#and this is indicative of privilege somehow

[aria0fgold]

Also, when Elle fronted. She decided to check out what yno was all about and she ended up liking playing yume nikki A Lot.

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[sunlightandprayers]

part two .ᐟ of childhoodbsf!simon who inevitably broke your heart

warnings : longing. aching. smidge of angst. feelings. oh! and simon redeems himself in this one (i think)

also, this was written on iphone once more and halfway proofread (•́ -•̀)

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it’s been 119 days since he left. classified mission. early departure. here an instant and vanished in the next. a true ghost. except he had never lived up to his name with you before.

you had always gotten a ‘see you soon’. sealed with a kiss to your forehead and callous thumbs brushing away the stream of tears reddening your cheeks in his least favourite way.

you had always gotten the fragile privilege of being wrapped up in his impenetrable arms.

safe, warm, held.

lungs always expanding a little more to try and soak up the feeling. to try to embed shards of him in your bones, so you’d never know a moment where he wasn’t, in a way, with you.

this time around though, he’d just… slipped away. a star extinguishing in the night sky. the same way “i love you” had dripped from your lips four months ago, without the sweet words being echoed back. an explosion, and then nothing. darkness. emptiness.

and the next day he was gone.

you knew it the moment you’d driven down the familiar road. the shutters were drawn, the lights off, the gravel and trees somehow too still.

like when he left, the world’s effortless vivacity had fell away with him.

the same way the fog and mist of dusk seem no more than a mirage once the sun blinks awake.

and now that simon wasn’t here to roll over in bed, stirring you awake at an ungodly hour, you woke up too late to catch the first rays glitter against the morning dew coating the true-blue petals of the forget-me-nots.

instead, you now roused closer to eight—the time you used to mumble about with your nose buried against simon’s chest. ironically, the late mornings seemed much more irksome now than the five forty-five ones. perhaps because they were lacking your favourite thing. your favourite person.

it’s not like life stopped when he was deployed. you still went to work. still got ready and grabbed a cocktail with friends on a friday night. still did the things your quotidian consisted of. it was just… never quite full.

a lot like the dull ache when you loose a teeth as a kid. knowing something will eventually replace the void, but being unable to stop your tongue from prodding the torn flesh.

the longer he was gone, the more his absence felt like something you could practically touch. like a wound that left a metallic taste in your mouth.

for more than a hundred days, life had become veiled by these suffocating shades of greige.

until you’d gotten the phone call.

when the name of simon’s captain lit up your screen, the ring of it all but jolted you out of your skin, molars nearly cutting through your cheeks.

all you heard price’s gravelly voice say through the crackle of the line was “lieutenant riley” and “back in england tomorrow night”. there was more said, and you’d probably talked too—if the call time of 6:37 minutes was any indication—but it all blurred together.

he was finally coming home. he was okay.

you needed to see him more than you needed your next breath. they all felt too shallow when his scent wasn’t weaving inside you anyways.

the next day, the hours went by at a snail’s pace. you had to stop yourself from driving to the airport four times already.

it was 10 am.

simon’s plane wouldn’t touch ground before 11 at night.

by two in the afternoon, you’d been about ready to crawl out of your skin. you’d cleaned your room, made lunch, went for a run, showered thoroughly afterwards and then you’d tried to pass time by watching a movie—which only managed to have you tap open your phone to look at the time every five minutes.

when nine pm rolled around, you couldn’t take the oppressing silence anymore. the drive to the airport took close to 40 minutes instead of 30—your zealous respect of the speed limits earned you several glares and even a few honks.

air stiffened in your lungs and your nerves were on the verge of fraying like used-up wires. the poor man next to you looked about ready to sedate you, if only to stop the jerk of your leg—the main source of his irritation, if the slicing looks he kept shooting your way you were any indication.

your brain was piecing together words of apology when you finally heard it. the dull thud of combat boots. the familiar cadence of his steps. measured, precise, smooth.

your eyes finally lifted to his own.

whiskey gaze surrounded by shadows of exhaustion and remnants of eye black.

blond lashes dipping in one, two, blinks.

simon’s steps had faltered when he’d noticed you standing there, but when he blinked and the vision of you didn’t disappear? it took all his might not to run to his sweet girl.

every doubt you held about him not wanting to see you vanished with every meter of distance his long strides ate up—all of those fears instead morphed into a knot of emotion that expanded so rapidly in your throat air had trouble filtering through.

“please… please tell me you’re real, sweetheart.”

the ache with which is spoke unraveled every last of your defences. a fortress crumbling in the face of one, single soldier. your soldier.

his voice still held the same rough drawl. his calloused hands cradling your face were still the safest place you’d known.

simon’s thumb glided across the apple of your cheek, so lightly it felt like a whisper—like he was making sure you weren’t a figment of his cruel imagination.

“i’m here, si.” a soft whisper. a gentle reassurance.

his ears buzzed and his veins crackled at a single word.

si. a nickname that had belonged to you, and you alone, for more than a decade.

he felt his knees wobble. tendrils of emotion wrapped around his heart and squeezed. like climbing vines around wrought iron.

right then, the weight of the world seemed to fall away from his strong, yet weary, shoulders at the sight and proximity of his home. so close. so reachable. so goddamn beautiful.

“i didn’t say it back.”

there was no mistaking what he was talking about. the air felt like it’d been punched out of you. suddenly, you were back in his bedroom. heart fracturing inside your chest violently, muscles rigid and so, so cold.

“i didn’t say it back. i- i’m so fucking sorry–” he croaked, his eyes turning a tormented shade of amber, as his words liquefied your bones down to the very marrow.

his torn apology washed away all the lingering pain and grief of his absence, leaving only a growing flame of heat behind.

“i love you. i’m so in love with you it hurts, sunshine. i know i’m late. i know you probably haven’t forgiven me. i know–”

petal-soft lips found his own, shutting off his brain and turning the rest of his apology to ash.

fireworks exploded along his spine and butterflies fluttered their velvet wings inside your stomach. it didn’t even matter that a layer of rough, soiled fabric separated your mouths—the burn of your taste seared him all the same.

time warped with each breath.

in reality, it had only been a handful of seconds, yet it felt like that simple kiss had erased all the ache of the past 119 days—a key finally turning into the lock of your happiest, safest place.

pressure built at the back of your eyes when he cradled you into his sturdy arms. his chin—probably adorned with a devastatingly sexy stubble—came to rest over the crown of your head as his large hand sank into your hair, protectively enveloping your skull.

the dam inside you broke when you inhaled him after so long, your nose tucked in that tender nook, just between his collar and jaw. musk, gunpowder, and a subtle flicker of pine trees. him. your simon riley.

your tears were soaking into his uniform, his heartbeat the only thing your ears wanted to bother listening to. his arms tightened around you as his chest vibrated against your cheek.

it wasn’t until you were back at your apartment that night, curled up against him in bed in a cocoon of soft blankets and the reassuring shield of his arms around your body, that you finally processed his words.

what johnny had quipped remained lost on you, but simon’s answering growl seemed to echo through the core of your very soul.

“let me hold my girl for a minute, soap.”

then, more quietly, like a prayer and an oath all at once—“let me love my sunshine girl a little longer.”

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ᝰ.ᐟ author’s note

part two is finally here eek! i was so, so excited to write this & after reaching more than 200 notes on part one (which is bananas btw, tysm for the love) i just had to.

i hope this lives up to you guys’ expectations xx

୨ৎ requested tags : @blackhawkfanatic

[queenvhagar]

It's interesting that Rhaenyra is consistently framed as being "not like other girls" in such an extreme attempt at feminism that it veers way over to other side in that all the other girls in the story, especially those who act differently than she would or who act in opposition to her wishes, are somehow not as good as her or even evil.

As the show loves to show us, Rhaenyra's not like other girls. She loves being a bit of a rebel. She defies the rules of the world and doesn't care what anyone's opinion of her is. She embraces her sexuality. She's bold and says what's on her mind. Now, these are fine things for her as a character, for sure. The problem comes when looking at how the other girls are depicted and how the show expects you to feel about them vs Rhaenyra.

Alicent accepts her position in life as the daughter of a second son and marries for her family against her wishes. But it goes against what Rhaenyra wants, so she's evil. She should have just been more like Rhaenyra! Defied her father, said no to Viserys, went against the patriarchy... except Alicent does not have the privilege that Rhaenyra has as a dragon riding Targaryen princess, the king's beloved daughter and heir to the throne. What power did she have to resist the wishes of her lord father and the king? She acted like any girl of her time would, given the circumstances of her powerlessness, and yet somehow the show wants you to believe that's a character flaw.

Laena is second to Rhaenyra, something the show made painfully obvious when depicting her marriage with Daemon (which sucks especially because there was no indication that this was the case in the books; rather, her and Daemon were happily married and both were extremely close to Rhaenyra the entire time). Her death is changed from its original and unique tragedy to prop up Rhaenyra's eventual fate and its "epic" quality, so when it eventually happens we can view it as a true "dragonrider's death." Then, on the night of her funeral, her husbands finally gets with his first choice Rhaenyra. Laena who? She is made to look less in comparison to Rhaenyra.

Baela and Rhaena, despite having huge roles in the Dance and the aftermath, are largely sidelined by the writers. Baela's a fierce dragonrider like her mother... yet the only scene allowing her to show any aspect of that is left on the cutting room floor. Rhaena wants a dragon and is the only one of her family who isn't a dragonrider... yet the writers have yet to give her any personality beyond that or explore this aspect of her character with any depth. The twins' adult versions barely have any screen time or lines. Even when they are betrothed, seemingly without their prior knowledge, they can only smile by the side.

Helaena is a dragonrider, a dragon dreamer, a mother, a daughter. Forced to use her Targaryen royal womb to make heirs. But the writers aren't interested in exploring any aspect of her character in depth or showing her relationships with her family.

One woman is the exception, as she does share some qualities with Rhaenyra in that she's also not like other girls and the audience should root for her too... it's Rhaenys! She's got a dragon! She'll put it in the Greens' faces (never mind hundreds of innocents killed - so cool!). She'll call someone out for toiling their life in the service of men (even though she's done no differently with her own life!). And because girls support girls no matter what, of course she's Team Black all the way (even though her daughter died a continent away because of Daemon and her son was clearly killed because of Rhaenyra). Rhaenys will hitch onto the Black train despite everything that's happened, and in supporting Rhaenyra she'll take away Baela's claim to Driftmark and instead link both her granddaughters to the people who are the reason both of her children are dead...

[lyricalt]

Minific bonus for that age swap fic because… (death grips u by the shoulder) there was no room for me to expand on this very important younger!Spy headcanon so I’m just gonna put it here.

(sniperspy - rated G)

+++

The new older body isn’t too hard to get used to. Sniper is thankful it doesn’t look like he’s going to suffer much in the way of body aches or mid-life ailments. He minds the intake of beer since he’s constantly hearing about Spy’s lamentations about acid reflux so thus far his Saturday hasn’t been a disastrous run at all. Truth be told, he’s coasting along just fine so long as he doesn’t get up too fast and minds his posture; he’s got a good technique for escaping the pins and needles of sitting in one spot for too long. That certainly comes in handy after having his leg fall asleep in half the usual time.

Sniper is still limping over to the mess hall for a Sunday cuppa when he sees Spy making himself an expertly pulled shot of espresso from a moka pot. It’s always a treat to see Spy doing mundane tasks for himself—as opposed to somehow conniving a way for someone else to do it—but Sniper is further distracted by the fact that Spy isn’t wearing his usual jacket or his vest. Since it’s the weekend, he supposes it’s not that unusual, but the top two buttons of Spy’s dress shirt are undone without the sleeves being fashionably rolled up. Shirt’s untucked. Even the cuffs are unbuttoned at his wrists and there’s no belt. For someone like Spy, it’s practically a state of undress. 

Sniper frowns, but he doesn’t have to question his sanity a second longer when Spy lifts the moka pot and his shoulders strain the fabric of his shirt. With his back turned to Sniper, it becomes abundantly clear that, at Sniper’s age, Spy had been an inch or two broader at the shoulders. Maybe even the arms. 

Sniper stares at Spy’s back in mute trepidation. And maybe even the chest. 

Spy turns around, not surprised by Sniper’s presence, but it doesn’t help that he’s holding the world’s tiniest espresso glass in one hand, which seems to emphasize his slightly bulkier build. Not that it’d be hugely noticeable to most folks, but Sniper has the unfortunate privilege of being very well acquainted with Spy’s body. What’s worse, Spy tends to have his clothes tailored down to the decimal point; any minor change would certainly stand out. 

And stand out they do.

“...You’re lucky I’ve made enough for two,” Spy says. He reaches for one of the higher cabinets to grab another tiny espresso cup. “Would you like one?”

The only indication of any discomfort with his shirt is a small furrowed brow as the fabric restricts his movement by a fraction from reaching the cup. A careful shift corrects everything without snapping any seams or busting a button or whatever Sniper’s stupid head is imagining at ravenously manic speed. 

“Lucky two made for one what?” Sniper asks, impressively incomprehensible, even for him. If one of the streaks of gray hair on his head starts turning stark white, he wouldn’t be surprised.

Spy stares at him.

“I see. It seems like you might need two shots of espresso,” Spy says dryly, pouring from the moka pot. “Your poor senile mind. Perhaps now you can appreciate my sharp mental faculties at this age.”

Sniper snorts, and Spy hands him his share. Taking an immediate sip from the cup seems to scald his brain back into coherency.

“Color me impressed,” Sniper mutters, exhaling to soothe the burn. He sighs, gesturing back at Spy. “It’s just that… your shirt. Bit distracting.”

“Oh.” Spy genuinely looks annoyed, giving his cuffs an unconscious tug down his wrists. “Yes, it’s dreadful. I was in much better shape several years ago, as you can see. My body’s glory days. Shame you missed the majority of it.”

That snaps Sniper back proper. He scoffs, lowering his voice. “You fishing for compliments? Hoping that I’d say I like your busted midlife body just fine?”

“Yes,” Spy whispers back with a little spark in his eye.

Scout’s in the next room over, bemoaning about how his mid-thirties old body is ten seconds slower running a single lap around the base, which allegedly is a dogshit time for any self-respecting scout. Demoman is nearby, his laughs getting progressively louder the longer the complaints roll in. Solly starts on one of his patriotic rants again—so Sniper and Spy aren’t precisely alone in the kitchens. Otherwise, Spy has this real sly look to him that suggests he might’ve tried something cheeky.

Sniper rolls his eyes and finishes off his cup in one gulp.

+++

“Thanks for the espresso,” he says, setting the empty glass into the sink. He claps Spy on his very-much-sturdier shoulder before sauntering out the door. “See ya ‘round. And find a bigger shirt, for chrissakes.”

The next time Sniper sees Spy, it’s him and Engie in the middle of some kind of debate over… well, who knows. Sniper can’t understand half the words coming out of Engie’s mouth when the guy gets going on one of his contraptions, and Spy is usually one of the few who can keep up, on account of immediately wanting to know how to break it. Funnily enough, Engie does seem to invite Spy over to the workshop to do just that.

Sniper hangs by the door for a bit, still unused to seeing Engie without the perpetual five o’clock shadow and a whole lot more baby fat at the cheeks instead. 

“-the capacitor is far too bulky, I could pull it off and not even need my sapper,” Spy is saying, bending to the side to grab at what Sniper assumes is the capacitor. 

Sniper blinks. Spy’s shirt is better fitting, no longer getting stretched in all sorts of questionable ways. Seems like he found a bigger shirt after all. 

And it just so happens to be obviously Engie’s shirt. 

It’s red for one, but a softer color than Sniper’s own uniform shirt. Besides, the engineer insignia makes it pretty damn clear. Sniper frowns, a little bothered in a way that he knows is beneath him, and quite stupid if he cares to examine his own feelings. Which he won’t. Not at this second.

Engie slaps Spy’s hand away. “Hold on now, that thing’ll sap you if you’re just gonna grab it like that! Listen here, there ain’t no way that-”

Spy stares down at Engie. “I cannot argue semantics seriously when you look like you are a thirteen year old child.”

A wrench gets waved under Spy’s nose.

“Scout is twenty-three, and I’ll thank you kindly not to bring up my babyface again. Lord knows I waited a darn long time to grow out of it,” Engineer says huffily before he whirls around to face Sniper with a very mature-looking pout and wide baby blues. “It ain’t that bad now, is it, Slim?”

Sniper ignores Engie with a very neutral look. “Bloody hell, Spy. You got another damn kid running around? Must’ve been your weekend to take ‘im.” And then, with hands on his hips, Sniper addresses Engie with a condescending, “Aw, hey there, kiddo. You lost? Don’t recall havin’ a nursery on base.”

Both Spy and Engie give him the middle finger in a rare moment of unification. Sniper grins.

“Do you have anything of actual importance to contribute?” Spy asks, crossing his arms. His borrowed shirt bunches at his chest, and Sniper notices that he’s even wearing it the same way Engie does.

“Or just more shittalk?” Engie adds with a wink.

“Nah. That’ll be it,” Sniper says and gives them both a wave before he can start sending sad looks Spy’s way.

A new knitting project oughta sort things out.

+++

By the time Sniper catches Spy suddenly wearing Medic’s shirt, he thinks he might go a bit mad with internalized anguish and crippling humiliation by his own conflicting thoughts. One unreasonable fear that starts worming into Sniper’s head is that he if goes on any longer without using his words like a grown adult, Spy will eventually somehow move to wearing Heavy’s massive shirt for no discernable reason, and Sniper is going to have to submit to mortifying ordeal of having feelings of inadequacy (not new) and irrational possessiveness (very new), which are all emotions he ought to be too old—mentally and physically—to be experiencing. Fucking hell, he’s Spy’s age now. The respawn machine should’ve been able to mature his damn brain to better handle all this. 

His new knitting project is a tea cozy that he finishes in record time with still more hours left in the day. At that point, Sniper decides to bite the bullet and try not to sound too pathetic when he finally drags his sorry feet over and whines at Spy.

“Okay, what gives?” Sniper says, pulling Spy by the back of his shirt once he’s got the two of them cornered. “Why’re you wearing Medic’s shirt?”

Startled, Spy stumbles back but swats Sniper’s hand away. “What do you mean? I’m wearing his shirt because it fits the best, and he is the only other person that wears a real, actual dress shirt.”

It makes logical sense, if Sniper took the time to really listen and think about it, but he’s already talking over Spy, “Is it ‘cause I pointed out that your shirt was too tight? Look, I’m sorry. If you needed a bigger shirt, why didn’t you ask me?”

To his horror, the last word does come out very pathetically. Sniper’s lucky his voice didn’t full on crack from the weight of all that petty jealousy. Spy stops attempting to pry Sniper’s hand off the shirt. 

“I would’ve let you,” Sniper adds, still clinging by two fingers.

He can tell Spy is stunned speechless. Five seconds pass without either of them saying anything. Sniper’s ears start ringing from the silence.

“...I already tried your shirt,” Spy eventually says, raising a brow. He must’ve sense Sniper’s very delicate frame of mind. The fact that he’s being so plain with the truth is almost offensive. “You had left one of your shirts in my room from the last time you visited, and I put it on. It doesn’t fit.”

Sniper has to turn around and face the wall for a moment—so that he may experience a full mental shut down without looking at Spy. It must be this new older body, unable to withstand such a high level of humiliation and self awareness.

“Furthermore, you haven’t done your laundry in three weeks,” Spy continues, which is the final nail in the coffin of Sniper’s early grave. “I didn’t think it prudent to ask you to do it, just so that I can wear one shirt for a single day. But since it’s being mentioned; you should do your laundry.”

Sniper can feel Spy’s judgemental gaze radiating from behind him.

“You… you were also wearing Engie’s shirt,” Sniper mumbles, but he thinks he can predict that answer already.

“I borrow them if I am to assist him in the workshop,” Spy replies. “Why would I risk staining my own shirts? The dry cleaning is eight hundred USD each time.” His voice takes on a very amused tone. “Sniper, are you done waiting for the floor to swallow you up?”

“I keep hoping, mate,” Sniper says, turning back around but still not quite able to make eye contact. “It’s been known to happen here in these parts.”

“Yes, yes. And I know you have the ability to wait for a very long time,” Spy says with a fond pat at his arm. “Anything else you are wondering?”

“Nah, mate. Gonna be too busy jumping out the window,” Sniper says, a little mollified despite himself. Spy certainly looks entertained by all this, and he’s definitely put all the pieces together. 

“I should wear Heavy’s shirt next,” Spy says innocently—and then he snickers when he has to chase after Sniper down the hallway. Easy to do, in his younger body. He catches up to Sniper in no time, using all that muscle to box him against the wall. “Or will you be more jealous if I asked Soldier?”

Sniper scowls. “Yes! Obviously! Bloody wankstain, you know I’ll be.”

Spy grins, and it’s more boyish than usual. Similarly, Sniper suddenly feels his body’s age—older, tired. Fed up with himself. He huffs.

“...And you don’t gotta look so pleased about it,” he grumbles, and lets Spy continue to look extremely pleased as he leans in for a very smug kiss.

[yurozo]

what could have been (chris redfield oneshot)

description: chris made the biggest mistake of his life letting you walk out of it, and he's determined to make it right this time.

a/n: there really isn't enough fanfic about chris redfield and i am more than determined to change that. this man is sooo underappreciated. about: gn!reader/little physical description/no use of y/n. fluff, with very minor angsts, and a few mentions of in-canon violence.

it was an unsettling thing to walk away from you. but that was the way it always worked— you went one way while he went the other. a research laboratory on the other side of the city beckoned you over, studying accessible cures to viruses that chris had dedicated his life to eradicating. ever intertwined, despite the miles between you at all times.

on the other hand, chris spent his time travelling from place to place, never truly settling in washington due to the unbidden fear of having to leave it again. familiarity was a privilege unbeknownst to him, the mortal atlas condemned to carrying the world on his shoulders. he could at least enjoy knowing that if you ever needed a place, you would know where it was. and despite everything, he was rather proud of the way he matured. he was more fit than he was back in s.t.a.r.s- not entirely of his own accord, mind you- and eons more responsible.

watching every person you've ever cared about lose that twinkle in their eye did that to people.

and he didn't hate his job, contrary to popular belief. founding the b.s.a.a is among his crowning achievements, and allowed him to enact some real change. along with paying him a decent salary.

he supposed, bioweapons notwithstanding, that adulthood had changed him. long gone is the foul-mouthed air force pilot, and in its place stood a true soldier. safe and solid, protecting and proud. it was more so the person he imagined you would be into, someone dependable that could protect you if the need arose. truth be told, everything he did back in the s.t.a.r.s was with a side glance in your direction, desperately hoping you were watching him the same way he was secretly watching you.

the two of you kept minimal contact throughout the years, limited to the occasional 'how are you' and 'work's been good'. you always let him know of any major life changes, and he always contacted you after a mission, however brief, to sate your anxieties of whether or not to look for his name in an obituary. you pointedly never mentioned your dating life, but the very thought of someone vying for your attention made chris a little sick to his stomach.

call him possessive, call him crazy, for helplessly pining for a girl who was just slightly nicer to him than everyone else at the police department. what he did know is that the only suppression to that boiling feeling in his gut was the unbridled joy that filled him whenever he saw your contact name show up in his notifications. an indicator that you thought of him, however briefly.

in some parallel universe, he would be standing outside your balcony playing some queen song with terrible audio on an even shittier boombox, and you would be awed and wooed by his grand romantic gesture. you would run down from the balcony and plant one on him, and he would swing you around in his arms and there would be nothing but the two of you. no bioweapons, no blood staining his hands, no nightmares about finding you dead in the middle of a ruined city. but he lived in this world, where he was too old and too tired to indulge in those fantasies.

he was a man. he was also a soldier, and therefore, a realist.

so, when you texted him about being in the washington area and wanting to meet up for a day, chris had spent two days drawing three viable conclusions.

1.) this was an elaborate dream made up by a combat-addled mind to live out some younger, unbridled fantasy of his,

2.) this was a cruel prank by some twisted fuck that somehow knew how much he clung to you over the years,

3.) the final, and least likely conclusion: that there was some part of you that missed him as much as he missed you.

he wants to cross the third one off by instinct, but something in his heart adamantly refuses. that sparkling hope in his chest is something he's not particularly looking to stamp out just yet, so he chooses to simply let it burn until it probably would just consume him entirely. by the time he reaches the bar you both agreed on meeting at, he's been so wrapped up in determining your motivations that he's caught entirely unprepared by the sight of you.

you were sitting there, chin in your hands as you mindlessly tapped on the glass in front of you. probably waiting for a while, given your propensity for being unbearably early to social gatherings. you always did have a distaste for tardiness, even if chris was technically five minutes early. the same endearing furrow in your brow makes chris falter in his steps, taking a moment to truly absorb you for the first time in years.

fuck, you were gorgeous. the kind that had other tripping over themselves just to bask in your presence. hell, chris was one of them. always had been.

that same simmering boil of jealousy that used to arise every time that he watched some civilian lean over the reception desk, speaking to you in hushed tones as they preened in your attention, sparks to a roaring fire. he has to remind himself that things are different now; you had lived a whole other life without him, and he's had to learn to survive without you.

he briefly entertains the thought that his absence affected you in the same way. this gnawing feeling that something vital to his very being was lost somewhere in the wreckage of raccoon city.

your face had matured over the years too— jaw set a little sharper, eyes a little duller, the faint lines of age beginning to appear on your skin. you're still gazing somewhere far away by the time he musters up the courage to approach the table, hesitant like you'll reach over the table and sink your teeth into his arm like a-

no. bad chris. no talking shop here.

you don't seem to notice him as he approaches, still staring down at the table like it will speak to you if you glare at it long enough.

"seem lost in thought." chris gives you the most dazzling smile he can muster, full of charm eased by age. while his body language is casual as he slides into the booth next to you, his mind has gone blissfully blank.

your thigh is touching his. oh god, you're wrapping your arms around him before he can think of something suave to say. your action is immediately reciprocated by strong arms pulling you closer, tucking you into his chest like he wants you to live in it forever.

god, he fucking missed this. seeing you, touching you with a familiarity he thought was long lost.

"i missed you," you murmur, letting your cheek smush into his collarbone.

"missed you too," he laughs, bright and warm. all the tension from his job immediately eases in your hold, and he lets himself squeeze you tighter and tighter, like a serpent desperately trying to stay out of the damnation of hell.

