#like. calling my job white collar is a little laughable

[soldier-poet-king]

Actually the whole work thing would be infinitely less stressful if I actually knew how to navigate the white collar world and was not from a working class background and I have no idea how anything works because we were poor! No one in my family has done shit like this!

[knjoodles]

oneshot | hoseok x reader

finally finished it. for you, my babies! want to request? find them prompts here.

pairing: hoseok x reader

genre: just a bunch of ANGST with a lil treat at the end ;)

word count: 2.8K

request: 12, 18. “tell me a story” + “i'm no good for you, baby. i'm not a good man."

lowercase intended

   today was supposed to be your date night. note the wording. was.

   you were alone in the house, the only thing accompanying you being the sound of pasta boiling next to you. it was a new recipe you’d decided to try, knowing how much hoseok loved pasta. scurrying across the kitchen, you prepped diligently, practically flying between the cupboard, stove, and dinner table. you wanted it to be perfect. you needed it to be perfect.

   hoseok hadn’t been around lately. you understood that as a hiring consultant working for large-scale companies that his work was more often than not demanding, as he constantly needed to get on flights to fly across the world to assist separate firms, but his absences began to hang on to your daily mood. him being gone made you question your worth at times; you knew that the two of you were both equally important to each other and neither of you relied on each other for everything, but could you blame someone for missing their loved ones?

   you had doubts. doubt clouded your mind like warm breath in a cold, winter morning. it grew slowly and collapsed on you all at once. you grew suspicious of hoseok — why would your boyfriend need two weeks to help someone hire someone else? what could possibly pull him away from you all the time for no reason? his late-night appearances, the way he’d drift through your shared spacious apartment like a translucent ghost, how it felt like he’d come and go like seconds on a clock… it didn’t make sense to you.

   so here you are tonight, hastily plating the dishes you made for the two of you at the promise hoseok would be there. you found it kind of stupid, honestly. as a boyfriend, isn’t it his obligation to be here? placing the two dishes on either side of the table with a large bowl in the middle holding a couple more servings of pasta, you felt content with yourself. he had to enjoy something like this, he had to! the two of you hadn’t had a date night, hadn’t had sex in the longest time. nodding confidently, you promised yourself that would change into something fitting tonight. you left the dining room, glancing at the clock to see how much time you had to get ready. "hoseok said he’d be here in forty minutes.” you sighed, thinking aloud as you grabbed the black heels waiting for you in your closet. you foraged through your closet, moving shirts and blouses across the clothing rack until you finally found your sleek black dress, a matte style which fit snug against your body. slipping into it in your unlit bedroom, you shuffled into your master bathroom, the click of your heels louder than usual against the floor. you adjusted your hair, letting your fingers graze against your locks until it gracefully fell the way you wanted. applying some light makeup and eyeliner to match the black dress and shoes, you admired yourself in the mirror, a new feeling of confidence bursting through your chest. you looked sexy, and you knew it.

   making your way back to your dining room, you heard the faint sound of heavy footsteps walking towards your front door, excitement flowing through your veins. this is it, you thought, adjusting your dress in anticipation. he’s finally here. you heard each of his keys jingle in the keyhole, the doorknob finally turning when he found the right one. hoseok’s form appeared before you, his hair and clothes damp from the rainy night outside. your eyes lit up, swiftly walking towards him, excited to finally see him after so long. “hoseok!” you beamed, your body electric with exhilaration, arms wide open to hold him after what felt like years.

   he darted past your open arms, throwing his jacket onto the maroon couch and throwing his body against the wall, lightly panting, head thrown back, obviously exhausted from something. eyes glossed over, he stared at the ceiling for a moment before turning and scanning you from top to bottom, licking his lips. “hey,” he suspired, pushing himself off the side of the wall to walk towards you. he held your arms and kissed your forehead quickly, lips lingering over your skin. “i missed you.” you stood there together for a moment, his hands falling from holding your arms to loosely wrap around your waist. his warm breath contrasted from his cold body, the feel of his icy fingertips still fresh against your skin.

   “i missed you, too,” you replied, pulling away from him to get a better look at his face. his face was more gaunt than when he’d left, which was only weeks ago. his skin appeared to have gotten paler, his eyes seemingly the most lively feature of his face, his nose still handsome and his lips chapped. “i made dinner. why don’t you sit down and eat and we can talk?” you suggested, taking his hand and leading him towards the dinner table, pulling back his chair for him to sit. once he was seated, you walked to the other side of the table, sitting in your own chair and crossing your legs comfortably.

   “so, how was your business trip?” you asked, serving some of the tagliatelle you’d made — a new recipe you’d found months ago and instantly thought of hoseok at the sight of it. you dug your fork into the pasta on your plate, mixing it with the sauce you’d half made, half bought. you could feel the atmosphere grow thicker just by asking that question, and you despised it. why is a conversation with your boyfriend this awkward? your boyfriend of three years, for that matter?    

