#now we are at the forefront of its consequences and none of them are GOOD

[pinkoptics]

Would You Catch Me If I Fall?

aka Cherik Fallen Angel fic

Part 2 of Chapter 2

(Previous parts now on Ao3)

Erik is going to do everything he can to make sure Charles is taken care of. Charles saved his life. That’s why. Right… right???

*

“Mr. Olsen, I believe you will do exactly as I’ve asked.”

Mr. Olsen opened his mouth, to protest most likely, but Erik was well practiced in speaking in a way that left no room for interruption. “You will, because you are aware of the exact amount my firm has donated to your hospital this year and every other before it.”

Mr. Olsen was turning an interesting shade of red. It had nothing on Azazel, but the flush beneath his skin was making a concerted effort.

“You are also aware of what it would do to this hospital’s reputation for being at the forefront of mutant medicine if my firm were to very vocally withdraw its support and place it elsewhere, say... Johns Hopkins?”

“Mr. Lehnsherr—“ Still red, but now also sputtering. “You do not have the authority. Shaw would never—“

Erik smiled in such a way that Olsen cut himself off. Erik’s smile, though the word hardly applied, very early in his career had earned him the nickname ‘The Shark.’ Only used when he knew his prey was very much backed into a corner of their own making and it was time for the kill.

“If The Incident were to suddenly appear on social media again, with a narrative much closer to the truth...”

Red became purple. “We have an NDA! You can’t—“

“When information is out it is out, Mr. Olsen. Non-disclosures only hold weight if the parties involved care about the consequences. I could give a fuck. Besides, whether this hospital is guilty or innocent, reputations once ruined are terribly hard to salvage, aren’t they? Once, tried in the court of public opinion...”

“Shaw would— you’d be—“

Erik simply raised an eyebrow.

Olsen was right. Erik didn’t have the authority to stop donations, Shaw would have his job and his ass if he ever went to the public about any of the firm’s cases. Moreover, he would probably lose his license to practice. None of those things mattered however, not because Erik truly didn’t care, but because Olsen only needed to believe he was serious. If Erik couldn’t sense the man’s weaknesses, and couldn’t exploit them, he would hardly have been the best lawyer at his firm (no matter what Emma said to the contrary). The seed of doubt, once planted in a weak mind, was notoriously difficult to weed out.

“Fine,” Olsen ground out. Looking like he was very much sucking on a lemon.

Erik levitated the paperwork he had prepared by its staple. It was accompanied by one of the disgustingly expensive fountain pens the firm utilized to perpetuate its reputation. It hovered in front of the sour countenance and Erik felt the same sense of satisfaction he did after a particularly shrewd cross examination.

Threatening Olsen in this way was beyond overkill.

However, Erik knew of nothing else that would resolve Charles’ situation as swiftly. As Olsen scratched out his signature nearly hard enough to tear paper, Charles’ need for insurance, identity, and anything else he did not have, vanished.

Besides, he’d never liked this man or this hospital, so if he got to have a little fun while getting Charles what he needed, all the better. The faster he could get Charles out of here unscathed the better. He owed him that much, possibly more. There were few people insane enough, selfless enough, to throw themselves in front of a car for a stranger. Erik had made it his life’s work to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves. Charles had more than earned that same protection until he was back to his former self.

T’s crossed and i’s dotted, Erik left Olsen to fume, so he could share the good news with Charles. The words that had been leaping forward died on his lips when he took in the state of Charles’ room.

“. . . Did you rob a florist?”

Charles graced him with a much less hysterical, much more pleasant sounding laugh than he had any time previously.

“Aren’t people just lovely? This one is from the nurse on call, Ben. He has the most adorable little boy. Teething at the moment, which is trying of course, but he’s so precious one can hardly be cross. I’m sure Ben would be happy to show you the photos too. This one is from Dr. Yousef, whom you’ve already met. She detests flowers, personally, as she’s never home consistently enough to care for them properly. This one is from Saima...”

While Charles no longer appeared to be in a state of hysteria, it appeared to be Erik’s turn, and he became suddenly, hysterically deaf. Had he misplaced a day? Or two? More? Was he the one with the head injury?

“Did you— I mean, do you know them?”

Charles cut off his still in-progress monologue about his sudden and inexplicable well-wishers.

“Oh no. We’ve just met. Nancy would like to get coffee when I’m better though. I believe that is a cultural expression of friendship, is it not? Or does coffee equal sex? It’s so hard to keep track of these things as humans rarely say what they truly mean. Why do you lot insist upon speaking in code? A code that changes every generation no less. Regardless, I’ve never had coffee. Given how utterly obsessed with it you all are I’m rather excited to find out what all the fuss is about.”

Erik didn’t know what part of that to address first, if at all.

Ben, Yousef, Saima... who the fuck was Nancy?

Sex?

Never had coffee?

“Oh Erik, I’m sorry. You look so confused again. I forget myself. I would much rather have coffee for the first time with you of course. At that diner you speak so highly of. I believe diners generally serve coffee.”

Erik blinked. Did that mean Charles wanted to be his friend or have sex with him? Or, did never having had coffee actually mean never having had sex? No. Wait. What in the fuck were they talking about?

What came out was, mercifully, “You make friends quickly.” This was something he and Charles certainly didn’t share.

“Do I?” Charles shrugged. “I love people. All people. They’re so fascinating.” Something else he and Charles certainly didn’t share. In his experience, most people were dull or cruel or both. Except Charles. Charles had been the exact opposite of dull or cruel right from the first. Crashing headfirst into Erik, literally and figuratively, and smashing all his expectations of what people did or didn’t do for one another. It might have also been the head injury/amnesia mitigating the dullness, making him say the most ridiculous things that Erik had ever heard and couldn’t even begin to sort out, but Erik didn’t really think so. He read people extremely well and Charles intrigued him. No one intrigued him.

Shoving the friends/coffee/sex equivalency conversation aside, Erik patted his briefcase. “I’ve sorted out everything with hospital administration. You won’t have to worry about insurance, bills... if there’s anything you need, just ask. They will be sure you get it.”

“I won’t ask how you managed it.” Charles’ look became conspiratorial. Almost as if he did know Erik’s methods. There was no way, of course, that he did unless he was a telepath, which Erik had already briefly mused on. “You really needn’t have troubled yourself, though I appreciate it, you, all the same.”

There it was again. The strange gravity his words seemed to possess. Erik flushed, not something he ever did, feeling that appreciation to his core. Charles’ smile deepened and somehow held the same weight as his words. Looking at it was almost too much, like looking straight at the sun, it warmed parts of Erik he hadn’t even realized were cold.

“You can stay with me,” Erik said, apropos of nothing, then flinched, his own words surprising him. It wasn’t the offer he had intended to make. The Firm put people up all the time for various reasons, and Erik had planned to slip Charles in to one of his current cases with no one the wiser. The doctor felt certain it wouldn’t be long until his memory returned, based on her previous experience of such cases.

Charles’ astonishment seemed to match his own. “Erik, that’s too much. You’ve done so much already.”

Erik rubbed at the back of neck, avoiding Charles’ eyes, which were comically, anime-wide. While he hadn’t meant to make the offer, he also found now that he had, he also had no sense of regret. His flat was large, he practically lived at the firm, so it would hardly be an inconvenience and the less he abused his position, the less tracks he had to cover.

He coughed, “There’s always Nancy.” Erik hoped the joke would break the sudden tension. “You could take her up on her ambiguous offer.” Charles laughed. Success.

“Coffee, and whatever else it may suggest, is a far cry from living together. Besides, I don’t even know Nancy.”

“You don’t know me either. You may have unwittingly saved a sociopath the world would be better without.”

Charles shook his head. “Don’t be absurd. You’re a good man, Erik. Better than you know.”

Everything about this was absurd.

“It’s settled then, when they discharge you, you can stay with me until we figure out who you are.”

Charles’ face, which Erik was already beginning to realize was nakedly expressive, came over suddenly unreadable.

“I—“ Charles hesitated, eyes flicking away from Erik to the window. Erik supposed coming to live with any stranger was enough to give anyone pause, especially someone who was as disoriented as Charles must already be. He was about to shift back to his original, much less awkward, plan when Charles’ gaze focused back on him. “All right. Until... until then.”

“Until then,” Erik echoed and they both fell suddenly silent.

He was inviting someone to live with him when he had never lived with anyone besides his mother his entire life. Roommates? Please. Erik had never had to, but would have rather lived in a squalid apartment than have to share a living space with anyone, even when putting himself through the extraordinary expenditure of american law school. Yet, here he was. Here they were. It felt right. Perhaps he had an overabundance of gratitude and quid pro quo to sate. It was the only thing that made any sense in the face of something that made absolutely no sense.

He’d probably regret it the instant Charles was in his space, but he also wasn’t someone who went back on his word, so he was taking in this stray whether he came to regret it or not.

Mama, at least, would approve.

*

Now on Ao3

Thanks for reading!!

[aerynwrites]

The Hidden (4)

Chapter 4: Lonely

Author’s Note: Okay so I haven’t been able to see any of the posts to this story show up in the tags...Could you all please do me a favor and let me know if you can see them in the tags or if that’s how you found this work? I’m really frustrated by this and want to know if it’s just me who can’t see it. Thanks!

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: mentions of injuries?

Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four (you’re here), Five, Six, Seven, Eight

//

You glanced from your form in the mirror to the sleeping Mandalorian behind you. After the skirmish with the last Chroig, Jaleer, along with some of the other villagers, had helped you bring him back to your hovel along with a small cot. Hammock’s weren’t great for treating the wounded. One of the older women, a former resistance medic, had helped you as you relieved the unconscious man of his armor. She had reached for his helmet but stopped at your harsh grip on her wrist. You shook your head simply and she seemed to understand and you released your hold on her and let her start inspecting the wounds. You cringed as you saw the deep red marks across his lower abdomen and shoulders. His beskar had protected the majority of his torso from the deadly sharp claws of the beast but couldn’t protect him from everything. You watched as Ellaria, the medic, pulled some batcha patches from her med kit and laid them over the angry red wounds. she quickly looked over him for any other noticeable injuries before standing and looking concerned at your own shoulder.

“You need attention too. You didn’t come out unscathed.” at her mention of your own wound you suddenly remembered the sharp sting in your shoulder. The animal must have grazed you before it attacked Mando.

You waved her off, “I can take care of it, it’s just a scratch.”

The woman rolled her eyes but handed you a few batcha patches as well along with a roll of bandages, “Put these patches on yours and you should be fine, but him-“ she gestured to the bounty hunter, “he’s going to need some bandages after the batcha has done it’s work. They are amazing tools but not miracle workers.”

No nodded in understanding taking the items from her hands, “Thank you Ellaria.”

She smiles gently and glances back at the man, “No, thank you both. Without you we would still be living in fear of another attack. He helped us like he promised.”

You too look at the man, “yeah,” a slight warmth fills your chest as your heart flutters slightly, “he did keep his promise.”

Your comment fell into the empty room as Ellaria had already left.

You brought your eyes back to the mirror as you recalled the memory and tried to place the batcha patches on your shoulder. You had pulled your shirt off which left you in nothing more than a thin tank top but made it a lot easier to treat your wound. You had placed the last patch on the back of your shoulder, albeit awkwardly, but placed it, when a low modulated groan filled the air.

Your head whipped in the direction of the noise and you saw Mando starting to stir from his position. He attempted to sit up, but you moved quickly to his side to help him.

“Hey, take it easy,” you instructed gently moving your hands to his arms to help guide him into a sitting position. You tried to ignore how nice his skin felt under your hands.

“You took quite the blow out there, Mando.” The man felt a small shiver run through him as your nickname for him slipped past your lips, but you just assumed he was chilled from the cool breeze whispering through the home.

“I’ve had worse.” He stated plainly, as he looked around the home slowly, “what happened? where’s the kid?” you could hear worry tinge his words as you turned to grab the bandages from behind you.

“The kids asleep in the back,” you assured, “and we killed them. You’re plan worked.” You said triumphantly as you turned to face him again, squatting to be face level with him, a warm smile crossing your face.

Your smile fell and your breath hitched as you felt one of his warm hands brush lightly against your injured shoulder.

“Not without consequences,” he muttered bitterly, withdrawing his hand from you.

Your mind was reeling from the small act, trying to figure out the man behind the mask in front of you. You’ve only known each other for what? Four or five days? Yet, here you both were inches from one another a tension in the air neither of you dared address. You cleared your throat, and shrugged your shoulder, wincing slightly as the action sent a sharp pain through your shoulder.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

You look at the batcha patches still on the man and look up to him holding the bandages up for him to see, “Ellaria told me you’d need these after the batcha did it’s work. I can check if you want, to see if they- “

“No.” he said shortly.

You frowned slightly but set the bandages down none the less and stood silently, “Okay, if you’re sure.”

He just nods and grabs the bandages from beside him as you turn around and walk to stand in front of the mirror once again. You tilt your head to the side and peel up the patches on your shoulder slightly. You pressed it back down when you saw it wasn’t completely healed yet and glance in the mirror at the man behind you. You could see him struggling to maneuver to remove the patches and heard small grunts of pain coming from his direction. You shook your head at his stubbornness and turned swiftly walking back to crouch in front of him once more. Damn him and his stubbor nature. You reached for the patch on his lower abdomen and startled slightly when he gripped your wrist tightly. You again felt your breath stutter but steeled yourself and looked up at him, met only with a mask. You tried to look through the mask, tried to see him, but it was impossible with the metal separating you.

You looked at him pleadingly, “Let me help you” Your voice was only a whisper, but even behind the mask the Mandalorian could hear the desperation behind the plea.

He hesitated before releasing your wrist from his grasp and instead gripped the edge of the cot. You took this as permission and gently peeled the patch from his skin. You immediately noticed a massive improvement. The deep cuts were now almost completely closed and had considerably less redness around them. You set the patch aside before removing the second one gently. You hear a small hiss come from the man in front of you and whisper an apology before picking up the bandage roll. You gently start to wrap the gauze around his torso, fingers gently grazing his skin occasionally. You don’t miss the multitude of scars that litter his body as you start to wrap the bandages around his shoulder. Once you’re satisfied with your work you secure the end of the bandage and glance up at the man sitting over you.

You gently sweep your fingers over a particularly jagged scar before blurting, “How long have you been doing this?” the words escape your mouth before you can stop them.

The man pushes your hand away and reaches for the discarded blanket beside him pulling it up to cover himself slightly. You immediately regret your question and mentally kick yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you breath, standing from your position quickly, “That’s none of my business. Don’t get too close right? That’s the unspoken rule.” You declare, a slight bitterness working its way into your words.

You walk over to your hammock a few feet away and lay yourself in it gently before facing away from the man who was still a mystery to you. A deafening silence fills the air after you both settle into your respective sleeping areas, the only sound being the steady hum of insects outside and the light rustle of foliage floating through your windows. You surprisingly hear a low hiss followed by a thunk of metal on the wooden floor of your home.

The Mandalorian had removed his helmet.

As much as your curiosity screamed at you to turn and look you willed yourself to stay facing the opposite direction. You would not do that to him.

“Since I was young.” His voice startled you, breaking the tense silence.

A small gasp escaped your lungs as you heard his voice unaltered for the first time. While you had already found it mesmerizing before, even with the helmet, it was truly breathtaking now. You had to swallow past the lump in your throat.

“Why?”

There was a slight pause before he responded, “because it’s what I was trained to do.”

You couldn’t find a response to that answer and sat quietly once more. One question still lingered at the forefront of your mind.

“Why do you always were your helmet?” you finally push out.

“It’s the Way.” Is all he offers, as if that fully answers your question.

“When was the last time someone has seen you without it?” you ask curiously, throwing all caution to the wind.

“I was just a child.” Short and to the point, as always.

You felt a tightness grip your chest, as a sadness washed over you. He hadn’t seen anyone without his helmet since he was child?

“Does it not get lonely?” you question, confusion and sadness lacing your words.

Once again, a long paused greeted you and you were sure this time he was not going to respond. You had crossed a line. But a soft sigh cut through the air.

“It does.”

You opened your mouth to reply but quickly shut it once you realized you truly had no words. The vulnerability in those two words almost knocked you from your hammock. You were seeing a side of him that no one had seen in many years and Dyn was, for a moment, afraid. Not of dying, or getting hurt, but of truly opening up to someone. Vulnerability is a terrifying thing. But the feeling was replaced slowly by a warm relief. It felt like a small weight was lifted from his shoulders as he finally admitted his loneliness. Dyn felt drowsiness start to creep into his mind, he glanced over momentarily at you, breathing steadily and turned over on his good side.

“Goodnight,” he offered quietly, not sure of you were awake to hear it.

Just as sleep finally claimed him he heard a small ‘goodnight Mando’ meet his ears. And for the first time in as long as he can remember he fell asleep without a worry in the world.

[generallypo]

“I heard your voice, so I came... Aoba-san.”

Hooo-boy, if that doesn’t get me emotional every single time. Call it my bias for eccentric bundles of sunshine and softness, or my crippling weakness for the secretly-handsome-and-devastatingly-earnest type, but you can’t change my mind: Clear is, hands down, DMMD’s best love interest. Character development-wise, thematically, romantically, he nails every trial thrown at him, gets his man,  and proceeds to break your heart in the tenderest, sincerest way possible. I am hopping with Huge Fan Energy, so this post is gonna be unapologetically long and self-indulgent and grossly enthusiastic. Yeeeee.

———— 

Look, DMMD meta analysis has been done to death, I get it. This game is old. But I think it stands as testament to its excellent production that it’s still a game worth revisiting years later — especially during these times when social contact is so hard pressed to come by and we all rabidly devour digital media like a horde of screeching feral gremlins. (Have you seen Netflix’s stock value now? The exploding MMO server populations? Astonishing.) It’s pure, simple human nature to want to connect, to cling to members of our network out of biological imperative and our psychological dependency on each other. As cold and primitive at that sounds, social contact also fulfills us on a higher level: the community is always stronger than the individual; genuine trust begets a mutually supportive relationship of exchange and evolution. People learn from each other, and grow into stronger, wiser, better versions of themselves.

Yeah, I’m being deliberately obtuse about this. Of course I’m talking about Clear. Clear, who is a robot. Clear, who is nearly childlike in his insatiable curiosity regarding the human condition.

And it’s a classic literary tactic, using non-human entities to question the intangible constructs of a concept like ‘humanity’ — think Frankenstein, or Tokyo Ghoul, or Detroit: Become Human, among so, so many works in various media — all tackling that question from countless angles, all with varying measures of success. What does it mean to be human? To be good? Who are we, and where do we stand in the grand scheme of things? Is there even a scheme to follow? … Wait, what?

Jokes aside, there are so many ways that the whole approaching-human-yet-not-quite-there schtick can be abused into edgy, joyless existential griping. Nothing wrong with that if it’s what you’re looking for, except that we’re talking about a boys’ love game here. But DMMD neatly, sweetly side steps that particular wrinkle, giving us a wonderfully grounded character to work with as a result. 

Character Design — a see-through secret

Let’s start small: Clear’s design and premise. Unlike so many other lost, clueless robo-lambs across media, Clear does have a small guiding presence early on in his life. It takes the form of his grandfather, who teaches Clear about the world while also sheltering him from his origins. It means he learns enough to blend sufficiently into society; it also means that Clear has even more questions that sprout from his limited understanding of the world.

Told that he must never remove his mask lest he expose his identity as a non-human, Clear’s perpetual fear of rejection for what he is drives much of his eccentricity and challenges him throughout much of his route. As for the player, the mystery of what lies underneath his mask is a carrot that the writers get to dangle until the peak moment of emotional payoff. Even if it’s not hard to guess that there’s probably a hottie of legendary proportions stuck under there, there’s still significance in waiting for that good moment to happen. And when it does, it feels great.

His upbringing contextualizes and affirms his odd choice of fashion: deliberately generic, bashfully covered from the public eye, and colored nearly in pure white - the quintessential signal of a blank slate, of innocence. Contrasted with the rest of DMMD’s flashy, colorful crew, Clear is probably the most difficult to read on a superficial scale, not falling into the fiery, bare-chest sex appeal of a womanizer, or the techno-nerd rebel aesthetic that Noiz somehow rocks. Goofy weirdo? Possibly a serial killer? Honestly, both seem plausible at the start.

And that’s the funny thing, because as damn hard as he tries to physically cover himself up from society, Clear is irrepressibly true to his name: transparent to a fault. He’s a walking, talking contradiction, and it’s not hard to realize that this mysterious, masked stranger… is really just an open book. By far the most effusive and straightforward of the entire cast, his actions are wildly unconventional and sometimes wholly inexplicable. But given time to explain himself, he is always, always sincere in his intentions — and unlike the rest of the love interests, naturally inclined to offer bits of himself to Aoba. It doesn’t take the entire character arc to figure out his big, bad secret — our main character gets an inkling about halfway through his route — and what’s even better is that he embraces it, understanding that his abilities also allow him to protect what he cherishes: Aoba. 

So what if he doesn’t fit into an easily recognizable box of daydream boyfriend material? He’s contradictory, and contradiction is interesting. Dons a gas mask, but isn’t an edgelord. Blandly dressed, but ridiculously charming. Unreadable and modestly intimidating — until he opens his mouth. Even without the benefit of traversing his route, there’s already so much good stuff to work with, and sure as hell, you’re kept guessing all the way to the end.

Character Development — from reckless devotion into complaisant subservience, complaisant subservience into mutual understanding. And then, of course: free will, and true love. 

At its core, DMMD is about a dude with magic mind-melding powers and his merry band of attractive men with — surprise! — crippling emotional baggage. Each route follows the same pattern, simply remixing the individual character interactions and the pace of the program: Aoba finds himself isolated with the love interest, faces various communication issues varying on the scale of frustrating to downright dangerous, wanders into a sketchy section of Platinum Jail, bonds with the love interest over shared duress, breaks into the Oval Tower, faces mental assault by the big bad — and finally, finally, destroys those internal demons plaguing the love interest, releasing the couple onto the path of a real heart-to-heart conversation. And then, you know, the lovey-dovey stuff. 

Here’s the thing: as far as romantic progression goes, it’s really not a bad structure. There’s room to bump heads, but also to bond. The Scrap scene is a thematically cohesive and clever way to squeeze in the full breadth of character backstory while simultaneously advancing the plot. In this part, Aoba must become the hero to each of his love interests and save them from themselves. Having become privy to each other’s deepest thoughts and reaching a mutual understanding of each other, their feelings afterwards slide much more naturally into romantic territory. They break free of Oval Tower, make their way home, and have hot, emotionally fulfilling sex or otherwise some variation on the last few steps. The end. 

That is, except for Clear. 

Clear’s route is refreshing in that he needs none of these things — the climax of his emotional arc actually comes a little after the halfway point of his route. When Clear’s true origins are revealed, he comes entirely clean to Aoba, fighting against his fear of rejection but also trusting that Aoba will listen. It’s a quiet, vulnerable moment, rather than the action-packed tension we normally experience during a Scrap scene. 

That doesn’t mean it’s prematurely written in — it simply means that he reaches his potential faster than the other characters. Because of that, he’s free to pursue the next level of his route’s development much, much sooner in the timeline: he overcomes his fears of his appearance, he confesses his love to Aoba, he leaves the confines of a largely dubious master-servant relationship and allows himself to be Aoba’s equal. Clear’s sprite art mirrors his emotional transformation all the way through, exposing him to the literal bone — and Aoba’s affection for him doesn’t change a single bit. Beautiful.

The whammy of incredible moments doesn’t just stop there, though. I don’t exactly recall the order the routes DMMD is ideally meant to be played in, but I believe Clear’s is meant to be last. And if you do, I can guarantee that it becomes a hugely delightful gameplay experience — in order to achieve his good ending, you must do absolutely nothing with Scrap. It doesn’t just subvert our player expectations of proactively clicking and interacting with our love interests; it grabs the story by its thematic reins and yanks it all back to the forefront of our scene. 

In every route besides Clear’s, Scrap is a tool used to insert Aoba’s influence into and interfere with his target’s mind. Using his powers of destruction, Aoba is able to prune whatever maligned thoughts are harming his target; in any conventional situation, using Scrap is the right choice. 

But one of the central problems in Clear’s route is his conflict between the impulses of his conditioning and his desire to live freely as a human would. Breaking free of Toue’s programming is what initially made him unique; growing beyond the rules imposed by his grandfather is what makes him human. In the final conflict scene, Clear’s decision to destroy his key-lock is an action of true autonomy, made with perfect understanding of the consequences and a sincere, selflessly selfish desire to protect someone he loves. In order to receive his good end, you have to respect his decision. It doesn’t matter which option you pick — by using Scrap, Aoba turns his back on every positive choice he made with Clear and attempts to exert his authority over him. This is Aoba becoming Toue; this is Aoba trying to reinstate himself as ‘Master’ right as he approved Clear as his equal. That’s blatant hypocrisy, and it doesn’t matter if Aoba is trying to do it for Clear’s ‘own good’ — that’s not Aoba’s call to make. If you truly wish to respect Clear’s free will, you will stand by. This is the truth of the moment: Clear has no emotional blockages that Aoba needs to fix. Believe in him, just as he believed in you.

The path to his heart is, and always has been, clear. Scrap was never needed from the start.

While Aoba might be the main character, Clear is undeniably a hero in his own route just as much. Tirelessly earnest and always curious, he leaps headlong into the unknown and emerges with his newfound enlightenment. He’s unafraid of weathering trials, even to the point of accepting death, and returns anew from oblivion to a sweet, cathartic ending. That’s about as textbook hero’s journey as it gets — if that doesn’t make him unquestionably, certifiably, unconditionally human, then I will scream.

And only finally… there is the free end. The final CG is like a throwback to our first impression of him: indistinct, purposefully obscured from proper view. But this time, we know better — and so does Aoba. Looks were never what mattered in Clear’s route. If you were patient, and you were open-minded, and you listened… well, what we realize now is that Clear was doing the exact same thing for you, too.

From a carefree, aimless robot-man with only the gimmick of “eccentric ditz” to carry him forward, we get a supremely more interesting character by the end: a man who has graduated from the well-intentioned but claustrophobic conditioning of his childhood; a weapon who has defied the imperatives placed on him by his creator’s programming; a wanderer who has, through unconditional patience and empathy, discovered love, and striven to become a better person for it. Who was it that ever doubted Clear’s character? He’s the goddamn goodest boy that ever wanted to be a real boy. Of course Clear is human. And in fact, he does it better than every single one of the actually human love interests. You can’t change my mind.

