. Unafraid, and why would they be? A rabbit only lived nine or ten years. There had been generations of them, since they last saw humans.

“Did, uh, did the colony ship get away?” Bucky asked. 

It had been his last act, getting the sleep-pods onto the ship and launching it, the whole time, holding Hydra at bay, keeping her here, keeping her distracted.

And then she’d struck, casting some evil magic over him, over--

He couldn’t remember.

»£┼¬░▒-▒¿╟┼longing▒░┼╝º

“We never came across any ships from the Ring,” Tony said, as if apologizing, “but if you can give us mass and trajectory, I might be able to track it down for you.”

Sleep pods would last. If Bucky’s lasted, theirs would last.

He shook his head, wondering. Maybe they’d gotten out, maybe they’d gotten away. Away from Hydra, locked in her cold sleep with Bucky.

He wondered where she was.

She might still be on the station. He turned his gaze on Tony. That would be a strange form for her to take; Tony seemed sincere. But then, witches always seemed sincere, didn’t they?

“Sir, I’m reading some strange energy spikes in the station,” a voice said, coming from-- from Tony.

“My AI,” Tony said, as if apologizing. “Anything hazardous, Jay?”

“Not as yet, but you might want to consider retreating in the next few hours. Radiation levels are rising.”

“What’s the plan with the bunnies?” Tony asked. “Can we evacuate them to a planet?”

“I’ve already sent out a beacon pod, locating the station. Hopefully it will be able to float through the Ring, and broadcast from there.”

“Good job.”

“Of course, sir.”

“You’re worried about the wildlife?” Bucky asked, incredulous. Definitely not the witch, then. She wouldn’t have cared about the life of a bug, beast, or boy.

“They’re alive,” Tony said. “There’s no point in killing them. We’ve got biologists back on the various Initiative ships that can relocate them somewhere that they won’t be an invasive species. Well, technically, they’ll be invasive, but a careful selection will make sure they will fit in with the local ecosystem. Worst comes to worst, we can sell them as pets and novelties on Knowhere Station.”

“We do have cargo space in the lower deck,” JARVIS pointed out, “if you’re not planning to salvage much.”

“Salvage, right,” Tony said, snapping his fingers. “I got so carried away by Sleeping Beauty here that I forgot I was looking for valuables. What say you, hot stuff? You got anything worth selling on this floating coffin? Split it with you, 50/50.”[]

¥ƒ▀¥▒╜┼┼pжавыйÉ»¥┼╟╞─rusted▒╗▓

Bucky shook his head. “I think it’s all salvage now, rules of the drift,” he said. “Do you have policy in place for survivors?”

Back in his day, anyone found on the drift in space -- hypersleep accidents happened often enough that people could outlive their assets, their grandkids, their governments -- that some effort was made to track down any remaining property, they got a six month high intensity sleep-learning degree, and sent off into the world with a small stipend.

Bucky’d known a couple of them. Steve Rogers had done a Big Sleep, seventy years or more. Gone to sleep as a Private, cook’s assistant during the war and woke up as a Captain through time in rank.

Strange thing, really. 

“You might be considered the longest standing prisoner of war,” Tony said. “Not that it matters, there’s a fortune to be had on this station. Split it with me, you won’t have to worry about it. This is all approved salvage. I have a license.”

He knew his way around the station, even with the plants and the rabbits. The rabbits were freaking him out a little; they kept following-- sticking their curious noses out of the underbrush. He wondered how they’d lived so long. Usually life support shut down when no one was breathing it.

Which meant Hydra had to be on the station somewhere.

“Why split it with me, then?” Bucky wondered. “License for salvage, you don’t need to--”

“Because I may be an asshole a lot of the time,” Tony said, “but I am not one hundred percent a dick.”

╜£Éëδ╗»╟┼╞─┬┴seventeen╜╝╗▒»▒┼

“If you want,” Bucky said. They finally made it to the messhall, and the sub-freeze was still reading green, so Bucky used his thumb print to open it. “I can recon some of these food packs.”

“You call this stuff food,” Tony said, incredulously. “You, my friend, you have been suffering. Recon has come so far since your day. Jay, can you dish up a four course for us?”

“Of course, sir,” JARVIS said. 

“What’s considered a high value item?” Bucky wondered, picking out a few recon packs. He added water to the cooker, stuffed the packet in the slot and watched as the not-particularly interesting, but high calorie, high vitamin cereal poured itself into a reusable cup. The spoons were a little iffy, so Bucky added more water, and then drank it as a gruel. Yuck, but it would keep his systems intact for a while longer. Just a little while longer.

He just needed to know what happened to Hydra.

Where was she?

Not in the messhall, that was for sure.

Tony was still running down a list of items -- elements that could be repurposed. Titanium, protactinium, thorium. They’d had those in ample supply at one point. Potable water, preferably in ice form, which was easier to tow. 

“Wait, what was that last thing?”

“Etherium gas,” Tony said. “Might as well as for unobtainium, or wishalloy.”

“What, why?”

“As far as we know, stable etherium is a fantasy,” Tony said. “We’ve got plausible theories, but no one’s ever gotten a hold of the stuff before. I was spinning castles in space.”

“Um.”

╟S│ªS▒»░▒O1█┼daybreak▒»╟╗╣╕ë

“We have a tankful, at least,” Bucky said, “if nothing’s changed. That’s what we were mining, here--”

Tony was staring at him as if he’d said the moon really was made from green cheese.

“A-- let me get this straight. A tank. How much is in a tank?”

“It’s not really my department,” Bucky said, “but last I checked, about twenty thousand gallons of liquid etherium.”

Tony stopped moving, he seemed to stop breathing.

“I think we just became the richest men in the galaxy,” he said, finally. “Show me where this tank of yours is. Can we detach it for hauling?”

Bucky nodded. It was the gas, he thought. That attracted Hydra. She’d come because of the gas, and they’d fought her over the gas.

Witch.

Monster.

╟╗▒░ªÜfurnace▒»½▒╟┼╣

“Tony--” Bucky said, reaching out his hand. He caught hold of the other man’s wrist. “The gas--”

“Perfectly safe, cupcake,” Tony said. “We’ll make sure there’s no leaks, then we can just haul it away. Easy peasy, nice and cheesy.”

Bucky was pretty sure the phrase didn’t go that way.

And it wasn’t safe.

If Hydra was still on the station, that would be where she was.

Hibernating, maybe.

Or just waiting. Lurking. 

He wanted to speak, it was like he’d forgotten the words, and so instead of saying anything, he just turned and led Tony deeper into the station. Down into the Works, the mag-engines and the hydropods, the storage and the plumbing, the fuel cells. It was dark there, wet and heavy somehow. The plant life stopped, which wasn’t surprising, and while there were a few rabbits down this deep, they didn’t seem… normal.

Mutations, perhaps.

Bucky shuddered the thought away.

Tony had said he’d sent out a beacon.

Help-- someone could help them.

Maybe someone would come.

I don’t have to run faster than Hydra, I just have to run faster than you.

Not true, and everyone knew it. Hydra was so fast. She was there before you even knew it. She wasn’t a sight, or something to touch. A witch, some sort of presence.

“Here,” Bucky said. “This is the shut off station. We’ll need to disconnect, and run diagnostics. That can take a few hours--”

“Don’t worry, Jarvis is already in the works, he’s a lot faster than your old systems,” Tony said. “We’ll be on our way back to civilization before you’re even sleepy.”

╟»▒░½Ü¢Ö▒»╟┼nine┼»Q▒»░▒╟┼

“Do you hear something,” Bucky said. He took a few steps down toward-- he didn’t even know. Something was down there. Calling him. Like a magnet that he was too pinlike to resist. A flame, to draw away a moth. It would burn him up, and he knew it, but he could not--

“Hey!” Tony’s hand was hard on his wrist, the fingernails biting lightly into his skin. “Hey, Bucky. You okay?”

“No, I don’t think I am,” Bucky said.

“Jay, how’s it look?”

“You may come back to the ship at any time, sir,” JARVIS said. “I can handle the disconnect from here.”

“Gotta be sleep-shock,” Tony was saying, “I’m so sorry, you seemed okay, let me just--”

Tony was leading him away. 

Away from answers.

Away from--

▒┼╟╗╦Ñ▒»╟benign▒┼╫D░▒½¬

“It’s all right, you don’t have to do anything else, I’ve got you,” Tony said.

And he did. Somehow, this man was… carrying Bucky. Like he was a sleepy child. Bucky blinked.

