❛ i also buried a part of myself alongside them. ❜ (from joey for ziggy?)
she's not used to company, never has been, but after nightwing? well, friends..no, not even friends, acquaintances more like, were more than sparse. and while there's that tight frown stubbornly tugging her lips down, ziggy berman can't help but be relieved at the sight of a familiar face, if only for a moment. the rest of the town had written her of as a nutcase, someone desperate and looking for attention. as if the redhead would even want anything like that. the mere thought brings out a nasty bit of vexation, a defensive wall she's put up for years to avoid the judgment, and the hurt that comes from it.
she doesn't know why joey stuck around to talk to her, she doesn't bother to ask, assumptions always win with her anyway. and she's so close to ushering him away, slamming the door in his face to hide away from intrusive, prying eyes. but it's not until he's looking at her with an earnest gaze with eyes that just get it, that she'll feel that reticence beginning to back off and, well.. maybe a few bricks will fall, the carefully built wall weakening just a tad. and she finds herself feeling some sense of comfort, she's not alone. they both lost someone important that night. and maybe that thought makes her heart hurt a little less. they're in her living room, tea filled mugs resting on her table, mismatched coasters underneath them. baby blues dart away from him at his words, her heart giving a squeeze, a pang of pain she's spent years numbing away. and as her hands reach for her drink, she wishes there was something stronger in her mug. all she can do is furrow her brows, taking a beat before bringing it to her lips, taking a tentative sip before bringing it back down, though her hands will stay tightly gripped on it. there's no denying she's taken aback, being so plainly seen will do that to a person after all, ❝ speak for yourself, slater, not like i had much to lose. ❞ and there's that damn temper of hers taking over, a bark that almost makes her wince. a breath, a beat, and she'll set the mug down, eyes decidedly pointed down, ❝ do.. do you think about them... it often? ❞ it's sincere, so much that she can't bring herself to bring those baby blues of hers up to meet his gaze. she's stubborn and it'll stay put, there's no getting the redhead to back down, never has been ( though part of her knows it's that shame from vulnerability, and that's not exactly the toughest thing, is it? ❝ i.. y'know, i thought it'd come and go in waves at this point, but.. well, ah.. ❞ and she has to take a moment, as embarrassing as it is, ❝ it's a constant. ever since the night it happened. there's this... it's just hard. and sometimes i really don't know what to do with it. ❞
✱ㅤㅤ@tragicsongs sent in a meme!!
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Ok ok but Star crossed lovers + dance of romance with our dear Katsuki if you can and if not I understand bb!!💌💕
OH STAR CROSSED LOVERS. OH erika this has to be dancing with him at your wedding to someone else. oh, it has to be. you try so hard to make it work in your young adult life, but — dating a pro-hero is so hard !!! katsuki's still young and stubborn about opening himself up, even if he wants to !! even if he wants it to be you he comes home to, you he eats dinner with, you he is worthy of !! but his job is so demanding 🥺 and he can see it tearing you apart 🥺 and he doesn't know how to balance his work life and his love life and so you both. call it quits.
you tell him with tears in your eyes, nose runny and rubbed raw, "find me as soon as you can, okay? come find me when we can make it work, and i'll wait for you."
and he promises to, with a red face and his own bleary eyes.
and you don't wait.
he finds out before he's ready, before he can give you the love you deserve and it makes him fucking angry. some asshole sweeps you off your feet a few years later, and though katsuki isn't a social media person, the only reason he agrees to an agency instagram is so he can occasionally see your face. what you're doing. hear your laugh in your little reels. but then there's another face, another laugh, and he thinks he maybe hates you for it.
you run into each other by chance and he can't even stand to look at you, can't bear to look at the new way you wear your hair, the new way you dress, and know that you're going home to someone else. when you try to talk to him about it, he just — erupts. blames all his anger and heartbreak on you, is ugly and hideous and so green it makes him sick, and after that he thinks maybe you hate him too and that's for the best.
