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auspicioustidings · 10 months

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Sacrosanct

Summary: Following on from the events of Savage, Simon steals you back.

Words: 3.5k

CW: Smut, Non-con

Please go back and read the blurb from Savage. The same rules apply here, this is a rape fantasy. If that is not your thing do not read it.

It had been a month since you had been taken over the border and you were still sore in places. MacTavish… Johnny. Johnny had been gentle with you as soon as you crossed into his homeland. It was like he was a different person, the Savage gone and replaced by some romantic hero.

He had bedded you again, but it was with none of the primal brutality he had taken you with that first night. No, he remained true to his word and treated you like a princess. You were fucked slowly and tenderly into furs and downy pillows. He lapped sweetly between your legs while one of his men smiled and fed you bites of food. You recognised him as one from that night, the one whose hand print was almost fully faded from your thigh, but like Johnny his men too were different now.

It was like you had fallen into a dream. Sometimes you thought perhaps you had crossed into the fae realm, that this was some form of magic. They dressed you in soft but simple fabric in the MacTavish clan colours and it took your breath away any time you thought on it. He was marking you as his, but not how you had expected. This was not how you would mark a conquest or a slave, this was how you would mark family, how you would mark wife.

It was dizzying, his kindness. He bathed you and massaged at your sore muscles. He laughed fondly when you smiled at the puppy he brought into your room. He whispered to you in the middle of the night about names for babies with his finger tracing patterns on your belly.

You began to think of him as a different man entirely to the one from that night. There was the Savage and then there was just Johnny. And that was terrifying in its own way, because how could you ever know if the former would come back?

But still, some part of you started to slip into contentment. The horror of what had happened was smothered with sweetness and gentility until it faded away. You didn't think about escaping as you had the first week. There was never any attempt of course, you were not stupid enough to think you could manage it, but you had often daydreamed about it.

It must have been some sort of divine wrath for your sins that it was only when you had settled into some form of comfortable that someone far scarier than the Savage came for you in the dead of night while Johnny was away.

You woke to a weight on top of you, at first thinking it must be Johnny straddling you in the bed. But when you opened your eyes there was a bright white skull glaring down at you in the gloom. You wanted to scream, but you were scared stiff and even if you had been able to produce a sound his gloved hand had roughly settled over your mouth.

“Hello sweetheart, don't you look cosy in MacTavish's bed.”

Your eyes widened. English, he was English. And while the words were non-threatening, his tone was violent. You felt like your blood had turned to ice under this creature. He snarled at you and got into your face, eyes wild and angry.

“You scream and I'll rip you open, understand?”

You could only nod through the tears and then remain quiet when his hand left your mouth. Even without the warning you didn’t think you would have been able to scream through the fear. You knew with a horrible certainty that this man really would tear you apart if you crossed him.

“Go back to sleep bitch.”

You didn't even see the pommel of his danger coming as he clocked you in the temple and you blacked out.

–

Your head felt fuzzy when you came to, like your brain was waterlogged. It took a full minute before you properly got consciousness back, enough that you could feel that your wrists were bound around something above you making your shoulders ache. Someone had dressed you in a fine gown, the kind you would have expected to be wearing after your marriage to gatherings of nobility. There was a dim sort of throb somewhere in your lower half that you couldn’t quite pinpoint.

You blinked in the dim light of the chamber you were in. A bedchamber. A regal one. There was a fireplace glowing with embers that was providing some light to see the furnishings. You hazily looked up to figure out where your arms were bound to find they were tired around the poster of a large, plush bed. Even the floor was soft beneath you, an ornate rug cushioning you.

It was all quite beautiful, like something out of your silly girl hood dreams. You tried to calm your heart, perhaps the rough treatment by the man with the skull mask was not indicative of whatever treatment you would face here. After all he had been English, had maybe taken you back across the border. Home you reminded yourself, even if something in you ached to think it. Even if some pathetic little part of you had started to think of Johnny as home even after what he did to you.

You caught movement from the corner of your eye and startled. The skull masked man was sitting in the corner, watching you. It knocked any coherent thought from your mind when he took off the mask and you came face to face with your fiance. He looked far more severe in real life than in his portrait. The artist had lessened the two large scars on his face, had made his eyes softer. When he stood it was staggering how large he was, already incredibly tall but from on the floor seeming monstrous. You quickly put your eyes to the floor, bowing your head with as much respect as you could.

“Lord Riley. I-” you said, trying to think of anything to explain the past month to him and coming up short when he crossed the room and drew his sword, putting the flat of the blade under your chin to force your head to tilt up.

“Did you know that the man you let fuck you flew the lion rampant when he was last slaughtering my men? A symbol of my country and he thinks to steal it.”

You could not move, could barely breathe without the sharp tip of the sword cutting your throat. You thought you might wind up drooling to avoid swallowing, knowing that it would almost certainly draw blood. You could only look at him as he spoke and looked down at you in disgust.

“Lionesses will try and protect their unborn cubs by letting themselves be mounted by any male in the vicinity to confuse paternity. Reckon if I let you loose you'd go through my soldiers like you went through those Scottish bastards wouldn't you? Let them all spill inside you.”

The tears were spilling down your cheeks as humiliation burned through you. He was wrong, Johnny's men hadn't spilled inside you, but the reality of what had happened seemed worse. They had spilled between your legs to make it more pleasant when their leader took you in the dirt. You wanted to defend yourself, to appeal to him, but he pressed the blade forward and your head met the bed with nowhere to go. The sting was horrible as you felt a trickle of blood run down the column of your throat.

“I'll not have a Scottish bastard running around my halls. My seed is more potent than his could ever hope to be, I'm going to flood his filthy cum out of you.”

You tried to bite out a plea when he moved the blade a hair back, enough that you could at least attempt to explain yourself if you spoke as softly as you could trying not to let your throat move.

“Please I didn’t- he- I tried to fight,” you said, fighting the sob that would cause more damage to your neck.

He smiled. He smiled and it was the smile of something terrifying, something that had caught you in its snare.

“You thanked him. He took what was mine and you thanked him for it, isn’t that right sweetheart?”

You felt a flood of fear. Johnny must have released at least one of the English soldiers who had seen what had been done to you. Had seen you drooling and throwing yourself back on to the enemies cock and crying thank yous to him. And had reported every single second of it back to the man above you, your intended husband. You had been caught fully in a lie, because you hadn’t fought, not really. Fear had you out of your mind at the time. It was half way to making you feel out of your mind now. He laughed darkly.

“Is that the expression you wore for him?”

You did sob then and it set off a chain reaction of the sharp of the blade nicking you which caused you to sob harder which did the same again. He looked fascinated with the blood dribbling down your skin, but his reactions were fast. When you got too overwhelmed and tried to look away, a movement that would have wound up slitting your own throat, he threw the blade to the side. The clatter of the metal made you flinch.

One if his hands was on you then, grabbing your upper arm in a bruising grip to drag you to your feet, the twist of your spine from your hands being bound to the bedpost painful. Once you were on your feet he moved the hand to your hair, pushing until you were hugging the post, face crushed against it in a way you were sure would leave indents of the intricate pattern on the woodwork.

His other hand went to bunching up your skirts, the coolness on bare skin making you realise with a sickening clarity that you had been put in a dress but with no undergarments.

“Fucking hell, not only Scottish animals you get wet for is it?” he hissed, as you felt his gloved fingers swipe through your folds.

He brought his hand around then to skirt up your throat and then shoved the gloves fingers in your mouth, leather and blood and arousal swirling in your tongue and making you choke with how aggressively they made a home between your teeth. You felt like an animal having their mouth examined with how he bullied his fingers around inside, seemingly trying to make sure you could taste yourself. He ripped them out and grabbed your face between his thumb and pointer finger, twisted it around to look at him behind you.

“Go ahead, kiss your fiancé like you'd kiss that fucking Savage you've been bedding.”

Oh he scared you well and truly now with how he looked at you. There was the glimmer of a Sacrosanct madness about him, the holy surety that he would claim you body and soul from John MacTavish. You trembled before this force of divine fury, trying to quell it by pushing yourself to kiss him.

For a moment in time he was the fiancé you had dreamt of. He let you press your lips to his and slowly lapped his tongue at your bottom lip for entrance, languid in his exploration once you permitted it. It struck you straight to your core when you realised he was licking the inside of your mouth to taste what he had forced there with his fingers, the clench of your cunt at the thought a humiliation. When his mouth left yours it was messy, saliva left on your swollen lips. He wrapped his hand around your throat, spreading the blood and seeming fascinated by it before he took the now blood smeared hand and slapped you so hard your ears were ringing. You would have crumpled to the floor if he did not have a leg planted between yours to keep your forced upright.

“My Lord please, I-I-” you stuttered, not able to find any fight amongst the freeze when he manhandled you back around to be clinging to the bedpost, grabbing your hips and wrenching them back so you were bent over with him behind you.

“You'll get your proper treatment as my Lady after sweetheart, right now you need to learn your fucking place.”

Your skirts were fully flipped over your back, a rough palm keeping you bend fully at the waist so the fabric could drape and leave you exposed to him. You hated knowing he could see you were leaking between your legs, your body at odds with your mind. It was a sickly sweet sort of humiliating. You choked a shocked sob when with no ceremony his cock was out and shoved inside you.

“Too full, t-too fast. Please- unf- please take it out!” you screamed, feeling like he was in your stomach.

He only tsked, unmoved entirely by how you squeezed your eyes shut and tried to shift away, not able to with his hands holding you still.

“Don't know what I expected, of course your traitor little cunt wouldn't be tight enough anymore. What was it he said? If you didn't keep your eyes open…”

You were confused about what he meant until he brutally ripped out of you and the hard head of him was rubbing at your arse, catching on the puckered hole.

“Please please no I'll tear! My Lord, Lord Riley please I didn't mean it” you babbled, trying to claw into the bedpost to pull away but only being rewarded with such a sharp smack to your arse that you knew his handprint would be there for days.

“Y-you can't!” you screeched as he started to push inside you.

The press of him against your hole, the pop as his head finally pushed through the tight ring of muscle, it made your body try to fight against a danger it didn't know what to do with. You couldn't breathe, as if you were underwater and your brain would not allow you to gulp in a breath because it knew it would be lethal.

You could barely choke in any oxygen at all as he started moving your hips back and forward on him, rocking his hot, hard cock more and more into your arse each time. He would break you surely, he would rip you in half. You could only make choked noises as you were stuffed more and more full. He smacked your arse again at that.

“Quit your bitching whore or next time I won't even do you the courtesy of having my men prep you. Find your fucking manners, say thank you” he said, an arrogant dominance rolling off if him in waves as he gave one particularly cruel thrust that had you crying out a thank you to please him.

“Manners my Lady” he snarled, punctuating his point with another spank that landed directly where you were already tender.

“T-thank you my Lord.”

“There she is, was that so difficult?” he asked with a horrid sweetness, thrusting hard into you again. “Lost all of your grace with that animal, don't worry, I'll fuck it back into you.”

The next thrust he bottomed out with a groan, holding still for a few breaths. It gave you time to try and adjust but it was an impossible task. He was too big, you were too tight, the stretch was too impossible. You were vaguely thankful that the ache you had felt waking up must have been because someone had already been playing with your arse. There was some slide, it wasn't so dry that you were being torn apart but it felt like a close thing. He leaned over you, his huge torso draped over yours. You could feel his sweaty face plastered to yours, the heat of his breath. He only said one word before he straightened back up, an innocent little word. But it terrified you none the less.

“Breathe.”

It was the only warning you got before he pulled out and slammed fully back into you. You felt far more brutalised as he drilled into you slow but incredibly hard in this plush room with the warm glowing embers of a fire and in a beautiful gown than you had being fucked in the dirt in the cold darkness in only your torn chemise.

His pace was torture, not fast enough to keep the pain a consistent thing you could anticipate, not slow enough to allow your insides to adjust to his impossible size. Your brain went fuzzy with every hard and deep piston of his hips. That one word was something you clung to like a prayer. Breathe. He pulled out to the tip. Breathe. He slammed back in all the way to the root. Breathe. He held there and your muscles fluttered around him, seemingly confused as to whether this was an intrusion or welcomed now that his own slick and whatever they had prepared you with while you were knocked out was mixed and making the slide smoother, making each rough thrust squelch loudly. Breathe. The drag of him slowly pulling back out made your cunt clench so hard it was nauseating. Breathe.

You could never quite fully catch your breath, always just on the edge of feeling like you were suffocating. You suddenly wished he would at least talk to you. Johnny was never able to stop, always saying something filthy in your ear so you could at least focus on that and not hear your own desperate panting, the sticky snap of sweaty skin on sweaty skin. It was painful, a pain that dangled pleasure in front of you, always just out of reach. You were chasing it, pushing back in the hopes that the heavy weight of him would bump against your clit. It only ever served to add the sharp smack of hand on flesh to the noises.

He did not provide any warning before he sped up, suddenly rutting into you with none of the control he had kept until now. You forgot that word, forgot everything in favour of biting down on the wood of the bedpost to stop from screaming your throat raw.

And then you saw stars as his throbbing cock was pulled out of your arse and in your cunt finally instead, deep. He pushed your hips until you were standing straight, his cock spearing up into you deeper than you thought possible. He brought a hand round to play roughly with your clit.

“Milk me.”

There was no room for refusal as you came, bearing down on him hard. The scalding heat of his seed spilling into you felt like some twisted form of divine justice for what you had done, how you had begun to feel about the Savage. There was so much of it, a biblical flood to wipe away the stain he saw left in you. His chest was plastered to your back, his hot breath puffing over the side of your hair.

“Good girl. Knew a proper English lady was still in there didn't I? Just had to exorcise the whore MacTavish put inside you.”

Your head was so fuzzy. Your body throbbed with pain and the flush of a devastating orgasm. You whimpered pathetically when he eventually pulled out, fingering the leaking cum gently back into your oversensitive pussy.

“I'll get a plug for you, you'd like that hm? Keep my seed nice and safe inside your little cunt.”

You drifted then, drifted to somewhere else. You didn't know that you nodded, that you were pliant and soft for him as he undressed you fully and took you to a bath. It was all like there was a pleasantly weighted fog over your senses as he fed you, rubbed oils into you, dressed you for bed and climbed in behind you like a lover. Like Johnny.

“Sir, we've tried. It's like she wisnae ever here tae begin with. Nae trace of whoever took her. Whoever it is, they're a ghost.”

Johnny barked out a bitter, manic sort of laugh.

“A ghost aye? Fucking Riley.”

“Garrick and Price were spotted naw far frae the border just this morn, if it was him that took her then he's naw far.”

“Cannae imagine so, why take himself a pretty prize unless he intends tae dangle it in front of me.”

“Orders sir?”

“Get me information. Going tae take her back obviously. Fuck the Scottish back in tae her if she's lost her way.”

And this time he'd made sure it fucking stuck even if he had to carve his fucking name into your skin to prove who you belonged to.