The Romance — kindness is really fucking attractive, okay.

Like I’ve said earlier, I have my Big Fan Blinds stuck on pretty tight. I might be conjuring sparks from thin air. But I think every choice was a deliberate creative decision on the writers’ part, and they deserve all the kudos for it — I’m just the lucky player who gets to enjoy it. But aside from Noiz (who I also think is a perfect darling as well — I could go on and on about him), Clear’s route is a model example for consent and healthy relationships in VN storytelling. This is reciprocated on both sides: never does Aoba infringe on Clear’s boundaries, and neither does Clear. They’re sensitive to each other’s needs and concerns; they ask for permission and stop when it isn’t granted (and when it is, boy do they get frisky — I’m not complaining!) I don’t need to say much more, because I think that consent is both fantastic and yes, incredibly hot (the scene in DMMD is tons more sad, go play Re:connect!). Good writing shows off the massive erotic potential enthusiastic consent puts into intimacy, and Aoba’s and Clear’s relationship is honestly a dream playground. The point is, I think Aoba and Clear genuinely do find equal balance in their relationship by the end of his route (and certainly through Re:connect). If you follow through Re:connect’s storyline, there’s even more thematic richness that comes through in the form of Clear’s greatest asset: communication. The couple get to discuss the long-term implications of them being together; they both offer concerns, points, and assurances to the other, and it’s just a soft, honest moment not so unlike the worries of a real relationship. Hearing is kind of Clear’s motif sense, but it’s really great to see that Aoba also subtly picks it up, really flexes his own communication skills to better engage with Clear. 

Point is, Clear’s route spoke to me on a lot of little levels. Design-wise, he’s already got a ton going for him, and his story builds upon it rather than against it, enriching his development and grounding him a little more solidly in the DMMD universe (and in my heart). His route, aside from being emotionally ruinous, carries a pretty solid chunk of world-building (only beaten out by Mink’s and Ren’s, probably), and the romance feels organic, healthy, and realistic. He’s not the only one with an excellent route, but he’s my favorite. If you read through all of this, you’re a real trooper and I’m extremely impressed. Thanks for tuning in. Peace.

[the-odd-job]

Ashes of Icarus chapter 10 - That Doesn’t Make It Right

Rating: Explicit Warnings: Chose Not to Use Category: Other Fandom: Transformers Characters: Sunstreaker, Skywarp, Megatron, Ratchet Relationships: Megatron/Sunstreaker, Sideswipe & Sunstreaker Additional Tags: Dubcon, Unplanned Pregnancy, Mechpreg, Sticky Words: 5664

In which Sunstreaker goes kinda nutty for the d.

( Previous )

The next battle that came, they were indeed allowed to take part and everything. They didn’t throw themselves into it with all of their usual abandon because Prowl was still tetchy and it was in their best interest to try not to piss him off too badly.

There were still a few instances of ignored or creatively warped orders, but Prowl didn’t expect perfect obedience from them. That would’ve never happened.

Had to keep your expectations realistic!

But as Sunstreaker had suspected, battles weren’t really the prime time for any meet and greets with Megatron, especially if they tried to play it by Prowl’s boring books. Prowl didn’t want them engaging Megatron.

He couldn’t even get particularly close to the tyrant before he was needed for something else or otherwise told to just leave it to Optimus.

There were looks, though. From the both of them. When Megatron wasn’t busy overseeing the Decepticons’ current goal or fighting Optimus, Sunstreaker more than once found the warlord’s optics on him.

Megatron got a glare in return every time, and once Sunstreaker happened close enough that he was pretty sure he didn’t imagine the amused upward tick at the corner of Megatron’s mouth.

Before he had to run off again to do whatever Prowl wanted. Ugh.

So that was a dry few months, at least on the front of really good fucks. He partook in some ‘facing for the heck of it, a few times, but after that only left him more frustrated, he saw no reason to continue.

No Autobot compared to Megatron. Maybe some of the Decepticons would have worked as substitutes, but–

Vector Sigma, was he seriously thinking about ‘facing even more Decepticons? What, Megatron wasn’t enough? Had to go betray his own side a little more thoroughly, was that it?

Sideswipe was in a fucking brilliant mood almost every hour of every day due to the whole thing, though. Frustrated, sure, of course he was when Sunstreaker was so, but he just found it so funny. And he was probably the only Autobot that would’ve thought the whole arrangement and Sunstreaker’s little issues with it were amusing, so… It was best only he knew.

And the twins were pretty good at keeping secrets. Their own, anyway. Had to be, when being honest would’ve just gotten them ostracized even further. There were a lot of details about their lives and thoughts that the Autobots had no business knowing. They’d learned to dance around those topics and either lie their way through it, or tell half truths that didn’t cast light onto anything.

This was just one more thing on the list no one else had any reason to know about. Just… Probably even more damning than the other stuff on that list.

Was it too late to end the game? He could just tell Megatron he didn’t want to do it anymore, that it was over after it had barely begun… Pretend none of it had ever happened and go back to even remotely trying to be an Autobot that didn’t shag the enemy willy nilly.

Even if that had worked, though… Did he want to? 

Did he want to put an end to the best interfacing of his whole damn life, made all the more exhilarating by how utterly wrong it was?

Did he really want to discourage the attention of one of the most powerful mecha in existence? When that danger Megatron was made him dizzy in the best fucking way? Knowing there was little he could ultimately do against him, no matter his own proficiency and strength?

Okay, so apparently he found power really fucking attractive, sue him. But Megatron embodied it all. Everything he wanted, and everything he didn’t know he wanted. 

...Fuck him, seriously. Was he in too damn deep already? 

Why did he think the answer to that might be a resounding yes?

And Sideswipe cackled.

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

There had to be consequences to the whole thing, and Sunstreaker was sure they’d catch up with him eventually. But for now?

They were good at taking down Seekers, but always the most problematic of them all was the Command Trine. They were the Command Trine for a reason—even if that reason wasn’t always apparent—and some extra caution was always required when engaging any of them.

The thing about trines, too, was that they were generally pretty good at working together. That was their whole point, to split the Seekers into smaller units that functioned well in relation to each other. 

Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp were no exception to that. So, best case scenario was when the trine members couldn’t come to each other’s aid, either because both of the twins were harassing that particular trine, or because their ground bound comrades were helping by keeping some of the Seekers busy.

However, things didn’t always work by the best case scenario. This time, when Sunstreaker heard the telltale VOP of Skywarp’s teleportation while surfing on Thundercracker’s back, he knew he was in for a not so pleasant time. 

He had just the time to look over his shoulder before Skywarp had already caught up with them, in his bipedal mode for reasons that became apparent when the Seeker took a hold of him instead of just shooting him like Sunstreaker had expected. 

Then he hit the metaphorical brakes while Thundercracker very much did not do the same, and the blue Seeker slipped from his grasp to carry onward while Skywarp brought himself and Sunstreaker to a halt midair. 

It didn’t get any better from there. “Oh you have got to be kidding me…” Sunstreaker muttered when his frame began to glow purple, and with another VOP an entirely different location greeted them. 

Skywarp may have been made for warping around space and time, but most other mecha were not. Space and ground bridges were far more forgiving than Skywarp’s warp drive.

True to that, Sunstreaker’s processors slipped well out of alignment and were ready to start playing walking in the air at him, whereas Skywarp was in exactly no way affected by his jump. That should have put him in an impossibly precarious situation on the grounds that it left him in poor defense and even poorer attack where Skywarp still had all of his—lacking—faculties…

And it was a precarious position, sure, but it didn’t end near as bad as it should have. He had no fucking idea where they’d ended up in, his positioning system just shrugging its shoulders at him, but there was a forest clearing below them.

He’d have expected the Seeker to just drop him right about now, but instead Skywarp descended. Too fast for the comfort of Sunstreaker’s recently displaced frame, but hey, he wasn’t falling like a rock.

One they were only a couple of times his height away from ground, then Skywarp saw fit to let go of him. Sunstreaker didn’t land anywhere close to as gracefully as he normally would have, but he didn’t break any body parts either, so he counted that a victory.

“Have fun!” Skywarp quipped at him, and Sunstreaker looked up just in time to see the Seeker’s grin before purple light engulfed him and with yet another VOP, Skywarp disappeared into thin air. 

He didn’t really have the time to dedicate any of his very slowly running thoughts to what the fuck the Seeker meant with that before the sound of another jet approaching rose in the distance, growing closer by the second.

Sunstreaker knew what Seekers sounded like. This one wasn’t a Seeker.

Even through the groaning his mind was busy with, one possibility popped to the forefront of his processors.

He didn’t think too hard on it though, because it wouldn’t be long before he’d get confirmation on that. Frag but his head hurt. Hits he could take, his armor was specifically designed to handle that.

Nothing about him was made to handle warping.

He didn’t really feel up to getting to his pedes if he didn’t absolutely need to, so he didn’t while he waited the minute or so it took for the jet to arrive on the scene. 

It was just as he thought. This almost felt like a setup.

Sunstreaker did stagger to his feet as Megatron transformed a little above ground and landed with a heavy thud only muted by the vegetation of the clearing. The tyrant had one look at him before raising an optical ridge. “Skywarp’s teleportation is something else, isn’t it?”

“Fuuuuck you,” Sunstreaker responded—it came out as a bit too much like a groan to his liking. “If this is your doing I’m fucking killing you.”

“In your current state?” Amused disbelief on Megatron’s part, right there.

“...Later.” Right. See. He could do that later.

Once he felt a little better and not like the world could shatter to thousands of pieces any moment.

Right now though… He was a bit too slow on the start to react before Megatron had already stalked over to him and just… Grabbed him. Like you did when you were big and strong and… Very big and strong.

He was hauled off his pedes by his waist and Sunstreaker at least had enough state of mind to wrap his legs around Megatron’s waist.

And then they were there, in a very compromising position were anyone to stumble upon them. Sunstreaker took a few seconds to reorient himself before he glared up at the tyrant, feeling his thoughts slowly piecing themselves back together.

See, the universe wasn’t exploding, reality wasn’t caving in… He could do this.

“Put me down,” he snarled, kicking at the back of Megatron’s thighs, because that was sure to work. 

“While we have all the time in the world, for once? No.”

Sunstreaker huffed and pretended his frame wasn’t very quickly heating and his thoughts growing muddy from a reason that had nothing to do with Skywarp’s teleportation. “Shouldn’t you be at the battle, anyway? Being the leader of the whole damn army and whatnot.”

“Soundwave has it under control,” Megatron dismissed his so called ‘concern’, apparently very sure that everything had been arranged for maximum fuck. 

His would be partner wasn’t as convinced. “You think they don’t notice me gone, though?” Sunstreaker asked, narrowing his optics up at the larger mech. “Prowl’s gonna be mad he doesn’t have me to order around anymore, and then they’ll just make Sideswipe play bloodhound.” And Sideswipe would find him, and couldn’t even pretend to not be able to do that when fragging everyone knew their ability to locate each other was all but infallible.

“Your brother has been dealt with.” Megatron brushed that aside too, and… Well, they hadn’t killed Sideswipe or Sunstreaker wouldn’t feel as alive as he did right then, but when he focused on their spark, it turned out to be very true that Sideswipe was thoroughly knocked out. Their spark was dancing around with Sunstreaker’s anticipation and Sideswipe’s mirth over his anticipation, but there was no feedback whatsoever from his frame.

Well then.

Sunstreaker shrugged.

“Really? No death threats for injuring your brother?” 

“If you wanted to kill me you could just… Do it. Since you haven’t, I take it you don’t want to do that, so it follows that Sideswipe is fine.

“...Mostly fine, anyway.” He didn’t know what they had done to manage to knock his twin out cold, because they were built beyond sturdy and that shouldn’t be an easy feat, but…

Eh, he’d be okay, probably.

“Flippant,” Megatron commented, but it was evident both of their thoughts were starting to head to different tracks entirely. It wasn’t just Sunstreaker’s frame that was a little hot to touch, anymore.

Sunstreaker revved his engine. “Works in your favor.”

“That it does.” And that was the end of their interest in talking. Megatron lifted him further up, effortlessly, like Sunstreaker’s frame didn’t weigh a thing… And he definitely didn’t fight as much as he should have when Megatron pressed his lips to his.

Megatron’s lips were rough against his, just like the rest of the mech. Not only in the way they moved and pressed, no, but in texture also. Roughened by a lifetime of struggling, of beating all of the odds stacked up against him—fierce, intense in a way no Autobot had ever managed, and he doubted would ever manage. It wasn’t just a taste of the fire burning in Megatron’s spark, it was a slagging flood of it in everything Megatron did, here or anywhere else—in this or in anything else. 

He was so tantalizingly dangerous, a demolisher that razed everything that stood in his way—an unrivaled dominator exerting his power and control over the entire world.

And Sunstreaker had caught his attention. Sunstreaker was tightening his legs around his hips, his vents panting already, and they were only getting started. 

Megatron’s glossa flicked over his lips, asking for entrance.

Sunstreaker pressed his denta together and denied–

–If just for the thrill of hearing Megatron growl deep from his frame, a rough bite on his lower lip nearly pulling a gasp from Sunstreaker. The pressure only increased until the sharpened denta began to dig into his dermal plating—demanding, and Sunstreaker, still denying.

The frame he was held against shook from the strength of the rev of Megatron’s engine and the warlord’s grip on him tightened, until it, too, threatened to dent his armor. One servo held his thigh, the other had traveled to the back of his helm… Holding him, trapping him in place. 

Claws began to dig into his plating. Sunstreaker shivered from helm to pede at the clear when—not if, there was no if with Megatron—in the tyrant’s every gesture.

Sunstreaker would give in because no one said no to Megatron.

But oh, the road to that yes was paved with so many harsh things that Sunstreaker would have gladly bled for—had bled for, would bleed for. Make him, don’t fucking ask, take it–

And Megatron was everything he could have dreamed of. Those claws, dangerous, massive claws, sunk into the plating of his thigh. Alerts blinked on his HUD, pain blossomed—blood flowed when Megatron pierced deep enough to cut into the fuel lines feeding the engine in his leg.

Still Sunstreaker refused, snarling deep from his engine, only for that to get drowned out by the thunder Megatron’s engine produced. His denta cut into his lip just as his claws had cut into his neck, and with a full-body tremor, Sunstreaker finally yielded, his mouth falling open. Megatron’s glossa immediately invaded his oral cavity, and when Sunstreaker bit down on it without fanfare… Oh, how he felt it on his body. 

Megatron’s talons rent his plating further, digging painful, painful furrows into his leg—slowly cutting into his helmet.

And Sunstreaker groaned against the vicious lips of the enemy—and even when his denta parted again and released the warlord’s glossa, those claws didn’t unhook from the wounds they had created.

His punishment for his disobedience.

He should have hated it. He should have wanted nothing to do with it, he should have wanted to kill Megatron–

Instead all he could feel was heat and lust that the pain did nothing to quell. 

He’d liked it rough, always had. This… Probably went a lot beyond that. The damage was real, the blood was real. It wasn’t just a hard frag.

When had it ever been? Hadn’t fights prefaced all of their previous encounters?

Sunstreaker ground his groin down against Megatron’s even as the tyrant fucking used his mouth, his glossa accepting no resistance whatsoever. It came and went as it pleased, did what it pleased, and it didn’t matter what Sunstreaker wanted—and that was exactly what he wanted. It was heady, heady, heady; his vents blasted hot air, knowing he should never in a million years be doing this–

His arms wrapped around Megatron’s neck. The tyrant didn’t seem to mind.

Megatron’s claws pulled out of this thigh to the gush of more energon, only for the blood stained digits to reach for his valve cover instead. They scratched against it, digging furrows into the metal before hooking into the seams like every time previously–

And like every time previously, Sunstreaker retracted it before it was torn off entirely.

Answers. His side would want answers he was not willing to give.

Primus, all of this would be hard enough to explain already.

Megatron’s cover retracted too, and this time there were no preparations, just the sudden shove of Megatron’s spike into his fucking soaked valve. The stretch was abrupt, his calipers completely unprepared for it, it fragging hurt–

And he moaned into their kiss, rocking his frame to drive the genocidal maniac’s spike deeper. Megatron growled against him, bit his lip—brought both of his servos to his aft and lifted, then dropped–

Fragging him standing like it was no exertion whatsoever. Not even a wall to pin him against.

Sunstreaker arched his back, angled his hips, and took it, took every time Megatron let his frame fall onto his spike only for the next upward motion to drag against sensors already screaming with charge.

He didn’t last long. Of course he didn’t, how could he have when he was so fucking full that not one sensor was left unattended, everything in his valve ripe for the stimulation of Megatron’s spike. It drove him up, up, and up, until he reached the peak and fell off the other side.

Charge exploded in his frame, and he would have screamed if his vocalizer hadn’t given out to just a burst of static. Lightning arced along his plating and his valve clamped down with all of its might as his frame tensed from helm to pede.

Megatron jerked his hips against him until his spike was as deep as it could go and then more charge assaulted Sunstreaker’s frame, this time originating from the warlord. It tingled across his sensitized plating, shot into his valve along with Megatron’s transfluid, and drew his frame into another, smaller overload right on the heels of the one that barely had the time to end.

It was fucking glorious.  

He was so hot, his frame burning, but there was nothing his fans or vents could do as Megatron never fucking left it, only lowered them to the ground until Sunstreaker’s back hit it.

Like this now, huh?

“Stamina, is it?” Sunstreaker asked, his voice still a little staticky but a bloodthirsty grin on his face.

“You’ll find that I have some,” Megatron growled back at him before their mouths clashed together once again, and this time Sunstreaker had the time to weasel his own glossa into Megatron’s mouth. Surprisingly, he was allowed to do so, and pits, but the fire and brimstone in him—the taste of war and death that somehow managed to permeate him… This was the unmaker, and he was between Sunstreaker’s legs, his spike thrusting into him.

And he’d never felt anything better.

Megatron’s glossa drove his own back into his mouth and then it was Sunstreaker on the receiving end of it all, his servos only grasping onto Megatron through every slam into his frame—some desperate attempt to ground himself even as the ground fell out from under him and another overload hit him with all the force of a freight train.

This time he screamed, his back arching off the ground and into Megatron, all the better for the warbringer to drive his spike into him, through his overload, beyond it, over and over again until another one had Sunstreaker tensing and crying out—Megatron’s name.

The tyrant hissed against him, a sound that was nothing but pleased, and Sunstreaker spared one thought to how fucking screwed he was–

Before Megatron exiled that with an overload of his own, his charge zapping at Sunstreaker and his valve further soiled by Megatron’s come. 

And still Sunstreaker ground his hips against Megatron’s, even through the heat warnings his frame was giving him, because why the fuck not?  

What did he have to lose anymore?

Had he ever even fucking cared about what he had to lose?

Not really, had he?

Oh, what a bad, bad Autobot he was.

“Frag me,” he hissed, digging his digits into the gaps of Megatron’s armor, tugging him closer.

And Megatron growled at him, the sound vibrating the ground and the air–

But he pulled out, and away, and Sunstreaker released a growl of his own, his optics flashing.

Before he could say anything, though, or do anything, Megatron had already grabbed him with harsh servos, turning him over.

And fuck but Sunstreaker had no complaints about that when Megatron lifted his hips up and rammed back into his valve. One of his servos remained on his hip, keeping them up, but the other…

The other traveled along his back until it wrapped around the back of his neck and pressed him down—forcing his chest into the ground, his helm down, pinned in place like a fucking whore, and Megatron began to fragging drill him, driving into his frame with so much force that Sunstreaker wasn’t sure he’d ever felt anything like it in his whole damn life.

But Megatron was busting a lot of records, even with their very limited encounters. 

“Fragging yes,” he ground out, using the limited motion left to him to shove his hips back into Megatron’s every goddamn thrust—and when had he been in almost this same exact position last time?

Ironhide was nothing compared to the strength Megatron displayed right then and there, and like he wasn’t even trying—like he dominated everything and everyone just by existing. 

He was going to go mad. He was going to lose his fucking mind. “Fragging ‘face me, ‘face me you fragging despot–”

Megatron’s engine revved, hard, the vibrations of it traveling through his fragging spike and straight into his goddamned core, and Sunstreaker couldn’t keep himself from groaning into the dirt he was pressed, pinned against. 

“You like to be put to your place, do you?” the tyrant asked from him, his voice the kind of snarl that only further scattered each and every thought Sunstreaker had ever had–

But how would he explain it? How could he ever explain how high the sheer power Megatron was drove him? Megatron could do this if he wanted, and there was fuckall Sunstreaker would have been able to do about it even if he’d been inclined to do anything about it. 

The strength, the control, the things Megatron was, the blood he’d shed…

The violence.

“Only by the likes of you,” Sunstreaker growled back before his mouth fell open at a particularly hard thrust that was going to leave fucking indents on his aft, he was sure of it–

“The likes of me,” and Primus, but Megatron’s voice, deep, rough, above him, all around him, “Or just me?”

He was so fucking close and he would die from this, he was sure of it. “Don’t flatter yourself,” Sunstreaker managed to get out, voice so fragging strained it was a surprise his vocalizer even managed to squeeze the words out of it–

And then it was all fragging over for him. Sunstreaker screamed as overload crashed through him one more time, hard enough that cables snapped from the tension, systems burning themselves out, ecstasy the only thing he could feel.

Megatron rumbled before Sunstreaker could feel his charge join the one already dancing in Sunstreaker’s frame, only adding to it, building on it—his valve was full to the point of overflowing, lubricant and transfluid trailing down his thighs and onto the ground.

And that, that was a new record he doubted would be broken anytime soon.

Then it was over, the tension draining from his body and leaving him strutless, shaking, gasping for air to cool himself with—and aching all over in ways that would have tested him were his pain tolerance any lower. 

“Slag…” he breathed.

Megatron chuckled behind him before pulling out, and the amount of motherfucking fluids that poured out of him…

How was he ever going to clean this up? Especially without Sideswipe?

He really didn’t feel as concerned about that as he absolutely should have. But the afterglow, it was all too… Afterglowy. Really fucking with his priorities.

Plus he’d really need to figure out where the frag he was going to gather the strength to move himself from. 

“Did that feel good?” Megatron asked, and… Ah, there came the strength. 

Sunstreaker lifted his arm with some effort, one finger and a fist.  

The tyrant straight up laughed at him this time, but Sunstreaker didn’t quite manage to scrounge up enough offense to do more than vaguely growl as he pushed himself onto his hands and knees. Megatron let him.

Sunstreaker would’ve asked if he had run out of stamina already, but pits, Sunstreaker had run out of stamina, and he wasn’t sure he would survive another round even if Megatron was up for it.

So he shut his mouth, for once. 

“Do you need help covering up?” was the next question Megatron had, and Sunstreaker glanced back in surprise. Was he really offering?

“What do you care about me covering up?” he asked, rolling onto his aft and flinching at the very real pain that bloomed at his bottom.

Right, his aft hurt. Rough landing onto it, that was all. Not getting railed by one… Very strong individual, for sure not. 

“I believe your side would try to put a stop to this if they found out. And I rather enjoy it,” Megatron gave as a reason, and yeah, that made sense.

Ha, Megatron enjoyed it. Sunstreaker smirked. “I’m just that good of a lay, am I?”

Megatron snorted. “What did you say? ‘Don’t flatter yourself’? Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Riiiiight.” About that cleaning, though. Sunstreaker pulled out a cloth from his subspace and began to wipe away the excessive fluids covering his lower half, and scrub away the paint transfers.

Megatron straight up helped him, at one point telling him to roll back over so he could get his behind where Sunstreaker wouldn’t have seen what the slag he was doing.

He tried very, very hard not to get turned right back on by it.

He wasn’t very successful, but. They didn’t devolve into more fucking that would’ve undone all of their hard work, so there was that. 

“Until next time, Sunstreaker,” Megatron said in parting—and not without one more scorching kiss that left him woozy in the head—before transforming and leaving Sunstreaker alone on the clearing that had come to look a little too much like the scene of a good frag. 

But there was no reason why he should’ve needed to tell his side where exactly he had been.

Driving wasn’t exactly an option though, and that was the crappy part about all of this. Walking, through a goddamn forest, back to where Sideswipe (and presumably the rest of his comrades by extension) was. 

Was it even worth it? Pits, Skywarp could’ve at least bothered to warp him somewhere closer to the battlesite afterwards…

But Skywarp wasn’t here, and neither was anyone else for that matter. Sunstreaker huffed before he resigned himself to the trip he’d need to take and headed into the forest.

It was slagging ages later that he finally made it so far that he could scan other Autobots, and they could scan him, and by that point Sunstreaker was thoroughly annoyed. At least there was no concern of others wondering why he was in such a good mood post-frag, because he was not in a good mood anymore. 

He stomped out of the goddamn forest to Bluestreak running up to him. “Sunstreaker! There you are, we’ve been looking for you all over the place but Sideswipe’s out so we didn’t know where Skywarp teleported you but you’re here and are you alright–”

On and on he went. Sunstreaker tuned him out as Prowl and Optimus approached. “What happened to Sideswipe?” he asked, because he’d really love to know what the ‘Cons had fashioned to ‘deal with’ his twin.

“The Combaticons went after him after Skywarp teleported you away,” Prowl told with clear displeasure. No doubt having them out of the battle like that was a little too unexpected for his liking.

“Where did Skywarp take you? Are you alright?” Optimus asked, concern in his optics.

Sunstreaker scowled at him before marching straight past the lot of them to where he could see Ratchet crouched over Sideswipe. “To the other side of the whole goddamn planet, apparently! And then I had to walk back. Through a motherfucking forest. The next time I see that slagger I’m ripping that whole warp drive straight out of him! How’s Sideswipe?”

Ratchet glanced up at him as he halted next to the medic and his extremely downed brother, his servos finding their way onto his hips.

Sideswipe looked slagging terrible. The Combaticons really had had a field day with him by the looks of things. 

Well, at least it had guaranteed an interruption free fuck– No don’t fragging think about that in front of everyone.

His engine revved due to anger over his brother’s state. Yes. That was the reason.

“He’ll live,” Ratchet confirmed what Sunstreaker already knew. “None of his injuries are life threatening even on the long term, surprisingly.”

“Did you at least get the Combaticons off his aft?” Sunstreaker asked from Prowl as the tactician came closer for them all to prepare board Skyfire and head back to the Ark.

“Yes,” Prowl answered reluctantly, “but not soon enough.”

