#I love them having some kind of odd comraderie

[feroluce]

Lucid Dreamer (2/2)

part 1

Gepard stalls almost a week before he finally goes out to the safehouse, and it takes him a couple days to find it because Sampo didn't have the time left to be wasn't super specific about the location. But he does find it.

It's pretty bare bones, really. Gepard knows that was probably to be expected, but… It feels crushing, when he realizes there are so few personal things here. It's nothing specific to Sampo. Just some food, some medical supplies. A cot and a heater and a lot of mismatched blankets. Nothing to remember someone by.

But he does find the letters, in a metal box stashed away under the bed.

There are two for him. Three for Natasha, and two for Seele. One for Hook, one for Serval, one for Pela, one for Bronya.

Bronya's is mostly business. They knew each other from the whole Stellaron incident, but not much beyond that, and the incoming catastrophe is a more pressing matter. Seele's is actually two copies of the same letter, and Gepard realizes why when Seele is so angry she rips the first one up without reading it. He gives her the copy a couple days later, and she slinks off without a word.

Pela seems completely normal after hers is delivered, but Gepard knows better than to trust that. The next day, he finds her asleep in bed with Serval, bottles abandoned on the floor, both their eye makeup smeared and running and Pela's glasses horribly smudged and crooked on her face. Serval doesn't read hers in front of him, but she's clingy with Gepard, Pela, and Lynx for quite a while after. She throws herself into her work a lot. She insists the heater from the safehouse is busted and she needs to keep it. It's too dangerous for use by someone who's not an engineer. Might burn their house down or something. Gepard doesn't argue.

Hook's letter is short, with easy to read words. The rest of it is actually a treasure map, and she and the moles spend the next several days running through the Underground, finding hidden candy and toys. Hook asks them when Sampo is coming back, because one of the marbles she found from his map looks green, just like his eyes, and she wants to give it to him. Natasha shoos Gepard out of the clinic before he can even begin to think of an answer.

Natasha refuses to let him see what's in her letters, which ok, fine, he'll respect that. He hears from Bronya who heard from Seele who heard from Natasha herself though that one of the letters was a map and the other a catalogue, with all of Sampo's hidden "warehouses." Gepard promptly marches himself back out to the frontlines, where he can turn a blind eye. If a ton of stolen goods suddenly enters the black market, and if the orphanage and the clinic suddenly have new supplies, well, technically that's none of his business.

Gepard goes to bed, curls up under mismatched blankets and closes his eyes.

He doesn't dream.

One of Gepard's letters was also business, like Bronya's and Natasha's. He and Bronya follow everything meticulously, down to the letter, because there has to be some good to get out of all this, there has to be. Gepard can't let it all be for nothing, it would bury him.

And so the catastrophe passes. Not without casualties, and not without a lot of damage and destruction. But Belobog survives.

And after that, time just kind of…goes on. Gepard has been a part of the Silvermanes since he was old enough to enlist. The Fragmentum had gotten so much worse in the years before Welt sealed the Stellaron. He knows the statistics, it is literally his and Pela's jobs to keep track. He knows when he sees a face everyday in the camps and then it's suddenly gone. He's not unfamiliar with things like grief and loss.

He still catches himself checking the trashcans and the supply crates and soldiers' footprints sometimes, though.

But there comes a night where Gepard goes to bed, holding the mismatched blankets to his face, and he dreams. And it's strange, it's off, it sticks with him. Sampo doesn't look the same. He's thinner. His muscles have atrophied. He looks like how Gepard has seen soldiers after months in the hospital.

The most unsettling difference is there's a scar across the left side of his head, Gepard can see it over his ear, peeking out past his hairline, carving towards his cheek. Sampo is always careful about his face. Gepard once saw him dodge a Fragmentum monster and literally let it cut across his neck just to keep his face clear. He wouldn't let that happen for nothing.

Their actions in the dream itself aren't new. Sampo seems tired, run down and worn out, but he announces his presence with aplomb by lobbing a bunch of smoke bombs off the rooftops and sending his soldiers scrambling. Same shit, different day.

The new part is what he says when Gepard chases him out to the edges of the camp, tackles him into the snow. Gepard pins him to the frozen ground to detain him and Sampo doesn't even fight it, just looks up at him like he's seeing sunrise for the first time in months.

"I'll be home in one week."

[yennasun]

Jan 16th, 2017

A few more jobs and some trust falls later and they'd he'd slowly but surely came to kind of trust the others.

They sure seemed to trust him.

It definitely didn't change how uneasy he felt around them, especially around Rojas.

He didn't know why but his gut had told him from day one not to trust her.

The others seemed well enough, he especially got along with buster and Claudia.

Sheila was nice too, they got along well talking about fighting.

Rocky was his usual quiet self and he could usually enjoy a drink with vito, but all this did nothing to fix HIS problems even if he helped them solve THEIR problems.

He'd gone off the deep end with his addiction, to the point where he'd lost so much weight that even if he wasn't hiding a brand he'd still wear long sleeves 24/7.

He'd black out and come to hours later hudled in a corner with his room in disarray, he'd have scratches on his face, hands, arms and neck.

He had an idea of what it was.

It was confirmed when it happened as he was staying with the others, Claudia heard commotion and walked in on him.

Later on she said that he was huddled in a corner shaking heavily with glassy eyes, the room had been a mess and he was mumbling incoherent nonsense.

Thank goodness she could keep a secrete.

And he too, could keep a secret. No one except Claudia had even a clue of how unhinged he was.

In the past year he'd been arrested multiple times for assault or attempted assault.

His defense was always; "he was following me, I thought he was gonna rob me" or some variation of it.

Thankfully the most he'd ever spent in a cell was a month.

His mind would begin to conjure up more possibilities for happenings of pure coincidence, he could barely take it anymore.

In the past year or two he'd began his search for Rooney, but came up empty handed which did nothing to improve his already terrible and volatile morale.

All of this had only served to perpetuate his misery, he'd already blamed himself for leaving Rooney behind and creators objectification had rooted itself so deeply into MT that he didnt even treat himself like a person.

His own lack of action might've played a role in his weight loss as...he'd forget to eat and sleep for days at a time.

He'd love to say he was getting better after finding new comraderie but he'd be lying. If anything, he'd gotten worse.

But he barely ever thought about it, in his head he didn't need all the basic things to keep him alive. He could manage fine, everyone else handled their problems on their own, he'd do the same.

He'd never realize how warped and wrong his logic was.

March 27th, 2018

Worse yet, worse still.

He could feel himself slipping away, last week he'd almost shot a mailman.

His color had gone more dull and sickly in appearance, like he was dying.

He was tired 24/7 and yet despite protests from the others, would always do the hardest jobs.

But perhaps it was him subconsciously trying to get himself killed.

He secretly hoped that if he spun the chamber enough times, eventually he'd catch a bullet.

December 7th, 2019.

By this time, he'd began to despise his powers.

He despised the commission, his powers and himself...

He'd lay awake at night wondering if his life would go better if he never had any powers, or at the very least a healing power.

There were many moments where he'd thought about going back to his creator, just to see if rooney was still there.

The physical beatings he took from creator were only a tad bit worse than the beatings he was currently taking from the world.

On the bright side, he'd nearly saved enough money to pay his way out here.

He'd gotten a bit of resistance from the others, and he'd felt terrible over it.

But if he wanted to find Rooney, his best bet would be getting out of this ghetto and onto the city where he could make higher connections.

But now, he, Rojas and zip all had a job.

She didn't tell him the details, which was odd but he went along anyways.

He was told to stay by the car while the other 2 went into a small apartment building.

As he waited, he noticed some shady men in an alleyway to his right.

Deciding he could step away from his post for a bit, he got closer to the alleyway and as he did he hears cries and sounds of struggle.

"What's going on back here?" He asked, already knowing what he was gonna do next.

"That's none of yo-" the watchman was cut off but a sharp hook to his jaw which knocked him out cold.

In the few seconds he had to survey the area he saw multiple larger sticks standing over a small, purple one.

He decided he wouldn't use his powers, since he didn't want to risk hurting the innocent stick.

He hit one of them in the side of the head and the other 3 charged him at once.

Thankfully he remembered to punch while moving and he was able to force them to run into his punches.

Once he was done, the small purple one looked up at him fearfully.

"Go." He said nodding towards where the alley met with the sidewalk.

"Wh-i...thank you" They stammered out.

"Well what are you waiting for, an invitation? Get the hell out of here!" The purple stick got up and scurried away.

Heh, that felt good

He thought as he walked back to the car.

The other two came back after some time and zip smiled excitedly.

"Guess it went well?" MT asked

"Of course it went well, what else do-" he was cut off by a bang, followed by him falling into MTs arms lifelessly.

Rojas screamed and MT cradled his body in pure shock.

He tried to stem the bleeding in the side of zips head but he was killed instantly.

I...I don't understand...

"Get in the car, we have to get to the others!" She yelled

He put Zips body in the back and got in the passenger seat.

All the while, he was distraught.

He never got close with zip, but zip took an interest in him and MT found it endearing.

The two could also relate to eachother more than either thought.

He was so young...

Rojas cursed under her breath as the two rounded the corner to their now ablaze hideout.

The two scrambled out of the car and Rojas screamed.

"Get everyone out and get them to tör, they'll be safe in the city!"

MT didn't have time to question how she was so well prepared for this, almost as though she expected it.

He just did what he did best: whatever he was told.

He ran headfirst in, kicking the door in and darting his eyes around.

The first one he spotted was vito and rocky, they were dazed clearly. Must've been hit by som debris.

He grabbed the two and led them put of the building before rushing back in.

He found Sheila trying the wrestle Claudia out from underneath some fallen debris.

"Marv, help us out here!" She yelled out

MT obeyed and together they managed to free Claudia and Sheila offered to lead her out.

He found James trapped in his room with the doorway blocked off by fallen rubble.

"Stand back!" MT shouted as he charged a blast up and released it.

The rubbled gave out and James burst from the doorway coughing.

MT took him out of the building to meet the others.

They'd already were around zips body once they found out what happened.

Claudia was sobbing, trying in vain to stop the bleeding from his head.

While the others grieved, MT approached Rojas.

"They knew we were coming Rojas, what the fuck happened?!" He yelled distraught.

She was breathing heavily before answering

"I-i don't know"

After awhile, Rojas had offered to burn zips body and everyone agreed.

She took his body into the sill-burning building and set fire to him before leaving.

"Alright, marvin we need to get them out of here!" As she finished speaking, Sheila had taken a bullet through her chest and collapsed backwards.

"Shit, go go go!" MT yelled

They were all crammed in the van and Rojas peeled off.

There were several cars giving chase, cars that had no plates and were too new and clean to be from the local gangs.

MT popped out of the passenger seat to bomb some of the cars while Claudia stemmed sheilas bleeding.

After a lengthy chase that saw them take multiple detours due to road blocks and they were finally at tör's gate.

Rojas and MT got out before speaking.

"I called in some favors, you'll all be able to get new identities and passports into the city...I'm sorry it had to end this way, but things went bad."

"What about you two?" Vito asked

"I think we'll be fine." MT answered

"Now go, before they catch up!" He yelled

Vito took the wheel and tör let them through no questions asked, but now Rojas and MT were cornered as cars sped towards them.

Rojas and MT powered up and laid waste to them in minutes but not before MT caught a bullet to the shoulder.

Once the street had been littered with inferno and carcasses, the two parted ways.

"That should be all of them...for now. I don't think they know where we live so I think it's safe to go and rest for the night. We'll meet near the docks to discuss what to do next." She said

MT nodded and began his long trek back to his apartment.

As he rounded the corner, he saw someone looking the building over.

He was in a tux, no one from here owns a tux.

He turned and glowered at them man, maintaining eye contact until the shady stick turned and walked away.

His paranoia was firing on all cylinders now, he kept believing that his neighbors were after him and got no sleep that night.

He woke up to the sound of knocking on his door, forgetting about the man looking at his building yesterday he coaxed himself internally.

Chill...it's probably just someone who went to the wrong room like last time. Can't let fear dictate my actions forever

He opened the door.

"What can I help you wi-SHIT" He yelled and punched the man who leveled a gun to his face.

He blasted him shortly thereafter, killing him but he had reinforcements and smoke was filling the halls from the levels below.

He went back and grabbed his most important things, pills, money, his gun and his phone he'd bought last year.

He killed his way out of the building, but not before helping other people escape the building, and made his way outside where more suits waited for him.

He finished them off, ensuring the innocents were safe before checking the bodies and seeing a phone in one of their hands.

He picked it up, maybe he could find some answers.

He went through the messages and found several texts that alarmed him.

"We'll get it done"

"You'd better, the commission doesn't like fuck ups."

His breath quickened but his heart sank once he read further.

"We found tarvor, he's in the dark web. The ghetto"

"Well the what the hell are you boys waiting for, go get him! Do you have any idea what we had to do to get rojas to set this up? I never want to have to point a loaded gun at a kid ever again!"

He froze stock still, he didn't want to belive it, he really didn't.

And the more he thought about it, the more he began blaming himself for it.

They were after me...zip died because...

He dropped the phone and his arms went numb, most likely from the pain but also from the news that he'd just been set up by someone he knew for years and trusted.

He picked the phone back up and pocketed it, he was gonna confront Rojas today.

Walking to the docks, he saw Rojas already waiting for him.

He wasted no time and got straight to the point.

He held the phone out with the messages.

"What's this?" He said apprehensively

She read it through and he noticed her facial expression changed to one of horrified realization.

She looked up at his accusing yet hurt expression.

"Listen Mike, y-yo-you gotta understand th-they-"

"You sold me out..." he said, his voice weak with betrayal.

"I had to they were gon-gonna-"

"I trusted you...they torched my building yknow, it had all my things In it and now it's all gone! All of it except the things I was able to stuff my pockets with! Zips dead and I may as well be dead...I ALMOST MADE IT!" He screamed out, his voice breaking as he sat down and covered his face.

"...they had my little brother...I didn't want to do this but they put a gun to his head." She tried to console the crying figure whom up until this point had never shown any form of emotion.

"Listen to me...you need to run, they'll be here any second! I set this meeting up because they told me to but you can still-"

"Over there!" She was interrupted by a voice calling out in the background.

She turned around to see several suits with submachine guns running at them.

"Go now!" She turned around and started blasting them with bolts.

He started running and looked over his shoulder to see her get incapacitated and dragged off.

They fired shots after him and ge made a wrong turn, he had to fight them head on.

He erupted and killed a group of them but 3 of them had still fired their guns at him, hitting him several times in the chest and stomach.

He stumbled away, firing fireballs at the stragglers as he did forcing them to take cover.

He ran much more slowly, having to turn around and fire behind him to take out any pursuers.

At last, he'd taken them all out and escaped.

He limped into an alleyway and sat against a wall, feeling the weakness due to blood loss hit him in full.

He unzipped his jacket and opened his shirt to expose his chest, heated up his and and stuck his finger inside each of the wounds.

The pain was indescribable, but it would stem the bleeding since they were cauterized.

Taking out his pill bottle, instead of taking them one at a time he took the whole damn bottle.

His head started spinning as the whole world did and things were starting to slow down.

His quick breaths had devoted into deep yet shallow breaths...he knew what this meant...

He was dying.

And strangely, he wasn't afraid. Far from it, he'd actually sort of welcomed the embrace.

The last thing he remembers thinking before he blacked out was;

I tried...at least it's all over...

Not too long after he passed out, a small purple figure passed by and saw him.

I know him! Oh jeez he looks in bad shape, is he the reason for all that gunfire?

They walked up to him and started to sling him over their shoulders in a fireman's carry.

He saved my life, so I'm gonna save his.

They thought as they took him to their PC.

They got back and took him into the minecraft app to rest in a comfortable environment.

After a few days, he woke up in an unfamiliar place.

He looked around violently before jumping out of the bed he was in, ignoring the pains that shot up his bandaged chest.

Eventually the same purple stick he'd helped some time ago had entered the room.

They took a step towards him and he immediately took a step backwards.

"I'm not gonna hurt you...I found in bad shape and took you to my PC, you're safe now." MT had absolutely no reason to trust this person and yet...he saw no lies in their words and sat back down.

"You're still hurt...but if you want, I can show you around this little game we're in. Maybe you'll think it's fun!" They smiled

MT squinted at them, trying to decipher whether they were leading him into something but went with it anyways.

"Great, let's go! But try and take it slow, I've never been shot but it doesn't look fun" the said in response to his simple nod.

"I'm purple by the way, what's your name?"

"...mango." he lied

"Well mango, I'd love to get to know more about you!" They said as they led MT out the door.

From here, he'd learn of and go on a conquest for an item that could supposedly rewrite a sticks code.

He'd partner with purple and grow a strange bond with them along the way, but would make a mistake that he refused to let go of for the rest of his life...even if purple themselves let go of it...even if purple wanted MT to let go of it.

But that's a story for another time.

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

This chapter saw a HUGE dip in quality because I got impatient and wanted to move the story along, so I improvised this part as I went.

Sorry about the nosedive lmao, I'll try not to make a habit of it but If I hope you enjoyed this dumpster fire regardless.

I'm not gonna bother writing out the timeline for avm because we all know how that plays out, any chapter from here on out will be after the events of avm.

This chapter was basically for Canon divergence.

[introvertedlass]

Oh, we've all be trolled since the beginning. This shitshow has ruined so many things for me.//

Hi 👋🏼 by ruined stuff, what do you mean? Like watching his old stuff or supporting his new stuff? i don't think its ruined stuff for me, as opposed to exposed stuff to me. The clear difference between fan and fanatic. Fan, you can just enjoy the work and casually check in on other stuff they do. Fanatic, goes beyond that. I've seen stuff where people track flights, scan pics to get locations,stalk relatives etc. Thats too far. That's what ive noticed with Chris Evans. He has an odd hold over some people (not everyone) but some that whips them into a frenzy. Regardless of Alba, her age and problematic stuff. I don't doubt people wouldn't approve of anyone he would date or settle down with. I think for those people, perhaps it would be better to take a step back for their own sakes. No need to go crazy over some dude that clearly isn't bothered by having an association with her.

Have a lovely rest of your weekend x

I don't think I'm a fanatic for what it's worth.

I think for me, this nonsense has brought out a really ugly side of the fandom and made it less fun to be around. Part of being in the fandom for me was enjoying the comraderie with others and I find that has kind of disappeared. People are either dragging him, idolizing him or just plain being nasty. You can see it in how people are interacting with each other on here. I just want to occasionally thirst over the man, and enjoy his new projects and I don't feel like I can do that anymore and not just here.

[project1939]

(Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis on The Colgate Comedy Hour)

Day 80- TV and Radio: 

TV: 

The Colgate Comedy Hour, Martin and Lewis, November 30th, 1952. 

What’s My Line?, season 3, “Vic Damone,” November 30th, 1952. 

Radio: 

Bright Star, “Crooked Carnival,” November 27th, 1952. 

Radio’s Best Plays, “Rope,” November 30th, 1952. 

Radio’s Best Plays did a version of the play Rope (retitled Rope’s End on the stage in America). Even though the 1948 film Hitchcock made is imperfect, it’s one that I love, so I was looking forward to this episode. The stage version took place in England instead of New York, so it was interesting to hear the name changes and cultural references that were different. It was a good radio adaptation- I wasn’t bored for a second. 

This is the final Colgate Comedy Hour with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis for the project. I still don’t find Jerry Lewis all that funny, but the comradery the two men have has grown and grown on me. Tonight’s show was hands down the best I’ve seen of theirs, largely because it had so many of those cute affectionate buddy moments. Before this project began, I actually didn’t even know that Lewis and Martin became famous as a comedy team. I associated Martin with the Rat Pack and Lewis with his solo movies and telethons. They seemed like such an odd comedy pairing at first, but they work really well as an unusual straight man/funny man act. I have come to find some warmth in my heart for them now.

...And now a word from today’s best sponsor: Palmolive Chlorophyll Soap! The chlorophyll green soap with the pure white lather! Nature’s chlorophyll is in every cake of Palmolive! But doesn’t green lather sound kind of gross? We’re a step ahead of you! Palmolive’s rich lather looks pleasantly white, like most everything you see in the media in 1952! Doctors agree that Palmolive’s beauty plan brings most women a lovelier complexion in just 14 days! Simply lather on your face for about one minute, three times a day, every day! Wait, what? Rub your face all over with soap 3 times a day? Am I the only one who thinks that sounds terrible? Shhh...Yes! You are! Using our soap 3 times a day is great for our bottom line. You’ll need bucket loads of it! 

[desertgourd]

can you talk about these characters that influenced your modern verse?

Of course. I'll be tagging them each as I describe their relationship to Gaara and his development, but please keep in mind that none have been active for years, and my dear friend who ran leafmutt has passed away.

Kankuro (@kurohigi) | Gaara's brother. Drug dealer. Initially led Gaara to his addiction, without realizing the true damage it would cause. Later, an enabler with the best of intentions: If Gaara was going to do as he pleased, he might as well get guaranteed clean product rather than a potentially dangerous batch off the street. Their relationship is tumultuous and prone to fighting, but they do care deeply for one another. Gaara will return to him consistently and is at times blinded to Kankuro's faults.

Kiba (@leafmutt) | Deceased. Kankuro's partner. Initially a sworn enemy of Gaara, one part jealousy, two parts incapability of understanding why this strange man seemed - against all common sense - to care about Gaara. A volatile relationship at first, particularly through Kiba's incessant and not always kind attempts to convince Gaara to better himself (read: he called Gaara out on his shit, and was not sorry about it). Over the years Kiba wore him down, Gaara matured, and the two enjoyed something of a comfortable comradery. Gaara came to view him as some mix of friend and brother-in-law until his death.

Deidara (@beautiful-boom-archived | @ephemeral-blast) | Gaara's partner. From a drunken one night stand to a dysfunctional and violent relationship, neither knew how to communicate without harsh words or fists; neither knew how to give or receive love. Also called Gaara out on his shit, but had plenty to be called out on in turn. Gaara, anything soft left in him shrouded by a spiked and brittle shell, and Deidara, with the passion of an artist and a live grenade for a temper, were drawn to each other time and time again, and despite all odds fought their way over a minefield of a relationship to something resembling normalcy. Deidara taught Gaara what it was to love and be loved, and provided endless space for second (and third, and fourth...) chances. After one too many relapses and broken promises, however, he ultimately left him.

