#i think a lot of us have wondered who that grave he visited belongs to

[12am-motivation]

Anyone else thought about Solomon's first skill animation when they saw this part of OM!N's MV? Since the Tears banner also had Lucifer's fall and all

(Credits to @elopawa and @antiomnia for the GIFs)

[alara-kahya]

"Things end, that's all. Everything ends, and it's always sad. But everything begins again, and that's always happy." - 12th Doctor.

Self Para: Post break-up, 3 days later. Involved: Jayden Cross (deceased), her mom & Kian. Mentions: Nate Donovan & Emiri Tezel. Location/s: Cemetery & her home. Triggers: Death, grief, heartache.

"So, yeah, that's it. Sorry to come and bring bad news, I just... Well, selfishly I guess I thought it would help." Sighing as she sat on the ground in front of Jayden's grave, she tucked her knees into her chest and decided to just wallow for a minute. It was day three since Nate had walked out and aside from this right here, she hadn't told anyone. Not her mom, not even Emiri. What was she supposed to say? "I don't know how to talk about it with anyone else, or maybe I'm just scared to." Yeah, that felt more accurate. Alara had worked so incredibly hard over the years to shape herself into a strong and confident woman, it was difficult for her to show that she was still capable of being hurt. "I know what you'd say, I even know what you'd do, you would hug me and tell me to call my mom. Actually, you'd probably call her yourself. You can't beat a hug from your mom." She chuckles, saying something that Jayden used to say about her mother. Honestly, he was as close to an adopted child as her mom had, it broke her too when he died.

The soft laugh soon turned into a sniffle and before she knew it, she was choking back a sob and desperately wiping at the tears that spilled over her eyes. "How did I let this happen again," she puffed out a breath, still somehow laughing between crying, though it was far from a place of amusement. "I did what you always wanted me to do and I took a chance. Now look at me, right back to square one and you're not even here for me to say it's all your fault." Joking, but the words only made her miserable. "I feel like a fool, I really thought if I just kept patience, he'd find his moment and talk to me. Now I'm wondering if I should have pushed harder? And then I hate myself for thinking this could be my fault, because it isn't, is it? I gave him everything, and it just wasn't enough, how am I supposed to accept that? How can I when I don't understand." Groaning, what she does understand now is why she chose to come here and talk to a headstone over someone who could actually support her. Emotional and manic wasn't her best look, she wanted to try and vent a lot of it out before she turned to her family and friends. "It just hurts, it... yeah, it hurts."

The ache that swirled all around her insides only rippled outwards until it felt like even breathing in was painful. "I'm so lost without you, Jj, I miss you so much. So much." It wasn't fair. A thought that she seemed to be thinking a lot lately. Nothing was ever fair and she couldn't stand it. "You don't know what I'd give to go back, even if it was just to see you one last time." She lost herself when he had died, that much was clear to everyone who loved her, but what a lot of them didn't realize was that she never truly recovered. A part of her was still lost, still trying to claw it's way back but it never would. There was an empty space there in her heart that belonged entirely to her best friend. Sighing, she swiped more tears away and climbed up to her feet, staying crouched as her brown eyes lingered over his name. "Love you. I'll be back in a couple days, I'll bring beer." With a sad smile and a soft hand pressed against the cold stone, she takes a deep breath and turns to leave. Hopefully looking a little less blurry-eyed by the time she got home to greet her mother.

"Hey," calling out as she drops her bag at the door. "Sorry I'm late, work ran over and then I got talking to Jay," a statement that wasn't out the ordinary, it was never unusual for her to visit the cemetery just to keep her lost friend upto date on her life. "That's ok, sweetie. Little man is all tucked up, he's just waiting for a hug," her mom smiles, though she can't help but eye Alara with mild suspicion. "Everything ok?" Hard not to notice bloodshot eyes and tear stained cheeks when they were right in front of you, but it wasn't just that. It was something Kian had told her while they ate dinner. That he heard his mommy crying in the middle of the night. "Yeah, I'll go give him his hug," shying away from her gaze, she knew she couldn't talk about it right now, not while her son was waiting for her.

Making her way up the stairs, she does her best to rub the mascara away and go in his room with a warm greeting. "Hello my beautiful baby. Sorry I missed dinner." Walking over to sit on the end of his bed, her smile actually reaching her eyes just at the sight of him. "That's okay, but nanna made me eat sweetcorn," he pulled a blegh face and shuffled out his covers to envelope his arms around her. An action that had her eyes stinging with a fresh set of tears as she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. "I didn't tell her sweetcorn is on the no no list now." Chuckling, she kisses at the top of his head, and holds him tight, finding a warm comfort that only he could ever really provide. It almost made her unwilling to tuck him back in, but she did, somehow resisting the urge to just lay down with him. "Mommy?" Innocent eyes peer up at her as she strokes his hair. "Are you sad?"

The question made her heart hurt, she never wanted to be sad in front of him but she should have known, he was always very perceptive. "I'm a little bit sad, yeah. Missing your Uncle Jayden a lot today." It wasn't a lie, and she obviously wasn't going to tell her four-year-old child about her breakup. "It's okay to be sad sometimes, as long as you know how to make yourself happy again, and I do, so don't worry." Nodding, she wasn't sure that part was quite true, not as things stood. "How do you do that?" He asks, making her laugh softly. "Well, I just look at you and all that sadness goes away. You know what I always tell you, I'm the luckiest mommy in the world to have a baby as kind and loving as you. But it's late, so close your eyes and dream nice dreams. I love you." Leaning forward to kiss his head, she waits for him to say it back and gently leaves the room, door ajar just how he liked it.

As soon as he was out of sight, she has her hands pressed over her mouth, silencing the hiccup and quickly making her way to her room. Washing up and getting into her pj's, she's surprised when she sees her mom still here, waiting for her on the sofa. "Now that your baby is settled, let me settle mine..." Patting a hand on the sofa, Alara looks between her and the spot, wary, almost timid. She didn't want to break, but damn, it didn't matter how old she got, a mother's influence was always the instinctive way to run. And so, she grabs a blanket and walks over, settling herself closely by her side, head on her shoulder and arm around her front, allowing her mother to just be there and hold her.

"Jayden was never wrong about this, can't beat one of your hugs." Smiling as she sits up, she doesn't bother to hide the sad defeat in her eyes, instead, she just shrugs. "Nate and I are done. He'd rather spiral than lean on me. I tried, but... It's pretty impossible to fight for someone who doesn't want to be fought for." The corners of her eyes crease as she tries to say it with a calm tone. As soon as she hears her mom say she's sorry, she shakes her head, trying to tell her she didn't really have anything else to say, except maybe... "You know what the worst part is? I never forgot how crap this feels, I broke my own promise never to put myself back in a position where I can be hurt because... I managed to convince myself that this time, it wouldn't end with tears."

And in a gesture to her own, she scoffs a sad half-laugh and tries to swallow the lump in her throat. She appreciates that her mom gives her the time to talk without interrupting, the squeeze on her arm is comforting enough without making her feel crowded. "Maybe I'm just not meant to be in a relationship. Some people aren't, and that's fine. I was happy by myself, I can be that way again." Nodding, "Yeah. It's fine. I'm- I'll be fine." Maybe if she said it enough, she would actually start to believe it. "Alara..." That soft tone of a concerned mother had her sucking in a breath as she shakes her head. "Don't. Please, just don't. I don't need you to say anything." She practically insists, misty brown eyes lifting up to hers only to close with a shaky sigh. "Okay, sweetie. I won't. But you should go get me some pajamas because I'll be staying here tonight." Her mom says, lifting a hand up to Alara's cheek, hoping that she wouldn't protest. Truthfully, she didn't have the energy, and not being alone sounded far better. "Thank you."

[eclairia-monarch]

Protector [1] | 聖臣 Sakusa X f!reader

I’m such a simp for these haikyuu men, like, why are they literally so URG!? with how many ideas I have in mind, this is definitely a series from the get-go LUL (yes I'm a twitch frog, join our donut community [ALBSTERZ] for genshin, FFXIV & variety content!)

word count: approx. 2.4k words

summary: Sakusa only wanted to focus on volleyball and had no time for romance, but what would he do if you, his long term crush that he himself didn’t realize, was in grave danger? 

warning: might or might not have typed this after not sleeping for 2 days so... also kinda sad that dummy social is removed from app store *cries* who knows a similar app PLS HELP | also, you cannot tell me this post doesn’t scream Sakusa-

disclaimer: all but the story plot and twitter edit belong to their rightful artist/author.

Haikyuu Masterlist | Haikyuu Series Masterlist

“Omi-san! Pleaseeeee!”

“For the 74th times, no.”

“Wow, talk about cold,” Atsumu laughed, watching as Hinata slumped in defeat after pestering Sakusa for 1 week straight. 

“Nah, talk about rejection,” Bokuto commented, laughing, slipping on his hoodie. 

“I think you mean desperation,” Inunaki added, watching as his opposite hitter trial behind the outside hitter. Meian wanted to sigh into his hands, his eyelids were going crazy trying to stay sane. For the last seven days, the Miyagi boy has been asking the ravenette to fetch you, Kageyama’s younger sister, from the airport. You had been overseas for so long and recently coming home, with Osaka being your stop since you were moving to Kansai.

The thing was, you were okay with taking public transport, but Kageyama was adamant about not letting you do that. Atsumu volunteered eagerly, but was quickly shut down by your brother, saying he was more afraid of the faux blonde being near his sister than letting her go overseas alone. Bokuto would love to fetch you, but he has his entire day booked with interviews and photoshoot on the very day you were set to arrive. The poor owl boy sulked for a few hours, until Hinata relayed the message that you would pay the team a visit to stop his sulking. Hinata, of all people, would love to pick you up from the airport too! 

If he had a freaking car-

Which was why the only one left was Sakusa. 

It wasn’t as if he disliked you, nor did he like you because to be fair, he barely knew you. Honestly, Sakusa didn’t even remember Kageyama having siblings, since his behaviour indicated him being more of an only child. When Hinata listed out all the positive traits about you to convince him, Sakusa only stared at his teammate and wondered if he was getting set up into a blind date or something. But he seriously just wanted to be alone on his off day-

“Just pick and drop us off. I promise, she’s super hygienic! In exchange, 1 month supply of Lysol.”

“Give me the time of her arrival details and the drop-off address,” Sakusa said immediately in reply.

“YOU ARE MY LIFE SAVIOUR!” Hinata exclaimed, and quickly sent the details over to Sakusa in seconds. 

Sakusa rolled his eyes and looked at the message he received. You were set to arrive tomorrow 9:25 am in Kansai International Airport via Japan Airline, and it was a direct flight from Heathrow. Gosh, Sakusa could never do that. Just imagine the amount of germs in that still air for over 12 hours with a bunch of strangers and their god-knows-what bacteria. 

“Oh, and this is the address that [y/n] is headed to!” Hinata smiled, dropping another text to Sakusa so that he can plan his route and its details. The ravenette glanced at it, and saw that the area that you were staying was just a few minutes away from their home base. Well, then planning a proper driving route wasn’t that big of a deal for him now.

“Alright, now that we’ve settled the situation with Hinata’s girlfriend, can we all go home now?” Meian asked with a clap, to which the ginger head retorted that you were just his favourite junior that helped him a lot when he was in Brazil, so this was just a small favour.

“I remember she was quite the cutie back then,” Atsumu mused aloud, “but Tobio-kun refused to let me get her number. Wonder how she’s grown up?” A cheeky smile grew on the faux blonde as he walked out of the locker room with Bokuto, Hinata, and Sakusa.

“She’s super cute, too!” Bokuto added in. He remembered meeting you when he dropped by Fukurodani during their summer training camp after graduation, and met you being mentored by Yachi. It seemed you got along with Kenma and Akaashi due to having similar energy. “You’re lucky you get to see her first, Sakusa! But I’m going to buy her all her favourite snacks, so I’m going to be her number one!”

“That doesn’t make sense, and I don’t care,” Sakusa sighed and made his way to his car. He sanitized his car handle before quickly getting in. He didn’t care about how you viewed him—he highly doubted you even remember him anyway. You two barely interacted aside from polite greetings once or twice during competitions. And it appears you were overseas upon graduating, so you probably met a handful of people that were more interesting.

~~~~

“Thank you, Omi-san! Kageyama said he’ll send you a month’s worth of hand sanitisers,” Hinata informed, and Sakusa nodded.

“Guess it’s fine to do this favour.” 

They soon reached the airport, and after parking his car, the two guys made their way to your arrival gates. It wasn’t a long wait and soon Hinata jumped on his feet multiple times, waving at you. Sakusa looked up as well, and his eyes widened by a fraction. He knew Bokuto called you cute, but right now you were more than that.

You were cute, yes, but your eyes were so beautiful and innocent. With the face mask that you were wearing, it only made your eyes even more prominent and bright. Your outfit was quite tasteful as well. You had a cream turtle-neck along with a pair of skinny jeans, accompanied by a long coat and boots. 

You smiled widely underneath your mask, finally seeing your senior after so long, and net to him was Sakusa. Your heart might have stopped for a second as you realized just how amazing he looked. However, you haven’t forgotten your manners and so you removed your mask to reveal your face.

“Welcome home, [y/n]! Hope your flight was okay?”

“Glad to be home. And yeah, I managed to fly business class so it was tolerable. Thank you for fetching me Hinata, Sakusa-san. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”

“No way! Right, Omi-san?” Hinata asked, but he was met with silence. The ginger turned around and stared at Sakusa, which broke the latter from his daydream.

“It’s fine, you stay near our gym anyway, plus I highly doubt Kageyama will let anyone else fetch you,” the ravenette explained, scolding himself for getting distracted by your face. What the hell, he was starting to become weird. He must be staying near Atsumu for far too long.

“Oh, is that so?” You laughed softly at the coincidence, “then I guess we can all hang out.”

Hinata reached over and grabbed your luggage, asking if you were hungry. You easily decipher his hidden message, knowing he must have woken up and left home with an empty tummy. 

“Oh, sooo hungry,” you said teasingly, “where do you guys want to go? My treat, of course. Sakusa-san, I hope this arrangement is okay? I understand if you have other plans for the day, you can just drop me and Hinata off and go about your day?”

Something about this offer you presented made Sakusa a little annoyed, and he shook his head. “It’s fine, we can go grab breakfast together.” 

Together, he liked the sound of that.

“Eyyy, let’s go!” Hinata cheered.

Right, he’s here too...

But because none of you had any idea what to get, the three of you settled for the most basics of basics and headed to Kansai University’s Starbucks to grab a quick bite. On the way, you and Hinata were animatedly catching up; well, more like Hinata asking about your life in Kingston University. 

Could have sworn Bokuto said she was a quiet type. Must be because of Hinata, was what he thought to himself.

Although he wasn’t one for loud noises, he can’t say he hated it when you speak so fondly of your time in school. Still, he felt his stomach churning at the fact that Hinata brought out this side of you. Even in his limited memories of you, none of them gave him the impression of you being so talkative.

He chopped it up to him being hungry and acting differently due to hunger.

“Oh, and I got to see Alisa-san a few months ago, too. How can someone look so good without even trying? I felt like a peasant standing next to her, they were totally judging…!” You gasped, clasping your cheeks as you remembered how much Alisa clung to you whilst people stared, and you were so self-conscious about your appearance.

“Alisa-san is very pretty, but you are, too! I’m sure people were staring because you and Alisa-san looked so good together!” Hinata grinned, and you felt your face heating up at such a compliment. 

“Quit lying! You know they’re just looking at Alisa-san! Anyway!” You tried to change the topic after noticing a certain ravenette stealing glances at them.

To say Sakusa’s eyes narrowed into a slit thinner than a venomous viper was an understatement.

But why?

~~~~

“This place is so nice!! I guess being a popular streamer like Kenma has its perks, huh!” Hinata exclaimed and awed, looking at every corner of your fully furnished house. Thanks to the moving company you hired, they perfectly set up your home as how you detailed and presented in a few documents you sent to them. 

Your new dwelling was in Nukatacho, Higashiosaka. A pleasant 2LDK house in a charming neighbourhood for ¥16,800,000 (≈ USD $130K). Since it was your very first home, it did seem expensive. Initially, this abode was at the bottom of your list because of the price, but Tobio told you to just purchase it, with him paying half of the house as a gift to you. On top of your own income you made as a VTuber, and having your own successful merch line, this house suddenly shot up to your first choice.

“I’m lucky to have my brother’s help with this too,” you laughed as you came down from your bedroom after removing your coat. You opened up your house for invitation to MSBY, stating that they were welcome to visit after their training, since you guys found out that your home was lesser than half an hour drive away from their training gym. 

“Awesome! Atsumu-san and Bokuto-san will love to! I think we better leave so that you can rest up, okay? Just text me if you need anything!” Hinata waved and gave you a hug before removing the house slippers, heading out the door.

“Rest well,” Sakusa did the same and went to his car, ready to send Hinata home and to catch up on his deep cleaning for the month.

Once they left, you mindlessly went to your sofa and plopped down. “...Rest well...” You mumbled the two words spoken to you as Sakusa’s face surfaced in your mind. You bend forward and groaned. You knew he became even more handsome after watching his matches but seeing him in person? Lord you hoped you were not acting weird in his eyes.

You decided not to dwell in things that already happened and went to turn on music from your sound system before going around to inspect your new home. Your family actually came to make sure everything was done correctly, and every aspect of the house was properly furnished but you just wanted to make sure since you were going to live alone now. Your closest kin was Tobio, but with him being in Kodaira, you would have to spent close too ¥16,000 and 5 hours to even visit.

No thanks.

At first your parents asked why stay in Osaka of all places when you could go back to Miyagi. The housings there were bigger and cheaper, plus familiarity isn’t such a bad thing but they should have known Miyagi wasn’t your first choice. It’s not that you had bad memories in your hometown, but you just wanted to move somewhere else. It wasn’t that big of a deal, honestly, but maybe your parents felt somewhat guilty about not having spent enough time with their kids growing up because they were both working hard to provide for three children.

Evening came sooner than you expected after having spent your entire day setting up your office, the only place that was left untouched on your request since you wanted to revamp it. With your work now revolving around online and merchandise, you figured a minimalistic aesthetic would help and thus working on it, wanting it to be a room that doesn’t stress you out no matter how hard you worked; you knew how surroundings would affect your mental state. You were a fast worker, despite getting a few calls in between from your family and friends. 

Your phone rang with the caller ID of Hinata this time and you unknowingly groaned, dropping to the floor ungracefully. You were so tired and hungry but you have no food since you family couldn’t buy any groceries when they dropped down, not when your refrigerator wasn’t sent.

You picked up the call after a few ring, hearing your senior’s energetic voice on the other side. 

“[y/n]! Bokuto ended his photoshoot and was wondering if you wanted to go grab some shabu-shabu together? Atsumu-san can pick you up!”

“Oh no it’s fine! I stay near the train station anyway so just tell me the address and I’ll meet you guys!” You said, slowly getting up from the floor to get ready.

“Awesome! I’ll text you right now!”

You received the address of the restaurant, Kisoji, and noticed that it was also near a train station. You smiled at the convenience , not needing to worry about getting lost.

“We’re meeting in an hour’s time, see you!”

“Got it,” you nodded. After hanging up, you took a quick shower and changed into denim shorts and an oversized turtleneck pullover before making your way out once you made sure all your valuables were stored in your handbag.

The train ride was horrible with the rush hours and you honestly believed packed sardines were not even as pressed up as you were during the entire ride. Maybe you should have ordered a car right instead but you just told yourself that you wanted to experience it once, at least. 

And it was safe to say you hated it so from now on, you were only getting a car ride.

“Ah! It’s [y/n]-chan!” Atsumu was the first time spot you and waved. Aside from the setter, you saw Hinata and Bokuto as well, but Sakusa was nowhere to be seen. Were you disappointed? Just a tad bit, but seeing the rest was just as great. You were definitely going to post about this meeting on twitter just to watch your brother freak out finding it out on twitter.

“Thank you for the food!” You four echoed before digging in and catching up.

Fun fact/trivia:

I actually didn’t see the address of the apartment I chose for [y/n] until I compared it on Google Maps with MSBY’s home base and noticed they were in the same area. It’s complete coincident! So… it's meant to be *Kappa*

If you are interested, this is the house [y/n] is staying in 

2LDK refers to 2 bedrooms, a living room, dining room and a kitchen

Yes [y/n] streams after she kept getting invited to co-op with Kenma and gained a huge fanbase

Kenma, Alisa and Lev promoted the fucccccck out of [y/n]’s channel and she started earning fat stacks in her first year of university

Yes, Tobio freaked out

[onecanonlife]

Tommy and Wilbur fell apart a long time ago, and there was never any time to mourn the pieces of what they were.

But here's the most important thing: Tommy doesn't give up on the people he cares about.

(Or: on grieving, graves, a past that refuses to let go, and learning to look forward at long last.)

(word count: 5,619)

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

“You know,” Tommy says, “I never really got to—to mourn you. Not properly, anyway.”

He’s not sure what response he’s expecting from Wilbur. He’s not sure why he’s saying anything at all. He’s not sure why he’s here.

That last one is a lie. He scuffs the ground with his shoe, and then pretends that he didn’t.

