#listen i like the 'dead children brought back by the void' thing just as much as anyone else but hollow very much did survive the abyss

[ruthlesslistener]

You should fight with this other artist who insists that Hollow porn is child porn because "all vessesl died young". I think you would cut the other person's dick off with your responce lmaoooo

oh god please no. i didn't know people legitimately argued that was a thing and don't want to have to deal with more stupidity on the other side of the dumbass shit i already had to deal with

[todderwodders]

WIP WHENEVER

This isn't bg3 but a section from a longfic I have been working on since 2021 for Arkham Knight. TW for missing persons/children, parental grief, dead bodies, dead animals

Clark Kent wades through reed ridden water, and listens.

He hears it all. the buzz of a radio two miles away, in a creaking, crumbling farmhouse he had driven past on the way into Gotham. Driven, because as much as Batman needed distance, Bruce Wayne needed help, and the light of day, and surprise. He hears the screech of a flock of crows as they circle a dead dog in a ditch three miles south, against the wind.

He can smell the contents of its stomach, mostly garbage but with little shreds of wild meat no human could digest, and the rot of cyanide, probably from poison a farmer had put out for his canine pest. He can hear the swish of the current and feel the big body of a bull shark sway past him.

He can hear the thud of a father's heart as he fervently dismisses one more square mile of the no man's land that surrounds Gotham city.

They've been at this for three weeks now. Three weeks in which Clark squeezes in rush trips to Gotham, wading through sewers and helping Bruc dig up mountains of trash heaps or scan warehouses from days long, long past their intended use. Anywhere the joker may have stashed a body.

Bruce won't say it, but ten months have passed, and it's as it Jason Todd has vanished into thin air. The joker, malignant thing that he is, has sat pretty and quiet in Arkham for the majority of Jason's disappearance. his tracker stuck to the underside of a child's mechanical horse somewhere in miagani. A gun missing from Bruce's safe, a classroom full of children who all had closed casket funerals. Dead end, tool, and motive.

That leaves a small window for a young man to do exactly as his father told him not to do and get himself taken for it. The statistics don't change for heros or for villains: the first 48 hours of a disappearance is the only time in which survival is more likely than not. The rest is a percentage that ticks by with each minute, one which plummets to 10% when jack white is involved. 1% when captivity lasts for longer than a week.

So. Body. Which Bruce will not admit to being a body yet, because while he texts Clark at random intervals during the day and they wonder the city in a shitty pick up truck, undisturbed and out from under Barbara's watchful gaze, Bruce is ripping apart Gotham at night.

He had brought Clark along, in those early weeks.

He had brought Clark along, in those early weeks.

Back when he still had hope. Clark could hear it in his heartbeat, that frantic puttering that doesn't stop until sleep takes him and starts up immediately when consciousness comes calling.

Barbara had helped. Dick had helped. Bruce still allotted the lions share to himself, still grasped for

- anything. Clark has found bits and pieces. Hair in a warehouse, Jason's boot prints in Arkham's botanical gardens. They came to nothing. The calls had stopped until they didn't. Now bruce is looking for something cold and unmoving.

Clark nearly falls off the sand dune he's on as the thought that Bruce is giving up settles in. Only the gaping void of not knowing fills the air now, with only the taste of resignation to act as chaser. Bruce will never know for sure if Jason is dead. Bruce, and Clark, and maybe even Barbara, whose grown up hearing stories about dead little boys and girls all the way back to when she was a little girl herself, are giving in. The new Robin does not seem as convinced. Clark likes that earnestness, thinks it'll serve him well. It doesn't change the fact that Joker wins by omission.

"Have you found anything?" Comes Bruce's voice in his ear piece. It's dialed all the way down, but the static still makes his teeth ache and Clark nearly misses swatting away an all too curious mama Bull, her tail giving him a good whack for his efforts.

"There's a woman whose body is tangled up in a fishing net just below that broken set of docks off

140. Blue warehouse right next to it. Please text Barbara to-"

"No Jason?"

They've found twenty bodies like this, ranging from five to forty-five. Most of them have been identified. Which should feel good. But when all you're praying for is a body to scrape up from the bottom of Gotham bay just so a funeral could be arranged, so his father, your best friend, can at least pray over him and visit him every Sunday, it only makes you sour.

"I'm sorry," comes out of his mouth before he can stop it. It feels like it's all he says now. Can you watch over family symbolically if family isn't there?

How many days and nights does god need for boys in lead lined graves?

…I'll call it in myself," Bruce says, and Clark nearly throws that damned piece of plastic into the bay.

Another bull as tried to sink its teeth into his rubber overalls, and the pressure keeps him from screaming or crying or both. The desperation to fix the unfixable is killing him. Clark could fly back to metropolis and pretend this isn't his problem, but for a thousand reasons, ranging from friendship to knowing the boy to knowing his brother even better, he could never. He breaths in, petting the cool, rough flesh of the shark.

He wonders if the gaunt, hallowed out look that Bruce carries with him now is permanent, a distinct hanger on for a child who gives off no scent or sound or heat.

[cyberp-1-nk]

[ Runaway Bride - ST Simp Party ]

SYNOPSIS; How Lapis found herself running away from everything she once knew.

GENRE; Angst, action.

CONTENT WARNINGS; Arranged marriage, angst, abusive parents.

TAGS; @insane-horror-movie-addict

CHARACTER COUNT; 7006

Lapis rubbed her face and groaned, her eyes sleepy and her body aching. Forgetting about the bruise on her face, she yanked her hand back and closed her eyes from the throbbing pain of her jaw. She heard the commotion as she lifted herself up, rubbing her cheek. The muscles locked from the shock of the fist that met with her face and for a moment she couldn’t move her jaw from the recent injury. She pulled her hand away from her lips, seeing blood staining her gloved fingers. The woman beside her who had been getting Lapis prepared for her wedding quickly grabbed a handkerchief, dabbing it on the soft of her skin and Lapis winced in pain.

“We must cover this up! You wouldn't want your newly wedded husband to see this.” The woman urged and Lapis let out a soft sigh with a slight nod of the head, rubbing her face to try and get feeling back in her skin. "No handsome fellow likes a bruised fruit, don't you know." The woman crudely jokes, dabbing light powder to cover up the newly formed bruising spots.

— … —

Expensive white-heels snuggly fitted the soles of her feet, as she emotionlessly walked down the carpeted-aisle along the hushed church. Muddled sounds of a piano being played, an odd glint in her eyes became visible. She didn’t know what it meant, but it brought a nasty feeling to her stomach that just didn’t sit right. It felt nothing like how it was supposed to, instead, it felt like a sad person playing the piano in an empty room, drowning in regret and rage. All eyes watched her pristinely walk down to her fiance with a bouquet quietly gripped in her hands, marveling at her unique beauty that she had displayed oh-so wonderfully.

Lapis saw nothing special in his eyes. His blue, cold, dead eyes serve nothing but a reflection to her very own. Both mutated, and molded from a laboratory, then arranged to be married with no other purpose, other than to produce a child who would possess the abilities you both adorned. The emotionless glint brings so much emotion that it could break children’s belief in a colourful world and change it into the sound of horror, of the soft lullaby on an empty place that is waiting for the worst thing to happen.

Lapis did not like this one bit, but hesitantly she closed her eyes, as if trying to escape from her reality. Her mind could still picture her parents in front of her, even with her eyes closed. It scared her. Their eyes were so empty... It reminded her of the dead fish she used to have back at home. 

"Dearly beloved, we have gathered here today to honor the matrimony of Lapis Nightingale and Alexander Lopez,'' The old priest dressed in religious robes holds up a book and stands in between the two of them. His glasses tilt down on the bridge of his nose as his eyes scim along the book. All of the words are muddled in her ears, as soft ringing begins to become apparent. She drifts her attention to the windows behind Alexander, gazing at them and falling into a daydream of escaping. It seems so close yet so far away. The ceremony drones on and on. Lapis is in a delusional daze while it happens until the vows become apparent, snapping her out of her fantasy.

 

"I promise to always love and cherish you, my dear beauty, " She mutes his lines from then on. Lapis isn't in the mood to listen to lies. Alexander's vows are short and sweet yet sound rehearsed because...we'll they are. When it's her turn, she sounds like an actual robot void of emotion. It's true, there's a numbing sensation filling the emptiness of feelings in her brain. Maybe it's a defense mechanism her unconscious mind is performing to block the despair and fear coming in the near future. 

"The rings,'' The priest asks and a young little boy holds a red silk pillow up after stepping forward. Alexander takes one of the beautiful simple designed pieces of jewelry that stands as a symbol of commitment then grabs her limp hand. 

"With this ring, I thee wed," Lapis's anxiety spikes in that moment, kicking in her flight or fight adrenaline. Finally the situation comes crashing down on her, crushing her lungs underneath. The room is getting smaller and the door to the exit down the aisle is looking bigger. Lapis knows it's now or never as the jewelry is slid onto her finger. Her eyes flicker around the room nervously. She swallows down a bit of bile rising in her throat and tries to suck it up by grabbing the other ring. No, running away from her problems would only make things worse...right?

 

"With this ring, I thee wed," Her voice is meek and lacks any confidence in the statement. Alexander places the wider ring on his finger. Alex noticeably frowns at her shakiness. Her chest feels like it's about to explode. It would be so easy to just...dash through those two doors at the beginning of the aisle. The exit to the building is only a few steps after the small hallway entrance just outside the cathedral. There's a large forest surrounding the area...maybe...just maybe it could work if she's fast enough. 

"Alexander Lopez, do you take Lapis Nightingale to be your lawfully wedded wife?" Those dreaded words only spurr her towards making the decision to run as far away as possible from here. She wishes Alex would read her body language, her look of grief and discomfort. But, either he's too egocentric to notice or doesn't care. Whichever one it is causes her dread of  staying with this man through sickness and in health rise to another level. Alexander's greedy, he takes what he wants and that happens to be her. He wants her breath-taking beauty all to himself, as if she were some type of prize to be kept.

"I do," Alexander says without an ounce of hesitation. If only he really loved her instead of claiming her as a possession. A trophy given to him by her father to display and brag about. It sickens her to no end. A spark of anger ignites her defiance and in a single moment, she seals her future. 

"I...I...No..!'' It leaves her mouth in a strong tone. She stares at him straight in the eyes and observes how stunned his expression is. Gasps and whispers begin to spread around the room as a fire does once it catches on kindle. Lapis doesn't turn to see her parent's reactions nor Charlie's. The priest's jaw drops at her rejection. The bride takes her hands back from her fiance's grip and grabs her large fluffy skirt before dashing down the three velvet stairs that connect to the aisle. She nearly trips a few times and stumbles periodically. Her heart thumps against her ribcage as she gets closer and closer to the exit, throwing the piece of jewelry around her finger against the ground in the process.

She had just escaped from the laboratory that could've been considered hell, as it mutated and dreadfully turned her into some type of super-human.

Almost immediately, guards spread out to retrieve her. Her eyes narrowed, immediately turning to the front of her. If she had continued to sprint, she would reach the beach just a few paces ahead. They had chosen a poor choice of location as she managed to kick off her overbearingly painful high-heels, picking up the fluff of her dress and trying not to trip over it. They all stopped in astonishment as she'd finally reached the ocean, every single glance of water started to rise above her head as it all gathered and shape-shifted into a massive clenched fist, mimicking her own fist as she controlled the gathered-water with ease. At her command, the hand started to grab the guards, and throw them with little to not effort. 

As a rain of bullets were being shot at her, she stretched her hand out towards the leading henchman. She shifted, and manipulated the water that had been inside his body, she was able to control his limbs since water was inside his blood. As she controlled him, he let out a terrifying shriek of a scream, and felt all his bones slowly being crushed from the inside. By a tenfold, they were outsmarted, and quickly retreated.

The ocean had collapsed into place, waves roughly crashing against the sand and slightly stained the white of her dress. The water shifted its form, quickly attaching to her back as it shaped into wings of some-sort, and she leaped, leaving this place permanently.

From afar, Alex watches as she beautifully glides along the sky, letting a terrifyingly calm smile grace his lips. An unknown emotion had been brewing in those inhospitable eyes of his, something dangerous, "You'll be back, Lapis" He smiled, "Even I have to hunt you down, and if I have to break every limb in your body just for you to stay with me, I will. Either way, you'll be back."

[nejibaby]

Afterglow

Pairing: Portgas D. Ace x Y/N

Summary: Without Ace, your nights are back to being long, dark, and empty. But when you finally reunite, Ace refuses to just be your Daylight.

Daylight - Part 1 | Afterglow - Part 2

Word Count: 4.3k (my hands slipped, I’m so sorry)

Loosely based on: Taylor Swift’s Lover album (but mostly about the songs Daylight and Afterglow)

A/N: I really think Whitebeard is a great father, yk? So I see him as someone who you can always seek and rely on. He looks tough (and he’s actually tough), but he’s soft too! And Ace too, in that respect is similar to WB. I really believe he’ll be such a good boyfriend 🥺 Anyway, I really enjoyed writing this so much! Thank you to everyone who read this, I love yall 🥰

<Teach doesn’t exist to me, I hate him, so I guess this is noncanon? Also, there’s this tiny spoiler, just a warning.>

Sailing by yourself in a boat for one reminds you how vast the sea actually is. With the rowdy Whitebeard pirates, sometimes the sea, no, the world, seems a lot smaller, a lot more manageable, but alone, it feels so massive it’s almost frightening.

It’s easy to get lost, except there’s no such concept like that for someone like you who doesn’t have a destination to go to in mind. Quite simply, you’re wandering, but not lost.

You drift from one island to another. Your initial intention is to get as far away as possible from the crew. Now that that’s achieved, you’re unsure of what to do next.

You allow yourself to observe and to experience some sort of normalcy at the islands you dock at. It’s a good thing that you don’t really stand out so no one suspects you’re a wanted pirate.

Walking down the streets of random towns, you’re reminded of how lonely being a Celestial Dragon was. No one wants to interact with a World Noble, afraid of the consequences if they’re angered. Things changed drastically when you became a pirate though. People don’t shy away that much with pirates in certain places. They interact with you, albeit hesitantly sometimes. Nevertheless, you felt so free and happy.

Now, you’re still a pirate, as marked by Whitebeard’s infamous tattoo. But with the unsuspecting townspeople and the lack of the presence of a crew, you don’t feel like one. Somehow it makes you feel empty.

The void is immeasurable. Despite it being unbounded, you’re sure that a single person can fill that emptiness: Portgas D. Ace.

But there are oceans separating you from Ace— a distance that you put. With the space between you, there’s silence in your voyage, however, it’s quite mystifying how every island you reach seems to scream his name.

There’s an island where you’ve docked at that’s snowing all year long. It brought back memories of when you were fairly new to the Whitebeard Pirates and had landed on a similar island. Back then you’ve worn a coat as you disembarked Moby Dick, however, the cold continued to seep through your layers of clothing. You couldn’t handle extreme temperatures that well but you didn’t want to make a big deal out of it so you continued to walk alongside the crew to scout the area. The thing was you may have been terrible at hiding it because Ace noticed the way your body was shivering and your teeth chattering. You were only acquaintances back then but he went to your side and striked a conversation with you. You didn’t understand why you became comfortable when he approached you all of a sudden, but then later that night you realized that he used his devil fruit abilities to warm you up.

At one island with a bustling town, there’s this restaurant that serves a variety of meat. You’re reminded of Ace and his bottomless pit of a stomach, and of his narcoleptic episodes while eating. He has a tendency of eating and then running, and the first few times he did it with you had you reeling. When you’ve finally realized that he’s never going to change, you start to keep a pouch of gold coins with you, reserved for paying for the food he eats. You leave it on the table just as Ace pulls you to run, and he has no idea about it. Owners or servers at the restaurants would still follow you out, but not to berate the both of you for not paying but to return the extra gold coins because you pay too much. Like usual though, Ace pretends not to hear them and they never got to catch up with you and Ace.

On another island, there’s a huge wild boar thrice the size of a human. It reminded you of the time you got so excited to explore an island that you speedily ran towards the forest alone, only to be met by a wild boar. The size of the boar stunned you and its glare kept you frozen in fear. A loud scream escaped your lips when it lunged at you, except the impact never came. When you’ve gathered your bearings, the wild boar was dead and… cooked, courtesy of Ace’s devil fruit abilities. He saved you, but he played it off as if he had his eyes on the wild boar since the beginning “to hunt it down.”

The current island you’re at is in famine. As soon as you docked at their port, a group of men has drawn their swords at you. For a moment, you thought they were bounty hunters so you grabbed your daggers and took a defensive stance. However, from the way they keep looking back and forth to you and your boat, and from hearing the faint sound of their stomach grumbling, you can tell they aren’t. Behind some trees, you can see the heads of some children peeking with worried yet hopeful looks on their faces.

Slowly, you raise your hands up in surrender, dropping your daggers in the process. You can’t turn your back on them — figuratively and literally — so you walk backwards towards your boat. The men look at you curiously but they don’t ever lower their swords.

In a quick motion, you grab a bag containing all of your food supply and throw it at them. One of the men catches it. “You can have them. It isn’t much, but that’s all I have.”

The man who was able to catch the bag carefully opens it and sees food. He almost cries at the sight of it. The rest of the men lowers the sword after you offer no sign of aggression. They start calling the other citizens of the area afterwards.

The children are the first to come running towards the men — all of them conveying excitement. You couldn’t tell how long they haven’t eaten but judging from how thin they are, it has got to be quite some time.

A small girl stumbles and falls near you and you quickly come to her aid. There isn’t much damage, just a scraped knee so you carefully patched her up.

“Thank you,” she gives you a toothy smile and then starts heading to the men who are distributing the food.

She comes back a moment later, arms outstretched to hand an apple to you. “For you,” she says.

Something blossoms in your heart because of her sweetness. “Thank you, but it’s fine, you can have it,”

She doesn’t object but then she hugs you tightly. “Thank you so much.”

Surprisingly, even on an island like this, you’re reminded of Ace. You remember his story about coming to Wano and meeting a child named “Tama” who seemed to be as charming as the child you helped and is under the same fortune.

Now that your mind has drifted to thoughts of Ace, you didn’t want to think of anything else. Even as the people gather around you to offer their thanks, and even as they usher you to a bonfire to celebrate for the food to eat, the thoughts of him linger in your head.

And just like in all the previous islands you came to, you wish he’s here with you too.

There’s longing in your heart, but there’s also something else— something pleasant that you can’t quite describe— and you attribute it to the gratitude of the people.

The mother of the child you helped, Sito, offers their spare room for you to take and you graciously accept. Soft snores almost immediately fill your ears after a few minutes of them bidding you good night.

The longer you stay awake, however, the pleasant feeling you felt a while ago starts to leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

You’ve always criticized yourself for not being able to do more when you were still a Celestial Dragon but now that you did something good, you start to feel selfish for doing it because it makes you feel better about yourself.

It’s at times like this that you seek Pops. There’s a sudden urge to hear his voice and his thoughts. So you grab your Den Den Mushi, but you hesitate.

You’ve lost track of the days since you left Moby Dick. And in that time frame, you never once called Pops. Although you didn’t really promise to call, maybe he was expecting you to, especially since you know he wouldn’t do it first.

You sigh. Maybe this call is long overdue after all.

You step outside the house and start to contact Pops using the Den Den Mushi. It only rings once and then it’s answered, almost as if Pops was waiting by the Den Den Mushi. The thought brings a smile to your face. “Pops—”

“Why on earth are you only calling now?!” His angry tone welcomes you.

“I’m so—”

“Is that Y/N?!” Marco interrupts. Ah, how could you have forgotten? It’s at this time that Marco reports to Pops. “We’re so worried about you -yoi!”

You can hear sounds of struggling on the line and then there’s a loud smack followed by an even louder crash. There’s a moment of silence which makes you wonder what’s going on in the ship.

“Why didn’t you call earlier?!” Pops’ voice booms. “If you’re going to leave a Den Den Mushi, I’m going to expect your reports but I received none of that.”

“I’m sorry Pops. I have no excuse,” you sheepishly say.

“Everyone’s worried about you,” he pauses but then his voice rings louder once again, “Some are even outside my room trying to listen in on our conversation. But if they know better, they should leave us alone.” The sound of rushing footsteps could be heard in the background as Pops finishes his sentence.

You chuckle, imagining the crew eavesdropping. “How are you Pops?”

“I’m doing fine.”

“How’s everyone? How’s… uhm… Ace?”

“Everyone’s just missing you. You didn’t say goodbye after all,” he says. “I put Ace on a mission because he won’t stop pestering me about you. He won’t come back in a couple of days.”

“Oh.”

“He misses you a lot,” he sighs. “He strides to me everyday to demand your whereabouts. Each time I wouldn’t tell him but he never learns. Vista says he’s on his 56th attempt the other day.”

The brief image of Ace that your mind comes up with brings a small smile to your face.

“When are you coming back?” Whitebeard breaks your reverie.

“Ah, I’m not sure yet… It might take a while.”

He hums. “So how are you? Have you been eating well?”

“I’m doing fine, Pops. No one’s been coming after me yet so everything’s going well,” you respond. “But… Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“There’s this island with people who haven’t eaten in so long so I gave them everything I have.” There’s a loud growl coming from Pops so you immediately continue your speech before he could scold you for doing such a thing. “I feel really good about what I did as they thanked me. But then the longer I thought about it, I started feeling ashamed because... wasn’t it selfish since I did it to make me feel better about myself? Then I started to wonder if it was wrong to do good things just because I wanted to be absolved of my parents’ sins. Was I wrong in doing this, Pops?”

