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doctorofmagic · 3 years

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My thoughts on What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?

The very title of the episode sends a shiver down my spine. And this is where we’re going to start.

~ long post under the cut ~

A year ago, I wrote this post as an attemp to dive into one of the most important traits in Doctor Strange’s personality: love. Stephen is a being made of love, made to love, no matter which interpretation you have when you watch Infinity War. If you don’t read comic books, you’ll understand the moment you meet Donna. You’ll begin to understand how her death reshaped his entire subjectivity out of fear of failing, being powerless and unable to control everything around him (especially death), thus the arrogant and yet a disaster of a man we all know.

Where do I even start? Stephen loved her sister deeply and felt responsible for her death. And then, slowly, he also lost his parents and his brother. He fell in love with Clea but he also pushed her away. He loved Zelma platonically and lied to her, which was enough for them to break their bond. He felt attracted to Kanna but screwed things up, even though they remain friends. He was forced to kill the Ancient One, the only father figure he had ever since his father died. And lastly, the only person who would never leave his side... also left. Yes, even Wong. Stephen has SO much love to give but he’s also afraid because he’s cursed. He truly believes his love in poison. And would you look at that? What If really delivered a story where this is actually true.

What If Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?

The level of understanding when it comes to the character is... inconceivable. What could possibly reshape Stephen into following a dark path but love? The very premise of the whole episode. This is so much more than a love letter. This is literally too much, in all senses.

Fine, let’s begin.

What if the best of intentions has very strange consequences?

No. You used the word “strange” for the pun but this is not the word. Nah-ah. I’d go with ATROCIOUS, for starters. Things are gonna escalate so quickly, my friends.

Seriously, tho? Christine is SO SO SO SO beautiful, they’re so cute together. I have this feeling that MCU!Stephen was quite toxic because of his arrogance and this is why they didn’t work out. But WhatIf!Stephen???????? He’s always praising her, teasing her in a healthy way, respecting her and listening to her. HE TRULY LOVES HER, I’M GONNA CRY ALL OVER AGAIN, PLEASE, NOT THE CRÈME BRÛLÉE, PLEASE

I’m going to leave this shot here because we need to go back to it later. Hold that thought.

And bonus points to “Yeah, well, I would call that quite remarkable.” / “Well, I would say the same about you.”

GODS. THE PAIN. STOP THE PAIN.

So in this reality, Stephen didn’t caused the car accident because he was checking his phone while driving. Also it was not the reckless attempt to pass the truck. Well, maybe it was the consequence of this act? The fact is, the car behind them loses control, which makes them crash. Does it matter? We’ll learn later that no, it doesn’t.

And yep... Christine dies. Have you noticed the shattered heart? Ah, the pain only gets better and better.

Again, Stephen blames himself. More than anything, this is so important because Stephen is all about guilt. We still need to meet Donna so we can add yet another layer of guilt. But the feeling exists. This is what corrupts Stephen’s heart and soul in all his iterations. This is what makes him the character I love so much. I love this SO. MUCH. In addition, his stubbornness to accept his condition. Man won’t take a no. This, this is Doctor Strange in character. Stop complaining about NWH Stephen, it’s pathetic.

Okay, “grief-stricken”, Stephen found the Mystic Arts and became a sorcerer. That’s when he learned about the Time Stone, the Eye of Agamotto and Dormammu. Nothing changes, he saves the universe. But time does not heal his deepest wound.

I love Wong so much. Every time Wong does something, the world is healed. Really. We’re going back to him as well but for now I’ll just leave this shot.

BUT STEPHEN, DOING SOMETHING RECKLESS? HE’D NEVAH

Aaaaaaaannnnnnd then he did.

He goes back in time. It’s been two years since he lost Christine. I think he reacted pretty nicely, despite the circumstances. Now let’s go back to that shot I said I was saving for later.

Stephen is so light-hearted here. Also, during the first time he lost Christine, he had no idea what “The Price is Right” was. He knows now, which means he probably tried to learn more about the show because of her, because of grief. HAHAHA MORE PAIN

AND THEN HE

AND THEN SHE DIES AGAIN

AND THEN HE KEEPS GOING BACK IN TIME

AND SHE KEEPS DYING

AND THE MUSIC

AND HIS VOICE

AND HE TRIES TO CHANGE FATE BUT IT CAN’T BE AVERTED

HE EVEN TRIES TO STAY AWAY FROM HER LIFE BUT SHE DIES ALL THE SAME, WHY

AND EVERY TIME THEY CRASH, HE FEELS THE PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL PAIN AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, WHY

I’M-- *ugly sobbing noises*

Apparently, not.

And this scene when he simply... closes his eyes before she dies again...?

This is where this episode had me in endless tears. It got me the four times I watched it. I’m dead serious.

Okay, so, next the Ancient One appears to Stephen, explaining that Christine’s death is an Absolute Point in time. It cannot be changed. Stephen needs the accident to become the Sorcerer Supreme and defeat Dormammu.

And this is where Stephen starts his journey into darkness. “Nothing is impossible, you taught me that. I only require more power.” Disobeying the Ancient One, Stephen then travels in time, seeking the Library of Cagliostro. Now, if you’re not aware of that, Cagliostro was a sorcerer who studied time in comics, and later became Sise-Neg (there’s a recent post on this because of the new Defenders run). It’s funny to think that Sise-Neg also destroyed the world when he became a god, however he grew past his pettiness and remade reality. Stephen did not possess such power, as we’re about to see.

PS: “Stop torturing yourself, Stephen.” Naur but he should use this line like a mantra. Especially comics!Stephen.

Not gonna lie, tho. This place reminds me of the Temple of the Vishanti from T&T (of course I was going to insert T&T somewhere, it’s me).

And of course they’d go for a pun with his name haha. I don’t know how to feel about this, tho. I feel like the episode is too heavy and dark for comedy. But it is what it is.

Okay but why some books are in cages??????????? And wow, it seems Cagliostro also gathered knowledge about several fields of magic.

And then Stephen learns that, in order to break an Absolute Point, he needs to absorb more power. This is when I went “oh-oh, here we go”.

And for real, is this Shuma-Gorath? Why are they keeping his name a secret? Is this the same creature from the first episode with Captain Carter, right? RIGHT? It has to be Shuma-Gorath.

Of course he tries to be polite and ends up all hurt haha. O’Bengh warns him about love but he will not listen. “Love can break more than your heart. It can shatter your mind.”/ “Is she worth the pain?”. Please, this is Stephen. He eats pain for breakfast.

Also, also, let’s take a break. We’re finally going to get monsterf0cker tentacle-lover Stephen Strange. It will cost us everything but here we goooooooooooo (yes, I went frame by frame for your more obscure fanservice needs)

Gods, I love this sequence so much it hurts. Okay, here we go.

Shmebulock???????????

AND HE STOLE THE CAPE??????????? AND DREW THE LINE ON BUGS??????

The grasp this man is holding on me right now...

Some of you will understand. I’m with you.

And here are the grostesque ones. These are hard to take SS but I had to.

Animation, sound effects, OST? CHEF’S KISS TO ALL

And lastly... the tentacles. Yeah, if you’re new... this is a thing.

Fanservice. Fanservice everywhere. (low-key the reason I also waited to write this review, I wanted to enjoy this part so badly but I was too sad for that lmao)

Okay so. O’Bengh is suddenly OLD and DYING, until we realize that Stephen spent CENTURIES absorbing mystic beings. CENTURIES. WTF STEPHEN. He had nothing in mind but the goal to save Christine. And people wonder why he went insane???? I’m sorry, O’Bengh, but I can’t take you serious when you still call Stephen Sorcerer Armani. Oh, and also because you watched him absorb beings for centuries in silence lmao. But I guess I have to because you said that Stephen is split in two since the Ancient One cast a spell on him, splitting the timelines and making them exist in the same reality before he could travel back in time. I know, it’s complex. Anything for the plot.

And now good!Stephen has an evil!twin who wants to absorb him back in order to become whole and break the Absolute Point. Cool.

I said I wanted to talk more about Wong because I think people are not talking about him enough. Wong is so important in this episode. He’s the one who’s trying to heal Stephen after Christine. He’s Stephen’s anchor.

Also, THEY FINALLY USED A SPELL WITH THE NAME OF THE VISHANTI. HOORAAAAY

So, for the sake of our understanding, I’m addressing the characters as evil and good!Stephen. Let’s go. Evil!Stephen summons good!Stephen and gods, he still holds such a strong grasp on me... unbelievable. THE DEEPER VOICE BENEDICT USES???? PLEASE, DIDN’T WE HAVE ENOUGH?

Imagine his strength to hold so many beings inside him, fighting to control him. BRO, THIS IS TOO TOO MUCH

Fine, I’ll not post SS about the fight because I’d be here all night long but I WILL say this: NOT CLOAKIE!!!!! NAAAAAAAAAAUR

Also if you ask me if I recognize any of the spells? Maaaaybe the Flames of Faltine, the not-so-crimson Bands of Cyttorak and a little trick Magik does with her portals. That’s how far I go.

I’ll not comment on the “seducing yourself to stay in the trap”. I will not. I’ll just say that the first person Stephen thought of when “Christine” was talking about the crème brûlée was Wong. That’s it.

And finally evil!Stephen absorbs good!Stephen and releases... UNLIMITED POWER (I love when the stone goes red as if it was bleeding aaaaaaa)

I can fix him...

This scene here? Poetic cinema. (I love his wings so much)

And when Stephen says her name and the other monsters’ voices echo “Christine”, AAAAAACKKKK

AND OF COURSE CHRISTINE WOULD FREAK OUT, BRO. LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE BECOME BECAUSE OF YOUR TWISTED LOVE. I’M NOT DOING FINE.

Oh, but it’s too late anyways because Stephen broke reality haha. This scene is interesting because Stephen is the only one who sensed and/or talked to the Watcher until now. I read an interview that the Watcher kinda showed up but it’s also about Stephen’s keen senses. Bit of both, let’s say. Still, man, 616-Watcher is not that cold. 616-Watcher would watch this and say “how about I intervene anyway?”. WhatIf!Watcher is brutal.

The way Christine looks at Stephen one last time also KILLS ME, DESTROYS ME, BREAK ME INTO A MILLION PIECES.

And this is where my soul left my body.

This is how they end the episode. This is how you leave me speechless and with teary eyes. This is how you give me a whole existential crisis.

This... this was brutal to watch. Really.

What can I say after this? I’m used to reading painful things when it comes to Stephen. Aaron’s and Cates’ runs are heartbreaking on so many levels. Hickman’s New Avengers is not easier. Coincidentally, What If? Magik Became Sorcerer Supreme and The End. And now Death of Doctor Strange. And yet, after everything I’ve been through, I’d never expect to watch something so brilliant, so tragic, so heartbreaking and unexpected in the MCU. Never. This is top tier content and this is my favorite character with SO MANY LAYERS and SO MUCH UNDERSTANDING. I can’t put into words how meaningful this whole episode is to me, or how deep it touched my heart and soul.

I’ve been struggling to find the proper words since then, I still can’t. All I can add is, I cried for the 4th time now. This is too, too much, even for Stephen stans. Even for the ones who are used to pain, regardless of which media you’re into: comic books, live actions or animated movies. This is literally more than I can take and yet I’m so, so grateful. The voice acting, gods, how did Benedict manage to create a better Stephen than the one he’s literally playing in real life???????????? HOW

This episode really took the max potential Stephen had to offer as a character, added tons and tons of layers based on his grief, depression, arrogance and need to control everything and created a tragic masterpiece. In 7 years of being a Doctor Strange fan, I've never read or watch something that could go this deep into the character. The closest I can think of is Mr. Misery and the metaphor of Stephen's depression. This is a whole new level of respect and understanding. This is more than a love letter. This is peak maestry. It’s perfect, it’s heartbreaking, it’s... gods, I can’t.

Sorry for dragging you until this far. Before I wrap up this review, I just wanted to remind you all that Stephen will appear again, he will smile again, he will be surrounded by people again. So this is not the end. It was painful but be brave. We still have a few more steps to take.

#what if...?#doctor strange #stephen strange #what if doctor strange lost his heart instead of his hands?#wong #christine palmer #the ancient one #long post #review #he did nothing wrong #so what? he destroyed a whole universe #/j #benedict cumberbatch

