#he said yeah I’ll help you kill this monster from hell but I draw the line at taking my bandana out of my pocket

[callm3-q]

WIP

disclaimer: Starhalo/sweetduo, Marriage, homosexuality[ don't know what else you'd expect from the LGBTQSMP]

-Summary-

-Bad and Ètoiles get married in the span of 15 hours, cause they don't know any better, and why the hell not :D

-Fluff

-WIP

Just a long term alliance, not a marriage proposal

[Ch 1- Isn’t that how it’s done?]

WHAT!? BAD! NO NO NO NO NO! AHHHHH! NO NO NO BUT ALSO FUCK YESSSSSS! BAD YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED! HOLY SHIT! IN I-IN LIKE… FUCK! IN LIKE 10 HOURS!? OH MY FUCK…

You good now?

Y-you’re getting married…YOU’RE- YOU, YOU, MARRIED!?

Well… I wouldn’t call it that… More of a… Long term alliance

Of course you would call it that…

Chill out Baghs, I already dealt with most of it

Really?

W-What? Of course! I’m not some soulless person who would give someone a crappy wedding! What kind of monster do you think I am?

Bad said, sounding kind of genuinely sad that she would think that.

W-Well… You are a demon…

…One thing you may not know about demons Baghs… We can through one heck of a party

…

…

…

Ok! 5 hours left… Hmmm… I cannnn… Ooh! I can make a new ring , I just needed one quick for the… asking for the long term alliance… Definitely not a proposal. Anyways! The store bought ones are always just straight terrible all gross and basic [for how expensive they are], non of which are anything close to what Ètoiles is, he’s just… The best. And he deserves the best, obviously. Why else would I marryyyyyy- suggest a long term not proposal alliance. 

…But how should the ring look… We need something that is easy to wear during combat, something that will stay on, and it has to be small, not to much, not to little, something that will suit him. Hmm… Maybe… Stars! That’s literally what “Ètoiles” stands for, something like… Like, we could, make thin outlines of stars around the ring, thin lines, so it doesn’t get caught on anything. I want him to be able to wear it all the time so people know that he’s in a long term alliance with me and not anyone else.

Bad had zoned out, not even noticing Dapper watching him from around the table. He only noticed when he felt a small tug on his cloak.

Oh! Good morning Dapper!

Good morning dad, what were you thinking about?

Oh, nothing important

Well, important or not I wanna know

Well, ok then. I’m going to a wedding in about 5 hours

What? Who’s getting married?

Me?

WHAT!?

What?

YOUR GETTING MARRIED DAD?!

Yeah?

TO WHO?! I’LL KILL THEM

Please don’t, and it’s not a ‘marriage’ per say, more of a long term alliance

Your getting married

I guess you could say it like that, if you really wanted to

To who though? Who do you find good enough to marry you. I’ll kill them, nobody is good enough for my dad

That’s sweet Dapper, but please don’t kill Ètoiles…

Ètoiles?! Two of the people most known for not wanting to be tied down are getting married, what a sight to see

Not married Dapper, just an alliance

Yeah Yeah whatever. What about this ‘alliance’ were you thinking about

Well, I was thinking about just making him something

A ring?

How did you know? But yeah, I wanted something better that the stupid store bought ones, those ones stink

I agree, what design were you thinking of doing?

Well… I’ll draw it out for you, but be nice, I’m not an artist Dapper

…

…

…

It’s so pretty dad!

Thanks  Dapper… But like I said I’m not an artist…

Just give yourself the credit you deserve, but I would like to make a small sudjestion

What is it?

Make the jewel thingy on the top red

You sure?

Yep

Well If you say so Dapper, I’m gonna get to work

Ok, I’ll help!

…

…

…

What do you think Dapper?

It’e perfect!

That’s good to hear…

Are you ok?

Yeah…

Nervous…?

Kind of I guess…

It’s normal to be nervous dad

I know…

You’ll be great, and I’ll be there, right by your side cheering you on

Thanks Dapper

Bad choked out, not expecting to be crying. He brought Dapper into a hug, holding him tight. Crying into the top of his head, Dapper gladly accepted the hug. He felt bad, but proud. It was nice to see Bad getting this rush of emotion, felling so deeply about this, trusting someone enough to, finally, have a bigger bond that just a really close friendship.

You’ll do great dad…

All Dapper got in return was sobs, soft and quiet, but still audible.

Dapper looked slightly to the side, hearing the warp stone go off. He saw a small figure peeking out from the door. He signaled Pomme to come in, trying to not disturb Bad, who seemed to not hear the swoosh sound of the warp stone

Are you ok dad?

I-‘m ok Pomme

What happened…?

Pre-wedding jitters…

W-

Pomme paused, not wanting to make her dad more upset or nervous, but still having questions, having not heard about this until just now

You’ll do great dad… I’m sure the person your marrying will be  so happy to be with you

Yeah! 

Dapper replied, patting his dad’s shoulder softly

Calming Bad’s sobs down into small hiccups

T-thank you kids…

No problem Dad… How much time before you’ve got to go?

Li-ke 2 hours…

Why don’t we get you dressed then

Pomme snickered, a wide grin sprawled onto her face 

Ok Pomme

Bad replied with a chuckle

…

…

…

You look so pretty dad!

Pomme said, ecstatically 

You think so?

We know so

Dapper replied proudly

You guys want to go get ready? I made sure I got you something you would like to wear, as a surprise from me to each of you specifically.

Ooooh yayyyy!

Pomme and Dapper ran into their bedrooms to get changed

…

…

…

Let’s get going…

Your gonna do awesome dad..

Thanks Dapper… Ok… let’s go…

…

…

…

Woahhhhh, this place looks amazing

Pomme said looking around, mouth agape in awe

Thanks Pomme…

Bad replied with a small smile spreading across his face

You did this dad?

Dapper looked up to Bad in shock

Yeah…

Woah…

Dapper had the same reaction as Pomme, mouth agape

I know it’s kinda crappy-

It’s amazing!

Well… I’m gonna go to, whatever that place is

Ok, see you later dad!

Bye Pomme, bye Dapper

…

…

...

[Dappers POV]

There were a lot of people there, guess word really spread fast, people were crying in joy? Pride? I don’t really know, but still, a ton of people. It would probably make dad freak out a bit.

Dapper kinda was wondering who would walk Bad down the aisle, kind of having a sneaking suspicion of who would. Not wanting to assume anything though.

Dapper saw Ètoiles walk out first

He looks… Fine… I guess… Nothing compared to my dad though.

Following he saw Sunny, Pomme, Empanada, Tallulah, and Leo. Pomme leading the group proudly, even though she had just figured out she was a flower girl. 

[End of POV]

Pomme, and all the other little huevitos in their little flower petered dresses, perfectly matching the color theme of the beautiful setting around them. Matching Almost all the things Ètoiles had told in secrecy to Bad, matching the things that he loves. All the colors, down to matching all the tones perfectly, the music, the setting, the time of night, all the stars visible through the glass roof. It was perfect.

Ètoiles saw Bad standing at the entrance, and my god did he look stunning. He felt his face get red, how could he not. He also saw Foolish? Walking him down the aisle, shocked that Foolish would agree. It also looked like he was crying? Again, shocking. But it was cute, they really do care about each other.

Once they had gotten all the way up to where Ètoiles was, Foolish went to stand to the side, behind Bad wiping the tears from his face. Ètoiles took in all the little details of the masterpiece that was in front of him, the luminous glow of Bad’s eyes to every little barely noticeable scar that covered his face, and even the barely visible freckles that were splattered perfectly on his face. He truly was just the definition of beautiful.

The outfit he had on just solidified it even more in Ètoiles’s mind, Bad was wearing a white suit, tailored to a perfect fit. He had on matching white shoes, guessing Pomme had helped him with the outfit, cute. But his suit, my god his suit. It was perfect, almost dress like, but not fully there. It was flowy and moved softly in the wind, like water. That’s what gave it away that Pomme and the other kids helped Bad with the outfit, always making Bad wear these kinds of things, Ètoiles wasn’t upset by it though, better for him. Bad can just find a way to make any outfit look good.

…

Bad inspected Ètoiles just as closely, seeing the way his hair effortlessly falls perfectly on his face, despite the wind blowing in the opposite direction, looking at his eyes, the light green blush spread across his face, the mask that usually hid the details of his face now gone. Ètoiles was so handsome, unbelievably and upsettingly so, how can he just so effortlessly look this good. And the black suit he was wearing suite him perfectly.

Both thoughts were quickly stoped when Dapper and Pepito came with the rings, holding them carefully.

Bad picked it up and put in onto Ètoiles’s finger, as Ètoiles stared in awe, at the intricate work of the ring, ‘Ètoiles’ inscribes into it, with a small red ruby on top, seeing how well put together this was, Ètoiles was ashamed of how sloppy his would look compared to Bad’s.

Ètoiles picked up the second ring and slipped it gently onto Bad’s finger, Bad was shocked that the islands greatest fighter was able to pull something so intricate off, the ring looked almost spiraled, The word ‘Halo’ inscribed on the inner walls of the ring, a small emerald embedded on the top.

…

…

…

Blah Blah Blah, after all the other boring wedding stuff

Vows

Recession

Procesional

Readings

The officiant

Etc

Let’s skip to the good part

[The Kiss]

Bad had gotten Max to officiate the wedding, seeing that he’s done it time and time again for the islanders.

…

Do you, Ètoiles, take BadBoyHalo, as your lawfully wedded husband

I do

Ètoiles stated, with no hesitation whatsoever

And do you, BadBoyHalo, take Ètoiles, as your lawfully wedded husband

I do

Bad said, with somehow less hesitation than Ètoiles

Then, by the power invested in me, I pronounce you husbands. You may kiss the Groom

Ètoiles grabbed Bad and immediately kissed him, dipping him. 

Bad didn’t fight back, gladly accepting everything that Ètoiles did. 

They stayed like that for a bit longer, before standing up straight again. Only looking at each other, only letting a quick glance out to the crowd. Seeing the Huevos still covering their eyes in disgust from the kiss made them laugh. They looked back to each other, love visible in their eyes. Ètoiles took Bad’s hands in his, noticing that they were way smaller than his. How they fit perfectly into his, how soft they were.

Ètoiles saw how happy Bad looked, he had never seen him so exited or happy before. It felt nice to see.

Bad looked lovingly into Ètoiles’s eyes, seeing him look back with just as much love. He had almost never felt so happy, first being when he got Dapper. Oh! Dapper! Where was Dapper? Bad looked around for him, quickly seeing him sitting with Richarlyson, Pomme, and Cheyenne by the kitchen. He smiled at Dapper, before looking back at Ètoiles

…

…

…

You did so good dad!

Dapper stated proudly

Y-Yeah

Pomme said, sobbing

Calm down Pomme

Bad said with a small chuckle

I-I-I Can’t! My- my dad-s j-ju-st got m-married!

Pomme said, still sobbing

Bad brought Pomme into a tight hug, gently patting her hair. Dapper squeezed his way into the hug, not wanting to be left out.

[Ètoiles’s POV]

Ètoiles was talking to Baghera, who was probably crying just as much as Pomme. But… Not out of happiness for him, more out of anger for not asking her for permission to marry her younger-brother-figure… Nice… But it’s not even like I knew, or even hoped the question! I only figured out I was getting married like, 15 hours ago! It was sudden, but still the best “Long Term Alliance” proposal I could of asked for.

Look Baghera, how could I have asked for your permission when, first, I wasn’t the one who proposed. And two, I didn’t even know I was getting married until 15 hours ago… sooo, how could I have asked for your permission?

Wait… 15 HOURS?!

Yeah…?

HOW!?

Isn’t that how it’s done?

NO?!

Oh

“OH”?!

Well either way, shut up about me not asking for your permission, be mad at Bad for not asking. I’m going to talk with Bad now, bye!

[End of POV]

Ètoiles walked over to Bad, hugging him from behind. Resting his head on Bad’s shoulder.

Oh, hi Ètoiles

Hi…

Are you ok?

Yeah

You sure?

Mhm

Ok

Hi dad!

Pomme said, running up to Ètoiles, hugging his leg

Hi Pomme, hi Dapper

Hi Ètoiles

Are you feeling ok dad?

Yeah, why?

You just seem a bit sad is all

Pomme said, moving back to look Ètoiles in the eyes

I’m alright, just tired I guess

You can go chill somewhere quieter if you want, I can keep everyone else entertained

Bad said softly, turning his head to look towards Ètoiles.

It’s ok

When you need to rest you need to rest, it’s nothing to be ashamed of love. It was a busy day

I know, I’m just waiting for you to be able to go with me

Ètoiles whispered the last part, placing a gentle kiss on Bad’s cheek

[halfasl33p]

this scene is so much funnier when u remember that eddie is literally always carrying his hankerchief/bandana thing around

[sparkbeast20]

You’re my Treasure (Mammon X MC) Pt11

The Blue Lotus petals (series)

As a fan of Beauty X Beast pairing, Showing your “true self” to Lover or (Monster Love) Tropes. I figure to make a (More Demonic Forms AU/head canon) story for each brothers. Heads up each brother’s Story is long as fuck. So, I’ll be posting them as parts and finishing one brother before moving on to the rest of them.

(spoiler for lesson 1-60)

Pt1 Pt2 Pt3 Pt4 Pt5 Pt6 Pt7 Pt8 Pt9 Pt10

Warning: Swearing, Demonic nature, Mention of blood, Past events, Unwanted hate towards a family member, and Attempted murder.

Note: I am really bad at warning.

Previously

The sound of coins being step on quietly filled the cavern, as someone pick up the old book on the ground and return back to sleep.

“So, you don’t want to control my body?” Mammon asks the beast reflected in the lake.

No....I have seen how your brothers treated you, and frankly I think you should fight back!

Mammon pouts at him, not likely the way his saying this.

“Hey! They might be a pain in the ass, but that all family are. Sure, we are at each other’s throats, but we have each others back when we need the most.” The beast huffs at that.

Name one time, you all agree to do something!

“The reaper’s cave”

Hm?

“We might not say it out loud, but we truly wanted to help Beel in anyway possible. Hell, it was a miracle that y/n was there. If was for them giving some of their candle to Beel, we would have made it a regular thing to go back to that cave for Beel.” He starts playing around with his ring, to distract himself from missing his brothers.

It seems that the human choice you out of your brothers why is that?

“y/n is not just a human! And why would you care if y/n choose me?”

I don’t know Mammon, why least you been repeating it in your head over and over causing me to wake up!

Suddenly Mammon felt a lump in his throat, he wants to respond but hesitant for a moment, then he spat it out.

“I haven’t done any of that”

Really? Let me refresh your memories

The last part the beast voice changes into his voice as he starts talking into it.

“I failed as protector and a guardian!” “They deserve better than me!” “Why they have to choose me to love” “Why settle with a weak and pathetic demon like me” “I SHOULDN’T BE SECOND OF THE AVATARS!?!”

Half way of the beast speech Mammon covered his ears, shut his eyes, and grinned his teeth with a snarl coming out of him. But he just keeps repeating his thoughts over his mind. Until Mammon scream.

“OKAY I GET IT!” he drops down it all fours as pant like he was exhausted. “I-I can’t be the demon they all want me to be”

Because you keep letting them to fill your mind with those thoughts, but what you should be doing is SHOW THEM!

Mammon looks back to the lake and asks “What do you mean?”

Kill The demon who attack our mate

“I can’t do that; the bastard knows and what I can do. Even if want to kill him, he’ll just move one location to the other”

Not unless you change into me…...

“I can’t…...” Mammon clenches his hands, digging his talons into his palms drawing blood as his body to tremble in the thought of changing back to that form the memories flood back in his mind, all the fights, the wounds which heals but the mental scars remain, and watching Levi and Asmo change right Infront of him. Their scream of agony rings in his ear as tears and blood drip down in to the ground as he starts to sob.

Are you scare after killing Basto, you’ll go and killing your brother while they’re in those forms?

Mammon quickly nods while his looking down at his bleeding hands.

You don’t have to worry about that

The beast spoke with a softer tone causing Mammon to look back at the lake.

“Wh?”

Look you and I are the same being, when I tell you that all you have to do is stay away from them for a week or two, to have better control over yourself and your instinct you might be the first one out of the seven of you to able to turn into your demonic form without the resist of killing your brothers.

Mammon is done founded about the beast just said.

“How are you sure that I can do that?”

Simple you and Asmo are the only ones that didn’t attack y/n when you get angry and threaten them. And you are the only one who never use violence against them by changing into your demon form. You might be a hothead but you never or will raise a hand to your brothers or to our mate.

Mammon is left speechless, the thing that he been scare of knows him well to the point of trusting him for being himself. He was right as much he hates being the first one to be targeting with name calling because of his sin, is not like his the only one, Asmo calling him a horn dog, Levi with his weird obsession with things and getting emotional, Beel with eating all the time, Belphie with out of nowhere naps and sleeps, Satan with his anger issues, and Lucifer being too proud for his own good.

Their demons now, is something they should be use to. But him have the most control out of the seven of them, makes him fill warm inside. That he should be proud of, and why he should let his brothers tell him that he has no self-control when anger.

But his sin oh yeah! He can’t argue with that, I mean he was willing to help Solomon to forge a pact with Lucifer for the Midas crest, and immediately takes all back when Asmo points out that once he gets the crest, he won’t able to touch you due to the crest make everything he touch turns into gold. It had to take Asmo to point it out, who just said it to openly admit that it will be less competition for him. To realize that he could have made one of his biggest mistakes of his life, for what gold!

Looking back at his hands and/or talons then his wings, looks back at his newly grown tail. It too late, he’s far along of the transformation as he his. If he agrees with the beast’s plan, its going to take some time, means that you need to go back.

“Hey, before I agree to yer plan, let me take y/n back to my brothers”

Mammon…. their better with us then back with your brothers

“Yer crazy!?! What if I kill them!”

MAMMON The last thing we want is our MATE DYING. AGAIN! I’m still a little mad at Sloth for what he did! He’s luckily that y/n forgave him, because if they didn’t rest assure, I would’ve wakened up that day!

Mammon flinch and snarl at just remember that day. Holding your past self in his arms as you choke on your blood causing Belphie. If he’s being honest with himself, sometimes he gets piss off whenever Belphie took a nap at your lap and asks pat his head like, he didn’t try to kill you long ago.

That reflex he just did, get angry when you get hurt or someone trying to hurt you. Maybe his beast does have a point.

“Okay, I’ll do it……I’ll-I’ll change, IF!! You make sure that y/n safety is my-our one goal! Go it!”

Even with a beak the beast smirk at Mammon

You have my word…… also you might feel A LOT of pain!

“Huh?...... Wh?”

Before Mammon can say anything else, he felt a pain in his abdomen, he wants to scream but he bites his lips muffling the scream. As he dug his talons into the ground dragging his hands closer to him. Then the pain slowly got worst by each heart beat and panting.

Soon the he couldn’t take it anymore and let out an agnosies scream.

Then a faith voice calls out to him.

“……Mammon…...”

“Mammon!”

Mammon wakes up from the dream by someone grooming his tail, he slowly opens his eyes and lifted up his head and let out a wake-up yawn. And turn his head to whoever is touching his tail.

His eyes narrows and he groans at the sight who it was.

“Morning Mammon, have a good night sleep” Asmo flash he cheerful smile as he fixes the feathers of his tail. “When is the last time you check your tail feathers, look at them some of them are uneven and others stuck together see….” He points at feathers with the vane split apart with dry blood.

“Oi! I didn’t have a chance to clean myself and beside y/n usually brushes and cleans my feathers so, back off” Mammon squawks at Asmo who just giggle at him.

Right, no one can hear him, well no one expect Lucifer who is close to what he is now. He just has to have you use gestures and his eyes to convey what he’s thinking.

“What a pain in the ass, ya all don’t listen to me when I was normal. Now I have to deal with this crap!?! Tch whatever, the herd must be at the lake at this time. Might as well get some food……. Oh shit! Beel’s here…. Great……”

“I know that you’re not a morning demon, so I know that your cranky. But maybe not try to be loud so you won’t wake up y/n” that snap Mammon out of his train of thought.

Surprise to what Asmo said, Mammon looked down in his arms to see your sleeping form curled up next to his chest as you nuzzle your cheek into in with a smile on your face.

He faces softens as gently rub your face with his, as a soothing cooing and purring comes off from him, causing you to let out a satisfying hum as you fall more asleep.

Then Mammon reaches out with beak for a thick fabric from the nest. Then he slowly and gently lay you on the nest and place the fabric under your head serving as a pillow as you continue to sleep.

Then he stood up leave the nest as Asmo let go of his tail and gazing at his brother’s action. Once out of the nest Mammon stretches bending down then stand back straight shake body ruffle his feathers and once finish the feathers fixes themselves as Mammon being his daily routine beginning with leaving the cave. And Asmo got up and follow his big brother.

“I-I don’t believe it. There’s no SIGNAL HERE!!!” Levi is basically reaching for the havens on top of the tree trying to get a signal for his D.D.D, but to no avail.

“Levi! Get down from there” Lucifer yells at Levi causing to flinch almost letting of the branch he was holding to keep himself balance.

From afar Satan and Belphie watches the two older brothers, with Beel who is cook breakfast inside the cave.

“Its just me or is Lucifer losing~”

“His cool? Yes, I’m all for it” Satan is gleefully smile at the sight of Lucifer completely abandoning all of his calmed and serious demeanor, for an anger, short tempered and animalistic one.

Then suddenly they heard talons being drag through rock behind them, they turn around to see Mammon walking out from the cavern and heading outside with Asmo not far behind him.

“Mammon, your awake you got to see this Lucifer is blowing a casket at Levi~” Mammon just keep on walking out ignoring Satan.

“Wait where you going? Breakfast is about to start” Beel got up from he sits next to the campfire and chase after Mammon.

Once outside, flap his wings and start flying, grabbing the attention of Lucifer and Levi.

“MAMMON!?!” Lucifer calls out to him, as he flew after him grabbing Levi’s arm towing along.

As Levi scream for help fade, Satan look at Asmo with a questionable look on his face.

“What did you do”

“Hey! Don’t look at me like that. I was just cleaning the feathers in his tail; I mean you saw him covered in blood of that bastard. You would have done the same thing” Asmo huffs and walk back inside.

“Oh, before you go, Lucifer was looking for the book that he used. Have you seen it?” but Asmo shook his head, not even looking at Satan as he went in to Help Beel with breakfast.

“Clearly one of us is lying about the book” Belphie said it looking at Satan.

“Obviously, but the question is who is lying”

[livvynka]

Can i get your vote? Kamilah x Amy x Priya AU

Warning: SMUT, death threatening, harsh sexual activities, Angst, Putting Kamilah in her place, bit of a fluff?

I’m not native english speaker, feel free to correct me (i would be actually glad).

NOTE: Story is before Kamilah and Amy fall in love, when Amy tries get Priya's vote, so Lily can join Adrian's clan. Uff, this takes a lot from me. :D

Pairing: Kamilah x Amy x Priya

About 2430+- words.

Tag list: @fal-carrington @samanthadalton @vonda-b-real @drmmyrs @straightlikewetspaghetti @blaine-hayes @lizielasyd @mrskamilahsayeed @millasayeed @ntoraplayschoices @ilove-kamilah-sayeed @kamilah-is-queen @rhonda-sayeed @queenkamilah @domakir @kwaj115 @fundamentalromantic @somethindarker @crimsonvrose @glowriter @leenasayeed

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.