Raven (@theraventhatneversleeps | @trtns) | Gaara's sometimes-friend and temporary employer. Both broken beyond measure, seeking solace in shared trauma. At times co-dependent; at others, a wildly uneven power dynamic. The one person Gaara could seek out for empathy and a guaranteed high without judgment, for better or for worse. Contact between them decreased as Gaara got back on his feet - a home with his partner, a real job, a recovery clinic.

Other appearances: Rasa (@sunagakurenosato), Yashamaru (@yxksha-blog), Temari (@qasmavia-blog). Various smaller contacts along the way - ten years is a long time to cover (I can hardly believe it's been that long).

Thank you for asking. I hold Gaara's modern world close to my heart, and would love to breathe life back into it. The characters and people within it were and are integral to its development. It would not be the same without them.

[that-blue-vault-dweller]

Companions react to Nora saying random crazy thing at seemingly nobody. She will say things like “You Half Baked Potato!!”“You Vegan Meat! “Unwise Breakfast!!” When she is sad she will mutter “oh my cheddar cheese” “I love you my housefly When she is in combat she will scream “Steam those waffles!!”“Imma gonna put some ketchup on those fries!!”When she is asked why she does this she says that when she was sad he husband would cheer her up by saying these and she hopes that he will respond to her

Aww, this is absolutely adorable!!! 🥺

I hope you enjoy this, and thank you so much for the request!!! 💙💛

Cait - Thinks that calling people a "soiled onion ring" is the dumbest thing that she has ever heard. She has no idea why F!Sole is saying such bizarre things so unexpectedly. But when she finds out that F!Sole's husband said these things and she's hoping for a response, she is completely bewildered and somewhat embarrassed by her personal thoughts. She is just thankful that she never said anything about her feelings before. She ends up shouting strange insults herself in an attempt to make F!Sole smile at least a little. Granted, Cait calling people a "smelly omelet" is a little odd, but she's got the spirit.

Piper - Honestly is not quite sure what to think when F!Sole starts battle and immediately says that she's going to "steam those waffles." But Piper goes with it. After all, her Blue seems to be pretty enthusiastic about it, so that's good enough for her. However, when she figures out that F!Sole's husband used to say those things to cheer her up, Piper suddenly realizes just how important these saying are. Therefore, next time that they start a battle, before F!Sole can say anything at all, Piper yells at the top of her lungs, "Time to bake the biscuits!!!" This, of course, earns a giant grin from F!Sole. Her husband may never be there to respond, but Piper's definitely going to reply whenever she can.

Curie - Thinks it is extremely odd, and she finds the behavior to be stranger than any that she has ever observed. She does not question it, and overall just goes with it. She actually even takes up some of F!Sole's insults since they are so vanilla and free of any cussing. When F!Sole finally ends up telling her that her husband did this to cheer F!Sole up and make her happy and F!Sole has been hoping for him to respond, Curie is quite surprised and she apologizes, asking if she should not have responded to it herself. F!Sole assures her that it is fine and she knows he's not coming back. She also assures her that she loves for Curie to do it since it gives her some comradery and helps her cope with his loss. Therefore, after that, Curie tears out with a new vigor about the entire ordeal, and even thinks of a few new insults that F!Sole uses. After all, calling raiders "a sour batch of unpasteurized milk" is just too good to pass up.

MacCready - Thinks it is weird at first, but he does see the merit in it. It helps him keep from saying worse words that he promised Duncan he wouldn't say. So he clings onto her tradition and uses it himself whether she prompts the entire thing or not. But when she tells him that her husband did it and she hoped for a response from him, MacCready clams up and is scared to say the stuff anymore for fear that he's intruding on something that is special between F!Sole and her husband. However, she soon tells him that she wants him to keep going with it since they are keeping a piece of her husband alive with their use of it. So he just says "okey-dokey, steaming artichokey" and rolls with it.

Deacon - Is one hundred percent on board with it. He thinks it is absolutely awesome to call people "Vegan Meat" and he is thinking of even more insults and battle cries every chance that he gets. When she finally says that this was a way her husband made her feel better about things and that she is saying it with the hope of her husband's reply, he feels quite awkward. But he quickly recovers and tells her to "cheer up, little housefly." The comment makes her happier, and she finds it quite entertaining when he thinks of stuff like that on his own. They soon become a dynamic duo in spurting random word combos and driving Glory and anyone else around crazy with them. They especially love to confuse P.A.M. and Desdemona has repeatedly told them to leave her alone or they're going to be finding a new replacement P.A.M. all by themselves.

Codsworth - Immediately recognizes what she's doing. He remembers how sir used to say these sorts of things to her just to earn a smile from her. When she admits that she is saying them in hopes of garnering a response from the man, Codsworth feels quite terrible for her. He thinks hard for a moment, and he soon tells her, "Cheer up, my dear mozzarella mistress." He doesn't know much about what he's doing with the nicknames, but it makes her laugh a little, so he considers it a win. He will now proceed to say these sorts of things when she is sad in an attempt to at least bring a remnant of the comfort of sir back to her.

Hancock - Just raises an eyebrow and mentally wonders why she doesn't just cuss out her enemies. He's pretty sure that they're not going to take her seriously if she keeps calling them things like "Moldy Burrito." Soon enough, he figures out that her husband said those things to make her laugh and that she wants her husband to reply. Therefore, he resolves to defend her if anyone dares to make fun of her for her odd words.

Danse - At first thinks that she has been exposed to way too much radiation. He soon asks her if she is alright and if she needs to sit down for a little while. She responds, explaining that she's fine and she was just hoping her husband would respond since he used to say stuff like that to make her feel better. He is immediately completely at a loss as to what to do, so he just holds her in his arms. He resolves to try to reply to her so that she does not spend all of her time waiting on a response from someone that will never give one. While "greasy suit of power armor" and "dusty, musty uniform" is not too insulting, he does the best he can, and F!Sole appreciates his attempts. He almost never says them, but when he notices that she's having a bad day, he pulls them out.

Preston - Just sort of laughs it off at first. It is a little weird but he gives her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that was something normal from her time. But when she explains the true meaning behind it and says she is hoping for her husband to reply, he is baffled. He before long starts to try to think of something to say that relates to her strange little words. He ends up placing an arm around her and calls her a "kind potato crisp." It is a pretty bad use of the words, but F!Sole appreciates the thought behind it.

Valentine - Thinks its adorable even if it is a little odd, so he just lets it go and lets her do as she wants and continue calling people strange names. However, when she informs him that she is doing it and hopes that her husband will respond to her, he offers her a big hug and they have a long talk about things and what her and her husband used to do together. When they've finished their talk, he tells her "Chin up, green pea."

X6-88 - Thinks that she needs some sort of psychiatric help or a good long nap when he first hears her call someone a "half-baked potato." She quickly assures him that she is alright and that her husband used to say this sort of thing to cheer her up and she hopes he'll reply one day. At that point he just stares at her as if she has lost her mind for sure. However, after a very, very long moment and after ensuring no one except her is around, he finally says, "Do not be depressed, frozen TV dinner."

Dogmeat - Likes how full of gusto she is when she shouts, so he barks along to emphasize her words. However, he does notice how she is quiet for a moment afterward and quickly seems very disappointed when she hears silence. So he whimpers a little and licks her hand, pressing his nose to her palm. He does his best to make her feel happier in these times of sadness.

Strong - Is even more confused than usual and he cannot even be angry because he is so bumfuzzled. He often wonders what exactly is an "Unwise Breakfast." When she explains that she hopes for her husband to answer her when she says these strange things, he grows irritated and tells her that he's dead and when human or super-mutant is dead, then they don't say anything at all.

[vidalinav]

Why? Why? WHY? Rant 2.0

ACOSF is very interesting to me, because there was absolutely no reason to have any of them be so antogonistic to Nesta when she was at rock bottom unless it’s to set up that they’re still going to be problems with Nesta in later books. That’s what SJM set up whether she meant to or not and only time will tell. But If the IC and the sisters had said nothing and were more neutral and the plot stayed the same... it would have been a better book. If they showed an ounce of compassion, it would have been a fantastic book. If there was a mixture of different views on the matter, it would have been a realistic book. Except in the narrative we got, the amount of antagonism is too strong for what didn’t happen to negate that, which is also why I have such a bad feeling about this healing arc. Let me explain.

Let’s say they said nothing. They told her about the intervention. Nesta agreed albeit still feeling a bit betrayed because she wanted more time to heal. Rhys was quiet, not sneering. Mor didn’t say anything. Amren was civil maybe business like. They were a bit pushy about using her powers, but Nesta conceded after learning about the baby. They were never directly antagonist. Elain stayed away, but we’d obviously know why from Nesta’s POV. We would also know why Feyre is not there, because Nesta doesn’t want to see her. Cassian would then be there to segment the romance and be the person she leans on, when she is healing. Maybe she’s a bit mean, but he takes it. He challenges, eventually he shows the more caring part of himself and the romance begins. Everything else can stay the same, mostly Cassian too. IF that all happened, then I would be more inclined to believe that the intervention was necessary, that Nesta had a skewed perspective, that they all might have tried to help at some point but Nesta was the one pushing them all away and did so up to this point. She would have her revelations, her epiphanies, and realize hey perhaps she is mean sometimes, or she would still have her personal hatred, and it would be about accountability, but no one is actively proving her right about her skewed perspective. The consequence is then not that she is being shamed into healing, but that without healing, she would lose her relationships and she wants them. She grows to want them. I would then be inclined to believe that the IC were waiting her out, possibly having Feyre or Cassian in their best interest if not Nesta, and that they were minding their own business until they directly needed Nesta involved. Not hostile, but wary perhaps. And then when Nesta did start healing and opening up, then their reactions would have made sense in that they were lightly friendly but not close, and it was up to Nesta to really fix those relationships. And when she did sacrifice her powers, then it would have been purely internal, that Nesta was proving to herself and to others that she’s open for love and that she loves them, particularly Feyre. The entire healing arc then would have been more internal because it focuses on Nesta and not the IC’s involvement with Nesta, and the outcomes and the ending are still the same. 

Opposite wise, let’s say that the IC/sisters were empathetic, as in the arc that would be more external. Healing not just for Nesta but for the relationships. A reciprocal sort of love. Feyre would tell her that they’re intervening, but because they care for her and she’ll learn in due time. Rhys would maybe be more hard-pressed, but we would see instances where he understands the darkness, the hollow feeling. We would have Amren who looks deeply concerned for Nesta, because she had been her friend at some point. We’d have Elain, who would come to the library desperately seeking comradery and even though she cries at what Nesta says, she understands that Nesta is hard-pressed and only recently started healing. Cassian would possibly be getting frustrated, but there would always be this internal monologue of I want Nesta to heal. I want that girl back. I understand as a soldier if nothing else. Having this deep sorrow in his chest from perhaps not being able to do anything but wait. Mor wouldn’t have to be nice, but she would see how Nesta fits in the library, know the pain of growing up in a gilded cage, would perhaps see Feyre and Cassian and feel compassion for her friends and want to perhaps help for them, so she offers to teach Nesta how to dance. Nesta then would slowly open up to them, open up to love, and all of the ugly parts of herself, the hateful, angry parts would then be juxtaposed with the action of everyone else, with the love that she needs to feel for herself, the love that came even at the last moment with her father. And when she sacrifices her powers, it’s just proof again, that she loves, and she wants to love, and she’s willing to be hurt for love, because she wants to feel it all. And then the relationships at the end would then be open to be made, to be healed more completely, but then I would understand this hopeful sort of ending where her story is complete, but also just beginning. 

Third option, is that we could get a bit of everything, because why does everyone have the same opinion as it seems in the book? Perhaps it’s Feyre and Cassian who completely show compassion, empathy. Elain could still have the problems, but either show empathy, or completely be antagonistic. Azriel is fairly neutral, Rhys is maybe more neutral where they’re waiting it out, but there are no bad opinions towards her. The antagonists could be Mor and Amren. Any of these people could be switched in that role, but the point would be that a few are neutral and more business like or minding their own. A few could possibly have bad intentions and it would be clear. And some would be undeniably empathetic, and I don’t mean to be kind--I mean that they understand, they have viewed Nesta through her eyes, and understand what she is going through and are unwilling to give up on her. The empathy would be the important aspect. But the point would be that none of them change their characteristics. The antagonists would still be fairly antagonistic. The mind your own’s would be open to a friendship, but the friendship would need work but there is a foundation for it. The empathetic would be completely close to the main, because they have stood by her, they have fought, and Nesta would realize this in her own personal journey. They have segmented a bond. The plot would be the same, except we’d now see that some characters suck more than others, and there’s definitely character arcs and growth that need to be made, but it would lead to future books that that might be highlighted and therefore leaves the door open for the rest of the series. 

HOWEVER, what we got is very odd. 

Because all of these characters start off antagonistic. All of them have some comments that are goading (except for Azriel). We have Feyre who makes the embarrassment comment, Rhys who... is antagonistic in many places. I won’t list them all. We have Mor and her lines. We have Amren and her lines. We have Elain and her lines. And no variation with anyone. Nesta gets proven right about her wrong perspective. She has an internal healing arc that seems to just morph into another odd perception, because she’s never proved wrong about herself, but she’s proven right about how good Cassian is (rolls eyes). She notes that she might like who she's becoming by the end, but how? Why? What has occurred to disprove her irrational thoughts? At the end, she is still very much irrational. Nesta still thinks too highly of Cassian, and she thinks too highly of everyone, and very little for herself. She is ripped wide open emotionally though, but that happens after the solstice scene where life suddenly looks very good. She apologies to Amren, who probably least deserved the apology, and to Cassian who also makes comments, but keeps making comments until the end where he means to apologize but doesn’t get the chance to by plot. Oh wait, she does apologize to Feyre about telling her about the baby, I think, but that situation is just swept under the rug for how dramatic it ended up being. Her not wanting to exist is also one and done. The necessity of the intervention is never highlighted, so the reader questions if it was necessary. I question if she might not need an intervention from them. Some of them stay the same throughout (Azriel, maybe Elain... maybe Feyre). Some of them miraculously change to neutral, even if nothing happens to change their mind (Mor). Some of them just change completely (Amren). Some of the relationships are only really fixed because of the baby plot (Rhys and Feyre). And Cassian is probably the only one who has the most reasonable scenario on why that relationship blooms, but it’s questionable if it was truly satisfying because ultimately the only person who really had growth was Nesta even though there are two POVs. And at the end, no one still has shown empathy. Well actually Gwyn and Emerie showed empathy, so perhaps the motivation in healing with Nesta was just added friends, a mate, and distraction. Which I guess... but why then involve so much of the opinions of the IC/sisters if they don’t mean too much? Why emphasize the danger of Nesta, the badness of Nesta, the problems with Nesta, and not negate any of these in scenes with the people that are perceiving her like that. Especially if the goal of this is not to just heal but to heal relationships, as it seems like that was the goal or should have been the goal if the perceptions of others were emphasized. So the end was almost too happy, too hopeful for an arc that started off with such deep trauma and every relationship seemingly failing to a point where the others are antagonistic, and who the narrator received the bare minimum at best to facilitate change... It’s a balance issue I’m telling you.

And, I am making general statements about what happened for good reason. I am trying to show how this could be more satisfying, if the aspects of the story was changed just a teeny bit. I have never read a book so deep in good and bad things. So easily arguable and all it took was how other people affected the narrative. So, I ask why? Why not make the IC/sisters empathetic or neutral or a strong variation of all three (empathetic, neutral, and antagonist). Why have all of them start fairly antagonist, very obviously antagonistic actually, and then have no major scenes of disproval? Because if you start that dramatic you need dramatic scenes throughout to facilitate the dramatic ending. If you start very low or very angry and the ending is suppose to be higher than rock bottom, the middle scenes should be a tug of war. So where was it? Why do it? 

WHy? why? WHY???????

[snuggleboots]

Given the fact my entire day has been just been me dying about the Akatsuki yet again, I figured it's chill if I do some headcanons on the Hidden Hug Style of my two favourite duos. Requests are open! Please feel free to send some in!

 Itachi

 Itachi’s the least likely to hug out of everyone. That’s never been how he’s shown his affection- and honestly the odds are really not in your favour if you’re itching for anything like that from him.

The closest equivalent to a real embrace here lays in small gestures and very subtle kindness.

Hands brushing in passing, hard-earned and short-lived smiles; a rare heart to heart conversation, or a very powerful friend on the field when trouble finds you with him nearby- if you have earned that level of intimacy from the Uchiha.

In all honesty there’s no time or reason to indulge in this kind of comraderie or flirtation as far as Itachi’s concerned. There was a time in his life where the room for that indulgence existed, but that time passed hard when he left the village.

His love and friendship is something so special, and so often unrewarding to even try earning that you would really require a ton of integrity and fountains of patience to earn. The right to see him lower his guard around you is beyond sacred, and it’s very easy to lose that with even the slightest missteps. There is far too much on the line for him to risk something for the sake of a friend. His life is his village, his purpose is his brother. No person will ever be more important than either of those in his heart.

If you can work to befriend the man that lives to die, you can feel blessed that a man suffering so profoundly let you be his friend and comrade. No hug can ever trump that.

  Kisame

 Kisame loves the idea of affection. Life is combat, and combat is his lot in life. He’s unbelievably powerful, and to almost any common person he’s terrifying to look at. Affection is so romanticized and unachievable to him that any gestures like that tend to get misconstrued or deeply scrtuinized. What are your ulterior motives? What kind of cruel joke are you trying to pull by giving him something so meaningful and fantasized?

Communication, trust, and honesty are key. Even when you have those, he’ll still probably second guess why you want to give him such intimacy. It takes a long time for him to get comfortable enough to reciprocate a hug, because he really needs to believe you aren’t just out here to make him a huge joke or conquest.

When he finally rewards you with that embrace though, it feels like pure safety and hope. His entire body engulfs you in a uniquely, contently, sheltering hug. You’re providing something he’s always wanted but never had- and if it’s possible for a hug to embody that, his does.

Kisame’s body heat is almost overwhelming; you can feel his strength in the way his biceps act as a vice around you. You can feel his heart, which flutters slightly faster surrounded in the uneasy joy he relishes in for the opportunity to trust and be trusted.

Once you break that dam, affection is a very private commonplace if you allow it to be. Crushing bearhugs, embraces that sweep you off your feet, swinging hugs that make you feel like you’re flying– there’s so many different hugs, and so little time to experience them all.

If you want it to be plantonic, you need to communicate that. If you want something more, you need to be the one to break the ice and let that tentative sunshine in. Open the gates to long nights spent curled up in the safety of his heart, surrounded in the fierce devotion and loyalty that comes with having earned and reciprocated Kisame Hoshigaki’s trust.

The hugs are nice, but you learn quickly that the real reward is what you earned with the lonesome Monster of the Hidden Mist.

  Hidan

 Hidan is the most casual hugger out of the group. No strings attached, swallowed self doubt or messy history that makes affection difficult for him. As far as these hugs go, they’re as easy as breathing for him. That doesn’t mean, however, that Hidan just opens his arms for anyone. There’s different hugs for different people and occasions.

Some follow the drunken high of a fight hard-won; others are just casual nothings to satisfy the itch and quench the desire for a little human contact. One-armed side hugs are probably his most common maneuver.

The real prize winners are the sudden lunges that trap your arms and make your ribs ache from the pure glee he just can’t keep balled up inside himself. It’s full of ugly, barking laughter and victorious shit-talk. If you aren’t thrown to the ground from the sheer force of it, Hidan has absolutely ripped you off your feet and taken you for the ride because he’s just too excited and in the moment to bother controlling himself.

If you’re someone he’s more intimate with, you do get to see Hidan more toned down and mellow. Intimacy isn’t something he’s well versed in necessarily, but it absolutely comes natural to him. He tends to follow his feelings at any given moment, and behind closed doors he can be a real treat.

A lot of his desire in private lingers in the territory of non-sexual affection. He loves relaxing with his head in your lap and his arms hugging your midsection. As long as he can touch you he’s a pretty happy guy. He’s warm, and he provides a very comforting pressure in your lap.

He’ll speak his mind, ideally you indulge him with a fair response- and in return he’ll hear you out when you talk about whatever’s on your mind while he cozies in. It’s less of a quick embrace when he trusts you with moments like this- it’s really more of an event. If you play with his hair or massage his scalp he’s putty in your hands.

It may not be a long, strenuous road to earn the respect required for the Jashin devotee to give the gift of basic affection, but it’s still something to count your blessings for. The fact that you’re spared of the primal devastation that Hidan is capable of unleashing is a momentous achievment.

  Kakuzu

 Both touch-starved and repulsed; in his near century of life, Kakuzu’s fall from grace and subsequent defection was the killing blow to any living desire he ever had for even platonic contact.

It isn’t likely that Kakuzu is anyone’s first choice these days. It is even more deeply unlikely in the first place that he would indulge anyone with affection he just doesn’t desire himself. If you somehow caught him in a vulnerable enough place to experience that distant, numbing desire just to be touched, that hug is completely for his own benefit. You may get to partake in it, but it has nothing to do with your gratification or feelings.

The silence would be deafening when he makes his approach. The air almost awkward- like you shouldn’t be witnessing this moment despite your loose involvement.

Those inhuman eyes are sharp, but faraway through the apparent ceremony of the occasion. Kakuzu’s body is cold to the touch, and you can feel the stress rolling off of him in waves when those strong arms finally engulf you. Fingers twist into your clothes and hair, holding your ear above his heart- the one thing left alive that vigils his humanity. It’s borderline painful- almost a physical manifestation of feelings and experiences long abandoned.

Unless you’re truly in the moment, you could almost miss the bridge of his nose just barely nestling into the crown of your head- and the way his eyes fall shut when he lets himself just be. The embrace is long, and so deeply intimate and private. The only way to set the stage for this level of vulnerability to a man so scorned and jaded is absolute privacy and respect.

