#everyone around me gets upset and mad and distance themselves from me if i dare just trying to say how i feel

[bunnihearted]

i hate positivity posts bc they just make me angry and bitter that so many other ppl get to have nice experiences but i dont

[shelbywanders]

“Dear pregnant, glowing, happy friend,

Let’s cut to the chase: Yes I did ignore the scan photo, the maternity pictures where I’m sure you’re gently holding your swelling bump & gazing wistfully into the distance (I haven’t looked to be honest) and your invitation to the baby shower. There are no hearts or comments from me on those. I’ve put you on mute.

You have plenty of friends, half of whom are pregnant like you so I hoped you wouldn’t notice, but you clearly have. I hear you’re a bit upset with me over this. I’m honestly not a horrible person, so here’s why you’re suddenly dead to me, and I hope that you can try to understand:

I can’t stand looking at pregnant women at the moment, and unfortunately I can’t make an exception for you. Yes, you’re more than a walking womb – you’re my friend & we’ve got history, so how dare I ignore you just because you got pregnant, right? What kind of evil witch does that?

This cuts both ways though – as my friend you know exactly what I’ve been through trying to get pregnant. You see, I’m currently an infertile woman and you’re a pregnant woman, and absolutely everyone is happy to throw my mental health under a bus to make a fuss of you. Including you. I’m expected to suck it up for you, but it’s the end of the world if I expect the same consideration. That’s just the way it is apparently – I don’t make the rules.

We have all said “Be kind!” but do we mean it?

It doesn’t matter how much we say “be kind!” and “mental health is important!” when you’re a woman that’s not able to make babies. My mental health matters less than a like on a picture of a scan to some people – and definitely less than a party. You can withdraw our friendship because you think that I owe you the appropriate amount of fawning over your baby shower, even though you know I’m in the middle of IVF. Yes, that sounds appalling, I’m not proud of saying that, but as I will continue to mention – this is a mental health issue – it’s not about manners.

It is not your fault that you don’t understand what’s going on with women like me, and I’m not actually mad with you for that. I’m mad with a society that treats infertile women like they’re selfishly making a fuss, if they dare to try and excuse themselves from the carnival of joy that follows a pregnant woman into the office and beyond. That seems to forget about us & then gets annoyed when it’s reminded that we do exist. That can laugh kindly and be understanding about the emotional behaviour of a pregnant woman, but is quick to label us selfish or drama queens or jealous, if we are sensitive about trauma triggers such as pregnancy. It feels like we’re pitted against each other somehow, and it’s so unfair. We have phrases like “hormones” and “baby brain” to ensure that we make space for a pregnant woman’s reactions and emotions, but we don’t have a way to tactfully say to pregnant women “Hey, maybe you should give your friend with fertility struggles some space and not shove that big old pretty bump in her face right now!”

Of course pregnant women are in a vulnerable and unique position, and pregnancy is hard and of course we should all look out for them. I’m just saying – anonymously, because I know how deep this goes in society, that maybe we don’t have to routinely disregard the mental health of infertility sufferers, for the sake of special parties and social niceties? Those things could take place without us. You could graciously excuse us from all of that, if you knew how deep our suffering runs.

Instead we’re expected to fawn over people who (innocently) trigger our deepest feelings of sadness and anger, with a fake smile on our face and a congratulations card – and I’m sick of it. We’re all sick of it, but I’m just especially sick of it at the moment. I don’t deserve it – and you don’t deserve this bitter version of me that exists at the moment. What if I could just say hey – congratulations but I’m just having a hard time with this because I can’t get pregnant myself. You could say “OK, good luck with that. Not going to be offended if you don’t get involved right now, but you’re always welcome in the future!”

What if we could handle infertility vs pregnancy better?

So we don’t currently handle it that well, and I’m going to miss your whole pregnancy, and that’s obviously a big deal, right? I don’t actually want to miss a huge chunk of your life, but here’s the kicker – I have to. For my mental health. Because it’s just as important as your mental health. You, as a woman who hasn’t had fertility issues, and apparently got pregnant just by glancing at your husband’s penis in the shower- have no idea what’s happening to me. You will think – as society tells you to, that I am being bitter and uncaring and mean because it’s just in my nature to be like that. That I’m making it “all about me”, when I actually just want to slink away unnoticed. But why would you know any better if no-one ever tells you this stuff or talks about it? Can we just bloody stop this merry-go-round and get real about it please? I’m not mean or uncaring – I’m just struggling with pregnancy. Including yours.

Give me a pass for heaven’s sake. I couldn’t even cope if my cat got pregnant right now, never mind someone I went shopping at Tammy Girl with. Pregnancy is deeply, horribly triggering when you desperately wanted a baby and tried your hardest, but instead you had a miscarriage, a chemical pregnancy, a failed embryo implant, an ectopic pregnancy, a termination for medical reasons or a stillbirth. Show me a woman with fertility struggles who hasn’t had at least one of those. A scan is the very last thing you want to look at. A baby shower is the last place in the universe you want to be. But I’m not allowed to simply say “Thanks so much for the invite, truly happy for you but can’t deal with pregnancy RN because I’m doing IVF again” in case it impinges for five seconds upon your fairy-tale. I wonder if I’ll be the same if I ever get pregnant. Probably not, knowing what I know now.

Fertility struggles have given me a new perspective

So what is it that I know now? That infertility is traumatic. That IVF is mentally and physically hard, and it doesn’t always work. That it can cause relationship strain and feelings of inadequacy and mental health challenges galore. Financial struggles. Hormonal drugs. Constant stupid comments from people who don’t understand. There’s something else too.

Women with fertility issues have to track everything – periods, ovulations and appointments. They are often acutely aware of how old their own lost and maybe-babies would have been at any given time, as well as the ongoing sense of loss they experience from not being able to have a baby. Nature has a really cruddy way of timing baby showers in the same month as our due-dates that never were. Your baby shower is two weeks after my due date 2 years ago. I should be bringing my nearly 2 year old with me. See, I told you we track everything.

Do you really want me to explain that I’d be bringing the baggage of my lost child with me to this party? Do I owe you that? Or could you, you know, just be understanding that baby showers might just be a little bit hard for someone that’s been trying to get pregnant for longer than you’ve known your husband?

So that’s my confession, and I’m going to passive-aggressively post it on my wall and hope that you read it. I can’t come to you with my truth, because I’d risk “stressing you out” and “making it all about me” if I did. I can’t just suck it up, because my mental health is too fragile for that right now. So here I am as a woman with fertility struggles, asking for a little understanding from my friends. Can we call a truce? Can we be more honest with each other? Can we accept that pregnancy is wonderful for you but hard for others? As a woman trying so hard for a baby, I live in hope.”

https://bestfertility-now.com/letter-to-my-pregnant-friend-your-happiness-and-my-mental-health-are-not-compatible/?fbclid=IwAR2YARsPG6r_GLntyasTkwhf_fVJ_XTfG6YbMX6BEdpa6BGOlh9jR1EaB5g

[didyme-bucciarati]

Bucci Gang's Darling HC's

(Key: Bucciarati's Darling=🍪, Giorno's Darling=🐞, Mista's Darling=🥗, Fugo's Darling=🍮, Narancia's Darling=🍊, Abbacchio's Darling=🥩, Trish's Darling=♀️.)

🍪 is the mother hen of the group. Always cooking and checking on the group. Whether it came naturally to them or was forced upon them it is the role that they took. It will only slightly change once 🍪 gets pregnant.

🍪 and 🍊 regularly spend time together at 🍪 and Bucciarati's home.

🍊 can usually be found playing games on a portable console or on their laptop [neither have internet access of course].

🍪 and 🍊 watch Young and the Restless together during the day.

However, 🍊 is the first one to stop hanging out at 🍪's house when 🍪 gets pregnant.

When 🍊 isn't with 🍪 they are pestering 🐞 and 🍮.

🐞 and 🍮 usually can be found in the library. [Giorno's Library, to be exact.]

🍊 is an awful influence on 🍮 usually convincing them to do things that will result in serious punishments.

🐞 is usually in the room or aware of the action and is unintentionally the rat of the group. Because 🐞's guilty conscience and awful lying abilities.

🍮 gets punished often. However, its usually her own doings.

An Example: 🍊 Dared 🍮 to make out with one of the help/guards. 🍊, and 🍮 went on with their days as if it never happened. But 🐞 who was in the room when it happened goes quiet and keeps their distance from 🍊,🍮, and Giorno. 🐞 started spending time with 🍪. Giorno noticed quickly but waited for 🐞 to tell him what upset them. After a week of 🐞's strange actions Giorno confronts them. 🐞 tried to brush it as just wanting to hang out with 🍪. But with their awful lying Giorno starts to punish them for lying promising that it would be lessened if they told him. 🐞expressed that it wasn't their secret to share. Giorno tells them that he won't tell anyone if they tells. So they do. Then Giorno tells Pannacotta. Although it is made exceedingly clear that he isn't allowed to reveal how he found out. 🍮, 🍊, and 🍪 put two and two together.

Trish and ♀️ mostly stay to themselves but when Trish is busy with work, which happens once in awhile, ♀️ only hangs out with 🐞.

Whilst 🍮 is in trouble 🐞 hangs out with 🍪. 🍊, if they aren't also in trouble, hangs out with 🥩, and 🥗.

🥗 and 🥩 are chronic partiers. Dressing up and going out to clubs, sitting at the pool, getting shitfaced. Starting fights etc.

🍪, 🐞, 🍮, ♀️, and 🍊 dislike 🥗 and 🥩.

However 🍊 is a snake [if we are being honest] and they hang out with everyone. And talks mad shit about everyone.

Everyone knows this. But either they are too nonconfrontational to call them out, [🐞, 🍪, 🍮] they don't care [🥩,🥗], or just avoid them [♀️]

🍪 and 🐞share harmless gossip with each other when they hang out.

Some Examples:

[🍊 is Female in this example] "🍊 bled through her pants yesterday and no one told her. So when I did and she was so ashamed. I tried to tell her it happens to everyone but she wouldn't believe me." 🐞

"Poor girl." 🍪

"I'm disappointed that 🥩, 🥗, and 🍮 didn't tell her." 🐞

[🍊 is gender neutral in this one] "🍊 came over one day and they had a dick drawn on their face. It had to have been there all day. They were upset with 🥩 and 🥗 and cried as I tried to wash it off." 🍪

"That is just awful." 🐞

🥗 daily drops off their and Mistas laundry at 🍪's and demands that they do it. If 🍪 rejects, 🥗 will cry to Mista that 🍪 is a bully. 🍪 is so nonconfrontational they'll just conform.

🥩 is envious of 🐞 and is always trying to anger and upset 🐞. They often aren't successful. 🐞usually turns their attempts around on them.

They celebrate holidays together at Giorno's manor.

🐞, 🍪, and ♀️, all cook together during holidays. Sometimes 🍊 joins but when they do all they do is spread cream cheese on ham and wrap pickles with it. They then will complain about how tired they is of cooking.

🥩 has a very special secret family recipe for baklava and they always bring it with them. [It is the only reason hands don't go flying]

🍮 Can't Cook! Don't let them near the food! It's okay because they are happy with just doing the dishes.

🥗 makes the drinks. And they are always heavy-handed with the liquor. They also think they are sneaky taking bottles and sneaking them into their bag. Everyone knows no one cares.

[i-am-trying-my-best-okay]

A Very Short Summary That I Think Kinda Represents All The Heartless Ships (That I Know Of): A Saga (It’s not)

THE JURY SQUAD (VILLIANS GOTTA VILLIAN) SHIPS

Dock x Alastor: A couple that acts like an old married couple before they’re even old. They probably acted like an old married couple upon their first meeting.

Alastor x Lorelei: Alastor is so confused but just kinda goes along with it. Lorelei be like ‘pls notice me senpai or else I’ll completely lose it. Ha ha jk jk lol...unless-’

Lance x Bandy: The embodiment of be gay and do crime. Can’t be in the same room without something going wrong in the best possible way. Make it their personal mission to ruin Alastor’s day.

Diana x Lorelei: Thought the other would be useless but then they weren’t. They really don’t want to like the other but then they do.

Lance x Alastor: Would probably hate each other at first, but even when they start liking each other they would pretend to hate each other, even though they both know they don’t.

Lorelei x Lance: He would come to all of Lorelei’s performances and cheer so loudly before she would even begin, and he would boo at everyone else that performs and try to ruin their performance. Lorelei pretends to be annoyed.

Lance x Dock: Lance would so be down with injuring someone for the sake of Dock’s experiments. Neither have a moral code so they can bond over that.

Bandy x Dock: Bandy constantly making jokes that Dock tries way to hard to understand. Sometimes they throws in jokes that don’t make sense on purpose just to see what conclusion Dock will come to.

Diana x Lance: Lance would try to goad Diana into fighting, and she would act like she’s too good for that, but then they both fight and have a great time.

Dock x Diana: Kinda ignored each other until Dock decided to make a cool looking gun for Diana. To which Diana didn’t like feeling like she owed a favor and helped with some experiment Dock was doing. Thus began the dynamic duo.

Alastor x Diana: They’re basically the only ones doing the mission for the sake of doing the mission. They would sit and talk for hours about deep topics.

Bandy x Alastor: Bandy listens to everything Alastor says, he just doesn’t do as he says. Alastor probably doesn’t completely trusts them, so always keeps tabs on them, so at this point Alastor knows everything about Bandy.

Bandy x Lorelei: Would use each other for personal reasons, and grow almost dependent on each other without realizing it. Slowly start seeing the other as a deeper person then a tool.

Diana x Bandy: She probably thought Bandy was annoying but they kept talking to her so she eventually grew to like them. They make a surprisingly good team when fighting.

Dock x Lorelei: I feel like Dock would really feed into Lorelei’s dark side to observe it, making her feel comfortable, like she could do anything and it wouldn’t phase Dock.

THE HEARTLESS SQUAD (WE PURE BRUH) SHIPS

Flint x Eira: Probably didn’t really like each other at first, but then grew to like each other. Flint really likes how Eira fights fair and gets really upset whenever Eira seems insecure and immediately tries to cheer him up.

Eira x Heartless: Eira thinks Heartless is hopelessly naïve and comments on it frequently, but if anyone else dared to say it Eira would be at their throats all like, “I’m sorry he’s not a cynical asshole like you.” Heartless would be constantly hugging Eira.

Flint x River: Flint teaching River how to fight, and River would try to use her medical expertise to help with his overheating. Constantly helping the other one out.

Doppel x Alchemy: Doppel would love being their assistant, and Alchemy would absolutely play him up during the performance. Alchemy would scold him for stealing customers money, but also they would keep it.

Doppel 2 x Alchemy: Alchemy would try so hard to give this poor man some confidence, constantly complimenting him. 

Alchemy x River: Wholesome. That’s it. That’s all that comes to mind when I think of these two. Brian empty, only wholesome.

Flint x Heartless: If Flint overheated Heartless would try so hard to carry him, ending up exhausted after carrying him a distance and Flint is over his overheating. To return the favor Flint carries Heartless basically at all times.

Flint x Doppel: Flint probably thinks of him as underhanded, but then comes to realize that this was how he survived on the streets. Doppel would try so hard to rope Flint into his schemes, to which Flint occasionally will.

Flint x Doppel 2: Would probably at first treat Doppel 2 the same way he treats Doppel, until he realizes he needs to be a lot more softer around Doppel 2. Flint gives so many head pats. Doppel 2 will sob whenever Flint overheats.

Eira x Doppel: Eira would constantly stop Doppel from his fun, basically babysitting him, and Doppel would try to get Eira to loosen up a bit. Sometimes Eira does, and it’s such a rush but he would never admit it.

Eira x Doppel 2: Eira would just protect Doppel 2 all the time, and then there was one time when he was down and Doppel 2 stepped up to protect him and he was just so touched.

Alchemy x Heartless: The positive reinforcement radiating off these two is insane. They literally just go around making people feel good about themselves while holding hands.

Eira x Alchemy: Really enjoys flustering Eira, and if Eira ever gets the courage to flirt back, even if it’s something small and doesn’t really make sense, Alchemy would just be more flustered then they’ve ever been in their life.

River x Heartless: Both of them would try and tell the other how they felt but then chicken out and talk about something completely unrelated while blushing like crazy, and the rest of the gang just looks at them like bruh.

Doppel x Heartless: Thinks Heartless being undead is the coolest thing ever. Honestly considers being undead with him, with Heartless always having to talk him out of it.

Doppel 2 x Heartless: The. Encouragement. Heartless’s constant reassurance to Doppel 2 makes him feel very comfortable around Heartless and he opens up a bit to him.

Alchemy x Flint: Flint would be so in awe of all the stage performances Alchemy does, and Alchemy kinda shows off a bit when Flint is watching.

River x Doppel: Literally the only person who could rein in Doppel, get him to calm down and just play some cards, and no, that doesn’t mean gambling.

River x Doppel 2: River would kinda train Doppel 2 as her apprentice since fighting isn’t really his thing, and they would heal the crew together.

JURY/HEARTLESS (ROMEO AND JUILET STYLE) SHIPS

Lance x Eira: Sword fights. So many sword fights of the homoerotic variety. Neither of them expected Lance’s flirting to turn serious, oop. Also potential meeting in childhood head cannons. 

Diana x Alchemy: They would say something about how Diana’s outfit was cool, and Diana would begrudgingly say something nice about Alchemy. They’ve caught themselves in a compliment war.

Dock x Flint: Actually fascinated with Flint’s low tolerance to heat, keeps trying to figure out why, and Flint is all like, ‘It ain’t that deep’.

Lance x Flint: Flint be like ‘could you at least TRY to fight honorably and fairly?’ and Lance be like ‘lamo what does that even mean?’ Lance thinks it’s so funny when Flint gets mad when he fights dirty.

Diana x Doppel: Shoots him on sight but he always dodges; it’s almost like a game for them at this point.

Diana x Doppel 2: Would have soft moments together that Diana would viciously deny to anyone that dared ask. So what if you walked in on them watching a movie together, it’s a new killing tactic shut up Alastor.

Bandy x River: Her nice nature throws them off a bit, unsure of how to respond to such sincerity, and they would teach her so many jokes that River would go around telling everyone, making Bandy so proud.

Alchemy x Lance: The flirting would never end. Ever. It doesn’t matter what situation their in, it doesn’t matter if they’re in the middle of a very serious fight to the death. Flirting. And nobody knows that it’s serious but them.

Alastor x Heartless: Alastor was trying to act like they were the ultimate enemies, but Heartless is all like, ‘why don’t we sit down and talk about this?’

Bandy x Alchemy: Could you imagine them up on stage together? They would be constantly trying to out do the other, making a game out of who could dazzle the crowd more.

Alchemy x Lorelei: Both performers but in different areas, they would understand the stress of it, and talk about it frequently.

Dock x Doppel: Doppel would be such a little shit to Dock, and sometimes he tires to help Dock with an experiment for fun but messed up everything, but somehow Dock still had a good time.

Dock x Doppel 2: Just so much of Dock obsessed with trying to figure out what the hell Doppel 2 even is, and Doppel 2 apologizing when he doesn’t get clear answers.

Lorelei x River: A secretly not a soft girl and an actual soft girl that could still destroy you. This is a power couple if I’ve ever seen one.

Lance x Heartless: Lance would do everything in his power to try and make Heartless angry. Heartless’s constant positivity makes Lance want to see how far it could go.

Diana x Heartless: Whenever Diana goes to kill someone, the person she’s trying to kill is usually never nice to her, so this is confusing. 

Alastor x Flint: What if in the middle of the fight Flint just straight up picks him up, and it looks weirdly suggestive, and now they’re both flustered.

Bandy x Heartless: They would just go around and have fun to be honest. I feel like they would share a sense of humor.

Lance x River: Didn’t expect her to be good at fighting, but when she shows that she is, he is absolutely ecstatic. If they dated he would go around and brag about how his girlfriend could take him and the person he was bragging to down in a fight.

Alastor x Eira: Both kinda have that I-look-like-a-twink-but-I-will-mess-you-up energy. Both of them would just sit there denying their feelings so hard.

Dock x Eira: Their both stoic most of the time, viewing this fighting as impersonal and just a means to their own end. This kinda forms a comradery.

Lance x Doppel: Lance is interested in Doppel’s really weird street fighting tactics. Would actually stop fighting to teach each other tactics, which can get very handsy.

Lance x Doppel 2: He would keep trying to make Doppel 2 fight him, and if Doppel 2 throws the lightest punch ever, Lance acts like Doppel 2 just took over the world and is cheering him on.

Diana x Flint: Why can I imagine them both constantly suggesting to the other person that they could join their side at any time?

Bandy x Eira: Eira is so serious and Bandy thinks it’s hilarious. They would probably debate about their morals often, neither ever accepting the other’s morals but begrudgingly admitting the other has a point.

Lorelei x Heartless: Lorelei had put up this nice front but accidently lets Heartless see a different side, to which Heartless is all like, woah neat. Lorelei feels a bit unsure of how to handle acceptance.

Bandy x Doppel: Would absolutely hit the town solely to mess with people. Bandy would be really useful to steal stuff, so Doppel would just goad them into stealing things and then steals them from Bandy, which Bandy thinks is so funny.

Bandy x Doppel 2: They would mess with Doppel 2 so hard, his anxious reactions were funny to him. But also, he doesn’t like it if other people mess with Doppel 2 too much. Like, that’s his job and his job only.

Dock x Alchemy: The way Alchemy can switch their appearance fascinates Dock, and Alchemy would just flirt with Dock so hard but he wouldn’t understand any of which, which they think is hilarious. 

Alastor x Alchemy: Alastor is not happy that Alchemy flirts with him at every given opportunity. Like, he’s very busy being enemies and trying to kill all magic users, stop making him feel things right now.

Dock x Heartless: Dock would be practically frothing at the mouth thinking of how Heartless actually functions, seeing as he’s undead and all. And since Heartless wants to know his origins as well, maybe they’d find out together.

Lorelei x Doppel: She thinks of him as a ‘ruffian’ or something like that. He thinks she’s stuck up. They want to absolutely murder each other. So what’s with this weird sexual tension?

Lorelei x Doppel 2: Would be so sugary sweet to him as she tries to make him do her biding or something.

River x Dock: Two very different doctors, yelling at each other their ideals on what a doctor is. Can and will annoy the other one while they work. Dock will make improvements to River’s prosthetics. 

Alastor x River: Once Alastor would be injured and alone, and River would find him and heal him and get him back to the Jury before leaving immediately. Alastor is going crazy trying to figure out why.

Flint x Lorelei: Why do I feel like they probably had a one night stand and then when they met on opposite sides of the battlefield they were like ‘oh. shit.’

Alastor x Doppel: When a rude little gremlin meets a terrifying librarian. Alastor is trying to get Doppel to stop doing what he’s doing which only fuels his desire to keep doing what he’s doing.

Alastor x Doppel 2: Thinks Doppel 2 shouldn’t exist but then when Doppel 2 is crying about it he sort of becomes sympathetic about it. Like, together they try find a way to get Doppel 2 to not exist, which turns weirdly intimate? 

Diana x River: Diana probably caught feelings first when River drop kicked Dock. If either of them got kidnapped by the other side they other would always go visit the prisoner all like ‘I just want to go check on them, god guys.’

Bandy x Flint: “Fights are a serious thing. Don’t take it as a joke!” “Yeah, Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.” “THEN STOP SWITCHING ME WITH YOUR WEAPON SO YOU CAN HOLD ME!”

Me realizing that for most of these they could just be read as how they interact with each other rather than a ship. Also me ignoring that.

This was basically an excuse for me to decide who I want to ship.

Characters belong to @abd-illustrates​

[speechlessxx]

Bring Him Light - ii (King!Steve Rogers x Reader)

Chapter Summary: Just as everything began to settle, you discover a bit of truth to the rumors you feared. 

Warnings: Nothing much just really bad writing. Steve’s less bipolar so that’s great. 

Word Count: 3.3k

I finally know where the direction of where I want to take Bring Him Light to. 

Bring Him Light Masterlist

I hope you guys enjoy!

<- Last Part -=+=- Next Part ->

A week has passed since your first meeting with the king. He grew more pleasant the more you two spent time together – perhaps his sour mood was indeed due to the king being overworked. Nevertheless, you still refused to grow attached to the man. There were rumors of his cruelty for a reason. But as the days wore on, your stubbornness was soon relenting, allowing yourself to enjoy his presence despite his mood swings that swayed like a pendulum.

And with your wedding on the horizon, perhaps the bond growing steadily between you and King Steven was a good thing.

The arrow whizzed through the air and landed centimeters away from the red center. You let out a groan as your arms slack in defeat. “I swear I’m much better,” you muttered. You were normally a great shot with your own bow – the bow that the huntsman broke when you fought against him.

The king chuckled as he took the bow from your hands. “I’m sure you are,” he teased. He drew an arrow and aimed for less than a second. When he let it go, it landed right into the center – much to your dismay. “My, I do think I’ve won.”

“You’re so humble.” He chuckled at your words. Your sarcasm was as crisp as the morning air. “But I do believe I have a redemption shot.”

Steven quirked up an eyebrow. “Of course, your highness,” he gave you a cocky smile as you grabbed the bow from him. “If you think you can beat a perfect shot.”

You hummed as you lined up your shot. You took a deep breath as you stared into the target. Your breathing was steady as you aimed. He doubted you could best him. His arrow lodged in the exact center of the target. It was a guaranteed win. Surely –

You let the arrow go and with an audible snap, Steven’s eyes widened in surprise. It was hard to tell from the distance, but it became clear as you both approached the target. “You’ve split my arrow,” he said in disbelief.