#mhairiwrites #cod au #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #you asked for a sequel so you will in fact take it and thank me <3

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astrobiscuits · 1 year

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Astro observations part 8

[LONG EDITION] - taken from my phone's notes (also, i was too lazy to edit it so here's a nice chunk of info)

🍂 Sun conjunct Saturn individuals inherit mindsets from the father, grandparents or great-grandparents. They might never fully act like their Sun sign (aka "shine"), since they've been conditioned from a young age to listen to parents, teachers, and later on bosses. They are the type to never divorce, no matter how toxic their marriage is. If these peeps deal well with their Saturn Return, they might become "THE BOSS" (aka the person everyone looks up to due to how accomplished, disciplined and rich they are, they've literally got their shit together and deserve a round of applause, "it wasn't easy to get to the top, but it was worth it" - you might hear them say this). They are also more prone to ingrain stoic principles in their lifestyle

🍂 Mars square Neptune gives off major cult leader vibes. They're the type to fool you with false promises until you sign up for their "camp" but then you realize it's actually an evil cult where all they wanna do is put you to work (and maybe later even kill you lol). These individuals become very scary when angry (you don't wanna see them angry, trust me). If they ever commit suicide, it'll be by drowning, alcohol or drugs

🍂 Mars trine Neptune is one of the best aspects for those who make a living off their talents. The talent depends on the element the trine is in:

If it's in Earth signs - ideal for those who work in the "money handling sector" in advertising, becoming an entrepeneur, holistic care (if Virgo is involved), cooks, those who work in interior design, seamstresses, embroidery/lace makers, models, event planners If it's in Air signs - ideal for those who work in sales (their negotiation skills are ✨chef's kiss👌🏻✨), becoming a spiritual/religious teacher or an art/music/any other creative pursuit teacher (lmao, i can't even speak💀💀), writers, musicians, magicians and astrologers (for the last two - if Aquarius is involved) If it's in Fire signs - ideal for dancers, theater/movie actors, hairstylists, circus performers, photographers (only if Leo is involved) If it's in Water signs - ideal for make-up artists, painters, tarot readers

🍂 Moon sextile Uranus individuals have got the ability to create a positive parasocial relationship with their followers. Since these people often use their devices to validate their emotions, i wouldn't be surprised if most of y'all also have atleast one active profile where you post quite frequently

PRO TIP: Whenever Transit Jupiter is trining/conjuncting your Natal Uranus (to a less extent also the sextile), you'll get a sudden boost in your followers count

🍂 This is a theory of mine that i've come up with and i'd love to hear your thoughts on it. When it comes to intergenerational astrology, i do believe that we inherit all of our personal planets placements from our parents and ancestors. But then you might say "But i don't act like my mother at all! This is bullshit!". I'm not saying we're all carbon copies of our family members. What makes us unique and distinguishes us from our parents and grandparents (or even great-grandparents) are the way the planets aspect each other in our birth charts and the planetary configurations between them. Basically we start from the same ground, but we all use our traits differently, whether for the better or the worst expression of them. Let's not forget that we also tend to go through different life experiences than our parents and grandparents; we might be blessed with different opportunities that might enhance our best traits and help us achieve what our ancestors always wanted to but weren't able to

Hope you enjoyed today's post, loves!💗💗💗 I've been wanting to post for a while now but my inspiration has been wandering alone in the Sahara Desert I can't promise that i'll start posting again more frequently (the new uni year is starting soon for me + i enrolled in a local astrology school 2 weeks ago🥳🥳 ya girl can't wait to officially become an astrologer) but my inbox will be open again for further questions! I must also thank you for helping me hit 500 followers!!! I'm probably gonna do another ask game once i hit 600 followers, as i'm too busy right now. As always, don't forget to drink water and take care of yourselves! Hope to see you soon! ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

#astro #astro community #astro placements #astrology #astro observations #astro posts #astro notes #astrology notes #astro blog #astroblr #astrology community #astrology tumblr #sun conjunct saturn #mars square neptune #mars trine neptune #moon sextile uranus #intergenerational astrology

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oliver-quick-ens-my-pulse · 2 years

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Sign of the Times

Ominis Gaunt x Reader

Summary - Anon request for "ominis family kidnaps you and tortures u cause idk why maybe bc ur muggleborn or something"

Word Count - 2,130

Warnings - angst, violence

A/N - maybe room here for a more comforting type part 2? thoughts?

For Ominis, Hogwarts had been much more eventful than he had wished it to be. He thought it could help him escape from home, but with everything that had happened 5th year he didn't think it could possibly get worse.

The bright side was that it was also somehow the best year for him because he met you. He hadn't been looking for any kind of new relationship, but you fell right into his lap.

A lot of students avoided him altogether either because of his lineage or his blindness, but not you. You paraded in late to the sorting ceremony, knocked Sebastian on his ass although you were really just on your first year, then walked right up to him and introduced yourself.

You did everything you could to guide Sebastian the right way and when he wouldn't listen you would be there for Ominis. He would make himself sick with worry when Sebastian would lie to the both of you and go off to doomed quests.

His favorite thing was when you would nestle up with him and read muggle stories. He always got a laugh out of the more innocent fairytales for children with their fantasies of how magic worked. You were able to make him feel better and learn new things all at once.

It was year 6 when things came to fruition between the pair of you. Ominis was alone in the Undercroft again. He was sad beyond belief about the whole situation with the Sallows. He had come to realize he cared for you deeply, he was pretty sure he loved you, but you couldn't replace Sebastian. Some days it felt too much for him to bear, at least too much to do it alone.

You found him slumped against a wall, silent tears on his face. You could tell it was bad because he didn't even acknowledge that you had shown up. You sat down with your legs crisscrossed in front of him, wrapping your arms around his drawn up knees to rest your head.

For a few moments you just sat in silence together, Ominis treasured that you gave him moments like this; moments to not be alone, but to steal just a few more moments of peace before he had to face reality.

You spoke up first to take the burden off of him, "Ominis, I know no matter what I am to you, I'll never be any of them. I didn't grow up with you and have years to make innocent memories."

He traced patterns over the back of your hand as you continued, "I want to start, though. I want to put as much of these things behind us as we can. I'm happy to be your rock whenever you need, however often you need to talk about these things, but I do want to help you enjoy life again. I promise I won't ever leave you."

You were smiling at him softly with adoration, wishing nothing more than to erase all the bad things he'd endured in such a short time. He kept his eyes on you, deep in thought for several moments before slowly deciding to close the gap between the two of you, to finally cross that line.

He found your cheek with his palm and drew you close, pressing soft lips to yours, willing you to understand all the things he didn't have words for. He pulled away enough to speak, leaning his forward against yours and his voice was barely a whisper, "You really promise?"

Now, in your 7th year, nearing the end of your education, you both were looking forward to so much. Neither of you could wait to taste the freedom of making a home where nobody could find you, using magic as much or as little as you wanted, even going out into the muggle world because why not?

You met up during a free period in the court yard, enjoying the scents of Spring. He sat pressed into your side, never overly affection in public, but always being sure to touch you in some way.

"Which class are you going to miss skipping the most, Y/N?" You gave him a playful whack, shaking your head as he grinned at you.

"Thank you very much, I have been to all of my classes this year except for when I've been sick," you huffed, pretending to be angry.

"Besides, I've been keeping myself busy and surrounded to avoid any run-ins with your absolutely insane family."

Ominis felt a pit in his stomach at your words. He couldn't wait to run away with you, but for now you were just a sitting duck to their threats. He assumed other families must have told his, which he thought was ridiculous that any of them cared enough. He assumed their lives were just too boring.

His family had threatened Ominis with the idea of hurting you, torturing you as they loved to do with anyone who wasn't a pureblood. He stood his ground with them, though. He made it clear that if they dared to do anything, he would personally ensure consequences. It was one of the reasons he worked as hard as he did to be a good wizard; he had to protect you.

"I really think for now their threats are empty," he lied, "they just want me to be afraid and miserable and if they think I am that's really enough for them." He didn't want you to worry or know how much he kept an eye on you in secret.

You shuffled to grab your bag, sighing in annoyance before placing a chaste kiss on his lips, "Well, even if they aren't just promise you'll forgive me for whatever I have to do to them?"

You winked although he couldn't see it as you pushed back his hair. He grabbed your hips to pull you closer, nearly knocking you over before murmuring, "Maybe I can find a way to reward you instead?"

You playfully slapped his hands away before running off, "Ominis. I have a class that I don't attend to go to!"

He smiled in spite of himself as you left before a worried look came over his features. Every day you remained at Hogwarts felt like a day in a jail cell for Ominis.

You were on your way to Advanced Divination, guard down thinking about how cute Ominis was when he let himself open up to being silly. Then suddenly your lights were just out. Everything was dark for what seemed like seconds and then you came to at some place you didn't recognize.

You found yourself in a what seemed to be a cave. It wasn't well lit, but there were candles around. As you sat up from the cool floor, scanning the room with caution, you saw faces you didn't recognize. You didn't need to in order to understand what was going on. It was the Gaunts.

You felt quickly for your wand just to realize it was no longer on your person. You couldn't keep your mouth shut as you scanned over them; Mr. and Mrs. Gaunt at a makeshift table as if preparing to watch a show while Marvolo roused from his seat upon seeing you awake.

"So you're cowards? I'm so much lesser than you and yet I can't have my wand to prove otherwise?" You stood up tall, adrenaline pumping as you were determined to not show them weakness.

Marvolo practically snarled at you as his parents watched in amusement, "It would be a pitiful sight as much as it would be a disgrace," he spat at you as he walked closer.

You threw your hands in the air, slightly amused when all 3 of them flinched as they were aware you had this ancient magic nobody really knew about, "Well, that's fine. I know you can't kill me, there would be too many repercussions that I daresay you lot can't afford. Ominis and I will be long gone for you to never worry about again in a few months so give me your worst."

You swallowed thickly upon finishing your sentence, knowing you were stalling what was to come your way. All you could hope was that Ominis noticed you were gone quickly enough to keep your sanity.

The word crucio flew threw the air so fast that you could at least pretend you didn't hear it. The minute the sparks hit you a scream left your mouth, you fell to your knees. You could hear your heartbeat and your blood rushing through your veins, it all felt like it was boiling.

You clutched helpless at your face, your arms, any of your exposed skin, clawing at it as if tearing it of would make the pain go away. Every movement, every breath, every ounce of your existence was filled with searing agony. As you wriggled and clench your fingernails against the cave floors you just kept the shade of Ominis' eyes in your mind.

You couldn't think to form thoughts or daydreams, you couldn't commit to thinking about him and your future together, but you could remember the cloudy blue eyes that got you through the worst days of your life you'd yet to experience. And you just hoped the could get you threw this one too.

The Gaunts taunted you with words you couldn't even understand as Marvolo flung you about, every once of rage at your insults pouring into the spell.

Suddenly, things seemed a little bit quieter. Your body felt like every bone had snapped, like you had been forced to run a mile per second for hours, but you could hear your own sobs and labored breathing. You were still in the throes of pain and panic, but nothing was intensifying any longer.

You couldn't process your surroundings as Ominis lifted you carefully from the floor, murmuring your name hoping that any time would be the time you answer him back.

He had run into Garreth in the lavatory where he was immediately confused to be asked why you didn't make it; after you had bragged about your attendance all year.

Ominis rushed passed him, his wand ready to guide him wherever you were with the aid of a charmed locket he had given you. As badly as he wanted to rush to you, he barged into headmistress Weasley's office to tell her what was going. He knew where you were, what was happening, and he trusted her from your relationship to know she would spring into action when headmaster Black wouldn't.

He stormed in with a fury, knowing help would be on his tail. He disarmed his brother and flung them all to the floor. None of them had every seen violence from him, that hellfire in his eyes. They were really too curious to look away as several aurors filled the cavern, manhandling magic restraints onto them.

Ominis felt ready to pass out himself as he heard your continued whimpers and understood much too well what you were going through. He was scared out of his mind that you wouldn't come back to him.

Things went dark again for you, but it wasn't just black this time. You could hear Ominis' soothing voice reading to you. You could see him running his fingers over the braille pages, eyes closed as he read a story the two of you often joked about.

As your eyelids fluttered, you reached up a hand to rub them and found that Ominis really was there. He heard your movement and was immediately kneeling by your side on the sofa.

Your hand drooped across your face, you regretted the movement the second you had made it, "Son of a -"

"I know," he interrupted. He rested a hand carefully over yours, "I unfortunately do know."

He sounded so sad. As memories of everything that had happened flooded you all at once you let out a painful breath, "Ominis. It's not your fault."

You lulled your head to look at him, wishing you could move enough to embrace him. "I was only able to take it by having you to live for."

"It only happened to you because you have me." His voice was flat and dejected.

You knew it wasn't the time to be sad or cry or talk about the fear. It wouldn't help anyways since it was all done with except for the lingering pain.

You mustered every bit of strength you had left to bring a hand to his cheek, forcing his gaze towards you.

"You should have seen their faces when I called them poor." Ominis groaned at you and buried his face in your palm, but he knew you were beaming at him with pride.

#ominis gaunt #ominis gaunt x reader #ominis #ominis x reader #ominis x mc #ominis gaunt x mc #ominis x you #ominis gaunt x you #ominis x oc #hogwarts legacy #mc is a menace with no self preservation

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the-s1lly-corner · 6 months

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Prompts 16, 18, 27, and 28 with Spot

Back at it again with the spot writing WOOO

HOLIDAY

It was the first christmas since his accident, and the first one without his friends and family... well asides you of course. Hes not much of a holiday person, but hes still.. visibly hurt and miserable with it being a reminder of how everyone but you abandoned him in his darkest moment. He doesn't want to do any huge.. event for the day.. he might entertain you with wearing a matching sweater with you and getting you some gifts... but he'd much rather sit in bed and keep his mind occupied, trying to not become increasingly aware of the fact no one else is wishing him a merry christmas or returning his calls. Its very hard for the day not to become at least a little sour from his mood

OBLIVIOUS

Youd been throwing flirting attempts his way ever since you started working at alchemax. Each and every one of them would be met with a clueless look from the scientist, no sign of him realizing what you just said to him. If it werent so frustrating you might just find him even cuter.. but boy is this getting old fast. Oh he is definitely the type to sit straight up in his bed suddenly in the middle of the night when he realizes that you were flirting with him.. added salt if that happens after he comes spot

CAMPING

He is torn. He hates the outdoors and hates working himself physically... but he loves being able to observe stuff up close. Probably screams if a bug launches itself onto his face. Does not believe in cryptids and monsters yet stiffens when theres a noise off in the distance. Will immediately shut down any attempt of telling scary stories by the fire, too. Very good at keeping track of stuff and what direction you guys are going in... probably knows basic first aid and insists he knows what plants are what. He proceeds to walk through poison ivy

FIRST DATE

Oh this poor man he has no idea what to do.. you're not his first date ever but trying to impress someone new is always going to be nerve wracking. That confidence that hes putting on display for you? It's so obviously fake... hes stumbling over his words a little, he probably knocks over his water. You're a little surprised he didnt make note cards to read off of. I'll be nice.. this can be pre collider, he would be even more of a nervous wreck if he was.. a faceless thing.. though his nerves are kind of. Endearing and he does find his footing when the night really kicks off. Charming if not a chatterbox when it comes to topics that really catch his interest. Would try to kiss you after the first date, cannot read if it is appropriate or fits the mood. Hes simply.. a pathetic dork

#the spot x reader #spot x reader #spot x you #the spot x you #jonathan ohnn x reader #Jonathan ohnn x you #spot imagine #the spot imagine #Jonathan ohnn imagine #atsv x you #atsv x reader

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strayflowersstarsandlove · 21 days

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𝑻𝒐 𝑫𝒊𝒆 𝑭𝒐𝒓 - hyunjin x reader x felix au fanfic

CHAPTER 2

3 - It's not living if it's not with you

Your thumb skims a cross his smooth cheek, barely brushing the faded mole underneath his eye. Everything and nothing at all swirling in circles in your head as you absentmindedly touch his face, not a distinct, single thought behind your eyes, the look in them distant, vague.

Hyunjin sits patiently and stares at you, he lets you run your fingers over his bushy eyebrows and the plump outline of his lips, sighs ever so softly when the tip of your nail edges down his throat and loops around his thin silver necklace. He knows you love touching him like this, absentmindedly, aimlessly, a mute request for comfort, for something familiar and reassuring to feel beneath your pads so you can escape your head and ground yourself.

"What did you do today?", he asks after a little while, nudging the side of your knee with his own, you shrug, little to no recollection of the day's events for there are none. All of your days kind of blur into one, it's been like this for a while now. The same routine repeats itself over and over again in a in infinite, grey loop.

It's like Hyunjin died and all the colors in the spectrum of the rainbow died with him, skies turning slate gray, water turning to mud, trees shedding their green leaves no matter the season as if all life and color had been drained out all at once.

"Went to work. Got home. Showered. Ordered pizza. Doomscrolled. Went to bed", you list out your activities for the day, for any other day you weren't ending having sex with Felix.

Hyunjin plops his hands down in his lap with a smack, growing frustrated with your flat monotone and the way you seem completely unphased. "So you just waited out another day, no-wasted another day, just so you could go to bed and conjure me up like this? Aren't you tired, y/n? Aren't you tired of reliving groundhog day every single day?".

Shoulders coming down in a slump, you tut. You are tired. Energy depleted. Even if you have realistically been doing nothing at all. For the past 2 years it seems. Funny how living in a bubble of nothingness can feel so exhausting all the same." Yeah.. I am, I guess. But it's alright. Don't really want to pick a fight right now", you reply non commitedly, dropping your stare to the illusion of the white ground beneath your feet.