It’s desperate. It’s selfish. It’s the one thing he rarely lets himself have- because it’s just another old wound he doesn’t like ripping open. If you knew him- really knew him, you would know it was always hard for him to allow this kind of stupid vulnerability. There may have been a time when it was easy, when he was young and loyal and stupidly confident as Takigakure’s pride- the shinobi destined to destroy the first Hokage. That time came and went before you ever existed.

It’s a treat to you, if you can bear the discomfort. It’s a throwback to days long forgotten for him. You don’t get bragging rights for doing it, and to any prying eyes it either never happened- or you were meaningless to Kakuzu. Ideally you know better than that. Understand that you rolled the dice and won the deck when he chose to include you in the scars and mess of his seldom vulnerability.

[santacarlahorrorshow]

There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise (Ben Hanscom/Reader) (2/3)

Summary:  You're Richie's twin sister and a member of the Losers' Club. When the other members all pack up and leave town, you elect to stay behind with Mike to wait for It to come back. After 27 years pass and Pennywise returns, will you and the other Losers be able to finally defeat him?

Pairing:  Ben Hanscom/Reader; Richie Tozier & Reader; Background Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak

Word Count: 5.9k

Author’s Note:  This is finished at 16k. I decided to split it up into three parts to make it easier. If you enjoy this, then letting me know would make my day! If you’ve seen It: Chapter Two, then you know what you’re in store for regarding warnings...but with the added fun of some canon divergence!

Masterlist / Read on AO3 / Part One 

When you got to the Townhouse, you were unsurprised to see that Eddie was practically ready to run out the door and Richie wasn't far behind him. But both seemed to have been brought up short by whatever was going on with Beverly and Ben in the Townhouse's lounge.  

You stopped just in the doorway, trading an uncertain look with Richie, before you focused on what they were talking about.  

When you realized that Beverly had somehow known the details of Stan's death, you started to wonder what else you were missing.  

It wasn't until Bill and Mike arrived and it was revealed that Beverly had seen all of your deaths thanks to her time caught in the deadlights in ‘89 that everyone started to realize there was no fleeing Derry this time. Either you all stayed and killed Pennywise once and for all or none of you would even make it another twenty-seven years to try again.  

You were all cursed and doomed to die horrible deaths if Pennywise lived. It seemed your only options were to stay and fight or flee and die.  

"Well," you started as you glanced at Mike. "I've waited twenty-seven years in this shitty little town for this moment. I'm in," you told the group with a resolve you mostly felt out of a need for revenge. Revenge for Stan and revenge for the lost years of your life you would never get back. Revenge for the nightmares and incessant fear that had haunted you since you were a child and revenge for all of the children who had lost their lives to Pennywise. Revenge for Georgie and revenge for the grief countless families had endured in Derry because of It.  

You met Bill's eyes for a brief moment and noticed he looked just as determined as you felt to finally finish It once and for all.  

Once everyone else had agreed to stick around and try to finish the fight, Mike mentioned a ritual he discovered that would be able to kill It. You couldn't help the frown you aimed at him as he explained the Ritual of Chüd. In all the years you had stuck by Mike's side, he had never once mentioned the ritual to you. From the way he was carefully not meeting your eyes, you knew that it was something he had purposefully done. When Bill seemed to support Mike's words, you were helpless to stop the brief moment of jealousy you felt that Mike would trust Bill with that information but not you.  

As you trailed at the end of the group on the trek across town, you couldn't help wonder if the ritual would work. There was something that didn't quite add up about the bigger picture, but you weren't sure what it was yet. You needed more details and the only person who could fill those in was Mike.  

Going back to the clubhouse was a trip down memory lane you hadn't been aware you needed. You usually avoided the woods, for good reason, but being with the group provided you with the courage you sometimes lacked when you were on your own.  

You enjoyed watching the other members uncover old memories until Richie scared you all with his own impression of Pennywise.  

"Are you going to be like this the whole time we're home?" Eddie wondered as he glared up at Richie.  

Richie rolled his eyes before glancing away. "I was just trying to bring some levity to this shit," he grumbled before he sighed. "Alright, guess I'll go fuck myself, then," he muttered before he ducked under a beam and started rifling through a crate that held a few old comic books and other odds and ends.  

"What are we doing here, Mike?" Bill asked as he glanced up from a shelf full of old trinkets that used to belong to the group.

"Yeah, not that I'm not loving the nostalgia of all this, but what's the point?" Richie added with a frown.  

"I brought you here because I need you all to remember. If we're going to complete the ritual, then you all need an item. An artifact. Something that's connected to the past and to that summer." Mike explained as he considered everyone in the group.  

"Why?" You couldn't help but wonder as you looked around the clubhouse. "What kind of artifact should we be looking for?"

"It's different for all of us, but it has to be something personal. The Ritual of Chüd requires a sacrifice and that sacrifice will be your artifact. I brought us all here, because I thought this might be where we find Stan’s artifact.”

When Eddie pointed out that Bill had already found Stan’s artifact, a shower cap that had been left behind in 1989, you all shared a brief moment of silence as you remembered the thoughtful boy who had insisted wearing the caps would be the only way to prevent spiders from getting in your hair.

Once you all left the clubhouse, Eddie turned to look at Mike. “So, where should we find our artifacts or tokens or whatever?”

“It’s different for all of us, which is why we're going to need to split up."

"Hey, no, fuck that," Richie denied with a quick shake of his head. "Every horror movie ever explains why that's a bad idea."

"Yeah, I'm not going anywhere by myself if I can help it," Eddie was quick to jump in.  

"No, it has to be alone," Mike insisted as he glanced from Richie to Eddie. "There are memories that you have to uncover on your own."

"What's left?" Richie asked as he squinted at Mike. "We remember everything from that summer already. We joined forces and fought It and suffered through some shit that years of therapy probably won't help. What else is there?"

"We weren't always together," Mike pointed out as he met your eyes. "There was a point during that summer when we were separated."

"After Eddie broke his arm," you remembered with a frown.  

"After the fight," Beverly added with a nod.  

"Well, fuck," Richie seethed with a scowl.  

From the way Eddie scoffed, you had a feeling he agreed with the sentiment.  

“You all need to unlock those memories, because that’s how you’re going find your artifacts. Tokens,” Mike amended with a quick look at Eddie. “And once you have them, we’ll all meet up at the library. We can figure out how to proceed from there.”

Before the group split up, you managed to grab Richie's jacket sleeve to grab his attention. He slowed down until you were walking side-by-side at the edge of the group.  

"You alright?" You couldn't help but wonder as you considered your brother. You hated to admit it, but he seemed like the biggest flight risk at the moment. You knew your brother was brave and reckless, but he also didn't seem completely on board with the plan to defeat Pennywise.  

"Peachy," he assured you with a grin that was a bit too wide and forced to be anything but fake.  

"Richie," you admonished with a tone you hadn't used for years, but clearly told him you weren't going to take any of his bullshit.  

"I just..." he trailed off with a frown. "I didn't ask for this. I was fine. I was touring and famous and making so much fucking money." He huffed out a helpless laugh before he raked his fingers through his hair. "But it was lonely and now I know why. But we're already down one man and any one of us might fucking be next. Why the fuck would I want to stick around for that? Why should any of us?"

You considered your brother for a few moments before you spoke. "You could leave," you conceded with a nod. "But you'd never forgive yourself if you weren't here and something went horribly wrong. Besides, if we don't defeat Pennywise this time, then we're all dead."

"Gee, you really know how to console a guy. I can't even imagine why you're still single," Richie muttered before wincing when you reached out to shove him.  

"Fuck off," you grumbled. Your eyes met his and it wasn't long before you were both laughing, falling back into the familiar comradery you had enjoyed all those years ago.  

"Fuck," Richie sighed before he threw an arm around your shoulders. "You know what your token is yet?"

"Don't laugh," you warned as you bumped into him. You knew exactly what your token would be and while it would hurt to depart with it, you knew that if it meant getting rid of Pennywise, then you would sacrifice just about anything to ensure the safety of the others. You wouldn't lose anyone else. Not after you had already lost Stan.  

You reached into the pocket of your jacket and pulled free the red bit of sponge you usually kept there before placing it on your nose.  

"Holy shit," Richie got out on an incredulous laugh. "You still have that? Why the fuck are you just carrying it around like that?"

You felt a grin tug at your lips before you pulled off the clown nose Richie had gifted to you during the summer of '89. "It might have been the worst gift idea ever, but it meant a lot to me."

You weren't even sure why you were stumbling around the woods near the barrens all by yourself. If anything had become clear since Pennywise appeared in your life, it was that you really shouldn't go anywhere alone. 

You were just so tired of being afraid all the time. Now, with the group split up, you had begun to worry that the search for Georgie had fallen by the wayside. You knew, deep down, that Bill's little brother was probably dead, but you didn't want to give up until Bill gave up. 

So, when you couldn't stand to be inside your house any longer and Richie had ignored your request for his company, you decided to take matters into your own hands. You didn't even really think you would be able to find Georgie, but you couldn't help but hold out a tiny bit of hope that you would still find the kid lost out in the woods.  

You weren't really looking where you were going when you stumbled over a root that had twisted up out of the ground. You flung an arm out, barely catching yourself on the trunk of the tree next to you, before you kicked uselessly at the root.  

When you glanced up, you noticed you were no longer alone.  

"Oh, poor little Y/N, all alone in the woods," Pennywise crooned with a malevolent grin that sent a chill down your spine. "No one wanted to play with you, Y/N?"

"Fuck off," you struggled to say as you willed yourself to move. Your feet stayed planted, though. You wanted to turn and run away, but your body wouldn't let you. You were frozen with fear.  

"I'll play with you, Y/N," Pennywise promised as he took one step closer to you. "You'll never be alone as long as your old pal Pennywise is around."

All you could think about was Georgie and Betty Ripsom and Eddie Corcoran. Was this the last face they saw before meeting a cruel fate? Did they all fall into their gruesome demise just after seeing that wide, menacing grin and those glowing, yellow eyes?

"Time to float," Pennywise said in a deep, guttural voice that seemed to be the catalyst for your feet to finally unstick themselves from the forest floor.  

You turned and made a run for it. You could hear Pennywise's laugh following you as you attempted to flee. Something sharp caught on the back of your shirt and you tripped over another root, sprawling on the ground. You hissed when your palm scraped over tree bark on the way down, but you didn't care. You scrambled to find purchase again with your feet, nearly slipping in your quest to keep running as far and as fast as you could manage.  

"You'll float too," you heard Pennywise promise from just behind you. You could just imagine that he was right on your heels now, his hands always outreached and ready to grab you. "You'll all float," he continued in that same dangerous and lilting tone that never failed to freak you out.  

You were so sure that Pennywise would catch up to you. You thought that you would be a goner. You were sure your body would be found chewed up and bloody or that you would never be found again. But then you saw a glimpse of the road through the trees blocking your path and you hurried towards it, feeling like your chest was going to cave in with every harsh breath you forced past your lips.  

You felt relief when you finally made it out to the road. You weren't sure how you had managed to get so turned around out in the woods, but when you realized that you were even farther out than you normally cared to venture, you couldn't help but feel overwhelmed with fear at what almost happened to you.  

You didn't allow yourself to stop running until you were home. Your palms were bleeding and while you were trying to cut across a back yard to make your trip shorter, you had managed to skin your knee when you tripped over a kid's tricycle.  

You were exhausted and bleeding and terrified as you finally crashed through the front door of your house. Your parents weren't home, which wasn't much of a surprise, but Richie was sitting on the couch in the living room.  

"What the fuck happened to you?" He asked as he jumped up from the couch and moved towards you.  

You flinched away from him before waving him off and heading for the hallway. "Stupid fuckin' clown," you muttered as you stormed into your room. You grabbed a clean t-shirt and shorts, ignoring Richie calling your name as you locked yourself in the bathroom.  

You were barely aware of the fact that your hands were shaking as you moved to stand in front of the bathroom mirror. All you could see when you closed your eyes was Pennywise and his stupid grin and those fingers that could just as easily turn into claws. You met your eyes in your reflection and forced yourself to take deep breaths.  

You couldn't be scared, you told yourself, because then Pennywise would have won.  

When you finally got yourself to calm down, you stepped into the shower, intent on getting clean and trying to erase every trace of dirt and blood off of you. It felt like if you could just wash it all away, then you could make yourself forget about what happened in the woods. Even though you knew, deep down, that it wasn’t as simple as that.  

By the time you made it back to your room, you had cleaned and bandaged the worst of the cuts you suffered. Now, all you wanted to do was lie down and sleep away the exhaustion you felt.  

Your plans were derailed when you got to your bedroom to see Richie sitting on the edge of your bed and waiting for you.  

"I'm not in the mood," you growled as you brushed past him.  

"Hey, come on," Richie coaxed as he reached out to grab your arm. "What the fuck is going on?"

You bit your lip, feeling tears begin to well in your eyes, before you managed to finally look at Richie. "I saw Pennywise," you admitted with a grimace. "He chased me out near the barrens."

"Fuck," Richie hissed before he tugged you down to sit next to him. "But you're okay?"

"For the most part," you told him before you showed him the scrapes on your palm. "He just scared me more than anything."

Richie frowned down at your hand before he glanced back up at you. "We've got to kill that stupid clown," he muttered with a sigh. "Before it gets one of us for good."

You knew without him having to say anything that he was thinking of the way that Eddie had broken his arm at Neibolt. He was thinking of his own one-on-one encounter with Pennywise and the Paul Bunyan statue that had suddenly come to life and terrorized him not long ago. You remembered the way Richie's hands wouldn't stop shaking and the way he kept looking over his shoulder, as if he thought Pennywise or the statue would come back to finish the job.  

"He'll be okay," you found yourself telling Richie. "We all will," you quickly amended when you noticed Richie's face grow pale as he looked up at you with wide eyes.  

Richie scoffed before he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled something out. "I got you a present," he told you before he turned away and placed something on his nose. When he turned back around, you saw an imitation red clown nose fixed onto his. "What do you say, Y/N? Do I look the part?" He asked as he batted his eyelashes at you.  

You couldn't help but snort at your ridiculous brother. "Really? Why the hell would you buy that with everything going on? I thought you hated clowns."

Richie shrugged his shoulders before he pulled the fake clown nose off. "I thought it was funny at the time. Wanted to see if you'd get a kick out of it. I thought it might make you laugh." He reached out and placed the red spongey ball on your nose, a pleased smirk on his face. "And I do really fucking hate clowns, but you're my sister, and there's nothing I wouldn't do for you. I'll even kick Bill's ass if he breaks your heart."

"So, what? Am I supposed to kick Eddie's?"

You noticed Richie wince before he ducked his head. He looked so uncertain in that moment that you couldn't help but feel guilty for making him think that he had to be that way around you. That he thought he had to hide who he really was around you.  

"I don't know what you're talking about," he mumbled before he started picking at a loose thread on your comforter.  

"Richie," you whispered before reaching out to wrap your fingers around his wrist. "I know." It didn't take much for you to figure it out. After one night when you were both bored and had decided to play truth or dare, Richie had admitted to having a crush on a friend. It wasn't long before you connected the dots and saw the bigger picture. "I know," you repeated with what you hoped was a reassuring tone.  

Richie was silent for a few worrying moments before he finally met your eyes. "Do you hate me?"

"Never," you immediately told him. "You're my brother. My twin. We're in this together, right?"

Richie watched you for a moment, as if he thought you were trying to pull one over on him, before a smile slowly stretched across his face. "Right," he agreed with a nod. He reached out and squeezed the clown nose still resting atop yours. "Guess we're both just a couple of clowns, huh?"

"God, I still can't believe you have that piece of shit," Richie mused as he reached out to take it from you. "It held up really well. I guess the fifteen cents was worth it."  

You rolled your eyes before taking it back from him. "Do you know what you're looking for?" You asked him as you started trailing after the others.  

Richie frowned before you noticed a distant look in his eyes. "Yeah," he muttered with a displeased look on his face. "I've got a good idea about where I need to go."

It wasn't long before everyone went off in search of their tokens. You managed to stall Mike, needing to have a few words with him before he left to go to the library.  

"What the fuck, Mike?" You hissed when you had him alone. "All these years and you never once mentioned the ritual or tokens or anything."

"Look, Y/N, I'm sorry," Mike started, reaching out to put a hand on your shoulder. "I was worried. There are things that have to come together in order for this to work and I didn't want you to leave me if you knew what it required."

You studied Mike carefully for a moment, knowing that there was something he was hiding. "What else aren't you telling me? What have you left out?"  

Mike sighed before he glanced away from you. "We just have to do this ritual and then Pennywise will be gone forever. Then we'll be free, Y/N," he said as he met your gaze again. "No more waiting and no more Derry. We can leave and no one else has to die because of It. Not in twenty-seven years or ever again."

You had so many questions you wanted to ask him. Why did he trust Bill over you? Why was this ritual your only hope? Was it dangerous? Would it kill any of you? If you had to sacrifice a piece of your past, then would you have to sacrifice anything else?  

None of those questions ended up making it out of your mouth, though. "I guess that's something worth fighting for," you admitted with a sigh.  

"It is," he readily agreed before he offered you a tentative smile, as if silently asking if you forgave him for keeping the ritual from you. "Are you coming with me to the library?"

"No," you answered. "Knowing my brother, he might try to bolt again. I'll wait for him at the Townhouse."

"Good idea," Mike conceded with a helpless laugh before he nodded at you. "See you later, Y/N."

You decided to take the more scenic route through town on the walk back to the Townhouse. You weren't really all that eager to get back and deal with everything you didn't really want to face, so you figured you were owed at least a few minutes to yourself.  

You didn't really count on literally running right into Ben just outside the high school.  

"Fuck," you blurted as you bumped into someone and then struggled to regain your footing.  

"Shit. I'm so sorry," you heard someone say as hands wrapped around your waist to steady you.  

You glanced up to see Ben standing close to you, a sheepish smile on his face. "I guess I wasn't looking where I was going," you admitted with a grimace. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine," Ben quickly assured you. “I wasn’t really looking either.”

It took you a moment to realize that you were still standing on the sidewalk, remarkably close to Ben, with his hands on your waist. You could feel the heat of his palms through the fabric of your shirt and couldn't help the blush that stained your cheeks. When you glanced up at Ben, you noticed he was blushing too once he finally realized he was still holding onto you.

"Oh, uh, sorry," Ben got out as he took a few faltering steps away from you.  

"It's okay," you told him with what you hoped was an easy smile. You didn't want to admit that you had forgotten for one moment why you were so scared and ill with worry. You didn't want to admit that maybe your childhood crush on Bill had been traded for something that felt a bit more real with Ben. "Are you okay?" You made yourself ask in an attempt to change the course of the conversation. "You seemed to be in a rush," you pointed out with a raised eyebrow.  

"Oh, yeah," Ben said with a nod. "I was just doing what Mike wanted us to do," he added with a wince. "It didn't exactly bring up the greatest memory."

"Want to talk about it?" You couldn't help but offer, remembering the days when you and Ben would both bond over your hopeless crushes on other members of the Losers' Club. You remembered the way he pined for Beverly, hoping that she would one day return the affection he felt for her. Unfortunately, your crush and Ben's crush seemed to have a crush on each other. You had spent many moments during your childhood assuring Ben that he deserved the love and attention he so desperately sought from Beverly.  

"Not right now. What about you? Did you find what you needed?"

"Oh, yeah. I already had it on me," you confessed with a relieved laugh. "Something had to be easy for once, right?"

"Right," Ben agreed with a grin. "You heading back to the Townhouse?" He asked with a nod down the sidewalk, silently prompting you to start walking in the direction of the inn.  

"Yeah. I don't trust that Richie won't still make a run for it, so I'm willing to go so far as slashing his tires if that's the case."

Ben let out a surprised laugh before he bumped his arm companionably into yours as you walked. "I bet you missed him, huh? God, I can't even imagine. You and Mike sacrificed so many years of your lives just to make sure we didn't forget to come back."

"I did miss him, yeah, but I missed all of you. You all became my family that summer. But it wasn't so bad, because I had Mike. He kept me here every time I thought I might want to run as far and as fast as I could to get away from this place."

"It couldn't have been easy," Ben said as you drew to a stop just outside the Townhouse. "I know the others might not say it, but thanks."

"For what?" You couldn't help but wonder.

"For staying. If we do this, kill It, then we won't all die horrible deaths later on. We have you and Mike to thank for that."

"We still got Stanley killed," you couldn't help but point out. "If Mike had never called him, then maybe he would still be alive."

"Mike said it only works if we're all together," Ben argued with a shake of his head. "I'd give anything to have Stan here with us, but what happened to him is not your fault and it's not Mike's. You couldn’t have known."

You weren't really sure how to respond. The guilt that still sat heavily on your shoulders had you convinced that it very much was your fault. You gestured towards the Townhouse with a wry grin. "Want to go see who else has made it back?"

"Sure," Ben agreed, allowing you to dodge the subject.  

When you got inside, it was to see that Beverly was the only one to have returned. You caught the brief look of longing on Ben's face when he saw her and decided to give him a break. You pretended like you had to check on something upstairs and retreated to an empty room as you tried to ignore the brief flare of jealousy you felt at seeing Ben look at Beverly like that. You told yourself that you had to stop having crushes on other Losers as you set about remaking the bed in an attempt to keep busy.  

You weren't really sure how long you were supposed to stay upstairs, but when you heard a door slam down the hall, you left the room to make sure everything was okay. You found Ben rushing up towards the second floor, a determined look on his face.  

"What's going on?"

"Richie," Ben explained as he nodded towards the closed door of Richie's room.  

"Shit," you hissed before you moved over towards Richie's room. You knocked on the door before opening it and barging into the room.  

"For fuck's sake, Y/N," Richie groaned as he continued to hastily pack his bag. "I could have been naked."

"You can't leave, Richie," you insisted as you took a step closer to him. "I know it's what you want to do, but you have to stay."

"I don't have to fucking do anything," he argued as he kept packing. "I'm getting the fuck out of here and if you were smart, you'd come with me."

"You can't just leave us, Richie," Ben cut in, his brows furrowed. "We need you. Y/N needs you," Ben tried with a grimace, as if he knew he was playing dirty and couldn't really help it.  

Richie shot Ben a glare over his shoulder before his eyes landed on you. He considered you for a moment before he rolled his eyes. "Fuck. Fine." He took a deep breath before he scowled down at his half-packed bag. "Could you two leave? I just need a moment."

You narrowed your eyes at Richie, sure that he was still intent on leaving, but you felt Ben tug on your arm. "We'll be right downstairs if you need us," he promised with a nod of his head.  

You let Ben lead you out of the room and towards the staircase. "I'm still not convinced he's staying," you muttered to him.  

"We've done what we can for now," Ben reasoned as he took the first few steps down towards the first floor.  

You almost bumped into him when he suddenly froze on the stairs, his breath hitching in surprise. When you chanced a glance over his shoulder, you were shocked to see Bill and Beverly kissing.  

You expected to feel a little jealous that your childhood crush was obviously still not into you, but you realized you didn't feel much of anything except for concern for Ben. You reached down and grabbed his hand, pulling him back up the stairs and into the empty room you had escaped to earlier.  

"I'm sorry you had to see that," you told Ben with a grimace.  

"It's okay," Ben sighed as he dropped down onto the edge of the bed. "I should have seen it coming."

"I'm sure it didn't mean anything," you tried to console him as you sat down next to him.  

Ben let out a tiny, rueful laugh and shook his head. "You know, I always knew it was a lost cause, but I never wanted to let myself see it. I guess I look pretty foolish, huh?"

"No," you told him with a firm shake of your head. "You never have."

Ben's lips quirked up in a self-deprecating grin before his shoulders slumped in what looked a lot like defeat. "The more time I spend here, the more I'm starting to realize that I need to let things go. Not just my childhood fears, but maybe my childhood crush as well. Maybe it’s been holding me back all this time."

You winced at the thought of Bill kissing Beverly and how that would have absolutely devastated you when you were younger. "Yeah, I'm starting to come to that realization for myself as well."

Ben glanced to you, confusion clear in his expression, before he seemed to recall your crush on Bill. "Shit, Y/N, I'm sorry. I guess we're both in the same boat."

"A little," you agreed with a laugh. "But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I've left those feelings in the past. Maybe there was a tiny glimmer of hope when Bill mentioned he was fresh from a divorce, but it was never going to be me. And I'm okay with that. Really," you assured Ben when he shot you a dubious look. “I’m more worried about you right now than myself,” you admitted as you reached out to pat him on the shoulder.

"You were always there for me, you know," he said with a small, sincere smile on his face. “I remember that now. Remember when I was so upset when Beverly left town? You came to my house and we danced to New Kids until we wanted to puke.” His smile turned fond as he seemed to be thinking about all of the time you spent together as kids.  

You felt a little thrill when you realized he was feeling fond because of you. It was followed swiftly with the sinking feeling in your gut at the acknowledgement that Ben still had feelings for Beverly. It seemed like you were destined to always chase the members of the Losers' Club who had crushes on Beverly.  

"Even when I wasn't always there for you," he continued with a frown. "I don't think I would have made it through that summer without you to help get me through it."

"You would have been fine," you reassured him with a careful grin as you bumped your shoulder into his. "You're Ben Handsome. You can do anything."

He gifted you with another smile, but you weren't quite sure what this one meant. It was one you weren't used to seeing directed at you and before you could try to figure it out, you were startled by the sound of Eddie yelling and Beverly screaming.  

You jumped up from the bed and rushed from the room to see Eddie fall to his knees just outside his room. He was bleeding from a gash in his cheek, a look of shock on his face when he looked at you and Ben. "Bowers is in my room," he said before he managed to practically collapse down onto the floor.  

Beverly was already kneeling in front of him, taking stock of his wound, while Ben quickly brushed past you and into Eddie's room.  

"Is it bad?" You heard Eddie ask as you followed after Ben, not wanting him to face Henry Bowers alone, especially if Henry was armed.  

You couldn't believe that with everything else going on, you had managed to forget about the childhood bully who had been locked up for the past twenty-seven years. You remembered the whispers around town after it was discovered that Henry had killed his father. He had babbled on and on about a clown and red balloons and you knew that Pennywise was partly to blame. You couldn't help but wonder if Pennywise had freed Henry Bowers from the institution as another way of messing with the Losers' Club. After all, Pennywise and Henry did seem to have a common enemy.  

"He's gone," Ben told you when he realized you had followed him. "Must've jumped out the window."

"Fuck," you groaned, knowing that Henry was likely going to go after someone else now. None of you were really safe as long as he was wandering around town and armed. "We've got to help Eddie and then we should get to the library. I don’t think that’s the last we’ve seen of Henry."

When you got back out into the hallway, it was to see Beverly trying to help Eddie stand.  

"Sorry about the blood, Y/N," Eddie said as he let Beverly lead him back into his room. "That's going to be a bitch to get out."

"It's fine, Eds," you assured him before you moved to leave the room. "I'll be right back," you called before you quickly hurried downstairs in search of a first aid kit.  

It wasn't until after Ben had done his best to patch Eddie up that you realized there was something wrong. Someone was missing from the group.  

"Where's Bill?" You asked with a frown as you glanced to Beverly. "I thought he was here."

"He left," she admitted with a wince. "He thinks that kid from the restaurant is in trouble. The one who knew your brother? He left before I could stop him."

When Beverly mentioned your brother, you realized what else was wrong.  

"Oh shit," you groaned. "Where the fuck is Richie?"

[scorpionwins]

I decided I must do the lord's work and replace Penelope with Hiram in the Midnight Club :)) because?? Me and @viknikisbae decided that Hiram and FP being besties in high school instead of Marty and Hiram, thus resulting in Hiram becoming Jughead's godfather, would be. Godly.

like, a Hiram and FP friendship low key gets to me; Because Hiram never had friends that didn't want something out of him before and FP had very few people in his life who actually stay

k so, in this AU, we already established Hiram pretends to me middle class to fit in better.

(the question is though, why? Wouldn't it make more sense for him to go to Stonewall? Though Hermione mentions that he's a self-starter, so that could mean Hiram IS in fact middle class or at least tries to make the climb. )

My best theory is that he's the Veronica of his time, eloping with his mother and running from his dad, despite living the silver platter life for most of his childhood) the thing is, he's a rich boy in mannerism, speech, demeanor, so it wouldn't take a genius to figure out he isn't from around those parts. But well,- FP tried a football scholarship for a reason.

FP gives the new boy in school a tour, when Junior year is about to start, and something about this kid seems... Odd.

"You from around here? Never heard peeps talk like you before. Maybe just Penelope. Spoiler alert, she's a bitch."

Hiram panics. "Lies! I speak the common tongue!"

".... Ooookay. I didn't catch your name."

Hiram remembers the sweet old man who gave him a lunch bag on his way to school, just because, all warm smiles and kind eyes. "... Ram. Ram Tate."

And like, FP feels a sense of comradery with this kid bc being part of the poverty-stricken population in Riverdale, in an upper class standardized high school, isn't easy work.

That whole "Guys like us, we get chewed up" speech he gives Jug? Imma need the same thing here

"Hey, you stand by me, and I stand by you, alright? Gutter rats stick together."

Hiram has mixed feelings about being labeled a rat, but he'll take it. Allies are important. "Agreed. Lead the way, peasant boy."

"Man, you're weird," FP laughs. "But I dig weird. Come on, let's ditch. I have a stash of Doritos in the janitor's office and a few expired cokes."

Hiram is NOT a normal teenager by any means, so he stares at this orange triangle-like supposed aliment. "What's this? Is this what poor people feast on? "

Their friendship grows over the summer; They laugh with one another and they have inside jokes, and special nicknames.

FP only refers to Hiram as 'Ram' and Hiram refuses to call his now best friend anything other than Forsythe, because the name is just too ridiculous.

But like. Emotional moments, too. We need that.

Like, a scene where Hiram and FP are drunk on the rooftop, at prom. He couldn't go with Fred, so he's not going at all.

And he's sad. He gets so sad when he drinks.

"Like, I dunno man. Maybe... Maybe I'm not like my old man, but I ain't any better. I'm barely making cuts, and Mantle's a jackhole, and... There's this voice in my head. It keeps saying 'You don't matter. Nothing you do or say or feel matters, and no one can be blamed for not giving a fuck about you. And that includes you.' Sometimes, I just... I just think it'd be better to let it win."

Hiram gets it. More than he though he'd do. He hums. "So then what are you left with?"

They want to dream together, escape Riverdale holding hands, not walking in parallel paths. But summer ends, and all good things end with it.

The lie is found out; Buf that's not what breaks them apart. What tears their friendship like an angry beast is that Papa Lodge is a horrible person, and Hiram doesn't have it in him to believe FP when his best friends tries proving it.

LIKE. It would be such a cool concept to me, if Hiram's dad was a bad person, but not a bad father. Hiram? Hiram was a kid, and couldn't process that. Couldn't accept that the man he loved and looked up to was made of deceit and lies.

"WHY would I lie about that Ram?! I'm not YOU!"

"because that's what you've ALWAYS wanted to do, wasn't it?! Making me think we're some kind of,- wonder duo, partners in crime, end of the line bullshit! But all of that changed the moment I say a little lie! Spoiler alert, Forsythe, lying is what I DO! "

"Why now, though?" Fred chimed in, standing by FP, strong, but still gentle. "Why would he lie NOW, Ram?"

"Because! He can't handle the fact that he's not better than me, always been jealous of me, and I won't ignore it any longer!" And he looks at FP like HE'S the one destroying them. "Our friendship was a lie. And it ends tonight."

Hiram sees the truth too late. His father finds him and his mother, takes them back to New York, and suddenly, its clear. The bruises on his mother's skin, the business meetings in the basement where only Papa Lodge walked out of, the crying people begging and drumming at their door.

FP was right. And now it didn't matter.

He picks up the Lodge family pistol, the same he picked years ago, when he was a man before a boy, and points it at the smirking face of his father. "No traitors among wolves; That's what you've always said, isn't ?"

"Aye, mijo. You're a man at least," his father chuckles. "Come on, get on with it. No emotion. That's what business is."

Hiram is 17 when he kills his first man; "And so, the golden prince of Riverdale chose guns over roses"

it really does make me sad that Hiram and FP are essentially platonic Tom and Sierra; They're best friends but their social status and economic differences put a damper on their friendship which is SAD.

Like, years later when Hiram is back in town and FP confronts him, I want him to say "You know, you're right; We aren't the sins of our parents. Some of us are worse.''

[takerfoxx]

Blood Island, Chapter 7

With apologies to those in it for the dinosaurs.

...

The rain continued on.

Two times Nuriel had fallen asleep for an unknown length of time only to reawaken to the sound of its patter. Two times she had drank from the bottle and eaten the fruit, leaving her with enough for only one meal left. Once she had crawled over to the far side of the ship to find a space to relieve herself. She was going to have to find a clean way to go about that once the rain stopped, but for now she had few options.

Now she was sitting slumped in her dark corner, hand closed around the bottle’s neck, sullenly looking out at a small crack in the ship’s hull across from her. Beyond she only saw the flicker of raindrops. Not even the light of the moon pierced through.

Sighing, she leaned her head back and stared up at the dark. She was miserable, she felt a little queasy from eating nothing but fruit and drinking wine, she was slightly disappointed in herself for accepting the red-eyed demon’s offerings, she was bored out of her mind, and she was fairly certain that her horribly bloody death had only been postponed, which made being cooped up in the boat’s hull all the more aggravating.

Strangely though, the one thing she wasn’t was afraid. Oh, sure, she had been absolutely terrified when fleeing from the razor-birds and the massive crocomonster. But now, having been yanked back from the precipice of death itself, she felt strangely neutral about her continued survival. If anything, she was mildly annoyed.

She took another pull of the wine. It was okay, but not the best drink she had ever had. To tell the truth, she had never much cared for alcohol. It dulled the wits, and the last thing Nuriel needed to be was off her guard, and the taste had never meant anything to her.

Still, there had been one drink that she fondly remembered…

…Nuriel yawned wide…

…one that she never expected to enjoy again, but sometimes found herself longing for…

…Arroyos is an odd town. Nestled in a bay just off the coast of the island of Cuba, it is not built upon dry land, but instead raised up above the water on wooden slats and connected by bamboo bridges and wooden walkways, expanding outward until it was twice the size of the meager slice of dry land it had grown from.

It even boasted a decent dock, letting the Periwinkle finally find mooring after weeks at sea. The crew was all worn down and exhausted, and are looking for to some measure of shore-leave, to just having something beneath their feet than the ship’s swaying timbers.

Frankly, Nuriel half-considered just staying with the ship. More people means more possibilities of being discovered, and the town isn’t the sort she can just walk into and disappear.

But like the rest of the crew, she is tired and restless. Besides, the men all were insisting that she come ashore, eager to show Ned the silent cabin boy a good time.

Unfortunately, it isn’t the fun times she had been promised, at least not at first. First comes the mooring of the ship, the tying and checking of ropes. Then comes the back-breaking part, the unloading of the cargo that they had been commissioned to deliver to this particular town, and of course, though she is easily the smallest and weakest member of the crew, Nuriel is expected to shoulder her fair share of the load. And even after all that, she is given little time to rest, as next comes the loading of supplies, from the new stores of food and water to cloth, wood, and metal for repairs to other bits and pieces that had been depleted by the voyage.

But then, with the ship watered and victualed and the repairs well underway, it is finally time. The sun is dipping down below the horizon, night is coming, and normally that would mean lights’ out, time to sleep, but tonight it means something different.

Tonight it is time to play.

Any crewmember not needed aboard loads into a pair of rowboats and heads out to the larger island, following the cliffs until they come across a wide beach. And once there, scrap wood is gathered and set alight into a massive bonfire. Bottles are passed around, freshly caught fish and rabbits are scaled and skinned and set alight, and the soon everyone is gathered around the fire, drinking, eating, singing, talking, and laughing. Several locals join the fun, some of them dockhands known to the crew, others are ladies of the town interested in making sure that the crew’s time spent with them is memorable.

Everything about that night remains seared into Nuriel’s brain. The warmth of the bonfire as it crackles beneath the stars. The sound of the black waves mingling with the cries of the gulls. The laughter of her crewmates and the songs that they sang, the first time any of them experienced joy in weeks. The humming of the ship musician’s accordion as he leads the crew through their favorite shanties. And though Nuriel can’t join in, she still grins and claps along, enjoying a rare moment of comradery in her life of lies and fearful solitude.

But most of all, she remembers her.

Nuriel’s eyes snapped open. The dream had been so vivid, so realistic that even after awakening, she could still the burning wood. She took a deep breath and glanced about.

It was still dark, and outside, the rain had not subsided. Whether that meant it was night or that the clouds were so thick that they choked out the sun, she had no way of telling.

Nuriel ate the rest of the fruit and drank the last of the wine. Wiping her mouth, she settled back, folded her hands over her belly, and closed her eyes.

They first see each other on the docks.

Though Nuriel is curious to see the town, there is little time to stand and gawk. Nuriel has a job to do, and to slack would be to invite unwanted attention. She kneels down, grabs onto the sides of a box packed with glass jars filled with seasonings and spices, and lifts it up.

The box isn’t that heavy, but its contents are fragile, so Nuriel has to take it slow as she makes her way out of the cargo hold, up onto the deck, down the rampway, and down the dock, until she finally comes to where the cargo is being stacked.

Placing the box down, Nuriel straightens up, wincing at the complaining of her knees. This is the fourth such box she carried out, and it is starting to get to her.

As she wipes her palms on her trousers, she glances down the dock.

And then she sees her.

There, standing at the other end of the dock, is a local girl, one that seemed to be about Nuriel’s age. But while Nuriel took great pains to hide any trace of felinity, this girl seems to rejoice in hers, from the way her white blouse hangs loosely around her slender shoulders to the flowers in her shimmering black hair. Though she isn’t doing anything particularly provocative, nothing more than stand with a basket tucked under one arm as she speaks to an older woman, there is a sensuality in her every movement that Nuriel cannot ignore, from the way she curves her hip outward to support the basket to how her face lights up as she laughs.

Nuriel feels her breath leave her. She used to scoff at sailors who would describe the madness that would take a man who had been at sea too long without the touch of a woman. After all, sure, women were pretty, and kissing them was probably fun, but have some self-control, man!

But now that she too had been away from civilization on a small boat filled with ugly men with no pretty girls to look at, Nuriel finally understands, and she cannot help but stare.

The girl finishes her conversation and turns away from the woman. In doing so, she catches sight of Nuriel staring at her. Nuriel feels her heart leap and tells herself to look away, but for some reason cannot tear her eyes away.

The girl’s perfect brow furrows, and her bright eyes roll with what was no doubt annoyance with another slobbering sailor unable to keep from ogling pretty girls. She starts to turn away, but then pauses.

And the next thing Nuriel knows, the girl is staring right back at her, her lovely mouth curving up into a smile of delight.

Nuriel’s cheeks flush, and she finally turns away to hurry back to the ship.

As she rounds the corner to head down into the cargo hold, she hears someone chuckle. “I saw that, lad,” says a gruff voice.

It’s Mr. Gagne, the ship’s quartermaster. An older, roguish man with close-cropped black hair and a cleft in his jaw, he always struck Nuriel as someone not to suffer fools, so Nuriel always did what she could to avoid upsetting him. During the whole of the voyage, he probably spoke less than a dozen words to her that weren’t short, gruff instructions.

So why was he speaking to her now?

In answer to his comment, Nuriel merely blinks up at him in confusion.

Mr. Gagne smirks knowingly. “I saw you staring at that pretty girl. Been a while, ain’t it, lad?”

Damn it, was she really that obvious?

Blushing with embarrassment, Nuriel turns to leave, for once thankful for her inability to speak, as it provides an excellent excuse not to answer.

But rather than let her go, Mr. Gagne clamps a hand down on her shoulder, stopping her.

“I also saw the way she was looking at you,” he says. He gently pushes his fist into her shoulder. “Maybe you should do something about that.”

Nuriel winces, and, without looking up to meet his eyes, miserably shakes her head.

Mr. Gagne sighs. “I know not speaking is kind of a problem. But just because you’re dumb don’t make you useless. You can find a way to charm her without words. And you should.”

Then Mr. Gagne pats her shoulders and is on his way.

Nuriel mulls over his words as she goes and finds another box to carry out. Of course she ought not to go seek out the girl. Even if she could speak, the girl thinks that she is a boy, and will likely not take kindly to the truth.

But…

But what if she doesn’t? What if she doesn’t reject Nuriel? What if she is still interested?

Nuriel shakes her head. No, that is a silly line of thought. Even if the girl is that…open-minded, how would Nuriel even begin to woo her? She didn’t have any experience with that sort of thing, even if she could speak?

Regardless, when Nuriel walks back onto the dock, the girl is gone.

Nuriel’s eyes again opened. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the fear, maybe it was the solitude, but she felt flushed, almost feverish but without illness. A smoldering warmth was growing within her, heat building deep within her gut.

She licked her dry lips and turned over onto her side. She knew what it was, of course. It had been years since she had first bled, and was quite accustomed to feeling the warmth of arousal, especially during whatever brief moments of peace she happened to encounter.

Nuriel usually ignored them. She lived life on a razor’s edge and could afford neither distraction nor exposure. The temptation was sweet and seductive, but she knew better to give in, not because of sin, because let us be frank, what those stuck-up cloth-wearers liked to proclaim sin and blasphemy was no less than what they enjoyed behind closed doors, but because it would cause her to drop her guard, making her vulnerable. She had seen grown men, many of them smarter and more experienced than her, end up losing everything because they could not resist a woman’s wiles, and she would not let it happen to her.

But it had to be admitted that there had been a few times, only a scant number, when the burning had become too much to ignore, and she had found herself slipping her fingers down the front of her trousers in the dark of whatever secluded hole she happened to be hiding in at the time. And ever since that night and that girl, those moments of weakness were ever harder to push away.

With a long, slow breath, Nuriel curled up into a ball and closed her eyes. She tried to think of something else to take her mind off the fire that was starting to burn inside her loins.

Maybe she ought to think of what to do about the Santa Carmilla. Sure, it was an ideal base camp, but there were improvements that could be made, alterations to make it a little more homey. Perhaps she could figure out how to make some kind of rope ladder, or patch up the holes, maybe even do something with the now-abandoned captain’s quarters, such as cover up that broken window, do something about the smell, and make some kind of bed so she didn’t have to sleep on a hard, cold floor…

And the girl is there, lying with her in the captain’s cot, hand roaming over Nuriel’s cheek while Nuriel’s own fingers explore her curves. They kiss each other sweetly in the dark, while the gentle sound of the rain outside lulls them both to sleep…

Again Nuriel’s eyes snap open. She let out a low whimper of frustration and, well, arousal, as her thighs squirm against each other in discomfort.

This wasn’t working. She couldn’t come up with a way to distract herself that wouldn’t turn toward the burning need that continued to grow inside of her.

Maybe it was the boredom making her restless. Maybe it was the long solitude, being trapped in the ship’s hull. Maybe it was the general fear and unease of her predicament keeping her on edge. Maybe whatever the red-eyed monster had used to heal her had some…interesting side-effects. But she just couldn’t shake free from the boiling lust clouding her head and setting every inch of her aflame!

Then Nuriel frowned.

Why resist? She was in no danger of being discovered. She was on a forgotten island of monsters and mysteries, and the only other “person” with her already knew where she was. And with the rain being what it was, she was going nowhere for a long time. Why not indulge?

Because it would be wrong. Because succumbing even once to temptation, even in a moment of relative peace and safety, would make it more difficult to resist in the future. Because she had to stay ever vigilant and not give in to-

The feel of the girl’s soft lips as they brush her own, the burning trails in Nuriel’s skin left by the girl’s fingertips as she slides her hands up under the hem of Nuriel’s shirt…

Fuck it.

Swallowing, Nuriel reached down with one hand. Her fingers were trembling and clumsy, but she managed to hook into the ties of her trousers and loosen them. From there, she slid her hand down her trousers’ front. The small, thin patch of hair tickled her palm, and she closed her fingers down over her aching womanhood.

The touch is enough to send shivers ripple over her skin, eliciting a small gasp. Taking in one deep, shuddering breath after another, Nuriel started to move her fingers, caressing the moistening folds as she closed her eyes again.

A hand comes down on Nuriel’s arm.

Startled, she pulls back with a small squeak of surprise, whirling around to face her assailant.

Then she sees dark eyes and gorgeous smile. The girl is there, the same one from the docks, now wearing a simple wraparound garment that leaves her shoulders bare.

But how? Why? How did she get there? How did she know how to find Nuriel?

“Surprised?” she says. Though she pronounces the word well, her inflection and accent tells Nuriel that English is perhaps not her native tongue. It does not matter, as her voice is sweet and rich and full of promise.

“I saw you at the docks,” the girl says by way of explanation. “And I know you saw me.” Tilting her head, she lets one hand slide down her side. “And I think you liked what you saw, did you not, cabinboy?”

Swallowing hard, it is all Nuriel could do to nod.

“Hmmm.” Then the girl nods over to one of the local men, who is laughing raucously at something the first mate said. “That is my cousin. And I told him, well, you will go be with your friends from that ship, yes? Well, there is a pretty cabinboy with them I want to see. And my cousin, he understands. Many men would not, but he does, and he says to me, the cabinboy will be gone tomorrow, why go see what you cannot keep? And I say, all more the reason to go see the cabinboy now.”

Then the girl moves her hand to Nuriel’s, squeezing her fingers. She gives it an insistent tug and tilts her head toward the shadowed part of the beach, her impish smile gleaming even in the darkness.

For a brief moment, Nuriel has no idea what is being offered. The girl wants her to go with her…why? Where? To do what? Puzzled, she tilts her head, her brow furrowed.

Rolling her eyes, the girl tilts her head again, with greater emphasis this time.

And then Nuriel gets it, and the realization causes her breath to catch and her spine to froze. No. Sure the girl couldn’t mean that, could she?

Seeing the look on Nuriel’s face, the girl’s wry smile becomes amused. She chuckles, a light, throaty sound that is honey-sweet to Nuriel’s ears.

Excitement mixing with panic and uncertainty, Nuriel glances around, hoping for some direction. The quartermaster is sitting nearby, an older, roguish man with close-cropped black hair and a cleft in his jaw, and to Nuriel’s chagrin, he is watching Nuriel slyly out of the corner of his eye.

But how long had he been watching her? Does he know what is going on?

Catching Nuriel’s eye, he slowly nods and inclines his head as well. The message is clear. Go with her, you daft idiot.

Nuriel’s eyes widens, and she looks back to the girl, who is now looking quite smug. She stands up and tugs once again on Nuriel’s hand, and this time, Nuriel goes with her.

Nuriel winced as her stomach clenched up. Just the act of indulging in the memory of that night was stoking the fires in her loins as much as the movement of her fingers was. Biting down on her lower lip, she squeezes her thighs together, pressing her hand down harder.

One hand wrapped around Nuriel’s and the other holding the neck of a rum bottle, the girl leads Nuriel away from the bonfire, away from the voices, into the night.

There is a cluster of large boulders splitting the beach in half. The girl takes Nuriel past the boulders so that they give the two of them some privacy, cutting them off from any prying eyes. As soon as they had climbed over the rough rocks and touched down onto the soft sand beyond, the girl suddenly turns around and pushes herself into Nuriel. Startled, Nuriel backs up until she is stopped by the rocks, but the girl doesn’t stop pressing into her. She leans in, planting hot, wet kisses onto Nuriel’s neck and shoulder, and Nuriel, who never had been kissed in her life, is so stupefied that she can do nothing but stand still and let her.

Then with a soft sigh, the girl backs away. “You are quite the blusher, you know that?” she murmurs. “Even in the dark I can see.”

Nuriel nervously swallows.

“Come.”

The girl gently pulls on Nuriel’s wrist, drawing her away from the rocks. She then releases Nuriel’s hand to press a single finger against the top of Nuriel’s chest, guiding her down. Nuriel tries to sit, but she seems to have forgotten how to properly move her legs, and they give way from under her, causing her to drop roughly onto her ass.

The girl laughs. She then kneels down and leans forward, laying one hand in the sand next to Nuriel while the other moves toward Nuriel’s chest.

It is then that a surge of horror breaks through the smoldering desire muddling Nuriel’s brain, and she freezes in fear. Oh fucking Christ, how could she have been so stupid? The girl thought that Nuriel was a boy! And if this kept up, there was no way Nuriel wouldn’t be exposed! She is taking her own life into her hands! Literally!

She panics, jerking away from the girl’s touch and scrambling back on her elbows. But before she can get to her feet to flee, she heard the girl sigh. Then a hand grabs onto the leg of her trousers, stopping her.

Nuriel glances back, eyes wide and heart beating fast. The girl had one lovely eyebrow cocked, her lips lifted in a wry manner. “I know,” she says. “Of course I know. You think I cannot tell another girl when I see one?”

Wait, what?

“You are not the first girl to come through here, trying to pass off as boy,” the girl continues. She reaches up to brush the back of her fingers down Nuriel’s trembling face. “I knew from the second I saw you.”

She did? Was Nuriel’s disguise really that bad? But that would mean-

“Those men you sail with only see what they want to see. They see what they expect to see: a soft boy to order around and do what they do not want to do. But I see what is.” Tilting her head, the girl slides her hand down to rest it on the back of Nuriel’s neck. “You are like me, yes? Not just girl, but girl who likes pretty things, yes?” She smiles that beautiful smile, the one that catches the breath in Nuriel’s throat and sends her heart pattering. “Girl who cares not for the touch of man, girl who shivers at the touch of other girl, yes?”

There is a pause, and Nuriel slowly nods.

“I thought so. Well then, little cabinboy, let me give you a moment of honesty.” Her hand pulling Nuriel’s head forward, the girl closes her eyes and leans in, her lips parted and ready.

Nuriel’s hand paused. Tears were starting to well up in her eyes. As beloved as that night was to her, this part of the memory hurt the most, and yet was the part she most treasured.

Nuriel finds herself responding, leaning in as well. But when she feels the girl’s soft lips brush her own, suddenly the floodgates within her mind are opened, unleashing a torrent of darkness and pain.

The cold steel is forced into her mouth, holding her jaws apart.

Nuriel jerks back with a gasp, her hands clapped over her mouth. No, no, no. Not this. Not now.

The crushing grip of the pincers that are squeezed down on her tongue and yank it out of her mouth.

“What is wrong?” the girl asks. “Did I frighten you?”

Shaking her head, Nuriel turns away so that the girl won’t see the look of grief and shame on her face.

The agonizing feel of the heated steel blade, both cutting and burning as it slices through Nuriel’s tongue and sears the back of her throat. She screams and screams and screams, but the pain doesn’t stop, the cutting doesn’t stop, until-

Sobbing, Nuriel covers her face as the useless stump in her mouth throbs with ghost pain. Why did it have to happen now? Was it because she dropped her guard? Was this her punishment for not being more careful.

And then a slender hand gently lays itself on her shoulder. “What is wrong?” the girl says. “What happened to you?”

Oh God, she knows. She may not know exactly what had happened, but she knows of the hurt Nuriel was carrying around. Damn it, damn it, damn it! That is what she gets for letting herself become vulnerable!

The girl touches Nuriel’s cheek and draws her face around so she can see it. “Please, tell me,” she insists. The sultriness in her eyes is gone, replaced by nothing but concern and compassion.

Nuriel almost turns away again, almost pushes her away. She already went too far, opened herself up too much. To expose herself any further would only make her even more vulnerable. Father would give her one hell of a tongue-lashing were he alive.

But instead, for reasons even she doesn’t fully understand, Nuriel just stares deep into the girl’s dark eyes. Then, with a harsh swallow, she opens her mouth and pulls her cheeks apart to show her.

The girl frowns in puzzlement. Tilting her head, she leans in for a better look, something that is no doubt difficult in the dark.

But then she sees.

“Oh, sweet Lord,” she gasps, covering her mouth. “Your tongue!”

Closing her mouth, Nuriel swallows again at the lump in her throat and nods.

“What…Who would…” Then the girl’s eyes narrow, and she looks back to the bonfire. “Did they do that to you?”

Oh God, she thought the crew were responsible! Nuriel hastily and emphatically shakes her head.

“Then who?”

Oh, that was a story too long, too complicated, and too painful to tell even if Nuriel could speak. She slowly lets out a long, shuddering breath, and then spreads her hands apart.

“Large…No, long. It happened a long time ago?”

Nuriel nods.

Sighing, the girl leans back on her haunches and shakes her head. “I am sorry,” she says simply. “I did not know you had been hurt so. It must have been a very, very evil person.”

A small sob shakes Nuriel’s shoulders. A very, very evil person indeed.

There is an awkward pause, and then the girls asks, “Would you like to stop? Is it too painful?”

She ought to say yes. Nuriel ought to stop things now, to compose herself and return to the ship. That would be the safer course of action.

Instead, she finds herself shaking her head. Safer, perhaps, but she doesn’t want to do that. Instead, she wants…she wants…

“I understand. Then, shall I comfort you?”

That. She wants that.

Nuriel sniffs and nods.

The girls says nothing in response. She merely leans in, and instead of caressing or kissing her, she wraps her arms around Nuriel and holds her tight. Nuriel clenches up a bit at the unfamiliar touch, but she doesn’t draw back. Part of her is scared, yes, and part of her wants to run away and hide. But so much of her wants this and wants this badly, yearning to hold someone warm and kind and be held in turn.

Nuriel gingerly and stiffly encircles her arms around the girl, clasping her hands behind the girls back. It takes her some time to work up the nerve, but she tightens her arms around the girl’s middle.

It is Nuriel’s first time being held like that. Though she knows that Father loved her and did his best to take care of her in his own way, he wasn’t one to show it like that, the few times he actually hugged her being few and far between. He did hold her tight the night that her tongue was cut out, and more times afterward. But his death came not long after, and Nuriel was left alone.

She thought that she had everything under control. She thought that she recovered and was steady in her mind and heart.

Clearly, she knew nothing.

Nuriel clings to the girl, the stranger whose name she doesn’t even know, holding onto her as if doing so could save her. Tears continue to stream down her face, tears that she normally would push back but now simply let run free. A reservoir is being emptied, one of pain, of grief, and of loneliness, one that she didn’t even know she was carrying around.

And the girl lets her. Though she doesn’t know Nuriel, though they probably won’t even see each other again after tonight, she continues to hold onto the strange girl without a tongue, letting her cry.

Then the girl parts from her. She draws her hand down the side of Nuriel’s face, brushing away her tears, and cups her cheek. “Maybe you won’t taste this,” she says. “But you will feel it.”

As the two lock eyes, the girl lifts up the bottom of rum with her other hand, pulls out the cork with her teeth, and takes a long drink. Despite everything that is going on, Nuriel is impressed, as the strong drink doesn’t even make her wince.

Lowering the bottle, the girl smiles, the mischievous twinkle in her eye visible even in the dark. It is clear that she did not swallow, as her cheeks are puffed out.

This time, when she moves in to kiss Nuriel, Nuriel doesn’t pull back or resist. The reflexive tightening of her gut and the urge to flee again rise up, but she fights them, letting the girl press her lovely mouth against her own.

Though there was much about that night that Nuriel held dear, it was that first kiss that burned the brightest in her memory, a moment of intimacy that still left her lips tingling to that day. Warm pleasure rippled out from her core from the memory alone, causing her back to arch.

Shivering with feverish delight, Nuriel pulled her hand out from her trousers and braced her back against a wooden beam. She loosened her trousers’ bindings even further and pulled them down off her hips and past her thighs. Then, settling back on her bare buttocks, she again pressed her hand back onto her yearning sex as she let the echoes of the best night of her life wash back over her.

As their mouths make contact, Nuriel feels the strength leave her, and she lets the kiss melt into, leaning back onto her elbows as the girl presses her body into Nuriel’s.

At first Nuriel really isn’t sure how to properly respond, so she tries to copy what the girl’s mouth is doing with her own. The movements of her lips are clumsy and amateurish, but the girl doesn’t seem to mind.

Then Nuriel feels something slick and warm slip in-between her lips. It’s the girl’s tongue, pushing and probing its way into Nuriel’s mouth.

Was this a normal part of kissing? Nuriel didn’t know, and with no tongue of her own she surely couldn’t respond in kind. So she did the only thing she could do: lean back and let the girl do whatever she wanted.

The girl’s tongue parts Nuriel’s lips, and then Nuriel feels warm rum flood from the girl’s mouth into her own. The harsh alcohol burns her mouth, and of course Nuriel can’t taste it. And yet, it is somehow sweet.

She swallows. It burns, yes, but it also warms, giving Nuriel courage to press on.

Then the girl places a hand on Nuriel’s chest, right over her heart. She gives a gentle push, and Nuriel is more than happy to comply, letting herself be pressed down flat on her back in the sand. She stretches her torso across Nuriel’s, heart-to-heart, and kisses her again. Nuriel lets out a small groan of pleasure.  

The girl then sits back on Nuriel’s lap, legs straddling her to either side, her sensual smile reflecting the moonlight, her midnight-black hair like a veil framed by the stars in the night sky.

In that moment, she looks like a goddess.

As Nuriel stares in awe, the girl reaches up to take the edge of the wraparound garment she’s wearing. A few tugs, and it loosens around her torso.

Nuriel’s heartrate quickens. Oh, it’s happening, it’s really happening.

Not taking averting her eyes from Nuriel’s and without even a hint of shame or embarrassment, the girl gives her garment a small push from the top, and it down, sliding down off of her, unveiling the perfection beneath.

Nuriel can’t keep from gasping a little. She never even dreamed something like this could happen to her, and yet here she is, lying back beneath a starry sky as a beautiful girl undressed for her.

Obviously enjoying Nuriel’s reaction, the girl lounges back a little, turning so that her breasts, small but perfectly shaped, are silhouetted against the stars. Nuriel’s fingers involuntarily clench, digging furrows in the sand.

Sighing, the girl leans forward, lowering her body back down onto Nuriel’s. “You can touch me, if you like,” she murmurs as she nuzzles her face into where Nuriel’s neck met her shoulder, planting small kisses on Nuriel’s freckled skin.

Nuriel’s nods, and she gingerly lifts her hands and settles them on the small of the girl’s naked back. Her skin is silky smooth, with a slight covering of sweat. She moves them upward, finally clasping them behind the girl’s shoulders.

“That is it?” the girl says in mock-disappointment. “Why do you not touch me…here.”

And then, before Nuriel could fully comprehend what is about to happen, the girl grabs Nuriel’s arm and rises up, pulling Nuriel’s hands around and pushing them into her breasts.

Nuriel sucks in air between her teeth. Oh. Oh yes. This was nice. This was very nice. She squeezed her hands in, digging them into the soft mounds, and judging by the throaty moan, it was clear that the girl quite enjoyed the experience.

And then the girl lays her hand on Nuriel’s own chest. “Hmmm,” she says. “This feels…ah. Of course you would?”

She would? She would what? What was Nuriel doing.

“Please keep doing what you’re doing,” the girl says as she coyly fingers the top button of Nuriel’s shirt. “This will not take long.”

Nodding, Nuriel continues to knead the girl’s breasts, squeezing the flesh while the girl unbuttons Nuriel’s shirt, starting from the top and working her way down, uncovering her little by little.

She reaches the bottom and slips her fingers in under hem. Leaning forward again, she places another kiss on Nuriel’s lips as she slides her fingers up, parting her shirt to either side.

Then she sits back, her hands coming up and gently pushing Nuriel’s hands away from her breasts. Taking the hint, Nuriel lets them fall to either side.

“A shame you have to hide like so,” the girl murmurs as she reaches down to slide a single finger over the linen binding Nuriel’s chest. “I understand, but tonight, no disguises, yes?”

Nuriel slowly nods.

“Good. Now, sit up a little, please.”

Nuriel struggles to obey, propping herself up on her elbows. The girl runs her hand over Nuriel’s belly, sending shivers across Nuriel’s skin, and reaches behind Nuriel’s back, arms going into her shirt. Her fingers find the edge of the linen wrapping, and she works to loosen it.

Remaining perfectly still, Nuriel stares up at the beautiful girl as she is slowly unwrapped. Finally the girl finishes peeling the linen off from Nuriel’s chest and sets it aside. Then she smiles down at what she sees.

Given her lifestyle, Nuriel never gave much thought to her own breasts, save to find them annoying when she had to tie them up. They weren’t large; in fact they were smaller than the girl currently undressing her, but it did not pay to become complacent.

But now, as the girl looks appreciatively down at her exposed chest, Nuriel suddenly finds herself quite fond of them. No one ever looked at her like that before.

The girl playfully drags a finger over Nuriel’s chest, circling around one breast and then the other. Then she takes the slight mount in her hand and bends over to close her mouth over one tiny, pink nipple.

Nuriel squirms and gasps in ecstasy. The girl sucks and kisses the hard nub, swirling her tongue around its base and kissing its peak. Then she moves her mouth over to the other breast and does the same.

Nuriel is again on the verge of tears, but not from any buried pain or shame, but from the waves of hot arousal surging through her young body. She never felt anything like this before, never imagined that it could be so good.

When she woke up that morning, she was a girl pretending to be a boy. And soon she would have to go back to being that. But for now, for this brief moment of pleasure, of vulnerability, of exposure, of naked honesty, for the first time in her life she is a woman.

The girl again sits up and wipes her mouth. Nuriel blinks her eyes, trying to clear her head. As wonderful as that felt, she doesn’t want to miss a thing.

The girl reaches down and takes the hem of the garment lying around her waist and slowly opens it up, revealing the rest of her.

Then the girl slides back off of Nuriel’s lap down between her legs. She gets onto all fours, the curve of he rear sticking into the air, and lowers her top half down over Nuriel’s waist. Running her fingers over Nuriel’s lap, she mischievously played with the laces, flicking them back and forth, before finally untying them. One they were loose, she grabbed onto the waistline and pulled them down.

Unable to wipe the silly grin off of her face, Nuriel craned her neck to watch as her trousers were tugged down past her thighs, down to her knees. Leaving it at that, the girl then runs her hand over Nuriel’s thighs and traces the contours of her groin.

Nuriel’s abdominals clench up in anticipation. Sweet Jesus, this is actually happening. This is-

Her eyes closing, the girl lowers her head down between Nuriel’s legs.

“Nnngguhhh!”

Nuriel’s hips bucked as she came, warm arousal flooding her palm. She hissed sharply, her back arching, thrusting her sex into her own hand, riding out the first orgasm she had been permitted in months.

The waves of bliss rise and crash, rise and crash, until finally the beautiful torture subsides, leaving a comfortable ache in its wake. Panting, Nuriel removed her hand and let it drop to the floor.

For a time it was all she could do to just lay there, feeling drained, sticky, but relieved. It was like finally being able to scratch a persistent itch at the bottom of her foot, one she had been unable to reach because she never had the opportunity to remove her boot. It feels like heavy stones had been rolled off her shoulders, and she could finally lie down and rest.

She had felt the same that night. When all was said and done, and she and the girl, whose name Nuriel still didn’t know, had laid together in each other’s arms, basking in the afterglow, sleep had come upon her so quickly that she hadn’t even realized that she was tired until she was waking up the next morning, still sprawled out on the beach.

When she did, the girl had been gone.

Nuriel had panicked then, convinced that it had all been a set-up, that the girl had led her away, gained her trust, and seduced her only to rob her after.

And yet, upon frenzied inspection, Saint George remained in his hidden sheath, and the few coins that she had secreted upon her body were still there. The girl had even taken the time to replaced Nuriel’s bindings and button up her shirt, leaving her disguise intact.

But she was still gone.

There had been many leering grins and knowing looks when Nuriel had returned to the Periwinkle. Mr. Gagne had slapped her on the back, and some of the crew had cheered. Nuriel’s had been flushed with embarrassment, but also somewhat proud. Regardless of what they knew about her, the crew had still been proud of her, and she appreciated that.

Even so, she had never seen the girl again. But she never, ever forgot her.

Gradually the blissful haze started to dissipate from her mind, and she started to feel her strength return. Sighing happily, she lifted her ass and pulled her trousers back up, though she left the ties undone. Then she lay down flat on the ground, curled up into as comfortable position as she could, and let herself drift off, hoping that if she dreamed, it would be of that girl.

As the soft drumming of the rain lulled her back to sleep, Nuriel found herself wondering if her new red-eyed friend had been watching.

…

When Nuriel’s eyes opened again, rain no longer pounded against the Santa Carmilla’s hull, and light was streaming in from the various cracks and holes.

Blinking, she slowly straightened up. A knot in her neck made her wince, as did the looseness of her right arm, which she had apparently slept on. What was more, her head was throbbing, probably thanks to that wine. Massaging her neck with her left hand while she shook some life into her right, she looked around.

It was day, and the storm was over. Outside she could hear the sound of seabirds mingling with the surf.

She had survived.

As the rest of her body woke up, Nuriel took notice of something interesting. Her friend had again returned. The basket was once again full of fruit. What was more, it was joined by a smaller basket. She leaned forward to look inside.

Inside were several chunks of some kind of cooked meat. Fish, from the smell, though whoever had done the cooking hadn’t been very good at it, as it seemed like they had simply torn out chunks and charred them over a fire. She gingerly reached down and prodded on especially blackened piece. It was still a little warm, so it hadn’t been there for that long.

Nuriel shrugged. Who cared? Taste never mattered to her anyway.

She scarfed down breakfast, shoveling handfuls of burnt and greasy fish and chunks of wild fruit into her mouth.

As she did, she took note of the two wine bottles, now sitting upright near the baskets. She grabbed one and sloshed it around. It was full.

Good.

Nuriel swallowed her mouthful and took a sip.

A second later she coughed. She had been expecting wine, but instead it was only water.

Well, whatever. It was probably for the best. Wine was good for when she needed to rest, but water was what she needed now. Her throat was parched, and her head hurt.