"jesus, chris. you got huge."

chris frowns as you pull back from him and start squeezing his arms appreciatively. he has no choice but to let you manhandle him, silently relishing in the way your eyes trace across the contours of his body. he is proud of it, even if he hates the reason why he felt the need to train this much in the first place.

the only way to stop wesker, to try and make the fight on level terms. he never told you about that either, keeping the details concise, knowing that you would have gotten on the first place to washington if you heard his plans of hunting their former boss. you had once admired the captain the same way chris did, and the knowledge of what had to happen would have crushed you.

that shoulder of burden can lay squarely on him.

"you know how it is," he answers instead, taking a sip from your glass. something sugary and way too sweet for his taste. "work never stops."

"tell me about it." the glass is then swapped to your hands. "i'm pretty sure i've huffed enough chemicals to send me to an early grave."

if anyone is going to rot eight feet below the earth soon, he thinks, it's most definitely not going to be you. he's been running from that ticking clock for far too many years.

"but you do good work." he grins, waving down a bartender and ordering a simple whiskey. on the rocks, top shelf, because he's a classy guy.

"we do good work." you remind him.

"fine." he concedes, hunching slightly over the table. "we're both patron saints."

a bright smile is what he gets in response, one that has his heart stuttering and tripping over in his chest. he can't help but give you a slightly goofy one in return. everything feels like as it should be. you're here, alive, and he is here, slightly less alive but feeling like he's finally able to breathe.

—

in retrospect, three-drink chris was probably not the best choice for tonight. one-drink chris is a little chattier than usual, but still relatively normal. two-drink chris loves music, always tapping his feet or bobbing his head to whatever song is playing. and three-drink chris might just be the most impulsive person on the planet.

the entire time you drive him home, which you insist on, chris has his head turned to you with the most obviously love-struck look in his eyes. the entire world around him seems to dull to a faint hum, instead focusing on that frustrating smile of yours as you recount some time that a coworker of yours accidentally put whatever chemical in something solution, causing a lab-wide evacuation.

like he said, impulsive. no more little voice in his head warning him to be subtle.

no more voices in his head screaming the songs of the damned.

he's honestly only half-listening. and only half-paying attention it seems, because you give him a questioning look when the car pulls into his driveway and he makes no move to get out. a nervous laugh escapes him then, breaking the awkward silence in your car like a clap of thunder.

"this was nice," you say eventually, lips upturned in a sort of half-smile. endearing, even cute.

"it was," he nods, trying desperately to keep this moment going as long as it can. just the thought of leaving you again after spending years drowning in the emptiness gives him a headache. chris spent enough time dawdling around like an idiot, going so far as to refuse to change phone numbers in the small chance you would never contact him again.

you're picking at your nails during his internal monologue, that same worried pinch forming between your brows. you're, once again, the one to break the silence. "chris, i-"

his lips are on yours then. thick hands curled around your neck, keeping you in place for one second, then two, then three.

his eyes are still squeezed shut when he pulls away.

"fuck," he whispers, jolting back like you had slapped him. "i'm sorry, i just have wanted to do that for a while, and i couldn't let you go away again without doing something."

"chris."

"i know it was stupid, and impulsive," he keeps going, purposefully avoiding eye contact. "i didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, i just-

"chris," the stern tone of your voice is enough to make him stop mid-ramble, peering up at you hopefully. you only laugh in response, before raising your hand to the nape of his neck. his hair is longer than you remember it being. just another way he's changed.

"yeah." he sighs, defeated. just another part of his life that he's royally fucked up. another friend he's going to lose, and this time it's not to circumstances out of his control. not because of bloodshed or shitty calls. this one is purely on him, because he really does lose all sense around you.

instead of slapping him, or yelling at him, like he expects you to— you take pity on him. "are you going to shut the hell up and kiss me?"

there's another long stretch of silence then, the only sign that chris even heard you is the glimmer of hope twinkling in his eye.

"fuck yeah, i am." he smiles, before pulling you into him again.

[highinmiamiii]

love will always be a lesson, let’s get out of it’s way.

-prisoner by the weeknd ft. lana del rey

CRIMINAL!BILLY x JERSEY WIFE READER

a/n: hello everybody here’s a short little blurby installment to @billybutcherxyou/ @foxiewrites and i’s prison!Butcher au. this one is just pretty much pure nastiness…Billy finally gets visitation privileges and Trouble has to make it worth his while. somehow…she just misses him

so much :(( i’ll be putting out a little masterlist sooner or later so that everything from this universe can live in one place and be easier to consume. FOR NOW ALL OF THESE SHOULD LIVE UNDER #prison!billy butcher ON MY BLOG

(CW: mentions of male masturbation, panty stealing/gifting?, foul language, hypothetical violence)

Trouble doesn’t know what had gotten into her today, truly. 

the idea had popped into her head as she was getting dressed, a little voice in the back of her brain directing her thoughts toward the maxi skirt she’d bought on an outing last weekend.

the fabric was opaque, impossibly silky. ebbing and flowing along the dips of her body all the way down to her ankles. tight enough to show off her figure but not enough to restrict her movements. easy to maneuver in without being too obvious.

that’s precisely why she has absolutely no issue wiggling her panties off each hip under one of the prison’s many visitor tables, letting the black lace slip over her knees and around her ankles.

she lets one foot slip out of the garment, lifting her leg to brush against Butcher’s calf slowly.

huh? 

he whispers, amused at what he thinks is a little game of footsie. the brit palms at the meat of her calf lovingly, traveling down down down until calloused fingers close around her ankle.

oh.

he’s quiet when he says it, eyes blown wide with a mix of shock and arousal. she barely hears him over the bustle of the visitor hall, the small smile gracing his face being her only indication of what he’s about to do.

“jesus fuck you dirty little shite—“ he suppresses a groan.

Butcher delicately lifts the fabric from around her leg, scanning the perimeter to make sure no one’s looking. darkening eyes bore into her as her sleazy husband balls the garment up in his fist, bringing his closed hand up to his mouth.

and then he kisses it. kisses her panties through the gaps in his fingers without ever looking away, sending a lightning bolt of arousal straight to the deepest pit of your stomach.

you swear you see him stuff the fabric down the front of his pants before he heads back.

˚ ✧ ───

her little gift doesn’t last a chance in the shitty hiding place he picked, haphazardly thrown under the swell of his pillow while he eats lunch in the mess hall. all Butcher knows is that they were in his cell mates’ greedy little paws by the late afternoon, the two insufferable men huddled around the item like schoolgirls reading a magazine.

“how the fuck did you get these past customs?” his bunkmate asks in disbelief, turning the fabric over in the dim light. Another one of butch’s prison mates runs a lithe finger over the lace border in silent interest. 

“didn’t get it in the mail dumbass,” her husband sneers, snatching the black lace from both men with a huff. 

“so y’r broad snuck them to you, huh?” the inmate teases, head hanging off the edge of the bunk with boredom. 

Butcher couldn’t curbstomp the two young men half to death with his boots like he usually would, disappointing as that was. He had to get out of here. Had to be by her side when she had their baby finally.

he did only just get visitation rights back again after his last infraction.

the last time he’d beat someone’s face in was after the younger man had got his hands on a picture of you, earning Butcher 2 months in solitary confinement.

he really did think he was starting to go crazy, spending 22 hours a day in that padded room with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company. being fed through a tray slot in the wall like a fucking zoo animal. 

more time in solitary meant less time with her. less time with the picture of her he tacked to the underside of the top bunk with a wad of gum, palming himself slowly as he takes in the sight of her sweet little smile he knows all too well.

less time with the soft clutch of your panties caressing the underside of his dick, catching milky ropes of cum as he finishes all over his stomach on the slab of metal this place calls a bed.

and a whole lot less time of building your future together, doing mundane, boring shit, painting your little rascals room, doing taxes, laundry, morning coffee, quickies in your childhood bedroom whenever he had dinner at your family’s. god, he fucking missed her. he was a right idiotic cunt for getting himself in this mess in the first place. if it wasn’t for all of this then you would be in his arms right now, he’d be feelin’ his baby kickin’ and fightin’ to get out of it’s mama’s belly. how it should’ve been.

so if Butcher had to bite his tongue till he drew blood and settle for jerking his dick raw as a distraction, then so be it. at least your little present would keep him good company till’ your next visit.

[blank-house]

hi hi random question! i hope this isn't too spoilery :') but who from the boys would you say is the one who pays the most attention to details? i don't know why but i was recommended on yt old videos and somehow i remembered those typical "who knows me better?" videos where it was boyfriends vs best friends lol i wondered if any of the guys has that kind of privileged memory where they remember even the tiniest of details? feel free to ignore! but i hope we get to see anything related to it... 👀

it depends on what details you're talking about! i think percy's easily the best with remembering the things you tell him. so, he'll remember little stories that you give and tell, when you say that you like something and so on. elio, by comparison, i think isn't as great at remembering those (though he's not awful at it lmao) but is really good at picking up on your emotional cues, so he'd know like how your face looks when you're happy, sad, when you're lying, etc.

jamie's, like, more of an all-rounder but that makes him kind of mediocre at it lmfao. it's not necessarily because he isn't paying attention, but it's because he's not used to giving people that much attention. like, even with his best friends, he misses signs and indications here and there, though he cares for them deeply. it's a learning curve for him, which is sweet in a different way.

we'll see if it ever comes up, but that's kind of my thinking here.

[the-storyteller78]

Ok, midterms are officially done and I’m finally getting my Vengeance Saga thoughts together. HERE WE GO.

I will be very frank. This was not my favorite saga. I did really like portions of it, and I was still left gobsmacked and mouth agape by the end of it, but overall, it was not one of the stronger sagas. Of course, I have nothing but respect for Jorge and all the amazing voices who contributed to this musical. Epic is still very dear to me, whatever qualms I may have. And I have the privilege of yapping on Tumblr without having done any of the work in figuring out all the logistics of creating a musical, so just remember: These are my opinions. Just me blabbering cus I like talking about Epic.

(And I know this would be very unconventional, but when the stage production of Epic comes out, I almost want there to be an intermission sort of thing after the Wisdom Saga or something. I don’t know how that would work out, but I feel like it would provide an indication of how much time has passed for Odysseus on the island.)

“Not Sorry For Loving You.” I felt nothing. I understand that Calypso has suffered because of her punishment of isolation, and I sympathize with what she had to go through. But I do not like her at all. I loathe her. Her tragic backstory does not give her permission to keep a man prisoner for seven years and ignore his desperate pleas to be allowed to leave. It does not give her leave to constantly pursue him when he has unequivocally told her that he is married and very much NOT. INTERESTED. And that’s barely even touching on the implications of sexual harassment. I was not happy with the choice to make Odysseus say that he loves her at all, even if it’s not romantic, but I was honestly very satisfied by the absolute stone-cold expression he had in Gigi’s animatic. That is not the face of a man who cares one bit about someone who kept him captive.

Anyhow. Moving on (because I’ll never stop talking about it if I don’t).

I really feel that “Dangerous” and “Charybdis” could’ve been combined in some way. Look, I love Troy Doherty’s voice. Every verse he sings in Epic is such a jam. But I have to say that “Dangerous” is probably one of the less narratively important songs in the entire musical. We know the journey is dangerous; it’s BEEN dangerous the whole time. No reason that would change now, especially with Poseidon still after him. And I know some people think “Charybdis” could be taken out, but I kind of like that the idea of him being dropped into this super scary situation right after leaving Ogygia but rallying himself and declaring that he’s still fighting. He’s not giving up. The way I see it, Odysseus’ lyrics in “Charybdis” are a meaningful specifically because he is returning to himself, he’s not willing to just die anymore like he was seriously considering on Ogygia. He has hope. I think it would be interesting to have “Charybdis” come right after “Not Sorry For Loving You,” have Hermes appear towards the end of the song, then have Odysseus sing his adorable little Penelope I’m coming home my love don’t worry moment. I don’t know how that would work out musically, but I’m sure someone could figure it out.

AND THEN POSEIDON POPS OUT OF THE OCEAN. “Get in the Water” was pretty intense; I don’t really have much to say about it. The voices of his mom, Eurylochus, and Polites echoing around him as he teeters on the brink of death had me teary-eyed. I’ll be real though, I’m not sure why the wind bag was relevant. It was such a lose-lose situation. If he doesn’t open the bag, he gets drowned by Poseidon. If he does open the bag to survive and fight Poseidon, he can’t go home. Either way, he loses. Was it like that on purpose because Zeus was trying to be a jerk even after flash-frying his daughter??

(Also, I don’t know what the physics or whatever of a super powerful storm bag jet pack is, but I somehow doubt it would be a viable option)

“600 Strike.” I wanted to like this song. And I will freely admit, the ending had me breathless and absolutely on the edge of my seat. However, I was definitely struggling not to cringe when he yelled 600 strike. I don’t know why. I was trying so hard to be cool about it, but I just could not. And I don’t get how he beat Poseidon with a regular old sword in the middle of an ocean. AN OCEAN. WHICH POSEIDON CONTROLS. We saw how helpless Odysseus and his crew were against Poseidon in “Ruthlessness,” and now he just goes down after a few blows from Odysseus who, by the way, does not have any divine enhancements or support at the moment. The wind bag doesn’t give him super strength. His sword isn’t magically able to cut a god. How is he suddenly able to beat him? The power of friendship?? At least the trident doing damage makes sense because it’s Poseidon’s own weapon. Which brings me to my final point. Like I said earlier, the end of “600 Strike” was really impactful. However, because I don’t think it makes sense for Poseidon to have been in that position to begin with, I can’t say that it sat entirely well with me from a narrative standpoint. I’m not sure what I would’ve liked to see, but maybe I’ll make a separate post about it once I mull it over some more.

OK THAT’S A WRAP. Thanks to everyone who managed to get to the end of this rant. Went waaaay longer than I expected, but what can I say. I’m just a girl.

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Living with your Yandere Gorgon Sisters (2)

Part 1 | Soul Eater Masterlist | Kofi

It’s my own personal headcannon that their childhood if you could call it that is a heartless hunt for power

The hierarchy topped by their mother is one of ultimate submission 

A constant cap on their power and watered-down respect in the witch’s order

Not to mention their mother, if bothered enough, will happily feast on her offspring

Not only as a quick meal but a way to boost her own magic

Needless to say, it's a constant battle for the three sisters against her

Which makes your birth a crucial moment 

Your mother is weakened nursing you but something is different

She can hold your swaddled form and not even have the desire to eat 

It makes your sisters all the more eager to target you

Its Arachne who strikes first distracting her long enough to stand over your bassinet

“You…are so precious."

Unfortunately, your mother returns before she can snatch you away

But that will do it for her

Next is Medusa and then Shaula  who have similar moments when greeted with your infant form 

Ultimately how they treat you when they have you are indicative of their first meetings with you:

Arachne Gorgon

Falling in love with you during her first successful fight marks the beginning of a dangerous jealousy

One being fed by her long stalking of your mother and you in private 

Nursing, speaking, and over all caring for you makes her so jealous

Jealous of your mother’s love? Not in the slightest

its of your mother’s privilege to love you

She wants to be her so bad

But she urged her sisters off of you two for a little while

Only until you finished nursing

So now when she demands you cuddle up to her its her…payback of sorts

For all that time her mother got to hog you for herself 

now she does the hogging

She loves when she punishes you

Taking you away from your lake or pool to rest in her bosom

“This it the way it should be. You, relying on me.”

Medusa Gorgon

Meets you on a less opportunistic situation

Taking advantage of a fight between Arachne and their mother

She comes with no intentions to spare you

Hand and undeveloped snake magic prepared to strike you

Cursing herself when she can’t bring her hand down

She eventually does bring a hand down only for the snake to wrap around your body as you giggle relentlessly

She holds you a little awkwardly relishing in the soft nuzzling into her undeveloped chest

She eventually puts you back nearly losing her eye at your mother’s vicious attack

If there had been a grave for her she would have held you close while spitting on the grave

But she doesn’t have one she doesn’t even have a body to bury

Medusa prefers the tank, watching you swim around listening to her

She believes she gives you freedom like none of the others

And you should be grateful

Grateful enough to forever stay by her side while she plunges the world into madness

“Good baby. You’re seeing it from my perspective now! A world full of madness! I can’t wait to set you free in it.”

Shaula Gorgon

Was annoyed with the exclusion that Arachne and Medusa had begun to do in regards to fighting their mother over you

So she attempts to fight their mother on her own 

failing miserably she’s practically only saved by you

Sitting silently until what would be her final blow you somehow need something 

Not to be sated easily your mother retreats sneering at her all the while

Coincidence, that’s what she chalks it up to

But truly was it destiny?

So she tries again

this time bullied into not harming a hair on your head by her sisters

Piggy backing off of them attacking their mother to sneak her way to you

All according to plan

Its Shaula who eventually sneaks away with a sleeping you

Lulled to sleep in her hiding place she finds that she’s never slept more peacefully than with you by her side

She doesn’t even wake when your mother lets out the eardrum shattering death scream

She hated having to leave your side to aid her sisters when you so cutely coo as she leaves

Now when she keeps you, she has to tell you all about what she’s accomplished

She so badly wants to show you how cool she is

“See. See. Its all about control (Y/n) if you have that there can be no one to stop you.”

[fatphobiabusters]

You know what? I thought I'd seen everything, but I'm literally fucking speechless right now. My university's counseling center is so fucking untrained on fatphobia that they have a pamphlet on "Body Size Diversity and Acceptance," which I had been shocked was offered at all. But I apparently shouldn't have gotten my expectations higher than the depths of the Mariana Trench because, after a very horrible experience with fatphobia in counseling there today, I opened the pamphlet to read that thin people are "oppressed" for being thin. And I am somehow not exaggerating in any fucking way when I say that's exactly what the pamphlet claimed.

They:

Didn't acknowledge fatphobia at all (the pamphlet barely even shows any fat people and makes this entire shitty pamphlet JUST about body image. You know, as if that's all fat people have to fucking worry about. The rest of this list is just about the two circled paragraphs because I do not have the energy to dissect this entire bullshit pamphlet)

Erased fatphobia to talk about "size oppression" which is a concept they made up to pretend that ALL people are oppressed for their size. BULLSHIT.

Act like this pretend "size oppression" they used to erase fatphobia is oppression because "Everyone judges themselves about their size and that's all that's needed to be oppressed for the size you are 😔"

"Size oppression does not spare those who are naturally thin, either." HUH. HUH. ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT? YOU WANT TO TAKE A SECOND GO AT THAT, BUD?

The pamphlet says thin people are OPPRESSED BY "VOLUPTUOUS AND MUSCULAR IDEALS." BUDDY, YOU CAN'T EVEN FUCKING SAY THE WORD FAT. THE WORD "FAT" IS NOT WRITTEN EVEN ONCE IN THIS PAMPHLET, BUT YOU SURE HAD NO PROBLEM WRITING "THIN" EVERYWHERE! AND "VOLUPTUOUS" IS JUST YOUR FUCKING CODEWORD FOR "THIN WITH A BIG ASS." FUCK OFF!

"[Thin people] can be just as dissatisfied with their bodies and themselves as anyone else." HUH. REALLY? YOU'RE GOING TO CLAIM THAT?????

They're the target of people's jealousy and envy, which you use to claim thin people are oppressed, AND THEN NEVER STOP TO FUCKING THINK WITH YOUR BRAIN ABOUT WHY EVERYONE WANTS TO LOOK LIKE THEM?!?!?!?! I DON'T KNOW, MAYBE THERE'S AN INDICATION OF A POWER IMBALANCE SOMEWHERE IN THERE????? SOME REASONS FOR WHY THIN PEOPLE ARE SO PRAISED??? AND THEM BEING PRAISED...IS YOUR DEFINITION OF OPPRESSION?!?!?!

"For no reason other than their body sizes!"

NO REASON?!?!?!?!?!

THERE'S NO REASON WHY FAT PEOPLE LITERALLY KILL THEMSELVES TO BE THIN OTHER THAN FUCKING AESTHETICS?!?!

NOT THE MUTILATION, POLICE BRUTALITY, STARVATION, LACK OF ACCESS TO VITAL RESOURCES LIKE CLOTHES AND HEALTHCARE, FATAL MEDICAL NEGLECT AND ABUSE, BEING LEFT TO DIE IN NATURAL DISASTERS LIKE HURRICANES, COURT JUDGES SAYING IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO RAPE FAT PEOPLE, THE WAGE GAPS, JOB DISCRIMINATION, WORKPLACE HARASSMENT, FORCED SEPARATION OF FAMILIES, NOT BEING ALLOWED TO ADOPT CHILDREN, AND THE LIST GOES FUCKING ON?!?! THIN PEOPLE ONLY EXPERIENCE THINNESS AND NO AMOUNT OF PRIVILEGE OVER FAT PEOPLE?!?!?!?!

I want to kill, maim, strangle, and rip flesh with my teeth right now :)))))

-Mod Worthy

[abbyshands]

"The reason that TLOU fans specifically seem to be so angry about the strike and annoyed at having to hear about what's going on in Palestine is because they don't want to be reminded of the reasons why they should no longer buy anything in relation to the game"

Not really, it's annoying to go to tumblr to a tag that is specifically for fics, and see posts about something else, If I want to see this, I will search on the tags about Palestine, but since I just want to read fics, I want to go to the tags and see fics

i think you need to comprehend how privileged you are to be complaining about this. i promise you it will take a mere few seconds more to keep scrolling long enough to find a fic. you can also filter your searches so they're easier to find (searching in the "last six months" section will make it easier to find fics than in the "all time" section for the sake of what you're getting at, especially if the word "fic" or "fanfiction" is following the name of the character you're looking for). also, if you click on a certain tag and go to the "top" part of it, you can find numerous fics there. people also usually have a pinned post that has all of their fics embedded within it, or even tags designated for their personal fic recommendations. what you're saying is that you're annoyed by having to take an additional five minutes to find a good fic. what i'm reading is pure privilege. i don't mean to be disrespectful: just merely voicing my opinion (regardless, though, you must want it, hence why you came into my inbox in the first place). also, in general, based on the way tumblr tags work, people on tlou tumblr who are (somehow ...) unaware of the genocide ensuing in palestine will be more likely to hear about it if there are tlou tags attached to the post, the reason why people are using them at all. people especially began to do this during the blackout because there were a wide range of individuals in the tlou fandom uploading fics and such while it was ongoing, robbing the blackout of purpose, which is not at all okay.

listen, i so want to feel for you as the person i am, but i really don’t. not at all. if you’re no longer in the mood to read a fic once you see a post about palestine, good. it’s not supposed to be a comfortable thing to witness. it’s a genocide that’s ensuing as i speak. it’s a genocide that was ongoing when you sent me this ask. i understand the want to escape for a little bit in fics, believe me, i do. but that shouldn’t render you devoid of compassion for the people in gaza. if you’re angered by such a small inconvenience, put yourself in the shoes of the millions of people who are experiencing what you’re seeing behind a screen as you read this. i don’t know you and i don’t know where your beliefs lie on the matter, but this ask indicates that they’re, at least to some degree, morally flawed. i hope this response can assist you to revise your thinking, and to do better as a general consensus.

[oddsandends-dirt-to-dust]

The World Ender

Masterlist - (chapters, link to ao3 post, moodboard, and spotify playlist.)

I’m The World Ender, baby, and I’m comin’ for them

Word count: 8k

Warnings (for part3): violence, death, gore, injury, angst, depictions of mental illness, hallucinations, alcohol usage.

——————————

PART 3 - The Other Side Of Living

Your feet dragged along the dusty floor. The chain laces were loose on your left foot, causing a dull scratching sound to reverberate around you as you walked. It would probably indicate your position to those you stalked through the dilapidated building. You didn’t care. 

It was some sort of shopping complex - the corpse of one anyway. The place was gutted, store-windows shattered, dirt and dust and dried-out gore everywhere. But you hadn’t come here for supplies. 

The assholes had ambushed you. Ten of them, in the dusty supermarket you were scouting. Only six had made it out. One of them with Jezebel. Anger coiled in your stomach. You wouldn’t have let them go anyway, ten men against one girl wasn’t fair – they were cowards. And you knew they were aiming to take more than just your belongings. So, you wouldn’t have let them go anyway, but the gun thing was certainly an extra motivator to your cause.  

The makings of a bruise throbbed on your cheek. 

You paused for a moment, examined the options. 

One, a dim game-store, littered with torn posters and milky glass shards.  

Too dark for them to risk. 

Two, a book-store, burned books lay on the floor, ashes all over, undisturbed.  

No footprints in the muck. 

Three, a large clothing-store. Your eyes drifted up to the second level of the mall. Two-stories, high ground. High meant safe – meant advantage. Or so they’d hoped. 

Morons. 

You moved past the useless stores. Useless to you – what you were looking for didn’t lie within. But Ellie would find joy in the ramshackle things. You’d often find her curled up with a book, or pulling one out of her battered backpack and flicking through the dog-eared pages as you were resting the horses on long patrol days. And she’d introduced you to video games – a privilege of the precious electricity Jackson coveted. She liked the combat ones – as if she didn’t do enough of that already, in her real life. And you liked how she gripped the controller like it was a weapon, spitting curses and groaning when things didn’t go her way. It was cute.  

The clothing store rose ahead. She wouldn’t care for that one – she’d always throw on whatever clothes were closest to her grabbing hands. But somehow, she’d still looked put-together. The casual comfort of her jumbled outfits matching her cool, carefree demeanor perfectly. 

You continued your stalking, made your way through the cracked doors, past faceless mannequins and tattered clothing. The store was wide, but you could see all four walls. Looted and etched with graffiti. It smelled like mildew and rusty metal. Like the inside of wrecked bodies.  

You whistled a melodic tune, aiming for the stairs attached to the back wall. You were surprised to find no one came out to play at the sound of the noise you were creating. You weren’t a coward. The number of guns and ammunition they held; you should make easy work. So why were they hiding? 

they're waiting at the top to ambush you again. bastards. no soul inside those monsters, no morals. just bodies waiting to rot  

You sniffed, turning your gaze to the elevator to your right. Ramshackle, empty. The rusted doors were open, gaping like a mouth, straight into the shaft – no lift to be found. Perfect. 

You stooped low, snatched up the stray chain of your boot and tucked it behind the thick tongue. 