“I told you I was great a shot. Did you not believe me?” He sputtered excuses and you felt a rush of pride as a smirk found its way onto your face. “My, I do believe that I have won, your grace.”

“I concur,” he chuckled. “Took you some time to adjust to the bow, though. Perhaps, we should’ve played at even stakes from the beginning. Shall we ask a servant to fetch for your bow?”

You gave him a sad smile and shook your head. “I’m afraid I did not travel with my bow.”

“Why not?”

“Thor, the huntsman, who gave me these,” you lifted your wrists as you alluded to the cuts that were now mostly healed, “snapped my bow.”

“You never did tell me why you were fighting with Thor.”

“Perhaps it’s a story that should be told another day,” a voice called out. Lord Alexander Pierce, one of the lords of Steven’s council, bowed to you and his king. You quickly noticed Steven’s sudden change in demeanor. His smile had been abandoned as his brows furrowed and his stare hardened. You weren’t a fool. You knew that the Lords Pierce and Rumlow were almost always the cause of his aggravation. “Your grace, I’ve come to collect you. Lord Rumlow and I request a meeting with the council.”

“Has Lord Barnes and Lord Wilson been informed?”

“Yes, your grace. We are all waiting on you.”

“Can’t it wait,” you frowned. Steven glanced over at you in surprise. Ladies normally hold their tongue in the presence of the nobles. Some would’ve called your outburst impolite, but King Steven found it amusing. “The king and I were enjoying our time together before you arrived.”

“I’m afraid it cannot.” Lord Pierce simply stared through you. How dare a woman speak in that tone to me, he thought though he knew better than to snipe at his future queen – especially in front of the king.

Steven let out a sigh through his nose as his jaw clenched up in frustration. What the hell did Rumlow and Pierce want now? “I will join you later for a rematch.” He told you but you shook your head.

“I will be at one of the eastern villages later today,” you said. “I was told there was a fire last night and I wanted to provide any aid I could.”

“Of course,” Steven nodded. “When I’m released, I will join you.”

“I would love that, your grace,” you nodded and curtseyed to him and walked off.

Lord Pierce sent a glare your way and as soon as you were out of earshot he said, “is everyone in that family horrendously outspoken?”

“Amusingly so, Lord Pierce.”

“»————-　⚜　————-««

“I do not see the problem,” Steven said, squinting his eyes the two men. Lord Rumlow let out a sigh of frustration as he looked to Lord Pierce to further the argument.

“We have reason to believe that your future bride may be conspiring against you. How simpler can it get?” Lord Pierce snapped. The older man was visibly annoyed. The wrinkles around his brows and forehead visible with his frown. The king didn’t appreciate the man’s tone. “She has you galivanting in your gardens with her, playing a game with arrows. She’s keeping you from your duties.”

“Was it not you who said that the wedding should be postponed?” James scoffed.  

“Besides… she is not a distraction. We’re simply getting acquainted with one another. I do not want to marry a stranger. Not again.” The king said. He looked at the painting that hung near the door. He remembered painting that portrait of Queen Margaret, his first wife.

“The Starks cannot be trusted.” Lord Pierce added. “Not long ago, we were at war with them! Now, you trust that Anthony Stark has sent over his own daughter willingly?”

“I trust Tony.” Steven nodded. He did. Despite the disarray that plagued the north three years ago, he did trust the other king. “And his daughter has not given me any reason to doubt the Starks. She’s lovely company. Perhaps, you’re just upset that she doesn’t scare easily.” Lord Wilson and Barnes chuckled at this. Alexander Pierce took pride in his ability to bend others to his will by striking fear in their hearts – something you seemed impervious to.

“I believe we can save ourselves from King Thanos entirely.” Lord Pierce suggested. The five men fell into silence as Lord Pierce smirked, knowing he finally had their attention. “Marrying the Stark girl may unite the North, but why should we stop at just the north. Of course, but what if you marry King Thanos’s eldest daughter – the Princess Gamora. You would spare Brooken from Thanos’s wrath.”

“But that would not mean that Brooken is free from the Mad King’s tyranny! He would want Brooken as his own.” James interjected.

Steven agreed. “His daughter would slit my throat in my sleep so that my kingdom falls in her father’s hands. I will not have it.”

“Cousin, I ask that you entertain the idea,” Brock spoke. The King narrowed his eyes at his cousin as if to say as if you aren’t entertaining that idea yourself. “Acknowledge the threat and align yourself with Thanos.”

“I will not hear of this ever again.” Steven snapped. “Do you understand – all of you?” A chorus of agreement – though Brock and Alexander’s tones were not happy. “I will marry (Y/N) Stark in a week. Our marriage will unite the northern kingdoms. Unity is what we all need. Standing together with York – with the Starks – that union will help us prevail in any war.”

Alexander Pierce had been a friend to King Steven’s father. Though, Steven did not know why his father befriended the man. He found Pierce rather insufferable – always pushing an agenda that he says will “better” Brooken but in truth, only benefits himself.

It was Alexander Pierce who set up the betrothal between Queen Sharon and the king. The two had known each other for less than a day before they were wed. The marriage had not been successful for many reasons. Wanting to avoid another failed marriage – and already distrusting Alexander Pierce’s judgement – the king chose his own bride: you.

The brief meeting was adjourned. The king and his two friends hurried off to meet with you and your ladies in the village, leaving Brock and Alexander murmuring to themselves.

“That was our one opportunity. He will not hear of if again. I know my cousin. His mind is already made.” Brock muttered. “I do not see how he was made king. He’s boneless, the self-righteous arse.”

Alexander chuckled. “Oh, Rumlow, your cousin has indeed made a fine king. He’s lead Brooken to victory on the battlefield so many times. Smart one, too. He’s evaded our attempts too many times now. He’s even decided to choose his own bride instead of listening to my council. His intuition has always been on his side.”

“We cannot turn him against Stark. We cannot get him to ally with Thanos.”

“Indeed… but perhaps, we can turn his own queen against him. She must’ve already heard the rumors if not in York but here. She just needs a push.”

“»————-　⚜　————-««

When the king arrived, he had not expected the damage. The building had been burnt down. The burnt scent still hung in the air. The crowds that gathered welcomed him, bowing to their monarch.

“Your grace,” Lord Barnes muttered, getting his attention. Though the king searched for you in the crowds, he nodded to Lord Barnes to show his friend that he was listening. “This may be the first time the people see you and their future queen interact. It’s imperative to give a good impression.”

“Of course,” Steven nodded. He spotted a fiery haired woman cut through the crowds and recognizing her immediately. “Lady Natasha!” The woman stopped in her tracks as the king stalked towards her. She bowed to him and threw Lord Barnes a small smile, one he gladly returned. “Where’s (Y/N)?”

Before the red head could respond, your voice rang out throughout the crowd. Steven’s head snapped in its direction to catch a glimpse of you surrounded by villagers. You were handing out various food items to his people. They were the leftovers from the feast the castle had a few nights ago.

He cracked a smile at the sight. Lord Barnes clasped his shoulder. “She will make a fine queen to your people, Steve,” he muttered under his breath.

“Indeed.” Steve felt a sense of pride in seeing you. All you were missing was a crown on your head. His heart raced at the thought. It’s only been a week and you’ve already had such an effect on the man. He stalked towards you with a smile. “Your highness, may I be of assistance?”

You smiled at him as you glanced over to the cart of food behind you. He nodded and stood with you as the both of you gave out the food to the poor. It was safe to assume his people loved you.

“We shall thank Princess (Y/N) of York for her generosity!” the king announced to the people who cheered in response. “Thank you for feeding my people, my love.” Your heart fluttered at hearing those words. You scolded yourself for the feeling. You were not to fall so quickly for the king you barely just met. In turn, Steven wasn’t sure if his words were just for show or genuine, but he was certain that you at his side would be a great addition to his reign – not to mention, he liked having you around altogether.

He snaked an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him, inhaling your scent. The smell of rose petals strong in your hair. You laughed as your hand rested on his chest as the people cheered for you both. You have definitely made a wonderful impression.

His loving stare did not go unnoticed by his friends, your ladies, and the people. This was their feature. This was Brooken’s future.

And it seemed bright.

“»————-　⚜　————-««

“I told you he’s not as bad as the rumors made him out to be,” Wanda remarked as she brushed through your hair. The water from your bath left your hair damp while your lady tried to unravel the knots.

“You two have become quite close in our short time here.” Natasha added. “It’s the early morning excursions about the property, isn’t it?”

“He’s different than I assumed, yes,” you agreed with a smile. “However, he does have his moments. I think he’s restrained himself because of our first meeting.”

“Your wounds have healed quite well.” Natasha said, taking your wrist and examining it. The wrist that Steven had grabbed was still scabbing over. The other had healed almost completely, leaving light pink scars around your wrist. “I’m sure King Steven has shown his apologies for this.”

“He’s quite cocky,” you thought aloud. “Though what man isn’t. He is a king after all. His confidence is well placed. He nearly beat me this morning in archery. Though, I split his arrow, winning the game.”

“I’ve never heard of a split arrow?” Wanda asked, furrowing her brows in confusion.

“It’s quite rare, I believe.” Natasha explained. “Your shot must’ve been well aimed, your highness.”

“It was.” You smirked.

“Perhaps cockiness is just a trait that all monarchs eventually develop,” Wanda chided. You three laughed. “I cannot wait until the wedding. The dress you wear will be divine.”

“I wish we could push back the wedding even further,” you confessed. You rubbed at the healing wrist nervously as you remembered about the wedding. It would occur in less than a week. You would be queen of Brooken in less than a week – Steven’s wife in less than a week. “The king and I… We may get along now, but we are still strangers. I’m afraid that this may all be an act – his kindness and his charm. He may still be the monster that I fear the rumors make him out to be.”

Natasha tsked at you as she took your hands in hers. She remembered the stare he had on you when he saw you in the village. His eyes had shined – something the portraits never showed. The glint of a promising future – a loving husband and a great king. “He looks as if he was already in love with you.” Wanda nodded in agreement. You groaned, pulling your wrists from hers. “Why am I the only one concerned about our safety?”

“Because he has not given you any reason to be concerned.” Natasha said. You lifted your scabbed wrist with your brows raised.

Before she could rebut, there was a knock on the door. “Come in!” You called.

Ser Pietro opened the door and Lord Barnes walked in. Natasha suddenly stood and straightened out her dress. He bowed to you and nodded to your ladies. His stare lingered on Natasha for a few seconds longer before turning to you.

“King Steven has asked me to deliver a gift,” he smiled. He handed you a box and you cautiously took.

Was this someone’s head? No… There was no one that you could think that the king would have reason to behead. You laid the box on your bed and slowly lifted the lid. A surprised gasp left your lips as you stared at the bow. It was strikingly similar to your own.

“It’s beautiful,” you murmured. A note had been placed inside.

Dearest (Y/N),

Upon hearing of your broken bow this morning and reached out to the huntsman. He has a remarkable memory and gave me a detailed description of it. I had one of my talented men in the weaponry recreate it from what the huntsman could recall. It may not perfect or even what you expected, but I do hope that you will enjoy your new bow as I have enjoyed our time together.  

With much love,

Steven.

“Give the king my gratitude, my lord,” you smiled at Lord Barnes who nodded.

“Your presence at court has brought much joy to my king, to my friend.” He said. James glanced over at Natasha once more before leaving. You made a note to ask her about it later.

Wanda took the box as the ladies helped you into bed. Natasha smirked at you as if to say see? Nothing to worry about.

That night, you tossed and turned but was unable to lull yourself to sleep. You kept thinking about the bow and about the kind words in his letter. Perhaps he wasn’t as horrible after all?

Frustrated, you decided to wander about the castle in an effort to tire yourself out. With a candlestand in one hand and your robe wrapped tightly around you, you went off on your adventure.

The castle was different at night. The moonlight illuminated the corridors and left an eerie feeling in your gut. The shadows that casted upon the walls looked as if they were creatures of the night and every turn you made had you jolt in fear.

You heard faint whispers near a staircase that only went down. From your tour, you vaguely remember that this was the pathway to the dungeons underneath the grounds. You had no intention of walking down those steps until you heard a familiar voice riddled with anger. You felt goosebumps rise on your skin upon realization. It was Steven’s voice.

You crept down the stairs, careful not to make a sound. Since Brooken did many things differently than York, you weren’t sure what would condemn someone to the prison. Theft? Perhaps, murder?

“Admit it,” Steven’s voice grew louder the closer you approached. You kept yourself hidden, diminishing your candle’s fire so that you would not be seen. There was a groan in response. There were several groans throughout the prison.

“Water… Please, sire,” someone begged. “We know nothing.”

“Do not lie to your king!” Another voice snapped. It was James’s.

Steven sighed. “We know the truth, but we need a confession. I will grant you freedom if you confess.” You frowned. In York, those sent to prison were given a trial before the king and the nobles of the court. It would be made known what the offense was, and the council would decide the punishment accordingly. But it seemed as if Brooken dealt with their legal affairs privately.

“I will not speak out.” The hoarse voice responded. “I will be loyal until my last dying breath.”

You heard shuffling as King Steven approached the prisoner. “Death I can arrange.” His tone was even but his threat was a promise. His rage radiated and you felt it from your hidden position. “But if you confess now, I can grant you freedom.”

“No.”

An exasperated sigh left the king. “Very well. Pull out each and every one of his teeth until he confesses.” You weren’t sure who the order was for – Lord Barnes? Was there another man there? “If he doesn’t, stretch him until his joints dislocate. Pop them into place then repeat until he confesses because I will have a confession.”

“And if he dies, your grace?”

“Turn his body to ash.” There was no remorse in his voice. There were groans of protest and begging, but the king had already made up his mind.

There were murmurs between the two men – Lord Barnes and the king – but you didn’t pay it much mind. You heard all you needed to. You rushed up the staircase and ran to your room, not caring about the maids and knights who saw you.

You slammed the door shut and ran your hand through your hair. What the hell did you just hear?

The king slowly made his way out of the prison, but suddenly stopped. He stared at the spot you were standing at minutes ago. There was a scent – one that was very different from the putrid smells of the dungeons.

A woman’s scent.

Roses.  

[rax-writes]

Romeo & Juliet

Fandom:  Stranger Things Pairing:  Steve Harrington x Reader Warnings:  None Notes:  Shoutout to my dear friend @mxgyver​ for the inspiration ♥

You had been best friends with Steve Harrington since you’d arrived at Hawkins Elementary in the fifth grade. A kid named Kevin had been bullying him on the playground, and although Steve had been doing his best to ignore the asshole, you found yourself incapable of doing the same. Kevin had intentionally screwed up the science project you’d been working that morning, purely because he thought it’d be funny to torment the new kid, and in the moment, you were so upset that you said nothing. The anger set in after he’d already walked off, laughing to his buddies about what he’d done. So, seeing him bully another innocent person made your blood boil, and before you knew it, you were chucking the basketball in your hands as hard as you could at the back of Kevin’s head.

Kevin flew forward from the unexpected impact, landing flat on his chest on the cement, which knocked the wind out of him. Steve’s jaw dropped as he looked from Kevin to you, meanwhile the ball rolled back over to you, and you picked it up to tuck it under your arm. When Kevin sat up and spun around to locate the culprit, the agitation on his face turned to fear as he locked eyes with you. Apparently the sheer rage in your 11 year old eyes did the trick to let him know you meant business.

“Look, Kevin, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. But I do know that you’re just some jerk who thinks it’s fun to be mean to people for no reason. You’re a bully. And one thing you’ll learn about me is that I don’t like bullies. So, you really ought to be nicer to your classmates, or you’ll have me to deal with.”

The boy hesitated a moment, before he realized his friends were watching him, obviously expecting him to retaliate. He stood, then crossed his arms as he sneered at you, “Oh yeah? And what are you going to do about it?”

Whack!

The basketball hit Kevin square in the nose as he stumbled backwards, hands covering his face as he cried out in pain.

“That. That’s what I’m going to do about it.”

“You’re crazy!” Kevin yelled over his shoulder, as he ran off, his friends close behind.

“Yeah, and don’t you dare tattle on me, or a bloody nose of yours will be the least of your concerns!” you hollered, watching them retreat to the other side of the playground.

“Thanks for that,” Steve piped up then, and his tone seemed to be a mix of gratitude and bewilderment.

Shrugging, you explained, “Honestly, I mostly did it because he ruined my science project this morning. But also because I do really hate bullies.”

“Whatever the reason, I appreciate it,” Steve said with a chuckle. “Well, you’re obviously pretty good with a basketball. Wanna play HORSE?”

----------

That was 7 years ago, and Steve had been your best friend ever since. All through the remainder of elementary, middle school, and high school, the two of you had been inseparable. The two of you had shared a ton of fun and crazy adventures, as well as some hard times, and you were there for each other through it all. He had shown up on your doorstep 20 minutes after you called and told him about your boyfriend cheating on you, with a tub of ice cream in one hand and a Disney movie VHS in the other. Similarly, you had been there for him about three months ago, when Nancy Wheeler broke his heart.

You’d have never admitted it, but as you got older, you slowly began to realize that you liked him as more than a friend.

For years, you had pushed those feelings to the back of your mind. It didn’t matter how much you liked him; keeping Steve as your best friend was your top priority. You wouldn’t risk losing that. But, on one fateful evening, you found that you could no longer ignore how in love with him you’d fallen.

Your teacher was making your class do a miniature version of Romeo and Juliet as a senior project. Everyone had voted you and Steve as the leads, because you had such good chemistry – despite the fact that you’d spent ages telling people that you were just friends. And of course, the teacher wanted to include the scene where Romeo and Juliet kiss. You and Steve had both tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t budge. So, that’s what led to your current situation: sitting in Steve’s living room on a Wednesday night, a short distance separating you on the couch, practicing your lines.

“O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair,” Steve recited, then ran a hand over his face. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

“Hell if I know,” you muttered, sounding equally as confused as him, before continuing. “Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.”

“Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take,” Steve said, then paused and cleared his throat. “And, uh… this is the part where they kiss.”

You could feel his eyes on you, but you kept your eyes glued to the script in your lap, not wanting to meet his gaze.

“Yep… so it is.”

“Do you… should we...?” Steve trailed off, then exhaled slowly, as if calming himself. “We could practice that part too… if you wanted?”

You looked up at him with wide eyes, and he backpedaled immediately.

“Actually, that’s a bad idea. That would be so weird. I honestly don’t even know why I said that. Forget this ever happened,” he rambled, waving a hand in the air exasperatedly.

“I mean…” you began softly, still looking at him despite the fact that he was now staring at the floor. “Ms. Myer made it clear that she wants us to stay true to the script. So we might as well get it over with now, rather than in front of the whole class.”

Steve glanced at you, and the two of you shared a few moments of eye contact before he exhaled again.

“No, yeah, you’re right. We should totally get it over with now. After all, it’s just for the play, right?” Steve said, with feigned nonchalance, and you nodded.

“Exactly! So we should just kiss now, rather than kiss for the first time in front of the entire class. But it’s totally not weird at all, since it’s just for the play. Obviously doesn’t change the fact that we’re friends.”

“Best friends!” Steve agreed earnestly, then ran a hand through his hair as he took a deep breath. “Alright, so, take two…. Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.”

Your eyes had been on your script when you felt his gentle fingers tilt your chin up to look at him. The two of you stared into one another’s eyes for a few moments, before Steve leaned in and pressed his lips against yours.

It was beyond everything you’d ever dreamed of – and you had definitely dreamed about it on more than one occasion. His lips were soft and sweet, and you instinctively leaned into him. But, far too soon for your liking, Steve pulled away, although only slightly. His face remained mere inches from yours, as he stared at you with an expression you couldn’t read.

“Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged,” he whispered, after a quick glance at the paper in his hands.

“Then have my lips the sin that they have took,” you responded breathlessly.

“Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged,” Steve responded, his voice still soft, before looking down at your lips. “Give me my sin again.”

You met his lips without hesitation as he bent down to kiss you once more, and his hand moved from your chin to cradle the back of your head, fingers burying themselves in your hair. Steve dropped the script to the floor, and moved his newly-freed hand to rest on your waist, as your own hands clutched the front of his shirt. The whole thing felt like a daydream, and in the moment, a white-knuckle grip on his shirt served as a way to ground yourself, a reminder that this was actually happening.

The kiss lasted far longer this time, his lips moving slowly and methodically against yours. After what felt like an eternity, you both broke the kiss to catch your breaths, and you realized then that your back was now against the couch and he was leaned over you, enveloping you in his embrace.

Steve rested his forehead against yours, breathing heavily – both from how long the kiss had lasted, and from the adrenaline of the fact that he’d just made out with his best friend.

“God, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” Steve whispered, then leaned back to get a better look at you. You smiled warmly at him.

“Ditto.”

“Why didn’t you then?!” Steve asked, surprised as a grin formed on his lips.

“I could ask you the same thing!” you retorted, laughing.

“Fair enough,” he conceded, matching your laugh. As your laughter faded, he grew more serious, although he still wore a small smile. “Truth is, I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you. At the time, I didn’t really have any close friends, so I just really wanted to be friends with you. Plus, I thought you were super cool, so I felt like you were out of my league,  ya know, romantically.”

“You thought I was cool?” you asked with a chuckle.

“Of course I did! You were the first person to ever stand up to Kevin Matthews, and you did it on your fourth day at our school!”

The two of you shared more laughter, before he added, “Obviously, now I know you’re actually a giant nerd, so the coolness has worn off.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Anytime,” Steve replied, then scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “So, I guess you kind of feel the same way then, huh?”

“I suppose,” you teased, and he smiled. “I didn’t fall for you when I first met you, though. I don’t know exactly when I did…. I think it was freshman year. I remember watching your first baseball game of the season, and thinking you looked really hot in the uniform, especially when you ran over to me in the bleachers, all excited after you’d hit a home run. You were a little sweaty and your hair was messy and god, you looked so good. Then, a week or two later, I watched you flirt with some girl, and I remember getting really mad about it but couldn’t understand why. It took me like three days to realize it was jealousy, and that I’d caught feelings for you. The feelings only got stronger over time, and eventually, I realized I was in love with you. But I was too scared of losing you as a friend to do anything about it.”

“The toughest girl I know, scared of losing me?” Steve quipped, placing his hand on his chest and giving you an exaggeratedly shocked look. You rolled your eyes.

“Only because I love you, smartass.”

Steve grinned brightly, then resumed his previous position, looming over you on the couch as his arm wrapped around your shoulders and the other rested on your waist once again. His lips hovered over yours before he said, “I love you, too,” and kissed you.

The two of you spent the rest of the night just like that: making out on the couch, making up for lost time, the play now long forgotten.

[votederpycausemufins]

The bots are all fixed!!! Well, they are physically. Mentally is another question which we’re not covering hahahahahaHAHAHA! also wack, no smp members. @petrichormeraki @helleborusangel

“There, that should do it. We might want for someone to test it out in the near future, but it does look like it’s fixed.” Xisuma spoke as both of the bots powered back on. “I can see why we had trouble before. It looks fine if you’re not actively looking for that problem specifically.”

“Thank you very much Xisuma.” Mumbo said, checking both of the bots over for his own peace of mind.

“Of course. I also got a response from Biffa in the middle of it all, and while he’s not willing to share all the details of his past, he was willing to give a few notes. As these two are player entities, natural world magic is going to help them adapt more to that. He’s willing to come visit in a few weeks to see the two of them if you’re all okay with that.”

Mumbo looked over to Grian who nodded. “That’s more your guys’ call. You both knew him much longer than me. I mean, we interacted of course and he seemed nice, but you know better.”

“Well X, I think that would be lovely.” Mumbo replied, looking back to the admin.

“You know, is it just a family thing to like people in pink, or is it just coincidence.” Grifter spoke up, making everyone look over at him exasperatedly.

“Did you have to follow us in here?” Mumbo groaned, and Grifter just nodded, feathers coming off of him as he moved from stray ones sticking to his clothes.

“Too many chickens outside. Inside’s safer. Besiiiiiiides it’s less boring in here. And I’m the one who even knew what was wrong with your kids. Also yeah, you fixed it, no need for testing.”

“You’re not lying, are you?” Grian asked, crossing his arms.

“Of course not. What would I get out of lying about it?” Grifter shrugged. “They also look like my little pumpkin rolls, so why would I want to hurt them?”

“Didn’t your version of Jrum try killing ours?” Mumbo said with a frown.

Grifter just scoffed. “I told him about the bug! He was going to make sure your kid respawned correctly. I just needed some help and for you not to know. It worked out in the end, didn’t it? It only didn’t work out for those asshole admins and me.”

“Speaking of, Tommy’s old world has a console now. Well, a console other than Grum. Is the hels version the same?” Mumbo asked, genuinely curious, though the smile that Grifter gave worried him.

“Weeeell, the short answer is no, it’s got a new admin. The longer answer is that the new admin is meee!”

“You?!”

“I’m sorry why you?! I’m not the admin here! I’m not even opped!”

“I know you’re fucking not.” Grifter rolled his eyes, pulling a stray feather off of his sweater. “Our worlds are parallel but they aren’t one to one equals, dumbass. And we’re not just influenced by the shit that happens here. May I remind you that I was a Listener when Deevo and Evo started while you only became a Watcher when it ended. Or at least close to the end. And my boys were born before you built these two. The worlds sometimes force themselves together, like NPG staying around when I was gone and my boys not functioning until yours were around or… you know… Tommy being pulled to Hermitcraft after Theseus ran off to Helscraft.”

That got everyone’s attention. “Wait, is that why Tommy doesn’t know how he got here?”

