#it's been a while since I've left the house completely on my own

[rainey-staerie-daize]

Mom getting lazy? Telling me to lock the door behind her? When she often just leaves it unlocked without saying anything? And sometimes hanging open??

No. You get ONE lock. The one I can easily lock. The gate can fuck off.

Though it's all locked up now because Skye came home and locked it up.

[fever-fluff]

Take my Hand

Synopsis: Azriel really wants to hold your hand, but he's afraid that he'll hold it too tight.

(I've been obsessed with writing something that focuses on Azriel's hands. Because of how it was too late to save his hands when his brother's burned him, I'm wondeirng if he ever had to relearn things when they finally healed himself.)

Word Count: 2k(Not Proof Read)

Sometimes he had wished he had burned in the blaze of heat centuries ago, that the months of relearning how to make a fist with his fingers and then splay them wide again hadn’t tunnelled itself so far into his memory that he could still feel the anger, pain and frustration of not being able to do what infants could. But the years had rolled on, one into another and even with all the Illyrian healing in the world, Azriel would never be able to go back to a time where his hands were just… hands.

He was supposed to meet you today, outside the little bookstore you and Nesta frequented so many times you knew it better than your own rooms. That was an hour ago. But the pains that sparked from his fingers up through his arm had left him twitching so uncontrollably that he couldn’t even lift the cup from its saucer this morning without the tea sloshing over the sides.

He could hear Madja’s hum of disaproval in the back of his mind as he changed his hands from the almost boiling water in one bowl to the icy cold in another. He’d been slacking on the regiments she’d given him all those years ago. With the dexterity he needed to wield his blades, Azriel was supposed to vigilantly keep up with the hot and cold baths and rigorous stretches and ointments so he wouldn’t lose their complete cooperation, but in the past few months he’d avoided them to no end.

If he were being honest with himself, it had started much earlier than that. Seeing so many round him now that didn’t fail in menial bodily functions had left him feeling lesser than, so he’d reduced his routine week by week, then day by day, until he’d relied solely on what his body could do to stop his hands seizing up. What an idiot he was.

The twitching had finally ceased, but his hands had locked into a half-made fist and he grunted with frustration, asking the house to send a bowl of melted wax so he could attempt to bend his fingers back to where they should be.

Submerging one, he began to think of you. Had you left? Or were you still standing outside the sage green door with the potted plants littering the entrance, wondering if he’d stood you up? It had been too long for you to think he was running late, and he cursed himself to Hel.

He’d imagined your first outing over and over again since you’d said yes a week ago. How he’d fly down to you, no Illyrian leather in sight, instead complimenting your dress his shadows had described perfectly with the slacks and shirt he’d chosen after tearing at his hair all morning. He wouldn’t bring any flowers, remembering your distaste for uprooting harmless fauna and instead he’d offer you something hot to drink to keep you warm in the crisp air of the afternoon. You’d smile and thank him, asking if he was ready to go inside and he’d grab you hand, giving it a kiss as he hummed his yes. He wouldn’t let it go the entire time you scanned the bookshelves. Until you’d finally begin choosing your reads for the coming days and he’d offer to carry them for you, holding them securely imaging it was you instead. Once you were finished, he’d hold the bag of books in one hand, while reaching with his other and lacing your fingers together. The day would carry on much the same, and his hands would always be there, either at your waist or your own, always making sure you were still by his side – that he was not imagining any of it.

But that’s all it was in the end – his imagination. His hands were no good for soft touches. He was always grabbing things too lightly or too tight, never just right. They showed him for the brute he was, that he was not meant for delicate things like you.

Slowly bending the first of his fingers back, Azriel heard the slightest rap of knuckles on his door, and he announced himself before he even thought to check who it was. But the soft footsteps he had become so used to picking out over the rest of his loud family had his head snapping up to face the opened door and see you, a small smile on your face with sad eyes. “Is this a bad time?”

His wing barely missed tipping the bowl of wax on the floor as he spun to face you, hiding it and his once again shaking hands behind his back as he called your name in surprise. Shadows flitted around him, making for your figure in the door and swirling at your feet. Their movements displaced the fabric of your dress, the skirt of it flowing with the black tide. You looked so much more than beautiful, blowing whatever his imagination had conjured up earlier out through the open window. All Azriel could find himself thinking of was how soft you looked when you filled the stretching silence once again with your voice. “I was worried. You didn’t show and I thought Rhys might have called you away. But when he said he hadn’t seen you since breakfast, well… I really didn’t know what to think.”

“I -” Gods, why did his own words have to fail him now? “I have no excuse for leaving you to wait. I’m sorry.”

You nodded, “Apology accepted. But Az, if you didn’t want to join me this morning, you could’ve told me. I didn’t want to make you feel like you had no choice but to hide away in you ro-”

“I wasn’t hiding! I – I wanted to come, truly, I just…” Azriel sighed as he placed his hands back in front of him, the shaking and curling fingers on full display in front of you. “I’ve tried everything, but none of it’s working. I just, I wanted today to be perfect, but I should’ve known it would be me that ruined it.”

There was no gasp of surprise as he’d imagined when you inevitably found out about his lacking. Only Rhys and Cass were privy to his condition, Feyre, her sisters, even Mor had been left in the dark for years now on his request. But you had slowly walked toward him and now reached for his hand to peel the hardened shell of wax back, dropping it into the rest.

Guiding him to the bed, he sat and watched as you silently picked up vial after vial of oil on his dresser, putting them down as you read each label until you found what you were looking for.

He said nothing as you tipped some of it into your hands, rubbing them together to warm them after being out in the biting cold for an age, all thanks to him. You reached for his, only stopping to ask him a simple ‘may I?’ before he agreed, and you took his right hand in between your delicate fingers.

Slowly, you pressed and kneaded the aching skin and muscles, setting the fingers that refused to move back with careful movements. It was tediously long, one of the treatments that he avoided almost all of the time because his own could never fix the problem. But you never complained, never tired from the repetitive nature of it once. When the shakes had finally eased, and his fingers could once again flex and move with little stiffness, you moved to his left; using the same care and diligence on it as you did the first. It must have been a couple hours before you finally retracted your hands from his, resting them in you lap as you smiled up at him. “There. Any better?”

Azriel felt the first drop hit his cheek and roll down until it fell, the rest soon following. “Where did you learn to do that?” He couldn’t tear his eyes form yours, even when his vision blurred from the tears. You had done something no one ever had. After everything he had done – leaving you to wait, sending no word of why, then sitting here with you like a buffoon as you tended and cared for him as no one else had. How could you still look at him like that, with so much warmth?

You blushed under the question, “I asked Madja to show me, in case you needed help when no one else could do it.”

He bristled, no no no no no. “Did Rhys tell you? Did Cassian?!” He’d kill them, he’d kill them both for putting you here. But you waved you hands in denial of his words. “No. No! I – I just thought that it would be something you might need… you know? I know that Illyrian healing is one of the most potent there is, so for your hands to be so scarred, I just thought that maybe it wasn’t all surface level…” Your voiced had filtered out as you finished explaining, but Azriel couldn’t even believe the words that had reached his ears.

You had gone to Madja, or your own choosing, to ask for something no one else had thought of in the time they had known him. “You did this for me?”

“Well, yea. You’re always taking care of me. I just wanted to take care of you sometimes, because I know its nice to receive it. So why shouldn’t I return the fav- ”

Azriel hadn’t even let you finish before he’d moved to place his lips on yours, stealing the intake of breath you’d taken in surprise. He was right, you were soft, and delicate, and just, everything. He moved his now still hands to hold you as he wanted to this afternoon – wrapping one round your waist as the other placed itself to cup your neck. You preened as he pulled you closer, legs tangling slightly and your own hands, the ones which had cared for him so wonderfully, reached for the front of his shirt and pulled on the fabric to bring him impossibly closer. You were incredibly open to him, inviting everything he gave you with warmth and just as much delight as he did. it was impossible to pull away from you, and even as he gained the strength to do so you had chased his mouth with a slight nip to his lower lip. His hum swallowed by you, tongue teasing the seam of his mouth until he opened up just as much as you had, and he became engulfed by you once again.   

This time it had been you who pulled to break away from him. He forced himself not to follow as you had done earlier, opening his eyes and finding yours already looking at him. Your cheeks had flushed, and he noticed that somehow you had come to sit on his lap, legs tossed to the side while your dress pooled around you both. He supposed he looked no better, even less so with the grip he had on your waist and neck. But you didn’t seem to mind. Not at all as he worked the skin underneath in a silent apology to sooth whatever pressure he had inflicted.

“Thank you”

Your eyes closed at his words and touch, leaning forward to peck his lips one more time. “Anytime, Shadowsinger. Anytime.”

He should ask to redo your missed outing this morning, should apologise one more time for leaving you to wait. But with the way you had curled into him, Azriel pushed his thoughts back. He’d make it up to you later, he promised himself. He just wanted to hold you for a little while longer.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not putting a bell on my cat?

Cw for discussion of animal death and injury in vague terms.

So I live in a neighborhood with a lot of stray/outdoor cats. In fact, it's sorta that way all over the city. A few weeks ago as of writing this, I picked up a stray because I saw that it had an open wound on its neck; since it was amicable to being handled I decided to take it to the vet to be treated (and neutered, since I'd already gotten hold of it and obviously we don't need more strays.)

Recently, my cat of 15 years (we had him for 15 years, he was about 17-18 though) passed of old age, so I wasn't expecting my family to be willing to take a new cat in so soon. We even still have most of his stuff, so I figured it would be a matter of keeping the stray indoors until it was healed, then letting him go about his business. We all ended up getting attached over his two weeks of recovery though (if anyone is curious, it was a burst absess. While he was there we got him vaccinated and checked for other problems. Aside from ear mites, he was fine) so we got him a microchip, named him, and that was that.

My previous cat was also a rescue, though we picked him up from a shelter. At the time we also had a dog and a dog door, so keeping him inside would have been a logistical struggle we just... didn't care to bother with. By the time the dog passed, he'd had access to the outside for years and we saw no reason to suddenly cut him off from that. We obviously had to keep this new cat completely inside while his staples were in, but the plan was always to open up the dog door once he was healed and let him decide where he wanted to be. I don't like taking care of a litter box, my dad doesn't like the smell of cat, 3/4ths of the house is allergic (though that didn't stop us before), and this cat is much younger than our previous was, and has much more energy (vet estimated him at 6mo-1yr). At the beginning of last week (again, as of writing this) I got the go-ahead from the vet to let him outside and gladly did so. He hasn't gotten the hang of the dog door yet (our previous had the advantage of watching the dog go through to learn how to do it) but will go through open doors/windows and will return to the door or enter through the window if it's still open.

With context out of the way here comes the trouble: our neighbors. Our house is on the corner of the block and to our left is a house that takes tenants every so often. They've been here for as long as I (22m) have been alive and have been a nucance for probably longer than that. Their yard is atrocious, they planted bamboo that grew under the fence and into our property, and the woman who owns the house (presumably. Her husband might but I've never spoken to him) apparently has some moral issue with outdoor cats.

Sometime into owning our previous cat, she suddenly became very concerned with the bird population and insisted that we collar our cat and get him a bell so that he wouldn't catch birds. I'd like to point three things out: 1) our previous cat only had one eye, 2) we had tried to collar him before and he lost every single one so we gave up (breakaway collars so he didn't choke, 3) he caught birds despite both of these facts. Needless to say, I was not fucking thrilled about unsolicited advice from a woman I'd never spoken to, who let her unmitigated mess of invasive plants invade my garden, but whatever. She spoke to my little (10yro) sister about it at the time, only once, and never to me, so it wasn't an issue.

So I let this new cat out, right? I opened the dog door for him and he waltzed right on out, but I wasn't convinced he really knew how to operate it. About an hour or so without hearing him come in, I head through the back door to look for him. I got him from a different neighborhood, across town, while visiting a friend, so I figured I was allowed to be a little worried about him getting lost or overwhelmed. As soon as I step out onto the porch, the neighbor-lady calls over and asks me if my cat got out or I let it out.

I tell her I let him out. She asks me to put a bell on him. In an attempt to remain civil I ask her why. She says something about it being stupid, I ask her why it's stupid, she says cats eat birds and the bird populations are declining. I instantly want to call bull on cats being a leading reason of bird population decline, but I just tell her that I'll have to look that up, and ask her if she saw which way he went. (I'd like my restraint during this interaction noted, thanks.)

Anyway I don't find the cat but I get a good few patrols around the block, and eventually he comes back to the house sometime in the late-night early-morning. He does not use the dog door and waits for me to open the door instead (back door is on the way to the bathroom, I saw his stupid little face pressed against the glass when i went to piss).

I look up bird population decline articles. Most of them mention cats as a factor, along with clear windows. Primary factors are listed as deforestation and invasive species, pesticides, etc. I don't consider getting my cat a collar because I don't appreciate my neighbors input, especially when she's going to be hypocritical and ignore that planting native species may help bird population more than putting out fifty fucking feeders and complaining that the stray cats see her yard as a buffet. Anyway.

I let him out again yesterday, this time through the window in my room, which leads to the back porch. I felt comfortable leaving it open since I work at my desk and would hear if anything not-cat came inside. (Allergies were a problem, but I'd really rather he have a way to get inside if he wanted/needed, and he STILL will not open the dog door on his own. Obviously I'm not helping by continuing to give him alternatives but I am soft-hearted.) Sometime in the evening my dad comes in and tells me that when the cat next comes back, I should keep him inside because "The neighbor lady is being a bitch and I don't want to deal with it." I assume she said something to him, so I agree and when the cat comes in for the night I close the window.

This morning I saw what had ACTUALLY got him.in a twist, because not only did she say something but she printed out and taped a note to our door. Oh, how I would love to send a picture of it here, but I don't know how to embed photos in asks so you'll just have to deal with my transcription:

CAT FACTS

Cats kill birds. Cars kill cats.

Here's some links to look up.

[I won't type the links out. First one is an article titled "how long do outdoor cats live indoor vs outdoor cats" and the second is "faq cats and their effects on birds". I have not read either of these.]

Ask Kelly about Dixie. Ask Jean about Madeline - wait don't - she ran over her with her own car and broke her pelvis because the cat was older and couldn't hear well.

You have a very beautiful young cat. He deserves a safe loving home. Act like you care for your cat or give him to a home that will. I have four indoor cats - three are orange boys. I have a soft spot for orange boy cats. They are very happy as inside cats.

Be responsible.

[Handwritten at the bottom:]

Your cat is sleeping in my backyard. Why are you forcing him to be an outdoor cat!?

[End]

The amount of violent rage this fills me with is unreal. Kelly is our across-the-road neighbor, I assume Jean is another neighbor (I'm bad with names) and I CANNOT imagine that either of them appreciate being. Used like this. Also, I'm very glad her cats are happy indoors but this cat is not, he wants to go outside, he has been crowding the window all morning waiting for me to open it. (I respect me father so I won't, but I disrespect my neighbor so I really, REALLY fucking want to.)

So AITA for disregarding the safety/happiness of my cat and the decline of the bird population by not putting a collar on him and heartlessly forcing him outside? I'm no further inclined to force him indoors or get a collar, especially with her continued insistence, and in fact I'm so far making an active effort to restrain myself from going over and talking to her because I just want to turn it into an argument.

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

You Call It Madness But I Call It Love

Chapter 22: I May Be Right or I May Be Crazy

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy.  This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter twenty two of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 9.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this one 18+ because it handles some heavy subjects! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. Seriously it is DARK. THIS ONE IS REALLY DARK! Angst, Cursing, Mentions of Abuse (sort of- it's more the reader being used without knowledge of it and I'm not sure what to call that), Numbness, Mentions of character going through some HEAVY EMOTIONS and INTERNAL TRAUMA , Violence, Explicitly Described Torture, Fire, Graphic depiction of death, Blood, Gore, Sexual References, Family Problems. Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, completely a little OOC. Soldier Boy is really all you need as a warning.

Note: This is told from the Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. Reader is described as "curvy" occasionally. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

A/N: I'm serious guys this one is really gory, violent, and bloody. I mean, so is the show. BUT this is an additional warning if you don't like reading that kind of stuff, please do not read this. It also handles a really delicate issue with the reader going through something that no one should ever have to. I've never written something like this before and honestly I don't think I ever want to again, but it had to be addressed...

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

*********************************************

"Are you sure you want to stay here?" Ben says, gently pushing back a few strands of your hair from your face, fingers trailing against your cheeks, warmed from the morning sun that peaks through the large trees which shield Legend's property from the rest of the world.

Butcher had finally found Mindstorm, figured out which cabin he was hiding at, and although you wanted to go to make sure that Ben was alright, you knew that you couldn't go with him.

There was something you needed to do and you needed to do it without Ben there. It had to be handed delicately. You weren't sure what you would learn, what it would confirm or deny, and as much as it hurt you to be apart from Ben, you had to do it alone.

It was two days after your revelation, after you received what seemed like divine wisdom while staring at your daughter as if seeing her for the first time in forty years and understanding what it was that you'd forgotten. It had been hard to laugh off why you'd shattered a mug during Butcher's little pow-wow, even Rosemary was concerned after, but you'd waved her off and said that you were just getting accustomed to your new supe strength.

But Ben wasn't fooled. When you went upstairs to clean the alcohol from your clothes Ben had followed and tried to get you to tell him what was wrong, but you'd only said that you were tired. He knew you were lying, but he only sighed and hugged you because he didn’t really know what else to do.

And now standing outside of Legend's house while Ben, Butcher, and Hughie were about to go after Mindstorm you wanted to tell him what you believed, but you still couldn't.

You had to find out for yourself.

"Yeah. I don't want to leave Rosemary or Lou." You reply leaning in to his touch. It was true, you didn't, but it wasn't the whole truth and it made you feel guilty. You'd never lied to him before or well, hadn't tried to intentionally trick him. And it felt worse to do this now that the two of you were starting over, and when everything felt more wonderful than you could have imagined all those years ago.

Ben eyes you for a moment and you're suddenly worried that he's been a mind reader this whole time and he's just never said anything.  But then his expression softens. "Are you sure you're okay? You haven't said too much since the other day."

"I'm fine." You touch the front of his supe suit, laying your hand directly over his heart and feeling the gentle thud in the palm of your hand. It was difficult not to touch him now, not after the boundary had been crossed so many times over the past two days. Somewhere deep down you worried that Ben was still uncomfortable with you doing something so intimate in public.

You were aware that everyone was looking at the two of you, Rosemary and Lou standing more towards the house on the front porch and Hughie and Butcher were standing by Butcher's car parked in the long driveway. Butcher's car still had a giant hole in the roof from when Ben punched through it and when he saw the hole, Butcher had threatened to send Ben back to Russia and you threatened to melt Butcher into a puddle.

But Ben gently touches your wrist, where your hand rests against his chest, frowning slightly.

"Fine. I've got a few things on my mind-" You whisper, hating how easily he could read you, but at the same time you loved it.

Ben made you feel seen, and after years of feeling invisible, feeling like you were losing you best friend, and feeling like he would never care about you the same way, it made you happy and comforted.

"Then tell me. I want to help." Ben's hand slides up your wrist to your hand, entwining his fingertips with yours and surprising you again. He was being so open and thoughtful in front of everyone. His eyes search yours as if he was trying to see your thoughts and it made you smile again to understand how much he loved you and cared about you.

"Ben." You breathe, squeezing his hand. "I don't want to talk about it now. Can we talk about it when you get back?"

"Is it why you're not coming with me?" His frown deepens.

"A part of it. But I really want to make sure that Lou and Rosemary are safe."

Ben raises his gaze to look at where Rosemary stands frowning at the two of you, before he looks back at you. "Okay." But he doesn't seem happy with the turn of events.

You didn't blame him, you didn't want him to go face Mindstorm alone even with Hughie and Butcher. You still didn't trust Butcher and of all your old teammates Mindstorm was the most troubled.

"Can you promise me something?" You ask Ben, looking up at him.

"Anything."

"Watch out for the kid."

"The kid?" Ben looks confused. "Lou?"

"No. Hughie." You glance over to where Hughie is standing at the back of the car with Butcher.

Probably talking about the Temp V they're going to shoot up to take down Mindstorm.