“Nanites,” Tony said. “They’re pretty amazing. I know you had ‘em back in your day, my scans show you’ve got some yourself. I think there’s something interfering with yours, though. Maybe they’re just old. We can do a filter, get you fixed up. It’s all right, just let me take care of you.”

That was nice, somehow. The idea of just letting go. Of letting Tony take care of things. Letting him take care…

Of Hydra.

Would it even be possible? That the witch could be defeated by something as simple and small as human technology?

“Jay, get me a stretcher, would you, buddy?” 

Bucky couldn’t see anything; everything was getting cold, frozen. His eyelids were frozen shut. Winter--

Winter was coming.

The winter. 

He remembered climbing into the sleeppod, knowing she was right behind him, knowing--

He’d known something, once. 

What was it--

▒┼╟»ª╣╝»homecoming▒»╣¥╝¡☺”

Static in his head, like snow. Freezing. He was so cold. Tony’s hands were on him, but he couldn’t see, and if Tony was talking, he couldn’t hear it.

She was coming.

Hydra was coming. 

They’d woken her up, somehow, and she was on her way to claim him.

“You need to run,” Bucky said, hoping Tony could hear him. That he could do something. Anything.

Live.

Run.

Run.

▒»╟┼┴▒½¡╝one▒ªñªú┼╝│

“Tony, run--”

“Freight car.”

Bucky closed his eyes and went away.

The Winter Soldier was here.

“Hail Hydra.”

A/n - @27dragons wouldn’t let me post this until everything was resolved, so, I have written 2 more chapters and I will post them in the next 2 weeks or so.

[tsarisfanfiction]

8, 40, 46? 😁 from the Fanfiction Asks (but if you want to answer more go for it ahaha)

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

So I’ve known Thunderbirds since I was a little kid, but my sudden resurgence of interest is actually all my boyfriend’s fault.  He sent me one of those “first and latest fictional crushes” memes and while latest was easy (not that I remember who it was now, this was over a year ago and hello TAG taking over my life ever since, but might have been Law, maybe), when I thought about ‘first’ I ended up tracking back all the way to... yup, Scott!

Not that he was really a crush, considering I was five or six, but definitely the first fictional character I remember really latching onto.  And that was enough for me to dig out my old TOS DVDs, run my way through those again, and then poke at TAG because I was desperate for more and it existed, despite my initial hissy-offended-cat reaction to a CGI/not-puppets Thunderbirds.  Also devoured fics, somehow found this little corner on tumblr, and now I’m here to stay!  Sorry :P

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Characterisation of certain characters.  Some characters are really easy and I can write them for days, but on the flip side some really, really don’t wanna talk to me (Virgil Tracy, I am looking at you).  I also have a tendency to get really hung up on the little details, especially if they have no real significance to the plot and are just a throwaway thing I need to fill a gap - probably because I like being able to foreshadow and tie things together so these insignificant details bother me until I can figure out how to tie them in.  I don’t use beta readers but I do bother friends/fellow writers with word vomit while I try and figure these things out!

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Ooh, that’s a tricky one.  I’ve got 118 published works right now, across various fandoms.

It’s very tempting to list a bunch and ‘muse’ about it all before reaching a final decision, but I get the feeling that’s cheating, oops, so I’ll resist that.  A lot of my older fics I’m still proud of, but the writing style isn’t the most up to date example anymore.  On the flip side, a lot of my recent stuff has been through events or prompts, or are incomplete (and I never like promoting incomplete stuff, even if it’s my own).

But I think there’s an interesting middle ground in Black Widow.  It’s a oneshot that explores an alternate interpretation of Obito’s relationship with Rin, whilst remaining entirely canon-compliant, and highlights some of my favourite things to write:

- Proposing ‘fill in the blanks’ from canon without going AU - Manipulative characters/dark motivations - Tormenting a character that really didn’t deserve it :P - Generally poking at canon until I can find loose threads and then tugging on them

It’s missing a lot of the hurt/comfort and fluff that’s prevalent in a lot of my fics, so it might not be a perfect representation of what I write, but out of my more recent works (published Jan 2019) it’s definitely one I like to think shows some of my creative spinning capabilities.

****

I’m always up for answering more, I’m just terrible at picking the questions to answer...  I’d answer them all if I had the time, but I wouldn’t want to bore everyone if they’re not interested :P

[shardweavers]

Chapter Three: The Return of Chaos

A warm embrace, an ethereal swirl...the flow of elements and life was calming and peaceful. 

How long had they been here, in this state of being? 

They...or is it ...I? 

Thoughts began to accumulate and take form. The warm flow started to slip away as he felt pulled, or rather called. Who...what was dragging him away from the safe warmth he'd grown so accustomed to? A harsh cold overtook his form...his body?

Did I have a body, until this moment...? 

His vision came to as he took in his surroundings; he had no recollection of what had happened. 

Where did the warmth go? 

It felt like a distant memory, just out of his grasp. 

Who am I? 

The man laid there, naked, on the cold, hard ground for a moment...then sat up, wrapping his arms around himself as he shivered from the chill of the air. His vision cleared as a small audible gasp formed from his lips taking in the sights around him. 

It was...so beautiful. Tall, towering buildings of elaborate design surrounded his shivering form; black, spiraling peaks of elaborate metalwork, like waves as much as mountaintops, raised off some of the buildings, stretching towards the sky. It looked to be some kind of a city, where he sat in the middle of a plaza. The area was quiet and devoid of people from what he could see... 

It was at that moment that a voice called out to him. It was in a language most would have forgotten, yet...somehow, he knew it.

「 "I see that, at long last, you awaken."  」

Pain suddenly shot through his skull; memories began flooding his mind, like a gate somewhere upstream had overflowed. His thoughts raced forward along this uncontrollable river. 

Yes...yes, he remembered now. This city...his home. And all of the events that had occurred within it. Most importantly, who he was. However, this made no sense to the man. His face looked puzzled as his brow furrowed. He shouldn't be here, he shouldn’t be here any more than Amaurot...he...he had died? 

This body felt different; incomplete, rather, like something was missing. There was an emptiness, the source of which was ever so obvious, but it provided no reason as to why he did not feel whole. He felt...weak. Pain hit him again as it felt like his head would split in two, and he grabbed at each side of his skull. A silhouette of light...a figure that made his mind's eye feel conflicted. His heart raced and ached seeing this figure. 

What is this...who is this? 

He reached out towards the memory before blacking out from the pain. A voice rang out across the plaza.

"Welcome back, Hades... Or, rather, Emet-Selch..."

* * *

Laying on the soft grass, Hades starred up into the sky. His black robes looked rather plain, but they were the same as everyone else in the city. The hood was off his head revealing the locks of short, white hair tousled against the ground. The aether danced before his eyes, moving and twirling. 

He had been here before...it was comforting. Yes, this was the place he liked to come to rest and be alone with his thoughts. This was the city park in Amaurot. Hades let out a sigh as he shut his eyes again...no. Amaurot was no more. This was not possible. 

Again, a voice called out to him... different this time than before.

"Well! You seem gloomy as ever, Hades." His eyes shot back open as Hades sat up, quickly, to look towards the voice...and there he stood, grinning...beaming like he always had. 

That smug look, just the same as ever, plastered across his face. His friend. Hythlodaeus. 

"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." 

"Hythlodaeus... but..."

"Of course, my old friend. Who else would it be?" Hythlodaeus lumbered over and went to sit beside him in the grass. "You seem to have a lot of free time all of a sudden, to be laying here." 

Hades did not respond. He simply looked down at the ground in front of him. 

Hythlodaeus placed a hand on his shoulder, "You are not alone. I am here for you, my friend." 

The two sat there for a moment in silence but he spoke again, "You know that we have always been near. In fact, she has been waiting for you..." 

Hades' face changed, his look now stricken, eyes wide. He turned to look towards Hythlodaeus...but his friend was not there. He looked around frantically; no one was around. The scene before him started to fade at the edges…

Oh. Oh no.

It had all been a dream after all. 

His consciousness came as he blinked with blurry eyes, looking around the room. A single tear ran down his face. 

A dream... 

Rubbing his face; Hades sat up in...he'd been in a bed. Taking a moment to fully gain stock of his situation, he realized he'd been laying there clothed; he was wearing the Garlean robes that he wore when he was Solus. It had been his typical decor he had for his time on the First as well. Out of paranoid suspicion, he ran a hand down the fur of the overcoat...it did seem to be the same outfit. 

