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a-babe-without-a-name · 2 months

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Sister Lovers, Water Brothers

Chapter Nine: The Breaking of the Fellowship

Masterlist

Steve wasn’t happy with the way Munson was treating one of his kids. So unhappy in fact, that he forces himself into their club leader’s van to see what he’s getting up to with Chrissy Cunningham, and maybe it’s a good thing he’s so paranoid because it might just save her life.

Or, the one where Chrissy doesn’t die in the Munson trailer, and, despite the world-ending, the king(former) and queen(current) of Hawkins High cannot take their eyes off Eddie Munson

Read on AO3 (content warnings in notes on A03)

“Okay. I wanna run through it one more time,” Nancy said coolly, even as she paced down the center aisle of the RV. No one argued; they all looked to Nancy as their leader. For what petty qualms Steve might have with her, he was glad that she was here to deal with this. He could handle the kids any day, go along with their crazy plans, but Nancy could keep a level head and make sure those plans didn’t go completely haywire.

He’d seen her like this before, but it had always been amongst chaos- the Demogorgon bursting out of the Byers’ walls, pulling up to the lab, the Mindflayer descending on Starcourt. Evil had always come to them, not the other way around, so for the first time, he was seeing that stone-cold killing mood in a moment of meditation.

“Phase One,” she drilled them.

“We meet Erica at the playground,” Robin filled in, “She'll signal Max, Lucas, and Chrissy when we're ready.”

Nancy nodded, “Phase two.”

“Chrissy baits Vecna,” Steve spoke up watching Eddie as he tried and failed to hide a cringe, “He'll go after her, which will put him in his trance.” They all hated the idea, more so than sending the rest of them into the Upside Down, where they could at least feel prepared. They had weapons, and clothes layered on like armory- hell, Dustin was wearing a ghillie suit for some reason- but Chrissy and Max were being sent in on the prayer that they had a happy memory to save them.

“Phase three?” Nancy pushed on.

“Me and Eddie draw the bats away,” Dustin said grinning up at Eddie, who did his best to return it, but his smile was strained and tight. He ruffled the kids' hair, which seemed to be convincing enough. Steve didn’t like that Dustin was going into the Upside Down at all, especially when their sole purpose was to bring the bat to them, but he had resolved himself to trust Eddie.

“Four.”

“The girls swap out,” Steve answered again, thinking of the way Max had floated in the graveyard. She had been shaking and terrified when she landed in Lucas’s arms and they were sending her back. “That’ll buy us some time, but we still need to move fast.”

“Five,” Nancy said with a set finality.

“We head into Vecna's newly bat-free lair, and…” Robin shook one of their Molotov cocktails, “flambé.”

“Nobody moves on to the next phase until we've all copied.” Nancy reminded, though it sounded a bit like a threat. “Nobody deviates from the plan, no matter what. Got it?”

“Got it,” they all chorused back to her.

Then they were moving. The RV was parked behind Eddie’s trailer but there wasn't much cover, and the gate was only hidden from view by the flimsy hazmat tent. The whole scene reminded Steve of the claustrophobic quarantining of the boy's house in ET. El was their alien, he supposed. He hoped she was alright, far away from the government assholes who had raised her. Having seen some of Henry’s memories, he knew now it was worse than what any of them had been able to imagine with El’s little description.

Moving quickly, and as quietly as they could with backs loaded full of gear, they crept their way into the tent they had left open the day before. Eddie zipped them back in, and they all turned to the gate.

Steve stepped forward, no one doubting that he would be the first one to go through.

“Be careful,” Dustin said, grabbing his arm for just a second. They weren’t really ones to acknowledge exactly how scared they were. Henderson didn’t want to put up with Steve’s worrying, and he wasn’t about to spill his guts to the kid.

“Thanks, buddy,” Steve said genuinely, trying to stay focused, reminding himself that Eddie had it handled. Same as the last time he went through, Steve sat on the edge of the gate, legs dangling through. He took a deep breath and sighed,

“Here goes nothing,” Before leaning furrowed, shifting his weight, and letting the strange pull of two gravities move him to the other side where he easily pushed to his feet. Robin handed his gear through, followed soon after by Nancy and her things.

Eddie haphazardly tossed his pack and shield through. Barely giving Steve enough time to move them out of the way, he fell through head first. He managed to roll smoothing through on the other side, only to land flat on his back. Steve offered him a hand up, which he accepted with a wild grin. Hands clasped, Steve pulled him to hit feet bringing their faces only inches apart, that crazed grin only inches from Steve’s own mouth. He did his best not to look down at his lips, but that meant the only other option was staring into his eyes. There was fear behind it, but in that moment Eddie was ecstatic, he knew that they were going to save the world.

Seeing it there in his eyes, Steve believed it too.

Robin's things popped up through the gate, catching Steve in the shins. He stepped back, cursing under his breath as whatever moment they’d been having quickly dissolved.

Instead of rolling back through like had worked easily before, Robin dove down meaning she threw herself at Steve. Unprepared to catch her, he stumbled back a few steps but managed to keep them both upright when Eddie reached out to catch Steve by the waist. For only a second, he was fully pressed against Eddie. Layers of jackets and vests were between them and yet Steve wanted to sink into it as he tried to cling to any feeling other than fear. Too soon, Eddie stepped back, his hands slipping away from Steve as he got his feet under him.

Robin giggled as Steve steadied her, and he couldn’t help but smile and roll his eyes. If this was the end, if it all went wrong, he was glad Robin was here with him.

Eddie pulled Dustin’s shield and Spear, matching his own, up, and then all four of them helped to pull Dustin through. None of them trusted the boy to be coordinated enough to do it on his own given the stupid amount of tactical gear he had piled on his body.

Not wanting to waste time, Nancy and Robin started to peel, Steve close on their heels, but unable to leave Dustin and Eddie without saying anything.

“Hey, guys, listen,” he started looking between both of them. “If things here start to go south, I mean, at all, you abort. Okay? Draw the attention of the bats. Keep 'em busy for a minute or two.” He knew it was pointless to remind them at this point, but they were going to be all alone. Steve wouldn’t be able to help if they got into shit, so he needed to know they’d stay safe.

“We'll take care of Vecna,” He assured them, “Don't try to be cute or be a hero or something. Okay? You guys are just-”

“Decoys.” Dustin cut him off. “Don't worry. You can be the hero, Steve.”

“Absolutely. I mean, look at us,” Eddie said, looking at Dustin- so young and so eager to help. He smiled sadly, “We are not heroes.”

Steve knew that was a lie, but hoped it held true at least through this fight. He nodded and started to follow after the girls.

“Hey, Steve?” Eddie called again, causing him to spin on his heel and find Eddie once again in his space.

“Make him pay,” he instructed, coolly. Steve nodded and reached a hand up to clasp around Eddie’s neck. Vecna had tried to hurt their friends, and had killed innocent and scared kids, and he was not going to get away with it.

Their foreheads not quite touching, Steve met Eddie's eyes again. This time he wasn’t distracted by thoughts of his smile or kissing it away. All he could think about was making it back to Eddie and Dustin, seeing them all safe and happy again, and finding whatever life lay on the other side of that night.

“We will,” Steve promised.

They were well on their way into the words, walking mostly in silence, but Steve could feel Robin getting more and more nervous.

“Uh... I don't mean to freak anyone out,” she called when it finally boiled over. She sounded more than a little freaked out herself, “but I swear we've seen this tree before.” She gestured to one of the many identical trees in the forest. They were withering and covered in the Upside Down vines they were doing their best to avoid.

“That's impossible,” Nancy told her, not in the mood for Robin’s panicked rant they could sense was coming.

“That would suck, right?” Robin continued to ramble, “If Vecna destroyed the world because... 'cause we got lost in the woods?”

“We're not lost, Robin,” She tried to reassure again, but Robin was already running off ahead of them, stepping heavily- if selectively- through the roots and the web they made on the ground. ”Robin, hey! Watch out for the vines!” Nancy called out to her, “Hive mind. Remember?”

“Thank you!” She shouted behind her, no slowing down.

“Uh, Don't worry about her,” Steve said, sidling up to Nancy even as his eyes tracked Robin, not wanting her to get out of sight. “She's just stressed. You know, scared.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I... I know,” Nancy sighed, obviously quite stressed herself, “It's just…”

“She's a super klutz?” Steve offered. He was pleased when he managed to get a chuckle out of Nancy and brought down her stoney exterior for a moment.

“She did tell me that it took her longer to walk than most babies, so…” Nancy teased back, and Steve realized he’d…missed this. He’d moved on from Nancy for…various reasons, but that didn’t negate the fact that she was really the first true friend he’d ever had. Tommy and Carol had always been around. They were from the same neighborhood and in the same circles long enough that they knew everything about one another, but none of them cared about each other like Steve had learned that friends do.

“I really shouldn't laugh,” Steve admitted, still watching Robin with fondness in his eyes, “When I was a baby, I actually crawled backwards.”

“Crawled backwards?” Nancy repeated.

“You know, I'd push with my hands like this,” He mimed out his hands pushing in front of him and imitating the beeping of a truck backing up. “Always in reverse, you know?” Nancy laughed at him, but it wasn’t cruel.

“That is, until I reversed my baby butt down a flight of stairs and thumped my head really good,” Steve laughed at his own misfortune, recalling the many many times his mother had told the story.

“Wow. That explains so much,” Nancy joked. It stung a little, but Steve knew she wasn’t trying to be mean.

Steve remembered what it was to be mean, purposely hurtful. It was all he’d known before he met Nancy and why he didn’t miss Tommy and Carol much anymore.

Maybe he had after Nancy left him, before he met Robin, but even then it wasn’t them he missed, it was just having friends. Tommy was an asshole, but he was still someone who would come over and have a beer with Steve, go for a swim or a drive. Carol was nice enough when she and Tommy weren’t fighting, but they usually were.

Nancy’s friendship, or their relationship he guessed, showed him that wasn’t all people could be to each other. She’d been curious about him, and found their differences interesting rather than off-putting. Some of that, he knew, was just Nancy’s need to have all the details in order to put together the whole picture, but for a while there he’d felt seen. Towards the end, he supposed was when he started to feel watched and observed.

“Yeah, I think it kinda does,” Steve agreed, taking a moment to think and focus on not tripping over the vines before continuing, “I think, like, right out of the gate, like, I'm super confident. But I'm also, like, an idiot.” Robin wouldn’t like him saying that about himself, but in this instance he felt it was true.

“Which is just... I mean, it's a brutal combination,” He tried to laugh, but the way he used to act still haunted him. “The good news is, I get a big enough thump on my head, I can change, you know? I can learn. I can… crawl forward.”

Nancy didn’t say anything and the crunching of their boots grew loud. Steve knew he should have just said it outright to begin with, but maybe he was picking up on dramatics from Dustin or Eddie because he’d thought it was clever.

“Listen,” He tried again, “I guess what I'm trying to say in a really stupid, roundabout way is...is thank you.”

“Thank me?” Nancy questioned.

“Yeah,” He affirmed. A lot of his growth he attributed to Robin, or Henderson even, but Nancy had been the first step out of his old ways.

“For...?” She led on.

“For giving my head the biggest thump of its life two years ago. I needed it,” He told her, honestly. A part of him knew she’d been a bit too harsh with their breakup, but neither of them had done well to begin with; it was forgivable.

“It's changed my life.” He told her, even though Nancy had gone uncomfortably quiet again. “And now I'm crawling forward. Slowly.”

“Steve…” Nancy said gentry, but warningly as they both came to a stop.

“I’m not-” He stopped her before she could say anything. “This isn’t me trying to get back with you. I like Johnathan, really. I wouldn’t do that to you.” Nancy looked up at him, confused.

“I have this dream,” he started talking, not entirely sure where he was going. “About a family and-”

“The six little nuggets?” Nancy laughed, and informed him “We all heard.”

“Oh god,” He groaned, the kids were never going to let him live that down, “Anyway, it was all true. Every last word, and I, and you can correct me, but I don’t think that's what you want.”

“No,” Nancy breathed, “It never was.”

Something shattered between them, and Steve felt like he could breathe again.

They’d made sense in high school, and they’d made sense when they were the only ones who could understand each other, but somewhere along the way they’d lost that. Nancy had stopped seeing him, so he’d gone back to hiding away under that cool charisma he knew best, and slowly but surely she pushed out into the cold on her own. The cold where Johnathan had been awaiting.

“I’m sorry if I made it seem like I didn’t want you around,” Steve apologized, “or like we had to be dating for me to care about you because that’s not true.”

“So you’re saying…”

“I want us to be friends!” Steve admitted, frustrated by how simple it was and how long they’d been struggling with it. “And I don’t mean in the douchey way like I’ll wave to you at parties and see you whenever the world is ending…I mean like I trust you.”

Nancy’s eyes widened at that and Steve didn’t understand why. She was the most trustworthy person he knew. Always sure to listen, and deliberate all the facts. When they were together, he trusted her more than he’d trusted himself sometimes- which might have been a problem, but not for now.

“And I could do with more people I trust,” Steve ended, feeling a little out of breath as he waited for Nancy to collect her thoughts.

“I’m sorry too,” She finally said, “for never reaching out, only showing up at the end of the world.” She gestured to the hellscape surrounding them. “And I think we could all do with some friends if we survive this.” Steve opened his mouth to correct her, when, when they all made it out of this , but at that moment Robin came crashing back through the trees, somehow managing not to alert Vecna.

“Hey, guys! You guys! Awesome news!” she came to a stop in front of them, panting as she tried to catch her breath, “Looks like we weren't going the wrong way after all.”

“Speaking of friends,” Steve muttered to Nancy, earning a small smile. Robin rolled her eyes,

“Come on. Let's go!” and shot off back into the woods, forcing the others to chase after her.

Steve didn’t know why he loved her so much if this was how she acted in life or death situations, or maybe that’s why he loved her so much.

Chrissy had never been inside the Creel House; up until recently, nobody had. Even just the sight of the house sparked enough anxiety in her to make her shake. She never thought she would set foot inside. The closest she had ever been was in 3rd grade.

Her older cousins, who must have been in middle school at the time, brought her to the playground across from the house. They dragged her closer to the house, wrestling her to the front steps as they told her the story of Victor Creel. They had shoved her down onto the porch, laughing as they ran away. Chrissy ended up fracturing her wrist when she fell and sobbed as she ran back across the street, hiding in the metal play structure until night fell. Eventually, her dad found her, whisking her away to the hospital and away from that awful place. She rarely saw her cousins after that and avoided the whole street as much as she could.

Yet, here she was, walking around the old house in her socks with a bug lantern in her hand searching for an interdimensional demon. Phantom pains in her wrist reminded her of the horrible incident. Part of her wished she had been back in 3rd grade, feeling the pain and fear and loneliness of a broken wrist in the playground instead of the dread that settled over her now. That wasn’t an option, though, and she had chosen to do this. It was partially her idea, so it didn’t matter if she regretted it now, she was going to follow through. The fate of the world, weird as it sounded, was on her shoulders. Who would she be if she didn’t follow through?

She was grateful to not be alone, even if her only companions in this were really just kids. They were smart kids…brave kids. She couldn’t hear them over the song playing in her headphones, but she knew they were still in the house. Every so often she’d catch sight of a blue glow around the corner of a hallway as they all moved through the house, searching for Vecna.

Before Chrissy could get impatient, Erica caught up to her in the old kitchen of the house. She held up her notepad, the words ‘ Found Him ’ scrawled across the page. Chrissy nodded, taking a deep breath as she began following Erica through the house. They found Lucas and Max in the dining room, standing around Erica’s lantern. The blue glow surged brighter than the others, buzzing intensely

Chrissy stared at the light. He was right there, just on the other side of the dimensional veil. Chrissy begged to no one that he wasn’t able to catch on to the plan. The idea of him lying in wait for the others in the Upside Down made her sick. Erica held up her notepad again for the three of them to see.

‘ Phase One? ’

Chrissy waited with Lucas and Max in the front room of the house, after Erica had left to be the in-between signal. It was taking longer than expected, but Chrissy tried to assure herself everything was fine. If they followed the plan, everything would be fine. She told Eddie everything would be fine…

Thinking of him was stressing her out, but she couldn’t help it. She hadn’t expected being away from him to actually be this difficult. It shouldn’t be, she knew that. She had really known him less than a week at this point, but they were connected now. Whatever this weird shit they were going through was, it had permanently stapled them together. She had a hard time thinking about her future, about the details of where she ended up, but she knew it had to be with him. Adults would probably call her dramatic, childish even, but they couldn’t understand. The only ones who could were the people she was with now. This group- The Party, they called themselves- they were stapled together, too. There was no falling apart here.