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fijiangecko · 3 years

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The End of It All

Vampire!Katsuki Bakugou x Witch!Reader

WC: 6k+

Warnings: Cussing

Angst - breakups and makeups

A/N: I wrote this over two years ago and just found it. If I decide to edit it I’ll post that one on my AO3, or if people ask me to post it here I can <3

~~~~~~

The idea of a calamity had never even crossed their minds until a couple of days ago. Everything seemed to be harmonious between the humans and the supernaturals, but never in a thousand years could they guess just how wrong they were. In a matter of days, war had broken loose between the few humans who knew of the other world, and the extremists of the supernatural that wanted only bloodshed. The Negotiator was notified immediately, and brought a group of friends onto the scene. It only spiraled from there.

Mina and Uraraka sobbed into one another as it dawned on them that very soon everything they loved could be eviscerated, while Kaminari and Kirishima attempted to soothe them as the night went on. Midoriya and Iida ran around searching for books that could possibly lead to a solution, but there was no manual on how to fix the destabilization between the supernatural world and the human one. Todoroki sits in a chair by him lonesome, contemplating if he should leave, while Katsuki has the same thought on the opposite side of the room as he leans against the doorframe.

“Do you think we should try (Y/N) again? She might pick up this time,” Iida flips through a tome as he speaks, eyes glancing at Midoriya.

“I don’t think we should. Last I heard from her she was going to visit the harpies, and if her phone went off during that meeting then we could be royally screwed. They could have a solution, so I think it’s better if we just have faith and-” “Have faith?! That’s your shitty advice?!” Katsuki growls from across the room, a deep scowl decorating his features. “We all know damn well that (Y/N) could have ditched us and left the world for dead! She’s a fucking witch and doesn’t give a shit what happens to the rest of us as long as it doesn’t fucking bother her!” His fangs started to grow as he spoke. During his little outburst he had walked over to the table and slammed his hands down, putting more emphasis on the cuss words than anything. “She. Doesn’t. Give. A. Shit. About. Us.”

“You shouldn’t say that about her, Bakugou. We know you have a past with her, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to forget about the rest of the world. She’s not that petty.” Iida is calm as he speaks, making sure not to make eye contact with the vampire, as it could set him off even further.

“You see her as a friend, and I see her as a lover. She’s a completely different person, I can promise you that.” A low growl had escaped Katsuki’s lips after he spoke, but his ear twitched as he sensed movement outside. Looking out the window, he saw no branches move, but a bright light shone through it.

Todoroki gets up and inspects the outside of the estate, careful to not move the curtains too much. He didn’t want any uninvited guests knowing what room they were in. As he stared outside the glass, he could see an alchemy circle burned into the grass with your figure lying in the middle of it. Your body is in a fetal position, as if trying to protect something. Upon seeing this, Todoroki bolts out of the library without saying a word and goes out into the cold night. Katsuki runs after him to see what was going on with the rest of the party in tow.

The stream of people watched as Todoroki made no hesitation to pick you up bridal style from the ground and carry you back to the house. In your hands is an old book; its sides were ripped apart and there was a lock preventing it from being opened. The bind had decorative gold inlays, but no title. As of now, Todoroki did not care for the book, but the girl he carried in his arms.

“She’s breathing,” he looked to Uraraka, “and will most likely need medical attention.” With nothing left to be said, he walks briskly into the house and finds the nearest couch. Uraraka follows him and starts to check on you and perform a series of healing spells.

Kirishima, Mina and Kaminari walk back inside and sit near the other three, but make no move towards them.

“Is there anything we can do?” Mina’s quiet voice pierces the thick coat of silence around them.

“Right now I don’t need anything, but stay put just in case there is an emergency,” Ochako’s eyesight don’t leave your figure once. The party of four sits behind nod silently and watch as she works..

Outside, Iida and Midoriya are trying to figure out what the alchemy circle means. Not everyday does someone use such powerful magic to teleport, let alone a witch who prefers not to use alchemy at all. They carefully examined the etchings in the ground, the symbols older than anything they’ve had the chance to work with. Katsuki stood a couple of feet away, also trying to figure out where the fuck (Y/N) teleported from.

“Well this symbol means ‘ancient’ and this one over here means ‘creature’, but there’s one in between…” Midoriya pulls out his notebook and starts to sketch the symbols down.

“This is definitely from a different plane of existence, but I’ve never seen it. Is this from her personal dimension?” Iida spoke.

“No, it’s not. Her sigil phrase would be ‘nisi rogatus non transient’ and her keyphrase is ‘fiducia’. Plus there aren’t enough swirls in the alchemic circle to fit her personal taste,” the blonde grumbled. His eyes fixed over the old text, but this language was way before he turned into a creature of the night.

“Did (Y/N) use alchemy way back? I haven’t seen her use it in decades,” Iida ponders out loud.

“Doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t you be fucking figuring out what this shit means?” The two nerds nod and walk quickly back into the library where they begin a whole new search. The vampire slowly approached the living area where his once lover was lying on the couch with a fairy over her form. A glow erupts from Ochako’s hands as she tries to wake you up. Again, Katsuki leans against the door frame, eyes carefully watching what was happening.

He couldn’t help but feel concerned; he never truly got over you, no matter how poorly he acted. Remembering everything you had, everything you lost and the times he wished he had spent with you only caused his cold heart to clench in pain. What if I had been there when she asked? Would things be different? Does she still care? His mind raced with a thousand different thoughts. This was, afterall, the first time he had seen you in almost a century after one of the worst breakups to ever exist.

Long story short, he was more focused on hunting rather than your relationship, so you decided to give a dangerous alchemic spell a shot after having no one to talk sense into you. Bakugou doesn’t know what kind of spell you were trying to cast, but he does know that it caused some sort of damage to your magical force. He wasn’t there during the ritual, but showed up at your hut months after the disaster. You had looked sick, as if death’s grip was starting to drag you down into hell, and before letting him speak you told him to leave, and never come back. After hours of screaming and bickering, he left. Not once did either of you try to speak to the other, but you both knew you were in the wrong. Katsuki wasn’t there for you, but you blamed him for your dangerous actions, which was in no way his fault.

Nothing brought him joy after that; not the hunt, not the warmth of another. Nothing. For almost a century he felt empty. Katsuki wanted nothing more than to embrace you in his arms once again. Take you away from everyone and keep you to himself, but he knew that it simply wasn’t going to happen. He knew he had fucked up and is now trying to find a way to fix it. Not in a century had he been this close to you, and it was slowly taking away his life force. For all he knows, you’re in a coma caused by the harpies and have no way to save the world - or you found a way to save the world and sacrificed yourself. Either way, someone has hell to pay.

“Bakugou!” Ochako breaks his train of thought, her eyes screaming concern. “I need ice, her ribs are broken.” Standing up straight, he swiftly walks to the kitchen and retrieves the ice, taking a plastic bag and some paper towels.

“Thank you,” the round faced girl was sweating at this point, tired from healing but knowing that she couldn’t stop anytime soon.

“Guys! We found out what (Y/N) was doing!” Midoriya races into the lounge, holding several books within his arms. “She was trying to make contact with the Great Ones!” He flipped open some of the books, showing different languages and sigils.

“Why the fuck would she do that?! Wasn’t she going to see the harpies?” No one needed to look to understand who was speaking.

“I contacted the harpies, and they said she did speak to them, but only for a short time. They didn’t have anything that could help, so she left in a hurry.” The green haired male put his books down on the nearest surface and flipped through a particular book. “They did say that she bought some mandrake liver, which is odd considering it’s very expensive and very hard to come by, but I guess if she made contact with the Great Ones it makes sense. No one has been able to talk to them in years, not after they cut themselves out of the supernatural. If (Y/N) actually talked to them, then she is the first person in a millenium to ever see or speak to them. It’s a miracle she’s even alive.”

“Yeah, they almost fucking killed me.” You start to rise from the couch, rubbing your temples as you do so. “Think I could get a glass of water, my throat is fucking killing me.”

“You’re up! And so quickly!” Izuku stared in amazement at the girl who not only escaped death, but talked to some of the oldest beings in the universe.

“Yay, lucky me.. Can I just get some fucking water? Don’t mean to be rude, but I can feel my broken ribs and my dry ass throat so a little help would be appreciated.” Dry as ever, you spoke to no one in particular as you lean back into the couch and press the ice bag into the ribs that are broken. “Could someone grab me some rat tails, lavender powder and milk from the toad? Should fix these ribs real quick…”

“On it,” Mina hops up from her seat and runs off to gather what you asked.

“How are you feeling? Besides the ribs and headache.” Ochako reaches for your hand, taking it into her own.

“Pretty good, actually. Great Ones offered some knowledge, albeit for a price.” Peeking an eye open, you gaze at your peers.

“Did you find the answer?”

“What ‘price’?” The negotiator and the vampire spoke at the same time, both asking valid questions but concerned about different matters.

“Cool your jets, besties,” fangs bared, Katuski growled at the thought of being “besties” with a fucking nerd, “I need to heal up before I start spilling the details.” Just then, Mina runs back into the room, all three ingredients in hand along with a mortar and pestle.

“I got the stuff! What do I do now?”

“Now, you hand it all over and watch a witch work her magic.” Your greedy hands swipe the contents of a healing elixir and begin to mash everything together. Tediously, your fingers throw components into the mortar, then pressing them together with the pestle makes a liquid in which you drink in one big gulp. The group watches as your ribs emanate a sickly light, making the room glow in a mysterious manner. After about five seconds, it stopped and you stood up to stretch.

“Much better, now how about we go into the library so we can examine this,” you wave the torn book, “and figure out how to save the world.” Moving forward, you give them no time to answer. It gave them no choice but to follow you.

“Would you at least answer my damn question?” Katsuki remains in the doorframe, unmoving from his comfy position..

“How about you move out of my fucking way, and go to the library like I said? Maybe you’ll get your answer there, huh?” You shoulder check your way out of the lounge and into the library.

After everyone takes their places in various spots around the library, you begin to speak.

“I want to apologize for being so late, after I said I was only going to the harpies. Turns out, they don’t have much more information than mine and Midoriya’s libraries combined. Right as I was about to leave, Tokoyami said there might be one more group I should go see. He pulled me into his private room and gave me the liver of a mandrake as well as a page from his personal grimoire. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but it was the alchemic way to reach the Great Ones. We talked for a short time after it about how to approach them and what would happen if they did or did not decide to help. Knowing we’re getting short on time, I did the ritual right there in his room, and low and behold I was taken to a dimension far outside our normal planes of existence. It was cold, dark and dank with a stench that rivaled the odors of giants. My senses were being attacked in the most foul of ways, but that was the least of my concerns as I was met with the eyes of not one, but three of the Greats.” You shudder at the memory. “When they spoke it was deafening. I felt like I was going mad, or at the very least I was losing all sense of control. They knew why I was there, and decided that it would be more beneficial to help me, as what is going on now also affects them.” You cast your gaze downward, whispering the next sentence. “They agreed to tell me what to do only if they were given a sacrifice-”

“EXCUSE ME?!” Bakugou roared from the other end of the room. “YOU TOLD THEM YOU WOULD SACRIFICE SOMEONE?!”

“Kacchan-”

“YOU DON’T GET TO SPEAK, DEKU. SHE IS GOING TO SACRIFICE SOMEONE! SHE DECIDED TO TRADE ONE OF US OFF FOR THE ‘GREATER GOOD’! THIS IS WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU ASK A GOOD FOR NOTHING WITCH FOR HELP! I TOLD YOU IT WAS A MISTAKE TO ASK HER FOR HELP!”

“I NEVER SAID IT WAS GONNA BE ONE OF YOU.” The commotion stops. All eyes are now on you. “I never fucking said it was going to be one of you, I didn’t even finish what I was saying…” Your eyes look down at the shaking in your hands.

Todoroki reaches forward and takes your hands in his own, stopping the tremble that has overcome you. “Go on.”

You take a deep breath in, “Like I was saying, they asked for a sacrifice of a magical being, but one of great power so the balance in the cosmos would be right. I tried to ask them what the requirements were for ‘great power’, but I received no answer. Instead, this book,” you put it down on the table, “appeared in my hands. Next thing I knew, I was on the couch…”

“So you don’t know how to unlock the latch on the front?” The green haired boy slides the book to himself, examining it with a sense of importance.

“No, but I have a feeling I’m the only one that’s going to be able to open it.”

“Why is that?”

“I mean, I’m the first person in forever to even see one of the Greats, let alone live from an encounter with them. If I’m not able to open it, then no one can.”

“Okay, well are there any keys that you have on you now? Maybe it’s the same one as your house key or lab key?” You shrugged and pulled out a set of keys from your pocket. Immediately you noticed one that hadn’t been there previously.

“Or the one that just happened to appear…” Inserting the key, and twisting it releases the metal strap on the bind of the book. It makes a soft clicking noise as it opens. Greedily, you opened up the pages to see what they held, only to find them blank. “What the fuck?” Aggressively, you flip through the whole thing until you find one page where a plethora of information was held.

“Is that it?” Iida was peaking over your shoulder. In fact, the rest of the party had gathered around the table to see what was going on. Well, everyone except the blonde haired, red eyed vampire.

“It has to be. This is the only marked page.”

“Well, it seems to be in celestial. Can you decipher it?” You cock your eyebrow and turn to Iida.

“Is that a question?”

“Hey, less flirting, more reading,” Kaminari spoke.

“That wasn’t flirting, but not like you would know.” He jolts back at the sudden attack, feigning a hurt look. Small chuckles could be heard around the room, but they died down as everyone anticipated your analysis.

“It’s a ritual with both alchemic and abjuration magic,” your eyes continue down the page, trying to make sense of all the scribbles, “but it looks like there’s only one ingredient.”

“Let me guess, a sacrifice.” Red eyes bore deep into your figure as Katsuki spoke.

“...yeah.”

“And where the fuck are you going to find some ‘great magical being’?” His teeth are showing as he scowls once more. It may have been years since he’s seen you, but he knows what you’re thinking.

The knuckles on your hands start to turn white from the frustration that was building in your chest. You weren’t intending on telling everyone how you were going to let yourself be sacrificed in the name of Great Ones. You wanted to keep it a secret from them, but Katsuki could see right through you.

“I don’t know.”

“FUCKING LIAR!” He crosses the room with lightning speed and wraps his hands around your neck, crushing you into a nearby bookcase. Your vision is white for a split second, but returns to see a face with nothing but disgust across its features. Gasping for air, you attempt to pry his hands off of you, but it wasn’t worth trying as you knew the kind of strength Katsuki possesses. “I know what you’re planning to do! You want to kill yourself because some old ass supernaturals want you to, but I’m not gonna let that fucking happen.” He slams you into the bookcase once more after seeing your eyes start to drift off. “Do you hear me?!”

“Bakugou, get your hands off her now!” Iida, Todoroki, Kaminari, Kirishima and Midoriya run over to the scene and start to restrain Katsuki. They struggle to pull him back, but after a few seconds of letting you go, your whole body drops to the floor and your lungs start to gasp for oxygen. While you are coughing, Mina and Uraraka latch onto your sides and help you up. Now sitting down, you cough trying to catch your breath.

“What the hell were you thinking dude?! You didn’t even let (Y/N) fucking speak?!” Kirishima’s speech was a low growl, his eyes turning from the normal black color into a more yellow, dog-like eye.

“I’m not going to let her fucking die because she thinks she is self righteous. She’s not more important than any of us, and if she thinks so I’ll kill her myself.”

“How do you know that?! How do you know that she wants to sacrifice herself?! How do you know that she thinks she’s better?!” Kiri stops, waiting for an answer. When none presents itself, he continues his rant. “You don’t know what is going in her head! So stop assuming you know stuff that we don’t!”

“Kiri, stop before you make a fool of yourself.” Gently, you put your hand on the shoulder of the raging werewolf. His eyes fade into the black abyss they once were. All eyes were now on you, “Katsuki’s right. I was going to sacrifice myself…” several gasps were audible in the thick silence, “but not because I think I’m better than anyone here. We all are powerful in our own regard, but I’ve been alive for twelve hundred years. If anyone of us is going down, it’s going to be me.” Scoffing, Katsuki barges out of the room, unable to deal with the level of bullshit he just heard. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe he was powerful, or anyone else in the room (he wouldn’t say it outloud), but he couldn’t believe that you were willing to give up on yourself to save the world. Did you not see how important you are? Whether you knew it or not, he cared about you and he didn’t plan on letting you die anytime soon.

The tension built itself around the room as the still airwaves remained unchanged. Not even breathing could be heard. Standing up from the table, you put the chair back into place and made a grab for the book, but someone stopped you.

“No,” green eyes bore into your own, “you’re not taking it. We’re locking it up. There has to be a different solution.”

“There isn’t! We’ve talked to everyone we possibly could have and no one else thought of anything! For fucks sake Midoriya, I had to talk to some ancient beings to get a hold of this spell and almost died because of it! I’m taking what’s mine!” With both hands, you yank it from his grasp.

“I said no (Y/N). We’ll find another way. There has to be another way-”

“There’s not! What is so hard to understand! The clock is ticking and it’s only a matter of time before it all turns to shit, might as well fix it now and get it over with!”

“(Y/N), just give me the grimoire. Don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be. No one here wants you to die, and we’re not going to let you! Just pass it over.” Conflicted, your white knuckles loosen on the rough leather and place it down on the table. Without looking at anyone, you make your way to a spare room and sit on a bed, thinking about what else there was to do.

Hours passed as you thought about the end of it all. There is no other way for this to end. The fucking Old Ones said that this way the only way possible, so it has to be right? We exhausted all other resources: the scripts from Alexandria, my personal collection, Izuku’s personal collection and the harpies. None of us had anything. Your foot was tapping against the floor anxiously. If I could just get the pages from the book and get back to my place then it could all be over. None of them would have to worry anymore. It’s been a couple of hours… maybe they’re asleep. If I take it now and make a run for it, I’d have at least a couple hour head start. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about someone trying to stop me…

With a gameplan in mind, you stealthily make your way out of the room, creeping around as silently as possible. Passing a few other rooms, the snores of several companions reassure your suspicion. Now was the time to strike. Trying your damnedest not to make the floor creak, you tiptoe through the house to the library. You’re assuming it’s still there, but they could’ve removed it. Too busy focusing on trying to make a sound, you didn’t realize the pair of blood red eyes that closely follow.

Upon reaching the library, your eyes land on the old leather cover that lies exactly where you last remember. Swiftly taking it from its place and reaching for its key, you took the latch off and ripped the single page from its binding. As you did so, a knocking noise was heard from the entrance, but looking at it didn’t give you an answer. Everything was where you left it, but the uneasy feeling of eyes on you causes a thought to cross your mind. Am I being followed? Shoving the spell into your pocket, you glanced around one more time to make sure no one was there.

“O custos revelare,” voice barely above a whisper and clutching the necklace of the triple goddess, the knowledge of Katsuki’s watchful eyes on you entered your consciousness. Great, just what I needed. How the fuck am I supposed to leave now? Maybe if I trapped him somewhere that he can’t be heard, or if I place a silencing spell? No, he’ll still be able to get someone’s attention. Best shot I got is to lure him out of earshot from the others and place a trapping spell, but that requires time… Fuck! What the hell am I supposed to do?!

Quickly trying to recover from the stream of thoughts, you make your way to the attic. This should be far enough from the others. If he screams up here they shouldn’t hear him, especially with all the fabric. Now how do I get the circle in place? ...goddamnit why the hell can’t my brain think of something? Abjuration? No, that’s later. Conjuration? No. Divination? No. Evocation? No. Necromancy? What the hell, no! Transmutation is a no go as well. That leaves alchemy, enchantments and illusions. Alchemy takes too long, so that’s out of the question, and Katsuki can easily overpower my enchantments. So illusions it is.

Katsuki watches as you stumble your way up a couple flights of stairs, trying so hard not to alarm anyone of your presence. He couldn’t help but feel amused at your little act. You just look so cute acting like a rogue trying to steal their first jewels. On the other hand, he couldn’t believe that after the outburst he had and Deku’s own freakout you still were going through with your plan. Do you not care about him? Do you seriously not realize just how important you are? Of course he’s gonna stop you; the minute you stormed off he knew there was a plan being formulated.

Shattering glass littered the stairwell as the nearest window blew inward. Immediately, Katsuki checks for intruders and looks down the stairwell to see that the other windows have been broken in as well. Peering up, he doesn’t see your figure any more and begins to panic. With his enhanced speed he runs downstairs and starts to sniff out anything suspicious.

Leaving the crystals in their place to keep the illusion going as long as possible, you could care less about making much noise. Bolting up to the attic, you shut the door behind you and took out a pocket knife, working on a trap, or abjuration, spell. The intricate carvings were taking longer than you thought, and the panic of being caught was causing you to slip up.

“Shit! Fuck!” There’s no time left! Once again grabbing the necklace of the goddess, you start reciting a simple fire spell and start to burn the lines into the wood floor, being careful not to burn the house down.

“Adolebitque imperium.” A small flame danced around the floor, as if following a line of gasoline. It wasn’t even a flame, but looked like the end of a stick of incense. The small embers made their way around the room, carving out sigils and words. Trapping a vampire was tough enough, but with Katsuki’s strength and will it was going to be even worse.

Back downstairs, Katsuki stalks the main floor, careful not to alarm something that could be in the house. His nose isn’t picking up on anything out of the ordinary, but he got the feeling that it was all a ruse. Looking around more only confirms his suspicion as he noticed no other windows were broken, and when he got back to the stairs those windows were put back.

“That sneaky little-” his feet pound on the ground as he makes his way to your location. “I can’t believe she- what a little- UGH!” He fells dumb. He knows your magic, but he couldn’t even figure it out on first glance - not like he used too, that is.

Reaching the top of the stairs and closing the door, he tries the doorknob, but to no avail.

“(Y/N) open the door.” No response. He waits a few seconds until he tries again. “I swear to fucking God (Y/N), open the goddamn door or I will break it down.” Pressing an ear to the door, he listened to double check he was in the right area. After hearing some shuffling on the other side, his fists pound against the door. “I can fucking hear you, you know!” When no response came, again, he grabbed the door knob and snapped it off like it was a candy cane. “I’m coming in so don’t fucking attack me!”

You stand by an opened window, wind softly blowing through your hair and the moonlight highlighting your face in all the right ways. If only someone had a camera, this shot could make “Time” magazine. Katsuki’s breath was taken away at the scene; you looked so serene and just as beautiful as the day he met you. Although his heart wasn’t supposed to be beating, he felt as though it might leap out of his chest and run into your arms. You turn slowly, to face him with the ripped pages gently folded between your fingers.

“Hand it over. We both know I’m not letting this happen.” He inches closer in the room, about a foot away from the carvings on the floor. You just need to provoke him further, but the look in his eyes was killing you. They weren’t like anything you’d ever seen come out of Katsuki; even in the most intimate of moments. They screamed desperation but remain firm.

“It’s the only way, and you know it.” Eye contact hasn’t broken once since he bust the door open, but it only intensified as you speak.

“I don’t fucking care if it’s the only way. You are not dying for this, for these people! We both know what kind of shit the world puts us through and you want to put your life on the line for them. For those BASTARDS!” Screaming, he moves another few inches forward, eyes pleading for you to give in. “WHAT HAS THE WORLD EVER DONE FOR YOU?! BESIDES PUT YOU DOWN AND BEAT YOU TO THE CURB?!”

“It showed me you. Didn’t it?” The question startles him. You were the calm to his storm, the yin to his yang and yet… he didn’t want to admit that the world actually did him good.

“No. I gave myself to you. I wanted to be with you. I loved you. I still love you. Can’t you see this is fucking killing me?! Can’t you see that I just want to be with you?! CAN’T YOU SEE THAT I WANT YOU BACK?! THAT I WANT TO WAKE UP TO YOU WITH ME EVERYDAY?! WHY THE FUCK CAN’T YOU-” He didn’t realize he had closed his eyes with rage, and that you had made your way across the room to him. In the middle of his rant, you placed your soft hand on his cheek, caressing his face. Instinctually, he presses his cheek further into your touch, opening his eyes to meet yours. It felt like he had just had a sip of water after a centuries-long drought; this was something he didn’t acknowledge that he needed so badly, but now that it was happening he only wanted more.

“That day that you left, I was broken. For years I was only half the person I once was, and it was because I didn’t have you. I thought that you hated me, and never wanted to see me again…”

“I could never hate you,” he grabbed your wrist, “not after everything we’ve been through. Not after our sleepless nights of talking, the years of moving around and the fact that you’re the only person I’ve ever been myself around.” He sighs, the whole ordeal becoming emotionally taxing. Not once did he ever open himself up to anyone; not after you. It was hard enough for you to crack him, but once you two were through, he built up walls of steel. “I never stopped loving you. You are the only one for me. You’re the only person willing to put up with my bullshit and able to control my temper. Even if you are a damn witch, you’re my damn witch.”

Tears start to haze both of your visions, but you give in, letting them cascade down your cheek. Heart clenched, ready to burst, you enveloped yourself in his scent, embracing him like your life depended on it. He quickly returns the gesture and places his head in the crook of your neck. The two of you stayed like this for a moment before gently rocking back and forth. Slowly, you inch him closer to the abjuration spell.

Goddess, what have I done to deserve this? Why do I have to be the one fucking person he loves but also the one person that can save everyone from certain doom? Why am I just getting him back now, right before the end? Crying harder, you push yourself further into his chest. He didn’t take this as “out of the normal” because he thought you were still crying over him; that’s not saying you weren’t, but other thoughts were on your mind. Your body still moves closer to the circle, pulling Katsuki with you. What the fuck (Y/N). You could’ve just placed the circle and left, but no. You had to stick around and make everything 1000 times harder.

The sound of wood burning turns Katsuki’s attention to the ground, where he sees the sigils recarve themselves into the floor. He was flabbergasted, the breath knocked right out of him.

“(Y/N)...?” His voice was weak as he spoke, as if pleading for this to be a dream and not the hell he was about to go through.

“I’m so sorry. I wish there was another way but there isn’t and I just-” He releases your hug, his body going rigid as he starts to piece it together.

“You tricked me… after everything I said and did, you trapped me. You’re gonna fucking kill yourself and you trapped me here so I can’t stop you.”

“There’s no other way. The Greats said that it had to be a powerful magic user, and we both know Izuku, Iida, Todoroki and Uraraka don’t make the cut. The harpies don’t have anyone as powerful as me either and it doesn’t look like we’ll be finding anyone powerful within the next couple of days. I can end this now. The panic, the worry; it could all be over with tonight.” You step out of the circle, grabbing the instructions from your pocket and holding them to your chest.

“You decided that instead of staying with me, you’d rather die. Am I hearing this correctly? YOU WOULD RATHER NOT EXIST THAN BE WITH ME?!” He ran up to you, but the invisible barrier holds him from reaching your body.

“Don’t. Don’t make this about you. This is about more than just us and it is definitely about more than what we had forever ago. I’m fucking sorry neither of us got our acts together in time, but the balance of nature needs to be set anew. If I had known that you still loved me, that you still cared for me, then yeah, this whole situation might’ve turned out differently. But the fact that it took us almost 1000 years to get our shit together and talk to each other says a little something. Maybe we’re both too headstrong to be in a relationship. Hell, that’s how the last one ended! So don’t you dare make this about you, because there are so many other people that I love and want to look out for than just you. The world is counting on me because if I don’t do this, then the world as we know it won’t be in existence within the next few days.” You turn to the window, taking a deep breath and slowing your rapid heart rate.

As you approach the window, you mutter “revertetur in terram suam” and the forest around the house transforms into the inside of your bedroom. Once more, you took a deep breath to ease the pain of leaving everyone behind.

“Tell them I love them, and I did it for the best.” You walk over to Katsuki and rip off your triple goddess necklace, offering it to him. “I know you’re not religious, but it’s a piece of me. So you don’t forget.” Reluctantly, he reaches out and takes it, examining it with a furrowed brow.

“I would never fucking forget…” it was barely audible, but it made your heart flutter.

“I love you, Katsuki. Even if it seems like I’m betraying you, I want you to know that I hope you find someone who loves you and can crack that barrier over your heart.” Walking over to the portal, you utter one last sentence, “Please take care of yourself,” and then you’re gone.

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chaozsilhouette · 3 years

Text

Turbulent Beginnings

This forms the opening act to Macaque’s story, showing just how different his and Wukong’s early lives were and why he took Wukong’s disappearance so hard.

The idea Macaque was born from the wind was inspired by @animemoonprincess. And yes, I am a shameless fan of Macaque originally having white fur. The angst is just too perfect.

Brace yourselves, this isn’t going to be pretty. I am essentially shoving our boy through an emotional meat grinder.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

On a remote island, a day’s travel from China’s eastern shore, a massive hurricane raged as it had since the beginning of this world. The surrounding storms fed into it as its winds carved stone. No life had dared blossom on its soil out of fear of a painful demise. The merciless storm drank deeply of the waters of the sea, draining all aspects of potential and life before casting it aside. Not even curious spirits were spared.

Various deities had wondered why such a storm existed or why the Jade Emperor allowed such a dangerous presence to continue unchecked. Most believed that since the hurricane was stationary and prove no threat to the established order of the world, it was not important.

One day the hurricane vanished. As though it had never existed. Or rather that it had been transformed into something else.

It was the night of a new moon and with the hurricane gone, the island experienced its first cloudless sky. The only one to witness the momentous occasion was a monkie with pure white fur and six ears. Minding his manners, the nameless monkie bowed to the four winds in greeting.

The newborn proceeded to spend his days searching the island for something. Some clue as to the reason behind his birth. He could hear strange voices and words he didn’t understand yet at the same time could. He knew he wasn’t the only creature alive, so why was he alone?

For food, he walked his way through a cave system towards the sea, where he enjoyed the fish that were drawn in through the whirlpools and the mussels that clung to the sharp rocks. He grew to savor the taste of life, even though there was a part of him that craved something different.

Almost forty years passed before he mustered the courage to leave everything he knew to seek out those voices. He gathered all the driftwood and rope that had drifted onshore over the decades, fashioned it into a makeshift raft, and sailed towards the closest source of voices.

His voyage was actually pretty boring once he cleared the whirlpools.

The only exciting part about it was when that strange fish tried to sink his raft. It was bigger than any fish he’d previously seen with a mouth to match. Didn’t mean it survived past the first blow. Taking a bite Macaque wasn’t sure if he liked this fish. The muscles were tough and the flesh was rough on his tongue. He didn’t particularly like the taste. But there was enough to feed him for a full day.