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Amy has goosebumps just from the thought, she needs to visit and get to the good side of Priya's. She knows Priya is evil, and every good thing in her died a long time ago. But there is no way Kamilah or Adrian could break her so she does something nice for them. They are sitting in Adrian's office. Brainstorming plan how to get 4 votes, so Lily can live. Amy: "Alright, I pay her visit." Kamilah shoot stare to Adrian. Kamilah: "She's your pet. I don't care. But she gets all of you into this mess, so she needs to fix it." Adrian: "Kamilah be reasonable, she will not come back alive. You know Priya and her ´activities´..." Amy: "Kamilah is right. And there is no other way. She will send you to the hell in the moment you set your foot to her club."

Adrian: "No! We will find another way, I will not let anything to happen to you." Amy: "Maybe we will, but it will take a long time. And now, time is what we don't have. I already decide Adrian. And you cant change my mind. I'm going with or without your help." Kamilah: "Amy, she is going to break you. Don't underestimated her. Not every vampire is in control like us and our clans." Amy: "Now you care? You threaten to kill me, Kamilah! You can go back to your office, because you are not helping." Amy stands up and starts walking towards door. She stops with her hand on the handle. She takes a few deep breaths. Then she looks over her shoulder. Adrian put his head into his hands. He shakes his head and nod. Adrian: "We send someone, who will watch you from distance. If anything goes wrong, they help you." Kamilah straighten her back, clears her throat and began walk towards Amy.

Kamilah: "I'll escort you to her club. We need to talk privately." Adrian look between Amy and Kamilah with questions in his eyes. He feels there's great tension between them. He just don't know what kind of tension. It seems he wants to say something, but he just look to the opposit direction. Amy: "Great.. Yeah.... Thank you..." They got into her car. Kamilah drives Amy to the Paulus viewpoint. Kamilah exit the vehicle first, she opens doors for Amy and offers her hand. Amy decline and burst out of the car. Amy: "Why did you take me here? I need to meet with Priya! If you want to kill me, do it! Enough of your threats and shit talking about me all the time."

Kamilah: "You may be right, mortal. I don't care about you. But Adrian likes you. So listen to me, I will not repeat myself. I will help you out of this situation, who if I remember, you cause. But if this doesn't work out, and Adrian loses his life, because you put your con act and manipulate him to turn Lily. I'll kill you both without any hesitation." Amy is stressed out. Angry. Scared for her, Lily's and Adrian's life. This was the last button to push. She doesn't care if more than 2000 years old, strongest vampire on the earth, who can snap her neck in the velocity of light, stands before her. She slaps her hard and pushes her. Again, and again and again. She pinned Kamilah to the railing. Amy: "Ohh, really, Kamilah? Than do it, kill me! You are full of the bullshit! Drop this nonsense! You are hiding behind coldness, strength and rudeness. But we both know where is the truth! Deep inside, you are scared little girl, who is afraid of people leaving you, after they get to know real you! You are lonely and scream for the attention, affection and love! Deep inside, you want someone who will care about you, who will see the real you! Who will get you and stand by your side. So NO! I'm not afraid you. You care about people. Adrian may be the last being who likes you, and you know it. So you are losing your control, because he is the only hope for your humanity. Only thing which puts you in the line. The last thing to stops you from being monster. Be honest for second and show me some damn respect!" She catches Amy's hand when she wanted to push her again. Her jaw drops. She is right and they both now it. She stands there in shock.

Kamilah: "I-I..."

Amy: "That's what I though."

Amy free her hands from Kamilah's strong grasp and start walking towards the city. It's a few miles. This is going to be a long walk, but Amy doesn't care. She needs to clear her head. She feels connection towards Kamilah, but she is tired of her act and manipulation. Kamilah feel how tear slides down her cheek. Reality falls apart and she remembers how she sits alone in her pentahouse or office, trying to drink her mind off. She prohibited herself any kind of connection after what she done in past. After so much pain she causes.

After centuries someone sees through her like she was a plate of glass. She closes her eyes and tried gain her control back. After a while she enters her expensive car and follows Amy. It does not take long, she finds her walking angrily in abandonen path.

Kamilah: "I'm sorry Amy. Please get into the car, I'll drive you to the Priya's club. It's not safe in the night here."

Amy: "I'm fine. Just go away." Kamilah: "Don't be stuborn, you were right about everything. Let me take you to the Priya's club, now for real. I know I upset you, but it takes hours from here, by walking.

Amy sight and listen, she gets into the car and turn to the window with her hand fold above her stomach. She is looking at the night New York. Amy: "What can Priya do to me?"

Kamilah: "She is a real monster. She will promise you a lot of things. She makes you feel special for short quantity of time. In the second she gets enough of you or gets bored, she will probably kill you. Her games, no human can survive. People disapear or they found them dead." Amy: "At least she is attractive. I will have a nice view when she dries me suck and I will die for someone I care about." Kamilah narrow her eyes at the girl, sitting besides her. Kamilah: "We won't let that happened. You need to get out of there if she tries something. We still can get Baron's vote." Amy: "He is even worse. Priya wants to play games, but her ego destroys her once. What she doesn't know, I'm good at playing games."

Amy: "Kamilah, I'm sorry about what I said earlier."

Kamilah's brows quirk. She thinking about hers next words.

Kamilah: "Don't be. Perhaps it was bold to say those things, but you were right. Noone was brave enough to tell me before..." Kamilah drive Amy to the Priya's club and wish her luck. Amy didn't wait a long line and walk towards the bouncer. Amy: "Priya will accept me immediately." Bouncer: "Oh, are you her snack? Tell me your name, I check the list." Amy tells her name to the bouncer. He calls for his colleague and they escort Amy right to the Priyas V.I.P. room. Priya is wearing a black minidress, with gold stripes and a red high heel boots. A lace from the dress covering only a little bit of her skin, it's really tight dress. She talks with another vampires. Some of them Amy knows from the Council meeting. It takes only few second before Priya sensed Amy. She shoot glare directly to Amy. Priya: "Well, well, well. Look at who's decided do choose better company."

She kissed Amy at both cheeks and hugs her tightly. Priya may be a monster, but she is also very attractive. When Amy feels how close is Priya's body presses to hers, she gasps. Her heart skips a few heartbeats. Priya smirk and look at the girl before her with amusement.

Amy: "Hi Priya, I need to talk with you. Privately." Priya: "Ohh!" She clapped her hands together enthusiastically and murderous smile appear at her face. Amy rolled her eyes. Priya: "I love where is this coming. Follow me." They enter a private elevator what is connected directly to the Priya's apartment. When the door close Priya immediately catch Amy by her sides, other hand searching to find a way under Amy's shirt. She runs a nail along Amy's stomach harshly, and cut a line on her belly, blood appears immediately. Amy let out a moan. Priya kiss her with hunger. Amy pauses the kiss and walk a few steps away. Her heart is beating fast. Priya attract her, but she is also very dangerous. Amy is trying to cool down and put hand in the air between them, to make some space. Amy: "I'm here only to talk." Priya: "Don't lie, I hear your heart, it's like it explode any moment."

Amy: "Priya... I need your help with something, hear me out." They exit the elevator, and Priya pour them a glass of expensive red wine. They sit on the leather couch. Priya grab Amy by her thigh and pull her close. She is drawing a circles at her thigh. Priya: "Well?" Amy: "Someone of your kind attacks my friend..." Priya: "Of my kind?!" Amy: "Vampire... My friend, Lily... She was dying... So I ask Adrian to turn her. I got you envelope, he is calling a Council meeting. We need your vote." Priya: "HA! Adrian breaks rules for some human?"

Priya: "You get my vote under one condition. You stay with me and become my little kitten." Amy: "No way, I want to live at least for next 50 years, Priya. One night, no killing, no turning. No ripping parts of my body." Priya: "Oh, I will have so much fun! Alright then. After I do to you, you will have no thoughts of leaving." Amy: "I am going to regret this. Am I? I accept." Priya: "Very well." She kisses Amy and guides her to stand up from the sofa. Her hands sliding at Amy's arms. Making way to tangle their fingers while Priya dominate Amy's tongue. Priya: "Now, I want to hear your heart race, your moans fills the room. And I have a very good idea." Before Amy opens her mouth to say something, she is back in flash with sex harness. Its black leather metal restrains for neck and wrists. Amy let out a long sigh and look directly at Priya's eyes. Amy: "Seriously Priya?" Priya: "I'll enjoy this my little kitten." She doesn't waste any time and free Amy of her cloths. She is completely nude. Before she can protest Priya restrain her into the harness and with the swift move settle Amy into near chair. She spread her kneese and push her toward the edge of the luxury seat. She kissed her again, but not for long. She continues to Amy's neck and bite, she inserts two fingers inside Amy. Amy sees how colors spread before her eyes. The pain and pleasure made Amy arch her back a bit. Her breath quickens when suddenly she feel another finger thrust in. A moan escapes her lips. She tried to hold onto something, but the harness blocking her movement. She almost can't take it. Amy: "FUCK, PRIYA!" Priya continues in her murderous pace and drinking Amy's blood. Amy vision goes blur. She doesn't know if its from the pleasure or the blood lost. Amy: "You dry me suck Priya! STOP!" But Priya continues. She starts to fuck Amy again and moves to her shoulder. She bites her again and sucks her blood like it's the best food she ever has. She bites her side, drink a little bit, then stomach, and finally she sucks her vulva. Amy let out very loud moan and rock against Priya. When Amy's orgasm come to close Priya moves again, to her thigh. She drinks Amy's blood again. Amy yell by the pleasure Priya giving her and from the pain.

Amy: "Priya! I am close!" Priya: "Let go my beautiful kitten." Priya pump into Amy with vampire strenght and speed. She can't even breath properly. She arch her back, the harness slightly choke herself, her wrist miss oxygen, but she doesn't care. After few moments she crashed so hard. Amy: "PRIYA! FUCK! OHMYHOD!" Amy lost her consciousness, from blood lost and pleasure Priya gives her. Priya stands up and clean her face from Amy's juice.

Priya: "Ha! They will be pissed, especially Adrian and grandma. Th-."

In that moment doors flew open and Kamilah make her way to the Priya. Kamilah is standing her, her twin daggers holding close.

Kamilah: "What about we just kill you?"

Priya: "Wait! Just take her!"

Kamilah: "Smart choice, Lacroix."

Kamilah hide her daggers and undress her maroon blazer. She free Amy of the leather - metal harness and wrap Amy into blazer. She pick her up, holding her close, but carefully.

Kamilah: "You are not allowed to touch her again."

Priya: "Whatever, after this night, she comes back voluntarily."

Kamilah: "I expect ´aye´ from you, tomorrow. And even if she comes back by her choice, you will hand her over to us, immediately."

Without hearing answer, Kamilah exit the building.

Kamilah: "You got yourself into serious mess Amy."

Amy wakes up and nuzzles to Kamilah's neck.

Amy: "Kam?"

Kamilah: "Shh. You are safe and alive."

Amy: "I was imagining you whole time. While she was doing, what she was doing."

Amy falls alseep again. Kamilah stops for the moment and look at that small, fragile human. She don't know what she should think about this. But she decide to ignors it. She carefully put Amy at back seats and drive her to her pentahouse, where she clean Amy's wounds. She lay her onto her bed and with intention watch her till she wakes up, lay besides her. Amy lookes so calm. Soon she falls asleep to.

Amy wakes up in the morning. She is laying on top of Kamilahs chest. Kamilah is holding her close, only in underwear, Amy is only in Kamilah's blater. She tried to stand up, but Kamilah is holding her too strongly.

She nuzzle to her cheek with her nose, while stroking her silk hair between her fingers.

Amy: "Kamilah? Wake up"

Kamilah: "Hmm, no, you are not going anywhere."

Amy smile at the old vampire and lay at her chest again.

Amy: "Okay then"

They both continue sleep. And for once, both can sleep peacefully.

.

.

.

END.

[alienheartattack]

Sweet Revenge (Inexorable AU)

Word Count: 2260 words

Rating: E. They fuck. It’s dope. Don’t read if you’re underage or have objections to explicit adult content.

Summary: Levi and Mikasa have a feud at the school bake sale and decide to get revenge on their PTA nemesis.

Notes: For non-US readers, PTA stands for parent-teacher association, where parents volunteer at their children’s schools to get involved in the school’s activities and influence the quality of their child’s education, usually through fundraisers and other events.

This story takes place 8-9 years after the events of Inexorable and about 2 years after the events of the other Inexorable AU fics, A Scream in the Night and A Minor Dispute About Rain. The only thing you really need to know if you haven’t read those is that Levi and Mikasa have a daughter named Anya, who is basically a grumpy mini Levi, in addition to Hana.

The only thing keeping Levi from running after the PTA president and giving her a hefty piece of his mind is Mikasa’s grip, firm and insistent, on the hem of his sweater.

“You’re going to stretch it out,” Levi snaps at his wife, redirecting his ire at the closest target. Mikasa idly caresses the swell of her belly with one hand and looks at him with one eyebrow raised, silently asking if he wants to argue with his pregnant wife in public.

“I’ll let you go when I’m confident you’re not going to track Joanne down and scream in her face,” she says calmly. “As much as I’d like to see that.”

“She fucking begged us to help out at this bake sale and now she’s just gonna call our lemon bars basic?! We’re not goddamn pastry chefs!”

“Levi, listen to yourself. You sound legitimately insane.”

He sighs, letting his shoulders drop as the tension and rage starts to leave his body. Mikasa releases his sweater and he collapses into his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. She joins him, gingerly lowering herself onto the uncomfortable metal folding chair provided by the school.

“I hate this so much. I hate Joanne, I hate being on the PTA, and I absolutely fucking hate bake sales,” he huffs.

"Well, we’re stuck here for the evening. I don’t want to be here either but I’m trying to make the most of it. Mikasa picks up a lemon bar and takes a huge bite. "Besides, fuck Joanne. These are good.”

Levi motions for Mikasa to give him a bite. “Fuck Joanne,” he agrees through a mouthful of pastry and curd.

Thankfully business picks up after that, and Levi and Mikasa spend the next half hour handing out lemon bars to parents and kids, ignoring Joanne hovering around them and observing their dealings with a disdainful eye. When the rush clears, she slowly approaches their table, pretending to be browsing. They both clock her gaze drifting over their mostly empty dish of lemon bars and the small twitch at the corner of her mouth that telegraphs her dissatisfaction with the Ackermans’ success. Triumphant, they share a brief glance, another silent Fuck Joanne.

To their dismay, she approaches Mikasa, staring at her oversized t-shirt dress. “Bun in the oven,” Joanne reads, her cold eyes sweeping over the looped script printed across Mikasa’s abdomen, decorated with a drawing of a smiling roll baking away. “Oh, you’re pregnant, sweetie! Congratulations!” There’s sweetness in her voice, but it’s tinged with venom. Mikasa knows it all too well.

“Thanks,” she mutters, bracing herself for the backhanded part of Joanne’s compliment.

“I thought you’d just let yourself go, but it’s a blessing instead! What a relief!” She laughs uproariously at her own joke. Levi jams his hands into the pockets of his jeans, balling them into tight fists so Joanne can’t see how enraged he is. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

Mikasa does not answer, instead focusing her energy on keeping a straight face while she contemplates murder. Levi can sense her tensing up, her shoulders stiffening, fury radiating from her body in waves.

“It’s a boy,” he cuts in curtly. “We’ve already got our two girls.”

“Your oldest isn’t—” Joanne’s voice drops to a near-whisper— “yours, though, is she?”

Levi narrows his eyes, no longer interested in hiding his annoyance. “She’s mine. I’ve helped raise her since she was a baby.”

“Oh, how sweet. What a modern family,” she gushes, cooing with an edge of condescension in her voice. “Well, congratulations.” She then turns and walks off, conveniently waving to someone across the room.

“Are you okay?” Levi asks Mikasa in a low voice once Joanne is out of earshot. Mikasa stares after her, eyes black with rage, her breath hissing through clenched teeth. She doesn’t need to say anything; he already knows the answer is no.

He places a reassuring hand on the back of her neck, massaging her nape the way she does to him when he’s stressed and ranting. “Tell you what, I’ll go out to the car and grab something sharp, we slice Joanne’s Achilles tendons and then get the hell out of here.”

“What? No!” She looks over at him, her expression disgusted and exasperated. “You have to stop watching gore movies with Hana. She’s barely ten.”

“She loves them! We were watching some zombie bullshit the other day and that little monster laughed while watching a guy get his guts ripped out and eaten. I’m pretty sure she’s gonna grow up to be a serial killer.”

Mikasa rolls her eyes. “Well, if she is, she gets it from Eren’s side of the family.” Even though he’s still angry on his wife’s behalf, Levi can’t help but chuckle at that.

“Fucking Joanne,” he grumbles. “If zombies ate her guts they’d spit them back out. Her kid’s an asshole, too.” Mikasa is well aware of that fact: Joanne’s son tried bullying Anya at the beginning of the school year, calling her a midget and pulling her hair until she had enough and whacked him in the face with her math textbook. That was Levi and Mikasa’s first run-in with Joanne before they joined the PTA, and things have only gone downhill since.

A few more kids approach the table, hesitant due to Levi’s scowl; Mikasa shutters her anger behind a calm facade and handles the sales, though she doesn’t say much.

When the latest wave of customers leaves, she turns to her husband. “I think I have an idea to make both of us feel better.”

A look of skepticism crosses his face. “Really? I was kinda hoping for that severed Achilles tendon.”

Mikasa facepalms; she’s had years to grow accustomed to her husband’s awkwardness and his awful jokes, but sometimes he still manages to surprise her. Ironically it only makes her love him more, this odd, cranky man who might literally kill for her.

“Joanne parked next to us, right?” she asks.

“Yeah, remember? I said her car looks like the physical embodiment of vaginal dryness and you laughed so hard you peed a little.”

“You really didn’t have to mention that last part.”

“I dunno, it gives the story flavor. Pee flavor.”

“Look, I have an idea. Get someone to take the rest of the lemon bars, then meet me in the parking lot. If anyone asks, I’m not feeling well and you need to take me home.”

Levi sighs. “What are you planning?”

Mikasa leans in close to him, her lips millimeters from his ear. “Meet me outside and you’ll see,” she purrs.

Five minutes later he bursts through the metal doors at the back of the school to see her sitting on the hood of Joanne’s car, an aggressively beige sedan.

“Come here,” she beckons him. He approaches her and, when he is within reach, she grabs his shirt and pulls him to her. Their lips collide awkwardly before settling into the familiar rhythm of their kissing, slow and deep.

After a few moments, he pulls away. “What is going on here?”

“Revenge,” she says. “I want you to fuck me on the hood of Joanne’s car.”

He ponders the suggestion for a moment, then smiles — and then a giggle escapes his mouth, a sound somewhere between bewilderment and glee, then another, then another.

“Aw, come on, don’t laugh. I thought it’d be fun.” She frowns, embarrassment heating and coloring her cheeks.

“No, no,” he says once he’s able to control his laughter. “I fucking love it.” He kisses her fiercely, growling deep in his throat. “I fucking love you.” Mikasa smiles, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close. There’s some maneuvering involved in getting her underwear off, her round belly making the whole process somewhat unwieldy; Levi stuffs them in his pocket then gets down on the concrete, kneeling before her.

“Are you serious?” she squeals, trying to look at him over the curve of her stomach.

“If anyone asks, tell them you went into labor and I’m checking how far along you are.” With a low laugh he gets to work, nuzzling her pussy before licking a firm stroke along her seam. Mikasa bites her lip and lets out a shaky anticipatory breath in the brief moment before Levi lavishes attention on her clit, massaging it with his lips and tongue. She gasps when he pulls away from her a few minutes later, halfway to orgasm and disappointed not to get there.

“We need to be fast,” he says in lieu of an apology, undoing his pants and pulling out his half-hard cock, pumping it a few times in his fist. “I’ll finish you off at home.”

“You’d better,” she replies, a playful threat.

Levi settles himself between her legs then enters her with no warning or fanfare save the soft moan they both make, a low noise of contentment, of wholeness. They have always been a fearsome team, first as colleagues, then lovers, now spouses and parents, and their lovemaking is no different, each of them able to discern angles and positions from sighs, from grunts, from the furrow of a brow or the touch of a hand. Tonight Mikasa slides her hands down Levi’s back, skating over the soft brushed cashmere of his sweater, telling him that she wants him to be gentle with her — for now, anyway. Joanne’s comment must have stung, he thinks, and he resolves to show her exactly how beautiful he thinks she is, pregnant or not. There’s a certain earthy, ephemeral beauty in her pregnant body, something attractive and incredibly arousing about the thought of her creating and building life even as she sits next to him selling lemon bars at a school bake sale. He loves the way her hard edges have softened, the pleasing new fullness in her cheeks, the luminous glow that seems to emanate from within her.

(He has learned since her last pregnancy not to mention that he also loves the growing size of her breasts, and in return Mikasa only rebukes him for staring when he’s open-mouthed and practically drooling.)

Mikasa’s eyes flutter closed as Levi rocks against her, a gentle motion that makes the car bounce in time with his thrusts. A bubble of laughter escapes her lips.

“What’s that for?” he asks with a smile, then kisses her before she can answer.

“I love you so much,” she says against his mouth. “And fuck Joanne.”

Levi stops moving; Mikasa cocks her head, silently asking him what’s wrong. “Don’t say that bitch’s name when I’m inside you.”

“Look, do you want to revenge-fuck me or not?” She isn’t sure if that’s a word, but during sex, when they’re heated and frantic for each other, even Levi’s crude come-ons sound like poetry, so maybe this will work.

It does. “You want me to revenge-fuck you?” he growls, slapping his hips against hers with a rough thrust. She whimpers at the impact, a wave of pleasure rippling through her body.

“Yeah,” she pants. “Show me how angry you are.”

He makes a low hum of approval; though he’s become more proficient at sweet talk and romance in the years he’s been with Mikasa, he tends to favor sex as intense as his personality, grasping hands and heavy eye contact. Mikasa has never seemed to mind though sometimes, like tonight, she needs him to make love to her first.

Levi fucks her hard and fast, the sound of skin slapping against skin echoing in the cool night, her cunt making obscene liquid noises around his cock. Even through the delicious haze of their passion they’re listening out for footsteps, for cars, for the creak of doors opening.

“We should finish soon,” Mikasa pants.

“I’m close.” He slows his pace, grinding against her, sinking into her as deep as he can go, before pulling back and scything into her slick heat again and again, harder and harder, muttering curses and endearments and wordless sounds of effort and desire.

And then he thrusts into Mikasa so roughly that her ass hits the hood of Joanne’s car hard, triggering the car alarm, horn blaring and lights flashing.

“Shit!” Levi yelps, startled by the sudden noise. He jumps back from her, stuffing his stiff, aching cock back in his pants and undoing the fly with adrenaline-shaky fingers.

“We gotta go!” She hops down from the car, landing unsteadily on her feet, pulling her dress down over her nudity. “Do you have the keys?” She scrambles over to their car, pulling at the handle of the locked passenger door. “Come on!”

Levi reaches in his pocket for the key fob, mashing the buttons so the doors unlock and the ignition turns on. Mikasa clambers into the car as fast as she can, slamming the door behind her, and Levi follows soon after. Through the windshield she can see someone coming to locate the source of the commotion and chants, “Drive! Drive!” at Levi while he clicks his seatbelt into place.