You slinked to the elevator shaft, stood right on the lip. The end was bottomless, pitch black and waiting to swallow you whole. The pit underestimated you, much like those idiots lying in wait above. You ran a hand along the cold metal of the doors; breathed in the smell of rot echoing from whatever sorry souls were entombed far below. You took in your surroundings. The shaft itself was constructed of smooth grey-brick walls. 

The traveling cables and counterweights rested in the middle, and were climbable in theory. But a lot of effort would be needed, and you’d be thoroughly exhausted by the time you’d reached the top. That’s if your hands and slick boots didn’t slip down the sleek cables. You decided the guide-rail brackets, anchored to the brick walls, were your best bet for the most efficient climb. 

You stepped back a few feet, took a running start and cleared the shaft.  

Your fingers latched onto the closest guide-rail bracket; a simple bar of metal you couldn’t even thread your hands around. Your tiptoes barely reached the bracket below, and you strained, shaking against the concrete walls. You ground your teeth, heaving yourself up to the bracket and swinging your knee up beside a white-knuckled hand. The bracket protruded enough to slot a calf onto, parallel to the wall. One hand rested above your knee on the stinging metal, and you shot the other one out to the traveling cable ahead of you to steady your other half. Your other leg hung languidly above the steep drop as you held yourself there.  

The darkness beckoned. Danced. Taunted. 

Something breached the surface. A face of shadow. Mouth pulled back over its teeth; eyes wide with terror. And it was screaming. 

screaming. screaming.  

More faces emerged. Shadowed hands reached for you. The sound of your heartbeat filled the shaft. 

“SHHH.” You hissed. The men would hear the screeches, the incessant drumming of your chest. “Shut up!”  

The hands reached closer. 

they'll catch you in here. they'll pull you below, shred the flesh from your bones. it's what you deserve 

“Shut up. Shut up.” You begged into the deep. 

You launched yourself up from your calf with the help of the cable. Your body teetered. You jumped again, fingers gripping the next bracket. The shadows bit at your heels. You repeated your previous movements - knee up, steady on the cable, jump, fingers bend and burn. Knee up, steady on the cable, jump, fingers bend and burn. Hands torn on the jagged brackets. Metal stained red.  

By the time you reached the doors to the next floor your chest was heaving, breath ripping from you either from of exhaustion or fear or both. You couldn’t tell, couldn’t stop to think, couldn’t look down.  

You cleared the last bracket, pulled yourself opposite to the doors of the second level. You brought both feet onto the bracket this time, your back to the wall. You balanced there, holding yourself up using the cable ahead. You brought a foot up swiftly, planted it on the concrete wall behind you, pushed off and aimed for the safety of the brightness beyond the shaft. 

You didn’t make it. Your sternum slammed into the edge of the floor, hands grappling with nothing as you slid back towards the emptiness. Your arms swung wide, elbows hitting the half-closed elevator doors either side of you. You pushed back against them, hooking yourself there, groaning as the impact choked you, sending nausea to your stomach and searing pain to your ribs. Your feet fought for purchase against the slippery walls. You grunted, pushing yourself onto the ground above, face smushing into the filthy tiled floor. Your knee came up, anchored against the elevator doors, and finally you hoisted yourself back into the clothing-store. 

You laid there for a while, catching your breath. Your limbs burned, hands ached, upper body throbbed. You’d be bruised tomorrow.  

But you found your feet again, sighing out. You straightened your spine, looking back to the doom that had almost consumed you. The gloom smirked. The faces writhed, too far to make out their expressions, but silent.  

Until something spoke. 

they heard you. 

The whispers breezed past you. Your eyes widened, breath pausing. 

You turned. 

Guns, and guns, black pits of barrels all trained on you. The men behind them were smiling, smug, all spaced out on the discolored shop floor, in between broken mannequins and clothing rails. 

“Shit.” 

Your eyes bounced across the men. A few of them were bloodied, from your earlier scuffle. They all stared, eyes hard, teeth bared. The one closest to you shook, nose bleeding, gun wavering like a butterfly. 

“Ah, there she is.” You smiled at the sight of your Jezebel. Her pink painted hilt was lost in his thick, dirtied palm. “I’d like that back. Then we can all be on our way.” You lied. 

“I don’t think so, honey. You killed four of mine. You got six guns trained on you. I think you’ll find it’s me who gets to do the commanding.” One spoke. The leader, you guessed. The most well-fed out of them, fingers adorned in fat gold rings and belt covered in nasty looking knives. 

“Oh, look at that. Yet another man who likes to get off by ordering women around. How unique.” You simpered. 

You started towards a pile of clothing hanging from a bent metal rod. 

“Don’t move.” The man spewed. 

You rolled your eyes, trailing over to the clothes despite his warning. 

“Come on. Six big, strong men, six guns aimed at me. All those pretty knives on your waist. Can’t a girl pick a cute outfit to die in?” You asked, picking at the items in front of you.  

Colorful t-shirts, skimpy shorts, all moth-bitten and dusty. But that was the latest fashion trends these days. Apocalypse couture.  

You flicked an eye to the men. They all stared.  

Tiredness seeped through you. And you hadn’t eaten in a while, thanks to the rude disruption at the supermarket. 

You tipped your head back, closed your eyes. Your body buzzed with anticipation; limbs enthralled with the urge to break, crush, end. 

A smile prickled your mouth. You blew a breath up to the ceiling. 

“Okay.” You said, leveling your face to them again. “I’m bored.” 

The leader tensed; you knew that look in his eyes. You breathed it. 

You ducked behind the clothing rail as a shot burst from the gun, zipped past your head, popped into the wall far behind you. 

Footsteps thudded as you scampered over to the next set of rails and through a curtain of moldy smelling dresses. 

"Span out." One whispered. You assumed it to be the leader. 

You looked around, listened, making your way through the mazes of clothing and mannequins. You stayed low, kept your steps light. 

A couple pairs of feet stampeded in the aisle beside yours.  

Your breath came slow, shallow, every inhale a fight against the mildew-heavy air. The tang of rust and sweat clung to your tongue, grounding you as your pulse thrummed in your ears. You waited, muscles coiled tight, until a shadow moved parallel to you. The faint creek of boots on loose tile sent a ripple of anticipation up your spine.  

Then you leaped.  

You slung one of your knives from its holster and straight into the neck of the slim man ahead. He made a wet choking sound, as red blood erupted from his mouth and sprayed onto your hand.  

You spun to meet the other man, who was now running for you haphazardly - metal glimmering in his raising fist. You could see the sweat streaking his face, the desperate curl of his lip. 

He was afraid of you. The thought sent a spark down your spine. 

You waited until he was too close to stop himself, tensed your abdomen and swept your leg up, sending it straight for the man’s awaiting arm. It snapped away with a sick crack, and he howled as his knife clattered to the floor.  

Shouts rang out from across the store. 

Your hands were on him before he could finish his scream. You wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled him into a headlock, making sure his body was pressed into your front before you turned towards the men who had spotted you. 

Loud pops broke out, and the man you held grunted as lead fired into his stomach and chest. He jerked against you, hands leaving your forearms to clasps at his wounds. 

As the bullets stopped, loudly spat-out curses replaced them, and your eyes caught the final men further out by the stairs.  

They watched you, struggling to hold up their leaking friend by his neck, their faces a delicious picture of horror and rage. 

You shot them a smile, before shoving the sagging man off you and turning as you broke into a sprint. 

You leapt over stands and fallen debris, mannequins that quivered in silent witness. 

Bullets hailed around you, ripping past as you made a break for the back-room. The dust, smoke, and plaster from the walls eddied into the air, coiling around nothing, and you used the cover to clear the final few steps. Something hot tore into your bicep as you shoved the door open and flew in, sprinting down the dim metal hallway beyond.   

The men shouted behind you, surely trailing, but you didn’t stop to check. Warmth rolled down your arm. You ran down the connecting halls until your thighs burned, finally coming to a pair of doors. You slammed into them.  

They wouldn’t budge.   

Something had gone in, never came out. That usually meant one of two things.  

Bodies, or infected.  

You ground your teeth, checking the wound on your arm. The bullet had grazed you, deeply, but a graze was nothing. You scooped your twin knives from their holsters, held them tightly in your ruined palms. You stepped back, didn’t let the footsteps echoing towards you distract from your movements.  

Your heel collided with the doors, hard enough to make your body ring. They rattled in their frame, but held.  

You battered the doors, again and again, until a hollowed-out jingle sounded inside.  

You shoved in, noted the twisted bar on the floor, and pushed the doors closed. They were thick metal, bullets wouldn’t penetrate, but you’d busted the handles and the bar that was blocking them. You pressed your back into the middle of the doors. You just needed a second to take in your surroundings.  

You let out a curt whistle.  

Knocked-over shelves and items laid littered over the inky floors, but a good few had stayed standing. It was fairly dark, only the spotty windows on the second level brought in light. It leaked down over the crumbling balcony and struggled to illuminate the calamity below. Patches of black ichor soaked the ground, bodies scattered – bones, actually. Those people were long dead. Their military uniforms shredded; their weaponry discarded all around.   

“Lucky day for me.”  

The doors whacked into your back; you planted your feet with a grimace.  

As the men rallied for another kick, you lurched sideways for the alcove beneath the balcony, behind an upright shelf.  

The doors burst open and four men filtered in, guns raised and mouths snarled. They disappeared into the lines of shelves, ignoring the fallen ones and heading straight for anything that would provide cover. 

You crept forward as one of the men walked down the aisle beside your wire-rack shelf. His hair was long, hanging out beneath a filthy beanie, and it seemed to be blonde under the layers of grease and dirt. But he looked lean, and his clothes fairly unsoiled. You committed the thought to memory - these fuckers had a base somewhere in the city. And you’d have to be vigilant, in case there were more hanging around out there. 

Your foot hit something, it rolled away silently. You spared it a glance and sick delight ruptured in your chest. A grenade. 

Score.  

You continued making your way to the end of the shelf, mirroring the man’s movements. He reached it before you, but didn't turn into the alcove. 

"Oh, Rapunzel." You sang, softly. 

You pounced before he could turn, slipping your fingers beneath his hat and into his hair. You sliced the blade of your knife deep across his throat, angling his body into you so the blood would seep down his chest instead of splattering onto the floor of the silent room. He choked soundlessly, sputtering. 

It was one of your favorite sounds that men made. You enjoyed their suffering – but sometimes the groans and grunts they'd let out while leaking their life aggravated you. But that soft, shocked choking... like they couldn't believe the little thing they'd thought prey had bested them. It made your veins buzz. 

You set his body on the floor once he’d shut up, stepping over him as you wiped the blood that had mingled with your own off your arm. 

You stalked forward down the dim paths, stepping over old cans and barrels of... whatever. You turned a corner, found another man peeking into a soggy cardboard box. He reminded you of a rat hunting for scraps. 

You approached silently, despite the urge to laugh as he prodded the box as though you'd hop out. And then you noticed it.  

Your gun. He was poking the box with your gun. 

A weight settled down on you as your head spun. 

MINE MINE MINE. 

You sent one hand for his, pinning Jezebel to the wall behind the man as your other hand spliced your knife up through the bottom of his chin with a crunch. Not far enough to kill him, just far enough to skewer his mouth shut like a lollypop, so he couldn't shout. Although he tried, as you pressed him into the wall, and his chest rumbled and hummed with panic but his mouth stayed closed. His wide eyes stared into yours and something quiet, dangerous slithered through your gut.  

You remembered how he had looked at you before, when he’d pinned you to the floor, stolen Jezebel from your arms. Hungry, excited, smug. Inhuman. 

He looked inhuman now too, as thick red gore bubbled from his mouth - his face so twisted in terror it almost looked painful. 

Cans tinkled behind you as the last couple men seemed to be sorting through empty and full ones. You ignored them, ripping your gun from the hand you'd been pinning. The sick bastard hadn't even had the mind to shoot, alert his friends to your position.  

You hated them. You hated their stupidity, their greed, their overbearing strength. The awareness they possessed, that they could overpower the powerless, and the weakness it took to do it.  

You slotted your gun back into her holster, taking your other knife back into your palm. You watched the man's eyes squeeze as you wrenched the sharp thing into his chest, and his throat groaned as you tore it down his torso. Blood rained to the floor and you stayed watching his eyes as they dimmed. You breathed his death into your lungs, let his body drop to your feet like his insides had. 

You took another breath, tipping your head back as the world span back in around you. 

The men were coming, making their way through shelves. You reached into your back pocket, struggling to pull the grenade from the tight fabric. 

The stairs to the balcony were to your left; you launched yourself up them, ignoring as they rattled and shook. Then it was the balcony shuddering beneath you, and you looked down, careful not to lean on the shoddy railing. The two remaining men gazed up at you, anger on their blotchy faces. You grinned at them.  

“Rest in pieces.” You called down sweetly, tearing the pin from the ridged thing in your hand before throwing it right between them.  

It bounced to a stop.  

You paused briefly, just to watch the horror hit their faces, before you turned to the window with a laugh. You dove out onto the roof beyond and ran, aiming for the roof of the building beside the mall. It was slightly lower, the perfect height for a successful jump, and far enough away from the blast to be safe. Definitely a lucky day.  

Your foot hit the little wall at the edge of the roof as the ground trembled violently. You leapt from the ledge, stomach hollowing out as you flew over the street far below, and a mighty boom resounded. It shook your skull. Heat ripped into your back, shoved you forward roughly and you hit the next roof with room to spare, the impact making your teeth chatter. 

Your knees burned as you collapsed to the floor, sprawling onto the rocky surface. Plumes of smoke billowed upward, blotting out the day. Glass and chunks of building rained down like jagged confetti, tiny sparks dancing with the ashes in the sky. 

It was beautiful. 

But not enough.  

The pit in your chest stayed hollow and twisting, no matter how loud the booms or bright the flames around you.  

Still, you let the frenzy settle into your veins like a drug, a trembling laugh escaping your lips. Rubble pattered against the distant floor, and the top of the mall blazed like a sun. 

You sat and watched your chaos for a while.  

-- 

You brought the bottle to your lips again, gulped down the acrid liquid until your stomach burned. You suppressed a gag, humming as you swayed and twirled through the room. 

The dusty old generator hadn’t had enough power for the whole building, so you’d made do with just one room. The fairy lights you’d hung haphazardly around twinkled softly in the gloom, painting the navy walls of the attic with little warm spots like fireflies. 

You had spied the old factory from a couple blocks away, noting the giant wall-to-ceiling black muntin window at the very top. It was giant inside, and you’d managed to scrounge up a few cans and bottles of whiskey to aid you through the night. You had taken out a couple runners, nothing too serious, and then made your way up to your chosen spot. 

And it was glorious. The window over looked the silent city, tall buildings in the distance being eaten up by green and gauges. Dark hills way on the horizon, beneath the electric blue sky of dusk and cloud. You sighed contently, whirling around to the quiet music emanating from your shoddy CD player in the corner. Your body hummed with you, warm and floaty as you choked down more murky whiskey. The walls wobbled with your vision. 

Ellie liked whiskey. It was often her drink of choice; you couldn’t decipher why. The stuff tasted like musk and pain.  

Melancholy swam with the liquor in your stomach, and you closed your eyes. You let your feet carry you through the dusty attic, over rocks and shredded paper. Past the old, broken shelves around, past the little wooden tables and desks scattered through the room, gravestones in their own right. 

Nothing living had survived this place. Apart from you. 

you're not living. you're all instincts and misery. all death and gone. you're an animal 

Sharp bangs emanated through the attic. You turned to the little door on the far side of the room. The chairs piled high before it shuddered with the blows. 

You blinked through your dancing eyes. 

“Go away.” 

You ripped at your face. 

“GO AWAY.” You shouted. 

You closed your eyes again, sipping from your bottle, and hummed through the banging. You twirled through the room, arms spread like a dove. 

Your mind swirled. Imaged jumped at you. Screaming faces and blackened eyes. 

You twirled faster. 

The banging didn’t stop. Never stopped. 

You growled – twisted and flung the half-empty bottle of whiskey at the door. The bottle burst, glass rattling to the floor in a slosh of liquid. 

The banging retreated. 

Retreated, but never left. They never left.  

You stalked to the gleaming spot on the floor, glass crunched beneath your boots. You ripped the chairs down, let them clatter around you until the door was free and then you ripped that open too.  

The small runway outside your room had a rusting metal fence to protect against a nasty fall down into the belly of the factory. The pit of the place behind the fence was inky, darker than night. So dark it was nothingness, like the space behind closed eyes.  

You walked onto the rickety metal thing, leaned against the fence to peer down. 

You couldn’t see anything, a few glints of metal decorating the nothing below, probably more walkways and staircases lost to the black.  

A chill wind blew up your back, ruffled your hair – like someone running past behind you.  

You snapped around, met only with the dank, yellowed, plastered wall of the attic and the wooden door leading to your dusty room.  

Your lips pulled back. You pivoted, looking down the forgotten runway. Darkness pooled at the end, leading down the stairs. Beckoning, taunting. You weren’t so stupid as to follow it. Another ambush.  

A tawny clinking sound echoed through the place. Through your ears, bounced off your skull.  

clink, clink, clink  

You growled. Inched toward the stairs. Drew your knives.  

clink, clink, clink 

The noise scattered around, spun across the metal.  

“Are you hiding now?” You yelled, stomach tightening up as rage danced within.  

clink, clink, clink 

“Come out.” You said. “Come out and face me.”  

The factory creaked. Hid your shadows in its own.  

You whirled, kicking your boot hard into the drywall of the attic. It splintered, cracked like porcelain, spitting dust.  

A scream tore through the murk and age of the air. Loud in your ears. Your throat burned.  

You lowered your head, and your knives.  

“You should’ve talked to me.” 

You didn’t turn.  

“You ran. You’re pretty good at that. But it’s not what I taught you.”  

“I was a kid.” You said, the muscles in your shoulders tensed.  

Sometimes your brain didn’t think right. Sometimes it just took over, didn’t let you think, and then bad things happened. The world would spin out of control around you, your body would buzz and tremble and weaken. Weaken like limp knees and churning stomachs and brains that had rotted so bad a knife would fall right through the skull.  

“But you knew better.”  

A breath heaved out of you. You shook your head. 

“No.” You faltered a step. “Be quiet.”  

“You ran, and ran. And you never stopped. You’re still running now.” 

Heat blistered at your back. Above your skull, all down your limbs. It was hot here, so hot.  

You squeezed your eyes shut, quirked your head.  

Gunshots echoed; bullets tinkled to the floor like glass. The smell of burning shoved its way into your nose, into your brain. Screams dripped through the world and bodies popped like balloons around you. Blood melted into your skin.  

“It happens all the time.” You whispered. Your chest rose and fell, but the breath didn’t stay inside. It fell through the hole in your stomach, rushed into the dark, left you starving for oxygen. “That’s life, that’s the world now, it happens all the time. It’s nothing.”  

Blood on your hands. There was blood on your hands, on your clothes, caked into the grooves of your knives. You dropped them. They danced on the floor. The metal tinkled like bullets. 

Someone was screaming your name, tearing from the dusky corners, spiraling straight into your ears. Someone was screaming. 

“Y/N!” 

Your eyes popped open wide as you gasped, heart thundering and throat squeezing and legs shaking. As you turned, hands rammed into your back, knuckles pressing skin to bone, and your front thudded into the fence. 

You thought it would hold, for a second. You thought it would hold, until you were falling, air rushing up around you and carrying away that burning smell. You couldn’t breathe, didn’t even have time to spot the floor before you were colliding with it. 

Your body groaned. You could barely move. You dragged an arm up, fingers slathering blood all down your face as you attempted to prod at the blossoming cut over your brow. You must’ve scraped your face on the way down. You hadn’t hit your head, only your shoulders throbbed with impact. And your hands, where they had snapped out to brace your face. Your abdomen had twisted to bias your thighs into the concrete, so those throbbed too.  

You laughed a little, relished in the way it made your ribs ache. Because, sometimes, good things happened when your brain took over and thought for you. It was a shame you didn’t know which times until the times were memories that played on loops in your head and in your body and snuck into the spaces around your eye-line.  

You sighed through your teeth, pressing your hands into the floor again and raising yourself from the dirt. Today had battered you. 

It was clear – this was why the factory had called to you so alluringly. The things waiting inside had wanted a chance to rip into you. They always waited in the hollow places, the places left behind, the places forgotten and ruined. Looking for penance. Looking for you.  

You stood slowly, regarding the buckled fence resting on the floor behind you as your eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. The jagged, hungry edges seemed the perfect match for the gash on your forehead. And it was only a one-story fall. You’d live, you concluded. Though the fall had certainly killed your buzz, your mind sobering up in the shock and pain.  

The muscles in your legs squirmed as you forced them up the metal stairs. Blood dripped down your cheek, slipped between your lips. You spat, let the little red drops spray into the air ahead, wiped the rest from your face. More dripped down in its wake.  

You made it to the top, past the empty gap in the fence, slammed your door behind you. You didn’t bother to stop and re-barricade it. You were clearly feeling reckless tonight.  

You slumped down onto the thing you called a bed – a stacked pile of wooden pallets and a few chewed up, musty blankets. It was a far cry from the comfort you’d found in Jackson. Not only had the mattress been soft and the blankets warm, but they’d even smelled good - like detergent. Like a home.  

You hadn’t been able to sleep for the first few weeks, had even taken to crashing on the floor. Until your spine had gotten used to the softness and the smell. Used to the way you sunk into the pillowed mass... and you’d wake up with it smothering you.  

Then you’d tired of that too. 

You stared into the unscathed ceiling. A thing that even dust couldn’t touch. No dirt or grime or gore could settle on it. 

You almost felt like you were still falling. And you knew it was a feeling you’d never get used to; you knew it would follow you through the rest of your life like it had your whole past. The feeling of dropping, spinning, arms flying out to find something, anything, to grip onto, and coming up empty. Nothing was ever steady enough to break your plummet; floors would just warp and shatter beneath your back and you'd be back to falling again – wind whooshing past your ears and stomach hollowing out until you felt so empty and weightless you almost didn’t exist.  

A sharp knock splintered your thoughts.  

You swallowed, harshly. 

Someone called your name. 

Your lips pressed together, hand coming up to rub at the uninjured side of your forehead. 

Another set of knocks. 

You launched yourself up, stormed to the door. As the wooden thing swung open, you sent your fist out, knuckles meeting something fleshy but firm. A face. 

The person stumbled back, hand coming up to clasp their jaw. Before you could coil up for another hit, your eyes caught onto a familiarly decorated arm – ferns ran up the skin you found there, and you froze. 

“Ellie?” 

She threw you an indignant look. Something burst to life in your stomach, some explosion, something burning and tearing and hot. 

“Why the hell did you punch me?” 

You took in her messy half-up hair, dirtied clothing, disgruntled face. The face that had almost slipped from your memory, like a distant mirage or a dream. But now here she was, reddened patch beside her chin surely throbbing, matching the aching beat of your knuckles. 

She dropped her arm, examining you just the same. It brought a small smile to your lips. 

“Why did you knock?” You countered. 

She shook her head a little. 

“To make my presence known. An enemy wouldn't knock, I thought it’d lower my chances of being shot. Or hit.” She threw her palms out. 

“That’s... dumb.” You told her, leaning against the doorway and crossing your arms. Your shoulder burned. 

“Yeah, well excuse me. There’s no handbook for approaching aggressive, homeless derelicts.” 

You rested your head against the doorway, a bid to calm the woozy swirling, sticky face pressing into the wood. You puffed out a laugh at the fire in her words. 

“Homeless?”  

She furrowed her brows, eyes snapping to the floor. Then she closed them, shook her head again as if to dismiss the emotion. 

“What happened to your face?” Ellie asked, hand reaching up to hang from her backpack strap. 

You bit your lip, let your gaze drift to the broken fence behind her back. 

“Same thing that happened to yours, I guess.” 

Her face twisted in your peripheral. 

“Well, not all of it. I ran into some trouble earlier.” You explained. “They managed to leave a few marks. But I left a bigger one.” 

Her eyes roamed your face. 

“Yeah, I saw. I think every infected in the city saw.” She took a few steps back, turning to the empty drop off the runway. “You fall off that?” 

You quirked your head. 

“Falling is easy. It's the getting up that's hard.” You pursed your lips. “Or is it the landing?” 

Ellie blinked at you. 

“You know, I’d worry you had a concussion, if you didn't talk like that all the time.” She said, coming closer. 

Her hands reached for your face. 

You swatted them away. 

“I'm fine.” You scoffed, shifting back to your feet and walking into your room.  

As you sat on your pallet bed, Ellie walked in, peeling the heavy backpack off her shoulders and dropping it to the floor beside your feet. 

She sat next to you, hands pressing onto her thighs and rubbing them softly. 

She sighed, eyes bouncing around the room. The fairy-lights, the whiskey puddle, the CD-player, the gash above your brow, the chairs toppled over next to the door.  

She played with her fingers. 

She didn't say anything. She just let you stare at her, as she stared at the ghostly remnants of your day. 

You hadn’t let her face slip from you, you realized. Her presence, maybe. Her gentle scent and the warmth of her body and the rich rasp of her voice. But not her face – the freckles you found in the stars through the gaps of battered buildings. The pink of her plush lips you found in rare, perfect sunrises. The green of her eyes that wreathed the earth these days, the green that consumed concrete and metal and road and memories, and you.  

The face that was not a dream, but that you had seen in dreams in the nights that chased beyond Jackson, in the few hours of sleep you stole between monsters and running and hunting.  

“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” Ellie broke out, finally. 

You shook your head, confident in your answer when no pain bloomed at the action. 

She met your gaze. 

“No headache, neck pain?” 

You squinted at her. 

“You’re not normally so much of a jitterbug.”  

She quirked a brow. 

“And normally we’re in a town full of medics and medicine. What am I supposed to do if you die in your sleep?”  

Your eyes dipped low. You leaned closer into her. 

You couldn’t help but wonder if she was real. The way she had appeared at your door in the middle of a nowhere city, inside an unassuming, rundown factory. The way her lips lured you, the way she looked so easy to reach for, touch, hold. 

Her face made you fuzzy. 

You kissed her, met the soft warmth you remembered. 

And then her hands were on your shoulders, pushing you away.  

Your mind paused, zeroing in on her apprehensive expression as she stared at you – still wrapped in silence. 

You narrowed your eyes, annoyance fluttering in you. 

“You came all this way and expect me to believe you don’t have some cheesy speech you’ve been rehearsing? Go ahead.” You said, urging for her to get it over with. 