In the end, he chose to eat a third of the fish’s muscles along with its heart before tossing back into the water.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

Docking on dry land was an experience that would haunt him for years.

At first, he was filled with wonder at the sight of buildings and new creatures riding rafts far bigger than his.

When he stepped onto shore the whispers began.

The creatures, who he later learned were called humans, were pointing out his ears. They acknowledged his obvious intelligence. He heard them grip wooden instruments tightly. It was as if they expected him to do something.

No one made a move against him. No one approached him, but he could tell he wasn’t wanted. Everywhere he turned he saw eyes that cursed his every existence.

He didn’t stay in that village for long. In his mind, satisfying his curiosity wasn’t worth being stared at as though he was the source of all evil.

Demon.

That is what they called him. Was that what he was?

He didn’t know, but he didn’t like it.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

He aimlessly wandered the countryside for far too long.

The first act of kindness he received was from a couple who could not have children of their own. He stumbled upon them by accident, but instead of the normal fearful expressions he’d come to expect they greeted him with genuine smiles and an offer to join them for dinner.

They took him in and treated him like family. He became the son they always wanted. They taught him how to properly speak and how to walk comfortably on two limbs. They blessed him with a name.

They were kind and nurturing. In another world, they may have been called bodhisattvas. But sadly, due to them being ordinary mortals, his time with them only lasted four decades.

He buried them with love but grew resentful of his weak emotions.

He learned what it was like to have someone welcome him home after a long day. He learned to savor the taste of a mother’s home-cooked meal. He enjoyed having a father figure who was willing to teach him old military tactics. He experienced friendly competitions to see who could paint the most accurate portrait of a flower they saw earlier that day. It was everything he never knew he craved and then it was gone. Leaving him with an empty home and a broken heart.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

Nearly fifty years later he joined a band of traveling performers.

Their natural oddities allowed them to see who he really was and welcome him into their party. With their compassion, he was granted the opportunity to heal. He learned that despite the group’s large size, very few of them had any direct blood relations. What made them special was how they created their own family and turned what many called strange into something beautiful. Out of respect, he delved into the world of entertainment, found he had a natural talent for it.

When he took the stage people assumed he was in costume, but that didn’t matter. The applause of the audience was a gift he cherished. The sheer passion this family expressed through every second in life warmed his heart beyond words. They were just what he needed to bring him out of his depression.

Alas, it was not meant to stay.

One night their camp was ambushed by a group of demons. They were nothing special, hardly worth mentioning. But for him, back then, it was a fight he never imagined. He could easily handle human bandits, so could his family, but never had he traded blows with a small army of his fellow demons. With the rising of the sun, Macaque stared at the cruelly bright sky covered in blood. All around him bodies lay scattered, life essence soaking into the ground. Despite being tasked with fighting off nearly five dozen demonic opponents he managed to survive with barely a scratch, but he was alone. Again.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

He tried to change things by sticking to his fellow demons. At least they lived longer.

Somehow that ended up with him becoming the apprentice to a demon healer for almost a century. She was a cold-hearted bitch with a heart of gold. Meticulous in her work, masterful in deduction, and short-tempered with the foolish. She gave everything to her practice and expected the same from him. It was bitter work, but he found it fulfilling. The knowledge that he now possessed the ability to restore others to peak condition settled some unknown part of his soul.

Of course, they would have visitors who wished to take advantage of her skills or steal the medicine. Between the two of them, they protected their clinic, but they weren’t always together. While she may try to hide it, she wasn’t the strongest demon out there. Apparently, the entire reason she got into medicine was to uncover why she was so weak. Centuries of research turned up nothing, but it did make her incredibly skilled at using poisons with her knives to compensate.

One day after he returned from gathering ingredients, he pulled back the door to find the shop in disarray, five unknown bodies slowly dying of extensive blood poisoning, and his master bleeding out from her severed arms. She always said she had no intention of entering Naraka alone.

Guess she kept her word.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

The cycle repeated itself over centuries. He would experience a brief window of happiness only for it to be savagely stolen from him, leaving him to mourn and curse his weak heart.

The small glimmers of kindness humanity showed him only made him curse their race even harder when he couldn’t walk into a village without being harassed. The humans who had proven stronger were sadly a rare breed. He was rare to encounter one a century and often they perished at the hands of their kind rather than by demons.

There were times when the ignorance had gotten so bad he’d taken to traveling with a constant glamour, disguising himself as an average human. Whenever he was in the presence of other demons, he allowed his true form to manifest, however, he made it look like he only had a single pair of ears. Standing out was the easiest way to wind up in a complicated situation he had no interest in trying to defuse.

That’s not to say his time was wasted.

Quite the contrary, he had learned much during his travels. He could hardly be compared to the happy young monkie, who was ignorant of the dangers and hardships this world held. In a sad attempt to fill the void, Macaque sought out wisdom and strength. He located masters of both the mystic and martial arts. He may have had to lie about his age, he was becoming quite the accomplished liar, but the results were more than worth it. With every stop, he found himself growing more certain of his strength and his identity.

Eventually, he discovered a strange monastery hidden in a cave in the face of a mountain.

He had never seen anything like it during his travels. But what truly drew his attention was the feeling the temple exuded, every stone exuded a strange aurora. Something powerful dwelled within, powerful yet there was an undeniably human quality to it all.

Hiding beneath his usual glamor, Macaque approached the temple with the desire to discover exactly what was being taught. Before he knew what was happening, he was speaking to the immortal sage who was running the joint. Master Subhuti welcomed him to his home and offered some tea. The disguised monkie was bombarded by dozens of questions, all of which he attempted to answer as though he was a normal human.

The master welcomed him as his newest disciple and showed him his new home. Later he learned the master could see through his disguise and sensed his potential. Apparently, the old immortal believed that the monkie would do well to learn his disciplines and he was fascinated by the monkie’s natural talent.Said something about how with proper guidance only the Buddha would be able to peer past his façade.

The monkie even received a new name to celebrate his rebirth. From that day forward he was Liu’Er Mihou, or the Six-Eared Macaque. He liked it. While he cherished the name his first family gifted him, he felt this was a good sign. A tribute to show that he was a changed monkie.

Regardless, he refused to drop his glamor. He had seen too many demons be cast out and attacked for getting sloppy. The other students were not thrilled about the newcomer showing them up and he wasn’t willing to give them a true reason to despise him. He learned quickly, more so than any other human disciple, but that put him at odds with those who were still struggling after years of training.

Macaque distanced himself from the others. They weren’t that interesting anyway. He didn’t care that they talked about him behind his back or were fully aware he could hear them. He couldn’t risk getting close so soon. He was determined to break the cycle. He didn’t care about immortality. He didn’t care about obtaining power. All he wanted was to end the pain. So far things had been working out in his favor.

Then heshowed up…

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

That trice damned monkie with peach-colored fur and markings like a golden mask. He was so naïve about the world. He treated everything as though it was some exciting game. His upbeat energy made Macaque sick. Some twisted part of him wanted to snap his neck just to end it, but a small part was fascinated by it. The other monkie reminded him of a time he had almost forgotten.

The Monkey King, or Sun Wukong, didn’t bother hiding his true appearance. Truthfully, Macaque wasn’t sure he knew how or that he should. He didn’t seem to notice how other students would keep their distance or how they kept their conversations as brief as possible without crossing the threshold into being considered rude.

He was so earnest and happy, it was painful. The new monkie pestered everyone about everything, it was like dealing with a newborn, but it seemed Macaque was his favorite to bother. The worst part was how he stared at Macaque as though he could peer past his glamour. Although Macaque wasn’t sure if that was truly possible. The Master could, but he dedicated centuries to refine his skills. Wait. How old was this annoyance? Perhaps he could smell he wasn’t like the other disciples.

Either way, he knew it was just a matter of time until the truth got out. He just didn’t expect it to be when he was changing.

Each student was offered a meager room for privacy. They were all the same size and offered little to no space for any customization, but the walls were enchanted to cut out sound whenever the doors were closed.

Behind those flimsy walls was the only time Macaque allowed his glamor to drop. While he valued being cautious, even he couldn’t keep up the glamour indefinitely, much less when he was asleep.

It was in that small space of safety that he discovered he wasn’t alone.

He had just allowed himself to relax when a smiling face covered in peach fuzz was shoved into his own.

“I knew it! You’re like me.” Sun Wukong happily exclaimed, stars practically dancing in his eyes.

“Shut up.” Macaque clamped his hand over the other’s mouth. Checking to ensure no one else was present and the door was shut, he faced the intruder. “Have you told anyone?” He hissed, while berating himself for failing to check the ceiling. You always look up when scanning a room, he knew that.

“Nope. Why are you hiding? You’re beautiful.” The cheerful demon spoke as though they were old friends. His golden eyes took in every hair of his fellow monkie’s true appearance.

“I’m a demon. And there is nothing beautiful about me.” Macaque growled.

“Yes, there is.” Wukong insisted. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you hiding? The Master let me in, I wager he knows about you, so why?”

Sighing, Macaque massaged the bridge of his nose. “I have been hurt enough times to know keeping a low profile is optimal in survival. It is better to keep one’s head down than risk getting called out.” From observation, he knew the newer student wouldn’t leave until he received answers, so the best option was to just give him what he wanted and pray he knew enough to leave.

“That’s no fun.” Wukong stuck his tongue out in distaste. “You shouldn’t have to hide who you are. We were born this way.” He jumped high into the air only to catch himself on his tail with a cheeky grin. “So, they’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Cute speech. But my answer is no. Now leave.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll fix that attitude right up.” Thankfully Wukong left, but not before sending a smile laced with mischief his way. “See you tomorrow.”

Macaque prayed to every deity that would be the end of it. But even he knew it was a futile attempt.

“Do you have a tribe?” Wukong asked, hanging by his tail from Macaque’s favorite tree.

A startled Macaque blinked at the random question. “A what?”

“A tribe. A family. A place to call home?” Wukong asked smoothly even if he wasn’t familiar with the term family until recently he knew it was important.

“Not anymore.” Glaring Macaque returned his focus to his meal.

“Aw.” Wukong knew that look. He had seen plenty of monkeys wear that arura after watching other tribe members die. “Then you should come with me!”

“What?”

“Yeah. You can join my tribe. There are dozens of us back home. Plenty of food and water, you’ll constantly be surrounded by others like us.”

“Other demons?”

“No.” Wukong smiled as though he told a funny joke. “Other monkeys.”

“There is no reason for me to join you.” Macaque stated, wishing he could finish his lunch in peace.

But Wukong wasn’t letting him go that easily. “And there’s no reason for you to refuse.” He stated, ignoring any and all social cues or common sense for respecting personal space.

It went on like that for years. Every day Macaque would awake to find gold eyes staring at him, waiting for his answer to change. Breaks were spent dodging the hyperactive monkie as he tried to eat alone. Training sessions soon found him sparring with the same partner.

The monkie was stubborn no doubt and Macaque feared his actions were slowly breaking down his walls. The pale furred monkie missed having a connection. He adored being able to talk to others, but whenever he opened up he only got hurt.

But maybe, maybe this time could be different…

Wukong was training to obtain immortality. He had already proven to be stronger and more clever than anyone he’d known. The simian showed that he wanted to know him better. He constantly tried to touch his fur, something he called grooming, which felt pretty nice.

Maybe…maybe this time he could truly have a home.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

A streak of light accompanied by a sharp whistle pierced the night sky. For a brief moment, it vanished before exploding in a beautiful display of color and light.

On the monastery’s rooftop, Wukong backflipped in joy at the sight, his golden eyes wide. “Happy New Year!” The monkie cried. In the village below, he could make out dozens of voices echoing the greeting.

It didn’t matter how many times he saw them, fireworks were a sight he always adored. “This has got to be mankind’s greatest invention!” The flowers of fire were simply too beautiful. So unique. Nothing on Flower Fruit Mountain compared to such beauty, it made him thankful he decided to leave.

From the corner of his eye, Wukong noticed that his companion was clutched his ears wincing with every detonation. “You okay, bud?”

“I’m fine. Just loud.” Macaque said. He was truly questioning his sanity by joining Wukong on the roof. Normally he barricaded himself in his room, but his friend was so thrilled about sharing their first New Year together he couldn’t say no.

“Oh.” Somehow the new set of fireworks didn’t look that attractive. “We can go inside if you want.” They were beautiful, but nothing was worth feeling helpless as his friend curled up in pain.

“I’ll be fine. I’m adjusting to the volume. No different than punches that break the sound barrier, right?” Macaque tried flashing a confident grin to varying success.

Wukong suspected that Macaque was lying, but learned enough to know further prying would just cause the other monkie to simply shut out the world. “I’m glad you’re coming with me.”

“You made a persuasive argument.” Anyone who could harass him for nearly five years straight proved their determination.

Wukong playfully stuck his tongue out. “Hehe…Seriously though, I’m happy you chose to be part of my tribe. No one should be alone.”

“Then why have I been for so long.”

“I doubt even Master knows. But you won’t be able to say that anymore.” Wukong wrapped his arms around his best friend. Pulling him close, Wukong faced the fireworks, unconsciously grooming Macaque as he savored every pop of color.

Beneath those gentle digits, Macaque steadied himself against the soothing heartbeat of the one he slowly learned to trust. As the display continued, the pale monkie learned to appreciate the human’s creations. Turns out they weren’t so bad so long as you have the right company.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

“I’m sorry. You’re what?!” Macaque’s response was perfectly justified. There was no way he just heard what he thought he heard.

Wukong flashed a blinding grin. “I’m heading to the Celestial realm. I’ve been given a position in Celestial Bureaucracy.” Not seeing any problems whatsoever.

“Why?” Just why? From everything he heard about those stuck-up deities, they would never hand over a position to anyone without requiring the completion of an impossible task, much less to a demon. Least of all a demon who has done nothing but terrorize others and unleash chaos whenever he went.

“Don’t know. But I got to go right now.” Wukong shrugged as he finished packing. The Gold Star of Venus was waiting just outside the waterfall.

“But what about Flower Fruit Mountain? What about your subjects? What am I supposed to do? How long are you going to be gone?” Macaque fired off a rapid stream of questions. Panic was beginning to take hold.

Wukong, however, was as calm and confident as ever. “Stop worrying so much. Look I’ll be back as soon as I can. Until then you’re in charge.” He finished as though it was obvious.

“Me!” A white tail nearly burst into twice its normal size in shock. “But I have no idea how to run a Court!”

“Neither do I. Not in the traditional sense at least. Look just keep an eye on things. Protect the monkeys from hunters and malicious demons. Sometimes one of the allied demon kings will ask for some help. It’s nothing you haven’t helped me with before. I’ll be back before you know it. I’m sure you’ll be able to handle things until I get back.”

Seeing his companion and good friend growing even more lost, Wukong closed the distance and took his face in both hands. “This is a good thing. If I can make this work, none of us will ever have to worry about being hunted or not having enough food ever again.”

In a snap, Macaque grabbed the king’s arms. “What if I don’t care about any of that? What if I just want you to stay?”

For the first time in their conversation, Wukong’s cocky attitude vanished replaced with a loving smile. Gently prying Macaque’s claws off his shirt, Wukong placed his cheek on a palm as he kissed the knuckles of another. “I can’t. This is too good an opportunity to pass up. This isn’t goodbye. I’ll keep in touch. The time will fly. We’ll make this work. Trust me.”

“Alright, Wukong. I trust you.” Macaque said, ignoring every fiber of his being that screamed this would end poorly.

“If things go wrong, remember I’m just a telepathic call away.” Summoning his cloud, Wukong back flipped onto it with his bag. “Monkey King, out!”

One sonic boom later and he was gone, along with a good chunk of the cave walls.

“Hpmh. That’s my idiot.”

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

How did this happen? How did this happen?!

One moment they were fighting for their lives against the army of the Celestial Realm and the next Macaque bore witness to Wukong being carted away in a diamond snare.

Now as he stared at the charred remains of what once was a growing village of monkeys, Macaque felt something within him change.

For almost two months he had burned in celestial fires. The sounds of the dead and dying rang out, making his namesake almost bleed. He choked on the ashes of the mortal monkeys. The air had a strangely sweet and bitter taste to it.

Macaque lost count of all the times he charged back into the fires to save as many heartbeats as he could. He wasn’t sure but he suspected he blacked out more than once. With every heartbeat that stilled before he could reach them, a part of him followed them into Yama’s realm.

Finally, the fires had died down. They didn’t have anything left to burn.

All around him he saw the pitiful leftovers of what was once a thriving community. He had treated the survivors the best he could, but he lost his medical equipment in the blaze. The only ones he didn’t have to worry about were the monkeys Wukong made immortal, but he did what he could to ease the pain.

But still, he wondered why…why were they staring at him as though they were confused?

Maybe he was overthinking everything. He just worked through 49 days without any sleep. Everything was stable for now. The best course of action was to wash off the ash and get some much-deserved rest.

There was nothing the Celestial Realm could do to Wukong that he couldn’t handle. Besides Macaque didn’t even know how to get there even if he was at full strength. Wukong couldn’t die so it was only a matter of time before someone tripped up allowing him to return home.

He just had to be patient.

Stepping into the clear river, Macaque’s jaw almost dropped as the water around him immediately turned gray. He didn’t realize he was that filthy.

He started scrubbing himself, ducking under the water to ensure he didn’t miss a spot. He had to move a few times due to the sheer amount of shoot and ash that clung to him. The entire cleaning process took a full hour before the water ran clear.

Stepping out, Macaque felt more refreshed than he ever remembered. Shaking to remove as much access water as possible, all the towels were soot so he had to make do, he paused by the waterside to see how much fur he lost. But what he saw met none of his expectations.

Instead of fur that invoked images of the moon, he was cloaked in the color of the darkest ink.

“What happened to me?”

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

Five hundred years.

Five hundred years he searched, for any trace of the legendary Five-Fingered Moutain Buddha used to trap Sun Wukong only to find nothing. Macaque scoured far and wide. Neither the winds nor the shadows could lead him towards his friend.

He picked fights with countless demons who claimed to witness the great Monkey King brought low. It barely took two punches before they broke down crying how it had been nothing but a lie, how they only repeated rumors.

He bargained for any information he could find, but all accounts claimed the mountain didn’t exist. Many refused to answer him on principle of not interfering with the Celestial Realm’s issues. Their last mistake. Others took Wukoong’s punishment as a sign to amass as much power as possible out of fear that they would be targeted next.

Macaque had witnessed the formation of more alliances and territory grabs in the past century than had been recorded in the last thousand years. Demons were becoming more power-hungry and suspicious, which meant even more trouble for the humans. Things were becoming so chaotic, Macaque had to wonder if it was planned.

But he couldn’t dwell on that.

He hadn’t visited Flower Fruit Moutain in years. His clones kept guard, but slowly he was losing the drive to keep replenishing them. The only reason he called that mountain home was because of Wukong. It wasn’t home without him.

But he had to keep looking. Had to keep trying. He would find his friend.

Somehow.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

He tricked himself into thinking this would be different. That he would no longer be alone. That finally he had found a family he could keep.

He was an idiot!

The truth was he was no different than anyone else. The world was Sun Wukong’s toy chest and Macaque was merely a shiny new trinket to bat around until he grew bored. Seeing him with that group, knowing that he chose them over their past, was too much.

He was sick of being left behind. He had been left alone so many times. What made him think he couldn’t be replaced?

He could have attacked, ripped their precious monk to pieces, he could have...should have...but he was tired.

Returning to Flower Fruit Mountain was a chore, but one he swore he would never complete again. The monkeys questioned his return, asking where their king was and if he’d return soon. Macaque ignored them all. He simply walked to the part of the manor he and Wukong had shared for years, where he had been waiting for his return.

Staring at all the knickknacks and souvenirs they had collected from their adventures, Macaque made up his mind. Grabbing a large sturdy bag, he swiftly packed his essentials. In another, he packed non-perishable goods and water containers.

Stepping out, a flash of something peach-colored caught his eye. Spinning around, hope burning a hole in his chest but his dreams once more were proved false. It was just the special peach tree Wukong had planted from the leftover pit he had saved from his time in the Celestial Realm. Apparently, it had reached maturity and was proudly bearing the first fruit Macaque had seen despite having been planted nearly half a millennia ago.

Macaque wasn’t sure why it was so special, Wukong just winked and said it was a surprise for when they could share a fresh one. Feeling something wet on his arm, Macaque looked down to see his hand stretched towards the tree and the memories he held. Feeling his cheeks, he realized he was crying, which was strange as he didn’t think he had any tears left.

Spurred by longing and spite, Macaque plucked six peaches from the tree and stuffed them into his bag. It wasn’t like Wukong was going to miss them. And he needed the food.

#lego monkie kid au #Vanishing Shadow Au #six eared macaque #liu er mihou #sun wukong #abandonment issues #no communication #angst #white macaque

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proudfreakmetarusonniku · 3 years

Note

The duty of a Pearl is to serve their Diamond.

At least, that's what Tommy was taught anyway.

It had a millennia since he was first given to Green Diamond by Gold Diamond, but he would never forget the moment he laid eyes upon the white-masked ruler. Neon green arms caught the light of the room around them and gave Green a luminescent appearance, despite his body already being made of projected light. The space station almost seemed to freeze in time around the three. If he could, Tommy would have frozen time back then, when things were simpler.

Green had taken him back to his personal ship and given him the traditional title 'Pearl' before leaving to take care of Diamond matters. Despite an ingrained knowledge he should wait for orders, Pearl left the room and wandered the ship, a need to explore and see the world around him overriding his pearl nature. He meandered around, running into a few Rubies and Topazes along the way. Pearl knew that the bright green clothes Gold Diamond had given him let the other gems know his place, but he himself was unsure of his purpose, aside from basic servitude.

Hours passed and Pearlstill only saw a small portion of the ship. He stumbled into a large room with a neon green throne and a projected screen before it. Sitting in the chair was none other than Green Diamond himself. Pearl felt a strange pull towards him, an urge to remain in his presence unlike with the other gems around the ship. He crept up alongside the base of the throne, unnoticed by the powerful gem sitting in it. Green occasionally summoned various Quartzes and Peridots before assigning them duties. These gems occasionally glanced at Pearl with interest, but looked away when they noticed the colors he wore.

Eventually, Green asked one of the staring gems what was so interesting. When she answered with Pearl's presence on the floor next to the throne, Green peered down over the edge of the chair. Pearl waved up from the ground with a smile, a bit embarrassed at being caught but otherwise unperturbed. "Leave us." Green commanded the Aquamarine. The moment the two were alone, Green picked Pearl up by his collar. "I thought I left you in my chambers."

"Well yeah, but it was boring in there. Didn't know Diamonds know shit about interior design." Pearlshot back.

Green was silent for a moment before he released a sharp wheezing noise. Pearl startled, concerned he had actually caused some damage with his words, but realized quickly the high pitched whistling was only Green's laughter. As his laughter petered out, Green set Pearl down on the armrest of his chair, "It's been a while since I've laughed that hard." His smiling mask seemed to shine with an extra light. From that moment on, Pearl was never far from Green's side. He cracked jokes, mocked other gems (including Green sometimes), and handled simple tasks for his Diamond. In return, Green kept Pearl around him at all times. They were together on the ship, at planets when Green checked on his colonies, and even in meetings with the other Diamonds, though he had to hide in Green's pocket. Green picked a name for him: Tommy, and received a name in kind: Dream. All things considered, serving Green Diamond was a pretty good deal.

At least, it was until the revolt on Esempi.

It was just another visit to another one of Green's colonies, almost a century into Tommy's service. They had just touched down and Tommy was riding on Dream's shoulder just like normal when a shrieking whistle pierced through the air. A few of the Rubies in Dream's guard collapsed to the ground and their bodies disappeared, leaving only their gems behind. Tommy shook with the effort of keeping his light form intact, and he could tell even Dream was struggling a bit. They quickly found the source of the shriek and destroyed it, gathering all the gems responsible before Green Diamond for judgement.

"What did you hope to gain from this?" He asked.

"Freedom from your oppression!" Responded a bold Titanite.

"Well you can have it." Dream's mask glinted in the light of the planet's sun. Tommy stared up at his Diamond, confused as he pulled a long strand of neon green light from thin air. Dream flicked his wrist and the string whipped through the forms of every single revolting gem.

All of them, except the Titanite.

The yellow gem managed to dodge the attack in time to see his bretheren fall. His eyes filled with rage as he pulled a bow from the gem in his forehead. He pulled back on the string and aimed for Dream before letting loose a glowing yellow bolt directed at Tommy. The pearl barely had a moment to think before his gem, right in the middle of his chest, was struck. He toppled backwards, falling for the ground before being caught by two Aquamarines. Dream grabbed the Titanite and squeezed him to the point of his body dissipating, and even cracking his gem. Dream called his gems to his ship and took Tommy from the Aquamarines.

In the medical bay, Tommy received treatment for a small fracture in his gem. Easily fixed, but still painful. During the entire process, Dream was strangely distant, watching Tommy with enough neutrality that even he couldn't figure out what the Diamond was thinking. By the time he was completely healed, Dream had reverted back to his initial treatment of his pearl. Tommy trailed after him every day, but no longer did he sit on the Diamond's shoulder, no longer was he given the privilege of joining the Diamond in meetings, no longer did he elicit that wheeze of a laugh from the Diamond that he loved so much.

But a few months later and Dream finally looked at him. He stopped in the middle of a corridor and stared down at the Pearl, "Why won't you leave?!"

"What?" Tommy didn't understand.

"I've been ignoring you for months, why are you still following me?"

The Pearl was quick to respond, "Because I feel like it you prick." Dream had nothing else to say.

The very next day, after finishing a meeting with Gold Diamond and Blue Diamond Dream picked Tommy up for the first time since the incident on Esempi. He carried the Pearl through the halls of the ship without an entourage. They traveled to a large room that reached far above the Diamond's head, a size Tommy had yet to see until this point. Various weapons lined one wall and platforms of various size, height, and constructions littered the room. Next to the door was a panel with colorful buttons and a milky white quartz. Dream set Tommy down on the ground and tilted his head towards the quartz, who quickly saluted and left the room. Dream turned to his Pearl and started to shrink to his eye level.

Tommy was surprised to see the mask shrink along with the Diamond, and was even more surprised when Dream pulled a bright green axe from his gem. "Draw your weapon." He commanded. Tommy raised a hand to his Pearl and pulled, imagining a tool that would serve his Diamond. He felt something brush against his hand and his gem lit up as a red and white axe emerged from his chest. Tommy stared in awe at the weapon for a few moments before Dream's voice broke him out, "Let's start." Green Diamond walked to the panel and pressed a few buttons, producing several training dummies from the floor.

And so Tommy's training began.

The slow, arduous process was brutal. More days than not, Tommy would end up with a damaged form that required a trip into his gem to heal. Every day after Dream had completed a certain number of meetings they would return to the training room and spar, the Diamond teaching the Pearl how to wield his axe and how to avoid attacks from foreign gems. It wasn't all bad, there were moments where Dream would step back and voice his approval whenever Tommy proved especially evasive or aggressive. But every time Tommy received a severe injury requiring an end to the day's session, Dream would stop and stare, his mask hiding whatever thoughts running through his mind.

He was certainly stronger for all the training, Tommy couldn't deny this. Nor would he, his Diamond clearly cared for him, why else would he take the time to make sure Tommy could defend himself. Still, he wasn't permitted to sit on Dream's shoulder, though he was once again brought to meetings with the Diamonds. In public, Dream would act as thought Tommy had been reduced to his assistant, as all other Pearls were. When they were alone, however, be it in the training room or their chambers, or even Dream's command room on occasion, the Diamond would hold the Pearl close to his gem. Sometimes he held Tommy a bit too tight and the smaller gem was reminded that his Diamond could crush him at any moment. The injuries during training eventually grew in frequency and damage. Until it finally came to a head at the end of one session.

Dream always took care to avoid Tommy's gem, just as Tommy avoided Dream's. But this time, when Tommy ducked he wasn't quite fast enough to avoid the bit of the Diamond's axe. The sharp blade cut straight to the heart of Tommy's Pearl, destroying his light form and knocking the gem across the room. Green Diamond dropped his weapon and ran to it, holding the smooth stone in his shaking hands. That was how his attendants found him, begging Tommy to come back out, telling the gem it was only a small nick and that he would be fine. The Aquamarine guided Dream, refusing to release the damaged Pearl, to the medical bay where they placed the gem on a soft pillow. The Moonstone inside looked over the damaged Pearl and shook her head apologetically.

Every day after that, Dream would go to the medical bay before and after his duties and spend time talking to the gem. Sometimes he would mention events of the day, sometimes he would scream at the gem for being so soft, but most often he would beg Tommy to come back. Green Diamond went to The Reef and ordered the attendants to fix his Pearl but to no avail. The gem was cut to the core, leaving him nothing more than a decoration. They offered replacement Pearls, but Green Diamond refused them all, only wanting the return of his Tommy.

Green Diamond ordered his Peridots, Agates, and Sapphires to research gem reconstruction and spent the majority of his time assisting them. Gold, Blue, and Red Diamond all worried for him, offering time away and various projects and more gems to distract him from the loss of his Pearl, though he took none of them. A year passed, and Green Diamond began carrying his Pearl in a locket worn around his neck at all times.

Then he received a message: his team had found a solution.

Green Diamond left the meeting of the Diamonds in an instant, heading for the research compound where his Peridots, Agates, and Sapphires had worked tirelessly. He opened his locket and carefully laid the damaged gem on the operating table, watching his researchers for any hint of failure. The gems poured fluids and powders and shone lights on the Pearl, eventually filling the crevice with a neon green streak the color of Green's own gem. The gems explained that the Pearl would need time to readjust and reform, but the procedure had been successful.