Grifter smirked. “Yeah. After Nightmare got killed, Thee got the admin powers. He was pissed over things and ran off looking for me. Of course I was imprisoned and Dad wasn’t letting anyone near me, so the best he could find was season five. Member changes are always a forced thing, so I guess something pulled Tommy here to fix it that way.

“But wait, won’t that…” Grian trailed off.

“Shove you into the SMP? Fuck no. I’m admin, but I’m not gonna live there. I’m a Listener, I can check on things while living in Helscraft. Besides, things are different with NPG around. I mean, unless I kill him-”

“Don’t you dare!”

Grifter huffed. “I wasn’t gonna! Despite how much I hate him, he was the one person caring for Sense when he was all alone, so I’ll give him that. So no death, maybe just some torture. Anyway, I’m sure you’re visiting, so it balances out. Probably.” He finished with a shrug.

“Oh joy of joys.” Mumbo groaned while Grian looked so done with the world.

While all of this had been going on, both of the bots had completely powered on. At first they just took in their surroundings, staying quiet since it was clear others were in the middle of important conversations. Then they saw each other.

With everything that had happened, the two bots had barely been in each other’s company, and when they were, they were at each other’s throats. Jrum was the first to look away in shame as he could remember most of what happened clearly, but Grum was a bit fuzzy on a number of details. He hesitated, reaching out towards his brother a bit, before just pulling his hand back.

When it seemed the conversation was coming to a close, Grum got Jrum’s attention and used his screen and hands to signal something before looking over to their dads. “Um, Dads?”

Mumbo and Grian both looked over to Grum when he spoke up. “What is it Grum?”

“Could… Could Jrum and I have a bit of time alone? To… talk with each other?”

The pair looked to Xisuma since it was his place. X nodded before helping to lead them as well as Grifter out of the room and to somewhere else.

For a few moments, both of the bots were quiet, just sitting there, unsure what to say. Then Jrum started up the conversation. “I’m sorry for being mad at you. I got all upset at Dad getting upset at family, but then I was doing the same thing.”

“You don’t need to apologize. I was the one who started things. You reacted to my actions and were influenced by those red plants.”

“Yeah, but Dream was messing with you and made you be mean!”

“No he didn’t.” Grum replied, which confused Jrum for a few moments before Grum elaborated. “I started realizing something was weird and I panicked. I was worried I would do something really bad and hurt you. I didn’t know what exactly, and I also wasn’t sure if I could safely tell you. I knew if I said something kindly or nicely asking us to distance ourselves, nothing would work until I explained more. And I didn’t want to have to deal with you asking to stay because I didn’t want you to go either. So I just sort of… let myself be mean. I can’t even blame it on someone else. It was me and only me.”

Jrum was quiet, just processing what his brother had said. Then, after a few seconds, he scooted closer and hugged Grum. “Then that’s not your fault! You didn’t know what was safe to say, and that’s because the admin was - don’t let Daddy know I said this - Dream was a piece of shit!” Grum paused before giggling a bit, not expecting his brother to say that. “What? It’s true!”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just… nice to be with you again.”

Jrum smiled and hugged a little tighter. “Yeah, and now we’re gonna be closer because we went through trauma together! Speaking of which… how long do you think we can milk this?”

Grum pulled away from the hug to rub his ‘chin’. “Well, Dad is more likely to notice we’re up to something, so only a week or two with him. But if we play our cards right, we can keep things going with Daddy for a month. Maybe even more.”

“What? That long?”

“Well, we sort of got stuck in a time displacement bubble for a month all by ourselves and got controlled by different things. We would need to be careful and not make it seem like we’re having a relapse, but if we have a, quote unquote bad day, we can definitely get a lot out of it.”

“I’m going to build a new shop.”

“Good idea, so many people will want to support us. We might even get a discount on some land in Aquoo town. From Scar and not Bdubs of course.”

“Of course, we have more sway over Scar.” Jrum nodded.

“The question is what to sell.”

“Yeah, that part’s gonna be a bit harder. Hmm, maybe a gardeni-”

“Nope! Absolutely not!”

“Ugh, rude. Hmm… Odea two?”

“Ooo, good idea, good idea. It also sounds like we could get some interaction with the SMP after this, we could outsource there. I mean, we already have the connections.”

“Oh definitely. Speaking of, I kinda said Fundy could come visit Hermitcraft a while ago. Do you think that would be allowed?”

“Oh easy. We can even get Michael and his dad to come too.”

“Yes! I’ve always wanted an actual playdate! And this time I won’t be almost killed by a clone!”

“Let’s find our dads and ask?”

“Definitely!” Jrum nodded, and the two bots jumped off of where they were sitting and went looking for their parents.

“Leave me alone Lynn.” Grian grumbled, wings puffing up.

“Not until you tell me what a Listener is doing here!” The other Watcher gestured to Grifter, who was giving her a smirk.

Grian sighed. “Basically I’m making sure he doesn’t destroy everything by keeping an eye on him. Unfortunately that means he needed to come here while I change some records.”

“Really? You changing records? I thought I’d never see the day.”

“Oh shut it. Remember that Watcher I asked about? You couldn’t find anything but I kept looking into it and found two unknown Watchers.”

“And let me guess, you figured out who they were. Was one of them Eyes?”

Grian half shrugged. “Yes and no? Uh, so both of them are my kids and Eyes is like… part of my one kid?”

“Oh you’re an idiot.”

“Hey hey hey! He’s not just an idiot, he’s also a dumbass!” Grifter spoke up, getting glares from both Watchers.

“But seriously. You used Watcher magic to build them?”

“I didn’t think I did! I mean, I guess maybe? But Mumbo was in charge of the redstone and the redstone was the mayoral reservoirs and that’s what was technically using magic.”

“I’m going to have to tell someone about this.”

“Okay. Can you just try to make sure it’s someone that’s not going to completely freak out?”

“Hmm, no promises.” Lynn replied, and then walked off before Grian could say more.

“Oh I like her.” Grifter smiled. “So how do you know each other?”

“She’s the Watcher that was in charge of at least part of the world I grew up in.”

Grifter nodded. “Well I would love to hear the stories she got from there. But that can wait. Where are we going now?”

“Records room. I need to officially list my boys as Watchers and then get their data transferred to their names.”

“Ughhhh that sounds boring. Where’s the cool stuff?”

Grian just groaned and led them to the records room, needing to give excuses to a few Watchers here and there on the way. He was able to quickly grab the needed files since he already knew where they were. Correcting the names was easy enough since they were currently unknown and waiting for the answer. Correcting other forms was harder though. Normally a Watcher had their name officialized before doing much work. Maybe once or twice based on the situation, and that was the case with Jrum seeing as how his only real use of magic was when Grian himself had triggered it. But Grum had a lot more.

Every time Grum accessed the mayoral reservoirs, he was really looking into all the political data that the Watchers had gathered over the years. That alone would be a hassle, but the fact that there was extra paperwork for accessing certain sub categories was causing more issues. Normally you needed permission for data on destroyed worlds, but of course Grum managed to bypass any blocks and get right into the data. And since he was unlisted, it had caused some more logging errors.

Grian half contemplated just flipping the table he was at. It would send paperwork everywhere, but a quick bit of magic would fix it, and it would feel gratifying. But then again, Grifter was here, and who knows how he would react. And Grian expected a worse case scenario there. “Okay, can I trust you for like three minutes to go tell Mumbo it’s going to take a while here?”

Grifter’s eyes lit up a little and he nodded. “Three minutes! Got it!” Grian immediately regretted it, but before he could say more, Grifter was gone.

Mumbo glanced at his communicator for the time. He expected Grian would take a while, but he also hoped he wouldn’t be gone too long. Plus, he was also worried that if the bots were left alone too long, they could get into trouble. He was just about to go check on them when he heard the sound of them running in his direction. 

Mumbo couldn’t help but worry about why they were running until he actually saw them. With everything that happened the past few days, his mind kept trying to jump to the worst outcome, but the moment he saw the boys smiling, it calmed him down.

“Daddy! Can we invite people over to play?” Jrum asked, looking hopeful.

“Even with everything that happened, we managed to make some friends. It would be nice to thank them by letting them get to visit here.”

“And I kinda said someone could come visit and they’re kinda our cousin and he knows Auncle Iskall so please please please can they come visit?”

“And Michael was nice too. I didn’t get to interact too much, but he seemed rather nice.”

“Pleeeeeaaaaaaaase!”

Mumbo tried to get them to calm down. “Alright, alright. I’m sure the two of you could use some time to relax and have fun. We just need to wait for your dad to come back so he could get them. It may also be a while since I’m sure he wants to wait for Tommy to want to come back too.”

“Okay! We can wait!” Jrum agreed. “Can we go check the shopping district until then?”

“I’m not sure. I should wait for your dad to come back.”

“But we are perfectly able to go on our own.” Grum pointed out. “And even if something were to happen, the shopping district is so commonly filled with others that another hermit would assist us should there be trouble.”

Mumbo hesitated, but then agreed. “Alright, but see if Iskall is home and then ask them to take you there. I don’t want something happening on the way there.”

Jrum was happy to agree, but for a moment, Grum hesitated, their screen changing a bit. “Could we possibly ask Uncle Scar instead?”

“I’m… not sure he’s around. Grum are you sure you should be going?”

Grum nodded. He didn’t want to leave Jrum alone again. “No. It’s fine. W-We can go see Auncle Iskall.”

Mumbo didn’t look completely convinced, but Jrum’s pleading look got him to look away for just a moment. “Alright, alright. Go on before I change my mind again.”

“Thank you!” Jrum smiled and started pulling Grum away. Grum followed behind, though he still looked reluctant, so once they were in the air, Jrum looked back to his brother. “Oh come on, we’re not actually gonna go get them. We’re just going to say we couldn’t find them and since Daddy didn’t give us a second option, we’re just going on our own.”

Grum nodded. “Thanks.”

“Oh don’t worry! To be completely honest, I completely agree with Grifter about chickens right now and feel like I’ll strangle and turtles I see! I sort of don’t even want to see Professor Beaks any time soon!”

“Is that about the-”

“Yeah it’s about the flipping egg!”

“Sorry.” Grum apologized and Jrum made them land so they could hug each other.

“It’s fine. We already went over a bunch. Life sucked, but apparently that’s like… a family thing. I kinda want to give Daddy trauma though just to make it equal.”

“I think he has enough from dealing with us all.”

“Hmmmm you’re probably right. Okay let’s go scam Scar!”

The two of them eventually reached the shopping district and Aqua Town. It took a little bit of searching, but they eventually found the mayor. He already wasn’t the best and giving good prices for his land, but the fact that he was also up against two traumatized children, one of which he slightly feared, didn’t help his case. In the end, he got seven diamond blocks from the bots and Grum happily started building the new shop. 

Jrum went back and forth between the plot and Odea to figure out prices and stocking the place. He was glad to see Grum was happy, and then even more when he saw their dad flying their way. “Dad! Dad! Over here!” Grian heard Jrum and flew down, landing next to the bot. “Look! We’re making a new shop!”

“Oh really? What are you going to sell?” Grian responded, and Jrum had to keep from frowning. The tone of Grian’s voice sounded off. Jrum’s best guess was that something bad happened with whatever he had been doing and he was upset at that, but Jrum also couldn’t be sure.

“Well, it’s going to be a branch of Odea. I’m hoping that if we’ve got lots of people visiting that aren’t all amazing builders and redstoners like everyone here that they’ll want to buy Daddy’s designs! And since everything is moving to Aquway Town, we’re having a place here so it’ll get noticed!”

“Oh, that sounds like a great idea! And it looks like someone’s gotten really far with building already.” Grian looked up to where Grum was standing on the scaffolding, placing blocks down.

“Yeah! I’m glad he looks so happy! Oh! By the way! When you pick up Tommy, can you also ask if Michael and Fundy want to visit? I kinda said Fundy could and then I think Michael would like it too. If his parents have to come along, I wouldn’t mind. And they’re Tommy’s friends so that way he can have people visit too!”

Grian smiled sweetly. “Oh of course we can do that! I’m sure Xisuma would be fine with it all!”

“Yay! I can’t wait!”

“Welp, I’m going to go check on the rest of Aqua Town!” Grian said, starting to walk off. “I don’t want to get too far while I wait for Tommy’s message.”

“Yeah oka- wait. Dad, what did you call this place?” Jrum asked, catching that Grian used the real name of the area.

“Uh… well I better check on Barge Co.! Eep!” Grifter started to back up, but then jumped as an egg was thrown down next to him, followed by another, and then yet another. “AHH! It’s Poultry Man! Run away!!!”

Jrum looked up to see that the eggs had come from Grum, who quickly signalled a sorry to Jrum, which the bot quickly accepted. Grum ended up gliding down to join his brother and the both of them dealt with Grifter, somehow managing to send the helsmit back to Grian, unintentionally making their Dad groan as more paperwork appeared for him.

[darkenedreaper]

So Was I

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x reader, Avengers x reader.

Warnings: angst, strong violence, language.

Part: 5/5

A/n: I’d like to state that I made up a few lines of poetry and I’m proud of myself.

For the time you had been taken it seemed like your body had been put under severe treatment. At this point you could’ve been gone for months. You recognised the big symbol that was painted onto the wall. Hydra. They had been testing on you, testing on the Avenger. Every day you’d go through a new pain until they found the right one. From what you could catch they were planning on using you as their next super soldier. They had obviously saw the News and what had happened and who did it to you, so they took their chance and succeeded. You were laying back onto the white bed, your arc reactor now had a new red vibranium lining on the outside of it and your new suit which stood beside you, was black, with the logo on the back. You felt stronger, stronger than you would after training, stronger than you would after once pinning Steve on his back. Steve. Steve Rogers, your enemy according to Hydra. And ‘let’s not forget’ they said ‘what that Russian Widow did you to you’. They now began another experiment on you, testing a new serum.

Back at the compound and above the ground. It had been 10 months, 3 weeks, 2 days 6 hours that you had been missing for. To say they were all ashamed would be an understatement.

Steve wanted to get away from his shield, he couldn’t look at it let alone touch it. On his wardrobe floor where he had placed it 10 months ago, it had pieces of the glass from your arc reactor surrounding it. From the impact, some of the glass had melted to his shield. He didn’t want to be reminded of it, but his tears for you couldn’t help but.

Tony nearly drunk his whole cabinet if it wasn’t for Bruce dragging him back to the lab. And then went Tony was alone, the man would cry.

Bruce didn’t want to focus on the thought of you being tortured, which you were or experimented on, which you were. But he did focus on doing everything to find your arc on the map somewhere.

Thor went back to Asgard and he didn’t want back to Asgard and he spat in everyone’s face that he didn’t want to talk to them unless the found you. His mother back at home was increasing getting worried of your absence.

Clint was home aswell to his wife and kids. Laura distanced herself from him whilst he was back there as she thought of you as family. The kids just drew drawings and tried to make their Daddy and Mommy feel better.

Wanda and Vision tried to buck up the team, but they were falling apart themselves and if they didn’t have each other, they’d be lost.

Bucky spent time on his own, he would stay in your room and sit in your chair, hoping you’d walk in the door and do his hair. He felt his arm was tainted but there was nothing he could do about that, so he tried his best to find you with Steve.

Natasha. She wallowed. She was dying inside. She wondered if the heartbreak she was going through was what you felt all those months, creeping around hiding from the team. If it was what you felt when she watched the shield drive into your heart. She didn’t dare go in your room. She couldn’t. She couldn’t look at herself.

She worked night and day trying to track you down, on every mission, in every country, yet all were failures.

They barely spoke to each other now. You affected them massively and they wanted their Y/N back. Whether you hated them or tried to kill them, they’d be so joyful that you were back.

Right now you felt best coursing through your veins and the machine that was attached around your head was slowly vanishing away your memories. You could feel all your knowledge slipping away from you. Your weaknesses being taken over from the amount of power your body had. You yelled out in pain as they would boost it up, clear it was working. A huge flash of light took over the large base and you were listening for your first command. You saw your Commander walk up to your face and he saw the change in your eyes. He snapped his fingers towards the leather straps that had metal chains wrapped over them. And you broke free from them. You hadn’t gotten taller perhaps a few inches, but your muscles were evident as your suit was placed onto you.

You were supplied with 4 guns and 3 knives. Your arc reactor had layers of protective and bulletproof glass coated over it. Now you were unbreakable. You didn’t have a name. You didn’t remember. You don’t remember your friends or if you had any, or any family. All you were focused on was your mission, the Avengers. And your main targets were ‘Captain America’ and ‘Black Widow’.

When you had been brainwashed they had managed to rid of everything except the torture the Avengers put you through. The heartbreak and physical damage. You were given your own jet and a black helmet with a red H on the front and you went off to the compound in search of one of your targets. And it wouldn’t take you long to get there.

Night had fallen at the Avengers compound and they were all in the sitting room. Silently watching a movie that no one was paying attention to. Jarvis seemed upset as he wouldn’t talk to anyone anymore, unless that was because she hadn’t been looked after for months. Friday nearly disabled herself because she was so mad at her boss. If she were a human she’d be looking for you non stop as you often had conversations with the AI.

They had all dragged each other for ‘bonding time’. They were so down and ashamed that no one heard heavy footsteps. Until Bucky picked up on the reflection and he sat up a smile on his face as it could be you.

And around the corner you came, every Avenger jumping up from their seats. No one noticed the Hydra suit because they were so focused on your breathing body. Until Natashas gaze landed on your eyes. She saw it wasn’t you, well it was. But right now you were a Hydra agent trying to kill the Avengers.

“Y/N!” Tony shouted with a big grin on his face. You pulled dour your gun and shot above his head and you would’ve gotten him if it wasn’t for Bucky pulling him away as they all scattered off in all directions. Right now you were behind a man known as Hulk. You were shooting everywhere at everyone who crossed your path or came into view. You were putting multiple holes in walls at once and you put your gun back and instead ran towards the coward and grabbed him t shirt nearly picking him up off the ground. You got out a knife from your thigh pocket and nearly jabbed it into him if it wasn’t for that voice that came from behind you and him.

“Y/N.”

You recognised the voice as Black Widow and she was a main target so you flung the other man into a wall, crashing him into the next room. You ran after her and you were nearly faster than her if it wasn’t for her jumping up into a vent. So you took a gun and starting shooting holes in the vents, hearing scurries of fear through the vents. Your super soldier hearing picked up on a whisper that came from East.

It was Tony and Wanda. They thought they were hidden as Tony was crawling towards the table with his iron fist on.

With one quick shot you blew it up. Wanda tried getting into your head but she couldn’t even get past the thick line of Hydra.

“Come on Y/N I made that! It’s Tin-Man you know me!”

He kept calling out a name you didn’t know and as he hit the wall you took a look at his arc reactor and looked at yours. You saw his hand pout from his to yours.

“The same. You see. It’s Tony.”

You put your hand around his throat and lifted him up, his head hitting the ceiling, and you started punching at his bright light. Groans, pleads and yells at you to stop game from his mouth but you soon threw him to the side aswell, discarding of him while he collapsed onto the floor. Watching you walk away, walking on the glass that had fallen from his reactor.

You went in search for the girl who was trying to break into your head and instead you ran into the man with the metal arm known as the Winter Solider. He was trying to call out your name trying to talk to you but you shut him up by grabbing him arm and jamming a piece of glass into his weak spot where the arm connected to the body. Footsteps were approaching and it was the girl again. You took a knife and held it in the air to jam into ‘Buckys’ throat but your knife was thrown across the room with some sort of red magic around it. You threw the limp body of the other super soldier towards the girl and she was too slow to react as he came crashing down into her.

The compound was a mess, glass everywhere, holes everywhere, a little spark came from a wire where your bullet had hit it.

Vision had also been seen to. He just approached you and you didn’t even acknowledge him so you just drove the bottom of your gun into his temple sending him down, and kicking him out of your way.

You would finish the targets of after you’d found your other two. You went towards the hangar where their jets were stored to see no one around.

Meanwhile, Steve was on his way down to you. His shield in his hands, not strapped onto him arm.

You knew who was behind you and pointed your gun to the troubled and saddened man who stopped in his tracks.

“Y/N. I know your in there.”

You walked up to him and smashed the gun into his face, making him fall onto his side, shield still in his hands. He got up.

“You’re not a Hydra agent. Your Y/N. Our family.”

With a grunt you hit his stomach with your fist, sending him flying backwards. He got up.

“I’m sorry Y/N.”

And now you sent your boot into his chest and made him fall on his back. This time he struggled to get up.

You had punched and kicked him so far bad that you near the edge of the runway, splashed of the water hundreds of feet beneath you. He got up.

“I’m not gonna fight you.”

He tossed his shield away from him, trying to bring you back. His face was bleeding, his back was in agony and his suit was torn because of how far and harsh he skidded backwards.

“Your my friend.”

It was an odd feeling, one you hadn’t felt for months. Did you know him? Steve? No. He was your target right? And you went with your head. As soon as he saw movement from your feet dashing towards him, he didn’t move. If you were to kill him he wouldn’t envy you, he would’ve said he deserves it. His head didn’t hit the ground and he was now on the edge of the cliff with you above him, one fist balled into his suit and the other clenched.

“Your my mission.”

The first time he heard you speak in months and it was this.

After the first punch his eye had already began to close over. The second punch, his facial skin was torn. The third punch, both nostrils began to bleed. “Your.” The fourth punch his lip cut. “My.” The fifth punch, his lip bled out. “Mission!” The sixth punch sent his head lolling around.

You had to stop to consider if what you were doing was right. You knew this man. You knew them all.

“Then finish it.” His voice broke.

“Cause I’ll go with whatever your ordered.”

He even nodded confirming that it was okay for you to kill him.

He was talking about him being your target to kill. You were ready. You were so ready to throw him off the edge of it wasn’t for that voice.

Calling out a name. You turned your head and got up. The red head was standing. Arms crossed. She had fear and tears in her eyes. As soon as you stood quickly her arms unfolded like lightening.

She took a step back as you slowly approached her, getting a knife from your pocket.

“Y/N, this isn’t you. You need to listen to me. Y/N please.”

Your anger had slowly started to build again inside you.

“Stop saying that goddamn name it’s fucking pissing me off.”

Her mouth was bobbing open and closed. She wanted to sob at seeing how you were. She wanted to see those E/C eyes staring back at her instead of the blank ones that had one thing in mind.

“Do you not know me?” She was starting to walk back into the weapons room but she had no intention of doing any harm to you. And if you wanted to beat her and kill her then so be it. She’d let you. Your fist that was empty was slowly beginning to ball up but you couldn’t hit her and why? You didn’t know.

“моя любовь, пожалуйста, послушай меня.”

The Russian sentence of ‘my love please listen to me’.

It caused you to snap and you swung at her face, causing her to groan and stumble backwards.

“Do not tell me to listen to you. I’m not your fucking love.”

She wanted to cup her face as she felt the bruise appearing but that would be selfish after everything you’ve been through.

“Ты понимаешь русский мой дорогой”

‘Do you understand Russian my dear?’

You were never taught Russian at your Hydra base so why could you understand it. You took heavy breathes and you had a confused look on your face because your lip trembled and anger was painted onto your face again. You threw your fist at her again causing her head to snap backwards and blood tricked down her lip.

She was exhausted. The sleepless nights without you, the guilt drowning her. You ran towards her and she put her arms up to defend herself but you were quick to pull them down and you landed kicks to her side and plenty of hard punches to her ribs. By the time she had cornered herself she was sure a rib or two were broken. Her forehead was gashed and bleeding. Her sides hurt like hell and her neck was strained and had knots in the muscles because of how many times her head had flung back from the strength of your fists. You were still standing strong and unharmed and that was when you retrieved your knife again.

“Моя любовь, когда ты вернешься дома, только тогда я буду дышать, моя дорогая, когда ты узнаешь мое имя, только тогда я буду улыбаться. Когда ты вернешься ко мне, только тогда мое сердце поправится.” ‘My love, when you get home, only then will I breathe. My darling, when you know my name, only then will I smile. When you return to me, only then will my heart recover.’

You were lost in thought and you could hear voices just like hers whispering that into your ear late at night or when you had gotten back from a tough mission. You heard other voices. Buck? T? Banner? Wands? Vis? Stevie?

“Natasha?”

She had tears freely falling and she noticed your tight grip on your knife still. She nodded and she slowly approached you limping but smiling to herself as you didn’t tense or move backwards.

“But you hurt me.”

She nodded again as she was in front of you now, subtly slipping the knife from your hand. She took of your helmet and placed it on the floor alongside the knife. She could see it in your eyes. The good and bad memories coming back to you. But she could see hesitance.

“I’m sorry Y/N. I’m sorry. I’m sorry but please stop this. This isn’t you Y/N, it never has been and never will be.”

You took in her words and started to accept her, not yet forgiving her and the team for what they had done to you. She knew you were still going to be a super soldier and she knows her and the teams’ actions were always going to haunt you. She placed her hand on your arc reactor and it felt like home. All she could do was hope. Hope that you still had forgiveness in your heart. Time would need to be taken for you to heal. For the hydra walls to break down. But she would be there for you. She’d do whatever it would take for you to forgive her, for her to get you back.

They all would.

(My gif use as you want)

@natasha-danvers @imnotasuperhero @aaron-despair @confusinggemini612 @thewidowsghost @ecruzsalaz @fcbarcelona-and-marvel-4-life @gaytrashgoblin @capmarvelq @nat-romanoffdanvers @lesbian-x-blackwidow @emilyprentisswife @captain-josslett @fayhar @oblivious-horny-lesbian @trikruismybitch @summergeezburr @username23345 @xxxtwilightaxelxxx

[kpop-zone]

[Hogwarts AU] Red Velvet reaction to their s/o using dark magic to defend them

Irene

“I’ve heard her parents are death eaters.”