“I wasn’t expecting you to mourn me,” Wilbur says, in that stupid, even, condescending tone of his, the one that he uses whenever he thinks Tommy has said something incredibly obvious, when he’s got an idea in his head of how things are and what people mean, regardless of the way it all actually is. “In fact, I rather thought you wouldn’t. Shouldn’t, even.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” He has no patience left. No patience left for the look in Wilbur’s eyes, no patience left for the way he focuses straight ahead, barely sparing him a glance, no patience left for the way he speaks, measured and calculating, every word he says carefully weighed against the end result, curated for intent and impact. No patience, and he had precious little to begin with. “I’m not even—this isn’t about you.”

Wilbur raises an eyebrow. It makes him look like a prick. “Oh?” he says.

“Because I would’ve,” he continues, doggedly. Now that he’s started saying it, he’s damn fucking well going to finish it. “But, y���know, you blew it all up, so we had to rebuild, and then I got exiled” —His voice doesn’t waver at all— “and then shit just kept on happening, so I never got to decide. How I felt. I never got to think about it.”

Wilbur laughs, then, and it’s the laugh that he hates, because it’s the laugh that’s not genuine. He knows what Wilbur sounds like when he’s happy, and this isn’t it. Hasn’t been it for a long time.

“Not sure there’s much to think about, there,” Wilbur says, and he scowls.

“Shut up, you prick,” he says. “And yes there was. That’s not something you get to choose. What I feel.”

“I’m not trying to—” Wilbur starts, but he shakes his head, going back to talk over him, because no, he’s not doing this. Not today, and not here.

“You are though, aren’t you?” he says. “You always do this. You go, you go mimimimi, I’m Wilbur, and I understand everything about how people think and I’m always right and you are all wrong, and you, I dunno, man. You just. You just don’t. You don’t know. You think you know things, but you don’t. You’re not always right. And I’m—I don’t fucking know why I’m bothering with this right now, but it’s not so you can tell me that I shouldn’t be. Because that’s not something that’s up to you.”

“Then why are you bothering with this?” Wilbur says, and his voice isn’t unkind, but it’s not kind, either.

“I just said I didn’t know—”

“Because if you’re asking me if you should mourn me, you already know what I’m going to say to that,” Wilbur says. “I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s the fucking problem,” he says, and tacks on a quick, “Not like that,” but Wilbur’s face has already hardened, and yeah, there’s a million better ways he could have put that, but that’s the thing about talking to Wilbur. His brain is never firing on all cylinders, as it were, because it’s too busy trying to figure out if he should associate him with warm summer days and the haze of potions and a strummed guitar or explosions and drifting smoke and blank eyes and the awful realization that what he thought would make everything right didn’t do anything at all, and that nothing would ever be right again.

And before the both of them, L’Manberg’s crater stretches out, vines trawling over the edge, leaves sprouting from between the rocks, sunlight catching on the pool at the bottom, the flag fluttering lightly in the wind. Before the both of them, L’Manberg’s crater has grown over, time pressing itself into the cracks. Before the both of them, L’Manberg is a crater. It wasn’t always.

“You make everything so fucking difficult,” he says.

“It’s what I live for,” Wilbur says.

“It’s what you died for, too,” he says.

Wilbur pauses.

“No,” he says. “It wasn’t.” But for once, he doesn’t elaborate, and Tommy glares at him. Only for a moment, because there’s no point in glaring when someone won’t see. Won’t look. Wilbur has his eyes turned to the crater, and Tommy has his eyes turned to Wilbur, and something about that is how it’s always been. The vines have grown over the earth’s old wounds, but Tommy can’t help but feel like they’ve curled around his ankles, holding him to the spot, the moment, and every moment that came before.

I never got to mourn you, he doesn’t say again. I never got to mourn you, and I feel like I should. But you’re here, and what the hell am I supposed to do with that?

Wilbur won’t hear him. And if he does, he won’t understand.

-----

He collects bits of the past like buttons, or stamps, or memories.

He has his discs. He’s hesitant to play them, even now. Hesitant to take them out of his enderchest. He has his home, still in the same spot, all this time later. His hill, his hole, his garden, their bench. He sat on that bench and heard Wilbur, once, reaching out from beyond the grave, and Wilbur told him he was proud, and something in him ached in the same way that his scars now do when it rains.

He has some of Friend’s wool. Just that, just wool, because he doesn’t know how to knit, and he doesn’t know who would teach him. He can sew a little, but it was something born of necessity, of the need to patch up uniforms and close the tears over freshly dealt wounds, and he can still feel the needle pricking into his fingers, again and again and again. He never could figure out how to hold it so that it wouldn’t. He bled for L’Manberg in more ways than one.

Deep inside a chest, he has two uniforms. Blue and red and white. One is a size too small. The other is several sizes too large, and always will be.

He still goes to pray, sometimes, though not as often as he did. He got the chance to meet god and found no one there, so it’s a little tricky, these days, being faithful. But he’ll go to Church Prime, because no one else really does, so he’ll have the whole building for himself as he strides up to ring the bell, to ask for guidance and favors, to pay his homage at the feet of a higher power that he cannot believe cares. On the best days, he’s tempted to try to conduct a service. But there’s no point when there’s no one to hear it but himself. Even he can’t bring himself to put on a show for empty pews.

He prays, and nobody answers, and sometimes he can’t help but remember the void, the tearing, ripping nothingness, raking him to shreds again and again, where he was not alone and yet nobody came.

He considers visiting Tubbo. But Tubbo has his own life, and a mansion he hasn’t moved into, and a town that Tommy does not belong to, and an allegiance that Tommy does not share. He considers visiting Ranboo, but that’s either the same as visiting Tubbo, or it’s the same as visiting Techno and Phil, or it’s the same as visiting Wilbur.

So he looks at his discs and doesn’t play them, bunches his hands in wool that he has no use for, and calls out to a god he can only now offer false homage. He holds to the past, and wishes he could believe he has a future. Wishes that he didn’t see obsidian and curtaining lava whenever he closes his eyes.

-----

The first time he hears Wilbur play again, he hides in the forest like a fucking coward.

The guitar is strummed hesitantly, haltingly, interspersed with silence every few seconds, as if Wilbur is struggling to find the old positions, struggling to move his fingers just right. He wonders, then, if limbo took away his calluses. He didn’t think to look. Thirteen odd years without playing a guitar is bound to make anyone rusty. Tommy wonders if Wilbur’s fingers will bleed if he presses down on the strings hard enough, and then he banishes the thought from his mind, because something in him revolts at the idea of Wilbur bleeding. Of Wilbur trying and trying to play until he—

There is something to be said, here, about using yourself up in the pursuit of something greater. There is something to be said, here, about holding matches ‘til they burn down to the skin, about stairs without handrails, about things that are never meant to be and yet claw their way into existence anyhow. There is something to be said about pushing too far, too quick, and flying too high.

Wilbur’s not singing. Is just going from chord to chord. And Tommy hides behind a tree, pressing his back against the bark, because it has been so very long. Wilbur didn’t play in Pogtopia. Wilbur barely played in L’Manberg. The last time he heard the twang of this instrument was sitting by a campfire, plans for a van in the works, the night sky starry and welcoming above them, his chest warm in a way that had nothing to do with the flames. And Wilbur smiled at them, smiled at all of them, and his voice was light and sure, his notes soaring.

Wilbur’s not singing. After a moment, he starts humming, softly and meandering, and each turn in the melody hits like a wrench, like he’s dragging the notes out behind them, yanking at the tune whenever it goes somewhere he doesn’t like. It’s a lot of leaps and skips and jumps, a lot of highs to lows and then highs again, and something about it sounds like wailing. There are no words, and there is no happiness.

But he’s playing. He’s playing, and does that count for something? There was no music for such a long time, no music in the darkness and no music even in the light, and now there is music in the grey twilight, and it is not happy music but it is music. Wilbur is playing again, and Tommy’s not going to cry, because what kind of pussy cries about hearing a guitar? So he doesn’t cry, but he doesn’t venture out from this spot, either. He stays there, and listens as Wilbur sends his voice shooting up into falsetto and then back down again.

It’s good that there are no words, maybe. They’d be sad. He can tell.

“That sounds nice,” Ranboo says, all of a sudden, and Tommy jolts at the same time that Wilbur’s hand must jerk, a discordant clash of notes, something that can’t even be called a chord. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“You didn’t,” Wilbur says, after a pause. Tommy almost creeps out to see his expression, because he can’t picture it. Can’t tell from his voice what his face is doing. “I was just about done anyway.” There is another pause, and a rustle of clothing. Standing. The crunching of leaves underfoot. It’s nearly autumn again, and already the leaves are changing, falling.

It would be wrong of him to resent Ranboo. He’ll never admit it aloud, but he likes him. Rather a lot. Hiding it is probably pointless now, though that doesn’t stop him from trying. But Ranboo is occupying the space that should be his, that once was his. There is a van in a forest, and a guitar song winding its way through the branches and the roots, and everything is different and everything is the same, and the new story is written without him in it. He doesn’t know what he wants, but he thinks it is not this. He thinks it is not to be left behind.

And Ranboo does not know Wilbur well enough to hear the lie in his voice.

They go off together through the trees. Tommy stays. Runs his hand across the tree bark, and tries not to put his emotions into words. Better to let them drift along as is. Better not to give them voice, because whispers turn into shouts all too easily, and there is not enough space here for shouting.

-----

There’s a thing about graves. There’s a thing about graves and who gets one, and who doesn’t.

He didn’t think about it at the time, the fact that Schlatt—Schlatt the tyrant, Schlatt the enemy, Schlatt the man who had Tubbo executed—got a funeral, and a tomb, has one even to this day, and Wilbur got rubble and a room sealed off and untouched. Didn’t think about the fact that there was no burial. Didn’t think about the fact that there was no gravestone to deface or to ornament with flowers or to kick or to scream at or to kneel beside and speak to or to cry or to do any or all of those things. He didn’t think about it at the time, because there was rebuilding, and then there was a house on fire, and then he doesn’t like to think about it.

And there was Ghostbur.

Wilbur hates Ghostbur. It makes him angry, the way that Wilbur hates Ghostbur. Ghostbur was good, and Ghostbur was kind, and Ghostbur tried his best, and Ghostbur did not deserve to die in the way that he did, terrified, with no one there by his side, with only shouted numbers to soothe his terror, and Ghostbur does not deserve to be stuck in a train station for all of eternity. So he makes Ghostbur a memorial, because it’s all he can do, and the first time he’s next to it at the same time as Wilbur, he meets his eyes squarely. A challenge. A dare. And Wilbur looks right back at him, and then to the gravestone, and his lips curl into a sneer.

And he says nothing at all.

He says nothing at all for a long time. Until he does, and it’s all made so much worse.

“Would you rather he was here, instead of me?” Wilbur asks, and it’s all very even and nonchalant, so much so that it might have him fooled if he didn’t know better, hadn’t heard time and time again exactly what Wilbur thinks of the ghost he left behind him.

“The fuck kind of question is that?” he demands.

“An honest one,” Wilbur answers.

“Right,” he says. “Because you don’t lie anymore, or whatever the fuck.”

“I don’t,” Wilbur agrees, and that is a lie. Tommy would be insulted if he weren’t so tired of it. “Really, I’d like an answer.”

“What does it matter?” he snaps. “He’s not here anymore. He’s not here anymore, and you are. No changing that. I’m fucking stuck with you. You’re like, you’re like a leech, you know that? A leech in my brain.”

Wilbur smiles tightly.

“I’d rather be a leech in your brain than dust in the ground,” he says. “Like he is.”

“Shut up,” he grits out. “Don’t—just don’t fucking talk about him.”

“Alright, then,” Wilbur says. “I won’t. If it upsets you that much.”

And he doesn’t. And the grave stays.

And it is not until later that he thinks about the thing about graves again, about who gets one and who does not. There is no grave with Wilbur’s name on it. There was no soil to lay him to rest, only cold, hard stone, a room undisturbed, a monument to destruction. And had there been time, he would have thought about it more. Would have taken it upon himself, perhaps, because the thing is, in the end, that maybe Wilbur deserved better than to be remembered as the man who destroyed his nation. Deserved better than to be remembered solely by the ravine’s dark corridors and the smoke that clung to him like foreshadowing and the way his eyes looked dead, dead, dead for a long time before Tommy watched Phil plunge the sword into his chest.

Because he was not only that. It hurts to think about, how he was not only that. But sometimes, things that hurt to think about ought to be thought about. Because Wilbur was shattered edges that Tommy knows only now that he could not fix, because Wilbur did not want fixing, but Wilbur was also laughter and a gentle hand on his shoulder and the words “I’m proud of you” that lit him up like sunlight, and he was kind and he was kind of a dick and he was brilliant and Prime, maybe Tommy should have known. Should have known that there was going to be a fall. But he looked up to Wilbur like a child to a shooting star, and it’s a long time before children understand that shooting stars aren’t stars at all, and that the wonder of them comes from self-destruction.

But before Wilbur fell, he shone. A beacon in the dark. Hope, freedom. And before he was those things, too, he was Tommy’s brother. Just that, and nothing more, because more was not needed.

And he received no grave.

It’s a question of time again, and a question of mourning, and a question of how he was ever supposed to grieve when there was no time for it at all, and when a ghost shadowed his every footstep and dripped blue from cold fingers and insisted that nothing was ever wrong. But for the first time, he wonders how Wilbur thinks about it. Graves, and ghosts. And who gets a grave, and who does not.

Who is mourned, and who is not.

Who is given up on, and who is not.

The question echoes once again: “Would you rather he was here, instead of me?” And this time, Tommy hears no taunt in it, no mocking, no cruel joke about the ghost who deserved so much better. Only bitterness, and exhaustion, and resignation. Like Wilbur already knew what answer he would be granted.

That’s a realization of some sort, that Wilbur believes he prefers him dead. It’s a realization of some sort, but he doesn’t know what kind.

There’s ghosts and there’s graves, and there’s the living and there’s the dead, and both are left waiting for relief that never comes. It’s thirteen years in a train station and it’s months without knowing what to think, without having space to breathe, without being able to process that his brother was unwell and then that his brother was gone. It’s too much time and too little, too much distance and too little, and Ghostbur did not deserve what he got, but neither, he thinks, did Wilbur.

That thought feels right. And wrong all at once. Bitter, heart-wrenching. That Wilbur deserved better. They all did, that he knows—but Wilbur did too. And that thought is muddled up in all the rest, and he doesn’t know what to do with it, but it’s there. If there’s anything to be done with it at all.

-----

Here is a fact: he kept Dream alive for Wilbur’s sake.

Here is another fact: he doesn’t know if he regrets it.

Because here is the thing: he remembers that day, remembers the pain and the fear and the devastation, and he remembers the moment it all turned around, cowering behind Sapnap and behind Eret until the time came to step forward, to take the axe in hand and deliver the blow, to deliver himself to safety, finally, finally. And he remembers the words bitten out from Dream’s mouth, panicked, desperate, and he remembers what he said. He will never forget.

And the decision, in that moment, was far easier than it had any right to be.

It became harder, later. Because he made the decision thinking, in large part, of the person that Wilbur used to be. Of a quick, charming tongue and flashes of smiles and music and song and leadership and knowing what to do, always, and Prime above but Tommy missed that person. And so maybe he deluded himself. Maybe he thought, in that dark room, with the portal swirling behind him and the entire server at his back, that he could get that person again. That Wilbur would return, and that it could all go back to the way it used to be. Discs spinning in the sunrise, the server at peace, his brother with him.

But death put those thoughts to rest.

Because death proved to him that Wilbur had only gotten worse. Because in death, Wilbur was happy he was there, did nothing but talk to him and make him play competitive solitaire as he was torn apart atom by atom. Because Wilbur—he became so very certain that Wilbur, if released, would bring nothing but harm to the server again, would tear everything down, because there was something in his voice, in his eyes—

But that was then. And now, Dream still lives in prison, rots but lives, and Wilbur has a burger van in a forest with a friend and spends most of his days lounging about or making eyes at Quackity or talking up a storm but doing jack shit, and Tommy doesn’t know what to make of it, and doesn’t know how to admit that maybe his idea of what Wilbur would be like and what Wilbur would do wasn’t entirely accurate.

And he still doesn’t know if it was worth it. Worth the constant fear, worth knowing that one day, Dream will be out, will come to him, will try to finish what he started. He tried to prevent it and only made it worse, only led Ghostbur to his doom by his innocent, trusting hand, and Dream resurrected—

A monster, he would have said, once. He no longer knows if that is fair.

Because here is another fact, one that he is only now beginning to understand: Wilbur is very, painfully human. He’s always known, and yet he hasn’t, because once, he thought Wilbur hung the stars and the moon and all things bright and glowing and good, and he thought that Wilbur could never be so human as to be fallible, and then it turned out that he was wrong. And it was easy, in the aftermath of that, to figure that Wilbur was perhaps some kind of monster instead, and everyone around him said as much.

But that, he thinks, goes too far in the other direction.

His hopes will never be realized. He will never have the old Wilbur back. He clings to a past that clings to him right back, that has him in a chokehold and will not let go, but Wilbur is something else entirely. The rest of the past does not live and breathe, is contained in his overflowing chests, in uniforms that don’t fit him, in the church’s empty hall. The rest of the past is made of things he can hold, but he has never been able to hold Wilbur. Not then, and not now. And there is no hope of making of them what they once were.

There is no going back.

So was it worth it, then? To keep Dream alive, and to receive this, this man who varies between manic energy and calculated calm, who speaks with a whip in his tone at some times and unbearable softness at others, who proclaims Dream his hero and then claims he would have killed him, if he could, for what he did? Was it worth it, and is it worth it, and how is something like that measured at all?

Wilbur is a tightness in his chest when he speaks and a ghost that won’t leave and a ghost that died and a thousand words like a thousand stinging hornets and no picture that could encompass all of them, all of what they are and were. Wilbur is Wilbur, and Wilbur is not safe, not anymore, and perhaps Wilbur is not even good—but there, that, that is wrong, and he won’t make this mistake twice. Wilbur is good, it’s just that he’s forgotten that, and Tommy is so, so very tired of having to be the one to try and remind him. And Wilbur is empty space and Wilbur is a space too full and overflowing around the fractured edges, and Wilbur is too bright and too loud and too quiet and too little and too much, and even now, even still, Tommy does not know where they stand.

Was it worth it, to have this?

He doesn’t know. But sometimes, he imagines what it would be like if Wilbur were still dead, if Wilbur were never, ever coming back in any shape, in any form, and his throat closes up and his eyes sting, no matter how much he has laid out his hatred for the man, his regret at going into the prison that day. He tries to imagine a world without Wilbur in it, in which he has given up on Wilbur, and even now he doesn’t like it, even though maybe he should, and that is, perhaps, answer enough.

-----

“Why do you keep coming here?” Wilbur asks him.

“I dunno,” he says, instead of a hundred other things. “Why don’t you ever fucking leave?”

Wilbur just looks tired. There are bags under his eyes. Tommy thinks he can guess why; he so rarely slept during their exile, but Tommy is thinking about limbo, and train stations, and how whenever he closes his eyes, part of him is convinced that his heart has stopped beating. He wonders if Wilbur, for all his sunrise-obsession and constant movement and moments of utter wonderment at the world around him and the way he doesn’t move whenever a creeper approaches him, feels the same way.

“There was a reason I asked Ranboo to do this with me instead of you,” Wilbur says, suddenly, apropos of nothing. Tommy feels himself still. “I mean—actually, I asked Phil, and Phil was all, oh, Wil, go and make friends, and I was like fuck you I’m not twelve years old anymore but Ranboo’s pretty great so it worked out. But I—I guess what I’m getting at is that I don’t get it. Why you choose to keep coming ‘round here anyway.”

“Yeah?” he asks. “What’s not to get?”

Wilbur shoots him a look, eyebrows going up and mouth slanting all sympathetic-like.

“Tommy,” he says, slowly, as if talking to the child that Tommy has not been in a long, long time, “I’m not what you want.”

Several answers form in his head, and then dissipate just as quickly before he’s able to reply. “‘S that right?” he says, and something boils within him, hot and snapping and popping.

“I can see it when you look at me, man,” Wilbur says, and he doesn’t even sound upset. “You’re—and I mean, I don’t blame you for it. I was awful to you, Tommy. I don’t deserve anything less than your scorn. But you and everyone else, you’re all waiting for what I’m going to do next. You’re all waiting with bated breath. Scared of the next disaster I’m going to cause. So you don’t—you don’t have to be here, Tommy. Not if you don’t want to be.”

There are so many things he could say. Your disasters always cause the most damage to yourself, is one of them, and then there’s a simple, you think I don’t know that? Because how many times has he told himself that same thing? That he doesn’t need to be here? That it would be better for him if he wasn’t? And some part of him must listen, because he’s not actually here all that much. He has other things to do. A life outside of this, outside of this forest on the edge of a fake desert and a van that makes pretty shitty burgers and one Wilbur Soot, like a portrait from the past and yet nothing like that at all, because portraits are shadows, still images, permanent and unchanging, with mo mutable future, and Wilbur Soot is none of those things.

He has a life. He has Tubbo, still, even if it’s all changed. He has others. He’s not alone.

Wilbur’s right that he doesn’t have to be here.

“Stop fucking doing that,” he says. “Stop trying to make my decisions for me.”

