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jilonie · 3 years

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𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙎𝙀𝘾𝙍𝙀𝙏 𝙒𝙀𝘼𝙋𝙊𝙉

Jungkook X Y/N

•Future Smut / chapters / love /mafia au /heartless jungkook /love&hate/ romance

𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙜𝙪𝙮𝙨:) 𝙞𝙢 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙪𝙢𝙗𝙡𝙧 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙞’𝙫𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙥𝙖𝙙. 𝙄𝙣𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙡𝙞𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙨. 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜💘

sneak peak:

“𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘮𝘦 𝘶𝘱; 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘠/𝘕 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘸- 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘬 𝘰𝘯.” 𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳. “𝘑𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘬𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳.”

CHAPTER 1

You were walking. Fast; Really fast. All you could see was black. A darker black than the cloth that covered your eyes. hands. Harsh hands; 6 hands locked on your arms and on your shoulders that you knew would’ve created purple-greenish spots that would hurt like hell. You realized you were in a tunnel speeding through the unknown. Echoes of their keys dangling with one another combined with the never ending tapping of their footsteps irritated your ears. As soon as you lightly shook your head and sighed in exhaustion, you felt a hand against your head violently grabbing a pile of your hair and forcing your head to face forward. “we’re almost there please stay with me” he said. You didn’t know who it was. He sounded soft yet hungry; it was a husky voice that filled your ears and hit every nerve. He sounded rather trustworthy. Rather maybe safe.

Eyesight was still forbidden. Hot air hit your skin at an instant, sending vibrations of satisfaction down your spine as you entered a room and finally stopped.

“I wanna see.” a delicate sound escaped your lips and they knew you weren’t like the others. You weren’t scared of anything; in fact, it amused you.

“Fuck, how is she like this?” one of the men whispered to the other.

“Boss told us she’s a power house. He needs her.” he answered failing to make sure you couldn’t hear. Your red lips turned into a smirk as soon as they placed you on a chair; dead silence filled the room as you waited for the Boss. Strands of hair caressed your cheeks as you waited.

Suddenly rays of light became one with your eyes and he became visible to you. It was the mafia boss. The king of darkness. He was unbeatable; nobody dared to speak of him, steal nor go against. He was quite formally dressed; a serious looking man yet dangerous scars covered the left side of his face creating maps of pathways into the depths of his fearless soul. He scanned your face in surprise of how beautiful you looked. He kneeled in-front of you placing his tattooed hands on the arms of your chair.

“Y/N,” he took a long pause as he tilted his head not breaking the eye contact with his eyes piercing into yours. A painful tint of exhilaration stormed inside you. “You’ll be training with my secret weapon. His name is Jungkook;” he continued, “You know why you’re here young Y/N. Don’t let me down.”

You grew up in the black money, drugs, fame and most of all risk. Your father was the original boss of the mafia. The man even god feared. Lee Keith known as ‘The Boss’, was his right hand man he always relied on. Your father knew you’ve always had this burning flame inside you since the days you smiled as you watched his men kill people; you showed no weakness. As you got older you were the seducer. You’d tend to make the other gangs you’re father was against, gain your trust and told you all their plans and secrets. You were a magical power with eyes darker than the demon but face so irresistible, so stunning; you were a stamp in their memory, difficult for them to forget you.

When your father was killed, your mother took you and ran away from everything and everyone for a good 5 years. You had to be somewhere safe since your protector was dead and all gangs in the dark world your father had beaten, knew you and would die to have you. Until your mafia found you again. You were home.

“Take me to Jungkook.” You spoke in pure confidence even though you knew nothing about him. You had never seen his face however during the fights you couldn’t take your eyes off of him. He fought so elegantly yet dangerously; he’d kill numerous people in a matter of seconds and get out with one or two scratches. He’d always wear his mask, even inside the mafia. His face was a mystery; a mystery you wanted to solve.

They dressed you with a mask similar to Jungkooks, black sleeveless top that hugged your silhouette, baggy pants and boots, hair half up half down , purple hair tie paired with fighting gloves. You walked up to the disguised fighter. He was taller than you. Your eyes darted on his arms; his arms exposed of how much he worked out yet the outline of his scars scattered around them were concealed with his tight armor, but still popped out. You noticed a small “Jk” written on the left side of his clothing. He was masked. Your masks became a barrier between both of you. Your only source were your pair of eyes .

“So your the girl the boss has been bragging about?” he said. He sounded rough; a rough angelic voice you don’t hear everyday. You crossed your arms,

“So you’re the Jungkook secret weapon thing right?” You answered.

Jungkook raised an eyebrow and cracked his slender fingers looking at you in amusement. “Okay princess; cut the attitude.” he rustled. You stepped closer towards him and whispered as his eyes scanned your ones. You made him nervous.

“make me.” He liked that. You made the blood in his veins rush in adrenaline of pure euphoria. He saw you as a challenge. He wanted to make you just like him.

“ I wanna see you fight.” the tone of his voice darkened.

“I wanna see your face.” You answered back causing your mask to change shape as you smiled. He laughed shaking his head in irony as he stretched his arm exposing his sculpted biceps that led your mind to a whole new world of pleasuring thoughts about him. “Who made you think your that special love?” he answered.

You tapped his nose with your gloved finger, “Oh i am.”

You both trained like animals for a month, restless. You trained with other fighters but you both exchanged looks here and there. You could feel rays of energy blossom inside you whenever he watched you fight. It’s funny how much of an impact he had on you. The thing was, that it was two sided. He impressed you and he knew it; whenever you were around he’d do some flips kicks and tricks in hopes of catching your attention.

Your break had just started after a long session of fights and shooting. you panted so hard sweat was dripping down your pink cheeks. Your vision blurred and your head spun but you could see him coming. That was the first time in a whole week that he’d approach you; his silhouette started running towards you faster and faster as ur sight faded gradually.

“Jung-“ was the only word in your mind as you couldn’t feel your legs anymore.

“Y/N” Jungkook shouted as you felt his hands catching you; then, blank.

You woke up. Laying on a bed. All your eyes processed was the white ceiling. Your head felt like someone banged it on the ground about 100 times; It was logical considering the amount of times you got hit. But you were the best out of everyone except him. Your eyes adjusted to the world as you slowly picked yourself to a sitting position. You were alone. Theres was only a bed, a first aid kit and you.

You couldn’t stop thinking of him touching you as you collapsed even though you felt it for only a split second. His touch felt different from anything else that ever came in contact with your skin. You didn’t know why you felt that way and it killed you; he was the one who broke your stone wall of emotions. He was the weakness. As you sat there you could feel a breeze on your face. You panicked; the mask. Where was it and why isn’t it on you. You touched your bare face missing the feeling of not being trapped around a cloth for the whole day.

The door slammed opened as Jungkook rushed inside in agony looking to see if you were ok. But why did he care? He froze and studied ever corner every angle ever perfect imperfection of your beautiful face with wide eyes. He stood there just looking at you when you felt insecure and looked down breaking the intense contact. You felt your heart in your throat and fireworks blasting in your stomach from what you were experiencing and with who it was.

“Y/N,” he paused as he stood 5 feet away from you watching you sit there on the bed without your mask. He cleared his throat and shook his head trying his best to swallow every feeling, every letter of your name every aspect of you. He took a deep breath and continued as you watched in shock,

“you should continue practicing, you have 10 minutes to get your head straight.” He turned around ready to leave as he displayed his v shaped back to you sending questions in your mind of how would it look like without the cloth on top.

“Jungkook!” Your innocent voice found the courage to flow. He stopped still his back facing you; you didn’t know what to expect. He shook his head and you sat there observing in anxiousness.

“Fuck Y/N don’t say that” He said softly.

“Why? Why are you being like this. I fucking don’t know what it is about you i haven’t even seen your face and-“ You gave up. You felt weaker and weaker as you spoke; even embarrassed. He sighed loudly placing his hands behind his head as if he gave up on everything.

“I know i’m gonna regret this later but i can’t fucking help it.” he said as he walked towards you. He took his mask off and slammed his lips onto yours. A world of breathtaking feelings grew inside you in a matter of seconds as he guided his hands through your hair. Your hearts beating like wild animals trying to break out of your chests.

The world stopped and the barrier exploded in the most beautiful way none of you ever expected. He needed your kiss; he kept kissing you, and you kept letting him to. Finally the kiss broke and you looked at him. He was the most beautiful man you’ve ever laid eyes on. It was a wild beauty. His darkness was only in his eyes yet his face was delicate. His brown hair fell perfectly on his eyes caging the shimmer of his universe which consisted of all shades of black but all kinda of the brightest stars. His jaw a knife and his lips your drug. He still held on to your hair in elegance,

“Please, please don’t stop” You whispered as your voice broke.

“ From the moment i fucking saw you that first time i couldn’t stop thinking about you. You fucking mess me up Y/N and i don’t even know you.” he explained while caressing your cheek with his warm thumb. “Whenever your around you fuck me up; the only thing i think about is you Y/N and how- how you’d look in my arms every night without that stupid mask on.” he searched your eyes desperately trying to find an answer.

“Jungkook we cant be together.” Your eyes were tearing waterfalls as glistening dots of water ran in pain.

“I know.” he sighed his eyes not leaving your lips. You both knew it was forbidden to be together in the mafia. Rules were feelings not to exist what so ever for whatever reason. He kissed you again. The sensation drilled down your spine only by the feeling of his hands on you. Lips against yours. Anything that was Jungkook was your desire. He released your hair and stood up in defeat. His eyes drowned in the worst waters of his storm of emotions. You felt a knife piercing its way down your throat. He was still looking down at you as he spoke

“Practice starts in 10” His voice shaking as he forced these words out of him. He wore his mask and walked out of the room. Your stomach crumbled; Love turned into sorrow. The secret weapon broken.

CHAPTER 2

Your eyes pinned on the door that Jungkook exited from. You couldn’t move. You couldn’t move but your heart said otherwise. It spat strong bullets of blood into your veins and caused tears to fall so quickly you felt like you were drowning in your own pain. Was it because its him, or the fact that it ended just like that? Your mind was nothing but blank. It was either blank or his name.

You swore you couldn’t feel your feet dangling from the bed. It was as if he’d already taken a part of you with him from the moment he placed those soft lips on yours 3 minutes ago. That fire everyone admired about you, that fire that everyone envied about you, blew out because of this boy and the barrier he destroyed that nobody ever could even if they had the best weapons or the longest time in the world. You picked yourself up as your hands tried their best to wipe away the tears and conceal the pain.

You just stood there in silence. The only sound alive, was the sound of your delicate breath trembling as you inhaled and exhaled in hopes of calming yourself down. You started walking out the door, fighting anything in your mind that wanted to stop you from doing so. The scene where he took off his mask and revealed his incredibly handsome face was replayed in your mind on a big screen as if it was something everyone had to see, but in reality it was only for you. He wanted to do this only for you; he took it off only for you.

You felt your legs weaken which made you almost too certain that you wouldn’t make it until the practice room without bursting into tears. You finally spotted the door for the room in the distance and you stopped. You knew he was in there wearing his mask as a shield to hide his pain and not his face. The thought of this made a tint of lightning trail down your spine in the worst way possible.

Your eyes scanned fighters that went in and out the practice room. Each one stopped to look at you for more than a second which reminded you that your mask was missing. You lacked your shield of pain; you lacked the only thing you had left to cover up the mess. You rubbed your arm in nervousness as you found the courage to start heading for the room.

The door was slightly open and you could see fighters of all kind, being occupied with trainers everywhere. That was your chance to get in without anyone noticing and you took it. You trotted inside your eyes fixed on your trainer. You let your long brown hair down in hopes of covering your face that failed to do so.

“Y/N you’re extremely late..” The trainer hissed as his neck vain literally popped out. He was big and his muscles were like big unbreakable mountain rocks that looked even more fearsome with his missing eye.

“I- i’m so sorry, i was just um-“, you stuttered as you struggled to get rid of the idea that Jungkook was there.

“Where is your mask?” he interrupted you, eyeing you as if he’d never seen a beautiful face in a long time. You looked at him with wide eyes; The tension was at its max as you felt a burn trail down your throat.

“I don’t know” you answered while touching the space of your face where your mask was supposed to be. He shook his head in disappointment as he grabbed your hand. It was a grab identical to the one you felt when they held you that first time. You knew he was the one who admired you. He chose to train you.

“Fighters gather round and sit in a circle,” He roared so powerfully you could feel the floor almost vibrate. A sea of masked men covered in black, forming a big circle while having their eyes flaming in hunger was enough to make your fingers tingle in exhilaration. The atmosphere was intense and all 50 pairs of eyes were darted on you.

“You all know Y/N,” Your trainer announced leaving you in a maze of pure confusion. Your heart dropped as you raised your eyebrows looking at him in fright.

“Weapon, step forward.” He continued. Everyone gasped silently as they knew he’d put you up against the Weapon; You felt your lungs and heart igniting altogether as you processed his name. A patch of fighters slightly moved to the side to let him pass through as you darted your vision in that area. You could feel heat boiling up inside you as he stepped forward; he was a dot inside the circle, you were the one he’d have to fight.

You parted your lips in disbelief and looked at him right in the eyes, as you always did before you unraveled his face; It was you and him as everyone else sat around you. He traced you everywhere. His eyes sped in all directions of your body. His red double glazed glistening eyes full of pain were too exhausted to fight, yet the choice wasn’t his and definitely not yours.

“SET, FIGHT” The trainer shouted, his voice echoing ringing a bell in your mind as you took position immediately trying to make yourself think the one standing opposite you isn’t the boy you love. Jungkook took a deep breath and whispered just enough for nobody to hear,

“Come on love, show me that fire that i love about you.” You kicked, he grabbed; you spun, he avoided. You kept on fighting and fighting as if you were worst enemies. He couldn’t beat you easily as you fought just like him. Identical to him. Two flames intertwining causing a deadly fire; That was your connection. He grunted in surprise and growled in difficulty as you tried your best to fight him. Not because you wanted, but because he asked for it. All the fighters stared at your every move intensely, rather impressed of your power against Jungkook. You could hear nothing but the sound of needles digging through your ears yet you strongly felt Jungkooks hands grab every action you did.

You loved it. You loved the pain he opposed on you. It was a burning feeling of euphoria, too strange to explain. He grabbed your legs and pulled as you fell on your back, next thing you knew he sat on top of you pinning your arms on each side as his face was a thread away from yours. His wet hair acted as curtains in-front of his eyes. The heat from his body felt hot on your skin as you panted in need for air; or him. The thought that he was on top of you at that moment made your world flip and his mind freeze. His eyes not leaving your exposed lips.

“Fuck i can’t hide it,i want you,” he growled silently as he held your hands even tighter.

“i- i want you” you mouthed as he picked up each word that escaped your lips.

“Jungkook won this round” Your trainer said as Jungkook got up, shattering the contact between your bodies. He stood and looked at you as you were laying down below him. He couldn’t take the thought that je might’ve hurt you physically after the fight.

“God what did i do to deserve her.” he mumbled on the cloth trapping his lips as he slowly pushed back the hair in his face revealing his perfect eyebrows. He keeps touching you with those eyes but nothing else. He can’t do anything else. Suddenly he got dragged from your vision. The chemistry between you two was so vivid, your trainer grabbed Jungkook and took him further away to talk in private. You panted looking around the room as one of the other fighters approached you to help you get up.

He held his gloved hand out. You noticed a tint of his pale white skin being exposed between the end of his shirt and the beginning of the glove. You placed your hand on his and he pulled you on your feet elegantly. Rose petals fell from your cheeks and covered your body with something that feels like trust. His eyes took over yours as he gazed at your unmasked self. Naked exposed face all for himself. His eyes led to a mysterious ocean filled with whole new blacks and blues. A different beautiful from Jungkooks.

“I refuse to believe how good you are at this.” His voice so seductively soft, impossible to exist. He seemed to be an angel in disguise.

“Thanks” You answered. You flashed an innocent smile as you were about to leave, however he touched your arm and interrupted as you,

“Im Jimin by the way”. His grip felt warm, soft, heavenly.

“I’m Y/N” immediately escaped from your lips.

“i-i know” he sighed; he sounded rather hopeless as he walked away before you had the chance to say anything.

You stood in place rubbing the bruises Jungkook sprinkled all over your arms. A soft smile was formed on your face cause you knew the bruises were left on you as love bites from him. You felt it. Your tight armor was slightly ripped revealing your belly button. You did fight like lions.

Everyone was occupied practicing non stop as you sat against the wall, your legs exhausted and lips dry in need for some life. Faces of nurses dressed in green, on top of you checking you; mending you. You could feel them chatting quickly as they wrapped a wound on your leg in such speed yet smoothly since they do this nearly every 2 hours.

You rested your head on the wall and tilted it to the left as a nerve in your eye identify Jungkook right away. You couldnt resist the attraction even if you tried to swallow every piece of it. He was quite far away yet close. The trainer was talking to him yet his attention was on you. The doors to his soul were concentrated on to you as you could feel your trainer telling him something serious yet you couldnt make up what he was saying. You crossed your eyebrows in heavy concern as Jungkooks expression changed to the worse.

He glared at the ground in immense fright as your trainer started poking at his shoulder harshly. Your stomach dropped 5 stories down and your legs became numb. What was happening? What have they found out? You tried your best to focus on them as your vision became uncontrollably watery. Next thing you knew Jungkook stormed out and banged the door.

•••

2:32 am and you tossed on your bed. Your room. Number 97. It was the newest room made just for you yet rather small. Sleep was against you and the moon wasnt sinking in the ocean any time soon. The only source of light was the lamp next to you but nothing much. It was just enough to process where you were.

“Get out of my fucking mind” You whispered in desperation as you could feel your mind travel from each imperfection to every perfection of him. It was torture for you. You forced a tattoo of the letters ‘cant be together’ on each layer of your brain, but even that wasnt strong enough. Nothing was. Your face met with the palm of your hands and exhaled in exhaustion as you sank in your pillow waiting for the moon to enchant you to sleep.

Torture.

Your door handle twitching was what broke the silence. You shrugged in panic as your covers hugged your legs but he managed to get in. A tall figure was approaching you as your instinct made you throw a punch, yet your mind and eyes failed to process the fast encounter. He grabbed your hand and covered your mouth with his other hand. A familiar touch. You felt an army of sharp knifes break through your spine in a time span of 2 seconds as he held you in place.

“Hey hey princess it’s me, it’s Jungkook” Your eyes adjusted to the darkness and created his features in your mind as you had bare faced Jungkook a thread away from you. His soft voice stroked your ears as your heart lifted causing your body to fall into his arms. His hands shaking as he held your face finally having your lips onto his. The world stopped; you both found home. His hands explored you everywhere as you swathed your arms around his long neck, kissing as if that was it. As if forever wasnt an option. He broke the kiss as you leaned in for more, both lost in eachothers hearts as if everyone else in world disappeared.

“Y/N,” he muted his tone as he placed his forehead on to yours,

“ Your trainer know what’s going on but i dont fucking care. I really don’t, i only want you. Just thinking about your touch drives me insane i-“ he shook his head left and right as he spoke as if he just let out everything he ever felt, he knew it was a sin for the mafia. He sold his soul.

The weapon bloomed into a magnificent rose consisting of breathtaking reds and pinks yet filled with deadly thorns. You hunted in his eyes as you touched his cheek

“I dont know what to do Jungkook i really dont. How about we act like-like we dont know eachother or-“ you tried to come up with something as his eyes reflected hope, he wanted this; he yearned you.

“ Ill do anything literally anything, but fuck ill miss my fingers in your perfect fucking hair.” Before you could even answer you felt his lips mark sloppy kisses on your neck as you lolled your head back feeling every nerve of your body boil in pleasure.

“Jungkook i-“ You forgot how to speak as you held on to his shredded arms. Those sinewy arms of his, left you breathless only by the thought of them on you; You felt his muscles clench and unclench as he grabbed your waist tightly. You lost it. you wanted him.

“Y/N im not gonna leave you, ever, i promise on my fucking life.” he kissed you again and again

“Please dont leave me” You panted. Your heaven stopped as you felt the absence of his body from yours. The door was wide open and 4 people grabbed him dragging him out of your room. Panic.