So Dream waited. He waited days, weeks, and then a month passed by. Time felt slow, as though it were a sludging mud instead of a clean stream. But the waiting paid off the moment Tommy reformed around his gem. He was different, with a white streak in his normally golden hair, and his blue eyes had cracks of neon green through them, but he was alive. Dream shrunk down and embraced his Pearl, unwilling to risk crushing him in his hands as he had imagined so many times a year ago. Tommy did not embrace him back, however. His eyes darted around the room and his form shook endlessly. Dream didn't care though, he had his Pearl back.

And he wouldn't lose him again.

-Butterfly Anon Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

It has been a hot minute since I've written this much, hooo boyyyy. Ah, Primeboys my beloved, how you inspire me. This turned out to be less of a drabble and more of a full on story, my goodness. I've got a few ideas where to take the story from here, but I figured this was as good a place to end it as any.

Cast in case you didn't figure it out:

Green Diamond: Dream, Gold Diamond: Foolish, Pearl: Tommy, Titanite: Wilbur, Blue Diamond: Skeppy, Red Diamond: Badboyhalo

THIS IS SO GOOD

#Dream smp

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sadaveniren · 3 years

Text

🎄31 Days of Recs - @lululawrence🎄

Drawn to You

It had started with Louis getting in trouble for coloring on himself when he hadn’t touched a felt tip pen the entire day. Through the years, the random drawings had evolved and changed. There was a period in sixth form when his soulmate must have gotten shy or something, because the drawings only happened after school hours and in places that others wouldn’t be as likely to see. The inside of his bicep, his thigh. A couple times he even had drawings appear on his ribcage. While he didn’t mind those few years, he did seem somewhat soothed when they began to appear on his left arm again. He’d missed them.

Or that completely self indulgent soulmates au that plays out in not always romantic ways.

Talk the Night Through

It's 1995 and a chat room is the last place Harry ever expects to find the love of his life.

You Try to be Everything (I need)

Wars, and rumours of wars, were nothing new for the world in the twenty-fourth century. The fighting had evolved over the years, and rarely did it involve traditional weapons. A group most widely known as the Southern Powers gained strength amongst portions of the western European continent and spread quickly.

There was a fight the Southern Powers didn’t expect coming from the north of England, though. Resistance came in the form of an organised underground; a group comprised of people with the Touch that did the best they could to enforce a line that would not be crossed. Slowly, that line was moved from the Channel to boundaries further and further north. It seemed only a matter of time before the Southern Powers took over everywhere.

Until that time, people did the best they could to live their lives in some semblance of normality. For Louis Tomlinson, that sense of normality was about to change when his best friend, Harry Styles, goes missing.

Louis embarks on the journey of a lifetime where he uses his newly developed abilities to search for his friend, even when it takes him to places he never thought he would see while surmounting trials he never could have imagined.

(Something’s Been) Hiding in My Heart

A Sweet Home Alabama AU where Louis comes home to finally get his divorce from Harry finalized so he can move on with his life. Alderford holds its own set of challenges when he returns, but by facing his past maybe he can find the healing he so desperately needs.

Back to How it Was

The one where Harry goes to bed angry with his bandmates and wakes up in a universe where One Direction was never formed and he has to find a way back home. Home definitely has nothing to do with his best friend and bandmate, Louis. That would be ridiculous.

That’s Not My Name

The one where the cute boy coming into the coffee shop gives Louis a different name every time...for over a month.

Nothin’ I Would Rather Do

The one where Anne is determined to set Louis up with her son, but he's perfectly happy with the random sexting "relationship" he has running with the random he met at a bar several months back.

(Won’t You) Stay in the A.M.

Harry tucked a few loose strands back up into the bun on top of his head and headed to the front of the building. He really would rather no one saw him behind the gym where he worked if possible so they wouldn't have a chance to catch on that the address he gave for work was actually his friend Ed’s and the number belonged to his buddy Niall. Harry didn’t like the term homeless, because he was making at least some money now and he was actively looking for a better gig so he could actually afford at least a bed in this massive city, but that’s basically what he was. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, he knew that, sometimes shit just happened and this was how it turned out, but he also didn’t want to broadcast his situation if he didn’t have to either. Especially if Louis Tomlinson, Britain's most talented young actor, was going to be frequenting Harry's place of employment on a regular basis.

Swipe Right for a Clean Flat

The one where Harry and Louis are flatmates and Harry is tired of Louis not doing the washing up. He figures signing up on Tinder as a hot girl might be just the fix for this issue.

Political Pizza

The one where Louis really wants a pizza and Harry is the one who answers the phone.

The Goat Guy of Bethlehem

Every year, Harry and his family attend a church festival called Bethlehem. Harry's freshman year of high school Bethlehem expands, bringing in new vendors, including one that just might change everything for Harry. But first, he has to see if Anne and Robin are willing to part with him for the price of a few goats.

#happy december!#new recs every day :D #some of my favorite fics by my favorite people!

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popatochisssp · 3 years

Note

i heard gem backstories, am i too late for that?

Not at all!

Here’s what happened to the damaged and mysterious gems to bring them to their current state...

Horrorfells

Ruby wanted to join the Crystal Gems when Rose Quartz rebelled against Homeworld. He confided as much in Bixbite and tried to get him to come too...but Bixbite balked.

They argued over it but neither would budge and Ruby left for Earth alone while the most Bixbite could bring himself to do was facilitate and cover for his ‘escape.’

The regret sank in quickly, but by the time Bixbite acted on his second thoughts and turned around, defecting to join his brother... it was too late. The Diamonds had blasted the planet in the wake of Pink’s shattering and the war was over.

The...thing...he finds down on the planet’s surface... it bears his brother’s broken gem, but it isn’t Ruby anymore.

He’s devastated and consumed with guilt and lingers around the beast for several cycles, trying to figure out what to do; if there’s anything to be done.

Eventually, Bixbite decides to try and fuse with it. Best case scenario, he’ll find his brother in there somewhere and pull him back out of...this. Worst case scenario...

He won’t have to live with the guilt of it anymore.

The fusion falls apart quickly, as it often has before, but the attempt causes the corruption to spread to Bixbite too. They spend a few centuries lurking in the same general area of Earth, more creature than gem, until the start of Era 3 when corruption can be undone... at least, mostly undone.

Horrorswaps

Zircon was always inadequate at performing the duties of his caste. He got away with it for a long time, doing administrative (pearl) work to be useful, but in Era 2, after the War, that kind of thing didn’t really fly anymore.

He was informed that he was to be rejuvenated, in the hopes that his defect was purely psychological and he might perform better when all of that excess was wiped clean. He made an attempt to protest, but was ever-so-politely informed that the other proposed solution was to be scrapped and harvested to truly start from scratch, and... he went quietly after that.

Chalcedony knew none of this until it had all already happened, and when he encountered the empty, robotic shell of his brother, it was exactly the impetus he needed to do what he’d been thinking about doing for ages.

He defects.

He grabs Zircon and makes a daring escape, hindered by the fact that they’re pursued and that Zircon--remembering nothing--is actively resisting being kidnapped from his duties by a crazy quartz.

It’s not until they’re caught, Chalcedony pinned with a laser-sword coming down towards his chest (aimed right at his gem on the other side) and yelling for Zircon to run that memory comes rushing back.

Just barely too late.

Zircon reforms as himself, with only enough time to process the situation and hurl himself at their attacker, throwing off their aim. Chalcedony poofs as his body’s impaled, but the sword only scrapes along the curved surface of his gem instead of piercing right through and shattering it.

But that still leaves Zircon in a hell of a pickle, alone with a very angry gem whose mission had been interrupted.

They turn on him, swinging their sword and slicing cleanly through, poofing him instantly, and as his gem pieces clatter to the ground, they turn to finish their mission: destroying the renegade quartz.

What they didn’t know is that Chalcedony always reforms quickly. They certainly couldn’t have expected, even if they had known that, that he would even be able to reform with a damaged gem...but he did it.

Just barely too late.

At least Chalcedony has the drop on them this time and he hits hard, dissipating their form quickly and scooping up the two pieces of his brother’s gem before resuming their escape even more urgently than before.

He can’t really relax until Zircon manages to (mostly) reform, and the two of them decide to hide out on Earth, the last place any gem would go looking for them.

They’re damaged and incomplete, but still alive and that’s what matters!

Horrorswapfells

Topaz was left to guard the cell of a high profile criminal, newly captured. She tried to sway him to look the other way, to help her fake some kind of equipment malfunction and let her escape, for the good of the rebellion, for the good of gemkind... He stood strong and did his best to block her out, even though her rhetoric appealed to him very, very much.

But he made a thoughtless mistake.

He let her lure him too close to the energy field of the cell, and when he turned his back on her, the gem destabilizer on his hip was just far enough through for her to get a hold of.

He was poofed and by the time he managed to reform, the cell was broken open and empty and not even slamming the ship into lockdown was in time to keep her from well and truly escaping.

Rose Quartz was long gone, and the very next thing she does is go on to shatter Pink Diamond.

Topaz was on the hook for that very, very serious infraction.

...or at least, he would’ve been, had Crazy Lace Agate not stepped up and taken full responsibility for the screw-up, serenely submitting himself for whatever punishment was deemed necessary.

To Topaz’s horror, his brother is shattered before his eye-sockets, for his mistake.

He’s mostly blacked out what happened after, rushing forward and poofing anyone that tried to stop him from getting to Crazy Lace’s shards, frantically scooping them up and bubbling them before making a break for an escape pod.

He sets a course for Earth, figuring at least no one would go looking for him them there, and sets about trying to rearrange his brother’s pieces, like the universe’s most gruesome puzzle.

He doesn’t know what purpose this will serve. It’s stupid, he has no way of truly fusing the shards back together... his brother is gone, he’s dead, he’s dead and it’s his fault-- But...it gives him something to do to keep from falling apart and to not have to acknowledge what’s happening. And maybe if he can put the pieces back together, if he can rebuild his brother’s gem with all the shards arranged exactly how they’re supposed to be... maybe.........

Topaz is on Earth by the time he manages to finish the puzzle--which is where he is when he realizes that a single tiny sliver is missing, left behind lightyears away and undoubtedly destroyed and recycled as Homeworld’s always done with gem remains.

Topaz breaks, the grief and pain hitting him all at once so hard that his physical form poofs instantly even though the damage is only psychological. He goes inert, retreating into his gem and refusing to reform, not wanting to face the world anymore and finding it too painful to try.

(Their gems are both found much, much later, well into Era 3, by Rose Quartz’s son of all people. Crazy Lace is healed and manages to reform, even without his missing piece, and then begins the process of coaxing his brother back out of his unharmed gem.)

Gastertales

There was once a Chrysoberyl, a Kindergartener who defied authority--letting excessively defective gems slip through the cracks, selectively obeying orders, and otherwise doing and being everything someone who makes gems for the Empire should not be.

When no amount of censuring, punishment, and even rejuvenations were enough to bring him in line, he was hauled in for a more final solution.

Except...

He was a very well-made gem, in spite of his behavioral defects, else they’d have just shattered him from the start.

No, they’d really like to be able to get something out of this gem, when so many resources had gone into his creation.

He’s ‘volunteered’ for an experiment, one that has a high chance of mortality, and even if it’s successful, no one has any idea what will happen or if he’ll ever be the same.

Chrysoberyl’s gem is cleaved: cut cleanly, exactly in half with precision equipment to avoid any other damage.

The test is to see if either of the halves will reform; if they can reform and if they do, what state they’ll be in, if they’ll retain any memories of their old form, if they’ll be able to perform the same functions as they did before...

In short, is this a feasible procedure?

This information, or at least the gist of it, is what one of the Chrysoberyl twins discovers in his covert digging into hidden and restricted files, and the reason his very next act is to advise his brother that they had best get the hell out of here, away from the gems monitoring this horrible, fucked up experiment.

In the end, when the two of them make a clean getaway, the experiment is marked as a failure: the escape could be indicative of potential memory retention, and even if not, the behavioral issues were obviously not cleared from either half of the cleaved gem.

Now, there’s two problem Chrysoberyls on the loose, defying Homeworld’s authority.

Definitely a failure.

#skelegems #headcanons #horrorfell #hf!sans #hf!papyrus #horrorswap #hs!sans #hs!papyrus #horrorswapfell #hsf!sans #hsf!papyrus #gastertale #g!sans #g!papyrus #Anonymous

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delicatelyherdreams · 4 years

Text

Pragma(tic) 17: Though Mighty, She Falls

Pairing: Persephone!Bucky Barnes x Hades!Reader

Summary: In a world where the old gods never truly died, you must learn to navigate your way through the ups and downs of immortality. And if living forever wasn’t hard enough, an ancient evil is now threatening to break free after centuries of silence. And as if that still wasn’t hard enough for you, now a pesky and infuriatingly handsome god is trying to wedge his way into your life. Gods, work, love, and conflict—what more could a goddess need? [Hades & Persephone AU]

Word Count: 5663

Warnings: Language, blood

Pragma(tic) Masterlist

Previous 16: He Feels His Heart Break

In all your millennia, you’d never actually thought about death. Sure you were surrounded by it every single day, but you never pondered what it meant to die—to cease to live. Death was nothing but a term to you. It meant that another soul would be joining your kingdom. It meant that a mortal’s life had ended. It had no place in your life. And yet… Now it seemed that you were staring your own death right in the face.

The spirits in Elysium had all described it in different ways. Some said it was peaceful—a sweet release from life. Others said it was the worst pain they’d ever experienced—an excruciating way to go.

You had never known such pain before. Your body was alight with angry fires. Your limbs hurt at the slightest of movements. You were always parched, your mouth never moistening. It hurt to breathe. Every ragged breath you drew in lead to a round of severe coughing. The air in your lungs was tainted gold. Ichor flowed freely from the corners of your mouth, running down your chin in thin rivers.

You’d been poisoned.

It was the only diagnosis Pietro could come up with. Natasha and Carol had dragged him down to the Underworld after they and Peggy got you laid up in your bed. Though he was reluctant to venture down under as it was, he did his job well. As the god of medicine and stuff like that he was the only one capable of figuring out what had ailed you. “She’s been poisoned,” he said, pulling his hands away from your head and chest. He’d done his assessment, letting his magic flow through you through the two entry points, and that was the only explanation he could come up with.

“But you can cure her, right?” Natasha’s voice had been desperate, begging. She feared for you when she saw you collapse in the throne room. You, her strong, older sister, had never once caught a cold, and you had suddenly started throwing up ichor. She was terrified; it was a strong poison if it could cripple a goddess such as yourself so much.

Pietro has hung his head before delivering the harsh news. “I can’t... I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s old magic, old poison. I didn’t even know that it still existed. I don’t know of anything that would heal her… I’m sorry.”

No cure; no choice other than to wait it out, let the poison run its course, and pray that you would recover.

He’d left you with some medicine that might alleviate the pain and make you more comfortable, but that was all he could do.

There was no hope for an immediate recovery, you knew that much when you looked into Pietro’s eyes. They had been full of pity, of sadness, like he was looking at a woman who was already dead and just didn’t know it yet.

Your sisters were optimistic, setting off on a fool’s quest to find you a cure. Just because Pietro had never heard of one didn’t mean that it didn’t exist. He was a newer god, after all, and so he didn’t know everything. There was always a chance that there was something as old as the poison itself that could act as the cure.

You, however, knew better. You’d seen enough death and pain yourself to know that chances were this was not going to end well.

And so, after the first week, you began to make arrangements for your absence. It had to be done anyways, after all. It would be a long time before you recovered if you did at all. The Underworld would still run, but you wouldn’t be able to do it. You barely had the strength to sit up without help, how could you have the strength to run a kingdom?

So while your mother, your sisters, and Peggy took turns watching over you and helping you do basic human things, you divided up the responsibilities of the kingdom.

Peggy, bless her heart, took over the paperwork you had to do. All the Elysium applications and the renovations and other paperwork went through her. She’d shadowed you enough to know how to do it. When she wasn’t nursing you or helping you do basic things, she was down in the office trudging through the endless mountains.

Pierce, helpful as ever, volunteered to lead the reconstruction efforts on Tartarus, directing gods and other beings on how to contribute, and take over the more official, executive aspects of the Underworld. Being the god of Death, Pierce had taken it upon himself a millennia ago to learn the way you ran things. Aside from Peggy, and obviously yourself, he was the only one fit to rule in your stead. While Peggy was managing the admin side of the Underworld, Pierce took over the engineering and execution of all other functions.

Together, the two of them completely filled your role, leaving you with the peace of mind necessary to get better and recover.

Though after the third week of pain, it didn’t look like you ever would.

Natasha and Carol told you not to think like that, but you knew. You knew how death worked. You knew how death felt. You knew that the chances of you pulling out of this were slim to none. It was only a matter of time now.

———

“Mrs. Thomas from Elysium called again.”

“Oh yeah? What’d she say.”

Peggy shrugged as she took a seat on the chair that had been set up at your bedside. “Oh, you know. Just calling to ask how you’ve been doing, wondering if she can bring you over her famous soup. She’s certain it will help you get better.”

You croaked a laugh, the breath stinging your chapped lips. “She always thinks food will solve everything.” Your eyes followed Peggy as she sat down, looking at the bowl she held in her hands. “If we can get me to keep food down, maybe take her up on that offer. I miss her cooking.”

She only smiled as she reached into the bowl. From it she pulled a damp washcloth. The white was vibrant in the darkened room as she wrung it out, letting the excess water fall. She reached over and began dabbing your face with the cloth. “I’ll be sure to do that then.”

You closed your eyes under the cool surface. It was a welcome relief from the constant fire you felt. One of the downfalls of this whole poisoning thing was the fever that came along with it. In all the three weeks of the pain, the fever had never once broken. If you were mortal, the constant heat would’ve boiled your brain by now. But, being immortal, it only caused you severe discomfort and the occasional delusions. The chill of the cold cloth was refreshing and it drew a shuddering sigh from your lips. “Thanks, Peggy.”

“Of course.” She continued to move the cloth across your face, letting it rest the most on your forehead. When it warmed she dipped it back into the ice-cold water and repeated her movements.

It was soothing—just a bit of comfort from the pain you were in constantly. You let out a shuddering breath as you sank deeper into your bed. Your chest rose and fell with labored breaths. It was getting harder and harder to breathe with every passing day. You had a feeling that it wouldn’t be long before you couldn’t breathe at all.

As if sensing your doubtful thoughts, Peggy’s hand stilled. “You’re going to be alright. I know it. Your sisters are searching for a cure and Pietro is getting everything he can think of.”

You didn’t want to point out to her that just yesterday he was almost out of ideas. You simply nodded. “Alright…” you rasped out. Carefully you inhaled sharply, letting the air scratch at your lungs. “But let’s not discuss that right now. Tell me how things are going. How’s my kingdom?”

Being laid up, you never got to go out and see how things were going for yourself. You had to rely heavily on Peggy and Pierce’s reports. You were paranoid. You’d never been away from the throne for that long and not having your hand in the workings of the Underworld made you anxious.

Peggy hummed. “It’s recovering. The Tartarus breech really did a number on things, but we’re rebuilding. Elysium renovations are going smoothly. The crack in the wall is almost fully filled. Pierce is doing well.”

“Then why do you sound uneasy?”

She blinked, surprised by your question, but you hadn’t missed the hint of malice and skepticism in her voice when she spoke of Pierce. Something was wrong, you knew it.

“What’s he doing?” You locked your eyes on her face, doing your best to read her expression.

Her brows furrowed and she tilted her chin down. Her expression was confused and she was confused by her own confusion. “He… He’s doing well, almost too well. (y/n), I can’t explain it, but the way he’s acting whenever he goes out to the cave… It’s like he knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s like he’s already had everything planned out. He’s doing too well, and it’s giving me this bad feeling.”

“You’ve tested him?”

“Of course I have. He’s not being controlled—not by Kronos or anyone else for that matter. He’s completely in his own mind.”

You licked your lips and gazed up at the ceiling. “Have you been down to the cave? To inspect his work?”

“No. I haven’t had the time to. Between keeping you alive and dealing with paperwork, I haven’t been able to.” She sighed heavily and dunked the washcloth into the ice water once more. Setting it on your forehead, she said, “But I will soon; cast a spell or two of my own to help. Do anything to make sure your father stays locked up in your absence.”

You nodded your head. “Thank you, Pegs. This is why you’re my second in command.” Your smile was weak as you grinned at her, but it was there and meaningful.

She laughed at that and shook her head. “I’m not sure that that’s the only reason why, but I’ll take it.” She sighed. “How have you been feeling?”

“Oh, shitty as ever. But hey, you’ll be proud of me. I’ve only thrown up ichor once today.”

“That’s progress!” Her eyes brightened with hope.

“Yeah… Progress…” You didn’t want to tell her that that one episode had lasted nearly a half-hour as you lay hunched over the side of the bed expelling what little you’d eaten that morning from your stomach and some more ichor with it. Your tired sigh ended with a half-hearted smile. “I’m tired now, Pegs,” you said softly.

She pulled the cloth away from your forehead. “Would you like me to leave you to rest?”

You barely moved your head in a nod. “Please.”

“Alright.” Her chair scraped the ground as she pushed it back and stood. “I’ll be down in the office working. Call me if you need anything.”

“I will.”

The sound of her footsteps echoed in the room, growing fainter and fainter until they were nothing. You were left in silence once more. It settled heavy on the room, enveloping you in the cocoon of solitude. You used to hate the silence, but now it was welcome. Even sick, you rarely had a moment to yourself. Everyone was always scared you’d die if you were left alone for even one second. There was almost always someone by your side.

It was overwhelming.

But you almost preferred the company. It kept your mind busy and away from unpleasant thoughts about your impending demise.

Though no one around you wanted to admit it, you knew it to be true: you were dying and there was nothing that could be done about it. It was a depressing thought, really. You didn’t want to die, but it didn’t look like you had much of a choice.

You were going to die, and that was just the way of things.

And that was…

Honestly, not okay with you. But the pain was just mind-numbing. Sure the medicine that Pietro prescribed for you helped ease it a bit, but it would always return with a vengeance. Nearly a month of this had sapped out all the strength and magic you had, and you weren’t sure how much longer you could take it all.

But you chose not to dwell on it. You couldn’t. It would only just kill you faster.

Approaching footsteps broke the silence, tearing you from your thoughts of dying and the partial-slumber it had been lulling you into.

Your face screwed up at the disturbance, but you didn’t open your eyes. “Peggy?” you called out, the hoarseness of your voice surprising even you. “Did you need something?”

A chuckle was your answer. “It’s not Peggy, Precious.”

At his voice, your eyes snapped open. “Brock,” you croaked, trying to muscle your way into a sitting position. You couldn’t see him when you were reclined and you refused to be prone in his presence. You hadn’t seen him since you’d sent him away all those months ago, and that conversation had been left on severely rocky terms. You’d told him to leave, ending things between you pretty harshly. You couldn’t believe your ears when you heard his voice and so you had to see him for yourself. But to do that, you had to sit up.

You didn’t get too far. The pain in your chest and abdomen flared with the movement and you cried out in agony.

Brock was at your side in an instant, his hands pushing down on your shoulders ever so gently to ease you back against the pillows.. “Shh, Precious,” he murmured softly. “Stay down, it’s okay.”

Reluctantly, you obeyed. Gods, you wanted to sit up and berate him for ever showing his face in your home again, but you weren’t strong enough to do so. So you settled for just glaring at him. “Why are you here?” you hissed in a low voice. “I thought I told you to never show your face again.”

“You did not say that, Precious,” he said, his voice was gentle and kind. “You told me to leave, you didn’t tell me to never come back.” When you were situated on the pillows again, he set one of his large hands on your forehead and brushed back your hair.

“That still meant leave,” you spat. You looked up at him, your eyes narrowing. “Why have you come? How did you get past Peggy?”

“I have my ways. You forget I used to frequent this room without anyone knowing I was ever here. I know how to get in undetected.” With that, he sat down in the chair Peggy had been sitting in not even an hour ago. He pulled his palm from your forehead and reached for your hand which was lying at your side. You were too tired to move it, so he laced your fingers together. “I’m here to see you, Precious. I heard you were sick, but I— I never imagined…” His voice broke as he looked at your face. You could only imagine how horrible you looked.

“You’re not welcome here anymore, Brock,” you growled. “You should leave.”

“No, not until you hear me out.”

“Th-There’s nothing left for me to hear! I told you to leave.”

“Precious—”

“And stop calling me that!” You yanked your hand out of his grasp and glared daggers at him. “I’m not your precious anymore. You have no right to come in here and call me terms of endearment like we’re still… Like we’re still together! You don’t have that privilege anymore and I want you—” Your lungs were arrested by a fit of coughing and your body convulsed. Pain wracked your body as you hacked and coughed, trying to expel the insatiable itch in your throat. You coughed into your hands, cupping them at your mouth to catch the ichor that was thrown from your lungs so they didn’t land on the covers.

Brock rubbed small circles over your back as if that would help ease the pain or the coughing. “Shh, just get it out.”

You wanted to curse his name, banish him from your home for forever, but you couldn’t. You didn’t have the energy to. When you finished coughing, you sat back against the pillows. Your hands were stained gold with your own ichor and it hurt to breathe.

He helped you get back the best he could, being nothing but gentle with your fragile body. He handled you like you were made of glass; like you could shatter at any second. When you were settled once more, he took his hand off of you and hung his head. “Please, Precious. I needed to come back; to apologize if nothing else. Please just hear me out.” His voice was desperate and soft; he was scared of what you would say.

You didn’t want to even give him the time of day, but because you were basically a captive audience, you really had no choice. You sneered at him down your nose but nodded your head. “You’ve got two minutes.”

“Thank you.” He inhaled sharply before he said, “I’m sorry for everything I ever did—or didn’t do—to you. I never wanted to hurt you. I was just scared of what you wanted. I thought that, if I committed myself to you, you would grow tired of me and leave or that I would lose myself in the process. I wasn’t ready for that.”

“But you are now?” You scoffed. “It’s a little late for that, Rumlow. You broke my heart too many times and I found someone who wouldn’t.”

Bucky…

Gods, you hadn’t thought about Bucky in weeks. Now, whether that was intentional or accidental, you weren’t sure; it had the potential to be both.

It could’ve been accidental—just something that happened as a result of being preoccupied with poisoning and worrying for your kingdom.

But it could’ve been intentional—a coping mechanism designed to keep your heart from breaking further. Your body had enough to deal with; fighting the poison was taking everything you had, you had no energy to spare to deal with the pain of remembering Bucky’s devastated expression. You couldn’t even think about him without hurting.

As if on cue, pangs of agony struck your heart as his face surfaced in your mind and you fought hard to shove it back down. You couldn’t dwell on him now. He was gone. You’d sent him away. You’d said awful things.

He probably hated you now or at least didn’t love you.

You didn’t know which one hurt worse.

“Ah, yes. The god of spring.” The words were bitter and his lips curled back in a snarl. “If he loved you so much, why isn’t he at your side? Why isn’t he here taking care of you, searching for a cure for your poison like I am?”

Your eyes must’ve widened in shock because he laughed. “Yes, Precious. I haven’t been at your side these last few weeks because I’ve been searching for the cure.”

“H-How do you even know what’s wrong with me?” Your mouth was agape, though it probably wasn’t hard to guess what had afflicted you. You showcased all the typical signs of poisoning. But he hadn’t been around to see them.

He smiled softly at you. “The water has ears, Precious. Your sisters and your friend are out in the yard talking about it constantly. I have heard it all, and I think I’m this close to coming up with something to help you.”

“Is that why you’ve kept your distance? You didn’t want to come crawling to my side empty-handed?”

“Yes.” He reached out and grabbed your hand, holding it tightly. “I didn’t want to come back to you unless I knew I had something to offer you. I know it may have been selfish, but please know that my intentions were nothing but good and pure.” He pressed his lips together as his eyes searched your face. “Please, (y/n), let me prove to you that I really do care for and love you. Let me help you. Let me stay.”

Every fiber of your being screamed “NO,” but you knew that he would argue with you and you had no energy or strength to deal with that. It didn’t mean that you’d let him weasel his way into your bed once more; it just meant that he could maybe pick up a shift in watching over you and give Peggy and your sisters a bit of a break.

Reluctantly you nodded your head. “Alright. You can stay,” you whispered bitterly.

He visibly relaxed, his lips falling into a soft smile and his eyes glistening in the dim light. “Thank you. Don’t worry, Precious.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to your forehead, letting them linger there for longer than you liked.

At one point in life, you would’ve reveled under his touch, but now that you’d had a taste of something different—something better that only Bucky could give you—it only made you cringe and long for the lips you really loved.

He exhaled sharply, letting his breath ghost your skin, before finally pulling away and replacing his lips with his hand. His skin was rough against yours as he pet your head, brushing your hair back. He smiled softly at you, his eyes holding a promise. “I’ll find a way to heal you; I promise I will. You’ll get better.”

———

You got worse.

Brock took over your evening schedule, taking care of your dinner by helping you choke down what little of ambrosia and nectar you could and holding your hair back as you later threw it up and by making sure you could sleep and were clean. He’d talk to you at night, telling you about how the kingdom was doing, how the rivers flowed, how everything was going to be okay.

If you didn’t absolutely loathe the man, you would’ve been grateful for him. He was a calming presence at your side, just talking with you. Not pestering you about cures or technicalities of the kingdom. He just talked about whatever came to mind.

For a while, nothing changed.

But then, a week after Brock came back, you started seizing.

Carol had been watching you that evening when you suddenly tensed up and blacked out. She said you suddenly went stiff as a board before shaking, eyes rolling to the back of your head as your muscles convulsed. She didn’t know what was going on at first, panicking as you just shook. She was unable to do anything to help you and you had a feeling that that kind of powerlessness made her scared.

Pietro was called right away and he made his entrance right at the end of the seizure as you were coming out of it.

You were confused and dazed; you didn’t know what was going on and it made you scared. You were tired and sore and your head ached.

It didn’t take Pietro long to diagnose what had happened.

It had been over a month since you’d been poisoned, and you weren’t able to keep anything down, so Pietro labeled it as a provoked seizure due to low ichor-sugar. With no food or drink able to enter your system, the levels had dropped dangerously low and had triggered the seizure.

And that was when they broke out the IVs and feeding tubes.

Your mother demanded them; she was growing desperate. While the gods didn’t need to eat to survive, they did need the nutrition to keep internal levels balanced. Such nutrition typically came from ambrosia or nectar, but you couldn’t get either down or keep them in your stomach.

So, if you couldn’t get the nutrition of your own volition, they’d force it in.