Wilbur’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m not—”

“You are,” he says. “You always are. It’s my fucking choice whether I want to be here or not. And I’m making that choice. Not you. Me. And sure, maybe one day you’ll manage to get rid of me for good, but you’re gonna have to fucking work at it, and I don’t see you trying.”

“I thought you didn’t want me here, Tommy,” Wilbur returns, and the words seem to fall so effortlessly, like easy acceptance, and why, why is it this of all things that Wilbur seems to take in stride? Why is it this and not a thousand other things? Why is it this and not the fact that despite it all, despite every warning sign and every indication that maybe it might be better for him to give up after all, Tommy is still here?

“I didn’t want you gone, either,” he snaps, and Wilbur falls completely silent. So he continues, because who knows when he’ll have a chance to say this again? That’s the thing about chances; they’re difficult to count, impossible to anticipate, and he bollocksed up the first one he got, to try to break through. “I never wanted you gone in the first place. So maybe I don’t—maybe I don’t fucking know what I want. Because I never got to just live with that. There was never a chance to—there wasn’t even a fucking grave for me to visit. I never got to figure anything out, and now you’re back and nothing’s the fucking same, so maybe I don’t know what I fucking want. Maybe I don’t fucking know if I want you here, but I didn’t want you gone. I didn’t want you to be dead. And then you were. You just were, and I couldn’t—did you expect me to be alright with that?”

It’s a question of mourning, and a question of graves, and a question of chances and who deserves them. And Wilbur just looks confused.

Fuck him.

There’s so much more to say, and he can’t say any of it at all, and the past chokes him like a knot of vines or a clump of flowers in his throat, but he’s still breathing. He’s still breathing, breathes again, whatever, and Wilbur is the same. They’re the same in a lot of ways, maybe. On the other side of the final death, trying to hold onto and release the years gone by all at once. Moving forward, but stuck in quicksand, and they’re never going to get out if they don’t let each other.

“You’re my brother,” he says, and that’s all. As if that explains everything.

And maybe it does.

Wilbur blinks.

“Ah,” he says.

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Fucking ah.”

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur says.

“You’d better be,” he says.

And impossibly, the vines uncurl, and the flowers come floating up, and when he takes a step forward, it comes easily.

There is a van in this forest, and it is not the same van. Some distance away, there is a crater in the ground, and nature has draped itself over the ruins of the lives they once had, and the flag still flaps at the bottom, and they are never, ever going to be able to rebuild what they lost. The crater will always be a crater, a scar in the earth. Healing, healed, grown over and stitched shut, but still a scar.

And there is a man standing in front of him who is not the same man that he knew. Not the same man that he claimed for his family, and who claimed him in return.

But he is not the same, either. Perhaps nobody and nothing is. The past clings, and he clings tighter, but perhaps he needs to loosen his grip, because despite everything, there is a future out there, somewhere past the next sunrise. They are going to get older. They are going to live. So he has his discs and his uniforms and his wool and his prayer, and he has this, too, because it is his choice. To take a step forward, and wait to be met in the middle. To dare to turn ahead, to believe that there is something awaiting him. The both of them.

And he thinks he might finally be able to let himself grieve. Grieve, and let go. Grieve the dead, and what they had, and what they might have, and grieve for the fact that there was no grieving, no grave.

And then, let himself hope that they will have better after all.

-----

The next time he hears Wilbur play, he steps out from behind the tree.

And maybe the song is a little less sad.

And maybe nothing will ever be the same as it used to be.

And maybe it will be alright.

[bimrsadler]

Vampire AU where Arthur gets bit by a vampire (maybe oc, reader, or whatever character you would like to be the vampire), but his "final moments" in the game is when he is turning into a vampire and then he eventually finds the person that turned him. Sorry if this is a cluster of ideas, I hope you have a nice day!

The Last Sunrise

A/N: I hope this was close to what you were looking for anon, since you didn’t mention a theme I went with angst from Arthur’s POV. I love the idea but struggled with deciding who turned him and since I’m still thinking about Midnight Mass a lot, I used that for inspiration lol.

Also if anyone is interested, maybe I could do a part two? Something spicy where Arthur visits a former love interest, perhaps? 🤔

Pairing: none

Word count: 1,673

Warnings/tags: vampire au, angst, death mentions, blood, violence, language, !game spoilers!

—————

Arthur should have died on that mountain top. His last view of this earthly plane should have been the morning sun on the horizon and in a way, it still was.

Although he had never truly believed in such a thing, he feared he may have been in Hell when he awoke. It was the terrible hunger that aroused him from his early grave, a hollow ache in his gut that was more than instinctual, it was desperate and predatory. As he stood on shaky legs his heartbeat rushed through his limbs, and pulsated in his ears. He steadied himself on a nearby chair to keep from collapsing.

“Where the hell am I?” He gasped while taking in the surroundings of a dusty old cabin, abandoned and lonely. A million questions raced through his head, did John make it to his family? Were Micah and Dutch caught? How was he still alive? Briefly he wondered if his agony was still being drawn out, if someone moved him here and his withered body was somehow still hanging on by a thread. “Jesus, how much longer can this go on? Just let me go,” he thought.

This however; felt different than the illness that had insidiously ravaged his body. The cough was absent and breaths clearer than before. Although he was sweating and flushed with fever, his skin was cold to the touch, and that hunger. That damn hunger.

Having given all of his belongings to John, Arthur frantically ransacked the cabin looking for something - anything, to eat. Canned fruit was all there was in the cupboard but as quickly as it was consumed, it came back up in a forceful heave.

As Arthur lay on the floor trying to get through whatever was happening to him, he noticed his reflection in a broken mirror. It looked as if…it was fading? On his neck, two lines of dried blood fell down to a pool in his collarbone that turned his white shirt crimson. That wasn’t from the illness, or the fight. In an overwhelming wave, Arthur suddenly recalled the feeling of a presence next to him while he faded away. He remembered the sting of teeth, of a bite, as he watched the painted sky. Stunned by more questions, something on the table caught his eye, a note.

“They think you’re dead, lie low for a bit.

The process may take some time.

When you’re ready, travel only by night and come to Saint Denis. You’ll be starving but I’m sure the nearby camp will provide.”

Arthur’s head began to spin and his heart raced out of control before coming to a cold stop as his body hit the wood floor, note still clutched in his hand.

—————

A wolf howled in the distance as Arthur’s eyes snapped open and a deep cleansing breath filled his lungs. His body no longer hurt, the wounds from his last stand no longer present. He couldn’t understand why his body felt new, why it felt…cured.

With seemingly no other options, Arthur decided to do as the letter asked and made his way to Saint Denis. A horse had been hitched outside for him, one that acted strangely skittish when he approached and took longer to calm than usual.

The world around him seemed to vibrate. The Milky Way shone bright in hues of purple and blue while the stars within it danced like fireflies. Every sound was amplified, the croak of the frogs the chirp of the crickets. It was overwhelming in a pleasant way, all sounds and sights that he never thought he’d be able to appreciate again.

On the outskirts of Saint Denis Arthur came upon a small group of Lemoyne Raiders. Hoping to find supplies for himself, he approached quietly. From behind the trees the hungry voice he had stifled returned in full force. Staring down the gang he saw the outline of their pulse, a red hue glowing from under their skin. Each heartbeat sounded like thunder, and the smell of their blood was intoxicating.

Unable to control his urges, Arthur rushed forward and ripped into the neck of the one closest to him. The other Raiders ran screaming as the man in his grasp sputtered and cried out, while Arthur involuntary let out primal growls. He drank like an animal dying of thirst.

Everything about it was monstrous, and soaked with guilt, but he was a satisfied monster. A full one. Shaking, he dropped the man’s corpse to the ground as the reality of what he had just done set in. “The hell’s wrong with you Morgan? What’ve ya done?”

He suddenly remembered hearing Mary Beth and Karen discuss blood drinkers in Saint Denis, and the hushed gossip of the residents whenever he’d walk around the alleyways at night. That couldn’t be real, could it? Yet hear he was, amongst the living when he should be dead, drinking their blood with a hunger for nothing but.

Arthur arrived in Saint Denis nervous and itching for answers before the sun came up. After wandering the dark streets and even the cemetery, he began to feel hopeless before hearing a familiar voice from behind the smaller church where he’d helped Sister Calderón retrieve her crucifix. Unexpectedly, it was Brother Dorkins who stepped out of the shadows.

“Mr. Morgan!” He beckoned in a quiet but urgent tone.

“Uh, glad to see ya Brother but it ain’t really a good time,” Arthur responded as politely as possible given the circumstances.

“Oh but it’s the perfect time my friend. Have you fed yet?”

Arthur stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face the kindly man. “Have I what?”

“Have you eaten Mr. Morgan? I’m sorry the note was so vague but I didn’t want anyone to piece anything tog–”

Brother Dorkins was cut off as he was pinned to the wall. The casualness with which he was speaking about what felt like an incomprehensible nightmare, made Arthur see red. “You did this to me?! Why, what the hell is this shit?!” He shouted.

“Well I…it wasn’t me that did this…exactly.”

Brother Dorkins motioned behind him as a tall, thin, and well dressed man stepped out from behind coverage of the church door. He was pale, ghostly so, his ears almost coming to a point. He simply nodded at Arthur and lifted a hand adorned with long, sharp fingernails.

Still no more informed than before Arthur pressed further, “explain dammit!”

“Sister Calderón told me everything, she told me you were dying! We, we’ve been in contact. I…I didn’t think it should be your time yet…”

Arthur let go of the frightened man in front of him and attempted to gather himself. “And?…”

“And this creature here brought you back to life. I had him follow you and wait for the right moment. He fed on those awful Murfree Brood in the meantime.”

Glancing at the “creature” Arthur noticed he hadn’t moved and was simply standing with his hands behind his back. “And why’s he listen to you? This wouldn’t happen to be that blood drinkin’ maniac I hear about is it? The one leavin’ crazy messages everywhere?”

“It would…happen to be that maniac,” Dorkins responded sheepishly. “I was never a fan of his theatrics but…we came to an agreement. I help him and his kind get what they need so long as they limit their attacks to a more…deserving population.”

Arthur said nothing, but gave a look that signaled him to continue. “Like that man you freed those slaves from, there are so many bad people in these cities Mr. Morgan.”

“Gettin’ rid of bad folk is one thing but drainin’ em of their goddamn blood and drinkin’ it?! Only bein’ able to have blood? I didn’t ask for this!” Arthur began pacing, his agitation returning.

“I admit it was a hasty decision but men like you are rare Arthur, men who realize their faults and want to change. You have the chance to do that now. You’ve done so much good and you could do so much more…”

“I did my good! I was ready to die don’t you get that?!” Arthur bellowed. “I took care of what I needed to and said my farewells. Now everything feels…cheap.” His voice cracked and wavered.

Dorkins spoke softly, “I can’t imagine but…you have been given a second chance Mr. Morgan. Not many people can say that.”

Arthur turned his attention to the vampire, standing stoic and smug. “You got anythin’ to say ’bout this?”

“I’ve lived many centuries and taken many lives, but I haven’t…created many. I was against it at first but you’ve left me intrigued.” He pulled out an ornate dagger and toyed with it absentmindedly, “so much anger but so much heart…”

“I ain’t yer goddamn experiment, and my life shoulda been mine!” Arthur turned to leave, flooded with rage and grief and wonder. How was any of this real?

“The sun is coming up soon, you’re welcome to stay in the church basement…” Brother Dorkins called after him.

“I’ll find somewhere myself!”

“Just remember, we’re here for any guidance you may need. I am sorry Mr. Morgan I just…thought the world still needed someone like you.”

Arthur winced at those words as he stormed away, this was all too much to comprehend. He considered what would come next, if he should speak more to his maker or move on alone. What of coming back to the people he loved and cared about? Would it be for the best to leave them thinking he passed on? How would he even explain the beast he now was?

As Arthur took shelter he found himself thankful for the new found strength in his body. The way it felt in its prime, not broken down and falling apart. He couldn’t help but lament though, for the weight on his shoulders that had finally lifted on that mountain top, now replaced with an entirely new weight.

[capitainelevi]

For @pufferssss, happy late birthday!! ❤️

Waiting for sunrise

Words: 2968

The first and last time Levi visits Petra`s grave.

Levi arranged his cravat again, self-conscious at the thought of visiting her for the first time. He stood frozen in place, with a bouquet of orange lilies in his hand. Her favorite flowers. Just a mere coincidence, not an effort on his part, of course. He never imagined he would visit her here so early on. Staring at the newly carved headstone, he tried to set aside the nagging thought that the earth underneath it only held an empty coffin.

What should he say to her?

“Your dad came to see me after the mission, and I had to tell him that I don`t even have a body to bring back home to him”?

“I failed in getting justice for you and the guys”?

“I miss your tea”?

The only words he could spurt out were “Hi, Ral.”

He groaned at his awkwardness and settled on presenting her with the flowers he chose for her. He could feel his hands getting sweaty from anxiousness, much to his confusion. He had nothing to be nervous about. It was just Petra in front of him. His subordinate. Petra, who fought by his side for years. Who swore to devote her life to him. Just his Petra.

Levi sat on the ground next to the gravestone, unconcerned about the dirt he would have to clean out of his clothes at the end of the day. “I hope you can hear me, wherever you are. I like to think you`re listening.” He never spent much time concerning himself with death and the life that supposedly followed it, but ever since losing them as well, he found himself wishing they were happy. He knew that those brats would be wasting the rest they earned to look over him, no matter how much he objected.

“I hope you like the spot I chose for you. It`s sunny, but you also get some shade from the tree. I thought you`d like listening to birds singing." On their free days, he could always spot Petra with a book on her lap, under the shade of the oak tree in their yard. He never dared to bother her, worried he would disturb the angelic aura of the image, content with being fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of it. He never dared get so close to the sun.

"I`m going to bring some flowers we can plant next time I visit. I know you had a green thumb.” Levi omitted in letting her know it only took a month for the plant in his office that she cared for years to wither away in his care. Or maybe it just knew Petra would never be back.

Levi closed his eyes, lulled to sleep by the quietness around him and the feeling of the afternoon sky on his skin, considering if someone would bother him if he moved to the tree trunk to nap. He craved some peace.

“I`m sorry I didn`t get to come earlier. You missed a real shit show in Sina.” He took a glance at his wounded leg and sighed. “It`s not as bad as it looks, no need to mother me.”

Without raising his eyes from the ground in front of him, Levi admitted to her in a hoarse voice- “I kept calling out orders for you, and Erwin had to remind me that you`re not here anymore. Like I could ever fucking forget.”

Despite the emptiness in his chest, he went on- “Eren misses you. I really wish you could help me manage that brat. You always knew what to say to him. Hange misses you. I… everyone misses you.” They left a hole behind that he doubted he would ever patch.

Levi cleaned off some dust from her headstone before promising her he would be back as soon as he could.

As promised, the second time Levi visited her, he got her some daisies to plant next to her resting place. After wiping his hands clean on a rag, Levi sat down against the tree trunk to admire his work. He was sure Petra would be proud of the progress he made regarding gardening. He had even gotten a new plant to replace the one on his desk.

“Tch, not talkative today, are we? That`s alright, you know I always talk a lot.”

Visiting her calmed his restless spirit. His anxiety over the plan, his worry over Erwin`s wellbeing, his longing to have his old squad by his side again, they were all pilling up for the last few days. Levi found himself losing even more sleep lately. But he would never tell her that since it would most likely end in another one of her scoldings.

“You`re missing it, the final push. The brat`s finally going to do it, he`s going to seal the Wall.” Levi hoped that they would be able to carry out the mission. That his squad`s sacrifice to keep Eren alive would not have been in vain.

“You`re not being fair, are you? You already know what we will find in the basement, and yet you keep it all to yourself. Tch, be like that.” Would it all be worth it? The pain, the countless sacrifices, and the lives lost along the way? He wished Petra could answer that for him.

He never wanted to upset her, but Petra always encouraged him to let others help him carry the burden. Levi took a deep breath before speaking again- “I think Eren misses you. He`s been going on about how he wants to visit you again. Bring you flowers. To help me maintain this place clean." Levi rolled his eyes again and the memory. "Like I would ever need his help with that.”

Levi took the ribbon out of his pocket and started fiddling with it, ignoring the slight pang of guilt at how he came into its possession.

“I hope you won`t mind I took that.” The first night he spent without them, Levi found himself roaming the empty corridors of the castle. When his steps took him in front of Petra`s door, the urge to hold on to something physical to remember her overtook his sense of shame. He was aware that her belongings would go back to her parents in the next few days, but he hoped the red ribbon Petra used to tie her hair with would not be missed.

“I took your patch at first. I was going to keep it in my breast pocket. To have a reminder of your sacrifice. But when I saw that kid eaten up by guilt, I knew what I had to do. I knew what you would have wanted me to do with it.” He had no regrets about that. It was the perfect way to honor the kindest soldier the Survey Corps ever had.

When the light began to fade, Levi got up from his spot and left without saying another word to Petra. He did not want to say goodbye to her. Levi felt no need for it since death could be in his cards the next day. And he could get to see her again sooner than he thought.

The third time Levi visited her, it was not with a flower bouquet in his hand but with a bottle of cheap alcohol he found on Moblit`s desk. That night, Levi allowed grief to consume him.

"Erwin died. But I have a feeling you know that already, don`t you?" Levi wiped his nose with the back on his hand, too absorbed in his anger to even care about the disgusting habit.

"Are you mad at him? Are you mad that he chose to sacrifice your life?"

But only silence greeted him.

"Are you mad that I didn`t even question it?"

No answer again. The rage burning inside him overtook him, and Levi smashed the bottle against the headstone.

"Shit. I`m sorry, I shouldn`t have done that." Levi crouched down and collected the pieces of the bottle into his handkerchief. The grief, the anger, and now the shame for denigrating her place of rest were eating him alive.

"We found out the truth, you know? It`s a shitty world out there, Ral. But I have a feeling not even that would have cut off your wings."

Levi found himself craving touch. Her touch. And for the first time in his life, he felt the need to be comforted. He smiled to himself bitterly. How cruel must the deity who created him be for making him desire the impossible?

The fourth time Levi visited her, he brought a special gift for her. A small, odd thing that Armin called seashell.

“We saw the sea today. Just a big old pile of saltwater. But you would have loved it.”

Seeing the brats play in the water with carefree smiles on their face made him yearn for a glimpse of amber hair in the picture. He missed them all dearly.

“I would have to pull you out of it by the collar of your shirt, I bet.” For as devoted and strict as she was, Petra always seemed to cause him distress. Not that he minded it, of course. Levi found himself wishing to hear her timid knocks on his door again, even in the middle of the night. He longed for those times, where she shyly approached him after needing his help in whatever problem she found herself stuck in again.

While that was not his intention when he first came to her, his heart was heavy with words he never said to her. "The world hates us, Ral." He could never imagine how someone would ever detest someone as kind as Petra just for the blood running in her veins. But if he had to be true to himself, a part of him hated Petra as well.

"Maybe I hate you too."

Petra broke his promises to him, after all. Two years ago, when death was imminent on an expedition, and Petra put down her swords in acceptance, Levi fought with her. He made her promise she would make it to the end. That she would be by his side the day they kill the last titan.

"Do you remember your promises to me? Such bullshit. Never thought you were a liar, Petra."

But Levi knew she would have never left him had she had a choice. That she would have fought for even just a second more by his side. But it never dulled the pain of losing her.

With a heavy heart, Levi said his goodbye for the evening, guilty for blaming her for things out of her control.

The fifth time Levi visited her, it was snowing outside.

It was always a wonder how someone radiating light and warmth could be a winter child. But Levi was sure he memorized the date right. It was an important one for him, after all. Levi fought to make sure he had enough time to get ready for celebrating her birthday. She deserved nothing more than a perfect day. Hange had been more than understanding, the wound left by losing Moblit still fresh in their heart.

Levi put the bouquet of twenty-two golden roses on the frozen ground. “Happy birthday. Twenty-two, huh? You`re turning into an old woman, Ral.” The irony of his words made a slight pang of guilt rise in his chest. The passing of time would never touch her again.

“I have your favorite”- he said, lightly shaking the box containing a small vanilla cake. Sugar was a rarity, but getting a cake was an unspoken rule in his squad. Their lives were too short to worry about the money. The first thing Levi noticed about Petra was the faint flower smell emanating from her. The first thing after setting his eyes on her clean nails, of course. On her first birthday that they celebrated as a squad, Levi gifted Petra a bottle of scented body lotion. And some high-quality cleaning rags, of course. But she did not pay attention to that. She and the rest of the Survey Corps never knew how to appreciate the finer things in life. But Levi did not miss the way her face lit up when he noticed something she enjoyed.

“I could never understand your sweet tooth, but today, I`m going to have a slice of cake.” Levi always refrained from indulging in this vice. Having grown unaccustomed to sugar, the idea of sweetness was unappealing to him. He always felt bad for disappointing her each year when she sat in front of him, with a small piece of cake she had cut for him. “Or two slices. Two is more appropriate anyway. If I get cavities, it`s on your ass.”

The ground was too cold for him to sit down on, and Levi made a mental note to build a small bench close to her headstone. He opened the box and eyed the cake wearily, considering if he should change his mind. He took a small bite of the cake, and he almost choked on it. “Oi, this is so damn sweet. How the fuck could you eat so much of it?” But it did not stop him from finishing his slice.

Levi expected to find some flowers lying in the snow or at least some tracks leading up to her grave.

