#re all saints street

[vulpiximisa]

incomprehensible

[all-hallows-street]

All Saints Street QQ Wallpapers

The quality is not what I would like to have, but they were some sort of collectables for signing up in QQ so I can only get hold of weibo reposts. Cleaned up the reposters' signatures so they can be used as wallpapers. The illustrations are from the 6th Anniversary the 2022 Fall series merch. Actually, I am not sure where the Lily/Neil one is from, but I can't find any other wallpapers series so attaching it here.

Higher Res:

6th Anniversary

Lynn | Lily | Nick | Neil | Abu | Ira | Damao Fall Series

Lily | Neil & Lily | Neil | Damao | Abu | Ira | Lynn | Nick

[omgthatdress]

the major takeaway from last night is that Karl Lagerfeld was more of a personality than a designer and that Yves Saint Laurent was the clear winner of that rivalry.

For those who aren’t familiar, Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent were both fashion wunderkinds who emerged in the late 1950s, both appointed heads of major brands at the same time, and had very intense rivalry. Yves Saint Laurent took over Dior after the passing of Christian Dior, helped cement the brand as a major player in fashion, and then after a disastrous stint being drafted into the French army, built his own fashion brand that went down in history with its unique and diverse and always evolving looks.

Karl was always kind of behind Yves. He designed for a lot of major fashion brands, and managed to establish himself at the top of the game at Chloé, but he didn’t get his full on legendary status until he took over Chanel in 1983. This history of the Chanel brand was already pretty frought, with Coco Chanel modernizing and defining the fashion of the 1920s and 30s, but being forced to shut down during World War 2, during which she collaborated with the Nazis. Behind the Bastards did a pretty great two episodes on her. When the brand returned in the 60s, fashion had changed tremendously. Dior, Givenchy, Balenciaga, and Balmain had all taken over mid-century fashion, and now that aesthetic was being taken over by mod, the miniskirt, and the likes of Mary Quant, Pierre Cardin, and Paco Rabanne. So when Chanel came back it was largely seen as a stuffy old lady brand, which it remained until Karl took it over.

Now, this is where Karl actually did something really impressive that you honestly can’t take away from him: he took a fashion house in severe decline, one that had been in its flop era for literal decades, and he made it hip again, while still managing to stay true to the ethos that Coco Chanel had laid out.

Chanel is clean, minimalistic, and classy. It is easy to wear, effortless, and always extremely glamorous, which is what made it so iconic in the 20s and 30s. Given that the 50s and 60s were all about making a fucking effort, the thing that the brand managed to keep doing well was its suits. You know what kind of suits I’m talking about. Tweed jackets and midi skirts, neat tailoring, delicate pastel colors, pearls and camellias and chains. It’s not so much that it was edgy and exciting but it was expensive and it was *Chanel* and people wore it for the status symbol alone. That is what Karl took advantage of and managed to re-invent.

That sort of aesthetic fit perfectly into the you-can-never-be-too-rich-or-too-skinny 80s, when wearing status symbol clothing was everything.

Then, in the 90s, he managed to keep things exciting by following exactly what was on-trend at the time and incorporating elements of street wear and hip-hop.

However, after that, he kind of lost his edge and just rested on “it’s Chanel” rather than actually pushing the fashion envelope. By the time he died in 2019, he was a fucking dinosaur and fashion had long since moved past him. The thing that he was ultimately most well known for was his own very distinctive look and flamboyant personality.

Before I ever started studying fashion, I knew who Karl was because I’d seen him so many times, and I’d seen parodies of him so many times. I knew *him* but I didn’t really know his work. And I think having an incredibly boring Met Gala dedicated to him reveals that: his actual artistic legacy is skinnier than the models he used to berate. Karl Lagerfeld built his brand on his diva personality, and that sort of personality and outlook just isn’t hip anymore. Fashion is always about moving forward, and Lagerfeld’s beliefs should remain fossilized in the past.

[doyoulikethis-vocaloid-song]

🎼 FEATURED SONGS (126-?)

126. Seele by hiroki. 127. When I get home, my wife pretends to be dead by HobonichiP 128. Thinking of Dead Cicadas by Haniwa 129. SUNFALL by Athena Z 130. Synthimentale by Conslo 131. Apocalypse Tokyo by Aoris 132. Usagi no shu by ねうしとらう 133. envy. by Furukawa Honpo 134. Insanity Pop! by charM-P 135. Night Vending Machine by にほしか 136. 偏食 by Kashii Moimi 137. Snake by Hya 138. Oh! Silly Me! by Naphillow 139. Godforsaken by Shu 140. All Saints Street (万圣街) by Danhenei Hang Tai 141. Re;Writer by Mucha 142. polyhedron echo chamber by ■37 143. Paranoia by Karasuyasabou 144. Fall Away by Circus-P 145. Breeze by 19's Sound Factory 146. Cynic by Police Piccadilly 147. HOW 2 PLEASER by friendxp 148. Tokio Funka by takamatt 149. You're Telling Me A SHRIMP Fried This Rice?! by Jamie Paige 150. Strobe Light by Powapowa-p 151. Bradbury by teniwoha 152. Chemical Emotion by muhmue 153. Jekyll & Hyde by Fantastic Planets 154. Paradise by QueenPb 155. Round and Land by zensen 156. As Bitter As If You Ate Sand by Zeno 157. I don't want to like myself by Daphne Sumi 158. Let's Be Honest by Project OverDoze 159. Samurai Soul by Team Kamiuta 160. Setsuna Drive by 9mm parabellum bullet

And a Youtube Playlist so you can listen to them all! I'll continue to update this as the polls finish up! 💚

[greenthena]

The Eldritch Ball or Aziraphale's Macabre Danse

I'm a huge sucker for dark classical music (I'm using the term "classical" broadly, not referring to the specific period. Music-y folks, please forgive.) As such, Saint-Saëns's "Danse Macabre" is one of my all time favorite pieces. It's spooky. It's intentionally dissonant. It's even got a jump scare! Like, literally, the perfect piece of music.

The story behind "Danse Macabre" goes like this: Each Halloween at midnight, Death enters the graveyard with a fiddle. As he plays, the skeletons rise from the ground and dance through the cemetery, resurrected by Death's power and possessed by his instrument.

In S2 E3, the Bentley plays "Danse Macabre" as Aziraphale drives up to Edinburgh. "What do we do? We play classical music that stays classical music." (And the Bentley listens to him! Because the Bentley is an expression of Crowley's subconscious and wants to please him and make him happy...and I'm sure you can find lots of excellent metas to that end. Or maybe you have another theory about why the Bentley is so pliant toward the angel? I'd love to hear it. But that's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm just getting distracted.)

Why is this song so perfect for a bit of subtle foreshadowing and repeated metaphor? So glad you asked. I have reasons. And evidence. Please, peruse my wares.

In the A Plot of this episode, Aziraphale travels to Scotland to visit a pub called The Resurrectionist. (Ya know, like Death? Like how Death resurrects people in the song? Okay, just wanted to really hit that nail into the coffin.) The pub is, of course, named for a certain Mr. (not Dr., he's a surgeon) Dalrymple, whom Crowley and Aziraphale meet in the accompanying flashback minisode entitled (you'll never guess) "The Resurrectionist." The minisode plot involves Crowley and his the angel encountering young Elspeth, a grave robber who, like Death, releases the bodies of the deceased from their earthly bonds of soil and stone. My interpretation is that Elspeth becomes Death incarnate, first in the process of using her instrument (her shovel) to resurrect the dead, and later when she inadvertently brings about the literal death of her partner, Wee Morag. Rather than allow Wee Morag's body to turn to dust in the ground, Elspeth "resurrects" her, selling her body to Dr. Dalrymple (sorry, Mr. Dalrymple, he's a surgeon, not a doctor), who will use Wee Morag's body for research, which will in turn save the lives of countless others by furthering the field of medicine. A form of resurrection, indeed. There's also the plot thread of Crowley and Aziraphale providing Elspeth with a nest egg to escape the cycle of poverty into which she has been born. This, too, is another form of re-birth. Or, say it with me, resurrection. Alright, you're getting it now.

Okay, now I get to delve into the fun stuff. Let's talk about that cotillion ball, shall we? You know, that danse party where Aziraphale persuades all the shopkeepers on Whickber street to attend a Jane Austen-style ball?

I personally refer to this whole fiasco experience as the Eldritch Ball. On the surface, it seems fairly innocent. The shopkeepers need a little bit of encouragement to attend the Whickber Street monthly meeting, but the angel manages to convince everyone to join with the help of some coercion-via-bribery. When they show up, they're transmuted into Austen-esque characters, from their clothes, to their speech patterns, even to some extent, their perception of reality. This is where it starts to get a little uncomfortable if you peel back the layers. Mrs. Sandwich can't talk about what she does for a living, which is a great comedy bit, but also demonstrates that her speech is being significantly censored and altered by an outside force. With the exception of Mr. Brown (hidden agendas here, Neil? I honestly don't know), all the shopkeepers find themselves in new, slightly-period-appropriate garments. What's really weird, though, is that no one notices the changes. When the dancing begins, to the music of Mr. Anderson's piano and an accompanying string quartet (strings...as in violins...as in fiddles. Remember Death's fiddle?), Nina appears to be the only one who realizes that something is off.

Maggie: This is something new.

Nina: This is something completely bonkers. Are we...? Why is everyone talking like they've escaped from Pride and Prejudice?

Maggie: Just getting into the spirit of things, I suppose.

Nina: The spirit of what things? This is meant to be the shopkeeper association monthly meeting.

Maggie: Hmm. Yes. Now that you put it like that...

Nina: Are we dancing?

Maggie: Yes.

Nina: Did you ever learn the steps to this dance?

