#after twelve hundred years this is finally done

[barefoot-joker]

Destined for Heaven, Stolen by the Devil~ Yandere!Lucifer X Reader

Hey, guys and welcome to another Lucifer story. I'm sorry I write for him a lot. I just find to him be a very relatable character and I love him so much! Anyway, this fic deals with heavy Christianity themes, so I did my best to research. If something is wrong, please tell me and I'll do my best to fix it. I was very inspired by the song 'The Plagues' from "The Prince of Egypt". As always, I hope you enjoy and have a great day/night!

Words: 2899

Warnings: Heavy Christianity Themes/Beliefs, Swearing, Christianity Mocking, Slight Possessive Tendencies, Reader's Aunt likes crystals, Reader Dies, Kidnapping?

I sighed as my mother pulled a light blue cardigan over my shoulders. She dusted off my dress and fixed my hair so that I looked presentable. Today was Sunday so that meant we had to go to church. I wasn’t too fond of going and I would have rather been playing in the backyard as a twelve year old does. However, my mom made it her duty to take me and make me a good Christian girl. “Why do we have to go, mom? It’s soooo boring!”

I stuck out my tongue at her. She gently pushed it back in. “You know I want our family to have a good relationship with the Lord. It’s our Christian duty. Besides, going to church is in your blood. After all-”

“Yeah, yeah. God told you that I was destined to be a wife for Adam. How can you believe that? It came to you in a dream.”

“Y/n M/n L/n! You do not question God’s ways! You know better! Now come on, we don’t want to be late.”

Dragging me by the hand, she ushered me into the family Cadillac and sped off. I sighed heavily. There were so many things I’d rather be doing than go to church. I could be with my friends, heck I could be at my cool Aunt’s house. “Hey, mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

“When are we going to visit Aunt Hailey? When she called you said we’d be seeing her soon.”

“I only said that to get her off my back. You know how I feel about her.”

I grunted and crossed my arms. Aunt Hailey was seen as the black sheep in the family all because she was wealthy. A lot of our relatives (my mother included) thought she sold her soul to the Devil in order to be immensely rich and refused to interact with her. I, however, thought she was so cool. When she used to come over she’d regale to me hundreds of stories about her travels around the world. She even showed me her cool crystal collection when we went over to her house a few times. “Now don’t be like that. It’s not ladylike.”

I grunted again and slid down in the tan leather seat. A few minutes later the car was parked in the church parking lot and I was being dragged inside. Sometimes I wish I had siblings so I wasn’t the only one to feel mom’s wrath. She seated us near the front and handed me the heavy white Bible from the pew. I robotically turned to the page with the Lord’s prayer and stood when Pastor Bob entered. We began reciting the Lord’s prayer and sang a hymn before we sat. I didn’t pay much attention as our Priest told us his sermon for the day but I didn’t dare to look around the room. I had to look the part after all. Fidgety, I played with my ring finger. Glancing down, I took in the birthmark that oddly looked like an apple. I remember it showing up after I stayed at Aunt Hailey’s house one day. I never told my mother about it though. I was often reminded of the tale of Eve and the apple and I don’t know what she would do if ever saw the fruit insignia. After the sermon and another hymn, it was time for communion. We all stood in line and when it was my turn I took the small Ritz cracker and ate it. I coughed lightly and then took a sip from the golden chalice. My mom and I returned to our seats and when everyone was done, we recited the Lord’s prayer one final time. Thank goodness it was over. 

As we walked out, I was forced to shake hands with our elderly Pastor. “How is my favorite little disciple doing today?”

I cringed at that. Ever since my mother told the church of her insane dream I was treated like some goddess. “Good.”

“That’s great to hear. I look forward to our weekly blessing.”

“Of course, Pastor Bob,” my mom butted in, “we wouldn’t miss it.”

He smiled and bid us both ado. We walked back to the car and drove home. As we passed by houses in our neighborhood, I looked longingly at the kids playing. Besides church, Sunday was dedicated to my education of becoming a housewife so when I did die and go to Heaven I was prepared. Parking the car, we went inside. I slipped off my Mary Janes and put them by the door. The rest of the day was spent cleaning, doing embroidery work and cooking. Just as I was getting ready for bed, the phone rang. I went into the kitchen and picked up the landline. “Hello?”

“Is my dear Y/n there?”

“This is her.”

“It’s your Aunt Hailey.”

“Auntie! Hi! How are you?”

She chuckled. “I am good, my darling. And you? Surviving another day in that stuffy house?”

I giggled at her commentary. “I’ve been okay. What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering when you can come over. I was talking with a friend the other day and he would like to meet you properly. I believe he saw you at my house when you were five.”

“I’d love to come over! Let me ask mom real quick.”

I walked into the living room and pressed the phone to my chest. “Hey, mom. Aunt Hailey’s on the phone. She wants to know when I can come over.”

She looked up from her book and glared at the phone. “You know my answer.”

“Come on, mom! It’ll just be for a day!”

“I don’t know.”

“Please! I promise when I get back I’ll focus on my wifely duties! Please!”

I gave her puppy dog eyes and slightly whimpered. She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Alright. You can go tomorrow, but I expect you to stay true to your promise. You know how God would feel if you went back on your word.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

I lifted the phone up to my ear and quickly ran into the kitchen. “She said I can come tomorrow.”

“Wonderful! I’ll see you then, my dear.”

“Bye, Auntie!”

“Goodbye for now, darling.”

I ended the call and put the phone back on the receiver. I returned to the living room where mom and I did our nightly prayer. When we finished, she gave my forehead a kiss and sent me to bed. 

The next morning I dressed in a plaid dress shirt, brown capri pants and black oxfords. I bounced in the passenger seat giddily as my mother parked the car in my Aunt’s gravel driveway. “Now remember to behave. I don’t need any calls about your disobedience.”

“I’ll be good, I will.”

“That’s my girl. And you have your cross necklace?”

“Yes, mom. Can I go now?”

She kissed my forehead and I got out of the car. “Be safe! Call me if something happens and I’ll be back around dinner to pick you up!”

“Okay mom, bye!”

I waved and she drove off. I turned towards my relative’s mansion and walked up the stone steps. I grabbed the handle from the golden lion’s head and gave three loud knocks on the large oak door. The door opened to reveal Timothy, my Hailey’s middle aged butler. “Ah Miss Y/n, we were expecting you. Please come in.”

He stood to the side and allowed me inside. Closing the door, he led me across the marble floor to one of the drawing rooms near the back. I could hear muffled voices talking as we entered, Timothy clearing his throat. “Your niece is here, madam.”

“Thank you, Timothy. That will be all.”

He bowed and exited the room. My Auntie smiled and gestured for me to come over. I ran to her and gave her a big hug. Her navy silk and lace dress clung to me. “It’s so good to see you, darling! I’ve missed you so!”

“I’ve missed you too!”

I pulled away and she motioned to the gold and floral print armchair next to her. I sat and looked at her guest on the chaise lounge. He seemed quite the esteemed gentleman. He had slicked back blonde hair, pale skin and red eyes. I found them quite odd but didn’t judge. Mother said it was bad to judge based upon appearances. He wore a white suit with a red dress shirt, a black tie with black flower detailing, black leather gloves and shiny black dress shoes. He was on the shorter side as well. “Y/n, I’d like you to meet my friend Luci. He’s the one to thank for my wealth.”

The man stood and bowed to me. He took my hand and kissed my apple birthmark. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, my little apple. Your Aunt has told me so much about you.”

“It’s good to meet you too, sir.”

“So polite. Your mother is raising you right.”

“Except for the amount of gospel she puts in my poor baby’s head. I swear all because of her fucking dream, she’s gone total Bible thumper.”

Luci titled his head to the side. “Oh you’ll have to tell me over tea. Speaking of which, I think Timothy has finished setting up the garden for us.”

“Splendid!”

We all stood and the blonde offered me his arm. I gladly took it and we walked outside to Hailey’s marble floored porch. A metal table sat in the middle overlooking her large flower garden, a lacy white tablecloth set on top. Luci pulled out my chair and after I sat, pushed it in. He sat next to me and began pouring tea for all of us. Today Timothy had picked out the clear glass kettle so we could see the yellow liquid inside and the pastel teacups. I thanked Auntie’s friend when he poured into my cup and marveled at the small pink flower floating. “I see we’re having chrysanthemum tea. You know it’s your Auntie’s favorite.”

I giggled and picked up my cup. Blowing a little, I took a sip and smiled at the sweet taste. “So you were talking about Y/n’s mother?”

“Ah yes. She’s always been a Christian woman, believing in the power above. Then one night she had a dream, a vision she calls it, that Y/n is to be the third wife of the first man Adam. Ever since then she’s been obsessively devoted and is dragging my poor niece with her.”

“I see.”

Luci seemed to become stiff at the mention of Heaven and God. Perhaps it was a touchy subject?

“So God came to her and said this, hm?”

“Sure as shit supposedly.”

The three of us sipped our tea in silence. “So has school been going, my dear?”

“Good, Auntie. We learned how to do cursive in English the other day so now I can write my name all fancy!”

“That’s great, darling. Anything else?”

“I’ve been feeling kind of left out lately.”

Both adults turned to me in curiosity. “How so?”

“Well none of the other kids my age are really learning wifely duties, at least not as much as me. When I want to go outside and play mom forces me to do my skills.”

“Wifely duties? Pray do tell,” Luci cocked an eyebrow.

“I learned how to clean the house from top to bottom, cook all three meals, sew, embroider, and do laundry. Basically anything my mom deems necessary to please this angelic husband of mine.”

“I can assure you it will come in handy. Especially with how much of pigish brute he is.”

“How do you know?”

“I just got that impression when I’ve read his passages in the Bible, sweetie.”

“Oh.”

“If you had a real man I can be sure you wouldn’t need those skills, darling,” Auntie piped up, sipping her tea.

“A real man? Like who?”

“Like Luci for example!”

I turned to the blonde and he smiled. His eyes glinted with what looked like adoration. He gently grabbed my hand and held it, his hands quite warm through his gloves. He brought it to his lips and kissed the back of my hand. “It’s true. If you were my wife you wouldn’t want for nothing. Every day would be spent in marital bliss.”

“Sounds gross!”

He chuckled and kissed my hand again. “When you’re older you’ll come to love it.”

‘If you say so.”

“I know so.”

The rest of the afternoon was spent listening to Luci’s tales from his travels while drinking our tea. They were quite intriguing and full of adventure. The people he met, the places he went were all so fascinating. It soon became dinner time and true to her word my mom sat in the driveway. Luci walked me to the door and gave a little bow. “It was a pleasure to chat with you, Y/n. I have a feeling we will see each other more in the future.”

“I hope so. You’re so cool, Luci!”

He smirked and patted my head. “Farewell, little lady.”

“Goodbye, Luci!”

I gave him a quick hug before running to the car.

Sure enough as I grew up I ran into the short blonde more often than not. From trips to the grocery store to when I was allowed at Aunt Hailey’s house, we would bump into each other. We’d always exchange a few words and always those red eyes sparkled bright around me. 

That was eleven years ago. Now I lay in a hospital bed, feeling like I was on the brink of death. A few years after meeting Luci I had gotten terribly ill. I was feverish, pale and felt nauseous. My mother was worried and took me to the clinic. I was just diagnosed with the flu. I took my medicine and stayed in bed as best as possible but the final straw was when I fainted in the backyard while gardening. Since then, I had been in and out of hospital with different doctors viewing me like prize cattle. I was poked, prodded and dug at only to be told no one had a clue as to why I was sick. It was like it had just fallen upon me. My mother became even more obsessive in her Christian ways. I was blessed every weekend and prayed upon every day to try and heal my mysterious illness. I was forced to drink holy water at every opportunity and had to wear my cross necklace with two rosaries. 

Currently, I was coughing so hard I felt like I dislocated my lungs. My mother sat next to me holding my hand, a rosary wrapping around us. As I continued to cough she pushed some hair out of my face. “You’re going to be alright, honey. Just stay strong.”

After my coughing fit, I laid back and tried to catch my breath. “I feel like I’m dying.”

Her hand tightened around mine and I could feel her body shake with sobs. “Maybe this is God’s way of letting us know Adam needs you. As much as I’d hate to see my baby go, you’d finally fulfill your purpose.”

“Mom, please. Not now.”

“I’m sorry.”

A knock at the door made us both look over. There in the entryway stood Luci, his white hat with the dark red band hanging tightly in his hands. “Come in.”

He stepped forward and gave a small smile. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

“Like shit.”

“Y/n! Language!”

“Sorry.”

He chuckled and came to my side, putting a hand on my shoulder. “May I have a moment alone, please?”

My mom looked at me and I gave a curt nod. She sighed and stood. “I’ll go get something to eat. I’ll be back later, honey.”

She gave my forehead a kiss and walked out, shutting the door behind her. Luci took her place in the chair next to my bed. “What can I do for you, handsome?”

“I wanted to come see you. Hailey told me how you were faring and I knew I needed to come immediately.”

“I appreciate that. Especially since I feel like this may be the last time you see me.”

“Nonsense. We will always find each other, even in death.”

He brought his hand up and caressed my cheek. I smiled and then began coughing. I turned away and hacked into my arm, only turning back when I was done. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

His hand wrapped around mine and squoze tightly. “You know, I could end your suffering right now.”

“Yeah right.”

“I’m not lying to you, my dear. One small kiss and you’d go peacefully.”

“Luci-”

“And then we can be together forever. Adam, not even Heaven will keep you from me.”

“What are you talking about?” “Just kiss me.”

What could go wrong? I was already suffering so much.

“...Alright.”

He leaned forward and connected our lips. He tasted sweet like caramel apples and I just melted. My soul felt like it was being sucked out of my body and when he pulled away I couldn’t breathe. “You’re mine, little apple. Forever and always.”

He caressed my hand and my eyes closed.

The beeping of the heart monitor slowed and then faded to silence all together.

[rizsu]

graduated delusional boys shoyo, kuroo, sunarin.

-> tokrev & jjk version

it's a simple night out with the hinata family. after another successful karasuno match, shoyo's mother suggested a restaurant dinner and well some shopping.

busy on his feet, shoyo walk-runs after his sister. she's certainly a little too fast on her feet—especially if you don't hold her hand or use a leash like their mom usually does. finally reaching her, he lifts her onto his hip before ending the mini race with a little scolding.

“natsu! don't speed off like that!”

“but the candies!!”

shaking his head, shoyo shuffles his way through the sea of people until he makes it back to his mother's position.

“sho', natsu, come here!” motioning to her kids, their mother takes hold of the five year old before pushing shoyo to walk in front of her, “stay in my vision, sho'. you're still young!”

well, shoyo would've done as she said without complaints but the last sentence made him turn his head back one hundred and eighty degrees. immediately warping his face into one that expresses confusion, shoyo raises a counterargument.

“but i'm already a third year! with a girlfriend too y'know.”

nodding her head to act as if she's paying attention to his words, shoyo's mother argues back, “yes, yes, but you still live with me so—wait.”

from the tone of her voice in the last word, shoyo tries to speed up his pace but a mother's hand is always faster.

“what do you mean by girlfriend, young man.”

“whoops..?”

turning around on his heel, he raises a hand behind his neck trying to think of a way to properly explain. it doesn't take long before he starts his own sign language while giving his mother the detailed lore of your relationship—which didn't last for long because natsu had other plans.

“sho's not a loser!” she juts in her opinion, looking at her older brother with an open mouth covered by her hand.

“NAT-SU,” feeling shocked, betrayed and offended, shoyo goes to press his palm over her hand to seal her mouth shut. as the color red diffuses to all of his ear, he feigns a limp as he takes baby steps away from his family.

kuroo is not kuroo if he doesn't bother kenma after twelve a.m during the weekend sleepover. if there's a sleeping kenma, there's a wide awake kuroo waiting for the right moment to strike.

“psst, kenma, wake up.”

“please shut up.”

“KENMA!”

“NO.”

covering both ears with his pillow, kenma turns around to block off kuroo and whatever he's got going on at 1:43 AM according to his watch. but oh no, don't get it twisted. kuroo is not one to forfeit that easily—persistent may as well be his middle name!

“i was going to show you my girl but i guess not!” changing his tone to a teasing one, kuroo backs off kenma's bed and goes to his futon.

as if it was an auto-response, kenma sits up straight, sharply turning his neck to kuroo, “pause.”

and with that, kuroo adds one point to himself on his imaginary scoreboard. snickering to himself, he turns his back to kenma, waving him off by repeating what he previously said, “you told me shut up.”

“wait i'm sorry,” kenma says. slouching off his bed, he uses his right foot to nudge at kuroo's “sleeping” figure. it takes about five nudges before he speaks again, “you know i love knowing people's business. please, kuroo.”

adding another point to himself on the scoreboard, kuroo turns on his back with a grin and a phone to his face. raising the phone to kenma's height, kuroo shows him a picture of a girl and kenma thinks kuroo's gone delusional. maybe he's just tired.

“whose daughter did you find on pinterest?”

“okay fuck you.”

snatching his phone back, kuroo actually feels quite offended. is kenma implying he's not attractive enough to pull a pretty girl!?

“I WAS NOT FINISHED LOOKING.”

“privileges REVOKED.”

shoving a middle finger in the air, kuroo pulls his blanket over his head to quietly sob in peace (this is an exaggeration).

kenma, tired of kuroo's antics, steals kuroo's phone to look at your picture and find proper evidence that you guys are indeed together.

“don't go through our chats by the way.”

“ew.”

three adults, three cushions and one bottle. in osamu's living room sits him, his brother and rintaro. how'd they get here? boredom. extreme boredom. when they were no longer entertained by the alcohol, atsumu brought up the idea of truth-or-dare with using a bottle.

spinning the bottle, osamu watches it land on rintaro and immediately asked him a question he's been dying to know, “rin, is it true you're seeing someone?”

throwing his head back, rintaro groans. he knew it'd come sooner or later but he still wants to be mysterious.

“nosy much?” and to that, both twins responded, “SAYS YOU!?”

dragging his palm over his face, rintaro laughs before confirming osamu's question. he's twenty-six with nothing to lose and he thinks he's sexy—so obviously he'd not be single..!

osamu's jaw drops. although he was the one who asked, he's still shocked. to his defense, rintaro's always seemed like the type to stay in the talking zone.

“oh, that poor woman. save her now before it's too late.” using a napkin, atsumu wipes his crocodile tears only to be kicked by no one other than suna rintaro. cackling at rintaro's reaction, atsumu defends himself, “'m just messing with ya!”

rintaro rolls his eyes. turning around to grab his phone, he proudly shows off his lockscreen that's a picture of you from your anniversary date, “isn't she pretty?” with a small smile on his face, he feels his pride emotion being activated.

“i dunno...i've seen better,” atsumu states his (unwanted) opinion. tapping a finger on his chin, he squints at the phone.

and as for rintaro? his heart dropped. looking directly at atsumu this time, he questions him, “such as..?”

“like myself duh.”

one.

two.

three.

and cue the fight scene with rintaro and atsumu while osamu tries to catch his breath from laughing.

“I AM SICK OF YOU.” stifling atsumu with his cushion, rintaro makes sure to smother his face with the fabric. he, atsumu, must feel the pain.

“hey—HEY. GO EASY ON THE HAIR.”

[gamblersdoll]

PUT MY NAME ON IT, NOW IT DESIGNER 4

cw: pure smut, maybe heavy for some, fluff at the end.

“hak–!” you yelped, feeling the sting on your ass.

currently, you laid across his lap, naked and your ass bare. it was pretty red, almost bruised and practically hot. and it was in the same spot you were in. even though hakari was sitting back, practically manspreading, he had a wide lap.

“count the number or ill restart.” he threatened, rubbing your poor abused ass cheeks. you were given 25 slaps… and only on ten. that fucker knows he has thick and heavy hands.

“ten…” you said, how pitiful.

another slap, had you biting your lip and whimpering. “eleven!” you yelped again, feeling him rubbing his hand on your cheeks, giving you some form of relief. “baby please!”

“baby please.” he mocked back, slapping your ass again. “cmon babydoll, keep up.” he said, mockingly.

“twelve!!” you whined, squirming and kicking your feet slightly. only causing hakari to grow annoyed and yank you back, dragging his thick fingers up and down your puffy and soaked slit, exhaling as he felt his cock finally get a little thicker, too.

“fuck , mama…” he whispered in your ear, adding another digit to rub your slit. “pussy is practically droolin for me, huh?” he said tauntingly.

“is too much.. spanking too much..” you said, feeling and knowing that you have to wear loose clothes now, because your ass would be raw.

hakari flipped you on his lap, holding you while he kissed your cheeks stained with sweat and tears while rubbing circles on your puffy clit. it made your hips buck against his fingers.

“poor baby needing her pussy finger fucked, huh? how do you ask?” he said, making you look at him. he plunged a finger into your precious pussy, feeling how warm and juicy you were, you really hadnt had any action in a year? fuck he could tell why you always acted out, that bitch boy boyfriend couldnt put it on you.

“please..” you said, only able to muster that. how pathetic, because you were just talking big girl shit a couple minutes ago, what happened to that? you never knew. all you did know was that your was was raw and tingling , and hakari is like a personal oven at four hundred degrees right now.

“ill let it slide.” and he curled his fingers, only moving the tips of his fingers like he beckons your g spot to come to him. “so what are we gunna stop doin now..?” he whispered in your ear, feeling his body heat get even hotter.

“fuckfuckfuckfu-“ you said repeatedly, eyes threatening to roll back but only snapping back to hakari when he speaks. “not to- oh shit..– not to talk back– ha fuck!” you moaned out, legs trying to close back together until hakari separates them. he was always so big and strong, he just made you feel weak with him.

“yeah, baby. was talking all big and bad, and now look at you.” he said, with a hint of sass and rolling his eyes. he kisses on your neck, sucking so slightly and his fingers were vicious, faster than they were before. he felt something familiar , like he knew it was his fever coming hard, those fevers as if he was going to land a huge loan and win even bigger.

“i cumin! i cumin—!” you chanted, holding onto his beefy arm, hiding your face in it, trying to close your legs but for no avail, just to have hakari slam them open—

JACKPOT!

you came with a cry, body convulsing and the arch of your back could make him feral, feeling your walls spasm on his fingers as he rubbed your clit in circles and sucked on your neglected tits. you finally caught your breath after some cooing and praises from him, along the lines of “good fuckin girls” or “thats my girl, thats it.”

you tried to close your legs, until he slotted himself between you as you lay on your back.

“uh uh, i ain done with this pussy yet.” he said, freeing his cock and him hissing at the cool air. he rubbed your hips, to at least ease your body before he fucked you. your body was so fuckin pretty, he just doesn’t understand how you havent been touched in a year.

he kisses your plump lips, biting so softly and low growls coming from him. he kisses your neck, down to your collarbone, to your chest and your mounds.. your stomach, and your little tummy where your poor uterus was. he puts his forehead against yours, as he slides the fat of his cock in.

holy fuck did you not forget that.

you both had a small moan, remembering when you both were younger and fucked on the daily, at most three to four times a day. he wasnt even in all the way.

“pussy remembers who fucks it the best, already clamping down on my cock and im barely all the way in.” he snickered , looking down at you. “you wan me to show you where it is, mama?” you nodded.

“okay babydoll, this right here…” he slightly pulls his hips back, and slams it back into you, watching you throw your head back and moan so loud. “is your cervix.” he says, thrusting slower and moans a bit, trying to not get too crazy with it since he basically had to take your virginity back. “fuck you feel too good..” he whines.

“fuckohmygoddaddy–“ you whimper, gripping his shoulder with your nails and biting your lip, barely able to keep your thighs apart. you feel hakari kiss on your neck, groaning whenever he thrusts faster and hits that gummy spot. “oh shit..!”

“there you go.. take all that dick im givin you..” he said, moving your attention back to him. he looks you in your eyes as he thrusts, trying to maintain eye contact. only for him to fail and roll his eyes back. “huuuuuhhh fuck!” he groans out, pressing his forehead against yours and have some combination of thrusting and grinding together, drawing a whine from you.