“Does your old man still come around? I`ve never crossed paths with him since the expedition.” Sometimes, when he closed his eyes at night, he could still recall Mr. Ral`s pained expression when he realized there was no one left for him to wait for.

“Maybe it`s for the best. I bet he doesn`t want to see me again.” To see the face of the man who was supposed to protect his daughter. The face of the man his daughter wanted to devote her life to. The man who could not even bring him a body home to bury.

“I`m a shit. Ruining your birthday with talk like this.” Levi was never good at this. In his spot, Eld would have teased Petra about her first expedition. Tell her how now that she was a big girl, she ought to refrain from soiling herself again. Petra would turn red from embarrassment and elbow Eld in the ribs. Gunther would point out that despite their age, they are still children. And proceed with teasing Petra himself. Oluo would try to defend Petra`s honor to gain her attention, which would make him the target instead. Levi gave a small smile at the thoughts. He missed them dearly, more than he would ever care to admit.

Levi crouched down and cleared the layer of snow covering her headstone. He ran his finger alongside the letters of her name, wishing he would have had more opportunities to write it down.

“Happy birthday again, brat.”

The last time he visited her, Levi had company. Gabi and Falco did not give it another thought before offering to help him see her again before they would all leave for a new life. A better life, he hoped. But without her by his side, it was never going to be perfect. Gabi set down the flowers before they gave him privacy. While they never asked him about who she was, they knew Levi must have cared for her a great deal.

"Hi, brat. It`s been a while."

He had so much to say to her, and yet, he did not know where to start. A part of him expected to join her during the last battle, but fate always had something new in store for him. Levi was uncertain if it was luck by his side or a curse to watch everyone he ever cared about die. But life was looking brighter, and Levi promised himself he would never lose anyone again.

"Are Hange and Erwin with you now? How about the guys?" He wished for nothing more than to be there by their side. But Levi knew they would never forgive him if he did not try to live the remainder of his life to the fullest. And for them, he would try.

"Does Oluo still bite his tongue? Did he try to flirt with you again? Is Eld still teasing you? Does Gunther still treat you as a little sister?" Levi chuckled at the memory of their antics. He learned the hard way that he never appreciated them enough before he lost them.

"I hope there is an afterlife. I hope it`s peaceful. You all deserve it. Such a shitty end..." He closed his eyes and sighed at the words coming out of his mouth. "I`m sorry, I didn`t mean it. But you already knew that. I was always an open book to you."

Levi felt guilty for leaving the home they bled for behind, but if he were truthful, it had not felt like home to him for years. With no one left by his side, nothing was keeping him in Paradise anymore. While neither of them voiced it out, he had dreamed of a future with Petra by his side. And for her, he would try to live a long and happy life. Before he got to be with her.

"I`m sorry... for the future I never got to offer you. The one you deserved. I`m sorry for the house I never got to build for us, for the vows we never got to take, for the brats that will never play in my backyard." Levi knew Petra would encourage him to find love, but he never would again. He could never imagine a future by someone else`s side.

Levi glanced back at her grave for one last time before he set out for the remainder of his life- "I`ll see you soon. Wait for me."

ao3

[calumrose]

Okay so after much consideration I finally decided... 16,34,37 👀🥰love you lotsies

A fluffy request we love to see it! I... got carried away with this, but are we surprised by that? I think not. However, I hope you enjoy this soft little Luke moment which I created as per your request! (It was not supposed to get this long, I swear!) (Also, love you too! <3)

16. “Can you please just hold me?” / 34. “Why are you wearing my sweater?” “Because it smells like you.” / 37. “You’re just a softie.”

Word Count: 3.9k

You silently cursed yourself as you trudged down the hallway, the heel of your palm gently pressing against your eye as you tried to rid yourself of the lingering sleep that remained in your tired features. You wondered why you were awake so early, the tired ache in your bones remaining from your sleep as you made your way through the house. It must’ve only been 6am or so, the sun barely even beginning to rise from what you could see through the kitchen window as you entered the familiar warm communal space in your boyfriend’s home.

Correction: your home.

You were still getting used to saying that, finding yourself having to be reminded that what was once his home was now your home too.

Moving into Luke’s had been an adjustment for you over the recent weeks. You were so used to having a small collection of your things at his house for the times you would stay over before he asked you to move in; some spare sets of clothes tucked away in the bottom drawers in his closest, a hairbrush he had bought for you to keep at his house which inhabited the space on the bathroom counter between the toothbrush pot and the Luke’s favourite aftershave, and there was even a bottle of your shampoo in his shower that you swore was always that little bit lighter every time you came over, although he swore that he didn’t use it, but you could smell the sweet remnants of strawberries whenever he would lay with his head on your chest. But going from having only a few of your things at Luke’s to having everything being there, it was a lot to adjust to, a lot to take in.

Even weeks later, it took you a second or two to comprehend that it was your reality, that you were going from visiting Luke and simply ‘staying over’ to waking up next to him every morning without even a moment where you had to think about what time you’d have to go home later that day. You had gone from spending the minimum of a few hours in his company during every visit to spending every night wrapped in his arms, legs tangled beneath the soft sheets, with your fingertips tracing every smooth feature which graced his supple skin.

Bracing your palms against the edge of the sink, you gazed out at the dimly lit city. The golden lights were faint in their littering, each golden glow representing a home, a sanctuary, an individual life who lived in the world like you did. It amazed you how you were awake early enough to experience the silence which the city basked in during the early hours of the morning, how not even the sun was awake and yet you were. You were unsure of what caused you to wake, your eyes fluttering open to the faint silence which engulfed your shared bedroom, the only sound to be heard was that of the faint snores which arose from Petunia who slept at the bottom of the bed and the slow, rhythmic breaths which escaped the sleeping man who lay next to you.

It was an intimate moment you were able to experience, the house and city itself still sound asleep around you as you stood awake in the kitchen, the white noise of the kitchen humming behind you as you took a few steady breaths and took a moment. A moment for what exactly you were unsure of, but it felt needed; a few easy breaths inhaled before letting them go as the gentle glow of the kitchen lit casted a yellowish flame through your eyelids as you closed them.

Closing your eyes allowed for the faint sounds of the house to come alive, every soft hum, click, and grind travelled to your ears, the appliances of the home working away in the background as they kept the course of the house running smoothly behind the scenes. You listened to the hum of the refrigerator to your left, the gentle buzz so faint it sounded the wings of a honeybee when it would fly around the air during the summer; its little wings rubbing together to elicit such a delicate noise.

You were so lost in the sounds around you that you barely heard the ones which came from down the hall, your ears not picking up the noise of your bedroom door opening nor the sound of feet travelling along the wooden floors as the man of the house made his way to find you. You didn’t hear his soft chuckle as he spotted you, nor did you hear the soft click of his tongue as he entered the kitchen to come towards you. It wasn’t until you felt his warm arms slip around your waist, his chest pressing lightly against your back, that you registered the body now standing behind you, bringing you out of your little moment and back into your reality.

“What’re you doing up so early, hm?” Luke’s voice was quiet, face resting tucked away in the skin of your neck as he crossed his arms which were around you. Waking up without you next to him was a strange experience for Luke, one that he wasn’t too fond of. He liked the warmth which you brought to him; he liked the way you made him feel like there was nowhere else he would rather be than right next to you. So, when he awoke to find your side of the bed empty, he felt cold, the sheets no longer providing him the warmth which he desired to be wrapped up in, a warmth which he only seemed to find with you. “I thought we agreed no early mornings for at least a week after I got back?”

You couldn’t but smile as his lips brushed against your skin with every word that he spoke, the soft flesh so light against the skin of your neck, it was almost as ticklish as it was soothing. Everything about Luke was soothing; the way he held you, the way he spoke to you, the way he laughed, the way he smiled, everything he did brought a comfort and a sense of belonging to you which you didn’t realise you could ever need.

Recalling the agreement that the two of you had made a few days ago sprung to mind when he brought it up, your teeth breaking through your smile to nip at your bottom lip through your chuckle at memory of the deal that was settled upon, you responded, “Define ‘early’, babe.”

“Any time before noon.” He was quick with his rebuttal, eyes laying closed as he tucked his face further into your skin, his lips curling into a pout as he pressed a small chaste kiss to the column on your neck, leaving a small puddle of heat where his lips would touch for you to enjoy as the feeling lingered for a few extra seconds when he removed his lips.

You could hear how tired he was by his voice, the sweet voice of his being laced with sleep, the rasp evident in the way of which he spoke, each word slipping past his lips like a soft breath, a gravely sound curling around each syllable like the most beautiful symphony you could bear witness to. The way he held you also told you how tired he was, the gentle yet secure grip which his arms kept on you, the gentleness of his fingertips as they grazed your sides, it all was significant in the way Luke held you when he was so close to falling asleep again.

“Come on, you, I’m taking you back to bed,” He spoke softly against your skin, fingertips pinching lightly at your sides where they had slipped and nestled beneath the sweater which adorned your body – his sweater to be precise. “The bed’s cold without you, so I need you to come and keep me warm.”

You didn’t offer an argument as he took a step back, gently tugging on your waist as he pulled you along with him, making you join him on the venture back through the house towards your shared bedroom. His hands didn’t leave your skin as you returned to bed, palms sliding against your waist before running down your arms and finding your hands and the two of you climbed back under the cooling sheets and got comfortable in bed once again.

As you climbed into bed, Luke’s eyes cascaded down your frame, the familiar grey item of clothing adorning your skin catching his attention, causing a small smirk to the spring to his lips as he recognised it. Luke knew not to be surprised at your nimble fingers, knowing you always had your way of borrowing his clothes without his knowledge, temporarily claiming them whenever you so desired. It wasn’t as if he minded, nor would he ever argue or tell you that you couldn’t wear his clothes. Instead, he encouraged it, subtly leaving clothes at home in the hopes that you would wear them around the house when he was there.

“Babe, why are you wearing my sweater?” Luke chuckled, leaning back with his head resting against his pillow, left arm curled so it lay behind his head. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed it when you had been standing in the kitchen, his eyes only focusing on you instead of the clothing which you wore, his tired eyes too concerned with how you looked as you stood there when he found you in his conquest for your warmth. “You know I love when you borrow my clothes, love, but it’s already warm in here, are you not too hot with that on?”

You couldn’t help but laugh, the sound soft as it vibrated in your chest, as you shook your head, answering his question, “I thought you said it was cold and that’s why you wanted me to come back to bed, huh? Or was that just a fib in order to get me back here for a cuddle?”

“It wasn’t a fib! I said the bed was cold, which it is. I didn’t say the room was cold,” Luke laughed out loud, amused at the playful glare which you shot him as you reached down to pull the sheets further up the bed, clutching them between your fingers as you pulled them up to your waist before you lay yourself down against the soft, plush mattress.

“Uh huh.” You playfully rolled your eyes as his attempt of an excuse, shaking your head as you tutted under your breath.

“I just don’t want you to get too warm, love, that’s all. I would hate for my girl to be uncomfortable, you know?” Luke pulled you closer to him as he spoke, arm slipping beneath you as he tucked you against his chest.

“I’m not going to get too warm, don’t worry,” You assured, leaning up and pressing a soft kiss to his jaw, feeling the light scruff of his beard against your lips, the prickly hairs tingly against your skin. “And if you want to know the real reason why I’m wearing it is because it’s soft and very cosy, and because it smells like you. But that’s just a bonus when I wear any of your clothes.”

“So, that’s why my Coca Cola shirt is nowhere to be seen?” Luke shot you a knowing look, his lips curling into a smile as the slightly blush on your cheeks at the subtle accusation, “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything to say about that, my love?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You cast your eyes away from him, as if looking behind you, avoiding his targeting eyes.

“Of course, you don’t.” Luke teasingly scoffed, tightening his grip on you briefly as he pulled you even closer, pressing a kiss to your forehead as the two of you got comfortable within the crisp sheets that adorned your bed.

Situating yourselves came like second nature, the two of you pressing against one another, your head resting on his chest, one hand reaching across and resting against his waist, forearm limply laying across his warm stomach, while your legs found their familiar way to tangle with his long ones, his warm skin igniting a small fire in your stomach as you cuddled in close.

You weren’t quite sure what you were staring at as the minutes passed by, your mind focusing on the feeling of Luke’s hand on your back, on the way which his fingers grazed against your clothed spine, stopping momentarily as they lingered on the skin at the back of your neck, calloused pads leaving artistic swirls in their midst before they began their journey back to the bottom of your spine. There wasn’t really anything particular for your eyes to fixate on, your eyelids lazily fluttering as you focused on the feeling of Luke’s touch, the warmth of his chest against your cheek, along with the gentle thump of his heartbeat which you could hear in your ear, the sensation and sound capturing your attention with the simplest of ease.

The time ticked on as the two of you lay in bed together, limbs entangled, and breaths soft and light as you held one another close. You could sense the sun beginning to rise, your eyes catching the ever-growing glimmer of golden light which crept in through the bottom of the curtains which was closed against the window. The thought of pulling yourself from the warmth of your bed again was the last thing you found yourself desiring, even more so due to the established warmth you found yourself cosying up to as Luke’s arms held you close.

The inability to fall back asleep was growing to irritate you a bit, your eyes not having the urge to flutter closed and allow your mind and body to sleep in a dreamy state of relaxation and restfulness unlike Luke who had fallen back asleep within minutes with you pressed against him. You wondered how someone could so easily slip back into the realm of sleep, how they could so easily just close their eyes and drift off after already having woken up earlier that morning.

Shifting slightly in place, you turned onto your stomach, resting your arms beneath your chin as you lay on Luke’s chest, eyes gazing up at him. His head was tilted to the side, his sleeping expression in full view to you as he dreamt soundly. He looked so at peace when he slept, as if all the troubles and concerns which circled his mind had vanished in the moment where he closed his eyes. The tension in his brows was nowhere in sight, nor was the tightness in his shoulders, the only thing able to be seen in Luke as he slept was sheer relaxation, a blissful sight which you treasured.

“Luke…” You spoke quietly, your voice almost as soft as a whisper in the dimly lit bedroom. You bent one of your wrists, turning your hand out so your fingertips met his bare chest. Glancing down, eyes watching your own fingers as they began to dance across his bare skin, nails lightly dragging against the soft expanse of his chest, brushing over the light hair which inhabited his chest. He felt warm against your fingertips, the faintest of thumps echoing against the tip of your index finger as his heart beat steadily beneath where you lay. “Baby, are you awake?”

Luke let the softest grumble slip through his lips, the sound vibrating through his chest beneath you, the gentle buzz tickling the skin of your arms from where you rested against him. You knew he was asleep, your touch and your words only rousing him and slowly waking him again much to his distaste. You should have felt guilty, if not awful, about waking him, but you selfishly had to admit to yourself that you missed him, having had to go a week without him next to you, resulting in you wanting to spend every moment when you were awake with him awake next to you, making the most of every passing hour, minute, and second which you got to spend together in your home.

Your home… Yeah, you still weren’t quite used to saying that.

“Luke, baby…” You whispered again, slowly dragging your nail down his chest with the softest of touches, selfishly hoping that it would drag him ever so slightly further out of his sleep, waking him up just that little bit more. “Wake up.”

“Why?” Luke bluntly answered the question, although you could see the beginning of a smile threatening to curl his lips. His eyes remained closed; head still tilted to the side as his hand remained resting in its place on your lower back. “Love, I’m asleep, why do I need to wake up?”

“Because I miss you.” You pouted, puffing out your cheeks.

“I’m right here, you don’t have to miss me when I’m beside you.”

“Can you please just hold me, then?” You kept pouting as the question fell from your lips, already preparing for the – without a doubt – puzzled response you could count on from Luke as he registered your question, and from the expression that was twisting upon his sleepy face, you could see the cogs in his head already registering exactly what you had asked of him.

You watched as he tilted his head downwards a little, grumbling quietly as he brought his free hand up, curling his index finger and he rubbed his eye momentarily before opening the blue orbs and meeting your gaze, his voice even deeper than before due to having just woken up as he counteracted your question, “Baby, I’m already holding you. Somehow, I don’t think I can hold you even more than when I’m already holding you, ‘M not quite sure it’s humanly possible.”

He had a point; Luke was already holding you and had been holding you from the moment he woke up and found you standing in the kitchen. How was he supposed to hold you any more than what he already was? You were practically laying on top of him, his hand resting on your back with his arm wrapped around your waist and your legs trapped between his underneath the white duvet. He couldn’t hold you even more if he tried.

Peeling one of your arms from beneath your chin, you tried to hide the playful smirk which was threatening to break out. You weren’t sure what had come over you in the early morning, going from being so in tune with the sounds around you to simply being so content with being held, to now turning slightly mischievous and teasing as you began to desire Luke’s attention in the early hours when you couldn’t fall back to sleep.

You reached down behind you, keeping your eyes on Luke’s heavy ones, watching how every blink was slow, as if his lids were weighted, each flutter of his lashes seeming to take all of the energy which he could muster. Blindly, your fingers trailed against Luke’s arm, feeling the warm skin as it sent a wave of heat to your palm, fingers curling around his wrist as you found it. With a gentle grip, you applied pressure to his wrist, beginning to pull on it, ultimately prying the limp limb from where it rested against your spine, causing it to lose contact with you as it fell against the sheet beneath you.

Luke’s brow furrowed as he tiredly watched you, blue eyes catching the growing curls of a smirk on the corners of your lips, silently allowing for you to do what you set out to do, not being entirely certain what you were planning as he felt the heel of his hand along with his fingertips fall against the sheet of the bed with a muffled thump.

“You’re not holding me anymore,” You stuck out your tongue briefly, the action quick like a practiced reflex, as your laughter broke out as you pulled the muscle back into your mouth. “So, can you hold me now?”

Luke’s head fell back against the soft pillow behind him, his tired, breathy laughter sounding as he lifted his hand and rubbed his sleep-ridden eyes again while shaking his head with the smallest of motions. His laughter caused his chest to shake, each vibration causing you to shake with it, causing your own laughter to continue as you pressed your chin against the back of your hand as you found your position from before, gazing up at him.

“You’re a nightmare, you know that?” Luke spoke the words through his laugh, shaking his head as he tilted his head, so his eyes met yours again, a smile gracing his lips as he caught sight of you in the early morning once again. “Remind me why we’re together when this is the kind of torment you put me through?”

“Because you’re just a softie and you love me,” You smiled as you pushed yourself up from his chest, pulling yourself further up the bed a little so you came to lay directly opposite him, faces aligned as you could look at one another without either of you gaining a crook in your neck. “Or at least I’d hope you do.”

“Trust me, sweetheart, I definitely love you.” Leaning forward, he pressed a soft kiss to your lips, his hand which previously rested against your back coming up to settled on your side, fingers beginning to twist against the fabric of his sweatshirt which adorned your skin, subtly tugging on the clothing as a quiet notion for you to come closer to him.

“Even when I wake you up in the morning and annoy you?”

“Especially then. There is nobody else I would rather be woken up and pestered by than my favourite girl.” Luke’s eyes were growing heavy again, sleep calling once more as he lay in bed with you.

“Don’t let Piggy hear you say that, I think she’s still under the impression that she’s the favourite in this house.” You teased him, moving closer and adjusting yourself beneath the covers as you curled up against his chest again, hand coming up to cup his jaw, thumb resting comfortably against the apple of his cheek, the scratch of his scruff tickling your palm and fingers. He nuzzled into your palm, pressing a soft, tired kiss to the skin of your wrist before leaning in and pressing another to your lips and then a small one to the tip of your nose, eyes fluttering tiredly as he fought against the growing yawn that was threatening to tumble out of his chest and spill into the open air.

“She’ll forgive me if I give her a bone, I don’t think I’ve got anything to worry about.” Luke smirked, finally allowing for his eyes to close as sleep slowly began to take over once again, his body slumping as he felt your warm hand against his cheek, the motion of your thumb gliding against his skin causing him to doze off peacefully like it always did.

“You’re a true Casanova, Luke. You certainly know how to make a woman swoon.” You rolled your eyes teasingly, nipping your tongue between your teeth as you watched him slowly begin to fall back into the restful state of sleep, his shoulders beginning to rise and fall slowly with each breath.  

“You’re the one who made me swoon, baby, as you do every day.”

---

Send me a prompt from this list 

---

Tag List: @steviemae @elsysoza @treatallwithkindness @loveroflrh @another-lonely-heart @zhangyixingxing1 @devilatmydoor @karajaynetoday @ophelia-enthusiast @hoodhoran @lyss-xo @tpwkcth @mythicalamphitrite @hemmo1996-5sosvevo @maggiesupertramp (if it’s crossed it means I couldn’t find your blog to tag you)

If you would like to be added to my tag list, please ask or fill out this form :)

[draconic-ichor]

In the Steel Steeds Heart

Chapter 27: Lessons in House Beneviento

Warnings: strong language, sexual themes, hints of trauma

Summary: Juniper takes a visit to the Beneviento house for sewing lessons.

Feedback appreciated. 18+

“It’s not too late to cancel,” Heisenberg pointed out, almost hopeful, as he watched Juniper get ready.

“It is.” She insisted, combing her fingers through her hair.

“Nah, I have a phone right over here!” He strode over to it, “I can give her a quick call in no time flat.”

“Heis.” Juniper’s voice was a warning.

He seemed to deflate, shoulders sagging. “There’s no way to talk you out of it?” He pressed.