The tube and needle were extremely uncomfortable. They’d snaked the feeding tube into your stomach through your nose and you couldn’t move your head without it shifting weirdly. The IV stuck out of the back of your left hand, making it impossible to move it without pulling the needle out or jamming it in further.

You hated it, but it was necessary.

Your body was in desperate need of the nectar and ambrosia; the lack of it was only hurting your health more.

But even when you were getting the sustenance you needed, you still were not getting better. Your health continued to go downhill gradually until you didn’t even have the strength to lift your hand. Breathing alone was a chore, and it was clear that your days were numbered.

Even your family had to admit it.

You weren’t living; you were surviving and you were barely doing that.

It was only a matter of time before you were out of time.

Brock was at your side, holding onto your hand as he always did, but for once he was silent. His eyes were dark and hooded, his lips were set in a seemingly permanent frown. He was sour, brooding, thinking, and the silence that entailed was driving you mad.

“What’s on your mind?” you croaked out, breaking the silence. Your voice, though the only sound in the room, was hollow and ragged. It wasn’t yours anymore; it was nothing but a harsh ghost blowing away in the wind.

His brown eyes flickered up to you and his face softened. “Oh, nothing much, love. Just about you.”

“What about me?” You squinted at him, fighting to keep your eyes open. Even that was a struggle now; you were so weighed down by exhaustion that your eyes refused to stay open half the time.

He squeezed your hand gently. “How even when dying you’re still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known. I’m sorry that I wasn’t good to you like you deserved. I’m sorry I was stupid and foolish. I’m sorry I ever let you go.”

“Brock…” His apology was sincere and it made you happy and peaceful, but it wasn’t going to change anything. He’d had his chance and, even though the odds said that you would never have your Bucky again, he was never going to have another one. You’d done that game and your death wasn’t going to make you want to play it again. Sure, you were grateful that he was here to help take care of you, but that didn’t entitle him to another shot at your heart. You’d learned your lesson and you were never going to let him in again.

“No, don’t say anything, Precious. I know what you’re going to say but I can’t hear it. Just… Just let me pretend for a moment that I have you back, that you’re mine once more; just for a little bit longer.” He let out a shuddering breath then, bowing his head and resting it on the bed. “Please…”

You stayed silent. You didn’t have the energy to burst his bubble. You closed your eyes as the room fell into silence once more. Maybe you could nap now, but you didn’t want to sleep. All you did anymore was sleep and you were tired of it.

“Rumlow,” called a soft voice in the dark.

You cracked your eyes open to see Peggy standing at the foot of your bed. She was looking down at the man that was sitting beside you, her eyes cold and unfeeling. You hadn’t even heard her come in…

He straightened up, letting go of your hand and standing. “Peggy.”

The woman’s eyes glowed softly in the dim light. “You can go home now,” she said, her voice low so as to not disturb you. “I’ve got her for the night.”

“Are you sure? Really, it’s no trouble for me to stay here and watch her.” You could hear it in his voice that he didn’t want to leave.

“I’m sure. Go home.”

Brock looked like he wanted to resist, but the stare that Peggy was giving him was withering. Eventually, he backed down, lowering his head in submission. “Call me if you need anything,” he mumbled before walking out of your room.

It was just you and Peggy now, and you cracked a weak smile up at her. “You got me?”

At the sound of your voice, she turned her attention to you and grinned. “Yeah, always.” She made her way over to the side of the bed and sat down in the chair that had become a permanent fixture in your room. “How are you doing?”

“Same as always,” you choked out. “I’ll be honest with you, Peggy: I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” Your voice cracked as you spoke and your chest rose and fell with labored breaths. “It… It hurts so goddamn much.”

“I know, love. I know.” She reached forward and placed her hand on your forehead, letting it sit there as her eyes fluttered closed. “I know it hurts. I know you’re suffering and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you…” She swallowed heavily and took a shuddering breath. “I think we’re running out of time, (y/n).”

You figured; but it was different hearing it said. It had seemed that there was some unspoken rule that stated that they couldn’t talk about death or how fast you were dying out loud, but now Peggy was breaking that rule and it made the situation that much more real. If everyone was being honest, you had maybe a week left at this rate. It’d been two months and, while you’d put up as much of a fight as you could, you were fighting a losing battle.

You only nodded your head slowly. “I know we are… I think I’ll be leaving you soon. My mom and sisters don’t want to admit it, but I can feel it. And I can guarantee that if you had Pierce look at me, he’d know that I’m… He’d know that I’m dying.”

Peggy winced as the words were said aloud. Her eyes squeezed shut and her shoulder shuddered. “I don’t want it to be so.”

“But it is so, Peggy; whether we like it or not…” You inhaled sharply through your nose. “Which brings me to another point that neither of us are going to want to talk about, but it has to be done. If— When I die, I want you to take over as Queen of the Underworld.”

“Wh-What?”

“My sisters have their own kingdoms, my mother is retired, and I don’t trust Pierce enough to place him on the throne. You’re the next eligible candidate for the throne, and so I want the crown to pass to you.” You smiled up at her. “You’ll make a fantastic queen.”

She shook her head. “No, no I won’t, (y/n), because you won’t die on us. We can’t let you.”

“Peg, I don’t think you have a choice.” You took another deep breath but this one hurt you and caused you to groan. “I’m sorry.”

Peggy pressed her lips together and stood. “It’s not your fault, love. You should sleep now. I’ve got some things I have to do, alright?”

You were a little saddened that she was leaving you, but you understood. You just dropped a major bomb on her and you would want to get away if you too were in her position. “Alright.”

She left, leaving you all alone. The room was dark, silent save for the sound of your labored breathing. It was an eerie setting: you in bed—a corpse just barely living—in the dark with only the dim light from outside illuminating the room. If you weren’t stuck there, you’d be running out as fast as possible; but you couldn’t move. You didn’t think you ever would again.

Your eyes fluttered shut. You took a shallow breath. You clenched and unclenched your hands.

It’s almost over. It’s fine. It’ll be okay.

So why did your heart hurt so much?

Probably because you were leaving people behind.

That seemed like a common theme in death: it didn’t hurt the person dying, but it killed everyone left behind. You couldn’t help but think of your mother and sisters, of the few gods that had been your friends, of… Of Bucky.

Oh, Bucky. You wouldn’t ever get to apologize to him for hurting him, apologize for not being strong enough to protect him, apologize for not being strong enough to live for him. You just prayed that Peggy would talk to him after it was all said and done. Maybe he could go to your funeral. You’d like that—if he was there for one last goodbye even if you weren’t. Maybe he would forgive you anyways.

You started to drift to sleep, letting the darkness over take you, when you were disturbed by a sharp breath. Your face contorted in discomfort as you forced your eyes open, ready to chew out whoever had disturbed your sleep, but the air was sucked from your lungs when you saw the figure at the foot of your bed.

Red rimmed the man’s eyes and dark bags sat beneath them. His skin had lost its summer glow. A short stubble had covered his jaw; he hadn’t shaved in a long time. The blue of his irises was obscured by tears welling up in his eyes. His hands, large and worn, gripped your footboard with white knuckles as he stared at you, his lips parted in a saddened gasp.

Tears welled up in your own eyes as you gasped for the air that had been stolen from your lungs. Your mind must’ve been playing tricks on you; this wasn’t possible. But that didn’t stop you from croaking out, “B-Bucky?”

Next 18: He Holds Her Close

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #pragma(tic)#delicatelyherdreams #hades and persephone #hades & persephone #hades & persephone au #persephone!bucky x hades!reader #bucky x you #buxky #bucky #bucky x reader #mcu #marvel cinematic universe

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someplace-that-is-else · 3 years

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‘Until We Meet Again: The 100′s Final Season--Wasted Potential or A Fit Ending?’

Editor’s Note: Spoilers for the last season of The 100 as well as past seasons.

I was surprised.

In the closing hours of the sixth season of The 100, the CW announced that it would be getting a seventh season. They also announced that it would be the final season.

What? FINAL season? Really?

The fifth season was a great season for the show with the six-year time jump, ending in another time jump that spanned 125 years and a new planet. The sixth season was an intriguing new world and storyline. It had been a while since it went hardcore sci-fi…A.L.I.E. in the divisive third season…the sixth season did it with ripe possibilities, plot twists, and…as was usual for this show…actual death. Labeled Book 2, I had been curious to see where the creator Jason Rothenberg and the writers would take us given Book 1 took 5 seasons.

But now? Would main characters Clarke and Bellamy (aka Bellarke) end the show together? Would humanity learn any better given they have survived at least TWO apocalypses? Would Octavia (my favorite character who had gone from the girl under the floor to Grounder to Skairippa to lethal Red Queen) get a happy ending?

With 16 episodes announced, there was plenty of time. Plenty of time to close out the story. My co-worker who was a big fan of course was worried. She grew moreso the closer it got to the time when the CW usually promoted. And…NOTHING.

A sign of things to come…or just paranoia?

What’s the Endgame?: The 100’s Serpentine Final Season Plot

I’ll say this much. I was intrigued.

At the end of last season, our main characters revealed to the people of the new planet Sanctum that the leaders they worshipped as gods were not. They used technology to transfer their consciousness into ‘willing’ people. After being that way for centuries, how would these people go on when their belief system had been revealed to be false? Some people were angry at being deceived. Others felt mad at Clarke and friends for revealing the truth, destroying their system of living.

Meanwhile we had Clarke and the others still dealing with the truce between them and the Eligius prisoners that were part of their crew now. Their leader Diyoza was missing, leaving the Eligius adrift. And due to the end of Season Six, Clarke’s own crew were on a slippery slope, thinking her ‘daughter’ Madi was still the Commander.

Four different factions. So many possibilities. They were possibilities that the writers appeared to want to touch on. And there was the question of…could they all get along? Be greater and better than the sum of their parts? Or was the last of humanity doomed to be in constant conflict?

Then there was the disappearance of Bellamy…

Ah! Bellamy. After being a co-leader with Clarke basically for most of the seasons, Bellamy found himself at the center of a new mystery. Moments after his sister Octavia disappeared into mist after being stabbed by new character Hope, Bellamy was full of questions about what had just happened. What he got was knocked out, dragged across the ground by people unseen, and then vanished into the Anomaly, a circle of light that was a mystery left over from last season.

What followed was several different stories. There was Echo, Bellamy’s girlfriend, on the hunt for the vanished Bellamy. There was the mystery of what happened to Octavia. There’s Clarke and Friends chasing after her as well as getting to the bottom of the Bellamy mystery. Meanwhile, there was Madi left behind, dealing with her duty versus a desire for a normal life. There also was the growing tension between the Eligius prisoners and the natives of the new world.

Because that was not enough, there were curveballs. Oh…that crazy Commander from the Flame, the symbol of the tribes united under Clarke? He possessed one of the last False Gods on this world. You had one of Clarke’s group Starscream-que Murphy and his lover Emori…also pretending to be Gods themselves due to a plot thread from last season. Diyoza and Octavia’s whereabouts revealed the origins of new character Hope…and a whole other world Bardo. And behind Bardo…was a loose plot thread that was seeded all the way back in Season Four. Oh, and did we mention there was a lot of time jumping, one prequel tale (aka a backdoor pilot), and world travelling a la SLIDERS.

It was not unusual for The 100 to throw so many ideas at the audience. But so many ideas…INCLUDING THE KITCHEN SINK? In the FINAL season?

Yes, a few of the ideas were intriguing. On their own. But all of them…together?

I could not begin to describe how many times I felt like I needed a cheat sheet to keep up with everything. And even then…there would be weeks where the viewers never saw a set of characters or a plotline. There was one case when one character was gone for weeks aka a long stretch of episodes. Worse given how important that character was to several characters, no one noticed they were missing.

Or the time jumping. There would be a plotline with a plot twist. Then the show would jump back three months. Then it would move a few weeks ahead to show another angle. Or when it decided to explain the whereabouts of Bellamy, it chose an episode where time passed and then it jumped ahead to the present, picking up a storyline from another episode. It was the very definition of whiplash.

At the start of the season, the writers pondered an interesting question. Was the last of humanity doomed to constant conflict…or could they be better than that? While the Bardo plot thread tapped into that theme, the show became style over substance. And that style…was smoke and mirrors. I thought that theme was being tackled with the four factions on Sanctum. Now? The writers gave up on it. Sadly.

By the time the writers revealed the whereabouts of Bellamy, most of the season was over. Worry kicked in. Was there still time to resolve the characters’ stories…or would it be…a rushed ending?

Speaking of which…

The Girl Under the Floor: The 100 and Natural Ends

Clarke. Octavia. Indra. Echo. Madi. Miller. The names go on and on.

Throughout six seasons, viewers have gone through the highs and lows with these characters. Viewers saw Clarke kill her first love Finn. Viewers saw Indra take Octavia under her wing, giving her a mother figure that she missed in her own life. Viewers saw Madi lose her mind. The Conclave. Praimfaya. Mount Weather. A.L.I.E. Characters had been known to go through it on this show. Things happened. People changed.

So near the end of The 100’s run, viewers wanted to know…how would their favorites end up?

What they got…AGAIN…was smoke and mirrors.

The writers appeared to be more focused on new characters than the characters that viewers had gotten to know over six seasons. In some cases, like Bardo native Levitt, it worked because he became involved with a character viewers cared about. In this case Octavia. Others like that Diyoza-lite chick had no connection to the faves, other than being annoying no matter how sympathetic she was written. Or worse, they were like Hope. A rapidly aged child of Diyoza, Hope was more whining annoying brat than a fighter like viewers expected her mother to be. Given more time, she might have become likable, but…there was no time.

And speaking of time…what of the old timers? The characters the audience cared about. So many characters have come and gone. Finn. Lincoln. Lexa. Jaha. Jasper. Clarke’s own mother Abby. Only a handful of the original 100 were left along with well developed supporting characters. With this being the last season, were they coming to a natural end?

Octavia was being dealt with efficiently as the writers highlighted the fact that she was on a path to redemption after two seasons of darkness and introspective healing. But what about Clarke…THE MAIN CHARACTER? After doing what she had to do for her people, what would her happy ending be…at peace with Madi, finding a new love, and/or finding a way for all humanity to live peacefully in such a way that the sacrifices were worth it? Or what of Indra…what end does she deserve as a warrior? What of Madi…would she choose a normal teenager’s life or the life of being a commander of her warrior people?

Off the top of my head, there were two characters who had quite a nice end. First there was Octavia. After the horrors she committed as The Red Queen and trying to make amends, she discovered redemption through the eyes of others who saw her through a different and fresh set of eyes. First, Hope who looked up to her as a mother figure. Then through the eyes of a complete stranger in Levitt who found her inspiring. She found the one thing that she had been looking for throughout the whole series: belonging and acceptance.

The other character was Murphy. The cockroach. From the ‘Starscream’ of the group to showing some sense of right and wrong. And along with Emori, they were the ultimate scheme team. Slowly, but surely there was love. Posing as false gods presented a new challenge for them…what happens when a scheme team is given actual responsibilities for people. And through this challenge, the viewers learned exactly how much Murphy had grown through the series as well as explored layers to Emori that we did not even know she had.

That was not the fate for all the characters we knew and loved.

Madi started off alone in the series, discovering love through her motherly bond with Clarke. And the constant debate of teenage life vs leader life has been a constant with her a la BUFFY lite. She was finally given a taste of what it was like to be a teen…then the plot arc of the Bardo people ended that. Abruptly, I might add. In fact, her fate felt like shock value for value sake given some of the other stories for characters.

Gaia appeared posed to be a long overdue love interest for Clarke. Not to mention that the writers were exploring more of her relationship with her mother Indra. Instead, she became the character who vanished for the majority of the episodes. Worse, NO ONE noticed she was gone.

There were several more instances of this (can we talk about the fact that while Raven got moments, she did not really have ANY endgame developments?), it was the main narrative characters who appeared to get the worst of this.

And nowhere was that clearer than with Bellamy Clarke.

Bait and Switch, or the Strange Case of Bellamy Clarke

I had always heard that you could tell how a TV show felt about a character/actor by how they were written out of a show. A recent example that came to mind was Charisma Carpenter’s character Cordelia Chase during Season 4 of ANGEL by way of a coma when all fans knew she was the heart and soul of that show.

Another example was the character of Professor Maxmillian Arturo (played with wit, humor, and intelligence by John Rhys-Davies) on the sci-fi show SLIDERS. Not only was he stabbed with a syringe that rendered him dumb, but he was shot and his body left on a planet that exploded. All IN THE SAME EPISODE. Yeah, no love lost between the actor and the people in charge during that show’s third season.

Which brings us to Bellamy Clarke…

Bellamy Clarke had been with The 100 since the beginning. A reckless bad boy except for when it came to his sister Octavia, Bellamy went from that to being a frenemy to other main character Clarke to being a good friend and co-leader (birthing the ship name Bellarke) to a capable leader in his own right. Along the way, he made so many mistakes. Bellamy clashed often with others. But he grew. And the time jump saw him get a capable girlfriend in Echo. His bigger drama would always be with his sister Octavia as they clashed as only siblings could clash, but there was always love there. So it made sense that he would want to know the mystery of Hope and how it tied into his sister turning into mist and vanishing.

But…he vanished himself. For the first half of the season, the mystery of his kidnapping was a plot. And then…during a shootout involving Octavia, Bellamy appeared to be blown up in an explosion. Granted, The 100 did not shy away from killing off a main character (Lincoln, Lexa), but it was so jarring to see it happen.

Just as bad as seeing Bellamy later…as a disciple of the Big Bad on Bardo. After a bottle episode involving a man vs nature theme (a theme I do not like and did not like in this case). And time jumping. AGAIN. Can we say whiplash?

And then…Bellamy was SHOT. BY CLARKE. Body…left…bleeding…on…the floor.

Can we say DOUBLE whiplash?

I was aware thanks to the co-worker who got me into The 100 that there was some off-camera drama going on. And because of that, the actor had asked for some personal leave time. So his filming was very, very limited. HOWEVER, I know enough after years of watching tv shows (the situation with the two actresses on THE GOOD WIFE for example) AND soaps to know two things. One…if a writer had an actor for a limited time, you wrote a complete arc. You also filmed as much as possible. And if you needed said actor back at the end of a show and was not sure if they would be available…go ahead and film a scene to insert in the last episode. It was what the fans that have followed a show for years deserves. PERIOD.

Two…the fate of Bellamy could have been written better than that. In fact, the writers were better off having Bellamy die in the Bardo explosion while trying to save his sister. That at least was true to his character and his complete arc on the show. If they had to do the disciple arc at all, there had to be some conflict over his loyalty to Clarke or his loyalty to Bardo. Allow the other characters to be conflicted, something the writers normally did not shy away from. Show, don’t tell the struggle. If Clarke had to shoot Bellamy, it had to make sense.

From what was shown, there was plenty of time for Clarke to get the book of Madi’s memories. There was time to just simply knock Bellamy out. And if Bellamy had to be shot, there was time to write in the fate of his body. To fans’ knowledge, Bellamy’s body was still laying there on the floor, bleeding out. To add insult to injury, FakeRussell…who was in the same scene…was in the next episode with no Bellamy mentions.

So let’s review. Bellamy was blown up in one episode. Bellamy was left on a world to fight nature on another. Bellamy was turned into a brainless disciple on another episode. Finally, Bellamy was shot dead by his best friend (who happened to be his wife IRL. How meta.).

Shows what the writers and creator feel about the actor, don’t you think?

May We Meet Again…?

Regardless of the management of the character of Bellamy, The 100 had another main character to deal with. Clarke Griffin had been the main protagonist since Episode 1. She had lost her first love, lost a great love, and made quite a lot of serious choices for someone so young. And given that the theme of the last season was about humanity and its way of living, it was a sure thing that Clarke would have to make another major decision. But…would Clarke get a happy ending?

Well…this show would not be this show…and Clarke would not be Clarke if she wasn’t put through it. My problem was that up until the end, Clarke was basically a cameo in her own show. That itself was an oddity given that she was the one focused on the hunt for Bellamy.

There was potential. From what to do about Madi to how she was coping with her mother’s death to some vibes between her and Gaia, Clarke had several things spinning in her orbit coming into the last season. And what was surprising was NONE of it was touched on.

And then…Bellamy was shot by her and Madi turned up brain dead in the service of the Bardo arc.

In the end, Clarke was with her friends. And she was happy. But…she was not with her daughter though Madi did wind up in a better place. She was not with anyone though a cameo from the actress who played Lexa in the early seasons was nice. And her mother’s death was not touched on…though that actress also made a cameo in the last episode.

Does Clarke deserve a happy ending? Debatably yes. But this season a happy ending did not at all feel earned. And it would be one thing if there was another season. However, this was the LAST season. Worse, was the central theme of this last season…a main theme of the show itself…answered? Did humanity learn to be better, or would they stay in constant conflict?

In the end…humanity DID learn to be better. Interestingly it took Octavia and Raven going to bat for humanity to make that happen. And that was after Clarke had again failed after making a near fatal decision for the rest of the group. After watching Clarke grow into a capable leader, I was saddened to see that in the end she felt like a footnote. As did Bellamy.

Well…I guess I could look on the bright side…Octavia got a happy ending. And a complete arc. So did Murphy. Raven proved she was also an important character akin to the many times that Bonnie Bennett had to save all the characters on THE VAMPIRE DIARIES constantly, usually at great sacrifice to herself. But Clarke and Bellamy…the actual main characters…well…

For a show to be told they got 16 episodes to wrap up plots that had been going on and characters that have been developed over 7 years, I would say it went out with a whimper. Given other shows with notice like HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER and THE MAGICIANS went out with just about everything wrapped up fittingly and just about all characters serviced almost correctly if not outright perfectly, The 100’s last season looked like patchwork in comparison. Like the writers threw everything at the wall to see what would stick. Or worse…they got so distracted by what was shiny and new, they forgot about the characters that viewers cared about.

In the end, I guess the last season was like a sandcastle. It looked nice, but once the waves come in, it went away. So much potential…washed back into nothing.

#the100 #cw #bellarke #jasonrothenberg #octavia #finalseason #bellamy #clarke #sliders #charismacarpenter #angel #johnrhysdavies #arturo #starscream #buffy #whiplash #thevampirediaries #howtogetawaywithmurder #themagicians

#the 100 #cw #bellarke #jason rothenberg #octavia #finalseason #bellamy #clarke #sliders #charisma carpenter #angel #john rhys-davies #arturo #starscream #buffy #whiplash #the vampire diaries #howtogetawaywithmurder #themagicans

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luninosity · 3 years

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Avoided grading today by working on the sequel story for Sorceress, a story that’s been living in the back of my head for literal years. I always knew it was Lorre’s story, and he’d fall in love with a prince...

The world’s greatest living magician, lying on his back on a rocky ledge halfway up a cliff and bathed in sunshine, felt the boat’s arrival on the shore below like an uninvited knock at a private door. He did not enjoy it.

He did not move for a moment. He did not feel like it, and there’d be no rush. Nobody’d get past his wards.

He kept both eyes closed. Sun streaked red behind his eyelids; gold warmed his skin, his hair. His body soaked in the sensations of strong heated stone, sank into stone, became stone: learning how the rock felt when bathed in lush late-morning light. His edges blurred, softened: time slowed, thrummed, grew earthen and deep, salt-lapped and wind-etched. He might’ve been here for centuries, unhurried. Equilibrium and erosion, solidity and reshaping: a balance.

He had needed balance. Something he’d thought he’d known, once. Something he no longer understood.

He’d thought the island might help. Being rock for a while, or the wind, or the seaspray: being suspended amid them all. Being alone, because he was not sure he recalled how to be human, not well enough.

The island was warm—Lorre had always shamelessly adored being warm—and far enough from the mainland that he’d been mostly undisturbed, and close enough to trade routes that he could occasionally walk on water out to a boat and barter some repairs or some healing for some news of the Middle Lands and King Henry’s court and the Grand Sorceress Liliana. Lorre had promised not to magically check in on Lily or their daughter; he was attempting to keep that promise.

Equilibrium. Difficult. Sunlight was easier. Sunbeams were weightless. Stones did not have to think about human promises. Human perceptions.

The knock came again. It was not physical, or not entirely. It was a presence, an unexpected intruder standing below, shuffling feet in the sand and no doubt wondering where precisely a magician could be found, being faced with a towering blank cliff and no visible habitation.

Lorre sighed, pulled himself back from frayed edges and heavy sleepy light, and sat up, pulling a robe on in an unfussy tumble of blue and gold, mostly just because he liked the caress of silky fabric on bare skin. His senses shifted, dwindled: more human, though not entirely. He’d been a magician too long to not feel the threads of brilliance—cliff, vines, fish, grains of sand, sea-glass polished by waves—all around.

He peeked over the side of the ledge. Behind him the cave yawned lazily, reminding him of sanctuary: he could simply walk back inside, the way he had for several years now, and ignore the new arrival. That generally worked.

He was rather surprised someone’d found him at all. He wasn’t exactly hiding—oh yes you are, said a tart little voice in his head, one that sounded like Lily’s—but the island, after a bit of work on his part, nearly always concealed itself from maps and navigation charts. At the beginning a few enterprising adventurers had managed to track it down, young heroes on quests or proving their worth by daring an enchanter’s lair or begging for Lorre’s assistance in some revenge or inheritance or magical artifact retrieval scheme.

He’d ignored all but two of them. The illusion-wall kept everyone out, simple and baffling; the island had fresh water but little in the way of food. Mostly the adventurers’d given up and gone home, years ago; he couldn’t in fact recall the face of the last one. Two had become nuisances, loud and shouting; one of those had actually threatened to drink poison, melodramatically demanding Lorre’s assistance in collecting a promised bride from a glass mountain, claiming he’d die without her.

The young man currently standing on his beach was neither loud nor melodramatic. In fact, he was calmly considering the sheer cliff-face, which revealed nothing; he stepped back across the small curve of beach, shaded his eyes, seemed to be measuring. After a second he put a hand up, obviously checking the edge of the cliff: having noticed the very slight discrepancy where sea-birds dropped behind the illusion-wall a fraction sooner than they should vanish behind the reality.

Intelligent, this one. Lorre dangled himself over the ledge at an angle which would’ve been dangerous for anyone else, and watched.

The young man had dark reddish-brown hair, the color of autumn; he wore it tied back, though a few wisps were escaping. He’d dressed for travel, not in shiny armor the way some knights and princes had: sturdy boots and comfortable trousers, a shirt in nicely woven but also practical fabric, a well-worn pack which he’d swung down to the sand. He wasn’t particularly tall, but not short: average, with nicely shaped shoulders and an air of straightforward competence, not trying for impressive or intimidating.

Lorre, despite annoyance about the interruption, couldn’t help but approve. At least this one had some sense, and didn’t walk around clanking in metal under the shimmering sun.

The young man called up, “Hello?” His voice was quite nice as well, not demanding, lightly accented with the burr of the Mountain Marches but in the way of someone who’d been carefully sent to the best schools down South. “Grand Sorcerer?”

Lorre mentally snorted. He didn’t have a proper title, not any longer; if anyone did, it’d be Lily. His former lover, now wife of the brother of the King of Averene, was by default the last Grand Sorceress of the Middle Lands; she’d started up the old magician’s school again, welcoming and training apprentices. Lily always had been better with people. Lorre was not precisely welcome in Averene.

The young man said mildly, “I expect this is a test; I thought you would do that, you know,” as if he thought that Lorre might answer, as if they were having a conversation; and looked around. “I’m meant to find you, is that it?”

That was the opposite of it; Lorre on a good day barely recalled how to be human, and certainly wasn’t fit to interact with them. He’d lost his temper with the melodramatic poison-carrying prince, strolled invisibly onto the shore, asked the poison to turn itself into a sleeping draught, and then poured it into the idiot’s water flask. Then he’d found a passing ship and dumped the snoring body onto its deck. He hadn’t known the destination, and hadn’t bothered to find out.

His current young man was looking at driftwood. Lorre wondered why. He was getting a bit dizzy from leaning nearly upside down; he considered the sensation with some surprise. A swoop of gold swung into his eyes, distracting and momentarily baffling; he pushed the strands of his hair back with magic.

The young man found a stick, one that evidently met his standards for length and strength. He kept it in front of himself; he walked deliberately toward the cliff, and the illusion.

Oh. Clever. Avoiding traps. Testing a theory. Lorre found himself impressed, particularly when the young man watched the tip of the driftwood vanish and nodded to himself and then set rocks down to neatly mark the spot.

The island was not large, and the beach even smaller: a jut of cliff, a tangle of vines, a small lagoon and a trickle of water down to the shore. The illusion hid the cave-opening, but there wasn’t really anywhere else for someone to be; the young man figured that out within an hour or so of methodical exploration, and returned to the shore, and looked thoughtfully at the cliffs. He’d rolled up his sleeves and undone the ties of his shirt, given the heat; he had a vine-leaf in his hair, along with a hint of sweat.

Lorre, in some ways still very much human, couldn’t not stare. Something about those forearms under the rolled-up sleeves. That hint of well-muscled chest. The casual ripple of motion, broad shoulders, heroic thighs.

“I suppose,” the young man said, very wry, still looking at the cliff as if perfectly aware Lorre was watching, “I should introduce myself. I think I forgot to, earlier.”

I suppose you should, Lorre agreed silently. Since you’re here. Disrupting my life.

He ignored the fact that he’d had no real plans. Meditation. Quiet. A hope for calm.

A hint of dragon-fire slid through his veins, under his skin. A memory. Restless. Beckoning. Dangerous.

“My name is Gareth,” the young man said, “Prince of the Mountain Marches, Lord of Honeywood, if the titles matter to you. King Ardan is my older brother. And we need your help. Desperately.”

Lorre found himself obscurely disappointed by this ordinariness. So small. So human. Just like all the rest.

He flipped himself back up onto the ledge, getting up. He had spiced wine in the small pantry, and a book on the theory of sea-witches, magic-users hidden in the ocean, which no one had ever verified, but which might be possible, down in the deeps.

“The mountain bandits have a mage,” the young man—Gareth—told the air. “This year. They’ve always come—but it’s worse, it’s so much worse—and the villages need us, and we’ve never had a good army, we’re a small kingdom and we mostly have a lot of goats—and they have magic now, and then my uncle betrayed us, and—” He stopped, voice exhausted, defeated. “You’re here. You must be here. Are you listening?”

No, Lorre nearly said. I’ve been an ancient oak, a speaking raven, the bones of the earth. I’ve nearly killed a king and then saved him again, mostly because my former lover asked and I felt generous. I’ve turned myself into a dragon to see whether I could, and I could, though I got lost in the doing of it. I’ve watched rulers come and go, and magic’s still been here, and I’ve still been here. Why should I care about you and your goats?