You really didn't want to leave Ben with Mindstorm of all people. Mindstorm was probably one of the only supes that could do something to Ben. Ben did have some psychic immunity, but you thought that Mindstorm could peel away the layers, sink deep into his mind, make Ben see the things that always plagued him. And the last thing you wanted was for Ben to be trapped in an automatic loop of him listening to his father say what a disappointment he was. You were trying to make him forget those things, just as Ben tried his hardest to make you forget the things your mother said to you.

If Mindstorm put Ben through that, you were going to hunt him down to the ends of the earth and make him understand what it was like for someone to peel the skin from your flesh bit by bit and then make him eat that brain of his that he loved so much.

Plus you figured that the worst thing that could happen is Mindstorm would lock you in your own head and you'd have to spend your final hours with your dead mother, which yes that would suck, but at least at the end of it you'd have a new fun superpower to torture Mindstorm with.  Seemed like a good trade-off if you had to spend your last moments with the bitch herself.

I wonder what he'd make her say to me, what I'd see. I've heard it all before, don't really think that he'd make me see anything I haven't seen before or heard before.

"Why?"

"Hughie's not like us. None of this is him. He's different. He's a good person and all of this is-” You glance over at Hughie again, before looking at Ben. “ Just look out for him."

Ben's hand tightens in yours where it still rests against his chest. "Fine. But if that fucker comes for me I'm not going to tip-toe around Hughie's feelings. I'm going to kill Mindstorm, that's why I'm going there."

"I know." You nod.

"I mean you saw the shit he did to those kids-" Ben whispers the last part because he doesn't want Lou to hear, but notices Rosemary perk up, where she stands on the front porch.

"Yeah. I remember."

Mindstorm was more fucked up than most of the others on your team, found joy in making people see terrible things. And his favorite targets were children. Stan had a hell of a time covering that up, covering up Mindstorm's morning walks through parks and on the edges of elementary schools. He liked to live in their minds as he took them apart bit by bit, exposed them to his own twisted reality.

Mindstorm wasn’t a good person, but you knew that Hughie was.

"I'm not asking you to spare his life." You whisper back. "He was one of the worst from our old team. I'm just asking you to look out for the kid."

"I will."

You nod, still worried. He was going with Hughie and Butcher, but it still felt like he was alone if you weren't with him. The problem was you couldn’t see the way around it. This was your chance to go alone to find some answers, but you didn't like it, didn't like leaving Ben.

Probably about as much as Ben hated leaving you.

“I promise I’ll come back.” He murmurs pressing his forehead against yours, green eyes soft in the morning light. He was mistaking you hesitation for your fear of him leaving and never coming back.

You reach up with your free hand to touch his cheek. "I know." Your thumb gently rubs over his bearded cheek, smiling up at him. "I love you." You whisper.

Ben leans down and kisses you softly, just a fleeting brush of his lips against yours that leaves you wanting more. "I love you too Sweetheart." He murmurs with a soft smile.

Again you weren't used to that, used to him looking at you like you were his whole world, and you never wanted him to stop.

Ben pulls away and raises his gaze to where Rosemary stands arms crossed over her chest with Lou standing beside her watching with wide eyes.

"Be careful." Rosemary says, but it sounds pained, almost as if it took a large amount of effort to say, but you were happy she said something to him that wasn't meant to hurt him.

Maybe that's a good sign. You think to yourself, but then you notice the frown on her face. Or maybe not.

He nods once, but as soon as he takes a step towards where Hughie and Butcher are waiting by the car, Lou runs to him, her tiny arms pumping as fast as she can.

"Ben wait!" She cries, throwing herself against his leg and pressing her head into his right knee. "Don't go. If you go Aunty y/n will be sad again!" Lou mumbles into the fabric, hugging him tight.

Ben stiffens, his eyes shifting to you and for a second you see something unfamiliar flash in his gaze, something painful. It shakes you to your core, and makes you remember how he looked when he stood above your bed the night he came back and said that he couldn't lose you and when he sat in the car and showed you how upset he was that he wasn't there for you when you were pregnant with Rosie.

It made you want to pull him into your arms and hold him close, make him feel loved all over again, show him how much you wanted him here with you despite everything that happened in the past.

He crouches down so he can look Lou in the eye. "I won't be gone long. I'm a little harder to kill than these other sons of-" Ben stops to sensor what he was going to say and clears his throat. "Um. I'm a little harder to keep away than other people."

"Do you promise?" She says.

"Yes I promise honey." Ben smiles tightly.

"Take this for good luck." Lou reaches into the front of her bright pink overalls to pull out a small yellow flower about the size of Ben’s pinky, holding on to the stem in her little hand.

You have no idea where she got it, only that she was holding it out to Ben as if it had the power to save the universe.

Ben looks from Lou's face to the flower, but takes it from her. “Thank you.” He places it carefully in his pocket and zips it in, but before he can stand to go, Lou throws her arms around Ben’s neck and hugs him tight.

You're sure that Ben must barely feel it, you'd seen a supe try to choke him out and Ben only laugh at them. But this is different.

Ben doesn’t move, in fact it doesn’t look like he’s really breathing. His eyes flick to where you’re standing, wide  in surprise and you give him an encouraging smile, because Lou already loves Ben just as much as you do. Ben’s arms are still at his sides awkwardly, but he finally wraps one arm over Lou’s back to hold him to him, gently as if he’s afraid he’ll crush her.

"I'll come back." He murmurs to her. "I promise." But his eyes aren't on Lou, they're on you, open and almost earnest. Making you understand again that he didn't want to leave you, that he wanted to stay, but if he had to go, he'd always come back to you.

Rosemary watches with a frown from the porch, but doesn’t say anything. In the days that had followed their initial meeting she was still trying her best to let him know that she wasn't going to be his friend, that she wasn't going to forgive him.

It hurt you. You didn't say that to her, because you didn't want her to be guilted into liking Ben, but it hurt. It hurt to see your daughter push him away, when all Ben wanted was family. You understood that. Understood that in the way he treated Lou and understood it in the way he treated you.

He was so different than before and you wished Rosemary could see it like you did, but you understood that she needed to realize that all by herself no matter how long it took. You all had time.

Maybe that was the problem, Rosemary had an eternity to hate Ben, but maybe the good thing was that you had an eternity to make him feel loved.

Lou pulls back from him and you take her hand while Ben stands.

"Oi' while we still got daylight!" Butcher shouts from his car, leaning back against the door.

But just before you think Ben is going to go to the car, he steps close to you and kisses you so fiercely you don't remember how to breathe and then he's gone just as suddenly.

You watch the car pull away holding Lou's hand tightly, while it goes down the long drive and finally vanishes in the thicket of trees. It doesn't feel as warm anymore, you're not sure if that's because Ben is gone or because you're preparing yourself for what you have to do next.

"Here you go kitten. This is the only one I could find" Legend says walking through the front door of his house and past Rosemary to hand you a knee-length dark green leather coat. It was vintage, and you had asked him to find something that didn't make you look ridiculous. Legend had closets full of clothes that would have made you look like you were in a Solid Gold music video, and Ben had started wearing the clothes around the house because he didn’t have anything else.

Of course on him they looked good, Ben could be wearing a paper bag and a shower cap and still somehow pull it off.

"Thank you." You release Lou's hand to take it, putting your arms through the sleeves so it hung over your jeans and your black t-shirt.

I swear if I lose one more jacket someone is going to pay. Yeah, because that's what I should be upset about, losing another jacket.

"What do you need that for?" Rosemary asks.

"Lou." You crouch down next to her, smiling up into her freckled cheeks. "I want you to go inside and draw me a field of sunflowers okay?"

"A whole field?" Her eyes brighten.

"A whole field."

"Can I give it to Ben?" She asks.

"Of course you can honey. I think he’d like that very much.” You tuck her dark hair behind her ear before she turns and runs through the large wooden double doors at the front of Legend’s home.

You stand. "I have to do something."

"What do you mean? I thought you just told Ben that you weren't going after Mindstorm?"

"I'm not going after Mindstorm."

"Then what? You’re going to kill someone else aren’t you?” Rosemary crosses her arms over her chest, obviously upset.

You don’t answer.

“Why? Why are you doing this-“ She shouts exasperated.

“Something about everything that happened doesn’t sit well with me.”

“What do you mean everything that happened?”

“Ben was Vought’s golden boy. And I don’t understand why Stan Edgar would just let him be taken like that.” You look at where Legend stands. You didn't think that he knew anything about it, hoped that he didn't. He was one of your oldest friends and to find out that he had betrayed you the same as Payback had betrayed Ben wouldn't end well.

By now he's lit a cigarette, smoking it thoughtfully. "I've wondered the same thing. Stan Edgar was involved in everything, and for him to give the go ahead for Payback to hand Soldier Boy over, means that there must have been some money exchanged for him to green light it." Legend blows out a lungful of smoke that hangs in the air in front of his face. "Stan never brought up much with me, just that he was excited that the team was going to be given a chance to help out in Nicaragua." Legend frowns. "I will say that before the premiere that night, Stan seemed to already know that y/n wasn't going to be on that trip. In fact he was convinced that you were going to stay state-side and work with Vogelbaum on some things."

"Vogelbaum?" Rosemary questions looking at him.

"He was the main scientist for Vought, he had in fingers in every pie, knew the extent of all our powers, except mine." You wave a hand. "I always refused bloodwork, I didn't want him to be poking and prodding around in my DNA for too long. But he definitely was big on genetic testing. They were trying to make a new hero-" You pause remembering what Vogelbaum said the night of the premiere. You hadn't remembered what he said until now. When Vogelbaum mentioned the next generation of heroes.

"What is it?" Legend asks.

"Stan knew I wasn't going to Nicaragua. He knew that Countess would make Ben push me away, but what if he was working with Vogelbaum?"

"What would that help?" Rosemary interjects.

"The night of the premiere Vogelbaum said that he wanted me to come by the lab, to meet someone. He said that he was working on "the next generation of heroes" or something." You shake your head as if trying to move things back in place so you can understand. "There's something I'm missing about the whole situation. Some missing piece that doesn't fit." You bite the inside of your cheek. "Stan tried to come talk to me after Ben died, but I never heard what he had to say- I broke his nose and threw him out."

"Maybe he was going to try to get you to come to the lab again." Legend shrugs.

"But why were they so adamant about that it just makes no sense. Why was I important? Why me? It could have been anyone. Hell, they could have had Countess go instead of me. There were other women, other supes. Why did I matter so much?"

You glance at Rosemary again, examining her face and seeing the same thing you realized the other day. Deep down you understood why, but you wanted to be wrong, you didn't want to believe that someone would take that from you, that someone was capable of doing something like that.

"But do you have to kill someone to find out why?" Rosemary pleads. "I don't understand how you're okay with killing people-" She begins to say looking at you like she's never met you before.

"You think I'm okay with killing people?" You ask her. "You think I like this?"

"No but-"

"I've done a lot of shit that I'm not proud of. I've lost control. I've killed people. But believe me when I say that what I'm about to do, I do for you. It might not seem that way right now, but I hope that one day you can understand that."

"Mom I-" She starts, but you hold out your hand. She looks from it to you as if confused, but then finally takes it.

"If Homelander comes here, you kill him. Do you understand me? You don't give him a chance to speak, you kill him." You say, feeling your powers transfer into Rosemary. It didn't hurt, it never did, in fact if she did it to anyone else they probably wouldn't have noticed. Her ability was almost undetectable, the only thing that changes is the quick flash of molten gold in her eyes when she does so. But it was instantaneous and it didn't matter how long Rosemary held on to someone, all it took was skin to skin contact, one touch and that was it.

Rosemary's expression hardens. "Okay."

"I love you." You squeeze her hand once more before you let go.

"I love you too mom."

You take a few steps away from her. "I'll be back tonight. I promise. If Ben gets back before me, just tell him that I needed to do something and that I'll be back. Don't let him try to come after me."

"He's not the easiest person to tell what to do." She sighs.

"I know." You shrug. "He's just like you."

"He is not-"

"He is."

"You need to borrow the car kitten?" Legend asks, beginning to search through his pockets for the keys to his black 1967 Impala. It was in mint condition and Legend was proud of it.

He should be. It's a nice car.

"Nah I think I'll hitch-hike." Your smile is triumphant and maybe a bit mischievous, as you take to the sky, leaving the world and everything you know behind.

If only you knew what was coming.

************************************************************************

Stan Edgar was a simple man. He liked his whiskey neat, his coffee black, his cigars Cuban, his suits pressed, his dinner at 6 pm sharp, and his women poised. Stan Edgar rarely deviated from his plans, never cancelled a meeting, and took every phone call no matter how late. He read the Wall Street Journal each day, checked his blood pressure meticulously, and was in top shape for a man of his age. After years of shaping his image, Stan Edgar's life was the epitome of control and composure.

Not a hair was ever out of place, his apartment on the Upper East Side was perfectly organized, and he never got angry, he got even. He never lost a minute of sleep. He never raised his blood pressure and he knew the exact price that a minute of his time was worth.

He took his morning coffee in the dining room of his large five-bedroom penthouse apartment with a bowl of oatmeal while he read the Wall Street Journal and left his home at exactly 7 am only to return at 5 pm to read through various briefs before his housekeeper delivered his dinner to the same dining room table that he had previously had breakfast on.

When he was taken off the board from Vought, his schedule had deviated slightly, but it was easy for him to control the company, especially with the connections that Stan Edgar had worked his entire life to maintain.

Stan Edgar's life had reached a point of comfortable routine and after forty years it was as it should be. He knew the ins and outs of New York City, he had a stable home, various rental properties, rising stocks, and a control of most of the inner workings of Vought even with Homelander's hostile takeover. Homelander was proving to be a bigger problem than he hoped, but Stan Edgar did not allow himself to revel in Homelander's destruction of the company Stan worked so hard to build up.

Every moment in his life was mapped out to the second and Stan Edgar had worked hard to make it to the top, had crushed many an executive, assistant, and person to gain the power and status that he had.

When Forbes did a profile on him, they had proudly described his rise to power, of course there were details left out, pieces of Stan Edgar's life that he had worked hard to sweep under the rug. But he did not lose sleep over that.

His apartment is cold, silent, and dark when he walks through the front door at 6 pm sharp, odd because Stan expected his housekeeper to be standing there to take his coat as she had been for the past twenty years. The same navy blue wool coat he shrugs out of and hangs on the maple coatrack just inside the front door in his foyer.

You can hear the sound of his footsteps along the marble tiled floor as he makes his way through the silent apartment, his dark brown shoes polished to a shine, squeaking slightly against the polished tiles.

"Roberta?" Stan calls looking for his housekeeper. His voice caries through the darkness.

You could smell the tobacco from his last cigar on his suit coat, his heady cologne, and his hair oil that was just a little spicy. It was old fashioned, something that you could remember from the first time you met him.  You could hear the steady beat of his heart in his chest, perfectly maintained by the bottle of medication you had found in his bathroom only a few hours ago.

You already knew Stan Edgar's routine by heart, knew exactly how he spent his days, and the kind of person he was. Today was not the first time that you had trailed him, wove through the crowded streets behind his thin form as he moved oblivious to your shadowing, and watched his driver Carlos pick him up and drop him off at the correct times. You had done it many times, taken days to understand who he was, understand where he went at what time, and who he met with.

Nothing in Stan Edgar's life was a mystery to you.

Hughie's revelation of Victoria Newman's relation to Stan Edgar was not a surprise. It was a piece of information you held close to your heart if things between the two of you ever went South. You didn't fear her power and you weren't above torturing the weapon that Stan had turned her into. It would have been difficult, she was after all a senator, but it would be easy to inflict a small problem within her body telekinetically, something that looked normal to the naked eye.

Of course what you were about to do to Stan was going to be difficult to explain to the police.

You had contingencies in place for that though, there was nothing to worry your head over. The hardest thing you'd done today was get out of bed this morning and your day had included disposing of Stan Edgar's security detail, who hadn't even been able to touch you, let alone know that you were following him.

Some security detail.

You took a drag from your cigarette, leaning back in the high-backed chair in Stan's ornate living room, the tip burning orange in the darkness, the smoke obscuring your form where you lounge back against the faded green velvet. It already smelled like cigar smoke and you knew that it was where Stan smoked his nightly pipe after dinner, the velvet holding the strong scent of tobacco and Stan's ancient cologne. You hadn't had a cigarette since you were pregnant with Rosemary, but there was something about the drama of smoking one that you couldn't pass up.

Stan turns into the living room, but his foot hits something solid where nothing should be and he pauses.

"Roberta?" He says again hesitantly. "Did you move the couch?"

She wouldn't answer him, couldn't answer him. Killing her had probably been a mistake, but when you realized that she was an ex-hero hired by Stan as an extra precaution to make sure no-one entered his apartment, it had made you feel better, especially when she tried to electrocute you, which had surprisingly slowed you down, but not enough to spare her life.

You hear Stan's fingers fumble against the light switch on the wall and the hiss of his surprise when his hand comes back sticky and wet.

You can see him clearly in the darkness, Homelander's x-ray vision meant that you'd never have a problem seeing in the dark ever again. You watch Stan's nose wrinkle in disgust, confused at the discovery, but then watch as he reaches again and flips on the light, his eyes leveled at the ground trying to figure out what it was that he stumbled onto.

His security detail had come to sweep his apartment as they did each day thirty minutes before he arrived home, and it had been the last thing that they had ever done. The blood from the bodies was soaking through the hardwood floors and trickling down to the oriental rugs below Stan's modern living room furniture. The thick copper smell of blood was everywhere and you weren't sure how he missed it.

You hear the sharp intake of his breath as he sees the bodies, traces the ripped limbs and headless forms of his pathetic security detail at his feet. There were others in his bedroom, one in the kitchen, and another hanging from the horns of a moose head over the fireplace at your right where you sit, the blood flowing thick down the beige wallpaper and dripping onto the once pristine floors. There were nine in total, and although the past version of you would have maybe felt some remorse for their deaths, you were finding it difficult to, especially after realizing what you had.

"It's hard to find good help these days." You arch your brow taking a drag from the cigarette perched between your index and middle finger. "I'd say you paid too much for their service given how easy they were to dispose of. I'm kind of disappointed, thought that they'd be a bit more of a challenge."

Stan looks up from the bodies, eyes wide, to see you sitting there in the armchair. There was blood flecked over your shirt, on your jacket, in your hair and on your cheeks that you hadn't bothered wiping away, you figured that there would be more soon and you didn't care.

"Y/n." He keeps his voice composed, but you can hear his hand shift to his pocket for his phone.

It doesn't get far.

You telekinetically pull him over the back of the couch and force him on his knees in front of the ornate square coffee table poised in the center of the room. His hands palm down, fogging the glass with his body temperature. His body is outlined in bright purple, completely at your mercy and under your control, your own eyes glowing bright purple.

You allow yourself to take another drag of cigarette and let a cloud of smoke trickle out from your full lips. "It's good to see you Stan. How long has it been? Ten years? You look good better than my teammates did anyway."

"I was wondering when you were going to drop by." He says tightly eyeing you. "Are you going to keep pretending that you're not Indigo?"

You smile and laugh at him. "I think I'm done pretending."

You weren't surprised that Stan knew. When you'd seen him at your art show all those years ago when you moved back to the city you had suspected he knew, not to mention that he had called Legend to ask about you. It was unfortunate that Stan knew, because now you worried who else knew, but you also figured that the cat was out of the bag as soon as you fought Homelander.

Plus, maybe the secret would die with Stan.

"Is Ben here?" Stan asks, and you hear the way his voice sticks on Ben's name. His eyes shift to the dark corners of the room as if he believes that Ben will materialize from the shadows.

It's like him to be more afraid of Ben than me. No one was ever afraid of me. I was just Ben's little friend, another supe that they could dress up and put on display. They should have been afraid.

"No, I came alone. Thought I'd give him the night off."

"I’m surprised you let him back into your life after everything that happened." Stan replies, but you don't miss the twitch of his body as he tries to escape the grip of your powers. He wouldn't. Your hold was unbreakable for someone like him. If you had decided to use your powers on Ben or on Homelander, you were sure that it wouldn't hold them for long, they were too strong.

You examine Stan again. His body is rigid in your hold, head tilted up to stare at you, hair flopping forward into his face from when you yanked him over the couch, and his knees are pressed into the blood soaked carpet on the living room floor.

You knew what he was doing, he was trying to get inside your head, try to make you turn against Ben the way everyone else did, but you wouldn't fall for it, not again.

"Well you did you best to keep it that way, didn’t you Stan?"

