#her seeing herself in him. recognizing the ways they are so painfully alike. & that pain being what pushed him to the lengths he went

[orcelito]

Anyways I love futago siblings bc of the inherent drama to it & the complexity of feelings involved in it. And also I want futaba to suplex akechi in a sibling kind of way. It's not that complicated

[justmediocrewriting]

Reader who is against eating a devil fruit soon finds herself eating one to save the life of Luffy and the crew! They are all shocked she would do something like that and sacrifice everything she believed in for their lives and fluffy ending

I’d Make A Deal With The Devil (For You) [m.d.l]

Summary: during a losing battle with the Marines, reader makes a drastic choice to consume the Phase Phase fruit in order to save her crew.

Genre: angst(?), fluff

Pairing: Luffy x fem!reader

Word Count: 3.2k

Requested: ✅

Warnings: violence, depictions of blood and injury, panic, language, I think that’s it

A/n: I really enjoyed this one, so thank you so much for requesting it! I really hope this is satisfying for you! ❤️❤️

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

All you could see was blood.

Granted, your vision was blurry in your right eye, and your left was swollen shut, so the only thing you could really make out was the vibrant red and some malformed shapes; one of which you recognized as Zoro by the shock of green against red, and panic gripped your heart when you realized he was the only one still standing on deck, surrounded by the fallen bodies of Marines and your crew mates alike. With your poor vision, you couldn’t tell if they were breathing or not, but the amount of blood soaking into the planked deck of the Merry was extremely concerning, and you drew in a deep breath as your heart lurched into your throat.

The blurry, unmoving figure that concerned you the most was the one only mere feet away from yourself; the red vest was darkened with blood, and the signature straw hat was crumpled and laying flat on the deck a few inches away from Luffy’s body. Your heart cinched painfully as you remembered the way Luffy had taken the full force of a swinging blade for you, leading to his chest being horribly slashed and ultimately contributing to his defenseless state. The others weren’t too far away from him — Nami was slumped against the left stairs, and Usopp was at her flank, lying face down, and Sanji was crumpled and clutching at his side a few feet away from the two. The only one still fighting was Zoro, but you weren’t sure how long he’d last against the onslaught.

I need to do something! You thought desperately, guiltily, wracking your brain and tired body for some sort of solution, but you didn’t really know what you could do in your current state. Your right leg was bent at an odd angle and pain resonated up the entire length, telling you that it was clearly broken, and your ribs hurt with every breath you pulled in — your body was in excruciating pain and you could hardly breathe, let alone move — but your crew mates were hurt, they could be dying, and they needed you. Luffy needed you.

Your entire body seized up with fear when Zoro let out a pained yell and you watched helplessly as his blurry shape fell to the deck, a Marine standing over him with the tip of his sword dangerously close to the man’s throat. With Zoro down, there was no one left to oppose the Marines, and everyone was now in major risk of truly losing their lives.

“Zoro,” you rasped out, desperate for him to rise again, but your voice was quiet to even your own ears, and you knew there was no way that it could have reached Zoro — and even if it had, what good would it really do? You were useless anyway; you knew your own crew mates felt this way, too. It was the whole reason they had tasked you with guarding the Devil Fruit when the Marines attacked. You were poor at fighting, with little to no experience in it, and you’d only be a liability on the battlefield — a point that was blatantly proven the minute you exited the protection of the galley. But you knew the crew was being overrun; even with the impressive fighting abilities they bolstered, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to take on a hoard of Marines at the same time, and you only wanted to help. You wanted to be useful to them, to save them, because you loved them. They were your family.

Helplessness washed over you with an alternating wave of anger, and when you clenched your fist against the deck, your fingers dug in to something wet and crumbly. With momentous effort you turned to the side to look at your hand, where your fingers where digging into the soft flesh of that damn fruit, and a fleeting fire of hope sparked inside your chest.

These things grant power, don’t they? You thought to yourself, gazing at the bright lavender skin of the misshapen fruit. Trepidation fluttered in your chest and your stomach rolled at the mere thought of consuming the fruit — none of you had any idea what abilities it would grant, and there was a chance you would be stuck with one that wasn’t even useful for the current situation, — but it was the only hope you had, and you weren’t about to abandon it and your crew’s only chance.

From your periphery you saw Zoro harshly kick the Marine’s ankle, and relief pooled in your gut when the man yelped and fell to the deck, his sword no longer near Zoro’s neck. Zoro raised to wobbly feet, and your relief was quickly swallowed by foreboding as three Marines immediately descended upon him. There was no time for hesitation or regret. Without giving it much thought, you brought the fruit to your mouth and sunk your teeth in, cringing at the utterly rotten, dry taste against your tongue. It was like sandpaper sliding down your throat, but you forced yourself to consume the entire thing; it was thankfully fairly small, and you were able to finish it in roughly ten bites.

At first, nothing happened; you felt no different, and panic gripped your heart as multiple thoughts flooded your mind. What if it hadn’t worked? What if the power was completely useless? What if your crew mates died before you could fully use the power?

Then, a single thought echoed into your head and made you heart ache fiercely.

What if Luffy died before you could save him?

Suddenly, as if your blood had turned to lava within your veins, your body heated from the inside out, and suddenly, you were no longer on the deck of the Merry; you were floating above it.

You also noticed that your leg no longer hurt, and the odd angle it had been put in was cured; your body felt as if it weighed nothing, and when you looked down, you realized with a start that your body truly did weigh nothing — because your physical body was still on the ground, slumped and lifeless-looking, and panic gripped your heart with a ferocity much stronger than before.

Were you dead? Had the Devil Fruit killed you, and now your spirit had vacated your body? Horror filled your veins with ice as you thought of the implication — your only chance at saving your crew mates failed, and now you’d be able to do nothing but watch as they were slaughtered and their remains dragged to the nearest Marine headquarters.

“(Y/N)? What the hell is going on?”

Zoro’s voice broke through your haze of muddy fear, and your heart lightened as you snapped your eyes to his and noticed he was staring right at you — not your physical body, but the one currently floating in the sky. Zoro wasn’t the only one staring at you; the Marines had ceased their attack, and were now staring at you with wide eyes.

They can see me! That’s a good thing, right? You thought, but then another reality crashed into you and nearly knocked you off balance — if you were separated from your body, but not dead, that could only mean one thing: the fruit had worked, as you’d hoped, but the power you were granted was completely useless. Not that you truly understood what your new power was, but separating your soul from your physical body surely wasn’t useful for fighting, was it?

“(Y/N)! Answer me!” Zoro barked, and for the first time you noticed the true fear swirling within his eyes, mixing fluidly with pure confusion, and you realized that maybe Zoro himself thought you were dead, and that he was seeing your spirit.

“I don’t think I’m dead,” you croaked out. “I’m just… separated.”

That didn’t exactly help curb the confusion or fear in Zoro’s eyes, and one Marine used his moment of hesitation to lunge forward. Panic gripped your body (was it still a body?) as the tip of the Marine’s sword dead-eyed for Zoro’s chest — he was going to kill him, you had to do something —

That hot, molten lava once more burned your veins, and in the literal blink of an eye, you were no longer floating above the deck, and instead you were directly in front of the Marine, staring into his wide, terrified eyes. There was a strange feeling in your chest, as if there were some sort of rod of pure electricity stabbing through it, and when you looked down, you choked out a scream as you registered the view of the Marine’s sword piercing straight through your chest.

Despite the clear evidence of being stabbed, there was no pain or blood — and though your body was semi-translucent, the sword held fast in your chest when the Marine yelped and released the hilt, as if your body still held the physical consistency of a normal body.

What the fuck?

“What the hell are you!?” The Marine yelled out, hand flying to his hip to yank a revolver from the holster and point it at you. Despite the fact that you were just as confused and frightened by your strange composition as the Marine, you flashed him a cocky, condescending smile.

“Honey, you just tried to stab me, and that clearly didn’t work. What makes you think a bullet will?”

You were thankful that your voice came out much more confident and snarky than you felt, and the faux disposition you displayed made the Marine take a few more steps back. Hope once again flickered in your chest as you looked around and noticed the other remaining Marines had also backed away from you, hesitant and cautious and confused.

Maybe if I can convince them I actually know how to use this power, it’ll be enough to scare them off.

“You guys look a bit confused,” you said loudly, watching cautiously your surroundings. “I guess they didn’t inform you that there are two Devil Fruit users on this crew?”

The Marine, the one who had stabbed you, sputtered indignantly, “That’s not possible! Headquarters has the record of every single member of the Strawhats, and the only one listed to be a Devil Fruit user is Monkey D. Luffy!”

Your heart skipped a beat, and you began to feel anxious, but you rolled your eyes and popped out a translucent hip with much more confidence and sass than you thought could be possible for yourself in your current state of panic. “Does it look like he’s the only one?”

The Marine faltered and his hand shook against the holster on his hip. He seemed to be contemplating something, his body completely rigid, but you had the strange feeling that the man wanted to lunge at you and prove your internal bluff — fear gripped you tightly, but it eased when the Marine took another step back and addressed his men loudly.

“Retreat, men! We are not equipped to handle an unknown Devil Fruit power! I repeat, retreat!”

There was a flurry of feet beating against planks, and relief washed over you as the dark blue uniformed men quickly ran back to their own ship. Your shoulders slumped, and you felt exhausted. Soon enough, the only bodies left on the bloodied deck were your fallen crew mates, some of who were now groaning in pain, and the only thought you could fully latch onto before everything faded to black was thank god they’re alive.

You could hear voices, but they were faint and the words within indecipherable, but you were pretty confident that they belonged to Nami and Luffy. Your heart skipped a beat at the latter’s adorable lilt, but it then sunk at the clear worry etched within when your brain could finally decipher the words.

“When will she wake up?”

“I don’t know, Luffy, I’m not a doctor. She was pretty badly hurt even before she ate the Devil Fruit. There’s no telling what kind of toll it could have taken on her body given her condition when she ate it.”

You hated it when they worried about you. It made you feel even more useless to them, like salt to a wound, and the reminder of the choice you’d desperately made just cut a little deeper — it was something you never fathomed doing. The exchange was too steep, and the powers granted by Devil Fruits were just too inhuman, it wasn’t natural. In your mind, no one should ever wield powers like that, and the only person you’d ever accepted to wield them was Luffy, but that was for another reason entirely that you didn’t really want to think about given the state of the situation.

“‘M fine…” you grumbled, and you wanted to wince at how scratchy and weak your voice sounded.

“(Y/N)!” Luffy nearly shouted, and you barely had time to prepare yourself for the onslaught of pain in your body as the bed rocked and Luffy crushed you under his own weight. You wheezed before breaking off into coughs, and the weight was lifted from your body with a rather shrill yell from Nami.

“You idiot! She has a broken leg, are you stupid?”

Nami wasn’t entirely wrong, and her verbal observation brought the aches and pains to the forefront of your mind; your leg was now aching something fierce, but that wasn’t really what you were focused on. What you were focused on, however, was the pleasant tingle currently zinging beneath your skin from the brief physical contact you’d had with Luffy. Your face heated as your coughs eased, and when you finally cracked open your eyes you were greeted with the sight of Luffy’s dazzling grin, not even the least bit dimmed by the rather irritated looking Nami at his side; Luffy’s eyes were bright, crinkled at the sides in the way they always were when he smiled, and your heart stuttered briefly in your chest at the sight.

Feeling slightly awkward but still buzzing from the warm embrace he’d pulled you in, you sent the rubbery boy the most convincing smile you could given your current state.

“Heya, captain.” You murmured, and Luffy’s smile just widened even further, and, fuck, that looked too good on him.

“How are you feeling?” Nami cut in, and your eyes snapped to her face. Her brows were furrowed, and truly you hated the way her worried frown shadowed her beautiful features. Wanting desperately to wipe it away, you smiled at her, and croaked, “I’m doing okay, I think. A bit thirsty, though.”

Nami didn’t look fully convinced, but her shoulders slipped down ever so slightly, and her lips uncurled from a frown to a straight line. She gave you a hesitant nod, and with the assertion that she was going to let the others know you were awake and fetch you a glass of water, she flitted from the room, leaving you alone with a still-smiling Luffy. Without the distraction of Nami in the room, your attention was forced to be held only by Luffy, and jittery nerves erupted under your skin. The nerves intensified when Luffy reached forward and plucked your hand up, encasing it within his own.

“Are you truly okay, (Y/N)?” Luffy asked, and despite the eye crinkling smile still on his face, his words dripped with nothing but seriousness — there was concern etched in there, too, but you could tell that it wasn’t just pertaining to your physical state. Luffy was asking about your mental and emotional state, as well; and given the circumstances, you could understand why.

From the moment you’d agreed to join his ragtag group of outcasts, you’d made your stance on Devil Fruits and their users quite clear; you’d never treated Luffy with anything less than respect, and though you had never considered Luffy to be a menace as you did most Devil Fruit users, your opinion on them had hardly swayed. There was no doubt in your mind that Luffy, as well as the rest of the crew, were more than likely incredibly confused and shocked by your decision to consume the fruit that Luffy had suspiciously secured days prior.

You tossed Luffy’s question around in your head, and thought heavily about it. Were you okay? All in all, aside from suddenly being able to literally exit your own body, you hadn’t felt any different; you felt human, normal, and you hadn’t grown any strange appendages — that was a plus. So, aside from the cramps and aches and general fatigue, physically you were okay. But mentally…

You were still pretty okay.

Of course, you still had some reservations about your choice to consume the fruit; the powers you’d been granted with definitely were not natural, and the act of going against every single fiber of your own personal code rubbed you in a way that wasn’t pleasant; but seeing Luffy before you, a little bruised and cut up, but alive, and armed with the knowledge that the rest of the crew was still alive, you couldn’t find it within yourself to hold any ill-feelings or regret towards your decision. You were okay. Giving Luffy a true, genuine smile, you asserted as much to him.

“I’m okay Luffy, truly.”

The smile that Luffy sent you was face crinkling and nothing short of absolutely dazzling, and for a mere second you felt as though you were looking into the literal sun.

“I’m glad. Because I’m okay, too.”

A silence suddenly fell over the two of you, the only sounds decipherable being that of the gulls crying outside and the slap of waves against the hull of the Merry. Luffy still had your hand clasped in his, and the realization of it had your body honing in completely on the sensation. Luffy’s hands were warm, insanely so, his palms calloused and slightly rough but also with a touch of soft, and his fingers were long, so long, and your body heated from the inside out.

You didn’t have long to build up jittery nerves over the intimacy before the door slammed open, startling you so badly that you jerked your hand out of Luffy’s as if it had been burned. Guilt gnawed at your insides at the way the rubber man’s face fell, but you didn’t have much time to mull over it before Usopp was springing across the room to shove his face into yours.

“(Y/N)! You’re awake! I’m so happy — you did amazing out there!” Usopp ushered out, words slightly melding together in the fast pace he was spewing them out. You couldn’t help the way your cheeks flushed at the compliment — you hadn’t really done much, close to nothing at all. All you’d done was bullshit the Marines away. That hardly counted as ‘amazing’ in your book.

Your flush deepened as you caught sight of Zoro, Nami, and Sanji entering the room as well, and honestly, this room was much too small for six people, and was it just you, or was it extremely hot at the moment?

Usopp was still spewing praises and, weirdly, declarations of love in your direction, and the other three were simply looking at you with warm smiles, and as you met the eyes of every one of your crewmates, your heart began to resonate with a familial warmth.

But then your eyes connected with Luffy’s, and there was such raw emotion and pure love swirling within those chocolate orbs, and when he sent you his lopsided smile, breathing and alive, there was only one thing you could think;

If I was to do it all over again, time and time again, I would still make a deal with the devil for you.

[savagenutella46]

And Thus With A Kiss I Die

Jasonette 1/1 - A fic I wrote for @moonlitceleste because she’s amazing

All quotes/title in bold italics derived from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

"Banishèd' is banished from the world, and world's exile is death."

There's no finite end to where white and black meet. Everything is shades of grey; infinite on a foreboding scale of fate and destiny: entities that push you to make the choices you do.

It had ended with a flash of light—real or her imagination, she had witnessed it between her own eyes. The kind of flashing light that tells you, "you've died."

Ladybug could still hear the shrieks and screams of civilians echoing ringingly around her, confused, scared, as to why an akumatized villain was hurting them the way that it was; this wasn't how akumatizations usually went, maybe a few scratches, worn out knees, but never this.

(—And to think, it had started out as a normal day.

Marinette rose out of bed with the same grogginess lingering at the corner of her eyes, brushed her teeth, kissed her Maman on the cheek as she ran to school, late.

You'd never suspect you were going to die on a day so normal, so domestic.)

What had this person been through before submitting to Hawkmoth with such a vicinity? How had Hawkmoth prayed to a cacophony of emotions like this—to kill, order, destroy everything in its path? Marinette would never catch an inkling, dying and all that jazz.

It's easy to see the world through a rose-colored lens. To believe that people do the things they do because they're bad. (but no one ever talks about why they do the things they do because they're good.)

And Marinette, masked in all her red-and-black glory, had pushed a frozen-with-fear civilian out of harm's way, an absurd amount of unleashed dark magic from the akuma hurtling its way toward them, and she'd taken the hit. Rolled on the ground for yards from the sheer force that the akuma's magic had flew and stricken her and pierced the skin, blood splattering and trailing as she slapped and hit the street from every possible angle.

Ladybug can't move, can't call for help when she desperately needs to, because her partner is miles away trying to fight what has her plastered to the ground, laying limp underneath her dead weight, breathing muffled and heavy underneath her physical detriment.

Ladybug's eyes droop under the weight of exhaustion, barely running on fumes before she had run out in an attempt to defeat what was supposed to be an everyday activity.—Crazy, how something can seem so domestic until its so, so much more.—A hemothorax forming in her chest where Marinette had been hit, a very open thoracic cavity filling up with blood, and she's spluttering for breath, because her throat is closed up, filled with blood from where the akuma hit her to where it burned.