Hyunjin growls, a guttural sound rolling in his throat as he stands up and flails his arms out theatrically, "I WANT you to pick a fight with me! Fuck, if it means I'll get a reaction that's more than a shrug then fucking fight me! Cuss me out, I don't care! your life is fucking boring and you're just letting it be, what the hell happened to you? You are the shell of who you used to be! And the worst thing about it is that you seem completely fine with it. Deaf, empty. Flat. You're letting your life pass you by and you don't give a damn".

The white emptiness all around you echoes with the thunder in his voice. You've never seen Hyunjin this upset before, it startles you, the intensity in his gaze strinkingly disproportionate to the usual gentleness in his orbs. "What the fuck are you on about now? You died, Hyun. You fucking died. And yeah, you're right. I don't give a damn anymore, I haven't been for the past two years because what's the fucking point?", you snap, a surge of visceral annoyance bubbling up within you.

"The point is exactly that! Only one of us is dead but you're the one acting like you're not living", he shouts.

Nausea rises up to your throat, your stomach heaving. You stare at Hyunjin balling up his hands into fists, the fiery passion burning behind his eyes so strong he almost looks intimidating, "you are throwing your life away, y/n. I can't fucking stand it, I can't. It's like watching a flower wilting and wilting in a draught and not being able to give it a single drop of water, it's infuriating".

-"I lost everything, I don't have a family anymore, don't have a home anymore, I don't have you or any of our friends, I don't have a fucking heartbeat anymore and I can't watch a sunset and I can't sketch your face and I can't pet my dog, I can't do fucking anything but wait for you up here, watch you ghost your way through your days, watch you as you fuck my friend here and there and then curl yourself up in a ball in bed until you dream me up again in this weird fucking limbo and I can't, I fucking can't".

Angry, yet silent tears are rolling down Hyunjin's cheeks, he swats them away and nervously rake through his hair. You blink at him, wishing you could let your own tears flow, but none come out. None ever will. You had used them all up on the day you found out he had died.

Never in your whole life up until that point you had cried so much, so copiously, your eyes were so swollen and stingy and red you had to visit the ER and get some eye drops and absolute rest in your pitch black room, curtains drawn, blocking out the sun that never properly shone on you from that day on. Your body had not been able to produce any more tears from that day on, both physically and mentally, you had shut down completely. There was no prickling, no pressure urging behind your eyelids, no emotional turmoil big enough to trigger any voluntary or involuntary instinct to cry.

"I am not living, Hyunjin. I am merely surviving, I'm only just investing enough energy so I can get myself through another day. I'm sorry you cannot live vicariously through me cause my existence turned a little too dull for you", you confess plainly, as if you had not just admitted to the most miserable truth residing in your heart.

You only cared about being awake enough to reach the end of the day, just so you could see him again, hear his voice, touch his face, feel some semblance of belonging, pretending your relationship never had to be cut off so abruptly, the love of your life plucked away from the world so carelessly, like a flower ripped from the grass it was flourishing in.

You and him were in no way perfect, neither was your relationship. Loving him was red, and purple and blue. Fiery, intense, but delicate and sweet. You fought, not a lot but you fought. And some of the fights were turbulent, they lead them to you refusing to speak to each other for a few days at a time, the vicious silent treatment generating all the more incomprehension in turn, which usually then lead to more arguing but to some very intense make up sex too.

And deep talks. Endless deep talks. All of your inner colors and shades, all the good the bad and the ugly coming out in hushed tones underneath the moonlight, steaming cups of tea burning the reddened skin on the palm of your hands. McDonald's runs at three in the morning. I love yous shouted out of anger and frustration, giggles, his way of peeling apart your layers, making you feel seen with every turn of a leaf.

Hyunjin chokes, a sob like pained whine in his throat, he cups your cheeks, squeezing a little too tight, but you don't protest. He shuts his eyes and keeps them close for a sec, he kisses your lips, his mouth lingering on yours as he dares not raise his voice above a whisper, his breath coming out short: "I love you, fuck I love you, y/n. I don't want you to live so I can live through you, I don't want you to die for me, every single day, either, like you've been doing so far", "do you want me to live for you?".

The question tumbles out of your mouth like it's second nature, like saying please and thank you and hello. If you could bury a body for him, slice off your arm and feed to him, if it meant bringing him back to the real world, you could live for him too. If he just asked.

"I want you to live. For yourself. For love, for happiness. I want you to live because the world has not ended just because my life did...", he trails off, soft whispers hitting your skin as his lips trace your cupid bow, "I need you to live, y/n. And I need you to start living again soon, I need you to live again and laugh again and love again, I need you... I need you to feel alive because I need to die. I really, really need to die".

A wall of bricks crumbles down on your head, splitting in chunks upon impact. Or at least that's what it feels like. You look at him incredulously, any primitive form of words dying in your throat as you stare at him.

He sighs, heavily, like it's hurting him to do so: "I don't know how any of this works. No clue. But I know I'm not meant to stay here, in this limbo of sorts. Not for this long. These past two years might have felt like a blink to you, but to me the dragged out infinitely. I am losing my... human-ness, if that's a thing. I can't feel you anymore, not as much as I used to when we first started meeting up here". Hyunjin brushes away the hair on the crown of your head, nimble long finger through your strands, eyes squinting as he makes a pained face.

"My lips don't feel the same, they cannot perceive how soft your skin is, my hearing is getting weaker, my eyes don't work as well as they used to before. My limbs... The feel so heavy, y/n. I drag my entire body weight on these legs, and it's so hard. I am becoming numb, and weak. I am slowly disappearing, my love. And I don't know why or how, but if I don't pass over properly, if I don't get to finally rest, I never will."-

-"My soul will pulverize along with this body. I need to leave, to reach my final stage, whatever that may be. I might just forever rest or reincarnate, anything. I'm not meant to stay here forever. I have to leave. But I can't do that, I can't leave you until I know you're okay. My life will have been worthless if I don't get to see you appropriating you life again, do you understand? I will have lived and died for nothing, if you don't move on".

Oxygen stuck in your airways, you gasp, the torpidity in your body and your mind slithering away like suds in the drizzle of water, panic seizing your senses, "you're leaving?", you murmur, and he grimaces, nodding slowly, "I don't think I have more than a year left. It's hard to explain, to give it a time line, a deadline too... It's like a silent ticking time bomb within me, and it's eating me from the inside, making my form feel less and less... Human. I know it's going to go off sometime soon, I can hold it back only for so long", he tries to explain, elaborating his thoughts with so much strain in his voice he sounds like he's scraping the base of his heart to claw at some courage.

Trying to desperately make sense feels like a regurgitation of what it first felt like to see him appear in this weird space I your head, a space between dream and reality, sleep and wakefulness. It felt odd, insane, unexplicable at first.

But then it turned into comfort, into the safest place you knew, the one you had been running to every night. But now it's just dread. Hopelessness. The line between staying sane and becoming actually ill in the head blurring all at once as you find yourself grappling with reality. Your safe space turning into a castle of glass that could break at any moment in time.

Fear swallows you up. Your heart failing to beat properly as the faintest falter in the rhythm sends daggers piercing through your chest. Hyunjin cannot leave this place too. "How-how long have you known?", "I've always known".

An eerie quietness sinks in the atmosphere. Your heart plummeting in your chest, tumbling down your stomach with a thud. The blank stare in his eyes when you had confessed you were sleeping with Felix,the surrender in his voice when he had tried to calm down the rage that erupted from you then, when it felt like he had so passively accepted he wasn't going to be able to hold you back from diving head first into the worst of coping mechanisms, the alcohol first, the meaningless sex next.

"Is this - is this... Is this why you fucking SHRUGGED when I told you I had accidently drowned my liver in alcohol and ended up in bed with Felix? Had you already given up on me then? On us? You already knew didn't you?", you chide incongruently calmly, teeth gritting, hurt and anger at being left in the darkness blindsiding you once again.

"You were clearly in so much pain, y/n. You were mourning, I don't get to judge how people mourn, how they cope with pain, much less you. What was I supposed to do? Yell at you? Scream my head off accusing you of not caring about me or not loving me enough in death as much as you did in life? How could have that ever helped the situation? You were going to do something drastic if I had let you know at the time, and trust me, TRUST ME it hurt. It ripped my heart to shreds, it burned my entire soul to know you were fucking my best friend".-

-"But I was dead then and I am dead now. I cannot do shit about it. I cannot stop you from doing anything. I was just hoping it was going to be temporary! that-that... that you were going to eventually stop. Or fall for him. And be happy without me. But none of that happened and now I'm disappearing and I don't know what to do anymore".

The metallic taste of blood pooling in your mouth floods your taste buds as you bite down hard on the inside of your lips, rubbing them together int a thin line, Hyunjin breathes raggedly, he puts his face in his hands, crying into the sleeves of his shirt, "I just want you to be happy y/n, selfishly, I need you to be happy, cause my heart is fucking heavy for you and I cannot take it through with me. I need you to let me go, even if it means I had to spend two years letting you go first, even if it means I have to push you away right now, I need you to let me go".

Chapter 4

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666writingcafe · 6 months

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The Adventure Begins

Levi's overacting. Again. The only reason it wasn't obvious during the school play was because Simeon kept him reined in. Levi gets excited quite easily, and it causes him to get lost in whatever role he's playing.

I'll have to ask Simeon, but I don't think he intended the Lord of Shadow to act so...dramatically? badly? I don't know how to describe it, really. It just isn't very good.

Unlike MC. I'm not sure why I like their acting better, especially since they're currently matching Levi's energy. Maybe it's because they're intentionally hamming it up. They did mumble an apology to me before they started talking to him, after all, so they must know that Levi's acting isn't the best.

Satan's isn't much better, either. He's not as over-the-top as Levi, but I don't find him convincing as the "villain" of this story. If anything, he'd make a good anti-hero, but Solomon probably didn't want to make things too complicated.

Solomon's not a very good author.

However, I'm choosing to keep all this to myself, because the point of all this is to help MC get their first star. Lucifer, on the other hand, is having a hard time suspending his disbelief. So, I understand why MC told him to shut up. I just hope they're prepared to get their ass handed to them once Lucifer's back to normal size, because while he has a soft spot for MC, he doesn't like being silenced. Messes with his pride.

Speaking of which...the stars.

They represent the seven virtues, which are direct opposites of our sins. For me, that virtue is temperance. Solomon probably knows this, but he may not realize the full extent of my relationship with temperance.

Once upon a time, I was able to control myself and my urges. Until I wasn't. For my brothers, their sin was triggered by specific events; that wasn't the case for me. It just...happened. And I didn't realize it until it was too late.

Now, it's what most people know me for. They think I'm a meathead that only thinks about food. Even my brothers.

Which isn't fair.

Why are they allowed to have complex personalities, but not me? Why can they participate in mentally stimulating activities, while I'm cast off to the side and dismissed as too dumb to understand any of it? It's never made sense to me.

I think that's part of why I like MC so much. They're the first person in a really, really long time that sees me beyond my sin. They actually listen to what I have to say and seem to value my opinion, even if it's not related to food or sports.

Yet somehow, deep inside, I don't fully trust them. I think it's coming from my subconscious. Somewhere in there lives a hurt angel that feels like everyone he cares about will die and leave him behind. And in a way, it's true.

Lilith may have been the only person in our little family that actually lost their life, but my brothers barely resemble what they were in the Celestial Realm. It's weird. They wear the same faces, but they're completely different people. Sometimes, I feel like they're complete strangers, or perhaps taken over by aliens.

Oddly, the one person I can rely on to stay the same is Satan. Then again, he didn't have his own form until we arrived in the Devildom, so this version of him is all I've ever known.

"Beel?"

Shit.

I missed a lot, didn't I?

"Are you okay? You seem out of it."

"I could say the same to you." Why is that the first thing that comes out of my mouth? I sound like a jerk.

MC merely sighs as they sit next to me on the...bed? I take a proper look at my surroundings and realize that we're in a hotel room of some kind. Lucifer appears to be sleeping on the nightstand, using tissues as both pillow and blanket.

"Wanna go first, or shall I?" Interesting question. They don't seem upset at me.

"Your call." MC rests their head on my shoulder.

"Simeon needs my help making an important decision." Their tone indicates something serious.

"With what?" MC sighs again.

"His future." Huh? Why would an angel need a human's help with that? I know that the two of them are fairly close, but still.

"But that's neither here nor there," they quickly add, sighing. "It's not like I can do anything about it now." They glance up at me. "What's on your mind?"

"My past."

"As an angel?" I nod.

"Back then, the only thing that mattered to people was that I was strong. I wanted to be useful, so I decided to become a soldier and fight for the Celestial Realm. Problem was, I had trouble controlling my powers."

"Like I did before receiving the Ring?"

"You know, I hadn't really thought about it until you said it, but yeah. I suppose we have that in common. In your case, everyone had your back, which is good, because I wouldn't have wanted you to go through that experience the way I did." MC sits up and properly looks at me.

"What do you mean?"

"Every time I would destroy something--even though most of the time it was a complete accident--Raphael would make some sort of sarcastic remark about it. I think he started calling me the Hulk at one point, but it was meant as an insult." I pause.

"At least he had the decency to do it to my face. Lots of angels would talk shit about me behind my back. They thought I was too stupid to pick up on it, but I knew. They acted overly sweet towards me whenever I would walk in the room. Condescending, even. It was like I was a dumb kid to them." MC places a hand on my thigh and pats it.

"Sounds depressing," they remark.

"It was. Oddly enough, the one person in authority that didn't treat me that way was Lucifer. I initially thought he was too busy with his duties to really care about much else, but then one day he approached me and started talking to me. We had a legitimate conversation."

"About?"

"He told me to keep in mind that being a Celestial Realm soldier wasn't about attacking--"

"--but protecting." We must have woken Lucifer up. "You had the power to protect everyone--to keep them safe--and that you shouldn't feel bad because you were special. If you learned to control your powers, I'd recommend you to the cherubim and have you serve as a Celestial Realm gatekeeper. You did, and so I kept my promise." Lucifer beckons MC to pick him up and bring him closer to me.

"MC and I may be connected by the Ring of Light, but the two of you have a strong connection as well," he continues. "You're both motivated by the need to protect the ones you love, even if it means sacrificing yourself in the process. Drawing on that similarity is going to be the key to pass Solomon's test."

"Are you saying Solomon knew we had that in common?" MC asks incredulously.

"No. I did. I simply passed the knowledge along to him."

"How long--"

"The rooftop."

"Of Dogi Magi?" I'm glad MC understands what he's referring to, because I'm completely lost. Must have been something I wasn't involved with.

"You knew that Belphie would hurt you if you went against his order to reject me, but you did it anyway."

"I didn't want to lie to you."

"Because that would have meant hurting his feelings." Asmo may have used his powers to pick up on Lucifer's crush on MC early on, but I knew pretty much from the moment they set eyes on each other. Granted, he was more attracted to their soul initially, but who could blame him? It was bright and shiny, even back then. If we weren't under orders to not eat them, then they wouldn't have made it out of the assembly hall alive. Even Diavolo was struggling to contain himself.

Anyway, the point is MC cared enough about Lucifer in that moment to feel the need to protect him.

Just like I felt the need to protect Lucifer after I became a cherub.

MC's going to get their star.

#obey me shall we date #obey me mc #obey me beel #obey me beelzebub #obey me lucifer #basically what i'm doing with beel is depicting him as someone constantly in his head #and not in the 'i wonder what i'll eat next' kind of way #but instead having him silently observe what's happening around him and mentally commentate on it #sometimes it involves going on little rambles as certain things remind him of other things #but i'm trying to showcase someone who's able to pick up on people's personalities and feeling #simply by watching them interact with the world around them #i think he's emotionally intelligent #that doesn't always transfer to academia #but it is an important type of intelligence #because it helps guide interactions with real people in real situations #also #headcanon that lucifer was the last one to realize/accept that he had a crush on mc #asmo and beel may have picked up on it first #but eventually the others caught on #even the other exchange students #and diavolo #cue relentless teasing from diavolo to lucifer #diavolo: you have feelings for mc #lucifer: no i don't #diavolo: yes you do #and they'd go back and forth about it #diavolo just wanted his friend/occasional lover to be happy #and he thought mc was good for lucifer #so he rooted for them to get together #and was happy when they did

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 10 months

Text

A Strange Sort of Family

hi, resident evil fandom, i'd like to throw my hat in the ring

look, i don't even really go here, the fandom mold just got into my brain and would not fucking leave. this is my first time writing any of these characters so if they feel a bit rocky, please forgive me. my media analysis brain has been spinning nonstop since we started the resident evil brain rot and ho boy would I love to sink my teeth into a proper horror fic but! i don't know if i'm there yet so i figured i'd start a bit easier for me :)

also--we all know there's no way ethan's just gone from the franchise now, right? like, sure, he's dead, but he died like 30 minutes into re7 and that didn't fucking stop him

ALSO also big shoutout to @dragonsareaqueerthing and @greenninjagal-blog for the encouragement to actaully make the words go :) hopefully i'll be spending more time in this fandom now that I've got that ball rolling

Read on Ao3

Warnings: talk about events of shadows of rose dlc, nothing explicit, bullying

Pairings: implied ethan/mia/chris, but Ethan & Rose is the focus

Word Count: 10,919

You'd think after about 16 years of being treated like a child and the most powerful bioweapon the world has ever seen, you might get used to it.