   “it was fine,” he muttered, stirring the pasta on his plate as you did. as you questioned him more and more, trying to start some form of conversation, he grew more and more distant and vague. it was as though he was hiding something, or purposefully dodging your questions and trying to introduce new topics to distract you.

   growing increasingly suspicious by the second, you scrutinized your boyfriend sitting in front of you, toying with his pasta. taking a closer look, you realized his overall body language spelled out ‘preoccupied’. from his repetitive foot tapping under the table to his eyes refusing to make eye contact with you, you understood very easily that he’d done something, and couldn’t bring himself to look at you because of it. studying what you could see of his torso and up, you noticed a bandage wrapped around him under his shirt sleeve and bruises scattered across his collar and chest, badly clouded with concealer.

   feeling a lump grow in your throat, you understood what was going on. suddenly, everything clicked in your mind: the nervous body language, the so-called ‘bruises’ dotting his chest, the dismissive way he entered your apartment which now became how he’s talking to you. you didn’t know who they were and what business they had with your boyfriend, but the nearly month-long trips of little to no contact and the midnight disappearances suddenly started making sense. because you were so hellbent on believing your boyfriend was a good man who would never want to hurt his girlfriend, you completely disdained any possible evidence that he was cheating on you, even though it was all right in front of you.

   “hoseok,” you shuddered, voice shaking from the fear that your thoughts held truth. “where have you been going on your business trips?” there was no more food on your plate to toy with. the attention you’d scattered to ignore the monster that was infidelity sitting right in front of you was all attached to hoseok. you had nowhere to run, and neither did he.

   “i told you, already. it’s more than one place.” he groaned passively, chewing on the last bit of tagliatelle.

   “what’s ‘more than one place’?” you asked, raising your voice and your elbows to rest on the table, rubbing your finger against the fabric of the dinner table. “what do you even do? who are you ‘consulting’? who are you ‘helping’?” you scoffed, finding it laughable that after all you’ve been through together, he couldn’t just grow some fucking balls and own up to his mistake. his irreversible mistake.

   “why are you so interested in what i do?” his tone grew visibly more annoyed, his back slumping against the chair as he pushed the plate away, now finished. “how does it help you, anyway?”

   “i just want to know what the hell kind of place needs you to take three fucking weeks away from your girlfriend and your personal life; what the hell kind of job doesn’t let you answer your phone calls when it’s late at night when i know damn well you’re awake? what fucking job makes you leave your bed at midnight and not return for days without warning?” you spat, dropping your fork passive-aggressively onto the tablecloth, the white fabric stained red from the remnants of sauce still on the utensil.

   “what are you insinuating?” his eyes narrow, body leaning forwards as his jaw tightens. “what are you trying to fucking say, (y/n)?” he stands up, voice stern and angry, but not yelling.

   “what i’m trying to fucking say,” you mocked, standing up, hands on the table. “is that it’s obvious that you’ve been cheating on me for the past, what? a fucking year?” you cackled, hysterical from his get up. “what do you think i am, hoseok? an idiot? a stupid bitch?” you rose completely, hands smacking the table in anger.

   “are you fucking serious?” he cried, face twisting to a look of outrage and bewilderment. “you think i’m cheating on you?”

   “have you ignored me for so long you’ve forgotten what i sound like when i'm angry?” you grit your teeth, fists balling in anger. “all i’ve ever done is love you, listen to you, comfort you, be there for you. and this?” you shrieked, voice cracking from the pain staining your heart and mind. “this, is what you’ve done to thank me?” tears began to pour down your cheeks, forming small puddles on the hardwood floor in between the two of you. “what have you done?” you howled, voice soaked in agony.

   hoseok bit his lip, trying his hardest to stop salty tears from running down his face; he heard the misery in your voice and understood all the hidden heartache you’d been experiencing: he had barely talked to you for a year. “i can’t tell you what i’ve done.” he moaned, adam’s apple bobbing to try and swallow the lump forming in his throat. “i can’t tell you, i can’t fucking tell you—“

   “why not?” you sobbed, shoulders falling. “what have you done, hoseok?” you walked weakly towards him, now just centimeters away from him. “just tell me what you’ve done. tell me what you’ve done so i don’t have to hurt like this anymore.” you wept, tears now falling on his leather shoes.

   “i’m your boyfriend, (y/n), i didn’t do anything!” he whimpered, shaking his hands to motion to himself. “you have to believe me, i just can’t tell you what i’ve done—”

   “ah, so you think this is a fairy tale!” you laughed painfully. you’d had enough. “a fucking fairy tale, where a man can fuck up as many things as he’d like, claim he’s a good man because he benefits in the long run, and women will run to him from every direction?” you waltzed over to the couch, throwing his jacket to the floor and collapsing against it. you’d physically had enough of all of this. all of the pain, all of the doubt, all of the silence. you were on the very edge.

   “no, i don’t.” he turned, bending his knees and trying to reason with you. he followed you to the couch until you raised your hand, asking him to back away. he listened.

   “great, i'm glad we’re on the same page.” you rubbed your face and pulled back your hair, noticing smudged eyeliner on your palm once you removed your hand. turning your head to him, you glanced, defeated. “then tell me the fucking story, hoseok. who she is,  where you met her, where the fuck you’ve been for the past year. tell me a story.”

   hoseok’s eyes, once filled with fiery anger, now showed emotions you’d barely even think to pair him with. regret, torment, fear.

    hurt. 

   he crouched in front of you, swallowing and touching his hand to your cheek, his thumb brushing away the tears cascading down your face. “i'm no good for you, baby.” he trembled, hand now shaking against your wet cheek. “i'm not a good man.”

   “what do you mean?” you stammered, voice weak from the yelling and the intimacy of this moment, something you hadn’t had in a long time. tears began to fall down your face once more, hoseok now letting your tears roll over his fingertips instead of wiping them away.

  he lowered his head, eyes staring at the wooden floors. “fuck, (y/n). i’m not a consultant. i’m,” he pauses, sighing deeply and taking another shaky breath. “i’m a drug dealer. i’ve been smuggling heroin internationally for five years now.”