Someone had been watching over him. But who? And more importantly, where was he, really? He took a glance towards the window; he recognized the skyline in view. This was the recreated city of Amaurot for sure; his recreation.

But who had brought him back, and why?

"If I may use a clichéd turn of phrase...how is it to return to the land of the living, my dear friend?" 

The voice that greeted him was familiar; mellifluous. A perfect ambassador's voice—a leader's voice. The Heart’s voice. He'd heard it from the least likely source, last he checked... the lips of the crown prince of Garlemald. 

How much disdain he had felt seeing him wear that form at the time was immeasurable. Thankfully, this was not the same form that the voice wore now.

The white-robed form of Elidibus stood looking out across the skyline from the window, his head down. He didn't turn towards Hades for a long moment, but as ever, that crimson mask hid his emotions. Hades had almost not noticed the presence of the other Ascian within the room. How…? He was uncertain, seeing as he had just gazed upon that very window...and seen nothing. 

The Ascian wanted to blame his disorientation. A familiar frown upon his face formed as he realized for sure who it was that spoke to him.

"Elidibus…?”

“Just so.”

He almost wanted to smile, but...something needled him about all this. About...returning, this way. He shouldn’t be able to.

“So, then. All of...this is your doing, I take it?"

His eyes narrowed, locking on the white-robed figure by the window. His legs swung to the side of the bed; his feet found purchase on the floor as his robe fluttered to follow. 

His eyes continued to watch the other Ascian as he spoke again, "I'm sure you are aware, and need not the bulletin, Elidibus, but the plan failed. As Hythlodaeus would be able to elucidate..." Hades stopped his words, for the moment, before his lips formed a sneer. He continued.

"...I was distracted. These lovely environs do prove that, don’t they? So I must wonder, why bother bringing me back? The battle was lost."

"Emet-Selch, how unlike you. You should know the answer to that," Elidibus replied, his voice remaining soft, even gentle, as he turned from his gazing at the reconstructed Amaurot; as he did, though, the wistfulness left his voice. "The battle was lost, yes; but the war is far from over. The great work of Rejoining remains to us. The rebirth of our God. The righting of the star’s course. Zodiark himself requires you to live once more, Hades, and so you do. I, the humble Emissary, could hardly stand in the way of His will."

It wasn’t an unusual sentiment from Elidibus, really, but something in the way he said it, here, now, with them the only unsundered left...it chilled Hades’ blood.

It had always been easy, before, to ignore the intensity with which Elidibus pursues their great work, the level of obsession the Emissary has. But facing it head-on...

He shook himself free of this train of thought. The white-robed Ascian had folded his arms behind his back as he studied his companion, and now his red-masked face was shadowed by the cowl of his robe.

 "I am also, I must admit, rather concerned by your...distraction. Tell me, Emet-Selch, did you become so enamored by the color of that one's shard that you forgot what you were on Norvrandt to do...?" The disappointment in Elidibus' voice was almost worse than anger, and much more subtly dreadful. 

"I would expect such impetuousness from Lahabrea, perhaps, but not you. Fortunately, however, you were more cautious than he. There was more than enough to recover. And perhaps, as you are now, you will be less...distractible."

There was, though Hades hated to admit it, a genuine sting to his words, one which distracted him from the vague sweep of Elidibus’ words, the question they left in their wake. Dread was replaced by a quick-boiling anger.

Yes, yes, Hades had strayed from the original plan! But the Rejoining was the goal entire, the whole...what right did even the Emissary, even he who wore the white, have to sit in judgment! Or compare him to that mewling child, the Abyssal Celebrant…! 

He stood up from the bedside, not letting any emotion reach his face, simply staring coldly at Elidibus. So, what scheme did the Emissary have set in motion now, after he had remained in the shadows all this time? And what role did he intend for Hades to play? No, he barely needed to ask or even think on that. The answer was obvious...as ever, he needed Hades to do the dirty work. Irritation flooded the one called Emet-Selch; he straightened his posture with a sniff, before he flicked his hand out in a dismissive gesture.

"I don't have to take this...this patronizing nonsense. You know that I did more than you and Lahabrea combined in trying to see the plan to fruition. It did not work, o Emissary, o Heart of the God. Norvrandt is a lost cause. I will be happy to regroup with you later on our next steps, but for now? Why, I believe I will take some of the rest you have long promised me." 

His lips curled smugly. That felt satisfying. With a snap of his fingers, he called forth the Ways Between, the portals the Ascians used to pass through the Void; he would pass through any pool of aetheric darkness to end this conversation and Elidibus' unearned superiority. Certainly, he meant what he’d said, he would speak to his fellow Paragon later. When he felt like it. He needed time alone with his thoughts, to... to process everything. 

Several moments passed, and...nothing. It was just the silence between Elidibus and Hades, as they stood, together, in the room. Nothing had happened...nothing was summoned.

Losing a bit of his composure, Hades once again tried to summon the portal...once again, nothing happened. He felt the color drain from his face; something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. 

Elidibus' words echoed suddenly in his head, and he caught the last part this time...as he was now?! What...what could he mean…?! Had he…

Of course there had been a price to pay to bring him back. Even the Heart of Zodiark was no miracle worker.

A colder and colder knot formed in his gut. The emptiness Hades had felt when he first awoke was more obvious now; he was sure that some vital part of him was missing. His connection to the aether itself was weak, useless…! He looked to the floor in shock, fighting back the urge to shake. What...what was happening…?! 

Gone was the placid, bored look on his face—instead, Hades’ face was a mask of fury and terror as he gazed at his fellow Ascian, spitting his words, sputtering. "What did you do to me...?!?" 

Elidibus sighed, and shook his head before he responded.

"As I've been trying to say, Hades, it is not I that did this. This was Zodiark's will, and I am, as ever, His instrument." He paused and tapped his chin with a finger.

 "Perhaps I should apologize. You have, indeed, done great works; that is why to see you laid low was untenable, and at whose hands, so very, very frustrating. If you truly hoped to return that lost sheep to our fold, I'm afraid you gambled and lost." 

Hades knew to whom it was that the man referred, and forced his expression not to twist with this knowledge, focused on his anger. 

She, the one that had caused his soul turmoil on their journey. The Warrior most infused with that accursed Mother's blessing. The one he remembered when he looked at her for even a moment, in ways he had never wanted, never thought he could want again...no! No! Focus on the here and now!

The white-robed Ascian was avoiding the point, that much was obvious. Elidibus had never been easy to read, but his airy calm now made everything worse. 

"Now, despite your being slain, and your connection to your form strong enough, that it made recovering most of your shards quite possible, with my blessing from the God to bring the necessary resurrection. But, alas, your connection to the Source...this was not to be recovered."

As soon as it was said, Hades knew it to be true.

Had it not been Elidibus after all, but...When she had struck that final blow…?

Remember us. Remember that we once lived.

His connection to the Source was gone. That was the emptiness that he felt...that was the missing piece. The fire in his eyes went out as quickly as it had been kindled, and Hades slumped where he stood in defeat. 

Elidibus looked genuinely sympathetic as he stepped closer. "Don't despair, Hades. Such a wound, grievous though it is, need not be...permanent." .

..and then his lips quirked. 

"There are...other connections to the Source, after all."

Other connections to the Source. 

Other connections. 

Was he saying…? Could he mean…?

To tear the connection from their souls? From her soul?

No. No. Hades could not, would not imagine it. He made his mind empty, forced away the thought of it. 

And yet.

And yet, Elidibus wasn't wrong, was he…? Damn him. It's just as it sounded, isn't it? Yet...I cannot bear this burden, this awful emptiness. I must be whole again, somehow.

Outwardly, Hades let out a long-suffering, extended sigh; this was beyond frustrating, it was awful, yet he needed to mask it behind his usual mannerisms; he was not going to let Elidibus get any more joy out of this situation than he already had. 

"Well. As much as I am reluctant to say it... you are right. But you must know what you are insinuating, such a task will not be easy. It shall be very near impossible." Hades motioned with his arms to the area in general, "Especially seeing as how I have no means to leave this place on my own accord. So... what do you propose I do?"

Elidibus' smile was almost kindly. Almost. 

But Hades knew the man who was the Emissary of the Convocation, the man who wore the white and spoke with the voice of Zodiark, had forsworn kindness in the earliest days after Amaurot's fall.