“Seatbelt!” he barks at her and she complies, fear and arousal and adrenaline making her feel jittery and giggly and wonderfully alive. Levi remains stoic, but there’s a devilish glee playing at the corners of his lips: he’s enjoying himself just as much as she is. He backs their car out of the parking spot with the precision of a stunt driver and peels off, speeding off into the night seconds before Joanne comes outside to investigate the shrieking car alarm and the strange ass-shaped dent on her hood.

[laufire]

(CW for mentions of csa)

A lot of Commonly Accepted (Often Through Uncritical Repetition) Wisdom in fandom leaves me baffled, when not straight up ticked off, but one that's been on my mind lately, that never fails to bring a scrunched up expression to my face, is the idea that Bela Talbot's backstory was some last minute add-on to her character.

You might argue that the reveal was rushed since the writers caved in and killed her off against their original plan (or at the very least, earlier than). Or that using abuse is a trite way to raise sympathy for an antagonistic character. You could even say that some of the finer details might’ve not been set in stone until they sat down to write her exist, although that one is dubious. But I’m never really going to buy that Bela’s backstory hadn’t been already planned, likely in big part.

The reason why is Season Three Episode Six, “Red Sky At Morning”, Bela’s second episode, co-written by Eric Kripke himself. As all episodes with Bela were, may I add; which means he had a hand in crafting her story from the beginning, as creator, director, and writer.

There Dean, a character that has been shown as sharp and intuitive (although his success rate ain’t that great when it comes to Bela, admittedly xD), immediately pegs her as someone with Issues TM, asking “how did she get like this”. He even taunts her by referencing her father, showing off his talent to hit where it hurts by asking if he “didn’t give her enough hugs”, ‘cause he’s classy like that. This visibly affects Bela, changing her demeanor in their conversation, from more playful to defensive. Hell, I remember during my first watch in real time this moment, especially paired with the rest of the episode, was when I first thought it was possible she came from an abusive family.

Because, c’mon. This whole episode is about parricide. The monster of the week is a ghost who haunts those that “spilled their own family’s blood”. We get two other examples: a woman whose accidental car crash killed her cousin, and two brothers who killed their father for the inheritance. Clearly, the ghost doesn’t have a narrow criteria when it comes to means or culpability -which makes sense given his particular story: he was tried for treason and his brother, the captain of the ship, issued the sentence.

And just as we find out this information... Bela sees the ghost ship that foretells her death. This, paired with the insinuations about an unsavvory past and her discomfort at the mention of her father, aren’t a wealth of information, but they start to paint a picture. We now know for a fact that Bela caused the death of at least one relative (mom and dad); that she wouldn’t have needed to do it directly (she made a crossroads deal); and that she might’ve had a sympathetic motive (her father sexually abused her and her mother turned a blind eye).

That scene offers some more tidbits of information about her past that seem too in tune with 3x15 to be coincidental, and that absolutely break my heart: Bela’s “You wouldn’t understand. No one did.“ and “I’ll just do what I’ve always done. I’ll deal with it myself”. See, I always thought Bela must’ve told people, when she was a kid. That she reached out for help not just to her mother, but to everyone around her that she thought could’ve help: teachers, maybe even law enforcement; adults that should’ve being worthy of that trust and protected her. Except no one did (and the fact that her family seemed to be not only very rich but influential paints a very bleak picture that surely contributed to her cynic view of the world). So she took matters in her own hands, and sold her soul for ten years of relative safety and freedom from her abusers.

To tie it all up, her final scene in that episode offers some more moments that again, are very in line with her backstory. We see how she treats relationships as transactionals: she pays ten grand to the Winchesters for saving her life, like she paid with her soul. Dean, again, draws attention to her likely messed up past by calling her damaged, and she replies that “takes one to know one”. Terrible childhood, ammirite. The show wasn’t been subtle here: it’s telling us Bela has a terrible past, like the Winchesters do, but of a different kind that has resulted in a different kind of person. So yeah, I think all the facts were hinted at back in 3x06.

We could go even futher back and point out 3x03, Bela’s introduction. One of the very first things she says in the show, during her first face to face with Dean (a character that just condemned his soul to Hell), is “We’re all going to Hell, Dean. Might as well enjoy the ride”. Sure, it could be an incredibly fortuitous coincidence; as a writer, I’ve had those and they’re damn great. But it seems VERY lucky, and more likely to be a case of the kind premeditated, well-placed foreshadowing that Kripke excels at.

So, okay. I’ve established why I think Bela’s backstory wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. But why is there a notable narrative in fandom that it IS?

First thing first, I want to get something out of the way: you don’t have to like it even if it was planned ahead. I understand it’s a very thorny subject, and to make matters worse, it’s inherently tied to her death. You might even be fine with the what, but not with how it was dealt with (although personally, I appreciate that neither the abuse nor her death were shown onscreen. In fact, the worse violence we see Bela on the receiving end of in her run is Dean’s threats and manhandling, which seems like a very purposeful choice ngl. Even Gordon freaking Walker was gentler lmao).

But I do disagree with some extended fandom opinions on the topic, and I guess that’s what the post is about. For one, I don’t see how the show “condemned” or morally judged Bela in this scenario. If anything, they clearly wanted to make her sympathetic, AND they showed Dean as being in the wrong by robbing him of information. Dean’s opinion on Bela couldn’t count for shit, for once, because he didn’t have the full picture; because Bela had deemed him UNWORTHY of the full picture, and thus anything he had to say on her couldn’t be taken at face value (except this is Supernatural, so I guess this was a little too much to ask of some people?). I think saying that just because Bela died and went to Hell as a consequence of her deal, IN THE SAME SEASON the same happened to our co-lead, because the writers deemed her evil and irredeemable is simplistic at best, and the audience projecting their own feelings (or being unable to see past Dean’s) onto the writing.

All that said, to go back to the initial point of all of this xD: WHY does fandom seem to insist on viewing this narrative choice as some cheap last minute addition?

There might not be one explanation that fits all, but I have a few ideas. One is that, if this wasn’t planned for and hinted at from early on, some people might feel as if this “absolves” them of their previous (and disgustingly hateful and misoginistic) reactions to Bela. Others will see this as absolving Dean, and maybe even Sam to a lesser extent, for not helping her and for being callous towards her; if her tragic backstory was this artificial, rushed choice made by Those Writers, then Dean wasn’t responsible for reprehensible attitudes towards someone who deserved his compassion (and it can’t be denied that this fandom loves absolving Dean of responsibility lmao). And a lot people are probably only repeating what they've heard from others as the accepted narrative, especially those that didn't even watch all of s3 if at all (Castiel is my fave too, but seriously, s1-3 are worth it).

It’s like they’re creating this imaginary separation between Bela pre-reveal, and Bela post-reveal, to make the situation easier to themselves. See, Bela pre-reveal was this annoying bitch who inconvenienced and embarrassed our leads (not to mention dared have chemistry with them), and thus deserved to be punished for it; or, if we’re going with more modern fandom sensibilities, she can be made to fit into the shallow #GirlBoss mold, with a side of “Secretly A Lesbian And Therefore Not A Romantic Threat” flavour -the current preferred method to make controversial female characters more palatable.

The reveal throws a wrench into this narrative. “Bitch who deserves her comeuppance” is a hard sell when you’re talking about a character who survived csa. And a shallow #GirlBoss reading doesn’t work if you have to acknowledge that Bela was one of, if not the most tragic characters in the entire run of Supernatural.

She spent over half her life at the mercy of her abuser(s), hurt by those who should’ve loved her and protected her most. The rest of her life was extremely lonely, with seemingly only a cat as company, and a surface-level freedom that hid under the sentence that loomed over her head. She died without a single friend, or a simple show of kindness and compassion, without anyone bothering to fight for her. And then she ended up tortured for who knows how long until she became one of her torturers.

All of that is extremely difficult to digest. And when things are hard to swallow, people do as people do, and they try to simplify them. So, sure. Bela’s reveal wasn’t ever hinted at, it’s completely removed from her character and the person we met, and is not even worth trying to fit into the narrative. Sounds easy.

[fairlyspnfanfic]

The Ties That Bind Us - Part 7

Summary: When your past comes back to haunt you, who will prevail?  Hunting had been your life since you were 4 years old.  The monsters that started you on that path were resurfacing, and you knew what you had to do.  But nothing is ever truly secret, and nothing is ever that cut and dry with the Winchester’s in tow.

A/N: This is a new one that is coming from a few requests.  I’m not going to post the actual requests because…well because it would spoil the story line and I’m pretty into this one.

A/N 2:  This is some fluff for you.  Just wait.  We aren’t quite done yet. 

Words: 2381

Warnings: Trauma, medical terminology, stress, hospital waiting room

PART ONE  PART TWO  PART THREE PART FOUR PART FIVE  PART SIX

I opened my eyes slowly as I raised my hands to my face, gently rubbing my eyelids and pulling the sandy bits of sleep out of the corners of my eyes.  My entire body was sore, and pain radiated its way from my back straight through my abdomen as I quickly wrapped my arm around my waist, wincing as I attempted to sit up straight.  

The dim, unflattering glow of the fluorescent lights above my bed lit up just a small portion of the hospital room, but it was enough for my eyes to land on and focus on the slumped over form in the chair that was pressed up to the side of my bed.  Sam’s long hair was draped over his face as he slept.  Small, discernable breaths coming in and out of his mouth which hung open.  I laughed as a loud snore echoed throughout the room.  My laughter only served to increase my pain and I yelped in surprise as a sharp twinge of agony shot through me.  

Sam woke almost instantly, falling out of the chair as his feet hit the floor and his hands rested on the side of my bed. “Y/N,” he questioned.  “What’s wrong?”  His hand flew to my forehead, and his eyes searched mine for any indication of what was going on.  

I took a deep breath, gasping at first, but calming myself within a few breaths.  I shook my head. “I’m fine, it’s fine.”  Slowly, I propped myself up and leaned against my pillow, sitting up as best as I could.  

He looked at me suspiciously.  “I’m gonna go get the doctor,” he said, pointing his thumb behind him towards the door.  I nodded silently as he stood up and jogged out the doorway.

I couldn’t hear the name he was calling as he went down the hall, farther and farther from my room.  But I was struggling to care. My memories were flooding my head.  The image of my mother making dinner, eating dinner with my parents, lounging on the beach with them, the comfort their voices brought me.  Turning my head, I looked out the window down into the parking lot.  It was cold and gray out and the windowpane was coated in raindrops that were continuously falling.  I watched them fall, feeling my chest tighten and seem to drop into my body as I choked back tears.  

It wasn’t long before footsteps were coming through the door and heading for me.  “Ms. Y/L/N, it’s good to have you with us.”  The doctor’s cheery voice was high pitched and more excited than I could muster to pretend to be.  Sam lingered in the hallway, his phone held up to his ear as he paced back and forth, his eyes fixed on me.  

“How are you feeling?”  The doctor looked at me, chart in hand.  

My eyes drifted over to her face, struggling to fixate on her.  I shrugged noncommittally.  “Are you in any pain?”  She walked over to the machine that stood next to me, monitoring my vitals and pushing fluids through my veins.  Her hand reached out to the control box, pushing a few buttons as she did so, before looking back down at me.  

“Some,” I muttered, my voice gravelly.  “It’s fine.”  

She frowned slightly.  “The goal is to have no pain for you.  You’ve got a lot of healing to do.  I’ll have your dosage updated.”  I watched as she made a note in my chart before setting it down on the side table.  She drew her stethoscope off her neck and placed the buds in her ears.  Leaning towards me, she placed a gentle hand on my back, encouraging me to lean forward, as she pressed the stethoscope just below my shoulder blade.  I took an instinctive deep breath, choking as my throat constricted, feeling as though I was drowning.  

“It’s okay,” she said, lighting patting my shoulder as she moved the diaphragm of her stethoscope to my chest. “You don’t have to take deep breaths.  Just breathe normally,” she said.  “You were intubated for quite a while.  It’s going to take a bit for your windpipe to heal.”  

Sam had taken a few steps into the room when my coughing had begun, and he was staring at me still; his cell phone pressed to his ear, but the microphone piece tilted closer to his chin.  I nodded at him quickly, closing my eyes reassuringly.  He nodded back and stepped back into the hallway, continuing his conversation.  

The doctor finished her exam, poking and prodding, palpating and moving every part of my body that she could, and left the room, promising more pain medication and physical therapy.  Once she had gone, Sam peered into the room again, making eye contact with me as he ended his call.  

“Hey,” he said, just above a whisper with a hint of sympathy in his voice.  

“I’m fine, Sam,” I insisted as I turned my head back to the window and the falling raindrops.  

“Cut the shit, Y/N.”  Sam’s voice was tough and firm now.  My head snapped quickly back at him, glaring at him.  

He held his hands up as if in surrender. “Hey, I’m just saying what I was told to say.”  I cocked my head quizzically at him.  

Sam rolled his eyes at me as if to tell me I should know what he was referring to.  “Dean,” I asked.  Sam nodded curtly.  “Where is he?”  

The last that I could remember, he had been lying next to me, his hand gently stroking my arm as I fell into a fitful sleep.  

Sam dropped his head and sauntered over to the chair next to me once again, turning it around and taking a backwards seat in it.  His arms leaned across the high back of the chair, creating a makeshift pillow with his forearms which he instantly leaned his chin against.  His eyes were locked on mine, but he said nothing.  

“Sam,” I insisted, my eyes narrowing as I urged him to speak.  “Sam don’t make me yell.  Everything hurts, and it’ll suck. But I’ll do it.”  

He forcibly closed his eyes, irritation evident in his sigh as he pried his eyelids open and glowered at me. “He’s on his way.”  I nodded, drawing my legs slowly up towards my torso, attempting to fold myself up into a ball.  

“Y/N,” he began.  “This was reckless.”  I rolled my eyes in response.  “I mean it. You ran out there without backup, barely armed, on foot, no getaway plan.  It was reckless.  You could’ve been killed.”  He was getting louder now but kept his voice as even keel as possible.  “You almost died, Y/N.”  His eyes were glassy as he spoke, the words penetrating through my brittle exterior.  

I took as deep of a breath as I could, holding the impulse to cough back as I dropped my head and wrapped my arms around one knee.  “I know,” I said, the words full of hope and envy.  

“You don’t exactly sound happy that you survived.”  His words were a statement; accusatory in all the words he left unsaid.  I slowly lifted my head, making eye contact with Sam once again as tears began to flow down my cheeks unbidden.

Before I could speak again, a nurse was coming through the doorway, a vial of clear liquid in hand which she quickly connected to my IV.  

“This will help with the pain,” she assured me, as she slowly depressed the plunger.  

Minutes passed by after the nurse left.  Minutes that passed in silence as Sam continued scowling at me and I left him unanswered and unaddressed. My eyelids began to feel heavy, and the room seemed to be slowly spinning.  I shut my eyes, leaning back again and spreading my legs out in front of me once more as I drifted off to sleep.  

I woke up, feeling slightly groggy but the pain had dissipated.  Sam was no longer sitting in the chair next to me and I could see that the sun had gone down outside. Slowly, I kicked my legs off the bed and felt my feet hit the floor.  My hands pressed down on the bed on either side of my hips, pushing me up until I was standing on my own.  The ache in my back was dull, but still present, and I could feel the weakness in my knees as soon as I put weight on them.  But still, I reached out my hand, grasping the silver, metal pole holding the IV bag and took a few steps, each one shakier than the last.  My breaths were labored but I was determined to move around.  I reached my free hand around my back, ensuring that my gown had been sufficiently tied and that I wasn’t about to moon half the hospital.  I held it secured between my fingers just in case.  

My foot had just passed the end of the bed, and I turned toward the door when a familiar voice began chastising me.  

“What the hell are you doing?”  Dean’s worried voice rang out deeply as he walked through the door, his steps quickening as he reached for me.  With his right arm wrapped around my waist, he gently turned me back towards the bed, muttering the entire way.  “You trying to give me a heart attack?  Stubborn as a mule. Gonna get yourself killed.”  

I smiled silently, enjoying the familiarity that was Dean’s castigation.  “I’m fine, Dean,” I assured him in my froggy voice.  “See?” I held my hands up. “All parts attached and everything.”  He sat me down on my bed slowly, taking care to lift each leg and tuck them underneath the comforter.  

“The nurse said I would be able to go home tomorrow,” I stretched the truth.  In reality, physical therapy was due to start tomorrow and I would possibly be discharged in a week’s time.  

“Yeah, you’re not full of it at all, are you?”  His eyes had a glow to them as he gave me half a smile.  His hand was wrapped around my calf as he gently moved it just enough so that he could sit on the bed next to me; his left leg bent and leaning on the mattress as he leaned forward, staring at me.  

“How are you, really?” All signs of teasing were gone now, and his expression meant he was serious.  I swallowed hard, unwilling to tell him the truth.  I settled for truth adjacent.  

“The pain isn’t too bad anymore.  I could go with being a bit stronger on my feet though.”  

“Yeah, you know that’s not what I’m asking about.”  His eyes were pensive as if he were trying to draw the truth from me like a salve.  I gave him a quizzical look, unsure of what he was referring to.  

“Y/N,” he whispered my name, almost like a prayer. “You said you wanted to go back.  Before.  When you woke up.  That you’d made your choice and you were supposed to stay.”  He stared at me, expecting me to fill the silence that loomed over us both.  But I couldn’t bring my eyes to meet his, let alone form words to explain everything.  

He reached his hand out, gently stroking my chin as he pulled my attention to his face.  “Dean,” I whispered, pleading for him not to continue down this line of questioning.  

“Tell me what’s going on,” he asked. “Please.”  He was begging now, his eyes glassing over and desperation evident in his tone.  

“I can’t,” I muttered, my voice trembling.  I couldn’t imagine anything worse than the guilt and heartache that would be plastered on his face if I had told him the truth.  If I had admitted to him where I was, and where I had chosen to stay.  

Dean leaned forward, bending over himself in order to press his forehead against mine as he sighed in exasperation.  “How did I know you were going to say that?”  

I smiled shyly, letting a small, forced breath out through my nose as I reached out for his shoulder, nudging him to lay down next to me.  He did as I had wordlessly requested, uncrossing his leg and leaning himself ever so languidly down next to me.  His hands were clasped together on his abdomen, and his feet were tapping stressfully as he crossed his ankles at the foot of the bed.  

“Everything’s fine,” I told him, nuzzling my chin into his shoulder as he grunted his disagreement with my statement.  I took a deep breath in, enveloping myself in the calming scent that was Dean Winchester.  Closing my eyes, I began to drift off, staying as aware as possible.  

“Y/N?” He asked sheepishly as he turned his head to face me.  

“Mm hmm?”  

“I need you to stay with me,” he admitted.  I opened my eyes, looking directly up into his caramel-apple orbs.  The ones that were so comforting in their warmth, and now so eager in their desperation.  

“Okay,” I returned.  

“How do I get you to stay with me?”  I shrugged in response, unsure as to what the right answer would be.  

“I need you to tell me.  Cause I’m pissed off all the time, I’m rude and dirty, and I get so sick of all the crap in my life.  But you?”  His words were rushed and panicked.  “You make all that disappear.  Even when I'm an idiot.”  He paused for a moment; his eyes still stuck to mine.  “I need you to stay with me.  No matter what.  Doesn’t matter what it takes or what I have to do.”  

I swallowed hard in response; my mind blank and my heart rate accelerating as evidenced by the rapid beeping from the monitor behind me.  

“I’ll stay,” I whispered, my voice cracking as I did so.  

He nodded swiftly.  “Good,” he whispered in return.  “Cause I’m about to make it really hard for you to leave.”  His words threw me for a loop and before I could fully process them, he had perched his hand on my chin and was pulling me closer towards him as his gentle, warm lips pressed against mine, dancing together to a tune we both seemed to know by heart.  

To be continued….

Part Eight

Taglist (Tag requests are open):

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[thiswasinevitableid]

54. I’m not sure what you think I said, but you start calling me an asshole and whip a ruler at me and somehow, we both end up in detention

Indruck, sfw, please?

Here you go! Content note: spiders appear at one point.

I based some of this AU--namely the concept of the Crucible and how magic is channeled--on the Carry On series by Rainbow Rowell. And Duck is trans in this, because any good wizarding school is inclusive.

After three years at Amnesty Academy, Duck is used to the objects being magically propelled through the air. But a ruler zipping through the air and smacking the back of his head is a new, unpleasant experience.

He tracks it to two chairs to his left, the new third year with the silver hair. He hasn’t even been here a day, what the fuck the is his problem?

“Hey, what the hell man?”

“You know very well what.”

“Uh, no I don’t, and I don’t appreciate bein hit with a fuckin ruler!”

“The maybe think before you insult someone next time!”

“I didn’t fuckin insult you! I don’t even know your name!”

“Ahem.” Ned, their Charms professor, looks down at them reproachfully, “gentlemen, while I know the review of Zone of Truth is rather dull, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t entertain yourselves with mindless conflict.”

“Sorry, Ned.” Duck mumbles, sending his pencil shooting below desk level to whack the other guy in the leg at the exact same moment he whips his pen at Duck’s hand.

“OW!”

Ned sighs, “I hate to do this, but-”

------------------------------------------------

“Detention! Lovely, my first day here and I’m in trouble. Thank you so much, Duck Newton, for landing us here.”

“You started it!” He growls as they take their seats. God, he hopes this isn’t one of Woodbridge’s days.

“Huh, only two.” Mama wipes her boots on the mat, closes the door behind her, “Afternoon, Duck. And…”

“Indrid.” Says his nemesis, “It is nice to meet you Professor C-” he cocks his head, “you really prefer I call you ‘Mama?’”

“Yep. Never could get behind that more formal stuff. Let some of the first years call me ‘Ms. Mama’ if they really need to feel like they’re showin some deference.”

Mama is deputy Headmistress of Amnesty. The only reason she’s not fully in charge is that she’s not a witch and some families object to that. So The Quell technically runs the school while Mama does most of the actual day to day work. She also teaches a course of non-magic practical skills because, “some things you can’t magic your way out of. Like taxes.”

Duck loves her class and, while he doesn’t understand why someone would opt into this weirdness, he admires the guts it takes as a fifteen year old human to walk into a wizarding school and declare that there was plenty you could learn there even though you couldn’t so much as send a spark from your fingers.

As he and Indrid watch the clock tick down, Mama pulls a bag from her satchel. The contents are cookies, which she offers to each of them.

“Barclay tryin’ out new recipes?”

“Course he is. Kid is gonna be the best damn kitchen witch in the country by the time he graduates. Guess he’s plannin to spend the summer drivin around and learnin the food magic of different regions.” She smiles, “bet you’ll never guess who’s goin’ with him.”

“Joe?”

“Bingo. Apparently he wants to study niche cultural magic.”

Duck’s pretty sure there’s another motive; sharing a van bed with Barclay. It sounds fun, roving the country, discovering new places with someone handsome by your side.

All that’s by his side is a glower hiding behind red glasses.

“Mama? I, ah, would it be possible for me to leave five minutes early? I’m supposed to get my pairing from the Crucible tonight.”

The older woman looks between the two of them, “Better tell me how you landed here first. Ned just said it was an argument.”

“He threw a ruler at me outta nowhere.”

“It was not, you know what you said.”

“The last thing I said before you hit me was ‘“nah, man’ when Billy offered me a pizza roll from his lunch.”

Indrid goes still, “Oh. I, ah, I misheard you. I thought you said 'mothman.' I apologize. I ought to have given you the benefit of the doubt.”