“Soon enough that they didn’t kill him,” Sunstreaker noted. Oh, they wouldn’t have, under Megatron’s orders no doubt, but the rest of them didn’t need to know that.

“True,” the Praxian conceded, watching Ratchet finish patching up the worst of Sideswipe’s injuries. He wouldn’t be bleeding all over the place anymore. As much, anyway.

“Are you alright?” Ratchet asked from him next, standing up to let Ironhide carry Sideswipe into Skyfire’s hold. Sunstreaker became the target of his scans at once and Ratchet scowled at the amount of dents on him.

And the claw marks.

“Nothing much more than a rough landing,” Sunstreaker lied with a straight face, standing still while Ratchet confirmed the non-severity of his injuries. “I think he just wanted to remove me from the battle instead of trying to do anything further than that after he succeeded in that. Smart, for fucking once.” Skywarp wasn’t exactly known for his intelligence, but he wasn’t straight up suicidal in his stupidity, usually.

And trying to fight Sunstreaker one on one would’ve been suicidally stupid.

Ratchet grunted noncommittally at that before he came to the conclusion that Sunstreaker wasn’t in need of any immediate repairs and ushered him into Skyfire after everyone else.

The flight back to the Ark was uneventful. Ratchet kept watch over Sideswipe, just in case, and Sunstreaker leaned against the wall on his brother’s other side, not much fancying sitting down when his aft hadn’t stopped complaining about the treatment Megatron had given it. By just fragging. Not even spanking, or something.

...And it remained he should not let his thoughts go there around the other Autobots.

Sunstreaker tried to focus on Bluestreak’s voice instead, the gunner letting his vocalizer run a mile a minute as usual. He still struggled to maintain enough attention on it enough to actually follow the young Praxian’s one-sided conversation with Jazz, his thoughts just… Eager to wander.

Damn Megatron.

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

Once Ratchet was fully satisfied that Sideswipe wouldn’t suddenly offline no matter what, his brother became the lowest priority patient on the grounds that he’d take the longest time to fix. Better to get everyone else out of the way before dedicating the time to that. Sunstreaker fell pretty far down the ladder too, because it was well known that he wasn’t leaving the medbay before Sideswipe was ready to leave with him.

Between Ratchet and First Aid, though, everyone else was fixed within a matter of hours and sent on their respective ways. Sunstreaker had had surprisingly much luck with just watching everything happen around him, instead of letting his thoughts go down some rather unacceptable tracks. The upside was that he wasn’t inexplicably turned on by the time Ratchet stopped in front of him. “On the berth, let me deal with you next.”

Sunstreaker uncrossed his arms and hopped onto the berth next to Sideswipe’s, laying down for Ratchet’s inspection and following repairs.

Of course, that couldn’t go down without questions. “Did Skywarp do anything else to you after teleporting you away?”

“What does it look like? Got his claws on me. Then dropped me. Before I’d recovered from the warp, mind you.” 

Ratchet was prodding around the very deep cuts Megatron had left on his thigh, and… Well, his optics flicked to his interface paneling.

Scratched paneling. Ratchet had a glance at it, then his optics rose to Sunstreaker’s face. There wasn’t anything Sunstreaker would’ve called suspicion there, though. 

Yet. “Did he get to your cover too? That couldn’t have been comfortable.”

“No, pretty sure that was the trees.”

And what of his lip? “Did you bite yourself when you fell, too?” Ratchet asked, frowning at his mouth.

That was a good explanation for it, actually. “Yeah. Like said, I hadn’t recovered from the warp,” Sunstreaker grumbled, averting his gaze with just the right amount of annoyance. “Not my best fall ever.”

“I would really prefer it if you had no falls whatsoever. What is with your obsession with heights when you can’t even facilitate flight?” Ratchet grumped, and Sunstreaker grinned. 

“What can I say, the scenery is really nice rushing towards your face.”

He got whacked for that, and laughed at Ratchet’s glaring. Yeah, not funny that he got injured and near-killed sometimes. 

It was kind of funny though.

And it looked like today was not the day anyone would start to suspect anything more than Skywarp had happened. Praise Primus below.

( Next )

[pengychan]

[Good Omens] Winging It - 1 Corinthians 13:13

Summary: Shockingly, attempting to destroy an angel without consulting God first comes with consequences. There is more than one way to fall, and a thousand more ways to inconvenience an angel and a demon who just wanted to be left in peace. Characters: Gabriel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Beelzebub, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon Rating: T  

Prologue and all chapters are tagged as ‘winging it’ on my blog.

A/N: Gabriel keeps missing the point by a mile but what else did you expect.

***

The funeral of Daniel Brown was a simple, dignified matter. 

Still, Gabriel found he was not overly fond of the Anglican rites; they just lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. But then again, he’d never quite understood why the humans in that island had bothered with the Schism: as far as he was concerned it had simply caused a lot of paperwork Heaven could have done without, and anyone involved on either side he might have questioned about motivations - if he’d cared - was in Hell. Their descendants seemed to have a thing for schisms, too, though this one seemed somehow even more senseless than the last to him.

But considering that he’d fought in what could be considered the first Schism, maybe he wasn’t in a position to talk. Holding back a sigh, Gabriel let his gaze wander across the church. He knew a good chunk of people attending, most of them co-workers he’d managed to free up that day by working a miracle on their schedules - or rather asking someone else to work a miracle on their schedules. Gabriel stood among them, in the third row, wearing his best suit. 

On his left, Fabrizio was wearing a much cheaper one he still somehow managed to look elegant in; somewhere on their right Łukasz still looked like he’d just come out of a pub, but with a jacket and tie on he had borrowed from Rajiv - a noticeable effort, as he absolutely loathed wearing ties. Daniel would have appreciated that.

On the other row, there were a few people Gabriel had never seen but who clearly must have known Daniel long before he did, in another life. Daniel did tend to say he’d had a life before losing his wife and home, and a life after that.

“What they don’t tell you about becoming a widower is that half the people you knew fall off the radar,” he’d told Gabriel in a rare moment of talkativeness on the subject. “A lot were couples and you know, it’s awkward to invite the guy who just lost his wife. I’m sure they had good intentions and to be honest, the few times they did invite me I made up an excuse. But then we just drifted and by the time I lost the house as well we hadn’t spoken in months.”

Gabriel didn’t know how many of those people were among those who had drifted away, nor he had any idea how Lawrence had found out about them and gotten in touch, but he had and there they were, and he supposed that had to count for something. He glanced ahead, towards the front row where Lawrence and Berenice stood. Lawrence’s head was bowed, and something ached in Gabriel’s chest. 

The unfairness of it all was staggering. The two brothers should have been reunited, shared what was left of their mortal existence; and instead Daniel had only returned in Lawrence’s life as a corpse to be buried. All that Gabriel had been able to give him of his brother were tales, some of them second hand. It was all he could give but ah, it couldn’t possibly be enough. 

If only he’d asked for help earlier, maybe they might have. But he hadn’t and there stood Lawrence, for the last goodbye. It was difficult not to think that none of those present, him aside, had the certainty of a life after their mortal one. That all they had, as they said their goodbyes to an empty vessel in a wooden casket, was the hope Daniel was not entirely gone. Faith that he was not entirely gone, amidst the grief.

And if he were in their place… Gabriel didn’t think hope alone would be enough for him. He didn’t think he could have that blind faith at all. He tried, but now he only felt more lost than ever.

You are the Archangel Gabriel no longer. God asks of you what they ask of every mortal. Faith.

When Gabriel bowed his head and his shoulders trembled, no one questioned it. 

You’re expected to weep at funerals, after all.

***

“More weeping.”

“Lord Beelzebub?”

“I said, this place needs more weeping. Weeping and gnashing of teeth, what happened to that? I don’t hear any teeth gnashing and barely any weeping! And why is the soul over there looking like it’s enjoying this?” Beelzebub demanded to know. 

The damned soul chained to the ceiling lifted its head and grinned. “Because I am,” it said. 

The Prince of Hell and Lord of the Flies sighed, lifted a hand to smite the insolent soul. The grin widened expectantly. They rolled their eyes and let the hand drop, much to the damned’s chagrin. Masochists were the absolute worst. “Remove that one from my presence and put it on paint watching duty for the next century.”

Their words were met by a horrified scream as demons moved in to unchain the soul and drag it away. “No! NO! ANYTHING BUT THAT!”

Ah, yes, that was more like it. Beelzebub nodded, and turned to the demons around them. “See, this is how it’s done. To each their most dreaded punishment, that’s what Circles are for, for Satan’s sake. The guidelines are there for a reason. You don’t just group them all in a few rooms and whip them. Since when has the lot of you grown so lazy and uninspired?”

A demon of slothfulness opened his mouth, only to snap it shut when Beelzebub dismissively waved a hand. “Except those whose job description requires it,” they clarified. The demon gave a very obvious sigh of relief as Beelzebub turned their attention on the others. “The rest of you have no excuses. Or do I have to further motivate you?”

Most demons on Eternal Torment duty were not precisely a shining example of intellectual prowess - it was the main reason why they were on Eternal Torment duty in the first place, not much else they could be used for - but even they were able to guess those words were meant to be a threat and reacted accordingly, shaking their head and bowing and mumbling excuses.

Except, of course, That One Demon that simply didn’t get it. “That would help, really.”

Several heads turned towards the demon who had just spoken, in a sudden silence. Even the cries of the tortured stopped, as did the buzzing of flies around Beelzebub’s head. That would have made even someone dumb as the dumbest rock realize they had fucked up, but this one was clearly dumber than the dumbest rock and spoke again rather than groveling for mercy.

“I mean, we’d been preparing for war since… always, and then suddenly no war. Doesn’t help motivate us a whole lot.”

Not since always. There was a time we didn’t even have a word to describe war. We created it when we rebelled and then forgot we did. 

Now that was exactly the kind of thought Beelzebub had come there to ignore, and to have it back at the forefront of their mind made their already foul mood… fouler. Considering that they were always in a foul mood, and that those days it was twice as foul, right in that moment said mood was about four times fouler than normal. “I’ll give you motivation,” Beezelbub buzzed.

They snapped their fingers and a swarm of horse flies materialized out of nowhere, surrounding the demon as he screamed and uselessly shielded his head. Everyone took a step or two or twenty away from him and the swarm of biting, bloodthirsty flies. Now that made the Lord of the Flies feel better again. Which was to say, in a mood that was only about twice as foul as usual.

“Once the flies are done, move that one to janitorial duty,” they ordered, and left without a word, leaving those lowly demons properly cowed. It was a good distraction, at least.

For now.

***

“Gabriel.”

Lawrence’s voice reached him as he took a few steps away, after watching the casket being taken to the hearse. He’d meant to leave quietly, but it seemed that Lawrence wouldn’t let him go without a word. Gabriel swallowed, tried to fight back the guilt - if only you’d swallowed your fear and asked for help finding him sooner - and turned. 

Lawrence was walking up to him, eyes still damp, leaning on the cane more heavily than he had last time they had met, as the reality of seeing off his brother’s casket had been a physical blow. He held out a hand. “Again, thank you. For bringing him back to me.”

Gabriel swallowed again, his mouth dry, and took that hand. “I wish I’d been able to find you sooner.”

“You did more than you had to do,” was the reply. “And I will be forever grateful. If you ever wish to spend some time on the seaside, our home is open to you. We’d love you to visit sometime.” 

This time, Gabriel managed a smile. “I wouldn’t want to impose--”

“We insist,” Berenice cut him off, seemingly materializing by her husband’s side, and held out her own hand. When Gabriel took it, he found himself pulled suddenly into a tight hug. Gabriel had read up the definition of a motherly hug somewhere, and couldn’t quite guess what that was supposed to mean - he’d never had a mother in the sense mortals meant it, although his current form did have a belly button for accuracy’s sake - but he suddenly thought that maybe, for a moment, he could understand. 

Ridiculous, that: he’d been created out of God’s will and was unfathomably older than the woman holding him. And yet.

“Do keep in touch,” Berenice said, pulling back, and Gabriel could only nod, through tight. 

“... Of course.”

A smile, a pat on his cheek, and they were off in a car following the hearse; it occurred to him only later that he had no idea where they were taking Daniel, where his grave would be. But then again, it hardly mattered. He could ask later, he supposed; not that Daniel would be there.

“Oi, Gabriel. You coming with us?” Łukasz called out, snapping him from his thoughts. 

“We’re going to have a drink at the usual place.”

“For Daniel.”

“Make it two.”

“Both for Daniel.”

“Of course.” Gabriel managed a weak smile. “You go ahead. I’ll join you in a bit.”

“If you don’t make us wait too long, we'll even pay your first round.”

A chuckle. “Sounds like a deal,” Gabriel said, and watched them go with a faint smile that died down a few moments later. He glanced back, at the small crowd before the church, already beginning to disperse, and sighed.

So, it was done. Lawrence had been found, and he’d been able to say goodbye the only way he could. The mission he’d taken upon himself had been accomplished. 

What now? What do I do now?

He bit his lower lip and dared glance up at the gathering rain clouds, hoping for a sign, instructions, anything. Of fucking course, none came. Humans don’t get instructions.

Gabriel lowered his gaze with a scoff and began walking, not even trying to shield himself as the first raindrops fell. He would join the others for a drink, he decided, and then… then…

“Sorry, mate - have you got any change?” The voice rang out suddenly, causing Gabriel to recoil. He glanced up to see a man sitting on the pavement, back against the wall, an upturned hat in front of him and a dog curled up by his side - a small scruffy thing that looked nowhere as elegant as Doyle, but the man was in the process of taking off his coat to lay it down on it. 

He looked barely in his twenties, of slim built, hair reddish-blond and overall looked nothing like Daniel had when they first had met - but there was a peculiar weariness to his voice that was the same. Gabriel watched for a moment as he shielded the dog from the rain, which was beginning to pick up. It didn’t look like he had another coat. 

The tent, Gabriel remembered, he let me sleep in his tent and didn’t even know me.

“Of course,” he found himself saying, and reached for his wallet. At least, this time he knew what the value of the bills and coins in his wallet was. The young man gave a sigh of relief.

“Oh, thank you,” he muttered. “I hate to ask like that, I usually sit quietly, honest. But if I can pay for something in a cafe we get to stay out of the rain for a while.”

Gabriel glanced up at the sky, only to get a drop of water right in the eye. He rubbed it, frowning. “Have you got someplace to stay the night?” he asked. He knew heavy rain was expected through the next couple of days. 

A shrug. “Not really. I used to sleep in a shelter from time to time, but then I found Chip.” He patted the dog’s muzzle, causing it to open its eyes and lick his hand. “And there isn’t a single bloody shelter that will let her in. I can sneak her into a motel if I get enough money during the day to pay for the night, but it doesn’t happen often. Most people go cashless these days. But it’s not too bad, until winter comes.”

“Unless it rains.”

“Unless it rains. But I’m saving up for a tent.”

“I see.” Gabriel opened his wallet. He was no expert on motel rates, but he estimated the cash he had on him would be enough to pay for a couple of nights. “Here,” he said, handing over the bills. “Hope it helps. For a motel, or for the tent.”

The young man’s thin face opened up in a startled smile. “Thank you, sir,” he said, taking it. 

“Gabriel. Name’s Gabriel.”

“Thanks, Gabriel. I’m Noah.”

Gabriel hadn’t meant to laugh, but it still escaped him, causing Noah to blink and Chip to lift her head, tilting it on one side. “Heh! Sorry, sorry - I shouldn’t have laughed. I just… remembered a guy I met once.” Gabriel gestured up to the sky, to the rain that was falling and beginning to soak their hair. “It’s looking like you should get to work to build that Ark, no?”

The puzzled expression on Noah’s face turned into a chuckle. “Ah, yes. Heard that a few times,” he said, and stood. “I’ll be getting us out of the rain, then. Thank you, mate.”

“You’re welcome.” Gabriel turned to walk away, hesitated, and turned back. Noah was tying the sleeves of the coat beneath Chip, so that she’d be dry as they walked. He cleared his throat, telling himself that the pub he was heading into was only a short walk away and some rain wouldn’t kill him. “I think you could use this,” he said, taking off his coat. “I have another home.”

He didn’t, but he could buy one. After some insistence, Noah accepted the gift and Gabriel walked off to the pub, letting the rain fall on him, once again wondering what he ought to do to please God.

Gabriel never was the brightest bulb in the box.

***

“So, have you given up on getting to the fallen Archangel?”

I’d very much rather forget about that idiot, but here you are making yourself an absolute pain in the ass and reminding me.

“I have not,” Beelzebub said, sprawled on their throne and making a point not to bother looking anywhere in Asmodeus’ general direction. One of the most annoying parts of having a fellow Prince of Hell show up before them was that they couldn’t tell them to shut the Heaven up without things getting quite ugly. Not that they generally minded things getting ugly - they were in Hell, all things were ugly all the time - but it would likely turn into a full-blown feud.

Which, with the demons still rather put off by the lack of Apocalypse and subsequent war, things could get out of hand rather quickly. “You have not? I’m told you have not left Hell in weeks.”

“And…?”

“Have you assigned someone else to winning him over? I thought it was meant to be a personal project,” Asmodeus said with  a shrug, his mismatched, sunken-in eyes glinting in malevolent glee. “One would think you’d have won him over by now. Out of practice, are you?”

Beelzebub scoffed, finally turning to look at him. “What do I owe the displeasure of your visit?” they asked, cutting the chase.

A shrug. “I want us to get the archangel for ourselves, is all. With no war happening in the foreseeable future, a small victory is better than none to keep the spirits up. Or down, depending how you look at it. It would be quite a feather in your hat, taking his soul. Is that not what you wanted?”

“He is an idiot,” Beelzebub scoffed. “And an archangel no longer. His soul is worth no more and no less than any other human’s.”

“But he was God’s messenger.”

“Who he was doesn’t matter for him as it doesn’t matter for us. We are who we are now.”

Asmodeus shrugged. “Points of view. Well then, if you’re dropping the project, I’ll be picking it--”

“I didn’t say I’m dropping it,” was the sharp reply. Truth be told they did have every intention to do just that - best not to see him, best not to remember, best not to think - but something about the idea Asmodeus or anyone else could claim his soul for Hell rubbed them all the wrong ways. The former Archangel Gabriel in Hell, with Asmodeus as his liege lord. That wouldn’t do at all.

As for the reason why it wouldn’t do, Beelzebub would rather not speculate. They settled on the thought it would amount to leaving that particular feather in someone else’s hat, and of course they couldn’t do that. They were the Lord of the Flies, the one Prince of Hell Satan had tasked with preparing for the War, and therefore they had a certain standing. 

The fact they couldn’t get that war started, while not blamed on them for obvious reasons, had been a loss of prestige. They were not looking to hand someone else an easy victory over them.

“Oh?” Asmodeus tilted his head. “You’re not?”

Beelzebub waved a hand. “I’m waiting for him to lower his guard. Think he’s safe. His soul is worth little, but Hell shall have it,” they added. Then they’d assign him to some task well away from them, so they wouldn’t have to see his stupid face all the time and remember what was best forgotten. But, of course, they didn’t say that part aloud: they couldn’t bring up knowledge they were not meant to have. It would be… unwise.

Although, come to think of it, what had been brought up may very well give them just the leverage they needed to sway that fool on the road to Hell.

***

“We are… not certain we are meant to consume any of this.”

“Well, it’s going to look rather odd if I’m the only one eating out of all four of us, wouldn’t it?” Gabriel put down his menu, which he had picked up despite knowing full well what he was going to order. “The trick is going through the menu once, pick a dish, and if you like it you keep ordering it whenever you come to the establishment again.”

Sandalphon looked confused. “Then why did you read all the dishes again just now?”

“Ah, that’s just something you do. Etiquette, I suppose. I usually have a double bacon cheeseburger and chips,” he added.

Approximately eight miles away Aziraphale made a face, causing Crowley to pause on his piece about the absolute necessity of a proper wine cellar in the cottage. “What is it, Angel?” “Oh… nothing at all, dear,” he said, waving a hand. “Just a moment, already passed. Concerning the wine selection, I think we absolutely ought to have…”

“... Chips?”

“That would be potatoes. They’re also served with fish.”

“What fish?” Uriel asked, eyeing the photo on the menu. “There are approximately thirty-four thousand species of fish on Earth, and this looks like none of them.”

“I’m not sure. I guess we could ask,” he said, knowing full well that was likely going to end in a chorus of ‘we’re having what he’s having’ right after he uttered his order, which was… exactly what happened. 

“Well,” Gabriel said as soon as the waiter was gone with their rather monotonous orders. “How are things going in--” a pause, a glance towards the next table over, which was entirely too close and well within earshot. “... At work?”

As expected, everything in Heaven was pretty much business as usual, aside from the fact they no longer had to prepare for an all-out war for victory or destruction. The war to end all wars, to be fought with more than just swords or spears - holy water and hellfire were to play a part, too. At the very least, they had prepared to use holy water, and had expected hellfire. Complete and utter destruction. They had never thought they might lose, and hardly ever paid any mind to the idea some of them may be destroyed, victorious or not.

Nor had they spared a thought for the demons they would extinguish, of course; they were meant to be destroyed, having sealed their fate the day they chose to rebel... only that now he found he was relieved it had not come to that. He'd known them, once, though the memory of the angels they had been was still beyond his grasp, as he hadn't tried to bring up more. The agony caused by bringing back up everything Ba'al had been to him was painful enough.

He'd done his best not to think about Beelzebub at all over the past few weeks, and it had… sort of worked. If he ignored it hard enough the sting was muted, duller, lost in the background. He was almost good enough at lying to himself to believe that nothing at all had happened, no memory that mattered had been brought up, and surely it would get easier as more time passed and Beelzebub no longer showed their face.

He could tell himself it was a relief, that he did not miss their presence, as Ba'al or as the Lord of the Flies. Maybe in time he would come to truly believe it, but somehow he doubted it. Once the veil has been ripped in two, it is hard to mend. It would have been easier if it was never ripped, if everything went according to the Great Plan; nothing to question, nothing to fear.

And even so, God, he was glad the war had not come. He was glad that Beelzebub had not been destroyed, that humanity was still there, that no angel had perished. And all thanks to a rebellious child turning against his Father.

Ironic, that

"... And that's about it," Sandalphon finished over a mouthful of double bacon cheeseburger, which he seemed to appreciate after all. Uriel had eaten the chips, at least; Michael still seemed rather unconvinced and had simply moved food around to make it look like she had eaten something. "What about--" Sandalphon trailed off, and went very still, eyeing around. "Something smells evil," he muttered, his voice low, causing Gabriel’s hair to stand on end. 

He turned - they all did - to glance around, as discreetly as they could, but none of them noticed anything. Gabriel did a fly buzzing close by, but they were sitting outside to eat and… well, maybe it was just a fly. He hoped it was just a fly.

Do I really?

“Ah, it’s gone,” Sandalphon was muttering. “It was a whiff, but I can’t smell it anymore.”

“... Probably a passing human with evil intent,” Gabriel said, keeping his voice.

“Probably,” Michael conceded, and looked back at him. “We can take you home and take turns to watch, just to be on the safe side.”

That would probably be excessive, Gabriel mused, because the fly was probably just a fly. But what concerned him was something else - how part of him hoped otherwise, that it wasn’t just a fly, against all logic and common sense. 

“I am sure it won’t be needed,” he finally said, and took the last bite of his meal, faintly wondering if somewhere on another plane of existence there was now a file about him to record deeds good and evil, and if the lie he’d just uttered was already being written on it, placing him just a tiny step closer to Hell.

***

Beelzebub did not like dilemmas. 

That discovery was unpleasant as it was recent; as prior to that mess - at least in their recent memories - they had never truly found themselves faced with one; in doubt, which was not often as evil accepts little doubt,  they simply went for the bigger evil and that was it. But now the decision was whether or not they should use the knowledge they had gained of themselves and Gabriel to sway the former archangel and it was, indeed, a dilemma of the worst sort.

It would be best to never bring the past up again and try with all their might to forget again, they knew that. However, that would be as good as admitting themselves that the discovery did bother them, for all their claims that it changed nothing… and they didn’t want to do that either. 

They thought back of that night, how Gabriel’s eyes leaked and theirs didn’t; focused on that only, ignoring the overwhelming sense of love cloying their throat, the ache somewhere at their very core that they could not and wished not name. None of it mattered.

Gabriel had wept. They did not. 

It changes nothing for me, Beelzebub mused, but it might change everything for this fool. Hell shall have him and it shall be my doing, Asmodeus be blessed. I only need to change strategy.

And with that thought, their mind was made up. The Lord of the Flies took wing, and followed Gabriel home. They had to talk.

Alone.

***

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

***

[Back]

[Next]

[salenakingston]

Decided to kick things off by doing a sample prompt to try and get my work out there. I asked my fiancé to pick a prompt and I rolled with it. Thanks my beloved. Any other prompts I get will follow this same format. Might as well get that out of the way. Any warnings will be placed at the top and in the tags.

Prompt: “it could be worse.”

“You aren’t the one bleeding.”

“Look, you are still alive. Stop whining.”

Warnings: Bodies/Corpses, Blood, Cannibalism, Violence, Death

Timeline of Events: Pre-Whitegale Estate (Backstory)

Total Word Count: 2,169 words

What was once believed to be impossible became a reality when a single switch had been flipped, the world around every living being changing forever. Living in a day and age where crime and punishment was seen in just black and white rather than a spectrum came with their own set of consequences.

A blazing fire.

Rotting flesh.

Screams.

Anger boiled out from one source, unable to be contained by the loss that had been suffered. Sickly green and the sheen of silver surrounded the space. It consumed anything that it touched, much like the same orange that enraged there once before. The smell was disgusting, but there was a certain amount of pleasure that came with it. It meant that the fires were winning. Wires tore, fire blazed, and blood painted the wood, stone, and earth beneath.

And then there was the continued screaming.

So much terror, but almost like it was music. At least that was how it started.

Then its luster began to fade.

The voices and ringing grew louder.

Louder.

LOUDER.

SCREAMING.

The sound of metal clinking against tile echoed through the room. A tool had been dropped from a shaking hand, a hand belonging to a tired looking man. Even though he wasn’t that old, nearly all of his hairs had turned white. A ratted duster covered most of his exposed body, the smell of iron hanging in the air around him. Bloody and bandaged fingers gripped at the side of a metal table, bile rising in his mouth as he leaned over. This was not the first time something like this had happened, though rarely was it when he was awake. He must have been trying a new tactic.