“No, you did the right thing.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you’re not an inherently bad person for getting paid in gratitude.”

“But…”

“Making yourself happy by making other people happy is how it’s meant to work. If one of your key motives to doing good things is to feel good, then you’re still doing something good and there’s nothing shameful about that.”

Hearing his words puts you at ease. You’re glad you called him. “Thank you, Pops. I’m sorry for worrying everyone there and for disrupting Marco’s report. I promise I’ll call more often from now on.”

“It’s fine. Just don’t forget to take care of yourself too. Where will you be headed next?”

“I’m not sure. I’m just going where the sea leads me.”

“Be careful.”

“You too, Pops,” and with that, you bid your goodbye and hang up.

By morning, you start preparing your things to leave. You didn’t want to stay for too long because you didn’t want to consume even a portion of the small amount of food they have.

Sito offers you to stay another night, worried that it would be uncomfortable to sleep on a boat. “You can stay one more day. There’s still enough food for us to share.”

“Oh no, I don’t want to impose,” you decline. “But do you mind if I ask what happened here?”

There’s sadness in her eyes, it was easy to tell the memory pained her, but she tells you everything anyway. “This island is one of the few lawless areas in the world, hence, it’s a place where pirates would dock at. A group of men once docked here and kidnapped the leaders of our town. They were sold off to be slaves, because apparently the Nobles like to enslave people of power…” Her words start to fade on you upon the mention of the World Nobles.

Anger flares up in your system immediately. How low can the Celestial Dragons go? It’s sickening to think that you share the same blood as them. It’s because of this revelation that something becomes clear in your mind.

Ever since leaving Moby Dick, you’re just wandering aimlessly. But after hearing Sito talk about this island, you’re finally sure of what your destination should be.

Sabaody Archipelago.

Specifically, the Human Auctioning House.

From the sudden fury that overwhelms you, not even the fear of being within arm’s reach of the Marines, and possibly dying, could stop you from going there.

It’s reckless and foolish, but isn’t this the reason you left Moby Dick that night— to face your nightmares instead of running away from them?

You listen politely as Sito explains everything else but her words enter and leave your ears without you having to comprehend them. Fortunately, she doesn’t notice your inattentiveness, probably because she wants to pour her frustrations out to a stranger.

You offer your sympathies to her and promise her you’d come back with your crew and help them some more. It’s a simple promise yet for someone who hasn’t been offered help for so long, it means a lot, enough to even bring tears to her eyes. And just like that, you leave.

There are two more islands to stop at before you reach Sabaody Archipelago. You gather provisions on one island and buy explosives on the other.

The only thing you’re sure you can actually do alone is to blow up the Human Auctioning House. Facing the World Nobles is for another time, unfortunately. As for the Marines, well… You’d worry about that if they indeed come. You know you’d be able to handle them as long as they don’t send an Admiral after you.

The thing that worries you the most, however, is Pops’ reaction once you let him know of your plan. While you can always just not tell him, it feels wrong, and you promised you’d report to him, after all. And it’s hard for you to admit, but you secretly want to be saved in case your plan goes askew. That, and well, you still want to make up with Ace, may it be just strictly as friends, but preferably as lovers.

You decide to call once you’re about to set sail towards Sabaody Archipelago. You’re sitting in the middle of your boat, still anchored at the port when you told Pops your plan. And as expected, he’s mad.

He demands you to go back to the crew immediately. “Captain’s orders,” he says. But after a few moments, he retracts his words and says, “Your father’s orders.” You feel the weight of his words when he said that and you almost concede. But the faces of the slaves your family had flashes into your mind and it solidifies your decision.

Interestingly, despite the weeks you have spent away from the crew, their ship is nearer to you than anticipated. As confirmed by Pops himself when he angrily said, “Enough! I’m sending Ace to get you! Two or three days is enough for him to catch up with you.”

But quite frankly, that’s also enough time to execute your plan. And if the odds are in your favor, then Ace might just come in time for your escape.

Arriving at Sabaody Archipelago, you keep your face hidden underneath the hood of your cloak. It’s normal for pirates to walk around the place without having to hide their identities, but it’s a luxury you can’t afford. If someone catches wind that you’re here and reports it, the Cipher Pol just might come and capture you before you can even execute your plan. That just won’t do. So on the first day of your arrival, you only scout the area of the Human Auctioning House and retreat back to the inn you stay at.

You carry out your plan on the next day. You place a bomb where the side of the stage is supposed to be. It’s a distraction so people inside would leave the premises. The plan is to find the keys and free the slaves while the people are panicking from the explosion. Then eliminate the head of the place, Mr. Disco, and finally blow the place apart. It sounds simple but with you having to do all the work, you know it isn’t.

Now that you’re here, your nerves are spiking up. Arriving at the entrance of the building, you take a deep breath, your hand automatically reaching for the bracelet that Ace made you. It instantly calms you down.

It baffles you how fate works because on the very day you decide to free the slaves that are being sold off at the Human Auctioning House, Ace’s brother, Luffy — along with his crew — is at the same place to rescue their friend who was kidnapped.

Somehow even on a dangerous mission like this, there’s still something or someone who’d remind you of Ace. It makes you wonder: has he really embedded himself too deep into your life that there’s no escaping the thoughts of him? Not that you mind; the thoughts of him bring you peace, after all. But still, it’s fascinating that even in both mundane and dangerous settings, he makes himself known to you.

Upon entering the Human Auctioning House, everything happens so fast and unexpected. And quite frankly, a lot happened that wasn’t part of the plan.

Aside from finding the Straw Hat Pirates, you got yourself injured when you used your body to shield their fish man friend, Hatchi, from Saint Charlos’ gunshot. Then you confronted Saint Shalria personally despite you not planning to get involved with the Celestial Dragons. As for the slaves, it was the Dark King, Silvers Rayleigh, who actually freed them. The only things that you personally executed from your plan were Mr. Disco’s elimination and the bombing of the Human Auctioning House.

Escape is easy once the building starts to explode because the Marines would have to lessen the forces who're chasing after the pirates in order for them to successfully put out the fire. Without any Admiral on the scene yet, it’s not hard to slip away from them and/or fight them.

Even with the gunshot wound on your arm, you’re able to take down each and every one of the Marines who are chasing you. But halfway through your journey back to the grove where you left your boat at, you lose your adrenaline.

You start to feel the sharp and stinging sensation on your arm once again, yet, you couldn’t help but smile. You have gotten out alive. The slaves have been freed. With both Mr. Disco and the building gone, the Human Auctioning House will no longer be operational, or at least not yet until someone steps up. But that won’t be after a long time.

It’s a wonderful day.

You look up at the afterglow of the sunset with a serene smile. You have a feeling your nights are going to feel shorter now and less frightening than they were before.

Your peaceful moment is cut off by someone rather abruptly. You jump in surprise as someone wraps their arms around you from behind all of a sudden. “I finally caught up with you.”

Your breath hitches at the sound of the voice. “Ace? What are you doing here?”

He doesn’t answer your question, but he mumbles, “I’m sorry if I only came now. Pops wouldn’t tell me where you were, but I came as soon as I could.” Then he tightens his hug. “I was so scared, I thought I’d lose you…”

“Ace, I’m sorry about—”

“Hey, it’s on me, okay?” He interrupts. “I blew things out of proportion, and now you’re blue.”

You pull away from his hug to face him.

“Y-your arm! You’re bl-bleeding,” he stutters after seeing your injury.

But you pay no mind to that. “Ace… I’m really sorry about us—”

“Ssshhh, baby…” he rubs his hand on your back.

He looks at your figure carefully, focused on looking for any more bruises or wounds. When he doesn’t find anything more, he gently holds you by your waist. “Don’t blame yourself, I’m the one who burned us down, but… it’s not what I meant.

“It was all in my head, okay? It’s just that the Celestial Dragons are all grouped in my head as scums and that they’re inexcusable because… my brother was killed by a Celestial Dragon.”

A wave of guilt flows through your body, enough to weaken your knees. Before you could fall, however, Ace catches you and brings you to his chest. But this doesn’t stop you from sobbing on his chest. “I didn’t know, Ace. I’m so sorry.”

“No, that’s the thing, baby. It isn’t your fault. It wasn’t you who pulled the trigger. And… I have to admit I failed to see that at first,” he says as he hugs you tighter. “I shouldn’t have stood there frozen after you told me your story. I’m supposed to be the one who understands you...

“I’m not trying to make excuses and I’m not trying to make this about me but it’s just that… for so long I thought that I inherited the bad blood of my father, and I spent my lifetime failing to see that his sins aren’t my sins,” his voice cracks as he cries. “So when I found out about you… My mind automatically held you liable for the sins of the Nobles…

“But I talked to Pops and he straightened me up. I understand now. Our parents’ sins aren’t ours. It never was ours to begin with. So I’m sorry for blaming you for something you didn’t do…”

Ace stares at your crying form. He cups your face and sincerely says, “It’s so excruciating to see you low,” as he wipes the tears on your eyes. “I’m sorry if I hurt you…”

“It’s fine Ace, I forgive you. But…” You look directly into his eyes. “I’m at fault too,” you confess. “I was the one who left... I was so used to living like an island and isolating myself that it didn’t occur to me that I was punishing you with silence… I should’ve waited patiently for you but I ran away…”

Ace rubs your back gently and presses his forehead against yours, “I forgive you too.”

You smile in relief.

After a couple of minutes in silence, Ace tilts his head. “Y/N?”

“Hm?”

“Remember when you said that you saw daylight after sleeping in a long, dark night?”

You give him a curious look but nodded anyway.

“Beside wishing that I was there for you sooner, it had me thinking...”

“What?”

“Uhm… The world is terrible and cruel, and no one can ever really stop the dark nights from coming.”

You frown. You don’t really understand what Ace is trying to say.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is,” he rubs his neck while his cheeks starts to blush, “if you ever have to go through those dark nights, I wouldn’t want you to wait for daylight.

“I want to be there with you on those nights until they’re over. I don’t want to leave you when things get rough and only show up when you’re better. I know you see me as your daylight but I don’t want to be just that.”

His words warm your heart, and makes it skip a beat. “You know, Ace, there are remnants of light that linger in the sky even when the sun has long gone down and the night starts. It’s the afterglow,” you mumble.

“Yeah, but that goes away too after a while,” he frowns.

“Well, lucky for you the moon reflects the sun’s light during the night, huh?”

He grins. “Yeah, yeah. I like that. I want to be your source of light, may it be the daylight, moonlight, or the afterglow.”

A moment of silence engulfs the both of you. Under the soft afterglow of the sunset with your arms wrapped around each other, you feel at peace.

Once upon a time, you used to believe love is black and white— that it’s straightforward. It was either you love Ace or you don’t, there were no gray areas. No matter what he feels, says, or does, your love for him never ceases.

But then some other days you believed that love is burning red— that it’s full of passion, lust, and romance, much like the nights you spent entangled in the sheets with Ace.

However, right now in Ace’s arms, all you could ever think about is that love is golden. It was warmth and comfort, like what daylight brings. It was contentment and serenity too, much like the feeling of lightness one gets when seeing the afterglow of the sunset. Either way, it’s Ace who makes you feel those.

No matter what color love actually is though, for you it’s always embodied by Ace.

[bang-fantansies]

Yandere! God Profile - Taehyung

Human Amongst Gods [TEASER] - upcoming fic

Warnings: Suicidal! Taehyung, suicide attempt, mentions of anxiety, mentions of emotional numbness, mentions of death, mentions of afterlife, extreme isolation and loneliness, mythical creatures (imps).

I did my best to include any triggering topics mentioned in this post, but if you see any more potentially sensitive topics I may have missed, please let me know!

This does not represent Bangtan as people or a business, nor does it represent anyone/anything associated with them. This is purely fictional and was made for entertainment purposes only; not to slander anyone or any company.

Name: Kim Taehyung Occupation: God of Death

Taehyung had never had a life, so to speak.

On the contrary, he’d only ever known the fringes of it - the last whisper it would emit before being snuffed out. By him.

So was his purpose as he was hailed as the God of Death.

A title that comes with great power, Taehyung would soon discover.

But with such great power comes an even greater loneliness.

After all, most other gods from galaxies over knew of his reputation, and how to stay away from him if they wished to avoid an untimely death at the simple touch of his hands.

The same for mortals, he’d found.

Day in and day out, he’d sit at the sides of thousands of mortals, watching their soul drain from their body and take his arm as he guided them to their destination.

And every time he did so, he’d feel a sense of malice spike in the back of his mind.

He knew that mortals were released from their duty to wander the Universe a lost soul.

So why not him?

Or, at least, a companion to travel without him: to smile at him without fear in their eyes, to touch him without their body trembling.

But such a fantasy had never come to pass.

Not yet, at least.

And after being exiled from most areas of the Universe for all his life, Taehyung had accepted his fate as a dealer of death. The responsibility of cataloguing and distributing death throughout the Universe was a mighty job, after all.

So much so that he’d employed underlings - impish little beings - to bear the brunt of the work for him.

To release and record all the souls they’d freed that day.

And when all was said and done and his office imps went home for the day, he realised something.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

Even his subordinates had families and homes to go to, but he had nothing.

He just existed for the convenience of the Universe - to maintain the balance that allowed it to live on.

And so here he stood - before a window of a wall overlooking an empty planet he inhabited and used for his work.

The land was filled with office buildings identical to his own, stretching as far as the eye could see; a field of concrete.

Each building housed a thousand or so imps, all working to keep up with the ever-increasing demand of death records that required filing and uploading to the System.

And Taehyung looked upon them as he would his own children.

They were the only company he had. And even then his workers had never actually seen him, for he spent his days cooped up in his office or out harvesting lives.

This was for their benefit, of course. Hellish creatures like them were not immune to Taehyung’s touch.

No-one was.

Taehyung’s reflection gazed back at him, the buildings taking a backseat as it came to focus on the stranger before him.

With so little experience and so little identity, would the Universe really collapse without his effort?

Would anything change if he were to...disappear?

Taehyung oftentimes found himself wondering such a concept in the few spare minutes the day held for him, but before a decision could come to fruition, he was called say to a far-off galaxy to harvest the lives of the ready-to-depart.

Taehyung bit his lip and glanced back into the confines of his office.

Red carpet, four walls of sheer darkness, all glass yet revealing nothing but darkness.

There were no achievements to be held on shelves or written in history books.

The only thing to be written in books about Taehyung were the deaths he’d orchestrated and recorded himself.

He literally had nothing to show for his life, despite having existed for many thousands of years.

Taehyung stuck one hand in a pocket of his suit, raising his other before the glass and making a swiping motion before it.

The glass vanished, simply fading from existence, allowing the frozen winds of Taehyung’s planet to invade the office.

Eyes half-lidded, taehyung peered over the edge.

Nothing but a straight drop for miles.

Taehyung knew what death entailed for mortals, but for gods, he had no idea.

No god had ever shown signs of having reached another place after death, which was a good incentive for other gods to avoid Taehyung.

The fear of the unknown bound them to their current existence, making them claw at any chance of survival they could reach when faced with dire circumstances.

With this in mind, Taehyung continued to lean over the ledge, gazing down into the pits of the desolate city.

The promises of the cycle of isolation his life had been urged him further.

He took a step forward, tips of his shoes peaking over the ledge.

He could feel the cold intensely, for it pierced his jacket, almost as if trying to push him back into his office.

“You had your chance. Now I get to decide who lives and who dies.”

His voice was carried by the wind, the high altitude ensuring that the message would reach no-one, to become a mere footnote in the grand scheme of things.

A final word to those that had pushed him away - forced him into his own corner and expected him to survive.

A particularly harsh blast of wind made him wobble, though he made an effort to try and keep his balance.

The numbness that came with his profession was lightly pierced by doubt, a flash of anxiety.

The most primal part of him knew this wasn’t the answer to his problems. With any luck, he’d simply become part of the darkness from which he had been plucked to begin with if he actually went through with this.

But even that had to be better than a lifetime of isolation, right?

On shaky legs, Taehyung inched over the edge, keeping his heels firmly planted in the carpet of his office.

He willed his eyes shut, the combination of the iced winds and the anticipation of falling made them flicker - fight - to stay open.

“It’s all over now,” he promised. “No need to fear.”

His own assurances eased his nerves, giving him the last push he’d need to right the wrongs his existence had brought.

The world slowed, Taehyung forcing a leg forwards to hover over the edge.

The frost nipped at his exposed skin as the leg of his trousers could do little to battle the winds.

His balance loosened, causing him to sway back and forth with the grace of an antique rocking horse.

He was so close to freedom.

He could feel himself lighten as the weight of worlds dropped from his shoulders.

But solice was not meant for him.

Not like this.

Behind him, his phone chimed.

It was not the same sound he’d hear when he was notified of another death.

No, this was the unfamiliar tinkling of a bell: a stark contrast to the melancholy hum he’d installed when he was to be called to work.

His ears pricked, so finely tuned to the sound of a knell that this fresh noise frightened him, almost tipping him over the edge.

A quiet part of him begged him to check what it was - anything to get away from the ledge.

The much larger, number half barked at him to hold his ground, stick to his guns and just get this whole ordeal over with.

He knew who to listen to - he knew when he saw the notification he’d find a reason not to carry out his plan.

And despite knowing nothing of the notification or its nature, Taehyung hesitated.

It would be a shame to die a curious man, he thought.

Besides, it was probably nothing important. Then he could spend an eternity in peace without wondering what this sound could mean.

Taehyung brought his leg back in, stumbling away from the ledge.

The prick of anxiety he’d experienced before quietened yet stayed at his side, an accomplice to his survival.

He left the window open, however.

Sighing, he shuffled over to his desk - a deep and dark mahogany - and died his phone lying dead-centre.

With Taehyung’s presence near, thy e screen aprung to action, displaying a notification.

It was a message. Sent from an unknown number.

Taehyung arched an eyebrow and brought the phone close to his face, unlocking it and opening his messages.

His contact list was barren save for this mystery caller.

Aware of this, he had adopted the presumption that it was a nuisance caller.

Though who dared to play jokes on such a deadly force as himself, Taehyung had no idea who would have the balls to even come up with such an idea.

And he checked.

He wanted to know who had jested him before his demise.

The message was blunt, void of courtesy, yet held a string of salvation for Taehyung.

There is another way.

Taehyung glanced over his shoulder and out to the sea of buildings .

Had someone seen him?

It wouldn’t be a surprise considering some of the imps were bound to still be at work, though Taehyung’s office was so far above the clouds that he’d assumed no-one would have spotted him.

I can only hope that I’m not too late.

I can help you.

Attached to the second message was a picture of a woman, a halo hanging above her head like a target.

Taehyung’s eyes widened, his breath short.

Pale fingers fumbled for his tie, pulling it loose while he observed the picture further.

He knew that halo.

He’d seen only one other like it in his many thousands of years of life, and even then it wasn’t glowing with life.

It had been while he was visiting a museum dedicated to gods past, and such a relic had appeared in a heavily-guarded display case.

Without its owner to wear it, it was neither as vibrant nor as beautiful as it lay on a satin pillow, merely resembling a circle of bone rather than an ethereal object.

But it’s brilliance enraptured him all the same.

He’d believed it a fable - a legend created to keep him tame and willing to do his job.

A legend of a soul who could withstand Taehyung’s killing touch.

And here he was, seeing it for a second time, in action.

Interested?

Taehyung found himself pausing.

This could just be a trick, he told himself.

But...what if it wasn’t fake?

He requested proof that the image was real.

The response was clear cut and blunt.

I can take you to her.

Taehyung glanced over his shoulder again, paranoia projecting shadows in the corners of his vision.

Still, nothing but the open window.

He glanced back down at his phone.

What did he have to lose?

All right.

Take me to her.

I will. The stranger typed.

But first, I need you to do something for me.

I don’t own the pictures used in the moodboard, but I edited the moodboard myself.

[alluringjae]

[ 23:45 ] ⮕ END   

part of my collection of cookie cuts from all i do is wait

in order to understand, read the main story first here.

pairing: ghost!doyoung x female!reader

genre: angst, sum fluff if you really squint

warnings: death, grief

author’s note: someone asked me how i would interpret this scene, so here it is. this hurt A LOT. have fun though!

leave me some feedback, constructive criticism or hellos!

Mid-1953

At long last, the Korean War has ended after 3 years.

Over 5 million people dead, and to be one of the lucky survivors was a miracle.

The remaining soldiers who’ve fought through it all could return home, whilst civilians can properly rebuild all that was devastatingly destroyed in their cities. Their own normal lives included.

The fiercest 3 years of your life must you say, too engaged with self-studying your history books saved pre-war while dealing with the bargaining stage of your grief towards Doyoung. Every day, you couldn’t go on without overthinking the what-ifs. On top of that, your toddler Areum was at the stage where she loved creating a mess on the walls with her crayons. No matter how many times you’ve corrected her because it wasn’t your house, she continued anyway.

Now, she’s full-blown crying after you confiscated them and you’re on the verge of it. Thankfully, your mother stepped in to take her out for a walk in the neighborhood so you could unwind for a bit.

Since news broke out that the war ended, everyone from every street cheered and danced on the streets. You hailed with praise along with them, positive that things were going to get better. Yet deep down, you’ve selfishly wished that he was one of the lucky few to come home.