after a couple of months, it doesn't work out with your stupid, charming idiot, but katsuki's fucked it all up with you; he sends a hesitant, simple text and gets no response; his official instagram is blocked. and he's still not ready, but he can't let the moment slip through his fingers and he shows up at your door and it's — crazy. heated. intense and passionate. clothes are flung across your apartment and you mark him down to his bones and he's never had someone the way he's had you. the way he still can't. the morning comes early with a call from kirishima and he leaves before the sun rises.
you do this, for a while. this back and forth, push and pull thing that only ever ends one way: you, naked and asleep and left behind. it's not good. it's not healthy. you're both angry and hurt and it doesn't work, won't work, but — it's all either of you can get. and it doesn't stop until another charming idiot comes along and another screaming match is what you leave behind.
neither of you reach out. the years pass by and he stops trying to keep tabs on you, tries to move on himself. he dates and brings people home, but it's never the same. he starts to think that maybe, entering his thirties, that he can figure this out, that maybe he's put in enough time to balance his work life and his love life, to get you back. he makes plans, he tests his boundaries for vacation time and learns to allow someone to take his shift, if he needs the night off. he says no, he says i can't because i have plans. he figures it out.
your wedding invitations are pretty, delicate. you look nice in your photo; happy and taken care of. at first he thinks maybe you sent it to hurt him, but there's a small, handwritten note stuffed into the envelope that he's sure isn't going out with all the rest of the invites: i really hope that you can make it. i would love to see you.
katsuki takes the time off. katsuki gets his shift covered and he changes from his hero costume to something nice, even with a tie. there's a small hope he has going into it that he'll get to talk to you before the ceremony, that this will play out like the movies and you'll see him and change your mind and it will work out, finally.
but it doesn't.
"don't cry," he tells you during your dance, as you stare anywhere but him and blink your eyes, sniffing and frowning. "you'll fuck up all your makeup and i'll look like an asshole."
it makes you laugh, and it's the first time he's heard it in years. it doesn't stop the tears though, and you can't speak until you blink them away. "thanks for coming."
katsuki shrugs, hand tightening on the back of your dress as his throat threatens to close. "sorry it wasn't sooner."
the face you make is awful, one he's seen many times, at this point. one that hurts just as much as it did the first time, when you both walked away. "sorry i didn't wait longer."
and he is too, but he can't open his mouth to tell you it's alright, because if he does he's not sure what he'll really say. he's not sure if he's still angry. he's not sure that he won't ask you to leave with him, right now. he's not sure he's ready to give up.
but you are finally and — that's always been it, hasn't it ? it's always been katsuki that's walked away empty.
✨️ trope game ! ✨️
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Can you write the beginning of Doffy and Viola's relationship? I often wonder how their relationship started after everything Doffy did to her and Dressrosa. I also want to see how Viola's feelings are mixed feelings of hate and love. They're really interesting.
Doflamingo was a private person. A VERY private one. Still, he was a public figure, and his passionate people SPOKE, especially about their beloved king and his possible love interests. ❝ How do you think it would have started? ❞ Not a confirmation, merely an interest (short-lived, so it better be used well) in one's speculation. Fingers tapped against the desk to a personal tune and lips pulled into a smile at the memories of initial hate. What was there not to hate? Viola had been brought up as a PRINCESS, as someone who was promised to LEAD her kingdom. To become a QUEEN. He could only speculate on the number of plans she had in her mind since young age. Plans to make Dressrosa a more comfortable kingdom to live in, plans to empower it, and most importantly, plans to make her people HAPPIER. She had, unlike Doflamingo, been SELFLESS in her SELFISHNESS, while he had always been selfish in his benevolence. There was always GREATER GOOD in her mind, regardless of the choices she made and how those could've been interpreted or judged. Then, before she could even ascend to the promised throne and reform the kingdom she so dearly loved, it was taken away. Eight hundred years of Rikus' rule stripped away by a descendant of those who had abandoned their rule and ascended to the status of GODS. Her family name soiled and bloodied in the eyes of the people she cared for. Hundreds of years of peaceful rule to be murdered by Riku Doldo's sword slashing away at his own people. The HUMILIATION. The ridicule. All caused by one mastermind and made worse when he gave her an ultimatum. Gave her a chance to SERVE HIM and be degraded from a future QUEEN to a mere SERVANT. What was there not to hate?