“Nope.” Juniper stuck firm, tying her curls back into a poofy ponytail.

It didn’t stop him from trying. He badgered her the whole way through the village, ever worried he wouldn’t be with her. Juniper kept firm, knowing she needed to learn this. His constant pestering didn’t cease until they were at the dilapidated wood bridges. Juniper gulped as she started across. The closer they got to the far side the more the mists thickened. By the time her boots made contact with solid ground again the air was heavy with it.

The path was narrow with overgrown hedges, small garden statues covered in ivys here and there.

Something drew Juniper’s attention. She paused as Heisenberg kept walking, turning to squint for better visibility.

A human stood in the mist, almost obscured from view. As Juniper came closer she could make out everything but the face.

It was a woman, about Juniper’s height and sporting the same ebony curls, but the other woman's hair was mostly tied back into a messy bun.

Juniper sucked in a breath, even without a face the woman pulled at a deeply familiar string of her heart.

The woman’s featureless face looked down, her light almond hands bunched into her floral skirt. She almost made a weeping sound.

“My dear….my angel.” The woman cried softly, “I've missed you.”

Juniper felt frozen, a tear running down her cheek. She wanted desperately to remember her face, her smell…anything.

“I’m sorry.” Juniper’s voice wavered.

She suddenly felt a strong hand on her shoulder, she turned enough to see Heisenberg chin almost on her shoulder.

“They aren’t real, buttercup.” He soothed, whispering into her ear, “Only hallucinations.”

Juniper tried to nod, blinking away more moisture from threatening her eyes.

She shook to clear her head a bit, the other woman fading.

Heisenberg saw his own share of ghosts among the mists, though he did his best to ignore them.

A sturdy outline of a man stepped forward down a fork in the path.

“Du bist so groß geworden, mein Kleiner.” The man smiled.

Heisenberg grimaced. He looked away, ignoring the shadow. It wasn’t who it pretended to be, it was just a cruel twist of his heart.

He led Juniper ever forward through the mists. Eventually their path opened onto a clearing. A mound of stones and flowers occupied the center, while a door stood on the opposite side’s rock wall.

“It looks like a grave…” Juniper frowned, seeing the dolls stacked up around the large stone.

“It is.” Heisenberg trudged forward, around the delicate stones and blooming yellow flowers.

Juniper read the stone:

Claudia

Juniper gulped, picking up her pace to rejoin Heisenberg. They went through the small door, following a cave path to an elevator. It looked out of place but was still alive with electricity.

Boarding it, Juniper looked around. This elevator was much more lavish and comfortable then the ones in the factory, more suited for recreational use.

Leaving the elevator and darkness of the caverns, Juniper gasped in awe.

“It’s beautiful!” She exclaimed.

Before them the old estate sat on a hill surrounded with blooming yellow flowers. A large waterfall thundered behind it, it’s mist coating the valley.

“Mhm.” Heisenberg agreed almost dismissively. His sour mood worsened with every step towards the estate, knowing every boot length was that much closer to not turning back.

Juniper stepped up onto the wooden porch, closing the distance to the heavy door. Before she reached for the knocker she glanced back to see Heisenberg did not step onto the porch himself, instead grimacing at the edge like an old dog.

Juniper turned back to the door, lifting the heavy knocker, drumming it a few times. Almost instantly Donna answered, pushing open the door, Angie close behind. They looked happy to see her, Juniper worried she had kept them waiting.

“Hello!” Angie exclaimed, “We’re so happy you came!”

“Hello.”Juniper smiled.

The sound of a throat clearing drew their attention. The three turned to look at Heisenberg.

“Return my girl in one piece.” Heisenberg spoke with his lips a thin line.

“We will.” Angie nodded.

“And no turning her into a fucking doll or some shit.” His voice was a steely warning.

“We know that!” Angie snapped.

He gave a cold look at the doll, “I wasn’t talkin’ to you.” His pale eyes shifted upwards, “Donna I’m serious, take care of her…she means an awful lot to me.”

Donna gave a slow nod before raising a single finger to her chest. She made a little ‘x’ motion over her heart.

Heisenberg nodded back in understanding, mimicking the gesture, “Cross my heart.”

Juniper watched them closely, never seeing him act in such a way with another person before. The small interaction was almost childlike.

Whatever weight that gesture held seemed to be enough for Heisenberg. He tipped his hat to the three before turning back and heading into the mists.

They watched him disappear until Angie started hopping. Her tiny feet made a tapping sound as she happily spoke, “Come on, come on!”

Donna pulled open the thick wooden doors, a warm glow cascading over the porch from within.

Juniper walked behind her as Angie trailed closely. The door seemed to close on its own after they all entered.

“We made cookies!” Angie exclaimed.

“Oh, thank you.” Juniper stammered, being led into the main hall. The estate house was very cozy inside, with ornate woodwork and flowery designs on the rugs.

The air held the smell of spices and herbs, a heavy hanging of dust as well but Juniper was used to far worse.

Where Lady Dimitrescu’s home was a lavish palace, a place of showy status-ship; and Heisenberg’s factory was raw and hazardous, a cesspool of secrecy and honed functionality. Donna’s home was neither.

It was smaller but looked to be well lived in and even held remnants of a loving family. Juniper had known this house once belonged to Donna’s parents but was very unprepared for it to still hold the shadows of normality to it. Certain things looked to be completely untouched since the time of the previous owners, left to sit as a time capsule to happier days.

Juniper was led into a parlor of sorts, a heavy table set with linens and dying flowers was in the middle. A smaller sitting room lay off to the side. The whole place was covered in porcelain dolls. Not surprising, considering Donna was called the Doll-maker, but Juniper thought she saw one more out of the corner of her eye. She stifled a shiver, wondering if Angie wasn’t the only sentient one.

“Come sit.” Angie instructed, “We’ll get the tea.”

She did as she was told, sitting and waiting as the pair went out the far door.

The manor was eerily quiet, Juniper hadn’t realized how used she was to the constant hum of machinery. It almost made her anxiety thicken.

Was this what Heisenberg felt like whenever he was away?

She thought. He’d been living in the sounds much, much longer then she had.

The sound of an elevator piqued her interest, a small sliver of something familiar.

They returned rather quickly, Donna holding a tea tray and Angie pushing the door open for her. Donna set the tray down, busing herself with preparing three cups.

“Donna makes her own tea!” Angie told Juniper, hopping up in a chair.

“Oh?”

“Yea! She’s really good at it.” The doll gushed proudly.

Donna set a porcelain teacup in front of Juniper, offering her a bowl of sugar cubes.

“Oh, thank you.” She smiled, putting two into her tea before stirring it.

She brought it to her lips almost tentatively, the liquid dancing over her tongue. It was nothing like the prepackaged stuff Heisenberg kept around, no this was fragrant with floral notes and hints of herbs. Juniper took a deeper gulp, smiling.

Donna offered her a plate of cookies neatly stacked.

The cookies were a type of butter cookie, small and crisp with an aftertaste of vanilla. Juniper took a big bite.

“We made them from scratch!” Angie announced proudly. She happily picked up a cookie and began to dip it profusely into a cup of tea. She cackled as tea splashed out onto the lace tablecloth.

Donna seemed not to notice, lifting her cup up. She carefully moved the veil eough to take a sip.

After they enjoyed their tea and cookies, Angie telling Juniper so many random things during, they started to head towards Donna workspace.

They took another elevator, the one Juniper had heard earlier, down to the basement. They led her down a hallway lined with white painted doors before opening one.

The room had dirt floors and a heavier curtain of dust. The walls were lined with heaving shelving, filled with all assortment of fabrics and sewing supplies.

Angie excitedly showed Juniper the rarer fabrics, things the Duke had brought from far off places, as Donna cleaned off the table in the center of the room

The three sat down with a little pile of supplies before each.

Donna nodded, picking up a needle and threading it easily.

It took a while for the woman to find her voice, and when she did it was breathy and strained. Juniper thought it must’ve been a long while since it was used in any stretch.

Donna frequently forgot the proper words for items or techniques, having to stop for a moment to think how to explain things. Juniper was ever patient, just thankful the woman was taking the time to teach her at all.

When she did get going, Donna’s fingers were nimble and quick, making even intricate stitching look simple. She could put a sewing machine to shame.

Juniper tried to keep up, showing her results. It was lopsided and messy, earning a concerned little “Oh!” From Donna. It sent Angie into a fit of giggles.

“Take your time.” The woman instructed, “Make every stitch the same size.”

Juniper nodded, trying again.

“Not like that silly!” Angie pointed to the cloth, “Tinier! Make them cute and tiny.”

“Ok.” Juniper smiled at the doll’s enthusiasm.

“Practice stitching is im-important.” Donna nodded, “Mother made me sew for hours on spare fab-ric.”

“How do you make the clothing for the dolls?” Juniper asked, thinking clothes that size could easily be augmented to fit a baby.

“Are you making dolls?” Angie asked excitedly.

“W-well…” she thought, almost sweating, “I may, there’s not much to do around the factory you know.” She lied.

“How do you deal with living in that grimy old factory?” Angie asked.

“I've gotten used to it.” Juniper shrugged, “Its home now.”

“But what about Heisenberg?” The doll pressed, “He’s so mean!”

“Oh he’s not all bad.” Juniper looked at her hands, cheeks gaining a rosy blush, “He’s just a bit rough around the edges.”

“And loud!”

“He is rather loud.” Juniper agreed, giggling.

“But Donna is super good at making cute outfits!” Angie got back on topic.

Donna nodded, standing to look on the shelves behind her. She pulled a handmade book free, brushing dust or before setting it on the table.

“These are my patterns for the common clothes I make for them.” She opened the book.

Juniper looked it over, seeing many small measurements around the sketches. It reminded her of the schematics Heisenberg made of his Soldats.

She asked little questions here or there. Mostly about how Donna found the correct sizes and how to properly measure an object to make clothing for it.

She soaked everything the quieter woman said like a dry sponge. Even pulling out a sketchbook to make notes. Donna and Angie loved to have someone care so much after so many years of solitude.

~

Eventually Juniper’s eyes caught the clock overhead. She gasped, “Is it that late already?”

“Time flies when you’re having fun?” Angie laughed.

They cleaned up her workspace before heading back up into the estate.

Donna sent Juniper home with a better stocked sewing kit, easy patterns to practice with, a bag of scrap fabric, and a container of cookies for Heisenberg.

“Thank you for taking the time today.” Juniper’s voice was genuine.

“Oh it was fun!” Angie gushed, “Come back soon, ok!”

Juniper nodded, taking the bag thankfully from Donna. It was very sweet for her to provide so many spare materials.

Heisenberg was already waiting on the end of the porch, looking irritated as he smoked the last bit of a cigar.

He dropped it, tamping it out with the end of his boot before he stepped towards the three.

“You’re late.” Heisenberg growled when he was close to Juniper.

“And you didn’t send the Lycans?” She smiled playfully.

He gave a huff.

Juniper handed him the bag, he took it questionably. “What’s all this?” He asked.

“Sewing supplies for me and something for you.” Juniper answered.

Heisenberg glanced into the bag, making a little sound of surprise when he saw the parcel of cookies. He quickly looked up to Donna and Angie, almost embarrassed.

“Thank you!” He stammered, cheeks a bit rosey.

Donna nodded happily, waving them goodbye.

Juniper smiled, taking Heisenberg’s free hand and started the walk back to the factory.

“Not used to gifts, are you?” She giggled, seeing how flustered he was at the simple gesture.

He made a grumbling sound, not entertaining her with a real answer.

[kassies-take]

Lost Touch

Summary: When a social experiment goes wrong, Lauren Luthor-Danvers (you) an outstanding commercial and television editor must confront her pain to accept the harsh reality of her life.

Warning: Angst, Grief, Fluff

A/n: I saw a video called "People Call Someone They've Lost Touch With" and this is my take on this.

Lena Luthor x reader, Kara Danvers x reader, Supercorp

Word Count: 929

As an editor, several hours of the day are dedicated to being in dark rooms in front of three to four screens. With commercials taking two days, 30 minute TV shows taking an average of two weeks and hour shows taking an average of four to six weeks it crumbles any time you have for yourself.

Like the famous Luthor, Lauren spends her nose in her equivalent of spreadsheets, blueprints and prototypes. She had let slip that she had a week off to her Girl of Steel and blackhole of a mother and now, she was buying take out from numeral places.

The young Luthor-Danvers knew her Kryptonian mother well and brought two wagons to balance and hold bags and boxes of a little bit of everything she could think of.

With both hands behind her back and the opportunity to not be in front of a screen, she wondered about the concrete jungle above her, the electricity box cars below her, the busy mammals around her and the white statue with a pink heart and a sign that read You've got a moment?

The editor stepped closer towards the sign and finished reading Call someone you've lost touch with and tell them what they mean to you. She shifted her wagons to park beside the statue. For a moment she focused on the birds tweeting, the wind tickling the leaves and the laughter that echoed from neighboring cafes.

She grabbed the public keypad phone and dialed a number she hasn't called in eight years.

Lauren wasn't expecting her call to be returned. She was met with a high pitch ending to the word hello. Her breath stuttered as her eye clouded.

"Hi... you don't know me but this number used to belong to my mother. I uh saw a sign in the middle of New York that said to call someone I've lost touch with and tell them what they mean to me. I know it isn't um the same but it was nice to have someone pick up you know." Lauren sniffed and wiped the streams with the back of her hand. "Uh thank you for picking up, bye."

"Hold on sweetie. Now I may not be your mother but you can talk to me as if I was your mother." The lady on the other side spoke calmly. "What's your name sweetheart?"

"Lauren, but my mom used to call me baby girl."

"Okay baby girl what do you want to tell mama?" The young girl's breath hitched.

"Hi mama. I love and miss you so much. I miss you holding me when I was upset cause there have been a lot of that since you passed. I regret not coming out to you when you were alive, I got a lot of love around me but I wished you were there. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry for everything that happened and I can't forgive myself for bailing on our mother-daughter vacation. If I had gone, the accident wouldn't have got you." Lauren sobbed and took a few minutes to breathe. "I'm sorry it has taken me so long to talk to you again. After the accident I believed if I didn't visit your grave and didn't call, you would still be at home... I got accepted and graduated NYU, I moved to New York and I have a beautiful loft. Jeju and the twins visit when they can and Holidays are still spent at Grandma Eliza's. Jeju is still the editor in chief at Catco and still saves the day. Liam took over L-Corp... L-Corp is seen as a force for good now." You cried. "Lucas is a professional MLB player he's currently playing on the LA Dodgers with the number 24, he donates most of his money to the foundations at the annual L-Corp Fundraiser Galas. I edit commercial and television shows, I'm able to give voices to people who don't normally have them. I hope you're proud of me. We all are doing okay. I love you mom."

"Baby girl your mom is not dead because of you, she's at peace because she has an amazing daughter. I know she is proud of you and forgives you for not visiting and calling. If you ever need to you can call me alright?"

"Alright. Thank you."

"Until next time sweet girl."

Lauren hung up the phone and wiped her tears away. Her eyes and nose matched the color of the wagons she has. She reached her apartment building, rode to her floor and twisted the door to her loft.

Her blond mother stood from the couch and opened her arms. The handles of the wagon bounced on the floor as the youngest of Luthor-Danvers family ran to her mother.

Kara held you tightly and swayed back and forth with a hand on the back of her daughter's head. "She's so proud of you." She whispered.

"But I'm not the engineer she wanted me to be."

"I know she is proud of you," Kara's blue eyes stared right into the same emerald Lena had. "because I am proud of you. You're making art, using your voice, telling stories and is every bit yourself. The very best parts of Lena are in you. She loves you." Kara kissed your forehead and pulled you in. 

A light touch wrapped around Lauren’s shoulder. Too delicate to be Kara’s. Lena, invisible to both girls in the room, wrapped her wings around her wife and her daughter. Her daughter may have lost touch with her but she was never had. 

[x0401x]

Violet Evergarden Movie Summary

The initial plan was to make this a short bullet-point thing, but I felt like there was too much to clarify and I had no choice but use novel references to explain certain parts, so I decided to just write a normal summary. Many thanks before-hand to my friend Yuuki, who gave me all this info.

Apologies for taking relatively long with this thing. Not even I expected that I would end up writing this much. Buckle up for the ride, ‘cause it won’t be fun.

Nope, not kidding. It really won’t.

First thing I need to make clear is: this movie is one and a half hour long and divided into three parts and two different timelines: the times when Violet existed and the times after she dies. Already in the beginning of the movie, Violet is dead.

Yes, you read this right. She’s dead.

Now, I don’t mean that she’s dead in the literal sense. This is 60 years in the future. She might be alive or not, but it’s never said. However, the timeline of 60 years later is considered an era without Violet, apparently because she has retired and her “legend” is over, so to say. It’s also a time where Auto-Memories Dolls don’t exist. That’s one good punch in the face. Let’s keep counting.

The movie is sort of like a tale being read by someone else, which at some point goes into Violet’s first-person POV. The whole thing is kind of a look back on Violet’s life tragectory and how it took a new turn when she decided to continue looking for Gil despite all the mess of the TV series.

The era where Violet exists is an era where telephones are being introduced to the people, so Auto-Memories Dolls are starting to become unnecessary. I would argue that the creation of the telephone isn’t enough for an entire occupation to start disappearing so quickly, since new inventions are normally extremely expensive and not everyone has access to them (or even knows about their existence) so immediately after their conception. Realistically speaking, ghostwriters would still be important as long as there were still so many people unable to buy phones. Not to mention that this is a steampunk world where compulsory education doesn’t seem to be a thing yet, so even in the off chance that everybody can buy a phone, there would still be a lot of people who can’t read or write on their own. But all of this clearly went over the animators’ heads, so not only ghostwriters but also the mail business in general are nearing their doom in the movie.

The one looking back on Violet’s life was Ann, who was telling it all to her granddaughter, Daisy (who, by the way, is voiced by Morohoshi Sumire, the same girl who voiced the seven-year-old Ann). Ann had kept all the letters that Violet ghostwrote for her mother, as well as the newspapers about the CH Postal Company. Looks like the article was printed after Violet left CH, since she isn’t in the picture with everyone else.

In this era, CH’s main office has been turned into a museum. Nerine is shown working in it. Of course, she’s a grandma by then. Speaking of the CH personnel, Erica also quit being an Auto-Memories Doll and became a playwright like Oscar. She appears in the newspaper, though, so she probably a while left after Violet did. Taylor also appears there.

Back to Daisy, she was writing a letter to her parents, in order to learn how to properly convey feelings with written word. The message of this scene seems to be that, no matter the tools, what’s important is that we convey our feelings to the people we love.

As we see in the trailer, Gil’s mom has passed and Violet runs into Dietfried when visiting her grave on the anniversary of her death. To anyone who is wondering: yeah, Gil never went to see his mother and she died thinking that he was dead.

Nobody knew that Gil was alive. Not his mother, not Dietfried, not the Evergardens and not even Hodgins. No one.

Here’s what happened to Gil in the anime: he survived the incident at Intense, of course, but got separated from Violet in that explosion. His tag miraculously stayed on the same spot, though, as we saw in the TV series. Now, since this isn’t explained in the anime at all, I have to make it clear: the tag is that necklace the soldiers wear. It contains their names and ranks, so that their bodies can be identified even when they’re irrecognizable. Without the tag, the people who rescued Gil had no idea who he was, so he was sent to a different place to get treated. He ended up at a monastery hospital instead of the one in Enchaîné. I would debate that his uniform alone is enough to identify him as someone from the Leidenschaftlich Army, or maybe they could’ve just asked him which troop he belonged to after he woke up and relocated him to where his fellow men were, but who even cares about all these plot holes anymore? Definitely not me.

Anyway. After Gil was discharged, he ran the fuck away. Like, literally.

If anyone out there was hoping that Gil would finally have his moment to shine as the self-sacrificing, thoughtful and ridiculously kindhearted character that he is in the novel, I have bad news for you. What we had here was even worse than it being Gil’s excuse movie. It’s like the whole thing was made to drag his character so deep through the mud that he’ll never be able to get up again. There’s pretty much nothing in this one and a half hour that actually justifies what he did to Violet. I’ll elaborate on this as we go on.

Anime!Gil became a nomad and went traveling. He offed his ass to the island where that lighthouse displayed in the most recent official art is located (that’s why Gil and Violet were at the beach on the movie poster). He doesn’t have a prosthetic in the anime because, apparently, he was more worried about disappearing as fast as possible to somewhere he would never be found, and never attempted to contact anybody. So nobody knew that he was alive, hence the grave, which, as we feared, was not a fake one. His family really did think he had died.

This is a point that I have already addressed before, but that also means Gil really did abandon Violet to luck. If anything dangerous ever happened to her (as it did, and it was always very obviously likely to happen, since she was the southern army’s most outstanding soldier and quite literally fled from the military), he wouldn’t even know. If word ever got to him, it would probably be too late. And even if it weren’t, he wouldn’t be able to do anything to help her. More than allowing her to live freely, it felt like he was running away from his responsibilities regarding Violet.

Punch on the face count is currently at six.

By sheer coincidence, Violet learns that Gil is living in that island. She goes to see him and Hodgins goes with her after trying to stop her at first. When Gil finds out that they came to see him, he outright refuses to meet them. It pretty much takes the near entirety of the goddamn movie for them to see each other face-to-face. I say face-to-face because all of the following shit happens:

Hodgins goes to talk to Gil. It lasts about 20 minutes.