If only you didn’t chicken out so easily after he told you he was enlisting so you had a few more seconds with him.

If only you compromised him to join another field.

If only you told him about Areum earlier so he could go home.

These thoughts revolved your mind the most, instantly getting you to break down wherever you were. Even photos of him and you together were enough to tear down your walls. So, they remained hidden until the day you’re in a much better state of mind.

Dear god, you longed for him. Everything that consists of him.

In hopes to forget this tremendous loss in your life, you poured hot tea in a cup and started on this new book from this ongoing series, The Chronicles of Narnia. Getting it during this harsh period was tough, bartering it with old books you’ve owned in the market.

Fully preoccupied in the fantastical universe, flipping the pages quickly, you almost missed the continuous knocking on your door. You let out a tiny gasp and made your way to the entrance. As delusional to think it was Doyoung, you knew it wasn’t your mother and Areum either because they would’ve simply walked in. Opening it anyways, you were met by two young tall men. One had a bandage on his cheek while the other had a cast on his right arm. Noting their growing hair, they must’ve fought in the war.

Oh, if Doyoung was one of them.

“Hello, may I know who you two are?”

The one with the bandage spoke up, bowing first. “Hello, I am Lee Taeyong and this is my friend, Kim Jungwoo. We were good friends of your late lover, Kim Doyoung.”

Late lover.

Haven’t heard that since people in the neighborhood gossiped about your taboo pregnancy, but it’s not like they knew anyways. But from the letters exchanged with Doyoung before, he talked about these two highly. Whenever there were times of ease while serving, Doyoung was always up to mischievous things with these two. In a situation where they had to man up, they brought out his inner child.

“Oh, yes! Doyoung used to talk about you two in his letters, but I had no clue how you guys looked.”

By instinct, you invited them inside for tea by the patio. You’ve always wanted to meet them despite the circumstances. Bringing in a tray with a teapot and treats, mostly you were inquiring about their lives. Aside from knowing their positions in the team, you learned of their new plans moving forward.

“I want to return to university to finish my studies in mechanical engineering, maybe travel the world too.” Jungwoo stated, blowing on his cup before sipping it. He’s said to be an organized man according to Doyoung, always cautious of his surroundings. It balanced out his liveliness.

“Me too! I want to complete my major in finance, then marry my childhood sweetheart after a few years.” Taeyong expounded, his round eyes glowed in wonder. He must’ve been looking forward to this day, and you were content for him. Meanwhile, it processed to Taeyong what he said, realizing that it may have been insensitive.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” He burst out instantly. “I got stuck in my feelings there.”

“It’s okay, nothing to worry about. You shouldn’t apologize for how you feel.”

“I do think we should feel worried about you though.” Jungwoo interrupted, sighing heavily. “What happened with Doyoung-hyung all those years ago, we’re really concerned for you especially.”

At the mention of the painful memory, this wasn’t the right time to crumble. You weren’t capable to show your vulnerability to anyone but yourself. Plastering a wrenching pretend smile, “I appreciate the concern, truly. But I’ll be okay again. I’m planning to return to university too, then proceed to law school. A shared dream of mine and his.”

Taeyong and Jungwoo transparently viewed you like glass, coping with the grief of it. They were on the same page as you, and unaware to you, they knew his final words. With their interpretation, it only felt right to reach out to you. Befriend you, aid you in any possible way.

At the end of the day, three of you equally shared the suffering over the death of a loved one.

Sitting in peaceful silence, the front door creaked open followed by a tiny, high-pitched voice squealing.

“We’re home!” Your mother shouted.

“I’m at the patio, we have guests over!” You replied, pouring more tea for the two quiet boys.

From such a low-spirited atmosphere only did it liven up when an energetic Areum came into your setting. She had pigtails this time, satisfying herself with fresh bungeo-ppang from the neighborhood. No matter what you’re feeling, it took a single glance of her with her small moon-like eyes to recharge you.

“Mom, who are your friends here?” She pondered cluelessly.

The two boys exchanged looks at each other first, then to you in one breath. Their expressions of perplexity by how one’s hand was on their mouth and the other boy couldn’t stop staring at Areum, you identified exactly what they were thinking of.

“Areum, these are your dad’s friends in the army.” You animatedly confirmed. “The one with that tiny bandage on his face is uncle Taeyong, and the one with the white cast is uncle Jungwoo.”

Doyoung’s death was already so heavy to take in, but upon discovering this hidden surprise, Jungwoo wiped his tears on his sleeve. But you were fast to hand him some tissue. He was younger than you, so your older sister instincts kicked in.

“This is unjust, (Y/N).” He murmured across you so Areum won’t pick up his words. Your lips pressed against each other, maintaining a straight face at him. He was right.

With Taeyong, his arms spread out wide for the small girl who willingly walked to him. He loved children, having a nephew back home. He caressed her smooth hair down to her jaw. The first thing he distinguished was her pretty eyes followed by her squishy cheeks, resembling so much of his late friend.

“You’re so pretty, Areum. Did your mom tell you that you mirror so much of your dad?”

“Yes, she does! But I’ve never met him and I don’t when I will, uncle Taeyong.”

A tragedy how the splitting image of his best friend doesn’t see what everyone sees. But again, she’s only 3 and she can only process so much. She doesn’t know the real truth behind her father’s location, except that he was working far, far away. There are days she’d ask if he’d come back soon, yet your only response is not now. This isn’t the right time for her purity about life to stain.

“Well Areum,” Jungwoo gathered his senses again, crouching down to her level. “As his friends, we know that you look just like him! Prettier even.”

“Really? Tell me more about him, uncle Jungwoo!”

It’s about time someone else shared stories about your late lover because yours was short-lived. It’s even more intriguing to listen to what other people have to say about Doyoung that weren’t his parents. Some stories told by Taeyong and Jungwoo were new to you too, giggling along to their ridiculousness when they’re not training or fighting. Loving their presence, you invited them to stay for dinner with your family, which they couldn’t reject.

What started as a tense conversation transformed into a heartwarming experience. These two boys earned a spot in your life, aspiring for longtime friendships with them. The tender way they cherished for Areum like they’re own after meeting for the first time, it’ll fill in bits of her void. In exchange, they insisted to chip in for you and her lives so it wouldn’t be just you and your family. Struggling already with the consequences of the war, it only felt proper to do so.

“Doyoung has always been there for us, now let us return the favor and be there for you and Areum.”

Your protests were deemed useless, so you allowed them to do so. Once you finished law school and take the exams, you could pay them back. It’s phenomenal how Doyoung’s good influence towards others multiplied even after his passing. Maybe if you began to view things this way, you’d recover sooner. Although he’ll always be in your thoughts, it wouldn’t be as sensitive as it is now.

For now, you’re just going to enjoy the bliss Taeyong and Jungwoo brought, retelling old tales of a drunk Doyoung on the dining table.

From behind your garden fence in secret, Doyoung secretly observed as his treasured companions interacted at last with positivity. His only daughter mirroring his adored smile, he lived in that moment vicariously through her.

What a good time to visit today, truly.

[heavenseed76]

Contentment

Rating:G

Fandom: The Walking Dead

Summary: Daryl saves Paul from certain death and some truths are revealed

Warnings: Mentions of blood, death, canon-typical violence

When mothers lift cars off their children it is not because their love or fear make them super strong. It is because adrenaline will make a person immune to the sensation of pain. Their muscles and tendons are often irreparably damaged. Human beings will tear themselves apart for the people they love. Daryl Dixon was no different.

He couldn’t recall how he was able to get to Michonne’s horse, nor how he hauled the limp form of his friend onto the horse with him. He was vaguely aware that he could hear Dog whimpering somewhere behind him, punctuating the sound of another horse beside him. In his arms, Paul Rovia, wrapped in a saddle blanket, armor long forgotten, slumped forward. Every few minutes Daryl could feel the man tense beneath his arm, locked as if it was welded across Paul’s chest. The man in his arms was in pain, barely breathing, but thankfully alive. Daryl couldn’t think beyond getting Paul back to Hilltop, to Enid, to safety.

Riding in the fog made a trip that would have taken eons stretch even further. There was no sense of distance, nothing to mark the passing of the miles. The trip, longer still holding his friend’s life in his hands, seemed like a dream: the ubiquitous nightmare where you try to reach someone at the end of a long path and the faster you run, the further away they become. With each gallop, Daryl could feel Paul’s life spilling out onto his chest, his arms, soaking the blanket he was wrapped in. He could feel the labored breath, deep pulls of air that went nowhere. At first Paul held on to Daryl’s arm as they rode, though they eventually fell away, too weak to hold on.

Through the fog, Daryl heard Aaron yelling for the sentries to open the gate at Hilltop before Daryl even saw the walls. Aaron kicked his horse into a sprint and easily passed Daryl’s horse. Seeing the end in sight, Daryl pressed his own heels into the flanks of the beast on which he rode and urged the animal to go faster. He followed Aaron straight to the medical trailer, where Enid and Alden were already helping him off his horse.

“No!” Aaron kept the wiggly bundle in his arms from slipping and motioned to Enid and Alden to help Daryl. “Get Jesus!” Without waiting for them to acknowledge him, Aaron rushed into the medical trailer.

Daryl brought his horse up short next to Aarons, and then there were too many hands, too many faces below him, pushing and pulling at Paul. At Enid’s insistence, her eyes full of dread and sympathy, Daryl broke the iron grip he had around Paul and let him slip gently into the waiting arms of Alden and Siddiq, who wasted no time making room for Henry and Kal to help carry his pale body into the trailer. He dismounted Michonne’s horse, letting someone with gentle hands take the reigns from him. He stood staring at the door, behind which two of the people he cared for most in the world could be dying, or worse, turning… Along with his beloved Dog.

He felt familiar hands on his arms, attempting to turn him aware from the trailer, and distantly heard soft words filter through the fog filling his mind, urging him to come away. Hot, angry tears spilled over and silently marked his blood-stained face and suddenly he was unable to catch his breath. He wanted to rush in and pull Paul back into his arms and never let go. If he died… If Paul turned… he needed to be there for that. But Aaron was in there, and he wanted to keep his friend from suffering that end alone.

“Daryl, come get cleaned up.” Carol’s voice was a solid mass he could anchor himself to, as his grief threatened to let him float away like ashes. He started to let her lead him into Barrington House, when Aaron came through the trailer door.

Eyes red, brows pulled in to etch lines of worry into his forehead, Aaron quickly made his way to Daryl.

“Dog’s gonna be OK. Paul…” Aaron’s voice wavered, but he swallowed and carried on. “Paul’s fighting. His lung collapsed and he lost a lot of blood.” Without warning Daryl pulled his friend into his arms, and with a sob he had been holding in the entire journey, Aaron hugged him back, fingers fisting in the worn leather of his vest. Watching them, the lump in Carol’s throat grew, and she had to cover her mouth with both hands to keep her cry from tearing a hole in the comforting bubble the men had made.

***

The sun burned away the fog that had settled over Hilltop, and the morning promised a beautiful day ahead. At a picnic table near the medical trailer, Aaron and Daryl sat vigil, their backs against the edge of the table top. Aaron absently cleaned his prosthetic arm with a rusty can of WD40 and a ragged bandana he kept for the express purpose. Like the Tin Man. Daryl thought. They were both clean, in clothes that didn’t smell like gore. Carol had not been able to coax either man into eating or trying to sleep.

“We’ve wasted so much time.” Aaron sighed and set the rag he’d been using aside. “This is a big damned wake-up call.” He was used to companionable silence with Daryl, used to holding up both ends of a conversation, so when Daryl didn’t respond, he just kept talking. “We’ve been lucky. To make it this long. But this world is still just as dangerous as it ever was. I feel so stupid…”

Daryl chewed his bottom lip, listening. He had been there when Aaron dove head first into being a father to Gracie, burying Eric’s death deep beneath the needs of a tiny, new being. It occupied his mind, it gave him an outlet for his affection and focused his energy. It did not, however, fill the gaping love-shaped void left when Eric’s corpse walked off into the woods. It was one of the many ways Daryl felt he had failed everyone in his life; it was one of the many reasons he walked off into the woods That Day, and didn’t look back. The seams holding his family together tore open That Day, and try as he might, he alone didn’t have the strength to stitch it back together. Neither did anyone else, apparently.

“I did it for you, you know.” Daryl said, his voice gravel in his throat.

Aaron turned his expressive blue eyes to Daryl’s, not having expected a two-way conversation. “Did what?”

Daryl looked away, unsure of himself. “Saved him. I know you two… I know he means a lot to you. I saw Dog attack that walker, and heard you yell, and I just, I don’t know man, I just couldn’t let him die…” Meeting Aaron’s eyes he said, “I didn’t want you to hurt no more.”

Something sparked in Aaron’s chest. Affection, love, gratitude… he didn’t know what or how many of those things he was feeling. He stared at Daryl for a long moment. There was only one thing he could think to say. “Thank you.” Aaron pressed infinitesimally closer into Daryl’s warm shoulder with his own.

Daryl nodded, glad he could make his friend smile, even if things didn’t turn out as well as they hoped. It had been hours, and except for Alden leaving to give Enid and Siddiq room to work, and getting Alex to come in to better assist, there had been little news of Paul’s welfare.

“I know you’ve been coming here to see him.” Daryl shifted nervously. “He make you happy?”

A man of few words, Daryl could say so much with so little effort. It took Aaron a moment to understand what Daryl was asking, and when the implication of the question hit him, he felt like he had been slapped. He scooted away from Daryl on the bench of the picnic table, so he could fully turn to face Daryl.

“You do know we’re just friends, right?” Aaron’s frown returned, and Daryl didn’t know how to respond. “We’re not… we’ve never… Jesus and I are good friends, that’s all.” Aaron watched confusion slide over the hunter’s face. If Paul weren’t dying behind the door of the medical trailer, Aaron may have laughed. “You know Jesus is… he’s in love with you!”

“No.” Daryl sat up taller, and Aaron could nearly see the walls being built around the other man.

“Yeah. He’s been in love with you since he brought you home from the Sanctuary! Daryl, how could you not know?”

The hunter stood, defiantly staring his friend down. “He don’t.” He tried to turn away, but Aaron was right there.

“He does. That’s what I meant! We all have to stop wasting time we might not have, Daryl!” Aaron grabbed Daryl’s bicep and swung around to face the stoic man. “I know you. I know you both. And if there’s anything I’m sure of, its that you two belong together. Even if I was interested, that man’s heart belongs to you!”

It was if the last brick fit into place in the fortress of Daryl’s heart. The realization that not only did Aaron see how he felt for Paul, but that Paul felt the same for him, and had made it a known fact. Overwhelmed with the severity of this revelation, Daryl’s dread swelled, and he felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the world. The truth Aaron spoke filled his eyes with hot tears, of shame and joy and sickening worry. Seeing all this take shape in his friend, Aaron pulled him in for an awkward hug.

The harsh slap of the trailer door snapping closed brought the men up for air. Standing on the steps to the trailer was an exhausted Enid, covered in blood. Neither could move, holding their breath.

A smile bloomed on the woman’s face as she said simply, “He’ll be OK.”

***

In his own bed inside Barrington House, Paul Rovia looked smaller than Tara had ever seen him. The trip up the stairs and into the bed had worn him out, and he fell asleep almost immediately. He didn’t even flinch as she started a new IV in his hand. She watched him, his breath shallow and lips twisted in a pained expression. He was pale, his eyes sunken. Laying in his bed with only a bandage across his chest, his strong body laid bare and vulnerable, Tara took stock of all the things they would have lost if the man in front of her hadn’t made it home. Despite his reluctance, Paul was a good leader, and she tried every day to convince him of it. People loved and respected him because he was willing to go outside the walls and risk it all to strengthen them.

“How is he?” Daryl’s low rasp shook Tara from her reverie.

“Exhausted. He’s got some pain killers, so he’s comfortable enough to sleep.” Tara covered Paul in a thin blanket. “Come in. Sit. I’ll be back in a bit to check on him.” Sheepishly, Daryl entered the room, letting Tara give his arm and affectionate squeeze as she went past.

It had been several days since the cemetery, and Daryl had barely slept. Seeing Paul gravely injured had shifted something inside him, something Aaron had nudged to hang just the right way.

“Gonna keep watch on me?” Paul’s voice was just a whisper on his lips. He turned his palm up on the bed, an invitation.

Daryl sat on the edge of the bed, slipping his big hand into Paul’s smaller one. “Feelin OK?” He let his thumb caress the top of Paul’s hand.

Paul nodded, then winced, which Daryl caught even though he tried to hide it. “As long as I don’t move. Or breathe.” He gave a Daryl a thin smile. “You’re too far away.”

Daryl slipped off his boots and lay down beside Paul, mindful of the bandage across his chest. “This OK?”

Paul hummed affirmatively. His limbs were heavy, though he positioned himself close enough to lay he head on Daryl’s shoulder. He laced his fingers together with Daryl’s between their bodies. He could feel the other man relax against him, and if he hadn’t been so exhausted, Paul may have quipped at Daryl to make him blush.

“I’m sorry.” Daryl placed a firm, confident kiss on Paul’s forehead. “Wasted too many years. We have a chance now and I ain’t gonna fuck it up.” He reached over and felt the smooth skin of Paul’s temple with the back of his hand, reveling in the new-found ability to show his affection.

Paul took his hand, kissing the palm and then holding it to his chest, just above his bandage. “You better not. I love you, Daryl Dixon, but you know I will kick your ass.” Paul’s lips quirked up on one side and he peered at Daryl through heavy eyelids.

Daryl huffed a laugh and kissed Paul’s head again, snuggling into the warmth of the other man’s presence. They fell asleep, Paul holding Daryl’s hand to himself, so the hunter could feel every beat of his heart. That is where Dog found them, limping on a bandaged leg, letting Aaron help him into the bed to curl up at their feet, content.

[theheartsmistakes]

The Last Night Part XXII

(Author’s Notes at the end)

Parts I-XXI:

Here is Part I

Here is Part II

Here is Part III

Here is Part IV

Here is Part V

Here is Part VI

Here is Part VII

Here is Part VIII

Here is Part IX

Here is Part X

Here is Part XI

Here is Part XII

Part XIII

Part XIV

Part XV

Part XVI

Part XVII

Part XVIII

Part XIX

Part XX

Part XXI

.XXII.

“Lucie!” Her father’s voice came from the other side of the door as it cracked open inviting in a warm light that chased away the darkness from inside Lucie’s bedroom. Lucie, being only five years old should have been asleep hours ago, but was sitting up in bed with her old stuffed rabbit in her lap, and both hands firmly clamped over her ears.

Will, dressed in his white stocking pajamas, his black hair a mess of tangled curls stepped into the room. “Lucie, I heard voices-- what’s the matter?”

Lucie uncovered her ears and slowly opened her eyes as her father walked into the hazy moonlight that came in through the oval window like a dramatic spotlight. “They won’t stop whispering at me, Papa.”

“Who?” Will looked around her room. “Is someone else in here?”

Lucie nodded.

“Where?” Will demanded.

“They’re not here now,” said Lucie. “You frightened them off, but they wouldn’t stop whispering to me.”

A strange recognition filled Will’s expression. He walked over to Lucie’s side of the bed and climbed in beside her. “Is that so?”

She nodded. “They can be so loud. I think they just want someone to talk to, and I don’t mind, but I want to sleep.”

Will smiled. “As you should be. What do these visitors say?”

Lucie played with the silk ear of her rabbit. “They mostly just say my name. Whisper it over and over again, like they can’t say anything more. Are they ghosts?”

Will nodded. “Yes, I think so.”

“How come I can see them?”

“Because you’re a Herondale,” said Will, proudly. “All Herondales can see ghosts.”

Lucie contemplated this for a moment to the best ability of her still developing five year old brain. “So even James and Mam?”

“Only James, not Mam,” explained Will. “Mam was a Grey before she was a Herondale. It’s hard to understand, but you will.” He tilted her chin up with his finger. “Only born Herondales have this particular talent.”

“And devilishly good looks,” parroted Lucie.

Will barked a laugh. “Exactly.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “They’re nothing to be frightened of. They can’t hurt you. They’re just looking for a friend. Now, you go to sleep and if these ghosts visit you again, you remind them that your bedtime is seven-thirty and if they’d like to visit you it must be before then.”

Lucie nodded and slid down beneath the thick comforter. Will tucked Lucie in all around until she resembled a log underneath a fancy blanket. With his white slippers shuffling along the floor, Will left the room and closed the door behind him.

For a moment, her room was quiet and she thought her father might have chased the last of the voices away.

When she was almost asleep, she felt a cold breath of air against her cheek.

Lucie.

Lucie.

LUCIE!

The whispering could be heard even as she folded a pillow over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. They continued until finally she sat up and yelled into the void, “BE QUIET!”

The voices went out in a whoosh like a candle being snuffed. Nothing could be heard except for the grandfather clock’s ticking on the wall in the hall and the crickets chirping in the warm summer’s air outside. With a curt nod, Lucie closed her eyes and fell asleep.

“Good,” said Belial as he stood from the bed. “You received my message.”

Lucie’s eyes flickered to Grace cowering in the corner beside her mother. Tears stained Grace’s face and her chin shook with more to come as she looked apologetically at Lucie.

“What have you done?” Lucie whispered.

“I had no choice,” said Grace. “He was going to kill my Mum and he would never bring Jesse back. I wouldn’t be left alone— not again.”

Blood boiled in Lucie’s cheeks. “You really think he’ll uphold his promise? He’s about as reliable as a trained lion. He’ll get what he wants from you and then tear your face off.”