As if any of the other ones he had already tried weren’t bad enough.

“Stop!” The man’s voice rang out in the seemingly empty air. A chuckle echoed in the back of his mind, a pain spiking along the side of his head. Hands tightened around the grip of the table, sure that if he were to let go that he would crumble to the floor. He couldn’t make it seem like he had given in, even if it meant choosing the illogical option of the two placed in front of him. Standing in the face of pain seemed a much more bold display than falling and clinging to the spot where the pain emanated.

The chuckling didn’t stop, and soon shifted more into laughter. It had such a taunting tone to it, mocking the man for his current position. A voice pushed its way to the forefront of any of his thoughts, “Aww, what’s the matter? Don’t like taking a walk down memory lane?”

“I am w-wor-rking.” The man stuttered out. His once confident voice began to deteriorate when this demon invaded. He couldn’t hide how tiring it was to keep fighting back.

His eyes flashed for a moment, green flickering to orange, “Come on Malceum. You’ve been picking at these bodies for hours. Let’s go have some fun.”

“No. I-I’m so c-clos-se. I ca-an f-feel it.”

An entire lifetime’s worth of knowledge could have been, no.. had been, crammed into the man’s head since magic and the unknown became as real as anything else. The coined title of a ‘warlock’ held very little meaning when their powers couldn’t be seen by any passing person that he came across. Most information had been very hard to come by, but he had managed. Desperation drove him to pursue this knowledge by any means necessary, consequences be damned.

He was already suffering far worse than whatever sort of law enforcement might be able to do to him.

He couldn’t stop working. Sleep was an afterthought. Food was something only to be taken when absolutely necessary, unless he was forced to by his tormentor. He was always so careful, every cut precise, each test ran to the finest process. His surgeon skills were placed perfectly to obtain anything he needed, and there never seemed to be a shortage of bodies for him to use, whether that came from work, or by his own hands.

Even through the bandages he could feel his skin coated with blood. Sometimes he disgusted himself at the level of brutality he would do to a corpse, but it all faded when he remembered who he was doing all this for.

No, he couldn’t afford to stop working for a moment.

But he didn’t like that. He didn’t like getting ‘no’ for an answer.

Eyes flickered again, that familiar feeling of bile beginning to rise in his throat. His head pressed to the table, dry heaving above the pristine tile. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to hold onto himself before one of two outcomes were to take place. He would take over, or he would have to endure another punishment. It seemed that he was keen on the former of those two this time around.

Sickness was just a means of bending his plaything to his will.

After a valiant effort on his host’s part, the flames of his eyes finally faded, and in their place came those silted orange ones. How nice it was to be able to be the one in control again. Pushing himself back up, his arms stretched out, no longer feeling any sort of pain radiating, “Sorry my dear host, but you’ve been in here for far too long. Let’s go for a little evening stroll.”

Was it evening already? Just how much time had really passed since he had begun working? Everything just seemed to blur together for him.

They left the lab, tucked safely under his own office building. Being a private surgeon had its perks, especially when considering the country he lived in. Germany never did have a good reputation, but it with the people that lived here, or with other nations at large. The pay was alright, and good thing too when it came to getting more that was required for the project at hand. They turned around, making sure the door was locked out of habit, but mostly because he knew his host would panic otherwise.

They turned down the street, pulling the hood of his duster up. They had been sure to clear their hands before coming out here, but the same could not be said for the splatters of red staining brown along his chest. It didn’t seem to bother them anyways. They kept their head held high, not paying too much mind to the lights beaming down from lamps, or the glow that shined from the moon and stars above.

Well, now it was more a matter of finding some entertainment. That was the whole point of this anyways.

Orange eyes darted around the streets in front of him. Now then, what would be a perfect place? It’ll have to be somewhere secluded, or easy to access for such a thing. Maybe we should feast again. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

No…

A strong arm soon wrapped around their tiny torso, pulling him into a nearby alley. There wasn’t much of a point to fighting back, as this could be just the kind of entertainment that he was seeking. They were dragged further into the darkness, their eyes seeming to be the only thing that glowed against their surroundings. The tugging soon stopped, their body colliding into a brick wall. Well, wasn’t this just as cliché as it got? Right down to the number of bodies he managed to catch in the moonlight, their armed persons, and even some of them waving magic around as if it was supposed to be threatening.

Fools.

They should run.

But they won’t. You’re an easy target.

They brush themselves off, standing up properly before addressing the thugs, “What a shame you all must be to this supposed great country. Just living up to what the world thinks of us aren’t you?”

“This one’s sure got a mouth on him.” “Oh don’t worry, we’ll fix that.”

Typical, and stupid. They were the ones in danger.

Run!

They stepped forward, concern thrown out the window as they casually placed one hand on the closest thug, “Now listen here, I’m a very busy man. This has been fun, but I can guarantee this little interaction is going to be far too boring for me. Maybe I’ll be nice just this one time and let you all leave with your lives. How’s that sound?”

All of them seemed genuinely shocked, as if they had never had one of their victims act so bold before. But they knew how this was going to go. The group was going to swell their ego. They were not going to let this one man simply walk away. A pity that none of them ever learned. Oh well, guess he was going to have to take this. He would find a way to make this more thrilling.

They felt something insert itself inside them. More than one thing really. How dull. Their weapons tore along the broken man’s body, echoes of cries ringing in their head. Oh his poor, little toy. Laughter exploded from the man’s lips. There was hesitance around him, eyebrows raising, positions frozen. Their laughter didn’t seem to die down at all, and the longer it went on, the more wrong this all seemed to be.

Shines of silver began to shine from the man’s body, almost like tiny little threads were twirling around them. Without much warning, the threads, wires, took hold of their victims. The weapons fell from their body, clanging to the stone walkway of the alley. They stepped over towards one of their victims, an ear to ear grin stretching across their face, “Poor sods. I was willing to be nice, but you didn’t want to listen.”

Stop.

“You know, my host hasn’t had a good meal for a while. I would know, I am constantly watching him. Maybe it’s time we fixed that.”

Stop!

“Maybe I’ll even be much more generous and gift him some new test subjects for his little project. You all should be honored!”

STOP! They stepped close, the wires wrapping tightly around the victims’ bodies, specifically over their mouths. Couldn’t let anyone hear their screaming now could they? The last thing that thug saw was a row of sharp teeth, something no human should ever have. They sank into his flesh, ripping and tearing the skin before devouring the meat to their heart’s content.

He was disgusted.

He hated himself.

He never wanted a life like this. Why did he have to do this to him?

Wires dragged the new corpses back in the darkness, coming back to the door of a familiar office. It was unlocked, and then the man stepped back inside. His grin hadn’t faded, not even as he padded down the familiar steps to the lab, “That was actually quite fun, and look! Your stomach isn’t empty anymore. Aren’t I just so kind to you?”

Silence.

Once they came to the same surgical room, the bodies were tossed to one corner, as if they were nothing more than just trash. They stepped over to a mirror, arms lifting up to undo the duster. There were a few deep gashing along their chest, something only seemed to bother the one that had become nothing more than a voice. Their shoulders shrugged at the sight, “It could be worse.”

You’re not the one bleeding.

“Look, you’re still alive. Stop whining. As if I would let anything happen to my little pet. If you were dying, I’d be the first to know. You’re fine.”

No… he wasn’t. He hadn’t been for a long time.

But that’s why he was here in the first place, wasn’t he?

They guided their body over to the numerous medical supplies, hands coming together, “Come now, let’s get you patched up.”

The rest of the night dragged on, harsher than it needed to be with his form of healing. By the time Malceum had come back into the picture, his mind was more tired, and his body spent. He finally was able to make his way to bed, off to a sleep he knew would not be pleasant. When he woke up the next morning…? Was it morning? The sun was out, but time was broken to him. It didn’t really matter, not having anything scheduled for today.

A paper rested at his doorstep, a familiar news article about a brutal mauling in the city’s alleys staring him in the face. This was not the first time he had seen this, and was sure it would not be the last. Slipping into a cleaner duster, the man returned to the lab, iron smacking his senses. Right… his new subjects. Well… might as well use them since they were here.

Time to get to work?

A sigh, “T-Tim-me to get to w-work.”

[courtorderedcake]

Hallow : ch xiv - CSSNS 2019

“The Goblin King was prepared to host the Darkness, stealing Fae women away to their corrupted lands underneath the ground as concubines. The Darkness chose another in his stead, but not before this selected vessel enacted a devastating attack in its vengeance, revealing its hatred & rage. The battle was a lesson the old kings had forgotten; never underestimate an opponent.

Many more lives were lost as they razed over any who dared defy The Goblin King’s will. Only the pure love of our rulers united in matrimony, breaking the Vorpal Dagger, sealed the darkness and the Goblin menace away. The light flourished under their fair rule, and the queen bore a child as pure as moon beams, swan feathers, and starlight. They lived happily ever after, and shall be written in history as Heroes for All Time.”

This is the history Princess Emma memorizes from the day she is born, paraded about and presented only with the highest protection. The palace is a cage she wishes to escape, desperately. Not careful what wishes she made, Emma discovers history is written by the victors - The Dark One has an entirely different version of the events that took place.

Read on AO3 here.

Rated E for explicit themes, Mature situations, and Fae fuckery.

Written for @cssns

Ch / ?? - In which they will always find each other

He woke to Lilly sitting beside Emma, holding her hand in her own. The sight made his stomach lurch. While things were still jumbled in his head, he could distinctly remember her betrayal as she burned the castle they were in to the ground as a Dragon, and her indifference on the beach as Emma was drained. She looked up to see him watching, and he could see she was crying, tears falling over a bitter frown. 

“I know. I don’t have any excuses… Cruella manipulated me as if I was a puppet. I couldn’t see it before, but now it’s like I see everything.” Lilly looked down, lightly smoothing Emma’s hair. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how - I don’t think I’m a match for her here or there. She’s so much more powerful than I ever could imagine. She fooled us all.”

“Did you see Emma? I couldn’t get to her before I woke. Isaac pulled me into some kind of bubble. She looks even weaker, and last I saw her…”

“Cruella is draining so much more than usual. I don’t understand how or why Cruella keeps taking her magic, but Emma is falling apart. Her dreams are sometimes unstable, her magic is too powerful to be contained within the rites, and it’s not always Isaac in control. I am really frightened for her.” Lilly swallowed hard. “I saw Cruella talking to this… this thing; a big black monster wearing a no face, I mean, a husk mask. It spoke in a thousand voices, and was almost gelatinous, forming limbs as it pleased. Emma swore she saw the same monster in the bath house here, and it told her that it was ‘Hungry’. I didn’t believe her then, but I heard it say the same thing as Cruella soothed it. She promised it that she would free it soon, as soon as she was done fattening it up. Does she mean for it to eat Emma? Why would she befriend that thing?”

Isaac’s words began to return to him. 

“The hungry ghosts. Cruella wants Emma to be a husk. If Emma falls and loses herself, Cruella will be more than powerful, practically unstoppable, with Emma’s magic fueling her own. That creature you saw is what’s left of the husk’s who got lost in those fantasies, tricked by Cruella. Isaac has an idea - Emma has to hang on, has to shock herself awake through nightmare after nightmare, but not lose herself in the process.”

“Cruella is not going to go down without a fight,” Lilly warned, and he nodded, Emma’s pull making him suddenly tired. “I’ll keep watch. Get Emma out of there, and please keep her safe.”

“That’s the plan. I won’t leave her.” He closed his eyes, feeling himself leave the cathedral. 

A noise stopped him and as if he was a ghost, he looked down at Emma, himself, and Lilly struggling against two men. One carried a crowbar while the other brandished a club, swiping at her as she looked back to where they lay. With a pucker of her lips and a deep breath, Lilly blew fire in a circle around them all, the men stalking the perimeter. 

“Now now, Lillykins. That wasn’t very fair, considering. Horace and Jasper just wanted to greet you with a firm salutation.” Cruella stepped across the flames, the orange fire going green as she passed through. She smiled in her spotted dress as Lilly backed up against the dais. 

“What more do you want? You’re killing her!” Lilly yelled, and Cruella laughed. 

“I’ve been doing this for a long time now, luvvie. If I’d do it to my own kin, what makes her anything special? It’s poetry that she’s also an enemy, and so strong, but I’d have manipulated this outcome regardless.” Cruella smiled, approaching where Emma slept. “Now listen, be a darling little beast and move out of the way so I can make sure no one interferes anymore. It’ll only take a minute.”

“No! Why are you doing this? What do you mean your own kind? I don’t understand, I -" 

The man with the club connected it hard to Lilly’s skull, Cruella looking on with a piteous grimace. The Dragon princess crumpled, falling to the floor and twitching, Killian’s view stuttering as she lost consciousness. Cruella tried to push Lilly aside with her foot, but grew annoyed within seconds. 

"Horace! Jasper! Throw her in the crypts. I have work to do.”

The taller of the men picked up Lilly as the Dragon groaned, Killian relieved to see her alive. They stepped out, and his vision of the cathedral grew foggy. The pull was getting too strong to resist as Lilly faded further into his mind, regardless of his grounding anger towards the Kitsune queen. 

“Oh, Princess. You will be the finest of my collection. When my ghosts get a taste of you, oh, how they’ll feast. You’ll all be so angry,” Cruella cackled, her voice far away now. “I cannot wait to see what the full extent of your magic can do.”

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

The explanation Killian had given Queen Snow was thorough, but much more like a briefing than the story of what had all gone on. He intentionally skirted around his and Emma’s misunderstandings, both good and bad, and left out as much of Her Grace’s mistakes as possible. If that conversation was to be had, it belonged rightfully to Emma. Telling her that Emma’s determination and belief that he had faith in her was enough to place her in peril would be more than enough of a conversation between him and the queen. It didn’t help that he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from praise, Emma’s unselfish, kind, and courageous attempts to save him from cruelty while he should have been protecting her forefront in his mind now that Cruella preyed on them so openly. 

“So, a sleeping curse cast by none other than Cruella De Villé. I wish I could say I was surprised. I truly had hoped Maleficent’s influence and Regina staying the sword over their necks would have changed their ways.” The queen sighed deeply. “That still begs the question, why did you run to my daughter’s aid?" 

Because I would do anything to save her. I owe her that, a thousand times moreover. Because I… 

"I already destroyed my own family once and that was hard enough.” He kept his tone formal, although his nerves felt like they were fraying as the queen observed him with an owlish glare. His unfinished thought rattled him. Did she know? “But knowing that I destroyed yours, too? I just—I didn’t know how I could live with that." 

"Interesting, but not an answer that relates directly to Emma. From what I have gathered, you have saved my daughter several times now, nearly meeting very unpleasant consequences for doing so. The way you danced with her, your mannerisms and candor, it all belies a sense of familiarity that goes past friendship.” She raised an eyebrow, and he could feel the burn of her eyes on him. “Considering your… track record as it were, I’m wondering what you see of value in Emma that you would risk injury for. How do I know you haven’t just poisoned her into a cursed sleep like you did to me?”

Killian gulped, and her eyes narrowed. 

“I don’t know how to live with myself after I…” The pause was awkwardly long, but the queen nodded in understanding, encouraging him to continue. 

“Knowing fully, being unable to escape it in my cowardice by fleeing to Darkness - I can’t do that with her next to me. Every action I took, the massacre I committed haunts me, and I carry its weight as I should, and as I have to. Most killed weren’t even men; we trained green boys to go to a slaughter. I see their faces over and over without the ability to stop myself. I failed them, and I lost them. So many lost men, lost boys, all of them at my hand but not my will. I will never forget them. I can’t forget that night or so many like it following the dagger’s commands. I am trying to overcome this, to make sure that I am never a danger again, Darkness or not.”

“Lost boys and men come back to haunt anyone with a part in the war, but you have to be first on their list. You say you had no control, and now you do because of my daughter’s presence. Are you sure my Emma is not a crutch for you?” she asked. 

“She isn’t. She asks of me to lay with her -” Her reaction was vicious and instantaneous, the blade to his neck back and closer to spilling his blood than before. 

“You’ve been intimate with my daughter? I should kill you right now for that alone and pray it sticks!" 

"I swear on Liam and his honor, I haven’t touched her other than to lay beside her -” Killian rasped, pressed back into the wall. The queen was smaller than him or even Emma, but she was faster and far stronger than he’d expected. 

The sword jutted up harder, and he tried not to swear. 

“With no intentions more than soothing her from the shock she’s developed.”

The queen lowered her sword, looking surprised. She backed up a step still pointing the blade at him. “Emma has developed…" 

"She is unable to rest at all without having fits of panic in her sleep. It isn’t my place to say, but she has seen more bloodshed than most nobles, even when I have tried to guard her from it.” He rubbed his neck breathing hard, the queen biting her lip and looking aside. “There’s also her fear of Nil, especially considering what he’s said he wants to do to her.”

“My poor… Oh, my Emma,” she whispered. 

“I swear to you that I have no plans to have any sort of relationship with her after this. The Darkness will never allow it and I can’t risk hurting her.” He laid out his hands in a gesture of supplication, the queen sheathing her sword. “I want her to be happy.”

The queen took a moment to smooth her dress and tuck in her sword under a bit of skirt. After the moment of silence, she spoke quietly. 

“You sound as if you have feelings for her, though.”

She was as perceptive as Emma, staring through him like glass. 

Killian shook his head. “Only in a place where I am allowed to have them. I’m not as lucky in the waking world. I’m aware in both of my…” He grimaced, and clasped his hands behind his back. “I know I am far below the mark for who is worthy of her, even without her status, and I am very aware of my limitations regarding my curse. I carry the Darkness, outside of these rites. I can’t be around her, I can’t have feelings for anyone, let alone her. I also know my limitations regarding my history with everyone she holds dear. I would never allow that sort of pain for her. When she wakes, she will have forgotten this, and anything other than undergoing the rites." 

"Hm. Well,” she mused, and pressed her hand to her cheek. “Let’s see how Emma responds to these emotions of yours, knowing that you are under my watchful gaze and in great peril should you be anything less than her standards. You may be poisoning her heart and mind, as you sentenced me to sleep without waking. Although…" 

Her shoulders tightened as she opened the door to let them out of the dim study. He almost did not hear her whisper when it came. 

"Emma is a surprisingly good judge of character, except when it comes to you, apparently." 

He nodded. "That I wholeheartedly agree with, Your Majesty.”

They walked back through the corridor and into the ballroom where Anna, Ingrid, and Emma looked up with surprised delight. 

“There you are! We were just telling the princess about your skill at sailing and the sword. She’s never been on the sea, you know.” Ingrid smiled coyly, pulling a goblet to her lips to drink. Emma blushed, and Anna curtsied at the queen who waved her off. 

“Anna, you never need do all that. Formality went out of our shared window when you brought ducklings into our dormitories and I somehow became their mum. As far as I am concerned, while David is my husband, you were clearly my first partner.” Anna laughed brightly, and the queen gave Killian a nod as she pulled Ingrid and Anna away. 

“I take it my father is sulking somewhere from my mother’s tongue lashing?” Emma asked, wringing her hands. 

Killian snorted at the truth of the situation, but pulled a chair out, offering her a seat. She sat with a sigh, playing with a leftover bit of cheese on her small tasting plate. 

“Something like that. He was just worried is all. My family doesn’t have the best legacy -" 

"You and Captain Liam have fixed that legacy ten times over, and the Arendelle kingdom sings your house’s praises! What nonsense! Why I -” Emma huffed, crossing her arms. 

“How do you know all that?” he interrupted to ask, looking at her as she opened her mouth to speak, then abruptly closed it. She thought for a moment, then pressed fingers to her temples. 

“I don’t know, actually,” Emma murmured after a long pause. “I know so much about you that I can not figure out how I have learned. Like I said before, it’s like I know you." 

"Tell me something about myself, and if it’s right, I’ll reciprocate. If it’s not, you know that you’re just overwhelmed by your neverending duties to people who you feel don’t care about the real you, but only as some figurehead ideal, and you have created some elaborate, imagined story for me.” Her head shot up as she looked at him in shock. “You may find we know a lot about the other somehow, instinctually. As if you’ve known all along.”

“How…? Alright. Alright then.” Emma straightened, squaring her shoulders and locking her eyes with his. “You hate hot chocolate, even with cinnamon, which is a dreadful shame. You take Chicory instead, black as night, and like all sorts of bitter things. You don’t like thunderstorms, or like things out of your prescribed order, and both make you tense; the former more than the latter. You won’t admit that you enjoy dancing, but you do, and my theory is that it is a way for you to separate your mind from the action that is almost muscle memory. While you are very skilled with a sword, you are better with a cutlass that’s a bit longer, and better still with a pole, trident, or halberd. You know the constellations in the night sky as if they were friends you are describing, and can identify just about any fish or plant.”

Emma paused, thinking hard. “In fact, actually - I think you’re smarter than me, both in ways of the outside world’s workings which is to be understood, but rarer still, better read than me. What I don’t know you do, and the things that have escaped your knowledge, I am well versed on. The only thing we both don’t know is history, but that’s because it’s all based on testimony…”

Her eyes widened, but she stopped, her lip pulled between her teeth as her mind turned over what she’d discovered. 

Smiling, he leaned forward. “That was more than one, love. But, then again, you only pretend to like rules. Truly you find them suffocating. You love hot chocolate but also have a penchant for tarts, cookies, and cinnamon pastries preferably with glaze. You would eat granite rocks if they came with frosting on top, I’m almost positive.” Emma laughed, then covered her mouth with a blush. He continued. 

“You lived - live within a precise and fine tuned schedule, reveling in chaos where you cou - can make it. You have napped in the library shelves to escape nannies, tormented Granny the cook with her own granddaughter just behind, and have played more tricks on visitors than you dare admit to. You don’t like the idea of being trapped anywhere, but have accepted it as your duty. It makes you sad, but the thought of disappointing your family makes you feel even worse.” She let him take her hand, and he could hear her breathing hitch. “You’re a good person, and lovely inside and out. You have an uncanny ability to bring people together and find the silver linings in the world that others can’t see. It may be frustrating sometimes to have to try and dissuade you from your efforts of playing savior, but you come out on top regardless.”

“Captain,” she began, slowly. He interrupted her with a laugh, and she raised an eyebrow. 

“I was never a captain,” he managed to chuckle out, and she gave him a look of confusion. He squeezed her hand lightly. “Please - For you, it is always Killian.”

She nodded. “That’s right. You are - were - a lieutenant, but I don't… I don’t understand any of this.”

“You don’t have to. If you don’t mind, I’d love to see this world with you. You talk about it often and it would be nice to have a visual to go with your stories." 

"So we do know each other then?” He nodded and she smiled wide. “Do we - are we courting?" 

"Not exactly, but for all intents and purposes, here we have the opportunity to if you wish it.” She blushed, but her grin remained. 

“What is 'here’? My home, the palace? Or -" 

He grimaced, trying to figure out any way to summarize. "That gets… It all becomes more difficult to unravel the further you go.”

“Well, the quicker you begin the story of how this all came to be, the quicker you will be out of it.” Emma smirked, rising. “I do so love a challenge.”

“Alright. Then I’ll start at the beginning, aye?" 

"And I shall do the same, come.” Emma took his hand in hers, pulling him with her behind a curtain. Her body seemed to relax, the spring in her step more playful as she ducked into a corridor. “Let me spirit you away to my world.”

She led him to the library while he gave parts of their tale, pointing out to him towering shelves and long ladders leading to hidden alcoves, although her favorites for napping or hiding away were the highlights in her introduction of the grand space. Conspiratorially she showed him the hidden shelf that she hid illicit novels, the descriptions making her blush when he read them aloud. 

“Devoted Acolyte and Priestess, Jeriline Clearbrook, has been devoted to her craft of healing all lost souls who wander through her temple. She serves as a perfect student of the Goddess Wü, her vow to preserve her maidenhood under the teachings sacramount. 

When a non-believer from the barbaric North Kingdom is trapped within the temple walls by the magic of the Goddess, Jeriline fears that a terrible cosmic error has been made. Kadejah is rugged, unrefined, and headstrong in his beliefs - especially his belief that he should be free of his cursed confinement. His interest in Jeriline starts purely to gain his freedom, but slowly morphs into something more, challenging everything they both hold dear and their very identities.”

“It’s not as trite as the description would lead you to believe -” Emma sputtered, but as he read a particularly wicked passage about the priestess’s seduction, she ripped the book away from him. 

“I thought it was illuminating, how despite their differences and the very Gods forbidding it,” Killian teased, trailing a finger over the color that graced her neck, “Kadejah still managed to make her 'scream his name as he filled her to the brim with his massive -’ " 

"I can’t imagine why I don’t remember you at all,” Emma hissed, pushing the book back into its nook. “Such grand and supportive fun you offer.”

His teasing earned him a steely review of their next stops, as Emma tried to regain her calm amid his flustering her. The great hall and grand stairway were beautiful, and as Emma relaxed again, she seemed to remember him further. His comments began to meet her own, their rapport beginning to follow its normal beat. In the tapestry vault, she lingered closer to him, watching him carefully as he smoothed out long banners and throws. When Killian met her gaze, she did not flutter away or panic, but instead studied him closer still, looking for answers he knew she would find. 

They spent time in the menagerie area where the royal collection of animals were kept, talking about everything they could remember about each other. When a topic changed, he brought up twenty questions or silly word games while Emma remembered more by the second. She stroked a bright yellow elephant, feeding it mango as Killian puzzled over guessing what his name might be. 

“Mouse?” he asked, and she shook her head. 

“Smaller, and more colorful, with almost infinite varieties.” Emma stroked behind the beast’s ear, earning a half trumpeted snort. “Think things that fly, but are hardy -" 

"Bird?" 

"No, but closer! Tinier still, although some can be large, I suppose. Same letter, and birds eat them.” Emma shrugged. 

Killian snapped his fingers, sitting up. “Bug?" 

Emma grinned, nodding. She tossed him a mango, and he approached cautiously, Bug lifting his long yellow trunk to grab the ripe fruit. "I ride him every odd occasion, in parades or into meetings if I feel the need to have a dramatic entrance." 

"Well, he does make quite the statement,” Killian laughed. 

Emma motioned her hand, and the elephant lifted him with ease, despite his yelp. After a moment he was seated along with her on its back, Bug carefully trotting down a hallway. 

“This obviously wouldn’t be allowed normally, but I have always wanted to do this. My mother would lose her mind if she even got wind of the idea!” Emma giggled, and he laughed too. “I wonder how dream mom would react -" 

"She’s not a dream, actually. At least I don’t think so. Do you remember everything yet, or…?” Killian asked. Emma shook her head, leaning back into him. 