"You are correct; you cannot traverse the Ways Between, but fear not. Otherwise, your power as a sorcerer is whole and mighty. You should easily be able to bring any of the sad things Norvrandt calls a nation to their knees in days. And should any of these vaunted new... Warriors of Darkness, isn’t it, now?  Or their Scion friends, should they rise to oppose you…?" He gestured widely and then clenched his fist, and spoke too-familiar words.

"Go forth. Conquer. Rip their unearned gifts from their flesh and return to the Tempest stained in blood and righteousness, and you shall be whole again, a Paragon once more."

Gifts...? How many does he mean me to— 

Hades stopped his thoughts. Ah, of course, he had forgotten that little variable. 

The closer a connection his new link had to the Source...the easier it would be to graft on. 

To restore him fully. 

Elidibus continued, "I am certain you have no wish to tarry here, and you have much work to begin. Therefore, rejoice, Hades, my Emet-Selch. I shall trade roles with you, for a time. I shall see to it this beautiful recreation of our home is safe beneath these waves...while you do what you do best."

Hades' eyes went wide as he processed Elidibus' words.

"You cannot possibl—" 

Before Hades could finish his objection, it was done. The fingers of that alabaster-clawed hand snapped sharply, and a pool of shadows coalesced beneath the other hand and the founder of Garlemald. 

They pulled him in, in, down against his will. The last thing he saw was Elidibus turning back to the window. 

Hades managed one final roar of fury. 

"ELIDIBUS!!!" 

Then he was gone.

The Way Between opened with a rush back into the world, dropping Emet-Selch straight back into a tree. His back smacked harshly against the bark, winding him, knocking the air from his lungs. 

OW. DAMN IT ALL. Elidibus, you couldn't have been even a little gentler?! 

He was sure it was the Emissary's intent to land him this way, rob him of even his last scraps of dignity. He coughed sharply, trying to clear his airways. Bringing a hand to his chest...immense pain radiated through his core, in about the same spot he originally been pierced. The Ascian leaned his head back against the tree behind him. Well. That was unpleasant.

Several more moments passed, and Emet-Selch continued to lend against the tree unmoving. Staring up into the sky through the light lavender tree leaves; the Ascian realized he had to be in...Lakeland. He let out a long sigh; at least he might orient himself, as this meant he was definitely still on the First Shard. 

He reached out to the aether, gathered his magicks; he needed a more convenient way to travel, wounded as he was at the moment. His form gave way to his will, and he shrank down, quickly, quickly, until... 

Where Emet-Selch had sat before was a blue-greyish bird with a condescending look about him. A shoebill.

The shoebill flapped his wings a few times, testing it out, and then loftily, if a bit limpingly, took flight. Guided by the wind, he headed above the trees, out of the canopy, and riding the currents, he headed towards the Crystarium. To seek the only one he knew could help…

That was, if they would. 

[ibijau]

Burn it down AU // on AO3 // extras on AO3

The first few pieces of the puzzle are discovered, much to the dismay of everyone involved.

By the time Lan Wangji and A-Yuan reached the Cloud Recesses, Lan Xichen had long left for Lanling. It would have been easy to wait for his return to ask about that altered version of Cleansing which Nie Huaisang shared, easier still to forget entirely about this matter.

Instead, while A-Yuan was in class, Lan Wangji started perusing the restricted parts of Gusu Lan’s library. There was no need to bother checking more ordinary scores, he had quickly decided. If it had been a common song, he would have recognised it. Thus, it had to be one not ordinarily used.

The notion of a genuine mistake did cross his mind, of course. He did not linger on it. The melody, while clearly different from Cleansing, fit with it well enough to not bring direct attention to itself. There was a purposefulness to this that he did not like.

Day after day, Lan Wangji checked collections of songs that, for one reason or another, had to be kept out of reach of ordinary disciples. Aside from his investigation, it proved a rather fascinating exploration of his sect’s history, and of the different ways musical cultivation had been used over the years.

Between this, the morning reading of the rules to the juniors, and time spent with A-Yuan, his days were so well filled that he usually fell asleep easily, long before the hour where he felt the impulse to reach for Wei Wuxian’s soul.

It came as little surprise to discover that his time in the library had attracted his uncle’s attention. Lan Qiren was always interested in any research happening in the Cloud Recesses, and he still had little trust in his youngest nephew. The only odd thing, as far as Lan Wangji was concerned, was the fact that it took his uncle over a month to come see him in the restricted section of the library. Even then, he only did it under the pretext that Lan Xichen had sent a letter from Lanling, and some of the news concerned Lan Wangji.

Lan Xichen wrote to explain that he would be staying in Lanling longer than intended, to help Jin Guangyao settle in his new position. That his friend should be accepted as new head of Lanling Jin happened with surprising ease, which he guessed was due both to Jin Guangyao’s undeniable skills and his impeccable rhetoric. It also helped, of course, that the only alternative was a toddler. Jin Guangshan’s other recognised bastard, Mo Xuanyu, was apparently known all over Lanling as a particularly weak willed fool, and besides he was so utterly devoted to Jin Guangyao that he would never have gone against him even if he had understood what was at stake.

He mentioned, also, how worried he was once again about Nie Huaisang. The young sect leader had departed for Qinghe the instant the ceremonies were over. But while in Lanling, he had behaved very oddly, acting very panicked every time someone asked him his opinion about the situation and never really taking sides. Lan Xichen understood that his brother-in-law was still struggling to find his footing after being thrown into his position, but he still regretted that behaviour. He knew that Nie Huaisang was capable of being quite shrewd when needed, that he had a good head for politics, and so he hoped that Lan Wangji would continue supporting his husband and encouraging him to come into his own.

This struck Lan Wangji as peculiar. After the news of Jin Guangshan’s death, Nie Huaisang had immediately started analysing the situation and wondering how to support Jin Guangyao. It seemed that Lan Wangji was not the only one made suspicious by this very odd version of Cleansing.

When he was done reading, Lan Wangji returned the letter to his uncle, and waited for him to leave so he could continue his research. Instead, Lan Qiren picked up one of the scores he had been inspecting.

“You have been coming here a lot lately, Wangji. I encourage your will to study, but your material of choice seems rather inappropriate. There are no songs here you should ever use.”

“Hm.”

“I was happy to see you start to do better,” Lan Qiren said, dropping the score impatiently. “I rejoiced too fast. It seems your interest for darkness has not relented after all.”

“Hm.”

The accusation glided on Lan Wangji like water off a duck’s back. And yet, as his uncle turned to leave, he felt an impulse to stop him. Not because his opinion still mattered on a personal level. But whether Lan Wangji liked it or not, his uncle was a renowned scholar and an expert on musical techniques. If Lan Xichen was to remain absent, then it might be wise to turn to someone else for advice.

“A certain melody has been brought to my attention,” Lan Wangji explained as his uncle was about to pass the threshold. “I have never heard it before. It could be innocuous, but the circumstances were unusual.”

Lan Qiren stopped in his tracks.

“What circumstances were those?”

A logical question, but one Lan Wangji hesitated to answer in full until he had a better understanding of the situation. There was little point in throwing accusations at the moment.

“At a certain time, a certain cultivator used a spiritual melody that I know. I was not here to hear it, but a person I trust did. When later I played that melody for that person, they remarked that it was different from what they had heard from that other cultivator.”

“And you do not think it was a mistake,” Lan Qiren noted, walking back toward his nephew now that his curiosity was picked. “What was the original melody?”

“A Lan healing song.”

“I could have guessed that much,” his uncle retorted. “That person, were they able to describe what had been changed?”

Lan Wangji nodded, and hummed the song fragment that Nie Huaisang had shared with him. When he finished, his uncle was frowning. Without a word, Lan Qiren sat down and easily put on paper the notes of that song, his scowl deepening as he inspected it.

“I have never heard that played, but I have seen it before,” he announced. “It is definitely something that we have in our collection, but I cannot remember what it is exactly. Do you know if it had any specific effects when played?”

After careful consideration, Lan Wangji nodded.

“The healing song’s effect might have been cancelled by it,” he explained, recalling how little Nie Mingjue’s mood had improved after Cleansing was played to him. “It is possible it even inverted the effects. I cannot be sure. I am not close enough to the person on whom it was used to judge if their temperament was affected by this, or other events.”

“It might be interesting to interrogate that person. It is difficult to say for sure, not without the original score to show the manner in which the song must be imbued with spiritual energy, but it appears to me as though it could easily be used for nefarious purposes.”

“The person has died since then, and cannot be interrogated.”

His uncle’s eyes narrowed at the news, and he glared at the score.

