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dragonrajafanfiction · 3 years

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Genji Heavy Industries (Part 5) Hell

In this part of the plot of the game and Novel several things are happening at once. The scene I felt was most relevant to our MC is the scene I picked.

This scene is not in the game. Please enjoy.

Chu Zihang coughed low in his throat next to Caesar and that man’s killer’s aura subsided. You could finally breathe again. You weren’t upset with Chisei Gen and you had nothing against him. You barely knew him at all. Caesar Gattuso just had a bad habit of getting emotionally invested in every single person he came across and that’s why you were here, disguised as Hydra Executive Bureau members, helping Hydra move -- while at the same time, being surrounded by armed guards who would shoot you full of holes and ask questions of your corpse.

Chisei Gen was here with Masamune Tachibana and were talking in Japanese while observing the moving process. You keep your eyes low, maintaining that careful methodical pace that would make sure that you all got on the elevator with the fiftieth box so you could leave to escort that shipment and escape..

Caesar successfully got on the elevator and the operator yelled “HAI”. As the elevator descended, you caught the sharp flash of Caesar’s blue eyes, as though, with that look, he could slash the man’s throat.

Next was Chu Zihang. It would take ten more minutes of work for him to get on the elevator and Mingfei was getting a bit distracted. He was interested in what Chisei and Tachibana were talking about, being the only one who spoke Japanese. While reconnaissance could be handy, the survival of the team was more important. If you survived, you could come back. So you approach him where he is dawdling and lightly nudge him with your elbow..

Chu Zihang successfully boards the elevator. He gives you a two fingered salute as he descends down the shaft and disappears.

You’re next.

Working steadily, you pass by Lu Mingfei. “I want to say I’m sorry.” You murmur in a low voice. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you… and tried to hit you. That was wrong.”

Mingfei looks at you with a confused expression. “No… I messed up. I almost ruined everything.”

“I’ll explain later…”

“HEY YOU!”

Both of your heads look in the direction of the voice. A man in a dark windbreaker was gazing directly at you! Your heart stills. He’s saying something in Japanese but you can’t understand.

“He’s telling you to put the box down and follow him. He has another assignment for you.” Mingfei is looking at you with a face full of tragedy. “Little Sister…” He whispers. “Please don’t die.”

You smile at him and take his hand and give it a squeeze. “It’s okay.” You whisper and turn away to follow the man in the black windbreaker. You give a sharp bow in front of him. He presses a button on the elevator that you came in on, and it opens. He hands you a small brown paper bag and gestures that you should get in the elevator alone.

Your mind is racing. Caesar and Zihang were already gone and there was no way to get in touch with them. They would just wait for you expecting you to come down the elevator. Lu Mingfei would have to tell them what happened. Knowing Caesar, he wouldn’t leave the place without you and would probably search the building and continue to risk his life and everyone else’s lives! You had to find another way to get to them.

You turn around to face out of the elevator and don’t let your emotions show. Lu Mingfei is trying to work, but he’s pale, terrified and alone. You smile calmly at him as the door of the elevator closes.

From the moment the elevator door closed, the screen showing the floor you were on suddenly went out. The lights and the music in the elevator shut off. All the floor buttons were disabled, and the word "HELL" lit up in red above the door.

Your heart rate jumps and you try to press the door open button but it’s too late! You’re already descending, and fast!

You try every button but nothing works! Finally, you look up through the ceiling. Just as you’re thinking about escaping through the top, the elevator slows, and the lights come back on.

The lights reflect off the bronze doors like a mirror. Behind your reflection is the fuzzy reflection of a human shaped shadow. You reach for your pistol extremely fast, but a strong grip takes hold of both your wrists.

With a mighty twist, the person in the reflection turns you around, shoves you against the elevator doors and presses his lips to yours in a passionate kiss!

Your muscles jump and you try to escape, but his scent fills your nose. You recognize his hair. You go from resisting him, to embracing him and pulling him closer.

How did he get here? Where did he come from? You want to ask, but he doesn’t allow you to speak. He kisses you as your knees buckle and your back slides down to the elevator floor. When he finally lets you go, he smiles, watching you tremble filled with a strange tingling you don't understand. There is a satisfied glint in his golden eyes. “Good. I wanted to make sure I got to you before those other idiots did.”

You catch your breath for a moment. He was dressed smartly in a suit and patent leather shoes over his bare feet. A black serrated army knife was on his belt. He rested one hand over his bent knee, crouching in front of you. As always, that clever smile that hid an inside joke was on his delicate features. He really did look quite a bit like Lu Mingfei. But you decide Z is much more handsome. But you were alone when you got into the elevator. How did he get here?

“How do I know you're really here and this isn't a dream?” You ask.

His eyebrows raise. “Is this the type of dream you would have of me? You’ve grown up…”

You huff with amusement. “I’m serious. Lu Mingfei has proof of his guardian angel. I want one, too.”

His eyes travel the length of you and his smile fades. “I’m no guardian angel. But if it's proof you want...” He leans forward on his hands and nuzzles your neck tenderly. But then at that moment he bites down hard and you cry out in pain.

When you touch where he bit you, your hands come back with a small streak of blood on them. Z licks his lips slightly. Your heart beats faster and you feel a bit dizzy. You’re drawn to him far more than any of the ‘idiots’ on your dating game show. “Z… I think I love you…”

He wrinkles his nose. “That’s because you don’t know any better. I’m always curious. How does a human know what exactly ‘love’ is? You could throw yourself body and soul at them and they reject you. Or you can bite them and they call it love. It’s silly.”

The elevator continues to descend and you don’t know how to answer him. “I just want to be with you.”

“Then just say that.”

“Where are we going?”

He smiles again, showing his teeth. “Hell.”

You roll your eyes. “I know, stupid. I mean in this elevator.”

He chuckles, a little birdlike.”Ke-ke-ke…” and again you delight in making him laugh. He sighs and settles next to you. You’d dropped your brown paper bag and he handed it to you again. “Here. It’s food. Eat it. You’re going to need it.”

Inside, is an apple and a small sandwich labeled “egg sando”. It was good and suddenly you feel your hunger roaring like a beast. As you devour the food, he reaches up and gently runs his fingers over your hair, much like you did to the little black kitten in Chizuru.

At the bottom of Genji Heavy Industries, deeper than the Iron Dome Shrine, in absolute darkness, a deep red "ならく" is lit up, which is an elevator light.

The word "ならく" is an exotic word derived from the Buddhist scriptures. Naraka is the deepest part of hell, the infinite fall of the void. The evil spirits in Naraka can never return to the human world, but experience an eternal fall into a bottomless pit.

The elevator door opened. You and Z, two black shadows, walked into the darkness where no one could see. Except for the faint sound of the ventilation fan turning, there is only dead silence here.

The wall ahead suddenly lit up. The giant wall seven or eight meters high emitted an eerie blue light. A closer look will reveal that it is actually a huge water storage tank. The wall is a glass made of hundreds of pieces of glass of about one square meter, between the glass is a narrow metal frame. Above the water storage tank, a several meters in diameter turbine and filter is installed. The volume of this storage tank is comparable to the giant fish tank in an oceanarium built to house manta rays and whale sharks. The general water supply pipeline simply can not provide enough water, so it takes water from the sewer. Sewage filtered into this storage tank, and then pumped away with the turbine when the water was changed, re-entering the Iron Dome Temple system.

The two of you lie on the ground under the glass wall, the blue light illuminating your faces. Z’s posture is reclining upright on his elbow, like those Greek boys carved in alabaster in the Parthenon, from a certain side he looks rather feminine, but from your angle he looks handsome like a young god. You’re lying on your back, looking up at him, staring into those golden eyes.

“Someone once said that the aquarium is one of the top places to go on a date.” He said, stroking your hair.

“Is that what this is? Odd timing…” You murmur.

“Well, you are a very busy woman and many men are looking at you now. Caesar Gattuso jumped in the rain from the top floor of the dorm into a moving convertible to stake his claim. Am I supposed to wait until the mission is over for me to make my move?”

He was right. For as much as the Takamagahara Star-Heart contest glorified looks, money, and pure carnal instincts, what pulled you to Z was the sense that he would stand over you and snarl like a lion. Once he had you, no one would be able to take you away.

“It’s just a show, Z. Are you being jealous?”

“I’m communicating… that’s what this is.” He pressed one finger to your forehead in an odd gesture. “Anyway, the date's over, we have work to do.”

You sit up.

“Use your Soul Skills. We are at the deepest roots of the Heavy Industry Building down here. I need you to cause an earthquake for me. Go for Magnitude 7 or 8.’

You’re silent for a moment. LIke any high level skill, it required considerable amount of practice and skill to wield without causing enormous amounts of unnecessary damage and death. Chu Zihang’s Royal Flame could be wielded like him, in various ways, like pottery in his hands, but he could only control it so much. Without injuring himself and others.

S-Level Skills like yours not only could cause excessive levels of death and destruction, but also came with sequelae, side-effects to the user. In order to create a Magnitude 7 or 8 you would not escape these side effects. But you would do your best to minimize them.

You place your hands on the ground and focus, slowly working your spiritual energe through the floor, through the meter thick slab and down into the bedrock formed by millions of years of heat and pressure. As it goes, so does your mind. The ground becomes like a skin, and you can feel the rubble of the subway, and the rush of the fierce waters in the Iron Dome in a steady vibration. A golden color lights up your dark eyes like a the headlight of a motorcycle in a tunnel that eventually fills the space until its entirely glowing yellow.

Z peeled off a piece of gum and stuffed it into his mouth, facing this empty water storage bin. He was not anxious at all. The sound of rushing water came from the depths of the water storage bin. Some kind of large aquatic animal swam at high speed, leaving a series of swirls with its long tail. The boy fished out a laser pointer from his sleeve, and after opening it, a red laser dot appeared on the glass wall, which cat owners often use to amuse kittens. The boy slowly moved the laser pointer. The light drifted, and gradually attracted the attention of the aquatic animal. It swam closer and closer. There was not one, but a group of large fish. The big fish put their heads against the glass wall, staring at the red dot.

Their faces were so pale, they looked like floating corpses that had been floating in the sea for dozens of days.

The group of fish with human faces peered through the glass at the human world, some expressionless, others with mouths turned upward, seemingly smiling.

They are not all the same. Most have long tails and scaly armor, some look like sphinxes with animal paws or have uncanny organs attached to them. Some have huge sharp claws and knife-like bony fins, and, when they breathe, the cracks at the base of their necks open up to reveal deep red, gill-like structures.

The boy turned his wrist slightly. The sphinxes twisted their bodies delicately, chasing the dots of light and swimming fast, like a group of obedient pets. The entire tank stirred and a dark golden skeleton came up from the bottom of the tank. The shape of the skeleton was between human, fish and flying birds. It was obviously the same kind of sphinxes. It seemed that these sphinxes do not mind eating their own kind when they are very hungry, and the dark golden skeleton is covered with teeth marks, as if cut out with a logging axe.

Z turned off the laser pointer and approached the glass wall. The sphinxes that had lost their chase scattered.

The size of the tank is almost equivalent to a small underground lake in the rock formation. The filtered groundwater is still clear, but once the sphinx swims far away, it is no longer visible. Only a smaller one was left, swimming in the waters near the glass wall, still seemingly trying to find the mysterious spot of light. The boy pressed his palm against the glass wall, which was half a meter thick from the reflection of the glass, and was made of huge glass tiles.

Your Soul Skill has reached depth. Earthquakes were typically created when two broken slabs of continental plates floated on currents of magma, collided, and pressed together until the pressure was too great and then they slipped. There were many such faults in Japan. The skill was to find the one that would create the right amount of slip in the right location, and at the right depth.

Forcing an earthquake was like forcing open a stuck door. You leaned into it, gradually increasing the pressure against it to force it to move. If the door was inclined to move anyway, it wouldn’t take much force and the slip wouldn’t be too great and the earthquake would be small. But to create a great earthquake was to reach the limits of your control. Only a well stuck plate could create something like that. You had to force great pressures on the plate and, when it finally moved, it was like a door swinging open uncontrollably. It would be easy to turn a 7.0 earthquake into an 8.5 earthquake by accident.

You could jostle Genji Heavy Industries… or you could destroy all of Tokyo, depending on results you could not predict. In order to best guess how to apply pressure you had to increase the spiritual roots in the ground to make sure you had maximum sensitivity. And therein lie the danger to you. It was like burying your mind into the ground, your brain. If you poured enough of your thoughts into the earth, then you couldn’t be aware of your surroundings. You might lose track of how much brainpower you have dedicated to the task and little by little, the ground would suck your mind dry of thoughts and Caesar would find you in the depths of Genji Heavy Industries, completely braindead.

The sphinx pressed its face against the glass wall to observe the boy's palm, and then its appearance became clearer and clearer. It is actually a female with long dark hair, a deathly pale but beautiful face, with faint traces of minimally invasive plastic surgery between the eyes and eyebrows.

"You were beautiful," Z said softly, "when you were still alive."

Pretty only in that face, the sphinx was deformed from the neck down, the lower half of its body fused into a python-like tail, the remnants of its feet vaguely visible.

In the mythology of the world, this image of the sphinx repeatedly appears, from the ancestor of mankind, Fuxi Nuwa, to the Three Emperors, and Five emperors of the Taihao. Emperor, "Zhuangzi" was seen by the Duke of Qi Huan in purple clothes wearing a vermilion crown shaped like a half man and half snake. In the "Shanhaijing" there are multiple mentions of a "human face with a snake body and red, straight eyes.” The god of Zhong Shan, ZhiYin, the so-called "Naga" in Sanskrit, the so-called "Medusa" in Greek mythology, and even the group of snakes whose names have been lost in the Mayan pantheon ......

They are between gods and demons, symbolizing seduction and ultimate mystery. Mythologists still find it difficult to explain why such monsters appear so consistently in various myths. If they could take a look at this "beautiful" monster, they would understand that their ancestors had indeed witnessed similar things crawling, swimming or lunging in front of them. They were so hideous that they could never be a species that God would make, but only a joke played by the Devil on man. This impression was like a lightning bolt that exploded in the minds of the first people, and they passed it on from generation to generation as a myth.

Z lit up the laser pointer, the point of light appeared in the heart of the forehead of the sphinx, like a bright vermilion mole. The sphinx's ghastly white face was suddenly lit up. If you didn't look at the ghastly lower half of the body, it could be described as charming. It stretched out its deformed claws to grab the red light in the glass wall, although its claws are hard, but only in the super-hard glass scratching out a toothsome sound. However, it couldn’t grasp the red dot! Suddenly, became furious, and issued an inaudible roar at the young man. Its huge mouth opened to reveal sharp teeth as dense as thorns. This is when you can clearly see it's horrible mouth structure. On each side of its delicate cherry lips is a barely discernible slit extending to the ear. When it opened its mouth as if the entire cranium opened!

"You're getting ugly like this." Z said.

The sphinx's hiss lasted only a few seconds. The giant claws coming from behind dragged it back to the middle of the tank.

Z extinguished his laser pointer and watched the killing in silence as a dozen sphinxes surrounded and killed the smaller of their kind. They bite down on their prey’s body parts, swinging their long tails wildly, using tremendous twisting force to tear the prey apart. The prey and predator together formed a strange fleshy flower, a demon flower with snake-like petals, each one twisting and swaying as red blood smoke rose to the water's surface.

"How ugly, this world." Z said faintly, his face devoid of sorrow or joy.

You finally make your choice and your eyes glow in the dark. You open your mouth and let out a loud moan, as though you were giving birth and push! You push harder and harder and your cries grow louder and louder!

A soft popping sound ran through the entire glass wall from top to bottom, the metal frame supporting them twisting and distorting rapidly. The feeding sphinxes also noticed the change in the glass wall and swam over, leaving their bloody food behind, as if the prisoners had heard the iron prison door slam and would have looked in the direction of the door in unison. Glass wall is shaking. First, a huge glass tile fell where water pressure topped out against the metal frame, then more glass tiles fell off. Each is a square meter square and half a meter thick. Pushed by the force of several tons of pressure, water sprayed out through the gaps more than ten meters away.

Z produced a white silk handkerchief from his coat pocket and dabbed the sweat forming on your forehead with gentle touches, like a husband comforting his birthing wife. “You should protect yourself.” He says softly.

You grit your teeth and nod. A thick wave of soil and rock smashes through the meter thick slab and rolls over you both to form a barrier.

A few seconds later this transparent wall completely collapsed and tens of thousands of tons of water broke through the dam, carrying an unknown number of sphinxes with it.

#Dragon Raja

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writings-of-a-daphodil · 4 years

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Fire Keeper: Chapter 8

Douxie x fem reader

Chapter 1

Masterlist in bio!

Series Summary: You are Jim’s older sister who is taking a break from college and has moved back home to Arcadia. You end up joining Jim and his friends on their adventures. Chapter 8 summary: You would really enjoy a nice relaxing weekend, but unfortunately that isn't in the cards for you when Strickler shows up at your house, begging for protection.

You were concerned, to say the least, for Aaarrrgghh. He would die soon and he was choosing to spend his last moments with you and your friends. You didn’t really know how to feel about that. You were flattered and happy that he thought of you as family, but family had to make sacrifices for each other and you didn’t want to see Aaarrrgghh die.

So you found yourself pacing Douxie’s bookstore, ranting to Archie about your problems. You probably should have been talking to your friends about your feelings, but you didn't want to bother them when they were also going through thnigs too.

You had to talk to someone though, and Douxie had asked you to watch the bookstore while he went on an errand. So you talked to Archie, it wasn't like he was going to tell anyone.

You were just about finished summing up your life when Douxie walked in. "How was the shop?" he asked.

"Quiet." You gave a small smile and sat down at one of the tables. Picking up a book you looked it over.

"Thanks for watching it," Douxie said, coming over to pet Archie who was sitting in the chair opposite you.

The bell to the shop rang and you looked up to see a young woman there. "Hey handsome, mind helping me find a good book?"

You scowled. "Sure," Douxie said, walking over to her. You watched uncomfortably as the woman flirted with Douxie and to your dismay Douxie flirted back.

Archie hopped into your lap and the woman looked over at the sudden movement. "Oh, your cat is precious, may I pet him?"

"Um, sure." You really wanted Douxie to say no for some reason, which wasn't like you. The woman drew closer to Archie he recoiled away, giving you a feeling of satisfaction. There was something off about this girl.

"Oh. I guess he just doesn't like me," the woman said. "By the way my name's Mindy."

"Nice to meet you," you responded politly.

"Mhm," she said then turned back to Douxie.

"Why don't I check that out for you?" Douxie suggested, taking the book she had chosen to the register.

You were content to glare at Mindy with Archie until she left, but your mom called. "Hello?"

"Hi, honey. I was just wondering if you've seen Mr. Blinky around? I haven't seen him since he got ill and rushed to the restroom. I'm still really confused on what happened."

"No, I haven't seen him, sorry. Anyways is there anything you need me to get from the store?" You asked, trying to guide the conversation away from Blinky.

"No, I'm working all weekend. Just take care of your brother."

"Don't worry, mom. Love you." You hung up to see Mindy frowning at you while Douxie searched for a bag for her book.

"Is there a problem?" you asked her.

"Do you work here?"

"No."

"Ah," was all Mindy said in way of a response. Soon though she was gone, and while you hadn't noticed it before the energy in the room has changed while she was there. Now it was back to its normal relaxing aura.

"She seems nice," Douxie commented and you forced yourself not to roll your eyes. There was something wrong with that girl.

"Well, I need to get going, Jim's expecting me." You stood up and gently set Archie on the chair you had previously occupied. You waved goodbye to Douxie and you made your way to your car.

You were angry at yourself for feeling jelous, it wasn't like Douxie was yours or anything. However, the more you thought about it jealousy was only the cherry on top. You were certain something was off about her. She had changed the aura in the bookstore drastically, though you hadn't noticed it at the time.

You pulled your thoughts away from her and Douxie and focused on getting home. You had too much on your plate to worry about an odd customer.

You arrived at your home around sunset and you sighed, content. A nice relaxing weekend was exactly what you needed.

“Jim? Are you home? Mom has been asking me all day about what happened to ‘Mr. Blinky,’” you ranted as you put your purse on the coat rack.

“Good thing we decided to put the axe up last.” You spun around and quickly chanted a spell when you heard Strickler’s voice. Orange chains shot out, binding him.

“Where is Jim?!” You hissed, holding a dagger you had summoned to his throat. (You had to admit you were proud that you were able to modify the sword spell without help).

“Oh! Y/n, I’m fine. See?” Jim gestured to himself and you saw that he was indeed fine. However, you still didn’t release Strickler.

“What is he doing here?” You snarled.

“Angor Rot is after him and I agreed to help,” Jim said, frowning.

You shoved Strickler away from you and released him from his chains. “I will help too, but only because if you die my mom dies.”

“Well, I’m glad we got that settled,” Strickler grumbled, clutching his throat.

“Mhm.” You rolled your eyes and went to help Jim set up other areas of the house.

You didn’t know how to feel about helping Strickler. Once upon a time ago he had been your favorite teacher, but after all he had done... You just didn't know how to feel.

Darkness quickly creeped up on you and soon you were eating a quick dinner. It wasn’t the best food you had ever eaten, but it felt nice and calming to eat.

You were scraping the bowl when you heard Jim scream.

“Jim!” You called rushing to the basement. You were having deja vu of the first time you met Blinky and Aaarrrgghh.

You rushed down the stairs, once again ready to defend your little brother, when you saw the source of his alarm. ”Oh my gosh! Why is there a hole in our basement!”

“How else am I supposed to get around while the sun is out? Don’t worry it only leads to the sewers,” Draal explained calmly as you and Jim stood there panicking.

“Mom will flip if she sees this!” You squeaked.

“Nobody knows about it but me,” Draal clarified, but it didn’t worry you any less.

“Did you get the Lodestone?” Strickler called from the staircase. Draal held up two stones, one blue and one green. As soon as he loosened his grip they snapped together and all the metal in the basement slowly floated up then rushed to meet him.

You yelped and sent a burst of orange magic to shield him. “I’ll take that as a yes?” Jim mumbled as Draal pulled the stones apart and the metal fell to the floor.

“It’s almost nightfall. Come on, there’s more work to be done,” Strickler said and you rolled your eyes. Helping him was something that would take a while to get used to.

You worked quickly, helping set up one trap after another. Angor Rot was smart and you hoped that these traps would work.

“Okay, that’s the last one. Now all we do is wait,” Jim said, finishing up the swinging axe trap.

“You know I’m a bit surprised how well we work together,” Strickler commented.

“Don’t think it’ll happen again,” you rebuked.

“Yeah,” Jim said, “You know I’m still gonna take you down after all this is over.”

“Perhaps if we get through this, I could talk to my constituents about the eye of Gunmar,” Strickler suggested. “I assume you’re still interested in finding the last triumbric stone?”

“You know where it is?” Jim asked excitedly.

“Personally, no. But my ilk are wide and numerous. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“Why would you help us kill Gunmar?” You questioned.

Strickler laughed, “Let’s just say, I’m always looking out for my best interests.”

You scoffed. “You don’t say?”

“Oh what a shocker,” Jim said louder.

Draal gasped behind you and you spun around to see Draal pointing at an eye. “What is that?” The large troll asked.

“It’s his eye!” Strickler yelped.

“Gunmar’s eye?” Jim asked, confused.

“No! Angor’s! He’s been watching us! Get it!” Strickler commanded. “After it! There, there!”

“Y/n can you use your magic or-or something?” Jim asked.

“It wont let her,” Strickler said, pushing your hands down. You scowled at him as the eye rolled off the banister.

“Catch it before it escapes!” Jim warned.

“Gunmar’s eye, Angor’s eye. Enough of these eyes!” Draal grumbled as the four of you ran into the kitchen. The eye raced around the room and flew into the air towards the sink where Jim caught it in a cup.

“How long has he been watching us?” Jim asked. Suddenly the door knob rattled and you froze.

“He’s here! Get in position!” Jim ordered, and you all rushed to your places. You ran to the stairs and levetated yourself so you were hiding in the overhang.

“For the Glory of Merlin, Daylight is mine to command,” Jim whispered and you began to mutter a spell.

“Hey, kiddos, you home? Wanda messed up my schedule again. Guess I have the day off after all,” your mom announced as she walked into the house.

“No!” you screamed as she put her purse on the rigged coat rack.

“Mom, watch out!” Jim warned, tackling her to the floor.

“Whoa! Holy— Why is there an axe in the door?”

“Barbara! Are you all right?” Strickler asked as you quickly dropped to the floor. Hopefully she hadn’t seen you hovering.

“I’m fine. Whoa! Holy—How? What is—?” Your mom looked around at the room and you could see she was panicking. “W-Walt? Why are you here? And why are you holding a crossbow?”

“Me? Uh, yes. You see, um, there’s a school project I gave Jim and, uh.” He hid the crossbow behind his back as if that would do anything. The safety must have been off though so the crossbow took down your lamp.