Moments later Nuriel had gone through both baskets and drank a bottle and a half. She sat back, feeling better than she had in a good long while. Her hurts were healed, her belly was full, her throat was wetted, and even her headache was clearing up.

Feeling cheered, Nuriel slowly rose to her feet. They wobbled, but held.

Then she noticed that the note that the red-eyed monster had left her was still there, lying near where she had slept.

Frowning, she knelt down and picked it up. It was still very long, and though it was obviously by the same hand that had left her that first note, this one was hurried, almost frantic.

Well, reading it would be difficult enough even in the shadows of the ship’s cargo space. Nuriel ascended the steps, braced her shoulder against the hatch, and shoved it open.

The bright light of the sun made her wince, and certainly did the receding throb in her head no favors. Squinting, Nuriel walked out onto the deck and looked around.

It was either late morning or early afternoon. The sun was high, and the sky clear. All in all, it was a very lovely day, and the view was astounding.

If one were to overlook all of the monsters out there looking to eat her, of course.

Nuriel blinked until her eyes had adjusted. Then she sat down in the sunlight to try to decipher the letter.

Her reading skills were quite rusty, and never that thorough to begin with. And the hand that wrote it had done so…quickly. Still, the letters were large, so it was clear that the writer really wanted to get the message across.

After some time she managed to get the gist of it. It went a little something like this.

I am so, so, SO sorry I scared you. That was not my (here was a long word that she had to really spell out, but she felt that it was probably “intention”) at all. Please (another long word, something-“stand”) that I am not a threat. I swear by my blood (by its blood? Was that some kind of witchcraft thing?) that I mean you no harm. You have nothing to fear from me.

Nuriel frowned. That was unlikely.

But please, please, PLEASE (here the word was written so large that it was nearly the size of the preceding paragraph) never do anything that (um, what was this word? Something-less, starts with an “r”) ever again! The island is (damn it, another big word! Dan…dangger…no, danger! Dangerous!) at night! Well, it is dangerous at day, but even more at night!

Well, on that, Nuriel agreed.

I drove the birds away from the ship, and made sure they will not return. But they are active at night, and if you go out too far, I cannot stop them from hunting you! Nor any of the other (mon…mon…Mondays? No, wait, monsters! Of course it was monsters. Why hadn’t she known that? She had certainly had the word repeating in her mind over and over again lately!) that hunt in the dark.

Nuriel breathed out. It sounded like her red-eyed friend was telling her to stay put at night, to not leave the ship. And Nuriel didn’t care for that. She wasn’t one to appreciate being told to stay or stay out of anywhere.

Then again, considering what had happened the last time she had left the ship when the moon was out…

I know I have given you little reason to trust me, and I am sorry for that. If you wish for me to leave you alone, I will do so. But I have been trapped alone on this island for a very long time, and never (ex…expe..expected!) to share it with such a brave, (cutting? Did the letter just call her cutting? No, wait, those were n’s. Cunning. Was that even a word?), and, if you do not mind me saying, (here was another long word, but Nuriel recognized it immediately, and it made her groan a little) beautiful young fighter such as yourself.

Despite everything, Nuriel couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Great, flattery.

I have been watching you from afar, and you really are quite (another long word that started with “ex,” one that Nuriel couldn’t even begin to guess at. Probably some kind of silly compliment)! Please, it would break my heart to see you come to harm especially in response to me.

If you wish for me to go, then I will do so, never to step foot near the Carmilla's Fancy ever again. I would not blame you if that were to be the case. There would be no hard feelings.

But, if you would permit me to continue to keep watch over you, I think you would find me very useful. You needn’t even see me. I will stay out of sight, bringing what you need while you sleep and keeping the monsters away.

Again Nuriel frowned. She didn’t like the thought of anyone or anything strange doing stuff while she slept, regardless of what it was.

But again, if you’d rather I not, then I would understand.

Just please promise me that you will stay safe.

Please.

And at the bottom was a flourished signature, one that Nuriel couldn’t even begin to decipher, other than it also began with an “N.”

Breathing out, Nuriel slowly lowered the paper. She sat down cross-legged on the deck and thought.

Clearly the red-eyed monster was a strange one. It was not human; that much was obvious. But Nuriel was no longer convinced that it was some kind of malicious demon. She still didn’t trust her unsettling friend, if that truly what it was, but she didn’t feel as threatened by it either.

But what to do? What if she grew complacent, came to rely on the red-eyed monster’s gifts, and it cost Nuriel her soul? What if in accepting its help she ended up damned?

You already ate its food, came the reply from the back of her mind. You already drank its wine and accepted its gifts. In for a penny…

Nuriel shivered, but she had no retort.

You tried to flee, and it almost got you killed. It was only because of the demon that you still live. And if your stubbornness kills you, then what good would your purity do? You will be burning in Hell regardless.

That was true. That was very true.

Nuriel looked down at the letter. It was true, there was nothing more dangerous than the attention of another person, and whatever this thing was, it was clear that Nuriel had its full attention. And yet, if it weren’t for that attention, she would be dead.

But what if that was the point? What if the red-eyed monster was lulling her into a false sense of security, to make Nuriel reliant on its help? What if she became too accustomed to its gifts and protection? She might as well put the collar around her own neck for it!

On the other hand, there was literally nothing stopping it from taking her by force if it wanted to. Anything capable of driving off the razor-birds and keeping the other monsters away would have no trouble subduing one small girl. It wouldn’t need to get her to drop her guard; it only needed to act, and she would be helpless to stop it.

Still, there were many stories that claimed that for all their power, creatures such as demons, the Fair Folk, spirits, and the like were bound by certain rules, and could only act according to those rules. That was why so many stories were based around them disguising themselves and engaging in some kind of trickery in order to steal souls, because they would be unable otherwise.

But again, what good would her soul do her if she were torn to pieces, if she were to starve to death, if she were to be fall sick to infection or some strange, exotic disease?

It was a puzzler, one that Nuriel had to be very careful in solving. She sat down and thought for a very long time.

Then, after nearly an hour, Nuriel stood. She walked over to the captain’s cabin and looked inside.

It was still empty, bereft of bloodthirsty birds, but the chest remained. Squatting in front of it, Nuriel perused its remaining contents until she found what she was looking for: a piece of charcoal, a hammer, and a nail. Then she turned the note over to where there was still some blank space and with unpracticed hands jotted out two rough words.

That done, she pressed the note to the side of the ruined mast and used the hammer to drive the nail through, pinning the note in place. The red-eyed monster was sure to return, and when it did the note would be waiting for it.

Nuriel’s message simply read, “THANK YOU.”

[mychemicalxmen]

The Umbrella Academy College Theatre Kid AU Plot

Alright bitches, ask and ye shall receive. 

Here’s the 6k summary of this ten-chapter monstrosity I almost wrote a year ago and just now attempted to flesh out.

Canon divergence from the point of their birth onward. The Commission doesn’t exist here, it would just make everything a little too complicated. No Luther/Allison either, personal preference. If anyone would want to try writing or drawing a scene from this universe, I would be over the heckin moon, please feel free to do w/e if any part of this inspires anyone. And if anyone just wants to shoot hc, pop off!

But yeah. This is a crack concept treated dead seriously. Buckle up.

Chapter One - “Overture”

-I wrote this chapter, but it’s Really Not Good. I had just watched the show and hadn’t written fic in a Hot Minute.

-Welcome to Umbrella University, a top-tier school with a sacrilegiously large budget for the fine arts!

-They’re all freshman atm.

-Basically, all of our kiddos (except Five, we’ll get there) are cleaning the theater between shows in the fall season. Allison is acting House Crew Chief and is overseeing the whole thing. The others are on House Crew for various reasons - tech class credit, volunteer hours, etc. No one is actually studying theatre for their major except Allison, who’s double-majoring in acting and something else

-They’re essentially strangers (except Ben and Klaus, who are assigned roommates). They’re all aware of their own powers, but not any of the others’.

-As they clean, the host on the radio is going on about the one-year anniversary of his favorite “Hargreeves Five” (the current Academy, made up of different kids from the 43, and definitely not based on the ASBO Five) battle, apprehending a robber named Erick Webber in New York City. He was a starving actor who stole from large donation funds that were supposed to be distributed to other starving artists. The battle got violent, and fire got involved. What a spectacle!

-Vanya, who has accidentally skipped her meds that day, sees a rat and screams, prompting Luther to drop the lighting equipment he’s working on. Loud sound. Telekinetic energy starts going.

-There is a comically convenient chain reaction in which all of the siblings’ powers are triggered at once - Diego throws something, Klaus levitates, the Horror has to hold up the light rig, Allison has to rumor to memory-wipe the witnesses, etc.

-Once they have the situation under control, they realize it’s… weird. The odds are absolutely astronomical. How the hell did they all end up in the same place??

-There’s no reason to believe anyone brought them together on purpose, except maybe fate, or whatever Mysterious Space Magic caused their birth in the first place. They have a private House Crew meeting with a lot of freaking out and questions and bonding.

Chapter Two - “God I Hope I Get It”

-Fast forward to junior year. Since that fateful day, the theater has become the siblings’ home base. Luther is the shop foreman this year, Allison is seated at the right hand of the theatre department director (a sharp middle-aged woman who directs half of the shows), Diego knows his way around lights, and Klaus frequently builds and paints in the scene shop. Allison’s the only one of them who actually performs.

-The fall season includes Hair and Othello, and the joint audition for both is quickly approaching.

-Vanya, however, has been drifting away from it all for some reason. Allison finds her in the quad one day and encourages her to audition for Othello. Apparently, the theatre director has observed Vanya’s love of reading plays from afar and asked for her specifically. Vanya doesn’t want to go anywhere near the theater, but she’s touched by Allison’s belief in her and reluctantly says she’ll think about it.

-Diego is going through his classes and can’t help but feel like there’s this one freshman that’s just… following him. Looking at him funny. Keeps showing up in all his usual spots. Must be one of those obnoxious wiz kids - there’s no way in hell that he’s eighteen years old.

-Vanya has a monologue in her back pocket, her favorite from Winter’s Tale, ready to go. But when the day of the audition comes, she walks into the theater for the first time in months, and she breaks down and runs to the bathroom. Allison is too busy helping the director to console her, so she sends Klaus to check on her.

-Klaus talks to her through the door and tries to hype her up for the audition. Ghost!Ben tells him to reel it in.

-Vanya eventually admits that she drifted away from the theater because it was always a special place for the six of them, but after Ben died in a car crash in sophomore year, thinking about it just broke her heart all over again.

-Klaus doesn’t quite have the tact of language to bring her comfort, but Ben does. Without revealing he can see Ben, Klaus just echoes his words. Saying that Ben would still want her to be happy here. Saying that it’s okay to take time to work through all those feelings. He stays there until Vanya’s calm enough to come out of the bathroom, hug him for a really long time, and then go into her audition.

-The cast lists go out, and all the siblings run to see the one for Othello. Allison is the stage manager, to the surprise of no one, and has already seen that she’ll be playing Dionne in Hair. The headmaster’s kid (who I never gave a name, so let’s just call him Ollie) is playing Othello, some guy named Leonard is playing Roderigo, and Vanya is playing Desdemona. While they’re leaving to celebrate, Diego sees The Weird Freshman sign his initial on the cast list, confirming his role. He takes a peek at it later and wonders how this five-foot-six gremlin was cast as Iago, and what kind of a name is Five, anyway?

Chapter Three - “Good Morning Starshine”

-Production on Hair has begun.

-Diego is still a vigilante, but like, specifically for the college’s organization for fighting sexual harassment. Make no mistake, he is not endorsed by the club in any way, shape, or form. But when fellow criminal justice major Eudora Patch gets catcalled on a late night walk home from the library, a fraternity douchebag gets his hoodie pinned to the wall with a knife and receives an extremely harsh talking-to.

-Eudora just sighs into the darkness like “Diego was that really necessary” and keeps walking and Diego runs up to meet her like “yes??”

-Insert exposition here about how they’re exes but there’s still that Tension and fond bickering from the show. Eudora thinks he should get involved in other things on campus, but he immediately rejects it. No. Nope. Nothing else going on. Just lights. And Batman.

-Luther and Allison often hang out in one of the hallways of the theater for lunch. Allison complains that she’s in charge of a lot of little projects in the program, and it’s hard to get people to listen to her. Luther complains that Diego hasn’t been showing up to help in the shop lately. Even though Diego’s not officially on set crew, it’s a little suspicious that he hasn’t been around.

-The mainstage theater has been going through a very fancy refurbishment, and a new chandelier just came in. How the department has the money for a chandelier, no one has any idea. There’s an inside joke that the theatre director must be having a scandalous lesbian affair with the headmaster.

-After a while, Luther enlists Klaus to help him to figure out what Diego’s hiding. With their single shared braincell, it takes them a little too long to realize that Diego’s name is on the Hair cast list. But that can’t possibly be right.

-Luther and Klaus sneak into the blackbox (a smaller, more intimate theater) in the middle of a Hair rehearsal and, sure enough, holy shit, Diego is actually onstage as one of the tribe people, lowkey having the time of his life.

-Enter UT Dallas transfer David Katz in the role of Claude. And it’s just. On sight. Klaus is down for the goddamn count.

-“Who is that??” “I know, right? Like, that’s our brother.” “No, no, not him. The really pretty one.”

-At the end of whatever song they’re doing, Diego locks eyes with Luther and almost dies of embarrassment right then and there.

-Cue big long childish argument of “why didn’t you tell us you had any interest in being in the musical?” and “I didn’t know I had any interest either oKAY you weren’t supposed to find out” “how wouldn’t we have found out you IDIOT we LIVE HERE.”

-At the end of rehearsal, Diego is feeling entirely beaten down. As is Allison, up to her eyeballs in responsibility. They sit on the loading dock and Diego admits he didn't want to make a big deal out of the fact that he was in Hair. But he’s actually really digging the songs and the messages and the comradery. Even though musical theatre is dumb. Allison assures him it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

Chapter Four - “What’s the Buzz?”

-Production on Othello has begun.

-Fluffy opening that’s just a montage of Disaster Klaus repeatedly trying to justify sitting in on Hair rehearsal. “Sure, Allison, let me cut out those gels.” “Sure, Dance Captain, I can record the choreography.” “Shut up, Ben, I’m just really into American military history.”

-Meanwhile he’s just…… watching the show, listening to Dave sing, waiting for the right moment to strike up a Totally Casual Conversation with him.

-And it happens! Eventually.

-Diego meets Eudora on the loading dock and comes clean to her about the fact that he’s in the musical. Eudora is shocked and amused and teases him a little for it, but she’s ultimately supportive. And endeared. Cute bickering.

-When she leaves for her next class, Five is six feet away sipping coffee like “Oh, you’re both the same major? Aww that’s adorable.”

-Diego finally confronts him and asks him what his deal is and Five says something cryptic about “Reggie’s bastards”. Diego grabs him by the arm and drags him to the empty dressing room and interrogates him on everything he knows.

-Five is somewhere in his thirties, he can teleport, his body’s been screwed up by time travel complications, he knows about all the others, and he’s “played a game of hopscotch with an unsympathetic god”. When asked why he came back to this time in particular, he dodges the question with some snarky reply of how he’s not sure he made the right call.

-They decide not to tell everyone else all at once, until they hear faint movement. They find Klaus buried under a throw blanket on The Couch that every theater has, a little stoned, stirring from a midday dressing room nap.

-”I’m a BOY in LOVE, leave me aLONE.”

Chapter Five - “No One is Alone”

-Once again, Allison is overwhelmed. She had rumored her way into the double major when she didn’t actually have the high school credits necessary to graduate on time, but since meeting the other siblings, she’d sworn off using her power. If she was caught, it could start a breadcrumb trail to the others and expose all of them. And like, they just want to get out of here with their degrees, man.

-The theatre department director has had to assign her the most incompetent freshmen in the world to manage with assorted housekeeping tasks. They have an attitude, they don’t know how anything works, and Allison simply doesn’t have the time to lead them. She comes to the theatre director to explain this.

-And for the first time in a long while, the director expresses sternness to her. And it hurts.

-”Come on, Allison, we both know you’re good with people. You can be very persuasive when you want to be. You will work this out.”

-It’s very pointed. She will work this out. There is no other option.

-And. Not to be self-centered, but the spring musical is going to be Cabaret, and Allison has been convinced she had Sally Bowles in the bag. But if she gets on the director’s bad side halfway through junior year…

-It’s a particularly tense day, ten minutes before she has to sign in for Hair rehearsal. Some poor freshman is organizing the costume closet and just doesn’t get it and doesn’t want to be here and the director demands that this is done by the end of the day.

-So. It’s just one. It’s no big deal. She just heard the oddest little rumor that the student could make the closet perfectly tidy within the hour.

-Five and Vanya are at rehearsal for Othello. Now that he’s actually talked to Diego and Klaus, he feels a little more at ease being in this place and time. The two have plenty of time to chat while on breaks. And because Vanya is such a chill, calming force compared to the stubborn and impulsive Diego, it goes a lot smoother.

-Neither of them can stand Ollie, the headmasters’ pretentious son who’s playing Othello, going on and on about his actor step-brother in New York. Whatever. He likes to creep around the scene shop, too. Like he’s judging the tech. I’d like to see YOU pick up a drill, sir.

-He’s also really close to the theatre director. No one’s ever heard them interact, but they’ve sure seen them together. And he’s not even putting in all the hours for her that Allison is.

-Vanya and Five probably get coffee before rehearsal. Run lines. Five rambles about the flaws in Shakespeare’s philosophies over an americano. And they eventually tell each other their stories.

-Pogo had gone with Sir Reginald to examine the children and their potential prior to adoption. Reginald’s technology sensed great power in Vanya, even as an infant. After Vanya’s mother refused to sell, Pogo went behind Reginald’s back and made contact with the mother, advising her on how to suppress Vanya’s powers (but not emotions) with medication whenever they couldn’t be internally controlled. Vanya was good at self-control for much of her childhood, but the adjustment to college and grief of losing Ben put her back in a risky zone, so she’s been leaning a little more heavily on her medicine these days. She knows the adrenaline she gets onstage is good and natural, but it makes her nervous about forgetting a dose again.

-Five’s mother was quite a character. The name came from the fact that, during birth, Five first hit the air at exactly 12:00:05.

-Five had practiced his time jumps all through his childhood. (With none of the spite and rush he had in canon, he had no need to leap years right away, so he took it slow.) Sometimes he would get stuck in a place for a while, but his mom was cool and understood this. He would adapt to the new environment, anywhere between hours and weeks, and jump right back when he got enough rest to use his power again. There were some bugs, some problems with exact accuracy of destination, but he was always working on it. He was very lonely, though, never getting to meet with any of the other 43 and being discouraged from doing so by his mother.

-There was a portion of the future he got stuck in as a teenager in which the nation was governed by a tyrannical organization called “The Macbeth Enterprise”.

-Vanya immediately tries to shush him at this point in the story because he said the Bad Theatre Word. The director is very superstitious. She takes it deadly seriously and has threatened to actually penalty anyone who says it in the theater. Five just chuckles.

-And luckily, they’re rehearsing in the blackbox today, so even if the director could hear, it’s not “in the theater”.

-The future he saw was a century ahead of them, far beyond their lifetime. He was able to glean a little information about the origins of the Enterprise, but he shares none of this with Vanya. Firstly, those in power had high-tech augmentation that gave them a perfect replica of the kind of superpowers the 43 had - mind manipulation, immortality, etc. And secondly, they were credited with destroying the Hargreeves Five. As if the Hargreeves Five were a danger to society.

-What he does tell Vanya is that he’d never made any attempt to change the timeline before, but that’s just what he decided to do. With what little information he had, the only thing he could think of was to ruin the Enterprise’s namesake.

-Five spent literal years of his life, traveling from city to city across centuries, dooming various productions of Macbeth with Commission-level pragmatism until the name of the play itself became the taboo we know irl today.

-Vanya’s laughing. Five is too, honestly. It’s crazy.

-But he didn’t do what he did out of a ridiculous dare to himself. He did it out of desperation to not only to save the country, but to save his family as well. The family he’d never known. The kids all across the globe who went through the same strange hell of differentness that he had since birth. The Hargreeves Five, of course, needed to survive, as they’re responsible for maintaining peace on earth anyway. But if the Hargreeves Five were hunted down, why would the Enterprise stop there? Wouldn’t all 43 of them be in danger? Would all their gifts be harvested from them, and would they then be thrown away?

-But who knows if Five actually made a difference? He prays that it did. But the years of isolation in his personal mission convinced him of one thing - he should know his family. He had no idea when the country would start falling to shit - if it still would - but he could keep an eye on it alongside people who understood him. And with his foresight, maybe they could rise against the evil together.

-And maybe he was just so tired of being alone.

-So, digging was done through the Internet and several libraries in several eras. He found his insertion point at the University. He knew he’d have to look a little younger to fit in.

-But naturally, he got some equations wrong.

-Eventually, Five is formally introduced to Luther and Allison, who welcome him with slight skepticism, followed by a strong bear hug. Five’s not sure how to take the physical affection. He nods, which is a completely normal response to a hug, wraps his arms back around them, and tries to keep his eyes from leaking.

Chapter Six - “Whispering”

-It’s tech week of Hair, and because he’s been blowing his voice out in rehearsal from underdeveloped technique, Diego is on vocal rest.

-Most of this chapter is Diego Is On Vocal Rest and Everyone Gives Him Shit About It in a Loving Way.

-“Everyone” includes Eudora. She just bought her tickets for opening night.

-One early afternoon, Luther and Klaus are back in the scene shop together - Luther’s moving some lumber around and Klaus is carefully painting a setting onto a flat - and Luther vents that he’s not looking forward to running spotlight on Othello. He knows he can do it, but he wishes the theatre director would trust him with more authority and let him be Technical Director.

-Ben is eternally rolling his eyes and bitching about how entitled Luther sounds. He’s already the goddamn shop foreman. Klaus tries not to laugh at how annoyed Ben is about this.

-“But Diego could totally go back to lights for Othello! Hair will be over by then! He’s the pro! If I were TD I’d put him back on in an instant!”

-Dave wanders into the shop and says “hey” and Klaus nearly drops his wet paint brush onto the floor.