"I don't know what you're talking about-" Stan's words are cut off in a gasp as your telekinetic grip tightens on his body, squeezing him tight for a moment before you release the pressure, but keep him where he is.

"Do me a favor, don't lie to me. It's insulting, plus we're old friends." You smile sweetly. "And I always love seeing my old friends. Especially ones who stabbed Ben and me in the back."

Your glowing purple eyes flick to the large painting on the living room wall. It's one of yours, a depiction of a quiet forest from your last show. It was weird to see a piece of the new life you crafted hanging there. "I'm flattered you bought one of my paintings."

"You always were talented. I was disappointed that you didn't start trying to sell them earlier. Probably would have sold more when you were a hero,  could have enhanced your image." He says, but you can hear the edge beneath his voice. He's trying to keep conversation, make this diplomatic, when he knows there's no way out. You’d made sure of that. No one was coming to help Stan Edgar.

"I sell enough now. Thanks though." Your body stands from the chair, listening to the rapid beat of his heart in his chest, and gesture to the collection of tobacco pipes that line the mantle beneath the body of the security guard. "My dad had a pipe just like this one." You stop at a simple one, not carved, plain, a dark cherry wood that tapered into solid black. "Used to smoke right before he went to bed every night. I spent a lot of time sketching him sitting in his chair by the fireplace, learning what he looked like, tracing the plains of his face." You take another long drag from the cigarette.

It was hard to think about your father after all these years, you hadn't thought of your family in a long time, not when you had Rosemary and Lou and now Ben. But you could still remember those quiet evenings when there was a hint of a chill in the air and your father would smoke his pipe and listen to music from the phonograph he had in the corner while you sat at his feet and drew him. Sometimes your mother would join him with her own embroidery in the matching arm chair next to his. As much as you never got along with her, you could see how much she loved your father and how much he loved her.

"I'd never met Homelander in person before a few days ago. I'd seen his face on billboards, on energy drinks but never in person. I would have realized it years ago if I had." You trace the gentle curve of the pipe with a fingertip, exhaling another trail of smoke.

"Realized what?"

"I'm only going to ask you this once Stan." You pause as you turn to look at him. "Why does Homelander have my father's nose?"

It was obscure. You knew that. But it was what you had realized the other day when you were looking at Rosemary, the one feature that distinguished her from Ben, the one piece of yourself that she had, was the same one that Homelander did. You suspected that the smell of hair dye you smelled when you met Homelander for the first time was to cover up the brown hair that he must have shared with Ben, just as the makeup on his cheeks would cover the familiar freckles Rosemary had. They could have been twins, you could see it now.

Stan doesn't breathe, his muscles straining under his suit as he silently fights for his freedom, his heartbeat thuds loudly in your ears, but he doesn't answer you.

Your eyes glow a dangerous purple and the ceiling light flickers above the two of you, the sound of the static with each blink breaking up the wet tap of the blood dripping to the floor and the low pitched thrum of your powers that fills the room.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Stan swallows.

"What did I say about lying to me?" You sigh, flicking the cigarette into the full length white curtains that remain closed over the living room windows, immediately catching fire. Of course they would, you'd soaked them in gasoline moments before Stan came into the room.

His eyes flick to the flames as they reach up to the ceiling, but the fire alarm wouldn't go off, you'd sabotaged it. 

"The human body can withstand 50 pounds of pressure per square inch before it starts to crush. I’ve never crushed anyone before, mind you I’ve also never been crushed." You shrug your shoulders turning back to look at him. "But I'm very interested to see what it will do to your body."

Stan utters one word. "Please."

"It's funny." You take a step closer to him, tapping your lip thoughtfully. "I didn't ask you to beg for you life, I asked you to answer a simple question."

Stan still doesn't answer. The high pitched snap of his fingers one by one breaking is sharp as you increase the pressure on his hands , like the crisp sound of a wishbone at Thanksgiving.

Stan inhales sharply, his gaze lowering to what used to be his fingers, not quite realizing what the sound was. You watch as the realization rolls across his face like thunderclouds on a stormy day, as he realizes  they have been reduced to mush beneath your powers and a scream rips from his throat, echoing through the empty hallways, but there's no one there to hear him scream. Blood swells beneath the ruined flesh, turning his skin a sickly shade of purplish-red, before oozing through the breaks in the tissue by the sharp points of what were the delicate bones of his hands.

"Ooo. That doesn't look too good buddy." You click your tongue. "You want to rethink your answer? Or do I have to do your toes to match?"

"Vogelbaum tried to tell you at the premiere." His voice is a weak growl, eyes not raising from his hands. "I tried to tell you too, but you broke my damn nose."

"Tell me what?" You hold your glowing purple hand over him like a warning prepared to crush whatever you have to, to make him speak.

He continues to look down at his ruined hands.

"Ah-ah-ah." You place a fingertip beneath his chin, feeling the stubble of his five o'clock shadow, so his gaze is now on you. "I want you to look at me."

"Ben was a manic, crazed, he needed to be replaced. He wouldn't follow orders, wouldn't listen to us. He only listened to you!" Stan spits, his eyes filled with rage and pain. "It was easy to turn the rest of the team against him. Countess was jealous of his attention on you, it was logical that she would be the one to break whatever you two had. Even Noir was easy to convince. He always was obsessed with you after you saved his life from that asshole." More blood seeps over the glass table.

You withdraw your hand from Stan's chin for a moment surprised. You knew that Countess was always trying to get between Ben and you, but the news of Noir's obsession was new.

"What do you mean Noir was obsessed with me?"

"Oh please." Stan seethes through his gritted teeth. "Did you really think that you kept losing things? Your hair ties, your underwear, your hairbrush, even that stupid fucking necklace you always wore! Noir was harder to keep out of your apartment than Ben whenever you were out of town. Not to mention he always asked to be put on the same interviews, given auditions in films you were in. Noir was always trying to get between Ben and you, but you never gave him the time of day. Do you have any idea how hard I had to work to make sure you never figured out that he kept breaking in to your apartment?"

Your body goes cold. You knew the necklace Stan was talking about, the pearl necklace that your father had given to you all those years ago, the one that you'd lost a few months before your birthday and never figured out where it went, and the one that Ben had replaced on the night he gave you everything you wanted. You had noticed some things missing, the hair-ties and hairbrush, but you thought you'd left in the hotel rooms that Vought paid for, you had no idea that Noir had been in your apartment.

Whenever he talked to you, you thought that he was being friendly, that Noir was trying to be nicer to you because the rest of the team avoided you due to your close relationship Ben, but you never imagined that he wanted to be more.

"Noir was first on board with the plan. It didn't take much to get the others to fall in line." Stan continues.

"What plan?"

"The plan to replace Soldier Boy. But it had to be handled delicately, there couldn't just be any supe that took over. It had to be someone worthy, someone who exemplified the bullshit American Ideals that Ben used to boast about in all of those ridiculous films."

"So what? You sent Ben off to fucking Russia and you replaced him with Homelander? You shoved all that American dream shit down Homelander's throat and look what you created. You created a fucking monster!"

"It wasn't supposed to be that way. Vogelbaum wanted the replacement to grow up with a mother. He saw how Ben lived with only a father's influence and he wanted a soothing reassuring person in the replacement's life."

"You're not answering my question." You snarl, your hands beginning to glow brighter as you tighten your grip on his feet, preparing to crush them into mush.

"We had the genetic material from Soldier Boy it was harder to get it from you!" Stan shouts, feeling the pressure intensify in his feet, thinking that if he answers your question you'd spare them.

You stop for a moment, tilting your head to the side. The heat from the flames on your left growing with every passing second as they spread to the other curtains on the second large window. “What are you saying?”

“Did you really think we didn’t know what you could do?" Stan almost laughs, but it comes out in a choking cough. "We knew. Your power is one of the rarest we’d ever seen. And Dr. Vogelbaum hoped that your son would have the same one, that your son would possess some quality that you had and the qualities that Soldier Boy had. The perfect weapon. The perfect supe." Stan croaks. "A supe that could adapt and walk away from death like you could. A supe that was perfectly under our control, different than Soldier Boy."

“Are you saying that Homelander is my son?” Your voice is dangerously low, no more than a snarl.

Stan swallows. “Yours and Soldier Boy.”

With those words, the bones in Stan’s feet snap loudly as they both are reduced to nothing, but crushed bone and flesh, never to be used ever again.

But his scream of pain is wiped out by the roaring in your ears as you realize what he's said, realize exactly what Vogelbaum did all those years ago, realize exactly why he asked you to come to the lab when you danced together at the premiere.

It was what you suspected, but that didn’t mean that you were any less ready to hear it. The wave of emotion that crashes over you squeezes your heart in your chest, because what kind of a monster would do that? What kind of person would take something like that from you or from anyone?

Anger, pain, shock, rage, and horror all war in your chest, grappling against your ribs, choking your next breath from your lungs, and make you feel as though your body is tearing itself apart.

You think about the hollow look in Homelander's dark eyes, remember what Hughie told you he was doing to Annie, what Hughie told you he had threatened to do, and remember what Butcher said that Homelander did to his wife. You remember how cocky and confident he was at the Twins home, how unaffected he was by the gore of the bodies on the upper levels, and remember the way he didn't seem to care that he was hurting Ben, that he killed Butcher, and then tried to kill you.

That monster is my son, is Ben's son. He's Rosemary’s brother-

You could feel the anxiety rising, threatening to rip your own heart out of your chest, but then it suddenly shifts to all encompassing rage. The entire room shakes with the force of your anger, spider cracks appearing in the drywall all around the room, the windows in the room shatter sending glass blowing outward onto the street sixty stories below the penthouse apartment, and the furniture begins to shift and slide along the floor restlessly as the flames flare bright red and orange and cause the wallpaper to curl black.

"How did you get my genetic material?" Your voice is eerily calm as you gaze at him, vision going red.

Stan looks up at you, painful tears in his eyes. "We couldn't do it when Ben was with you. He was so damn protective of you, if we tried to touch you with him around he would have torn us apart, so we had to wait for him to go shoot one of those stupid films overseas." He gasps. "Vogelbaum said that you wouldn't remember. Said that it would be just like a bad dream.

You freeze when he says that, the memory of the nightmare that had plagued you for decades flashing across your mind, every detail becoming crystal clear. The voice of Vogelbaum telling the nurses to hold you down, the smell of his breath, his face gazing down at you from between your legs with a sickening smile on his face, while you tried to clear your head, the sound of your own screams ripping from your throat as you tried to fight the drugs they pumped into your system to keep you quiet.

"Egg extraction was difficult." Stan coughs, blood appearing on his bottom lip. "You killed two nurses and two orderlies. Almost killed Vogelbaum."

"I should have." You spit savagely. "If he was here, I would make him suffer. How could you do that? How could you do something so inhuman-"

Your body doesn't feel like your own, your skin is too tight, your next breath catching in your lungs, and a shudder of absolute disgust shakes through your bones. You feel the urge to throw up, to expel whatever images you can, to purge yourself because it meant they had been inside you, touched you, defiled you in a way that they believed was justified. Disgust, shame, horror and pure uninhibited rage shift along your skin in waves crackling in the air around your body. Everything you know is a lie. Everything that you thought you knew about the past nothing more than shades of gray.

"In the name of science there is no boundary, no limit that cannot be surpassed." Stan tries to smile, but it comes off as a grimace and as soon as he opens his mouth, his entire front row of top teeth rip from his mouth and land on the glass table, flecking blood over the surface.

Stan sputters, choking on the blood, eyes widening in pain, but he continues, his voice sticking around the holes where his teeth once were. “Vogelbaum tried to tell you that night. Tried to get you to come to the lab but you refused. He wanted the subject to have a mother, a figure that he respected, a way of reigning him in-"

"You have taken everything from him!" You snarl grabbing Stan by the throat, raising him to your face. "You have denied him the right of family. You made him into something inhuman something unrecognizable-"

"We didn't do anything." Stan cannot hold on to your wrist, tries to raise his ruined hands to place them against you skin, but they only slide off leaving smears of his blood against your flesh. "You chose this. You did this to him. You denied him a mother. We tried to allow you into his life and you refused."

"Don't you dare turn this on me. What you did to my son is not my fault. You turned him into a monster because you wanted a puppet, a weapon you could control. What Homelander became is all you and Vogelbaum. It has nothing to do with me." You throw Stan back against the opposite wall. "You made damn sure of that."

He lands in a heap, tries to rise to his feet, but the ruined stumps no longer work so he props himself up against the wall,  taking shallow breaths, blood trickles down the corner of his mouth.

But Stan doesn't stay on the floor long, you raise him up, his body glowing again bright purple as he slams back into the wall, arms outstretched, legs hanging limply beneath him as he gasps for breath.

"When Butcher's wife had her son, Vogelbaum was happy he got another chance. Happy that Ryan had a mother figure to rely on, but Ryan has not turned out anywhere near as powerful as your daughter.”

Your jaw tightens as you tilt your head, fear breaking through the rage and numbness that has begun to build beneath everything else.

"What did you just say?"

"It took us years to find her, but as soon as I saw her at the art show ten years ago I knew. She's the spitting image of Ben. So we put things in motion."

"What things?" You snarl, tightening your grip on his chest so tightly that you hear the cracking of his ribs.

"Her ability to keep powers for 24 hours is unmatched. She’s almost indestructible. Almost as indestructible as you. She was so helpful in our development of our Temp V.” He exhales in one breath sharply, wincing in pain.

"What?" Shock grips you tight, holding you in place.

They used Rosemary for that? For the shit that Hughie and Butcher shoot up?

"The scientists at Vought couldn't figure out a way to temporarily give someone powers." Stan gasps. "But her blood was just what we needed to understand it."

"You took her blood?" You roar, the furniture in the room flipping back towards the door, crashing against the walls.

"She gave it to us. When I approached her she was adamant about not telling you. You were so against being a hero again and having her do anything connected to Vought.” He smiles around the holes in his mouth. "She agreed to help us if it meant leaving you alone. But-" Stan swallows again, gasping out another breath that sounds like a wheeze. "We were always watching. Always have been watching. There is no where you can escape us, no where you can go to get away from us. You think you're free?" Blood trickles over his dark lips and down his chin, but he continues to smile. "You never will be. And when your granddaughter finally develops her powers, she won't be either. Vought is already prepared for her, nothing can stop it."

Your face hardens at his mention of Lou, anger flaring deep in your soul, rational part of your mind no longer in control. There was no semblance of the control you were so proud of left.

You didn't know who you were anymore. All you knew was that this man had taken something from you, stripped you of what you were so long ago, and he would pay. Because you'd be damned if he was going to take Lou away too. If he really had already gotten to Rosemary, you'd failed her, but you wouldn't fail Lou.

You take in a breath, but the cold numbness is quickly coming to pick away at the heat of your rage, filling your chest cavity. "You've always been a snake, slithering your way to the top, choking the other people who challenged you, slimy, pathetic. You were afraid of Ben all those years. Cowered in the fucking shadows from his rage, afraid to speak, afraid that he would be your end. You were wrong Stan. You should have feared me instead. Because I am the end of you."

"Y/n please-"

But his next words are lost in the blood curdling scream that rips from his throat as his body begins to cave in on itself, the snapping of bone and the smell of blood filling the room as his limbs flatten and shrink into his body, ribcage caves in to his torso, his head crunching down into his neck until the thing that was Stan Edgar is nothing more than a soccer ball sized lump of flesh and ground bone, dropping to the ground with a sickening wet thud.

The flames lick at the walls behind you, steadily curving around the room as you stand there. Stan's blood is soaked into your hair, dripping down your cheeks, but the heady copper smell is obscured by the smoke that floods the room.

Despite it all you can't hear the sound of the flames, can't hear the sounds of the city below, can't feel the heat of the fire, can't feel the stickiness of the blood as it coats your cheeks. There's a buzzing your ears, that comes after Stan's death. An uncontrollable shudder shakes your body as you stand there in the ruined room, the cold feeling unfurling from the center of your chest like the petals of a flower. You can't feel anything, not rage, not shame, and definitely not remorse.

Because everything you know is a lie, everything you knew about Homelander, and now everything you knew about Rosemary. And if she hid that from you, what else had she lied about?

************************************************************************

A/N: I did try to warn y'all. This chapter was a lot, and completely out of my comfort zone and I really miss writing the happy fluff 😭. But this chapter had to be done. And honestly… the reader's Homelander is showing. Somethings I think he may have inherited even though he was kept apart from her.

If you'd like to read something a little happier please try my series:

Take A Chance On Me

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[xdinaryvamp]

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ 🩷 ` leehan "read your diary"!!

you and leehan have been bestfriends for years now. you were madly in love with him, but you keept it as a secret, to avoid ruining your friendship. from time to time, tho, you writed about him in your diary.

and as luck would have it, he read it.

genre : fluff, friends to lovers, a little angst, gn reader.

pairings : bestfriend!leehan × bestfriend!reader.

14 / 03

today i saw leehan for the first time in several weeks. he had curly hair, i rarely see him with his hair styled like that.

he was beautiful, i would have loved to caress them, but maybe it would have seemed too strange.

7 / 05

leehan came to my house today, my parents made him up, since he hadn't spent time at our place in a while. we went up to my room and watched a movie. one of those stupid ones, that are supposed to make you laugh.

i would like to write something about that film, but i don't remember anything. leehan was too close to me, i could feel his breath on my neck. i couldn't think of anything but him for the entire duration of the film.

i pretended to laugh when he did so, to not arouse suspicion, but i was completely lost in my own world.

god, my heart is still racing.

9 / 06

i tried to go on a date with a guy tonight. everything went perfectly, but all i could do was think about leehan. how do i get out of this situation?

24 / 08

i dreamed about leehan for the thousandth time last night. i don't want to go into details, because they embarrass me too much. but it felt so real.

as soon as i woke up i cried: i will never have in reality what i have in my mind, so i hate my heart.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“for how long?” leehan was seated on your bed, a notebook open in his hand, as he looked at you in shock.

the notebook was your diary, you left it on your sheets before going out.

you had just returned from the convenience store. your mother had told you that leehan had stopped by to say hello, and that he was upstairs waiting for you.

fear hitted you immediately, terrified that he might find the diary. and he did.

you remained frozen in place, the store bag still in your hand. you didn't know what to say, you rejected the idea that all this was real, that it was really happening.

“i asked,” said leehan, the diary still in his hand “for how long?”

you felt like crying. it had to remain a secret, that's what diaries are for.

how long? you couldn't answer. you couldn't recognize when you actually fell in love with him, maybe you had been all along.

you couldn't even understand his face. was he sad? disappointed? betrayed? disgusted? would this be the end of everything?

“leehan…” your voice sounded like a whisper, a part of you still couldn't force yourself to speak, “please forget everything, we can pretend like nothing happened.”

he finally put the diary down, and looked away from you. “forget everything” he sighed, running a hand through his hair “i won't.”

“leehan…”

“i don't want to.” he said, getting up from your bed, bringing his gaze back to you. “y/n” the look in his eyes was unreadable “why didn't you tell me anything?”

“our friendship” you could feel the palms of your hands getting sweatier and sweatier. “i didn't want to ruin it, you’re my best friend.”

“maybe i don't want to be your best friend anymore.”

your heart broke. deep down you knew, your friendship wouldn't survive this punch.

“can't we at least talk about this? please.”

“i like you too, y/n.” he said, finally the shadow of an emotion you knew on his face “i've been for long.”

“what?” this was a twist you weren't expecting.

“do we want to try to go to the next level?” he smiled, that smile that you loved and hated at the same time, because you knew what it meaned.

with all those questions, before, he had done nothing but tease you, as he always did. he was enjoying the moment.

you so wanted to punch him. “i hate you.” you said, punching him playfully on the shoulder. the tension was finally starting to disappear.

he pointed at the diary on your bed, still smiling. “i have proof that you actually don't.”

“i'm gonna burn that thing.”

“please don't” his laughter filling the room “it just became my favorite thing to read.”

thinking about the fact that if someone were to read my diary i could easily scream, go to another country, change my identity and then die. thank you.

[cosmos-coma]

Glass Desks

A/N: Just a silly little scene I've had in my head for bit now since I work as an occasional house cleaner to try and get by. I got surprised by someone coming in on my last clean and just had to turn it into something.

Pairing: Mafia! Bucky Barnes x House Cleaner! Reader

Words: 1,055

Bucky Masterlist

Buy me a Coffee?