“Die, Angor!” Draal roared, coming into the hall.

“No, Draal! Get back!” Jim warned and your mom let out an ear splitting scream.

“Um, hello. Sorry,” Draal apologized, and you face-palmed.

Your mom screamed again. “No, no, no! Mom! Mom, it’s okay! He’s—“ Jim started to explain, but he was cut off when your mom sprayed him with pepper spray.

“My eyes!” Jim yelped, and Draal backed up, recoiling in pain. He bumped into one of the many ropes that crossed through the hall and triggered a trap. He yelped as he ran into a bookcase which fell on him, knocking him out.

Your mom screamed some more and you tried to console her. “It’s okay, mom! He’s a friend!”

“He was a friend. Now, he’s out cold,” Strickler said and you rolled your eyes, the statement barely made any sense. Your attention was taken from Strickler’s poor wording and given to your mom who screamed yet again. You walked closer to her, but before you could reach her she fainted.

“And so is she,” Strickler mumbled as you used you magic to heal her and calm her. She soon woke up and you helped her to a chair in the hallway.

“More water Barbara?” Strickler asked, holding out a pitcher. You mom nodded, but instead of giving him the glass to refill she took the pitcher and guzzled the water down.

“So, let me get this straight. There are good trolls and bad trolls and somehow, you?” Your mom asked.

“If I may. There is a vast world beneath our feet, Barbara, and your children have stirred up a heap of trouble.”

“Dude!” Jim hissed.

You glared at him. “Not cool.”

“This is all so...” your mom trailed off and you gave her a hug, there were definitely better ways to tell her.

Strickler backed away. “I’ll give you a moment.”

“I can’t believe this is what you have been doing. All those late nights, getting arrested, you in the hospital. Why are you this...Trollfighter? A-and you, Y/n, you’re a wizard?”

“Uh, Trollhunter,” Jim clarified.

“Y-you should be worried about high school and girls not this, Jim. I mean, can’t you just ask someone else to do it. Y/n could, right? Or someone else...”

“I’m afraid it’s a...permanent situation? They need me, mom. Y/n is doing her best to help, but we each have our own jobs.”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but Jim is their protector,” you added.

“But who is going to protect you?” Your mom asked and you smiled.

“That’s what I’m there for, look.” You held up your hands and the bookshelf and everything else that had fallen glowed orange. All of the objects then began to put themselves back into their place. “See?”

“Wow,” your mother marveled, fascinated by the warm orange glow that was your magic.

“Barbara, you do have to leave! It’s-“ Strickler warned, but the alarm cut him off, Angor Rot was in the house.

“The basement!” Jim groaned.

“What’s in the basement?” Your mom asked.

Strickler put a hand in front of your mom to protect her and you almost started to like him again. “Draal was supposed to guard it,” he huffed.

A black ball rolled from the door, silencing any further conversation. You heard Angor Rot begin to chant so you threw up your hands, creating a shield around everyone.

The ball began to flash with purple electricity and you placed your selves, but all that happened was the power went out.

“What happened to the lights?” Your mom yelped as the chanting grew louder.

“Mom, stay close,” Jim ordered and you got ready to perform another spell.

“But I can’t see you!” Your mom called out. With the faint glow of your shield you could see her trembling.

“Y/n?” Jim asked and you let him out of the shield as glass shattered.

Jim dropped his flashlight. “For the glory of Merlin, Daylight is mine to command.”

“Jim, you’re glowing! H-how are you glowing?”

“It’s armor, Mom. It’s part of the job,” Jim explained.

A purple orb flew at your shield, but it ricocheted off your orange shiled, which was growing weaker by the moment.

“Mom!” Jim cried out as another purple orb shot out at him.

“Stick to the plan. You know what to do,” Strickler ordered and you nodded.

“You did not run, brave hunter, but the brave are the first to die,” Angor growled, finally revealing himself to Jim and you. You let down your shield and sent a blast of magic at Angor.

“Go! Go! Y/n, get her out of here!” Jim grunted as he fought Angor Rot.

“No! Not without Jim! No! Jim!” Your mom cried out as you and Strickler pulled her to the basement.

“This tunnel leads to the sewers. You can get to the street,” Strickler informed.

“What about my son? What’s going to happen to him?”

Strickler stepped in front of her. “No, you have to go!”

“No! He needs my help!” Your mom howled.

“Come on, mom. You're no good to him if you aren’t safe,” you pleaded.

“You don’t understand, Barbara. Our lives are bound magically,” Strickler said, trying to reason with her.

“Are you really talking about our relationship right now?” Your mom asked, irritated.

“We don’t have time for this,” you interjected.

“My boy is in danger!” Your mom pushed you aside, but you cast a spell, locking the basement door

“Y/n let me through!” Your mom ordered, but you shook your head. You needed to keep her safe.

Strickler moved to grab her. “Let me go!” Your mom slapped him, but she recoiled when she felt the pain as well. “Ow! What was that?”

“Listen to me! Leaves now!” Strickler growled and his eyes glowed.

“W-what are you, Walt?” Your mom whispered, pulling herself away from him and back to you.

“I’m someone who can help your son, but I can’t until I know you’re safe. Please,” Strickler begged

“Then go to him!” Strickler ran up the stairs and you opened the door for him.

“We need to go, now.” You pulled your mom to the hole.

“No, just...wait.” Silence filled the house after that statement and you mom grabbed a shovel. You creeped towards the staircase and motioned for her to stay there, but as soon as you got up the staircase she bolted past you. You chased her upstairs and screamed as she hit Angor Rot out of the trap.

“Mom, wait! No!”

“Get away from my boy!” She growled and you cringed.

“Mom, no! Get out of here!” Jim warned as Angor Rot attacked again. You shoved your mom to Strickler and tried chain Angor Rot, but you missed.

“Walt?” You heard your mom whisper. As you put a shield up around the two of them.

“Get out of here!” Jim growled as he faced off Angor Rot. You un shielded them and summoned your sword. Your mom ran into the hallway and you quickly backed out after her, sword raised. Strickler turned to follow you, but Angor attacked him, cutting his and your mom’s neck.

“Mom!” Jim cried.

“Well that didn’t go as planed,” Strickler muttered. You were about to jump into fight Angor Rot, but you heard Draal roar. He crashed into the room and tackled Angor Rot.

“Mom! Are you okay?” Jim asked as he helped her down stairs.

“My side hurts. Why—?”

“Come on, I have to get you out of here,” Jim cut her off.

“Can you drive?” Jim asked Strickler as you ran out of the house.

“Motivated enough I can do anything,” Strickler affirmed and you rolled your eyes, again.

“Move. I’ll drive,” you offered. No way you were letting a half-conscious Strickler drive.

“We have to go to the hospital,” Jim stated.

“Can’t. Our wounds won't be healed by modern medicine. We need to go to Trollmarket,” Strickler informed, coughing. You pulled the car out of the driveway and sped to the bridge.

“Sorry. I messed things up,” your mom mumbled from the back seat.

“No, mom. I’m sorry. I should have told you. I should have told you everything,” Jim responded.

“Just hang in there and everything is going to be okay, alright?” You added.

You glanced in your rear view mirror and saw a purple flash. You quickly swerved the car to avoid the orb that Angor Rot—who had gotten free of Draal—cast.

“That’ll wake one up!” Strickler yelped as he slid in his seat.

You turned into the woods to avoid another blast and did your best to steer clear of any trees.

“Where did you learn how to fight?” Your mom asked.

“Shh. I-I’ll tell you all about it once we get you somewhere safe.”

“Perhaps now-” Strickler coughed “-We call your friends? I think we lost him.”

Just as he said that Angor Rot hopped onto the forest floor. “Go! Go! Go! Get to the bridge now!” Jim screamed.

“Mom, stay with us! We’re almost there!” You said, peering into the back seat as you reversed. You burst out of the trees and onto the road where you made a quick u-turn while Jim called his friends. You did your best not to crash as you soared into the canal.

“Jim!” Strickler warned as he gestured towards Angor Rot who was now on top of the bridge.

“Oh, no, no, no, no!” Jim sighed. Angor Rot jumped off the bridge and landed on the car, breaking the back window. Jim fought him as you tried to shake the troll off.

“Turn now!” Jim ordered and you did, but Angor still would not fall.

“Jim!” Your mom cried as you swerved again. Angor Rot finally fell free and you stuck your hand out the window. You sent a magic blast his way, but all it did was make him stumble.

He leapt onto the front of your car, breaking the front windshield. He grabbed your throat, but you swerved the car again, causing him to lose his grip on you.

“We have to shake him before we get into Trollmarket!” Jim called and you replied by breaking hard. The inertia sent Angor flying off the car.

“Straight at the wall! Just drive!” Jim yelled.

How do you know it’ll open?!” Strickler asked, panicked.

“I don’t!” you responded.

“It’s not opening!” Strickler yowled, but right as you were about to crash you soared through the wall and over Toby. You did your best to safely maneuver the damaged vehicle blue crystal staircase, but there was something wrong. You weren’t feeling well.

“We need help! Please!” You barely heard Jim call as things slowly faded to black.

****

So this is a pretty long chapter already, however I had planned to write it even longer. I decided against that though, and instead split chapter eight in half. You will get chapter nine on Friday! Have a fantastic day/night and please stay safe.

Also I'm sorry if your name is Mindy.

P.S. if you want to be on the taglist feel free to ask. I hope it works and please message me if it doesn’t.

Chapter 9: https://writings-of-a-daphodil.tumblr.com/post/628396240650092544/fire-keeper-chapter-9

#douxie x reader #douxie imagine #tales of arcadia imagine #wizards imagine #toa imagine #trollhunters imagine #douxie #toa douxie #wizards douxie #toa #trollhunters #tales of arcadia #wizards

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bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture · 4 years

Text

Hello hello to all the new followers! However you came across this blog, thanks for being willing to put this on your dashboards. I still have half of this chapter left to go, but hopefully I’ll be able to knock out a larger chunk of it since it’s gonna flow better… at the least, I’ll try to get to where Episode 1 of the anime cuts off.

...huh, damn, now I’m curious about exploring differences between anime and manga… I don’t have time for that, this manga thing is already more of a time-eater than expected… plus considering how many chapters I need to get through… yeah no, I will leave anime-manga comparison to others.

Anyways, into today’s pages! I wanna get this chapter done this week!

[No. 1 - Midoriya Izuku: Origin]

...you, I’m gonna translate you.

[transliteration of sign: 頭上 (zujou) [overhead] 注意 (chuui) [caution, being careful, attention (heed), warning, advice]

[Translation: caution, overhang 2m]

I mean, it’s obvious because of the context, but now I know how to pronounce it! And I guess you guys can as well. No, I will not be ashamed of spending fifteen minutes on this. I’m probably gonna stay in the habit of translating stuff as I come across it.

Anyways, to the chapter itself. Izuku doesn’t do that ‘All Might impression’ thing here like he does in the anime, just basically hypes himself up with grit teeth and determination. Which is a shame, but it makes sense since that sort of thing would look/turn out better in animation anyways. Still a little weird he had a flashback there, but like whatever, it’s supposed to give readers context into the setting and character, this whole opening chapter’s gonna be a bit weird like that.

The villain comes up out from the holes in the sewer grate, and holy fuck does this come off as just a bit of a horror manga, if I saw that I’d be terrified.

You know, out of context this is REALLY disturbing… no wait, in context this is disturbing too, nevermind. But yeah, look at that terrified kid, that is not the face he was wearing earlier against Katsuki, making it even more obvious that he wasn’t scared at that point.

The villain pounces on and envelops Izuku, covering his nose and mouth and making Izuku realize he’s been attacked by, you know, a villain. Which I would share the image of, but honestly it’s graphic as hell, if you wanna see it go look at the manga yourselves.

Yeah, it’s a wonder Izuku didn’t have nightmares for months after this, or have issues with water or potentially drowning/suffocating. Also, honestly, with this hijacking the body thing, I’m looking at the amount of mass of the sludge and the size of Izuku, and I have to remind myself again that this is a shounen manga with urban fantasy magic, logic isn’t a concern here.

But yeah, the villain is super vague about who the ‘he’ he’s avoiding is, while Izuku is frantically trying to scrape at the sludge to no effect. Also, after being in the sewers, that HAS to be some nasty gunk, yikes, how did Izuku not come down with something?

Izuku’s struggles makes him drop his charred notebook while panicking about his death and begging someone to come save him. The book flips open to his conceptual hero costume, which we know is going to end up the ‘first’ version of his costume, though obviously it’s going to undergo some revisions as the series progresses (which is a small thing I like about the series a lot). If I recall right, this is also what prototype!Izuku’s costume was going to look like!

Fortunately for Izuku, in the next page All Might punches his way up out of the sewers, letting both the villain and Izuku know he’s there, and- god, I wouldn’t trust those groceries for any sort of safe consumption, even if they are… two bottles?? That’s it?? What-

Sure, whatever, two bottles of soda, I guess, isn’t that not good for people who have had their stomach removed because of too much sugar or something? Is him being down a stomach even actually canon or just popular fanon? I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

Anyways, All Might showed up and punched the villain away from Izuku, basically only hitting with the shockwave to avoid hurting the kid too much. Also, we get this gem of a face:

Incredible.

Izuku passes out, and wakes up a bit later to All Might slapping his face, which like, sir, sir, that’s not how you take care of a victim of a villain attack that definitely isn’t an allegory for another kind of assault. But yeah, All Might is sort of out of ‘character’ while waiting for Izuku to get up, and then shoves himself back into it once Izuku’s awake, which is… interesting, and makes sense.

Izuku naturally freaks out, and All Might does a pose while apologizing for his mistakes and explaining his sloppiness with the villain - he’s new to the area, and besides that, he’s ‘off camera’. Which, yeah, you really get the sense this is his TV persona pushed forward. He also thanks Izuku for success in finally containing the villain, and Izuku gives us this hilarious gem:

Ah, meta jokes. Izuku looks around for his notebook for an autograph, only to see it’s already been signed. He bows enthusiastically and says he’ll keep it as a family heirloom, and All Might heads off to take the villain in and to ‘catch him again on tv’.

Izuku wants him to wait, because he still has something to ask, but All Might says he’s got no time, and crouches to jump away, with just a shot of Izuku’s desperate face before All Might takes off, the ‘thanks for your support’ dragging after him like the words themselves couldn’t keep up, and again that is just a cool fucking effect and use of shape and warping to give effects otherwise not possible in text and just- gah, I love comic/manga art for these reasons, so freaking cool!

You’re an all star.

Sorry not sorry. But yeah, the bottles are still there in his pockets - his definitely totally secure open pockets. Honestly, with or without Izuku, he might have dropped those bottles because what the fuck All Might.

All Might tries to shove Izuku off until Izuku reminds him that he will die if he falls, which gets him to pause and go ‘true enough!’ Izuku says he’s got a lot of things to ask, and All Might asks him to close his eyes and mouth to avoid the wind drag. All Might coughs and grunts, with a drop of blood escaping from between his teeth, and him swearing about it.

Onto the next page, and we have some background kanji that I am definitely going to waste time translating, because that’s just who I am.

Top windows/hanging sign: 卜 (uranai) [divination, fortune telling] 黄葉 (kouyou/momiji) [autumn/fall colors, leaves changing color, layered colors in garments (resembling autumn colors)]

[rough translation: fortunate garments / lucky coloring.]

I’m gonna assume this is something to go with Japanese culture and their beliefs around what certain colors mean.

Middle banner/hanging sign: Su/Ta/De [study]

Not confident at this one but I cannot grok how messy those katakana are and so I just have given up on that for now. If someone can confirm, that’d be sweet of you.

Lower windows/hanging sign: [事]務所 (jimusho) [office]

Lower banner: Ma/a/ke/t/to [Market]

Shop overhang: Fu/ra/shi/[mu?] [Flashy] 喫茶 (kissa) [teahouse/coffee shop/cafe]

Flashy Cafe makes sense, but I’m not confident in the katakana when we can only see three of them and no way to know about modifiers,,,

Victory.

Alright, now that I’m done crying over that, onto actual chapter analysis. We get the ‘whoosh’ of something falling, before seeing the POV of the sludge guy coming back to consciousness, frustrated with All Might, and we also get a peek at some kids approaching… aka Katsuki and his minions.

First off, the branding on the can is hilarious and weirdly suited to the situation. Secondly, you can just see Katsuki kicking the bottle in the bottom left corner there, which probably knocks it open for, you know, the upcoming events. And huh, both of the minions smoke, which Katsuki chastises with displeasure in the panel after next.

So Katsuki blames Izuku for ‘messing with him’ and that Izuku being ‘full of stupid dreams like when they were kids’ pisses him off. Which he emphasises by blowing up the can in his hand. I wonder if that’s meant to be a reference to him thinking Izuku’s just paying lip service to being a hero just to annoy Katsuki, at least in his POV?

But yeah, Katsuki shakes his hand after that - which meant he DID feel some backlash for blowing up a can in his hand, or perhaps the superheating of the metal before it went? Either way, backlash! He turns back to yell at the two about their smoking and how it’d go on his record, and the two freak out and point behind Katsuki, before we go to their POV:

But yeah, another decent stopping point here. There should only be two posts after this for chapter 1, based on my skimming of the rest of the pages. I really want to have the All Might convo separate, and then the whole sludge fight and aftermath… but we’re getting there! :D

#chapter 1 #readthrough #opening arcs #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #midoriya izuku #yagi toshinori #bakugou katsuki #not the best post but it has some cute moments #the last two posts though are gonna be whammies #yeah I do waste time translating stuff that doesn't need translation #no i will not take constructive criticism about it #anyways hope y'all are having a good day #:D

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passable-talent · 4 years

Text

within the world of markiplier lore... set during the events of A Heist with Markiplier.

this fic is based off the brilliant and fascinating comic by @iiipeashy , using his character insert for the canonical y/n. this will all make a little more sense if you’ve read the comic, so please do... good shit!!!

I got permission before I used it! and if you’re at all interested in the additional backstory (more than I go into here), DEFINITELY check it out. fascinating plot, FANTASTIC art, and FOOD for all of us damien lovers out there. all the love @iiipeashy !!

Griffin knew that making a deal with Mark was akin to making a deal with the devil, but he didn’t realize just how bad it would be.

He should have known when Mark mentioned Damien that any reunion wouldn’t be the one he wanted, but he couldn’t help but take the deal anyway- if Mark could get him out of the mirror, wouldn’t the price be worth it?

Whatever the price may be?

Living in the van was annoying, and dealing with Mark even moreso, but ultimately, the job wasn’t so bad. He was out of the mirror, and he could walk again, live again.

You wouldn’t think you’d miss the sound of footsteps. You do.

Being used as bait, though, wasn’t quite as appetizing. Griffin hadn’t known what Mark meant at the time, but he would come to.

Thirty-one different endings for his little choose-your-own-adventure. One of them even involved Wil, which was quite a shock, but ended up being quite nice, to see an old friend again. Even if he wasn’t the same as when Griffin had seen him last. Thirty-one different endings, and it took weeks, agonizing weeks to film them all. Finally, though, Griffin was filming the last one- number thirty one. This time, he was going to be ‘murdered’ by the sewer cult, faceless figures that Mark conjured up, or roped into his game, just like Griffin. He knew the script, he knew the turns he had to make, he knew what he had to show to the camera strapped to his chest.

But things started going off script.

Immediately, Griffin’s head started pounding, and he looked down, shutting his eyes tightly to try to regain his balance. When he looked up, his surroundings had changed into a old hallway, one he swore he recognized, but he couldn’t place from where.

It was obvious that this wasn’t something Mark planned. That wasn’t Mark’s style- confusing Griffin like this would just lead to more takes, which would lead to wasted time, and Mark didn’t care for wasted time. Whatever this was, it wasn’t Mark’s doing.

A clank from his left made Griffin flinch, and turn, and the sight before him was something that rattled him to the core. On this bleary, colorless brick wall, an ornate frame, lit by a single light- with Mark’s personal chef pictured within it, his eyes scribbled out. Griffin’s head pounded, an echo punching through his skull, of the chef’s words, one of the last times Griffin had talked to him.

“I thought I told you to stay out of my kitchen!”

The phone that Mark had given him as a prop vibrated in Griffin’s pocket, and he fished it out immediately- it wasn’t even supposed to be on. But from an unknown number, he read an unsettling text, his eyes straining to pick out the words on a bright screen against his pounding headache.

Aren’t you tired of it?

Tired of what, Griffin begged to ask, but the dark hallway and the pounding headache made him drop the phone to the side, hoping to focus on one problem at a time. Another clank, this time from his right, forced him to turn, this time to see a photo of the butler, who disappeared from the mansion before Griffin was shot.

“Master would be so displeased! If only he were still alive!”

Every word rocked its way through Griffin’s head, splitting it open with a headache like none he’d experienced since... since he was put in the mirror, actually, all those years ago. When Damien and Celine left him there. The forced expulsion from his own body as it was taken by the siblings had driven a nail between his two temporal lobes, and he hadn’t felt pain like it since. Until now, that is. What was going on?

Another text, and Griffin lifted the phone again, focusing on the words as quickly as he could through the blurriness of detail around him. He didn’t need his glasses anymore, not since he’d gone in the mirror, but with his headache, the pixels of the letters blended together.

Don’t you feel like you’re running in circles?

Well, yeah, but wasn’t that Mark’s point? Who was texting him, anyway? How was this possible? The phone wasn’t even meant to be on.

A light to his left made Griffin look over, and he found a portrait this time of the detective- Abe, his one-time partner. He was an oddball, but Griffin wished him the best... didn’t Wil shoot him?

“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted someone so god-damn gorgeous.”

Once again the phone vibrated, cutting through his splitting headache, which pounded through every echo of every word that Abe said, the sound swirling around him. It wasn’t from some speaker, but it wasn’t inside Griffin’s head, either. It was some combination of the two, hallucination, yet, experience.

No one seems to question it.

The end of the hallway was approaching fast as Griffin stumbled down it, and the last painting within the room was of Wil, his old friend. That weekend at the manor was all the time Griffin had ever gotten to know him, but he felt fondness for him, for all that he went through. Besides- he was the only one who was as willing to fight for Damien and Celine as Griffin was, when everyone else was ready to leave. He not only had his eyes crossed out, but also, the pink mustache was drawn large and curly over his face. Wilford Warfstache, as he had become. Griffin’s eyebrows turned up, his headache making him squint, but still feeling regret at the fate that Wil had suffered, descending into his madness.

“I thought that it was about time that we got to know each other. Far from the prying eyes of...”

The noise continued, but Griffin fought through it, reading the last text he received, this one making four. And he didn’t even know who’d sent them.

But I thought you’d see through it.

All that was left was a door at the end of the hall, and Griffin pushed through it, hoping to find an end, or at least a reprieve. He wasn’t so lucky.

“...anyone else.”

He emerged into a black room, vast yet confining, the whole of it impressing a feeling of both claustrophobia and vulnerability onto Griffin. Spotlights clicked on, leading him forward to one final painting- of Mark himself. Now he was sure that Mark wasn’t behind this.

“But it’s not about me... it’s about you! And who knows... I could be dead tomorrow.”

The eerie laughter and crumbling of the portrait made Griffin cringe away, as though the words he was hearing was putting him back into the mindset he’d had, so long ago, when he didn’t understand Mark’s villainy, nor any of the supernatural forces pushing and pulling at both Griffin’s destiny, and everyone else that Mark surrounded himself with. Griffin hadn’t known, that night, that he was speaking the truth of his own future, through a plan he was acting out. He was always acting.

“Same snake... different skin.” Griffin found that these words didn’t come with a headache, and shut his eyes tightly to push away what he felt, in that moment. Because he would recognize that voice anywhere. That voice, that he’d first heard when they were roommates in a university, and again when they were both trying to make a career in public service. That voice, that belonged to his husband, who chose him to be the district attorney shortly after being elected as mayor.

Damien?

“Always spinning his yarns, his webs... his lies.” Griffin whirled to his left, finding that familiar figure, but instead of the peaceful and honest expression he was so used to seeing on Damien’s face, instead he saw an eerie smile, and Griffin’s eyes fought against the red and blue shift of Damien’s figure in front of him. When a duplicate appeared, like a shadow, with it came a sound that slammed against Griffin’s ears, the force of it almost knocking him sideways.

“I always thought that you were... t̵̮͊r̶̯͒ả̶̮p̴͚͠p̴̗̋e̶͚͐d̵̗͒ in his games.” The sounds continued, always accompanying some terrifying change in his appearance, like he wasn’t really supposed to exist in the three dimensional world.

“Perpetually p̷̙͑l̵̠̋u̵̻̾ṇ̷̋ḡ̴̲i̸̠̍n̸͎̈́g̸̓ͅ down the rabbit holes of his stories.” There was something about this that seemed familiar to Griffin, the way that Damien’s words echoed around him, and back, but deeper, darker.

I am, Griffin tried to say, but found that when he opened his mouth, no sound would come out, and Damien didn’t even react as though he’d tried.