Nope!

Not even slightly.

Sometimes a family is a molded bioweapon, a traumatized agent, a former bioterrorist, and a series of golden, sparkly words. Sometimes family is decorating your room with your mother, sometimes family is hugging a pillow because your dad isn't here anymore. Sometimes family is training too hard and going out for ice cream, sometimes family is a dinner where your parents won't stop teasing you.

Or, five times Ethan Winters was there for his daughter, and one time Rosemary Winters was there for her father.

You'd think after about 16 years of being treated like a child and the most powerful bioweapon the world has ever seen, you might get used to it.

Nope!

Not even slightly.

Okay, well, maybe slightly, but only in the way she's able to shake off some of the lesser things that would've made her really upset before. She's no longer threatening the lives of the agents that call her Eveline, to her face or behind her back when they think she can't hear them. Even when she really, really wants to. Small victories.

But despite her best efforts, she still returns to the cell block of a room—Chris had been so insistent that it wasn't a cell, but it was all concrete walls and a tiny window and a camera that she knows is in the corner—and curls up on her bed, jamming her headphones in and refusing to engage with the outside world until she could summon up the resolve to impersonate a normal person again.

Today had been no exception.

Rose throws her backpack onto her desk chair and slings her hat over the hook, kicking her shoes off and collapsing face-first onto the bed with a groan. More tests today, always more fucking tests. Didn't they have every inch of her shitty, moldy body cataloged by now? She has half a mind to start making shit up when they ask her the same stupid questions. 'How are you feeling today, Rose?' Oh, you know, just getting stuck with more needles than a fucking porcupine, how do you fucking think I'm feeling? Yeah, no, no homicidal instincts yet, just had one murderous thought the other day when I was imagining mold eating the bitch who called me a charity case. Although I did go to the park after I snuck away from that asshole you have tailing me on Tuesdays to see if I could amass a mushroom army, how was your day?

A small laugh leaves her throat at the thought of the doctor's face if she actually did say that, but then she'd probably have two assholes tailing her until they deemed her 'no longer a risk.' God, they were supposed to be these super highly trained agents, then why the fuck do they suck ass at being subtle?

Turns out, even having mold superpowers means she still has to breathe like a normal person, so she drags her face up from the bed and doesn't even bother to fully get up to inchworm up to the pillows. She mashes her face against the slightly cold surface—honestly, the best part about this prison-cell-ass room was that the air conditioning was always on Arctic, so her pillows were always cold—and grabs her phone, squinting at the notifications.

One from school saying her group project deadline was coming up…something from some shopping website she'd logged onto out of pure boredom three weeks ago…and a text from Chris.

Rose sits up a little more and opens the text. "Overseas this week…sorry I'll miss the—you fucking dick!"

Of course Chris is working this weekend, of course he's not gonna be fucking here to take her to the cemetery—great, that means another two hours of bus rides until she can actually go see her dad. She swears he does this on purpose sometimes, how often does he actually need to go overseas for 'work?' And it's not like anyone else here would be able to take her, she's learned her fucking lesson about asking them for anything more than more fucking food. Not bothering to stifle her groan, she flops back onto the bed, only for her phone to clatter out of her hand and onto the floor.

Great. Now she has to move again to pick it up.

She decides that moving is actually not what she's going to do right now, letting one arm hang over the edge of the bed, her cheek scrunched awkwardly against the lip of the mattress. She tucks her face against the collar of her jacket and rubs her thumb against the ring on her finger.

"Sorry it's gonna take me longer," she mumbles, "I really wanted to spend longer with you this time."

Her eyes widen when gold sparkling words appear on the floor next to her phone.

it's okay

"What the—" she whips around to look at the door, closed tightly, and jerks back— "how—"

The words are still there. The words are still etched into the floor, right next to her phone. She should check if they're on the camera—no, they can fucking hack into her phone whenever they want, and she doesn't—she can't—if this really is—

Rose swallows the lump in her throat as the words shift and change.

you ok?

"I—what—how are—" she swallows again, camera in the corner of the room, "uh, M-Michael?"

A pause as the words reform: sure

"I mean, I—I know," she says quickly, "I know what—I know what this is, I…I remember, it's just…"

camera, I know

"How is this possible?" she whispers, not daring to move from her haphazard scramble up the bed, "I thought you were—I mean, at the end, when we, uh, did the thing, it seemed like you were…that you were going again."

The words sparkle again as she grips the sleeve of her jacket—his jacket.

apparently i'm bad at it

"Bad at what?"

staying dead

Another laugh chokes its way out of her throat and she reaches out without thinking about it, just to touch the words. They glow a little bit brighter as she touches them and the tips of her fingers glow. Almost as an afterthought, she grabs her phone and shoves it behind her, hopefully muffling the microphone and at the very least, getting its cameras away from her dad.

Her dad. Those are her dad's words, that's her dad, he's here, he's here.

"Are you—is this…are you really here?"

sort of, as the golden words swirl around, part of you

"What do you mean, 'part of me?'"

not a scientist

"You're the only other m—person like me I know, I'm sure it'll be fine." She can almost hear the little huff of laughter as the golden sparkles swirl again. It seems like it's the same as it was when she was in there, with her dad only able to say a few words at a time.

i'm part of the mold, just like you, we're sharing a part right now

"Are you always sharing a part with me?"

i wish i could, and she feels her chest hurt a little bit, takes energy

"I guess that makes sense." Her arm begins to ache from being so stretched out. "I really miss you."

i miss you too sweetie

Fuck, she's 16, she should not be getting this choked up over her dad calling her 'sweetie,' but fuck it, she's a mold person and her dad's dead, she's allowed to sniffle a little when those words glow warmly under her fingers. Some hysterical part of her wonders if he'd be able to give her a tissue or a hanky the way he gave her guns and chem fluid in there, but she scrubs at her nose with her sleeve and decides that it's enough right now that he's here, in her room, still calling her sweetie.

***

She almost recognizes it the second time, a tug in her gut. Given that she's got her hands over her face and is currently doing a fabulous impression of an angry seal, it'd be harder for her to see it. Still, she can't help the dumb smile on her face when she rolls over.

bad day?

"Oh, you know," she mumbles, "just your average day of being a human guinea pig."

She snorts, clapping a hand over her mouth to muffle it. "You know I get a look at their notes sometimes? That's what they call you, just your initials."

surprised they're still talking about me

"What do you mean? Of course they're still talking about you, you're the—" she cuts herself off. The golden sparkles swirl.

i'm the what?

"Never mind."

The floorboards wait expectantly, but she twists the ring around her finger, chewing on her lip. After another moment, new words appear.

can i help?

"With what? With the tests?"

with you

Another tug in her gut, this time at the fact that she can't actually remember the last time someone asked after her, not their biggest liability or their most dangerous weapon. She props herself up on the cold pillows—thank you, government AC—and sighs. "I'm just really tired."

i bet

"Like—are they bored? What do they get out of sticking me with the same needle fifty different times? And it's not like they talk to me about anything, they just look at each other and then fake-smile at me and they tell me 'you're doing great,' like I'm supposed to know what that means. And the other people aren't any better! They keep trying to train me how to do a thing but they're not—it's not like they tell me why we're doing something or what I'm supposed to be doing instead, they just tell me I'm wrong and that's it."

that sucks

She huffs. "You have no idea."

After a moment, though, she realizes that might not actually be true. From what little she's actually managed to get Chris to tell her, and what she can learn from Mom, they were both held in BSAA's quarantine for ages before they moved over to Romania. And if Mom knew about Dad's…not-aliveness way before he did, then they must've done some sort of tests on him too.

"Can I ask you something?"

anything

"Did they, um, did they test you too?"

The floorboards stay empty for a minute, but it feels more like he's thinking than it does him avoiding the question. Sure enough, after another moment, words start appearing again.

they did, they didn't tell me anything either, just that i was lucky

"Lucky how?"

to have made it, even when i didn't

"You did, though," she mumbles, fiddling with the ring again, "you—this part of you made it. Chris told me, Mom told me. You…even after you were…gone the first time, you…you came back. The important parts of you, they came back."

and i'm grateful for it, for you

"You're gonna make me cry," she mutters, scrunching up a little tighter.

i love you Rosie

"Shut up." It's empty and they both know it. A few extra sparkles swirl around and she could swear he's laughing. "I love you too."

Sunlight streams in through her tiny window and she finds herself looking at the way the leaves on the tree dapple the shadow across the floor. Part of her dad's words are still glowing. She looks at the nightstand, bare except for her charger and alarm clock, then over at the desk where her school stuff is, then at the dresser. She reaches out and touches the metal bedframe. It's cold underneath her fingers.

what's wrong?

"Nothing." The words remain and she sighs. "I'm just being mopey."

you're allowed to mope

"Someone at school said something today," she says before she can think better of it, and she winces at how young she sounds.

bullies?

"Not really, it wasn't even really about me, I just—it's stupid."

if you're upset it's not stupid

"They were just talking about this thing they got for their room, okay?" Embarrassment makes her curl her fingers into the loose fabric of her jacket. "It's this mirror thing that hooks up to your phone and lets you play music and stuff from there. They were just talking about it and I thought—see, I told you it was stupid."

There's another pause. The breeze rustles the leaves outside. The shadows dance over the walls.

do you want it?

"Not really…I don't like mirrors that much anyway. And it's not like they'd let me just have another thing that connects to the Internet in here." She glances at the alarm clock. "I barely got them to let me get a laptop for school stuff. I don't think they've got a 'Mold Bioweapon Allowance' in their budget."

The silence grows thoughtful. She turns her head to look at the floorboards again, watching the few sparkles there swirl around.

it's your room, they say finally, it should feel like it

Rose scoffs. "What am I supposed to do, walk up and ask them to sponsor a shopping trip?"

why not?

"They're not gonna do that. They're just gonna brush me off again or tell me they're busy."

you've tried?

"I told you, I barely managed to get a laptop, which is something I need to be able to do schoolwork or anything, even have a taste of what being normal is like. And even then I had to argue for like, ages, and I had to get one of my teachers to write an email saying that it's necessary." She swats the white pillowcase, bitterness seeping into her words. "Everything else isn't necessary. They're all about practicality, like I'm just some other expense they have to deal with."

what about Chris? or Mom?

"Chris isn't here. He's always off somewhere doing something or he's here glaring at me like I'm some stupid new recruit that he doesn't want to have to train. And Mom's…I don't want to bother her, you know? She's got her own life now."

she's your mom, come the words almost before she's done speaking, she'd want to know

Rose sighs, sitting up to lean against the headboard. She twists the ring around and around her finger, chewing on her lip. "I don't know. Sometimes it feels like she's…like she doesn't want to know."

Another pause. What her dad had said before, about them sharing a part of the mold—she can feel something in her chest. An emotion that isn't quite hers, something like a deep and exasperated sadness. It's faint, not quite enough to put words there, but she can tell when she needs to look back down at the floor.

she does love you, let her

"Okay. I'll try."

thank you

"Would you come shopping with me?" she asks, even when she knows the answer. "If you could?"

The room gets a little happier as the sparkles swirl around.

i'd spend all day with you

"What did you want to have in your room? When you were my age?"

telescope

"A telescope?" She laughs. "Did you want to be an astronaut?"

astronaut ew

She laughs again and the sunlight seems a little brighter.

***

She meets Mom at a coffee shop near the big bookstore downtown. She's not wearing Dad's jacket—it still feels weird to do, even after Mom's said it's fine—but she has his ring on a necklace under her shirt. Mom waves her over to a table in the corner, nodding to the smoothie already waiting.

"Pineapple mango," she says as Rose sits down, "your favorite."

"Thanks, Mom." She takes a big drink, savoring the weird feeling the pineapple leaves on her tongue. "How're you?"

"I'm okay. Work's been getting busy again recently with the month's end rush." Mom swirls her straw around her coffee. "Did I tell you about this new thing our boss is trying to make us do?"

"No, what?"

"Apparently some young CEO in the area made it big on corporate social media about 'team building exercises,'" and Rose is already groaning in sympathy, "so he sent out this survey this past week about what activity we'd rather do."

"What were the options?"

"This group painting class thing, where we all paint the same picture—"

"Like in kindergarten?"

"Like in kindergarten," Mom agrees, "there's a bar-arcade place that's just opened up on the West Side that does private events, and then there's a good old-fashioned work dinner."

Rose makes a face. "That's it? No, like, crazy obstacle courses, or escape rooms, or anything?"

"We barely had the budget for the normal year-end stuff."

"So what did you vote for?"

"I ended up voting for the painting, actually—"

"What? Mom, that's so lame."

"Hey!" She jokingly flicks a napkin at Rose. "Lamer than the most awkward dinner you can imagine or sitting and drinking for a whole evening?"

"Isn't that what adults do? You sit and drink and talk?"

Mom sighs, shaking her head as they both laugh. "Yeah, well, I figured it might be better if we tried to do something that wasn't just sitting and drinking."

"I guess."

"Besides, I'm still missing something for the bathroom upstairs. Maybe I'll hang up whatever I manage to make there," she adds, winking at Rose.

It's supposed to be a joke at how bad at art she is—really, even Chris looked at her stick figures and struggled to find something nice to say, and Mom just laughed it off—but Rose's smile fades and she shuffles a little in the chair. She drinks more of her smoothie. Dad's words turn over and over in her head.

"Hey, Mom?"

"Mm?"

"Would you…" She fights the urge to reach for the ring. "Would you help me decorate my room?"

Mom's brow furrows. "At my house?"

"N-no, my…my room at the compound. It's stupid, never mind."

"It's not stupid, Rose," Mom says, picking up her coffee, "I'm just—I guess I'm just surprised. Most teens don't really want their parents anywhere near their rooms."

"Yeah, well, forget it."

A car drives by. Despite herself, she reaches for the ring anyway. Something warm pulses in her chest.

"It's just," she manages, "I don't really have anything in there. It's just the military stuff."

Mom's coffee cup hits the table with a thud. "What do you mean you don't have anything in there?"

"I mean, there's just a dresser, a desk, and a bed. And my little side table thing. They didn't really give me any—"

"How much time do you have?"

Rose blinks. "Huh?"

"How much time before you have to get back?" Mom's already getting up and putting the lid back on her coffee. "We're not that far from the big stores and I have my car."

"I, uh, I think I have a few hours, so—" she scrambles up too, reaching to grab Mom's arm— "wait, you're really okay with doing this?"

Mom pauses for a moment, then reaches out and covers Rose's hand with hers. "You're my daughter, Rosie, I'd love to help you decorate your room."

A lump appears in her throat and she swallows it down. "Thank you."

"Come on," Mom grins, "what are you thinking you want?"

"Uh, I was thinking maybe like a whiteboard? That way I could write down stuff that I might forget? Or like—a magnetic one so I could stick stuff to it?" She gets into Mom's car and they start driving. "Or a corkboard—I've seen a lot of people pin like, pictures and stuff to a corkboard on their walls."

"What if you get both? A corkboard to put pictures and cute stuff and then a whiteboard to write on?"

"I also want a lamp. The normal lights just make my head hurt. And they buzz, you know?"

"Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's like the world's most annoying crickets, isn't it?"

"And there's no, like, in between! It's either no light at all or—"

"Or my eyes are being scorched out, that's right."

They pull into the parking lot of the store and get out, still bouncing ideas back and forth. Mom grabs a cart and they head straight for the stationary section and they spend about five minutes talking about the different corkboards and whiteboards. Then Rose decides she wants magnets so she can stick stuff to the whiteboard, then Mom spots a cute set of push pins, and then another mom and daughter walk by with one of those fancy photo printers that print out pictures from your phone like Polaroids, and they just have to get Rose one of those.