He seems so suddenly downtrodden that Duck shrugs, “Yeah, you should have. But it ain’t the worst thing that’s happened to me here. Not by a long shot.”

“No kiddin” Mama leans back on the desk, “Two of you can go at five til.”

His evening turns uneventful after that; dinner, hanging out with Juno and Aubrey, half doing homework and half fucking around on his phone in his room (the agreement between the school and the government is that a long as the students don’t post vidoes of themselves doing sick stunts with magic, the government will ignore any explosions and/monsters in the vicinity of the school).

He’s never had a roommate; when the Crucible spat out his name in fire on his first day, there was no other name with it. Almost everyone else rooms in pairs or trios. So his belongings are strewn about the tiny cabin that makes up his home away from home. Which is why, when the door creaks open at ten p.m, he sits up and prepares to fire off a spell.

Indrid stands in the doorway, one bag over his shoulder and another in his hand. He looks tired.

“Hello, Duck. Ah, I guess that one is my bed, then.”

----------------------------------------------------------------

The class schedules for Amnesty are generated by the heart of the school itself. Indrid isn’t entirely sure what that means, but the heart must not be terribly creative. It stuck him in divination class. He’s been seeing the future since he was five, managing it with his drawings since he was eight. Even the professor has no idea what to do with him, since the images come in like a garbled T.V signal when he uses a crystal ball and the cup shattered when he tried to read tea leaves.

At least Barclay gave him a conciliatory caramel while they swept up the shards. It made him feel a bit better, though whether that’s due to enchantment or Barclay being exceedingly good at cooking is hard to say.

And now he has to go to “Magical Weaponry.” Magical Defense he understands; there are still lots of malicious forces out there, or even just everyday evils that it’s good to be able to ward against. Plus, Vincent is a good professor, enthusiastic and understanding.

Professor Minerva is just as enthusiastic but twice as loud. This is their first day in the actual gym, as opposed to at a blackboard, and his visions suggest it’s going to go poorly for him. As it should; he’s not a fighter, he’s a disaster.

At Amnesty, magic is channeled through objects. Most people use wands or their hands but some, like Aubrey, use jewelry (a necklace from her mother) or another accessory.

Duck Newton uses a sword. Or he’s trying to. The sword seems to be winning.

“Exert your will on him, Duck Newton, he answers to you!”

“I answeeer to only the capable.”

“Shut up, Beacon.” Duck adjusts his grasp, but nothing happens until he drops the sword and sends a spell through his fingers. The target explodes. Indrid suddenly feels a bit better about his own probable performance.

Duck notices him, indicates the practice area next to him is clear. While they started off poorly, his roommate is doing his best to demonstrate southern hospitality. He invites Indrid to eat with him, helps him when his visions offer no help in navigating the grounds, and even lent him a blue and green shirt (Amnesty's colors) for his first Spirit Day. Duck is the best thing to happen to him in his first month here.

By the time class is over, they have six broken targets, a shredded mat, and a knife that is now a very confused frog between them. They manage to laugh about it, even as Duck scoops up the amphibian and tucks him into his shirt pocket.

It’s then that Indrid realizes he has a crush.

--------------------------------------------------

“You comin to the game tonight?” Juno measures her sapling.

“Assumin nothin comes up and nobody’s tryin to kill me, you know I’ll be there.” He loves cheering Juno on during her soccer games (hey, not everything has to be magic based, even at a wizarding school).

“Drat.”

The hissed frustration draws his attention to the far end of the work table. Indrid is trying to coax his Venus Flytraps to perk up, but they remain brown and limp.

“Need some help?”

“Please, as you clearly know what you’re doing.” Indrid tilts his head towards the sapling pine tree Duck is working on. If he does his growing spells right, he’ll be able to take it home as a Christmas Tree during winter break.

“You tend to picture words or, uh,pictures when you do your spells?”

“Images work best. The trouble is that the futures sometimes make it difficult for me to picture a spell clearly.”

“What if I try describing how I’d see it and you picture what I say?”

“It’s worth a try.” Indrid closes his eyes.

“Okay. Think about the roots drawin water up from the soil, about the traps absorbin nutrients from prey. That brown is goin green as they do, they’re stems are growin stronger…” he grins as the plant turns bright green, it’s mouths open, “hey, ‘Drid, look”

“Oh!” Indrid flaps his hands, “it worked! Now I can keep them healthy and big andohno, nono not again.”

The table cracks and collapses as the plant turns gigantic, blocking out the light from the greenhouse roof.

“Holy fuck, that’s great!”

“Language, sport, but I agree.” Thacker, the head of the magical Horticulture classes, whistles as he looks the plant up and down, “this is mighty impressive Indrid. Wonder if we could use it on some pumpkins come fall…”

“I don’t recommend it, unless you want them to chase people.” Indrid points to one of the heads, which is swaying in the air and lowering closer to him. It snaps and he leaps back, falling to a pile of potting soil. Thacker raises his walking stick and the flytrap returns to its proper size.

Duck helps Indrid up, but his friend stays quiet through the end of class and on the walk back to their room.

“You know it ain’t anythin to be ashamed of, right?” Duck flips on the light, “we all fuck up spells now and then. Hell, Aubrey is on track to be the best spellcaster this school’s ever seen and she still has trouble.”

“But mine go haywire constantly” Indrid flops, dejected, onto his bed, “forget mastering my powers, I’ll be lucky if I graduate able to keep them in check. If I graduate at all.” His hand searches the bed blindly; Duck sets the weighted, plush bat into so Indrid can set it on his chest.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never lasted more than a year at a magical school. Or a non-magical one. I started at Mt Vernon when I was fifteen. Tried Deep Hollow and Shasta the year after that. I’m powerful but I can’t seem to channel it well, and three different schools decided I was more trouble than I was worth.”

“Bullshit.” Duck rests a hand on Indrid’s knee, “you’re strugglin with somethin; that means you need more help, not less. And if anyone gets it into their heads to kick you outta Amnesty, I’ll raise a goddamn ruckus.”

Indrid chuckles, quiet and disbelieving.

“I’m serious. You know Aubrey and them would side with me, and Joe knows school policy well enough he could probably find a reason why them tryin to get rid of you was against the rule.”

“Thank you.” Indrid’s smile is a rare flower, fragile and stunning.

“You want one of those calm-down caramels Barclay made?”

“Please.”

Duck grabs the box from the cabinet of their little kitchenette, then snags a Coke and a pineapple soda from the fridge. Indrid is no longer horizontal, is instead sitting with his back to the wall so Duck has space to join him.

Under the fizz of fresh bubbles, his friend murmurs, ‘“Have people really tried to kill you?”

“Yep. Someone sent an assassin after me my first year, and there was a Dire wolf on the grounds last winter that was clearly locked on to my scent. Perk of bein a Chosen One.” He grumbles as he swigs his drink.

“...Who on earth sends an assassin after a fifteen year old?”

“Right?! Fuck if I know, they never got any information out of the guy. Fuckin prophecy I swear, I didn’t even want these powers, let alone to be some kind of hero.”

“I sympathize.” Indrid rests his head on Duck’s shoulder, “there are prophecies around my birth as well.”

Duck clunks their bottles together, “To bein’ fucked over by stuff we can’t control.”

Indrid drains his soda, then perks up, “Oh! Oh dear, you should go if you want to be there for Juno’s match.”

“Come with me?” Duck can’t get the image of the two of them sharing a giant pretzel while smushed thigh to thigh on the bleachers out of his head.

His friend grins, “Of course.”

-----------------------------------------------------

Duck hoped, after his not-great time in middle school, that a magic academy would be asshole free. But no, there are assholes everywhere, and these ones have even more tools for tormenting their targets. He’s never been one, nor have any of his friends. The one time someone tried to bully Barclay, Dani sicked three spectral hummingbirds on them until they apologized.

Indrid, odd and new, is an easy target, though he seems to hold his own just fine (and his proximity to the most powerful witch in school does scare off many potential antagonists). But three guys in their Magical Defense class have zeroed in on him.

They’re standing in line to practice against an evil eye when Indrid’s glasses, the ones he doesn’t take off even when he sleeps, hit the floor by Duck’s feet. Duck scrambles to grab them before they get stepped on, wondering why everyone is making such a fuss. Then he turns and backs up in alarm.

An eight foot tall moth creature is where Indrid should be, red eyes wide and claws clicking together anxious.

“Who let that thing in here?” Someone yells from behind him.

Indrid’s antenna flatten.

“Fuck, wasn’t expecting him to be that big a freak” one of the bullies scoffs.

Black wings twitch.

“Newton, give him the glasses back so we don’t have to look at him!”

Indrid trills, upset, and leaps into the air at the same moment Aubrey yells, “that’s enough” and Vincent shouts a reminder about no flames in enclosed spaces and also detention for you three. Duck is to busy climbing out the window Indrid flew through to pick up the details.

One two-story fall later, he’s chasing a dark shape into the Monongahela forest. While the parts of the woods near his hometown of Kepler are non-enchanted, this chunk is magic down to the moss (he plans to write his final year project on how those halves of forest mesh on an ecological level). One of the worst aspects of the enchanted portions is their tendency to re-shape around travelers. His usual way around this is to have an unwavering sense of where he’s going and pretend the woods are giving him an unchanging path to get there. But that trick does fuck-all when he doesn’t know his destination.

After two hours of searching he’s no closer to finding Indrid, it’s getting dark, and he’s debating heading back to the school for help. He hasn’t been this deep in the woods since he fled the Dire Wolf, and he knows the deeper you go into the trees, the wilder the magic becomes. Bad news for him, even worse for his friend who's out there somewhere, upset and alone.

Eight gigantic eyes glitter at him from the dirt, and he quickly rearranges who has it worse right now.

Throwing a burst of light into the trapdoor spiders eyes buys him enough time to bolt to a tree and climb. As soon as it crawls free of its burrow he freezes; if he’s remembering right, they use vibrations to locate prey.

Fuck, that thing is the size of a VW Beatle. Why is that even a thing? No spider needs to be this big!

In spite of his stillness, it spies him and sets its forelimbs on the tree-trunk. There’s nothing else for it; he draws Beacon, pictures the spider shrinking, and casts his spell.

A soft crunch of leaves signals it hitting the ground, now an unremarkable size for an arachnid. Just as he steps down a branch, a second trap door opens and an enraged spider bursts out, looking for it’s friend. When it can’t find it, it turns and snaps its mandibles at Duck. This time, Beacon does nothing, no matter how Duck commands and curses as his eight-legged doom gets closer.

A crackle of electricity and then this spider disappears as well. On the other side of the trunk, red eyes regard him with worry, “are you hurt?”

“Nah, all in one piece thanks to you.” He holds out his hand, “you wanna head back?”

“Yes, please.” Indrid flaps to the ground, Duck following him on foot and then turning them towards campus, “you did not need to come look for me.”

“Course I did, not gonna let my friend get swallowed up by the forest. Oh, here” he holds out the red glasses, “you want these back?”

“Not just yet. That is, if this form is not too alarming to you.”

Duck takes in the glossy feathers, the charming ruff, the way the face is still obviously Indrid yet excitingly new, “I’m good.”

Light flickers from black claws, stars and flowers spinning out with ease, “It’s so much easier when I’m like this. I never foresaw my disguise charm being an issue, but the older I’ve gotten the more it seems to influence my ability to control my spells. But, well, you saw how people reacted. Even you were startled.”

“In my defense, I thought you’d been eaten by, well, you.” Duck casts the same spell, vines of light chasing the red flowers, “I’m still sorry, though. You ain’t horrible like this, ‘Drid; you’re fuckin stunnin. Never seen anyone as incredible as you.”

Indrid stops, looking down at him, “Do you truly mean that?”

Duck rises on his toes, pecking his cheek, “Yeah, I do.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The Halloween Formal is the most elaborate event at Amnesty. Indrid feels that if there’s any day he’s within his rights to be in his true form, it’s when everyone else is dressed as monsters.

He doesn’t have a date. He thought Duck was in the same predicament. Then his friend left before he was half-done grooming his feathers, saying he needed to get flowers for his hot date.

Ah well. At least Indrid will get to see him there and spend some time with his friends.

He checks his reflection in the gleaming black walls, orange and purple lights glowing and jack’o lanterns floating above his head. He adjusts his robes, the nice red ones his father sent him, and prepares to enter the ballroom.

“Hold up.”

When he turns, Duck is standing there in his black dress shirt and green tie, looking for all the world like he’s alone.

“You got one more thing to put on” He holds out a bracelet of flowers, sized to slip perfectly over Indrid’s hand. There are matching flowers pinned to one side of Duck’s hair.

“Oh. Oh my. You really-”

Duck uses a small spell to bend Indrid into a kiss; it’s a bit messy, since their mouths aren’t meant to fit together, but Indrid would not trade it for all the magic in the world.

“Yeah, ‘Drid, I really do.” With that, Duck offers his elbow and they walk arm in arm into the great hall.

[ampmiscfiles]

Let Us Love You: Chapter 8

Start at the beginning

Bucky watched with a thoughtful expression as Peter left. There was no denying the omega hadn't looked at him quite like he had before.

He looked......unsure.

He debated on letting the others know, but he didn't have to say anything.

"That was interesting." Natasha said, eyebrows raised.

"What was?" Steve asked, turning from where Karen had walked off.

"Bucky and Peter." she answered.

The three other alphas snapped to attention.

"What about them?" Thor pushed.

"We just made eye contact. She's making something out of nothing." Bucky said, rolling his eyes.

"There was something different in that look." Natasha said, crossing her arms.

"I don't see why this is such a big deal. We all know he was close to the version of me in his world. He damn near shuts down every time he sees me. You'd be better off ignoring what you saw. It wasn't me he was looking at." Bucky glared before stomping off.

"Was it really a big deal?" Steve asked, looking at Natasha carefully. "I mean, Buck's not wrong. Peter had a connection with his version, it really could just be that."

"Oh, it's definitely a little bit of that. I could see it. He misses him. Most likely it's the same with Sam. Still, he knew he wasn't looking at his Barnes. He was trying to seen him in ours though."

"Perhaps this is a good thing." Thor hummed. "If we can convince him to talk to our friend Barnes, then he could see ours is the same as his!"

"That might work in theory, big guy," Tony nodded. "But how do you propose to get close enough to Peter to suggest it? How would you suggest it?"

"It's not a bad idea. I think Peter wants to talk to him, but our other selves have left a serious impression on him." Natasha said, moving to follow where Bucky had gone. "Let's go. We need to do a little brainstorming."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Welcome to my awesome abode. I'd be glad to show you around. Maybe you'd like to see the inside of my bedroom?" Johnny winked, opening the door wide for Peter to enter.

"I've literally been here multiple times. I think I can get around just fine." Peter smirked. "Plus, I've seen your bedroom. It's a disaster."

"You've seen theother me'sroom. I can assure you thatmineis ready for company."

"I bet it is." Peter rolled his eyes. "Where is everyone?"

"In the kitchen. Come on, I'll win you over with my co-"

"You can't cook." Peter snorted.

"You don't know that!"

"What are we having?"

"It's.......um..."

"Exactly." Peter laughed, passing Johnny and heading towards the kitchen.

"Are you sure we're just friends? I feel like there's something between us."

"Yeah, a mutual respect for giving each other shit."

"You know, I think you're ignoring the fact I'm a different Johnny Storm here." Johnny pouted, crossing his arms.

"No. You're still the same idiot." Peter chuckled, flicking his forehead.

"I'll have you know, I'm a highly sought-after alpha. Everyone wants a piece of this." he gestured to his whole body.

"I bet. I had to fight the crowd of screaming fangirls just to get in here." Peter deadpanned.

The truth was, Johnny was every bit as good looking in this universe as he had been in Peter's. Still, just as he retained his looks here, he also retained his extreme level of self-confidence.

"I'll win you over yet, Parker."

"Uh hu. Sure. Just don't hold your breath."

Peter would never admit he had once had a major crush on his own Johnny.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Peter!" Reed smiled as he and Johnny entered the kitchen.

Sue smiled as she looked up from pulling a pan of lasagna out of the oven.

"Hello, Peter. Everything is almost done. Why don't you all go join Ben."

"Yes! I have so ma-"

"Reed." Sue warned. "He only just got here."

"It's ok, really." Peter smiled.

"I was used to this." he said, motioning between him and Reed.

"Let's talk then. I'm curious about your story. The multiverse isn't a common topic I get to discuss!"

"Well, I can't tell you you're gonna like most of what I have to say. Still, it's great to see you guys again." Peter smiled, genuinely happy to see the family of four back together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Heard we missed all the fun." Clint called, stepping off the elevator with his bags. "You guys couldn't have waited?"

"Sure. Next time we'll ask the killer robot army to hang on and let our other team mates get back from their impromptu vacation." Tony huffed.

"You all seem in a better mood than when we left. Something happen?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow at others.

The alphas were gathered in the common area talking eagerly amongst themselves.

"Yes." Thor smiled widely. "We have decided to properly court our omega. We shall return to the old ways."

"Who says romance is dead?" Tony grinned. "We're gonna woo the hell out of him!”

"This should be fun." Sam deadpanned.

“Oh ye of little faith. We're an extremely romantic bunch when let loose.” Tony scoffed.

“The guy couldn’t be more clear on his desire not to be your omega.”

“We’ve been talking to Karen and each other. Slow and steady wins the race and all that.”

“I think we made it back in perfect time then!” Clint grinned, opening his bag. “Brought some of Laura and the kids’ things. They missed you guys.”

Clint passed out the few items he had brought from his home. The scents of Laura and the three kids extended into the room. The calm of knowing their distant pack members were safe settled the atmosphere.

“We’ll get out to see them soon.” Natasha smiled, rubbing the small stuffed bunny she knew belonged to Nathaniel.

“We may even get to introduce them to Peter.” Steve said, a hopeful lit in his voice.

“Please don’t push that on him.” Bruce sighed. “It’s going to be enough on him dealing with you all, much less integrating into a full pack.”

“We are fully prepared to take it slow with our young omega.” Thor smiled.

The four other alphas nodded in agreement. There was no other option really. Sam was right in his statement that Peter seemed to want nothing to do with them, but Peter's conflict over Bucky had revived their hopes.

Maybe it wasn't such a lost cause after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Your universe sucked.” Johnny scoffed from his seat next to Peter.

“I don’t always get along with Stark, but it’s deeply upsetting to hear about a version of him that was so violent.” Reed frowned, taking his own seat.

“I just can’t picture any of them being like that.” Sue agreed.

“Well, good thing ours arn’t like that. Not sure I could clobber them all at once.” Ben huffed.

Peter listened as the four voiced their opinions of the Avengers.To be honest, he was getting a little sick and tired of everyone telling him how wonderful they were.

They were wonderful in his world at once too!Everyone loved them and practically worshipped them!

Truth be told, there was no real understanding of the change. It wasn’t like anyone was opposing them. Who would? The Avengers risked their lives to help people, to keep them safe. Why would they evenneedto change?

Not that it mattered. They did change. They went from saving people tohurtingthem. They lorded their power over the people, and gleefully killed those who posed any real threat.

They were monsters!

Peter absently ran his hand along his thigh where he knew a long scar sat. A memorial to a particularly brutal up close fight with Black Widow. She had managed to stun him with her widow bites, slowing him down enough to prevent an unharmed escape. It could have been much worse, he knew, but he got lucky in where the bites had hit him.

She had been aiming for a fatal blow.

His movement had saved him from a slow death, but the blade had torn practically through to the bone in his thigh. If Bucky hadn’t shown up, she would have finished the job. As it was, he was out of commission for two weeks before the wound had healed, feeling had returned, and the leg moved without stiffness.

God, the blood she had spilt.

“Peter?”

Peter startled out of his thoughts to find the four looking at him.

“Sorry.” he mumbled. “I can get lost in thought sometimes.”

“Well, I’m more than willing to help you with that.” Johnny grinned, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Oh I know you can. You always could bore me right to sleep.” Peter snarked.

The others laughed and began passing around the food as Johnny pouted.

"So, you said there are no second genders where you're from?" Sue asked, curious as to how Peter was handling the change.

"No, we definitely didn't have alphas, betas, and omegas where I'm from. It was.....surprising to say the least." Peter winced.

"Well, you seem to be doing alright as a beta." Reed smiled.

"Beta?" Peter raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. Your scent is barely there. Beta scents are generally muted. Yours seems a little more so. Maybe it's because you weren't originally from here. Do you not know your second gender though, or did you think you hadn't gained one?" Sue frowned.

"I would have figured Matt and Karen would have explained things to you."

Peter looked around the table, unconsciously touching his wrist where one of the patches sat under his sleeve and web shooter.

"No," Peter hesitated. "They did, I.....I'm just still adjusting it all. I mean, I lived 26 years without all this, so it's easy to forget sometimes."

Ben, Sue, and Reed nodded, striking back up light conversation and more questions about himself and how he was getting along. Out the corner of his eye, Peter couldn't ignore the strange look Johnny kept giving him.

"So, what are you going by if you can't be a Parker?" Ben asked, drawing Peter's thoughts away from Johnny.

"Jones." Peter sighed.

"Any relation to Jessica Jones?" Reed asked.

"Yeah." Peter huffed. "Everyone thought they were so funny when they decided to make me Jessica's cousin."

"What's funny about that?" Sue frowned. "Did the two of you date back in your world?"

"Not hardly." Peter laughed.

"No, they just thought my initials were a nice joke.They left my first and middle name then changed my last."

"What's your name then?"

"My name is Peter Benjamin Par...err, Jones. Peter Benjamin Jones."

"I'm sure you'd make a delicious sandwich." Johnny snorted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours had passed before Peter noticed the time. He had been enjoying himself while getting acquainted with this version of the Four. They were practically identical to his, making connecting with them extremely easy.

“Well, I guess I better get going. Karen’s a worrier.”

“Don’t let Matt fool you, Peter,” Sue smirked. “He’s a worrier too with people he cares about. I saw you two talking.”

“Matt was the first person I went to after I got here. I was good friends with him.” Peter smiled.

He was happy to have Matt and Karen, and to be gathering back all the people he lost, but Ben, May, Bucky and Sam were never far from his mind. The people he wanted most were the people he’d never get.

After promising to visit again, and give a demonstration of his strength levels compared to Ben's, Johnny led Peter out.

"So, Pete," Johnny started, unusually hesitant compared to his normal composure.

"The others didn't press, but I'm going to. You're an omega, aren't you?"

Peter blinked in surprise. He had yet to have to admit his second gender to anyone on his own yet. Everyone who knew, had either discovered from his scent, or been told by someone else.

"I could see the scent patch occasionally when your sleeve moved up and your, whatever those are on your wrists, shifted."

Peter swallowed hard, not missing the fact Johnny had moved into his space.

"I...uh.."

"It's ok, Pete." Johnny smirked, stepping back. "I'm not going to blab your secret. I am, however, going to knock you off your feet! You'll give in to me yet, Jones."

"I don't think you want to try, Storm." Peter replied, breathing a little easier as Johnny's alpha pheromones calmed.

"Why? Do you already have an alpha? I just don't see any mating marks."

Mating marks?

Peter frowned. He hadn't heard of any 'mating marks'. Was there more he had to learn? Maybe he should keep blowing Karen's lessons off.

"No. I don't have an alpha, and I'm not interested in one." Peter narrowed his eyes.

"Fair enough." Johnny smiled, holding up his hands in surrender. "But that doesn't mean I won't keep trying."