“Helpless,” Damien said, and Griffin tried again, trying to say the same words, I am, I am trapped, but nothing would leave his throat, as though someone had flipped the ‘off’ switch on his voice box.

“Lost.” Damien’s words now seemed only to mock Griffin as he lifted one hand to his throat, and tried again, to force out any sound he could, but he just couldn’t.

“I̸̠͛ ̵̦̏k̵̪̉n̵̩͌o̷͈̐ẅ̷͇ ̴̠͛t̷́ͅȟ̴͕e̶͑ͅ ̴̢̇f̶͎̌e̷͚̊e̸͔͘l̴̝̃i̵̻͗n̴͚̊ḡ̶͍,” Damien growled, his glitching and shifting intensifying, hammering more pain through Griffin’s skull, worsening his feelings of helplessness, because he couldn’t cry out in pain, like the pain itself was shifting between dimensions, just like Damien’s form, just like Selene’s voice.

“Perhaps I̶̬͆'̴̹̉m̵̠̕ the crazy one,” Damien suggested, and finally Griffin realized where he had felt this particular pain before, where he had seen such shifting and glitching.

When Selene brought him to that... shadow realm.

“Perhaps we’ve met a hundred times already, and you simply don’t remember it.” Griffin gripped at his throat again, not moving and yet keeping pace with Damien as he walked, trying to just break through to him- this tortured being who he was once married to.

Damien, he tried to say, but he couldn’t make a sound, and Damien continued on, apathetic, indifferent.

“Perhaps you’re tired of me repeating myself, over, and over, and over, and over, a̸̡̓n̶̠͋d̶͓͌ ̸̭̀ō̵̪ṿ̸̊è̶̡r̷͋͜ ̵̱͗ă̸͕ğ̶̠ä̶̟́í̶̹n̵͚̑.” Every echo and screech and ringing in the massive and yet confining room felt like a needle into Griffin’s brain, and he gripped his throat tighter, his other hand trying to put pressure onto his head, as though it would help.

Damien, please-

“Maybe you just miss my pretty face.” Damien’s eyes went dark, and Griffin found himself on the verge of tears, the powerlessness of his position breaking him down. Damien was in pain- and he didn’t even talk as though he knew who Griffin was. Didn’t he?

“It doesn’t matter. People like you only want one thing.” A red shift beside Damien let out a scream, making Griffin flinch backward, his chest feeling so heavy.

Damien!

“And it’s disgusting.” Damien zipped around, his form reappearing closer to the table he now stood behind, and reached down to pick up a wine glass full of something that didn’t really look like water. “You want answers.” He looked down, losing that eerie smile, and Griffin wondered briefly what such a break in his expression could mean.

“Well,” Damien lifted the glass, and the higher he raised it, the more black the liquid inside became. “Games were always ẖ̷̎ḯ̸͜ș̴̈́ forte.” He paused to drink, and phased for a moment, his stance changing.

“But allow me this one moment of self indulgence.”

Damien, please, fucking hear me-

Griffin was thrown backwards, smacking his spine against the wooden back of a chair, and he realized he was sitting in front of the warden’s desk from the prison set. His vision shot around, trying to pick up any sort of clue, but then it landed on the box, in Damien’s hand. That damn box.

“So much trouble, all for something so small.” He phased into the warden’s chair, sitting across from Griffin, and looked down at the box.

Griffin tried to scream. But he couldn’t.

“Do you really want to know what’s inside this box?” And truthfully, Griffin couldn’t care less. He didn’t care for the silly little setpiece that Mark had conjured for his delusional, rabid fans. Maybe he would have been curious, once, but not with his tortured, lost husband in front of him. Not now.

“The truth. Not the lies he’s told you. The truth.” Griffin ground his teeth together, the hand on his throat still clutching on as though if he squeezed hard enough he could hit the ‘on’ switch of his own voice box.

“Well, I know how much you love good games, and all.” He shifted around, and Griffin’s eyes struggled to keep up with wherever he ended up, the movement throwing his headache against his temples.

“Throughout this... heist, I’ve hidden codes. Several codes.” The symbols blinking behind Damien made a cold realization sink into Griffin’s skin.

Damien wasn’t even talking to him.

“Find them all, and...”

Griffin wasn’t even there, to Damien. He was a vessel to speak to Mark’s audience.

“You’ll get your truth.”

Damien had no idea that he was so close to Griffin, so close, all of this was to talk to the audience, not Griffin. Did Damien even know that Griffin was alive?

“But that’s all I’m gonna give you.”

Out of the void surrounding Griffin came sounds, like the room around him was falling down, crashing to the floor. Rumbling, and Damien was fading away, his expression no longer angry, but fading into quiet sorrow.

No! Griffin tried to yell, and he tried to hold on, but whatever or whoever was pulling him out or pushing him away was too strong for him. Damien faded from his vision with screeching and rumbling and creaking...

And when he opened his eyes, he was on the steps of the museum, at the beginning of the ‘heist’ script.

“No,” He murmured, his voice hollow, and the triumph of hearing his voice again was trumped by Griffin’s soul-consuming anger, sadness, grief, that he’d seen Damien again, but didn’t get to speak with him, and now he was gone, and Griffin had no way back. He fell to his knees, letting the same word rise to a scream of anguish, of defeat, as he looked up at the colorful, happy windows of the closed museum.

Damien had called out, and he’d reached Griffin. And he hadn’t even known it.

Griffin’s resolve hardened, his heart hardened. Any fondness that he may have still been grasping on to for his old friend Mark was gone, and he vowed that he’d destroy Mark.

For what he’d done, for using Griffin to lure in Damien, for everything.

He was going to destroy Mark.

-🦌 Roe

thank u, @iiipeashy , for singlehandedly restoring my motivation to write, if only for an afternoon

#reader insert #y/n #damien x y/n #damien x reader #wkm #wkm damien #wkm y/n #wkm darkiplier #heist with markiplier #a hiest with markiplier #a heist with markiplier #heist darkiplier #heist damien #heist da #wkm da #who killed markiplier #angst #spoilers

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stusbunker · 4 years

Text

What Lingers Within: One

A Supernatural Fan-fiction Mini Series

Featuring: Dean Winchester x Reader

Written for: @thisismysecrethappyplace

Prompt: Amnesia

Word Count: 1615 (This was originally a drabble)

AMAZING BETA’ing by: @itmighthavebeenintentional

Lovely aesthetic and beta’ing by: @thoughtslikeaminefield

Summary: Reader witnesses the impossible and is thrust into the world of monsters. Unbeknownst to her, Dean has to face the consequences of old choices. Set in season eleven.

Warnings: Trauma as a witness to a show level violent case. Angst.

^*^*^

All sound morphed into a dense absence, mere gentle rumbles around you as your thoughts spilled over the terror of the last two hours. It was over; you were safe. But that didn’t matter, because your body and mind were still processing, and the weight of the memories fought against your every rational belief.

Vampires were real. Stephenie Meyer was fucking right. Well, almost right; daylight barely affected them. The image of Chase, your co-worker, slumped beside the dumpster was peaceful compared to the sight of the monsters as they tore into the girl from the sandwich shop who had stepped out for a quick vape break.

Somehow you dropped the trash and made it back inside. Sputtering it all out when Katelyn insisted you show her what you were talking about. The cops got called and that was when the real shit hit the fan.

They barked at you, patronizing and full of disbelief. Of course, you knew how it sounded, but the bodies told no lies. No one knew what to say to you and so they said nothing.

With the rest of the day’s work left for some untouchable future, you got yourself home in a fog. Suddenly trapped in a perpetual state of in-between, you crawled into bed, fully clothed and let the darkness claim you.

^*^*^

“‘What seemed like a Halloween prank call quickly became a horrific afternoon on the Westside yesterday. Two victims found on the scene were drained of blood and covered in what could only be bite wounds. Police admit to increased drug activity in the area, but’---- yeah, they aren’t going to call it what it is. So, you wanna take it?” Sam called over his shoulder.

“Vamps with a death wish? Hell yeah,” Dean agreed, leaning over to look at the laptop screen.

They were on the road in less than an hour, the Impala rumbling east as Sam delved deeper. One name popped up in every report under witness, sinking his stomach. It could have been worse; it could have been in the victim box. Though he had sworn to never speak of her again, Dean needed to know what they were walking into.

“You know maybe we should just pass on this one,” Sam offered awkwardly.

Dean recoiled and gave Sam the side eye. “You find something else? I mean, they’re not usually this obvious, but these vamps are dropping bodies, Sam.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s just--- look, I should’ve read more before we got on the road. But now that I have, I’m not sure this is the right case for--- you.” Sam was digging himself deeper the longer he talked.

Dean’s eyebrows hitched. “You wanna try that again?”

“It’s just, the only eye-witness is somebody we know, Dean,” Sam sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“So--- who is it?” Dean tore his eyes from the road completely.

Sam pursed his lips and glared at his brother. It took Dean longer to piece together than Sam thought it would, but it had been four years. With everything that Dean had been through the past few years, it shouldn’t have surprised Sam.

“You promised,” Dean swallowed the rest of the accusation.

“I know. I didn’t---,” Sam was cut short.

“Yeah? Well...” Dean trailed off. With a dejected sigh, he rubbed the back of his fingers over his three-day-old stubble. “At least it isn’t an Amara thing she got dragged into.”

Sam paused over the silver lining, noting how the engine grumbled under Dean’s heavy boot.

^*^*^

Waking to heavy knocks on your apartment door, you resurfaced.

The strain from the day before faded with groggy waking actions. As you scanned your room for the time, you realized you had slept straight through into the next day. You pointedly ignored your phone; work could wait. You straightened your shirt and stumbled down the short hallway, trying to guess who could be on the other side of the door. Looking through the peephole, you were at a loss.

Two guys in suits stood outside. Suddenly nervous you did something wrong, you called out. “Who is it?”

“FBI, Ms. We have some follow up questions from the incident yesterday,” the one with long hair replied. His voice was soothing, so much more so than the police at the scene.

The horror flooded back into your mind and you put your weight onto the doorknob to steady yourself. Your eyes closed against the onslaught. You shook your head against the rush of warmth, and took a deep breath as you pulled the door open.

The two agents bowed their heads slightly, IDs open and eyes almost apologetic as you put on your best listening face. The scruffy one lingered in the doorway when you gestured them inside. They seemed to have a silent conversation behind your back, and you tried not to read into it, playing with your bedhead as you decided to make a pot of coffee.

All cops liked coffee, didn’t they?

“Nice place,” Agent Colfax, the long-haired one, complimented.

“Thanks, I’ve only been here a few months, but I like it,” you replied, leading them to the small table in the kitchen.

They seemed to dwarf your minimal furniture, filling a space that you generally ignored. You remained standing as they asked their questions. Not once did they belittle you or what you saw. Despite their bulk you felt at ease, free to answer honestly. They assured you they were trained to handle this type of assailant. They didn’t confirm or deny your assumptions.

“I think that’s all our questions for now,” Agent Colfax looked to his partner. “Unless you have anything to add, Agent Berkman?”

The scruffy one cleared his throat; it wasn’t until then you realized that he hadn’t spoken the entire time. “You said you moved here a few months ago? Any particular reason?”

His voice was like crunching leaves, rich and satisfying in its resonance. Confused by the change in subject you looked to the ceiling for clarity. “Honestly? I had a pretty bad break up and I guess I needed someplace I could make my own.”

He swallowed. “Sorry to hear that.”

He gave you a reassuring smile, but it fell flat. That was until his green eyes held on to yours, almost like he was searching for something. They were bright and attentive, nearly hypnotic. You felt a warmth spread over your cheeks and down your neck, but it wasn’t from embarrassment; it was welcome comfort after everything you had just re-lived. You felt intensely safe.

“Right--- thank you for your time,” Agent Colfax interrupted, breaking through what could only be described as a staring match.

You blushed, pulling yourself out of the trance. You showed the agents out and decidedly locked and deadbolted the door.

^*^*^

Dean was trying to hide the way his hands were shaking as he opened the driver’s side door. Sam was watching him with something between annoyance and pity, but Dean wasn’t up for the commentary. Seeing her again after so long was like having bricks stacked in his gut while every thought in his head evaporated.

On the way to the medical examiner’s office, Sam broke the silence. “She seems good.”

Dean glared.

“Other than seeing people being killed by vampires, I mean,” Sam finished.

“Because we just left her place, I’m giving you a pass, Sammy. But mention her again and I will break your fucking nose,” Dean hissed.

“Whoa, hey! I’m just saying she’s safe in a quiet, normal life, Dean. Isn’t that what you wanted? When you had Cas...?” Sam pressed.

Dean hit the steering wheel. “I don’t know what I wanted, but it wasn’t this!” Dean’s eyes left the road and speared Sam to the spot.

“I wanted her out of this stuff, man. Not half-broken and alone in a new city crawling with vamps who don’t even play by the rules.”

“So, we take care of it,” Sam eased off, head tilted and brow imploring. “She’ll be fine, Dean.”

Dean dragged his hand down his lips. “Yeah, she better be.”

They sat in silence the rest of the trip, rush hour slowing them down. By the time they scoped out the bodies it was dark. Working a perimeter from the crime scene slowly gave them the location of the nest, an abandoned subway station accessible through a crumbling sewer maintenance shaft. The vampires stood no chance against a revenge-fueled Dean Winchester. Sam agreed to leave the bodies, five in all, as an underground fire would cause an immediate investigation. Who knew when the skeletons would be discovered anyway.

By the time they got back to their motel, it was too late to buy beer, which gave Dean the excuse to head out for a drink. After showering Dean suggested the hole-in-the-wall down the block. Sam reluctantly let his brother head out alone, claiming he was just going to call it a night.

Dean drove right past the bar and Sam watched him do it. They both knew where he was going, it was a practiced dance; build a wall but ignore the window.

Dean sat in the Impala and stared at her apartment, he even laughed at himself for a spell. He watched the colors from her flat screen shine against the violet night, morphed by the floor length curtains.

She always liked a space to have a lot of natural light; she would’ve hated the bunker. That didn’t matter now. She was home safe. But being Dean, he needed to double check.

Flask in hand, Dean continued to pine for her the remainder of the night, lost in memories of a time when they were almost happy.

^*^*^

Tags: @flamencodiva @dolphincliffs @dontshootmespence @thoughtslikeaminefield @fangirlxwritesx67 @dawnie1988 @mrswhozeewhatsis @cosicas-cuquis @foxyjwls007 @tumbler-tidbits @defenderrosetyler @ericaprice2008 @princessofthefandomrealm @wingedcatninja

^*^*^

Read On: Chapter Two

#dean winchester fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #dean x reader #dean x y/n #dean x you #dean winchester x reader #dean angst #vampires #blood #amnesia

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ao3bronte · 5 years

Text

🐞Little Lady Paws🐾

0 | 1 | 2

Ladybug gets into a "hairy" predicament when an akuma capture goes wrong.

A collaboration between @ao3bronte and @yamina20-blog 💕

“Remind me why you thought this was a good idea?”

Surrounded by animals, Chat Noir lands gingerly on the top of a light post and scowls spectacularly, having just peeled himself off the sod in the park across from Sacré-Coeur. This isn’t their first animal themed akuma and it certainly won’t be their last, judging by the increasing frequency of angry protesters flooding the streets of Paris; there’s always something to protest it seems, and Le Papillon was having an absolute field day targeting them all.

Today’s protest themed akuma of the hour? FrankenFur!

“Hey!” Chat rubs at the grass stain on his belly as a panicked giraffe goes running by and sticks his tongue out at the akumatised monster who’d just tossed him like a Frisbee halfway across Marcel-Bleustein-Blanchet Square, “This wasn’t my idea, this was your idea!”

Ladybug throws her hands into the air, “You led it over here!”

The monster, dressed in a pseudo animal activist uniform and spouting endangered animal facts to all who would listen, throws another magic smoke bomb at a group of unsuspecting visitors, “There are too many tourists at the front of the Basilica! There’s less chance for collateral here and besides, we weren’t getting anywhere anyway. We still don’t know what the object is!”

The smoke clears to reveal a family of farm animals lying on the ground and Ladybug swoops to get out of the way of the panicking herd, landing on a tree branch, “Could it be in the protest sign it’s holding?”

Chat flexes his hand and spins his baton in his other, steadying himself, “It’s worth a shot.”

Ladybug calls for her Lucky Charm and immediately notices the strings of fairy lights hanging atop the pergola the akumatised protester is standing upon as well as the sewer grate embedded in the concrete directly across from it. Dodging a flock of ducks, Ladybug catches a red and black polka dot crowbar and swings it between her fingers, “Chat, try and tangle it up in the string of lights over there.”

Chat follows her gaze and nods once, leaping from the lamp post to the tree tops. Meanwhile, Ladybug runs over to the sewer grate and lodges the business end of the crowbar beneath the steel lip, quickly prying it open.

“AhhhAAAAGHH!”

Ladybug peers into the puddle of rainwater in the divot by the grate and uses its reflection to watch as Chat expertly dislodges the fairy lights and drops them unceremoniously onto the akumatised monster. The creature screams as it tangles itself in the mass of wire and glass and tosses its limbs every which way like a deranged octopus, howling curses at the top of its lungs.

Amongst all of the chaos, Ladybug launches her yoyo and wraps it around the monster’s legs, unbalancing its already lopsided stance. Chat sees where she’s going with this and drop kicks the creature in the back just as Ladybug yanks the string, causing the akuma to topple forward towards the manhole, and with another well timed feat of synchronised backflip ingenuity, the dynamic Cat and Bug duo have the monster falling headfirst into the hole and Ladybug is certain she’s got the protest sign in her sights—

“LADYBUG!”

She looks up and feels time slow to a crawl, watching as the akumatised monster uses the very limited range of motion it has in its arm to launch one last grenade at her face. Ladybug can’t move, not really, not when one arm is reaching for the sign and the other is wrapped up with her yoyo and—

It feels a little like falling into a giant tub of Perrier, the tingling sensations on her skin almost overwhelming. There’s static in her ears and panic in her heart as she closes her eyes and holds her breath against the onslaught of colours and shapes swirling passed her eyelids, a cacophony of noise so loud she can hardly stand it. She reaches up to cover her ears but there’s no moving in this strange purgatory as the world falls out from under her, shoving her to the cobbles with a thud that jars her bones. She tries to cry out but there’s no sound save for the high pitched squeak coming out of her throat like a siren, and it occurs to her suddenly that something has gone very very wrong.

She opens her eyes.

The world is suddenly a lot larger than it was before.

HELP!

“CATACLYSME!”

Ladybug looks up just in time to see her gigantic, skyscraper of a partner disintegrate the sign with his fingers and backhand the monster into the manhole, reaching down with his monstrous hand to pick up her yoyo. Ladybug shrieks insistently as he slips his finger through the loop and tosses it at the fluttering black and purple butterfly, quickly capturing the cursed insect in his grasp. He calls the yoyo back and stares at it for several moments before bending down into a crouch, holding it out for her to see.

“Ladybug? What do I do now?”

Throw the crowbar up into the air and say Miraculous Ladybug!

Chat gulps, “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

Ladybug looks down at her tiny paws and does a double take, What AM I?

“Now that I could understand,” Chat says, reaching out with his other hand. She gives him what she hopes is a truly devastating stink eye and rears up onto her hind legs with a particularly petulant squeak, “You’re a hamster.”

A HAMSTER?! Ladybug’s jaw drops and her paws are on her face immediately, patting every part of her she can reach. She’s got whiskers! And huge front teeth! And fur! Fur everywhere! Why am I a HAMSTER?!

Chat has the gall to laugh, “Oh my god, you are so adorable.”

I AM NOT!

“Come on, get on my hand before someone steps on you.”

NO!

Chat places his open palm on the ground and beckons her forwards with his fingers, “There’s like, three elephants over there and the last thing we need is for you to get squashed.”

Indignant, Ladybug tries for several humiliating moments to cross her arms and finds herself entirely at a loss. She glares at his outstretched hand with contempt for almost as long before finally giving in and marching over, determined to stay on her hind legs like any self respecting human should. She gets a good look at her body then, the soft tuft of white fur covering her belly and her tiny hind paws. How the heck was she supposed to purify the city as a hamster?!

Momentarily distracted, Ladybug stumbles over one of Chat’s claws and falls onto all fours as the ground disappears beneath her, HEY!

Smiling indulgently at her little squeaks of horror, Chat brings her to eye level, “Thank you. Now, should I just throw this in the air and say Miraculous Ladybug?”

Ladybug nods in earnest, chirping as she mimes the movement with her paws. Chat tries his hardest to suppress his giggles and turns his attention back to the crowbar in his hands.

“Here goes nothing. Miraculous Ladybug!”

Ladybug tracks the crowbar with her eyes and watches as it falls back into his hand, still as spotted and corporeal as it was before. She tugs on his thumb and gestures for him to try again.

“Miraculous Ladybug!” he yells with gusto, tossing it yet again into the sky. When it falls back down in front of him, Ladybug realises with an awful sense of dread that she is very much screwed, “Ladybug? I think we have a problem.”

No kidding! She tugs on her whiskers and rubs her eyes, What are we going to do?

Chat sighs, “I guess we can’t purify the city like this. We’ll need to go see Master Fu.”

Ladybug nods vigorously and chatters as Chat clips her yoyo onto his belt and glances away as a flock of ostriches run across the square, “And quickly! This is otter pandamonium!”

Chat Noir’s laughter at his own puns turns to howls as Ladybug bites down on his index finger with all the prim resentfulness she can muster; she may have been turned into a hamster, but at least some things would never change.

To be continued...

#miraculous ladybug #ladynoir #ml fic #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #hamsterbug

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brvdleymilligan · 4 years

Text

HLO slinks in thru a bead curtain.......... truly sry this took me so long to concoct bt i’m here now, hand on hip, smiling coyly at u all...... i’m nai n i’m rly excited to b here so i’ll just dive right in!! u can find bradley’s pinterest board here n her muse tag here. like this or hmu for plots!

[ cis female, she/her, margaret qualley , twenty-four ] i can’t be sure, but i think i just saw BRADLEY MILLIGAN drive onto the parkway. don’t they know we’re not supposed to be driving on that haunted road right now? maybe it has to do with the fact that they’re so +RESILIENT and -VOLATILE that makes them feel UNPHASED about everything going on. i guess we could also chalk it up to the fact that they’re always reminding me of LEMON IN A FRESH CUT, THE AMBER BLINK OF AN ANGRY ALLEY CAT, GRINNING WITH BLOOD ON YOUR TEETH. either way, i hope they get back safely. [ nai, she/her, 24, gmt ]

aesthetics: singeing a hole in your fishnets with the cherry of a menthol, spitting a pistachio behind the bar just to hear it ping off the nozzle top bottles, lemon in a fresh cut, a war torn poppy standing alone in an empty field, pressing thumbs to yellow bruises, stomping over flowerbeds when there’s a path right besides it, dangling over ledges just to feel your chest jolt, a snarling rottweiler that needs muzzling, limp feet poking out behind a door, ‘I PROMISE I DON’T BITE’ scrawled on a name tag, slapping a bald head in front of you at the cinema like it’s a bongo, not owning a single jacket that isn’t stolen, driving a stranger’s car down the wrong lane against the screaming traffic, hair more feral than a wolf cub and eyes smudgier than a coal mine.

BACKGROUND:

ok SO. her father owns a strip club in crescent hill named no angels. it’s kind of.... a seedy establishment i won’t lie. hs a red glowing sign like it’s lighting up a window in amsterdam. cigarette butts floating in oil slick puddles outside. unsavoury characters crawling all over like rats in a sewer. despite this it’s a legitimate business on the surface of things n it does pretty well in trade. it’s like.... that place people warn u NOT to have ur bachelor party at unless u fancy urself the type tht willingly enters a lion’s den bt tht almost??? adds to the allure in a way??? ppl r like wow so sketchy it’s the thrill of a lifetime........ i mean run while u still can bt go off i guess

it isn’t Confirmed Public Knowledge bt it’s pretty heavily implied thru the rumour mill that bradley’s father is the head of a gang of rly............ Not Nice people. all the ppl that work for him u would hands down NOT want to run into in a dark alley. while things seem legitimate on the suface it’s pretty clear they’re into shady dealings n the townsfolk that suspect that would indeed b correct! the club’s a front for a drug business n they’re also washing n running counterfeit cash thru it. they probably also have their hands dipped into a few other local businesses to run their cash thru these too n keep it all seemingly by the books so nobody comes sniffing around. they even r friends with a member of local law enforcement that’s working w them for a cut so they honestly have all bases covered to keep things airtight n foolproof. perhaps a business in reed too which bradley oversees bt i haven’t given this Too Much thought as of yet??

so ya she’s grown up fairly local most of her life n would maybe be known around town as such.................. the milligans r certainly Interesting as far as families go so like. it honestly wldn’t surprise me if ppl nudge elbows when they see one of them coming n immediately walk in the opposite direction. just quite an intimidating presence...... they’re like caged animals where ur specifically instructed NOT to stick ur fingers between the bars bc they WILL bite

on a more personal note her dad is pretty much the worst human being alive n bradley hs like….. a lot of issues with herself as a result of years of toxicity n abuse

in terms of more family bkground info her mum’s name was alyssa n she vanished when bradley was 12. jst like…. into thin air. nothing. no note. zilch. gan! n when bradley asked her dad abt it his response was essentially “guess she didn’t love us enough to stay”. as bradley’s got older tho n become (without intention) more involved in the business side of things, it’s become pretty clear there was far more to the story.