___________________

A sigh escaped Bucky as he ran a hand down his face. He was supposed to have meetings all day today- ones important enough that he’d rearranged everything around them- yet within the first two hours something had already come up and his associates were forced to reschedule.

“Hey, boss? We’re here…” Sam said from the driver’s seat, pulling him out of his thoughts and making him look up at the large empty house before him.

His empty house.

He wouldn’t trade his line of work for the world, truly, but between both the secretive and potentially violent nature of his job, it didn’t exactly leave much room for pleasant company. 

He sighed again as he stepped out, “Thanks Sam…. That should be all for today, but I’ll call if I need you.” He said and patted the roof twice before it pulled away. 

Making his way up the stairs toward the entrance, all seemed normal at first glance- that is until he spotted an unfamiliar car parked around the side. 

It was an old car, parked out of the way in the shade- not quite a beater- but they definitely didn’t make its model anymore. It was non-descript and would blend in with a crowd if needed, but more importantly: it wasn’t one of his. 

He moved toward the door with far quieter steps now, listening intently for the intruders. Multiple voices came from inside as if trying to talk over each other in layered tones. Chairs and doors clunked and creaked as they were moved about, followed by the moving voices- were people searching for something? 

Instinctively his hand found the gun in his jacket. ‘Sam didn’t say anything as he left… Did he really not notice the car? No-Sam was one of his best men… Maybe he already knew they were here..?’ Bucky thought.

Either way, he wasn’t taking any chances; his fingers closed around the gun’s handle as he cracked open the door, the weapon a comfortable and familiar weight in his hand. His steps were silent as he entered, their practiced paces unknown to anyone but him. 

However, instead of finding an enemy gang searching for secrets he found…. You. 

You were hard at work in your own little world as you went about cleaning the second floor. You bobbed and sang along to the music emanating from your back pocket, your voice layering over the original as the rags half tucked in your belt swayed with you. The mobster couldn’t help but crack a smile. 

He had completely forgotten. Usually, on days when he was meant to be out of the house for hours on end, you would be scheduled to come clean. But apparently, no one had informed you about the change of plans.

You had been hired on as his house cleaner a few months ago, helping him keep things together while work kept him endlessly busy. But despite having been on the payroll for a while now, he still hadn’t found the time to officially meet you- that is, until now.

He couldn’t deny that you looked… rather silly if he was being honest, but your unparalleled passion only made it all the more endearing. His head shook with a faint smile as he watched as you moved into his office. Shutting the door behind him with a soft click, he was halfway up the second-floor stairs when he heard you suddenly break away from your song. 

“Ugh…,” you sighed loudly to yourself, still thinking you were the only one in the room, “what kind of an asshole has a glass desk? I mean, really- Do you have stock in Windex? Is that what it is???” You asked snarkily to no one in particular, but this was too good for Bucky to pass up.

“Not yet. Should I?” The mobster found himself biting back his laughter as he leaned against the office doorway behind you. 

“At this rate? You should really-“Your mouth clamped shut faster than it ever had before, your entire body freezing on the spot as his response finally processed. Your eyes were wide as saucers as your thoughts ran on a panicked loop ‘Oh no, oh god, oh shit, oh fuck. you really just had to insult the infamous White Wolf of New York… In his own home… In front of his own men… Are you STUPID??’ you yelled at yourself internally and quickly put on a brave face, turning off your music and turning to the unfamiliar voice behind you.

Your stomach nearly dropped as you realized it was not only “one of his men” it was, THE man. You instantly recognized him from the few photos scattered around the house; the sharp stubbly jaw and blazing blue eyes were unmistakable, not to mention the hint of the metallic arm you caught between his suit sleeve and glove. You couldn’t deny he was handsome- even more so in person than he was in his photos.

“Mr. Barnes…!” Your voice squeaked out, but he just held his same amused smile, looking anything but upset. “I, uh… I thought you had meetings all day today- I didn’t mix up the date, did I..?”

“Not at all…” he said with a quiet laugh. “My meetings got rescheduled part way though, so I thought I’d spend the evening working from home. Little did I know it’d be the perfect place to get financial advice too.” 

Your face burned with embarrassment as you relived the very recent moment yet again, “Right, uh, about the whole ‘asshole’ thing, I-” 

But he simply waved you off, “Don’t. It’s refreshing to get an authentic opinion, and honestly? I don’t even like that desk.” He admitted, his heart stirring in new ways as your whole body relaxed and he could finally see you as you usually were, “and, ah… if you wanted to stay for a while, I sure wouldn’t mind the company- I could use a little advice in the stock market.”

You bit your lip to hold back your grin, you wouldn’t get too ahead of yourself, “Oh, me? I don’t know if I’d really be suitable company while I’m cleaning.” 

A thought seemed to pass over him then as he nodded in agreement, “Hm, you’re right..” he smiled, “Perhaps we should just have dinner then… how’s tonight?”

______

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@writingmysanity @simpxinnie @goldylions

If I missed or accidentally tagged you lmk! Wanna be added General Bucky taglist? Please ask/DM me!

[arriansarchive]

Bottom!Dom!Carl Gallagher/Male!Top!Sub!Milkovich!Reader

This one's been in my mind for a while but I haven't acted upon my urges

Warnings since I forget to do them a lot: edging, pinching??? painplay????, other smut stuff, getting caught

Like season 10/11??? It doesn't really specify or anything but he's an adult

I've also decided to switch my name tag from y/n to m/n so yeah (i might forget in later stories so idk)

I used the word cock again be proud. im evolving

Summary: Porn

A simple day for junk food and TV programs. Well, that's what it was supposed to be before Carl got any bright ideas as usual.

Mickey had chaperoned you over to the Gallagher house after a job interview to help him with a few things, but you ended up just sitting with your boyfriend for a while. It wasn't the most productive thing you could be doing though nobody cared but Mickey.

By this time you both had gotten a few drinks down, and you were successfully quite tipsy. Not drunk to the point of delirium but not all there either.

You were barely paying attention to the TV until a rather heated, weirdly even, sex scene popped up. Carl laughed a little before leaning back in his seat.

A few minutes went past and in the corner of your eye you saw Carl stiffen, his mouth in a straight line. He seemed uncomfortable.

"You good?" You lolled your head over from the back of the couch to stare deeply at him.

He looked over at you, seemingly contemplating something before he lunged at you with full force. Carl pushed you back onto the couch vigorously with a elated look, straddling you.

"Don't tell me that shitty sex scene actually got to you." You rolled your eyes, but your breath automatically hitched whenever he grinded against you.

You tried to maneuver your way out from under him, but Carl held you down with such force that you didn't know where it even came from.

"I'm not going under today." He declares while shrugging off his jacket.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" You crossed your arms behind your head and yawned.

"You'll see." He muttered once he finally tugged his shirt over his head.

Carl started to unbutton the fancy shirt you had spent pretty much all your money on for your interview, but he decided to leave it on even after it was fully unbuttoned. Fucking in style or something like that.

He pressed his mouth up to yours needily. His hands were roaming your body and pinching you at random spots, making you flinch and groan into your boyfriend's mouth

You gasped lightly into Carl's mouth as his hands traveled down your dress pants, palming you roughly through your boxers. He had an evil smirk on his face.

"If you're this hard from me just doing that then you'd better prepare yourself." He whispered in your ear seductively.

You whimpered at the cold air whenever his hand left you, and your pants and boxers were pulled down.

Carl drug his hand up and down excruciatingly slowly for about a minute before teasing the tip with his thumb. The pad was circling the slit which was leaking steadily.

You were barely able to contain your noises of displeasure whenever he pulled away completely to take his own pants off but couldn't help to wonder what he was going to do next.

Suddenly he bent down from the couch and pulled out a few lube packets from one pocket of his pants.

"Were you planning this?" You managed to get out with a shakey voice.

He grinned. "Of course I was."

Carl was notorious for pain play with you. He loved doing it probably more than he loved normal sex without it, so no stretching wasn't a problem with him as he was usually the bottom.

He spread the lube over you, massaging around the base and tip mostly since he knew you were the most sensitive there.

You both groaned loudly in unison whenever he started to lower himself onto you. You were basically in agony from how slow he was going, and you could tell he was too.

You squeezed your eyes shut at the ecstasy that enveloped you at even the slight movement of his hips up and down on you. He had a maniacal look in his eyes.

He raised his legs up to where your tip was about to slip out and then slammed back down into you. Carl started a steady pace of this, not too fast but not too slow.

Both of your whimpers and groans were filling the silent, empty living room. Now that most of the Gallaghers were adults they weren't in the house a lot

Carl felt his wits end coming closer with each passing thrust, but yours was going even quicker. He had always noticed you were louder whenever you were about to finish.

Your hips spasmed as you came into Carl. He continued to bounce, chasing his orgasm while overstimulation engulfing your senses

Thick white ropes shot out of Carl rapidly with a loud scream of pleasure. You felt yourself start to harden once more and almost groaned in exhaustion.

He collapsed onto your chest, not bothering to take your cock out of him for the time being. It was silent until you both heard footsteps approach from the back door.

"Carl, what the hell are you doing?" A female voice yelped from the back of the couch.

"Tuning you out. What the hell does it look like?" He opened one eye passively and shrugged.

"Well, it looks like your fucking Mickey Milkovich's brother."

"That part is true too."

Your face flushed in embarrassment as Debbie and Carl argued back and forth about Franny's wellbeing and other concerns about fucking on the Gallagher house's couch. The words vomit and piss were used too much for your liking.

Ian's cackle became apparent from the kitchen along with Mickey's heavy footfalls.

"You fuckin' my brother, Gallagher?" He called.

You both decided to take your second round down to the basement. It's safe to say you got teased about it for a while after that.

[kenny-the-ken]

Mine, and Mine Alone!

This was requested by a lovely anon, so thank you so so much for the idea!! I had so much fun writing this!! Send me lots of requests guys!! I love hearing from you all!! AGED UP CHARACTERS

Clyde fucking Donovan. He had been a thorn in Kyle's side for years now, ever since Kyle started dating y/n, and that was almost three years ago.

He knew Clyde was in love with you, but wasn't it obvious that you weren't interested? You were a kind girl, and he played on that fact. He knew you'd never want to hurt anyone's feelings, and he loved that about you, but he hated how Clyde used it for is own advantage over you.

All of this made Kyle extremely over protective, even getting to the point where his friends group were protecting you too, just to stop Kyle's brain from literally exploding every time a guys eyes lingered on you for just a bit too long.

And that was just in a day to day situation. Tonight was worse, oh one hundred million times worse, you were all going to a party at Wendy's house, Wendy had personally invited both of you and when Kyle seen how excited you were about attending, he knew he had no other choice but to come.

There you stood, your hand in Kyle's, sipping your drink and chatting to Wendy about god knows what when Kyle's interest peaked. The door had opened, and there was Clyde, sounding already under the influence.

"Douche bag at 10 o'clock." Stan spoke, ripping Kyle from his thoughts, simply nodding in response.

"Be better not try anything." Kyle whispered to Stan, you completely oblivious to what they were chatting about.

You all had been here for a while now, and much to Kyle's surprise he was actually enjoying himself more than he thought he would. He and the guys were all tipsy, laughing together like they did when they were kids, and you were taking shots in the kitchen with Bebe and Wendy.

"Hey, y/n, long time no see." You turned to see Clyde, leaning against the kitchen worktop.

"Hey Clyde, how're you?" You asked, your words a little more slurred that normal, causing you to giggle at yourself.

You were also too oblivious to realise that Wendy and Bebe had moved back to the living room where the rest of the party was, leaving you alone in the kitchen with Clyde.

This was his chance, and he wasn't going to waste it.

"I'll be so much better when I get to call you mine." Clyde replied, inching closer to you, and you slowly began to panic, your eyes widening slightly.

"Clyde, that's not going to happen, I'm with Kyle, I love him!" Your voice was raised louder than before, and your back hit off the edge of the worktop behind you, Clyde still approaching closer to you and you had no where left to go.

"You seriously think that a girl like you should be with a guy like that?" He questioned, one of his hands reaching to where your back rested against the countertop, locking you in.

"Clyde, move away from me!" You warned, your tone raised louder once more as you pushed him, which only made things worse.

"I've been in love with you forever, y/n, just one kiss, and then if you don't feel anything then I'll leave you alon-"

He was cut off from finishing his sentence as Kyle threw a punch at his from the side, Clyde's nose already staring to bleed as he clutched his face.

"Don't you DARE speak to my girlfriend that way, Clyde! And even better yet, don't fucking touch what's mine!" Kyle shouted, throwing another punch at him, knocking him to the ground.

"Kyle, I wasn't-" Clyde began, before Kyle cut him off once more, no way would he entertain this bullshit.

"Wasn't what? Pressuring my girlfriend to kiss you?! You've always been a pain in my fuckin' ass Clyde! Take the hint! She's with me, I won, you lost!" Kyle shouted once more, his arms engulfing you close to his chest, pressing kissed on the top of your head.

"Come on, y/n, let's go home." Kyle spoke, as you nodded in agreement, taking his hand in your own as he led you out of the house, sighing when you were a few streets away.

"He's so lucky I didn't kill him." Kyle spoke through gritted teeth, his free hand clenched in a tight fist.

"I'm just so glad you came when you did, god knows what he's have tried." You spoke, yours hands still shaking from the incident moments ago.

"You're staying in my house tonight, no ifs or buts about it, I'm gonna cuddle you to sleep." Kyle spoke, his hand detaching from yours to wrap an arm around your waist.

"As long as you don't mind?" You asked, a small smile on your face as your boyfriend shook his head.

"Of course I don't mind, my bed feels lonely without you in it." Kyle spoke, placing a gentle kiss to your forehead as you neared his home.

He quietly unlocked the door, not wanting to wake his little brother, and you both entered, heading upstairs to get ready for bed.

"My mom washed and dried your pyjamas you left here by the way." Kyle spoke, opening one of his beside cabinets and lifting your pyjamas out, placing them on the bed for you.

"I'll thank her in the morning." You said, taking your coat off and pulling your jeans down, then taking your top off. You could feel eyes burning through your flesh, and you knew that Kyle couldn't keep his eyes to himself, or his hands for that matter.

His hands found your hips as he pulled you to his chest, a small smirk on his face as he pressed kisses down your neck.

"I think it's time I remind you who this pussy belongs to, hmm?" He spoke, his voice low and raspy. His strong hands pushed you backwards onto his bed, a small gasp escaping you as he stood above you, pulling his shirt from his body and next unbuckling his belt, trailing his jeans from his legs, a smirk stuck to his face.

"I'm gonna ruin you, baby." He spoke, quickly removing your panties from your small form. He got down on his knees at the edge of the bed, pressing soft kisses up your thighs, before dipping his tongue between your wet folds, wanting to taste you.

"Fuck, Kyle!" You gasped, your hands moving to tangle in your boyfriends thick, tightly curled red hair, tugging gently.

His tongue was circling your clit, as he sucked gently on it, earning a long string of moans from you. And they were about to get louder, you felt his long digit circle round your entrance, before he pushed it inside you, curling his finger against your g-spot, his tongue still stimulating your clit.

"K-Kyle, oh my god." This only increased his speed, as he entered another finger inside you, pumping them quickly while curling them against your spot, and your back arched against the soft mattress beneath you, your moans growing louder and more frequent as you neared your release.

"I-I'm getting close, Kyle." You managed, his free hand moving up to tease with one of your nipples, his tongue licking stripes along your clit as you felt your orgasm wash over you, your back arching, and Kyle's name falling from your lips effortlessly in the form of moans. It was electric, your hands tugging on Kyle's hair, as he lapped up your juices, pulling his finger from you and sucking them into his mouth before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"That was incredible." You panted, Kyle's smirk still firmly placed on his lips.

"Oh baby, who said we were finished?" He winked, and you knew you were going to be in for one hell of a night.

[lynaferns]

The Forest On The Other Side

Chapter 1: I want to go home.

Ver. [ENGLISH / SPANISH]

EDIT: This fic is now on AO3

A girl gets lost in the forest and finds a misterious gate in the middle of nowhere. At the other side she meets a... very peculiar individual who seems to only want to befriend her and play. Everything seems fine. Until night falls and someone else joins to play...

Again, I appreciate feedback about the english adaptation. English is not my first lenguage and I still mess up sometimes.

This is in some way a more "joyful" story than BIOMáquina, still with its dark themes. I wrote this a year ago. By this I mean I forced myself to get it written down and ended up hating it and burning myself out. A couple of weeks ago I decided to reread it and I though it was pretty ok actually, so I edited it a bit to make it flow better. It used to be written more as a script for the comic I wanted to draw buuuut that didn't happen (cough stressed myself out cough forced myself cough don't force yourself to make content out of a hobby, a hobby is supposed to be for your own fun). I'm not completely satisfied with the final draft but I think is good enough for my first ever fic written.

I originally planned to make it a Y/N thing but that didn't last long. But I keeped the original idea of the first person POV. The Y/N stories I've read has always some narrator telling you what you do insert you in the story. I thought of making the MC the narrator, this way the reader can insert themselves like it's their story or they can read it as if someone else is telling them a story. This is also a bit limiting, since the narration is also the MCs thought process and sometimes I may skip details MC couldn't have seen.

AU, Magical forest, DCA centered, Sun fnaf, Moon fnaf, Elves Sun & Moon, OC, Selfinsert, Character & OC, platonic, friendship, slowburn (kind of), Moon is agresive at first, Moon is also a bit of a gremlin, Protective Sun (I think), OC is a potty mouth, Female Main Character, First person, Angst.

The first post where I showed this AU and my first sketches ideas.

Tumblr archive with all of the art, ideas and anwsered asks.

Youtube Playlist which I'm pretty proud of how it turned out :] It's in a specific order but you can put it on mix.

Note: even though I try to keep things light some things may be triggering for some readers.

CW: Anxiety, Suicide ideation, Implied death, Choking, Non sexual abuse.

Wordcount: 9,700 (It's not rounded, that's literally the number Word tells me it's at lol)

Welp.

Here we are again, in the old village house (yey...). Well, 'I am', my family won't arrive to settle in for another week. They brought me here beforehand a few days ago for organizational reasons. They took a quick look inside before they left to see the state of the house, if it needed any repairs and such, and they headed back to the city. While they finish preparing everything, I take care of the house and text them messages about anything that may be needed for when they return.

We haven't been here in years, the house needs some repairs, and I'm sorry for the spiders, but it could use a deep cleaning. We can't do a deep cleaning but I have been cleaning what I can these last few days, at least so that it looks decent... at first glance.

Well, it's not like anyone is coming to visit.

It's a quiet town, until the kids from the town next door come to make a racket with their bikes. They play in our field, scare away the cats and throw cans around. They are assholes.

Anyways, the people in the village are nice. The adults I mean, the kids I used to play with, I don't get along with them anymore. Some of them aren't kids anymore, we have grown up and are going down different paths. But those who are still kids... they're still interested in the only older kid in the town who listened to them and let them do whatever they wanted, to a certain extent.

I don't want them to come looking for me to go out and play. I've been avoiding them by saying that I'm busy cleaning the house and getting it ready for when my family arrives, but I feel like interacting with them less and less. That's why I'm going out to the woods behind the house to get lost for a while, as always. The kids don't go near the forest so they won't bother me there.

There is an area for tourism and hiking but not many people come, some police cars border the forest from time to time but they never go inside. The reports of missing people in this forest have been coming in for decades, only some lost children have returned but there is no trace of any of the adults who disappeared along with the rest of the children. The areas marked with signs are safe but you can't go out of bounds unless you want to disappear with those people.

And I, who right now am alone and with no one to notice my absence if I go missing, am going to head straight to the forest. Don't you think, I don't want to disappear, I just don't like people and I usually go into the forest but I don't go too far away. As long as I see my house in the distance, I know how to return.

I grab my bag with my sketchbook and pencil case, in case I feel like drawing (probably won't) and step out to the back porch. The outer sliding metal door that protects the inner one is rusty and difficult to open. It would be better to oil it but I don't know when it will be done, considering that the broken railing has had a wooden board tied to it for years. I already sent my mother a message talking about it.