Peter sighed. While he wasn't about to let Johnny Storm in on his alpha problem, he couldn't forget how the Avengers had reacted to Wade when they realized the two were hanging out together.

Deadpool hadn't been in any real danger since he could easily regenerate, but Johnny couldn't.

If anything Karen had already told him had gotten through, it was that alphas could be possessive. He had already seen it in action, and the Avengers were anything but normal alphas.

Still, he wasn't going to let that stop him from hanging around people he actually trusted.

They would just have to deal.

If they couldn't, and tried to hurt his friends, he'd be ready.

As he made his way back toward Matt and Karen's, he didn't even notice how his thoughts on the Avengers had changed from "when", to "if".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You smell like Johnny Storm." Karen frowned when he walked through the door.

"Hello Karen. I see your fine after today's events. My dinner with the Four was great. If was nice to catch up. Thanks for asking."

"Don't sass me, Peter Jones." Karen glared, following him to his room, passing a smirking Matt along the way.

"What if you had run into your alphas? You're unmated and smelling of an alpha that's not one of them! Even worse that it's Johnny with his flirty reputation."

"I'm not avoiding friends just becausetheymight not like it, Karen!" Peter shouted, turning around with his own glare.

"They don't own me and never will. I don't want them! I don't trust them! It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks of them. I can't stand them!"

"Peter, please," Karen tried.

"No. This discussion is over Karen. I'm never going to be with the Avengers. It's not happening."

"You won't even give them a chance!" Karen shouted, her frustration rising. "You're so hell bent on seeing them as the same villains they were in your world that you refuse to see them as the heroes they are here! This isn't your old world, Peter! You can't keep hanging on to what happened there. You're here now!"

The two glared at each other, neither wanting to admit defeat.

"You don't know what you're talking about Karen. You have no idea what I've been through."

"I have a damn good idea, Peter! You've made no effort to hide your disdain for them. You have no problems admitting what those other Avengers did to you. I know it's left physical as well as mental scars, but did you ever stop and think that maybe getting to know these Avengers could help you heal?"

There was complete silence as Karen's words hung in the air.

"Getting to know them and seeing they're who you wish your Avengers had been could be good for you. You could finally relax a little and try to move on. You've been here for months now Peter, and yet you still hold everything from your past so close it's like it all happened yesterday."

Karen sighed, running her hand through her hair.

"We're all still here, Peter. Nothing has happened to any of us and they've had more than enough opportunity to hurt us if they wanted to. They've had plenty of chances to kill the others and make it look like a casualty of a fight and no one would question it, but they haven't. They haven't, and you need to realize and accept it."

Without another word, Karen turned and headed into her and Matt's bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anger rippling under his skin, Peter left the apartment and headed towards Luke's bar. Maybe he could find something there to keep himself busy.

Anything to get his mind off his....whatever that was, with Karen.

Shoving his way into the back door, the sounds from the front filtered in through his ears. The place was at peek hour.

"I swear, if one more asshole-Peter?"

Peter looked over as Luke stormed into the back, grabbing a bucket and mop.

"Rough night?" Peter asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, it's gonna be for the shit that just broke a beer bottle over a guy's head. They're both about to clean up their little mess, then get thrown out on their asses." Luke grumbled, kicking the door back open and shouting.

Peter decided to hang out in the back, letting Luke handle things before making his way up front.

"Get out here, Jones." Luke snapped, sticking his head back through the door. "Make yourself useful and come serve some drinks."

Grinning, Peter slid his way behind the bar and got to work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was slowing down to the more, quieter patrons of the night. These were the people Peter liked the most. While the more boisterous crowd could be fun, they could also be annoying and demanding. Some even tried to get a little handsy, over the bar.

This crowd though, this was crowd was just looking for a little break from the world.

Peter heard someone sit at the bar while he was crouched, placing glasses back into their places. Rubbing his hands on his pants, he stood up to greet the customer and....froze.

Sam Wilson stared back, as equally surprised to see him.

The two just stared at each other, neither knowing how to react.

"Hey, Pete-" Luke stopped as he took in what was happening.

He wasn't quite sure what to do, and it didn't appear as if Peter or Sam knew either. Had it been any of the alphas, Luke would have easily jumped in, knowing how stressed Peter would be.

Sam wasn't an alpha though.

“Let me start by saying your secret is safe with me.” Sam said. “I’m pretty burnt out on alpha desperation at this point. I just want to have a drink and enjoy it.”

Peter stared at him a moment before moving forward.

“What would you like?”

“Whatever you recommend.”

Peter looked at him again. Guess Sam was willing to trust his judgement in drinks in any universe.

Sam nodded as Peter slid a glass across the counter top and took a swig.

“I hope we’re not gonna spend the entire time in here in this strange, tense silence.”

Peter sighed.

“This isn’t....this isn’t easy for me.”

“I’ve gotten that impression. I also heard you were close to your world’s Bucky and I.”

“Y...yeah.” Peter frowned. “By the end, they were my best friends.....they were all I had left.”

The two were silent again as Peter busied himself with meaningless tasks.

“I’m sorry this is happening to you.” Sam said suddenly. “I think I would have reacted the same way.”

Peter stood with his back to Sam, debating on his next move.

Finally, he turned.

“You’re a lot like him, well, when he wasn’t giving me shit anyway.” Peter chuckled.

“Oh, I can give you shit if that’s what you’re looking for spider boy.” Sam grinned.

Peter grinned back, strangely comfortable in this Sam’s presence.

Maybe all Sam’s were pretty much the same.

“Look. I know you’re probably willing to talk to me like thishere. I can see Cage keeping an eye on you, but I think, if we got along in your world, we could get along here.”

Peter hesitated, the since of unease returning.

“I’m not trying to hand you over to the wolves!” Sam said quickly. “I’m more so trying to offer up another friendship. One that gets me away from everyone at the tower and one that offers you.....” Sam hesitated, unsure if he should continue.

“Maybe something that offers you a bit of what you lost?”

Peter’s eyes widened in surprise. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of this Sam’s offer. As much as he missed his own, and as similar as the two seemed, could he really ever think of this Sam as a friend on par with his?

“I...um...”

“You don’t have to answer me now.” Sam assured. “Maybe just think about it. I realize I’m part of the enemy here, but I promise I’m not a bad guy.”

“Yeah.” Peter snorted. “You’re not trying to get into my pants.”

“You do realize there’s more to it than that, right?”

“I’m not really interested.” Peter replied. “You don’t know what it was like to see them hurt people. To see them kill you and Bucky.”

“I’d offer up the argument that these Avengers haven’t done that considering Bucky and I are clearly still alive, but I have the feeling you’ve heard that line enough.”

“That obvious?”

“From five words in.”

Peter let out a breath, running his hand through his hair. It was hard having someone who looked like his lost friend be so close, and yet so far.

"I'll share a secret with you, kid." Sam grinned, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

This caught Peter's attention as he leaned onto the bar.

"There are three betas in the tower. Me, Clint and Bruce-"

"I...I like Dr. Banner." Peter mumbled.

"What?" Sam asked, unsure he had heard right.

"I....I like Dr. Banner. He.......he had it hard in my world. Hulk is a force to be reckoned with. He can be easily enraged to the point that even the intelligence he does have can be quickly over written. When the Avengers...turned.....they held him hostage. Bruce was far to gentle in nature to side with them, so they held him captive, using Hulk against him. They'd do whatever they could to bring out Hulk, then set him loose on the city."

Sam sat in stunned silence. He could never imagine putting Bruce Banner through that kind of torment. Bruce struggled with balancing himself as both separate and part of Hulk.

"I wanted to free him. Tried several times, but it never worked. They kept him in an underground bunker beneath the tower. I only saw him once. I'm not even sure how I managed to make it that far. I've never forgotten how defeated, miserable and pained he looked inside that glass cage they kept him in."

"Glass doesn't sound like it would hold-"

"Oh, it was 'Hulk proof'." Peter hissed. "Before things went bad, Bruce and Tony created it to contain him if things got to bad and he needed somewhere safe to be until he returned back to himself."

"They used his own creation against him." Sam sighed, running his hand down his face. "Guess that explains why you didn't do anything to Bruce that day."

"I told Matt and Karen it was because he let me out. I'm telling you the truth because you live with them and need to know what they're capable of doing."

"If it makes you feel any better," Sam started. "We don't have a Hulk room or cage or anything."

Peter narrowed his eyes.

"Serious!" Sam defended. "Bruce comes and goes just like the rest of us. He pretty much stays at the tower though. We don't have many instances where the Hulk is needed, but Bruce's medical training comes in handy a lot. Even stepped up a notch when you showed up." Sam snickered.

"Are you.....enjoying me hurting them?" Peter asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Immensely. Clint and I, don't tell him I agree with him, think it's amazing."

Peter didn't stop the upturn of his lip at Sam's grin.

"Omega's don't typically kick their alpha's asses on the regular. I mean, I've heard of those mutant omegas at Xavier's going out and fighting, but I've never seen them do it in person. You, on the other hand, I have watched fling every alpha on the team around like rag dolls. It's humbling really."

Sam's laughter filled the small space between him and Peter.

"Well, I do have a history of fighting the hierarchy." Peter smiled.

"Tell you what," Sam said, holding out his hand. "Let's start fresh. No alternate identities. Just two guys meeting at a bar. I'm Sam Wilson."

Peter looked at the outstretched hand and up at Sam's face. His spider-sense remained, as it had the entire time, silent. Slowly, Peter took the outstretched hand.

"Peter Jones."

Sam raised and eyebrow.

"Doesn't surprise me." Peter rolled his eyes. "Of course you'd all know my real name."

"Why change it?"

"Because a version of me existed here at one time." Peter replied, looking away. "I can't be Peter Parker when he's dead."

"I guess not one that looks just like him." Sam nodded. "I'm guessing there's also family then?"

"Yeah." Peter replied, not willing to say more.

"Alright then, Peter Jones, it was nice to meet you. I better be getting back home though." Sam smiled, standing up and taking his jacket off the back of the chair.

"You'll cover that for me, right?"

Peter looked down where Sam nodded at the empty glass.

"No way Wilson."

"To think, I wanted to be nice to you." Sam said, pulling some bills out of his pocket.

"There's no such thing as free alcohol, man." Peter grinned.

"Then what's the point of being friends with the bartender?"

"The fabulous company?"

"I know that's what you get, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm getting." Sam smirked.

"I'll tell you what, this time." Peter's grinned turned wicked. "You'll get to keep a place you can go where the other Avengers can never bother you. I'll personally see to their exits if they ever show up."

Sam barked out a laugh as he straightened out his jacket.

"Well, if they ever show up, it won't be because of me. With that said, I appreciate your willingness to uphold the sanctity of my sacred drinking hole."

The two nodded at each other as Sam walked out the door, followed shortly after by the last of Luke's customers.

"You ok?" Luke asked as he restocked the bar while Peter swept.

"Surprisingly, yeah. Dealing with just Sam was way different than the others."

"Well, being a beta probably helps." Luke shrugged, not wanting to verbally address the other issues.

"Maybe." Peter nodded.

"You worried you'll have more 'customers'?" Luke asked after a moment. "I can't exactly say I can ban the Avengers..."

"No." Peter said, looking up at Luke. "I'm actually not."

Luke stopped and raised an eyebrow.

"You do realize-"

"I don't think he'll tell. Not them anyway. Maybe Barton and Dr. Banner, but not them."

"Well, I heard about Banner, but what about Barton. What's the feelings on him?"

Peter stopped sweeping, letting his thoughts gather themselves.

"He was just as ruthless as the others in my world. Tony made him explosive arrows. He caused so much damage with those. Lots of innocent people lost their homes and their lives. I don't trust him any more than the others."

Peter's face turned stony as he thought about the archer.

"He shot me in the back once. Went right through my right side."

"He did what?" Luke growled, walking from behind the bar and over to Peter.

"Yeah, right here." Peter said, lifting his shirt and tracing the scar on the side of his stomach, then moving to the part on his back.

Luke looked at the two scars, not missing a few others as well.

"Jesus, kid."

"I keep trying to tell you all. The Avengers can't be trusted this blindly! They could turn at any moment, and you could end up with the same scars as me......or worse."

Luke frowned as he watched Peter try to keep his breathing calm. He wasn't sure Peter having contact with Sam was a good idea anymore. It didn't matter what intentions the man had, being around him definitely opened Peter up to chances of having to see the other members of the team.

"I worry though, that I'm letting positive memories of Sam cloud my judgement here." Peter sighed. "I'm worried desperation for that connection is taking over."

"You can always keep to meeting here. You never have to meet him anywhere you don't want to." Luke shrugged. "I know you're tired of hearing it kid, so I'll save a lot of it."

Peter frowned, unsure of exactly what Luke was going to say.

"I don't have a problem with the Avengers, but I'm also not you. I don't have your past, so my opinion means nothing. Sam though, Sam's not an alpha. He's a beta with no romantic interest in you. I don't think it would be a big deal to consider the option of some form of friendship with him. Shit on the others if you don't want to."

Peter didn't know what to say. He was genuinely worried as to what accepting Sam's offer might lead to. The worst scenarios running through the forefront of his mind. Still, the possible benefits kept pushing their way in.

"I'll think about it.

[kob131]

So, inspired by Shuttershocky’s own character opinions, I think I’ll start doing my own.

And no, I’m not doing Mordred first. She comes later.

Nah, considering a certain Ruler’s recent reveal, I think I’ll talk about a certain Shirou-face.

So quick overview of Angra Mainju-

He’s not actually the Zoroastrian god of Evil. No, he’s actually more like Sasaki Kojiro- The guy who the myth of Angra Mainju is BASED off of. He was just some ordinary villager who drew the shortest of straws and was used as a scapegoat for the sins of his villagers, tortured for decades until he died of old age. Because of this, he has a pretty nasty hatred of humanity. Which you would think would disqualify him from being a Heroic Spirit (I mean, logically who would consider him a hero?) but it’s said that his torture put the villagers at ease, meaning he did technically do a heroic deed and thus was preserved by the Throne of Heroes.

In the Third Holy Grail War, the Einsberns tried to summon the evil god but, for a multitude of reasons that include it not existing in the first place, they got him instead. Problem? The guy isn’t a normal hero, he’s a village boy who got tortured. He doesn’t have any special powers or even a proper Noble Phantasm. So of course, he gets his ass kicked. But thing is, he was so weak the Grail thought he was a human and thus tried to grant his wish.

Which was to actually BECOME All The World’s Evil.

And so the Grail tried to do it...but things got fucky. So the next two wars are basically just attempts at bring his wish to life. He...kind of exists here? Issue is that in Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night, Angra Mainju is more a force of nature or a being of pure evil rather than the tortured village boy he actually is. So for simplicity’s sake AND due to how radically different ‘All The World’s Evil’ is- I’ll just skip over his supposed presence in those two and move on.

Despite his wished for form’s destruction in Fate/Stay Night, Angra Mainju survived. In fact, his time as “All The World’s Evil” turned him into a proper Heroic Spirit, giving him an actual Noble Phantasm and actual status as a Heroic Spirit. Here, he gains a sort of obsession with granting wishes. So he goes around looking for someone’s wish to grant. During this time, he finds Bazett Frega McRemitz (AKA The ACTUAL Master of Cu Chulanin before Kirei decided to do what he does best: Fuck people over) dying, wishing not to die. And thus, Angra Mainju does his best to keep her alive. For 6 months, this meant keeping her alive but in a vegetative state. 

After being discovered by Caren Hortensia (Kirei’s daughter. ... This is kind of important later), this meant keeping her alive AND sustaining her consciousness. To do this, he creates Fate/Hollow Ataraxia’s four day loop (the same length of time he survived his war.) Through this, he tricks Bazett into thinking that she’s participating in the Fifth Holy Grail War. Issue being, Angra knows little more than jackshit about said war so what ends up happening is that he uses the Third Grail War structure with Fifth Grail War players as stand-ins. He is also only active with Bazett at night, the catch being that the person that the player thinks they’re controlling (Shirou) is actually an unaware Angra, living out his own wish of a normal life.

At first, Angra is just being selfish and indulging himself during this time. However, over time, his interactions with the people in Shirou’s life, Shirou’s own influence over him (as having lost his identity, he effectively needs to adopt another’s to exist) and, most importantly, his new found relationship with Bazett and Caren causes him to try and end the four day loop. This going against his Master’s wishes, as she fears that she will die due to finding out about the loop and losing Avenger, who is assumed to become nothing once again. However, he manages to convince her by revealing he really did save her life and that she had to move on. So at the end, he and Bazett race to opposite ends of the Grail, Bazett back to life and Angra Mainju embracing oblivion once again.

So...yeah. Pretty heavy stuff even with me skipping some stuff.

We only really learn about Angra Mainju in Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, since that’s where we truly meet him as a person. And at the beginning...he’s not a good person. Avengers in general are known for being highly destructive, malicious and dangerous Servants because their Class effectively puts them on edge at all times, constant consumed by hate. As the first Avenger, Angra both embodies this and subverts it at the same time.

Yes he is consumed by hate. ... But said hate is not an emotional state like other Avengers. His hate is his nature by the point we meet him. Meaning he isn’t on edge like his fellows, he isn’t clouded by extreme emotion. For all his cynicism and malice, he’s by far the calmest and most rational Avenger we have seen so far. Which makes some of his actions (like killing a family to draw out his enemies) come across as even worse than normal since he isn’t openly insane. Even beyond this, Angra is a sarcastic asshole who loves fucking with people and being insulting.

However, as things go on, as he lives the life of Shirou Emiya and the Servant of Bazett, he gets better. Sure, he’s still rude as all hell. But the guy does show he cares about Bazett and thinks about her well being. He falls in love with Caren, who does love him back (if you’re wondering how: I believe it’s implied Caren suffers from the same condition Kirei did in regards to empathy. So makes sense she’d love an embodiment of hate and vengence) and he did enjoy living as Shirou, revealing that beneath the hate that became his nature- He’s just a normal guy who got SEVERELY fucked over. Hell, when Medusa was on the verge of morphing into Gorgon, Angra walks by and talks to her. He gives her a speech on what it means to be a monster and ends up helping her prevent her transformation, even though having her become a monster would help him make people suffer (and maybe even someone who understands him, as Gorgon is an Avenger herself.)

Just as his lack of emotional distress makes his evil actions worse, it also means he’s capable of change and becoming good. He learns love and care despite having lived a life no one could even comprehend, forced into a Class that is more like a curse than an honor. Despite his hatred of humanity, he still believes in it somewhat. He adopts some of Shirou’s heroic traits through living his life. And at the very end, this jackass who started things off by killing random innocents...ends up making the ultimate sacrifice, one where he gains nothing but loses everything, where he really doesn’t want to do it...all because he came to care for Bazett.

I’ll admit, I sobbed at the end.

Now, Angra isn’t really used in any serious manner after this. He appears in the Accel/Zero and Christmas in the Underworld events...mostly as jokes. However, I would like to note his Bond 10 Craft Essence. These CEs are effectively summations of the characters themselves. For example, Mordred’s Bond 10 effectively sums up her identity issues. And Angra Mainju’s?

It’s all about how he was a necessary evil, his life taken from him, hatred burned into him...

...and how Caren, despite seeing it all, still loved him.

And the CEs effect? A Guts buff and the ability to hurt Beast class enemies in a way no other Servant can replicate.

In essence, that love gives him the ability to keep living (with his strongest skill KILLING him btw) and to more effectively protect the world. And considering how the Beasts are related to humanity, it might just be because that love made him human again.

In short, Angra Mainju is a person forced into a role, his nature overwritten by his torture, cursed by fate because of others, indulging in his role because it’s all he knows-

And yet, even he finds a way to become a better person. All culminating in a sacrifice that can only be described as ‘Heroic’.

He truly is a Heroic Spirit.

[barricadebops]

I NEED A WHOLE BOOK THIS IS A M A Z I N G I'd sell my soul for mummy au snippets I love you oh my hhhhhhhh *screams in adoration*

The Mummy AU verse, you can find the first fic here.

"One year ago, you were chained to a table and was nearly sacrificed in some demonic summoning ritual, I was nearly sucked dry of my everything, and Courf nearly killed us all by summoning guards who were hell bent on killing us until he muttered the right incantation. And where are we a year later?" he muttered as he trailed behind his fiance, a hand poised near the gun in his holster, ready should anything go awry. Which, considering their previous experience at Hamunaptra, wasn't too unlikely a possibility.

In front of him, Enjolras hummed. "The mummy's gone Grantaire, we took care of that. There's nothing to worry about." He stopped walking for a moment and turned around to face him. "The pyramids are open to explore! Who knows what we may discover next?"

"Another creepy book that'll end with nothing good?" he asked, rolling his eyes. "Remind me to keep you away from those."

At his comment, Enjolras didn't even spare him his signature huff or roll-of-his-eyes, which Grantaire thought was pretty rude. He lived to see the way Enjolras face scrunched up in a way that couldn't possibly look cute on anyone's face and yet managed to do on his, the least he could have done as payment for dragging him here once more would be to give it to him.

(Or, well, Grantaire says dragging. In reality, he would have readily followed Enjolras to the ends of the Earth if he asked.)

They turned down a narrow passageway, the dark flickering to life where they held their torches as Enjolras felt along the notches of the wall, looking for...whatever it was he was looking for, his trusty kit wrapped safely around his waist.

"If you're quite done complaining, Mr. Grantaire," he said absentmindedly, addressing him the way he once did when they were first acquainted, out of teasing, "perhaps you could help me?"

A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. "Help exactly how?"

But Grantaire knew exactly how. It was clear to anyone who could see Enjolras straining on his toes to reach an indented groove in the wall next to another relief, too far out of his reach for him to strike with his chisel as a result of his rather short stature what he needed help with. He just liked hearing him ask.

And as predicted, Enjolrad turned his head and glared, huffing that signature huff Grantaire loved so much.

"Grantaire, I swear if you don't get over here and help me, this time I'll actually summon the mummy through my 'heiroglyph' notes. And this time I'll become his true faithful lover while you mope over the engagement ring I throw back at your head."

The mention of the heiroglyph note-scare was enough to have Grantaire turn pale and rush to his side to help. It certainly wasn't a feeling he wanted to relive again; revenge for an offhand comment by Grantaire about the illegibility of Enjolras' handwriting--that they looked like heiroglyphs and that he was no Egyptologist like his fiance was to decipher them--led to a barrage of notes this time truly in heiroglyphs, and made suspicious and mysterious enough to rouse his suspicions that Enjolras was trying something that might have them pursued by an unholy monster once again, and it certainly didn't help that Enjolras acted well enough to allow him to believe those suspicions.

"Two weeks," he complained as he crouched low enough to allow Enjolras to climb onto his shoulders. "For two weeks you let me think you'd been possessed by some spirit trying to summon the mummy again. You made me look like a fool when Combeferre and Courfeyrac finally came back only to see me panicking at their doorstep."

Enjolras hummed as Grantaire straightened and he found himself lifted off the ground, boosted high enough on Grantaire's shoulders that he could now reach the spot he had been straining to toucn earlier. "Maybe you shouldn't have insulted my writing then. Besides, you should know that heiroglyphs doesn't equate to demonic writing."

"Given my experience with them, you'll have to forgive me if I think they're symbols straight outta hell," he muttered, swaying slightly on his feet. Enjolras patted his head.

"Stay still, Grantaire, I'm trying to hold my chisel steady."