   “a drug dealer?” you gasped quietly, shocked. jung hoseok, your once innocent and loving boyfriend, had been consumed by his job of breaking the law, every single day whittling down to a weaker and weaker self.

   he raised his head, eyes now locked with yours. “it started off as something small, but all of a sudden i got promoted, and now, this is my life.” he choked, shaking his head. “i didn’t want to hurt you, i didn’t want to get you involved, but while i was so caught up handling my life inside and outside my job, i completely neglected you.” he reached forwards to your sides to hold your hands, pulling them into your lap and squeezing them. “i'm not a good person, (y/n). people i work with have slaughtered, and i’ve just stood back and pretended it hasn’t happened for the sake of my own sanity. i'm a bad man.”

   a moment of silence between you, the only sound being the cars outside finding their way home and the tick of the clock in the living room.

   “you’re not a bad man.” you whispered, letting go of his hands to cup his face. “you’re a good man who’s found himself in a bad place.”

   “(y/n),” he cried, letting heavy, previously held back tears run down his face. “please, i understand if you want to leave me, but you’re the only person, the only thing in my life i know i have. i feel as though my life is a game of russian roulette.”

   “i—“ you sighed, not knowing what to say. “hoseok, look at me.” you ordered, rubbing his eyes to dry them of tears. “you’re right, this is a risky game. will i be safe?”

   “i promise you, (y/n). you have the world’s strongest and smartest men and women protecting you. you’ll be in no danger, you’ll be no one’s target.” he ensured you. “you don’t know how much i fucking love you.”

   you looked down, trying to make a decision that you knew would change your life forever. now hearing hoseok’s side, you recognized his intentions have been the same all along: to protect you and shelter you from any pain. even though he didn’t quite get it right, even though you’ve heard his voice shake at any doubt, you never heard any uncertainty when he said those three small words with a meaning bigger than any celestial body you could find: i love you. “i’m in.” you decided, voice firm and clear. “but you have to promise me, no more secrets, no more lies. we’re a team.”

   “i promise.” he replied, bringing his lips so close to yours, you could feel his breath scatter across your cheeks, drying what was left of your tears. “can i, can i please—“ you cut him off, connecting your lips and clutching the fabric of his collar. he slowly rose, arms snaking around your hips and patting, asking you to straddle him standing. you jumped, wrapping your legs around his torso, lips still connected, hoseok’s hands feeling up and down your back as he made his way towards the bedroom.

   he lay you on the bed, the two of you quickly undressing to nothing but your underwear. he crawled towards you, his form dominating yours and shading your nearly naked form from the bedroom lights. “love me hoseok, please,” you begged, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him towards you. “make love tonight. i want you to love me.”

   he dipped his lips towards you, kissing you briskly. “i already have, (y/n). i have for a long, long time."

[deejadabbles]

Spells of Defiance (Atem x Reader x Yugi) Chapter 1

One: Atem

One //// Two //// Three //// Four //// Five //// Six //// Seven //// [Eight coming soon]  

Summary: The Circle of Magicians protects the world from rogue, murderous fey. The police who keep bloodsuckers and flesh-eaters in check. You've hunted vampires for years, earning a reputation as one of the best magicians in that field; but what happens when an encounter with a particular vampire makes your already fragile loyalties split?

Supernatural/Demon Hunter AU. Vampire!Atem x Reader x Incubus!Yugi (yes, a polyamorous relationship). Warnings for cursing, vulgar language, violence, and some sexual themes.

This is a fic I’ve already posted this on my AO3 but I wanted to spread the Yu-gi-oh x Reader love here on tumblr.

A.N: For those of you who are new to this story, I want to mention that I took commonplace supernatural/fey lore and mixed it with my own ideas. I also took some inspiration from the original Yu-gi-oh series, like calling magic users "magicians" instead of witches or sorcerers. Hope you guys enjoy the ride~

Warehouses and abandoned buildings. Why was it always one of the two? Honestly neither were all that abundant in terms of being empty and isolated enough to be a useful hidey hole, but this one had managed to find one worthy of a Batman villain. Boarded up windows, isolated from the brunt of the nearby city, and not queued for any restoration projects. Good. That meant you could let loose without worry for innocent bystanders.

The creature screeched as you threw him to the ground, sputtering and hissing at your feet, but stunned all the same. The ones who trained you to fight these creatures knew what they were doing when they branded your right palm with the magician's enchanted seal. It helped channel your magic and you called up a flame bright, hot, and particularly threatening to the fanged thing before you.

"Let's try that again," you asked evenly, despite the thundering of your heart and heat of adrenaline that a fight always gave you. "I'm going to ask a question about your boss and you're going to answer me. Simple as that."

Apparently recovered from your last attack, your target snapped his head back up at you, fangs bared, hissing, eyes bulging, and body taught for an attack. You were ready when he leaped and you threw your fire spell at his airborne form. The screech of pain didn't surprise you, what did was the fact that the beast endured the pain enough to charge through the flames and closer to you! A reflexive dodge wasn't quite enough this time and you felt the vampire's fangs sink in deep and hot into the flesh of your right wrist.

You stifled the shout of pain as both of you stumbled to the ground, him pinning you down with one hand on your throat, the other on the arm he was clamped to. Another surprise came in the form of white-hot pain searing through the flesh of your hand. That wasn't right. Vampire bites didn't cause such pain. You looked over to see the enchanted seal on your hand pulsating in time with the stabs of agony.