Maggie: It's just what we do, isn't it?

Nina: No. No, it isn't. This is something mad. This is their [Crowley & Azirapahle's] fault. They're doing this.

Something is definitely mad. One might even say it's macabre. Aziraphale has become Death the Resurrectionist. He has lured the shopkeepers of Whickber Street through a portal (as Death leads his flock from the world of the dead to the world of the living.) Aziraphale's instrument is his clipboard and pen, held almost as one might hold a fiddle and bow, as he invites the various shopkeepers to the monthly meeting. Once they all arrive, he miraculously gives them new clothes (as Death knits together the bones of the dead), and then proceeds to control their bodies and minds, as though they are merely marionettes. They dance and speak in the way Aziraphale imagines, fulfilling his fantasy of a perfect Jane Austen-style ball (quite literally, the Danse Macabre.)

The shopkeepers have become the dead and Aziraphale controls them until the spell is broken--or rather until the window is broken.

To be honest, I don't think Aziraphale is really aware of how much he is able to transfigure his environment, including the humans who happen to be close by. Or, at least, I don't believe he does any of this with ill intent. He's just a bit blind to anything outside his fixation of wooing Crowley, at the moment. As a result, he creates a situation that is profoundly problematic and unnatural. Just like the dead in the graveyard have no agency when Death plays his fiddle, the Whickber Street shopkeepers are possessed by Aziraphale's intricate romantic fantasy and must dance as long as the music plays.

It is, in fact, only when the music stops, that the shopkeepers begin to realize that something is most certainly weird. The diagetic music (Mr. Anderson & Co.) abruptly cuts off when an approaching demon horde tosses a brick through the bookshop window. Now the spell, or in this case, miracle, begins to break down. While the shopkeepers still appear to be somewhat under the influence of Aziraphale's persuasive aura, a few of them glance down at their clothes in confusion and look around the bookshop, as though waking from a dream. And at this point, after a little finagling, Crowley escorts the humans out of the bookshop and out of Aziraphale's Danse Macabre.

Once the demons attack the bookshop Aziraphale's influence on his surroundings really starts to deteriorate. Throughout the season, he's been able to structure and manipulate reality (sometimes with Crowley's help) to suit his needs: protecting Gabriel, altering the Bentley, organizing the Ball, etc. But once the bookshop, his safe space, has been breached, he loses control of the situation. From this point in the narrative, nothing goes according to Aziraphale's plan. Aziraphale wants to protect Jimbriel, but the former archangel insists on giving himself over to the demons. Crowley leaves and Aziraphale has to defend the bookshop on his own, when he'd expected Crowley to come right back and save him. While defending the bookshop, Aziraphale reaches his "last" resort not once, but twice: first allowing Nina and Maggie to use his books (!!!) as weapons and then blowing up his halo in a last ditch effort to fend off the invaders. This was not on the agenda for today!

Things just continue to go downhill from there, Aziraphale losing all control of the situation. And by the time the Final Fifteen wraps up, the angel has lost his bookshop and possibly his most important relationship. By the end of the season, Aziraphale is no longer Death the Resurrectionist, the manipulator and puppeteer. Now the angel has become the puppet, dancing to Heaven's music.

[vrmxlho]

"you look unwell."

"do i?" your tone betrayed your disinterest. it was very evident to those around you that you were bored. so utterly bored, you couldn't bear being in that place; but your conversing partner did not seem bright enough to pick that up.

"yes, worse than usual."

"than usual?" you didn't care for what others had to say about you. you had grown quite desensitised to the endless talks and endless gossip that encircled you, but there was a limit to your patience. you were no saint. however, the unusual circumstance you were in proved helpful, in the sense that, it was allowing you to leave the conversation justifiably.

"forgive me, i did not mean..." he trailed off, he had finally caught on, he had overstepped.

"you did not mean to speak your mind?" you let out a false laugh, hoping it would give you enough leeway to escape the horrible situation you were engaged in. "it is all well. but i must take my leave. my lord." you thanked the heavens he did not stop you or try to apologise. maybe you ought to thank him for his ‘services’.

making your way closer to the entrance you heard the sound of carriage wheels clattering against the cobblestone streets as guests said their goodbyes and farewells. the night was coming to a close; the warm glow of the chandeliers reflected off the gilded mirrors and the polished floors of the ballroom, while the soft strains of the orchestra's instruments filled the air; it was all hideous and horrible, you could not think of anything but how to get away from it all.

"young lady, where are you going?" turning around you half expected to see a mouse with how squeaky the voice speaking to you was, but there stood a boy standing (half-confidently) in the doorway. why was he calling you young? if anything, you looked older than him.

"just a quick promenade in the garden." you hoped that would’ve been enough to leave you alone, but he seemed displeased with your answer, so you added, "would you like to join me?"

"unchaperoned?!" he looked offended to have even been asked to join you. maybe you should've been offended too?

"it shall not be unchaperoned cousin!" now this was a confident voice. a young man (really, this time) walked up to the boy from behind and placed his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"re—"

"pleasure to meet you lady..." he interrupted. his pitch rose at the end of the sentence; it was a question.

"y/n, l/n. and you are?"

"lady y/n l/n, it is lovely to meet you. great people, the l/n's, lovely family, lovely people—"

the empty chatter was beginning to bother you.

"i would like to know who i will be walking with.". 

"aren't you demanding? my lady." he teased. his hand still on the boy’s shoulder, pulling them both towards you.

"forget it." you turned on your heel aggressively and headed towards the looming dark green garden, lit up solely with the flickering fireflies. it almost perfectly reflected the starry night overhead, the turbulent purple clouds and shooting stars falling gently behind them. it was a shame the night was being missed by all the people wasting their time indoors. at least you had been left alone for once—

the young man ran up in front of you and bowed, before giving you his hand. a gleaming smile graced his lips and he seemed quite pleased with himself, like a child figuring out how to do something mundane (to others that is, children often find the silliest things extraordinary) on their own.

"i shall not accept it until you tell me your name."

he sighed in defeat, but he never wiped the stupid smile off his face. again he nodded in a half-bow. "am i allowed to follow you?"

"you can do as you please." you weren't just pretending to be indifferent, you truly didn't care what he did. the idea that you might be trapped into a marriage with the young man if you were caught with him alone had crossed your mind at some point but wouldn't that just mean you could step away from the 'marriage mart’. he seemed smart enough to hold a conversation, and he did seem to possess some aesthetic qualities. all wasn't bad.

"coz! join us!" he yelled as he trailed behind you, like an excited puppy. and the boy obliged. he looked scared, as if his cousin would hurt him if he did not follow through.

"so, my lady, how are you enjoying the night?" he once again offered his hand as you both stood awaiting his cousin to join you.

pushing past his gloved hand and raising your skirt ever so slightly (so as not to ruin it in the garden) you replied, "i have participated in better balls."

"it saddens me to hear that." holding his hands behind his back he stepped closer to you. faking a hurt frown. you raised a brow inquisitively. why was this man so invested in a ball he had not organised? and why was he not telling you his name?

"this is the prince's ball, why should it bother you?"

"you're quite correct. it should not bother me." he chuckled. "coz, what did you think of the ball?"

"you—" a stern look from the mysterious, nameless, young man and the boy corrected himself all too quickly, "the prince must have worked painstakingly for days, it was very well organised, the orchestra was lovely and—"

"enough about the ball!" you said, far too angrily.

"was it really that tiresome?" this time the enigma sounded genuine.

"please, do ask me why i left the ball." you said through gritted teeth.

"why did you leave the ball so early, my lady?" he leaned forward casually and looked you in the eyes, as if deeply interested in what you had to say. you were taken aback– this was a first. you had supposed that he, too, was just as disinterested as you were, and that all the conversing was just a formality. perhaps you were mistaken.

"to be left alone, to get away from the incessant questions about my marriage, about a courtship. is that really all a lady is worth? i truly believe that women are much more interesting than men shall ever be; so why should we withstand the boring, meaningless questions?"

"i don't—"

"please, my lord, do not say a word."

the rest of the walk was quiet. you could almost hear the grass snapping under your weight from how silent everyone was. this was what you had wanted, yet it felt claustrophobic and uncomfortable. by the time you had done the round of the garden and seen all that it offered, the cool air had started prickling your skin. you were sure the man had noticed the goosebump on your exposed arms, neck and back but he seemed to be trying not to invade your personal space again.

a second time approaching the excessive abode you watched a mass of people emerge from the front door and head towards their horse-drawn carriages, with footmen, drivers, and all. that was who you were, the daughter of a duke, rich and privileged. your duty was to secure as advantageous a match as possible, but everything related to that prospect infuriated you. it was a strange feeling, being so aware of who you were supposed to be, yet not wanting to be them. it was a constant battle, and neither side felt truly right.

a man wearing a very tall hat had approached, distracting you from your thoughts. he bowed grandly, taking his hat off before turning sideways and stretching his arm out to point to the buildings, “your royal highness, the archduchess requested your presence.”

the mysterious man nodded his head once and started towards the indicated location.

"you're prince reo mikage?" you called after him. suddenly it all made a bit more sense. not that it wasn’t still a confusing situation. but all the interruptions and stern looks could now be pieced together. your exasperated voice made him turn around at once. it seemed he had found a reason to stay.

"i suppose." he chucked, "but please, call me reo."

"no..." you weren't sure where this crazy sense of daring was coming from. you hadn't even bowed and apologised for your rudeness yet, in fact, here you were denying a simple request. a prince was not the sort of person with whom one ought to trifle.

"no?"

"it would be rude to call a prince by their name without also using their title." you noted primly, he seemed to take this into account for a second before replying, eyes sparkling with bold intent.

"would it be rude to use my name if we were, say, courting?"

"we are not courting."