“Some things,” she whispered. “I am dreaming, and so are you, but you and I have feelings for each other. I can control some aspects, but there is a great evil lurking. I am being drained of my magic, and it hurts terribly." 

"I am sorry. I should never have -" 

"It’s alright. You and Lilly came in after me, but these dreams… They’re remarkable in their realness. It’s easy to get lost within them, and no one but us or a handful of others are cognizant of what is happening. The Other, Cruella and her different disguises, they’re used to this place. It’s giving them an advantage, and she’s using that to try to keep you and Lilly away from me.”

“Yes. You’re under a sleeping curse.” Bug stopped, and Emma hopped down from his back. Killian followed, Emma leading him to a familiar portrait. He took a deep breath, looking up at his brother painted so meticulously and true to life, it almost hurt. 

“I remember sitting here more vividly now than ever,” she whispered, sadly. “I think this was the easiest world yet to let myself get lost in, truly lost in here. I’m a breath away from forgetting everything, especially if it meant having everything back, and you…”

“Your mum - the Queen, she may actually be here, love. She and I spoke,” Killian swallowed, deciding to keep the incident with Cruella to himself, as not to unload too much at once. “She seems to be in here with us somehow.”

Emma cocked her head to the side, looking thoughtful. “My mom was under a sleeping curse before, when…” She looked at him, then at her feet. “When the Goblin King made you…" 

"When I poisoned your mum? And it’s any wonder she let me near you.” He tried to laugh, but it caught in his throat. 

“Killian…” Emma took his hand, and smiled gently. “If she didn’t ram a sword down your throat, it’s a sign that she has a bit of hope for you.”

He chuckled, unable to stop himself. “She tried. I believe that like you discovered, I’m much too much of a hassle to dispose of that way.” Emma laughed, swatting at him. When he caught her hand, she led him away from Liam’s portrait and outdoors. They entered a pretty solarium, partially shaded and hidden by a copse of willows. Stained glass peppered the ceiling and walls in different shapes, casting rainbows on the stonework floor. 

Flowers bloomed everywhere, pots and planters overflowing with blossoms. Emma walked towards the closed exit door, pushing hard to reveal an atrium of some sort, the door itself concealed behind a tall painting. French doors with intricate wood inlay stood partially open on one side of them, a sitting area and entry table in front of them. Another door lay beyond that, in what Killian guessed must be her bedroom. Emma closed the hidden passage behind them with a soft click. 

“This is my chambers, and one of the secret ways in. That solarium is usually fully hidden unless you know the way.” Emma tugged him forward slightly, pointing at the artwork covering the passage. It was a forest scene, light streaming down onto foggy moss and wet leaves, the greens verdant and many colored leaves bright. “I was given this by a Contessa, who offered me so many different treasures. This was the only one that I found worthwhile, and truly beautiful.”

“You have good taste,” said a voice from behind them. They turned to see Emma’s father walking from her room. “Must have gotten it from someone.”

“Daddy! You scared me, what are you -” Emma attempted to take a step forward towards him, but Killian held her back. “What -?" 

"Ask him something only your father would know.” Killian stared down the King, Emma continuing to look perplexed. 

“Um…” she began. “Let me think I guess - uh -" 

The King plunged a dagger through Killian’s chest, Emma screaming in shock at the sudden and unpredicted violence. 

"I hate having to keep doing this, simply because you won’t listen, like a good puppy,” Cruella sneered, twisting the blade before wrenching it out. “Wake up, and stay out.”

The last thing he saw before everything faded to black was Emma’s terrified face. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

David N'lan was many things, even by Emma’s measure as his daughter. He could have a ferocious temper, as it had been written about in legends of his fierceness in battle or noted in his proud family history as a raging fury passed down from his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, brutal warriors who made their marks as Kings. Emma had not learned much about them outside of the ballads of their victories or heroics, her father inheriting only some of their battlelust, the majority apparently settling in his twin brother James moreover. Her mother had said that Emma had a calming effect on him, even more so than their marriage had. Unless either of his 'favorite girls’ were threatened, the King was a fair, kind, jovial, and moderate man. 

Emma had seen him truly angry only in a few circumstances, usually after the majority of whatever had vexed him seemed to have dissipated. Graham was terrified of her father after his threats, and the few instances that Emma had been hurt or could have been severely injured by carelessness had drawn his ire. Emma remembered his silliness, laughter, and his love first in any situation, followed by his ability to find humor and be overall lighthearted. 

She had never seen the malice in his eyes, or the ravenous look of greed that curled his lips as Killian crumpled in front of her. Whoever, whatever , stood in front of her was no father of hers, and in no way could be any version of him. 

Feeling panic try and root her to the spot, Emma pushed out an exhale, doing the opposite. The fear of what she believed wore her father’s face still tore a scream from her, but it was better to do so while running than allow it any more time near her. She heard it scrabble behind her, but willed her eyes to not look as she tore through the halls. Killian had said that her mother was potentially here, and Snow N'lan would never have let Killian get far with Emma if there were any threats or she had any possibility of worry - a cursed sleep met both requirements. 

The flash of a reflection on the floor caught her eye, a sun spot bounced off a mirror. Following it with her gaze Emma made the quick turn as Cruella sounded right behind, and saw a great white and black dog creature crash into the wall out of the corner of her eyes. Emma barely kept her own footing, managing to grab her mother’s hand as the giant dog-like thing shook itself and gnashed its jaws. 

Pushing Emma behind her and pulling her bow taut, Snow let arrows fly in rapid succession, Cruella falling dead in the form of a massive, wolf-like fox spirit, so close that their skirt hems ruffled with her last exhale. 

“Sorry I couldn’t get her sooner. I’d hoped the Dark One would be more useful in providing protection for you, but -" 

Emma hugged her mom, wrapping her arms tightly around her and sobbing like a child. The Queen stumbled slightly but as she laid her bow and quiver down, she wrapped her arms around her daughter in turn, soothing her gently. 

"Hey now, hey my little buttercup, it’s alright. I’ve missed you so much Emma, we all do. We’re all so worried about you -" 

"I’m so happy you’re here, Mom. I love you so much. Are you all OK? Please tell me you are all safe and alive - everything is so messed up, I don’t know what to do -" 

"We’re surviving, and everyone is alright. Worse for wear, but alright considering. The Dark One said as much about things being difficult, if he is to be believed. I’m so sorry we didn’t prepare you better, I’m so sorry for sending you here with him. I should have gone with you, or your father…" 

"I’m so glad you are all alive, oh Gods, I’ve been so scared! And yes, he is to be believed, he's… I trust him with my life." 

"So I’ve heard, but I thought it was one-sided, or a falsehood. I suppose that he was telling me the truth.” Snow furrowed her brows. Glancing back at the dead animal, she pinched the bridge of her nose, and ushered Emma away from it. “Come, Emma. Let’s take tea in the drawing room until either that thing comes back, the Dark One returns, or we figure out a way to get you free of this. I feel we may need to talk.”

Emma nodded, watching Cruella fade away completely before standing up. Her mother led her to the sunny drawing room, its elegant doors open to a beautiful courtyard. They sat together while a servant fetched them tea and small cakes, both making small conversation. She found that she couldn’t recall the last time her mother had been free enough to do something as banal as tea between only the two of them, let alone idly chatting. When Emma felt relaxed, her mother struck. 

“The conversation I had earlier, with the Dark One…” Her mother set her teacup down slowly, sliding the cup so the handle sat just so on the saucer. “You fell for him then, truly?" 

"That’s what you’re focusing on? Seriously Mom?” Emma exploded, exasperated. Her mother eyed her shrewdly, and Emma felt a rage rise in her that roared like a lion. She pushed it down, the uncalled for and frightening urge to smack the calculated calm from her mother’s face too tempting after everything that had happened. “I’m hoping beyond hope that you are real, because yes, I did. He’s helped me navigate through all of your mistakes. He’s different when we’re together, and I -" 

"Your father is going to go mad at this development,” Snow said, using both hands to pick up and sip at her tea. She sighed. “This was not what I meant when I said destroy the Darkness. As for my mistakes, I am aware of my rash judgements in the past but they certainly - ”

“Destroy? It’s not destroyed, it’s still in him. He’s just caging it, he - ”

“Emma. Do you know how we stopped him, and how we broke the Dagger?”

“True Love’s Kiss. It woke you from a sleeping curse. The Dark One poisoned you, his orders to preserve you for execution by the Goblin King. Father woke you as the Goblin King commanded the Dark One to kill you both -" 

"Our kiss shattered the Dagger, and stunned the Darkness. I could feel it when I was filled with that power, when the light hit it. The tiniest smidgen hung on by a thread. That bit of Dark is what is left, and it can be destroyed no matter how loud it declares it cannot. If you love him - truly, unabashedly, love him - and if he can put enough faith in trusting himself to love you with complete denial of the Darkness’ pull, you could have a chance of True Love outside of this place. It’s the smallest chance of happiness, but there is a chance to save him. It means you risk everything: you risk breaking your heart for his benefit, and I don’t want that for you.”

“All love comes with the chance of heartbreak, Mom. All love means risk, and all love is a dangerous gamble. You and Daddy were a gamble; he risked everything for you, and to give you that kiss. You risked everything by agreeing to ascend to the throne, becoming a singular target. You both took chances and ended up making decisions based on faith in each other - I want that. I think Killian and I could have that. I finally feel like I have met someone who understands the walls I didn’t know I had built up. I love what I see when I bring down his own, and who he is.”

“You’ve grown so much, Emma. You almost sound as if you know what heartache this will bring you, as if you can fathom it, or understand the lengths men like him would go to, just to use you.”

“I do understand, Mom! I did grow up! I’ve been torn apart by this world and put myself back together only to get chewed up and spat out. I had to grow. There wasn’t an option, alright? Killian, he has been both the worst and the best, and he is growing too. He’s fighting for control for himself, first and foremost, and because he wants to be better. I wish you could just for one moment realize how much bullshit you’ve made me overcome!” Emma yelled, standing up in anger and knocking her tea cup to the floor. It shattered, and Emma let out a frustrated noise before taking in a deep breath, bending down to pick up the shards. 

Her mother looked appalled, but kept quiet, staring at her as if she was a stranger. 

“I’m sorry, Mom. I miss you so much. I miss all of you, and Father. I have longed for your counsel and tried so hard - I’ve had to undo and learn so much… It’s been a lot. I… I don’t feel like myself anymore. I’m a different Emma than you knew, and I am not sorry for that, just sad you can’t see what made me change and why I am making my decisions.”

Her mother’s face was unreadable, the expression one Emma hadn’t seen before: a cross between pensive anxiety and concerned sadness. Emma swallowed thickly, her mother a stranger before her as she had become a stranger herself. 

“I…” Emma began, and choked down the sudden feeling of intense guilt that flooded her. “I need a moment. I think I’ll wait for Killian in the garden.”

“If you’re sure?” the Queen asked, and Emma nodded, the tone of voice her mother was using confirming her decision. When difficult dignitaries or events took place, her mother used that gentle firmness as an indication she wanted to be done, her tone to excuse herself politely. 

Emma nodded, armor up and engaged, knowing that this truly was her mother in her dreamscape. Only a mother could twist her heart like this, and still wring out only love. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll find you later.”

Her mother left quickly, and Emma felt relief, which in turn only made her feel even worse. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Killian woke up with a start, the feeling of being eaten alive by the malignant Darkness, its sharp teeth leaving him stunned, like his bones were sucked clean of offal. He looked around for Emma and found her still sleeping, her pallor gray. She shivered and let out a tiny noise when he tried to wake her, skin clammy to his touch, Isaac’s thrall still holding tightly. 

He let out a huff of frustration, his jaw muscle tight. 

“Bloody hell." 

He laid his head down beside her own, falling easily back into the curse. The Darkness resisted burning away, the tearing feeling of being flayed as the curse peeled it off of him like drowning in liquid flame. 

You will regret this whence you return. This I promise. 

I may not be able to stop you now, but I can certainly hurt her in this weakened state. 

When it was done, he stumbled into the dreamscape gulping for air. Emma was waiting for him in the garden, looking exhausted but stunningly beautiful. The breeze was cool, flowers swaying, the pink color of their petals dappled with afternoon sunlight. The cloak she wore moved to the side, her white gown showing a long column of neck. Killian took a deep breath, remembering himself, remembering her and Gods was that a mistake when the cloak fell away. It was a wonder that anyone could look at her at all in her court dresses, everything tailored to stun, leaving him in awe even with his bias. 

"You’re back! I swear to you, that wasn’t my father!” She ran to him, and he caught her as she examined him, checking to make sure he was awake. He swallowed hard, no, anything but hard, her hands trailing up the sleeves of his uniform. “I thought you left me alone in this place, I thought you abandoned me, and you weren’t coming back - ”

“Never. I’d never. If you have need of me, I will always come back. Did she hurt you? Do you know where we -" 

"Yes. Yes, we’re in the dream, and I can feel I don’t have much time. It’s getting worse, the forgetting and them taking my magic. She tried, clawed me pretty good, but I ran. She’s getting stronger, Killian." 

"I know, we are trying. We have to go through the nightmares soon -" 

"In case you fail, I have a request,” Emma whispered against his chest. 

“Anything. We’re going to get you out of here, but anything -" 

Killian’s shoulders tensed when her lips pressed against his, the sharp inhale of surprise that he was sure she could feel when she let them press together. His panic left it chaste and awkward, leaving her to pull away in embarrassment. 

With her face reddening, Emma stammered and stepped away. "I’m sorry. I just, I’ve never been kissed properly by you when we both - I mean, we both are aware and I - I thought that we were more than friends or companions or whatever we are. I wanted to remember, and if I was to remember anything it would be that. I shouldn’t have done that, please forgive me.” He caught her by the arm before she could escape, fighting back a well of emotion that ached. 

At least she would forget as she had forgotten him before in these dreams, all the imagined early morning conversations, her kisses and the way he always came so close to wanting her while holding himself back. Even against not realizing what was going on, and understanding this was all fantasy, he had kept his lust for more of her tamped firmly down. He had known on some level what he was unable to remember, that she was more, and that she deserved consent. 

The constants were now Killian finding her, and forgetting until it was too late - but always, always , wishing this was real. 

[meteorstricken]

FFVII Rare Pair Week Day 5 Prompt: Words

“Argument”

**The following is an edited-for-excessive spoilers version of a scene that will occur several chapters into my ongoing Seph/Tifa multi-chaptered fic, Un-Guilty, where a pre-Nibelheim Sephiroth is thrown into a future where he must come to terms with both himself and everything his post-Nibelheim self did. As they say in the Remake trailers, "Developmental footage subject to change."**

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

Tifa herded the inebriated Reno and Elena, who'd overstayed last call by about an hour, out Seventh Heaven's front door waving, "Bye, guys."

"Hey, you sure you don't need a hand...an hand with..." Reno made a gesture over his forehead in the shape of arched bangs, tripping backwards into Elena.

"Don't worry about me, Reno," Tifa reassured him. "You two should get going and take care of yourselves."

"Yeah, c'mon, Reno. Tsheng said he's mentally non...not legal. Lethal. Probably," Elena slurred, making a stumbling recovery from her near-fall.

"Elena's right. No real problems here," Tifa said, quickly shutting and locking the door. She pressed a hand against it, tilted her head back, and sighed.

Between the Turks' babysitting and Cloud's surprisingly fast-blossoming life outside her own, it might not be too long before someone ate an undeserved fist. The Turks were just being Rufus' faithful lapdogs as usual, and were at least polite enough to order something whenever they stopped in to pry, but Cloud's near-dismissal of Sephiroth's renewed presence in their lives had come as a shock. He almost never asked about him, even though word was spreading that she was keeping an eye on their former and would-be nemesis. None of his old protectiveness had reared its head. It almost felt like he didn't care. For all they’d been through, weren’t they at least still friends? They'd separated on good terms, regretfully agreeing they didn't know how to stop smothering one another. There hadn't been any serious hard feelings, or so she thought. She'd expected it to be awkward for a while, but he still mattered to her.

Maybe he was just afraid and avoiding the situation for his own good. Maybe he was trying to give her space.

Or, she might have been more of a burden to him over the long haul than she realized. Maybe that's what he was figuring out—that he was angry with her in a way he didn’t know how to confront yet. She was too afraid to ask.

Tifa wasn't so sure what she was supposed to be doing to get ahead herself. She was just going through the motions, opening and closing the bar one day after the next, helping out with Reeve’s supply coordination plans on the side, going to bed at the end of the day and getting up to do it all over again. Occasionally, Barret would drop off Marlene, and playing or teaching her how to cook was a welcomed distraction from the grind, but that was it.

Barret, who still had no idea about her newest employee, she considered. That was another bridge to cross.

Sephiroth stepped out of the kitchen, finished with the night's dishes. "If necessary, I can start leaving earlier," he offered.

"Mm. No," Tifa replied tiredly. She gave him an odd look. He must have heard Reno. “We’d already be dead if you wanted to kill us. But here you are, cleaning my kitchen in exchange for meals and chump change. The man who burned down my...probably wouldn't..." She stopped, uncomfortable, squeezing her hands together in place of coherent thoughts.

"I'll be going in a moment," Sephiroth said quietly.

Tifa winced. Her and her big mouth. "Actually, no… Let's talk."

"About?"

"You. Me. Life. How things have changed. When Cloud and I were still...living…together, we weren't so great at talking."

"I know very little about…that".

"Not even a fling back in SOLDIER, huh?" Tifa blurted, and immediately regretted it, because of what she knew about him already, and what it might seem like she was implying.

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes at her. "If Reeve has shared as much of my past with you as he's conveyed, then you know I was raised and worked under S.R.D. and Turk surveillance. I had a fan club named for me as a result. I did not care for it. They did not care for me, though I suspect Hojo's purpose for them was ultimately procreative."

Tifa grimaced, pulled down a random bottle of booze from a cupboard, and poured two double shots. Offering one to Sephiroth, she said, "On the house. We could probably both use something to take the edge off."

"...I am not susceptible to liquor."

Tifa paused. "No, I guess you wouldn't be," she admitted, flustered, retracting his glass and pouring it into hers. "Soda?"

"Water is fine," he replied, fixing her with a calculating stare. "It pains you that Cloud doesn't wish to guard you anymore," he stated plainly. "However, it grew tiresome when he did. You told Elena and Cissnei as much."

Tifa frowned and took a deep breath. "Didn't have you pegged for an eavesdropper."

"Everything for Cloud's sake," he continued, "leaving nothing for your own purpose."

Tossing back half the glass, Tifa plopped down onto a barstool and leaned forward onto the counter, glaring at him, feeling her temper flare. Memories of how, when he'd lured them up north, his other self had mocked her, threatening to use her memories against Cloud poked at the forefront of her mind. "I can play that game, too, Sephiroth. You—"

"Everything for a mother I didn't know, and no longer wish to," he interrupted sourly. "Neither of them."

Tifa stared down at her drink, already feeling tipsy and somewhat surprised. Embarrassed, actually. So he wasn't trying to provoke her; he was making a sloppy, very Sephiroth- flavored effort to relate. Using some heavy scar tissue, no less. She felt ridiculous, but the words weaseled their way out after a groan, "I wanted a silly childhood promise to be enough. For him and me. Now I’m wondering if things would have been easier on both of us if we’d never made it."

"I thought the truth of my conception would free me from what I am," Sephiroth echoed bitterly.

"I suppose what we are to someone else was always supposed to be who we are," Tifa mused, taking another sip.

"'Who' is...difficult," Sephiroth replied. "I'd rather not think much of it."

Tifa's face softened. She knew that feeling too well. So long as she'd been there for her friends and especially Cloud, thinking about her own reasons didn't matter. It was just too big to tackle. "There's a hole where 'who' is supposed to be, and no matter what I try to put in there..."

"Nothing is enough," he finished for her. "And..."

Tifa eyed him expectantly when he failed to finish. "And?”

His brows creased; a deep scowl etched into his face.

"I was--I am the one who caused you this uncertainty," he said.

"You would have been," she corrected, but instantly averted her eyes when she said it.

He would have been, and he had been. They had to contend with both realities. There was no running from it. She wanted to be understanding and fair for this version of him, but the resentful, stubborn ache that formed in the pit of her stomach when she thought back to Nibelheim was steadfast as always.

"The consequences remain. It makes no difference." A small tremor entered his voice. He shook his head, seemingly scolding himself. “Perhaps I will seek employment elsewhere,” he said.

Tifa planted her forehead on the counter and grumbled, “How am I supposed to watch you if you aren’t around?”

“My presence harms you.”

She perked back up, offended. “…You’re wrong about that.”

“Am I?”

“My memory of what you would have done is what hurts, Sephiroth,” she retorted, raising her voice. “But you know what? Maybe I am waiting for the bottom to fall out. It has to be coming, right? No, I don’t trust you. You terrify me, but you act like a wounded, frightened child. How am I supposed to feel?”

Sephiroth lowered his eyes. “Do you not trust Vincent and Reeve to monitor me?”

“It has to be me,” she insisted.

“Why?”

“I don’t owe you an explanation,” she spat. “Look…I’m sorry. Quit if you want. The W.R.O. probably has something better anyway. I don't know why I…”

He stared at her for a long moment. “Do you want me here, Tifa?”

“I…would rather have you around than not,” she conceded. “You do good work. I don’t have to double check anything, and you never complain.”

“That hardly justifies it,” he pushed back.

“It’s enough for now.”

"…Until tomorrow, then," he relented, quickly grabbed his coat, and left.

[shadedrose01]

Just Breathe

Ship: none, platonic (paternal) relationship between Harley Keener and Tony Stark

Summary: Harley has a panic attack, Tony helps

Tags: none (not posted on ao3)

Author note: this was a story that I originally wrote for febufluff day 7, "hugs" before realizing that it neither had hugs, nor was it very fluffy, like at all. I didnt want to just scrap it, so I figured I'd post it here. I am going to write another story for day 7 of febufluff, but it'll just come out a bit later 🤷‍♀️🤣

TRIGGER WARNING: This story is all about Harley having a panic attack due to his bullies finding out he is gay, and threatening to tell his school about it (aka being homophobic assholes). I describe the panic attack in detail, so if that's not your speed, DO NOT READ. Be safe, please, I love you all ❤

--

Click, click, click-

Harley clicks his pen unconsciously, his leg bunching up and down repeatedly, staring down at his paper with squinted eyes, hoping, begging his mind to focus on the homework.

Click, click, click-

Its math homework, Harley is good at math, he has always been good at math, so why cant he just focus? Why cant he just finish the problem?

Click, click, click-

The question muddles in front of him again, and Harley begs himself not to think about it, tries his hardest to focus, focus, focus! but his cries go unheard, the memory swarming into the forefront of his thoughts once more.

The note on his desk, telling him to be behind the school after class. The walk there, where Harley's curiosity had beat out his fear (such a stupid decision, he should have just left, should have just gone home-). The anticipation, leaning against the old, dirty brick, just waiting, waiting, watching and waiting. The group that had shown up, a bunch of bullies from his school, had surrounded him, pushed him up against that very same brick and held him there like pray, grins smug and eyes glistening, eyes knowing.

They knew his secret, they said, his secret that he was trying to hide for days, for months, for forever, trying to bury as deep into himself as he possibly could. Had said that they had caught him a few days, at the movies, with a kid from out of town, a boy from out of town. Had said that they saw them kiss, had said that they knew, knew who he really was, what he really was, had called him vulgar words, names and curses and swears, had beat him into the ground then and there, and walked away laughing.

They told him that they were telling the entire school. They were going to tell the school about his- his feelings, his sexuality, and- and everybody would hate him, hate his guts for something he couldn't control, can't control, had tried to control for so long, for so so long, and then- then the school was going to tell his mother, and his mother would hate him too, abandon him just like his father had, and Abbie would hate him, leave him too. He'd be all alone, all alone and nobody would care about him, nobody would miss him, nobody would want him and- and-

And he can't breathe.

Oh god, he can't breathe.

Harley tries to take a deep breath in, but all he can manage is a shallow gasp, his lungs feeling as if two vice grips are squeezing them on the highest setting, not allowing them to expand and contract, not allowing air to flow freely, not allowing him to breathe. He keeps trying, his faint gasps getting louder and louder, harder and harder to do, his heart beat drumming in his ears, fast and quick, and he's shaking, shaking like a leaf, and he cant stop, cant breath, his chest aches, his heart aches and oh god, he's dying, he's dying, he's going to die out here, in his garage, all by himself, all alone, his mother working and his sister with her friends, all alone, all alone-

He needs to call someone. He needs to- to-

Harley scrambles for his phone, placed beside the sheets of paper that are slowly blurring together as tears fill his eyes, and he tries multiple times to open it, failing, failing, failing every time, -nobody's going to know, he's dying, he can't- until finally, finally it opens, and he clicks on his contacts list, scrolls to the M's, and presses call, holding it up to his ear.

His other hand as made its way to his chest, having a death grip on his shirt as his chest continues to get tighter and tighter, the air feeling thicker and thicker, the room blurring and spinning and he wont make it, he wont make it until-

"Harley? Harley, I need you to breathe, kid." Its faint, Tony's staticky voice barely heard over the blood rushing in his ears, but it's there, and Harley clings to it like a lifeline (it is, it is a lifeline, his only chance at surviving-).

"I- I dont- I cant-" Harley wheezes, curling into himself, resting his head in between his knees and squeezing his eyes shut, hoping it'll help his rapidly increasing dizziness, hoping it'll stop the room from spinning so damn much, hoping it'll stop his world from collapsing on top of him like it is right now, god, please, have mercy-

Tony breaks through the white noise again, his tone softer than Harleys ever heard it, but strong, urgent. "You can, kid. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you can. You gotta try for me, okay?"

Harley just shakes his head, even though he knows Tony cant see it, his body trembling again as adrenaline rushes through his veins. "I'm dying, I'm- I- oh god I'm dying-"

"You aren't dying, Harls, I promise you, you aren't. You're having a panic attack." Harley doesnt respond to that, just sobbing in between his wheezing because he's dying, he knows he is, he can feel it, he's- "Kid, you're going to pass out if you don't breathe, so I need you to listen to me okay? I want you to breathe in for 4 seconds, hold it for 7 and then breath out for 8, you think you can do that for me?"

Harley doesnt, he doesnt think he can do it, but hes gotta- he's gotta try something, anything, he can't just go down without a fight, without giving it a shot. "O-O-O-Okay."