“They probably fought with Voldemort.”

“They are said to have killed countless muggles.”

When you walked up to your girlfriend and heard the evil words that were being hissed behind her back, you could feel an untamable hatred starting to bubble inside of you. The entire student body was lowkey intimidated by Joohyun for various reasons. Some were jealous because her beauty could force whole countries to their knees. Some were in awe because no one mastered spells quicker than her. And others were scared because of her seemingly cold aura. No one was willing to admit that though. Instead, it was so much easier to talk viciously about her behind her back in order to feel powerful. Joohyun always told you that she wasn’t bothered by that, but you could see how her beautiful eyes always got a little sadder whenever someone spread another ridiculous rumor about her. You loathed every single one of those cowards. Therefore, you sat down next to Joohyun while flashing the students behind her a death glare.

“Don’t pay attention to them.”

Your girlfriend smiled sadly and you nodded in response, although your anger forbade you to follow her demand.

“Do you think she killed some too?

“She’s definitely capable...”

Enough was enough. You weren’t going to listen to those jackasses a second longer.

Slowly, you pulled out your wand and aimed at the group of students behind you.

“Mucus as nauseam.”

You whispered with a smug smirk on your lips before letting your wand disappear in your pocket again.

“What?”

Joohyun asked confused and you quickly shook your head.

“Nothing, I was just talking to myself.”

You answered quickly and your girlfriend looked at you in confusion before returning her attention to her homework again.

Her quiet study session was interrupted though, when the students behind you suddenly started sniffling violently before eventually breaking out into fits of sneezes and coughs. Sneeringly, you laughed to yourself until you turned your head and found your girlfriend staring at you angrily.

“Did you hex them?”

Joohyun asked in disbelief and you chuckled nervously.

“Hm? What? No of course not.”

You lied, but the death glare of your girlfriend was telling you that she didn’t believe a single word.

“What? They deserved it.”

You justified yourself and Joohyun huffed while running her hand through her hair in frustration.

“I can’t believe that you would do something like that, Y/N. I’ve told you to stay out of this.”

She whispered in order to not let anyone hear your conversation, but her tone wasn’t any less intimidating.

“Have you thought about how that makes me look? Everyone will think that I hexed them; playing right into the hands of those idiots.”

You gasped in shock when you realized that Joohyun was right and you let your head hang in shame. When you felt fingers intertwining with yours though, you dared to look up.

“I appreciate that you are looking out for me. There are better ways than dark magic though, ok?”

Her voice was soft again and you nodded without hesitation, causing her to smile.

“Ok, then let’s get out of here before we get caught.”

Seulgi

“Sangsik, stop! Please give me back my wand.”

You could already hear your girlfriend’s voice from a distance and your blood immediately began to boil. You didn’t need to see the scenario in order to exactly know was going on. Sangsik, star chaser of Gryffindor’s quidditch team and a world-class A-hole, had made it his job to tease your girlfriend at any given opportunity and you were tired of it. You got it; she was the perfect victim. She couldn’t stay mad at anyone for longer than two seconds and violence was not even a word in her vocabulary. But Sangsik hadn’t taken you into account in his calculation. You wouldn’t let him make fun of your girlfriend.

Furiously, you pulled out your wand as you rounded the corner, just in time to see Sangsik flying in circles on his broom in the courtyard, parading the stolen wand for everyone to see. Seulgi was standing there helplessly while some other Gryffindors laughed at her maliciously.

No more.

“Relashio!”

You yelled as soon as you stepped into the courtyard, aiming your wand at Sangsik who only had time to look at you with a dumb expression on his face before his hands magically let go of his broom, causing him to fall off. With a dull thud he landed on the ground and the laughter and excited chatter around him ceased. With fire burning in your eyes, you stormed up to him and ripped Seulgi’s wand out of his pocket.

“If you only come near my girlfriend one more time, I will repeat this spell when you’re 70 feet over the Quidditch field.”

Your threat was only for Sangsik to hear and his eyes widened in fear. Satisfied with this effect, you turned on your heel and walked to your girlfriend.

“Come on, jagi.”

You said softly and Seulgi followed you wordlessly.

At first, you didn’t think much of your girlfriend’s silence, but when you were almost at the Hufflepuff common room, you were starting to get nervous. Had you scared her with your anger?

“Really warm today...”

You chuckled nervously in order to break the silence, while tugging on the collar of your uniform. Instead of joining in your small talk, however, Seulgi abruptly came to a halt. Confused you followed her example and turned around to look at her.

“You know, I can defend myself. I’m not the idiotic Hufflepuff that everyone thinks I am.”

She huffed frustrated, causing your eyes to widen. You hadn’t intended to hurt her with your action. Before you could explain yourself though, your girlfriend piped up again.

“I especially don’t need you to defend me with such horrible spells. Dark magic? I really can’t believe that you would ever stoop so low, Y/N.”

This was the first time that you had Seulgi ever seen so angry and you gulped nervously.

“I-I don’t think that you’re an idiot. I just wanted to- Seulgi wait!“

Before you could finish your sentence, she stormed off and disappeared behind a painting into the Hufflepuff common room. A feeling of shame and regret caused tears to pool in your eyes and you stared blankly ahead.

You had really messed up this time.

Seungwan

“They really let anyone into Hogwarts these days... who’s next, muggles?”

When you heard Jooeun’s malicious words, you needed to bite your tongue in order to stop yourself from yelling profanities at her. You knew exactly that she had said it loud enough for your girlfriend to hear who she hated with every cell in her body. Jooeun was born into a “pure-blood” family, how they liked to call themselves, and she despised everyone that was of muggle descent. Therefore, she loved to bully your girlfriend.

Like in every class, she sat in the last row with her gang of puppets and gossiped viciously about everyone who was “unworthy” in her eyes. But you knew that it was useless to start a fight with Jooeun. It was impossible to change the mind of such people.

“Come on, let’s sit further in the front.”

Gently you guided your girlfriend through the classroom in hopes that you couldn’t hear Jooeun and her gang all the way in the front row. But unfortunately, your hopes were crushed when you heard her say a word that immediately caused you to burst in anger.

“Mudblood.”

It was the last thing that you perceived clearly before absolutely going blank.

You heard yourself yelling, “Oppugno!”, while pointing your wand at your pencil case before swinging it towards Jooeun. A second later pure chaos broke loose as all of your pencils developed a life of their own and shot in your target’s direction. Jooeun could only do as much as throw her arms in front of her face in order to block the pencils. She yelled at you to stop, but you wanted to make her pay. Only when you could feel Seungwan pushing down your arm, you ripped out of your trance and looked around in shock. Jooeun had several little bleeding wounds in her face and on her arms and the rest of the students were staring at you in shock. Helplessly, you turned around to Seungwan who grabbed your hand and pulled you out of the classroom.

“Are you out of your mind, Y/N?? Do you know what McGonogall will do with you if she finds out about this? Oh my god, do you know what Jooeun’s parents will do with you?? You could be expelled!”

Seungwan’s voice was trembling in anger and fear as she pulled you through the empty hallways to your dormitory. She kept ranting on about how incredibly dumb your action had been and by the time the two of you reached your room, you were feeling nauseous.

“You can’t change someone like Jooeun! When will you finally accept that? And where did you even learn this really impressive, I mean, unacceptable spell?!”

When you met the eyes of your girlfriend for the first time after fleeing the classroom, you could see that she was upset, worried, but also...curious. You didn’t know anyone who was smarter or more gifted than Seungwan. She had mastered every spell in your schoolbooks and you were sure that she was secretly intrigued by the mysterious spell that you had used. Learning was her passion and it was clear that she would sooner or later outgrow the methods that were taught at Hogwarts. For now, however, she strictly abided by the rules of the school and her anger definitely overweighed her curiosity.

Therefore, you hung your head in shame as your girlfriend continued to scold you some more while already making plans on how to save you from a school exclusion.

Joy

“Come on, drink something with me.”

Sooyoung huffed in annoyance when Joonghoo suddenly appeared next to her again and breathed his smell of alcohol into her face.

“For the last time, leave me alone!”

She basically yelled at him by now, because she just couldn’t stand having the hands of this douchebag all over her anymore. He was in love with her since the first year and just didn’t accept a no for an answer. He didn’t even care that she was dating you. Whenever he had the chance, he still tried to woo her; which was especially annoying when he was drunk like right now.

“Come oooon, just give me a chance. You won’t regret it.”

He slurred before gripping her hips and pulling her against his body. Sooyoung gasped in shock and was about to slap him when a loud voice made her flinch.

“Sooyoung, get back!”

She immediately recognized your voice and complied to your wish. With a hefty push, she disconnected her body from Joonghoo’s and jumped back, just in time to hear a spell rolling off your tongue that was unknown to her.

“Confringo!”

You yelled loudly, causing the bottles and glasses on the counter next to Joonghoo to explode. With wide eyes, Sooyoung looked at him, noticing that he was suddenly clutching his arm while his face was contorted in pain. Completely dumbfounded, Sooyoung averted her gaze from him to look at you and saw how you storming up to him with big steps.

“If you don’t keep your disgusting hands from my girlfriend, I will aim at your head the next time!”

You snarled and for once, Joonghoo didn’t have a cocky reply in store, but chose to nod wordlessly instead. Satisfied with his response, you let him be and turned to Sooyoung instead.

“Let’s get out of here?”

You asked and she quickly followed you as you left the pub without paying attention to all the people that were staring at you.

The anger was still written all over your face when the two of you walked back to the school and Sooyoung was still at a loss for words. She knew that that hadn’t been a spell from your school books. It was way too powerful and it did definitely not serve defensive purposes. It must have been dark magic. Sooyoung felt flattered that you had protected her and was also impressed that you had managed to master such a spell. But at the same time, the thought of you using dark magic made her feel nervous. It was too easy to get seduced by the wrong powers as a sorcerer and she didn’t want to be the reason for you to get into trouble. Therefore, she decided that she needed to talk with you about what had happened.

Nonchalantly, she interlinked your arms in order to catch your attention and cleared her throat.

“Y/N...”

She said hesitantly, not knowing how to address the matter without offending you.

“I know. I know that I shouldn’t use dark magic. But seeing him all over you had just made me so angry.”

You cut her short, already knowing what she had wanted to say.

“It’s not like I don’t appreciate you defending me. Because I do. Maybe Joonghoo needed something like this to finally get the hint. I just want you to be careful, ok? Dark magic is not something that should be used carelessly.”

Sooyoung said softly and smiled at you to show you that she wasn’t mad at you. You nodded in agreement before averting your gaze from her again. Using this chance, Sooyoung quickly pressed a kiss on your cheek to break the awkward tension, causing you to giggle happily.

There was no need to dramatize this incident as long as you knew where your limits were.

Yeri

“Maybe we shouldn’t have come here...”

Yeri whispered and clung to your arm even tighter.

The finals were inching closer and closer and by now, all of the students were basically studying 24/7. As a Gryffindor, she didn’t really appreciate that, so you had suggested to sneak out tonight and do something thrilling in order to get out of your heads for a while. At first, Yeri was totally hooked by that idea, but now that you were standing in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, surrounded by trees that looked like they were alive and hearing all sorts of weird noises, she began regretting her decision.

“Yeah maybe we should have just explored the dungeon or mixed up all the trophies to annoy Filch.”

You admitted sheepishly while looking around in fear.

“Let’s go back?”

Yeri asked and you agreed without hesitation.

With big steps, the two of you hurried back to the castle, but before you could escape the thick forest, a loud cracking sound caused Yeri to flinch.

“What was that?”

She squealed panicked and you held her hand tighter.

“Nothing! Let’s just keep walking.”

You answered breathlessly, but Yeri knew that you were just lying to calm her down. Your clammy hand was giving away that you had heard the noise too.

The two of you picked up your pace even more, but it seemed like whatever was making the noise did too. The cracking sounds got louder and louder and eventually Yeri could see a movement in the corner of her eyes. Reluctantly, she turned her head, gasping in shock when she was able to make out the dark silhouette between the trees.

“RUN!!”

She yelled, not wanting to get eaten by the gigantic spider that was running towards the two of you in lightning speed. Without talking back, you began running at full speed through the thicket that was making your flight exponentially more difficult. Yeri tried to lift her feet high enough to prevent stumbling over one of the thousands of roots that were sticking out of the ground. But unfortunately, she was running too fast to really have control over were her feet were landing. She could already see the castle between the trees in front of her when she stepped on something uneven, feeling how her ankle gave in. With a loud thud, she fell down and winced in pain as her face collided with the ground. Yeri couldn’t care less about her injuries though as she heard the trampling of eight disgusting legs directly behind her.

That was it. This was how she would die.

She closed her eyes, prepared to be perforated by the fangs of the giant spider any second now. But instead of feeling unspeakable pain shooting through her body, she suddenly heard you yelling something.

“Petrificus Totalus!”

Your echo jumped from one tree to the other before complete silence surrounded the two of you.

Confused, Yeri opened her eyes and saw that the spider was motionlessly laying next to her. She was completely speechless and stared at the monster in trance until you pulled her to her legs.

“Come on!! This won’t last long.”

You tugged on Yeri’s arm and she followed you obediently, not wanting to fear for her life a second time tonight.

As soon as the two of you stumbled out of the forest, you fell to the ground with all of your limbs stretched out and your chest heaving violently. Yeri, on the other hand, was still staring at you in awe. She knew that you were an excellent sorcerer because of the classes that you had together, but seeing you using dark magic was even more impressive.

“Can you teach me?”

Yeri blurted out and you looked at her in confusion.

“Can you teach me the spells that they don’t teach at school? I also want to be able to defend myself from creatures like that.”

She explained, causing you to look at her contemplatively before shrugging.

“Sure.”

You answered nonchalantly before leaping to your feet and taking her hand again.

A wide smile spread on Yeri’s face and she started to ramble excitedly as the two of you walked back to the castle after deciding that you had caused enough trouble for the night.

She couldn’t even wait to finally become the outstanding witch that she always knew that she could be.

[mrs-hatake]

Dearly Departed

Pairings: Kakashi x F!Reader, Onesided! Dabi x F!Reader

Warning: ooc characters, mentions of blood, dead body and major character death.

A/N: reposting this since tumbler wouldn’t let my posts appear. 

this is what happens when you watch the scene of Carla’s death on repeat and listen to Eren’s YAMEROOO!!

also, I intentionally wrote dabi with his white hair and kept his chosen name.

as always, big thanks for the lovely @runeterrankhaleesi​ for proof reading this fic!

The Sunday market was buzzing like a group of honeybees in their hive despite it being so early in the morning. The people were cheery and had a smile as they presented their products, selling or trading it with their clients.

Y/N was looking at a basket of black berries, trying to determine which one looked the juiciest to purchase for her infamous black berry cake, when she felt a heavy arm snake itself around her shoulders.

“Morning, doll.” Greeted Dabi with a sleazy smile, his body reeked of alcohol and sweat.

Rolling her eyes, Y/N shrugged the arm off her shoulder and pointed at the pile of berries for the farmer to bag up for her. “Two dozens please.” She politely requested.

After she had paid and placed the bag of berries into her basket, she made her way to her next destination. “Whatcha baking today?” asked Dabi as he hooked his finger around a lock of hair that managed to fall out of Y/N’s bun and twirl it around his finger.

“Black berry cake.” She replied, seeming unaware of the finger in her hair as she glanced at the pile of wild mushrooms.

“For me? Awwww, you shouldn’t have!”

“You wish.” snorted Y/N, “It’s for the bakery. You want it? Then you have to pay for it.” She had a cheeky smirk as she held out her open palm to Dabi.

“Oh, I’ll pay.” A wicked grin grew on his lips, “But not in money.” He wiggled his eyebrows and Y/N immediately punched his chest.

“Be glad Kakashi isn’t here, otherwise he would’ve offered you to the Titans.”

It was Dabi’s turn to snort, “Please, what can a teacher do other than lecture me to death?” He then rolled his azure eyes. “Besides, he won’t stand a chance against someone in the Garrison Regiment.”

Y/N just scoffed as she continued shopping for her bakery and what she needed for dinner later that night.

In the middle of their banter, someone from the Garrison Regiment with blonde hair and kohled eyes waved Dabi over for a quick game of poker. The blue eyed young man waved back, pinched Y/N’s cheek despite her being older than him and stole an apple from her before running off to play a couple of rounds with his buddies. No doubt getting shit faced again.

Y/N shook her head. Although Dabi had the honor to work with the Survey Corps thanks to his father’s high ranked position and insane amount of power that he held, Dabi turned down his father and signed himself up with an easy going, albeit lazy, department.

Though, Y/N didn’t blame Dabi. His father was a horrible man and was the reason for most of Dabi’s burns on his body. He resented his father due to his mistreatment towards his family, especially Dabi’s mom who ended up hanging herself after unbarring the guilt for pouring boiling water onto her youngest child.

Kakashi and Y/N had known Dabi most of their lives, what with Dabi being Kakashi’s former student about ten years ago, they knew that Dabi was attached to them even though he refused to admit it.

Though, in recent years, there was a strain in Dabi and Kakashi’s relationship due to the younger of the two developing a not-so-innocent crush on Y/N. He couldn’t help it. She was kind, strong and brave. She was one of the few people who stood up to his father, Enji had tried to drag Dabi back to Wall Sina after he found out that Dabi turned down the Survey Corps’ offer after all the strings he pulled through.

Having had enough, the trio had all moved to Wall Maria and settled down in Shiganshina district.

The trio’s bond grew stronger with each passing day and they almost resembled a dysfunctional family. However, that bond almost broke when Kakashi had finally managed to propose to Y/N and Dabi had stormed off, falling off the radar for days.

Kakashi and Y/N had searched for him in all of the places they thought they could find him. It took them almost an entire week to locate his exact location and the first thing Y/N had done when she spotted Dabi’s white tuft of hair sprawled on some woman’s breast inside a small bar that reeked of vomit and phlegm, was to give him a well-deserved slap.

The tears which had gathered in the corner of her eyes did not fall as she glared at him.

“How dare you.” She spat.

Before Dabi could have the chance to apologize, Y/N turned and stormed out of the bar. Not wanting to hear any of Dabi’s pathetic excuses.

Dabi’s blue eyes met Kakashi’s grey ones. “I’m sorry.” Was all that he could offer to the older man who Dabi once saw as a man he could respect and admire.

Kakashi just sighed and nodded with his head to follow after Y/N.

“Just know that she barely managed to get two hours of sleep each night and had to close the shop the past week to go look for you. You owe her.” said the silver haired man. Dabi just lowered his head in shame.

Hours later when Y/N had served dinner for everyone, Dabi stared at her with hopeful eyes as he wanted to take advantage of dinner time to apologize to the one person he loved more than himself, seeing as she had been avoiding him throughout the day.

Though the hope in his eyes diminished when she didn’t sit at her usual chair, instead going up the stairs.

Casting a questioning glance at his former teacher, Kakashi simply grunted. “Roof.”

Y/N was leaning against the edge of the rooftop, her head tilted upwards to gaze at the million stars littering the ink black night sky.

In the years that Dabi had known Y/N, he never knew that the older woman would be at the rooftop whenever she was upset. Guess there were a lot of things to learn about Y/N, and that Kakashi and Y/N were meant to be together.

His mind had told him, repeatedly, that he wasn’t right for Y/N. That he didn’t know much about her, other than the fact that she was his savior. He had just followed her around like some lost puppy and clung to her like a child would to his mother.

Now that he thought about it, the two never had any instances which allowed for their love to blossom. Y/N protected him. Y/N was kind to him. Y/N supported him but she didn’t love him. At least not the same way she loved Kakashi.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.” Dabi apologized with a quiet tone of voice as he hesitantly approached the older woman and stood a few feet away from where she was standing.

“I was wrongfully jealous-of Kakashi and of the love you both had for each other.” He then ran his burnt fingers through his white hair. “I guess I always thought that I would be the one to marry you. And I thought the feeling was mutual but I was wrong.” sighed Dabi.

Y/N, however, said nothing as she stared down at the village below.

“It was childish of me to run away, I admit that. But I was hurt and felt betrayed. I wasn’t aware of how you felt for each other. I did sneak my way into your little world, after all.”

“Y/N…Please, I’m so sorry.” Dabi pleaded and slid his hand to cover Y/N’s smaller one.

“I’m not mad.” She finally spoke. Her voice sounded rough, an aftermath of not speaking to anyone throughout the day, not even to Kakashi. She sounded tired and Dabi bit his charred lip, well aware that he was the cause for her distress.

“I’m just disappointed of how you reacted.” She faced him and Dabi’s breath caught in his throat at the expression on Y/N’s beautiful face. She looked frightened, troubled and on the verge of crying. Dabi wanted to punch himself.

“You took off without saying a word. I waited the whole night for you to return and when you didn’t, I went to look for you because I thought you were in trouble!” She choked through the tears.

Dabi wanted to inform her that there was no way any harm could come his way as he was very strong and could protect himself but the inner voice in his head advised him against that, and instead, opted to listen to Y/N’s teary rant. He was itching to hold her in his burnt arms. He longed to bury his nose into her hair to somehow sedate her and ease her anxieties. He wanted to do whatever he could to earn her forgiveness.

“Promise me.” She said through clenched teeth. “Promise me that you won’t ever do something stupid like that ever again! Promise that you won’t leave me.”

Staring deeply into her eyes, Dabi’s expression became serious as he whispered. “I promise.”

Dabi had expected that he was forgiven, that he would receive a hug from Y/N but all that he had received in return was a nod of her head and a soft, “Good night, Dabi.” Before she made her way inside.

He watched her go and he wasn’t surprised to see Kakashi standing by the doorway.

“I’m holding you to that promise.” The teacher stated with an air of finality after he followed after his fiance.

And ever since that incident, Dabi and Y/N were stronger than ever. Even Dabi’s respect for Kakashi was rebuilt from the ground up and his admiration for his former teacher had returned. Though, the cheeky bastard would still tease the silver haired man about stealing Y/N the second she grew bored of him. His jabs didn’t phase them. They knew that they loved each other too much to ever grow tired of the other person.

Even on their wedding day, the love they had in their eyes were exclusive for themselves and nobody else. Dabi was there, in the distance cheering them on and ignored the throbbing ache in his heart as they exchanged vows and kissed. Perhaps that was the reason why Dabi grew addicted to playing poker and drinking. Y/N, naturally, did not approve of such a lifestyle but as long as he returned home then it was all right.

“That’s all for today?” asked the fisherman when he spotted Y/N make her way towards the exit of the Sunday market as he washed his fish to place on display.

“ M’fraid so!” She giggled at the old man.

“Better let me know when you’re done with that cake! My wife’s been on my back nagging me to buy her one since last week!” He imitated the way his wife spoke and Y/N smothered her laugh behind the back of her hand, gently shaking her head at the old man. She wondered if that’s how she and Kakashi would be like when they were older.

“I’ll see you arou-”

KRAAAAAAKK!

A sudden crack of lightning appeared which illuminated the sky into a blinding yellow color that was then followed by a gust of wind that was unbearably warm.

Y/N had fallen into the ground at the sudden commotion, her groceries scattered around her.

And as instant as the lightning had appeared, a dark shadow hung above them and Y/N tore her eyes from the scab wounds on her hands that protected her fall to stare at the giant wall in front of her. And what she saw stole her breath away. Literally.

There, in the distance, stood a Titan. It’s expressionless face gazed down at them. Although its face was void of emotions, Y/N could’ve sworn that it was silently judging them. As if to determine which punishment was suitable for their crimes. What crimes had they committed? She didn’t know.

Within seconds, the Titan’s fist came down on the wall and life returned to the village as screams of anguish filled the open air.

Y/N stared with unseeing eyes at the madness before her.

Living in the inner walls, she never really feared the Titans, almost didn’t believe in their existence due to the tranquility of her village. But ever since she had moved to Shiganshina and had seen groups of priests preaching about their demise and humanity’s downfall, she would toy with the idea that they might be attacked by the monsters one day- just to humor herself. She never believed that that would actually come, especially so soon.

It was the crash of the boulder landing on the market behind her which smothered the screams of the shop owners and buyers, did Y/N snap out of her daze. Turning around, she was greeted with the horrendous sight of blood splattered all over the ground, limbs and intestines could be vividly seen.

Y/N’s eyes rapidly filled with tears as she covered her mouth to prevent the scream from erupting.

Just as she stood up on her wobbly feet, she heard someone screech that the Titans had breached the wall.

Horrified and having a difficult time believing what was happening, Y/N quickly steadied herself and ran towards her house. She had to go and save Kakashi. She had to let him know that the wall had been breached and the Titans had invaded. They needed to take all their required documents to return to their home village. They had to-

Coming to a slow stop, Y/N was stupefied at the sight before her.

What once used to be a row of two story houses was nothing but a pile of wood and stone.

“No.” She heard herself whisper.

And in a daze, as if being pulled by a magnet, she made her way towards her house; the third building on the right with a sandy colored brick wall.

But her house was no longer where it stood.

Brick, debris and fallen clothing that she had personally hung this morning before heading to the Sunday market all lay on the ground, covered in blood and dirt.

Cautious and frightened, she slowly made her way to the biggest pile and began to dig, praying that she won’t find the dead body of her husband, her beloved, Hatake Kakashi. He had to be alive. They had a long journey ahead of them. They dreamed of having children of their own, of opening a school for those unfortunate children of fallen soldiers from Survey Corps. It’s ludicrous to even imagine Kakashi dead, his lifeless eyes staring at her.