I enter the forest and start walking around. It's hot, of course, it's early summer, but it's quite noticeable after being in the cool inside the brick and stone house. That's the good thing about coming here in summer, the houses are made to stay cold inside and it's great, sometimes I even need to wear a jacket. But outside I'm dying, the trees don't provide enough shade. In fact, some trees are missing. I used to have my routes memorized but time has passed and some paths have changed, some have disappeared and others have formed. I admit that it makes me a little sad... I began to walk absorbed in my thoughts not paying attention to where I was going.

I'm walking away, I should go back. I'm not going to draw anything here anyway, and it's hotter outside than inside so I'm gonna to turn around-

I hear screams and laughter in the distance, the sound of the voices produces me an immediate disgust. It's those kids from the next door village. They must have come to 'investigate' about the disappearances or maybe they don't care and they just came to be idiots-

They're getting closer.

I don't want them to see me. God. Don't let them see me. Anyone but them. They're getting closser. Don't let them see me. I can't go back home now. They're cutting me off. Of all the people who could have found me. It had to be them. No, please. Don't let them see me. I have to go further into the forest, I can't let them see me. They're getting closer. Don't let them see me. I want to leave. I want to leave. I'm getting too far. I want to leave. I don't see my house. I want to leave. I don't see the village. I want to leave. I don't see the kids.

...

...

...

Where am I?

Fuck.

Where am I?

I want to leave.

I want to leave.

I want to leave.

I want to leave.

…

—

Now I'm wandering through the forest. I don't want to go back. I want to get out of here. Even though I'm walking in a straight line I feel like I'm going around in circles, and I'm not going to get out of here now. Great. I'm lost. Now what? People who get lost in this forest don't return, no one has returned except for some children.

...

I'm going to disappear.

...

For now I keep walking until something happens. Maybe there's an animal that kills people who get lost, or maybe it's a group of kidnappers, or maybe I should stop giving myself anxiety and focus on getting out of here. Maybe if I find a field or road, or even the tourist area, I'll be able to get out of here and return bordering the fores-

...

There is... colorful graffitis on the trees. Someone has painted eyes, hands, stars and more on the bark of the trees...

What's this?

I don't know where I've come to, I didn't know this was here, in the middle of nowhere in the forest. The trees have red leaves like in autumn even though summer has just started... The first thing I thought was 'climate change's fault' but there is something that stands out in the middle of this entire flat area and it is disturbing me.

In the center there is a kind of circular gate made of stones supported by roots.

Okay, maybe it doesn't sound aaaaas disturbing as, I don't know, a totem with a human figure being impaled or something, but it's giving me a bad vibe. What is this place? Who built a stone arch in the middle of everything and why?

A bird appears flying from behind me and goes through the gate, but nothing comes out on the other side... wait what? how? The bird has crossed the gate, and disappeared behind the stone arch? ...I had to imagine it, it's not possible that that happened. I approach the arch but not before picking up a rock from the ground and throwing it to the other side of the gate.

It's still there.

…

For some reason the thought of going through the gate makes me uncomfortable, so I go around it.

...

...And the rock? It's not there.

I go back and look from inside the portal.

The rock is there.

...

I look from outside. The rock is not there. I repeat this multiple times. Rock. No rock. Rock. No rock. Rock. No rock... What?

Alright, this is weird, this is VERY weird.

Even though it is clear that this isn't normal, I have to go back, pick up a fallen branch from the ground and pass it through the portal. This time I don't throw it, I've grabbed a branch long enough to see it peek out from the other side of the arch.

...

Welp.

I should be seeing not only the branch, but also my hand sticking out of the side, but I'M NOT SEEING IT. OKAY. OK. ALRIGHT. IT'S CONFIRMED. THIS IS WEIRD.

I'm asleep, right? Or unconscious. I must have passed out from exhaustion from endlessly wandering through the woods and I'm delirious or something. No, wait, it can't be, in my dreams I'm not this aware of what's around me. Where am I?

A breeze begins to pass through the gate. It's getting stronger but not enough to push me. The leaves rise from the ground and float towards the portal, none slipping outside, all entering through the stone arch. Suddenly the breeze that had become wind stops. The leaves fall to the ground.

...

I look back for a moment, as if there was something behind me that could help me make a decision. Grabbing with both hands my bag strap I look back at the portal again. Okay. Alright. This is possibly the death of me. I'm going to cross. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm just one step away from crossing. I wrinkle my face and narrow my eyes before taking the last step.

...

Nothing has happened. Everything seems the same. However, I know it's not the same... Or at least it doesn't feel the same!

Well, I've already crossed. I'm gonna... keep walking, I guess, even though this is scaring me and I don't know if I'll know how to go back. For now I'm moving forward. The red leaves have disappeared several meters ago. It's starting to look like a normal forest, except for the multicolored drawings and handprints that I keep seeing on the trees. In fact, it seems like the trees are taller with every step I take. So high that I can barely see the top. I almost tripped while looking up. Whether this is the same forest I come from, I no longer know.

This was a bad idea. I just hope to find something that'll help me know where I am, a sign or the road if possible.

*cling*

...?

I hit something with my foot. There is a ball attached to a small chain on the ground. Oh, no, wait. *cling diring ding* It's a rusty bell, I think. It doesn't have the typical cross-shaped hole or slot, rather it has several holes in a pattern. It looks like it can be opened.

There's nothing inside.

?

There's nothing? But I could have sworn it had rang. I close it again and shake it.

*...*

Nothing.

I'm going to put it in the bag, it's totally a good idea. I'll think about it later, for now I'm moving on.

—

I've been walking for a while now and throughout this time I had a constant chill on the back of my neck, as if someone had their eyes on me.

*din dirring* I hear a soft tinkling in the distance.

Okay, I'm not alone, awesome, what do I do now? Do I say hi and risk the potential danger finding me? Do I ignore the sound of bells and keep moving? It's very possible that whatever made that sound is watching me right now...

“Hello?” Still nervous, I try to say hello looking around “...” “Is someone there? H-hello?”

“-HEEEEELLO!”

“AAAAAH-!” I cover my mouth with my hands as I turn to look at what the hell has greeted me back. I take a few steps back while I look at the figure of earthy and sunny tones who responded, he seems as surprised as I am, I think (with the scream I made, normal), at least it looks like he's surprised. He wears a two toned wooden mask... it looks like a sun, with a crescent moon on its right... It gives the impression of two faces merged into one... Damn, he is tall, he's almost doubles my size. He appears to have two skin tones dividing him in half, his right side being the lighter and the left darker, especially the arm, which also has a light-colored tattoo of lines representing a sun symbol that covers from the shoulder to the pectoral and to the middle of the bicep. The right arm is covered by a long fingerless glove that reaches to the shoulder and is tied around the chest. He's wearing baggy pants with leaves coming out of the waist and legs, some... cloth boots? with a long toe bending sharply and curving in a geometric swirl with a bell at the tips, a bag hangs from the waistband of his pants and falls below his hips. His chest and neck are tied by ropes decorated with hanging stones, metals and crystals, he wears a pendant that ends in a carved symbol of a crescent moon with rays. Some of the 'sunrays' on his mask have ropes tied between them holding them in place and some metal dangling. Some red ribbons along with bells hang from his wrists.

“um... Helloooooo.” He greets again, this time he lowers his tone of voice. I manage to react, I turn around and walk away. “¡ah- eh- Wait!” Nope, I'm not going to wait and see what he does with me, I'm leaving. “He-! Hey!” Nope. I quicken my pace and try to get lost among the trees, changing direction every time he appears in my vision angle. “Human? Human-! FRIEND. Can I call you friend?!” Nope, nope, nopnop, nop, nop, nope. “Friend! Hey!” God, no, god, god, no, why are you following me? “Look, I know what you're trying to look for...! And believe me, you're not going to find it~!” How are you still following me? Where do you come from? “Hey! Listen! Why don't we do something else besides running in circles!?” Noooooooooo... “There are TONS of other activities we could do! Like... HOLY MOLY, look at this stick! Do you like sticks!?” Leave me aloneee... “You aren't looking at it! Okay, alright, you don't like sticks, erm... what might be of interest to you...” If I don't look at it it doesn't exist. “Could you help me a little here?” I want to leave... “Look, no matter how much you wander around, you won't find the portal-!”

“STOP—! STOP FOLLOWING ME! LEAVE ME ALONE!” The sudden scream startles him again, making him jump in place. He stands completely still looking at me. I'm leaving before he gets angry.

“B-but I- ...okay.” I thought I heard him say before I left him behind.

It seems that this time he's not following me, finally... Although I'm not calm, he could still be following me and simply not be in sight. Anyway, I think I'm coming back? I hope I am. I want to find that portal as soon as possible and go back to the house- what the fu-? “WHY?”

He's there. Right where I left him. Sitting on a rock. Waiting. “...! I haven't moved from the spot!”

“Yeah- but- WHY?”

“Because I knew you were going to come back here!”

“...What?”

“Is what I was trying to tell you! You can't leave! No matter how hard you try to find the portal, it won't appear before you!” The Sunman exclaimed.

“…” I'm just about to turn around. In fact, I'm already turning around.

“N-No, wait! Please don't go!” I stop in my track and look back at him. He gets off the rock he was sitting on but remains squatting, almost at my height, a little below. I move back, keeping my distance. He puts his hands up. “Look, I'm not doing anything! I won't chase you! Just- ...don't go.”

“…”

“L-look, listen, there's no way it's going to show up! Well, not to you at least. But even if you find it back, it won't work! It only works when it wants to work.”

“...” Let's imagine that I trust what he says “Ok... and when does it want to be working?”

“...” “No idea!”

“...”

“...”

I'm about to collapse on the spot. At least he doesn't seem hostile, for now. “...” “Okay... Good... Great...” “...” “FanTAS-tic.”

“...” “You don't seem like it.”

*ಠ_ಠ* I could only look to the side in frustration in response to that. I looked back at him with concern showing on my face and grabbing the strap of my bag with both hands. “And... what... do you plan to do with me?”

He took his hand to the chin of his mask and with the other he held his elbow in a comical thoughtful pose. “MmmmnnDUN know! What do you plan to do?” He asked so nonchalantly. He ended up sitting on the ground crossing his legs. “You have a good while until the portal opens again...!”

“...”

“...”

“...”

He started swaying. The silence has become uncomfortable for a while now, but I can't organize myself on what to say, and I don't know if I trust him. I don't even know if he's human, although something tells me he's not.

“You could wait here.” He suggested, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Or anywhere else, if you want. I would recommend somewhere high like the treetops (for no particular reason)! If you're going to wait... But wouldn't that be really boring?” There was something in his tone of voice... “Being there... at the top of a tree... waiting... alone... with no friends to hang out with (can I call you a friend?). Aaall on your own until the portal opens again.” He looks aside for a moment “...” And back at me again. “With no one to be with you.” He repeats the head motion “...” “alone...” Wow... I wonder what he's implying, ahem. “Wouldn't you want to have someone...? ...Someone...keeping you company?” Yeah, yeah...

“...” I guess... “I-I guess I wouldn't want to be alon-?”

He rises to his knees. “That's what I thought! Do you want me to accompany you? Only if you want! But can I?” He clasped his hands together as if asking a favor.

“um...”

“Can I?Can I?Can I?Can I?Can I?Can I?Can I?” He approaches, dragging his knees on the ground.

I'm starting to miss personal space. “Okay! Okay, alright...”

“REALLY?” He started hopping and jumping around me. “OH, ohoho hO! Great! Oh, there are TONS of things we could do! Like... Like...!” He moves faster, doing bigger and bigger flips and jumps, it almost seems that he is very light, as if the breeze of air lifted him. “We could paint and decorate trees! Or we can also paint on rocks! Or paint leaves! Or paint us! Oh! We can tell stories! I'm very good at making shadows and puppets.” He moves from place to place with each sentence he says. “We can also play something!” It's moving so fast all I can see is the wind and the leaves it stirs up as it moves. “Anything! Whatever you want!” Finally he stopped in front of me half crouched. “What do ya say?! Hmm! Friend!?”

“Don't... call me like that.” Makes me feel awkward.

“Oh...why not-? Oh true, true! How silly, I don't know your name! What do you call yourself, potential friend?”

“...”

“...” “Aren't... you gonna tell me your name?”

I twist the bag strap “Depends...” I must say I'm a little skeptical about this. “Are there any consequences for telling you my name?”

“...Consequences...?”

“Like... I don't know... Mmm-by telling you my name I become your possession and cannot regain my freedom until... certain conditions are met...”

“...”

“...”

“Why- how-? Where did you get that from!?” It did sound a bit stupid when I said it out loud.

“I dunno- that's what they say in old children's stories about elves and fairies!” I just hope the embarrassment isn't showing on my face.

“Really?” I could feel his deadpan expression behind the mask.

I shrugged.

“...” “Okay... Oh, what if I tell you my name first? Will you tell me yours? It's only fair, I'm Sun!”

“...”

“Can I know your name now?” He asked expectantly.

“...How do I know you're not trying to trick me?”

“...” I must be driving him crazy with this “The only thing I can do with your name is treasure it in my memory.” He put his hands together as if he was carefully holding something and brought them to the forehead of the mask. I gave him a distrustful look. It doesn't seem like it made him desist “Please?”

I grip at my worn out bag strap “...” “ Fern...” I ended up murmuring.

“Hmm? Fern? OH, I like it!” “Sounds like FRIEND.” He emphasized the last word by making a gesture like jazz hands, leaning to the side and moving his head closer to me.

“Yeah... I think you are missing a couple of letters.”

He straightened his posture again. “Nope, I don't think so!”

“You're still not my friend.”

“Oooowwwwwnnnnnggghhh” He lowers his head dramatically until it practically touches the ground “nnnnnnngggghh, alright!” And cartwheels to stand up again “So... what will it be?”

“Hm?”

He straightened his posture and puts his arms on his hips “We have plenty of time, ya? What do you wanna to do?”

“I don't know, what do you want to do-?” Bad mistake.

“Come with me!”

“aaAAAAA-!” Before I knew it, he had grabbed my arm and I was being dragged through the woods. We visited several places and he offered me an activity to do in each of them.

—

Sun took me to a place where the trees were full of colorful paint “We practice painting on the trees here!” He said.

“Ah.” That explains the crossed out lines and the repeated imperfect shapes. By the look of it is also where he tests the quality of the paint.

“Do you want us to paint something!?”

“Not really...”

“Oh, would you prefer it to be on a rock?”

“Nah.”

“...And in star leaves-?”

“I don't want to paint, Sun.”

“Oh... Well, I can show you more places!”

“OkayyEEEEEE-” And I'm being dragged away again.

—

He brought me to another area of the forest, the ground here seemed more leveled. Not a single tree was straight, all of them were twisted and even seemed to be hollow. “How about playing something!? Like hide and seek-! No, wait, I can’t let you out of my sight.” He mumbled at the end “And chase?! We can climb a tree and see who reaches the top first! We have a place full of vines and it's perfect for swinging- and jumping from one tree to another-!”

“I don't... really want to move a lot…” With the way he runs without getting tired and me, who doesn't exercise... he would let me dead.

“Oh... well, theeen-”

—

We arrived at a place full of vegetation and humidity. Sun seemed quite excited... “This place is full of insects! We can look for cool bugs!”

“Mmmmmnoooo... I don't want to.” I had to tell him, trying to show as little disinterest as I could.

“You don't like them?” He sounded a little disappointed hearing my reaction.

“No, I do like them, some of them, but I don't like to touch them.” And I'm terrified of them flying into my face.

“Oh, well, it's okay!” He said brushing it off and we moved on to the next stop.

—

“I know that bird!” He stopped us on the way to point at a robin high up on a branch.

“ah.” I said as I removed leaves from my hair and clothes, and checked that I still had my glasses.

“He's a little rascal!”

“...” I think the bird is making us the equivalent of 'mooning'.

—

“Look fish-! Oh, they're gone…” The noise must have scared them away “We can go find more places to look at them if you want!”

“...” “...no, pass...”

“…”

—

“Look at this stick!” Sun had suddenly sprinted past me, picked up something from the ground, and came back just as fast, showing me the stick as if it were a sword.

“oh.” It's a cool stick, must admit it.

“Do you want to look for more sticks!?”

“No...”

“oh...” He looked at the ground in disappointment.

“Why would we go looking for sticks? There are all over the ground.” Specifically, in this area the ground was all sticks. We are literally just stepping on sticks right now. I don't see the ground.

“Variety!” Sun said pointing at the ground with both hands. A branch is heard falling in the distance.

—

“That's a deer!” He pointed at the deer passing nearby. The deer stopped to look at us.

“Yeah, I see.”

“We call 'em Adoquín!”

“...Why is it called Adoquí-?”

*THUMP!*

“…”

The deer smacked itself against a tree when trying to run away. It stands still for a minute, processing the hit, looks at a side and then the other, then runs off again but this time avoiding the tree.

Another *thump!* is heard in the distance.

“...” Alright.

—

“Do you wannaaaa look for pine cones? There will be some fallen around here. Oh! We can also look for mushrooms!”

I keep saying no to everything he suggests and it doesn't look like he's going to run out of ideas to pass the time. In fact, he's very insistent that we do something. I guess at some point I'll have to say yes to something. “...” “...okay...”

“Hmm?! Okay? Okay to what?” His exaggerated surprise offends me but I don't blame him.

“To... I don't know, pine cones?”

“...You don't look very convinced.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“OKAY! On the hunt for pine cones then!” I startle a little at the sudden shout. He makes a pose pointing in a direction, as if he were leading an expedition.

He takes me through the forest looking for pine cones. We aren't finding many, especially me who's not paying any interest. He tries encouraging me to put more effort into it but I keep looking at my boots.

We passed near a shingle river. I find a pebble at my feet and bend down to pick it up and take a better look. It's like a bluish gray, it has some reddish lines in the shape of waves, it feels good to the touch.

I hear the soft tinkling of a bell and feel a shadow fall beside me. “You like pebbles?” Sun is crouched next to me with his arms full of pine cones.

“…” I nod.

We go down to the river and spend some time collecting pebbles with curious shapes or small details of colors, lines, spots, etc. He comes over to show me one every time he finds weird shapes.

“…”

*rin* This time he's hunched over resting his hands on his knees. “You look… a little down.”

“…”

“Hey... we can do something else if you're tired of the pebbles.”

“...” I drop the pebbles I was looking at on the ground.

“...” He turns his gaze from me to the sky. It hasn't gotten late enough to be getting dark, but it's been a while between the walks we've taken (dragging me from here to there), looking for pine cones and then pebbles in the river. He looks back at me. “Oh, I know! Can I take you to one last place? A better place than the ones I've shown you!”

“…” I got up from the ground and waited for him to start leading to follow him.

We enter the increasingly thick forest. The trees are taller and bigger, in fact, I start to see platforms and bridges lying between the trees, I even see small shanties in them.

“Wait here!” He takes a run and jumps onto one of the trees with bridges. He takes three steps running up the tree, with a jump he pushes himself off and climbs with agility until he reaches the platform and climbs on it. “Just a moment!” It can't be seen from here but I can faintly hear some squeaks. I have no idea of what he's doin-

*rush*

“........eh?”

A rope.

A rope has fallen. At the level of my head.

“.......”

What?

…

He said he knew a better place.

No. It can't be this.

“Is it at a good height?! Can you reach it?!” He says...

It can't be.

A better place.

He can't be referring to this.

A better place.

A better place. A better place. A better place. A better place.

“Can you put your foot in?!”

“..........” For some reason what he said throws me off. “WAT-?”

“Can you put your foot in the loop and hold on to the rope so I can pull you up!?”

“..............”

“You can't climb trees, can you?! ...or you can?"

… “...” Oh “....It's...It's too high!”

“Okay!” Squeaks are heard and the rope descends to the ground.

I put my foot into the rope as he told me and hold on to it. “O-okay...!”

“Are you ready!?”

“Yes!”

“Okay!”

He begins to pull up the rope (which doesn't tighten around my foot as it supports my weight) and helps me up to the platform. (That's what it was for, obviously, what else would he want? I'm such an...) “Come on!” He says cheerfully, as always, and takes me over the bridges. “You seem tense... Don't tell me you're afraid of heights!”

“S-something like that... it's nothing.” He tilts his head at that but he says nothing. I have an unpleasant sensation in my throat.

We arrived at a high place with a view of waterfalls, I can't see above the trees. We sat on one of the bridges, resting our arms on the rope that serves as a railing and letting our legs hang off the bridge. I've thought about taking out the sketchbook to draw... but I don't really feel like it right now, so I just quietly observe the landscape. It is a better place, yeah.