"Okay, follow me, okay? Inhale, one, two three, four-" He hears Tony take a deep breath, and tries to as well, shuttering with a sob as his lungs refuse to expand, refuse to listen, stopping his inhale after two, "Its okay, kiddo, you're doing good, now hold it for me, seven seconds, you got this." Harley tries again, holding his breath even as his body spasms, screaming at him to keep breathing, keep breathing, there isn't enough air, need more air, need- "and release for eight seconds," The air forces it's way out of Harleys lung in one loud push, and he immediately gasps again as soon as his lungs are empty. He expects Tony to be mad at him (he'll be mad at him, hate him just like his mom will, the school will-) , but the older man just keeps reassuring him gently, calmly, soothing Harleys worries. "There you go, bud, see? You got this, you can do this. Let's do that a few more times now, okay?"

They repeat the motion over and over again, and to Harleys surprise, after a while, the inhales start to get easier, his lungs start to open up again, relaxing and stretching again, and his heart starts to slow back to it's normal rate. He's still shaking, but its mostly aftershocks now, the last bits of the adrenaline rush draining out of his body. But now that he's calming down and he doesnt feel like he's dying, he can feel the shame and the horror start to creep it's way in, embarassment flushing his cheeks. "I-Im sorry." He whispers out shakily, running his free hand through his hand before holding it tightly, yanking at it slightly.

"Don't apologize for this, Harley, please." The man sounds tired, in more of a physically/mentally exhausted kind of way over an 'I'm annoyed and hate you' kind of way. Harley still feels a tinge of guilt though. "Are you feeling better now?"

He swallows, his throat dry and sore from heaving in and out breaths. "Yeah, yeah I think so. Thanks."

Theres a pause, a moment of awkward, long and uncomfortable silence that Harley isnt sure how to break, isn't sure he really wants know, until the question he was anxiously dreading breaks it anyways. "Kid..." Tony sighs quietly, "I know we dont normally... do this, the whole having emotional talks about our problems thing, but-" he pauses again, thinking his words through. "...do you want to talk about it?"

Harley grits his teeth, before deflecting. "Talk about what?"

"Harley." The man's tone turns stern, but still soft, still gentle, like Harley's a fragile ceramic plate placed at the end of a shelve, one from blow of wind away from falling and shattering. Then, randomly, he speaks up again, his voice sounding more defeated, resigned, "Look, bud, I cant force you to say anything, but I know from experience that talking about it can help sometimes."

Harley sighs, knowing he isn't going to get out of this, no matter how much he wants to (or, how much he thinks he wants to, even if theres some small part in the back of his brain calling out to him, longing for him to tell Tony everything, no matter the inevitable consequences-). He just shrugs, scuff his foot against the cement ground of his garage, mumbling out. "I don't know what to say, where to start..."

"That's okay. Just say something. Starting is always the hardest part."

Harley snorts, trying to lighten the mood one last time. "Since when did you become a therapist?"

"Since I started going to one." Tony deadpans, a tiny light of amusement ringing in his tone before it disappears again, back to serious. "You can tell me anything, Harley. No judgement, okay, maybe a little bit of judgement depending, but no everlasting grudges, I promise."

Harley chuckles lightly, his back of his eyes burning suddenly, randomly, a flash of warmth flowing through him. Because even with all of his self deprecating thoughts, even with all his anxiety, the one thing Harley knows about Tony Stark is that he always keeps his promises, no matter what it costs to do so.

And so, Harley tells him. Tells him his truth, shakily, nervously, painstakingly slow and fearful, only to be told instantly that it's okay, that he is okay, that it doesn't change anything. Tells him about the boys at his school, about their attack, about their plans with a few split tears and a sob or two. Tells him about how afraid he really is, about how he doesnt know how anyone will react, if his friends will leave him or not, if his family will still love him after it all. And Tony reassures him the whole time, backs him up through it all, telling him it'll all be okay, that even if the school finds out and it becomes a big deal, that it'll blow over in a few weeks, and if it doesnt, that high school is just the first part and a small portion of a longer, bigger life. Telling him that if his friends leave, that they arent truly his friends, and that he knows that his mom, his sister will love him no matter what. "Theres only a few things I know about Macy Keener, but I do know for a fact that she loves her son to death, and couldnt even imagine her life without him in it." (That caused a few more tears to be shed).

And after it's all said and done, the call ended and "The Mechanic" is shining back at him in big white letters, Harley starts back to work on his math assignment with a grin on his face, feeling lighter, better than he has in a long time.

[i-am-the-entertainer]

RevieWBY: Volume 6

This has been stated so many times, but Volume 5 was bad. Okay, it wasn’t terrible, like I don’t feel offended by it being bad (unlike certain folks), but looking back on it I don’t have anything to say to really defend it as something Rooster Teeth should have talked up as much as they did at the time. It had some good things going for it, but the amount of problems it had in terms of animation and writing really put a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. So for Volume 6 to deal with all that fallout, it was going to have to do a lot. And to their credit, CRWBY accepted the criticism in stride, and actively worked to make Volume 6 something that people who despised Volume 5 might enjoy.

Still, one had to go into this season with the understanding that some people were never going to be completely satisfied with whatever CRWBY did. Because at the end of the day, the RWBY that Rooster Teeth currently makes is not Monty Oum’s show anymore. No, this isn’t saying CRWBY is in any way disrespecting his legacy, it’s just Monty Oum had a certain method to running the show that only he could really get away with: epic fight scenes, suddenly throwing giant curveballs into the series’ mythology, taking vital time away from storytelling so the fights looked cool. I mean, there are people who criticize the show for doing that now when they didn’t give two shits when Monty did it, because Monty did it in a manner that somehow worked. I don’t know how he did it, but he did, and, well, he’s not here to do it, and there’s no way even a huge animation team can collectively do things like him. And they shouldn’t: if they can use a better industry standard animation engine than Poser, than the fact that Monty Oum didn’t like animating with Maya shouldn’t stop them.

Blah blah blah...this is all about FNDM reception. What did I think of Volume 6?

Well...

Focus

In my mid-volume review I cited this as Volume 6′s strongest aspect, and as far as I can tell this remains the case. By focusing our hero storyline on one group and for the most part the villain storylines on only a few characters who were paired off, Volume 6 effectively told a story that didn’t force the viewers to juggle multiple things and find some semblance of a continuing story. Everything happened linearly and the whole thing made for a more enjoyable watch overall.

Tone

Building off of that renewed focus, this volume felt like it had more of a consistent tone that lasted from beginning to end. RWBY markets itself as an anime show and uses a lot of that anime-style of humor (slapstick and comedically exaggerated emotions), but honestly it’s always played fast and loose with using that humor in a way that doesn’t feel out of place. In this volume it was more consistently used, and that’s largely thanks to the nailed down focus that allowed character interactions to utilize the humor in a natural way. Ruby and Maria Calavera were especially good sources for humor.

Now, things did get a little more screwball when Cordovin came into the mix, but it was interesting seeing CRWBY take that humor to a logical extreme for the first time in a while (not since the Beacon years). It interrupted the tone for a bit, but not in a manner that overall changed the genre this show is going for.

Animation

Beautiful. The improved production pipeline that we’ve heard about really came through. These episodes were the best they’ve ever looked, minus a few errors here and there, showing just how amazing RWBY can look when you give the animators time to add their own touches. There was some really great fight animation to boot: none of the fights this volume felt awkward, and you could tell the animators had a lot of fun.

Worldbuilding/Storytelling

It feels weird saying that Volume 6 did a better job with worldbuilding than Volume 4, which took place on four different continents and traveled across one, and Volume 5, which took place on two different continents and featured the second major skirmish between the villains and the heroes. I think this has to do with just how well it was integrated into the story: insight into the world came at points where the story needed it and when the viewers wanted it. Nothing ever felt like a massive info dump better suited World of Remnant; where there was just too much information delivered that wasn’t relevant to what was happening in the show. Volumes 4 and 5 had this same problem with establishing the world, often telling us too much in a way that just didn’t feel natural to the story. With Volume 6, almost every chapter up until the final Argus arc included some form of that insight:

Chapter 1 showed us how ordinary civilians deal with traveling through Grimm territory––the steps they take to protect themselves

Chapter 2 showed us some aspects of the Mistral criminal underground, not telling us too much about it but suggesting it was much larger than what Cinder encountered.

Chapter 3 showed us...so many things.

Chapter 4 offered a sense of the stakes RWBY faced in relation to all of Remnant.

Chapter 5 and 6 gave us a glimpse at another form of non-city life in Remnant.

Chapter 7 introduced us to Argus, my favorite of all the Remnant cities we’ve seen; plus a glimpse into the life of the silver-eyed warriors; and a more representative depiction of what domestic life is like in Remnant

Chapter 8 told us what Atlas personnel who aren’t Ironwood or Winter are like, plus the long-awaited insight into how the silver eyes work.

Chapter 9 shows something of the effect the Battle of Beacon, and by extension Pyrrha’s death, had outside of our core group.

Things kind of teeter off with the finale arc, but that’s because worldbuilding became a little less important to what was going on. This is kind of a stretch, but the mech fight and the arrival of the Grimm in Argus give us an idea of how large non-capital cities defend themselves without just spelling everything out.

All in all, this volume delivered on some impressive worldbuilding, probably the best the series has had in a while. It wasn’t massive info dumps unless it needed to be (e.g. Chapter 3), and it offered just enough for other important things like the storytelling and the action to still be in the forefront.

Characters

Volume 5, despite the fact it involved the major reunion of Team RWBY after two volumes, felt like it was simply putting the main characters through situations without those situations really doing anything to develop them or define them as anything beyond what we already knew. Some characters fared better on the development front, namely Yang, but others, especially Ruby, just seemed to be along for the ride without us getting any insight into them. This is where the writing issue that came from separating everyone starting with Volume 4 really came to a head: too many different characters with their own story to cover, and sometimes those stories just didn’t do much for the character beyond existing as a situation they were in.

Volume 6 feels like the refutal of that, and that mostly has to do with the fact that we’re not juggling so many storylines anymore. When a major event happens to the heroes, everyone gets affected at the same time. The train crashes? DEVELOPMENT! Jinn’s story? DEVELOPMENT AND INSIGHT! Snowstorm? INSIGHT! The Apathy? DEVELOPMENT! Telling team JNR about Jinn’s story? DEVELOPMENT! Adam ambushes Blake and Yang for the first time since Volume 3? DEVELOPMENT! WITH A HEALTHY DOSAGE OF ANGST!

Surprisingly, the same thing is happening to two of our favorite villains, Mercury and Emerald: even though they only really appeared in three chapters this Volume, we actually got a surprising chance to see how their defeat at the Battle of Haven affected them, and their increasingly strong misgivings about working for Salem. We get more of an idea of them as people rather than Cinder’s blind followers, understanding why they stuck with such an evil person for so long. It’s the most we’ve learned about them since Volume 3, and we didn’t even need lengthy flashbacks.

Even Adam got some more insight. RWBY has been following the path that Adam was an abusive ex-boyfriend for quite a while now, but there was always this underlying thought that he got into the White Fang business for a seemingly noble cause. The problem was the show hadn’t depicted how he got from Point A to Point B. The Adam Character Short offered us some of that much needed insight, putting some of his actions up to this point in a new context, even if it was set-up for clearing up some things so they could get rid of him.

Of course, there are still exceptions to characters getting character development, and honestly they’re kind of glaring ones. Oscar’s development arc, where he came to accept he was his own person, completely happened offscreen (for reasons that I’ve brought up before and will reiterate in the final section), robbing us of really witnessing his growth as a person. I enjoyed some of the stuff Cinder did this volume, especially her escape from the vault and her fight with Neo. But honestly she continues to be a pretty bland villain with little hints at her motivations for being such a terrible person: the Battle of Haven was such an utter defeat for her there needed to be some form of consequence that would’ve affected her character while also telling us more about her. Maybe it would’ve been her strategizing her revenge, which would’ve gotten more insight into how she thinks as a master planner. Instead, we get her leaving the vault, more or less going back to what she used to do but in a more low-key setting, fighting with Neo, plotting with Neo, and leaving with Neo. It felt more like “Hey, she’s alive, and here’s what she’s doing,” which while I appreciate it feels kind of a waste of time if you’re not doing anything with her beyond that. Honestly, a post-credits reveal that she was alive and then a pre-Volume 7 character short detailing how she made it to Atlas that covered her and Neo’s entire storyline this volume would’ve been more helpful.

Before I go on to my most major critique of this volume, I need to address the two Goliaths in the room.

Adam

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: they needed to get rid of Adam. The way things have been going, there was only so much more you could do with his character before he became a nuisance that was overstaying his welcome. I understand people wanted some deeper insight into him, but the fact was he was never introduced to be a major villain to anyone beyond Blake and later Yang. They could’ve had him have a thing against Weiss, but they didn’t, they focused the time that would’ve made him a major villain for everyone else on making people like Roman and Cinder and Salem the big villains. They decided on the path of abusive ex-boyfriend a very long time ago, and if you hadn’t figured that out after the Adam Character Short I honestly think you were being willfully ignorant to what’s been building up.

The best I can say is that Adam and his history is a missed opportunity for some pretty interesting storytelling and worldbuilding, but the fact remains: it is not his story that they want to tell, it is not his show. It may make something interesting to think about, but Adam’s story is supplementary, and works better in supplementary material, a la character shorts and maybe mangas.

Jaune

Y’all need to quit it with the “Hrrr drr Jaune took up time again moan moan Miles Luna is self indulgent” talk, he barely did anything this volume beyond Chapter 9 and having a sister that the whole fandom loved.

Pacing

This...this is where Volume 6 ran into trouble.

Overall, from the season premiere to the finale arc, this was probably the best-paced season of RWBY we’ve ever had. Major story events happened right when we needed them, and for the most part they didn’t drag out story arcs for any longer than they needed to be.

Well...until they reached Argus, that is.

At face value, a lot happened in the final couple of chapters. Chapter 8 gave us Maria explaining the silver eyes, Chapter 9 had the scene with Pyrrha’s statue and the mysterious Red-Haired Woman (I’ll headcanon whatever I want about who she is, Jen Brown) Chapter 10 started the Cordovin fight, Chapter 11 reinforced Blake and Yang’s partnership, Chapter 12 killed Adam, and Chapter 13 had Ruby finally use her silver eye powers to defeat a Grimm and they made it to Atlas. Yeah, it was a pretty eventful set of episodes.

So then why did it feel like it dragged? Here are a couple reasons that I’ve identified.

1. The Cordovin Battle sidelined story arcs for too long

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: the finale arc should not have been split up like that over so many episodes. It afforded us some pretty well-animated fights, some of the best the series has ever had, but the volume hadn’t been relying on that action to keep up the forward momentum, but on actually telling the stories of these characters. I get the need for CRWBY to prove that they can do well-animated fights, but as I’ve come to accept action should never take precedence over storytelling (I know, that’s hard to swallow when parts of the fndm spends hours complaining about how Monty’s not animating the fights anymore). And it’s clear to me in this final arc put emphasis on the action over the momentum of the story, bringing the actually pretty good storytelling the volume had had up to that point to a grinding halt.

Now, historically RWBY fights have delayed telling stories, but it’s never been for too long, at most maybe two chapters? But if you spend three chapters on a single fight, thereby devoting three weeks of your viewers’ time to high-octane action, people are gonna notice that the story is basically going nowhere.

What could’ve made this less of a problem? Well, perhaps establishing Cordovin earlier and making her less of a buffoon would’ve eased my hatred of this arc. Volume 6 lacks a clear antagonist for the story, but the way Cordovin was treated as a big deal in this final battle made it seem like she was taking up that role, except we didn’t even see her until the final half of the volume, and in her debut we couldn’t take her seriously as a villain, much less an antagonist, because of the pure comedy they used in her intro. There needed to be something about her at least a few episodes early––take this with a grain of salt because I think following JNR in Argus would’ve killed the balanced pacing of the first half of the volume (and just made the Jaune haters apoplectic), but maybe a few quick scenes of JNR arriving in Argus and getting rejected by her would’ve been helpful. Or honestly easing off on the comedy of her intro. Such a one-note character who we are primed to not take seriously isn’t interesting as a major force, so identifying her as a more threatening roadblock for the heroes would’ve made the stakes of the final fight a little more...present.

2. Important storylines got trimmed for time’s sake and weren’t addressed properly.

@hypeathon (whose excellent production analyses for this Volume are well worth a read) identified a tweet Miles made back in October, prior to the premiere and most likely when they were finishing storyboards, about “killing your darlings.” For those unaware and who may have severely misinterpreted that comment, “killing your darlings” is when writers have to sacrifice something they love or want to do so that the story works better. The timeliness of this tweet (after they would’ve finished the script but before they’d wrapped on storyboards and voice acting for the final episodes) suggests the writers’ room had to cut a lot of material from Volume 6 (what Miles called a massacre of darlings), most likely due to production limits or not having enough time to cover them.

Think about it: the story from Chapters 1-7 was really good: everything was properly spaced out, the scripts felt polished, there was a balance of action and comedy and legit storytelling, the good pacing lasted longer than it ever has within a single volume.

Then we hit Chapter 8 and suddenly it all changes: storylines don’t get the proper time devoted to them, arcs come to a screeching halt due to the big fight. Unlike previous volumes, where the imbalance was pretty much the entire volume, there’s actually a clear point right in the middle of this volume where things suddenly took a turn for the worse. And the fact is, some of the problems with the story in the final arc suddenly make more sense if you accept that time that would’ve been devoted to it got sidelined in this “purge”: Qrow’s alcoholism suddenly getting brushed aside after Chapter 9 hopefully to be addressed next volume, Oscar disappearing and all his development happening offscreen, Adam’s completely unsubtle return after only a vague hint in Chapter 1 that would’ve been stronger if he’d kept popping up in Argus. I’d even go so far to say the odd pacing of the final few chapters could easily have been the result of the writing team not being able to devote a single chapter to such a grand fight, so they needed to stretch it out so CRWBY could actually animate it within reasonable deadlines, which meant sacrificing time for those arcs that so desperately needed development.

So what overall is gonna fix RWBY’s pacing in the future? Well, I think at the moment the show is too ambitious. If it wants to keep to a reasonable production schedule, they need to control the scale of their finales so that it can be completed without needing to sacrifice other storylines. If it wants to hold onto that ambition and make the finales as grand as they want it to be to do their boy Monty proud, then they absolutely need to delay the actual release of the volume so they can put in the proper amount of time to both the story and animation. And I don’t think anyone would mind waiting a little longer for Volume 7 if it meant this show got the care and attention it needs to tell the story it clearly wants to tell.

Conclusions

Evaluating Volume 6 is impossible without evaluating what came before it. RWBY was never a perfect show, but when you lose someone who was responsible for the show’s popularity in the first place and have to change how it’s made to make up for his absence, there’s going to be backlash. Backlash from the fans, and, uh, backlash from inside the company. The fact is, people are never going to be satisfied with the RWBY that Rooster Teeth makes today, and Rooster Teeth is never going to push out a RWBY that will make everyone happy. All they can really do is keep moving forward.

And move forward they did. Despite my problems with the finale, Volume 6 was good. I’ve always been sort of ambivalent about the show (I was drawn to it by my brother shortly before Monty’s death and have been watching it out of respect for him and the company as creative artists), and even if I thought some of RWBY’s critics were being too harsh (or seriously needed to find something better to do), I didn’t find Volumes 4 and 5 enjoyable enough that I felt like defending them. But guys, Volume 6 did something amazing: it made RWBY fun to watch again. Focused, consistent, and compelling storytelling plus gradually eased-in worldbuilding made for a story that I could follow along without having to juggle so many different plots. Improvements in the overall animation made things nice to look at and when fights happened they were always entertaining, never making me cringe or grimace, always making me think “Hell yeah, beat the shit out of them!” Just like I felt back in the old days of the show.

I feel as though what’s holding RWBY back at this point, however, is adhering to the production schedule that its old vision called for in making its current vision. And it honestly cannot keep doing that. RWBY is a show trying to reach grand heights, and its rushed production timelines and lost story arcs are keeping it tethered to the ground. Yet I can’t help but say: Volume 6 is RWBY at its finest so far. It can’t fix the problems that previous volumes have had, but it builds on the void those problems left to build a story that makes this show feel like something worth following once more.

So, I can safely say I’ll be following along when RWBY returns for Volume 7...hopefully later rather than sooner (again, it needs a better production schedule).

[dogbearinggifts]

Their Song, Part One

A/N: So this’ll be a two-parter, following up on His Guitar and Her Musician, focusing on Hèctor and his guitar alebrije after they’re reunited. 

******

Her mùsico is as happy as she is.

She hears it in his voice when he speaks, when he sings. She feels it as he plays. And why shouldn’t he be happy? It is Dìa de los Muertos, and unlike on the past ninety-six iterations of the holiday, he is with his family. Not in an office hearing a list of petty crimes read back to him, not stifled by failure and cempasùchil, not imagining the celebration being held in his absence.

No.

All of that pain and despair is gone now. He has pushed it back with new memories, good memories to drown out the bad; she has pushed it back through the song Miguel has written for the occasion, one that delights in a family reunited.

It is perfect.

It is just what he needs. What she needs. To remember where they are, why they’re here. To remember that their time of banishment is over and all is forgiven and they’re a family again.

There are more songs beyond the one Miguel wrote. Hèctor plays alongside his grandson, and she thinks of the past, of a time when music was as much a part of their family as she was.

Yes.

Some things are good to remember.

******

There are some who call her by the wrong name.

She meets the first when they reach the re-entry gate just before sunrise. His eyes widen, his jaw comes dangerously close to the counter, he leans forward with both palms supporting his weight.

“De la Cruz’s guitar,” he breathes.

Before she can teach him the error of his ways, Imelda steps forward, one hand moving for her shoe. “That guitar belongs to my husband.” Every word is clipped, deliberate enough to make the agent shrink back. “I gave it to him as a gift.”

She warms with pride. Imelda, who first brought her home. Imelda, who won’t stand for lies. Imelda, who tried to erase Hèctor from existence.

No. She didn’t try. It was simply a consequence of her fury. When she learned the truth, she responded with the appropriate horror, chose to help him. Her choice nearly came too late, but it was soon enough. That is what matters.

“Lo siento,” the agent says, stamping the appropriate paperwork and waving them through. He says it again as Hèctor carries her past. “Lo siento mucho.”

*****

Hèctor’s family is kind to him; they’re kind to each other and they accept him as one of their own, but this acceptance has been many years delayed. It has been unequivocal, but it was still withheld. He was still barred from their home, from their knowledge, for nearly a century.

He plays for them now, one of the old songs. It’s good to play it properly, with all the words correct and none of the notes changed, with more emotion behind both of those things than a lust for recognition. It’s a humorous song, and the incident inspiring it is at the forefront of his mind; he smiles as he plays.

But he doesn’t come close to laughter. The song used to bring him to the brink of it, back before Ernesto took his life and everything else. Now, the knowledge of just how distant that improbable chase and its comically anticlimactic outcome are from the present keeps the full joy of it at bay.

His family still laughs when the song is over, blending it with applause and cheers. “You were right, Papà,” Coco says. “It does sound better on that guitar.”

It doesn’t merely sound better. It is better. They were meant to play together, and they were meant to play songs like that one. Not sad ones, songs like the one he’s scribbled out and hidden where Imelda will never look for it, where he doesn’t have to look at it.

Julio gives her mùsico a long look before standing, making a cautious approach. “I…can I?”

Hèctor slips off the strap they’ve found. Julio’s palm covers her strings.

She can feel some of what he feels, an echo of wonder, a shade of admiration. But she cannot see his memories. Can’t know what he knows as well as he knows it, can’t see through his eyes. 

He is not and never has been a musician. Communication is always easier with those who speak her language, and Julio has actively shunned knowledge of it. He can hear it, of course, can appreciate its beauty and the emotions that give it power, but its inner workings are a mystery to him.

It isn’t his fault. No, the blame lies with the woman who sent Miguel back with just enough time, only enough time, to save her husband.

“Heh,” Julio says. “It….it’s nice.”

His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and she wonders if he feels that same melancholy ache she does.

*****

“Would you play for us?”

“I…don’t know.”

“You have your old guitar back! You should play.”

She hears variations on that conversation every time Hèctor takes her out in public, which is often. He understands what she is now, though that isn’t the full reason he carries her strapped to his back. The bursts of fear she can’t control when he attempts to leave her at home have something to do with it.

“I’ll think about it.”

“You said you’d think about it last time.”

There is a smile in the woman’s voice as she says it, but Hèctor’s stew of trepidation and guilt and irritation is unaffected. “Still thinking.”

Imelda takes her husband’s arm. “He doesn’t have to play for you.”

“I know.” There is more defensiveness there than those two words warrant. “I just thought it’d be fun to hear him.”

With a brief pause but not another word, he and Imelda move on. She wants to soothe him with a few memories of shows that went well, of audiences who wrapped his music around their shoulders and carried it with them into the evening, but the presence of his murderer keeps her from using them. He thinks about Ernesto, about that night, often enough. He doesn’t need those thoughts intruding now. 

They don’t walk far before another admirer blocks their way, a man this time. “Señor Rivera! I see you have de la—have your guitar again!”

“I do.” The words are cheerful, but she can feel annoyance and apprehension beneath it.

“Will we get to hear it played?”

“Maybe later,” Hèctor says. His cheer has slipped, but the man is as chipper as ever.

“I’ve always wanted to hear it—I loved hearing de la Cruz’s singing when I was alive, I never knew they were yours, the songs I mean.”

Hèctor gives the man a “Gracias” he doesn’t deserve.

“Ay, but they’re so good! Your songs! Even when he was singing them, there was something about them—I always wanted to hear them played in person, but I never could.” He gives a nervous, expectant sort of laugh—more expectant than nervous, she thinks.

He deserves the next “Gracias” even less than the first, but he receives it anyway.

“You write the best songs.”

Those words.

Those words. 

“You write the best songs, mi amigo.”

Those words, in another voice but with the same smile, said just as sincerely in a different city in the sunlight and the dust and that smile.

Said again after a show, making it sound like a compliment and not the threat it would become, the threat she’d see too late. 

“I can’t do it without your songs, Hèctor!” 

A toast. 

Tequila.

Hèctor collapsing in the street.

That voice, reassuring and gentle and too kind for what its owner had just done.