“I see. If the person you are speaking off is the one I think… this could be a dangerous situation, Wangji. Continue your investigation, but do not speak of it to anyone until things are certain. Does your husband know?”

“Hm.”

Lan Qiren nodded and stroked his beard, as if that confirmed some of his suspicions.

“Tell me if you find out what that song is, do not make rash decisions and do not let your husband make them either. If there is need for action, your brother and I will do what is necessary.”

“Hm,” Lan Wangji replied, letting that simple sound carry all of his doubt. Even if that song truly had the effect suspected, the only proof that it had been used was Nie Huaisang’s memory of it, which was hardly any proof at all, considering whose word they would need to go against.

Still, he supposed he should have been grateful that his uncle was offering to help at all.

He refused to be.

-

It took a few more days after this chat with his uncle for Lan Wangji to finally learn more about the corrupted melody, and even then he very nearly missed it entirely. As he was browsing a collection of foreign songs, Lan Wangji encountered a passage that made little sense, with a score starting in a certain style and ending in a very different one. He almost dismissed it as being due to the very unusual nature of that particular anthology, filled with music that aimed only to disorient, hurt, or straight out kill those upon whom it was inflicted. Of course songs such as these might not follow the usual rules of harmony.

Luckily, one of the passages still caught his attention enough to be worth comparing to his uncle’s transcription of the corrupted song. It was not a match, not exactly, but there was a certain harmony between the two, a similarity that made it perfectly possible for the two to be part of the same piece. Indeed, after close inspection, Lan Wangji realised that a part of this particular book, named The Collection of Turmoil, had been very carefully removed, leaving almost no trace of the now missing page.

In such circumstances, it was too big of a coincidence to be ignored. Lan Wangji put back every other material he had prepared to research that day, keeping only the Collection of Turmoil with him and leaving with it.

His plans of showing the incomplete song to his uncle was, unfortunately, thwarted when he learned that Lan Qiren had left the Cloud Recesses, called by some urgent business in Gusu. The elder he had left in charge assured Lan Wangji that his uncle would return in a matter of days. It was inconvenient, but not overtly so. Lan Wangji did not mind waiting a little longer, and would use that delay to further study the broken melody.

The rest of the day passed rather pleasantly. His mind no longer so taken by his research, Lan Wangji was able to better play with A-Yuan when his son’s classes finished. They fed the rabbits together and, since the weather was pleasant, stayed a long while in their pen, watching them hop around. A-Yuan had given names to all of them and although they all looked very similar, he was particularly good at distinguishing between them and noticing their personalities. Due to his age he was still sometimes a little clumsy when catching and holding them, but it was obvious that A-Yuan was trying very hard to be kind to the rabbits. Lan Wangji hoped the animals knew how much they were loved. He hoped, also, that A-Yuan knew how loved he was. He doubted that it would ever be easy for him to say it with words, so all he had were actions.

On the way back to the Jingshi, he picked up A-Yuan in his arms and carried him, holding him with as much gentleness as his son had tried to show to the rabbits.

He hoped it was enough to show how much he cared.

Judging by the way A-Yuan smiled, it might have been enough.

The evening passed just as pleasantly. They had dinner alone in the Jingshi, as they often did when Lan Qiren wasn’t around to complain about Lan Wangji spoiling his son. When that was over, Lan Wangji tried to read a story to his son, only for A-Yuan to interrupt at nearly every sentence because he too wanted to try reading. He was starting to know quite a few characters, and Lan Wangji patiently provided him with those he could not yet recognise. When the story was over, A-Yuan went to bed and, owing to that sunny afternoon with the rabbits, quickly fell asleep. Lan Wangji, now alone, put order to a few things inside the house. He was thinking of joining his son and ending the day when there was an urgent knock on the door.

Lan Wangji barely had time to take a step toward the door before Nie Huaisang barged in, breathless and disheveled, as if he had run there. No, not just run. For the first time since his days as a student in the Cloud Recesses, Nie Huaisang had a saber at his hip, which meant he might have flown all the way from Qinghe.

“Huaisang?”

“They took him,” his husband hissed, his face distorted in a terrible grimace, his limbs trembling from both rage and exhaustion.

“Him?”

“Mingjue! Someone took him! His grave is empty!”

Lan Wangji threw a quick look toward the bed, where A-Yuan was fast asleep. He would not stay so if he heard Nie Huaisang’s voice, and his husband did not look in a state to control his volume.

“Outside.”

They went to the rabbits’ pen, where they were least likely to be disturbed by anyone, especially at such an hour. Lan Wangji sat down and gestured for his husband to do the same, but Nie Huaisang refused and instead started pacing in the grass.

“I kept thinking about that song,” he explained. “How you said there’s only one version of Cleansing. And as I was travelling toward Lanling and became more nervous, I kept thinking how when you played it, Cleansing always calmed me down perfectly well. I was a mess before you came to visit, but then you arrived, played a little music, and I started feeling better. So why didn’t it work for Da-ge?”

“Hm. On that matter…”

“It doesn’t make sense that he was so angry!” Nie Huaisang insisted, ignoring the attempt to interrupt him. “It doesn’t make sense that I was so angry! I know we’ve always argued a lot, but never like this, we were never so vicious toward each other! It makes no sense at all, but everything hurt so much after losing him, I was so upset all the time, I didn’t even notice until you started playing the song for me. And so I thought… I thought if something had been done to him, maybe his body would bear the trace. It’s not been so long, I was hoping if I checked, I might find something.”

He stopped his pacing and shuddered.

“I found something for sure. Or rather, I found nothing. The coffin was… it had been weighted down with stones, but that’s it. There was no body inside. Wangji, they stole his body! They… no. Not they. He. It has to be him. Who else would have had the occasion? He was the one taking care of the coffin and the tomb, we let him have free rein over that. He… I trusted him!” Nie Huaisang exploded, before breaking into tears and falling to his knees on the grass. “I trusted him, I fought with Da-ge on his behalf! I trusted him so much and he did this to him, to us!”

Awkwardly, Lan Wangji shuffled closer and patted his husband's shoulder. There were no words of comfort for a moment like this one. The best Lan Wangji could offer was validation.

“Cleansing was corrupted with a fragment of another song,” he announced. “I have found the work from which it comes, but the score itself was torn away. The book was in a restricted session. Even among disciples, few people are allowed there. But there are two strangers to our sect who were given unlimited access to all of Cloud Recesses, owing to their ties to Zewu-Jun.”

“And my brother wouldn’t have done this,” Nie Huaisang sniffled. “He… he did this. He really did this. He killed my brother and he took his body! He… I thought he was my friend. I thought he was our friend!”

Without warning, Nie Huaisang let himself fall into Lan Wangji arms, hugging him tight and sobbing against his shoulder. His first instinct was to push him away, disgusted as he often was by unwanted contact. Instead, Lan Wangji forced himself to relax and tolerate it. There was not much he could do for Nie Huaisang at the moment, but if his husband needed this, he would make an effort.

After a long while, Nie Huaisang’s sobs calmed down. He pulled back, dried his tears, and sighed.

“I must find Da-ge’s body,” he announced. “If it was taken, it must be because it contains proof of what was done to him. Jin Guangyao is many things, but not a fool. He would not have done something so risky if he had not been forced to. If I find the body, I might be able to demand justice. But first, I must find it…”

“It will not be easy.”

“Might not be so hard either,” Nie Huaisang replied, a little more collected already. “The Nie sect has always had an ideal of justice, so we have a few techniques for finding missing bodies. I’m not an expert at any of them, and with my cultivation being what it is, it’ll take some effort, but I’ll manage. I’ll find him.”

“We will find him.”

Nie Huaisang stared at Lan Wangji with wide eyes and shook his head.

“That’s not your business. I… I shouldn’t even have come here, really. I should have kept this to myself. Jin Guangyao has just become the most powerful man in the country, to have him as an enemy is… It’s better if you stay out of this, Wangji. I’ve already caused you enough trouble.”

“You are my husband,” Lan Wangji retorted. “You are my friend. I already left one friend to fend for himself against Lanling Jin. I will not make that mistake again.”

For a brief moment, it looked as if Nie Huaisang might start crying again, but he managed to contain his emotions and smiled instead.

“You are a good man, Wangji. If you are really willing to help, I’ll be selfish and accept it.”

“I would not have let you refuse.”

Nie Huaisang’s smile widened, and he even managed a short laugh.

“Rude. Very rude. I can’t see why people call you a gentleman when you’re so rude to this poor husband of yours.”