It burns real bad, almost like an explosion stemming from her chest to the nerve endings on her toes. Marinette feels like she's being tortured with every meek twitch of her wrist as she lays on the ground, unable to see over the car shouldering her path, the pain burning behind her eyes, the white-hot disappointment in her heart.

—And she knows it's time. Because this is the work of fate. Her life in its hands. It had seemed miles away from Marinette just this morning, and how she wished she could go back and cherish the moments since she'd arisen from unpremeditated slumber.

She cannot. This is her destiny, as it seems. No one can be saved if Ladybug cannot save herself, can't will herself to detransform and heal herself because she can't, and she feels a gripping amount of remorse before emotions hit her all around—she should've told Adrien something, she can't recall what it is—should've told her Maman she loved her before running out the door in such a rush—should've squealed about the hot superheroes in America with Alya one last time, before she feels nothing.

Nothing except for the white light. And then dark again. Absolutely nothing.

                                               _________________

It's dark when she opens her eyes, and she blinks to make sure her eyes are actually open, and sees a big, fat, load of nothing.

Marinette's—the ladybug suit had disappeared, her normal clothes taking its place—body feels light, floaty, and utterly weightless against the dark mass she's standing atop of. Her head feels eerily light, calm without the weight of the world on her shoulders, and a calm feeling washes over her.

Her voice echoes against endless sound barriers as she utters her first words since death.

"This is what death feels like, huh?" Utterly amazing. Marinette can't believe she didn't do this earlier.

—But, for a moment, she feels empathy. Empathy for the people stuck in Paris, wondering if this was the day they were going to die, the people all around the world living in fear of something so inevitable.

She closes her eyes for just a second, a moment of vengeful peace. Opens them again, and this time, she's somewhere different.

She's in a library. Unfamiliar, but welcoming all the same. The smell of crisp, unopened books float idly in her senses, a synthetic warm feeling creeping up behind her back. Distantly, she realizes that she recognizes the place, tables placed and shelves abundantly filled with books, ranging from science fiction to classic literature, and it feels exactly how it did all those years ago.

Years ago, when she'd first visited the United States of America, the first place her Maman and Papa took her was a public library in Gotham City, New Jersey. It had welcomed her so openly that she couldn't help but smile a little, slip under from her parent's grasp, and wander toward a vast section of William Shakespeare, someone she'd heard so much about in her eight—nine years, she couldn't help but be pulled toward the ordain shelf.

She'd even met someone, too. Her mother would forever deny—if Marinette had still been alive, but Marinette was convinced the little boy sitting against the mass of wooden shelves had been very, very real. Marinette had smiled at him, sat down next to him, even if he gave her a wary, and borderline aggressive look, she'd introduced herself.

"Hi, I'm Marinette." She'd said with a horrible stutter and an almost unintelligible accent. The boy closed his book—a black and white cover with words she couldn't quite understand the meaning of as well as a simple name like Shakespeare's, and she smiled a little harder.

"Jason," He'd said in a heedful voice, staring at her curiously. "Whadda' you want?"

Marinette shrugged as best she could with weak shoulders, and turned her head from the person next to her to drink in every corner of the library that she could see without moving from her increasingly-uncomfortable crouch on the ground.

"Nothing. Just wanted to see what you're reading." She leaned over his shoulder, monosyllabic and complex English text alike filling her view, so many words that blurred together, and she felt a heat at the top of her head in frustration.

She couldn't read English.

The boy next to her—Jason, had seemed to recognize her distress and pull the book closer to him, floundering for a moment before he exhaled loudly, and started to read.

Words flowed out of the him, smooth and languid, and she found herself trapped in the moment, mesmerized by such an eloquent reading from a boy who looked just her age.

"What cursèd foot wanders this way tonight to cross my obsequies and true love's rite?" He reads off, breaking unevenly for gulps of air, and dove back right where he stopped without much distraction, and moments, minutes passed under his voice.

And the memory fell away from view. She opened eyes she didn't realize had closed when a voice seemed to float from the corner of her vision, a body stepping into view and a realized this wasn't imagination.

Another boy, dressed in tattered—but comfortable looking jeans finds his way over to her, a curious glint in his magnificent blue eye and a raised eyebrow, though he looks troubled, aged where he ought to look youthful.

"Who're you?" He mumbles, lips barely moving around syllables as he stares at Marinette, defensive, yet hopeful.

His voice. Despite the clearly street-wise accent, his voice is beautiful. A voice that could recite hundreds of words and never get old in the canals of her ears. Marinette found herself wanting to hear more.

"Marinette." She blinks, seems to realize the way he seems nervous, and, "You like jazz?" Blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, which, just so happens to be the only sentence capable of such utterance in damning—literally—times like this one.

Jason finally cracks a smile after a few more moments of cricket-inducing silence, and the newfound tension in her shoulders seems to melt away again, just as it did with her entrance to a magnificent limbo such as this. "Not in particular, but I do like to read." His smile is utterly contagious, and Marinette feels it spread its way along her own face, eyes crinkling under the weight of emotion.

They spend their days in an endless limbo like that, reading, laughing, sometimes in the comfortable chair in the library, and sometimes they're gazing upon clouds, feeling the prickly sensation of grass under their backs as they lie next to one another under a cool breeze and warm sun—which is the scene they're settling in, when Marinette turns her head toward the boy next to her.

"It's been," She pauses for a moment, adding up the days since they've both died—it had to be around the same time—and Jason turns his head toward her in a similar fashion, an eyebrow raised. "A few months? And..." She trails off, suddenly feeling less confident in a horrid question.

She knows the way she had died hadn't been peaceful, and if the boy she'd grown so close to in months of passing had died as painfully, he might doubt their budding friendship, as new as it is.

But then Jason reaches over and covers her hand with his, a blooming warmth enveloping her hand all the way to her heart, her vision snaps back to where it had wandered down to the rest of her body, reliving a turret of emotions. "Marinette," Jason stares at her in earnest, "You can ask."

Another thing she'd never understand was Jason's ability to read people so well. He'd always know her intentions, as bad or good as they may be, like something mundane, a book she'd eyed for a few minutes before he'd sighed heavily and got up to get it for her, or when Marinette wanted to be left alone. Just for a minute, to pull herself back together.

"How did you die?" She watches as Jason closes his eyes, curling in on himself despite the foretold question, and waits.

She's good at waiting. (A familiar feeling of heat creeping up to her cheeks, the same way it did with someone else, not so long ago, but in a different lifetime.)

"It started out when I tried to steal Batman's tires—" Marinette widens her eyes in surprise.

Oh, so they're going way back then, huh?

But by the time Jason finishes speaking, pats his sweaty hands down on the slacks he wore that day that came from God knows where, Marinette finds the humor and her mood had dimmed significantly.

And Jason, he looks terrible. Like it was the first time he'd said something about it since, well, death. Almost hyperventilating, Jason is breathing heavily, gripping onto his pants with malice and intent, almost as if stopping himself from something. He'd told his beginning to end with an increasingly shaky voice, cracking at the edges where he'd relived the fear and abandonment he felt when trapped in an unfamiliar country, in a dirty warehouse, trapped in his own feelings in a suit that he thought would always protect him.

Without a dad that he'd thought would always protect him.  

Marinette feels a little sick. The boy next to her had died so brutally, alone, scared and slowly.

"I don't regret it. Being Robin." He adds quietly after a moment of hesitation. It's small, but it's there and plain. He doesn't regret something that changed his life, but— "Just the death part."

He would want to change his death, and she couldn't agree more.

If only it meant they could've still met despite living, that is.

She doesn't say that. Instead, she laughs a little. "You and me both." Marinette reaches over to hold his hand once more, and pretends not to see the tears climbing out of his eyes.

"So early waking, what with loathsome smells, and shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth, that living mortals, hearing them, run mad—?"

How it felt to tear his way out of the ground, shivering, shaking, flinching at the way his fingernails tore away with every claw and scratch at the unyielding wood before him. Jason was vaguely aware of a horrible groaning noise that might've been his own, but when his hand stuck through to crisp Gotham air, dirt flinging and spilling down on his face as he gasped and choked for breath, he could only think of a single quote from such a cliche play.

He thought of it while tearing out the bloody uvula of his victim, spurred on by the Pit and Talia's ruthless training, starving for the sound of screaming that rung in his ear, continued to clang loudly even in sleep, when it bestowed itself upon him.

Because he couldn't think about anything else. Wouldn't allow himself to, because then he would start thinking about her.

About how she left him.

Jason had turned to retrieve a book from their peaceful library limbo one day, muttering to himself about something so mundane that he didn't even remember, but he'd grabbed the book—a simple fiction, because they were both bored of astronomy—and turned around to silence, instead of the shiny mop of dark hair he was expecting.

"Marinette?" Jason calls, swiveling his head around when the chair previously occupied by her stood empty.

Jason waits.

He doesn't know how long he waits, searches, but she isn't there.

And the feeling of disappointment and fear runs up his spine again, before he knows it, he's kneeling on the ground, trying to catch his breath as tears run down because he's been abandoned again, and it's just as damning as the first time.

His father, his brother, his mother, his birth mother, and now his friend.

Jason breaks down again, gripping harshly onto his hair while he cries, where he'd usually hold onto Marinette's hand.

So he doesn't think of much at all, really. Not when he turns on murder mode, not when he forces himself to stare into the eyes of the person he's killing while they die, because he wants to remember how it felt. How it felt before he met another superhero torn away from her life almost as harshly as he was ripped away from his own.

He wants to go back. Before he flew to Ethiopia unsupervised and unprepared, before he took the Robin mantle, before he decided to make quick cash off of the Batmobile, before his mother died by her own hands, loosely holding a syringe and shaking, shuddering from her overdose.

Jason wants to go back to Before. He can't stand living in the After, where he makes the choices he does.

He’s supposed to be good.

permanent taglist: @nathleigh @stainedglassm @officiallydarkgeek @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @buterflies-and-ladybugs @maskedpainter

[holeinotomemind]

MLQC Fanfic: Hearts of Storm - Ch 4 - Unfaithful

WARNING: NSFW/18+ fic. No smut this chapter. Dub/non-con, eventual 3P, spoilers, long dragged out fic and angst. Not morally correct. Turn away if this is not your thing. Pairing: Shaw x MC, Gavin x MC, Shaw x MC x Gavin AO3 Link: [here]

Notes: [See full notes on AO3] Catch up post.  Big thanks to Lutz and sushikitty (aka Aelyxandra) for betaing this chapter! Also, special thanks to Kinako, because if it wasn't for her comments, this and the next few chapters would have been a lot different.

Hugging her knees close to her chest, Yui sat, curled up on her couch. Her phone vibrated repeatedly on the coffee table littered with discarded facial tissues. The angry buzzing sounds a stark contrast to the otherwise silent living room.

She buried her head between her knees, making herself as small as possible as if that could somehow make the phone stop buzzing, make everything around her go away. Or better yet, it could make herself magically disappear.

It had been three days since she stepped outside of her home. Three days since she woke up that morning to this nightmare.

She tried her damndest to forget, but she simply couldn't. It was as if the more she wanted to wipe that truth from her memories, the more her brain was determined to make her remember that horrible morning when she opened her eyes to find the naked man sleeping peacefully beside her with purple bangs lazily draped over his forehead.

Her memories of that morning were still painfully fresh. She could clearly remember waking up slowly to the feeling of a warm body cuddling her, his strong arms wrapped around her small body.

The memories of the prior night’s reunion with Gavin was a bit fuzzy in her mind, so she kept her eyes closed, afraid that it was all but a drunken dream. Afraid that, if she opened her eyes, the feeling of Gavin sleeping soundly beside her would be gone. So, she laid still with her eyes closed, listening to the sounds of his even breathing, basking in a peace she hadn’t felt in months.

Six months and twenty-four days, to be exact.

That was how long she had been struggling to find a way to make Gavin and everyone else remember her. Or more precisely, for everyone to gain the memory of her existing in their lives, since, for some reason, the “Yui” in this dimension was not her and, apparently, Gavin, along with everyone else, never met this “Yui” before.

“Yui”, while still the owner of the Miracle Finder’s production company, led a very different life compared to her own. They did not even look alike, at least not to the people of this dimension; otherwise, Anna would have recognized her when she visited the office. She had not even met Gavin during high school. He had left for military school before “Yui” became a sophomore.

She didn’t know why things were the way they were, but she was determined to fix this reality. By becoming Shaw’s informant, she was hoping to find the way to do so. However, days turned into months and she still didn’t have the slightest clue what she needed to do. Bit by bit, she found herself drowning in hopelessness.

That night was the first night, since her arrival to this dimension, that she was able to sleep through peacefully without startling to nightmares or the sheer overwhelming loneliness of Gavin’s absence.

She would give anything for that moment to last forever, but life seemed determined to torture her.

When she finally opened her eyes, she froze in horror at the realization that the one who she had been intimate with the night before was not her beloved. The person who she kissed over and over again, held closely against her and took into her body last night was not the person she thought he was. As if mocking her, the man’s light purple hair and obvious lack of a prominent scar on his left collar bone grew blatantly clear to her as the bright morning sun illuminated her bedroom.

Yui pulled at her own hair as she relived the horrendous memories. She could still remember vividly how horrified she was and still is. Frozen with shock, she opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. It wasn’t until he began to stir that she regained her senses and fled the room.

Since that dreadful morning, she asked herself over and over again how she could have mistaken Shaw for Gavin that night. It was true that she was under the influence of alcohol, but that shouldn't be an excuse as the two of them were so different.

Although her memories of that night were patchy at best and the details were blurry, she vaguely remembered the times when she thought something was amiss. His rough treatment of her, his mocking tone and his light colored hair she’d had a fleeting glimpse of before he entered her were all clear signs of his true identity. Signs she all but ignored simply due to her desperation to be with Gavin.

Yui shoved her hand through her hair in frustration.

Not wanting to think anymore, she forced herself up from the sofa. She entered the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge. Needing to clear her mind, she forced herself to focus on her own movements as she twisted the cap open.

Yes, if she could keep her mind on what she was doing now, she wouldn’t have to think about what had happened.

She lifted the bottle to her lips and took a sip.

Why didn’t she take a moment to clear her head to think rationally that night?

Her hands began to shake as she leaned her back on the fridge.

If she had done that even for just a short moment, she would have known that the man she held so tenderly in her arms was anyone but her Gavin!

But she didn’t. She took one look at those familiar amber eyes and trusted.

Yui slid down onto the cold hard floor, one hand shoved through her tangled hair again causing a sharp pain in her scalp.  She squeezed the water bottle so hard that it crackled and cold water spewed onto her hand.

She felt none of it. All she could think of was how much she wanted to question Shaw. Why didn’t he stop everything from happening? But even she could vaguely remember that it was she who took the initiative. He had tried to push her away several times while she begged him to stay.

She wanted to lash out at him, to put all the blame on him for taking advantage of her when she had drunkenly taken him for Gavin. But at the end of the day, did she at any point give him reason to think she had mistaken him for Gavin? She couldn’t remember. What if she confronted him only to find out that it was Shaw’s name she called when she begged him to stay?

She didn’t have the strength to find out.

Feeling like an ostrich, she wanted to bury her head in the sand and pretend this never happened as long as she avoided talking about it.

But what would happen once she found a way to fix Gavin’s memories?

Yui slid further onto the freezing tiles of the kitchen floor, slowly curling herself into a fetal position.

She could already picture the hurt and disappointment in his eyes when he found out that she had shared her body with someone else. Perhaps, he would have looked at her with disgust and she would have deserved every ounce of it.

Gavin had always placed so much care in her, in their relationship. He held her heart gently like a small bird in his palms that needed careful nurturing. In return, he gave his heart fully to her, trusting that she would do the same.

Logically, Yui believed she didn’t actively choose to be intimate with Shaw, though she couldn’t help but blame herself for getting drunk and allowing herself to be vulnerable.

But that night on the rooftop, when she called for Gavin’s name over and over in the wind and was met with nothing but silence, utter loneliness engulfed her, suffocating her like a pair of cold hands wrapping tightly around her throat.

She had been afraid. It had been so long since he had been with her that she feared she would soon forget his warmth, the way his gentle hands touched her and the feeling of being wrapped in the safety of his embrace. So she downed cans after cans of that fruit beer, desperately wanting to relive the evening they spent together on that warm summer night on the Cape Island beach.

She knew she was a lightweight and Gavin had warned her repeatedly not to drink when he was not around. She should have known better. And as a result, she had done the one thing that would hurt him in the worst possible way.

They had promised to belong to each other and each other only. And she had broken that promise.

But what if she kept pretending that none of this had happened? What if she lied by omission about her unfaithful encounter with Shaw?

That would have been the easy way out, no?

Her entire being reacted violently against it.

She couldn’t live her life with him pretending nothing had happened when she knew deep down that she was lying to him every minute and every second of their time together. She couldn’t do that to Gavin.

Once she corrected everyone’s memories, she would have to come clean with him. As much as it would hurt him, as much as it might ruin their relationship, Gavin had the right to know. If he chose to forgive her, it would be his choice, not because she had kept the truth from him.

But if he chose not to forgive her…

Yui could feel the tiny ginkgo leaf digging into her inner wrist as she hugged herself impossibly tighter at the thought of losing Gavin forever.

Gavin had always been her source of strength. It was the tiny hope that she could somehow find a way to fix everything and have Gavin back at her side that kept her from breaking down and surrendering to this reality for the past six months.

But if she stood to lose Gavin anyway, would it be better if he simply never remembered their past together? That way, perhaps, she could pretend that she was simply an underclassman with a good memory, something she claimed to be when she last spoke to him in that alleyway, trying to convince him she didn’t have malicious intent.

Perhaps, she could even try to get to know him again with this new identity. They may not return to the way they were, but at least there would be a chance to keep Gavin in her life, even just as friends.

Deep inside, Yui knew it was despicable to think this way. After all, it was she who refused to stay in the dream world and said that even if reality was cruel, it was, at least, real. And yet, when it came to Gavin, she wasn’t sure if she could make the same choice anymore.

BOOM!