(abuse tw) they had a horrible marriage n tony ws emotionally manipulative at the best of times, violent at worst, which didn’t help the fact tht alyssa ws struggling a lot w severe depression n rly just… not in the mindset to b dealing w anything else, even where motherhood ws concerned. bradley p much… would look after her a lot n they’d both b scared of her dad n it was just a whole unhealthy mess.

(death implied tw) anyway im rambling bt basically tony (bradley’s dad) gt wind of alyssa sleeping w men tht worked fr him n he just… got rid. bradley’s kind of worked out over the yrs tht her mum didn’t jst leave on her own accord n tht something must hav happened to her bt she’s too scared of her dad to ever directly accuse him

when her mum went all of her dad’s cruelty pretty mch got channelled straight onto her. it ws diluted between two before bt as u can probably imagine her upbringing was jst…. a steep downhill decline

(drugs implied tw) she learnt ways 2 deal w the incurring trauma bt they weren’t healthy ones at all! bsically jst. will do or take anything fr the distraction. chases a thrill like it’s the only way to remind her she’s alive. has absolutely no regard fr her own wellbeing n often gets other ppl in trouble too bc she’s so insatiably reckless

(hospitalisation tw) she hd….2 separate stints of psychiatric hospitalisation n she never tlks abt it. like ever. acknowledging she’s been vulnerable is her worst nightmare n bc of the way her dad raised her she always thinks any sign of struggling within herself is weakness. truly does…. not kno how to properly emotion

CUT TO!!!! the present. she’s currently living at the motel which is like. the least homely place she cld ever live rly but bradley loves making her life uncomfortable n doesn’t rly believe in growing sentimentally attached to anything if she cn help it <3 probably gets into arguments all the time w her neighbours it’s a whole thing.... atrocious at feeding herself has breakfasts frm the vending machine like her organs aren’t screaming fr vegetables.... plays music too loud n sometimes vanishes for days at a time without a word. she’s a lot.

i honestly feel like the murders haven’t rly phased bradley too hugely....... i won’t lie she probably genuinely is like. oh maybe it’s smthn to do w my dad. n just blinks the other way not rly that phased. on some subconscious level i think she rly just thinks........ death follows her wherever she goes n is like. this is just life for me! kind of depressing. holds her hand bt then screams n pulls away when she inevitably bites me.

PERSONALITY:

the kind of sour cherry only certain people have a taste for

once drank a bottle of whiskey, insisted she could still do a cartwheel and accidentally kicked an old man’s front tooth out in the process. proceeded 2 collapse into a flower bed and laugh so much abt it that she cried

barely takes anything seriously 50% of the time and is angry the other 50%

if she was a coffee she’d be black with five grains of sugar that you couldn’t taste until the last sip

(alcoholism tw) high functioning alcoholic. if u ever see her w a coffee cup u jst kno tht one sniff will confirm high alcohol percentage. honestly idk hw she does it her liver must b yellin

loyal to a point of fault. if she cares abt u (rare) and u murder a man in cold blood (not so rare in the broad scheme of bradley’s life) she’ll brawl anyone that says ur guilty

honestly wld probably fight a person over anything. sometimes she’ll jst be having a bad day n she’ll burst n take it out on whoever says the wrong thing. minefield!

has the worst luck in romance…. ever. ALL her past bfs hav been absolute beasts n as a result she has the ‘romance is dead n love is a lie’ mentality. definitely NOT a romantic. very cut n dry abt these things. sex is mostly just sex n she’d kind of scoff at anyone that wanted more from her

mostly wears stolen clothes from strangers and jackets that swamp her. huge chunky stomping boots with steel toe caps that would RLY bruise if they gave u a kick. hair is p much always a wild mess n she usually hs kind of smudgy/smoky makeup bcos apparently she’s allergic to combs and generally looking presentable… relatable content. the only time she rly looks put together is when she has to do something/go somewhere/see someone on behalf of her father....... he kind of uses her as a sort of. honey pot sometimes fr shit his gang get up to it’s like. not! a way u should ever utilise ur daughter but :/ i cannot stress enough how much i wna drop kick him in the neck

she’s v sarcastic. blunt. kind of has a habit of…. assessing a person n she’s quite perceptive bc she’s been trained to b by the way she always has to monitor her dad’s expression fr the slightest emotion change. she’s very confident n can p much mke a conversation out of whatever if she feels like it. independent too like she hs a bunch of (predominantly surface connection) friends bt she doesn’t care abt going out places alone n does this often. she’s probably kind of known around town bt itd b a 50/50 balance between bein known as intimidating n bein known as that one girl tht always gets into anarchy

likes: drunken snow angels that drag on so long they flirt with pneumonia, stealing cars, throwing watermelons off rooftops to watch them explode, shooting pedestrian’s with bb guns from hidden spots on rooftops.

dislikes: telling the truth, tulips so yellow it’s like they’re gloating, playing music loud enough to fry your brain and serve it on a piece of toast, going home.

PLOTS:

someone tht works at the ‘no angels’ strip club?? either as a dancer or bartender or whtever. just a forewarning it’s probably gna b a pretty….. seedy and Not That Pleasant environment bc it’s like. a crime hotspot inevitably bc it’s a gang hangout so. ur chara wld truly be in fr a rollercoaster ride to say the least

(drugs tw) she deals coke fr her dad’s gang so perhaps ur muse buys off her

anyone….. she’s brawled in the past like. she’s literally a menace i cnt express this enough. wil jst randomly throw a drink in someone’s face fr no reason bc she’s bored. she’s probably pissed off 1000 diff ppl in 1000 diff ways. the possibilities r endless n i jst think tht’s a sexy prospect!

fwbs perhaps??? exes??? (probably ws a tumultuous relationship honestly bradley is. a handful...... it’s also rly not often she ties herself down tbh so this would maybe have to b discussed/be circumstantial/kind of rare)

mayb someone tht she met at an aa meeting when she hd to go fr a court mandated thing one time after bein arrested fr public indecency. i feel like there’s probably a rly expensive statue somewhere thts fancily sculpted n she like. did a flying kick n broke the dick of it off n gt arrested fr it

ppl she……. Goes Wild Goes Crazy w. truly jst the most self destructive person alive so anyone w a similar mindset wld b a hellish bt fun combination

on the contrary a gd influence cld b nice perhaps? like someone tht genuinely cares abt her n she jst doesn’t kno hw to compute it

maybe people who r her neighbours that live at the motel too??

OH it could b fun if ur muse runs or works at a local business maybe like. a bar? idk? n bradley n ur muse have developed a rapport bc she frequents the place n is................ a Character

um. honestly the world’s our oyster. hmu n we cn brainstorm if none of tht catches ur eye!

#parkway.intro #abuse tw #death tw #drugs tw #hospitalisation tw #alcoholism tw #depression tw #i believe tht covers it...........#FLINGS this like a harpoon

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nimblermortal · 4 years

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Just an fyi, if I ever do rewrite an origins fic for the Old Guard, I am going to lift Booker’s plot entirely from Les Miserables.

(tl;dr - it takes Booker 18 years and the violent deaths of all his friends to agree to join the other immortals, and this is why Andromache just kidnaps Nile)

So Booker dies at Waterloo. You know who else died at Waterloo? Marius’s father.

Other things I’ve picked up around the fandom include that Booker was not a soldier (the only one who wasn’t!), he was a counterfeiter who got conscripted and he died when he was caught deserting. So Booker dies, the Old Guard drops what they’re doing to come fetch him, but when they show up Booker goes, “But that’s stupid. Why would I do that? I’m not a fighter. I paint money. I have a life to get back to. Go do your thing without me.”

He’s really stubborn about it, so eventually they just... do. Circle back every few years to verify that, yes, Booker is still at university, still turning them down. Maybe stick around for a few months hanging out in his café to remind him of their presence. Or maybe they do this for the duration! But it’s an eighteen-year duration, because that’s how long it takes for Booker to notice his son is in his class.

Or rather, for Coufeyrac to drag his new friend/roommate over to Booker and go, “Isn’t it hilarious how much alike you two look?”

which jolts Booker out of his academic fugue state enough to proffer an invitation to Marius to join them at the café, and to start taking an active interest in the political discussions they’re having there, and to begin making elegant points. At which we come to the serious business Les Mis crossover:

-Andromache is Grantaire, sitting in a corner with her drunkenness and cynicism. She knows how this one is going to end, but she can’t drop it because Booker is immortal. (Also because she’s getting slowly drawn in by his rhetoric, shhhh.) -Yusuf and Nicoló and Victor Hugo are Jolly, L’esgle, and Musichetta, not necessarily in that order. Writer’s/reader’s choice about whether Yusuf and Nicoló are actually seducing Hugo, or whether they just get on really well. Regardless, Yusuf is spending a lot of time trying to persuade Hugo to write Nicoló into one of his stories as the most beautiful man who ever existed. -which, spoilers, Hugo does afterwards, but for the functionality of the story he conflates him with Booker and creates Enjolras -the rest of the café exists in some form that Hugo exaggerates in order to fill out the cast of the Amis. Also, Yusuf and Nicoló disagree about Hugo’s tangents - one of them is Team Pay Your Writers (So They Don’t Have to Make Up Weird Long Extra Bits) and the other one is Team Don’t Sabotage the Boy, Dear and admittedly both of them learn a lot about Paris’s sewer system that comes in handy later...

...when Booker, or really the lot of them, get overly excited about the death of General Lamarque and the whole June Revolution gets kicked off.

Booker’s son Marius does not die of cancer. They have a much more condensed drama in which Booker is the first to die on the battlefield and Marius goes, “Wow, you’re immortal? You should share, that means we could REALLY get some work done with the saving of the people of France!” and Booker is all, “Uh, no, I cannot share” and then, I don’t know, maybe Andromache dies and Marius goes, “So you can’t share, huh?” and this gets progressively dialed up as their situation devolves with the arrival of additional guardsmen, cannons, etc.

At one point a volunteer shows up in a guards uniform, a la Les Mis, and they offer it to anyone who wants out, and that turns into, “Let’s get Hugo out, he can tell our story.” Goodbye, Victor Hugo, hope you enjoyed your time inside one of your own stories!

And then they all die. I’m going for a 2012 movie version of their deaths, partly because that’s what they’re familiar with, partly because I enjoy the ‘corpses hanging out the window’ moment. In this version, obviously, there is no Jean Valjean to cart Marius’s dying body to safety; Marius just dies, and one way or another, it’s Booker’s fault. (Booker does not read Les Mis, and is grumpy about it becoming a classic.)

It gets down to the four immortals. Andromache is going, “All right, what’s your plan here, revolutionary leader? Or are you going to turn this one over to me?” Booker is looking for a way out, there has to be a way out, they can’t all just die here!

(He’s died of desertion once and of neglect a couple of times in his fugue academic wanderings, but the problem with dying of neglect is that it didn’t exactly register right - anyway, he doesn’t believe he’s immortal, or perhaps he’s forgotten in the heat of the moment.)

Andy pulls him upstairs, leaving Yusuf and Nicoló to guard the stairs (bizarrely cheerful about their impending doom), to give him a little more time to make his decision - die, pretend to stay dead, and join them, or... whatever the heck plan he’s coming up with in this panic. He’s still panicking, trying to tell Andy to put on skirts and pretend she was coerced so the guards won’t shoot her. Andy decides he’s hysterical and tries giving him a couple of smacks, which is when the guards walk in.

This is the bit Hugo sees: when Andromache drops Booker’s lapels and steps back, one pace. The guards hesitate; Andromache is not their goal. And their world seems strangely quiet as she looks at Booker and asks, “Do you permit it?”

And he gives her a shaky nod, and she throws herself into him (and out the window!) as the guns report.

Hugo high-tails it out of there. Andromache hangs on to Booker as the both of them recover. The guard secures the café and takes off. A few minutes later, Yusuf and Nicoló show up at the top of the window and reel in their boss.

“So, is he ready to come with us now?” Yusuf asks, cheerful and riddled with bullet holes. He’s mostly just excited about getting to do things other than sit in a café for eighteen years, charming little French writer or no.

“I’m sorry it did not work out for you,” Nicoló consoles.

“We’re not waiting eighteen years for the next one to develop a death pact,” Andromache promises. She’s already fantasizing about how much better this would have worked out if they had just shot Booker and dragged him off to a safehouse somewhere.

Booker goes with them. Booker has all his emotional baggage neatly packed, the toast of his emotions prepared for a liberal slathering of the butter of blame, which will quietly sink into said toast over the next few decades as he gets used to his new family and their relentless love of mankind, and plays the café scene over and over in his head until he realizes that there was not, in fact, a way any of them could have saved Marius.

#the old guard #les mis #they're remarkably impatient with Nile and yes there are other pressures #but I like to think Booker is why #also once he agrees to go with them they go back to speaking Latin and nickname him Liber #and the puns on books/freedom/drinking work SO MUCH BETTER if Booker is ALSO a June Revolutionary

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jjkfire · 5 years

Text

Preydator

Reader x Jungkook // shifter!AU, raccoon!jk // 6k words

Summary: Neither of you are quite the predator the two of you claim to be. + “I wonder what the people would say if they saw big mean lion predator tending to my wound right now.” raccoon!jk & (surprise (; hehe)!reader

Genre: Fluff

A/N: Okay I know scientifically raccoons aren’t exactly preys bc they eat rodents and frogs and etc. but… for the purpose of this fic, they are classified as preys. Predators in this au refers to… tertiary consumers, like top trophic level dudes. Also, football = soccer. Sorry, calling it soccer is very awkward for me!

You’re no stranger to late nights at the library. In fact, you love them. Your brain just works better at 1 am than it does at 1 pm. You also like it when there’s far fewer people in the quiet section of the library. The scent of all the others in the room can get a little too overwhelming for someone like you so, you’re truly at your happiest when there’s only a handful of people around.

Most people don’t like to stay at the library past 2 am because that’s when the campus buses stop running but you don’t really mind. Walking home at 3 in the morning after a long study session when the streets are eerily quiet, doesn’t faze you at all. It’s calm, peaceful and it makes you feel at ease. Your walks are usually uneventful and that’s probably a good thing. You have a small handheld can of pepper spray just in case of anything but in all your semesters here, you’ve only had to use it once and that had been a while ago, but perhaps you spoke to soon because tonight you find yourself gripping that small can in your hand, heart thumping loudly against your chest.

There’s the sound of a loud tortured squeal and you can’t quite pinpoint where it’s coming from. You pick up your pace attempting to get away from the source, but you don’t really know where to go. You know the sound is coming from a hurt animal and just that thought alone makes you sweat, because it probably means that a predator shifter that’s out of his or her senses is on the loose. Sure you should try to help whatever it is that’s making that noise but you reconsider the fact that you are but a tiny prey shifter and that if you do stop to help, you’ll probably be the next victim.

The squeals seem to echo no matter how far you walk, in fact they get louder and you start to run, your hand fumbling for the can of pepper spray in your pocket. You stumble, the loud clang of metal ringing through the night as you trip over a misplaced manhole cover. You whine, groaning in pain when you end up on the floor. The squeals are more urgent now, as if it was warning you of what’s to come and god, you shut your eyes, hoping that whatever feral predator that’s lurking will hopefully end your life quick, unlike its previous victim that’s still screaming in pain.

You’re waiting and waiting and waiting but the fatal bite to your neck never comes. You can still hear the squeals, less urgent this time, almost like there’s no effort in them. Slowly, you peel your eyes open, dusting off the dirt on your knees after you had taken a quick look around to make sure you were safe. You let out a whimper when you press at your injured toe. Surely it was going to bruise, you sigh, mumbling to yourself. At that sound, you hear the loud squeals again, accompanied with the sound of water being sloshed about. Odd.

Just up ahead, you see a hole in the ground, presumably where the manhole cover you just tripped over was meant to go. You inch towards it slowly, carefully, unsure if it was just a trap. If you were being honest, all of this seemed eerily like the opening of a horror movie. Despite your gut telling you to just take off and run, you risk a peek down the hole in front of you and in there you see the source of all your panic tonight, a poor little raccoon, limping around and squealing as it peered up at you.

“You poor baby,” You frown, as you watch the raccoon try to reach for the metal rungs on the side of the wall, attempting to climb up towards you. “Just wait down there. I’ll come get you!”

You take one last look around you, ensuring that the injured raccoon wasn’t being used to bait you because yes, you’re that paranoid. You remove your backpack and slowly make your way down into the sewer, nose wrinkling at the awful stench. When you reach the bottom, the raccoon stands aside timidly as if it was afraid of you and you offer it your hand, to show that you meant no harm.

“I’m no predator, don’t worry,” You laugh as it comes up to sniff you. “Let’s get you home, huh?” You murmur as you attempt to pick it up, making sure you avoid the large gash you see on its side.

“You still want these?” You ask, pointing to the clothes that are drenched in sewer water and it shakes its head no. Thank god. You didn’t want to touch it in the first place. With that, you attempt to climb up the metal rungs with just one available hand. It’s a bit of a struggle and you can tell that the little raccoon is attempting to muffle its pained squeals, burying its head in your shirt.

When you finally get back to ground level, you see that the gash the raccoon has is much worse than you had thought. It seems weak, tired, and when you ask if it could point you the way of its house, it only blinked at you. You can see the poor animal shivering in the light breeze, whimpering as it attempted to limp closer to you. You guess you had no choice but to bring it home with you.

When you finally reach your studio apartment, you quickly got a towel, helping the raccoon to dry off as best as you could without touching the wound.

“So… now what?” You ask out loud but you’re mainly talking to yourself because you know the animal has no capacity to answer you. “I think this will be easier to treat in your human form,” You point at his wound. “What’s your trigger?” You question.

Shifters mostly stay in their human form and only turn into their animal form when they experience any one of their specific triggers. For some it’s when they get angry, a very common trigger for large predators. For some, it’s when they’re hurt, for others it’s when they feel threatened and for the raccoon that you’ve just rescued, it’s apparently food because it’s limping towards your fridge, trying to nudge the door open.

“Food?” You ask as you catch up with it. “Okay, but first we gotta clean your hands,” You smile, as you bring the bottle of hand sanitizer down from the counter to sanitize its tiny little hands. An audible coo leaves your lips as you watch it rub its small palms together. Raccoons, you sigh lovingly. How could anyone hate them?

You open the door to your fridge, humming as you look at the contents of it, or perhaps lack of it.

“Sandwich?” You ask. All you had in your fridge was one half of the grilled cheese sandwich you had made last night. “I mean that’s all I have anyway, so the answer is going to have to be yes,” You chuckle as you pop it into the microwave.

“Just wait here,” You say as you move towards your closet to grab another towel. A cleaner and much larger one because you know once the raccoon shifted back, it was going to be stark naked and you didn’t want any… surprises. The microwave dings, and you hear the raccoon let out excited squeals, attempting to climb up onto the counter despite its injury.

You laugh, bringing the plate down to the floor before you watched it grab the sandwich with its little hands. The raccoon was absolutely adorable, munching on its sandwich and you’ll admit you’re quite a fan of the animal, if it wasn’t already evident from the numerous raccoon plushies sat on your bed. It’s a guilty pleasure but you often watch cute raccoon videos in your free time. Raccoons just have those cute tiny hands and that adorable little face and some of them are so chubby that all you wanted to do was pick them up and cuddle them. You’re sort of lost in your own thoughts about raccoons that it takes the tugging of the towel to bring you back to earth. When you look back down, you realise that in those few minutes your new raccoon buddy has finished the sandwich, which meant it was going to shift back soon. It’s probably why it had pulled at that towel with such urgency. It doesn’t get too far, just out of your small little kitchen before you hear a loud thump and a subsequent groan.

You quickly move towards the sink to wash the plate, trying to pretend like this was totally normal. The reality of the situation suddenly hit you like an oncoming train and so you continue pretending that your heart isn’t beating at 1000 miles per minute, that you didn’t have a complete stranger in your house and maybe you realize how naïve and stupid you are now that there’s a full grown human that you don’t know in your apartment. What’s worse is that it’s a man and you know that because that voice is way too deep for it to be a woman’s and—

“Hello.”

“Umm, hi,” You mumble, looking up from the plate that you have just set aside to see a half-naked man staring back at you. It takes you a second, maybe two before you go, oh because you’ve got the campus’ prized fuckboy, Jeon Jungkook, in your apartment... wearing nothing but a towel on his hips.

“Oh my god,” He shakes his head. “I just can’t believe it’s actually you. I mean I sort of realized in the sewer, but I digress. It’s you! Y/N the meme girl!” He laughs. “You know the uhh that—” He stops his sentence halfway, drop-kicking the air in front of him. “—that girl.”

“Yes,” You sigh. “I’m that girl. All thanks to you, Jeon Jungkook the professional meme maker.”

“I just edited funny text on the video,” He shrugs. “It’s basically all you… and Choi Junho of course. That sucker,” He laughs.

God, if there was one person you didn’t want the raccoon to be, it would be Jungkook. Scratch that, there’s two people you didn’t want it to be and one of them is Jungkook and the other would be Choi Junho, but you are well aware that Junho is no raccoon.

Junho is a beloved player on the college basketball team. People worship the ground he walks on and everyone, and really everyone loves him. He’s the reason your college’s basketball team has been doing so well. Back in freshman year, like everyone else, you liked him too. When you found out you were sharing a discussion section of one of your classes with him, you were ecstatic. You just wanted to be able to say ‘Oh yeah Junho and I are in the same discussion section. He’s pretty nice.’ at parties to make others envious and not really anything more than that. You never expected to know him any more than the usual classmate whom you would talk to in class and then smile politely at if you were to bump into each other in public, and for a long time, it was just that.

Then, one night at some Halloween house party, you bumped into him while you were pouring yourself a drink. He seemed sober for the most part and so were you. A few glasses later however, neither of you were sober and in some dark corner of the house, he had his tongue down your throat, his hands roaming all over your body. He kept asking if you wanted to go upstairs and for a moment you felt... good, because look at you, you were just seconds away from sleeping with arguably the most popular guy on campus. Yet, something about it didn’t sit right with you. Maybe it was the contents of your stomach that was threatening to come out any second now. So, you said no, respectfully, and told him you were comfortable right there. Honestly, you thought after that he would move on to someone else, his next prey or whatever, but he hung around, asked if you wanted to head back to his place, asked if he could walk you home, asked if you wanted to reconsider going upstairs. You got away from him somehow, you couldn’t remember how but you do remember dreading the fact that you would have to see him in discussion after the weekend.

You hoped that it had been the alcohol that made Junho so… creepy, that perhaps he would have forgotten everything and gone back to just knowing you as that person in his discussion section, but come Monday, you realised he had no intention of forgetting. He flirted with you shamelessly, pressuring you to go out on a date with him, always repeating himself even when you had respectfully declined, numerous times. Eventually, hes seemed to get the hint and instead, he would ask to meet at the library on the pretext of getting some work done, but then halfway through studying you could feel his hand on your knee. Although you guessed that could be a friendly gesture, it made you uncomfortable and so you would always find an excuse to leave.

The worst part of all of it though was the fact that he didn’t feel guilty or bad or any sort whenever he saw how uncomfortable he made you. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it, like it was some sick game for him. He would text you all the time, find ways to sit next to you in lecture and discussion, show up at parties you were at, tried to befriend your friends. You felt like you couldn’t really tell anyone about the situation because Junho was well, Junho. He was popular, well-liked and if you were to say that you felt like he was borderline stalking you, you would be labelled as pretentious or an attention seeker.

You felt helpless. There was nothing you could do, because his aura in general scared you. He was a predator. You knew just from his scent. Predator shifters are rare, they are revered and Junho was rather proud he was one. He was a panther and when he was toying with you, you could see it in his expression, the mischievousness and power that he held. Whenever you were near him, you felt like you were in danger. You felt like if you said no one more time, he would just find ways to make you say yes. So, you tried your best to isolate yourself and you tried to find excuses so you could attend a different discussion section. You even changed your phone number. You did everything you could to get away from him. It did nothing to deter him though and he even bothered you well through winter break and into the following semester.