Chrissy was seeing firsthand what happened when one of them broke away. She had heard, through the others, that Max had distanced herself from the rest of the group. She broke up with Lucas, stopped hanging out with them and fully secluded herself away, and this was where it got her. Her loneliness, her sadness, it invited Vecna in. It put her in danger. The group was going to be the thing that saved her, though. Chrissy could easily see the bonds starting to reconnect these past few days. Max seemed lighter, freer than she did when Chrissy met her at Steve’s house. Even now, in this horrible place, she was smiling with Lucas, talking to him through the notepads. They were very clearly in love. The idea of them made Chrissy think of Eddie again.

She wished he was here, but knew he couldn’t be. She was the one to tell him that. Saying goodbye - no, saying see you later - in the field had killed her. She wanted to take him up on his offer and run, but they both knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. She didn’t want to say goodbye to him, but he had kissed her as she was leaving the RV, without asking this time. It would have been incredibly romantic - him pulling her into his arms, lips crashing down on hers as their friends watched the display - but Chrissy couldn’t help feeling like it was an actual goodbye. The type you give someone when you really don’t think you’ll see them ever again. She couldn’t let that happen. Either she would see Eddie again, or she would die here. Her living without him wasn’t an option.

Before she could spiral completely in her thoughts, a narrow beam of light flashed through the front window, flickering on and off. It was the signal. Nancy, Steve, and Robin had reached the house and were communicating with Erica from the Upside Down. Chrissy looked to Max while Lucas went to the window, signaling back. It was time.

Chrissy, with her shoes on, and Max and Lucas flanking her, stood in front of the overpowered blue lantern. She hesitated, wanting to look to the younger girl beside her for reassurance, but decided against it. She didn’t want to give Max any reason to jump in too soon.

Five minutes. That’s what they had agreed on. Chrissy would go under for five minutes and then Max would take her place with a, hopefully, smooth transition. Chrissy readied herself, reminding herself what memories she’d hide in, before sliding the headphones down to her neck and turning off the Walkman. The sound of the lantern was almost overwhelming, drowning out even the chorus of spring crickets outside.

“Hey!” Chrissy shouted into the blue room, hoping the shake in her voice wasn’t noticeable, “I’m here… the music’s off, no more games.”

She waited a moment, the blue light unwavering.

“Can you hear me?” Chrissy asked, venom lacing her voice as she began to taunt the creature she couldn’t see, “Hello? What are you waiting for? Are you going to take me or what?”

Chrissy couldn’t look away as she shouted, the lantern in her hand beginning to shake. Before she could call out to him again, the intensity of the blue glow faded. She shot a confused glance over to Max, unsure of what to do. Then the lantern in her hand began to grow brighter.

He was moving. The group followed, Chrissy leading the way, moving that lantern to keep it glowing bright. They did their best to keep up with Vecna, following him all the way up to the attic. The movement stopped in the center of the room, at an odd-looking altar that Chrissy knew must have been Vecna’s when he was still Henry. The light died.

“What are you waiting for?” Chrissy asked, shifting uneasily, before raising her voice, “C’mon! I’m here! I’m right fucking here!”

“I know you can hear me… that you can read my thoughts,” She waited for a moment, waiting for him to enter her head, “Even the worst ones…”

Chrissy set the lantern down in front of her and sank to her knees, sitting back on her heels. She wished she was alone, grateful to have company, but uncomfortable speaking about this in front of her younger friends. She knew they weren’t going to look down on her, but that didn’t help. Pretending Max and Lucas weren’t there, she began speaking to Vecna, as honestly as she could.

“You were right about me,” She spoke quietly, knowing he could hear her, “I thought you were just... Trying to make me angry,” Her words felt childish, “But you were right, I am…not a good person. I did bad things, and I hated it.”

No response. She knew what Vecna wanted her to do.

“I acted like… I was a slut.” Chrissy flinched at her own words, never having said these thoughts out loud, “I was just… so mad at him, at Jason. We had only been together for a few months, I thought it was over. So…”

Chrissy stopped, taking a deep breath before forcing herself to continue, “I slept with someone else and I lied about it. When Jason apologized, begging to get back together, I should have told him. Jason never knew…I told him I… that I had never. But it wasn’t true and I hate myself for it.”

Chrissy swiped at the tears in her eyes, the shame of the memory choking her, “I tried so hard to forgive myself. For years I lied to myself until I couldn’t anymore. I’m nothing , I didn’t deserve Jason. I stopped trying at some point, I don’t deserve to be forgiven, and I… I hoped every day that something awful would happen. That everything would just end and I wouldn’t have to live like this anymore. I gave in to my mother’s words. I starved myself, hoping that it would kill me…

“So, that’s why I’m here,” Chrissy sniffed, tears falling as she spoke, “I want you to take me away…just make me disappear.”

“Did you really do that, Chrissy?” Max asked behind her suddenly, making Chrissy jump.

“What?” Chrissy asked, confused, “Why are you talking?”

“Good people don’t lie, Chrissy,” Max said, shaking her head as Chrissy stood up, “Good people don’t slut themselves out just because they're mad.”

“Max! What-” Chrissy took a few steps back, Max closing in on her, face twisted in disgust, Lucas just glared at her from behind his girlfriend.

“Your family should be ashamed of you,” Max continued to back Chrissy against the wall, “I thought you were a good person, Chrissy. I thought you were someone to look up to, but you’re not. You’re sick .”

"Chrissy's in," Robin reported, "Move on to Phase 3."

“Copy that,” Dustin replied through the walkie, “Initiating Phase 3.”

The line went dead, for a long moment and Nancy, Robin, and Steve watched the hoard of bats writhing on the roof. Then, far away, speakers crackled to life and as a sacrificial siren, Eddie began to play.

From the Creel house, his friends could barely hear the scratching of his guitar strings but knew the plan was working when the bats, en masse, left their post.

“Okay, it’s working,” Nancy said crawling out from their hiding place under the playground, “Let’s go.”

Moving as quietly as they could, the three carefully picked their way through the vines and towards the dilapidated house, and its familiar, unbroken, stained glass door.

Inside the Upside Down version of the Creel house, the floor was almost entirely covered by the strangely pulsating plants. It gave them pause, but, unwilling to waste what little time they had, Steve pushed on. Stepping lightly, he hopped from foot to foot as he scouted out the largest gaps between vines.

It was nerve-wracking and a little hilarious at the same time. Each of them could feel the weight of the world crashing down on their shoulder, as they followed the leader in a game of hopscotch. Two feet fit there, one far to the left, and quickly far to the right. Round and round the playground Steve would lead them until the recess bell rang, and it was time to return to reality.

With the girls following in Steve’s footsteps, they all made it to the first landing where there was a clearing in the vines, enough for them to all stand together.

Tauntingly the door to the attic sat ajar, held open as if in welcome or a dare, by the vines. Robin held the Molotov she’d made in hand, with Steve and Nancy pulling their weapons from where they’d been stored on their backs. Armed, and full of adrenaline they turned to face down the tight curling staircase, knowing their monster was waiting for them at the top.

Taking a final steadying breath, they moved for the open doorway, just as the world around them began to tremble.

“Max stop!” All thoughts of the plan had escaped Chrissy’s mind as she reeled from Max’s words.

“You shouldn’t have wasted time starving yourself,” Max snarled, “You should have just done it. Everyone would have been better off. Eddie would be better off ”

A different feeling settled over Chrissy, more than the hurt at her friend's words.

“I’m glad Vecna is going to take you,” Max nodded at her own words, eyes glazing over and voice distorting, “I’m glad it’s going to be you who breaks the world .”

This wasn’t Max. In a panicked moment of realization, Chrissy scrambled backward, nearly falling as her hands searched for something, anything, to grab onto behind her. The coolness of aluminum brushed against her fingers and she grabbed on, swinging an old lamp directly at Max. The bulb shattered as it crashed down against her face. Chrissy didn’t stick around to see him transform back into himself. She took the moment he was off guard to push past him, sprinting out of the attic and through the house.

In the void Chrissy was still sitting back on her heels, eyes rolled back as she panted fast and shaky breaths. Eleven crouched next to her, looking sadly at the older girl she had never met.

“It’s okay, Chrissy,” Eleven said even though she couldn’t hear her, “I’m coming. I’m going to help, just hold on a little longer.”

El took Chrissy’s hand, settling in next to her and closing her eyes. She began to search for Chrissy inside her head. Both her and Max had planned to attach themselves to a memory, trying to hide from Vecna there. El flipped through Chrissy’s mind. Like changing the channel on a TV, memories flashed around El. She saw Chrissy at different points in her life, with different people; Chrissy standing in a field with a long-haired boy El recognized but didn’t know, wrapped in his arms. Chrissy and Robin giggling on the floor of a living room. Chrissy at Steve's dining room table with the rest of El’s friends back in Hawkins. The familiar boy El didn’t know again, leaning down and smoking a cigarette out of Chrissy’s hand. Chrissy slow-dancing with a blonde boy on the front porch of her house, both dressed formally. Chrissy being lifted into the air by other cheerleaders, smiling while waving in the air. Chrissy throwing a pitch for a younger boy who had the same nose and eyes.

Finally El landed on something solid. She opened her eyes, suddenly surrounded by a bustling crowd of younger kids. It was a brightly lit hallway, and children of different ages were lined up along the walls. Some held instruments, others were dressed in costumes, one even had a black and white dog with her. El looked around, confused. She was still in Chrissy’s mind, so she must be here somewhere.

El walked through the hall, dodging kids who seemed to not notice she was there. El tried to get the attention of an adult to no avail. Eventually she spotted her near the end of the hallway. She was younger though, even younger than El had been when she had first met Mike and the others. She was mixed into a group of other girls the same age, all of them dressed in mini red and white cheer uniforms and holding fluffy white pom poms. A big red bow was placed proudly on top of her head.

Chrissy twisted her fingers nervously, peeking through the door as it opened and a group of girls with flutes came back into the hallway. The group in front of the tiny cheerleaders left through the door and they all erupted into excited and fearful squeals.

“We’re next!” One of them whisper-yelled, quickly, being shushed by the teacher standing at the door.

Chrissy seemed to be more and the fearful side. El watched her lean against the white cinderblock wall and begin to quietly panic. Her friends didn't seem to notice, and neither did the teacher. El approached, wanting to help calm the child down and forgetting she wasn't visible here. Before El could reach out, a boy stepped in front of Chrissy, hesitant. He was taller than her, looking to be at least a year older, with a buzzed haircut and a ratty t-shirt. A beat-up red guitar hung from his shoulders.

“Chrissy, right?” He asked anxiously, getting her attention.

She nodded up at him with wide eyes, “Yeah, you’re… Eddie…Munson?”

“That’s me,” He tossed her an easy smile, looking back to a group of boys El assumed were his bandmates, “I’m with my band.”

“That’s cool,” Chrissy nodded, not noticing the looks her friends were giving her.

“Uh… yeah, are you nervous?” He asked bluntly. Chrissy hesitated, cheeks turning red as she frowned down at the ground, “I’m just asking because, well, me too.” He admitted.

“Oh,” Chrissy said, seeming to relax at the idea that she wasn’t the only one suffering from stage fright.

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t be!” He offered, face turning red as he fumbled over his words, “You’re going to do your… cheer... thing great!”

“You think so?” Chrissy asked

“Yeah! Of course, everyone is going to love you.” Eddie encouraged, beaming down at her, “I promise.”

El recognized him now. He was the boy with long hair that Chrissy had been with in her newest memories, Eddie.

“Why’d you come over here to talk to me?” Chrissy asked, confused.

“ What’s happening? ” Mike’s voice asked in her head.

“I’m in a…memory,” She replied in the real world, “A Chrissy memory.”

She needed to find where Chrissy was hiding. El began looking around for something, anything, that would lead her in the right direction. El knew this was a sweet moment, but she was unsure why she was there.

“Well, I…” Eddie furrowed his eyebrows, “I don’t really know, but I wanted to tell you good luck…and I, uh, I like your outfits, you look really cool.”

“Thank you,” Chrissy blushed, looking down at the ground again.

“Yeah of course,” He didn’t know how to leave, didn’t want to leave.

“Good luck to you, too!” She said, smiling up at him, nervousness mostly gone. She nodded past Eddie to his bandmates who were staring wide-eyed, “And to your band, uh…”

“Corroded Coffin,” He filled in the name for her proudly.

“Corroded Coffin,” She nodded as the door swung open the last group coming back out, “Cool name.”

Her friends grabbed her, squealing as they rushed out the door. Chrissy smiled and waved to Eddie as she was whisked away. He gave her an encouraging thumbs up in response.

With Chrissy out of sight, El began to search harder. After a moment she caught sight of something entirely out of place. A run-down wooden picnic table was sitting in the middle of the hallway, back where El had originally come in. None of the children acknowledged it, but El knew that was what would help her find Chrissy.

Dustin reached the end of his countdown just as the bats cleared the edge of the forest around the trailer park. Atop the hellish version of his home, Eddie breathed heavily. The final notes of his solo performance trailed off, even as the gritty sound of the ramped up speakers continued.

A bat dived, swiping at Henderson who only barely managed to duck away from its claws. For fear of another attack, both the boys ran. Abandoning the Upside Down replica of his guitar Eddie jumped. First, down onto Wayne’s truck pulled up next to the trailer, then hit the ground hard. Not stopping to react to the impact vibrating through his knees, Eddie turned to help Dustin down.

Glancing behind them, Dustin saw the oncoming swarm of bats, like a dark cloud blocking out the red glow of the Upside Down sky. He watched, mouth agape, as they got closer and closer. Letting out a frustrated cry, Eddie grabbed him by the shaggy net of foliage and yanked him along to the gate.

They rolled back through, uncoordinated and frantic, as a single pile of limbs.

Laying on the cold blissfully green grass, the scent of wet earth filled Eddie’s nose. Unable to hold back the pounding fear, the thrill of the song, or the relief of being home they both tumbled into unbridled laughter.

“Most. Metal. Ever!” Dustin cheered as Eddie let out an excited shout, punching and kicking the air above them.

Once their celebration died down, Eddie remembered,

“Shit, man the gate,” and slapped Henderson's shoulder. The kid quickly rolled over onto his stomach to peer through the gate. They hadn’t known when planning if the creatures would try to follow them back through to the real world, but they didn’t seem concerned with the gate at all.

It was a bad angle, but not much could be seen through the flurry of leathery wings and terrifying screams anyway. The bats descended on the equipment still live on the roof of the trailer, and Eddie's imagination could fill in the destruction they wrought.

Some of them must have found the guitar and a horrific electronic squeal echoed through the gate as the instrument was shredded to bits.

Eddie winced, sad to think of even the evil version of his sweetheart meeting such an end, but it was worth it. Nancy, Robin, and Steve were safe.

Chrissy slammed herself against the front door, yanking it open in a hurry. Boards just like the ones she had seen in the horrific version of her own house were blocking her way. She threw her shoulder against them, begging to get through.

“Where are you going, Christine?” Vecna’s voice echoed behind her.

Chrissy turned to see Vecna rounding the corner at the top of the stairs, stalking after her. She bolted, sprinting through the house as she looked for a way out. The light fixtures and lamps were flashing wildly as she ran. Every door she tried was boarded shut with no way through. She hyperventilated as she yanked and pulled and beat on the wood, trying anything to get out as she felt Vecna’s presence grow closer.

She threw another door open, only to be met with another door instead of boards. It was the door of a bathroom stall, complete with rust and graffiti. As soon as it was open a violent banging began on the other side.

“Chrissy!” Her mother screamed, “Open this door right now!”

Chrissy stepped back, the familiar voice catching her off guard.

“Open this goddamn door, Chrissy, or I swear!” The voice screeched, the hinges and lock rattling with each bang, “I’ll fucking gut you, you stupid girl.”

Chrissy turned to run but was stopped by boards blocking the way she came from. Venca’s version of her mother’s voice continued to wail. She could see the hinges of the door begin to bend, creaking as they became weaker.

Chrissy closed her eyes, blocking out the sound as she pulled memories, the good ones, to the front of her mind. She saw flashes as she sifted through them, trying to find the right one. She saw her teammates after her first ever football game, Jason freshman year in a suit for homecoming, her little brother with a baseball trophy, and her new friends gathered around a campfire laughing

Eddie in the woods behind the school.

Him throwing himself off of the bench and crashing to the ground. His smile when she laughed at him. The way he hid behind his long hair, watching her with bright eyes. She let the feeling of being in his presence wash over her. Clinging to the memory of him in the forest with her for dear life. She could feel herself being closed in on, the vibration of her mother pounding on the door shook her down to the bone. With a final bang the door flew open. Chrissy could feel the rush of air on her face, but when she opened her eyes she was no longer in the Creel House.

Dustin and Eddie continued to watch the bats tear through the trailer, looking for them only to be met with layers of sheet metal. Watching their claws and beaks scratch at the wall of the trailer, carving into any surface they could get a hold of, Eddie paled and pulled Dustin a little farther away from the edge. He couldn’t imagine how Steve had lived through that, and had kept walking after they bit into his sides. Eddie had never been so grateful for being the distraction.