“Y/N.”

The scratchy call of her name urged her to dig faster and deeper and her heart dropped to her stomach when she spotted Kakashi’s grey hair covered in dirt. Hurriedly, she removed most of the stone and debris covering his upper body but she could do nothing about the wood that had fallen on his legs.

“Y/N.” Kakashi rasped again and she desperately tried not to break down and cry in horror.

“Go.” He coughed. “Save..yo-yourself.”

But his words fell on deaf ears as Y/N perilously tried to pull Kakashi out from the pile of wood.

In the distance, a large looking Titan was making its way towards their house but its presence was only acknowledged by Kakashi as Y/N was busy trying to get him out. And he felt his heart sore at her dedication and loyalty. At her unfaltering love. But there was no way that the two of them could survive the Titan that was getting closer by the second.

Kakashi had woken up that morning by playful kisses from his wife that turned into a quick session of love making before she had to bathe and head to the market to buy the ingredients she wanted for tomorrow’s bake sale while he stayed at home to grade his students homework.

He was in the middle of complimenting a rowdy and loud child who had convinced himself that he was not suitable for school and would be better off joining the military when Kakashi had heard the sudden crack in the sky. His house rumbled and his teacup crashed to the floor. Just as he was about to lean down to retrieve it, the walls around him crumbled.

When he came to, he was nauseated by the dead bodies and blood splatter that covered his neighborhood. Gone were the colorful flowers that him and his neighbors had spent years growing.

And when Kakashi spotted his wife with terror written on her face, he already knew of his fate. His legs felt too numb and his abdomen burned, his mind screamed at him that he was a lost cause but his heart had a small flicker of hope to survive. But that was pushed to the back of his mind the second he heard something snap in the distance and he weakly turned his head and spotted a Titan coming towards them. Its hideous flesh was an image that Kakashi could never forget.

“Y/N, STOP BEING SO STUPID AND RUN!” Snapped Kakashi in desperation.

“NO! HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT? I’M GOING TO SAVE YOU!” screamed Y/N as an endless waterfall of tears streamed down her dirt-caked cheeks.

Kakashi would’ve growled in frustration at Y/N’s stubbornness had he not been so weak. He loved his wife dearly, even when she was being hot headed as they were about to die.

“Y/N.” He choked. “Please.”

And, as if becoming aware of her surroundings, she stopped what she was doing and spotted the Titan that was just down the block. And Kakashi knew. Kakashi knew that Y/N was conscious of the situation at hand; she either had to save herself and leave Kakashi behind or they will both get eaten by the Titan. And knowing the love of his life, Kakashi knew that Y/N would choose the latter.

“Kakashi.” She called for him and his heart skipped a beat, “I love you.” she gave him a broken smile and he wanted to cry in anguish. If only…

“Have no fear, your hero is here!” And in came Dabi, zooming into the area with his ODM gear. And, for once in his life, Kakashi was grateful for his appearance.

“Dabi!” Y/N cried, as if an angel had descended from heaven to rescue them.

He ruffled her hair as he smugly approached the fallen house to help Kakashi from under the rubble.

“Go.” Kakashi whispered. “My legs have been crushed and I’ve bled too much. I’ll only hold you back.” And as if to prove his point, Kakashi coughed and a splatter of blood landed on Dabi’s boots.

“But,” Dabi, who was just as stubborn as his wife, frowned at him, almost glaring. “How could you leave her?”

“Remember….Th-The promise.” And Dabi understood what Kakashi meant.

Kakashi had to leave Y/N but Dabi couldn’t as he made a promise to the both of them and he never broke a promise.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered through held back tears. He was scared to lose someone he considered a father figure. Even when he snatched Y/N away from him, Dabi never truly hated Kakashi.

“Don’t be.” Kakashi coughed. “I’m the…one who’s sorry.”

“Please hurry!”

With the final exchange of a silent message through their eyes, Dabi promising to take care of Y/N and Kakashi telling him to remind Y/N how much he loves her, Dabi took off.

“Let’s go.”

“Wait, what are you doing?” Y/N yelled indignantly, “What about Kakashi?”

“Let’s go, Y/N. He’ll only slow us dow- ” He was met with a slap.

“Fuck. You.”

Y/N bypassed Dabi to rescue Kakashi herself when she froze in place.

The Titan had arrived and it was digging through their house. Its mouth began to water when it spotted Kakashi’s disabled body and eagerly picked it up.

Time moved slowly as Y/N silently watched as the Titan brought Kakashi towards its wide open mouth, ignoring as Dabi tugged at her arm for them to escape.

When Y/N didn’t budge, Dabi was left with no choice but to pick Y/N up and sling her over his shoulder and run.

Despite the distance, she could spot the wetness on Kakashi’s cheeks and the small and apologetic smile that slowly stretched across his lips. “I love you.” He mouthed.

And, in a blink of an eye, the Titan’s teeth chomped down Kakashi’s body.

He didn’t scream because he refused to give such pleasure to the creature.

Kakashi could see through his hazy eyes as Dabi continued to run with Y/N slung over his shoulder. He held out until Dabi was able to use his ODM gear to carry them out of harm’s way and into safety.

“Take me with-” And the Titan’s teeth closed down on his neck, ending his words and his life.

[callboxkat]

Infinitesimal (part 60)

Author’s note: THANK YOU so much to everyone who has joined me for this story of mine. I hope you enjoy how it ends. And don’t be too sad---there will be an EPILOGUE, and don’t rule out me dabbling more in this AU. I do love it a lot. :)

Warnings: nightmare, fear, referenced past abuse, food mention, injury and illness, some teasing

Word Count: 4520

Infinitesimal Masterpost!

Writing Masterpost!

...

Patton looked out at the Christmas tree on the table across the room, glimmering in the dimness. He knew that the twinkling lights that adorned it were technically the same kind as what Emile and Virgil used to light their home—he set his jaw at the thought, remembering recent events—but the multiple colors they glowed with made them feel very different. He didn’t think of Christmas when he saw the lights at home—they were just that, just lights to help them see, casting a warm glow in their house. He didn’t think of other things, either.

It was late; so Roman and Logan were both getting ready for bed; and Virgil was helping Emile with something; so it was just Patton at the moment, alone with his thoughts.

He’d seen Christmas trees before, even when he was a child, but never up close until much more recent years. Whatever the ornaments, whether the trees were real or fake, even the ones with tiny pine cones—they all looked pretty much the same to Patton. The others he’d seen had all been a lot larger than this one—a lot larger—but this one was familiar enough to make his stomach twist with discomfort.

It wasn’t the same, he told himself. This one was Logan’s. And if anything, today should have helped Patton associate the decorations with more positive things. And it did! This was, he could very easily say, the best Christmas he’d ever had. The closest he’d ever come to “celebrating” the holiday before now had been nothing like this. The three littles had gotten an entire sugar cookie to share, they’d watched movies and cartoons, and no one had even tried to  hurt Patton—the most important part.

Still, looking at that small, artificial tree with the rainbow of lights and shiny ornaments, Patton couldn’t help but reach back and touch the base of his neck anyway, just to reassure himself there was no wire poking out of his collar.

Smooth skin, with only the faintly discernible edges of scars as reminders of something that no longer was. He kept his hand there for a second, released a long breath, and put his hand back in his lap. He looked away from the tree.

He wanted to like the tree. He wanted to like Christmas. He just didn’t think he could. Not yet, anyway.

…

That night, Patton woke up screaming.

Roman jolted awake, ripped from his dream by the sudden sound, which was quickly but belatedly muffled. On the other sofa, Logan jerked in his sleep, making a small noise; but he quickly settled down again once it was quiet.

For a half second, Roman wasn’t sure what had happened. And then, as he looked towards the table against the wall opposite Logan, it clicked. Normally, he wouldn’t have been able to see much, but with the Christmas tree still lit on the other table, he could see exactly what was going on.

Roman opened his mouth, only to close it again, unsure if anything he could say would help.

He watched as Virgil, who had been sitting beside one of the bottle caps at one side of the table, presumably having gotten up for a drink, quickly grabbed his crutches and got to his feet,. He hurried back to Patton, who was shaking in the blankets, and dropped down onto his knees beside him. Emile, on his other side, had a hand reached out, but couldn’t quite reach Patton.

“Sorry—I’m sorry, I just left for a minute,” Virgil whispered, barely loud enough for Roman to catch the words. “I’m here.”

Patton let out a small sob, curling in on himself with his arms around his head, his hands at the back of his neck. Virgil scooted closer and put a hand on his shoulder. He noticed Roman watching them, then, and looked up sharply. Roman averted his gaze. The mouse-man untensed slightly, turning back to Patton.

A few minutes passed, the former silence filled with quiet murmurs as Emile and Virgil tried to comfort their friend and urge him back to sleep.

Roman had hoped that Patton’s nightmares had gone away in the months since he and Logan had taken care of him; but apparently, they hadn’t left their tiny friend. Did he still have them almost every night? Roman hoped not. The thought made him profoundly sad.

“Is he okay?” Roman asked softly, daring to speak once it seemed things had calmed down.

As Virgil glanced in his direction, a shaky, tearful-voice, said, “I woke up Roman?”

“No—no, no, no,” Roman said quickly, pausing to cough before continuing, “I was already awake.” It was a lie, and not even a good or believable one. Even tired and upset. Patton surely knew he was lying; but his words seemed to comfort him anyway. Maybe it was just the reassurance that Roman wasn’t mad. Another thought that made him sad.

“You okay, Pat?” Roman asked.

“Mhm,” responded his small voice.

“Just go back to sleep,” Virgil said, glancing at Roman once more before laying down beside Patton, draping an arm around him. (They weren’t on the box lid anymore, having decided it wasn’t necessary, so there was room for them to lie side by side.) “Everyone’s okay.”

Logan sighed in his sleep. Roman glanced at him, then looked back to the mouse-men. They seemed to have settled back down.

This clearly wasn’t unusual, based on the way they acted, Roman realized. Emile and Virgil had clearly both been upset by it, but they weren’t surprised. This sort of thing happened a lot.

Roman watched for a moment longer, an ache in his chest, before he settled back down and closed his eyes.

…

“Does he wake up like that a lot?” Roman asked quietly, leaning over on his pillows to look at the mouse-men properly.

Logan was currently in the kitchen, making breakfast. Emile and Patton were both still asleep, but Virgil was up.

Said mouse-man glanced at his friend, curled up barely any distance away, with one of Virgil’s hands still on his ankle as if to comfort him.

Roman watched as he clearly debated answering, then shrugged.

“…Sometimes,” he admitted. “Not every night.”

“Not… most nights?” Roman asked, hoping that Virgil wouldn’t confirm his fears.

Virgil paused again, then shook his head. “Just sometimes.” He grimaced. “More lately, with….” He gestured around at the room.

“Oh.” Roman’s heart sank. That made an unfortunate amount of sense. Being here probably reminded Patton of things he’d rather not remember, even if Roman and Logan were trying their best to make all of the mouse-men comfortable

“It’ll be better when we’re home,” Virgil said firmly.

“I hope that’s soon,” Roman told him.

Virgil looked at him sideways for a second, looking mildly surprised at the truth in Roman’s words. “Me, too.”

…

“Hey, Pat.”

Patton stretched, yawning, and rubbed at his eyes, which still felt a bit sticky with dried tears. “Hey, Virge,” he mumbled sleepily.

“Want some breakfast?”

Patton rubbed at his eyes again, then nodded, pushing himself into a sitting position and looking around. Roman was still on the couch where he’d spent the night, sipping a drink through a straw and carefully not looking at them. He seemed tired, and he was still pale, but he looked better than he had the previous day. Patton could barely hear the wheezes accompanying his breaths. He was pretty sure that meant Roman was getting better, which was good. He hoped he’d stay that way.

Across the room, meanwhile, Logan’s couch was empty. The blanket he’d used was neatly folded and placed with the pillow at one end of it. Patton could hear him in the kitchen, probably making their food.

Finally, Emile was still sitting up in his box, his face turned away from Patton. Judging by his lax position and the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest, he was still asleep.

“I was gonna wake him next,” Virgil murmured, following his gaze.

“He can sleep ‘til the pancakes are ready,” Patton murmured, his nose twitching as he caught the unmistakable smell coming from the kitchen.

“Yeh,” Emile mumbled in his sleep, as if unconsciously agreeing.

Virgil bit his lip, clearly trying not to laugh. “Yeah, sure. We can wait a few minutes.”

Patton pushed away his blankets and twisted slightly until his back popped in a satisfying way.

“How are you doing?”

Patton was aware of Roman’s gaze darting their way as Virgil asked the question, before quickly retreating.

“I’m fine,” he said cheerily. Virgil looked doubtful, so Patton dropped the smile. “Really. I’m okay.”

Virgil glanced him up and down, then nodded. This was probably only because Logan had just come into the room, balancing three plates in his arms. Patton was glad for his timing, watching as Virgil moved away to nudge his brother awake. He didn’t particularly want to talk about last night just yet.

Logan handed Roman a plate, put another near where he would be sitting, and placed the final one on the table for the littles. Its contents were arranged in a smiley-face, the bottle caps containing the butter and syrup forming the eyes, the three bottle cap plates forming the nose, and the round, penny-sized pancakes themselves forming the smile. The arrangement seemed like a very un-Logan-like thing to do. Patton had a feeling he’d been told about what had happened the night before, and this was his attempt to try to make him feel better.

“Thanks, Logan,” Roman yawned, digging into his own pancakes, which were drenched in syrup and butter.

“Thank you,” Patton said quietly. Logan nodded and stepped away, settling down on the couch opposite them and getting ready to eat his own share.

Once the littles had their food divvied up, and since they’d now been left relatively alone, Patton glanced at Virgil, who’d been watching him through the corner of his eye. He took a deep breath and let it out gradually.

“Really,” he said under his breath. “I’m okay.”

Virgil glanced away. “You didn’t seem okay last night,” he countered softly, spreading butter on his pancakes.

“I’m fine now, though. I’m okay. I know I’m safe here.”

“But you still get nightmares.”

Patton shrugged helplessly. “I can’t help if my imagination runs away from me.”

Virgil frowned at him, looking sad.

“It’s not like this never happens,” he protested.

Virgil just kept frowning.

“I’m trying,” Patton said. “They’re getting better. I do know I’m safe here. It’s just hard. I… I don’t think those things will actually happen again, I know they won’t, but… sometimes, when I’m asleep, I guess I forget for a bit.”

Virgil nodded minutely, watching him.

“You still have nightmares too, don’t you?” Patton glanced at the end of Virgil’s shortened tail.

Virgil’s tail twitched uncomfortably.

“You don’t yell, or anything, like I do sometimes.” Patton said, “But I know.”

Virgil sighed. “…Not often,” he said, which was his way of admitting Patton was right.

“And do you really think Em will let you anywhere near there again, even if you wanted to go?”

Virgil looked at Emile, who gave him a protective look that even his current nearly-bedbound state couldn’t diminish, then shook his head. “No.”

“So you know that it won’t happen, but you still have nightmares anyway.”

Virgil didn’t answer.

Patton looked up, thinking. “It’s like… I don’t know, sometimes I dream I can fly. It doesn’t mean I wake up thinking I have wings. Or… or if you dream you’re being chased by a car. You’ve never been chased by a car, and you don’t plan on going in any busy roads, but the dream happens anyway. It’s like that.”

“I suppose,” Virgil allowed.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Patton said, practically begging for Virgil to believe him.

Virgil reached out and took his hand. “Look, I believe you, okay? You say you feel safe, great. I’m glad you do. I just worry is all. I hate it when you’re so upset.”

Patton swallowed, then let out a wry laugh. “Believe me, I’d rather not have those dreams, either.”

“I know.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have left you last night.”

Oh. That was why Virgil was so upset about this particular nightmare. “It’s not your fault.”

“But I knew,” Virgil protested. “I knew you sleep better with someone there. It doesn’t always work; but you do; and I still left, just to get that stupid drink of water.”

Patton poked at his pancakes with a fork. “Well… it’s like you said. It doesn’t work on all of them.”

“It might have for this one, we don’t know. And—and I should have realized, right? You were avoiding looking at most of the Christmas stuff all day yesterday, and then last night you kept staring at that tree, like….” He gestured vaguely.

Patton felt his face redden. He hadn’t thought anyone had noticed that. He glanced over at the humans, to see that they were clearly trying not to listen, and failing miserably. Emile hadn’t touched his food.

Virgil worked his jaw, then dropped his voice. “Something happened with Christmas, right? With her.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Yes it does. Of course it does.”

Patton shook his head. “No, it doesn’t,” he said more vehemently. “It doesn’t, because I’m not there anymore. I’m not there, I’m here, with you and Em and Roman and Logan, and I’m not there, and I’ll never see her again, and it doesn’t matter because I’m here and I’m safe and—” His voice grew too choked up to continue. He swallowed, and finished, “It’s over. Mar… Marissa’s gone.”

They were just memories. Memories that haunted him and sometimes still plagued him at night, that had left scars on his body that would never disappear; but they were still just memories. Nothing more.

Logan and Roman had stopped pretending not to be listening. They glanced at each other. Logan quietly got up and unplugged the Christmas tree, moving to take it away.

“W-wait,” Patton said. “You don’t have to….”

“I know,” Logan said. His voice sounded a bit choked. “But if this upsets you, I would like to remove it.”

“It’s n-not the tree,” Patton protested. Not the tree itself. It was what the tree reminded him of. That was no different than blaming Roman and Logan for what another human had done to him. Roman and Logan were not Marissa. And besides that, Patton had really enjoyed their celebration together the day before. He didn’t want to let memories of her ruin that for him, or to ruin Christmas as a whole for the humans.

Logan hesitated, unsure.

“Please?” Patton asked.

Logan slowly set the tree down.

“It’s your tree,” Patton said quietly, unsure if they could even hear him properly anymore. “Not hers. It’s—it’s different. You’re different. You won’t hurt me.”

He realized belatedly that Virgil had come over and linked their arms, pressing their legs together. Patton let himself lean on his friend just slightly.

“You’re my friends,” he finished, his throat threatening to close up.

A few seconds passed.

“We are,” Roman confirmed, his voice firm.

Emile reached out, and Patton took his hand, sniffling.

Logan nodded. “We are,” he repeated quietly.

Patton let out a small laugh that was more of a sob, and Virgil hugged him.

It took a while for things to settle again, but finally, they were all able to go back to eating their breakfast. Roman cracked a joke about some human thing or other that Patton didn’t quite understand, but it made Logan snort, and soon enough they were all able to return to comfortable conversation. Everyone was talking and smiling and even laughing, and Patton was just eating breakfast with his family—with all of his family—like it was the most normal thing in the world.

He still avoided looking directly at the Christmas tree, but that was okay. Maybe he’d never be over what he had gone through, not completely. Maybe none of them would. But they were together, and Patton not only had people who cared about him, but he knew that he did. And he knew that they would help him get through whatever difficulties he might have as he began to heal.

He wasn’t alone anymore.

…

The new year rolled around before they knew it, and the humans and littles celebrated with cupcakes and by watching celebrations on the television. They could also hear the occasional firework outside, but they were far enough away that their occasional intrusion was more amusing than anything else.

Virgil commented that humans must be crazy, setting off explosions in the sky like that just to look at the colors, but he had also been wide-eyed with awe as he said it, staring at the fireworks on screen, so Roman and Logan had just glanced at each other knowingly. Patton had loved the smiley-face shaped ones, and Emile had been just as enraptured.

Roman briefly lamented his misfortune of not having a dashing fellow to kiss at the stroke of midnight, only to smile at them all and truthfully say that, despite this, there was no where else he would rather be.

…

With the new year came the time to return to school, and to work.

Logan went back to work on the second, eager to continue a project he was working on. His only regret was not being able to see their tiny friends as often.

As for Roman, his asthma had gotten much better since he’d been discharged from the hospital—he’d needed his inhaler a few times, which had clearly alarmed the mouse-men; but by the time he was meant to go back to work, Roman was ready to do so.

And yet.

Roman quit his job the day before he was scheduled to return, with absolutely no remorse. His manager could send someone else out to collect shopping carts, someone whose job it actually was. He felt a little bad about possibly causing a scramble for rescheduling everyone else, but… not bad enough to not do it. He had a feeling Martin would have to pick up those shifts himself until they found someone else.

(Logan had high-fived him when Roman announced the news, but would never admit to having done so).

Roman went right into finding another part-time job, hopefully a better one. Logan suggested freelance art or writing, at least while he kept searching for something more stable, and the idea had made Roman’s face light up.

It wasn’t a bad idea.

The transition into the new year also meant that Emile was continuing to get better, and that, soon enough, he and his family would be going home. Already, he could do multiple laps around the table before needing a break, the bandages on his head had been removed, and the limp in his sprained ankle was hardly noticeable.

Finally, one month to the day after Emile’s ill-fated supply run, they decided they were ready.

It happened to be a Saturday, and both Logan and Roman were home for the full day to help them prepare. And to say good-bye, this time around.

Roman’s heart was heavy as he watched the growing pile of fabric from the mouse-men’s former beds—minus Emile’s own Up blanket, and one that Patton had kept to fashion into a makeshift backpack—that Patton and Virgil were working on piling together at the edge of the table. Roman picked it up once he was sure the fabric was all there, slowly got up, and walked past Logan, who stood at the kitchen table, hypothetically going through the now unnecessary supplies that had once been set out for their guests, but in actuality staring down at the table like the pattern of the wood grain could tell him how to get their friends to stay.

Roman put a hand briefly on his shoulder as he walked by. Logan hummed in acknowledgement.

When he returned, Logan had stopped searching for the secrets to the universe in their kitchen table and was instead talking to Virgil about what medical supplies he might need to take home, while Virgil filled his backpack with his suggestions. Meanwhile, Patton sat at the little bowl of nonperishable nuts, seeds, and dried fruit, filling his blanket-turned-backpack. Emile was resting, since he would need his strength for their journey.

Roman looked around, wondering what he could help with, and spotted the drawings he had made for the mouse-men, set aside along with a few that they had made themselves over the past month. He hummed, then walked out of the room, quickly returning with a couple of thin pieces of cardboard, scissors, and tape. He skillfully packed all the drawings together, double-checking that he had them all, of course, and lightly taped the pieces of cardboard shut. This way, hopefully, they could bring all the drawings home without damaging them.

“Thank you,” Patton said shyly as Roman handed them back.

Roman just nodded, glancing away. He lowered his hands, leaving his fingertips on the table.

Patton looked a little sad at his expression. “This isn’t bye forever,” he said.

Roman glanced back. “…It’s not?” As much closer as they had all grown, he couldn’t help but fear that this would be the last time he got to see Patton, Emile, and Virgil. He knew Logan feared the same, even if they hadn’t talked about it.

Patton shook his head, set aside his backpack, got to his feet, and slowly approached the edge of the table. He dared to pat one of Roman’s fingers, making Roman’s eyes widen. “It’s not.”

Roman may or may not have gotten misty-eyed at that point.

A few minutes later, once he felt ready to speak again, Roman spotted Virgil, walking over to where Emile’s bag sat. He sat down and began taking out the broken glass, regarding each piece with a glare, clearly intending to use the bag for some of their supplies.

“Let me get something to clean that for you,” Roman said, his gaze falling on the dark stain on the strap.

Virgil paused, glanced at the same stain, and nodded before going back to what he was doing.

Finally, everything was ready, and there was no putting things off any longer, especially if the mouse-men wanted to get home by dark.

(Did that even matter, inside the walls? Roman wondered. He had no idea. He wondered if it would be rude to ask.)

Emile and Patton sat together on Roman’s hand for a ride up to the shelf where one of their formerly hidden entrances was, to help cut the length of their trip a bit shorter. Virgil had wanted to go with Emile, but he was clearly terrified at the thought of being held, and he had finally relented and agreed that Patton going with was good enough for such a short trip. He still squinted at Roman in warning, though, of course.

They waited until Virgil had climbed up through the wall to meet them, Emile leaning on Patton for support. Once he appeared, he pulled one crutch free from where they were tied to his back (his new ones—the old ones, he had left behind.) Virgil stepped out and made to usher his brother and friend into the wall, only to pause, looking back at the humans.

“Don’t tell anyone about any of this,” Virgil he reminded them, even if, as Roman suspected, the mouse-man knew it was unnecessary.

Roman, who had sat down on one of the sofas to catch his breath—he hated how much things still wore him out, even if it had gotten much better—offered him a half-smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it. We know you guys are secretive. Besides, who would believe us if we went around talking about mouse-men? We’d probably get thrown in a mental ward.”

Virgil started to nod, then came up short. He blinked, then tilted his head, looking baffled. “Wait, what have you been calling us?” he asked, starting to laugh despite himself.

Roman felt himself color. “…Mouse-men?” he repeated, embarrassed. Apparently that was not the correct term. Which, okay, maybe made sense, since he’d come up with it himself, but it was a good name! They were tiny men with mouse tails. It made sense!

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

Emile had cracked a smile, and Patton covered his mouth, his eyes crinkling in amusement as he tried not to laugh.

…Okay, that was worth Virgil making fun of him.

…

Logan looked keenly up at Virgil, sensing an opportunity to learn something before their guests left. “Do you… well, does your species have a proper name? One you’d be willing to share?”

The not-“mouse-men” glanced at each other. Patton hesitantly nodded, Emile inclined his head, and at their go ahead, Virgil cleared his throat.

He had a false start, then said, “We’re littles.”

Logan paused, momentarily baffled. That was an adjective, not a species.