Her room rattled at the sound of the enormous explosion.

[thaisibir]

La Vie en Rose (Bede and young!Opal time travel fic)

La Vie en Rose (Life in Pink) Rating: T (for character deaths and language) Chapter 5/10 - Life and Death (length: ~7k words) Summary: Bede doesn’t get why that loony old bat Opal wants him to be the next Fairy-type Gym Leader. To help him understand, Opal has Celebi take Bede back to the time of her youth.

(For other chapters, look up the tag “pokemon la vie en rose” or go to my profile)

Bede no longer sat in front of a wedding, but on a bench facing the town’s many winding trails. He looked over his shoulder and recognized the front of Opal’s house. He was sitting on her bench—the same bench where she liked to lean back and smoke a pipe. The sudden bite of chill in the air made Bede jam both hands into his pockets and pull his oversized jacket tighter around himself. Time traveling didn’t make him immune to the weather, he guessed.

“I’m glad I jumped back in time wearing this,” he told Celebi.

Bede had never been in Ballonlea Town during the colder seasons. Familiar voices drifted to his ears. He looked up to see Opal and Roger, wrapped up in long coats and thick scarves, returning from what must be their morning walk with Mightyena back to her house.

“Thank goodness for all the trees keeping the snow out,” Roger remarked as he glanced up. “It’d be such a pain to shovel that off the trails.”

“One of the many reasons I don’t miss Wynwall,” Opal replied wryly. “It would snow up to your waist, especially in the mountains you’d take to get there.”

The couple didn’t look any different from the last time Bede saw them. They had gotten married in the spring. Now it was either fall or winter—at least a few months had passed. Roger no longer lived in a makeshift room at the theatre, like a vagabond, but with his wife now. Having a home to come back to and share must make him quite a happy man.

Roger fumbled for the keys, and let Opal through first once he got the door open. Celebi flitted in behind Roger, prompting Bede to follow them inside.

Obstagoon greeted Opal and Roger with a toothy grin and cups of steaming hot chocolate.

“Just in time,” Roger exclaimed. “Thank you, my friend. That’s just what we need after a brisk walk in the cold.”

Opal lit up the fireplace so that Mightyena could have a warm nap on the rug. Her Togekiss and Mawile hopped down from the sofa to snuggle up against Mightyena. Opal patted their heads, then joined Roger at the dinner table and accepted the hot chocolate from Obstagoon with a grateful smile.

The cozy, homey sight of people and Pokemon alike sharing a little cottage warmed up Bede from head to toe, and he forgot about how cold it was outside. His heart ached a little, too. All his life he longed for something like this. A happy family. Celebi seemed to sense how he felt. The Pokemon rested itself on his shoulder and nuzzled his hair.

Roger cracked open the kitchen window and offered a pack of cigarettes to Opal. “Care for a smoke, my dear?”

She waved a hand at him. “Oh no, I can’t, darling. Not for a while.”

“A while?” He withdrew his hand holding the pack. “How long is that?”

“Nine months, more or less.”

Opal left it at that to let the weight of what she had said sink in. His eyes grew wide.

“Opal, dear...are you...? You’re telling me that you’re...?”

She nodded and smiled. Roger tossed the cigarettes onto the table, took her face into his hands, and pressed a passionate kiss to her lips. She threw her arms around his shoulders and returned the kiss until they broke apart, speechless and giddy for a few moments.

Finally, breathlessly, Roger said, “We’re going to be parents.”

She squeezed his hands. “Yes, we are.”

“No tobacco for nine months...not to mention all your favorite drinks. Will you be all right?”

Opal made a mild grimace. “It’ll be tough, but it’ll be worth the wait.”

He patted her hand. “You won’t go through it alone. I’ll quit smoking and drinking too. We’re in this together.”

She pecked him on the cheek. “I appreciate the solidarity, darling.”

Bede had been watching the exchange with mixed content and relief. “I’m so glad you didn’t make me watch them make a baby,” he said to Celebi. His cheeks grew hot. “And in case you’re wondering: yeah, I know where babies come from.”

Celebi giggled behind its light green hands.

Roger put away the cigarettes and sipped at his hot chocolate. “No wonder your head was in the clouds when we were walking.”

Opal propped an elbow on the table to finger at the curls of her hair in embarrassment. “I was thinking about how to break the news to you. I was hoping to pull off something more charming and elaborate. I certainly didn’t have cigarettes in mind.”

Her husband smiled and shook his head. “I’d be thrilled no matter how you went about it, dear. And I’m thrilled right now. Completely over the moon.”

Celebi flew off of Bede’s shoulder and took his hands. In a quick burst of light, Bede was thrust into the crowded clamor of Ballonlea’s Gym stadium. He stood in the middle of the arena, between Opal and a young Gym challenger.

Celebi brought him in here in time to catch the end of the match—the moment that Opal’s Alcremie fainted under a well-aimed Pyro Ball from the challenger’s Cinderace.

Opal flung away her parasol in wide-eyed surprise, making the crowd burst into laughter.

A chuckle slipped past Bede’s lips. He knew that was simply part of her routine of being an entertaining Gym Leader. What he didn’t know was that it went this far back. “Some things just don’t change, huh, Celebi?”

In many a practice match with Opal, Bede was well acquainted with how painfully slow she would walk back and forth in the arena. But this time, he was befuddled as Opal quickly, almost aggressively, closed the gap between herself and the challenger in a few long strides. She shook hands with the boy, shoved the Draining Kiss TM and Fairy uniform into his hands, within seconds and with no explanation. Then she took off to the backstage, ignoring the boy’s perplexed face.

Bede ran after Opal. “Hey, I wonder what’s going on with her—“

The sound of vomiting answered his question.

Bede rounded the corner to see Opal emptying her stomach into a trash can. Roger, who must have been waiting backstage, was rubbing soothing strokes up and down her back.

“Opal, dear, perhaps you should take maternity leave,” he said gently. “This morning sickness is really doing a number on you.”

She slowly uprighted herself, her face pale and pinched. “Nonsense. I’ve got morning sickness in the bag. Literally.” She leaned over the trash can to vomit into it again, then went on with trembling defiance, “The day I take off from being Gym Leader is when I’m retired or dead, whichever comes first.”

Roger grabbed wads of tissue for Opal to wipe her mouth on. “You are unbelievably stubborn.”

She managed a lopsided grin at him. “Isn’t that what you love about me?”

He returned her grin. “Your passion knows no bounds, dear. If you insist on having the show go on, then you have my support.”

She pulled him into a hug. “Thank you, darling.”

Despite the trials and tribulations of early pregnancy, Opal soldiered on with her Gym Leader duties. She could hold herself together through an entire match before running off to retch and vomit backstage, out of the public eye. There were some matches when she looked positively green, and could barely raise her voice to a shout when commanding her Pokemon. Still, Opal held her ground. She would never let the struggles of pregnancy cancel a challenge or cut it short.

Bede had to give Opal credit for her determination. She was such a trooper, and she expected the same out of him. Handling a Gym took grit and guts, and the young, pregnant Opal strived to make sure that she didn’t spill her guts in the stadium for everyone to see.

Celebi ground the time lapse of matches to a halt as it showed Bede the newest Gym challenger fighting against Opal: a bespectacled girl barely over ten, with inquisitive green eyes and wavy red hair.

This time Opal sported a noticeable baby bump, and her Togekiss scored a winning Ancient Power against the girl’s Corvisquire. That ended the match—and the girl’s Pokemon League dreams, Bede assumed, until he noticed that the girl didn’t look as dejected as he thought she would.

Instead of parting ways with the girl, Opal accompanied her outside the Gym stadium and down the trail that led into Glimwood Tangle.

“I’ll show you a good spot for Impidimp watching, as promised,” Opal said.

The girl beamed up at her. “Thank you, Ms. Opal. You didn’t have to do this.”

The Gym Leader shot her a mischievous glance and a wink. “Oh, I insist. Those thieving little rascals will give you too much trouble if you don’t know what to do around them. If you want to make sure that you come away with all your belongings, you better have me around, Magnolia.”

Bede almost stopped in mid-stride. “Magnolia? As in Professor Magnolia?” He had never met the elderly professor before, though he knew from living with Opal that she would spend many long conversations over the Rotom phone with her. And Opal mentioned doing research with her at one point. Still, to see the professor this small and young took him aback. Sometimes he forgot that old people used to be young.

They stopped at the Pokemon Center to rest their Pokemon before entering Glimwood Tangle. Opal led the way through the gloom and maze of glowing mushrooms. She stopped to gingerly get down on her knees behind a tree stump, and Magnolia followed suit.

“There, see that pink mushroom up ahead?” Opal whispered. “That’s where the Impidimps like to gather. It’s close to the trees that are loaded with berries, so it’s a good spot for them to forage.”

“Perfect,” Magnolia whispered back, and she fished out a pen and notebook from her bag.

A few feet ahead of them, a gang of Impidimps clustered around the mushroom, gleefully sorting through the berries they had collected. Bede didn’t have to worry about being seen by the Impidimps, so he lounged on a nearby fallen tree trunk.

“It’s too bad about the Gym challenge,” Opal said, keeping her voice low.

Magnolia shrugged. “That’s all right,” she murmured in reply. “I’ve never had much interest in battling. It’s my dad who pushes me into Pokemon training.”

“Does he, now?” Opal’s gaze became distant, as if reaching into a well of memories. “My father once pushed me into something I didn’t want to do. If you ask me, I say to follow wherever your heart leads you. Don’t listen to people who want to drag it the other way.”

Magnolia had been intensely scrutinizing the Impidimps, but what Opal said made her turn her head. “You really think I should do that, Ms. Opal?”

The Ballonlea Gym Leader leveled a serious gaze at her. “You’re a smart, thoughtful girl, I can tell. You’d rather study Pokemon than fight with them, and that’s a perfectly fine thing to pursue. This may be hard to believe, but not everyone makes his or her way in the world by battling. Take my husband, for example. Hardly the greatest battler, in all honesty, but he’s a damn fine playwright.” Her hand flitted to her mouth. “Oops. Pardon my Kalosian.”

Magnolia stifled a giggle. “I’ve heard much worse.”

“Have you? Oh dear.” Opal bit back a laugh of her own.

The girl adjusted her glasses and returned to studying the Impidimps, though her tone shifted to curiosity. “Speaking of your husband, have you decided with him on a name for the baby yet?”

Opal rested a hand on her belly. “We know we’re having a boy, but names have been up in the air for the past month.” She frowned. “Nothing’s been pink enough for my taste.”

“Uh-oh, there she goes with pink,” Bede muttered to Celebi.

“How about Jasper?” Magnolia meekly suggested. “Your name is a gemstone, and your husband’s name is Roger, right? Jasper is another gemstone, and it sounds like Roger...He would have a mix of your names, like how children are a mix of their parents.”

Opal sucked in a quiet gasp. “By George, yes. It’s perfect. Did you think of that just now?”

Magnolia nodded, and Opal clasped her shoulder.

“You might look into being a Name Rater, too, because that name’s a keeper. It’s so pink!”

The girl flushed with happiness at Opal’s approval, even though Bede was quite sure that Magnolia hadn’t the slightest clue of what Opal meant by the name being “so pink,” because he sure as hell didn’t know, either. After spying on the Impidimps, Opal and Magnolia left Glimwood Tangle to rest inside the Pokemon Center.

“My family will stay in town for the next few weeks,” Magnolia said. ”This is our first time here, so we want to explore the woods, and I want to study all the Pokemon that live here.”

Opal nodded. “In that case, I’d be more than happy to be your tour guide. When I’m not busy holding Gym challenges, anyway. Pop by the theatre if you need me.”

“I appreciate your offer. Thank you so much.” Magnolia checked her wristwatch. “I have to run back to the inn. Mum and Dad would want me back by now.” Then she extended a hand. “Thanks again, Ms. Opal. You’re the nicest Gym Leader I’ve ever met.”

Opal gave her hand a hearty shake. “The pleasure’s all mine. You can drop the Ms., by the way. Just call me Opal.”

The girl smiled at that. “And you can call me Mag. All my friends do.”

“I guess that’s how Ms. Opal and the professor became best buds,” Bede said. He wished that he could make friends just as easily.

Celebi took his hands to bring him back inside Opal’s house, where Roger hunched over the dinner table littered with drafts of his scripts, and Opal tilted back and forth on a rocking chair in the living room, humming a song while knitting something bright pink—probably a baby blanket. Her belly had gotten a lot bigger since Bede last saw her, and her work in-progress draped over it like a tiny tablecloth.

Suddenly Opal stopped humming and froze in the rocking chair.

Roger looked up from the table. “What’s the matter, dear?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Just Jasper kicking me.”

Roger sighed with relief. “I thought you were going to tell me that your water broke.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t be until another month or so. Unless Jasper decides to be born early.” She set aside her knitting and the smile faded from her face. “Roger, I’ve been wondering...what if he ends up not liking me?”

Her husband set down the papers he’d been looking over. “This isn’t like your tricky Gym challenge questions, is it?”

Bede knew that her questions always had a way of throwing people off guard.

“No, it’s a serious one,” Opal assured him. Her voice softened. “You’ve never met my mother, Ruby, but she had a reputation for being an oddball. Beautiful in her youth, but still an oddball. At first, my father didn’t think much of it when he married her. But years passed, I grew up, and in my father’s eyes, her strangeness grew to outweigh her good looks. She was pulled away from a comfortable cottage life in Ballonlea, and she never adjusted to the aristocratic life in Wynwall. She hated being inside the mansion and having guests over. She’d run off to the nearby woods during parties, to play with the Fairy type Pokemon there, and my father would claim that she can’t see anyone because she’s sick in bed. She became an embarrassment to him. He couldn’t take it anymore. So he divorced her. She returned to Ballonlea without looking back, and I chose to leave with her.”

While Opal went on, Roger got up from the table and walked over to kneel beside her and take her hand. Bede guessed that Roger was hearing this for the first time, and Opal had never shared this part of her life before.

She drew in a deep breath before continuing. “As fate would have it, even the town became too much for my mother as I grew older. Just before I turned eighteen, she handed over the Gym Leader title to me and just...left. She left Ballonlea and she left me. She took only her Pokemon along to go live in the wild for the rest of her life.”

Roger squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry, Opal,” he murmured.

She briefly pressed the back of her other hand to her eyes. “My brothers never really liked her. They thought she was too strange. Even I have a hard time thinking fondly of her.” Her voice shook with anger she tried to restrain. “I’ve always taken her side. I defended her from my father and brothers when no one else would. I left Wynwall for her, and she repaid me by running away.” Fear filled her eyes. “History has a way of repeating itself. What if I become my mother, Roger? What if our son would grow up to hate me for that?”

Bede wasn’t surprised that Roger didn’t answer right away. This was a lot to unpack and process.

Finally, he said, “You are not your mother, Opal, and I don’t think you’ll become your mother, either. You’ve never been the kind of person to run away from responsibility. That’s why I know you’ll always be there for Jasper. You’ll love him and raise him every step of the way. I know that you’ll be a wonderful mother.“ He rested his other hand on her belly. “And I know that our son will absolutely adore you.”

Opal blinked away her tears. “Thank you, darling. I really needed to hear that.”

With a bitter taste in his mouth, Bede wished that his own parents had this kind of talk. Then they wouldn’t have abandoned him. He snapped out of his sullen thoughts when Celebi took his hands.

The inside of Opal’s house washed away to be replaced with white, sterile halls. Bede recognized the place. He was in the Stow-On-Side hospital now. A few feet from him, Roger paced up and down the hall with both hands in his pockets and biting on his bottom lip. Opal was nowhere to be seen. But she could be heard.

She cried out from the nearby room, making Bede jump and Roger wince.

“She must be having the baby,” Bede exclaimed.

Roger continued to pace in a clear show of nervousness and agitation. Bede guessed that in the old days, fathers weren’t allowed in the delivery room. Roger looked like he would rush in to be there for his wife if he could. Bede stood there feeling useless, wringing the hem of his jacket. Opal always had a thin and slender body. She would have a hard time pushing a kid out, Bede thought with worry. Fortunately, Celebi had dropped him into the tail-end of the long, painstaking delivery. Minutes later, a nurse poked her head out of the room and beckoned to Roger.

“Sir, you may come in.” She beamed at him. “You have a beautiful, healthy boy. And your wife is doing just fine. She’s a tough cookie.”

Roger thanked the nurse profusely and followed her inside. Bede and Celebi also stepped into the room, and hung back to let the delivery team mill around and do their job.

Despite dark hair that clung to her sweaty face, Opal smiled through her exhaustion as she cradled the wailing bundle in her arms. Roger sank into a chair beside her so they could adore their newborn son together. Bede sidled up opposite of Roger and peered over Opal’s shoulder.

“Look, Celebi, he has her eyes. The old pictures don’t show that.”

Celebi propped its arms and chin on Bede’s shoulder and smiled down at the baby.

“He’s so pink,” Opal whispered.

“And so tiny,” Roger added.

“He sure didn’t feel tiny.”

Roger laughed at Opal’s wry remark and kissed her cheek. “You’ve done a marvelous job bringing him out here.”

Later in the day, their Pokemon and close friends came over to congratulate the new parents. Jasper was only crying that first hour. When visitors came to see him, he was all smiles and coos.  No one was immune to his charm, which he clearly inherited from his mother. Opal held him all the while, glowing with a happiness Bede had only last seen at her wedding.

A different kind of glow filled up the delivery room next. The light from Celebi.

#

The old photos that had gathered dust in Opal’s attic didn’t capture every moment she had shared with Jasper. Thanks to Celebi, Bede got to see just what kind of mother she used to be.

She doted on her son, had no shame or reservations about dressing him in pink, and never turned down a chance to play silly games with him. And, being the passionate Gym Leader and actress she was, Opal would often bring him to the theatre so that it became his second home. Togekiss, her most child-friendly Pokemon, was his trusty companion and designated cuddle buddy when Opal had to step up to the stage or the stadium.