A few minutes passed and the flurry of the bats' descent died down as they came to the realization that there was no one there.

Either because they were bored with the lack of game to kill, or because Vecna was calling them back to him, Eddie didn’t know, but the bats were starting to leave. Just one lone flying hell beast to start, then others in small numbers following its lead. Most of the swarm still remained, and picked through the wreckage of the trailer, but a sinking feeling took over Eddie like the floor had opened up to swallow him.

The bats weren’t dead yet.

Vecna wasn’t dead yet.

Their friends were in trouble.

Chrissy waited impatiently in the clearing, checking her watch out of habit. Every time she did it showed a wildly different time, not giving her a clue as to how long she had been there. It felt well over five minutes, but she knew time didn’t work the same in here. Chrissy hoped Steve, Robin, and Nancy would kill Vecna before Max had to come in. The less danger the younger girl was in the better, Chrissy thought.

She was content with the location, though. It was exactly as it had been when Chrissy was here with Eddie. A gentle breeze brushed through the fresh spring leaves of the trees around her and she could hear the faint sound of birds and bugs. It was different, warped by memory, but still enough of a comfort.

Chrissy had resorted to pacing around the clearing and counting her steps when a loud crash stopped her dead in her tracks. She yanked her head up, looking around the woods. The sound had come from somewhere off to her left, but she couldn’t see where. Wide eyed she spun around the clearing, waiting for something else to happen. For a moment the clearing fell silent again.

Dead silent. The only sound ringing in Chrissy’s ears was her own panicked breathing. A beat of nothing and then the slow creaking and another crash, closer this time. Chrissy whipped around in time to see a heavy branch crashing to the earth. The trees continued to crash and fall around her, forcing her into the center, closer to the table. As Chrissy panicked, the sound began to distort. An odd buzzing mixed itself into the crashing and then the hum of a sweet voice. Music, Chrissy realized, music was begging to play inside her head. But it wasn’t her music. After a moment of trying to pick out the sound, Chrissy realized it was an old song, one she heard hundreds of times, but she couldn’t think of the name at the moment.

“ While I’m alone and as blue as can be,” The voice sang out, echoing around the clearing.

The clearing was beginning to rot and decay around Chrissy. The sky turned dark and the wind picked up, a storm threatening overhead. Chrissy watched in horror as red lightning flashed overhead, swiftly followed by the crash of thunder. Exactly how the sky looked in the Upside Down. Vecna was closing in.

She thought about running. There were no doors for him to block her in with. It was a straight shot to the school. She wondered if she could throw herself into a different memory if she made it there.

Resolving to at least try, Chrissy turned to run back towards the school. Only to be met with the stained glass front door of the Creel House.

“Oh fuck,” Chrissy said to herself. It was too late, he was here. She watched as the door began to slowly creak open in its frame, the house visible inside.

“You can’t hide from me, Chrissy.” Vecna’s voice taunted from no discernible direction.

She went back into her head, trying to pull up a different memory. Images of the field, Weathertop Eddie had called it, flashed through her mind. Eddie leaning against her knees while she talked to Dustin about Suzie. Walking with Max and talking about a girls day. Helping gather firewood with Erica and Lucas.

“You think I don’t see what you’re doing?” Vecna’s voice leached into her mind, “You think I don’t see everything ?”

The image in Chrissy’s mind wasn’t a memory anymore. She saw Jason, eyes bloodshot and face sallow, blue light reflecting off of him, and a shiny new revolver in his hand. Chrissy scrunched up her face in confusion as he cocked the hammer back, aiming it directly at Lucas, Max wide-eyed and shaking behind him.

“You thought you could trick me?”

Chrissy watched as Robin was slammed against the wall in what must have been the Upside Down version of the Creel House, vines wrapping around her as she cried out. She saw Dustin and Eddie screaming as they fought off the bats. The sound echoed in her mind.

“You thought your friends could stop me?”

A bloody star-shaped mouth opened up, screeching as it fed on a body. Chrissy didn’t recognize the creature, but she could tell it was a relative of the bats she had fought. She watched as it slammed through a heavy metal door, following an oddly familiar face down a dark hallway. She caught a glimpse of Nancy and Steve desperately hacking away at the vines holding Robin to the wall.

“I see them.”

Bat’s began to leave Eddie's barricaded trailer, uninterested in the decoy.

“I see your friends...”

Nancy was slammed down to the ground, a vine swiping her feet out from under her, her shotgun skittering across the floor. Steve was next to go, the thick vines wrapping around his already bruised throat, choking the life out of him.

“Just as clearly,”

She watched as Eddie steadied himself, turning with cold and determined eyes to Dustin and let his fist fly, connecting it hard with Dustin’s skull. The child dropped to the ground.

“As I…”

Eddie threw himself back through the gate, shouting and screaming as he jumped on a bike.

“See you.”

Chrissy watched in horror as he pedaled fast, the bats swarming after him.

“I can feel them.”

Robin gasped for air, the vines tightening around her. So were Steve and Robin, fighting back to no avail.

“I can feel them dying .”

In flashes, Chrissy could see each of their mouths, open and gasping for air, struggling against their environment like fish that have already been gutted.

She could feel their fear, the bright and painful regret as Steve looked to Robin, the strain of their hands as they reached for something, anything, anyone. Even as they struggled it was like they had already given up.

No one was coming to help her.

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sittingwithmyself · 7 months

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My Body & I

To those looking:

I cannot control how you see me. I cannot predict, nor can I determine, the judgments you make -- whether you think I'm smart, funny, interesting, or beautiful.

Although, I wouldn't be surprised if the first thing you see -- the first thing your mind registers, especially if you're meeting me for the first time -- is a woman, identified by my long hair, round face, prominent hips, and breasts (however tiny).

We live in a society where our gender determines a lot: who to befriend, date, and marry; which jobs to take; what clothes to wear; how to behave at home, school, and work; and the expectations people have of us.

I've often felt like I've failed at being a woman. I'm too overweight and without the necessary curves to have a coke bottle figure. I don't usually wear make-up and high heels. Most of the dresses in my closet have only been worn a couple times, if at all. I'm horrible at stroking a man's ego. I'd rather be treated like an equal than a sexual object.

No matter how much I tell myself none of those things matter, that I can be whatever kind of woman I want to be, what I learned about gender as a child still haunts me. Additionally, as much as society has attempted to progress, it still holds tight to gender stereotypes.

Every other aspect of who I am will almost always be filtered first by my gender. Not because my biological sex might be obvious to anyone with eyesight, but because as a society that determines much based on gender, we place a lot of meaning on the gendered characteristics we see.

To be fair, it makes sense to filter by sex or gender if you're motivated by a sexual drive, are constantly categorizing people on whether or not you'd like to bone them, and sex/gender is the primary factor for attraction.

I can't control whether you see an attractive woman; a non conforming, gender queer female; or a human whose traits have yet to be determined. So, I've decided to stop trying. To stop giving power to the idea of gender. To be who I am regardless of your expectations and judgments.

In a way, I'm thankful for my feelings of gender failure, because without them, I would have never questioned gender rules and the beliefs that sustain them. I would have never woken up to see that I'm so much more than my body parts.

Nowadays, people have found comfort in different identity labels (e.g. woman, man, non-binary). However, I've decided not to pick a gender label at all. In fact, I have absolutely no earthly idea what it means to be a woman or a man without using traditional gender rules. I can't tell you if I feel like a man or a woman because I don't know how each of them feel (or how they're supposed to feel). Go ahead and place a label on me if you want, but I won't identify with it. I refuse to play by the rules of gender, whichever ones you've adopted, because honestly, they seem either too limiting or completely meaningless. Perhaps I would pick a label if I saw the utility of it, but I don't.

I'd rather you judge me based on my inner qualities. When at first glance you notice my biological sex, I'd rather you hold all assumptions of who I am until you hear the words I speak, the questions I ask, the ideas I pose, the assertions I make. If you must judge on appearance, I'd rather you see the way I hold myself up, the way I move my hands when I speak, the way I scrunch up my nose, the different ways I laugh and smile.

I'd rather you come to learn the things that interest me, the things that have me in a fit of giggles, the things that break my heart.

My thoughts, feelings, and beliefs – those are the things I identify with.

I am not my body. It is simply the house that protects me, the vehicle that keeps me moving. When I die, I will not take with me my tiny breasts and prominent hips. I will take my thought-provoking questions, my off-colored jokes, my hard-won achievements, the life-altering lessons I've learned, and the sustaining love I've felt for those who have seen me as I am and have allowed me to see them in return.

My body is female, nothing more, nothing less, until we redefine terms of biological sex, and if when you see it, you imagine me playing the role of a woman, so be it. You have the right to categorize me by your understanding of the world, just as I have the right to live by my own.

What matters is how I see myself, and I wish I had known that a lot earlier. If I had, I wouldn't have spent decades giving up my control to identify who I am. I wouldn't have been so afraid of the person I see when I strip off my collection of masks and acknowledge the part of me left bare – the vulnerable soul yearning for genuine connection.

I may not be what you want or expect, but I am a person, just like you. And if all you see is a human with a vagina, then maybe you're a dick.

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died-but-not-dead-propaganda · 1 year

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Dean Winchester Propaganda

Dean dying is like, a regular plot point. It's not a twist of events, it's not a spoiler. He's died and come back so many times that he's self-aware by now. In fact, realising that you were actually worried when he died the first time is hilarious. It's happened so often. We'd freak out more if he was seen wearing only two layers of clothes.

he has died over 100 times over the course of the show and always came back somehow

He is famous for dying multiple times. An episode in season 3 was dedicated to killing him again and again and again several times in very ridiculous ways.

High, high, chance that you already know all of this BUT: Dean made a deal with a demon to protect Sam, and the consequence of making a deal with a demon is that in ten years time you get sent to Hell. Because he's a Winchester the deal was shortened and he's eventually dragged to Hell and spends, what is in Hell decades, but mere months on Earth until he is rescued from Hell by the angel Castiel.

has died... over 100 times? some of the notable ones include:

- his brother Sam gets stuck in a time loop, watching Dean die over and over, in different ways each time

- killed by hellhounds, goes to Hell, gets resurrected 4 months later (by thee gay angel Castiel)

- killed by Metatron (an angel), but Dean has the Mark of Cain at this point, and comes back as a Knight of Hell

Dude. Come on. You are on the Supernatural webbed site you gotta have seen this coming.

The man has died HUNDREDS of times (maybe even thousands, but I’m pretty sure it’s hundreds) and his count simply cannot be rivaled

He was “gripped tight and raised from perdition” by the angel Castiel, who is so in love with him that it causes him to be the first person with free will. The minute he confesses his love he gets sent to super-hell tho

hes like the guy that is on all the posters of People That Died And Still Arent Dead. hes died over 100 times and come back all of them. wait, you might be saying, didnt he perma-die at the end of season fifteen? apparently not because jensen ackles is still out there being dean, and when jensen dies hes probably going to pass the being-dean-ness along to a descendant in his totally fucked up will. seriously if there was a country of people who used to be dead hed automatically be granted citizenship like theyd make a special category of citizenship for him cause hed belong there more than anybody else

Died so much has personal beef with death

Enough said

has canonically died 100+ times. examples include shot in the chest, electrocuted via hairdryer, attacked by a dog, choked, poisoned via taco, and killed (accidentally) by his brother

I swear these fuckers died every season

Remember your roots.

#dean winchester #supernatural

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darkacademicfrom2021 · 3 years

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All flavours of wrong (part 1)

Masterlist Part 2

Pairing: Loki x Reader (gender neutral) (reader gets called princess and Queen mockingly, but it can have no gender connotations, just as in a joke).

Summary: You got an arranged marriage with the firstborn prince of Asgard, inheritor of the crown, God of Thunder. But your heart has other plans, that your brain cannot yet comprehend. And on Loki’s side it’s not getting easy either.

Word count: 4.5K

Warnings: Sexual tension (a lot). And honestly not much more? Mentions of blood.

I used prompt #293 and prompt #279 from @creativepromptsforwriting to take me out of a block, so thank you so much to this page, it’s incredibly useful! I recommend all writers to check it out.

“Thor”, whispered Loki. But since his four failed attempts at calling him discreetly went wrong, he stepped on his foot under the table, making him spill wine all over his trousers.

“For Gods’ sake, brother, what do you want?”.

“Well, finally. Are you ignoring me? I’ve been trying to get your attention all dinner”.

“Yes, of course I’ve been ignoring you”, said as if it were obvious. It wasn’t.

“Why?”, Loki asked, trying to not sound hurt.

“You know why”, muttered under his breath, faking a smile when his gaze met his mother’s. “And shut up, we’re not supposed to talk if Allfather is not here yet”.

“Look, if it’s because I set on fire your History books, get over it, it’s not like you were doing great with that anyways”.

“You… you did what? It was you?”.

“Yes, of course. Oh, you didn’t know. Well, what are you ignoring me for, then? Ah, I know. Is it because I broke the…”.

“How many things of mine have you been destroying lately?”, Thor raised his voice slightly.

“Boys, enough”, interrupted Frigga. “Cut it off, your Father will be here soon”.

The siblings went back to their plates, and Loki kept stealing glances at his brother, trying to figure out what was wrong. Thor was nervous; his leg kept bouncing and bouncing, he barely touched his food (which was very suggestive, given that he usually ate it all in two mouthfuls), and he was refilling his cup with the strongest wine of the table, as if he needed to loosen up for something. Loki decided it was better off to just pay attention to what would come next. It was evident his Father would be bringing the thing that made Thor so nervous.

And then it hit him; it was already June.

The previous year Odin announced the possibility of an arranged marriage to whoever was winning on the competition for the throne, if he hadn't gotten anywhere near a possible royal companion. Thor was winning, by far; of course. And he didn’t show any partner, or even the possibility of a future partner, so no wonder why he was so nervous.

Loki went back to his plate, not sure how to feel. Annoyed, that was for sure. He knew he wasn’t going to be King (at least not until his brother died, if he didn’t die first), but the preparations for his inheritance got there faster than he expected. It was all too quick. And the disappointment grew bigger the more he thought of it. His father was not even giving him the chance to get better in the competition, and instead he just assumed it was Thor who’d win. Frustrating. Obvious, but still frustrating.

The doors opened and a young and bright warrior followed the footsteps of Odin. He, with a smile from ear to ear, waited until getting the attention of everyone, and, directly looking into Thor’s eyes, introduced you with your full name and current social status. Loki couldn’t stop staring with his lips slightly parted.

That was it. That was what annoyed him the most. His brother got to marry that.

He just couldn’t believe his eyes. He blinked fast to see if there was something deceiving his perception, if maybe his whole family arranged a joke to him, if maybe that little warrior was an illusion casted by his Mother to laugh at how unfortunate he must have been looking at that moment. At the moment he realized his brother was marrying the perfect partner for Loki. You were, at least in the physical sense, his literal type. He was baffled.

And that didn’t go unnoticed by Thor either, who stole a glance from him and chuckled mockingly. Loki went red of embarrassment and tried his best to hide from you, to avoid your gaze, but he just couldn’t keep his eyes off you. He felt hypnotized, and bothered. You didn’t look at him. You looked everywhere but him. You were amazed by the palace, by everyone around you. It was obvious you were not familiar with a royal life.

“You seem bewildered, brother”, Thor whispered in his ear.

“And you don’t seem as astonished as you should, brother”, he answered with levels of sarcasm in his tone he didn’t even know he had.

“I shouldn’t, this is merely formal”.

“You’re marrying them. It’s not entirely formal. It’s a whole future and family”, Loki discussed, but he knew his brother didn’t care about it enough. His brother didn’t even want the throne that badly, yet he was the one getting it. More and more frustration flowed through Loki’s veins. He kept staring at you with a frown. “Besides, look at that piece of art”.

He looked so tough, so serious, until you stared back. No, you didn’t even stare. You looked up and found his eyes. He quickly softened his expressions as you gifted him a gentle smile. His heart skipped a beat.

And just with a smile he knew, he was completely fucked.

Loki closed his eyes and shut his fists as hard as he could, trying to focus and concentrate only on what he was supposed to. The spell.

But you were looking, and it was hard.

A week passed by, and you were already living in the palace, bonding with your future husband and trying to learn as much as possible from the new life you would acquire once the wedding passed. You met him everywhere; in the halls, on the meals, on the trainings, on the classes; everywhere. He had no means to escape you. Nor did he want to. But he couldn’t get used to that horrible and sweet feeling of his chest getting tighter, face warmer and balance unsteadier when he saw you.