“Y/N” he roared as his powerful outline fought for freedom. “OH MY GOD NO JUNGKOOK” You cried as you were held in place by 4 hands caging your every source of movement.

“Boss was right, inject her” a voice pierced your eardrum and destroyed every grain of hope.

“What are you doing to me? Where the fuck are you taking him?” You unstoppably struggled to break away from them as they held you even tighter. A voice from behind you awakened

“To you? Nothing. But Weapon, you’ll find out sooner or later.” You felt your heart split with the strongest most unbreakable sword not even God could control. Yet again, you went blank.

#jungkook #jungkook smut #jeon jungkook fanfic #jungkook fanfic #bts #mafia au #jungkook mafia au #bangtan #jeon jungguk #kookie #taehyung #park jimin #bts smut

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duplicitywrites · 3 years

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First Line(s) Game

Rules: List the first lines of the last ten (10) stories you published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and if anyone else notices any. Then tag some people.

tagged by @joeys-piano, thank you for thinking of me! i always love seeing you on my tumblr dash <3

tagging (if you want): @tomarryherewewhoaagain @twelfthcenturyname @dividawrites @itsevanffs @goldenzingy46 @cauldroncake @phantomato or anyone else who would like to!

lines below the cut! fics are from newest to oldest, in regards to original post date only.

the variety has improved since the last time i did this, i think? which is fun and fresh and sexy. i don’t really think about my opening sentences, i just spit them out and it’s off to the races

1. Infinite | E | 8.1k | complete

When people see his soulmark, they always assume the wrong shape.

2. Boyfriend Knows Best | T | 5.4k | complete

One of Tom’s lesser known skills, just like his ability to speak to snakes, was his skill with passive Legilimency.

3. Souprcux for the Immortal Soul | T | 2.9k | WIP

Harry was wrapping up the last of Voldemort’s Soup Delivery boxes when Voldemort came into the workshop.

4. Harry James [Redacted] | T | 6k | WIP

Harry cleared his throat awkwardly.

5. We Still Have Time | T | 9k | complete

The sun blazes red and gold as it settles behind the horizon of the Forbidden Forest.

6. Terms and Conditions May Apply | T | 13k | WIP

"Good morning, Keith!" Harry called from across the quaint, pothole-free street known as Plumtree Road.

7. The Feminine Urge | T | 1.5k | complete

Tom drags the hairbrush through the thick curls of his hair.

8. Smells Like World Peace | T | 2.2k | complete

“This is a terrible idea. It worries me that I have to tell you that this is a terrible idea.”

9. Magically Delicious | E | 9.5k | complete

Harry and Ron made their way downstairs for breakfast in the Great Hall.

10. Certain as the Sun | E | 7k | complete

Harry leaves in the dead of night on his father’s horse, Hedwig.

#tag game

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wrestlezon · 2 years

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liveblog containment post for aew rampage 6/17/22

do you know i also use these to remember what goes on in any given episode instead of just reading a recap? its true. dual purpose. what if i need to show a friend an important segment and i dont remember where it is and i dont want to scrub through the whole replay, huh???

dante vs moxley to start! i love watching dante do his flips. dude straight up has a double jump irl its cool hes fighting a total brawler-type like moxley too oh my god moxley CHUCKING him into the corner right before the pip LMFAO TAZ AND JERICHO BICKERING holy shit i feel sorry for anyone who watches this pip'd you are missing OUT. i need to record and post this bit online for you all dante martin gets so much airtime. why aren't people writing wingfic about this man HUHH ^ my friend admonished me for this comment lmao jericho getting corrected on wrestlemoves by regal... ahh there is the now-classic BCC elbow pummeling. its only a matter of time before the win

swerve and keith lee segment! are they gonna kiss and make up. please dont break up your tag team :)c awww omg keith lee is literally wearing a naruto hoodie. king shit ! team taz has appeared! conflict...

house of black segment!! death triangle vs house of black conflict: picked up again!!!

its the gunnclaimed trios match, and max caster is here to rap!!! lmao i was wondering how he would bring up the wwe thing in a way that wouldnt get him in hot water oh! i didnt realize the "ruffin it" trio had bear country in it the three way scissoring lol... the cut to bowens just going wild and frothing was so good oh! squashed...

hook segment! lmao hes still doing the strong silent type thing. im glad. hes basically serious orange cassidy danhausen!! hook only talks to danhausen huh... thats........... so.................................. sweet

speaking of sweet: willow vs jade!!!! willow has great energy. A+++++++ i love her oh my god jade's outfit omg we're getting stokely on commentary??? YES little cartwheel flip into a shrug... WILLOW lmfao SQUATS i love how color coordinated they are right now and kiera hogan representing: blue UGH i love their OUTFITS!!!!!!!!!! i did like the color composition of how willow's darker layer looked on her other outfit but this is good too. it still has the layering so she can drop the straps, right? thats such a signature move noooo the mid-rampage FULL COMMERCIAL defeat... not unexpected but i thought thered be more. i did like what i saw though! willow had some good bits!!!

beating up willow post-match!!! rude! villainous!! athena to the rescue. the anti-baddie squad LMFAO STATLANDER SLAPPED STOKEY'S BALD HEAD wait was there any confusion about anna/kris/athena being in the anti-baddie squad? who was confused by this

jay lethal is doing a promo... theyre talking up satnam singh

omg that moxley moving graphic for the forbidden door ppv 4 way match for the atlantic title?? EDDIE YUTA SHOOTER TRIOS MATCH???? ftr vs jeff cobb/o khan vs roppongi vice three way double title match? oh man are ftr going to get MORE belts omg??? jericho & lance archer vs moxley & tanahashi on wednesday??? look im not going to bring up the absence of chuck. im not. im trying not to. im just going to expect the bte on monday to bring up how he has probably been 100% distracted hanging out with the dark order. im rationalizing as hard as i possibly can

darby vs bobby fish promo oh my god. kyle's face

bobby: what, are you asking me to a date? to outback steakhouse?

the match jesus what an insane flip from bobby charging into jumping darby and that running dive lmao at them like instant replaying these. they better, its so death defying. gotta milk it lmfao the face on the crowd guy recording on his cell phone ok these replays are getting a little bit too ridiculous bobby heckling the crowd... is he buying time for darby to recover from these rough bumps just grabbling his taint for that pin the commentators: "i think he was doing that by instinct" ok. a decent group in the crowd was doing a long chant. i dont see chuck taylor in the ring. why are you doing such a long wrestle chant for anyone else whoa that transition to an ankle lock was cool oh man THAT transition into a pin was cool. darby wins!

post match beatdown... who is going to appear to save darby from this onslaught lights out??? what the. can't be the house of black right its sting!! lmfao that baseball bat move on kyle. owned damn theyre pulverizing bobby's leg lmfao the cut to kyle made me laugh so hard HIS POOR POOR DICK AND BALLS they keep cutting to kyle being dramatic LMFAO GOD theyre so funny i love them

#talkzon

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actress4him · 4 years

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Whumptober 2020 - Day 31

This is it! The very last post of Whumptober, and the long-awaited sequel to Day 8! If you're brand new to this whump party and haven't read it yet, you'll want to go back and do so before diving into this monstrosity. And when I say monstrosity I mean, it's looooooong. I wanted to do it justice and give you guys the ending you deserve, which...I'm hoping I pulled off. I'm not used to posting stuff so soon after writing it, without re-reading and editing over a period of time! Anyway, it wasn't one that I could easily just say, oh and they rescued him and put him in a pod and they lived happily ever after, because there was a whole bunch of emotional stuff everyone had to deal with, too. Thus the length, and the postponing of this post so I could actually finish it.

That said, this is actually more angst than it is whump, but hopefully there's enough whump to satisfy and hopefully it's a satisfying way to end the month. Enjoy!

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Day 31 (No. 29 and Alt. 7) - Reluctant Bedrest/Found Family

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: fantastic racism, self-hatred, death mention, blood, referenced animal attack, fever, infection, hallucinations, needles, panic attacks, suicide ideation

It had been nearly a week since they abandoned Keith. Discarded him, like garbage. Dropped him off on some deserted planet like some people back on Earth used to drop off animals that they didn’t want to have to take care of.

Shiro had always hated those people. Now he was one of them.

Except worse, because this wasn’t a puppy they had dumped on the side of the road, this was a hu-...okay, well only partly a human being, but a person, nonetheless. The person that he had seen as the little brother he never had for the past several years that he had known him. The person that he had sworn, even if only internally, to look after, always.

And sure, it wasn’t like it was his idea, but he had still let it happen. Yeah, if he had tried to fight it, Allura probably would have locked him in his room and done it without him. But he should have fought anyway. He should have let them drag him away like they had Keith that day they found out he was part Galra. Maybe they would have thrown him in a cell, too. Maybe then he’d actually be able to look at himself in the mirror now.

They wouldn’t have, though. He was human. He was trustworthy.

So trustworthy that he had turned his back on his brother, all for the sake of Voltron and the universe.

That was the lie he had been telling himself, the one thing that had kept him from jumping in his Lion and going after Keith for days. The universe needed Voltron. Therefore, the universe needed him. He was the leader of Voltron, he couldn’t just abandon the rest of the team and disobey the Princess’ orders for the sake of one man. Being a defender of the universe meant having to make sacrifices and hard choices.

And maybe all of that was actually true, but it was only half the story. Keith needed him. As the leader of Voltron, he should be setting an example for the rest of the team to follow, and should be able to make decisions for the good of every team member without being threatened and overruled by the Princess. Being a decent person who could live with his own choices meant not going against his own promises and ideals.

He knew all of that. But both sides seemed true, and which side seemed more important changed by the second.

To top it all off, the team had practically fallen apart since leaving Borulmyte. Not only were they down a Paladin, unable to form Voltron, but hardly anyone was speaking to each other unless forced. Allura was sulking because her father’s Lion wouldn’t accept her. Hunk, who had never seemed all that happy with the idea of kicking Keith out, seemed depressed. Pidge had pretty much locked herself in her room, he assumed furiously searching for any sign of her family. Lance was, as always, hard to get a read on, but he was noticeably quiet and stoic whenever he happened to appear. Coran had barely spoken a word the whole week.

And Shiro? He couldn’t stand to be around any of them. They were the ones who had done this to Keith. Sure, a couple had made weak arguments on his behalf at the beginning, but in the end they had all caved to Allura’s wishes and turned on him. He blamed them just as much as he blamed himself for sitting here in the comfort of the Castle while Keith...who even knew? At the very least he was alone and probably scared, even though he’d never admit that. At the worst, he could be struggling to survive, dying at that very moment, and none of them would ever know.

Whichever it was, he didn’t deserve it.

Coran had called a meeting on the bridge for something he said was urgent. It was probably another distress call, though the last one - the only mission they had attempted that week - had gone so terribly that Shiro wasn’t sure if they should even bother trying again. Running a smooth, successful mission is awfully difficult when no one wants to speak to each other, much less work in sync.

Usually he was the first one to arrive for meetings like this. Well, except for maybe Keith, but that wasn’t a thought he wanted to dwell on right then. This time, when he finally dragged himself to the bridge, the others were all already there, though none of them looked happy about it. Unlike in the past, when he always tried to keep up everyone’s morale by being focused and enthusiastic himself, no matter how he actually felt, now he didn’t bother. Crossing his arms, he let his face rest in exactly the scowl he was feeling.

“What is this about, Coran?”

“Yes, I would like to know as well.” Allura’s brow was furrowed, clearly not happy at being left out of the loop.

The orange-haired adviser wrung his hands, staring down at the floor. “Well, it’s...this is difficult to say. But…” Drawing in a deep breath that puffed out his chest, he finally looked up, catching each of their gazes. “I’ve been keeping something from you. It’s about Number F-...Keith. It’s about Keith.”

Keith’s name had practically become forbidden, so of course it automatically caught everyone’s attention. Shiro unfolded his arms and stepped forward. “What about Keith?” he demanded.

Coran’s eyes darted back to the floor. “He gave us messages to pass on to each of you. Before we left Borulmyte.”

“Coran!” Allura hissed.

“No, Princess.” The response took everyone in the room by surprise, including Allura if the expression on her face was any indication. None of them had ever heard Coran speak that way to her, especially not to tell her no. He took another breath and seemed to steel himself. “You know that I have always served the royal family willingly, and that I see you like a daughter. I would follow you anywhere. However...you are still young. A great burden has been placed on your shoulders, and you have done extraordinarily well with it. But sometimes you make mistakes, and this, my dear...this has been a grave mistake.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we never should have left the boy behind. Galra or not, he has never proven himself anything but the most loyal of paladins, and yet we have punished him for a crime he did not commit.”

Shiro was torn between feeling relief that someone besides him was saying it, and anger that it hadn’t been said sooner. “Why didn’t you speak up when I was trying to convince them all of this same thing days ago?”

Coran flashed him a guilty expression. “Because I was too much of a coward. I didn’t want to speak against my Princess, even though I knew what she was doing was wrong.” Squaring his shoulders, he looked around at the other paladins again. “But regardless of what anyone else thinks or decides, I can do this. I can fulfill the boys’ last request before he was left behind.”

Something in Shiro’s gut twisted at that statement, and he could see some shuffling of feet and shifting of positions around him that pointed to the others feeling the same way. No one liked to be reminded of what they had done.

“Fine,” Allura finally spat. “Do what you must to clear your conscience.” She crossed her arms and leaned back against the console with a huff.

“First to Number Two...Hunk.” Coran gave the Yellow Paladin a gentle smile. “He wanted you to know that he would miss your cooking, especially the brownies you made for him.”

That was all it took for Hunk to start crying, though he said nothing in reply.

“Lance, he said to tell you that he never hated you, that you annoyed him sometimes but were a good friend, too.”

If Shiro hadn’t been intently watching, he might have missed the way Lance’s eyes widened before he ducked his head and scuffed his sneaker into the floor.

“Pidge, your message was that he really, really hopes you find your family. And that he kept meaning to tell you he thinks you’re doing great with your bayard.”

Her eyebrows pulled in tight at the first part, but at the second she blinked as if surprised and looked away.

“And besides his message to the Red Lion that he would miss her, and to us, thanking us for the opportunity to fly her…” He turned to stare at Allura for that, and she couldn’t hold his gaze, either… “That leaves you, Shiro.”

The other messages had already left him ripped open, so he wasn’t really sure how he was supposed to handle one meant just for him.

Coran lips pursed into a sad smile. “‘Just tell him I love him.’”

He felt as if all the walls came crashing down on him all at once. He loved him. Of course he did, he knew he did, they had always treated each other like brothers. But he had never said it. And now he had, and it was after Shiro had allowed him to be kicked out of the place they had all come to see as a home.

Spinning on his heel, he marched toward the door without a word.

“Shiro, wait, where are you going?”

If it had been any of the others, he might have just ignored them. But it was Hunk, so he at least threw the answer over his shoulder. “I’m going to get Keith.”

“Shiro -!”

“No!” This time he whirled around, sending all of his fury in a glare toward Allura. “I’m done letting you tell me how I should treat my little brother! I am going to get Keith, not the Galra, but our friend, the Red Paladin, the strongest and bravest and most loyal person I know, and no one is going to stop me! If you don’t want us back here, fine. I don’t care. Find yourself new Red and Black Paladins. But I won’t leave him down there a second longer.”

It was unclear whether Allura even knew what to say to that, but before she had the chance Hunk piped up again. “I’m coming with you! Erm, if...that’s okay.”

Shiro spared him a small smile. “Of course it is.”

No one said anything as they left the room. Hunk jogged a little to catch up to Shiro’s long, quick strides before matching his pace.

“I was a coward, too, like Coran said. Which, you know, isn’t really anything new, just...me being a coward isn’t usually at the expense of one of my friends. I was scared, to start with. Of him being, you know. Galra. But that’s stupid, really. Galra Keith is still Keith.”

“Yeah. He is.” He just hoped he was still Keith, still whole and well and not irrevocably changed, when they got to him. “I was just as much of a coward as anyone else, or more. I let the duty I felt to Voltron and the universe get in the way of the way I actually wanted to act. I should have gone after him right away.”

Hunk hummed in understanding. “Well, at least you actually stood up for him.”

They stopped off in their rooms to change into armor, then headed for Black and Yellow’s hangars. The long way, since they didn’t want to risk going back to the bridge and running into everyone else. Shiro had debated whether or not he should take Black, or just a pod, but decided that even if Allura wouldn’t let them stay, returning Black would give everyone a good chance to see Keith again and really make sure they wouldn’t change their minds.

“Since we don’t have a wormhole, it’s gonna take us a while to get there,” he told Hunk over the comms once they were situated in their Lions and starting to take off.

“I don’t mind. Just...how are we gonna find him once we’re there? I mean, he could have traveled a ways from where we...you know, left him.”

“I can track his quintessence.” The new voice took him by surprise, but not nearly as much as spinning around to find Green and Blue hovering over the Castle. “But I’ll have to be pretty close to him first. So we’ll still have to fly around for a while to try to catch a signal, then we’ll be able to narrow it down to a smaller area.”

Shiro was too shocked by their appearance to come up with a reasonable response, so he just ended up echoing, “We?”

Lance’s solemn face popped up on a video screen in front of him, followed by another with Pidge’s. “Yeah, we,” he said, mouth set in a firm line. “We’ve been stupid, and we wanna fix it. If...if we can.”

Clenching his jaw, Shiro sighed. “That’ll be up to Keith, I suppose. What kind of shape he’s in, and...whether he’ll forgive us.”

“We don’t really deserve it,” Pidge mumbled.

“No, we don’t. But let’s go ask for it anyway.”

They talked a little as they flew. It was quiet, and a bit awkward, but it was more than they had talked all week. Lance admitted that he had been having doubts ever since they left, memories of time spent with Keith haunting his thoughts. The message had just sealed the deal.

Pidge shrugged when asked about her change of heart, and quietly conceded that she didn’t think she had ever really believed he was a bad guy. She was just hurting, and he had been the perfect target to take it out on. Her desperation to find her family had blinded her.

They were several hours into a trip that Hunk calculated would take a few days when a wormhole appeared in front of them, seemingly out of nowhere. Every Lion pulled up short, exclamations of surprise echoing across the comms.

Shiro jerked his Lion around to find the Castle looming behind them. His immediate thought was that Coran had somehow taken over and caught up with them, but Coran couldn’t make wormholes.

“...Allura?”

Her voice over the comms was more tentative than he thought he had ever heard it. “I have not yet decided to trust him. But I...I have seen how passionate all of you are about this, and I am...willing to reconsider my original stance.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it was more than he had expected. He’d take it.

“Alright guys. Let’s go bring our boy home.”

The sight of the planet Borulmyte made Shiro’s stomach turn a flip. This was it. This was the place where Keith had been living for the past week. He couldn’t even imagine what it had been like for him. Allura and Pidge had done extensive research on multiple planets before deciding that this was the best one, and they had had plenty of “reassuring” things to say about it. He had always wondered, though, what they weren’t saying. Or what their research hadn’t turned up. There was no way that they could have known everything there was to know about a planet just from reading about it. “Livable conditions” didn’t mean enjoyable conditions.

“Coran and I will stay here with the Castle. Keep us updated.”

Shiro gave a nod. “Pidge, how close do you need to be to pick up Keith’s quintessence?”

“Within a few miles.”

“Alright. We’ll start at the drop off point. I’m gonna guess he would have headed east, into the forest, to find shelter.” That was the one reassurance he had about the whole situation, knowing that Keith was trained in survival skills. “We’ll head there first, and take it mile by mile.”

It took them the rest of the day. Only a fraction of that time had passed when Shiro started to run every possible horrible scenario through his mind of why they weren’t finding it, even though he knew that they probably just hadn’t hit the right spot yet.

“There!” Pidge shouted. “I’ve got it!”

Relief flooded Shiro down to his toes. “Alright. Mark this location. We’ll have to go land in the desert and fly back in the Green Lion. She’s the only one small enough to fit in that little clearing over there.

The little clearing, as it turned out, was around a creek that seemed to be clear and safe. His relief grew just a little more. If Keith had managed to end up this close to a water source, then maybe he was doing okay.

“Okay, Pidge. Lead the way.”