Lan Wangji smiled back. He knew better than to take Nie Huaisang’s laughter as a sign he was well, but if he could at least use his usual defence mechanism again, he had to at least be better.

Still, as they walked back toward the Jingshi, Nie Huaisang fell into deep silence, which he only broke when they reached the door of their home.

“Wangji, if you come with me to Qinghe to investigate, what do we do with A-Yuan?”

“He comes as well,” Lan Wangji replied, although he did not particularly like the idea of dragging his son into this.

“But it could be dangerous,” Nie Huaisang protested. “I don’t know Guangyao as well as I thought I did, but I still think I have a good grasp of who he is. If it really is him who stole Da-ge’s body, he’ll have taken every step necessary to ensure it is never found again, so there can be no proof of what he did. He’s learned the hard way to be careful about things like that.”

“Hm. We leave him here with Hou Tianjian?”

“It’s a better option, but won’t that bring attention to us? It is well known that you never part from him. It could be explained when we went to Qinghe together because you’ve never bothered to hide that you disliked my brother. But now that he's gone? If we travel together, people will find it very odd that we did not take him with us. We're known as quite the happy little family after all.”

“You said it was too dangerous,” Lan Wangji pointed out.

Nie Huaisang sighed in frustration.

“It is! But if he stays here, we need to find a good excuse to feed Hou Tianjian. This is too delicate to tell her the truth, I’m not trusting anyone except you. What to do… it’s really too bad you’re such a poor liar, or it’d be easy.”

“Hm.”

Again, Nie Huaisang sighed, and he started pacing in front of the door.

“How to make it work… the guard on duty at the entrance saw me, as did a few servants probably. I’ve been flying for a week straight, so I must look like a mess. And everyone knows I’m just a little idiot who’s good for nothing aside from badly painting landscapes.”

“You are not…”

“Hush, hush, I am, I don’t mind, I don’t care. I’ve worked hard to make sure I’d never be anything more than that. So here I am, an absolute mess, knocking at your door in the middle of the night, causing a scene… and I did, don’t deny it. I caused such a scene we had to go talk among rabbits, Wangji! That’s true, and that’s what you’re going to tell Hou Tianjian when you leave A-Yuan with her.”

Nie Huaisang finally stopped pacing, and instead played with the hem of his sleeve.

“You can tell her that I have been unwell since my brother’s death, which is also true. You can tell her that I’m faced with problems I can’t handle alone which…” he snickered. “It certainly is true, isn’t it? And if you tell her that right now you don’t think it’s safe for A-Yuan to be around me, that’s true as well.”

“Hm. I will do that.”

It would be unpleasant to paint such a portrait of his husband, no matter how true each individual statement was. It would be even more unpleasant to do it for  Hou Tianjian, with whom Nie Huaisang had a certain friendship and who always seemed to have a good opinion of him. But if he was willing to sacrifice that for A-Yuan's safety, Lan Wangji would play his part.

“Great. And I’ll… find somewhere to spend the night,” Nie Huaisang decided. “It’s probably better if A-Yuan doesn’t see me, it’ll upset him if I’m here only to steal you away, won’t it?”

That, unfortunately, was true. A-Yuan very frequently asked when they would return to Qinghe, wanting to check both on Nie Huaisang and on the garden they had planted together. It would be difficult for him to understand that for a time, the adults in his life needed to have other priorities.

As to where Nie Huaisang might spend the night...

“Brother is still in Lanling. His house is empty.”

Nie Huaisang startled at the suggestion, and laughed nervously.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll sleep better if I go back to the rabbit’s pen,” he said. “The night isn’t so cold anyway. I’ll hide there until you come pick me up, when you have dropped A-Yuan with Hou Tianjian and Jingyi.”

“Your choice.”

“I never get much of a choice,” Nie Huaisang chuckled. “Not for this, not for anything else. Ah, well… good night, husband. Please hug A-Yuan for me tomorrow morning.”

“I will.”

Nie Huaisang smirked at his answer, but made no comment as he turned back toward the path that led to the rabbits’ pen.

[seokmingiggles]

lan’s request faqs.

Hello! I figured I would compile a list of possible questions you may have regarding submitting a request.

* denotes a new addition or updated answer to this list.

What kind of scenarios will you write for?

If you’ve already read my request guidelines here but are still uncertain, you can message me your potential thought! I’m happy to help shape your idea. A general guide is I am okay with writing angst or fluff, but not smut. Suggestive elements in prompts are okay too, although I can’t say I’m very strong at writing them.

I’ve submitted a request, now what? How long will it take to be written?

It may depend on your request! I try to complete them in the order in which I receive them. If for some reason I need to do research for your prompt, this may increase the amount of time it takes for me to write (such as an au I’m unfamiliar with). A general note is that it is unlikely that your request will be posted on the same day as your submission, even if it may be a short one. An important note is I will only work on your request if I feel inspired. This means I may not touch it for days or even begin it for a little while. All I ask is for your patience, please.

What kind of formats will you accept for requests?

I’m open to drabbles, one-shots, or bulleted scenarios. It is very unlikely that I will turn your request into a series as I am infamous for not finishing works with multiple parts. If you’d like, you can specify your preferred format in your request; this will also likely impact the length of your work (say, if you ask for a fluffy drabble compared to a detailed one-shot).

How long will my request be?

Again, it will most likely depend on the prompt you send to me. I will generally try to make one-shots close to/a minimum of 1k words, but if it’s a more detailed ask then there’s a high chance I’ll go overboard and write more than that. Drabbles and bulleted scenarios will be significantly shorter, typically less than 1k. If you’d prefer a shorter piece compared to a more lengthy one, keep the format in mind in your request!

Am I guaranteed a written work after I submit my request?

The short answer is no. There is, however, a very high chance that I will write what you ask of me. If I’ve stumbled into some challenges of coming up with a plot for your request, I will message you with my concerns and we can either come up with some alternative or you can cancel your request. If you are asking me anonymously, then I will have no way of contacting you, and your ask will sit in my inbox indefinitely as I may move forth to a different request.

Are there any aspects of my request that you may change when writing it?

The short answer is yes. The most common situation where I won’t include something you request of me is a minor detail that may not fit with the plot I’ve chosen (this is more for one-shots) or a super-specific trait of the reader that I may not include to keep the role more broad. Another situation may be is if I receive two very similar requests, I may change one of them up content-wise, but typically not member-wise. Finally, while this hasn’t happened to me yet, if for some reason there is an aspect of your request that I am uncomfortable about writing, I will with no doubt decide to not include it in the final piece.

How many requests can I submit? Is there a limit?

These are both good questions! Technically, there is no limit while my request status remains open. I would, however, like you to check the bottom of my masterlist under my in the works section to see how many active requests I have at the moment. If it’s an older one I’ve received, there’s a chance you’ll also be able to see the member it’s for and possibly the genre and formatting type too. If there are already multiple pending requests and you’d still like to send in a few different prompts, keep in mind it may take me a while to reach them.

What happens if I send a request when you’re not taking them?

I get it, it happens. You don’t have to apologize! If you didn’t realize that my requests are closed and you submit a prompt anyways, or if you’re just enthusiastic about an idea and you want me to hear it, chances are that I’ll still read what you send me. However, I may not fulfill it, certainly not while the status remains closed. I won’t be annoyed if you send me a request in this context, but please do note that it may be a while until you read what I write, if I write it.

* Is there anything that you absolutely will not write?

This is an incomplete list and can be added to at any point. As of now, it is safe to say that I will not write anything with significant triggers (such as eating disorders, self-harm, major illness, major violence, etc.). I shall also include that I do not feel comfortable with requests regarding pregnancy or infidelity. I am also not the strongest at writing wedding/marriage fics as well, so I would recommend that you also avoid these topics.

As a small note, if you ask me a request off of anon I will tag you in the finished post. If you do not wish to be included publicly, I will only say that “anon has requested...” although it may or may not result in you finding your story.

On another note, please only submit your request once. Unless you’re having technical difficulties and are unsure if it was delivered, only once is necessary! I promise you I’ve seen it.

If you still have any further questions or concerns, you can reach out! I’m happy to elaborate if need be.

Thank you for reading my works and for trusting me with your prompt! :)

[list last updated on Feb. 24/21]

[dc-imagine-central]

Alone but not Lonely

Prompt: Could you write a heartwarming sequel to the angst Young justice one shot: "Alone", where two years later, they were able to go back in time as their younger selves to save Reader from her lonely and sad future.... By truly creating bonds with her, when she first came to join the Young justice team? Please? 