Roman grinned, still slightly red, but now with his eyes sparkling. He leaned forward on the couch “Oh, like blackbirds! It’s simple… I like it.”

Logan made a thoughtful sound. “That is true. It is a succinct name that conveys all needed information.” Except, perhaps, for the tails, but Logan supposed that that only stuck out to him because he was a human and didn’t have one.

“Wait, so does that mean you call us “bigs”?” Roman asked.

“…I’ve heard some littles do,” Emile admitted awkwardly. “But we just go with “humans”.”

Logan couldn’t tell if Roman was disappointed by that news or not. “Thank you for trusting us with that information,” he said, inclining his head. “Have a safe journey home. I’d ask you to call when you make it, but… that seems rather impossible.”

“Yeah,” Patton shrugged.

“I’ll assume, instead, that if you don’t return, that everything has gone well,” Logan decided aloud. He straightened, and smiled, his chest feeling tight as it sank in that this, right here, was the end. For now. “We should not keep you any longer, I suppose,” he said reluctantly, hating that he was even saying this. “Good-bye, and the best of luck to all three of you.”

“Good-bye,” Roman put in, sounding as miserable as Logan felt. “We’ll miss you.”

Patton looked like he wanted to say something, but in the end, he just nodded, wiping at one eye. “Bye.”

“Thank you,” Emile said. “For everything.”

Logan gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Of course.”

“You’re always welcome to come back,” Roman said, sitting forward slightly. It was a hopeful invitation, one that he seemed unsure would be accepted.

Patton smiled down at him. “I know. See you later.”

Virgil cast the two humans one more glance, nodded curtly, and then the three littles disappeared into the wall.

Roman and Logan couldn’t help but wait a few minutes, but they didn’t return.

“It’s not forever,” Roman quietly reminded himself.

“No,” Logan agreed, finally looking away from the shelf. “It’s not.”

[bush-viper-cutie]

“The Grim Attacks” || YEAR 3 – Ch.35 (HP au)

                              Chapter List

<-- Last Chapter                          Next Chapter -->

Day posted: 12/15/2020

Word count: 3, 393

Relationship: EVENTUAL severus X oc (slow burn)

Rating: E for everyone

Warnings: none

-----

A/N: This is my first fan fic I’m writing mainly as a way to practice. This is a retelling of the hp books with an inserted character. Although most every character will be written about, this is mostly for the pro snape fandom. Please do not fear, although this is a severus x oc story, it is an incredibly slow burn as I do not intend for them to get together at all until after the final book events. Chapters will be posted twice a week.

This derivative work follows the events of the Harry Potter books by Jk Rowling and is intended as a fun way to practice my writing. Thank you for reading :D

-----

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

Hagrid started pushing them away from the window and towards his back door. “Yeh gotta go! They mustn’ find yeh here – out the back, out the back.”

Heather threw the cloak over everyone as Hagrid pushed them out the door into his back garden. Buckbeak looked up at Hagrid from the center of the pumpkin patch and chirped.

“Good Beaky… I’ll be righ’ back… I promise,” Hagrid’s voice broke and he cleared his throat. “Now get goin’ yeh four.”

Harry pulled the cloak over his head. “We can’t leave. . .”

Ron stuck his head out too. “We can tell them what really happened. They can’t kill him – it’s not fair.”

Hagrid sniffed and pulled the cloak back over their heads. “Nothin’ no one can do now. Don’t worry, alrigh’? Beaky knows how much yeh four care about ‘im – I’ll tell ‘im again. Don’t yeh worry no more. Now go,” Hagrid said fiercely. “No point in you lot gettin’ in trouble fer this too.” He stepped back into his hut and shooed them away with his hand.

They turned and shuffled out around the left of his hut as Professor Dumbledore, Fudge, and the executioner, Macnair, knocked on Hagrid’s door on the opposite side. They waited until they heard the front door open and close with a snap before setting off back to the castle in a slow silent trance. Even Scabbers kept still in Ron’s pocket as they climbed over the sloping lawn.

They stopped at the highest hill and looked down at Hagrid’s small shack. Only a single large pumpkin was visible over the curve of the hut’s roof from their distance. Hermione was sniffling as the last of the sun reflected off something shiny in Hagrid’s back garden. The shiny object lifted higher, and dipped back down behind the roof in a fast swoop.

A thick thud echoed over the grounds.

“No,” Heather sobbed and hugged Harry tight.

He hugged her back and pressed his eyes into her shoulder. Macnair’s axe had undoubtedly cut clean and swiftly. Heather pulled back and placed a hand on Hermione, who was clinging onto Ron, sobbing hard.

There was a howl in the distance. Poor Fang must be so upset to lose a friend, and to see Hagrid in such a sad state as well… Heather wanted to burst into loud uncontrollable cries but held herself together, clinging onto Harry’s arm.

Ron wiped his tears and grumbled. “Scabbers – stop moving! Ow – Someone’ll hear you.” Ron pushed Hermione away and wrestled with his pocket.

“We’ve got to go,” said Hermione, wiping away a tear. “Dumbledore’ll be out any minute to walk Fudge and Macnair off the grounds.”

Ron shook his head. “Well he – won’t – stay – down – ”

Heather couldn’t keep her eyes off the hut as the sun finally dipped below the trees, and the deep purple set over the whole of Hogwarts. As Ron struggled with a clearly terrified Scabbers, Harry pulled on Heather’s sweater sleeve.

She looked over at him, and saw, in the reflection of his glasses, the wide yellow eyes of Crookshanks, slinking out from the shadows of a nearby bush, slowly approaching the high pitched squeals of Ron’s rat.

“Oh, Crookshanks!” Hermione gasped. “No, no, get out of here. Not now!”

Ron fought harder to keep Scabbers down in his pocket, but it was too late. Crookshanks jumped onto the cloak, knocking them all down.

“Ow! He bit me!” Ron screamed. “Scabbers – NO !”

The rat had wriggled free in all the commotion, and was now bounding away as fast as possible while Hermione held onto Crookshanks tightly. Before Harry or Heather could stop him, Ron had thrown the invisibility cloak off himself and bolted after Scabbers into the darkening night.

“Ron!” they all yelled after him.

Crookshanks vaulted after its prey. Harry threw the cloak off of them and the three of them ran after them, wands lit. They could hear the clacks of rocks hitting against other rocks as they tumbled on the path ahead and the distant shouts at Crookshanks.

“Stay away! Leave him alone! – Get – Scabbers this way!”

They ran onto a grassy part, following Ron’s shouts and heard a thud.

“Gotcha! Get away before I kick you!”

They slowed as their wand lights illuminated a grass-stained Ron clutching Scabbers to his chest and kicking madly at Crookshanks.

Heather panted. “Ron, get up – We need to get back to the cloak before – ”

Hermione screamed and pointed at a dark mass hurdling towards them with inch-long teeth bright and bared up to the gums. “The Grim!” she shouted.

They ran towards Ron but jumped back as the giant jet-black dog leapt between them and growled ferociously, saliva pooling under it.

Heather aimed her wand, “Alarte Ascendare!”

The hound jumped out of the way as the purple flames shot out of Heather’s wand and hit Crooshanks, sending him ten feet into the air. The massive hound sprang towards Heather, mouth aimed at her wand.

“Flipendo!” she panicked.

Sparks erupted and the dog was knocked back behind Ron and howled as Crookshanks landed claws down onto it.

Harry ran forwards and grabbed Ron’s arms, trying to pull him up before the dog could get its bearings back. The hound shook its head and clamped onto Ron’s leg, dragging him back quickly.

“Ron!” Heather and Hermione grabbed hold of Harry’s waist and pulled, but it was Ron who let go of Harry hand.

“AHH!” Ron let himself be dragged back, the pain in his leg too great to have held onto Harry for much longer.

They ran to keep up with Ron, but he was being pulled away too fast to keep up with, as if he weighed nothing more than a few lumps of feathers. Harry dove forward to catch Ron’s outstretched hands and missed by an inch.

“Harry!” Ron whimpered as he was dragged down towards the base of a large trunk, down between a gap in its enormous roots, into a hole.

Harry looked up as the Whomping Willow curled its thick branches ready to smash him into the ground.

Heather and Hermione grabbed hold of each of Harry’s legs and pulled him back seconds before the tree pounded the ground with all its strength.

Harry stood and fixed his glasses. “Ron!”

No answer.

Heather shined her wand brighter at the hole they hadn’t ever noticed before. No one ever dared go near the tree – they were probably the only to have ever gotten so close to the Whomping Willow, except for last year when they had crashed into it. No one would risk getting pummeled to death.

“Harry,” Heather breathed. “This is – the – Fred and George mentioned the Whomping Willow was planted over one of the secret passages.”

“What does that mean!” Hermione cried. “That Ron’s being dragged out of Hogwarts?! Where does it go! I told you three – I told you to hand the map over to – !”

“We don’t have time!” Harry hissed. He stepped forward, trying to spot an opening between the pounding branches.

Heather pulled him back before he could dash forward. “Harry! Are you mad?”

Hermione was anxiously dancing around. “Think! Think!”

Crookshanks, who had been sitting next to Hermione swishing its tail, trotted towards a big knot on the willow’s trunk and pressed it in. The tree immediately stopped moving and held its branches frozen in place.

Hermione gasped. “How did – ”

“They’re friends. They walk the grounds together.” Harry glared at Hermione, as if further accusing her of owning a monster of a cat.

Crookshanks slithered between the roots and slid down the gap. They covered the distance within seconds and crawled into the hole. First Harry, then Hermione, and Heather last, keeping her wand in hand, just in case.

Eventually the tunnel became large enough to stand in, and they did, holding their wands out and ready. They walked on fast but silently, listening intently to every sound of the cave.

It felt like the first time Harry and her had gone into the witch’s tunnel. The same eeriness of what lurked in the shadows made Heather’s throat tight as her heart pounded like crazy in her ears. The dog, Sirius Black, Ron… It could be anything waiting for them just beyond.

“W-what if this is how Sirius Black lures us to him?” Heather’s voice trembled. “What if that’s his dog and – and Ron’s the bait?”

Hermione sniffed.

“Then we get Ron back and – and you two take him to the castle.”

“And you’ll what, Harry? Fight him alone? Kill him yourself?” Hermione sobbed. “He’ll hurt you and then it won’t just be Ron who we need to worry about.”

Heather nodded, though no one could see her. “Harry, we’re not leaving you. So don’t make us stay any longer than we have to.”

They stayed silent the rest of the way. The tunnel felt longer than the one to Hogsmeade, and Heather wondered if they would pop up around there, and in which shop – if it was a shop at all – or . . . or the home of Voldemort, brought back by his most devoted servant. Heather shook her head, remembering what Professor Lupin had said.

Harry’s footsteps picked up, and they were now sprinting down the tunnel as it sloped up. They stopped below what was dim light seeping out from a wooden square. They caught their breath and together pushed the wooden board up. They pulled themselves out of the opening and rolled onto the dust-covered floorboards of a long-abandoned room.

The room was greyed from all the dust, and the furniture was all smashed to pieces – though none looked newly-broken. Cobwebs covered the ceiling and weaved between the cracked railings of stairs across the room.

“Could this be – ”

“The Shrieking Shack,” Heather cut Hermione off.

“Nowhere but out or up,” Harry pointed at the boarded up door and broken stairs.

“Up,” Hermione whispered.

They held their wands up and made their way to the stairs, wincing at every creak and groan of the steps. They heard thumps coming from one of the rooms, and a loud groan.

“Knox.”

“Knox,” Heather and Hermione followed Harry’s lead.

The hallway went dark, and a deep creaking echoed throughout. The two closed door in the hallway groaned while the one at the far end swung ajar and back closed as the wind seeping through the old wood of the house and swept through the rooms. They crept forward and stopped, listening to a loud purring coming from beyond the last door. They exchanged a last look and nodded together, ready with wands up and pointed.

Harry took a deep breath and kicked the door open. They all jumped in and saw Crookshanks lying on a large king-sized bed with moth-eaten hangings and beside him, on the ground, sat Ron gritting his teeth and clutching his bloody leg.

“Ron!” Heather screamed.

They dashed across to him and Harry pulled back his hand to assess the damage.

“We need to get you to Pomphrey – where’s the dog?”

Ron winced and opened his eyes. “H-he’s the dog – He’s an Animagus!”

There was a creak behind them and they turned, standing quickly, as Sirius Black stepped into the room and closed the door with a push of his finger on the doorknob.

His eyes looked sunken in and dark grey circles surrounded his eyes. His wax-pale skin was pulled tight around his face as he smiled, showing brown-stained teeth. His elbow-length black hair was matted and ridden with twigs and leaves and dirt, matching the filthy striped uniform he wore that draped off him much worse than Professor Lupin’s clothes ever did. He was a walking, breathing husk of the man they’d seen on the cover of the Daily Prophet.

“Expelliarmus!” Sirius Black croaked, pointing Ron’s wand at them with a jittery hand.

Heather’s wand shot out of her hand along with Harry’s and Hermione’s. Her heart dropped as she watched their wands land in Sirius Black’s. His skeletal fingers wrapped around them.

“Figured you’d come running in to save your friend, Harry.” Sirius Black’s voice was hoarse and scratchy, like a vintage battery-drained radio recently brought out of storage. “James… would have done the same for me… Brave of you to not run for a teacher. Everything will go much more smoothly like this.”

Heather felt a tear drip off her chin. He’d said the name so easily… Her fists clenched and she saw Harry stiffen with a boiling hate, so hot it radiated off him. Hermione put her hands on both their shoulders, ready to stop them from acting on Black’s taunt.

“I-if you want to kill Harry – ” Ron gripped a bed post and hauled himself up, gritting his teeth through the pain in his leg. “T-then you’ll have to go through us.”

“You shouldn’t be on that,” he whispered. Sirius Black’s eyes drifted down to the bloody mangled mess that was Ron’s ankle.

“Did you hear him? If you want to kill Harry – ”

Sirius Black barked a sharp laugh, interrupting Hermione and making them all take a step back.

“There will only be one murder here tonight.” Sirius Black focused his crazed eyes at Ron, and grinned.

“No there won’t.” Heather said firmly and held on to Harry’s arm as he stepped towards Black.

“No. He’s right,” spat Harry, struggling against Heather and Hermione. “There’ll only be one murder… AND IT’LL BE YOU!” Harry broke free and lunged at Black, knocking him over onto the ground.

Heather gasped and ran forward, clawing for their wands as Harry held Black’s arm down with one hand while his other attempted to smack the man’s face but was held back by the man’s thin boney hand. Heather ripped the wands from Black’s grip and looped her arm under Harry’s dragging him back with her as he kicked and screamed.

Hermione helped drag him back and they all grabbed their wands, pointing them directly at Black’s chest. Harry’s lips began to move when –

“Crookshanks! No!” Hermione hissed.

Crookshanks had jumped onto Sirius Black’s chest and curled up, claws stuck onto his black and white shirt.

“Wingardium Leviosa,” Hermione whispered, and her cat began to levitate.

Black plucked his shirt off the floating cat’s nails and crawled towards the wall and sat up. A deep purple bruise was beginning to form on his chin, where Harry had kicked him.

Harry stepped forward, wand pointed at the very center of his chest. “You murdered them. Our parents trusted you and you betrayed them, and murdered dozens of innocent muggles and Pettigrew…”

Heather saw a twinkle in Harry’s eyes. A spark of hatred so deep it sparkled on the tip of his wand. “Harry,” she whispered.

Black saw it too, and his grin widened. “Going to kill me, are you Harry? You don’t even have the right story.”

Harry stood over him with a steady hand. “You killed our parents.”

“I don’t deny that…” Black stared up at him from behind his sunken eyes, and then turned to Heather. “But if you heard the whole story – ”

“What whole story?”

“Don’t listen to him, Heather.” Harry turned back. “The murders were all over the news. You gave them up to Voldemort. That’s the whole story.”

There was a creak from the floor below.

“No – You’ve got to listen,” Black said, dropping his grin and sat up urgently. “You’ll regret it – You need to understand – ”

“I understand plenty!” Harry choked.

“Harry!” Heather screamed. Her breaths were coming out as huffs and her wand hand trembled as she pointed it at the crumpled man before Harry’s feet. He was going to do it. He was going to murder Sirius Black right in front of them, with his own wand. No – he wouldn’t – he couldn’t. That wasn’t Harry – Harry would never… Heather waited for Harry to step back, to turn away.

Harry’s grip on his wand strengthened, turning his knuckles white. Crookshanks, levitated high above their heads, cried out as Black closed his eyes. Harry breathed, held it… and let out a sob. He stepped back and droped his arm. Heather’s grip on her own wand strengthened and she stepped forward as Harry turned his back to Sirius Black and walked back to them with tears streaming down his face.

She stood over Black and watched him scan her face. If he made any move at her, at Harry, at an escape… she’d make him wish he hadn’t. Although she knew she couldn’t avenge their parents the way Harry wanted, she wasn’t going to let him run off again. He was going right back to Azkaban to rot away the rest of the years he had left. After tonight, the next time she saw him was going to be when he’d finally withered away into an old sad skeleton.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs, and before Harry could finish wiping his tears, the door to the room burst open in a flurry of red sparks. Professor Lupin charged through and took in the scene. Ron was sickly white gripping his bloody leg, Hermione had fallen to the floor in the commotion, Harry was in the corner drying tears, Crookshanks clawing at the air, and Heather threatening a crumpled and bruised Sirius Black.

Hermione sat up quickly. “Someone needs to alert the Dementors!”

“Expelliarmus!” Professor Lupin yelled, and caught the four wands in his hand.

Heather gasped and stepped away from Sirius Black, joining Harry and Hermione as Professor Lupin took her place over Black.

He raised his wand at him, and for a second they just looked at each other. “Sirius… Where is he?” he spoke in a pained, quivery whisper.

Sirius Black looked at Ron and pointed. Professor Lupin turned to look at Ron along with Heather and Harry. Ron looked bewildered.

Professor Lupin turned back to Black. “Why hadn’t he shown himself? Why – Unless… You switched with... You didn’t tell me,” he whispered, and dropped his arm.

“What are you doing?” Why was he dropping his guard? Heather looked at Black, who had started to get up.

The heat inside Heather’s body flared as she watched, open-mouthed, as Professor Lupin clasped Black by his arm and pulled him up to his feet, holding him as he wobbled. She watched Professor Lupin embraced him like a long lost brother leaving her empty and dizzy. All the heat drained from her body as the realization set in.

“YOU’RE WORKING WITH HIM?” Hermione screamed. She was pointing with a wild look of betrayal in her eyes.

Lupin turned to them and raised his hands. “Now, kids – listen – ”

“No! I’ve been keeping your secret – covering up for you! And you’ve been helping him.”

Lupin shook his head and stepped forward. “Hermione, let me explain – ”

“Don’t get any closer!” Harry yelled, shaking. His tears had dried now, and his fists were clenched down to his sides. “We trusted you! – I TRUSTED YOU! And all this time… you’ve been his friend.”

Lupin shook his head furiously. “Trust me Harry. I’ve been the farthest thing from a friend to Sirius – but I am now and if you’ll just let me explain – ”

Heather turned to Harry, unable to keep watching as he defended a murderer, blocking Sirius from them as if THEY were the dangerous ones. “Don’t trust him… He’s a werewolf.” She spat the word out like a thorn.

The room went quiet. It was plainly obvious neither Harry nor Ron had suspected a thing, not even after Snape’s essay. Ron moved farther back, with a terrified look on his face. Harry’s mouth hung open in shock. He had easily spent the most time with Lupin, at least once a week for several hours until he had produced a good enough Patronus, and the whole time he’d had no clue.

Heather glanced at Lupin. She should have told everyone the second she’d found out. That’s what Snape had wanted and tried to do with the essay. He’d wanted everyone to know, for their safety. If she or Hermione had told, then Lupin would have been taken away and Sirius Black wouldn’t have had all these chances to attack Harry.

Lupin met her eyes and she could see a pained fear in them and in the way he hesitated standing before them. He wanted to run.

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

                          Chapter List

<-- Last chapter                       Next chapter -->

-----

@lokilover-39

@halcyonrogers

@krazykatkay456

@lady-of-black-roses

@writingmi

@joscelyn02

-----

[mx-in-words]

good time

gryffindor!shownu x yourhouse!reader (moodboard)

word account: 1.7k ops

tags: FRIENDS-TO-LOVERS!AU DEAL WITH IT; fluff ;kinda angst; making out ( maybe more but not explicit); violence; shownu being badass hot and a soft bear!!! pls be careful to not bust all your uwus. 

I am so sorry if you guys don’t like drabbles, but seems like i’m an anxious person and i like to rush stuff so,,, sorry ig :3

a normal day for you, going to your potion class just living your life 

then this stupid ravenclaw boy with his crew start to shout out offensive things to you because you were a half-blood. 

little did he know that, for more than 30 years, bullying and segregation about blood type were not allowed anymore in Hogwarts, thanks merlin. 

one of the teachers petrified them, for one hour and they were taken to the director after. 

all my friends asked if you were alright and you just nod. ugh, honestly? people are still like this? this is so overpassed. 

anyways this day ended quickly and soon you apparate yourself to the centre of London with some friends. It's Friday, club day!

Little did you know what would happen. 

before all the mess, let me explain who is shownu

he is, of course, the Quidditch main player, the leader, but he is also a very nice guy. But what no one understands is that he is very reticent and discreet, different from the other jocks. He does date some girls, but the regular type ones, he doesn't claim for attention and: he is everyone type. Smart, tall, handsome, has manners, athletic, good with spells and love all magical creatures of the school. 

back to the club, after one hour you could find yourself wasted.

YES, this was a muggle club and that's what you love, people who don't know about your big secret and have no idea how to judge you because, honestly, they don't care.

So you find yourself dancing with strangers and receive a text from your friends. one of the Slytherin girls were not okay and they rushed to Hogwarts without you, but hey, they found a familiar face and asked him to find me. What a nice idea. 

You were not mad, after all, it's normal for you always be alone and you enjoy it a bit. 

So, after ten minutes, this hella cute guy called Kihyun was offering you a drink, he seems familiar but you said "no thanks", and of course he understood. 

you needed some air, so you went to the roof aka the smoking area 

"oh finally" 

you turned your head, finding shownu brown eyes. 

damn, he was hot, leather jacket, dark jeans and a cigarette in his mouth. 

" shownu? wait,, you are the familiar face that will keep me company while my weak friends can't take two shots of vodka?"

he smirks at your comment, nodding to you while discarding the rest of the cigarette

sh: "my friends left me too, so here we are"

you: " wow the mr.athlete smokes?"

sh : " and the Mrs.top notes like to go clubbing every Friday? we discover crazy things every day" 

you could only laugh and little did you know that he took a little note on is thoughts about how pretty were you smiling. 

he asked you if you wanted to dance more or walk around the streets of London and maybe, grab something to eat. 

you liked the idea of a little adventure with shownu, and also, food is always the number one. 

so that's when your friendship with him started. you both talked about yourselves, your houses, friends and even the incident you lived this morning, he was very horrified with that, making him frown and being absolutely adorable. 

since this day, you both saw each other almost every day

you helped him with his grades and the O.W.LS

he used to call you to watch his games and well, we all know you two were in love with each other

but of course, you dumbasses couldn't see that so, the summer arrived and your friends made up a plan 

do you think a house with a lot of teenagers, in a magic beach, were all the wizards go in summer would be a great plan to get you both together? idk but let's go I guess. 

so you proposed something for your group, including shownu's friends as well ( cofcof kihyun which is weird but he is your friend now). 

" no magic" 

"WHAT" everyone, except for shownu, who was smiling, screams

"c'mon! the house and everything are already enchanted! plus, car rides!"

" but the food and the train?"

" Okay, these too can be magic but only!" 

everyone agreed because sometimes its nice to not use magic you know? 

when you all arrive at the house, the bags and your belongs were already flying and organizing themselves by magic. Lame, you thought. 

"Hey" shownu put his arm around your neck " want to give a lot at the beach" 

you: " sure,," godgodgodgod

it was genuinely nice, walking in the sand while talking what do you expect in these two weeks, shownu offered to hold your shoe and god, he smells good. Sorry, any way

you both didn't have a lot of time alone this week, but even tho, shownu held your hand in the forest train, trowed water in you at the waterfall and also kept watching your body in that bikini hihi 

he made sure to stay by your side in all the games and even when you were bronzing yourself in the sand, reading an ordinary book. He also would sneak around at night with you just to see the stars or smoke a bit. 

so, the truth or dare game has arrived I am sorry for the cliche

OH NO, you were picked 

"y/n I dare you to... okay I will be nice, just hold shownu's hands the whole game" 

that was safe, you have held his hands already and shownu was very affectional with everyone so, no big deal right? NO BC YOU BOTH WERE SWEATING AND BLUSHING HARD 

game is going and you couldn't look at his face, even knowing that he was looking at you. 

" shownu, I dare you to tell y/n about what you feel about her" minhyuk is the DEVIL itself. 

shownu didn't even hesitate, he smiled at you and whispered: " every time with you is a good time, you know?" 

I AM LOSING MY SHIT FUCKFUCJFUFNENENN ok 

it was clear that you HAVE to get the fuck out of there. 

so you just do, like a clown, stand up and run away in the beach

edeudbnebd what a jerk 

shownu has no idea of what to do, were you upset? he should have told you he likes u? do you have feelings for him? he is freaking out 

so he finds you bellow a tree, looking at the waves

sh: " hey..."

you: " hi..." 

sh: " look, I'm sorry if what I said-"

you: "Ilikeyou"

he just stares at you, smiling slowly

 sh: " that's what I said" 

you: "no, you said that every time with me is a good time" 

sh: " isn't it the same but more poetic?" you laugh because he is so silly

 and that makes you heart race and the blood of your face go directly to your cheeks burning

sh: " Can I kiss you?" 

oh damn

he was getting closer and you could feel how hot his body was when he delicately touched your cheeks, his chocolate eyes searching for your response. 