Hiking through the woods took almost another full day. A day in which the sun never actually rose. He hadn’t paid attention to start with, when they were still flying, because constant darkness outside had become the new norm, but now that they were on solid ground it was painfully obvious that they had yet to see light this entire time. And the temperature gauge on his helmet display was much lower than he wanted it to be. Livable? Yes. Comfortable without armor? No. He wanted to interrogate Allura and Pidge on whether they knew about this when they had chosen to send Keith to this planet, but it wasn’t the time. He had to focus on finding Keith, nothing else.

After hours and hours of walking by only the flashlights built into their helmets, during which time no one, not even Lance, dared to complain, there was finally a spike on Pidge’s quintessence tracker.

“Over here!” she shouted, taking off at a sprint through the underbrush.

The others followed, swatting branches and bushes out of their way. Any second, Shiro expected to run into Keith. Maybe sitting in whatever hideout he had found, or out hunting for food in the never-ending darkness, his eyebrows flying up in surprise when he saw them all rushing in.

Instead, when he stumbled to a halt beside Pidge, she was staring at the ground, and there was no Keith in sight.

“Pidge? What is it?”

Lifting a shaky finger, she pointed. Even before he looked, Shiro could feel his chest tightening with anxiety. And for good reason, too. The stain that was illuminated on the dirt and leaves was dried, at least a couple of days old, but it was undeniably blood. It was also concerningly large, and with the quintessence tracker crackling louder than they had heard it so far, there was no getting around the fact that it belonged to Keith.

Hunk immediately began babbling his worries, but Shiro’s heart was pounding too loudly in his ears for him to comprehend what he was actually saying. For a long moment he just stared at the bloodstain. It wasn’t until Lance stepped in closer to speak that he was broken out of his trance.

“Shiro? Do you think he’s…”

“No.” Yes. He didn’t know. It was a lot of blood. But he wouldn’t allow himself to believe that Keith was anything but okay until he saw him with his own eyes. “Pidge, is there a trail?”

She tore her eyes away to look at the screen, pacing back and forth a bit before nodding wordlessly and taking off through the bush. If her steps were a bit quicker now, no one blamed her. They just picked up their pace, too, solemn and silent other than Lance quietly updating Allura and Coran on what they had found.

Every once in a while, a small patch of dark red on a leaf or tree trunk would catch Shiro’s eye. He tried to take it as a good sign. If Keith had been able to pick himself up from whatever had happened and trek through the woods, then maybe he wasn’t too bad off. At the time. Two or more days later? It was impossible to say.

The walk from there only took a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Finally, finally, he spotted a small cave over the top of Pidge’s head, just as the tracker grew in volume and Pidge broke into a run.

“Keith? Keith!”

He was right on her heels, barreling through the opening, terrified of what he would find. And what he did see was almost exactly what he had feared - Keith, his skin far too pale under their flashlights, lying completely still on the ground next to the cold, charred remains of a campfire. There were rough slashes in his t-shirt, through which bloody scabs could be seen, and his right leg was almost entirely wrapped in large blue leaves tied off with what looked like dried grass. It didn’t take much guesswork to figure out that the sporadic dark stains on the leaves were blood.

“Keith.” Shiro was by his side without really knowing how he got there, sliding down onto his knees next to the unmoving figure. “No, no, no, no, Keith, come on, don’t do this to me.” He carded his hand through the messy black hair. “Keith, please.”

Pale lips parted, and a groan spilled out. Shiro nearly fell over with relief. Somewhere behind him, Lance was exclaiming his own relief in Spanish, while Hunk hovered just over his shoulder. Keith’s forehead, which he now noticed was coated in a sheen of sweat, furrowed, and he turned his head slightly to face Shiro before squinting his eyes open.

“Go ‘way,” he rasped, taking all of them by surprise. “‘re not real.”

“Yeah, yeah we are, buddy.” He stroked his hair again, then yanked off his glove so he could lay his flesh hand against his cheek, trying not to wince at the heat that met his touch. A fever. Whatever that wound was on his leg, it had probably gotten infected. No wonder he didn’t think they were real. “Doesn’t this feel real?”

Keith seemed to consider this, his brain probably having to work twice as hard as usual to process anything. Finally there was what seemed to be acceptance in those glazed eyes, but instead of seeming happy or confused or surprised or any of the emotions that they might have expected, he simply let his head roll back to the side and closed his eyes. “Come to...finish me off?”

“What? Keith, no, why would you think that?” Hunk exclaimed, dropping down right next to Shiro. “We came to take you home.”

“We’ve, uh...we were really terrible to you. It was really, really wrong,” Lance joined in.

Pidge shuffled her feet awkwardly. “Yeah. We, um. We want you to come back.”

“Even Allura is willing to reconsider, but whatever she decides, we're getting you out of here.” Shiro took one of Keith’s hands in his own and squeezed. “I never should have let her dictate how you were treated to start with.”

Silence fell for a moment. Keith cut his eyes up toward Shiro, not moving his head. “Knew you weren’t real.”

Pidge gave an exasperated grunt. “Keith -”

“Don’t worry about it right now.” Sliding his glove back on, Shiro straightened and got ready to pick Keith up bridal style. “He’s burning up with an infection. We’ll have to talk to him later, once he can actually comprehend what’s going on. For now let’s just get him back to the Castle and into a pod.”

Shiro scooped Keith up gently into his arms, causing him to cry out when his leg was jostled. “I’m sorry, bud,” he whispered. “You’re gonna be okay.” He didn’t at all like how light he felt, nor how gaunt his face looked. It had only been a week, but it didn’t seem like he had eaten much in that time.

Now that they knew where they were going, the walk back to the Green Lion went by quickly. Pidge flew them back to their own Lions, with Hunk and Lance towing Black to the Castle so that Shiro could stay in Green’s cargo hold with Keith. He didn’t want to let him go, couldn’t even keep his eyes off of him. He was too afraid that if he looked away, he would be gone, would succumb to his infection or perhaps just vanish into thin air. In the better lighting of the Lion, Keith looked all the more pale and feverish, his breaths coming shallow as he mumbled unintelligible words and occasionally whimpered with pain.

“What kind of injuries are we dealing with here, Number One?”

Shiro barely remembered arriving at the Castle and exiting the Green Lion, but there he was, standing next to Coran and a stretcher. Tenderly, he settled Keith down onto the padded surface. “Not sure. Maybe an animal attack of some kind? I haven’t been able to get a look at his wounds yet. He’s got a fever for sure, though, so they’re probably infected.”

Coran’s face turned grim. “That’s unfortunate. We won’t be able to put him into cryosleep until his temperature is back to normal.”

Gritting his teeth, Shiro found Keith’s hand and held it as they walked toward the infirmary. Poor kid just couldn’t catch a break. He didn’t deserve any of this. And now it sounded like when he was back to himself, they were going to have to go back through a whole three years’ worth of self-esteem boosting...maybe even more. He let out a long sigh. It seemed like he had just finally convinced Keith that he was worth loving, that he was important, that not everyone in his life was going to abandon him.

Then he sat back and let everyone in his life abandon him.

Coran sucked in a loud breath through his teeth as he peeled back the crude leaf bandages. “Yes, this is most certainly infected. And I would say that your animal attack hypothesis is correct. These look mostly like tooth marks. Quite deep.”

It looked mostly like a mangled, bloody mess to Shiro. His stomach turned, not just from the smell of the infection, and he was glad that Hunk wasn’t there at the moment. “What do we need to do?”

“Well, I’ll need to clean these. You might want to hold him down for that part.”

Keith bucked and writhed under Shiro’s hands as Coran poured antiseptic over his leg, screaming in agony. Shiro was pretty sure his heart was permanently residing in his throat now. He whispered reassurances, hardly knowing what he was saying, well aware that Keith probably couldn’t hear or comprehend any of it.

After a thorough cleaning, Coran wrapped the leg in clean bandages and pulled a thin sheet up over his waist. Shiro sank into the bedside chair, relieved beyond words that the worst part was over. They spoke very little as they went about the rest of the work that needed to be done, Coran handing Shiro the antiseptic and a clean cloth so that he could work on the claw marks across Keith’s chest, then focusing himself on preparing an IV bag of antibiotics and nutrients. Shiro gently smoothed adhesive bandages over the cuts when he was done. When he looked up, Coran was sliding the IV into place in the back of Keith’s hand.

“That should do it for now. I’m going to get a cool, wet cloth to help bring his fever down, but he should recover just fine.”

It was only then that Shiro finally allowed himself to dissolve into tears, like he had been wanting to ever since finding Keith in that cave. Burying his face in his hands, he let the tears soak his cheeks and the sobs wrack his body, uncaring for once that someone was there to see him fall apart.

A sturdy hand landed on his back, rubbing soothing circles. “There, there, lad. I know it’s been a rough few quintants, but it’ll be alright.”

“Will it?” Shiro scrubbed at his face with his flesh hand. “You should have seen him, Coran. I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to trust any of us again.”

The adviser heaved a sigh. “I don’t know, either. I’m not sure if I would be able to trust us, if the roles were reversed. But perhaps, with time, we’ll be able to prove to him that we do, indeed, care for him.”

Once Shiro had cried himself out, Coran convinced him to go change out of his armor and possibly get something to eat. He was surprised to find all three of the other paladins sprawled out on the floor just outside the infirmary, remnants of snacks scattered around them and expectant looks on their faces.

“Well? Is he...okay?” Pidge asked tentatively.

Shiro sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Physically, it seems so. He’s stable for now, at least, and Coran thinks he’ll be fine. We just have to make sure his fever doesn’t get too high.”

They all nodded slowly, seeming lost in thought. He imagined they were all thinking about the “other than physically” part that he had failed to comment on.

Hunk cleared his throat. “Is he awake?”

He shook his head. “He’s been in and out, but he’s resting pretty peacefully for now.”

“We didn’t want to, you know, be in the way,” Lance supplied. “But you can let us know when it’s okay for us to see him. Or we can take turns watching out for him.”

“Alright. I’ll let you know.” Right now he couldn’t imagine leaving his side, not for longer than he was doing right now. As he started down the hall again toward his quarters, he met another unexpected presence - Allura, lurking just around the corner from where the paladins sat, looking abnormally anxious. He stopped abruptly, not sure he was ready to see her again yet.

“I heard your update,” she stated after a moment of awkward silence. When Shiro said nothing in return, she pursed her lips. “I suppose we have some more discussions ahead of us now.”

“No. We don’t.” Allura’s eyebrows flew up in surprise, but he didn’t give her time to respond. “There’s nothing to discuss. Either you accept Keith back as the Red Paladin...and treat him just as well as the other paladins, or he and I leave. Whether or not the others stay is up to them.”

Allura’s brow furrowed, and she dropped her gaze to the floor with nothing else to say. Pushing past her, Shiro continued to his room, hurrying through changing so he could be back with Keith.

.o.0.O.0.o.

They would tell Keith later that he had been out of it for around two days before the fever broke. All he knew was that he woke up in the infirmary of the Castle with no memory of how he had gotten there, and assumed he must have been hallucinating again. He was actually a bit surprised that the wounds from that death beast hadn’t killed him yet...or maybe they had. Maybe this was some sort of purgatory or something, though the infirmary seemed like a strange choice.

It made a bit more sense when he turned his head to the right and saw Coran sitting there studying him. Seemed maybe he was going to have to face people he had failed in life before he could move on to whatever came next.

“Are you with us this time, my boy?”

Wrinkling his eyebrows at the strange question, Keith licked his dry lips with an equally dry tongue and tried to come up with something to say, but all that came out was a raspy, “What?”

Immediately Coran went into action, producing a hydration pack from somewhere nearby and holding the straw up to Keith’s lips. The cool liquid hit his throat like a slice of heaven, and he gulped greedily.

“Not too fast, now. Don’t want you making yourself sick.”

Keith nearly whined when the straw was pulled away, but he could already feel the liquid sloshing around inside of him, so it was probably for the best. Clearing his throat, he decided he could try talking again. “What am I doing here?”

“You were in pretty bad shape when the others found you. Something had torn your leg all up, and it had gotten infected. We couldn’t put you in a cryopod until your fever went down, which it seems it now has.”

His eyes darted around the cavernous white room. “So...this is real?”

The corner of Coran’s mouth tilted up. “Yes. It’s real.”

He had kinda suspected after the water. But that left one major question…“Why?”

Before Coran could respond, the door slid open, and Keith turned his head to see Shiro enter the room. The sight of his surrogate brother had him torn between happiness and a strange sense of dread, leaving him to clench the sheets in his fists and wait for some kind of reaction to come. Half of him expected it to be disgust, or anger, or maybe just an apathetic announcement of what his new punishment for existing was to be.

Instead, Shiro’s face lit up with a happy, almost hopeful expression. “Keith?”

“Wait, is Keith awake?” another voice called from the hallway behind him. Lance’s head poked through the doorway, making Keith’s stomach clench, before he turned and yelled back down the hall. “Hey guys, Keith’s awake!”

All at once the infirmary was filled with almost all the people who hated him, all crowding around his bed and staring down at him with faces he couldn’t read. They were going to hurt him. He knew they would, why else would they have brought him back here? Obviously they had changed their minds and decided they had been too lenient. What were they going to do to him? How much pain would he be in now?

He couldn’t breathe. Suddenly it felt like that beast was sitting on top of him again, crushing his chest, and he struggled to draw in air through an open mouth while tears stung his eyes. His hands shook where they were still gripping the sheets. People were talking, but it sounded as if his ears were stuffed full of cotton and he couldn’t make out any of the words.

He almost didn’t notice when the crowd above him dispersed, but it did help his breaths start to come a little easier. Only there was still Shiro, and he still didn’t know where Shiro stood on any of this. The Black Paladin sat down next to the bed and tried to grasp his hand. Keith yanked it away.

“Don’t...don’t.”

“Okay. I won’t touch you. Do you know where you are?”

Of course he knew, that was the whole problem. “Yes.”

“Okay. You’re safe now, Keith.”

Safe. Yeah, right. There was no such thing as safe, not anymore. He had thought the Castle was safe, that these people were safe, but he had been wrong. “Why?”

Shiro looked at him in mild confusion before choosing what to say. “We made a mistake, leaving you there. We -”

Keith rolled away, tucking his hands up next to his chest, cringing at the pain that still radiated through his leg. He didn’t want to hear it explained, how they wanted to punish him further. Yet at the same time, he needed to know what was coming.

“Keith…”

“Now?”

It had been a long time since Shiro had needed to interpret his one word sentences, but luckily it seemed he was still good at it. “Now you keep resting and getting better until we can put you in a pod for your leg.”

“Why?”

That one seemed to give him pause. “So...you’ll be well.”

Were they really going to prolong the torture like this? Make him get well before they did away with him? He curled up tighter. “Just...kill. Now.”

“Kill? Keith -”

“Please.”

The chair scraped across the floor, and Keith flinched. Footsteps came around the bed. He tensed, waiting for the blow. The air in front of his face stirred, and Shiro’s voice came from very close.

“Keith, can you look at me, please?” When he didn’t comply, Shiro put a hand on his fists and pulled them down so that they were face to face. “No one is going to kill you. No one is going to hurt you. You’re back on the Castle because we were wrong. They were wrong about you being untrustworthy, and I was wrong about my duty to Voltron being more important than my duty to you. I’m so, so sorry that I let them kick you out, and that I didn’t come after you sooner. You will always be more important to me than the rest of the universe. You’re my brother. I love you.”

Tears welled up in Keith’s eyes despite his reluctance to believe any of it. Tugging his hands out from under Shiro’s, he covered his face again, unable to respond.

Shiro let out a long, quiet sigh. “The others want to apologize, too, at some point. But for now you should try to get some more rest. You’re still recovering from the infection.”

He didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t trust that he wouldn’t be messed with while he was asleep. But his body decided for him that it was ready, drifting off without his permission.

.o.0.O.0.o.

Keith hadn’t really improved by the next couple of days. He slept some, he ate some, and his color and temperature seemed to be returning to normal. But he regarded everyone who came into the room with the wary stare of a cornered wild animal, and he still wasn’t speaking more than one or two words at a time, if that. Just as Shiro had feared, he had reverted back to the year that they had met, except worse.

He tried to spend as much time in the infirmary with him as he could, hoping that the company would eventually coax him into relaxing. The other paladins still hadn’t gotten their chance to talk to him. Everyone, including Shiro, was afraid their presence would trigger another panic attack. He had already nearly gone into one when Hunk had delivered his breakfast that morning, and had been extra jumpy around Coran, too.

Shiro was eating his own breakfast, trying not to focus too much on the fact that Keith’s was just sitting there untouched, when he heard a telltale sniffle. Keith was sitting up, propped on some pillows against the wall, but his head was turned away from Shiro, as was pretty common. Even so, he could see the shimmer of a tear as it streaked down his face. Setting aside his bowl, he rounded the bed and settled down on the edge, expecting the flinch that followed but still hating it.

“Talk to me, Keith.”

He didn’t expect a response at all, and especially not a long one. But Keith angrily dashed the tears away, forever hating himself for ever crying, and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Why didn’t you just leave me there?”

Shiro’s eyes widened. “What? Why?”

“I was almost dead. It would have all been over. You should have just left me there.”

Heart aching, he scooted in closer, though Keith leaned even further back away from him. “Keith, no. We don’t want you dead. We want you here, alive and well, with us. If you died, I...I thought you were dead, when I first saw you. And it was like...it was like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I don’t know if I could survive it.”

Keith’s face, passive up until then, creased with a look of emotional pain that Shiro could hardly stand. “But why should I live? I’m...I’m Galra, Shiro. I’m one of them. But not even really Galra, just some cross-breed freak of nature. I never should have existed. Maybe that’s why my mother walked out on me, she knew I was a freak and she couldn’t stand to -”

“Stop it. Keith, stop.” He grabbed his shoulder and shook it, not caring at the moment whether it startled him. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. You are not defined by who your parents or grandparents or anyone else were. You are you. You are Keith Kogane, Red Paladin of Voltron, best pilot at the Galaxy Garrison. You’re a survivor. You’re a fighter. Not because you have Galra blood, but because the universe has thrown every hard thing that it could think of at you and you’re still standing strong.”

“I’m not standing strong, don’t you see me?” Keith met his eyes finally, a tiny bit of his old spark of anger visible. “I’m pathetic. Maybe I was the Red Paladin, maybe I was a survivor and a fighter, but right now I don’t think I can be any of those things. I don’t want to fight anymore, Shiro. I’m tired of surviving. I just want…” He broke down into tears again, covering his face with his hands.

Moving over closer, Shiro wrapped his arms around his brother and pulled him in tight. “You want what?”

Keith’s shoulders shuddered beneath him. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t trust any of them. I can’t trust any of them.”

“I know.”

For a long time, they sat together like that, Keith’s face buried in Shiro’s chest while he cried out all his tears. Shiro ran his fingers through his hair, trying desperately to come with anything he could say to comfort him.

“Do you think you could listen to them, if they come and talk to you? Just one at a time, not everyone at once. I know they’re really anxious to speak to you, and I think it might do you some good, too.” Or at least he hoped.

It took him a minute to answer. “I don’t know.”

“Okay. Well, it doesn’t have to be now. But I’d like you to consider it.”

Keith just nodded.

.o.0.O.0.o.

He had been in bed for days. The infection was all but gone, there was no longer any danger in putting him in a pod, and doing so had been brought up a couple of times. But Shiro and Coran must have noticed how he shrank into himself every time it was mentioned, because they dropped the subject and just continued to let him stay there.

He didn’t want to go in a pod. Being forced unconscious for who knew how many hours or days was just too vulnerable, and he already felt that way far too much, anyway. After all, he was stuck in bed in the middle of a ship full of people who hated him. He was pretty confident that Shiro would try his best to protect him, and Coran might, too. The Altean had taken the time to sit down and apologize to him for his role in the whole mess, and based on the way he had been treating him Keith was fairly sure he could be trusted.

But that left four others, all who had weapons, one of whom had some kind of weird magic and was literally connected to the Castle. He didn’t feel safe, and he hated it. There hadn’t been many places in his life that he had been able to truly let down his guard and feel safe. A foster home or two, though later on he had become so jaded that even the good ones didn’t feel like they would last. The Garrison to some extent, at least as long as Shiro was there.