…

I feel watched. I turn to look at him ...Of course he was looking at me. I don't even know whether to say something or keep quiet. ...I decide... not to say anything and look to the front.

“You... aren't very talkative, huh.”

“…”

“Not that it's a bad thing! Many people who have come here weren't very talkative at first either.” More people...

“...” “I have… nothing to talk about.” I don't want to talk.

“...” “Well, I do.”

“…”

“If it's okay with you, of course.” He laughed. Although something tells me that he is going to talk anyway.

“…”

“...” “What brings you to the forest?”

“...” Really? “I got lost.”

“Yeah, I already know!” He says between laughs “But what made you get lost?”

“...” “There was a group of kids I didn't want to get close to and I decided to go into the woods to lose them.” He makes a 'hum' sound and looks at me expectantly waiting for me to continue “And... I ended up getting myself lost...”

“...” “Only that?”

“...” “Well, yeah.” What do you mean 'oNlY tHaT'?

“...Mmm...” He places his hand on the chin of the mask.

“...” “What?”

“Nothing!” “...” “You know? You're the first human to visit the forest in a loooong time. For several cycles now…”

“Cycles?”

“Mhm” He nods.

“...What are cycles?”

Sun points to the sky “The turns that the Moon makes in the sky!” He emphasizes by rotating his arm in the air. It's pointing right at the Moon that's visible in the sky.

“Oh...” He uses the lunar cycles to know what day he's in, makes sense. “...” “So no one has been here in a while.”

“That's what I said! Well no, but yes!”

“A-and so the humans who came are still here? Have they been here all this time?”

“Yeah...! Well, no!” He paused. “They're gone!”

“What do you mean they're-?” He didn't let me finish the question.

“They are gone! They 'left'!” It sounded like he had given this answer many times already.

“What do you mean they left-?”

“They 'left'!”

“...” “...You mean...they disappear-?”

“Nope!” “...” “Something like that!” “…” “Mmmore or less…” He hesitated between one answer and another.

It seemed worthless to ask about the missing people. “...okay.” “Can I ask you-?”

“You can ask me anything!” A hint of nervousness escaped his tone.

“...okay. What is this forest?”

“My home! And the home of many other animals.”

“...” “Alright, and... how many are you...? How many of you live here? I mean. You have taken me everywhere and we haven't seen anyone of your…” I make a pointing gesture, spinning my hand around in the air. He can't be human, it doesn't look like he is. “...” “Honestly, I don't know what you are.”

“...” “There's only me... And someone else!” He looks away, as if trying to hide something.

“Oh... and who's that someone?”

“Oh! N-no, don't worry! He’s… just a friend… But it’s not important that you meet him or anything!” He brushes it off making a gesture with his hand. “Uh-um- How about we talk about you!? huh? What things do you like? Earlier, since you said no to everything, I thought you didn't like ANYTHING!” He continued talking without letting me respond. “I didn't know what to do if I ran out of ideas. I started to worry! But at least you're not one of those who spend all day shouting and threatening with a weapon in hand, ahaha...” He let out a nervous laugh.

“Um-”

“Well, you ran away screaming, yes.” He began to gesticulate widely as he complained “Like everyone-! No, not like everyone, some don't run, but those who, apart from running and screaming, attack you...! I mean...!” Something tells me he wasn't going to shut up and I was already half listening. “First they throw rocks at my head, then they insult me and run away. And I have to run after them because I can't just leave a human running around alone! No! I can't! Not in this forest! Anything could happen to them! But they never let me warn them!” He sounded tired. “And when I get them to stop running away from me, they throw things at me again and yell before demanding me to tell them where are they and how to get out of here, and when I explain it, they yell at me even more and accuse me of lying!” He turns to look at me with his hands pointing to his chest. “What reason would I have to lie?!” I don't know if he hasn't noticed or if he's ignoring the deapan I responded with. “UGH! I don't know what to do with those! But anyhow... I'm so glad we found something to do in the end!

“eh?” I snap out of my thoughts. It seems that now he is directing the conversation to me.

“The pebbles!” He sits turning his body towards me, leaving one single leg hanging from the bridge and the other resting on it. He takes out of his pocket some of the pebbles that he had been collecting with me. “I don't know why I assumed you wouldn't want to look for rocks. Maybe because you didn't want to paint them before... You left them back in the river in the end tho, I thought you would keep some.”

“Ah... I don't know. I didn't think I could take them with me.”

“You can keep some of mine!”

“No, it's okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“You suuuuure??” He insist.

“Yeees.”

He puts a pebble very close to my face “Suuuuuuuure?” Each 'u' sounding higher than the last.

“...” I push the pebble away from my face “Yeeeees.”

“mmmh... Okay! But I hope you don't regret it later when you don't have a cool rock like these and think 'Oh man, I could have a cool rock right now!'.” After a bad impression of me, he keeps the rocks in his pants. “So... Besides pebbles, what else do you like? Mm? I haven't been able to deduce much from today.”

“Don't know.”

“What do you mean you don't know!? Oh! Is it a secret?” He approaches and starts to whisper, putting his hands to the mask's mouth “I won't tell anyone, promise.”

“No. I don't know.” I looked to the side. “I can't think of anything... so suddenly.”

“ooow...” He slumps a little over the railing, looking sad.

“…” I hesitate whether to say something or not “...Drawing...”

“Mmm?!” He no longer seems sad.

“And listening to music, I guess.” “It's... all I do... most of the time.”

“Really!? Oh! I also like drawing! And music! But is that really all you do all day? Don't you do other kinds of things? Like reading! Or writting. Don't you go out for a walk or play with your friends?” I wrinkle my face at that last bit and he tilts his head in confusion.

“I don't go out.” “I have comics, but I rarely read.”

“Comics?”

“Um... They are stories but instead of narrating what happens there are drawings and only what the characters say is written.”

“...It's a book with drawings?”

“Yeah, but with a lot of drawings on each page, from start to finish.”

“WOAH.” He sounded perplexed. “That's drawing A LOT.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Ahh, I'd love to see what they look like.” He rested his arm on the railing to hold his head in his hand “Too bad I can't…”

“I didn't bring them anyway.”

“Do you normally carry them around?”

“No, it's just that I didn't bring them to the village with me, I left them at home.”

“...” “Oh!” It seems that something has clicked on him. “You are not from the village.”

“No, I'm from a more urban area. My family used to come to the village every year in the summer, but we stopped coming. Now it seems that we are trying to get back into the habit.” I sighed.

“Why did you stop coming?”

“...That's personal.”

“Oh... okay.” He let a minute of awkward silence pass. “Hey, I can bring some books that I have at home! I think you might be interes-!” He looks away from me to the sunset behind us, the sun is almost gone. “-ted...” I look at the sunset too and then at him with confusion. “...” “...oh...oh-OH, Oh-no!” He stands up abruptly causing the bridge to shake slightly. What could have he seen? “We have to move!” He extends a hand to help me up. “We have to start moving!”

I get up in a hurry on my own, ignoring his hand. “O-okay, to where?”

“Come, run!” Once again he grabs me by the arm and leads me over the bridges between the trees until we reach a tree hut. It's small and dark, it looks like a small shelter. He opens the door and enters “You'll spend the night here, stay inside, do not go out, try to hide well and don't open the windows or doors, okay? Here, there are some blankets. I'll come back later.”

“Wait wait wait! What? What do you mean you'll come back later? What's happening? Why do I have to hide-!?”

“Sssh-ssh-sh” He grabs me and covers my hand with his, his left hand resting on the back of my right hand. He begins to speak in a calmer tone, with a voice that I had not heard him use until now. “It's okay, nothing happens. I have to go, I'll come back, but I can't stay now. You hide, try to rest, I'll be back, I promise.”

“...” I take my hand away from his. “Okay.” “I'll stay, but don't take too long.” Please, I don't want to be here alone.

“Yes. I'll be back.” He affirmed one last time. I watch him run away and disappear among the trees and undergrowth. I enter the small shelter to inspect it.

*TAP TAP TAP* *PLOK* *TAP TAP FOOSSSH! *

…? A noise comes from behind me. I turn around and there's a pebble on the floor.

…

Okay.

I take out my phones flashlight to see better inside the house. There are what appear to be some trunks, small cabinets, and a trapdoor in the floor, It seems that there are corners and blind spots for the windows where the little moonlight that enters through the cracks cannot reach. It's freezing cold and I haven't brought my jacket. I leave the bag on the floor against the wall, I cover myself with the blanket and curl up in a ball in the most hidden corner I can find. I'm tired, I want to sleep, but I can't close my eyes.

…

—

It's been a few hours now.

…

I can't sleep, I simply can't.

…

It doesn't look like he's coming back.

*creek*

…?

*rin*

*tap tap, creek*

Sun?

“S-...” I pause before saying a word, I have the feeling I shouldn't speak. I remain silent and wait.

*tap, tap, tap, creeeeeek, tap*

*rin dirrin*

If it were Sun he would have already let me know it is him. That or he's playing a prank on me which isn't funny, but I'd better stay silent. From the shadow I look at the windows. I notice movement through the cracks, something has just passed through the wall next to me.

*dirriring dirring*

I cover myself more with the blanket, back against the wall, I stay as still as I can, I leave a gap between the blankets and the floor to see. A red glow sneaks through the cracks in the window and scans the room.

…

The glow is gone.

*tap, tap, rin, tap, dirring, tap, tap*

It's on the roof.

…

*tap, tap, tap...*

It moves again.

*rin *

…

It sounded on the other side of the wall.

…

…

“nghehe...”

It laughed. Why did it laugh? Whatever is on the other side of the wall just let out a laugh that made the hairs on the back of my neck and all over my back rise.

…

Oh no.

Oh no no no no no no no no.

I have to move. I have to get out of here. I can't stay here.

*creeek*

It came from the door. It's trying to get in.

*rin*

The trapdoor.

*rin dirring*

Where was the trapdoor?

*creek creeeek*

I crawl across the floor making the minimum noise, carefully feeling the floor, looking for the edge of the door.

*tap tap ring dirring*

…!

I found it. I open it carefully. It's too high. I'm at a very high altitude, I don't know if I'll be able to go down.

*rin, creeek...*

…

Fuck it. I slip through the gap quietly, closing it slowly, but that doesn't stop the door from creaking. I cling to the bark of the tree-

…

I left my bag. If it comes in and see it it'll know for sure that I have been there-

…

It doesn't matter now. I have to focus on getting down from the tree without killing myself. My fingers hurt and I can't put my foot down properly because of the soles of my boots. I feel like I'm going to slip at any moment. Somehow I make it to the ground. Still attached to the tree, I look up at the house. I don't see it-

…

A shadow appears from behind the tree. I press myself against the tree and hold my breath. It's looking for something. When he doesn't seem to look I move to a nearby tree, he moves to another tree, I move to the next, and the next, and the next. We continue like this until I start to get further and further away from him. When I think I've lost him I start running. I hide behind a tree to catch my breath.

…

I slowly peek out from behind the tree.

*rin*

…

It sounded above me.

…

I don't look up, I run.

“nnghehee...” He laughs.

He gives me a few seconds advantage before coming after me. The chase begins.

I run forward as much as I can, I hear his footsteps behind me but I don't look back, there's no time for that. I hear him laughing like a madman as he moves from left to right, from one tree to another, crawling on the ground, trying to confuse me, waiting for me to make the slightest mistake to catch me.

“Ah-” I trip. As soon as I fall to the ground I get up, ripping my stockings and scraping my knees, falling again, my nerves not letting me stand up.

“Nnhehehhehe...” Asshole. He has stopped running, he approaches by walking. I try to keep as much distance as my hands and legs allow me to move. I search desperately with my hand for something on the ground to throw. Finally my hand finds something.

I throw a rock at him “AGH!”

The rock passes by him, flying one or two meters away from him. He hasn't even moved, he didn't move a single muscle to avoid it, he just watches me still from where he is. I hear the nearby *pof* of the rock falling to the ground.

“...”

“...”

…

I get up and run. He grabs my leg and I fall to the ground again. He won't let me get up, every time I try he throws me to the ground. I struggle, I kick, but I don't break free from his grip. He never stops laughing, he is enjoying this. He drags me closer to him, no matter how much I twists, he doesn't let go. “ACKH-!...Hhhh-hh...-hh-h...” He grabs me by the neck, red pupils stared at me, I'm looking straight into his crescent moon mask (or waning, I don't know. Do you think I care right now?). He raises his free hand and his veins begin to glow a platinum color that extends to his fingertips. The hand approaches my face, I don't know what it's going to do to me, I'm scared, I don't want to look. I close my eyes, cover my face with my hands. I wait.

…

…

…?

Nothing's happening. It stopped. Why?

“Mun, nïe.” I hear Sun's voice. I open my hands a little to see what's going on. Indeed, it is Sun, several meters away from us... He looks exhausted. The one with the moon mask stares at him for a moment, until he decides to look at me again while bringing his glowing veiny hand closer. “¡Mun!” The Moonman looks at Sun again “Fehreh.” He seems to speak another language, I don't understand what he says.

“...” “Nïe” For the first time I hear him say something else besides laughing. Even though I can't understand him.

“Fïer pehgïer.” Sun responds.

“...” Moonman remains silent again.

“Bïelïe óubseh góuh...” Sun continues.

“Móu txehb móunsuvïe.” The Moon responds.

“Lïe bóu ¿Sóundïe mïesugïeb fehreh nïe txehtehrlïe?”

…

The air feels tense. Probably because of the hand grabbing my neck.

“¿Zkaóu fuóunbehb txehtóur tkaehnvïe nïe bóueh mehb zkaóu ïesreh rehuh óunsóurrehveh óun leh suóurreh?” Longest sentence I've heard him say so far.

“...” “Fïer óubseh góuh.” “...” “Vóuyehmóu óuntehrdehrmóu vóu óulleh” Sun takes a step forward “Nïe suóunóu fïer zkaóu ehtehkehr ehbu” Another step forward “Nïe sóunóumïeb fïer zkaóu txehtóurlóub... óubsïe” Another step “Óullïeb bïelïe óubsehn... fóurvuvïeb.”

“...” There's no response from the moon man.

“Behkehb tïemïe óub óubïe.”

“...”

…

The hand that grabbed my neck now grabs my shirt and yanks it. I grab his wrist as he pulls me to my feet and drags me to Sun, making me stumble. He throws me against him. Sun catches me before I fall over.

“Ska óubpkaóurhïe óub óun gehnïe.” The moon says something as he walks past. Sun puts a hand on his shoulder before letting him go, there's a pause between the two. The Moonman disappears into the trees. Wind and leaves are heard passing by.

…

He's gone. I feel dizzy. I fall down.

—

…

…

…

A faint light begins to seep through the cracks, illuminating enough to wake me up and make me open my eyes, I look around. I see my bag propped against the wall. I'm at the shelter where Sun left me.

…

My body aches, I have a hard time keeping my eyes open, it feels like I've been sleeping on the hard floor. No, wait, there are some blankets underneath me... It's still too hard to sleep well, either that or as I said, it shouldn't help me at all that everything hurts. After a while of staring at the ceiling I try to sit up. I emphasize trying. With every slight effort a pained moan escapes me.

“Oof...” Hurts.

*creek, tap tap tap tap*

Those wood creaks bring back bad memories from last night (which by the way, I'm alive, wow, I just realized), I can't help but cringe at every noise, I hear footsteps approaching, I try to move but the stinging pain prevents me from it.

*creek... *

The door opens.

Triangular shapes appear through the door followed by orange earth tones. “…Oh…!” “Early bird!” Thank god it's Sun and not the other one, or something worse “I didn't expect you up this early!” He says laughingly.

“ah?”

“How are you feeling?” He walks in. When he sets foot inside I lean back, towards the wall. “...” I don't really know why I did that. Sun stands at the door showing confusion with his usual head tilt. “...Arrr...re you okay, Fern?”

“...” I became tense suddenly. I really don't know still if I can trust him? He hasn't done anything to me yet but that doesn't mean that I can trust him. I don't know if he plans to do something with me like whatever that other one, the moon one, was going to do last night. “...ehh...hhh...h...” I can't get a word out, I'm afraid to ask.

“Mm?”

“...” I don't know what to say to him. My eyes go somewhere else.

…

He enters further into the house, ignoring that I keep my distance from him, leaves a bag he was carrying on the floor and begins to open the windows, letting in the little light of the dawn that is just beginning. He kneels on the floor in front of me with the bag. “Are you hungry?” He opens the bag and takes out an apple “Do you like apples?”

“...”

“No?”

“...”

“Um... I also brought berries... (It's what I had on hand coming here) There are... different types, you can choose” He brings the bag closer to me. I move further away. “uhhh...”

“...” I want to leave.

“You don't like them either...?”

“...” I don't want to eat. I want to leave.

“...”

“*snif... *”

“u-um...!”

“...*snif* *sob*...” I started crying out of nowhere.

“Ahhh...! D-do- don't cry! Ah-I-Um- Ca-can go find other things you might like-!”

I felt ashamed for crying and I put my hands to my face trying to wipe away the tears, but they wouldn't stop coming. “*hic, sniff, snif *” I looked away in an attempt to cover my face. I ended up looking at the floor, letting my hair act as a curtain.

“I can go in a moment!” Sun was already getting up.

“...w-want to leave...” I managed to get a murmur out.

“...W-what? Um...”

“...” *hic, hic *

“O-okay, um... If you aren't hungry... -we can do something else- uh- we can go look for rocks like yesterday in the river!”

“...” I don't want to do anything “...want to leave...”

“O-or we can do something else! Ah-bah-b-b-b- W-won't you like to go draw??! Somewhere, some landscape?! Wherever you want! We can draw together! If you prefer we can look for animals instead of landscapes!”

“...leave...want to...go... *hic, snif *”

“¡D-don't n- uh! ¡L-let's... um- let's not- uh!” He no longer knew how to order his words “H-hey, ¿Why don't we go to-?” He extends his hand towards my arm.

“I want to go home...”

He stops before touching me and removes his hand. “...” “...home?” There is a pause. He remains silent and unmoving. He finally speaks “Do you want…?” His tone became more serious.

“...”

“...to... go see the portal?” I look up slightly, I can't see through the tears and the fogged lenses of my glasses.

“...” I nod my head.

—

…

We didn't walk far until the red began to become visible. He brought me back to the portal. The same plain of red leaves and stone arch in the center of it all, as yesterday.

…

Sun has been quiet the entire time.

He advances towards the portal and stands facing it. He turns. “Come.” He extends his hand towards me. “You can pass through.”

“...”

I advance towards the portal. I stop before crossing. If it doesn't take me back home, what do I do? I don't want to stay.

A breeze begins to come out of the portal. The breeze turns to wind, the leaves rise, they pass through us. It's the same thing that happened yesterday when I went to cross. I turn to face Sun. Motionless, he looks back at me, the leaves pause in the air for a second as if time has stopped, the wind changes. From where the wind and leaves came now they come in, they push me towards the portal. I finally cross it.

…

Am I in the forest I know? I turn to look at Sun who stayed behind in the portal. “...Sun?” He's not there. I look around. He's not here. I've already crossed the portal, he must have left.

I notice a sudden draft pass by me. It's soft, like someone walking past you. I turn towards the forest, I have to start moving, I don't want to be here another minute.

...The air current that I noticed has lifted some leaves, they reach the trees, between them the wind does something strange, it forms a transparent silhouette. It looks like Sun, I can barely see him but I could swear it's him. The wind figure raises its hand and makes a gesture, it wants me to follow it. When I approach it turns around and walks into the forest, leaving a trail of leaves behind it. I follow the trail of the air current. Sometimes it stops to look at me, making sure I'm still following it. The red-leafed trees and the paintings disappear from view the farther we go. We crossed the forest until we arrived at the entrance of the town, near my house. There is no one on the street. If I walked into the house and pretended nothing had happened, officially no one would have noticed my absence.

I'm not one hundred percent sure if the wind figure that guided me is Sun or not, but I should at least thank him for bringing me back.

…

The air current has dissipated before I turn around. I look around, there's no one.

…

…

…

I enter the house, go up to my room and throw the bag on the floor. I go to the bathroom to wash. …I feel something strange in my hands but I couldn't say what. Doesn't matter. I change my clothes and get into bed, the tiredness of the previous night makes my body succumb immediately and I fall asleep instantly.