'What the-' Just as quickly as the thought came you shook it from your mind. 'Focus, damn it!'

Though the seal was there to help you channel your magic, it was not completely necessary and you charged another spell into your left hand. Fire crackled on your fist as you drove it into the vampire's temple. It reared back with another hissing wail and a second punch, this time to the gut, caused him to fly back and crash into one of the half-rotted walls.

Pain still throbbed in your right arm as you stood and you chanced a glance at the wound. As expected the fang wounds were healing instantly, the vampire's toxin doing its job. Still, the fact that your magician's seal hurt at all was cause for concern.

No time to think about it now, however. Your eyes snapped back to the vampire. He was poising himself on all fours, a malicious brand of mirth in his eyes as his tongue lapped at the smear of blood on the corner of his mouth.

"Hmm, you taste good, little magician. I gonna enjoy sucking you dry." His voice was like nails dragging across metal, just an add-on to make your skin crawl all the more.

Then he was leaping at you again, but your willingness to play the fighting game was gone with his last attack. Time to end this. He closed in, likely thinking himself victorious, but you pulled your dagger out in a flash. The silver blade slashed across his face, gouging and burning deep. The pain made him fall to your feet and you could actually hear the sizzling of his skin.

"Fire and silver, a blood-sucker's biggest weaknesses. Honestly, it's almost unfair how much advantage I have over you, vampire. Now," you grabbed him by the collar, his twig-like frame making it easy to hoist him up into the air, "unless you want me to start making fancy burn marks on your skin with my silver friend here, you're going to come with me quietly. Then, you're going to tell the Circle of Magicians all you know about Marik."

He struggled against your grip, his strength returning, though all you had to do to make him wilt was hold the flat of the silver blade dangerously close to his face. "If I talk, the Vampire King will kill me! Besides, if he doesn't get to me first, the Circle will kill me anyway! They burn any rogue fey they come across."

"True," you conceded, "they don't take kindly to human killers like you. But, if you came with me, I can promise a quick death." For dramatic effect, you quirked an eyebrow at him, "Will Marik give you the same if I throw you back to him?"

The vamp was sweating now, eyes darting all around, feet weakly kicking in a fit. Then, his posture stiffened, "I have a better idea."

Much like he had with the fire, he took the pain of the silver and kicked you hard in the gut. You dropped him reflexively and he took the chance to run at one of the boarded up windows. What was he- it was three in the afternoon!

"Stop! The sun-"

Too late, he crashed through the wood and into open sunlit air. It didn't take long for the sun to ignite his body in flames. He was just dust by the time you got to the window and looked at the ground below. You cursed under your breath, slamming your fist into the frame of the window. He was your only lead in this case and chose suicide by sunlight over facing Marik's wrath. The Council was not going to be happy about this.

Teleportation spells had never been your forte, but you were desperate to get back to the Sanctuary, take a long scalding shower, and dive into your next possible lead, given that your last had just thrown himself into the sun.

The Sanctuary was the headquarters for the Circle of Magicians. It was a sprawling structure, only two stories high but crossed enough square feet to be considered quite an impressive castle. Well, a human realtor might throw it in that or the mansion category if they even knew about the place. Enchantments assured that no one besides a magician with a palm seal, or a visitor escorted by one could enter the Sanctuary grounds. Why they called it that name was beyond you, the place was a haven for no one, truly.

The other magicians paid you and your bloodied clothes no mind as you walked the halls, knowing that unless you were collapsing on the floor from injuries, there was little cause for worry. Life in the Circle did that to a person. Made one desensitized to blood and gore, or just about everything horrifying really. One does not sling spells and hunt demons for a living without such a particular defense mechanism.

Still, the idea of rinsing off the blood was a heavenly concept. Luckily most of it wasn't your own, but vampire blood had a particular stench to it. You turned the water on hot and had just removed your jacket and shirt when the door to the showers was thrown open. A familiar voice practically shouted your name as a brunette rounded the corner of your stall.

"Mana, what is it, what's wrong?"

"We have to go, now! They got tired of waiting and they moved his hearing up- they're putting him on trial now!"

Ice filled your veins in an instant. "What?!" How could they possibly-

"Hurry! You're the only one interested in proving he's innocent!"

Mana took the liberty of shutting off the shower head as you threw your shirt back on. Somehow, taking off a wet, putrid garment only to put it back on was more uncomfortable than having it on originally, but that was only a passing thought as you bolted out of the door with your fellow magician.

To most, the idea that a member of the Circle was concerned with the innocence of a fey was laughable. The Circle and its members hunted fey who stepped out of line and when one was accused of crossing that line, there was usually evidence enough not to question it. Or so they liked to say.

This time there was evidence, however. The problem was that you were the only one who knew about this particular man's innocence and the Council seemed disinterested with your testimony.

You had been tracking the vampire cult ruled the mysterious Marik for a while and had busted several of the follower's hideouts. They were human killers and were trialed as such, but then, you had found him. He got to the abandoned house before you, already disposed of two cultists and had a third by the throat when you burst in. At first, he had asked you to leave the situation to him, much to your annoyance. Of course, when back up in the form of nearly a dozen vamps showed up to kill their intruders, he was all too happy to accept your help. Honestly, you would have been in bad shape if it wasn't for him watching your back as well.