“What do you know of it?” Snapped Tatiana Blackthorn. “You’ve been handed things your whole life. Blessed. You’ve no idea what it means to lose something you love.” She turned her attention to Belial. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked. I killed seven innocent souls, I’ve released six demons from captivity using Shadowhunter blood, and I’ve brought you the girl. Now, return my son and we’ll be on our way. You can do what you wish with her.”

Belial blinked lazily.

Lucie hadn’t noticed before since her focus was entirely on the prince of hell lounging on Grace’s chiffon bed. The two women broke apart like curtains and resting behind them, on the bench beneath the window like he’d fallen asleep reading a book, was Jesse’s body.

Lucie gasped and took a marginal step closer to him, but stopped.

Death begets death begets death. You cannot take from death without giving to death first and sometimes it takes more than its share.

“Grace!” Lucie reached forward.

Belial snapped his fingers and Tatiana’s body crumpled to the floor with a sickening crack. Her neck lolled to the side like a broken stick. Grace screamed and fell back against the wall behind her just as Jesse gasped from the window seat.

Limbs flailed around as if he were trying to save himself from drowning until he fell to the floor on his hands and knees gasping for breath in lungs that haven’t been used in years. Lucie thought she could hear his heart beating until she realized it was her own. He sat up and clutched his chest, his blue, green eyes darted frantically around the room.

Grace fell to the floor beside him. “Jesse, it’s alright. It’s alright!”

Jesse wouldn’t look at her. His eyes locked on Lucie. “No, what have you done.”

“I haven’t done anything,” said Lucie.

“Then why are you here?” His face turned red in the cheeks. “I told you specifically not to come. Damn it, Lucie, why didn’t you listen.”

Lucie moved back a step. “I did listen. I came here to tell Grace that I no longer wanted to be a part of our agreement. I came here to tell her that I was giving up. I thought I was honoring your wishes. How was I to know that he was waiting here for me?”

“I didn’t tell you because I thought you wouldn’t believe me,” groaned Jesse. “I thought you’d think I was bluffing to keep you from trying.”

Lucie scoffed. “And look how well your dishonesty worked out.”

Grace cried over their dead mother and clutched at her thick collar in a feeble attempt to wake her up.

“Enough,” said Belial, growing bored of the exchange in front of him. “I have upheld my bargain. It’s time for us to go.”

“No!” Jesse tried to stand. Belial cocked his head and Jesse fell back against Grace.

“Another move and I’ll kill you again, this time with no chance of return.” Belial’s eyes flickered over to Lucie. “I’ve realized I’ve been going about this the wrong way. I tried to capture the Carstairs girl thinking that she would get you to join me, but she’s far too much trouble. No, there was another pawn hiding right underneath my nose. The Blackthorn boy. It didn’t occur to me until you came to visit Grace and asked for her assistance in bringing him back. She was a good pet and delivered the message to Tatiana who in turn delivered the message to me.”

Lucie glared at Grace with her arms wrapped around Jesse’s shoulders. But how could she blame her? If the tables were reversed and it was James she was trying to revive, she might have done the same. No, she was positive she would have done the same. She’d allowed Jesse to give his last breath to her brother to save his life. In the end, she had been willing to give something up for the life of someone she loved. She could not fault Grace that.

“I’m not going with you,” she said. “The entire clave will be here shortly and you’ll be banished back to whatever level of hell you came from.”

Belial grinned. Despite herself, Lucie found it quite a charming smile. “Wonderful. A family reunion. It’s been so long since I’ve spoken to my daughter. I’ve wondered how she fared all these years.”

“She fared nicely without the likes of you,” said Lucie, cursing herself for not bringing a short blade or at least a couple of throwing knives. She’d left in such a rush, she didn’t find a need. Her uncle was notorious for hiding weapons about the manor. Her aunt was always cursing him about it when they were children and Christopher or Anna would somehow wander down the hallway with a curve blade in their chubby little hands.

The hallway, Lucie nearly gasped as she remembered the cross blades hanging in the hallway.

The door behind her remained open. Only a few steps back and she could make a break for it and at least have a chance at defending herself.

“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” said Belial, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Not unless you want me to start breaking bones in their bodies starting with the smallest.” He raised on his hands and folded his fingers. The door slammed behind Lucie and she heard the faint sound of the lock. “We don’t have much time. I have a very short window back into my realm and we’ll need to be going now. That is if you want your friends to live.”

“Lucie.” Jesse fought against Grace’s hold. “Do not go with him. I’m not meant to be here. I’m not meant to be alive.”

“How rude,” said Belial. “Do you have any idea how hard your mother and sister worked to bring you back to life. The least you could do is be more grateful.”

“If I go with you,” said Lucie. “If I agree to do what you ask, you’ll promise to leave them alone?”

“You have my word,” grinned Belial and extended his hand towards Lucie.

Every instinct drove her to pull away, to run, but then some stronger instinct took control, and of their own free will her fingers closed round Belial’s. Heat seared down and through her, swift as wildfire chased by wind, and as it moved she felt something strong and heavy wrap around her waist.

Her connection broke with Belial as she was dragged back to the center of the room. She turned her neck and looked up.

“Thomas?”

His face was contorted in rage as he yelled over his shoulder to the hallway, “Now!”

A figure dressed in Shadowhunter gear stepped into the room. Lucie didn’t recognize him at first as his face was hidden behind a curtain of black hair.  A spear flew from his hand towards Belial.

Before she could even blink, it’d somehow stopped inches from Belial’s chest, and shot back at the shadow hunter with blinding speed impaling the person in the chest and pinned them to the wall like a collected insect.

It wasn’t until then that Lucie caught a glimpse of the face against the wall. Mouth open and eyes glossy as he stared down at the stick protruding from his chest was Alastair.

A/N: Hope you all are well! Good news, next update is coming in just a short seven days, Dec 13. You know the drill: hit that like, share, leave me comment, and follow along for more updates. Stay safe and stay healthy!

[help-im-a-gay-fish]

The Birth of Sun and Moon. Part two.

Part 1, Part 3 baby blues

The following in part 2 of 3 of a piece of writing about the birth/spawning of the Dark-Cream ship kids Celestial star and Luna light.

This takes place in a universe separate to @zu-is-here dark cream story and splits of somewhere around 'the price of happiness'. Any continuity errors should be accepted as being part of an alternative timeline.

Synopsis: a few days after the last piece of writing. Dreams soul spawns the twins. It happened out of no where. Confused and alone. How will cross react?

Why.

How?

Why.

These (for the most part) where the only things going through Shattered's mind, as he lay on the floor of the void, where he'd collapsed a few minutes before. He lay almost paralysed. Unmoving.

His eyes were locked on it. A tiny little thing. It was completely covered in the gloop and wasn't moving at all. If Dream hadn't known any better, he'd have thought that it was just a lump of gloop.

But he knew better.

It had started with a leach from his soul. Then a deep and sudden pain. It had been a very painful experience. Though not the most painful, that prize would always belong to his corruption, his consumption of the golden apple and being turned to stone. Yeah, the pain hadn't been anywhere near the pain of those events.

However, it's suddenness had made it the most shocking. It had felt like his whole body had been shocked with electricity and burned with fire all at once. Then it felt like his soul was splitting apart, he supposed it kind of had been.

Was it... Was it dead?

Dream moved his hand underneath his chest and attempted to push himself up. However his arms gave out under him and he weakly fell back down onto his chest. It still hurt to move his body. He felt even more drained then he did after to much positively.

Shattered didn't take his eyes of the gloop. He waited for it to move. It still didn't.

Come on Dream! He thought to himself. He couldn't just lay on the floor until Cross came back. After taking a deep breath, he attempted to push himself up again. His body complained as he did so. Through gritted teeth, he pushed himself into a sitting position.

His body ached and complained, but now he was sat up.

It still hadn't moved.

Maybe it was dead. It wouldn't surprise him if it was. His soul was very damaged due to the corruption, so it wasn't a good soul for spawning. It had never been an issue before, since he'd never wanted or even thought he'd be in a place to have children.

However, a trickle of sadness ran through him, as he stared at the un-moving blob.

This child was un wanted, but no person could ever be happy about a child being born dead.

It hurt a bit, although he knew it couldn't be helped. He could never be a parent anyway. It wasn't really in his nature. On top of that, Cross had never expressed a desire to have children to him, so... maybe it was better this way.

It also hit him that since the spawn with accidental, it was most likely a unpure spawn. Unpure and born from a corrupted soul? There was no telling what that could cause. So in the end he started to feel relieved.

Despite that, it would probably hurt Cross if he found out about it..... So he should dispose of the body as soon as possible.

After a brief pause, Shattered summoned a tentacle. It hurt a lot more then normal and felt a lot heaver then he was used to. It fell limp at his side. He truly hated these tentacles, they brought him so many painful memories. He'd swarm off using them unless absolutely necessary. The pain was subsiding now, but it was still ever present. Slowly and carefully he lifted the tentacle up and moved it over to the blob

He curled it around it and tugged slightly. But then something happened.

There was an ear splitting screech and suddenly it sprung to life.

Dream jumped backwards, then shuffled back. He continued to shuffle backwards until his back hit the sofa.

His soul hammered in his ribcage. What. The. Hell.

His eye lights locked onto the blob again, it was now moving. Squirming, convoluting and making a most uncomfortable gargling noise. 1000 thoughts and ideas ran through his mind in an instant. But in the end he settled on one.

It was alive, he was a parent.

This thought froze him in his place. He could no longer feel the pain rippling through his bones, or his soul racing. He felt nothing but numb.

It continued to wriggle and started to cry. It was in distress and was calling for him. But feeling nothing, he simply continued to watch it rive in pain.

So many times he had heard people talk about an instant love. An instant connection to their children the moment they are born, a special feeling from deep in the soul. People said it was the most amazing feeling. Like a feeling of being complete. But Shattered felt......... nothing.

The gargling and crying continued, but now it just felt like background noise to him. He just stared.... spacing out.

He didn't notice as Cross returned to the void, he didn't notice as Cross approached the scene and he didn't notice as Cross bombarded him with questions about what had happened? where the gloop had come from? and what the blob on the floor was.

But what he did notice was Cross approach the wriggling mass and wrap his coat around it, picking it up gently. He noticed as Cross rocked it slowly from side-to-side and he noticed as it quieted down and stopped screaming.

He blinked. "Cross..?"

Cross looked over at him, "Dream... why is there a baby here? where did this come from?! Are you alright?"

Now that Dream has been snapped back to reality, the pain that ran through his bones hit him again. He winced slightly and leant his head back against the sofa.

"I.... I guess... I spawned..... I don't know how to describe it properly"

He felt suddenly very weak and very dizzy again. The gravity of the situation was crashing down upon him. Now that Cross knew about it, there was no going back.

Cross simply stared at him for a moment, then back at the tiny creature.

"........ Are you saying that this is your baby?" he paused for a moment before adding "or.. our baby?"

Dream slowly nodded.

Cross had a look of pure disbelief on his face. "How? why? How it this even possible?"

He rocked the tiny creature a slightly.

Shattered simply stared at him. He felt slightly disheartened that cross hadn't seemed to notice he was in a bad state, but he figured that the situation must have just been a big shock to Cross.

"it's...." he said running his hand across his face "an energy being thing.... I'm not really fully sure about how it works myself.... it must have been something to do with when we were soul touching"

Cross continue to rock the tiny bundle. The gloop started to drip down his arms slightly from where it's still covered the baby. He didn't seem to even notice and didn't seem to be listening to Dream anymore.

It was then Dreams saw something that truly made his heart drop.

Cross smiled.

Dream could see it right then and there in his eyes and in his face. The happy, natural, instant connection kind of starry-eyed Love. The one people claimed to feel upon first seeing their child. The same kind of love that Shattered had been unable to feel.

His soul twisted in his chest: he felt truly horrible. He wanted to cry but decided it was better not to.

Cross walked over to Dream and carefully sat by him.

Dream could now see Cross had wiped off the majority of the gloop from the child. They seemed to be sleeping now and they seemed peaceful.

But then something else court Dreams eye, a tiny little of light next to them. A second being. There were two.

"twins.."

Dream said, his voice shaking slightly. Twins!? was this some kind of a cruel joke. Was life trying to make a mockery of him? It wouldn't be the first time.

"Twins!?" Cross said, turning to dream "what are you talking about?"

Dream simply sighed and gestured slowly to the tiny ball of light. It moved slightly.

"that's what energy beings look like upon their birth" he said. He was so defeated.

Cross felt another rush of joy follow through him. But this soon faded as Cross finally noticed his partner's condition. Dream looked more exhausted and drained then he'd ever seen him. He felt like an idiot.

"Wait.... are you alright? you don't look so good Dream"

Dream gave him a sidewise glance. Finally he noticed.

If today had been a normal day, Dream would have taken the opportunity to mess with him a bit. After all, playing with Cross was always fun.

But today? It wasn't a normal day. He just wanted a hug.

"it's just the process is very straining.... I'll be fine..... my soul just needs to rest for a while"

With that Cross seemed relieved and turned his attention back to the baby. He nuzzled it slightly. Dream looked away from the scene.

".........."

Dream felt himself wishing to cry again. No Dream. Stay strong.

"look..... I didn't know or I would have told you" he said quietly "I had no idea... I'm sorry about this. I know you didn't really want children"

Cross let out a light chuckle.

"Are you kidding? this one of the greatest gifts you've ever given me" he smiled softly.

Dream looked back to him instantly. "What!?"

Cross turned to his lover.

"I'd always accepted that I'd never be able to have children... and I was fine with that because I had you, but now... " He smiled wider

"I know that your whole thing is shattering dreams but right now you've made another one of mine come true".

Cross kissed him on the forehead and nuzzled him lovingly.

"I love you so much you know"

Normally a kiss or a nuzzle from Cross would have made Dream's soul skip a beat. But right now, it made him feel sick. Truly and utterly sick.

Resting his head on Cross' shoulder, he relaxed his body weight against him. It was all to much. Way to much. He couldn't take it. He just wanted it to stop.

Maybe he could just rest for a while and when he woke up this will all just be a bad dream.

He closed his eyes and slipped unconscious.

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

Part 2 yay! So happy! @zu-is-here I hope you like this like the other part.

Thank you everyone! Part 1 was taken very well, so I hope this is a good follow-up! Thank you for reading.

Original cross and dream belong to jakei95 and jokublog

Original shattered dream belongs to @galacii

Dark cream comic and story is by @zu-is-here

The Dark cream twins belong to me :)

@official-darkxunshine-kids

[classysassy9791]

When a job goes terribly wrong, the Fairy Tail guild is left to pick up the pieces. Mourning the deaths of their guildmates, Lucy can't seem to find the strength to move forward. But she comes to realize one person understands. His madness was her mercy, and she finally began to hope that maybe he could make her heart beat again.

Fandom: Fairy Tail Genre: Adventure/Tragedy Warning: Character Death(s) Ch. 1 l Ch. 2 l

Chapter 3 Word Count: 3,100 Can also be found here

I give up on editing this anymore so here it is

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.

.

The first thing Juvia noticed upon entering the guildhall that morning was that Gray was nowhere to be found. More often than not, he arrived earlier than she, prompting a touch of concern as to where the ice-make mage could be. He had taken a job the day before, so there was a chance he could be sleeping in after arriving home late.

The second thing she noticed was the hum of electricity among her fellow guildmates. They gathered at the tables closest to the stage, everyone murmuring amidst themselves. Knitting her brows with worry, the bluenette weaved her way over to where Wendy sat.

“Good morning, Wendy,” she greeted the young girl with a small smile. “Why is everyone so lively?”

With a drained look she offered, “Hello, Juvia,” before dropping her gaze to the floor. “I-I guess you haven’t heard yet.”

Blue eyes glanced between her and Charle, who perched beside her with a hollow expression. “Hear what?”

“Well, Team Natsu went on a mission yesterday and-”

Her heart missed a beat, terrifying worst-case scenarios coming to her mind with Gray’s absence. “Where’s Gray?” Juvia demanded anxiously. “Has he returned?”

Wendy quickly nodded, setting her panic at ease. “Yeah, he came home. He’s in the infirmary right now. I’m not sure what happened, but he and Lucy were hurt pretty bad.”

Her eyes shifted distractedly over to the hallway leading to their clinic. “Maybe Juvia should go check on him.”

“Absolutely not,” a woman interrupted before she could scamper off to his side. Porlyusica suddenly appeared with her ever present scowl. “He needs to rest. Leave him be.”

“O-Oh… Ah… right,” Juvia stammered, feeling a blush come to her cheeks. She still felt anxious, but knew better than to question the elder woman’s words. “Will he be all right?”

“He’ll be fine. He’s a stubborn fool.”

The water mage breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”

“Hey, you guys!” Levy called as she bounced over, Team Shadowgear hot on her heels.

“Oh, good morning,” Wendy greeted.

“What happened last night?” the solid-script mage asked, concerned lines creasing her brow as she took note of their medicinal advisor. “Jet told me he had to fetch Porlyusica.”

“Gray and Lucy were badly injured,” Juvia explained. “What happened is still unclear.”

“Cana didn’t offer an explanation either when she came to get me,” Jet said, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve never seen her so sober.”

Levy fiddled with the hem of her dress nervously, giving Wendy a questioning glance. “Is Lu okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” she affirmed with a small nod. “They both just need some rest for now.”

“What’s everyone buzzin’ about?” Gajeel questioned as he sauntered over, keeping his eyes peeled on the rest of the guildhall. “Ain’t like them this early in the morning.”

Panther Lily hopped onto the table next to Charle. “We’re usually never here this early,” he pointed out.

“Master wants to make an announcement.” Cana strolled over, her customary barrel of alcohol propped against her hip and a soft warmth blooming upon her cheeks. “It’s not good.”

“Why do you say that?” Levy asked.

“I saw Lucy and Gray come in last night. It was pretty bad.”

“You don’t think something terrible happened, do you?” Wendy fiddled with her hands anxiously.

Gajeel folded his arms over his chest. “Didn’t they go on a mission with Salamander?”

“Yeah, along with Erza and Happy.” Levy’s hazel eyes quickly scanned their gathered guildmates. “But I haven’t seen either of them all morning.”

“The Thunder Legion was sent out, too,” Cana mumbled. “This doesn’t sit well with me.”

The guildhall suddenly hushed as Makarov entered the room, climbing up onto the stage in order to be better seen and heard. Mirajane stood beside him, but her usual cheerful smile had been replaced by a deep frown. Her eyes were rimmed red and her cheeks were flushed, making it apparent to everyone that she had been crying. Levy exchanged an anxious glance with those beside her.

Their master cleared his throat, his eyes noticeably misty. “My heart is heavy today,” he began, his voice thick with tears. “I come to you not as your guild master, but as a member of the family we hold dear. Unfortunately, in this world, not everything can be fixed, no matter how much we wish it could.”

Dread had Levy’s stomach locked up tight and her teeth clenched together.

The room fell eerily silent. “Yesterday, our strongest team went on a mission to capture bandits in Freesia. But demons from the books of Zeref blindsided them.”

Levy swallowed against the hard lump in her throat. It became hard to breathe. Where was Erza, Natsu, and Happy? Why weren’t they there?

“It is with a broken heart that I tell you some of our family did not make it home alive.”

“N-No,” Levy whispered, her hands muffling the gasp that escaped as tears welled in her eyes. Loud murmurs of disbelief rang out across the guild, fear building in a frenzy as everyone turned wide eyes to their master.

He paused for a moment to reel in his emotions as Mirajane quietly broke down sobbing beside him. “Natsu, Erza, and Happy all died in battle. They were our beloved family and fought bravely to instill the protection of those we hold dear.”

The news passed through the guild like a hurricane. Levy’s mind was laid waste by it, the desolation she felt all consuming. She suddenly felt weak in the knees, falling backwards onto a bench. Cana dropped her alcohol, causing the contents to spill onto the floor. The room filled with hysterical crying, the screaming sobs molding together to form one.

“T-Tom Cat…?” she heard Charle whisper from beside her, a choked sob escaping Wendy’s lips.

Gajeel clenched his hands into fists, wide eyes staring as he tried to comprehend the master’s words. “S-Salamander? No way…”

Levy cried as if her brain was being shredded from the inside. From her mouth came a cry so raw that Gajeel bent down to pull her to his chest, running shaky fingers through her hair. She curled her hands around his shirt so she could find some gravity with her violent shaking. The whole world vanished for her. Now there was only pain enough to break her - to break them - pain enough to change them all beyond recognition.

“My children!” Makarov cried out above the noises of desolation.

The screams quieted to soft, choked sobs, as they all turned blurry vision toward him. Each of their expressions begged him to have the answers as to how this had happened… as to how they were supposed to endure such a loss.

He looked over each and every one of them, his own tears falling down his cheeks. “Y-You’re going to think that the pain will never end, but it will. That I can promise. But first, you have to let it all in. You can’t fight it; it’s bigger than you. You have to let yourself drown in it, but then, eventually, you’ll start to swim. And every single breath that you fight for will make you stronger. And I promise you, you’ll beat this! We all will!”

“How the hell did this happen?!” Macao called out angrily. “How?!”

Makarov shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t have all the details. Thank Mavis that Gray and Lucy were both brought back home alive. They’re in the infirmary recovering thanks to Wendy and Porlyusica.”