He smiled up at him. "You may be an angel, but you certainly have no way of touching the heavens without help."

Abruptly stopping his chiselling, Enjolras glared down at the top of his fiance's head, and deadpanned, "No, but I'll drag you to hell if you keep it up with the short jokes."

"Hey, come on now, don't get short with me."

"Grantaire."

He remained standing still as Enjolras began to chisel away at the notch in the wall, dust falling around them. "Will you at least tell me what you actually wrote on those notes."

A smirk on his face, Enjolras peered down at him and smugly answered, "I guess you'll never know."

He quirked an eyebrow. "I could just ask Courf."

Enjolras' smirk only grew. "He'll never tell--I've got too much dirt on him."

If he could, Grantaire would shake his head. Siblings.

However, given his current position, he was in no means to do so as Enjolras continued to chisel away at the wall. "What exactly are we looking for again?"

Above him, Enjolras hummed. "Well, we found enough jewels and riches enough to prove that the claims of Hamunaptra being the city of gold for the Pharaohs was real." As an aside, he murmured under his breath, "Take that Bembridge Scholars," which surprised a rumbling laugh out of Grantaire, which on any other day Enjolras might have appreciated, but seeing as how Grantaire's whole body shook and he was sat upon his shoulders, instead he yelped and gripped tight onto Grantaire's hair, which threatened to turn his laughter into purring.

"Gr--Grantaire! Stop!"

"I'll make it a deal to stop laughing if you stop pulling," he grit out in attempt to reign in any embarassing noises that threatened to spill from his tongue.

"Huh? Oh!" his hair was released, Enjolras wincing in sympathy. "Sorry."

Grantaire was of the thought that he didn't have to be sorry if he did the same thing, just when they got home.

"We're--stop moving, I'll fall--we're looking for one of Seti I's pendants--his most prized pendant of all."

He snorted. "And this requires looking through his walls?"

Enjolras peered down at his head, frowning as if it were obvious. "Well, yes. It was stolen from him, and many archaeologists believe it was hidden in the ground or put in a wall."

"Well," he watched as his fiance continued to chip away at the notch in the wall, "there are a hundred walls here. How do we know which one it is?"

"The thieves confessed to hiding it near a relief," Enjolras murmured distractedly. "Such as this one." He pointed to the relief carved next to them.

"How'd they get them to confess?"

"Oh!" Enjolras grinned down at him. "They had them tortured until they spoke. Then they killed them!"

He squinted up at him. "You know, I may call you angel, but the way you speak about this kind of stuff as if it's just common practice to torture and then execute really has me on edge."

"That's just what studying Egyptology does to you, dear." He delivered one last strike to the wall before the surrounding area started to crack. Uneasily, he crouched low so Enjolras could get off as he grabbed for his hand and pulled him back slowly, as if their subtle movements made a difference on the rate of the wall cracking.

The wall eventually ceased its sounds of whip-like cracks as the lines made a halt. Cautiously, Enjolras stepped forward and pressed a hand to the surface, before turning his head to give Grantaire a smile.

"It's still intact, let me just get out my chisel again--"

CRACK!

Grantaire had time only to dart out to grab Enjolras' hand and yank him backwards as the wall shattered and something heavy came toppling out, nearly crushing Enjolras had Grantaire not pulled him to safety at the last second.

Both panting heavily at their narrow escape, Grantaire pressed a light kiss to the top of Enjolras' head as he tightened his arms around him, all the while musing, "Every time we come here it's like your disaster mode is activated, hey Angel? How many times do I have to pull you out of way of falling objects?"

At this point, it wasn't as if Enjolras was even trying to deny it. "As many times as we're out here to discover."

He delivered another quick kiss to his head before he let him go to inspect the fallen object.

A sarcophagus.

Grantaire groaned.

Not this again.

"Grantaire," Enjolras' voice was hushed in awe and his eyes were wide. "Grantaire it's--well it's a--"

"Yeah," he wrapped his hand around Enjolras' wrist and pulled him back once more, drawing a noise of protest from his fiance. "No, we're not doing this again."

Enjolras wriggled his wrist free. "Grantaire, we can't just leave it! Imagine what could be inside!"

"What could be inside, huh?" He muttered. "We all saw how well that went."

"That was one curse," Enjolras said dismissively.

"A curse that nearly brought the end of the world--"

"Besides, you need an incantation to bring the dead back, and since we don't have the Book with us..." He shrugged innocently. Raising his eyebrows, he said, "Please?"

Grantaire looked at his hopeful expression, down to the ground beneath them, up to the dim ceiling that trapped them, before groaning and burying his head in his hands.

"Fine! Fine!" He looked back to Enjolras and sighed. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"

Enjolras simply beamed and leaned up to peck his cheek, one soft hand cupping his face. "You wouldn't have been able to stop me even if you said no, dear."

He brought his own hand up to hold Enjolras' as he leaned further into his touch, rubbing his stubbled cheek on his hand and turning to deliver a quick kiss to its palm. "Yeah, I know."

They both approached the sarcophagus slowly, working to lift it up vertically and set it against the wall. Grantaire set off to prying open the lid--this one unimpeded by any sort of a lock--as Enjolras leaned forwards in anticipation. He paused for a moment to glare back at him until Enjolras rolled his eyes and conceded by way of taking a step back; safety wise, it really wasn't as if that one step would truly do anything were anything to actually pop out alive from it, but it provided Grantaire with a sort of ease, even if unfounded.

The lid of the sarcophagus began to give way, and Grantaire knew that with one last heave he would be able to pull it free. Both held their breaths as Grantaire gave one final tug, Enjolras leaned forwards, dust was expelled in a massive cloud as the lid popped off and out came--

Grantaire jumped back and yanked Enjolras back too, gasping, only to see--

Nothing came out. Not even the skeleton of what would have been one buried inside. The sarcophagus was completely--

"Empty?" Enjolras shook his head in disbelief. "It's empty! How can it be empty?"

Grantaire shrugged, a bit relieved at the result of their findings. "Shit, Angel, I don't know? Maybe they just wanted to bury an empty sarcophagus." Even as he said it, he knew it was a stupid thought.

Enjolras scoffed. "Yes, because it's not as if that would take time and effort they couldn't be spending someplace else." He looked hesitant before voicing that little thought that had popped up in Grantaire's mind--one he would have previously written off as being stupid were it not for his recent adventures in the past. "Do you...do you think that maybe... whatever was in here somehow, well, somehow got out?"

And despite the fact that their experiences taught him that it was very much possible, Grantaire shook his head. A little bit of denial was never a bad thing, right? A man's gotta cope somehow.

"No, Angel, that's not possible."

Furrowing his eyebrows, Enjolras opened his mouth to argue that they both well knew that Enjolras could be right, but before he could do so, Grantaire continurd, "Now, what I think we should do is get the hell out of here and back to camp, and then go home next morning and sleep until we die."

"But! But Grantaire! We haven't even found the pendant!" Enjolras protested as Grantaire took him by the hand and started leading him out. "We didn't find what we came here for!"

"Trust me," he grunted. "Maybe the pendant should stay buried."

"Grantaire we can't--" he cut himself off at the sound of shuffling echoing somewhere from one of the passageways.

Both went rigidly still.

The noise made itself heard once more, and Grantaire looked at Enjolras as he raised a finger to his lips and began to ease his hand towards his gun.

The sound disappeared for a moment, in which Grantaire could only discern both Enjolras' and his breathing followed by the slight click as he began to draw his gun from his holster.

Then he felt Enjolras hand wrenched from his own as he screamed, and Grantaire, panicking, drew his gun up, swivelling to try and find where Enjolras disappeared to and fingered the trigger--

"Wait wait!" a laughing voice called. "Don't shoot, it's just me!"

Cursing, he slid his gun back in holster and glared at where Courfeyrac had his arms wrapped around a pale Enjolras.

"Honestly, fuck you Courfeyrac, what is your problem?" he asked, annoyed.

Courfeyrac seemed to be trying to catch his breath as Grantaire tried to slow his own racing heart. "Oh don't be like that. My brother dearest and I act like this all the time!"

Enjolras smacked Courfeyrac's chest. "Yes, at home!" he hissed. "Not somewhere you could give me a heartattack!"

Courfeyrac ruffled his hair. "But this just makes the fear even more delicious."

"Remind me why we brought you along again?"

"Well who else is going to keep you on track? If I weren't here, you two would probably forget all about the pendant in favour of more, ah, hands-on experiences."

"Courfeyrac!"

[darkeninganon]

(So, this storyline now has a name; it is the Ender Family AU! Dream’s design was based off @winifreyd and their White Enderman Dream! They are awesome and do amazing artwork, and this story would probably not exist if they did not  share their art! Warning for gore, blood, very heavy torture, passing out (as a fear/pain response), forced drugging/drinking (Potions are canonically drugs/alcohol), unwanted contact (Dream doesn’t like people touching his fur), and (there is no nice way of saying this) flaying. If you spot something else, message me and I will add it and apologize profusely. The beginning is deceptively sweet btw, just as another small warning.)

Ranboo looked between Tommy and Tubbo. His face was burning, but only one side showed a tinge of color.

"You mean you really don't remember staring down Quackity?" Tommy found it hard to believe, and was currently the main person opposing such an excuse.

"Really, I don't! You know how much I hate eye contact."

"He's got a point..."

Michael oinked in agreement. The trio were currently in the zombie piglin's room, Ranboo holding the child as the little monster drew something. Tubbo was kneeling next to the table, head partially resting on said table. Tommy was the only one standing, arms crossed, glaring at Ranboo.

Ranboo sighed, shaking his head. "Even if you don't believe me, it is the truth."

"Oh, I believe you, I just want to know why this is the first time we are hearing about it!" Tommy hissed, throwing his hands up. "I mean, if you hide that, what else are you hiding?!"

"Oh come on Tommy! Ranboo wouldn't-"

"Quite a bit because I would rather NOT be the reason someone kills Tubbo or Michael." Tubbo snapped his head towards Ranboo, horror plastered on his face.

"WHAT?!"

Michael snorted, holding up his picture. It depicted Ranboo holding a red square, and speaking in scribbles. Ranboo groaned as Michael proudly displayed his picture. The baby zombie piglin still had yet to learn to speak, but his writing skills were far beyond where most thought he should be at.

Tubbo stared at the picture, clearly concerned. "Michael, sweetie, have you seen daddy act weird?" Michael nodded, borderline enthusiastically. The little zombie pigling then grabbed a sheet of paper, scribbling most of it in red crayon before writing three large letters on it, and handing it to Ranboo.

Tommy and Tubbo stared.

"So, I guess I blew something up." Ranboo stated, staring at the crudely drawn TNT. He looked back to Tubbo and Tommy; "I think it's about time to tear down the walls of your old house."

"Damnit Ranboo!"

"I'm sorry?!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dream stared, listening to the murmur of Quackity and Sam talking outside the wall of lava. It is a new day, Quackity is back. Dream could only wonder what Quackity was going to do today. Maybe he'll take my teeth, that would make sense. Or perhaps my other eye. Yeah, that sounds like something they could justify doing. Dream sat up as the lava fell away, Sam and Quackity standing at attention. Quackity was decked out in netherite armor. Enchanted netherite armor. Dream's ears fell back as a low growl fell from his chest.

Quackity made his way across the pit of lava, standing across from Dream with nothing in his hands but a potion and a pair of shears. Once the lava covered the opening again, Sam came through, glaring at Dream.

"Huh, what's the special occasion?" Dream smirked, tilting his head. Of course Sam; dear, dear Warden Sam; would want to help Quackity. "Don't tell me I actually scared you two." The prisoner chuckled, glancing between the two.

Quackity held out the potion; it looked like mud mixed with glitter. "Drink this."

"Excuse me?"

"Dream, do as Quackity says. I really don't want to have to force you." Sam stated, monotone. Dream stared at the warden, incredulous.

"No! I'm not drinking anything that crazy moron brings in here!" Sam sighed, striding over to Dream. "Get the hell away from me!" Sam went behind Dream, locking the prisoner's arms in an uncomfortable hold. Dream began yelling, kicking his legs out as Quackity approached. Quackity took Dream's jaw into a tight hold, digging his nails right into the joint and forcing Dream's mouth open. Once that was done, Quackity tore the cork from the bottle, shoving it into Dream's mouth.

Dream gagged, coughing and thrashing in an effort to get the bottle out of his mouth and not swallow the bitter liquid. Eventually, the potion's effects won out over Dream's own desires, his body going limp and his struggles ceasing.

Dream's eye darted around the cell. He wanted to move, wanted to cry out, wanted to not be sitting still. No matter how much he tried though, his body just sat there, even as Quackity removed the bottle and let go of his jaw.

"Hell yeah!" Quackity cheered, throwing the now empty bottle into the lava. "I told you it would work!"

Sam let go, gently resting Dream's head on his lap. "Yeah. You're sure he can't feel anything?" The warden sounded worried as he placed Dream's tongue back in his mouth and closed his jaw.

Quackity chuckled, "Yeah, I'm sure." He dragged his hand through Dream's fur, drawing lines at seemingly random points.

He's lying. Dream wanted to scream, Quackity's hands were cold and he hated as the "visitor" ran against the grain, causing the fur to stand up on end. Sam, he's lying! Please! But he couldn't say anything.

Sam, for his part, was staring at Dream sadly, carefully petting the prisoner as if he didn't co-sign this. He jumped as a hand snatched his wrist, holding it still. Sam looked to Quackity, who was still smiling.

"Seeing as how Dream isn't going to feel it, why don't you feel how soft he is!"

Sam looked at the prisoner, resting helplessly in his lap. Even though Dream's body couldn't move, his eyes were glaring at Sam. Still....

Curiosity won over the Warden as he took off his glove. Even with Dream unable to move, Sam was hesitant to touch the fur. When Quackity had entered the prison, that was all he talked about. It was just fur, what made it so special? What it because it was from Dream, and the prisoner never let anyone touch it?

Quackity groaned, snapping Sam from his thoughts. Without warning, the visitor grabbed Sam's hand and buried it in the mane around Dream's head. Sam could only stare. It was... So freakishly soft.

"Right!?" Sam glanced at Quackity, who was smiling like the cat that got the canary. "Seriously though, seeing as how he's going to be trapped in here for eternity, he really doesn't need this fur. He'll just overheat!"

No, I won't! Sam, please stop this! Tears fell from Dream's eyes, his mind racing. Taking his fur was the one thing he never expected.

Sam nodded, resuming petting Dream. "Just... be as quick as possible."

Quackity nodded as Dream's eyes darted to the man with the shears. "Let's see... Let's start here then!" Quackity stated, opening the shears and pulling Dream's skin right at his hip. Dream watched in horror as Quackity carefully cut a thin layer of skin and fur from his body, pulling and cutting just enough to make a starting point for him to continue. "Man, this is going to take a long while. Sam, would you mind grabbing a few more potions, just to be sure?"

Sam nodded, carefully setting Dream's head down on the obsidian floor, giving the prisoner one last pet before drinking a potion and diving into the lava.

As soon as Sam was gone, Quackity looked at Dream, and slid his hand between the skin he had just cut free, and the lower levels of skin and muscle. Dream tensed, the salt from Quackity's hand burning the fresh wound. "Man, this must really suck for you." The visitor laughed, a cruel smirk coming across his face as he wiggled his fingers in the wound. Dream gave a weak whimper, tear pouring from his eyes as the wound became wider and burned more. "Do you have any idea how hard is was to get the potion just right? Make sure you can't move, can't talk, but also heal you and make sure you can feel it? It was hard, man." Quackity finally removed his hand from the wound, marveling at the lack of blood. "This is probably what Tommy felt like. I have no idea what the afterlife is like, but maybe one day, I'll ask him."

Quackity straightened up as Sam came back, carrying a bag filled to the brim with the potions Quackity had made. The visitor smiled, turning back to Dream and resuming his work. Dream watched, heart racing as he finally saw what his fur and skin hid. Thin muscle hung from bones that showed painfully through in some places. It only took about two minutes for it to look like Dream was wearing a furry shirt or hoodie; a quiet whimper bubbling up from his chest as the first “hem” was finally completed.

Sam snatched a potion from the bag, opening Dream’s mouth and doing his best to make sure the prisoner didn’t drown on the vile liquid. Quackity gave Sam a weird look, getting ready to cut open Dream’s front.

“Really? He has another hour or so on the first potion.” Quackity muttered, pulling the skin up with his fingers, smirking as the muscles underneath twitched in pain.

Sam cast an unseen glance at Quackity, removing the empty bottle and throwing it into the lava. “He must have some form of tolerance, even after all this time. The numbing factor wore off I think.” Sam sounded distant, did Sam even believe his own words? Surely he knew.

“Well then let him deal with it. It’s not our fault he’s weird.” Quackity retaliated, making one final cut right at Dream’s collarbone, stopping as he noticed Sam flinch. “Hey, I’m sure Tommy felt way more pain than whatever little pin pricks this monster is feeling. Need I remind you-”

“No!” Sam winced, “No, I don’t need to be reminded.” He repeated, softer. Through the thick lenses of the mask, Dream could see Sam’s eyes darting between the prisoner and Quackity. Sam went back to petting Dream, unaware he had stopped for so long.

Quackity shrugged, cutting a gracefully curved line around Dream’s collarbones, stopping about halfway on either side. He grabbed Dream’s arms, inspecting both before dropping one to the ground, and making a quick slash around the whole wrist.

Blood poured from the fresh wound, diminishing to a trickle as Sam’s hand wrapped tightly around the small wrist. “Quackity! What the hell?!”

“Wow, language Sam.”

“Screw the language! What the heck were you thinking?! Get the bandages out of the bag now!” Sam glared at the visitor. Removing Dream’s fur was one thing, but getting so close to such areas… Sam would not stand for it.

“Will you relax? Look, it’s already closed!” Quackity pried Sam’s hand away, revealing a thin, bare scar circling Dream’s wrist. “Nothing to get pissy about.” He huffed, grabbing the prisoner’s other hand and doing the same. Sam was quick to cover the wound again, glaring hatefully at Quackity. “Alright. I need you to turn him onto his stomach so I can finish up the neck. I was not going to risk cutting your legs.”

“Quackity…”

“What? Don’t tell me you actually feel bad for this piece of trash.”

Sam looked between the visitor and prisoner. Dream looked terrified. Sam held out his hand. “I’ll take care of it.” Quackity stared at Sam, hesitantly handing him the shears. Quackity watched as the Warden made a shallow cut along the back of the prisoner’s neck, breathing heavily and muttering. Sam practically threw the shears back to Quackity, petting Dream as soon as they left his hands. “There, done.”

Quackity nodded, looking down at the paralyzed prisoner. He struggled to pry Dream’s skin open, humming and inspecting where it connected. Quackity took out a netherite knife, sliding it under the skin and between the muscle.

Dream watched, muscles burning and twitching. A ringing filled his ears, his heart racing, his lungs tight. He couldn’t breathe, and he felt way too hot… no, he was cold… Well, his body was cold, his arms freezing, but his face felt like it was right next to the lava. Sam… Sam something’s wrong… SAM! Sam please! SAM! Dream was suddenly in a void, screaming and wailing filling his head. He blinked, back in the cell. Quackity was further along in removing his skin. He could see his ribs laying right underneath the smooth muscle, his vision flitting to Sam, distress hidden by dark lenses. Sam’s head snapped to look at Quackity, muffled words demanding something. Dream’s mouth was pried open, another bottle shoved down his throat.

Black consumed him again. Back to the cell. Something hard and soft was in his mouth. Sam was holding his head, forcing him to look at the warden. Sam kept calling his name. Black again. Back to Sam. Black again. Sam. Black. Sam. Black. Sam. Black. Cloth?

Dream could feel his mouth was open; he could feel something wrapped around his body, arms, even his legs. Everything hurt. His eyes were wet, not from the cloth.

“S….Sam…?” His voice sounded too quiet. A hands was suddenly placed on his head; a gloveless, unarmored, calloused hand.

“It’s…”

“Sam… I’m sorry… I’m really, really sorry…”

Sam sat there, staring at Dream. Dream’s whole body was covered in tightly bound gauze. He looked almost like a mummy rather than… whatever he was. The only parts of him that still had fur were his head, hands, and knees. Sam had to fight with Quackity over leaving the fur on his knees. Sam sighed, closing his eyes as he took a breath, one hand resting on Dream’s chest while the other continued to pet him. “I know you are. I know.” Sam opened his eyes, staring at the creature laying on the floor before him, “It’s not me you have to apologize to though.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quackity held up the pure white pelt. He had just finished cleaning it.

“Damn.” Quackity turned, smiling wildly at Schlatt. “Where the fuck did you get a coat like that?” The goat-man ghost lit up a cigarette, reaching out and touching the fur. “Again I say this: Damn.”

Quackity laughed, “I got it from my dear friend in prison.” Schlatt paused in his appraisal of the fur, staring at Quackity as if the still living man had grown another head. “Not like he needed it with how hot that place is. Besides,” Quackity pulled the fur away, brushing the soft hairs against his face. He froze, jolting to look at Schlatt, “Did you know his fur was this soft?”

The ghost stared, Quackity had a look to him that made Schlatt happy he was already dead. “No…” He spoke softly, lowering the cigarette he had. “I had no clue.” Schlatt watched as Quackity skipped way, the beautiful white pelt held close. Schlatt shook his head. Not for the first time in his life was he thankful that Quackity was on his side.

[sparkbeast20]

You're my Treasure (Mammon X MC) Pt3

The Blue Lotus petals (series)

As a fan of Beauty X Beast pairing, Showing your “true self” to Lover or (Monster Love) Tropes. I figure to make a (More Demonic Forms AU/head canon) story for each brothers. heads up each brother’s Story is long as fuck. So, I’ll be posting them as parts and finishing one brother before moving on to the rest of them.

(spoiler for lesson 1-55)

Pt1 Pt2

Warning: Swearing, Demonic nature, Harassment, mention of Violence, Sexually Suggestive, Tension, and Implies, before sex

but no actually sex/smut/NSFW. (I can't write smut/NSFW I'm not good at it and I like more teasing and suggestive/tension before sex)

Previously

While you two are showing affection, Simeon covered Luke’s eyes and Solomon laughs at the two of you. As the lunch continue on.

“G-good evening, Lord Diavolo” Mammon pokes his head through the opened door of the student council room.

“Ah! Mammon, please coming in” Diavolo gesture him to come inside, Mammon nodded came in an shut the door behind him. He took a deep breath and start walking over to Diavolo, who is sitting at his desk looking over some paper work, and Barbatos who is standing beside the young prince.

Mammon stops right before reaching the desk, and stiffly bow to Diavolo.

“I came to say I’m sorry for putting y/n endanger last night” He held his bow, waiting for Diavolo to speak, but every passing second, he could hear his heart beat fast, then he hears someone walking away. Barbatos, because he didn’t hear the chair move. Then Diavolo finally broke the silent with not too stern voice

“Mammon, I am disappointed at you, both Lucifer and I place y/n under your protection because we trust you. What if y/n gets hurt again~”

“I will never let that happen again!” Diavolo eyes widen at Mammon’s serious statement. He a stood up straight and looks up to Diavolo. With both seriousness, determination, and something feral in his eyes.

Still have his composure, Diavolo is taken a back with Mammon changed in demeanor, he doesn’t why but he’ll let Mammon action speak itself.