And the Castle. Yeah, there was always the chance of an attack, and there had been the couple of times that someone had snuck on board without them knowing. But in all of those situations he had known that there were people around who had his back, people that he could count on. It was the most at home he had felt since Shiro had left for Kerberos.

Now it was those very same people that he was afraid of, as stupid and weak as that made him. The thought was almost laughable. Him? Afraid of Lance, Hunk, and Pidge? But he couldn’t get the hatred he had seen in some of their eyes out of his head. Couldn’t forget the venom in their voices. Couldn’t erase all the times he had watched them, hallucinations or not, show up in that cave with insults on their lips and weapons in their hands, ready to make him pay for the crime of being part Galra.

He didn’t want to talk to them. But he knew that Shiro really wanted him to, and that meant he would have to do it sooner or later. Maybe if he went ahead and got it over with, they’d leave him alone more, and then when his leg was healed enough that he could actually walk it’d be easier to leave. He hadn’t figured out where he was going - definitely not back to Borulmyte - or how he’d get there, but leaving was the best option for everybody.

“Will you...stay? If I let them…”

Once again, Shiro knew exactly what he was talking about, despite the question being out of the blue. “Of course. I’ll be right here with you the whole time.”

Sinking back into the pillows, Keith hugged himself. “Okay.”

Shiro smiled softly. “Okay. I’ll send them a message and let them know you’re ready.”

Hunk was the first to come in. He burst into tears pretty much as soon as he walked through the door and saw Keith, and cried so much the whole time that his many, many apologies could barely be understood. It made Keith uncomfortable, if he was honest. He had never known how to deal with tears, his own or anyone else’s. But Hunk was so obviously genuine and straightforward, and he had always had a hard time believing that there was any part of such a loving person that could have held such malice.

“I get it.” It took everything in him to force multiple words out, but he knew he had to this time. “It’s hard to...stand up. When...everyone else...disagrees. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay, it’s so not okay!” Hunk blubbered. “I don’t know if it would have done any good for me to say anything or not, but I still should have done it.”

Keith nodded. “Okay. You’re right. It wasn’t okay. But…” He took a deep breath. “I forgive you.”

The way Hunk’s face lit up was totally worth the difficulty of saying the words. “Really, man? Thank you. Like, really, thank you, you don’t know how happy that makes me. I know we’ve never been, like, the best of friends, but I’ve always really wanted to get to know you better, I mean if you’d be okay with that, it’s totally up to you, but maybe sometime when you’re feeling better we can like, hang out? Also I know you haven’t been eating much right now but I am definitely making you brownies when you feel up to eating them. Like, a ton of brownies. All the brownies I can possibly make. Hey, maybe you could help me make the brownies! Cooking is such a good way to bond, I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before! What do you think, does that sound okay? Or I mean, if you really don’t want to hang out with me at all, I totally understand that, too, I just -”

“Hunk.” Keith’s lips twitched upward slightly as the breathless Yellow Paladin finally screeched to a halt. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

Hunk beamed. “Great! Okay, I’m gonna like, go, and let somebody else come in here, ‘cause, yeah. Feel better, Keith!”

When the room was empty again, Shiro leaned over and squeezed his hand. “How do you feel?”

“Good.” He was surprised to find it was actually pretty true. A small burden had been lifted from his chest.

“Good. You ready for Lance or Pidge?”

Keith’s heart started beating double time again. “Lance.” Even though he had been more active in the process of his condemnation, Pidge’s response had hurt the worst.

The boy that came into the infirmary wasn’t the Lance that Keith knew. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off the floor, or his hands, or anything but Keith and Shiro, and when he spoke his voice was so soft it was barely audible.

“I don’t know why I did it.” He picked at a loose thread on his jeans. “I just get...so emotional, so caught up in the moment sometimes...I’m really just as much of a hothead as you are.”

If his demeanor and apology hadn’t caught Keith’s attention, that statement did. Lance, admitting he was as bad as Keith at something? “Thought that was because...I’m Galra.”

Lance’s face pinched. “Yeah. I said some pretty stupid things. I mean…” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe it is because you’re Galra. But still, it’s...you’re just you. And that’s okay. Maybe we don’t always get along, but I don’t really think you’re evil. I mean, I guess I kinda thought you could be. It was stupid, though. I’m an idiot, that’s what I’m getting at. There’s no real explanation, just...I’m sorry, like I said.”

Part of Keith wanted to accept that. Part of him didn’t think he could. “I...thanks. For apologizing. I think...maybe I can forgive you...soon? Maybe not yet. But, yeah. Soon.”

Lance nodded. “That’s fair. I didn’t really expect you to, like, at all, so…” He finally flicked his eyes up to meet Keith’s. “I think you and I could use to work on some things, anyway. Like, you know, not acting like we hate each other. Because I don’t. Hate you, that is. And I’m...pretty sure based on what Coran said that you don’t hate me, either.”

“No. I don’t. And yeah, that...that sounds good.”

“Okay. Good.” A brief smile flashed over his face, then he nodded again and excused himself.

“You still doing okay?”

Keith pressed his lips together. “Think so. I’m nervous, though. About Pidge.”

Shiro smiled sympathetically. “I know. Just give her a chance, ‘kay?”

Pidge shuffled into the room in a very similar fashion to Lance, eyes on the floor. She perched on the very edge of the chair that each paladin had occupied, kicking her feet back and forth since they didn’t quite touch the floor. In a low voice, she said her apology and explained that she had let her hurt over her family get the best of her, but insisted that it didn’t excuse her blaming him.

It took a moment longer than the others for him to find his words. “I remember what it was like...missing somebody. Believing that they were still out there, but not knowing for sure. I mean, it wasn’t my actual family...unless you count my mom, which...at least I knew she chose to leave. So, she’s...probably fine.” Just didn’t want him. “But Shiro is the closest thing I’ve had to family since...since my Pops. And it’s hard. I mean, I kinda went ballistic, broke into a commanding officer’s office, punched a bunch of other officers, and got kicked out of the Garrison.”

“You what?” Shiro broke in, sitting forward, then realized his interruption and sat back, waving a hand. “Never mind. Sorry. We’ll talk later.”

Pidge snickered a little, and Keith took that as encouragement to continue. “But, yeah. I know how hard it is, and I would never, never wish that on someone else.”

Her head popped up, eyes wide and wet behind her glasses. “I know you wouldn’t. I know...I know you didn’t have anything to do with it, I never should have said something like that. You...you’re right, you understand probably more than anyone else, and I…” She trailed off, ducking her head as tears spilled down her cheeks.

Once again, there was someone crying in front of him, and he didn’t know what to do. But he was pretty sure what any of the other paladins would have offered in this situation, so… “Do you, um...need a...hug?”

The next thing he knew he had an armful of Pidge, curled up on the bed next to him and leaving tears and snot all over his shirt. He patted her back awkwardly. “You’ll find them. I know you will.”

“Why are you comforting me? I’m supposed to be in here helping you to feel better, this is not how this is supposed to work!”

Keith frowned. “Um...sorry?”

Pidge glared at him, not at all intimidating with her sopping wet face. “No, don’t apologize, that’s my job, too!”

“Sorry!”

She punched him in the ribs. “You’re a good hugger. Why are you such a good hugger.”

Keith was just getting more confused the longer this conversation went on. “I...don’t know? It certainly isn’t from practice.”

Tilting her head back, she narrowed her eyes at him as if she could see into his mind. “Do you not like hugs?”

“No, I...do.”

“Then I’m gonna hug you. Every day. From now on.”

“Aw, can I get Keith hugs every day, too?”

Keith startled a little bit when he realized that Hunk and Lance had returned to the room, but forced himself to relax. This was okay. They weren’t going to hurt him. They had all been very open with him, and even though it was going to take some time, he thought he could learn to trust them again.

“I...guess?”

“Yay!” Hunk settled onto the end of the bed, and Lance took the now empty chair, folding his long legs up into it. Shiro scooted forward again to be in Keith’s line of vision.

“How are you feeling now? Think maybe you can keep surviving a little longer?”

He felt Pidge tense in his arms, and Hunk’s face froze while Lance’s went carefully blank. Keith swallowed. “Yeah. I think...maybe I’m ready for that pod now. So I can finally get out of this bed and...I don’t know, kinda figure this out all over again.”

Shiro ruffled his hair fondly. “I’m glad. We’ll all be there with you for every step, okay?”

There was one more question, though. “What about Allura?”

Shiro’s face darkened slightly. “I’ve already told her she can either treat you the same as everyone else, or we’re leaving.”

“Nah, we won’t leave,” Pidge piped up. “There’s more of us than there are of her now. We’ll just stage a mutiny.”

Keith laughed awkwardly. “Somehow I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“I don’t think so, either, because I think she’ll come around,” Lance said. “But the point is, Mullet...we’re gonna support you.”

“You’re part of the Space Family now, dude!” Hunk cheered.

“Exactly,” Shiro smiled. “And Space Family has to stick together.”

The others kept chattering quietly, someone throwing in something about “ohana” in a weird voice, which triggered a whole conversation about some movie that he didn’t care about keeping up with. Closing his eyes, Keith let his body truly relax for the first time since before going to the Blade.

And he felt safe.

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

Thanks so much to everyone who joined me this month!!! This was my first ever Tumblr writing challenge, and it was a blast. You guys are what made it so much fun, with all the comments and likes and reblogs! Thank you!

If you want more Keith whump from me sometime in the future, you can follow me on here, on FFN, or follow the series "In which I whump Keith" on AO3...and if you haven't read Abyss yet (my first Keith whump fic!), you should check it out!

Happy Halloween and Happy Whumping!

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abrasife · 4 years

Note

They're sitting on one of the school benches together as they typically do, enjoying the first warmth of springtime with an outdoor lunch. They'd sat in comfortable silence for the last few minutes, and it's only as a car drives by that Hugh speaks again, smirking as he does. "Hey, dude. What kind of car does an egg drive?" He allows a pause for contemplation, though not to answer. "A yolkswagen." His gaze darts to Keith, and he sips his water, anticipating a reaction. (Unovasrage)

UNPROMPTED ┊always accepting. ❪❪ @unovasrage * ✶

Having lunch with Hugh was nothing out of the ordinary at all. In fact, if he wasn’t eating lunch on his own, the only other possibility would be that Keith was enjoying the break with Hugh. It was odd, in a way, how he was comfortable eating with him and not other people, but, he supposed, it made sense since he never made any sort of comment or indication of caring what he had brought at all (that is, if Hugh knew of his issues regarding meals anyway). In other words, Keith was grateful that he kept things normal and didn’t make the situation feel uncomfortable.

And the best thing was that even the silence didn’t put him on edge like it would with most people. He’d always worry he had said the wrong thing, but with Hugh, that didn’t seem to ever be the case at all. Everything was so low-stress that simply being in Hugh’s presence was therapeutic. Don’t ever think he’ll say this out loud!

The sound of a car racing by made him lift his head from the glass tupperware he had stored his lunch in, and it was Hugh’s question that drew his attention towards his friend. He stared at him like a deer in headlights, completely missing the humor due to an unrelated thought of ‘what kind of car was a volkswagen again?’. Though, he recovered himself within a second, forcing out a short laugh to at least not let the joke fall flat.

A yolkswagon yolkswagen? All he could picture was an egg being towed around in a bright red wagon. He wasn’t too informed on cars. All he knew was that the one car sitting in his garage was a red minivan. However, as the joke was related to food eggs, his mind had automatically started shifting towards a forbidden train track again. Egg yolks had a lot of fat in them... he wouldn’t want to eat them. The whites—sure (since they had slightly more protein than the yolks), if animal products weren’t on his list of ‘do not touch’.

❝ You know, eggs are a super good source of protein because they have all nine of the essential amino acids you need to keep yourself healthy. Of course, you can’t eat that many, since each large egg is thirteen grams of it considering most people need only about forty to sixty grams of it daily. Plus you also need your non-essential proteins too, which eggs don’t give you. ❞

#* ✶ ❪❪ asks ❫.#unovasrage #* ✶ ❪❪ in character ❫.#* ✶ ❪ a world set in the time and world of the present┊❛ мσ∂єяи νєяѕє ❜ ❫#;; ahhhh HUGH I MISSED HIM #;; LET ME SEND ALL THE PLATONIC BONDING FOR THESE TWO

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forgotten-daydreamer · 4 years

Text

in defense of Allura

Disclaimer: I do not accept any kind of hatred under this post. I expect all readers to act politely toward those who don’t share their opinion, and I expect you to expose your own ideas respectfully. Toxicity is forbidden on my blog. I don't hate any character, and this is just an analysis. Anything that stimulates a mature debate is welcomed, as long as you do it politely. Thank you!

The time has come. Long enough I’ve dwelled upon the choices that the writers of VLD have made, especially in the last seasons: in this post, I’ll focus on the decisions concerning Princess Allura.

We were introduced to Allura in the pilot of the show, and it only took a few minutes- should I say doboshes?- to understand her overall personality. The Princess stumbled out of the pod, disoriented and confused, and only an instant later- the time necessary to snap out of her groggy state- she defended herself against a possible threat, being Lance in this case: she physically overwhelmed him with only a few rapid moves, her grip on him steady. Everything about her body language and verbal language screamed “strength”, in the following scenes as well. As she remembered about her father’s death, and about her homeplanet Altea being destroyed, the initial shock faded rather rapidly, and in a few instant she recovered from it. This doesn’t mean that if she hadn’t done it she would have been weak, not at all; it means that Allura, being a leader, knew how to put her feelings aside for a better situation, in order to better focus on the mission at hand.

It’s immediately clear to us that she wasn’t minimally interested in Lance’s advances: she considered him as a teammate, and later as a dear friend, but nothing more than that was shown in the first seasons. When Lance got badly injured, she didn’t seem too worried- though she immediately jumped into action to secure the perimeter. A couple of episodes later, when Lance exited from the healing pod, she spoke to the teen kindly, relieved that he was alright. Yet, this is not a sign of being in love: all of us would be happy if a friend of ours who was at risk was said to be finally out of the woods.

Allura was very practical, focused on her mission: she wanted to save the universe at all cost. At the beginning, her continuous arguments with the paladins may have given the impression that she was annoying and too strict, but she was simply driven by passion and desire to prove to everyone, herself included, that she could do the right thing for the universe. Though she never made it explicit, it was obvious that Allura cared about the opinion that the others had about her (even when she simply insisted on thanking the Arusians) because she tried to overcome her own insecurities by making herself as useful as possible to the cause. Even when she “just” flew the Castleship, she always offered her support and ideas to improve training, strategies and team bonding.

Throughout the seasons, we learnt that Allura had the tendency to blame herself, like when she thought that the Galra were tracking the team through her, for example. Allura also threw herself into battle if it meant saving the others, like when she pushed Shiro out of the way and ended up prisoner, or when she saved the Balmera and risked her own health, pushing herself too far to do the right thing and help the innocents that she couldn’t protect during the 10’000 years of absence. So, according to the evidence we had collected in the first seasons, Allura was selfless and caring, despite everything.

And then, just when we thought we’d seen it all, Allura became the paladin of the Blue Lion of Voltron (I’ll talk about this event in Lance’s p.o.v. in a different post, don’t worry). She was uncertain at first, but ready to dive head-first into the battle, willing to learn and improve her skills. Being an Altean, she immediately connected with Blue, and everything seemed rather easy; though at the beginning her piloting skills weren’t the best, she learnt in the matter of a single episode, and if you don’t consider it quick learning, then I don’t know what it was. Added to that, Allura was also talented, “progressing a lot faster than any of [the other paladins]”, as Lance said some time later.

When Keith confessed his Galra lineage, her attitude towards him was childish, but it was how someone would have normally reacted in a similar situation. People often have a hard time accepting someone that is unwillingly part of a group whose members caused them any harm; it’s one of the principles of racism, and that’s a synonym of ignorance as well. Human minds work like that, because we all tend to associate trauma with a certain group of people, or day, or any other input: it’s despicable, and sadly most people think like that. Luckily for all the Allura stans (me included, though I stan all the main characters of this show) she overcame this issue quickly. What I like about it was that she didn’t brush it off, but she apologised to Keith in person, evidently mortified for her behaviour, and after that she moved past it, accepting her friend and overcoming their differences happily. Mature people apologise, while childish ones pretend that their mistakes didn’t happen: by making amends for her mistake, Allura showed us just how mature she is for a 18/22 year-old (we do not have an official age, so my guess is as good as yours).

Things seemed to be going well for her: she learnt how to better manipulate quintessence, she gave Keith space when he needed to find Shiro after his mysterious disappearance, she learnt how to better pilot her Lion and so on and so forth. It was all going well, until Lotor’s arrival: then, it all started to go downhill.

Lance became inexplicably obsessed with her again, and at the same time, Lotor slowly manipulated Allura. Now, I don’t personally like Lotor since he willingly commits genocide for his own purposes, but I will not dwell further on the topic for it’s not my main discourse now.

Lotor tricked the Princess into believing him, she played into his hands, blinded by love. Mind that when I wrote “love”, my left eyebrow rose impossibly high. In fact, Allura had never shown to be interested in love; surely enough, she was romantically (and sexually, apparently) interested in people as we have witnessed, so the possibility of a love interest wasn’t odd at all. It was just sudden. Too sudden, for my personal opinion.

The problem I have with Lotura (Lotor x Allura, and I specify because I had to google the ship name) is that it’s based on nothing. The team was wholly against Lotor, except for Shiro who was not himself, quite literally. Allura never gave any impression of trusting people easily: not only when Keith said that he was half Galra, but also when Shiro begged her to trust Ulaz. She was hesitant and not happy about having someone she didn’t trust on board. Thus, her sudden burst of trust toward Lotor was odd, especially when it was quite obvious to most of the audience that the Galra prince was not telling the whole truth. I also wish that we got to see more interactions between Pidge and Allura and Hunk and Allura in s6 and beyond, since they rarely talked anymore despite being on the same team. Even Allura’s interactions with Coran were so diminished in number that they looked like complete strangers in the second half of the series, and it hurt.

I mark this point as the start of Allura’s downfall: from iconic character to mere love interest, which is not wrong at all per se, but it is when any other trait and development is purposefully ignored and forgotten by the writers “for the sake of the story”.

Thankfully, Allura seemed to recover quickly after Lotor’s betrayal (the scene when she flips him like a coin? Priceless), declaring all of her hatred towards the cruelties he’d committed and how he let her down irreparably. One good thing that Lotor did- and I have to admit that it was good- was that he made Allura discover new abilities and become stronger, powers-wise speaking. Yet, all of this was secondary to her being a love interest with no other apparent purpose. Why do I say this? Because as soon as she got rid of Lotor, she got together with Lance, and to be honest it’s not quite clear to me how or why.

I can’t deny that when I watched s1, I was an Allurance shipper; I was sixteen, a hopeless goofball who believed in all the clichés. Now, however, I do realize that Lance’s advances were annoying and obnoxious (and he’s my absolute favourite character, so this shows you just how honest I’m being, hopefully), and that I’m so grateful that Allura didn’t give in. At least, she didn’t do it at the beginning. In the last season, however, she fell in love with Lance in a single episode: when he asked her out, she seemed hesitant and only accepted because Romelle pushed her to give it a try. The dinner sequence was where Allura understood that Lance wasn’t the womanizer she thought he was, but I don’t believe that in reality that would have changed anything. You don’t simply fall in love in one evening only because your date’s family tells you that this person isn’t what they seem; in fact, that would worry me even more, personally, because it would mean that my date is a total stranger.

Lance’s “I love you” was not completely uncalled for, but simply very confusing: he seemed to be over her, but he became jealous when Lotor showed up. I tried so hard to see this as a “protective brother/friend” dynamic, but that sentence leaves no space for speculation (again, I’ll talk about Lance another time). What shocked me was Allura reaction’s to Lance’s confession.

She’d never looked at him with any kind of romantic interest, and even if some scenes may be seen as such (when she resuscitates him. And proceeds to hide it from the team. Yeah, another huge disastrous plotline), it’s undeniable that the Princess had trust-issues, and for a good reason too. That one time that she went against her team’s choice and trusted Lotor a bit too much, she got used and heartbroken. So why was she suddenly so in love with a boy that she’d always treated as nothing more than a good friend? My answer is: bad writing.