Yet, there was a fine line between love and hate. They were contrasting yet complementary emotions. Both concentrated on the object of its desire, and both able to suffocate. In very rare cases, they could create something new. Something interesting, THRILLING even. ❝ Would you place a bet on sexual attraction? ❞ He leaned further into the armchair, raised his legs onto the table, crossed the left over his right. ❝ Intellectual conversations during the night? Clash of wills, perhaps? ❞ Few could keep up with politics the way Doflamingo did. Even fewer could predict or understand his trajectory of thought. His manipulation of the black market, involvement in external affairs, the narrative he dictated across the world and the understanding of the level of POWER he held over those most ruthless. No one held the power of Viola's devil fruit either. A power to GAZE into someone's mind, to HEAR its thoughts — a powerful tool to possess. He knew she had used it more than once. It gave her INSIGHT, it gave her something to WORK WITH. She was only nineteen when he took over, and just like anyone willing to get ahead in life, Viola had to ADAPT. Viola was a rose, Violet her thorns. She knew if she wanted to get anywhere, she had to play the game by his rules and terms. She LEARNED. The more she did, the more she could calculate her next steps. The more she could subtly aid her people from the shadows. He was aware of it, very much so. He also found it AMUSING, at first. He wanted to see her struggle. He wanted to see whether the POTENTIAL he saw when she was offered a position was up to the task. She made sure it was.
She made it worthwhile to engage in conversation. She wasn't one of his yes-men. More often than not, she was his verbal opponent. She would make her opinions known, whether he'd ask for them or not, but she knew when to get the right TIMING. She never did it publicly in front of the Family, she didn't want to seem DISRESPECTFUL (he didn't need her Devil Fruit to know how disrespectful in her private thoughts she was). She would show her disagreement with a subtle condescending sigh, a short-lived frown on her lips, a glare thrown his way (most often). She patiently waited for a chance to catch him ALONE, most often when he was in his library READING, knowing that she could have his attention — if he was willing to give it. Sometimes he'd dismiss her entirely, sometimes he'd indulge her thoughts for his own AMUSEMENT, and sometimes he DESIRED a debate. Mental chess against someone who could peer into his thoughts if she chose to play that hand. The stakes and the need to think ten steps ahead were much higher in such a game. It was a game of POWER. Sometimes her concerns were considered afterwards, sometimes an exchange of favors occurred, but he always, ALWAYS, did what he wanted regardless of the final decision.
The wine in his glass was refreshing on the tongue, well-balanced with an elegant mouthfeel, sweet with hints of spice. It trailed down his throat, red as blood, leaving its IMPRINT. Dressrosa’s produce was unforgettable, much like its women. ❝ Would you bet on the effect I have on people? My deceptiveness? ❞ The charismatic pull NO ONE was immune to. Enemy or not, lover or not, his genuine ALLURE was undeniable. Well-spoken and well-read, he always had numerous topics at his disposal. He was a man of power, and people, whether they admitted it or not, were ATTRACTED to power. He knew Viola was attracted to those same qualities. Her attraction was even GREATER because she saw something no one else did. She got to see far BEYOND what anyone else has ever seen. She had gazed into the abyss, he had gazed back, and she never averted her gaze. She stepped right towards it.
Lips stretched into a grin, a chuckle left his lips. ❝ I'll ask for the last time, how do you think it would have started? ❞
There's a thin line between love and hate. Maybe they were simply confusing their emotions. Maybe he'd make an exception and let her call him Doffy.
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well i GOTTA ask ""you haven't changed." "...do you mean that in a good way or bad way?""
exes to lovers dialogue
"You haven't changed."
Aurel did not meet Wyll's gaze. They sat within a breadth of each other; Wyll's hands were warm as he bandaged the burns on Aurel’s chest.
He had borne burn scars on his back, once. It seemed only fitting that now he would bear the reverse; a symbolic branding of the change he had undergone.
'I could only obtain one Scroll of True Polymorph. Karlach required it more urgently than I.'
"That's not what I meant," Wyll hissed.
Aurel almost missed the intimacy of when they had both carried tadpoles in their minds; the effortless psychic link that had cropped up between them, even back when Aurel was so desperately trying to hide himself from Wyll. He could have re-established the connection now; his own psychic powers were strong enough, and he did so dearly wish he could just know what Wyll was thinking instead of trying to interpret the cadence of his voice and the way he breathed.
But it would be an invasion of privacy, and it would mean facing the full force of Wyll's grief.
Aurel grieved himself enough.
'Then say what you mean.'
"You broke into Mephistopheles' library, Aurel!"
'Yes,' Aurel replied plainly, still not facing Wyll. 'We have spent months chasing inconclusive leads among Zariel's forces. Conversely, we knew with certainty that Mephistopheles' realm held tomes and scrolls of every arcane spell in existence. And with Hope’s House holding a portal to Cania, it was more efficient to steal a scroll from him than to chase flimsy rumors to every end of Avernus.'
"Don't do that," the small part of Aurel's heart that was still a man twinged at how Wyll’s voice broke. "Don't try and speak to me like you're just a mind flayer."
'I am just a mind flayer.'
Aurel felt bile rise in his throat. He snapped his head to the side to turn his cold, violet gaze onto Wyll. HIs old lover paused in his work, his dark devil-eye staring back unflinchingly.
There was a time he could have read Wyll’s face with ease. He would have known what the clench of his jaw meant, or if the way his fingers trembled were from anger or grief.
Or perhaps he had been fooling himself, lost in the throws of new love, and he didn’t know Wyll at all.
'You and Karlach have been putting on a pantomime. Whether for my sake or to ease your own grief, I do not know, but what I do know is that Mizora was right; Aurel died that day in the Astral Prism. His soul has left for the Fugue Plane, and I am only an echo of his memories. I am an abomination to illithid-kind, and a cruel reminder to you.'
Wyll’s jaw flexed, his lips pursed into a thin trembling line — grief then. Of course. The man he loved was dead.
Once, Aurel would have pulled him close to chase those tears away. He would have cupped his face in his hands, kissed his cheeks, held him as he wept...
His mouth was no longer made for tenderness, but for cracking through skulls and gorging on the grey matter within. His hands were warped into cold, slimy claws that inspired more disgust than warmth. His closeness would only bring Wyll more discomfort.
That seemed to be all he brought Wyll nowadays.
'Well, you need no longer continue this farce,' Aurel went on. 'With the Scroll of True Polymorph, Karlach can inhabit a new body free of the Infernal Engine. The two of you may return to the Material Plane.'
"You're not coming with us?" Wyll's voice broke, his remaining eye large and wet and grief-stricken.
'I will not force you to endure my presence any longer,' Aurel turned away. And he cursed his ceremorphosis — not for transforming him into a monster, but for making him this incomplete thing that still wavered when faced with Wyll’s forlorn gaze.
'There is ample food for me here, and I will take pleasure in knowing I am thinning Zariel's forces as I feed.'
"Alone?"
He hated how quiet Wyll's voice was. Why didn't he hate him? Why were they both clinging to a ship they both knew was sinking?
'I cannot be what you want,' Aurel said stiffly. 'I have told you; I am an echo of who Aurel was. I am a living reminder of your dead love. You need not suffer me any longer.'