“You’ve got this, Loki. We’ve been over this”, Frigga said from the other side of the training room. “Just remember what we practiced yesterday”. But the only thing Loki remembered from yesterday was when he was trying to train that same spell and you were, at the same time, practicing your archery skills outside. Sweaty. Tired. Ecstatic. Smiley. Red.

He opened his eyes and dropped his arms, completely giving up. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do even a simple spell in front of you.

“What is it that’s distracting you so much, son? You have your head too full for this”, Frigga commented, getting closer to him.

“I’m simply tired, Mother. Don’t worry about it, had a poor night of sleep”.

“Well, get it together for this afternoon. We’re trying again after you get some rest, alright?”.

“Yes, Mother”.

You weren’t paying much attention to the conversation prince Loki and the Queen had. You were way too focused on how uncomfortable the clothes you had to wear were in you. You could barely breathe, and had to fix your posture to avoid choking. Besides, you could feel prince Thor’s eyes on you, and somehow it made you extremely uncomfortable.

You knew you would marry him. Then why couldn’t you at least fake a little bit of interest in him?

You redirected your attention to prince Loki, once again, and the corset was not the only thing that made your breathing harder. Gods, and for the Nine Realms, the prince’s training clothes were something else. Not even compared to Thor’s tank top and weird-looking shorts; Loki’s were almost made exactly for him and his silhouette. Black leather pants and top covering him almost entirely, tight even where it shouldn’t be that tight. Gold endings everywhere and little patterns in his long sleeves and trousers; details that only made it harder for you to not look. But you didn’t even know where to look, if you looked.

Well, you knew exactly where you should’ve been looking. To your side. The blonde and huge man with the big hammer that promised you a crown, a throne and a good place for your family to live in.

You shook your head, and got up to make yourself some tea, hoping the wrong thoughts would fall off your brain and you’d finally come to your senses.

Once you made it to the kitchen, you realized you shouldn’t have gotten there by your own. Unable to get used to the fact that if you wanted some tea you should ask for the maids to make it for you (as with everything, even the clothes you would wear, the foods you’d eat, the way the bed should be made, and an infinite etcetera), you ignored it and put the kettle on the fire.

You tried to reach for the tea box on the countertop, and stood on your toes, failing to even touch it with the tips of your fingers. As you turned around to look for a chair to climb to, you blundered against the God of Mischief’s chest.

“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry”, he apologized, taking a step back. “I was about to get the tea box for you”. You felt yourself completely red.

“It’s… it’s fine, thank you. I’m sorry” you stuttered nervously, with the echoing feeling of his torso against your arms and chest, making you blush even more. You wondered if he did that accidentally.

He smirked slightly and reached for the box effortlessly, making deep eye contact. Was he… was he flirting, somehow? you asked yourself. No, of course he wasn’t. That would be a hundred percent inappropriate, and he was completely appropriate and polite all the time. Even when he shouldn’t have. So, what was that about? Did he usually look at people like that?

“Breaking some rules, I see?”, he added after a painful minute of silence in where you chose the tea and mug. You turned around and realized he was still staring.

“What?”.

“You shouldn’t be the one making the tea, you know”.

“Yes, I know”, you answered calmly, trying to not show the tremble in your voice. Just the presence of that God in the same room made you feel… tiny. Weak. Maybe in a good way. No, definitely in a bad way; he shouldn’t be making you feel anything, for that matter. “And we shouldn’t be in the same room all alone”.

“Are you kicking me out?”.

“Just stating a fact”.

“Hm”.

“And offering you some illegal tea”.

He smiled. You were way too good for Thor, he thought. You would be bored if you married him. You had the trouble spark in your eyes and Loki was the perfect companion for that. It was so evident you were made for each other; then why would his parents think you would be better off with Thor? He was still clueless at how they could’ve made such an imprudent and blind decision.

“I’d love to, princess”.

You chuckled. “Princess? Really?”.

“Not good?”.

“No”. He lowered his gaze and put a strand of hair behind an ear. “Which kind would you like?”.

He stepped closer to you; so much closer that you could feel his slow breathing grazing your forehead. You tried your best to not rise your head and sink in his sharp features. He grabbed with two fingers a tea bag from the box you were holding. Your hands were trembling slightly. He then got a little bit closer (even though you didn’t think that was possible), slowly stretched his arm and picked up a mug that was conveniently behind you. As soon as he stepped away, you realized you held your breath the whole time.

“Are you alright? You look nervous”, he mocked, which only made you even more embarrassed.

“I suggest you stay in your place, prince Loki”, you said, trying to get back to reality. It was not okay. You could not flirt in any way or form with your future husband’s brother. Wrong. Wrong! All flavours of wrong.

“Suggestion denied”, he said with the same troublesome smirk from before, that still hadn’t wiped off his face. “And you can call me Loki”.

“I will not”, you said, filling his mug with the boiling water. “And you’ll call me by my full name, as you should”.

“You know, in our actual position… you should be the one recieving my orders”, he said, lowering his already deep voice. You swallowed, but tried to keep a determined and confident look on your face.

“Which are...?”. You knew you’d regret even asking, but he was right. He still was your prince, and you still were a mere warrior. He raised an eyebrow.

“Call me Loki”.

“Or?”.

“Well…”, he whispered raspily. You felt he was about to step closer to you again, but the voice of one of his tutors interrupted his flirting.

“What on the Realm are you two doing in here without an escort?”.

“Terribly sorry”, you muttered while you rapidly left the kitchen. Loki stood there, observing you leave and sighed. His tutor looked at him with disapproval and he simply shrugged his shoulders and smiled innocently.

But he had already decided, you were going to be his.

You couldn’t help but to wander the palace as much as you could. The place was enormous and nothing compared to anything you’ve seen before. You only knew the tiny houses you grew up in Asgard, and the occasional visit to other Realm’s palace in the middle of a battle.

But you had to be careful. Nobody would approve you nosing everywhere, much less at those hours of the night. But, well, it was the perfect time, because the palace would not only be empty, but also illuminated by only the soft glimmering of the candlelights. It was gorgeous.

You roamed around through the hallways, until the sharp sound of a fall stopped you dead on your tracks. The sound was followed by an “ugh, fuck” from a particularly familiar voice, and your curiosity grew bigger. What was prince Loki doing at those hours in… the library, was it? You thought, as you tried to read the sign in the doorframe. All signs had to be in old Norse, of course. And you could barely speak it, let alone read it in the dark.

Peeping from the entrance, you got to see what the prince was doing. With a big and dusty book on one hand and a frown in his face, he was trying to make a pile of books from the floor levitate.

He shut his eyes close and once again, pointed at the books with the palm of his hand. A green light surrounded the objects and two of the three books got suspended in the air. With effort, prince Loki pushed harder upwards to make the third book levitate too, but soon got tired and the rest of the pile fell to the wooden floor again, making the same sound that brought you there in the first place.

He then left the open book he was holding over one of the tables and tried again, this time with both of his hands. In around five minutes he got to make the three books fly above his head, as if they were dancing. His eyes glittered and an ear-to-ear smile lit his face. You’ve never seen him smile so innocently, so childishly before.

How adorable, you thought, as you leaned on the doorframe. But the smile on his face got interrupted when you sloped wrongly over the door and fell down with a sound that felt more like a scream than a subtle gasp.

Loki ran to see where that sound came from, and found your flustered face on his feet, trying your best to not look too embarrassed by the fact that you were hovering, or even spying on him.

“May I help you with something, princess?”, he held your hand to help you up, but didn’t let it out when you were already on your feet.

“Thank you. And, please, don’t call me princess”, you said, freeing yourself of his hand.

“‘Please, don’t call me princess’? Darling, you’re begging for the wrong things in here”. You got chills from the seductive tone of his voice, and tried to ignore it through a laugh. There was nothing else to do but to hope he wouldn’t notice how blushed you’d gotten.

“It’s not appropriate that you keep flirting with me, Mischief”.

“I like that nickname”.

“Did you even listen to me?”.

“Yes, I know. You don’t want me to flirt with you because you’re afraid of being inappropriate. But, between us, which one was the one stalking the other one in the middle of the night?”.

“I wasn’t stalking. I was simply observing and hoping you wouldn’t notice”.

“That’s the dictionary definition of stalking, my dear”.

You sighed. There was no point in arguing with him. He would know if you lied; and that’s probably why he kept flirting. Because he knew you didn’t mean it when you corrected him. You liked it. You truly enjoyed it.

“What are you doing?”, you asked after a while, pointing at the floating books that were now almost touching the roof.

“I really need to focus for this one in particular. If I need silence and emptiness, this place and time are usually a good idea. Unless, of course, there’s a little spy falling off the doorframe”.

“Sorry about that”, you chuckled, and he smirked.

“It’s fine, I basically finished it anyways”.

“Looks like you mastered it, though”, you complimented. Loki looked at you with a little smile.

“Well, I…”. He was about to answer you, but you reached out for a strand of hair on his face and moved it behind his ear. The books fell off abruptly, and Loki did his best to cover you from their impact, covering your whole body with an embrace. He didn’t let go of the hug, but looked at your face with shame. “I’m truly sorry. I got.. surprised, I guess”.

“Don’t worry. And sorry, didn’t mean to make you nervous”.

“Nervous?”.

“Or surprised, whatever”.

“You’re right, though”. He smiled gently once more and lowered his gaze. “You make me feel things, little warrior”.

“Prince Loki, you really shouldn’t…”.

“I can say it, you don’t need to answer it”. You sighed and gave him a knowing look. “If it makes you feel uncomfortable, I’ll stop. If not, let me flirt with you. I don’t need you to flirt back”. You laughed at his proposition and he stared, waiting for a confirmation.

“Fine. But don’t call me princess. You make it sound diminishing”.

“As you wish, my Queen”.

“Oh my God”.

“Precisely”.

You both giggled and tried to keep it down just in case somebody else was awake. The moonlight making its way through the gigantic windows of the library were the only lightning, and the sharp features of the God became even more fascinating by the contrast. His eyes looked deeper. Or maybe it was the way he looked at you with them. You felt naked at his eye, and maybe not in a bad sense.

"What are you thinking about?", he asked after a while. You were both in silence, contemplating each other. Oddly, it wasn't uncomfortable. With Thor, on the other hand, you only felt uncomfortability; even if it wasn't an awkward situation, you knew you were not welcomed by him. Maybe not even his friendship.

"I'm… I think I should get going".

"Why?" he asked, and immediately grabbed your hand. "Stay".

"It's late. Thor might awake and not find me there".

"So?".

"Let's not cause a scandal, Mischief. I have to do what I have to do".

"Maybe you don't have to", he insisted, and you rolled your eyes. With a sigh, he let go off your hand. "I understand. I know you'll be better off like this".

"Yes, I will", you said, faking confidence. Maybe it was your sleep deprived brain that couldn't see right, maybe it was the sudden urge to do what you wanted instead of what you needed; either way, you lingered your way out.

He waited for you to go, but you stayed a little longer, delaying the sneaking back to bed with the man you didn't want to be with. You just needed one reason, only one reason to stay.

"Good night, darling", he said after a while. He knew better than to ruin your future and reputation for his selfish desires. He didn’t want to let you go, he wanted you to be his and only his. But he knew better than to make you a part of his brotherly quarrels. He appreciated you enough to keep you out of it.

"Good night, Loki".

He smiled as you walked away. As much as he shouldn’t have, he got you to call him by just his name.

Not even two weeks passed by and everyone around him already suspected the obvious; the mischievous and rebellious brother was trying to make Thor’s partner fall in love with him. What not everyone knew was that it was completely working.

The stolen glances from up the shoulders in every meeting, every dinner, every event. The long walks around the Gardens, talking about literature, magic and general life. The trainings in one-to-one combat with him that lasted a bit longer than with the rest of the trainers. And you couldn’t help but smile at everything he said or did; it was so much harder than one could think, to hide such thing from Queen Frigga; she saw it all and knew better than everyone in romance. She also knew better than anyone both of her sons, and it was evident how they both felt about you. Because Thor’s stone cold indifference wasn’t one to go unnoticed as well.

In dinner, Loki was again sitting by Thor’s side, and couldn’t help but to chatter about the subject that bothered him so much.

“They’s late, brother; you’ll marry a terribly mannered warrior”, he mocked. Thor rolled his eyes and contraatacked.

“At least I’m marrying them”.

“You say it as if I wanted to”.

“Please”, Thor scoffed.

“Marriage is a boundary. I merely desire them”.

“You’re telling me you wouldn’t want to hold their hand from the Throne, or to put a crown on their head”, mocked Thor. Loki sushed him, because he was completely right. Loki would’ve loved to gently caress your hair and kiss your pink cheeks, to fidget with your ring as he held you in the mornings and nights. Gods, he was lost.

“I do not, anyways. But if you plan on borrowing me wedding night and spare you the annoyance you’d feel by bedding them… I agree”.

“Will you keep on making sexual jokes to avoid real feelings all your life or do you grow up after the 1100 year?”.

You opened the door and got in with your head low and breathing unsteady, embarrassed and apologizing. The princes stopped the chattering and followed you with their eyes. Loki didn’t even hide his expressions of pure and raw desire. Your hair was a disaster, and you were still in your ripped warrior clothes, covered in mud, blood and scratches. The dagger strapped to your thigh was, too, covered in blood.

“Hot”, said Loki, unintentionally louder than he should have. Dear, he loved when you looked like a threatening mess.

“What?”, you asked in a breath, still agitated.

“Eh, hold. Hold the door, I meant”, he corrected himself (everyone was looking, even the guests, and he knew better than to be that inappropriate on certain occasions). But you knew exactly what he said and smirked slightly, just enough for him to notice.

“You were saying… you didn’t want to?”, whispered Thor just before Loki got up and walked through the tables. He didn’t even know what he wanted to do, but if he said ‘hold the door’ he had to keep it verosimil, didn’t he?

As he walked past you, slowing down, he whispered “library, tonight”. And then left the dining room, leaving an even more blushed you to imagine what could he possibly want from you. And your imagination was not precisely innocent.

You took a deep breath and held it for a minute before getting inside. After wandering around the bookshelves, you noticed the room was still empty. Maybe too early? It was barely midnight. Everyone was already asleep and the Palace was, as every night, dead silent.

You sat on the couch and caressed the texture with the tip of your fingers. Was he coming? Did he say it just to make you blush in lunch? Perhaps he was messing with you. He was the God of Lies and Mischief after all, wasn’t he?

After ten minutes you stood up and decided to look for something to read. You wouldn’t be able to sleep anyways, so might as well make the most of the night; with or without prince Loki.

You walked slowly, reading carefully every title. If something had your attention, you’d read it on that beautiful velvet couch, in front of the fireplace. Even grab a mug of coffee, to keep you up until you finish your readings. The plan sounded marvelous, but you couldn’t help but to feel disappointed you wouldn’t spend the night with him.

You weren’t expecting to actually get physical, of course. He was not your fiancé and would never be. He was barely a lover. Not even that. He was the man you loved and desired, yes. But merely platonic. It wouldn’t go any further. It couldn’t go any further.

But you were expecting to have that precious alone time he gifted you in the nights, where everything was off and both of you were the only flame alive in the whole Kingdom. The glances he threw at you, the smiles he drew to let you know you were appreciated; you were wanted, you were loved by him.

As you reached for one of the books, a bigger hand wrapped around yours and the book, making you gasp.

“Hello”, he whispered in your ear, earning a shiver from you. Just that, he didn’t need to do any more than that to set on all your alarms and get your face redder and hotter than ever.

You turned around and smiled. He didn’t move away; in fact, he raised both his arms to your sides and locked you between him and the bookshelf.

“Seems like you won’t let me go away, won’t you?”.

“I don’t think you would even if I gave you the opportunity”.

“And how are you so sure about that?”.

“You came here, as I asked you to”.

“So?”.

“Are you actually going to play dumb?”.

You both laughed slightly, still not wanting to make a single noise. He got a few inches closer, and you did too. You raised a hand and fondled his hair. Moved your hand all the way from up his ear to down his neck. He slowly slipped down one hand to your waist and the other one to your collarbone, making the same deep eye contact he made with such lust; that desire he always looked at you, but amplified to a hundred and ten percent.

Now both of your hands were cupping his face. He was warm. And smiley. And… God, gorgeous. Godly gorgeous, as he always was. You traced with your fingers his cheekbones, his jaw, his neck. You sighed.

“May I kiss you?” He whispered, getting even closer. His breathing was slow and you could feel it on your face. His question was barely audible, yet so strongly loud to you.

May he kiss you? May you kiss him? You weren’t supposed to be even that close with him. You weren’t allowed. You shouldn’t look at him the way you did. Or touch him the way you wanted to. But there he was, asking to kiss you. And you had no other words in your vocabulary else than;

“Please”.

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dajaregambler · 2 years

Text

HeliosR - Keith Max Card story ‘‘Just wanna feel nice and comfy’’

Translation of Keith Max’s 3* ‘’Operation Wedding!’’ card story from ‘Helios Rising Heroes’.