If Allura had shown any romantic interest in Lance for at least three consecutive seasons out of eight- to create a deeper connection- I would have taken it without complaining much. If Lotor hadn’t committed genocide and didn’t proceed to use Allura, I would have accepted Lotura too (friendly reminder that I don’t do ship hate unless ships involve rape, pedophilia and incest. So I’m not hating on Allurance and Lotura, though Lotor is a villain and I don’t like him, but that’s just my opinion). If Allura was allowed to be both strong and romantically interested in anyone, I would have taken it. But especially in s8, the writers erased her personality, turning a bright and iconic character into dating material. It wasn't fair to her nor to Lance, honestly.

The last straw was her sacrifice: Allura died to save the universe and since it was her main goal, I’m okay with it, though it hurt as she’s my second favourite character. What I didn’t like about it was that the villains got a happier ending than she did. Lotor, who committed genocide, got to live happily ever after with his parents, a violent conqueror and an abusive hag who ripped the universe apart to be with her son (I get it, mothers love their kids, but this is far too extreme). And furthermore, Lotor didn’t even like his parents, but still for some reason he was happy to be with them again, maybe because at least he got to spend eternity with someone that loves him despite everything.

Allura, however, died without saying goodbye to Coran, the man who stayed by her side for all their- but also ours- adventures, the one who believed in her the most and who did everything to protect her. She died without getting a last look at the universe she left behind, at the people who weren’t there in her final moments but that cared for her and vice versa (Shay, Romelle, even Krolia. Even the mice, Kalternecker and Cosmo, really). Each character had about a half a minute to say their goodbyes, except for Lance, whose goodbye was the longest but also the least impactful, in my opinion. The writers played too much with the dramatic idea of it and the result was sloppy- as much as I love dramatic scenes, this was purposeless.

Allura’s last act of kindness- as if saving the whole universe and every existing reality wasn’t enough- was gifting Lance with the Marks of the Chosen. Though, I’m not sure how to interpret it. In a fic I recently wrote, I theorised that “Allura gave you [Lance] these marks because she knew that you had greatness within, and they can actively remind you of it in your darkest moments [...]”. Of course, I’m far from sure that this is the real reason. My question is, was there even a real reason, or did Allura give him the Marks for dramatic purposes? If so, I’m glad that it wasn’t confirmed officially, because at least we get to make our own theories that surely are more satisfying than “we wanted fans to cry more”. Still, I see those marks as scars, and I will talk about it thoroughly in Lance’s analysis.

In conclusion, I don’t think that Allura was bad at all. I think that, in the end, she was simply badly written, which is entirely different.

s1-s5 Allura was a strong, compassionate, empowering, trustworthy, bright, lovable and fun character and for that, she deserved a better- much better- ending. She’ll always be in my heart, and I hope that future reboots will treat her right.

I will always remember Allura dearly. As Coran said in the final episode, “Just around this table I see so many lives touched by her actions. For some of us, she was a diplomat, a teacher, a leader, and a friend. But to those of us around this table, she will always be family”. Raising an imaginary glass, I just want to say... “To Allura”.

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nofacenocaseblog · 4 years

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𝗗𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 #3: NARCOPISOS Inc. /Barcelona narcopisos, a necessary evil

The 3rd episode of Dope Stories is the most in-depth investigation of the series, so much that it took me nearly 3 years to gain the trust and respect of my contacts and more importantly, to get relevant insights about the local drug market and its players to show, under a different angle than mainstream media, what’s happening behind the closed doors of the Ciutat Veilla’s narrow streets.

Playground 1 - Raval, Barcelona / 2018 / iPhone

“Drugs are ruining our neighborhood! “, “Narcopisos are disrupting the real estate market!” , “ We don’t feel safe!”…

Those are the slogans or headlines you see in the media or written on banners hanging from people’s balconies.

“Narcopisos are filthy and dangerous!”

But are they though?

FOREWORD

Before getting started, I wanted to write a few words about Barcelona. After living more than a decade in New York, my wife and I moved to Catalan capital for about 4 years. After reading this article you might think that I m not particularly fond of the town and its inhabitants. I won’t lie, we didn’t receive the warmest welcome, especially from Catalans. This said, the town and its vibe are unique and galvanizing. Very much like Marseille (my hometown), Barcelona is an harbor city with the port/marina right in the center, meaning: lots of traffics, smuggling, immigration, corruption, drugs etc… There is always “something going on”, if you catch my drift. Shady, nasty, funny, ugly, beautiful, vulgar, the cast of “pirate-like” characters gravitating around the city center is fascinating.

Occupied - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / Nikon 3200

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been drawn toward the forbidden, the danger, the illicit, the hidden, the bad... To my eyes, “ugly” has always been more interesting than “beautiful”. Barcelona is not a dangerous city but you need to keep your guard up: pick pockets roaming the subway, gypsies asking for money on La Rambla (the city’s most touristic avenue) while releasing your back pocket from your wallet, junkies selling stolen goods or begging for change for their next fix #nextfixandchill , black people selling fake airmax on the Barcelonetta marina, drunken street fights in the early hours of the morning... Tragicomic scenes are unravelling before your eyes in an surreal backdrop: Gaudi’s most beautiful “psychedelic” buildings (Sagrafa Familia, casa pedrera, Palau Guell...) in a jungle of gothic buildings ending on a fisherman village overseeing a beautiful beachfront promenade ending with the native “star’chitect” Bofill’s famous W...

Poolside - Barcelonetta, Barcelona / 2018 / iPhone

Ok, enough with the touristic tour, time to get real!

Stairway to Hell - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Embark on a descend to the heroin inferno that became Raval. From the fields of Afghanistan to the bloodstreams of Spain...

La Ruta [Spanish for “the route”]

19,414 Pakistanis live in Barcelona, 6,600 of them are established in the neighborhood: El Raval (1) meaning more than 30% of the total community. El Raval has always been my favorite barrio in town. With 47% of immigrants (2) , the mosaic of faces, cultures and shops you encounter is dazzling . Going back to the Pakistani population, I used the word “established” for a specific reason: they actually own many of the businesses in Raval: barbershop, cheap bars and restaurants, wholesale shops, import/export businesses, money transfer services (Western Union, Moneygram), food and grocery shops... I’m not accusing here the Pakistani business owners of backing the drug traffic but they basically created a web of small businesses in a tight net community with their own language, making it hard for the authorities to see through this social fabric potentially sheltering illegal activities.

Why the Pakistani population is subject to speculation and doubt from the local authorities? The answer is simple: Afghanistan. Afghanistan is by far the biggest producer of opium in the world. According to the US military, 90% of the world's heroin is made from opium grown in Afghanistan. It makes up 95% of the market in Europe (3). The country has been the leader in opium poppy production since 2001. Based on the 2014 report from the UNODC (United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime), Afghanistan not only grow opium but also process heroin in several laboratory as well as morphine (easier to produce from raw opium by adding calcium oxide and ammonium chloride). From Afghanistan, several routes are used to smuggle their prime commodities: the Balkan route has been the primary route but things are changing and the Southern route has become more and more used. Afghanistan share 2,400km of border with Pakistan and over 50% of illicit afghan opiates are trafficked through Pakistan which enjoys a a strategic location making it a perfect dispatch zone with readily accessible by land, sea (Gwadar and Karachi seaport) and air ways .

The same UNODC report also indicates that the majority (37%) of the heroin seized in Pakistan was en-route for Europe..

*** Read and/or download the full report here ***

By the way, let’s not forget that Barcelona is also one of the Camorra’s stronghold. And with Russians and Albanian mafias also present on the territory, Spain -where no powerful local crime syndicate operates and laws on prostitution and gambling are “blurred” to say the least- has become one of organize crime’s favorite playgrounds for money laundering, drug smuggling, human trafficking, gambling and prostitution... Nothing really happens here without their “green light”, but that’s another story (5)

Back to our Southern route, once the product reaches Barcelona, it becomes very hard to pin point. Narcotics coming through the Balkan route also ends up in Barcelona but in different “retailers”’ hands: Romanian family-based clans, based mostly in Besos (a run-down project in the heart of Poblenou) and occupying one single narcopisos in Raval (they have moved 3 times over the 4-year period of my “investigation”) but known to have the purest and most processed Caballo sold in town.

El Caballo [Spanish for “the horse”, street name of heroin ]

[WARNING] Most of the photographs of this post are uncensored, quite graphic and… of poor quality…. my bad, I took them. But I had circumstances: hidden cellphone, no flash, illegal activities going on, indoor, with very little to no light… Shots are not the best (no pun intended) but you’ll step right into the infamous narcopisos you’ve heard of or read about. And not once they’ve been searched and trashed by the police like you’ve seen in the press but while they are in full operation. Raw, those images might be quite shocking to some of the readers, but take the emotion out of he equation and you’ll come to realized that, for lack a better choice, narcopisos are a necessary evil. My intention here is not to start a polemic nor come out as a provocateur but to shed light on a real issue, still happening, involving real people, slowly dying, failed by a syste unable -or unwilling- to help them.

Gears - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

El Raval

1989, US superstar Keith Harring is in Barcelona for his exhibition on La Rambla. After speaking with an old friend of him from New York living here for awhile, he decided to paint a mural, his way to to show his love for and connection with the town. The next day, Harring chose the wall in Plaça de Salvador Segui in Raval. He was warned that the area was one of the most dangerous areas in town. Back then, in the 80’s the Spanish government had the genius idea to decriminalize the use, but not the supply, of hard drugs and did not implement any proper treatments to sustain this measure... Spaniards have ignored the issue and it sparked a heroin addiction epidemic that saw HIV rates soar (2a).The artist was attracted to the neighborhood and decided it would offer the perfect canvas for his message about the dangers of drugs and AIDS. At first it was supposed to be a temporary mural but in the end, up to this day, you can still enjoy Harring’s mural behind the MACBA museum. Below is a photograph I took of what became now hot-spot for skateboarder and cool bars

Tricks - Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / Nikon 3200

Beside its bad reputation, Raval has always been a magnet for artists and “cool kids”, misfits and outcasts but more recently the new kid on the block is named gentrification… in other word: Fun is over. Well… not quite yet. In Barcelona, everything moves slowly, gentrification included. The result is a mix of fancy hotels, art galleries, designer boutiques... mixed with prostitutes and their lovely clientele, dealers, junkies, businessmen, families of tourists wandering the streets… a fascinating mix of characters with theatrical scenes playing before your eyes: hustlers trying to rip off tourists, white collars finding themselves buying bad cocaine from a kid in a narrow, sketchy alley… the show is in the street, but not only.

The Narrows - Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / Nikon 3200

What businesses, in Barcelona, are open 24/7, have no vacancy, a steady stream of customers and a product that sells itself? The answer: Narcopisos Inc.

The phenomenon of the Narcopisos emerged in 2016 (a year after I moved to Barcelona) following Spain’s property crash. Foreclosed or unsold apartments, owned by banks and investment funds were left emptied, abandoned, in a country in full housing crisis... It wasn’t long before the vacant spaces started being squatted: some by respectable families, in need of a place to live, some by drug dealers using them as selling point and shooting gallery. A place where you can get a cheap fix in a relatively clean room.

Ritual - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Helped - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Thanks to my various contacts, I had access to different types of narcopisos, but from crack to dope houses, most of them were operating the same way: - a cctv video surveillance in place at the street level or someone looking out for the cops. - a room with junkies to confuse police upon arrival and make it look like they are actually squatting the place - 1 to 3 dealers serving customers one a the time. - An exit back door (if available) in case the police knocks on the front door. - One or two rooms for users. - Hourly cleaning of the premises to make the place look “decent” and “squatted” in case of a bust - Little quantity of drugs at the time, no more than 10 grams of each. - Open 24/7 - Re-up every hour or so - Single use paraphernalia available to the users - In some cases, Narcan at hand (medicine used to reverse the effect of an OD).

Cleaning Session - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

My connections in the Pakistani community took time to build but strengthen throughout the years to reached a level of trust where we came to split the bread at several occasions… no seriously, we actually got invited in their Halal “canteen” in Raval where only Pakistanis could enjoy their local cuisine, a unique experience… They also gave me access to two of their stash houses: located in legit apartments, in proper buildings, on the outskirt of Raval, close to Sant-Antoni, less prone to police check. No users there, only wholesalers, dispatching heroin to “representatives” of each narcopisos at below retail-price: between 20 and 40 euros the gram depending on the quantity purchased.

Going back to the narcopisos, some were run by junkies (where the product was often cut from the bash they were getting from the stash houses), some by pakistani or afghan immigrants, with decent quality product, some by Catalan families, living there for decades under stabilized rent and with their own connection and product of fluctuant quality. Last but not least, one narcopiso was occupied by the Romanian clan mentioned earlier. Below are some photos of one of their spot at 22 Carrer d’en Roig, later busted and walled by the Mossos d’esquadra (Catalan police)

Romanian at work - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

Boss - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

If narcopisos was selling both crack and heroin, two rooms were at the disposal of users, one for smoking their bottles or pipes and the other room to shoot up or smoke heroin on tiny pieces of foil.

Sterile hospital-like garbage disposal were available for discarding the used paraphernalia.

Bloodstream Hunt - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

#NextFixandChill - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Everything is provided to avoid the spread of disease and the use of the drug in plain sight in the street therefore reduce public disorder.

Not that dealers became humanitarian all of a sudden, but kicking customers with their (illegal) purchase out in the street expose them to being ratted on or worst, having an overdose in plain sight attracting the police and paramedics... either way, it’s not good for business so narcopisos’ “managers” rather keep their clientele indoor until they’re done using and good to do.

Now, there is another type of business in Barcelona dealing with drug users and addiction: it’s called Centre de Dispensació de Metadona - Centre d'Atenció Primària Casc Antic (the methadone clinic in short....).

* They’re not open 24/7 but rather in the morning only * It can take up to 2 weeks to see a doctor in order to enroll in a Methadone Maintenance Treatment -MMT (true story...when a single day can be the last one for a heroin addict living in the street) * Last but not least, since the doctors and nurses’ work schedule is way more important tthan their patients’ care, some centers give up 3 to 4 days worth of supply of methadone at once to heroin users so the health workers can have their days and weekends off. The result of this amazing system: the methadone is sold in the street by users so they can buy their heroin and/or in certain case, the methadone is saved up (for rainy days) and the patient keeps using heroin instead. Yes, the patient: let’s not forget that those “filthy junkies” actually are patients (even if they’re hardly seen as such in those centers), suffering from a disease called addiction, or substance abuse disorder if you prefer the american way of calling it, and in need of medical care but what can I say... old habits die hard (both way...).

Patients taking methadone to treat opioid dependance must receive the medication under the supervision of a practitioner. After a period of stability (based on progress and proven, consistent compliance with the medication dosage) and only then, patients may be allowed to take methadone at home between program visits... but not in Barcelona.

Methadone substitution as a treatment of opioid addiction does not function as much to curb addiction as to redirect it and maintain dependency on legal channels. Methadone has been designed that way, as a lifetime treatment whereas alternative palliatives such as Buprenorphine are not even considered by doctors when those therapies would be more efficient in certain cases: with users who do not shoot the drug for example, or with users wishing to quiet and get sober... but let's be honest here, sobriety has never been the objective of those methadone programs. The real goal of this public service is not to cure addiction, but to make sure junkies don’t use, steal, rob and/or commit act of violence in the streets to feed their habits

The patient here is not the users but the society. Those centers aren’t trying to help the user quit his habit, but to make sure the society doesn’t suffer from it. Good or bad, Narcopisos are curbing down the spread of diseases, cleaning up the streets from users as they offering temporary shelter to their customers and operate around the clock.. It seems to me that their function is almost... complementary if not necessary.

So before eradicating narcopisos from the face of Raval, let’s pause and look at the alternative: junkies buying and using drugs in the streets of the city center, in the worst sanitary condition possible with no regard for the residents around.

Mañana

So what’s next? Keeping those illegal activities going on? Certainly not.

But before jumping the gun and closing it all at once, better get ready for the alternative because drug addiction will not disappear with the narcopisos. In my last article, I speak about users stigmatization and how society still struggles to see addiction as a disease and not a will power issue, turning the blind eye to a sheer amount of studies and discoveries explaining how heroin addiction, over time, modify the pathway of your brain frontal lobe and affect your decisional power, making it hard -to not say impossible- to say “no”.

Don’t take me wrong. It would be naïve to think all users roaming the streets are here trying to quit and become their better self. Most of them have no intention to do so. I’m not here to judge nor take side. But in order to find a solution to the narcopiso situation, I would like to introduce Barcelona to his neighbor: Portugal.

Portugal had one of the worst heroin epidemic in Europe back in the 90′s and after the failed many “US war on drug”-type of approaches. They finally shift approach and started treated drug addicts as patients who needed help, not as criminals” says Goulao, the architect of Portugal drug policy. After the decriminalization and treatments, they planned to open “supervised drug consumption facilities” Naina Bajekal says in her 2018 article in the Time “where drug users can consume drugs in safer conditions with the assistance of trained staff. Such facilities have been running in Europe since 1986, when the first was opened in Berne, Switzerland.”(5)

The result? Evidence (6) shows these these type of sites save lives, reduce public disorder, and curb the spread of diseases.

Does that sound familiar? Yes, that's right, the first of the two businesses we spoke about: Narcopisos Inc.

Purgatory - Carrer d’en Roig 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

For No Face No Case: Dope Stories chapter 4, we’re going to Italy. Don’t worry, it won’t be another mafia-related article explaining how the N’Drangheta and Camorra became the most powerful crime syndicates in the world, you can watch that on TV. Called “Il Racconto dei Racconti” (Tales of Tales in english), the article will keep it real, street style: short stories from North to South: Torino, Milano, Genoa, Roma, Napoli... Stay tuned for some dope stories on how drugs are sold, used and abused in the Renaissance country

References (1) https://www.barcelona-metropolitan.com/featuresx/report-barcelona-pakistani-community/ (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Raval (3) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47861444 (4)https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/12/07/inenglish/1544171107_204329.html (5) https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/ (6) https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decriminalization/

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charlottemadison42 · 5 years

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On Good Omens and Faith

Here follow personal thoughts on what Good Omens has meant to me as an Exvangelical. There’s a lot of healing & hope here, but it gets a bit dark first, as worthy stories do.

CW: I wasn’t badly spiritually abused in church, but I’ll be discussing things that are spiritually abusive: purity culture, sexphobia, queerphobia, abortion, mild self-harm, failure to treat mental health appropriately, ableism -- plus the special ways church authority makes all of these especially hard.

I’m personally an atheist but this message is not an argument against faith itself, rather against the specific subculture I grew up in. If you are a person of faith you’re welcome here.

I grew up in the American Evangelical subculture of the 80′s and 90′s, in the Keith Green/DC Talk/Left Behind/Veggie Tales era. I got saved at a Carman concert in sixth grade, and re-pledged my faith just to be extra sure every year at summer camp and youth group retreats.

This upbringing is not unusual. Doesn’t make me special. But its effects were real.

I’m finally engaged in a reckoning with it, in the “I should maybe talk this over with a support group or therapist” sense. I was a worship leader and youth leader at a Vineyard church when I left my faith abruptly in 2007*. It took me ten years to tell my family and friends that I was an atheist. For that decade I didn’t think about it -- but when I confessed to my loved ones two years ago, the processing began in earnest.

If you came up Evangelical, you already know how literal our belief in angels and demons can be in certain strains of the church. Until I was 26, I believed they were real entities genuinely and invisibly at war all around me. The End Times were real and we were in them. The Antichrist was whatever high profile democrat could be weaponized at the moment, the Rapture was nigh, and Armageddon was imminent (which explained why tension kept building in the Middle East).

My church community regularly discussed friends and neighbors’ problems in the language of demon possession or harrassment: depression was a demon, addiction was a demon, promiscuity was a demon. I was part of casual and formal exorcisms and the occasional healing. No holy water, but there were hours of fervent prayers and tears, speaking in tongues and anointing with oil. It’s like a fever dream looking back at it now.**

Shout out to my other teens and tweens of the Frank Peretti era, forbidden from reading books of fantasy any later than Lewis or Tolkein -- Xanth was forbidden, Hogwarts was demonic. We were given instead (retrospectively) horrifying books about spiritual warfare, Christian takes on historical fiction, and end times fantasies. But they weren’t sold as fantasy to us, it was all real. Adults in positions of power confirmed it over and over. Narnia might be allegory but This Present Darkness supposedly illustrated spiritual truths.