“kin!—“ you moan out, coming on his cock, rolling your eyes back as your toes curl. the convulsions of your pretty pussy pushes hakari more to his climax, his hips thrusting into you faster with vigorous motion and him growing desperate was apparent.

“fucken fuck!” he shouts, pulling out and jerking himself until he feels his seed spurt out on your tummy, a little on your breasts, and just barely your chin.

you were barely conscious at this point, only just regaining consciousness and feeling a warm rag on your soft tummy, causing you to flinch.

“relax.. its just me ma.” he says, cleaning your body and wiping your pussy down ever so gently. youre so glad you taught him how to wipe you. “imma get you some clothes and im gunna take you to get some food.” he says, already half dressed.

you nod, getting a sip of your now room temperature water and sipping it. “ can we also go to wally world?” and both of you start grinning.

“oh shit!” you whisper, running into aisle h after you were just in l. walmart was your wally world, and you both always act a damn fool.

“y/n!” hakari laughs, trying his best to hold it in and holding you. “oh youre a fuckin moron.” he laughs, kissing your forehead several times. both of you being in the toy slash athletic department, looking at whatever to play when you made it back to your apartment.

you pick up a random toy, looks electronic and it somehow turns on, startling you and you throw it back and it makes a loud “CLANK!” hakari bursts into a laughing fit, as you walk away, pretending you dont know what just happened. hakari comes up behind you, hugging you from behind as he towers over you and kisses you.

“get off!” you say, because hes a giant and youre little, and hes heavy. you giggle, holding him back.

“not in a million years, babydoll.” he says, using his finger to tilt your head up and kiss you. “lets get some banquet and call it a night?��� he says, raising an eyebrow. you know exactly what hes talkng about, causing you to swat at him.

“fuckin up my day!” you say, mocking that one tiktok sound and you both made it home by at least eleven fourteen at night, crashing on the couch.

hope you guys enjoyed this one… i opened up a can of worms.

[elaratyrell]

Misery {Annie Wilkes! Aemond Targaryen x Author! Reader}

*All images found on Pinterest*

Warnings: Dark! Aemond, stalking, language, mentions of murder Smut- oral (fem receiving), fingering (fem receiving), female orgasm

*Divider from Firefly Graphics*

Synopsis: You find yourself near death after being the victim of a car accident in a snow storm while working on the latest instalment in your bestselling Misery series. The man who found you, your self declared number one fan, seems innocent enough, but his dark past, and even darker intentions, soon become clear

With a sigh of slight relief, you placed the final page on top of the pile beside you, tying a rubber band around it and placing it in a blue leather case.

Another book finished to hopefully join the others on the bestsellers list.

You had written twelve other books, to be exact, and had now finished your first completed draft for the thirteenth.

The cursed number.

The unlucky number.

The number of misfortune.

But for you it was a blessing.

For years you had dedicated your life to the running series of books centred around a character called Misery. You'd published your first book at eighteen, becoming the new face of the romance genre. And as you had grown up, your books had matured as well, becoming darker, bordering on the thriller genre as well as still centering on the romantic aspect. It was a bold move, but seemed to pay off, as it had made you even more popular than before.

Yet, after dedicating your life to one character for an entire decade now, you knew you had to move on, take another path in a new series you were going to write. You knew some of your fans would be disappointed that this would be the last entry in the Misery series, but it had to be done.

It felt like a relief to you, that you could finally move on with your life. And you felt as though it were almost a weight being lifted off your shoulders as finished your usual celebration of a single cigarette and champagne. You rose to your feet to take the manuscript to your car with the rest of your belongings, departing from a small log cabin called Winterfell Lodge you always rented out when working on your latest novel. It was always calming to get some time away from the chaos of the city.

You pulled your coat around you tighter, the snow flurry thickening around you as you loaded your bags into the trunk of your car. Usually, you wouldn't drive in weather like this, especially as it seemed as though a snow storm was fast approaching, but you needed to get back to the city as fast as possible.

Quickly shooting your agent a message to let you know you had finished the initial draft and were on your way to get back to the city, you started the car and drove away from Winterfell Lodge.

You squinted slightly as the snowfall grew thicker still, trying to see the curve in the road as the wipers speed couldn't keep up with the snow that was now covering the road. You slowed your speed, maintaining control of your car, humming along to the song playing on the radio.

Maybe you should have waited for tomorrow.

It was already late in the afternoon, and the clouds darkened the sky.

You turned on your car's headlights, a small sign reading 'Curved road, next thirteen miles'.

You hit the curve no problem, turning the wheel with perfect control, keeping a steady speed as you continued turning the wheel, but suddenly one of the wheels skidded, followed by another as the car span erratically out of control.

And all you remembered was the car spinning of the road, followed by it slamming into a tree, doing a one hundred and eighty degree flip, landing on it's hood.

And then as you fell into the darkness, you heard the harsh sound of the radio static and the howling winds, and felt the blood trickling down the side of your face.

Followed by nothing. Only darkness.

When you awoke, you felt numb.

You skin was paler, and clammy with a feverish sweat that sent a slight tremble through you. You couldn't lift any of your limbs. They felt weighted down. You didn't even want to try and lift your head.

"You're awake."

The voice was male. It sounded calm, well spoken. Soothing, almost.

Approaching footsteps to your bedside soon brought the owner of the voice into your vision.

He looked around your age, maybe two or three years younger, around twenty five or six, perhaps. He had long silver hair tied half up, a strong jaw and a tall, well defined figure. One of his eyes was a vivid blue, like a sapphire, the other a cloudy white, a long scar running from his brow down to his cheek. Resting on the bridge of his nose was a pair of black rimmed glasses. He was dressed in a dark blue sweater, the white collar of his shirt peaking up above its neckline, and a pair of black trousers.

Your saviour was very handsome, indeed.

"W-where... where a-am-"

"Shush," He interrupted you, placing the back of his cool hand against your forehead, frowning slightly at the heat radiating on your skin from the fever. "We're just between Storm's End and Winterfell. You've been here two days. I was concerned that you were not going to pull through. I'm thankful to say that I think you will recover. You'll be okay. Thank the gods you'll be okay." He shot you a slightly relieved smile. "Oh, how foolish of me. My name is Aemond Targaryen, and I'm your-"

"Number one fan?" You murmured, your eyes fluttering closed from a split second before opening again to see him shooting you a rather bashful smile, his cheeks dusted with pink.

"That- that's right," He murmured. "I-I am also a doctor, fortunately enough." He added, gesturing to where you were connected to a drip before outstretching his hand and opening his palm to reveal two pills. "You need to take these for the pain," He said softly, lifting your head slightly to bring the pills to your lips and swallow them, his fingertips lingering slightly against your lips.

Aemond propped up the pillows slightly, resting your head back down. Giving you a better view of your room, you noted you appeared to be in a rather old cottage or farmhouse. Your room was rather charming; wood panelled walls, a large fireplace opposite the bed. From the window, you saw a view of the mountains.

"Shouldn't I be in hospital?" You mumbled.

"The blizzard was too strong. I didn't want to risk trying to get you there. I couldn't even call, the phone lines are down and I don't own a mobile, I'm afraid. I doubt you could even get signal out here with the weather like this."

"Thank you for saving me," You murmured, you eyes aching with fatigue.

"You are more than welcome. Now, you should get some rest. You nearly lost your life." He replied, stepping back. "I'll be back to check on your when your meds run out," Was the last thing he said before leaving the room, shutting the door behind him.

Your fever past after a few days in Aemond's care, but you were still incredibly weak. But Aemond promised you that things would get better.

"It's not going to hurt forever, I promise you."

"Will I be able to walk?" You asked.

"Of course. And your arm will be fine, too. Your shoulder was rather badly dislocated, but I managed to pop it back in there. But I must say, I am rather proud of what I managed to do with your legs, especially considering what I had around the house. In fact I don't think there's a doctor in the whole of Westeros that could do a better job."

And with a flourish of blankets, he made your legs visible to you for the first time.

From the knees down, you believed you resembled a mummy. Steel rods that seemed to be remains of aluminium crutches were used as splints with taping circled around them. From the knees up, your thighs were swollen and horribly bruised.

Upon seeing your slightly horrified expression, Aemond hastily added. "It is not nearly as bad as it looks considering the severity of your injuries. You have a compound fracture of the tibia in both legs, and the fibula in the left leg is fractured too. I could hear the bones moving, so it's best for your legs to remain immobile. And as soon as the roads open, I'll take you to a hospital. In the meantime, you've got a lot of recovering to do, and I consider it an honour that you'll do it in my home." He gave you a kind smile, once again leaving you to get some more rest until he had to administer your next round of painkillers.

And soon enough Aemond's visits to your room became more frequent and for longer periods of time. He didn't just stay to gave you your meds, but also to reassure you that the sweeling to your cheek would go down, and how you were still beautiful, and how much he adored your books.

"It was quite a miracle that you found me," You said one evening after Aemond had fed you your dinner. He let out a small, slightly nervous chuckle in response, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Actually, it wasn't a miracle at all. I... as I... in a way... I was following you."

"Fo-following me?" You stammered out.

"Well it isn't exactly a secret that you were staying at Winterfell Lodge, you know, considering that I am your number one fan, but some nights I found myself driving there, sitting outside and just looking at the light in your cabin, knowing you were most likely creating another Misery masterpiece. I'd try to imagine what the world's greatest writer was creating." He replied, his voice light and airy, as though it was the most simple explanation.

"Can you say that last part again? I didn't quite hear..." You murmured, trying to brush off the fact he practically stalked you. Aemond just shot you a small smile in response.

"The world's greatest writer." He repeated before continuing. "Anyway, the other afternoon, when I was on my way home, there you were leaving the lodge. I must say I was curious as to why an intelligent woman such as yourself would go for a drive with a storm such as that approaching."

"I... didn't know there was going to be a storm like that..."

"Well, luckily I did," He replied. "And, it was lucky for me too. Because you're alive, and now you can write more incredible books. I've read absolutely everything you've written. I enjoyed your three standalone novels at the start of your career immensely, but the Misery series... I must say that they are my absolute favourite. I-I know them all by heart, all twelve of them. I love them, they helped me through my darkest times... through any obstacle I've faced in my life, I've managed to find solace with Misery.

You couldn't helped but feel touched by the way he spoke so fondly of your work, how he constantly sang your praises whenever he got the chance. The man was socially awkward it seemed, and perhaps rather shy at times, but he was still surprisingly charming.

"You're too kind..."

"And you're too brilliant," He replied. "You must be to create such a wonderful character like Misery." As he spoke, he traced a finger down your cheek. The swelling was gone, and the bruise was fading. He cleared his throat, hastily pulling his hand away and rising to your feet. "I'll um... just wash these dishes up." He said, seeming rather embarrassed all of a sudden. "I'm sure the road will be open soon, which means the phone lines will be back up in no time. But until they are, I'll kept trying so you can phone your agent."

He stopped when he reached the doorway, turning away from you, his hand hovering over the door knob.

"Is there something wrong?"

"Oh goodness no. I-I was just wondering if I could ask you a favour."

"I'm sure it's the least I could do after you've shown me such kindness." You replied, mustering a small smile that made his expression brighten.

"It's just that I noticed in your case there was a new manuscript..." He trailed off, hesitating slightly.

"You want to read it?"

"If it's not too much trouble. I do not mean to intrude."

"I usually only let three people read my new work this early," You replied, making his smile drop slightly. "And that's my editor, my agent... and the person who was kind enough to save me from dying in a car wreck."

"I... thank you," Aemond smiled. "You have no clue as to the gift you've given me and the gratitude I feel to you."

You shot him a smile, but that soon changed into a grimace as you winced from the pain.

Aemond glanced at his watch, hastily placing your empty plate on the bedside table before reaching into his pocket for the painkillers.

"It's like clockwork, the way your pain returns," He murmured, pressing a glass of water to your lips to help you swallow the pills. "The pain will subside soon. It will be okay," He sighed, placing his hand over yours as your expression twisted in discomfort.

"What's the title of your newly finished book?" He asked, trying to take your mind away from the pain.

"I'm not sure yet," You murmured. "I usually come up with the title after the final draft is finished. Perhaps after you read it, you'll have an idea or two."

Aemond's expression brightened again. "I will do my best not to let you down."

Days past, and soon enough Aemond could move you from the bed to a wheelchair. Your arm was healing nicely, as were your legs, despite there still being some time until the latter were properly healed. Aemond never failed to update your over his progress of the manuscript.

"I read chapter one, it was one of your best introductions to a Misery novel I have ever read..."

"Page twenty, I've reached. It's incredible how you can engage with the reader so quickly in the novel..."

"Page thirty, I had to force myself to put it down..."

It wasn't until one day when he came in with your lunch that something seemed a little... off, about Aemond.

"I know I'm only forty pages into the book..." He began in his usual tone. "But... oh I cannot criticise someone like you-"

"It's fine," You replied. "I can take it. Believe me, if I can deal with the critics, I'm sure I can handle whatever my number one fan has to say."

Aemond softly exhaled, keeping his gaze fixed on where he was cutting up your lunch. "It's just..."

"Just what?"

"It is brilliantly written," Aemond admitted. "Although everything you write is brilliant. But... the swearing..."

You raised an eyebrow.

"The... swearing...?"

"Yes, the swearing. There, I said it!"

"It bothers you?"

"It is inappropriate. It has no nobility," He protested, sawing through the food on your plate.

"It is appropriate for the setting and background of the character speaking-"

Aemond stilled, his hands stopping from cutting your food for you. His head lifted to meet your gaze, his expression uncharacteristically cold.

"No. It isn't," He replied firmly, resuming to cutting your food, his gaze still focused on you. "What do you think people say when they go into the grocery shop in town. Give me a carton of those effing eggs and five slices of that bitchly roast chicken?"

You couldn't help but smile at his refrain from using the profanities, but it faltered as the cutting becoming more and more erratic.

"...And in the bank, do I tell Mr Lannister, here's one big bastard of a cheque, give me some of your darn money?"

You let out a nervous chuckle at his rants, but soon enough your ears were greeted by the grating sound of metal against china. He looked down, slamming the plate down on bedside table.

"There! See? Now see what you have made me do! These were my mother's plates! What she left me when she passed! And now, it's all scratched!"

His chest heaved as he closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down. When they reopened, his good eye was full of shame and embarrassment.

"Oh... I'm so sorry... sometimes I can get so worked up I... oh, can you ever forgive me? Here..." He pressed your pills to your lips before picking up the plate, shooting you a rather overly sweet smile.

"I hope you can forgive me. Oh, Y/N... how I adore you. I mean... your mind. Your creativity... that is all I meant."

Several days passed, and Aemond's previous disposition had returned. He didn't lecture you over the choice of language used in the book, but still seemed disapproving nonetheless. He still cooked and fed you your meals, brushed your teeth, gave you your pills, praised you every waking moment he was with you. The phones were still apparently out, but he had assured you it was only a matter of time before they were up and running again. He had even managed to convince you to autograph his limited edition copy of your first Misery novel, promising to cherish it for the rest of his days.

He still gave you regular updates on reading your manuscript. At page 185, he expressed his sadness at being over halfway through. At page 300, he branded it better than perfect, that it was divine. He said it was more beautiful than any tapestry adorning the Red Keep. He had then introduced you to his pet snake, Vhagar, and his cat called... Misery.

And you had found out more about him.

How he had graduated top of his class from medical school, and how his peers and his family were constantly consumed with jealousy from his success. How they would attempt to belittle and mock him for his eye, and how in his lowest moment, his fiancée, Alys, had left him, but you had saved him with releasing your newest Misery novel some weeks later.

He had told you about the neglect from his father, his older brother's alcoholism and his mother's untimely death. He stiffened when he mentioned his eye, but you quickly changed the conversation and didn't bring it up again, not wanting to upset him by bringing up possible past trauma. And you had listened to him, consoled him over the misfortunes of his past, and he had expressed his gratitude in return.

And then he had left you to rest while he returned to finish the manuscript, which he had entitled Misery's Child.

The slam of your bedroom door awoke you from your doze, your eyes fluttering open to reveal Aemond staring down at you, his face ashen and jaw clenched.

He must have finished the book, it seemed.

"You... she cannot be dead," He murmured. "Misery cannot be dead!" He then exclaimed, voice rising. "How... how could you do this to me?"

"Women in that age... it was tragically common for them to die in childbirth, Aemond. I'm sure you know that. But you know, she will still be alive in... in spirit..."

"I do not want her spirit! I WANT HER! AND YOU MURDERED HER!" He yelled.

"I... I didn't kill her..."

"THEN WHO DID?"

"Nobody she... she passed away and..."

"She passed awa- she passed away?! No, Y/N, you did it. You killed her. You murdered my Misery."

He picked up the chair by your beside where he usually sat with you with ease despite it's weight, rising it in the air as if to strike it down on you before turning and throwing it against the wall. It shattered immediately upon impact, breaking into pieces on the floor.

"I... I thought you were good," He murmured, tone suddenly soft. "But you're not good. You're just a dirty, untrustworthy woman. I don't... I don't think I should be near you for a while..."

He walked to the door, and stopped to turn back to you.

"And don't even think about anybody coming for you. Not the doctors, your agent, your editor... I won't call them. I haven't called them and I never will. Nobody knows you're even here. And you better hope nothing ever happens to me... because if it does... you'll die."

After the click in the lock of your door, followed by the slamming of the front door and the revving of Aemond's car as it pulls away from the house, you let out the breath you didn't know you had been holding.

You were slightly shaken from Aemond's outburst, but tried to focus on what needed to be done, shifting to the other side of your bed and reaching out with your arm. It had come out of it's sling several days ago, and was now bandaged in a cast. You managed to grasp ahold of the armrest and pull it towards the best, shifting your body closer to the edge of the bed. Your legs screamed in agony as you manoeuvred yourself onto the wheelchair, but you persisted nonetheless, managing to sit down in the chair and wheel yourself towards the door. Reaching into your hair, you pulled out a hairpin Aemond had leant you, pushing it into the keyhole and soon enough hearing a click. Turning the knob, you pulled open the door and wheeled yourself out of the room, looking down the flight of stairs that blocked your way.

Letting out a deep sigh, you gripped the banister with one hand as you slowly steered yourself to the edge of the staircase.

"What have I got to lose?" You murmured, before wheeling the chair down the stairs.

The chair turned on its side as it crashed down the last step, but you managed to hoist yourself up again. You immediately tried grabbing a phone, but it turned out to be fake. You then discovered the windows bolted shut and both of the front and back doors having a second lock at the top, which you couldn't reach due to not being strong enough to stand just yet.

You wheeled yourself back into the living room, looking at the photographs placed on the drawers against the wall. There was Aemond as a young boy standing with his siblings and mother, his eye unharmed. Another showed him graduating medical school, a proud smile on his face. The third was him with his mother. And the fourth... was you.

He truly wasn't lying when he said he was your biggest fan.

Between the two photographs was a crystal dragon ornament, and beneath that was an emerald scrap book. You lifted the ornament carefully and grabbed the book, opened it.

The beginning seemed fairly normal. More photographs of his childhood and teen years. The was a photograph of him at what seemed to be a formal event with a women you only assumed was Alys. She was dressed in dark green, matching Aemond's tie, and you were sure she was very pretty, but you couldn't see her face due to the black ink scribbled over it, almost cutting through the photo. The next page was work related. More photographs and newspaper clippings of his medical success.

But turning the page was a different story entirely.

The first page contained a page of the newspaper, what seemed to be it's headline emblazoned in large capital letters.

'Doctor Aemond Targaryen arrested for the murder of nephew Lucerys Velaryon'

'Doctor Aemond Targaryen was arrested this morning, accused of the murder of his nephew, Lucerys Velaryon. Targaryen, 20, pleaded not guilty to the death of Velaryon, 16, under the accusation he had simply acted in self defence after his nephew attacked him with a knife and caused the disfigurement of his left eye'

And it only got worse as you read the following pages.

'Targaryen trial postponed until December 10.'

Accompanying the headlines were photographs of him standing in front of the courthouse with his lawyer, Larys Strong, a stony expression on his face.

'Targaryen declared innocent by jury, claims he was a victim of a malicious attack.'

'Shamed doctor Aemond Targaryen resigns from King's Landing hospice.'

You slammed the book shut, a sick feeling brewing in your stomach as you hastily placed the book in it's position with the ornament on top.

Wheeling yourself to the stairs, you gripped the banister and you pulled yourself up the stairs. Your arms ached, the muscle burning and sweat beading on your forehead as you persisted, refusing to let go and crash back down to the bottom again.

In time, you reached the top of the stairs, moving the wheelchair as quickly as you could, taking the pin out and moving towards the bed, when a slam of a car door stopped you in your tracks.

Aemond was back.

You knew he would enquire about the now unlocked door, but you could just pass it off by saying you urgently needed to use the bathroom. You also knew that you didn't have enough time to haul yourself back into bed, and so you did what you could, and threw yourself out of the chair and onto the floor, pushing the wheelchair away from you slightly as the front door opened, the rustling of paper bags being put on the table before the creaking of the stairs. There was a slight falter before he twisted the knob and pushed the door open.

He knew it was unlocked.

"What happened?" He asked, voice laced with concern as he hurried over to you, lifting you into his arms and shushing your cry of pain as he placed you down in bed atop the covers. His glasses had been taken off, the brilliant blue of his good eye burning into you.

"I needed the bathroom, but I couldn't get back into bed I... I lost my balance and fell on the floor..." You lied, hoping that you managed to convince him that your story was true.

"You needed to use the bathroom?" He asked, receiving a nod from you in response.

"And you managed to get yourself on and off the toilet alright?"

Another nod.

He slowly nodded in response, and you let out a small sigh of relief, visibly relaxing at him seemingly believing your story.

"And... you managed to get down the stairs and into the living room without hurting yourself after picking your bedroom door lock?" He added, his tone still soft.

A little too soft.

"Aemond... I never..."

"And you managed to somehow drag yourself back upstairs into your room?"

"I... I don't..."

"The dragon ornament on top of my photograph album," He replied. "It was pointing the wrong way."

You opened your mouth to speak, but found yourself at a loss for words, you mouth dry and your blood running cold.

"It's okay," He murmured, running his thumb over your lower lip. "I shouldn't have scared you. I know I did. I frightened you, hm? Well for that I apologise. I will refrain from repeating that behaviour in the future." He added, leaning forward slightly. "You are so incredibly important to me, Y/N. I'm sure you know that. You saw the photograph downstairs..."

You tried to speak again but he quickly shushed you, the finger resting on your lip tracing down your jaw, your neck, across your collarbone. His pupil had dilated, his breath quickening slightly as his hand moved down to your chest, covered by one of his shirts he had given you, framing your body in a pale blue.

"You do not need to speak Y/N," He whispered, leaning closer still, one hand placed the other side of you, caging you against him. "You will only waste your energy..."

As he pressed his lips to yours, you knew you couldn't fight back. You were weaker with him even without your injuries, and with his erratic behaviour, and what you had discovered downstairs...

And so you let him deepen the kiss. You let him part your lips with his tongue. You let his hand wander down from fondling your breast to your waist, pulling the shorts you had on down to your knees.

You let him ever so gently part your legs, pressing a line of kisses along your upper thigh, and then pay the same attention to the other, his lips tracing your flesh that had been swollen with bruises the week before.

Did you even know how long you had been here?

Staring up at the same ceiling, being enclosed in those same four walls day after day had merged the days together.

And if you asked Aemond, would he tell you the truth?

You couldn't trust him, but you needed to stay alive. And if you had any hope of getting out of here alive, you needed to stay on his good side.

And so there you were, legs spread as Aemond lowered himself between them, his moans vibrating against you at your taste, his tongue circling your clit and sending a jolt of pleasure through you that was both pain and pleasure as your legs twitched slightly, a hand tangling in his silver locks.