Then came the fateful day. Valentine’s Day. He had stopped you in the middle of the quad, with a box of chocolates in hand, handing it to you so everyone could see, so you were under pressure to accept. You didn’t want to. You knew that if you did, he would get the wrong idea and so you said no thank you, soft and quiet so nobody but him could hear. He insisted and put the box into your hand with that sick, sick smile on his lips. Everyone was cooing, smiling and you didn’t want that. You didn’t like it. You didn’t like that all eyes were on you, all the attention was on you and most of all you didn’t like the way he was looking at you like he had won, that you were his prey for the taking now. You wanted to run, your prey instincts told you to, but you know doing that meant that he would still be the winner so, you did what you thought was best. You took a deep breath, stretching your hand out, you dropped the box of chocolates and kicked it as high and as far as you could. You could hear gasps of horror, the look of surprise on everyone’s face and in the commotion of it all, you took your chance to escape. You were still shaking even when you went to bed that night.

The aftermath of it all was uncontrollable. There were so many videos of it online, from numerous angles. It was starting to get out of hand and you were receiving messages from strangers, half of them cussing you out, wishing you misfortune and the other half congratulating you on your— in their words— big dick energy. It was absolute chaos but you had achieved what you wanted and Junho was nowhere to be seen… until of course Jungkook came into the picture.

See, it was all fine and dandy until the ever wonderful Jeon Jungkook decided to produce numerous meme edits of the incident. They had titles like me @ my responsibilities and me @ my money, with accompanying music and video effects. What was a video that was popular campus wide soon became a viral video that had spread all across the world. Everyone and really, everyone recognized you as the girl who drop-kicked some loser’s gift… which meant now everyone recognized Junho as the loser who got his gift drop-kicked.

There was a shift of attitude on campus and suddenly people either feared you or wanted to be your friend. You were rumoured to be either a poisonous prey, or the more popular theory, some predator, perhaps a lion. That could not be any further from the truth, but in any case, you liked that. It meant that people feared you so, you played into that belief, made people around you think that you were in fact a predator when you were a prey. Lion shifters were extremely rare, the rarest of the rare and so you achieved that stay away from her status that you could have previously only dreamed of. You bought some predator scent spray online and you had the resting bitch face to match too and so that’s how sophomore year went for you. Good, quiet. People admired you from afar, kept their distance. It was nice and you didn’t have to fear walking around campus at night because you knew that people knew not to come near you. All except one, of course.

Choi Junho was not one to back down and so he came up to you when you were on your routine walk home from the library, alone and vulnerable. First, he appeared apologetic, head bowed down, shifting his weight from one feet to another, but the next second, he had you pinned against the wall, hand on your throat.

“You poor little thing,” He smirked. “You may have everyone fooled but oh, not me.”

His grip on your throat tightened and you could see it, his eyes beginning to change, that familiar feral glow beginning to show.

“I knew you liked playing games. You like being hunted, don’t you?” He licked the corners of his lips. “You want me to chase you, you want to feel powerful, but in the end you want me to put you in your place, don’t you?”

You struggled against him, gasping, your hand trying to loosen the grip he has around your neck.

“I love it when you look like this,” He grinned, wiping away your tears with his free hand. “All desperate and weak for me.”

Your fingers finally closed around the can in your pocket and with the little strength you had left, you sprayed it in his eyes, hoping to god that it actually works. The boy in front of you cried out in pain, crumpling to the ground as he wiped his eyes. You took the opportunity to kick him right in the gonads, a few times too many. People like him should never be allowed to reproduce. You told yourself it was in self-defence, but you knew it was mostly for revenge. That was the last time he bothered you. You never tried to report the whole incident. You had no proof anyway so, you continue to pretend like it was all a dream, or rather a nightmare. Junho’s still the campus’ beloved basketball star and you’re only one of the many girls he had tried to get with. You wonder if there are other girls like you out there, girls who had to suffer under his hands. That’s a thought you keep locked far, far away.

“Seems like I uhh, brought up some bad memories,” Jungkook mumbles when he notices the grimace on your face. You realize you’ve been silent for way too long and so you shake yourself out of it, bringing your attention back to the boy in front of you.

“Something like that I guess…” You murmur. “Anyway, so, you umm want to get cleaned up? I have some oversized shirts and sweatpants that you might fit. Might.”

“As long as they’re not Junho’s,” He jokes and all that garners out of you is a sneer.

“They’re mine,” You mumble, walking towards your closet to pull out some clothes. “Not fashionable in the least, but it’s better than walking out there naked.”

“Uhh debatable but okay, fine, true,” He nods as he looks to see if the clothes would fit. “Thanks… for the clothes and for umm everything, really. I’m not sure how long I would have been stuck down there... and with the gash and all, it could’ve ended badly for me.” He points to the cut on his chest which is considerably less menacing than when it took up almost half his body when he was in his animal form.

“It’s no big deal,” You mumble. “And yeah we’ll get that wound sorted out after you shower. Make sure to clean the area when you’re in there.”

“Yes ma’am,” He salutes, before you point him in the direction of your bathroom.

This surely wasn’t the way you imagined meeting the guy who propelled you to meme stardom. You expected it to be more hostile but then again, he’s injured and you can’t beat someone when they’re down can you? But, perhaps what surprised you more than anything was the fact that he was your kin, a prey like you and also, a liar.

See, Jungkook is a forward on the football team, a college athlete and that meant two things. One, he is a predator and two, he’s well-liked. Though the latter is unfortunately an undeniable truth, the first one however, considering what you’ve seen tonight is definitely false. This is important because only predators are allowed to be athletes and a major perk of being an athlete is the scholarship that comes along with it. No matter how good prey shifters are at a certain sport, they would never get to be an athlete and would instead have to compete for academic scholarships which are extremely hard to obtain. So the big question here is how did that fluffy little raccoon book his spot on the football team?

You guess he looks the part of a predator shifter, with a lean body and a fair amount of muscle mass… (not that you were looking at his body at all that is). Also, the fact that he doesn’t cower away from social interaction helped with the predator persona as most prey shifters tend to keep to themselves. Maybe you ought to take a pointer or two from him.

To you, it’s odd that he’s on the football team. He wasn’t an exceptional athlete as per se, in fact if you remember correctly, he spends most matches on the bench. Though you’d argue that even so, he seemed to be more popular than the guys who usually made it onto the first team.

He’s known on campus for being that guy, you know that 10/10 boyfriend guy. He’s the kind of guy you’d take home to your parents because you know they’ll love him, but he’s also the kind of guy that would fuck your brains out... but also the kind of guy that would take you on cute little dates. Yeah, you know, that guy. You’re not sure why you know all of this. Probably because in your first year at the dorms, those around you would not shut up about him, ever. From what you know, he got around but was always clear that he never wanted anything more. He wasn’t the kind of guy to forget names or lead someone on. He was always respectful. From the short flings he had, they always seemed to end... well, on mutual terms and the girls never had anything bad to say other than that he just wasn’t a relationship kind of guy. Rather, a wholesome fuckboy, if one ever existed.

You could definitely see it. He’s nice, charismatic, that much you deduce as he attempts to make small talk with you now that he’s done with his shower, but you realize he is also definitely trying to avoid getting his wound tended to. You’re not sure if it’s because he wanted to be half naked just a little while longer to garner a reaction out of you or if he was genuinely afraid of the pain that comes with applying antiseptic cream to a raw wound.

“Look, if you don’t want to do it, it’s fine,” You sigh, from where you’re seated on your bed. “I’m not your mother, you can do whatever you want.”

“No, I know it has to happen, but it… it stings,” He frowns, joining you. “Cleaning the area with water was already painful enough.”

“Well, just say whenever you’re ready then,” You sigh, turning away from him to turn on the TV.

“Okay, fine, just do it now,” He mumbles. “But— but be… gentle.”

You almost laugh at the way he looks in front of you right now, all timid and afraid. It was a huge contrast to how he appeared on the banners around school, all proud in his football jersey with his arms folded across his chest.

He winces every so often as you apply the cream to his wound, soft whimpers leaving his lips. You’re trying your best to be delicate, and you think you’re doing quite a fine job because halfway through when you look up at the boy, he’s smiling.

“I wonder what the people would say if they saw big, mean, lion predator tending to my wound right now uwu,” He coos, when your eyes finally meet his.

“Did you actually just say uwu out loud?” You gawk, pulling your focus away from his wound. “You know it’s an emoticon right?”

“Yes, but it’s also a feeling. See, uwu,” He coos again, his voice pitched higher. “It’s a feeling,” He reaffirms, grinning, as if what he had just said made perfect sense.

“Maybe I’ll just stick this cotton bud into your wound, and we’ll see how uwu you’re feeling.”

“Please… please don’t do that,” He grimaces.

Though the wound is not deep, you do think he should at least go get checked for the numerous bruises that litter his skin. He’s in pain, you know that for sure and he’s trying to downplay how much exactly, but you are no fool. Considering that it was a bad fall, you wouldn’t be surprised if he had a hairline fracture on one of his limbs. Jungkook waves your concern away, simply thanking you when you bandage his wound. He finally, finally puts on his shirt and you expect him to dash out of your house, but he seems to linger, as if he had something to say but he wasn’t quite sure how to say it.

“I see you’re a fan of mine,” He smiles, pointing to the numerous raccoon memorabilia that decorates your bed and side-table.

“Don’t read too much into it. I like the animal, yes, but I didn’t know you were one so, not to worry, I am not a member of the Jungkook fanclub.”

“That’s a shame. I hear the club has nice perks, like you know, quality time with me,” He smirks. “Which honestly speaking, is a rare commodity.”

“My, now I’m just dying to be in the club,” You huff, rolling your eyes. “You know, wouldn’t your fans be disappointed to find out that the guy they’re fawning over is not in fact a predator but a prey instead.”

“About that…” He sighs, hands nervously tugging at the ends of his shirt. “You know we’re in the same boat, don’t you? We’re both sheep in wolves clothing.”

“Nice twist on the idiom, I like it,” You nod. “But, I feel like you’re trying to make a point here. What is it?”

“That if you tell on me, then I’m telling on you,” He mumbles. “I’m not a fan of blackmail but I really, really need this scholarship.”

“Nice to know you think so poorly of me even after all I’ve done tonight but just so you know I have no interest in revealing your secret.”

“That’s not… that’s not how I meant for it to come out,” He sulks. “I just needed to make sure that you and I are on the same page.”

“Yeah, I understand,” You murmur. “I am curious though. How did you cheat the medical test? How did you get them to believe you’re a bear when in fact you’re a raccoon? Shouldn’t you have gone for a more believable animal like say… a fox?”

“Well, for someone who’s such a huge fan of raccoons I’m disappointed by the fact that you aren’t aware that raccoons are more closely related to bears than to either the cat or dog family,” He mumbles. “Thus, I did pick the most believable animal.”

“Well, you learn something new every day,” You hum. “Okay, but that still doesn’t explain how—”

“I hired someone to change the results for me.”

“You can do that?”

“If you know the right people, yeah.”

“Well, apparently I’ve been hanging out with the wrong people,” You mumble. “And your scent… how do you work around that?”

“I can’t use the spray because I’ll basically sweat it all off so I use that supplement… you know the one you see sketchy ads of on TV?”

“Preydator! Tell your fears, see ya later!” You sing-song, imitating the ad you often saw on TV. The jingle was rather catchy. “That one? It actually works?”

“Yeah, for now, but who knows maybe in 20 years after they’ve done adequate research, they’ll tell me that it’s killing me slowly.”

“That’s very disconcerting to hear…” You frown. “If you’re a quote unquote certified predator then you could’ve avoided this by just applying for the academic scholarships. Why didn’t you do that? The requirements are extremely low if you’re a predator.”

“Because I’m good at football,” He says rather nonchalantly. “And I have a bone to pick with the athletic department. Preys should be allowed to be on the team if we’re good enough.”

You almost say but you aren’t that good at football but you guess making it on the bench of the first team is still a feat, so you decide to hold off on that thought.

“So, now that you know all my secrets, it’s only fair that you tell me one of yours,” He smiles. “What are you?”

“Hey, I never said we were going to trade secrets. You just decided to tell me all of yours.”

“Oh come on, that’s not fair,” He frowns. “At least let me guess. Then you can just say yes or no.”

“Go ahead,” You smile. You were positive he wasn’t going to get it right.

“Rabbit? No?” He queries and you shake your head. “What’s… what’s a prey with attitude? Because that’s what you are.”

You only gawk at him. This guy just says whatever he wants. You’re starting to think that everyone else sees a different side of Jungkook or maybe they just excuse his sass just because of his good looks.

“A… frog? Or oh… don’t tell me you’re an insect shifter,” He grumbles with mild disgust.

“You know, that’s really mean but no, I am not an insect shifter.”

“You sure? You could easily be a black widow or maybe you’re one of those poisonous animals like that poisonous sea snail or—”

“Okay,” You huff, annoyed with the boy now. You rise to your feet, pulling him along with you. “You know this was a really nice chat and a very interesting evening, but I have an early class tomorrow so if you could find your way home now, that would be great.”

“But I still don’t know what you are yet,” He frowns.

“Boohoo, neither does most of the campus.”

“See, a prey with an attitude!” He exclaims. “Come on, I’m close, I know it. At least give me a clue!”

“Goodnight, Jungkook,” You smile, effectively pushing him out of your apartment with a kick.

“Throwing out an injured comrade like this. You’re heartless,” He fake sobs from the other side of the door before you hear him sigh and make his way down the hallway and out of your life, hopefully forever. Perhaps that was wishful thinking because in a few short minutes you hear hurried footsteps out in the hallway. You pay it no mind, or at least you try to do so but then you see shadows dancing just outside of your door, and when you finally get up to look through the tiny peephole, you find Jungkook standing out there, pacing back and forth as he silently practices a speech.

“Can I help you?” You question after having opened your door to find a very stunned Jungkook.

“Well, Y/N, it’s uhh nice to see you again,” He smiles, nervously so. “You see, the thing is I uhh lost my keys in the sewer, obviously and… you know the management office to my building isn’t open because it’s so late and—”

“Surely you have friends you could call up for help.”

“Well, firstly I doubt they’ll pick up a call this late at night and secondly, since I already shifted, I smell like prey and guess what everyone thinks I am,” He mumbles. “In case you’re struggling, the answer is not prey.”

“I’ll let you borrow my predator scent spray.”

“That’s a novel idea,” He nods, admitting. “But you can also let me stay the night.”

“I don’t even know you.”

“You know more about me than anyone on campus does. I’d argue that you know me very well,” He hums.

“Jungkook.”

“Y/N.”

You sigh, moving to shut the door on him because it was way past your bed time and you do not have the energy to have this conversation right now.

“Please. There’s a lot at stake here,” He begs, using his foot to stop the door. “You know what it’s like for us when we have to lie under pressure… We don’t do very well.”

“You’ve been lying your entire college career so I think you’re pretty good at it.”

“Listen, if there’s any inkling of me being a prey, my scholarship is gone. It’s a risk I don’t want to take,” He frowns. “The lie I tell to my teammates and my coaches, the predator act that I put on, that’s been carefully curated and I’ve gone over it ten thousand times in my head to make sure it’s perfect. I can lie, yes, but only when I’ve had time to prepare. I know you know that too.”

“Fine,” You grumble, moving aside. “You can stay, but… behave.”

“Yes ma’am,” He salutes once you let him through your door. “Thank you so much. Seriously.”

“You owe me.”

“Yes, undoubtedly. For everything, really,” He mumbles, shy and timid. His sentence is sincere, one you weren’t exactly expecting considering how snarky he had been earlier. He follows behind you closely, stopping beside the bed when he reaches it. You tuck yourself in from the other side and you’re turning to him, ready to deliver your whole spiel of if I find your hand anywhere remotely inappropriate I am going to saw it off, only to find him placing a pillow on your floor.

“What are you doing?” You query, watching him with furrowed eyebrows.

“Going to bed?”

“Why are you putting the pillow on the floor?”

“Well, because I can tell you don’t really want to have me here and I’m probably overstepping some boundaries and I just don’t want to impose really so I’m good with the floor.”

Even though it’s happened a fair few times now, you still find it oddly amusing to see Jungkook behaving like a prey shifter. Always cautious, always timid in unfamiliar situations. Though you do or rather did have some reservations about him, you can tell that he’s perfectly harmless.

“You can sleep on the bed,” You murmur.

“A-are you sure? I mean really you’ve done enough for me and it’s going to be morning in a few hours so it’s okay, really.”

“Jungkook, just get in the bed,” You groan. “You’re making me feel bad now.”

“I just need you to be 100% sure you’re okay with that.”

“Seriously, if you keep asking, I’m just going to kick you out of the apartment.”

“Okay, okay, I’m getting into the bed,” He concedes, quickly picking up the pillow. “Thank you,” He whispers once he finally settles under the blanket.

If he says anything after that, you don’t hear it. It had taken you less than a minute to fall asleep. When you awake in the morning, you expect to find the boy all sprawled out on his side of the bed but instead the covers on his side has been neatly folded, the pillow and your raccoon plushies all arranged in an orderly fashion. Jungkook sure was full of surprises, you note.

Later on when you head to the bathroom, you find numerous post-it notes stuck onto your mirror, all of them filled with apologies.

Y/N, I had to use your predator spray… Really sorry about that and actually just really sorry about the whole of last night. Thank you for being so kind and considerate and though I can’t see you right now, I know you’re making that face. The one you make when you think I’m being sarcastic but really I owe you. Big time. I’ll make it up to you… Though I have a feeling one way you want me to make it up to you is by just never having to see me again haha. If that is so, consider it done.

Love, the biggest member of the Y/N fanclub.

You almost laugh when you reach the end of the note. There’s even a poorly drawn raccoon to punctuate his sign-off. You guess he deserves an A for effort. What surprises you about the note though is how well he had read you from just that one night alone. Perhaps you’re more of an open book than you thought. In any case, you’re glad that last night would be the one and only interaction with him because judging from your past experiences with athletes, you know they only leave you with headaches so, you’re glad that both you and Jungkook are on the same page. In some way, the previous night seems like a fever dream, the whole entire experience so outlandish that you would have never even thought to dream it and for a week or two, you forget that it even happened until you get a reminder of the day, much belatedly.

You come home one day to find a box in front of your door. It has no address and has nothing to indicate the contents of it, until of course you flip it to find a drawing of a raccoon, this time a much better one. In fact it seems like he spent quite some time on it. When you open the box, you find the clothes you had lent Jungkook, washed and even ironed. What makes you smile though isn’t that but rather the small raccoon plushies you find, along with keychains and a phone case. A little note in the box tells you that Jungkook felt odd buying stuff that resembled him but he did owe you and that he hoped this in some way evened out the debt he owed. You think you’re starting to see why everyone goes on and on about how nice he is. At the core, he really is a sweet person. Annoying at times, but sweet nonetheless. In any case, the passing interaction you had with him was nice though you think this will probably be the last you hear from him.

As much as you liked to believe that, you’ll come to find out that the universe seems to have other plans. Because you keep seeing him again and again, and with each time, he seems to knock down the defenses you’ve set up with practiced ease. In fact, it takes him no longer than a week to show up on your front door, begging you for help and like the fool that you are, you oblige.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! As always, feedback is appreciated (:

This was a self-indulgent fic and rly my version of crack tbh. Also this fic is in honour of my buddy that actually drop-kicked a gift he was given. Unlike OC, he was just a dickhead. I really shouldn’t laugh because the poor girl just wanted to give him chocolates but good god, every time I replay the scene in my head I can’t help but laugh. Man, high school was crazy.

#bts fanfic #bts scenario #bts boulangerie #bts bookclub #jungkook fluff #raccoons are cute ):#the tame ones at least hahaha

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of-a-chaotic-mind · 5 years

Text

Big Sister Part 1

Summary: Jo goes on a hunt with (Y/n), Dean, and Sam after her mother told her not to. (Y/n) had worked it out with Ellen and had almost negotiated taking Jo hunting with her. Jo’s stunt blows that out of the water but (Y/n) still has hope.

TW/CW: Lots of swearing, heavy arguing, Jo Harvelle x platonic!reader, Dean Winchester x Reader, angst, ghost stuff, yeah

A/N: I may only make this a two-part thing. I haven’t worked out the details yet. I hope you all enjoy it! Requests and Asks are open as always!

Your POV

As Sam, Dean, and I go to get in the car to leave for L.A., we hear yelling from inside the bar. “I’ll take care of it,” I tell them. They follow anyway as I head inside to see what Ellen and Jo are arguing about this time. As I enter, I find Ellen and Jo arguing that Jo can’t go hunting. I place a hand on Jo’s shoulder just as she is about to say something, “Jo, stop. Listen to your mother.”

“And that’s another thing!” JO lashes out, “How come (Y/n) gets to go hunting but I can’t?”

“Because she’s more experienced than you, Jo! She knows how to work the job,” Ellen yells back.

“How do you think she got that way? I can’t get experienced if I never go!” Jo is fuming at this point.

I stop her as she tries to punch a pillar, “Jo, what d’ya got?” I shoot Ellen a look that says let me talk her down and she returns to the counter to cool off.

She hands me a file as Dean and Sam walk up behind me. I read through, as does Dean over my shoulder. An apartment building in Philidelphia, Pennsylvania has a handful of missing girls who all have the same appearance. I look to Dean and Sam, “You guys go on to L.A. I’ll handle this case.”

Jo looks hopeful, but Dean insists on going with me. Ellen will never let Jo go if Dean and Sam are there. I decide to try anyway, “Hold on a sec,” I say as I hand Jo her file back. I make my way over to Ellen. She shoots me a threatening look but I ask anyway, “Why don’t you let her check this one out with us? You know I’ll keep her safe.”

Ellen answers quietly so that the other three don’t hear, “I’m not ready to trust those boys yet, even if you are there.”

I sigh, knowing Ellen won’t back down from this one, “Jo, you’re sitting this one out, maybe you can come next time. We’ll take care of this case.” Jo doesn’t even answer and storms out instead. I look to Dean and Sam and head out the door. The three of us pile into the impala and I know in my gut that Jo won’t back down from this.

Once we get to Philly, our first stop is to check out the apartment. As we scan the rooms with emf readers, Dean speaks up, “So, what was all of that about with Ellen and Jo?”

Keeping my back turned to him, I answer, “Nothing, Ellen just doesn’t want her hunting yet.”

Before Dean can pry further, Sam yells from the other room, “Guys, come look at this.”

We join him to find something goopy seeping from the wall around the power socket. Dean sticks a finger in it before bringing it to his nose to smell, “So, we’re dealing with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? It’s ectoplasm.”

As we leave the apartment, we hear voices down the hall and hide in an alcove. As the voices get closer, I can recognize the female as Jo. We step out into sight; Jo is telling the man that she is really interested in the apartment. Upon seeing us she walks right up to Dean, “Hey, Deano. Have you checked out the apartment yet?”

Hearing Dean’s yes causes the apartment manager to ask who he is and how he got in. Dean quickly responds that it was open before Jo changes the subject, “Sorry, this is my boyfriend Dean and his buddy Sam and my sister (Y/n) but yeah, we’ll take it,” and hands the manager a wad of cash.

As we enter the apartment, I shoot Jo my strongest death glare, “What the hell are you doing here, Jo? I told you to sit this out.”

“I told mom that I’m going to Vegas. You guys need bait,” she responds simply, not making eye contact.

I grab her arm and spin her to look at me, “I was so close to getting your mother to let me take you hunting and you just blew that out of the water, because as soon as she figures out where you went she’ll never trust me again.”

“She won’t find out. I had Ash create a paper trail that puts me in Vegas,” she spits back.

Just then my phone begins ringing and it shows Ellen’s contact. I answer, “Hey, Ellen.” Jo gives me a look and mouths, “Do not tell her.” I look to Dean and his face confirms my expectation. We can’t take her back now. She has to stay until we’re done. As Ellen finishes her spill on the other end of the line, I answer, “Nah Ellen, I haven’t seen her, but I’ll be sure to keep an eye out. -- Yes, I’m sure. -- Alright bye.”

I turn on Jo, “You better have found something pretty damn good or I’ll walk your ass back to Nebraska myself.”

She lays out all her papers for the three of us to see. Eventually, we get to the point that we realize who and what we’re dealing with and we separate to go into the walls. Jo’s bright idea puts me with Sam and her with Dean and neither of the guys argues with her because they’re just ready to finish the case.

As we meet back in the apartment after Dean’s urgent call, I notice we’re missing a certain blonde. I look at Dean with a death glare, “What the hell happened?”

“I couldn’t fit. So, she went on ahead before I could stop her... He got her. (Y/n), I’m so sorry,” he answers timidly.

Before I can tear him a new one, my phone rings again. I hit the green answer button and before I can even get a breath out, she’s yelling. Once she pauses for breath, I jump in, “Ellen, I’m sorry. I’ll have her back as soon as possible but we can’t leave right now. We just got a lead and if we stop now, we may never catch this thing.” I listen to her berate me on the other end before responding, “Ellen, you know she’s like my little sister. I’ll keep her safe.” She says something along the lines of, “Damn right you will,” before hanging up.

Without even thinking or hesitating, I throw a punch into the wall. Thankfully it was drywall and not the brick.

“Woah, easy tiger. We’ll get her back,” Dean states.