As they pick out lamps and wall decor and sheets that actually have some color, she's struck by how normal this is. She's with her mom. They're shopping for stuff for her room. They're freaking out over the pillows that have little penguins on them. She's actually smiling and laughing and she's excited. She can't wait to get back and put all this stuff in her room.

She just…wishes Dad could be here too.

"I think I'd prefer the yellow lampshade, but it's up to you." Mom looks up from the shelf to notice she's gone quiet. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Nothing, nothing," she says quickly, wiping surreptitiously at her face, "…just…I kinda wish Dad was here too."

Mom's fingers stutter on the box and for a moment, she thinks she's going to see those walls go up again, the ones that always go up when she tries to talk about Dad, but then Mom puts the box down and rubs at her wedding ring. She still wears it sometimes. Rose reaches for Dad's, under her shirt.

"I wish he was here too, Rosie," Mom says quietly, "he'd be so proud of you."

Rose swallows, and her eyes catch on a tiny monkey LED lamp further down the shelf. She picks it up. "I think he'd vote for this one, don't you?"

A hint of fond exasperation comes to Mom's face. "God, did I ever tell you what happened when he found out that you loved that little monkey you got when you were still a baby? He tried to buy everything monkey-themed he could find because he thought you might like it."

"Wait, really?"

"I had to get Chris to help me talk him out of buying an entire monkey crib for you."

Rose puts the monkey lamp in the cart. Mom smiles and they keep walking. They end up spending way more than she thought they'd be and sheepishly tries to put some stuff back, but Mom won't hear a word of it and bags everything up.

"Chris can help cover the cost if he's so worried about it," she declares as they pull back up to the meeting spot where the car is supposed to take Rose back to the compound, "anyway, all of this should have been done years ago."

"Thanks, Mom," Rose says, "I had fun."

"We should definitely do it again. I'll help you decorate your college dorm too."

Rose smiles and gets out of the car. It fades a bit when she sees Paul again, leaning against the side of the van with his arms crossed. She turns her back deliberately on him and goes to help Mom get all the bags out of the trunk.

"You're late," Paul says, like he has any right to sound like a smug, condescending asshole.

"By like five minutes. Open the trunk."

"What's all that?"

"Stuff. For my room."

"Well, I—hey!" Paul finally moves when Mom just opens the trunk and starts putting the bags inside.

"You must be the agent Rose told me about," Mom says, her voice saccharine as she dusts off her hands, "is that right, honey?"

"Yeah," she mumbles, "that's him."

"Paul," he says, "Ms. Winters."

"Mia." Mom holds out her hand and he takes it, Rose peering at them from under the brim of her hat. Her eyes widen when Mom yanks Paul closer to her, her smile fading as she hisses in his ear. "Call my daughter Eveline again and I'll break your nose, are we clear?"

Paul jerks in surprise, before turning his head slightly. "Stand down, it's fine, I can handle it."

"You can't afford to make a scene in such a public place," Mom says, her voice still perfectly even, "and Chris won't risk harming me or Rose. So you can start treating my daughter like a person or I can break your nose right now and Chris can clean up your mess."

Rose can't stop her snort as Paul sheepishly walks back to the front of the car and gets in. Mom watches him go before she turns around and says, loud enough for him to hear, "Make sure you send me pictures when you get it the way you want it, okay?"

"I will."

"And if you decide you want anything else, we'll get it next time."

"Thanks, Mom. I love you."

"I love you too, Rosie." She glares once more in Paul's direction before she walks back to her car.

Rose doesn't stop smirking as Paul drives them back to the compound. He slinks off with his tail between his legs after helping her get all her stuff into her room. She can't cover up the camera—and let them know she knows about it—but she can play her music out loud as she decorates, hanging up the little plants they found and pinning a few photos to her new corkboard. It still strikes her how normal all of this is, dancing to her music and putting up all of her new things, finally collapsing onto her now-colorful blankets with a laugh.

She texts a few photos to Mom, who responds with gushing reviews and excited emojis, before she rolls onto her side to look at the floor.

"What do you think?"

The words only take a second to appear.

it's beautiful, sweetie

"You were right," she murmurs, "it was really nice to let Mom take care of me a bit."

i'm glad

"Oh! I forgot to show you the best part!" Rose jumps off the bed and goes over to the far wall, switching on the fairy lights she hung from the ceiling amidst a bunch of fake vines. "Now the camera will just think the glowing is from the lights!"

Golden sparkles swirl beneath the soft glow.

you're so smart

"I mean," she blusters, trying not to show how pleased she is, "I was just tired of lying down to talk to you all the time."

i see, still clever

"Thanks." After a moment, she reaches over and picks up the little monkey lamp and her stuffed monkey, safely hidden beneath her pillows. "Mom told me you wanted to buy a monkey crib for me."

it would go with the onesie

"You got me a monkey onesie?"

mom has pictures

"I'll have to ask her next time." She chews on her lip, running her fingers over the seams of the monkey's ear. "I wish you could've been there."

me too

"Mom threatened to break Paul's nose if he was rude to me again." The light swirls as Dad laughs and she laughs too. "I'd kick him in the nuts too."

that's my girl

***

"Stupid fucking dickhead," she spits as she slams the door, throwing her backpack onto the chair so hard it scrapes across the floor. "Fucking asshole! I'll fucking rip his head off, the fucking bastard!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a tiny sparkle from the floorboards, and she stomps over to the lights, turning them on. Almost immediately, golden words swirl up.

what happened?

"Your buddy Chris fucking happened!" Rose throws herself onto the bed and punches the pillow. "He keeps treating me like I'm some—some fucking gun that only he knows how to fire and I'm fucking sick of it!"

It had been especially bad today, too. Chris apparently woke up and decided yeah, today's the day I'm gonna be a total fucking asshole for no goddamn reason. He started them out sparring, which he never does, he always has them warm up first because it's important not to strain yourself, except apparently not today when she was thrown against the fucking ground three times before she could even open her mouth long enough to say hi.

Or maybe ask what the hell crawled up his ass that morning.

And then he kept fucking looking at her like he was disappointed! Like it was her fault she wasn't expecting to be slammed up against the wall or pinned to the ground by a man fucking three times her size and then grunted at when she winced in pain because that fucking hurt, you asshole! And he kept on saying these stupid little comments that just made her angrier and angrier and then he had the gall to be like hey, you need to get a handle on your emotions like he wasn't pushing every single fucking button he knew she had!

You need to be sharper, he'd said like he had any right to try and be reasonable as he almost dislocated her fucking shoulder, emotions make you sloppy.

Yeah, well, he could try being sharper when he was being bullied for no fucking reason.

And when she'd finally screamed at him that she was done, that she didn't want to fucking do this anymore, he had the fucking audacity, the nerve to scoff and cross his arms and tell her that no, she wasn't done, she was only done when he said she was done. And yeah, she hadn't really made the decision to rush at him after that, her body did that on its own, but he literally just tossed her aside like a fucking doll and then said she wasn't leaving until she could do the fucking stupid thing he wanted her to.

She tried. She really fucking did.

But she couldn't do it.

And Chris kept refusing to help, saying he'd been training her for so long already, that he'd wash her out if she were any other recruit—to which she'd screamed that she wasn't, so why the fuck was he being like this? And he didn't fucking answer! He just told her to try it again and he kept making her angrier and angrier and she could tell Chris was getting angry too which just made hers worse because what fucking right did he have to be mad at her? What the fuck did she do to him?

It ended really badly. She'd gotten so mad she'd thrown herself at him again, not caring about proper technique or what was smart or anything, she just went for him. He grappled her, obviously, and that was supposed to be their tap-out, fight's-over thing, but she hadn't stopped. She'd scratched him and punched him and kicked him even when he growled at her to yield, and when that didn't work, she'd bit him.

Chris fucking wrenched her off of him and threw her across the room and she heard three guns click.

They'd glared at each other, Chris holding his arm like it was a fucking biohazard, and then he'd stalked off without a word while agents forcibly shoved her back to her room.

She's panting by the time she finishes, glaring a hole in the wall right below where the words normally appear. Her hands still tingle from where she'd hit the walls and the pillows. She looks up when she sees the familiar swirl.

you shouldn't have bitten him

The anger surges up her arms and she clenches her fists. "That's all you have to say? No 'I'm sorry he was such a dick, Rose?' 'You didn't deserve that?' You're fucking defending him?"

i didn't say that

"I just told you that your friend, the person you told to watch over me and keep me safe was fucking bullying me for no goddamn reason and the only thing you can say is that I shouldn't have defended myself?" Betrayal steeps vehemence into her words. Her nails bite into her palms. "I'm fucking glad I bit him!"

he's trying to help

"How in the fuck is he trying to help," she cries, "by being as bad as the bullies in school? By treating me like a freak that needs to be kept muzzled and on a leash?"

you did bite him

She picks up one of the pillows and hurls it at the wall. It hits with a pathetic thwap and falls limply to the floor. It only makes her angrier when she sees the words calm down when the lights stop shaking.

"Don't fucking tell me to calm down! You're supposed to be on my side!"

i am

She barks out a humorless laugh and picks up the pillow, throwing it back on the bed. "You're not on my side, you're on his. I don't need you lecturing me too. Just leave me alone."

More golden words swirl as she turns away, throwing herself onto the bed and curling up tightly around her stuffed monkey. She chokes around the lump in her throat and wills herself not to cry. She'd almost cried in front of Chris today already, she won't give either of them the satisfaction of seeing her cry now. She won't, she won't, she won't! It's not fucking fair that Chris did that. It's not fucking fair that he gets to act however the fuck he wants and then she's the only one punished for it. He gets to go all over the fucking world and only see her when it's convenient to him and he gets to be an asshole about it.

Dad's not even alive.

A sob chokes out before she can stop it, and then it's too late. She's blubbering like she's a stupid fucking baby again and she can hear the echoes of their voices in her ears. All alone, poor freak Rose, crying like a baby who doesn't get her way. She's so weird, she's so stupid, she can't do it. She's useless, she's not strong enough. Just go away. No one wants you here. No one wants you. No matter how hard she presses her hands to her ears, they won't fucking shut up!

Maybe she should've fucking kept the purifying crystal. Maybe she should've left with no powers and had a normal fucking life. Maybe she should've just left her dad to—

As soon as the thought threatens to cross her mind, she recoils from it. Guilt and anger war in her gut as she nearly grows sick. How could she fucking think that? After all he'd done to save her, protect her, how could she think about something like that, even if it was in a fit of rage?

A strangled noise escapes her throat and the bruises and injuries from her humiliating 'sparring session' abruptly make themselves known. Her body screams in pain; her shoulders ache, the bruise on her ribs throbs, and her jaw feels like it's about to explode. She has the hysterical impulse to bite herself and she wonders if it would hurt more than everything else. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpses a glow coming from the floorboards now and she curls up tighter, burying her face in the monkey's tummy. Fuck it, she's been called overly emotional and childish enough times already, she may as well throw her tantrum properly.

It's like falling into the Megamycete again; she has no idea how long she lies there, wallowing in her own emotional turmoil. Flashes of the bullies, of Chris's stupid fucking face, of watching herself get tossed around and left behind…even stranger things like massive castles filled with screams and horror, creepy old houses that just feel like tombs, deep water and clanking metal, all filled with whispers of freak, dangerous, stupid child, not good enough. Everything is too loud and too quiet and she just wants it to be over.

When she finally manages to rouse herself from whatever malaise she'd fallen into, the sun has long set. Her clock shows that it's close to 10—that would explain why her stomach is trying to dig a hole in her intestines. The anger fled unknown hours ago, leaving her weary and wrung out. In its absence, she no longer feels like the bioweapon that she's supposed to be, only the scared and lonely child. It's cold. She's hungry.

There's still a soft golden glow coming from over the side of the bed.

Her lip wobbles. She doesn't want to face the consequences of yelling at her dad and throwing a pillow at him, but she can't stop the blooming warmth that he didn't leave. She crawls to the edge of the bed and peeks over.

i'm sorry Rose

She sniffles and rubs her cheek on the sheets. "'M sorry too."

you were right, i should've been on your side

"You're always on my side," she mumbles, "I know you are."

still

She sniffles again and tucks the monkey under her chin. "Why was Chris so mean today? Did I do something wrong?"

i don't think so, sometimes he's just like that

"Why?" She's ignoring how much she sounds like a baby, thank you. "It's not fair."

no it's not sweetie

Rose closes her eyes, basking in the soft glow of her dad's comfort. "Was he ever mean to you when you were training?"

yeah

"What did you do?"

broke his nose once

It startles a laugh out of her. "You what? Wait, what happened?"

he was being an asshole, so i punched him

She giggles again, both at the image of Chris's surprised face with a broken nose and at the fact that her dad got so angry with Chris that he punched him hard enough. A few more golden sparkles surround the words before they change again.

you shouldn't try it though

"Aw," she complains, mostly for show, "but you did it."

do as i say not as i do

She's quiet. After a moment, she lets her arm hang down to touch the words again. They glow gently. "I don't like fighting with you."

me neither

"I'm sorry. I was being a brat."

The words swirl up quicker than she's ever seen.

you were upset at something unfair, not a being a brat

She sniffles again, reaching over to grab a hanky and blow her nose with a sharp honk. She throws it over to the laundry basket and lies back down. The words have changed.

if you need to hear it, i forgive you

"I forgive you too."

rest

She nestles up against the pillows. "Will you stay until I go to sleep?"

of course sweetie, i love you

***

Mostly Rose doesn't dream. She'll close her eyes and open them again and it will be hours later and it's time to get up. Most of the time when she does dream, it's weird half-memories that aren't hers mixed with something she does actually remember. She has dreams of a house with a red chimney being taken apart by little robotic goats, or of a crocodile swimming through a swamp filled with dead crows, or of bugs crawling over test tubes and dirty flasks. Some of them make sense when she digs into the files she's not really supposed to have access to, some of them don't.

On rare, awful occasions, she has nightmares.

She's been curled up and unmoving for who knows how long, desperately trying to feign sleep. The mold in her keeps prickling like there's something else in the room, watching her, just waiting for a sign that she's awake to pounce. Her white-knuckled grip hasn't wavered either. She dares hardly breathe; even though her rational brain knows there's nothing there, there can't be anything there, her entire body is screaming. She can feel the milky sweat beginning to ooze from her palms.

Something creaks.

She goes stiff as a board.

A creak, a groan, a rumble as the air conditioning turns on and she forces herself to relax, cracking open one eye to see that yes, this is just her room, there's nothing to be afraid of here, she's fine.

Her eyes land on the switch to the fairy lights.

The small and whimpering part of her lunges for them, for the warm glow of the light, her dad's words, in lieu of running to her parents' bed to be comforted. The other part hisses that the second she moves, whatever's lurking in the dark will strike. The monkey wheezes as she tightens her grip, staring at the innocuous plastic box hanging against the wall.

With a sudden burst, she launches herself from the bed, slapping the button, and curling back up beneath the safety of the blankets.

Immediately, the soft warm light chases away the worst of the shadows and she can peek over her shoulder to assure herself that yes, nothing is there, she's safe in her room, everything's okay. Golden sparkles are already swirling, a quiet inquisitiveness filling that one empty part in her chest as she lies back down. He's rotated his words so she can read them easily.

what's the matter, sweetie?

"Nightmare," she whispers, more into her pillow than anything else.

i'm sorry

She curls up tighter, trying to pull the blankets up almost over her head. The sweat's almost ruined her monkey—she's going to have to wash it again—and she wipes her hands on the sheet. The absence of it hits the cold air and she shivers, hunching tighter in the covers and sniffling. A sudden and sharp ache sears through her chest and she shudders, harder this time, only the top of her nose peeking out over the comforter. She's so cold. Not in the way where she can pile more blankets on and it'll go away—she could put the whole world on top of her and she would still be cold. This horrible, achy, exhausting cold that seeps into her bones and makes her want to cry.

what can i do?

"You said in your—in your letter," she hiccups, "that you'd hold me when I had nightmares, and—and sing to me until I went back to sleep."

But the words on her wall are just words and words can't hold anybody.