Levy squeezed her eyes shut, listening as Gajeel mumbled incoherent phrases, as Juvia cried for a queen, and Wendy sobbed for a fellow dragon slayer. She took in everything, feeling as if a weight pressed on her chest, and she was drowning in her own tears.

Their master wiped his hand under his nose like a child. “I have postponed any job requests for the time being. With the jewels we received from the Games, I will cover all expenses until further notice. Do not break alone, my children. We are a family, and we will get through this together - as a family.”

Within the mess of emotions surrounding her, Levy repeated Makarov’s news over and over again in her mind.

Natsu… Erza… Happy… dead…

Lucy… Gray… alive…

And then her eyes opened wide.

Lucy…!

...

Lucy felt emotionally bankrupt. There was nothing left to feel, nothing left to say, nothing left but the void that enveloped her mind in swirling blackness. She peeked out from beneath her covers and looked at Gray with eyes filled with anguish. He was sitting up, his gaze trained on the window, as he had been for the past two hours.

Reluctantly, once he had woken up and questioned what had happened, she had given him the news of their friends’ deaths. He had yelled out in denial, refusing to believe her, but as she replayed their final moments out on the battlefield as Virgo and Loke appeared, reality started to set in.

Since then, he had clammed up. He had sobbed - she had never seen him so vulnerable - and then he went silent. He now stared vacantly out at the sunrise, as if searching for something.

About an hour ago, she had heard all the commotion coming from the main hall and knew the rest of the guild had been told the news. The door creaked open, catching Lucy’s attention. She glanced over her covers to see a petite young woman with blue hair peek her head in.

“Lu…?” she whispered hesitantly.

The blonde debated if she wanted to see her friend, or if she would rather pretend to be asleep so she could be left alone. Thinking better of it, she pulled the blanket off of her face. “Hey, Levy,” she replied softly.

Levy stepped over, her hands clenched in front of her as if to keep them from trembling. Her cheeks were red and blotchy from crying. “Oh, Lucy…”

Her words were so tender and full of sympathy, that Lucy felt tears welling in her eyes all over again. “He-He’s gone,” she said, her voice cracking. “They’re all gone.”

Lucy’s body began to shake with her sobs, the sound breaking free from her throat, savage and raw. Levy pushed away the covers and slid into the bed next to her. She wrapped her arms around her friend, running her fingers through her golden-spun hair, and whispered soothing words to help calm her shattered heart.

Sometime during it all, Juvia came to Gray’s bedside, reaching out a trembling hand around his own. “Gray…?” she whispered.

His only response was to pull away, ignoring her presence completely. The desolation he felt consumed him, his mind became an icy wasteland; the wind howled in his soul and wrapped icy tentacles around his heart so tightly, it almost stopped beating.

And faintly, he realized, it had begun to rain.

...

Sitting alone at the Fairy Tail guildhall, Cana took a swig from her glass and waited for the effects to kick in. She waited. And waited. But the numb feeling inside her didn’t wane.

The quiet of the guildhall made her blood run as cold as Fiore’s winters. It was as if nature conspired against her in the dark, not daring to whisper the reassurance she craved. Echoes of boisterous voices spun through her mind, of a lively guild filled with fistfights and magic.

Now, there was only silence.

It gnawed at her insides, hanging in the air like the suspended moment before falling glass shattered on the ground. Like a gaping void. It needed to be filled with sounds, words, anything.

The main door creaked open and she heard soft footsteps echo in the empty guildhall. Mirajane walked over to Cana, giving her a weak smile, barely noticeable in the dim lighting. “I thought I’d find you here.” Her blue eyes, which were usually so bright and kind, had dulled to an opaque grey. They were puffy, but her tears had finally dried up.

The card mage tilted her head in acknowledgement, taking another long gulp. “Where else is there to be?”

Humming her agreement, the eldest Strauss sibling slipped behind the bar for a glass to fill from the tap, and joined Cana in a drink. Once the news of what had happened had sunk in, everyone had dispersed to find their own way of grieving.

“I used to complain about how loud the guild was. All the fighting and the music and the people non-stop talking,” Cana said, her voice brittle as if she were about to cry. “Now, it’s too quiet. I’d give my right arm to hear Natsu start a fight or for Erza to end it, or for Happy to make another of his snarky comments.”

Blue eyes peered wistfully over the darkened guildhall, memories of their childhood revolving through her mind. Over a decade had passed since the first of them had stumbled into Fairy Tail. Even after all they had been through at such a young age, they had still been so innocent as to what lay ahead. “It’s a frightening thought, that in one fraction of a moment, everything you hold dear can be altered forever.”

Cana gripped her glass tighter. “It all just feels like a bad joke.”

“I don’t think the universe is kidding this time.” She didn’t need to voice aloud the circumstances regarding Lisanna’s death. Her body had disappeared in a glitter of golden light. This time, there was no mistake that Natsu, Erza, and Happy were gone. Mirajane took a sip of her drink thoughtfully, swirling the alcohol around in her mouth, relishing in the burn before swallowing.

Cana raised a brow suspiciously. “Since when do you drink?”

“Since I woke up yesterday and never imagined the day would end this badly.” The barmaid shrugged, silver hair a mess and her eyes sad. “I always thought there were bad days, but not in the way most people think, you know? I think… I think really bad days happen when everything seems to be going wrong, and you just want to throw your hands up in the air and give up. Because clearly, the world is out to get you.”

Tears welling in her eyes, Cana held up her glass. “To really, really bad days, then.”

They drank quietly as the shadows grew darker and it wasn’t until after nightfall that they realized something.

As it turned out, a person couldn’t drink away the silence.

...

Every breath was an implosion.

Lucy sat on the edge of the bed with no strength to move. Her shaky fingers finally came to a stop after running restlessly through her messy hair. She bit down on her lip trying not to burst into tears. It wasn’t going to help. It wouldn’t change anything.

Night had fallen, causing everyone to leave the guild. Juvia had fallen asleep in a chair, her head resting on Gray’s bed, but Lucy had persuaded Levy to go home. Brown eyes lifted to look at her teammate, lip quivering.

“Gray…?” Her voice came out in a choked whisper.

“Don’t.” The word was deliberate, and sharper than knives. He didn’t even bother to face her, instead lying on his side with his back toward her.

Lucy glanced away, feeling as if she had been slapped. She wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders, the events of the day leaving her feeling hollow. “You don’t get to do this,” she muttered, clenching her hands into fists.

“Don’t,” he repeated. “Just don’t. I don’t want to hear you say what I think you’re gonna say.”

Gray had woken up hours ago with the bitter taste of ash in his mouth and the grit of building caked into his skin. Somehow, before Lucy had replayed the events of the battle for him, he had known it was over. A part of him really knew. People always say they thought they would know if someone close to them had died. Maybe it was true. Because something inside him had broken on that day, and he knew it was over.

Grief felt like emptiness in his heart, a sheer of nothingness that somehow took over and held his soul, threatening to kill him entirely. It gave him this heavy feeling that was like the weight of the world sat on his chest.

He knew grief very well.

He felt it when Ur looked back at him, her body becoming the infamous iced-shell, as she gave her life for his. “I want Lyon to discover the world; Gray, you too, of course. You don’t have to be sad,” she had told him with a smile. “I’m alive. I’m eternally alive as ice. Step into the future. I’ll seal your darkness.”

He felt it when Ultear had given years of her life to give him one more minute of his, changing his fate entirely - her elderly face, tilted with lips pulled up, a shake of her head, wordlessly telling him it was okay.

And he felt it when Erza turned her back to him, scarlet hair shimmering in the fire’s glow; her armor cracked, her swords drawn. “I made a promise! I told Ultear I would look after you,” she had shouted back to him, facing the demon head-on as he lay bleeding. “And I never break a promise!” Even though by then she was already dying, she fought on. She was drenched to the core in blood and yet she fought on. She fought on until she collapsed and could fight no more. And then with the crack of bones, she was gone.

Why?!

Why did every woman he had ever learned to care for decide that his life was worth more than theirs? Why was he always the one left behind to mourn, to feel the guilt of their deaths?

It wasn’t fair, dammit!

“Please… Gray…”

Lucy’s voice drew him from his thoughts and he glanced down to see he had wrapped the sheets tight in his fist, turning his knuckles white. He closed his eyes, but she somehow knew he was listening.

“We-We have their blood on our hands… Tell me it’s going to be okay. Promise me it’s going to be alright,” she cried meekly. “Tell me we have a reason to be here when they aren’t.”

He was silent for a moment, turning his hardened gaze to the dark sky outside. “I can’t.”

She opened her mouth and then closed it again, unable to come up with any response.

[you-cant-spell-subtext-without]

Hola Mishamigos! It’s Friday and I am here with more nonsense from my SPN rewatch - dudes, we are all SLEEPING on Season 11, in both good and bad ways.  There is so much in just the first trifecta of “Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire;” “Form and Void;” and “Bad Seed” (since “Baby” deserves her own analysis) -  so come relive my rewatch with me.  This is a summary of some things that stood out for me (few are analysis, most are clowning; basically this is a pared down live tweet - you’re welcome/I'm sorry); copy/paste from the script is included with my own emphasis:

OUT OF THE DARKNESS INTO THE FIRE [11x01]

-There’s lots more to this episode, but really this is the most important and relevant part (also it’s too soon and I am offended, damaged, attacked and hurt) -

DEAN: Yeah, whoa. All right, take -- take it easy, okay?  (gesturing to the deputy’s wound) Bad guys?

JENNA: Rebar. I sought cover. I fell.

***LIKE EXCUSE ME, but what in the actual fuck.  Did they just decide to pull that from the episode four years later to emotionally traumatize us in the subsequent rewatches? I know it’s probably coincidence but my sad soul has not recovered *enough* for rebar’s first SPN appearance to be right now in this moment when I am blissfully 5 entire seasons away from the dead end in the road.

- The only other important part of this episode - when Dean takes the call from Cas privately first before putting it on speaker for Sam, and something about this exchange is so endearing-

(Dean’s phone rings) 

DEAN: Where the hell are you, Cas?

(The scene flips between Sam and Dean at the hospital, and Castiel in the woods.)

CASTIEL: I'm...I'm okay.

DEAN: You don't sound okay.

CASTIEL: Dean, I am fine. Besides, what I have, you can't help me.

DEAN: What do you mean, what you have?

CASTIEL: Just please tell Sam -- Rowena escaped with the Book of the Damned and the codex.

DEAN: Okay, forget Rowena. Where are you?

CASTIEL: Now, you tell me -- the Mark . . .

DEAN: Oh, really? You're worried about me after everything that I’ve --

CASTIEL: Dean, is it gone?

DEAN: Yes. I'm good. I mean, I'm not great.

CASTIEL: Makes two of us.  (Dean puts Cas on speakerphone) This is good news.

SAM: Hey, Cas.

CASTIEL: Sam.

***It’s just so poignant that Dean wanted privacy for the first minutes of that call, probably because he is still haunted about the beating he gave Cas in 10 and *other things,* and Cas is literally being torn apart by Rowena’s curse but he only cares about Dean getting rid of the Mark, and the world is ending but Dean only cares about Cas and where he is -  honestly this scene - I’m - 

***Further thoughts on the Animal Curse/Cas/Dean below under 11x03

FORM AND VOID [11x02]

(love the Genesis call back to this verse in the title - “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”)

-speaking of emotional trauma, this fucking shit again -

JENNA: Yeah. I pretty much grew up here. Learned to ride my bike down the road. Had my first kiss at that blue house over there. Lost my virginity up there (pointing to different house).

DEAN: I'll bet blue house was pissed.

JENNA: She was. (handing Amara to Dean) Do you mind?

***This frustrated/disappointed/angered/saddened me to NO END despite already knowing that it happens constantly on the show, because what was the reason?! Did they have to point out that she had a female love interest for this brief moment just to turn her evil and kill her off?  There was no need to include this detail.  It’s either blatant homophobia or willful ignorance (so also blatant homophobia) that this is what representation means.  I won’t go on because obviously we are aware of this and much has already been said/written about it, but still, fuck this.

-we meet Billie and there is more “FORESHADOWING”-

QUEEN IS SINGING “OH DEATH” aka Death’s entrance song from Season 5 and I am BLOWN AWAY by this almost as much as her amazing voice - like did they know at this point she would become the new Death season later? DID THEY KNOW? I need answers.

Seriously, go listen to it immediately; bask in its glory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFOm5i6b56o

We also get our first mention of the Empty, so that’s cute that they referenced both Dean’s and Cas’s Season 15 ‘demises’ in the same episode (it’s not cute really and I am crying again now) ->

BILLIE: You and Dean . . . Dying and coming back again and again. The old death thought it was funny. But now there's one hard, fast rule in this universe. What lives . . . dies. So the next time you or your brother bite it, well, you're not going to Heaven . . . Or Hell. One of us -- and, Lord, I hope it's me -- we're gonna make a mistake and toss you out into the Empty. And nothing comes back from that. I know you're dying. I can feel it. You're unclean in the biblical sense. So I'll be seeing you again, Sam . . . Seeing you real soon. Name's Billie, by the way.

-another reason for me to continue denying the flaming trash heap that they tried to call the series finale-

Sam is dying here because he has been infected by the Darkness-vein-animal-exploding-people-plague so he goes to pray about it 

SAM: So . . . I know it's been a long time, but . . . Dean and I, we've -- we've been through a lot of bad. But this is different. This is my fault, and I don't know how to fix it. And if I have to die, I've made my peace with that, but . . . Please. Dean deserves better. Dean deserves a life. There are people out there, good people, who are going to suffer because of me, and I am not asking you to clean up my mess. Hell, I don't even know if you're out there, but . . . If you are . . . And if you can hear me, I, um . . . We need your help, God. We need to know there's hope. We need a sign.

**DABB WROTE THIS F-ING EPISODE.  How are you going to write Dean deserves a life here to just do what you did Dabb.  Don’t get me started on my feelings about this scene in the dark depths of my finale-denying soul.   DEAN DESERVES BETTER INDEED, SEASON 11 SAM. 

To rub salt in this particular wound, they show us THE cutest scenes of Dean with this damn baby so we can have feelings about how great of a parent he could be (also I ADORE that whenever Jared, Jensen, or Misha have scenes in later seasons with young children/babies it is SO clear they slip into their own natural dad mode without even noticing it; these guys just all seem like excellent fathers and it makes me mushy) and even Crowley picks up on that shit and makes his little ex-boyfriend joke (after Demon Dean and most of season 10 there is no way I will ever NOT believe that Crowley and Dean did not take a tumble; I will take no criticism):

CROWLEY: The child likes you. No surprise, really. You're very maternal.

LIKE WHAT IS THIS:

Speaking of King Jackles, next comes the episode he directed ->

BAD SEED [11x03]

-Cas/Dean parallels with the Attack Dog Spell/Mark of Cain-

This arc appears in the 10 finale and then runs through the first three episodes, culminating in this one.  Despite it hurting my heart to see our angel so bloody eyed and feral, I LOVED this parallel; it’s truly brilliant - Cas’s reaction to the attack dog spell is such a mirror to the way Dean dealt with the Mark most of 10.  It’s also beautiful that Dean is the only one that can pull Cas from the spell’s control at the end of this episode; that alley scene between the two of them in 11x02 is so tender and sweet.  I like to think this brought an entire new layer of depth to their connection, because no one truly understood how Dean felt under the influence of the Mark until now (someone write a fan fic about this exchange!!!!!!) I *love* this journey for them (please say that sentence in Alexis Rose in your head).  Bonus that  the episode containing my most favorite of *domestic* phone calls with Dean and Cas follows this one, and also Dean’s SHORT SHORTS follow because now he is just walking around the bunker in short shorts while Cas is there and I maintain this is because of this new level of closeness.  As previously stated I ACCEPT NO criticism.

ALSO OF COURSE THE FACE CUP THAT JENSEN HIMSEF DIRECTED HIMSELF TO DO.  I STAN A KING. I HEREBY DEMAND AT LEAST ONE FACE CUP PER EPISODE OF THE MINI SERIES JENSEN.

***I just saw something posted by @watchthebeesandfish​ back in 2015 when digging around the internet re: this episode - that this was the first time both Dean/Cas had seen each other as “themselves” since that heart wrenching bridge scene in 9x10, when Dean walks away from Sam/Cas after the Gadreel possession reveal (he goes on to take the Mark of Cain in the following episode, and has it the rest of the season through season 10 finale). That is brilliant and accurate and I BOW DOWN in humility to that parallel.  I now love this scene a billion times more. *single [wo]man tear*   Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, thanks as always for getting through my rambling,  and HAPPY FACE CUPPING FOREVER.

[alpaca-writes]

Mystics, Chapter 24

When Arch becomes hired on at Mystics by the strange shopkeeper Lyrem Nomadus, everything seems to be going well- in fact, their life nearly becomes perfection. Soon enough, however, Arch realizes that perhaps not everything is as perfect as it seems….

Read Chapters 1-23 and more HERE

Taglist: @myst-in-the-mirror, @livingforthewhump

CW: Suicide attempt, swearing, drunken stupor. Lyrem needs his own content warnings, seriously.

This includes the FlashBackFever #1 from the Masterlist, but also contains valuable information regarding the plotline. This picks up directly after Chapter 22.

Dedicating this chapter to @myst-in-the-mirror for their wonderful name suggestion for the TimeWorm, Opus! Xx. 

-Alpaca.

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: WHEN LYREM MET PAIMON

          “Your essence, your memories, everything you are,” Hades spoke; his voice echoed through the deep, dark gloom, “belongs to me.”

        “My essence was spared as a favor to Kronos, if you recall.” Lyrem sniffed and snarled. “Is this really the type of greeting I get for pet-sitting little Opus all those years ago?”

        “Ha! Did you think I would allow you the privilege of eternal life because you took care of Kronos’ Time-Worm for a few measly hours? Please.” Hades tutted amusedly. “Regardless, you’ve become quite a different man since then. I am not sure I would ever want the essence someone who murdered and then ate the heart of his own father… But at least your memories retain a certain value to me at this time.”

        The mark that Lyrem bore on his chest- the brand that Maria would always say looked like a wine glass carrying a single grape- well… it began to burn. Lyrem grimaced and seethed through his teeth as he felt the brand sear through him like a thousand small razors cutting beneath his chest. It was the same feeling as when he first received it.

        Slowly, the searing pain faded away, and Lyrem was able to straighten himself once again, and he touched his chest. The mark was gone.

        The warm scent of chai drifted over him. Hades was holding a large mug in his hands and he lifted it to his white bearded face. Lyrem studied the hulking God, unsure of his purpose here.

        “Perhaps I should apologize for acting so rashly. When I heard that you were coming to collect, I understandably panicked- you know Maria and I had only just bought the house together and I wasn’t ready to go yet.”-

        Hades smiled lightly as his head shook slowly. He sighed impatiently as Lyrem continued in his nervous frenzy-

        “I mean, now that I think back about it, I’m not sure I should have listened to Paimon when he told me what you wanted. He’s a demon. Does he even consort with your kind? I didn’t mean to be a nuisance for you – truly. I wasn’t fully aware of what I was agreeing to at the time you brought me back from the dead, anyways. That was all Kronos’ insistence. You remember. I was young and naïve, of course”-

        “It’s alright.” Hades hushed him unexpectedly. “Being stuck in one corner of a Labyrinth for thirty years is not really worth avenging in my book. To you humans, it’s akin to being stuck in a line-up for five extra minutes. Would you like a coffee? A tea perhaps? Persephone makes a wonderful chai from scratch, though the plants take a little while to grow first. This place… isn’t exactly kind to her.”

        Lyrem searched around. A small couch appeared behind him, a deep blue colour. Hades motioned for him to sit, and so he did. It would be foolish of him to refuse.

        “A… a coffee would be very much appreciated,” he finally answered. “Where is Persephone?”

        Hades sat across from him in his own chair and he cleared his throat.

        “She can only be seen by living souls. I, on the other hand, can only be witnessed by the dead. But we can still hear each other and create for each other, without any problems.”

        “Oh,” Lyrem nodded. “That must be…”

        Nice? Sad? Actually, Lyrem wouldn’t finish that sentence. He didn’t know how.

        “It’s annoying,” Persephone finished. “We can only ever see each other in our own realm. Our real realm- the one we created ourselves- and who knows what that creature is doing to it!”

        Hades tsked. “Persephone, that is not how you address family- whether they are with us or not.”

        He sipped his tea and allowed Lyrem to watch as his coffee materialized for him in a small ceramic cup. Rigidly, Lyrem sat there, unsure of whether to be comforted by the hospitality or suspicious of it.

        “Sorry it took so long,” Persephone apologized. “I haven’t grown a coffea in ages! I chose arabica for you, I hope that is fine.”

        “It’s perfect. Thank you.” Lyrem said. “I-I’m sorry, God Hades, may I please understand why I am here? You wanted Arthur to bring me here for a reason. Do you want me to release you from this place? Send you back to your proper realm?”

        “Ooh he’s a quick one,” She exclaimed, the sarcasm was not lost with the absence of her face. If she was visible, Lyrem would have seen her sit beside him on the couch. Instead, he only felt the pull of the upholstery dipping next to him.

        “Well, unfortunately, you cannot release us from this place. It’s not under your control.” Hades answered, causing Lyrem to be taken aback.