                                                                            -Requested by Anon A/N: Hello friends and welcome back to my poor attempts at writing. Hopefully I’ve gotten better with all the practice I have gotten and experience through this big big hiatus haha Anyways, hope you enjoy <3 

Also I couldn’t resist from making this Conner x reader, so please do forgive me. It’s not awfully there but it’s implied haha

Word Count: 1838 words

Even after a year, the air still tensed in between everyone in the team. Your absence was still palpable even if your presence was never noticed. Your loss had left everyone with such a hole in their hearts they were never able to recover, as they knew they could have saved you, but they were to wrapped in their own stupid problems to notice just how much you needed attention, even if you were ever open about such cravings. Conner was probably the most affected by it all. 

Nobody could really blame him for it, as when it all had happened he had been the one to understand just what they had all missed out on. Just how amazing your company had been, and just how much they had lost that day, when they all lost you. After everything, M’gann had finally gave into her feelings, breaking up with Lagoon Boy and gone back to pursue Conner’s affection once again. However, it had proved to be, pretty much impossible; Conner’s mind was filled with you. He had been so affected, he had regretted everything so much, his own thoughts betrayed him, as his attention often was lost, as he immersed into his own mind, his own small memory of you, and the longing of that small fist you had bumped into his shoulder that night. 

Nobody knew it, but M’gann had desperately looked for a solution, a way to bring you back, to prevent it from happened. Until she stumbled with one. Zatanna had explained her she could use a small magical amulet to go back in time, and hopefully fix this mess. At first, M’gann had to admit it was for her own personal satisfaction: she had wanted to bring you back because she felt responsible for not being able to save you that nigh. But eventually she had realized everyone felt so guilty over it, thought they could’ve done more for you, and blamed themselves, they hardly ever could be called a team anymore; since they were incomplete, they needed you. 

That night, M’gann had called for a reunion. She had explained everyone they could only go back in time 2 years, and that also meant, they would have to go back to the day you joined the team, which meant, they still had to wait another week before they could go back and hopefully not lose you again. While almost everyone agreed, not everyone was willing to do the jump. For starters, Bart was not doing it. No, he was not risking another time Jump. And Lagoon Boy felt you were not worth that much trouble, which made everyone mad, but M’gann just frowned at him, and plainly said “If you don’t want to go, then don’t, we’re not asking you to”, which made Bart and Jaime snort, just to be shot a dirty look from Dick. He cleared his throat and went on.  

“So, I suppose most of us are coming?” He asked, and watched as M’gann, Conner, Cassie, Barbara and Tim nodded. He then turned to look at Zatanna, who just shot a small nod with a comforting smile. He smirked and announced, “Next Monday, 5 am, we meet here… to make the jump” He said decisively and dismissed everyone. Time flew quickly, almost uneventful, which did nothing but aggravate everyone’s nerves, it was almost as the calm before the storm. 

Conner found himself revisiting the place where you had fainted in front of him. He would just stand there, stare at the place where you had stopped, where you had  vanished, where they had lost you, where he had lost you. 

Sunday night, there he found himself again. He felt the anxiety and nerves bulging in his gut. He felt himself shivering everytime he thought of getting you back, of being able to hear you laugh again. He felt himself grin, while remembering that conversation he had with you, about everything and nothing, and— a small sound of someone clearing their throat made him turn around, looking for the source of the sound. 

He found M’gann standing there, her hands resting in front of herself as she stood in front of him gracefully, small knowing smile adorning her lips. Conner frowned at her, finally letting go of the breath he didn’t even noticed he was holding in. “It’s 1am Kon, you shouldn’t be here” She spoke softly, as she took a soft step, getting closer to him. He smirked, and chuckled slightly. “Neither should you” She giggled and with a small compassionate look, Conner understood her unspoken question. He sighed and turned his back on her, as he once again stared at the same spot, and sighed once more, this time long and full of tension that was finally being relieved. M’gann just stood there in silence, as Conner finally came back and smiled at her, full of hope and another feeling she couldn’t really recognize, or refused to because she knew that look all too well —he was longing for her. They eventually just went back to their dorms in silence, as night downed of them, and Conner couldn’t calm his excitement enough for him to rest, but he did fall asleep eventually. 

The next morning, everyone was so excited, or so he’d like to think, because Dick could tell they almost didn’t sleep, as everyone but Conner was yawning. Dick smirked as he figured Conner had slept his fair amount, and approached him “Exciting, isn’t it?” and he waited for an answer, but Conner just stood there, with his eyes opened, unfazed. He was about to call for something being wrong until —he heard him snore. 

Conner was sleeping with his eyes opened, why and how did he learn to do it? It was still a mystery, but it made Dick laugh so hard he ended up startling everyone and waking Conner in the process. This had served for enough motivation to dissipate any remaining tension and waking up everyone just in time for Zatanna’s arrival. 

Zatanna explained that only they would remember, thus they should refrain from talking to anyone about their intentions, and only concentrate in their goal: not losing you again. She asked everyone to stand into a circle and think of you, as she recited the spell and everything turned into a blur, light flashing too blindly for a moment. 

The next they all noticed they were holding each others hand, the lobby arranged back to the way it was when you arrived. They heard the tube announce an entry and they all turned immediately to face it, and there they saw you. 

You were standing there, small shy smile adorning your lips as you watched around. How had they not noticed the hopeful eyes you had arrived with the first time around? 

You immediately got a hold of Conner’s gaze, his eyes clouded with disbelief. Your eyes held an unspoken question and as he seemed to catch the gist of what you were asking, he tried to shake off the excitement and adrenaline by, pretty literally, shaking it off. Which made you laugh, your cheeks tinting a small rosy pink as the genuine smile adorned your lips. At the sight, so foreign yet so warm, Conner couldn’t hold it in any longer. He immediately sped up, rushing to pull you into a hug, that even if you didn’t reject, it caught you so off guard you kind of pushed him off almost immediately, which just made him pull you in even tighter, as you flushed furiously. When he finally let go of you, his face bright, as an anticipating full raging on smile danced on his lips, you couldn’t help but smile, with your blush still present on your cheeks as you took a step back, trying to put some distance between you and him. You cleared your throat and smiled apologetically at Miss Martian, who just stood there looking jealous, even if she was trying to hide it. However, your face twisted immediately to a full on grin as you avoided Conner’s intense gaze. “Quite the warm welcome, thank you” You smiled shyly again, as you shot a small, affectionate smile towards Superboy. The others greeted you properly, as Miss Martian warm welcoming smile engulfed you into what seemed like a big round of hugs and welcomes, each one felt almost apologetic, as they squeezed you into a longing and “long time no see”-ish type of warm atmosphere. You wondered what it was all about, but dismissed after noticing everyone was glad you were joining the team. That night, they threw a big fancy welcoming dinner, where they prepared your favorite dish and welcomed you officially, toasting to your union to this beautiful, big family. 

After they had finished cleaning, you were going to silently retire to your room when you heard a small sound, someone clearing their throat. You turned your head to look at the source and watched as Conner, fidgeting and a blushing mess, approached you shyly. You smiled in a welcoming manner as you turned to face him “Yes, can I help you with something?” The small, kind smile that erupted from you was such a pretty sight, he just blushed harder and averted his gaze, which made your expression falter, as concerned took a hold of your beautiful features, before Conner composed awkwardly and smiled shyly at you. 

“Wanna hang out?” He asked, as he pointed towards the tube, the exit. You snorted, as you crossed your arms in front of you. “May I ask why?” You asked, as a knowing smirk took a hold of your lips. You were genuinely surprised, and also, much to your own embarrassment, eager to comply and follow him, but it made you falter a little bit. You had just arrived, what made him so eager to get close to you? Throughout the dinner, or well basically, the whole evening he kept on stealing glances and playful, kinda flirty looks at you, which, much to your delight and Miss Martian’s demise, you were more than eager to return, but why the rush? He sighed, a small apologetic smile started spreading on Conner lips as he looked at you with affection filled eyes. This made you blush, as your eyes widened at the sudden burst of such a sudden and powerful emotion, but his voice broke the tension in your body as he whispered softly. “I’ve been waiting since forever to meet you, I just don’t want to waste another second not knowing you” His eyes averted down to the floor, as you chuckled and crossed your arms, playful flirty smirk dancing on your lips. “You are weird, Conner Kent” You scoffed as you started making your way to the tube. Conner’s chuckled resonated right after your footsteps, as he followed cue behind you. “Well, you are beautiful” He said as you disappeared into the tube, and he smiled to himself, hoping this time his memories at the dock would show a brighter tomorrow. 