Being married and having a child made her even more adamant about turning down chances to break into the film industry, like offers from even the top agents and directors. She insisted on remaining an actress for live theatre, not movies.

“I enjoy a good film as much as anyone else around here,” Opal would say to anyone trying to tempt her, “but shooting them means being far away from home for weeks and months. That’s the last thing I want!”

Bede admired Opal’s dedication to her family, town, and profession.

Roger made sure that he had an equal share in the parenting, rather than leaving it all to Opal. His favorite thing to do with Jasper was letting him shred up scripts he wasn’t happy about. The simple act of tearing up paper in his little hands sent the boy into hysterical fits of laughter. When Opal first saw this, she clutched at her sides and could barely catch her breath from laughing so hard.

One day, when Jasper was old enough to string more words into coherent sentences, Roger drew him aside to whisper something in his ear.

Jasper then waddled back to his mother, who stood before a mirror adjusting her Gym jersey, and he threw his little arms around her legs. “I love you, Mummy.”

She looked down with surprise. “Jasper, darling, you just told me that a minute ago.”

He detached himself from her, and his eyes were wide blue pools of innocent sincerity. “Daddy says that you should get a lot of what you like, and he says that you like it when I say ‘I love you.’”

That made her grin widely, and she scooped up her son into her arms. “Did Daddy really say that? I don’t know if you should always get a lot of what you like.” She darted a raised eyebrow and a smirk at Roger as she said that. “It’s not good to have too much candy, or too much ice cream.”

Jasper pouted. “It’s not?”

“No, you silly Zangoose.” Opal pretended to scold him with a tickle on his belly, making him squirm and giggle. She grimaced. “By George, you’re such a big boy already. You’re going to give Mummy a backache.” She gently set him down and rubbed at her back. “Run along, now, darling. I have a match coming up soon. Cheer with your daddy for me.”

Before running back to Roger, Jasper hugged her again. “I love you, Mummy.”

Bede didn’t forget Opal admitting her fears to Roger not too long ago, and Jasper assuring her of his unconditional affection was touching to see.

Not surprisingly, it was the Gym challenge that held the boy’s attention the most. He was his mother’s biggest cheerleader.

Everyone working at the theatre called Jasper a little Gym Leader in the making. Then it hit Bede like a Giga Impact. Opal had wanted her son to take over the Ballonlea Gym after her. Jasper was supposed to be her successor, not Bede. He seemed perfect for the role, too—all decked out in pink without protest, cute, charming, and beloved by everyone and every Fairy type Pokemon in the Gym.

Then Bede felt ashamed and silly for being jealous of a toddler. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he ever admitted that to Opal in the present day. He decided that was something better left unsaid.

#

Opal’s idyllic life was interrupted with an unexpected phone call at home. Back then, she kept one of those old-timey phones that sat on a black box, with numbers arranged in a circle. Definitely not a Rotom phone. Opal was still laughing at something silly Jasper did over the dinner table when she picked up.

“Hello, this is Opal Roy. Who’s calling?” She stiffened and her eyes widened. “Randy?”

At the mention of that name, Roger tried to shush Jasper with a finger over his lips. The boy pressed both hands over his mouth.

Opal pressed the receiver closer to her face. She listened intently to the other end, her brow knitting together and lips drawn to a thin line. Finally, she sighed and said, “All right. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hung up and ran a hand through her hair.

“That was your brother Randall, wasn’t it?” Roger asked.

“Yes.” Opal sank slowly into her chair at the dinner table. “He just called to tell me that my father had a stroke.”

Roger’s voice was hushed. “Oh, Opal. I’m so sorry.”

“He’s been in a coma for three hours now. He just made it out of surgery.” She paused before going on, “I know this is on such short notice, but would you and Jasper come with me to Wynwall?”

Roger reached over to take her hand. “You don’t have to ask me twice. Of course I’ll come.”

Jasper looked between his mother and father. “Are we going somewhere?”

Opal managed a small smile at him. “Yes, darling. We’re going to see your grandpa and your uncle Randy.”

Jasper threw up his little hands. “Yay!”

When deciding how to get to Wynwall from Ballonlea, Opal refused to take the new Flying Taxi service. And, apparently discouraged from her accidental fall years ago, she also didn’t want to ride on a Rapidash. They settled for a car and a chauffeur making a round trip from her family’s estate. The car was classy and spacious enough for Bede to squeeze in comfortably and spend the trip eavesdropping on Opal and Roger, who were more free to hold a serious conversation with their son napping between them.

“In all other circumstances, I wouldn’t have brought you along to Wynwall, especially to meet my father,” Opal said. “He wouldn’t have approved our marriage at all if I had told him.”

Roger frowned. “You’ve told me before how elitist he was. Randall came to our wedding, though.”

Opal smiled at that. “Randall doesn’t mind you. He’s a good fellow. I trusted him not to tell our father about me marrying you, and so far he kept his word.” She smoothed back Jasper’s curly dark hair. “Besides, he hasn’t met our son yet. I’d love for the two to meet.”

Roger chuckled. “I remember him teasing us about children at the reception. He would be thrilled to have a nephew now.”

Opal looked up at Bede’s direction, where he was sitting across from her, but of course, she couldn’t see him. Instead, she seemed to fix a hardened gaze past his face. “If I may be brutally honest, Roger, I’m not going to Wynwall not so much because of my father, but because I want to support Randall.” She shook her head. “I can’t forgive my father for treating my mother the way he did. I just can’t. Randall’s quite fond of him, though. The news of the stroke must have devastated my brother. He’s inheriting the estate, after all, so it’s a lot for him to handle. I don’t want him to go through this alone. And...” She slipped an arm around Roger. “I didn’t want to come alone. So thank you for being by my side.”

He kissed the top of her head in response. “If I may be honest, I’m pretty nervous about driving up there. I would be way out of my element. I’m a peasant compared to your family.”

She squeezed his hand, and said softly, “Remember what I’ve taught you. And if it’s any comfort to you, my father will have no idea that you’ll be visiting. I doubt that he’ll wake up again.”

#

Bede’s jaw dropped as much as biology could allow. “I-I mean, I saw the pictures, but I had no idea the place was this big.”

The mansion of the Roy family, and the gardens surrounding it, could easily fit two Gym stadiums. A stylized male Pyroar, reared on its hindpaws and mouth gaped open in a roar, showed up on every rippling flag and banner. Bede guessed that was the family crest, coat of arms, or whatever it was called. It took a whole two minutes just to get through the driveway, and along the way they passed by a showcase of topiaries and fountains. Jasper insisted on having the tinted window rolled down so he could get a better view. Celebi took the chance to fly out of the car and flit around the gardens.

A long line of servants—the housekeeper, the footmen, all sorts of maids—stood to attention at the entrance of the mansion. When the car drove up, a footman opened the door for Opal’s family to climb out. Bede darted out before the footman shut the door in his face. Celebi rejoined him by settling onto the top of his head. The servants bowed or curtsied before Opal and her family.

“I really am in another time,” Bede said in awe. “An older time.”

Opal nodded at the servants while Roger merely stared back, unused to such treatment, and Jasper grinned and wildly waved his hand at them.

One of the maids couldn’t keep a straight face, her lips pursed in visible effort to contain a smile. The housekeeper shot a stern glance at the maid before she could wave back at Jasper.

Fighting back an amused grin of her own, Opal dismissed the servants and let them file back inside the mansion.

Inside the grand, ornate foyer, an elderly gentleman greeted Opal and Roger with a bow.

Opal smiled at him. “Winston, it has been far too long.”

“Indeed, it has. Welcome back to Wynwall, ma’am.”

Jasper waved at the man. “Hi, are you my grandpa?”

Bede couldn’t decide who looked more taken aback and alarmed: Opal or Winston.

“No, darling, this is the butler. Grandpa’s inside. We’ll see him soon.”

That didn’t dim Jasper’s sunny disposition. “Do you live here, Mister Butler? This is a big, big house. You must be living here, too!”

Opal clicked her tongue at her son and drew him away. “Jasper, please don’t bother him. Let the poor man do his job. It’s rude to ask questions like that. And yes, he lives here.” She shot an apologetic look at the butler. “I’m sorry, my son wasn’t raised on proper etiquette. We came here on such short notice.”

Winston nodded. “Perfectly understandable, ma’am. And, if I may add, your son is not a bother at all. I am delighted to make his acquaintance.” He gave the boy the briefest of smiles before assuming the dignified demeanor that his job demanded.

Winston moved over to Roger and offered his gloved hands. “May I have your coat, sir?”

“Oh, that’s all right, I could take it off myself—“

At a look from Opal, Roger awkwardly fell silent and let Winston remove and hang his trench coat. Opal, clearly used to the way and order of things in a house with servants, let Winston remove her coat, and she graciously nodded her thanks.

“I will let the master know that you are here,” Winston said before taking the winding stairs up to the second floor.

Once the butler was out of earshot, Roger asked, “Did he mean your father or your brother?”

“My brother,” Opal replied. “He’s the master of the house now.” She shot her husband a small smile. “Although I’d argue that Winston is the real master of it. He had been serving this family since my father was young, long before my brothers and I were born. Last time I saw him, I was ten years old.”

Approaching footsteps from above cut their conversation short. From the little balcony joining the two sides of stairs, a dark-haired young man in his late twenties, around Opal’s age, peered down.

“Opal? You came sooner than I expected!”

“Hello, Randy,” she said. “We had an excellent chauffeur.”

Randall Roy, Opal’s twin brother, quickly descended the stairs to give her a warm hug. “Oh, Opal, it’s so good to see you. I want to swing you around and around, but I won’t because of your bad back.”

She gave him a cheeky grin. “If I was strong enough to lift you up, I would do the same.”

Up close, Bede spotted shadows under Randall’s blue eyes. Being clean and well-dressed couldn’t hide the toll the family emergency had taken on Opal’s brother.

A Pyroar and a Boltund had accompanied Randall down the stairs, and they stood beside him without leashes in quiet, well-trained obedience. Bede recognized the same Pyroar from the old family portrait, and the Yamper back then obviously evolved into a Boltund.

The sight of the two Pokemon instantly caught Jasper’s attention. He loved meeting new Pokemon. It was his delighted laugh that made Randall acknowledge him. “Why, hello, little man. You must be Jasper.”

Jasper beamed at him. “Hi, Uncle Randy.”

“How old are you, now?”

The boy thrust out an outstretched hand with full confidence.

Randall gasped. “Five? You’re tall for a five year-old.” He shot a glance between Jasper and Roger. “You must get that from your dad.” Then he straightened up and shook Roger’s hand. “It’s nice to see you again, though I wish it was under better circumstances.”

“Likewise,” Roger replied.

The smile faded from Randall’s face and he gestured to the second floor with his thumb. “The hospital moved all the life support equipment up here. Father would rather be at home than the hospice. I’ll take you to him.”

He led Opal’s family upstairs. Bede followed them to be blown away by more displays of upper class grandeur: pictures of valuable art, upright suits of armor, and rows upon rows of rooms. Opal’s attempt to steel herself for the sight was noticeable, and Roger reached out to link his arm with hers.

Unlike the halls lit by many chandeliers, Sir Lionel’s room was dim and gloomy. Only monitors and a single lamp kept the room from being submerged in complete darkness. The hiss of the ventilator was the sound dominating the room. Bede peered in and could barely recognize the stern, imposing man in the family portrait. He wore no dark suit, but a gown as white as the bed and blankets that enveloped him.

Opal approached his bedside, staring down at his prone, still form, but didn’t reach out to touch him.

Her voice could barely be heard over the beeping machines. “He used to scare me. Now, seeing him like this, so vulnerable...it’s hard to believe.”

Randall didn’t appear to hear her, but Bede felt that her comment wasn’t meant to be heard.

Jasper, who was being carried in Roger’s arms, stared down in confusion at his grandfather. “Why is Grandpa’s bed so noisy? Is he going to wake up?”

“We...we don’t know when he’ll wake up, darling,” Opal finally said. “He will probably be sleeping for a long time.”

Everyone fell silent for a several moments. Then Randall gestured with a jerk to his head to the glass doors leading outside. “Roger, is it all right if I borrow Opal for a few minutes?”

“Of course. I’ll watch over Jasper in the mean time.”

Randall turned next to his sister. “Would you like to join me for a walk and a smoke?”

“Yes, please.” Opal accompanied Randall to the balcony outside.

Bede realized that the balcony was what connected every room of the floor. That made for a nice, breezy walk around the mansion.

Being a gentleman, Randall provided the pack and lighter, and lit Opal’s cigarette before his own.

Opal wrinkled her nose, though not from the cigarette that just lit up. “Our home has turned into a hospital, and I hate hospitals.” She took in a long, deep puff, and let it out with an audible sigh of content. “Ah, that’s the stuff. It’s been years since I last smoked one of these. I pretty much quit smoking after Jasper was born.”

Randall chuckled. “Why do you think I don’t have kids yet?”

Opal angled her head at him. “You don’t want kids? How come you kept nagging me and Roger to have them at our wedding?”

Smoke billowed out with his laugh. “Because it’s better to have nieces and nephews than kids of my own. Sure, I’ll play with them when they’re being cute and cuddly, but when they cry and need a diaper change, time to hand them over to my big sister. Not my problem!”

Opal nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. “You’re insufferable.” Her playful grin didn’t last. “So what did you want to talk to me about, Randy?”

He sighed and propped his elbows over the rail to stare down at the garden. “I didn’t want to say it when Jasper was inside, but...Dad doesn’t have much longer to live. Exactly how long, the doctors don’t know. Could be hours. Could be days. However long it takes...after that, I’m in charge of the estate. Pyroar already considers me his owner now.” Randall reached down to stroke Pyroar’s large, fiery-colored mane.

Opal fidgeted with the cigarette in her fingers. “When I was pregnant with Jasper, Roger told me that I wasn’t the type of person to run away from my responsibilities.” She looked up at her brother, the guilt clear in her voice, and, Bede realized later, in the way she toyed with the cigarette. “What I didn’t get to tell him was that he was wrong. I did run away. I’m the oldest child. I was supposed to inherit the family estate. Instead, I gave it up to leave Wynwall with Mum. I don’t feel bad for leaving. I feel bad for dumping the burden on you.”

Randall shrugged and resumed walking along the balcony. “Don’t feel bad, Opal. I think it worked out for the better. Your talents are in battling and acting. Me? I have an eye for business and philanthropy, like our partners, the Rose family. Must’ve gotten that from Dad. And Kes? He had more talent than the both of us put together, but he flushed all that down the drain.”

Opal kept pace with him. “Speaking of Kes, any word from him yet?”

“No. None.”

She blew out smoke with her sigh and shook her head.

Randall shared her resigned exasperation. “I’ve been trying to reach him over ten times now. I tried calling all the bars and casinos where he would be. I got nothing.”

“Well, at least you tried.”

“And Mum? Any word from her ever since she...you know...”

Opal shook her head again, her eyes downcast and the cigarette pinched tightly between her lips.

Randall clenched a fist to his side. “I wanted all of us to be here, so we could decide as a family about when to take Dad off the life support.”

Opal put a hand on her twin brother’s shoulder. “The two of us will have to do,” she said gently. “Kes and Mum aren’t coming.”

Randall’s shoulders shook. “Thank you for being here, Opal. That means so much to me, even when I know you’re not really here for Dad.”

Opal drew him into a hug. “It’s true, I didn’t like the way he treated Mum, but he wasn’t all bad. He taught you so much about being your own man. You’re ready for the role you have to take, thanks to him.”

Randall still trembled in her embrace. “The doctors say that the machines are doing all the breathing and feeding for him. There’s almost zero chance that he’ll be back to the way he was. There’s no use in letting those machines go on any longer. I think the time to let him go is now. What do you think?”

“I’m with you, Randy,” she replied. “I think we’re making the right call.” Her free hand took his. “Come on, we’ll talk to the doctors together.”

Bede had overheard the entire conversation with a heavy heart. He wouldn’t know what to do in their position. He never had to make such a difficult decision.

Bede had never met Opal’s father, and even now didn’t really meet him since he wasn’t conscious, so he felt nothing towards the man who took his last breath a few hours later. He did, however, think about how the Opal waiting for him in the present was up there in age. She didn’t have that much longer to live. To spend time with him. Her very life depended on him being ready to take over as Ballonlea’s Gym Leader. Bede folded his arms to clutch at the crooks of his sleeves.

He feared for himself, and he feared for Opal.

Notes: Musical inspiration for this chapter (the Wynwall scenes, specifically): “Succession Main Theme” and “Allegro in C Minor” from the HBO show Succession.

I almost split this chapter in two because it got long, but I kept it intact to show the contrast between birth and death in young Opal’s life. There will be more familiar faces like Magnolia later. As for who they are, you’ll just have to read and find out.

A dose of history: if we consider 2020 to be the present, Opal is considered to be part of the Silent Generation (born between 1928 and 1945, before the Boomers). The Silents are called that because in response to their parents undergoing the Great Depression, they kept their heads down and worked hard to conform and contribute to society. That’s why Opal is so dedicated and disciplined as a Gym Leader. But she also took a big risk in turning down aristocratic stability and moving down the social ladder to be a Gym Leader and an actress. So she both follows and defies Silent Generation characteristics. The Silents married and had families young, hence Opal marrying Roger and having Jasper at like, 21. Also, back then, people smoked like crazy. It had an elegant image, too, before the truthbomb about how it’s a disaster on your health became public knowledge (don’t smoke, guys!). That’s why Opal and her family smoking is a thing here. Yeah...I’m probably putting in more thought than what’s necessary for a Pokemon fic, right?

[exponentialdisasters]

[Quest One: The Challenge of Newcomers]

[WORD COUNT: 5,935]

She jolted awake. Something was wrong. She knew that without even taking a first breath. She had- fallen asleep on her bed, correct?

Then why was she jolting and whirling in time with the rumble of an engine?

Paz rubbed her eyes, noticing after the action that her- her hands... They were so much... Pudgier, if that made any sense. Paz nearly jumped back. Her back was up against something... Leather. She finally took a moment to examine her surroundings.