-After the brief succession of clumsy attempts Klaus had made to connect with Dave, Dave is actually bothering to return the effort.

-Luther is oblivious as hell while he’s toting the lumber around just like “Oh hi! Welcome! You’re new right? I’m Luther. I’m the shop foreman. You ever been on a tech crew before?” and this whole cringey spiel of small talk he usually gives to new students.

-About a minute into the small talk Luther finally sees how awkward Dave feels and how tense Klaus looks and he’s just like ohhhhh.

-He moves his task about eight feet further away to give them some space to talk. Even though that’s definitely not where the lumber is supposed to go. He just doesn’t want to make it weirder.

-Anyway. Insert fluff that isn’t obscenely flirtatious but is like… flirting with flirtatious.

-Later on that day, Leonard is tapped by the headmaster to join Student Government. Must’ve been one hell of a GPA. The new commitment forces him to give up the part of Roderigo in Othello.

-Leonard tells Allison this. Shit. Just what she needed today. She turns to her assistant stage manager and murmurs, shrugging off the guilt as she says it: “I heard a rumor you broke the news to our director as gently as possible.”

-After an eternity of assembling, dusting, and re-dusting, the Umbrella University theater chandelier is finally risen, ready for the first show of the season.

Chapter Seven - “The Life of the Party”

-After a hurried round of reviewing the audition tapes from the beginning of the year, Dave has been cast to fill the part of Roderigo.

-The technical director of Othello quit. No one’s really sure why. He was solid. But Luther’s been asked to step up, and he’s been trusted to pick anyone he wants to fill his previous spot on lights.

-Cue super petty conversation about how they both know Diego’s bomb at lights but they still annoy each other just by existing. Nonetheless, Diego agrees to hop onto Othello crew.

-Guess what, y’all, it’s opening night of Hair.

-Hard cut to Eudora, Luther, and Klaus, standing awkwardly together in the theater lobby, holding bouquets of various sizes and colors, convincing themselves that it’s a totally platonic gift to give to an actor.

-The show goes great. At the end of opening weekend, the cast and crew and friends go out to celebrate at the local bar and grill.

-At some point, the drinks are on Ollie, and everyone knows he and his mom are loaded. So. More drinks are had than ought to be had.

-ESPECIALLY by Five. He starts rambling about this girl named Delores in his quantum physics class and how he’s not sure if he’s allowed to find her attractive because of how complicated his age is.

-Vanya needed to get drunk. She deserved it. Now she’s yelling about this girl named Sissy in her chamber orchestra. What is happening.

-I’m not saying that Klaus and Dave had their first kiss while buzzed and behind the TUA equivalent of an Applebee’s, but I’m not not saying it.

-Luther has like two beers and starts getting emotional about how pretty the moon is.

-In classes the next morning, everyone’s hungover as shit.

-Except Allison, who was the extra careful Mom Friend and made sure her siblings made it home safe.

-Except Klaus. Who. Y’know. Didn’t really make it home. Ben goes to his 8 AM and takes Ghost Notes for him.

-Sometime that week, Luther comes into the director’s office with a question and sees her finishing a phone call, looking distraught.

-He asks if she’s okay. She doesn’t want to explain, but it eventually comes out that her son was in an accident of sorts three years ago. It’s almost the anniversary. He just got another treatment for the burn scars across half of his face. The director is still grieving the fact that it’s highly unlikely he’ll find success in his dream to be a Broadway actor.

-Luther warns Allison that the director might be in a worse mood this week. So that’s great.

-At an Othello rehearsal, Allison is calling cues from her promptbook. She pretty much has them memorized. But apparently, as the theatre director tells her, she keeps getting them wrong today?

-Allison could swear that last time she was at rehearsal, her book was different. What she’s reading is unfamiliar - lefts instead of rights, blue-outs instead of black-outs, etc. So she’s stumbling.

-On break, the theatre director expresses her frustration to Allison. We’re almost in tech week, for God’s sake. Allison apologizes and promises it won’t happen in the run.

-Allison blames her screw-ups on the stress of her overcommitments. Vanya sees she’s a little upset after the exchange and invites her to hang with her and Five after rehearsal.

-Vanya and Five have actually opened a pretty decent dialogue on mental health as it relates to their abilities, with Five’s powers damaging his psychological state and Vanya’s mood being an element of her telekinesis. Vanya reminds Allison that she’s got a lot on her plate, so she should try to take it easy where she can.

-Vanya still has anxiety, and it tends to flare at the part in the play where Othello smothers Desdemona with a pillow. They had worked out a safe plan in rehearsal. The pillow is thin and held at an angle so Vanya can still breathe, and it is only going to be held for a count of twelve. No longer, no shorter.

-Vanya and her siblings also take some more time to bitch about Ollie, too. Did you hear him accidentally call the director “mom” the other day? How embarrassing. What a dork.

-Hair closes and Othello tech week begins.

-A new batch of freshman House Crew members are cleaning up the theater one day with the radio on.

-It’s now the three year anniversary of the host’s favorite Hargreeves Five battle, a showdown against aspiring actor and convicted robber Erick Webber that went up in flames.

Chapter Eight - “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”

-The twelve-hour cue-to-cue tech rehearsal for Othello is a nightmare. But aren’t all cue-to-cues nightmares?

-They are.

-There might be some fluffy sibling stuff here, but nothing important. Luther, Diego, and Allison are speaking on headset with each other (“on com”). The channel also includes the assistant stage manager and assistant tech director.

-About five hours in, Luther and Diego get real sick of each other. Luther is redundant with his directions. Diego knows what to do. Diego keeps jumping the gun on cues. Passive aggression ensues.

-Allison has had it up to HERE and says “Look, if you’re gonna be children, can you please do it on a different channel?”

-And they do. They dedicate a whole other radio channel to Luther and Diego arguing where the rest of the crew can’t hear it.

-It’s during the cue-to-cue that Allison screws up the calls one too many times - is someone editing her promptbook when she’s not around? - and gets one more comment from the director. It’s worded like encouragement but spoken like a threat.

-“Allison, you were doing so well with the freshman. Just tell yourself you can do this. You’ll be perfect.”

-At lunch break, she wants to collapse. She goes to the bathroom, locks the door, and looks into the mirror.

-“I heard a rumor that you followed that promptbook perfectly.”

-The day after cue-to-cue, Vanya realizes she’s lost her meds. They have to be in the theater somewhere, but she can’t find them. Her siblings assure her that being in the show has improved her overall confidence, and they’ll all come running if she starts to have a meltdown for any reason. She’ll be able to control her emotions until she can get a refill. This warms her lil heart.

-The final dress rehearsals come to pass. Vanya continues to flourish. Five continues to impress and confound. Allison is flawless. Luther and Diego get over themselves. Klaus and Eudora get front row seats for opening night. It’s going to be a packed house. The local news are coming and filming segments to promote the program. As if the program needs any more support. The chandelier still boggles the mind.

-Opening night. The show is going spectacularly until Act V, when Ollie starts pressing the pillow over Vanya’s face.

-This is always the hard part. But it’s just a count of twelve, underscored by two bars of music.

-Until it isn’t. 

-Ollie keeps pressing. This wasn’t what we rehearsed. 

-Allison sees this from the booth and almost feels like they should call a hold, but her rumor kicks in and she can’t help but keep calling the show as normal.

-Vanya starts to hear the music amplified in her ears and starts to lose control of her power.

-Luther and Diego are both in Allison’s headset as the building starts to shake. “Allison, you need to call hold. Right now. Call hold!”

-Panicking, Vanya sends a pulse of energy out, knocking Ollie halfway across the stage, sending the flats crashing down, and shattering a row of stage lights. When she stands up, Ollie is smiling.

-The news crew caught it on tape. The audience is freaking out. Most of them try to flee but are trapped inside at the back of the house.

-Allison’s next call is the newest and strangest unauthorized edit she’s seen in her promptbook. It’s for the wrong play.

-“Spot B to Macbeth.”

-At the first time that its trigger phrase has ever been uttered in the building, the chandelier starts to glow and expand. Then, it drops, lower and lower, until it is right in front of the stage.

-It was never just a chandelier. It’s a piece of extra-terrestrial technology. Standing on the shelf on top of it are the director and the headmaster.

Chapter Nine - “The Point of No Return”

-I don’t know exactly how I’d reveal all of this, but here’s the gist.

-By the way, this is them coming out as extra-as-hell supervillains. So the way this is revealed is probably extra as hell.

-The director’s son is Erick Webber, a starving artist who resorted to a life of crime to pay his bills and got himself tangled with the Hargreeves Five, who are responsible for half of his face burning in the heat of battle.

-The director and the headmaster actually have been romantically involved for a few years, all but legally married.

-When the directors’ son was forever barred from the career of his dreams, the director and very wealthy headmaster first got together. The headmaster got her a job at the school.

-They wanted revenge for their son. But they also deduced that the Hargreeves Five were too immature for their powers and potential to ruin lives. They were just dumb kids. Their powers must be taken from them and placed into more capable hands.

-The couple had done extensive research, learned about the power potential in the 43, tracked down as many of them as they could find - preferably those already living in America - and hired all sorts of people and services to promote Umbrella University to them. They offered each one of them a sizable scholarship.

-They got seven of them.

-And they arranged meetings with characters that Hargreeves had done some shady deals with so they could acquire the otherworldly technology needed to set their plan into motion.

-And Macbeth was the trigger word for the invention - the story of an old celebrated king slain to make room for the rightful leader, as plotted by an empowered and bloodthirsty woman - so they had to put it in a theater. They had to ensure the trigger wasn’t spoken in the room until the correct time.

-Five realizes at this point that the efforts he made to change the past didn’t stop the Macbeth Enterprise, it just gave them a way more convenient origin. God dammit.

-The siblings realize Ollie was in on the whole thing. He had to make sure all seven of the kids were in the theater at the right time, so he snooped around and reported back to the Evil Moms. They let Luther be TD so Diego could cover lights. They cast Five, made Allison recruit Vanya, and made Allison SM. They took out Leonard and cast Dave to ensure Klaus and Ben would be there for opening. Ollie hid Vanya’s pills during the cue-to-cue.

-Allison realizes the director knew about her power all along and really was suggesting that she use it. Allison had done exactly what they wanted her to. They must’ve had someone re-do the promptbook each day and everything.

-The point is, there’s now news footage of a girl with unpredictably dangerous powers ruining a perfectly good school play and two women making a solid case that these children can’t be trusted with their gifts. The chandelier machinery revs up to perform its task - stripping all of their powers away.

-Five knows it won’t end there - the powers will be turned against the Hargreeves Five. Their abilities will be harvested too. And the hands that they’ll all end up in will be military-minded and will seize control of the nation, ruling by fear.

-There’s an extensive fight scene here. One that, again, I have no idea how I would write. It’s something that involves a level of family teamwork that they would not have if the theatre program didn’t bring them so close together in the first place. So it’s pretty ironic and kinda sweet.

-We find out that Dave and Eudora are absolutely ride-or-die for their idiot boyfriends that they just found out have terrifying superpowers, and they each have a moment where they contribute to the takedown.

-Ben is summoned because he legally has to be. The Horror can do some serious damage to the machine, and he finds he’s unaffected by its drainage because he’s dead as hell.

-Vanya grabs a violin from the pit where the underscoring was being played and shreds away at it to channel her power.

-The fight has heavy parallels to the prologue scene, where everyone’s powers went berserk because Vanya saw a rat and freaked out. Except there’s obviously a lot more at stake and a lot more direction in it.

-All of that gets resolved, somehow. Any of their power that gets drained gets returned to them once they get the machine shut down. Luther effortlessly snaps the tape of evidence in half.

-Allison uses her last rumor of junior year to memory-wipe and send away the cameramen and the witnesses.

-Except Eudora and Dave, who are surprisingly chill about this and promise to keep it all secret.

-The gang has no idea how to explain all the damage to the authorities, but the Criminal Justice Duo knows how to detain the bad guys in the costume closet and highlight some evidence to draw the focus to the less-than-legal dealings they made to set up their plot in the first place.

-Corruption? In college administration?? Pssshhh noooooooo never.

-The story embedded in the rumor is that the chandelier overheated and combusted, so everyone ran out. The police will discover the alien tech and go from there.

-Still, the superpower squad realizes they should lay low. Play dumb if interviewed. Skip class for a couple days and stay far away from the theatre department.

-Diego is up on the catwalk - the walkway above the audience where they maneuver the spotlights - collecting his stuff. He hears some footsteps on the ladder and sees Eudora climbing up to meet him.

-Diego starts to say something snarky and casual and Eudora’s like “No. Shut up. Just. Please. Shut up.” and kisses him.

-After weeks of pretending not to care as much as they really did and a solid half hour of having no idea if the other would live or die, here they are, standing over the decimated theater, finally at ease in each other’s arms

Chapter Ten - “Curtain Call”

-And that’s… it. When the siblings start coming back to classes, no one comes after them for whatever happened.

-Needless to say, the rest of the run of Othello has been cancelled. All theatre classes will be moved online or converted to classroom formats until repairs can be made to the building. There’s a new interim headmaster and theatre department director.

-It’s going to take forever for them to fix the damage done to the theater, and even when they do, it doesn’t feel right to keep that as their home base. So, where to now? How are they gonna fill the rest of their electives?

-All of the fine arts buildings are stacked close together. Music major Vanya has an idea.

-Second semester, Diego takes beginning percussion. Luther joins the marching band (and far exceeds the athletic demands for it). Klaus picks guitar back up. Allison ventures into vocal jazz. Five is a natural at composition.

-Sharing practice rooms. Cramming for theory exams. The entire works. They’re music kids now!

-They’re thrilled when they find out that all of their respective ensembles will be featured in the spring concert. 

-But does the conductor of Vanya’s chamber orchestra seem a little… eccentric to you?

...

im a broken woman from this. god dammit.

[essays-for-breakfast]

Together, Always

Kiane Week Day Six: Promise

Everywhere the eye turned, a colorful bouquet of flowers decorated the forest. Trees seemed to bow under the load of thousands of roses, dandelions, and daisies. Daisies in particular, in garlands, stacked in bunches, or blooming between the grass blades. An uninformed guest might believe chance had let the flowers sprout from the earth for this special day, but Diane knew better. Creating flowers from thin air was an easy feat for the Fairy King.

With a little more time on her hands, she would have wandered through the flower garden for an hour or two, but for now, she had to make due with the view from high up on the Great Tree, the heart of the Fairy King’s Forest.

Diane stepped away from the window carved into the bark, brushed the hem of her dress back into place, and reminded herself that today had finally come. The realization didn’t want to settle in. Every other moment, she looked over her shoulder in expectation to find the Demon King or Cath Palug there. But the dream refused to dissolve. No one played tricks on her eyes or mind. The white silk and velvet hugged her fingertips, entirely real.

Today had finally come.

“How do I look?” Diane asked and turned on her heels. The elegant slippers left the faintest discomfort on her toes. Unsurprising after a life of worn-out boots.

Matrona placed her hands on Diane’s shoulders and fixated her gaze. “Wonderful. I’m so proud of you. And I’m sure your parents would be too if they were here. Are you excited?”

“Are you kidding? I can’t feel my knees anymore. I’ve waited for this day for a solid two centuries.”

Matrona laughed. “I can’t say I know how you feel, but you’ve looked more composed when fighting a horde of Demons. Relax. You’ve earned this.”

“I’m not sure this a good idea.” Diane’s eyes darted back towards the window. The sun neared its midday peak. So soon… “Scratch that, it’s a terrible idea. How many guests have we invited? It must be the entirety of Britannia at this point, and each and every single one of them will stare at me. We should have held the ceremony in private, just like Ban and Elaine plan to do. Why did I agree to this? Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Diane, look at me.” Diane released an uneven breath and then looked at her former mentor and the closest person she had to a parent. “The only reason these people will stare at you is because you look wonderful in this dress. You want to unite the Giant and Fairy Clan, don’t you?” Diane nodded. “Then give our people a symbol to hold onto and remind them that a bond between two different clans works. That it really works.”

“But won’t our people be appalled when I’m so small? Most of them have never seen me shrink to human size, not to mention the fact that none of them know what a marriage even is.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. We went over this a thousand times. Our people respect you for what you have achieved, not for your size. And should anyone do so much as cough at you the wrong way, well, I haven’t forgotten how to throw a solid right-hander, human size or not.”

“Thank you, Matrona. I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

“Stop talking nonsense, you would lead these blockheads just as well without me. This wedding tradition humans have might be a little strange and overblown if you ask me. But after a war, a little excess of splendor and happiness is just what all of us need. Ready?”

Diane swallowed. Sweat ran down her neck, and she tucked a loose strand back behind her ear.

“No,” she said. But she straightened her back despite the lump in her throat and gave Matrona her arm. The firm grip offered her something to focus on other than her racing heartbeat.

Half-leaned against Matrona, Diane managed the first steps on the moss-covered ground. If only she hadn’t agreed to hold the ceremony on top of the Great Tree. The mighty boughs formed a clearing large enough to hold five hundred people, sure, but the familiar music of the earth seemed awfully far away. What if Diane stumbled? What if she fell from the tree and broke her neck?

No time to think about all the horror scenarios that were throwing images around in her head, there the curtain of magenta-colored leaves waited for her. Matrona pushed the vines aside, and the glimmer of daylight replaced the dimness from inside the tree.

Rows upon rows of people had gathered between the massive boughs, a crowd of Giant heads and shimmering Fairy wings in green, yellow, and milk-colored shades. Course leather and finest silk hugged as members of the Giant and Fairy Clan stood or hovered next to each other, and in some cases on the shoulders of the other. Amidst the colorful parade, the handful of humans near the front almost disappeared. Unlike with their traditional weddings, no one had set up chairs or benches. And apart from an aisle aligned with daisies, the top of the Great Tree could not have fit another person. The tree’s magenta-colored leaves created a ceiling, grander than any human hall, and bathed the porcelain faces of Fairies in pink hues. Six hundred pairs of eyes stared at Diane.

But all the people blurred and vanished the moment she caught sight of King. He floated in front of an archway of ivy and dog roses, dressed in the white suit he had sown and re-sown to perfection over the past week. With the four ornate Fairy wings and the tidy locks in the color of fall leaves, he looked too good to be true. The biggest smile adorned his face when he and Diane locked eyes.

Only Matrona’s grip around her hand prevented Diane from storming forward and throwing her arms around him. The Great Tree’s scent of ever-lasting spring tingled her nostrils, enough to make her tipsy. A good thing she had declined the bottle of ale Meliodas had offered her this morning. To calm the nerves, he had said. Ha! Such methods might work for Ban, but Diane was already losing faith in her feet without the added punch of alcohol.

She straightened and listened to the heartbeat of the earth, several hundred yards below. Beat, pause, beat. She had practiced this part of the ceremony with Elizabeth countless times. Just one foot in front of the other. Sixty paces, and then she could hold his hand and never let go again.

The quivering in Diane’s legs ebbed as she walked down the aisle and decreased the distance between her and King. And although her toes throbbed in her slippers, she managed the way without a stumble. Meliodas and Ban grinned at her from King’s right side. Both looked surprisingly regal in their matching capes; indigo for Liones and crimson for Benwick. Ban had even found a shirt to cover his chest, a rare sight on the best of days. On the other side of the altar, Elizabeth and Elaine had taken position as Diane’s bridesmaids.

And then, finally, Diane reached King’s side. Matrona offered him Diane’s arm and sat down in the first row between Gerheade and Zalpa.

King squeezed Diane’s hand. “You are beautiful.”

His gentle fingers felt so natural when intertwined with hers. As if they always belonged there. “You’re one to talk.”

They both turned towards Gowther, who regarded their hushed exchange with a smile. King and Diane had appointed him as their wedding guide – or priest as humans called them – the instance Elizabeth had discussed this role with them. No one fit this task better. With a nod, King and Diane signaled Gowther to begin.

“We have gathered here for both an historical event and a deeply personal affair,” he began. Since he had memorized around three dozen texts regarding human marriages in the past week, he didn’t need a book to regurgitate passages from. “Never before in the history of Britannia have the Giant and Fairy Clan forged a bond of the kind these two people in front of you have knitted. Mistrust has always stood between the five clans, as historians tell us. Mistrust will always stand between different clans, they argue. Let us prove these stories wrong. Today, we celebrate the union of the Giant and Fairy Clan, a sense of respect and comradery forged in the fires of the Holy War. Today, we celebrate the union of their leaders, who have ensured the survival of their people through the battles they fought as members of the Seven Deadly Sins. Today, we celebrate the union of two people who have overcome all odds and whose love endured centuries of separation and hardship. Many of us have watched them a portion of their way towards each other. And now they have asked us to be their witnesses as they dare to make the most important step. The promises they exchange today will forever resonate within all our hearts. Diane, Queen of the Giants, will you begin?”

Diane collected her missing confidence in Gowther’s encouraging look. And when she turned towards King, her King, her one and only love, the words tumbled out of her mouth all on their own.

“Even when I had nothing, I had you,” she said. “You were my friend in times of isolation, my light in the dark, my teacher and protector. It’s only through you that I became the person I am today. You’re the sole reason I’m still here. Back when we were kids, I never told you how I felt, but I want you to know this: King, I love you. I love you so much that I feel like half of me is missing every time you aren’t near. Whatever happens, I promise to always stay by your side and support you in any way I can. No gods or armies or loss of memory will stop me. From this day on, I’m yours. The same as I have been for all these years. Will you be mine?”

Tears shimmered in King’s eyes when he nodded. “I promise.”

“Then,” Gowther said, “Harlequin, King of the Fairies, what do you offer in return?”

“Everything I have and everything I am. Diane, I’ve always loved you, and to have met you all these years ago is the most wonderful gift of my life. You gave me shelter when I had nowhere to turn, you showed me a warmth and a kindness I had never seen before. It’s only thanks to you that I learned to forgive and not judge others by their looks or their past allegiances. Nothing can ever compensate the happiness bursting my heart every time I’m near you. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve let you down, and I have taken your memories from you. But if you will give me another chance, I promise you will always have a home to return to and a shoulder to lean on and a hand to hold yours. No matter what the future brings, I’m yours. From now until my final breath and long after that. Will you be mine?”