She wants a fucking hug, goddamnit. No one touches her anymore, not unless they're running some stupid test, or sparring, or escorting her roughly down the hallway like some—some prisoner. The last time someone touched her and it wasn't that it was Mom, telling her she'd help decorate her room and that was so long ago, everyone else just—just—

"I want to go home," she sobs and it lands like a dead weight in the still room.

what do you mean?

"I want to go home, I want to go back to that house you showed—showed me when I was in there, where you—where your memories are and I can actually h-hear you and it's warm an'—an' safe, and you love me," she cries, not caring that it's the middle of the night and she's talking to a wall, "no one here loves me. No one loves me, the doctors think I'm some—some experiment that's run too—too long and the agents all think I'm a l-liability and Mom's not here because she gave me up and Chris h-hates me."

he doesn't hate you sweetie

"He does! He does, he does, I can feel it." She hugs her monkey tightly to her chest. "He h-hates me for being the reason you're not—you're not here anymore and he hates me for reminding him that you're dead and he hates me for—for being like this and—and—and—!"

shh…shh…shh…

But he's not here and she can't hear him shushing her and she's all alone in her cold, dark room and she wants to go home.

don't cry, Rosie, it's gonna be okay sweetie

"It's not. 'S not okay."

The wall doesn't move for a moment, then it swirls again.

scoot back, i'm going to try something

Frowning, she does, shuffling awkwardly back until she's on the far side of the bed. The golden light swirls around for another second, before it writes itself on one of the pillows.

hug me

"D—Michael?"

i'm right here sweetie, i love you so much

With trembling fingers, she reaches for the pillow, touching the words with a soft gasp as they glow warmly against her still-slick palms. A sob of disbelief leaves her throat and she bundles it to her chest, burying her face in it. A soft scratching and buzzing fills her ears as more words write themselves across the pillow, but she doesn't pull her face away to read them. Not when this is the closest thing to hugging her dad she's been since she was in the deepest stratum of the Megamycete, crying over his dying body. Not when she's still so cold and the words are so, so warm. She tucks her face into the crook of the pillow's embrace and she cries.

The words don't stop writing themselves over and over and if she focuses hard enough, it almost sounds like her dad is humming.

She falls into a light sleep, not willing to miss a moment of actually being so close to her dad, soothed by his presence. Soon, light has begun to break through the window, the auto timer on the lights long since activated to switch them off. The pillow is all gross from a mixture of drool, snot, and tears, and she sheepishly tries to wipe it away when a small glow comes from underneath.

it's okay

"It's kinda gross."

my privilege, i'm your dad

"Still."

ew, remember?

A watery smile. "Thanks."

i love you so much, i'm so proud of you

"I love you too," she mumbles back, curling her arms around the pillow. Another set of words writes itself and she leans back.

do you really think Chris hates you?

"I don't know. He…he looks at me like he can't sometimes. Or like he's waiting for me to…I don't know, turn crazy or bad or like he's waiting for me to turn into you, almost." She rubs her fingers over the pillowcase. "He used to be nicer."

have you spoken since?

She doesn't need to ask what he's talking about. "No. He's been out of town again. He's supposed to be back, um…"

She leans over to check her phone, eyes widening when she sees the date.

"Uh, today. Shit, I actually think we're supposed to have a training thing today."

Before more words can write themselves, there's a knock on her door. She freezes, phone still in her hand, pillow clutched close.

"Rose?" Fuck. "It's Chris. Can I come in?"

be brave, says the last flutter of words before her dad vanishes, i love you

"…yeah."

Chris opens the door. Rose tugs on her dad's jacket over her pajamas and clutches the pillow in her lap. She doesn't look at him. He moves around a little in the doorway before he shuts it with a click. After a moment, the bed dips and groans under his weight and she sneaks a glance at his arm. Her bite mark is still there.

"Surprised they let you walk around before that healed."

"You didn't even break the skin."

It's probably meant to come off in a way that means she doesn't have to worry about it, but it stings anyway. She turns away again.

A car drives by outside.

"I owe you an apology," Chris says finally, his voice low and gruff, "I shouldn't have been so harsh. I'm sorry."

She doesn't reply, but she shifts to face the window instead of the wall.

"There's been talk of getting you moved to another squad," he continues, and her stomach drops—is Chris leaving too?— "and I thought…if I could prove that you were good with us, that we had it all under control, then they'd drop it. Leave you alone."

At the rustle as he shifts, she glances over at him. His jaw works and his hand twitches on his knee.

"I thought…" He trails off, then scoffs at himself, shaking his head. "I don't know what I thought."

He turns to meet her gaze and her gut clenches at the obvious guilt and remorse she can see there. She swallows.

"You were mean." Her voice comes out a lot smaller than she'd hoped. She swallows and tries again. "I thought you hated me."

"I don't hate you, Rose," he says in a rush, turning to face her, "please don't think that."

"So you're not trying to get rid of me?"

"Shit, Rose, no, I'm not trying to get rid of you. You're—I think Mia'd kill me if I tried, no, I'm just—" he takes a breath— "I'm just trying to keep you safe, okay?"

"Then you should've said something! I would've trained harder if I knew—we could've—I would've done something else, did I do something wrong?"

"No," he insists, shaking his head, "no, you didn't do anything wrong."

Relief begins to pool warily in her chest. Her grip on the pillow loosens and she scoots a little closer. "I'm sorry I bit you."

He shakes his head again. "It's fine. You, uh, you have good bite strength."

"Good bite strength?"

"Yeah. Your contact's really good." He gestures to the bite mark on his arm. "Got all of them in there too."

"Thanks," she says, laughing a little. Chris smiles and it's a bit easier to breathe. She gives herself a shake. "So, what's today? Weapons, sparring, how to punch boulders?"

"Actually, I, uh, thought we'd go get ice cream."

Rose pauses, looking up at him, blinking as if she'd heard wrong. "Ice cream?"

"Weather's gonna get cold soon, the good place around the corner's gonna close." He shrugs. "Been craving it."

"Yeah…yeah, ice cream sounds good."

"Great."

And before she can think too much of it, she throws herself at him and hugs him for all she's worth. She feels him stutter, not quite sure what to do, and then his arms slowly wrap around her, holding her just as tightly. And oh, she's on fire, Chris is big and warm and solid and he's holding her like she's something special and she's gonna fucking cry her eyes out if she stays here a moment longer and she's gonna die if she lets go. Chris lets out a noise of dismay when she sniffles and scoops her up, like she's a little kid again, holding her in his lap and now she's making a mess of his shoulder too.

She could swear she feels Dad smile.

***

+1.

"I'm telling you," Rose says as she lounges on her bed, "you're wrong about the cover. It's actually pretty good."

i like the classics

"Yeah, well, you're old and boring, so that makes sense."

The sight of the old-fashioned emoticon frowny face makes her burst out laughing. "Oh my god, that's so lame. I don't think I've seen someone use that in years."

it's a classic!

"You gotta get with the times!"

totes dope fam

Rose winces at the immense amount of psychic damage those three words dealt, her neck protesting as she almost cringes it out of alignment. "No, D—Michael, just no."

lol

She tosses the pillow playfully at the wall again, laughing when another frowny face appears on both it and the wall. "Aww, okay, I'm sorry, here."

She picks it up and cuddles it and the frowny face turns to a smiley face. Lying back down, grin still on her face, she toys with his ring. It's gotten shinier from all the rubbing, except where she ties the cord around it so she can wear it as a necklace. She turns it this way and that, watching the sunlight glint off of it. As she does, she catches sight of the engraving on the inside.

Always and forever.

"Do you want me to tell Mom and Chris about you?"

The words swirl for a moment.

up to you

She pushes herself to sit up, propped on one elbow. The ring glistens as she slides it back onto her finger, turning it to and fro. "I don't know. It feels bad keeping something like this from them, but I want to be selfish about it too, you know? I kind of like having you all to myself."

it's not selfish

"And what if Chris thinks it's bad?" She twists the ring harder. "What if he tries to take you away from me?"

i won't let that happen

Her shoulders drop a little and she picks up the pillow again, cuddling into it. A few words write themselves across it just so she can feel their warmth and she rubs her cheek against it. "Don't you miss them?"

all the time

A melancholy that isn't hers hangs in her chest and she squeezes the pillow again. "Then should I? They miss you too, you know. I think they'd be happy to, you know, hear from you again."

The words fade and the wall glows again as he thinks. She lets him have his time, rubbing the ring back and forth, listening to the slight rattle it makes as it spins around her too-small finger. When she hears the familiar soft scratch again, she looks up.

they're happy now, i don't want to ruin that

"They're not happy," she can't help but say, "they still miss you."

content, then

"You wouldn't be ruining anything," she argues, "I thought—I thought I'd never get to see you again after I got out of there. The day I heard you again? That was the happiest moment of my life."

mine too sweetie, or my un-life i guess

The words glow brighter as her fingertips glow too. She gets up and lays her hand against the wall, smiling as their powers dance together. "I really think they'd be happy."

A pulse of warmth runs up her arm to her chest as the words shift once more.

when you think the time is right

"I'll tell you, I promise."

i'm so proud of you, Rose, i love you so much

"I love you too."

That time doesn't come on their terms, though, because that would be easy. No, instead it's when she and Chris are over at Mom's house for dinner and Chris asks a question out of nowhere that almost makes her spit all over the table.

"What?" Mom asks as Rose glares a hole in Chris's stupid forehead.

"I said," Chris says like an unrepentant asshole, "who's Michael?"

"Michael?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rose mutters, staring down at her lap.

"I was coming to get you for training last week and you were talking to someone called Michael." Chris takes a bite of steak and talks with his mouth full, like an asshole. "So who is he?"

Mom elbows her, winking. "Someone you like?"

"What? Ew, gross, no!"

Chris and Mom just laugh and Mom elbows her again. "Don't worry, I was your age once too. That's how I reacted when my mom asked me about my crush."

"Michael isn't my crush!"

"Boyfriend, then?"

"No, he's not my—" she covers her face and sighs. "He's not my boyfriend, he's not my crush, he's not someone from school, happy?"

"So who is he?"

Well, fuck it, no time like the present. She pushes back from the table, muttering about using the bathroom. They wait until she's halfway up the stairs to start talking again, their voices low in that way where she knows they're still talking about her, but she pays them no mind as she goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. She braces her hands on either side of the sink and takes a deep breath.

"I'm guessing you heard all that."

The words swirl up right below the mirror.

yeah

"I mean, it's not like we'll get a better opportunity."

probably not

"Are you ready?"

are you?

She rubs at the chip in the linoleum and turns on the cold water, just to make sure there's no milky sweat on her hands. "I'm nervous."

me too

"No matter what happens," she says firmly, "no matter what they do or say, I'm here for you, okay? I've got your back. I love you."

i'm so proud of you, sweetie, i love you too

The words glow cheerfully against the weird tile pattern and she reaches out to touch them. They share a moment before the words fade and she takes a deep breath, squaring her shoulders in the mirror and nodding to herself. "Right. Let's do this."

She marches back downstairs and Mom and Chris do a horrible job of pretending not to be nosy and expectant. She sits back down and folds her hands in her lap.

"I'll tell you who Michael is," she begins, "but you have to promise not to tell anyone else."

"I promise, honey," Mom says, miming zipping her lips shut.

"Chris, you promise too."

Chris looks at her for a moment like he's going to disagree, then he winces as Mom kicks him under the table. "I promise too."

"Good." She takes another breath and reaches for the ring around her neck. The second she brings it out from under her shirt, Chris's silverware clatters against the plate and Mom inhales sharply.

"Rose," she says shakily, "where did you get that?"

"Before I said yes to joining you," Rose says, "I met K outside the lab. He told me there might be a way to get rid of my powers for good."

Chris frowns. "K never said anything like that to me, what do you—"

"I'm getting there. He took me to the lab where there was a piece of the Megamycete, and said that—"

"He what?"

"Will you both just listen to me?" The two of them quiet down. "Thank you. So, like I was saying, he took me to see the piece of it and said that there was a purifying crystal that Miranda discovered that could take the mold out of someone. All I had to do was look through the Megamycete's index of consciousness to see if I could find it."

"That's incredibly dangerous, Rose," Mom says quietly, and Chris looks like he's trying to strangle his fork. "Please tell me you didn't—"

"I wanted them gone," she interrupts, looking at her Mom, "they were—I was just a freak with no friends. Someone offered me the chance to be normal, are you telling me you wouldn't have done the same thing if you were a teenager?"

Mom looks at her for a long moment, but she doesn't disagree. Rose squeezes the ring and keeps going.

"It wasn't that easy, obviously. It was…really hard. And really scary. I had to fight my way through these, like, twisted versions of the places in Miranda's village, like that big castle and the creepy doll house, and there were all these versions of me that kept getting killed and tortured, I fought a version of Eveline too—"

"Rose," Chris tries to say but she doesn't let him.

"—but I had help," she continues. "There was something helping me. It helped me figure out where to go, what to do, gave me a gun and taught me how to use it. There were these glowing words that would appear when I needed them most and it…it was like having a guardian angel."

"Michael," Chris says, and she nods.

"Yeah, I called him Michael. He—he kept trying to get me to leave, said that it wasn't safe, but I wanted to find the crystal and so he helped me. And then we found out K wasn't actually K and it was all a trap set by Miranda—"

"It was what?"

Chris is already getting up. "Is she still in there? Do we need to—"

"Sit down, Chris, it's fine, we beat her. She's dead now, like, really, actually dead. She crystalized and turned to dust, I saw it."

His face still looks like he ate a lemon, but Chris sits slowly back down. He exchanges a worried look with Mom and she puts her hand on Rose's shoulder. "You said 'we?'"

"Me and Michael." She looks down at the ring and turns it over in her hand. "Until I found out who he really was."

Mom gasps, a small and shuddery thing. She holds her hand over her mouth and stares at Rose. "Ethan."

Chris makes a noise too as Rose nods. "Yeah. It was him the whole time. He…he protected me. From Miranda, from Eveline, from everything."

"He loved you so much, honey," Mom whispers, her eyes growing wet, "he never stopped loving you."

"He showed me our house in Romania," and to her horror, she can feel her voice growing thick too, "with all his memories. I heard his voice, Mom, he—he wrote me a letter, did you know?"

"Yes," Mom says, trying not to sob, clutching her shoulder, "yeah, honey, I know. He cried so much while he was writing it, he wanted you to get old enough to read it with him, oh, Rose…"

She swipes a hand under her nose and turns to Chris, who's doing that big, tough, I'm-too-manly-for-my-emotions-right-now thing and reaches for him too. After a moment, his hand turns and covers hers. He's trembling. "He taught me how to fight, Chris. We—we fought together. He shot the monsters in the face with a shotgun and gave me his power so I could kill Miranda, once and for all."

Chris swallows heavily. "Your dad was…he was one of the best men I've ever known, Rosie. He would be so proud of you." He sniffs. "You said he shot them in the face with a shotgun?"

"Mhm."

"Yeah, that sounds like Ethan, alright." Mom laughs and it sort of sounds like a sob but she and Chris are smiling now, so it's okay. Chris looks back at her and nods a few times. "So you were talking to him, then?"

"Yeah. When you walked by on Tuesday, I think it was…yeah, we were arguing about whether the original Blade Runner was better than 2049." She wrinkles her nose. "He said the original was better but I like the remake."

Chris frowns. "What do you mean, he said—"

The words scrawl over Mom's dining table, illuminating their faces.

i like the classics, that's all

Rose would laugh at the way Chris almost falls out of his chair if his hand and Mom's weren't trembling. She looks at Mom, who stares at the glowing words, and at Chris, who looks like he's about to be sick.

Mom breaks the silence first. "…Ethan?"

The words move, now right next to her forgotten plate.

hi honey

"You're—you're—"

bad at staying dead?

Mom's breath leaves her like she's been punched in the gut. "Oh, Ethan, I—I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry—"

breathe, it's okay

She squeezes Mom's hand as she takes a few shaky breaths. "What—how is this possible?"

rose

"We're both part of the mold," Rose says when Mom looks to her, "he's…he's using my part right now, we're sort of sharing it."

told her i'm not a scientist, figured you'd get it :)

"No one uses those anymore," Mom mumbles and Rose whispers a quiet told you so! as the smiley turns to a frowny for a moment, before the words change again.

i know it's been hard, i'll always love you

"Oh, Ethan," Mom whispers, reaching out to touch the words. She gasps as a flicker of warmth pulses through them and Rose squeezes her hand again. "I miss you."

i miss you too

Another glow flickers up next to Chris, who startles and stares down at the words in shock.

you too

"E-Ethan, I—" he cuts himself off as the words swirl again.

thank you for taking care of my daughter

Chris swallows heavily. "She's incredible, Ethan. You should be proud of her."

always am

"I'm sorry," Chris whispers, and something in Rose's gut clenches at how close to tears he looks too, "if I'd been faster, we could've gotten you out of there, we could've…"

it's okay, Chris, we're all okay

"You're dead."

i died in 2017, doing pretty well considering

"He is really bad at staying dead," Rose adds, "Miranda said so too. You should've seen her, she was so mad at us."