But he thought suddenly of sunlight on his skin, and the way he liked sensation, the whisper of silk on his legs or the taste of strawberries. He thought of Lily’s voice, and his daughter’s face. He’d been younger then, and so had Lily; they’d thought they were, if not in love, at least made for each other, the strongest two magicians in the world. They’d made Merlyn—Merry, Lily called her now—and Lorre had complicated feelings about that too.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever been meant to be a father. He had not thought about the reality of a baby, and he had not known what would be expected of him; he had not, in all his life, spent much time with uninteresting small babbling humans. He had been disappointed, back then, when Merry had not shown any magical ability at all; he’d only cared about the power, or at least the person he’d been then had only cared about power.

But he’d thought he’d been fighting for them all: magic, magicians, their welcome at Court, in the face of growing Church opposition. He’d burned with it: righteous anger, a cause, his own temper.

Which had, he reflected ruefully, ended in banishment. Not that he’d cared; he’d simply lost himself in the magic, in testing himself, in explorations. More and further and deeper. Seeing what he could do, what he could become, simply because he could.

Lily—and Merry—had saved him, then. Reminders of this self, this person: someone who liked summer and sweetness and satin, who might be a terrible parent but would never, even in dragon’s form, harm his daughter. He’d found a way back.

And he’d left again, because he was not entirely human, and he was reckless, and he was single-minded and self-indulgent, and he knew all that. He could not be someone else, someone like the ridiculously beautiful king’s brother Lily had fallen in love with, fiercely loyal and burningly devoted to family and country. He could only be himself, and so that self was probably best far away from anyone he might harm. He’d been trying.

He thought, the pinprick of it sleeting in like autumn rain: I like goat’s milk cheese. And honey. And pleasure. Little things that this body enjoys. Perhaps Prince Gareth enjoys his goats. And doesn’t want them stolen.

He peeked down again. The prince had sat down, disconsolate, on a large rock. His shoulders slumped.

Lorre considered options. He did not help people, famously so. If he did so once, others would expect it. If he reappeared, he’d disturb the world: a power reemerging. If he took sides in a ridiculous tiny Northern border conflict—

He was actually considering it. He’d spent too long with trees for company.

Gareth got up. Lorre blinked, startled, and paid attention.

The prince spent some time gathering stones. Setting them out. Making a message on the sand: PLEASE HELP US.

That was also fairly clever. A constant reminder, not as obnoxious as hurling stones at the barrier, but visible.

The day had become afternoon, all gold and green and blue and white, sun and sea and sky and sand. Lorre, sitting on his rock balcony, one leg swinging, listened to the leap of distant dolphins and felt the purr of the world under his hand, resting on stone. The waves coiled and crashed, steady as tides.

Gareth was making a shelter out of branches and fronds, building a small firepit, evidently having decided to settle in. Lorre had had heroes attempt to outwait him before; it never worked.

Gareth, once satisfied with the shelter, added a new rock-message. This one said: I CAN WAIT.

He meant it, too: he pulled out a book, and sat back down on the big sun-warmed rock. After a few minutes he took off his boots, and wiggled toes in hot sand.

Lorre caught himself wanting to laugh. He’d done the exact same thing upon first finding this island: boots off, bare skin, luxuriating in the feel.

And the prince had even brought a book. So well prepared. And so literary. Lorre could count on about three fingers the number of mighty-thewed questing heroes who’d done that.

He rather wanted to know what book it was.

#sorceress #magician #my fic #original fic #fic in progress #surprisingly good getting back to this one

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indurarinks · 3 years

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the mardi gras conundrum

( 9. ) “Acheron?” Beyond mere passing curiosity, it was the urgency supporting Bonnie’s need to understand the man sitting behind the wheel of his ridiculously expensive car that scalded her tongue. He was ever evasive, enigmatic and rarely straightforward where his past was concerned. But none of it quelled her demand to search for the truth. She didn’t seek it for personal gain either, she only sought to soothe the battle-weary hearts of her hunters. During the long weeks of bonding with each one of them, Bonnie convinced herself their inner peace was too valuable to be overlooked. Neither was the sharing type yet she was determined to help them heal wounds inflicted centuries ago, in a time innocence still characterised their human lives. And only the deepest betrayal could taint it. Riding in comfortable silence, Bonnie suspected the indecipherable Dark Hunter would resort to the infamous technique called feigned indifference where he pretended not to hear her while she would be forced into accepting his choice for silence. Stoic, and his features impassive, Acheron Parthenopaeus held all the charisma in the universe with full lips pressed against one another into a thin line. His gaze seemed focused on the road but behind that wall of opacity from his shades, Bonnie couldn’t be certain. And if her senses were correct, then he was, most definitely, eyeing her with the stealth of a predator. She felt the burn of his gaze on her. “Back at the comp—“ He sighed. As if the weight of the world had been dropped on his shoulders. “You want to know.” He interrupted her train of thought. “About the... incident from earlier.” The wilderness that rolled naturally from the contained storm of his voice offered her familiar security. A balm to her soul, she would never grow weary of it. It was almost as if he could read her innermost thoughts. And though she knew Dark Hunters possessed different gifts, Acheron seemed to be the rarity to that rule. The odd one out. Kyrian once told her he was the first one to be created. And she figured that was why he shared similar abilities to those of his brethren. Perhaps Kyrian and him were even more alike than her initial evaluation, conducted on the spot, back in Sanctuary when she first met Ash. Their personalities, however, differed significatively. “I—I probably can’t imagine...” she started but her words lost their direction when Acheron steered the Porsche into a new destination. No longer on their way toward the Garden District, it wouldn’t be long until Bonnie recognised St. Louis Cemetery’s aged iron gates. The car came to a stop near its old entrance. And without another word, he vacated the cramped space to welcome the fresh air of February. At first, Bonnie didn’t dare moving. She was paralysed in fear, mostly. The waters in which she swam were dangerous and treacherous, she knew of the promise navigating through the past and what it could potentially entail for the one taking a peek, even if brief, into that old chest of memories. She sensed barely contained pain, and worlds of sorrow and unrestrained grief. Outside, Acheron sat on the hood of his car. Alone. His chin slightly raised, it was obvious his gaze was lost to the skies already painted with the light tones of dawn. The night had come fast but the sun showed signs of similar elation for its return. It was now or never, she thought. As she opened the door on her side, left the car and took a seat next to him, Bonnie registered no movement from the embodiment of enigma himself. His shoulders slumped, his gaze finally sought refuge in wide-open doorway to her soul —those forest green eyes he had gotten lost in on multiple occasions before. But Bonnie wasn’t having any of it by allowing him to hide behind the comfort of his ever present shades. Hesitantly, and watching him from beneath curtains of thick lashes, her fingers took possession of his sunglasses as she slowly stripped his eyes naked. She knew what to expect but the gasp of appreciation still escaped. Liquid mercury swam quietly in his eyes as he watched her disarming him. Bonnie was the first and only one to accomplish that since his rebirth. And while he said nothing, a furious tic thrummed visibly along his jaw. She expected the momentary peak of anxiety after the bold exposure of him. A small grin stretching her lips, Bonnie folded his sunglasses and slid them inside her jeans pocket. For the time being, she was holding them hostage. Despite her calm facade, her heart suddenly became a professional gymnast as it did flips back and forth like there was no tomorrow. “It’s okay, Ash. If you prefer to keep your story to yourself,” she interrupted their silence at last. Besides panic and desperation, she was hit with a fathomless wave of grief the likes of which the young witch had never drowned in before. The raw intensity of these emotions flooring her, she was left breathless for several heartbeats. “I just... I hate seeing the torment of your past shadowing the light in your eyes.” Staggering from the onslaught of emotions, tears prickled her eyes. “You’ve been so hurt. I can sense it. I can.” Her chest rose and fell repeatedly. “You still bleed from your wounds. The past still holds you prisoner. And I don’t even know for how long! I can’t imagine the damage that’s caused on your soul.” Disturbed, Bonnie quickly wiped away the disgraceful tears that managed to escape her defences. The gates were now wide open. Beside her, her companion chose immediate silence. Frozen by the prejudice of his past, he walked trough the wastelands of memories without realising her fingers interlocked with his as she slid her palm on top of his massive hand. An earthquake-like tremor shook the whole of him. “It’s eleven thousand years.” He stated matter-of-factly. Surprise and shock registered on her face. It couldn’t be, her meagre knowledge of history told her it wasn’t possible. Yet, the exhaustion etched on his features spoke a whole different tale. “How is tha—?” She started. “That history lesson is too long and complex for tonight.” His gaze wandered to where their fingers stood united, Bonnie’s index finger stroking his knuckles. “And Bonnie? I’m soulless. All Dark Hunters are.” Promptly rolling her eyes, she smacked him on the arm. Like a masochist, he smiled down at her. “Ow.” Acheron massaged his arm, successfully allowing them both a reprieve from the growing tension. “That ought to teach you not to smart-mouth me! You know what I meant. It may not inhabit your body, Ash, but it’s still yours. Still bleeds. I can see it, you know?” The soft, tangent urgency to secure his understanding clung to the breaths expelled. Since the moment she had been brought into their lives, Bonnie had been silently collecting data, studying and gathering every ounce of information about her warriors. Acheron and Kyrian, in particular, as both had been the ones she had spent the most time with. After careful analysis of her research, she was fairly confident Ash loathed the thought of having someone at his back. He even recoiled with the exaggerated proximity of another. With that thought in mind, and wanting to test her theory, Bonnie leaned closer. Purposely invading his personal space. Even though it was minimal and discreet, he drew back. Inside her chest, the thin walls of her beating heart cracked. The desolation mirrored in those pools of mercury laying waste to the fields of her weeping soul. ───Just how much misery has he been put through? Persisting, she tried again. “Back at the Mikaelson’s, before Klaus showed up, you…” With her insides twisting in oceans of anxiety, she lifted her gaze to his face. The urge to see him impossible to bypass. He was now peering right through her. “I know.” Serene but resigned, the direction of his gaze shifted so that he was staring at the horizon whilst pushing closed fists into the pockets of his worn-out leather coat. Soon, the first timid rays of sunshine broke free. Tearing the darkness apart. Had she been sharing this moment with Kyrian, they’d be on their phrenetic way home. As a norm, Dark Hunters were banished from sunlight, yet their leader stood as exception to that rule. Nothing about Acheron Parthenopaeus was ordinary. After several minutes spent in absolute silence, and with a defeated sigh, she rose from the hood of the car and handed him his shades, certain he had murdered the topic and buried its corpse. Her hands tied, Bonnie decided to respect his deafening silence and privacy. “Come on. Let’s face King Stubborn. I can almost hear his tirade from here.” It was her way of letting him know of her decision. “It was my nephew.” Halfway through her march to her side of the car, Bonnie froze. Her curls bounced back and forth with the abrupt movement of her head as she looked back at him. She almost doubted she heard him when he didn’t elaborate. His tone had been so low as well, as if afraid of the damage the words would deliver. Hesitantly, she approached him again. ─── Was Acheron Parthenopaeus finally allowing her to take a peek into the fortress of solitude of his soul? The sunglasses still caged between his fingers, calloused by countless battles, Bonnie found herself peering deeply into the oceans of mercury of his eyes. Saying nothing, the petite woman simply reached for his hand, securing it between her fingers as she gave him a nod of encouragement. “He was murdered while I lay in a drunken stupor in the room next door. His death and my sister’s, his mother, are on me, Bon. Their blood still stains my hands.” Without pretending she was privy to all the details of that tragic night, Bonnie shook her head vehemently. “It wasn’t your fault, Ash. You would probably be killed too if you had gone into their room… And besides, something tells me you weren’t drunk because you felt like partying. You’re not that type. You were drowning. Weren’t you?” She lowered her chin while her thumb and index finger secured his. Turning his head her way, she then forced him to look back at her. “Weren’t you?” Again, she asked. “That’s no excuse, Bonnie.” Rising from his spot on the car hood, the Dark-Hunter swiftly made his way to his side of the car. “I let them die.” With a sense of finality, he tucked himself behind the wheel of his Porsche. But Bonnie couldn’t disregard the raw vulnerability drenching his words. The agony exuding enough to rob the air inside her lungs. Enough to inject her with a weakness capable of driving her to her knees. Leaning over the passenger’s seat, Acheron opened the door to welcome her inside. And without another word, she took her place beside him. A stirring of magic began tickling her senses then, like a foreshadowing of sorts. In the cramped space, Acheron touched her arm in the midst of shifting gears as he brought the engine to life. Taken by surprise, Bonnie gasped loudly. Not by the touch itself but the sudden flashes of ancient memories taking her brain hostage, without an ounce of mercy. Lying in a pool of his own blood, Acheron Parthenopaeus struggled to rise from the slippery floor of the grand palace. Lost to his anger and bloodlust, his attacker, a male figure of pure perfection with a golden aura, sank his knife into Acheron’s heart before slicing him open up to his navel like a hunted animal being gutted by a barbarous predator. The brutality of the scene alone successfully stealing the remaining air flowing through her lungs. “You died that night, too.” She stated in a whisper, haunted by the violence still burning behind her eyelids. This time around, he didn’t elaborate. But he watched her, from the corner of his eye with a strange light reflected on his gaze. The assertiveness supporting her revelation pushing him to put his every available resource to use, he was soon faced with a growing mystery Acheron couldn’t quite figure out yet. Still petrified by the sudden revelation on both parties, the pair rode in a rather strained silence for the remaining journey. At Kyrian’s antebellum mansion’s gate, the young witch finally dared a peek at the man sitting beside her. “Ash—“, she started only to be interrupted by him. “You don’t have to apologise, Bonnie.” He paused as if weighing the impact of his following words. “I wanted you to know. For some reason.” The air of mild astonishment clung to him furiously before quietly leaving her to her own thoughts as he braved the path toward the main entrance of Kyrian’s exuberant manor with regal superiority that bled from every pore without an ounce of vanity exuded. “One day, Ash. One day, you will tell me every secret you’ve buried deep in your soul. Then, I’ll set you free.” With that whispered vow, Bonnie vacated the car to follow him and, finally, confront her latest source of woe. Their gazes locked instantly as she stepped through the door. The cold morning’s timid breeze blowing, dragged her curls behind her shoulders as her fingers made haste to shield Kyrian from the invading sunlight. Even in darkness, the ancient Prince’s blonde curls glistened like an aura of mortal divinity. Incapable of staying unaffected, her heart quickened at the sight. And though his stance prevailed rigid and unfaltering, Kyrian stood silent. Almost defeated, and at a loss for words. In return, Bonnie’s demeanour evolved through different discharges of emotions as her thoughts raced through her mind. Neither willing to break the silence of discomfort. Drowning in conflict, she entertained their staring contest for a little longer just so she gave herself the time to examine the source of all her current heartache. Convinced her stubborn Dark-Hunter had recovered from most of the damage done to him the previous night, she finally mustered the courage to reveal her intentions of returning to Mystic Falls for a few days. “You look better already. That’s a relief.” Pause. Fidgeting fingers found temporary shelter in her jacket’s pockets. Then she cleared her throat. “Ash is taking me home for a couple of days.” ─── There. It’s done. Best to just blurt it out and take them both out of this misery. Unsure he had heard it right, he sought Acheron for clarification. Or any indication of the meaning behind her words. As the sole witness to their exchange, characterised by tension and uneasiness, Ash chose not to elaborate. Leaving that pleasant task to her. “I’m gonna find Nick. There’s something I need to discuss with him.” And just like that, he vanished toward the kitchen. Betrayal spoiled Kyrian’s patrician features. As a member of the male community, he had hoped his boss would join forces with him in solidarity. To dilute the growing tension building between him and Bonnie. But no, the old bastard slipped through the cracks at the first chance. “Why?” Defeated, he couldn’t even hide his dismay. It took him several heartbeats of aching silence to finally tear it apart. In his head, Kyrian had already demanded her all the answers but none were brought into the light. Only that broken whisper seemed to matter. “You know why.” She murmured back, without wasting a heartbeat. Though Bonnie wouldn’t admit it out loud, her poor bruised heart cracked even further. Pain oozed from it like poison as it continued to pump blood unknowingly of the destruction caused. Suddenly lightheaded, and with weakened knees, she sought swift support from the nearby sofa just to avoid worlds of embarrassment. His rejection had been enough. It stung like a viper’s attack and now she bled. She just wanted to bleed alone for a couple of days before raising her chin and throwing her misfortune over her shoulders as if nothing had transpired.

Guilt-ridden, at least he had the decency of showcasing remorse by fixing his stare anywhere but her eyes. “I’m going upstairs to pack. Can you, please, tell Acheron I’ll be ready in a few minutes?” Sighing in extreme desolation, she left him alone to his thoughts. The whole packing process didn’t take her even twenty minutes, she had been taken to New Orleans against her will after all. A bittersweet smile tugged at the ends of her lips as the memory of the first encounter with Kyrian invaded her thoughts like a Trojan’s horse. She nearly laughed reminiscing on their first exchange of words and how much he had feared her even though he had been the one kidnapping her. Instead, a choked sob escaped. Life had to have a grudge against her, she pondered. All her efforts to turn things around when nothing went right could never hold the walls that sustained any form of happiness. It took her a minute of sitting on the bed that had been hers for several weeks to pull herself together. Her emotions ran haywire and she was having some trouble taking their reigns. Once certain she wouldn’t break as easily in front of him, Bonnie grabbed the bag with her clothes. But as she was leaving her room, she felt the urge to leave a memento that would remind him of her. Aware of his instant appreciation for relics, Bonnie decided to gift him with one of her grandmother’s old necklaces, a witch’s talisman. Her favourite and most powerful. Hoping he would find it after her departure, Bonnie made her way downstairs to find both Kyrian and Acheron waiting for her in a silence that felt strange, thick with tension. “I’m ready to go.” She announced bravely while focusing her attention on the straps of her bag, avoiding Kyrian’s burning gaze. Sensing the unresolved tension between them, Acheron gave Kyrian a meaningful stare with a message only privy to them both before getting up and making his exit. “I’ll wait outside for you, Bonnie. Whenever you’re ready.” Emphasising that last sentence, Ash conveyed his belief the two of them should trade some parting words before her temporary departure. In silence, she nodded and waited until Acheron was outside. “I don’t want you to go, Bonnie.” Kyrian’s delivery almost like a plea took the young witch by surprise. She had expected to be one breaking the silence. “I can’t stay and pretend nothing happen. I’m not like that, Kyrian.” The anguish in her voice becoming more solid with each word. “If I’m coming back here to fight against this enemy alongside you then I need time to put my priorities in order.” Unable to withstand the sound of heartache in her voice, her fallen Prince closed the gap between them and took her face with both hands. Admiring the beauty of her strength, Kyrian closed his eyes for a few heartbeats as he cursed his very existence. For the first time in over two thousand years of solitude and misery, his heart awakened from a long death. But they could never be, regardless of his feelings toward her. That would be a direct insult to his vow and the goddess he served. Resting his forehead on hers, temptation bit him hard as they stood on the verge of goodbye. ─── I love you, Bonnie. The words never came. Instead, he breathed in her perfume. “At least let me be the one to take you home...” With tears prickling her eyes, she attempted her escape but he wouldn’t let her. Kyrian remained frozen as if willing to extend their moment. “I can’t. If I allow it, I’ll just delay the inevitable. Better to just rip it off and hope for the best.” Inside, every wall crumbled to the ground. There was shards of glass everywhere. She was a wreck, bleeding and the ruins of what could be would become unfinished dreams. “I should go now, Kyrian.” Fighting off a sobbing session, she rubbed her eyes to dry unspent tears. After all, nothing would change even if she cried. Opposite from her, an ancient warrior stood deep in thought. Tormented by visions of a future he never meant to have or share with another, Kyrian remembered the tragedy of his human days, mostly marked by the betrayal that had murdered him. An inner voice had once convinced him he was not worthy of love but looking down at her, the infamous “what if” tormented him aggressively. Saying nothing, her Prince pressed his lips to her forehead and closed his eyes to savour the bittersweet moment as he committed into memory every piece of her. “Be safe.” The softness of his whisper practically snuffed out Bonnie’s remaining strength as her knees buckled. With a tenderness that rivalled even her grandmother’s, Kyrian caressed her face one last time as if afraid he might not see her again. He was determined to make her departure the hardest one yet. Only by Bonnie’s perseverance did she manage to break them apart. “I will.” Finally turning around to leave, their fingers crossed paths in intimate touch and his self control flew out the window. Awakening from self-inflicted slumber, Kyrian closed his fingers around hers and pulled her back, drawing her into his body by surprise. He, then, stole her breath with a searing kiss, full of longing and unspoken promises her warrior vowed not to disclose in fear of what might befall her were he to defy the goddess he served. Bewildered, Bonnie gaped at him. Giving her half a smile, he knew he had to let her go but his fingers refused the separation by caressing her face while his midnight eyes dove deep into her soul. “You shouldn’t have done this.” The words came barely above a whisper as she enforced their physical distance by taking his hands hostage. “Goodbye, Kyrian.” Barely holding on, with the grip on her emotions fading with each heartbeat, she made a hasty retreat. The front door slammed, effectively shutting another chapter of her life as the weakened walls guarding her heart crumbled. She couldn’t breathe through the onslaught of heartache and agony. ─── Was this what she was destined for? Her gut-wrenching sobs, though quiet, didn’t go unnoticed by Acheron who waited for her by his Porsche. Rather unsure on how to approach her as Bonnie’s heart bled without restraint, he took calculated steps in her direction in hopes that she would note his presence. And she finally did. “I’m ready.” The strain she put on to have her voice sound remotely even through the remains of her shattered heart reinforced Acheron’s respect for her. Perturbed by her breakdown, the ever observant but quiet Dark Hunter offered her a modicum of solace by drawing her trembling frame into his chest, surrounding her with his strength through an unusual embrace. Massive hands stroked her hair with inimitable softness. “You’re an extraordinary woman, Bonnie Bennett.” The admiration reflected on his lilt administered a sense of temporary serenity. “Just remember it is not an obligation to be strong 24/7. Sometimes we have to drown before we can return to shore.” Struggling for words, she merely nodded. “Alright, then. Shall we go?” As if pulling a rabbit out of a magician’s hat, Ash offered her his hand. “We aren’t taking your car?” She asked, perplexed. Tearing a rift in her skies of grief, Acheron Parthenopaeus conjured a disarming smile she felt particularly victimised by. “No. Not this time. Have you ever traveled through the time-space continuum, also commonly known as teleportation?” Openly gaping at him, she then glanced at his exposed palm, the tears making it a near impossible feat. A stirring of excitement unleashed a few wild butterflies in her stomach as her fingers touched Acheron’s calloused hand. “Should I be afraid? How does it work?” Like any other creature, she grew hesitant just as treaded these unknown waters. “For me, it’s like breathing. Do you trust me?” Assuming an almost defensive posture as if expecting the worst, he stared at her intently from behind his trusted sunglasses. Waves of relief rolled off of him when she nodded. “You know that I do.” His fingers had barely taken possession of hers when he dipped his head to whisper in her ear, “You can open your eyes now, Bonnie. You’re home.” She did. One glance around them confirmed his claim. In fact, he even brought them to her grandmother’s unkept porch, once again proving her his powers far exceeded those of his brethren. Apart from the light discomfort in her stomach, she felt fairly confident on her competence to teleport. “It was easier than I expected…” She mumbled as realisation gutted her. She was back. Back in Mystic Falls, her so-called cursed birthplace.

#charmeddelicacy #the mardi gras conundrum

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zarcake-writes · 4 years

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Silas and Lily

A little different since this isn’t a reader insert. This story features an undead bi cowboy and a female necromancer who is trying to fix him up while helping him adjust to our modern world. Hope you all enjoy!

Warnings: brief mention of spousal abuse and violence

“Shit!”

“Oh, fuck, Silas! Are you ok?”

Silas lets out an annoyed breath as he pushes himself up onto his forearms. “Darlin, do I look ok?”

“Don’t get snappy with me, cowboy, I’m trying to help.”

Silas responds with a huff and mumbles under his breath. Lily says nothing in response to his mumbling, but he knows she’s rolling her eyes. Eye rolling, jaw clenching, and lip biting are three things she does when she’s annoyed. Silas stops mumbling when she pulls his upper body up and helps him onto a nearby chair.

Lily’s familiar, Todd, watches from across the room. Resting in a position that Lily calls a loaf, the long-haired orange cat only looks slightly bored.

“Silas, I know you’re angry, but I told you it would take time to fix your legs,” she said.

“I’m not angry, darlin, I’m just… I’m frustrated. Not use to feeling so weak and useless.”

“I know. Is it ok if I look at them and see what happened?”

Silas nods and motions for Lily to begin her examination. He’s silent as she examines his lower legs. Todd silently approaches and sits beside Lily. She pats the cat’s head. Todd watches what she’s doing, an unnerving intelligence in the cat’s eyes.

While Lily’s attention is on his legs, Silas takes the moment to study her face. The look in her eyes, the furrow of her brow and the way her nose scrunches up, he can’t help but smile. Even as she mutters under her breath, asking herself questions and then answering them, he smiles. How cute, he thinks.

Her hair is dark and wavy, pulled back in a sloppy bun. He looks for any features she might have inherited from her great-great-grandfather, but he comes up empty. Her skin isn’t dark enough, and her face is shaped differently. While she has no physical resemblance to her great-great-grandfather, their magic is similar. Not exactly the same, but very similar.

It’s their auras, Silas thinks. Dark and earthy, practical and understanding, serious and sad. If he looks close enough, he can see the shadow of death lingering, a reminder of the path she’s taken. Yes, just like her great-great-grandfather.

Behind the shadow though, Silas can see something else. Something green and long, winding around in an endless circle. It takes him a moment to realize its vines.

Before Lily took the path of Necromancy, her mother tried forcing her into plant-based magic. While Lily showed promise, specifically with garden magic, she had no interest in the school.

The gift of magic runs in Lily’s blood having been passed down through both sides of her family. But, while most of her family took lighter, more natural paths, like garden magic. She chose to follow her paternal great-great grandfather’s path. Necromancy.

Another difference between Lily’s great-great-grandfather and herself is the strength of their magic. Lily’s magic seems to be stronger like it’s built on a solid foundation. Silas remembers her great-great grandfather’s magic being unstable at times. While it was strong, it wasn’t always reliable and oftentimes failed or backfired. She described her grandfather’s magic as being a glass cannon, strong but easily broken.

“Ahh, that’s the problem,” Lily began. Silas focuses back on her face. “You were made by my great-great-grandfather, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, no offense to him, but he clearly didn’t know what he was doing. Hence why you’re falling apart.”

“He said I wasn’t supposed to fall apart for several centuries.” Silas crosses his arms and attempts to frown, course the lack of skin on his bottom jaw prevents a full frown.

“If he had placed the wards correctly on your body, yes, but he didn’t. See, these wards are from a really old and difficult Necromancy book. The book isn’t even used anymore. There are spots where he didn’t know what to do, so he just winged it. Which, isn’t a problem, since a lot of magic is just guesstimating, but he wasn’t an experienced Necromancer, so his magic wasn’t strong enough. I’m surprised he even got your soul in your body.”

“I didn’t die the best way, sweetheart, that might have been why.”

Silas frowns at the vague memory of his death. Bloody and violent, filled with pain and hate. While the specifics of his death are something Silas does not wish to remember, he does remember the feeling of anger and betrayal as he took his last breaths. He can remember someone standing above him, a blurry face, and a low laugh.

“That’s a possibility. Bad or violent deaths leave the soul agitated, easy for necromancers to grab onto. It’s the same if you died before doing something important. Why did he raise you, Silas? No one seems to know why.”

Silas looks away from Lily. He had asked her great-great-grandfather that very same question, and the answer only made him angry at the time. Now though, he thinks it’s fitting. “As punishment.”

Lily frowns at that, even Todd looks like he’s frowning. “For what?”

“For being a bad man, sweetheart. Now, what’s wrong with my legs?”

Lily gives Silas a questioning look, but she doesn’t ask what he means. She answers his question instead. “Ok, your tibias, the larger bone in both your lower legs, have not healed correctly. The good news, your fibulas are fine.”

“So, what now?”

“I’m going to attempt to fix the larger bone. Not now, I’m tired and need to rest, but tomorrow we’ll try again.”

“Can’t you just, go take some legs from some poor bastard who just died?” Silas asked.

Lily laughs and shakes her head. “One, there’s no need. I have both your legs right here. All I need to do is work my magic and you’ll be fixed. And two, getting spare limbs would require me to go through the fucking Department of Necromancy. They gave me enough shit when I was registering you. Getting a spare limb, and two for that matter will be almost impossible. I’ll just use my magic.”

Silas scoffs and shakes his head. The world used to be simple when it came to magic, there were no rules or departments. It was everyone for themselves, but now everyone seems to monitored. “So many rules. I remember when robbing the graveyard for parts was a common thing.”

“Yeah, grave robbing is one of the reasons the DON was created.”

Silas looks down at her and tilts his head. “One of the reasons?”

“Yeah, World War Two and the Great Necro Army are two other reasons.”

“What happened?”

“Well, during World War Two, necromancers started raising dead soldiers to fight. Some of these soldiers got their souls back while others were just mindless drones. This was happening on both the Allied and Axis side. Course, only the Axis necromancers were punished for that. The Allies necromancers, however, were regaled as heroes. But it was a gross, undead mess, that left mental scars on many people, including the necromancers.”

Silas grimaces. “What’s the other thing? The Great Necro Army?”

Lily sits back on her behind and looks up at Silas. Todd settles on her lap, purring and pleased with himself. “Some of the necromancers came back from the war-damaged mentally, they were forced to raise their friends and watch them die over and over again. However, some came back with a sense of superiority and desire for power. As most assholes do, they formed a group and started raiding graveyards and attending funerals only to raise the dead. They didn’t care who they raised, they just wanted power.”

“Were they successful?”

“No, but they caused a lot of damage and havoc. It took a couple of liches to stop them. After that, the DON was created.”

“So, a few bastards ruined everything for good necromancers?”

“Not ruined, just made it difficult for a while. Rules aren’t as strict as they were after the war, but necromancers need to follow rules and register anything they reanimate through the DON. And human reanimation is forbidden unless it’s a body that was reanimated before 1948.”

“What happens if the body was reanimated illegally?”

Lily sighs and shakes her head. “It’s usually destroyed and the necromancer is sent away. Prison for magic users is not a pleasant place.”

“Darlin, I’ve been in prison and countless jails, none of them are pleasant places.”

Lily looks up at Silas, a dark look crosses her face. “Prison for magic users is even worse, Silas. I don’t know what they do in those places, but the magic users that come back, a piece of them is gone. Their aura, it’s damaged. And their magic, it’s unstable or nearly gone. Even when they get back on their feet, something about them is always missing.”

“Who decides who gets sent there?”

“It depends. If it’s a magic-user who does natural magic or stuff shown in a positive light, then they are judged by other magic users. Necromancers, blood users, shadow magic users, and summoners are judged differently.”

“Why?”

“Well, those schools of magic are looked down upon and since they can affect societies as a whole, they are judged by a mixture of magic users, regular people, religious figures, and various other magical creatures.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It can be, but it’s how our system has been shaped. It’s not all bad though. After some rather unfortunate cases where people were sent away because the judges didn’t understand magic, some liches got involved. They are trying to reform the system so that honest accidents don’t send people to prison. But they have a long road ahead of them.”