Diane’s heart raced in her ribcage, and through their interlaced fingers, she felt King’s heartbeat in sync with her own. “I promise.”

While they battled their tears and the desire to fling their arms around one another, Gowther continued. He needed to adjust his glasses twice before the calm returned to his voice, and even then, joy swung with each of his words. “As symbol of your union and your undying bond, you will now exchange the crowns of your clans. From this day forward, you will lead your people as one and begin an era of peace and understanding.”

On cue, Ban and Elizabeth stepped forward, each with a velvet cushion in hand. With shaky fingers, Diane took the circlet of unrefined copper from Elizabeth. A multitude of jewels adorned the crown, rubies, garnets, and other stones found deep within the earth. Elizabeth placed a supportive hand on Diane’s shoulder before she returned to Elaine.

Ban likewise handed King a flower crown with a hundred blooms in all colors of the rainbow. And although Ban saved himself a snarky comment, the nudge of his elbow hit the mark. Freed from his stupor, King placed the flower crown upon Diane’s head. Then Diane tiptoed to return the favor.

One of her slippers escaped her foot, but she barely noticed.

“You may now—”

The rest of Gowther’s word remained unheard because Diane threw her arms around King’s neck, and he bowed forward to seal her lips with a kiss. Their first kiss as a married couple, the taste of raspberries and gold Osmanthus and an unparalleled joy.

Cheers erupted from the crowd, applause from the hands of human, Giant, Fairy, Demon, and Goddess. A shower of magenta-colored leaves rained down on them. Their wedding bells took on the form of the wind and the beat of the earth, a most marvelous chime Diane only heard once in her life while she held King, and he held her.

She stroked his hair while deepening the kiss.

Today had finally come.

[justtoarguewithyou]

9/24: Forgiveness

My contribution to the @swottypotter comfort minifest. did we all write about the prank? i hate the prank. ugh.

The moon was waxing, and Remus was already very tired. Friday would be a full moon. The first full moon of his last year at Hogwarts.

It was a shame the penumbral lunar eclipse wouldn’t be visible this time. Remus loved an eclipse because as the moon was obscured, he could feel himself waking up inside the wolf, which was fun. During an eclipse, he had little moments that were his own, when he could fully appreciate his friends, and their forest adventures.

He wondered what a total eclipse would feel like. When the moon was totally obscured, would it be what he imagined being an Animagus felt like? Total eclipses were rare, and even rarer that they would be visible where he was. But now he wondered.

He hadn’t experienced too many total eclipses in his 17 years. Only ten.

There hadn’t been one since before The Prank.

What a stupid thing to call it, Remus thought.

It hadn’t been funny, or harmless. Whatever mischief Snape had wanted to cause wasn’t worth his death. James had stopped Snape from reaching the wolf. Sirius didn’t come, and neither did Peter.

It had been his first full moon alone in ages. The wolf had howled long and loud over that.

Sirius, who had never hidden from anything in his life, had hidden from Remus the entire day after his transformation. Remus had been hurt and disappointed when he woke up in the hospital wing to James sitting in the chair by his bed.

James had been furious.

“We’re sending you to Coventry,” James had hissed at Sirius when he slunk into the common room that night. He hadn’t even been at dinner.

Sirius, looking even further crestfallen, had watched James turn on his heel, and march up to the dormitory. For the rest of the school term, neither James nor Peter would speak to Sirius, or look at him, or even acknowledge his existence in any way. If they had known how deeply it cut him, they would never have done it. But Sirius bore his punishment stoically, falling back on the lessons he’d learned in early childhood to avoid further punishment at his mother’s hand.

Sirius had been slightly ecstatic when Remus, on the other hand, had been furious with him and told him so. They had it out over several nights in the dormitory alone together. James swore dust fell from the common room ceiling from all the magic and anger rolling off the pair of them overhead.

Sirius had been defensive and embarrassed, and hated himself for what he’d done. Remus had been torn between wanting to hold Sirius accountable for his actions, yet extending him the grace to be a person who was capable of learning from their cock-ups. Though, to be fair to himself, this was a pretty monumental cock-up.

“I’m sorry, Moony, I didn’t think—it’s just the Black coming out, the familial madness,” Sirius said, not daring to call it lunacy.

In their more tender moments after Sirius had confessed his feelings only weeks before, Sirius said it was the Black lunacy that drew him to Remus, to his Moony.

“Bollocks,” Remus said vehemently. “No Black would’ve exacted any kind of revenge in such a careless way. They’re all Slytherins—they’d never get caught. You’re lucky Dumbledore didn’t expel you.”

Sirius hummed thoughtfully. “That’s true. But this does fall under the heading of wanton destruction, at which the Blacks also excel. Seems I’ve done a lot of that, if James and Peter are anything to go by.”

“Well. They’ll come around.”

The Prank had taken place on June 1, the last full moon of the school year. The wolf had run alone all summer. Well. Not run—the shed was always unbearable after running free in the Forbidden Forest.

Sirius had written several plaintive letters to Remus over the summer. And Remus had answered them; curt at first. But as the summer wore on, Remus was better able to fill the pages. They wrote about it, because they had to.

I still don’t understand, Sirius. I don’t think I’ll ever understand. How can you love me, call me your friend, more than your friend, and betray me? And not just me, but the wolf as well? And for what? If it had worked, and Snape had been injured, or died, or turned…I could’ve been arrested. Or worse, Sirius.

What if I had been sent to Azkaban? What if I had been kissed? Or, what if the Ministry had decided to not even extend me that courtesy. What if the Ministry had decided to exterminate me?

It’s absurd, Sirius. I’ll never really believe you did it. It feels imaginary; like this was some half-hearted attempt to establish a secondary character’s motive in a children’s novel…it makes no sense. Believe me, I know, having read a lot of novels.

I’ll see you on the platform the day after tomorrow.

The train ride had been a bit frosty. Remus knew that Peter hadn’t responded to any of Sirius’s letters, but had written to James and Remus. Peter was excellent at holding a grudge.

Remus also knew that Sirius and James had reestablished their comradery after an impromptu fistfight in the back garden two nights after they got home. Their battle resulted in a black eye apiece, a broken pinky, a cracked metatarsal, and various bruises to their arms, backs and stomachs. Sirius even had a bite on his tricep.

Fleamont had broken it up, whisked them into the greenhouse, and episkied them without comment. After a few silent moments—the boys looking and feeling foolish, and Fleamont’s eyebrows furrowed in consternation—he warned them against mentioning any of it to Euphemia. Luckily, she hadn’t seen any of it, having gone into the living room before the fight broke out.

“…unless you wanted an hours-long lecture on the immorality of violence as a problem-solving technique,” Fleamont had said, eyebrows still drawn together. “Though it might do you some good to hear it.”

James and Sirius had also established an armed neutrality regarding Snape: James was determined that they should ignore Snape this year, no matter what he did.

Sirius had agreed because he loved his friends more than he hated Snape.

Sirius still looked slightly ashamed as they met Remus on the platform. But Remus had smiled, and had been kind during their train ride. They had shared snacks from the trolley and talked about their upcoming NEWTS, and placed their annuals bets on the question of Lily going out with James.

Remus had held Sirius’s hand as they sat in the horseless carriage together, and Sirius’s usually ramrod straight posture wilted with relief; he might have cried, if it had not been for James and Peter’s presence.

The welcome feast was delicious as usual. Remus caught Lily looking sideways at James a few times, and felt good about his odds of winning the pot.

They had unpacked after, and spent time together in the common room. Sirius had managed to get a weak laugh out of Peter. At midnight, when James and Peter were snoring, Sirius parted Remus’s bed curtains.

“Come on, then,” Remus scooted over to let Sirius in. Sirius needed the comfort and the absolution of Remus’s arms.

As was their custom, Sirius still whispered “Good night, I love you,” and now added that he was so very sorry. Remus wished he didn’t have to add the second part, but he did.

“I love you, too,” Remus said.

Then Sirius cried, smothering his sobs with the pillow, and with Remus’s mouth as he kissed him. Sirius apologized over and over. And Remus, who loved Sirius more than he had ever loved anyone, cried, too, and caressed Sirius’s hair, and they kissed so gently over and over.

“This year will have to be different,” Remus whispered between kisses. “You can’t just say that you’re sorry. You’ll have to live it, too. It’s time to grow up, dauphin.”

Sirius could only nod desperately, as he took off their clothes because he needed the warmth of Remus’s skin. He fell asleep under Remus’s arm, with his face pressed to Remus’s rib cage, his fingers curled over Remus’s hipbone, his leg hooked over Remus’s legs.

The next morning, Sirius sent Snape to Coventry, and found that life was more relaxed and enjoyable when Severus Snape didn’t exist. Sirius began to accompany Remus to the library for homework, and had even remained awake during Arithmancy lectures.

Soon, their first full moon rose, and Remus was more himself than the wolf for a short during the penumbral lunar eclipse.

If Remus had brooded over the summer, the wolf had not. The minute the wolf emerged fully and sensed its companions, it headed to the usual play spots in the Forbidden Forest, choosing to run to the dell furthest away. The wolf was happy.

The transformation had been more mild than usual because of the eclipse and when Remus awoke, Sirius was tucked under his arm in the hospital wing bed, which Sirius had charmed larger to accommodate himself. Madame Pomphrey had stopped fighting that battle in their 5th year.

“Morning. Feeling all right?” Sirius asked.

“Yes, just fine,” Remus said, leaning into Sirius’s hand that gently touching his curls.

[yilingbutch]

I was tagged by @chenqingssuibian! Thanks so much 💗

Post a picture or a gif (preferably from tumblr’s gif feature or with permission) of:

* Your favorite character

* Your favorite friendship

* Your favorite ship

* Your favorite sect

* Your favorite sword

I’m going to stick to photos for this!

Character: Xiao Xingchen

I don’t wanna be like those that put him on a pedestal but. He’s a fucking angel (Wen Ning and Lan Sizhui are also in this category). I love his sense of justice and lack of politics, just fuck society, just wanna save the world :) I love that he’s quick to laugh and seemingly carefree, always making the best out of a situation. “I’ve never fixed a roof before but I’m sure I’ll blindly figure it out :)” like go off king! I kind of relate to him being a little ray of light that draws people near. And never asking for help but always giving it.

Friendship: Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing

Obviously the show does really well depicting organic relationships. I think they both warm up to each other via Wen Ning, but it ends up being such a good dynamic. Despite societal odds, they depend on each other more and more. She shows her feelings through her actions despite her words being cruel (like WWX’s didi) and wants to spoil him (like his shijie). They show their love through bickering and self sacrifice. WQ gives him lotus seeds (despite all odds) and sends A-Yuan to cheer him up when he misses his shijie. They care about each other so much they’re willing to die for each other, but it never gets romantic and that’s some Good Shit. Let’s not forget the iconic cringe <3 line “thank you and I’m sorry.”

Favorite ship: XueXiao

Besides the obvious WangXian, I’m in XueXiao hell. I really like SongXueXiao but the tragedy of the show really doesn’t allow for that… unless? Yi City destroyed my life! Xue Yang falling for his archenemy and becoming domestic despite him hating boredom… just shows how much he can change. XXC didn’t know his name for so long, falling for someone he “just met.” But someone who treated him as a human, made him laugh and became a househusband. They were both lonely and broken but they made something beautiful - just a lil family minding their business (mostly). I love an enemies to lovers trope and I eat that shit like candy!

Favorite sect: YunmengJiang

It’s gotta be YunmengJiang okay? It’s the least fucked up of the sects and a beautiful, chill place to live. Just no to the Jin and Wen, for uncool crimes. I love the music and library and aesthetic of Lan, but them rules man… damn… And I love the badassery and comradery of the Nie sect but holy fuck it’s intense! Basically, I’m not a prep or a jock, so Jiang suits me better. The vibes are close to nature, and their sayings are basically to not change one’s nature, so be Unrestrained kids! Probably why the Jiang siblings are all a bit Feral and completely Valid. I can just be my gay little self and maybe have some baller soup.

Favorite sword: Baxia

Fuck all the swords are dope af but… Baxia though. I know it’s a saber, and fuck its cultivation, but it’s SEXY. Thick as fuck, Nie beast on the hilt, leather sheath, aesthetically amazing! AND it glows RED. NMJ wasn’t the Red Blade Master for nothing. That’s all I have to say, it’s just badass.

Tagging: @wuxianphobic @chaoticbiwuxian @gaygh0stt @lansizhuisuncle and anyone who wants to join!

[talesofealdancynedom]

Sirulius Healpenbroc, in fairy robes. After being mentioned in 5+ stories, you actually get an illustration of the notable storm breaker warlock!

Tale 19: Meriam Craweleoth: Mage Queen of The Grand West (chapter 7.2 - Yet To Pass 7/10) part 4. Stories of Old

Maps

Harsh Language

After three days, and three nights, a wall of abruptly tall mountains became visible. Meriam glowed with joy; she had almost forgotten happiness.

“Boys! Behold the Wall of Fire! The mountain range at the eastern end of the central desert. We are in Sinonia!” Meriam yelled back to her men. They all gasped with relief. Following their Queen was often the worst moments of their lives; until they reached their destination or went home to tell their children stories. Meriam was fond of her five soldiers. She paid them well for their company and service. Meriam, as a mage in fabric body armor and wielding grand spells, technically she didn’t need them with her. It wasn’t even to make her husband feel better anymore; Meriam genuinely cared for, and liked the comradery of her knights.

“My Queen! Why are we turning due south?” one of Meriam’s men yelled. That was a good question. Meriam looked around frantically, as did Asada.

“Don’t look me! They’re the guides!” Asada said, gesturing to the happy pair upon their proud camels, full of loot, and veering down a slope to their right.

“I once went into a magic forest so bright; I swore I had drunken an odd potion. I was greeted by a bard in a halved mountain cabin, surrounded by precise patches of odd vibrant fruits. This man spoke without tone, with a pained smile; he wed two royal fairies. Their companion lived in their cellar, and she was an asocial heartman, who baked wonderful rum shortbread. They fed me something with eggs and cheese, and then answered none of my questions, and left me to fend for myself in the lucid thicket. That is why I do not like poetry.” Meriam said, following the guides south. The Anglian men groaned and cried; They were so close to freedom from the wretched oblivion of sand. And now they were moving away from it. Worse yet, their queen may have gone mad; everyone was so confused by Meriam’s tale, that they offered her water and rest. She refused.

“The world has led me many places, and in hindsight, they have all been wonderful.” Meriam said with whimsy. Her companions sighed and followed.

           By nightfall, the men were dehydrated. They had been crying for their lost chance of escape; which was within grasp, then suddenly taken from them. Meriam assured Asada her men were not weak, but human. Asada pointed to the rice fields and bamboo that was now at the roadside. It was all so, sudden. The men began to cry again. The smell of day-old raw fish and seaweed wafted from the bay, and hit them like freshly chopped onions. For they yearned for a cool dip in the sea, while being devoured by a bloom of jellyfish after such a journey.

“Oi, Da Lan se!” The merchants chimed. “we recommend noodle. Can’t find any place else!” The merchants said. They could speak Anglian: the whole time. It is likely they wanted to mess with the foreigners. They parted ways from their guides, and went towards the sea. Then Meriam, Asada and the five knights noticed the houses…

           The valley sat deep, like it had been slowly eroded over time, and was laden with salty silt atop the earth. The bamboo and growth, was young, and the paths were wooden walk ways suspended on thick stone pilers above the mud. The houses had docks off their balconies, as they were built on stilts. All the livestock sat in aloft cages, as fishers used tall poles to take trout from the tide. The people looked miserable, and wore mix matched fabrics, that hung with long sleeves and skirts. Their black hair was held up with pins and clasps, to keep it out of their brown, amber and hazel eyes. Their faces looked unfamiliar to the weary Anglian travels. And up the mountain, as it began to darken, they saw a large pale blue castle-pagoda-cathedral sitting upon a seaside hill. There was a trail of audible bells and lights of a camp not far from it.

“I can’t handle this. This place is awful. Let’s eat some steamed fish, bathe and camp. I’m going to die alone and childless, leaving my precious home to the cheats of my homeland.” Asada teared. Meriam patted her comfortingly on the shoulder. Asada was correct.

           At dawn, they found themselves surrounded by men in dark platted armour, and vibrant sashes and weapons. The royal guard of Sinonia, was to take these foreigners to their emperor. Who it turned out, was visiting this very village, to stop the immense amount of hate-mail he received daily. It made him wish the courts didn’t take literacy and penmanship so seriously. It made him wish he couldn’t read; He had begun to dream about reading these letters. So, he was refreshed when a party of foreigners was brought to his knees, and forced to bow. He wore many silken robes of violet, red and gold, and he also wore white paint on his face and an absurd hat.

“Exotic faces from far off lands? State your business! I only allow men of Francia and Indonia in my Kingdom. You look like children of the West” The emperor said.

“Yes. I’m Mage Queen Meriam of Anglia. I come to grant a grand favour for you, to make peace and friendship between our kingdoms.” Meriam said.

“That explains why you are so pretty. Your nation must be chaos, if they send women on such important journeys; you should be pregnant in a palace, garbed in silk. Unless you, their mage, are the grand gift?” He laughed. “Sinonia has two mages already; twins. One of which is the source of aggressive messages form this area. If I get another scroll depicting tentacles, or complaining of typhoons and poverty, I will kill him. Which is to say I am already here to kill the bastard.”

“Fuck me; there is a mage with jewels I can borrow here! You can’t kill him! I need his love to save a forest!” Asada yelled. Meriam cursed under her breath. Asada was vile, and this was not the time for harsh impolite language. Not that she didn’t want to literally bite the emperor for his own poor taste. She would have to push through some newfound opinions, to once again desire good terms with this land. Meriam held it back. The Emperor however, did not.

“Ah yes. Because the grace, and nurturing, beauty of a woman can tame that town fool. I will not give peace to a land I know nothing of, and tries to control me! Guards! Send them to that rough warlock upon the hill. I want to see what he does with them before we execute him.” The emperor grinned. The soldier’s faces were calm, hiding an untameable hatred for their leader. One even whispered an apology to Meriam on the way.

           Unable to access the impressive majestic home, the six of them were left on the beach. Meriam sent Nihten off to look for the mage, of whom she knew was Sirulius. Nihten came back, saying a man was laying in the tide asleep, with a brass staph holding a dark crystal sphere which had an Orca in it; clad in gold and blue fish kingdom fairy robes. Meriam gestured for Asada to head up shore.

“Your groom awaits. We will be here, tanning like fat seals.” Meriam shrugged. Asada jumped with joy and ran off. Meriam pondered weather or not Sirulius would be happy to have a woman thrown at him, or not. If he was crazy enough to meet Asada’s needs, maybe he actually would become overjoyed with a wave of true love. That sounded nice. Finally, able to relax, Meriam and her men dipped their toes in the sea.

“My Queen! We found this odd staph in the sand!” a knight said, handing her a lapis luzli staph, carved like a fountain that held up two bronze koi at the top. It reminded her of Feon’s staph.

“This must be his storm staph,” Meriam said “storm-breaker mages go dark when their happy, causing them to lose themselves, and summon disastrous storms.” She said, like she was reading from an encyclopedia.

“So, I assume those birds flying away form the sea, and the darkening of the sky, means he likes Asada’s company your majesty?” Another knight asked. They heard panicking come from the village, and the tide receded meter by meter. A basal fear overcame them, as they looked out to sea, and saw a wall of water form.

“She is quite the woman…” He continued; as did and screaming of the villagers. Meriam stared into the typhoon with a calm gaze, as her men tried desperately not to leave their queen’s side; they eagerly awaited orders to flee.

“Can you wait here a few moments?” Meriam said calmly to her men. Then. The screaming then stopped, as did the water, and birds in the sky. There is never hurry, when time is at your will. Meriam calmly walked up the beach to see how much Asada and Sirulius were enjoying each others company. When she reached them, they were indeed, enjoying each other’s company. The thought of sand burn, and finding it in her garments, nearly made her gag. Meriam walked up, placed the staph in Sirulius’s hand, and admired him. No wonder Feon chose to paint him. He was striking to look at. Not in an overly handsome kind of way, but in the same way as a peacock. His blue hair glistened, and matched his blue eyes; and his smile was so genuine. He must be so lonely in a town of people who hate him. After making staphs to control his magic for them, they still sent ill words to the emperor. Meriam decided, in spite of interrupting the moment of young love, to make time resume while she was standing there.

“Sorry to interrupt, but you forgot your staph. And the emperor is here, and wants to kill you.” Meriam said calmly. The typhoon began to return to the sea, and cheers were heard form the village.

“Thanks! I was looking for it when this attractive lady of Indonia asked for my hand! After intense grasping, we are going to surf, make hats, and go home to eat fish with you; then resume our passion several times more. Then you can go find my brother in the forest of The Stone Gate to return home!” Sirulius said.

“Yes, but your emperor wants to kill you.”

“Everyone does; and yet, here I am! They always come when I am in my house, but my house is locked by a secret phrase I reset daily, because I forget the password…” He said, hugging in Asada, who hugged back. Meriam felt a little awkward, and coughed.

“Well, it is nice to meet you Sirulius. I will be heading back to my men and your, Castle? Have fun?” Meriam said. Meriam ran back to her men, then scolded them for not trusting her.

           At dinner, Sirulius and Asada shared tales about each other, while Meriam’s men intently listened. Meriam was busy enjoying the fish. When Sirulius brought out the liquor he made, the quality of the conversation began to drop as everyone’s words dissolved into laughter. Asada leaned in closer to Meriam.

“I was right!” she whispered. “It is nice to hold someone’s hand. I will stay here a little longer, and use a candle gate to get home; you go home without me, and hold your special someone’s hand too.” She whispered with joy. The way Asada worded it, sounded nice. With no resentment or labels; Meriam wanted to try that. She realized she was still mad about being ripped from her friend and family in Francia, and having her destiny chosen for her. She didn’t need that when she could have a moment with someone, that made nothing else matter. Then Meriam realized, she had those type of moments all the time.

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