"I don't suffer you."
'I see how you look at me, Wyll!' Aurel snapped his head around to look at Wyll once more, tentacles flaring. 'You do not see me; you see a dead man you once loved. You saw how Mayrina dragged along the rotting corpse of her husband; I will not be your Connor!'
Wyll flinched, as did Aurel — surprised by the force of his own psychic lashing. Every time he spoke he tried to keep a tether on his telepathy, tried to keep himself from probing too far and sharing too much but in that moment...
"That's really what you think you are," Wyll breathed, his eyes wide. "A shambling zombie trailing after me?"
Aurel's tentacles twitched, and he turned so he could no longer look at Wyll's large, sad eyes.
'Mizora was right,' he said again. He could almost hear her shrill laughter, echoing on the winds of Avernus. 'I am a worm wriggling around in a dead man's brain. I recall his life, his feelings, as if they were my own...and when left to my own devices, I still trick myself into thinking I am him.'
Aurel was quiet for a moment. The balcony doors were open, the rust-red sky of Avernus plain to see. The faint smell of sulfur wafted in, but in Raphael's old boudoir the smell of incense still overpowered Avernus's acrid stench.
They had killed Haarlep here. The incubus had leered at him, tongue tracing their fangs as they looked to make Aurel their next meal, and Wyll had held on to his hand so tightly, as if he was afraid one lecherous look from the incubus would pull him away from his side.
Haarlep hadn't taken him, but only a few days later...the Netherbrain, the Emperor, Orpheus...
'I thought about it.'
Aurel glanced back at Wyll, cheeks wet from silent tears but eyes soft with confusion. "Thought about what?"
'When Orpheus said what needed to be done,' Aurel turned to look back at Avernus. He couldn't look at Wyll, not when admitting this. 'I thought of asking him to do it instead.'
Wyll went quiet. Aurel did not know whether it was grief, or disappointment, or shame that caused his silence, but he persisted all the same.
'The rightful Prince of the Githyanki; their best hope of liberation and ending Vlaakith's tyranny. I thought of asking him to become illithid instead. Worse, I thought it would have been better to let the Emperor feed on him, to let them kill him and take his power, because that would have meant it wouldn't have to be me.'
The carefully maintained dam of his telepathy cracked again. Just a little as his grief, as his anger bubbled over. But it seemed to be enough; Wyll's lips parted, his eyes widened as the torrent of Aurel's emotions seeped through.
'I thought to damn the Githyanki people — Lae'zel's people. I was weak, and I was terrified, and all I could think about was how I wanted to go to that dinner with Karlach and Fytz. I wanted to see Gale’s tower in Waterdeep. Hells, I even wanted to help Astarion find a new home for him and the other spawn.'
Aurel's entire body had gone rigid. He shook, his claws digging into the sheets of the bed while his tentacles trembled as he stared intently at the wall.
'I wanted my father to recognize me when I went home,' he could not sob, not anymore, but the flood of thoughts and feelings felt nearer to hysteria than he'd been in a long, long time. 'I wanted us to have more than just that one night under the Wilden Oak. I wanted to go to sleep at night by your side and then kiss you awake each morning. And I wondered to myself, 'Could I?' Could I sacrifice the freedom of an entire people just so I could wake up each morning with you in my arms?'
His whole body trembled as those emotions ceremorphosis should have snuffed out spilled over into the air. A small, broken gasp escaped Wyll as he felt it, as all the rage and grief and shame that Aurel had been so desperately trying to hide all these months spilled over into the light.
'I was almost so weak. Weak and stupid and selfish. And I have spent these past months trying to convince myself that it was worth it. That becoming this was worth sacrificing our future.'
He didn't think he was capable of this anymore. This rage, this overwhelming grief, this pain.
The baubles on the nightstand were rattling, even the bed seemed to be shaking as his telekinesis bubbled within him.
He hadn't felt this raw and uncontrolled since he was an adolescent.