Silas sits back in his chair and wipes his face. His skeletal hand catches his attention, making him frown. His other hand still has skin, but it’s grey and splotchy. He knows his face is a mess. His jaw bone is visible, and the skin on his left cheek is gone. The hair he has is stringy and messy. All the muscle mass in his chest is gone, leaving only dried skin and a ribcage. Even his legs, once thick and firm, are now only bones.

When he was alive, he never considered himself much to look at, but he knew how to charm the ladies. He would rely on his trademark smirk, deepen his voice, give them a look and they were puddles before him. Girls in saloons would fawn over him, complimenting his hands, arms, and eyes. Women on the street (even those who were upper-class) would giggle and blush when he tipped his hat and gave them a wink. Even the women in the gang would grow flustered with his flirting.

Silas was even a hit with some men. While the men weren’t as giggly or flirty as the women, there were a few who were easily swayed by Silas. Course, those interactions usually required a firm hand on their shoulders, a certain look, and a promise to keep things quiet. Those nights were always quick, filled with rough kisses, low grunts, and slow thrusts.

But those days are a thing of the past. They happened a long time ago when he was better looking with sun-kissed skin, dark hair, and bright blue eyes. Now... now he’s just a fucking corpse.

“Silas?” Lily is standing up in front of him, a worried look on her face. Even Todd is giving him a look.

“Yeah, darlin?”

“You ok?”

“Yeah. Can… can you do something about my skin? Or do you need to go through that stupid department?”

Lily gives him a wide smile that makes him feel something in his chest. “No, getting skin is much easier than actual body parts. The problem is, since you’re dead, the skin won’t have a healthy look. It will connect to your body, but it will turn grey.”

Silas nods. “That’s better than looking at this.” He waves his skeletal hand and motions to all of himself with a grimace.

“I like the hand and your face. But, tomorrow, I can go see someone. We’ll need skin and muscle tissue for your legs, anyways.”

Silas watches her turn away, a prickling feeling inside him. She likes his face? And his hand? Why? Isn’t he disgusting? He’s heard it plenty of times, he’s seen the grimaces and looks. Times have changed, but the looks he gets from living people have not. But she, she’s never treated him that way. She’s never looked at him with disgust or fear.

Silas thinks back to when he first met her. He remembers the coffin, that fucking thing, and then a bunch of noise. People shouting in Spanish, then the coffin being moved. He wanted to shout for help, but his mouth had been stitched up long ago. When the coffin settled, he could hear multiple people praying loud and ridiculous.

He’ll never forget when the lid was ripped off. The sunlight blinded him and the screams only made his head throb more. Through the screaming, loud praying, and holy water being splashed on him (like that would do anything), there was a voice. A single voice telling everyone to stop.

Lily is the first person he saw since he was buried, locked away from the world outside. For a moment, he thought she was an angel. A halo of sunlight surrounded her head and her hair framed her face. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyes were bright, he can still remember how worried she looked. Silas was ready to start praying and beg this heavenly creature to help him. But then she started cursing, shouting at everyone around them.

Silas remembers her broken Spanish, crude and childlike, telling everyone to step back and to shut their mouths. It would have been adorable if he wasn’t still in the coffin with his mouth stitched up. It was in English that she began to curse and talk to herself and then to him. Who would have known, Silas thinks, that angels are terrible Spanish speakers and curse like sailors?

“Silas, want to go watch tv?”

He was so lost in his memory he didn’t notice Lily brought out the wheelchair. He nods and together they get him in the chair.

The route to the living room is short. The house is larger than anything Silas has ever been in; certainly, larger than the house he was buried beneath. It’s nearly empty and sparsely decorated.

The living room has an old couch and a tv, both of them Lily bought at a second-hand store. The thing she calls a wi-fi router sits on the floor, it has nowhere else to go. Her laptop is next to the small box, closed and plugged into the wall. A cat tree for Todd is in the corner, several of his toys are always scattered along the floor.

The only other rooms in the house with some life is the kitchen and her room.

The kitchen has appliances, mixers, and bowls she recently purchased or brought from her family’s house. She said she bought them so she was taking them. The fridge is covered in pictures of her and who Silas assumes are friends. One of the pictures shows her in a strange hat and a weird cloth that looks like a cape. Lily explained it was her high school graduation cap and gown. Beside her in the picture is a lich, stooping down slightly to get in the shot.

Lily’s room is littered with stacks of books and papers, odd magical components, and bones. She tries to keep it clean, but Silas knows it’s a struggle for her. Once she cleans her room, she forgets where everything went and makes it a mess again. Despite the mess and slightly morbid object, Silas likes her room. It’s full of life and love and always feels warm.

The second room is supposed to be his, but it’s as empty as Silas feels. There are only a bed and a dresser, nothing else. He rather spends his time in the living room or kitchen than in that empty box. If he’s alone in there too long, the walls feel like they’re closing in on him.

The third room and the rest of the house is empty.

Before they moved into the house, Lily was living with her family and Silas was living in a coffin beneath an empty house. Once he was dug up, Lily insisted on keeping him. Her family disagreed, but she didn’t care. The stories of Silas being a monster that her great grandfather defeated were simply that to her, just stories. She didn’t believe them. And when she called her great grandfather a “fucking liar,” well, it was made clear that she should leave. So, she did.

Lily moved out of her family’s house with Silas. She left her family, because of him. Back when he was alive, Silas can remember several women and a young man offering to run away with him. Course, he never let them. Always told them they don’t want a no-good man like himself. Even when they said they wanted him as the sinful, bad man he was, Silas never let them go with him. Lily is the first woman who left her home for him, but she’s not the first who lost her family because of him.

“Silas, what you thinking about?” Lily asked.

He refocuses and notices the tv is on; some show about working in parks is playing. Lily is sitting on the couch, her eyes on him. Beside her, Todd is curled up asleep. Lily looks so concerned; it leaves a weird feeling inside Silas. Even when he was alive, there were a few people who only truly cared about how he was feeling.

“Just about when we first met.”

“Ah, that was an eventful day. Grandma and almost everyone else wanted to destroy you.”

“Except you.”

“And Pete. Pete remembered you, he said you were a good man. You kept them safe from their father. Course, no one believed him because of his dementia.”

Silas just hums and nods his head. Their father, Lily’s great grandfather, was nothing but a no-good bastard. From the moment Silas met the man, he did not like him. He tried to warn Lily’s great grandmother, Lola, but she insisted Silas was being too protective.

It took a while for the abuse to start, and when it did, Lola and her bastard of a husband already had three kids. It started out as verbal abuse, always yelling and threatening everyone, then progressed to physical violence. The bastard always did it when Silas was out of the house, but he saw the bruises on Lola’s face and the tears in her eyes.

Most of their kids were too young to remember what he said or did. Only the oldest remember how he smacked his wife into a wall and threatened to kill her. Silas remembers how it felt when he punched that bastard in the face. He would have killed him if Lola hadn’t stopped him, her cheek was red and her lip was bleeding. Silas regrets not killing the man.

“I wasn’t a good man, but I did keep them safe. Lola, when her father died, took me in. She was always good to me, didn’t care that I was a talking corpse. And your great grandfather hated me because I listened to his wife and not him. Plus, I did punch him in the face and threw him out of the house.”

“Yeah, Pete mentioned that. Of course, grandma and her other siblings didn’t believe him.”

“They were young when it happened, too young to remember.”

Silas looks away and focuses on the tv. A commercial about beer is on. It’s been so long since he’s had a bottle of beer. He wonders how much it’s changed, what it tastes like now. He was always a whiskey man himself, whiskey and cigars, but beer sounds good. He misses tasting things.

“Hey, can you fix my tongue? That way I can taste stuff.”

She smiles and nods. “Of course. Tomorrow, when we go see my skin guy, I’ll see if he can take a look at your tongue.”

Silas grimaces at the thought of her having a “skin guy” but says nothing. Necromancers have always been weird, he thinks. And Lily has her own weird traits and mannerisms, but she isn’t like other necromancers. It’s her smell, Silas thinks. She smells so sweet, almost too sweet.

The next day, they visit her skin guy who, ironically enough, does not have any skin. He’s a lich, a lich who appears to love the color pink and blue. Pink crystals line his sternum, while soft blue ones are scattered along his ribs. A combination of pink and light blue crystals lines the top of his head, similar to a crown. His eyes glow a soft pink, and his canine teeth are unnaturally long and capped with silver. His skull face is surprisingly expressive; who would have thought.

Silas would have expected a lich to live in an ancient castle or some old house, not in what appears to be a tiny magic shop in the middle of the Goblin District. Maybe having a shop in a graveyard or even a morgue, not in the Goblin District.

While the lich and his location were a surprise, the store itself was even more surprising. Outside, the shop seemed small, but inside, it was huge. The walls were lined with shelves that housed so many books, potions, jars, and even the occasional caged creature. More shelves lined the center of the store, they were filled with so many different magical ingredients.

There was even a garden section, small and green with so many different plants. There were small sparkles that caught Silas’ attention. He couldn’t hide his surprise when he realized those sparkles were fairies. How the hell did a lich get fairies to work for him?

“My little Necromancer! How are you doing?” the lich gushed when he saw Lily. When he sees Silas in the wheelchair, his eye sockets go wide. “And who is this?”

“Narron, I’m doing good. This is Silas, a reanimated human that was buried beneath my grandma’s house. Silas, this is Narron. He’s been my friend and mentor for many years now. He’s the lich in my high school graduation photo,” Lily explained.

Narron comes from behind the counter, waving his hand at the introduction, and begins examining Silas. His hands, both skeletal, grab and pull at Silas. Examining his arms, face, and legs. Narron tsks at the numerous wards mumbling about shoddy work. When he comes to Silas’ legs, he frowns and looks up at her.

“My lovely, little necromancer, what happened to this man?”

“It’s a long story Narron, but I’m trying to fix him up.”

“I can tell. The bones are looking good, but they will take time to fully set. Are you rubbing bone meal ointment on them?”

“Every morning and night.”

“Good. What’s your name?” Narron asked, looking at Silas. Obviously, Narron wasn’t paying attention during Lily’s introduction.

“Silas, sir.”

“Sir? What year are you from?”

“I died in the early 1890s, sir.”

Narron gasped, his eyes burn brightly for a moment. “Were you a cowboy? A rancher? A sheriff? Oh! An outlaw?”

Silas laughs and ducks his head out of habit. He misses his hat. “I uh, I suppose I’ve been a bit of all those.”

“Oh, a man with a mysterious past. I like him.” Narron winks at Silas and stands up to his full height. Narron turns his attention to Lily. “Now, what do you need, my darling little-death moth?”

Lily giggles at the name and Silas frowns. What is with the pet names? “Silas here wants some skin, for his hand and legs. And can you help me with his tongue? He wants to taste whiskey and cigars again.”

“A cowboy after my own heart. Come, this way. I can do his tongue, free of charge.”

“Thanks, Narron. You’re a lifesaver.”

“I know, my beautiful belladonna.”

Silas rolls his eyes at the name for Lily but keeps quiet. This lich is going to fix his tongue and give him skin, he can’t afford to insult the lich. Or upset Lily.

Lily pushes Silas into a very messy and dimly lit back room. The floor is covered with papers, books lay spread open along the floor or stacked in messy piles. Gems and skulls litter the floor, along with several bottles of strange-looking potions. One of them is leaking a thick looking liquid that shimmers.

“Gods above, Narron, what happened in here? Lily asked.

“Um, well, I’ve been looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“An old flame.” Narron moved some stuff aside and took a seat at a large desk. With a flick of his wrist, the dim room brightens. “Now push that gorgeous cowboy over here and let’s see what we can do for that tongue.”

Silas didn’t think having his tongue fixed would be so invasive, oh, how wrong he was. His mouth is open wide, wider than normal for a living person, with Narron’s fingers poking and prodding at his teeth and tongue. Lily is looking over Narron’s shoulder, clearly interested in what he was going to do. The whole situation reminds Silas of the time he saw a dentist when he was living. The bastard had to pull one of his teeth, something about it being infected. All Silas can really remember is that his mouth ached for weeks.

“Your tongue is in ok shape, but you can’t taste?” Narron asked.

Silas, unable to respond because of the fingers in his mouth shakes his head.

“Well, that’s no fun. Lots of great things to taste in this world. Food, beer, whiskey, candy, brownies, men… women.” Narron glances at Lily, who squeaks and swats the lich. Narron laughs and even Silas has to smirk.

“Silas, don’t encourage him. I’m going to go look at your books and plants.” Lily quickly disappears from view.

“She’s so fun to mess with, and cute too. Don’t you think?” Narron asked.

Silas shrugs and looks away; his fingers dig into the chair’s armrest.

“I won’t tell her, you know. But I did notice the way your jaw clenches when I call her a name. With your gaunt face and lack of skin, it’s very noticeable.”

Silas narrows his eyes at Narron. If he could, Silas knew he would be blushing.

“What? I might not be human, but I know a pretty woman when I see one. And Lily is very pretty and so smart. One time, we went to the beach and she was wearing this cute little bathing suit. She was the prettiest thing out there. Especially with that cute little tummy of hers. So many men were fawning over her.”

Silas responds by growling and pushing Narron’s hands out of his mouth. “Watch your damn mouth.”

Narron eyes narrow and a knowing grin crosses his skull face. “You do like her.”

“I respect her.”

“And you like her. Nothing wrong with liking her. She’s a wonderful girl.”

Silas growls and clenches his hands into fists. Gods above, he wants to hit this stupid lich. “Stop.”

Narron sighs and puts his hands up. “Relax, nothing has, or will ever, happen between us. Lily is my student, and I would never breach the sacred student-teacher relationship. I might be a pleasure-seeking inhuman monstrosity, but I’m not a creep.”

Silas grunts and motions for Narron to continue with his examination.

Narron begins quietly. The only thing that Silas can hear is the magic he’s weaving into Silas’ tongue. Faintly, Silas can hear Lily talking to someone, and what sounds like her laugh. Who is she talking to? And more importantly, who made her laugh?

“You know,” Narron begins, “I was human once and I’ve been around for a very, very long time. I’ve seen many things, both good and bad. Loved and lost many in my time. And jealousy, well, that is a feeling I’m quite familiar with.”

Silas, still not able to reply, only raises an eyebrow. Jealousy? Who is jealous here? Certainly not me, Silas thinks.

“Surprising huh? A gorgeous lich like myself being jealous, who would have thought. But it happens. If you like her, you should tell her. Don’t hold back. I did once, and I lost the love of my life.” The flames in Narron’s eyes dim and his skull face falls slightly.

Silas, not knowing what to do, pats Narron’s arm. Narron seems to appreciate the contact. His face brightens up and he seems to shake old memories from his mind, or skull.

“Now, enough of that talk. Let’s get that tongue of yours working. Lots of things in this world to taste.”

It took an hour for Narron to fix Silas’s tongue. Once he was done, Silas is pushed to the front of the store, where Lily is waiting. She’s talking to a goblin about something in a book. Both are laughing and smiling. Part of Silas wants to be jealous, but the sight of her so happy takes his breath away.

“She’s gorgeous when she smiles, eh?” Narron whispered in Silas’ ear.

“She’s always beautiful,” Silas whispered back.

“Damn right she is. Lily, my darling death flower, your friend is ready. Also, the muscle tissue and skin are ready,” Narron called.

Lily excuses herself from the goblin and approaches the two. In her hands are a plant and a small book.

“Narron, you’re my hero. Thank you so much,” Lily gushed.

“Anything for my favorite student of death. Now, you remember how to put the skin on, correct?”

“Yes, begin muscle reformation spell then apply the skin.”

“Good. But, in case your memory is fuzzy, I wrote out detailed instructions for you.”

“Thanks, Narron. I’ll call you in a few days and tell you how everything’s working out. Oh, and I’ll take this plant and book.”

“Sounds wonderful, my sweet.”

Once the purchases went through, Lily and Silas start to head out with Narron beside them. He’s polite and opens the door, helping the two out.

“Remember, my little daughter of death, call me if you need help. Muscle reforming can be a real bitch,” Narron said. Silas smirks at the use of the word bitch.

“I will, Narron. Thank you.”

Narron turns his attention to Silas. “And you, cowboy, don’t forget what we talked about.”

Lily looks down at Silas, clearly curious about the conversation the two undead men had. Silas refuses to look at her but gives Narron the best glare he can summon. Narron smirks at the glare, amused with himself and the situation.

Lily doesn’t ask any questions as she walks them away from the shop, but Silas can feel her questioning gaze on the back of his head. He knows she’ll ask about it later, she’s so damn curious. And Narron, with the insufferable grin and supposed knowledge of love, will no doubt continue to tease Silas. Damn lich, Silas thinks.

#exophilia #monster boyfriend #undead cowboy #undead boyfriend

156 notes · View notes

five-rivers · 4 years

Text

What Was Bound, What Was Loosed, part 2

Written for day 18: horror. I’m really sneaking this in just before midnight. So hard to write.

Vlad was occupied with shepherding along a sensitive reaction in his lab when his portal winked out of existence. Engrossed in his experiment, he didn't notice at first, not for several minutes. But, soon enough, the steadiness of the light, the lack of green in it, began to unnerve him.

Leaving the chemicals alone for a moment wouldn't make them explode. Probably. If they did, well. He had more than enough money to renovate his mansion. Again.

Almost immediately, his eyes caught on the gaping, empty hole in his wall where the portal had once been.

"That- Impossible!" He took several quick steps forward, but did not enter the portal or stand directly in front of it. The portal was gone, but he could see that the containment mechanisms were still working, electricity periodically jumping from exposed wires. He reached for the power cut off switch.

Reality rippled. Briefly, Vlad experienced a sensation akin to being moved through a thick membrane.

He found himself among the treetops of a lavender forest, the green sky of the Ghost Zone swirling brightly above him. Disoriented, he put a hand to his head. Natural portals had a tendency to be turbulent, but he had never been through one that felt like that before. Had his portal somehow escaped its moorings? He would have thought he would notice something like that, something like a portal sneaking up behind him. The did glow, after all.

Then again, he had been distracted by his portal's unexplained absence, so maybe not.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered, "Butter biscuits," under his breath. By the time he got back, his experiment would have exploded, and his lab would be in shambles.

No matter. He could always rebuild. The real issue was where he was. He went ghost and-

Nothing happened.

Wait a moment. He examined his hands more closely. They were mottled, blue on tan. He pulled a strand of his hair in front of his eyes. It, too, had suffered a color change. His individual hairs were alternately dark grey and silver.

He felt his heart speed up. This was a problem. A large problem. He would have to retreat to his lair in the Rockies until he could fix this and return to normal. Until then, he wouldn't be fit for the public eye; his secret would be on display for all to see.

After he confirmed that, at least, he still had access to all his powers, he flew up over the tops of the trees.

The island he had found himself above was large and unfamiliar. Trees stretched out below him in all directions, leaves whispering against each other in the faint ectoplasmic wind. Ugh. Well, he'd find something, or someone, familiar sooner or later. He had traveled through the Ghost Zone extensively while searching for the Skeleton Key.

He scanned the sky, looking for signs of civilization. There, so far away he could cover it with his thumb at arm's length, was a gathering of buildings. True, in the Ghost Zone that didn't mean much, what with all the ruins and the buildings that formed randomly from the ectoplasm, but Vlad didn't have all that much to go on. He'd take the risk.

Ellie had been high in the sky over Louisiana, looking forward to eating some of the famous cuisine of New Orleans, when she was briefly plucked out of reality, tumbled around, and redeposited in the Ghost Zone. Somewhat stunned, she merely floated for several long minutes.

But Ellie was nothing if not adaptable, and she quickly recovered enough to look around and try to figure out what had happened. Maybe she'd been sucked through a natural portal? That didn't quite feel right, but it wasn't as if she were an expert on natural portals.

She shrugged to herself and looked around. Cajun cooking would have to wait for another day. In the meantime, she could amuse herself in the Ghost Zone.

If she could find anything amusing, that is. This particular stretch of the Ghost Zone was depressingly empty. Or was it simply misty? It could be hard to tell.

She picked a direction at random and started flying.

It took Vlad longer than he would have liked to reach the little city. About halfway there, the wind had strengthened to a gale, blowing him back, away from the possibly-inhabited island. It had died again, just as Vlad crossed the island's shoreline.

At first, Vlad believed that the island was entirely uninhabited. No ghosts came out to greet him or drive him off. There was no movement behind the windows or doors. The streets were empty.

But, then, he discovered that all the island's residents had gathered on the far shore, floating together in a loose cloud. They were looking down, at something far below the island, occasionally pointing.

Not keen on drawing attention right away, Vlad gently pushed himself into invisibility. He approached the edge of the island cautiously, and with no little trepidation. Given the timing, this could very well be related to the disappearance of his portal and his sudden presence in the Ghost Zone.

Beneath the island, a long, slender finger of blue wove through the more typical ectoplasmic green.

Vlad frowned at the sight. A river, perhaps? But if that was the case, why were the locals so excited?

He couldn't get any information like this. Reluctantly, he turned visible.

"Excuse me," he asked a relatively quiet ghost in full Roman legionnaire armor. "I've only just returned to the Ghost Zone, and everyone seems rather excited. Do you know what's going on?"

"Coronation," said the ghost, breathless even for one of the dead.

Vlad frowned. "Pardon?"

"Coronation!" exclaimed the ghost. The other chattering ghosts fell silent, and turned towards the legionnaire.

"Are you sure?" asked a green-skinned young woman in a toga, her pale yellow eyes huge. "Coronation?"

"It could be nothing else!" proclaimed the legionnaire.

"What do you mean, a coronation?" asked a ghost in more modern clothes. "As in, a king? This isn't going to be another one of those things where we all run away, is it?"

"No!" said the legionnaire, wrapping an arm around the man's shoulders. "This calls for celebration! A new king has been chosen and crowned!" He tossed his helmet into the air, and it reformed on his head a moment later. "The Realms shall heal from their wounds, and a new age will dawn!"

Vlad fought down a stab of jealousy. Once, he had hoped to gain that position. Well, he could determine how to turn the Zone's new political circumstances to his advantage later, when he was at his leisure. For now, he had more immediate concerns.

"Heal from their wounds?"

"Yes!" said the legionnaire, excited, his head bobbing. "After a coronation, the King's Grace sweeps through the land. Ghosts are called home! The tears are healed!"

"The tears- Surely, you don't mean the portals."

"I do, at that," said the legionnaire, grave in a way only a ghost could pull off. "That is what happened last time. Oh, that I am so lucky as to see a new king rise. May he be a kind one!"

"The portals have closed?" pressed Vlad. "All of them?"

"Yes, all of them."

"For how long?"

"When Pariah Dark took the throne," said the ghost, "it was a good century, at least."

"No," said Vlad. "I can't be away from the mortal world for that long!"

The legionnaire patted Vlad's shoulder consolingly. "Family in the other world? Friends? It is hard to leave such things behind, but, well, memento mori. They will return to you in time! Be glad instead! This is a happy occasion!"

With that, the legionnaire was borne off by his fellows. Vlad could hear some of the ghosts already making plans for a party.

"Wait," he said, snagging one of them by the elbow. He braced himself slightly, expecting to have to field an ectoblast. Instead, the ghost, a middle-aged woman with an elaborate coif, merely looked at him quizically. "Do you know the way to the Fenton Portal?" he asked, desperately. "The permanent ghost portal, guarded by Phantom."

"Oh, thinking that one might not be sealed?" asked the woman. "Best of luck to ye. It's off that way," she pointed. "When ye reach the Seven Obelisks, bend right, so you're aiming between Red Mountain and Mammoth Island.

"Ah," said Vlad, "I know the place. Thank you." And then he did a double take, because when was the last time he had genuinely thanked anyone?

He shook his head and flew, as fast as he could.

Luckily for Ellie, a great wind kicked up shortly after she began flying and blew off most of the mist, letting her see clearly. She did have to take shelter for a moment behind a large floating boulder, to avoid being tumbled head-over-heels by the wind, but that was a minor inconvenience at best.

It did however, mean that she had a chance to look at herself and realize that she was wearing her human clothing. Weird. She had definitely been in ghost form when she got sucked in here, and she could have sworn she had still been in it. She tried to change. Couldn't.

Oh, this could be bad. What if she was destabilizing again? She needed to find Danny. He'd know what to do.

When the wind died back, Ellie peered out, and spotted what looked like a village in the distance. She flew to it, as quickly as she could, though it still took a distressingly long time to reach, nearly an hour.

The people of the town appeared to be in the midst of setting up for some kind of party. Normally, Ellie would love to stay, find out what was going on, and participate in any way she could, but the whole 'I might melt' thing really wasn't conducive to that.

"Excuse me," she said, flagging down a matronly woman. "Do you know how I can get to Phantom's Portal?"

"Why," said the woman, "you're the second person to ask me that today. Ye just go that way until ye reach the Seven Obelisks, then bend right, so you're aiming between Red Mountain and Mammoth Island. Keep on going straight 'til you hit it. If it's still there, you won't be able to miss it."

"Second person?" asked Ellie. "Who was the first? Did he look like me, but a bit older?"

"He had similar hair, aye," said the woman, nodding.

Ellie smiled. Maybe Danny was here and she'd be able to catch up to him.

"Thanks!" she said, brightly, before bounding off.

It was not until she reached the obelisks that she thought to wonder what the woman meant by 'if it's still there.'

Well. It probably wasn't important, anyway.

After a few hours, Ellie had reached more familiar territory, though she still hadn't caught sight of Danny. Her anxiety was building. She didn't want to melt. Not again.

She was so focused on that thought that she didn't notice the myriad tiny and not-so-tiny changes creeping through the Zone. The blue swirls, the more vibrant plant life, the slight alterations in the orbits of the islands, the way the whole atmosphere of the Zone seemed less foreboding, friendlier.

Finally, she reached the stretch of the Ghost Zone where the portal should have been located, but the whole space was...

Empty.

The portal wasn't there.

She reached up to seized her hair in her hands. How could it not be there?

A few strands in her hair fell in front of her eyes. It was striped, white and black. Oh, Ancients, it was spreading.

And then, to her horror, the voice of the person she least wanted to see split the near-silence.

"Danielle?"

Vlad sat on an boulder, staring at the space the Fenton Portal should have occupied.

He wasn't despairing. He was planning. If a portal could be made from that side of the veil, surely he could make one from this side. If he couldn't do so with technological means, there were mystical ones. Before resorting to that, however, he should try and find ghosts with the ability to make portals. He knew that some existed, though he had never encountered any directly, himself, with the exception of Pariah Dark.

Speaking of the old king... Perhaps dethroning the new one would make the portals reopen. A fight with the new king, whoever he may be, wasn't something that he would enter into lightly, but if all else failed...

His eyes returned to the former location of the portal, and he clenched his fists. He couldn't be trapped here for a hundred years. He just couldn't. It was unthinkable. Too horrible to contemplate.

A small figure flew into view. A familiar figure.

It couldn't be. But why not? If he had been sucked in here by the coronation of the new king, then why not the other two half ghosts?

He flew forward. "Danielle?" he called.

The girl turned. Clearly, she had been crying.

"Vlad!" she exclaimed, with venom. Her eyes narrowed in something approximating concern. "What happened to you? Are you destabilizing, too?"

Ah, and there was a theory to haunt his nightmares. "Not to the best of my knowledge," he said, adjusting the cuffs of his suit. "I presume you were also brought here by the coronation?"

"The what?" asked Danielle, drifting backwards, hands up, ready to block or deliver a blow.

Vlad rolled his eyes. "The ghosts have crowned a new king. Why now, rather than all the years Pariah Dark slept, I have no idea. Regardless, it has had certain effects on the Ghost Zone, and," he looked at his blotchy hand with distaste, "apparently, us. You aren't destabilizing."

"That's what you'd like me to think," said Danielle.

Vlad scoffed. "Please. I don't care what you think. I don't suppose you've seen Daniel? I suspect he's been brought here as well."

"No," said Danielle.

"And you wouldn't tell me even if you had, hmm?" said Vlad. "I'm not interested in picking a fight with him. For the moment, we have the same goals: return to the mortal world."

"How do you know what his goals are?"

"Have you seen how he dotes on that town of his?" asked Vlad. "Not to mention his dolt of a father. Of course he wants to go back."

"Assuming he's even here," grumbled Danielle. Even so, she relaxed her guard.

"Well," said Vlad. "Where is he?"

"I already told you, I don't know."

Vlad frowned. "Then, if you were he, where would you be? It should be easy for you to deduce. It is, after all, what you were designed for."

Danielle tilted her chin up, defiantly, nostrils flaring, but she reigned in her temper. Doing so was the one thing in which she had surpassed her original. "Knowing Danny and his luck, he's probably right at the center of all this."

Vlad angled himself towards the place where all the blue swirls were radiating from. "Of course he is."

The two half ghosts arrived at what had once been Pariah's Keep.

"Wow," said Ellie. "This is different." She craned her head back, trying to take the whole thing in. "Reminds me more of a palace than a keep, now."

"What would you know?"

"Excuse me? I've been to Europe? I know the difference."

Ancients, she wished she wasn't as worried about Danny as she was, but if he was trapped or something she'd need Vlad's firepower to break him out.

Cautiously, the pair moved closer to the palace. It wasn't empty.

"Shades," said Vlad, his voice low. "Not true ghosts. They follow the will of the one who casts them. In this case, most likely the king. I would have expected more of a crowd than this, though, considering how recently he was crowned."

"Yeah, like, a party or something," agreed Ellie. "But this place looks really big, maybe they're all just inside?"

"Perhaps," said Vlad.

"So, do we sneak in, or what?"

"No," said Vlad. He smiled, thinly. "I believe I will request an audience. Perhaps I'll offer my services."

The audience was denied, and all other attempts to gain access were rebuffed, firmly, but with a gentleness not often found in the Ghost Zone. The shades only had one thing to say: Return when the king wakes.

Not having many other options, Vlad and Ellie adopted an uneasy truce as they searched for Danny- or at least his allies. They had similar needs, after all, as they both had a human half.

Uneasy was definitely the key word.

Danny's allies had made themselves frustratingly scarce. Vlad was contemplating an attempt to establish himself in a community, or at least make a base of operations.

A week and a half later, one of the shades came to them.

The king wakes, it said.

It was practically an invitation. Ellie wasn't convinced accepting it was a good idea, at this point, but she had to admit that she didn't know where else to look for Danny. He had to have come through. Every other ghost and half ghost had, right down to the smallest blob.

They went back to the palace. A shade led them through perfumed gardens and past tinkling water fountains. Ghostly insects played among luminous flowers. Detailed statues marked turns in the path, and the rest of the stonework was carved just as intricately. A distant wind chime sounded once every minute or so, presaging the arrival of light gusts of air.

They were brought to a small circular paved area that was lined with benches. Two ghosts, real ghosts, stood on either side of one of those benches. That bench was occupied by a small, slender figure. A crown of glassy flowers and silver vines adorned his striped hair.

He turned slightly, slowly, to face them.

Ellie couldn't restrain a gasp. Danny was missing an eye.

#danny phantom #dannymay #dannymay 2020 #day 18

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skvaderarts · 3 years

Text

Saudade 1. Lessons Learned

Hey everyone! Sorry for the note instead of a chapter today. I have some good news though despite everything. I, unfortunately, have to push back the new story Hiraeth until New Years Day due to personal reasons, but I do have something for you to read today. Saudade, the side story series to my Soliloquy Trilogy (wow it's cool to be able to say that!) is releasing its first chapter today, so go check that out instead! I think you'll like what I whipped up for you to enjoy :D