The blazing-hot brown leather was attached to a seat... At the very back of a bus. A few other people were on the bus- mostly folks with big bags of luggage that Paz could probably carry if she used both hands. A sun hung outside, flickering in and out of the bus between thick pine trees.

“..... Hmmnnn?-!” A boy was sitting beside her. He looked... Maybe twelve, with a lean build that evidenced much running and physical dexterity. “Wh- but I-?? What???” Paz glanced to him. He felt.... Familiar.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was even, trying to hide her own surprise and terror. “Last I knew, I was.. Well, I fell asleep in my bed.” Paz breathed in gently, trying to focus on the air moving in and out of her body. The bus was blazingly hot.

“I-... That’s what happened to me.” Paz’s eyes shot to the boy. He was semi-tall for his age, with a slightly buzzy set of short brown hair. His gray eyes burned with... Something... Too similar. Too close.

“.... But if one of us is dreaming, we should be lucid dreaming, which means we should have control over the environment... And last I checked, my dreams never involved hopping into another... Person.” Paz gestured to her hands. She could not see herself, but she had a guess. The boy stared, eyes locked into the midway with imagination churning. Paz gave pause.

“..... It isn’t me. Are you dreaming?” Paz exhaled, before whacking her arm- quite suddenly and harshly- against the seat side in front of the two. The pain that burst like a firecracker from the injury was message enough. She hadn’t woken up cradling her arm, in her bed.

“No.” The boy was eerily calm about this- perhaps he was a construct, and Paz was still sleeping... It would be far-fetched, but she had suffered some decently real dreams before. “..... I’m Oberon.” He held out his hand, although his eyes betrayed his real emotion. Paz would recognize- that-... Oh.... No...

“.... I- Oberon?- Smith?” The boy blinked, shifting back in his bus seat.- It was the very back seat, so it spanned the length of the bus’ width.

“.... Yes? How did you kno….” He stopped, mouth still open in a silent ‘o’. Paz held out one hand, letting her pointer and pinky go up while her thumb extended out. Oberon matched the sign. “..... P-... Paz?”

“..... But you’re a-?!” The two stopped, each staring at the other. They had both spoken at once. There was no way this child was Oberon. No. Way.- He was at least two feet shorter than her sibling!... But everything else was scarily alike. Burning gray eyes, dirty brown hair, peach skin that was nearly a light level of unhealthy pale, even the bags from college life... It was all there.

The boy wore a red zip-up hoodie, currently unzipped to allow for better air. An orange shirt was tearing its color into Paz’s retinas, leading down to a set of plaid shorts. The colors were caught between red and orange, giving them the sense of fire. He also had on a pair of red tennis shoes, covering up (almost entirely) a pair of black socks. A necklace hung from his neck. On it rested a symbol- infinity divided by zero.

“.... I....” The boy- Oberon?- reached out a hand, letting his smaller and more fatty digits run against her arm. Paz blinked, pushing the offending thing off.

“...… Are- are you really Oberon?”

“Well I can’t exactly prove it to you. If you’re not Paz, then you won’t know our stuff, but if I’m not Oberon, I won’t know our history.” Paz exhaled for a moment. Think of something... Something only Oberon would know. Something that she, as Paz, would be the only living soul to ever know.

“..... Pi. List it out, as far as you can.”

“.... 3.1415926535897...…. 9...” Paz felt a small syringe of relief push into her veins. Her heart was still attempting suicide, beating so fast in panic that it could be mistaken for a car engine.

“You are- Oberon?” Paz shuffled closer. Oberon didn’t move away. The two siblings stared at each other in silence.

“Last stop, Gravity Falls!”

That yell broke the two from their shocked silence. They somehow... Sensed... Like a pull, or a tug... That they needed to be leaving the bus. Oberon stooped down under the seat, tugging out a small dark green suitcase. Paz glanced underneath where she was sat, noticing a similar suitcase. The only difference between the two was that one was covered in pictures of eyes and artist quotes, while the other had forms of puzzles and math equations.

“... My luggage?..” Paz murmured. She drifted from her seat, nearly floating down the aisle in a realm of confusion far removed from the moment. Her brother was easily behind her, having less trouble carrying his suitcase than she was. Paz grunted as she pulled the accursed item to the front. She dragged it down the steps, letting the green object hit nearly every step on the way off. “... Thank you, sir.”

Paz waved to the bus driver. The man blinked, his eyes unfocused and twitchy. Oberon hopped off. The doors squealed closed. A loud rumble filled the air as the bus began moving once more, engine churning and burning through diesel like there was no tomorrow. Paz could see her reflection in the windows.

She... Looked like Oberon. Not- not twenty-three year old him, but.. The boy next to her. She had similar dirty brown hair, although hers was a little more straightened than his. Her skin was just as pale, eyes an ember of flaming gray. Unlike him, she wore a gray collared shirt and navy pants, with black shoes that had some white marking on them. Looking down, she noticed what it was. The square root of negative one.

Paz sneezed. She covered her nose, but it was already too late. Oberon sneezed a few seconds after her. The two- now twins- spent a few seconds sneezing and coughing, expelling the offending dust from their lungs. After waving off the equivalent of a wall, Paz’s eyes finally cut through enough of the mist.

“Mystery Shack”. She knew that sign. She knew it... But didn’t know it. The sign was so painfully familiar, and she was sure she should have recognized it...

“... ‘Mystery Shack’?” Paz’s own voice- she could finally figure out what was wrong with it. It was higher. More feminine. Far more than she had heard in many a year.

“..... It... I guess we should go there.” Oberon exhaled. “Not like we know what else to do. Maybe they have a phone or something, and we can- no... The parents... Won’t recognize us like this.” The idea was shot down before he could even speak of it. Paz took less than a moment to pick up on what it had been.

“I guess we just go to the Mystery Shack for now, and we’ll figure it out from there.” Paz’s words were more confident than she felt. She knew her brother could see right through her tough-girl façade- he had been able to for a long time. Still. She couldn’t lose face.

“Can you say ‘tourist trap’?” Oberon’s hopeful humor managed a short laugh from Paz. Focus on that. Not on this situation. Not now.

“Nope, physically incapable.” She began pulling the suitcase over the dirt road.

“Suuuuuuureeeee….”

{<>}

“So you’re the great niece and great nephew, huh?” Paz... Was confused. She had- just knocked- on the door. “Well, I’m your great uncle Stan!” She knew him. Paz could barely remember anyone outside of her immediate family- so perhaps he was family? It was possible, since looking at him stirred up long-awaited emotions from her gut. Mistrust, but care. Concern, but joy. Annoyance was also buried deep in the edges.

“... I- I guess?” Paz cast an eye to her brother. Oberon shrugged his shoulders. The man before them was easily in his forties, if not his fifties or sixties. He had a massive set of stubble that ran up to short, gray hair hidden by a red fez. A sort of golden fish symbol was inscribed into it, alongside a hanging black tail. She couldn’t recall what it was called, but it reminded her of the- ahhhh tassel! A suit- fresh pressed and clean- covered most of his body. He had on a pair of cleaned dress shoes, and was leaning on a golden cane to match. Two mischevious, twinkling brown eyes looked the twins over.

“Well, welcome to the Mystery Shack! You guys will be staying in the attic because I can’t be bothered to find a decent room.” The man waved his hand to the side with a grin. His glasses reflected the blazing sunlight. The fact that he barely bothered to do anything-... It was annoying. It made sense though. She knew it did. A part of her wanted to laugh, while another wanted to slap him and explain manners.

“..... Thanks?” Paz tried, tilting her head to the side. “Grunkle Stan?” The phrase was foreign but familiar, all at once. The man blinked. Oberon grinned just slightly, nodding his head.

“Yeah- Grunkle Stan! That’s your name.” He chuckled, smile alight in his eyes. Grunkle Stan rolled one of his shoulders.

“Whatever kids. Just make sure you don’t stop the profits, got it?” He pointed his cane at the two, eyes narrowed to beady slits. Paz and Oberon nodded in perfect sync with one another. “.... Creepy...” Grunkle Stan shuddered, moving back inside. Paz and Oberon followed him.

The ‘gift shop’ (as labeled outside of the worn-down wooden shack) was very much in the realm of tourism. If there was a joke to be made about the words ‘Mystery Shack’ or about mysteries in general, it was there. Everything was sold on racks, shelves, and even circle-racks. Shirts, snow globes, ‘crystal shards’... That looked like shards of glass... It was all there.

“Now head up to your room, I have more tourists to rip off.” Grunkle Stan shoved the two towards the ‘Employee Only’ door, beyond a register from which Paz noticed a ‘no refunds’ sign. Grunkle Stan managed to shove the two through the door with one hand after opening it with his other. Paz and Oberon tumbled over one another, nearly smacking into the floor before they managed to right themselves.

By the time they did, the door had been slammed closed by Stan. They could easily hear him on the other side, now using a perfect salesman voice.

“.... Race you up the stairs.” Paz grinned.

“I won’t race you, but-!” And she was already gone. Oberon yelped.

“HEY!” And he took off, laughing all the while. The two sped across the living-room like area, tearing over the rug and crashing their suitcases into the miniature step-stair that was at the open doorway. Paz instantly turned left, avoiding the entry to the kitchen and instead leaping onto the stairs. She pulled her suitcase up, finding her upper strength lacking just enough to make the task difficult.

“Crap crap crap!” She giggled. Oberon tore off, overtaking his sister with ease. Despite being in a twelve-year old body, the boy was still strong as ever. Oberon made it to the door, nearly crashing into it. He turned the knob, and the two siblings fell into the attic with peals of laughter. Paz was instantly on the floor, sucking in air from the short but fast outburst.

The two snickered and laughed on, taking a solid minute to let their actual laughter die down anywhere near enough to speak.

“Okay- o-okay!” Paz chuckled. “You won. But I so wasn’t racing!” The girl smirked. Oberon rolled his eyes, clapping his hands together for a moment.

“Sure, Paz, sure. Anything to save your ‘fragile’ ego.” Paz and Oberon were silent for a moment. And then.... They broke down into even bigger fits of laughter.

{<>}

“.... I really don’t wanna hang in the cabin if Grunkle Stan’s going to be busy with tourists....” Paz muttered as she placed a small stuffed animal that looked... Just like her own... On her ‘bed’. The scruffy-looking dragon stared back at Paz with an empty, soulless gaze.

“We could just explore outside.” Oberon pointed out. He folded some of his clothes, having checked his suitcase to see what all was packed. There was little variety, almost none honestly.

“Yes, but what if that makes Grunkle Stan’s profits go down?”

“We’ll just check out the woods.-” A knock at the attic door interrupted any further thought. Oberon and Paz glanced to one another, each nodding and receiving a nod in return.

“Come in!” Paz internally laughed. She could not believe they had just successfully spoken at the same time!

Grunkle Stan knocked the door to the side, his smile now a soft frown. He pulled a set of signs out from under his armpit, holding them out to Oberon. They were all faded gold in color, with red lettering that read ‘Mystery Shack This Way!’.

“Oberon, stick these up in the woods so I can get more customers.” Paz quirked an eyebrow. She remembered the woods. Well, ‘remember’ wasn’t the right word. It was as if... She knew there was something out there. Something fun, but dangerous. Exciting, like a new kind of donut or update to a game.

“Can I help him?” They were planning to explore- or at least have fun. This technically counted. Grunkle Stan huffed, before waving his cane absently.

“Yeah. Go- just- do whatever it is you kids do.” His mouth crinkled to the left, a half-smirk half-frown. His large nose was pulled up slightly into his face. Paz nodded. A jar of nails and a hammer were placed in her open hands.

“Thanks Grunkle Stan!” Paz smiled, her eyes closing for a moment to form one of those strange internet facial expressions. Grunkle Stan shuddered, turning around.

“Don’t ever do that again.” He marched out of the room. Just as the two thought the coast was clear, they were pulled from their ruminations by their Grunkle opening the door once more. “.... Also I bought too many ice popsicles, so.... There are extras downstairs.” And he vanished once more.

“I say popsicles after we work. You?” Paz glanced to Oberon. He nodded.

“That’s what I was thinking.” Paz tiptoed to the door, opening it all the way with the softest creak she could manage. She snuck her way down the stairs, hearing Grunkle Stan having fun with customers- sorry, ‘tourists’- in the main lobby. She motioned to the kitchen. Oberon seemed to get the idea. They slid across the wooden flooring, shoes thankfully not causing too many loud squeaking noises.

They made it all the way to the door in the kitchen- it was white, surrounded by dirty white counters with wooden cupboards. Paz touched the handle, turning it... And the thing let out a squeal loud enough to wake the dead. She flinched, going even slower. The noise only got louder.

Oberon was shaking his head. Paz turned the handle quick as a whip, snapping the door open and racing out with her hammer and nails. Oberon was hot on her heels, closing the door as fast as humanely possible. The two dashed for the tree line, slowing only when they vanished into the shadows underneath the pines.

Paz stopped, turning her head to look at Oberon.

“Where should... We set up... The first one?”

“I’m thinking near the trail- probably close enough to see the cabin?” Oberon’s suggestion was met with a compliant nod.

{<>}

“.... Do you think we’ll ever get back?” Oberon’s question was whispered in the silence of their walk. The two were just... Meandering. Never too far from the beaten path, but enough to feel alone.

“.... I dunno, bro.” Paz raised her hands, interlocking them behind her head and leaning just slightly back. “I’m trying not to think about it.” Truth be told, the very idea sent shivers down her spine. She found her heart picking up, breathing trying to deepen as terror began to lock around her soul. “I just hope we get back. For now, we’re stuck in children’s bodies.” She cast her brother a silent eye.

“.... That’s true, but.” Oberon’s swinging arms lessened in their swing, albeit slightly. “We have things to do- work, college, Monday night gatherings.... We can’t just abandon all that.”

“Look.” Paz stopped walking, pulling her hands apart to cross her arms before her chest. “As far as I can tell, we’re kids. We can’t exactly change that fact.- For some reason that guy at the shack- Grunkle Stan- thinks we’re his great niece and nephew, and we woke up on the bus with our previous memories intact. Whether this is a fever dream or something entirely different, I don’t know. What I do know is that I can’t afford to think about it right now. I don’t want the parents to worry- and I know you don’t either- but we have no way of consoling them, especially in the bodies of children.”

“.... We still need to find a way back.” Oberon’s persistence was faintly annoying Paz. She knew that annoyance was a wall. She could not afford this conversation much more thought.

“Bro...” Paz breathed out, lowering her head and letting one hand catch it while her eyes closed. One foot extended, pressing into the grass to keep her balance. “.... I’m just as freaked as you are, and I know we’ll have to look for a solution... But if we spend every second doing that, we’ll burn ourselves out. Can we just... Drop the topic?... It’s freaking me out... I’m sorry, but... I can’t... I can’t think about it, okay?”

Oberon frowned. Nonetheless, he dropped the subject from discussion. Paz exhaled, trying to find something else to focus on. She noticed a tree that was in the middle of a clearing. She hummed, changing her path to head towards it. Oberon easily followed suit, the two stopping only when they were just before it. Paz leaned on the tree.

“How many bets I can eat this?” She pointed to the bark, a smirk resting on her face. Oberon hummed. He scratched his chin, ‘deep in thought’. In this moment, he took the time to hop aboard a fallen tree log that Paz had not previously noticed.

“..... None. I’ll eat it.”

“Oh pl-” Paz wrapped her pointer’s knuckle against the ‘bark’. It produced a hollow... Clanking noise. Paz spun, eyes now flashing all over the tree’s trunk. She found a frankly rigid root sticking out near the base. “Lever?”

“I don’t think ‘plever’ is a word.” Oberon’s joy at Paz’s groan was palpable. She still stooped down and plunged her hands into the strangely loose dirt. Paz pulled up. Her feet pushed into the ground before the darn lever- probably stuck from years of disuse- finally creaked up.

“Hey! It opened a hatch over here!” Oberon leaped off of his position atop the fallen tree. He landed on the other side. Paz snapped forth, using momentum to slam into the tree and propel herself over it. Oberon was looking down into the depths of a small square opening in the ground. His hands were fidgeting, blacks of his eyes shrunk down to pinpricks. “... I.... But is-...?” His eyes found Paz. His mouth moved silently.

Paz stepped up, sitting down on her knees to see what was in the square opening.

She froze in place.

A leather-bound book, with a six-fingered golden hand glued on the front. A letter ‘three’ emblazoned the thing, burning bright against the dingy red book’s background. The space had a few spider webs on every side, trying to encroach on the slowly-eroding book.

Paz reached in. Her mind was blank. She needed that book. They needed that book. It- it was important. She couldn’t even figure out why- just that it was. Her hands were wrapped around the book’s casing. The book was out of the hole. Her brother was just as silent as she.

“.... Jour-...” Oberon went silent for a moment. “..... Journal Three....?” Paz tried to speak. Her mouth moved, but no words exited her lips.

“.... I-... Y-... What?...” The words were gone. What had her brother said.... What had she said? The two stared at the book in silence. This object... It was important. But WHY was it important? Why did they care? It was just a book- one among a billion.

Paz flipped the thing open. She skimmed through the pages for a moment, eyebrows creasing down with each additional page.

“TRUST NO ONE.” Paz’s eyes froze on that page. Oberon breathed in sharply behind her.

The book was snapped closed.

“We need to get out of here.” Something swished by nearby. Oberon and Paz took off running.

{<>}

The burning rage of the sun was nullified. Paz took another lick of her popsicle. She kept one eye out the strange red-tinted window. The window itself had a strange pattern- a triangle with an eye in the center. Paz knew there were eyes on her. Eyes she couldn’t see. Either that or she was paranoid.

Hopefully the eyes thing.

There were small creatures outside. They looked almost like lawn gnomes, stealing into the garbage cans of the shack and snacking on what they could. Paz passively took another lick of her popsicle.

“.. Bro, look outside and tell me what you see....” Paz tried to keep her voice calm. It came out flimsy and half-dead.