        “Yes, it is. You may have been able to co-opt it to your liking, but I can certainly…” Lyrem paused with a hand suspended. He pushed his hand around, almost playfully through the air. “Uh… Open… open a door…”

        Nothing happened. He brought his hand back down. It worked the last time he was here, dropping these two away in the hole. Of course, Paimon needed to help him at the time. Regardless, he was told he had control. Of course, why would he ever test it when a God who wanted his essence was trapped here? Paimon knew he wouldn’t try to release Hades. It would be a death sentence.

        “Perhaps, I am less powerful as a dead man,” Lyrem surmised.

        “Oh love, no,” Persephone coddled him in the effort to raise his spirits a little higher. “If anything, you should be more powerful than ever as a dead man. But those hearts you’ve been taking like vitamins? They do you less good than you think… You know, what, Uncle? I think he knew it too. I don’t think he wanted him to be strong.”

        Lyrem turned to her space for clarification. “I’m sorry, who knew what?”

        “My nephew, Pan,” Hades answered.

        “He’s always been a trouble maker,” Hades remarked. “This place is a little caged corner of his Labyrinth. I was not prepared for his increased strength as he transitioned to adulthood. It’s quite a solid construction. I have yet to devise a way out.

        It’s also why I needed you to die. Your soul is linked to me, not to the Underworld. And you are innately knowledgeable of Pan’s motivations. We needed to talk.”

        Lyrem sipped at his coffee, growing more and more confused by the moment.

        “I would honestly be quite impressed by Pan’s work if he wasn’t so notoriously cunning, and quite frankly, annoying about it. But that was always his way, you know.” Hades continued in a nostalgic fashion. “He would do all sorts of silly things- start music contests; him with his little flute, he loved that thing though I can’t remember the last time I saw him play it. He loved those little competitions- especially with family”-

        “Ohh. I remember when he came around Mount Olympus showing off the wood nymphs he caged”- Persephone shuddered. It could be felt more than seen. “He plucked off their wings and forced them to race, that creepy bastard”-

        “Persephone!”

        “I’m sorry. He was just so horrible sometimes.”

        “Who are we speaking about, again?”

        “Pan.” “Pan!”

        “Pan?” Lyrem shook his head, remembering his knowledge on classic Greek mythology. “…Isn’t the Great God Pan, dead?”

        The God and Goddess let out a mighty good chuckle, leaving Lyrem annoyed and confused, and off to the side.

        “Okay,” Persephone caught her breath. “That was a good prank; Convincing the world he was dead… Oh it never gets old. I can’t believe it stuck around this long. I guess it fits that he’s disguised as a spirit from a false religion now.”

        Lyrem stole looks from Hades to the empty space, and then back again in growing disbelief. Hades continued.

        “Pan is one of my nephews. A childlike God. And like all children, he grew bored with the course that his life was taking. In order to amuse himself, he began toying with the lives of innocent humans and facilitated humanity’s suffering on a massive scale. Played people against one another and started wars between great nations. He would place bets on who would win and he would become angry and spiteful when no one would bet against him. He stole children away from their families just to watch their reactions when they found the bodies- he would corrupt the most innocent to hurt at his command – what is more is he tortured people into taking their own lives- and the more he did these things, the easier it all became… I won’t blame his parents,” Hades nodded sympathetically to the ‘empty’ seat, “But he needed intervention a long time ago, desperately.”

        The tone had suddenly shifted to one of melancholy as Hades explained his nephew’s troubling past.

        “Trying to reason with him became more difficult and each time I tried to help him, he would push me away. Finally, being as resourceful and unbelievably stupid as he was, he swept my realm clean, leaving myself and Persephone locked in the equivalent of a closet in the void of the Underworld- that would be what he likes to call the ‘Labyrinth’.” With a shudder, Hades looked away, shamefully. “One powerful human who bears my mark and a few sacrificial hearts were all he needed to help him with that little task.”

        “Me…” Lyrem placed the pieces together slowly, his life flashing before him in a new light, a new context. “Are you saying, what I think you’re saying? Paimon… Paimon is Pan?!”

        Hades nodded.

        “He gave me a reason to fear you, and then he showed me how to trap you...” Lyrem reasoned. “I’ve known him for thirty-two years. How could I have not known this?”

        “Well, first of all, you certainly have a reason to fear me, I am the God of Death and I will still claim your essence one day.” Hades finished his drink, and the mug disappeared. “But I am slow to anger. Zeus would certainly have struck you down by now, and Poseidon has already put you on a list for that ridiculous prank with Perseus you pulled.”

        Hades chuckled softly. “It was quite funny though.”

        With widening eyes, Lyrem sat back, and tried to find what little was left of his honour and dignity with these Gods who spoke of his life like it was a mere sitcom for them to be entertained by.

        “This is ridiculous. Whether or not Paimon is Pan, I am a man who stands by those who are loyal to me,” Lyrem scoffed, “If you wish for me to betray him in any way at all, I shall simply refuse.”

        He sat up and crossed his arms like a petulant child, just begging for a scolding.

        Hades went silent, as well as Persephone.

        “He’s really not terribly bright, is he, Uncle?” Persephone whispered harshly. “It’s beside the point. We need to find Apollo! Let’s open up his mind again.”

        “What? No! Please, don’t”-

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

Beijing, China. 1989.

        “You will never know true love.”

        The Eastern Oracle looked up from the bowl of still water, perched atop the short table from where the three sat on the pillows and watched her client with interest. His dark brows were neatly knit together in a scowl and clearly disappointed. The client did not understand what she had spoken. She could tell.

        She glanced to the translator next and then looked back to the man who began to speak.

        “Oh…” he quietly accepted. “I see.”

        He swallowed. The incense smoke drifted up through the air, condensing their little area in a thin fog. The Oracle said something else in her native Cantonese; her tone rather insistent this time. Urgent, even. Lyrem could tell.

        The translator paused, then spoke: “she says that your fate was never to be loved, only to be respected. It is the only thing that matters to you.”

        Lyrem blinked. Respect was a value of his, yes- but the only thing that mattered to him?

        “But… love, true love…” he started feeling silly even before he uttered the words. “It exists?”

        The translator repeated his words and then the Oracle watched him carefully.

        “For you.” the Oracle spoke in Cantonese. Unfortunately, Lyrem was not well versed in the language at all. “Only for you does true love exist.”

        Lyrem glanced to the translator.

        “She says, ‘Only for very few, does true love exist.”

        He sighed. At least he wasn’t the only one, he thought. He stood up, paid the two in full, and bowed before making his exit.

        Thankfully, there was a local merchant of alcohol nearby. Lyrem stopped there first to buy himself a case of sake before returning to his hotel room. Eight floors up, he was.

        It would be quick and easy to find his way to the ground.

        He cracked open his first and played himself in a game of solitaire on the table by the window. Reflecting there on his last several weeks of hunting for a sacred stone in the Himalayas. It had already been delivered unto Cáishén, a Chinese god of wealth and prosperity several days before now. He wouldn’t get anything in return for his sweat, tears, and blood- only his clients would. At least they paid him well enough. But it had been several days since he returned from the peaks and Lyrem hadn’t bothered to book himself a flight back home to receive his cheque.

        At his second bottle, he ordered dinner up. It didn’t matter what was on the menu, but he was craving something richly flavoured and warm. Pork buns, he thought. They were often his favourite and would do well as a last meal. He had finished his second bottle before it was delivered.

        Yes, they smelled heavenly.

        And then he lost his appetite.

        He opened a third and flicked the bottle cap across the room- damn- he missed the trash bin.

        At some point, he had sat on the bed to read a paper he had picked up from a stall that day. It was mostly in English- except for the ads.

        President Bush signs $166-Billion-dollar corporate bailout, the article read.

        “Didn’t trek across the mountains for nothing then. You’re fucking welcome, everybody,” he muttered rudely to himself.

        He opened his fourth drank it, and then got up to take a long piss. He washed his face and ran a wet hand through his head of soft brown hair. His face still burned with the cold from an altitude he was not accustomed too- it left his cheeks pink and dry.

        The wind had pick up. The mustard yellow curtains flipped around wildly bringing in the stale scent of dust and inner-city smog along with it. Lyrem didn’t remember opening the door to the balcony- at least he hadn’t bothered to, yet.

        But now was a good a time as any… Wasn’t it?

        What was the point of living if not for love?

        He heard the rush of traffic below and the honking of horns, and then he tried to remember what the point of making any sound was, if no one cared for what you had to say. He flipped on the radio that was bolted into the side table. Tuned to a station catering to American music, it crackled through the middle of Hotel California with great effort.

        He stepped over the threshold and looked out across Beijing and their neon lights with his hands tightly gripped to each other behind his back. He sniffed and considered his next move.

        Hands forward, he gripped the railing tight.

                 He bit his lower lip as the lights blurred ahead of him.

                          He became angry with the Oracle, but only for a second.

                                   He lifted a leg and found his own perch.

        The sake had really done a good job of calming his nerves. Lyrem was actually quite surprised that he wasn’t more unstable. Perhaps that was the unique charm of the drink. Or perhaps a bit more adrenaline was pumping through his veins than he cared to realize.

        Lyrem held his breath at the edge of the railing, and then closed his eyes.

                                                     He tipped forward, welcoming the rush.

        He was caught. His eyes opened, and he was suspended in mid-air staring down at the busy street below. Life, he saw, flashing by… but not his own.

        He was lifted back by a pair of strong arms and then the savior let him fall to the floor with a sudden thump!

        “You sad, sorry bastard,” the voice of the saviour said. “You need help.”

        Perhaps a neighbour saw him attempt suicide, came to the rescue. But Lyrem could have sworn he locked his door- and he didn’t hear a soul break in. The guest sat on the edge of the bed, leaning against a cane to support himself on the way down.

        Lyrem grunted against the floor.

        “Go away,” he groaned out.

The guest rolled his eyes.

        “What is wrong with you?” he asked. Part of him may have been genuinely asking, but he didn’t wait for a response. “You have everything you could ever possibly desire in this world! How old are you? Forty? Maybe? You still have a long life ahead of you to do absolutely anything you want!

        Women! They ought to be climbing all over you- unless of course, the men are more your thing- I don’t mean to judge of course, love is love.”

        The guest continued on as Lyrem struggled to his knees.

        “Riches! You’ve got that! Wine, cocaine, parties, travelling the world? My man, you have yourself a slice of heaven on Earth! You’re like a bloody rock star!”

        Lyrem glared up at the black-bearded wonder sitting on his bed, in his room, who opened the fifth bottle of sake that was sitting next to him.

        The guest grimaced at the taste, but kept it balanced on his knee.

        “I guess, what I am really wondering,” he continued. “Is what the hell drives a man like you to the edge like this?”

        Lyrem struggled to stand, and leaned against the chair, slowly and shakily, he climbed into it, and then studied the stranger best he could. His eyes drifted away from him each time he tried to focus. He swallowed carefully. Feeling sick, he might not ever answer the man.

        “L-love. True love,” he managed.

        The stranger balked.

        “True love?!”

        “Fuck off.”

        Teetering on the edge of the bed, the stranger leaned forward.

        “It’s just so funny though, isn’t it? Love… you’d think a man like you could find it anywhere”-

        “I don’t want to find it just anywhere,” Lyrem reasoned, cradling his head into his hands. “I want it to be real. I want it to be true. I want it to be perfect.”

        “No love is real, or true, or perfect. It’s just… Love.”

        “Is that supposed to be encouraging?”

        “It’s supposed to snap you out of this depressive episode. It’s degrading. Just by looking at you, I want to throw myself off this balcony.”

        Lyrem scoffed, managed a smirk and looked up.

        “You’re an asshole.”

        “The name’s Paimon,” the stranger grinned. “And you’re right, I am an asshole- but I’m also exactly what you need.”

        Lyrem shifted his head back. He wasn’t a man with a variety of tastes. He preferred wom-

        “A demon,” he finished.

        “Pffffft.” Lyrem opened his mouth. “You think I need you? A demon?”

        “You’re human, aren’t you?”

        “Obviously.”

        “Then we were always meant to be.” Paimon surmised. “Listen, I know you’re a man of many talents, gained the favours of many gods, and many powerful human souls- I’ve been tracking you for quite some time.”

        Lyrem rolled his eyes up at the ceiling where watermarks dotted around in various sizes.

        “Here’s my proposal- and if you don’t like it, then you are free to fling yourself off the balcony again and this time, I won’t stop you”-

        “I don’t consort with demons. I have a rule about that,” Lyrem said, beginning to sober up at the mention of something more work related.

        “’course, you do,” Paimon winked at him. “But what if I told you that I could find you your true love? What if I could promise you that? What if I told you that all you would need to do is sit beside her on this flight”- He pulled a plane ticket from the inside of his jacket pocket. “-from Beijing to Lisbon, tomorrow afternoon?”

        Lyrem stared suspiciously from the ticket and then back to Paimon’s unearthly aura. He didn’t notice it until now.

        “This is a trick,” Lyrem stated. He then turned it to a question. “What do I do for you in return?”

        Paimon’s eyes went wide, and he shook his head.

        “Nothing at all,” Paimon could see that Lyrem knew he was bullshitting. “Alright. Here’s what I require in return: your… friendship.”

        Lyrem reached out, pulled the ticket from the demon’s hand and stood. Studying it in the light, it was real. It was the very same company he had traveled with to get to China about a month back.

        “If I don’t give you the true love that you desire,” Paimon proposed. “Then I will leave you in peace and never return.”

        “Still sounds like a trick.”

        “Some deals are just too good to pass up,” Paimon chortled. “Trust me, I know.”

        Lyrem took a deep breath. Paimon wanted his friendship in return for giving him true love? He scratched his chin, stubbled and dry. If he refused, the demon might only return one day when he was even more desperate- and Lyrem couldn’t exactly guarantee he would say no then and Paimon would almost certainly raise his expectations for him.

        “You have a deal,” Lyrem settled with nothing to lose. “Friendship it is. Name’s Lyrem.”

        Paimon smiled, knowing that the money he had spent to bribe the translator was well worth it, and clasped the man’s hand tight.

        “Lyrem… You won’t regret this,” he grinned through shining eyes.

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

Labyrinth Cage, present day.

        Lyrem lifted his head off the back of the couch that had supported him this time through a most unpleasant journey down memory lane.

        “… He lied.”

        Many years had passed since he had first travelled to China- and since then he had been hired to return enough times that he had to learn some basic Cantonese for himself.

        The Oracle had told him how to find Maria- not that he would’ve had to try very hard. There was a job, just off the coast of Portugal that he had been asked to do, not long after he had arrived in Lisbon. He thought it to be a simple coincidence at the time and nothing more.  The people who hired him to get it done probably had his plane ticket waiting at the front desk. He was just too self-absorbed to check in with them about it, but it was more likely that Paimon had gotten to it first.

        But… he understood now. The demon who he called a friend, wasn’t a demon at all.

        It was Pan. And Pan was playing him. He had been playing him from the very start.

        If he had heard the Oracle correctly the first time, he would have known that his true love would be found. He wouldn’t have drunk himself half to death and he wouldn’t have dangled himself off the balcony of his room. And if all of that was true- then he wouldn’t have been desperate enough to consort with something like him, demon or not. Paimon-Pan- wanted him desperate. Wanted Lyrem to need him. He needed Lyrem to see him as his one and only salvation.

        There, for when Maria couldn’t be.

        “I need to speak to him.”

        A firm hand pushed him back down in his seat. It was invisible, but strong.

        “He’ll annihilate you like an ant, Lyrem. Believe me, I’ve seen it many times. You’re not the first human he’s trained this way.” Persephone cooed, softly.

        “Trained?!” Lyrem repeated emphatically, insulted. “No, no… I just need to talk to him. He’s…”

        “-your friend?”

        Lyrem paled, and then swallowed.

        “Yes! Yes, he is! And when I speak with him, then… I’m sure everything will be explained”-

        He cut himself off. There was no reason for him to make excuses for Paimon. He lied to him, and he knew exactly what he was doing all along.

        “Arch is with him now. You don’t think he would hurt, Arch, do you?”

        Hades’ face became painted in concern for Lyrem and his friend’s well-being. He didn’t want to answer the poor man. Persephone interjected.

        “He also has one of my brothers- Apollo is trapped in our realm. We have to save him from Pan. I have no idea what he’ll do to him,” Persephone turned to Hades in urgency, though, neither Hades nor Lyrem would have known it. “Uncle, this whole time we’ve assumed that it was Maria who had a connection with Pan and therefore Apollo. But how likely is it that Apollo used Arch to send his call?”

        Hades lifted his eyebrows in consideration.

        “If this Arch is important to Lyrem and has a connection to Pan, then it is quite likely Apollo would find a way to use them.”

        “What’s his call for? Why are you searching for it in me? In my head?” Lyrem asked. “If you can explain to me what to look for then I might already know what it is. I could show it to you!”

        “And that could be enough to help you find him and release him,” the sound of Persephone’s smile resounded through her words. “Once Apollo is released from his prison, he could open a door into the Labyrinth instantly and release us.

        His call, it would have been something musical. Something special to you. Arch would have been present for it.”

        “A song playing then? Or maybe an earworm?” Lyrem suggested.

        Hades shuddered. “Oh, I don’t want to know what that looks like- if it’s anything like Opus and its iridescent coloured slime”-

        “I don’t think I recall any earworms… Wait…” Lyrem had a sudden stroke of genius; something bizarre that he had remembered ever since he had met Arch several months ago. “’Everyone knows City and Colour’.” He repeated Arch’s words slowly back to himself.

        “Cities and colours?,” Persephone questioned, "What do they have to do with this?”

        “It doesn’t have anything to do with this. However,” Lyrem refuted. A small smirk curled itself alongside his face. “I do believe Segovia might…”

[ladynightmare913]

Red Rose, Blood Moon

Welcome to Chapter 1! This is an original story inspired by the tale of red Riding Hood. I would like to say a special thank you to my best friend and co-author Olivia ( @asunshinepuff​) for joining me in writing this world onto paper. 

This chapter contains many of Olivia’s ocs and some of mine as well. For those of you who want to be tagged to follow along this story, let me know! If you have any curiosities, theories or questions, feel free to ask me or Olivia on her blog. 

I hope you enjoy, now without further adieu! 

Chapter 1: Wolf’s Time

A young little girl, around the age of eight, was dressed in a bright red dress, as usual thanks to her grandmother, was carrying a basket in her arms as she made her way to a willow tree where her dear friend often sat. Her dark black hair with bright red streaks of red was up in a bun, her sapphire eyes sparkling bright, her fair skin clear and unblemished. Rosabella smiled at her friend, Cassandra, also eight, who she has known all her life, absorbed in a book as usual. She sits down beside her quietly. Her friend was dressed in a white dress with a laced lavender layer on top, her nose stuck in one of the books that her father had brought back from one of his prior trips overseas. Her light golden blonde hair was tied in a fishtail braid, a typical style for the little girl. There was hardly a time where you would see her without it. Her striking sky-blue eyes entirely focused on the pages of the book in her hands, however, she notices her dear friend sitting beside her. 

“Hello Rose.”

“Hello Cass, what book are you reading this time?” She peers over Cassandra’s shoulder.

Cassandra looks over to her friend. “Legend of Camelot. Would you like to read it with me?” 

“Perhaps later, I want to gather some herbs for grandmere, do you want to come with me?

“Why not? I can always finish the story a bit later. I’ll gladly help.” She replies with a nod. 

Rosabella stands up, offering her hand to her friend. Cassandra smiles, graciously taking the hand of her friend. The girls walk to the river where the herbs were, and on their way back, they see a group of children of various ages gathered around something. So, with curiosity, the girls make their way to the group.

The girls walked right up to the boy. “What are you doing?”

A boy with brown hair, and green eyes looks up to the girls. In his hand was a stick that he was using to poke a baby snake that was not even venomous. “I found this snake sneaking into the village! Thought I might have some fun with it!” 

Cassandra frowned in distaste, “Why? He cannot even hurt us!” 

Rosabella, frowning as well, steps forward, taking the stick from the boy, glaring at him. “Leave him alone, he’s a baby!”

The boy glares and stands up, he was two years older than both girls. He towered threateningly over them. “Oi! Give it back. Or my father will hear about this!”  He reaches forward and takes the stick back.

As the boy towers over them, Cassandra’s eyebrows raise, not feeling threatened by the boy even a little. Her eyes narrow as he takes the stick back from Rosabella who was glaring right back at him. Rosabella steps around him as she walks to the snake and gently picks it up in her hand. Then she walks to the slow moving river, gently setting the snake into the water, she turns back to face the other children and their ring leader. 

“You’re a dollop head! Why must you be so cruel!” She marches back up the hill and holds her ground against the older boy.

The boy sneers “It’s an animal! They can’t think or feel!” He pushes Rosabella back.

Rosabella glares at the boy in return. “Don’t. Touch. Me. And if anybody can’t think or feel, it’s you!” She pushes him down to the ground with her arms. 

Cassandra pulls Rosabella back with her arms, holding her back. “Rose stop! He’s not worth a fight, he’s too much of a cretin.”

Rosabella glared at the boy for a moment before she sighs but listens to her friend. 

“You’re right… Come on let’s go.” She turns away.

Gregory stands back up and grins. “That’s right, go back crying to mummy, oh wait, you can’t cause she’s dead!”

Rosabella stops walking, her face void of emotion as she looks to Cassandra with a look. Meeting Rosabella's gaze, she sighs letting go of her arm, then looks back at the boy. “Gregory I tried to help, but you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”

“What?” Gregory blinks in confusion. 