“That’s not what I’m worried about. If I can’t get Ellen to trust me enough to take her hunting then she’ll go on her own, and if she’s alone then she won’t have backup and something could happen.

Dean inspects my bloody knuckles before pulling me into a hug, “We’ll get her back.”

“Guys, I think I know where he’s keeping them,” Sam says before pointing to a sewer system under the building, “It’s no longer in use.”

Sam takes one look at the map before we rush off to find the entrance. After some metal detecting and some crawling through pipes, we find the girls. We lay a trap and manage to trap the spirit in a salt ring. As we stand at the entrance of the sewer, Jo asks, “What happens if the salt gets messed up?”

Sam points to a cement truck backing onto the lot, “That’s what that is for.” Dean gets out of the truck and the two men drop the spout and pour cement into the hole.

The car is filled with silence as we head back to the roadhouse. Upon our arrival, Ellen is waiting for us on the porch. As we get out of the car, Ellen speaks coldly, “I’d like to talk to my girls alone.”

The guys don’t push their luck and stay back as Jo and I head into the bar. Once inside, Jo starts, “Mom, you can’t protect me forever. I was with (Y/n), you trust her with even your own life.”

Ellen glares at me now, “You lied to me. You lied to me and because of it, my daughter could’ve been killed.” Knowing she isn’t finished; I hold my tongue and sure enough, she continues, “To make matters worse, you let those boys stay and help instead of just sending them off. You should be ashamed for hanging out with them, let alone being interested in one of them.”

This is where I draw the line and I interrupt her, “You can’t blame them for what happened, Ellen! They weren’t there! They’re not like John!”

Jo stops us both, “What the hell are you two talking about?” As Ellen tells Jo what happened to get William killed, I grit my teeth. The nerve of this woman to think Dean and Sam are like their father.

Ellen and Jo turn to me before Jo storms out the door. I don’t even bother with Ellen and instead go after Jo, hoping that she’ll have more sense.

As I follow after her, I yell, “Damnit, Jo. Slow down.”

She whips around to face me and before I can even register that we shouldn’t have this conversation in earshot of Dean and Sam as we are, she begins her rant, “How the hell can you trust them and still know that!? You’re a disgrace and I wish I had never trusted you!”

Not able to withhold my rage any longer, I shove her and then get up close in her face, “Don’t you dare say that to me. I was so close to being able to take you hunting like you wanted. I have busted my ass and negotiated to hell and back for you and you just threw it away. Jo, if it weren’t for me, you’d still be in that bar, sitting on your ass, and doing nothing but hustling. If it weren’t for me, your mother would’ve never let you near Ash’s research. They--,” I point back towards the guys, “-- don’t deserve this bullshit you and your mother are giving them. They don’t even know about it! As for that little stunt you pulled back at the apartment, back off from Dean because you know he’s always been mine. Now you get your ass back in there and apologize to your mother and grovel like you’ve never groveled before because, in a few days, I’ll be back to see if I can smooth things over with your mother.”

She stands still, staring at me in shock as she timidly speaks up, “(Y/n), I --”

I interrupt her, “Go!” I turn to punch whatever is closest, which just so happens to be the impala.

Dean steps in front of me and catches my hand, “Not the car, Sweetheart. Punch me if you need to punch something.” I simply lean into him as he wraps his arm around me and holds me tight. Once I pull away, he brushes the hair out of my eyes, “What was that about, ‘he’s mine’?”

My eyes go wide as the realization hits, “Dean, I --”

He interrupts me with a kiss before answering, “I guess that makes you mine, Baby.”

Surprise washes over my features as I stumble out a response, “Wait, really?”

He nods his head but Sam has a more pressing question, “What do we not know about, (Y/n)?”

I take a deep breath before explaining, “William wasn’t alone on his last hunt. Your dad was with him and he screwed up. His mistake got William killed. That’s why Ellen doesn’t trust you guys. Jo just found out.”

Dean looks at me, concern written over his features, “Do you need to stay?”

I shake my head, “No, let them cool off. Besides, we still have that case in L.A.”

He nods as well as climb into the car. I take one last look out the window at the roadhouse before I doze off for the night.

Masterlists

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janaikam · 4 years

Text

I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You - Style Swap

Day 3 of @luxyweek

Part 2

Read on AO3

The akuma attack didn’t take that long. XY had watched the entire fight on the Ladyblog on his phone as he tried to make his way through the sewers. He was glad that his phone survived the fall into the sewers.

It seemed that after Chat had tricked XY down the sewers, him and Luka blocked the hole XY had fallen down. He was now trying to find a way out, so he could tell them how cash money they were not being.

The heroes had brought in Viperion, and he was being pretty useless. All he had been doing was watching the battle from the sidelines, occasionally yelling something at Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Whatever his superpower was it was pretty useless. Nonetheless the battle ended in about 5 minutes without Viperion’s help.

Luckily, the battle ended right as XY found another ladder, so he climbed out of the sewer as fast as he could and started running down the street.

If he hurried then, he could catch Chat and give him a piece of his mind.

Glancing down at the live feed on the Ladyblog, XY saw that the heroes were near the Trocadero, so he picked up his pace.

Thankfully, the sewer he had climbed out from was close to the Trocadero, but when he got there, a flock of reporters surrounded the heroes.

Not wanting to risk reporters seeing him in his messy state, XY kept a good distance away from the growing crowd. He figured he might have a better chance at catching Chat Noir and confronting him when he was alone.

His plan sounded so perfect that he couldn’t help but give himself a pat on the back. It wasn’t everyday he created an amazing plan.

He didn’t have to wait long as Ladybug whispered something to Chat Noir and flew off. Viperion jumped away in the opposite direction and Chat Noir followed, after waving goodbye to the reporters.

XY followed him, sticking to the shadows of buildings so he wasn’t recognized by any of his fans. He soon realized that Chat Noir was headed towards the park, which was perfect for XY since he needed to get back there to confront Luka.

Chat dropped down in an alley about two blocks from the park. XY ran a bit faster before he used his portal magic to disappear.

When XY got to the alley Chat had dropped in, he noticed that Luka was also in the alley.

They looked like they were talking about something, but stopped once XY entered the alley. Everyone’s eyes were wide as the three of them stared at each other. No one uttered a word as a beeping sound cut through the silence. Chat glanced down at his hand and let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m glad you are both safe! Try not to become an akuma’s target next time guys!” With that, Chat jumped out of the alley, much to XY’s anger.

“HEY!!!” XY yelled, running to try and stop Chat, but the hero was much faster than him, bounding out of the alley lightning fast.

The only person left in the alley was Luka, who was trying to sneak out the alleyway.

“Don’t you dare! Someone has to do my dry cleaning! And you helped Chat Noir lure me down into that sewer, so that means you have to do my laundry,” XY declared, crossing his arms.

The blue-haired boy groaned, knowing that he wasn’t going to get out of this situation easily. “Alright, just let me make a few calls. And we can go do your laundry.”

It turned out that the concert in the park had been canceled and rescheduled due to the akuma attack. At least that’s what Luka had claimed. His band members were going to pack up the rest of their equipment while Luka was helping XY.

XY didn’t miss the obvious distaste in Luka’s tone, but he shrugged it off, figuring that he was just upset because he was going to have to pay for XY’s expensive dry cleaning.

The entire walk was quiet, which bothered XY for some reason, but he didn’t see any reason to do anything about it. He mostly didn’t know what to say and was trying to hide his identity from any fans or paparazzi. It wouldn��t do him any good to be spotted with the wannabe in his gross state.

It wasn’t until they were by the Seine that XY realized Luka wasn’t leading them to a dry cleaner.

“Hey, where are we going?” XY asked.

“We’re going to my house so you can get your clothes all clean and maybe you can take a shower.” Luka sniffed and scrunched his nose. “Yeah, you definitely need a shower.”

“I’ll have you know that it’s your fault that I smell and look like this!” XY huffed.

Luka just rolled his eyes and continued walking down the sidewalk at a slightly faster pace.

“So where is your house anyway?” XY looked around but couldn’t see any houses nearby.

All he could see was the boats people rented space for on the Seine. He had one somewhere, but couldn’t remember where it was located.

“I live there.” Luka pointed at a large and colorful ship with a rainbow rooster on one of the masts. “We call her, The Liberty. I hope you don’t get seasick.”

XY ignored the small smirk on Luka’s face. Instead he stared in awe at the houseboat Luka called home. “You live on a pirate ship?!?”

“Uh...yeah…”

“That’s so cool!”

Even when they boarded the ship, XY couldn’t help but notice every little thing on the ship. Mostly because everything was on the floor and he had to watch his step, but that didn’t stop him from looking on in awe at everything. It wasn’t everyday he walked onto a pirate ship.

Wait if Luka lived on a pirate ship did that mean he was a pirate? Nah, no pirate would subject himself to dressing like that. Pirate’s had a flair that Luka just didn’t have.

Luka led him downstairs, where XY learned the bedrooms and bathrooms were. For a pirate ship it seemed pretty nice. It was definitely cleaner than the top, which he appreciated.

“You can shower in here and just drop your clothes outside the door. I’ll bring you something to wear while they’re being washed,” Luka instructed, opening the door to the bathroom.

The bathroom definitely didn’t look like much, XY probably wouldn’t have been able to fit his entire closet in the small space. There was just a small green toilet and sink. The mirror right above the sink was so small that XY couldn’t even see his hair in it. There was a curtain towards the back that must’ve been the shower.

“Just make sure you hand wash my jacket. It’s very delicate. Wash my jeans on the delicate cycle and don’t wash them on high heat. I don’t need these skinny jeans getting more skinnier. Now, do you have any hair products? My hair is going to need some serious work after this shower.”

Luka just stared at XY with an absolutely done look on his face. “I’ll see what my sister has.”

With that, Luka left him alone in the ship’s bathroom. Pushing back the small curtain, XY spotted a showerhead and drain.

“Hey, where’s the bathtub?”

----

After Luka taught him how to use the shower, XY spent about an hour cleaning himself off. At least that’s how long it took for the hot water to turn cold, but even that wasn’t enough. He missed his constantly warm rose petal baths that he got at the hotel.

But he figured not everyone was as lucky as him if the lack of designer soap was any indication.

At some point, Luka had entered the bathroom, with something in his hand. XY had yelled at him, thinking he had a phone and was trying to get a picture of him in all his naked glory. Luka had just started yelling back, but XY couldn’t hear him. Eventually, Luka had left, effectively ending their screaming match.

Exiting the shower, XY noticed a stack of clothes on the sink counter. He was pretty sure they hadn’t been there when he first came in, but he tended to miss a lot of things. Clothes weren’t hard to miss, especially ones as cheap looking as these.

The clothes fit XY surprisingly well. Despite how rough looking the jeans appeared, they were surprisingly very soft. They felt like sweatpants but fit like skinny jeans. The T-shirt was comfortable, but it had an outline of Jagged Stone’s face on it, which ruined the shirt for him.

Admiring himself in the mirror, he realized he kind of looked like a blonde better looking version of Luka. Definitely hotter, XY thought, giving himself a smile in the mirror.

Satisfied with how he looked, XY tried to imagine what Luka would look like in his clothes. Unfortunately he was having trouble picturing it, so he decided he would have to settle for the next best thing. Dressing up Luka himself to see.

XY exited the bathroom looking for Luka only to find him on his bed strumming a black and white guitar. Luka had his eyes closed, and he looked so peaceful. It was really weird to see him like this since all XY’s really seen is the serious side of Luka.

He couldn’t help but wonder what Luka was like when he wasn’t playing hero.

“What are you doing here?” afeminine voice asked from behind XY. The soft music coming from Luka’s side of the room stopped as Luka acknowledged XY’s presence.

He turned around to find a purple-haired girl on another bed in the room. She looked at him with a disgust that XY didn’t understand. He had never seen this girl before, so what would she have against the fabulous XY himself? If anything she should be grateful that she’s even able to bask in his presence.

“Jules, he’s here as our guest,” Luka assured, placing his guitar down on the side of the bed. “I know you don’t like it. Trust me I don’t either, but play nice.”

‘Jules’ grumbled something under her breath and left, walking upstairs to the deck. Luka’s face had flushed red, apparently understanding whatever the girl had said.

“Juleka!”

A soft giggle came from the stairs, but other than that the girl disappeared, leaving the two of them alone in the room.

Sighing, Luka picked up some clothes and hair products at the foot of his bed.

“Anyways, here’s some hair product I found and your clothes. Though I have to admit you don’t look too terrible with your hair down like that,” Luka commented, handing him the hair products and clothes.

The amount of products Luka handed to him wasn’t what he was used to, but he guessed that’s what it meant to be a pirate. No proper hair products to look decent.

“Thanks.” XY paused, looking up at Luka. “As a sign of my gratitude for taking me in, I have decided that I am going to give you a makeover.”

“Oh, that’s nice really, but I really can’t-” Luka started to protest as XY dragged him to the bathroom.

“Nope, you’re gonna accept my gift, and I won’t take no for an answer. Now take off all of those bracelets, what do you even need them all for?”

---

Twenty minutes later, Luka was wearing XY’s clothes and, thanks to XY, had his hair styled like XY’s signature hairstyle. In XY’s opinion, Luka looked amazing. Probably even cuter than he looked before.

From the bathroom counter, XY grabbed Luka’s bracelet and hoodie from off the counter and put them on. If he was going to swap styles with Luka he was going to do it right, and that meant dressing exactly like him.

“And done! What do you think?”

Luka nervously stood up from his spot on the toilet and walked over to the bathroom mirror. “Oh my gosh. I look like a goth Johnny Bravo.”

“Awesome! I told you my hairstyle isn’t that ridiculous.” XY grinned, satisfied with how Luka seemed to like his new look.

“Dude. That’s not a good thing. It feels like there’s a massive brick on my head,” Luka deadpanned. “Seriously, how much product did you use?”

Glancing at the empty containers of hair products, XY chose to ignore Luka’s question. “You’ll get used to the weight. I think you look amazing.”

Watching the blush form on an XY-dressed Luka, XY realized what he had been trying to deny for the past day. He was falling for this wannabe rocker.

#luxyweek2k20 #luxy #luxury #luka #xy #style swap #my fic #my writing #i cant help falling in love with you

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imnotcameraready · 5 years

Text

chivalry is dead (8)

A/N: PLEASE READ ALL THE WARNINGS!!! — also if i’ve missed any warnings, please please please let me know!!! this chapter’s a doozy, and i don’t know everything that could be construed into something that might upset someone, so please let me know if you think there’s something i’ve missed so i can update this chapter and make sure it’s tagged in future chapters! or if i've worded any of them wrong!

anyway, im so stoked for this chapter y’all wouldn’t even bELIEVE. you also finally get to see how much i adore the em-dash, ‘cause there are 33 in this chapter Alone

WARNINGS: Sympathetic Deceit, panic, panic attack!!, scarring/scars, past fights, loneliness, isolation, self-hatred/self-deprecation, self-isolation, swearing/cursing, curses, death threats, thoughts of ducking out, public torture (implied), argument (no yelling but Hardcore Debates)

WORDS: 9752 (it.,,.s,.s so su fkcing l ong .,,. ,. ., akshdlgasf sorry im so proud of myself bc i rarely ever write single chapters this long and im screaming)

PAIRINGS: I. am so fucking proud to say. that there’s a lil’ Prinxiety, Anxciet, and Roceit. more Prinxiety than the other two, but that’s because Roman’s doing all the legwork in this chapter

MASTERPOST

AO3 link!

@starlightvirgil @forrestwyrm @daflangstlairde @marshmallow-the-panda@askthesnake @k9cat @patromlogil

enjoy!!! love y’all so much <3 <3 <3 <3

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Virgil didn’t think the first quest he’d have through Roman’s Imagination would involve trudging through a sewer line.

He pulled his hood tighter around his face, trying to block out the scent but leaving a hole just barely wide enough to see Deceit and the Thief walking in front of him, leading every step with the ball of his foot and basically tip-toeing through the cobblestone tunnel. The Thief had led him and Deceit around some roads too fast to follow, instructed them to put their hoods up and hide as much of their faces as they could until they breached the town’s defense wall, and to do that, they’d have to follow one of the paths beneath one of the two river branches. Underground and not seen. They were on the run from the guards, after all; Virgil agreed that getting caught would throw a wrench in absolutely everything.

Deceit was a little more careless. Virgil kinda wanted to kick him for it, actually. For someone so concerned about what was best for Thomas the real person, Deceit seemed very nonchalant about the whole “Roman, Creativity, might be gone forever” situation.

Roman was NOT gone forever.

Holy shit, Roman was gone.

Virgil squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled, covering his mouth with his hood. The realization was coming in waves, slapping him with the ice cold knowledge that they’d demoralized Roman so much he’d basically ducked out. He’d done more than ducked out. He was fucking dead.

Calm down time, he could hear Patton’s voice in the back of his head start counting one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

“Virgil. Are you coming?” Deceit said.

Virgil looked up to see Deceit and the Thief both stopped and standing a few paces in front of him, waiting. While Deceit just watched with his mouth pressed in a line, the Thief looked more concerned.

Was that concern? Virgil couldn’t tell. He just nodded, not removing the hood from his mouth or taking any further steps forward, but it seemed that his approval was enough to placate the both of them.

The Thief turned back around, continuing to lead. “Sorry. I know it’s dismal down here, but this’ the safest passage out of the city,” his fingers trailed along the right wall, making a soft scraping sound as the leather rubbed against the stone. “We’re almost out.”

Deceit was trailing right behind the Thief, close enough that his cloak’s flapping was gently hitting his shins. It seemed best to stick close to their guide, especially in as confusing a situation as this one. Plus he may be able to learn some more about the Pandora’s box that they’d opened when interrupting this death fight nonsense. He actually kept trying to grab the Thief’s hand, something to guide (not comfort), but he kept missing. Or the Thief was dodging. But no, no way would he be doing that.

They turned another corner and the Thief held up a hand, stopping Deceit and Virgil behind himself. Neither of them opened their mouths, but he still shushed quietly and turned to face the wall. It looked like dirt and stone like all the rest of the walls. The Thief said something, not to either of them but himself. Deceit leaned forward, hand outstretched, but Virgil swatted it away.

He also ignored the glare Deceit shot him. “What?” Deceit taunted quietly, “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Fuckin’ liar,” Virgil grumbled into his hood, muffled enough that neither of the others could hear what he said.

Deceit heard that he said something, though, and smirked. It was always rewarding to watch Virgil squirm, especially since….

His smirk fell and was replaced with a sigh. The path to hell was paved in good intentions, after all.

The Thief stepped back, causing Virgil and Deceit to jump. They hadn’t noticed that he’d set a few fires — there were a few wicks embedded in the stone — and the glittering golden flames formed a circle in the wall. In the circle, where there used to be wall, was a hole leading to the outside world. Virgil could definitely see grass out there.

He followed the Thief as he stepped through the opening and out into the grass. “C’mon. And stop arguing, I can hear your eyebrow muscles moving,” he said.

Both Deceit and Virgil stopped, casting wary glances at each other before following again. The Thief didn’t look at them at least, but that just made it even more confusing as to how he knew they’d been shooting each other death glares for the whole sewer trip.

Ah, well. Nothing in this realm made much sense, anyhow. Virgil looked up, squinting at their surroundings. They were definitely out of the city. Behind them was the looming city wall, definitely over four stories tall and seemingly impenetrable. The hole they’d exited from was closed, small wisps of smoke rising from where the Thief had extinguished the spell’s flames.

And speaking of which, apparently there was a Roman who was a witch or something. Logan was right about the magic in this world, then. That was another thing he’d have to be wary about. Are you ever so stressed that you’re calm? Oh, worm.

Virgil snorted to himself and rubbed his face. The memes, they’d ruin him one day.

Deceit cast him a curious look, but disregarded it before Virgil noticed. They didn’t have the time nor expendable energy for animosity. Not here, and not with the stakes so high. He was trying his best to not antagonize Virgil — okay, but come on, it was just so easy!

To their left was the river, though it was more like a stream as it cut through a grate in the wall and along the grassy expanse towards the forest. The Thief seemed to be following it, humming a tune as he pushed around reeds and tall grass. To his credit, the Thief seemed less stressed now that they were out of the city; he was swaying, even, to the song he was humming.

“Thief,” he stopped humming when Deceit interrupted him, “You live in the tree, in the forest, correct?”

“I do. You’ve seen it?” the Thief looked over his shoulder at Deceit quickly.

“Yes. When we arrived in this world, we were in a patch of grass in the forest. Your tree was our first checkpoint.”

Deceit moved the reeds in front of him away with his hands. Crickets were chirping out here, the water glittering golden as the sun lowered behind them. Sunset would be happening soon.

It seemed everything shone gold, here.

“Like a video game?” the Thief asked, humor laced through his voice.

Deceit sighed. “That was Virgil’s idea.”

“Hey—!”

“It was a good one,” the Thief cut him off, waving a hand at Deceit without looking at him. “The concept of checkpoints isn’t just a video game thing. Any story has constants, things that’re always there to help the reader place themselves into the story and understand how things flow. My tree’s always been that, so we’ve always got somewhere we’re…,” he trailed off, then chuckled. “Rooted to.”

“Booo,” Deceit groaned, ignoring Virgil’s quiet snickering, “Patton would approve.”

The Thief winced. He stopped walking — they were halfway to the forest, following the river — and pointed two red fingers at them both. “I should warn you, watch out whose names you say. You never know who’s listening.”

Deceit shot a panicked and confused look right at the Thief’s back. He turned to Virgil and found his expression mirrored on the anxious side’s face, both not liking the implications of that statement.

They turned back to the Thief, who had just turned around and continued walking. Virgil cleared his throat first.

“What do you mean by that….?”

“There’s a curse on your guys’ names. Logan, Patton, Virgil, Deceit,” the Thief’s voice was light, airy, as though he didn’t particularly care. “If you say it, everyone hears it, knows where it was said and who said it. I don’t really care but, well. I would prefer not having too many uninvited guests tonight.”

“O….kay.” Deceit cleared his throat and shook out his hands, a little more frustrated now with that knowledge. He would have to ask more about that later — there were so many things they didn’t know about, that they needed to approach, but he couldn’t keep dropping things for others. “But….more on the tree. How old is it?”

Make the Thief finish a train of thought. Virgil raised an eyebrow at Deceit, who nodded. That was their gameplan. Milk him for information, on anything, because at this point, anything was helpful.

He clapped happily, Deceit noted, walking with a slight pep in his step as his thoughts were redirected toward his tree. “It was formed before this challenge. Roman made it, actually, back when Thomas was a kid and wanted a treehouse he could escape into. When….we feel like we want to be alone, it’s where we go, so it was fitting that I’d move into it once this challenge started.”

Virgil sped up a little, to catch up enough to walk inline with Deceit. No point in bringing up the rear the farther they got from the city. “You see this whole situation as a challenge? Like, the battle royale situation.”

The Thief waved a hand as the incline changed, entering the forest. “Something like that, yeah. Mostly we’re all fighting about what we think is best for Roman.”

Deceit and Virgil shared a look. They remembered the Playwright’s words, about maintaining order. It was easy, in the euphoria of finding Roman, to forget that all of these forms had ulterior motives.

Briefly, Deceit considered what the Playwright’s ulterior motive was. He hadn’t mentioned having one, but it was in his nature to not trust that sort of silence.

“What do YOU think is best?” Virgil asked as they both turned back to the Thief.

He didn’t turn to look at them, holding out a hand as a small bluejay — where the fuck did the bird come from?! — landed on his hand. The Thief whistled quietly at it, and it chirped back, and flew away.

They could see a sliver of his face, drawn up in a small smile, expression strained even as they couldn’t see it.

“....Stay in the Imagination. For forever.”

There was a pause.

Deceit was watching the back of the Thief’s head, eyebrow raised and glare frozen. That was a twist. No, no it wasn’t. He should have seen this coming — the others’ letting him stay locked in his room would definitely send the message that they didn’t care if he came out. Of course.

He glanced at Virgil, only to find the anxious side glaring absolute daggers at the Thief’s head. He wanted to duck out (quack). Son of a bitch, there was a part of Roman that wanted to duck out (quack).

Virgil was gonna scream.

Deceit made a gesture, and Virgil’s hand clamped over his mouth. He shot daggers at Deceit, who did his best to only focus on the Thief.

“That doesn’t sound healthy,” Deceit said, voice quiet.

“I don’t remember asking your opinion, little white lie,” the Thief grunted as he climbed over a particularly thick root.

He shot Deceit a quick glare before disappearing around it. His hand stuck out and motioned them both to follow. Virgil punched Deceit’s arm with his other hand and Deceit sighed, letting up so Virgil could speak.

“That wouldn’t benefit anyone,” Virgil hissed, dread laced through his voice as he held back as much of his panic as he could. He and Deceit both cringed when his Tempest Tongue slipped out, though.

They climbed over the root, Virgil first and giving Deceit a sharp kick in the side as he did so. Deceit hissed, and slapped Virgil’s back.

The Thief watched them both with a glare as they appeared over the root.

virgil could definitively say that the Thief was one of the parts of Roman that he didn’t like. He was squirrely, too ready to judge and too eager to cut ties, and Virgil didn’t see what a center-stage hog like Roman would gain from losing his audience. It was counterintuitive.

But maybe it was tied to ducking out. Who fucking knows.

The Thief’s expression seemed to let up, but he looked away again, continuing up the hill. “You, too, Dark Knight.”

They followed for while in silence, until Deceit asked, voice softer, “And what if you’re wrong?”

Now the Thief stopped. His shoulders were stiff, as though he had half a mind to tell them to shut up, or even to turn them back. Virgil opened his mouth, but Deceit held out a hand, shaking his head. Let him think.

Eventually, he slumped, tilting his head back and exhaling. “That’s the point of breaking Roman apart,” his voice was strained, “We need to piece him back together into something more, ah….I’m bad at wording, but something more indestructible.”

That was what he had suspected. Deceit sighed, lowering his arm and approaching the Thief’s back. Carefully, he rested his hand on his shoulder, giving him one tug to turn around and ignoring how stiff the Thief turned. The forest around them was darkening, and red light from the setting sun streamed in around them.

A harsh breeze swept through the opening. Virgil held his cloak tight around himself and looked around. The fear of bears was definitely more real now. But Deceit was unfazed. He held the Thief’s arm tight, even though it was limp in his grip.

He wasn’t going to lose Roman over something so….well, for lack of a better word, trivial.

“No one’s perfect, Thief. Everyone’s got flaws and denying yours might result in,” Deceit paused, trying to phrase this without revealing his exact thoughts, “Unwanted consequences.”

The Thief’s eyes were cast down, at the ground. His entire body was rigid, as though Deceit’s hand had frozen him upon touch.

Had he always looked so defeated? Held a darkness in those eyes just as bright as the shine that comes when spinning a yarn or acting in a play?

Deceit glanced at Virgil, then back at the Thief. How had they let this happen?

He shrugged Deceit’s hand off with a sharp shake, still refusing to look at him. “Yeah. It probably will. And, once you’re all out of here, you won’t have to deal with those flaws again.”

Deceit’s eyebrows shot up, hand curling into a fist at his side as he argued in the only way he could. The Thief didn’t care?! “It’ll hurt HIM, and it doesn’t matter who wins this stupid challenge. You understand that, right?”

“Yeah,” the Thief barked out a laugh, “I’ll take your word for it, Silver Tongue.”

He continued forward, not checking that they were following.

Deceit’s hands were curled into tight fists at his sides, shaking slightly. That went against all of his work. All of his and the other Sides’ wor, too! Trying to save Roman, for him to snap back and self-destruct like this.

It was going to hurt THOMAS, didn’t Roman understand that?

Did he WANT that?!

He huffed, eyes fixed on a dandelion growing in the grass. It did make sense, it was a long time coming — of course, what an oversight on his part, to allow this isolation to extend for so long—

“Hey, breathe,” Virgil’s whisper brought him back to focus, “C’mon.”

Virgil’s hand wrapped around one of Deceit’s, coaxing his hand open with practised understanding and gripping tight. “Don’t panic. That’s my job.”

Deceit cast him a sidelong glare.

Virgil shrugged, lips pursed, but a thin smile still present. He swung their arms up, then down again, and tugged him along. Deceit could feel him taking away some of his anxieties. There was no doubt that it was unhealthy, for Virgil to be roiling in everyone’s panic, but he couldn’t help but also being thankful as Virgil squeezed his hand in small pulses, tugging him along after the Thief.

After about a minute, he exhaled.

“Thank you,” Deceit murmured, eyes downcast.

Virgil glanced at him.

They could do this. Deceit swung their arms, and Virgil let out an exasperated sigh.

He was definitely still high strung, but they could do this.

But the Thief still wanted to leave.

Deceit pressed his lips together as he felt Virgil physically stiffen, the thought kicking him back into the reality. Which, in and of itself, was ironic, because the Imagination was super duper not reality.

“Thief,” he didn’t turn towards them, “You want to duck out.”

It wasn’t a question. Virgil was glaring at the Thief’s back, eyes a little wide.

Something was ringing in his ears. That’d been his fear — that’d been Virgil’s actual, personal fear for this whole endeavor. It’d just been confirmed.

The Thief stepped over a particularly large root, waving his right arm out towards the forest. “Of course. You’re necessary. Anxiety needs to have a seat at the table, yeah. You keep him out of trouble.”

He kicked a rock and hopped over another root. “We don’t. Uncreative people’re out in the world everywhere. Thomas can live without us, or with us muted.”

Oh my goodness gracious, Virgil was so glad Logan wasn’t there to hear that leap of logic. He couldn’t help the growing disgust on his face.

Deceit squeezed his hand again, but the Thief continued. “Getting to spend all our time here, in a world of our own creation? Win. You all get to go about running Thomas without getting annoyed by us all the time? Win. It’s a double win. A win-win.”

Virgil stood up straight, finally letting go of Deceit’s hand to gesture angrily at the Thief’s back. He seethed, throwing his arms into the air and shaking his tightly-gripped fists at the sky. It was like talking to a brick wall! An incredibly stubborn and narrow-minded brick wall who didn’t seem to have any critical thinking!

Maybe he should call it quits. He squatted, wrapping his arms around his head to block out the sunlight, trying to calm down again.

“Virgil.”

No, no, that wasn’t what he did. If Roman was stubborn, then Virgil was immovable, and he was gonna get his idiot back.

A hand rested on his shoulder, pulling him upward. Virgil swatted away at it, growling quietly into his own arms.

“Virgil, get up,” Deceit’s voice was barely audible over the blood pounding in his ears, “Or he’s gonna walk away.”

He nodded, exhaling into the ball he was curled into.

Let go. Let go of the damn worries.

“Virgil. Listen to my voice. Perhaps we cannot convince him, not alone and not tonight, but we can at least stay with him. Give him options.”

He’d trained himself to not listen to Deceit, who’d lied and manipulated his way around Thomas’ head. But, just this once….

Virgil nodded again and stood upright slowly, knees creaking and popping. They could do this.

Deceit patted his shoulder and motioned forward. The Thief was already a few yards ahead, but not out of sight just yet.

They both hurried after him.

Until he stopped.

The Thief’s shoulders slumped in relief as he finally spotted his tree in the distance. His pace quickened, jogging himself across the few meters between where he stood and the tree, and was followed by the other two Sides. Once they reached the tree, the Thief placed a hand against its side, running it along the bark slowly. As though greeting a friend.

“Welcome home,” he hummed, smiling up at the canopy.

He searched in his pocket and pulling out a lighter — a regular modern lighter, wasn’t there supposed to be a medieval theme or something?! That was MULTIPLE ITEMS— Deceit squinted at it, opening his mouth in an offended fashion. He was going to say something about that, because it was pretty unfair that he got to have something so modern while everyone else was relegated to objects that were period accurate, but Virgil elbowed him in the side.

The Thief, who was pressing the lighter to the black chalk, swirling the flame along the “door” opening, didn’t seem to notice. Virgil honestly just wanted to see what this magic was all about. Once he was done drawing the circle, he stepped back and held a hand out, pushing Deceit and Virgil back, too. “Open sesame,” he said with a grin.

All of the black chalk was alight, glowing gold from the flame. The Thief held a hand out for the drawn-on handle, and as soon as his hand got within an inch it glowed golden itself. The chalky text lit up red. He slowly turned the handle, now filling his hand with an amorphous golden light, and pushed the door open.

It swung easily, as though on invisible hinges.

The Thief smiled as the scent of home wafted over him. He took a deep breath, it’d been a long day, he was home, he was safe, and he turned to Deceit and Virgil.

Both of the other Sides were staring at the thick hole in the tree, mouths open slightly and eyes open much more. There wasn’t much to see inside the door, as there was a small staircase leading up to the actual living quarters, but the fact that the fairly solid tree opened was something. Neither of them had seen the magic in Roman’s kingdom, after all, and while they knew this was what happened….seeing it was a much different experience.

It was kind of humorous, actually. To think that he’d be bringing other Sides into his little sanctuary.

It felt….nice.

Shut up, shut up with that romantic bullshit.

“Are you coming?” he asked, cocking his lips into a smirk as he waved them in.

Virgil snapped out of it first, surprisingly. He shook his head and nodded. “Yeah. ‘Course.” He elbowed Deceit, who jumped and nodded so vigorously his hat fell off.

The Thief caught it, hand shooting out, and blinked at himself. And then he laughed.

His demeanor had flipped almost at the exact moment they got to the tree. He wasn’t curled inwards, dancing around words and ideas. No, here he was, his laugh light, airy and carefree, something that he didn’t seem capable of prior. A few birds in the forest even chirped along. One cardinal landed on his head, whistling with him, and he didn’t seem to mind.

Virgil and Deceit shared a look, both equally blushing. This was a stark change and their glum guide was kinda cute.

The bird thing was textbook Disney prince too, like, how did he even —

“Alright,” the Thief brushed off the hat, lips quirked in a small smile, “Enough fucking around, c’mon.”

He put the hat back onto Deceit’s head, hands carding through Deceit’s hair as he did so. If the Thief noticed how much redder he got, then he didn’t let on, because he turned around as soon as the hat was on snug.

Virgil noticed, though. He pressed the butt of his palm to his mouth, stifling a laugh as the snake spluttered silently at the Thief’s back.

The Thief, still unaware — maybe unaware, maybe not? — went into the tree and climbed the stairs without waiting for them to follow. Virgil went first, then Deceit quickly, not wanting to be alone in the forest for long and not wanting to think about that incredibly gentle and not-at-all pleasing interaction.

No sir. Not pleasing. Not what he absolutely wanted for the rest of his life.

For once, he cursed the existence of gloves. How much softer would the Thief’s hands be without them?

Deceit would die before acknowledging that he absolutely definitely didn’t not have a crush.

Virgil stepped up to the top landing, beside the Thief, and looked around. It was small, but cozy. Before them was a sitting area with a thick couch, identical to the one Thomas actually had in his living room but without the bend. In front of it was a wooden coffee table, beneath was a rug with circles, almost like the rings of a tree, Virgil thought. Atop the table was a vase of red roses in full bloom.

To the right was a small kitchen alcove, separated from the sitting area with a counter peninsula that had two toasters sitting on it. Two toasters. This Roman must like his bread, apparently. Floating around between the kitchen and sitting area were some candles, all lit and casting the room in a comforting warm glow. On the left was a stairwell, wooden and spiraling up in such a way that Virgil could only see the first few steps.

Besides the stairwell was a second door. As Deceit stepped up into the room, the Thief went to the second door and opened it. As soon as the door touched the back of the hall it opened to, it disappeared, leaving an uninhibited opening down to a curving hallway that seemed to wrap around the tree’s trunk.

“Make yourselves at home,” the Thief said, waving his hand at the living room, “Do you want me to take your cloaks?”

Deceit put up his hand dismissively, turning in a circle and examining the room.

Virgil also shook his head, holding his cloak around himself more. The Thief shrugged at him, taking off his own cloak. “Suit yourself.”

As he moved to hang it up, Virgil could see that the gloves went to the middle of his forearms, and his shirt seemed to be tucked into them. No part of him was exposed other than his collar, neck, and head. Interesting?

When Virgil turned back to Deceit, to maybe, you know, indicate that this Roman was taking some pages out of his book, he found that Deceit was wandering through the kitchen. He pointed to the two toasters, made a judgemental face at Virgil, and continued opening the cabinets and drawers. Virgil slumped a little. Figures.

He sighed, walking over to the couch and flopping onto it. Oh. It even smelt like Thomas’ couch. The tension left his shoulders as he rolled onto his side, pressing his face into the cushions and taking in a deep breath. It was dizzying, how quickly this lowered his heart rate. Virgil hadn’t realized how stressed he was with the fast-paced changes of this situation.

The hardwood floor creaking indicated that Deceit had moved from the kitchen to the hallway. His footsteps echoed away down the hall.

“You want some tea?” Virgil heard the Thief ask.

He shook his head. He just wanted to lay down for now.

“Deceit? Tea?”

“I’m fine, thank you. May I go upstairs?”

“Intrusion doesn’t seem to be something you worry about, given how you went through my kitchen.”

Deceit didn’t grace that with a response, and Virgil heard his footsteps tapping up the stairs.

Silence again. He hummed into the pillow and rolled over into his own cloak. He just needed some time.

“....Do you want something to eat?” the Thief tried and, again, Virgil shook his head.

“‘M good.”

“Mhm.”

The Thief went around the kitchen calmly. Virgil could hear it. His steps were soft, though not as quiet as Deceit’s. More just….comfortable. Not as heavy as Romans typically would be, either.

Virgil sat upright slowly, still hugging one of the cushions, and looked up. The Thief’s gloves were sitting on the counter, as was the Thief himself, cradling a mug in heavily-scarred hands. Virgil actually did a small double-take upon seeing them.

The Thief raised an eyebrow, questioning.

“....Your hands’re fucked up,” Virgil stated.

He got a nod back. “Wow, I had no idea ‘bout that. Not like they’re on my body or anything.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. Roman always was a smartass. “No shit. Were….Roman’s hands aren’t like that, right?”

The Thief took a sip from the mug and did a so-so motion with his hand. “Yes and no. All my scars are definitely real. It’s not like we get out of every scrap with creatures, monsters, villains, the like without any damage. But Roman just sorta conjures flatter skin on top of it.”

Virgil frowned. There were a lot of questions he had for that, but he didn’t want to bombard him just this second. “That’s pretty weird, not gonna lie. So they normally heal into scars?” he gestured to the Thief, who nodded.

“Yeah, and it’s better to conjure up new skin than make you all worried.”

He must have recoiled, because the Thief laughed a little at him and took another sip. He wiped his mouth with the butt of his palm, shaking his head and speaking into his hand. “C’mon, you can’t tell me Patt wouldn’t flip if he saw this shit.”

Patton….very much would. All of them would, if Roman ever came in with that many scars. He was scared of what they’d say.

Virgil was getting a clearer image of the Thief’s intentions every minute. Still, for now, he just shrugged and conceded. “You’re right, I guess.”

The Thief nodded, opening his mouth to continue, but Deceit’s footsteps hopping down the stairs interrupted him. The snake in question popped out around the spiral staircase’s bend, and Virgil saw that he’d removed his hat and cloak somewhere. He had a hand raised, too, to get their attention.

“Thief, question. Well. First, the top floor is beautiful — marvelous work,” the Thief raised his glass, but otherwise didn’t react. Must not be so susceptible to flattery, Deceit noted. “I saw a city. A modern looking one, behind the mountains.”

“Oh, yeah.”

The Thief took another sip of his drink and motioned for Deceit to sit by pulling out a stool from beneath the counter, with his leg. “That’s just another setting. We don’t always adhere to a medieval theme in here, but right now we’ve kinda fallen back on the Disney royalty theme because it’s something we’re familiar with. That, and we can all agree it’s marvelous.”

“I see,” Deceit sat beside Virgil, crossing his legs on the cushion. “So you’re never going to change the setting, though?”

Deceit thought it was a fair question, but the Thief let out a short laugh. “Are you kidding? We’d have to flip everything around! God, we’d need new names, too, and new hiding places. It’s all too much work.”

He took another sip, then set his mug down. Deceit then noticed his hands, brow furrowing. He opened his mouth to bring it up, but Virgil elbowed him in the side and waved his hand.

He’d explain later. Best not interrupt, because the Thief rubbed his mouth and continued. “I don’t even think we can. It’d need to be a unanimous decision, like a coherent thought, and we’re not really capable of that right now.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Virgil asked.

The Thief looked at them both. He seemed to be debating something.

This Roman took his time with his words. That must mean he had a lot to hide, Deceit thought, or he didn’t want to expose certain ideas.

“For one. Dragon would kill us.”

Ah. “Dragon?” Deceit asked, “Care to elaborate?”

The Thief looked at his knees, then hopped off of the counter. “I’m going to make dinner,” he said, voice a little more airy, clearly trying to deflect from this conversation, “Spaghetti okay?”

“Tell us about Dragon,” Virgil pressed harder.

The Thief shot him a squinted look and relented as he set up the pot of water. “He’s another one of us, another Roman,” his voice held so much disdain. “He’s dramatic, loud, all that good stuff, but the biggest thing about him is that he really likes being right.”

“You don’t like him,” Deceit stated.

“Can’t say I’m a fan.”

He opened a cupboard and took out a box of pasta. He cleared his throat, glancing up at the two expectant faces before relenting again.

“He’s a bit of a sadist. Like….he moved into the castle. He controls the guards. They all listen to ‘Roman,’” here, the Thief did air quotations, “But they aren’t sentient enough to notice that there are seven of us now, so they listen to the guy who took charge. Dragon.”

A villain part of Roman, apparently. One who would attack the others, if the way they found the Thief being chased by guards was any indication. Virgil stood up, going into the kitchen. “Where’re the plates?” he asked quietly, “‘M gonna set the table.”

The Thief nodded to one of the cabinets and Virgil opened it, taking out some plates. He set them down on the counter only for them to be picked up by Deceit and dispersed around the peninsula, where the three counter stools were.

“Dragon,” Deceit reminded, and the Thief sighed.

“Before you guys showed up, he caught another one of us. Another Roman. And, God….” his voice trailed off.

The pot was boiling. The Thief put the noodles in, taking a wooden spoon and easing them into the water. He seemed to roll something around in his head, lolling back and forth, before grimacing and continuing. “He….he did a lot of bad things to Damsel, the other Roman. Beat him publicly, in the village’s central square so all the characters got to see. So that we could all see. It was horrifying.”

A chill swept through the glassless windows of the tree.

“That’s….” Virgil and Deceit spoke at the same time.

“Dark.”

“Awful.”

They shared a look before turning back to Thief, who was churning the noodles, eyes glued to the rising steam and boiling water. It was surprising that the steam didn’t put out any of the candles, actually.

He looked forlorn, lost and defeated. “It was like a warning, to the rest of us. Don’t get caught, or else.”

Deceit picking up the conversation. “I didn’t realize there was a part of Roman willing to do….that. And for what?”

“For approval. And what can I say? He lives for validation, would kill for it, too. We all know you’re in here, so he’s definitely hunting you guys, maybe to gloat and probably hoping you all will tell him he did good,” the way Thief said it sounded almost too nonchalant, like it were forceful.

He turned off the stove top’s heat — hang on, Deceit thought, a stove?! Well, fuck the theme-ing then. This was a neverending hell of inconsistencies — and pulled a strainer out from another cabinet. Slowly, the Thief strained out the water, talking all the while.

“He probably wants to….” his eyes flicked up at them, quick as a flash, and he let out a small exhale. “I dunno. He’s a bit of a dice roll. One second, he’s talking about how much he wants all of you to love him, brushing his hair in the mirror and painting his nails, just being harmless, and the other second he’s talkin’ about how much he wants to dismember you and throw your bodies into locked boxes in the river.”

Virgil and Deceit exchanged a look, one worried and one determined. They were safe, knew how to defend themselves, and had the means with which to defend themselves, but….

Virgil’s brow furrowed. Logan and Patton were out there somewhere. And there was a bit of Roman that seemed happy to kill literally anything.

He looked up at Deceit, who was watching him with squinted eyes. Logan and Patton must be fine. They must be.

What if they weren’t? Virgil squinted right back at him. They could be hurt.

No, they were fine.

The Thief cleared his throat, cutting through the tension like a knife and drawing both of their attentions back to him. He was heating up some sauce now, mixing in some herbs with what looked like a tomato-paste base, eyes shifting between Virgil and Deceit.

The staredown lasted for a minute or two before he relented, exhaling and hitting his spoon on the side of the pan.

“Let’s….pause, for a hot sec. Dinner’s almost done and, after that, you both should sleep,” his voice carried like a whisper around the small kitchen.

Neither of them responded, and the Thief just kept cooking. He slowly poured the noodles into the sauce, mixing up a little before gesturing to the pasta.

He couldn’t honestly expect them to just drop the conversation like that. Could he?

“We are going to have to confront Dragon,” Deceit raised an eyebrow at him, “You know that, right?”

The Thief shrugged. He picked up a plate, took out a pair of tongs, and began putting pasta on the plate. “Probably. I can’t help you there, though. I’ve just been setting off all the booby traps in the castle, so he gets stuck in them. And stealing his jewelry. He’s got a hoard of it.”

Like a dragon, Virgil thought. And with scales, probably, and claws. And wings. Maybe he breathed fire.

He was frightened to all heck, but if they wanted Roman back, they’d have to….what. Talk with him? Probably talk with him.

He looked at Deceit, who was looking at the pasta, and then he heard his own stomach growl. The Thief had sat down at one of the peninsula stools, pointedly ignoring them for his noodles.

Then, he giggled. The Thief covered his mouth with a hand, but they both could see that a broad smile was behind it.

“What?” Deceit asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The Child just said the Social Nerd-work’s name. That means Dad-ton Abbey and him’re safe at the Artist’s house,” he explained, waving a hand and swirling his pasta on a fork, “Wow.”

Wow indeed. A little bit of the tension in Virgil’s shoulders released. Patton and Logan were safe, fine, hidden away with another less-murderous Roman. That was some good news.

….Well. Virgil sighed, more at ease now, and relented to the pasta. As he sat at the counter, Deceit went to make himself a plate.

They ate in nearly absolute silence, none of them wanting to mention the lack of a plan and the looming fear of this villainous Roman who apparently wanted to kill them all.

Deceit finished first, and he ran his hand through his hair, smoothing it back. “We’re sleeping here, correct? I also don’t suppose you have a shower or something?”

Thief pointed down a hall. “We might have an aesthetic going, but I’d die without a whole bathroom set up. Down and to the left, there’re towels in the side closet,” he took a final bite and set his fork down, standing up

“Thank you,” Deceit said, shooting Virgil a small look as he ducked toward the bathroom.

Deceit probably wanted him to ask more about the situation. Virgil tiredly continued to eat, but the pit that was opening his stomach was taking up more room than the pasta could fill. It was clear that the Thief — both of the Romans they’d interacted with, but right now, the Thief — trusted Virgil a lot more than Deceit. At least it showed a certain awareness on Roman’s part of Deceit’s trickery?

And it wasn’t like Virgil could help how upset he was by all this. It was a stressful situation and had a stressfully silent week before it.

“I also,” Virgil looked back up at the Thief, who gestured to Virgil’s plate, “Forgot to thank you all. For coming after us. Honestly didn’t expect it.”

Virgil nodded and carefully stood up from his stool. The Thief smiled and took the plate, but his brows were pinched. He wanted an explanation, didn’t he? It felt like a weird thing to need to explain. It was obvious. Wasn’t it?

“We were worried,” it sounded lame aloud, but the Thief just nodded in response.

“Thanks,” he put the plates into the sink and pointed down the hall, too. “You should go check out a room, too. Maybe change into some pajamas or something more comfortable? There’re, uh, pajamas. I’m just going to do the dishes then head to bed myself.”

Again, Virgil nodded. He was at a loss for words, honestly, and that was all a lot of information to process.

Take one thing at a time, though. That was what the Thief was suggesting, wasn’t it? “Sure thing,” he said, dashing away immediately.

The hall was dark, long, and curved. There were candles floating along the walls, same as out in the living area, and there were doors on either side. One already had Deceit’s double-snake-head logo shining yellow. Besides that door was another, unmarked door, but Virgil could hear a shower coming from inside.

He needed to get a room, first. Across from the bathroom was another unmarked door, probably a bedroom, and Virgil ducked into it, closing the door quickly.

He immediately threw himself onto the bed and rubbed his face. That probably smudged his eyeliner. It was already smudged.

No, no, he didn’t have the time to care about that. Virgil sat upright and looked around. There was a small open-fronted wardrobe pressed against the wall, with some pairs of pants and some shirts hanging on the wall. Surprisingly, they all looked to be various combinations of purple, black, and grey. He stood up, against his desire to curl into a ball and sleep on that bed for all eternity, and checked out the clothing. Yep, everything was about his aesthetic, and some even had his logo on them. Neat.

There was the bed and there was a mirror on top of the wardrobe. Around the room were some floating candles, but none were lit, and there was a light switch by the door. Virgil squinted. How the fuck did that work?

He flicked the switch and they all turned on, lit by flames. Alright. That was cool.

Virgil had to talk to the Thief. He couldn’t dance around it.

Or he could stay in here and admire how the wardrobe auto-filled with clothes that fit his style. Or he could admire the cool candle lights. Those would look sick in his room, actually. He should talk to the Thief about that, instead of literally anything else he actually had to talk to him about.

He just wanted Roman back, goddamnit. He wanted the Roman who would do outrageous things just to see Virgil smile. The one who would put on Black Cauldron for the millionth time, without complaint, when Virgil was having a bad day. He wanted the Roman who worked to improve himself and worked to include him, and didn’t shy away, and didn’t want to hide, and didn’t make him feel like he himself had overlooked something so disastrous as a crumbling self-image and gnawing concern that no one loved him.

The guilt weighed heavy in his stomach. Yeah, guilt. Virgil had felt Roman’s anxieties growing, but did he bring it up? Well, okay, he did. But every time that he did, Roman had deflected it with a witty quip or incredibly stupid comment or even that dumb, dashing smile. And then Roman would catch that he was nervous about something. He would never guess that it was himself.

Virgil could almost imagine what he’d do. Roman would take him by the hand into his room, always with the lights dimmer, more simplistic than was usual. He’d sit him in his squishy armchair, stand behind him, rub his shoulders and let him just vent.

Or maybe Roman would lead him down into the kitchen, sing a merry tune and make Virgil some peppermint tea. Swirl around in the kitchen, making jokes or telling stories, on those days where Virgil didn’t want to talk.

Ever since they’d shifted to accepting him, Roman had done his best. Extra, frivolous, occasionally over-the-top, but his fucking best. Virgil owed his best right back.

Virgil had to get him back. He had to face the music.Virgil’s fists balled at his sides as he whispered to himself, “Fuck it,” and threw open his door.

He hurried out of the hall and stopped in the entryway into the living area. The Thief was cradling another mug, sitting on a stool and staring at the flower vase sitting on the coffee table.

“Hey, Roman,” the Thief jumped and some liquid splashed out of his mug. Virgil winced. “Sorry, Thief?”

Virgil felt a little more guilty as the Thief sighed, rolling his shoulders and casting him a raised eyebrow. “Yeah, Virgil? You need anything?”

“Not really,” Virgil leaned on the wall as the Thief pulled out a roll of paper towels and tore some off. “I just wanted to say thanks. For keeping us safe. I don’t know what we would have done if you didn’t let us sleep over.”

The Thief pressed the towels to the spilt tea and matched eyes with Virgil. He gave him a reassuring albeit crooked smile, hair falling out of whatever order it’d been. It fluffed up around his face and, almost, looked like a crown. One of his hands reached up and ran through his hair, pushing it back into the messy but suave side-part Roman always had.

Hey, stop staring. Virgil blinked slowly and focused on the Thief’s words. “....probably safest place in the setting.”

He nodded, then shifted his weight, putting his hands in his pockets. Here goes. “Also, I don’t really understand why you want to be alone so badly. Like, I do, I get that feeling too sometimes, but….”

The Thief sighed, frustration laced through his breath, and Virgil added. “You know we’d miss you, Roman.”

That got him to falter. He stared at the countertop, then lifted the flower vase and cleaned beneath that. “I can’t say I wouldn’t miss you all, too,” he said. “I wish I wouldn’t. That’s more what I want. When we are all together, the best moments are so good. Nothing brings us more joy than seeing you smile and laugh at memes with us, or hearing Logan’s gasp when he reads something enticing, or watching Patton fuss around the kitchen. Heck, even Deceit’s dumb smirk makes us happy.”

Virgil could hear the “but” hanging in the air, especially once the Thief scrubbed the counter with extra vigor.

“But the lows. We can’t always handle the criticism, the shouting, the arguing and belittling. Being told we’re not enough,” he sighed, then added in a much softer voice. “That I’m not enough.”

He tossed the paper towels away into the trash bin, beneath the sink, and leaned his back on the sink’s edge. “Sometimes, I can’t help but wish I wanted to be alone. And if we self-impose that loneliness, then it might make it easier. To be alone.”

Virgil rubbed the back of his neck, watching. He’d known that they were less than supportive, on the best of days, but that was their job. Especially Virgil’s. He was the guy who was supposed to spot possible problems, things that the audience might not like, things that might endanger Thomas. He’d thought that Roman understood that he was doing it out of….

Alright, there was the L word again.

His internal monologue was interrupted when the Thief stood up straight and faced Virgil determinedly, wearing a tired smile.

“If you can convince the others, then I’ll come quiet. I just think that being alone’s….easier to handle,” he laughed a little to himself, a quiet chuckle that Virgil thought sounded hollow. “Besides, if Roman isolates himself, then it doesn’t matter if….”

His smile faltered a little, eyes seeming to watch something distantly away from Virgil. As quick as the expression came, though, it went as he looked back down at the counter. He reached up and ran his hands through his hair, settling it back.

There must be something Virgil should do or say. There must be, because sitting in silence like this — god, the Thief was gonna start crying, wasn’t he?

What wouldn’t matter? The question burned in his mind.

“....Haven’t I been through enough heartbreaks?”

The Thief’s question was so quiet, so desperate, that Virgil thought he just imagined it until a floorboard creak behind him indicated that someone had approached. He glanced back to see Deceit, hair still damp, clothed in a simple cream shirt and dark brown trousers. Pajamas, clearly, maybe taken from the room. Deceit nodded to the Thief, who was hunching over the counter, eyes stuck on the counter.

Virgil pursed his lips and made a so-so hand motion. He didn’t know exactly what was motivating the Thief, but they were getting inklings. Deceit nodded again in response and stood behind Virgil.

Who turned back to the Thief, still staring at the table. “We need you,” was how Virgil started, trying to piece together the best way to phrase what he wanted to say.

The Thief looked up at him and Virgil saw some wetness glittering in his dark brown eyes. They locked with his, not necessarily a glare nor anything aggressive. You could have convinced Virgil that the Thief was pleading. But for what, he couldn’t tell.

And then he smiled. He smiled and shook his head, looking away again.

“I…” He covered his mouth with a hand and reconsidered, shaking his head, “Nah, it’s dumb.”

“You’re not dumb, Thief.”

Virgil pushed off of the doorway to stand besides the Thief as he sank into one of the counter stools. Gently, like Roman had done for him many times, he put his hands on the Thief’s shoulders. “Can I?” he asked, voice quiet.

The Thief nodded, hand holding his mouth tight. His other hand, resting on the table and not gripping anything, had a slight tremor. Deceit stepped into the dining area, lips pinched in worry. He certainly wasn’t the one silencing the Thief, if it was anyone at all.

Virgil began rubbing the Thief’s shoulders, leaning closer and watching as his shoulders hiked up a little more. He was so tense, stiff as a rock.

“Listen. Thief,” Virgil glanced at Deceit, who was shifting his weight lamely, and nodded toward the mugs.

Deceit seemed to get the idea, because he nodded and got to work immediately. The Thief’s hand slid upward, covering his eyes now, and he shuddered as Virgil put more pressure on his shoulders. “Is this okay?” Virgil asked again, quietly, and the Thief nodded.

“Thanks,” his voice was so quiet that Virgil could barely hear him.

“You know,” Virgil hummed, quiet but determined. “I tried the whole lone-wolf thing. Thought it’d be good to keep myself separate ‘cause it would protect you all. Thought that was for the best. None of you seemed to want me back then, either.”

The Thief whined, and Virgil let up. But as his shoulders stiffened again, Virgil felt his anxiety mount. “No–uh, sorry, no that just–that was a good spot,” the Thief tried to explain, face turning redder under his hand.

Deceit snorted behind him, and Virgil kicked his heel out, managing to hit him square in the shin. He let out a chuckle when Deceit hissed in pain.

“I’m sorry. That we made you feel like that,” both of the other Sides looked at the Thief, whose hands were now both on the counter.

Virgil’s were still resting on his shoulders, so he exhaled and pressed down again. “We-We shouldn’t have—” the Thief tried to continue, but Virgil cut him off.

“Not saying you shouldn’t have, but you’ve been apologizing for it. You….all accept me, now. I’m working on getting used to that, you all work on making me feel included, and we work together. Maybe there’re highs, maybe there’re lows. That’s how everything goes, but we always get through it when we work as a team. ‘Cause teamwork makes the dream work, right?” Virgil smiled when the Thief snorted, “And we can’t make the team work without the dream.”

The Thief sat up a little more. Virgil didn’t want to pressure him or anything, so he rubbed a particularly tight knot near the base of his neck before letting go. It seemed that the Thief came to some understanding, though.

“Hot chocolate’s done,” Deceit said.

He leaned down beside Virgil and set a full mug down on the counter in front of the Thief. He then nudged Virgil’s hip with his own, holding out a mug for him but eyes not meeting Virgil’s.

That was the first bad sign. Virgil pressed his mouth into a line. Before he could make a move, though, Deceit picked up his own mug and stepped away. “I’m going to sleep,” he announced, “I can only assume tomorrow will be just as taxing as today was. Goodnight Roman. Virgil.”

Deceit’s eyes were still cast lower as he nodded once toward the Thief and once toward Virgil, and he stared at the floor as he hurried to the hallway. He disappeared down the hall, into the darkness, and they both heard his door close sharply.

Damn. So much for that truce.

Yeah, sure, Virgil wasn’t fond of Deceit. Much.

He used to be. They used to be thick as thieves — Patton would be proud of that pun, Virgil thought — and while time and responsibilities have wore down that relationship….Deceit was still important to him. Yeah, he was a bad influence, but, like….

Whatever. He didn’t care. He didn’t.

The Thief leaned back a little, head resting on Virgil’s shoulder. “You should sleep, too, Paramoody.”

His head tilted back and he smiled up at Virgil, who squinted at him. “If you fall backwards on that stool, I’m gonna laugh.”

“In fact, I’m the owner of Roman’s single braincell,” the Thief’s smile softened, “Thanks for earlier. I’ll think about that.”

His eyes were so soft. Had Roman always had that little beauty mark? Virgil really only noticed it now, with his face so close and with that weird scar pointing at it.

Not that he endorsed Roman being damaged in any physical way, but the scar was also. Pretty hot.

The Thief chuckled quietly, one hand reaching up to patt Virgil’s cheek.

His hands were a little cold, but they were soft, despite the scars. Virgil could feel him shudder a tiny bit as the Thief gently ran his thumb along his cheekbone.

Virgil felt….comfortable.

Why didn’t he want this, again? The Thief watched Virgil watching him, and saw him slowly lean his head into his hand. He must be tired, that was why Virgil was so open with him. There couldn’t have been another reason.

Still.

“Alright, you actually need to sleep, ‘cause your eyeshadow’s all over your face,” the Thief pulled his hand away and sat upright again.

As he slid off the stool, saying something about sleep and grabbing his hand, Virgil tuned him out, letting himself be pulled around.

What the hell was THAT moment? This was the absolute worst time to be reminded that he was a disaster, and the Thief must be so creeped out by how he was just staring at his goddamn face.

“And my room’s upstairs. If you go up the stairs, take a left, you’ll find me, okay?” Virgil blinked, looking up.

They were at the entrance to the hallway now. The Thief smiled kindly at him, though his brow was pinched in worry. “Have a good night, Virgil,” he whispered, hand still holding Virgil’s.

Virgil nodded, not trusting what he’d say if he opened his mouth, and met him with a small smile.

He wished had retained more of the romantic parts of Roman. Then, maybe, he’d be able to find the right words to describe how willing he was to throw this whole challenge away just to see that smile for the rest of eternity.

The Thief leaned in and pecked Virgil’s cheek. Then, he darted away, waist sash trailing up after him as he escaped up the stairs.

Virgil stared into nothing, eyes stuck to the empty staircase. Slowly, his hand lifted to his cheek, fingers grazing where the Thief’s — Roman’s — lips had been.

What the fuck.

Don’t even consider it.

He found himself walking back to the room he’d chosen — it was easy to find, his storm cloud logo was glowing a soft purple on the door — and collapsed onto the bed.

Virgil was absolutely sore from how fast his thoughts had been running today. It felt like years ago that he’d found Deceit in the hall and slammed him into the wall.

Oof. Maybe he wouldn’t sleep tonight, now that he’d remembered that. Virgil groaned into his pillow, crossing his arms over his head and pressing into it as his breathing’s erraticness increased

Deceit had been truly upset. Frustrated, angry, yeah, sure, that was the point — Virgil hadn’t expected that flash of betrayal. He couldn’t get that stupid snakey hurt expression out of his goddamn head. Plus it was just poor instincts to immediately strangle someone. And the way Deceit had slunk out of the kitchen just now, not daring to look at either of their faces.

He screamed into the pillow, pressing down into it even more. Calm down. He had to calm down.

What, why calm down now? You’d been holding this panic attack in all day, Virgil.

The pillow grew damp beneath his face; he hadn’t noticed that he was crying a little.

Virgil flipped over, now pressing the back of his head into the pillow, and wrapped his arms around his head, wiping at his eyes with his hand. He began tapping his left hand on the back of his arm, counting quietly as he inhaled, held, and exhaled.

It helped that it wasn’t completely silent. Virgil’s room had a window, a circle in above the bed. A gentle breeze wafted in, as did the sound of the trees rustling, frogs croaking, and bugs buzzing — a solid background noise to focus on, rather than the day’s events. Virgil mentally counted the frogs’ croaks as he felt his chest loosen. Maybe it was a product of being in the Imagination and, by extension, Roman’s room, but he got a grip of himself faster than usual.

As he calmed down, though, he also regained the feelings of absolute exhaustion. Calm quickly turned to drowsiness, and Virgil was asleep within seconds.

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nemossubmarine · 5 years

Text

Warhammer 40k: Wrath & Glory RP #26

We played this final session of our Elysium adventures before Christmas but I was without computer for most of Christmas, so I’m only writing this up now. Good thing I have 6 pages of detailed notes to work with. Let’s see how the revolution went.

We start with checking how our heroes have prepared for the assassination of the tech-priest few days before the moment of truth.

Gimlet’s, Saef’s and Zamiel’s booze run goes well.

Vivek and Saef join Zamiel in some drinking and while on it, find out that Zamiel’s father was also not Enlightened.

In the sector a search for three bearded men is conducted, with lots of servo skulls around, so our heroes hole in in Malika’s basement.

Some of the resistance fighters try to smuggle gun parts out of the factories.

Our total is 8 guns, that Zamiel and Gimlet put together (well Gimlet mostly, but he attempts to teach Zamiel), but two people never make it back.

Gimlet brings up the fact that he’s hoping to get information out of the tech priest, as well as possibly the servitors and the lenses.

Vivek is of the opinion that the tech priest isn’t going to be a very talkative fellow, so best wait until after he’s dead to do that.

Gimlet apparently has a 12-part questionnaire about Inquisitor Fane and his dealings he wants answers to.

Saef sneaks back to our perma-invisible ship to get more weapons.

On his way back, he has to divert into the sewers to avoid being caught and loses his bludgeon in the sewers.

He returns for it, but a servo skull is guarding the place. Saef smites the servo skull, grabs his bludgeon and bolts.

Back at base, Vivek and Malika teach some of the resistance fighters shooting.

Someone tells Vivek that he should be a teacher for real, which flusters the man somewhat.

Saef teaches melee combat, mostly defensive stances to the revolutionaries.

Zamiel explains to us how the proceedings usually go on the day of Enlightening; The tech-priest arrives in the elevator, makes a speech and makes his way to the factory where some Space Marines are standing guard.

We decide it’s probably best to attack him when he steps out of the elevator.

It is decided that Saef will take the lenses that will turn him into an Ultramarine to get him close enough to the Smith to do some psyker stuff, and that will be our cue to go.

Saef goes out and hides his weapons in a house close to the elevator.

At some point, Vivek pulls Saef and Gimlet aside and tells them that there’s a chance that the tech-priest may be able to take over Vivek in some way, and if that happens, well, take him out or something.

Usually skitarii are only connected to their own tech-priests, but this is a rogue tech-priest so who even knows.

Thus arrives the big day of the Enlightening ceremony. Saef is hiding near the elevator while Gimlet and Zamiel, and Vivek and Malika have positioned themselves in the houses nearby.

First thing our heroes notice is that the Space Marines are missing, which is a bit of a concern.

People have gathered to wait for the Smith to arrive, and they are happy, it’s a whole celebration. The people to be Enlightened have lined up and they appear to be rather proud of themselves.

In the house, Malika has a hard time containing her tears, and Vivek puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Then the elevator starts coming down. In it is the Smith, a huge tech-priest that looks quite unlike usual tech-priests (his head is completely blank aside from the few points of lights, his eyes, and the wire starting from the back of his head and going all the way up the elevator shaft), a hoard of servo skulls and five faux-Ultramarines.

The Smith starts making a speech, stepping out of the elevator, talking about the safety of Elysium against outsiders and stuff like that.

While he speaks, a strange hum starts emitting from him, and a blinding blue light takes over the area for a moment.

Every native of Elysium goes blank eyed.

The servitors (or the Enlightened ones) stand to attention, their eyes glowing, and they start muttering some sort of a pledge.

From his vantage point, Gimlet can see that Vivek’s eye starts to glow as well, and Vivek starts to repeat the same lines the servitors are.

Meanwhile, Vivek feels a connection to all of Elysium, he is the Smith, and the presence of the Savior is all around him.

And then Malika knocks him the fuck out.

A servo skull has however noticed something going on and is closing in to investigate.

Gimlet orders Malika to shoot the skull down and she does so.

Meanwhile, Saef, oblivious to all this, feels warp energy all around him, and he feels it powering up the Smith.

Vivek attempts to get up, and Malika knocks him out again and voxes Gimlet, saying something is up with Vivek, and should she shoot him.

Gimlet says don’t shoot, just tie him up.

Malika says she’ll improvise and drags Vivek out of sight.

Saef, in the guise of an Ultramarine approaches the Smith and the other Space Marines, and jams the mechanism of the blue wire with his psyker powers.

Suddenly the Smith collapses.

The lights all around start dimming, revealing the Ultramarines as Red Corsairs, and people in the crowd look more malnourished than they previously have.

Gimlet notices that Zamiel next to him appears quite a bit more alien than he had previously.

Vivek wakes up, back in his senses, though clearly not feeling well.

Malika approaches him to knock him out again, but he stops her.

Malika orders him back to shooting and they do so, Malika fires at the Smith’s body, Vivek takes a shot at the Red Corsairs, as do Zamiel and Gimlet.

Saef, who can sense that the warp energy is somehow blocked in the pipe, throws a smite at the pipe, and that causes a huge explosion, which fries the Smith and blows the Red Corsairs away.

The explosion opens up a portal of some sort, through which demons step out.

One of them closes in on towards the civilians, Vivek shoots at that one (and his gun blows up, so just imagine him slightly fried for the rest of this session :P).

Gimlet shoots at the one which is closing in on Saef, who is attempting to retrieve his weapons.

One of the demons takes a potshot at Zamiel, doesn’t hit and falls prone (poor baby?). Combat over!

Saef makes his way to the elevator. People have noticed him and are shouting that he’s the one that killed the Smith.

Saef closes the doors of the elevator, making some kind of alarm go off.

People swarm the outside of the elevator shouting about killing him.

Saef attempts to get the elevator to work, but can’t.

The aftermath of the explosion has caused all of the servitors to bug out in some way, and Vivek’s not doing very hot either.

He stumbles backwards, dropping his gun and falling to his knees.

Malika attempts to approach him, but he tells her to get away, and then he starts making a static noise.

Malika calls Gimlet and Zamiel over, and while they look over Vivek, Malika is going to attempt to get the people away from Saef.

Gimlet notices that Vivek appears to be having some kind of a panic attack, and also that somehow the pipe is affecting him, so he and Zamiel drag Vivek away from the city’s center.

At some point Vivek comes to, and asks what he has done.

After a moment, he says he can go back, and if he starts acting weird… Gimlet says he can ask Malika to knock him out again.

Saef manages to get the elevator to work with psychic energy and starts going up.

While going up, he notices the others in the distance and gives them a thumbs up (Gimlet thinks he’s flipping him the bird).

Saef rides all the way up to the top of the elevator shaft, through many more sectors.

There he comes across some metal doors, with a psychic barrier around.

He knocks on them and gets told (psychically) to go away.

Saef attempts to respond, but he gets dizzy as it feels like the air is running out of the elevator.

Meanwhile down at the others, Vivek pretends to be an extra-Enlightened™ person to get the people to go home, which they mostly do.

The pipe having gone up with the elevator, the lenses have stopped working and Vivek also seems to be feeling better.

They recall the elevator with a remote Gimlet loots from a Red Corsair.

Malika and Zamiel join our trio and up they go to the metal doors.

Saef weakens the barrier, though it weakens him in turn, so that Vivek can lockpick the doors.

They step through the doors into a metallic room in the middle of which is a blue tank filled with liquid and a dude floating in the middle in golden armor.

It’s Fane.

Gimlet steps out to talk to the man, asking if he indeed is the Inquisitor Fane.

Supreme Inquisitor Fane, Fane corrects, in Gimlet’s mind.

Gimlet wants to know why Fane is doing this.

Fane seems to be of the opinion, he’s doing a good thing, saying that the people of Elysium have everything they need.

He asks then why Gimlet is no longer with the Inquisition, to which Gimlet says it’s none of Fane’s fucking business.

Fane says that he could be Gimlet’s new boss.

He asks Gimlet to think through this logically, Gimlet knows deep down that Fane is doing good.

He then turns to Saef, noting that Saef is quite insecure about not being as smart as others, but Fane could teach Saef.

Saef declines, saying he already has a teacher, to which Fane says he teaches because he doesn’t know any better.

Then he turns to Vivek, telling that he’s in the market for a replacement Smith, and maybe Vivek could be the one; with Fane’s help Vivek could become as good as, even better than his brother.

Vivek also declines, saying he has no interest in being anything like his brother, to which Fane says that yeah, perhaps someone like Eden would work better, anyway.

Vivek asks him to keep his hands off Eden.

Gimlet asks what Fane is exactly getting out of all this (Intense sexual gratification, pipes Vivek).

Happiness, answers Fane. He took over the business when he got here, and runs it quite successfully.

Gimlet says he has had enough. Saef goes and breaks the tank with his bludgeon.

There’s some spooky laughter (that spooks everyone but Saef).

The tank is full of psychic energy that explodes into a demon.

Gimlet shoots Fane with one of his special anti-psyker arrows.

Fane falls down and turns into a rotten corpse.

Saef smites the demon, and approaches Fane’s corpse.

The demon charges Saef with an axe.

Vivek shoots at it.

Saef grabs something from Fane’s hand, and smites the demon which vanishes, although there are some apparitions around.

It appears that Fane’s golden armor look was as much an illusion as everything else around. But hey, he’s dead now yay?

Epilogue time.

We find out that Fane has been selling weapons not only to gangers, but to the Inquisition as well.

So Zamiel’s an alien and he’s not the only one.

Gimlet knows what he is, part of a species called athal’anites who were mostly wiped out by Imperium, the rest being enslaved by Red Corsairs. Zamiel is thankful for the information.

Clearly they cannot stay in Elysium (some have already been killed by humans), but rogue traders can deal with xenos, so for the moment athal’anites will come aboard Santa Maria and from there will be spread around other Pepper ships.

The humans are confused and many are not happy to be free of the savior, but most come to the conclusion that this would be for the best.

They are staying in Elysium for the moment, they’ll manage a bit with food aid given by the Peppers, and at some point they better clear out and see what the great Imperium has to offer to them.

Malika’s been busy organizing things for the humans, attempting to reach the hiding athal’anites to get them off Elysium. Vivek comes to visit her, wanting to talk about Malika’s sons who have been sold as servitors somewhere.

Vivek doesn’t discourage her from finding out what happened to her sons, but tells her that she shouldn’t be too hopeful about fixing them, because the only person who can fix them as far Vivek knows, Eden, is basically awaiting execution, and Vivek’s probably next in line after that.

Malika asks if there’s anything she can do.

Vivek admits he has some fancies in hiding in Malika’s cellar, but he has people to look after, who may yet escape their fate.

And besides, it’s the nominally ”good guys” who are planning on executing them.

Vivek admits that he did some bad things, and he’s not exactly making his mother proud with his life choices, but hey, that’s the sinking ship he has tied himself up to.

Malika tells Vivek that she may not be his mother, but she is proud of him.

To which he says that now she is just making him feel weird about being attracted to her.

Malika laughs and says he’s not half bad either.

Vivek says he suspects he knows which half, but apparently Malika doesn’t mind the cybernetics.

Malika asks if Vivek has a place to stay the night, if he would like to stay at her place?

He says sure, if she’s sure he isn’t going to make it awkward, what with being attracted to her and all that.

Malika laughs, and says, somewhat exasperated, ”come on!”. (and then they make out, idk)

And that’s all for that little adventure! That was a blast and a half. Next week we will be jumping back to our regular roles of me running the campaign and Gorm returning to the table. Looking forward to that.

#nemo roleplays #wag rp #wag rp writeup #long post #apparently the key to vivek's heart #is just knocking him the fuck out :P #anyway great job friend gming!#it was a very enjoyable campaign uwu #now i gotta finish my stuff for thursday #surprising no one i have not done that despite having two months of prep time #ive been dragging my feet in all the number stuff i gotta do #ive just been mwahahahing to myself #thinking about the future campaigns #and not writing any of it down #as one does #but have a long weekend to do everything :P #campaign tag: the spacehulk of the happy and free

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