"but it remains a possibility, my lady?"

you caught an audacious gleam in his eyes and you felt a final breath leave your mouth. you parted your lips ready to say something, but not a single word was spoken. there was nothing but air, and even that seemed in short supply.

“the archduchess does not like to wait, your royal highness.”

“yes, i must be on my way, my lady.” he muttered distractedly, turning back to bid you farewell, “i shall call on you soon.” he nodded again and left.

and there you stood, foolishly, under the moonlight, listening once more to the carriage wheels clattering against the cobblestone streets as guests said their goodbyes and farewells, the night had finally come to a close, truly this time.

you walked aimlessly towards the carriage your mother was standing beside. she looked distraught and anxious, betraying her worry at your absence. you weren’t completely sure what had happened that night and you were dreading seeing reo again, (prince reo, you corrected yourself), unsure of his intentions towards you. deep down you knew you weren’t special enough to capture the interest of a prince in just one night, so was he coming to reprimand your rudeness? you shouldn’t have spoken as much as you did...

however, as the morning drew in, it permeated the night and conquered all the fear and trepidation you had harboured as you slept. you were ready to face all the consequences of your actions and you were ready to protect your family. as you read in the sitting room this fearlessness only heightened. there was no way you would let a young man such as himself, prince or not, shame you and your family. you were prepared to do whatever it took.

“why are you up so early?” the voice of your mother interrupted your thoughts, “after all the sighing and eyerolls from last night, you must be exhausted!”

“i find myself full of energy all of a sudden...” and before she could reply or register what you had just said you quickly added, “i would like to meet the prince.”

“sorry darling, what was that?”

“mother, i would like to meet the prince.” you repeated, this time with more conviction, “to thank him for such an eventful evening, truly one of the best soirees i have ever attended.”

“although i’m sure the prince would appreciate such a sentiment,” she said hesitantly, “i doubt the daughter of a duke could simply call upon a grand prince. there are certain rules one must follow, especially regarding royalty.”

“then, what must i do to secure a meeting?”

she looked around, confused, before prodding you with, “i’m not quite sure myself dear, but may i ask why you wish to meet the prince?”

“i want to give him my thanks.”

she sighed deeply before plotting herself next to you on the sofa. “this is so unlike you dearest. what is it really?”

uncrossing your legs, you swung round to face her fully, “mother, truly, i simply want to–”

before you could finish, the door to the sitting room blasted open, and your butler rushed in, his face burning red and his breaths coming in ragged gasps. “your grace, the prince’s carriage has arrived.”

“so soon?” you murmured, feeling a sudden wave of nerves wash over you. it had hardly been a day and he was here already. all that confidence you had been building up seemed to have vanished as soon as the news of his arrival reached you.

“has this anything to do with your request earlier, darling?” your mother whispered, shooting you a worried glance.

“i don’t think so...” you feigned innocence as she looked at you dubiously raising a brow. nevertheless, she had no time to waste on the matter, immediately taking the now sweating butler to the foyer to greet the royal guest.

you suddenly became very aware of just how unprepared you were for a visit from royalty. you weren’t wearing anything spectacular, and you hadn’t even done your hair yet. you weren’t a mess per se, but were far from ready to attend a royal meeting. but you really had no time to think as your mother entered the room once again, her disposition now distracted and anxious.

“y/n, the prince wishes to meet you in the garden.”

“in the garden?”

“yes. if you know anything about this, please tell me now. i am worried for you.”

“i shall tell you everything soon.”

“y/n!” your mother exclaimed, but you had already ran out of the sitting room, flinging your book onto a nearby sofa and pulling on the gloves she had just taken off.

upon opening the doors to the garden, you saw the same figure you had walked with the previous night. as he turned he flashed you a charming smile, you felt a flutter in your stomach and a warmth build up in your cheeks. part of you was pleased to see him there, but only a part.

“we should marry.” he walked up to you, offering a hand. had he not grown tired of your refusals? you couldn’t help but pity his persistence, and that was the only reason you accepted it. it was warm and sturdy; he must be an adept dancer, you thought to yourself; of course, he was a prince.

“is this how you greet every lady you call on?”

he chuckled while placing your hand on his elbow and guiding you towards the fountain that stood in the centre of the garden. “only the ones i wish to marry, my—”

there you were, interrupting him again. was this your punishment? and if it were, why were you digging a greater grave for yourself rather than just accepting defeat? wouldn’t this be easier on your family?

“i barely know you, your highness.” you protested.

“does my reputation not precede me?”

“i have no interest in gossip, so i know nothing of your reputation, your highness.”

“you shall if we marry.” he continued, as if all your concerns meant nothing to him. they probably didn’t. princes are not accustomed to the word ‘no’.

“you are quite literally the last person i intend to marry, your highness.”

his mouth fell open mockingly as he gave you a rueful look, “you would rather marry my cousin?”

“your high—" you began, but he interrupted. it would be a miracle if the two of you could ever finish your sentences in each other's presence.

“if you are so keen on calling me by my title perhaps ‘my prince’ would be better suited.”

“it would be inappropriate, methinks.”

“and methinks, the lady doth protest too much.” he quipped.

“reciting hamlet shall not woo me, sir.” you retorted, trying your hardest to appear displeased and disinterested.

“then what must i do to secure your heart, my royal highness?”

“i am no princess.”

“you will be if you answer my question, my lady.” he stopped abruptly to look at your face fully. you noticed things about him you had not seen before. his strong yet gentle eyes, the way his hair fluttered slightly in the light zephyr like feathers of doves, and how he always seemed to be charmed.

he was vaguely amusing, vaguely annoying, vaguely vexing, but you couldn’t quite help but admire his wit. what you didn’t admire so much was his persistence and his refusal to take ‘no’ for an answer.

“why me?” you asked finally after what felt like a century of just staring at each other.

“because you fascinate me.” he replied simply, as if that were the most obvious fact in the universe.

you suddenly felt very annoyed, and you didn’t shy away from showing it. you scoffed loudly before replying. “anything can be fascinating, if one is curious enough.”

“you truly are wise beyond your years.” you were wrong. he wasn’t always charmed, in fact in this very instant his smile dropped, and he gave you a grave gaze.

you looked at him for a long moment, feeling unaccountably stung. he seemed to notice the discomfort but said nothing and the two of you stood there staring into each other’s eyes.

“i should take my leave.” he bowed slightly; it was different from the sorts of bows you had received from him. they felt hurt in a way. “your presence has truly brightened my morning, my lady.” his tone did not indicate anything of the sort, it had turned monotonous and distant, and you found yourself longing for his animated self once more.

“so, are we to marry, your highness?” you tried asking. you hated how you sounded so desperate, you hated how you had admitted defeat and you hated how he was leaving, again. why were you calling for him as he left, again? could there ever be a time where he wouldn’t leave.

“not yet.” he said modestly before departing.

days turned into what felt like an eternity as you struggled to despise him with every fibre of your being. and you really did struggle. he was dragging your chastisement for far too long; how cruel it was for him to toy with you like this. you were not his prey to play with before he devoured you. but as much as you tried to resist him, you couldn’t help the way your heart ached when he was gone. it was foolish; you had known each other for barely enough time for him to have such an impact on you. but there was no doubt, you missed him terribly.

your mother, too, had grown tired of asking you about his abrupt visit after more than a week had passed. but your attachment to him only grew stronger.. it was absurd to miss someone who tormented and vexed you. but you supposed you had always been a rather peculiar person.

“dearest, another ball? are you positive?”

a whole month had passed since the incident. very well, it was probably no more than four days, but it felt like months. every second felt like eternity without him. you had attended every ball there was to attend in the past days, days, and nights. yet any time you tried to approach him, you felt like a fool. why willinging walk into a trap of a marriage? what was wrong with your head? no, your heart, what was wrong with your heart?

you were sure this ball would be like every other. some schubert, or mozart if you were lucky, assaulting your ears. women flocking around your prince and him not even sparing you a glance. you wished to be alone in the garden again, just with him this time. you weren’t certain what you wanted to do, you weren’t certain how you would even reach such a circumstance and, you weren’t certain you wanted to listen to your heart at that exact moment. 

“no, i’m not, mother.” 

“what is it dear?” you could barely make out her voice anymore, the darkness of the night outside was pressing in around you and you felt yourself begin to cry. 

your lower lip quivered as you chose your next words very carefully, you did not wish to speak your feelings into existence, and you surely didn’t wish to let your mother know about your affections. “my head hurts, i think the scratchy music from last night has taken a toll on me.” you coveted the energy to add a fake chuckle to that, but you did not have any left. so you looked at her, eyes dead and mouth smiling. it seemed to have worked, she gave you a sad, pitiful look, said some sweet words and left. 

you soon heard your tears begin to drip from your eyes. it was a soft, gentle sound, like the fluttering of a bird’s wings, but it echoed through the silence of the room like a thunderclap. you missed him so much it hurt, it was a dull ache that settled deep within your chest and refused to be ignored. 

you stopped. you had to. you heard a loud crash echo through the room as it came from the balcony. you spun around, heart pounding, only to see a flower pot had toppled over and shattered on the ground. just great, you couldn’t simply be left to cry, you had to be killed as well. 

your nerves on edge, you cautiously treaded towards the balcony, sensing the chill of the night air on your skin, and the hairs on the nape of your neck standing on end. peering over the stone guardrail you saw a familiar man frantically pacing in a circle. why was he here?

“my lady—” he yelled. when the moonbeams lit up his face you saw the state he was in. he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. his cravat was almost entirely undone and his eyes were wild. 

as soon as you heard him you charged off, without a second thought. your fingers grasped onto the walls as you ran down flights of stairs, your mind growing dizzier and lighter with every step. as you reached the bottom, you caught sight of him through a nearby window, approaching with a frenzied haste.

with a burst of energy, you pushed open the massive doors and stepped into the crisp night air, coming face to face with the prince. both of you were out of breath, your faces flushed and minds blanking in the presence of each other. 