It was a short battle, but he proved himself worthy of your alliance in those moments- but then your own backup had come. Seeing a vampire covered in blood had been all that the other magicians needed to pin him down and place a binding spell on him, so that he could be carried back to the Sanctuary and put on trial with Marik's followers. Mana was right to say you seemed to be the only one who gave a damn about his innocence.

The doors to the trial hall came into view, but so too did the last person you wanted to see right now. The built blonde was leaning against the wooden doors and he smirked that condescending, almost sickening smirk when he turned his shaded eyes toward your thundering feet.

"Well well, come to watch the show?"

"Out of my way, Keith," you didn't bother hiding the hiss in your tone, wanting every ounce of intimidation you could muster.

His smirk only lengthened. "Aw, are you mad that your pet's being put down? Seriously, why do you give a damn if they put the cross to him? He's a vamp, a pretty old one from what they can tell, too. Probably killed plenty of people in his day."

"He's innocent, the Council needs to hear what she has to say!" Mana pipped up, actually daring to step between you and Keith to glare up at the man. For such a small girl, she could glare like a champ.

"The Council don't give a damn. We found him at the cult house, he's a vampire, pretty obvious he's following Marik."

You let out a growl and started to push past the blonde, "I don't have time for this, out of my way!"

Even if you hadn't hated Keith to the bone since you trained together as kids, you still would have acted on instinct when he grabbed hold of your arm. Fire was called to the seal on your palm and you turned into the force he pulled you back with; using the momentum to ram the heel of your hand into his gut. The contact was brief, but your fire spell had enough to work with and his jacket quickly caught fire. He'd survive, but the profanity-ridden distraction was enough for you to push open the doors to the trial room.

They gave a resounding crash from the force you used, effectively drawing everyone's attention as you entered and threw the doors shut behind you. The Council was a gray-haired, wrinkled lot, who all donned the same robes as they sat on their chairs, raised high on a platform so that the one on trial felt small beneath them. Of course, even with the trouble he was in, you doubted this vampire ever felt small beneath anyone.

And oh had they tried.

Not only was he bound by the usual enchanted chains, but a binding circle glowed on the floor around him, something that was usually reserved for the most dangerous fey. You were surprised that he could move at all, but he still turned his head at your arrival and locked eyes with you. Even under threat of death, Atem's eyes looked so calm.

You couldn't get lost in those eyes now and you gave yourself a mental shake before you could. That's when you noticed a third precaution the Council had taken to keep Atem in line. A muzzle of all things. The fact that he had yet to fight back against any of his magician captors meant nothing apparently.

"What do you think you're doing?!" shouted one of the council mages.

You met his glare head-on, approaching the center of the room to stand beside Atem as you spoke. "I'm here to give my testimony to the Council. I stand by my initial report that the one on trial is innocent."

Silence for just a second, then some whispers, and finally: "Yes yes, we know what your report said. However, since you have yet to bring us a live member of Marik's cult to confirm that this man is not also a member, we must take action."

"Hold a moment," drawled a third voice, looking at you with a somehow lazy interest. "Wasn't she just on a mission to capture a solo agent of the cult? Were you successful in capturing it?"

Shame boiled up from your gut. The feeling was not unfamiliar, however, the feeling not being a result of the Council's disappointment was. You didn't care about your failure in their eyes. No, you were ashamed because you had failed the vampire beside you.

"No. When I apprehended him, he committed suicide by sunlight rather than betray his master."

The second who had spoken clicked her tongue. "I see. And do you have any other proof, besides your word, that the vampire is innocent?"

Again shame reared inside your chest. You could feel Atem's eyes looking at you out of their corners. Would you see disappointment there if you glanced back? Instead, you kept your eyes locked on the magicians before you.

"No. But my word should be enough. What reason would I have to lie?"

The one with lazy interest shrugged, "You would not be the first magician to cover for a criminal fey."

"But he isn't a criminal!" You tempered the volume of your voice in an instant, knowing that yelling would not make them hear your plea any better. To show composure, you took in a deep breath. "Our duty is to protect everyone from rogue, murderous fey. That protection doesn't end at humans, we're supposed to protect other fey as well. Force a truth potion down my throat to prove I'm not lying if you want. The vampire known as Atem is innocent."

The Council fell to whispering between one another again and in that reprieve, you noticed Atem shift beside you. Finally, you looked at him again, just a slight turn of your head. The muzzle prevented him from speaking, but he didn't need words, his eyes said all they needed to. The potent emotion behind them actually caught you off guard. Damn, you had only known him a few days but somehow, his eyes had this strange effect on you. Feelings that were foreign to you stirred and you clenched your jaw as if that would keep them at bay. He seemed so...thankful. You just hoped it was enough.

A councilman spoke your name and the two of you turned your attention back to them. "We have taken your testimony under great consideration. However, the other vampire we caught the day Atem was apprehended gave his own testimony. He insists that this vampire is also a follower of Marik's cult. We must be thorough in our purging of this threat. The vampire on trial will be executed in forty hours."

"No!"

Your exclamation was lost as the councilman clapped his hands and a boom echoed out from them like thunder; their version of a gavel. One by one the members rose from their seats and Atem was suddenly tugging at his chains.

"Best not fight, vampire," said another councilwoman, her tone cold as she waved her hand, casting a spell.

The marks on the chains glowed and Atem could only give a closed-mouthed shout of pain as he was brought to his knees. The light of the binding circle around him rose, making a transparent cocoon to further encage him.

No, no! This was cruel. This was wrong! They didn't give a damn about justice!