Chris looks like he's having a hard time deciding whether he wants to laugh or cry. The sparkles swirl again.

she's a fighter, she gets that from you too

His free hand jerks and Rose squeezes the one in hers. "You can touch, Chris, he won't bite. That's my thing."

it won't hurt, promise

Chris takes a deep breath and slowly touches the words. His breath leaves him in a rush as they glow warmly under his fingers. Rose smiles as she feels the mold connect all of them there, in that moment, through her and Ethan. Some part of her clicks into place. As if he can feel it too, which he probably can, another set of words appears in front of her.

we're so proud of you, Rosie

"Yeah, yeah," she mumbles as she feels heat rush to her cheeks, "shut up."

no :)

Mom laughs. "We finally have all three of us together again and you want us to not tell you how proud we are of you?"

"They've got a point, Rosie."

"I'll break your nose!"

"No, no," Mom says as Chris squawks, even though she's still smiling, "no breaking Chris's nose."

even if he deserves it

"Hey!"

As they all laugh together, Ethan's words still glowing in the warm, quiet house, Rose sits back in her chair and twists her dad's ring around her finger. Sure, being a mold bioweapon teenager was weird, but if this is the family she gets to have because of it, it can't be all bad.

#dragonbabbles #fic #resident evil #resident evil 7 #resident evil 8 #resident evil biohazard #resident evil village #resident evil shadows of rose #rosemary winters #ethan winters #mia winters #chris redfield

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compacflt · 11 months

Note

hey! i was just going through your blog, and i saw a post about ice&carole and mav&goose. i looked a bit more but i couldn't find a post about your take on mav and goose's relationship, so i wanted to ask what it was. if you have answered this, i'm sorry about asking you again. imo i think what they had was wayy deeper than friendship but complex and probably not romantic, but again, i just wanted to know your thoughts on it.

thank you! and this blog has probably been one of the best finds i have ever come across on tumblr, i'll be sad to see you go.

yeah, i was really trying to be suave and subtle and mysterious about it with this parallel

like, you should be able to figure it out for yourself.

but luckily for you i looooove beating dead horses. to a problematic degree.

the full story of my vision of mavgoose (moose?) is in the completed draft of the extras that are coming out on Saturday. about halfway through. But i want to bring it back to the internal craft-of-writing debate i brought up yesterday—my inability to summarize, or to cut superfluous sections that don’t really matter.

I’ll stick it under the cut for spoiler reasons, but i wanna show the simple first draft of this scene versus the complicated, heavier final draft. And I want to ask any of you, if you’re interested—as a reader, which is more impactful? which should i end up publishing?

the simple first draft:

then i kept turning it in my head thinking of different ways to edit it to say something slightly different, to get a little more specific, coming up with things to add, and ended up adding like five extra paragraphs. which is this:

about 1/4 of the final draft (by which i mean, this is about 1/4 of the whole final discussion scene, but the goosemav-specific content only goes on for about another graf [omitted bc spoilers]):

(so to answer your ask explicitly, i actually don’t think they were anything deeper than good friends. imo there’s no evidence that they were anything deeper than good friends, especially with maverick blowing goose/goose’s wishes off soooo many times [‘she’s lost that lovin feelin;’ volleyball; refusing to do the responsible thing at least twice even after goose tells him it puts his & his family’s livelihoods at risk…bro all he does is blow off goose]. see me bitching in the tags for more on this)

obviously in my head the complicated in-depth version ⬆️ is the True version, the version of events that really Happened. i think the writing is in some spots much more compelling. But it just doesn’t make for a particularly good reading experience when it’s surrounded by like 3/4 pages of other discussion of history! sometimes too much of (what i think is) a good thing turns that good thing bad! & this is a major keystone dynamic of my whole series so i just want to get it right, for my own peace of mind. I guess im asking you to be the harsh editor i wish i had sometimes, if ur interested in doing so—this is genuinely a major major problem i have with my writing, i can’t ever just leave well enough alone 😭 please let me know if simpler is better/less is more in this case! do i publish the short vague “the reader fills in the blanks” version or the long boring “here’s EXACTLY how i see it” version?

#crowd sourcing beta readers. let me know.#also.#how many times do i have to say maverick is neither a good person nor a good friend #and the writers of TGM hugely whitewashed and dulled down the original sharpness and thoughtlessness of his character #for the sake of post-50s tom cruise mary-sueifying him #before it sticks?#if it helps you can write out a list of his actions in the original movie.#for instance: > blows off goose to be late to dinner with Charlie anyway #> follows her into the women’s restroom > continues a pattern of dangerous behavior even after #Goose his supposed best friend tells him multiple times it is threatening their jobs #the truck master scene… the locker room scene… the ‘can’t afford to blow this scene’#and then he does it a FOURTH TIME AND KILLS GOOSE HELLO!!!!!#so much for being a good friend like c’mon!!!#if he REALLY respected goose he would have SHOWN HIS RESPECT FOR GOOSE!!!#i am leaving this blog so out come the hot takes!#movies are also woobifying tom cruise lately! how’s that for a hot take #i genuinely felt insulted by TGM’s sexless passionless soft bokeh-light KIND OF half-sex with Penny. that was insulting.#what happened to the savage bitter kid in 1986 top gun? why is he so soft and toothless?#the only time we see him is in the ‘it’s not the plane it’s the pilot’ ‘EXACTLY’ exchange. THATS maverick.#sorry you know me. TGM is not my favorite. i am extremely cynical about it.#i love the IP but the writing choices in the 2nd movie wrt mav especially make me…. 😵‍💫😵‍💫#pete maverick mitchell #nick goose bradshaw #mavgoose #you can ignore me bitching but pls don’t ignore my begging for secondary opinions here

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gale-dekarios · 3 months

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What is Rose's biggest flaw?

Hi anon!! Thank you so much for asking :3

Rose's biggest flaw is probably how he retreats when he's feeling any strong negative emotion. He really has no concept of how to deal with emotions like anger or sadness or hurt, so he has a tendancy to just... not. Usually by fleeing, or deflection, or denial, depending on the context. In his mind, life is perfect and he's happy all the time with no room for anything else ever, because if he admits he's not okay then he has to deal with all of the bullshit he's been surpressing, and it's just too much to handle at this point.

This ended up being really long, bc asking about my ocs is very much a "give an inch, take a mile" sort of deal, so I'll leave the rest under a readmore x) SO sorry anon

It normally doesn't impede him too much, Rose is actually a pretty positive and happy guy, but when it matters, oh boy.

He's still very much in denial about how much his best friend Milo's death actually impacted him. He'll admit to being sad about it, sure, but he's barely processed it and the way he talks about it, you'd think it happened years ago, not a few months. He has this detachment between himself and that event, barely ever speaking about it unless prompted, perpetually stuck at the denial of his own feelings about it, or how traumatic it actually was. She didn't go peacefully into that gentle night, she died when Elturel descended into Avernus, on a day Rose was supposed to be with her if he hadn't decided to take that damn extra run of gigs at a local tavern that paid pennies for the amount of work he actually did. All that stood between him and never being able to say goodbye to his friend was pushing back a trip to Elturel for a week. Gale didn't even know about Milo until he met Rose's family for the first time. He just. Doesn't bring her up. Doesn't want to deal with the fact he lost her.

Another example is probably Gale and Rose's first proper argument. This was well after they moved to Waterdeep, but before they got married. They'd had minor arguments before, but they were resolved pretty quickly and without much hassle. Gale had gotten into a really busy period of life. Between work and some research projects he had going on, they barely had time to speak to each other. Rose was beginning to feel a little lonely, but was managing okay for the most part. Then when they were finally getting little moments to talk to each other, the conversations would be short and quite clipped. Rose was feeling the stress of them being so disconnected and was being petulant about it, Gale was too distracted and exhausted to actually consider how he was coming off, that sort of thing. And it. Just. Kept. Happening.

At this point Rose is totally in his own head. He's managed to fully convince himself, without ever once actually communicating with Gale how he was feeling, that he'd made a massive mistake moving to Waterdeep, that Gale was getting bored of him, and that they were completely incompatible with each other.

There was a massive blowout argument. About anything except the fact that Rose's feelings were hurting. And instead of dealing with those emotions, those insecurities... Rose straight up left. Packed a bag whilst Gale was out and got a room in a tavern, waiting to board the next ship heading to Baldur's Gate the next morning.

Obviously that didn't happen. And Gale very much did force Rose to articulate what he was feeling like a goddamn grownup. And he did. Clumsily, but he did. And Gale apologised. And Rose apologised. And they had the very sweet make-up sex that accidentally whoospie-daisied them into having their firstborn son because Rose forgot to take his birth control in the weeks that they weren't talking to each other. And Rose never became perfect at communicating his negative emotions, but he worked on it, and he never fled like that again.

Speaking of. When their son is born, he has Gale's nose, Rose's chin, and the sparkle of something magical in his eyes from them both. They name him Milo.

#fun fact bc i just cant help myself apparently #but the reason rose both doesnt trust and downright hates the emperor is bc it uses milo's face as the dream guardian #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #the tomes #bg3 tav #bg3 tav thoughts #bg3 oc #bg3 oc writing #oc: rose #gale dekarios/tav #gale dekarios/oc #answered #anonymous

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drowninginredink · 6 months

Note

Any aro/aro-spec hcs for asoue? :)

Yes! Absolutely! Let's go in order from most to least canon!

Lemony Snicket is the most demiromantic and demisexual character to have ever existed and I don't need to say anything else about that.

Montgomery Montgomery literally said "I always meant to find a wife and start a family, but it just keep slipping my mind." That is the single most aro thing I have ever heard.

Similarly, I do not remember what the exact quote is for this one, but Justice Strauss has never married because her one true love is the law. I hate Justice Strauss but that is pretty solid proof that she's aro.

Bertrand Baudelaire. I love aro Bertrand so much. I've got a post about a particular way aroace Bertrand could play out, but like, even if we aren't going with that version of events, I still love aro Bertrand. Aroallo, aroace, just aro, whatever. I love the idea that he was Beatrice's aro best friend that she ended up marrying when romance proved to be too risky in their field.

I really love the idea of Kit as aro (allo) and Dewey was the one relationship she was really able to feel comfortable in. I mean she's probably more aro-spec than aro, but I don't feel like she's a microlabel person. Her and Dewey's relationship is officially romantic, but there's something of a QPR-esque understanding between them. Also they are the most bi4bi couple I have ever seen. Kit is polyamorous and Dewey is monogamous but is totally fine with her having relationships outside of theirs. Look, I know no one ever likes the canon ships in anything, but I really love Kit and Dewey and have spent a lot of time thinking about them and have written almost 4k words of a Kit/Dewey fic I'll probably never finish but do really like.

I have no actual reason that Fernald is aroallo except that I say so and one day I want to write a fic about him and Kit in a situationship. But. He is. He is alloaro and that's the truth.

As for the Baudelaires, I don't have any solid orientation headcanons for them. The answer is usually "I don't care" unless I'm writing a fic where being queer makes them more interesting (shout-out to that lesbian Violet fic I wrote that's on FFN and one day I'll completely overhaul and put on AO3). That said, I do absolutely see Violet and Klaus as not getting into romantic relationships at the very least until after Beatrice and Sunny are adults, because they'd rather stay together as their own family unit, if they ever get into them at all. I see Violet and Klaus staying together even after Sunny and Bea move out and have their own lives. I think they would just rather have each other around than anyone else. Does that make them aro? Not necessarily. Plenty of alloromantic people never get married/have long-term partners, and plenty of aromantics do. But I still think it bears mentioning here. (Sorry to everyone who thinks they'll join back up and get together with the Quagmire they prefer to ship them with, but uh... yeah no, I don't think they see the Quagmires ever again)

#a series of unfortunate events #asoue #snicketverse #montegomery montegomery #justice strauss #bertrand baudelaire #kit snicket #fernald asoue #the baudelaire children #the baudelaires #aro headcanon #aro headcanons

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ridiculously-over-obsessed · 11 months

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hurt/comfort prompts #2 pls! (i was hoping you'd reblog the list 😄)

Djskldjdf hurt/comfort is my wheelhouse I couldn't resist that list when I saw it 😂 also please consider this my formal apology for what's about to transpire 😬🩵

Hurt/Comfort Prompts

(although I would totally understand if no-one wanted to ask for another prompt ever again after this 😭)

(2) "You can hold my hand, if it makes you feel safer."

Beca ran a hand through the hair as she stepped through the Emergency Room doors, looking around her as she tried to find the person who had frantically called her.

"Becs?"

"Chloe...." Beca breathed, stepping through the crowd of people towards her pale and trembling friend, a frown pulling at her eyebrows, "You're hurt."

"I'm fine." Chloe shook her head, tears in her eyes as she swallowed thickly, one arm in a sling and a dressing taped to her forehead, "It's just a couple of scrapes and bruises, it's nothing."

"Yeah, you're right, they just give slings away for fun." Beca snorted, "What happened?"

"I was driving her to the airport..." Chloe's voice was suddenly very quiet, looking down at the floor as Beca gently encouraged her to sit down again, "Like I always do, it's the same route we always take, I wasn't speeding or running stop signs or-"

"Hey." Beca felt her stomach knot seeing Chloe so visibly distressed, wanting to soothe her, "Chloe, no-one thinks this was your fault."

"He just came out of nowhere." Chloe shook her head bitterly, tears streaming down her cheeks, "He plowed right into us Beca, one minute we were talking, and the next everything was upside down and she wasn't moving or talking or anything..."

"I'm sorry Chloe..." Beca sighed, "That must have been really scary for you."

"It was." Chloe sniffled, "I... I'm really glad you came Becs, I didn't want to sit here alone."

"Of course." Beca shrugged, "Look, Posen and I might not be best of friends, but she's still family. I wanted to be here. The other Bellas are coming too, they're just finishing up their classes."

"She loves you in her own weird way, you know that right?" Chloe looked up from her lap, "She's just... closed off Beca. You get that right?"

"Yeah." Beca nodded, "I do Chlo. Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'll be fine." Chloe shrugged, "I'm just scared Beca. I don't think I've ever been this scared in my whole life. I'm a really safe driver, I pride myself on it, today's the first time I've ever felt unsafe..."

Beca sighed softly again, her stomach in knots. Chloe had been beside herself, almost incomprehensably hysterical when she had picked up the phone an hour ago, and no wonder. Aubrey had come down to visit the Bellas in Georgia for the weekend as she often did, freshly graduated but finding she still missed spending time with her sisters. Chloe didn't have any classes the morning she was due to fly back home, so she had offered her a ride to the airport, a chance for the two of them to spend a little one-on-one time together before Aubrey went home.

So when Beca got a call from Chloe that they'd been in an accident not twenty minutes after they'd set off, her heart had dropped like a lead weight. She could hear the sound of sirens in the background, Chloe sobbing into the phone, Beca able to make out words like 'unconcious' and 'blood in her ear'. She and Aubrey had their differences last year, but by the time the ICCA Finals had rolled around they had buried the hatchets, closer than Beca had ever thought she'd be to her type-A pain in the ass captain.

Beca had made quick work of alerting the group chat to what had happened, distressed text messages following her own, with promises that they would all join Beca and Chloe as soon as they could. She had spent the whole way there trying to wrap her head around events, trying not to think of the worst case scenarios, not just for Aubrey but for Chloe too. She had spoken to her, had been responsive and alert even if she'd been upset, Chloe was okay. She had to be okay.

"It's going to be okay." Beca mumbled, moving a little closer to Chloe, "This is Aubrey Posen we're talking about, she's a stubborn ass, no way she's letting a little car accident keep her down."

Chloe managed a small giggle, pursing her lips as her uninjured hand tugged at the hem of her t-shirt absentmindedly, "I'm really scared Becs. What if she's not? They took her in for brain surgery..."