“my—”

“what do you think you’re doing here?” you asked sharply. in truth you didn’t want to know at all, you were just glad, grateful, honoured, to see him again. and so close. 

he took a deep breath, steeling himself for the vulnerability of the moment, “can we walk?”

you nodded, feeling your hand enveloped by his warm, slightly rough, ungloved skin, as if he had been out without his gloves. you felt yourself melting into him, and dear god, it was just his hand, but you could feel yourself moulding into him so easily.

“what is it, reo?” you asked softly, turning to face him. the concern etched on his face did not go unnoticed. 

in a voice tinged with worry he said, “you look unwell.” 

“i am unwell.” 

“i’m sorry.” he replied quietly. and he really was sorry. he wished he could be there for you, but he had grown hyper aware of how uncomfortable he made you feel. 

“if you were really sorry you wouldn’t have stayed away for so long.” your usual unreadable expression had contorted into a pained and depressed one. 

“i cannot stand to be away from you, you are my very life, and every separation gives such endless heartache...yet, i cannot force someone who doesn’t wish to see me to feel what i feel.” he admitted, his voice heavy and hoarse with sorrow. 

“i do not wish to see you?” you repeated, heart murky with confusion.

“do you not, not wish to see me?” he asked, his gaze intense as he searched your face for any sign of affirmation. you opened your mouth to offer the prince a scathing retort–why was he being so secretive? you hated him. but then, just when you were ready to sharpen your wit, something else popped out of your mouth instead.

“i want nobody but you for my lover, and my friend; and to nobody but you shall i be faithful.” you whispered, the words slipping out before you could even think to stop them. the air around you seemed to crackle with energy as you met his gaze, your heart struck in your chest. you felt strange, queer, almost as if you were somehow suspended in time, ready to lift off your toes and float away. 

you weren’t sure when it happened. it hadn’t been sudden and clear in an instant. you weren’t even aware you loved this man until it had crept up on you and your own words professing your love for him divulged the information. 

for a moment, he just stood there, staring at you, as if trying to process the weight of your words. but then he smiled; most annoyingly, most beautifully. and without warning, he stepped forward, his hand finding its way to the back of your neck pulling you closer to him. his lips found yours, and he was none of the things one should be the first time. he wasn’t gentle, and he wasn’t sweet. he just kissed you, intently. with everything he had, with every ounce of desperation coursing through his veins.

as he pulled away, his lips found your ear, and you felt more than you heard, “i missed you.” 

you wanted to say that you’d missed him, too, but he was too close, and you were too warm, and your voice escaped you. good heavens, did every woman have this much trouble breathing when standing so close to a handsome man? it was no matter though, he was soon kissing you again; you had no space left in your mind to think of something so silly as breathing. 

[shrimpsuru]

All saints street ocs, I don't really like how the unicorn gal turned out so I plan on re-doing her!!

Also, I am aware I somehow managed to get the trans flag wrong, I only realized a day later after I already finished the drawing,, I'm blind,,

[toxinellebug]

The 2nd Stage of Grief- Claw Noir on the Prowl

There were several benefits to transforming;

Enhanced speed and strength- it was no exaggeration to say that Adrien Agreste was already exceptionally athletic, but thanks to this ring, leaping from rooftop to rooftop could hardly even be considered a warmup exercise.

Night vision was awesome.

Paris was so dark after curfew; all businesses shut down, save for Hôpital Européen Georges-Pompidou, a few windows in residential homes, and street lights which stayed on only to light the patrol routes of Enforcers.

      But with the powers of the Miraculous, every shadow was brilliantly illuminated in his eyes- The City as clear and vivid as if it were broad daylight, for him and him alone.

A heightened sense of hearing was more useful than he’d thought.

       The cat ears had looked pawsitively ridiculous the first time he’d said the transformation phrase. 

         But now, not only could he hear both higher and lower pitched sounds that he never could before, he could hear an Enforcer from nearly a kilometer away! 

There was no chance of taking a single misstep, no distance his legs and stick could not carry him, no wall his claws could not climb, no one who could sneak up and catch him by surprise!

His new, keen sense of smell?

 …. That sucked.

            Immensely.

Between the chemical burn like stinging in his nose from the persistent smog, and the gag-inducing sewage smell wafting over from the Seine, going for a nighttime run to get some air had NOT been one of his best ideas.

Still, he couldn’t stand the clawstraphobic feeling of being cooped up in his room, not after today…

    Adrian still didn’t understand why his father insisted he go to school. 

       Things had been hard enough after Mother… Things had been hard. 

          Was it so wrong to want things to stay the same?  Why did his whole life have to be up-ended and re-arranged??  He was doing FINE with his home studies and private tutors. 

      He didn’t need to meet new people. 

          He already socialized plenty;  He had his language instructors, his fencing teacher, his photographers and make-up crew, his runway coach, and shoot coordinator.  

        What benefit was there to going to school that he couldn’t get at home??? Mother would’ve never-!

                  …She would’ve understood.

But Adrian didn’t get a say in this, despite it being HIS life, and HIS education.

          His father had developed an annoyingly persistent habit of personally making sure Adrien didn’t “hit the snooze on his alarm clock”, and eating breakfast with him to ensure he made it out the front door on time.

                His Père was so paranoid, he even sat with him in the car ride to school every morning.   The excuse was that it was to spend time together.

       Adrien knew it was to make sure he didn’t try to make a run for it again.

So for weeks now, he’d had to endure crowded classrooms, noisy halls, going over material he already knew by heart, nearly dying of boredom, and Chloe not understanding the concept of ‘personal space.’

But today had been particularly suffocating.

La Saint-Valentin.

Some called it “La Fête des Amoureux”.

Adrien called it “l' insanité”.

People stared at him for longer than usual, giggling, whispering, sighing, trying to discreetly snap a pic on their phones.

       The security of the school was terrible, considering the avalanche of cards, love letters, and chocolate that nearly buried him alive- how did so many people know how to break into a locker?! 

       (He was reluctant to leave his phone in his locker for fencing practice; what if somebody stole it?)

Chloe was even more irritating than usual; clinging to his arm way too tightly and barking at people like some kind of spoiled purse dog- telling them to keep their eyes off while parading him around like he was somehow her prized possession. 

        (At least her snarling face kept people from trying to hand him gifts directly.)

Lunch was a nightmare; Chloe had somehow managed to get the Le Grande Hotel to deliver Magret à la D'Artagnan on heart shaped plates.  He was only able to avoid being hand-fed rose petal Tuiles by claiming he had a VERY important photo shoot coming up and was on a strict diet!

For once, his excuse to leave for the boy’s room wasn’t a lie; he needed to throw-up.

He ended up spending all of lunch hiding in the washroom.  The last thing he needed was someone snapping pics to post online that he and Chloe were “together”, which was no doubt that crazy girl’s scheme.

      (If her mother wasn’t The Queen of Style, Adrien would’ve asked for a restraining order already.)

Was there any sound on this earth more beautiful than the bell signaling the end of the school day?

Doubtful.

But even the car ride home was uncomfortable; all the shop windows with plastic roses and heart decorations.

      Even that Boulangerie and Patisserie where that cute, pigtailed, umbrella thief worked at had a display of red and pink macarons, chocolate covered feuille de palmiers, and heart shaped candied apples. 

      His stomach was too sour to wonder if anyone had given her a Valentine, and he wasn’t in the mood to search through the pile waiting for him at home to see if she had found the courage to send one to him.

He knew what might cheer him up though; some wanton destruction!

A few simple words and he was no longer Adrien Agreste, he was… 

                  …Okay, he was still working on a cool name for his alter ego, (not that he had anyone to tell it to), but the point was, he was wild and fur-ee!

So what if the whole city stank?

Like this, he could go wherever he wanted, do whatever he wanted!

      So long as he didn’t get caught.

He hadn’t been able to figure out why The Supreme had entrusted him with this power, especially since he wanted to keep it a secret.

But Adrien figured he’d been doing an okay job so far… Probably?

      He was sure no one saw him testing out whether his claws could scratch through brick on chimney stacks. (They could.)

           Yeah, people would obviously notice a dumpster or three had gone missing, but it’s not like they would blame magic powers for their disappearance, or look at the piles of black ash that had taken their place and be able to put two and two together.

          There was definitely no way to prove that he was the one who smashed the rear window of that Enforcer’s patrol car with his retractable stick from the rooftop across the street.

               No one in their right mind would suspect that the yowling keeping them up at night and making them call the Enforcers to complain was actually him and not a real stray cat giving a nightly serenade. (He only did that once.)

All in all, he’d done a purrty good job following the rules The Supreme had sent.

He was as elusive as a shadow in the night; it was impossible to catch him in the act!

But somehow… It still wasn’t enough.

He still felt restless, even his leather tail thrashed in agitation (still no clue on how it did that) and his claws itched for something, anything to tear into. Maybe that would soothe the building heat in his chest that had his teeth grinding.

After spending the whole day being smothered and watching everyone make les yeux doux and being stupidly happy he felt sickened.

No, that wasn’t right. It was more than that.

       It felt tighter than that. 

             Sure, he had been annoyed, but this felt tenser somehow, like a rubber band stretched too far.

He couldn’t put into words exactly what he was feeling, or what caused it.

    Maybe he was tired of everybody encroaching on his personal space.

   Maybe it was being bombarded with cards and letter filled with the same, shallow words of affection and admiration from strangers who didn’t know him outside a perfume ad.

  Maybe it was coming home and noticing there were no expensive bouquets of real roses waiting now that his father had no one to buy them for….