“.... I- see tiny men?...” Oberon put the Journal down, staring outside for a few moments before snatching the journal up again. “Tiny men- tiny men- gnomes!” Oberon turned the Journal around, showing the page to Paz. She speedily read the entry, noting the ‘steal sacrifice for queen’ and ‘nibbling’. So... More dangerous than racoons, but basically sentient racoons.

“.... We should probably get rid of them.” That was all that needed to be said. Paz and Oberon silently got up from the small couch-cut out in the wall, sneaking out of the cabin for the second time that day. Paz managed to smash her foot into the fallen leafblower when she got outside.

“Holysonova…” The gnomes that had been sneaking portions of food from the garbage all stared at the two newcomers. They had abandoned their food. Paz noticed that... Their eyes... Were all on her.

“.... Queeeeeen….” She heard that whisper. It sent a chill down her spine. “.... Queeeen…” There it was again. Two gnomes had murmured it. “.... Queen....” It was getting louder. Oberon took a step forward, moving Paz aside.

“No.”

“Queen!” The gnomes all leapt forward. Oberon was buried under a pile of gnomes.

“HEY!-” Paz attempted to punch the crap out of them, smashing projectile gnomes to the ground left and right. The darn things just attacked faster. She found herself being overwhelmed far too quickly for her liking. Ropes were tied taught over her arms, locking her down as more gnomes piled on. “-MMMPH!!!!”

“LEAVE. HER. ALONE!!!” There was a noise- several gnomes grunted in pain after wind. Tiny hands smacked against Paz’s back and legs. She tried to move, but the ropes were everywhere now. Her brother shouted something again, but his voice was already faint. Paz tried to struggle, but to no avail.

“Queen! Queen!”

“OVER MY DEAD BODY TINY DEMONS!”

{<>}

Oberon’s fists clenched. He was bruised and scratched, one arm suffering a fair number of bites from the tiny monsters that attacked him and his sister. He could just barely hear the far-off voice of her screaming at the gnomes in anger. Oberon stomped back to the shack, his eyes latching on to a cart nearby. He couldn’t outrun the gnomes when there were that many... But if he had the cart....

Oberon marched over. He went to step inside, only to remember something crucial. Keys.

“Hey, takin’ the cart for a joyride?” He was stopped by a red-haired teenager in a flannel jacket. She had freckles and long jeans, stopped only by a set of army boots. Some strange Russian-style hat rested on her head. “Knock yourself out!” She tossed Oberon the keys before he could reply.

“Thank you!” He jammed the keys into the ignition faster than light. He was pleasantly surprised to find that he was at least tall enough to reach the gas and break pedal, as well as the steering wheel. Oberon shoved the cart into drive. He gunned the engine.

“Dude, wait!” He was stopped again. This time, a pudgy man with a muddy-green t-shirt had stopped him. He was at least five feet tall, if not six. The slight stubble on his face hinted to his age, and the hat on his head was blank. A pair of khaki shorts coated his waist, and two brown loafers protected his feet. “In case of werewolves!” He held out a shovel.

Oberon blinked. He took the item. He needed to get out of here- to save his sister!- And another item was held out to him.

“In case of piñatas.” It... Was a bat. Oberon took the bat. The man stepped back. “Good luck dude!”

“... Thanks?” And he smashed the gas into the floor. Oberon followed the screams of his sister, one hand wrapping tighter and tighter around the shovel’s handle. The scenery blurred and swirled together the faster he went. The cart nearly toppled over as he found it swiveling down a mountainside. Oberon narrowed his eyes.

His sister was in danger.

Everything became a blur after that, racing across the mountains of Gravity Falls with the rumble of the cart. He followed his sister’s annoyed yells, easily recognizing the voice. Several minutes of tracking in this order led him to a strange section of the woods.

The cart suddenly slid down into a hidden cavern. Oberon yelped, slamming his foot into the brake. The cart screeched to a stop, only to unveil a very... Distressing scene.

Paz was roped down to the ground, still struggling profusely against her bonds. Several gnomes were trying to keep her down. Their pointy hats wavered with each of her escape attempts. The surrounding cave system was filled to the brim with mushrooms, glimmering little flies, and glittery green moss. Gnomes were absolutely EVERYWHERE.

The lead gnome- presumably- glanced Oberon’s way. He then smiled and spun to fully face the newcomer. He had a brown beard, and sparkling blue eyes that were half-obscured by a pointy red hat.

“Hi! I’m Jeff, have you come for the wedding ceremony?” The gnome had a standard gnome outfit- overalls and a t-shirt of sorts. His tiny shoes looked very breakable.

Oberon’s brain stopped.

“The what.”

“The wedding ceremony! You see, we’re making this lovely girl here our queen!” Jeff beamed. Oberon’s mouth dropped open. One eye twitched. “She’ll be marrying all 1,000 of us, isn’t that just awesome?”

Jeff was plastered against a mushroom before he could utter another syllable. A number of gnomes were sent flying into the rock walls with a single leaping swipe. Another slash of metal freed Paz.

“GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER YOU CREEPS!” Paz and Oberon were hand-in-hand within seconds. Paz leaped up, chasing her brother as he led them to the cart. The cart’s reverse was activated the moment their butts hit the cushions.

A gnome launched at them. A wooden bat slapped it away with ferocious accuracy.

“GET AWAY YOU FRICKS!!!” Oberon spun the cart around. The two slashed into the sunlight. The sun was beginning to dim. Paz was smacking away a few gnomes that dared to follow them. “..... Hol- BRO SPEED UP!!!” Oberon didn’t dare look back. He gripped the shovel- which he still had yet to let go of- tighter.

Paz yelped. She smashed into the cart’s seat. Wood flew. Several gnomes tore into the roof. More gnomes cried out as they were smashed away.

“WATCH OUT!” Paz’s scream snapped Oberon out of his adrenaline-fueled stupor. A tree was crashing down ahead. He pulled the steering wheel harshly to the right. The cart left the ground.

Paz and Oberon screamed in unison.

The cart- amazingly- bounced off the ground. It landed on the next fall. Oberon thought his teeth were going to smash clear into his skull. The gas pedal was nailed into the floor. The cart’s engine squealed.

“SO CYCLOPS-!” A gnome’s yelp interrupted her.

“SCHMEBULOCK!!!!” One gnome went tumbling by. Oberon tried to focus more on the road. A gnome’s body appeared out of nowhere on his arm. It bit down. He cried out. The gnome’s skull collided with wood.

“LEAVE MY BRO ALONE!”

He could see the shack. It was just out of sight. A sign of familiarity and home. Oberon cut through the tree line. The cart careened over sticks and stones. The materials kicked up and back. Some hideous, malformed roar followed him. Oberon knew his heart had never beat this fast in his life. The cart’s wheels caught on something.

Oberon and Paz went soaring. They crashed into the ground. Oberon bit on dirt. It coated his tongue. Brittle and harsh. Paz landed beside him, the bat now resting on her head. Oberon knew the shovel had landed on top of his legs. They would be bruised in the morning, easily.

He growled. That same ungodly roar echoed him. He stood up slowly. The shovel became a support. It held him upright. He glared down the strange beast that had followed them through the woods.

It was a giant gnome... Made of gnomes. Had he not been fearful for his life, the sight would have been amazing. Oberon tugged the shovel upwards. He brandished it, glaring down the pointy monstrosity. It was easily twenty feet tall, made of beings that were barely two.

“You’re not touching her.” Paz’s hand gently tugged his sleeve. She was glancing every few seconds to the leaf blower from earlier. She had scratches all up and down her face, and one gash at her cheek.

“I’ll marry you.” Paz’s words completely froze Oberon’s brain. He tried to fit it all together.- Leaf blower, gnome monster... It was so... Unique. But it was there. A niggling idea. A thought that nuzzled only to run away.

“R- really? You will?- Oh this is great- guys let me get down there!” The summer sun was opposing the shack, sending a bloody red glare over the gnome monstrosity. “Sorry Carl- is that a growth Steve- move aside, Paul!” The leg opened up, gnomes parting to reveal the leader from earlier- Jeff. Oberon silently glared at the accursed gnome, trying with everything in him not to gnash his teeth.

“Of course.” Paz extended her hand gently. She took a step to the side, kneeling so that she could be at the gnome’s height- or at least closer to it. Jeff pulled out a box from his back, opening it to reveal a gold ring encrusted with green gems. Paz extended one finger. Jeff slipped the ring on.

“I-!” Paz cast him a look. She was planning something. Oberon finally put it together. Paz’s free arm- her left- extended back. It flipped the switch to the leaf blower. The engine roared to life. Paz sprung back, hands clasping the instrument and targeting Jeff instantly.

Jeff was sucked in.

His form slipped up the mouth of the leaf blower, until only his face and cap remained.

“Guess what.” Paz smirked down to the gnome as he yelped in pain. “.... I ain’t that kind of girl.” Paz swung the reverse back to normal. The leaf blower was tilted up. Jeff shot like a rocket. He crashed into the giant gnome-construct, exploding it on impact. Gnomes rained from the sky, yelping and scurrying around in a blind panic.

Paz slid over to Oberon with a laugh. It was airy, filled with terror and adrenaline.

“I am so surprised that worked.” The gnomes began fleeing for the trees. “SEE YA’LL ON YOUR GRAVES!” Several screamed in panic. Paz snickered, her grin mischievous and dark. “Okay, that was fu-”

“You’ll never stop us all!” Jeff tried to command. He had a large bruise that was quickly swelling on his cheek. “We’ll come back in bigger numbers-!”

The leaf blower swung his way, and Jeff went tumbling to the tree line.

“Can’t hear you over the sounds of yoUR DESTRUCTION!” Paz laughed openly, shaking her head at the gnomes as they raced away in a blind sprint. She came down from the laughing high the instant the gnomes were gone, a few giggles escaping her. “.... Return of the googly eye~...” Paz hit the off switch.

“.... You’re still crazy.” Oberon smiled faintly. He felt so tired- all the running and screaming was a real drain.

“And you’re still male, what else is new?” Paz moved, crossing the short distance between them to rest her elbow on his arm. “.... Holy...” She staggered, as if just then being smacked with the energy differential. “.... We should probably... Sleep soon.” Oberon chuckled.

“Yeah, yeah.” Paz opened her arms, dropping the leaf blower to face her brother.

“.... Hug?”

“... Yeah.” The two siblings gently embraced one another. It was stiff and awkward on Paz’s end, but Oberon embraced her warmly.

“Love you, bro..”

“Love you too, Paz.”

{<>}

“Wow, you two look wrecked!” Grunkle Stan grinned, pausing only when he noticed how bedraggled the two truly were. Paz honestly felt like she was about to drop through the floor. She kept her head at a decent level. Paz and Oberon trudged by Grunkle Stan.

Of course the old coot was counting money. Based on his earlier conversations, it made sense.

“... Hey kids!” The two stopped. If it was another task, Paz wasn’t sure she would be happy. Already ne eyebrow was twitching down at the very concept of another chore today. “... Wouldn’t you know it, I overstocked the gift shop- why don’t you two take a lil’ something?” Paz slowly let her body turn on a dime, eyes half-dead and set on the old man.

He shrugged, closing his eyes as he somehow continued counting money.

“Look- just take something before I regret it.” Paz didn’t need to be told twice. She silently trekked through the gift shop, eyes half-hazed from exhaustion. Her fingers wrapped around the cold metal of an item. It seemed almost like a gun, but there was no way Grunkle Stan would have a gun in his shop, right?

Paz let her eyes focus blearily. Resting in her hands was-....

Something familiar.

Something unique.

Something that tugged at her mind.

But why, she had no idea.

“... You sure you don’t want something else? There are plenty of dolls for girls in the shop.”

“...…. No. It needs to be this.”

She couldn’t explain it.

It made no sense.

But she knew it was necessary....

.... One day....

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 10 - Candy Part 1 again

I was told that finishing the epilogue MAY make me feel better by some with opinions, with some vague hints that the ridiculous start of Candy may have underlying reasons, so now that I’m awake again (though my stomach is roiling a bit again) I’m gonna take another crack at it.

Alright, so I was also hinted that this Candy part ends with a different cliffhanger, so maybe those two will cancel out?  That’s my hope anyway.

Reading page 1 again since I didn’t finish the very tail end of it... alright, so WHY IS ROXY CRYING again????  Was she just PRETENDING that she didn’t know it might turn out bad for John if he went at the end of the last one?  Was there some weird mind-rewriting going on?  Is the crying a symptom of this whole thing potentially being an our!Callie fanfic and she knows what’s being dodged??  Don’t know.

Alright, let’s have him save Gamzee and... is Vriska going to get saved in this version?  Or is that descent into the black hole without seeing what happens her well-deserved comeuppance while only the ghost version of Vriska truly figured out how to be happy?

==>

Dirk acknowledges him when he zaps back, but it’s YOUNG Dirk so hopefully there isn’t any stupid Meat stuff going on.

...Yeah, Gamzee immediately being repentant is weird as shit.  Maybe he Chucklevoodoo’d Callie into escaping him into this whole candied mess so he could start shit, I dunno.  That or this isn’t really Gamzee or someone’s manipulating him or etc etc etc.  The hint I got earlier was that if I thought Calliope wanting to bring Gamzee back and everyone just rolling with it was a little out of character, there are “reasons”, so I’m just going through all of this under the assumption that some emotion-manipulating weirdness is going on regardless.

Oh shit, Gamzee’s going to start recounting his character reasons for doing bad stuff in a surface-hope of justification and understanding.  All the characters immediately recognize how painfully groanworthy this is going to be.

GAMZEE: AnD sUcH iS wHy I’m GrAbBiNg HoLd Of My RePeNtAnCe As FiRm AnD sErIoUs As I wOuLd A wHoRe’S tItTy!

Yeah, that really encapsulates how “serious” all of this is.  And of course, John’s not having any of it.

Yeah, Terezi wouldn’t have any of it either, remotely.

Something feels different, but he can’t put his finger on it.

Hm.  The aforementioned manipulation-weirdness?

==>

Okay, so it’s kind of Dirk who notices something different and is cancelling his stupid villain plans, got it.

Volatility of causality, huh?

(I’m going to be going through these parts a little faster than the Meat section, unsurprisingly.)

==>

Okay, Rose and Kanaya, are we gonna cure her substance abuse or--

With all the distance between them lately,

God damnit, have Dirk’s manipulations extended that far OFFSCREEN or is this legitimate character distancing???? Because either is BAD.  >:(

Right, now that the plot and “relevance” has been sidelined over to a different timeline, Rose can now breathe easy free of her condition.  And whichever parts of her condition were, perhaps, IMPOSED on her.  Fuck.

I’m going to try my fucking best to cling to this, hope I can carry on a memory after this is over that DOESN’T imagine Rose trapped in a fucking existential dying villain coma with a hard fucking cutoff that promises nothing is ever coming to resolve it ever.  (Or Jade in a somewhat-similar sidelined situation, or Jane doomed to fuck herself over and everyone else too, or...)

What’s slipping away instead is the feeling that any of it mattered at all. Was she insane to be so consumed by such lofty concerns, and is she only beginning to experience clarity today, for the first time in ages?

Yeah, you’re no longer in a timeline of Light and relevance.  And that’s not so bad, which is something you never expected to be true given your derision of the concept.  Void is pretty goddamn alright.

--Oh right, the illness and substance abuse probably caused plenty of distance between them.

KANAYA: There Was A Feeling I Couldnt Shake That Something Terrible Was Going To Happen To Us KANAYA: Something That Neither Of Us Could Stop KANAYA: A Powerful Outside Force That Would Take You Away From Me KANAYA: And I Couldnt Stop Myself From Thinking That Maybe KANAYA: Maybe That It Would Be For The Best ROSE: Kanaya... KANAYA: I Can Now See That This Is Completely Ridiculous

For some reason, this doesn’t settle my stomach much?  It’s clear Andrew wove this in here so that if you read Meat first, you’d be able to acknowledge readily how this diverged in a way the characters kind of recognize, and... I’m not sure what I’m even saying.  It’s like there’s hope that this is TRYING to take the bad taste out of my mouth, but I don’t believe it overly much.

ROSE: What a relief, considering that we are both going to be young and magically fit literally forever.

Wait, so they DID find a way to extend their non-ascended friends’ lifespans to practical immortality?  Jane’s Life powers?  Something else?

==>

yay jade.  more extended dave metaphors.  calm down stomach.

JADE: i never thought id be thinking of you as my weird nerd friend by the time we were in our twenties

Heheheh.

DAVE: yeah well i never thought youd be like the premiere woo girl on the planet

Had to look up what a “woo girl” was.

Yes Jade go flirt them to death

What she’s planning isn’t a seduction. It’s a public service.

Pff

(And yeah, she’s being pushy but at least she doesn’t go DIRK FAR about it.)

DAVE: its incredible hes driven at least ten people off the site by creating thinly veiled parody accounts of their usernames

Oh my gosh, Karkat’s good enough to ANDREW HUSSIE them?!???  :D

That’s incredible.

Karkat knows damned well what a husband is. He’s been force-fed enough bad movies from Dave to pick up any human euphemism you could name. He still plays dumb sometimes, for comedic effect, to irritate his friends, or simply to avoid a topic of conversation altogether.

Yeah, it was always pretty clear that about HALF of the trolls pretended not to understand something human that they knew about just for comedic effect and they knew it.  :)

It would be pretty easy to mistake his reaction for arousal, so it’s understandable that Jade is extremely surprised when Karkat snaps his jaw shut and chomps down on her hand.

PFFFFHahahahah :D

And yep, Jane cancelled her run at Dirk’s direction.

DAVE: lets all just thank whichever christ was responsible for making whatever decision resulted in her deciding not to do that

*nod nod*

JADE: well i hope she gets a better hobby JADE: there are a lot of less ominous things she could do with her time KARKAT: WHAT, LIKE FUCKING HER WAY THROUGH HALF THE POPULATION OF EARTH C?

Jade pinches his ear and twists hard, smiling pleasantly.