Diavolo let out a sigh and look at Mammon with his signature cheerful smile. “Very well Mammon, but this is your last chances. Do not let this happen again”

Mammon thanks Diavolo, and start heading out when Barbatos walk up to him.

“Mammon before you go, I want you to take this” Barbatos hands over a jar filled with blue lotus petals.

“Huh? I still have plenty at home, I don’t need more petals Barbatos” he said it while shoving his hand in his pocket.

“You can be too careful now, beside I want to give it~” Mammon eyes widen causing Barbatos push himself.

Mammon turns to the door, rushing over and push open the door hastily. He snarls at what he sees.

You sitting on the bench across the Hall, look at you D.D.D not trying to look at the Demon towering over, who seem to try annoy you. Suddenly Mammon can hear what the demon is saying.

“Come on, you have to admit that you, humans break so easily. Then why not you your pact with the brothers and call them for help~”

“I have Mammon with me, why would I call one of his brothers for help?”

“He didn’t do anything to Basto, all he did was a couple of scratches. So much for being second of the lords”

“If your just here to provoke me, then just leave I don’t have time for this I’m just wait for- HEY!” the demon swipe your D.D.D out of your hand and start dangling it above up.

“Oh, now you’re looking at me, I’m flattered”

“Give it back!” you try to reach it, but he was too quick and start toying with you.

“Or what! You can’t do anything with a broken arm~” someone grab the back of his neck and pulling him away, causing the D.D.D to fall out of his hand, you manage to catch it.

Mammon is dragging the demon like a misbehaving child, then he throws the demon to the nearby lockers.

The demon tries to get up, but stopped by Mammon stomp his foot close to the demon’s face. He looks up to Mammon who is looking at the demon with a threating look on his face and his iris is glowing.

“Pretty cocky of ya to threating my mate like that, why? ya thought that I would be too weak and a puss to do anything! Well guess what” he grabs the demon by the jacket with one hand, pull him up and slam he back at the lockers making the metal bended. Then move closer to the demon’s ear. “The next time I see you anywhere near my mate again…. I’ll kill ya” in a deeper voice and chilling happy tone.

With one last slam to the locker, Mammon let go and let the demon slide down on the floor shaken with a terrified look on his face.

Mammon turns around walk back to you.

“Mammon are you~”

“I’m fine come on, lets get to purgatory hall we don’t Luke waiting” he places one arm over your shoulder, and you two starts walking out of RAD and heading to Purgatory Hall.

“It’s so sweet for Luke to make us cupcakes” you said it with a cheerful smile on your face, you have your arm wrapped around Mammon's, who’s carry two boxes of cupcakes. As you two head back home.

“Maybe my lucky is coming around, that little pup made cakes on right time” Mammon back to his usual self.

“Mmm…. Nah, I think he made them for you specifically since you were having a bad day, he does see you like an older brother” you said calmly. Causing him to blush.

“Of course, The Great Mammon is his Mentor after all” and there it is, the old Mammon resurfaces. All you can do is chuckle and shake your head at his full of his self-attituded. “Hey what so funny?”

“Oh nothing….” You look at him with a playful grin plastered on your face.

“Hmm…. laugh all ya want now, once we get back home~” but someone screaming something cuts him off, grabbing both of your attention.

“Oh, maybe is a weird sales man, try to sell something fake…. Like a certain demon” you said it in your teasing voice.

“yer, pushing your luck babe. Alright let see what that nut job is blabbing about.” You two start heading to the screaming.

Once you got there, a demon is ranting, scream, or warning about the creatures depicted in an old tapestry.

“The original sins are coming back, and they will bring back the true Absolut hell”

“Oh great, is those kind of demon” Mammon groans in annoyance.

“I could see what you mean, but I like what’s on the tapestry, their kinda cute”

“Ha? You find them Cute?” you exaltedly nodded at him, and look that the tapestry.

He followed your sight and took a longer look at the things you’re talking about. his eyes widen to the realization on what are on the old dust cloth.

It’s him and his brothers in their demonic form within each section of the tapestry. Most are unrecognizable due to how damaged the cloth was, the only ones that he can clearly see was Lucifer, Levi, Asmo, Belphie and himself. The latter which he can’t take his eyes off.

Seeing his demonic form again, made him to remember his time being that form. How he can fly so fast a thunderous sound can be heard, or how he can easily maneuver through cramp spaces like in the woods, or how his more limbered than his brothers he is, and how so much of that thing can be threatening.

“Mammon?” your voice snaps him out of his trances, he looks back to you with melancholy look on his face. “Are you okay?” with a worry tone in your voice.

He blinks a couple, shook his head and smile with his eyes close. “Yeah, I’m good it’s just I remember something, come on let back before Lucifer thinks we when somewhere we shouldn’t” you nod in respond, and you two starts walking.

As you walk, Mammon kisses the top of your head, causing you to hum in complete bliss, as farther you two walks. Mammon glaze over his shoulder, and look back at the tapestry wondering if that thing can ever come back.

“Yo! Were back” Mammon said it while walking in the common room, with the boxes of cupcakes in his hands.

“Oh…is that for us” Asmo perk up when he saw the box. Levi turns to see Mammon and take off his headset, and Beel is already drooling in the mouth knowing what’s inside the boxes. The three are the only ones there.

“One box is for Beel, and the other one is for us to share. So, be nice” Mammon sat down on the couch and place the box of cupcakes on the table, and slide one box to Beel, who grab it and start eating a cupcake.

“Where’s y/n are they supposed to be~”

“Before you say anymore, yes y/n was with me, they just head up to our room to changes so, no worry, Levi” Mammon interrupts Levi’s questioning.

Levi just pouts and go grab a cupcake, and went back on watching an anime on his D.D.D.

Asmo with a cheeky look on his face, flattering his eye leashes at Mammon. Cleary have something to share.

“Alright Asmo, spill it”

“Wow… bold today aren’t we, well I couldn’t blame you”

“What are you talking about?” Mammon raises a brow at Asmo. He grabs his D.D.D and show it to Mammon.

“Someone took this photo of you” On the screen is a picture of Mammon dragging the demon by the scruff of his neck. “I do say, I never thought you have it in you, Mammon. Is this compensation for what happen last night” Asmo taunt Mammon, who lean forward, grab hold of the device and turning it off? And lean back on the couch now with one leg place at top his lap.

A stun Asmo looks at Mammon, he blinks and set the D.D.D on the table, then fixes himself with his legs cross, his elbow resting on his lap with the back of his hands supporting his chin. And with a smug look on his face. “Oh Mammon, acting like that never happen won’t stop me from teasing you about it. But never imagine that was the one that actually made you more of a badass, I like what you turning into”

“I didn’t do it because of the of the casino thing. I did because that piece of shit was harassing y/n while I was at the student council room, I sense y/n was in distress so, I walk out saw the dip shit and deal with him. And making sure he never came near me or my mate” the last part sounded different from the rest. Drawing the attention of Levi and Beel.

“Ah…. Mammon are you okay?” Beel voice his concern to his older brother, who just give him a widen smile. “I am, after lunch I never felt this great in years. Like something just woke up inside me after I told Solomon off, for being a dick…... and don’t worry Asmo were all cool now.” Asmo soft his face after hearing that, Mammon smile and reach out to grab a cupcake.

He was about to eat it, when something pops up in his mind. He stares at the cupcake and glaze over to his brothers.

“So, me and y/n pass by a crazy old demon on are way back home. He was yelling about something about us”

“Oh! What was it about? Was they talking about how handsome I am?” but Mammon shook his head at Asmo.

“Nah…. You wouldn’t like it. He was talking about us in are demonic form and calling us the original sins” Asmo groan at Mammon’s remark. “Ugh…just hearing demonic makes my skin crawl and also the “original sins” makes us seem old”

“I don’t know I kinda like it, it kinda makes us more epic and cooler like were some sort of legendary beings. It’s like “My classmate was the god of beast and man” Now I want to hear what that old man said” Levi chime in.

“I hear “original sins” before are you sure he was talking about us?” Beel asks Mammon.

“Yeah! He has an old ass cloth thing that had me, Lucifer, Levi, Asmo and Belphie on it. While you and Satan are torn out of it”

“Huh? Now I want to see it” Levi perks up when he hears his name and that there’s something other than word vomit.

“Eh! Why is my form in tack? It should be removed immediately; my fan can see me like that.” Asmo is being dramatic as usual.

“Don’t even bother, I was standing right Infront of the old coot didn’t know I was the thing that his yelling at people about, it’s kinda funny……... so, if you’re worry that your fans see that side of you, you’re wasting your time worry. If the old coot didn’t know, then so are your fans.” Mammon laughs, and Asmo pouts and grabs his D.D.D and start typing at it.

However, Mammon can shake this feeling, and want to know something.

“Hey, do you guys wonder what’s is like if we stayed like that?” only met with both Levi and Asmo shake their head no, not even looking at Mammon and looking at their devices. Only Beel look over to Mammon with a cornered look.

“Why asks that?”

“Seeing those drawing, made me think and look back~” Mammon was cut off, by Asmo groaning.

“Ugh! You sound like Satan right now; you know when he when into a “I want to changes back” phase. I’m so glad that he drops that and move on to annoying Lucifer”

“Yeah” Levi interjects “If I was still in my demonic form, I couldn’t enjoy the things I like right now. Not watching anime because you can’t watch it underwater and I need a really big body of water, and I can’t read manga because it’ll get wet and I have no arms or hands to hold, and I can’t……….”

Eventually the other three tune him out, and Beel asks.

“And beside aren’t we dangerous when we are in those forms. I couldn’t remember anything when I was that!”

Before Mammon could asks again, he heard your foot step getting louder.

“Oi no demonic talk Infront of y/n got it” Mammon aggressively whispers to his brothers.

“But you’re the one…... Ah forget it” Levi just gave up.

“What you guys talking about?” you came in the room, and walk over to the couch and sat next to Mammon, who immediately place his arm on your shoulders.

“Oh nothing, just give my little bros some life advice” Mammon smile at you, then Asmo let out a fake cough.

“Really what kind of life advice?” Mammon bites his mouth to your unexpected question, while Levi and Asmo sneaker in the background.

“Uh…… well” he looks away and rubs the back of his neck with the arm on you, trying to an answer. While you look at him with such innocent look on you face.

he glazes over to you and ha an idea, look back and smile to you and gave you the cupcake that he was supposed to eat and took a bite. “Advice on pleasing their significant other” both Levi and Asmo stop laughing and straight their back after hearing that.

After swallowing, you look back at Mammon “Oh and those are?”

“Making sure their well feed” Beel nodded to that. “Grooming them” he fixes you hair and shirt and “accentually” unbutton one. Then he cups you face and lean towards you, and playfully lick the frosting on the corner of your mouth. “And always make them flustered” he pulled away. Leaving you stunned and your face turns red.

Levi drops his D.D.D., Asmo quickly covered his mouth, and Beel almost choke to what they just witness right Infront of them.

Your heart beating fast and you don’t why. For what ever reason you started to feel warm and fuzzy inside. Asmo can sense it, your started be lustful right now. Your eyes show it and Mammon notices it, he took the cupcake out of you hands and place it on the table.

Then he slowly looks over to you with a smirk, he’s teasing you and you can’t take it anymore. You pounce and wrap your arms around his neck and start kissing him relentlessly. And he didn’t pull away in fact he places one hand on your waist and the other vigorously rub against your back.

All the while the other three demon in the room with you two are shock, stunned and/or mortified.

“I want you to destroy me right now Mammon” you said it seductively, causing Mammon to growl.

“Good thing we don’t have classes tomorrow otherwise I have to carry ya all around campus”

“Why what will you gonna do to me?” you teasing by playing innocent.

“you’ll see” he quickly bites you on the neck causing you to yelp, and you felt him laughing. He quickly hooks your legs and stood up and leap over the couch and run out the room with you holding on to him tightly.

As Mammon foot steps start to faint, Belphie peaking his head through the doorway of the common room and look over to frozen demons inside. Then a door slam shut snaping them out of it.

“W-what was that!” Levi screams

“Asmo what did you do to them?” Belphie asks in a shock manner

“You think I want to see Mammon like that. As if” Asmo hugging himself “that was my worst nightmare”

Levi straight out faint in his chair and Asmo start rubbing his hands all over his body, like his taking a shower, and Belphie stare at his pillow. However, Beel is more corner about his older brother sudden changed and that was the one that planting the seed of worried and fear in his mind.

[cacophony-of-notions]

My feelings on a common misconception interpretation of Sam in “Slice Girls”: 

TL;DR Sam did not kill Emma as “revenge” and Dean was not ethically inconsistent in his actions with Emma versus Amy.

I have seen many times people claim that Sam killed Emma as “revenge” for Amy. I have seen both his antis and his hardcore stans say this (the latter as a means of “justifying” a decision Sam made that they traditionally wouldn’t stand behind… regardless of the fact that killing a kid to get revenge on his brother would paint him in a far worse light than taking the situation at face-value). 

In the same way that Dean killed Amy because he legitimately thought it was the right call, Sam killed Emma because he legitimately thought it was the right call. That’s it. Hate both of their decisions, agree with one but not the other, agree with neither… no matter what, I don’t think wanting “revenge” and taking that out on a child had anything to do with Sam’s actions. There are a few reasons why.

First, looking at the context of the season as a whole, Sam has been worried about Dean’s mental state for most of the season in much the same way that Dean has been worried about his, and accordingly, they didn't trust each other’s judgment fully. 

Dean killing Amy was to some extent, about not trusting Sam’s judgement due to his attachment to Amy and the metal state Sam had been in that season. Sam had been hallucinating and had also lied about it. So on top of not being sure if Sam could accurately grasp reality at any given time, him hiding it also made it very difficult for Dean to trust Sam to be honest if he was hallucinating, needed help, or needed to take a step back.

Sam’s decision to kill Emma was, likewise, to some extent, about not trusting Dean’s judgement due to his natural attachment to Emma as a father and Dean’s mental state that season. We see, on several occasions in season 7, Sam noting that Dean is drinking more alcohol than usual (which is saying something). Several times in the season, Sam expresses concern over this, to Bobby as well as to Dean directly. Sam’s lack of confidence in Dean is actually enough that, when Dean begins to notice things moving from where he left them and starts to suspect that Bobby is haunting them, Sam repeatedly and flippantly dismisses his observations and chalks all of it up to Dean drinking too much and grieving too hard and being an unreliable witness. 

Second, Sam and Dean came to an understanding about Amy in “The Mentalist”, and Sam ended up saying at the end of the episode that Dean’s actions made sense, and that he was right that Sam’s judgement couldn’t be trusted because he was too close to the situation emotionally. 

Season 7’s “The Mentalist” covers the confrontation between Sam and Dean over Amy, and Sam’s decision to work side by side with Dean again. There are two scenes—the initial blow up from Sam and Dean’s rebuttal, and then the resolution at the end of the episode. 

First the initial blow up and Dean’s rebuttal: 

Dean: We agreed to work the case. We didn’t agree for you to be a dick the whole time. 

Sam: What?

Dean: You’re pissed. Okay? And you’ve got a right. 

Sam: Yeah, damn straight. 

Dean: But enough’s enough. 

Sam: Says who? Look, I’ll work this damn case, but you lied to me, and you killed my friend. 

Dean:  No, I put down a monster who killed four people, and if you didn’t know her, you’d have done the same thing. 

Sam: I did know her, Dean.

Dean: Yeah, which is why you couldn’t do it. Look, I get it. There are certain people in this world, no matter how dangerous they are, you just can’t. 

Sam: Don’t pull that card! That’s bull! Look, if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that if something feels wrong, it probably is!

Dean: Usually, yeah. But killing Amy was not wrong. You couldn’t do it, so I did. That’s what family does—the dirty work. And I would have told you eventually, once I knew that this whole “waving a gun at Satan” thing was a one-time show. I think it’s reasonable to want to know that you’re off the friggin’ high dive, Sam. You almost got us both killed. So you can be pissed all you want, but quite being a bitch. 

Then there was the resolution at the end of the episode: 

Sam: Look, you know what... you were right—about Amy. If she was just any monster, I’m not sure I could have let her walk away. I dunno. I mean, I’ll never know. 

Dean: What are you saying?

Sam: What I’m saying is… I get why you did it. You were just trying to make sure no one else got hurt. But here’s the thing: you can’t just look me in the face and tell me you’re fine. I mean, you’re not sleeping, you drink for the record-

Dean: Oh here we go…

Sam: Look, whatever. Last one to preach. I know. But… just be honest with me. How are those the actions of someone who knows they did the right thing?

Dean: You want me to be honest?

Sam: Yeah.

Dean: I went with my gut. And that felt right. I didn’t trust her, Sam. Of course, ever since Cas, I’m having trouble trusting anybody. And as far as how I’ve been acting… I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I don’t like lying to you. You know, it doesn’t feel right. So yeah, you got me there. I’ve been climbing the walls. 

Third, in context, when Sam brings up Amy in the car, it is to say Dean choked with Emma in the same way that Sam choked with Amy and it could have gotten him killed—not that killing Emma was somehow vengeance for Amy. See the conversation at the end of “Slice Girls”:

Sam: What did you say to me... when I was the one who choked? What did you say about Amy? “You said you kill the monster”!

Dean: I was going to!

Sam: Oh, like hell you were! You think I’m an idiot? 

Dean: What you think I am?!

Sam: Dean, you were gonna let her walk! 

Dean: No I wasn’t. That’s ridiculous! 

Sam: Look, man, she was not yours. Not really. 

Dean: Actually, she, uh, she was, really. She just also happened to be a crazy man-killing monster. But uh, hey-

Sam: You know what? Bobby was right. Your head’s not in it, man. When Cas died, you were wobbly, but now... 

Dean: Now what? Oh what, you’re dealing with it so perfect? Yeah, news flash, pal. You’re just as screwed up as I am! You’re just... bigger. 

Sam: What?!

Dean: I don't know!

Sam: Look... Dean, the thing is, tonight... it almost got you killed. Now, I don’t care how you deal. I really, really don’t. But just don’t...  don’t get killed. 

In no way does Sam suggest here that Dean “deserved” to have his kid shot in front of him as some kind of “payback”. In fact, that doesn't really make sense 

In the context of the conversation in “The Mentalist, where Sam said he understood why Dean felt the way he did about Amy. 

It also doesn’t make sense in the context fo Sam’s comment that Emma “wasn’t really yours”. If he did it to hurt Dean, he would have pressed into that relationship, not dismissed it. 

He lectured Dean because he was scared Dean wouldn't have been able to pull the trigger and would have gotten himself killed. It’s the same “are you off the high-dive?” lecture Dean gave him, it’s the same “I did the dirty work for you because you couldn’t”. The shot Sam took wasn’t hesitant, but it also wasn’t emotional. It was calculated and ruthless. It was a choice Sam made, that Emma could not be trusted. He made that call. And maybe he was right—maybe the brainwashing went too deep, and Emma would have come after Dean again if they let her go (which is probably what Sam was really worried about—that she would have gone after Dean again and gotten the drop on him or he wouldn’t have shot her), or maybe she would have come after someone else. Maybe Sam was wrong, and Emma could have been persuaded away from life in a cult. We can say the same about Dean killing Amy. All they had was her word that she wouldn't kill again. And yet, if her son got sick again, it seems reasonable to assume she’d go on another killing spree. Maybe Dean was right to kill her, maybe he was wrong.

Other notes: 

[1] Sam misses a certain detail when he compares Dean’s actions with Emma to his own situation with Amy. Sam only compares the two situation by virtue of him or Dean choking due to an attachment to the “monster” in question. However, there’s a distinction between the two kills that is important within Dean’s personal ethical framework, while it’s not necessarily important within Sam’s... to the point that Sam doesn't really see this distinction at all (in fact, he may not know about it). Namely, Emma had never killed anyone before while Amy had killed four people. Dean’s actions in both situations are actually ethically consistent—which is another misconception in fandom. From Dean’s framework, Emma and Amy are not the same. Emma and Amy’s son are the same. We see the distinction Dean draws between Amy and her son in “The Girl Next Door”: Dean kills Amy but lets her son go because he’s never killed anyone. He doesn’t rescind that even after Amy’s son tells Dean he’s going to come after him eventually and kill him. Dean treats Emma in the exact same way. He tells her he would let her walk away because she’s never killed anyone, and he doesn’t rescind the offer even if it seems like she still might try to come after him again. This is also consistent with how Dean treated Bobby John in Season 6 “Two and a Half Men”, Jack in Season 4 “Metamorphosis”, and Madison in Season 2 “Heart”. 

[2] When he kills Amy, Dean is notedly dealing with trust issues that he himself acknowledges, after what happened with Cas. He trusted Cas implicitly even when Bobby and Sam doubted him, and he got burned, and it shook his ability to trust in anyone (see Sam’s “wobbly” talk above”). Killing Amy is a part of that, according to Dean’s own perceptions. 

[3] To a certain extent, it might even be said that Sam and Dean aren't just wary of trusting each other’s judgement, but also wary of trusting themselves. For example, “You kill the monster” is a hardline stance that’s unusual for Sam and that is rejected by both brothers as early as Season 2 “Bloodlust”. But because Sam doesn’t trust himself at that point in time, and also does not trust Dean’s judgement either, he does what he thinks is “safe” when his own mind is half shredded and he has a depressed and alcoholic brother who he’s afraid is going to let a monster kid murder him one day (be it Emma or Amy’s son). If he were to let Emma go and worse came to worse, Sam doesn’t feel he can rely on Dean to defend himself from her, and he doesn’t know what his own mind state is going to be like in the future. So he does what’s “safe” for them both. In the same way, Dean’s actions with Amy could be viewed as him choosing what’s “safe”.

[raviotherabbit]

royal pain in the ass- chapter 6

Chapter 6: Era of the Great Sea Captain Tetra saves some castaways.

[first] - [previous] - [next] read it on ao3!

  △ ▲△

There was just something about Outset Island.

Tetra hated pretty much everything about it. The people there were soft, even the fishermen who spent their days hunting down the monsters of the sea. Everyone was preoccupied with their simple lives. Rearing their children, washing their clothes and hanging them to dry, playing with wooden swords…

They all went on like this, day after day, as though a great and powerful kingdom did not lay in ruins, miles below the sea.

But still, some little part of Tetra couldn’t help but want it. She wanted that simple life, to live without a care in the world. The burden on her shoulders was heavy, but the time she’d spent on Link’s little island, where nobody needed anything from her, had lifted it.

So when she found Link on Outset, of all places, well… that just sweetened the deal, didn’t it?

Rats… Wind was his name, now, wasn’t it? At least for now it was.

The best part of Outset, though, had to be the woods. The Forest of Fairies was quiet these days, which perhaps made it all the more ideal in Tetra’s opinion. She never got a second alone on her ship, not truly, but she could here.

Gently, she placed a hand on one of the trees, tracing the grooves in its bark. She was familiar with this one. When the Helmaroc King dropped her, it was this tree that she fell into, the branches snagging on her clothes. And then she met Wind.

Goddesses, where would she be without Wind? If this one, special, stupid kid hadn’t found her that day. Part of her wanted to think she could have taken Ganondorf on her own, and that was the part of her she let control the narrative.

Still, the Forest of Fairies was beautiful. Tetra could only hope their new home would have places half as pretty. With its cool breeze rustling fallen leaves, the ever-present smell of fresh dew, and gentle harp strumming…

Wait. Who the hell was playing the harp up here?!

Her good mood thoroughly ruined, Tetra followed the sound of the harp. Eventually, she came upon one of the heroes, sitting at the forest’s cliff.