Mère had always loved roses, and father spared no expense to make sure she always had the real thing every Valentine’s Day- soft petals and a sweet fragrance that could not be compared to the plastic, perfumed replicas that were sold by street vendors.  

     Rich, vibrant green stems, as green as her gentle eyes…

That was it.

This whole stupid holiday, that was nothing more than a byproduct of mass consumerism, was just another bitter reminder of how his life had changed for the worse.

It was also something not even his powers could destroy….

But he knew where he could find the next best thing.

The 4th arrondissement of Paris; Cathédrale Notre-Dame.

The building was practically ruins, what with the wooden roof being mostly gone since the fire a few years back.

      For a while, it had still served as a popular tourist destination, at least until the wind, rain, and snow had begun to compromise structural integrity.

      Only a few of the inner rooms were still deemed safe to enter, as such, it was only a matter of time until this whole site was condemned.

Breaking in was too easy. 

Descending down to all fours kicked up clouds of dust, further proof he was the first visitor in a while.

      It had been a while. But he knew exactly what he was looking for as he left the alter and purrused  the connecting halls that were still standing.

      Several statues and paintings had been saved from the flames and transported to the Louvre for safe-keeping, but many more had been left behind, too damaged to be worth salvaging.

    This was the case for the painting he sought; the frame was crumbling, and the smoke and soot had distorted its colors and curled the edges- so fragile, certainly a mere breath would cause it to crumble.

      A red-robed priest performing a baptism on a kneeling couple…. Saint Valentine.

Spearing his weapon into the painted figure was all it took for the ancient painting to deteriorate to nothing.

That was… 

Unsatisfying.

No, he felt even more restless than before. This still wasn’t enough.

Wiping away wetness from his neon purple eyes that was caused from all the dust in the air and definitely NOT anything else, he looked around the decrepit cathedral.

It wasn’t in use anymore for sermons, but that didn’t stop its followers. Forever eager to reclaim their former glory and make a quick euro off the pain and suffering of others…

Approaching a row of broken pews, he remembers the members of congregation that had tried to “comfort” him, mere moments after his mother took her final breath.

    “She’s in a better place now.”

Cataclysm.

A splintered pew was now nothing more than a pile of ash.

      “It’s all part of a grand plan.”

Cataclysm.

A tall, weather-rusted candelabra succumbs to oblivion.

       “She’s finally returned to grace.”

Cataclysm.

          “She’ll always be watching over you.”

Cataclysm.

 “You should tell your father that she’ll be able to rest easier if you let us handle the des rites funéraires, we’ll even give a special price-“

CATACLYSM!

The stone column gave way and vanished…Leaving nothing to support what was left of the roof, the weight of its collapse bringing down pillar after pillar, crushing the altar, what was left of the organ pipe, and sending debris to smash out of the stained glass window.

For a moment, as the dust settled, there was silence.

Rubble shifted, and with a cough, Adrien dug himself out of the mess he had created. Thanks to the magic of his suit, there wasn’t a scratch on him.

Surveying the damage wrought by his hissy-fit, he felt the tension in his chest dissipate.

This… 

…Was satisfying!

This was exactly the level of destruction he’d been craving!

He couldn’t help his pleased smirk, but it was short lived- a black ear twitched at the sound of distant sirens. 

     Enforcers were coming. It was time for this cat to scat.

He wasn’t worried, he was faster than them, by the time they got there he would be long gone. 

     He made a dramatic show of dusting himself off for absolutely no one before using his stick to lift himself up and leap out of the wreckage to observe the Enforcers’ reactions from a safe distance.

This dump had been falling down on its own anyway, all he did was speed up the process. 

There was no reason for anyone to suspect anything other than the inevitable decay of a rotten building long past its prime.

The Supreme should have no issues with that.

Adrien was feline a lot better after that little workout and was ready to call it a night.

Slinking through the tall windows of his bedroom with ease, he called off his transformation-

       Only to wince in pain.

This was new.

De-transforming had never hurt before.

He was certain he didn’t injure himself, could he even be injured in the suit?

The pain was centered in his stomach… Was it because he skipped dinner?

He put a hand on his abdomen and cringed at how tender it felt.

He ignored the floating black kwami that followed after him into the bathroom- there was no point in acknowledging the creature; all it did was glare at him (and try to knock things off shelves before Adrien gave him the order to stop).

It probably wanted to be fed, or, whatever you called shoving a piece of food into that red symbol over its mouth- it was annoying but it had to be done at least once on days he transformed, according to the instructions on the tablet he’d received.

Adrien still had that untouched bag of gougères the Gorilla had purchased that day at at bakery. He’d give the kwami one of those, right after he figured out what was wrong with his own stomach.

Facing the mirror, Adrien lifted his shirt and stifled a gasp;

     In the center of his torso, just above his belly button, no bigger than a €1 coin, was what looked like a small black bruise that was beginning to spider outwards.

      He was too bewildered to notice the kwami’s reflection in the mirror.

…If he had, he would’ve seen that for the first time, Plagg was looking at him with pity.

[pandalandalopalis]

Devil May Cry Wolf - Matt Murdock x Mutant Reader [Chapter Sixteen]

Masterlist Previous Chapter

Story Synopsis: The first time you jumped, it was 2014 and you were nine years old. You were in the back of your parents’ car — then you were in New York, standing on the street … and it was 1992.

The second time you jumped, it was 1998 and you were fifteen years old. You were heading back home to Saint Agnes after school had ended — and then you were knee-deep in snow, in Russia, in 1970. Outside a Red Room facility.

The third time you jumped, you were twenty-five and had spent ten years training as a Red Room agent. Ten years training your body to use your mutation. Jumping in space was easy — jumping in time was not. But you did it. After ten years, you did it. Now you have to live with the trauma.

Five years later, killing is still the only thing you know how to do, and the only thing you do best. In 2016, a vigilante named Daredevil stops you from killing a man who attacked you. He tells you that you can do better. You think maybe he’s right. But in 2017, Matt Murdock is in the darkest place in his life. When you show up to save him, he’s not exactly grateful. And when he finds out that you’re the best friend he grew up with in Saint Agnes that disappeared almost 20 years ago — things get even more complicated.

You’ll have to drag Matt out of the dark while being jaw-deep in it yourself. And you’ll have to try your best to do better — when Matt is trying his best to do worse.

Chapter Synopsis: You go through therapy. You go on a date with Steve that gets interrupted.

Warning: Brief mention of Wolf’s suicide attempts. Brief allusions to sexual assault.

Part 2 - Chapter Sixteen: Wolf, Interrupted

A/N: Therapy is important and it can help. I’ve been to therapy many times and I’ve had about four therapists over the years. It can be hard but it does help in the long run. It’s important to remember that healing is not a linear process. Just because you experience set-backs does not mean that you’re not getting better. It also looks different for everyone. Also! Not all therapists are right for everyone. Don’t be afraid to get a new therapist if you feel the one you have is not working for you, they won’t be offended. Sometimes therapists have different styles and you need to find the one that works for you. If you’re having a hard time, I strongly encourage you to seek therapy if that’s something you have available to you (I know it can be expensive which I recognize is something that can make getting therapy difficult). I know it may sound trite because people say it so often, but it will get better. You’ll find your way. I love you all. Anyway. I got DMCW brainrot. This is over 13k words. Enjoy.

You told her everything. You did not hold back.

But telling your story was not like the times you had told it when you weren’t sober. Anytime you tried to say it casually, like it didn’t matter, the words got stuck in your throat and it was an effort to get them out.

It took a long time to get through everything. You thought it would take one session to simply tell her everything that had happened in your life, just the facts and background, not how you felt or what you thought about them — but it wasn’t like that. Each moment in your life that you went over, your eidetic memory brought to the forefront. 

For some of them, a fifty-minute session was not enough. Your first weeks in the Red Room. The first time you killed someone. Each of your two suicide attempts. The reason behind those suicide attempts.

You re-lived each of these memories in graphic and vivid detail, with no substance to blur the edges and numb the feeling. To get the words out on what happened took a long time. You knew the Doc saw the moments for herself, so she knew them already, but the point of the therapy was for you to say it out loud. To narrate it yourself. To tell the story in your own words. It was a way to . . . walk through the memories, rather than let yourself be dragged through them.

It was a slow and excruciating process and many times you asked yourself what the point was. How this would help you.

And yet, throughout, the Doc re-lived the memories with you. You felt her in your mind, her telepathy like a warm hand wrapped around yours as you walked through each painful and anguished step. Someone who waited patiently each time you stumbled. Each time you found it difficult to continue. She waited. And sat with you. And let you lean on her when you were ready to stand again.

Fifty minutes, every day, you endured. You wanted this to work and you wanted it to work as fast as possible. But the Doc told you that healing is a process, and it is a non-linear process. She told you that you may get better and then experience set-backs where things get worse again. She told you that’s normal. That healing is not just continuously getting better and staying better until you’re completely healed. She told you that healing takes as long as it takes and that it can’t be rushed. Which was why she encouraged you not to time travel ahead to the next session, as if you could live as many therapy sessions back-to-back as you could in an effort to fix yourself as fast as possible. She told you that part of the healing process involved learning how to live daily life with your trauma. 

She gave tips on how to build healthy coping mechanisms. She taught you how to be grateful. To take time out of your day to recognize the things you were grateful for. Not being in the Red Room. Not living with the threat of violence every day. Being able to make your own choices. And little things, too. Coffee. The colour of the sky. The way the outside air smelled on a crisp, clear day. 

She encouraged you not to let yourself be alone. That being alone would only induce intrusive, negative thoughts of your past and send you spiraling. 

But you couldn’t contact Matt. The two of you still weren’t on speaking terms. You weren’t ready to see him yet. Not after what he had said. 