One moment, he was standing, the next, he was on the ground. Rosabella had tackled the older boy to the ground and both began to struggle. Managing to get off of the boy when he tried to punch her. Gregory sits up and reaches out to try and grab Rosabella’s dress. While the two were brawling, Cassandra walked over and around the two, and without hesitation, she smacked Gregory upside the head with her book. “No! Stop!” 

Gregory winces from the pain and rubs his head, his friends pull him back up and they run away. “I’ll get you for this Louve!”

Rosabella watches the group of boys leave, standing up she dusts herself off, grabbing her basket that she had dropped. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” Cassandra replies with a smile. Satisfied with being able to help her friend. Gregory annoyed her immensely. “Come on, let’s go home.”

The girls make their way back to the village, and people would whisper whenever they saw the two girls. Rosabella’s arm was linked with Cassandra’s as they walked together, they heard a woman speaking to her husband in front of the baker’s window about how Rosabella is stronger than most girls her age. Then, Cassandra spots a man glance their way as they walk by. Whispering to the other male about how a girl should not be allowed to read. 

The blonde haired girl couldn’t bear to listen anymore as she turned away, looking down. Rosabella looks at her friend. “Don’t listen to them, they’re just stupid…” 

Cassandra sighs, and nods in agreement. She looks at her friend, the feeling of hurt clear within her blue eyes. It was difficult for her to hear such a thing. “I know… But it’s hard not to listen.”

“I know, but grandmere always says “‘Best not to dwell on the opinions of the dim witted or you’ll lose what you believe.”  She smiles encouragingly.

Cassandra tilts her head contemplatively as she listens to the familiar words. “She does always say that, doesn’t she?” She says with a smile in return. They continued to walk in comfortable silence before Rosabella spoke.

“I best get home now,  see you tomorrow?” 

“Of course! See you tomorrow!”

The girls go their separate ways and another year goes by, it’s a very cold winter and the full moon is near. Cassandra was reading as always, as her back rested against the trunk of a tree. She cannot help but shiver as a cold wind blows past. Rosabella, who was reading beside her friend, shivered at the cold gust of wind. The school-bell rings, signaling the end of another school day, and the boys run free with loud cheers as they run towards the meadow. The girls decide to go to a quieter place to read. So they head to Cassandra’s home. 

Erinna, sits in the living room working on a new cloak for a client, she pauses when she hears a knock at the door. Placing down her needle and then fabric, she walks over to the door and opens it. She smiles at seeing her daughter and Rose, “Hello Girls.”

Cassandra smiles in return, “Hello Mother.”

“Hello Ms. Azure. I hope you don’t mind us coming in early, it’s cold outside.” Rosabella’s red shawl bellows as another cold wind chills them all.

“Of course not, come in. It’s much too cold to be outside at the moment without thick clothing.” She steps aside and opens the door wider for the girls to come in. Rosabella and Cassandra enter the house and sit down on stools. Cassandra was very thankful for the fact that her mother had a fire started at the fireplace. She sits down on a stool next to Rose. Erinna closes the door, stopping the cold air from entering their home.

“What are you making?” Rosabella looks at the clothes near the older woman.

“A cloak for one of the women in the village.” She says, as she walks back to where she was working.

“It’s very pretty.” 

Erinna smiles at the young girl, “Thank you Rose.”

“My grandmother is making a cloak too. I don’t know who it’s for though.” 

“I’m sure it’ll be wonderful. Your grandmere has gifted hands.”   

The day began to grow colder and Rosabella had lost track of time. Rosabella was smiling as she drank the warm broth Erinna made. She looks to the window and sees the sun setting. Her eyes widen slightly and she stands from the table. 

“Thank you for the broth Mrs. Azure but I have to head home now. Grandmere must be worried!”

Erinna looks at the girl in worry but nods in acceptance, “Alright, but do be careful on your way home.”

“Should I walk with you?” Cassandra suggests. 

Rosabella shakes her head. “No, I’ll be alright. I could walk home in my sleep. Thank you for the meal! Good night!” Rosabella puts on her shawl and walks out the door.

With that, Cassandra frowns lightly as she watches the door shut. It was rather strange that Rosabella’s grandmere always wanted her home before the sun set. And how panicked Rosabella became whenever she lost track of time. Hopefully Rosabella’s grandmere didn’t scold her too harshly if she was late. Looking out the window, she watches as Rosabella runs off towards the forest to grandmere’s cottage. 

As the sun descended behind the mountains, the hunters had returned from their hunt, bringing back only one buck. Food was scarce, with the wolves killing everything in sight, and the people of the village would always hope for a reprieve in a successful hunt. When the moon began to make its peak in the sky, no dared venture out of their homes. Royce watched the moon rise from the window. It was full. 

“Wolf’s Time.” The hunter closes the shutters before turning to face Cassandra, who sat on the stairs re-reading one of her favorite books when she hears her father speak. 

“Do you think it’ll come again…?” She asks, glancing up to her father over the pages of her book.

“It might, wolves come out on the full moon. Walking into the village with ease.” As if to emphasize his point, a bone chilling wolf howl in the distance is almost missed. Deep within the forest. Cassandra gasps in fright, dropping the book in her hands before she leaves her place on the stairs and clutches her father’s waist. 

The hunter listened to the howls, his hand pressed gently against his child’s head. His eyes seemed to search for the source, even when there was nothing in the hut with them. When it grew silent, he looked down to his daughter. 

“I have seen many wolves, Cassandra, but the ones who venture into our village,” he paused, his skin felt cold, his face looked strained and pale. “They are not ordinary wolves. You best stay inside when it’s wolf’s time. Many people have died because of that wolf.” 

She looks up to her father, thoughts racing at his explanation. As scary as it was, she couldn’t help but voice her worry and curiosity. “Has the wolf ever come inside a house on a full moon?” 

“No, at least none that I have heard about.” The hunter lifts his child into his arms before he walks to the chair by the fire and takes a seat. Placing the little girl on his lap.  “I’m impressed that old woman has never been attacked, especially since she lives closer to the forest.” The hunter muses. 

Cassandra tilts her head at his musing, giggling softly to herself, “She’s stronger than you’d think papá, I think she can protect herself from wolves.” After a moment of silence, the soft crinkling of the fire providing a form of peace for the young girl, she looks down and away from her father’s eyes, planning her next words carefully. She speaks softly, “…Do you think I could ever be strong enough to join the hunt?” The young girl looked back up to her father’s brown eyes hopefully.

The old hunter takes a deep breath as he thinks over Cassandra’s question. The hunter never wanted his daughter to be anywhere near the dangers of the world, he’d prefer if she stayed safe in the village. “I believe that in order for you to join the hunt, you being strong enough to fight a wolf, it's best to head to bed now Cassandra.” The hunter looked down to his daughter’s blue eyes. “Books are useful for knowledge but they will do little in gaining your strength. You best stop reading late into the night and start following your bedtime. It’s late.”  

The little girl sighs quietly as she looks down, disappointment clear upon her face. “Yes papá… Goodnight.” She climbs off of his lap and stands, walking up to the stairs and bends down to gently pick up her book, studying it for any creases as she heads upstairs to her bedroom.

“Goodnight Cassandra.”

As the snow fell through the night, not a soul was out of bed, as the howls of the wolf are the only reminder for every creature and man to hide from the hunger of the wolf. Cassandra wakes suddenly from her sleep, her eyes bleary as she rubs her eyes with her tiny fist in an attempt to fight off sleep. She gasps as the howl of the wolf pulling her from her dreamland. Sitting up, she looks to the window and sees the snow falling, and down below, a very large black animal was sniffing around the village, tail wagging.

The little girl quietly gets out of her bed, hissing at the cold wooden floor. She searches for her shoes before she leaves her room. Biting her lip as she passed her parents room, she grabbed her mother’s old cloak that was just barely short enough for her to avoid tripping on, before she descended down the stairs. She climbs onto a stool that was beneath a window, her eyes widening at the sight of the black dog. 

The dog’s ear flicked to the side, before turning around. Trotting out of the village. Cassandra quickly climbed down the stool before walking to the front door. Just as she was about to reach the handle, she pauses. Her thoughts dancing in mind, with a deep breath, she opens the door. 

Closing the door quietly behind her, from her porch she could see the dog running off. Pulling the hood over her head and wrapping the familiar warm cloth around herself, she walks in the cold snow, following it. The animal walks to the meadow, paw prints left on the snow. Her breath was clearly visible in the cold air. Turning around, she then looked behind her, she had walked so far. Cassandra winces at the thought of her father finding her out in the village in the middle of the night. Oh how much trouble she would be in. But, she was so close to the dog, it would be a waste to turn back now. With a nod in affirmation, she faced forward and continued on. 

Quietly gasping, she spots paw prints in the snow, crouching down to look at the prints. The paw prints were the size of a full grown dog, she tilts her head to the side in curiosity as she presses her hand to the snow next to the prints. Ah, her hands matched the size of them. A very big dog then. She freezes in place as something rustles behind her. Her eyes wide in fear, her heart racing. She swallows thickly before she turns around oh so slowly. 

 A pair of blue eyes peek out, before it emerges from its hiding spot. Her eyes widen even more, slowly standing back up. Afraid to look away from the eyes. To so much as even turn her back. It was no dog. It was a wolf. The black wolf tilts their head. It wags their tail. Then, it whined before it lowered the front of its body with its tail wagging. As if, it wanted to play. 

Cassandra’ head tilts in confusion at the sign. Did it want to… play? With her? Despite her fear, she couldn’t help but chuckle lightly at the actions of the pup. Though if it was in shock or in relief, she was uncertain. “... Do you want to play?”

The wolf bobs its head up and down in response. She looks at the wolf for a moment before she looks to the ground, searching for something to play with. Finding a stick, she grabs it tightly before she looks back to the wolf. She frowns lightly in concentration as she raises her arm to throw it. The wolf’s tail wagged as it shifted in excitement. Closing her eyes as she threw the stick, the wolf moved, then she quickly clasped her hands to her face. She couldn’t bear to watch the wolf change its mind and decide to eat her. 

A small whine reached her ears. At a moment’s breath, she moved her hands away as she peaked. The wolf sat right in front of her, the stick right at her feet. She was alive. 

Huh? Why hadn’t it tackled her? Maybe it wasn’t a wolf after all. It was still small to be a wolf. And Papá did say wolves had yellow eyes. 

Cassandra lowered her hands as she looked at the dog’s eyes. They were so blue, they seemed… familiar. Why? The dog moved to the paw at the stick. With a small laugh, Cassandra continued their game. They played for an hour at best, before the dog stopped, its ears perking up. 

“What’s wrong?” 

The dog huffed before it trotted to Cassandra’s side, taking the cloak into its jaws as it began to pull the little girl back towards the village. She couldn’t help but scold the dog lightly as she was dragged along. The dog only stopped when they arrived right in front of her home. The dog promptly sat down as it turned its head to her, and she looked down to the dog. The dog was clearly smart. And knew where she lived. Cassandra decided she liked this dog very much, maybe Papa would let her keep it. 

She walks up the steps to her porch as she waves to the dog. “Good night.”

The dog wags its tail before it trots off, pausing to look behind at the girl. Tail drooping when it saw that the girl hadn’t gone inside yet. It promptly sat down again. Sighing, the answer was obvious. Clearly she had to go inside. Cassandra waved once more before she quickly entered her home. Closing the door behind her, she climbs onto the stool from earlier to look out the window. There, she watches the dog head towards her friend’s Grandmere’s house in the forest. Just at the very edge of the village, at the start of the forest, the wolf turns into Rosabella, who looks around before she goes inside the cottage.

Her eyes widen as she watches the dog turn into a person. Not just any person. But… it couldn't be… “Rose?”

[iwriteforthetincanman]

Mandoctober Day 14: Helmet

A/N: brought to you by angst, depression, a small hot chocolate, the tense feeling in my shoulders as I’m typing this and of course the source of almost all of my writing: the mixture of insomnia and a f**ked up sleep schedule.

p.s. I am trying to take care of myself, October is just a tough time of the year for me and Mandoctober is helping me cope. I refuse to give up any possibly writings/drawings at this point.

Also this is loosely based off of headcannons from @dindjarindiaries​ blog and this is for @leo-moon​ ‘s Mandoctober!

TW: mentions of abuse (both descriptive, non-descriptive, mental, emotional and physical but only for a two, three paragraphs) Refusal to eat or sleep (Din refuses to do these things for two seconds and Reader isn’t granted them) minor character death, themes of slavery (NOT RACE SPECIFIED) (not a trigger warning) pronouns of a gender neutral partner and of course, lastly, hurt/comfort and fluff. (Also personally because I wrote this and I can shout it into the void, I’m gender fluid with she/her pronouns so I’d like to imagine reader is too, BUT THAT’S JUST ME SO IMAGINE THIS HOWEVER YOU WANT, once again requests are open for any sexuality/gender, as long as you give me brief description of what you want, nothing NSFW)

Time. Aboard the Razor Crest with no specific moon, sun or stars to guide you, time easily became irrelevant. What you learned very quickly was that with this discovery, you realized Din knew that too. 

Or it had gotten to a point where he learnt it a long time ago and just...forgot all about it.

Sometimes he would just sit there in the pilot’s seat, without even doing anything and he would just stare into oblivion. You wondered if his eyesight was okay. Now that you think about it...when was the last time he ate something? Does he ever take that helmet off?

“Din? Are you okay?” For a moment you thought he might be asleep. 

“Sorry...did you say something?” Okay, now you knew he at least needed some sleep. 

“Come on tin can. You need some brain food and maybe even an ‘extended nap’.” You joked.

“Isn’t that just called sleeping?” You couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not...or if that helmet was squeezing his brain too.

“Come on!” Grabbing his hand unexpectedly, Din flinched a little before you dragged him to his feet. 

“I-I can’t.” This admission had you stopping in your tracks as you reached the hull. 

“Is...everything okay?” You were concerned before but now you were starting to think he was hiding a wound from you. He’s done it before. Waiting until you were asleep to tend to it so you wouldn’t worry. Little did he know you had been wide awake with worry for a while and could hear him hurting himself with that blasted cauterizer. 

It was understandable that as a Mandalorian medical supplies weren’t cheap. Even with all the bounties Din brought in, currency rates were going up around the universe. It was difficult to keep up with. Which is why you never broached the subject with him.

It wasn’t your place to pry. 

Not with him anyway...he was silent, reserved, it was like he didn’t trust you. Yet you of all people understood that, you understood that it took you a long time to trust him. Like really trust him with your life...rather than just your role to him as the child’s ‘caretaker’.

It blind sided you when you realized how deeply you cared for him...Mando. 

Gods, you didn’t even know his own name.

“My creed. I can’t...eat in front of other people.” This was a touchy subject. You knew that. But you underestimated how stressed out he really was. He wasn’t wounded...he was just bone tired.

“Well, I can make some food-”

“DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP!”

“...ok.”

He hadn’t seethed the words out from his teeth as loud as you had heard them.

But...the look on your face as your eyes met the floor, undoubtedly filling with tears.

It cut Din deeper than any vibroblade could.

---

“I don’t know what to do Ad’ika. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t dream without thinking of her. And now...now I’ve gone and done the worst thing I could ever do to her...I hurt her without even touching her.” 

The sigh was small before it reached a crescendo out of his lungs, erupting out of his head like it was a volcano. That was what it felt like to breath again. When he was alone Mando had the freedom to take his helmet off on the Crest as much as he wanted. As long as he was in space, his privacy was unlimited. 

But that all changed when he met the child and then eventually...you. 

“I just wish...I knew more about her. Knew her likes and dislikes. Knew what her favorite food was. What makes her laugh...her favorite kind of music…I’ve gone and ruined everything haven’t I? Not just for me but for you too. I can’t just let her go...and if she does leave I can’t just hire someone new. She’s...really burrowed her way into my heart, little one.” 

Din’s soliloquy fell into the little creature’s ears like a fly trap. The child knew his father was hurting, he could feel it, not just in the force but in his tiny little heart. It was the kind of hurt he couldn’t fix with his own hands...he had to find another way. He had to make his buir feel whole again. 

Determined, the little creature climbed onto his father’s chest as his breathing started to relax. 

“Ad’ika, I’m not in the mood for games right now…” The dark circles under Din’s eyes became more and more pronounced as the hours dragged on. The good thing about being a father now meant that he had someone to talk to at any time if the baby was also struggling to sleep. 

Din never thought he would become a father. He thought a lot of things wouldn’t happen before he died a warrior’s death. He definitely thought he wasn’t going to fall in love too...but that happened before he could even think about it. 

Multiple chirps and coos echoed from the child’s lips as Din continued to massage his temples. 

“Ad’ika did you not hear me?”

Opening his eyes, Din found himself utterly and completely alone. 

“Ad’ika!” Startling upwards, he launched himself onto his bear feet as he searched the dark air around him for either you or the child. 

“Y/N!” Screaming your name into the void he began to run, not caring about his bare feet, his sleep wear or the fact his helmet was completely missing. 

A fact that had not gone unnoticed by the child.

---

Abruptly, Din was launched into the scorching blazes of a desert sun. 

The sand hurt as he fell down the dune he wasn’t gonna lie. 

But in some weird, twisted way, it felt good to feel the sand under his skin. 

“Girl! You get back here! Wretched creature!!” The sudden yelling came from a small village not too far away from where Din stood. Flinching, he hid behind the sand. He felt naked without the beskar. It was almost embarrassing how scared he was right now.

Peering over the sandy hill, he saw a young child with Y/H/C hair, rosy cheeks and bare feet run straight towards him. Not considering the strange events that had occurred before this, Din, although he’d never admit it, attempted to run away from her. Except, when she caught up to him, she ran right through him.

Din couldn’t decide whether this was some wicked form of a dream or that he had died and was now wandering the nearest planet.

Oh Maker, what if he was dead? There was no way you could pilot the Crest on your own...and what about Ad’ika.

That was when he heard it, the baby cooing in his head. 

“Ad’ika?”

That’s when it clicked. He wasn’t in some hellish figment of his imagination or dead…the child had used his powers to do this since he wasn’t wearing his helmet. But then again...where the hell was he?

“Y/N! YOU UGLY THING! IF YOU DON’T GET BACK HERE I WILL THROTTLE YOU!”

Whipping around to face you, all Din was met with was the familiar sight of you hunched over yourself, right near his feet. Crying. This had happened before but…not like this.

Was this...one of your memories? 

Oh no...Din was in your head. Somehow, the baby had managed it.

“I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK THERE! AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!” Din turned back to face the furious woman, she looked like a cursed school teacher, her hair flying all over the place. But what stood out to him were the nail marks on her cheek. 

He couldn’t picture it but somehow this woman had distressed you so much you had decided to hit her. The next thing that happened confirmed it…

SLAP!

“YOU EVER HIT ME LIKE THAT AGAIN GIRL I WON’T BE AS CONSIDERATE TO KEEP YOU!”

Keep you? Oh...you weren’t a school child.

You were a slave.

That’s why when you had first met you had been so skittish, so fearful...and yet so brave. 

Somehow it all made sense.

Din couldn’t help reaching out for you as your head sagged on your shoulders, a purple and pink mark blossoming across the side of your face as the evil woman clawed her hand around your wrist. 

“You will make my children their supper and you will go straight into the cellar with no dinner. Do you understand me child?” She spoke with a gentle tone...yet the venom dripped from it with the force of a thousand sandcrawlers. 

“...Yes Ma’am.” 

Your submission startled Din. Then again, you were only a child, and if Din hadn’t been taken in by the Mandalorians at your age...who knows what could’ve happened to him. From what little he had heard about of slaves...they didn’t often make it to see their teenage years. 

Yet, somehow you did. 

Din couldn’t help being grateful that, from what he could see of you, those were the only things that cruel woman had done to you. 

---

Stumbling into a new landscape, Din shook his head in an attempt to gain his bearings. 

“Look Y/N, it’ll be a quick job, all you have to do is listen to what I say and we’ll be gone as soon as you can say ‘bantha fodder’.” 

This was a new voice. A teenager from what Din could guess. They spoke in a kind tone but at the sound of the way they said your name he couldn’t help the feeling of jealousy welling up in him. 

Shaking his head once again, he looking around the jungle planet to spot you and this person.

“Iarren...I don’t know about this. I know we’ve done stuff like this before but we’re not resistance fighters. Those are imperial troops. What if...what if one of us doesn’t come back from this?” 

A much older version of you appeared like a vision from behind the leaves. You were much older now, Din could only guess that you had only just recently come of age. You had grown into your features well. He could see more of the fierce woman he had come to know. 

“Babe, you worry too much. Imps are stupid, plus what we are after is right next to the door practically. If you’re so concerned you can cover me from here and I’ll be right back to kiss your worries away...alright?” Din could tell just by the way you shared a glance that you were absolutely taken with this person. 

In a way Din respected them...but in the back of his mind he knew there was a reason he was seeing this particular memory. Bracing himself, he could only watch as you shared a tender kiss with your lover. It shocked him how passionate you were with them. Gripping them like a vice as if you knew what was about to happen. 

Din’s heart broke for you as he watched you sob over their corpse later that very night. 

---

“Cyare?” 

Din thought he had finally made it back to you just by looking upon your face. Much older now, age similar to the one when he met you. Looking around, he realized...this was that exact moment. 

“Excuse me.” 

Now Din knew for certain he wasn’t dreaming...there was no way he could dream about himself in this much detail. It was like having an out of body experience...in a way he was.