—

…

…

…

“ah...!” I wake up with my lungs begging for air. I need a moment to calm my breathing. I look at the clock without lifting my head from the pillow.

…

It is 12 midday. I rub my eyes and from my eyes I move to my face. I'm still tired. My body still aches. I stare at the ceiling.

…

My bag. I reach out to pick it up from the floor, making strange positions so as not to get out of bed.

I open it and search in the pockets. The bell. I put the bell to my ear. “...” I shake it.

*rin, diring diring*

“...”

I open it.

…

It's empty.

[heizenka]

𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞

♆ Luke Castellan x f!reader

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

— content warnings: mentions of blood, semi-gore, use of y/n, angst, death, chiron being a father figure to reader

— word count: 2.0k

Luke Castellan and I Had been inseparable from the moment our eyes locked during my first day at camp. I had been new to camp, and unclaimed by any godly parent, leaving me with only one cabin to stay in, Hermes.

That was almost 6 years ago, and nothing much had changed. I’d remained left in the dark about my godly origin, as my 'parent' had made no attempt to claim me as their own, even after so many years.

Though all else remained the same, my feelings towards the boy I called you best friend did not. Of course I’d made other friends during my stay at camp, but my friendships with them could never come close to the one I held with Luke. It was all the small things he did that truly made me see him in a different light so suddenly; how he always saved a seat next to him at dinner just for me, how when I spoke all of his attention was on me, as if nothing or no one else existed, and how he would instantly smile when he saw Me.

Me and the son of Hermes were inseparable, but ever since I'd been the first person at his side when he'd gotten back from his quest, something more had blossomed between the two of us. It was something sacred, yet it remained unspoken.

"Y/N L/N, your presence is requested by Chiron at the big house." I immediately looked in the direction that the... tired.. voice had come from.

There stood Dionysus, the look on his face showed nothing more than complete uninterest. I looked back towards Luke, who merely shrugged, the faux training armor moving stiffly around him. I swallowed my nerves, and began to take off the armor I was wearing during me and Luke's sparring session, quickly placing it in its rightful place before waving a quick goodbye to Luke and jogging towards the big house.

"What do you mean I've been assigned a quest? I haven't even been claimed by my godly parent, how is this even possible?" voice heightened near the end of my sentence.

Chiron simply put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a saddened look. It wasn't one of pity, it was one that came from a place of understanding.

After spending 6 years at camp and still being left unclaimed, Chiron had made it his place to act like the father I was never given. Oftentimes I found myself spending extra time I had with him, whether it was in his office simply talking about our days, or if it was in the arena.

"I don't know Y/N, truly. But I do know this is an opportunity and it’s one that not many others see, and you should take advantage of it. I know you Y/N, with or without a godly parent to guide you, you know how to take care of yourself."

I left out a sigh, and nodded. I looked up at the only man I'd even seen as a father and waited for him to carry on."The oracle is waiting for you. Everything is going to be fine." His voice was gentle as he spoke, but something about his words twisted my gut.

you shall delve in the darkness of an endless maze, you shall rise or fall by no other hand than your own, the child of the unknown's final stand, and death unleash

'I guess everyone was right, the oracle is never wrong' I laughed at my own thought while laying in a warm pool of my own blood.

...

I was on my way back home, to camp, to Luke, when I had been struck from behind. Fear ran through my veins as I remained on the brisk forest floor, no more than a mile from camp. I looked around me trying to spot where or what the attack came from.

Without warning or was grabbed by my legs and pulled, further from camp, but worst of all from my sword. I let out a shout, twisting my body to get a view of the creature that no doubt planned to end my life right here and now.

A harpie.

Its long talons dug deep into my calves, I could feel each layer of muscle tearing as its grip tightened from my attempts of trying to get away from the creature. Suddenly it's movements stopped, and its grip on my legs released.

I let out a grunt of pain as I felt each talon being pulled from my body. I turned onto my back, holding myself up with my arms, to get a good look at it. My heart dropped, along with any hope I had at getting away,

It stood at least a foot taller than me, with huge gray wings, and sharp talons on each finger.

I looked down at my legs and a small sob left my mouth. I was in no condition to run, but even if I were, this thing was without a doubt going to catch up to me. I calmed my breath and pushed my body up and made a run for it.

My vision went white with the pain coming from both of my legs, but I couldn't afford to stop, not if I wanted to get back, not if I wanted to see Luke again. There was so much I needed to tell him, there was no way this was going to be it for me.

I was stopped once again, A gasp leaving my body at the new painful sensation being spread through my body. looking down I saw the sharp tips of the harpies talons, sticking through my body. Tears gathered in my waterline, the pain was unbearable, unlike anything I had ever felt before.

I was sure nothing could have felt worse until the harpie pulled its long talons from my back, causing even more damage within my body as they left.

I could hear the harpie walking away, most likely bored with me as I was no longer able to put up a fight to entertain it any longer.

I fell to the floor, my body left a bloody mess on the forest floor.

There was truly nothing I could do any more, I had no energy left in me to call for help, nor any left to carry myself back to camp. I looked at the sky, it was clear of clouds, yet full of stars.

It was beautiful.

Tears fell down the sides of my face, and I didn't mind at all. I cried. I cried at the fact that I was never going back to camp, that I was never going to see my dad again, and that I was never going to see Luke.

Sobs racked my body, and with each breath I took the pain in my body doubled only causing more tears to fall from my body.

I felt the life draining out of me, each breath a struggle, each heartbeat a painful reminder of what was inevitably going to come. I wanted to scream in anger at what was happening, but my voice failed me, leaving only a hoarse whisper.

My vision blurred, and I did nothing to fight it. I looked up at the sky for a final time, wondering if he was looking at the same stars as me. Though I was alone in the forest for what were becoming my final moments, I was grateful that I was still under the same sky as Luke. In a way he was still here, and that was all I needed as I closed my eyes.

News of Y/N's death traveled soon after her body had been discovered by a camper patrolling the woods.

Chiron was the first to be alerted of what had become of the girl he proudly called his daughter, His heart shattered into a million pieces as he realized he would never see her again. The pain was unbearable, like a knife through his chest. The void in his heart was unbearable, as he mourned the loss of his little girl who had left too soon.

He did his best to keep the word of her death between him and the young camper, unfortunately, news traveled fast.

Luke had been in the arena sparring with some kid from the Ares cabin when a camper from Apollo cabin gave him his condolences?

Something painful twisted in his gut as you were the first person to cross his mind. You'd been gone for a week, but there was no way this kid was talking about you... right?

"Y/N was a great-" That was all Luke needed to hear before he sprinted to see Chiron.

...

"Chiron!" He burst through the doors, not caring about anything but finding out if what he heard was true. Gods he prayed it wasn't...

Chiron looked at the young boy, his heart felt like it was breaking all over again. He knew he would eventually have to tell the boy about Y/N but he'd hoped he would have had a little more time to prepare himself.

"Luke..." that look Chiron gave Luke told him everything.

He gripped the door frame, to steady himself, the boy's heart ached with a pain that seemed to have no end. Tears gathered in his eyes as he thought about Y/N.

His now tousled hair and tear-stained face were a stark contrast to the vibrant soul he once was when he was with Y/N. He had lost the girl he loved dearly, the one who made his heart skip a beat with just a smile.

"You.. you're wrong. She's not.." He sobbed and he tried with everything in him to convince himself this was merely a cruel joke from the universe.

She was the one good thing he was ever given, and she's just been ripped away from him with no warning, or a final goodbye.

He fell to his knees, the tears streaming down his face, as he let out a gut-wrenching scream. The pain was unbearable, a constant ache in his chest that he knew would never go away. He had lost the love of his life, and with her, a part of himself. 

Chiron could do nothing more than watch, he knew no words would help. All Luke truly needed was you, but now he didn't even have that.

...

Days after Y/N's death all Luke was left with was an empty void, a constant reminder of the love he lost. The pain consumed him, but he couldn't let go. She was his everything, and without her, he felt lost and incomplete.

As he sat in the dimly lit room, he closed his eyes and whispered her name, hoping that somehow, she would hear him and come back to him. But she was gone, and he was left with nothing but the excruciating pain of losing the one he loved.

copyright 2021 heizenka, all rights reserved. I do not allow my creations to be published of translated anywhere else so please do not repost.

[radiant-reid]

I love the hot wife blurbs so could you do one where reader and spencer go to a hightschool reunion

Spencer loathed high school. They were some of the worst years of his life when he felt completely alone.

So it made sense that he'd refuse to go to high school reunions, seeing kids that were 5 years older than him and much further ahead in their lives. The last and only time he went- a five-year reunion- most of his graduating class had spouses, and some kids, and he was still the young weirdo dedicated to school. So he left fifteen minutes in.

This time, for the 20th anniversary of their graduation, Y/n had seen the e-vite before Spencer could delete it and she wraps her arms around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder and her body against his back. "Come on." She pleads. "We've got to go."

"But I hate reunions." He complains. "Everyone uses them to brag."

"Yeah, and?" She prompts. "You've got lots to brag about since you last went. Husband, dad, profiler." He's proud of all those things, immensely, but he still shakes his head. "Even if it's horrible and we leave five minutes into it, we'll have a weekend alone in Las Vegas." She tries to persuade him. "No baby, no BAU. Just us with alcohol, casinos, and hookers."

Spencer snorts with laughter. "I've never solicited a prostitute."

"Morgan tells a different story." She mumbles.

"It was a lapdance." He reminds her with a groan. It's a story Morgan's been twisting for years. "Which he paid for, too, by the way... she just offered more."

"We're going." She affirms. "And we're going to have so much fun. Pinky promise." She holds out her pinky finger in front of him and he kisses it.

~

It's at a private backyard space with a bar, probably somewhere designed for weddings, and she picked out the best dress she owns. She can tell he's a little nervous, squeezing her hand tightly. "Hey, it'll be fine, Spence. You've done more than enough to be proud of." She reminds him.

He's grateful for it, especially when he notices some of his tormentors from years ago while they're getting drinks. Unfortunately, they notice him too even though he looks very different from how he did at 12 or 18, and one's brave enough to walk over, offering out his hand to shake Spencer's.

Spencer accepts it even though he: one, hates handshakes, and two, hates Carlton Williams. "Spencer, right? How are you doing, man? I feel like we haven't seen you in years."

Spencer's shocked he bothered looking for him, but someone who peaked in high school is bound to want to see and laugh at the successes of his victim.

"Yeah, I've been busy with my work at the FBI," Spencer states factually, although it sounds like bragging.

"You?" Carlton scoffs like he can't believe it. It's jealousy, ugly jealousy. "In the FBI?"

Spencer shuts down at the insecurities, and Y/n steps up. "I'm Y/n Reid. His wife." She introduces herself.

"No shit? I thought you were just someone he rented for the night." He replies. "Was going to ask for the agency."

She keeps her cool despite how rude his comment is and holds out her hand, displaying the big rock. It's hard for anyone not to gawk at it. "Yeah, it pays to not peak in high school." She informs him.

After Carlton decides he's been humiliated enough, he leaves the couple alone.

"I'm sorry he's such a dick." Spencer apologizes.

"We can always frame him for murder, you know?" She offers. "Or get Penelope to put his house on Craigslist for way below its value."

Spencer laughs, nodding slightly. "Yeah, let's."

[hunn1e-bunn1e]

hiii i just read "your melon bread" fic of denji and IT'S SO GOOD (i smashed the follow button immediately lol)

and i saw your asks are open so can i request a part 2 of it where the next day when denji, aki and power are patrolling the town and they walked pass a bakery and denji remembered what happened yesterday and forced aki to get inside and buy him melon bread but was greeted by the reader who's family owns the bakery (this is my first time requesting so sorry if it gets confusing and feel free to ignore this if u dont want to or if it makes u uncomfortable :3)

and can i be the 🦈 anon thankksss hope u have a good morning/evening/night ^_^

Denji Hayakawa - "Half Your Melon Bread" 2

🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.

Hey 🦈Shark anon! Sorry for the absurdly long delay, but I've finally completed your ask. At first, I was just going to ignore it since “Half Your Melon Bread” was supposed to be a one-off thing, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to like it! —Benny🐰 Part 1

                                                                                                   

🍞•♡•🥐•♡•🥖•♡•🫓•♡•🥨•♡•🥯•♡•🥞•♡•🧇

Aki was… perplexed to say the least. The fiend(?) that he had been tasked to watch over hadn't so much as muttered Makima's name since yesterday; it was kind of unsettling. All the blonde idiot seemed to do was stare off into the distance and mutter something about bread.

While the topknot-styled man was a bit relieved that he wasn't being bothered by both of the idiots under his watch; he did grow a bit concerned. It seemed as though Power had as well, judging by the hard stare that she was drilling into the side of the Chainsaw Devil hybrid's head. The strawberry blonde hadn't uttered a word since they left the house; only staring at him in silence with a deep frown on her face.

Denji himself was deep in thought. That stranger… he never got their name; they left before he could ask. He did remember their face though, so he'll definitely thank them when he sees them again and maybe they'd let him touch their chest—

Bonk!

The dirty blonde walked right into a light pole while he was distracted by his thoughts. The boy groaned as he clutched his head in a futile attempt to soothe the pain and the ringing in his ears. As he looked at what he'd run into, he saw a soft yellow light in the corner of his eye. Turning his head, he saw that he, Aki, and Power were standing in front of a bakery.

A bakery��� Baking… Bread is baked… Oh! Melon bread! He could get some of that here!

Quickly, Denji walks into the building, ignoring the annoyed protests of the senior devil hunter and cheers for food from the blood fiend. The smell of buttery freshly baked dough immediately permeated his nostrils as he walked through the door. It was a comforting but hunger-inducing smell that had likely not only him, but everyone else in the building heavily salivating.

“Welcome to Chubby Bunny Bakery; I can help you right over here, Sir.”  

A voice from behind the dirty blonde draws his attention from observing the bakery's interior and to the order station.

The devil man's eyes widen as he sees the figure standing behind the display case. It was the stranger from yesterday in the park! They were holding onto a sheet pan of cookies; sliding the display case glass backing to the side and putting the pan of cookies inside.

“It's you!”  

Denji exclaims as he, rather rudely, points at them; finger only inches from their face due to how close he already was.

The stranger stares at him for a bit before they chuckles and gently grab his wrist to pull his hand down. They grab a small menu card from a stack of them that sits next to the register and place it in front of him with a small smile.

“Yes, it's me, bread boy. Did you have anything in mind already? If not, you can look at our menu here to help you decide.”  

The stranger tells him, tapping the menu card between them twice.

“Oh! Uh– melon bread. Pl—”  

The devil man was interrupted by a firm grip on his shoulder flipping him around to face an incredibly annoyed aki. 

“And what money are you going to use to pay for it? Not mine.”  

The raven-haired man asked rhetorically as he glared at the younger boy.

While Aki was talking the stranger came back to the front with a beige wax paper bag in their hand and held it out to the dirty blonde. Denji gingerly took it in his hand, ignoring his superior's irate rantings, and pulled out the glazed treat. He took a hesitant bite and his cheeks flushed a soft pink as the sweet melon flavor washed over his tongue; ignoring the aching in a few of his poorly managed teeth.

The stranger smiled at him before turning to the top-knot-baring man with their hand out expectantly. Aki sighed as he realized that he would be paying for Denji's food after all. Shoving his hand into his back pocket; he takes out his wallet and reluctantly forks over the needed amount, though not before he throws a nasty glare the younger boy's way.

“So, uh, I never got your name. Or gave you mine, really. I'm Denji.”  

The dirty blonde shyly muttered between nibbles of his sweet treat.

The stranger chuckles at his timid demeanor, figuring that he was just feeling a little embarrassed by the fact that he had no money. They rest their chin in the palm of their hand as they look him up and down; thinking about how he kind of reminds them of a dog.

“Well, nice to meet you, Denji. I'm [Name].”  

They introduce themself lazily; taking his hand in theirs and giving it a firm shake.

Suddenly though, the baked treat was snatched from the dirty blonde's hand by a wild Power as she dashed to the door.

“Sharing is caring, henchman!”  

The blood fiend shouts as she is chased out of the door by both males.

[Name] stares at the door for a few seconds before letting out an amused chuckle. What a strange bunch, they thought with a smile.

🍞•♡•🥐•♡•🥖•♡•🫓•♡•🥨•♡•🥯•♡•🥞•♡•🧇

🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.

Reblogs are appreciated ~ 𔓘

Wanna see similar content? Check out my Masterlist!

[royonninjago]

The Ninja's Roles Within the Team

Something I think the various Ninjago shows do really well is the characterizations of each Ninja. If it was bad, then kids wouldn't wanna watch the show or buy the Lego sets to reenact their favorite moment and create new scenarios for the Ninja to go through.

However, for the past few years a problem I've had with the TV show is that some characters feel more... useful than others. Then there are moments when one character is missing, but the team seems to operate just fine without them, and I think that does a real disservice to the characters.

In contrast, take the ATLA episode "Sokka's Master". It's one of my favorites because it separates Sokka, the only non-bender in Team Avatar, from the rest of the team. The episode demonstrates to both us and the rest of Team Avatar why Sokka is essential to their team. Without him, they're bored, can't figure out where they are or where they're headed on a map, and are overall completely directionless. Its like the precursor to those dime a dozen fantasy mangas where the weak member of a dungeon divers gets fired and the rest of the party ends up deeply regretting it.

I want the Ninjago TV show to demonstrate to us why each member is essential to the Ninja Team, and why without one of them the Ninja Team is worse off or have to work twice as hard to compensate.

Dragons Rising had such a good opportunity to explore this, but unfortunately it seems like the biggest problem the Team faces from being separated across the merged realms is lack of manpower and not much else. In lieu of this, here are some of my ideas as to how each character could prove to be essential to the Ninja.

Lloyd - The Leader. This one is definitely the most obvious. He's had a very clear leadership role since he became the Green Ninja, and ever since Wu left this distinction has only gotten more pronounced. However, I do find myself wishing to see a bit more of a dark streak with him. He was originally introduced as an antagonist, and I don't know about y'all but I still find myself enjoying Three Days Grace ever since I played the Halo 3 campaign at a friend's house while listening to AMVs of their songs.

Kai - The Weapon Master. Although there was never anything to support this, I always thought that Kai made the weapons that the Ninja used in the pilots. He is a blacksmith, after all. I think it would be cool if this aspect was more leaned into and not only make him the guy that creates all the swords and throwing stars and whatever other simple weapons the Ninja use, but to also be the best one at using those weapons. A sword is obviously his go to, but put any kind of simple weapon in his hands and I think he'd be able to use it very well. Imagine how much cooler it would have been in season 11 if Kai managed to defeat Aspheera's sheer power with his incredible swordsmanship skills. It'd certainly tie into his arc that season much better than what we actually got.

Jay - The Scout. Remember that scene in the pilots where the Skulkin cars were trying to reach 88 mph or whatever and Jay was gaining on them just by running? The writers sure don't! Though in all seriousness, whenever the Ninja need to learn a new technique to do something, Jay always picks up on it really quickly. First to perform Spinjitzu and summon his Golden Weapon Vehicle, second to unlock his true potential, third to summon his Elemental Dragon, he managed to surprise Ronin when practicing Airjitzu, not to mention his laundry list of hobbies. If they really leaned into his speed, combining that with his skills as a Ninja would make him perfect for running ahead and reporting back on the enemy forces. In my own little world, I like to imagine him as a PG version of the Scout from TF2 (Jay even had a slight Boston accent in the pilots!).

Cole - The Muscle. This one is also fairly obvious due to Cole's signature Earth Punch, but I feel as though it should be noticed more when he's not around, especially in Master of the Mountain. If I'm remembering correctly, they don't fully acknowledge his absence until they're locked up in the Vengestone cage about to be executed. If I regularly hung out with a dude that could lift a car over his head, I'd be lamenting about his absence whenever I needed to lift a heavy box.

Zane - The Information Officer. Another obvious one, but in this case I feel as though they lean a bit too heavily into it. Yes, he's a robot and yes, it's his job to know things, but I want to see his more dorky and silly side from time to time. Give us more Zane following a bird because it danced and him just chilling (literally) in the fridge at midnight for no reason type of stuff. After all, his greatest fear is losing his humanity.