You, into almost a spell that he had, nodded quietly. 

when his lips touched yours, you could feel your head spinning but in an amazing way, you were so captivated by the ways his soft lips were dancing against yours, the way his hand were found now at your waits and how soft was his hair between your fingers

 is this a dream? cause looks like one in your head. 

he distanced himself a bit, smiling widely, what an image my friend. 

sh: " we could get out of here and..." 

you: " makeout in some free room? agree"

you stand up and offered your help for him to stand.

sh: " reading minds now huh?" 

you: " you didn't like it?" 

he hugged you from behind, whispering close to your ear: "I will show you what I like soon"

bitchwhat

you both just run into the house, your friends looking at you both at the door with the biggest poker faces ever while you both just laugh and run upstairs, opening your room and locking it ;) 

shownu wasted no time, he sits on the edge of the bed, already putting you on his lap, locking your lips in his again as his life depends on it.

 God he was so hot, the messy hair, the plushie lips, the way he smirks, the way his strong hands grip your thighs and your waist, travelling everywhere but careful to not scare you, he is so gentle!!!!

you can resist and start to kiss his neck and you could feel him whimper while tensing his body. he returns the favour, kissing you neck back and giving soft bites, that's when you lose your shit and starts unconsciously griding on him, feeling him, got harder by your movements and a low moan leaves your mouth

you can feel shownu smirking and kissing your neck, collarbones and the curves of your breasts, making you wetter and wetter. 

sh: " do you want to keep this going? because I have been wanting this" he squeezes your butt strongly, making you moan again " wanting you... so badly y/n"

you kiss him slowly again, whispering " I am yours already baby, and I am sure" 

you can imagine the rest right? 

the next day, your roommate was mad at you but, no regrets. even with kihyun and jooheons dirty comments, you can only be happy to be dating shownu.

 he was so sweet and lovely you

 both spend the rest of the summer going out together and going to clubs and pubs

he even taught you how to fly in a broom like a player

it's strange how he became your best friend and also is your boyfriend

and even sometimes fighting for silly things, nothing serious, everything seems so natural and peaceful with him

 you: " babe "

sh: " yes, love?"

you: "every time with you is a good time" 

sh: "I love you too baby". 

[lo-55]

Shattered Chains or Fate Ch. 6

Isle of Towers, Glass, and Stone

     The answers might lie within.  

   Great. Now the problem is, how does he find those answers at all? How does he go ‘within’ when most of the time he’s going ‘outside’ of his body. Projecting his soul was one thing. He’d done it a dozen times, if not more. Going inside of it? Or his mind? Or whatever within the cryptic asshole of a mage had suggested, was a totally different matter.

   “Fucking everyone’s so damn cryptic all the time,” Ichigo scowled, pacing around the house. The cat was still there, watching him with her tail twitching back and forth.

 Ichigo still doesn’t know who she’s working for.

   There’s about three mage families in the country that are prominent. Tohsaka’s work with gems, the Matou are mostly fallen, and he doesn’t know anything about the other one. Ichigo should probably be more concerned, but he’s got bigger things to worry about right now.

   Mainly, figuring out how to find his answers on the inside.

   Inside.

   Ichigo kept walking in circles, trying to figure it out. Over and over, he walked around and around. In a spiral.

   Finally he sat hard on the floor and leaned back.

   Jeanne would pray. But she was guided by a god, and an Agent of Counterforce (or some approximation of it).  Sanzang followed the voice of buddha/her future self. And Ichigo…

   Ichigo has an ever cryptic sage telling him to look inside himself for answers, like something out of a bad movie. Hell, his life at this point might as well be just that. Who else gets into these kinds of situations constantly?

   Just him, that’s who.

   Ichigo tilts his head back. He’s spent time outside his body. How will he get inside it?

   “A backwards… Rayshift?”

   Is that even possible? It’s the best idea he has. Ichigo closes his eyes and thinks of Rashifting. The first time it had happened, he had been on the verge of death. Mash had been all but a corpse at his side. Fire had licked across them and CHALDEAS had glowed bloody above their heads. It had vanished, the red turned blue and bright and the fire clearing for a few brief seconds between Chaldea and Fuyuki.

   Ichigo breathes, focusing on that.

   On the blue, the soft light and the feeling of being weightless. On the knowledge that someone, even if it wasn’t Roman anymore, was out there looking after the integrity of his soul. He breathed in, tasting the air, tasting no ash.

   Ichigo breathed out.

   He thought of the feeling of Rukia’s gloved hand pushing him out with a rough pop. He thought of the feeling of Kon, sliding into his limbs and chest and head until he was squeezed with no room and no place to go but out.  

   Ichigo felt the swirl of the shift, the gravity, the whirlpool of energy.

   The swirl to the halo of the past. Out, out, out.

   Ichigo breathed in and pulled the whirlpool with him. He inverted the spiral of blue and white and light and gravity and twisted it not out of himself but      in    .  

   It was the feeling of falling. It was the feeling of flying. It was a pull that he didn’t quite understand, the tug of his instinct dragging him out of danger.

   It was the feeling of cement under his feet. It was the feeling of glass against his cheek.

   It was a pale blue sky, with smokey puffs of rain clouds floating high above him.

   *

   “The fact that you are not more afraid of this man really only leads credibility to my idea that you are insane . He’s at least ten times stronger than all of your companions.”

   Ichigo glances sideways, and Kyo. He leans against the wall, watching Karna with something like respect, or maybe admiration in his gaze. Ichigo can understand. Even from as far away as they are, he can feel the heat radiating off of the son of the sun god. It blooms against his skin, but doesn’t scorch him. Not yet, in any case.

   It feels strange. This Karna is not the Karna that Ichigo had met and fought against and within his dream of Trifas. They were the same, at their core, but this one didn’t know him. This one wasn’t his friend. This one hadn’t fought a vampire and a near endless supply of false Servants with him.

   Instead, this one was here to stop him from going to Edison. To stop him from forcibly beating sense into the insane american presi-king.

   It would have been intimidating, but even now Ichigo can tell that Karna doesn’t actually want to kill them.

   Like all of those heroes born in the Age of Gods, Karna is insanely powerful. Before him Ichigo is little more than an ant to be stepped on. This Hero of Charity is a legend in every sense, and his reputation is earned. The spikes on his collar speak of danger and death. The spear in his hands pulses with the power and radiates heat like pavement on a summer day.

   Karna is the child of a god, and they are, in the end, little more than human.

   Kyo isn’t. He’s strong, Ichigo knows that too. He’s at least as strong as some Servants, and Ichigo is certain he’s stronger than he’s letting them think he is. Not only is he strong, he’s smart, and good as playing at being harmless. Even if Ichigo is the only one who can see him regularly, he won’t drop the fake smile on his lips.

   How annoying.

   “You should withdraw at once!” Nightingale calls to their foe. Ichigo has no intention of letting him stay an enemy, but for now he can’t do anything. They have to beat him first, and then beat Edison over the head.

   “Perhaps you’re right. I am infected by an illness called ‘loyalty’. Figuring that out so fast, is it because you’re a nurse?” his head cocks just so.

   Nightingale huffs. “No. You’re just easy to understand.”

   Ichigo watches Karna deflate, looking upset. “Oh no, we ruined his mystery,” Ichgo couldn’t help teasing.

   Mash looked equally put off. “He seems somewhat depressed…”

   “Thank you for pointing that out. But no matter. He asked for my help first, and that is all I need to know. The king of inventions knelt before a worthless man like me and asked my help. Besides,” A smile, as warm as his magic, spread across Karna’s face. “He reminds me of a friend. And I am only human, don’t forget.”

   “‘Only      human’    says the demigod,” Ichigo mutters to Kyo, who snorts elegantly. “We should get this over with.”

   “You can’t hope to win,” Kyo argues, but he’s clearly getting used to ichigo’s stubborn nature.

   “Fucking watch us.”

   Ichigo draws up, prepared to fight-

   And Karna turns and walks back down the hallway, called away by Edison.

   “Huh. So it’s going to be a trap?” Ichigo muses.

   “ ‘ow can is be a trap, if ya know i’s gonna happen?” Cu asks, propping his elbow on Ichigo’s shoulder and leaning on his master. Ichigo scowls at him and shoves him off, but it’s more playful than anything else.

   “If it is a trap, it’s wiser for you not to spring it,” Kyo ads.

   “Okay, fine. You’re invisible. Go in there and see what we’re up against.” Ichigo points towards the high door to the throne room, at the end of the hall. Kyo just gives him a look.

   “Do I look like a servant?” Kyo arches a brow at him regally, and Ichigo shoots him a baleful glare. “Fine. But I expect you to do something for me, in return.”

   “Oh joy,” Ichigo rolls his eyes as Kyo walks through the walls, towards the presi-kings throne room. Now he owed a dead man a debt. Just once in his life couldn't one of these people be cooperative? He’d kill to have Chad here with him, even if it was just as emotional support in all this madness.

   “Poor master,” Mash mourns. “You look rather mad when you stand there talking at thin air.”

   “Hmm?” Medusa cocks her head. “I don’t know, the longer I’m attached to him, the more I think I see faint shadows about where he’s talking at. But that could be my imagination…:

   “It could make sense,” Ichigo admitted, “I have poison resistance thanks to Mash. Maybe you guys get to see dead people.”

   “Master,” she says slowly, “      We     are dead people.”

   Ichigo scowls. “Don’t be a smart ass.”

   “It’s better than a dumb ass.”

   He jumps when Kyo’s voice comes from behind him, smooth and full of amusement. Ichigo turns to scowl at him, but the man is unphased.

   “It does seem like it will be a straightforward confrontation. My, you must all be terrible at assassinations.”

   Ichigo smacks his arm when Robin winces, missing the fact that Robin must have been able to hear the jibe at his failure. With a frown at Kyo, he leads the way to battle.

   * *

   He’s laying on a building. Sideways on a building, if he wants to be picky about it.

   Ichigo sits up, slowly, looking down at the streets. It’s not the weirdest thing to ever happen. But still weird. Below him looks like a small Karakura town, and outwards are other skyscrapers, and towers of stone and glass. He can recognize turrets of castles that crash haphazardly into pillars of a familiar roman theatre. A flag with a fleur de lis floats in the distance, small atop a dusty building of the Old West. Between some wind long mountain roads that hitch into the metal and stone unnaturally. He can’t see the street, it’s flooded with water and dark shapes move beneath the surface.

   Ichigo stands, slowly, trying to focus on staying attached to the building he’s on. He doesn’t dare jump. He might die.

   He might actually be dead for all he knows. Did he just accidentally kill himself? This doesn’t look like any afterlife he’s ever heard of…

   It was certainly not Kur. Ichigo hopes he hasn’t died. He has promises he needs to keep, and dying would be a conflict of interests right now.

   All around him are remnants of places he’s known, of his home and the lands he’s seen. The sky scrapers reach high into the sky, like the fingers of some great giant trying to grasp the clouds themselves.

   Ichigo turns his face to the sky. There’s no sun, and far off in the horizon storm clouds brew in dark, angry shades of grey.

   “Okay. This is not great,” he says at last. “Where am I?”

   Something ruffles the back of his neck, like wind only the air is still and he spins around on his heel, until he sees something dark and flicking behind him. A person. A man, in a black coak that billows around his ankles. It’s edged in red.

   “Hey, old man!” Ichigo spins to face him fully. “Who are you?”

   “Who am I? I am _____”

   Ichigo stares. He couldn’t hear him. He heard every word but his name. Why? What cut it off? There’s no wind, no sound, nothing that would do that.

   Even though the strangers face is largely impassive, Ichigo can still see the slightest slanting of his eyes. His disappointment.

   “I see. How sad, even now you can’t hear my voice. You, who knows me better than anyone else.”

   “What are you talking about?” Ichigo crosses his arms over his chest as the man walks down the pole he’d been standing on and onto the side of the building in front of Ichigo. The distance between them feels like a chasm. “I’ve never met you before.”

   Snow flutters around them, small flakes that stick to nothing. It’s just a playful flurry, flickering cold across his skin before it disappears again.

   “You’ve known me all your life, even if you don’t know it. And I have known you. I know why you’re here. You’re looking to become another Shinigami, aren’t you?”

   Ichigo pauses, but nods in the end. Who is this man? How does he know this? He does feel familiar. More familiar than Chad. More familiar than Mash, even. Why…?

   “The old man in the hat said it’s possible, but I have to die. And I can’t do that. I have a promise to keep, so I have to stay alive and save Rukia before I fulfill it. And to do that, I need power I don’t have. Rukia lent me hers, but that’s gone now. There’s no one else anymore.”

   No Rukia. No Mash. No Medusa, or Cu. No Romani.

   Just him.

   “I have no one else to rely on. I have to stand on my own two feet. I have to fight with my own two hands.”

   “That’s not true.”

   The man walks towards him slow, his heels clicking on the glass of the building.

   “Rukia’s power may be gone, but Urahara Kisuke was no wrong when he declared that you have your own Shinigami powers. And you do not fight alone, Ichigo. I fight with you. I always have.”

   There’s a vicious vow somewhere in his level voice. A yearning that Ichigo almost misses.

   “I don’t understand. Who are you?” Ichigo shakes his head, trying to make sense of everything that’s happening.

   The man looks at him, and opens his mouth to repeat his name.

   “I am _____”

   * * *

   They’re the only ones awake.

   Ichigo is used to late nights. Sleep is hard to come by these days, and he usually only gets it when he’s too tired to even think, or when Mash’s solid shield lays beside him. The others are doing better than he is. They’re heroes and legends and myths. They have stronger hearts than he does.

   Ichigo walks quietly, not so far from the camp that he’ll get himself killed, but far enough that his movements won’t disturb his friends. Medusa is on watch at the perimeter, and she tosses him a somewhat concerned look, but doesn’t try to interrupt him when he sits beside Kyo.

   He’s got questions. About a million of them about the afterlife, but he doesn’t really have time for all of them at one time.

   And one top of questions about the afterlife, he has just as many about Kyo himself. He’s a mystery. He’s not a heroic spirit. And really, he has no reason to be following Ichigo around besides the fact that Ichigo has forcefully dragged him along.

   Not that Kyo couldn’t get away if he wanted to. Ichigo is no fool. Everyone here could kill him with a napkin.

   Kyo doesn’t acknowledge him when he sits beside him. Instead he keeps his eyes on the sky. On the stars haloed by the light in the sky. Even with it, there’s a thousand stars in the sky that Ichigo would never be able to see in Karakura. There’s too much light, even in a small city to be able to see this many stars.

   The whole milky way stretched across the sky, a painted band of blue and white and pink towards the edge of the horizon.

   “Is it the same?” he finds himself asking. Kyo makes a sound of question in the back of his throat, so he elaborates. “The sky. Is it the same where you’ve come from?”

   “Seireitei,” Kyo says the words slowly. “The stars are the same, but that’s about it.”

   “How do you mean? Isn’t it supposed to be a paradise? Like, Heaven? Elysium? Tian? Valhallah?”

   “Are you going to keep listing off afterlifes until I give you a real answer?” Kyo cocks his head, looking somewhat amused.

   Ichigo shoots him a crooked grin. “I absolutely will.”

   “My, you’re a pest.”

   “And you’re rude. Fields of Yula, asphodel, f      olkvangr-    ”

   Kyo claps his hand over ichigo’s mouth to finally shut him up, and Ichigo scowls at him without heat and with smugness.

   “Soul Society isn’t exactly like those stories,” Kyo’s smile is somehow soft and bitter and sad at once. Ichigo doesn’t know what to make of it.

   “So it’s no paradise,” Ichigo surmises.

   Kyo’s brow pinches and his mouth twists. “No. Not quite.”

   “Is there some rule saying that you’re not allowed to tell me?”

   “No,” Kyo says slowly,” But it is, ill advised. We are taught to tell the souls to pass on that they will find a good place in the next world. A paradise. So they don’t fight us going into a world not so unlike their own. “

   “Wow you make death sound inviting,” Ichigo says dryly. He manages to startle a laugh out of Kyo before he sobers again, looking to the stars.

   “The closer to the seireitei you get, the better the quality of life. In the first few districts people generally want for nothing, and are elbow to elbow with nobility and their retainers, if they aren’t one of those things already. Most nobles live in Seireitei itself, safe in their walls. But further away…”

   “Further away you find the poor, the downtrodden. Poverty is prevalent. Rukongai is separated into districts. Past the fifty ninth districts, most people can’t even afford sandals.It’s violent and bloody out there, and the people who have the most power are the ones least likely to help.”  

   Kyo’s hands curl and his mouth twists.

   Ichigo leans back on his hands. “You should get tips from Robin for overthrowing governments.”

   “I couldn’t do that,” Kyo shakes his head, but there’s a light in his eyes that makes Ichigo think that the idea has already crossed his mind at least once. “This is actually my first trip to the human world. I was supposed to arrive in Kyoto, but something went wrong, and now I’m here.”

   “It’s probably because Kyoto no longer exists,” Ichigo figures, solemnly, “The only land that exists at this time is here. The United States. Everywhere else has been completely obliterated.”

   They had to reverse that. They had to stop this war.

   * * * *

 They’re caught between a rock and a hard place. Literally.

   Ichigo and his Servants, minus Scathach who’s gone ahead of them, are cornered by monsters only Ichigo and Kyo can see and touch.

   Kyo is strong. Incredibly strong. He’s already cut down more of the swarm that Ichigo would have ever imagined, and blasted even more with fierce spells of blue and red energy. Yellow chains, and dark crescents. But they just keep coming, and now there’s even stronger ones ripping their way through the sky. They’re smaller and more distinct than the first wave, and as powerful as fifty of them combined.

   Even Kyo is struggling against the dozens of them that rip through the sky.

   Then it happens.

   One of them targets Ichigo and Kyo appears in front of him, striking it down. A second comes screaming in from the side and tears into Kyo’s sword arm.

   Blood splatters against Ichigo's cheek.

   “Kyo!” Ichigo lunges for him, but Kyo puts up his good hand, stopping him.

   “Stay where you are! You’ll only get in the way if you can’t fight. Damn, why are they all here at once?” Kyo grits his teeth and lifts his left arm, shooting off more spells, but without his sword, he’s struggling more to keep up.

   Ichigo burns with the feeling of being helpless. He can’t stay there and do nothing.

   So he does the only thing he can do.

   He shoots forwards, to Kyo’s back, and claps his hand on Kyo’s shoulder. He pours all the spirit energy he possible can into Kyo’s body, until he’s glow with it, blue and white. Kyo looks back at him, stunned.

   “Don’t just stand there!” Ichigo barks. “Hit them!”

   Kyo nods, once, looking dazed, and lifts his arm at the monsters closing in on them.

   “      Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! On the wall of blue flame, inscribe a twin lotus. In the abyss of conflagration, wait at the far heavens.”  

   Blue swirls in front of him, a ball of raw power that flashes and lashes out at the edges, dragging burn scars into the ground and drawing blood off of Kyo’s arms.

   “      Hado seventy three! Soren Sokatsui!”  

   It tears away from Kyo and Ichigo in a devastating force, ripping through the ground and shredding all the monsters in front of them into nothing more than burnt husks.

   Ichigo has time enough to register Kyo looking at him with a new light in his eyes before he falls to the ground, the world going black.

   * * * * *

 “I see.”

   The disappointment is back in the man’s face, and it makes Ichigo’s skin crawl. He doesn’t know why. This is a perfect stranger, he shouldn’t care so much what he thinks about him. But he does. It feels gross, a bur under his skin that he just can’t shake.

   “You still cannot hear me. Very well then. Perhaps you will hear my voice once you have unlocked your Shinigami powers.”

   “Uh huh. I don’t suppose you have a key for that, do you old man?” Ichigo asks, crossing his arms over his chest. The man cocks his head ever so slightly. His hair waves in time with his coat and he taps the window beneath him with the toe of his shoe.

   “This world exists inside of you. Inside of your mind. Inside of your very soul. Somewhere in here, somewhere in all these windows and bricks and everything else you’ve ever made a home for in here, you will find what you seak. You will find your shinigami powers somewhere here. Somewhere within.”

   “Just like that man said…”

   Ichigo is glad for the opportunity, but he doesn’t want to be the one to tell Merlin he was right. The Mage of Flowers will be even more smug than he already is, and Ichigo does not need that at all.

   “Fine. I just have to find it then.”

   He had no idea how he would do that. If this was inside of him, what would happen if he broke something? What would a shattered window do to he himself? He could only speculate, and he didn’t like any of the things he thought of. So he’d have to go by it delicately.

   Was that possible? The only way into the buildings would be through doors that are now thoroughly covered in water.

   Needle in a haystack much?

   Ichigo runs his fingers through his hair and tilts his head, closing his eyes in thought.

   If he was shinigami powers, where would he hide?

   Nowhere in the brackets of mountains. Nor in the theatre, or the tall castle towers. Nowhere that he was a Mage.

   That ruled out a lot.

   This guy said he’d always been with him. Did that mean he was a shinigami this whole time? Why hadn’t they come to him earlier? During the wars? In Kur?

   On the banks of the Karakura river.

   Ichigo shook his head and opened his eyes again. The old man was staring at him. Waiting. Watching. It was a little creepy. Ichigo’s hair brushed his shoulders when he turned his head to the side, looking down at the water.

   Somehow, he had to find his Shinigami powers.

   It had to be somewhere in these blue buildings. Maybe…

   Ichigo knelt down, knocking at the window under his feet curiously. It was totally solid. There didn’t seem to be so much as a hinge to open it. But inside, there, something white fluttered around.

   “...fuck it.”

   Ichigo punched his hand through the glass, ignoring the way the shards bit into his arm, and grabbed it. When he pulled his hand back he found a ribbon in his grasp.

   White ribbons. Like the ones Uryu had shown him before.

       That's it!  

   Ichigo jumped back, as high up as he could. He landed on the air, the way he had as a shinigami. This was it. This was how he could find it. He scoured the building, the windows, looking for anything that wasn’t blue and white. Anything. It had to be somewhere.

       C’mon. Red, red, red-  

   Ichigo drops back onto the building, understanding dawning. He makes his way over to the strange man and reaches out, grasping the straight sword he’d been standing on before. He pulls, and in his hand comes away a red ribbon that wraps around his wrist. As he pulls the sword from its sheath it flashes with pale blue light, until he’s holding a massive sword almost as long as his body.  

   Ichigo grins sharply at the old man, a name blossoming on his lips. They speak as one, voices merging.

   “Zangetsu.”

   Ichigo swings the sword to the side. It feels effortlessly light despite how large it is. It isn’t the foreign feeling of Rukia's power. This is his, and his alone.

   When he looks down, he’s wearing Shinigami clothes again. If Kyo could see him now.

   “Congratulations, Ichigo. You are, again, a Shinigami.” His voice is low and even. Ichigo glances at his eyes, half hidden by sunglasses.

   “Thanks. Although to be honest…. I was kind of hoping I’d be a Quincy, like my mother.”

   He doesn’t miss the startled jerk of Zangetsu’s head.

* * * * * *

[clean-bands-dirty-stories]

The Best Things ~ J.V. (Part 6)

A/n: Things boutta get bad so like... I'm sorry. Practically nothing but angst this part won't lie. Side note: I know I don't actually have a lot of Jerome x reader content yet, but I wanted to show the reader's descent into madness before they're officially a thing. I promise you it's coming, and very soon :)

Word Count: 4300+

Playlist

MASTERLIST

Y/n shot to his feet, only for the guards behind him to draw their guns. Alfred held up a hand. "Is he alive?" Y/n demanded. He might have lost his mind just a tad, but Bruce was still one of the very few things Y/n Wayne cared about and no one was about to put that boy in danger.

"Yes," Alfred soothed. "I said he WAS kidnapped. We have him back now." Y/n calmed and Alfred seemed to almost smile, as if seeing the amount Y/n cared was very reassuring. That tracked. "He's been brainwashed or something though, and I've gotten special permission from Commissioner Bullock himself to let you out to help me bring him back. If we play this right, we might even get you released permanently. We can figure this whole thing out. You can come back to us. We can be a family again." Y/n thought about that. Seeing Bruce again. His brother meant everything to him. He cared about Alfred too, honestly. The man had been a good father figure to both of them, and a good friend even when their father was alive. Y/n would have a real home, without killing or chaos. He'd be working for the good guys.

Right?

He thought about that word. Good guys. Cops were supposed to be good guys, weren't they? But he'd gotten locked up in Arkham just for being associated with Jerome, and then gotten the shit kicked out of him when he'd simply been himself. He hadn't killed anyone, or hurt anyone. He'd shown affection to another man and had nearly gotten beat to death for it. He'd leave Arkham, the only place he'd ever really been accepted for being gay. Maybe not by that one guard, but everyone else seemed to not care since no one cared about him at all, except maybe Jerome. Oh god Jerome. Y/n would have to leave him. And Harleen as well. The new friend who really got him and had his back the best she could in a place where her words practically had as much affect as Y/n's did. He had a boyfriend and a potential best friend and room to be free... except that he wasn't free.

Why was this so hard?

"Y/n," Alfred interrupted, eyes wide and pleading. "Bruce needs you."