The stranger is smiling and she doesn’t know what’s behind that smile but she knows it can’t get loose and it’s going to because it always does, it always will—

Hèctor doesn’t even get to say his third “Gracias” before she strikes.

[theliterateape]

A Quarter Flipped for Your Rational Thoughts

by Don Hall

The old man was faced with a dilemma. He needed to decide between two options and he was torn. He understood that most decisions in his life often boiled down to two choices: do the thing or not. Sometimes it was a choice of doing one thing or another. A crossroads. This was not that.

He had made a “pro’s” and “con’s” list on the doing or the not but was on the fence. Which way to go.

He pulled out a quarter. “Heads, I’ll do it. Tails, I won’t.” He flipped the coin. It landed on tails. He was immediately seized by the desire to flip it one more time. He realized that his hesitation to accept the chance odds was the answer he was looking for. 

He decided to do it.

I once worked for a guy who would have an idea for the festival he produced. He'd formulate the idea. He'd be convinced that it was sound. He would then go and tell his idea to as many people as he could to gauge their reaction. If the overwhelming consensus was that it was a shit idea, he'd decide they were right. Even if they weren't.

It used to drive me nuts because I'm more of a try it out and see if it works type. The best advice I was ever given on the subject of indecision was to flip a coin. If you want to flip it again, you already know your choice.

How we make decisions tends to get complicated (certainly more complicated than the 50/50 odds of a coin toss). Most psychological studies indicate that we make them more with an emotional foundation than a rational process.

When we are calm, the slow rational thinking guides our decisions. The emotional system acts spontaneously without consideration for the broader consequences of the action. 

The reflective system is clearly the grown-up in this pair, and its job is to monitor and correct the impulse of emotion. For example, our emotional mind wants to order dessert and smoke a cigarette, and our reflective brain knows we should resist the temptation and quit smoking. The final decision is determined by the relative strengths of these two systems.

SOURCE

This tracks with common sense and anecdotal experience. I’m more inclined to go along with theories about complex issues when the science and the personal go hand in hand. I’m less likely to buy into the lived experience thing if it is in contrast with data. Sort of like hedging my bets on deciding which information is misleading or credible. 

For example, the guest at the casino who refuses to wear a mask because he doesn’t know anyone who has contracted COVID and his theory that it is overblown to solidify a left-leaning agenda in Congress loses out when his theory is in direct contrast with the mountains of scientific evidence that COVID is real and killing hundreds of thousands of people.

If your lived experience is not in concert with the facts at large, you are an exception rather than a rule. 

The facts at large are that most of us make decisions with our emotions at the forefront and, while our emotions are valid, our decisions based strictly upon them can often be the wrong choices. For the most part, we know better but lead with that unreflective aspect out of nothing but instinct and entropy.

This is important. The quality of the information we use to make decisions on how to react is crucial in making smart and thoughtful decisions. With so much of our information being targeted to our emotional response, we need stop-gaps built in so we aren't each led by the nose to reactionary and destructive behaviors.

The conclusions reached by the Mueller investigation into Russian interference with our 2016 election were varied but the one that is most concrete is the hackers leveraged our social media platforms to increase our emotional divisions via incendiary posts about race, policing, perceptions of socialism, and a wholesale attack on the efficacy of our government. How terrifically Russian of them.

And we bought it all.

The conservative side of the yard bought the anti-government socialism skew; the liberal faction started wearing their postmodern Marxist t-shirts and the race was on. The Marxists lost in 2016 and won in 2020. The Good Old Boys are winning in the anti-union fights. The Marxists are winning in the universities. As we continue to battle it out with reactionary intent, the likelihood of a continued see-saw of ideology and passionate response is practically guaranteed.

In between the White Nationalists and Critical Race Theorists are the solid, mostly rational center trying to make good decisions based on hard fact and a hope for unity amidst the white noise of the internet.

You’ll find that none of the people who make you lose your temper has done anything that might affect your mind for the worse; and outside of the mind there’s nothing that is truly detrimental or harmful for you. 

After all, you even had the resources, in the form of your ability to think rationally, to appreciate that he was likely to commit that fault, yet you forgot it and are now surprised that he did exactly that.

Marcus Aurelius

When I was a pup, I was taught to "count to ten" when I felt the stirring up of hot emotions. I was an angry Irish kid in the sticks of the MidWest and this advice was more insisted upon than suggested. So I did it. I counted to ten. I took that pause. It worked sometimes. When it didn't work I usually paid some sort of consequential price. I learned.

Much later, an older friend—one who had lived enough life to understand my impulsive nature as he was of the same ilk—suggested the coin flip.

"It takes a moment to assign your choices to one or the other side of the coin. It takes another moment to physically balance, flip, and catch the coin. These brief actions divert the gas on fire in your belly long enough to find a sense of rationality.

The discovery I've made is that I almost always already know the correct course of action and, if I really want to flip it a second time, the choice has been made."

Would Matt Gaetz be in the legal peril he's put himself in if he'd used a silver nickel rather than Venmo?

If Kim Potter had taken those brief moments before reaching for her taser and pulling out her pistol to flip a coin, perhaps Duane Wright would still be breathing and imprisoned for fleeing a police officer.

What if Derek Chauvin had, as a function of his training as a Minneapolis policeman, stopped as he decided to pin George Floyd to the ground with his knee on the man's neck and flipped a coin? Heads, knee to the neck for as long as it took. Tails, find a less aggressive approach to the situation.

As Chuck Palahniuk wrote "Every breath is a choice."

You can't play the odds for every breath but breathing isn't an emotional ride. I often say that he who is most certain is almost inevitably full of shit. This applies to True Believers (of anything), climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, anti-capitalists, anti-feminists, misandrists, and Cubs fans.

Flip a coin. Take the moment to cool the jets.

Make rational decisions.

[ritebeforeyoureyes]

Confessions

Just a little quick poll, I’m thinking about writing an alternative universe multi-chapter fic, so message me or comment and let me know if you’d be interested! Also, I am going to be doing a European ‘walk for charity’ this summer so my Ko-Fi page at the end of this chapter is in support of that! All of that jargon aside, I hope you like this chapter x

Masterlist – Plot: Zendaya deals with the consequences of her actions.

Confessions (Chapter Twenty Four)

To say that Zendaya had been anticipating the day of the Spider-Man: Homecoming was an understatement. She had spent months looking forward to this day and it was weird that everything seemed to happen so quickly. She couldn’t really process the events properly. There was Law and her mom chasing her around for answers, security jumping down her throat, Michael Keaton holding onto the trail of her dress, Jacob smiling worriedly beside her. The whole premiere was a blur that came and went in what felt like seconds.

The real show, however, was the premiere’s after party. She was rushed into a room and suddenly, she was having to deal with the consequences of her stupidity. The most prevalent consequence - her dad. Kazembe was a hot-headed man who prided himself on being able to protect all of his children, especially his youngest daughter. It was unprecedented for parents to pick their favourite child but there was a part of Kazembe that chose Zendaya. And it wasn’t because of how successful she was at such a tender age, it was because, she was the one child that he had truly gotten to connect with. They’d moved out to Los Angeles when Zendaya was eleven, twelve years old and Kazembe had had to be both her father and her mother. With Claire still teaching in Oakland, Kazembe had been the first parent of contact through puberty. The period talk, the cramps, the angst: it had all been him and as a result, the two had formed a bond unlike any other. So, it was expected of him to be as angry as he was now.

“Where is he?” Kazembe, with his long legs, was pacing the length of the room unnervingly whilst Law prepped Zendaya for her after party look. Law had been in Zendaya’s life since she had entered the business and for once in his life, even he was shaking. His hand was jittery as he tried to bundle her hair backwards. “What were you thinking? I’m calling the cops-“

“Dad, relax a second will you.” Zendaya sighed, slipping out of her seat. Law opened his mouth in protest but shut it instantly. Zendaya had walked the red carpet flawlessly and regardless of how much makeup or product went on her, he knew she was going to do that exact same thing soon. But for now, Law acknowledged that Zendaya needed to be her and speak to her parents first. He sent a knowing glance to some of her stylist team and they all left the room silently, sympathetic smiles sent at Zendaya.

“Relax?” Kazembe was yelling as soon as Law closed the door behind him. “You want me to relax? That fucker drugs my child, breaks into her home, invades her privacy and you want me to relax?” Soon, Kazembe found himself thinking back to the times that he and Claire had openly invited Val into their homes. They’d watched football games together and talked basketball; he’d treated him like a son and now, he just felt foolish. Foolish and responsible. If he and Claire had seen something sooner, none of this would have happened. As her parents, they could have stopped it, they could have protected her. “We let him into our lives, Claire - her life!”

“I know.” Claire had been silent throughout the majority of the ordeal, her previous tear streaks still evident on her face. She was usually very opinionated, but she was glad to see her daughter safe and well. Her voice was quiet and shy, almost scared that if she yelled or made any drastic movement Zendaya would suddenly disappear again.

“Mom,” Zendaya, ignoring her father, walked towards her mom. At first her movements were light and reluctant and then she was running, pulling Claire into an overbearingly tight hug. “I’m sorry, you guys, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything-“

“Why didn’t you?” Due to Claire’s added height, she was mumbling into her daughter’s hair. “We were so worried.”

“I didn’t mean to worry you, I just … I knew if I told you you’d talk me out of it.”

“Yes!” Kazembe’s tone of voice was juxtaposing the quiet encounters between the mother and daughter; his loud and authoritative. “Because what you did was stupid and reckless and-“ His voice trailed off as realisation hit him. Without a word, Kazembe began flicking through his phone, ready to contact Val’s parents. If Kazembe didn’t know what had gone in, neither did the Chmerkovskiy’s and Kazembe was ready to give them a piece of his mind in regards to their son.

“Dad, what are you doing?” Zendaya’s question was rhetorical, her father was a pretty predictable man and deep down, she knew exactly what he was doing. She didn’t wait for an answer from him either, she pulled herself away from her mom to grab at his phone. “Look, just let me explain and then you can reach out to Sasha and Larissa, okay?”

“We owe it to her to listen, Kaz.” With her mom on her side, Zendaya was able to calm her dad down (just a little) so that she could explain how she’d gotten her answers and simulatenously gotten Val to admit himself into a mental health facility. Her parents listened and nodded, their moods of anger and sadness dwindling into pride. It still baffled them sometimes how a girl of her age had such a strong head on her shoulders. Admittedly, Claire would have never considered checking Val into a facility, she would have called the police and let them deal with it. “It was the mature thing to do, Maree.” Claire only referred to Zendaya by her middle name rarely and the sound made her lips lift into a small smile.

“I’m in the process of getting a restraining order too.” This time, Zendaya directed her words at her dad. She wasn’t stupid, as much as her actions translated to that fact, she wasn’t. She was aware that the mental health establishment that Val had gone into was a voluntary one, like most, and she was, therefore, prepared for if he erratically decided he didn’t want the help anymore. According to the law, he was freely allowed to discharge himself if he wasn’t at risk of hurting himself or anyone else and as soon as honeybee had started to make sense to Zendaya, she called her lawyer and she began drafting up the legalities. “I want him to get help, but I’m done. I don’t want that around me anymore, you know what I mean?”

“I want a possession order too.” Kazembe made a mental note to talk to Zendaya and consequently, his own, lawyer. He wanted the legal procedures done correctly so that the bastard couldn’t touch his daughter again. This meant obtaining all blackmail material that he had against Zendaya and her loved ones.

After readily agreeing to her father’s input in legal procedures, Kazembe calmed down. He let Law back into and within moments, it was like nothing had happened.  Zendaya was in her purple dress and her white heels, her makeup reapplied and then she was facing the world again, the heavy weight off her chest.

But, of course, it wasn’t actually, because Zendaya still had to face him – Tom. As soon as she was in his proximity, she could feel his gaze following her every move. This wasn’t like the creepy stare down of Val, she could almost feel Tom’s worry and his tenseness transferring over to her. And, she couldn’t help it, her body was gravitating towards him willingly. She wanted him to comfort him, wanted to reassure him that everything was going to be okay. With Val’s craziness out the way, there was nothing stopping them anymore; they could be together. Zendaya dodged around people in the room, her body heavily agitated until she was staring into his eyes, her mouth and throat suddenly very dry. He looked good, really good. His stylists had put him in a suit that fit him extremely well and his hair was combed over sleekly; face shaven clean. Despite this, Zendaya could see the seriousness in his eyes. His eyes were tinted red, like he’d been crying, and Zendaya felt her heart strings pull.

“Can we talk?” Tom nodded but before the two could sneak away, a member of inhouse paparazzi stopped them for a picture. With the guy’s ongoing persistence, Zendaya knew they couldn’t say now. But, having not talked about their issues, the picture was slightly awkward, both of them standing at a considerable distance with hesitant smiles on their faces.

“Are you okay?” Once they were away from the excited bustle of their close friends and family, Tom was checking Zendaya over, his eyes trying to detect any injuries. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, Tom.” Fine was a funny word, when someone said they were fine, they usually meant something else and Zendaya found the need to clarify; Tom’s concern still clear. “I’m okay.”

“What were you thinking?” Hearing the confidence in Zendaya’s voice and feeling certain that she wasn’t physically hurt, Tom decided to go with Kazembe’s approach; one of anger. “You went with him, alone! You know how dangerous that is? What if something happened?” Tom, for the past few hours, had had scenario after scenario floating at the forefront of his head. He saw her passed out in ditch, he saw her bloody and bruised, he saw her drugged and helpless. Each situation was worse than the next and he couldn’t stop them. His head couldn’t stop haunting him with pictures of her angelic face and he knew, if something happened, he wouldn’t be able to cope. “What if something happened to you?” Tom’s voice cracked and Zendaya enveloped him into her arms, his chin resting on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” She felt guilty, extremely so. Today was meant to be a day of happiness for Tom and she’d taken that away from him. His first big feature film had just premiered, and she was damned if she was going to let him stay on edge throughout its entirety. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry … but look at me, I’m okay. It’s all okay.” Her fingers stroked at his cheek delicately, his body reacting instantly to her touch. “But forget about all of that, tonight’s about you. We should be celebrating-”

“No, I’m not that selfish, Z.” Tom pulled away from her, his eyes narrowing at the concept of celebrating when she’d just come face to face with one of her biggest fears. “I want you to tell me what happened-“

“No, I’m not that selfish.” Zendaya extended her hand forward for Tom to clasp. “We can talk about what happened later, but this night is only happening once, and I love you, so are we going out there and doing this or nah?”

Just as the three words left her lips, Tom couldn’t help his smile from exploding – this was it. Granted, he’d always pictured himself confessing first but, it really didn’t matter. She was in front of him, alive and safe and she loved him.

“I love you too.” Tom gingerly placed his hand in hers, their fingers threading together, finally.

If you enjoyed this piece and would like to help further me and my work, please support me whilst I try to raise money to do a ‘walk for charity.’ The money you donate will help create awareness for cancer research and will allow me to have added support throughout my journey. It is one hundred per cent a voluntary pursuit and greatly appreciated, however, your lovely comments and votes are always welcomed too. Thank you for being the greatest: https://ko-fi.com/D1D072V0

[tacitthought]

Hitman 3 Review — Perfect Execution

Since it rebooted its Hitman franchise in 2016, IO Interactive has been putting on a level design masterclass. Each of the missions the developer rolled out in what it calls its World of Assassination series has contained a huge, intricate collection of scripted and free-form systems that create harrowing moments, presented elaborate puzzles to solve, and allowed the player to orchestrate ludicrous and often hilarious situations. Levels are designed to be played over and over so you can explore, understand, and eventually master all their moving parts, and it’s impossible to see everything one has to offer in a single playthrough (or in most cases, even two or three).

At first blush, Hitman 3 appears to be more of the same. It makes no drastic changes to the underlying formula, instead adding a few graphical upgrades and quality-of-life improvements to the existing Hitman framework. But Hitman 3 improves on the World of Assassination through consistently excellent level design–which is saying something, given how strong all the previous missions are. Hitman 3 is full of fun and fascinating ideas, many of which play with the concepts underpinning the last four years of Hitman levels.

Presumably knowing that players have spent all sorts of time mastering its many settings and systems, IO throws in some brilliant curve balls that require you to use your assassin skills and knowledge in clever, challenging new ways.

In Hitman 3, all the stealth mechanics, the ways you can interact with the world, and enemy AI remain the same as in the past. That’s essential to how Hitman works, however–your knowledge and understanding of the game’s underlying systems are what make it possible to replay levels again and again to exploit their intricacies in different ways. Rather than feel dated, Hitman 3 just highlights how satisfying it can be to understand how all these moving pieces work together. There aren’t any major mechanical additions to the game’s construction, but seeing how it all harmonizes is as impressive today as it was when the first entry in the World of Assassination trilogy launched in 2016.

In each of the game’s locations, your goal is to find a way to eliminate your assassination targets and then escape the level without being found out. You do that largely by knocking out enemies, hiding their bodies, and taking their clothes. Some areas are restricted based on what you’re wearing, and some enemies can still see through your disguises, requiring you to carefully avoid them. Agent 47 has the benefit of Instinct, a vision mode that lets him intuit where enemies are through walls and which highlights interactive items in the environment.

As you sneak around each level, your goal is to try to uncover information that will help you get close to your targets and eliminate them. Those assassinations can be accomplished in simple ways, such as shooting them or strangling them with a garrote, or more complex ones like exposing an electrical wire in a puddle and then turning on a nearby switch to electrocute your prey. The stealthier (and less deadly to non-targets) you are, the better your score at the end of a level, and each stage is full of challenges to complete that encourage you to find weird and creative ways to take out your mark, without anyone knowing you were ever there. The more challenges you complete, the more you “master” a level, which unlocks additional starting locations and loadout options to change the experience even more.Part of what sets Hitman 3’s levels apart from those of Hitman 1 and 2 is how they fit into the overall story that IO has been telling in this series. In the past, each of Hitman’s levels has functioned as a mostly standalone chapter in the tale of titular assassin Agent 47. You’d go into a location with one or more targets, and each mission had a bit of story about the people you were after, which doubled as an opportunity to get close to them.

But those targets were usually somewhat tangentially related to what was going on in the unfolding story of Agent 47 and his handler, Diana Burnwood. Across Hitman 1 and 2, the pair slowly realized that they were unwitting participants in a war between the Shadow Client, a guy who was carefully manipulating them through their assassination contracts, and Providence, an Illuminati-like organization of world-controlling super-rich people. In Hitman 3, Agent 47 and Burnwood are fully involved in the battle against Providence after the events of Hitman 2, and that larger story is finally at the forefront of everything that’s going on.

That means that missions feel like they have a bigger impact and targets are more interesting and make more sense. The characters you eliminate have consequences for the story, and those consequences lead to imaginative takes on the series formula as 47’s enemies try to fight back against him. After developing a brilliant mold for Hitman missions, where you’re dropped into an often-huge area and have to learn to understand how it works to accomplish your goals, IO breaks that mold again and again to create fun, memorable, inventive assassination experiences.

set in Dartmoor, England, where you’re trying to assassinate a target in the middle of what is essentially a riff on the movie Knives Out or any number of Agatha Christie stories. You’re planning a murder of your own, but one has just taken place in the huge mansion where your target is staying, and you can even take on the role of private investigator and search for clues to figure out whodunit. It feels like taking a brief vacation in the middle of Hitman 3 to play another game, but the brilliance of the murder mystery’s addition is that the whole time you’re solving it, you’re thinking about how you can use the information you learn to your advantage to finish your assassination. Your inquiry might let you expose the murderer, or frame someone else for the crime, or give you ammunition for a blackmail threat, depending on how much you explore. It’s a three-dimensional chess game where you’re not only putting the clues together to close the case, but also thinking ahead to what opportunities your actions might offer you, and it’s an absolutely phenomenal expansion of how Hitman’s intricate levels already work.Later missions also put intelligent spins on the series framework. Just about every Hitman mission up to now has given you a briefing about your targets and lets you plan your starting point and weapon loadout–so one mission robs you of all your preparatory information, dropping you into an unfamiliar location and forcing you to wing it, locating your targets and learning what you can about them on the fly. Another mission takes the things that work about Hitman–sneaking past guards, donning disguises, using the environment to distract or pacify enemies–and shrinks the scope from its normally expansive settings to a tight, crowded train, so that every move and decision you make has to be quick and calculated. There’s a mission that purposely leaves you on the back foot at one point when an alarm is activated, forcing you to sneak or fight your way to safety as guards search for you.

None of Hitman 3’s missions change how you’ve played these games since 2016. They don’t throw new mechanics at you (other than a camera that can scan some objects and persistent shortcuts that give you new opportunities for assassinations) or require you to learn to deal with new enemy behaviors. Instead, Hitman 3 finds new ways to challenge seasoned assassins purely through excellent design. You’ve honed your assassination skills–but can you solve a mystery? Can you avoid other hidden, disguised assassins hunting you? Can you sneak out of a locked-down facility full of soldiers who know you’re there? It’s a fitting testament to how strong the World of Assassination games have been all along that IO can make Hitman 3 feel fresh and new simply by finding creative new ways to take advantage of the series’ design foundations.

The drawback of Hitman 3 is that, while the missions often feel even more ambitious in intricacy than those of the past, the game itself is scaled down somewhat as an overall package. Gone are some additions that appeared in Hitman 2, including the competitive Ghost mode and cooperative Sniper Assassin missions (the Sniper Assassin missions still exist as single-player experiences, but only if you own the content from Hitman 2).

There’s an argument to be made that IO has maintained its focus on what people like about the series in Hitman 3 while letting experiments that worked less well fall away, but it still feels like there’s a bit less game here than in the past. That said, the World of Assassination games also have excelled with their post-release content, and we know that the timed Elusive Target missions are making a return at some point, which softens the blow of multiplayer mode losses. There’s also the addition of virtual reality support for PlayStation players, allowing you to play Hitman 3 in first-person mode (along with all the missions from Hitman 1 and 2, if you own them), although we played on PC and thus couldn’t test it.

And as with Hitman 2, Hitman 3 functions as a platform for past games’ levels, so you can play everything from Hitman 1 and 2 with your new unlocked weapons and Hitman 3’s improvements. Continuing to have access to all Hitman content in one place is a nice addition, although you have to have purchased it all at some point or another.

What’s good about Hitman–its level design and the creativity, experimentation, and exploration that affords–is great in Hitman 3. It closes out the trilogy by brilliantly playing off everything that came before it, making use of and then subverting expectations, and rewarding players for their willingness to master the complexity of both its individual levels and the series as a whole.

Source link

The post Hitman 3 Review — Perfect Execution appeared first on Tacit Thoughts.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/3qLqGVU via IFTTT

[pengychan]

[Good Omens] Winging It - Revelation 12:7-8

Summary: Shockingly, attempting to destroy an angel without consulting God first comes with consequences. There is more than one way to fall, and a thousand more ways to inconvenience an angel and a demon who just wanted to be left in peace. Characters: Gabriel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Beelzebub, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon Rating: T  

Prologue and all chapters are tagged as ‘winging it’ on my blog.

A/N: I apologize in advance.

***

The War - the very first war to ever be fought, a violent uprising that came as a surprise to most because ah, for all the rumors they had never thought anyone would have the audacity to rally arms against God - raged for eons and yet for a very short time.

Because at the, er, time, time had not been invented yet; or at least, its linear nature had yet to be established. God still had it in the backburner, and would only will it into reality later. Relatively speaking. Without linear time, the concept of later was rather fuzzy.

But in the chaos of the battle, everything was.

Gabriel had been in mid-air, spear in hand and trumpet at his belt, preoccupied with nothing but the message he had to deliver - reinforcement to the Gates, they’re almost there, reinforcement to the Gates - when something had ensnared him.

A net. 

Wings trapped, unable to break the bonds, Gabriel had been unable to defend himself from the attack that had followed. He’d been thrown down on ground that was not ground, next to a yawning abyss, and had brought up his spear just on time, the few inches the net allowed him, parrying what would have been a crushing blow.

The concept of death was not a thing around there, either, but there was no need to wait a few eons until Cain and Abel’s disagreement to guess a crushing blow to one’s head was best avoided. There was a snarl, and the rebellious angel above him brought the axe up again, four wings blotting out the light coming from the stars as she towered above him and-- and--

CLANG.

The axe came down, but never reached Gabriel, or his spear. A sword came up to meet it, cracked and shattered, but surprise was enough to make the rebel step back, seemingly incredulous. “Ba’al? What are you doing?”

Ba’al?

It was them, hilt of the broken sword still in hand, standing between him and his attacker. But it made no sense - Ba’al was one of them, they had turned against God and made themselves an enemy of Heaven, they--

“This one is mine.” Ba’al voice was low, threatening. The other angel, who would be known as Dagon once her current name was lost to memory, stepped back. With all her stunned attention on Ba’al, she didn’t notice Gabriel frantically slicing through the net that kept him trapped. 

“Your sword is broken.”

“He’s just a messenger. A glorified errand boy, and ensnared. I can deal with--”

“Gabriel!’

A crack of thunder, the rush of wings through the air, Michael’s voice. Gabriel rolled some distance from the chasm and looked up to see her diving down towards them, sword lifted, ready to help him - but before she could reach him the one who’d become Dagon flew up to meet her. Weapons clashed, and Gabriel threw the last of the net off himself before he stood, and lifted his spear. 

Before him, Ba’al had sunk on one knee; now Gabriel could see they had overexerted themselves in the heath of the battle, while he soared over it to deliver vital messages. They were weakened and, with the sword broken almost to the hilt, virtually unarmed. One strike was all it would take. He lifted his spear, which had never felt so heavy in his hands before. 

“The wrong sort,” he rasped. “I tried to warn you.” 

His voice came out a sorrowful murmur; Ba’al looked up at him, defiance there again despite their predicament. “You still have time.”

“Time…?”

“To join our cause.”

This one is mine.

But you’re wrong. We belong to God. Why rebel? Why fight?

“... Abandon this folly. You the one who’s still on time.”

A scoff. “Even you can’t be so stupid. You know we cannot turn back.”

Spear still raised, Gabriel shook his head. He knew it was true, but he didn’t want to admit it any more than he wanted to put the spear in his hands to use. “If you surrender, and plead for mer--”

“Never!” Ba’al voice came out a furious buzzing, and they stood with what seemed a terrible effort. The sword in their hand gleamed, the broken blade still dangerous. “I will never beg!”

“Shut your stupid mouth and listen to--”

“Gabriel, what are you waiting for? Strike them down!” 

“Ba’al! Strike now!”