Nya - The Strategist. I feel as though on a 'don't judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree' level, Nya is just as smart as Zane. Due to his physiology, Zane can hold much more raw information many times over Nya, but I feel as though Nya is much better at putting that information to use. Going back to Master of the Mountain (I realize I'm referencing it a lot, its still fresh in my mind), when Kai and Zane were lost, they relied entirely on the raw data from Zane's internal compass, and because of that they got lost and had to rely on Geckles capturing them to reach their settlement. On the other hand, when Lloyd, Jay, and Nya were lost, Nya was able to determine the location of the Munce settlement by searching for signs of life and finding footprints. Also, I think this characterization fits the Master of Water really well considering water adapts to whatever environment it resides in.

The new Ninja from Dragons Rising are still very inexperienced and still haven't really found their grooves within the team, but I'm still gonna try and analyze them here.

Arin - ???. Right now, Arin's main skills are his unique Spinjitzu skills and his talent with a grappling hook. Its still so early in his Ninja training that he hasn't really carved out a distinct role for himself, though I hope this changes as time goes on. Not too long ago I proposed a cool idea for his future if any of y'all wanna take a look at that here.

Sora - The Technical Specialist. While I don't enjoy the idea of PIXAL being replaced as the Ninja's primary vehicle builder, with Sora being the Elemental Master of Tech it seems very possible that this is where things are headed. Instead of that, I think it better for her to either focus on using her skills in the field or to specialize in Mechs. Both of these ideas come from the Elemental Mech mini-series. I thought the idea of switching up parts on a mech in the middle of a battle to be a fun concept and one giving credence to her being a Field Tech, and whenever she uses her Elemental Powers its for the purpose of creating or altering or fixing a mech about half of the time.

Wyldfyre - The Dragon Expert. Even before the Merge, the Ninja encountered Dragons a lot. Now that there are dragons seemingly everywhere, Wyldfyre seems like the perfect liaison for communicating with these dragons, assuming she can learn to cool off when its needed. She also seems to know a good amount about dragons, considering that she was easily able to identify the Wasting Sickness and make a soup to help ease the pain it caused. There's still a lot she needs to learn before anyone can consider her an expert, but with her love of dragons and the belief that she is one, I think she'd be more than willing to learn.

And there you have it. If you have any ideas or head cannons or questions surrounding this topic, I'd love to hear them!

[azrielslightintheshadows]

Hello!! All good?

I would like to know if you could write something for Rhysand, something where the reader is needy and very clingy with Rhys, like, she wants to stay on his lap, always holding hands, and the reader even goes to sleep on Rhys' chest when he was everyone in the inner circle together? Rhys even has to walk around with the reader clinging to him, but obviously Rhys is cool with that, so maybe Cass says something about the reader because she's clingy and Rhys defends her??

Super cute!!!

Hold me.

Rhysand x f!Reader

Masterlist.

Warnings; Mentions of trauma, swearing and violence.

Hope this is what you had in mind. I've been enjoying your requests way too much. I had a rough week, and it ruined my whole mood and affected my writing so I'm sorry if you don't like it.

You used to be a very independent female, you always bickered with your mate Rhys over his overprotective character, you would spend hours explaining to him that you need some space to breathe and him shouting that he just wants to keep you safe. That was until he got trapped under the mountain, you yearned for him, and guilt burned in your blood, you couldn’t understand why you kept pushing him away. Then he came back and the trauma of losing him changed you completely, you couldn’t stand being away from him even for a minute, and even if you were in the same room, you would panic if you weren’t touching him. Rhys was enjoying your new clingy self way too much. Wherever he was sitting you would crawl on his lap, when you had dinner, you would sit next to him holding his hand and during the night you would climb on him and sleep, covering him like a blanket.

You were hanging with your family at the house of wind, Nesta and Feyre were bickering about something, Amren was watching them with a smirk on her face and Mor, Cassian, Azriel and Rhysand were lost deep into conversation about the court of nightmares. You were sitting on your mate’s lap, resting your head on his shoulder as you watched everything that was happening around. Rhys was playing with your fingers as he talked. You felt safe in his arms, his warmth and the beating of his heart making you feel sleepy and before you knew it your eyes closed, and you got lost in the darkness.

“I can fly there faster than you can winnow” Cassian boomed, and Mor snorted.

Rhysand stiffened and glared at his brother.

“Keep it down, y/n is sleeping” he hissed and his grip around you hardened.

Cassian frowned but didn’t say anything. Everyone watched with soft smiles on their faces as Rhysand got up with you in his arms and walked to the balcony nodding at them goodbye. He winnowed home and carried you to your shared room, after he removed your clothes and his own, he laid on the bed and placed you on top of him, sighing at the feeling and caressing your back. He fell asleep with a smile.

Morning came and you woke up crying. You had a nightmare of losing him again. He held you in his arms while you wept, kissing your head and murmuring sweet promises about never leaving you again. You spent the whole day clinging onto him like your life depended on it and whined when you had to get ready for dinner at the house of wind. Your whines broke Rhysand’s heart and he followed you around as you got ready, his hand never leaving yours.

“Winnow or fly?” he asked.

You thought about it for a bit and grinned as you said “Fly”.

He had already summoned his wings since he knew you would choose flying, you wouldn’t miss the opportunity to be in his arms.

When you landed on the balcony, he tried to place you on your feet, but you quickly manoeuvred yourself and wrapped your legs around his waist, nesting your face in his neck. He chuckled and his one hand moved beneath your bottom, he gave your butt a squeeze making you yelp, and his other hand went to your back, rubbing soothing circles.

“Are you comfortable pretty girl?” he asked and left a soft kiss on your head. You hummed and he smiled.

He walked inside and you heard Azriel chuckling.

“Look at her” he exclaimed “so cute” and with that he came and ruffled your hair making you giggle.

Rhysand quickly turned his back on Azriel muttering “mine” for only you to hear.

“Yours” you breathed and hugged him harder.

You spent the whole evening on Rhysand’s lap, peaking your head from his neck only when you wanted to participate in the conversation.

“So, I was thinking about going to Rita’s, it’s been a while since the three of us spent some time together” Cassian spoke and pointed to Azriel and Rhysand. Then his eyes fell on you, and he sighed “If dear y/n decides to stop acting like a baby of course”

You froze, your eyes filled with tears, and you got up, you moved so fast that Rhysand didn’t have time to grab you.

You mumbled “sorry” and ran out, jumping off the balcony and winnowing to the river house.

You slipped into bed and cried. You were so lost in your own trauma that you didn’t think if Rhys was okay with you clinging onto him. You didn’t know how long you stayed like that until your mate’s warmth filled your body and his arms wrapped around you.

“Don’t cry sweetheart, Cassian is an asshole” he murmured in your hair.

“He is right though I’ve been unbearable since you came back” you sniffled.

“No, you haven’t. I’ve been enjoying every second of it so much that I don’t think I will be able to live without you in my arms. Please don’t stop” his voice was breaking.

“But...”

“Shh” he cut you off and you felt the familiar talons caressing the shield around your mind. You let him in, and he planted his last memory there for you to see.

You saw yourself jumping off the balcony and then the gaze turned to Cassian, and a low growl left Rhysand. You felt his fury and the dark power that flowed from him into the room.

“What the fuck was that?” Rhysand yelled and moved closer to Cassian, he grabbed the collar of the general’s shirt and pushed him against the nearby wall. Cassian paled as he watched his brother’s fury.

“Did you even stop to think for a second before this bullshit left your mouth?” Rhysand snarled, his voice lethal and filled with painful promises.

“The female you just offended lost her mate, she had to spend 50 years of her life alone, worrying about her mate’s life… and when she finally got him back, she is considered clingy because she’s afraid of losing him again?” He pushed Cassian harder against the wall. You could feel his hands trembling as he used most of his power to keep himself from punching the warlord.

“Rhys I’m sorry I was just having a rough day, I didn’t mean it” Cassian’s voice was sincere, and you believed him, you knew he loved you and he would do anything to protect you.

“Tomorrow you will come at the river house, and you will apologize to her” Rhysand said and let go of him.

He stepped out of your head and tapped on your shield, you lifted it again and turned to look at him.

“Please don’t stop yearning for my touch.” He whispered.

“I don’t think that I’ll survive without you holding me” you whispered back and rested your forehead against his own.

Requests are open!

[inchidentally]

@vastappenen LISTEN okay so this is the full spin-off of the Charlos part of my Prince Lando AU post

I cannot write real fic so this is just like me doing a retelling of what's gone on in my mind lol - and this is the post of Charles in White that's screencapped above

(side note my friend was listening to this haunting music while I wrote this so it might help set the scene - it's called "Fancy on a Bach Air" by Yo-Yo Ma)

this gets a bit NSFW toward the end so fair warning!

ok so to start, this is what was in my original post

Unfortunately the royal courts of Europe were shaken by a quick series of upsets: His Serene Highness Lorenzo of Monaco abdicated the throne in search of a quieter life - his heart had never been in it since his father, the former Sovereign Prince, had become ill and abdicated. This left Lorenzo’s unwed brother Charles to be hastily crowned Prince Regent at the tender age of 22 (too young to be crowned Sovereign Prince bc modern monarchy rules I’m inventing). As a result Charles suffered the loss of his long-time suitor, nobleman Sebastian Vettel, who couldn’t bear the thought of being Sovereign Prince let alone of a land that wasn’t even his own.

Enter the Sainz Vázquez de Castro elders seizing the opportunity and negotiating a deal with Monaco in private conclave with the Papal State (??) to wed their son Carlos to the Prince Regent. Carlos is ashamed at giving in to the temptation… to not just be Prince Consort but to be Sovereign Prince, to rule over the vast wealth of Monaco and by extension the Holy See, to have the coveted beauty Charles in his bed. So he agrees to be spirited away to Monaco and the ugly business of dissolving his betrothal to Lando is left to members of church and state.

But Carlos experiences a complete conversion when Charles is on his knees in the cathedral - looking up at him with docile green eyes as Carlos’ fingertips touch the warm red roses of Charles’ lips as he holds the chalice of holy wine for Charles to drink. Carlos was almost hard beneath the ermine and velvet robes in a house of God when the crown was on his head and Charles next to him - and slightly below - smiling up at him with filaments of gold hanging from pendants on his chaplet, framing his achingly beautiful face. If Carlos feels his immense happiness and prosperity darken whenever he sees Lando’s picture or encounters him at one of the courts then no one need know.

ok so I've removed this from the narrative to of course be charlos true happiness endgame and removed Seb entirely, or he can just be called a close confidante and possible candidate to marry Charles but not very serious.

I imagine young Carlos Jr. moving through the royal courts as a child and teen and seeing the royal children of Monaco sometimes. in my weird version of royalty I have it that Lorenzo is the natural successor to the throne and therefore has always been allowed to dress and be seen "normally". as a second child, Charles was always the rightful property of whichever alliance would maintain Monaco's independence. he was raised mostly in the Prince's Palace and when playing or venturing to where he could be seen he's attended by a retinue of guards each carrying a gonfalon to conceal the young prince from view. on the rare occasions that the prince will be around those not within his immediate family or private staff, he is carefully wrapped in embroidered, jeweled white silks or cottons (depending on the climate) with only his eyes visible. the only color allowed being a scarlet silk girdle around his hips. until he reaches maturity or is married he wears a ferronnière with a single white diamond at his forehead. (I imagine the wrapping as looking like fancy white fireproofs that cover the hands as well and a long, flowy tunic over the top with smart little white renaissance boots (that Charles hates).

Prince Charles is also not permitted to speak outside of his family circle/staff but he is taught multiple languages and fond rumors spread that the prince has a charming lilting accent that comes from a little of everywhere. he is also taught the piano and there is a place on the shore that only locals know of where fairy echoes of his playing can be heard. they call it his 'lone voice' because the mood inside the palace can be judged by the prince's choice of music. childish and jolly for a while, then more challenging pieces, until his eighteenth birthday and an unknown dirge for his godfather who had perished during a racing tourney that summer. the prince's music would change over the years but it would never be joyful again.

I imagine many instances over the years of Carlos Jr. being coaxed by a conniving Carlos Sr. into bowing low to the small, mummified-looking creature that everyone assures him is a prince. the eyes and vague suggestion of white-clad hands and feet are the only indications that this is true, but the big green eyes are very expressive and seem to smile whenever they meet Carlos' own big brown eyes. Prince Lorenzo has a kind smile and would be a good playmate but solemnly maintains his position by his parents' side. Prince Arthur comes along in a bundle of energy and mischief - being blessed with a birthright to total freedom so long as his elder siblings are alive. he enjoys being swung around and thrown in the air by Carlos Jr. which helps pass the tedium of royal engagements. Arthur is clearly the favorite of Charles who rather mothers him - especially when the Sovereign Prince falls ill and hushed preparations are made behind palace walls for Lorenzo to take the throne. Charles is so deep in mourning for his godfather and soon his own father that his presentation at court is delayed indefinitely as it would be cruel to open him up to marriage bids that would inevitably take him from his home.

in the meantime, Carlos Jr. has grown into his large features and promises to inherit all his father's looks and daring. at his father's encouragement - "by the time you wed a virgin, you will need to know everything there is to know about pleasing them" - Carlos enjoys countless conquests across every continent on the globe. he's a seasoned bachelor by the age of 20 and has been given his own estate outside of Madrid to party, race expensive cars and drink expensive wine. but even as he wakes between the thighs of this or that beautiful boy or girl, his mind recalls the hours spent at court in Monaco trying to discern the subtlest lines of Prince Charles' body beneath the absurd layers of drapery. he knows for sure that the prince is slim but not scrawny. that his posture is upright and proud and stands about the same height as Carlos. at times when he scoops Arthur up to hold on one hip, Carlos can discern the fine dip of a small waist - probably small enough for Carlos' big hands to meet around. what a gift-wrapped present for whoever got to marry him!

but by the time they next meet, news has traveled all over of the Sovereign Prince's health and plans for the reluctant Prince Lorenzo to be hastily crowned. during their first visit after this news, Carlos Jr. makes his usual low bow to Prince Charles but when he looks up he sees tears clouding the prince's green eyes. it twists Carlos' heart and he boldly takes the prince's hand and presses a hurried kiss to the silk and at the same time trying to speak with his eyes how sorry he is for the prince. the small noise Charles makes at Carlos' boldness is a precious secret Carlos holds like a tangible thing against the breast of his tailcoat as he hurries down the steps before any of the other royals can notice what he's done.

[this is when the above section from my AU comes in and Carlos is attempted to be married off to Prince Lando, Lorenzo abdicates, Charles can only be named Prince Regent bc of his status etc and a hasty arrangement is made for him to marry Carlos]

at their wedding I imagine Charles' veil/headdress to be much lighter and tied in a simple knot at the base of his head. the only time Charles is called to speak is to swear fealty to the crown, to his country, and to his husband (it's also the first time Charles' voice has been heard by almost everyone in the Cathedral including Carlos. it sounds like joyous music, dipping deep and rich one moment and high and sweet the next - with a little bubble of laughter at the end. Carlos wants to hear him talk forever.) when the priest finishes his blessing, Carlos put a hand beneath Charles' chin and guides him to stand. he moves closer to Charles than he has ever been permitted and circles his arms around his neck to untie the knot. the veil falls away and a collective gasp rises up from the cathedral through the clouds of incense. Carlos doesn't gasp so much as suck in a triumphant breath through his nostrils and lifts his chin in triumph. Charles is not just the chaste ideal of beauty that the court and citizens of Monaco had whispered about for years, he is the vision of temptation itself: a delicate brush-spatter of freckles beneath a flush on finely molded cheekbones, a straight French nose that was the final word on French noses, and perfectly smooth lips in the shape of a patriotic 'M' and the exact red of Monaco's flag. the prince's hair and brows have all the shades of a glossy hazelnut and a thick fan of lashes surrounded the green eyes - all that Carlos had known of him until now. but soon, he would know everything about Charles and in a way no one else ever had or would.

Carlos is supposed to buss a small, ceremonial barely-there kiss to Charles' lips to please the court but of course he can't help himself and, holding Charles' face in his big hands, presses a fiercely possessive (thankfully still close-mouthed) kiss that nearly makes Charles collapse. murmurs go around the cathedral of "well, those Spaniards, you know".

when they are crowned, my version of royalty has the priest setting the heavy gold crown on Carlos' head but Carlos in turn places the chaplet of gold leaves and gemstone pendants on Charles. Carlos is flying as high as mortal can when he can finally lead Charles out to the balcony and show him off to the waiting public. Carlos wonders if there's a man on earth who possesses more wealth than he does at that moment.

but there's one more thing he doesn't yet have! oh you bet the bedding ceremony is weird and fucked up and poor Charles is using the short time they have alone as they move through the halls (merely flanked by guards) to nervously and apologetically explain to Carlos what they will need to do. something about protocol for regents who found it difficult to "perform" under such circumstances etc. Carlos just puts a big warm hand to Charles' lips as they are rushed along, leaning into to whisper that he'd take Charles' virginity in front of his own grandmother if that's what was required and his desire still wouldn't be dampened.

the chamber is small and has one purpose. the clergy stand behind wrought iron mullioned screens but Charles can see their eyes clearly and has known many of them all his life. he'd probably faint dead away from nerves if Carlos didn't pull him close and kiss him so deep and dirty it should've turned Charles' white gown red with lust. Carlos tells him to look only into his eyes, that he'll take good care of him. there's a whole intense sexy element to Carlos unwrapping Charles the rest of the way, just like the birthday present he'd imagined when he was a teenager. he probably spends WAY too much time on foreplay considering the witnesses are only there to see one thing and then leave but Carlos knows that Charles deserves this. by the time they've reached the point where Carlos can reach a hand between them and literally 'come' up with the goods to hold up and be viewed, Charles' moans are reaching up to the rafters. there's a rustle and murmured blessings as the priests finally withdraw.

Carlos is like FINALLY and decides to give Charles every bit of the benefit of his vast experience and looks smug as hell when Charles' attendants have to physically carry Charles to his own bed bc Carlos fucked him senseless lmao

agfalsgfsla this was so weird and detailed and I do not know WHERE it came from but if an actual writer sees this and wants to write it properly PLEASE tag me or message me!!!

EDIT: these are great photo references for adult Charles and Carlos in this AU

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[genericpuff]

Lore Olympus will be officially ending in 2024.

While this is vague both in Rachel's responses (as always) and the actual specific timeline, considering this is the final 'arc' and most of Rachel's arcs rarely go any longer than 12-15 episodes, I have the sneaking suspicion she's going to try to wrap this up by March/April. That's just a prediction, mind you, it could just as well go on throughout the entire year of 2024.

That said, it's wild to see it finally confirmed, like a weight has finally been lifted of our shoulders. Many of us have been speculating on it for a while now that LO would undoubtedly get dragged out as it's Webtoon's golden goose and clearly Rachel's lifeline to the industry.

Lore Olympus has been a part of my life since 2019, and an even larger part of it in the last year and a half when I joined the critical community. It's going to be weird to live in a world where LO just doesn't update.

Of course, as mentioned in the article, there's still the matter of the physical books which are still FAR behind the webtoon version, and the TV show which they swear is still happening (but we all know it's not happening lmao).

So I don't think this will be the end of WT milking it for all its worth, but I am interested to see what happens to WT when they don't have their golden goose on a leash and chain anymore. They've sunk so much money and priority ad space into LO that even other Originals creators can't stand the comic due to how much its undercut their own opportunities. I'm hoping this will be a wake-up call to WT to give more attention to their series that are struggling and deserve to be seen, rather than focus all of their attention into one series that's barely got a pulse to speak of.

Of course, I'm sure people are wondering, "What about the fandom communities? What about antiLO/ULO?"

Listen, this isn't the first fandom I've taken part in, though it's certainly the one I've been the most directly active in with the essays I write and the stuff I do through Rekindled.

But if being in fandoms has taught me anything, it's that it doesn't matter how long a series has been gone. If there are people who still love it - or love to hate it - taking part in discussion, that discussion will continue to thrive. A series existing in hindsight is just as much a reason for participation as an active series existing in the present day. If anything, a series falling into the realm of 'hindsight' can give us the room we need to sit and reflect on what the series actually did, and what we were left with in the end. It's never stopped the folks who still talk about long-ago-completed series like The Office, House M.D., and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

So if you're new to the LO critical community, or asking yourself if it's still going to be "worth it" to take part in the fandom after LO is done - it's as worth it as you make it. There will always be something worth discussing in this fandom if we're wanting to discuss it.

As for me, well... I'm just getting started.