I remember telling a trusted church teacher at age 10 or 11 that sometimes I would get scared at night, in the dark, and feel a palpable terror that kept me awake. They told me with no hint of comfort, “That means a demon is visiting you and sitting on your chest, trying to oppress you with fear so you will sin. Don’t wake your parents or read a book, instead you should pray or read only the Bible until the demon is compelled to leave, either by an angel or the presence of God.” This adult was affirmed by amens and mm-hmms.

I took this teaching to heart. I also understood, by implication, that if the bad feeling stayed with me then I was praying wrong -- that no angel would rescue me that night. I knew that my fear as it compounded in the dark was itself a sin that made God harder for me to reach.

These are not things that should be told to children.

Then there were the prophecies. (read more if this resonates with you, if not I’ll clip it here so I don’t take up your whole screen)

Anyone could prophesy in most churches I attended. Dreams were prophecies, visions were prophecies, vague feelings were prophecies. (That gave nightmares / being hormonal / being really hungry an awful lot of sway at Bible study.)

I had a woman prophesy over me weeping, with her hands buried in my hair, that she felt overwhelming grief for my future child. I was 23.

I have no child, and I harbored the secret at the time was that I didn’t want one -- a rebellion for me as a married woman. I feared she was prophesying an abortion in my future, and I was inconsolable for months at the damning choice that would visit me someday. (As of this writing at age 38 I’ve never been pregnant, for which I give all thanks to modern birth control.) I still wonder what happened to that woman’s child, or pregnancy, or perhaps her desire for a child, that this was her prophecy for me.

I heard much darker things prophesied over other people. I remember career changes (ill-advised) and marriages staying together (they shouldn’t have) and mission trips undertaken (that assuredly should not have been) because of prophesies.

Last, of course, I didn’t know it yet but I had many queer friends at the time. Some of them didn’t know it. We had no context in our small town -- and no corners of the internet to hide in and learn context, because the internet didn’t do much more than access our local library catalog at the time. I was told that demons sat on my chest to oppress me as a child, but I was shielded from understanding what a lesbian actually was until I was sixteen.

I remember feeling vaguely guilty when we prayed over this or that person in youth group, entreating God that they could resist their base urges. We prayed that they could choose a life of abstinence if they had to, rather than enter sexual sin and be cast out. I felt guilty but I still joined the circle to pray.

I’m sorry. I was wrong. Part of me knew it at the time. I wish I had listened to that part of me because that it was correct. There are fragments of my former faith I still treasure, but those prayers were rotten to the core.

Sidebar: Luckily that feeling of guilt bloomed quickly into rejecting queerphobic doctrine. By age 20 I decided I could only attend churches that did not preach homophobic takes on scripture from the pulpit, and that did not advocate/imply advocacy for any particular political party. The reason I mention this: if YOU are currently a person of faith in this position, uncomfortable with what you hear from your leadership, go find a church that’s queer-affirming, gives to the poor, and advocates for immigrants. Live in a conservative area? Create or join a home church. That’s what the early church looked like anyway. Don’t shrug off this responsibility. Shine a light.

Anyway. Several years later, I fell.

I had to step down from multiple church leadership positions in one day. My entire life changed in two months; marriage, job, home, friends, everything uprooted when I could no longer pretend to believe. I didn’t tell my family why everything fell apart, even as they let me crash their couches.

I had wanted to be a good believer. I read apologetics, the mystics, eschatology, theophostics. I taught and attended study groups, I took troubled teens out to coffee, I served the homeless, I waited til marriage. I was in church as many as thirty hours weekly. When I first felt my faith slipping I said “not yet,” and I read the entire Bible straight through twice, in different translations, while journaling through “My Utmost for His Highest.” Then, unsatisfied, I read and annotated the New Testament in interlinear Greek. I gave it my everything.

What could replace all that?

Time, it turns out. And freedom.

Freedom to not think about it was perhaps the kindest freedom. The constant labor of self-evaluation and thought policing that goes into Evangelical Christianity is exhausting. Letting it go of it felt like getting my mind back. Or owning it for the first time, since I never knew this freedom before. I had even been seeking counseling because I was hearing multiple voices in my head at once, all mine, often arguing. That problem vanished the hour I deconverted. I heard only one voice anymore, and it was my own.

For ten years I was free to just not think about it.

When I decided to remarry I realized that I didn’t want to explain to anyone why my ceremony would not include prayers or communion. So I told my loved ones at last that I was an atheist, a decade late. They received it graciously, and I’m sure they had known-but-not-acknowledged it for a long time. I hope they don’t worry about me or pray behind my back for my salvation. But if they do I can’t accept responsibility for it anymore.

Since that confession I’ve finally felt compelled to back at what all actually happened in church. It seemed so normal to me at the time. But wait, it wasn’t:

I exorcised people. I laid on hands for healings. I encouraged episodes of religious rapture, falling out, and speaking in tongues, and as a worship leader I knew the music cues to bring them about (yes, there are certain chord and tempo changes for that). I was present for prophecies that changed people’s lives and might have issued some myself, I don’t remember. I alienated people who didn’t fit in, whether because they were queer or just because they didn’t conform to church culture. I witnessed abuse and had no language to report it or even comprehend it. I hurt people. I was hurt.

I was told there were real demons in my room and I had to pray them away all by myself.

The work of undoing this mindf*ck (sorry friends of faith, that’s how it felt) suddenly turned urgent after being ignored for a decade. I can’t afford therapy, but thankfully Twitter chats and message boards and podcasts exist (thank you, @goodchristianfun and @exvangelical).

And then -- out of the blue -- along came my own personal angel and demon, along with Frances McDormand herself. I watched it on a whim. (Actually no, David Tennant’s hair made me.)

Apparently Good Omens had a few things to say directly to my mindf*cked subconscious:

1) Are you scared of demons in a pathological childhood trauma way? Here, have a helping of this amalgam of your favorite Doctor and scariest ever Marvel villain tearing it up as the demon Crowley.

2) Does your mild bookish personality and respect for the culture you grew up in keep you reflexively deferential to authority, even as it gaslights you and hurts others? Enjoy some Michael Sheen as the angel Aziraphale.

3) Are you stuck still mentally assigning a male gender to the god you always claimed was beyond gender? Boom, meet Her in all Her ineffable wisdom.

4) Are you terrified of the End Times, both as a Biblical horror of childhood and as an adult who reads the f*cking news? Let’s fantasize awhile about a solvable apocalypse (because what would that even look like, yo).

5) Do you keep reflexively binarizing good and evil? Still giving in to the temptation to characterize humans as righteous or fallen, especially celebrities and political prospects? Spend some time on Our Side with Adam, the utterly human Antichrist, as he makes choices that matter -- some goodish, some baddish, all with mixed consequences, because that’s what humans do.

6) Do you need more queer love stories in your life? Yes you do. Yes. YES. Here it is. The good stuff. Whether it’s gay, trans, genderfluid, asexual, agender, metaphysical, whatever (I’m enjoying reading all these takes and more on AO3) it’s a hell of a love story.

Good Omens was a f*cking revelation.

I’m not sure why the show hit me as hard as it did in the Exvangelical feels. It’s not that it’s a perfect show, but it was the right thing at the right time for me, and it brought a truck full of dynamite to the excavation I was just beginning with a trowel and a makeup brush. I finished watching ep 6 and thought “why do I feel like I’ll be thinking about this every single day for years?”

And then I looked down, and lo and behold I had an open chest wound -- inside of which I found the banished memory of a child trembling and praying in terror in a dark room.

There was a lot that I forgot about in the ten years it took me to hike away from Evangelical life. It all came rushing back.

I had forgotten the sweat and cries during exorcisms and the heat of laying on of hands. I had forgotten fits of ecstatic tears of self-hatred and self-denial so strong they were almost blissful, as I sang and chanted mantras like “I am nothing, You are everything.” I had forgotten giving away ten percent of my income until I was 26. I had forgotten the constant mental effort of Being A Proverbs 31 Woman, about submission and complementarianism and feeling responsible to guard the virtue of men by never tempting them. I had forgotten the pressure to not even masturbate before marriage and to become a sexual athlete the night after.

I had forgotten the hours and hours of daily prayers. Every phrase was carefully carved in language my superego ran by my doctrine, to make sure no hint of rebellion ever bled through. I washed words of need and doubt and frustration from my mind so they could never slip between me and my Heavenly Father. I didn’t just want to hide thoughts God wouldn’t like, I would have cut them out with violence if I knew how. As a result I picked and ticced and cut and exhibited symptoms of OCD.

It hurt to remember all of this at once during a BBC Amazon Prime miniseries. It confused me. It confused my spouse. I looked at all these feelings, exposed and piled in a massive dirty heap -- and I spotted the straps I used to haul it around with me for decades. Who knew I could carry all that? The weight of faith?

But I don’t have to pick it up again. I had a new story to help me frame my story. I felt equipped with a flaming sword to face my past and a new syntax to describe the old ideas I'm ready to let go of.

I got to recast Heaven and Hell. I was invited to ask myself whether a cozy cluttered bookshop doesn’t beat them both hands down.

I got to reimagine angels and demons, good and bad, intentions and consequences. I was invited to live in the reality that we’re all of us humans in between, and that I’m probably still overinvested in the value of Good and Bad as yardsticks.

I got to reimagine western history. The show’s perspective of history is very limited and Eurocentric, but it’s also the version of history I was taught at an early age, which made the story a useful lens to deconstruct what I learned before I knew much about critical thinking.

The opening of Episode 3 in particular f*cked me up. First Aziraphale lies to God and She vanishes, then Crowley starts poking holes in the story of the Flood, then at the Crucifixion -- I started breathing hard on my first viewing, experiencing a real physiological threat response. I was loving it, of course, but distressed panicky love.

The second time I watched it I realized what was happening: I was going back to Sunday School to revisit ideas I absorbed before I was fully sentient, and examining them in the light of fully formed adult secular morality. They look different from here.

When God withdraws Her presence from Aziraphale in the first few moments of Ep 3 as he prevaricates (well, lies) I remembered the one great fear of my faithful life: that I could sin a particular sin and as punishment I would be cut off from God’s presence. As a believer in the End Times, that meant the Rapture could occur at any moment and I might be rejected, be left behind to experience the Tribulation.

Now, from some remove, I realize that I always had one fear larger. It’s a thought I never allowed myself to entertain consciously. Good Omens unearthed it like a vein of flowing lava:

If the Apocalypse as my church describes it is real, how could God want it to happen? And if God does, is this a God I want to worship? If I don’t, but I’ll be damned for that, is my faith freely chosen?

Whose side could I really be on, in the End Times, if not Heaven’s or Hell’s?

These are not small questions.

I’m relieved that I answered them a long time ago for myself.

But even after the answering, there’s fallout; a million little knots to untie and ideas to unlearn. We all get to spend our lives doing this sort of archaeological dig through our childhood baggage, I suppose. My Stuff is certainly not unique. It’s just a lot. Same as everyone’s.

But once in awhile a story comes along and helps us with the process. A sharper spade, a better tool for the work. In my case, through Good Omens I received demolition-grade explosives. It gave me a framework, characters, and a personal shorthand to speed my own digging and contextualize what I find.

If your history is kinda like mine -- whether you’re still in the faith or not -- be sure to talk to someone about church stuff from your past. The weird stuff, the dark stuff, the things you did/people did to you that now seem “off.” Even if you’ve grown past the point of “mental illness requires an exorcism” there are still dangerous ideas buried like land mines in our moral matrices. Self-hatred, intolerance, fear of abandonment, fear that failure is damnation, presumption that “we’re” on the “right side” of everything and “they’re” not, fear that we the apocalypse Is Written by powers above and so we can’t change it.

I’m so happy I know a story with an Our Side now.

I’m so happy I know a story in which the true test of devotion to God’s Ineffable Plan is turning away from the dictates of Heaven and turning toward the World.

I’m so glad I met Aziraphale -- so like me, still seeking Heaven’s approval far too late in the game. I’m so grateful he found the courage to walk away, and I’m so glad I did too. I love that I know Crowley now, self-pwning lovelorn disaster demon of minor inconveniences and imagination and free will. I’m so happy Crowley was there to tempt his friend with questions from the start, and to receive him when he was finally ready to break away.

I’m so proud to know Adam and the Them and Anathema and Newt, inept humans trying their hardest against unstoppable cosmic forces, getting it right not just despite their flaws but through and because of them.

I’m so grateful I’ve finally managed to completely swap to female pronouns for God (thanks, Frances). I still love stories about Her, I still enjoy talking theology and religion. And after 20+ years of insisting God is above gender but masculinizing him, it’s about time I switch to thinking of God as Her for a spell to even things out.***

I’m so thankful for the nicest fandom I’ve known in ages and all the glorious queer beautiful amazing body-positive art and writing growing in this fabulous garden.

Confession accomplished.

P.S. I might not have the time/resources you need to chat with you if you’ve had similar experiences or want to discuss. If you need help be sure to reach somewhere healthy to get it. If you witness abuse, online or in church or otherwise -- report it, block it, mute it, shut it down, whatever is in your power.

P.P.S. If you have words of rebuke for me from a churchy place, and/or critiques about gender or politics, sorry, don’t give a f*ck. This is my story to tell and I am secure in my spiritual status. I am free indeed.

++++++++++++++

*Re. Deconversion: Or rather, I had my faith zapped out of me in what turned out to be the truest rapturous religious experience of my life. It happened in a church service; I almost fell out and spoke in tongues with the tingling power of understanding that I was truly and finally faithless. It’s an interesting deconversion story if you're familiar with charismatic church stuff, ask me sometime over tea. It felt like this.

**Re. Exorcisms: Most disturbing was the regular practice of exorcising people who clearly needed professional help for their mental health. I was present when prayers against demons happened over cases of depression, manic depression, epilepsy and other seizures, addiction, schizophrenia, and psychotic episodes. My particular church did acknowledge the role of modern medicine, but felt that the true core of these issues was spiritual and that medication ultimately could not solve a problem of demonic infestation. Looking back now I shudder and weep to think that this happened, that I was part of it once, and that it still happens daily at churches everywhere. It can be unspeakably damaging to the people being prayed over. If this practice happens in your church, leave. If it happens at a church where you’re in leadership, end it.

***Re. God as She/Her: I encourage you to find your own appropriate pronouns for God, whether you believe in Them or not. For me personally, still reeling from the Proverbs 31 upbringing, She/Her is very healing for now. But gender is a construct etc. etc.

#good omens #good omens analysis #aziraphale #crowley #exvangelical #ex-christian #neil gaiman

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rendevok · 4 years

Note

are you still working on plenty of fish in the sea? I love your art style and the story's so cute ^^

Hi, dear anon. Thank you so much, I'm glad you seemed to like that particular project! However, I regret to inform that i dont really intend to finish the story any longer. It HAS been a year now after all, so my style and interests have vastly changed.

Still, i do believe i owe it to those interested to explain the story as it would have played out (in fact i had a stream on instagram last month where i explained it some), so without further ado... here is the story of Plenty of Fish in the Sea...

The story had been organized into words & themes, as you may have noticed. So here is that list and then, my notes on the projected story that eventually devolve into my specific brand of storytelling and very poorly thought out (but cheesy) dialogue. Try your best not to judge me since it would have likely been altered and improved once i worked my way through it, and keep in mind i am 100% an amateur.

cover/prologue

drown/savior

waking up/scale

sighting/caught - (i made it this far in terms of finished/posted art!)

storm/plunge

marooned/together

wound/care

curious/weak

gift/open

missing/heart to heart

ship in the night/hostage

in knots/jailbreak

savior/drown (ll)

scale/waking up (ll) - ^these were intentional mirrors of the first 2 main parts

heart on a string

plenty of fish in the sea

Here are my notes that follow these themes:

The story with a prologue, wherein, a young Lance saves a young Keith from drowning, and Keith is left with the memory of a boy and a brilliantly colored scale

Ffwd to the future, Keith is a sailor (not a captain, sorry) who is secretly hunting this mer with the scales that are impossibly valuable (or so he’s been told his whole life). Sure being a pirate gets him some riches but nothing like what the whole tail of scales would! Keith is not truly sure why he’s spent so much of his life fixated on this scale, but he has. So he’s done everything in his power to learn about mer people (what little there is known) to be able to properly track down and capture this mer.

One stormy night he is disturbed from his slumber, called to the deck for help and soon enough he sees the cause for alarm - a mer has been caught in their nets while the storm tossed it about. And of course its not just any mer, it’s the mer. Keith, being Keith, does what he can in the moment - he attempts to cut the nets free of the ship (after all, this is HIS mer to catch), but not a moment after succeeding in his attempt, the sloshing throws him overboard, and soon enough, he falls prey to the violent crashing of waves, sending him into a chilly darkness.

When he awakens, he finds himself on a shore, and soon enough he realizes its an island - he is in fact, marooned. He does what he knows he should first- look for sources of fresh water and food. He has some luck with the food, though not so much with the water (that has him concerned but not entirely hopeless). In his wanderings about the island, he finds that he is not alone. The merman is there with him, which would be a curious thing, were it not for the nets he’s still tangled in and a wide gash across his back. He attempts to approach to appraise the damage more closely, but is met with the hostile hissing of the merman. Keith does his best to try and reason with him, but he simply does not want his help

However, Keith is not really one to let things be. Never has been. He finds his own food, and a small amount of water. He offers some to the mer (who has managed to untangle himself, though still very much injured) responding with only hisses and glares. Keith leaves the food within reach. This process continues for a day or so, before the mer finally gives in and accepts the food. Keith finally asks again if he can help. The mer declines.

So this continues- Keith offers what food he can, the mer picks what he wants and leaves the rest. After a week of this, the mer disappears from his spot, and Keith assumes he’s finally left, only he is met with the mer in a different shore of the island (the one he had been spending his nights)

Now that he is mobile he seems much happier (though maybe not 100% active). He talks with Keith, and Keith cant really do much about it. He asks him things about humans, showing much more interest in humans than his first impression let on. Keith has his own burning questions, but most of them stem from all that time convincing himself he wanted to find this very mer and skin him alive.... kinda hard to imagine doing when he’s becoming much more human. Lance (as he has finally given his name) finally admits he cannot leave because he is still recovering. He can fish for small kills around the island, but he cant leave and swim out in the open ocean just yet. Keith internally feels a stone drop in his stomach. If only he had such a positive future to look forward to.

One day, Keith brings Lance a handful of oysters to feast on, and during he finds none other than a pearl tucked in the muscle of his meal. He is less ecstatic than Keith, who offers how rare and precious they are to humans. Lance gives him the pearl, which he tucks away with the scale that he keeps tucked by his heart in a small container on a string. Keith smiles quite a bit after receiving this gift, and Lance is left to feel conflicting positive emotions over it.

One sunset, after a quiet day (from Lance, he hadnt been very talkative) Keith notices him resting over by some rocks, back turned to Keith. Keith approaches and before he can keep Keith from seeing, he sees Lance is playing with a blank spot in his scales. Keith knows just what is missing but he asks whats wrong anyway. Lance is nervous but he responds: He lost a scale. He was still very young, and he saved a human from drowning - something he was scolded for back then. Interacting with humans is forbidden, but Lance wasnt about to let some kid like him die. However, while not completely unheard of for mer, losing a scale so young was not a good thing. He often felt ashamed for that blank spot in his tail - a reminder that he was missing a piece of himself - and this was just one of those times. Keith sits close and offers his condolences, and continues to say that saving someone was very kind and heroic of him - he only wishes humans were so kind to him as child. He lived most of his life as an orphan, finding a mentor only to have him leave on a ship and never return. Lance is sad to hear this. He misses his family right now, sure, but he knows he will find his way back. He will never miss them like Keith misses his. Lance might have a missing scale, but its nothing compared to the love Keith has been missing nearly all his life.

And so, tied up in the depths of Sendak ship, Keith sits with his guilt. He got Lance caught by the most ruthless hunters out there and was helpless to do anything about it. And he... he thinks that he would rather see Lance free. He’s a person, and he cares more than anyone he has ever met. He has a family. His life is worth more than anything a king could offer for his scales. He’s irreplaceable - especially to Keith. But now.. there isn’t hope. He’s stuck, and probably falling for a merman whos about to get skinned alive. He sheds a tear, hoping beyond anything that Lance somehow manages to escape.