Her face turned despondent. 

Your jaw flexed. 

“What's wrong with you? Why are you so... quiet?” You settled on the word, despite the others sitting on your tongue. Gone, muted, missing. 

She sighed, swiped a hand across her nose. 

“No, I don’t have a speech. I have questions.” Ellie said, voice hard.  

“Why’d you leave? Why did you... let me in, and then disappear? Why didn’t you trust me? Was I that easy to leave behind? Did I mean that little to you?” She listed them mutedly, as though she’d chewed them over every night since the one you’d shared, as she travelled to find you amidst the ruins of the world and yourself. 

“Really? You came all this way just for answers?” You scoffed, but weren’t surprised.  

Ellie had always been a curious thing. Thirsty, determined, headstrong. She wasn’t someone who would sit back and let the unknown beat and claw at her skull. She’d go and face her truths. 

It stung a little, selfish as it may be. The thought that she’d come for her own needs and not yours. 

But then, she faltered, eyes dropping to the floor and fingers twisting together again. 

“I came to see if you’re okay. Clearly, you’re not.”  

You paused.  

Thoughts battled in your mind.  

So, she had come for you? She’d come because... because she thought you leaving Jackson was indicative of some sort of mental lapse? She thought you didn’t know what you were doing. She thought you were on some self-pitying journey of isolation. She thought you were weak and needed saving. 

That was why she’d pushed you off of her. 

Something white-hot pierced your stomach. 

“I can take care of myself, Ellie. I survived a long time before you showed up in my life. I don’t need you.” You said. The words felt sour.  

You stood up, walked to the little table across the room. Black pulsed into your peripheral at her rejection.  

“Yeah, I know.” She muttered.  

You faced her again. 

She closed her eyes, face twisting to the side. It almost looked like she was grimacing. 

Her befuddling words made your mind lurch. 

“Then why did you come all this way?” You shouted, throat vibrating with the bitter volume. 

“Why do you think?” She shouted back, face hard. 

Her words echoed through the dusty room as you stared at each other. 

Your breath shuddered out, strange emotions bleating through your chest. 

“Because you think I’m crazy. You think I’ll let myself get killed, you think I can’t live alone out here.” You ground out. “Well, you’re wrong. I always have. I don’t need you.” You repeated, trembling. 

Ellie blinked at you, eyes swimming. She lowered her head.  

Her fingers tapped against her knee like the seconds that ticked past. She tutted, rolled her lips before leaning down and unzipping her backpack.  

You braced yourself, uncertainty sloping through you as you waited to glimpse what she was rummaging for. Your own hands inched towards your knives. Or the gun in her holster, waiting for your palm. 

Her hands reappeared, a t-shirt and a black bottle clasped in them.  

You took a breath as she stood, guilt biting at you. You moved your fingers to unbuckle the slanted belt around your hips. You slung it onto the table behind you, weapons tucked away safely inside.  

Ellie walked to you stiffly, until her green eyes were so close to yours you could see yourself in her pupils, haloed by the fairy lights behind your head. She soaked the shirt in strong smelling antiseptic, placed the bottle on the table behind you.  

She breathed out, hand coming up to your cheek. 

You wrapped your fingers around it, stopping her before she made contact with your aching skin. 

“Just let me clean you up.” She muttered.  

“No.” You seethed, pushing her hand away. 

It flew back up to you anyway, and she gripped your face so hard your cheeks smushed around her long fingers, pressing skin to bone. She caged your head in place. 

Her eyes bounced around your face, narrowing at what she found there. 

“Punch me again, if you want. I won’t stop until that cut’s been cleaned.” Her voice rumbled.  

You really were sick. Your stomach tightened at the roughness she enacted on you, her clipped words, her squeezing hands. Her face, the quiet anger that danced through it. 

You clamped down on the urge to kiss her again. 

She lifted the shirt to your brow. 

The damp fabric met your forehead, her fingers pressing it into the gash. It stung first, bright and sharp, and the pain ebbed across your flesh. You bit down, lifting your hand to rest on her forearm as she continued dabbing at the wound. Then it ached, like a bruise or a bone. Your breath seeped out between your gritted teeth. 

Ellie’s eyes moved from the wound to your face and back, checking for a reaction although you knew she knew it hurt. Obviously, it hurt. 

But pain was an odd being. And aching felt good, sometimes.  

You shifted, leaning back against the table like the other discarded things. You could relax a little, as she smoothed the fabric down your face to remove the dried blood. That part didn’t hurt. Your face leaned into her hand. 

Her other one, the one still clasping your chin, softened slightly. Turned to more of a cradling touch than a caging one. 

Breathing felt hard.  

Then, she let out a sound half between a scoff and a sigh. 

“You really thought I’d just let you leave? Let you disappear off into the city, never think of you again?”  

Her tone wasn’t harsh or goading. It was soft... Aching. 

You weren’t sure what to say to her. You couldn’t find it in you to comprehend her question, or the lingering emotions floating through the air behind every word she was saying. 

You’d never really understood the action of missing something. You focused on the world around you, the here and now. Nothing good lay in worshiping the past. Or worshiping people. You were a moving thing by nature, like the wind and the world.  

But even in those small moments where you allowed yourself to linger, even when you thought of things gone by – you rarely felt the urge to seek those memories, have those moments back. 

Apart from maybe... the press of her lips.  

You thought over her questions again, all of them. It seemed most of what she’d said to you since her reappearance had been questions. They muddied in your brain, tugged at thoughts and forgotten feelings and missing pieces. 

You twisted your face. You didn’t like not understanding things. Didn’t like the untethered feeling surrounding you. 

“Why couldn’t you? Why... why couldn’t you just let me go?” You asked. 

Ellie’s eyebrows upturned; she shook her head softly. 

“Because... I-” she sighed, gaze dropping. “Because, I need you. I need to know you’re safe. I need to know you aren’t suffering, aren’t out there being torn to fucking shreds somewhere.” 

That grating feeling ensnared your chest. Aching, and raw, and craving. It choked you. The world around her blurred, shrinking like a bullet whizzing out of view. And you couldn’t deny the girl in front of you. The russet hair, framing the dainty face dusted with freckles that mingled with the dirt coating her sallow skin. Those mossy eyes, full of something living. Full of you. 

You grit your teeth. 

“Ellie.”  

Her lips thinned at the hardness she found in your voice. 

“You really find it that hard to understand? I don’t care if you don’t feel the same. I just need to know you get that.” Those eyes full of pain. Full of the faithful reflection. How they should be.  

“I can’t lose you.” She said, tone straining. 

You stepped past her, out of her grip, into the crumbling attic beyond. Your hands rubbed at your eyes, over the scratched plains of your face. 

Was there even a you to lose? 

You’d never felt like much of a person. More like a murky black-hole. A throbbing bruise. Something that consumed, and bloated. Something so full of nothing, it hardly existed at all. 

And then there she stood, waiting for you to think, to understand, to feel. Watching you like she could see right into your splintered soul. Inescapable. So achingly alive, so burning. So mortal. 

You wouldn’t survive her. 

Numbness swept up your back like static. Arced over your head, crashed into you like raging ocean waves, threatened to pull you to the floor. You couldn’t breathe. 

“I’m not like you, Ellie. You don’t- you don’t know what it’s like.” You turned to her again, unable to explain the whirlpool inside. “You’re just hurting me. I wish I didn’t have to think of you. Ever again.” 

Her face echoed torment. Her jaw flexed. 

“I’m not trying to hurt you.” She chided. “I... what do you want from me?” 

Ellie sent the shadows scattering. Cleaved a hole in the vortex of you, filled you with buzzing sparks and emptied out your brain. 

You swept your hair behind your ears, braved forward a few steps. The words tumbled out before you could stop them, raw and exposed. 

“I just want you near me.” 

Ellie froze.  

You crossed your arms over yourself, lingering in the blistering silence that followed your raw words. 

“That’s what I am to you? A distraction?”  

That hardness overtook her again as she stalked toward you. 

You were drawn to her. Black-holes were always consuming the light. 

Her hands singed into your waist; her fire covered your skin.  

you're a sickness. you're going to eat her up until there’s nothing left 

Ellie swiped a hand over your cheek, brought it down to your chin. Her thumb pressed lightly, tilting your face up.  

Why did it feel so good, to burn? 

Her fingers dug into you again. 

Your eyes stung. You blinked as hers breached your mouth. 

“You just want me to fuck you? Like you’re just some whore, like we don’t mean anything to each other?” 

Your chest tightened. You stepped impossibly closer, her warm torso pressing into yours. 

Yes, that was all you wanted. You couldn’t face the gentle girl in your memory. The feathery looks, the sweeping touches, the incessant fluttering feelings she ground through you. The easy smile and the simpering words.  

Her mouth parted a little, like she was going to say something else, but you silenced her by fisting your hands in her shirt, dragging her so close your foreheads were almost touching.  

Ellie didn’t hesitate; didn’t even pause – she closed the space at your wordlessness, hand roaming to the back of your head, pulling you into her with a fist. Her lips were on yours again, finally, pillowy and searching. The soft tickle of her breath beneath your nose. Her kisses were all-encompassing, as she suckled and tugged at your lips like she was trying to find you. Her mouth opened on yours, dragging you deeper, and your heart pounded in your throat. She gripped your hair harder, other hand snapping harshly to your jaw. 

You lifted your hands to her back, letting her ravage you. You didn’t even pull back as the need for oxygen beat at your chest, you just let your head spin, her lips hot on yours. Every part of her pressed into you, unwavering and excruciatingly existing. 

[jingerpi]

tm??? woman posting about transfeminism constantly without any indicator of being trans in bio, you are a walking russian roulette wheel of cisbian chaser (who tries to hide her position of privilege) or like. a feminist trans woman

I literally cannot figure out a way to answer this ask that would be satisfactorily explanatory without just saying that yes I'm a trans woman It is strange to me though, to get an anon that is functionally asking me to announce my transness publicly, can you think of any reasons someone may not publicly disclose this information? I'm very understanding of wariness surrounding chasers and people trying to obfuscate their privilege but I think its also worth noting that trans women do not owe people an explanation of their gender, and certainly not publicly to people they have no relation to. Personally, I'd like if more cisbians posted about transfeminism, I don't see how its an issue unless they're mistreating trans women. I'm happy to answer such here because this blog is largely meant to be educational, but its also a place I like to hang out and be silly sometimes, and sometimes I like to exist without constantly being demarcated as "other".

the roulette wheel is funny though thanks for that mental image, somehow managed to imply I'm a predator while also calling me cis, a genuinely interesting duality sdbhfbdsf

i dont know, its just odd to me, i get being concerned but like can people not post about transfeminism because they're transfeminists, ive not got some secret motivation or smth, i just want the liberation of trans women. maybe id be more understanding if id been posting this stuff while also engaging in transmisogyny but its not like thats whats happening, it seems like someone is just profiling me as a chaser purely for being a feminist which i hope you can understand comes across as really strange and a bit accusative

[crazy-pages]

Yes - your experiences with RHPC are also there to mistreat and degender trans women. It's indicative of your privilege why these spaces were "welcoming" to you. Learn to realize that instead of shutting your ears.

I am begging you to get out more. Please, actually go to a Rocky Horror Picture Show showing! You don't even have to go in! Just look at the crowd that shows up. You have this absolutely detached from reality notion of who is watching it and why, and I swear on any god you care to name, if you actually go to one you will see throngs of trans women having an amazing time. It's not for everyone, sure, but (and I can't believe I have to say this) no part of the queer community is a monolith and you need to actually try and understand the experiences of others who feel differently than you.

But no, you know what? I'm gonna put a positive note on this.

Buckle in, I'm planning on making up for all the negativity around this with quite a bit of positivity and it's gonna be long.

The very first time I watched Rocky Horror Picture Show, I was in college, freshman year. I knew I was a bi guy by that point, had dated a guy*, and still felt absolutely petrified being openly bi around strangers. I had no idea how messy my queerness actually was by this point.

*She turned out to be a transfeminine mostly woman genderfluid person later, but at the time it was my first gay relationship.

I'd just had a talk with a straight guy on my floor. He'd made some comments about how he supported pride, but like ... not the gay people who are so out there, you know? That's just uncomfortable.

And damn me, I agreed with him. Not because I actually agreed with him but because the thought of disagreeing petrified me. I didn't know how to say that I actually wanted to be one of those out there queer people. That I wanted to have that bravery. I want it to be accepted, of course, but gods I also craved the simply bravery of people who hung pride flags in their own rooms. Who felt confident enough to say any flavor of "I don't fucking care if you want it, I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it."

And then a trans girl I'd met during orientation invited me to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show with her. I had no idea what this was. But she got what felt like every damn queer freshman in the entire dorm together. Gay, bi, trans, whatever. Our straight friends? Sure. Some of us who turned out to be very queer later and who she somehow clocked? You betcha. She got us all together in the dorm lounge, which was open and faced the elevator. Every single person moving through the dorm that evening would be able to see us.

And she put The Rocky Horror Picture Show on.

It was every single queerphobic stereotype the 70s could throw together. Transmisogyny? Hah! That shit went beyond transmisogynistic depiction, the demons out of the fevered imaginings of 70s straight culture weren't broken down into categories. Faggot? Dyke? Tranny? They all meant the same thing and it was totally indistinguishable to your average suburban straight person in the 70s. They had no damn concept up there being a difference between a guy who wants to fuck other guys and a guy who pretends to be a woman. The decree of vicious stereotypical othering on display was literally beyond current conception. It was everything that straight guy I had talked to was thinking of when he said "gay people who are so out there", distilled and refined.

And it. Was. Joyous.

It was a movie which took hold of all of those stereotypes, even the explicitly predatory and infectious and doomsaying ones, and screamed "YES! SO FUCKING WHAT!? WE'RE HERE, WE'RE QUEER, AND WE FUCKING LOVE IT!" It is a movie which takes the stuffy suburban point of view characters and makes them queer. It does so in a way that embodies every aspect of the 70s fear of infectious homosexual permiscuity and then shows it as joyous! As liberating and wonderful and the best fucking experience of their lives!! Its characters were messy and full of conflict and doomed from the beginning and also gloriously fucking alive and happy to be queer!!!

At the end of it the trans girl I'd met during orientation, who would go on to be my friend for the next decade to this day, asked me what I thought of it.

I said I really liked it.

I meant it had changed my life.

She started gushing about it, and a lot of the freshman went back to their dorms at this point, but the rest of us talked for what must have been longer than the movie itself about all of the queerness in it. Yeah about the trans misogynistic stereotypes and the homophobic stereotypes and the complicated way the movie both mirrors and subverts the way 70s discourse about queer culture and even the way it elided cis queer women. And we did it all in plain view of everybody. We were the queers in your face and it meant the world to me.

The second time I went to a Rocky Horror Picture Show showing, I was actually invited by a straight friend who was invited by some queer friends he didn't know quite as well as me. (It really ended up being the two of us going together.) I was living in Arizona at the time, which is not quite as bad as the Deep South but still pretty damn conservative and it made being openly queer scary as hell.

I had realized at the time that I liked wearing skirts. Like, really liked wearing skirts. A lot. Lots of gender euphoria about it. Now like I said, my queerness is messy. I am very much a man. I am also pretty sure I want to get bottom surgery someday. I genuinely don't know if that makes me cis or trans. Hell I'm not sure what the word for that even is. Transsexual maybe?? But at that time, I was still figuring it all out. I didn't know if I was a trans woman or not. I knew I didn't really feel like a woman or want to be a woman or vibe with feminine secondary sex characteristics, but like ... I dunno when you're getting euphoria over wearing skirts and in the deep dark recesses of your mind you think you want a vagina, it's kind of impossible to not ask that question.

And the thing is, I had never been out in public in a skirt before. I'd never even been out in public with makeup before.

But I had that experience with Rocky Horror Picture Show to draw on. I knew that showings of this movie were where you go to be openly, loudly, unapologetically queer.

So I put on a skirt and a see-through shirt and really intense makeup (not in this picture unfortunately) and the biggest smile I felt like I'd ever worn in my life, and I went to The Rocky Horror Picture Show with my friend.

Now for those of you who don't know, there's a tradition at showings where people who haven't attended a showing before get marked with a V for virgin, and called up on stage before the showing to get kind of lightly sexually hazed. It was very explicitly done with consent at the showing I went to, everybody was made to understand they could bow out at any point and that it was all in good fun and in the service of expanding people's boundaries. Stuff like being asked to kiss other people in queer ways, encouraging a blushing baby lesbian to motorboat a hot older woman in leather, getting two guys to do an overwrought romance improv, etc.

And when I got to the door with my friend, there was someone working the door who was some flavor of queerly transfeminine and supremely confident about it. She looked at my friend and immediately asked him if he'd been before and gave him the V. (He came in a tshirt and jeans.) Then she looked at me.

And I'm never going to forget what she said.

She gave me a look up and down, chuckled, and said, "Yeah you've done this before, go on in."

I had not actually done this before, I hadn't gone to a proper showing and so I missed out on the virgin experience, but I could not bring myself to care. Because I was riding the high of her comment for days. I'm still riding it, to be honest.

She hadn't recognized me as any particular gender or flavor of queerness. All I knew was that she had seen a visibly masculine dude with a buzz cut and a skirt and poorly done makeup and said "Oh yeah. You're one of us. ❤️"

Also my straight friend had a great fucking time and we ended up gushing about it for like an hour afterward and I got to pass on a bunch of the stuff I learned from my old trans friend about the history of the queerphobic stereotypes on display and the underlying meaning of aggressively joyous claiming of that from the '70s queer movement.

So yeah. It is a movie which portrays queerness as intrinsically alien to straight society. The creator is a genderqueer man who believes that trans women are women, but an intrinsically different flavor of women, an opinion which has aged very poorly and quite justifiably gotten him scorned by the modern trans community. And some modern queer people, especially trans women who are sensitive to portrayals of transmisogyny, are going to feel uncomfortable with the movie.

And yet.

I've had people in my DMs and anons in my asks yelling at me for saying there are transwomen who like this movie, and that the question of whether it's trans misogynistic is more complicated than whether it portrays transmisogynistic stereotypes. Most of those have involved people screaming at me that they're sure it must have only been trans men and tme (transmisogyny excluded) people attending showings (and you could really feel the sprayed derisive spittle as they typed those terms), that it's impossible for any true trans woman to enjoy showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

And to those people, and to you, all I can hope to do is share these experiences with you and hope you try to understand the different queer experiences of others.

Not just mine.

But the experience of a trans girl who I'm sure was feeling even more alone and isolated as a queer freshman than I was. Who assembled a whole group of queer kids, who sat with her to take the very nightmare stereotypes which haunted her every day and turn them into a weapon of raucous joy and in your face queer solidarity with her.

And the experience of the person at the door of my first showing, queer and transfeminine and supremely confident about it, seeing some baby queer looking like every damn flavor of masculinity rocking up in a skirt and poorly done makeup. Saying "Hey kid. You're one of us," and watching the baby queer's face light up like a million Christmas trees.

You don't have to like the movie. But the people who like it? Are here, are queer, are - yes - even trans women.

Get used to it.

[yellowocaballero]

Weekenders Side Story: Byleth Gets Turned Into A Cat; Felix Causes Problems On Purpose

“You know humans can’t spontaneously become cats, right?”

“So far as we know,” Dimitri stressed. “Magic can perform impossibilities, can’t it? Annette and Byleth were practicing magic for hours yesterday. She could have magically turned into a cat!”

“Uh huh.” Felix hadn’t expected that to work, but might as well make the attempt. “What are the other reasons it reminds you of Byleth?”

“Its fur is the exact shade of her old hair color, and its eyes are the same shade as her current eyes. One would assume it’s just a castle stray -” Left unsaid: like Felix was undoubtedly assuming. He absolutely was. “ - but none of the castle strays are affectionate to either of us. It’s well-groomed and its fur is silky, which is another case in point against it being a stray. Its claws and teeth are wickedly sharp and it wields them with dexterity. It clearly doesn’t possess bloodlust, but it’s always lying in wait for battle. There is something calculated about its expressions, as if they are not quite natural to its face. And the stare speaks for itself!”

Dimitri knows Byleth turned into a cat. It's very obvious. You can tell just by looking at her. Why doesn't anybody believe him? Dimitri never says untrue things. People turn into cats all the time. He's not hallucinating this time he swears.

In which everybody thinks Dimitri is hallucinating, Sylvain grapples with love and family, a young boy finds his destiny, and Byleth has the best month of her life.

A friend asked me to write this and so somehow I did. If you were into Weekenders I highly recommend this, as it is basically the 'Five Years Later' story.

20k of shit getting weird under the cut. I spent so long writing Felipe as the world's most pretentious 15yo that it was weird to mentally smash cut into him as a baby. He's a democratic socialist but just because he hates his dad. He won't stop lecturing Sara on praxis and is convinced that he's in touch with the underprivileged despite being the most privileged teen boy in the country. The OCs have lore guys.

“Felix. Wake up.”

Unfortunately, Felix woke instantly. Seven years of battlefields made a light sleeper. Worse, the voice was Dimitri’s. 

It took longer to realize that he was in his opulent four poster bed in his castle suite. There was no slip dip of the mattress beside him - Annette must have fallen asleep at her desk again. Instead, his only companion in his bedchambers was the King of Faerghus Dimitri Blaiddyd. Who was standing next to his bed. Holding a cat.

“Please,” Felix said, “tell me this important.”

The presence of the cat indicated that it probably wasn’t. Nobody delivered news of another invasion holding a cat. Dimitri would have sent a runner to knock on his door, anyway - kings didn’t fetch people. 

Dimitri flashed a ridiculous pair of cow eyes at him. He held up the slim-but-fluffy black cat in his arms indicatively, as if that could possibly indicate anything. “I need your help in determining if my wife turned into a cat.”

Alright. Felix took a careful breath in and out. He reminded himself that in Dimitri’s world this was an emergency. That Dimitri was doing exactly what they asked him to do, that even asking Felix to confirm the delusion was a sign of incredible effort and will from Dimitri, and that he was coming to Felix because he trusted him to help him feel safe. None of this changed the fact that it was ass o’clock and the King of Faerghus had, again, woken him up because he thought his wife was a cat. But it was important, and it did help. 

Felix leaned over and lit the candle on his bedside with a finger, immediately bathing them in soft candlelight. He saw that Dimitri was in his nightclothes - that he wasn’t even wearing his eyepatch - and that the cat seemed very satisfied with its current position in life. He must have come straight from bed.

“I see,” Felix said evenly. “Can you tell me why Byleth is a cat?”

Dimitri lowered the cat, face falling. “That’s your ‘humoring the mental patient’ voice - no. No, this does sound insane.” He shook himself, holding the cat a little tighter to his chest. “Byleth and I worked on paperwork until 2200 hours. We stayed up for a little while talking, and went to bed at 2230. I believe I fell asleep before she did. Fifteen minutes ago, I woke up suddenly and saw that Byleth was gone. In her place was this cat. Which is obviously Byleth.”

Dimitri held up the cat. Felix looked at the cat. The cat looked at Felix.

Dimitri cuddled the cat closer to his chest, making it close its eyes and purr happily. Somewhat defensively - somewhat exhaustedly - he said, “I am…very, very convinced this cat is Byleth. No part of my mind is telling me any differently. But I recognize that it seems…improbable from the outside. As such, I decided to ask you to help snap me out of this. Or confirm my suspicions, as necessary. I hoped to also call upon Annette, but it seems she fell asleep at her table again. I trust in your discretion.”

Felix sighed and threw aside the covers, dragging himself out of bed. He was only in his boxers, but they were years beyond modesty at this rate. “Obviously. Here, give me the cat.”

With some reluctance, Dimitri passed the cat into Felix’s arms. It was lithe, slender, and attractively fluffy. It was perfectly happy with being tossed about a bit, and it immediately snuggled happily into Felix’s arms and cocked its head at Felix in pure and innocent curiosity. In the candlelight, the black coat shone dark blue.

Its eyes were gigantic, and a strange shade of mint green. It had…the blankest, yet most intense, stare he’d ever seen in a cat. It didn’t move - it just looked at him, trapping Felix in its hypnotic stare and freezing him still. It held eye contact with him for a very long time. Felix broke first, looking away as his spine crawled. That cat knew your sins. 

Well. Felix honestly saw where Dimitri was coming from. He couldn’t say that, obviously - affirming the delusion was a terrible idea. But the cat really was horribly reminiscent of Byleth. He’d never seen any other living being stare like that…

“Do you see what I mean?” Dimitri hissed. “Doesn’t it have Byleth’s uncanny aura?”

It absolutely did. Felix was not about to admit this. “It’s pretty cute.” It was - it felt innocent and pure, yet draped in apex predator blood. “You know humans can’t spontaneously become cats, right?”

“So far as we know,” Dimitri stressed. “Magic can perform impossibilities, can’t it? Annette and Byleth were practicing magic for hours yesterday. She could have magically turned into a cat!”

“Uh huh.” Felix hadn’t expected that to work, but might as well make the attempt. “What are the other reasons it reminds you of Byleth?”

“Its fur is the exact shade of her old hair color, and its eyes are the same shade as her current eyes. One would assume it’s just a castle stray -” Left unsaid: like Felix was undoubtedly assuming. He absolutely was. “ - but none of the castle strays are affectionate to either of us. It’s well-groomed and its fur is silky, which is another case in point against it being a stray. Its claws and teeth are wickedly sharp and it wields them with dexterity. It clearly doesn’t possess bloodlust, but it’s always lying in wait for battle. There is something calculated about its expressions, as if they are not quite natural to its face. And the stare speaks for itself!”

Dimitri finished his speech with a flourish, as if it was all irrefutable evidence. He waited expectantly for Felix to give a retort and refute his points. This time, Felix was floundering. It was normally pretty easy to parse out Dimitri’s illogical trains of thought and help him realize that they weren’t possible. His ideas got really out-there. This was also an out-there idea, but this time he didn’t seem deterred by the obvious impossibility.

He seemed clear and present, but he must be worse off than Felix originally guessed. Damn it. They had so many meetings tomorrow.

He really did not miss this feeling of completely hitting a wall. “Did anybody tell you this, Dima?”

“It was all basic deduction!” Dimitri said heatedly.

“It’s alright if somebody told you.” Fuck, Felix was tired. “Was it Monica again? Or the Dark Mage?”