So between the sessions, in the evenings and on the weekends, you contacted Karen. She wasn’t like the Avengers, she knew who you were and what you’d done. You didn’t have to pretend you were someone that you weren’t. 

You didn’t talk to her about your trauma, that was saved for the Doc, but you spent time with her. Let yourself not be alone. Talked about things that didn’t matter. Went to coffee shops and walked in the park. 

Karen was only happy to oblige you. She kept your mind off things. She had a wealth of things to talk about. She gave you suggestions for books to read, smutty romance stories that could keep your mind busy in the times when you were not in therapy and when you were not with her. 

She did ask things, but she did not push. She was always gentle. How are you doing today? How is therapy going? Is there anything you’d like to talk about? 

Have you seen Matt lately?

Some questions you answered and some you did not. But you were always honest with her. When she asked you things, she seemed to genuinely want to know the answer. She was easy to talk to. Today is fine. Today is not good. Today is really bad. Today is better. Therapy is good. Therapy is the worst thing invented. Therapy is like putting your heart on a metal pike and watching it bleed. Therapy is helping. No, there isn’t anything I want to talk about, but thank you.

No, I haven’t seen Matt lately. And that was it.

Karen noticed the first day that it looked like Matt hadn’t slept a wink. He was distracted, he was irritable. His mind was clearly elsewhere. He checked his phone messages almost obsessively. He snapped a few times at her and Foggy.

When she tried to ask him what was wrong, he only told her Nothing, I’m fine and wouldn’t give her anything more than that. Then she told him off for being an asshole to her and Foggy when they hadn’t done anything to upset him like this. He apologized, but didn’t explain his behaviour.

This went on for the next week. After his apology he no longer snapped at Karen or Foggy, but his distracted and sleep-deprived mood stayed. He barely got any work done. He was tense, all the time. Karen kept trying to get what was wrong out of him but he refused to say.

It wasn’t until Y/N contacted Karen on the weekend that she finally knew the reason why. 

Y/N had never contacted Karen directly before. They always hung out in a group of four, with Matt and Foggy. So when Y/N asked if just the two of them could hang out, she didn’t dislike the idea but she was a bit surprised.

Karen thought, if anyone would know what was wrong with Matt, it would be Y/N. And then all the pieces fell into place when Y/N admitted,

“Actually, um, Matt and I are not on speaking terms right now.”

Suddenly all of it made sense. Karen had seen the way Y/N and Matt were with each other, she knew how close they were and what they meant to each other. The fact that they weren’t talking, that was the reason for Matt’s lack of sleep and bad mood. The obsessive voicemail-checking made sense now, too.

“What happened?”

And then Karen noticed what she hadn’t a moment before: how much Y/N’s demeanour represented Matt’s. Worse, even. The bags under her eyes and the vacant look in her expression. Her faraway stare. And for the first time that Karen had ever seen of her, Y/N’s eyes filled with tears.

“I don’t want to— Fuck, I’m sorry.” Y/N scrubbed at her face, like she was embarrassed by the tears running from her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

Whatever it was, it was clearly something bad. Karen touched Y/N’s hand and made her voice very, very gentle. “Are you okay?”

And then Y/N’s face broke and her voice was a shattered and wrecked admission, “No.”

The sobs came as if she couldn’t stop them. Karen did not hesitate to wrap her arms around Y/N. She held her and let her cry into her shoulder.

When Y/N was finally able to pull enough of herself together to speak, she gave some explanations. How she got sober recently. How that made it difficult to cope against the things in her past that had happened to her. How she used to use drugs and alcohol to cope against her eidetic memory, which made her re-live things in crystal clear detail. How she started going to therapy. How her therapist suggested she reach out to someone. To not be alone.

She didn’t explain what had happened between her and Matt, but Karen knew that whatever had happened meant that Y/N couldn’t reach out to Matt so she wouldn’t have to be alone. And if Y/N was reaching out to Karen, it probably meant that Matt was not just Y/N’s closest friend — he was her only friend. 

On Monday, when Karen saw Matt in the office again, she knew she needed to give him something. For his sanity.

“Y/N’s okay.”

Matt’s head snapped up when Karen spoke. His eyebrows knitted together. “What?”

“She contacted me. We had lunch yesterday.”

“You saw her?” Matt hadn’t known where she was. It weighed in the pit of his stomach, the idea that she had run away again, that she was far away or lost in time. That she wasn’t coming back. And he was so fucking angry with her, for making bad and selfish choices, for the things she had said during their fight, and yet he couldn’t stop himself from being worried out of his mind. He couldn’t sleep. He could barely eat. Because he knew, no matter how angry he was, that losing her would kill him. 

But she wasn’t gone. She was still in New York. 

And yet a worse thought found him: Did she find a way to get rid of her memories after all? When Karen said she was okay, did she mean she was void of her trauma? Perfectly fine without the truth of her memories haunting her? “She’s . . . okay?” Matt repeated. 

“Well, to be honest,” Karen said, “she’s really not okay. She’s working through a lot of things, and I’m not really sure how much of that you know. I still don’t know what happened between the two of you; she wouldn’t say. And I won’t ask you again, because I know you won’t tell me. So, she’s not okay . . . but she’s trying to be.”

She still had her memories. She didn’t get rid of them. 

Something very heavy lifted off Matt’s shoulders. 

God. He was so tired.

Karen didn’t tell Matt any other details about her meeting with Y/N. She wasn’t sure if Y/N would want her to tell Matt any of that. But she gave him enough to give him peace of mind.

Matt nodded, not saying anything. Then he took off his glasses and put his face in his hands. 

Karen walked over to where he was sitting at his desk, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Let them sit in silence like that for as long as Matt needed.

That evening, Matt and Foggy went out for drinks at Josie’s. Karen had plans, so she didn’t join them. 

Matt knew that Foggy’s patience had run out before he even spoke.

“Okay, you really gotta tell me what’s going on with you,” Foggy said. “I know you love bottling things up but I was hoping this time around our friendship would be different. You can just keep secrets like you used to. May I remind you that that was the reason our friendship fell apart in the first place.”

Matt sighed. “I know. You’re right. I’m sorry.” He paused, collecting himself. Now that he knew that Y/N at least hadn’t left New York and hadn’t erased her memories, he felt prepared enough to talk about this. “Things between Y/N and I are not good. We’re not talking right now.”

Foggy’s tone was sympathetic. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure how much you’re aware of Y/N’s past, but she’s been through a lot,” Matt began. “I won’t get into it, but there’s a lot of bad there. A lot I’m sure I still don’t know about. Things a person should never have to go through. And she’d been using alcohol and Oxy to cope with that.” He paused again. “She got sober recently. Because I asked her to.” There was a tinge of guilt there though he knew it was ultimately her choice, though he knew that it was ultimately a good thing. She still did it because he asked her to. And she was still suffering because of it. “I didn’t ask her to do it forever — just for a night. But she decided to get clean. I think a part of her wanted an excuse to do it. But she’s not doing well. She’s not coping. And I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know how to protect her from things that have already happened.” 

Useless. What did he have besides his fists? What was he worth more than that? What did he have that could help her?

“She . . . she tried to have all her bad memories erased,” Matt continued.

“What? You can do that?”

“If you find a telepath, I guess so,” Matt said. “But I guess the telepath she found refused to do it. We fought about that. I didn’t think it was a good idea. I . . . didn’t know what would happen to her if she did. If it went wrong, if it wiped all her memories, if I would lose her forever.” Matt held his beer tightly in his hand, feeling like teeth would break under the pressure of his jaw. “She said . . . she’d rather that happen than keep the bad memories. She said that our memories, everything we’d been through together, weren’t worth keeping. She said that . . . that I wasn’t worth keeping her trauma.”

“Shit,” Foggy swore softly. “That’s harsh.” He was quiet for a moment, taking all this in. “Do you think she meant what she said?

“I don’t know,” Matt answered honestly. “I mean . . . is it fair to ask her to keep all her bad memories? When it’s making her suffer like this? I don’t know. And the thing is I’m really . . . angry with her. That everything we’ve been through together could mean so little to her. But at the same time I’m. . .” he breathed in, hauling the breath into his lungs, “. . .just really, really worried about her.”

Foggy sighed. “What I’m about to say . . . it’s not going to help you. And you probably don’t want to hear it. But it needs to be said.”

He paused, and Matt waited.

“Now you know how it feels.”

Oh.

Right.

How many times had Matt made things difficult for Foggy and Karen when it came to his other life? How many times did he make them worry? Make them angry with what he was doing? Let them down? Make it hard for them to be friends with him? . . .Say awful things?

“Yeah,” Matt breathed. “I know.”

Maybe this was karma. Matt thought of the way he treated Y/N when he was at the lowest place in his life. When she saved him. When she kept coming back, time and time again. How angry he was. How cold. 

And for the first time, Matt really considered how hard Y/N tried when he was being so horrible to her. He said so many terrible things to her and she didn’t let it stop her. Both Foggy and Karen had given up on him, both before his near-death and after it, but Y/N refused to. She took every bad thing he threw at her and she kept coming back.

“You should forgive yourself,” she’d said, sick with withdrawal, sitting pressed against him under the warm spray of his shower. “I already have.”

“What do I do?” Matt asked after a time, and he hated the rough sound of his voice when he spoke. “I think I said something she took the wrong way. I told her I was afraid that erasing her bad memories might change her. I think she thought I meant that her trauma is such an integral part of her that getting rid of it would make her unrecognizable. I didn’t mean that. I don’t really know what I was afraid of . . . I just didn’t know what would happen if she went through with erasing her memories. I know I have a lot of memories that I’d rather forget. But I wouldn’t erase them because I don’t know how that would change me. But I don’t believe that everything I am is built on the bad things that I’ve been through.”