You resented the way your legs squeezed around his head as he thrust two fingers into you, murmuring against you about how wet with want you were for him. Your body was betraying you, but you couldn't stop the way he was making you feel such pleasure. The mere curling of his fingers against your sweet spot, or the flick of his tongue against your swollen clit caused a string of breathy moans to leave you, and soon you found yourself coming undone. He drew his fingers out of you, replacing them with his tongue as he eagerly lapped at your release.

He sat back, lips glinting with your release. He reached forward, fingers parting your lips so you could taste yourself on him. He let out a satisfactory groan as you sucked on his fingers, allowing them to linger on your lips as he pulled away.

Pressing his lips to yours, he pulled your underwear and shorts back up to rest on your hips.

"I would love to go further with you, but I'll have to wait until you're back to your full strength. It may take some time... but I think I can manage with having your addictive taste on my tongue until I can truly claim you as mine. You'd like that, hm?"

"I..." You let out a deep breath. This man was unhinged. He'd break your ankles with a sledgehammer before letting you leave. You knew that your best chance to survive this, was to play along. Allow Aemond to believe that you were beginning to reciprocate his affections for long enough so he could let down his walls and nurse you back to health so you could escape.

"I would like that..." You murmured, looking away to feign embarrassment.

"It is nothing to be ashamed of, my darling Y/N." Aemond replied, looking at you with such fondness, you wouldn't have believed he was a murderer. He paused for a moment. "This may not be the best time, but I have a surprise for you. In the other guest room."

"Oh... okay..."

"If you want to wait another day, as disappointing as that would be-"

"No, I can see it now," You hastily replied as to not flair that nasty temper up again. He smiled warmly in response, stepping towards you as you reached for the wheelchair, but he instead lifted you into your arms bridal style, walking you away from the chair and towards the bedroom door. Instinctively, you wrapped an arm around the back of his neck, your head resting against his shoulder.

He pushed open the door with his foot, giving you another overly sweet smile as he proudly declared "It's your new studio. I set it up last night. I just needed to get the typewriter and paper, which are downstairs."

"But... w-why..."

"You need a place to work, after all," He interrupted you, placing you down on the desk chair. "All writers need a place to work."

"B-but... what would I write?" You asked.

Aemond smirked at you, walking over to where a trashcan sat in the far corner of the room. The clang as it landed on the floor echoed around the room as he dropped it at your feet, your manuscript discarded in it.

"You want me... to burn my book?" You looked up at him in disbelief.

"I know this may be difficult to you," Aemond nodded, reaching into his back pocket and bringing out a box of matches.

"I... I can't..."

"Yes. You can," Aemond's voice was firm. "You can do this. Do it. Now."

Your hands began to tremble as he pressed the matchbox into them, pouring lighter fluid into the trashcan.

"I know this is the only copy," He continued. "You always only write one copy at first. When you were eighteen, you wrote your first book and you didn't make a single copy. Because you didn't think anybody would take it seriously. But they did. And you kept that tradition because it's a superstition to you, and you don't want to make a copy in fear of it being rejected. I'm trying to help you can't you see that?" His voice was steadily rising as his agitation grew, making the tremble in your hands worsen.

"I just want to help you. Why won't you let me help-"

As he spoke, you hastily lit one of the matches and threw it in the trashcan, the manuscript exploding into flame.

And as Aemond lovingly kissed your forehead, murmuring how proud he was of you for being so strong, all you could do was stare at the flames consuming your work, your own masterpiece.

"Now you can go back to doing what you're great at," Aemond murmured, a hand resting on your shoulder. "You can write a new novel, your greatest achievement ever... Misery's return."

He knelt down by you, a finger hooking beneath your chin, turning your head to meet his gaze. "I know you didn't mean it when you killed her. And now you can make it right. You can even write it in my honour, as a thanks for saving your life and nursing you back to health." He leaned forward so his breath was tickling your ear, his hand now resting on your thigh. "Although there are also other ways you can repay that debt to me."

"And you... you expect me to write something up just like that?" You asked.

"I expect nothing less than a masterpiece from you," He replied reassuringly, pressing another kiss to you, this time on the cheek. "I have the upmost faith in you my darling... I know you won't let me down... and if you do... we'll just have to start again. And again. And again... you won't try to escape, will you?"

"O-of course not. I... wouldn't dream of it."

Aemond hummed in approval. "I know you won't," He whispered, kissing you on the lips before standing up. "No one will come for you. If they do... I won't let them take you. If they try to take you from you, or if you do try to leave..." He said, opening a storage closet and reached inside, brandishing a sledgehammer. "There are other ways of keeping you here... with me... forever..."

Masterlist

[ilguna]

Can I please get number 2 and 8 from aisle 3 with sejanus, it could be her finding out about his plans to leave panem together and her trying to get him out of the jabberjay situation with snow to keep him safe? Thank you 💛

(ps. I know you love angst but pls don’t have him die I don’t think I can take it 😭)

☼ birds and stones (Sejanus Plinth) ☼

warnings; swearing, death mention, gun mention, rebel plans, bird death.

wc; 5.4k

notes; 2. "How much of this did you hear?" AND 8. "Were you ever going to tell me the truth?"

--

The Center.

A place that you never thought that you’d semi-willingly step foot inside of in your entire life. In fairness, you don’t think the few hundred people wandering around the building had planned to  turn to becoming a Peacekeeper, either. At least they have somewhat of a choice, though.

You weren't given one, courtesy of your actions while you were mentoring a single tribute for the Tenth Hunger Games. You’d like to say it’s not your fault you ended up here, because it truly would be so easy to pawn it off on Coriolanus, or even your own boyfriend, Sejanus. The truth is that you deserve every minute of the next twenty years as much as they do.

Although, your crimes against the Academy aren’t as severe. With your mother being part of the Committee, you were able to hear their charges and they were about what you had expected. Sejanus was pretty simple, the only real questionable thing he’d done was entering the arena without permission, thereby putting himself in danger.

As for Coriolanus—he was a desperate man. It didn’t take a genius to know that there was something more going on between him and Lucy Gray. Which did shock you, considering the opinions he’d aired about district people to you in the past. He never really struck you as the type of person to switch sides at the drop of a hat, but you’ve done some pretty interesting things yourself, these past couple weeks.

Anyway, Coriolanus had illegally smuggled Academy food into the arena. They picked up a napkin after the arena had been bombed, and found his DNA all over it. Which in of itself wouldn’t have been enough to expel him. Then, they found out that he was behind the compact that Lucy Gray had, which held rat poison inside of it.

Your mother explained to you that she knew the Snow’s when they were alive. She knew that the compact couldn’t have belonged to the Twelve tribute, because Coriolanus’s mother had been seen with it. She never went anywhere without it. And your mother wasn’t the only one who noticed this, Dean Highbottom already had it down on his list.

The final nail on the coffin was when they’d found Coriolanus’s handkerchief in a snake tank—the mutt tank that they’d used to take out the remaining tributes inside of the arena. In the corner, the initials ‘CXS’ was stitched with the same white thread at the border. Coriolanus might have been able to deny it, if it wasn’t so glaringly obvious that it belonged to him.

This proves that he tampered with the neon snakes. You didn’t understand right away, but your mother explained that Dr. Gaul had engineered the snakes to become comfortable with familiar scents and violent with smells they didn’t have in their system. The theory your mother shared was that Lucy Gray had touched it at some point in time, and Coriolanus never washed it.

And when he heard that the snakes would be going inside of the arena, he paid a visit to Dr. Gaul’s laboratory to drop off the handkerchief in the tank. It was a smart move, no one would have been able to trace it back to him. If the initials weren’t in the corner. Even one of the lab assistants was convinced it’d belonged to them until they inspected it further.

Just like that, he’d been expelled.

As well as you and Sejanus. Unfortunately, you haven’t heard information on either of them beyond that. The last time you talked to your boyfriend was about two nights ago, when he kissed you goodbye at your doorstep after you’d watched Lucy Gray win the Games. He promised to see you the following day, but he never came.

Since then, you received the news of your own expulsion, which has been an incredibly slow process as your mother and father have fought against it. They were pissed at the idea of you losing your honor status and your diploma. It’s a disgrace that they consider you a dropout, not even making it to your graduation.

This means that higher schooling is completely out of the question. They’ve trapped you into the next twenty years, whether you like it or not. If you were anyone else, you’d say you’ve shed some tears, but after being friends with Coriolanus and Sejanus, your skin has grown thick and your emotions rare.

“Form?” The woman asks, holding out her hand.

You pass over the paper the Recruitment Office handed to you after you enlisted yesterday afternoon. They told you that they’d need it when you got to the Center today, as there was information they had to fill out before you could officially get sent off to one of the districts.

She takes the paper from your fingers, eyes searching for your name at the top, printed in your neat handwriting. Her face twitches briefly, eyebrows raising. “(Y/n) (L/n)?” When she locks eyes with you, the bewilderment is prominent.

You give her a small smile. “That’s me.”

You were expecting this, it’s not everyday you get the daughters of one of the most infamous families in the Capitol. You wouldn’t necessarily say you’re important by any means, but if someone were to mention your last name, they would be able to recognize it. You come from a family that’s been successful for generations without sharing their secrets.

She hums, “They’ll start with your physical.” She places the paper on the table. “If you were a boy, they’d cut your hair, but you should be fine.” 

“Thank you.” You murmur, walking around the table to head behind the curtains.

“Thank you.” She echoes.

The physical is pretty simple, you pass without any problems being brought up. After they fully vaccinate you against the sicknesses going around in the districts, you’re then led through a row of chairs, occupied by men getting their hair shaved into a buzz cut. You’re ordered to change into fatigues, your previous clothes being promptly discarded.

They hand you a duffel bag with a change of clothing, a hygiene kit, a water bottle, and a packet of meat sandwiches for the trip on the train. Your final stop in the Center is at the table, where you take care to read through the stack of papers they hand you, knowing better than to blindly sign.

When you’re done completely, you hand in the papers, watching as the man staples it all together. “Before I stamp your slip, do you have a district you’d prefer to go to?”

You open your mouth to tell him ‘no preference’, but a voice behind you cuts you off entirely. “District Twelve.”

Your face twists at the very thought of going to such a dirty district. There will undoubtedly be a layer of coal dust on everything you touch. It’ll be impossible to escape.

As you turn to look at who spoke over you, you try to drop the disgusted look. The moment your eyes land on him, a flood of relief hits your body like a truck. You throw out your hands. “Sejanus!”

Dressed in the same colored fatigues, with his brown curls shaved away, stands your boyfriend. His signature smile spreads across his face while he opens his arms for you to hug him.

You squeeze him tightly, letting out a laugh. “I thought you’d already gone.”

“No, I would never have gone without saying goodbye to you, first.” He says, you pull back to look into his eyes. He takes this as an opportunity to kiss you, holding you in place for several long seconds until he’s satisfied.

You quickly remember the recruitment officer sitting at the table. You keep one hand wrapped around Sejanus, turning to look at the man. “District Twelve.”

He writes it in on your slip, stamps it, and then slides it over. You hold the paper, watching as Sejanus turns in his papers and requests District Twelve, too. He holds his hand out for you, which you take gratefully, squeezing his palm. Together, you take a bus to the train station, where you wait for the next hour.

Sejanus has so much to tell you in this short span of time, most of which you already know. You know about the expulsion of the three of you, and how Lucy Gray was sent back to District Twelve without being paraded. He then goes on to surprise you by saying his father went before the board to promise them a new gymnasium for the Academy if they let him graduate and sign up for Peacekeepers. However, Sejanus refused to take the deal until both Coriolanus and you were allowed to graduate, too. And since Professor Sickle really wanted a new gym…

“I graduated?” You ask, eyebrows twitching in.

Sejanus opens his box of belongings, pulling out a small leather folder with the school’s emblem and your name engraved on the front. You take it from him carefully, flipping it open to see the diploma inside, crediting you with High Honors, like you’d wanted.

“Sejanus.” You pout.

“Don’t act like it’s a great deal.” Sejanus laughs, pushing your shoulder away. “It’s the least I could do for getting you in trouble.”

“It still means a lot to me.” You tell him. “And you know that.”

“That’s why I did it.”

–

Lately, Sejanus hasn’t been acting like himself. 

It started happening a couple weeks back, right around the time he and Coriolanus were asked by the base commander to attend the hanging of Arlo Chance. Well, it wasn’t much of an option, they were instructed to go because Commander wanted more bodies there for show, and he was looking for recruits.

While they were given the opportunity to go, you were told to stay on base and continue with the schedule that you were given for the day. At the time, you weren’t upset by this in any way. In fact, you were thankful that you wouldn’t have to put on the full Peacekeeper uniform to stand out in the heat while they hung rebels. It wasn’t an afternoon that you’d been picturing all day. 

Now that you’re looking back on it, maybe it would have been better if you’d offered. At least then you would’ve been with Sejanus. You saw the looks on both of their faces when they came back later that evening. Whatever had happened obviously upset Sejanus enough for him to barely kiss your cheek before disappearing to his room to write to Ma.

When you saw him for supper that night, he was overwhelmingly quiet. Despite the amount of times you tried to start up a conversation with him, he wouldn’t respond. He barely offered you more than a smile, but he did hold onto one of your hands with both of his, needing the comfort.

It wasn’t until you, Coriolanus and Sejanus were mopping the mess hall did he finally speak.

“What’s bothering you? And don’t say nothing.” Coriolanus said, eyes set on your boyfriend. His silence must’ve been poking at him, too.

Sejanus stuck his mop into the bucket of dirty water. “I don’t know. I keep wondering what would’ve happened today if the crowd had gotten physical. Would we have had to shoot them?”

“Oh, probably not.” Coriolanus told him almost immediately. You paused where you were several feet away, hands beginning to tighten around the wooden pole. “Probably just fired a few rounds in the air.”

“If I’m helping to kill people in the districts, how is it any better than helping to kill them in the Hunger Games?” Sejanus asked.

The silence that took over the room only lasted a few seconds, but a hundred thoughts passed through your head in that short span of time. The first was concern for your boyfriend, because there’s nothing more than he hates than unnecessary violence. And the second was concern for you and Coriolanus, because this exact train of thought is what had gotten you here, in District Twelve, in the first place.

Coriolanus hesitated. “What did you think it was going to be? I mean, what did you think you’d signed up for?”

“I thought I could be a medic.” Sejanus murmured, looking up from the floor to you.

You locked eyes with him, forced a smile, and went back to mopping. You’ll admit that when you signed up for Peacekeepers, you had a handful of unrealistic expectations, yourself. It’s taken you twice as long to adjust to this lifestyle than it has for them. Sejanus fit in with the district almost immediately because he used to live in District Two, and it’s like Coriolanus was meant for a military life.

On the other hand, you’d never pictured yourself leaving the Capitol, never really had to lift your finger for a single thing. Regardless, you knew that it would be more gloomy skies than sunshine days here. There’s going to be a lot of grimy memories that will follow you for the rest of your life, even after you make it back to the Capitol someday.

“A medic.” Coriolanus repeated. “Like a doctor?”

“No, that would require university training.” Sejanus continued. “Something more basic. Something where I could help anyone who’d been injured, Capitol or district, when violence breaks out. At least I wouldn’t do any harm. I just don’t know if I could ever kill anyone, Coryo.”

That’s all it took for you and Coriolanus to share a worried look. Sejanus was beginning to fall right back into his Capitol habits. This time, his actions would have worse consequences than just being banished. They could get him killed.

“What about in war?” You asked, causing them to look over. “We’re soldiers, you know.”

“I know. A war would be different, I guess. But I would have to be fighting for something I believed in. I would have to believe it would make the world a better place. I’d still rather be a medic, but there isn’t much demand for them at the moment, it turns out. Without a war. They’ve got a long waiting list of people who’d like to be trained to work at the clinic. But even for that, you need a recommendation, and the sergeant doesn’t want to give me one.”

“Why not? Sounds like a perfect fit.”

“Because I’m too good with a gun.” Sejanus paused, lips pulling down at the corners. “It’s true. I’m a crack shot. My father taught me from when I was tiny, and every week I had mandatory target practice. He considers it part of the family business.”

“Why didn’t you hide it?”

“I thought I was. In reality, I shoot much better than I do in training. I tried not to stand out, but the rest of the squad is terrible.” Sejanus’s eyes widened, looking between you and Coriolanus. “Not you two.”

“Yes, me.” Coriolanus laughed. “Look, I think you’re making too much of this. It’s not like we have a hanging every day. And if it ever did come to it, just shoot to miss.”

Sejanus let out a heavy sigh. “And what if that means (Y/n), or you, or Beanpole, or Smiley, end up dead? Because I didn’t protect you?”

“Oh, Sejanus.” You shook your head.

“You have to stop overthinking everything! Imagining every worst-case scenario. That isn’t going to happen. We’re all going to die right here, of old age or excessive mopping, whatever takes us first. In the meantime, quit hitting the target! Or invent a problem with your eyes! Or smash your hand in the door!”

“Stop being so self-indulgent, in other words.”

“Well, so dramatic anyway.” You mused, dragging your mop back to the bucket.

“That’s how you ended up in the arena, remember?” Coriolanus asked.

Sejanus blinked as if Coriolanus had reached over and slapped him. “That’s how I almost got us both killed. You’re right. Thanks. I’m going to think over what you said.”

It seems like he’s taken Coriolanus’s words to heart after that night, genuinely considering them and the consequences his actions could have. You know that the last thing Sejanus wants is to put the three of you back into danger, getting you into trouble, to find yourselves in worse work than Peacekeepers.

Sejanus has good intentions, you know he does. They’ve shown through several times, despite the mistakes he continues to make. In the past, before you’d been asked to mentor for the Tenth Hunger Games, they weren’t as frequent. And if they were, you never noticed them because they weren’t life-altering.

The truth is that you can never fully blame Sejanus for what he’s done, mostly because you feel as if the Hunger Games brought out the worst in a lot of people. The moment it was suggested, it started a domino effect that none of you had foreseen. And it ended with half of your classmates dead, and you being banished from the Capitol.

Still, this doesn’t mean that you excuse Sejanus’s flaws entirely. He would never let you.

“(L/n).” A voice snaps. You straighten where you stand, turning sharply to face the voice. You’re met with the face of your Commander, his eyebrows raised. “Go help with the birds, I want them labeled and on the hovercraft by the end of the hour.”

“Yes, sir.” You nod, waiting for him to take his eyes off of you before you walk away.

A part of you feels guilty, though. Sejanus’s train of thoughts progressively got worse in the Capitol when he confided in you. When he told you that he wanted to leave the bread crumbs on Marcus’s body, you said that he should find a way how. Granted, you were picturing him doing it after the Games had been finished and the bodies were extracted.

Really, you expected him to pull some strings with his father to get it to happen, too. Sometimes you forget that he doesn’t like to use his wealth and name the same way that you do. He doesn’t like taking the advantage. What he doesn’t realize is that if he does it in moderation—especially for something as simple as bread crumbs—no one will think he’s trying to get a step up.

If you hadn’t encouraged Sejanus to find a way to Marcus, then he wouldn’t have gone into the arena. Ma would not have gone to the Snow’s looking for her son. Coriolanus would not have gotten the call from Dr. Gaul regarding your boyfriend being in danger. There wouldn’t have been a reason to send Coriolanus in there to save him. And Coryo wouldn’t have had to kill one of the tributes.

You believe you’re a good portion of the reason why you’re here, in District Twelve, now.

Of course, there were other factors that contributed to it, but that was the start of it.

As you go to walk around the corner of the building to where half of your bunkmates should be, Sejanus’s voice cuts through the silence. “Listen, we’ve only got a few minutes. I know you won’t approve of what I’m going to do, but I need you to at least understand it. After what you said the other day, about us being like brothers, well, I feel I owe you an explanation. Please, just hear me out.”

Your boots freeze in the mud, eyebrows draw in. The quiet chirping of a nearby jabberjay fills the silence, while Coriolanus thinks of a response. Then, it falls quiet too. As if it wants to hear what your boyfriend has to say.

“It’s like this,” Sejanus starts. “Some of the rebels are leaving District twelve for good. Heading north to start a life away from Panem. They said if I help them with Lil, (Y/n) and I can go, too.”

You blink, face twisting deeper at the new knowledge. Sejanus is talking to rebels. He isn’t learning from his mistakes. Why hasn’t he talked to you about this? What does he think Coriolanus is going to do? If either of them get into trouble, it’ll be you who pulls them out this time. With Coriolanus wrapped up in Lucy Gray again and Sejanus talking district rebels…

As if reading your thoughts, Sejanus begins to speak quickly. “I know, I know, but they need me. The thing is, they’re determined to free Lil and take her with them. If they don’t, the Capitol will hang her with the next lot of rebels they bring in. The plan is simple, really. The prison guards work in four-hour shifts. I’m going to drug a couple of my ma’s treats and give them to the outside guards. The medicine they gave me in the Capitol, it knocks you out like that—” Sejanus snaps his fingers.

“I’ll take one of their guns. The inside guards are unarmed, so I can force them into the interrogation room at gunpoint. It’s soundproof, so no one can hear them yell. Then I’ll get Lil. Her brother can get us through the fence. We’ll head north immediately. We should have hours before they discover the guards. SInce we’re not going through the gate, they’ll assume we’re hiding on base, so they’ll lock it down and search here first. By the time they figure it out, we’ll be long gone. No one hurt. And no one the wiser.”

You’re gonna be sick.

You reach out to steady yourself on the wall, taking in deep breaths through your nose to calm the rising nausea. Sejanus has lost his goddamn mind if he thinks that he’s going to get away with all of this. He’s going to get himself hurt. He’s going to get himself caught. Or, he’s going to get himself killed.

“I couldn’t go without telling you.” Sejanus says to Coryo. You raise your head, face screwing in, because apparently telling his girlfriend doesn’t matter. But the person he considers a brother is more important, even though he’s not a part of this plan? “You’re as good to me as any brother could be. I’ll never forget what you did for me in the arena. I’ll try to figure out some way to let Ma know what happened to me. And my father, I suppose. Let him know the Plinth name lives on, if only in obscurity.”

It’s quiet for a couple of seconds, and then the jabberjay they must have nearby, begins to sing the song it had been before you walked up to the corner. Your eyebrows twitch together, suspicious. 

“Here comes Bug.” Coriolanus says.

“Here comes Bug.” The bird repeats in Coryo’s voice.

Now it’s repeating what’s been said?

“Hush, you silly thing.” Coriolanus murmurs.

“We need another water bottle. One broke.” Bug says.

“One broke.” The bird echoes in Bug’s voice, before switching to imitate a nearby crow.

It dawns on you suddenly, as the blood seems to run from your face to your toes. You remember the crash course they gave everyone on jabberjays and mockingjays just a few weeks back. How mockingjays only replicated notes, while the jabberjays could repeat back whole sentences if instructed to.

Usually, they’re quite talkative. The jabberjay should’ve been repeating little parts of that conversation the entire time. The only time they fall silent is when they’re listening…

Your feet move before you tell them to, eyes searching for the jabberjay that holds Sejanus’s rebel secrets that will get him killed if they’re heard by the wrong person. Your presence immediately draws three pairs of eyes, but you’re locked on the cage that Bug is carrying toward the hovercraft.

“(Y/n), what are you doing over here?” Coriolanus asks.

Your eyes slide over to him, and they must not exactly be kind looking, because the happy look on his face vanishes completely. You take in a breath, forcing a smile despite the many things you’d like to accuse him of.

Not now, you think. “Commander told me to come here to make sure that the work gets done by the end of the hour.”

As you glance over at Bug, you find that the cage is marked with J1.

“Oh, well we don’t really need help.” Coriolanus shakes his head, looking between Sejanus and Bug. “We’re almost finished.”

“Let me organize the hovercraft, while the three of you focus on getting the birds covered.” You tell them, leaving no room for discussion. You have to get your hands on that bird, and you need to get it out of this area.

“Sure.” Sejanus nods, face twisting slightly. “Are you alright?”