"You can hold my hand, if it makes you feel safer." Beca gave her a small smile as Chloe looked up from the floor, "Or less scared or whatever... just don't tell anyone I offered, I have a reputation to maintain."

"Thanks Beca." Chloe reached and took Beca's hand, squeezing it tightly as she closed the gap between them, resting her head on her shoulder to boot, "I'm really glad you came."

"Of course." Beca could feel her cheeks turning red as she felt Chloe's breath on her neck, swallowing hard against the lump of unspoken feelings in her throat.

"Have you called her folks?"

"Yeah, they're getting the next flight out from North Carolina." Chloe nodded, "I didn't tell them much, just that we'd been in an accident and Aubrey was on her way up to surgery. I didn't want to freak them out before they got here."

"That's a good call Chlo." Beca nodded, savouring the smell of Chloe's shampoo as she turned her head a little to rest atop hers.

She would never admit it out loud, but Beca had been stone cold terrified on her way here that something awful had happened to Chloe that she had played down over the phone. The idea that Chloe could be hurt or dying when she wasn't there to try and fix it made Beca feel more lost and scared than she'd ever been in her life. Whether it was just a schoolgirl crush or something more, Beca could no longer deny that the feelings she had for Chloe went beyond "she's my best friend", not after she'd had to pull her car over to throw up at the side of the road because the fear had turned her stomach.

"I'm staying right here until someone comes to tell us what's going on." Beca gave Chloe's hand a squeeze, "You don't have to be scared on your own. That's what family's for Chloe."

"I know." Chloe nodded a little, "Thank you."

Beca didn't say anything, simply holding Chloe's hand in hers and watching the hustle and bustle of the ER waiting around them. It wasn't long before she felt Chloe grow heavier against her shoulder, breathing deep and even as she still held her hand tightly. No wonder she'd fallen asleep, after everything that she had been through today Beca would probably have fallen asleep too. She hoped it was a testament to how safe Chloe felt with her here.

It was three hours of sitting in uncomfortable chairs, of Chloe snoring softly on her shoulder and the Bellas arriving in droves to sit with them, before someone finally came to give them an update.

"Aubrey Posen?"

"That's us." Beca gently stirred Chloe from her nap on her shoulder, "How is she?"

"You're family?" The doctor frowned a little as he looked around at the women staring expectantly at him.

"Yes." Beca's tone grew sharper and irritated as Chloe bit her lip, rubbing at her eye with her uninjured hand, sensing the panic that was already starting to radiate off her.

"We're her family. She'd say as much herself."

"Okay." The doctor nodded, "She's out of surgery now, and on her way to the ICU. We managed to stop the bleeding on her brain, and repair the lacerations to her spleen and liver too. We're still worried about her kidneys, and we won't know about lasting brain injures until she wakes up, but she's out of the woods for now."

"What are her odds on being completely fine?" Beca pushed, feeling Chloe's hand slide back into hers and grip it tightly.

"As of right now, about sixty percent." The doctor was calm as the Bellas seemed to crumple at the news, "I know that seems really low, but it's the best that we can hope for right now."

"Right..." Beca rubbed at her forehead with her free hand, "Can we see her?"

"Not right now." The doctor shook his head, "I'm sorry, but once she's been moved to the ICU we can think about visitors. I'll let you know when that is."

"Thanks." Beca mumbled, running her thumb over Chloe's knuckles as she felt her start to shake against her again, "We'll be right here."

The doctor left the Bellas to sit with the news, Chloe whimpering softly as she clung to Beca's hand.

"She has to be okay Beca..." She whispered, Beca able to feel her tears against her neck, "She has to be okay."

"I know." Beca mumbled, sighing heavily as she looked around at the Bellas, knowing they all shared the same sentiment, "She will."

-----

Aubrey pursed her dry lips, brows furrowing as the world swam sluggishly into view. She felt heavy and slow, like she was wading through treacle as she tried to lift her hand to rub at her sore head.

"Hey... you're awake."

Aubrey managed to turn her head towards the familiar voice, finding a grinning Beca sat next to her, feeling her hand take hers.

"How are you feeling Bree?"

"Ow." Aubrey rasped, Beca's grin growing, "Water?"

"Uh, hang on, let me grab some ice chips, that's what the nurse said you could have." Beca quickly got to her feet, leaving the room for a second and returning a few seconds later with a cup full of ice chips.

She silently helped a few slide past Aubrey's cracked lips, fighting the malestrom of emotions inside at seeing her former acapella captain's eyes open again.

"Better?" She asked as Aubrey sank back into her pillows, looking utterly exhausted.

"Mhm." Aubrey mumbled, eyelids flutterung shut for a moment, "Thanks."

"No problem." Beca settled back in the chair next to her bed again, the same place she'd been sat for almost a week now, "It's good to see you awake Posen, you scared the crap out of us for a minute there."

"What happened?" Aubrey's eyes opened slowly again, Beca scooting her chair a little closer.

"What do you remember?"

"We set off for the airport..." Aubrey huffed out a sigh, "Chloe was telling me about your setlist for the ICCAs and then... nothing."

"You were in a car wreck." Beca took her hand again, "It was pretty bad Bree, like brain surgery bad. You've been in a coma for almost a week."

"Chloe." Aubrey's hooded eyelids flew open as realisation hit her, "Is she okay?"

"Um..." Beca swallowed thickly, eyes flicking down to her feet again, "Not really. We thought she was, that it was a couple of cuts and bruises and a dislocated shoulder but... there was a bleed that they missed, it didn't show up on any of the scans they did."

"What... what happened?"

Beca looked up, stomach in knots as she saw the tears in Aubrey's eyes. She'd never seen Aubrey cry, never seen her look so scared and so lost, and she hated it. She was the strongest person Beca knew, if Aubrey fell apart she didn't know how she'd keep herself together.

"They rushed her in to operate and repair the damage but um... she... she didn't make it off the table."

Beca felt sick again as she relived the moment that the surgeon had somberly stepped out of the operating room, how her legs had gone out from underneath her, how she had let out a scream so painful and tortured it felt like she had ripped herself open. It felt like she had, like losing Chloe had robbed her of part of herself too. She didn't remember much of the immediate aftermath, just snatches of sobbing and numbness, of Stacie cradling her in her arms as she cried herself sick, of the Bellas grief as raw as her own.

Beca hadn't left the hospital since that day, telling herself and the Bellas it was because she had to be there to tell Aubrey what had happened when she woke up, but it wasn't the whole truth. She couldn't go back to the house, couldn't walk past Chloe's bedroom knowing she wasn't in there and she wouldn't ever be again. Aubrey's parents would have told her about Chloe, would have arguably been far better at comforting her than Beca would, but she didn't want that. It had to be Beca that told her.

"No..."

Aubrey's expression crumpled as her hand tightened around Beca's, tears starting to run down her cheeks.

"Beca it's a mistake."

"It's not." Beca felt her own tears burning at the corner of her eyes again, "I wish it was Bree, I'm so sorry."

Aubrey opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to find her words but none came. Instead, she started to sob harder, Beca getting up from her seat and onto Aubrey's hospital bed, careful of the wires and tubes as she embraced her. Beca hated hugging people, hated people being in her personal space, but she knew that if Chloe were here she would never forgive her for not comforting Aubrey like this. Beca wasn't a hugger, but Chloe was, and right now Aubrey needed Chloe and not her.

"I'm sorry." Bexa whispered into her hair, voice thick as her own tears starting to take over, "I wish it was me instead, I'd give anything to switch places with her."

"She- she l-loved you." Aubrey sobbed against Beca's chest, "It's n-not fair, she was supposed to t-tell you, y_you were supposed to- supposed to-"

"She did tell me." Beca's words stuck in her throat as she tried to soothe Aubrey, "It... it was the last conversation we had."

-----

"What's taking them so long?" Chloe grumbled, head resting on Beca's shoulder as they stood in front of the vending machines.

"I don't know." Beca sighed, looking at the contents of the machine in front of her, "You'll be able to see her soon Chloe, they'll be making sure she's okay to have visitors."

Chloe simply sighed, her good hand still holding Beca's. She hadn't relinquished her hold of her hand since Beca had offered it to her for more than a few seconds, Beca surpisingly not saying a word about it. Maybe she needed the comfort as much as Chloe did.

"We were talking about you."

"What?" Beca's attentin was torn from the selection of snacks in front of her, "Why, what did I do this time?"

Chloe giggled as she shook her head, lifting it from Beca's shoulder as she grinned at her.

"Why do you think it was bad?"

"I dunno." Beca shrugged, "It's Aubrey, she's nit picky, I always assume I did something wrong."

"You're so dramatic Beca." Chloe rolled her eyes, "You didn't do anything wrong, not this time anyway."

"Okay..." A smirk started to pull at Beca's lips, "So why were you talking about me then weirdo?"

"Because I love you." Chloe's grin dropped to a smile, squeezing Beca's hand as she lent into her, "Because I've loved you from the moment we met and Aubrey was trying to convince me to tell you rather than keeping it bottled up."

"Oh." Beca had gone bright red, brain short curcuiting as she tried find any words that were better than 'oh'.

"And it's okay if you don't feel the same." Chloe shrugged a little, "Because I still want to be your friend Beca, even if you don't feel the same. But life is way too short to... to not..."

Chloe had started to sway slightly, a frown starting to pull at her expression as the coliur drained from her face.

"Chlo?" Beca frowned, letting go of Chloe's hand so she could Chloe's face in her hands, finding her brilliant blue eyes to be hazy and unfocused.

"I don't feel good..." Chloe mumbled, starting to crumple in Beca's arms.

"Chloe?!" Beca caught her, lowering them both to the ground, "Hey! Someone help!"

Beca's attention turned back to Chloe as she shook her gently, trying to keep her awake as she heard people scrambling around her to find some help.

"You're okay." Beca shook her head, lips pursed, "Chloe wake up, you're going to be fine, c'mon. You don't get to say something like that and then die in my arms, that's dramatic even by your standards."

"I..." Chloe was trying to find her words as her eyes searched Beca's, "I..."

"It's okay." Beca shook her head, brushing her her from her eyes, "Chloe it's okay, I love you too. I love you, please don't die on me."

"Beca..." A small smile tugged at Chloe's lips as she grew heavier in her arms, Beca frantically looking around them for someone that was coming to help, "I k-knew it. I knew Aubrey was right... I... love... you..."

-----

"This one's for you Chlo." Beca mumbled, hand rising up to briefly clasp the necklace she wore.

It was almost six months since Chloe had died. Six long, achingly empy months that Beca had endured while trying to navigate this new normal. Aubrey had needed extensive physical therapy to learn to do basic things again, teaching herself to eat and walk and put her own clothes on from scratch. Beca and the Bellas had been there every frustratingly small step of the way, putting up with Aubrey's mood swings and her short temper no matter how often she snapped at them.

The Beales had arrived in Georgia not long after Aubrey had woken up, and things had progressed quickly from there. Far too quickly for Beca as she watched them pack up Chloe's room, removing every trace of her from the Bella House, wanting all the pieces of theor daughters life to grieve over. That was what she had thought anyway until Chloe's mom had quietly entered her room with a large box in hand, setting it next to Beca on the bed and then holding her as Beca had sobbed into her chest.

Chloe had told them all about Beca, about everyrhing she felt for her best friend, and neither of her parents had any desire to take Chloe away from her. So a box with some of Chloe's jumpers, her CDs, her journals and some other sentimental items were Beca's to keep, as was a part of Chloe herself.

She had been cremated, and Beca was given a necklace that had a portion of Chloe's ashes stored safely within an intricate heart design. Beca hadn't taken it off since she had been given it at the funeral, somwhow having a part of Chloe like this had lifted some of the crushing weight from her chest.

Chloe was still with her, still with their family as they all returned to the rountine of college, and eventually of the ICCAs. Beca hadn't wanted to at first, hadn't wanted to perform without Chloe by her side, couldn't face the prospect of having to fill the hole in their choreography or their vocals that had been left.

But when Aubrey had insisted that Beca continued with their plans for this years competition, had all but bullied Beca out of her bed and into a rehearsal, Beca realised she didn't gave to. Not this year anyway. The gap in formation would remain, the missing layer from their vocals wouldn't be restored, and that was okay. It was their way of honouring Chloe, of grieving a loss too big for words. There was no filling Chloe's spot, and that was okay, because no-one could ever fill that gap for them. They would always be a family member down, and pretending otherwise would do none of them any good.

So now, in front of the judges, their fellow acapella singers, and fans, the Barden Bellas would perform in the ICCA finals for Chloe. They would bring home the trophy for the woman who had always believed in them, even when they didn't believe in themselves.

As they sang and danced, performing their hearts out, Beca felt as though Chloe was watching, that if there was some kind of heaven she was sitting on a cloud somewhere and cheering them on with an enthuasism that far outpaced the packed crowd in the theatre. She looked up in the seconds before her solo, half convinced that she could see the beaming grin of the woman she loved shining back at her before she stepped forward.

This one was for Chloe.

"One by one, only the good die young... they're only flyin' too close to the sun, and life goes on... without you..."

Beca had made it through qualifiers and regionals and the quarter and semi finals without shedding a tear, too numb with loss to register the emotions behind her choice for this set as the fast paced number mellowed and sombered. But in the bright lights of the Lincoln Centre, knowing this was her last time performing this set, performing for Chloe so openly, she felt them welling in her eyes with such a force that she was amazed she could still sing.

"Another tricky situation, I get to drowin' in the blues, and I find myself thinkin', well, what would you do?"

"Ooh..."

As the Bellas harmonised around her, Beca let her head drop for a moment, trying to pull herself together to finish. She had to finish, this was for Chloe, she had to keep going.

"Yes, it was such an operation...

"Ooh."

"Forever paying every due.. "

Beca looked gratefully to Sracie who had picked up her solo, breaking formation to stand with Beca and shore her up. She gently wiped a tear from Beca's cheek, her own falling as freely as Beca nodded that she was okay to continue.

"Hell, you made a sensation! You found a way through..."

Beca poured everything she had into her next lines, head high as she belted the lines not to her audience but up high into the air, up to Chloe who she knew was watching them.

"Touch my tears... with your lips... touch my world... with your fingertips... and we can have forever... and we can love forever... forever is our today!"

Beca didn't care if she permanently damaged her vocal chords as she continued to belt out her lines, suddenly so raw and emotional after months of trying to put all her feelings to one side so she could get out of bed. The whole world fell away, Beca left on stage alone as Chloe stood in front of her, tears in her eyes as she reached for Beca, Beca's hand streched out for the hand she knew she wouldn't be able to grasp, desperate to touch Chloe, to hold her hand, to be with her just one more time.

"Who wants to live forever? Who wants to live forever? Forever... is our today..."

The Bellas had joined Beca again, their choreography tossed aside as they moved into a tight line either side of their openly grieving sister, Stacie and Amy practically holding her up as Beca's shaking body managed to produce the final line of their set.

"Who waits forever anyway?"

The lights went down, plunging the stage in darkness, the audience erupted in applause and cheers, but Beca didn't notice any of it, sobbing hard as her legs finally gave out underneath her. It was Stacie that lifted her from the ground, carrying her backstage as Beca fell apart, every ounce of emotion that she had poured into their set tearing her soul to pieces.

"I w-want Chloe." Beca choked out as Stacie held her tighter still, now sequestered backstage with the Bellas around her, "I w-want her b-back!"

"I know." Stacie whispered into her hair, "I know Becs. She'd be so proud of you, that was incredible."

"I want Chloe." Beca whimpered, "I want Chloe."

There was nothing any of them could say, and they knew it, her family instead choosing to move around until all of them had huddled together in a tight embrace, Beca cocooned in the centre of them, raw and bereft as they came together to comfort the one person who had not once fallen apart on them until now.

"I'm here Becs."

Beca knew Chloe wasn't really there, that she wasn't really stood their with them, but in that moment she didn't care, screwing her eyes tighter shut so that she could cling to this illusion a little longer.

"I love you Beca."

Beca could've sworn she felt fingers gently slotting with her own, felt a head pressed against her temple.

"It' okay Beca. You can hold my hand, if it makes you feel safer."

#is it bad if i'm sobbing at my own fic??? because i am 😭😭😭#pitch perfect #pitch perfect fanfic #bechloe #bechloe fics #bechloe fanfic #beca mitchell #chloe beale #fanfiction #my fic #anon #prompt things

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