Not a moment later, someone bursts through the door: Shiro. Keith is shocked to say the least, as is Shiro, but there really isn’t much time to spare seeing as how he’s being broken out. Keith grabs his belongings from the corner and shuffles out with him to the deck, where they emerge into the fray. Keith can see that all the mer are being kept on deck in cages, and sets off, blazing a trail through the fighting to go and free them.

He breaks through every chain, telling the mer to leave as soon as they can, he finally makes his way to Lance, who had been set apart from the others. Its closer to sendak, who is crossing swords with shiro. He slices through the chain one last time, freeing Lance, who is startled and tries to speak, but before he can, keith is being affronted by Sendak. They lock swords, Keith pushed to the rail, barely holding off. Sendak suddenly hisses - lance has picked up a sword and swiped at the back of his legs. Keith thinks this is his moment to slip from this position, but before he can move, Sendak kicks the wind out of him, and sends him overboard. He crashes into the icy waves, quickly choking on the water and struggling to find which way is up. Slowly, he chokes, he sinks, and finally, he gives into the creeping darkness. He sees a faint flash before his vision fades to black and he loses consciousness. At least, he thinks, that Lance has a chance at freedom.

To say he is surprised he opens his eyes again is an understatement. The sun glares and makes his head ache, his lungs and throat are sore and raw from the seawater, breathing is painful, but he’s alive. The sun is suddenly not so bright, and when he tries to see why- Lance is above him blocking it out. It reminds him of when he had been saved before. Lance is saying his name and it’s like an angel calling to him.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Lance makes a confused coo “I’m pretty sure the last time, you were the one to find me.”

Keith lets out a small laugh, which is painful, so he smiles instead. “I was the child you saved. Thats what i was trying to tell you before...”. When he looks at Lance, even in his tired state he can see the wheels turning in Lance’s head. Keith sits up, to face him better.

“I didn’t know for sure until you told me you saved a human all that time ago. If you’re not convinced, I think this should be convincing enough” and he pulls his little bottle out to let it display it’s contents: the pearl, and of course, a glimmering scale, it’s beauty only rivaled by the tail it once was a part of, sitting a few feet away.

“You-”

Keith opens the bottle, and takes it out, to hold and admire in his open palm.

“For a long time, this was my only belonging. People tried to take it, to buy it from me. They told me it was worth more money than i could ever imagine, but... I could never bring myself to sell it.” He looks up then to see Lance stunned into silence. Keith smiles, in a sorrowful sort of understanding. “I’m glad I didn’t.”

He then holds his hand out to Lance, offering him the scale he said was like a missing piece of him.

Lance lifts shaky hands and settles them on Keith’s one, not touching the scale. Keith continues:

“Thank you, Lance. For saving me then, and now.”

After a long moment of silence between them (the shushing of the beach hardly audible) Lance finally speaks.

“I never thought I’d see this again,” he speaks quietly, as he stares down at his scale in Keith’s hand. “But knowing that you found it, cherished it, took care of it, and kept it safe.... I know it’s where it belongs.”

Lance gently closes Keith’s palm around the scale and kisses his knuckles. “Keep it,” Lance looks up, and when he looks into Keith’s eyes, its like he can feel his heart and soul pouring out, “and promise me you’ll think of me every once in a while.” Lance smiles rather sadly.

Gaze flicking back to his hand, where the scale lies, Keith’s heart flutters at the implication behind his action, but stutters at the thought of Lance going away forever (as the words seemed to imply). He takes a deep breath, looks back into Lance’s eyes, their depths calling to him, as though this is the only moment he will ever have to express himself. Maybe it is. His hand reaches up to caress his face, and hold his gaze.

“You’ve saved me from drowning twice. I could hardly manage to forget you before I really even knew you. I’ve been looking for you for what feels like my whole life, and now that I’ve found you... you think i could somehow manage to not think of you every day?” Keith leans in, and kisses his cheek.

“I’ll always have a piece of you here,” he brings his closed fist to his chest, “right by my heart. I am the one who should ask to be remembered.”

“Though...” his thoughts trail as he looks down at Lance’s lips, “I selfishly wish I wouldn’t have to.” Lance breaks his stunned silence, hand coming up to hold Keith’s on his cheek. “Keith....”

Keith lets out a small pained laugh as his heart constricts, removing his hand to help replace the scale to its place in the bottle, and around his neck. He looks at it fondly and softly speaks, “There is this saying we have - about finding love - ‘There are plenty of fish in the sea’ -and it’s true. There are plenty of people I could learn to love, but... the one I want is you.”

The relief Lance feels upon hearing this has his heart swelling, pushing him forward to crash their lips together. Keith is startled at first, but quickly melts into the kiss, moving to wrap his arms around Lance’s neck. They kiss until Keith feels like he’s drowning again, though this time he’s not opposed to it.

And THAT, dear anon, is why you should never be afraid to ask questions. I hope this maybe gave you a little peace, a laugh, something to stir your little klancer heart.

#klance #mer!lance #POFITS #lance mcclain #keith kogane #please do not judge me i just want to repent for leavin yall hangin #fvld #asks #anonymous #long post #god im so sorry i literally do NOT know how to add the text break on mobile #is that even a thing anymore??? i’m no longer in touch with the tumbles

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voltrontranscript · 4 years

Text

VForce E1: New School Defenders

Episode 1: New School Defenders

Transcript by @dragonofyang

Summary: We meet Daniel, a young Voltron fan after the Voltron Force is decommissioned, as he recounts the glory of Voltron and joins the Galaxy Alliance flight school, where he meets former pilots Lance, Pidge, and Hunk. But the Voltron Force doesn’t simply toe the line drawn by Sky Marshal Wade, and with Daniel and Vince’s help, they retrieve their lion keys.

[Google Doc]

Boy: Come on, Daniel, I dare you to do it.

Girl: Double dare you!

Boy: Do it!

Daniel: When are you guys gonna learn? It’s not a dare if I wanna do it.

[Cut between Daniel and Voltron as they chase the robeast, then return to Daniel.]

Daniel: You guys missed it! The lions just formed Voltron! Someday, that’s gonna be me. I’m gonna pilot the Black Lion.

Boy: Huh. You wish.

[Transition to Daniel’s bedroom, where Daniel narrates to the audience.]

Daniel: Yeah, I do wish. Unfortunately, it looks like that’s all it’ll ever be, now. Just a wish.

[Transition to a flashback of Planet Doom.]

Daniel: Not long after the Voltron Force wrecked shop on that robeast, they defeated Lotor and his Drule army. It was epic!

Lotor: What?

[Cut to a flash forward, where the Voltron Force celebrates their victory with the city.]

Daniel: I even got to go to the galaxy victory celebration. It was the greatest day of my life! Until… It was a disaster, but no one was hurt. That’s why I couldn’t believe how quickly everyone forgot all the good Voltron had done, as if they’d been brainwashed. The Defender of the Universe was declared a hazardous threat and decommissioned without even attempting to fix it. How shady is that? My dreams, gone. Now the only thing that excites me is going fast, really fast. So, I enrolled in the Galaxy Alliance flight academy, where things have turned out to be slow. Really slow. When’s life gonna pick up some speed? Of course, if all that wasn’t about to change, I wouldn’t be here telling you this story.

[Transition to opening sequence, with an electric guitar playing under the following lyrics.]

Woo!

One, two, three four!

Voltron’s here, kicking down your door!

Five, six, get with it.

We blaze ‘em with the sword and they can’t get away.

Seven, eight.

We’re bringing down the hurt so we’re here to stay.

Nine, ten, we here to win.

Voltron’s here, let the games begin!

Oh! (Let’s Voltron!)

Form up, let’s go!

All night! Let’s go!

Alright, we gonna rock (rock!) and roll (roll!)

Now to rock (rock!) and roll (roll!)

Oh!

[Transition to Daniel in class at the flight academy.]

Professor: ...and so the Galaxy Alliance Fractal Fighter has been Earth’s primary strike and defense weapon since… which battle, cadet Daniel?

Daniel: Huh? Um, the battle at Gemini Four?

Computer: Correct.

Professor: Commander Lance. To what do we owe the honor of a visit from the youngest head flight instructor in academy history?

Lance: I realized it was nearly the end of the first term, and I have yet to greet our first-year cadets. I wanted to get a look at the faces I’ll be seeing when they get into the cockpit in their third year.

Daniel: Ugh, third year.

Lance: So, do any of you potential pilots have any questions for me? Yes, cadet?

Daniel: Sir, with all due respect, why are you here teaching instead of defending the universe? What really happened with Voltron?

Professor: Daniel! You know mention of Voltron is forbidden by Sky Marshal Wade! There are severe consequences for violating this order. Commander Lance, I’m so sorry for--

Lance: It’s alright. I’ll speak of this once and only once. Yes, I used to be the pilot of the red Voltron lion, but after the incident, that’s something I’ve put in the past. Myself, along with tech sergeants Hunk and Pidge--formerly the yellow and green lions--are now loyal soldiers in the service of the Galaxy Alliance military. And Princess Allura, the former blue lion, is ruling on her home planet of Arus.

Daniel: What about the leader of Voltron? The black lion pilot, Commander Keith?

Lance: Ex-commander Keith is a wanted fugitive, and nobody knows his whereabouts.

[Scene change to Keith wearing shades on a beach.]

Manset: So, Commander Keith, I hear you are interested in the location of Wade’s secret base.

Keith: Your hearing is good.

Manset: Why are you seeking this base? Are you looking for trouble?

Keith: I’m looking for something Wade has that doesn’t belong to him, which may lead to trouble, but that doesn’t concern you. I paid you good money for that location, so--

Manset: Yes, well, unfortunately, some people are willing to pay more for your location. Please, do not make a big scene.

Keith: The size of the scene is up to you.

[Cut back to Daniel’s classroom.]

Daniel: How could you and the rest of the team just turn your backs on Commander Keith and Voltron?

Lance: Defending the universe is our top priority, and that’s exactly what the Galaxy Alliance is doing! Voltron was just a vehicle.

Daniel: Just a vehicle?

Lance: That’s enough. You, up. You’re coming with me. You, too.

Vince: Me? W-what’d I do?

Lance: Guilt by association.

[Cut back to Keith on the beach.]

Keith: So, this is how it’s gonna be.

Manset: At least I returned your money. You can count it. It’s all there.

Keith: Yeah, I’ll get right on that.

Masked Guard 1: Ah!

Masked Guard 2: Whoa.

Manset: A sword? Really?

Keith: It’s a weapon of honor. You wouldn’t understand.

[Cut to Lance, Vince, and Daniel entering an office.]

Wade: I assure you all, this supposed rising Drule threat is nothing but rumors to stir the masses.

Coran: But, Sky Marshal Wade, our sources have intercepted increased chatter about this mysterious commander Kala, specifically mentioning Lotor.

Wade: Lotor is dead! Furthermore, Ambassador Coran, if your sources happen to be “The Den”, you’d better think twice before quoting their intelligence to me considering they’re viewed as rebels against the Galaxy Alliance. You continually test my patience, honorable gentleman from Arus. Tread lightly. Good day. Commander Lance, these must be the cadets you called me about?

Lance: Yes, sir.

Wade: Normally I don’t like to concern myself with petty academy matters, but I take my “no Voltron” policy very seriously.

Daniel: Sir, I take full responsibility. He doesn’t belong here. I hardly know him, and he--

Wade: Do not speak, cadet, and don’t play that sickening nobility card, either. It’s a liability in combat. I need an army of obedient, ruthless, fighting machines, not some saps who are going to hesitate to consult their moral compass! Of course, this won’t be a problem for you if you violate my policy again, because a second offense would mean expulsion. However, this being your first, you are receiving the automatic sentence: latrine duty for the rest of the first term, and all of the second term, as well. I hope this teaches you to scrub Voltron from your lives completely.

Lance: I’m sure this experience will give them an entirely different perspective on Voltron, sir.

Daniel: It already has.

[Scene change to the latrines.]

Daniel: Man, I am so sorry I got you into this… mess.

Vince: Hey, you just said what I was thinking. I’m more of the non-confrontational type.

Daniel: Yeah, speaking of “type”, I’ve been meaning to thank you for helping me in class. How did you do, uh, that?

Vince: A tech-gician never reveals his tricks.

Daniel: Huh, you’re an interesting guy, um… I don’t even know your--

Vince: It’s Vince. Should I pretend I don’t know your name’s Daniel to make this less awkward for you?

Daniel: Probably. Well, I definitely owe you one, Vince.

Vince: Ah, don’t worry about it. You can just save my life sometime.

Daniel: So, Vince, what do you think of this place so far?

Vince: You mean, besides the life sentence of latrine duty, and the fact that one of our heroes turned out to be a total snart?

Daniel: Yeah, and then there’s this. I came here to fly jets, and all first-years do are stupid simulators.

Vince: Actually, I like the simulators. All the fun of flying, with none of the death.

Daniel: Unlocked?

Vince: You wanna…

Daniel: Totally.

Vince: Wait, I thought you didn’t like the simulators.

Daniel: I don’t, at least not when we’re supposed to be in them. But now, we’re like Commander Keith, rebel outlaws, operating in the shadows.

[Cut to space, where a single fighter cruises across the screen.]

Keith: I can’t believe Manset was a traitor. He was thoroughly vetted by the Den. And why’d he return my money? It just doesn’t make sense… Says the guy talking to a space mouse. Huh? The coordinates to Wade’s base? “It’s all there.” This is Stalker calling the Den. The watering hole has been located. I’m going hunting. Set course for the Tarvos moon of Saturn.

[Cut to the flight simulators in the Galaxy Alliance academy.]

Daniel: See? These simulators are way too easy. I’m ready to try this stuff pulling twelve G’s.

Vince: Alright, Whiny McGee. You want me to make this interesting for you?

Daniel: Whoa! I thought you were non-confrontational!

Vince: I am, in real life. Well, would you look here? It seems the simulator wants to feel more hurt.

Daniel: Easy pickings.

Lance: What? Can’t you boys keep up?

Daniel: Commander Lance?

Lance: You just want to get expelled, don’t you? Considering this is most likely your last act as GA cadets, let’s see what you’re made of. Hope your straps are on tight.

Daniel: Why? It’s not like these simulators are going to rocket off--woah! Whoo-hoo! Yeah!

Lance: You might want to pull your emergency brake right… now.

Vince: Y-your simulator almost killed me!

Lance: Huh, and Voltron contraband to boot. Wade would throw you in a secret holding cell to rot. Lucky for you, I’m not Wade. Boys, welcome to…

Pidge: The Den.

Lance: Cadets, I’d like you to meet--

Vince: You’re Pidge!

Daniel: The Green Lion pilot! That’s Hunk, the yellow lion!

Pidge: What are you doing? You’re not even welding anything.

Hunk: Yeah, but I wanted to make a cool entrance for these little dudes.

Lance: Mission accomplished.

Daniel: Is Keith here, too?

Lance: Always with the Keith.

[Transition to Keith breaking into a building, then back to the Den.]

Pidge: Why would you draw glasses on top of my glasses?

Daniel: Um, six eyes? I don’t know, I’m not an artist.

Hunk: Well, I’d better get back to duty, but I look forward to working with you clowns in the future.

Daniel: Huh?

Vince: Huh?

Lance: We need to keep up appearances. We’ve been pretending to be the epitome of a good soldier and loyal to Sky Marshal Wade so that he never suspects our underground activities. Pidge and Hunk have built this secret network that has access to Wade’s GA resources.

Pidge: It’s been quite useful in helping Keith on his secret mission.

Daniel: What kind of secret mission?

Lance: The kind that’s a secret.

Daniel: Okay, fine, but you still haven’t explained why we’re here. What does any of this have to do with us?

Lance: Let’s just say your talents have been noticed, and we’d like to cultivate them. In fact, how would you like to take a very cultivating course right now, taught by yours truly?

Vince: Totally! What’s the course?

Lance: Toilet Scrubbing 101. Oh, you’re right, you already have a bit of experience. We’ll call it 102.

[Cut to Keith continuing to infiltrate the building.]

Keith: Great.

Guard: All clear.

[Cut back to the Den.]

Daniel: Okay, we can tell there’s something cool going on here, but if it involves cleaning more toilets…

Lance: Look, I’m going to be asking you to do a lot of things in the future that won’t seem to make sense, but there will always be a reason. The question is, after what you’ve seen, do you trust me?

Daniel: I think so, but why won’t you just give us a straight answer about anything?

Lance: Partially because you aren’t ready to know, but mostly because it’s way more fun for me this way. So I’ll ask again: do you trust me? Because if you don’t, I can have Pidge erase this from your memory.

Daniel: Okay. We’re in.

Lance: Phew! That’s a huge relief, because we do not have a memory-erasing device. That’s science fiction.

[Cut to Keith walking through a corridor.]

Keith: What are you making, Wade?

Guard 1: Hey, you. Have you seen anyone suspicious?

Keith: Probably another false alarm set off by space mice or something.

Guard 2: Yeah, but we gotta run through the motions anyway.

Keith: Decrypt security code. Come on, come on. Shh. Shoo!

[Cut back to the Den.]

Lance: School is in session. How much do you know about Sky Marshal Wade?

Vince: He’s the head of the Galaxy Alliance’s military division.

Daniel: And a snart who hates Voltron.

Pidge: True, but it’s more complicated than that. Wade’s been wanting control of the alliance military for years, always claiming that Voltron was dangerous because the power within the lions is an ancient technology that isn’t fully understood.

Lance: Though we can’t prove it, we know he sabotaged Voltron to turn the public against it.

Daniel: I knew it!

Lance: Wade used this as an excuse to convince the Galaxy Alliance that Voltron’s power isn’t to be trusted. He got them to regulate the lions back to their storage chambers on Arus.

Pidge: However, I believe that Wade actually just wanted to study their technology.

Lance: While I believe it’s time to start your first class project. Wade is a well-decorated general, but he’s particularly proud of his four-stripe pin. Pidge has made a replica of this pin, and you boys are gonna swap this out.

Daniel: Your master revenge plan is switch out his favorite pin for a fake?

Lance: Yes. Remember our earlier conversation about trust?

Daniel: Remember you don’t have a mind-erasing device?

Lance: Touche. Let’s continue anyway, shall we? Latrine duty happens to be the only hole in Wade’s security. The toilet-cleaning cadets have pretty much unfettered access. And like all disciplined army men, Wade does everything on an air-tight schedule, and I mean everything. Now, we already know you have a talent for sneaking around, so when Wade’s coat is off for his “0600”, that’s your chance to make the swap. Should be a piece of cake.

[Transition to Daniel and Vince in Wade’s bathroom.]

Daniel: Nice.

Vince: Sweet.

Vince: I think this time he’s finished. Like us. How did you… What were you thinking?

Daniel: I didn’t think at all. Guess you’re lucky I’m impulsive.

Vince: Yeah, well, consider the “saving my life” debt paid. I was hoping to hold that over your head, but--

Wade: Look at this mess, you insufferable beast! I swear, if you chase one more mouse...

[Scene change to Keith, sneaking through the vents.]

Keith: Found you.

[Scene change back to Lance, Daniel, and Vince.]

Lance: Ah, there it is. Nice job, boys. Piece of cake, right?

Vince: More like piece of meat.

Lance: Well, you did such a good job, that I’ve decided to expel you from the academy, after all. Unless you’d rather stay and finish out your two terms of latrine. You are showing great promise in that field of study. Go on and pack your bags, boys. We’re taking a road trip.

[Scene change to space.]

Vince: This is all happening so fast.

Daniel: I often find fast is the best way.

Lance: So, I think you boys have earned the right to know a bit more about Wade’s pin. More like “pins”. And more like “keys” than “pins”.

Daniel: The keys to the lions!

Allura: Welcome to Arus, and welcome to the Castle of Lions.

Daniel: Whoa. Where’s the black key?

Lance: I assure you, it’s in good wrists.

End.