"Stop! You don't have to hurt him!"

The one who was so disinterested during the trial still sounded quite bored as he said, "Remove her, please, before she does something else foolish."

You had barely even registered the magicians who had been standing guard by the door, but now they closed in on you. You couldn't strike them like you had Keith, especially not with your superiors right there. They dragged you out with minimal force, but you could still hear Atem's struggles as they closed the doors behind you.

You had never been placed in security details, your gift for fire spells usually landed you on hunting missions for vampires and other fey weak to the element. Still, you knew the prison wing of the Sanctuary well, and it was not unusual to see you there. You used that to your advantage, leaning up against the wall by the door that led to the wing, waiting for the late shift to start. This time period would ensure the most privacy, the least likely for anyone to overhear what you had to say to Atem.

Finally, you heard footsteps and you knew the inspection crew was done making their daily rounds in the cells. Still wary that they might bar you from entering the wing, you took a step back, hoping to go less noticed by the group. The doors opened and the crew stepped out, barely taking notice to you as they continued down the hall, likely on their way to get something to eat. Only one gave you more than a passing glance.

Mahad was head of security at the Sanctuary and, though fair, was one of the more likely magicians to shoo you away, knowing exactly why you were there. He paused in his steps for a second, his blue eyes locking firm on your own. Then, he only sighed and gave you a very pointed look that conveyed a very firm order of: 'don't do anything you'll regret', before he continued on his way as well.

Even if you had planned some rule breaking plot, you knew there was little chance of executing it now. If his guards found Atem's cell empty, he would waste no time in telling the Council who he saw. He was a fair, good man, but ultimately a follower of the Circle's law.

The mark on your right hand allowed you to enter the prison wing without question after you pressed it to the flat surface where a handle would normally be on the door. The cells had a low occupant rate, like usual, but they had still shoved Atem deep within the prison; isolated even from the few other prisoners. The hallway was dark and you couldn't see Atem even as the silver-coated bars of his cell came into view.

He must have smelled your scent on their air, however, because even though he stood in the center of the cell, his back turned to the bars, he addressed you the moment you reached them. "You shouldn't have come."

"It's not against regulations for me to visit the cells."

Atem sighed before finally turning towards you. "I don't want you to get into any more trouble because of me."

You only shrugged. "I just...I needed to see you after all that. I'm pissed that they made a show out of your trial. We only take precautions like that with high-level fey and you've shown no violent tendencies since they arrested you. A muzzle for god sakes!"

The scarlet eyed vampire managed a smirk before his eyes glanced over your new, clean clothes. "You made quite the entrance. Fierce and bloodstained. You looked like Sekhmet incarnate."

His tone said that he was saying the last bit to himself, almost absentmindedly, but you found your curiosity piqued. "Sekhmet, that's the Egyptian goddess of war, right?"

Atem nodded. "In a way. She is a warrior goddess, but, also the goddess of healing. Strength and gentleness intertwined perfectly."

Something in his eyes said that the hearing was not the first time the comparison of you to a goddess came to his mind. Again, unfamiliar feelings bubbled up and you swallowed hard, throwing a very firm lock on the sensation. Still, him speaking of ancient gods of the sands said a lot. Hunt vampires long enough and you get pretty good at telling whether one was turned in the last few decades, centuries, or even farther back. Everything about Atem spoke of an old world neglected by time. His skin, though pale from centuries or more of having to avoid the sun, seemed to have once had a richer complexion. His clothes, though not unusual to the modern eye, had a timelessness to them. Plain cotton shirt, dark pants, and metal jewelry that looked forged by rough hands instead of a factory's machine. Had he possibly come from the time of Sekhmet and pharaohs?

"Thank you."

His words brought you out of your musings, and you had to blink a few times to realize what he'd said. "Why are you thanking me? Nothing I did seemed to make a difference."

Instead of a smirk, he actually gave you a smile, a soft, genuine smile. He stepped closer to the bars, close enough to stay just out of reach of the silver's burning effect. "Still. You did not give up on helping me. If I'm honest, I would have never suspected anyone in the Circle would care for a vampire at all. Yet, here you are, defying your leaders and putting your reputation on the line, for me. A creature you've been taught to kill first and ask questions of later."

And there it was. What most fey thought of your kind. Magicians were the worst of police, the kind who kept peace by any means necessary and told the very people they clenched their fists around that it was for their own good. You had been born into that life, spending your whole youth under the Circle and training to serve them. Even with either constant teachings that magicians did what they had to in order to keep the peace, you saw their prejudices and their cruelty for what it really was. Did you really deserve a thank you for being slightly less brutal than that?

"The Council is wrong," you whispered and if it weren't for the stone silence of the prison wing, he might not have even heard you.

"That may be, but you've done all you can, and I thank you for that."

Lies. There was more you could do and...and that defeated, resolute tone of his last words made your next decision firm. There was more you could do. You had thought about it every moment since the end of his sentencing. It was the only way and it didn't even seem that hard of a choice. You weren't going to let them kill Atem.

You almost acted on the thought now, but caught yourself quickly. You had to be patient. You had over a day to plan, and there were more opportune times than now to execute said plan. Besides, you figured that if you brought it up now, Atem would just deny your help and stubbornly stay in his cell. Await death rather than risk your safety like some damn chivalrous knight. Maybe when he spent all whole night in the cell as a condemned man, he'd be more willing to let you help him escape.

Again you were brought out of your musings when Atem called your name.