Dimitri jerked back a little, hurt flashing on his face. Damn it, don’t make Felix feel like shit over this. He was the one so dead-set on the cat thing. “You won’t even entertain the possibility?”

“I’m a master-class mage, Dima. Magic can’t turn full-bred humans into cats.”

“It could have been a blessing by the Goddess.”

“Byleth has a very irregular sleep schedule. She’s always getting up in the middle of the night and walking around. Have you checked the castle pond for her? The stables? The garden?” Judging by Dimitri’s sullen look downwards, he hadn’t. So he really hadn’t been thinking clearly. “Do you need me to check those spots with you?”

It must have been very obvious from the look on Felix’s face that he really, really didn’t want to. Felix had ten meetings today and he’d have ten meetings tomorrow, and he really wanted to go back to the scant few hours of sleep he could scrape. 

Twenty five was a pretty young age to rule an entire country - especially when Dimitri  hadn’t mentally been up to very much for five years. And it wasn’t just Faerghus anymore. He ruled the ‘Territory of Adrestia’ now too. Faerghus had swallowed the Alliance back up, and its lords had all been forced to swear fealty back to Faerghus again. The guy was now effectively the ruler of Fodlan. Anybody in his position would believe that their wife’s a cat.

“I can manage on my own,” Dimitri said stiffly. He held out his arms. “I apologize for waking you up. Please return By - the cat to me.”

Despite himself, Felix hesitated. Dimitri hated even touching live animals - he was always scared that he’d crush them. Bad experience with a frog when he was nine. He hadn’t hurt an animal since, and Felix knew he never would, but…

Dimitri saw the hesitation. It was clear how much Felix had hurt him. But he just sucked it up and took it - as always, after all this time - and he just let his arms drop. 

“Never mind,” Dimitri whispered. “Sorry.”

Before Felix could apologize to him, the cat abruptly wriggled out of Felix’s arms. He let it escape, allowing the cat to jump down onto the floor, and he and Dimitri watched in silence as the cat gracefully trotted away. There was something so familiar about that swaying gait…

That solved that problem. Dimitri didn’t chase after it, which solved another. 

Dimitri turned around and left his room. Felix could almost see the cape snapping at his heels. He was in his sleeping clothes in the dead of night, trying desperately to convince Felix that his ex-private school teacher and current wife was a cat, but it was somehow still impossible to mistake him for anything other than a king.

Felix rubbed his face and groaned. Out of all the times to fall asleep at your desk, Annette…

Sleep was a long time coming that night, and in the morning Felix was tired after all.

***

The next morning was as miserable as expected. 

Felix never had high hopes for it. Every trip to the castle was marked by a month of nonstop useless meetings and wastes of breath lords. He had a million reasons to resent his father, but forcing him to be Lord High Marshall to His Majesty etc was one of the worst. Felix had always assumed Glenn would be stuck with the horrifyingly important positions and that he’d be free to manage the fiefdom while Glenn was busy being important. Now Felix was important. And he couldn’t even complain about it, because every time he complained about it his old man kept on offering to do it instead and leave Felix to manage the fiefdom.

And fuck that. As if he’d inflict Dimitri on any other sucker. 

But, of course and as usual, the situation forced Felix to be a little more honest with himself. If he could be here every day, he would. Even if it involved retainers and vassals and stuffed shirts. For Annette and Sylvain, obviously. But for Dimitri too. Felix always wanted to be there when he needed him. Every time and always.

Tapping the Blue Lion (they seriously needed a new name for their cult - it was a little embarrassing going by schoolyard names) gossip network was the day’s first order of business. Felix updated Sylvain on the situation during their 0500 training session, and by breakfast every Blue Lion in the castle knew. By the end of breakfast Ingrid had rearranged her guard rotations so she could take the position of Dimitri’s bodyguard for the day - peeving his usual guard, who was well aware of Dimitri’s condition, but Ingrid was the only member of his guard who could step in for him publicly. 

The greater castle gossip network spread a little slower. Felix’s manservant heard from Byleth’s ladies in waiting that they couldn’t find her at all that morning. It was a little unsettling. Byleth had the habit of disappearing into the woods and completely forgetting to tell the people responsible for following her around, so the ladies in waiting were more peeved than worried. Felix remembered how clear Dimitri’s speech had been. 

When Felix spoke to Dimitri and Ingrid personally for the first time that day - nearing mid-day, which said quite a bit - Dimitri obviously knew what was going on and had accepted it with his usual grim resignation. His opinion on their rigid protective detail changed frequently, but at his most even he always carried that air of resignation. Sometimes Felix wondered if he thought he was being punished for something. 

They were both in the hallway moving between conferences, but Felix had learned how to take any opportunity to snatch a minute with Dimitri. Dimitri was attended only by Ingrid, and Felix stopped them both in the middle of the hall and bowed.

“Greetings to Your Majesty,” Felix said. This felt intensely stupid after last night, but it always did. “I pray for your continued good health.”

“Greetings to Lord Fraldarius,” Dimitri said, a little coldly. Ingrid made a sympathetic face from behind him. “How fares your wife?”

“I have not had the pleasure of seeing her today.” They all grimaced together. Workaholic woman. “Your Majesty, may I borrow your guard for a minute?”

For just a second, Dimitri looked a little more tired than usual. He was aware they were about to gossip about how to handle the cat-wife situation behind his back. “Of course. Captain Galatea, return at your leisure.”

Ingrid stepped out from behind Dimitri, bowing as a knight to a lord before shooting him a concerned look. “If His Majesty has a minute to join us, his company would be welcome.”

Felix grimaced apologetically. “His Majesty must be very busy. I wouldn’t want to occupy his time with this small matter.”

Read: Dimitri was not invited. They both frowned in apology to Dimitri, who just shuttered his expression and waved them off. Five more retainers immediately swarmed him, and Felix and Ingrid quickly whisked themselves away to a small conference room. The people using it were less important than they were, so they kicked out the idiots and locked the doors behind them. 

Immediately, Felix said, “This sounds stupid, but you need to send your guards out searching for Byleth.”

Also immediately, Ingrid said, “Please do not tell me that you also think Byleth is a cat.”

“Of course I don’t!” Felix snapped. Ingrid raised an eyebrow, and he immediately subsided. “Look. You didn’t see that cat. It was - reminiscent. And nobody’s seen Byleth at all. Finding her would put the matter to rest.”

Ingrid sighed. “Dimitri wanted to check the garden ponds himself. I had to call in one of Byleth’s handmaidens and have her attest that they’ve already looked all over the castle. She’s going to feel awful when she learns that she worried Dimitri…maybe it’ll be enough for her to finally start telling us where she goes all day.”

“Then tell the guards to find her. Say that I need her urgent signature or something.” 

“If you think it’s important, I will.” When had Felix earned that trust? Why? He was literally Felix. “But I won’t mobilize the castle guards without Dimitri’s approval. How should we handle this?”

Felix sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Sylvain said to let it run its course until it becomes a problem. Is he showing any other symptoms?”

But Ingrid just shook her head, looking troubled. “Absolutely none. You know how sometimes he feels a deep worry, but he hides it because he thinks we won’t understand?”

“If that man starts thinking we turned her into a cat -”

“No, not at all. It’s only that he knows we won’t believe him.” Ingrid’s brow furrowed - like Dimitri, more worried than she would like to admit. “It’s hard to do anything for him like this.”

“Flayn would know.”

“Or Byleth.”

The two least emotionally intelligent Blue Lions stood in miserable silence. They mutually attempted to design a respectful, sensitive, and efficient way of solving the problem. They were too emotionally stupid, and they mutually failed miserably. 

“Fuck it, let’s just tell him.”

“Agreed.”

Kidnapping Dimitri was a tall ask, but when Felix returned Ingrid to Dimitri he was able to somehow do it so aggressively that they gained a small bubble of privacy. Felix tried to weaponize his unpleasantness these days.

Ingrid bowed lowly, as a knight to her king. “Your Majesty. Permission to mobilize the castle knights to search the surrounding area for Her Grace.”

Dimitri perked up immediately, and temporarily forgot himself. “Does that mean you believe me?”

Felix and Ingrid adopted poker faces. The implication was clear. Dimitri’s hopeful face fell, and Felix saw him struggle to replace that impassive kingly demeanor. 

He stepped closer, lowering his voice and hissing, “Why are you sending the guards if you don’t believe me, then?”

“It never hurts to be thorough with Her Grace’s safety,” Ingrid said. Nice one. “We want to do our due diligence.”

Dimitri’s voice lowered further, only barely audible to Ingrid and Felix. “Are you or are you not humoring me?”

Felix and Ingrid winced as one.

They were both remembering the same moment - years and years ago, when a raging ‘up and out’ Dimitri accused them of humoring his repeated insistences that the Adrestian mages were using telepathy to project messages into his mind. He had thrown a chair against the cabin wall. It had been the first time Mercedes had to knock him out from concern that he would hurt something or someone else besides himself. 

Dimitri remembered it too. He backed away, closing off his expression, but Felix knew the hunch of those shoulders. Pure Dimitri-class shame. And the Dimitri-special ‘Everything I did while I couldn’t control myself makes me a bad person’. And that particular tightening of the eyes indicated the classic variant ‘I wish my friends had allowed me to freeze to death in the Faerghus winter instead of taking care of me’. Goddess, he was stupid.

“You have my permission for anything you must do,” Dimitri said stiffly. “No need to inform me.”

Which was code for ‘I know I’m compromised right now, so do whatever damage control you want, sorry in advance for the extra work’. It was normally a relief to hear - for more than one reason - but now…

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Ingrid bowed again. “I’ll send the order at once.”

Felix copied her, but he found himself hesitating. That was never a bad thing. It didn’t happen often enough. “Your Majesty. Do you remember when you and Flayn stayed in that small village in the base of the mountains?” Dimitri stared at him blankly. He was correct: those five years were fuzzy for him. Sometimes Felix wondered if he remembered more than he admitted. “You kept on telling Flayn that the village was overrun by Adrestian mages. She said that you were on high alert during your entire stay. Apparently your caution was how Flayn realized that a group of travelers were plain clothed scouts from the Adrestian army. It may have saved your cover.”

Dimitri blanched, apparently shocked. “I did? I was right?”

“They were not experts in telepathic magic,” Felix said, somewhat circumspect, “but paranoia was a smart move in those days. You weren’t always wrong, Your Majesty.” 

“It used to make Lady Byleth sad,” Ingrid said quietly. Felix nodded, but Dimitri just looked away. “She once told me that you wouldn’t be so scared all of the time if there wasn’t anything to be scared of.” 

“Lady Byleth also blamed herself for involving me in my own coup and the war for my own kingdom,” Dimitri said, stiff and unyielding. Felix knew that the topic was a sore spot between them. Byleth had vented about it more than once to Felix. And cried about it, which had been deeply alarming. “I take responsibility for my own burdens. And I would not burden you two with my own…beliefs.” 

Ingrid and Felix gave him identical ‘you aren’t a burden, asshole’ eyes. Dimitri knew the eyes perfectly well and pretended he did not. He turned away from them and made eye contact with a courier, and just like that their personal time came to an end. More than they usually got. 

Ingrid and Felix exchanged long-suffering glances. But something rose in her expression, and Felix had to admit it rose on his too: 

Felix didn’t know a lot about blessings from the Goddess. He didn’t know any Faith magic, forbidden magic, or experimental atomic magic. He knew nothing about beastkin, dragonkin, or catgirls. He was not a religious man and wasn’t even a particularly friendly man. But even he had to ask himself…

…what if his professor had turned into a cat?

***

Felix recruited Sylvain for the cause, because he clearly didn’t have enough to do.

Grand Chamberlain was such a fake job. Sylvain was probably the smartest Grand Chamberlain in two hundred years, but Dimitri’s uncle had gutted the position so severely that it was a little fake. Then King Dimitri unified Fodlan, appointed Sylvain to the position, and un-faked the job via signing off on whatever he wanted to do. In a move that would have made the teenage Blue Lions faint from shock, Sylvain loaded himself up with as many responsibilities as he could and lifted every burden from Dimitri’s shoulders that he could manage. Even beyond what he could manage, sometimes. The Blue Lions were experts in collusion to make him take a break (Mercedes persuading him to take a break, Dimitri signing off on the break, Annette and Felix taking over his duties, Petra shipping him off to the beach), but those moments were few and far between.

And that wasn’t even mentioning the baby.

Felix easily kicked aside the guards outside of Sylvain’s office, shoving open the door and finding Sylvain in the exactly expected location (giant fancy desk) doing exactly the expected things (paperwork). Felix would have come earlier, but he had squeezed Sylvain’s schedule out of his assistant and timed his approach for the handful of hours that Sylvain did not have a meeting. 

“You’re helping me out with the Catleth situation.” 

Sylvain looked up, pained but not surprised. “With the cat or with Dimitri?”

“We’re finding the cat.”

“You don’t need me for that.” Felix opened his mouth. “If you make any pussy jokes I’m throwing you out of this castle.”

“You don’t have the authority to do that.” He did. With Dimitri indisposed, Sylvain had the administrative final word. Byleth had the Blue Lion final word, which was a subtle yet distinct difference. “If I’m going to spend my free hour hunting down a cat then I’m going to multitask while doing it. You’re coming with me.”

“How is that multitask -”

“It’s making you take a break. Up.”

Sylvain got up. They swapped abilities to bully each other about once every five years, and it was Felix’s turn. 

The castle was sprawling and it was not short on cats. Cats were one of the few things that made Lady Byleth smile, so the groundskeepers were under orders to leave them running around so long as they didn’t disrupt anything. Sylvain immediately began plotting out a systematic search that began at the fringes of the castle and circled inwards - a move that was basically identical to their standard military tactics to eradicate the fleeing dregs of enemy forces. Felix blatantly ignored him and forced him in a straight line outwards. 

“Are we just doing this to make Dimitri feel better?” Sylvain asked, successfully prying himself away from Felix’s iron grip. Damn lancers and their upper body strength. “If we are, then we should probably invite him to this very useful expedition that is a great use of our time.”

“Ingrid mobilized the guards to make him feel better. We are searching for the cat.” A passing page tried to get Felix’s attention. He blatantly ignored them. Dumbass Sylvain had to wave and grimace apologetically. Just get a reputation as an asshole. It was easy. “It’s a better use of our time than idiot forms and idiot idiots.”

“Shit, you’re being serious.” Sylvain stopped short, forcing Felix to stop with him. He looked sternly down at Felix, who forcibly reminded himself that it was his turn to bully Sylvain. “You said that Dimitri thought it might be magic. You’re the mage between us, Felix. Do you really think that Byleth could have magically turned into a cat?”

“Magic isn’t an x factor,” Felix said curtly. “It’s not limited by the beautiful reaches of our imagination. Reason magic is a mathematics and science that produces certain sensible results. Like lightning. There’s no Reason equation for turning a human into a cat.”

“What about Faith?”

“Oh, Faith’s bullshit.”

Sylvain crossed his arms. “Faith’s magic. Annette knows -”

“Annette’s shitty at Faith.”

“Annette thinks shittiness is a moral failing.” Stone faced, Felix pumped his fist in the air - their standard ‘Go Blue Lions!’ gesture. “She was like that before Lady Byleth got her hands on her and you know it.” Felix rolled his eyes. “She made all of us worse, your wife isn’t special.”

Felix pinched the bridge of his nose hard. “Look. Byleth forced all of us to have basic proficiency in all types of magic. I know enough theory behind Faith to understand that it bolsters the body to approach the ultimate ideal form of the goddess. The goddess’ body is immaculate, so it heals the body. The goddess’ body is powerful, so it provides buffs. The goddess is not a cat.”

“Wow,” Sylvain said, impressed. “That is bullshit.”

“Fucking hated learning that shit, but Byleth manipulated me into getting competitive with Annette and forced me to learn it.” The increasingly intense rivalry had turned their relationship from casual into something far more serious. It had taken years for them all to accept that Byleth had arranged all of their relationships, much like she had arranged their lives. “Here, quiet down.”

The best fishing spot in the castle was the large pond in the center of the castle. It was rich with fish, had a peaceful ambiance, and even possessed a waterfall. Byleth’s favorite fishing spot was way out on the outskirts of the castle and bordered a cow pasture. Fishing was a meditative task, and for her it demanded maximum isolation. At Garreg Mach they could clearly see her fishing at the docks during most of her free periods, but nobody was stupid enough to bother her. She had a way of making the blankest stare feel hostile. 

Cows lowed among them, peaceful and stinky. Felix and Sylvain pulled on their hard months of stealth training and snuck through the brittle and scraggly bush, ducking beneath overhanging branches and gently sidling out of the brush to the other side. 

The sight was unimpressive: the pond was just as scabby and tattered as the bush, and the sagging tree branches spread over the pond creaked in the weak spring breeze. Despite the spring, the pond’s foliage was limp and cracked. The only redeeming feature was the solid selection of particularly stupid fish. Due to a confluence of all of these factors, it was Byleth’s favorite fishing spot.

Sylvain leaned close into Felix’s ear. “Didn’t Byleth’s handmaidens already search the fishing spots?”

“Not this one. It’s her secret spot. Nobody with half a brain would tramp through all of this cow shit.”

“Then why do you know about it?”

Special Tea Time. “Classified.”

“The fuck does that -”

Felix slapped a hand over Sylvain’s mouth. Silence and stealth was now of the utmost priority. He had found his quarry. 

Of course, the quarry was the Debatably-Byleth Cat. It was sitting exactly at Byleth’s favorite place to sit on the bank, leaning over the pond as its tail lashed. Its eyes tracked the surface of the water, alert and ready as it waited over its prey. The cat’s fur had looked black last night, but in the color in the daylight was clearly dark blue. 

“That’s supposed to be Byleth?” Sylvain hissed. “Felix, it’s obviously a -”

“Watch!”

Felix almost missed it. The cat had watched its quarry for over a minute, but in retrospect it had clearly just been waiting for the right opportunity. The cat lashed out a gleaming silver claw, spearing a fish and pulling it out of the water. The movement was smooth as silk and so quick that Felix barely caught it. The fish flopped pathetically onto the shores of the bank, and the cat wasted no time in almost swallowing the fish whole. It was probably the most impressive hunting Felix had ever seen.

The cat finished its meal and settled down happily onto the banks, flopping on its side to enjoy the gentle sun. Looking at its serene little squints, you could never tell that it had speared a fish and swallowed it whole in under three seconds. The bat of its paw was perfectly calculated to almost mathematic precision.

“Holy shit,” Sylvain said. “Byleth’s a cat.”

“I’m gonna have to apologize to Dimitri,” Felix said blankly. “Damn. I hate doing that.”

The cat re-embarked on its precise hunt, its bloodlust insatiable. Sylvain looked abjectly depressed. “He’s never going to forget this. This is going to validate him.”

Worst case scenario. “Maybe we don’t have to tell him?” Felix offered. Sylvain gave him a bizarre look. “What? What do you think’s going to upset him more, a missing wife or a cat wife?”

“Impossible to tell.” Sylvain faced down the cat grimly. It - she - casually speared another fish, shoving it down its gullet. Where was she putting it away? That fish was half as big as she was. “We gotta catch that cat.”

“I’m not getting into a fucking chase scene with our cat professor, Sylvain.”

Sylvain whistled, bright and sharp, and Felix immediately shoved him. The cat’s head rose, turning her head as her eyes locked straight onto Sylvain and Felix. They both fought instinctive quailing and the urge to apologize for disrupting the sacred fishing time.

Damn it. This was the point of stealth. She was going to freak out and run off, and Felix would actually be stuck in a horrible little chase scene with his academy professor -

The cat trotted over to them, tail swaying happily, and Felix and Sylvain froze as the cat stopped at their feet and blinked solemnly up at them. Those piercing mint green eyes made Felix understand how the fish felt. Sylvain, still traumatized from the academy, froze in horror and fear. 

Felix bent down and scooped up the cat. He bounced her a little, holding her like a baby, and she meowed delightedly. Sylvain stared at the stone faced Felix and the happily purring cat, rapidly losing all will to live.

“She’s very friendly,” Felix said blandly. 

Sylvain bent down a little, making eye contact with the pleased cat. Hesitantly, he said, “Professor? Is that you?”

The cat mrrp’d. 

“Meow if you can understand me, Professor.”

The cat yawned. 

“I think Byleth might be a regular cat,” Felix said, scratching her behind the ears. “So what do we do now, your lordship Grand Chamberlain?”

“I wish I was in a meeting,” Sylvain said, desolate.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I don’t.” Sylvain sighed, running his hand through his hair. “We can’t let anybody find out about this. The future queen of Faerghus is a cat…how did this even happen? Damn it, why does this only happen to us? What are we supposed to do with her?”

“I don’t know,” Felix said, “does your son want a pet?”

“He’s nine months old, he doesn’t want anything,” Sylvain snapped. “Gather everybody. I’m calling a house meeting. Including Dimitri and the cat.”

Felix raised Cat Byleth to eye level, bouncing her a little. “What do you think, my lady? Are you making a new rule of the Blue Lions? Is it ‘we only eat trout’? ‘If we can fit in it, we can sit in it’? ‘Our kittens are acquaintances’?”

“Let’s go, Felix! And don’t let go of that cat!”

Man, he was cranky lately. 

***

Sylvain did absolutely have a baby. He had met the squirt around twice. It was hilarious.

The birth of Felipe Emilie Gautier was celebrated throughout the country, and the blessing of the goddess was assumed: Sylvain and Mercedes Gautier’s first child was a boy and born with a crest. You couldn’t get any luckier. Dimitri had been hailed by the country as a miracle baby because he was the king and queen’s first child and was born a boy with a crest. There had been celebrations in the streets for a week. 

Good thing, too. Sylvain had refused to have any mistresses. His children would be born via Mercedes, and fuck everybody else. Maybe the goddess had approved of the romanticism.

Sylvain’s position as heir Gautier had already been locked down. But his war heroism, decorated office, and blessed child catapulted him into the second most powerful position in Fodlan. To Felix, it was clearly a little disconcerting for him: nobody had ever valued Sylvain for anything beyond his crest. Nobody outside of the cult had ever respected Sylvain as a person. Sylvain’s reputation in their schooling and his home had been of an empty-headed callous playboy, and no amount of kindness, intelligence, and wisdom from him could dent that reputation. Obviously, war heroism and kingly favoritism turned that around. He was an invaluable asset in making Fodlan strong. Look at his baby.

Sylvain did not look at his baby that often. As much as Felix gave him shit about it, he knew that it was natural. Sylvain worked in the castle and the Gautier capital was two weeks of travel. Losing a month of work to travel was unacceptable, never mind the time spent at home. Sylvain had spent a month at home when Mercedes gave birth and returned six months later to attend the annual fiefdom congressional meeting. That was it. 

Mercedes herself found that kicking around a castle living with her in-laws was a thoroughly boring experience, so she and Felipe were living at the border of the Duscur territory and working with Dedue to build schools and conduct humanitarian missions and whatever-the-fuck. Even letters took ages to reach her.

Dimitri, by this point thoroughly aware that he had stolen everybody else’s fathers, had immediately offered to move Mercedes and Felipe into the castle. Mercedes herself had declined: she was needed at Duscur, not Fhirdiad. Sylvain understood, for the same reasons that Mercedes understood why he had to live at the castle, and they loved each other as much as ever. But Felix knew a small part of Sylvain was a little relieved too. Sylvain was ashamed of the feeling, but that didn’t stop him.

“Think of it this way,” Felix had said. “You didn’t want to be a father. Mercedes wanted to be a mom. You knew you would lose your place in the line of succession if you didn’t become a father.” If a noble of a crested home didn’t have a child their entire territory would excommunicate them. No exceptions. Hilarious. “Now you and Mercedes both get what you wanted. Mercedes gets a baby, and you get to pretend the baby doesn’t exist.”

Sylvain had actually attacked Felix over that one. 

Technically the situation wasn’t Sylvain’s fault. The sword at his neck forcing him to be a parent was incredibly fucked, there was nobody else any Blue Lion trusted to do his job, and the castle incompetence left him taking on so much work that he couldn’t take a break. Maybe it was mean to tease him for child neglect, as if there was anything he could do about it.

That wouldn’t stop Felix. His father had made, in retrospect, a stunning effort to see him as frequently as possible, but that was maybe glimpses of him for a week every three months. Glenn’s death wasn’t the only thing that had strained their relationship. Even Felix was luckier than his friends: his forced bonding time with Dimitri at the castle once he turned five meant that he saw his father too. Felipe might not be so lucky.

Just because it was unavoidable didn’t make it acceptable. Sylvain was fucking up his relationship with his kid. When that baby was an uncertain child, struggling to navigate the oppressive nature of his world, his father would not guide him. When that baby was a bitter teenager, he would blame the father that didn’t want him for the faults of the world. From this distance, it was easy for Sylvain to forget that. Felix wouldn’t let him. Shoving this pain away would push it onto somebody who didn’t deserve it.

Ingrid and Ashe, the token monogamists, weren’t married out of sheer spite. Petra had asked Ashe to return to Brigid to help her with some invaders, and Ingrid had sent him away with support from ex-Adrestian troops. When he returned, he would probably move in with Ingrid into the castle and raise their own child within the castle. Having that Galatean baby out of wedlock might be a bit extreme even for spite, but Ingrid would probably satisfy herself by eloping with Ashe’s lack of title and absolute poverty. Dimitri’s child wouldn’t steal the baby’s father. An unusually lucky baby. 

As for Felix. Annette had submitted their ten year plan onto Felix’s desk and he had rubber-stamped it. Felix would continue splitting his time between his own lands and his castle; Annette would continue her work as Royal Magician. At age twenty eight, once she received the highest level of acclaim she could receive from the Inter-Continental Magical Association, she would leave her position to her successor and return with Felix to Fraldarius full-time. Annette would have the kid and take up a professorship position at the university as she continued her independent research. Felix, you can split your time in half between the castle and raising the kid. Three children maximum, another if one is a jock. You’re on your own after that one. If you have to choose between the castle and your kids, Felix -

Yes, Annette. He’d pick the children. Almost all of them would. Byleth had raised a strange group. 

The men had even gotten together and unanimously agreed to only resort to mistresses if their wives asked. Sylvain had flatly refused. Almost all of them had a stupid amount of half-siblings: it was extremely common practice for lords to try for children with other women if their wives weren’t delivering on the Crest front. Ingrid had a truly insane level of half-siblings, none of which she had met. Ingrid and Ashe had frankly stated that they were having as many as they felt like having, and that chasing the crested baby was her brother’s job. It was technically meant to be hers, but somewhere along Ingrid’s three hundredth kill she stopped caring about what she was supposed to do.