“Can I help you?” The first thing Din noticed about you was that you were too kind to have been on a planet as rough as Andos. Imps were everywhere nowadays and it was the one time Din had to wear a proper cloak so no one could spot him. 

“I need to hire someone to help me with a child. I was wondering if you could help me find a person that is trustworthy?” Being a Mandalorian was so difficult that day. Meeting you made him realize that you were kind enough to suggest yourself, admitting that you were tired of the constant trail of dead bodies this planet had shown you. He flinched when you mentioned the blood you found leaking through your front door one morning. 

He accepted your offer immediately. Offering payment for a job you had been doing for years without none. 

Din had no clue he had saved you from slavery for the second time in your life. 

---

Waking up in a cold sweat, Din knew this was reality. 

All your memories, it felt like a dream. 

That’s when he felt his son sag against his chest, heaving long tired breaths. 

Din was scared he had over exerted himself. 

“Ad’ika...why did you do that?” 

All the child could do was reach for his father’s face, bringing it towards his own. 

“Da.” This one, simple word, brought Din’s walls crumbling to the ground as he began to cry. 

“Thank you...Ni kar’tayli gar darasuum Ad’ika.”

The overwhelming joy he felt caused his thoughts about you to skyrocket. He knew he had to share this information with you. 

Startling from his bed, Din shot out of his room with the sleepy child tucked against his vest clad chest. 

“Y/N! Cyare come quick!” 

The sound of his unmodulated voice scared you more than anything else he had said to you that night. What you didn’t expect when you opened the door was to find a complete stranger shouting your name. 

“WHO ARE YOU? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH DIN?!” You practically screamed, ready to throw hands with this strange practically half naked man that had appeared before you.

That’s what you spotted the child in his arms, half asleep and staring admiringly up at the man. 

“...He called me da. I...had to share that with you Cyare...I didn’t even think twice about my creed.” The watery smile he gave you was enough to convince you that the man before you was none other than Din Djarin himself. 

“...just like that? You...you threw away your creed, being a Mandalorian...just so you could tell me he spoke his first word?” Din thought you were upset, in a way you were. 

When he turned to find your eyes filled with the happiest of tears he had ever seen, the overwhelming urge to kiss you kept slamming into his head, bleeding through his heart. 

“Cyare...Father’s always share the first word their child speaks with their Mother.” 

When you began to sob, Din refused to hold himself back as he curled his fingers through your hair, cradling your son between the two of you as he tilted your head back. 

As his lips brushed against yours for the first time…

You both had never felt so free.

[a-cat-in-a-funky-hat]

The Creature Of The Night

I finished writing the shortstory! If you didn’t know, I made this short post yesterday night but it was just a quick thing my sleep deprived brain came up with and I wrote it into a proper short story.

I would recommend you listen to this short little playlist I made to accompany it, I feel like it adds to the mood :)

Content warnings: blood, gore

I’m gonna quickly tag @vamp-void because they already liked the first draft of this and I promised a brutal story haha, sorry this isn’t the brutal AND gay one just yet, I’ll get working on that one day ;D

There are many cryptids that are said to live across northern America, some you might have heard of. However, the cryptid in this story is more of a local phenomenon. Stories of her have been circulating for centuries, dating back as far as the first settlers that came to America. Quiet whispers. Stories told around campfires. Words of warnings to anyone that passed by.

Up high in the mountains of a town near the Canadian border there is said to be a woman. A creature of the night. Deep in the forest she stays, the most beautiful woman you have ever seen, playing a haunting melody on a violin which will lure in her prey. She has dark hair, some say, others persist that it’s light, but one thing they all can agree on is that her skin is as white as snow and her lips as red as the blood of the victims she devours. A creature of the night, dancing around barefoot to the melody, even in the dead of winter with snow covering the forest floor.

There have been sightings of her but most people in their right mind would immediately abandon the area and get to safety, that is if she allowed it. That is where the stories come from anyway.

Others, unlucky people who could not resist to run away from her or didn’t manage in time, have never been seen again, some of them have been found, drained entirely of their blood or with their throats ripped out or limbs missing, organs ripped out of their torsos or guts hanging out halfway. All of their faces contorted in pain, a lasting impression of their final screams that had been swallowed by the night.

Now you may ask yourself why no one has ever tried to chase her away. My dear, how do you chase away a deadly monster that has been alive for centuries, who will brutally murder anyone in her reach in such a gruesome way?

Few stories exist, most from around the beginning of the 19th century, of good men with the intention to rid the town of this cruel monster. Into the woods they went at night, high up into the mountains. With pitchforks and burning torches. Not a single one returned alive.

All stories end like that. The people have learned not to go into the mountains at night anymore.

However.

The stupidity of the youth is endless, just as their inquisitiveness. So it happened that on a cold November morning with the temperatures just above freezing, a group of five high school students decided to go into the woods and investigate the stories they heard being whispered in the dead of the night. Surely that was just a story made up by the people decades and centuries ago. Creatures like that didn’t exist now, did they?

The sun was by far not up yet, the day dawned when they arrived up in the mountains. That day it was particularly foggy, you could only see a couple hundred of feet ahead. That, dear readers, was the first mistake they made. Had they gone on a less foggy day maybe they had been able to see her earlier and get away safely.

When they had started hiking through the woods it had still been pitch black with only a strip of light in the far east, but now the light spread across the sky. They could see the fog dance through the woods, around the trees that had mostly shed their leaves for the winter ahead. The floor was half frozen in the woods, the fallen leaves were covered with frost just like the moss and the little twigs and sticks that littered the floor. Little puffs of breath formed in front of their faces when they exhaled, it was cold and they shivered even though they had bundled up to combat the cold.

The first thing they noticed that it was eerily quiet all of a sudden. As though not a single living thing except for the forest itself was left around them. No birds around who sang their morning song, no mice scuttling in the undergrowth, no deer stalking around the trees, not even a single insect was found buzzing around them.

Then there was a sound in the distance. As they got closer it turned into a haunting melody. A melody that enchanted them. None of them were able to resist. Maybe a little voice inside of their heads told them this might be a bad idea. But on the other hand, the music had to come from somewhere, didn’t it? This couldn’t actually be a creature of the night, could it? These things didn’t exist, they were tales from darker times of humanity, from people who had no logical explanation for what they were seeing, nothing more than that.

Meanwhile, about a mile ahead, the woman smiled to herself as she kept on playing. She had sensed the teenagers miles ago. Around her, the animals of the wild were crowding. Birds sat one by one on the branches of the trees, the mice scuttled around her as she danced, barefoot, over the moss, seemingly flying over the ground, never stepping on a single creature. Deer grazed over the floor in search of something to eat, others watched her beautiful play, just as enamored as any human. Insects buzzed through the air.

The fog was relentless and didn’t give a single bit as the teenagers crept closer to the music. There was no woman to be seen anywhere, yet the music continued to play. It echoed all around them, as though they were already circled. The first deer came into view. A few mice scurried around the teenagers feet, the girls let out yelps.

The woman danced around them in a circle, always ducking out of their view and behind trees or larger animals, careful not to be seen yet, the fog assisted her. She didn’t stop playing for a moment, for the songs were already muscle memory, she had been playing them for decades and centuries, her own creations.

The teenagers could notice how their heartbeat picked up as the music crescendoed and rose. First they saw the hem of a long dress here, then long billowing brown hair there. A glimpse of the violin over here and then the bare feet of the woman over there.

The first girl screamed as the music suddenly stopped and there was a dead silence, there was a presence behind her, someone breathing down her neck. Slowly she turned around and there she stood. The most beautiful woman she had ever seen. The stories had been true. Dark hair, faint skin and blood red lips. But something about her was incredibly off. Her skin shimmered even in the faint light and through the fog. It looked as though her skin was made out of tiny little opals that shimmered in the colors of the rainbow, unnerving to any human being. How would it look if the sun broke through the clouds and shone down directly onto her?

The girl didn’t have time to think about it, as the woman’s lips curled into a cruel smile.

“Hello my love. Goodbye,” she purred with a voice as cold as the air around them.

The woman sank her teeth into the blond girl’s neck with such force that you could hear a snap echo through the woods loud and clear. It was in that moment that the teenagers all broke out screaming. When they had to watch the creature rip out their friends’ throat and the blood of her splatter all over the creature’s dress and skin and pour out onto the forest floor they couldn’t help but gag at the horrible sight. The other girl passed out on the spot. Easy prey.

The boys started to run, there was no way they could save the two girls, if they were quick enough maybe they could get themselves to safety. They couldn’t know with what speed the woman could move. Another neck was snapped quickly, then the next boy already screamed a high pitched, ear shattering scream when the woman dug her fingers straight through his torso and ripped out his organs. The last boy lost his legs quite quickly, the woman ripped them out as easily as you would do with a spider or a fly. His screams were soon suffocated when the woman sank her teeth into his neck.

The last girl, the unconscious one, soon regained consciousness. A last high pitched scream of terror was heard and then her neck was also ripped out.

Satisfied with her work the woman spun around, her face, her hands and the front of her dress dripping wet with blood. Hungrily she licked her lips clean but allowed herself another bite from one of the boys, the one whose neck she had only snapped. He shouldn’t miss out on the fun of bleeding out now, should he?

When her stomach was full and her bloodlust more or less satisfied she lifted the violin back up to her chin and gently placed the bow on the strings, starting yet another haunting song. The animals had run away in terror of the murder but soon returned like they always did. No one could resist that wonderful act she put on.

At least another hour she had left, she thought to herself as the bow flew over the strings and her fingers danced over the strings on the fingerboard. The sun wouldn’t hurt her, that rumor about vampires she had always hated most. It made her skin glitter and shine beautifully. But the day brought too many mortals, killing them all would exhaust her too much. Sure it was fun, but overdoing anything takes the fun out of it. As much as she loved the sun, she kept to the night and to killing those who were stupid enough to follow her here.

In town parents woke up to find the beds of their children forever empty.

[christopherjwinter]

When a mind builds an expectation for an event, it struggles to realign its thoughts once reality proves those expectations incorrect.  The more anticipated and longed for the event, often the more a mind may struggle with what feels like a profound wrongness of a situation.  Such what my state when I finally made my way to Old Jack's cottage.  Over the previous two months, I had essentially been held captive by my orphanage and the religious devotions of the church of Asmodeus.  I dreamed of spending time with Jack once more.  Of the simple joys that came from the hard labor of chopping wood, only to hear him spend hours telling me stories of the Lantern King while we shared a hearty supper.  I fantasized of seeing his deeply lined face and the pleased grin that was offered as soon as I came bounding through the Chitterwood and offered a welcome.  And though I knew it was impossible, I privately wished there would be a day when Old Jack gave a heavy sigh and asked me if I wanted to stay there with him.  That he didn't want me to return to The Home for Lost Children.  That he would take me in to look after as his own.  I wanted that so badly, but I never dared to say this desire out loud least I risk any possibility it might come true.

It was an overcast sky, threatening to rain with distant rumbles that crept overhead when I made my slow passage and came to that familiar ramshackle building.  Back aching from the still healing scars, I didn't care if I did a lick of work and in return earned no coin.  I just wanted to see Old Jack again.  I went to the front door and raised my hand to knock on the wooden frame.  There was no response.  I waited patiently, as I knew how advanced in years my friend had grown, and he sometimes rose from his chair with difficulty.  When there wasn't even a sound to be heard save from the noises of the birds and bugs of the woods, I called out.  "Hello, Jack!"  I listened, and heard nothing.  "It's Puck!"  I was greeted only with another long, drawn out silence.

Moving around his property, I wondered perhaps in my two months of absence if he'd been forced to attend to the more physical chores on his own.  That he was simply nearby and winded.  Stepping about and brushing the dark hair of my bangs out of my eyes, it did seem that some things had changed.  His weathered axe that I often used to chop wood was absent from the old stump, the dinged wheel barrel with the broken handle I was sometimes sent with to gather supplies in town was absent.  I found these details curious, but continued hunting for signs of Old Jack.  Coming to the rear door of his home, I knocked again ... and the door opened to the pressure of my hand.  It had been left open.  I didn't often enter my friend's home without his accompanying me, so my feet were locked in place while I made one final call.  "Old Jack?  Are you there?"  Again, nothing.  I reached my hand out, and pushed the door open further.

I was met with a troubling vacancy.  Old Jack had learned to live simply, so I'd noticed on the few times he brought me inside that his home was sparse save for the cluttered belongings he kept in the basement.  Except, looking into his home now, there was nothing save bare walls.  No rocking chair, no broom in the corner, even the old stove was absent with simply a narrow hole in the roof.  I stepped inside, and began to inspect further with the anxious feeling of treading through a crypt.  Nothing.  Moving to the small private room that I had never been invited to where I knew Jack slept, and all I found was an empty space.  My mind slipped away from accepting what I was seeing, even as the first tattering taps of rain fell on the rooftop.  It lasted for only a handful of seconds, then ceased.  Still, I wasn't finished.  I pulled up the latch that led to Jack's cellar, and started carefully down the crooked stone steps.

The times I'd been sent down here before, I had always wondered at the vast meandering collections that Old Jack had accumulated over the years.  It seemed he had a habit of hording every little thing that wasn't tied down, and his basement was little more than piles of oddments with a winding path between them.  A chill went through my spine as I saw for the first time the whole of the area without a single belonging.  It felt somehow smaller than I remembered it this way, the caked dirt walls and the wooden floorboards above having shrunk in response to its lessened need.  My arms clutched about myself, and before I was prepared, I felt moisture well in my eyes.

Had Old Jack left?  Had he moved, in the time I was forced to remain part of that congregation?  No.  No, that wasn't something he could have managed on his own.  Besides, that's the sort of action he would have certainly had to planned on.  Even if it was an emergency, I knew he would have left me a note.  Among the many other lessons I'd learned under Jack, he'd made sure I knew well enough how to read without stumbling and tripping over each word.  Still, I darted back up the stairs and let my eyes race over the empty surfaces in hopes of finding a message.  A single hint or sign.  Still, there was an overwhelming presence of nothing.  My heart was pounding so heavily that I was unable to ignore the sound of it against my ears.

Where was he?  Did he leave me?  I found myself reaching to squeeze against my own body again, even while I looked out through one of his shuttered windows.  Still, my inner self wanted to reject what I was finding.  Jack had to be there.  He had to be.  I had been wishing on being with Jack for so long, why wasn't he there?  In my hopes of trying to comprehend it all, a terrible suspicion came to mind.  Had Old Jack actually never been there?

The idea caused my to snap up and my plum colored eyes to shoot wide.  Weirder stories were known to happen.  I was Fey after all, and weren't my folk supposed to be notorious for this nature of trickery?  An idea came to mind, and I started to look about.  There was the patch in his roof that he'd instructed me to take care of in the first few visits I had ever managed, claiming he didn't trust himself to climb up on the rooftop.  Looking outside the back door, I recognized several split logs that I had personally spent hours with blistering hands chopping.  No, Jack had been here.  It all hadn't only been some sort of phantasm.

My mind was dizzy, so I settled down onto the splintered floorboards and tried to think.  After several more minutes, the rain returned.  Hard this time, a pounding of drops on the roof that rose a clatter which made me cringe in response to.  I worked at the problem of where Jack had gone off to, and a tiny voice in my head spoke a sad truth.  Old Jack was, by his very moniker, old.  Well matured even before we crossed paths, and I had been coming around for years.  I had been doing so very much for him, because he simply found so many tasks too challenging.  Had Jack passed in the two months I was gone?  He spoke of family who rarely visited, though we'd never crossed paths.  Had they come out to Old Jack's cottage, and salvaged all of his belongings?

The worry that Jack was dead filled me with a sharp pain, and the tears that had been threatening to spill came out in a torrent.  My chest hurt with the sobs that claimed me, ugly and untamed in the way only the worst losses can affect a body.  Jack was gone.  I would never seen him again.  I had so little, this single void nearly ruined me.  After the first wave of crashing rain, the storm had settled into a lingering drizzle all around me.  I denied the deprivation of Old Jack from my life, but the truth was too loud to be refuted.  He was gone, and he would never come back.  My insides churned and clutched.  A pressure pushed against my heart.

After about an hour, I decided that no good would be gained by remaining.  Though my feet had grown numb from how I sat, I pushed myself to standing and shuffled back through the door.  Closing it proper as I exited, unlike how I left it.  In a stupor, I move through the trickle of rain back towards Gillamoor as I wondered at the new shape of my life.

I don't even recall the distance traveled.  All I knew was that the next moment the rain was easing to the verge of not falling at all, and I was in site of the Gillamoor Home for Lost Children.  There was the aged stone wall that I'd helped construct forty years prior, now starting to spill apart where other sections were consumed by moss.  I looked over at the small horse stall us children had built just a dozen years ago, when Norwell's predecessor had needed one built for the horse he'd acquired.  Seven years after that, he'd been bucked out of the saddle to split his skull, and the new Herrod had taken over in his place.  I felt the weight of time weighing on my shoulders.  I wasn't young, and I wasn't old.  I was this singular individual removed from the spinning of the seasons, creeping through the years with the pace matched only by the trees.

Norwell was primping himself in the reflection of a glass window when I stepped inside, before generously offering one of his many well manicured scowls in my direction.  I knew how pathetic I looked, some half starved orphan soaked and with a hole in his life too big to ever fill.  I didn't even say a curse under my breath before I turned and went off to the shared sleeping hall.  There was nothing to me anymore.  I was a shade, a counterfeit version of Puck that would wilt away once brought out into the sun.  I was soul sore.  Unsure of what else to do, I curled up on my cot and closed my eyes.  Though the sun was still overhead behind the blanket of clouds, I slept almost immediately.

Lìse woke me with a hand running through my hair.  I roused with the awareness that she'd been saying my name several times.  "Puck?  He's not well, Tanner.  Puck?"  I opened one eye, and saw relief pass over the deeply freckled face of Lìse.  "Sweet merciful heavens, Puck, you had me worried."

In my pain, I lashed out.  "Piss off."  I emphasized this with a narrowing of my gaze, before rolling over to face the opposite way.  I felt a hand come once more into my hair, and I yelped as it instead of offering gentle strokes had came to clutch at its length and give a sharp tug.  I began to turn back around with my mouth open in complaint, only to be met with the fiercer eyes of Lìse Ó Broin.

"Puck, you arse, I can see something’s wrong.  But just 'cause you're hurt doesn't make it right to hurt those caring after you."  This little girl spoke with the confidence of a goddess, and her compassion for me was not tempered in the least by my breach of proper behavior.  Still, I was suffering from what felt to be a mortal wound of the heart, and I glared at her in return for a long stillness.  One of our other orphans who hadn't been chosen by the Hell Knights, Tanner, took a step away as though he might be injured in this battle of wills and rubbed his nose against the sleeve of his shirt.

Finally, I dropped my eyes and spoke under my breath.  "I'm sorry, Lìse."

"There," she said imperiously.  "That's better.  Thank you.  Now, tell me what's wrong."  Without being asked, the rusty haired girl started to push me up so that she might sit on my cot with me.  Tanner, seeing there would be no further metaphorical knives drawn, crept back closer and plopped onto the floor besides Lìse.  He almost never spoke, and followed her around with his owlishly wide eyes like a pet.  I looked at Tanner, and even though he often retreated from the slightest touch, he reached up his tiny child's hand and gave me a pair of pats on my knee.  I looked at proud Lìse's expression, easing as it was clear I had accepted my fate and would confide in them.

It all spilled out.  My history with Old Jack, how I had kept him secret from the rest of The Home.  I expressed sincerely how guilty I had felt in keeping him a secret, especially to Lìse.  There was no judgment in her face, only understanding.  I was surprised that while sharing my experiences with Jack hurt like rubbing at a skinned elbow, it did not bring me to tears as it had.  I wanted others to know of him.  Of how wonderful he was.  How Jack was the source of all those stories of the Lantern King that I sometimes shared with the other orphans.  That when I came back to The Home, it was from his campfire that I brought extra food to share with Lìse.  I didn't share each experience I had with that wonderful elder, but enough.  They could see how much I cared for him.

They absorbed my story in quiet as some of the other children started to return from whatever efforts they had spent trying to find a copper to pay for our stay.  Our lips were sealed shut, each of us looking into one another's eyes.  Then Tanner rose up to his feet, and leaning over the lip of the cot gave me an awkward hug.  The simple act of sweetness from a boy half Lìse's age had a choke rise to my throat, but he let me go before I did something awkward.  Then he was walking off to his own bedding, leaving Lìse and myself alone.  Another long silence was shared between us, and from the crease between her brows, it was clear that she had a thought to share.

I didn't know it, but this moment was a pivot on which the entire course of my life would change.  The theory that Lìse was prepared to share with me would forever alter me as a person, and give me a suspicion to wonder at through the remainder of my years.  It was only after she bit at the corner of her lip at a section of dry skin that a question was risked.  "Puck ... I'm thinking about something."  A hand reached up to tug at a curl of hair, hoping to conceal the fold of her ear.  Lìse took a deep breath, and continued to speak in a soft voice that left the conversation to be shared only between the two of us.  "it's ... it's wild and fantastic, but it also makes sense to me.  Only, you would know better than I."

Lìse put a hand on my shoulder, and leaned close enough that I could feel her breath against my cheek.  When she spoke, she both whispered and said her concept loudly enough that I didn't mistake a word.  I shot her a look of such surprise as the implications rebounded inside my skull, I don't doubt that I looked the idiot.

"Puck ... what if Old Jack was the Lantern King?"