Matt paused when he realized that wasn’t quite true. Was he not his father’s bloody knuckles and fighting spirit? Was he not his father’s death? Stick’s weapon? Elektra’s death? Stick’s death? His mother’s abandonment? Y/N’s disappearance? Foggy’s abandonment, Karen’s abandonment, everyone who had ever left him. . . . Every broken bone and bruise and wound and everything that hurt. . . . Wasn’t that everything that made him into who he was now?

Matt exhaled. “Maybe I am. Maybe that is what I meant. I don’t know. Shit.” But did he believe that about Y/N? That she was the Red Room and every person she’d murdered and the things she’d done that terrified Frank Castle and the kids she’d helped traffic into the Red Room and the things the Winter Soldier had done to her and all the things she couldn’t even tell him. . . .

No. Of course not. Of course he didn’t think that. Maybe he was his trauma but she wasn’t. She was friendship and the only good thing he had at Saint Agnes and the person who chased away his loneliness. She was funny in a dry way and incredibly smart. She was the person who had his back, not just before she disappeared but after — The person who pulled him from the darkness and made sure he was okay before she even considered leaving. Who stayed because he asked her to. Who joined him in his vigilantism, who felt the need to get her hands dirty the same way he did. Who felt that same sense of justice that he did, though she wouldn’t admit it. She was those things. Not the Red Room. Not everything she wouldn’t say. Not her trauma.

But God. He was an asshole for making her believe that that’s what he thought about her.

“Is that what you think?” Foggy asked, cutting through Matt’s thoughts. 

Matt shook his head. “I don’t really think that she—”

“Not Y/N,” Foggy interrupted. “You. Do you really believe that who you are is built on the bad things that you’ve been through?”

Matt paused. “Well . . . isn’t it?”

“Matt. That’s not true, and I don’t want you believing that it is,” Foggy said. “You’ve done so much that has nothing to do with the bad things you’ve been through. You’re a lawyer. You help people by defending them in court. And you’re . . . not always a good friend but you’re a good person. If you were really all the bad things that you’ve been through then you’d be a villain and a bad guy. But you didn’t let all that bad stuff change you like that. Which means who you are is not those bad things. Okay?”

Matt gave his friend a tight smile. “Thanks, Foggy.” Maybe he was right. Maybe Matt needed Foggy to be right. Maybe he needed to let himself believe it rather than dig himself into a deeper spiral like he used to do.

And yet.

You are not worth keeping my trauma.

“Now,” Foggy said, “the karmic justice of you having to deal with Y/N’s situation in exactly the same way I had to deal with your situation aside . . . Do you think she’ll find a way to go through with erasing her memories?”

“I thought she might, but now I don’t think so,” Matt answered. “Karen said Y/N reached out to her, and that she’s trying to work through things. Which means she still has all her memories.” He rolled his beer between his hands. “I was afraid she might run away again, but she met with Karen, which means she’s still here. She hasn’t left.”

Foggy nodded, thoughtful. “Okay. Well, maybe she just needs some time, y’know? Maybe find a way to make it clear to her that you’re here when she wants to come back. Doesn’t mean you’re not owed an apology for what she said, but maybe she didn’t mean it. I mean, I don’t think you meant some of the things you’ve said to me in the past.” A beat passed and Foggy continued, “I hope you didn’t mean some of the things you’ve said to me in the past.”

“No, Foggy,” Matt agreed. “I didn’t mean them.”

“Okay, well, give her a chance to apologize and just be there for her when she wants to come back. There isn’t much else you can do. Trying to tell her what to do probably won’t get you very far. I know that never worked on you,” Foggy said.

Matt took a deep breath. He knew Foggy was right. Neither he nor Y/N liked being told what to do very much. Every choice they’ve both made was ultimately their own. Y/N would have to find her own way there — but he’d be there when she needed it. Even if he was still angry with her. 

Matt took out his phone and stood from his chair. “Could you give me a few minutes?”

“Sure man. Take as long as you need.”

Matt dialed Y/N’s number and stepped outside. She didn’t answer. He didn’t expect her to. 

Instead, he left a message.

A month passed.

When all this started, after your first session with the Doc, you’d called Fury and explained that you thought you were okay to return back to work after your kidnapping, but you needed more time to recover from it — not physically, but mentally. Although the source of the trauma was a lie, the reason for needing more time off wasn’t. Fury understood and gave you the time that you’d needed.

Steve had called not long after. Not only did you take time off from work, but you started staying in your own apartment rather than Avengers Tower. You couldn’t bear to see Bucky, not now, not when you still felt like killing him might bring you some peace. Steve must have wondered where you’d gone. Where you were.

You didn’t answer him. You couldn’t bring yourself to. You weren’t in a place to answer the phone and pretend like you were fine. You knew Steve wouldn’t expect you to be, knew Fury probably told him and the others why you’d taken more time off. . . . But talking to him was still a type of pretending. And you just couldn’t. Especially not when thoughts of killing his best friend, brutally and without mercy, pervaded your thoughts.

You wondered if Steve called Matt at any time to ask about you. You wondered what Matt would say.

 

(He did. When Y/N didn’t answer Steve’s calls, Steve called Matt. He was just worried about her. She’d left so abruptly the other day when he asked her out, and then by the next day Fury was telling them that she was taking more time off work to recover from what had happened to her. And Steve had waited for her to come home so he could talk to her, but she never did. And then she didn’t answer his calls. He called Matt because he thought that maybe she was staying with him. And if she wasn’t, he’d know where she was. 

Matt had told Steve that Y/N was staying at her old apartment. Steve didn’t even realize she’d kept her old apartment. Steve had asked for her address, but Matt refused to give it to him. Told him to give her some time.)

(In truth, Matt had panicked the minute Steve called him asking for Y/N. Because that had meant that she wasn’t going to work and this was before Matt knew that Y/N had remained in town. This was when he still worried about her running away. He thought that maybe she really had.

When Steve had asked him for Y/N’s address, Matt didn’t give it to him. If Y/N really was gone, then she wouldn’t be there when Steve showed up, and Steve would go to Matt again, and Matt wouldn’t have an explanation. If Y/N was there . . . Well, Matt figured that she wouldn’t want Steve bothering her. The fact that she wasn’t answering Steve’s calls should have told him as much. 

Matt thought about going to Y/N’s apartment. He thought about it obsessively. But he didn’t. He told himself it was because he knew she didn’t want him there — and not because he didn’t want to confirm if she really was gone. If she really did run away.)

Matt had called you a few times after your fight, but you hadn’t answered any of them, and he stopped calling soon after. But a week later, he called again. You didn’t answer, but unlike the other times, he left a voicemail.

You refused to listen to it.

After a month, you had finally gotten through all the facts and events of your life with the Doc. And now came the analyzing, the dealing with and the dissecting of everything you’d been through. Sometimes you talked about what you wanted to talk about, focused on what you wanted to focus on. Other times the Doc took the wheel, driving you to things you’d maybe rather avoid. Unlike the story of your life, this part was not linear. It went where it needed to go. And sometimes where it needed to go was not where you wanted to go.

“Have you talked to Matt yet?” Doc asked you softly. As much as you’d hated her in the beginning, you had to admit that she had a gentle touch. It didn’t make you like some of the things she had to say any better, but her endless patience and kindness paired well with your stubbornness and aura of violence.

You avoided her eyes. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because of what he said.”

“What did he say?”

You gritted your teeth. You knew she knew what he said, because she’d seen the memory. But you always had to explain these things with your own words. “That if I take my trauma away, I’m not me anymore.”

“That’s not what he said.” Doc’s voice was gentle but firm. 

“That’s what he meant.”

“You don’t know that. Do you want to see what he said?” Doc asked. 

You didn’t really. You didn’t want to see Matt again, didn’t want to have to re-live that memory again, but you did want to prove the Doc right, and so that need won out.

“Fine. Show me what he said.”

You took a moment to close your eyes, letting the Doc work her magic. You opened them when you could smell Matt’s apartment rather than the citrus smell of the Doc’s therapy room. 

It was like the scene was frozen in a tableau and you were waiting for the Doc to press play. Yourself and Matt stood before you. You had tears running down your face, but your expression had morphed into something hard and determined. Matt was gripping your arm, his own expression. . .

The only word you could find to describe it was desperate.

“You can’t just erase what you want,” Matt said when the Doc let the memory play. “You have to learn to live with the memories, like we all do. If you erase a part of yourself you wouldn’t be you anymore.”

Hot shame ran through you, unlike the first time when all you had felt was rage. When Doc paused the memory, you said, “See?”

She looked at you. “See what? What am I seeing?”

“He said if I erased a part of myself, I wouldn’t be me anymore,” you repeated. “If I erased my trauma, I wouldn’t be me anymore. He’s saying that my trauma makes me who I am. Like I said before.”

“But he didn’t say that,” the Doc pointed out. “He said ‘a part of yourself’. He didn’t say ‘your trauma’. As a telepath, I know that there’s a truth to what he’s saying. Memories are weaved and interconnected with each other in delicate ways. It’s not so easy to pick and choose things to be cut out without affecting the whole web. But the idea that your trauma is what makes you who you are is not what bothers you about this. Because part of you already believes that, and has for a long time.”

You stayed quiet. You didn’t deny that’s how you felt. 

The Doc took you out of the memory and out of Matt’s apartment and had you sitting in her therapy room again, on that soft couch with many pillows to hold and the calming smell of citrus surrounding you. 

“In fact,” the Doc continued, “you believe that so much that you consider the person you used to be before the Red Room to be dead, don’t you?”

She is, you thought. In all the ways that matter, she is. She’s trapped in that Red Room, in that red room, and she won’t ever leave.