Sylvain’s monstrous half-brother was actually the full child of the lord and lady - Sylvain himself was the child of his father and apparently the most gorgeous woman in her village. Any crested child out of wedlock was bought from the mother and adopted into the lord and lady’s family, given the title of heir, and treated as if they had been there the entire time. Sylvain was apparently identical to his mother. Maybe. He didn’t look anything like the lord. He took after her in personality too. Maybe. He didn’t act anything like the lord. He had never met her, and his father couldn’t be assed to remember her name. When Sylvain got drunk he wondered how much his mother had sold him for.

The flood of extra children had extra utility: namely, that noble tradition put its nobility on the front lines of war literally all of the time, and they all had the habit of dying like flies. Felix had a funny family story from his grandfather about how a generation of Fraldariuses three generations ago had been wiped out in a war against Sreng. Desperately, they literally had to scavenge together a handful of impoverished village bastard children to fill out their ranks again. His entire noble family were the descendents of mistresses. It was a skeleton in their closet that Felix found hilarious.

None of them knew Dimitri and Byleth’s plan. They were all privately concerned that Byleth didn’t know where babies came from and that Dimitri was too awkward to explain. 

Felix had spent five years as an underground revolutionary. He had fought and won a war that unified the continent. He was one of the five most powerful people on the continent. He was renowned as the greatest Master Savant on the continent and was forced to regularly turn down a flood of requests to take apprentices or teach his methods. But he had never really felt like an adult until he was forced to sit at a table with Annette and haggle out how many uncrested children they would have until Felix would start taking mistresses. 

Or had it been earlier? Maybe it should have been. Maybe the first time Felix helped feed Dimitri should have been his tipping moment into adulthood. It hadn’t. He had only felt achingly young. He had been painfully aware of his own inadequacy: his fear, his helplessness, his daily dances with death. He had wanted the professor. 

For years, they had all wanted the professor. She was the only protector they had who hadn’t split her time between their duties and their families. She had dedicated her entire life to them. Every second of her day was about helping them grow, nurturing their minds, healing their spirit, and pushing them to the brink. It was attention they had never gotten from somebody who had never been obligated to give it. 

Families were obligations and pressures. Families were lonely birthday parties and glimpses of their fathers. Families were false mothers who knew you were a cuckoo in their nest. Families were dead mothers, dead fathers, and an extended family who convinced themselves that you stole your cousin’s nonexistent crest. Families were the price your mother put on your head and the faceless wash of half-siblings who you would never know. 

“The Blue Lions are family,” Ashe had murmured into the dark, a long time ago. A dark cabin and a rare meeting between almost all of them. “Right?”

Ingrid shifted closer against him, creaking the rusty mattress thrown unceremoniously to the floor. “You’re all family to me.” 

Three of her brothers had died in the invasion.

“I believe that we choose the family of our hearts,” Mercedes had said quietly. “My adopted father is no father to me. I care for all of you deeply.”

“None of you would ever abandon me.” Annette’s voice was a little thick. Felix had squeezed her hand. “Of course you’re my family.”

“Family is a complex matter,” Flayn had yawned. They hadn’t even realized she was awake. Girl had always been chronically tired. “It’s somewhat of a construct…but far too much emphasis is placed on blood ties in our society. I’ve always had the freedom to arrange my own family. You all will always be a part of it.”

“Fuck my family and its fucking bloodline shit. I can’t tolerate them. I love you all more than anything. No debate here.” Sylvain reached out and gently tapped Dimitri on the shoulder. Dimitri’s face was buried in his ragged pillow, his silky hair tangled over his sheets. They had successfully wrangled him into a bath yesterday. “What about you, Dimitri? We know you’re awake.”

Dimitri curled up on his side, pointedly putting his back to Sylvain. Voice hoarse and deep, he muttered, “I have a mother and father.”

“And I have a brother,” Felix had said. “The living don’t overwrite the dead. None of us here want to be your mother, anyway.” 

“My sister slaughtered my family.” Alright, maybe bringing up family to Dimitri had been a shit idea. “She’ll kill you too.”

Lightly, Sylvain had said, “We’re pretty tough cookies. Have a little faith in us, Your Highness.”

“You should leave,” Dimitri had hissed. “You’re all going to die.”

Felix had groaned. “Did telling us to abandon you work the last twenty times, asshole?”

“We’re in danger anyway, with or without you,” Ashe had reasonably pointed out. “Together or apart. Might as well do it together, right?”

Dimitri muttered something under his breath and buried his face deeper into the pillow. He pointedly ignored everything they said after that, and they politely let him pretend they weren’t there. 

Their best friends forever schtick was a childish promise at seventeen, and their cutesy found family shit had been a childish promise at nineteen. But it was still true, despite everything: they had all married each other. If you didn’t marry, it barely mattered. Mercedes had been living with Dedue for months, and Ashe was currently on another country’s front lines side by side with Petra. Their family had stayed together. Cute, technically. Definitely the desired outcome for all of them. None of them would have it any other way. 

But hey. Sylvain hadn’t promised his baby to be family forever, had he? 

***

The Blue Lions held their sleepover that night in Dimitri’s chambers. Goddess knew what his guards thought about the late night bedroom meetings. They all had reputations. Sylvain was under the impression that he and Felix were very discreet, which meant that half the castle probably knew. Sure, war rooms and sitting rooms had been invented for a reason, but sitting rooms didn’t have Dimitiri’s gigantic bed. 

The sleepover began without Dimitri. Felix’s wife worked the longest hours, but she was one of the blessed lucky officials without a meeting every hour, so Ingrid had successfully tracked her down and explained the situation. Felix was graced with her company the second he escaped the last nightly obligation of the day and barged into Dimitri’s room. Annette was happily playing with Cat Byleth on Dimitri’s bed. At least she hadn’t escaped. 

“This is the cutest kitty,” Annette gushed. “You are just the most friendly, nicest little stray I’ve ever seen! And so glossy!”

“If you start singing Lady Byleth little songs I’m walking out the door.”

“Aw, but look at her.” Annette held up Cat Byleth, swaying her a little. Cat Byleth stared into Felix’s eyes, judging his soul and assignments. “She deserves little songs. Are we really naming her Lady Byleth? Things are going to get confusing if we do. How about the Professor?”

“Incredibly bad news.”

Annette lowered Cat Byleth, giving Felix a dubious look. “Ingrid said that Dimitri says that…” Felix nodded grimly. “So…we’re dissuading him of that notion, yes?” Felix’s grim look sank six feet under. “Darling?”

“I’ll explain once everyone’s here.”

Sylvain arrived after her, flopping down dramatically next to Annette onto the bed and groaning with exhaustion. Felix dragged over his favorite plush armchair, pushing it against the bed and propping up his shoes on the luxurious embroidered sheets. Sylvain refused to even look at the cat. Annette gleefully cooed at the cat until she fell backwards onto the bed and instantly began snoring. Felix slid a pillow under her head. 

Ingrid joined them shortly afterwards, chugging a beer, and cautiously took a seat on the chaise lounge on the other side of the bed from Felix. Cat Byleth was happily kneading one of the pillows. Ingrid squinted at the cat. Cat Byleth purred. 

Finally, Ingrid proclaimed, “I don’t see it.”

“It’s a very unique shade of eye color,” Felix pointed out.

“Look how happy she is,” Ingrid said. The cat was having the time of her life. “If you were turned into a cat, you wouldn’t have fun like that. Even if you really did have a cat brain, you’d be pretty freaked out. Wouldn’t you?”

Felix had to concede the point. Felix would be biting everything.

Dimitri was the last to arrive. He stopped short when he entered his own quarters, cape already halfway unlatched, and stared blankly at the assembly. Everybody else turned to look at Ingrid, who raised her hands in a plea for innocence. 

“I told him! I mentioned it twice.”

“Forgive me. My mind was somewhat preoccupied today.” Dimitri slowly finished unlatching his cape, moving to toss it on the nearest flat surface. Annette twitched an eyebrow at him. He slowly hung up the cape on the hook near the door. “Good evening, all. You…brought B - the cat.”

“She is really just so precious.” Annette was sitting cross-legged with the sleeping Cat Byleth in her lap, scratching her behind the ears. “I’ve never met a sweeter cat. And she’s just so fluffy!”

“Right,” Dimitri said stiffly. He walked into the room, stiffly surveying the group. “Is the intervention necessary?”

“It’s more of a family meeting,” Sylvain said. Dimitri clearly mentally tacked ‘tactfully’ onto the end of that sentence. “I just figured we should put our heads together and figure this situation out, Your Majesty. And hey, it’s been almost a week since we were all in the same room!”

“That’s because Annette never leaves the tower,” Felix said blandly. 

“If it’s a family meeting, it’s Dimitri.” Dimitri disappeared into his closet and began changing clothing as Annette mimed aiming a Fire spell at Felix’s face. They had chased away Dimitri’s manservants, so Felix would have offered to help him remove the armor, but Dimitri had designed the armor specifically so he could remove it himself. Apparently he had found time to learn metalworking in his training schedule. Somehow. “Do the guards have any leads on my wife?”

“Nothing.” Ingrid looked a little uncomfortable. “We don’t want to cause a panic, so we’re searching in plain clothes, but some of them are beginning to grow concerned.”

“Annette, have you tried a tracking spell?”

“Yep. It completely fizzled out.” Quickly, Annette added, “Not as if she was dead! It was like a letter that was returned to the sender. It mystified the hell out of me. I couldn’t figure it out. I was considering writing Lysithea about it.”

Dimitri emerged from his closet, wearing far more casual and soft clothes. The cat’s ears twitched, and she opened her eyes and lifted her head to see Dimitri standing in front of the bed. She jumped out of Annette’s arms and bounded over to Dimitri, jumping up into his automatically outstretched arms. She immediately began rubbing her head against his chest, purring up a storm, and Dimitri very gingerly cradled her in his arms. 

Slowly, Dimitri said, “Felix, take the cat.”

“Don’t feel like it,” Felix said blandly. 

“Felix - !”

“You’re an adult, hold your own wife.”

“Did you feed her earlier or something?” Ingrid asked, fascinated. “Animals tend to hate you, Dimitri. But she’s so affectionate…”

Exceptionally gentle and slow, Dimitri stroked the cat’s fur backwards. Cat Byleth wriggled happily. “She’s liked me since I met her. If you all have any arguments to address my…thoughts, I would like to hear them.”

Sylvain and Felix looked at each other. They silently battled for their lives. Sylvain silently reminded Felix that he was the one who ruthlessly shut him down last night, and that this might make up for it. Felix silently cursed him out for being right, as usual.

“I have no idea how to say this in a way that doesn’t make me sound as insane as Dimitri,” Felix said bluntly. Better rip off the bandaid. “But Sylvain and I think Dimitri’s right. The cat’s definitely Byleth.”

The girls stared at Felix blankly. Dimitri’s eyebrows skyrocketed upwards. 

“Do you really think so?” Dimitri asked urgently. “Are you certain? What are your deductions?”

“We caught her fishing in Byleth’s fishing spot. She kills like Byleth kills. It’s a…distinctive sort of murder.” Sylvain sighed, running his hands through his hair. “I can’t make it sound good either. It just feels so obvious. Man, I wish Mercedes was here. She’d have insight.”

“All three of you feel certain?” Ingrid asked. All three men nodded with varying levels of enthusiasm. She turned back to the cat, leaning forward and staring intently at it. After a heart-stopping minute, she said, “It would answer some persistent questions. If all of you are certain, I’ll trust you. Annette?”

Annette hummed, tapping her chin. “Magic can’t turn humans into cats. But Lady Byleth is no ordinary human. And…we were playing around with a lot of highly experimental spells yesterday…yeah, this isn’t making me sound great.”

“We all vote that this cat is my wife?” The room nodded as one. Dimitri slumped, tension unwinding from his frame as he exhaled. “Thank the goddess. I was so damn worried…thank the goddess, truly.”

“Was that really the problem here?” Sylvain asked. “Not the wife cat situation?”

Dimitri’s expression tightened unhappily. “I deny it sometimes, Sylvain, but I can tell when my mind is cloudy. Having delusions like this while knowing my mind is clear…it made me doubt a lot of things. I’ve been unsettled all day.”

Damn it. Felix felt horrible. “It’s not on you, Dimitri. I completely shut you down last night. I know you don’t want me humoring you, but I should have heard you out.”

“It’s not your fault,” Dimitri said, absolutely predictably. “I’m hardly a - a reliable source. Really, considering how I betrayed your trust in me as a friend and leader, I couldn’t possibly ask you to trust me at all, let alone in such a ridiculous situation -”

Fantastic, Felix no longer felt bad. “Shut the fuck up, you’re so annoying. Aren’t you done with your apology tour by now?”

Dimitri scowled at him. “I’ll stop apologizing when I stop doing things to apologize for.”

“You never feel guilty for the right thing, you know that?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You two are far too old for this,” Sylvain said severely, and both men shut up. “Felix, save the tough love for when Byleth isn’t a cat. Dimitri, wait until Byleth’s finished being a cat before you start self-flagellating again. Annette, were you really hitting Lady Byleth with random spells yesterday?”

Annette, the true wrong-doer in the situation, abruptly looked a little shifty. “It was scientific experimentation.”

“On the queen of  Faerghus?”

“She said she was bored!”

“So you turned her into a cat?”

“It wasn’t on purpose!” Annette cried. “I was trying to invent a spell to improve eyesight! How was I supposed to know it would turn the queen of  Faerghus into a cat?” She drooped, crushed by the weight of her own sins. “Oh, I never should have tried mixing Reason and Fate theorems into the same proof. This is what happens when we try getting experimental…I’m so sorry, Dimitri. And Byleth.”

“Magic can’t turn people into cats,” Felix hissed. “You’re doing fake magic.”

“It’s not fake if it works! You’re just a classicist.”

“Improvisation magic doesn’t create new theorems, it creates explosions. And cats.”

“Maybe you’re just jealous I managed to turn the Professor into a cat and you couldn’t.”

“I could turn Byleth into a cat if I wanted -”

“If I was literally any other king,” Dimitri ground out, strangled, “and you were any other court magician, you would be fired at best for using the queen as an experimental subject. My grandfather executed court magicians for less.”

Felix straightened, scowling. “Are you threatening my wife -”

“Shut the fuck up for once, Felix!” Sylvain snapped. “You can’t threaten the king!”

“Oh, you’re always taking his side -”

“You’re always making me point out the absolute obvious -”

Dimitri scowled, looking away. “I was the one pointing out the obvious. I wasn’t threatening - that wasn’t the intention, Annette, I just -”

“It’s alright,” Annette said miserably. “You’re right. I got too excited and stopped thinking things through again. I’m a failure as a court magician.”

“You’re the most talented magician I know, Annette,” Dimitri said, all soppy earnest. Ugh. As if he wasn’t totally threatening her a second ago. “You aren’t a failure at all. I admire you greatly.”

“Aw, Dimitri. Thank you -”

“But if you fail in un-catting my wife you are in very serious trouble with the royal family of Fodlan.”

“See!” Felix cried, throwing out a hand. “An obvious threat!”

Cat Byleth meowed disapprovingly. She blinked at them, somehow with great intention. Everybody fell silent in absolute shame and mumbled apologies. Dimitri was a little red.

Finally, Ingrid coughed a little. “I think we can all agree some mistakes have been made tonight.” Everybody looked at the floor. “Let’s just focus on solving the problem. Your Majesty?”

“Right.” Dimitri kissed the top of Cat Byleth’s head, making her mrrp adorably. “Annette, you drop everything you’re doing and fix her as soon as possible.” Annette opened her mouth, ready to argue on behalf of her three other deadlines. She had moaned about the imminent book chapter final submission deadline for a week. “That’s an order. If you miss a deadline then tell them to take it up with me.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I just hope I can.” Annette picked at the luxurious comforter, desolate. “This happened because I used Faith magic beyond my level of expertise. A novice can tangle a knot in seconds that a master would take hours to fix. I wish Mercedes was here…she knows enough about white and black magic to diagnose the problem immediately.”

“Is she the only Gremory in Fhirdiad?”

“She’s one of seven in Fodlan, and four of them are in Adrestia. Two are in the ex-Alliance. She’s the only Gremory in  Faerghus.” Annette muttered something uncomplimentary about Adrestria hoarding all of the good magicians.

“Then bring Mercedes here. Requisition the Adrestian mages if you have to.”

Sylvain straightened, eyes widening. “She’s over two weeks travel away, Dimitri.”

Dimitri looked back to Annette, who was clearly falling into despair. “Can you fix her yourself, Annette?”

Annette hesitated, biting her lip. “If I study hard, maybe. Or I might turn her into a smaller cat…or I might blow her up…”

“We’re calling in Mercedes. If Byleth is a cat for two weeks, then she’s a cat for two weeks.” Dimitri glanced at Sylvain for the first time, thoughtful. “Ask her to bring Felipe. Might as well make something good out of this. I still haven’t met him yet.” 

“Aaaa,” Sylvain said.

“You haven’t?” Ingrid asked, surprised. “But you gave him that ridiculous birthday gift.”

“There is no point to conquering a country if you can’t give its smaller islands to a baby,” Dimitri said stiffly. “I want to meet him. I also want this problem fixed.” He looked sternly at Annette and Felix, who abruptly both looked at the ceiling. “This was an accident, and accidents happen. I do not intend for anybody to find out about this. I don’t intend on punishing anybody right now. But if the accident is not fixed I will hold the house of Fraldarius responsible. And yes, Felix. That is a threat.”

“That’s fair,” Annette said, desolate beyond what her peppy little heart deserved. “I really am sorry, Your Majesty.”

Dimitri softened, and he held the cat a little closer to his chest. “It’s still Dimitri. Trust me, Annette. This would be an inconsequential matter if it was only myself. But it’s Byleth’s safety that I’m worried about. I have to take that seriously.”

“We all do,” Ingrid said gently. “We’re all just as worried as you, Dimitri. We’ll work together on fixing this. There’s nothing Mercedes can’t do, so we’ll just have to hang on until then.”

Felix was not just as worried as the rest of them. But this was severely not the time or place to say so. He just nodded solemnly with everybody else. 

“And please have somebody keep an eye on her. I don’t want her run over by a carriage or eaten by wolves.” Something disturbing clearly occurred to Dimitri. “Or want kitten children.”

“Ew,” Annette said.

“I’d love them anyway, of course,” Dimitri continued to himself. “But it would still be strange. They couldn’t exactly have a place in the line of succession…but we couldn’t just give them away…”

“What if she was pregnant when she got turned into a cat?” Felix asked, bored. “She could give birth to kittens that are genetically yours.”

“Oh, goddess,” Dimitri said, paling, “she totally could.”

“She could not, I’m obviously fucking with you -”

Sylvain just looked pained. “Felix, please stop teasing Dimitri.”

“But it’s so easy.”

And then they were all off again, and Cat Byleth took a luxurious nap to the sound of her students’ incessant bickering. 

***

Felix had a small secret: he wasn’t really all that worried.

He also wasn’t seventeen anymore, and he now understood that certain sentiments had a certain time and a place. Annette’s well-intentioned carelessness had already put them both in hot water with Dimitri - it would push their luck if Felix was seen acting as if this was a good thing. It was, in fact, somewhat dangerous - Felix had faith in Byleth’s ability to win in a territory fight against another animal, but he didn’t like her odds against a carriage or a monster. But Byleth had survived much less stupid situations than this, and Felix had decided to kick up his heels and relax. This was, after all, a good thing.

It was obvious. Felix would wonder why nobody else saw it, but he knew how oblivious and self-absorbed everybody else was. They were all too wrapped up in their own stress and projecting all of it to realize the straightforward truth. Mercedes would notice, but she was a handy second reason why this was a good thing. She would agree with Felix immediately: that Byleth was honestly living her best life. 

Despite what the overgrown children around him thought, Byleth didn’t actually live to work. Byleth’s ideal day - as recited during a Special Tea Time years ago - consisted of training for a few hours in the morning, fishing for eight hours, eating three giant meals, sitting in companionable silence with Dimitri, and holding a Blue Lions sleepover at night. Three naps had been mandatory: one at ten in the morning, another at two in the afternoon after a big lunch, and another at five in the afternoon after a hard day fishing. 

The woman was the queen of  Faerghus slash Fodlan and had no opportunity to spend all day doing nothing but fish. She was busy every second, and had been for as long as Felix knew her. There was no such thing as a day spent lazing around in Byleth’s world. In a cat’s…

So far as Felix could tell, Cat Byleth did nothing other than hunt, sleep, and cuddle with them. Felix figured that it was actively mean to undo this spell too quickly. He knew better than to vocalize this opinion. Mercedes would agree with him. 

Some people were meant to be born a Lagunz or beastkin or something. This was probably righting a natural order of things. Maybe restoring Byleth to cat-hood would lift the curse on the Fraldarius family bloodline. Which Glenn might have invented to tease him, but it was real, damn it. 

“Look,” Felix told his lovely wife, “I’m just saying. We still don’t know where the hell she came from. It’s not physically possible for a person to develop human emotion after they finished puberty. And Seteth kept saying that Jeralt hadn’t aged a day in twenty years. You know what species ages slowly?”

His lovely wife hadn’t been accommodating. “Goodness, Felix, not another one of your conspiracy theories.”

“Conspiracy theories?” Felix had yelled, throwing up his hands. “What conspiracy theories? You mean my famous conspiracy theory, the one where Dimitri’s -” A violently vengeful murder-happy psycho with severe mental problems, which Felix didn’t feel comfortable saying anymore. He hadn’t vocalized a thirst for murder in more than a year. “ - you know. That one? The true one? The fact?”

“There’s a perfectly good explanation for why Lady Byleth is a freak of nature,” Annette said primly. “She told me herself.”

“Yeah? What was it?”

Annette halted. “Uh. You know, the picture was a little unclear…”

“You know what’s clear as crystal to me?!”

Maybe Annette hadn’t turned Byleth into a cat after all. Maybe she had just disrupted the magic creating a human form. Maybe this was Byleth’s natural state. Strangely, nobody wanted to hear this. 

Regardless, it wasn’t a safe situation. A ten pound apex predator was still ten pounds, and no matter how proficient she was against prey or other cats she wouldn’t match up to a cart or a horse. Dimitri was still unironically fretting about boy cats, and for once his paranoia was disturbingly plausible. The Blue Lions were busy people, but they could keep a 24/7 eye on a cat, right?

Annette tried keeping Cat Byleth locked in her mage’s tower. Cat Byleth escaped twice, knocked over expensive potion ingredients three times, and almost ingested a potion that would not have sat well with a cat’s delicate stomach. At the risk of Dimitri smiting their house with a lightning bolt, Annette was in no position to keep an eye on her.

Neither were the rest of them, who were far too mobile around the castle. Trying to keep her inside their chambers, even Dimitri’s gigantic ones, was hugely unsuccessful - when she wasn’t meowing miserably she was pulling objectively impressive escape attempts. They all silently wished that they had some sort of tactical genius or something around to solve their problems for them. Their two best tacticians were physically and emotionally compromised again. Time to pull in their tied third best tacticians. Or just one of their third best tacticians - Annette had been banned from further ideas, lest she make things worse again. 

“It’s alright,” Sylvain said grimly. “I have an idea.” 

“Oh boy,” Felix said. “I’m looking forward to this one.”

The idea involved a trembling servant boy. Balad was around fourteen years old, and clearly from Duscur - a beneficiary of Dimitri’s affirmative action hiring policies. The castle had a school for servant children and children of servants and everything. Insane quantity of orphans in this castle. Man never stopped projecting.

“This is a cat,” Sylvain told Balad. He passed Cat Byleth to Balad, who accepted her with a trembling sincerity. “This cat is your new job. Do not let her out of your sight. I’ve spoken with the chamberlain, so this is your only job for the next few weeks.” He stared Balad down firmly, who was already staring down his doom into Cat Byleth’s guileless eyes. “This cat’s safety is of paramount importance. Do you understand, Balad? We’ll give you a big reward for looking after her, but if anything happens you’ll get in big trouble.”

Balad stiffened, holding the cat closely to his chest. Byleth liked children, and she immediately began snuggling in Balad’s arms. “Y - yes, my lord! I will put my life on the line!”

“Normally that would be a pretty extreme thing to say,” Felix yawned. “But in this instance…yup.”

Balad looked down at Cat Byleth as if her large eyes held the future. Cat Byleth mrrp’d. 

Felix remembered youth. How unpleasant and depressing youth had been. Everything had been life or death, even the actual life or death bits. There was a reason they’d put an immigrant teenage boy on the job - a knight would have eventually thought to himself, ‘This is just a cat, it’s ridiculous. Surely it can’t be that big of a deal’. But an immigrant teenage boy with his job on the line was probably convinced his life was on the line, and he would apply himself to the task with attentiveness five times greater than a knight could hope to reach. Felix and Sylvain knew this intimately - it was straight out of the Professor’s playbook.

Still, you had to miss the unique adventures that only a fourteen year old could have. Felix was a boring adult and wasn’t privy to a single one, but he occasionally held the privilege of catching glimpses out of whatever stupid shit poor Balad was dealing with that day. 

Over the next two weeks, Felix saw: Balad hanging upside down from the rafters, Cat Byleth precariously held in his arms. Balad bravely rescuing Cat Byleth from the overly affectionate arms of a small gaggle of five year old girls. Balad in the cathedral, teaching Cat Byleth Duscurian prayer rituals. And, obviously, chasing after her as she ran through the kitchen and got paw prints in the flour. 

Felix had the privilege of interrupting that one. He was passing by the kitchen as he heard a great commotion and sequence of crashes, and after a few seconds of exhausted deliberation he figured that he ought to do something about it. Felix looped around until he stood in front of the double entry doors in the staff mess area, crossing his arms and waiting patiently.

His patience bore fruit only a minute later. The doors blew open as a cat rushed out at breakneck speed, and Felix silently squatted down and grabbed the cat out of midair. Felix held her by the stomach with both hands and held her up for scrutiny, letting her dangle in the air. She was covered in tomato sauce, flour, and flecks of spinach.

“Having fun?” 

Cat Byleth meowed. She was having the time of her fucking life.