"May I ask one more favor of you?" he asked with some small hesitance. "There is someone very important to me, he is likely already frantic that he hasn't heard from me these past few days. Tomorrow, could you go to him and tell him what happened? Tell him how sorry I am that I let myself get caught up in this- that I let my need for revenge bring me here." Heavy emotion had marred his speech and Atem had to draw in a breath to steady himself. "I just want him to know that I didn't abandon him... And how sorry I am."

"What's his name?" you asked, the gentleness in your voice surprising even yourself.

"Yugi. He owns a magic shop in Domino. He is...very special to me. What I regret the most about all of this, is not being able to see him again."

You chose your reply carefully, you didn't want him to catch on to the plan brewing in your mind yet. You couldn't let him know how determined you were to make sure he saw this person again. Not yet.

"Don't worry, Atem. Yugi will know exactly how you feel." You needed another topic, so he couldn't analyze your words too much. Your eyes scanned the small cell and finally took notice to something odd. "They didn't give you any blood to drink?"

"No. I was assuming they would wait until hours before my execution to feed me. A last meal of sorts."

"Idiots. If they starve you too long you'll go into a blood-rage and they'll actually need that magic muzzle."

You had seen enough vampires in blood-rages over the years. It was a gory affair that should be avoided at all costs. Even a vampire as peaceful as Atem would turn into little more than a rabid animal when starved; the bloodlust overriding any sense of humanity.

Not only was that something to be avoided, but he would be weak as a sick child by tomorrow.

The bars of the cell were wide enough for you to get your hand through, so, you pushed back the left sleeve of your shirt. He must not have suspected you to offer, because shock flashed in his eyes when you slipped your hand passed the bars and bore your wrist to him.

"Here," you had to clear your throat, the words having come out as little more than a whisper for some reason. "You need to eat, take some of my blood."

Shocked turned into something hard and almost pained as he took your hand and pushed it back towards the silver bars. "No. You've done more than enough for me as it is, I won't take your blood too." He flinched in pain as the silver burned him, his fangs flashing in reaction.

"It's alright, Atem." You pressed closer to the bars, pushing him back out of the silver's reach, but did not withdraw your hand from his grip. "I need you at full strength and it's not as if I don't know what I'm doing. I trust you, I know you won't take too much. Besides," a playful grin lifted your lips as you waved your right palm at him, the seal there visible even in the dim light, "it isn't like I'm helpless to stop you."

Honestly, all you really needed to do if your blood tasted too good, was jerk him hard enough to slam him against the bars and he'd let go of you on reflex from the burning if nothing else. You decided to keep that thought to yourself though.

Those eyes of his burned into yours, a silent way of asking if you were absolutely sure. When you answered back with unwavering certainty in your own gaze, his shoulders finally relaxed just a bit and he closed his eyes with a sigh.

He turned your hand so the inside of your wrist faced him and he lifted it slowly, as if giving you even more time to change your mind before the skin met his mouth. You took in a slow breath as his lips parted, revealing long, thin fangs just a second before they bit down. The slight sting was nothing, quickly being replaced with the curative lacing his fangs that numbed any piercing sensation, as well as the feeling of blood passing through the wound.

Even if vampire bites did hurt longer than that split second, Atem had a special kind of gentleness about him. He held your arm in a firm grip so that the instinct to pull away would not tear the punctures any larger, and you blushed when you realized that his thumb was running soothing circles along your forearm just below the bite.

You knew that some vampires survived by making pacts with humans or other fey, offering some kind of service in exchange for letting them drink small amounts of said partner's blood to survive. You had assumed Atem was one who chose animal blood over a human or fey host, but the way he handled you with such care made you reconsider that assumption.

Finally, cold air hit your wrist as he pulled back. Though, even more heat rose in your cheeks when you felt his tongue dart out to collect any blood that spilled before his curative healed the wound. The hand that had run so gently over your arm moved to cover the place he bit, though there wasn't even a scar or sign of wound at all now. When he looked up at you, the hands cupped over yours tightened just a bit.

"Your face is flushed- do you feel alright?"

In his worry, Atem tried to step closer to you, but the bars ensured his distance. You were quick to alleviate the guilt and shame taking his features.

"I'm fine, Atem. Not even light-headed." You paused a moment, making sure he didn't need any more reassurance, then asked, "Think it'll be enough to get you through the night?"

"Yes, more than enough." His mouth opened to say something else, but he must have thought better of it, because instead he only said, "Thank you. Now please, go get something to eat, it will prevent any fatigue or dizziness."

You actually scoffed at that, "I know how to handle blood loss, Atem." Indeed, the aftermath of a particularly nasty fight with a murderous werewolf came flooding back to you.

"Still, I've kept you down here too long. Get some rest and...again, thank you."

[xtruss]

US Politics

Donald Trump Has Lost the Election – Yet Trumpland is Here to Stay

As long as poor white Americans have little hope of a better life, they will continue to seek a leader in his mould

— The Guardian USA | Aditya Chakrabortty | November 12, 2020

Perhaps one day Donald Trump will be dragged out of the Oval Office, his tiny fingernails still dug deep into that fat oak desk. But Trumpland, the country that ignored the politicians and the pollsters and the pundits and gave him the White House in 2016, will outlast him; just as it emerged before he even thought of becoming a candidate. And for as long as it is here it will warp politics and destabilise the US.

I first stumbled upon Trumpland in 2012, a time when it bore no such name and appeared on no maps.