He catches your arm, holding you in place for a moment. You give him a smile, reaching up to touch his face, even though you want to be everything but tender right now. He’s been lying to you about what he’s been up to. He made the wrong assumption of thinking that you’d be fine with going along with what he wanted. And out of all the people he chose to tell, he picked Coriolanus.

“I’m good.” You nod. “I just don’t want to get in trouble.”

Sejanus lets you go, smoothing the wrinkles out of your sleeve. You follow after Bug, allowing them to resume their conversation. You hesitate, waiting at the bottom of the ramp, wanting to hear what Coriolanus has to say to your boyfriend, if he’ll try to talk him out of it. But if he actually cared about Sejanus, he never would have recorded the first part, the most criminating part.

Bug peeks his head out of the hovercraft. “Are you coming inside?”

“Yes.” You start up the ramp, sparing a single glance back at the two boys. 

It’s dark inside of the hovercraft, half of the lights overhead are covered by the cages and tarps to hide the birds. Bug quickly explains what he’s been doing with the birds and how they had been instructed to organize them. You feign interest, you’re not planning on staying for long. 

In fact, as soon as Bug announces that he’s going to grab the next bird and disappears, you sweep J1 off of the shelf, heading down the ramp and straight into the street. A singular remote clutched in your free hand. You walk for a couple minutes, unconcerned about being missing. When the hovercraft is entirely out of sight, you step behind a tree, placing the bird cage on the ground, and pulling off the cover. 

You stare down at the bird, shaking your head. You do the easiest task first, which is erasing the conversation. You press play, then put it on neutral so that you can press record, putting the bird back on neutral when you’re done. Now, it has nothing but the sound of birds chirping in the trees in its memory.

This should be good enough, but that means you could’ve just done it inside of the hovercraft, it would’ve been easier. A pit in your stomach tells you that you can’t just pick up the cage and walk back to the ship. You know that you’ve gotten rid of the conversation correctly—what if you didn’t? What if it’s still able to play it back? If it were up to you, you’d get rid of the bird, but they’re going to notice one is missing.

You guess you could come up with an excuse, take the punishment and move on.

You gnaw on the inside of your cheek, trying to come up with ways to get rid of the creature. You’re only drawing up one solution, though. You’re not entirely sure how you feel about killing the thing with your bare hands, but do you have much of a choice? This is the only way to ensure that he stays safe…

And after all the time you’ve been together, and what he did to make sure you graduated, the least you could do is get rid of it.

Begrudgingly, you kill the bird, dig a shallow grave, and bury it. You cover the cage back up with the tarp, and head back to the hovercraft, where Bug is nowhere to be seen. You set the cage by the ramp, and when you peer inside of the ship, you can see that he’s brought two more cages since you walked away.

It isn’t long before Bug comes back, holding two more cages. “There you are. Where’d you go?”

“The bird died.” You tap the cage with the tip of your shoe. “I went out and buried it.”

His face twists, eyeing the cage. “We just put that one in there.”

You half-shrug. “I was checking on the ones in there and this one had stopped moving.”

There’s a brief moment of silence that passes. “I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to report it and hand them off to the scientists to be looked at.”

“Oh, well I didn’t know that.”

Bug still looks skeptical, but he doesn’t push it. He hands the two cages off to you, and then leaves to grab the next two. In the span of the next thirty minutes, the hovercraft is loaded and the Commander comes with a small portion of the scientists to check to make sure that they’ll be safely transported.

As expected, your dead bird doesn’t go unnoticed. However, you aren’t given as harsh of a punishment as you’re expecting. You’re simply taken off bird duty because you don’t know the rules as well as Bug, Sejanus and Coriolanus. And you’re met with a disappointed remark from the Commander, something along the lines of, “This is why we didn’t put you there to begin with.”

You’re free for the rest of the day, as long as you make it back to base before dark. You watch as Sejanus and Coriolanus walk side by side, talking animatedly. When Coriolanus reaches out to touch your boyfriend, you squeeze between them, wrapping your arm around the elbow of Sejanus.

“You know, Coryo, as much as we love to be with you all the time, I’d like some time with my boyfriend.” You raise your eyebrows.

Coriolanus doesn’t seem bothered, nodding. “You haven’t been able to. I’ll go back to base.”

“We’ll see you there.” You smile, Sejanus offers him a wave.

You come to a slow stop in the dirt, watching as Coriolanus walks down the path, further into the trees. Once you’re alone, you turn to look at Sejanus, lips pressing together.

“What is it?” He asks.

“Is there anything you might want to tell me?” You ask.

A crease appears between his eyebrows, as he reaches to touch the side of your face. You grab his wrist, pulling your head away. “No, (Y/n).”

“You’re lying to me.” You tell him. “I heard what you said to Coriolanus about the rebels.”

Sejanus’s face drops, he swallows. “How much of this did you hear?”

“All of it.” You tilt your head. “Actually, I heard the first part, until Bug came to get that bird, then I had to show myself. Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”

“Yes, I was, I just wanted to figure it out first.”

“It sounded pretty figured out to me. You were going to do that all on your own? You could’ve gotten into trouble, especially with Coriolanus.”

“With Coryo?” Sejanus repeats. “He’s our friend, (Y/n). There’s nothing to worry about.”

“He was recording you on that jabberjay.” You emphasize. “I bet he was planning on sending it to Dr. Gaul. You know they listen back to what they have to say, right? Just in case they’ve heard anything incriminating? You’re lucky I caught it.”

“You killed the bird?” Sejanus asks, eyes wide. “Coriolanus was recording me?”

“I had to kill it, because erasing the conversation never would’ve been enough.” You shake your head.

“He’s my brother.” He breathes.

“He’s a fucking snake.” You grab onto his sleeve, shaking him to try and pull him to reality. “We need to get out of here. You need to get yourself out of that plan with Lil without pissing off the rebels. I’m gonna call my mom tonight, she’ll come up with an excuse to get us home.”

Sejanus cups your face. “I am so, so sorry, (Y/n). I’ve done it again. I’ve gotten us into trouble.”

“I’m going to get us out of it.” You grab his wrists, squeezing.

--

this was part of my 3k celebration!! will i ever be done celebrating? hopefully before the end of 2024!!

[thewulf]

My Favorite Girl || Sirius Black

Summary: Sirius Black(if you don't mind) or Aaron Hotchner with a new girl that has a cochlear implant. At some point it could be damaged and they learned sign to surprise her!

A/N:I didn’t specify which sign language since all I know is ASL (American Sign Language) and after some reading I’ve learned that BSL (British Sign Language) is completely different! Almost as if they were two different languages which is fascinating. So, I didn’t want to butcher that! Also, we’re selectively ignoring the ‘muggle devices don’t work at Hogwarts’ rule, this does. Hope you enjoy. Very fluffy and extra sweet. As always, thank you for the requests!

Pairing: Sirius Black x Y/N

Word Count: 4.5k +

“What’s got you so nervous love?” Your mum wrapped her arms around your sunken shoulders. She’d spotted you sitting down at the edge of your bed just staring at the wardrobe looking rather glum. It wasn’t like you at all. You were the happy go lucky twelve-year-old that just got her letter to go to Hogwarts only a month ago. Your parents had known. A wizard came to explain that you were born a witch and what it all entailed. How the magical world existed and how you were now a part of it.

It was great and all until you the night before you were leaving for Kings Cross Station, to the Hogwarts Express for the first time. A witch came to collect you and your mom taking you to Diagon Alley. She was a representative from Hogwarts that helped guide first year muggle born students through the transition between the muggle world and the wizarding one. You understood when she handed you the list of things you needed. Half the supply list looked foreign, the books especially. What was transfiguration? Did potions really mean making potions? It was all too much all at once for you.

You knew you’d be going in far behind. There were other first years who grew up with magic like it was nothing. They were used to it, there was no novelty to it anymore. Not only did you have to overcome that, but you also had to overcome being the weirdo with a hearing impairment. The wizard that came when you were a baby even offered a healer to come take a look. The healer tried but said there wasn’t much that could be done. Magic can only go so far.

You’d grown up nearly deaf until you were able to get scheduled for surgery. You and your family had learned sign language to compensate until you got your cochlear implant surgically installed. After that you’d learned how to communicate through speech once you could finally hear. It was like learning an entirely new world. You loved it. How magical it really was to hear.

“Hello!” An overly excited black-haired boy smiled and waved as you sat across from him after getting sorted into Gryffindor. You weren’t sure if that was the best house, but it seemed like a decent one from the rumblings you’d heard on the train, “I’m Sirius. Sirius Black.” The long-haired boy named Sirius stuck his hand out for you to shake. How proper you noted.

You shook his hand gently while introducing yourself, “Y/N, Y/N Y/L/N.” You spoke quietly, unsure of the entire situation. How was it that yesterday you were sitting on the couch with your mum and dad in the muggle world and now tonight you were here? It was blowing your already overstimulated mind.

“It’s nice to meet you Y/N. How brilliant is this all?” He gestured to the magnificence of the ceiling of the Great Hall decked out in candles not even noticing your implant. It was impossible to see already due to the small size of it, especially when your hair was down like it currently was. Maybe you really didn’t have much to worry about. Maybe you could just be a normal first year like the rest of them.

You nodded excitedly suddenly so much less afraid, “It’s wonderful. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” Your eyes scanned above you at the hundreds of candles that flickered above everyone, “Won’t the wax melt on us though?”

His eyes studied you as you fully took in its magnificence. He laughed at your innocent question, “Muggle born? They’re enchanted, it won’t drip on us.” He asked with genuine curiosity. Sirius had quite literally never met a muggle born witch. His parents forbade it. And they reigned supreme in every aspect of his miserable pure blood life.

You nodded suddenly a little afraid after heading the warnings from the witch who took you Diagon Alley. She told you there was a pecking order. Pure bloods were the cream of the crop. Half-bloods got some respect. And muggle borns were… less than desirable to the elite pure bloods. It also didn’t help that there wasn’t that many of you to begin with. It was far more likely for a witch or wizard to come from a wizarding family. You were already the small minority. The anomaly with a defect. How fun. Poor little British girl.

“Yes, I’m a muggle born.”

He grinned ear to ear, “Well, I’m going to show you everything I know. It may not be much but it’s something.”

“Really?” You leaned closer to him. He felt warm. He radiated warmth. His smile drew you right in. Sirius Black. You had a feeling you wouldn’t be forgetting that name for a long while. If not ever.

He nodded his head quickly, “Absolutely. You’ve got my word Y/N.” He wanted nothing more than to make friends. To fit in. Because he knew he was in for it the next time he saw his parents. He wasn’t too thrilled for the letter he was bound to receive in the next few days. An utter disappointment he was sure. He was a pure blood. He should’ve been in Slytherin. But that damn sorting hat had other plans.

Before you could respond a brown-haired boy with crooked glasses slid onto the bench next to Sirius, “Hi! I’m James!” He gleefully smiled taking in the other first years around him.

The rest was history. You fell into quick friendship with the girls of year one after the first few nights in the dormitories. Particularly Lily and Marlene. The three of you formed a trio quickly. It quickly felt like a big sleepover every night.

You’d also fallen into fast friendship with boys in your year too. Lily couldn’t stand them after James had taken a particular liking to her and never seemed to stop pestering her. Dorcas and Marlene thought boys were beneath them and never have them a chance leaving just you to form the friendship. If you weren’t with the girls you were with the boys. You couldn’t believe how nervous you were before getting to Hogwarts. Everything felt so easy and far too much fun for it be school. How lucky you felt.

“What’s that?” Sirius poked the top of your ear. Ah, it was about time one of them spotted the device on your ears. It’s been nearly two months into your first school year before he noticed. You’d gotten lazy and pulled your hair into a bun.

You found a rhythm with everybody. You’d grown close to Lily quickly, other than the boys that was of course. The girls knew about it within the first night. It wasn’t very easy to hide the device when you had to take it off and make sure it was charged. They were incredible with it all. They even learned basic signs so that they could talk with you if they needed to once you took them off. They made it easy, and you truly couldn’t be more grateful.

“It helps me hear.” You set down the quill that you were using to write your essay with. Potions, you had to write a damn essay on the history of some potions master. How dreadful. Slughorn claimed it’d give you all a newfound respect for the great art of potions making.

Sirius sat down across from you at the library table. Normally, he’d never be caught dead here. But he knew it was a Tuesday at six o’clock and you always did homework at the library then. He’d figured it out after a few months of getting to know you. Figuring out your structured routine quickly.  

He genuinely liked you. You were far too sweet for the horrors of the wizarding world and the wretched pure bloods Slytherin. He’d tried his best to shield you from it. You didn’t deserve the snide looks and comments you’d received. Hell, no muggle born deserved it. But he could still see the saddened expression on your face when a Slytherin boy would yell ‘filthy mud blood’ across the square right at you. He saw the hurt that crossed your features before you bravely put up a wall trying to ignore it. If there was one thing he knew within the first few months of knowing you was that he’s never felt so protective over anybody. Not even his own brother. It’s like he was bound to meet you. Bound to shield you from the hatred you didn’t deserve.

“You’re hard of hearing?” He didn’t realize how goofy he sounded using such mature language as a twelve-year-old until he saw your goofy expression making fun of him. You were cock eyed and wondering why in the hell he sounded like your grandpa. You’d both laughed quietly not wanting to get kicked out by the ornery old librarian.

You nodded slowly, “Always have been. Birth defect not even magic can fix.” You sighed wishing that you’d have been the exception. But no. Your ears were too damn deformed to get to work right. Magic couldn’t create a new cochlea. It could only attempt to fix what was there. So, it was muggle medicine you needed. It was muggle medicine you got.

He got up from his seat quickly plopping down in one next to you. He leaned over inspecting the apparatus that fit right to your ear, “It’s muggle?” He asked curious about the whole thing. Why hadn’t you told him? Had he not made you feel like a friend? Were you embarrassed?

You nodded careful not to hit him as you turned your head back away from his view, “Yeah. It’s called a cochlear implant. Uses vibrations or something to help me hear.”

He nodded moving away from your ear. Giving you your personal space back, “Makes you look cool.” Sirius nudged your shoulder seeing your unease surrounding the conversation. If there was one thing he was a pro at it was picking up emotion. Coming from such an emotionless family he had to know how to read anything. Pick up on anything. It was his only survival mechanism he learned in such a soulless upbringing. He noticed how you stiffened up when he asked about it. How you got seemingly uncomfortable within an instant like he’d just found out your deepest darkest secret.

You laughed softly, “Hardly, I’d say.”

He shook his head, “Trust me. It’s wicked. Makes you look part robot.”

You shook your head with a bright smile across it. You didn’t know what he was doing but you sure did enjoy it, “Is that really a good thing?”

He nodded, “I say so. And that’s really all that matters.” Giving you that signature Sirius grin you looked at him curiously. He was so different than any of the other twelve-year-old boys his age. It made you wonder about him. Wonder what his story was.

“Sure Sirius. That’s all that matters.” You shook your head as laughter bubbled out of you. He always got you smiling and laughing. A pro at turning any situation right around.

“Hey, you said it.” He tossed you a wink before ruffling your hair and running off. As quickly as you’d grown in your friendship with Lily your friendship was exploding with Sirius. The two of you were tied at the hip.

Your first year ended with you not wanting to get off the train at Kings Cross. You gave each of the boys and girls the biggest hugs before finding your parents. Promising to write them throughout the summer. You made sure to give Sirius the longest hug of them all. He was your comfort. The one you ran to when you needed help. A bond had formed your first year with the boy. A bond that you’d hoped could never be broken.

Fourth year was brutal. The Slytherins went all in on the bullying. Especially his cousins. You were now the filthy deaf mud blood freak. They targeted your implant because of course they did. They were bullies. Mean, evil people that picked on you because it bothered Sirius deeply. You seemed to be the things that got him worked up the most. Unlucky for you that you became their prime target of harassment. Lucky for you that Sirius was now essentially your bodyguard.

It bothered him so much he launched a full-on assault on the Slytherin common room and dormitories. The marauders, as they now called themselves, left you out of this one knowing you would tell them it was a step too far. Even Remus didn’t think it was too far. Not after the nasty insults he’d heard thrown at you earlier in the day. They’d seen you like a sister now. That protective nature was spread across all the boys. When you were hurt, they were hurt. And they weren’t the kind to stand by. Not these boys.

So, they snuck in using Polyjuice Potion, rigged the place with exploding dye and waited. They sat outside the hallway grinning ear to ear when they saw the entire dormitory explode out the dungeon door. Each person coated in hundreds of different colors. Unfortunately for them the dye wouldn’t wash off for a week. Not that the marauders cared. Not after they hurt you. Remus only felt a twinge of guilt for the Slytherin’s who didn’t partake as they were just casualties of the bigger picture.

You eyed the marauders the next morning after seeing almost all of the Slytherins coated in dye. Sirius only tossed you a wink before turning back to James. That was all the confirmation you needed. Even if you didn’t necessarily approve of the prank you knew you were loved by them. Those boys loved you dearly and you loved them just as much. It was moments like those that made you feel more than lucky with the friends you’d found here. You’d never cease to count your blessings.

Seventh year didn’t start out too wonderful for you. You’d woken up in the middle of the night having to use the restroom. Without much thought you’d taken the implant and placed it on your ear. You knew better than to take it off the charger when it wasn’t fully charged. The damn thing malfunctioned when it didn’t get its way. Muggle medicine wasn’t the most reliable at times.

What you didn’t expect was for the thing to completely break. A loud noise pieced your ear before you heard nothing at all. Shit. One side seemed to be working but the other was dead silent.

You turned on the running water only to hear muffled silence. Fuck. This couldn’t be happening right now. You walked down to the common room to take a better look at the device without waking any of the girls up. You sighed when you read the clock on the wall, five in the morning. This is just what you wanted to be dealing with at this hour.

You broke down into a soft cry feeling overwhelmed by the situation. Why now? Why after years of never having a problem with the usually amazing device did it decide it wanted to malfunction. You let a few tears fall before patting you face dry. You needed to focus. How could you fix the transmitter? You pulled it off the top of your ear along with the processor and microphone to make sure everything was working right. The only problem was it looked like everything was working right. All the usual lights were on. You felt the inevitable headache coming on strong from the sudden imbalance in hearing.

Panic began to bubble in your chest. Was something wrong with the device that was implanted in your ear? More tears fell as you let the anxiety of the situation consume you. You still had your other ear that seemed to be working fine. But nothing sounded right. Everything was muffled.

“Hey,” You felt a cold hand clamp down on your shoulder sending you nearly flying off the common room couch.

“Jesus Sirius.” You gasped unsure of how you actually sounded. Everything was muffled and hard to hear. It’s like you could hear but you couldn’t decipher without the other ear working. You saw his lips moving but you could vaguely make out what he saying to you. Trying to read lips was difficult with such low light coming from the always glowing lanterns that were scattered about the common room.

Even more panic began to rise as you realized you really couldn’t hear that well without the device working. Shit. You’d have to go home and have a muggle doctor look at it. You doubt any magic would work on a vibrational contraption.

Sirius saw your red laced eyes and the recent tear streaks that went down your saddened face. His expression downturned at the sight. He’d always loved you. But it wasn’t until recently that he realized he was devastatingly in love with you too. For the last seven years you’d been at his side, like James, through thick and thin. Even though you weren’t an official Marauder he’d considered you one. He made sure the guys included you in on everything. Even if it pissed James off. Sirius didn’t care. He simply adored you.

You didn’t give a damn about his name, Black. You’d started Hogwarts too naïve to know how scandalous it was that he was sorted into Gryffindor with the group of first years. It wasn’t until Remus gave you the run down about the sacred eight families that you realized how shocking the entire thing was. It didn’t deter you though. You’d treated him all the same. And he loved it. You kept him grounded. Even through the myriad of women he went through, you always were there for him. You always would be. Even if you couldn’t have him as a boyfriend you decided a long time ago you’d always be his best friend. No matter how hard it could get. And it got hard. Specifically, when all you wanted was for him to hold you in his arms, but he was hung up on another girl. That was heartbreaking.

You pointed to you ear and then the pieces you were holding in your hand. You mouthed, ‘I can’t hear you.’ You didn’t want to speak. It didn’t sound right. You couldn’t tell if you were whispering or yelling. The loss of hearing disrupted your reality significantly.

He turned his head unable to read your lips. He grinned ear to ear knowing he could try and communicate with you through sign language. Ever since you’d shown him the cochlear implant your first year he’d slowly learned. He was determined to learn sign language. Especially since you told him it was your first language. The one you were most comfortable in. You never needed to use it though, so he’d kept it in his back pocket.

Before he could respond though you’d already written on the back of an old flyer sitting on the coffee table reading, ‘It broke. I can’t hear.’ You pointed to the pieces of the device in your hand.

He nodded walking over to you slowly. It was now or never. He went for it. He signed, “Can I look?” He was probably going to sound like a child communicating knowing he never actually practiced with anyone. He never told a soul. Not Peter, Remus, or James. It was his little secret. Something he wanted to keep to himself. Between the two of you. Something special the two of you could share.

You nodded just in sheer shock from witnessing him communicating through his hands. You handed him the pieces, not that he had a bloody clue what he was looking at before looking up to you.

You were wearing a small smile. The pools of tears that were there moments ago had seemed to vanish in an instant, “When did you learn?” You asked back hoping he’d be able to read as well as he was able to speak it.

Should he tell you? He knew if he did that he’d be crossing the line. That friendship line that he’d been teetering with you for the last school year. It wasn’t his fault he was so blind before. But he felt too late. Like you’d both go off and do your own thing and never see one another again. You only had seventh year left. That was it and then you were off. It didn’t seem possible to him. He didn’t want to hurt you. That was the last thing he wanted to do.

That’s how he knew he loved you deeply. He’d rather not pursue you in the chance that it could hurt you. He was usually the selfish one. This was perhaps the least selfish thing he’d ever done. And it hurt him, his lack of action. He was always the doer. He never waited. He got what he wanted. But you? You were worth the wait. Even if he had to wait another twenty years. He’d do it. He loved you. Loved you so hard.

But on the other hand, what if he was hurting you by not telling you? What if he just needed to make it your decision? He was tired of playing it coy and distracting himself with meaningless dates and disappointing one-night stands. He let his hands move without thinking much more, “First Year.”

Your mouth dropped just slightly as you registered his words, “Really?” You asked after a moment of consideration.

He nodded his head minutely at the state of shock on your face. Shock turned to gratitude. Gratitude turned to more tears rolling down your face. Happy tears. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for you.

It was hard just being his best friend. Even though you’d decided so long ago you’d always be there. It was so difficult always hearing him go on and on about damn near every girl within a grade of the group. You’d have to sit there and listen about how he’d impress them to get them into bed. It hurt but you’d learned to ignore it. It was Sirius. That was all. He was your friend and nothing more. You could wish and pray and hope all you’d liked but it never seemed like it could happen.

But this? This was beyond your wildest imagination. He’d went out of his way to learn sign language… for you? You knew it wasn’t easy. You spent countless nights crying when you were growing up because you couldn’t understand it. But he’d learned it. Just for you. Only you. That was love.

The tears that spilled now weren’t of the frustrated kind from earlier but of that overwhelming sense of love. Of such a divine happiness you didn’t think you’d ever receive. But here you were eyeing Sirius with all the love in your heart. He’d learned a damn language for you.

He walked over quickly brushing the tears away from your face. Taking a step back he signed, “What’s wrong?” Before engulfing you in the warmest hug you’d probably ever received outside your mum. You’d completely melted into him feeling his all-encompassing warmth. And for a moment you’d forgotten about the broken implant. You just felt so euphoric.

You shook your head wiping away the last bout of happy tears, “Nothing. Thank you.” You signed back at him. You wanted that hug again. That warmth. You wanted him.

“You’re my best friend. My favorite girl.” He didn’t really know how to go further but you nodded in understanding. You’d realized he’d do just about anything for you. Best friend. God how you wished it could be boyfriend though.