Balad burst through the doors at a dead run only a few seconds after her, and by the time he saw Felix it was too late. Felix, prepared for this, steadied himself and held Cat Byleth out of the way just as Balad collided in a crash-course into Felix, falling back onto his ass as Felix swayed with the motion. 

Balad groaned, rubbing his head and cursing people who stood around useless in halls under his breath. He opened his eyes and witnessed the person standing uselessly in a hall, eyes traveling slowly upwards as he saw Felix holding Cat Byleth and looking down at him with an arched eyebrow. 

Slowly, Felix said, “Missing something?”

“Aaaa,” Balad said.

Felix sighed, holding Cat Byleth up until they made eye contact. He shook her lightly. She swayed happily with the motion. “I’m happy you’re having fun. Really. But do you have to torment serving boys like this?” Cat Byleth meowed happily. “Can’t fault you for honesty, I suppose.”

“I didn’t lose her!” Balad scrambled upwards, panting for breath. There was a clump of dough in his hair, and one of his shoes was lost. “She just - um - I’m sorry, Lord Fraldarius, I swear I had my eyes on her!”

“I believe you,” Felix said, amused. The kid’s determination was beyond admirable. “This one enjoys challenging young people. She thinks it builds character.” He returned Cat Byleth to Balad, who took her with a practiced ease and allowed her to curl up in his arms. “I hope she hasn’t pushed you beyond your limits.”

Balad shook his head fervently, hoisting Byleth in his arms. “This is just practice for knighthood!” Oh, no. This was adorable. “A knight of  Faerghus protects the whole continent - and there’s no creature too small for the first Duscurian Knight to protect, I think - so Eisner’s just good practice!”

Felix’s eyebrows jumped up. “Eisner? As in the queen?”

Far too late, Balad’s eyes widened. Had he overheard them speaking? Serving boys knew when and where to gossip - had he told anybody? “Oh, I’m - I’m sorry, my lord! I apologize! It’s just that - well, it’s just that Eisner really reminds me of Her Grace. Something in her eyes…it’s ordinary to name cats after people you admire in Duscur, my lord, but if it’s disrespectful in  Faerghus - oh, I bet it is disrespectful in  Faerghus -”

“I think Her Grace would be flattered,” Felix said. Balad, who had already begun working himself up into an anxious spiral, abruptly deflated. “The first Duscurian Knight?”

Balad blushed a little, bouncing Cat Byleth and looking at the ground. “Don’t pay that any mind, my lord. Ever since His Majesty made new laws saying foreigners could be knights…no dream comes true if you sit around hoping for it, right? I don’t know a sword, but even I can practice being virtuous…but please pay that no mind, my lord.”

Wow. No wonder Cat Byleth was giving him a hard time.

Felix leaned down, making a show of tilting his ear towards Cat Byleth. “What was that?” Cat Byleth purred. “I see. You’re absolutely sure?” Cat Byleth yawned. “I couldn’t agree more.” Felix straightened, clasping his hands beyond his back and looking seriously down at Balad. “Eisner has spoken. She really thinks you’re Blue Lion material.”

Balad’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates. “The Blue Lions? Like - like your elite front line combat squadron? The revolutionary heroes?”

“We were students at Garreg Mach first.” Felix propped a hand on his hip, and he allowed himself a half-smile. “The Knight Captain of the Imperial Guard started out as a rebellious student with a dream. And the Royal Spymaster began as a commoner who used the skills he learned on the street to become a hero. They didn’t have anything you don’t have. If you train hard enough, you can protect what’s important to you. That’s all there is to being a Blue Lion. Even a cat knows that.”

Young kids like Balad didn’t associate the Blue Lions with Garreg Mach anymore. Yuri had already begun planning the major changes he’d make to the Academy once Seteth officially let go of the reins of the school and officially transitioned into his new role as Archbishop, and after some requests from Dimitri and Byleth he grew confident enough to start planning the complete overhaul. Yuri had been the first of anybody to see it, but it was Dimitri and Byleth who told everybody else - that there was no unity and cohesion among the continent when the houses grouped into national insularity. And murdered each other later. That put a damper on school spirit.

When something as awful as the Blue Lions could happen - when an institution could produce students who trusted nobody but their own neighbors, who isolated themselves so thoroughly that they could grow up and slaughter their classmates without a second thought. When the Golden Deer and Black Eagles could do the same. In some ways, Byleth Eisner was the greatest and final failure of Garreg Mach.

Besides. They didn’t really have three countries anymore. There was that little detail. 

The four new houses held students from all over the continent. Students from Faerghus, the ex-Alliance territories, and the Territory of Adrestria attended the same houses and mingled in the same classes. There were reserved spots for exchange students from Brigid, Almyra, and even Sreng. A new definition of unity, to be sure, but they could only hope it would be a little more effective. Time would tell.

Poor Balad’s eyes were as big as dinner plates. Felix really hoped that the kid wouldn’t internalize these words or something. He was just saying shit. “Wow. Thank you, Lord Fraldarius.” He held Cat Byleth up to eye level, and he smiled for the first time. “What do you think, Eisner? Want to teach me how to be a Blue Lion?”

Cat Byleth meowed. 

Balad grinned, and in an unselfconscious burst of joy he nuzzled her sticky forehead. “I knew I could count on you. The god of trials must have sent you to me.”

Fantastic back-handed compliment. Felix would have to remember that one. “Hey, kid. Do you know any Duscur curse words? Lord Dedue and Lady Mercedes refuse to teach me any -”

With impeccable timing, Cat Byleth jumped out of Balad’s arms and began sprinting down the hall. Balad cried in dismay, and with less than a second’s hesitation he set out after her in a dead run. 

“Wait!” Balad called. “You need a bath, Eisner!”

Cat Byleth’s run turned into a sprint.

Felix watched them go, hands in his pockets. He had always wondered if Lady Byleth would ever take on another group of students. Queens had better things to do, and the continent probably couldn’t handle another year of her teaching style, so Felix had given up and decided it was for the best.

If this was her way of collecting more students, then a retired life was definitely for the best. 

Oh, well. Definitely Sylvain’s problem. 

***

Two and a half weeks after Her Grace Byleth Eisner Blaiddyd’s Great Catting, Mercedes and Felipe Gautier and Dedue Molinaro arrived at the castle. Happy as he was to see his family, these events were definitely Sylvain’s problem.

Hosting visitors as nobility was a huge production, and as usual royalty was twice as bad. They dressed up Mercedes’ visit as just a wife visiting her husband, backflipping out of making it a big thing, but Mercedes’ carriage still pulled up to the outside of the castle and met a giant team of servants, staff, and the Blue Lions themselves. 

Sylvain, standing next to Felix with his hands folded behind his back, was tapping his foot. Then looking at the carriage advancing on them, then checking his watch. Then running his hand through his hair. Then looking at the carriage again.

Felix elbowed him. Sylvain elbowed him back. Felix elbowed him again, harder.

“It’s fine.” Sylvain had a wonderful habit of manifesting his reality. It was the confidence. “I’m excited to see them. It’s great. What if he doesn’t like me?”

  “Dedue? If he was going to stop liking you, it would have happened after the second mock-battle dorm party.”

They both knew that Felix knew who Sylvain was actually talking about, so Sylvain ignored him. “I mean, how hard can it be to win over a baby? You just give them toys, right? What if he likes me too much, and gets upset when I’m not there? Is this a no-win situation?” 

“I think this has been a no-win situation for a while,” Felix said, maybe tactfully. 

According to the professor, in a no-win scenario you shifted your goals from victory towards survival. You stop trying to maximize ground or fortresses captured and start focusing on pulling back and saving fats from the fire. You couldn’t stop the blow, so you just protected yourself against it. It was a strategy Sylvain had understood perfectly well - it was the strategy Sylvain used to live his life, and it always had been. Babies included.

Sylvain’s face twisted, but if he had anything smart to say he didn’t get the chance. The carriage came to a full halt, and the small flight of footmen opened the door and helped the noble lady descend the stairs. 

It was Mercedes, baby strapped to her back and smiling widely at them, and Sylvain lost all sense of propriety.

He lurched forward, pushing through the crowd and flying down the castle steps. He was supposed to wait for Dimitri to greet her, for some sort of official reception - but the same Sylvain who fretted for days over her arrival couldn’t wait one more second. Mercedes’ smile turned into a grin, and when Sylvain wrapped her in a hug she eagerly reciprocated. They stood there together, clinging onto each other, for the scarce few seconds Mercedes and Sylvain would ever allow themselves, before separating.

Miracle of miracles, Mercedes even unfolded Felipe from her back and balanced him on her hip. Whoah. He had gotten huge. Felipe sucked on a fist, watching the proceedings with wide eyes, and Sylvain bent over him for a few seconds. Mercedes and Sylvain’s body blocked Felix’s view, and whatever look may have been on Sylvain’s face or how Felipe may have reacted was lost to all but the two of them.

Then Dedue stepped out, as hulking and stone-faced as always. He looked good, tanned and relaxed. He was dressed in the clothing of his homeland - an interesting bit of political messaging. Felix glanced to his right, and completely predictably saw Dimitri grinning widely. He was clearly about two seconds from running up and hugging him too. Great. 

It wasn’t that Felix had a problem with Dedue. His personality was completely inoffensive, which wasn’t something you could say about Felix. As a comrade on the field, he was second-to-none. And he was a Blue Lion - ‘nuff said. Felix would die for the guy, the guy would die for him, etc. 

But Felix really didn’t think he was a good friend. Nobody who saw Dimitri suffer like that for years and helped him grow worse was anything resembling a good friend. Maybe if he saw Dimitri during those five years and fucking hand-fed him like the rest of them he would have realized the impact of the choices he’d made, but the guy had been a little busy living in hiding after he sacrificed his life for Dimitri’s. Which was why it was a little hard to hate him. Ugh. Felix was so brave for not picking a fight about this. 

“Lady Gautier!” Dimitri called, his usually monotone voice tinged with an emotion that made it seem positively jovial. “Lord Molinaro! Well met! I trust your trip was uneventful?”

Mercedes curtseyed, in an impressive balancing act with the baby in her arm. “Greetings from House Gautier to His Majesty. We’re happy to answer His Majesty’s summons. Our trip was delightful.”

Dedue bowed, stiff as ever. “I am honored by the invitation, Your Majesty. Blessings from Duscur unto  Faerghus.”

“Good! The servants will set you up. Now, for the most important business.” Dimitri stepped forward, descending the steps, and Mercedes and Dedue walked up to meet him. Sylvain hastily followed, hovering at Mercedes’ elbow.

Dimitri clasped Dedue’s hand, hugging him fiercely. Said a lot about Dedue’s sheer bulk that he handled a hug from Dimitri so tightly, but Felix knew Dedue gripped onto him just as tightly. They embraced closer than any lord and vassal ever would, probably more than two friends might, and they hung onto each other for just a little bit longer. 

They separated, Dimitri’s eye bright, and he clasped Dedue’s arm a final time. “You look well.” 

“I am, Your Majesty.”

“I was surprised that you elected to join Mercedes. Last time I checked the orphanage and school needed constant supervision.” 

“I am pleased to say that they have grown stable. We left them in the capable hands of our staff. Viscount Meroe asked me to approach you regarding several matters.”

‘Ownership’ of Duscur had been neatly stripped from Viscount Kleiman and given to the elected leader of the surviving Duscuran people, who quickly re-assembled a stripped-down version of their old government. The woman was pants-shittingly terrifying and Felix had to fight the urge to give her whatever she wanted just to make her go away each time she showed up. Dedue was highly placed in their new government, but his primary role was as a link between Duscur and the king. He seemed happiest co-leading the orphanage and school with Mercedes, but the guy was the type to put duty before pleasure.

“I’ll have my secretary contact you and we can have a long conversation.” Dimitri gave him a final clap on the shoulder before turning to Mercedes and Sylvain, smile brightening. “Now! Most importantly! Do I finally have the honor of meeting the heir of House Gautier?”

Mercedes giggled, approaching Dimitri and presenting Felipe with faux-ceremony. “The honor is ours. Your Majesty, I’d like to present the young lord Felipe Emilie Gautier. Felipe, this is Uncle Dimitri. Say hello, Felipe!”

Felipe sucked on a knuckle. The kid had been pretty squishy and raisin-like when Felix first saw him, but even Felix had to admit now that he was an objectively beautiful, adorable child. It was the fantastic genes. Kid could have walked out of a painting. One of the twee ones. 

“Bah bah?” Felipe asked the king of the continent. 

“This is the perfect child,” the king of the continent decided.

Mercedes laughed, bouncing Felipe lightly on her hip. “You flatter us, Your Majesty. He’s certainly perfect to us.”

“I think it’s objective,” Dimitri said, almost heated. Ingrid, standing on the other end of the courtyard from Felix, made an exhausted face at Felix. Felix mimed shooting himself with his fingers. Annette had the right idea preparing their surprise cake in the kitchen. “I can’t believe I never met him before. He’s adorable, you two! He’s chubby! And look at his hair! He seems so soft!”

“Burble burble wah,” Felipe asserted.

“When is his next birthday?” Dimitri demanded. “A month? Can he have it here? How long do you think it’ll take before he can call me Uncle Dimitri?”

“Certainly not for a while,” Sylvain said, exasperated. Mercedes was outright laughing now. Dedue was hiding a smile behind a hand. “Do you want to hold hi -”

“Absolutely not. But come inside, he must be tired. You all must be tired. The servants told me we have baby accouterments for guests, but let the chamberlain know if you need anything and we’ll have it brought right away.” Abruptly, almost stressed, Dimtiri said, “Can he understand what I’m saying yet? What is his level of linguistic proficiency?”

Dedue sighed, badly fighting a smile. “Not much, but sometimes he surprises you. I believe he understands Duscuran better than the language of Fodlan.” Sylvain’s eyebrows rocketed upwards, and Dedue nodded in half-apology. “Mercedes and I try to speak Adrestian to him at home, but because he lives in Duscur I believe he’s more comfortable with our language.”

“He’s multicultural,” Dimitri whispered.

“Ah,” Sylvain said. “I didn’t - really think about that.”

Dimitri said something very seriously to Felipe in Duscuran. 

“Wah wah wah,” Felipe agreed.

“Did he understand that?!”

“Can we please go inside,” Felix said. “Please.”

***

Balad sat in front of the high nobility of  Faerghus, quaking in his boots and holding a cat. 

He was sat on a stool at Annette’s workbench, tasked with the vital job of keeping Cat Byleth still while Mercedes carefully inspected her. The child was not coping well with almost the entire assembled original Blue Lions in front of him, but he was keeping a stiff upper lip about the matter. He seemed to have decided that, so long as he didn’t say a single word, they couldn’t chop his head off. Bizarrely, Balad sat closest to Felix and made sad eyes at him when he tried to get up and leave. 

Mercedes hummed, finally closing out the diagnostic spells. She had been scrutinizing the cat for a solid ten minutes, which was longer than it took her to identify most poisons. She leaned back on her stool, exhaling heavily.

“I’m glad you waited for me to arrive, Annie.” The words were completely innocuous. Annette’s face fell. Everybody hissed. “Don’t worry, the magic isn’t dangerous. It’s just a little tricky. If you give me a day to write the counter-spell, I can have her all fixed up in half an hour.”

Dimitri brightened. He was sitting next to Balad, giving the boy a constant low-level heart attack. “Really? You’re a lifesaver, Mercedes!”

“I wouldn’t say that,” the woman who single handedly prevented five plague outbreaks and significantly contributed to ending a war said. “And please don’t be too hard on yourself over this, Annie. Every great inventor blows up a few labs here and there! Why, just the other day, Coco wrote to tell me how the entire kitchen was -” “We really let those rat people teach the future leaders of Fodlan, huh?” Felix muttered. 

Sylvain arched an eyebrow at him. “I think it was a great idea. You couldn’t find a group of people more dedicated to Garreg Mach. Or a more neutral party.”

“Yeah,” Felix panned, “they hate all of Fodlan equally.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Thank the Goddess,” Annette sighed. Poor woman was exhausted - Felix had barely seen her the last two weeks. “I’m never getting experimental again. It’s just not worth all the stress.” She paused a second in thought before adding, “Of course, this was a practically unprecedented spell. Faith/Reason magic is a highly under-studied field. If I could recreate it, maybe I could publish a paper on -”

“No!” Everyone shouted in unison.

Everybody but Felix, who just yawned. “Beat you to it. Wrote a thesis on transformation magic for extra credit near the end of school. Lady Byleth gave me a new sword as a reward.”

“Damn it, Felix! Why are you always trying to one-up me?”

“I don’t have to try.”

Annette looked at Ingrid, who leaned against a spare workbench next to him. “I forgot how she used to give us new weaponry if we learned a subject well. I thought good grades were good enough for most students…”

“Did any of us really care about grades by the end of it?” Ingrid asked wryly. “The closest Lady Byleth could get to educating Dimitri was locking him in the classroom with us and seeing how long he could last before he started pacing around the room.”

Dedue said something sternly to Balad in their language, making Balad pale and stutter something back. Ingrid abruptly remembered that little pitchers had big ears and shut up, a little embarrassed. 

But Dimitri just smiled at Balad and said something to him in perfect Duscuran. The kid stuttered something out too, but at a little more gentle prodding he began opening up. Dimitri pointed at Cat Byleth, who was napping peacefully in Balad’s arms, and Balad lifted her up and excitedly began chattering. Felix recognized that face by now - she had done something freakishly intelligent and Balad was very proud of her for it. Dimitri nodded, attention rapt.

Finally, when Balad sheepishly wrapped up his story, Dimitri switched back to their native language. “Regardless, I understand Sylvain promised you a good reward for your hard work. What would you like? You’ve done a fine job, so don’t be modest.”

“Oh. Um.” Balad scratched Cat Byleth’s ruff, looking down. “Does Eisner have an owner?”

Immediately, Dimitri said, “Not at all. She’s a free spirit.”

“She owns us, really,” Felix said.

“It’s an equal partnership, Felix!”

“Uh huh.”

“She’s a cat,” Ingrid said flatly. “She owns the castle.” Felix opened his mouth. “More so than usual.”

“Then…if it’s possible…” Balad flushed, but Felix saw him visibly screw up his courage. “...could I keep her?”

The entire assembled original Blue Lions stared at Balad.

He flushed deeper, but he held his ground. “I’d take really good care of her! It’s dangerous to be a stray cat, you know. There’s fleas and kitty gang fights. I’ve seen them myself. I think she’s gotten attached to me, too…maybe? It’s hard to tell with cats…but I really would be a good owner.” Balad turned up big cow eyes at Dimitri, who kept his now-usual poker face. “So…that’s the reward I’d ask for, Your Majesty.”

A long silence stretched across the room.

Dedue pinched the bridge of his nose, hard. He said something to Balad - something which probably wasn’t hostile or harsh, but was definitely unhappy. Balad paled. Dimitri quickly said something back to Dedue, with an intonation that sounded heavily like ‘don’t give him a hard time’. Dedue said something back, a little harder. 

Then Mercedes broke into laughter, and the spell was lifted. Every Blue Lion started wheezing. Mercedes buried her head in her hands, shoulders shaking with laughter, and Sylvain was almost bent over in cackles. Annette was trying valiantly to keep a straight face, but her complexion almost turned red with the effort before she gave up and started snickering. Ingrid’s face was buried in her hands, wheezing. Felix smiled. 

In Adrestian, Dedue said, “It’s not funny.”

“Man,” Sylvain wheezed, “it’s so fucking funny.”

“It’s disrespectful.” Poor Balad paled considerably. “As a representative of our people, it is -”

“A misunderstanding,” Felix said, and he was surprised by the firmness of his tone. “He’s not representing your people, he’s fourteen. Trust me, anybody who wants to stick around that shithead cat is a saint.” 

“Felix!” Dimitri’s eyebrow twitched, scandalized. “Don’t call her a shithead!”

“Why not? She calls me a shithead.”

“Yes, but you don’t have the excuse of being a cat.”

Mercedes giggled again. “Aren’t cats sacred in Duscur? What’s more respectful than that?” 

Dedue sighed, still kneading his forehead, but for the first time his lip quirked upwards in a smile. “By that logic, I suppose a servant from Duscur was the best choice in the castle.”

The corner of Dimitri’s lip curled too, a subtle match for Dedue. “You can admit you find it funny too, Dedue.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Your Majesty.” 

“She wouldn’t mind.”

“She better not,” Felix said flatly. “This is her fault too. A mage should know better than to use experimental magic on themselves. Her magic’s unique, anyway - no wonder something this bizarre happened.” Something troubling occurred to Felix. “Maybe cats are sacred in Fodlan too…”

Mercedes straightened, eyes widening. “Felix, you’re right! This wouldn’t have happened without Her Grace’s sacred magical energy.” Yeah, because humans can’t turn into cats. “Maybe the Goddess is…oh, wouldn’t that be interesting? I have to tell Yuri.” 

Ingrid hummed thoughtfully. “That would explain all of the stray cats at the monastery.” 

“Sure,” Sylvain said flatly, “let’s incorporate this into our worldview. The Goddess is also a Goddess of cats. If we decide it’s true then it has to be. That’s how religion works.”

Annette shrugged helplessly. “If anybody gets to decide how religion works, isn’t it the vessel of the Goddess?”

“We’ll have to ask her later.” Dimitri looked down at the sleeping cat in Balad’s arms, eye softening. “Thank you for your hard work Mercedes. Knowing this ordeal will be over tomorrow is a fantastic relief. Perhaps we can enjoy a small break in the meantime.” Dimitri half-smiled, crooked and stiff. “So many of us Blue Lions are here. That hardly happens every day. I’ve already arranged for a large feast tonight, with Dedue and Mercy’s favorites - why don’t we take some time off and schedule an activity for the day after tomorrow? After Byleth is cured.” 

Ingrid brightened. “I could take a half-day. How about a picnic, Your Majesty?”

Dimitri’s eye crinkled. “Byleth would like that. I’m certain we could put something together. One second.” Dimitri looked to the right, at the stone wall. “Please, I’m in a meeting. You have to quiet down. I don’t know where your knife is.” He turned back to Sylvain. “I apologize for the interruption. What were we talking about?”

“Ingrid suggested we go on a picnic tomorrow, Your Majesty.”

Dimitri looked at the right wall again, brow furrowed, and didn’t say anything. 

“Your Majesty,” Dedue said, even and steadfast, “are you with us?”

Something was louder than Dedue, and Dimitri’s attention was caught. Sylvain and Felix exchanged glances, thinking the same thing in unison. Downplaying Dimitri’s condition was no longer a matter of the war effort, and most of the castle was aware that the king had a chronic illness that left him spacey and moody, but it was best that the servants outside of Dimitri’s inner circle of servants saw as little of it as possible. 

But Balad moved before either of them. Cat Byleth had woken up, paw batting in Dimitri’s direction, and Balad was carefully moving Cat Byleth from his lap to Dimitri’s. Cat Byleth eagerly slithered down from Balad’s grip into Dimitri’s lap, and she began pawing at Dimitri’s shirt immediately. 

An old, ugly memory flashed in Felix’s mind - the Professor crying out in pain as a rabid Dimitri grabbed her arm, wanting to feel angry but fighting an overwhelming crush of fear instead - and he found himself starting forwards too. 

But when Dimitri began absently petting Cat Byleth his touch was gentle, and his expression focused after only a few seconds of cuddling with her. He blinked hard, scratching Cat Byleth on the ruff, before looking back at the Blue Lions.

“Sorry, I must have dozed off.” Did he think that or was he instinctively trying to cover? It was always hard to tell. “I ought to…”

And, as always, Sylvain was right there in front of him. Already handling it all. “Rest? Of course, Your Majesty.” Sylvain quickly scooped Cat Byleth up from Dimitri’s lap, making her meow in protest, and deposited her back in Balad’s hastily outstretched arms. “The serving boy will entertain and play with Her Grace while you take it easy. Why don’t you take a nap or something and we’ll call you when the feast is ready?”

Dimitri scowled, but he allowed Sylvain to pull him up. “I’m perfectly fine, Sylvain.”

No doubt, but that wasn’t the point. Felix crossed his arms. “How much sleep did you get last night?” Dimitri looked at the ceiling. “Uh huh. If you want to be mentally present tomorrow instead of spacing out all the time, then you should get some rest.”

“Yes, yes.” Dimitri sighed, waving a hand. “You’re forbidden from working tomorrow, Sylvain. Spend the time with your family.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“How exciting,” Mercedes said, clapping her hands and smiling. “I’m going to make a nice big cake for the picnic tomorrow.” Sylvain raised an eyebrow. “Yes, yes, after I fix Lady Byleth. Annie, are you thinking orange or lemon?”

“Can Dedue make something?” Annette burst out. “It’s been forever since I’ve had his cooking!”

Dedue sighed, smiling. “Of course. I was already planning the menu.”

Ingrid thrust her hand in the air. “That honey pastry, please! Double servings!”

“Mercedes has grown adept at making that dish as well.”

“Then you’ll both have to make some,” Sylvain decided. “So we can see whose is better, of course.”

“Oh, darling, there’s no need to grow competitive. Dedue’s the best cook I’ve ever known.” Mercedes paused an ominous beat. “But baking and cooking are two very different skills.”

“You do not know what you have walked into,” Dedue told Sylvain. Felix trusted him - Mercedes had a crazy glint in her eye. “Our culinary battle has grown fierce in the last few months.”

“Stir-crazy?” Sylvain asked sympathetically.

“Blame the infant.”

“Yikes,” Sylvain said, about his own infant. 

“That explains some things,” Dimitri said, clearly impressed despite himself. “After too long locked in a house with me, Mercedes would grow  - if you excuse the pejorative term, Lady Byleth - somewhat…catty at the markets?”

“You’re misremembering, Your Majesty,” Mercedes said beneficently. “That never happened.”

“I - ah, if you say so, perhaps…”

“That’s not ethical, Mercie,” Annette said.

“Oh? Does it turn Dimitri into a cat too?”

“That was almost three weeks ago!” Annette cried, throwing her hands up. “Why aren’t we over this yet? Are you going to bring it up forever?”

Sylvain pinched the bridge of his nose. “She is still a cat, Annie.”

“I knew it,” Balad whispered. 

***

Cat and baby faced each other across the field of battle.

Baby lay on his stomach, pushed upright on his two hands and gawking at his adversary. He reached out a hand, testing the reach of his weapon. 