What was his name? Cloud? No, that’s close, but not right… What’s a Hero of the Clouds, anyway? That sounded stupid. Hero of the Sun? Hero of the… Wind? No wait-

Sky! It’s Sky!

Yikes, though. Sky didn’t look so good. He kept plucking at the strings of his harp, but each time he only made it a few notes in before wincing. There were dark circles under his eyes, which kept darting up towards his clear, blue namesake with desperation.

Tetra almost left right then and there.

But there was a voice in the back of her head, one that sounded a bit like Wind, a bit like an old king. A princess would try to help her people.

Ugh. Fine. This would be a good practice run, anyway.

“Hey, buddy,” Tetra awkwardly tried to put on her cheerful princess voice. “What’s- what’s up?”

Sky looked back at her, almost no emotion on his face. “Oh, Zelda.”

“It’s Tetra,” she responded instinctively, mentally cringing at her own bluntness. She’s trying to be nice now!

“Right, Tetra,” Sky nodded, as if reminding himself. “I have a question for you.”

“Alright, I can answer questions.” Tetra took a seat next to Sky, letting her legs dangle off the cliff’s edge. “What do you want to know?”

“Your Hyrule,” he gestured towards the Great Sea, expanding as far as the eye could see. “How did it come to be this way?”

Right, this guy’s the first one. “Well, Ganondorf was sealed in the Evil Realm,” she started.

“Then what happened?”

“He broke free. The people of Hyrule, they prayed to the Goddesses to save them from his wrath, and-” Tetra swallowed. “And they flooded the land.”

For a moment, Sky was silent. His grip on his harp was tight, and for a moment, Tetra was concerned he’d break it. It was such a nice piece of treasure, after all, and it’d be a shame if it were harmed.

Finally, he spoke again. “How many died?”

“What?” Tetra almost shouted, certain she’d misheard him.

“When the flood came, how many died?” Sky reiterated, his gaze focused on the waves lapping at Outset’s shore.

“I- I don’t…” she sputtered helplessly. “I don’t know.”

“This is the legacy I’ve left the world,” Sky said. “What did their blind faith bring them?”

  △ ▲△

Standing on the stern of her ship, Captain Tetra takes in a deep breath and sighs. There’s nothing like the open ocean, is there? Cutting through the waves, the smell of salt in the night air…

With Wind gone on his little hero quest, searching for new land has taken a backseat. He would kill her if she even thought about founding her kingdom without him there by her side. Well, at least try to. They both know who would really win that fight.

But it’s not so bad. New Hyrule can wait, Tetra has a chance to focus on some of her own passions.

“Captain!” It’s Gonzo, Tetra’s right-hand man. He stops a few feet behind her. “We’ve spotted the Ghost Ship at Greatfish Isle!”

Like hunting down and destroying every last Ghost Ship on the high fucking seas.

“Excellent.” Tetra smirks. “Alter course for Greatfish. We’re going to destroy some undead tonight.”

“Uh, that’s just it, Captain,” Gonzo says. “There’s people on the island, yeah? And they’re fighting the monsters!”

“What?!” Tetra snaps back towards her subordinate. “Who would be stupid enough to fight a Ghost Ship?!”

△ ▲△

Of course, the second they noticed the ship, that’s when the undead started jumping onto their islet.

“Get it off get it off get it off get it off!” Flora desperately shouts as, using the Magnesis Rune, she slams the shield from Artemis down onto the Stalfos that has an iron-tight grip on her ankle.

“Flora, use the shield!” Dusk shouts over her shoulder, focused more on parrying off the sword of a Stalfos. In the same swift movement, she drives her rapier cleanly into its skull. As much as Artemis hates to admit it, Dusk is good. “Don’t make it a mallet!”

“She knows what she’s doing!” Artemis contends, just as her sword meets the lantern of a poe. “She doesn’t need you telling her what to do!”

“Now isn’t the time for arguing with each other!” Sun’s exasperation drips off her words. She’s just barely able to duck, dodging a swing from a Stalfos. On the ground, she kicks a leg out, knocking the walking skeleton off its feet.

Artemis’s eye twitches, and she snaps back around in anger. “I’m just saying-!”

But that moment of distraction was just a smidge too much. The Poe rises behind her, raising its glowing hand, preparing for the one, fatal strike. But before Flora can even gasp, or Sun can yell for her to watch out-

BANG!

The Poe’s lantern shatters, and with an agonizing shriek, it disappears.

There’s another ship in the water, bearing a red and white sail with two crossed swords. And there, gripping onto a rope as she leans off the bowsprit, is Tetra, the barrel of her gun smoking.

“Tetra!” Artemis could breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank the Goddess you’re here!”

Tetra blinks, taken aback for a moment. “Queenie?! I thought the Time War was over!”

“Fight now, talk later!” Sun shouts over the Stalfos she has in a headlock.

Tetra nods, tilting her head back towards her ship. “Boys! Lend them a hand!”

At her word, a crew of men lapel down from the ship and into the shallow waters. With their cutlasses drawn, they begin slicing away at the Poes and Stalfos attacking the stranded ladies.

Tetra sharply whistles, catching Artemis’s attention. “Queenie, take your best, leave the other two behind! We’re boarding that ship!”

Artemis bites her cheek. Her best, huh?

Well, there was no doubt about which of them had the most training.

“Dusk!” she cups her mouth as she yells.

And Dusk almost instantaneously freezes, her rapier dropping slightly as she looks at Artemis, her eyes wide.

“Come with me to the ship!” Artemis points towards the Ghost Ship. “We need you!”

For a moment, a very brief one, Dusk doesn’t react. Then, she smirks, a smugness only a queen could have.

“It’s about time,” she says.

  △ ▲△

The second they step into the Ghost Ship’s hull, Dusk’s nose wrinkles. “I can practically feel the dust in the air.”

The whole interior of the ship seems to be filled with smog, solidifying the undead ambience. Its wooden walls groan as it’s rocked by the sea, giving off the same eerie blue lighting it had on the outside. Below them, on the ship’s bottom, were monsters. Poes and ReDeads.

“We need to get back there,” Tetra gestures towards the back of the ship with her cutlass. “Once we take the treasure, the ship will disappear.”

“Right, because you’re pirates,” Dusk crosses her arms. “Remind me how you two know each other, again?”

Artemis and Tetra exchange a glance. “The War Across the Ages,” the former explains. “We recruited many individuals adrift from their own eras.”

“But pirates? Really?” Dusk gestures to Tetra with a hand.

“I’ll have you know, I’m the greatest pirate who ever sailed this sea,” Tetra jabs her thumb towards herself.

Artemis rolls her eyes. “Come on you two, behave. You’re cousins, after all.”

“Wh-what?!” Dusk sputters. “I thought you said her name was Tetra!”

Tetra snorts. “Yeah, but to some people, it’s Princess Zelda.” She holds out her hand, winking at Dusk. “Welcome to the family, cousin!”

Hesitantly, Dusk shakes her hand. Tetra responds with a shocking amount of vigor.

“Now that that’s settled,” Artemis claps her hands together. “How about we defeat some undead?”

As if answering her question, Tetra shoots right at the ReDead’s skull. While her bullet is enough to defeat the single ReDead, the sound also draws the attention of the other monsters on the ship. Slowly, they begin shambling towards the ledge the ladies stand on.

“Oh great,” Dusk mutters to herself. “There goes our element of surprise.”

“Dusk, we should stick together,” Artemis suggests, careful in her phrasing as she draws her rapier. “We can watch each other’s backs.”

With a nod, Dusk retrieves her own sword. “Let’s go,” is the only thing she says before she jumps off the ledge.

  △ ▲△

These new guys, Sun decides, are good. They’re decent with their swords, though she knows they’d be better if they’d attended the Knight’s Academy. At least they’re good enough to make up for both Artemis and Dusk’s absences.

One of the taller pirates slices clean through the neck of a Stalfos, its head landing just at Sun’s feet. Rearing her foot up, she crushes it under her boot. Of course, she’d never admit it, but that crunch! is such a sweet sound. Like music to her ears.

Sun’s ears twitch slightly as they pick up the faint sound of clanging metal. She’s just in time to duck again, missing a swing from an angry Poe.

“Hey, pirates!” she shouts, hoping to catch the attention of at least one of them. “Think one of you can take this for me?”

The tall one with the bandana nods, quickly moving himself between Sun and the Poe. She sighs. She just isn’t equipped to deal with that, today. Maybe if she’d remembered to bring a sword…

Sure, hand-to-hand combat isn’t usually her first choice, but Sun has grown to appreciate it over the past few minutes. Hylia, not just appreciate it. She loves it, more than she ever thought she would. Who would have guessed that punching things would be so fun?

“Well, well, look who’s decided to grace us with her presence.”

Oh, that sounds considerably less fun!

Turning behind her, Sun sees what must be the monster Artemis and Flora told her about. Because as her eyes lay on him, it’s almost as if his form is wobbling, before solidifying into a figure she knows well.

It’s a shadow of Sky. A representation of her Link, but if he was dunked in black paint and given terrifying red eyes.

“I’ve heard of you,” Sun’s eyes narrow at Dark Link.

“Ah, and I know you, your grace,” Dark Link laughs, and though it’s cruel and contemptuous, some part of her head thinks, ‘That’s familiar.’

“But tell me,” he continues. “What’s Hylia herself doing so far from home?”

Sun freezes, her blood running cold. “How did you…? Who are you?”

“What, you don’t recognize your own hero?” Dark Link frowns mockingly. “You know, I thought he’d take the longest to crack, but just a few whispers about the sea, and-” he abruptly snaps. “He was as good as gone. Now that fairy brat, on the other hand…”

“Stop it,” Sun snaps at him. “Just tell me where they are.”

“Oh? And why would you care?” The shadow tilts his head, and for a moment, his confusion almost seems genuine. “You goddesses have never cared for the fates of your heroes.”

And then, there’s a spark inside of Sun, and it sets her whole mind on fire. “I am not Hylia,” she asserts, grabbing onto his arm. “I. Am. ZELDA!”

It’s a moment of pure focus, the first time she’s ever said anything like that aloud, let alone screamed it. Unfortunately, it’s also a moment of distraction, just as Dark Link wanted. He draws his shadowy Master Sword, raises it above his head, and-

“SUN!”

Suddenly, Flora pushes Sun out of the way. The sword’s hilt strikes her head with a loud, sickening CRACK! She ends up collapsing right on top of her ancestor.

“Flora!” Sun gasps, tilting the scholar’s chin up to get a better look at her. After such a nasty blow, it makes sense that she’s out cold. But there’s blood, a lot of it, practically running down her face from above her left eye.

“You hurt her!” Sun exclaims, drawing Flora as close as she can bring her. “You son of a-!”

But, just then, they’re interrupted by two more shouts. In all the hassle, Sun hadn’t even noticed the Ghost Ship’s disappearance. Dusk, Artemis, and Tetra stand on the shore, staring right at the mess in front of them.

In an almost simultaneous burst of light, Artemis and Dusk summon their Bows of Light. Tetra draws her pistol, all three taking aim at Dark Link.

“Not another move, asshat,” Tetra warns him. “Attacking a princess is rude, you know.”

“She’s a queen,” Artemis informs her.

“Attacking a queen is rude, you know,” Tetra amends.

“Well,” Dark Link raises his hands above his head. “It seems we’re at an impasse.” He catches Sun’s eye one last time. “Farewell for now, your grace.”

Before any shots can be fired, Dark Link’s shadowy mass collapses in on itself. Like a splash of water, he sinks into the ground and disappears.

As the adrenaline fades from her body, Sun suddenly looks down at the bleeding body in her arms. She tightens her grip around her descendant, instinctively covering Flora’s wound with her hands.

“Oh no,” she mutters to herself as her fingers turn red. “Guys! We need help!”

  △ ▲△

It’s just a head wound, Tetra told them. And a head wound means it looks worse than it is, and it’ll bleed more than usual. Flora’s fine, she insists, she’ll wake up soon. All they have to do is keep an eye on her bandages and wait.

“I mean, you’ve seen my Link,” Tetra explains, leaning against her ship’s railing. “He gets a concussion every other week. He’s bounced back from worse than what Flora has.”

There really was no reason to stay on Greatfish any longer, now that they had Tetra and her crew. She’d been so generous as to waive the transport fee, something about a family discount that Artemis didn’t really hear. They’re heading to Windfall Island, so that they can restock their supplies before the next portal appears.

Flora was set up in one of the bedrooms below deck, tucked safely into one of the beds. Artemis has taken it upon herself to remain by her side, at least until she wakes up. She’s just so pale, and she hasn’t moved an inch…

As the first rays of light touch the sea, there’s a light knock on the door.

“Come in,” Artemis calls out, rising from her chair at Flora’s bedside.

The door creaks open, and Dusk pops her head in. “How’s she doing?” she asks, tilting her head towards Flora.

“No change,” Artemis crosses her arms and sighs. “I know Tetra said this is normal, but still…”

Dusk steps into the cabin, closing the door behind her with a sigh. “Sun’s a bit of a wreck. I told her I’d check in on Flora if she ate something.”

“She doesn’t blame herself, does she?” Artemis questions, wringing her hands together.

“The hit was intended for her, from what I can gather,” Dusk reveals. She gently places a hand at the top of Flora’s head. “You’re quite brave.”

Artemis smiles weakly, sitting back in her chair. “How are you holding up, Dusk?”

“I’ll admit, pirate ships aren’t as bad as I thought,” Dusk chuckles lightly. “It’s quite cozy here.”

“Dusk, I’m-” Artemis starts, but she swallows and starts again. “I’m sorry. You haven’t really spent that much time travelling before, and it was irresponsible of me to assume you’d feel comfortable with it immediately.”

“Artemis,” Dusk sighs. She kneels next to her, taking her hands into her own. “I should be the one apologizing. You were trying your best, but… I’m sorry, I was rude about your night watch, and I really ruined the whole thing, didn’t I?”

“Oh come on,” Artemis scoffs, but for once, there’s no malice behind her words. Her hands return Dusk’s grip with a tight squeeze. “You clearly weren’t okay with it, and I took that personally instead of making sure you were alright.”

“I just…” Dusk purses her lips together. “I’m scared of being alone in the dark.”

“Then you won’t have to cover any watches,” Artemis asserts. “But, you know, I spent a lot of time in a warped version of your era. I even met the most peculiar woman, a princess of the Twilight Realm…”

Dusk gasps. “You met Midna.”

“I did,” she nods. “So if you ever need someone to talk to, please consider me.”

Wordlessly, Dusk leans forward and pulls Artemis into what might be the warmest hug she’s felt in years. And instinctually, Artemis hugs her back.

For a long time, they stay like that.

“You know, I never figured it out,” Dusk suddenly speaks. “Flora’s down the family tree, and Sun’s up it. When exactly does the War Across the Ages take place?”

“From your perspective? You have about two-hundred years to go,” Artemis reveals. “You’re my grandmother a few times over, by the way.”

“What?!” Dusk suddenly draws back. “Why didn’t you lead with that?!”

  △ ▲△

Waking up is quite the process. When Flora opens her eyes for the first time, her vision is blurry. Like the world’s been spun around. Just barely, she’s able to lift her head, though her neck protests such movements.

There, sitting at the edge of her bed, though. That has to be Mipha. Who else would wait for her like that, within arm’s reach should she need an extra bit of healing?

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Daruk and Urbosa just a few feet away. They’re talking to each other, maybe about her. Their tones are quiet and subdued, though. And Revali! Revali is waiting, just by the door. That's just like him to hover, even if he pretends not to.

‘Did I pass out in the spring again?’ she wonders.

“Flora?”

But then, she blinks, and it’s almost as though the scene shifts. It’s Sun sitting on her bed, a look of hope clear on her face. Artemis and Dusk freeze, gaping at Flora’s awakening. Tetra is the one who’s by the door, though she’s clearly keeping her distance.

Right. Of course.

“Flora!” Sun springs to her feet. “You’re okay!”

And then, before Flora’s sluggish mind can catch up with her, Sun wraps her up into a tight hug. Flora’s head throbs at the sudden, jerky movement.

“Ow…” Flora groans.

Sun gasps in shock, dropping Flora back onto her pillow. “Sorry!”

“Hylia’s fucking tits-” Tetra curses, missing Sun covering her chest with an arm at those words. She pushes herself between Sun and Flora. “Do none of you know how to handle head injuries? Stop moving her around!”

“I’m sorry, it’s just-” Sun awkwardly fidgets with her fingers. “She got hurt because of me! I need to make sure she’s okay!”

“And I want to make sure my travels with you four start off on the right foot,” Tetra insists. “Without anyone dying.”

“I’m fine,” Flora croaks out.

Dusk gestures a hand to the young queen. “See? She’s fine.”

“You’ve decided you’re coming with, then?” Artemis suddenly appears at Flora’s side, lightly patting her head. “You didn’t need much convincing.”

Tetra shrugs. “I figure I owe Link this much. He’d do the same for me.”

“Woo,” Flora weakly cheers, lamely raising a fist in celebration.

Artemis gently pushes her hand down. “We’ve still got a few days left on the Great Sea, Flora, don’t get your hopes up. We’re not going anywhere until that head wound of yours closes.”

“Aw…” Flora pouts, crossing her arms.

“Get some rest, kid,” Dusk instructs her. “You look like you need it.”

“You,” Flora points to Tetra, though there’s already a drowsiness to her words. “You’re going to tell me more about your time.”

Tetra nods mockingly, taking Flora’s hand into her own. “When you wake up, your majesty.”

[neon-junkie]

unpopular opinion: Micah is terrible but he shows instances of having real, human emotions and completely erasing those moments to paint him as a 100% monster is a disservice for the fandom.

arrrrkajslkfjdsglk okay I'm gonna break Micah down and explain why I like him, just bc of everything going on and cause you've summed that up perfectly. Let's make one thing clear - I don't stan his actions, I never have, I never will. A lot of ppl seem to keep ignoring that lmfao. AND we all know that Micah is a fucking piece of shit. He's the devil. We know. Like the list goes on and on and on when it comes down to why Micah's garbage, but I guarantee you, there is NOBODY out there who actually *stans* him. He's a villain and damn good one. Now. Relating to what you've said, this man has just as much emotion as everybody else. I think the people who view him as an emotionless monster have either never seen ANY camp interactions with him, or they just choose to ignore them. For whatever reason. Idk. It is VERY obvious that Micah has 100% been abused by his father, probably physically as well as mentally and emotionally. He openly talks about the monster that his father is, and he KNOWS that he is just like his father. Now, Amos (his bro), on the other hand, has managed to break away from that lifestyle, straighten his ways, and settled down. Micah is so obviously jealous and even takes the time to write to his brother, probably to try and rekindle their sibling friendship or whatever you wanna call it. Amos basically goes 'NO' and slaps that idea right out of Micah's head, so I do feel bad that Micah was rejected. Amos makes it clear that he will only rekindle that if Micah changes, but he doubts Micah is able to change. So now his only 'role models' are gone - his father and Amos - Micah has nothing left to lose. He has no family, friends that encourage his chaos rather than help fix him, and no partner. He's a loose cannon, and without guidance, Micah will only continue to fire. That's why he sucks up to Dutch so much, because he STILL needs acceptance, praise, and guidance, and Dutch gives him all of that. Yeah, it's creepy to see, but that man must be dying inside if he'll literally lick Dutch's shoes just for a bit of acceptance. Micah clearly does try, like his approach to making friends is so cringe, but he's clearly never ever done this before, and he's only following the ways his father taught him. I mean, we see him still try to befriend Arthur at the start of the game, but Arthur barely looks at him and just continues to shoot him down. I know Arthur is probably following his gut, but people can't say that Micah didn't try. And we see him try it on with the women of the camp, he's clearly desperate to at least find a partner, and probably secretly jealous that his brother has that and a family. And if his brother can do it, then maybe he can too? and we do see him try. But Micah's no rapist, and it makes me cringe when ppl say that. There's a good post about it (here) that I won't go into detail, u can just read that for urself. So - Micah has nothing to lose. The camp doesn't want him there, so it's no sweat off his nose if he rats them out. Obviously, I don't agree with it and I think Micah should have just left, but then that'd be a very boring game lmfao.  There's nobody stopping him from causing chaos, and he's just going to continue to do what he was taught to do - be a fucking piece of shit. But to say he has no emotions? You sure about that? It's SO obvious that Micah still craves acceptance in any form, whether it's from a friend, a partner, his mentor, etc. He NEEDS acceptance and he seems very lost without it. And it's so clear that Micahs past trauma still controls his actions, and he clearly has no idea how to even begin accepting and moving past his trauma. That man just needs a therapist asap. Peter Blomquist said it himself, that Micah is essentially just misunderstood. (here) And well, if his own actors said that then why the hell do people continue to ignore it? Because they just want to hate Micah. They view him as an evil and racist piece of shit and just want to hate that, which everybody does cause yanno, it's bad. But they continue to ignore that Micah, like Bill, suffers from a lot of mental trauma and issues, and his past has resulted in the person that he is today. I’ll say this AGAIN, I’m not condoning his actions, far from it, I’ve said many times before that Micah is fucking garbage, we just find him interesting. Honestly, I think if the gang was accepting, or if Micah had someone to shove him in the right direction, then he would have redeemed himself and fixed his ways. Things like racism are taught, and if you can teach it, then you can unteach it, just like Bill begins to learn. Micah is a villain and that's why I like him. Again, I don't support or stan his actions, but it's just so refreshing to see someone so chaotic and loose. People saying that you shouldn't like Micah because he's racist, also choose to ignore the fact that Abigails abusive, so why do y'all still stan her when we see the way she speaks to John? or the way she physically abuses him? So abuse is fine but racism isn't? hmm.  But if we shouldn't like Micah because he's bad then why the hell do we like characters like Darth Vader or all the fucking Disney villains? Have you seen how much merch those criminals have? But a bunch of strangers on the internet having a wank over the ratman is bad? We're allowed to enjoy those but not Micah? big sigh. Peter also said that there's nothing wrong with liking Micah. You're allowed to enjoy villains, it's not a fucking crime, and it doesn't mean you support their actions, it never has done.

PLUS, this is a game full of mass murderers?!?! Arthur does a LOT that is considered questionable, such as beating a terminally ill man into his grave, but people choose to draw the line at Micah. You’re free to enjoy whatever fiction you want, but there’s no line you can draw. Well, you can draw a line for yourself, but you can’t rule what others can and cannot enjoy.

It's just SO tiring (personally) to constantly see happy endings and pure, wholesome, golden characters. I'm a sucker for bad guys and seeing them win, so when I played RDR I was like 'oh yeah, this is what I need' and that's probably why Micah's my fave lmao. It's so refreshing to see, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying it. Some people just enjoy villains, big whoop. We need to stop expecting characters to be pure cause that's just so unrealistic. Everybody has flaws of all different kinds, and that's what makes these characters human. Like, are we just choosing to ignore the fact that Arthur is the most wanted out of the gang, who has probably murdered the most people? Do we just wanna sweep his kill count under the rug and choose to hate Micah based on the one fact of him being racist? The whole fucking gang are outlaws, they're all essentially villains, even the babies like Kieran!! Micah is just as complex as every other character in this stinky game, and people who refuse to acknowledge his layers and just portray him as a monster are whack as shit. And remember, those who tell you what you can and can't enjoy are just as bad as Micah Bell himself. Especially the ones who abuse you over FICTION.