This time you’d pulled him back into that hug. Giving him a big squeeze. You were surely going to go over the deep end if he didn’t reel you back in quickly. It wasn’t often that you’d let your emotions get the best of you. But when you felt and heard that painful noise and then nothing it sent you into a spiral of emotion.

After you let him go he rubbed your shoulder gently, “Let’s go talk to…” he trailed off not sure how to continue. He mouthed ‘McGonagall’ hoping you’d get what he was talking about. You nodded in quick agreement. If there was anybody who would know what the hell to do it was her.

“Thank you.” You signed once more before the two of you went to go wake the older witch.

His smile could really change the trajectory of any day. You savored that beautiful grin that rarely came out so fully. Instead of responding he simply wrapped you back into him for the third time in as many minutes.

This time he held you for so much longer though. Held you tightly in his arms almost afraid to let you go. He felt so fucking dumb for not realizing what he had right in front of him. How incredible you were to him throughout the years. How you were his person. James was his best friend for forever. You were his person though. You were it.

He rubbed a gentle hand down your back utilizing the height difference to his advantage. He smiled warmly when he saw the visceral reaction you had from him touching you. You seemed to simply soften into his embrace. He’d certainly make a note of that. He was very much enjoying the position he’d found himself in with you. Holding you tightly to his chest.

He was always so bold but the thought of kissing you seemed to paralyze him. He’d have to take it slow just for his sake. He didn’t want to make a complete fool of himself. Sirius knew that you wouldn’t give a damn if he did though. You’d seen him though it all. Been there with him though everything. Every high you experienced with him and every low you comforted him. He couldn’t say the same was reciprocated and he wanted to slap himself for that. It was a miracle you hadn’t given up on him truly. He’d never fail to count his lucky stars.

After the lengthy embrace he pulled apart. Brushing the straggling hair out of your face he nodded to the Head of Gryffindors chambers at the base of the stairs.

Sirius offered you a hand for comfort still holding onto the small devices ready to explain and translate for you to McGonagall. Happily accepting his offer, you placed your much smaller hand in his. The way he looked at you sent a shiver down your spine. You knew he loved you in that very moment. You knew you were in for a very exciting lifetime with just that look alone. Oh, how you couldn’t bloody wait.

Permanent Taglist (Message me or comment below if you want to be added!): @loving-and-dreaming @kmc1989

[comic-sans-chan]

one of my favorite garashir seasonings is their mutual savior-complex-induced penchant for sacrificing themselves for the greater good and how that manifests in both hilariously fucked up and weirdly wholesome ways.

like julian meeting up with the former head of the obsidian order and one of the most dangerous men alive all by himself so that he can ask for some cardassian brain schematics and figure out what the fuck is wrong with garak's brain (too many things). or garak having a round-the-clock panic attack in the walls of the prison camp to save their asses while two klingons culturally conditioned to venerate suffering and death nod on in approval and julian swoons and bites his nails and swoons some more. or julian in the holosuite like "we might die, sure, but what's a little death among friends?" and garak being like “pretty sure suicide in a ferengi escape room with cum-stains that aren’t my own would cancel out every cool spy thing i’ve ever done with my life actually," and julian with his gun is like "bet" and garak just "you're sexy and that means you're right. let's go die the stupidest deaths ever." or garak trying to blow up the founder's planet and himself and julian in the process and julian with his fucked up statistical probability brain not even batting an eye when he hears about it. "yeah that was a reasonable line of thought. anyway, this coffee is good." insanity.

i like to imagine that after the war when the intensity has dialed down a few hundred notches, this tendency of theirs still manifests in these needlessly batshit moments where julian is like "ok but i feel like working around the clock to cure this disease all by myself makes sense even though it's killing me" and garak's like "maybe not, tbh. you're not the only smarty pants, you can have help maybe? and i know this is sudden but i think i love you" and julian responds "we've been married twelve years. it is a little fast, but i love you, too. i guess i can live then or w/e. for love." and at some other point garak is like "ok but i feel like flinging myself into this forty-foot pit to retrieve seven crying orphans and a regnar is a good idea because i was abused as a child" and julian with his huge brain is like "actually i think throwing a ladder down would be better, especially since i'm not a necrophiliac" and garak responds "oh you might be right. so no head at my funeral? cruel." and on it goes until the therapy finally kicks in

[underwaterbanshee]

So, I've been living in a memory from my childhood as I watch my preternatural predators fuck around.

When I was twelve, my family went on vacation to Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. My siblings were nine, six, and two, but all of us hiked up to the picturesque vista with the Delicate Arch at the top with our parents.

What isn't in all the beautiful photographs of this amazing natural geological marvel is the terrifying drop from the cliff behind it. It's clear, when you're up there, that you need to approach the edge, that's just about thirty feet to the right of Delicate Arch, carefully.

Imagine, for a second, that your six year old sibling has the energy of Jaysohn, and loves running and jumping off of rocks. And they bolt. Running as absolutely as fast as they can, towards the edge of a sharp cliff, with a several hundred foot drop.

I'll never forgot the loudest shout in the world in which my dad shouted, "[Jaysohn], STOP!"

My sibling froze literally one foot away from the edge of the cliff as that respected fear jolted through them and my dad scooped them up in the tightest hug possible.

Watching Jaysohn and Lila with Tula has been difficult at times. They love their mother but they don't always respect her. I spent a good five and half episodes waiting for the Delicate Arch to show up, Tula to shout to them to stop, and for her to be ignored. The terror I felt at twelve, watching my sibling race headlong towards danger, all of us shouting their name and being ignored, has sat in my throat as I watch these baby stoats do stupid baby shit while disregarding Tula's efforts to give them advice to keep them safe.

I know why they dismiss her with the arrogance of youth.

Tula lives in and with fear. It informs all of her decisions. The problem, from her children's point of view, is that Mama is afraid of Nothing.

Every situation that could harm them, Mama has knocked out of the way with her Divine Smite. Mama is so capable. Mama, the tooty lil slut, is a goddess who can protect them from all consequences because she has always done that.

Except Tula is finally in a situation where there are just too many people, all of them with power, and none of them care about her or her children.

Tula's relief after Thorn tells Jaysohn that if he sees him jump off another rock--he'll kill him, is that of a mother who hopes that maybe some consequences--some of that respect with the slightest fear, will make her children pause before they open their mouths or run towards the next, shiny thing--is palatable after six episodes.

There was so much delicious in this episode as this family continues to fuck around and break things as they set their beliefs and refine their goals.

[thgfanfictionlibrary]

Mature Rated Fics Masterlist (24)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 / Part 20 / Part 21 / Part 22 / Part 23 /

Created: January 6th, 2024

Last Checked:------

Acceptable Payment: A Date With Katniss Everdeen-rEckLeSsLy.cOnFIneD (ff.net) Summary: "That Katniss was currently aware of, she needed to do two things: First, she needed to inform Johanna about everything that was Peeta Mellark. Second, she needed her help to make sure that she was most beautiful version of herself she had ever been for this New Year's Party." [Modern AU. Everlark.]

Curious Kat-MissprissHG (ff.net) Summary: While on the Victory Tour, Katniss suddenly becomes very curious and Peeta is the only one who she feels safe enough to ask. Will he answer her questions? Will he show her what she wants? Find out how Katniss explores her newfound sexuality with Peeta.

Mind Games-Samh1212 (ff.net) Summary: Katniss is a freshman in college. She picked a school hundreds of miles away from home hoping to avoid any and all connections to her past. Suddenly, she's paired with Peeta Mellark, a guy from her hometown, to do a somewhat unconventional project for her human sexuality class. Modern Day AU

i've been on fire, dreaming of you-orangecranscones (ao3) Summary: "I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again." Katniss and Peeta try to heal after the revolution. And they (mainly Katniss) finally learn how to love each other.

Secrets I Have Held in My Heart-flythroughflames (ff.net) Summary: I was cold to him, nasty even. I acted like there was nothing I wanted to do less than spend time with him. But every night, I would fantasize about him.

Sneak Attack-burkygirl (ao3) Summary: A surprise during Peeta's walk home from the bakery could change everything. A little winter Everlark interlude post-Victory Tour.

The Night Belongs to Lovers-burkygirl (ao3) Summary: Katniss finds it easier to be honest about her feelings for Peeta at night when no one else can see. Everlark growing back together in three scenes inspired by Because the Night Belongs to Lovers, co-written by Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. Trigger warnings for language, allusions to torture and sexual content.

Twelve-HGRomance (ff.net) or on (ao3) Summary: She has loved him since the day he tossed her that bread. And she thinks that she'll never win his heart. Because all he's ever done is pretend for the crowd…but what if one real moment could change that? One-shot. Canon Divergence. The Victory Tour in role reversal.

Under My Skin-Court81981 (ff.net) Summary: One-shot. Katniss takes a temporary job as a nude model, intending to get through the month and collect a paycheck. She doesn't expect the blond-haired, blue-eyed art student in the front row to affect her so quickly, nor does she anticipate falling in love when he needs her help for a private project.

You Put Your Arms Around Me and I'm Home-mrsbonniemellark (ao3) Summary: What would happen if Peeta hadn't been hijacked and Katniss and Peeta were allowed a private reunion?

[takerfoxx]

(After)Life: Why the Evangelion Pilots Should Be Left Alone

Hey, throwing this up here before I officially publish it in a couple days as both of a sort of preview and also for feedback. This is the first installment of that Evangelion story that I've been talking about, a sort of in-universe opinion piece to introduce the premise and themes and whatnot. But basically, here's the general idea: it takes place over the course of about a century and a half after End of Evangelion, where Third Impact turned everyone into orange juice (LCL, whatever) and made humanity into a hivemind. Shinji and Asuka emerge onto that beach in a post-apocalyptic landscape like in the movie, Rei herself later returns under very odd circumstances, and after many trials and tribulations they eventually form a throuple. However, as more and more people also emerge from Instrumentality and society begins to rebuild, they find themselves needing someone to blame, and the Eva pilots seem the perfect fit. And since Shinji, Asuka, and Rei are afflicted with a somewhat modified version of the Eva's curse from the Rebuild films (basically, can't age, can't die), they're stuck with it for a long time.

So, basically the idea is for it to be a series of short stories released out-of-order, each of them taking place at a random point of time and touching in with how the trio are doing at that particular moment and keeping track of how society is reacting to them, and vice-versa. So, this will be very different than the more serialized stuff I've done in the past, and a lot more manageable as a result. Any installments will come out whenever I feel like working on this. Anyway, here's the first installment. Let me know what you think.

Why the Evangelion Pilots Should Be Left Alone, by Alice Glocke

One-hundred and twelve years ago, the world died, and ever since then, we have been seeking someone to blame.

A world still reeling from the horrors of Second Impact. A world under constant invasion by extraterrestrial monsters beyond comprehension. A world fighting desperately against increasingly hopeless odds not just to recover, but to survive, to not go quietly into that good night, to plant its feet and declare into the face of God himself that it not only existed, but would continue to exist, and woe be to all that would seek its destruction.

In this, it failed, and the world died.

In many ways, the horrors of Third Impact are less of a scar and more of an open wound, one bleeding LCL into our waters. Yes, we continue to rebuild, and life continues to repopulate and flourish. But though the brief moment in which humanity ceased to exist was now over a century ago, we still have those among us who were forced to take part in Instrumentality, only regaining their thoughts, bodies, and sense of personal identity through sheer force of will, and who had to eke out any means of survival that they could on a dead planet.

In the years following Third Impact, as society finally began to reconstruct itself and climb out of the muck into something that was at least functional, humanity has had to grapple with how to respond to the collective trauma that every person on the planet now shared. There was a great deal of righteous anger and a cry for justice, but with the entire SEELE Council still out of reach within Instrumentality, those cries went unfulfilled. Yes, a small number of NERV employees were found and taken into custody, but those were found to have nothing to do with Third Impact, with only that organization’s highest-ranking members working in cohorts with SEELE. And those individuals also remained out of reach.

And then, everything changed. Fourteen years after Third Impact, we finally had someone to blame. The surviving Evangelion Pilots had been found.

In a way, finding them had been a relief. So much bottled-up anger, so much unresolved pain, and those responsible were beyond justice. Now, humanity had the perfect scapegoats. Essential key components of SEELE’s Instrumentality Project, masquerading as fearless defenders of Earth while working the whole time to destroy it. Shinji Ikari, known as the Third Child, and son of NERV’s infamous commander Gendo Ikari, the man perhaps the most responsible for enacting Third Impact. And Asuka Soryu Langley, Second Child, daughter of one of the Human Instrumentality Project’s designers. And while there had been many to decry pinning the blame on those two, that it was unfair to place the sins of the parents on their hapless children, all of those protests faded away when Shinji Ikari made his fateful confession. It had been he that had been given the choice whether or not to allow Third Impact to take place. And it had been he who had made the decision to end the world.

Everyone knows that image of two young teenagers being led from the UN Council by their lawyers and bodyguards, being pelted with garbage from an angry crowd. Whether they saw it in textbooks, had it sent to them by friends as a meme, or even were one of those that watched it live, this is perhaps the most infamous image of the New World. And for a time, most felt that the anger directed at those two was fully justified. Certainly, the UN Council seemed to agree, finding them both guilty of aiding and abetting in SEELE’s schemes to end the world, Shinji intentionally and Asuka unintentionally. The two were then incarcerated in a “secure facility,” and that was that.

Since then, the condition of the two pilots has mostly fallen out of the public’s consciousness. No appeals, no interviews, no word as to what they were up to or how they were doing. Every single “Where are they now?” op-ed has always ended up as a rewritten version of the same events, with each one ending with “Shinji and Asuka: still locked up,” with the only significant change being the number of years between the trial and the newest article’s publication.

Which isn’t to say that they’ve disappeared completely, but rather they seemed to have ceased to become actual public figures and become more of caricatures. They appear in comic strips and cartoons as grossly exaggerated versions of themselves, usually with the destruction of the world as the punchline. They’ve become symbols, memes, representations of the guilt laid upon their shoulders, little more than villains straight out of a children’s story.

Which isn’t to say there haven’t been voices of support over the years. Asuka especially seems to have garnered a small but vocal following, pointing out that she actually had nothing to do with the implementation of Third Impact, and so forcing her to share Shinji’s fate was perhaps unfair. The phrase “Asuka did nothing wrong” has come in and out of vogue, and in time it seems that she has become something of a symbol of the unjustly persecuted. Even Shinji himself, who for so long shouldered the majority of the blame for Third Impact, has seen a turnaround in how the public has treated him, pointing out that perhaps placing the full blame for what had happened upon a child soldier indoctrinated by an evil organization of adult men is a bit unfair.

However, none of these voices ever gained much traction. Once the trial was over, most of humanity’s attention was directed toward just trying to heal, and there was little room for the Evangelion Pilots.

But then, nine months ago, all of that changed.

The hacking of the UN security files and the subsequent leaks of not only their own data on the pilots, but also all of the files that they had managed to recover from NERV, has been nothing less than earth-shaking. Granted, little had been revealed about the Human Instrumentality Project and SEELE’s designs that the public didn’t already know, though the full extent of their machinations had been troubling. However, it was the data on the pilots that had been the most troubling, and revealed how little we truly understood about the Earth’s murderers.

For decades, Shinji Ikari had been painted as a willing participant in his father’s schemes, Gendo Ikari’s heir anointed and trusted lieutenant. But now we knew the truth. He was little more than a child forced into taking part in a war that he wanted no part in and suffered greatly for. We listened to the recordings of his screams of agony, his enraged curses and threats, and his pleas for help on behalf of himself and his fellow pilots. We read the psychological evaluations of his frequent depressive states, his attempts to run away, and the lack of support that he received. We learned of his own father’s cold treatment of him, and how Gendo Ikari would psychologically torture his son to get him back into the cockpit of his Evangelion.

And with all of this came the truth. Shinji and the other pilots were deliberately abused. Evangelions were at their most effective when bonded with a broken soul. The pilots were traumatized time and time again in order to increase their effectiveness in combat and denied help afterward. In light of this new information, we ourselves were forced to confront an uncomfortable truth. Shinji Ikari’s decision to cause Third Impact was less the act of megalomaniac enacting his father’s master scheme as it was that of a suffering child drowning in a sea of rage and torment, desperate to escape the Hell that his life had become.

Who among us as children has not wished that the world would end at one time or another? Shinji was simply unfortunate enough to have the means to do so thrust into his hands when at his lowest, and he had far more reason to do so than anyone ever could have imagined. And by all accounts, he regretted it immediately afterward.

There is no justifying what he did, no taking back the suffering that he caused. But at least now, people have come to understand why, and feel that he had been unfairly mischaracterized by history.

But that was far from the biggest bombshell to come out of that leak. Just as everyone was coming to terms with what we had learned about someone so long believed to be a monster, we discovered something that pushed almost all discussion of Shinji Ikari out of everyone’s minds.

Rei Ayanami had survived.

If there is anyone among the Evangelion Pilots subject to more discussion, demonization, and blame for what had happened, it is her. And why wouldn’t she be? An artificial human, created by a combination of human DNA and genetic material gathered from Lilith, the secretly imprisoned second Angel, literally created to serve as Lilith’s resurrection and the one to carry out the Third Impact.

Rei had fulfilled her purpose. She had bonded with Adam, the first Angel, and transformed into an abomination. Those who witnessed Third Impact spoke of a monster, an enormous pale-skinned woman embracing the Earth. And there was little reason to doubt this, as her gigantic corpse had been found just offshore of the ruins of Tokyo-3 and sits in the Human Instrumentality Research Center to this day, alongside the recovered remains of the Evangelions themselves, the corpses of the Angels, and the last remaining pool of LCL, containing the souls of those who decided to remain in Instrumentality. Surely, if anyone deserves to be painted as a monster, it is her. And it wasn’t as if she were around to protest how the history books characterized her, as she had perished immediately after destroying the world.

Except she hadn’t, at least not permanently. She had come back, and had been found alongside Shinji Ikari and Asuka Langley. The whole time when the UN had been making scapegoats of those poor children, the actual monster had been in their hands, and they said nothing.

However, calling even Rei a monster had proven to be more complicated than anyone could have expected.

The topic of Rei Ayanami’s rebirth is woven into the enigma of her existence. Much has been made of her reincarnation as Lilith, while next to nothing has ever been discussed about Rei Ayanami the person, Rei Ayanami the human. And why would there be? All accounts of her painted her as a cold, emotionless being, as befitting her alien origins. What more is there to discuss?

As it turns out, there is plenty.

We have long known of NERV’s barbaric and, dare I say, downright blasphemous experiments involving the human soul, how each of the Evangelions literally had the soul of a person close to its chosen pilot embedded into its neural network. For Shinji and Asuka, it was their mothers. But what of Rei? What of this artificial person, created from a test tube, born from a vat? What person could possibly fill that role?

As it turns out, it was herself.

Three years after her creation, Rei was accidentally killed by Dr. Akagi, one of the scientists working on the Human Instrumentality Project. Her soul was preserved, thanks to its artificial nature. However, with her death, NERV saw an opportunity. Only half of her soul was implanted within a fresh clone body, while the other served as the core of Unit 00, the first of the Evangelions.

With only half a human soul, Rei’s capacity to experience normal emotions and form human connections was severely stunted, resulting in the passive, almost robotic individual described by those who knew her. She was likewise groomed to be utterly obedient, valuing little for her own life while carrying out her orders with no hesitation. And yet, despite these handicaps, connections did form. Notes from her handlers speak of a growing friendship between herself and Shinji Ikari, one that had NERV’s command concerned. After all, should she somehow break free from their programming, it could threaten all of their carefully laid plans.

This was further complicated by her second death, when Eva 00 became infected by Armisael, the Sixteenth Angel, and was forced to self-destruct before the infection could spread. Again, Rei’s soul was retrieved, but with no Eva to implant half of it into, the entire thing was placed within her new body. And unwilling to risk having a Rei Ayanami suddenly experiencing the full range of human emotions with no prior experience controlling them in such a critical stage, NERV using psychiatric drugs, tranquilizers, and mental conditioning to keep her confined within her customary passive and pliable state, right up until the end.

The topic of Rei’s latest resurrection has also been heavily debated. Certainly, her own recounting of the event has been less than helpful. We know that NERV had a number of clone bodies in reserve should she die in battle, but they were all destroyed leading up to Third Impact. According to Rei herself, a new body was formed by a “her,” presumably Lilith. Another time she claimed to have created the new body herself. But regardless of the body’s origin, following Lilith’s death, her human soul somehow found its way back into the final clone body, where she was later found by Shinji and Asuka, and remained with them for the next fourteen.

Part of the reason that the outrage against the UN has found it difficult to be sustained is that there is a lack of agreement on what exactly to be outraged about, as so much was revealed that turned everything that we thought to be true on its head, causing more confusion than anger. But perhaps the most revealing aspect of the leaks were what has since been dubbed the Pilot Interviews, recordings of the interrogations of the Evangelion Pilots following their capture.

Shinji Ikari’s were certainly eye-opening. Throughout his questioning, he was revealed to be a man haunted by his actions, someone who spent years drowning in guilt and who had only just begun to break the surface. He spoke of his many failed suicide attempts, of begging both Rei and Asuka to put him out of his misery, and seemed completely resigned to whatever justice he was to be sentenced to, though at times a passive-aggressive streak would surface, especially whenever the topic of his infamous father came up. Still, if anything, it was these series of tapes that did the most to rehabilitate his image.

Asuka’s, on the other hand, were anything but passive. If anything, she was downright hostile. It was clear that she did not feel that her and her companion’s capture was in any way justified, and felt compelled to explain her disdain to her interrogators in full, and often very colorful, detail. Nor did she feel the slightest bit remorseful for any part that she had to play in NERV’s atrocities.

There has been some debate if her attitude was warranted, with her defenders pointing out that she was correct, that she hadn’t actually had anything to do directly with Third Impact, while others claim that given the circumstances, her behavior reeked of haughty entitlement.

However, all of that was completely overshadowed by the third set of interview sessions, that of Rei Ayanami.

If Shinji’s were regretful and Asuka’s volatile, then Rei’s were downright unhinged. A far cry from the serene, almost emotionless person that she was said to be, this Rei was fully out of control, at times exploding with anger, screaming curses and profanities and death threats so detailed that they seemed less threats as they were expressed intentions that she would have carried out were she able. Other times she would collapse into a blubbering mess, wailing and pleading for forgiveness. Other times she would enter into a catatonic state, seeming to retreat within herself and not respond to any stimuli whatsoever. And still others times she would sink into a full depressive state, unable to respond with anything more than a few whispered, one-word answers, while frequently asking for death.

Certainly, the tapes of Rei’s sessions were disturbing, and to this day no one seems to know what to make of them. Is she truly the monster that she’s made out to be? An innocent victim? Nothing on those tapes seemed to indicate either way.

However, Dr. Anno of London-2 University seems to have what I feel to be the most likely answer. Rei was someone who grew up as an incomplete person. With half of her soul locked away in a gigantic bio-mechanical abomination, she was kept from experiencing the full range of human emotions, and thus never learned how to control her feelings when those emotions were returned to her. She then spent the next fourteen years thrust into a harrowing survival situation, where her only two points of human contact weren’t exactly the finest examples of emotional stability either.

However, as different as the three pilots’ reactions to their interrogators were, there is one thing that united all three: a fervent, almost desperate concern for the well-being of the other two. Rei was the most overt, with her episodes of rage especially largely spent demanding to see Shinji and Asuka and making graphic threats should any harm befall them, but Shinji and Asuka also frequently pleaded to be reunited with each other and Rei. It is clear that whatever their relationship had been during their time actually piloting the Evangelions, the fourteen years that they had spent together had formed an extremely close bond.

What followed next, we all know. Shinji and Asuka’s capture was made public, with no mention of Rei. Those two were then put on trial before the UN Council and found guilty, with the last time that the world saw them was them being led through a jeering crowd toward the waiting transports. And from there, they were to be taken away, never to see the light of day again.

However, we now know that the trial was, at least in part, a façade. An act. Almost a stage play. A deal had been struck with Shinji Ikari and Asuka Langley: take the fall for the Third Impact, and you will be reunited with Rei. And then the three of you will be taken somewhere safe to live out your days in peace. The world needed a scapegoat, and it was to be them. Naturally, they agreed.

At this point, the tide had fully turned in favor of the unfairly maligned Evangelion Pilots. Even Rei was starting to be treated with some measure of sympathy. But it was what happened next that fully won over people’s hearts.

As I said, we all have the image of Shinji and Asuka being led away from the trial burned into our minds. The sorrow on Shinji’s face and the resentment on Asuka’s. The featureless helmets of their bodyguards. The trash flying through the air, hurled by the angry crowd. But what nobody knew until now was what happened when they reached their destination, and when they were finally reunited with Rei.

The nature of the relationship between Shinji Ikari and Asuka Langley has, like everything else about them, been hotly debated, though it has been commonly accepted that they were lovers. And it was this moment that definitively proved that assertion, but with a new wrinkle: not only were Shinji and Asuka romantically tied, but Rei was equally involved with both of them.

It feels horribly gauche to comment on such an intimate moment, especially since it was no doubt intended to be private, but I feel that it was this moment that the world fully realized how cruel those grossly exaggerated portrayals in our media have been. These were not monsters. These were not villainous masterminds. These were people. People that loved one another, people that were willing to shoulder the blame for history’s greatest tragedy in order to protect one another, people that gave up everything just to be with each other. Yes, they had done terrible things, and yes, they should bear that responsibility. However, it is now clear that they are far from the monsters that history has deliberately painted them out to be.

But of course, it was not enough to completely upend everything that we had thought that we had known the Eva Pilots. It was not enough to smack us with the truth of Rei’s existence or her humanity. We were then confronted with perhaps the strangest revelations of them all.

And that was that the Evangelion Pilots were almost certainly still alive.

One hundred and twelve years have passed since Third Impact, and though people living past a hundred is not unheard of, it is still exceptionally rare. However, even before the leaks, people have pointed that despite the fourteen-year gap between Third Impact and the pilots’ capture, Shinji and Asuka still looked fourteen, when they ought to be in their late twenties. Was this the result of piloting an Evangelion? Some Faustian deal made with Lilith? A result of NERV’s experiments, perhaps?

Whatever it was that kept their youth, it persisted even after their incarceration. Shinji, Asuka, and Rei lived on under the watch of the United Nations for another eight years, and none of them so much as aged a day. What is more, tests ran on the pilots showed that their cells lacked any sort of molecular decay. Quite the contrary, their bodies stalwartly resisted any sort of damage at all. Any wounds were swiftly healed, any diseases immediately snuffed out, with even complete brain death being nothing more than a temporary inconvenience. A rather disturbing but revealing file revealed that all three pilots had attempted suicide a number of different times during the first few years following Third Impact, with Rei Ayanami especially taking painstaking notes on the various methods that she employed and their effectiveness, which was none. There was some speculation as to whether this strange regeneration would persist in the face of total disintegration, but no one was willing to give the go-ahead to check.

Regardless, the case was clear. Whether it be an undeserved blessing or an ironic curse, the three Eva pilots had been afflicted with some sort of immortality, frozen forever in time from the moment of Third Impact. As such, despite the decades since, they are no doubt living today, unchanged from those historical photos.

Unfortunately, there seems no way to actually check, as they are very much gone. As stated before, eight years into their incarceration, they simply vanished without a trace. A thorough, yet discrete investigation into the matter took place, during which a conspiracy sympathetic to the pilots’ plight was uncovered, with a number of UN staffers close to the pilots found to be complicit. However, no one could say where the pilots were now, as their point of release was known only to a small few, and deliberate effort was made not to keep track of them after they had been released.

Which means that Shinji Ikari, Asuka Soryu Langley, and, perhaps most unsettling, Rei Ayanami, the three most controversial figures of the last century, are currently loose somewhere in the world. Perhaps they are wandering the forests of the Americas, the deserts of Africa, or perhaps even returned home to Japan. Perhaps they took on new names, disguised their appearances, and are now living in some suburban home somewhere, or returned their old life from before incarceration and joined one of the many refugee camps in one of the cities slow to recover. They could be in a small Swedish village, in a cabin in the Australian outback, in a treehouse in the Amazon jungle, or any one of the literally millions of other points on the map.

Naturally, there has been much talk about finding them again, some wishing to make amends and publicly make up for the blame that they had been forced to shoulder, others feeling that they still had not repaid their debt to society and should be returned to imprisonment. And there are still others that do not care for either side, but instead insist that they remain a clear and present danger, that more was changed about them than granting them eternal life, that they are inhuman monsters fully capable of ending the world again and need to be stopped. But whatever the motive, something almost everyone agrees on is that they do need to be found.

And I am here to offer up a dissenting opinion. Regardless of whether you love them, hate them, feel bad for them, or feel threatened by them, the Evangelion Pilots should be left alone. This, I feel, would be best for everyone.

Whenever the exploits, positive or negative, of the pilots are brought up, there seems to be a sort of hierarchy to the degree each one is discussed. Shinji seems to be the one brought up the most, as he is still unquestionably the trigger-man of Third Impact. Asuka comes next, given everyone’s complicated feelings toward her and her swaths of supporters. After that is Rei, who, even before her survival was discovered, still occupied a very contentious place in history as the monster who directly ended the world. And then there is Kaworu Nagisa, perhaps the greatest enigma of them all, a half-Angel/half-human artificial being like Rei, created specifically by SEELE as a countermeasure to any possible treachery on NERV’s part, but was killed by Shinji Ikari before his plans could come about, and yet seems to have played as vital a part in Third Impact as Rei, but by the same token, apparently did not see resurrection like she did.

But there is a fifth name that is often forgotten in those discussions, a fifth Evangelion Pilot. And that is none other than Touji Suzuhara the Fourth Child.

It is not that Touji is totally unknown, but he exists in the public consciousness as a sort of footnote, a trivia question at best. Though he was selected as a pilot and given an Evangelion of his own, his Evangelion became possessed by Bardiel, the Thirteenth Angel, during its first test run, leading to its destruction. And though he survived, Touji was critically injured in the process, and with no Evangelion to pilot, he quietly left the program to fade out of history.

In a way, Touji was perhaps the luckiest one of them all. The early destruction of his Evangelion protected him from having to participate in the mentally harrowing battles against the Angels, and he was spared of being an active participant in Third Impact. Even afterward, he was part of the first wave of people to emerge from Instrumentality, even reuniting with most of his family and many of his friends, going on to live about as full of a life as one could in those desolate circumstances. And while the tides of history have mostly washed over him, some effort was made to locate him. During Shinji and Asuka’s trials, once it was discovered that he was among the refugees recovered from Tokyo-3, there were multiple news outlets attempting to seek him out for interviews. However, they were far too late, as he and his family were long gone.

And I know all of this, as Touji Suzuhara was my great-grandfather.

I have very little memory of Touji. Though he lived much longer than most, he at least was spared the immortality that afflicted the other pilots and passed away when I was six, and what little I do recall about him paints a picture of a quiet, reserved old man. However, in interviewing various members of my family, I was told of someone who made every effort to flee his past but was unable to fully shake its shadow. I heard stories of bullying and harassment in those early refugee camps, of the other survivors trying to blame him and his family for what had happened, much as Shinji and Asuka would be publicly blamed later. It got to the point that as soon as they were rescued and carried away from Tokyo-3, his whole family changed their names and fled, disappearing into a still-chaotic world to find a place where nobody knew them.

In time, they succeeded, eventually settling in Austria. Though they had nothing and did not even know the language, that mattered little as very few of their neighbors had much either, and they were far from the only immigrants wandering in. There, they were able to blend in, carving out a niche for themselves and building something resembling a life, and no one ever discovered their connection to history’s so-called greatest monsters.

But even so, my great-grandfather never forgot. Though he never neglected his family and tried his best to provide for them, everyone that I spoke to made him out to be a broken man, someone who had lost the light in his eyes, who would smile very little and always seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. It was forbidden to speak to him of the time before Third Impact, and the very few times he did talk of it, it was from the viewpoint of someone who never truly left Tokyo-3, haunted by ghosts.

Touji might have been forgotten by history, but he bore his scars. Unfair blame was placed upon my family’s shoulders for what had happened, and we know all too well what it is like to be made scapegoats by the those who need someone to blame for their suffering. And though I have never met Shinji Ikari, Asuka Soryu Langley, or Rei Ayanami, and know about as much about them as everyone else, I at least have some measure of understanding of how unfairly they’ve been characterized. And I am sure that they desire validation about as much as they deserve further condemnation, which is to say, not at all. As such, I feel that the kindest thing to do would be to just let them be. Wherever they are, leave them alone to seek their own peace. Because I assure you, they have paid for their sins in full. They pay every day, remembering their part in the previous world’s death.

And to those who still think them a threat, who still believe that they possess the power to once again end the world despite no evidence to back that up, consider this: they have had ample opportunity and reason to wield that power, and yet never have. As such, perhaps it would be best not to provoke them?

No matter how you feel about the Evangelion Pilots, I see little that can be gained by seeking them out. They have taken more than their fair punishment, and would likely shun any reward. And as the descendant of one of their number, I say, let my great-grandfather’s companions be and move on. We have all suffered enough.

[lugosimmer]

WHY ARE SIMMERS HAPPY with the game ANYWAY?

Game breaking patches that mess up all custom content, a game so bad and expensive that it cannot ever be played in it's full official form, by which I mean with all the DLCs (without the selfless help of comrade modders who have enabled so many of us to get all the official DLCs for free and add basic features through script files that EA would never give us even after a decade of begging), or the EA executives' outrageous, unabashed, decision making "Project Rene" a "free-to-play" cross-platform (ew) nightmare — something no committed simmer ever asked for.

A base game that has not ever been properly updated for ten years, with the same old restrictions of not even being able to change a sim's height, or draw a fence on the edge of a lot, the infuriating 4 floor limit, the inability to precisely resize or modify objects without mods, no colour-wheel, empty worlds full of shell buildings, the endless examples of sims who cannot even get done with the most basic things like cooking and having a meal, no memory system for sims, or even a set of in-game photography tools. And yet rather than a promising, customizable new game (or even reviving old features like Create a Style), we get one hundredth DLC or so which adds nothing to gameplay. And the damned "Project Rene."

In these ten years, I am sure that these life-simulation genre monopolists have had plenty of opportunities of retiring the Sims 4 honourably. Now that apartments are done, I think it is a good time to let the game be, fix all the bugs, and leave the game alone. But that is never happening. By 2035, we are getting the 457th DLC, "my first lemonade stand stuff pack" and five hundred streamers would get together to sing in its honour, of how it "adds" to the gameplay! Every DLC is like a rushed assignment which does not even bother to check for grammar and spellings. I am sure by then we would have twelve new worlds too, with not more than 5 lots each, each lot placed so far away from each other that it is not even possible to create any kind of builds or neighbourhoods that are not American suburbs. In the "For Rent" EP, why were we not given many large 64×64 lots? They just want to sell DLC after DLC without giving any deep thought to changing the basics of the game in a DLC (even within the limitations placed by the structure of the terrible base game, like the lack of an open world) and experiment with something new like large lots with vibrant sim neighbourhoods placed close together. Because the executives do not care. They are not artists. And those who actually are artists, coders and animators in the sims team, I believe, do not get any substantial democratic say in how the decisions regarding the future of the game are made inside EA board rooms.

On a burnt pizza base, EA gave us a ton of cheese and seasoning as DLC, hoping that it covers up for the terrible taste of the base. And the sheer number of Sims streamers – "influencers" – that cannot just shut up about the virtues of the game or sell it to us, without having any serious discussions about how gaming has been ruined with DLC and subscription model of capitalism in the last decade (except a few like LGR; do check them out).

Whatever is good about the Sims, for example its art and vibes, it is good in spite of EA's corporate model, where the work and contribution of its artists, coders and animators peeks out against the limited, ignorant imagination of its executives and shareholders (who I doubt even play the game). And perhaps for this alone that the game is still loved. The executives should just STOP planning all further updates, so the workers who design and code the game can focus entirely on fixing all the remaining bugs, so that finally, the game can rest in peace, and custom content makers too can make good mods that last long without them needed to be updated as fast as the back-breaking corporate game factory schedule of EA, which churns out one unmemorable DLC after another.

But why would they change?

And why are we happy with the game, anyway?

[multifandombitxh]

Name Calling

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Genre: Angst/Smut

Warnings: Foreplay, teasing, jealous!Eddie, very light smut, caught-in-the-act type shit

A/N: Back story is the reader was friends with Eddie before high school, but became closer with Steve, and Eddie hated his guts for it. Reader was also kinda friends with Reefer Rick, which is a slightly important plot point. Takes place when they find Eddie at Rick's house ✨

Summary: Eddie and the reader really, really fucking hate each other, that was obvious to anyone with eyes. They were friends once upon a time, but when Steve Harrington came into the picture, everything fell apart. Now, as the reader tries to help Eddie hide from cops, she finds an interesting way to keep them entertained.

18+ MINORS DNI

"What the hell is she doing here?"

"Um, saving your dumb ass, obviously? No need to thank me, Munson, really."

"Jesus Christ, Y/N, you know what? I have had it with you and your attitude-"

A chorus of groans filled the boathouse, the murky lake water splashing against the boat as Eddie stood. You had taken several steps closer toward him, but was forced to stop when Steve all but threw himself in between you both like a lion tamer. By now Eddie had stepped out of the boat and was making his way toward you, despite the fact that Steve stood directly in the way.

This wasn't going to end well.

"Okay, maybe now isn't the best time to be fighting," Robin said, a worried expression painting her features. "Like, maybe we should focus on what to do next? Something productive?"

"I can think of a few productive things I could be doing right now," You said through your teeth. "Several hundreds of miles away from here, preferably."

"Maybe you should go do them, then," Eddie replied, tilting his head to the side and pointing a finger to Steve's chest. "You can take your little guard dog with you, too."

"Really, dude?" Steve muttered, focusing his eyes on Eddie and shoving his hand away. "That's the best you can come up with? 'Guard dog'? What are you, twelve?"

"Sorry, should I have said 'mutt' instead?" Eddie antagonized, getting up close and personal with Steve. "Or maybe 'bitch' would be more fitting."

"Okay, you're done," Steve said curtly, giving Eddie a slight shove backward. "You really wanna do this right now? I will knock you straight into next year, freak, I swear-"

"Guys, come on, seriously?" Dustin yelled, "No one gives a shit that you hate each other. Y/N, we're here to help Eddie, not make things worse. Eddie, Y/N agreed to help. And Steve, stay out of it. So all of you shut the hell up and get over yourselves! We have bigger problems right now than your stupid love lives."

"Love lives?" You, Eddie, and Steve shrieked in unison as you whipped around to shoot him a look of disgust.

"Okay, bad wording," Dustin corrected, "But my point still stands, you three need to knock. it. off."

After holding a heated stare with Eddie for a few moments, you broke eye contact and spun around, exiting in a huff through the creaky wooden door into the cool night air. Steve followed soon after, hot on your heels. When he finally caught up to you, he grabbed you by the wrist to stop you in your tracks.

"Come on, Y/N," Steve said softly, shaking his head. "Look, I'd love to knock that prick on his ass, but we came here to help, didn't we?"

"I did want to help," You replied, "But he clearly doesn't want it if it's coming from me."

"I don't get it," Steve sighed, "What's his deal? Why do you two hate each other so much? And what the hell is his problem with me?"

"I don't know, Steve, maybe it's because in high school, I started hanging out with you instead of him, and he never wanted to even think about sharing the same air as you," You replied, "Will you just find me when you're ready to leave?"

With that, you pulled away from Steve, making your way back to the car. You leaned against the warm hood and took several deep breaths, watching the lake that shimmered behind the boathouse. It was humid out, enough to make you break out in a sweat as you waited for the others to return. When they finally did, they began piling in the car, and when you tried to join them, Steve stopped you for the second time that night.

"I want you to stay here," He said quietly, his gaze intense.

"You're joking," You scoffed, "You want me to stay here? Are you insane, Harrington? After the shit that he just pulled?"

"You knew this Reefer Rick guy, right?" Steve asked.

"Well, yeah, a little, but-"

"Then you're the only person who can stay behind without it looking suspicious," He explained. "We need someone to keep an eye out for anyone looking for Eddie, and if they find you instead, it'll make sense that you're here. Look, I don't wanna leave you here with the guy, but it's our best chance of keeping people from finding him."

"Don't make me stay here with him, Steve," You almost whined, "Please, don't leave me here."

"We'll be back in the morning, okay?" He reassured, pulling his keys out of his pocket. "I promise."

As Steve climbed in his car and drove off into the night, you stood on the edge of the road, fighting the urge to scream up at the sky.

"I should've stayed home," You sighed before turning heel and walking back to the boathouse. Eddie was waiting for you inside, leaning back against a shelf and staring at the doorway like he'd been expecting you to walk through any minute. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, his weight shifted to one side and a scowl on his face.

"Look, I don't wanna be here anymore than you do," You said as you entered, "So I'll make this quick. I'm not doing this because I like you, I'm doing this because they do. I'll be in the house."

"Good, awesome, stay there," Eddie replied, "I don't wanna hear from you again unless it's important."

"Oh, that reminds me, I do have something important to tell you," You said in a mock-cheerful voice. Making your way over to him, you got as close to him as you could without being on top of him. Eddie raised a suspicious eyebrow at you, then you flipped the bird in his face.

"Very mature, Y/N," Eddie said, rolling his eyes. "When are you gonna grow up, huh?"

"I'll grow up when you grow a pair, Munson," You replied with a sickeningly sweet smile.

Turning to make your exit, you left the boathouse in a hurry, walking up the dark driveway to the backdoor and entering the house. Dust kicked off of the door as it opened, making you cough. Stepping inside, you sneezed a few times before finally getting a good look at the place. You'd never actually been inside Rick's house before, just out back to hang out and smoke.

It was kind of a dump.

Walking to the kitchen, you opened several cabinet doors before finding glasses. Plucking one off of the shelf, you rinsed it off in the sink and filled it with water, gulping it down and setting the glass to the side. You took a deep breath in and held it for a moment before releasing it, closing your eyes and praying for this all to end soon.

You made yourself comfortable in the living room, sitting on the old couch and coughing again as a small cloud of dust filled the air. You sat up and dusted the couch off as best as you could before laying down across the cushions and closing your eyes. Within minutes you felt sleep overcoming you, which wasn't much of a surprise given recent events. For the first time in days you allowed yourself a moment to rest.

After a few hours of tossing and turning and waking up to every little noise, the sound of the back door opening made you jolt awake. Eddie walked through the doorway, making eye contact with you and quickly looking away. You watched as he made his way down the hallway nearby, opening a door and closing it loudly behind him. Sighing, you sat up straight and crossed your legs, now wide awake. It was beginning to get light out, a deep blue sky peaking through the windows and illuminating the walls. You reached out to the side table to turn on a lamp, the warm yellow light brightening up the cold room. The sound of running water came from down the hall followed by the sound of the door swinging open and a light switch being flipped.

At least now you knew where the bathroom was.

"Sleep well?" Eddie asked, leaning over the back of the couch to look down at you.

"Would be better with some peace and quiet," You muttered. Eddie rolled his eyes and rounded the corner of the couch, coming to sit beside you and crossing his own legs on the cushions.

A long, uncomfortable silence grew between you, making you toy with the fabric of the couch to try and occupy your mind. Eddie was sitting dangerously close to you, close enough that your knees touched. The longer the silence carried out, the more restless you became.

"Can I ask you something?" Eddie asked, breaking the silence.

You shrugged. "I have a feeling you will anyway even if I say no, so shoot."

"Did you know?" He questioned, his words slow and drawn out. "Did you know about this... Upside Down stuff? I mean, the Demodogs and shit, whatever Dustin called them."

"Yeah, I knew," You sighed, leaning back into the cushions more. "I really wish I didn't, but I knew."

"How do you deal with it?" Eddie asked quietly. When you looked over at him his eyes were fixated on nothing, his lips pursed in a thin line and skin looking paler than normal. "I mean, how do you even sleep at night knowing that shit is out there?"

"I don't," You scoffed, "Or I try not to think about it."

Eddie shook his head. "I just don't get it, man."

"None of us do, welcome to the club," You said, gently slugging him on the back of his shoulder. "Speaking of the club, what the hell was all that back there? You seriously wanted to fight Steve Harrington?"

"I didn't want to," Eddie said, "But I was ready to."

"You are impossible," You sighed, standing from the couch. "I don't get it, Eddie. You were my best friend. What do you have against Steve that made it so hard to be around me anymore?"

"For starters, he's an asshole," He replied with a chuckle, "Secondly, you never heard the way he talked about you when you weren't around. I was stuck in classes with him all the time his Senior year and it was miserable."

"Yeah? What did he say?" You asked, your interest piqued as you turned to face him. You crossed your arms over your chest and chewed on your lower lip, wondering if Eddie was telling the truth, or just trying to get a reaction out of you.

"I don't even want to repeat the things he said about you, Y/N."

Eddie's words hung heavily in the air, making you shift uncomfortably. "Can you at least give me a rough idea?"

His eyes snapped up to meet yours, a somewhat devious look hiding behind his gaze. He stood from his place on the couch, moving closer to you until he was so close you had to start backing up to keep some space between you. His hands were shoved in his front pockets, head cocked to one side as he kept advancing on you.

"You really wanna know?" He asked, his tone low and rough. You nodded as he kept backing you further and further away, swallowing hard. It was becoming more and more difficult to differentiate whether or not you were infuriated with him, or absolutely enchanted by him. Something in the air had shifted the second he stood up, and was ever changing as he closed in on you.

"If you really want to know," Eddie started, wetting his lips. "His favorite thing to talk about was how he couldn't help imagining how cute you would look sitting in his lap. Sometimes he'd talk about your pretty mouth, and how he always wondered if it can do more than just talk too fucking much."

"He did not say that, quit making shit up," You snorted. Your back collided with the wall behind you, gently knocking the air out of your lungs. With nowhere left to go, you watched as Eddie stood before you, placing both hands on either side of you on the wall, trapping you between his arms.

"He didn't, but I'm sure he wondered," Eddie went on, "I mean, who wouldn't? I'm sure he wondered about what you looked like writhing underneath him, too. Or maybe he couldn't stop thinking about what you sounded like while you're riiiight on the edge. I'd bet money that he's gotten off to the idea of you cumming so hard around him that you can't even think straight."

"Are we... still talking about Steve?" You asked in a small voice. Your entire body felt hot, like there was a fire lit under your skin that you couldn't seem to put out. It was hard to convince yourself that you didn't want him to rip your clothes off and have his way with you with the way he was staring you down.

Eddie leaned in, grabbing your chin between his fingers to pull you closer, the tip of his nose touching yours. "What do you think?"

With that, the gap between you closed, your lips meeting in the middle and your bodies melding together. You were basically putty in his hands, which were gripping your waist so tightly you thought your ribs might snap. His mouth moved against yours in a perfect rhythm as he turned his head slightly to the side to deepen the kiss. Your hands had made themselves at home by gripping the front of his jean vest, knuckles going white as he kissed you like there was no tomorrow.

The longer he held you up against that wall, the harder it became to slow your breathing. His touch was overwhelmingly intense, leaving you a breathless, gasping mess at his mercy. While one part of you desperately wanted him to have his way with you, another part of you couldn't help thinking back on all of the ways he had hurt you in the past, or made you angry, or treated you like his enemy rather than someone he was once friends with. You decided to use that anger, letting one hand drift up to his tangled hair. Gripping his curls tightly you gave them a harsh tug, eliciting a deep growl from Eddie.

His mouth abandoned yours when you pulled his hair, his eyes drifting open slowly and revealing a look of pure sin that made you shiver. Your mouth hung slack as he stared you down, your breath mingling with his and a jolt of excitement shooting through you. The hands on your waist drifted down to your hips and under your shirt, his fingertips sinking into your skin. You hissed as his rings made contact, the metal cold against your warm flesh.

"That's how it's going to be, huh?" Eddie asked, yanking you forward and grinding your hips into his.

"That's how it's always been, Munson."

Eddie emitted another harsh growl that mingled with soft laughter on its way out. You felt a familiar wetness pool inside your jeans at the sound he made alone, your arousal growing stronger when his lips collided with yours again in a heated, hungry kiss. Everything about the exchange felt intoxicating; the warmth of his hands sliding up your back beneath your shirt, the soft moans he let out through his nose as he kissed you, the way his bangs tickled your face. Everything was overwhelming and you couldn't keep it together anymore.

You wrapped your arms around Eddie's neck, effectively closing any space that remained between your bodies. He sighed into the kiss, pulling you away from the wall and moving you backwards until you found yourself in the hallway. He broke the kiss and grabbed you by the hand, guiding you down the hallway to an empty bedroom. A full-sized bed sat in the middle of the room, white sheets and blankets a mess and the pillows scattered about. It was a staunch reminder that you were in someone else's home.

"Eddie, I don't know about this," You said hesitantly, turning to face him. "I don't think Rick would appreciate us sleeping in his bed."

"Sweetheart, the last thing we'll be doing in this bed is sleeping," Eddie breathed in your ear, "What Rick doesn't know won't hurt him."

With that, Eddie gave you a gentle shove backwards, making you fall onto the disheveled bed. While you were busy finding your bearings, he climbed on top of you, making himself at home between your legs. His large belt buckle- a handcuff, how fitting- gently brushed over your clothed clit, making you gasp softly. You bit your lip to try and stifle the noises you wanted to make as he carefully pressed himself against you, the hardness in his jeans making it very difficult to concentrate on anything else. He let out a soft chuckle above you, making you very aware of the advantage he had over you currently.

"What's the matter?" He asked in a taunting voice, "Having a hard time imagining Steve in my place?"

"Oh for Christ's sake, I never wanted Steve," You snapped, slightly annoyed as you sat up on your elbows. "I don't know where the hell you even got that idea from."

"What do you want, then?" He asked. His eyes were lidded and dark as he stared down at you like he was ready to pounce on you any moment.

"I want you, Eddie."

"Do you... really wanna do this?" He asked, his tone a little more serious this time. You took note of the way his eyebrows turned up at the inner corners, a concerned look flooding his features as if he was realizing for the first time what he was doing.

"Yes," You said with confidence, "Yes, Eddie, I want this."

With the green light, Eddie was on you in moments, capturing your lips in yet another hot kiss as he ground his hips into yours, forcing a long, drawn out moan out of you that was muffled by the kiss. His mouth left yours to trail sloppy, wet kisses down the side of your face, to your jaw, before attaching to your neck. One of his hands was resting on the other side of your neck, his fingertips brushing against your jaw while he worked on marking your throat with his tongue and teeth. You squeezed your eyes shut and let out a shaky breath, raising your hips up off of the bed to try and gain some friction where you desperately needed it most.

Eddie took the hint and used his body weight to force you back down into the mattress, his cock pressed flush up against you. Electricity shot up your spine at the sensation, butterflies erupting in your stomach as you threw your head back into the scratchy blanket. Eddie carried on grinding into you as he pushed your shirt up your torso, revealing your bra to him and making you tremble as his fingertips brushed your delicate skin.

"How cute," He said with a small smile, toying with the fabric. "You wear this little number for me?"

"In your dreams, Munson. I didn't even know I'd be seeing you today when I put this on," You shot back, rolling your eyes at him.

"You knew you'd be seeing Steve, though," Eddie said, drawing out his words. "Did you wear this to impress him, sweetheart?"

"God, when are you gonna stop talking about Steve?" You asked impatiently, sitting up on your elbows again to give Eddie a deadly glare.

"I'll stop talking about Steve when you start proving to me you don't want him," Eddie replied, a toothy grin on his face. "So far, I'm not convinced. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you started screaming his name instead of mine when I fuck you senseless here in a minute."

Your breath got caught in your throat. Was his always this... Perverted? You weren't even sure if that was the right word for it. Either way, he had a way with words, and without even knowing it, he had talked you into doing exactly what he wanted. Accepting the challenge, you shoved Eddie off of you, forcing him onto his back and swapping your positions. He sat up straight as you rested your legs on either side of his hips, sitting in his lap and kissing him hard.

Soft laughter echoed in his chest as you took control, all but ripping his vest and leather jacket from his body and tossing them to the floor. Eddie slipped his hands under your shirt again, lifting it over your head and discarding it with his jacket. His hands trailed from your collarbones and over your breasts, still concealed by your bra. You sighed into the kiss as he squeezed hard over the material, grinding down against him and smiling at the choked noise that came from his throat.

By now the sun was beginning to come up, and you guessed it was likely early dawn, maybe around seven. Eddie all but tore his shirt away, tossing it into clothing purgatory. An overwhelming need washed over you as he unhooked your bra then reached out to gently stroke your hardening nipple with the pad of his thumb. His lower lip was pulled between his teeth, a look of pure concentration painting his features, eyes glued to your exposed chest.

"You just gonna stare, or are you gonna do something?" You asked, eyeing him down and flinching when he gently pinched the tip between his thumb and index finger.

"You have no idea what I'm going to do to you, Y/N," Eddie sighed out, tearing his gaze away from your naked chest to look you in the eye. "Not a clue."

"Then maybe you should shut up and do it already," You replied, eliciting a toothy grin from him. As if something inside of him snapped, he was quick to move you out of his lap and onto your back again, harshly pulling your jeans from your legs, leaving you only in your underwear. The cool morning air hit the soaked fabric, making you shiver.

Eddie latched onto one of your nipples with his mouth, his tongue circling the tip softly. You couldn't help moaning and arching your back off the bed, letting your eyes flutter closed to enjoy the sensation. When his ringed fingers slipped past the waistband of your panties and glided over your opening, you whined noisily, your hips moving against your will. He still had yet to touch you where you really, truly wanted him to, and it was going to make you lose your senses.

"Eddie, please," You whispered, twirling a strand of his hair around your finger.

"'Please' what, sweetheart?" Eddie asked teasingly, looking up at you through his lashes. "You're gonna have to do better than that to get what you want."

"Please touch me," You sighed, every ounce of dignity evacuating your body and brain. All you cared about in that moment was Eddie; his hands, his lips, his stupid, shit-eating grin, everything was Eddie. Nothing else mattered, you just wanted him, and nothing else.

"Is that what you want?" He asked, "You want me to do this?"

As he spoke, his finger began circling your clit, egging a groan from you as he finally gave you what you'd been craving. Based on your reaction, Eddie seemed to give in, pressing more firmly against the nerve and spreading around the wetness found there. It was even harder to hold back now as your mouth fell open in a loud, breathy moan. As he kept up a steady pace stroking you, you couldn't seem to stop the noises that came out of your throat, broken curse words high-pitched whines filling the air. A moan of his own found its way out as he touched you, bringing his finger to his lips and sticking it in his mouth. His eyes were locked with yours in a heated glare as he sucked your juices off of his finger. The sight alone was enough to make your jaw drop.

"Oh my god, seriously, you two?"

Steve's voice startled you both, making you instinctively cover your bare torso with the blanket. He was standing in the doorway, a vase in one hand and an annoyed look on his face. Eddie helped cover you up, shooting Steve a look that could kill.

"Steve, what the hell?" You yelled back.

"I told you we would be back, don't give me that shit. I thought someone found you guys," Steve replied, looking anywhere that wasn't at you. "Would you two knuckleheads please just get dressed and meet us outside? Jesus Christ."

With that, Steve slammed the door shut, leaving you and Eddie in silence. You pulled the blanket up over your face, groaning into the fabric and squeezing your eyes shut. Eddie slipped under the blanket as well, trailing kisses up your middle until he reached your face. You opened your eyes and stared up at him, your lower lip stuck out in a soft pout. He smiled down at you and placed a long, sweet kiss to your lips before pulling back. He placed one hand on your cheek, his thumb gently stroking the skin there.

"Harrington can wait another five minutes. I'm not done."

[bahbahhh]

fic masterlist

currents the true story of mipha's grace. NPC POV (Mipha) | BotW | multichapter | rated T | incomplete - on hiatus

A thematic successor to "desire path" and "thank you for listening" in which we are getting zelink from a NPC POV as well as a metaphor through nature. I wanted to give Mipha some love because I often seen (and have done this myself) her placed in a negative or shallow light with respect to Link and Zelda's relationship in botw. I also believe deeply you can love someone completely and not be meant for each other and that is okay. Follows Mipha's diary entries/Champions' Ballad.

begin again - also posted on tumblr A story for @zelinkcommunity zelink week 2023 set between BotW and Totk. A stab at explaining lots of the changes seen in TotK, specifically what happens to the Sheikah Technology. Zelda POV | pre -TotK | multichapter | rated T | complete!

The Calamity is gone. The remaining leaders of Hyrule gather for a Summit to determine the future of the kingdom, starting with how to repurpose all the Sheikah Technology. Zelda is among them, and while everyone still calls her Princess, she’s not sure she wants to lay claim to an old throne. What she really wants is to move on. She wants to continue her research, to prove her worth beyond her bloodline, and to spend as much time with Link as she can…which sounds an awful lot like what she wanted a hundred years ago…

desire path for @zelinktines24 2023 for the prompt “Oh no” NPC POV (Impa) | pre-BotW | rated G | oneshot - complete!

Impa is given a secret assignment from the King just before she is to escort Zelda and Link back to Kakariko Village for the festival of Sahasra’s Pass: make sure their arrangement is not creating “unnecessary distractions.” It seems silly for the King to be so concerned about such an implausible matter. Anyone with two eyes can see they clearly despise each other. Impa forgets she has three.

✨ amazing fanart from @marimbles

✨amazing fanart from @pitchblackespresso like someone would for @zelinkcommunity Zelink week 2022 for the prompt "statue" A love letter to side quests. Link POV | BotW | rated M | multichapter | complete!

Her voice is the string of reassurances and warnings whispered in his ear from the moment he opened his eyes. She calls out for your help. So he goes, underprepared and overconfident, in the opposite direction of Kakariko Village because a hundred years is long enough and a princess needs his help and he was someone once. (Or, Link realizes destiny is awfully hard thing to shake.)

thank you for listening NPC POV (Kass) | post BotW |rated G | short and sweet | complete!

The ancient songs collected, his teacher’s last ballad complete, and still Kass can’t help but miss the thrill of the strange Hylian’s company.  With his ever patient ear, often turned deliberately toward the accordion with his eyes closed, it was like the melody was more than just a pleasant tune. Like Kass was offering a prayer and Link was waiting for an answer.

windows for @zelinkcommunity opposites attract community event. In collaboration with @aheavenscorner who made this AMAZING artwork. ✨ Link and Zelda POV | post BotW | rated T | oneshot- complete!

Twelve years after the events of Tears of the Kingdom, the Master Sword tells Link it is finally time to put it back.

The Killing Moon BotW 1.5 before we got TotK so it's one giant guessing game leading up to what we see in the trailers. Also features my guess at the title, which I'll pat myself on the back, was pretty damn close. Heavy angst, deep dive into PTSD/trauma* Link POV | BotW 1.5 | rated E | multichapter | complete!

She asks if he remembers her. He doesn’t answer. There is quiet longing between them in moments when they are alone that Link still cannot place. He thinks he needs time but Hyrule won’t grant them peace. Especially not when there is a kingdom to rebuild and the Blood Moon still rises. But Link doesn’t want to rebuild, he just wants-

✨author's notes

all I can think about is The best comment I’ve got of this fic remains “Sexy yet depressing?” Zelda POV| pre-totk | rated E NSFW* | must have ao3 to read | oneshot- complete!

drabbles and other smaller one shots

distraction and the distracted Link POV | pre-botw| zelinkweek 2022 | oneshot- complete! almost beautiful Link POV | pre-botw| zelinkweek 2022 | oneshot- complete! Kass and his daughters   NPC POV | post- botw| tumblr drabble | oneshot- complete! Zelda illness Zelda POV | post- botw| tumblr drabble | oneshot- complete! Angsty Paya NPC POV | botw| tumblr drabble | oneshot- complete! Terrako catches Link and Zelda Link POV | AoC | tumblr drabble | oneshot- complete! OoT Zelink written for @zeldaelmo for her fic Someone I Used To Know Zelda POV | OoT older | tumblr drabble | oneshot- complete! Patricia POV NPC POV- Patricia the Sand Seal | botw| tumblr drabble | oneshot- complete!

[last updated 11/1/2023]

[rainbow-flavoured-skittles]

Hey Mom, Dead Mom

Chapter 2: No more playing daddy’s game, I’ll go insane if things don’t change

I suffered for this chapter. it was fighting me every single step of the way but it’s finally finished. I can rest now. this isn’t as dark as the last chapter but Cole is running away in this, so it’s still not very happy. also I did indeed make a couple of random ocs because how else was I supposed to advance the plot? they’re not returning any time soon. as always, this is cross posted to ao3

~

Cole got on the plane to MOSPA at exactly eleven in the morning on a Sunday. He traveled alone — Dad was unable to come with him. Other people at the airport gave strange looks to the unaccompanied twelve-year-old, reminding him of the looks he got after Mom died. “Oh, why is that little boy all alone? So strange,” and then they’d go about their day, not giving him a second thought.

The flight attendant in front of him right now was doing just that. “No parents?” She asked, face mildly concerned. 

Cole shook his head. “I’m going to visit my grandma, but Dad couldn’t come,” he lied. Cole was good at lying. He’d done it a lot these past few years; you couldn’t take care of yourself the way Cole had without at least some lying.

The attendant gave him a small smile. Maddy, her name tag read. “Well, if you need anything, just call.”

“Okay, thanks, Ms.”

Maddy nodded and continued walking, greeting the other passengers. Cole fidgeted in his seat. The fabric covering it was itchy and the seatbelt was too tight. The man sitting next to him scrolled through his phone, music blaring loudly, and the old lady behind him was snoring. Not even off the ground yet and this flight was already torture. Cole resisted the urge to groan.

It was only a two hour flight, Cole could do this. But he hated planes so much — always had. Not being on the ground made him feel ill, and every bit of turbulence was terrifying. At least he had the window seat, though that didn’t do much to soothe his nerves. Being able to see how high up he was might make Cole feel worse. 

The crackling of a speaker interrupted his panicking. The sounds it made were loud and screechy. “Please fasten your seatbelts and put all devices on airplane mode. We will be taking off shortly,” the announcements said. 

Finally. Cole dug through his backpack and found his book. Fish in a Tree, the title read. He’d found it at the school book sale but had never gotten around to reading it. Now was his chance.

He’d barely gotten past the first chapter before they took off. Cole actually felt it when they did — it was like getting severed from a part of him. He felt sick, though throwing up wouldn’t achieve anything. It would probably make him feel worse. Cole settled for putting the book down and staring blankly at the seat in front of him instead. He wouldn’t be able to focus on the book, or anything at all, not when his stomach was lurching so badly.

Just two hours, he told himself. Then I can collapse on a bed and sleep. He repeated those words over and over like a mantra. 

~

As it turned out, Cole was not able to immediately sleep once he arrived at MOSPA, because he had to check in. Check in, as if the school was a hotel. Or maybe a prison, which would be much more accurate.

“It’s great that you’re here, Nicholas,” the secretary smiled cheerily as she typed on her computer. “I’m sure you’ll love this school. We’re all one big family.”

Yeah, right. Every time a school said that they didn’t mean anything by it. In fact, it meant there was probably all sorts of bullying that went ignored. “It’s just Cole, not Nicholas. Nobody calls me that,” Cole said. He hated his full name — who agreed to let his grandfather pick it out? ‘Nicholas’ was an old-person name from at least a hundred years ago.

“Okay, then, Cole. I’ve got your dorm number and schedule here,” the secretary printed out a sheet of paper. “Do you need a map of the school?”

Cole shook his head. He had spent some of the flight looking at the floor plans and they were seared into his brain at this point. “I’ll be fine, thank you,” he hurried out before she could offer to have someone show him around. He didn’t want that kind of forced social interaction.

The dormitories were not hard to find, not with the giant sign that pointed to where they were. Cole opened the door, cursing when it was stuck, and shoved everything to the side before closing it again. He didn’t see a roommate anywhere, but it was a weekend, so everyone was probably out. That was good, it meant he had a couple hours alone; he could use the time to unpack and explore the school.

Cole shoved all his clothes into the closet and shoes under the bed. MOSPA had a strict uniform policy, so he wouldn’t be able to wear any casual clothing, nor his combat boots. That was a shame — he really liked those boots. They had served well when he got into fights. And they added another sorely needed three inches to his height, another advantage.

Any books that he’d brought were put onto the desk. Items such as stationery and notebooks were placed in drawers. Miscellaneous trinkets were placed in a box under the bed and his toiletries in another box. Cole pushed the suitcases into the corner. There wasn’t anywhere else to put them, but he’d figure it out later. Right now he wanted to take a nap and not wake up for a month. Screw exploring the school, he could do that tomorrow.

Cole closed the curtains, pulled the covers over his head, and went to sleep. 

~

MOSPA, as Cole found out in the span of a month, was its own special brand of hell. The students there hated Cole for always messing up and acting strange, as if grieving for a loved one was something to make fun of. The teachers hated him for not talking or making eye contact and always zoning out. Everybody seemed to agree that he was the weird kid who should be avoided at all costs. His roommate, a kid named John, disliked him enough that he asked to be put in a different dorm.

“Thanks for messing up again, Brookstone,” one of his classmates sneered. Brant Green, yet another asshole who existed to make Cole miserable. “You ruined the whole performance.”

It hadn’t been Cole’s fault. Another student had purposefully tripped him, causing him to fall and knock over several people. “Yeah, I did. What’s your point?” He tried not to flip off Brant. That would just cause more trouble, trouble he couldn’t risk. The teachers hated him enough already.

“How’d you even get into this school? I thought you needed to have talent to get in,” Brant spat. 

“Do I look like I want to be here? I hate this place,” Cole stood up and glared at the taller boy. Brant was a good head taller than him, unfortunately.

Brant didn’t seem to know what to say to that. Perhaps he’d thought Cole was going here willingly, though how he’d come to that conclusion was a mystery. He gave Cole another sneer and walked away.

Cole rolled his eyes and went back to his lunch. For all its faults, at least this school had good food. The chicken salad was pretty tasty.

A large group chattered next to him. One of them gave him the side eye. “That’s the Brookstone kid,” she said, loud enough for Cole to hear. “His dad’s a Royal Blacksmith. Isn’t it weird how he didn’t get any of the family talent?”

Cole scowled and looked down at the table. He stabbed his lunch with more force than was needed.

“Nicholas Brookstone to the office, Nicholas Brookstone to the office,” a speaker sounded. All eyes turned to him. Cole looked down at the floor and wondered if he could just die right there in the cafeteria. It would save everyone a lot of trouble.

A kid coughed from the table in front of him. Awkward, Cole thought. What had he done this time? There wasn’t anything recent he’d done to warrant this.

It took five minutes for the school to realise he wasn’t moving any time soon. They all went back to their conversations, and Cole snuck out the side entrance. He had always been good at going unnoticed.

Cole walked through the halls briskly and knocked on the office door. He was let in by the guidance counsellor, a lady in her forties with platinum blonde hair. “Nicholas, we need to talk about your behaviour,” she said as they sat down.

“I haven’t been in any more fights,” Cole said. It was true.

“Your teachers say that you don’t pay any attention in class and that you’re not following instructions. It has nothing to do with your peers.”

“I’m trying my best, okay?” Cole snapped. Why couldn’t anyone just listen for once? He was trying, he’d been trying for ages.

“Then how come your grades are so low? This is one of the top arts schools in Ninjago, Nicholas. We expect better.” The counsellor had a mask of false concern on. Cole kind of wanted to punch it off. 

“It’s not Nicholas, it’s Cole. And I am trying,” Cole gritted out. 

“Your grades are barely scraping fifty percent.”

“So?”

The counsellor frowned. “If you don’t start doing better, you may get expelled.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Cole said under his breath. Then to the counsellor, “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.” She might be suspicious of the sudden change of pace, but Cole couldn’t care less. He just wanted to get out of the office.

The counsellor nodded and fixed her glasses. “That’s all for today, Nicholas. You can go to class now.”

She didn’t even bother to get his name right. “Thanks,” Cole marched out the door.

~

Cole stared down at his exam results and wondered if he was dreaming. Forty percent average, the paper said. A fail. He’d managed to do so badly that his average wasn’t even fifty.

Dad’s going to kill me, he thought. Dad expected at least nineties, and this definitely wasn’t it. He’d be grounded until his thirtieth birthday, if he lived that long.

The only subject that had above sixty was visual arts. The teacher for that class was nice — he understood Cole’s struggles and gave him all the time he needed. It wouldn’t make Dad overlook all the other failures, though.

The paper crinkled under his grip. Cole blinked the tears out of his eyes and shoved the paper into his folder. His classmates were conversing all around him, comparing grades and bragging about what they’d gotten. The teacher sat at her desk on the computer. Nobody would notice if he went to the washroom and never returned, hopefully.

Cole got up and walked to the front. “Ms. Jackson, may I please go to the washroom?”

The teacher nodded distractedly and waved her hand. “Yes.”

Cole grabbed his belongings and slipped out the door. He hadn’t taken a hall pass, not when the teacher would notice it missing. She wouldn’t know he was gone, but she would notice the hall pass. The teachers here were strange like that.

He opened the door to his dorm and collapsed on the ground. How was he going to explain his grades to his dad, much less the teachers? He could already hear the lecture. “Your mother would be so disappointed in you, Cole. What happened to all that potential?”

Then again, Dad didn’t pay attention to him. Cole doubted he even remembered that he existed; Dad was too busy partying. Maybe he could burn the report card and pretend it didn’t exist.

Or… Cole’s thoughts drifted to a snide comment Brant had made a few months ago. “Why don’t you just run away? Nobody would miss you — we’d be happy to see you gone.”

Cole had ignored him at the time. It was just another uncreative insult from the stereotypical bully. But it wasn’t exactly a bad idea. As strict as the school was, Cole knew all the weak spots in its system. It was easy to sneak out and never return. And he’d been thinking about leaving and never coming back for ages. This was just the final straw.

“All right, then. Guess Brant gets his wish,” Cole said. No one responded, of course — he was all alone. But talking to himself was a habit. Cole got up and went to the closet, finding the duffel bag he used to use for camping. He blew the dust off and packed anything that seemed useful. A flashlight, multiple sets of clothes, a reusable water bottle, that box of granola bars he’d bought a month ago, all the cash he had.

More food would need to be picked up from the school cafeteria, he decided. And he’d need to find a sleeping bag somehow. But everything else was ready. Cole could leave during the night — he refused to call it running away, he wasn’t running from anything — it was easier that way. This was the best option, he told himself.

Cole snuck out as soon as it was dark. He didn’t need to avoid any roommates, thankfully — anyone who’d been placed with him had moved out. It took a few minutes for him to write a letter to Jay. His best friend didn’t deserve to have him disappearing without warning, though they hadn’t been best friends since before Mom’s death. He put it in the outgoing mail on the way out, sealed with a blue sticker. Jay would know what that meant.

He took the back exit and walked down the road to the bus stop. The city’s streets were dimly lit, people rushing past him to get home. A couple looked at him curiously but didn’t stop him. A drunk man sat down next to him on the bench as they waited. Dogs barked in the distance and a truck drove past. It was peaceful, Cole thought. The most peaceful he’d been in a while.

The bus arrived just after midnight. Cole got on and paid for a ticket to the next town over. He could find a sleeping bag and extra clothes there, and the further away he got the better. He was finally leaving MOSPA and his dad behind, and he wouldn’t be stopped by something as simple as not having basic supplies.

~

Running away wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. All the books made it seem easy — there was no mention of sleeping in alleys, or trying not to get mugged, or having to do odd jobs to get money. Thank goodness for Ninjago’s lax law enforcement; nobody would have hired a thirteen-year-old if the police were good at their job. Especially a thirteen-year-old who may or may not be on the missing persons list. Cole still wasn’t sure if anyone had noticed him missing.

Cole shouldered his backpack as he walked away from Jamanakai Village. He’d managed to find work at a local restaurant a few weeks prior and had finally saved up enough money to get somewhere else. He wasn’t quite sure where his next destination would be, but for now he planned to go back to the mountain range near Ninjago City. He deserved a break, and climbing was therapeutic. The city having a lot of people to pickpocket was just a bonus.

Jamanakai was isolated, unfortunately. It would be an entire day before Cole could get to a more urban area and find a bus stop. He knew there wasn’t a lot of point in travelling so often, of course, but Cole couldn’t shake the feeling that if he didn’t keep moving, someone would find him and bring him back to MOSPA. He couldn’t let that happen. And it kept his mind off of Mom and Dad. Nope, not thinking of that today, Cole thought. It was a good day and he wasn’t going to ruin it.

“Probably enough money for a ticket to Ninjago City,” Cole muttered. “Then it’s just some hitchhiking.”

Not a difficult journey, really. Cole continued on.

~

The mountain was tall. And windy. And probably dangerous to climb without proper gear. Cole tried not to think of that as he pulled himself up the next ledge. He’d already had a close calls today, almost fell off before he found a foothold. Cole thanked Wojira that he hadn’t fallen to his death. If he was going to die, he wanted it to at least be dignified.

Only a bit more to the top of the mountain and then he could rest. Cole planned to camp there for the night and then go back down, hopefully without any major injuries. The broken ankle  still ached, and it had been months. He hadn’t been able to walk for two weeks the last time, and Cole wasn’t eager to have a repeat.

Huffing and sweaty, Cole reached the top. He climbed over the last few rocks and stopped, feeling pretty proud of himself, when he noticed the man sitting in front of him.

“Hello there,” the man said. He looked ancient, with deep set wrinkles and a long white beard. He took a sip of his drink and smiled.

Okay, that’s creepy, Cole thought. He had thought he was the only one climbing. How had he not noticed this guy?

“Wha— who are you?” The words exited Cole’s mouth without permission. He really should work on his brain-to-mouth filter at some point.

“Maybe that is a question you should ask, but first: why do you climb the mountain?” The old man looked at Cole with something like curiosity. Curiosity about what?

“Because it’s a good way to get exercise?”

“You can tell me the truth, Cole. I don’t judge.”

“How do you know my name? I never introduced myself,” Cole took a step back. Was this man some sort of stalker? Nobody knew where he was. If he got kidnapped, or murdered, no one would be able to find him. 

“Because I know you, Cole. I was there when you were born.”

“You know my Dad? Are you going to bring me back to him? Give me another lecture on how I’m a disappointment? I don’t need to hear it,” Cole crossed his arms and prepared to make a run for it. It would be suicidal to jump off the mountain, but he was a fast climber. The old man wouldn’t be able to catch up with him.

“I knew your mother. She was one of my students,” the old man stood and held up his hands in the ‘I surrender’ gesture. 

“Student?”

“I taught her to be a hero. Did you think that all the stories she told you were made up?”

Cole hadn’t thought about his mom’s stories in years. She used to tell him about great heroes who could control the very elements themselves, who tamed dragons and fought against evil. He’d loved those stories.

“You’re telling me that all those stories about ninja and dragons were real? Yeah, and I’m a giant purple unicorn,” Cole glared at the old man. This guy had to be crazy, spouting nonsense about real-life superheroes and monsters. Mom had told him those stories for entertainment and bonding, nothing more.

“You are stubborn. Also like your mother, I suppose. I can prove to you that all the old legends are real. You just have to trust me,” the man held out his hand. His face was a mixture of hope and worry and maybe a little bit of fear. Fear of what, Cole didn’t know.

Cole hesitated for a moment. There was nothing left for him back at home, if he still had one, and no one cared if he went missing. The only people he cared about were either dead or better off without him. His life truly couldn’t get any worse, and if this man had known his mom he couldn’t be too bad. Cole took the hand.

[whump-card]

Forged Divinity Chapter 26: Leannan Learns the Truth

2168 words

CW: past institutionalized slavery, religious themes, eugenics, sterilization, implied past noncon

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~~~ Enjolras had tracked every sale Leannan had gone through. From Iowa City to Lord Ransom; from Ransom to Queen Killia; from Killia to the Desert Conquerors. She had appealed to buy him from each, offering all the La Liberan riches and resources she had been allowed to. Each had refused. When the enclave of the Desert Conquerors was overrun by bandits, Enjolras had despaired, thinking Leannan lost.

But then, she’d heard tell of the last Iowan, on Donda Island.

Accompanied by none other than Phineas Kaŝpafisto.

Fate was a funny thing.

Now, after twelve years, Leannan was finally home; surrounded by his people, curled up head-to-head with his sister on the couch, his feet pressed against Enjolras’ thigh.

Enjolras wasn’t the only one awake, and wasn’t the only one looking at Leannan like he might disappear if they looked away. Callum and Siobhan basked in the presence of their completed family for a while before extracting themselves from their blankets and heading out to start breakfast. Teresa, an older teen, watched Leannan sleep with an unabashed smile but eventually roused her two peers to go take care of the animals.

Enjolras thought herself alone in her wakefulness, until she spotted Jeanette’s cool gaze, not on Leannan, but on her.

“That’s his sister, right?” Jeanette whispered, indicating Shannon with a flick of her eyes.

Enjolras nodded.

“He’s lucky to have a sister that loves him so,” Jeanette said.

“He is,” Enjolras agreed.

At the sound of her voice, Leannan stirred. He pushed himself upright with a silent yawn, then slumped against Enjolras, blinking sleepily.

“We’re still here,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Enjolras put her arm around him, “We are.”

Leannan yawned again.

“I wish Phineas were here,” he said.

Enjolras couldn’t hide the way she tensed. Leannan lifted his chin to look at her.

“Why do you and Phineas dislike each other?”

Enjolras pursed her lips, considering her answer.

“Phineas…” she smiled sadly, “Phineas hates me the way only a middle child can.”

Leannan sat upright in surprise.

“They’re your sibling?”

“Yes,” Enjolras whispered, “Which means, they can’t ever really hurt me. And I can’t ever really hurt them.”

Leannan settled back into Enjolras’ side, closing his eyes.

“You should try to get along,” he mumbled.

Enjolras felt a little sick, as she watched Leannan fall back asleep in her arms. He had no idea how cruel Phineas had been to him. Phineas was a “good master” in his eyes. How could she possibly repair a view so skewed?

“You think you can’t kill Phineas, even if they deserve it?” Jeanette asked. Enjolras looked up at her sharply, but had no response.

“I killed my brother,” Jeanette whispered, her voice a finger of ice on Enjolras’ spine, “He was trying to kill Leannan, and he had always been… He deserved it.”

“You think Phineas deserves to die?” Enjolras asked, almost hoping Jeanette wouldn’t answer.

“They destroyed hundreds of people’s homes. Their livelihoods. Who knows how many died. Not even to escape – they could have done that without setting the fire. They were making a point.”

Enjolras closed her eyes, a childhood threat coming to mind.

“If I can’t have it, no one can.”

~~~

The whole group woke up properly not long later, and the teenagers rejoined from their chores. Leannan and Jeanette, who felt well enough to walk a bit as long as she could lean on Enjolras, were shown briefly around the Longhouse. The common room stood at one end, while the rest of the building was made up of rooms connected by a long hallway – mostly bedrooms. At the opposite end was a cinderblock addition of a bathhouse, with toilet and shower stalls.

The next mission was breakfast. Their group left the Longhouse and walked towards another building, an age-old one that stood blocky and concrete – but as they walked around it on a path, the other side was revealed: a massive, convex curve of glass windows, looking westward over an open field of wildflowers cross-crossed with walking paths, and to beyond that, the southwest-side waterfall. Horseshoe Falls, Enjolras informed Leannan and Jeanette. The northwest one was American Falls. Weathered signage dubbed the building the Top of the Falls Restaurant.

They entered the building into a large room outfitted as another common space; couches, a pool table, a blinking arcade cabinet. The children dashed forward and up a flight of stairs, followed by most of the adults, while Enjolras lead Jeanette and Leannan to an elevator.

Upstairs was a massive room, dotted with columns, the whole west wall an arc of glass windows. The room was filled with tables and chairs, and at the center was a large rounded counter set up as a buffet. The fare was plentiful: scrambled eggs, cheeses, salad, summer fruits and berries such as strawberries and peaches, and rolls of bread. There were pitchers of water, milk, and fruit juice as well. Leannan and Jeanette followed the lead of everyone else, grabbing a plate at one end and filling it as they shuffled along.

The Iowans hovered about, watching Leannan as he stepped away from the buffet with a full plate – they all wanted to sit near him. Leannan balked a bit, looking around with uncertainty, so Enjolras took his elbow and guided him to a table by the windows.

Finally seated, the group settled into a comfortable chatter as they ate. The teenagers reintroduced themselves to Leannan, and he marveled at how they were only yea high when he last saw them. He met the three new children, Callum and Siobhan’s brood, ages five, seven, and nine. Peter and Rory started listing all the things and places they needed to show Leannan – the playground, the chickens, the goats, the different places to look at the waterfalls, the arcade cabinet.

Then Mohammad arrived, with the baby.

He stood awkwardly at the top of the stairs, one hand on Lena where she rested in her sling, desperately trying to catch Shannon and Enjolras’ eyes. They spotted him at the same time, and Shannon stood and clapped her hands.

“Okay, everyone! Let’s let Leannan have some peace and quiet for a bit, yeah? I know you all have chores to do.”

The teens started to argue that they certainly did not, but a quiet word from Clary had them gathering their empty plates and telling Leannan they’d see him later.

Soon it was just Shannon, Leannan, Jeanette, and Enjolras sitting at their table, and Mohammad slowly walked over.

Leannan turned as he heard someone approach, and Enjolras couldn’t quite read his expression. Stifled curiosity, maybe, or suspicion buried under polite neutrality.

“Hi, Leannan,” Mohammad offered a hand, “I’m Mohammad, I’ve heard so much about you.”

Leannan smiled pleasantly, shaking Mohammad’s hand.

“Nice to meet you.”

“I uh,” Mohammad smiled nervously, “I’m Shannon’s husband. And this is our little Lena. Say hi, Lena!”

He leaned down slightly so the baby could see Leannan, and she obediently flapped an arm.

“She’s named after you, actually,” Mohammad added.

Leannan’s smile was stiff as his eyes flicked from the baby, to Shannon, to Mohammad.

“You’re not an Iowan,” he said.

“No, I’m not,” Mohammad confirmed.

Leannan’s gaze circled the group again, faster this time.

“So how…?”

Enjolras could see the gears turning in his head. He’d been raised on the idea that Iowans weren’t human, that they could only procreate with each other – and now, he was trying to come up with an explanation for Lena that didn’t involve his sister being a cheater.

“Leannan,” Shannon reached across the table and took his hand, “They lied to us, in Iowa City. Father Ambrose lied to us. We’re not incompatible with humans. Because we’re not inhuman.”

“But then…” Leannan started, “But I…” he stopped, glancing back at Mohammad.

Enjolras stood, pushing her chair back.

“Leannan,” she said, “Let’s take a walk.”

~~~

The stone tiles of the observation point were damp with mist beneath their feet. Enjolras leaned against the sturdy metal railing, and Leannan did the same, watching her. The waterfall in front of them rumbled comfortingly. The lone ruin of a skyscraper across the river stood stark against the sky.

“Leannan,” Enjolras spoke for the first time since leaving the restaurant on the hill behind them, “Before they sold you, did they tell you that something was wrong with you. That something needed to be fixed, and you couldn’t ever tell anyone because it would ruin your value.”

Leannan was shaking his head before she even finished speaking.

“No, of course not,” he said, a little too quickly.

Enjolras sucked in a slow breath.

“I know they did. They got Owen, too. They weren’t fixing anything, Leannan, they performed something called a vasectomy. Do you know what that is?”

Leannan slowly shook his head.

“They sterilized you, Leannan,” Enjolras said gently, “You used to be able to have children, with anyone, human or Iowan, and they took that away from you.”

“That’s insane,” Leannan said, looking away from her out over the falls.

“Everyone younger than you and Owen – we rescued them before they could be sterilized, too,” Enjolras continued, “That’s how Shannon can have a baby with a non-Iowan. And, just think about it, Leannan,” she turned to face him, gesturing with her hands, “There are so few of you, how do you think they avoided inbreeding?”

“Our pairings were planned,” Leannan tried to argue, “God had a plan…”

“No, Leannan, Ambrose would let his priests…” Enjolras took a breath, unable to continue piling horrors upon Leannan. She changed course. “It’s true that you have a genetic mutation. Your blood is the color that it is, and you really are immune to most diseases and infections. But that doesn’t make you inhuman. The fallen angel is made up. The pain resilience is made up. You’re just as human as I am, Leannan. You were lied to. Not even that thing you wear around your neck is real, it’s the company’s logo, not a religious symbol.”

Leannan instinctively grabbed the gold pendant. A tiny five-pointed star with feathered wings.

“Company?” he echoed.

“ComLock Logistics,” Enjolras said, “They were trying to create supersoldiers, before the Fall. They figured out how to sequence resistance to disease, but nothing else – and decided they could make money a different way. When they saw the tide of religion moving across the continent, they adapted. Put on a show. The ‘nuns’ and ‘priests’ training you? ‘Father’ Ambrose? I doubt any of them truly believed in God. They were there to make a profit, and they did. They lived in unbelievable luxury.”

Leannan stared silently at the rushing water. Enjolras lifted a hand, about to touch his shoulder, but dropped it.

“I’ll just let you… think, for a while, okay?” She tilted her head, trying to catch his gaze. “Meet me back at the Longhouse common room when you’re ready?”

Leannan didn’t look at her.

“Okay.”

~~~

The roar of the falls was helpful. It drowned out Leannan’s thoughts – or at least made them slow down. Because he knew he needed to think through it, whether he liked it or not.

Everything Enjolras had said prior to this had turned out to be true. If she was right, it would explain Lena. It would explain his mysterious defect, the secret surgery.

But it would destroy so, so much more.

Iowans were made to do incredible things, things that humans shouldn’t. It would be horrifying for a human to be owned, to be used for sex their whole adult life. It would be cruel. Humans weren’t made to withstand that.

But if Iowans were human too, then…

Leannan pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, the rush of blood in his ears joining the thunder of the falls. A new thought crept in.

He’d always suspected he didn’t have the pain tolerance he was supposed to.

Everything hurt so much.

Everything had been so difficult.

He’d tried so hard, under the assumption that he had been made for this life. Under the assumption that he had been made to be hurt, to be fucked, to be owned.

If that assumption was wrong, then all of it had been wrong.

He had been wronged.

Hot tears welled up under his hands.

He’d always found comfort in the idea that he was a divine, holy being. All the dirty things done to him could never take that away, could never tarnish his spirit. But if he was human, that divinity was fake. Forged. If he was human, surely his spirit was in dirty shreds at this point.

None of this would have happened if he had just found a kind master and stayed with them.

(But if he had been human the whole time, that wouldn’t have been right either.)

He dropped to his knees with a sob, pressing his forehead to the metal bars of the railing.

“Is this real?” he asked tearfully, “Is she right?”

The angel that was Horseshoe Falls didn’t answer.

~~~

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Taglist: @angst-after-dark, @sunshiline-writes, @flowersarefreetherapy, @thecyrulik

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[aletterinthenameofsanity]

driving out into the sun (not gonna go down with my hometown in a tornado) (Supernatural finale fix-it)

Destiel. Supernatural finale fix-it. Crossposted on ao3. Title is from “I Know The End” by Phoebe Bridgers.

Fuck this.

Fuck no happy endings. Fuck dying without a cause. Fuck letting the Empty steal away the love of his life and Heaven stealing away the dreams that Dean has only let himself believe in since he met an angel and finally began to peel away the layers of self-doubt and self-sabotage that his father wrapped him in since before he could remember.

Dean's not a good man. He'd never pretend otherwise. He doesn't think he's capable of it, after everything he was made into by his father, after everything he's been, after everything he's done.

But he's okay with that. Good men go to heaven. Great men get remembered.

Men like him- broken, abused, ruined, dead, undead, alive, breathing, surviving men- get their own fate. They don't have heaven or hell. They have earth and all it has to give them.

And for the first time in Dean's life, he's not looking at the road. At least, not as his father did. Not as Dean did, for over twenty years.

The road is not heaven. The road is not the hunt. The road is not endless nights alone or hooking up with strangers, facing down death as everyone Dean has ever cared about or loved receives a tragic ending.

The road is just...there. A path. A choice. A possibility.

A fate that Dean gets to choose for himself.

And some parts of the road he still wants. He was named after Dean Moriarty, after all. The road is a part of his identity. Baby carries his soul- what's left of it- everywhere he goes.

But there are other parts of his identity. Bobby. Jody. Claire. Jack. Sam. Cas.

Cas.

If you had asked Dean twelve years ago (or dozens, or hundreds, or thousands, or whatever fucked up amount of time has truly passed in between countless deaths and trips to other dimensions and heaven and hell and possession and time and space and survival) what he thought he'd be doing in 2020, he probably wouldn't have said scooping up his brother and almost sister-in-law and his adopted son and asking said adopted son to carve them a way into the Empty. He can't find it in himself to care. His previous self needs to grow up and realize that cynicism and pessimism doesn't equal maturity. John Winchester was a shitty role model.

Cas is sitting on the ground, head in his knees, so impossibly, horribly still when they arrive, but his head snaps up the moment that Jack's sneaker hits the ground in the Empty. His blue eyes are wide and incredulous as Jack runs forward and engulfs his father in a hug. Cas, shellshocked, wraps his arms around Jack's shoulders in turn and squeezes tight, tucking Jack's head under his chin and closing his eyes, expression trembling as he reunites with his son.

Dean gives them a few minutes to reunite before speaking up. "So, Cas," He says, and he's trying to be gruff, trying not to overwhelm Cas, but his eyes are burning with tears and he's done trying to pretend like he doesn't care. Chuck's gone. Jack's god. Cas loves him like he loves Cas. "Glad to see you again." It's a pitiful greeting, considering everything that sits between them, but Dean can roll with it.

Cas' eyes snap open and he looks at him over Jack's shoulder. Swallows, adam's apple bobbing. Opens his mouth and then closes it. "You all came," he eventually says, and it somehow feels more question than statement.

Sam nods. "'Course we did. No leaving a brother behind."

Jack nods, too, hair scratching Cas' chin, but he doesn't mind, not if his fragile smile is any indication. "No use becoming God if I couldn't rescue you, Dad."

Cas rears back, eyes going wide. "You did what, Jack?"

Jack beams and holds out his hands. A glowing orb rises from his right palm before splitting itself into five smaller orbs that dance between his fingers, bright as his smile when someone hands him nougat. "I became God. Chuck was doing a bad job and you were a bit waylaid, so I took his place. And before you worry, Dean and Sam and Eileen and Rowena and Charlie and Anna and Bobby and Kevin and Adam and everyone else all agreed to help me out, give me advice and taking on some of the responsibility when needed." If possible, Jack's smile only grows brighter as he snaps his fingers, vanishing the orbs as he says: "The four of us can still make it to Kansas for Christmas if we want."

Cas' jaw drops. He knows as well as they do that most of those names are dead. "What do you mean...?"

"Turns out you can do a lot when you're God," Eileen signs, smile soft. "Including making one boy very, very happy by making him understand that he is very, very loved."

"And he's not the only one," Dean says, stepping forward. Cas' blue eyes focus on him, his expression almost terrifyingly tentative with hope. "You left before I could answer your question."

Cas' brow furrows in that adorable confusion of his. Dean's looking forward to learning as many ways as possible to soothe that wrinkle away- starting with kiss. "I don't remember asking a question."

"Then let me tell you something, Castiel," Dean says, and takes one last step forward and takes Cas' hand in his. "I'm not good with words, but you know that. You know me. And you love me. And I love you too. So if you don't mind, then...?"

If you had asked Dean twelve years ago how he would experience the first time he saw Castiel kiss someone, he probably would have laughed. Cas, kissing someone? Does he even know how to do that?

He definitely wouldn't have guessed that it would involve Cas leaning forward, grabbing the back of Dean's neck with a surprisingly soft yet strong palm, and pulling him in for a kiss. Dean goes gladly, savoring Cas' mouth on his, those lips that are shockingly warm for the unending, maddening neutrality of the Empty.

But life is full of surprises, and Dean has learned over the past few years that as long as said surprises don't involve monsters, demons, or an all-mighty writer who calls himself Chuck, he actually does enjoy a surprise or two.

After all, that's how he got the angel in front of him, isn't it?

Cas pulls back with a smile and a squeeze of their conjoined hands, and Dean can't help but mirror Cas' smile, lovely and loving and finally, wonderfully, his.

They get back into Baby to leave this wretched place. Sam, Eileen, and Jack cram into the backseat while Cas pulls shotgun, as he's meant to. Dean's not letting anyone take that from him ever again: him and Cas in the front seat, heading off on an adventure, details to be determined by them, for them.

"Where am I taking us?" Jack pipes up from the backseat, and Dean offers out his right hand across the console to Cas, who gazes at it in wonder for a second- thankfully no longer, as it probably would have started to feel a bit weird- before taking it in his with a squeeze.

"Where do you want, Cas?" Dean asks, voice as gentle as he can make it. He's not good at gentle, not good at tender, but he's willing to learn. He's willing to try. For Cas, for his family, for everyone who loved him and didn't hurt him.

Cas smiles at him, and this time, it isn't cautious. It isn't tentative. It is brilliant and unrestrained, just as Cas is meant to be. "Wherever you want, Jack."

Sam lets out a whoop from the back and Dean glances in the mirror to see his brother lean over and wrap a brotherly arm around Jack's shoulder as he gives Eileen a peck on the cheek. Eileen rolls her eyes but captures his lips for a quick kiss in return.

Dean pulls his and Cas' conjoined hands up far enough to flick on the radio. Dean grins as a trusty classic begins to pour from the radio, the familiar beat of "Carry On, My Wayward Son" filling the car with its joyous, wonderful sound.

The world isn't ending. Not anymore. Not for a very, very fucking long time.

He and Cas are finally free. They are going on the road. They are making their own world. They are making their own choices.

Dean refuses to accept anything less. They all- he, Cas, Sam, Jack, Eileen, everyone who they loved and lost- deserve, if not to be happy, then to at least heal and be allowed to make their own story outside of Chuck's.

Sam can go stay on the hunt or finally go finish his law degree. Charlie can get a girlfriend and take her to Comic-Con without fear of a monster attack. Jody and her wife can attend all of the science conventions and gun ranges with their girls as their hearts can possibly desire. Rowena can be Queen of Hell. Kevin Tran can reunite with his mother and go to college. Anna can try out truly being a human again. Adam can figure out what's going on with him and Michael. Bobby can run the salvage yard and hand out wisdom to all of the kids running around, from Jack to Kevin to Claire to all of the rest of Jody's girls.

Or not. Some of them might throw away their old paths for new ones. Maybe Bobby will start a restaurant. Maybe Anna will become an astronaut. Maybe Adam will start a hot sauce company. Maybe Jack, Claire, and Kevin will create a band. Maybe Charlie might start dating Rowena. Who knows and who cares? It's not Dean's place to decide.

All that matters to him is what he and Cas decide to do next- and that everyone's home for the holidays, so they can finally have the big, chaotic, messy, loud family dinner that will probably drive everyone insane. It's going to be horrible and wild and absolutely wonderful.

By God- or, rather, by Jack- Dean can't wait.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/38980752