JADE: get fucked karkat

Yeah, this is about the level of violence/threat I’d expect from Jade when anyone slut-shames her for perfectly acceptable behavior.

==>

There is almost no crime on Earth C, and so almost no one locks their door.

Huh.  I guess post-scarcity might do that.

Alright, we get to see Jane being less of a fuckass.

Dirk was the one person on Earth C who took the state of the locksmith industry with the seriousness it deserved.

Pffff

JAKE: Thats my theory at least. Maybe its tommyrot but i have faith that dirk will be back. After all where is he going to go?

Good question that wasn’t answered in Meat, so of course Jake says it here obliviously.

JAKE: I must admit i am rather half rats at the moment. JANE: You’re what? JAKE: Haha sorry that was a pretty obtuse way of putting it wasnt it. JAKE: What i mean to say is that ive been powdering my hair quite a bit today.

Andrew is SO good at making Jake sound completely incomprehensible.

...Ouch, Jane, don’t drink so hard! D:

The “morbs”??

JAKE: Dirk has that manner about him does he not? JAKE: A way about him that makes you feel like whatever you do as long as it does not involve him it doesnt count for dick.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

Hm... is the absence of relevance affecting them, or some other manipulation? It’s not just the LACK of Dirk’s manipulation.

JAKE: Except of course for that time when you were under mind control and had me trussed up in your lair as you pontificated villainously about using me as a breeding stud to create a blood lineage for your incumbent corporate space empire.

A fate Dirk seems to agree with, judging by Meat.  Let’s sidestep that fucking entirely, thank you.

...yeah, I didn’t expect Jake’s response to be any less oblivious than exactly that.

==>

So why DID Callie bring Gamzee back, anyway?  Is there some secret use for him in mind?  Was she manipulated into it?  Maybe BY Gamzee?  Hm.

...alright, priestly with followings.  That ain’t good.  Is he aiming for Clown President MK2?

Everything Callie and Roxy have done and said in this Candy section so far seems creepily contrived, possibly by design.

...okay did they have some kind of weird agreement? Like, “okay John is gonna make his choice, and if he chooses to stay i try dating him instead of you, Callie”???  That’s... no that can’t be it.  Roxy’s NEVER acted THIS oblivious before.  What’s she playing at?

GAMZEE: mY fUcKiN *gUy*. :o) JOHN: ... GAMZEE: My DuDe AnD mY nInJa AlIkE. GAMZEE: mY *hOrN* dOoOoG. JOHN: ... GAMZEE: mY hOrN tO tHa MoThErFuCkIn DoG. ;o) JOHN: waiter! help!

I’m imagining Gamzee now as a sweaty and homeless, unkempt Guy Fieri.

Yeah, this doesn’t look like it’ll be fun.

==>

...Swifer Eggmop.  ¬_¬”

There’s a third member of their social group who definitely hasn’t arrived at the conclusion that his power and influence should be meted out responsibly either. Neither of them speak his name, however. For some reason, it feels like a shadow passing over the sun. A brief spike of pain flickers through Rose’s head, a bolt that strikes between her eyes and splinters out. There is color and light behind it. A vision that tears through the material reality in front of her and gives her a brief glimpse into a parallel reality where things are very different.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

...Pff. Yeah, Rose WOULD mimic the record-scratch gesture.

Don’t invoke “never seeing Vriska again” like that, you’re really tempting fate.

Heh, Rose is finding some Light in the darkness, wanting to do something that’s meaningful on an expressive level with this Vriskgrub business.

Hm... why is my stomach a little less uneasy?

I sure hope it stays that way.

==>

KARKAT: OH MY GOD, ARE THE MECHANICAL GLUTES ON THAT BILLBOARD ACTUALLY PADDED WITH PLUSH TO MAKE THEM MORE LIFELIKE?

Heck Yes

...Yes, touch the butt, Karkat.

Jade, pouting a bit, glides in between them and uses her Space powers to teleport Dave’s phone out from the center of his traumatized palm and into the pocket of her sweater.

Hm!  So she still has teleportation abilities over a limited range even without her Green Sun boost, that’s nice.  :D

After all, where would these two pitiful beta boys be without her?

Oh my fucking god stop being Dirk, Jade.  And never use that narrative language again, even in your head.  Heck, even if Dirk’s the one WRITING this still, don’t even think CLOSE enough to think those words.

...yeah this sounds like an Active player class taking things slightly too far.

Thank you, Karkat, for drawing the consent-line in the sand.  Looks like Jade’s backing off a little.

--hold on, wait, Dave kissed him? He did, so why is-- let me read back up--

Dave doesn’t answer. She answers for him by leaning down and planting a dry, affectionate kiss on Karkat’s cheek.

Okay I misread this line earlier.  Jade kissed Karkat when neither of them were looking and is BLAMING Dave.  Hmm.

Alright, Dave ollies outie.  Karkat tumbles down some hillstairs.

Jade could probably catch him. Actually, she could easily do it, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of favor you should do in a fledgling kismesissitude.

Thaaaat’s a little presumptuous??

JADE: well i guess im eating grub spaghetti alone JADE: *again*!!!

:C

I’d be sadder if you didn’t bring it down hard upon yourself but

:C

==>

Yeah, John, better clear up this Callie business because it’s muddy as heck why Roxy would just drop everything to try things out with you.

Ah, we’re bringing up the gender identity thing on this side too, hm?

More serious talk, this is good, reading reading...

The glasses clink together clumsily, and water gets all over the complimentary breadsticks.

Oh no.  This had better not be Olive Garden.

ROXY: no one else has ever made me feel like this

--not Calliope???

What the heck is even going on.

Dave’s coming for some bro help it looks like.

==>

It’s hilarious how much Dave is freaking out about this, and how completely in-character it is.

JOHN: holy fucking shit. JOHN: there’s a gay snooze button? DAVE: yeah man theres a gay snooze button JOHN: wow.

I love these two’s conversations

......wait, Dave’s been holding off on kissing Karkat because of what he thinks JADE might think???? D:

JOHN: i almost managed to forget that she was trying to fuck you and karkat.

Pfffffffff  :D

Yep.  I love it being put so bluntly.

Reading on... yeah, for some reason I also always figured that the end result of a nice three-way relationship between those three people would be Jade and Dave essentially both just glomming onto Karkat more than each other?  Hm.

JOHN: i mean... it doesn’t sound... JOHN: *canon*?

...I hope you’re just talking about his coin flip explanation and not DaveKatJade.  >:(

John wonders when talking to Dirk has fixed anything for anyone.

Nod nod.

She grins up at John with shimmering, adoring eyes. They’re reflecting every star in the sky, all for him.

Seriously, what the hell.  Is Roxy hypnotized?  Putting on an act?  A voidy act??

I’m not doubting that Roxy COULD feel that way about John, I’m doubting the suddenness and the way Calliope is being deliberately ignored in the situation, which is so goddamn obvious that JOHN is uncomfortable about it.  There’s something seriously strange going on.

It itches at the back of his head, the idea that he might have just fucked up Dave’s entire life.

D:

Alright next post after a bit of breakfast.

[loveisaviolence2]

rose- 2, 3, 4, 10, 20, 25, 37, 41, 44, 45

meme.

what is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like?

it’s … complicated, for a lot of reasons. 

one being rose and janine are a lot alike in the sense that neither of them are good at starting heavy conversations or working towards closeness regardless of how much they both may want it. in fact, they’re painfully similar in a lot of their beliefs and while that does lend itself to an understanding between them that rose is grateful for and endlessly appreciative of, it can also strain their relationship. 

rose spent her entire life feeling abandoned by her mother. her mother existed to criticize her and as yet another reminder of what she could not have and was not allowed to want for herself: someone to take care of her. nothing was ever good enough for her, rose was never good enough for her, and nothing rose did was going to make her love her or be proud of her. despite all of this, she wanted to be her mother; she really did admire her skill and reputation and aspire to be like her. she did everything she could to follow in her mother’s footsteps for two reasons: 1) even though she resented her, she really really wanted her mom to be proud of her and thought that if she was good enough she might bother to pretend to care, and 2) her mom’s loyalty to the guardians and stellar reputation made her safe - earned her stability that rose believed no one could take away. she’s a valuable asset and everyone knows it. she doesn’t need to prove it anymore (and rose always always feels like she has to prove herself, which is exhausting in the long run.) 

rose wants a close relationship with janine but doesn’t know how to be close with her. she wants to wake up and suddenly have this magical bond with her but doesn’t know how to achieve it. and tbh, as brash and impulsive as rose can be, as quick as she can be to say the things other people won’t…. this doesn’t typically extend to her loved ones. rose hates conflict with them and would rather bury her feelings than voice them. she’s never going to willingly start a conversation about being neglected or abandoned by janine even though those feelings still affect her on a daily basis and manifest themselves in her relationships. 

it doesn’t help that janine has frequently – intentionally or not – equated rose’s resentment with a childish desire to be ~coddled and thus invalidated her feelings. like, telling your kid who is terrified of being vulnerable and letting other people take care of her that her anger at your negligence is silly and a display of weakness and selfishness? especially a kid who believes you are a pillar of strength? rose has spent her entire life thinking that she has to come second to other people, physically and emotionally, and that confirmed it. unfortunately, janine of course holds all of the same harmful beliefs and has been conditioned in the same way, so she doesn’t have the perspective to see this let alone address it. 

she loves her mom. she really does. so much that it doesn’t really bother her if her mom can’t articulate her affection to the same extent that rose can. she’s just glad to have her in her life, you know? she doesn’t want to rock the boat. she’d die for her and is dying to have a relationship with her, even at the cost of denying herself the space to process her own feelings and acknowledge them, which is especially difficult because rose is at a point in her life where she’s finally beginning to understand that she needs and deserves to take care of herself and untangle the mess of beliefs that were ingrained in her since birth, decide for herself what she does and does not believe, process the extent to which that conditioning has shaped the person she is and decide who she wants to be. 

this is something she needs to deal with to move forward, to start feeling safe in her relationships and safe leaning on someone else emotionally, and she’s… not. she’s growing, really moving forward and edging closer to a healthier, better version of herself, but on this road she finds herself at a painful standstill. it’ll take janine or someone else helping her deal with this to really get past all of her messy abandonment issues and harmful beliefs about love and worth, especially self worth. 

what is/was your character’s relationship with their father like?

also complicated, but in a different way. 

because of rose’s low expectations for well off moroi men, she’s less inclined to hold him accountable for much. it’s not really fair that she holds janine to a standard that’s so much higher, but… so does the society she grew up in lmao. she doesn’t resent him for not being a presence in her life growing up and is willing to cut him a lot more slack. like, he’s a moroi guy and that’s what they do, ya know? they use dhampir women for sex and leave and that’s how the song goes. the fact that he’s in her life at all is a surprise and one she’s not going to question. she’ll accept whatever he’s willing to offer her and isn’t likely to ever consider whether or not she deserves more.  

the fact that she grew up thinking her dad never cared about her or her mother and only used her for sex did play a hand in her perception of men, though. thinking that her mom had been used made her afraid of being used herself and thus, v guarded where moroi men are concerned. she def… bought into the whole ~~~boys will be boys mentality growing up. bad behavior is to be expected and it was on her to protect herself and her reputation from it. and if she or any other woman failed in that task, well… it was on them. they should’ve known better. etc. boys excersizing self control and giving a damn about her and her consent is New to her. this is something she gets a lot better about as she ages, though, thankfully. 

she grows to love him and want some kind of a relationship with him, but she doesn’t really trust him. a lot of his privilege and the way he wields it makes her uncomfortable, so most of the time she tries not to think about who he is or what he does beyond the scope of him being her dad. rose wants to have that – wants a father – and is far too moral and committed to justice to really allow herself to have that in good conscience if she thinks about his shadier dealings so she .. doesn’t if she can help it. 

people like to compare her ~badassness to her father and she laughs it off, eager to encourage all conversations that play up her strengths, but she really doesn’t have any desire to be like him. the thought of being like him makes her uncomfortable and she isn’t necessarily fond of recognizing traits of his in herself. rose is also incredibly smart and can be impressively cunning, but that’s not something she’s really proud of, you know? she wants to be good – really, truly good. she spent her entire life wanting to be a guardian for a lot of reasons, but mostly because she truly does believe in protecting people and defeating evil. she talks a lot about wanting to be a legend and be in history books, but that all stems from an innate need to feel she’s been useful and accomplished whatever good she could (and also because she lives in a society that has expressed a dangerous lack of care for her or her well-being and a willingness to sacrifice her and once upon a time, achieving ‘legend’ status felt like procuring herself some degree of safety.) victories mean nothing if she’s had to compromise her character to attain them. she doesn’t want to think of herself as a person who cuts corners or steps over other people to get what she wants– or as someone who inspires the kind of fear that abe inspires, as much as she might pretend to feel differently.  

she and abe differ A Lot ideologically and clash over that if it comes up, but again, rose tries to stay away from those conversations. deep down tho, she’ll always feel…. kind of wary of him? knowing what he’s capable of and willing to do and how, if pushed, people like her would likely be expendable and the only reason she’s ~safe from that mentality is because she’s his daughter, which doesn’t really feel like safety at all. she may grow closer with him as time goes on, but that’ll always be in the back of her mind and she’ll never truly feel safe with him unless she’s blocked it out entirely (and rose can never feel safe in fantasies for very long.) this extends to other moroi men as well, especially royal/privileged ones. 

adrian, for example. part of why it was so hard for her to accept that he genuinely had feelings for her and trust him enough to contemplate the idea of being interested in him romantically was because she saw his interest in her and elevation of her feelings as something really… fickle?? she equated his respect for her with his romantic interest. rose grew up attending parties she knew she was only allowed into because of lissa and because she was ~the Fun Dhampir people liked to party with and she assumed adrian’s crush on her was kind of the same thing. like, yeah adrian cares about her and maybe respects her but only because he thinks she’s hot and funny and those things can’t be trusted to last. she thought that all it would take is for him to change his mind about her to turn on her and be like every other piece of shit moroi dude she’s had to defend herself against. she’s used to elite moroi deciding she has one or two qualities that make her worthy of respect and is Special Enough to Not Assault or Dehumanize or Slutshame Etc. – and used to the game changing as soon as she steps too far out of line (it’s not even just moroi men tho like lissa was all that stood between her and being thrown away like a piece of trash when they were dragged back to st. vlads and rose forgives but she doesn’t forget. one more reminder that she’s expendable and has to work even harder to prove that she’s worthy– of being a guardian, of basic respect, of being a privileged moroi girl’s friend, of taking up space). it’s a testament of her growth that she does date him even after the queen herself fucking called her in to slutshame her and remind her of her place. 

another example is andre. i headcanon that rose had a crush on him for a brief period of time growing up, one that he probably knew about and encouraged because–ya know, his sister’s Young Fun Hot Dhampir friend that was always around. rose wasn’t at all surprised to hear about how he treated mia, and i think the fact that rose was very aware of who he was/could be to non-royals/dhampir women probably contributed to some anxiety when she’d stay with them. she was very quick to shut down any kind of attraction between them and never would have even humored the idea of dating him or participating in anything more than a few drunken kisses because 1) she knows her place as a dhampir girl and the threat moroi boys pose to her and 2) she knows her place as a dhampir girl that’s been taken in by a royal moroi family and would have never dared threaten that arrangement by implying a moroi boy could be interested in her for anything other than sex. it says a lot that she still thought he was a good person and mourned him just because he was a good brother to lissa and loved her and his family even though he treated other less privileged people like trash. that rose’s basic understanding of men is that they are capable of that behavior whilst simultaneously being decent people who deserve a quality of life that she herself is taught to never expect to have and accused of being selfish or naive for wanting. 

christian only escapes this inherent distrust because bc he was taught to respect ALL women unlike most of the men she’s come into contact with and does consistently (rather than being someone who respects only women he calls family or for whatever reason deems worthy of respect), because she understands that that really does make all of the difference in the world) and has no interest in her sexually, but it still takes her awhile to feel comfortable truly relying on him emotionally (as opposed to as a partner in the battlefield.) not that that doesn’t take awhile too though, because a man respecting lissa– a princess–doesn’t in any way mean that respect will extend to her and she’s learned that lesson the hard way quite a few times in quite a few different areas of her life. 

to an extent, this is why she falls so quickly and deeply for dimitri– why even his smallest shows of decency feel so Big to her. the fact that he’s a dhampir like her is big, especially one that’s older. it’s easier for her to relate to an older man because she carries more responsibility than most of the boys her age, of course, but a lot of it is that he’s the first man in a position of power (and first person in authority in… forever that’s ever made her feel like she could trust them, all of her experiences w/ adults are pretty trash in book 1) that’s demonstrated kindness and respect where she’s concerned. that saw her as important, that believed she wasn’t disposable. he was willing to take responsibility for her so that she wouldn’t be sen away and saw potential in her when no one else did and that meant so much to her. to her that was this huge act of compassion that she needed to earn and repay. 

all moroi males are in a position of power over her to an extent, even the ones that her peers, and one of her first big interactions w/ dimitri is him telling her that she can’t fool around with moroi boys because they’ll take advantage of her and damage her reputation– and the way he says it is rly brutal and hurtful, but it also… makes her feel somewhat In Control? however misleading that feeling is. like she’s spent her whole life finding her way into their good graces, understanding how quickly the rug could be torn out from under her, and this man she’s coming to respect is telling her that by growing up and acting more responsibly she can be Safe like him. she can have the reputation he has and the sense of stability she’s so sure at that point comes along with it. she too can be respected, worthy. i mean, he’s referred to as a fucking god. he’s untouchable in her eyes (wouldn’t it be so nice to be untouchable? to be universally respected as a hum– vampire being?)

and he’s all hers!!!! like, this relationship, however isolating, is the first thing rose has ever had that’s entirely hers (until it’s not), and that’s so important to her as a person who is not supposed to want things. as a person who is not even supposed to feel bitter about the fact that she can’t want or have things for herself, who had only lissa and lissa’s parents and lissa’s brother and everything lissa was willing to give her. 