He forced himself out of the bed and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to blot out the everything as if that would stop this. Stop him.
He couldn’t.
It wasn’t just him shaking now; he could hear the bed rattling against the wall, the water in the bath splashing. Something fell onto the floor and shattered. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t.
And then there was a clawed hand on his arm. Tentative; just a brush against his cold skin, but enough to share its warmth.
Aurel shuddered, and with that his telekinesis calmed. The rattling stopped, the House of Hope stood still once more, and Aurel stood there with Wyll hovering inches away.
Aurel stepped away from him. Out, further, onto the balcony. He turned to stare blankly out at the barren landscape of Avernus, at the red mountains on the horizon and the smoke rising in the distance.
I will never see the mountains of my home again.
I will never see my father again.
'It is bad enough that I must spend the rest of my days feeling sorry for myself, but I cannot, will not bring you down with me, Wyll. I will not have you standing by my side out of duty and staring at me while you mourn the man you love. That is no life, not for either of us. So leave; go with Karlach back to Baldur's Gate, grieve me, move on, and let me die here knowing I took as many of Zariel's soldiers with me as I could.'
A shuddering exhale escaped Wyll. He was right there, right behind Aurel. He could feel his breath on his neck, could feel the prickling of his warmth on his back.
"Is that what you want?" Wyll asked, his voice ragged and raw.
Aurel closed his eyes.
'What I want does not matter.'
"It does."
'I cannot have it,' Aurel snapped. 'Don't you see, Wyll? I want you to look at me without shame. I want to be able to walk with you in the sunlight. I want to see my father again, with you by my side. I want...I want to be me again.'
A shaky, rattling exhale escaped through Aurel's teeth as he looked up.
'But I am not. Even polymorphing back into my original body could not change that. I am...I am not him. But I don't know who I am when I'm not him. And I do not think I can ever know.'
This was why mind flayers forgot who they were. This was why partialism was such a taboo to them. No mind flayer would be able to survive this agony.
Aurel almost felt sorry for the Emperor. Deluding himself into believing he was still Balduran, that he was better as a mind flayer, had to be the only way he could survive such a thing.
Ansur really would have done him a mercy if he'd killed him.
A pair of warm arms wrapped around Aurel's middle. He tensed, his breath hitched as Wyll rested his forehead against Aurel's back and squeezed with his arms.
"Why did you go to Mephistopheles' library alone," Wyll murmured.
Aurel trembled.
'Because it was dangerous,' he said. 'Because if I failed, then you and Karlach would still be safe.'
Wyll's breath hitched as he squeezed Aurel.
"That's what I meant," he sighed. "Oh Aurel, I’m not leaving you here.”
‘You must.’
“No.”
Aurel tried to pull away, but Wyll only loosened his grip enough to spin Aurel around - to force them eye to eye while Wyll grabbed his shoulders. His claws dug into Aurel’s skin, and his eye blazed.
“You haven’t changed,” he insisted. “You’re still the same as you were before. I should have known from the moment you agreed to jump with Karlach into Avernus without a thought; you’re still the same man who bargained with Mizora for my soul, who risked a sinking prison for my father…who became a mind flayer to save the world.”
Wyll was crying again. The tears were running freely down his cheeks, spilling onto his tunic. Aurel stared at the dark spots dumbly as his head spun.
“And then you went and stole from Mephistopheles, and you could have just helped yourself but you didn’t. You thought…you thought I didn’t love you as you were and you still thought to save Karlach first.”
Wyll’s claws dug in further as he stared up at Aurel, and he gave his shoulders a firm shake.
“I’m not leaving you to sacrifice yourself to Zariel’s forces,” he said. “You’re the same. You’re the same.”
Aurel wished again to reach out his telepathy, to feel the edges of Wyll’s mind so he might know.
But instead he just nodded his head, and he relished the relieved sob that escaped Wyll.
He wanted to believe this.
Even if it was a lie.
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