Gil talks to Violet from behind a door. This one is about 10 minutes.

Dietfried also comes to the island to talk to him. Also about 10 minutes.

At long fucking last, Gil goes to see Violet. But that, too, is only for about 10 minutes.

Hodgins gives him a speech very similar to what happens in chapter 8. Now get ready to fall back from your seats: Dietfried basically goes there to tell Gil that he won’t run away from taking over the family anymore, so Gil can live freely. Yes, Dietfried is officially a better Gilbert than Gilbert himself. I crave death.

So, after much ado, they come to a conclusion: Gil will stay in the island. In order to completely free himself of the shackles of his bloodline, he stays behind, living the way he wants to. ‘Cause all anime!Gil wants is to rot away alone by the sea, apparently. Now prepare yourselves, for it gets worse. Ready?

Violet stays with him in the motherfucking island.

That’s right, ladies and gents. Another fear became true. She quits her job at the CH Postal Company and goes to live with him. Well, at least, not as a housewife. She starts working with mail services in the island, and Gil helps her with it. Her life goes on like this and she dies in the island as well.

This is where the timeline after Violet passes away comes into light, parallel to the era when Violet was alive. Daisy talks about what happened after Violet left CH, as if it were a tale from the distant past.

That’s it.

The movie paints this as a happy ending. I can hardly see it as one. I know it almost looks like everything was solved, but it just got swept under the rug.

The main point that makes me sad in this ending is that Violet’s character development did a 360 degree flip. In the end, she threw everything to the air and went to live in someone who she always put before everyone else, even herself, but who didn’t do the same for her (in the anime). She’s gone to a crammed little island, where she led an uneventful life away from everyone and everything that’s ever had a positive impact on her. All she has is Gil.

Of course, he’s all she needs, but he isn’t all she should have, and that was the entire point of pushing her to go live on her own. Which is exactly what she earns in the novel: two loving parents, a father figure, a brother figure, a best friend and several other friends and acquaintances whom she formed a bond with. She has all she needs, so she doesn’t have to cling to Gil for any reason. There’s no emotional dependance on him anymore. She doesn’t need him to be whole. She just wants him because he happens to be the best person she’s ever met.

Anime!Violet is most definitely not whole. She almost got there, but then she backtracked completely. And anime!Gil... in my friend’s words, is a weakling. There’s nothing in him actually worth all this undying blind love. Sure, he’s full of regret and shit, but it’s too easy to only act upon it now, by vanishing into thin air like a coward.

The deal with novel!Gil is that he looks around at everything he has, everything that had been burdening him and killing him on the inside all his life, and decides to make use of it for Violet’s sake. He continues being family head and working in the army, amassing money and connections in order to have every means possible to protect Violet should anything happen to her. And as it turns out, he does end up having to use those means, more than once, but he will keep this up for as long as he needs to, because he lives for her now. That’s what makes him worth all the blood, sweat, tears, mental sanity and even body parts that she gave away for his sake: he pays it back. Every cent.

Punch in the face count ends at twelve. Thirteen if I include the fact that the movie ends with a last shot of Violet after she and Gilbert do a pinky swear. Looks like they were really trying to buy everyone with tears.

Oh, well.

I hope this has been a good enough summary. Sorry if I rained on anyone’s parade. I’m pretty sure we won’t get a remake ever, so I really wish we all can get over this soon.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 09 second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Blather)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Wen Chao’s Weird Bird, Redux

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji walk away after killing the dire bird, and then Wen Chao, who was standing like 2 feet away, comes to collect its resentful little corpse. He totally heard Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji talking about him.  

Wen Memorial

Now we visit the Wen memorial, which Wei Wuxian 2.0 won’t remember when he sees it again. Everyone who isn’t a Wen is confused and awkward while the Wens have an impromptu family conference. Agenda: 1. weeping 2. apologizing to ancestors for involuntarily being turned into temporary zombies. 3. getting the fuck out of dodge before it happens again

This is a burial place, and the non-Wen cultivators are deferential and tentative where before they were bossy. Wei Wuxian’s affect is particularly different from his normal swagger and decisiveness. 

Look how gently he asks Wen Qing about this place, thinking carefully and making his expression conciliatory before he opens his mouth to speak. 

(more after the cut)

The others react to this revelation by becoming even more awkward and uncomfortable...

But Wei Wuxian responds with shock and sympathy, once again showing why he makes friends wherever he goes, and why he is so vulnerable despite his many strengths. There is no “not my problem” setting in Wei Wuxian’s heart.

It occurs to me, in watching his reaction, that Wei Wuxian doesn’t have a single living blood relation, as far as he or we know, and at this point he has never met a single member of his own clan. Yes yes, he has an adoptive family, and that’s lovely; I’m an adoptive parent myself. But genetic family is also super important, particularly in the ancestor-revering culture we see depicted in The Untamed. 

In any case, this moment of standing before the grave of Wen Qing’s people, with these few remaining members of her family--people who he will later get to know so well--seems to resonate with him.  

Baby Wen 

The scene at the shrine includes our first look at random cute kid massively important character Wen Yuan. 

Let’s pretend Wen Yuan is a different age from however old he will be at the end of the Sunshot campaign, since the actor did not magically change ages. Here the character is probably two years old. 

Rich Gege Lan Wangji in this scene is wearing the same gorgeous blue color he will be wearing years later when Wen Yuan grabs him and won’t let go. Maybe A-Yuan’s pre-fever memory was super good, and he remembered that Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian belonged together. 

Chicken Hunting

Wei Wuxian seems to be all in on this chicken hunt, making sure Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang join him, but then he circles back to talk privately with Wen Qing and Lan Wangji. This was a ruse to distract Jiang Cheng. 

Wei Wuxian is very good at manipulating Jiang Cheng and he does it frequently. He takes this ability way, way, way too far when he concocts the whole golden-core plan, which I’ll get into in the relevant episode. But this sibling dynamic is not great in either direction. 

Incidentally, nobody asks about the giant chain mark on Wei Wuxian’s throat after he and Lan Wangji come back from their time in the woods together. What kind of rep does he have, exactly?

Having cornered Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian starts to question her seriously, but can’t resist an opportunity to flirt with Lan Wangji like an embarrassing dumbass. 

Lan Wangji’s communication skills continue to improve, as he angrily tells Wei Wuxian "bì zuǐ! “ instead of storming off or shanking him with Bichen. [Chinese vocab OP has learned from watching CDramas: bì zuǐ (shut up),  duì bù qǐ (sorry), nú cái zuì gāi wàn sǐ  (your servant deserves to die for her offense)]

Wei Wuxian makes a visible effort to drag himself back over the line into propriety.

While Wei Wuxian apologizes to Lan Wangji with his eyes, Wen Qing wonders what she ever did to deserve being stuck in the middle of this crap.

Eventually the boys get the whole Wen backstory, and Wen Qing hits the road.  

In what will become a repeating motif, Jiang Cheng asks Wen Qing to forget her family, abandon her clan, and bail on her little brother. 

What the fuck, dude. You wouldn’t do that to Wei Wuxian and he’s your shige, not your didi. You are on this very road trip out of a sense of concern for him. As a female orphan who is the elder to her male sibling, Wen Qing’s obligation to Wen Ning is enormous even if she didn’t love him to bits. Not to mention she seems to be the clan leader for the Dafan Mountain Wens at this point. Jiang Cheng should understand her, but doesn’t.  

Club Ruohan

God I’m boring 

 At some point in the episode we stop by Club Ruohan. Yawn. WRH tells Wen Chao he’s a dumbass for targeting Wen Qing’s people, and to get back to his fucking project already. Wen Chao talks about wanting to get “Wei Wuxian” and his homies - he doesn’t namecheck Lan Wangji, the ringbearer Yin Iron having person. Just bird-killer Wei Wuxian. That doesn’t bode well for Lotus Pier.

Wen Ruohan is actually fairly reasonable, for a power-hungry megalomaniac who’s busily corrupting himself with dark energies. Most of the atrocities in the “fuck all of the other clans” campaign were Wen Chao’s idea. 

Downtown

The gang goes to Qiting and Lan Wangji gets ready to go doorknocking to find out where the next hunk of Iron is. Wei Wuxian stops him and says that his plan is stupid and it sucks. 

In a truly amazing display of his developing trust in Wei Wuxian, socially awkward Lan Wangji asks WWX for advice on how to proceed. 

Wei Wuxian’s answer is to go drinking. But...he’s not wrong. And he explains his reasoning to Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji before the grabbing and dragging part. Lan Wangji seems to be getting used to that part. 

In fact Lan Wangji has already become a lot more comfortable with Wei Wuxian’s extroversion and high spirits than Jiang Cheng is, even though Jiang Cheng isn’t nearly as introverted as Lan Wangji. That’s love for ya.

Tavern Talk

Wei Wuxian slaps a heap of coins down on the table and proceeds to extravagantly order...three jugs of wine. That seems pretty moderate, but they all react like he’s a big spender. 

Wei Wuxian: No worries, Rich Gege's got me covered 

Wangxian’s old-married-couple dynamic appears on the scene fully formed, as Wei Wuxian slowly undresses a bottle of wine and Lan Wangji tells him to stop dawdling. 

Chatting with the guy at the Inn works exactly as well as Wei Wuxian said it would, as he tells them about creepy doings at the old Chang place. 

Lan Wangji’s bag of holding, which was definitely not tucked into his perfectly smooth chest placket a second ago....

bursts forth like the xenomorph in Alien, startling everyone and causing Lan Wangji a lot of pain and brow furrowing.

Wei Wuxian leaps over and puts a steadying hand on his shoulder, and tells him to relax and concentrate, in a bit of a role reversal from earlier. Lan Wangji doesn’t shake him off. 

Once the Yin Iron settles down again, they dash off to investigate the creepy doings, leaving Nie Huaisang behind to meet up with Meng Yao. I’m sure everyone will be glad some day that they created an opportunity for Meng Yao to join them and the new enemy they are about to capture. 

Cheng Compound

At the Cheng compound, the door is shut and there are creepy noises. Time for a talisman! 

It’s sweet how when anything fucked-up and necromantic happens, these guys immediately look to Wei Wuxian for the right way to deal with it. 

The outfits here form a nice a nice contrast, with the two clan lineal descendants dressed in near-matching blue with silver crowns, while Wei Wuxian has changed out of his blue and red robes and into his future signature black. The leather hair band is as fancy as he gets - he wears his outsider status pretty proudly, even at this early age. 

The boys open the doors on a scene so grotesque, even gravity has become meaningless. 

Lan Wangji: This is horrifying, so extremely untidy

Jiang Cheng: Do I know any of these people? No? Ok, this is fine then

Wei Wuxian: I wonder if I could kill this many people all by myself. That would be epic.

[cienie-isengardu]

Zoro & Sandai Kitetsu

There is something that was bugging me about Zoro’s swords for a long time and now, the Wano arc helped put thoughts in proper perspective. Namely four out of five named katanas used by Roronoa are, in fact, a heirlooms; a burden of someone’s else dreams or ambition or honor that Zoro (consciously or not) carry on while Sandai Kitetsu is the only one sword truly and just his. Because the same as the sword was chosen by Zoro, Zoro himself was chosen by Kitetsu,

The best known Roronoa’s sword, Wado Ichimonji in fact belonged to Kuina who died the night after she and Zoro made a promise that one of them must become the world’s best swordsman. He begged Kuina’s father to gift him with her sword and to honor Kuina’s dream, he created an unique fighting style - Santoryu.

Zoro could just replace one of his swords with Wado and yet Zoro’s fighting style is a fusion of his two-sword style trained since childhood and one-sword style used by Kuina. Which is his way to stay faithful to a promise made between them and maybe a promise between him and Kuina’s father too. That way Kuina - represented by Wado - gets stronger with each of Zoro’s fights and with him, one day will become the best swordmaster. Zoro has carried on her dream since childhood and in fact, their shared promise is both a great motivation AND burden. What was noted by Mihawk  (What burdens you so?) and something Zoro himself was well aware (“I may only have three swords, but the weight of our swords are completely different!“).

Wado is as much a memento of his deceased friend as much a burden to carry on alone. It’s Zoro’s most precious sword and at the same I think it will never truly belong to him. Wado was and always will be Kuina’s. He was not chosen by the great katana - he begged for that  sword and it was given to him by Kuina’s father. Because Zoro cared so much for their vow, when Koushirou dismissed Kuina’s dream when she was still alive. Koushirou granted the precious katana to a determined boy, so his daughter’s dream (and which it, a part of Kuina) could live on.

Wado is Zoro's most precious possession, but it is a “borrowed” katana that never truly was meant for him. It was Kuina who should carry on the white katana. Zoro only carried it in place of her, because she never had truly a chance to spread her wings. Thus, Wado is a memento, a shared dream, a burden and second chance (for Kuina, and maybe for Koushiro too). 

Then we have YUBASHIRI, given to Zoro by Ipponmatsu in Loguetown

Ipponmatsu freely gave Zoro this katana as an apology for looking down on him, once Roronoa proved how well skilled and strong willed swordsman he was by testing his luck against cursed blade. The given sword served him well, up until Enies Lobby, where Yubashiri was destroyed by marine captain Su, a man with devil fruit power of rusting.

Ipponmatsu did not tell Zoro that Yubashiri was in fact his own family heirloom - something pointed out by shop owner’s wife:

but once questioned about the decision, Ipponmatsu asked back “what is wrong with a man entrusting his dream to another man?!”

what implies that Yubashiri, like Wado, carried inside someone’s else unfulfilled dream of greatness.

In Thriller Bark, Yubashiri was buried alongside remains of Brook’s first nakama while its place was taken by SHUSUI.

Shusui was a black sword that belonged to legendary samurai, Ryuma. In Thriller Bark it was wielded by Ryuma’s zombie (with Brook’s shadow) and once Zoro saw the blade, he wanted it for himself, to replace destroyed Yubashiri and was willing to take it from the enemy's dead body. Though the fight was relatively short, Zoro’s skills were acknowledged by Ryuma and in result, Shusui was given to pirate.

Zoro honored his opponent by taking sword and being willing to pretend the match never happened.

Similar to Sandai Kitetsu, Zoro both chose a sword and was chosen (accepted) by the blade. But unlike Kitetsu, Shusui, as the most precious treasure of Wano country, couldn’t truly belong to him. The katana served its master well and Roronoa appreciated it very much, but since Dressrosa arc, he was constantly nagged by people of Wano to give it back. He didn’t care for their complaints and did not plan to do so, yet once asked by Kozuki Hiyori to return it to its rightful place, Zoro finally agreed. Because in the end he respected the dead swordmaster and how much the black sword meant to people of Wano. It was a sacred symbol, a heirloom of legendary samurai Ryuma while he was an outsider. Although Zoro proved his worth to Ryuma zombie, the sword (and Ryuma’s body) was stolen in the first place and Hiyori was willing to give up memento of her late father (personal treasure) for Shusui (a national relic). Such sacrifice proved how much Ryuma’s sword meant to people of Wano and Zoro, despite his claim, returned the black blade to where it belonged - asking only to let him visit Ryuma’s grave once the battle is over.

Shusui was another heirloom, a sword burdened by past and its meaning. It served Zoro well, but it couldn’t truly belong to him.

For returning Wano’s national treasure, Hiyori promised Zoro no less great katana - ENMA.

A legendary sword given to Hiyori by her late father, Kozuki Oden that is said to be the only blade that even injured Kaido. A wonderful gift, but the same as previous swords, it is someone else's heirloom passed to Zoro. Another memento of a dead person. Another burden to carry on. 

While Zoro trained with his new sword, Tenguyama Hitetsu (the creator of Sandai Kitetsu) told him the story behind Enma - Oden’s sword and Kuina’s Wado were birthed by the same man, Shimotsuki Kozaburo. Who, ironically, is Kuina’s grandfather according to SBS. What Zoro may have known now, since he did met Kozaburo as a child.

Anyway, Hitetsu assumed that Hiyori perhaps recognized Wado and because of that offered Zoro her heirloom as a replacement for Shusui. I personally think the reason was more selfish than that. Once Zoro saved her, Hiyori said there was a prophecy that “in time of the resurgence of the Kozuki line, strong, kind samurai from across the seas would come to our aid” and Zoro fits perfectly. Even more, since Zoro’s hometown, the Shimotsuki Village is in fact strongly connected to Wano by Kozaburo no less.

Hiyori, as Oden’s daughter, wants Wano to be a free, safe country again but for this to happen, Kaido must be defeated first. Zoro already proved to be a reliable ally. He came To Wano with her missing brother and Kinemon. He saved her and Toko from Orochi’s assassin and later, from enemy attack once the fight broke out after Yasuie’s death. He is strong (something she saw for herself) and to some degree has the samurai feeling about himself. 

Above everything else, Zoro will fight in the upcoming war against Kaido for the Kozuki clan even though he (like all Straw Hats) has no real obligation to her family. Whether she believed in prophecy or not, by passing to Zoro her family heirloom, Hiyori burdened him with her hopes and dreams for victory and justice for her murdered parents and for Wano country as a whole. She gave an outsider Oden's precious sword that can injure Kaido and by that, placed faith in Zoro. She can’t use the sword, she can’t fight in battle, but Zoro will carry on Oden’s (and her) wish to protect Wano into battle. 

Was Zoro aware of such a possible burden? Who knows. Still, he accepted the blade despite its dangerous nature - and any eventual burden (someone else’s unfilled dreams and hopes) to carry on.

Frankly, Enma and Sandai Kitetsu have a lot in common. Both are dangerous blades that drive weak swordsmen into madness and/or ultimately lead to their death. Both need to be tamed. And Zoro likes them very much, despite warnings of other people. Even manga presents their “introduction” as accepted and appreciated swords by Roronoa in similar way:

Yet there are two major differences between Kitetsu and Enma, what also are true for the three previous swords too.

First, already mentioned and explained the matter of heirloom and connected to that “burden” Zoro carries on alongside. In the case of Enma, once the battle is over and Wano saved, all the faith and hopes put in Zoro by Kozuki Hiyori through the Enma should not burden him anymore. Yet since Hiyori entrusted him the memento of her father, Roronoa will need to make sure to never bring shame to her (and by extension, the Kozuki clan) in later adventures & fights he will face one day. But frankly, this is the same with all of his swords bestowed to him by people who were important to him or which he shared mutual respect. It is strictly connected at core to sword fighting philosophy; to be worth of great blade.

Secondly, Wado Ichimonji, Yubashiri, Shusui and Enma, all those swords are desired and appreciated by swordsmen all over the world while Kitetsu, as a cursed blade, was not wanted. Kitetsu was feared by people, put in barrels between low quality swords in hopes to get rid of it. Even sword maniac like Tashigi, once learning the truth about the katana, did not want that blade despite its high grade and low price on it. She was even sorry for insisting previously Zoro should take it. Kitetsu drove previous owners into horrible deaths to the point “you will not find a swordsmen who’d dare to use a Kitetsu these days”:

Zoro felt that the sword was cursed, before Ipponmatsu had a chance to explain why Kitetsu had such a low price on it. And after learning the horrible truth, he decided to take the blade. The unwanted, bloodthirsty, cursed blade that brings madness and death because no one else would dare to use it. Zoro liked the challenge. Oh, he liked it so much he decided to test his luck (fate) against the curse of Kitetsu, putting his swordmaster future at stake.

The same as Zoro chose Kitetsu, the sword chose him. Like Ipponmatsu said, the sword chooses its owner. And yes, Zoro wanted to have Wado and Shusui but these blades were heirlooms burdened with someone’s dreams and greatness while Kitetsu was the unwanted, dangerous blade with a horrible past that Zoro faced only with his own strong will. No hidden promises to carry on, no ambitions or honor or hopes passed on him by previous owners. No legendary status to live up. Like Wado. Like Shusui. Like Yubashiri. Like Enma.

Sandai Kitetsu is this wild, bloodthirsty sword that was challenged by Zoro and decided to spare this insane man who looked at it, felt the cursed nature and did not throw it away but appreciated it. Something that, I imagine, didn’t happen in years. And there is very strong bond between Roronoa and Kitetsu, because Zoro always can tell apart the cursed blade from other swords

and he kept Kitetsu usually in left (dominant) hand during fight. All those little details give the impression Kitetsu is much more spiritually connected to Zoro’s core than Wado.

In short, Sandai Kitetsu was the only masterless sword Zoro picked solely by and for himself that did not burden him with sentiments, past promises or hopes. And though the sword was “problematic child”, its demonic nature seems to suit Zoro’s own very well.

[animeyanderelover]

I've looked through your "sharing a darling" post and I've been inspired. I'd love to see Tsunade with a darling, who's Orochimaru's little sister. I imagine she and Tsuna probably were friends before she deserted the village with Orochi. And when she's nowhere near as heartless as Orochi, she's a morally-gray type of person. [With romantic yandere!Tsunade + platonic!yandere Orochimaru]

I’m glad you got inspired by my post☺️.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, obsessiveness, paranoia, violence

Darling is Orochimaru’s little sister

🐍🐌We’ve often talked about this, but Orochimaru has a weird way of showing his care, especially if it comes to persons he’s obsessed with. If you would be a test object he would most likely show genuine interest in you because you’re very useful. But how does this work when you’re his sister? It’s suspected that a part of why Orochimaru became the way he is like he is because he wanted to leave the painful memories of the past behind, including the death of his parents. So you were the only family he had left.