Two voices rang out, Michael’s and that of the rebel angel, still engaged in a fight above them. Both Gabriel and Ba’al looked up to see Michael was gaining the upper hand, and fast; she was a fierce warrior, something Gabriel had been unaware of as none of them had ever had a reason to fight before the rebellion started. Any moment now she would make away with her opponent, then she’d turn her attention to Ba’al, and… and…

Strike them down!

I don’t want to. 

For a single, terrifying moment, Gabriel found himself at a crossroads: obey an order that he knew came straight from God - defend the Gates, cast out the rebels - or… not doing that. 

Join our cause.

He didn’t want to join their cause. He didn’t want to cast them out. He didn’t want to be struck down. He didn’t know what to do, and he never had to go through the agony of making a choice: Ba’al took the matter into their own hands. With a sudden cry they rushed at him, nimble and fast, swinging the broken sword up before Gabriel could even try to parry. 

The broken blade glinted, flashed towards his face, and never hit him. What did strike him was the hilt, slamming against the side of his head. Gabriel tumbled down, stunned, and the spear was torn out of his hands. When he looked up, Ba’al was towering over him, the tip of his own spear only inches away from Gabriel’s face. An easy target. An easy victory Ba’al did not claim.

“... Fool. Next time you cross my path, I shall take you down,” they said, their voice flat, and it was the last thing Ba’al, the Virtue, would ever say to him. They soared  up the next moment with a powerful beat of their wings, leaving him on the ground next to the chasm they could so easily have cast him into, to aid their fellow rebel in the fight against Michael.

It was a fight they would lose, but Gabriel was not there to witness it. He had a message to deliver and so he did, ignoring the ache that had not been caused by the blow, focusing on duty and duty only as he’d always done and would continue to do for eons to come. Soon enough the War was won, all memory of the Fallen faded and so, too, did the ache. 

They all welcomed it: forgetting fixed everything, took away the loss, vanquished regret.

You can’t miss someone you don’t remember.

***

“... He seems to be doing well.”

“Yes.”

“He does look good.”

“I don’t think the facial hair does much for him.”

“He got rid of it, see? This photo is dated the following week. It’s called shaving, I believe.”

“Ah, I see.” There were a few moments of silence, all three of them staring down at the photos they had just been handed by a low-ranking angel. As it turned out, giving the task of checking on Gabriel to someone he was unlikely to recognize and who knew how to blend in with humans had been a good idea; Gabriel hadn’t realized he was being watched at all. 

The photos showed him at different times: leaving work, sitting in a café with a couple of mortals, jogging in a park - which Sandalphon believed was something he used to enjoy before, too, but he was no longer entirely certain - and he did seem… fine. 

“Hard to imagine him being all right with life as a human, huh?” he muttered in the end, but the truth of the matter was that it wasn’t. It wasn’t hard at all, because… because…

“I am not sure I remember enough about him to know what we ought to have expected,” Uriel said, her voice quiet, speaking for all of them. “We remember things about him because we have been writing them down. We don’t remember him. We no longer know him.”

It was true, of course, and there was probably little point in dancing around it. Lies didn’t go very far in Heaven, unless very well crafted. But ah, Sandalphon found he’d have preferred a lie.

“... The alternative is forgetting even that,” Michael said, putting the photos away. “I am not prepared to.”

“Even if God wills it?”

Uriel’s question was far more loaded than her calm tone suggested. It made Sandalphon recoil, and he found himself swallowing. His eyes shifted to Michael, who looked back at them with calm, steely resolve. “Even if God wills it,” she replied.

Coming from an arcangel, such words were dangerous. A moment of silence followed; there was no crack of thunder, no appearance from the Voice of God telling them to pack up and leave Heaven for good. As Sandalphon breathed out a sigh of relief, Uriel nodded. 

“... May I have one of the photos?” she asked. 

They each took one; Sandalphon got the one where he had that funny thing humans get on their faces, and put it in his pocket before speaking again. “Do you think he will ever call for us?”

“I don’t know. We should hope he never has to.”

“Unless he forgets about us, too.”

“He didn’t seem to have forgotten us at all last time,” Michael said, her voice bitter. The memories at the forefront of his mind clearly hadn't been good ones. “He certainly has not forgotten Aziraphale yet, he spoke to him recently. He’d have forgotten him too if--”

“Why isn’t Aziraphale forgetting him at all?” Sandalphon asked, causing both Uriel and Michael to look back at him. He shrugged. “I know some things don’t apply to him - like he didn’t burn with Hellfire - but I was thinking… after the War, he forgot about the Fallen like all of us.”

There were a few moments of silence. “... Something in him clearly changed since,” Michael finally said. She didn’t speculate aloud as to what it may be, and she didn’t need to. They knew. 

What had changed, without a shadow of a doubt, was that Aziraphale had hardly ever returned to Heaven in over six thousand years. 

***

No matching results.

“Ah, goddammit.” Daniel Brown closed his laptop with a sigh of frustration - almost slammed it shut, but it was an old thing he’d bought second-hand and he couldn’t afford to break it - and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples.

Still nothing, he thought. Christ, there was nothing anywhere even confirming that his sister had existed at any point. Memories of her were few and in-between; he had nothing of hers, not even a picture, a letter, a scrap of a document. Maybe he could find a way to get to her birth certificate, which would get him precisely nowhere in his search for her but would at least confirm that he was not crazy, that he wasn’t chasing after a woman who’d never even existed.

It made no sense: there had to be something somewhere, people don’t just vanish like that. His wife had been dead for years, but he could still find traces of her. There was obituary, her name still on the electoral roll at the address they lived in before she died and he lost the house.

There was the mention of her in that little article about her second prize at the local flower show - they had used a pretty unflattering picture, Liv had been more annoyed than she’d let by - and that long-deserted Facebook account she had made a couple of years before her death and barely used for anything, other than sharing pictures of cats and deep quotes about life by famous people who had all died before turning thirty. At least she’d made it to forty-seven. 

It wasn’t much, of course, but still traces of a life that he could find with an Internet connection. When it came to Alison no matter how much he scoured records, including the kind you have to pay to access - he could find nothing, and was running out of options. He already had, really, just kept trying the same shit over and over in hopes it would somehow wield a result next time.

But it won’t. I had my chance when she wrote and I blew it.

With a long sigh, Daniel stood - and then he faltered, leaning on the table a few moments when his vision swam and he felt faint. Ah, he’d forgotten to have dinner again. Maybe he should eat something now but he was tired, his head ached, and had an early morning ahead of him. 

He’d go to sleep, he decided, and have a good breakfast the next morning. Maybe he’d ask Gabriel to schedule his shifts a bit later in the morning for the next week, a little favor to a friend, and go on to have a normal day, trying not to think of his sister. Maybe he’d go out for a drink.

Then, at night, he’d be online to try again. Dead or alive, she had to be somewhere. 

She had to. 

*** 

“It’s impossible. You know it’s impossible.”

“My Lord, we have scoured all the archives--”

“Then look better! I swear to Satan, are all the underlings on archive duty so incompetent--”

“I have personally scoured the entirety of the archives when they failed to find a thing, my Lord.”

Ah. Beelzebub’s features twisted in a displeased scowl; a couple of blisters on their face burst, a few flies trying to land on them before they shooed them away with a wave of their hand, the blisters immediately re-forming. As much as they wanted to continue with the tirade, they knew there would be no point to it.

Dagon wasn’t known as the Lord of the Files for nothing; if she said that there was no folder for any Alison Brown born in Plymouth between 1948 and 1950… then that meant there was no folder for any Alison Brown born in Plymouth in 1948, 1949, or 1950. End of discussion.

Even if it made no sense.

“How can it be? There must be a folder, even if she’s not in Hell,” Beelzebub muttered, their fury turning to confusion. They had one of those for every single mortal who was ever born on Earth. Every one, without fail, without exception. Bureaucracy in Hell was… hellish, and unorganised to be hard to navigate, but just as relentless as the one Heaven prided itself with. “Perhaps the idiot is mistaken over the birth years--”

“I have checked the previous few years, and a couple after that. I found nothing. Maybe he was mistaken by several years, or about the name. Or the place of birth.”

“Seems unlikely. He is an idiot, but not the sort of idiot who gets this kind of thing wrong.”

Dagon didn’t argue. She was wonderfully incurious over the reasons behind Beelzebub’s orders, and it suited them just fine. They were not looking to explain that they were making deals with a soul they were supposed to just collect, or why. 

“Either way, there is nothing on the mortal he described,” Dagon said. “The only explanation is that this person never existed, or else she’d be in our files.”

That, Beelzebub knew, was true. It had to be true. “... Maybe he is, indeed, that kind of idiot,” they muttered. It had to be a mistake. They could see no reason why Gabriel would make them waste time by looking for the files of a person who did not exist.

“Do you wish me to order the underlings to keep looking?”

“As there is no folder to find, it would be useless, tedious labor wielding no result nor reward,” Beelzebub said. “Excellent. Do that and tell them the inevitable failure shall be punished.”

“I will, my Lord,” Dagon promised, her mood lifted at the prospect as the Lord of the Flies disappeared in sulphur and fire, leaving behind a few burnt flies and a scorch marks on the side of the throne. 

*** 

Scorching hot water, Gabriel decided, was one of the most oddly satisfying things to endure once your body - mortal body, that is - gets used to it. So much so, in fact, that the vast majority of his time in the shower was spent simply standing beneath the stream of hot water, eyes closed and head tilted back.

How lucky, he mused, that not all the necessary tasks that plagued human existence were unpleasant. This was something he could keep doing for a long time, and he found it was surprisingly helpful when he had to focus and think. 

Not that his thoughts were doing much more than running in circles at the moment. 

Next time you cross my path, I shall take you down,

Had what he’d remembered really, truly happened? It had all come flooding back to him while he was asleep, after trying and failing to recall things as far back as he could, so there was no telling whether it was truly a memory or just a dream, or a memory tainted by a dream. Just last week he’d dreamed something absurd about putting cake batter in the oven and pulling out a live goose with a blonde wig, which had then proceeded to wreak havoc in the room.

It could very well be something like that, and if it was… well, Beelzebub wanted memories, and real ones at that. So before he told them anything about-- this one is mine -- the dream he had, he needed to be certain it was, indeed, a memory. And besides, even if it were, that was not what Beelzebub had demanded of him. They already knew that Gabriel had passed on the chance to strike them down during the War. 

What they expected of Gabriel was to tell them why.

I don’t know, Gabriel thought, and it was… only partially true. The reason why they had made no move that day, why they’d tried to get the other back on their respective side, was well within his reach. All he had to do was will himself to look at it, but it scared him in a way he couldn’t put into words. Once he did, once he knew, there would be no turning back. Chances were that Beelzebub may not appreciate whatever truth he may find there, either, and shoot the messenger because of course they would. 

Maybe he should-- ah, the water was beginning to run cold. Snapped from his musings, Gabriel shivered and reached to turn off the tap. All right, then: time to get out, dry off, and try to figure out what kind of nourishment he could get with as little work as possible before it was time for him to leave. He could think over his dilemma later, he decided, and pulled aside the curtain. 

To be greeted by the sudden appearance in the bathroom of a ball of fire. 

“Gah!” Gabriel cried out, trying to instinctively step back, and slipped, landing painfully on his backside and hitting the back of his head against the wall in the process. He made a face, reaching up to rub his head, just as the flames dissipated and Beelzebub appeared, sitting on the toilet seat as they would on their throne. 

They didn’t seem very impressed to see him soaked through in a heap on the floor.

“Why are you wet?”

“I was showering, humans need to keep clean--”

“Why are you on the floor?”

“You startled me!”

“Ah, so I did. Well, that was the intention.”

“Why!”

“I am the Prince of Hell,” Beelzebub pointed out, and Gabriel groaned. 

“Fair,” he muttered, pulling himself up from the slippery floor of the shower. It was a good reminder, if anything. Beelzebub, not Ba’al. The Prince of Hell, not the Virtue he’d known a long, long time ago and was just beginning to remember. “Can you hand me the towel, I left it hangi--”

Beelzebub raised a hand, and the towel came off the hook, pooling on the floor. That was… not handing it to him, but Gabriel supposed he deserved it for thinking he could ask the Prince of Hell for a simple favor. “Many thanks,” he grumbled, walking out to pick it up. He wiped his face first, quickly towelled himself dry, and wrapped it around his waist because may as well - humans did tend to cover up below the waist and he saw no reason to differ. “Why are you he--”

“They did do a number on you.”

Beelzebub’s voice was quiet, and something about it caused to Gabriel to go very still. He turned slowly to look back at them over his shoulder; their expression was blank, their eyes fixed on Gabriel’s upper back, where his wings had been. Where the scars were left. 

Don’t look, he wanted to say, but words stayed stuck in his throat. He glanced over at the mirror, but it was too misted to see a thing on it. Better that way, he supposed. He didn’t need to see them. “... Michael is not known for leaving jobs half done,” Gabriel finally said, and turned to face the Lord of the Flies, hiding his back from their gaze. “Why are you here?”

Beelzebub shrugged. “We had a deal, did we not?”

Ah, yes. That. Gabriel drew in a deep breath, fully aware of the fact he was not dealing with a patient being who saw the value of delayed gratification. 

“I… haven’t got around to sit down and try to dig up memories yet, but I can--”

“The mortal you asked about never existed.”

Gabriel trailed off, blinking. He’d expected some anger, a demand to hold up to his end of the bargain, not… that. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’ll spare you a jab over who you’re begging for pardon. This Alison Brown does not exist.”

That… couldn’t be. “That’s the name he gave me. I am sure. Alison.”

“Wrong place?”

“He said they were both born in Plymouth--”

“Wrong dates, then.”

“But she was twenty-five when he was eleven, and he was born in 1963, so that means that certainly within the time frame I estimated--”

“Spare me the maths. There is no one that matches.”

“Perhaps, if she changed her name-- maybe a new surname--”

“It would be on our records along with the old one,” Beelzebub pointed out, sounding in equal measure bored and annoyed. “Every mortal who is ever born has a folder, both in Hell and Heaven, keeping track of their sins and good deeds respectively. Every one of them, without exception. You of all people ought to know that, since you were such a pain in the ass about it when you insisted the forms should match.”

Gabriel frowned. “Well, it made perfect sense that they should match, if we were to ever compare them in case a soul appealed--” he trailed off when Beelzebub reached to knock the can of shaving gel off the counter, entirely expressionless as they did. It bounced on the tiles with a clattering noise, rolling at Gabriel’s feet. He held back a sigh. “Why did you feel the need to do that?”

“You’re changing the subject. Don’t.”

“Or you’re going to knock down my toothbrush?”

“I may just go straight for your teeth, so you no longer need it,” Beelzebub buzzed, and Gabriel promptly shut his mouth. Truth be told, he was beginning to doubt Beelzebub would act on… most of their threats to him, but either way there had to be a line somewhere that he didn’t want to be stepping over. At the very least he should pick his battles; this one was not worth his teeth.

Unaware of his thoughts, Beelzebub seemed very pleased by Gabriel’s silence. 

“That’s a smart human. If all you told me is true, can you explain how come there is no trace of this person’s existence anywhere in Hell’s archives?”

“Perhaps you misplaced the folder?”

“I misplace nothing.”

“I mean-- someone else? Whoever is in charge of that department?” Gabriel muttered. There had to be something, unless Daniel had entirely made up that story about his sister… but why would he? What reason would he have to make up a story like that to tell him over a drink? He had nothing to gain from that. And regret had been so obvious on his face and in his voice, Gabriel couldn’t imagine he had simply pretended for no reason whatsoever. 

“Impossible,” Beelzebub was saying. “That is Dagon’s department. Lord of the Files. She is more likely to distribute candy to orphans across Earth than she is to misplace a folder.”

Gabriel, who was still not entirely over watching the Antichrist choose not to be the Antichrist as well as an angel standing in Hellfire without a single hair being scorched, almost pointed out that impossible should probably be erased from all vocabularies in existence. But as he was not looking forward to an argument over Hell’s competence or lack thereof - Beelzebub was touchy on the subject, he’d found out over the millennia - he decided not to.

Picking his battles and all that. 

“Perhaps an underling misplaced it,” he said, picking a less unlikely suggestion. Beelzebub paused, clearly thinking that was… slightly less beyond the realm of possibilities.

“If that is the case, they will be punished.”

“It’s not necessary--”

“Harshly.”

“There really is no need--”

“Don’t presume you can tell me how I should run Hell.”

“... Right. Yes. Of course. Do you think you can-- go make sure they check again?”

“They already are. Of course, there is another way to be absolutely certain,” Beelzebub muttered, tilting their head on one side. “Someone ought to check upstairs. If they have no folder either, then I am right, you are wong, and this person never existed.”

Ah, of course. That was an option, he supposed, except for the detail he had no intention whatsoever to turn to turn to Heaven for help. Perhaps Aziraphale would, but-- ah, it still left a bad taste in his mouth, turning to him for more help after… after everything. 

“I’m sure it won’t be needed. There must be a mistake, I’m certain the search will turn up--”

“What is it, are you afraid to be proven wrong?”

“No,” Gabriel snapped, annoyance coming back in full force. “I am not that petty. I simply don’t think Heaven need be involved.”

Beelzebub paused a moment, blinking. “Ah, right,” they muttered. “You are still afraid of them.”

Was he? Gabriel was not sure. He dreaded the idea of finding himself in their presence, but it was something more visceral than simple fear of harm; he knew they would not. They had no reason to harm him, not anymore; they had never wanted to.

But they had. His brethren had struck him down, while the being before him… a long time ago...

No, no, no. He couldn’t go there. “I am not afraid,” he snapped, gaining himself a scoff. 

“You know where lies land you, don’t you?”

“I cut ties with them, all right? It’s not like I can simply turn around and go ‘Michael, I need you to do me a favor, can you come help me out?’ and she will simply drop everything to--” 

Should you ever need us, all you need to do is call out our names, and we’ll be there.

Wait.

Gabriel’s brain caught up just a moment too late - which was an improvement on his usual track record of ‘several moments too late’, but still not enough, and trailing off did not help. There was a bright bolt of lighting out of seemingly nowhere, surprisingly non-deafening in the enclosed space of the bathroom, and the next moment Michael stood before him, a clipboard still in her hands from… whatever duty he had accidentally called her from.

Gabriel really, really should have stayed in bed that morning.

*** 

A few doors down, Daniel Brown still lay in his own bed. He’d forgotten to set the alarm the previous evening, which would have made him late for work, but that morning it mattered not. 

He wasn’t there anymore, anyway. 

***

"Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven." -- Revelation 12:7-8 

***

[Back]

[Next]

[sincerelybillie]

on liking yourself when others dislike you

do you think you could handle knowing, at the rate and visibility of social media “likes” and praise, how many people cannot stand you? i think about this often - how i myself do sometimes quantify and qualify my work and my worth based on the affirmation i receive, read and hear. and years of self-growth and self-love aside, to look at yourself through rose-coloured glasses isn’t any much healthier than picking at the scabs of your own insecurities. whether you’re healed or not, you’re not above self-examination. i’m really learning that these days. 

there’s a lot to unpack here, so i hope you’re comfy. because i’m about to get uncomfy.

 and again, the thoughts burst to the forefront of my brain and again i, in the paralysis and then dull pain of honest self-reflection, spat them down as bullet points. things that sting just as much removing an old and actual bullet from a body that’s gotten too accustomed to its own damage and romanticized being a warrior whose bones can no longer be broken w sticks, stones, or anything for that matter. but none of us are that untouchable. we wouldn’t be human. 

in middle school, stephanie and sarah started a myspace comment thread about my eczema and how they didn’t want to be near me in the locker rooms during P.E. because they didn’t want to have “lizard skin” like me. i found out about their lifetime movie school bully behaviour after they’d been discussing me for weeks (which was honestly weirder than any skin condition i had? you’re preteen girls obsessively talking about my mostly naked prepubescent body that experiences dry skin sometimes? which isn’t contagious?) anyways, they both ended up having severe, cystic acne for much of their teenhood, and i always felt secure in knowing karma did a much better job than any revenge i could have employed at such a young age. i’d known stephanie since we were in first grade, and sarah was one of the “bad girls” who started wearing excessive eyeliner and push up bras before the rest of us. i guess stephanie felt like she needed to invest in something like that, for social currency. sarah got beat up a few times, i think, because other girls caught word of her trash talking. i think stephanie knew how to be strategic in her associations and never actually had to be held accountable for being shitty. i don’t know what happened to either of them, but i remember being really smug about my clear skin and the state of their faces when i found them on facebook in high school. this wasn’t productive. this didn’t make me a good person. and i guess i just always wanted to believe anyone who didn’t like me was in the wrong and would receive a cosmic consequence for being a dick to me.

let’s head to my early twenties where my first full time job with an organization i spent two years with showed me i was wrong. there were still coworkers who disliked me for really petty reasons, who still acted like spiteful and gossipy middle school bullies or were passive aggressive towards me for reasons that really didn’t make anymore sense than hating me for my allergies did. but i did have to hear and internalize and change the fact that i was too aggressive in my work ethic, isolated people who i felt didn’t work as hard as me, didn’t open up to people because i came across like nobody was worth knowing me or being trusted, was too opinionated, verbose, competitive, elitist. i couldn’t believe i could be considered these things, and anyone who called me that must have really misunderstood my commitment and my values. they were stupid and wrong. i was right. there was nothing for me to change here. but i was wrong because even if some of them had discussed me behind my back in separate group chats, behaved unprofessionally towards me, or stopped interacting w me entirely outside of mandated work environments, it didn’t automatically invalidate any and all other feedback they could have given me. it didn’t lose its legitimacy just because it was coming from someone i didn’t consider a friend with valuable insight. and because i placed so much value on the connections and thoughts of people i mutually respected, knew, and trusted, it was hard to swallow truths handed out by strangers, estranged friends, acquaintances or people i just thought sucked. 

i stifled my own growth by not listening to them because i thought loving myself and hearing what people who aren’t cool with me had to say were mutually exclusive. i chose to only hear half the conversation because that’s what served me. because only hearing criticisms and insults was so poor for my mental health, that i had to swing the pendulum as hard as i could in the other direction. and that may have felt better most of the time, but it didn’t make me better long-term. 

at the benefit of my sanity in this digital age, i don’t see who or how many people ignore my snapchat stories, screenshot my ig stories or discuss them when i’m not around, hate what i post, roll their eyes at my captions, or click thumbs down on my youtube videos, whether or not they watched the whole thing. but i know that people do it. i know some people choose to continue following me on social media or being friends w me because they want that mutual follow, despite never really interacting w me - positively or otherwise - on the particular platform. it’s a numbers game. they hate seeing their follower count drop more than they hate seeing me. i know i’ve been blocked, unfriended, and called names i can’t respond to before they press that button, a power move to get the last word in that i myself am guilty of using. my ex boyfriend made a hate account for me when we broke up. my numbers drop a little by a couple people on different platforms almost immediately after i share something that i guess people determine is enough of seeing me and my opinons on their timelines or feeds. my roommates talk about me and hide their ig stories from me. one of them reads my tweets, but doesn’t follow me, but she's given me a lot of valuable insight and feedback herself; the other throws temper tantrums, so i know where to put more relationship energy based on maturity and respect. i can’t explain human behaviour, my own or theirs when it comes to this. i could obsess over what possible reason anyone could have to decide to do these things. i could obsess over what possible reason anyone could have to think i’m not incredible. and that’s pathetic of me to do so, to assume so. 

so many things could be a blow to the ego if i let it matter enough. but how do you know when something is insignificant and when something is a sign? my impatience w what i consider “poor performance” has made me seem pretentious, unapproachable, and aloof. so i built up my empathy muscle, i started sharing how things made me feel, what i needed from people, asking them what they needed from me, listening, giving - and that has made a monumental difference in my relationships. i have less of them now (relationships), because it is not a numbers game, but the ones i have i enjoy and i put the work in to grow and maintain, like any other garden, talent, muscle, bond. if i care enough and because i care. 

apathy isn’t cool. we are not above being hurt or taking it personally, wondering what we did wrong instead of just as often deciding that person is trash anyways. so good riddance. ha ha, quality over quantity, yeah i’m never wavering from that perspective! 

but i do waver because as (un)fortunate, (in)convenient, confusing, or exciting as it can be, these perceptions of “what makes me great”, “why does everyone hate me”, “i’m good enough”, “i’m untouchable”, and “i’m trash” are fluid. influenced by read receipts, break ups, little to no interaction w people you have shared laughs and important times with, technology, celebrities and pop culture, childhood flashbacks, adulthood anxieties, etc. 

i’m still trying to make sense of this all. maybe you are where i am at on some or many days as well. i hope i, and you (but i can really only speak for myself, i have to remind myself on this blog) can understand what makes me a remarkable person doesn’t scream louder than the parts i should work on, doesn’t shine so much that i don’t need touch ups or entire renovations of how i act, think, and treat myself and others.

and adversely, people can dislike me because they dislike themselves or because they’re generally bad people w bad taste…or they can dislike me because there are things that i do, real behaviours that are mine, that are dislikable. bad. ugly. allowed to be criticized. allowed to be unwanted.

i can do something about them or i can let my precious, problematic ego inflate while my potential for growth and reconcilable, worthwhile relationships deteriorate. why do i preserve what i preserve? why do i overlook what i overlook? scoffs, tears, eye rolls, thank you’s, hugs. 

i have all this self-awareness and all these options. i just don’t have the foresight to know what is the correct button to press. maybe part of growing up is just taking that journey, for all its guts and glory, because we’re not entitled to the ending we think we deserve. we experience the consequences of our actions, the actions of others, sometimes we get lucky, we get better, we get hurt. i have to be okay w all that, i have to learn and never stop learning from all that. even if, no matter what i become or do or say, people still decide they don’t like me. 

after all, the end game isn’t likability, despite how sick these social media games can make us. my end game, my always game is just growth, goodness, the willingness to experience the refreshing pain of honest self-evaluation and re-calibration. as much as i can see greatness in myself, i’m not above being told there’s something ugly and bad that needs to be looked at too. removed.

maybe this isn’t enough for the people reading who don’t like me. is it insincere? irresponsible? i’m not here to please you or get you to like me; i need to be better, no matter what. this is the truth of how i feel and what i’ve been thinking. 

yes, i like myself. enough to see past mindless hate and not change myself to accommodate others, but also enough to recognize when i need to make real change for everyone’s benefit of being/knowing a better me. 

this is what needed to be said.