[kcostanz]

disclaimer: I’m going to be existential & sad before I turn it around

As 2020 wraps, I find myself increasingly absorbed by understanding the practices that I’m newly drawn to. The things I’ve chosen to connect with to get through what has certainly been the most unexpected year of my life, and perhaps that of billions of others. Even making such a grand statement still boggles my mind. Taking a moment to step outside of my life to acknowledge this global reality always gives much needed perspective. Life has been altered in wholly unforeseeable ways for billions of people this year. 

Exactly how our lives and worlds have been reshaped certainly looks different for each and every one of us. Our realities are constructed by so much: where we live, who we live with, what we do each day, our job, or the roles we play in society as a whole. Every life looks different, but the pandemic’s impact on these answers (and many more) is ever-changing and harshly felt. 

Reflecting on my own journey that has been navigating covid-19 and its impact on the world centers upon my age. Being 22 years old right now feels like constantly being stuck at a major life inflection point. In many ways I’m at the height of decision making- important ones at that, that will guide (the beginnings of) the rest of my life. Existential and perhaps a bit dramatic I know, but the pandemic exacerbates these emotions, so throw me a bone. 

I spent the first 21 years of my life on a set path, a regulated track that unknowingly provided an absurd amount of comfort. I went to public school K-12, graduated high school, and attended a 4-year institution, long awaiting the fantastical graduation year that for so long existed as a far-off fantasy: 2020. 

That momentous final semester was different than expected, but I can’t complain. I spent the last 3 months of college with a small handful of my closest friends, attended classes from the comfort of my bed, and graduated in my tiny apartment with two of my closest friends who hung around until the end. 

I procrastinated packing and cleaning my apartment until the last possible moment as my disapproving landlord approached to conduct the final walkthrough. Unsurprisingly, I left with a fraction of the security deposit, and the hard learned lesson that expo marker writing does not always come out of refrigerators (as the All Purpose spray, Oxi-Clean, bleach, hot water, soap, and eventually, shamefully, white paint can attest). 

With a egregiously packed car and zero rear view visibility, I was off. I blasted oldies with a twinge of liberation- I think I recall Born to Run (don’t worry, I am indeed embarrassed). I left all four windows down until I could no longer stand the sound of garbage bags flapping. Five short hours later I pulled into the driveway of my childhood home in Rochester, NY (with a broken mirror in the trunk no less- unsure if I’m superstitious but it felt like bad luck). 

The latter half of 2020- from June until now, has been full of unknowns, decision making in the dark, and hard fought self motivation. Vivid mixes of emotions old and new. 

First the dread of moving back in with parents as a young adult, and the stubborn resistance to fully unpack, so as to not get “too comfortable” at home. I now know such a thing is impossible for many reasons, one being that regardless of the lighting, art, and design, the girly pink walls of my childhood bedroom have proven immutable. 

Following this initial shock were extreme levels of self-induced pressure to find a job, do nothing but apply to jobs, and then bask in dejected feelings of never being able to get a job. While in the process, fully isolating myself from others, because I simultaneously felt I had too much to do, but yet was never really doing a thing. That concept has been fun to sit with. It comes with the realization that the carefree bliss of not having a single thing to do- say for a month long winter break- is officially gone. The list of things you could (and probably should) be doing is endless- welcome to the real world, Kate!

August was a blessed, beautiful month that, at the risk of (again) sounding dramatic, I am eternally grateful for. During this sweltering month I lived out of a car for nearly 3 weeks, camping with two pals throughout Utah and Wyoming. Even hitting a deer at 9pm, in a no-cell service zone, in the middle of a State Forest in Wyoming was a welcomed adventure at this point. A broken transmission, impromptu camping, two-hour tow truck ride, countless insurance calls, hostile car dealership conversations, two rental cars later, and we were back on track. This (incomplete) list of challenges provided beautiful life experience however, imparting lessons I could never fully know until I lived them. 

Returning home was as expected, a difficult transition back to monotony. Did I apply to vineyard jobs vaguely “out west?” Absolutely. Did I have it in me to go through with such a spontaneous life choice? Unfortunately not, though to my credit I did realize important goals that stood in the way of a dreamy vagabond existence. 

The fall has been a blur, and now there’s snow on the ground. I’ve found myself living for the future, and rarely ever for the moment, which is entirely antithetical to my personal philosophy. I have proclaimed my personal soundtrack to 2020 to be the loop of traditional Lebanese music that plays on repeat at my job as a server at Sinbad’s Mediterranean Cuisine (now as a takeout extraordinaire. And yes, despite the lack of in-person customers we are indeed instructed to play the CDs as per usual). This work, or my role as a part-time nanny is far from fulfilling (though the kids are darn cute), but that’s not the point for now. “At least I’m saving!” has been my most reliable source of positive encouragement, nearing personal mantra. 

I write this from my childhood bedroom, sitting at my desk, which was once our kitchen table circa 2002. It is as wobbly as it is sentimental, and I love it. The desk faces a window, the sill littered with glassware and candles because I have a thing against artificial light. I have a total of five notebooks, half opened, each containing swirling levels of thoughts, drawings, organization, calendars and to do lists. An orange caricature of a topless french woman sunbathing sits in front of me, reminding me that “TOUT VA BIEN!” (that everything is fine). And in minutes I will be dancing to the Moana soundtrack or drawing christmas trees and unicorns with 3 and 4 year olds. A snapshot of my life, at 22 years old, in 2020. 

Despite my life not being what I expected, or what I wanted it to look like as I embark on what’s supposed to be the most adventurous, spontaneous, and simply well-lived decade of my life, it is what it is, and as the french lady says, everything is fine. I have two part-time jobs, unforeseen savings, quality family time (both for better and for worse), my mom’s cooking, and a roof over my head. In a world with inconceivably high death tolls, rising unemployment and homelessness rates, and the constant, precarious fear of general loss, I have infinite blessings to count.

Life does feel like a giant waiting game though. How can one strategically plan out what comes next in their individual life when the entire world remains a massive question mark? In a time when we feel trapped, impatiently waiting for opportunities, experiences, and adventures to reopen, waiting feels hopeless. Because it is. If you’re unhappy with the opportunities before you, create your own.

I’m not saying I’m doing a stellar job at this myself- and as you can see I certainly struggle with my fair share of existential pessimism (day in and day out). But doing things has a certain electrifying feel that ignites and empowers you to build a meaningful life. I’m producing a web series with a group of similarly listless 20 somethings who are also doing their best to be creative and productive from the confines of their family homes. I’m practicing yoga and meditation really to cope with my own stress and internal anxieties, but in doing so am creating new habits and mindsets that will certainly outlast the pandemic. I’ve connected with a group of strangers by dancing to shamantic and electronica music in various outdoor locations throughout Rochester. Whoa! Never would I have imagined finding such deeply liberating peace through ecstatic dance of all things, but hey 2020 is full of surprises. 

This position I’m in is both uniquely my own through my personal experiences, and also shared by more people than I could imagine. Maybe only bits and pieces resonate with you, or maybe you are living your best life in the city of your dreams with a fabulous career in a lovely home with the world’s best roommates. But even if that’s you- you’re missing out on something too. The whole world is. We feel disconnected, disjointed, digitally controlled and consumed, and despite who we surround ourselves with- isolated. We’re stuck living in a world of “once this is over I’ll….” and no matter who you are it feels damn weird to spend so much time in your head dreaming of a future rather than living it out in the now. 

So… solutions? As we all know, you only have so much control during a global pandemic (very little to be exact). But what you can control is how you live your life during it. I certainly won’t preach to what works and pretend like I’ve figured it out- that work is no one’s to do but your own. But I do feel that so much comes down to mindset, perspective, mental health and ultimately finding ways to seek inner peace. 

Potential solutions are abundant, and have been explored by more people now than ever before. Though there is no recipe to conquer the inevitable fears, concerns and anxieties that accompany the pandemic and this phase of life, I’m interested in further exploring some of the ones that work for me. How is something as simple as breathing so helpful? 

Finding inner peace is a sought after skill in 2020. I have endless gratitude to all of the incredible humans who have served as a source of learning, and have helped me to tap into positive internal energy. My intention is to look into some of the causes of (my personal) covid-realted inner turmoil and the solutions that have brought some serenity into my life. Though they may not always be long lasting, some answers are better than none. Here’s to writing for no one, and thank you for listening. <3