The last time Alfred had said that, Bruce had just witnessed their parents' murders. Y/n pushed down the boy he used to be that was fighting to resurface, trying to find at least a. Middle between then and now. They were so different... there was suddenly a battle again himself, and he was losing.

Finally, he just shut it all down. Everything else could wait for another time. "When can we leave?" Alfred smiled at his words, but Y/n suddenly had a terrible feeling in his gut. Why did he get the sense that everything was about to get really, really bad again?

-

"Penguins alive?" Y/n relaxed in relief.

Alfred frowned. "Yeah. Um-" He swallowed. "You've kind of really been involved with all the worst people recently, eh?"

Y/n actually scoffed at that, his lips curling in amusement. "I've met far worse people than Oswald, Alfred." He looked the butler in the face. "You might not like to hear this, but that redhead everyone in town hates so much? He wasn't the one who did this to me." Y/n motioned to his own face. "But the officer who did, did it for no other reason than because I'm gay." He let that settle for a second. Alfred seemed shaken a bit. It seemed to finally be dawning on him just what Y/n had been going through since his parents had died. "Now, enough about me." They'd finally pulled up to the GCPD building. "Let's get inside. Like you said: Bruce needs us."

Y/n had been required to be handcuffed, though he hadn't been put in a straight jacket and had been allowed to change into normal clothes as not to upset Bruce upon seeing him. He was still beat up pretty badly though, and had developed a limp as the adrenaline wore off and as his beating really sunk in. Alfred had to keep him handcuffed as they walked in, and the whole place went quite. It was becoming a habit that Y/n could walk into any room and immediately bring silence with him as he did so. All of Gotham had gotten to the point that they couldn't exactly make an opinion on Y/n Wayne. How did someone like him get born into a family like he had been, and turn out like this?

Gay and insane.

It had been in the newspaper. Someone, somewhere had gotten hold of the news that Y/n Wayne was gay and it had been released everywhere. Y/n had read the article a while ago. It's what had prompted Jerome to finally be more affectionate around other inmates, instead of just at night when they were in their cell together. People might give Y/n shit for being into dudes, but no one was going to mess with Jerome. He'd put his neck out for Y/n... It was becoming clear that few others would do the same. Maybe it was the insanity.

Y/n was brought to a room that was a different color than the walls at Arkham. The color outside had been overwhelming after seeing muted versions from a distance through windows that now, the dull color was kind of refreshing. Inside the room was Bruce, but he looked different. Y/n couldn't imagine the last time his younger brother had worn a turtle neck. His father used to try to get the boys to wear them all the time, but, especially in their youth, the boys had hated them and eventually their father had given up. Bruce hadn't worn one since they were both seven, when he used to just do whatever their dad told him to. And since when did he wear anything other than dark blue or black? Y/n found all his usual jokes about Bruce being a casual emo slip from his mind. He didn't know how to approach this new boy. He didn't know him.

To be fair, Bruce didn't really know him either.

"Hello, brother," Y/n greeted, unsure of how to go about this after all that stood between them.

Bruce narrowed his eyes. "Why are you here?"

Y/n sat down, scooting over as Alfred joined him with a second chair. "Just checking in," Y/n responded slowly. "Alfred told me about what happened. Getting kidnapped. Been there, it's not too fun."

Bruce rolled his eyes."You got kidnapped by a brainless psychopath. I got taken by someone who was trying to help me."

Y/n scoffed. "Help you? Bruce look at you. You're not yourself."

"I'm better," Bruce shot back. Y/n went quiet at that, looking at Alfred with raised eyebrows.

Alfred ignored the look. "Now we can talk all day, but what really matters is that you tell me what you meant when you said someone else was coming to Gotham. I thought that old fellow was the leader of the Council of the Owls, who else would be coming?"

An expression rested on Bruce's face. Far too complacent and calm. The Bruce Y/n was familiar with had the tendency to brood- this Bruce seemed to have no tendencies at all. No cares or anything. It was disturbing to say the least. "I want you both to leave."

"Well that ain't gonna happen, is it mate?" Alfred immediately matched. The butler crossed his arms. "You can't get rid of either of us that easy. Your brother here found time around being locked up to be here for you. Not much is getting us out of here."

"Especially with the city in chaos," Y/n cut in. "Not even your pals in the GCPD will be here to drag us away. Might as well end it now."

When Bruce didn't respond, Alfred leaned forward. "You have to remember who you are."

That seemed to set Bruce off. "I know who I am." Y/n scoffed. "I have a destiny," the younger boy continued, his volume raising as Y/n's mocking noise irritated him.

"Now you listen to me." Alfred had gotten very quiet. "That man that wanted you to detonate that bomb, whatever he promised you- freedom from pain, power - none of it, none of it was real. I want you to remember what is real."

"I know what's real!" Bruce yelled over the end of Alfred's sentence. Y/n tried not to smile. He really did. Bruce glowered as his older brother grinned at him. Mocked him. "You come in here and mock me? You're the crazy one. Don't you dare laugh at me like I'm the one who's lost my mind! I got vengeance for our parents' murder. That's real, and better than running around like an idiot with a lunatic murder!"

"You know NOTHING about lunacy," Y/n interrupted. "I've seen crazy. I've seen grown men beat on teenage boys and call it power. I've seen cops chase bad guys to predictable set ups and act like it wasn't the most obvious thing in the world. I've seen so called heroes save to be said innocent people, and then those evil little shits turn on those same heroes the first chance they get. I've seen love get ignored and then twisted. I've seen people laugh at pain and enjoy the suffering of others and then call themselves sane because that person who was dying was a bad guy, so who cares, right? I've seen people define good and bad like it's a dictionary entry and then immediately break the rules they lay down and still try to pass off as the victim of the story. THAT was real Bruce." Alfred put a hand on Y/n's shoulder, and it was only then when he realized he was crying. "I've seen stories about how evil and corrupt men are and how much women are victims, and then looked at Gotham and seen women in charge while I, a child, was raped by a woman again and again who was only using me for power." He cleared his throat. "Not to say that other people don't suffer, I just mean that everything is a grey area. What's real is bullshit and what's fake is seemingly the most honest option of those presented. Not everything is as clear as it pretends to be, Bruce. I'm supposed to be the crazy one. I was supposed to be the one who failed. I was supposed to be the screw up, but we're both in handcuffs and you were the one who was trying to ruin the lives of thousands of people just minding their own business. What was my crime, huh? Trying to be happy? Trying to be true to myself?" Y/n scoffed. "If only mom and dad could see you now."

"YOU SHUT UP!" Bruce screeched.

"Both of you calm down," Alfred snapped. "I was there when your parents had both of you. I took care of your mum and was there as you grew up. You used to be inseparable. No matter what anyone else did or said or thought, the Wayne brothers always had each others' backs. Good and bad is clear. Everyone is capable of it. Everyone does it. No one is innocent of evil, even in small amounts. Both of you have been idiots." He took a breath. "But you're also both my idiots." He looked between the two boys. "You're both my boys, even if I haven't been there for both of you." He looked at Y/n as he said that. "You want to talk about what's real? What's good?" He looked at bruce. "What's real is when you were sick as a kid, and your mum used to sit up with you every night and read to you when you fell asleep. That's real. Or when you were seven and you took that rowboat out and you got lost in that storm. Me and your dad were out, shouting and screaming, losing our minds, and when your dad found you, how he cried. That's real." He looked at Y/n. "When you were twelve and you came to your parents in tears because you couldn't understand why all the girls your age were talking about kissing you and you couldn't stop thinking about kissing the other boys. Your mum calmed you down and your dad told me that no matter what, they'd love you and you thought I didn't know but I did- all this time, I knew." Y/n felt his chest tighten. He felt terrible. "That was good, Y/n." Alfred gripping Y/n's shoulder. "When everyone came to your dad talking bad about you and they thought he'd laugh along, but he put an end to it immediately because you were still his son and he loved you. He was proud of you. When the news people came after you for secrets and they were nosey and pushy. When they crowded and stalked you because they'd caught wind that you had a dark secret and everyone wanted to know what the oldest Wayne son failure was hiding, and your dad nearly lost his mind on all of them, if your mum hadn't stepped in and stopped it cordially. THAT. Was. Good." Alfred returned to looking at Bruce, keeping his hand on Y/n's shoulder. "Your parents died in that alley four years ago, and maybe that man took away the pain of that night." This time he looked between the two boys. "Life has been hard since then, but there is no life, no love, without pain." He squeezed Y/n's shoulder and when the boy nodded, he returned his attention to Bruce. Bruce was the main focus right now, but Y/n had gotten the message. "He could not take away the love that your mum and dad gave you, that you still have in you- that you still have-" his voice broke as he reached over, pressing his hand against Bruce's chest, right over where his heart would be. "Right here." His hand finally dropped after a pause as he continued, "The same love I have for you. For both of you." His face flecked with. "I love you, Maser Bruce. Master Y/n. I would do anything for you. I would die for you. You must-" he cut off, focusing on Bruce. Y/n kept thinking Alfred was done focusing on him, but then Alfred would look at him again, and he hadn't felt so cared for or looked after since his parents had died. It all felt silly now... "You have to find that love again."

Every word hit home. Alfred was speaking to Bruce, but it was becoming more and more obvious that he was talking to Y/n too. Y/n reached over, his hand resting over Bruce's. "We both have to," he whispered softly. "You don't have to do it alone. I know it's been hard and chaotic, but I'm still your brother, Bruce. You're still my brother. And no matter what, you always have me."

Alfred leaned forward. "Come back to us, Master Bruce." There was a commotion outside and Alfred sighed before telling Y/n, "I'll be right back," and then leaving.

Bruce looked to his brother. "Did you mean what you said? I can depend on you?" Y/n nodded immediately. "Then get me out of here." Y/n went to argue but Bruce interrupted. "You can come with me and make sure I'm safe. But I HAVE to do this. I need to finish it. I need to see it through. I need to know if this really is my destiny. I need to understand-" he cut off, choked with emotion. But Y/n knew what he meant. The same thing that had driven him to follow Jerome Valeska of all people. That had gotten him to follow Penguin and ditch his family to begin with. There are just some things you have to do. So Y/n looked around, found a pen, and Bruce pick the locks on both of their cuffs before they booked it, side by side and headed for... something. Bruce hadn't cued Y/n into the plan this far.

In all honesty, it was just nice being by Bruce's side again.

They made their way through the city streets of Gotham at night until they got to a red door with the word "Yuyan" on the front. Bruce went in. Y/n followed. Inside was the statue of what looked like some kind of demon. There was a lot going on. Bruce didn't hesitate- he stepped up and began analyzing it. Y/n was still taking it in when he pulled something and the wall opened up, revealing a hidden passage. The brothers went inside, Bruce having to take Y/n's hand to get the older boy to follow him now.

The two walked down a staircase and through a tunnel. It seemed eery. Weirdly light and far too silent and empty. When people appeared, Y/n regretted his lament about there not being anyone around- they immediately attacked him. "No." Bruce said firmly. They stopped. Y/n looked at his brother with shock. Bruce's expression remained calm. Y/n's would be attackers simply pointed Bruce onward, making way for him to follow their direction.

Y/n hadn't been this scared in a long time. Surely he wasn't in danger. This was Bruce he was talking about. Golden Boy Bruce Wayne who used to cry when they were really little and Y/n would step on a bug. Who shut down after their parents died because he loved them so much that seeing their murder changed him... except that his heart of gold kept him from corrupting like Y/n had. He was driven by justice and refused to let up until evil was destroyed. Bruce Wayne was a hero.

And yet, when Y/n looked at the back of Bruce's head now, he didn't see his younger brother. He saw a man in a child's body. He saw a straight back that was well trained and perfectly postured. He saw clothes Bruce would never wear and a silence Bruce would prefer not to bear, especially with Y/n around to talk his ear off. He saw Bruce leading them down a tunnel of doom, being completely docile after someone tried to kill him. After he almost poisoned maybe hundreds of people with just the press of a button. After, of all people, he had chosen some random old dude weirdo over Alfred and almost killed one of two family members he still had left.

Very suddenly, Y/n realized that he hadn't realized how bad Bruce was. How dumb it was to follow after him right now. And he was more scared than he'd ever been. More scared than even when he looked in the face of a cold blooded, sadistic murderer who had completely lost his mind and only saw an endless world of things to fascinate him. More scared when the doors would close and all he saw was red lips curled in a devious smile as the one person he trusted the most took advantage of him. More scared than when that stupid guard had locked him in that room and he had really thought he was going to get beaten to death for being gay.

Bruce pushed two double doors open with each hand. They creaked as they opened slowly, revealing a room with a green pool in the middle. Bruce leaned over and Y/n stepped forward, reaching out to stop him. Then he felt a pain at the back of his head and everything went black.

-

Y/n woke up alone.

It was dark, but it only took him a few seconds to remember everything and realize where he was. He looked around- the pool was still there. Otherwise, the room was empty. Y/n groaned as he sat up, looking around again for signs of those people that had attacked him earlier. When he still saw no one, he stood and began walking back the way he'd come. It was even scarier now that he was alone. "Bruce?" He whispered into the empty hallway. He jumped at every noise, resulting in him eventually misstepping and tripping. He would have face planted if his scrambling abilities hadn't improved recently due to all the running away from cops and other crazies alike in his days by Oswald's side. Thankfully he didn't fall because, as he was noticing while trying to get his feet under him, there was blood on the floor.

Oh my god there was blood on the floor.

He sucked in a breath, beginning to look around again. "BRUCE?" His heart picked up and he felt the back of his eyes burning with tears. "Bru-" his shoulder hit a wall and he screamed. Shaking his head to calm himself, he pressed his lips together and retraced his path that he'd taken with Bruce to get in here. Eventually it lead him outside. Weirdly enough, the wall was open again. Which meant that he didn't have to figure out how this side of the trick worked... but it also meant he wasn't alone.

The night air outside was cool, the sun rising in the distance. He looked down at himself- he was filthy. He took a second to think. To remember. The last thing that had been clear to him was that he was absolutely terrified of Bruce.

That's right. Bruce wasn't... right anymore. Well, that meant he couldn't go home. He also couldn't just walk back into Arkham. They might think he'd done something if he came back, dirty and hysterical, without Alfred. So he went to the GCPD department instead, because where the else was he going to go?

He was inside for maybe a second before he saw a familiar face. His eyes went wide and his heart nearly stopped- in his vulnerable state, of course it would be the guard that almost beat him to death that would be there to greet him. The man smirked, tilting his head. "There you are. We were wondering when you'd find your way back." He approached the teenage boy, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Someone else approached. Y/n almost melted in relief to see Harvey Bullock. "What's going on here?" His eyes laded on Y/n. "What... I thought you were in Arkham."

"He was," the officer responded. Y/n had already forgotten his name from when Harleen had said it before. "Alfred Pennyworth came and got him out for the day. Needed him for some Wayne business. I'll be taking him back now."

Harvey looked confused by that. "Why? We were already debating letting him go. Now he's out, there's no reason to immediately put him back in." The guard seemed horrified by that idea. Harvey put his hands on his waist. "He didn't do anything wrong."

"Do you know what this boy is?" Y/n's heart sunk. "He's a homosexual."

Harvey's eyebrows rose. At first Y/n thought it was in surprise, but then he said, "So what?"

The guard looked stunned. "He needs help, Bullock. He was canoodling with Jerome Valeska in Arkham. In public. Like there's nothing wrong with that."

Now Harvey was surprised. Y/n swallowed his emotions and met the older cop's gaze evenly, sticking his chin up. Harvey sighed. Y/n didn't even have to say anything- the old man just seemed to... immediately understand. "He turned to someone who accepted him in a world of people who hate him." It was Y/n's turn to be surprised. "That's not punishable."

The guard scoffed. "Son, have you ever killed anyone before?" Y/n looked away. He thought about the first time he'd ever killed someone, and then thought about all the many times after that he'd done it himself or helped. Another experience he'd picked up while hanging with Oswald. "The thing won't even deny it. And he's proud to be with that redheaded psycho. There's something wrong with him, Commissioner. He needs to be detained and get some help."

Harvey and Y/n both knew that was not the reason the guard wanted Y/n back in Arkham. The two men looked at each other, both put down at the fact that they couldn't stop anything happening. Maybe Y/n should have lied. Maybe he should be fighting. Unfortunately, he'd just lost his little brother and he had no idea what kind of shape Alfred was in. Currently, he had to assume that Alfred was either dead or would be soon, if Bruce could help it.

The guard tugged Y/n's arm and they were headed back outside toward his car. "Thought you were gonna get away from me that easily, did you?" The guard growled under his breath, leaning close to Y/n so the Wayne boy would be the only one to hear. "I finally have a reason to get at you, you little shit. Things are only gonna get worse for you from here. Now I can say you've killed people. No one will stop me from knocking you now."

Y/n looked at the city one more time before he was shoved into the car. The guard pulled out a pair of cuffs and put him in them. He looked at the city the whole time. The entire ride, he took in every inch of it. Every dirty corner. Every dirty human. Every inch of the buildings- no matter how close, far, tall or small they were. If he could see it, he took it in as much as he could. Above everything else, he took in the sunrise.

Maybe it was the fact that Y/n might never see it again outside of Arkham, but it wasn't overwhelming this time.

It was beautiful.

[tomsandal]

The one where Tom went "can I just make stuff up?" and didn't wait for an answer

a/n: incredibly terrible title brought to you by you yes you who couldn't give me better one heart

characters: červená kapota, tom sandál

warnings: teensy weensy cosmic horror/death depiction at the start (because i am a moron and a fool and forgot what genre im writing), alcohol mention

words: 1,8k

To truly start at the story’s beginning, we’ll need to go many pages back in history books.

It was millennia ago, when something very strange took place and changed the world from how it was known.

It so happened that, for some mysterious reason, a meteorite crashed down on earth and landed in a crater in some frankly unnoteworthy forest.

This incident did not go without notice of course, and not too long after it had fallen were there already parties of plenty that were eager to find out what strangeness took place the night before. Many ventured into the forest, allured by the mystery or driven by their responsibility to protect their village, but not a single one of those brave souls has ever made the journey back. And so the number of volunteers and explorers thinned over time, for the prospect of being lost to those woods without a seeming trace was enough to ward off even the bravest of the brave.

However all those who did go, did not disappear in an equal way.

Some of those who ventured started to feel effects of a mysterious force soon after the start of their journey. Those ones met their end lying down on the forest floor, feverish and plagued by visions indescribable. No man’s willpower to follow common sense and go back home could win over the pull of the compelling presence.

But some of them pulled through. The strongest and greatest of them all did get to see what their end goal was this whole time.

There in the clearing lay the mystery. Patches of brilliant blue were shining among the dark stone, twinkling not unlike the stars that hung above them.

And standing there, in this crushing magical presence, humans did what humans tend to do and moved to touch the shiny stone.

It was no easy feat, bracing against the sheer force of the meteorite this close to the source of all this madness, but some of them managed to do so.

Finally, with their goal at their literal fingertips, they laid their hands at the glittering surface. And their hands melted right off.

The lucky ones died from the immediate shock from the pain. The rest bled out among the grass, suffocating in the stone’s heavy aura.

And some of them leaned even closer... for the call had won over.

For some time has the stone been left undisturbed, lying unmoved while its surroundings changed as the years went by. No wise enough soul dared to enter the haunted forest. And so the years passed in hundreds and the celestial body had started to merge with the surrounding environment. Many years has it been since then, when it was finally fully covered and sunken deep into the ground and its power dimmed to a hum.

If you were to walk by that place at that moment, you wouldn't think there to be anything out of the ordinary. And so didn't the people that had settled there.

Who might know why they chose this secluded woodland place for their settlement but they did and surprisingly prospered without any casualties.

The stone's powers have dulled over the centuries but they were still there nonetheless, even if only in a shadow of its former self, and the construction and disturbance of the ground was bound to wake it up.

And so the energy started seeping out, warping the unaware residence in the process. With each generation grew the changes more profound, until the place was almost unrecognizable. Plants grew wild and high, displaying colours very uncommon to vegetation anywhere, the roaming animals wouldn't be recognized even by the highest of scholars, trees grew twisted with leaves of gold and humans were born with features never seen before. Their hair was bright and shining in arrays of blues, purples and greens, just like the lights in the sky that could be seen from time to time. But since no negative effect seemed to take place, this magical village of star-touched people lived in-

“Star-touched...really.”

“Yes and no interruptions please.”

-lived in peace. But time was not kind to them.

The year was 1610, the witchcraft craze was at its peak and it didn’t take long until the hunt was brought to them as well. Their clearly otherworldly appearance couldn't be excused and many fell on the trials, under the hands of men driven by fear and hatred. The rest left their homeland, which ended promptly burned to the ground. From then on, they lived as hermits far, far from the human eye.

They lay in hiding for long, until their time has finally come, when people started walking among themselves with wild bright coloured hair and-

“wait, wait what about the magical wolves”

“That is tied to my own personal upbringing and no, was not in fact universal for everyone, stop messing up the timeline”

“oh I am messing up the timeline and not you making something different every ti-”

“As i was saying-” “and when do the glow squids come in” “My glow squid ancestry is clearly the reason for my eyes not the hair ”

“yes, of course, the eyes that are obviously not coloured contacts”

“Keep that tone to yourself and shush.”

///

It was a pleasant summer night, the air was crisp and the streets were quiet. And there, in a certain bar, sat two peculiar people.

Kapota sighed and let her friend-but not friend-associate from work-but not wanting to kill each other right now-buddy ramble on as she took a sip from her glass. She had ordered something called the Hanky Panky Cocktail Supreme and deemed it as decent enough, if a bit overpriced for a glorified gin and fernet.

Still, she would rather be holding a pint of good old fashioned beer, but finding a place around these parts with a half decent beer is near impossible. She will not be drinking that dishwater no thank you.

Good thing that she’s a skilled fancy drinker. A life skill which she picked up from her business bar outings, such as now, which maybe wasn't actually the most objective of examples since most of those were with Tom.

Not that the aforementioned was any help in the drink picking department, that maniac of a man just sashays to the bar and orders a literal colour and when no further explanation is given the bemused barkeep has to pick themselves from their array of colourful drinks.

Seems that they picked well today, because the current “pink” already sat empty before Tom.

She continued to mull over this and that, all the while enjoying the bar’s comfortable atmosphere, when something caught her attention.

“wait wait roll that back”

“Why, could it be that you weren’t paying attention?”

“Yes I was, but what were you saying about pointed ears?”

“Oh, just that the star-touched had pointy ears alongside the wild hair.”

“well, please do pray tell me Sandál dearest how could it be that your ears are rounded”

“As I said, a long time ago in the times most desperate, riddled with fear, pain and terror, food was scarce and from the terrible hunger they gnawed on their ears until they were completely rounded and from then on this feature was lost to them.”

“ok see now i know you're just making fun of me because thats just from that dumb movie you like”

“should have been listening.

Honestly why do i even bother, I am so generously sharing the long lost history of my kind and yet this audience is so ungrateful”

“noo i like your lore, don’t worry it's much more entertaining than ‘I went to the aisle 12 in Kaufland and picked the gaudiest shade of purple they had’”

Tom just grumbled to that and moved to take a demonstrative swig of his drink, but then he realized he didn't have any left anymore so he instead picked up the little paper umbrella and pointed it accusatively at Kapota.

“Never, have I been more disrespected, as I am right now.” He complained, while accentuating every word with a swish of the tiny umbrella.

“It's nothing personal pal, but you can’t exactly expect people to believe you with a name like yours.”

“Oh that's rich coming from you!”

“I'll let you know that the Kapota name is very ancient and regal, thank you very much. Passed down only by the generations of the clan McKap”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s true look it up”

“Not happening, if i did that you would just laugh at me that i fell for it.”

“Well in that case I guess you’ll never know”

“oh shut up!”

“you shut up!”

…

It was a pleasant summer night, the air was crisp and the streets were quiet. And there, in a certain bar, bickered two peculiar people.

///

All in all Tom would consider this a successful night. He left the bar on his own two feet, had all his belongings still with him, including both of his important trademark sandals still on, and head somewhat clear.

About ten minutes back, they had been politely ushered out of the bar, because it was apparently closing. The shiny sign with the numbers 24 and 7 would beg to differ but sure.

Yeah, ‘always open’ my arse, people can't even trust bars these days.

He wasn’t really upset though, couldn’t blame the poor bloke either, because anyone who had to listen to their nonsense for the past -who knows how long- had all the right to kick them out. It didn’t matter anyway, tonight really was quite nice.

So now they were just lounging together on the sidewalk, enjoying the chilly air.

A lone car sped by somewhere in the distance.

Tom gently thunked his head on the wall behind him and let out a content sigh, next to him Kapota finally broke the silence.

“So...who’s the designated driver, hahh”

A good question indeed, since neither of them even closely qualify to anything akin to sober. Not that it would have changed much, given the fact that Tom does not in fact have a driving licence anyway. His most beloved, bless their heart, is incredibly awesome and does have one of those and drives him around in times of need. This would seem like a time of need and it wouldn't even be the first time Kap would hitch a ride with them, but this hour, other than time of need, is also time commonly known as ‘very late’.

“I guess I can try to give Tobi a call, but I dunno it's pretty late...”

“Nah, let ‘em sleep”

“So whats the battle plan Kaptn’? ”

“Where's the uhhh friggin closest bus stop.”

“Few damn blocks away at least that's for sure”

“Awesome... lets go its field trip time”

And so they went onto the grand adventure of getting safely home.

Some would deem it highly unwise to blunder around dark alleyways in the middle of the night, but honestly, unfortunate are those street rats who shall foolheartedly decide to pick those two fools as their next victims.