#voltron force #keith #lance #daniel #allura #manset #wade #vince #pidge #hunk #coran #transcript

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scithemodestmermaid · 4 years

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i waited about 15 years to play halo 2′s campaign. 15 years. and considering the size of my crush on arbiter, that was a damn long time. yesterday i finally got to play a good chunk of it...and while the story isn’t really the best, it’s told beautifully.

the opening cutscene, for example. master chief receiving his awards to cheering crowds matched with thal (that’s his name, right? i forget, cuz again its been 15 FRIGGIN YEARS) receiving his mark of shame to jeering crowds. foils showing that both sides of this war have heroes, fallen or otherwise. and the way the covenant speaks, in a very antiquated tone. or how the music amps up at literally the exact perfect moment. master chief storms the covenant base and sees the elite & grunt rebellion rising up around him, a chilling bit of environmental storytelling. again, its not the most unique story, but they tell it the best possible way they could.

and i 100% understand why teenage me had a big crush on arbiter. you got this guy, he did his absolute best but he’s being punished severely for his mistakes. after being thrown out by his superiors, he is then recruited by them to atone for what they say he needs to atone for. in this quest, he discovers his people are being slain. he has been betrayed by his superiors yet again. everything he has ever stood for has fallen apart before his eyes. and he realizes that now, he truly must atone for his mistakes. combine that heartwrenching character arc with a badass flair for the dramatic, some smooth musculature, and the voice of keith david, and honey there go my hormones. teenage me had good taste.

anyway, i gotta make time to actually finish this game. then move on to halo 3, another piece of forbidden fruit from my younger years that i can now get away with playing because i’m now 30.

#sci plays vidyagaems #idk if im still crushin on arbiter sadly #weirdly enough im digging master chief a bit more now that im an old lady #look lets just compromise and say they both fine lookin soldier boys

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emospritelet · 5 years

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Temptation

This is my second Monsterfuckers’ Ball fic, following on from the Macacey smut in Part 1. Having seduced Father MacAvoy, Lacey goes to find one of her own kind. The pawnbroker has been expecting her.

[Part 1] [AO3]

The moment she stepped into Storybrooke, he felt it, a tickle at the nape of his neck, a creeping tingle running down his spine, as though someone was whispering his name from the shadow realm. His true name. It had been years since he had used it. He called himself Gold, when the humans asked, as so many of them did. They were curious creatures, using up their short lives in a frenzy of eating and drinking and fucking, with precious few taking the time to acquire knowledge of the old ways. Lucky for him, he supposed.

He had not seen one of his own in years, ever since he had carved out a large and lonely territory in Maine. Isolation was one of the reasons for coming so far to the north-east of the country, but he had to admit that a slower pace of life was also something he enjoyed, having passed relatively unscathed through the rage and recklessness of his youth. There were too many incubi clustered in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and he much preferred the relative peace of small town Storybrooke. Solitary by nature, there were only three reasons he could think of for another of his kind to seek him out. It had not happened in some time, and the last encounter had ended in violence and death. For the intruder, anyway.

He pushed the porcelain cup he had been dusting back on its shelf, getting down from the stepladder and striding to the door of his shop. It was cold outside, a stiff breeze blowing from the south west, and he lifted his nose, catching a scent on the breeze. A succubus: a female. That didn’t mean she wasn’t there to challenge him, of course, nor did it mean that she didn’t want his assistance in some dark ritual. However, there was an edge to her scent, something that made his skin tingle and his cock swell in his pants. So. She wanted to mate.

He stepped back into his shop, closing the door behind him and walking to the back room. It was unlikely she would approach him until she was ready, and he certainly had no objection to that. She would need to find a partner first, and take the seed from him, the first step in creating a demon child. There would need to be at least a little planning and preparation before that could occur, unless of course she decided to go to that dive of a bar and grab the first desperate drunk she could find. There were certainly enough of those in Storybrooke, but he hoped that her taste would be a little better. He certainly wasn’t keen to touch the likes of Keith Nottingham, even if only by proxy.

It was somewhat ironic, he reflected, that his kind were dependent on humans to reproduce, but the process itself was certainly pleasant. It had been decades since he had been approached by one of his own for the purpose, and he wondered what form she had chosen to make her way in this world. Humans offered little in the way of temptations of the flesh, in his opinion, but he had grown used to them, and had something of a preference for petite brunettes. His mind wandered briefly south, to New York, and his latest deal for a first edition Oscar Wilde. He licked his lips at the memory of clear blue eyes and a soft voice, shapely limbs and small feet. Petite brunettes with a love of reading and a penchant for impractical footwear, then.

Smirking to himself, he took a seat at the workbench, bending to look over the old watch he was preparing for sale. It would no doubt take his would-be partner a little while to complete the first stage of the process. He had time on his hands until then.

It was six days later that it happened.

He could sense a change in the air, a pulsing electricity that coursed through his skin and made the hairs on his arms rise. He had been working late, cataloguing the latest collection of antiques that he had purchased. The other shops in Storybrooke had long since closed, the time inching past midnight, but he was still there, clad in the slim-fitting suit and tie he had adopted as part of his human persona. The silk he wore felt pleasant, a sensual softness against his skin, but he would shed it in an instant for the one coming to him.

He stood, walking through to the main shop and turning to glance at his reflection in the mirror that hung behind the counter. Brown hair fell around his face. streaked with silver at the temples. He was not a tall man, but the humans were nonetheless wary, keeping their distance even when they sought him out to make their petty excuses and to beg him to buy their trinkets. They still seemed to fear him, despite him speaking in low tones and showing his teeth in cold smiles. Perhaps they could sense the darkness in him. It mattered not.

The shop doorbell tinkled, and he smiled, the low light from the lamps gleaming on the one gold tooth he wore as he took in the reflection over his shoulder. She was small and pale, dark chestnut hair falling around her shoulders in shining waves. A short black dress hugged her slender figure, her legs long and shapely. High-heeled shoes lifted her a few inches taller than she would otherwise have been, but her height was perfect. She was perfect. A delightful human form, to be sure. She reminded him of someone, but he shoved the image away before it could interfere with the matter at hand. Something to think on later.

“What’s your name?” he asked, and her full lips curved in a soft, secretive smile.

“Lacey,” she said. “What’s yours?”

“Rumplestiltskin,” he whispered.

He turned to face her, and she pursed her lips, walking slowly towards him with her hips swaying invitingly.

“Quite a mouthful,” she said, and her eyes flicked up and down him, lingering between his legs for a moment. “I do appreciate a long - name.”

His grin widened, and he gestured to the curtain that covered the doorway to the back room.

“Would you care to come through?”

“I would.”

She walked past him, hips still swinging and her tight rear end twitching. He caught a whiff of her scent as she passed, and let out a low, guttural growl of arousal, his cock pushing against his underwear, eager to get inside her. He followed her through, letting the curtain fall behind him and looking her over slowly before meeting her stare for stare. The dress she wore clung to her curves, slashes at the neck revealing the pale skin beneath. He longed to uncover every inch of that skin, to let his tongue flicker over her and taste her. Who had she chosen, in the end? Whose seed did she carry? His cock was growing harder, throbbing, insistent, and he licked his lips, leaning in to let his nostrils flare, drawing in the mingled scents. His eyes widened, and he drew back.

“You chose the priest?” he said, surprised, and she grinned, raising her chin.

“I always did like what was forbidden to me,” she said.

“How did you manage to enter the church?” he asked. “Bit of a risky prospect.”

Lacey reached into the neckline of her dress and tugged at a thin gold chain, pulling out a round, dark stone. It swung back and forth on the chain, seeming to eat the light around it.

“Brimstone amulet,” she said carelessly.

“Ah.” A smile tugged at his lips. “Providing temporary protection from consecrated ground. A tricky thing to make. Don’t you need the tears of an angel, or something ridiculous?”

“You know your amulets,” she said, looking impressed, and he inclined his head.

“I’m in the trade, as it were,” he said. “A rare item. Difficult to procure.”

Lacey shrugged, kicking off her shoes and wriggling her toes on the wooden floor.

“I know a demon who knows an angel.”

“A useful contact,” said Gold. “Perhaps you and I can do some business.”

She looked him up and down very deliberately, and raised her chin.

“There’s only one deal I’m looking to make tonight.”

“Indeed.” Gold took off his jacket, shaking it out before hanging it on the nearby coat rack. “Perhaps you should take it off for the duration, though. Dark magic mixed with light - well, those things can be volatile.”

“Point taken.”

She reached behind her, unfastening the clasp of the gold chain, and set the necklace on the desk behind her. Gold was intrigued, and wanted to study it further, but he doubted she would let him. Perhaps they could make a deal for another in the future, though.

“The amulet was effective in getting to the priest, I take it?” he said, and she pursed her lips.

“As much as it needed to be,” she said. “It gives off a scent, of course, but then they burn a lot of incense in these places, so I guess he didn’t notice.”

“Well, perhaps his mind was on other things,” said Gold, looking her over. “And he a man of God. For shame.”

Lacey smirked.

“Oh, I’ve had many a priest, in my time,” she said softly. “All supposedly holy men. All eager to get a taste of me, and most without me offering. I clearly wasn’t the first they had touched. Just the first to fight back.”

Gold chuckled.

“That must have been an - interesting - experience for them,” he said, and Lacey’s eyes gleamed, blue as moonlight.

“I’d like to say they had a chance to reflect on the sin of forcing those in their power to endure their touches,” she said. “But they didn’t. I took what I needed and sucked the life from them. Ironic, really.”

“Father MacAvoy doesn’t strike me as that type,” he remarked, and she shook her head, her mouth twisting a little.

“No, not him,” she said. “He’s a good man, not like the rest of them. Although it has to be said he didn’t put up much of a challenge. Some initial protest for my poor soul. It didn’t stop him fucking me.”

“Well, I could hardly blame him,” said Gold lazily. “Take off the dress.”

“Why don’t you come here and take it off?”

He licked his lips, a low growl rumbling out of him. Lacey’s breath caught, her eyes widening, and he could sense the excitement rising within her, making the air around him spark and tingle. Stepping forward, he reached for her, hands sliding over her hips as his mouth found hers. Lacey moaned, grasping at him, her fingers pushing through his hair as her nails scored his scalp. It made him growl again, and he shoved her against the wall, his tongue pushing into her mouth, tasting the sweetness of her as he slipped one leg between hers, his thigh pushing up against her groin.

Lacey moaned again, thrusting her hips, rubbing herself against him, and her hands slid down from his hair to grasp his tie, plucking it open and tearing it from around his neck. Gold cupped her breasts with his hands, pulling his mouth from hers to nip at her jaw, his tongue stroking against her throat, tasting the salt of light perspiration and breathing in the scent that had drifted into his nose six days earlier. The scent that told him of her need.

He reached down, gripping the hem of the dress and tugging it up her body, and Lacey raised her arms as he stepped back to pull it over her head. Her body was pale and smooth, her breasts tipped with dusky pink nipples, and as he watched a pattern of shining blue scales rippled over her skin, her demon form coming through in her excitement. She was beautiful, her body firm and lithe and perfect, and he growled again as he ran his eyes over her. The scent of her pleasure was strong, making his cock throb and his balls ache. She would have drawn the seed deep inside her, holding it there until it could be released. Until he opened her up and took it from her. His tongue flicked against his teeth, eager to taste her, and he jerked his head to the side.

“On the bench,” he rasped.

Lacey smirked, pushing past him with a sway of her hips, her hair gleaming in the light as she turned on bare toes to face him. She reached behind her, boosting herself up onto the workbench with the heels of her hands, her breasts bouncing as she did so. Gold reached up, letting one finger bend slowly forward, and she lowered herself onto her back, arching up off the bench as she drew up her knees. He stepped forward and ran his hands up her slender calves, fingers sliding over her knees and pulling them apart.

The soft cleft at the apex of her thighs was glistening with fluid, and he let his hands stroke up her legs, pushing them further apart, baring her to his sight and his touch. Gold let his tongue grow long and tapered, flicking it over the soft skin of her inner thighs, moving up with gentle, rhythmic strokes. Lacey moaned as he licked her, circling the sensitive nub at the top of her cleft. His tongue flickered over her wet flesh, and he could taste the priest on her, musk and salt and a certain human sharpness. He let the tongue push inside her, sliding deep to where the taste of salt was stronger, and felt his cock grow harder as he recognised her need, as he tasted the seed inside her. He let it thrust in and out, licking against the barrier of her flesh, the tip probing the tight entrance to her inner chamber where she held the seed.

Lacey moaned, pushing her hips upward, and he growled deep in his throat, his tongue teasing her as he tried to find a way inside. She wouldn’t open for him until he was inside her, until his cock was buried deep within her and he was ready to burst, but the teasing felt good, his tongue pushing at her, circling and swirling. He pulled it back a little, rubbing against her inner walls, and she let out a cry of pleasure, her fingers twisting in his hair. She was close. She was ready. It wouldn’t take long. His tongue slipped out again, dripping with her juices, dancing over her skin before he swallowed her down, and he straightened up, shrugging out of his waistcoat and bending to take off his shoes. He wanted to be in his true form for this.

Lacey let out a low growl, writhing on the bench as he shed his clothing, her rapid breathing and bright eyes showing that she was eager for his touch. Tiny scales bloomed to life on her face and chest, spreading over her skin in patches of glittering blue and silver, and he heard his own growl rumble outward as her long tongue flicked out, tasting his scent in the air. He tore off his shirt, pushing down pants and underwear in one, noting the scales rippling up from his fingers and coating his forearms in gleaming gold. Lacey scooted backwards a little, long tail sweeping out from behind and lashing the air. He could feel his own break free, stroking up her legs as he climbed onto the bench on his knees. She pushed up on the heels of her hands, plump breasts heaving as she licked her lips.

Gold ran his hands up her thighs, pushing them apart and sliding his fingers beneath her buttocks to pull her upwards. His fingertips dug into her skin, black claws sinking into her. Lacey let out a high-pitched cry, arching her back, pushing up to meet him as her head rolled back, and he felt the head of his cock push at the soft heat of her entrance. His balls ached, hanging low and heavy, rubbing against her, and he let out a low groan as he thrust inside her, sliding deep. She purred, running her hands up his arms and over his shoulders to plunge into his hair. He felt his tail stroke against hers, and let it wrap around her ankle, tugging it upwards to let him push deeper.

His cock was buried deep inside her, and he let it lengthen further as his hips pumped and he thrust hard and fast, ramming against the firm barrier of flesh that her body had created, seeking to break through. Lacey moaned and writhed, legs wrapping around his back, her tail twisting around his, her body now covered in glittering blue scales and her eyes gleaming like moonlight. He kissed her again, long tongue stroking her mouth as he pushed and thrust, feeling her heat and her wetness coating him, feeling her begin to open up, that tiny hole starting to widen, squeezing the head of his cock as it pushed inside. He felt as though he was going to burst, pleasure coursing through him, and he groaned into her mouth as he came hard, his cock pulsing, shooting hot seed into her.

She tore her mouth from his with a shriek as she came, and he felt a rush of fluid all around him as she let him enter her fully, releasing the priest’s seed to mix with his. It felt incredible, and he let his balls contract, reversing the flow of fluid as the tingle of their strange dark magic tickled at his skin. His cock pumped, drawing the hot seed from her body and into his, the feel of it intensifying his orgasm, making pleasure crash through him. He growled and snarled, tail lashing in his excitement as his balls grew heavy with seed once more, and Lacey dug her nails into his shoulders as she pumped against his cock, helping him draw every drop from her. Her flesh was clamped around the head so hard it was exquisitely painful, but he felt her relax a little as he took the last from her, as he drew the seed deep and kept it safe.

He let out a low, guttural groan as he slowed to a stop, his head hanging, and Lacey murmured contentedly, her tail uncurling from around his leg to stroke over his back. Its touch was gentle, almost affectionate, and he shivered a little as it brushed over his legs and licked at the soles of his feet. She released him with a sudden softening of her flesh, letting him pull out of her, and he pushed up on his hands, licking his lips as he looked down. Her scales were fading a little, the human form showing through in pale patches, and she sent him a slow smile, eyelids fluttering.

“That was fucking awesome,” she drawled, and he grinned.

“Glad to be of service.”

He pushed back, getting down from the bench and pulling on his clothes, the shop feeling cold after the heat they had shared. Lacey watched him, leaning on her elbows, dark curls tumbling over pale shoulders.

“I never did this before,” she admitted. “Not with the goal of actually reproducing in mind, anyway. Not with someone like you.”

“Someone like us, you mean?” he said, tying his shoes with practised tugs of his fingers.

“Yeah.” She stretched languidly, pointing her toes. “It felt different with you. Fucking ordinary men has its pleasures, I guess, but there’s the danger I might just get a little over-excited.”

“Leaving a very dead human in your wake,” he agreed. “Self-control is one of the first things you need to learn as a demon, if you want to survive in their world.”

“Oh, I only do it to the ones that deserve it,” she said. “It’s not my fault their souls are more delicious than their personalities, right?”

He had to grin at that.

“I daresay you’re doing the rest of the world a favour,” he said. “There are a few in this town who would benefit from your attention, if you feel the need.”

“Nah, I’m good.” She stretched again. “Maybe if I swing by this way again.”

“Maybe so.”

He straightened up, pulling on his shirt and feeling the pleasant whisper of silk against his skin. Lacey slipped from the bench, snatching up her dress and pulling it over her head.

“Are you leaving right away?” he asked. “You’re welcome to stay and have a drink. I find myself in the mood to be unexpectedly sociable.”

Lacey shook her head, looking regretful.

“I’d better get back,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “There’s a ritual I was planning on being a part of. I just had an itch that needed scratching before I could concentrate properly on summoning dark powers, you know what I mean?”

“Concentration is important in these things, I find,” he said.

“Yeah.” She pursed her lips. “And it was a pretty distracting itch. Made it hard to think about anything other than getting well and truly fucked.”

“Then I’m happy to have scratched it,” he said smoothly.

He zipped his fly, buckling his belt. His balls were very full, and his pants were a little tight because of it, making him very aware of what he had just done, and what he still needed to do. It made his lust rise up once more, his desire to perform the final part of the dark dance of creation swelling within him. His cock twitched, and Lacey watched him with a knowing smirk, her head tilted to the side and her expression curious.

“Who’s it gonna be?” she asked. “I mean it’s none of my business, but you’ve got your eye on someone, right?”

“Perhaps.”

“Hmm.”

She stepped into her shoes, running fingers through her curls in an attempt to tame them, and tugged her dress straight.

“Is it someone from the town?” she asked, and he shook his head, buttoning his shirt.

“No,” he said. “Not someone from the town.”

“Well, that’s always better, I guess,” she said. “What does she look like?”

Gold smiled.

“Actually, she looks a lot like you,” he said. “Brown hair, beautiful blue eyes, soft pink lips… Delicious in every way. Or so I predict.”

“Really?” She looked pleased at that. “You have a type, huh?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he said. “I’m hoping the encounter will be every bit as pleasant as this one. I shall certainly endeavour to make it so.”

“Well, accept my congratulations in advance,” she said, shaking out her hair. “She going to be willing, you think?”

Gold showed his teeth.

“Oh, I’m counting on it.”

She smirked in response, and stepped towards him, her hips swinging back and forth. He tugged his waistcoat closed, and Lacey ran her hands up his chest, rising up on her toes as she placed a soft kiss on his mouth. She sank back on her heels, looking very self-satisfied.

“I’m gonna get out of here,” she said. “Look me up if you’re ever in Memphis.”

Gold grinned at that.

“I don’t really get out much.”

“Bit of a loner, hmm?”

“Aren’t we all?”

She chuckled softly, and stepped back, brushing herself down and letting out a heavy, contented sigh.

“Goodbye, Rumplestiltskin,” she said, and sauntered off.

He heard the cheerful tinkle of the shop’s bell as she left, and finished buttoning his waistcoat, crossing to the standing mirror to check his appearance. His skin was humming, desire making his blood sing in his veins and his lips tingle. He looped the silk tie around his neck, knotting it tightly, and smiled darkly at his reflection, his eyes gleaming gold for the briefest of moments. He had a seduction to plan.

#fic: original sin verse #fic: temptation #golden lace fic #rumbelle fic #golden lace #my fic #rumbelle monster's ball #lemon fic #rather large estate #demon golden lace #incubus!Gold and succubus!Lacey

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