The cat sat on her haunches, surveying the position of her enemy. She swiveled her head to stare at the neutral parties lying on their stomachs a few feet away watching them. She requested additional information from their scouts. The neutral parties shook their heads regretfully. This battlefield was her own.

The baby made the first move. He crawled forward, advancing on the cat’s captured territory (her side of the rug). In a shocking move, the baby babbled a long, incoherent stream of noise. The tone sounded friendly - was it a request for parley? Or was it a vow of battle? When the only language the two parties held in common was the language of death, perhaps all attempts at negotiation would be futile.

The cat uncurled, stretching forward and sniffing the baby hesitantly. Cautious as always, the cat was taking the time to gain a sense of the enemy’s strength. Or was it a tentative reciprocation of the baby’s gesture for peace? Was it possible for this fight to end without bloodshed? Would the sun set on a green and pristine field today, unmarred by splatters of blood? Was such a thing even imaginable?

Then, in the midst of negotiations, the baby struck. He reached out a chubby fist and grabbed the cat’s fluffy midnight blue fur. First blood went to him. War had begun. 

The cat’s counter-strike was instant. She batted at his hand, a light knock that was somehow reminiscent of hitting a student on the head with a wooden training sword. The baby felt the attack acutely, and withdrew his hand. The neutral parties readied themselves for a war cry of the wounded, but the baby only babbled at the cat again. This one was almost…recriminatory. Fascinating.

“Is he scolding her?” Felix asked.

“I thought she was scolding him,” Sylvain said. “Her claws aren’t out, right? She’s not going to scratch him? Maybe we should break this up.”

“Are you kidding? This is the funniest thing that’s happened to me in the last six months.”

The cat slunk forward - pressing her advantage, delivering a follow-up strike? The baby thrust out another hand, but it didn’t seem like an attack - more of a simple reach, almost an ache. The cat batted at his hand anyway. 

The baby stuck out his hand. The cat batted it away. 

The baby giggled. 

Sylvain groaned, covering his eyes with his hands. “Dimitri was right. He’s the cutest baby. I can’t believe it. It’s like he knows he’s adorable! He targets his cuteness whenever he wants something!”

Felix did not state the obvious. It hung loudly in the air between them.

“Shut up. It’s because he’s smart. Way smarter than me, probably. Did you know he started standing at only eight months? Apparently that’s really early. He has these little Duscuran picture books - apparently he loves them, do you think he’s going to become a big reader? - and when he wants Dedue to read them to him, he crawls over and starts trying to get the books from the bin himself. He fell into the bin that way! Isn’t that cute or what?”

The genius of the century crawled closer towards probably the smartest cat in Fodlan. With a great and terrible ceremony, the baby reached out and gently patted the cat’s fur. More like smacked, honestly, but the cat seemed to understand the intent. 

“He didn’t cry when he saw me.” There was something so awful and fragile on Sylvain’s face, too close to breaking to ever be called happiness. “I was terrified of that happening. I couldn’t stop imagining it. But he saw me, and he - he just looked curious, you know? Mercie says he’s a real curious kid. Always getting into stuff. Apparently every stranger is just a friend he hasn’t met yet! Can you believe it? He’s going to be a handful when he starts running around.”

Felix hummed, propping his chin on his hands. “Why are you so surprised that he’s a great kid? Did you think he’d be a terror?”

“I knew he’d be great,” Sylvain said, instantly defensive. “I just - I just didn’t realize I’d get so excited about it. I didn’t think it would make me feel this way. I thought I’d be immune or something.”

“To loving your own kid?”

“Do I love him?” 

Felix turned to look at Sylvain for the first time, incredulous. “Am I the person to ask about that?”

But Sylvain just shrugged, and for the first time Felix saw the strange shadow of desperation over his expression. “You’re always noticing things nobody else does, Felix. Do you think I love him?”

It was, obviously, a question Sylvain couldn’t answer on his own. The kid had arrived at the castle yesterday, and Sylvain had spent every second since then either hiding from him on the other side of the castle or glued to his side. At this moment, Annette and Mercedes were locked up in the magician’s tower writing the anti-cat counter-spell. For the first time in the little guy’s entire lifespan, Sylvain was babysitting. Normally Felix would say parenting, but he wasn’t certain this counted as parenting. How the hell was he supposed to know. 

Sylvain seemed acutely aware that he was babysitting instead of parenting. Say what you will about Sylvain, he wasn’t in denial about much. He tended to just ignore the feelings he didn’t like. Sylvain clutched onto his resentment with both hands, but Felix suspected that the emotion ran deeper and stronger than even Sylvain was aware of.

“I can’t answer that question for you.” It was the most obvious sentence in the world, but Sylvain sagged anyway. “Is it even important, anyway? The only thing that matters is your actions.”

Wryly, Sylvain said, “And as we’ve well established, my actions are shit.” He looked back at Felipe, who was heroically bridging the gap between their two factions. Cat Byleth was sniffing him curiously as he made cooing noises at her. “I thought I wouldn’t be capable of even liking him. Because - I thought my mind was too full up wondering how old I was when my mother sold me off.”

Cat Byleth rubbed Felipe’s face with her nose. Felipe laughed, tickled by the movement. 

“It was probably five months, right?” There was a bizarre edge of desperation to Sylvain’s voice, poisoned by time. “That’s when most noble babies get tested for their crest. But it’s a pretty expensive test - maybe she had to save up? Or did she tell my father about me soon after I was born, and did he pay for it? How much was she even paid, anyway?” Sylvain took a deep breath, and he was clearly surprised when it shuddered. “I couldn’t have been a good kid. I must have really been awful. I always figured that. But Felipe’s a good kid. So now I’m wondering - Felix, you know, I’m just kind of wondering if -”

Sylvain dropped his head, resting his forehead on the carpet, and breathed. Felix silently lay next to him. He watched Cat Byleth cuddle up around the baby, lying half on top of him with a paw stretched over his chest. Felipe was clearly already growing sleepy. Comfortable, safe, and warm - emotions only Byleth could make children feel. Only Byleth and mothers. 

Even in those dark days, as evil surrounded them and their leader lost his sanity. When Byleth stoked a fire in their classroom’s hearth and they spread their cots around the flames, Felix had felt warm. When they had stayed up late into the night talking and exchanging secrets, Felix had felt safe. As the wind whistled outside of the impenetrable stone walls, Annette’s head pillowed on his chest or Sylvain’s leg entwined with his - even Felix had felt comfortable. Even in those horrible days…

Felix didn’t say anything. He wasn’t Byleth. He didn’t understand, and he never could. Felix was the loved product of a loving couple. Losing Mother had felt like the Goddess reached into his chest and ripped his heart out. It wasn’t a wound he was born with. He had no wisdom or insight for this. In the end, Felix could only say the truth.

“You could ask her, you know. She’s probably still alive.”

Sylvain lifted his head, exhaling heavily. He rested his chin on the heel of his hand, watching the baby slowly lull himself to sleep. “Nah. It’s alright. That’s not really the point, you know?” Despite everything, Felix did know. Sylvain could see that. “Man. Remember the literal nightmares I used to have as a kid about getting babytrapped?”

Felix grimaced. “I remember when you woke me up asking if we had a kid.”

Sylvain ignored him, as he often did. “In my nightmares, I was always so disgusted looking at that baby. Holding it would make my skin crawl. But I don’t feel that at all looking at him now. Do you think it’s because he’s Mercie’s?”

“Who knows.” Felix had the feeling it was more because Felipe was the product of that loving and happy union, but this wasn’t his business. “So are you over your babyphobia now? Ready to be a dad?” Sylvain flinched hard. “That answers that question.”

Felipe’s little hands kneaded Byleth’s coat in his sleep. Byleth blinked slowly and sleepily - refusing to sleep while there was a child to watch out for. 

“I still get so uncomfortable just looking at him.” Despite his words, Sylvain didn’t look away from Cat Byleth and Felipe. “I can’t help it. That disgust…it’s not just the stuff of nightmares, Felix. I do feel it. I just didn’t know I would be disgusted with myself.”

“You know the best way to fix that, right?” Felix raised an eyebrow, and Sylvain awkwardly looked away from him. “Cowardice? In a Blue Lion? In front of Lady Byleth herself?”

Lady Byleth meowed. They both ignored her. 

“There’s never a reason to be afraid. Not so long as we’re here.” Felix reached out and gently elbowed Sylvain, hoping his elbows were as bony as his compatriots’. “Rule Three. Whatever help you need, we’ll give it. None of us fight alone. Felipe’ll have all of us. That simple enough for you?”

Sylvain sighed. “Knew I’d finally get you to say something useful.” He dodged Felix’s mock swing. “I know it, alright? Trust me, I’m already grateful. Dedue’s putting a lot of work into raising him too. I’m glad he has a male figure around.” Felix tsk’d. “Saints, you still don’t like Dedue?”

“He’s always been bad for Dimitri.” Sylvain opened his mouth, and Felix waved him off. “But Dimitri’s worse off without him, so I’ll deal. At least now we know Dimitri definitely wants kids. Not that we needed the confirmation.”

“He’s had their names picked out since he was seventeen,” Sylvain said, dead-eyed. Goddess, the guy was so fucking cringe. His daydreams about the Dimitri-Byleth idyllic perfect children were well-entrenched. But Sylvain hesitated a beat anyway, and Felix found himself sobering too. “If I tell you something, will you - uh, not tell anybody I said it?”

“I’ll do my best,” Felix panned, “but I don’t know how we’ll stop Felipe from tattling.”

“Very funny.” Sylvain picked at a cuticle, expression tight. After a few long moments, he finally said, “Do you think Dimitri’s really fit to be a parent?”

That was a question worth its weight in gold.

But it was also a pretty useless one. Dimitri was having kids. His family hadn’t been very large to begin with, and Cordelia had executed even his most distant cousins. If Dimitri didn’t have kids, it might be the extinction of his legal bloodline. Losing a crest as powerful as Dimitri’s was no joke, and Dimitri had a strong sense of royal duties. 

There was another question, one that Felix knew for a fact Dimitri worried about - if his children would inherit his illness. It was possible. They had hopes that Byleth’s fresh, good, and completely unrelated genes would reduce risk. Felix knew it had almost been enough to stop Dimitri from having the children at all. But Dimitri really did want those kids. He wanted it more than anything: that happily ever after. Finding that family lost. 

But Sylvain hadn’t asked if Dimitri would be having kids, or even if he should. He was wondering if Dimitri’s illness made him capable of being a parent at all. It was a stupid question too - maybe even stupider than the last. Sylvain never learned a thing. 

“Maybe not if he was doing it on his own,” Felix said bluntly. “But they’ll have two parents, idiot. And all of us. When Dimitri’s capable, he’ll be great. And when he’s not, Byleth and us will be here. What are you worrying about such useless things for? Get real problems.” 

And Sylvain just laughed. For a brief second, his faint wrinkles smoothed out, and he looked like the smartest and stupidest man alive again. “Man, we’re fucked up. It takes all of us combined to maybe competently raise only a slightly fucked up kid. Felipe and the future prince don’t stand a chance.”

“Don’t forget Annie’s spawn,” Felix panned. “We’ll have to throw in the towel then.”

“Nah, your kid’ll be fine. They’ll just have to learn how to be mean back.”

“What about Ingrid’s? We know what she’s like as a mother.” Left unsaid: she’d been mothering them all for years. Horrific.

Sylvain shivered. “Yeah, those ones will need our help.”

“As if we don’t have enough work to do.”

Cat Byleth yawned. She finally gave up the ghost and closed her eyes, resting her chin on the gently slumbering Felipe’s chest. Sylvain and Felix kept watch over them as they both slept, and they even stayed long after Felipe woke up crying from unknown nightmares.

***

Felix stood in front of a wooden door.

He stood in the abandoned hallway with the exhausted Sylvain, the stoic Dedue, and the antsy Balad. Felix didn’t know why they had to fucking wait outside while the girls and Dimitri got to stay inside. Something about how Lady Byleth would probably wake up without any clothes. Fucking so? They’d all seen each other naked.

Granted, nobody liked seeing Lady Byleth naked…and she was, objectively, the Queen of  Faerghus…fine, whatever. So Felix would stand outside like she was already having her baby. Poor Balad was clearly wondering how they hadn’t caught him out and sent him back to his chores by now. 

Sylvain scowled, taking a look at his pocketwatch for the fifth time. “It’s been an hour. That’s twice as long as Mercie said it would take.”

“It’s advanced magic,” Dedue said simply. “Give it time.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“And yet my answer remains the same.”

“But I’m bored!” Sylvain groaned. “I have so much work to do, I can’t stand around here forever -”

“I see where Felipe gets it from.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Felix looked down at Balad, who had been the picture of patience for an hour. “Don’t grow up like them.”

Balad blinked up at him, eyes wide and guileless. Please. Servants were the sneakiest people alive. Teenagers were even worse. “I can’t see how I would, my lord.”

Fair. Very fair. 

Before Sylvain could begin to protest the unfair treatment, green light flashed underneath the door. Felix’s eardrums popped, and an acrid smell hit his nostrils. Dedue made a face, and Sylvain obnoxiously coughed. Balad pinched his nose shut, but he looked up at Felix in abject excitement. 

“Did it work? Was that the counter-spell?”

Excited noises sounded from behind the door, and after a second Felix heard a familiar and welcome husky tone. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but grin.

“Yes on both counts, I believe.”

After five more agonizing minutes, the door opened. Byleth stood at the door, dressed in her exercise clothing of a simple shirt and trousers, blinking owlishly at the assembly behind the door. 

She was herself, as she ever was - mint-green hair and eyes, big eyes and placid expression, short stature standing tall. Still the youngest of them all at only twenty four, her air was still indescribably old. All things told - very much like a cat. 

Almost simultaneously, all three men bowed at her. 

“Greetings to Your Grace from our esteemed houses,” Sylvain said crisply, speaking for all of them. Dedue’s house wasn’t esteemed at all, but he slid into the greeting with his honorary baronage. “It’s a pleasure to see you well, Queen Byleth.”

Queen Byleth, Saintess of the Church of Seiros, Queen of  Faerghus-and-kinda-Fodlan, Professor of the House of Blue Lions, blinked at them.

Finally, her esteemed royal and holy personage said, “...a cat?”

Stoically, Sylvain said, “Yes, Your Grace.”

“...why?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask.”

Byleth slowly turned around, looking at the women assembled behind her. Dimitri hovered near the back of the pack, looking anxious.

At her gimlet eyes, the women hurriedly curtsied or bowed. They had probably been too busy with the check-ups and trousers to remember. Or, judging by Annette’s unusual efforts to lead the pack, were skirting responsibility. 

“May the Goddess’ blessing shine upon Your Grace,” Mercedes said smoothly. “I had nothing to do with you turning into a cat.”

“Greetings to Your Grace from House Fraldarius,” Annette said hurriedly. “House Fraldarius is willing to admit that perhaps -”

“Hey,” Felix said, “don’t drag me into this.” 

“ - two people were being irresponsible. Together. As a team.”

“For a month?” Byleth said. 

“As friends, even.”

“Your Grace!” Dimitri quickly weaseled his way through the crowd of women. He stopped in front of Byleth and bowed hurriedly, almost instinctively. “Greetings to Your Grace by His Majesty of Faerghus.” 

Sylvain groaned, clapping a hand over his eyes. “You outrank her -”

Dimtiri didn’t give a shit. “Are you sure you’re alright? Shouldn’t you sit down, my lady? You’ve had a large turn. Perhaps you ought to rest.”

“I feel quite well-rested.” Byleth patted Dimitri’s hand in thoughtful consideration. Dimitri made the most desolate kicked puppy expression. Byleth just turned back to the assembly, scrutinizing the line-up before breaking into a large smile. Well, it was a large smile for Byleth - to people who didn’t know her, it seemed like nothing else but a curl of the lips. “Dedue. Welcome back to  Faerghus.”

Dedue bowed again. He was the only one who maintained the formalities beyond the first few seconds. “It was a pleasure to return, Your Grace.”

Then Byleth’s gaze swiveled down to Balad. He stiffened, hurriedly bowing again and locking his eyes on the floor. She stepped forward and scrutinized him closely, holding her thumb to her chin. Did she recognize him? How much did she remember of the past month, anyway? With the benefit of long experience, Felix instantly knew that he wasn’t about to find out. Byleth never put any of her cards in play.

“Straighten up.”

Balad straightened, keeping his eyes fixed to the floor.

“Chin up too. Widen your stance a little.” Byleth unabashedly nudged him a little, and he awkwardly widened his stance. Balad looked ready to faint from fear, but Byleth either didn’t notice or didn’t care. She just hummed, looking him up and down closely. After a few heart-pounding seconds, she finally straightened and said, “There’s potential. Tomorrow morning, 0500 hours. Training hall. Don’t be late.”

“Oh, Goddess,” Annette said, “this poor kid.”

“That’s some reward for the boy’s help this month,” Mercedes said reproachfully.

“Do you remember him?” Sylvain asked urgently. “Your Grace, I asked this boy to keep an eye on you for the past month. Did you -”

“I remember enough,” Byleth said mysteriously. Great. That could mean anything. “0500 hours. Don’t be late.”

Balad hurriedly bowed again, face flaming red. “Yes, Your Grace!”

Felix crossed his arms. “Do you have time for another victim, Lady Byleth?”

But Byleth just looked at him, eyes glinting. “I don’t know, Felix,” Byleth said, “do I have time to be a cat for a month?”

Felix stared at her, unrepentant. Byleth stared at him, a focused assault.

Finally, Byleth said, “Join me in Annette’s office, Felix.”

Everybody paled, even Balad. Felix narrowed his eyes. 

Dimitri, relentlessly hovering around Byleth’s elbow, was almost wringing his hands. “Your Grace, let’s discuss this before you make any decisions.”

“His Majesty already said that he doesn’t intend to punish House Fraldarius,” Mercedes piped up, a little anxiously. “Are you mad at them, Your Grace?”

Annette’s face fell tragically. “Lady Byleth, I really am sorry…it was just an accident.”

“Felix knows what he did,” Byleth said mysteriously. She pointed inside the room. “Office. Now.”

Felix shrugged and entered the office as the women were shepherded fully outside. Annette looked strongly as if she wanted to speak with Felix and/or plan an escape route, but Felix just waved her off. 

Byleth closed the door resolutely behind her, letting it latch with a final click. Felix stood in the center of the room at loose attention, eyeing Byleth carefully. Byleth stood in front of him, arms folded and eyes sharp. 

They stared each other down for several long seconds - not so much a battle of wills as a mutual challenge. Byleth silently inquired if Felix wanted to defend himself first. Felix knew better than to self-incriminate.

Finally, Byleth said, “You wrote me a thesis on animal transfiguration in school.”

“That I did.”

“It was good.”

“Thank you.”

“Very good.”

“I know,” Felix said. “It was how I knew ordinary humans can’t turn into cats.” 

“I’m out of the ordinary,” the vessel of the Goddess said, straight faced. 

“Hence turning into a cat.”

“Your thesis included a proof on unwinding animal transfigurations.” Byleth’s piercing stare could have put a hole in Felix’s head. “Annette hit me with a modified Reason spell. You could have undid the transformation at any time.” 

“Please,” Felix said, “don’t flatter me. It would have taken a week.”

Slowly and carefully, Byleth said, “Felix. Did you let me stay a cat for a month?”

Completely unrepentantly, Felix said, “Yup.”

“Why.”

“You needed the break.”

Byleth stared blankly at Felix. 

Felix just shrugged. “What? You were having fun, and it’s impossible to make you relax. Figured I’d take advantage of the opportunity.”

“Why didn’t you volunteer to undo the spell at all?” Byleth asked. “You could have artificially extended the time needed to cure me.”

“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get Sylvain and his wife and kid in the same room?”

Byleth pinched the bridge of her nose. Felix felt no shame. 

Finally, she announced, “You were my most troublesome student.”

“And now I’m your most troublesome subject,” Felix said serenely. “Isn’t it funny how life works out?”

“I should tell His Majesty.”

“You won’t snitch.”

Too high a likelihood that Dimitri would actually grow angry. And, obviously, Byleth wasn’t actually mad at all. Byleth had a fantastic time being a cat. It had been the time of her fucking life. 

She wouldn’t admit it. Felix knew. Byleth knew that Felix knew. They would take this mutual secret to their graves. She was undoubtedly already wishing she could return to chasing mice. Felix had her number. 

Byleth sighed, nodding at the door. “You’re dismissed. I’m assigning you an unpleasant task later.”

Straight faced, Felix said, “But Your Grace. I already co-chair committees with Sylvain.” 

Byleth pointedly walked over and opened the door for him. Dimitri was hovering right outside the door, apart from the other Blue Lions relentlessly gossiping. Everybody’s eyes snapped to Felix and Byleth instantly, assessing the situation. 

Everybody noticed in unison that Felix was looking rather smug. Annette breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Byleth announced, guaranteeing that everybody would worry about it. “Dimitri. Would you like to debrief?”

Somewhat maniacally, Dimitri said, “Byleth, please consider that I have not seen my wife in almost a month.” 

Byleth paused, thinking hard. “Hm. Correct.” After a second’s thought, an answer came to her. “Oh!”

“You understand.” Dimitri grabbed her hand, already pulling her along. “Now, if you’re amenable -”

“Certainly.”

“Excellent. Everybody in this castle is forbidden from bothering us until we return.”

Byleth hurriedly pointed at Balad. “Make that 0800 hours.” 

“Ah - yes, my lady!”

Dimitri and Byleth exited stage left. Very hurriedly. 

Ingrid sighed, folding her arms. “I miss Ashe.” 

“Ah,” Dedue said, “young love.”

Mercedes arched an eyebrow at him. “Are you the expert, Dedue?”

“In those two? Yes.” 

Meanwhile, Annette pushed her way through the crowd and grabbed Felix by the sleeve. She unceremoniously tugged him out of earshot of everybody else, pulling down on his sleeve and making him bend down so she could whisper directly into his ear. 

“What the hell did you do?” Annette hissed. “Why is Byleth mad at you?”

“Can’t say,” Felix said solemnly. “We swore each other to secrecy.”

“You damned good-for-nothing husband, I swear if you went and made things worse -”

“Hark! What is that I see in yonder distance? A young woman in a glass home? What is she holding? That couldn’t possibly be a stone -”

“I have been stressing the past month, and if you had any information that might have reduced that stress -”

“But you got an extension on all of your deadlines!” Felix added cheerfully. Please. Stress. She had been waiting for Mercedes to come and fix it. She had been busy the past month catching up on all of her work, not just the Cat Byleth situation. “Now all of your papers are written, your work’s completed, your best friend’s here, and the Queen of  Faerghus isn’t a cat anymore. Round win in my book.”

“That’s not - did you have something to do with this?”

“I had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.” That was extremely true. A little too true, but definitely true. In a technicality. 

Annette’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds like a technicality.”

And, bizarrely - beautifully - Felix could only lean in and kiss his wife. She immediately kissed him back - it had been a while for them too - and they joined together for a long handful of valuable seconds before they finally separated.

Felix kept her in his arms, relaxing into the feeling of her warm weight. Hopefully the others were too busy bickering amongst themselves. They were way too old for ridiculous PDA like this. He kept his voice low, secluding words away just for the two of them. “Maybe you should take a break too. Let’s take a week off. Just don’t do shit, you and me.”

“Felix!” Annette lightly batted him on the shoulder, but she didn’t pull away. “I’m behind enough as it is already!” 

“You’re always behind! I’m always behind, we’re always busy - so what?” Somehow, for some weird reason Felix couldn’t quite explain, at that moment saying these words to Annette felt like the most important thing in the world. “We were too busy during the war and we were too busy before it. Who cares? I just want time with you.”

“You’ll get time when I retire from my royal magician position in five years,” Annette scolded. “We’ll both move back to your home and settle down then, remember? It’s in the timetable?”

So it was. As Felipe had been in the timetable, and never in Sylvain’s life. As taking care of Dimitri was worked into every day, and they had glossed over actually trusting him. Ashe had been in Brigid for months, and Ingrid hadn’t so much as opened her mouth to complain - accustomed to it as a wartime necessity, with no time to stop and remember that the war was over. Only a summons from the king brought Mercedes across the country to even see her husband again. Even Dedue, returning just to reunite and reconnect, had to remind the nearest Duscuran child that he was never allowed to relax, to lose composure and dignity - the same composure and dignity that Dedue maintained at every moment, without fault or slip. The only break any of them had taken in the past month was completely involuntary, and it had involved turning into a cat. Yes, Felix was completely unrepentant. 

“Annie,” Felix said, and for a moment he let her see the exhaustion in himself too, “are we going to live the rest of our lives like this?”

Were the Blue Lions going to end as they began - pushed to the brink by fear and desperation, and only pushed further as danger encroached around every corner? Would they live now as they had always lived - leaders and combatants in a war for their lives, no expenses spared just to live? Struggling to take care of Dimitri as Dimitri struggled to take care of them, looking to their old teacher for guidance and floundering when left without her? 

Annette was quiet for a long minute. She wasn’t used to seeing that look in his face. Felix didn’t show his heart very frequently, even to her. Maybe that was the weight he still carried.

Finally, she said, “Maybe a quick break.” 

Felix’s smile resurfaced on his face, and he knew it was a lot looser. “A week?”

“A whole week? What would we even do?”

“Whatever we want, maybe.” Felix paused a beat. “His and Her Majesties have the right idea.” 

Annette giggled, resting her forehead on the chest. “Wanna invite -”

“Ah, I hear new parents have no time for that sort of thing.”

“Maybe they can take a break too.” 

“Maybe we’ll all take a break,” Annette said, rolling her eyes. “We’ll let the continent of Fodlan grind to a halt because a group of friends are exhausted and horny. That’s the work of responsible nobility.” 

Felix wanted to be the best parent in the world. He wanted to be the best father who ever lived. He wanted to be a father who made Annette cry in relief, because she would never worry if he would abandon her and his children. She wouldn’t even think of it. Blue Lions or not, important titles and distinguished peerage or not - Felix would make her worries disappear. Even their ghosts wouldn’t exist in her life, or the lives of their children. 

It had to start now. He still had to whip everybody else into shape too. 

“It’s always been us versus the world.” For better or for worse - but that described a great deal. “Let’s let the world take care of itself for a little while.”

If Annette had any arguments, she chose to kiss him instead of making them. Which was about as good as no arguments at all.