🐍🐌His way of caring showed himself from a very young age on with wanting you to get stronger. Orochimaru has a dislike for the fragility of life and it’s most likely that you and him shared more or less the same interest in kinjutsu. I can’t say that you had the same obsession as him with it, but you just tagged along with him.

🐍🐌Since Tsunade and Orochimaru were on the same team it was understandable that you were friends with them. Jiraiya was probably the guy who often asked you out on dates and made some less appropriate comments about you, earning a hit on the head from Tsunade and a unnerving look from Orochimaru. Tsunade was most likely friends with you because you were the only other girl from the three.

🐍🐌At the beginning it was just a friendship, a strong one. Tsunade was often a bit worried about you, knowing how twisted Orochimaru could be. You never minded, being used to all of this since you had grown up with him together.

🐍🐌Tsunade started becoming a tad more clingy and overprotective after Nawaki had died. It was somewhat of the beginning of her Yandere tendencies and it stayed that way even after she had got to know Dan. You often visited with her together Nawaki’s grave and showed him respect for his actions. But you were glad that Tsunade had found someone else who made her happy since you had suffered with her after the death of her brother. Because despite being slightly influenced from Orochimaru’s twisted personality you had always been the one who had cared more and showed it more.

🐍🐌Somehow I think after Dan died as well and you were again there to comfort Tsunade you somehow started to see things a bit more from Orochimaru’s side, understanding why he loathed the fragility of life. Because humans were so delicate that you could lose them at any moment. I would even go as far that Tsunade’s devastation over Nawaki and Dan left a huge impact on you and led you to becoming who you were.

🐍🐌Tsunade was at first most likely only a platonic Yandere for you, still seeing you as her best friend. She became incredibly clingy and overprotective and also started greatly disliking your brother. Why? Because Orochimaru gave off the feeling that you didn’t mean anything to him and he wouldn’t even be sad if you would die. He hadn’t looked affected when Nawaki had died and he hadn’t looked really affected when Dan had died. So it was no wonder that Tsunade was terrified of losing you as well and needing to see how not even you as Orochimaru’s sister would lead him to show any sorrow.

🐍🐌It was at the beginning just the genuine desire to keep you safe and alive. But with time it turned into something more intense for Tsunade. The knowledge that she could lose the person who had been always there for you made her go almost crazy. She might not even have realized when exactly it had happened. But one day you just gave her a warm smile...And Tsunade felt her heart speeding up in her chest rapidly and butterflies erupting from the pit of her stomach.

🐍🐌Orochimaru watched all of this with narrowed eyes, the way how Tsunade started clinging onto you tightly and the way she looked at you. It didn’t matter to him that Tsunade deserved happiness after everything that had happened to her. He didn’t want you to become weak by becoming too sentimental which you obviously were. It wasn’t like you had already changed a lot because of him, your view of the world having become slightly distorted because of his influence and the still fresh memory of Tsunade mourning over her brother and her lover. And I bet Orochimaru used that to control you a bit more.

🐍🐌Tsunade on the other hand worried because she noticed clearly how much you had changed in those last years and she knew too well who the culprit was. So she tried to keep you away from Orochimaru by often going out with you and asking you to spend time with him. And this didn’t suit with Orochimaru who would have preferred to continue training and experimenting with you.

🐍🐌It was most likely out of loyalty and own belief that you decided to follow Orochimaru into exile, some of his beliefs having influenced you as well. And Tsunade was once again completely devastated for losing another precious person to her, asking herself what she had done so terribly wrong in life to lose everyone she seemed to love.

🐍🐌Being Orochimaru’s sister and most likely on the same level of strength as him made you very respected and worshipped by his underlings like Kabuto and Kimimaro. And despite searching with him for a way to gain complete immortality You never agreed with his opinions all the time, disliking the way he treated others. You were somewhat of a mother figure for many people under him and were even known to forgive people different than Orochimaru. And Orochimaru didn’t really like this, fearing that your softness would be one day your death sentence. Orochimaru isn’t the type to start a fight over this, at least not in the classic sense. But he would cruelly tease your weak spots to get a reaction out of you and to try to reason with you that being so soft wouldn’t bring you anywhere.

🐍🐌I guess that Tsunade’s heart broke even more after hearing what you were doing, experimenting on people to gain immortality. She blamed herself for this, feeling like she should have ripped you away from your brother’s tight grip sooner since he had been the one who had corrupted you like this.

🐍🐌Tsunade met you most likely again whilst Naruto and Jiraiya were searching for her to convince her to become the fifth Hokage. She was already pissed enough at Orochimaru, never having forgiven him for ruining you like this. But she was also scared when seeing you again, freezing at first. She just really hoped that there was still some part of the old you left and not having become as cruel and heartless as Orochimaru had. You were also shocked to see her again, feeling a bit conflicted about how to face her after all those years again.

🐍🐌During the fight of the three you didn’t really participate, watching more from a distance. Not because you were lazy, but because you and Orochimaru knew that you might switch sides during the battle. Because you still cared. Tsunade was still your friend. So when Orochimaru wanted to kill Naruto and Tsunade kept sacrificing herself you would have lied if you would have said that you didn’t care. Instead you might have even tried to stop Orochimaru from completely killing her, that was at least until she released her jutsu and showed what she was capable off.

🐍🐌Different from Orochimaru you also never disliked Naruto and saw him as a poor excuse. You saw potential and passion in him, reminding you of Nawaki. That’s why you wanted to keep him alive. Because he had helped Tsunade out of her misery. And you were proud of her when she officially became Hokage, sending a anonymous gift and a small letter in which you congratulated her and told her how happy you were for her. And Tsunade knew too well who had sent her this.

🐍🐌I feel like after Sasuke joined Orochimaru you might have even gone as far as sometimes giving the village hints about his development without anyone finding out. And whenever such small notes received in the village, dropping hints about current whereabouts or informations about possible future plans from Orochimaru Tsunade always felt hopeful and encouraged that the old You was still there, that you weren’t completely possessed by evil like your older brother was.

🐍🐌I feel like you traveled back to the village after Sasuke killed Orichimaru. You had no reason to stay after all. And for someone who was known as an S-rated criminal you came over pretty calm when suddenly appearing in front of the gates of your old village. And best belief that when Tsunade Heard- that you were back, she completely lost it and instantly stormed towards you, not knowing whether to yell at you for doing such terrible things to her and other people or cry and suffocate you in a hug out of relief. In the end it became a mix made out of both.

🐍🐌You were taken under custody back into the village, your reputation being a bit saved because of all the small hints you had given them through the years. That and the fact that you answered all questions honestly have some ninjas troubles to judge you rightfully, not knowing whether to think of you as a good or bad person. On the one hand you had experimented on others, you had used the same jutsu as Orochimaru to reach immortality and many other things. But on the other hand there were countless tellings and rumors from many places and people that you had freed them out of Orochimaru’s grip or had even helped villages in need on your journeys. That made it somewhat troublesome whether to decide if you belonged in prison or not.

🐍🐌In the end it was decided to not send you into prison, mainly because Tsunade had insisted on it, but also because many had agreed that you had done many good things after all and had come back on your own free will, not to mention that you had told them everything they had wanted and needed answers for for so long. But you were kept under very tight custody, a few Anbu members always watching you.

🐍🐌Shizune knew from Tsunade’s love for you, having witnessed many times how Tsunade had started becoming very talkative about you after a few or many bottles of sake and knew that Tsunade had still feelings for you. And she advices to not risk anything with you, they still didn’t know whether you were on their side or not. Tsunade didn’t want to hear this, but not because she believed that Shizune was wrong, but because she knew that Shizune might be right.

🐍🐌She often came visiting you, wanting to at least talk to you and know why you had done this. Why you had left her. Why you had decided to tag along with Orochimaru. Why you had done all those terrible things and still so much good stuff at the same time. What were your motives?

🐍🐌I feel like Tsunade would be able to start a normal relationship with you after the war and after Orochimaru was reincarnated. Because the main problem before had been that people had, when looking at you, only been able to see Orochimaru. A cruel and sadistic criminal. But for whatever reason Orochimaru had been forgiven after the shinobi war and Tsunade also retired more or less since Kakashi became the sixth Hokage shortly after the war ended. There will be some tension between her and Orochimaru after that, especially since Tsunade still blames Orochimaru for corrupting you like this. Orochimaru wouldn’t be too happy either, but surprisingly he’s more okay than Tsunade with this since he doesn’t hold that much of a personal grudge against her like she does. He did become better after the war and was more accepting with it. As long as you don’t become a weakling that is, power is still a thing and will always be a thing for him.

[sailtoafarawayland]

Living a Life (1/2)

Summary: Sometimes the things we see ourselves in most clearly aren’t made from glass, and sometimes death is not the ending we think it is, but a pause of breath that gives life to a new beginning.   

Rating: T for now

AO3 - FF

Chapter 1

Emma didn't really know why she did it, why she stopped at all.

The sidewalks were an icy mess, like the city didn't even care that they were staring a lawsuit in the face, and the clean, shoveled pathway through the cemetery  was just too tempting to pass up. She was exhausted after a day spent at the precinct with her latest collar – some sort of mix up with the payment, or the filing, or whatever nonsense it was this time – and she just wanted to get home.

She didn't like the thought of using the cemetery as a shortcut, but the thought of being out of work for two weeks while she recovered from a sprained ankle was even worse.

Maybe it was because she walked past so many other gravestones that had been recently dusted of snow, the past few days of New England weather not accumulating on top of them, brushed away by the hands of loved ones. Maybe it was because she saw the wreaths leftover from Christmas dotting the quiet cemetery, bright orbs of red peeking through snow sprinkled like icing sugar across them.

But she stopped in front of a gravestone that seemed lonelier than the rest, slightly removed from the path and resting beneath one of the many bare trees, days of hardened snow and ice frozen to its surface.

Looking at it – neglected, ignored – she wondered if that's what her grave would look like when she died.

She should probably get cremated.

She should probably just leave. She had no business here, staring at some stranger's grave like the person lying below it cared about anything – cared that no one had stopped to sweep off the snow, but she didn't.

Instead, she stepped off the clean, salted path and crunched through layers of icy snow, deeper than she had thought. She could feel it crumbling over the tops of her low boots, icy pebbles melting and trickling down her heel. Well, she was stuck for it now.

She crouched down in front of the gravestone, and raising one gloved hand, she began brushing the frozen chunks of snow from its shoulders. Removing the dusting of windblown ice from the engraved front proved to be more work than she had anticipated, but after a few minutes she had most of it cleared, the rest would just have to melt on its own. Her hard work rewarded, she finally took the time to read the face of the stone.

She hadn't been to any funerals in her life, but she knew enough that the brevity of what she saw surprised her.

Liam Jones, 1977 – 2011

Her breath left her body, a chill wind stirring her hair and leaving her feeling somehow exposed, like she was doing something she shouldn't be - peering through the window of someone’s life only to find it was an empty house, abandoned. She had expected an old gravestone, someone with no family left to come sit by them and wipe away the snow.

She hadn't been expecting this.

He was young, not much older than her, and since it was only February, it hadn't even been that long since he'd passed. She glanced at the frozen ground she was squatting above and moved hastily to the side, wondering if there was some kind of graveyard etiquette. There must be. Don't stand in front of the graves where people are...resting, she guessed. She wasn't really sure. She'd never had a family, a grave to visit.

She probably should be thankful for that, less heartache.

Snow removed, job done, she stuck her hand back in her pocket and headed down the path. She wouldn't be back again. He wasn't her family, whoever she was, and she wanted to leave the nagging fear that one day that might be her in the cemetery where it belonged.

Weeks passed and she told herself when she headed down the cemetery path again that it was because another big storm had just blown through Boston, and for some reason known only to the city, they never cleared or salted the sidewalks in this neighborhood.    

But she didn't try to stop herself when she reached his grave again, this time the name Liam Jones clearly visible, a thick blanket of fresh snow cushioning the top. She walked between the first row of graves and to the side of his, taking care not to step where she assumes he's buried. It seemed like the right way to go about it, even if there aren't any rules. She probably should've googled it, but she hadn't planned on coming back.

She really hadn't.

Instead of questioning it too much, she brushed the snow away with her sleeve and tossed a few stray, fallen twigs back to the ground. It wasn't until after she'd thrown them that she thought to make sure she hadn't dropped them onto another resting place – littering on dead people was most definitely poor graveyard etiquette.

When she stopped in spring, she told herself it was just to enjoy the blossoms on the cherry trees that blanket that portion of the cemetery, knowing it was a lie. She knew because she'd bothered to look up cemetery etiquette online, and yes, it was a thing. She was also mildly curious to see if anyone had been to visit him now that the weather was nicer, if she would even be able to tell.  

There were a few graves she'd passed that had small flowers gracing their shoulders, and others with ornate vases built into the stone, colorful blooms filling them. She brushed a scattering of cherry blossoms from the top of Liam's grave and wondered again at the emptiness of it. He must not have had anyone, because if he had, surely they would have written something other than just the year of his birth and death.

Was he a father, a brother? Was he a son? Was he alone, as she was?

“Who were you?” she asked, but no one answered.

The next time she passed through, the cherry trees had long since lost their blooms, and she swept the sickly sweet smelling remains of them from his grave, bending down to tug out the stray clumps of tall grass where the granite sat, immovable. It seemed pretty obvious no one else was visiting, and that not even the groundskeeper had enough hours in the day to really keep everything neat.

They'd had enough dry days that she didn't have to crouch to visit, and found herself sitting back onto the grass between his gravestone and the next.

“Is this...weird?” she asked, glancing around to make sure no one was listening to her talk to a dead person she didn't even know. “I'm sorry no one comes here but me.”

Suddenly she felt self-conscious, the whole situation settling heavily around her, the overpowering perfume of dying flowers clinging to her skin. What the hell was wrong with her that the only connection she'd allow herself was with some stranger's gravestone? Angry with herself, she jumped up and hurried back down the path towards home. She was out of the cemetery and an entire block away when she finally remembered the daisies in her bag. Reaching in, she brushed the crumpled edges of the petals and sighed.

There was another visitor a few graves down when she returned, but they clearly knew enough to not eyeball her or say anything when she walked back over to Liam's grave – mildly flustered – and gently placed the rumpled cluster of flowers on the ledge in front of his name. She brushed her hands roughly on her leather sleeves and left as quickly as she came.

The next time it was a lot easier to talk to him, even if she knew he wasn't listening, and he certainly couldn't talk back. The daisies hadn't lasted very long, so she tossed them and said she'd bring more next time, although she realized she may need to leave something other than flowers. Work had been slow lately, and she wasn't stopping at the precinct all that often to drop off skips – and she couldn't just make a special trip once a week to refresh his flowers.

That would be crazy.

She didn't even know him.

So when her fingers ran across the smooth ridges of the seashell on her windowsill at home, she put it in her pocket.

Spring faded into the suffocating heat of summer, the grass parched and brittle beneath her feet as she crouched next to Liam's grave, brushing away the small ant hills that had formed in the sandy soil with a vengeance she didn't know she had in her for the tiny creatures.

“You know,” she said, and the words hurt before they even left her mouth, “you might be the only person I've got to talk to. How pathetic is that?”

She worked around the back of the grave, tugging up stray weeds she'd missed the last time.

“I brought you something other than flowers. Maybe you weren't even a flower guy, when you were around. I'm not much of a flower girl, I don't think. I've never really had anyone to buy them for me though. There was Neal...but he...well, let's just say he didn't leave me with any good memories, let alone flowers. Is there anyone who has good memories of you? I wish I knew some. It would be nice to know who you were, not just sit here guessing.”

The cemetery was empty, and that's when Emma felt most at ease, most like she could just say what was on her mind without having to worry about anyone listening, or whether they think she's crazy.

She laid the scraggly bunch of weeds at the side of the grave, reminding herself to take it out to the trash can when she leaves.

“Here,” she shrugged, pulling the seashell from her pocket and placing it on the ledge where she last left flowers.

It was a spiral shell, small, but perfect and white with a soft, amber colored center.

“I don't know if you really like seashells either, but...I picked that up a few years ago down at the beach. In the summer, it's always full of families and couples, so I don't go much, but sometimes when it's a little grey and stormy...it's just the most peaceful place to sit and think.”

She didn't say the rest of what she was thinking aloud – that seeing the happy couples and the parents with their kids just made her stomach clench, that all she could think of was how that was never something her mom wanted to go with her.

– was never something she got the chance to do.

That feels like too much to unload, even on a dead guy.

“It's pretty peaceful here too,” she sighed.

Summer relented and fall crept into the city, the once green leaves crisping and drifting to the ground. Despite getting a payday, she was leaving the precinct in a pretty shitty mood. Her skip had almost given her the slip, and she was going to be nursing a bruised shoulder from where she tumbled in an alley trying to keep up with him. By the time she stepped through the archway of the cemetery, the sun had already set, the streetlamps casting cold halos across the damp ground. She heard them before she saw them, and it took her a few seconds to realize they'd gathered just off the path next to Liam's grave.

“Hey!” she snapped, immediately angered by what she was seeing. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Christ, relax, lady,” one of the kids drawled, taking a swig from his beer and clinking it against the gravestone next to Liam's.

Emma didn't know who it belonged to, but it was always well cared for, and she was furious. There were four kids, teenagers, and they'd stomped all over the damp ground in front of the graves, clearly not caring that they were drinking and walking all over someone's remains.

“Look, kid, you and your buddies have about ten seconds to take your crap and get the hell out of here. I just left the precinct, and I've got Chief Humbert on speed dial – ” They didn't need to know how untrue that was, that, in fact, the guy gave her the creeps “ – so I suggest you take your party somewhere else.”

A few eye rolls and snarky comments later and they'd cleared out, leaving Emma feeling both pleased and worried for herself. She plopped down next to Liam's grave, wincing as her palm hit a piece of broken glass.

“Little shits,” she hissed, pulling the chunk of glass from her hand and setting it aside. It was too dark to find all the pieces. “What the hell am I doing?”

She leaned forward and straightened the seashell that was still resting on the stone, glad it had survived Boston's vagrant youths for this long. Wet leaves stuck to the front and sides of the grave, and she pulled off a few that hid his name.

“That's going to be me one day,” she muttered, eyeing the paltry engraving once more. “Emma Swan, time stamp. I'll be lucky if anyone comes to chase delinquents away from my grave.”

Everything was wet and cold, the smell of decomposing leaves rich in the air, and while fall made most people think of pumpkins and Thanksgiving, warm cups of coffee on cold walks – right now she could only think about how dark and cold and oppressively heavy it must be six feet under.

The next time she visited, she left a little fist-sized pumpkin she'd picked up at the bodega. She'd thought about carving it, what with Halloween around the corner, but that was never something she'd done before, and if she messed it up, she'd have nothing.

It didn't take long for the pumpkin to turn into a Thanksgiving feast for the city's squirrels, barely more than a rind left behind like something someone had tossed into the garbage, and she felt bad. She should have come back sooner.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, removing the half-frozen leftovers and pulling the few stray weeds with enough gumption to grow in later November. “Looks like you had quite a bit of furry company while I was gone. If I were a normal person, I'd be home sharing a Thanksgiving meal with my family, or friends – but I don't have either of those, so here I am, talking to you. Happy Thanksgiving, Liam.”

It wasn't long after the first snow hit Boston, and Emma was reminded of that first time she visited the cemetery and wondered who Liam Jones had been, why no one stopped to visit his grave. She could have googled him, but if she was being honest with herself – which she was really trying to be better about these days – she didn't really want to know if he had family that couldn't be bothered to visit. If she didn't know, she couldn't be angry with them for no reason, since she had no right to be.

She didn't know Liam Jones.

She had no right to bear a grudge for him.

As Christmas approached, Emma saw more people visiting, sometimes with family, and other times alone, leaving little battery powered tea lights and wreaths to warm the cold stone. When she saw the bouquet of poinsettias at the bodega, she didn't feel the least bit strange as she placed it on the counter. There aren't any Christmas decorations in her apartment, but she felt like Liam should have something to show that at least one person was thinking about him on the first Christmas he was missing.  

The air was bitter and cold as she made the trek though from her neighborhood to the cemetery, but she didn't mind. When she reached Liam's grave, there was a soft blanket of fresh snow atop it, and she brushed it gently to the ground.

“You know, I really should thank you,” she said quietly, glad for the peace and solitude that hung around her. It made it easier to say the words. “I felt like maybe I was doing something nice for you, remembering you in the way I would want someone to think about me, just so that I wasn't completely forgotten, but I feel like coming here...shit, it'll be a year in a couple months. I think I figured something out. I don't want to be alone, Liam. I know I can't guarantee that I won't be alone one day in the ground, with no one left to care, but...I don't want to feel that way now. I've always kept people at a distance, too afraid to get hurt again, but I'm tired of being alone. I want a life, I want to live it...”

There was no answer, but she hadn't been expecting one.

Instead she leaned down and brushed the snow off the little ledge that still held her seashell, frozen to the stone, and gently placed the poinsettias beside it. She reached out and traced her finger along the carved edge of his name before turning to leave, glancing up at the blue sky between the bare branches of the cherry tree.