Again, sorry for the delay, but between the holidays and some other things that came up, I just had to push it back another two weeks. Please forgive me!

Chapter One: Lessons Learned

Notes below!

-~-

Several decades ago…

In the twenty long centuries or more that he’d spend carrying out his rather eventful day to day life in the human world, the Dark Knight Sparda had undertaken many different kinds of challenges. He’s sat on the royal courts of kings and queens, and traveled to enumerable locations in an effort to seal away the darkness that he’d once contributed towards creating in his time serving the Prince of Darkness himself. In doing those tasks, he’d experienced a great many things, especially when it came to matters of war and destruction, many of which he’d fought singlehandedly, but nothing had prepared him for the seemingly innocuous task of keeping up with his two young sons, the both of which seemed literally hellbent of causing as much destruction and chaos as they possibly could. In many senses, they were the very anthesis of their father.

Calm, collected, and generally at ease, Sparda was still entirely unsure as to how the union between his lovely wife and himself could result in tiny creatures with such a strong predilection towards destruction. For the most part, Vergil was the exception to this rule. He spent the majority of his time quietly reading and shadowing his father around the house, only getting into notable trouble when Dante was involved to some degree. It wasn’t so much that the younger of the two was troublesome perse, it was that he didn’t tend to take no for an answer when it was presented to him, and he took any limitations set before him as a personal challenge. There was rambunctious, and then there was the wholehearted deep-seated hatred that their youngest son seemed to feel towards any and all rules and limitations.

And that was why Sparda had concocted a different sort of education method.

Like clockwork, the two children appeared before him, answering his summonses as he’d expected them to when he’d called them only a moment before. While their mother had no idea where they were at the moment, he could sense their presence on a more mynute level, an ability that came in handy on a regular basis. They stumbled their way into the room in a manner that spoke volumes. He was certain that they had been in the middle of something unsavory until he’d redirected their attention, and he couldn’t escape the feeling that he very well might find out what that thing was sooner rather than later.

“It has come to your mother’s attention that there is an insect nest of some kind in a tree in the back garden.” Sparda turned to glance in the direction of the back garden, knowing exactly which tree she was referring to and completely aware of the fact that both of his sons were actively trying to figure out which one he was referring to.” I’ve been asked to dissuade you in regards to meddling with it as it may cause you temporary harm.”

The two young children glanced between one another before nodding in conformation, more than capable of comprehending the concept of being stung by an unfriendly insect. They knew what pain was, and at least one of them had no desire to actively seek it out. While they both healed exceptionally quickly, that didn’t change the fact that they were still able to feel pain.

“Okay father, I won’t,” Vergil said with a slight shoulder shrug, opting instead to wander off and browse the bookcase in search of something less hazardous to do. If he was going to put himself in harm’s way, it was going to be with sword lessons or something similar, not by doing something as stupid as picking a fight with a stinging insect.

Dante peered around his father, curiosity overriding what should have been an obvious warning bell. I mean, they couldn’t kill him, right? What was the harm in it? They were just a couple of little bugs.” That makes sense. But can I still look at them? I don’t think they mind, right?”

Expecting something akin to that response from at least one of his offspring, he repressed the urge to chuckle slightly, shaking his head slowly.” I can’t say that I’ve ever asked them as much myself. But I’d advise against attempting to do so.”

The youngest member of the family looked disappointed by his father’s answer, but sighed and ran off, slowing to something akin to a jog when he considered what his mother or father would say if they caught him doing so. Sparda watched him go before casually resuming the book that he’d been reading prior to their conversation, taking a few sips of his tea as he resumed his more or less relaxed state. Vergil joined him, sitting on the floor nearest to him in a quiet attempt to spend meaningful time with his normally frantically busy father. The Dark Knight appreciated the gesture and was going to say as much, but before long the young white-haired child leaped up and scampered over to the window, his attention clearly fixed on something. Before Sparda could move to see what his oldest son was so interested in, Eva entered the room, a calm look of concern on her face.

“Darling, have you seen Dante? He’s been practically begging me to bake some sweets with him the last few days and we were supposed to do so a short while ago but now, for the life of me, I can’t seem to locate him.” Although her calm demeanor hid it very well, she was clearly concerned as to what had become of their youngest child. Dante had no perception of time, but he very rarely missed out on sugary treats. It was very unlike him.” Do you have any idea where he may have wandered off to?”

Sparda never got the opportunity to respond. Instead, Vergil did so for him, pointing out of the window behind him as he faced both of his parents, a slightly nervous look on his face. He already knew where this was going, and he was glad that this time he wasn’t on the receiving end of what he knew would be his mother’s displeasure, possibly even his father’s depending on how he decided to react to this situation. “Umm… I found Dante?”

As if on cue, a piercing cry followed by a branch snap and a notable impact with the ground could be heard from a short distance away, revealing Dante’s whereabouts to both of his slightly baffled parents. Eva folded her arms and gave Sparda a stern look as the white-haired devil Knight exhaled in obvious displeasure. Neither of them needed to inquire as to where their young son was or what had just happened.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, dear, but didn’t I ask you to take care of that nest sometime today?” Eva said, clearly unamused as to what had just happened. While she’d witnessed their abilities first hand, that didn’t make her any less concerned when it came to their wellbeing.

He nodded somewhat hesitantly.” That you did. And I warned them both to be warry of it, not even a half-hour ago, but as you can see…” He leaned over to see where Dante had gone just in time to see the child in question come running into the house yelping in discomfort as the results of his misadventures became clear for everyone to see.”... that didn’t exactly go as planned.”

Neither of them could hear very well as Dante babbled incoherently, completely taken aback by how unpleasant the combined sensation of being both attacked by hornets, and then falling out of a tall birch tree could be. He’d probably broken something, and that wasn’t taking into account his pride. Eva gave him a look somewhere between displeasure and concern as she tried to comprehend what on earth the distressed child was trying to communicate to them both.

With a look of almost stupefied disbelief, Sparda glanced over at Dante, somewhat sympathetic to his youngest child’s obvious suffering, but also unable to grasp how he’d managed to locate and enrage the unagreeable insects in such a timely manner. “Dante, this is why I advised against trying to befriend creatures that possessed singers and venom,” Sparda said sternly, earning him a much more extreme reaction than he’d considered reasonable.

The overwhelmed child burst into hysterical crying, none of which he doubted was ingenuine. That didn’t mean that he fully understood the reaction, however. He gave Dante a pat on the head, standing. “I suppose that I should go and take care of the nest then. Best to be overly cautious on this specific location.”

Eva shook her head, releasing Dante from her comforting grasp and sighed as she smoothed the wrinkles out of her long dress.” Oh no, dear. I’ll take care of this. You see to it that Dante is taken care of.”

With that, she gave the youngest of her twin sons a kiss on the cheek before heading down the hallway and up the stairs, a fierce look of determination on her normally calm face. The three of them watched her go, utterly bewildered. Not a single one of them understood what she intended to do to the hapless insects, but they knew two things. There weren’t going to try and stop her, and they were fortunate indeed that they didn’t have the misfortune of being on the receiving end of her plans.

It was an occasion they would never forget. Especially the hornets.

-~-

Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed this little side story! I’d love to hear your suggestions for future ones. I plan to do these from time to time as a little bit of filler for the main stories. Sorry about the delay. Hopefully, this can fill the void between now and Hiraeth’s release. I have another chapter coming out on Christmas. Family stuff came up! I’ll see you all again on New Years Day! Enjoy the holidays!

#Devil May Cry #Sparda and Eva #Sparda Family #Dante #Vergil #DMC

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adventuresloane · 4 years

Note

"I told you you'd get sick", because it is such prime fluff starting material..

((So I made this way longer than originally intended and followed the prompt in the most tangential of ways. No one should be shocked at this point.))

As was her wont, Lup knocked on the front door, didn't wait for a response, and phased into the house through the two inches of wood. "Alright, I'm here to make chicken soup and accidentally scorch your petunias," she said, "and I've already...well, sorry about that."

Rather than remarking that he had planted those all of four days ago, Kravitz skipped over her greeting altogether. "You know, Lup, this is going to be your home in a few months anyway." Not to mention that she dropped by just about daily regardless. "You don't have to knock every time."

She shrugged, causing the flames that rose from her shoulders to shiver upwards before falling again. "Still gotta wait until I get my body back before I enjoy that bedroom you got picked out for me. How's Taako?" This was usually one of the first things she asked, although it was a particularly relevant question today. "That doofus had better be sleeping."

"He's trying, I think. It's hard for him, though. He says he hasn't slept in the past decade. I'm sure he's out of practice if all he does is Trance."

"Right, right," she said, then turned her black, featureless face inside her red hood back towards him. In the same tone that she'd had when she'd floated in, she continued, "Well, he's lucky he's capable of lying in a bed at all."

"Yes," Kravitz said, right before he said nothing. For a few moments that felt too long and slightly sweaty to him, he stared at Lup, and presumably she stared back, in spite of the fact that he couldn't tell where her eyes were. Her spectral form bobbed slightly up and down in the air, and flames with dark red centers licked off the char-black bones of her hands, and suddenly he was rather glad she always knocked rather than, say, floating up through the floor unannounced when she felt like it. And now the silence was decidedly awkward. He pushed aside one of several unopened cardboard boxes with his foot. "Um, it's his own fault, really. Taako's been spending all his time trying to unpack and organize the house at the same time he's getting things organized to start his school. It's no wonder he's fallen ill--"

"Language." He turned to face her when she piped up. "Just say 'got sick.' No one says 'fall ill' anymore."

He huffed.

"Hey, you were the one who asked me to correct you when you talked like an old geezer."

This was true. It was also true, he was sure, that she enjoyed chastising him for a change, when normally he was the one telling her what to do during reaper training. He moved on. "So I did what you said. The chicken's been slow-cooking for several hours now."

"And you put all the seasonings he likes under the skin like I said? You got the rosemary in there?"

"Yes."

"And the parsley?"

"Two teaspoons of dried."

"And the oregano?"

Kravitz balked and gawked at her. She only kept waiting expectantly. There was no way. He had double- and triple-checked the list she had given him in the knowledge that this had to be made perfectly. How could he have concentratedpassed over something like--?

She laughed. "I'm fucking with you. Lighten up, dude." She attempted to pat him on the shoulder as she floated past him into the kitchen. Her hand passed right through him a couple times, but eventually she hard enough to make contact. Sometimes she spent a lot of time trying to touch corporeal things. Maybe that was how she'd burned the flowers. "Anyway, who's gonna use oregano when you've already got a buttload of rosemary in there? Come on."

But that was what he was here for today, to be her hands. According to her, there was precious little room for error when making this soup if they wanted to do it The Right Way, no leeway for her to accidentally drop in too much celery or pepper. There was precious little room for error, Kravitz reminded himself as he followed her instructions to strip the chicken meat from the bones.

"I bought a few different kinds of noodles, since I wasn't sure what was best," he said. "There's those twisty egg noodles, thin pasta, the flat ones--"

"Flat," Lup answered rather like a patient schoolteacher, "and don't break them up when you put them in the soup. He'll slurp them up one-by-one when no one's watching, but he'll never admit that. That comes later, though. The noodles cook separately, and it doesn't take long."

"Oh. Sure," he responded quietly.

"We used to make the noodles from scratch back on the ship and save them for rainy days, but store-bought's gonna have to do. Hey, do you have a pepper mill?"

"A what?"

"You know, for grinding up fresh-cracked pepper. Taako likes a lot of it."

"Oh, right. I think we do, but it might be in storage." Kravitz clumsily tried to get his nails under the papery skin of a garlic bulb, trying to peel it off. "Did he tell you he likes it fresh-ground better?"

Lup cocked her head a little. "I don't think he told me, per se. He just...well, he always used to like it that way, at least."

He nodded, stiffly. Then he continued nodding through a litany of other questions and corrections from her, about how much water he's already added and how much he needs to reduce the broth later and how to extract the flavor from the bones and how much salt was needed. There was a temptation to remark that he could, in fact, operate a stove. But he would say this for her: for someone who came across as so impulsive sometimes, she was surprisingly fastidious when it came to cooking. She knew everything about this dish. About what Taako liked about it. Given that he didn't feel hunger and as such hadn't done much in the way of cooking for hundreds of years, he had little choice but to listen to her. Although it would be nice if she could stop instructing him long enough for him to try to absorb what he was doing, so that he could remember all these details himself, for the next time Taako got sick.

He was so busy trying to keep up with her that he barely registered it when she abruptly switched to praise. "You're not half-bad, Skele-friend."

"Huh?" he responded, all dignity. "Oh, well, I'm just doing what you tell me. Or trying to."

"Yeah, well, you're doing a good job of it. Especially since you haven't taken orders from anyone less than a goddess for, what, a few centuries?"

"And you haven't made this recipe in quite some time. It's incredible how well you remember it."

She paused. "Taako's the one who always used to make it, actually," she murmured. "I'd be the helper. Unless I was the one who was sick. Then he'd do it himself. I feel like it's about time I returned the favor."

Kravitz couldn't keep from grinning at the thought. "I had a feeling he'd be a caring older brother."

"He's not my older brother. We're twins."

"Who's older, though?"

"Neither, we were born at the same time!"

"So you're the younger one."

She attempted to give him a playful shove. "Of course you'd take his side," she said in an exaggerated grumble. "I suppose you've had siblings?"

"Yes," he said quietly. He returned to stirring and said nothing else. Mercifully, she got the hint. After a moment, she materialized a white wand of sharpened bone into her hand (one of Barry's ulna's that he'd gifted to her, she'd told Kravitz once, which...said something about their relationship, alright). He watched her point it into the broth.

His side-eye must have been more obvious than he'd suspected, because she huffed when she could sight of him staring. For someone whose face was little more than a black void with an ember-like glow of red at the center, she could give quite the eye-roll. "Relax, Mr. Death Cop. It's healing magic." She stopped for a moment, apparently to judge whether she could push her luck. "Though, you know, necromancy is hardly different from the stuff clerics do every day."

"I'm no arcanologist, Lup. I just take down cultists. And you know that whether or not clerics do it doesn't matter to the Raven Queen. Whether it's Vampiric Touch or Revivify, it's still a corruption of fate."

"Alright, spare me the speech, please. I'm just saying," she said with another shrug. "I am an arcanologist, and I can tell you that it's the same kind of magical energy to heal or hurt, just flowing in different directions."

There had been an eon when he had felt that as opposed to simply knowing it, back before he'd had a scythe or a home in the Astral Plane. When he could ease his mother's headaches with a song.

"Shit," she shouted out of nowhere, as the blue flames from the gas burners shot up suddenly. Kravitz scrambled for the heat dials. "Shit, wait, doesn't everything he eat taste like Gogurt now? What if he can't even taste the soup?"

"It's okay, Lup," he responded before she could go on. "I've asked him about that. He said soup doesn't count for the curse. He'll be able to taste it."

"Oh." She sounded as though she'd let out a sigh of relief, though she lacked lungs. "Okay, I just wasn't sure. Magnus had to tell me that, you know. I wouldn't have even known Taako was cursed otherwise."

Kravitz glanced her way. "Does that bother you?"

"It's not like he has to tell me," she said quickly. Everything else came out much less enthusiastically. "It's just weird that I...don't already know, I guess. I've just--you'll want a chef's knife for that."

"Which one is--?"

"Curved blade. And it's easier if you don't move the knife back and forth. Just pass the carrot under the blade while you chop." She sighed. "Anyway, I just missed things. A lot."

Kravitz bit his lip. "Well...you still know him like no one else. You realize that, don't you? I feel like I'm playing catch-up with all the rest of you. You all had a hundred years to figure him out. And you in particular had quite a few more."

"You're not doing too bad on that front already, bud." He could have sworn he saw a smile peek out from under the hood. He didn't recall her ever calling him "bud" before. "Not from what Taako's told me, anyway."

He stopped stirring the wooden spoon through the golden fluid for awhile. "I guess it's good you'll be moving in with us before too long, huh? We can bring each other up to speed."

"Listen, this shit's gonna be done before long. Why don't you take it up to him yourself?"

Kravitz looked her way. "You sure? It's your soup. You don't want to come up with me?"

"I'll see him plenty later. I'm sure I will."

Minutes later, he was knocking on the door of Taako's bedroom--their shared bedroom, now, with a new king-sized bed and mattress. There were a few instances of throat-clearing before Kravitz heard a croak of "Come in."

He pushed through the door, steaming bowl in both hands. "Hey, darling, have you slept at all?"

"Can't sleep at the best of times, babe." Taako followed up the answer with a snort. "This cold's some bullshit."

He chuckled. "I told you you'd get sick if you kept working like you've been."

"Can it, Bone-Hands McGee." He sat up and struggled to sniff some air through his stuffed nose. "Hey, is that--?"

"Lup helped." He lifted his shoulders in a way that he hoped would come across as self-effacing, as if the soup in his hands didn't smell like absolute heaven.

"That so?" He wiped his nose with a tissue, though not before Kravitz saw the blush creep into his warm cheeks. He saw that blush a lot, and just at the moment that the two of them met eyes. Each time was a gift just for him, whether Taako meant to give it to him or not. "Let's give it a whirl then."

Kravitz sat next to him on the bed and watched the whole while as Taako held the bowl under his nose, let the steam waft up into his sinuses, tipped his head back to show his smooth neck and closed his eyes and drank the broth slowly. Then he licked his lips abruptly and said, "Not bad for someone who considers fancy wine to be an entire meal. Hey, get out of my bed of contagion. You're the one who's gonna get sick next."

He chuckled and ran a hand through Taako's already pillow-ruffled hair. "That's the nice thing about being dead already, sweetheart. I can't really get sick." To prove the point, he kissed his cheek.

He kept doing it, in fact, as he and Taako sat together and as the soup was slowly consumed. He hummed softly, then sung more so. And a few times, when he touched his lips to his boyfriend's skin, he tried to dredge up the kind of magic that he hadn't hadn't used for centuries, for the majority of his life. Not since he'd been alive. It felt far different from the kind he used to electrocute or grapple a necromantic cultist, and at first it felt like trying to run water through a pipe that hadn't seen a drop in decades. But he felt the warmth of the magic like he felt the vibration of his vocal chords, energy coming from deep inside of him, from nothing. Taako seemed to breath more easily as the Healing Word took effect.

It was after the bowl had been sitting empty for awhile that Kravitz felt Taako's breathing slow next to him and take on the rhythm not of meditation, but of sleep.

#taako #kravitz #lup #taakitz #taz balance #taz #the adventure zone #the zone cast #taz fanfic #fan fiction #fluff #sickfic #food cw #lup taaco #taz kravitz #anonymous #ask meme

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whetstonefires · 5 years

Text

mask of blood

Batman clearly hadn't slept in days. The cowl was pushed back, crumpled and vaguely grubby. Shadows cut deep into his face, and his eyes were rimmed-red. It had gone past the point where weariness betrayed his humanity to the viewer, and instead leant him a ghoulish look.

They'd seen him like this before, pushed to anyone else's breaking point and beyond, but rarely ever this unguarded. Jason Blood and Etrigan were an entity the Batman kept his guard up around. They were magic, and unpredictable, and their morals were none too reliable, and he needed as perfect a façade in the face of all these things as could be achieved.

Not that it had ever made much difference, but he couldn’t know that.

If he'd known he wasn't alone in the Batcave, even here Batman wouldn't have let the wear show.

…he'd probably have changed his costume to one with fewer mustard stains on the tights, too. At least he was eating.

It wasn't a case, this time, that he was pushing himself for. Not really. It was the disappearance of one Jason Peter Todd.

Jason Blood (with Etrigan providing silent, rhyming acid commentary) had been there at the old Potter's Field outside the city three nights ago, to see the portal open in midair, in the midst of a tense showdown. Watched it swallow the Red Hood. And close.

"Jason!" Batman had shouted, arm desperately outstretched as if to catch what was no longer there. He'd sounded wrenched apart. As though having experience losing this one of his several sons made no difference at all to the shock and pain of it, or even made it worse.

Blood hadn’t been the one he meant by that name. So he’d stayed silent. He'd remained in the shadows, and then slipped away.

Checked his messages two days later to find Batman had tried seven times to contact him.

It had been...gratifying, actually. Especially once he confirmed that the reason was, in fact, to consult him for his expertise on magical portals.

The machine Batman had been carefully calibrating since he arrived tonight sparked abruptly, and lost power. "No!" Batman tore the casing open and began poking at internal wiring, without disconnecting the power source, which as even people from the sixth century CE knew was an excellent way to stupidly kill yourself.

As good an entrance cue as any.

"It won't work," Jason said, and stepped from his hiding place, mystic veils scattering.

Batman's head snapped around. There was no instant of alarm; there was one of menace, but it passed as soon as he recognized the intruder. "Blood," he said, a tone of curt greeting. Withdrew his tweezers from the guts of the device, lowering his immediate odds of sudden death by at least fifty percent. "Excellent, I've been trying to reach you for days—tell me what will work, then," he added, processing Jason's words several seconds late.

The man of bats I dare well say / has had no rest by night or day / or else his brains just rot away!

Jason ignored Etrigan's commentary with the ease of long, long practice. He shook his head. "You aren't going to be able to get him back from when he's gone away to."

Batman's face darkened, enough that he was more intimidating than he could ever have been with the mask on—from Jason's perspective at least; that of someone who was fully aware of the man's fragile mortality. Gotham’s underbelly might disagree. "I think you'll find I have sufficient experience with time displacement to make that sort of judgment for myself. If you don't plan to be helpful you can see yourself out."

He turned his attention resolutely back to the machine, which was putting out halfhearted sparks again.

Jason almost went. Let that be the end of it. So what if the Dark Knight did electrocute himself, and end this farce on the note it deserved.

But no, he didn't, he didn’t even come close to leaving; Etrigan laughed at him for the weak lie. "You can't rescue him, Bruce," he said, and it was—gentle, almost, kinder than he'd found it easy to be in a long, long time. "Because…”

A long, slow breath. The plunge. “Because I already made it back here the slow way."

Batman went still as a murdered thing, and then looked up. "You..." he said, slow with disbelief and hope and fear and horror and joy and exhaustion, his eyes hunting the planes of the accursed knight's ever-youthful face.

Jason let out his breath, and let the glamor shred. It was a light, minor one, very little work to keep up; he'd been wearing it for decades. Just enough to sharpen his cheekbones and his chin, blunt the end of his nose, change the curve of his eyelids and the weight of his mouth.

His hair stayed red. It had been red for a long, long time, a lie turned truth. Dyed by blood, Merlin had said, before he died. The star of white above his brow had been the same all along. Since death had given him up the first time.

"You," whispered Bruce, all pain. It was so much like another night, over a thousand years ago, when Jason had dropped mask before this man on a rooftop.

But it was different, too, because it wasn't fond memories of the dead stripped away from Batman now but the hope of staging a rescue, of regaining the lost child with whom he’d only just begun to build a lasting peace. And because he stared not with the blow of a dark suspicion confirmed but with complete, blindsided shock. "All along?"

There was so much pain in the way he asked it, it almost drowned out all else.

All Jason's pain had worn out a long time ago.

Etrigan laughed at him again. Jason ignored him.

"Hey Bruce," he said, and smiled, crooked and warm and raw, Gotham running up into his voice, nothing like anyone expected from Jason of the Blood.

He'd lost the accent, of course. A long time ago. It had worn away. It hadn’t even taken a century. He'd forgotten exactly how it even should sound, until he was able to listen to it again. And even then, even long slipped away and lost from his own tongue, it had sounded like home.

Why Gotham? people had asked sometimes, ever since he relocated here in 1806. Vandal Savage had asked, not caring about the answer. Constantine had asked. Batman had asked, once, possessive. I like the atmosphere, Jason had shrugged, because he had no intention of telling any of them his real reasons.

Once the city had started to look familiar, he'd lurked in the Narrows and the Cauldron, listening to the children play, just to learn the rhythm again, so he'd have it if he wanted it. Etrigan had made fun of him, but he didn't have so many pieces of himself left that he was willing to let one pass, if he could pick it up again.

He'd kept to Jason Blood's trim, careful diction anyway. Played his part. In spite of his lack of any efforts at all to conserve the timeline, everything was the same when his original lifetime rolled around again. After so long, he knew inevitability when he saw it.

"Jason."

The voice dragged him back into the moment, where Bruce had vaulted the table in a single easy motion that belied his exhaustion and now flung his arms around the immortal trespassing in his Batcave before Jason had time to judge the emotion in his voice.

Because the details didn't matter, it seemed, when the son you'd feared you might never see again walked calmly back into your life. Even if he was fifteen hundred years older than the last time you'd seen him.

(Jason was old enough, now, that he could accept that duffel bags full of heads were not actually details. But apparently to Bruce, at a moment like this, everything became only a detail, and he was amazed he’d never understood, as a youth, that men whose coldness was not feigned were nothing like this man at all. He’d understood that much as a child. Children were oddly knowing sometimes.)

When it happened, his displacement, before he'd even started working his way toward Camelot, Jason had hoped at first for rescue. Counted on it, even, the first day or two.

Eventually, he'd started wondering if they'd even tried. Whoops, magic portal, all in a day's work. Jason's probably fine, right? He’ll figure something out. He's not even dead this time. The first horse he'd stolen in Northumbria had been subjected to several diatribes on the theme.

By the time Merlin’s curse had trapped him into a story he’d already known, forever passing through time the slow way with an enemy laughing inside his head, he’d already been resigned to it. It had been over a thousand years.

And yet it healed something he'd long stopped noticing was broken, to find the man who'd adopted him so long ago here, at the start, so utterly desperate for his rescue.

…and he found it broke something he'd never realized was still whole, to know his loss had shattered Batman twice; to know there really had been a home to go back to, in spite of all he'd convinced himself of in those distant days, before offering his trained sword-arm to King Arthur. And that once again, the child Batman had lost could never come home. Because he didn’t exist anymore.

Batman was a fragile mortal thing in his arms, and Etrigan for once had the decency to shut up.

"Sorry," Jason said, and that seemed to break the spell enough that Bruce stopped just hugging him and stepped back to half of arm's length, keeping a firm hold on one of his elbows and reaching up to run a thumb over Jason's cheekbone, as though testing it for reality.

"It was really you?" he asked. "All along?"

He'd known Jason Blood since his late teens, though never very well. They'd never been on particularly good terms. Jason hadn't been able to...bear it. Risk it. Something. He’d needed his distance. It had been so long since it was half this hard not to meddle.

Also, young Bruce was annoying and had needed putting in his place. It wasn't like Jason hadn't taught him useful things about how to fight against magic, eventually. Usually, he could admit, through object lessons.

That had been a highly cathartic period, really.

"Sorry," said Jason again, a little more cheerfully at the memory of giving 17-year-old Batman a hard time.

He watched Bruce remember just how old Jason Blood was known to be, and how much that meant Jason had lived through.

Batman’s hand came up over his temple into the red of his hair. “Jason,” he said.

“Jason of the Blood,” Jason affirmed. “Jason the Red.” Accursed. Betrayer. Warlock. Someone who regretted and regretted and never, ever apologized. “It’s—look, it’s Merlin’s fault, but as usual I rather deserved it.” He frowned, because he’d heard his own dialect slip, there, out of the carefully relearned patterns of Jason Todd of Gotham, and it was very obvious so had Bruce.

Jason took a step back, slipping free of Batman’s grip. His studied calm was starting to abandon him, and he could no longer bear to be touched. (Bruce didn’t fight to keep hold of him. He was grateful for the understanding and respect, at the same time something ancient and tiny and cracked and very young at the bottom of his soul keened and raged and hissed at being given up.) “I missed you,” he told the man who had been his father, because he deserved to know that. “Over a thousand years, and you were one of the things I never stopped missing.”

Even when he couldn’t remember—and there had been significant stretches of being unable to remember, both by mischance and on purpose to spare himself the weight of all that time, or in exchange for Etrigan’s silence. Even then, he’d felt the ache of missing, of having a place he’d once belonged and not being there. Arthur had come close, for a while, before it all fell apart, but…

“There’s no way to spare you that, Jay-lad?” Bruce asked, the old nickname grown beyond absurd with the current difference in their ages. “No way to bring you home? You’re sure.”

“Sorry, Bruce.” He wished. “Even if Merlin hadn’t trapped me, we’re in a stable time-loop now. Pulling me out of it could rupture time and space.”

“Hrm.” From the set of Batman’s jaw, space, time, and Merlin were all subject to being hung upside down by an ankle and menaced until they changed their minds. From the slightly unfocused look of his eyes, he was going to collapse any minute now.

Batman squinted, fighting his own eyeballs to scour Jason’s face for something, some truth that might unlock a hidden solution, some hint of a new deception, something. Jason let his face stay dry and cool, smooth as marble. He wondered if Bruce was looking for nothing more complex than traces of the boy he’d known.

That swagger he’d perfected back in the day had been only another mask. He wondered if Bruce thought Jason Blood was that as well. A gauze easily brushed aside. But he had been Jason of the Blood for lifetimes, and Jason Todd was so long ago and far away.

Jason took another step back, and Bruce frowned. “Where are you going? Jason. Stop.”

In no lifetime had he liked commands, and only for a few years of his very first had he accepted them from this voice, and yet he hesitated. “Whatever for?” he asked. “I only came to make sure you didn’t kill yourself trying to retrieve something past recovering.”

“Well, for one thing, if you disappear again absolutely no one is going to believe me.” Batman paused. “I may not believe myself, when I wake up. I’m badly compromised at the moment.”

“You want me to stay around for verification.” He didn’t want to. He could feel his willpower disintegrating.

Etrigan was laughing.

“Dick’s been blaming himself,” Bruce told him, carefully motionless, as though Jason was a wild bird he feared to scare off. “Tim’s been pulling all his contacts and verging on distraught. Damian’s been working himself to exhaustion trying to keep your turf clean for when you come back.”

His brothers. Hah. They were phantoms to him, even having seen and spoken to each of them again a least once within the last decade. Batman might as well have invoked the names of Gawain and Lancelot.

…but if Gawain and Lancelot had been alive, and in the next room or a nearby castle to be conjured with, that probably would have worked.

The fledgling with wings clipped away / back to the nest it longs to stray / as if its claws were only grey.

Shut up, Jason thought viciously. Days when Etrigan decided to rhyme everything on a single syllable were particularly hard on the nerves.

“Please,” said Bruce, the pause having evidently stretched on long enough he’d given up on a clear answer. “Stay.”

Jason shook his head. “I’ll meet you in the study at eleven in the morning,” he said, taking another step back. “Get some rest.” And he stepped back through another portal, this one of his own practiced summoning, and was gone.

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