anyway i’ve gone off on about a million tangents but so many of rose’s issues are tied into her relationships or non-relationships with men and i do think that the fact that she essentially raised herself is one of the biggest reasons that she was so drawn to dimitri– a man in a position of authority that she’s supposed to be able to trust who is meant to care for her and guide her in a way that is similar to that of a parent.  

has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? if so, does anyone else know?

spokane would be the most obvious answer to this question. it really forced her to grow up in a lot of ways and gave her a darker view of the world. i could go on and on about this but i think it would be just as effective to say it…. fucked her up. it aged her and still weighs on her to this day and always will. on the flip side, it also created a distance between her and a lot of the beliefs she grew up with– like moroi fighting with dhampirs/using magic offensively, for example. she liked both ideas in theory, but it wasn’t until spokane that she truly began to believe in them and believe that they could actually work. people know about spokane, but only those who were there really understand what they all went through. it’s something that bonds all of them. rose will always feel especially protective of and connected to eddie, christian, and mia because of this; they’re her responsibility, hers to protect. 

everything w/ strigoi!dimitri honestly really stuck with rose, too, and barring lissa (and dimitri obviously), no one really knows the specifics of what went down in russia. abe knows the extent of her physical injuries, but not her emotional ones or where the physical ones came from. all of it just… really scarred her. she’s still trying to cope with all of the trauma she went through, which is really difficult for her considering she’s in a relationship with the biggest trigger of all (dimitri) and consistently prioritizes his recovery over her own. on a less horribly depressing note, fighting with denis (was his name denis? whatever his name was) and that group of dhampirs made her reevaluate some things. she still believes that fighting with guardians and being a part of a group is the better thing to do, but it made her more open to different forms of protection and helped her realize that there may be better ways to do things. that there are other walks of life and she’s not necessarily bound to this one. 

being falsely accused of murder lmao!!!!!! everyone knows about it, but not necessarily about how much it affected her emotionally. it really just… confirmed to her how expendable she is to her people and that really fucking hurt. she really had to come to terms with the fact that the guardians she grew up wanting to be apart of and the moroi she grew up training to protect and die for would throw her away without batting an eye and that was… so difficult for her. in a way it’s helped her grow and really challenge a lot of the beliefs she grew up with, though, so that was good? it’s just… hard to live with especially considering she chooses to stay despite it. also just… the trauma of being locked up and kept in solitary for weeks lololol. rose was claustrophobic before but it’s worse now. 

killing victor is pretty self explanatory but yeah. no one knows except the ppl that were there and now bellamy but eventually other people will maybe hopefully possibly!

there are definitely other ones but i’m gonna stop there bc this is already so long. 

does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing?

it really depends on the situation. rose is confident and likes showing off her body, but…. is too used to being punished and shamed for embracing her sexuality to really feel comfortable doing that the way she did at sixteen. it’s just… safer to dress more modestly and after russia she’s much more conservative because for the longest time she associates dressing provocatively with the weeks she spent essentially drugged dressing up for strigoi!dimitri and being fed from by him. she’s been taught over time that to be respected and protect her reputation, she needs to dress responsibility. she feels more vulnerable when she shows more skin, especially in public with moroi. she used to be able to wear whatever she liked confidently without caring what anyone else thought or feeling weird about it, but she’s been slutshamed and oversexualized so many times now that it makes her feel like a piece of meat. there’s definitely a correlation between how comfortable she feels dressing less conservatively and how secure in her position in society she feels. if she’s going to go out with friends to an establishment less frequented by royals where she’s less likely to be objectified, she’ll wear more showy stuff that flatters her figure– which she enjoys flaunting when she feels safe to do so. she doesn’t have any reservations @ christian’s; she wears whatever she wants there n dresses comfortably. 

in what ways does your character compare themselves to others? do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism?

self-criticism, usually, though people who don’t really know her might believe differently because of her ~queen b reputation and bravado. she has a really bad habit of comparing herself to the people she thinks the most highly of – her mom, lissa, dimitri. while rose is plenty confident in her craft and will go and on about being a badass, she’s not as confident in other areas of her life and judges herself pretty harshly. she envies lissa’s level head, her compassion (underestimating her own kindness), how reasonable she and dimitri are (because she doesn’t really understand how much effort lissa has to put into being nice and polite and that she’s been conditioned to behave that way the same way rose has been conditioned to die for moroi without a second thought), how easily lissa excels in more intellectual subjects… i could go on and on. she’s really hard on herself, especially when she sees in others what she feels she lacks in herself. 

how quick is your character to suspect someone else? does this change if they are close with that person?

she can be pretty guarded and slow to trust people despite the fact that she really does have a huge heart. she trusts lissa more than anyone else in the world and for a really long time is content to trust only lissa– but when she trusts you, loves you, she really trusts and loves you. she’ll do anything for you and can be blinded by the extent of her devotion. 

is your character more concerned with defending their honor, or protecting their status?

honor, absolutely. she’ll blow up the ground she stands on if she feels it’ll right a wrong. 

does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first?

earn all the way. it doesn’t mean anything if she doesn’t earn it– if she doesn’t deserve it. and if she doesn’t earn it, doesn’t deserve it, she can’t trust that she’ll get to keep it. this goes for her relationships, too. she needs to feel like she’s doing her fair share. on the flip side, it’s really hard for her to accept something she feels she’s earned being ripped away from her. 

how easy or difficult is it for your character to say “i love you?” can they say it without meaning it?

the words themselves aren’t hard for her to say, but it’s hard for her to feel safe enough with someone to open herself up to being vulnerable with them. it takes awhile for her to realize what is and isn’t accepted in a relationship and what boundaries she needs to be wary of (because she’s grown up being taught that if she’s not careful and steps too far out of line she can have everything taken away from her.) once she does, though, she’s very generous with her affection. she’s very loving, much more loving than she gives herself credit for, and really respects people who she feels are very giving of themselves and their love (like lissa). for the longest time, lissa was the only person she ever heard i love you from– to an extent, she learned how to love from lissa. lissa was always so open with her love, could just beam love at her and it saved her in so many ways. 

rose is capable of leading people on to get what she wants, especially when desperate, but she doesn’t like to. she feels guilty about how she treated mason and adrian in that respect and wouldn’t want to repeat that behavior in the future. on that note, i really do believe that she loved adrian and never lied to him or intentionally led him on their deal at the end of shadowkiss aside– she should have been more open with him, yeah, but at that point in time she had a hard enough time articulating what was going on in her own head to herself. and she honestly did believe that if she tried she could return mason’s feelings at the time. 

what does your character believe will happen to them after they die? does this belief scare them?

she can talk to dead people, so she sort of has…. some insight. she tries not to think about it, but the idea of being a ghost, unable to move on or make contact with the people she cares about, does scare her. mostly she just hopes that when she dies she’ll be able to find peace– like she believes mason has.

[cecesf06]

Inconsolable (Part 1)

Anon: hi, can I get 68 and 74 with Liam and can it be angsty as anything, thank you!

A/N: No, thank you for requesting! This one is very long, I got kind of carried away., So I split it into two parts. P.S. angst is a specialty of mine.. If you don’t like it or wanted something else feel free to tell me!

(Oops, I deleted this prompt list, and have had all of the requests just sitting there, so I’m so sorry everyone, but I already this one done, so yolo.)

(NOT MY GIF!)

68. “I don’t need help! I just want the pain to stop!”

74. “I can’t take the loneliness anymore.”

Warnings: mentions and brief descriptions of blood and death, major character death, minuscule blink and you’ll miss it depression.

Word count: hella long- 20k both parts oml.

____________________________________________________

She wasn’t like them.

Y/N has seen them cope with the loss of a significant other; Scott, Isaac, Lydia- all in the same day, they lost the person who mattered most to them. They felt that primal terrible grief that swallowed them whole, and the shredded agony in their hearts where something had been savagely ripped out, leaving a void that wouldn’t- couldn’t- be filled. They survived the crushing despair, the same despair you were living through now, and the one you will always feel, because according to them, as time passes it’ll be easier to cope with.

But she wasn’t like them.

She can’t live without him.

It became painfully obvious only two months after he di- left- that moving on wasn’t an option, at least not for Y/N. The rest of the pack had grieved, and mourned, but they ultimately accepted it, although they were used to it- they were used to people they love leaving, but not her, she wasn’t at all, she wasn’t part of the pack until he was bitten, and everything about it was too surreal, but the denial was over but she can’t do it, she can’t-

The funny thing about being in Y/N’s family was that although sheltered to its cruelty, she wasn’t oblivious to the supernatural world. The Y/L/N family- convent- was well-known, prestigious, and a force to be reckoned with. Feared and respected, her family had raised generations upon generations of mages, and witches, men and women alike, Y/N being one of them.

Before her freshman year of high school, Y/N was home schooled, and trained until she gained full control over her powers. All children did this in her family, it usually took about five or so years, and therefore only elementary schooling, but her power was stronger than the rest, and control was a concept to her as compatible as gasoline to a flame. But she was not only strong, she was determined and gifted, and sooner, or in her case later, she began her freshman year, and first year of public schooling, at Beacon Hills High.

It was there she met her soon to be pack, and after an incident involving duct tape and orange peels, along with a few accidental spells, she met him.

He was the water to her flames, the baby blue eyed werewolf bitten by a true alpha. Control for him was as difficult for him as it was for her- power was something they shared along with a similar liking to dark chocolate, and his strength was his biggest foe. A foe that Y/N easily defeated.

Of course there were issues, threats from both enemies and eventually her family, but after much consideration, she was able to discharge from the convent, where she was nothing more than a burden and loose thread to them with her ever increasing strength, to a place to call her own among the True alpha’s mismatch pack, and with him- until she lost him.

Burying the memories, Y/N hitched her bag higher to settle on her shoulders, picking up her pace. Leaves crunched under her shoes, and trees shuddered in the wind, the full moon occasionally peeking through the clouds. Y/N shivered in the wind, regretting not bringing a coat, or even his sweatshirt- the one she never left home without.

She couldn’t have brought it tonight, though, not if she wanted her spell at the McCall’s, where she has been living, to work.

Scott was going to notice she was missing, though.

Scott has always been there for her in more ways than one- the whole pack has. Going behind their backs like this dropped a heavy weight in her stomach, and a lump in her throat.

But the feeling of his still body in her arms,and the image of his lifeless blue eyes she adored so much trumped the guilt, steeling her resolve.

Y/N could feel the buzzing, the sick yet powerful hum of the Nemeton. Y/N had a love/hate relationship with the tree stump, but if all went according to plan tonight, she’d be indebted to it forever.

The stump was her alter, her table, her desk, and Y/N unpacked her bag on it, ignoring the shift from the tree. Of course it objected, it recognized the herbs, the ones only used for one spell. They weren’t easy to procure, but they were easier to get than the rest of the ritual required.

The knife was a kitchen knife from the McCall’s house, and the runes were from ancient Latin Americans for renewal and rebirth during the vast wasteland after Noah’s arc, and the flood that destroyed the earth. Carving them into the thick decaying wood of the Nemeton was an arduous task, but well worth the reprimanding nosebleed she received in return.

The herbs, the runes carved in the stump, his blood, and then her blood. The Latin spell, long and complicated, and rehearsed for days before tonight, and even more effective on a full moon, only to be cast no longer than two months after passing. It was tonight or never; he’s been gone for two months today.

“Y/N!!”

She paused mid sentence, fear clutching her abdomen. They knew. They were going to stop her, and if they did, there’d be no going back, because after tonight, she’d never have another chance, and she’d have to face it.

The idea occurred days after he left. Several days brought the spell and ritual in fine print off a library computer. A few weeks after, she began gathering the supplies, and by three weeks, Y/N had everything she needed. And by one month, she’d make the trip, set up the supplies, carve the runes, and sit in silence, alone, pondering exactly what would happen if she went through with it. Him back and whole, in her arms again where he belongs, and not gone.

Not gone because of her. Because they got in her head, and eliminated the one thing- person- who could keep her in check. Of course that backfired when she burned them to the ground and their children and their grandchildren.

But he was gone by her hand, Y/N’s hand.

She remembers that day. It haunts her every night. Waking up that morning, her sixteenth birthday, nonetheless tragic, getting sick, and passing out in the bathroom at the McCall’s. The next thing she’s conscious of is the dark, and cold warehouse, empty albeit one small thing- his lifeless body.

They made him suffer, all while she was out and helpless while they manipulated her like a puppet, and he meant the world to her. He is the world to her- Y/N can’t be in it without him, she can’t cope like they do, and they don’t understand. They don’t understand the confusion that swept her when she was back to herself. They don’t understand the panic she felt when she saw him crumpled on the cement. They don’t understand the sorrow and pain, and fear, and horror, and absolute agony when she realized he was gone. They don’t understand how long she stayed there, crying on her knees with him in her arms, screaming and sobbing to the heavens to bring him back. To wake up.

And she was awake. And she’s going to bring him back, even if it’s the last thing she does.

Dead or alive, she’ll be with him again tonight.

“Y/N!”

Y/N ignored their pleas, chanting the words, feeling blood trickle down her face from her nose, and mouth, like it did when a witch pushed their limits.

This spell was one to be cast by a whole convent. The power needed was ungodly, and she had to believe that the rumors about her unnatural power were true, and that she was strong enough to do it.

Y/N couldn’t go another day without him, and if she didn’t succeed tonight, he was officially gone.

“Y/N!!!”

The voices of the pack were closer but she didn’t care. Her ears were ringing, her head fuzzy, and the buzzing power she was drawing from the Nemeton was coursing through her veins. The last words were pronounced. There was no going back.

It must’ve been a sight to see, Y/N on her knees by the Nemeton, the strongest source of power in Beacon Hills, blood covering the bottom half of her face, her eyes flashing from her usual stunning Y/e/c to a deep dark maleficent purple, darker since he left.

It certainly scared Scott, Lydia, Malia, Kira and Stiles when they finally found her.

Scott was the first to react. “Y/N, stop!” The panic is his voice caught her attention, freezing her in the act as she prepared to let the blood drop from her sliced palm, the last step before the spell was complete.

“It’s too late.” Her voice was trance like, almost monotone, like it’d been since he left. “It’s already been done.”

The wind had picked up considerably, leaves swirling and surrounding her like a tornado. Y/N’s gaze lifted to the moon again, the power gathering, and grinding her to her very core, draining as much as it could, from her, the Nemeton, the full moon.

There wasn’t a more powerful force. If this didn’t work, nothing would.

“Y/N,” Lydia was trembling, and Stiles put a comforting hand on her shoulder, brows creased. Lydia’s voice was weak and quivering, horrified. “What have you done?”

Y/N’s eyes were unblinking at the banshee, and she knew Lydia could feel the disruption in the balance between the living and the dead. “What I had to.”

Scott bit his lip to hold back tears, and not for the first time, sharing her thoughts and emotions. “Y/N, we could’ve helped you, we know how you feel, we lost him too-”

“I don’t need help!” Her voice was a roar, deeper than usual, the wind swirling quicker, her fist clenched, stopping the blood that’s ready to be spilled, that will bring him back. Her voice dropped to a moan. “I just want the pain to stop..”

“It will be alright.” Scott replied somberly, struck with grief anew for both the boy they just lost, and his first love long ago. “It may not feel like it now, but it will get easier- and we’re here for you, we understand how you feel-”

Her eyes were alighted with fury. “No! None of you understand how I feel!”

“We do, Y/N,” It’s Mason’s voice now, the human completely over looked in her wrath. The boy shamelessly had tears running down his face. “We loved him, too.”

Y/N was still at his words, the rage and currents slowing a bit, her fist lowering from where it has been poised above the herbs. The pack was beginning to feel as though they were getting through.

They weren’t. His words only poured alcohol into her gasoline fueled fire, no water to quench the flames.

“NO! Not like I did.” Her voice dropped a few octaves, which was progress in Stiles’s book. “I killed him. I killed the only person I truly loved.”

Scott had taken a step toward her, only to recede when a current lashed out a warning. “That wasn’t you. That was them.”

Y/N shook her head, disbelieving. “No, no, I killed him.”

Stiles had a pained expression, reaching a hand toward the younger, a pang throbbing in his chest where it never fully healed after Allison. “ No, they were controlling you, Y/N!”

She shook her head, blood beginning to pour from her ears as the wind picked up profusely. She didn’t believe them. She’d never believe them.

“I can’t take the loneliness anymore…”

Alarmed, Malia began to take a step toward her, but Scott held her back. “Don’t.”

The six were forced to watch helpless as she let the blood fall, his name on her lips, helpless as the power was extracted from the three sources, helpless to watch Y/N scream, Lydia screaming with her. Once the roaring of wind, and ear piercing screams died out, everything became painfully still.

Lydia was shaking as she recovered in Stiles’s arms, a look of horror on her face. Y/N was unmoving, flat on the stump, and silent.

Malia and Scott reached Y/N first, panicky as they inspected her, almost collapsing with relief as they found her breathing. Mason and Kira were by their side next, the kitsune sinking next to her boyfriend, a hand over her mouth in shock. Corey appeared out of nowhere, where he was probably skulking and watching as usual.

Stiles helped a shaky Lydia approach, the banshee trembling and mumbling his name.

“Is Y/N okay?” Stiles’s voice broke, fearful they lost yet another part of their family, the girl who is like a sister to him.

“Yeah, she’s breathing, just unconscious. We should take her Deaton’s though.” Scott supplied, lifting Y/N into his arms with ease while Malia frowned at her limp figure with concern, using her sleeve to wipe some of the blood that covered her face. Stiles nodded, relieved.

Scott furrowed his brows at Lydia, who was staring off in a daze, almost comatose, now mumbling a sporadic mix of Y/N’s and his name. “ We should bring her to him, too.”

Stiles nodded, a flicker of fear at the thought that Lydia could be comatose again, as Malia takes her other side, and they follow Scott to the clinic. Mason trails behind, but not after snapping pictures of the runes and blood and herbs still strewn across the Nemeton.

Deaton better have answers.

Well this was nerve wracking to post let me know if you want part 2!