Dino: Did you put it on properly? Keith

Keith: Aaah… no good. This one’s tight too…

Hotel owner: It’s a designer’s tuxedo with enough elbow room though…

Keith: Nope, s’totally outta the question. Gimme a more loose one~

Hotel owner: Then how about this one?

Keith: Hmmm…..

Dino: My apologies, sir. The fact that you went out of your way to pick all these for us…

Hotel owner: It’s all good! I’ll do anything to ensure the opening ceremony will be a success, even going as far as the costumes.

Dino: Thank you very much

Dino: How’s this one now, Keith?

Keith: Gwah, the neck’s too tight! Feels like I can’t raise my arms either, ain’t there one that’s easier to move in~?

Dino: Easier to move in…. I’m sure it doesn't need to go that far since it’ll improve when it’ll get altered to be your hero suit anyway?

Keith: Ah……

Keith: Then, I’m fine with the same as you

Dino: Eh? Then you’ll have to try it--

Keith: S’fine. Anyway t’is the same thing no matter what you wear, yeah?

Dino: But…

Keith: It’s too much to deal with so I’m passing. Owner, same one as him will do~

Hotel owner: Understood, then I’ll order the same for you both.

Dino: ………….

---The next day.

Dino: To think that they adjusted these within one day, the design team’s amazing.

Keith: Oooh~....

Dino: Nihi, let’s put these on at once☆

Dino: Oooh~! It’s just a hero suit but it does feel better to wear than yesterday!

Dino: Though, I feel more formal than usual in such a close-fitting suit.

Dino: Hey Keith how’re you--

Dino: ……!?

Keith: Mh? What’s wrong?

Dino: Uh, um… your clothes…

Keith: What now. I’m wearing ‘em, yeah?

Dino: You are but… something’s, off…

Dino: We’re supposed to be wearing the same thing, so how can you just casually wear it to the point of it looking that sloppy?

Keith: Haah? You trying to pick a fight or what. S’nothing off about it yeah~?

Dino: ………….

Keith: It’ll be sumn’ else when it turns into our hero suits anyway. I’m fine with this

Dino: …I knew it, that’s what it was.

Keith: Eh…..

Brad: Keith. You bastard, is that how you’re planning to show up at the ceremony?

Keith: Geh, Brad!? What’cha suddenly doing here…

Brad: Sorry, Dino. I ended up being a little late.

Dino: Nah, you’re just on time, Brad

Keith: Wha-... yer in cahoots!? Ain’t that foul now!

Dino: I’d say that about you, you’re ruining your tuxedo by just throwing it on without a single care in the world!

Dino: All you did was fire off complaints, and then suddenly you’re fine with wearing the same as me, like, I just knew something was off. Good thing I called Brad over.

Brad: I’ve heard everything from Dino. Your necktie, shirt, jacket… all of it is remarkably disheveled.

Dino: Let’s hammer into him how to wear it properly!

Brad: Certainly

Keith: Don’t! DON’T come near me…! I got it so I’ll clean my act up! I’ll fix it up---

Keith: OWowowowow!!!!! It’s breaking, it’s breaking!! Yer breaking my baaaack~!!!!

Brad: Your posture is beyond help. First you straighten your spine firmly.

Keith: Hell no no nooouugheeehhh…!!

Brad: Your necktie knot is low too. You need to keep it by your collar.

Keith: Guuuh…T-tight…

Brad: You’re slouching again. If you stick your face out forward, your necktie will suddenly end up being crooked. Imagine that the top of your head is suspended by a thread.

Keith: Uughgughguh…!

Dino: Hang in there Keith!

Keith: Fuck off….! I’ll fucking die if this goes on any longer! Spare me goddamnit!!!!!!

Brad: Don’t whine. I cannot let you show such a disgraceful display in front of the other attendees at the ceremony.

Brad: Dino, hold his posture in place while I adjust his jacket.

Dino: Gotcha!

Keith: Oi cut it out….! GuuaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

----On the day of the opening ceremony.

Keith: ………………….

Dino: Oh, aren’t you looking dapper now. It’s a perfect fit, Keith☆

Dino: If you were going to be sloppy again today I would’ve called Brad over.

Keith: Stop…… If that guy comes over I’ll get suffocated and die on the spot….

Keith: Fucking hell, I’d rather not go through that ever again… Rattling off about civility or whatever, I don’t give a damn ‘bout it

Keith: But, well, in order to not be a nuisance towards the attendees, I’ll keep at it for the ceremony

Dino: Keith……!

Dino: (Yup yup. One way or another, he got the message Brad wanted to convey to him---)

Keith: But once the ceremony’s over I’mma quickly make myself right at home

Dino: Eh……

Keith: And ya can’t talk me outta it. I’ll go all out so it feels all nice and comfy, loose enough to kick back and relax….!

Dino: Ah, haha…. Guess I should ring up Brad after all….

#heliosR #helios rising heroes #keith max #brad beams #dino albani

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idw-sonic-fan-blog · 3 years

Text

The Mandates

Just wanted to share my thoughts on the pro-ported mandates because they cast a shadow on this comic.

“Game characters cannot have relatives unless they were estabilished in the game canon, i.e. Cream and her mother.”

This one is understandable and you can blame Penders for this. Mind you that most licensed comics of gaming franchises don’t actually delve too much in personal family relationships or expand on them. So this is expected and honestly Sega should have put the screws on Archie decades ago about this.

“Game characters can not die. There are workarounds for this, such as being Mistaken for Dying or "Mistaken For Dead”

Again. Yes. Not a big deal.

“Game characters cannot have wardrobe changes unless approved. Chao Races and Badnik Bases has some characters (mainly the female game characters) wear different clothes for extreme conditions. Male characters remain the same.”

This is a useless rule but whatever. I mean Sega, you are the ones putting bad wardrobe choices on the characters so again it’s whatever.

“Sonic can't be shown getting too emotional (i.e;cry)”

This is one that it complained about because it really wouldn’t matter unless it is called attention to. A lot of superheroes don’t cry. But that doesn’t prohibit them from expressing themselves. IDW Sonic has been sad. He has been pissed. He has been furious.

Is this not too emotional?

Is he not expressing himself appropriately?

I don’t even know why this is brought up. When in this comic has Sonic not been expressive or displaying the appropriate amount of emotion? When did Sonic needing to cry be necessary?

“Game characters cannot enter in a relationship.”

Oh GOD YES. Don’t threaten me with a good time.

“All major Character Development must be approved by SEGA.”

Yeah, of course. Let me remind you that Penders and Archie ruined any strand of trust Sega could have in comic media. They played loose at first and all of the sudden, they are involved in a lawsuit about characters in a Sonic comic that they didn’t even know about. They probably lost a video game business relationship because of it. If they want to be involved in the comics, fine. That means that they are now forced to World Build. They have to invest in it now and not just be like Lucas Films and let anybody do anything with their flagship title.

“Much like the post-reboot of the Archie comic, the words "Mobius" is banned—the planet is simply called "Sonic's World". Unlike the Post-Boot, which allowed the names "Mobian" and "Mobini", anything related to Mobius is banned in this comic.”

…Of course but how about you throw the writer’s a bone and I don’t know, name the fucking planet. If it is not Earth, give it a name.

“Sonic must always win at the end. Even if he and his friends are at the losing end in an overarching story (the Metal Virus arc, for example), they must come out on top when it concludes.”

I don’t even get this rule and the knee jerk hatred for it. Why even have it? Why even share the existence of this rule? Archie Sonic didn’t really lose too bad. It’s more on how you frame a victory. The fact of the matter is that Eggman is still actively trying to conquer the planet. Sonic stops him but Eggman still has control of land and has military installations all over.

This rule is offset by this. While Sonic can’t lose, Sonic can’t completely win.

“Characters and material from other licensed properties (Sonic the Comic, Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)', Sonic Underground, the OVA, Sonic X and the Paramount films cannot be used. This rule extends to characters and redesigns done by the current writers. The only exception is Sticks from Sonic Boom, and that's because she was created by SEGA themselves and showed up in non-Boom media, but any ideas regarding her use still need to be okayed by SEGA.”

First off I am glad that Sticks was spared by this rule and I look forward to her eventual inclusion. Second, again, this is not much of a big deal as it was expected. Sorry Freedom Fighter fans but honestly deal.

“Male characters, sans Eggman, can't wear pants, which was also a thing in the Post-Reboot, albeit never explicitly stated. The inverse is also true; female characters have to have some form of lower clothing.”

Okay this is a pedantic rule. It is so weird with how precise it is. Like…huh?

“Classic characters such as Mighty, Ray, Nack/Fang, Bean, and Bark won't appear in non-Classic issues, as Sega doesn't want Classic and Modern Sonic to mix.”

One of the most bullshit mandates fueled by the nostalgia boner fans created. Like this is stupid because Archie Modern Sonic has added more character and depth to all of these mentioned characters than any of the Sega Sonic games they appeared in which only amounts to 1 or 2 at most. Why neuter your own potential stories with this stupid limitation?

“According to Ian Flynn, a specific incident involving Shadow's characterization when he's exposed to the Zombot infection was written in a specific way because of Sega mandating that he be written as an "overconfident asshole rival" character, similar to Vegeta. He later followed up with an explanation that out of every character, Shadow has the most mandates and notes attached to how he's portrayed. According to the podcast, Sega says that Team Dark is no longer a thing. The three members are not a team and they have never worked for G.U.N.; Shadow also doesn't even consider them friends.”

This is my opinion is the worst rule. First it’s contradictory to the character Sega introduced us to. Stop trying to be like Dragon Ball for once and actually be your own thing. It’s one thing if we are changing it because Shadow was unpopular because of his personality. But no one likes this Shadow. People miss the somber but reserved Hedgehog that continued to fight in spite of the world betraying him. Hothead Shadow is a cheap Knuckles. And I don’t even understand why Shadow even has so many mandates when he wasn’t the most egregious offender. Knuckles was.

Also, Team Dark aren’t a thing and Shadow doesn’t even consider them to be his friends. First off that doesn’t even fly in your own games. Who outside of Sonic does Shadow interact the most? Rouge. They have teamed up and were a packaged duo since their inception. When Shadow appeared, Rouge appeared right next to him. If Rouge was in a game, so was Shadow.

Team Dark or just Rouge has fought alongside Shadow in every game they appeared in. Who else does Shadow talk to if not Rouge?

“Sega has stated to Flynn that only male hedgehogs are allowed to go Super with the Chaos Emeralds.”

Except in Sonic Mania.

“Ian isn't allowed to directly reference a game, since the comic is supposed to be its own thing.”

Okay. Not only is this rule stupid. But it’s untrue.

This references the end of Sonic Forces.

The first page of comic.

It has referenced Sonic Adventure, SA2, Sonic Generations , and Sonic Unleashed.

This referencing Shadow the Hedgehog.

I don’t believe this rule exists and even if it did, it is dumbest rule since the whole point of this comic is to base it off the games more. The dumbest rule.

“Knuckles is not allowed to leave Angel Island unless he has a very good reason to.”

For decades, people have complained that Knuckles routinely leaves the island. For decades. Now does this mean Sega is going to 1. Use Knuckles and 2. Amplify the importance of Angel Island and the Master Emerald? No. Again, this criticism should be levied at Sega because they often conveniently forget Knuckles purpose and just hand wave it instead of giving Knuckles more to do on the island like I don’t know, have other entities invested in attacking him.

In summary, here is what I think is going on. Do I think most of these mandates are real? Yes. Given what happened to Archie, I do think Sega is doing some brand alignment. I think they got the clamps on.

But what I think is going on is a Japanese cultural thing called Power Harassment. It is normalized abuse of power. Sega of Japan is normally laxxed about their brands. They don’t mind blatant rip-offs of their mascot nor do they get stiff about fandom creations or mods. The comic division, however, is getting tough love because not only did it cost them a publishing deal, but ruined a relationship with a high end developer. So the IDW writers and staff are being subjected to intentionally hypocritical rules and strict mandates that they know don’t make sense until they’ve shown to be obedient.

A lot of the mandates aren’t strict. But some are so asinine that I don’t think they aren’t aware with how stupid they sound imposing those rules. Like Shadow is the most narratively complete Sonic character and yet, Sega puts this tight mandate as if Archie Shadow was the most egregious thing. Archie Shadow was overpowered. He wasn’t out of character like Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails were. They can’t be that stupid or be that intentionally dense. So they want to see if the writing crew can follow orders. That’s it.

But that’s just my take.

#idw sonic #sonic the hedgehog

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shirophantomvox · 3 years

Text

Hold My Hand- Illumi x Reader

OMG thank you! My first international fan! Thank you for this wonderful prompt! This was requested by @illucilfer .

Summary: Today’s story takes place in a 1950s diner by a frequently used Interstate; Interstate 95. We know this dinner for its delicious hamburgers, hot dogs, milkshakes, and jukebox records, but every night one Patreon never returns home. A few men who were angry about your recent arrest have shot you both. As you both stare at each other exchanging mental signals, everyone around you tries to help you to the hospital. Y/N is narrating the story. I seem to have fewer grammar errors that way. FYI, Bold and italicized font will reference a thought or flashback.

Story Navigation

Let’s get started!

The leaves have turned bright yellow and orange, fluttering every second to the ground. I could hear little children a while away laughing and playing in the community park; throwing up the leaves, jumping into piles, and throwing them at each other. The smell of freshly baked donuts brightened everyone’s mood. All you had to do was take one bite and your face would brighten and crack a smile. Dining at Cupid’s Kitchen will always have your heart and interest.

Interstate 95 was always heavy with traffic during this time of year. The folks of Dallas celebrated mulch annually. The “Mulch Fest” was a street fair that stretched 1.5 miles to the east that contained music, drinks, farmer panels, homemaker Q&A, and other activities that southerners enjoy. Illumi and I are only here because of an unfinished assignment. We have worked night and day for countless days trying to catch Jack “Da Hamor” Gilberton, but he was nowhere to be found. Eventually, I allowed my anger to get the best of me and made the executive decision to take a day off. I barred Illumi from searching, tracking, or any form of hunting for our target. The life of a bounty hunter and an assassin can thrill, but it can drive you insane if you allow it.

Ironically, Illumi and I both enjoy fall. It is perfect for cuddling (although he acts as if he’s too good to cuddle), wearing creative hoodies, going to pumpkin patches, and attending apple orchids. I tend to “lose my cool” when we have dates there. When I was a child, my family did not go on trips like these because they were over an hour away from our home and I had 5 siblings. But once I made money for myself, I made it my mission to go to one at least 5 times out of the year. Illumi enjoys the different fudge, hot cider, and candy apples. He almost broke a tooth on one!

“Say cheese snag-a’-tooth!”

“Stop it. It’s not funny!”

“It is! Could you imagine if you lost your two front teeth? You’d look almost adorable as you did in the 1st grade!”

“How did you know about that?”

“Duh! It happens to everyone, but your mother showed me the pictures, of course.”

“Curses!”

Illumi’s sweet tooth is just like Killua’s; both have a weakness for chocolate. Except, Killua will admit defeat while his older brother keeps denying it.

Cupid’s Dinner has been in Dallas for over 55 years. A black woman established it in 1945 by the name of Mary-Lou Benson. Since then, Mary’s family has been running the shop, making sure all of her customers are happy with the service. During the turn of each season, Cupid’s Dinner gives its customer's food options based on the season. The fall options include donuts, candy apples, different flavored cider, fudge, and hot coffee specials. As much as everything looked appetizing, I could not order it all. Our server, Little Ben, placed our drinks in front of us and handed us the menu. I could tell he was happy with his line of work, just as I was to be with Illumi.

“You all take your time. I’ll be back in five.”

Ilumi glanced on both sides of the room, scanning for Jack Gilberton, already forgetting the agreement we established.

“Illumi, what are you doing?”

“Huh?”

“You keep looking around like you’ve seen Da Hamor. Eat your donut and relax, sweetheart.”

“I cannot relax. I must stay on alert.”

“If I can relax, so can you. It’s not that hard.”

“Fine. If I die, it’s on your head… literally.”

The jingling bell rang almost every second when a customer walked in. It was a joy to everyone's ears; the spirit of Mary Lou-Benson was alive and well. An overwhelming feeling of love seemed to have overtaken the diner. After examining the bistro for quite some time now, each customer had been using their cellphones at the table instead of chatting with their families. Many traditional families hated that about this generation but they should be open to new traditions forming. Illumi dislikes using cell phones or tablets at the table unless we use them for missions. He has emphasized how rude it is to be surfing the web about utter nonsense while someone is speaking. This is a pet peeve of his, something I’ll never step on his toe about. Although I think that is overdoing it, I respect it.

Little Ben served our table quickly, leaving us with two dishes of a classic chicken sandwich, kettle chips, one chocolate, and vanilla milkshake. Milkshakes were my weakness; I nearly foam at the mouth when I see one. When I found out that Illumi had NEVER had a milkshake, I almost fainted.

“No. I’ve never had a milkshake.”

“Huh? You’re missing out, pal.”

“What’s the big deal? Isn’t it frozen milk?”

“Not just frozen milk. You can add many flavors, toppings, and whip cream!”

“Well, then. You’ll have to show me sometime.”

We thanked Little Ben for his service as he clocked out for the day.

“I have to admit these sandwiches look very appetizing.”

“You can say that again!”

Before I nibbled on my sandwich, I wanted to take a moment and adore the man before me; Illumi Zoldyck. A man full of mysteries, professionalism, skill, and talent. His enormous eyes were immersed in the large pieces of chicken in between the sourdough bread. He licked his index finger vigorously; allowing the homemade honey mustard to drip enough from the bread to the plate in between licks. Just the sight of him actually relaxing for once has blown me away. For once, Illumi Zoldyck could be himself and I had the privilege to witness it.

“Um… why are you staring at me? Do I have food on my face,” he asked; violently wiping his mouth off with a provided cloth napkin.

“Oh! Ha, ha; no reason. I wanted to see your reaction after drinking your milkshake. That’s all.”

“Why? It’s just a drink.”

“Whatever you say, babe.”

“Babe? What happened to LuLu or Illumi-Lu?”

I gasped and pretended to be surprised… although I was a little.

“I did not know that you liked those pet names. I assumed it mortified you.”

“Who told you that? That never rolled off my tongue. “What I said was” — He bent closer to the table and to me; glancing both to the right and left to ensure no wandering ears were around — “I prefer Illumi-Lu to be said in the bedroom and LuLu when we’re alone, like how we are right now.”

“Aww…. ok,” I yelled in excitement.

“Don’t blow it out of proportion, alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

As we ate, Illumi hummed along to the tune that played a few times on the restaurant's jukebox. Illumi and I were born in the mid-90s, but listening to 50s music was a part of his aesthetic. I was told that he had an “old soul” which sounds romantic at first until you realize how men were during that era. His raging temper was a noticeable toxic trait, but it has drastically improved. Nonchalantly sipping on his milkshake and then eating more of his chips, he grazed the soft part of his left hand over mine as he continued to hum.

“What’s the name of this song? You seem to know it rather well.”

“Put your head on my shoulder, a famous song from the 60s. I heard my parents sing it once and since then, they have addicted me to it. Do you like it?”

“Yes, in fact, I love it. All of this is—”

“A surprise to you? Well, enjoy it while it lasts because once I find Jack Gilberton, this side of me will hide for a while.”

“Understood.”

Damn! I was just feeling connected to him again!

The music swelled; everyone seemed to be happy. Not an evil spirit insight to disrupt this beautiful moment. For once in my life, my raven-haired beauty actually held my hand tight, stole a few of my barbecue kettle chips, and gazed into my eyes harmlessly. His lips brushed against both of my hands, ever so lightly placing kisses on both sides of them. Illumi’s gentle smile warmed my heart as my lingering thoughts of hope stayed intact.

The welcoming bell jingled again. Two men in black leather jackets, stone-washed blue jeans, and tattooed all over their arms came into the diner. The men seemed to be bikers who had just left their own “spot” but one thing struck me as they continued to walk towards the staff. They both wore sunglasses when the sunset for the day. Not to mention that the lights were not dim in the diner and the moon was as bright as ever. The second man had his eyes glued in my direction. My heart beat faster as I wondered if Jack Gilberton had found us. Could you imagine?

Put your head on my shoulder

Hold me in your arms, baby

Squeeze me oh-so-tight

Show me you love me too

I am used to coming in contact with enemies on my hit list, but given Jack’s criminal history; I felt like I may not survive his attacks. Illumi will survive, but just barely. Both men approached the checkout, crowing over Little Ben’s sister. She was a short woman but full of might, and I could tell by the shakiness in her voice she was frightened. I wanted to step in so badly, but I didn't want to blow my cover just in case it was, in fact, Jack Gilberton. After I assume, ordering food, both men stood by the entrance, blocking it from others from entering and leaving. The sound of their old, beat up-lighters crackled as one lit a joint and the other lit a cigarette. This horrid smell ruined the atmosphere because they were not in a designated area and it drowned out the lovely aroma of the food being served.

“If you gentlemen would like to smoke, you need to go outside. There is no smoking in here.”

“What? You think you’re better than me because you don’t smoke?”

“Huh? I never said that, sir. I asked for you to go outside. Not all of our customers can deal with it.”

They did not move a muscle. The sound of their mucous laughter made everyone’s stomach turn. They laughed at the young girl and called her many slurs. Little Ben’s sister didn’t flinch, nor did she cry; she remained still, staring at the men. I had just enough of their obnoxious behavior.

“If you do not leave, I will call the police.”

“The hell you won’t.”

Put your lips next to mine, dear

Won't you kiss me once, baby?

He drew a gun from his left side. He aimed it at Little Ben’s sister and demanded that she emptied the drawer. She refused. Her stone, iron will reminded me of Illumi; no matter the circumstance, they remained intact, determined to fight until the end. Bravery is always encouraged, but too much will cause your life to be taken away. Little Ben’s sister grabbed a fake till that they kept under the real one and threw it at both men. Fake money fluttered everywhere in the small diner, mimicking confetti. Gunshots rang in all directions as the imbeciles recklessly shot, aiming for Little Ben’s sister. Everyone threw themselves on the ground to avoid being shot, but luck cannot spread itself throughout an entire room of people. A young child, an older man, and another worker were shot in their lower leg. Blood reflected from the ground as it continued to seep. Ignoring injured civilians is a jackass move and continuing to deny the fact would prove that the oath I pledge to meant nothing. Sure, bounty hunters must remain hidden, but if someone is injured, I must help them.

The child was lying lifeless on the polished marble floor. He would not respond to my shaking or my silent whispers. When I rolled him over, my heart broke into a million pieces. This child had no chance of survival; a few bullets struck his chest, one just inches away from his heart. A tear rolled down my cheek.

“Why must the good die young,” I whispered to myself.

“... Because snitches get stitches.”

Before I could gain sight of who stated this utterly corny response, I felt an overwhelming amount of pain in my lower back. It felt like a million tiny needles were jabbed so far through my skin that they entered my intestine. I could still hear, but my body would not move. I tried and tried, but my brain would not signal my legs.

Move! Move, damn it!

It’s odd; I could hear myself talk, but my body would not move at all. The sound of another thudding body made my mind jump. My heart had already been pounding enough to try to resuscitate my organs to move, but a familiar semi-blurring sight of none other than Mr. Illumi Zoldyck cleared my sight. My brain went wild. I didn’t know if Illumi died or if he became paralyzed, but one thing is for sure. We finally made eye contact that felt special; something I hadn’t felt since the day I met him. Our contact felt like magnets; an unbreakable bond. Suddenly, my icy hand felt warmth around my palm and fingers. Illumi simultaneously fell in a way that connected our hands. Our unbreakable bond, the warmth of his fingers laying on top of mine, and the gaze we shared somehow made me feel like it was just the two of us alone. I could hear his thoughts loud and clear; thoughts that came from the heart.

“Please help me. Before it’s too late, LuLu,” I cried, thinking I was going insane. “I don’t want to leave if it means leaving you behind.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”

“Please! I want to live a life. Life as a bounty hunter, build a support system to our children, and a good lover is all I want to be.”

“You are a warrior and so am I. We have been through worse. This is nothing.”

Mere eye contact is all we need to exchange wandering conversations. The bond that we’ve created is something so strong that I haven’t realized it until now. The warmth emitted from his loose grasp seems to lose its effectiveness. It blurred my vision beyond recognition, leaving Illumi as a near figment of my imagination.

“Oh no. I guess this is it.”

My vision darkened. Illumi was slipping away as my lingering thoughts almost made my heart give out from exhaustion. I was ready to accept my fate, but it seemed like fate had other plans. My vision was still darkening by the second, but my sense of touch remained there. Smooth fingers outline my arms, torso, and chest. I heard muffled voices yelling and screaming about calling for assistance, but I didn’t care if they came or not. I made peace with my life’s end. Bit by bit, my breathing slowed down, but my sense of touch remained heightened. I felt a rubber glove touch my face and neck, examining it for any damage.

The jukebox continued to play Illumi’s favorite song, Put Your Head on my Shoulder. I remembered the day I laid my head on his shoulder; boy, what an endearing moment that was. It was something I took for granted, something I should have savored, for I never knew that this moment would have happened. The song grew muffled by the second verse. That verse repeated every time I tried to force myself to take what felt like my last gaze at my raven-haired beauty.

Just a kiss goodnight, maybe

You and I will fall in love (you and I will fall in love)

-FIN.

A/N: Since you’ve made it to the end, I’ll say something. The reader did not die in the end. They were later revived at the hospital.

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bitchapalooza · 4 years

Text

Spain headcanons

• Has never paid taxes in his entire life. He is actively and knowingly committing tax fraud. He acts oblivious but he full well knows what he's doing.

• Can't tell the difference between an orange and a tangerine so he kinda just calls them both fruit balls and hopes people know what he's talking about.

• Owns 7 pairs of crocs. He hides them from France and the Italies when they're over so they don't burn them.

• Cannot spell ICUP.

• "Hey Spain. Spell icup."

• "I C U P P E?"

• "No. Try again."

• "I K U P?"

• "NO!"

• Okay it started out as a joke and now he quite literally is incapable of spelling icup.

• Has a house boat he escapes to when stress gets to be too much.

• Most think he wears pretty tight fitting clothing on purpose, possibly because he's aware of his physic. But really he doesn't like loose clothing. He doesn't like how it rubs and tickles against his skin. Only type of loose garments he can stand are sweat pants and cargo shorts. Baggy short sleeves are an exception.

• He often cuts his own hair. Half of his bangs are almost always cut wrong but he pushes them off to the side so itd be less noticeable.

• Many believe his favorite animal to be the bull or turtle but he favors the Iberian lynx. He just thinks they look absolutely beautiful.

• He believes if he thinks hard enough the dodo bird will magically come back into existence. Has somehow convinced both Prussia and Portugal that it may just work.

• Goes shopping with Belgium every weekend using Netherlands' credit card. Netherlands does not know this. In fact Spain and Belgium have convinced him hes sleep shopping online.

• Spain makes the best smoothies. His secret is alcohal of various kinds.

• Once babysat Sealand. It ended in a boat being sunk and Sealand being banned from Madrid all together. Spain is just happy he no longer has to watch him, even if England paid him a shit ton of money for doing so.

• Many believe he has a wild social life. He goes clubbing, goes on many dates, ect. When really he kinda just lays in bed eating cake while doing paperwork after working in the garden or going to the farmers market to sell his goods for cheap.

• He still uses an mp3 player.

• And a flip phone.

• He has a smartphone but he rarely uses it save for work. He sees no need for it when the only reason he bought a cell phone was to call people, not play games or whatever.

• The back porch on his house was solely built by him! He cut and nailed the wood down and painted it all himself. It took a couple years due to work but he eventually did get it done.

• Absolutely hates kettle corn; the taste and the smell are disgusting to him!

• Does not understand memes and is scared to ask about them. This "grumpy cat" terrifies him and he's nervous to admit it.

• Goes fishing every chance he gets. He loves sitting out there in a boat all on his own. The blissful silence. The calm breeze. Just him. His pole. And hopefully the fish.

• When he was married to Austria, Spain, although he understood it wasn't a romantic marriage in the least (or that he understood/knew of), would bring back gifts Austria may like. It was mostly simple jewlry as he knew the man had an affinity for such shiny trinkets.

• Deathly scared of ferriswheels. Not getting on them. He just thinks they're gonna come loose and roll around out of control!

• But teacups? Uh yeah. He'd rather die than get on those!!!!

• Likes to cloud gaze.

• Has arm wrestled America and won.

• Okay he cheated. He had Canada play ice cream truck music and it successfully distracted America. America calls it unfair. Spain calls it let an old man have his victory.

• Got stuck in his dryer for two days. Called Portugal to help him. Spain wouldn't admit to his stupid mistake of climbing in there so Portugal left him as he mooched from his brother's fridge.

#hetalia #hetalia headcanons #hetalia spain #aph spain #hws spain

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i-lionheart · 3 years

Text

Here for You | Loki x Reader fluff

"There are moments that the words don't reach. There's a grace too powerful to name. We push away what we can never understand; we push away the unimaginable." -Hamilton, "It's Quiet Uptown"

After an emotional night, Loki's partner leaves her Avengers Tower apartment, showing up in need of comfort at Loki's door.

before you read: loki x reader, 1.5k words, reader is afab nonbinary, angst, emotional hurt/comfort, partial nudity (non-sexual), cuddling/spooning, discussion of gender dysphoria, period mention, body dysphoria, discussion of depression, suicidal thoughts, and self harm.

tw: gender dysphoria, period mention, partial nudity (non-sexual), depression mention, suicidal thoughts, self harm mention. @ me if there's anything I forgot.

You padded down the hallway, clutching the stuffed animal and baby blanket that had protected you from your demons since you were a child. Since your apartments were right next to each other, it was only a short distance to Loki's door; when you reached it, you knocked quickly and stood there, anxiously chewing your the inside of your cheek as you waited.

You heard his heavy footsteps crossing the apartment. Though his voice was muffled by the door separating the two of you, the annoyance was unmistakable. "Thor, I told you, I'm-"

He opened the door. His words cut off abruptly as he realized that it wasn't, in fact, his older brother bothering him in the middle of the night. His heart and facial expression melted as he looked you up and down, taking in your disheveled appearance. You stared back at him nervously, unable to verbally express what you needed from him now that he was actually standing in front of you.

Luckily, you didn't have to.

In a heartbeat, Loki had crossed the threshold of his apartment, pulling you into a tight embrace. He pressed your head to his chest and you melted into him, the tears that had escaped you all night finally beginning to flow. "It's all right, darling," he murmured. "It's all right. I'm here now. It's all right."

The two of you stood there for a moment that felt like an eternity, your entire world reduced to the feeling of being in each others' arms, Loki caressing you and whispering soft reassurances. Once the waterfall of your tears had slowed to a mere trickle, Loki said, "All right. You're coming inside." He bent down and hooked one arm under your knees, lifting you into his arms as easily as if you were a child. You squeaked in surprise and buried your head in his chest, eliciting a small chuckle from the trickster god as he carried you into his apartment and eased the door shut behind you. He didn't put you down until the two of you were in his bedroom, when he pulled back the soft covers of his king-size bed and set you gently on the gold satin sheets. He climbed in beside you and pulled the covers up around you both, once again pulling you to his chest.

"You don't have to tell me what's going on," he said, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "But if you want to talk about it, I'm here to listen."

"It's my stupid period," you grumbled into his chest.

"What?" he said. "I thought you haven't had one for months now - didn't Strange get that sorted?"

"Yeah, but the hormones are still a fucking roller coaster."

"You mortals and your pesky bodies," he muttered into your hair. You couldn't help but giggle, despite your sadness. "What is it doing to you this time, darling?'

"Gender," you grumbled. "I'm fine with my body. I like my body. Or at least, most of the time I do, and then my hormones go insane and I hate it."

"Wishing you were a shapeshifter again, hmm?" Loki said. You nodded. "If I could give up my powers to you I'd do it in a heartbeat, dearest." You chuckled, in spite of yourself. "Thanks, babe."

"No problem," he replied. The two of you lay in comfortable silence for a moment, glad to just be in each other's presence. He caressed you gently - your hair, your arms, your back - then paused in confusion when he felt a seam under your shirt. He had never known you to wear a bra under your pajamas, especially given how much you hated to wear them during the day.

"Darling?" he asked, cautiously.

"Hmm?"

"Are you binding right now?"

"Yeah, but it's fine, I-"

"No, it's not," he cut you off sternly. "You know you're not supposed to. It's unsafe."

"Since when do you care about safety?"

"Since you tried to sleep in a binder. Sit up. It's coming off."

"Loki, really-"

"Now. You could do with some skin to skin anyways." His tone left no room for argument. Grudgingly, you pushed yourself into a sitting position, as did he.

"Arms up," he commanded. You rolled your eyes and did as he said, feeling like a toddler who needed their parents' help to get dressed. He lifted your shirt and gently pulled it over your head, then gathered it into a ball and tossed it on his floor. He removed your binder equally gently, careful not let the elastic snap or pinch, and tossed it on the floor on top of your shirt.

"Satisfied?" you said sarcastically.

"Not quite yet." He grasped the collar of the black t-shirt he was wearing and pulled it over his head in one fluid motion, adding it to the pile of clothing on his floor.

Though you had seen it a thousand times, you took in the sight of his chest, drinking in every inch of his skin. He caught your eye as you stared at him, and grinned. You blushed. "See something you like, pet?" he teased.

"Oh, shut up," you retorted as the two of you laid back down, snuggling into him again. He was right - the feeling of his skin, his strong arms wrapped around you, was incredibly soothing.

"I needed this," you murmured.

"I know."

A pause.

"I hate this body so much, sometimes. Like, I'm mostly okay with it, even proud of it, and then..."

You trailed off. He stroked your hair, whispering into it. "Take your time, love, it's all right."

You took a deep breath, gathering your thoughts, and continued shakily. "It's just... sometimes, I look in the mirror, and I look at my face, and I feel so happy - my reflection matches who I am, I look like myself - and then I see my body and I remember and I just..." You swallowed thickly, fighting back tears. "I just want to die, sometimes. I wish I didn't have to exist and face every day in a body that's not mine, I want to hurt it, scar it, make it bleed. Anything to show that it doesn't belong to me, to make it pay. I hate it. And I know I shouldn't hurt myself, I know I gave that up a long time ago, but that urge never leaves. I hate it, I hate it so much. I know it's not right, but that voice never goes away, it just gets quiet enough to ignore until the next time something triggers it and I have to fight it again. It never stops, Loki. Never." Your tears were flowing freely now. You took a shuddering breath. "I'm just so, so tired of always fighting. I want peace. But I don't think I'll ever have it."

"Oh, pet." he said softly. "How long were you feeling like this before you came to get me?"

"Hours," you admitted, feeling small.

"Oh, darling," he said. You heard the pain in his voice, and knew that what he really meant was I'm sorry.

"It's going to be okay," he said, voice ever so tender, tracing wandering patterns on your skin. "I know it's hard, but you are strong. You are a fighter, and you will make it through this. I promise you. And I will do everything I can to help."

"Really?"

"Really, dearest. You never have to face this alone again. I'm right by your side. In fact, this settles it. You're moving in with me. Tomorrow."

"What?" You pulled away from him, startled, and looked up to see dead seriousness on his face.

"What about it, pet? You practically live here already."

"Loki, the others can barely accept the fact that we're together. We can't move in together. Tony will have a heart attack."

Loki grinned wickedly. "Good."

You slapped his arm playfully, scolding him. "No, it's not good. If Tony had a heart attack, the arc reactor would probably flatten half of Manhattan." He chuckled appreciatively. "Why's it so pressing for me to move in, anyway? Most days you hardly spend a second without me."

He paused, giving you a long, searching look. "Isn't it obvious?

"No." You looked away, avoiding the discomfort of his scrutiny.

"Look at me." You didn't move. He reached out and cupped your face in his large hand, lifting your chin. "Look at me, dearest," he repeated, softer this time. You tore your eyes away from the empty space you had fixed them on and looked at him, afraid of what you'd see. He looked back at you tenderly, eyes full of compassion and the thing you had been most afraid of seeing.

Love. His eyes were full of love.

"You spent an unnecessarily long time tonight fighting this alone, because I wasn't with you. I wasn't there to help you when you needed me." He stroked your cheek with his thumb, voice tight with emotion. "I cannot let that happen again."

"Loki," you breathed. "You care that much?"

"Oh, darling, of course I do," he said. "Of course I do. And I promise that you will never have to face these thoughts alone again."

if you enjoyed this fic, please consider reblogging so this work can find other people who might enjoy it!

#ask to tag #tw/cw - read descrip before reading #loki x reader #loki x you #loki imagine #loki (marvel)#mcu loki #fluff #tw sui mention #tw sh mention #tw depression #tw periods #tw dysphoria #tw gender dysphoria #tw gender confusion #tw nudity #cuddling #spooning

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ibijau · 3 years

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Futures past pt1 / On AO3

Nie Huaisang, sitting cross legged on his bed, tilted his head. It was a rather warm early evening in spring, and he had been getting ready for bed, so he was wearing only his inner clothes, and his hair was done in quick and messy braids so they wouldn’t get tangled during the night. Since he hadn’t been expecting anyone save perhaps his brother, if Nie Mingjue felt in the mood to shout at him for skipping practice again, his room was an awful mess, the floor covered in copies of some prints he’d bought recently. Tasteful prints, at least, not that it would have shocked his visitor too much if it had been porn, he guessed.

“I think I should scream,” Nie Huaisang said without conviction.

“But you won’t because you’re too curious,” Nie Huaisang retorted.

At least, Nie Huaisang thought that was himself. The man who had suddenly appeared in the middle of his room had his eyes, his nose, his lips, his general shape of face, even if his jaw was much sharper. He dressed well, in the sort of ornate styles Nie Huaisang absolutely would do if his brother weren’t forcing him to be reasonable, had a gorgeous fan in his hand, and wore an elaborate guan in his hair, the perfect picture of a rich and refined scholar. He didn’t even bother carrying a sabre, which Nie Huaisang found very satisfying for some reason.

“I don’t have time to play games,” the older man announced, opening his fan with an elegant yet disdainful gesture that his younger self hoped to reproduce someday. He supposed he would, in time. “I am you, from the future. A little over twenty years, if you must know, and it is not a pretty sight here. Some people are going to make a mess of things and while I’ve done what was needed to right every wrong, I don’t see why I shouldn’t try to prevent those wrongs.”

Nie Huaisang hunched up, one elbow on his leg, his chin resting in the palm of his hand.

“I don’t think you’re me. I wouldn’t ever put that much effort into anything. Good try on the disguise though. It’s a bit rude you didn’t make me taller, but it is a good detail, it really sells it.”

The man threw him a disgusted look. “Sometimes, I understand why da-ge ended up like this,” he muttered. “I really was insufferable. Listen up. When you were seven, you stole da-ge’s favourite robes, the set he always wore to go to conferences. You thought they were the prettiest thing you’d ever seen, and you wanted to try them on and pretend you were, against all evidence, as great as da-ge. You wore them for less than an incense stick’s time before dropping ink on them. They were completely ruined, in spite of your efforts, so you just burned them.”

Nie Huaisang startled so badly he half fell on his side, before scrambling toward the back of his bed, suddenly terrified. That incident happened years before, and he’d never told anyone. Nie Mingjue had been furious for weeks. To that day, Nie Huaisang still didn’t know how he hadn’t been discovered… but it was something only he knew, something he’d never shared with anyone.

He stared at this cold, distant man in front of him, with his venomous eyes and disdainful air, and didn’t like what he saw. How could that be his future?

Guessing his thoughts, the man smiled.

“Da-ge dies in a few years,” he announced, startling Nie Huaisang again. “It’s tragic, and cruel, and we’re going to do everything we can to avoid it. You’re going to help, of course.”

So shocked he couldn’t breathe, Nie Huaisang weakly nodded.

It seemed impossible that his brother could ever die, least of all that he might die in the twenty years to come. He would have said the same of his father once, certainly, but his father was well into his sixties already, and anyway he was murdered so it was not the same.

Nie Huaisang gasped and grabbed his pillow, hugging it tight against his body for comfort, as if he weren’t already fifteen and far too old for that.

“When you say da-ge dies, you mean… he’s going to be killed by someone,” Nie Huaisang guessed, curling up on himself, hoping to be wrong.

The expression on the face of that man he would become softened.

“Maybe you’re not hopeless,” he said. “Maybe all I needed was a chance to do a little more… Yes, he’s going to be murdered. Or he would be murdered. We won’t let it happen. You won’t let it happen. I’m only here for a little time, it’s not easy to come here, but I’m hoping to return in a few months if all goes well.”

Something relaxed in Nie Huaisang’s shoulders. It seemed his brother’s death wasn’t something that would happen in the very near future then. That was a relief, when Nie Huaisang was about to leave home and go study for a year in the Cloud Recesses. From all the way down south, it would have been difficult to protect Nie Mingjue.

“So, what am I supposed to do then?” Nie Huaisang asked, still clutching his pillow. “You’d know I’m not much good at anything, so why aren’t you trying to warn da-ge directly? Oh, or am I the only one who can see you?”

“I’m… not sure if others can see me,” the man admitted, hiding behind his fan at that admission, exactly as Nie Huaisang did when embarrassed. “And I don’t have enough time to experiment. Besides, da-ge is so stubborn, he wouldn’t trust a stranger so easily. He can’t be blackmailed over a burned robe.”

“Rude!”

“That’s what you get for calling me short. Now come over here, grab something to write. I don’t want you to forget any of this, and I know how your memory is. Hurry!”

Nie Huaisang reluctantly let go of his pillow, and hopped down from the bed, grumbling the whole time. What was the point of being sent to the Cloud Recesses if he ended up becoming a man with such dreadful manners?

He grabbed a brush, hastily prepared some ink, and sat on the floor before looking up at his future self, waiting for instruction like a sullen child forced to listen in class.

“The first thing you need to know,” the man before him said, “is that there’s going to be a war with Qishan Wen.”

“Duh,” Nie Huaisang retorted, rolling his eyes. He wasn’t the brightest person in the world, but even he could guess as much. “Is that how da-ge dies?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. As if even Wen Ruohan could do anything to him!” his older self said, with a mix of disdain and pride. “Da-ge becomes a war hero, of course. But that war is what will eventually cause his death. Not that it matters yet, you have about two years and a half before the war starts, so…”

Nie Huaisang dropped his brush with a gasp, splattering ink over his sheet of paper.

“Two years? The war is in just two years?”

His older self clicked his tongue impatiently.

“Focus! This is irrelevant right now! What matters is taking measure so certain things don’t happen during that war. Now, the most important would be…”

He paused, looking down at Nie Huaisang. The longer he stared, the more annoyed the older man appeared. That look of frustration was one Nie Huaisang was quite used to, especially coming from his elders, but also sometimes from people of his own generation. He usually didn’t mind, though just a week before one kid half his age had looked at him like that over his posture during sabre practice, and that had stung a little, to be honest.

More often than not, people would accompany that exasperated stare with a ‘what will we do with you?’ and though his older self didn’t say the words, he was clearly thinking them.

“There’s a boy, living in Yunping City, named Meng Yao,” the man announced, before giving a number of details about that boy, such as the name of his mother, the address where he might be found, his age, his looks, and plenty other things. Nie Huaisang wrote it all down, and even doodled a very quick portrait based on that description, to which his older self nodded, looking nearly approving for a moment. Before Nie Huaisang could enjoy that, the man turned grim again. “You have to find this boy, and make sure he doesn’t join Lanling Jin. Do you understand? No matter what, Meng Yao cannot join Lanling Jin. If he does, there will be great risk to da-ge.”

There was an odd inflection on that cannot. Or at least, it was odd to hear it coming from himself, because it was the tone of voice people had when saying it’d be a shame if Wen Ruohan choked on his next meal, or if Jin Guangshan’s dick got chopped off by a demon on a Night Hunt.

But that Meng Yao was just a boy, just a few months older than Nie Huaisang himself. Even if he became a danger in later times, for now there was no way he could harm anyone. And even if he couldn’t join the Jin, there might be other sects, if he was so determined to be a cultivator. Maybe he could even be brought into Qinghe Nie, if he had real talent. Nie Mingjue didn’t care much what people’s origins were as long as they worked hard, though it was an opinion not everyone in the clan shared. It’d be a great way to kill two birds with one stone.

“Is he going to be a problem soon?” Nie Huaisang asked. “Only, it’s not like I can travel on my own, and Yunping City is pretty far from Gusu anyway, and…”

“A few weeks after your arrive, Jiang zongzhu invites Lan Qiren and his nephews to help him with a creature that causes problems near Yunping City,” his older self announced, lazily fanning himself. “I didn’t go, personally, but I’m sure you could find a way to go along. You’ll have to, it’s your best chance. Speaking of which…” he closed his fan with a sharp gesture and pinched the bridge of his nose with an exasperated sigh. “You have to get Lan Xichen to trust you in the future, so take this year in Gusu as a chance and become the best friend he’s ever had.”

Nie Huaisang nearly dropped his brush again and grimaced.

“Oh. Do I really have to? I mean, he’s so…”

He made a vague hand gesture, words failing him to describe Lan Xichen.

Lan Xichen wasn’t a bad person. That wasn’t it. He was, in fact, very good, everyone said so. He was smart, and polite, and well educated, and amazing with cultivation, and with martial arts, and… and he was just so boring. He was, without a doubt, the most boring person Nie Huaisang had ever met. He was always too careful when speaking, too serious, too perfect, too much exactly how grown ups thought boys their age should act. He was an old man’s idea of a young man. He was really, really boring and while Nie Huaisang was very glad his brother had at least one friend, he was very judgmental toward Nie Mingjue for having chosen such a person for a companion.

If his older self’s dark expression was anything to go by, Lan Xichen’s personality didn’t look like it improved much in the future.

“I wouldn’t do this if there was another choice,” the man said. “But if da-ge couldn’t properly burn bridges with san-ge, then it’s pointless to try driving him away from er-ge, they’re too close. So you’ll have to do what’s needed to save da-ge, and become friends with Lan Xichen. It is vital. We’re going to do what we can so da-ge doesn’t die, but if it still comes to pass, you’ll need allies and I suppose that’s at least one thing he might be good for. Let’s see if he really meant what he said that time,” Nie Huaisang’s future self muttered somberly. “I don’t expect anything to come of this, but it can’t hurt.”

“But I don’t want to be friends with him,” Nie Huaisang grumbled.

“Good, because he won’t be your friend,” the man retorted coldly. “Don’t get attached to him, he’s not worth it. But make sure to become someone he’ll fully trust. Make yourself dearer to him than even da-ge is. Nothing less than that will do.”

That sounded even more difficult and boring than actually becoming friends with Lan Xichen, Nie Huaisang thought. He pouted at the perspective of such a daunting task, wondering if he really loved his brother enough to put so much effort into saving him.

“I don’t even know how to become close to Lan gongzi!” he whined. “He doesn’t like anything interesting, he’s the most boring person in the world! How do I…”

“Figure it out!” his older self snapped. “Do you think I’d be here if I knew how to deal with him? Besides, I’m running out of time already. I’ll try to return to you a month after Qingming, when the spell has recharged. It should be before the Night Hunt in Yunping City, but you’ll need to have made progress with Lan Xichen already. Remember that we’re doing this for da-ge!”

Before Nie Huaisang could protest, the man standing before him suddenly disappeared, leaving no trace of his presence. It would have been easy to think it nothing but a dream, if not for that detailed list of information about that Meng Yao from Yunping City. Even like that, it really was unsettling, and Nie Huaisang stayed frozen in place for a long while, kneeling on the floor, staring at a list about a boy he was maybe supposed to kill. It seemed like complete madness, and maybe he should have ran to his brother, explained everything to him, except…

Except there had been such pain in his older self’s voice every time he spoke of Nie Mingjue, and his anger at having failed to protect their brother in his own life had been obvious. Something had happened there. Something he hadn’t even explained, Nie Huaisang suddenly realised. His older self hadn’t told him how their brother died, and how could he convince Nie Mingjue that he might be in danger when he didn’t even know who would strike him, or when?

It might be better to wait then. After all, Nie Huaisang’s older self had said that Nie Mingjue would be a great hero in a future war, and that war wouldn’t start for over two more years. Until then, Nie Huaisang might as well try to meet that Meng Yao when he had the chance, and he would also (he shivered in distaste) try to see what could be done about Lan Xichen. Having come to that conclusion, Nie Huaisang carefully folded the sheet of paper containing his notes about Meng Yao, and put it away. He then cleaned his brush, put some order around him, and finally went to sleep.

His last thought was that next time, when his older self returned, he would definitely ask more details about Nie Mingjue’s death.

In the days that followed that encounter with his future self, Nie Huaisang made efforts to be a better brother. He still wasn’t sure how much he believed about that encounter he’d had, but it certainly made him quite sentimental to realise that Nie Mingjue would die someday. It was clear that there would be a war soon after all, whether it happened when his future self said it would or not, and people certainly tended to die during conflicts.

So as he finished preparing for his rapidly approaching stay in Gusu, Nie Huaisang tried to fully enjoy his brother’s company and commit every moment spent together to memory, in case something happened.

A very noble sentiment, except his brother was a complete pain in the ass.

If Nie Huaisang hugged him, Nie Mingjue asked him what he’d broken this time, or what favour he was about to request. If Nie Huaisang suggested they spent more time together, Nie Mingjue just took him to the training grounds and forced him to practice the sabre, or even worse tried to spar with him, which was cruel and barbaric.

Nie Mingjue was the absolute worst person in the entire world, and while Nie Huaisang was still going to try his best to keep him alive, he wasn’t sure why.

Because Nie Mingjue was so unbearable and annoying and unable to appreciate his brother’s immense kindness, Nie Huaisang found it a relief of sorts when he finally left for the Cloud Recesses.

The trip itself was nothing memorable. Nie Huaisang spent most of it wishing he had a golden core so he could fly his sabre and go faster than this carriage, or trying to figure out how he was supposed to befriend the oh-so-boring Lan Xichen. By the time he and the disciple accompanying him reached Gusu, he still hadn’t found an answer to that problem. He would have to figure it out on the fly then.

The carriage was left at the foot of the mountain where the Cloud Recesses laid, and the long trek by foot started. Nie Huaisang, adverse to any unnecessary physical effort, found that he didn’t actually mind too much going up the mountain. The landscape was so exquisite there, every turn of the path revealing something worth painting. On the few occasions he’d been there before to accompany his brother at conferences, he’d always admired how Gusu Lan had found such an amazing place to live in, and promised himself he’d make the best of things if he ever got to come study there. He would have forgotten to bring his sabre if Nie Mingjue hadn’t packed it for him, but his luggage was full of paper of the highest quality, and it wouldn’t be used to take notes.

At the gate of the Cloud Recesses, Nie Huaisang and his brother’s disciple had to wait to be brought in. Because he was a somewhat more important guest than some of the other visiting disciples, Nie Huaisang was greeted by Lan Qiren in person, his eldest nephew in tow.

While Lan Qiren guided him inside and explained a number of rules he didn’t intend to follow, Nie Huaisang couldn’t help observing Lan Xichen with more attention than he’d ever done before. He was somewhat handsome, if you liked that sort. A little tall and gangly, though it was less jarring when he wasn’t hanging out with Nie Mingjue who was older and had fully finished growing. Nie Huaisang figured that hanging out with him would at least give him something nice to look at, even if he didn’t expect the two of them to ever find much to talk about.

“And this is where you will be staying,” Lan Qiren announced when they arrived in front of a small house. “We will let you get settled and rest from your trip. If you have any requests…”

“I’d love a tour of the Cloud Recesses!” Nie Huaisang said without thinking, then turned to look at Lan Xichen. “Lan gongzi, would you please give me a tour? I’m sure there’s no one who could do it better than you.”

Since they had never spoken much before, Nie Huaisang had of course expected that Lan Xichen would be a little surprised over such a request. But Lan Xichen wasn’t just surprised, he was shocked, his eyes opening wide and his face growing pale, as if Nie Huaisang had just grown a second head and announced he’d be feeding on the blood of infants. Lan Xichen’s polite smile even dropped for a moment, though of course it quickly returned. In a moment, he had regained perfect control of himself, but Nie Huaisang was still puzzled and entertained by that extreme reaction.

“I’m glad Nie gongzi thinks well of me,” Lan Xichen said calmly. “But I am sure I can find someone better suited to give you a tour.”

“But I want it to be you,” Nie Huaisang insisted, pretending not to notice the other Nie disciples glaring at him for already causing problems on his first day. “It’d be nice if it were you. Da-ge always says you’re so clever and knows so many things, so I really want you to be my guide.”

Lan Xichen appeared to hesitate. Nie Huaisang braced himself for rejection. He hadn’t expected to have his caprice granted anyway, and just wanted to throw it out there that he was going to be pestering Lan Xichen in the future. Then, to his surprise, the older boy nodded.

“Very well. I will give you a tour this afternoon, Nie gongzi,” Lan Xichen said. “I have no urgent obligations, and it is the least I can do for a friend’s relative. Unless shufu has objections?”

Lan Qiren had none. The Nie were left to settle down, promised lunch would be brought to them soon, and then Lan Xichen would come in the early afternoon to show Nie Huaisang around, while someone else would do the same for the other Nie disciples. It was a great plan, a great occasion for Nie Huaisang to gain Lan Xichen’s favour as instructed… and it sounded impossibly boring.

All too soon, the time for that tour came. Nie Huaisang, unhappy with their too simple accomodations and the unappealing meal they had been served, was not in a great mood when Lan Xichen knocked on the door. He had been in the Cloud Recesses less than half a day, and already the place disappointed him.

To his credit, Lan Xichen wasn’t a bad guide. He made sure to match his pace to Nie Huaisang’s as they walked, he had something to explain about nearly every building, and patiently repeated the most important rules of life in the Cloud Recesses which Nie Huaisang had ignored when Lan Qiren gave them. It was easier to listen to Lan Xichen than to Lan Qiren anyway, there was a certain warmth to his voice that his uncle simply lacked. Lan Xichen could probably have made a lecture sound like a conversation. It would have been a very lovely time, if Nie Huaisang had cared about any of that, which he didn’t. Everything in the Cloud Recesses was about cultivation and rules, which was nearly as boring as the Unclean Realm where everything was about cultivation and martial arts.

“And what do you do for fun here?” Nie Huaisang desperately asked after a while when Lan Xichen explained that a certain building was meant to enhance the effects of meditation.

“The library is that way,” Lan Xichen announced.

“Does it have anything fun, or is it only cultivation treaties?”

“We collect poetry and history treaties as well,” Lan Xichen said. “And music sheets, of course,” he added after a moment, looking uncomfortable. “I… are you much interested in music, Nie gongzi?”

Nie Huaisang shrugged. “No, but I guess it’s better than cultivation, as far as fun things go. I’m supposed to learn the guqin at some point, but it’s hard to find the time, and da-ge prefers that I focus on the sabre.”

“Qinghe Nie has traditionally been more focused on martial arts,” Lan Xichen noted. “Though since you are here, perhaps you might enjoy trying different things. You are here to learn after all.”

Nie Huaisang stared at the older boy with surprise. Up until then, Lan Xichen had never seemed to care what Nie Huaisang did or didn’t do, and he never contradicted Nie Mingjue whenever his friend complained about having a lazy little brother who wasn’t interested in the things he ought to have been interested in. Without being sure, Nie Huaisang suspected that Lan Xichen thought him a little stupid, and just not very skilled in general.

“Maybe it’s worth a try,” Nie Huaisang mused. “I do like music a lot. My father used to say I have a good ear for it. Not like da-ge. He wouldn’t know one melody from another even if his life depended on it!”

“Is that so,” Lan Xichen weakly replied, turning very pale, as if he might faint.

“Lan gongzi, are you unwell?”

“It’s nothing important,” Lan Xichen said, smiling again in that annoying manner of his. “Let’s continue walking. I think you really might like the library, and then… it wouldn’t be part of a normal tour, but would you like me to show you the way to the back hills if we have time? I remember your brother mentioning that you like birds, and there are many to be seen there.”

“That would be lovely,” Nie Huaisang agreed, surprised and delighted by that offer. It was likely that Nie Mingjue had just been complaining about that particular hobby of his, as he so often did, but if Lan Xichen had translated that into something positive, Nie Huaisang was glad. “Do you like birds as well, Lan gongzi?”

“I’ve never paid them much attention,” Lan Xichen admitted. “I suppose they are fine creatures.”

That, clearly, was all he had to say on the subject. It was a very boring answer, Nie Huaisang thought. But then, Lan Xichen really was a boring person, so that was no surprise. Nie Huaisang thus dropped the topic, and forced himself to pay some degree of attention as Lan Xichen resumed talking about the history of the Cloud Recesses.

At least, the library really did seem quite interesting, aside from all the cultivation texts. And since they actually managed to check the back hills for a little bit before dinner, Nie Huaisang had the pleasant surprise to find that there were a great many birds there, as well as plenty of spaces to explore, and quite a few vistas to paint.

Getting along with Lan Xichen was going to be so boring, but at least the rest of his stay could be turned into something quite fun.

#xisang #nie huaisang #lan xichen #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #double time travel #jau writes

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anistarrose · 4 years

Text

hello, my love (ao3)

a slightly late @taznovembercelebration fic for the day 19 prompt “established relationship,” albeit in possibly the least conventional sense of the phrase. in other words, this is the culmination of a lot of Blupjeans feelings I couldn’t not write about any longer

It — it feels wrong to say I’ll miss you, but —

No, I get it. It’s gonna be so fucking weird, and I — I know it won’t last forever —

Okay, I — I can’t do it like this. Not if we make it sad. Lup, I love you so much, you know you’re the light of my life and undeath…

Of course, babe.

…and I’ll see you soon.

The world Barry wakes up in is tinted green, obscuring everything besides a few ill-defined silhouettes. His limbs are numb at first, but as… red sparks? run down his arms, the feeling returns as a strange sort of weightless sensation, like he’s floating beneath the surface of a lake.

A few bubbles escape from his nose, and oh shit, he really is submerged in something. Before he can even wonder which way is up, his hand grazes something that immediately tears away — and with it drains out the mystery green liquid, which he’s just going to pretend is water. He staggers onto the floor of a cave, blinking rapidly as he adjusts to the light. It’s definitely a cave; he can feel the cool air on his skin and the bare rock beneath his feet — so why is it so bright?

The answer arrives in the form of a voice, whose owner becomes a little more visible to him with each blink of his eyes.

“Care for a towel? Actually, I’m giving you one whether you want it or not, ‘cause if you die of hypothermic shock after everything we’ve gone through to get here, that’s just gonna be awkward.”

She’s beautiful, he knows before he can truly see evidence of the fact. There’s so much care in her voice that her joke can’t disguise, and the towel she slings over Barry’s shoulders is warm, but not as warm as her hands. This feels like the correct moment to freak out over being, as far as Barry can tell, completely buck naked aside from the generous towel gift — but instead, his attention is captivated by his companion, who in complete contrast to himself, seems to be more clothes than body as she comes into focus.

It doesn’t feel right to say she’s wearing her red robe — it’s more like she embodies it, as it moves subtly to indicate her posture, her emotions, rather than to conceal them. What little of her that isn’t a robe is ablaze, but not violently — if Barry only had one word to describe her, he would simply say warm.

Her eyes are negative space amidst the flames, darkness where one would expect unbridled light, but there’s nothing sinister about them — more of a fascination, if anything, evident as she locks her gaze with Barry’s.

He’s been staring, hasn’t he? And she’s been staring at him.

He expects the sheer embarrassment of this whole situation to catch up to him any second, but it just doesn’t hit him. There’s nothing uncomfortable about sharing the room with her.

“Hi,” he says, giving a little wave. “I don’t know how I got here, but… I like your robe.”

She bursts into laughter, illuminating the cave in an ever-changing pattern of red, orange, and pink — and Barry can’t help but wonder if there are a few tears in the mix too, given how hard it is to tell on a face made out of fire.

“Oh, babe. Oh, Barry. Of course you would.” She brings a spectral finger to Barry’s face, evaporating a droplet of water with a single touch, but the warmth that rushes to Barry’s cheeks has nothing to do with the temperature of her hands, only her touch itself. “Sit tight for a second, babe. I’m gonna grab something you’ll like.”

Babe? He’s paralyzed for a few seconds, the word echoing in his head as she floats across the room, sifting through piles of scrolls, jeans, and miscellaneous other items that couldn’t be further from naturally occurring in caves. Does she know me? Does she like me?

He’s finished drying himself off by the time she returns, holding a second red robe — and a corporeal one, no less. She drapes it over Barry’s shoulders, and he slips his arms into the sleeves without thinking twice.

It’s cozy, but something about looking down at himself wearing it brings a fuzziness to his mind that’s not nearly as comfortable as the fuzziness of the fabric. He focuses his gaze on the ghostly woman instead — who makes his mind turn to static in her own right, but in a way that’s more than balanced out by the joy of just looking at her.

“See, we both look good in red,” she says with a wink, and Barry feels the temperature of his face rise another degree or two. He’ll wind up on fire like she is, at this rate. “You’ll want to sit down. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. Um, I think… I might be just a tiny bit amnesiac? Like, just a little. ‘Cause I know who I am, but you sound like you know me, and I don’t know you.”

He takes a deep breath, and decides there’s no harm in admitting what she’s surely already noticed. He’s been too confused to try and be subtle. “Also, I definitely just fell in love with you a couple orders of magnitude faster than I thought I’d ever fall in love with anyone, so that’s, uh… cool, but weird?”

The lower half of her face brushes his forehead — not quite solid, but not unpleasant — and he realizes just as soon as it’s over that it must’ve been a ghostly kiss.

“We were gonna ease you into the ‘us being in love and you losing your memories’ thing,” she tells him with a chuckle, and Barry’s too giddy to even wonder what she means by we. “Lay out the groundwork first. We should’ve known better.”

“My bad?” Barry blurts out, and that makes her laugh even harder, until embers are dripping from her eyes like glistening teardrops.

“Oh my god. This must — this must be so much for you, babe, so much to take in. How are you doing it? How are you — taking this so in-stride, and still sounding so much like you, I mean?”

“I mean… I wouldn’t know,” Barry admits. It is so much to take in, and he knows that if he’d woken up here all alone, with no idea how he’d arrived, then he’d be a mess by now — and not the hopeless romantic kind. As it is, he’s holding it together, trying not to think about his headache and taking comfort in the more pleasant of realizations — but he’s still adrift and disoriented, clinging to a figure he can’t remember his reason for trusting. “It — it doesn’t quite feel real, to be honest? Like, I — I believe you, I believe that I loved you — but it’s the forgetting that gets me…”

He can see himself falling in love, but he can’t see himself falling in this kind of love quickly. This soaring feeling in his heart could only be propelled by years of incremental intimacy, years that he can remember none of, years that don’t exist according to the static roaring inside his head. “How could I forget all this?”

She hugs him in a way unlike any hug he can remember, overlapping with the space he occupies until he’s engulfed in gentle flames, and the threads of her robe feel like they’re what’s doing the hugging, having reformed and rewoven themselves around his arms. Not knowing how else to embrace her back, Barry wraps his arms around his own chest, and feels her presence grow warmer still.

He can just barely wrap his mind around the thought that the warmth coming from his own chest might be borne of subconscious familiarity.

“You still have a big obvious head-over-heels crush on me, don’tcha?” she teases, her laughter surrounding him. “Nothing can make you forget that.”

“Yeah, every version of me’s a hopeless romantic. We’ve got that,” Barry admits. “But I — I don’t even remember your name —”

He would know it if he heard it, he’s sure; it’s so close to the tip of his tongue that he’d probably blurt it out instinctively, if only he didn’t always think so hard about his words before saying them. It’s so tantalizingly close, and he wants to know it again, to say it again, more than any other favor the universe could grant him, and doesn’t the universe owe him at least this much —

“Well, I know how to fix that.” She withdraws from the hug, remaining at his side. “And I think it’ll help if you hear it from yourself — if you hear all the truth we can give you, that is.”

She extends a hand, and a simple golden coin flies across the room to land in her palm. It’s embossed with a vaguely familiar rune that Barry can’t translate, but his mind really starts to reel when she places the coin in his hand, and he hears his own voice emanate from it:

Your name is Barry Bluejeans. You are afraid of the dark. Your very favorite thing in the world is swimming in very cold water on a very hot day, but you cannot remember who taught you to swim, or why you’re always so much more scared of the dark at the end of the year.

The beautiful undead woman next to you is named Lup, and as much as it pains you to realize, you have forgotten her, too. There are fundamental truths about the world, about your loved ones, and about yourself that you have been blocked from comprehending — you’ve had more stolen from you than you realize, and there are very few ways to undo it.

Barry, I’m you just moments ago, and I’m about to forget so much. But right now, I remember, and Lup can help you remember too.

Another voice joins the recording — Lup herself, who sounds just slightly different than she has today, just a little less burdened.

If you haven’t guessed from how this nerd talks about me — Her words are punctuated by an affectionate grumble from Barry — we’ve been dating longer than you can imagine. I wish we could just —

You also can’t remember that Lup’s as much of a nerd as you are, Barry, his past self interrupts. You met because you were both nerds.

Oh, come on, you’ll still be smart enough to figure that one out by yourself! But like I was saying, we had a hell of an epic love story I wish we could just tell you — but you wouldn’t be able to understand much of it, and you’d get a headache trying.

So, Barry adds, we thought about what would be the next best thing. And I think we got a pretty good idea.

A classical music piece fades in, beginning with a piano but quickly adding a violin. Barry can’t put a title or a context to the tune, but he recognizes it from the first note and starts tearing up by the third. His fingers tap out a pattern in sync with the piano part before he even realizes they’re doing it, and when he closes his eyes to let the music wash over him, he realizes that the Lup of the present, the Lup at his side, is almost imperceptibly humming along with the violin.

“You’ll remember this again,” she promises, choking up, when the tune eventually fades. “One day.”

Already, the music has stirred ghosts of memories, fleeting emotions, that Barry can almost imagine in context — quiet moments, private conversations that no one could rip away from him because no one else but Lup ever knew they’d happened — and that day feels close, reassuringly so.

Like him falling for Lup again, it feels like an inevitability.

#taz #taz balance #blupjeans #barry bluejeans #lup taaco #taz balance spoilers #taz november celebration #taznc #rosalia writes fic

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