“If you're, uh, listening anywhere, well, thanks for everything, Liam. Merry Christmas.”

~ * ~ * ~

When Killian woke, it felt like he was being dragged from the bottom of the sea, every force on earth weighing him down still not enough to keep his blissful, dark peace from being disturbed.

Once the light hit him, it wasn't like in the movies. He didn't wake up groggy, or wondering where he was, confused about the machines beeping around him and the tubes connected to his body.

No, he knew exactly where he was and what led him here, and he wanted nothing more than to sink back down to that darkness that was so complete and starving it devoured every thought before he could think it. He wanted to close his eyes and fall back into that oblivion that had been his only respite from the flashes of memory, the pull of voices.

He didn't want to have to remember the sound that steel makes when it cracks and groans, the way the dock shook beneath their feet as the freighter slid into the crane, the sheer force of it toppling the massive tower of heavy steel as easily as if it were nothing more than a house of cards. He wanted to forget running for his brother, watching the mass of cables and metal come down over them – screaming, screaming his name and trying to reach him, unable to move, unable to breathe...

“Can you hear me? My name is Dr. Whale.”

The voice was leaning over him, his mouth moving, more words floating around him. Killian didn't understand why they wouldn't just leave him alone – he tried to roll onto his side, ignoring the the objections from the doctor, and that's when he felt it – a pain that burned up his arm and into his brain, as if his hand had been crushed by his movement. He jerked his arm, trying to understand what he'd done, why it hurt so badly – and then he saw it.

The bandages, the stump, the strangely shortened arm that most definitely used to have a hand at the end of it – except now there was nothing, and it couldn't possibly be his arm he was looking at, his hand that was missing, because he could feel it. The agony was so real it eclipsed everything else – the pain in his ribs and elsewhere vanishing as he thrashed and tore out lines and catheters.

There were hands on him, holding him – voices shouting, someone screaming. He was screaming, but it was so far away, a sea of darkness rising between him and the place where his hand wasn't, cradling and dragging him back down to that deep oblivion where there was nothing.

Nothing at all.  

Tagging: @justanother-unluckysoul @kmom0f4 @the-darkdragonfly @teamhook @zaharadessert @xarandomdreamx @jrob64 @wefoundloveunderthelight @tiganasummertree @pirateprincessofpizza @lfh1226-linda @alexa-fangirl-forever @alifeofdreams @superchocovian @donteattheappleshook @hollyethecurious @caught-in-the-filter @snowbellewells @itsfabianadocarmo

[mostlycompetentwriter]

You Can STAY - Part 12

Pairing: Y/N x Felix (Side Pairing: Y/N x Stray Kids)

Genre: Fantasy AU; OT8; Scarlet Heart AU

Warnings: Lots of Angst; Major Character Death

A/N: This is the final part of You Can STAY. I have determined that I am very bad at writing series, and I apologize for the ending...I imagine that many of you will express mixed emotions.

However, there is a epilogue coming soon in the future! And I will, of course, add all of the parts together into one easily accessible story for future readers!

Nine Months Later

If I were to tell the end of my story, I would want it to go something like this: “At the edge of the Kingdom, secluded in the northernmost woods, a former Castle Mage lived with her husband and unborn son, dreaming about the King who stole her heart.”

I don’t like sad endings, but sometimes there are sacrifices whose consequences are too grave to ignore. While Felix ruled the Kingdom exactly as I had once urged him, I did my part by spending long hours tucked away inside a little cabin as my stomach grew rounder and the days grew shorter.

Jisung was good company, when he was around. In between his visits, he worked on the margins, watching over Felix and working with Chan to secure our borders and alliances. He was still very much ostracized from political life, and Felix, to my knowledge, had never forgave his brothers for their part in the rebellion that changed the Kingdom. 

“I can deal with his wrath,” Jisung told me one morning. “I’m perfectly content.”

I managed a smile in return, but it was half-hearted. I knew that Jisung was referring to our marriage, one that only existed on paper, so that he could support me in isolation. He was more than content to live with me and provide anything that my heart desired.

But my heart’s most fervent wish lived in the Castle beyond the horizon, and I could easily glimpse the tops of the tallest towers, wondering if Felix ever looked out from the balcony and thought of the woman he once loved.

Of course he does, a voice at the back of my head reminded me.

“Hyunjin tells me that Felix speaks of you often,” Jisung added, even though it didn’t do much to assuage my guilt. 

Thankfully, Felix had accepted Hyunjin back into the Castle as a personal advisor, likely because Hyunjin had nothing to do with Jisung, Jeongin, and Chan’s plan to overtake the Kingdom and dispose Changbin.

It seemed like a distant memory, and I sighed at the nostalgia of those memories: occasions where I walked through the hallways of the Castle, exploring the gardens and distant grounds, thinking of the day when Felix and I would finally both be free to love without constraint.

It belongs in that past, those sort of thoughts, and I had long ago given up on the prospect of a complete family where I could simply exist as someone who wanted to love and be loved.

Of course, there was also the issue of my health.

Despite early good reports on my pregnancy, our doctor had recently decided that my prognosis wasn’t as easy as he had initially perceived: “You might have difficulties,” he told me. “During the birth.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage, and I barely felt Jisung squeezing my hand as everything changed in a single moment. 

One day, along the bright edges of the morning, Hyunjin came to visit.

“You look well,” he told me, accepting a drink from Jisung who then came to sit next to me.

“I feel good,” I said, even though there was still a prickling of doubt at the furthest reaches of my subconscious - a reminder that my future was suddenly difficult to presume.

“I’m glad,” Hyunjin replied sincerely, and he turned his attention to Jisung. “I just got back from a meeting with a Southern convoy. Things are turning around.”

“Good,” Jisung said, reaching out to take my hand. “We were worried for a while.”

I forced a smile, barely listening as they continued talking, discussing the same politics that I could barely stand since they had cost me everything. 

“Where are you going this weekend?” Jisung asked, and I was faintly aware of Hyunjin’s response, but more than anything, my attention was suddenly preoccupied with a sharp pain in my abdomen.

I winced immediately, and Jisung noticed my discomfort, falling down onto his knees in front of me. “Y/N?” he asked, tone hesitant.

“Hurts,” I managed, and I could see Hyunjin getting up from the corner of my eye.

“Do you need the doctor?” Jisung asked, and I managed a nod, keeling over when it felt like a thousand knives were piercing me all at once. 

“I’ll go,” Hyunjin volunteered, but his voice sounded distant, like I had abruptly been submerged beneath the water, struggling to hear.

“Y/N!” Jisung repeated, and his eyes were frantic as they found mine. “You’ll stay with me, right?”

I tried to say something, but there was a peculiar pull to the dark that was far more compelling, and I fell under its spell while Jisung became nothing more than a distant shadow.

When I woke back up again, the shapes and figures surrounding me were difficult to discern.

My stomach rolled and my skin felt like it burning! I groaned at the discomfort, attracting the attention of the two men standing at the door. “Y/N,” Jisung’s familiar voice spoke through the reverie, and he was at my side within moments, taking my hand in his own. 

“Hello again, dear,” another voice said, and I recognized the doctor as he released a tired sigh. “Seems like we’re at a difficult point.”

I nodded, opening my mouth to speak, but ultimately deciding to remain silent. “I’m so sorry, Y/N,” Jisung whispered to me, and my heart ached at the pain in his eyes. “Do you feel like seeing a visitor?”

Not really, but I agreed nonetheless, expecting Hyunjin to enter the room. But nothing could’ve prepared me for the sight of a familiar mess of red hair and bright green eyes. “Y/N.”

“Felix,” I said, voice hoarse and gravelly, but there were tears falling even without my awareness, and I quickly noticed that Jisung and the doctor had vacated the room.

It was a little awkward though, after all this time, looking back at Felix as he looked back at me, gaze heavy with something striking. “Y/N,” he whispered, and I was shocked to see him breakdown, making it to my bedside before falling onto the edge of the mattress. 

“Are you okay?” I asked, instinctively, reaching out without hesitation to card my fingers through his hair.

He sniffled in response, looking up at me with tear-streaked eyes and a beautiful smile. “I am now.”

My heart stuttered at his sentiment, and I wanted nothing more than to curl myself into Felix and lose myself there in his embrace. “I missed you,” I whimpered. 

“I know, love,” Felix said, and he pressed a kiss to the back of my hand. 

“I’m sorry I left,” I whispered - as if it were an afterthought.

“I understand,” he replied, looking at me to expose the truth - he was aware, despite what I had burdened myself with believing. He knew why I had to leave, and there was nothing but peace left between us.

Peace and Love.

“At first, I was angry and confused,” Felix said. “But I read your letter, and I had Hyunjin to help guide me. He helped me realize that you left so that I could fulfill the destiny I had been denied as a child. It was painful without you, but our circumstances were far from trivial.”

“Yes,” I exhaled, tightening my grip on him. “I never wanted to leave.”

“It’s okay,” Felix reassured me, and his eyes were soft as they paused on my lips. “We’ve always been tethered at the soul. Together, even if it couldn’t be in the way we truly desired.”

He kissed me then, igniting a furious passion that had laid dormant inside of me for months. “It’s yours, you know,” I said, pulling back to graze the pretty line of his lashes. “The child is ours.”

Felix inhaled abruptly, looking down at my swollen stomach. “Truly? Hyunjin said that you were pregnant, but I didn’t want to assume-”

“It could’ve never belonged to anyone else,” I interrupted him. “It’s always been you.”

Felix nodded, allowing one hand to smooth down over the sheets, following the outline of my stomach. “This is more than I could ever ask for.”

I smiled at his pretty words, but then I felt a cold sweat break out against the back of my neck. “Felix,” I said. “The doctor told me that the pregnancy might bring some complications.”

He shivered, and I was surprised by the unfiltered grief written across his expression. “I know that too.”

“If I don’t survive-”

“If,” Felix growled, emphasizing that nothing could ever be certain.

“If,” I agreed. “I want you to raise our child. He deserves to be with his father.”

Felix visibly swallowed, looking away as if having trouble completing such a promise, but I forced him to look at me again. “Alright,” he eventually conceded. “If such things manifest.”

“And you need to forgive your brothers,” I said, holding him at attention in case he tried to move away again. “After all this time...”

“Y/N,” Felix sighed. “Why does this sound like a goodbye?”

I held my tongue, glancing down at our intertwined hands. “Think of it as a start to the next chapter.”

Felix chuckled, affectionate gaze meeting mine. “I’ll be here until it’s over. When you can rest for as long as you want.” 

“Thank you,” I said. “And you will always have me. In one way or another.”

“I can rest easy,” Felix said, and he started murmuring something soft and sweet to the unborn child inside of me, and I found myself able to breathe a lit bit easier for the first time in months.

I even managed a smile, knowing that I could still give Felix a piece of me after I was gone. Unlike our complicated time together at the Castle, our unborn son would be free of those heavy restrictions, and perhaps it was the better outcome. Because, when I really thought about it, our son wouldn’t just be a piece of me. It would be a little part of Felix as well, and I felt nothing short of triumphant when I imagined a world with the right combination of Y/N and Felix. Together at long last. 

Victorious until the bittersweet end.

[wlntrsldler]

unrequited (draco malfoy/ cedric diggory series)

PROMPT: You and Cedric grew up together. After the tragedy of the Triwizard Tournament, you’re left feeling empty without your best friend. Draco Malfoy steps into the picture. Will the feelings be reciprocated? Or will it be unrequited?

WARNINGS: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, angst, fluff, sadness???

PAIRING: draco malfoy x reader and cedric diggory x reader; hufflepuff reader

WC: 2.1K+

UNREQUITED MASTERLIST

UNREQUITED PLAYLISTS (SEND ME SONGS!)

-

PART 8

Much to your dismay, you and Draco went back to acting like you didn’t know each other after that night. He avoided you at all costs, even going as far as moving his seat in Potions. Snape caught on after a while, eyeing Draco from the other side of the room when he would try to subtly look at you. 

He stopped looking at you in the Great Hall, changing his seat so his back was facing you. You didn’t know what happened or what you did, but it bothered you. He closed himself off again, reverting back to the Draco you despised. Although he no longer made fun of you and your friends, it still hurt knowing that he acted like you didn’t exist.

You were in your dormitory, doing some last minute packing. Everyone else was already off on their way home for the holidays. The Weasleys, Hermione and Harry left for the Burrow some time ago, leaving you to yourself as you said you had to take care of something beforehand. You wanted to go somewhere before the holidays.

You placed the last sweater into your backpack, letting out a breath of relief that you were finally done with packing. You always hated packing, that’s why you pushed it off to the very last minute. You zipped up your backpack and placed it at the foot of your bed, mentally scolding yourself for working to fit everything in one bag. You knew your back was going to kill you. 

You tugged your coat on, double checking to see if you had everything. The golden bottle of cologne stood lonesome on your desk, reminding you that you had to pack it. You walked over, getting a hold of the bottle and spritizing some on. Chamomile and honey, just how you like it. 

“Y/N?” 

Startled, you dropped the bottle, the contents spilling out of the broken glass. You turned around, surprised that there were even still people in the castle. You saw Draco standing by the doorway, eyes apologetic when he saw the wet stain on the floor caused by your cologne. You scolded, “Merlin, Draco. Don’t sneak up on me like that.” 

“Sorry,” He apologized, awkwardly standing by the door.

You knelt down and picked up the large pieces, tossing them in the trash. You wiped up the cologne, cursing that you had to wait until you got back to pick up a new bottle. “What are you doing here?” 

“I just wanted to wish you a Happy Christmas.” Draco stated. “I know it’s been really weird between us and I just-” He took in a breath. “I just wanted to say have a Happy Christmas.”

“I wonder why it’s been weird.” You snapped, picking up your bag to make your way out of the dormitories. “Seriously, Draco. What the hell is wrong with you?”

He groaned, shutting the door behind him. He approached you, not wanting to startle you so he calmed himself down before he stopped in front of you. “I know, Y/N. I’ve been an arse. I just-”

“You what?” 

“Let me finish.” He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest like a child. “I just can’t talk about the Dark Lord and stuff like that. I get a squirmy.” 

“Squirmy?” 

“Yeah, you know like… I get weir-”

You cut him off again, “I know what it means, Draco. I’m asking, why?”

He groaned again, rubbing his eyes with his palms.”That’s- It’s complicated.”

“I hate that phrase.” 

He cocked an eyebrow, “Well, there’s no better way of saying it.” 

“I guess.”

“Y/N,” His voice was calmer now. He sounded more at ease than before. He stepped towards you, grabbing you by the shoulders to steady you. “It’s complicated, okay? I just can’t talk about it. Especially not with you.” 

You stared at his hands on your body. You couldn’t help but smile at how absurd you two must look right now. Draco Malfoy, the touch starved boy, holding onto you like a lifeline with the most worried look on his face that anyone has ever seen, in the middle of a Hufflepuff girl dormitory. His eyes were pleading, expensive shoes getting stained by the leftover cologne you didn’t wipe clean, and his fingers digging into your skin, but not to the point where it hurt. You don’t know how you got here, but you did. 

You chuckled, raising your hand to place it on top of his- less cold than you remembered. “Okay, Draco.”

He smiled, eyes darting down to where you touched him. “Okay.” 

You moved his hand to intertwine your fingers, an action that seemed so natural. You hummed in appreciation as he rubbed his thumb over the top of your hand. You traced the veins on his hand with your other hand, drawing figure-eights on his pale skin. He shivered under your feather light touch. You both looked up at the same time, eyes twinkling with something new. You didn’t know what it was but it was nice. Being with Draco, this Draco, was nice. 

You stood there for a while, just smiling at each other like fools. You tried to look away so many times but his smile was addicting. It was a crime that he didn’t do it more often. His smile was contagious. And when he let out a genuine laugh at how long you two held your stares, probably realizing how stupid you were both acting, you could’ve swore your heart fluttered in your chest. Draco Malfoy, you thought, who would’ve known?

“Well,” He started, backing away but his sheepish smile remained on his face. “Happy Christmas, Y/N. I’ll see you after the holidays. Enjoy your time with the Weasleys.” 

Your smile faltered a bit, not wanting him to go so soon, but it was progress. You’d take it over nothing. “Bye Draco. Enjoy your holiday, as well.” 

He gave you a courteous nod before walking out of your dormitory, shutting the door quietly behind him. The castle was quiet enough that you heard his footsteps receding down the hallway. You plopped down on your bed, unable to stop smiling and replaying the scene that happened in front of you. What the hell was going on? 

You left the castle an hour after your encounter with Draco. You made your way to the cemetery where Cedric was put to rest. It was your first time going since the funeral and a part of you felt guilty because of it. You knew you should’ve been there more often and visited him but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. Seeing his name engraved in the stone made it too real and for a long time you weren’t ready to face a reality that didn’t have Cedric in it. 

You knew he would’ve wanted you to continue living. He always found the value of life, always telling you to look on the bright side of things. He was a glass half-full type of person, always was. He would joke around when you were younger that if he were to die early, he wanted you to keep him in the back of your mind, but never let his death keep you from being happy. He would’ve been disappointed in you, the first few months of his death, because you did exactly what he said not to do. But now, you tried to obey his wishes. 

You felt the snowfall as you walked towards the gates of the cemetery. You carried your backpack with your clothes on your back, unable to feel the pain as the lines of tombstones made you feel numb. You’d only been there once but it was like your feet knew exactly where to go. 

Nobody was around, which made sense. It was cold out and the snow kept falling with no hesitations. Everyone was indoors, snuggled up in blankets with their loved ones. You saw some indents of footsteps going in and out of the cemetery. You studied them for a moment. One set of footprints belonged to a child; you could tell because it was so small. It reminded you of yours when you first buried your mother in the Muggle cemetery, holding your aunt’s hand tightly as you cried into your shoulder. 

You saw a field of flowers by one tombstone and you knew it was Cedric’s. Your heart skipped when you saw how many people still thought of him. It made you feel like you weren’t alone, for once. Like you weren’t crazy for always thinking of him, dreaming of him, almost feeling his touch. Maybe nobody else missed him in the same way as you did, but it was comforting to know that other people missed him too. Was that horrible? 

You sat in front of the tombstone, Cedric’s name seemed to blind you. You felt tears prick your eyes as they danced over the fresh flowers people left on his grave. A few from some Hufflepuffs, a bouquet from Mr. Diggory, and one from the Trio and the twins. You smiled, knowing they stopped by before you did to pay their respects. You really did have the best of friends. 

“Hey Ced,” You greeted, unable to stop the tears from falling. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately. I couldn’t bring myself to see you. Selfish, right? You’re the one who died and I’m the one who’s acting like her life is over.” You chuckled, half expecting him to laugh with you. He always laughed at your pitiful jokes. 

“Um, a lot has changed, Ced. Christmas is a few days from now and I know you won’t be there to wake me up. I haven’t seen your dad in a while. It’s gonna be weird without his pancakes.” You bit your lip, uncontrollably shaking. “I’m spending it with the Weasley’s, though, Harry and Hermione, too. They help a lot. They help me a lot.” 

You cleared your throat, digging through your bag to pull out his journal. “I hope you don’t mind but I-I’ve been reading your journal. Your dad gave it to me for my birthday this year. It makes me feel like you’re still around. Like sometimes, I talk to myself, out loud, because I think you’re gonna reply and I look next to me and you’re not there. And I just-” You stopped for a second, trying to steady your voice. “And I just miss you, Ced. I don’t know life without you. You’re my best friend and you’re supposed to be here. You know? You arse. You’re supposed to be here and tell me everything’s gonna be okay and that you love me and this is just a bad dream.” 

You could almost hear his voice, calm and steady, telling you to take a deep breath. He always did that whenever you grew frustrated with him, which he hates to admit, happened a lot. You would be so close to throwing things at him when he pissed you off and he would wrap his arms around you, let you cry and ruin his clothes, while helping you match your breathing with his. Cedric was always so good with that. Always so good with you. 

But he wasn’t there now. And it was unfair of you, you know it was, but you couldn’t help it. You were mad. You were angry. You were hurt that he had to die and leave you to figure life out without him. You lost so many people and loved so hard only for love to spit in your face. You always thought Cedric would be the last person to go. 

Yes, you were selfish. Unfair. Cruel. But dammit, Cedric’s gone. And you were by yourself. 

Your voice grew louder, “You’re supposed to hold me and tell me I’m overreacting. That’s what we do, Ced! We don’t leave each other. You never left me before. Why did you have to go?” Your voice cracked, hands trembling. You noticed how loud you were when the birds flew away at the sound of your voice. You whispered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

You sniffled, wiping your nose on your coat. “Ced, I wish you were here. I wish it everyday. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give to have you back just for a day, even. An hour. A minute. Anything, Cedric Diggory. I just… I want more time with you. I didn’t get to say goodbye.” 

You placed your palm on his tombstone, like how you used to do on his chest to feel his heart beating under you. “I didn’t get to tell you that I love you back.”

-

A/N: sorry if i spam you guys with updates but i literally LOVE writing this fic. the minute i hit over 2K words and i like the way i ended the chapter, i publish it right away. so if there’s some errors im so sorry. im just too excited LOL. 

TAGLIST IS OPEN! SEND AN ASK!

@melancholiaflowers @jjjmaybank @marshxx @truly-insatiable @poisoned-pineapple @i-mmunity @p0gue420 @dark-night-sky-99 @hvrcruxes @youareinllve @messenough