I was reporting in Pittsburgh that autumn, as Barack Obama crushed Mitt Romney while cruising to a second term as president. The big US broadsheets wrote up the Republicans as if they were an endangered species , while thirtysomethings in DC gazed deep into their spreadsheets or West Wing boxsets and foretold permanent Democratic majorities, gaily handed to them by a rainbow coalition of black, Latino and granola-chewing graduate voters.

Except I kept meeting people who lived in an alternative country. People like Mike Stout and his family. He’d worked for decades in the local steel mills and had been a fiery union leader. Now he spent every spare hour as a reincarnation of Woody Guthrie, carrying a guitar along with memories of standing in 2009 on Washington’s Mall to watch Obama’s inauguration, his breath freezing in the January air as the first black president was sworn in . “It was like a new world had opened up, just for an afternoon,” said his wife, Steffi.

But it was their far more subdued daughter, Maura, who troubled me. The steelworks of her dad’s day was long gone, so she’d gone to university and then spent two years hunting for a job. Now the 23-year-old was doing the accounts for a hotel, a non-graduate position paying $14 an hour, which Mike recalled as the same rate he’d earned at the steelworks in 1978 – without, of course, three decades of inflation. Among Maura’s year of about 500 graduates, she counted as one of the lucky ones.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to earn as much as my parents,” she said. “I don’t think my husband and I will ever have the same life as they did.”

We were in Pennsylvania, often painted as a land of blue-collar aristocracy and true-blue Democrats. But the political economy that had underpinned those ballot-box majorities was as rusted as an abandoned factory. Instead, Maura saw a political system that had failed her and her generation, in which every new day was worse than yesterday. And while the Stouts were leftwing, they had little in common with the party they supported. In their eyes, their home had been gutted of manufacturing and bilked by foreign trade deals, and appeared nowhere on the Clinton/Obama ideological map.

Sure enough, four years later Pennsylvania became one of the rustbelt states that won Trump the White House.

Trumpland is not the same as the old Republican heartlands, even if they overlap. What the dealmaker saw more clearly than the Bushes, the Romneys and the McCains was that there was a new electoral coalition to be forged out of downwardly mobile white voters. “The people that have been ignored, neglected and abandoned,” he called them in Ohio in 2016. “I am your voice.”

And so he completed the great inversion of American politics: he turned the Republicans into a party whose future is tied to Trumpland. Even Trump’s rivals accept that. This summer, Texas senator Ted Cruz said: “The big lie in politics is that Republicans are the party of the rich and Democrats are the party of the poor. That just ain’t true. Today’s Republican party are Ohio steelworkers, today’s Republican party are single mums waiting tables…”

Whatever promises Trump made on the threshold of the White House, once inside he spent four years giving billions in tax cuts to rich people and trying to deprive millions of low-paid Americans of decent healthcare. For the poor whites who put him in power, Trump had nothing to offer apart from racism.

However grossly used by its leader, Trumpland is more than an imagined community. It has its own society and economics and politics ­– and they barely resemble the rest of the US. The 477 large and densely populated counties won by Biden account for 70% of America’s economy, according to new calculations by the Brookings Institute ; Trump’s base of 2,497 counties amount to just 29% (a further 1% is still to be counted). Brookings describes Trumpland as “whiter, less-educated and … situated in the nation’s struggling small towns and rural areas. Prosperity there remains out of reach for many.”

These people haven’t been left behind so much as cut loose from the US. Between 2010 and 2019, the US created nearly 16m new jobs but only 55,000 of them were suitable for those who left school at 16. Inequality this deep is not just economic, it is social and psychological. It is also lethal.

Two economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, have found that working-age white men and women without degrees are dying of drug overdoses, alcohol-related liver disease and suicide at unprecedented rates . In 2017 alone, they calculated that there were 158,000 of these “deaths of despair” ­– equal to “three fully loaded Boeing 737s falling out of the sky every day for a year”.

As Case and Deaton point out, African Americans have still harder lives. They die younger, and are less likely to go to college or get a job. Yet over decades their prospects are improving. For poor white Americans, on the other hand, the trends point straight down. The result, according to a new study by Andrew Oswald and former Bank of England rate-setter David Blanchflower, is that middle-aged, white American school leavers are now suffering an epidemic of “extreme mental distress”.

When you live in a zero-sum economy, in which you always lose while the other guy wins, then you too might subscribe to zero-sum politics – in which the Democrats aren’t just opponents but enemies, and democratic norms are there to be broken. “These people are hurting,” says Blanchflower. “And when you’re hurting you’ll buy what looks like medicine, even if it’s from a snake-oil merchant.”

This is where Biden’s kumbaya politics, all his pleas to Americans to join hands and sing, looks laughably hollow. You can’t drain the toxicity of Trumpism without tackling the toxic economics of Trumpland. And for as long as Trumpland exists, it will need a Trump. Even if the 45th president is turfed out, he will carry on issuing edicts and exercising power from the studio set of any TV station that will have him.

Eight years after meeting Mike Stout, I spoke to him this week. He didn’t have much good news for me. Maura lost her hotel position last year and is now working from home in the pandemic, phoning up people deep in debt and pressing them to repay their loans. His son, Mike, lost his job just a few weeks ago for the second time in five years, and now has no medical insurance while his wife has stage-4 cancer.

“They’ve been pushed off the shelf straight into the gutter,” he told me. “I don’t see any party out there willing to protect my children’s lives: not Democrat, not Republican.”

• Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist