#I could include it and hope nobody notices the contradiction

[yennefer-of-vengerbergs]

[Original version] Confession

Astarion reflects on his feelings towards Syanna, from when they first met, up to when he finally decides to confess everything to her.

Pairing: Astarion x f!durge

Other notes: This is my own spin on Astarion's thoughts on the relationship he and my durge character, Syanna have, finishing with his confession scene, where I took the liberty of expanding a bit on it, combining most of the dialogue options, as well as mixing in small parts from the Araj confession. I've also followed the order in which some things happened in my own Durge playthrough so far (I'm still in Act 2, haven't gotten to his confession yet, but I am using what I know from my regular Tav playthrough, while double checking other things online).

Read below or on Ao3

Astarion found himself thinking about her. 

What a walking contradiction she was.

On the one hand, she was prone to being a bleeding heart on occasion, wanting to help those she ran into.

Barely off a crashed Nautiloid and she was picking up other survivors from the ship, himself included. Even if he had thrown her to the ground, threatening her with a dagger. She’d taken it surprisingly well too, stating she probably would have done the same in his position.

Then she was agreeing to help out the tieflings from the Emerald Grove. 

And rescuing a child from being killed by the druid leader. 

And helping that bard, Alfira, with her song. 

On the other, she was also prone to bursts of violence and murder, dark urges which she could not always control or resist. 

She always felt guilty afterwards though. Especially so after she had brutally murdered Alfira. Barely a few hours after joining their camp, she was laying there, on the ground, in her own blood.

She had always been completely honest about how broken her mind was. She had asked for advice. She had asked everyone in camp for help. 

Nobody knew what to do or say to her. They just spun some version of ‘oh, we all have those thoughts sometimes’ and that ‘she should focus that on their enemies’. She felt as if nobody was taking her seriously, not realizing just how bad things were.

And once everyone else had seen that she had killed the bard? 

They were scared. They judged. They blamed her. They told her to keep her distance, that they would be watching her. That if she tried to hurt them, they would defend themselves.

She couldn't blame them, not really. 

***

Naturally, she had distanced herself from everyone. 

He noticed that she had taken her bedroll to the small ruin that was next to their camp and started staying there at night, away from everyone, her reasoning being that it was fine, really. Part of the roof was still intact, so she could at least be safe from the elements. If anything, it was an improvement over trancing in the dirt, next to the campfire. She could always use a spell to start a fire of her own to keep warm.

During the day, when they traveled, she would either wander ahead, or stay further back. After all, they had made it clear that they wanted her to keep her distance, so keep her distance she did. 

He’d told her at one point that he didn't blame or judge her for what she had done. 

She appreciated that. 

What she hadn't appreciated was how he then told her that the look of guilt she had on her face was priceless and that she could have been more subtle about it. 

Oh well.

***

One day, they had found a dog, Scratch, close to its dead owner. The dog was hostile at first, but soon calmed once she had talked to him, even sniffed her hand, remembering her scent.

She always seemed to have a potion on hand that would let her speak to animals. She liked animals, so she hoped the dog would follow her to camp.It did, eventually, always keeping her company afterwards.

On another day, they had found the so-called devil that Wyll was hunting, Karlach. Said devil was in fact a tiefling. Syanna had immediately sided with her when Wyll wanted to kill her, pointing out what they had all been shown by the tadpole connection, that Karlach was indeed telling the truth and was not in fact a danger to anyone. 

Astarion found himself approving of that. Hells, in time, there were other things she did that he approved of. Some were chaotically fun and hilarious to him. Others were on the practical side. Others yet were oddly heartwarming, even to him, like how she had taken in the owlbear cub from the goblin camp they had cleared. Most people would have refused to do that, seeing it as nothing more than another beast that could kill them, another monster to be afraid of. 

She didn't. She saw a young cub, scared of its surroundings, wounded, alone, his mother having been killed by the goblins that captured him for their own entertainment.

Most importantly however, she hadn't shunned or staked him when he tried to feed from her while she tried to rest. She had been surprisingly reasonable. Even offered him her blood afterwards. She’d taken his side when the others didn't seem particularly pleased about him being a vampire. She'd agreed with his idea of feeding off their enemies, seeing as he could start fighting with all his weapons, fangs included. But she had also offered to let him feed on her, if and when he needed to. An open invitation, as it were. 

It was a gift. One he would not forget.

***

She seemed better as time went on. The two animals they took in were always near her when in camp, keeping her company. 

She had gotten closer to him and Karlach. Not a surprise, seeing as they were the only ones who truly didn't judge her. 

Karlach had appreciated her help and trust when they met, as well as her bleeding heart, so in her eyes, Syanna was someone good overall, if a little tortured. She had also been honest with the tiefling about her urges and what had happened with the bard, but she had simply told her that if she had the guts to say it outloud, to feel regret, then she would be able to change. And if she was willing to resist those urges, as Syanna said she was, then surely she was on the right track. She had also given her the same line about focusing on their enemies if the urges became too much, but somehow, she felt that Karlach had been more supportive overall.

Later on, when the druid, Halsin had joined their camp, she got along with him as well, for similar reasons. He had even offered to help her with her broken mind once their tadpole problem was solved.

The others, she wasn't as close to. Things had gotten better, but it was obvious whose company she preferred. 

That would do nicely for his plan. All she had to do was fall for it. Easy.

So he had started flirting with her, something which came easily to him. He wanted her on his side, trusting him, never turning on him, helping him.

Seducing her was easy, truly. 

She reciprocated his attention. 

She already preferred his company.

She had accepted his advances when he propositioned her one night.

What he hadn't expected was to… enjoy the night they spent together. Not fully, as at one point his mind had gone somewhere far away (which she had noticed and pointed out the morning after), but at the same time…there were moments that he had enjoyed prior to that. 

She actually seemed interested in what he wanted that night as well, not willing to just be a passive participant. She wanted to reciprocate, to touch him, to show him how he made her feel and to bring him the same kind of pleasure. 

It was surprising to him. Unexpected even. 

He would also be lying if he said he didn't find her attractive. She was a beautiful woman, it was impossible not to. 

All in all, his plan was moving along splendidly.

So he carried on. 

He continued to flirt with her, honeyed words dripping from him each time. 

He invited her back to his bed frequently. Or back to that pretty clearing that he had found. He’d even stolen her away during the party the tieflings had organized once the goblin camp was defeated, their leaders killed. 

Even though several of their group had also propositioned her that night, she still went to him. Excellent. 

At some later point, she started spending her nights in his tent, seeking out his company. When it involved sex, she would simply stay the night, wrapped around him. Others, it was just being with each other. They would read and they would talk. Most surprisingly though, they would cuddle . 

He never had been a cuddler, but having her so close, holding on to him, it was nice. All those nights actually seemed to mean something to him too, a strange comfort starting to emerge whenever it was just the two of them. And when she didn't spend the night in his tent? He actually found himself wanting her there.

Shit.

***

She had done him kindness after kindness on multiple occasions, not expecting anything in return.

She had given him various things for his tent whenever they cropped up during their travels - a new bedroll, alongside a pillow and blanket; she pointed out books that she thought he might find interesting; she grabbed small pieces of decor and art she thought he might appreciate. His own little spot in camp was actually starting to look more comfortable. Tidier even. 

Meanwhile, she didn’t even have her own tent, just a bedroll.

She listened to him whenever he confided in her about something.

She had pointed out his scars and how they were written in Infernal. She drew them out for him to see, first on the ground where they stood, then on paper, so they could both research them more easily. She had promised to keep an eye out for any books, occult or otherwise, that might help him with information too.

it wasn't her problem, but she still wanted to help him.

She had acted as his mirror when she found him trying to look into one, telling him how she saw him. She then had the idea to cast a Mirror Image spell on him so he could actually see himself for the first time in centuries. Seeing that it worked, she then brought him any scrolls for the spell that she found on their travels so he could cast it himself whenever he needed to.

She was always willing to help him - she was already looking into finding out what the scars on his back were before they approached Raphael about them. She respected his wish to keep it between them and not to involve anyone else from camp. 

She then had helped him with his deal with Raphael (and that she did, Yurgir was dead, his end of the deal done, the mystery of his scars clearer, but turned into something even more muddled at the same time).

She even swore she would do everything she could to help him with dealing with Cazador and the ritual of profane ascension that he was meant to be a part of. 

She also stood up for him when they encountered that vile drow in Moonrise Towers, something that he was incredibly grateful for. 

He was grateful for everything she did.

Anyone would agree his nice, simple plan was a resounding success.

So why did he feel so awful?

Well, it just so happens that he had started to genuinely enjoy her company the more time had passed during their travels.

He found himself thinking of her more often. Looking out for her in combat, his arrows always aimed at those who were too close to her. 

He was distraught whenever she was downed by an attack, immediately on his way to help her, a revivify scroll and healing potion at the ready..

He was always first to help her when she slipped or had to climb somewhere, or when she became entangled in some twisting vines. 

He loved teasing her when that happened, tsk-ing and saying that he was starting to think she liked being restrained. She would always tease back, telling him to find out for himself later.

He even wanted to find her a tent she could use when she wasn't spending the night in his own one. 

***

At the same time, he was so concerned for her. She was frequently exhausted and in pain, rest, actual rest, almost always eluding her. Often, she preferred to skip going into a trance altogether, too worried about the nightmares that could return. Of the urge coming back. He could also see how she sometimes was shaking, or how she looked ready to faint. He could see how her urges were eating away at her, how she struggled with them. 

Sometimes, when she was finally too exhausted, she would actually fall asleep next to him, her face nuzzling his chest, an arm draped over him. Whenever that happened, he found that he would have much rather stayed there and let her sleep until late morning, not having the heart to move and risk waking her. 

He felt like such a fool.

***

One night, she woke him up, scared she would hurt him, scared she would kill him , not knowing what to do or how to stop it, asking him to get to safety, to stop her, anything . 

When she collapsed, unconscious, he moved, grabbed a length of rope and tied her up. 

Then, he waited. 

When she woke up, she wasn't herself. 

She threatened, she growled, she tried to bite him, she screamed at him, fighting against her bindings. 

But she also was trying so hard to resist, to break through, to regain control of herself. She tried to show him that she understood, that she was grateful, but it was so, so difficult.

More threats. More screams. 

She sobbed, begging him to just kill her, to make it stop.

It truly worried him, seeing her like that. He had been worried about himself at first, yes, but he was even more worried about her.

He wouldn't let that thing have her. He wouldn't let it win. 

He spent the night with her, trying to offer words of comfort and encouragement where he could. Keeping her safe. Shooing away the rest of their companions whenever they came to see what was happening. 

The night finally passed, bloodless. Syanna was laying on her side, still tied up. She looked defeated. Guilty. Remorseful, with tears in her eyes. She let out a sob. 

Astarion moved to untie her and helped her sit up. Her wrists were raw and bloody from how much she struggled against her bindings. 

He hated seeing her like that. 

He handed her a healing potion and listened to what had happened before she came to him.

He reassured her he would be there to make sure she would get through it all, that she wouldn't be alone, no matter how much she protested that it might happen again, and what if she hurt him then? 

She gave him something to care for and that was worth the peril. After all, they were in it together.

Did he really say that?

Yes, yes he did.

***

He also found himself wanting her approval. 

He wanted her to think of him as something more. 

He didn't want to lie or manipulate anymore.

He cared.

He wanted to tell her the truth, as frightening as it was to him.

Still…

What if she broke things off?

What if she hated him afterwards? 

He could just… not tell her, he could just let things continue between them, knowing that his plan had gone out the proverbial window long ago. That it was real for him. Why risk ruining it?

No. No, she deserved the truth. She deserved something real, something more. She didn't deserve his lies. She deserved to choose if she wanted to continue whatever was between them or not.

Making up his mind, he walked over to where she was sitting. Noticing him, she set aside her book, greeting him with a smile.

“Do you have a moment? I think we need to talk.” 

Gods, he sounded so concerned. Scared almost. 

Noticing this, her smile fell. She stood up.

“What's wrong? Are you alright?”

“Oh yes, I’m fine. I just…feel awful.”

She frowned. 

“That's not how I would define fine, Astarion. Please, talk to me?”

Gods, why was she being so nice to him?

“Look, I had a plan. A nice, simple plan - seduce you, sleep with you, manipulate your feelings so you’d never turn on me.” he laughed nervously.

She didn't say anything. She seemed too taken aback by the sudden confession to say anything.

He continued. He had to continue.

“It was easy - instinctive. Habits from two hundred years of charming people kicked in. All you had to do was fall for it.” 

He hated the way his voice started to crack as he kept going on. He hated how she had tears forming in her eyes because of him. 

This is it. Surely she would leave him. He would lose her.

Still, he carried on.

“And all I had to do was not fall for you…which is where my nice, simple plan fell apart.” He paused for a moment, gesturing towards her. “You…you're incredible. You did so much for me…you helped me, you…cared about what I wanted… you didn’t ask me to throw myself at that vile drow, didn’t trade me for a potion, what I wanted be damned.” he paused. “You deserve something real. I want us to be something real.”

He looked at her, with sad, scared, but hopeful eyes.

“So…the time we spent together meant nothing to you then? All those nights, all those moments, were they just lies?” 

“Of course they meant something - that's the problem! Or part of it.” He sighed. “Being close to someone - any kind of intimacy - was something I performed to lure people back for him . And even though I know things between us are different, being with someone still feels…tainted. Still brings up those feelings of disgust and loathing. I…don’t know how else to be with someone. No matter how much I’d like to.” 

He’d said what he had to say. He looked at her, vulnerability obvious in his expression, waiting for a reply. 

It terrified him.

“Astarion…” she swallowed. “I’m not naïve enough to think that things were something…more between us when they started, but…” she took a breath to calm herself, to keep her voice from breaking any more than it already was. “But they actually became real for me. I thought…I hoped it was mutual. I wanted it more than anything. I do care about you. Deeply. But this…this hurts.” 

Tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she was trying so hard to keep herself composed. 

He hated himself for causing her to feel that way. 

He didn't know what to say to her. 

Could he even say anything that would make things up to her, that would comfort her in any way? He didn't know.

“I’m…I’m sorry. I’d understand if you wanted to end things between us now.” 

It hurt him to say it, but he wouldn't hold it against her if that was what she wanted to do. Which is why what she did next took him by surprise.

She hugged him. 

He was so taken aback by it that he didn't know how to react or what to do at first. He couldn't even remember a time when he had been hugged.

Slowly, he wrapped his arms around her.

He didn’t want to let go of her. 

Her voice was a broken whisper, but he heard her. 

“That would hurt me even more.” 

She let go of him and stepped back. She cleared her throat. 

“I meant what I said. You mean a great deal to me. And I want this to be real too. More than anything.” 

Relief washed over him. But he was still….nervous.

“I…just don’t know what ‘real’ looks like. Not after two hundred years playing the rake. I…don’t even know what to do.” 

“Then…what do you want to do?” 

He paused, thinking about her question. “...I don’t know what I want. It’s been so long since I’ve had to decide what I wanted.”

She thought for a moment, unsure how to proceed. 

“Maybe…maybe we can start over then? We can be together. And to make it clear, we don’t have to have sex, for as long as you need.”

“Hah, why, that almost sounds like a challenge.” he was nervous again. He didn’t know how to react. What else could he even be good for, what else could he even offer her? 

“I mean it. I don’t want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. We can just…be and just… get reacquainted with one another.” 

He took her hand in his own, a small smile on his face. “Honestly, I have no idea what we’re doing. Or what comes next.” 

“Then we can just see where this takes us.” 

He placed his other hand on top of hers. 

“I do know one thing though. I know that this…this is nice.” 

As emotional as she was feeling, she couldn’t help but agree. It was nice to have that honesty between them now. To know they were both on the same page. That if they got through this, then things would be alright. 

[sludgefriend]

The winter before last, my life had begun to change at a breakneck pace.

After returning from a trip back to the midwest to visit my family for the holidays, I got a discord notification, saying that there were now University-based discords. I decided to give it a look, join a few, but didn’t really look at much of them for a while. Eventually though, the most popular one started to pop off a bit. People were interacting, making plans. I’d pop in and out, make a few jokes here and there, but didn’t pay it too much mind. One day, people made plans to go do a trivia night at a local bar. I thought, “eh, fuck it. Why not”.

My hopes weren’t very high. I was half expecting a bunch of internet chuds. I found the table they were situated at, and to my great surprise, my presupposition couldn’t be further from the truth. At that table sat a bunch of weirdo queer freaks. “I did it. I found my people”, I thought. From that chance meeting blossomed some of the greatest friendships of my life.

Time went on, and our community grew at a monstrous rate. From ten people, to twenty, to fourty, to a hundred, and eventually nearly two hundred. Events nearly every day of the week, which i attended as many as I possibly could. Winter turned into spring, and having been a part of the group for so long and with my friendly and open nature, I secured myself a position of mild authority and trust.

The semester went on and during this time, I experienced some of my favorite moments in all of my life. Parties wrought with fun, care, and incredible bonds. Rollerskating with my entire group on the weekly. As the semester winded to a close, the guy running the thing held an award ceremony at the school’s weird bar thing, which we pretty much packed out.

I remember thinking to myself, “god, isn’t this so beautiful? All of these wonderful people, coming together and celebrating one another”. It was something that I’d wanted so dearly throughout my entire life. To bring people together, stir the pot, and see what comes out. During my time in this group, I watched people learn and grow at bewildering speeds.

But, then again, the guy running it. Right? Interesting character, to say the least. Incredibly charismatic, had a penchant for drawing the hidden parts of people out to the forefront and feeding that fire. Cracks started to show, however. Entering this situation, I noticed some strange things. Upon joining the discord, you’d be given a new username, and for a while, nobody was allowed to use their real names or their regular online usernames. The guy gave a reasoning for this; it was for privacy and protection. He recognized that it was a community full of vulnerable people. It made sense. In the back of my mind, though, I knew that this was the sort of tactic that cults utilize. In full honesty, that’s probably the closest we ever truly got to that sort of thing. It’s still emblematic, to me, though, of what would come next.

You see, I went off on a bit of a tangent, but the guy, the leader. Those cracks started showing. He would start to make unwanted advances on people in the community, myself included. After being politely declined, he would persist, making myself and the others that experienced this extremely uncomfortable, to say the least, especially given his relative power within the group. He was also incredibly, incredibly averse to any kind of dissent whatsoever. His opinions, ideas, the way he ran the community, the way he organized the server. Any contradiction he sniffed, he snuffed out with impunity.

Regardless though, at the ceremony, i and a few of my compatriots were given new titles. We were essentially community leaders. Around this time, I started developing a new sort of ideology for myself. A sort of unwavering yet cautious optimism. Hoping to make any kind of change in the world, believing that the only way forward was to believe that things could get better.

The guy, P, I’ll refer to him as, started having outbursts. He’d single people out, ream them in front of everybody else, and snuff out any dissent whatsoever. At some point, one of the community leaders and one of my closest friends even now, T, came to me and said something along the lines of “Hey, we need a backup plan for if things go south. I don’t like the way things are going down right now. We should try to get him to see reason, but we need to have a way out just in case.”

And so, two plans were born. First, a scavenger hunt for community made tarot cards culminating in a party special for P. We figured, he might just be facing some kind of stress and alienation with everyone out of town. Second, a backup server if things didn’t go well.

Cont’d

[lightchildofthespring]

Awkward story time. So, I had begun writing chapter 13 of “The fantastic adventures of Takeru Takaishi” (AU story, kind of weird and difficult to explain the plot) and, after writing three pages of Koushiro angst, I realized that I had already sort of established in chapter 9 a different death for Mr. izumi, so... I couldn’t actually include this whole part in chapter 13 because it would contradict chapter 9.

But I already wrote the whole scene and can’t just erase it now. Well, I can, but I don’t want to. Anyway, if anyone wants some out of context AU Koushiro angst (and a bit of taishiro angst, maybe), I’ll just leave this here.

When he was fourteen years old, by his calculations, Koushiro had dreamed about Mr. Izumi riding his favorite horse, Thunder. Then, the horse got frightened by a snake... Mr. Izumi fell from the black horse, hitting his head on a nearby rock.

He woke up, shaking. Although he had been having nightmares like those every night since he had resurrected, that had been the first time it had involved someone he knew. Masami Izumi, the kind elderly man who, along with his wife, had allowed him to live in their farm since he was rescued from the ocean... Koushiro had just seen his death.

“Save the people you'll see be wronged. Show me that you're not another selfish human being.”

Justine's words echoes in his mind. He had to save him! But how? Koushiro had never told the Izumis about his past on Shrimp Island, about how his parents were killed and he fell from a cliff, much less about how he met Justine and gained the ability to see the future. He couldn't just tell them the truth, he couldn't... they wouldn't believe him... who would believe in such a story? Nevertheless, he had to do something!

That night, he went to the stable and freed that horse. Koushiro watched as the animal trotted towards the horizon. That should be enough. He had saved Mr. Izumi's life.

The next morning, Koushiro woke up to only find Mrs. Izumi at home.

“The Kurosawa boys came here earlier, they said they had seen Thunder on the open fields. Masami must've forgotten to close the stable last night,” she explained. “Masami went to retrieve him. He should be back soon.”

As dread filled him, he ran past the woman and left the house, not answering when she asked where he was going. No, please! No! Don't ride that horse, please! Koushiro begged, mentally. Maybe if he ran fast enough, he could find Mr. Izumi in time. He could still save him!

However, before Koushiro could take twenty steps, he saw old man Kurosawa coming in his direction, pulling his white horse by the saddle. On the horse's back lay the corpse of Mr Izumi.

As Mrs. Izumi screamed and ran towards her husband, Koushiro felt as if all his strength had left him.

“Masami was already on his way back with Thunder when the horse got scared by a snake,” old man Kurosawa told Mrs. Izumi. “It all happened too fast, there was nothing anyone could do... a true tragedy!”

He had done that... Koushiro was the one who had caused that... he had a vision of a tragedy he would be responsible for... in trying to save Mr. Izumi, Koushiro had killed him. Never, in his entire existence, had he felt despair like that.

The funeral took place that afternoon. Overridden by guilt, Koushiro remained silent the entire time, not responding to anyone. Not even Taichi's words, nor Hikari's, were able to reach him. Koushiro couldn't hear anything, he couldn't see anything. His mind kept replaying Mr. Izumi's death over and over again, and he kept repeating to himself: I killed him!

He wandered off, not noticing that Taichi and Hikari were following him. Until he felt someone pulling on him and pressing his body against the ground.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU IDIOT!” Taichi cried, on his back; he was the one pining him down. It was when Koushiro looked ahead and noticed where he had been heading.

“I was... walking towards that cliff?” Koushiro asked no one in particular. “I was going to fall...”

Again.

Taichi turned Koushiro over to face him. The other was crying profusely.

“Don't you ever do this again! Don't you ever scare me like this again!” Taichi shouted. “Promise me you'll never do something like this again!”

“Mrs. Izumi can't be left alone now,” Hikari told Koushiro in a serious tone. “She already lost her husband, she can't lose you as well! If you don't think of yourself, then think of her! Do you want her to suffer more?”

Koushiro tried to speak, but found himself unable to. All his words were lost, replaced by grunts of guilt and desperation. He felt as his eyes got flooded by tears. There was nothing that could stop them from falling down.

Taichi sat up and pulled him up, to a tight hug.

“We're here for you! We'll always be here for you! You're not alone!” Taichi told him, trembling.

Hikari got close to Koushiro and whispered in his ear:

“What happened today was inevitable. It wasn't your fault. I know you were just trying to help him. He knows that too.”

After saying that, Hikari stepped back, showing Koushiro a sad smile. Hikari knew... he didn't know how, but she did. And she was telling him that what had happened hadn't been his fault. Hikari was mysteriously wise, she knew things nobody else could know. If she was telling him that, it had to be true.

“I'm sorry...” Koushiro said, hoping that Mr. Izumi could hear him. “I'm so sorry!”

Hikari held one of his hands and told him:

“You are forgiven.”

[gammija]

The final Web!Martin evidence list

Now that canon is done, and we’ve got word of god confirmation that Web!Martin wasn’t complete nonsense, I decided to go back to my lil chronological evidence list and actually clean it up a bit, delete parts that in hindsight weren't all that indicative, and put everything in a slightly more readable format. (Obligatory disclaimer that i don’t and never did believe or advocate for some kind of evil web!martin, and that I'm not intending to connect a moral judgement to martin (or anyone else for that matter) having some of these traits)

So here: The (hopefully, please) final list with Web!Martin Evidence! Presented in order of importance, according to. me

The final (hopefully) Web!Martin evidence list

(In order from most to least obvious)

Spiders

I mean, it’s called the Web. TMA reiterates quite a few times that Martin liked spiders. Sometimes it IS that easy.

MAG022: Martin: "I like spiders. Big ones, at least. Y’know, y’know the ones you can see some fur on; I actually think they’re sort of cute -"

MAG038: | Sasha: "A spider?" Jon: "Yeah. I tried to kill it…" [...] Sasha: [Chuckles] "Well, I won’t tell Martin." Jon: "Oh, god. I don’t think I could stand another lecture on their importance to the ecosystem."

MAG059: Jon: "I have done my best to prevent Martin reading this statement in too much detail. I have no interest in having another argument about spiders."

MAG079: Jon: "Apparently, biologically, his account of the spiders doesn’t make any sense according to Martin."

MAG197: Martin: “What? Because I like spiders? Well, used to.”

Lies and subterfuge

Martin is able to use lying and subterfuge to achieve his goals, and is called manipulative a few times.

Lies:

MAG022: Martin: "[He] became slightly more co-operative after I lied to him and told him that one of the upstairs residents had buzzed me in."

MAG056: Martin: "I lied on my CV."

MAG158: Peter: “But you said –” Martin: “Honestly, I mostly just said what I thought you wanted to hear.”

MAG164: Jon: "You – I actually believed you!"

MAG189: Martin: “Sorry. Sorry, John. Not sure how much everything up there actually understood what was going on. But, y’know, I didn’t want to take any chances so it made sense to… um…” Jon: “Put on a show?” Martin: “Yeah, basically, more or less.”

MAG191: Martin: "That's not true." Arun: "Liar!"

Subterfuge:

The plan in 118, which revolved around convincing Elias that Martin was only “acting out”, to create a distraction for Melanie. (Also compare the way he evades giving a straight answer here with the way Annabelle talks in 196.)

Working with Peter in s4 under false pretenses, to distract him from Jon and eventually try to learn what Peter wanted.

Manipulation accusations:

These, I know, are somewhat contentious, since it’s mostly villains saying this to him. I’m still including them, since

1): From a media analysis standpoint, being mentioned 3 times is a sign to pay attention, even when it may not be the full truth.

2): I only see it as describing Martin’s behaviour in the previous points, not as a moral judgement; Especially since he almost always ‘manipulates’ people in positions of power over him.

Still, if it bothers anyone, feel free to ignore these.

MAG138: Martin: "That’s it? No, no monologue, no mind games? You love manipulating people!" Elias: "That makes two of us."

MAG186: Martin: “I can be a real manipulative prick, you know that?” Also Martin: “Oh yeah.”

MAG196: Annabelle: “Because you always managed to get what you wanted through smiles and shrugs and stammerings that weren’t nearly as awkward as they seemed.” [SMALL SOUND OF MARTIN’S CONCESSION TO THE POINT] Martin: “Point taken.”

The Lonely/the Web

The Lonely and the Web sometimes affect Martin to similar degrees.

In season 3, when Martin is getting used to reading statements for the first time, most of them leave him emotionally affected: MAG084, MAG088, MAG090,

MAG095: Martin: “S-S-Statement… done.” [HEAVY BREATHING & TREMBLING AS MARTIN STEADIES HIMSELF] “I don’t like recording these. There. I-I said it.”,

MAG098: Martin: [Panting] “End of statement.” [Deep breath] “I, um, I think I might need to sit down. Oh. Yeah, I am. Right. I don’t, uh, I’m not really sure if these are actually getting easier or harder. I mean I don’t feel –”

Only the last two statements he reads are remarkably easier. This might be a hint that Martin is just getting used to reading them, but the quote from MAG098 seems to contradict that. Either way, it’s likely not a coincidence that those last two happen to be the Lonely and the Web:

MAG108: Martin: “Statement ends.” (exhale) “That wasn’t so bad…”

MAG110: Martin: “Statement ends.” [...] “I mean, I think it sounds like a Jurgen Leitner book. About spiders. Hm. Good John didn’t have to read this one, anyway. I know he’s not a fan. Although, this one wasn’t too bad, actually! I – yeah. Anyway.”

In season 5, there are two powers’ Domains that actually affected Martin mentally, as opposed to only physically: the Lonely’s, in 170 (and arguably 186), and, depending on your interpretation, in 172, when Martin went exploring without knowing why he did so.

Proximity

Martin investigates a lot of the Web statements during season 1 to 3 (in other words, when the archive team still researches statements). The only ones he isn’t mentioned in during this period are MAG019 and MAG020, when he’s being harrassed by worms, and MAG081, which Jon records by himself outside of the institute.

Most notably, he’s the one who discovered the statement in MAG114, ‘Cracked Foundations’, which is the one statement in the entire show that sets up the interdimensional properties of HTR.

The Web!Lighter passed through Martin's hands first, before he gave it to Jon.

Similarly, Annabelle mostly spoke to Martin in season 5, despite most other Avatars usually focusing on Jon.

Aesthetics

Apart from the above obviously Web related areas, there are some other aesthetics which are mentioned in connection to both the Web and Martin, throughout canon.

These are describing the Web;

These are describing Martin.

Tapes:

Martin is the only character to treat the tape recorders as friends - any other character is either indifferent, or treats them as enemies.

MAG039: Martin: "I think the tapes have a sort of… low-fi charm."

MAG154 Martin: “Oh. Hi. Hello again.” … (small laugh) “Sorry pal, false alarm this time.”

MAG156 Martin: “Mm? Oh.” [HE LAUGHS, GENTLY.] “Yeah. (rustling paper) I was going to read one. Hate for you to miss it!” [SHORT, FORCED LAUGH, AS HE FLAPS THE STATEMENT AROUND.]

MAG170 Martin: “Oh. Oh, hello. What’s this? Wow, retro! What are you up to, little buddy; just – listening? That’s okay. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”

MAG190 Jon: "[The tapes] seem to like [Martin]."

Retro:

MAG069: Statement: “I only saw Annabelle Cane once during this period. She wasn’t hard to pick out. She dressed like a vintage clothing store exploded on her, and her short bleach-blonde hair stood out sharply against dark skin.”

MAG160: Jon: “Anyways, don’t tell me the phonebox down there doesn’t appeal to your retro aesthetic.” Martin: “It – might. Maybe.”

MAG163: Annabelle/the Web callying Martin via an old payphone: [ A PHONE RINGS. IT’S NOT THE TINNY, ELECTRONIC SOUND OF A CELLPHONE – NO, THIS IS A TRUE, HEAVY, CLASSIC RING.] Martin: “Uh. John? Uh, J, John – the, uh, payphone that’s – here, for some reason – it’s ringing?”

Hatred of burns:

MAG067: Jack Barnabas’ statement: “I looked up and noticed within the corner of the room, where there had been a spider’s web this morning, there was just a faint wisp of smoke.” “Another held a bag that seemed to be full of candles, while a third had a clear plastic container filled with hundreds of tiny spiders.”

MAG139: Statement by member of Cult of the Lightless Flame: “The Mother of Puppets has always suffered at our hand; all the manipulation and subtle venom in the world means nothing against a pure and unrestrained force of destruction and ruin.” Agnes burned down Hilltop Road.

MAG145: The Web ties Gertrude to Agnes, stopping the Desolation’s ritual (the only Power whose ritual the Web is known to have prevented).

MAG167: Gertrude enlists Agnes’/the Desolation’s help in order to burn her assistant Emma, who was Web aligned.

MAG169: Martin: "Look, I just – don’t want to get burned, all right? It’s, it’s like my least favorite pain ever. [...] I, I legitimately hate burns, alright? They’re, they’re awful, and they scar horribly, and they just – it – it just makes me sick; I, I hate it. Hate it!"

Phrasing:

MAG039: Martin: "I’m trapped here. It’s like I can’t… move on and the more I struggle, the more I’m stuck. [...] It's just that whatever web these statements have caught you in, well, I’m there too. We all are, I think."

MAG079: Martin's poem: "The threads of people walking, living, lovi–"

MAG117: Martin: "This last couple of years, I’ve always been running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but, but now it’s my trap, and, well, I think it’ll work. I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but it felt good leaving my own little web. Oh, oh, Christ, I hope John doesn’t actually listen to these. “Good lord, is Martin becoming some sort of spider person?” No, John, it’s an expression, chill out! Besides, spiders are fine. I mean, yes, people are scared of them, obviously, but actual spiders, they just want to help you out with flies."

MAG167: Jon: “Methinks the Spider dost protest too much.” Martin: “Jon –” Jon: “Joking! Just joking.”

Personality:

How applicable these are depends heavily on how you interpret Martin's own personality, so your mileage may vary.

MAG008: Statement: “Nobody ever said a word against Raymond himself, though, who was by all accounts a kind and gentle soul [...]”

MAG123: Jon: "The Web does seem to have a preference for those who prefer not to assert themselves."

MAG147: Annabelles statement: "I discovered a deep and enduring talent inside myself for lying. [...] My manipulations were not intricate, but they were far beyond what was expected of a child my age, and I have always believed that the key to manipulating people is to ensure that they always under- or overestimate you. Never reveal your true abilities or plans."

Word of God and Annabelle

I kinda wanted to ‘prove’ that Web!Martin had quite a bit of evidence to back it up, hence this header being last. But of course, in this post-canon world, there are a few lines that most obviously confirm the theory:

MAG197: Martin is Web enough to be able to read the 'vibrations', like Annabelle, and see Jon and Basira (the latter being especially notable, as he hadn't known she was there beforehand): [CHITTERING, BUZZING AND HIGH-PITCHED SQUEALS CHANGE CADENCE] Martin: "Wait… Wait, hang on, is that him?" Annabelle: "Yes. I guess you’re better with the Web than we thought." Martin: "And – Wait, ha– No, uh… is that… Basira? He – He’s got Basira with him!" Annabelle: "Yes."

Season 5 Q&A part 2: Jonny: “Essentially, it was fascinating looking at the fandom and, like, the Web!Martin believers, because what they were doing was correctly picking up on hints dropped in the early seasons that were later, like, not exactly abandoned, but it was much more like, ‘Well, no, he does have like aspects of The Web to him, but he is moreover The Lonely.’ And that came about very… very organically, really. Because throughout Season 3 and going into Season 4, we had this conversation and we were like, ‘No, actually he's like-” Alex: “‘It can't be, it cannot be, it must be the other way round’ Yeah.”

(Note that they say “throughout season 3 and going into season 4,” which likely means that season 1, season 2, and at least part of season 3, aka half of the entire show, were written with Web!Martin as an intentional possibility.)

If you read all that, thanks so much! Obviously, Web!Martin never really came to fruition, so it's fine if you still don't like it. This is just a post explaining where it was coming from, at least for me and the other theorists I've spoken to.

[romiantic]

𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆

⇢ ˗ˏˋ 𝒓𝒚𝒐𝒕𝒂 𝒌𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒙 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓!𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌!𝒇𝒆𝒎!𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 ࿐ྂ

彡 ❛ 𝐚 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞 ❜

彡 𝗳𝘁. ryota kise

彡 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: fluff with very little angst

彡 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 2.3k

彡 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: suggestive theme at the end

彡 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿’𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲: all characters are 18+. also can we talk about how BOMB this song is 🤧 y’all sleepin on this song fr

·˚ ༘ੈ✩‧₊˚ ╰┈➤ ❛❛ 𝙄 𝙇𝙊𝙑𝙀 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙒𝘼𝙔 𝙔𝙊𝙐 𝘿𝙊 𝙄𝙏 ❜❜

❝ 𝐘/𝐍 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐘𝐎 𝐀𝐒𝐒 𝐔𝐏! You have two minutes till showtime.” Your manager, AKA, older brother, barged and announced to you like he didn’t update you almost five minutes ago.

You did your usual of sucking your teeth and rolling your teeth every time he barged in and interrupted your call, you replied with annoyance in your tone, “AJ I know! Can you wait a minute? Damn, so impatient for absolutely no reason.”

“I’m sorry who’s the one with hundreds of thousands of fans screaming their name and waiting for their ass outside? Me or you? Oh okay. Anyways, end yo little call with yo boyfr-”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” You interrupted, becoming irritated with your brother and simply wanted him to shut the fuck up. A great manager and brother, yet way too uptight for his job.

AJ rolled his eyes and muttered something but you flipped him off and pretended not to hear him until he left your dressing room. You gave your attention back to your phone, giving a cheeky smile to the blonde boy on your screen. From the corner of his eye, he noticed a nervous look growing on you but from what you could tell, he was choosing what shirt to wear to his photoshoot. Leaving him to be seen with a no top on and a pair of denim jeans.

Though it was typical to see your best friend’s exposed upper body, it was a sight you never got used to. His well-toned body, results from years of playing basketball in middle and high school, making your face hot, adding on to the nervousness you were already facing from your upcoming performance. Along with the pearly white smile he flashed at you creating a sick feeling in your stomach, something that you made you clench onto it and try to ignore. Now was not the time to be drooling over your best friend, who interrupted your stare with a laugh and said, “Are you gonna keep staring or are you gonna take a picture?”

Of course, he’d ruin it with some cocky line like that, you rolled your eyes and sucked your teeth. “Boy calm down, ain’t nobody wanna was staring.”

“Your nervous face said otherwise.”

“Akekeke, don’t you have a photoshoot to go to?”

Kise replied with the same energy as yours, “And don’t you have a performance to go to?”

You held up a finger to a screen then crossed your arms, “Aht aht, don’t worry about me now. Worry about yo lil pictures with that famous ass Russian model.” You wanted to roll your eyes just thinking about the brought-up woman but it would make it seem like you’re being jealous for no reason.

Kise let out a small laugh, adoring the irritated look that was starting to creep up on your face. “Somebody sounds jealous.”

You rolled your eyes and let out a scoff, “Oh please, like I would be.” You looked at the time on your watch and noticed it was about one minute until your performance. Your eyes widened at the time and hurried, you quickly ended the call with Kise, “Shit, fuck! I gotta go perform but I’ll call you back when I’m done.”

“And I’ll be waiting for you beautiful when you get back.” The golden-eyed boy winked at you yet you cringed and scrunched your face. “You’re so fucking corny Kise.” You hung up the call, grab any other pieces missing from your outfit, and headed out of your dressing room.

You traveled quickly around backstage, passing by many coworkers and background dancers waiting for you, to head into the small tunnel for artists to come out on stage. You stopped at the exit and gulped as you scanned the stage. An outside arena with hundreds of thousands of fans cheering your name, waiting for your appearance.

Usually, you would be at ease with concerts this large but for some reason this time is different. Unknowing the reason nor cause, you started to feel anxious, your hands mildly shaking and your throat going dry.

There was something in the back of your mind attempting to not make you perform, something telling you to not do it, it won’t be good, people will hate you. A voice there to influence thoughts, hoping that you would fall into the trap and just give up on singing. Though of course, you wouldn’t listen to that voice, that voice always lingered around whenever you were brought to perform, no matter where you were.

The only thing to distract you and keep you safe from that tiny voice is someone who you’ve longed to love. One who just settles your nerves, bringing comfort, and removing all anxious thoughts. One who would deem you as one of the greatest artists he’s ever listened to, maybe it’s opinionated but he loves you too much to disagree.

The now dawdling thought of his soft voice whenever he spoke or his flirtatious nature when you two joked around made a familiar feeling grow greater than before. Something replaced the anxiousness that was growing, a feeling that replaced the nervousness and calmed your shaky hands. Something that was the thought of Ryota Kise, he was like the medicine to all the pain you’ve suffered. A remedy to your anxiety, one of the many causes of the cheeky smile social media often sees you with.

Someone who you grew up and spent all your life with, always noticing how protective he was of you or the way he hummed one of your pre-recorded tracks that he was the only one to listen to. Celebrating one of your songs had hit #1 on the Billboard chart and the way he helped out whenever you hit writer’s block.

Every single thing, noticeable or not, made you grown to love the boy, starting from a platonic, playground friendship blooming to many years of trying to figure out if you are romantically in love with him. Growing familiar feelings of butterflies mixed with the thought of just wanting to cup his face and kiss him whenever he was around.

Just the ultimate feeling of wanting to be buried in the blonde boy’s arms and explain the blooming love for him made you want to sing the song you wrote for him. A new single that you never wanted to put out since you wanted only Kise to hear it, including that the song was your way of telling him what you felt all these years.

Though something changed your mind, something in your brain told you to tell everyone around you that you’re singing solo, no backup singers or dancers, only you on that stage. In this performance, you just had to do it yourself, nothing but you, the stage, and the microphone.

Everyone was confused by the last-minute change of plans but went along with it. They rescheduled it to where your first “official” song to start the concert with was right after your solo performance. You gave thanks to your team and took some deep breaths. You made sure your Bluetooth set was on and working properly in your ear, AJ handed you a mic and brushed off any wrinkling from your outfit and any smoothed out your hair. Uptight about his job yet made sure his little sister was looking the greatest for her performances.

You took deep breaths again, shook off any bad nerves, and walked on stage. The already excited crowd enraged and their volume expanded as they saw you stand before them. Everyone waving their signs that said, “I love you y/n!!” or “Y/N is so beautiful!” You waved to the audience and stopped at the middle of the stage, walking closer to the front of the stage as well.

You turned on the mic and tapped it to see if it was working, “Mic check one two, can you guys hear me?” The crowd immediately responded yes, you continued on to talk to them, “Okay good, have been getting technical difficulties with my mic and I really don’t feel like switching mics three times. Anyways, afternoon to all my lovely fans who made it out here or to those that are watching me live. I love you all and thank you for supporting me, I truly am grateful for every single one of y’all.” Everyone screamed out how much they love you and adore you, showing off their merch that they bought and waving the homemade posters.

You smiled at their response and cleared your throat as you introduced the song, “Thank you, I love you too. This first song is one that has been sitting too comfortably in my heart. A piece that came from genuine emotions and feelings I’ve tried to bury yet couldn’t no matter how hard I tried. It’s something that I never planned on dropping but I just felt like the world had to hear what I had to say. Hopefully, you guys enjoy it cause I did when I was writing this song at two in the morning before I snuck into the studio and recorded it. Was it worth it? Definitely. Now I may introduce to you, Not Another Love Song. A contradicting title isn’t it?”

You took a large breath in and out, you took a position as you waited for the beat to drop. As soon as you heard the familiar melody start, you sang, “I don’t wanna mess this up, could it be too much to say I’m in?”

The crowd lowered down and became silent to hear your new single, grasping the beautiful new lyrics you were singing and just vibing along with it.

You yourself were placing emotion as you sang, not noticing how proudly you sang the chorus or how you were smiling at the crowd the entire time. One thing was clouding your mind to even pay attention to those details, the same thing that more than likely pushed you to sing the song.

As you sang, the feelings for your best friend grew stronger, butterflies in your stomach, and the deprivation of his touch grew on you. Not even realizing how much you missed him until you turned initially to smile at AJ and your team yet saw a familiar face appear as well. You questioned it but then turned back to continue singing to the audience, only thinking that mind is playing games with you.

“I'm finna take my time, my mind, my rules. This ain't no crimе makin' love to you, though you ain't say this. But I had a hard time waitin' for you, boy. Like ooh, boy, you, boy. Got me where you want, just gotta say and it's on, it's like, ooh, boy, do you know you got me like where do you go when you're alone?”

As you sang, you noticed the crowd growing silent, their eyes widening, and their jaws dropping. You were utterly confused at was catching their attention, you turned to your team and your brother pointed behind, giving you a goofy smile as well.

You turned around to what was the cause of this silent commotion and right along with everyone else, your jaw drop and your eyes widened. The flirtatious, handsome model that everyone knew of was standing in front of you with a bouquet of roses in his hand. He walked up to you and smiled greatly, closing in the large gap between the both of you.

Seeing him walk closer to you made you want to say forget concert and sing the rest to him. Half of your feeling was already poured out, not even knowing he was listening to all of it. You didn’t think he would even be here since he had a photoshoot, not standing on an outside stage with a bouquet of roses and dressed in casual attire.

He handed you the roses and kissed your forehead, telling you, “Alone with you, away from the world, where else would I be when I’m alone?”

No response came from you, not even a single gasp or a sniffle to signify that you might cry. The way you responded to his presence was something that shocked the arena, everyone watching you on live, your team, and even the two of you yourself. Who would’ve thought you would be bold enough to grab his face and kiss him right then and there? You snaked your arm around his waist and pulled him closer to deepen the kiss. He responded back by wrapping his hands around your shoulders and hugging you tightly, holding onto you to make sure you wouldn’t separate from him.

You pulled back from the kiss and smiled, softly combed his blonde hair, and expressed, “I love you, Kise.” Saying his name like it was something you’ve been aching to say, a name that you’ve buried away yet brought out today. A name that sounded so lovely and romantic when you say it.

Kise expressed as well, “I love you too y/n. I’ve always loved you and I will never stop loving you.” He kissed you again, he removed his hand from your shoulders and trailed around to find your hands. He removed your hands from his waist and instead intertwined them with his.

He felt you smile when he held your hand and smiled back. He stated in between kisses, “You know I’m staying on this stage to hear you finish that song right?”

“It’s fine, I need someone to do my next performance on anyways.” He looked at you and you did nothing but wink and mischievously smiled at him. Kise had a small idea of what he could expect but suppressed it to enjoy the soft moment he wanted between the both of you. A moment that he’ll never forget and a concert that will always be remembered for everyone around you.

彡 it’s like 5 am and I’m tired 🦧 the only thing that kept me up was the fact that I don’t have school plus I loveeeeee kise

彡 also the show olivia

彡 I don’t think I ever mentioned to y’all how much I love his ass but now is definitely not the time 😁

彡 I’m convinced if it silent black hair blue eye powerful men weren’t my type, cocky and flirtatious ones would be runner up

彡 anyways hope you guys enjoy + pleaseee listen to the song, I highly recommend plus ella mai is VERY underrated

bye babes, drink your water, stay hydrated, and remember that you are the baddest bitch on the planet 🥰 no matter what ANYONE says

𝐏𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐦 𝟏𝟖:𝟑𝟎 💗

© 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟣 𝗄𝗈𝗂𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗀𝗎𝗋𝗈. 𝖺𝗅𝗅 𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍𝗌 𝗋𝖾𝗌𝖾𝗋𝗏𝖾𝖽

[mimisempai]

Wait for me on the other side 1/8

Summary:

Mobius, a watchmaker, and Loki, a teacher, realize that they are separated by two years of time when they exchange letters from different years in the mailbox of the house on the cliff where Mobius lives. As the two lonely hearts feel they have found their soulmate, will they ever meet?

or the Lakehouse AU that nobody asked for.

Notes:

This is my very first multi-chapter AU. I hope you'll enjoy it. Chapters will be released on a weekly basis.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32948254/chapters/81773392

3772 words - rating G

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 (End)

When two people "connect" the bond between them can be so pure and simple as to stir hearts in heaven.

When they connect in all the right places at all the wrong times, heaven weeps for broken hearts. To heal these broken hearts, heaven breaks time.

—Blithe Spiritus

Loki took one last look through the rearview mirror at the cottage on the edge of the cliff, which was getting smaller and smaller as he drove away.

Shifting his gaze forward, his face slid to the crate on the passenger seat, where Croki, his pet alligator, was sitting.

"I hope you will like your new home..." Loki sighed.

Then suddenly, he braked abruptly, holding back the cage with one hand as it slid forward. Then he backed the car up.

"Shit. I'm sorry Croc'"

He walked over to the mailbox. He put his hand through the window, opened the mailbox and put an envelope inside. Then his long fingers pulled the red flag in a vertical position, to indicate that there was mail. All this under the eyes of Croki who followed with attention all his gestures.

He tapped the top of the cage, "Come on, this time we're off for good."

He rolled, speeding up, refusing to look at the sign for the tiny village his home was in, New Asgard.  Loki rolled east, the cliff behind him, then passed a sign: New York, 35 miles.

The traffic became heavier as he approached the city.

After maneuvering through the various streets and making his way through the New York traffic, he stopped in front of an apartment building on a busy street. It was a very recent building, cold and sterile. The contrast with the tranquility of New-Asgard was striking.

He parked, got out of the car and took a moment to absorb the change in his surroundings. Then with a sigh, he began to unload his things.

**********

Loki stopped at the steps in front of the entrance to the imposing establishment - September High-School. He inhaled deeply to give himself courage before moving forward, climbing the few steps and pushing open the heavy door. He entered and walked to what appeared to be the front desk where a busy looking secretary was standing.

Loki asked softly, "Excuse me?"

"Just a minute, okay?"

Loki waited a minute, politely, then tried to get the secretary's attention again.

"Ahem... Excuse me, I need to..."

She handed him a stack of paper, while saying, without looking at him, "Just fill this out and wait for me there, okay?"

Loki handed it back to her.

"No, I'm Loki Laufeyson. I'm a new teacher. I was told to report here."

The secretary looked sheepish, "Oh, I'm sorry, Professor. You need to find Principal Romanov. She should be around here. A woman with red hair, dressed in black, you can't miss her."

He did indeed find the Principal in the hallway that the secretary had pointed out.

Natasha Romanov may have looked young to be a high school principal, but everything about her demeanor, her head carriage, her attitude exuded confidence and authority. She walked quickly down the hallway and Loki, though tall, had a hard time keeping up with her.

The principal handed him a large stack of files as soon as they arrived in her office.

"You will be in charge of the sophomores, this morning you will have three classes to teach and three this afternoon."

Loki repeated to be sure, "Three?"

"That's a quiet day, for a first day."

Loki looked a little dazed, he didn't think he was going to jump into the deep end and thought he would have some time to adjust.

The principal turned around, as if she sensed his hesitation, "The teacher you replaced let us down without notice, and it took us a while to find the right replacement, the students lost a lot of time for their final exams. We have to do our best to make sure they pass."

They walked past a student who was sitting alone on a bench, looking sulky. Romanov motioned to a supervisor.

"What's he doing here?"

The supervisor replied, "He was grounded because he took apart a computer to prove Professor Banner wrong and has to do an hour of gym under Professor Odinson's supervision. However, I can't leave the place unattended, and I was waiting for my backup to take him there.

"Peter get up," said principal Romanov in a sharp tone.

The young man stood up, a sulky look on his face.

"Professor Laufeyson, take him to Professor Odinson in the gym and then you can begin your lessons in this class."

The principal pointed to the door of the classroom in question, then turned and walked back to her office, not waiting for an answer.

"Well come with me, Mister...?"

The young boy followed his lead and replied with a pouty tone, "Parker, Peter Parker. »

"Then let's go Mr. Parker, the computer dismantler." replied Loki with a wink.  He knew he couldn't condone what the young man had done, but he couldn't help but find it amusing.

Seeing that the professor didn't look reproachful as he said these words, Peter lost his pout and got a small smile.

"Although I'm curious as to what could have caused you to disassemble a computer."

Peter seemed to come back to life, explained to an amused Loki, that Professor Banner, who taught biology, had said that nothing could compare to the complex construction that was a living being and Peter had wanted to show him the opposite by dismantling the Professor's laptop.

"But I was about to put it back together though, I don't understand why he got so upset."

Loki couldn't help but laugh.

Peter's face frowned because they had arrived at the gym.

They walked through the door and there a giant blonde man came striding in, "Peter Parker, it's been so long! Tell me what you've been up to again." he ruffled Peter's hair who tried to shy away from it, then he held out his hand to Loki who had to hold back a wince at the strength of the professor's grip.

"Professor Odinson, but call me Thor. Nice to meet you. New professor?"

"Yes, I am the new literature professor, Loki Laufeyson, but call me Loki. I'll leave this promising young man to you," He winked at Peter before continuing, "as for me I'll be teaching my first class."

"Welcome here, and good luck!" threw Thor at him before turning back to Peter, "Go change, we'll start with 10 laps running around the basketball court."

Hearing Peter's grumbles, Loki smiled as he walked away.

A few minutes later, he stopped outside his classroom door and took a deep breath.

"It takes a little time to adjust, but most of the students here are exceptional and the teaching staff is really, really nice."

Loki turned to see who had just spoken.

He found himself facing a black man, taller than him, and very impressive. But despite his imposing nature, his smile and eyes were very warm as he held out his hand. "Heimdall, art professor, welcome."

Loki grasped it and replied, "Loki, literature professor."

Heimdall gave a small nod in the direction of the door, "Good luck." then walked away.

Loki, surprisingly relaxed following this little interlude, walked through the classroom door with a confident air, placed his belongings on the desk and with an engaging smile on his lips addressed his first students, "Hello, I am your new literature teacher and I hope we will work well together."

He paused, letting his gaze roam over the entire class before continuing,"O Captain! My Captain! Who knows where that came from? No one? No idea? It's-"

A young boy raised his hand at the back of the classroom.

"Yes Mister...?"

"Keener, Harley Keener."

"All right Mister Keener, I'm listening."

"It's a Walt Whitman poem about Abraham Lincoln. And it's plagiarism of Professor Keating's introduction played by Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society."

Loki didn't lose his confidence at all and replied, "Thank you Mr. Keener. I'm not going to apologize for the plagiarism. I didn't expect anyone to contradict me since this film was released long before you were all born. Thank you, Mr. Keener, for setting me straight. I won't ask you to call me Captain, Sir, or Professor, but simply Loki. Yes, Mr. Keener, Loki, as in the Norse god of mischief... "

The whole class, including Harley, laughed and Loki thought that it wasn't such a bad start.

But he still felt exhausted at the end of the day, and he slumped into the chair at his assigned desk in the teacher's lounge. He leaned in and put his head back, closing his eyes.

"So they've worn you out already?" it was the deep voice, which he recognized as Heimdall's. He opened his eyes to see that the art professor had sat just at the desk next to him.

"Yet the Famous Five keep talking about Loki, the new professor who is super cool. It's been a long time since I've heard a literature professor on such good terms." It was Thor who came to join them and pulled a chair to sit in the space between Heimdall and Loki.

"The Famous Five?"

Thor chuckled before answering, "They're called that because they're always stuffed together, probably five of the smartest minds in this elite school, and as a result always going out on the town to..."

"…the benefit of science." finished Heimdall.

"That's their argument every time they get busted," Thor clarified.

"Who are they?" asked Loki, curious.

"There's Peter who you met this morning, he's in the same class as his two childhood friends Ned and MJ. There's Harley who talked about how you put him in his place, when he thought he had fooled you. Captain my Captain huh?"

Thor chuckled before continuing, "and finally Kamala Khan, the newest one, a little brunette, a ball of energy who always wears a big red scarf, summer and winter and who the other four have taken under their wing."

"Interesting..." replied Loki, thoughtfully.

"Wait until you're the target of their prank and we'll see if you find these kids interesting." said an unknown voice behind him.

"Bruce my friend! Were you able to fix your laptop?" exclaimed Thor with a laugh.

Loki turned around, only to find himself standing in front of a man who was a little older than him. He stood up and held out his hand, "Professor Banner, I presume."

"Am I that famous?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow as he shook the outstretched hand in a firm grip.

"It's mostly that I had the pleasure of taking Peter Parker for his grounding to Thor." replied Loki

"That brat..." harrumphed Bruce. "He's smart... but his habit of proving he's always right..."

The other men laughed in unison.

"So boys? Are we having fun?" a young woman with short blond hair stepped forward and held out her hand, "Carol Danvers, homeroom teacher at this crazy school."

"Nice to meet you," Loki replied, shaking the outstretched hand.

Unaccustomed to being around so many people and especially such friendly people, Loki felt a little overwhelmed and suddenly the fatigue of this first day seemed to fall on his shoulders to the point that he had to stifle a yawn.

Thor patted him on the back and said, "I have an excellent remedy for that."

"What is it?"

Heimdall and Thor high-fived each other and said in unison, "The Bifrost."

At Loki's look of complete incomprehension, Carol explained, "It's a bar two blocks away, good burgers, good beer and for good company, that's us." she finished with a wink.

Loki realized they were inviting him to come with them but he hesitated and finally replied, "Thanks. I better not drink tonight. I'm dead."

Bruce retorted, "We're all dead."

"Yes, but I still have a lot to unpack."

They nodded, and did not seem disappointed by his refusal, even rather understanding. Loki really wasn't used to this kind of company.

Heimdall put his hand on his arm and then said softly, "Next time, then."

Loki, not understanding why his throat was tight, simply nodded.

A little later, they separated in front of the school gates. Loki on one side and the group on the other.

" Bye Loki!"

"See you tomorrow Captain!"

Loki lived only three blocks from the school and soon arrived home. When he entered he realized how sterile and cold his large apartment seemed.

He had not yet had time to unpack all his things and the boxes were scattered everywhere. The first thing he had unpacked was Croki's terrarium, which took up a whole room.

As he closed the door, he heard Croki's typical little paws coming and rubbing against him as usual. He patted his head and headed for the kitchen. Croki was a Cuvier's Dwarf caiman. Loki had once wanted to get a dog, but in the animal shelter he had immediately felt a connection with the animal, perhaps because he was different, like himself.

Loki opened the refrigerator which was desperately empty except for Croki's fish ration. He put it on a plate and put it on the floor while commenting, "Need alligator food. And human too."

He was going to have to do some shopping tomorrow.

After snacking on a bag of chips, exhausted, he took a quick shower before going to his room.

"Good night Croki."

His room was as functional and depressing as the rest of the place. He went to stand in front of the window. Outside it was all stone buildings. It was very difficult to even see the sky. He sighed, "What a view..."

He pulled the blinds and went to bed. Once his head was on the pillow, he fell asleep very quickly, which prevented him from thinking too much about everything he missed.

**********

A red pickup truck passed the New Asgard sign before parking at the side of the path that leads to the house. Its back end was filled with furniture and moving boxes. A mustachioed man with gray hair got out. He walked toward the cottage on the edge of the cliff and stopped, hands on hips, contemplating the view.

He opened the door, looked for the electric power meter. He turned it on and went to turn on the light in the entrance and then in what seemed to be the living room.

Mobius examined the place, satisfied. There wasn't much. A stereo, some books, an armchair. But the bare and cosy furniture matched perfectly with the austere beauty of the small cottage. He looked out the window at the cliff. He was going to like it here.

It took him a good four hours to unload his pickup truck by himself and install just about everything he had brought. Once finished, he grabbed a cold beer that he had put in the cooler and while drinking it quietly walked around the house before getting in the car to go shopping at the local grocery store that he had spotted on his way in.

Once he had gone around the store, with his groceries in his arms, he went to put them on the counter.

The young owner and his wife were behind.

"Hi, are you new around here?" the owner asked him.

Mobius smiled and replied, "More or less. My name is Mobius."

The owner replied, "My name is Clint and this is my wife, Laura."

Laura smiled and added, "You're going to like it. Especially now that the weather is getting warmer." Then pointing to the groceries, she added, "We'll get you some boxes for all that."

"Oh thanks." replied Mobius.

Laura fetched an empty box from a high shelf. Now that she was no longer hidden by the counter, it was obvious that she was pregnant. Clint rushed to her. "No, honey, let me."

Mobius looked at them, feeling moved and at the same time fully aware of his own loneliness. He paid, took his box and left, but not without promising the young couple to return.

He parked in front of the small road with his groceries in the back of the truck and noticed the mailbox with its flag up. He stopped and opened it. There was an envelope.

For the new tenant.

He took in the groceries, put them away, made himself a sandwich tray and taking the letter, he went to sit on the armchair in front of the bay window. He put his tray on a small table next to it, opened the letter and started to read.

Dear new tenant.

Hello and welcome to your new home and congratulations, blah blah blah. You have made an excellent choice, New Asgard is a wonderful place and this house is a gem, as you may have already noticed.

I'm sure you'll love living here as much as I do.

By the way, I'm the former tenant, Loki.

Mobius looked perplexed but also pleasantly surprised.

The post office forwards my mail normally, but if something should happen here, because the post service is what it is and we are never safe, my new address is below. Thank you.

Mobius turned over the letter.

P.S.: Sorry for the pawprints leading to the front door. They were already there when I moved in, as well as the box in the attic. I think it belongs to the owner.

Mobius stared at the letter in amusement and could not help but check the end of the letter.

He went to the front door. The floor was clean. Inside and out.

"What did he talk about?" he scratched the back of his head before heading for the ladder that led to the attic. He opened the hatch, poked his head through and looked around. It was empty. No box.

Mobius went back down, shrugged, crumpled the letter and threw it away.

He finished his meal and went to bed.

The next day, in his clock store, while repairing an antique watch with an extremely complicated mechanism, he couldn't help thinking about the letter and its more or less strange ending when he was interrupted by the doorbell indicating that someone had entered the store.

He put down his tools, wiped his hands, and headed for the store.

"Hey Mobius! I made lunch, shall we share?"

It was the bubbly and somewhat invasive, Sylvie. The owner of the antique gun store right across from him.

He replied, annoyed, because she had interrupted his work that he loved, "I can't, I have urgent work to finish."

"Oh come on Mobius, there's nothing urgent about an old watch."

"It is to its owner."

She made a disappointed pout, "Well, okay..." she sighed and headed for the door, then turned abruptly. "Is it true you bought a house? Where is it? How is it?"

Mobius rolled his eyes, used to Sylvie's chatter.

"It's an isolated cottage, in a small village called New Asgard."

"You're sick to isolate yourself like that!"

"It's what I want and I already feel at home there. And now, if you don't mind, I'm going to get back to my work, which is not urgent." He walked briskly toward his studio, annoyed by the criticism of his choice, and didn't even hear the door close.

In the late afternoon, after his day's work, he decided to repaint the faded fences that lined the small path. The manual work, like his work on watches, helped him to clear his head.

A few hours later, as the day was getting darker, Mobius was kneeling on the steps and applying a new layer of paint to the weathered planks. He finished, satisfied with the result, and began to put his equipment away.

Behind him, a small dwarf alligator trotted along the path. Mobius didn't notice it at first. The alligator sped up and before Mobius could react, he stepped into the paint and left footprints behind him. "Hey!"

Mobius tried to catch the alligator but it ran back inside the house whose door Mobius had left ajar. Mobius was about to follow him, wondering what an alligator was doing here and if he was dangerous, when he suddenly stopped.

On the ground in front of the house, there was a trail of paw prints.

Mobius rushed to the garbage can and searched with determination through his trash when he finally found what he was looking for: Loki's letter.

He stared at it.

Sorry about the footprints leading to the front door. They were already there when I moved in, as was the box in the attic. I think it belongs to the owner.

He remained for a long moment staring at the crumpled note.

*********

Loki went out to have lunch at a place he had spotted not far from the school.

Finding the weather warm, he opened his coat and continued walking.

When he arrived at the place, he sat down on a bench and started to unwrap his sandwich, a book in his hand. He enjoyed this moment of calm, even if the place was crowded on this beautiful day.

Once finished eating, Loki closed his eyes for a moment, letting the sunlight warm him up. Just aware of the surrounding sounds, the water of the fountain, the splashes and laughter of the children playing there, an old man grumbling about global warming, the pigeons landing not far away, hoping to get some crumbs from those who like Loki had decided to have lunch here.

Suddenly, a horrible noise, a high-pitched squeal and a horn made Loki sit up. He suddenly opened his eyes and looked around.

A few meters away, in front of Loki, a double-decker city bus was trying to stop. It was going pretty fast, although you could tell the driver was trying to brake.

Loki registered it all, the noise, the bus, before noticing the gray-haired man standing directly in the path of the bus. There was nothing to be done, it was inevitable and almost immediate, the man was hit by the bus, and Loki, horrified, saw his distant figure fly ten or fifteen feet into the air before crashing to the sidewalk. The faint sound of the impact reached Loki half a second later, due to the distance.

Loki automatically took out his cell phone and dialed 911. As he walked towards the impact point, he gave all the information to the rescue workers, trying to remain calm.

Once he hung up the phone, he started to run towards the lifeless body.

_______

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 (End)

As always, bear with me as it is not beta'd and english is not my native language I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless🥰

[kurlyfrasier]

The Plan: Step One

Raph x Reader

Synopsis: Reader has a plan to win her favorite terrapin over. Step One: Learn how to fight. Now if only Raph would agree, then everything else could follow.

Warnings: None, really Raph being stubborn and arguing ensues lol

Word Count: 2130-ish

“No,” the word- quiet as it may have been- reverberated through the lair as everyone fell silent, including Mikey.

“What?” I asked, scrunching my brows in confusion. Out of all the brothers I figured Raph would be the one who would teach me how to fight, or at least teach me how to defend myself.

“Ya heard me,” the largest and fiercest (in my opinion) of the brothers stated, sounding annoyed as he crossed his arms over his chest. A tell tale sign that he wasn’t backing down any time soon.

“Why-”

“I’ll teach ya, Dudette,” Mikey stumbled over the pizza boxes on the floor in his rush to get to me, settling a heavy, beefy arm around my shoulders.

“No,” Raph shoved his arm off my shoulders before pushing him away from me. “Ya won’t.”

“I won’t?” Mikey sounded hurt as his shoulders slumped in disappointment- as did mine.

“Why not?” I asked, too confused to be angry about Raph hurting his youngest brother, who only wanted to help- he always wanted to help. My words caused Mikey to gaze up hopefully at his favorite brother.

“‘Cause he won’t take it as seriously as it needs ta be taken. He’ll get distracted too much or make ya do too much too early or somethin.”

“I can teach her,” Donnie piped up, sliding his glasses back up his nose, sending a sweet smile my way. I beamed back at him, nodding excitedly. There was no way Raph could say no to Donnie, he was the most careful of them all.

“Nuh-uh,” Raph shook his head and my heart dropped.

“Bu-”

“Yer too sciencey ‘bout it. All those numbahs and figures and wha’not,” he shook his head again. “It gets confusin’ and that’s not wha’ anybody needs when they’re fightin’ fer their life.”

“I’ll teach you, y/n,” Leo stepped forward from the outskirts of the room, daring Raph to contradict him as the two younger terrapins and I glanced back and forth between them. He was the leader, after all. My heart soared at the prospect. I truly wanted Raph to teach me- for reasons nobody needed to know- but Leo was the only one who could really challenge Raph in a spar. Not to say Donnie and Mikey couldn’t handle their own, but I could always tell Raph took it easier on his little brothers, but always gave his best with the oldest. Whether that was because they were almost always at odds or because Leo was truly more of a challenge was yet to be discovered.

“No,” Raph growled out, his stance shifting from relaxed and in control to tense and barely contained fury in the span of less than a second. It was amazing really- how quickly he could go from one extreme to the other. His green eyes- sharp as the sais glued to his hips- clashed with Leo’s icy blues. I stepped back, knowing better than to interrupt as I silently prayed this wouldn’t come to blows.

“And why not?” Leo smirked, knowing there was no real reason Raph could possibly come up with.

“‘Cause,” Raph surprised us all with a smirk of his own as he continued. “Last I checked, yer girlfriend don’t like it when you spend time with y/n, here. Plus, all that meditatin’ crap prob’ly ain’t necessary for what she wants.”

Leo’s eyes widened a bit and his step faltered, eyes flickering in my direction as if he was worried I didn’t know Layla wasn’t my biggest fan. My stomach dropped as all hope drained out of me. 

“It’s okay,” I whispered, gaining everyone’s attention as I gave Leo a tight smile. “I don’t wanna cause any problems between you and Layla. Besides, I know she doesn’t really like me much.”

“Sorry,” Leo started, reaching out for me before I stopped him.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, wishing to be anywhere but there. “Um- I’ll just head home for the day. I have homework to do anyway.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Raph watched you leave with a heavy heart. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to teach you per se. It was more like he didn’t want you purposely putting yourself in danger. He knew when you got good enough (which you would, he had no doubt about that) that you would want to help them on patrol, or worse, go fight on your own during the day when he couldn’t be there to keep you safe. And it was that thought- the thought of you getting hurt because he wasn’t there- that kept him from teaching you how to fight. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if you, of all people, got hurt.

“I’ll go make sure she gets home safe,” Raph quickly stated and followed after you- only to get tugged back by all three of his brothers.

“It’s daylight-”

“So?” He growled, yanking his arms out of his brothers’ grips to no avail.

“You could be seen-”

“I don’t care! She could get hurt!”

“Which is exactly why she should learn how to fight,” Leo muttered under his breath. Raph heard though. Loud and clear. The words forced him to pause, allowing his brothers to drag him back.

“No,” Raph’s voice was quiet before he turned on them with a piercing gaze the moment their grip loosened, pointing at each one with a dare. “None o’ ya betta go behind my back and teach her.”

“Whoa, dude,” Mikey lifted his hands in surrender. “I won’t teach her anything. Promise.”

“Good,” Raph grunted out, looking at Donnie.

“I like my shell in one piece, thanks,” he said, walking off toward his lab.

“And you?” Raph glared at his older brother.

“Fine,” he huffed out. “But I don’t see why you won’t let her learn. It would be good for her, ya know.”

“Doesn’t matta’,” Raph dismissed, marching his way out to the tunnels. He had to make sure you made it home safe.

“She should be able to defend herself!” He heard Leo shout after him. “You can’t always be there!”

Raph barely kept himself from telling his brother that he should worry more about Layla’s insecurities than you, but decided that particular fight wasn’t worth it.

The sun hid behind deep, gray clouds as Raph caught up with you. He cursed under his breath when he noticed you turn down an alley. You had told him yourself that you didn’t like taking alleys and almost always stayed out of them. So why had you taken one that day?

Raph sighed in relief when he saw the alley was empty aside from you and made his way down.

“Why ya takin’ the alley?” Raph asked worriedly, causing you to spin around in shock at the sound of his voice.

“Raph!” You whisper-hissed, eyes watery from unshed tears. “It’s daylight!”

“So? I wanted ta make sure ya got home safe,” he shrugged like it was no big deal if someone saw him and wondered what made you cry.

“Well, I wouldn’t need you to make sure I got home safe if you would teach me how to defend myself,” you stated defiantly, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Ya still on that?” He growled, fisting the hands at his sides.

“Yeah, Raph. I’m still on that,” you fumed, hands now on your hips, causing his gaze to settle on those curves. He wondered what it would feel like to rest his hands on those same hips. “Leo teaches Layla, why can’t I learn?”

“Don’t tell me ya jealous,” he scoffed- a sad attempt to cover up his own pang of jealousy at the mention of his brother’s name. Is that all you wanted? To win over his brother?

“No. I just wanted to- Ugh. Nevermind,” you sighed, dropping her hands before turning around to head home. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“It doesn’t?” Raph’s heart tore at your retreat. “Then why’d ya ask in the first place?” His voice taunted you.

“Because, Raph,” you spun on your heel, piercing him with a fury he had never seen before. “I wanted to spend time with you.”

He took a step back as you stepped forward. 

“I wanted to not feel like a defenseless little girl.”

Another step as frustrated tears fell from your eyes.

“I wanted to not be so afraid.”

Another had him against a dumpster as you continued forward, poking him roughly in the chest 

“I wanted to not be such a worry- a bother to you.”

Raph shook his head, but you ignored him like you did your tears. 

“But apparently, that’s all I’ll ever be.”

“Ya not-”

“Or maybe you just don’t think I’m worth the time, huh? Is that it?”

“Y/n,” he grabbed your shoulders, shaking you gently to get your attention- he had heard enough. 

“What?” The tears blurred your vision as you let them fall, not caring that he saw. 

“Y/n,” he rasped, leaning down to your eye level, cupping your cheeks to wipe the tears away. “Yer not a botha’ and ya don’t have ta be afraid ‘cause yer not defenseless,” he smirked. “Ya got me.”

“Raph,” you all but snarled, frustrated beyond belief as you ignored the way your heart fluttered at those words. You wanted to pull away, but couldn’t find the strength- his hands on you felt so comforting, so right, so- “That’s the point! What if you’re not around?”

“I’ll always-”

“Like right now! You aren’t supposed to be up here!” You couldn’t help but stomp a foot on the pavement. “That’s why I was taking the alley. To maybe get hurt-”

His gentle grip on your face tensed as you realized your mistake.

“You what,” he ground out through clenched teeth, moving his hands back to your shoulders- unwilling to let go, even if you were being unreasonable.

“Well, I- I thought if I g-got hurt maybe you’d teach me to d-de-defend myself,” it all sounded like a question as you second-guessed yourself. It had you wondering if maybe your plan wasn’t quite full proof. 

“Lemme get this straight,” Raph stood tall, reluctantly releasing his grip on you. “Ya thought gettin’ yerself hurt would force me ta teach ya how ta fight so ya can purposely find trouble?”

“Well, y-yes and n-no,” your gaze flicked beyond Raph, onto those walking past the alley entrance. He followed your sight to the traffic and, with a heavy sigh, picked you up in his burly arms.

“Wh-”

“The roof,” he stated flatly as he hopped up to the roof, bouncing from fire escape to fire escape before settling you down on a random metal box. “Please, enlighten me,” he demanded, staring you down, eyes sharp and all-knowing as he crossed his arms over his chest. Touching you did distracting things to him and he did not need that while he was trying to figure out your way of thinking.

“Uh,” you gave him a tentative smile as you found your bearings. “I don’t wanna find trouble, I just wanna be able to fight it off.”

“What ya were tryin’ ta do- searchin’ fer somebody ta hurt ya- proves ya wrong, y/n.”

“It was only to make a point!” You exasperated, rolling your eyes, wishing Raph would understand.

“So, if-” your head snapped up at him, looking too hopeful for his taste. “And that’s a big if, Princess.”

“Yeah?” You smiled.

“Do ya promise not ta go lookin’ fer trouble?”

You started nodding your head when he gestured with a hand to stop.

“And don’ ya dare go thinkin’ ya can go on patrol.”

“I promise! I promise!” You hopped up, jumping up and down in excitement. “Please, please, please!” You begged, grabbing an arm and hugging it tight as you rested your head on his bicep- considering you couldn’t reach his shoulder.

“Fine-”

“Yes!” You loosened your grip for a victory pump, but Raph caught it before you could.

“But if I so much as hear ya got yerself in trouble-”

“I won’t! I promise!”

“Good,” he grunted out. “But if ya do, then ya neva’ leavin’ my sight. Got it?”

“Got it,” you beamed up at him before nudging him down enough so you could tip-toe up and give him a peck on the cheek, surprising him. “Now let’s go!” You squealed, running for the ladder to get off the roof.

“Now?” Raph asked, cheeks red from your kiss.

“Yes now,” you rolled your eyes with a smile, excited to spend more time with your favorite turtle, hopeful your relationship will grow into something more than friendship as you proved yourself to him. “I’ve got some fighting to do!”

“I’m gonna regret this,” Raph muttered under his breath, shaking his head as he followed you to the lair.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 part 2 

[marauders-venting]

Heather

pairing: wolfstar (remus x sirius), remadora (remus x tonks)

genre: fluff & angst

warnings: mentions of child ab*se

words: 1736

note: based on the song Heather by Conan Gray

a/n: originally, this was just a remadora fic but i don’t actually ship remadora (this song just reminded me of it and i was like well why not write something) and writing it made me so sad that i wrote a fluffy wolfstar ending for all the people who think wolfstar was endgame. so yeah, if you think wolfstar is endgame, I’m making a little fluffy epilogue bonus post tomorrow so dont be too sad

I still remember, third of December, me in your sweater, you said it looked better on me than it did you, only if you knew how much I liked you. 

Sirius was standing on the altar, the crowd chattering in front of him, the sunlight spilling in through the windows, the excitement in the air. And right beside was Remus, beaming. He glances back at Sirius, his eyes bright with joy. Sirius smiled warmly back but his smile had never felt more forced. Thankfully, though, Remus didn’t notice. Remus never seemed to notice how much Sirius liked him, although Sirius knew that there were times when he was terrible at hiding it.

Sirius still remembered the night he realised he was in love with Remus.

Earlier that day, a letter from his mum had come in the post. It was a needless reminder of how worthless and disgraceful he was as if he hadn’t heard it enough before he ran away.

It came as no surprise to Sirius that he had a nightmare about his family later that night. He woke up drenched in cold sweat, shaking, tears streaming down his face. Remus had taken him by the hand and led him to the common room, Sirius shivering the whole way. Even when they sat by the fire he couldn’t stop shaking. So Remus had given Sirius his sweater. And its effect on Sirius was immediate. It smelt like Remus. Like hot chocolate on a frosty winter night, like fresh air, the kind that you only get after it rains when beams of sunshine break through clouds.

“Thanks,” Sirius said, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand.

“Of course,” Remus said. “Do you wanna talk about it?” Sirius shrugged. He didn’t really know what he wanted. No, that’s a lie. He wanted Remus. He still wants Remus.

Remus puts his arm around Sirius and Sirius doesn't hesitate to lean into Remus, letting the tears fall.

“Mum sent me a letter today,” he said, finally. “She said that I shouldn’t bother coming back and that they’ve already burned me off the family tapestry. As if I care about that. I chose to leave. They didn’t disown me, I ran away. There’s a difference. I never wanted to be on their stupid tapestry in the first place.” Remus nodded.

“Was that what the dream was about?” Remus asked. “Being burnt off the tapestry?” Sirius frowned.

“Not exactly. It was like she actually burnt me. Not the tapestry. I don’t know why it bothers me so much. It’s not like I want to go back. I really don’t. I hated it there. And I love being at the Potters’. It’s stupid that I feel like this.”

“It’s not stupid,” Remus said. “It’s not stupid at all, Sirius. It’s natural. They treated you horribly. Nobody should treat their kids like that. Hell, nobody should treat another human being like that. You have every right to hate them and not care about them but also be hurt by what they did to you.”

“It just doesn’t make sense though.”

“So what? Nothing makes sense. Literally all of my feelings contradict each other. It doesn’t make your feelings any less real or any less valid.” They sat in silence for a little while after that. Sirius let Remus’ words hang in the air, willing himself to believe they were true.

Remus yawned, his chest rising and falling.

“You don’t have to be here, you know,” Sirius said, pulling away from Remus and looking at his hands. “You can go back to bed. I’m sorry I woke you up. I’ll cast a silencing charm around my bed next time so I don’t bother you guys.”

“Sirius, you have nothing to be sorry about,” Remus said. “You do this for me all the time, every full moon. And don’t cast a silencing charm. You shouldn’t have to deal with this alone. This is what I’m here for. You’re my best friend, Sirius.” Sirius said nothing. He just kept staring at his hands.

“Sirius,” Remus said softly. “Look at me.” Sirius did. And when their eyes met, Sirius allowed himself to consider what he had always seen as an impossibility. That maybe Remus could love him. “I will always be here for you, okay? Whatever you need, whenever you need it. I don’t care if it’s in the dead of night or the middle of the day. I’ll be here. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sirius nodded, offering Remus a small smile. Remus smiled back and hugged him tightly. Suddenly, Sirius realised that this was all he’d ever wanted. Remus. Remus was all that he wanted and all that he needed. He’s in love with Remus Lupin. And at that moment Sirius really, genuinely believed that he had a chance. But if Remus had ever felt anything for Sirius, it was surely gone now.

But I watch your eyes as she walks by, what a sight for sore eyes, brighter than a blue sky. she’s got you mesmerised, while I die.

Now Sirius’ eyes skate over Remus in a stunning, black tux, wishing, wishing. Wishing for what? Remus is getting married today. And not to Sirius. And of course, Sirius is Remus’ best man because they’d been best friends forever. But that was all. Best friends. Nothing more. And Sirius wants so much more.

The music starts to play and the crowd rises to its feet as Tonks walks down the aisle. She’s beautiful, radiant, her white dress glimmering in the daylight, her pink hair standing out, bubbly and bright as ever but nothing is brighter than her smile.

Sirius glances over at Remus. He looks so happy. Happier than Sirius had seen him in years. His smile grew twice as wide when Tonks walked into the room. A smile that reaches his eyes. The kind of smile that he used to give Sirius when they were still at Hogwarts before everything went to hell. But this smile isn’t for Sirius. It’s for Tonks. And Sirius feels himself die inside as he hands Remus the ring to place on Tonks' finger.

Why would you ever kiss me? I’m not even half as pretty, you gave her your sweater, it’s just polyester, but you like her better. Wish I were Heather. Watch as she stands with her holding your hand, put an arm ‘round her shoulder, now I’m getting colder.

It’s been several weeks since the wedding. Remus and Tonks are back from their honeymoon and Remus’ gorgeous tan is not making anything easier for Sirius. Sirius swirls around the wine in his glass and tries not to look at Remus too much.

Remus and Tonks had invited a few friends over tonight, including Sirius. He hadn’t wanted to come but Remus had asked and Sirius just couldn’t refuse.

“Come on, Pads, please,” Remus had said. “It’ll be boring without you.”

“Who else is going?” Sirius asked.

“Some of Dora’s auror friends that I don’t know. Please come. You know I’m hopelessly awkward around people I don’t know. I need my emotional support dog. Please?” Remus said. Sirius rolled his eyes and turned into a dog. Remus laughed and crouched down, scratching behind Sirius’ ears as Sirius barked happily at him. “So will you come?” Sirius transformed back so he was sitting on the floor in front of Remus. He looked Remus in the eyes, those fiery-bright amber eyes flecked with brown that he knew so well, and Sirius knew that he couldn’t refuse.

“Fine,” he said.

They’re all around the table in Remus and Tonks’ house now, laughing, drinking. All except Sirius, who was sneaking envious glances over at Remus and Tonks, unable to pay attention to the conversation because, well… Remus.

Remus has an arm slung around Tonks. She’s wearing Remus’ sweater. Sirius watches them and wonders how he ever thought that he could hope for anything to happen with Remus. Tonks is far prettier than he is. At least, Remus certainly thinks so. And it was her that Remus gave his sweater to now. It's just a sweater, he reminds himself, trying to look away from the soft lines of Remus’ face, the curves of his lips, just a piece of clothing. But even without the sweater, it doesn’t change the fact that Remus is in love with Tonks. He likes her more than he likes Sirius.

Sirius sees the way that Remus looks at Tonks. He sees how happy Remus looks. And Sirius wants Remus to be happy. He really, really does. Remus deserves it. He deserves the whole fucking world. But despite this, Sirius still finds himself wishing that he was sitting there, the weight of Remus’ arm on his shoulders rather than Tonks’. It would be his lips that Remus turned to kiss, his waist that Remus tugged closer, his fingers that Remus held in his hand. He wishes. Sirius shivers slightly when Remus calls his name, snapping him back into reality. He turns and smiles at Remus, talking to Remus as though he hadn’t just been imagining the feeling of his lips on Sirius’ skin.

But how could I hate her? She’s such an angel, but then again, kinda wish she were dead.

Sirius might have found it easier to cope with his feelings for Remus if there had been someone to blame, preferably Tonks. But how could he hate Tonks? Even Sirius had to admit that she was incredible. She was pretty, smart, loyal, fierce and a badass. And she was kind too. She invited Sirius over to her and Remus’ house loads of times because she knew (Remus must have told her) that Sirius hated being alone. She was fun, she made good jokes. She seemed like a good friend. A good wife. But there was a part of Sirius, a part that he hated but couldn’t get rid of, that fantasized about her not existing. About Tonks being completely out of the picture. He couldn't help but wonder if things would have turned out differently for him and Remus if Tonks hadn’t been here? Sirius was glad he didn’t know the answer to that question. It might drive him insane not knowing what could’ve been between him and Remus had he only had the courage to ask sooner, but it would be worse, far worse if he knew that something could’ve happened if Tonks wasn’t an option.

[fedeipox]

The Way of Time (Rdr2 fanfic) - Chapter 1 (2/4)

Hey there! Yesterday was Thanksgiving! 

For a simple Italian girl this holiday seems so strange and exotic to me and I have never seen a whole turkey in all my life (not IRL anyway). I hope it was a good day for all the American people around here!

Part 1 here: https://fedeipox.tumblr.com/post/635776269297008640/the-way-of-time-rdr2-fanfic-chapter-1-14

Words: 2,5k

Chapter 1 (2/4) - What year is it?

A warmer place, that was all she could think about and if the price to pay to reach it was telling them her name, she was more than willing to pay it.

“I’m Dutch Van der Linde, Miss Emily, and these are my men” said the picnic-man pointing at the people walking around them. “I must warn you, we are outlaws.”

She knew it! She thought looking at him with her eyes wide open.

“Oh, don’t worry, we won’t touch a hair on your head. You see, we’re criminals, but we’re not bad men. Not when we can avoid it.”

Weren’t they the same men who just robbed a train? How could they be criminals without being bad? It was a contradiction. She fixed her eyes on the ground as they kept walking, thinking about the nonsense that man was saying.

“You’ll ride with Lenny.”  

Just when she lifted her gaze she understood what he was talking about. Right in front of her there were around three thousand pounds of well kept horse meat, including saddles, bits and stirrups. 

They rode horses? In 2020? They were really old style criminals those ones, but she… she had never rode a horse. She didn’t know where to start. She didn’t even like horses. 

It wasn’t something personal, but since her father told her horses were dangerous animals she had always been afraid of them. They were dangerous under all aspects, he had told her: they had big teeth and powerful jaws that could cut your fingers with just one bite; they had four strong legs which they used to kick you if you went too close to them; they were big, but they were unaware of their force and got scared pretty easily and could throw you away from their backs any moment.

No. In no way they could have convinced her to get on one of those things.

“Don’t you have a car?” she asked.

Dutch looked back at her with a perplexed expression. 

“You know something less… alive?” she added nodding towards the animals.

“Don’t worry, Lenny is an excellent rider” said Dutch.

“It’s not him I’m worried about” she murmured taking a few steps in the direction of the boy of color. 

He was next to one of the horses, petting its neck and whispering soothing words to it.

“Her name’s Maggie” he informed her when she reached him.

Her eyes moved upon the strong muscular neck of that creature, then down its leg until she reached the hoof that it was nervously stomping on the ground, and then up again until she met its crazy bloody eyes that the creature pointed on her. That thing was warning her, it was telling her “if you only try to touch me, I’ll show you how hell it’s done”. 

No, she would have found another way, a bike, a moped, on foot, she didn’t care. 

Lenny raised a leg, put the foot on the stirrup and hoisted himself, sitting perfectly on the top of that dangerous killing machine. 

“Now your turn, Miss. I’ll help you” he said reaching out a hand signing her to take it.

Emily, without moving her eyes from the boy’s face, shook her head with conviction. 

“I’ll help you, lady” said a voice from behind her back and a moment after she felt herself being lifted from the ground by two robust hands and pushed towards the horse. 

Even though the last thing she wanted was to mount on a horse, as an instinct she grabbed Lenny’s arm and sat astride on its back. They gave her no time to get used to the new sensation she was proving. Someone, who she thought to be Dutch the boss, yelled “let’s ride” and she had to clutch around Lenny’s waist not to fall back. 

Emily tightened the blanket around her shoulders with one hand while with the other she didn’t dare let Lenny go. She had to admit, it wasn’t such a bad experience: apart from the constant up and down it was very similar to riding a motorbike; she just had to clench her legs around the beast and her arms around the boy’s waist. 

As they kept going, she felt the temperature of the evening air drop and that was the sign that they were taking her to a higher ground, up and up in the mountains. Just now she was understanding why nobody had heard neither the gunfire nor the explosion: they were in the mountains and, even though she wasn’t very good with geography, she could still tell that the mountains covered with snow in May had to be somewhere in the North. Only, she had no idea how much North, nor how she got there.

She lost track of time, she couldn’t tell anymore how long she had been on the back of that horse, moving her eyes from the sky to the earth, both of the same bluish white that made the landscape look all the same. The only thing that changed during the journey, and that could give her any idea of what part of the day it was, was the light: all around her darkness was falling and soon she wouldn’t be able to see the tip of her nose.

Besides, the boredom was forcing her to focus on something else, like her frostbitten fingertips, her feet inside her soaked snickers, the smell of the ass of that horse. Yes, she hadn’t noticed that before, but that horse really stank. 

Something else that she hadn’t noticed was that they weren’t following any road, or if there was a road, it was completely overwhelmed by the snow. That was strange, too. What state was capable to neglect the safety of its citizens in such a way to leave the roads in that condition?

“We’re almost there, Miss. We're camped a little more North, in an old mining town” said Dutch.

Old mining town. Was he talking about one of those towns of the past which afterward developed into industrial or trade cities? Why couldn’t he just say ‘we have a hotel room in the city’? Why they had to play all that trivia game about “old mining towns” and “camps”? Was it some kind of gang slang?

But when they slowed the horses down, that meant they had reached the “camp”, what she saw made her understand they weren’t making a wordplay: what she was looking at was a true old mining town, and as they got to the entrance, on a wooden sign almost completely hidden by the darkness, it was engraved: “Colter”.

“You can get down, Miss” said Lenny turning to look at her as they all stopped the horses.

Emily looked first at the boy’s face and then at the ground. It was covered with snow and jumping down she would have dipped down till her knees. 

Next to her there was another one of those strange criminals: he had an old style bowler hat, a ridiculous parted thin black mustache and he had just dismounted his horse.

“Can you help me?” she asked reaching out a hand in his direction.

He looked at her like she was asking him to bring her to the moon, but after a moment of obvious confusion he said “sure” and walked closer, taking her from her waist and helping her to get down gently.

“Miss Grimshaw, we found this girl on the train, would you warm her up a little and find her a place to sleep?” she heard Dutch’s voice saying.

...

“Ah, another one?” asked Miss Grimshaw looking at the blonde skinny figure who just dismounted the horse.

This was the second woman Dutch brought in in those last few days, without counting the O’Driscoll, who they weren’t going to feed anyway, but he still was an addition to the group.

“She says she’s been kidnapped” answered Dutch.

With a sigh and a gesture of her head she told him she would have provided for her, just like she had done for Mrs. Adler.

“Come with me, Miss. Let’s get you warm” she addressed the girl.

Rising her lantern a little, so to spread the light even  farther, she observed the girl as she walked in her direction, stumbling in the high snow and tightening the blanket on her chest, under which she could still make out those unusual clothes. Together they reached the main shack, where some minutes before she had left Marston’s bedside to rush out when Mary-Beth informed her of their arrival. 

“Here” she said pushing the rickety door that let them both inside the crowded room.

“There’s the fire, so you can get warm” she said pointing at it and closing the door again to avoid that little heat inside the room to go away.

“Miss Jackson will bring you some dry clothes” she added putting out the fire of the lantern.

“No” she heard the newbie saying and she turned around to look at her.

Tilly froze in her place, with her legs still half bended in the act of standing up, hoping that the girl’s objection would have changed Miss Grimshaw’s mind, so that she didn’t have to walk out of the room and face the snow, the cold and the darkness.

Everybody now was studying that odd figure standing in the center of the room and looking around her like she was in some kind of bad dream: she was terrified, but they couldn’t understand why. 

They had saved her, they were giving her a warm place to stay for the night and probably some food too, so why was she afraid? She should have been grateful, thought Karen frowning at her.

“Sorry, but… what year is it?”

...

Emily kept moving her eyes around her, focusing on the long wide skirts of the women, the hats of the men and the overall look of the people around her. Her nose caught all the shades of the moldy planks of the walls, the burning wood in the fireplace and the smell of badly washed bodies. 

The clothes, the locomotive, the explosives, the horses, the old mining town, the camp. Why didn’t she think to ask it before? It seemed impossible, but at the same time it was the only possible explanation. She just had to put two and two together.

At her question they all exchanged some puzzled looks. 

“It’s the year of our Lord 1899, what a question!” answered a male voice behind her making her turn around.

There were four men in the room: one, who seemed to have had some kind of accident, was asleep on a cot; one, with a pair of tiny glasses and a rat face, had his nose buried in a book; one with a reddish mustache, had his dark eyes lost in the air; and the last one, an old man with a white beard which made him look like a Santa Clause wannabe, was the only one looking at her, so Emily supposed that voice belonged to him.

“1899” she whispered analyzing the man’s face to understand if he was making fun of her. He seemed dead serious and so did everybody else in the room. 

That explained why she was there: she had made a jump in time and, unfortunately for her, she must have arrived inside that train, which brought her away from Saint Denis and right in the hands of those criminals. 

1899. It was one hundred and twenty one years before. What a strange number, 121. She always thought time leaps happened with round numbers: 100, 200, 300. Actually, she thought time leaps only happened in the movies, sci-fi movies, like “Back to the Future”. 

Now what? She should have told them? They would have probably thought she was nuts. But how could she explain her situation? How could they help her? 

She froze: no-one could help her, because in 1899 no-one had the slight idea of how to make a jump in time. What was she thinking about! She hadn’t any idea of how to make a jump in time, either! Because it was impossible! 

She was starting to panic. She was stuck in 1899, in the middle of nowhere, with a bunch of dangerous outlaws and she probably would have never go back to her home, her family and her friends. So, what was she going to do?

Her heavy breath and her wide open eyes caught the attention of the people in the room.

“Are you okay, honey? You want to sit down?” asked a woman with red air and an Irish accent taking a step in her direction and putting a hand on her shoulder.

Emily moved quickly away from her when she felt her touch. 

“Sit by the fire, we’ll get you something to eat” she added.

Eat… 

She fixed her eyes on her freckled face.

“Fuck the fire, fuck the food and fuck you!” yelled Emily slapping her hand away.

Now the woman’s look changed, she didn’t take those words too good, but she couldn’t care less. Emily started pacing the little space inside the room which wasn’t occupied by a table a chair or a person. She was definitely panicking and she knew she wasn’t good at controlling herself. 

She had lost everything, everything! Her job, her family, her friends, her life, her future, everything! It was all gone! What was she supposed to do? Her limbs started to feel heavy and her eyes started to fill with tears. 

“Don’t worry, you are safe in here, no-one is going to hurt you” said someone, but she didn’t focus on the person who pronounced the words. 

They couldn’t understand, no-one could understand what she was feeling in that moment. Everything was fucked up, gone to hell, destroyed, vanished from the world, forever. No. No, that couldn’t be real. It was a joke, a bad joke someone was making to piss her off, and it was working. 

“You!” she snapped pointing her finger to the face of one of the women in the room.

“What year is it! And don’t you try telling me a lie, I want the truth” she said with a high pitched tone, the kind of voice she had when she was nervous, stressed, scared or any other moment of non-calmness.

“We already told you, it’s 1899, so calm the hell down and don’t point that finger to me” answered the girl.

Emily groaned with frustration and turned to look at the door. She had to get out of there, reach Saint Denis, go back home, look for her parents, look for someone who wasn’t part of that act.

She took the blanket from her shoulders and threw it on the ground, looking at the people around her, those people who where doing her wrong for no apparent reason. Then, she took two big steps and reached out a hand to take the doorknob, but in that same moment, the door busted open. 

[rosemary-morgan]

John Marston X F.Reader: The sky in her eyes - Part 1

Hello lovely ones (✿◕‿◕✿)

This is a new story about John Marston. @fangirl-ramblings​ and @gangofgunslingers​ requested this story a long time ago - shame on me! I've kept you waiting so long. I am so sorry! 😫 

So, here it comes and I hope, you will like the first part 💐😊

Main Theme for this story (link)

PART 2 / PART 3

(¯`v´¯)                                                      (¯`v´¯) `*.¸.*´                                                        `*.¸.*´ ¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨) (`’·.¸(`’·.¸  ¸.·’´) ¸.·’´)  (¨*•.¸ (¨*•.¸`•.¸ (¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•               •`¯¨• ¸¸ `•. `•.¸) `•.¸) `*.¸.*´                                                       `*.¸.*´

The sky in her eyes - Part 1

Lemoyne - 1899

You looked out of the window, lost in thought, watching the landscape next to you slowly falling behind. Your grief for the loss of your parents was very great, not even knowing if you would ever get over it. You loved them both more than anything else, experienced ups and downs with them. They gave you the best years. But now you would never see them again. It's been three days since they have died in a terrible accident on your own ranch. A great fire had destroyed everything. It had happened in the middle of the night, completely unexpected. You were lucky to have survived. But you had nothing left. No money, no clothes, no home... nothing. That was the reason for your move to Saint-Denis. Your aunt and uncle lived there and decided to take you into their family. You were very grateful to them, yet they could never fill the emptiness that was created within you. You didn't know much about these two, which made you a little nervous. Would they treat you well? Would you get along well with them? All of these questions flowed through your head, plus the question: Why? Why had fate struck? Why were your parents taken away from you? Your home, your animals? Why on earth?! You would never understand that, and the more you thought about it, the deeper the pain, but also the anger within you. You were an orphan at the age of 17, and it was damn hard for a young girl to accept this.

As you looked out of the window with these endless thoughts, your fingers touched the necklace you wore around your neck. The jewelry had a pendant: It was your mother's wedding ring. Your parents' wedding date was engraved there. It was the only thing left of your parents. Silent tears ran down your rosy cheeks when you thought about how much you missed them both, and that you would rather be with them, so this infinite pain would no longer exist inside of you. I'd rather be with you now. What should I do without you? I'm lost without you... Nobody could replace the love of a father and a mother. Especially not strangers who called themselves families. Your aunt and uncle had never shown interest in you. Why now? The thought made you shake your head. But what choice did you have? Saint-Denis was the only way for you not to starve. You didn't want to end up as a prostitute in a saloon and give yourself to stranger men for a few bucks.

Suddenly, the train slowed down. You were nearby Scarlett Meadows, but the train stopped in the middle of the tracks. No station in sight. Like all the other passengers on this train, you were very confused. It was already getting dark, so it was difficult to see what was going on outside. You heard voices, then roars and suddenly several shots. The passengers screamed in alarm, just like you did. What the hell was going on?! What was happening out there? You were so scared, looking into the other faces of people who were also afraid. Then, you heard voices again - loud, rude and threatening. When you heard the men threaten people to give them their money and jewelry, you realized that this was a robbery, and you were right in the middle of it. "Oh my god!" What else did you have to endure? How could you be so cursed?! This was a nightmare. You had nothing to hand over to these men. Gosh, what if they would kill you because of that? Countless thoughts went through your head, your fear grew.

You heard the steps of these men moved in a hurry until they finally arrived at the section where you were sitting. God, your heart was beating madly. Your body started to shake with fear, your fingers clenched into your long skirt, hoping you would survive this robbery. Your eyes filled with tears, and you had to advise yourself to stay calm. "Everybody stay calm, and nobody´ll get shot!" They were tall, one of them even very strong. Broad shoulders, deep voice. You swallowed nervously, looking at everything with fearful eyes. One of the passengers made the mistake of rising from his seat to protest - he was immediately hit in the face, causing him to drop back into his seat unconscious. "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Startled, you put your hands on your mouth, tried to stay calm. These men were damned serious. One of them lifted an old, dirty bag towards the passengers. He had shoulder-length black hair, his clothes were torn in some places, especially his pants. And you had never heard a raspy voice like his. "Let's go! Everything you got! Money! Valuables!" So while he was robbing people, the other man, made sure that nobody was out of line. With his bright eyes, he looked at everyone in this room - including you, which made you shudder. They both wore a cloth on their faces to hide their identity. The sack filled, the passengers were stripped of everything they had, and as these thieves approached, you became increasingly nervous. You were aware that these men were not afraid of violence, which you had already seen with your own eyes. "Give me everything you have! Come on, lady!" The stranger asked you with his raspy voice to give him your valuables. You swallowed, tried not to look him in the eye so as not to provoke him. You rummage in your handbag for the last few dollars you had left and thrown them into the old bag. "I have nothing more, Sir!" But the stranger had already noticed the gold ring on your neck, which of course he wanted. "Your necklace! Give it to me!" With your eyes wide open, you now stared straight at the thief's face, whereby you could only see his eyes. You instinctively reach for the ring, hold it tight. "No!" You would never part with this piece of jewelry! It was the only thing you had left of your mother. You wouldn't have the heart to leave it up to these men. "I said, give it to me! NOW!" He screamed at you so that you startled, but you only shook your head, biting your lower lip hard. You looked the young man deeply in the eyes, and suddenly it became very quiet between the two of you. Your eyes shimmered through your tears, but the young man didn't seem to care. "Arthur! Come here!" The other man approached you, his bright eyes resting on you before looking at his friend. "Any problems here?" "This lady seems to think we're playing games!" Okay, now you were really scared. You had seen what happened to the passengers who refused to give their valuables to them. These men will surely not be nice to a young girl. "I'm going to count to three... one... two..." You just couldn't let go of your ring, as if something bound you. You heard the black-haired man next to you sigh heavily when he saw that you still didn't obey. "Come on girl! I'm losing my goddamn patience!", growled the man who called himself Arthur. "You want my friend here to lose his patience?!" "Just take it from her, Marston! We don't have time for such games!" You couldn't look that fast, so the stranger grabbed your necklace and tore it from your neck. Startled, you let out a little scream, but the men were already gone, with the last things you had...

Eight years later... 1907, Saint-Denis

"Darling, do you want more of the potatoes?" You and your ´family´ are having dinner, and the atmosphere was very depressing. As usual. Since you moved into this house eight years ago, you have been pretty limited in your freedoms. Here was the top rule for you, to obey, and to behave like a lady. What was that supposed to mean acting like a lady? Like always sitting still, and never expressing his opinions? In Saint-Denis, the opinion of a woman didn't count. "Y/N, you will meet with Mister Main tomorrow. He will wait for you in the Imperialis restaurant." When you heard this name, you choked on the piece of meat you are chewing on. Charles Main? That boring guy?! No! Never! He wasn't your type at all, especially since he was over fifteen years older than you and had almost no hair on his head. Oh no! You wouldn’t spend another afternoon with this man. Your uncle wanted you to get married as soon as possible. He didn't care which man it would finally be. He was only interested in finally being able to throw you out of his home. You sighed annoyed, tried to stay calm, and swallowed the piece of meat before answering your uncle. "No." You felt your aunt's shocked expression because you dared to contradict your uncle. But you didn't care whether your uncle gave you evil looks, or if he would yell at you like he always did. You'd rather grab your glass of water and take a sip. "What do you mean with no?!" "Like I said: No!" This time you looked at your uncle, placing your glass back on the table. "I don't like him! And his political opinions are hideous!" Charles Main was a man with very outdated views. He didn't believe in women's rights or equality for all people. And you would never get along with that. "You don't know what you're talking about, my child!" "I'm not your child!" Your aunt tried to avoid an argument between you and her husband to stop him from becoming violent again. But you didn't care! He will never break your will! Your parents taught you to stand up for what you believed in. "Sit down!", your uncle shouted when you rose from your chair. "I lost my appetite!" And without saying another word, you stormed out of the dining room. Oh, how much you cursed the day you moved in here! For years, your uncle and aunt have tried to change you, manipulate you! Enough! You wouldn´t stay here any longer! This life was like living in a cage! When you arrived in your room, you grabbed one of your favorite books and went to bed. You just wanted to forget your grief and anger by getting lost in one of these creative novels. But the grief that suddenly gripped you was unbearable, and you burst into tears. You still missed your parents so terribly after all these years. This deep wound in your soul was far from cured...

At the same time in Beecher’s Hope...

The beautiful eyes of the young man looked at the golden piece of jewelry in his hand. He would never forget that girl's eyes, which had looked at him with fear...

John sighed. That was eight years ago, but since then, John hadn't been involved in any more robberies. Never again in his life did he want to see this fear in the eyes of a young woman. John had wondered over the years what had happened to you - to the saddest-eyed girl he'd ever met. Back then, you had begged him, told him you had nothing to give him. But John didn't care, and he had just ripped the chain off your neck. He sighed again as he closed his eyes. What an asshole he was. But back then, he and the gang had to survive somehow. John wanted to give your back the chain with the ring pendant, but who knew where you lived now? It was naive to think he could find you. You could be anywhere, and many years have passed. John hoped he hadn't taken more from you than just the ring.

His life had changed a lot in the past few years. He tried to live a normal life as best he could. Living an honest life and making money legally. In the beginning, the times were very difficult for him. It had been hard to find a job, and it reminded him of the time when he was on his own. Before his time as a member of the Van der Linde gang. He had traveled a lot, had often changed his identity and, ultimately, he moved back to West Elisabeth. After all these years, John had understood that he belongs to this place. Of course, West Elizabeth, was where the gang started to break apart. But it was Micah Bell who had distributed his poison, and his venom had rotted everything they had fought for years. He misses his friends. Arthur, Charles, Sadie Adler... even Uncle. But also Tilly and Mary Beth. What had happened to Karen? Before the gang broke apart, she had consumed a lot of alcohol, and at some point, she just disappeared.

John had to sigh hard as he thought back in time. The last days of the gang had been very difficult. And John still had nightmares. After all these years. But this place, Beachers Hope, gave him peace. Working as a farmer made him feel like he was doing something good. He sells goods, such as milk and eggs. But it became difficult for John to run this farm alone. He could use some help at his ranch.

(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´

It was early in the morning when you dared to leave this house. You wanted to be free, you didn't want your life to be determined, to live in a house, where everything was prescribed for you. You were a young woman of 25 years, with wishes and own opinions! Your parents would never have wanted your uncle to try to manipulate you in this way. And if your father would know that this man also hit you, he would probably have shot him with a gun. You were always the little girl for your father. You giggled softly at that thought. You remembered how your father said that he would always protect you. You packed your last things in your suitcase, and you left the room as silently as possible. It was quiet throughout the house. The only thing you could hear was the quiet ticking of the clocks. You moved carefully through the rooms, taking care not to cause any noise. But even if you were caught, you wouldn't be deterred from leaving this house. Quietly, you opened the front door of the house, and when you took the first step outside, you suddenly felt so free. With a smile on your lips, you descend the stairs, and the sun greets you with its warm rays. It was time to start a new life, and you would build your own little ranch one day. It would be a long way to get there, but it was a start. You had a few items of value with you that you would sell to somehow survive for at least the next week. Until then you would find a job - at least you hoped so. "A ticket to Valentine, please!" Valentine was a small town, but it had a few things to offer. A general store, a doctor, a hotel. That wouldn´t be a bad start. Maybe you could clean the doctor's office? But you wouldn't earn a lot of money with this work alone. A second job wouldn´t be the stupidest idea. After you paid and took the train ticket, you asked the friendly gentleman when the next train would come. "Uhm... In... ten minutes, Miss!" "Thank you very much!" That happened faster than expected, which, of course, made you very happy. You had no idea what to expect or how your life would change in the coming days and weeks.

(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´

"Alright, Mister Milton! Here you have $ 15. Thank you, son!" John looked at the older man in confusion as he saw the extra money. "That's more than I asked for, Mister." The older man patted John on the shoulder, as he handed the money to him with a smile. "I´m an old man, my son. I´m very glad that you bring me these fresh goods every week. At my age, I can't make the long trip to your ranch." Of course, John was happy about the extra money the friendly old man had given him, after all, he could use it. With the money John earned, he had to repay the loan for the plot of land on Beecher’s Hope. "Thank you, Sir. Thank you very much!" The long road to Strawberry was definitely worth it. But the day had just started and John still had a lot of work to do...

(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´

"I'm sorry, Miss. I wish I could offer you a job." Finding a job in Valentine, was more difficult than expected. Unfortunately, you were out of luck at the doctor's office. Doctor Baker had already hired someone to keep his place clean. "Thank you for your time. I'll try my luck elsewhere." You said goodbye to the gentleman with the most friendly smile you have ever seen. You left the office discouraged, wondering where to ask next. Maybe in the general store? There would surely be work for you! You rushed to the shop, hoping to find a job here. When you entered the store, you looked around. It was small but had a lot of things to offer. "Good day, Miss! What can I do for you?" "Good day, Sir. Well, actually, I came here to ask you for a job." The man behind the counter just looked at you, and you wondered why this guy was staring at you like this. Had he never met a young woman before who asked for work? "Uhm...? Mister? Are you okay?" At last, he seemed to wake up from his rigidity. It was very strange behavior, and something told you that you should better leave the shop, and look for another job. "Of course, Miss! Well, I don't have much to do in this store, but I´m sure I will find some work for you!" The man left his place behind the counter, to pull some things out of a corner. You watched the man questioningly as he pulled out a box and rummaged in it. You waited, maybe working here wouldn't be a bad idea? However, your opinion would change quickly. Because, when the shopkeeper pulled some corsets and stockings out of the box and approached you with them, it all became very bizarre. "You would be the perfect model for this clothing!" He held them out to you, looking at the lingerie with big eyes, and you could swear that he was drooling. This pervert was just imagining how you would look in these corsets and stockings. "Just perfect!" "Oh! You mean I should force myself into this underwear for your enjoyment?! Disgusting!" You wanted to punch this guy right in his face for his repugnant behavior, but you decide to leave this shop as soon as possible. What was left for you now? What came to your mind next was the Saloon. Your gaze wandered to the building, from which loud laughter and roars could be heard. A heavy sigh left your lips. "Oooff..." You knew that it wouldn´t be an easy job. How could you tame this horde of men? Yet, you had no choice but to work as a waitress. You gathered all your courage and went to the saloon. When you entered this, you could see some of the men fighting for fun. Glasses flew to the floor, beer and whiskey spilled in every corner. "Oh god..." But what did you expect? That was the Wild West! You would only do your job, and try to get used to this atmosphere. You were aware that many of the men would surely touch and bother you, but you shouldn´t think about that, otherwise, you will lose your courage. No one had said it would be easy. "Excuse me, Sir!" You approached the bartender who was just about to dry the glasses that he had just washed. "Hey! Another bottle of whiskey!! NOW!" A man called very loudly next to you, so you had to cover your ear. You watched the bartender grabbing the bottle of alcohol in a few seconds, open it, and hand it over to the guest. Then he turned to you. "Yes, Miss? What can I offer you?" "Nothing. I wanted to ask you if you have work for me?" "Work? What kind of work?", asked the man as he continued to polish the glass. "As a waitress, Sir!" The man nodded, putting the glass down. Then he looked at you with a sullen look, raising his eyebrow. "Are you sure you want that?" You nodded, looking the man straight in the eyes. "I am sure!" The Barkeeper sighed softly, as he took his eyes off you, and grabbed another glass. "Missy, this isn´t a good place for you!" "Excuse me?!" You looked blankly at the man. Why did he say that? He didn't know you at all! And you wouldn't give up now. "Do you have any idea, what people will do to you? They'll eat you alive if you're not fast enough!" "Give me a chance to prove to you, that I can do it!" And you wouldn't leave this saloon until you get a job.

The man seemed to see how important this was to you, and finally, he decided to give you a chance to prove yourself. He grabbed two bottles of whiskey and placed them on the bar. "Table two! Hurry up and bring these whiskeys to the two men!" You smiled, reached for the bottles and thanked the man. You would prove to him that you weren't just a tender flower.

[im-a-space-gay]

The Deleted Name Reveal

Another Gay Gamers fic about me making the British boi suffer :D!! I am tired, and really need sleep and validation, but guess what?? I’m not gonna get either!! Oh well.

Trigger Warnings include: Cursing, mentions of pervs, anger, sadness, lack of mental stability, break downs, crying, name reveals that weren’t recorded, Virge been a lil troll, let me know if I need to add more!

Before Virgil went to Florida

~~~~~~~

One more thing. If one more sh*tty thing happened to Virgil in the remaining time of today, he will scream. So many things went wrong today, if you asked him.

It started out when he realized he was out of food, meaning he had to leave his dark and amazing apartment and into the sunlight where people were to buy more. But of course, he missed the bus, had to wait an hour for the next one, had some perv sit next to him that kept leaning into his personal bubble and giving him the bedroom eyes, and then the store was out of Cheddar Broccoli Ricearoni in a cup, making his day so much worse because damn that was the good stuff.

And then when he missed the bus back, he decided walking would be faster, and halfway there, it started raining. He understood he lived in England, but come on!

So now, here he was, soaked all the way through as he entered his apartment, hoping to god his food was dry because most of that stuff didn't last in water, like chips. He put away his snackage first, deciding his health didn't matter anymore as he put the food in the cabinets, ignoring his shivering.

And soon enough he was done putting away groceries and getting into dry clothes and currently was brewing up tea. He was making some part of today enjoyable, mark his words. However, he didn't count on one thing.

His online friends.

They started texting him, telling him to set up and load Minecraft, and that's when it hit him. Recording day. The cherry on top of his already perfect day, huh?

He thought about how he wouldn't make it through the recording without either snapping at everyone or staying completely silent as he turned on his computer, deciding he was gonna need a lot of sugar in his tea for this crap. Hopefully, his mood would make the video more interesting, as it wasn't very often he was like this with no explanation.

Virgil first loaded Minecraft, deciding he could use that time to try to relax and cool down before he had to hear those voices that he was not ready to hear.

And when the time came, he dreadfully opened Discord while sipping his sweet tea. He clicked on the call and oh boy, they were already yelling.

"Hi Anxie!" Patton called over the other two's arguement, making them shut up quickly and say their hellos as well. Virgil just grunted, reading back in the chat to figure out what they were doing and opening one of their modded worlds.

"Did you just wake up?" Logan asked, his stern lecturing voice already coming out which really peeved Virgil off.

"No. I've been awake all day," he growled, trying to ignore his friend's characters as he went down into the mine.

"Okay, no need to be violent!" Roman said, and Virgil just hissed and continued on. As his friends officially started the video, Virgil went to level 23 and made a little hole, barricading himself in and hoping to God nobody would find him. If he was lucky, they wouldn’t mind him doing essentially nothing this video and would be fine with just his barely there commentary.

“Say hello Anx!” Patton said, and wow, did he really miss the other’s introductions? Dang.

“Greetings,” he said, trying not to let his anger out on Patton. He was too good for that. Patton moved on, and he assumed that would be it for five minutes, but of course, Roman was unpredictable.

“That’s it? That’s all?” Roman asked, apparently not pleased with his one word.

“Greetings fellow pieces of garbage, how are you. Better?” Irritation was creeping into his voice as he went on, and if the others didn’t know something was wrong before, they definitely did now.

“Geez, calm down,” Roman said, sounding concerned. Virgil hissed at him again, holding back tears from his frustration as he sipped his tea.

“Are you alright Anx?” Logan asked this time, sounding equally concerned, which did not help his mood at all.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. He became more irritated when there was no more tea in his cup, getting up and going into his kitchen to pour another cup before deciding to grab the entire kettle and drinking out of that as he tried to stay calm listening to his friends.

“So, what do you think of that Anx?” Patton asked halfway into the video, and Virgil just hissed. He didn’t hear what Patton was asking about, and he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay in this f*cking hole, chug his piping hot tea, and not talk. He shall achieve this, even if he had to commit arson to do it.

“Dude, what is your problem?” Virgil hissed again. When he noticed Logan’s gamer tag coming closer, he crouched. Of course, this didn’t matter as Logan broke into his hole, but it seemed like he found it by accident.

“Wha- Anx what are you doing down here?” He asked in confusion.

“Trying not to have a breakdown and burning my tongue on Chamomile,” Virgil said truthfully, his angry tone melting into an unstable one. He felt tears rolling down his cheeks and he chugged more tea so he wouldn’t make any noises.

“Are you okay?” Roman asked in a joking tone, probably thinking he was kidding. Virgil stopped drinking his tea, opened his mouth to answer the usual “I’m fine”, but a small sob came out instead. “Wait, sh*t, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Anx,” Patton said in a concerned and begging voice.

“I’m fine!” Virgil insisted, holding back any noises that might prove otherwise.

“Pause the recording,” Logan said, and it sounded like everyone went through with it like Virgil did. “Anx...”

“I’m okay!” Virgil said, but the small sobs wracking through the two words contradicted his statement. He couldn’t help but curl into a ball in his giant computer chair, wiping his eyes as if they could see him.

“Who are you trying to convince?” Logan asked softly, and Virgil started crying louder, rubbing his eyes harder too.

“I- I don’t know...”

“God damn it Anx,” Roman mumbled, and Virgil started shrinking into himself before Roman continued. “Why do you have to be all the way in England?”

“Because tea,” Virgil sniffled, and smiled brokenly when he heard the surprised laughter from all three.

It took a while, but they managed to calm him down, and never once asked what he was upset about, which he was thankful for because all the things that made him mad sounded stupid out loud. They just asked if he could continue the video, and after reassurances that he could and wanted to, they let it go. But...

“Uh, before we start recording again, can I um... tell you guys something?”

“Of course Anxie!” Patton said cheerfully, and oh boy that made him more nervous. “What is it Kiddo?”

“Uh- um, so uh...” Virgil took a deep breath. It’s like a bandaid, you just gotta rip it off. “MynameisVirgil!”

“I- I’m sorry, what was that? You said that really fast.”

“My name, is Virgil,” he repeated slower, biting his lip. It was silent for a second before Roman spoke up.

“Wait. Wait wait wait, for real? This isn’t another prank? Like, that is actually your real name?”

“Uh, unless mum’s been lying to me all my life, I’m pretty sure that is my name,” Virgil joked before realizing he’s probably said something similar in his pranks. “I could try and find my birth certificate? It’s gotta be around here somewhere, just give me a second and—“

“Virgil?” Logan cut him off, and Virgil stopped from where he was about to get up.

“Yeah?” He responded near-immediately, not noticing the name difference. Patton squealed, clapping excitedly. This of course, made Virgil really scared. “What? Did I do something?”

“That was too quick to be a fake name!” Patton said, and Virgil finally registered what happened.

“Do you still want a birth certificate or...?”

“I think we’re good Anx.”

“Okay,” Virgil said nodding, and was about to start recording again before—

“Hey An- Virgil?”

“Yes?” He stopped, looking at the computer with the call on it in curiosity.

“We love you, okay?”

Virgil felt his face heat up, and thankfully held back a squeak for the most part, only letting out a small flustered sound. He had to remind himself that Roman was most likely referring to platonic love, and not... the love he felt.

“Y- Yeah, okay. I love you guys too,” he mumbled, and he felt his butterflies turn into seething hot rage as not one, not two, but all three of them starting to “aww” at him, saying how tiny and adorable he was.

How insulting. This is why online friends from America couldn’t be trusted.

Needless to say, Virgil left his little hole and kept trolling the others for the rest of the day, his only explanation being: “What? Me? I’m just a smol, cute bean who apparently can’t do anything wrong.”

[takonei]

Beta AU - Main story, Chapter 3, deadly life (Part 7)

Note of the author: ... Damn this Deadly life is long. I know there were two deaths but still.

Chapter 3: What is beyond humans’ control - Deadly life

...

“Huh?” the girl blinked.

“I said...” Rantaro gripped his podium. “How do you know what a curare is?”

Shuichi was confused. What’s a ‘curare’ anyway?

“Um... I think I heard it once but don’t remember who said it...” she replied, tapping her cheek.

“... That’s a lie and you know it.” Rantaro became more and more nervous. “I never mentioned anything about curares. I never even said the word, and I don’t think anyone here knows what it even means.”

He turned to the rest of them to see if he was right.

And he was, since everyone glanced at each other to see if anyone knew.

“I mean, I do know but...” Tsumugi pondered. “I don’t remember mentioning it, but I could be wrong, since the past few days have been erased from my memory.”

“Still...” Rantaro turned back to the craftswoman. “Curare is the scientific name for what I described as ‘paralyzing product’ so that everyone would understand.”

“But you couldn’t have known that unless you read the label on the bottle.”

“I... Think I do remember now! I did see it when I checked the shelves in your lab once because I was looking for painkillers! But that was even before the disease!” she joyfully replied.

This looked incredibly suspicious anyway. And Rantaro seemed very skeptic.

“... Supposing this is true...” he turned to the rest of them. “This is the first and last time I want someone rummaging through painkillers. I want to be here if any of you want some painkillers, since I know it’s easy to take the wrong doses.”

... First time? Didn’t Kaito...

No, now wasn’t the time.

He nodded. The rest of the group agreed as well.

“I still have trouble believing you, Angie.” Tsumugi narrowed her eyes.

Ryoma sighed. “We said we would solve the murder, then accuse people. However...”

He turned to the girl. “We still have a suspect list with some of you more suspicious than others, and that includes you, Angie.”

She joyfully nodded. “I’m not the killer~ But we can continue the trial if you wish to!”

Shuichi didn’t know her that much, but that still looked strange.

Kokichi seemed to have an eye on her, but he didn’t look mad at her... For some reason.

What is he even thinking?

“There’s something that has been bothering me ever since I- no. Since we discovered it.” Kirumi glanced at the violinist.

Something they both discovered? Ah, is it...

“... You mean the missing plants in the shrine?” he perked up.

“The what now?” Miu was confused.

“Some bushes were missing in the shrine.” Kirumi explained. “We left it for a few minutes with Rantaro because Monokuma asked us to at the end of the investigation, and when we came back I’m positive they were replaced.”

Kiyo and Ryoma nodded to each other. “That’s what we noticed as well.”

“But what’s that supposed to mean?” Kaito frowned.

“Did any of you find the missing plants anyway?” Tsumugi asked the autopsy trio.

They glanced at each other to confirm that no, they didn’t.

“Does any of you have an idea on what they could have been used for?” Kiyo questioned.

Something they could have used the plants for...

The bushes, and not the flowers.

Perhaps for something that was worth taking off the bushes, yet not the flowers...

And for some reason the bushes disappeared without a trace.

It hit him.

“Did the killer... Burn them? That’s the only explanation I can find...” he suggested.

“Wouldn’t they have taken the flowers with it?” Kaito asked.

Tsumugi shook her head. “No. Flowers are not as flammable as bushes, so I can see where Shuichi comes from, and that’s the most plausible theory.”

“But to burn bushes? What’s the point?” Miu argued.

“My guess would be that they had something else to burn.” Kirumi said.

Something else to burn...

“What about the labels on the bottles? We didn’t find a single one of them in the shrine, but...” he trailed off. “Why would they burn the labels? We know which bottles are missing...”

“I think this has to do with which bottles we would find liquid around.” Rantaro answered. “So we couldn’t identify which ones were used then thrown, and which ones were thrown without being used.”

So this had to do with an already solved mystery.

“Perhaps there is something else we can add to the things they burned.” Kiyo declared. He turned to the medic. “Rantaro, you did the autopsy in its entirety, right?”

He hummed. “Yes, and I’ve given every information I found.”

“Was there a trace of a letter Himiko may have received inviting her to the shrine?”

Rantaro’s eyes widened in realization. “Now that I think about it, no. I didn’t find anything on her.”

“Then we can say that the letter burned with the labels and the bushes.” the therapist concluded.

“So the killer just used the bushes as a way to make fire?” Miu scratched her neck.

“Not just to make fire.” Tsumugi corrected. “To make a fire strong enough to burn both the letter and every single piece of label on the bottles.”

“Let’s not forget the fabric used as a bag.” Kirumi added.

“However there’s a huge contradiction with this entire theory.” Ryoma countered. “You see, I think I know enough by now considering how much time I spent in the warehouse and...”

“There isn’t a single lighter in this academy.”

Shuichi blinked. If there wasn’t any lighter, then there couldn’t have been any fire.

But that theory felt so right...

“You mean like, no way to burn stuff?” Kaito turned to him.

“Nope. Even the monomono machine doesn’t give anything like that, from what I’ve tested.”

Angie pondered. “That’s weird, I swear I have seen fire somewhere...”

She thought for a moment. “There were candles in the rooms of the fourth floor, right?”

That was... Right, actually. When they visited the rooms after they opened, and when they installed furniture for the ill ones.

“Yes, but we blew on them each night so the others could sleep.” Rantaro defended himself, knowing the accusations would be against him.

“Each night? What is that supposed to mean?” Tsumugi raised an eyebrow.

Shuichi forgot for a moment she didn’t remember the last few days.

“Monokuma relighted them each time, for some reason.” the medic replied.

“I remember waking up in a dark room this morning. They were extinguished.” Ryoma testified.

Tsumugi nodded. “I can confirm this.”

Shuichi barely heard Kokichi humming as he nodded, too.

"I went one last time in the rooms before actually eating my meal. You three asked me to turn off the lights, and so I did.” the medic explained.

He frowned. “I didn’t think much of it since you asked me the same the day before, but I should have guessed something was wrong.”

Shuichi could see Tsumugi glancing at Kokichi- the only one in the ill students group who remembered the last few days, to see if he reacted to a potential lie.

From his expression that wasn’t the case.

“But then how are you supposed to burn things without any sort of lighter?” Kaito questioned.

Either the theory was wrong, or they were missing something.

Think.

"Perhaps there wasn’t any fire in the first place?” Kiyo pondered.

Wait, what if...

“Rantaro, didn’t you show us a burned wooden stake?”

Kirumi nodded. “I remember now. There was a partially burned wooden stake on the crime scene.”

“Which means there was a fire after all.” Rantaro confirmed.

“But where does that get us? The thing was partially burned, right? There were no trace of burning anywhere else!” Miu exclaimed.

“But there has to be a way this burn mark was made.” Tsumugi declared.

A way to make fire with a wooden stake...

It hit him.

There was only one person who could have been able to do so.

“Angie...” Shuichi hesitantly turned to her. “You know how to make fire with wood, right?”

The girl innocently tilted her head to the side. “Hm?”

“Yes. You told me about your experiences on your island and told me that was one of the basic things to learn as an artisan.” Kiyo agreed.

“Oh... Did I say that?” she put a finger on her cheek.

Kiyo looked nervous, yet confident in his voice. “Yes Angie. You did.”

All eyes were on her now. her podium emitted a red light and went forward.

“Angie... You’re the culprit aren’t you?” Shuichi narrowed his eyes at her.

Upon a quick glance, Kokichi was still unreadable. It was like he wasn’t even caring about the situation and paying close attention at the same time.

"...”

The girl was silent.

Everyone was waiting an answer.

“... I was in my lab yesterday until 8:00 PM. I never moved from there, actually~”

“Angie.” Rantaro stared at her. “We need an answer. You’re the only one who could have done this.”

“Answer my question then!~” she span around to turn to the medic. “Did any of you see me leaving my lab and temper with the meals?”

The others glanced at each other, hoping to find an answer.

But nobody said anything.

“See? If I did so, one of you would have noticed me. However, since we’re talking about ‘fire’...”

She turned back to Kirumi.

“You’re a mercenary, right? You should have plenty of firearms to help you in your lab~”

“I never use firearms." she countered. “I only use knives and poisons. Nothing in my lab could have done anything of the sort.”

“Can we be sure?” Kaito hesitantly asked.

“I’ve looked at your profiles, several times actually.” Tsumugi argued. “And I remember seeing on Kirumi’s profile that she dislikes firearms. I doubt Monokuma would come up with a lie to defend one of us.”

“Besides...” Ryoma added. “Firearms is only the name. Unless you had gasoline you couldn’t have created fire. And it would have been way too loud to be an effective method.”

Shuichi stared at the craftswoman, hands strongly gripping the podium. “You’re the only one, Angie.”

“I still don’t have the answer to my previous question~” she wasn’t phased at all.

“None of you saw me put soporifics in the meals. And everyone can make fire if they try, it just takes some time~”

“No one saw you, it’s true.” Tsumugi glared at her, one hand placed on her podium. “But you are the only one who could have committed the murder, and that’s all that matters.”

Shuichi thought about the day Angie’s lab opened. Angie had specifically said that she could use all the tools with great skill.

That included the axe.

He felt a chill down his spine. Even though some of them were strong physically, it was an expert who used such a powerful tool on Himiko.

“It’s not like it matters anymore.” the prodigy continued. “Let’s just get to voting time already. The blackened is decided.”

“No they’re not!!!”

Kokichi slammed his hands on the table, startling Shuichi.

“I told you all! There is one blackened here and it’s me!” he put a hand on his chest, as if it would strengthen his argument.

“Kokichi-”

“Even if- Even if any of you really killed Himiko there is one person here who deserves to die, it’s me!” he yelled.

Convincing Kokichi was going to be a hard task.

“Besides, there’s not enough proof to tell it’s Angie! She never left her lab yesterday, you guys must have seen it on your monopads!”

Shuichi blinked. This was how he knew she was in her lab.

But what if...

“I’m the only blackened here! Just vote for me already!”

The violinist took a deep breath.

He has to convince him.

That he isn’t the blackened and Angie is.

It’s almost over. He has to.

Argument armament start!

“She isn’t the blackened, I am!”

                               “There’s one person

                                                              who deserves punishment,

                                                                                   it’s me!”

                                        “I am the blackened!”

                                                       “You don’t have enough proof

                 she is the blackened!”

                                                 “She doesn’t deserve to be punished!”

                                    “Just vote for me already!”

“It’s still my karma

                                      that is responsible

                                                                         for Himiko’s death!”

                 “The killer is just a small part!”

                                         “I am the culprit here!”

                                                        “I’m responsible for her death!”

             “I am the one you

                                                     have to execute!”

                                “You made so many theories incriminating her...”

“But Angie never left her lab, you should have seen it on your monopads!”

                       Mono     pads     tracking     function

“The monopads...” Shuichi muttered.

“The monopads don’t track people, they track the other monopads!” he exclaimed. 

Tsumugi bit her nail. “ Angie just left it in her lab so she could form an alibi...”

Kiyo looked at his monopad. “It’s never stated in the rules that you have to keep the monopad on you at all times, so she must have done this.”

“Satisfied now?” Rantaro stared at Angie.

“...”

There was a long silence.

"I think we should go through this one more time...” Shuichi glanced at everyone.

-Closing argument-

The plan started the night the motive was introduced. The ill students were placed in the rooms on the fourth floor, with Rantaro keeping an eye on them.

The culprit already had their plan prepared. So the first night, when Rantaro was sleeping on the fourth floor...

They went to his lab to look for soporifics. That was a major part of their plan.

Rantaro didn’t notice them missing since he never had the time to check because of his role as the medic for the ill ones.

The next day, the culprit waited until Kirumi started preparing dinner for the hospital team. And when she was out to ask the others their preference...

They went in and drugged the meals.

-A part of him knew the reverse karma was probably the reason why Angie managed to get to do this without being caught, but refrained from mentioning it.-

Of course, neither Miu, Kirumi nor I noticed anything, so we gave the plates without questioning anything.

Rantaro had asked us not to go visit too often because there was a risk we would get the disease, so no one noticed he fell unconscious in the stairs because of the soporifics in his meal.

After nighttime started, the culprit slipped a letter to Himiko inviting her to the shrine of judgement at a certain time, probably between 12 AM and 1 AM.

They began preparing the weapons for their crime.

The culprit cut off some fabric from Maki’s lab to make a bag and transport the weapons.

That included tools from their lab, darts from Kokichi’s lab, scissors from Maki’s lab, and finally, knives and poison from Kirumi’s lab.

Actually, the poisons were not necessary, since their plan was not to poison Himiko. They only made us think it was used to confuse us about their method.

And so, they completely destroyed Kirumi’s lab to make us think they desperately wanted poison.

There was one last thing they needed to retrieve from a lab.

Paralyzing products to use on Himiko so she wouldn’t fight back. They stole syringes as well so they could use it.

Before taking the weapons to the shrine, there was one last thing to do.

The culprit dragged Rantaro’s unconscious body to his lab, and retrieved a chair from Kirumi’s lab to make us think Rantaro was never drugged in the first place.

And so, they could finally make their way to the shrine.

Once Himiko arrived, the killer took her by surprise and drugged her with the paralyzing product so she wouldn’t fight back.

She was already not very strong, but that was important to our culprit.

I do not know how exactly things went from there... The killer... Used all the weapons they had taken on Himiko. They also drew angel wings behind the victim’s back, as shock value, I suppose.

The culprit now needed to dispose of the evidence. That included the labels on the bottles, the letter they sent to the victim, and the fabric they used as a bag.

Since there was no way to create fire in the academy, the killer had to use their own skills.

They snatched the bushes from the shrine, and used them as a base for the fire.

Since our culprit is the ultimate craftswoman, creating a fire was no big deal. They simply used wooden stakes.

Once the culprit was done with burning the evidence, they planted one of the stakes in Himiko’s chest, which was ironically the final evidence to guess the identity of our culprit.

After that they left the horrifying scene for us to see the next day.

And the culprit...

... Is you, Angie Yonaga, the ultimate craftswoman!

“...”

The girl stayed silent for a minute... Then smiled.

“Yep! You are correct!”

Her eyes looked devoid of regret.

“I am Himiko’s killer!”

The joy in her voice... It was terrifying. How could she be so happy about this?

Did she have the disease like Rantaro suspected?

Kokichi was speechless, staring at Angie, with pure horror in his eyes.

Himiko was finally getting her justice but...

This whole situation was atrocious.

“Let’s just end this already.” Rantaro spat, disgust written all over his face.

“Allllllrgihty then! It’s... Voting time!” Monokuma cheered.

Shuichi’s heart skipped a beat when he glanced at Kokichi. Was he going to-

Fortunately, he saw the boy looking down, but still pressing an icon on his tablet.

The violinist turned back to his podium, and pressed Angie’s icon.

“Now then, it seems the voting has finished. Let’s see the result.” Monokuma declared.

The giant screen turned on and everyone’s icons appeared.

9 votes for Angie Yonaga, and 1 vote for Kokichi Ouma.

Shuichi could barely hear Angie mutter “Hm? Weird, I voted for myself...”

Upon a quick glance, it was easy to guess who voted for Kokichi.

“Who’ll be chosen as the blackened? Will you make the right choice or the dreadfully wrong one!?” Monokuma continued his usual speech.

VERDICT

The wheel turned for a few seconds before slowing down… And landing on Angie.

The coin machine on the screen made its distinct jingle, and coins rolled out of it.

Angie was unreadable.

“Wow! Seriously!? You’re correct again! A-Amazing! This is the third correct verdict in a row!”

“The blackened who killed Himiko Yumeno is Angie Yonaga, the Ultimate craftswoman!”

[sparky-is-spiders]

The Hollyleaf Favoritism AU (Again)

This is my last HFAU post for now, although I will absolutely answer any asks I recieve about it. I wanna go over the Dark Forest Plan, talk about what happened to Onestar, and who the fourth cat is.

I’ma start with th fourth cat thing because there isn’’t much to say about it and I’m lazy.

Also: Part 1 Part 2

The Fourth Cat: The truth is, there is no fourth cat. It doesn’t really fit with the AU and it’s not like it was executed brilliantly in the main series books either. I can’t find any cat who could really qualify that way and I don’t wanna add any (more) contradictions to this AU. The Three save the day with the help of all the other cats. Insert some theme about all cats from all clans, no matter who they are or whether or not they’ve been the subject of any prophecies, being important and invaluable. If I ever writes a fic based on this AU, I really want background characters to shine in it. Not all the heroes are gonna be heroes because of powers or a prophecy, which is the point of both Lionblaze and Ivypools arcs.

Onestar: Onestar sucks. If you like Onestar, this is not the AU for you because he does not have a happy ending here. At all.

Onestar hates the way the other clans see WindClan. He thinks that everybody thinks that WindClan is ThunderClan’s pet and it makes him so angry. It is a rage that he feels in his soul, and he severs his friendship with Firestar because of it.

Onestar is, at the very core of his being, arrogant and egotistical. He is also, however, very scared. He never expected to be leader. He never wanted it and when Tallstar dumps leadership on him he kinda panics. He wants to lean on ThunderClan at first, but when he hears how the other clans mock him for it he swings desperately the other way. He tries to seperate WindClan from ThunderClan influence entirely. He is determined to be the best leader of WIndClan ever but he has no idea how to do that. He is desperate and floundering and it is not going well. His fear, his determination, and his pride are a dangerous combination, and they will be his downfall.

Onestar isn’t a great leader. He encourages his warriors to provoke and antagonize ThunderClan cats. During the first few moons of his leadership, he goes on patrols himself just to bother ThunderClan cats. He’s mean to his warriors and unwilling to listen to them.

“No, we don’t need to ask ThunderClan for herbs, we have plenty.”

“But we’re out of-“

“No.”

During a particularly bad winter (several moons before the return of Hollyleaf/storm), illness sweeps through WindClan. Several warriors die, and everybody is furious with Idiotstar. Because sure, he could have asked ThunderClan (the only clan with a large enough herb supply to trade some away) for help, but that might have hurt his precious ego.

Onestar is, in truth, torn over his decision. He does want to help, but he doesn’t want to appear weak. Going to ThunderClan for help, no matter the reason, seems like weakness to him. And weakness is an invitation for the other clans to attack. His warriors keep pushing him to do so, but that only makes it worse. His determination has bred stubborness, and he digs his claws in. He refuses to be bossed around by cats that should follow his orders. Even Ashfoot can’t get him to listen to her. She’s furious that he would put the lives of his clanmates in danger for the sake of his stupid pride. She confronts him aggressivly, and he refuses to listen. Too late, she realizes that aggression, although justified, was the wrong response, and he won’t listen to her even after she tries to be gentler about it. (She hates being gentle about it. It’s like her leader is a stupid kit who throws temper tantrums when he doesn’t get his way.) Several WindClanners end up dead, and this is when the Dark Forest manages gets a firm clawhold in WindClan.

When Hollyleaf shows up moons later, looking for a place in WindClan, Onestar is quick to accept her. Firestar’s granddaughter, his former apprentice. A cat with powers involved in a special prophecy who can spy on the other clans for WindClan, and she’s here. More than that, she wants to stay, to “help WindClan and Onestar” with “whatever problems they may have”. Nobody wants Hollyleaf there, but Onestar is so excited for this excuse to one-up his old friend. He changes her name, too, as if to say “in your face Firestar! She’s a WindClan cat now.”

Hollystorm doesn’t like Onestar, but she’s very good at faking it. It helps that he has a sort of blind faith in her. She’s a chosen one. She’s a good cat, and good cats support Onestar. He doesn’t question her real motives, and he doesn’t notice that her spying on the other clans doesn’t tell him anything big and/or useful.

He feels so betrayed when he hears that Ashfoot has talked to ThunderClan, and is furious when he hears about the Dark Forest cats visiting WindClanners in their dreams. He exiles them all (roughly three quarters of WindClan’s warriors, including Ashfoot, Hollyleaf, and Breezepelt), but they don’t listen. The exiles all turn on him, and they drive him out. The young cats who had been rebelling against Onestar since the Dark Forest first visited them in their dreams win. Breezepelt becomes their new leader, Antpelt becomes their new medicine cat, and anyone who refuses to swear fealty to Breezepelt and the Dark Forest is kicked out.

Onestar leaves with Hollystorm and Ashfoot, but is enraged when he hears that they plan to seek aid from ThunderClan. He has spent so long fighting to get out of Firestar and ThunderClan’s shadow. He refuses to disrupt that, and he abandons them along with about three other WindClan warriors. He leaves to rebuild WindClan on his own.

He mostly mopes on a small hill somewhere outside of clan territories until a patrol comes to collect him many moons later. They planned to ambush WindClan last new moon. They don’t know how it went, but they hope that he can return to lead WindClan again.

They lost, Onestar finds when he returns. He’s furious but there isn’t much he and his three warriors can do about it now. He begrudgingly agrees to stay in ThunderClan camp, but only because everybody else is doing it.

During the final battle, he faces off against Breezestar. For all his faults, Onestar is a good fighter, and he has Breezestar pinned. He’s about to deliver the killing blow, but several of Breezestar’s new rogue WindClan warriors pounce. They drag Onestar off Breezestar and tear him to shreds.

When he reaches StarClan, Tallstar tells Onestar that he is very dissappointed in him.

The Dark Forest PlanTM: The Dark Forest has a much different plan in this AU. They want to take over the clans, sure, but they’re smart, they can wait...

Many of them want to be leaders of their old clans. Some just want revenge. Either way, they are ready to make their move. They plan to divide the clans, weakening them. Eventually, the clan will snap, a civil war will start, and the Dark Forest can move in. They’ll choose a loyal follower to be leader, another to be a medicine cat, and a another to be deputy. These cats will be puppets, of course, but they will think that they are in charge, which is really all that matters.

WindClan is easy. Onestar is crappy, and tensions are already high. Some dark forest cats are deployed to train the older warriors who believe in the Warrior Code too much to want to overthrow a leader. The others visit the dreams of the young and rebellious. They are pleased to witness the fall of WindClan.

RiverClan is a little harder, but they crack the code eventually. RiverClan has a lot of outsiders and half-clan, and some of warriors still hold on to antiquated views on cats who aren’t 100% RiverClan. Some Dark Forest cats plant doubts in the minds of cats that those who aren’t born in RiverClan to a set of RiverClan cats aren’t loyal. They train to defend themselves against these “disloyal” warriors. Mistystar and Mothwing start to expirience mounting hatred and insubordination. Those who want to stand by Mistystar and Mothwing, their noble leader and trusted medicine cat, also get visited by Dark Forest cats too, building tensions even higher. Before civil war can break out, however, the emergency gathering is called. After witnessing what happened to WindClan and hearing about the Dark Forest cats’ scheming, RiverClan tentativly patches itself back together to face a common enemy. It doesn’t go perfectly, and many wounds are still raw, but things do improve.

The Dark Forest cats don’t make much headway in ShadowClan, but the arrival of Sol helps. The cats need somebody to listen to them, to guide them through these tough times. Isn’t it nice that all these Dark Forest are there to help? A few careful digs at Blackstar here, a few warnings about rebellious cats who aren’t happy with Blackstar’s decisions there, and boom! A civil war looms on the horizen. Firestar’s dark forest warning and the aftermath of Breezestar’s coup help ShadowClanner’s realize that they’ve been played against each other like puppets. Fury at this indignity helps them patch things together.

ThunderClan is the hardest. Some of the cats are receptive to dire warnings about how Jayfeaher, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf/storm are half-clan monsters, but most grew up with Firestar and Graystripe, an outsider and a respected senior warrior who fathered two kits with a RiverClan cat. Feathertail is half-ThunderClan, and she’s a hero. And anyway, the three are still Firestar’s kin. That has to count for something, right? The Dark Forest never manages to get a clawhold in ThunderClan and plans to kill most of them.

When their careful machinations and manipulations are blown, they manage to cobble together a new plan. So what if most of the clans have banded against them? WindClan is on their side and the rogues Breezestar readily welcomes into the clan have made it large and powerful. They’ll send WindClan cats to attack patrols and hunt prey from the other clan’s territories. They’ll slowly pick off cats and lower food supplies until all the clans are weak enough for WindClan to overpower them. When they learn of the planned WindClan ambush, the Dark Forest cats are ecstatic. A force powerful enough to be a threat, but not big enough to be a serious danger, that can be lead straight into a trap. It’s perfect. They warn Antpelt, who warns Breezestar, and WindClan makes their plans. They turn the ambushers into the ambushees.

If it wasn’t for Jayfeather’s frantic warning, the fate of the clans would have been sealed when WindClan attacks the force sent to ambush them. As it is, several cats from the other clans lie dead, and most are seriously injured. It’s a major blow to the clans, and they slink away to lick their wounds.

It’s the perfect time for an attack. The Dark Forest gives WindClan a few days to repair and prepare, and they attack. The final battle happens at night. It is long and harsh and many cats are killed. At the end of it, Firestar and Tigerstar stand against each other. They fight for a long time, until both die of their wounds underneath the rising sun. The Dark Forest has lost, and the clans are victorious.

Some Extra Stuff:

-Breezepelt never gets his nine lives. Witnissing the brutal death of Onestar leaves him feeling awful and shaken. He and Nightcloud return to the clans in time for Crowfeather’s trial.

-As much as I like the idea of Hollystar, her character arc is all about accepting that she can be important and do good as a regular warrior. But I really really want Hollystar. Maybe if Harespring dies...

-Ashfur goes to the Dark Forest. Just as he deserves...

-The three don’t lose their powers, but their powers do get weaker. Jayfeather’s crazy visions ease up, Hollystorm’s senses dull a little, and Dovedream has to really focus to do her dreamwalking thing and her emotion reading becomes weaker and a little less precise.

[tomeandflickcorner]

Umbrella Academy Rewatch 1x08

1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07

The race is now on, as Allison attempts to find Vanya, in order to warn her that her boyfriend, Leonard, is actually Harold Jenkins, a convicted murderer who is believed to be the man who will bring about the apocalypse. 

As Allison drives out to the cabin that had belonged to Harold Jenkins’ grandmother in the hopes that she can find Vanya there, she remembers an event that had happened a year ago. She had been putting her daughter, Claire to bed and had just finished telling her a bedtime story about some of the exploits of herself and her brothers when they were still involved with their superhero stuff with the Umbrella Academy.  Particularly a time when they stopped a bank robbery.  When the story is over, Claire kept insisting on hearing another story, but Allison insisted it was time for her to go to sleep.  When Claire started to get demanding, Allison ended up using her power on her, by saying ‘I heard a rumor that you’re really tired, and what to go to sleep.’  This ended up getting Claire to back down and go to bed without a fuss.  Unfortunately, Allison’s now-ex-husband, Patrick, had witnessed this, and is clearly not happy.

Okay, so... is this the incident that resulted in the courts stripping Allison of her custody to her daughter, mandating that she had to take court-ordered therapy sessions before she could get visitation rights?  If so, that’s really stupid.  It’s possible I’m just not getting it, but why exactly was this such a big deal?  I don’t get if.  It’s not as if she was using her powers to force Claire to get her beer while she sat in front of the TV all day instead of taking care of her kid, or anything neglectful like that.  She was getting her kid to go to sleep.  I think we can all agree that kids that age need a consistent sleep schedule.  I’m fairly certain any mother in the land would have done the same thing if they were in Allison’s shoes.  Was there more to this story?  Was their some sort of concern that Allison using her power on Claire would have caused her permanent brain damage?  Was it a case of X-Men-esque paranoia?  I believe, in the X-Men comics, a lot of people feared the mutants on principle simply because they had out-of-the-ordinary abilities and therefore persecuted the mutants.  Did the courts have similar prejudice against Allison going on?  I don’t understand!

Regardless, this incident has ended up being traumatic to Allison, as she’s now sworn off using her powers ever again. And this is driven home when we hear Allison’s memories of other times she used her power on others.  Some seem pretty innocent.  Case in point one moment when she used her power to get someone (probably Claire) to like broccoli.  Eating vegetables is important, after all.  But with others, I can see why Allison is feeling like she was abusing her powers.  For instance, there were apparently times she used her power to force someone to be her friend, land an acting role, or even got someone to love her.  Yeah, I can agree those examples are pretty bad.  Eventually, Allison makes it to the cabin,  But when she gets there, nobody is home.  Which makes sense, since Vanya and Harold/Leonard are still at the hospital following the incident the night before.  

Speaking of which, we then switch over to them.  Harold/Leonard wakes up Vanya, who had been sleeping in the chair next to his hospital bed.  Vanya is surprised to see he’s already dressed, and even more so when Harold/Leonard announces he’s leaving.  After all, he probably still needs to be observed one more time before being officially discharged.  But Harold/Leonard states that’s not necessary, as the hospital just wants him to come back tomorrow so he can be fitted with a prosthetic eye.  Vanya, upon being reminded that he lost an eye, starts to apologize, but he waves her apology off.  They then head off.  But on the way, they’re stopped by a nurse, reminding Harold/Leonard that the doctor hadn’t discharged him yet.  Vanya is momentarily confused by this, as that statement has contradicted what he’d told her, but Harold/Leonard insists that he’s ready to leave, so he simply signs the voluntary discharge papers.  Before they leave, Vanya asks about the three other men that had attacked them, who were also brought into the hospital after being injured by Vanya’s power explosion. The nurse informs her that two of the men were DOA, but the third man was still alive, though in critical condition.

Back at the Umbrella Academy mansion, Luther wakes up with a massive hangover from his night of drinking at the rave.  He is shocked to find that a naked woman is lying in bed next to him, indicating that he brought someone back from the rave for sex.  Klaus then swings by Luther’s room and proceeds to simply be a typical brother, good-naturally teasing the flustered Luther for it, especially when he realizes this was Luther’s first time with a woman.  Klaus then gets serious, telling Luther that they’re having a family meeting downstairs.  

When Luther makes it down to the kitchen, Klaus pours him a cup of coffee, which Number 5 (who is clearly feeling better) promptly steals.  Ghost Ben is also there, but of course, only Klaus is aware of that.  While Klaus voices his awareness that Diego and Allison are absent, he nevertheless begins the meeting, informing his brothers that he managed to make contact with Reginald last night.  Luther is confused, reminding Klaus that he claimed he hadn’t been able to conjure up anyone in years.  Klaus admits this is true, but states that he’s now completely sober.  He goes on to inform Luther and Number 5 that Reginald wasn’t murdered but that he committed suicide in order to trick them into getting together again.  Luther, however, refuses to believe it, accusing Klaus of playing games again.  Until Pogo enters the room and confirms Klaus’ statement, also admitting he and Grace had assisted with the suicide, with Grace’s programming being altered so she wouldn’t be able to administer first aid on that fateful night.  Reginald had believed that, if the Hargreeves Siblings had banded together to try and solve the murder mystery, it might inspire them to want to be a team again, so they could save the world. Luther is incensed over this bombshell, especially since he was still feeling hurt over the revelation that his mission on the moon had been meaningless all along.  He berates Pogo for not saying anything sooner, despite watching him search for answers.  Pogo is visibly remorseful, but tells Luther that he had only been honoring Reginald’s dying wishes and that he had no choice.  This isn’t good enough for Luther, though, and he storms off, telling Pogo that there’s always a choice.  Number 5 also teleports off to think, leaving Klaus alone with Ghost Ben.

Sometime later, Vanya and Harold/Leonard return to the cabin.  Harold/Leonard attempts to reassure Vanya that what happened to the three toughs wasn’t her fault, and that she had acted in self-defense. Vanya is still shaken up, though, stating that she shouldn’t be able to do something like that.  It’s clear that, while she is starting to accept the fact that she does have powers, she’s upset that she can’t control them, with them only exploding out of her when she’s not trying to use them.  Harold/Leonard consoles her, stating he’ll help her learn to control it.

While all this is going on, we also get the subplot with Hazel and Agnes.  They did indeed run away together, but are now stuck in a traffic jam. Hazel grows morose when he sees that Agnes’ road trip has three years worth of sights in store, with her happily stating they have time to see them all.  After all, she doesn't realize the apocalypse is supposed to happen in just two days.

In a curious coincidence, Allison is also stuck in the same traffic jam.  Why she didn’t stick around at the cabin is anyone’s guess.  She ends up driving past the same restaurant where Vanya’s powers went haywire, seeing the police are there investigating the incident.  As Allison glances over at the crime scene, she notices Vanya’s scarf hanging from the restaurant's sign, making her realize that Vanya had been there.  So she gets out of the car and ducks under the police tape to investigate.  Allison is immediately stopped by a cop, Sergeant Cheddar, who is investigating the scene.  She tries to question him about what happened, but he insists that she simply read about it in the paper tomorrow.  Although, Sergeant Cheddar’s tune completely changes when he recognizes her.  It turns out Sergeant Cheddar and his wife are huge fans of Allison’s movies.  (Remember, Allison is a big movie star.)  Taking advantage of this fact, Allison tells him that she’s actually going to portray a cop in her next movie and is looking to do some research on law enforcement.  She asks if she can shadow him for the day, as it could help her develop her character if she could witness him in action for the day.  Sergeant Cheddar, being a huge Allison Hargeeves fanboy, agrees to this almost instantly.

Meanwhile, Diego is still in his jail cell.  He is visited by Detective Beeman, who informs him that they’re transferring him to upstate that afternoon.  He also states that he does believe in Diego’s innocence, knowing that he wasn’t the one who murdered Detective Patch.  However, that’s not enough to get the suspicion against him thrown out, since Diego was placed at the scene of the murder, and people on the force had witnessed the two arguing on more than one occasion.  Detective Beeman then reaches out to shake Diego’s hand, wishing him luck.  After they shake hands, Detective Beeman walks off, leaving Diego alone with the key he stealthily slipped him.

Back at the cabin, Vanya is practicing her violin, getting ready for her big concert.  As she’s practicing, Harold/Leonard secretly consults Reginald’s journal, which includes Reginald’s notes on Vanya’s powers.  The notes reveal that sound can help activate Vanya’s abilities.  This is further illustrated in a flashback, where Reginald, during a training session, managed to get Vanya to shatter a wine glass simply with the sound of a tuning fork.  Taking advice from this, Harold/Leonard takes Vanya deeper into the woods and instructs her to try and recreate the scene last night.  Vanya then thinks back, remembering the men laughing, the sound of them kicking Harold/Leonard and the rumbling of the car engine and a dog barking nearby.  Instantly, Vanya realizes that it was the sound of the car engine that did it, as that sound ended resonating in her mind to the point where it was the only thing she could hear before her power unleashed itself.  She finds the whole thing terrifying, but Harold/Leonard insists that its extraordinary.  He then convinces Vanya to try and tap into her powers again, getting her to focus on the sounds of nature around them.  Such as the wind chimes hanging from the cabin nearby, a squirrel in a nearby tree and the water rushing along a creek.  Harold/Leonard tells Vanya to focus on one sound in particular, with Vanya zeroing in on the sound of the water in the creak.  This results in Vanya’s power manifesting again. Harold/Leonard is ecstatic, but he sees Vanya is starting to panic, so he calms her down, informing her that her ability is tied to her emotions.  Vanya is confused how he knows this, as she doesn’t know about Reginald’s journal.  Harold/Leonard is able to cover up his slip up by claiming he made a lucky guess, going on to ‘theorize’ that Vanya can convert the sounds around her into energy when she is feeling strong emotions.  Vanya accepts this explanation and kisses him.  Though she has to push him out of the way when a tree branch falls towards them,

Of course we also get a reminder of how dangerous Vanya’s power can be.  In another flashback to her training sessions with Reginald, Young Vanya not only shattered all of the wine glasses, she also ended up cracking Reginald’s monocle.  Which also apparently left a cut along his cheek.  Reginald seemed almost fearful of the raw power she possessed, as he announced their training sessions were over for the time being.

We then cut back to the Umbrella Academy mansion.  Klaus is in his room knitting something when Number 5 walks in, trying to wrap his head around things.  He starts to discuss with Klaus his confusion about something that he can’t figure out.  He only learned about the approaching apocalypse by travelling to the future.  But Reginald, who can’t travel in time, clearly knew enough about it to know to kill himself a week before it happened.  Number 5′s musings are interrupted when Diego rushes in, having just escaped from jail with the key he got from Detective Beeman.  He informs them that Allison may be in danger, as he knows she went off to track down Harold/Leonard alone.  They search for Luther, locating him at a bar, still drowning his sorrows.  Diego tries to offer him some comfort, telling him that their father lied to all of them.  But Luther just wants to be miserable, stating he’s done with all if it- with Reginald, his brother and the whole family.  He states that if if the others want to save the world, they’re welcome to try, but he’s going to stay put and keep feeling sorry for himself.  Until Diego tells him that Allison headed off on her own to find Vanya, as Vanya’s boyfriend is a convicted murderer.  The knowledge that Allison was in danger pushes Luther into action, with him telling Diego he should have led with that detail.

Elsewhere, we see that Cha-Cha has managed to get free from her handcuffs.  She heads right over to Griddy’s Donuts, but finds the place is closed, with a sign from Agnes on the door informing customers that she’d decided to close the doughnut shop.  Angered, Cha-Cha breaks in to search for clues on where Agnes and Hazel were going.  In doing so, she finds a brochure for some bird sanctuary.  And then, for good measure, she blows up the building by turning on the gas burners and leaving a lit candle behind.

We then cut back to Allison and Sergeant Cheddar.  The latter is questioning Mr. Luntz, the guy who survived the incident with Vanya’s powers the night before.  Mr. Luntz reveals that it was all a setup. Turns out, Harold/Leonard had actually paid them to pick a fight with him, saying he wanted to impress his girlfriend.  But they had gotten drunk and got a bit carried away.  Allison cuts in, asking Mr. Luntz about the description of the guy who paid him, also showing him the picture of Vanya on the back of her copy of Vanya’s autobiography and asking if that was the girlfriend.  Instantly, Sergeant Cheddar realizes that Allison had lied to him and confronts her over it.  Allison apologizes for lying but explains that it was the only way she could get answers, and that she’s trying to find her sister, who might be in trouble.  While Sergeant Cheddar still isn’t happy, he seems to understand Allison’s reasons.  But before they could question Mr. Luntz further, the nurse stepped in, stating they’d have to come back later so they could run more tests on the injured man.

Returning to the cabin, Vanya announces that her concert is tomorrow, and she wants to practice her violin a bit more.  Upon hearing this, Harold/Leonard gets a bit petulant. He tries to coax Vanya to practice mastering her powers some more, as they already had a breakthrough and Vanya mastering her powers is important.  Vanya counters this by stating her music is also important.  Harold/Leonard instantly backs down, but he doesn’t seem to happy as Vanya steps out to practice her violin.  While she’s occupied, he quietly steps out.  So, when Vanya is done with her practice session and comes back inside, she finds that Harold/Leonard is gone.  Immediately, she starts to panic, searching the cabin for him frantically.  In her panic, she has a flashback to a point in her past, most likely after Reginald started to grow fearful of the magnitude of Vanya’s powers.  One evening, Reginald had brought Young Vanya down to a chamber deep beneath the mansion and placed her into a soundproof cell, telling her she needed to stay in a controlled environment.  Once she was sealed in, he left her down there for an undetermined amount of time.  To try and settle her nerves after that flashback, Vanya starts to practice her violin, simply focusing on the sound of the violin.

Meanwhile, Hazel and Agnes have arrived at the bird sanctuary.  Hazel, still mulling things over, asks Agnes what she would do if she knew she only had two days left to live.  Agnes replies she’d choose to be anywhere Hazel was.  Which is just too sweet!  I can’t with these two!  Anyway, Agnes notices that Hazel seems distracted about something and she asks him what’s going on.  Hazel tells her he can’t really explain at the moment, but there’s something he has to take care of before he can join her.  He tells her to go enjoy the bird sanctuary and that he’ll come back for her as soon as he can.  So, after sharing a kiss, Hazel drives off, with Agnes watching him go.  Of course, Hazel may have made the wrong call in leaving Agnes alone, as we see Cha-Cha is already on her way to the bird sanctuary.

Back at the hospital, Allison and Sergeant Cheddar are waiting to question Mr. Luntz some more, but the nurse comes out to inform them that he’s gone missing.  She had taken him out to for x-rays, but he disappeared.  Sergeant Cheddar states he’ll call it in, in case anyone spots him.  Allison then asks the nurse if she’d seen Vanya and the nurse confirms she had been there that morning.  Allison realizes that Vanya and Harold/Leonard had been there when she’d stopped by the cabin earlier and decides to try going back.  Sergeant Cheddar instructs her to not go anywhere, as Harold/Leonard might be dangerous, and they have a missing person to boot.  But Allison chooses to not listen to his instructions and heads off anyway.  

She arrives back at the cabin while Vanya is still playing her violin.  And Allison immediately notices the lights and rocking chairs out on the porch. are swinging from side to side, as they’re being manipulated by Vanya’s powers.  Allison quickly heads inside and finds Vanya, who is surprised to see her sister.  Allison is equally surprised when Vanya tells her of her newly discovered powers, but she pushes her amazement aside to focus on the more important task of getting Vanya to safety.  She tries to break the news to Vanya about who her boyfriend really is, telling her that Leonard Peabody doesn’t exist and that he’s really Harold Jenkins, who murdered his father when he was 13 and spent 12 years in jail as a result.  Vanya, of course, doesn’t believe her.  Allison tells her that the proof is all in the police file, which is waiting in the car, also telling her of the whole murder shrine of the mangled and defaced Umbrella Academy memorabilia they found in Harold/Leonard’s house.  She goes on to try and reassure her sister, saying that she can understand how it must be a lot for her to take in, but that she loves her and wants to be there for her sister.

Understandably, Vanya has an emotional breakdown.  She’d fallen in love with Harold/Leonard and can’t believe any of this stuff about him could be true.  Not to mention the revelation that she’s had this power all her life and never even knew it.  At that moment, Allison remembers an old childhood memory of hers.  One that never really made sense to her, but now that she’s learned of Vanya’s powers, she’s able to look at it again with fresh understanding.  It turns out that, while Vanya was being kept in that soundproof room when they were all 4-years-old, Reginald had told the other Hargreeves Siblings that Vanya was sick and had to be isolated.  But then he brought Allison down there and instructed her to tell Vanya ‘I heard a rumor you think you’re just ordinary,‘  (It was at this time that Reginald also started putting Vanya on that medication, which we now can see was meant to nullify her powers.)

So obviously, Reginald had been so fearful of Vanya’s raw abilities, he chose to simply keep them hidden from everyone rather than continue to train her to control them, and had even manipulated Young Allison to assist him in his goal.  And it kind of makes sense how nobody remembered that Vanya used to have powers when they were very young.  After all this all went down when they were 4. Not many people can have clear memories of their life that far back.  Anyway, When Vanya learns of this, she is understandably furious.  But in her anger, she ends up blaming Allison, accusing her of knowing she had powers the whole time and choosing to keep them a secret because she didn’t want Vanya outranking her.  Vanya continues her rant, declaring she plans on staying with Leonard, who was the only one who ever really loved her.  As Vanya’s rage builds, the light fixtures around the house start to go haywire and eventually explode, and Allison’s attempts to calm her down only enrage her further.  In sheer desperation, Allison elects to use her powers to calm Vanya down. But before she can complete her statement, Vanya lashes out with her bowstring, which ends up slicing through Allison’s throat.  

The moment this happens, Vanya’s rage vanishes, being replaced by horror over what she’d just done.  She dashes forward to catch Allison as she falls to the ground, clutching her heavily bleeding throat.   As Vanya cries out her apologies for hurting her sister, Harold/Leonard returns to the cabin.  He takes one look at the scene before him and seems to figure out what just happened.  So he grabs Vanya and physically drags her away, telling her that they have to get out of there, during a deaf ear to Vanya’s cries and sheer reluctance to leave Allison bleeding on the floor.  In the end, however, Harold/Leonard manages to drag her away and he drives them away from the cabin, driving right past the body of Mr. Luntz, who he must have killed to keep him from blabbing.  By the time, Luther, Diego, Klaus, Number 5 and Ghost Ben make it to the cabin, Allison has lost consciousness and appears dead.  And so the episode ends on that cliffhanger.

Final Observations/Questions:

Is Allison going to live?

What’s going to happen to Vanya?  Will she get away from Harold/Leonard?

While I do understand Vanya’s fury, it wasn’t fair of her to blame Allison for what happened.  Allison was just as much a victim as Vanya had been.  Thy were toddlers at the time.  Of course they wouldn’t question what Reginald was telling them.  And I believe Allison was telling the truth when she said she didn’t understand what happened that night until now.  And the fact that they all forgot that Vanya had powers at the age of four is also believable, since they were still very little back then.

What exactly did Reginald do to get Pogo to go along with everything he did.  It was clear from his facial expressions that he wasn’t happy with what he was doing to Vanya, but he still went along with it.  So what kind of psychological hold did Reginald have on him?

[prorevenge]

Treat me bad, I get you fired

A long time ago when I was in 8th grade, my parents sent me to a private school. The thing with private schools is that they are really prestige and supposed to be the best of the best. I am a relatively smart guy so I fit in well and tried to take advantage of the good education I was given. This school had just opened and it was their 1st school year. I guess the school was a little unprepared because the science was hired 5 weeks before school started. The thing with this science teacher is that she came from a public school, which at the time was a totally different environment. When the school year started, I could notice immediately that she was different. She would let the class do what they wanted and put little effort into teaching. At a private school, talking during class is a punishable task and teacher care about you and are there to help you understand a concept. ( If I sound like a nerd here, it is because I am) Unlike others, I wanted to learn. The other thing with private schools is that 90% of the students are rich kids who don't want to be there, and the other 10% are students like me who want to learn and be successful in life. My grade was made up of 10 rich kids and 2 students who wanted to learn, Including me. The worse class I had was a science class, not because I had bad grades, but because of the teacher. She hated me. She would give lectures and not answer questions, mostly asked by me because it did not make any sense. She would get worksheets and activities online and some of these worksheets completely contradicted what she taught us. I hated her and she hated me. She would tell me to shut up and, I don't know how else to say this, make "fun" of me in front of the class to gain their approval. The other students didn't want to learn and they loved her because they could talk and not learn anything. I tried to solve the issue by asking her nicely to stop, but she didn't. I told the principal and he said he would drop by and see the class. She acted like she was the best teacher in the entire world when he was around. I soon realized that she was not going to stop, so I hatched up a plan.

I realized that if I could get her fired at the time, it would backfire as it was the middle of the school year and the administration would have kept her as they could not have contracted a new teacher. If she realized that I tried to fire her, she would try to get revenge. What I did was the best thing I could do. I went to radio shack and bought a recorder. I recorded the class talking and her doing nothing, and all the comments and the shut ups that she would make. I then also made a list of "crimes" she committed. I even went as far as to read the teachers handbook, another private school thing. I wrote down every rule she broke and how she broke it. I collected evidence for about 3 months and even prepared a little speech. Finals are at the end of the school year, and her final is one of the first I have. After I took her final, I asked to meet with her in front of the administration. I started to lay out the evidence. I read the list of rules she broke that was stated in the handbook and told how and presented evidence. I then went on to play the recordings. That is when it got fun. When the teacher saw the recorder, she froze. The look on her face was priceless. I said that I had collected some audio samples and that I wanted to play them. I got permission and started to play them. What happened next was the best moment of my entire life, even better than getting married and having a kid. I played multiple recordings of the teacher insulting me and not doing her job. Once I finished, I let the teacher defend herself. She went up and said that I was lying and that I should not play like that, etc.... When she finished, the administration looked at each other and, no joke, said in unison: "You're Fired". I was awestruck. I had managed to fire a teacher.

She had the remaining 3 days of school to pack her things and collect all the finals and grade them. The whole school watched as she left the school and went away.

I did some research later on and figured out that getting fired goes on your resume. My friend kept in contact with her daughter, who gave him constant status updates, and the last time I heard of that teacher was when my friend said she went to every school in the area, even public, and nobody would hire her. What I did will have to teach her that karma exists.

Sorry for the long post but I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading.

(source) story by (/u/chickenator45)

[suicidalcatz]

DOG DAYS ARE OVER : CHAP 11

Pairing : Jake Kiszka x reader

Genre : College AU

Previous parts : Prologue ; Chapter 1 ; Chapter 2 ; Chapter 3 ; Chapter 4 ; Chapter 5 ; Chapter 6 ; Chapter 7 ; Chapter 8 ; Chapter 9 ; Chapter 10

Masterlist : here

AN : It is wednesday, my dudes! This part and the next ones are like 90% fluff, 10% angst... like bittersweet. You’re still heartbroken but try to keep your friendship with Jake, while doing all of your homework... A lot to handle. Actually I had to cut the chapter in half because it was too long (9-10 pages). I really hope you’ll like this chapter because I liked writing it! Feel free to tell me what you thought of it, send me dms or questions, and thanks for reading me x

Chapitre 11 : Would you cook for me ?

Ignoring Jake's texts or avoiding him was useless. But hanging out with him was a challenge I wasn't ready to handle, never asked for, and yet was pushed into. Pretending I didn't see him when we crossed paths in the hallways, or that I didn't receive any of his texts was petty, there was no point in doing so. I couldn't avoid him without giving him any reason, and I couldn't tell him why I needed some time far away from him either because it meant revealing the truth and 1) I wasn't ready, 2) he'd be the one avoiding me like the black plague if I did. It brought me to the conclusion that I would simply pretend nothing happened at all. Jake hadn't noticed the whole situation anyway, so to him it'd already be like everything was normal, just like it always had been between us. It was the best I could think of. For him, for Josh, for anyone. For me ? Not so much. Of course I was still heartbroken, of course it'd take me some time to get over him, and staying by his side would be like rubbing salt on a wound while demanding for it to heal. But I wouldn't risk to break our group's dynamic for selfish reasons. So I sucked that in, everything. The sadness, and painful pang of my chest every time I saw his face, while repeating myself it was for the best.

That aside, I had some other things coming. For the worst. My useless self got so into self-pity and deprecation that I had totally forgotten about homework... And my drawing teacher would be less than pleased as we were all supposed to hand her five new portraits on Monday. Realization hit me during breakfast with Josh who had slept here, when I saw Mandy pack her things and idly noticing out loud that I wasn't carrying a lot of stuff for once. This. This was the cue. But it was too late now, I thought as I walked down the halls by their side. On our way to the amphitheater we saw Jake, waiting in front of the door for the teacher to come. Other students were here too, chatting and yawning with their backs against the walls or sitting on the floor. Josh looked at me like he wasn't sure if he should greet him but the brunette was the one spotting us, gesturing us to come join him. My eyes were probably still a bit puffy but with the makeup it could pass for lack of sleep. Of course he knew Josh stayed at our place last time, I had made sure the boy texted him, and the jerk had taken this opportunity to ask his brother to bring him all his school supplies, backpack included. Unbelievable.

- Your stuff, said Jake handing Josh his bag.

- Who's the big brother again ?, I jokingly asked with a raised eyebrow.

- He's 5 minutes older, replied Jake.

- You'll never live it down !

We all chatted quietly, and I never felt more conflicted in my entire life. My heart didn't know if it should beat faster or hurt like hell, so it seemed to do both, making me feel weird just by being next to Jake. My body was in total contradiction with itself. I couldn't hold back the smile that crept across my face, but at the same time wouldn't meet Jake in the eye, disguising it by cracking joke after joke while my stress level kept rising the more time passed. My thoughts were running wild. In a few hours the drawing teacher was going to yell at me in front of the whole workshop and I couldn't handle it. I'd surely burst into tears and feel even more ashamed. I'd probably-

- Hey, you alright ?

A soft touch caressed my back and I involuntarily jerked forward, out of its grasp, before realizing and suddenly feeling bashful at my reaction. I could tell Jake was surprised by it but it lasted only a second before his face showed concern.

- Yeah, I just didn't finish my work on time... That witch is gonna murder me and ask the others students to draw a perspective of my corpse I'm sure.

I heard his chuckles before the tutor cut him off, passing by us with the keys in hand to unlock the door, separating the sea of students in half like an artsy Moses. Jake was at the other side when the crowd engulfed through the small door, letting us no choice but to keep our bodies to the walls.

- Do you wanna sit together today ?, asked Jake above the loud stomping noises.

Because of the students between us I couldn't really see his face, but was glad because it meant he couldn't see mine whitening. Josh and Mandy on the other hand were just next to me and clearly witnessed my expression change. To think that a week before I would've been on cloud nine being able to sit next to him for two whole hours... Oh how things could change fast.

We were now the three last people left outside and Jake held the door for us, continuing speaking.

- You guys are always exchanging notes, we should just, ya know ? Sit next to each other and... quietly chat.

As backup to his words, he murmured the last part in a very exaggerated fashion, in a failed attempt to make me smile. I couldn't just say no to him without looking weird because I had no reason to. Even if I knew he wouldn't push the matter, there was no way he wouldn't question it, right ? Josh came to the rescue, playfully elbowing him.

- But then where's the fun in that ? Right girls ?

Both agreeing, we rushed to our usual seats, letting a dumbfounded Jake close the door behind him. In their habitual fashion, Mandy and Josh threw paper balls at each other, while I was for once too focused on the lecture to participate in their shenanigans. I needed to get my mind to focus on something and right now Gilgamesh sounded like a good deal, so I took as many notes as possible. A task proven even more difficult because in the corner of my eye, I could see Jake staring at me.

Saying my drawing teacher killed me was a little bit of an understatement. She scared the shit out of me with her scolding. To be fair, even in a normal mood she was a scary woman. The already quiet   class went completely still and silent when she barked at me, admonishing me with charming names such as « useless », « disappointing » and the timeless « lamentable ». A classic. Truth to be told it hurt much less than I previously anticipated, mainly because I was already half dead inside, with the emotional range of a cactus, and my self-esteem nearly reaching zero. Nothing much to attack, really. Nevertheless, she demanded that I hand her all five portraits plus the five others we had to do this week by the next monday. Meaning I had ten to do in a week. It physically hurt just thinking about it, and I could hear a quiet « oof » escaping some of my classmates' mouths. It's with a huge relieved sigh that I found my bed this afternoon once school was over. This day had been a catastrophe so far, so there was no other thing I wanted to do more than put on my Pjs, put some music on, and slowly work at my desk, thinking Tuesay will be a better day.

Tuesday was not a better day. Wednesday either. All my homework slowly started piling up on my desk to the point where it was starting to be difficult to keep track of it. And sleeping four hours a night wasn't doing my mental health any good. I knew I had two possibilities now ; sleep less but do my work, or skip some classes to work. It was beginning to get ridiculous, skipping classes so I could do my homework. I knew art schools were difficult, awfully so, but like most people I hadn't realized until then, in this very moment, standing in front of my desk completely covered in paint, canvas, my computer, sketches, inks... some brushes had fallen on the floor, staining it in their passage. My laptop was so dirty it wasn't in its original color anymore. There were blotches of paint, ink, and charcoal here and there that I couldn't remove the harder I had tried to, forcing me to give up. At some point I got so tired I put my paintbrush into my cup of tea/coffee, mistaking it with the goblet of water.

- ...Are you alright ?, enquired Mandy on Thursday night.

One look at my face and she had her answer. Bless her soul, she didn't need any more to bring me an energy drink from the fridge.

- I still have five portraits to do. Four pencil ones, and one painting. They all have to be from different angles, and I can't find any models, I complained while throwing my hand in the air in an act of pure desperation.

Mandy knew better than to sit at the edge of my risky desk with her designer clothes, so she leaned on the doorframe, slowly nodding her head in a pensive manner while I kept explaining the situation.

- All week I couldn't find anyone because they all had homework to do, and now most of them are skipping tomorrow's lecture to go home early so nobody's available !

My rommate crossed her arms, thinking hard. I already did almost all my paintings, asking for both her and Josh's help. Both of them were glad to help and even more so to figure on a monochrome painting on a canvas.

- Can you draw the same person multiple times ?, she finally asked.

- Actually... I don't know. I don't think that would be a problem as long as the work is done ?

Hopping on her feet, Mandy lifted an eyebrow before dragging a chair to sit on.

- Let's get into it then, we only have one lecture tomorrow, you can skip it I'll take notes for you.

Having a good night of sleep never felt this good. No. Waking up at 8, slowly realizing everybody was sitting on a lecture except me, and then getting back to sleep was way better. I sketched poor Mandy two times last night but the results were good, and she looked pleased herself. I didn't have time to redo any of these anyway, I still had other work to do. Waking me from my well deserved nap, my phone vibrated under the pillow, the screen blinding me despite the sun peaking through the curtains.

« The boys asked where you were. Told them about the portraits situation. Jake wants to help. Couldn't stop him. »

If the beginning of the text made me smile, the end completely shook me awake, making me sit hurriedly on the bed, rereading the words multiple times. Scratching my face, I quickly glanced at the hour. They were out in a few minutes. My fingers tapped the next message as soon as they could, asking her how and when, while I ran to the showers with my towel, soap and toothbrush in hand. At this hour, and a Friday, they were all available. The other residents were all either drunk as hell and passed out in their room, or in their hometown with their family and friends. The buzzing of my phone vibrating reverberated against the shower walls and it almost got drowned in the sink when I caught it to look at the screen. It was Mandy.

« They kinda invited themselves over to eat. Josh's idea.»

What the hell Joshua we're not your moms ! Throwing my phone to the nearest flat surface, I jumped on some discarded overalls and put on a sweater, wet hair dripping everywhere on the floor, table, but mostly on my clothes, making me sneeze in the process. The whole week I was so overwhelmingly busy with work that not only did my fingers hurt but I didn't have any time to see the Kiszkas let alone think about them since our shared lecture on Monday. I even skipped the Lunch Club in order to get back to the dorms and work on my assignments. Which thankfully saved me a lot of time, but I still had 2 pencil drawings to do and one painting. Once I had put on some makeup, I took a moment to look around me. Our place looked like a dump, no less. Clothes and art furniture were everywhere, the trash was overflowing with empty cup noodles and fast food leftovers, it smelled like perfume and soap mixing with rotten food, paint and cold tobacco. It was terrible, and made me shocked that I even got used to that. A life achievement of some sort. Everything on the floor I put it on a trash bag, running in the stairs to throw everything outside with the others'. My phone vibrated in my pocket, a new notification popping on the screen.

« They bought some stuff at the store, they wanna cook us something. Jake's idea. »

Okay, time to clean the kitchen.

By the time they got here, I looked even more tired than before, owing my guests looks of concern. If was funny, how they put on the exact same face while seeing me. It was like I just mirrored a picture. Their similar features would never cease to amaze me.

- Mama you're very pale.

- Did you not sleep well ?

- I did, don't worry, I dismissed their concern. Had to clean up a bit.

Mandy bit his lip, knowing damn well the place had been a war field when she left. Unaware of anything, the boys put the bags of groceries on the table before apologizing for intruding. We all sat around the table to have a pleasant talk, my friends always making sure I wasn't next to Jake to avoid any brutal peak of awkwardness / sadness. But some habits died hard, I realized when Jake asked if he could have a tour of our dorm. Ignoring glances, I stood up and gestured for him to go first, into the biggest room, were Mandy and I's workshop and beds were. The boy let out a low whistle that flattered me. He looked impressed by everything around him, touching odd looking brushes and browsing illustration books. I knew better this time, and had put his painted portrait under my bed, wrapped in an old sheet. Just as his brother did, he liked to take in his hands everything that came by, caressing it with his fingertips or idly lifting the weight of it in his palms like he was discovering an unknown world. Unmoving, I let Jake do his little tour, watching the street view by the window, sitting on my disheleved bed, jumping slightly to make the mattress bounce like he was testing it before buying.

- So this is where you're gonna paint me, he said, pointing at a chair between my desk and me.

My pale face grew some colors at the thought of it before I nodded quickly, in a childlike way, caressing the wooden chair's back.

- I'll try to be fast so you won't get bored, I assured without looking him in the eye.

It was this moment Josh chose to appear at the corner of the doorframe.

- Jakey we should start cooking or the potatoes will never be ready on time. Come on, doll.

He took me by one of my overalls' straps, pulling me inside the kitchen, making me laugh and pushing my shoulders so I stayed on my seat. Mandy and I gazed at them with awe as they poured us drinks while Jake asked where the spatula was, and Josh was washing the vegetables, already familiar with his surroundings.

In silence, I looked at Jake removing every one of his rings to put it on top of the fridge where no one could kick them, before tying his hair in a tight ponytail. Maybe it was because I only ever saw him with long brown locks framing his face, but he looked even better than usual. If he caught me staring, he didn't adress it, only smiled at me, turning his back to us to help his brother.

- Do you need any help ?, I asked while showing them where the frypans were. You guys are our guests it doesn't seem fair...

Of course the kitchen wasn't a real one, there was only a microwave and some hotplates fixed to a cabinet by the sink. Putting more than one person behind the counter was impossible without bumping into each other, and I could smell the accident from afar when Josh maneuvered the hot water filled pan at the same time Jake opened up a cupboard right above his curly head. Curiously so, probably because they had way more cooking experience than I thought, the boys handled the situation neatly, and Jake was the one preventing me from bumping into his brother.

- Go sit and relax, we've got this, he said while turning me around by the shoulders.

Watching boys make lunch had got to be some sort of ASMR because just watching the muscles of their back move while they were chopping onions and peeling potatoes had some real therapeutic effects on me. We continued chatting together, all the while answering their questions on « Where are the knives ? » and « Where do you keep the salt ? ». Kind of surprised that Josh had the permission of holding a kitchen knife, by the way, this part made me feel the absolute opposite of ASMR but he did a pretty good job, from what I could see. Mandy put on some music on the speakers, argued with Jake over the sound of it as to what was acceptable or not music-wise, and Josh made a show of crying because of the onions, yelling about becoming blind until Jake gently slapped the back of his head. It was all laughs and good conversation, like we've been friends for years, and at the same time I couldn't shake these feelings I had towards Jake. There was something extremely erotic about seeing a dude wearing a dishcloth on his shoulder. Or was it just Jake wearing it really well ?

They refused to tell us what we were eating, muttering to themselves and sometimes asking if we were allergic to this or that, only announcing it while putting the plate on the table, with Josh making grand gestures as usual, using his best waiter voice.

- Crêpes au zucchini accompanied by a fresh salad decorated with feta and its apple slices, ladies.

- Bon appétit, added Jake.

The table was already set because it was the only thing we were allowed to do, so at least the boys could now rest. It looked really good. Way less fancy than what Josh had announced of course but it smelled wonderful, the sweet scent settling in all of our dorm. And the taste, oh Lord. Everything melted in my mouth, the onions they fried were just crispy enough to add something to it, and I learned this day that cheese and apple were really good and refreshing together. A new snack idea I'd keep for my sleepless work nights at the desk. And as dessert, the boys brought beers. Of course.