The Doc sighed gently through her nose. “Here’s the thing. Trauma does make up parts of who we are. That’s the hard truth. It can change us and shape us. For reasons that I won’t get into . . .  something traumatic in my life pushed me to be a pacifist. Would I be a pacifist if that trauma wasn’t there? I don’t know. But being a pacifist is a large part of my identity, now. A large part of what I believe in. But that doesn’t mean my trauma makes me who I am. It has shaped me, for better or for worse — and mostly for worse, don’t ever let someone tell you that trauma is ever a good thing. I think it’s . . . how we choose to respond to that trauma that makes us who we are. Not the trauma itself. Do you choose to do better? Or do you choose to be worse? That’s all. And it’s important to understand that everyone changes over their lifetime, even without trauma. That’s just a part of living. But you have some choice in how things change you. Heroes and villains often have similar backstories, have you ever noticed that? Death, loss, trauma. But they walk very different paths. They start in the same place, but they choose their own path.”

“I’m not a hero,” you mumbled.

“How would you define a hero?”

You thought for a moment. You thought about Steve. “Someone good. Someone with unshakeable morals. Someone who helps people.”

“You help people,” she pointed out. “You don’t think that makes you good? And ‘unshakeable morals’ is a high standard that would be difficult for anyone to uphold. Even Captain America.”

“He seems pretty perfect to me.”

“His best friend was brainwashed by Hydra into being a weapon used to murder,” the Doc said, and your hands gripped onto the bottom of the couch at the mention of Bucky. “You don’t like that the Avengers trust him to be in their group. How do you reconcile that with Steve’s ‘unshakeable morals’?”

You didn’t know how to answer that because you really couldn’t reconcile those things in your head. Steve was Steve. Steve was kind and good and a hero. Bucky was the Winter Soldier, a monster that had beaten you and was a walking reminder of the Red Room and all the trauma you found there. You couldn’t make these things fit together in your mind.

“Does Matt have ‘unshakeable morals’?” the Doc asked.

Your teeth gritted together at the mention of him. “Matt doesn’t kill.”

“You don’t kill,” the Doc pointed out.

“I used to kill,” you reminded her.

“But you don’t anymore.” 

You continued to stare at the floor, not looking at her. After a moment, the Doc continued,

“We can pick this back up another time, because this wasn’t my point. I said you’re not upset about the idea that your trauma makes you who you are. You’re upset because you believe that that’s what Matt thinks.”

You shut your eyes.

“You don’t care what you think about yourself,” the Doc went on. “And you don’t care about what other people think of you. In fact, you never really have, not even before the Red Room. But Matt’s opinion of you matters. Do you want to expand on that?”

No, you didn’t, but you knew the Doc wasn’t really asking. You get out of this what you put in, she had told you in the beginning. You could refuse to talk about things all you want, but then you wouldn’t be getting any better.

You opened your eyes. You kept them on the floor, on the plush carpet with its swirls of colour. “What Matt thinks of me makes it real,” you admitted. “I can think whatever about myself, and maybe it’s not true, because I’m too close to understand, or something. And people think what they want to think about me. I’ve been a lot of things. I’ve pretended to be a lot of things. I’ve been bitchy. I’ve been an asshole. I’ve been a monster. I’ve liked it that way. It never mattered what anyone thought because they don’t know me.” You paused. “Matt knows me. I think he’s the only person who does. He’s the only person I’m close with. The only person I trust. Even when I didn’t know it was him, when he was the only person to hold out his hand, when he was the only person who said that my soul was worth saving, I believed him. I believed in that. And when he called me a monster, that became real, too. And it hurt. It hurt that there was someone close enough to me who could rip me apart from the inside. I didn’t like it. But I couldn’t stop myself from feeling that way. When Matt said he wanted me to stay in New York, I stayed. When he told me that when I first came back into his life, when he didn’t believe it was me because he thought he didn’t deserve to have me back, I felt worth something. I felt worth something to him. When for a long time I didn’t think he’d want me, after the Red Room.”

You paused.

“If he looks at me and sees my trauma, it makes it real,” you said, quieter than before. “It’s one thing for me to believe that. But I couldn’t bear it if he saw all of that. Saw all the blood I took in service of the Red Room. Saw the monster they turned me into. Worst of all, even though I haven’t told him, if he saw, if he saw—” You felt bile rise to your throat as you recalled the memories. The memories of the red room. “—saw that I am damaged. In a way that can’t be undone. See the— the—” Hands. The hands. “—Like I’ve been marked—”

You felt like you were going to throw up, and it wasn’t the first time you did so in the Doc’s room, so you reached for the bowl on the table before the panic and trauma could leave your throat—

“But he wouldn’t see those things. He’s blind.”

You froze, your eyes narrowing. You brought your hand back and stared at the Doc, at the slight amused tilt to her lips. A flash of anger ran through you. How could she joke at a time like this? “You’re not funny.”

“I’m a little funny.”

And then you realized what she did. She distracted you. Threw you off so you’d leave the memory you’d latched on to. 

You took a breath. Tried to do what the Doc had suggested, to acknowledge the thought, the memory, and then let it pass over you. Like you were a heavy rock in a river. Letting water wash over you without being washed away. 

“The truth is, you don’t know what Matt thinks and you don’t know what he meant when he said that,” the Doc said. “I could tell you what I think he meant but there’s no guarantee that I’m right, either. You can only know if you talk to him about it.”

But you still weren’t ready to face Matt again. What the Doc was saying about everything was rational and yet you couldn’t get yourself to believe it. You re-lived that argument again and again in your mind, and each time Matt’s words felt like a burning sear. It felt like he was so against you finding a way to rid yourself of your trauma, and you couldn’t get yourself to believe anything else. You couldn’t bear to be around him again. Not yet.

At the end of your session, the Doc asked if you were okay to start having appointments once a week rather than once a day, and you agreed. It was time to start transitioning back into the real world.

Well. Real-adjacent for you, that is.

You worked on steadying your breathing as you rode the elevator up Avengers Tower. Worked on preparing yourself for acknowledging thoughts of killing Bucky and letting them pass over you, should you see him again.

When the elevator door opened and you walked further onto the floor, you noticed Steve reading on the couch. No one else was there, from what you could tell.

You cleared your throat and prayed your voice would come out steady. “Hey.”

Steve looked up and his eyes widened slightly. “Hey.” He closed his book and stood, coming over to stand in front of you.

“I’m sorry I . . . didn’t answer any of your calls,” you said slowly. 

Steve shook his head. “You don’t have to apologize,” he said. “But you know you could have told me if you were still having a hard time.” He didn’t say it like ‘You should have told me’, but rather like he wouldn’t have been offended if you told him you needed space. “I would have understood.”

A part of you felt guilty for not answering his calls, but you didn’t trust yourself to answer them then. “I thought I was okay to come back to work. But I got back here and realized I wasn’t. It had nothing to do with you,” you added hastily. “I know I left kind of abruptly during our last conversation.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck, and a bit of pink tinged his cheeks. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” 

“I do want to go out with you.”

Steve’s eyebrows raised.

“That’s what you were asking me, wasn’t it?” you continued.

“Well, I— Yes,” he settled on. 

“Okay,” you nodded. “How about dinner Friday night? You pick the place.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He smiled and it was wide. 

“Oh, and just for future reference,” you added, “I’m really not a fan of the ballet.”

You’d chosen something much more modest than the dress attire you usually preferred. It was an off the shoulder, ruffley dress that went down to your ankles, in a pattern of pinks and creams that resembled flowers. Gentle. Feminine in a soft way. Everything to represent your good girl persona that you portrayed for the Avengers. 

You met Steve in the hallway and had to admit, he looked good in a suit. He complimented you and told you you looked pretty, and offered you his arm before getting into the elevator. 

The two of you chatted in the car on the way to the restaurant. When you got there and let Steve help you out, you realized how fancy the restaurant was, and you were impressed. Steve clearly put some thought into this date.

He led you inside to the table he had reserved and pulled out your chair so you could sit down. Once sitting himself, Steve reached for the wine list and began looking it over.

Panic sparked in your chest.

If he asked you what kind of wine you wanted, would you say yes? Would you tell him your favourite? Would you drink a glass, two glasses, three glasses, and relish the way it numbed your mind and took you far away from the memories that constantly plagued you?

It would be so easy. It would be so easy to just let him order and drink it like everything was normal. So easy to return yourself to old habits. It would make everything so much easier.

But.

What would Matt think?

You took a sip of the water the waiter had already poured for you and tried not to bite your teeth down around the edge of the glass. You didn’t want to see him and hadn’t seen him for five weeks and yet you still could not escape the truth you’d admitted to the Doc: that what Matt thought of you mattered, it mattered so much.

It’s why you went to the extreme of erasing your memories. Returning to drugs and alcohol would be an easier solution, and one not so permanent and changing. But you knew Matt wouldn’t approve of that. That was it. So you tried to find another solution. But he didn’t approve of that one, either. And so you found yourself unable to seek another telepath who’d probably erase your memories if you paid the right price. No, you went back to the one telepath you knew would still say no. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Every second you continued to let Steve look at that wine list was an internal war with yourself. 

God it would be so easy. It would be so easy.

FUCK.

“What kind of wine do you like?” Steve asked, oblivious to your inner turmoil. “Red or white? Or rosé?”

Moment of truth. Which one was your favourite? Red was bold and sexy. White was safe and sweet. Rosé was a unique blend of the two, maybe that one was the best to signal to him that you were a good girl but also fun and adventurous—

“Actually, I have a bit of a headache. Do you mind if I just have water?”

You wondered if that was just about the hardest thing you’ve ever made yourself say. It felt like it, in that moment. 

“Of course, I don’t mind,” Steve said. When the waiter came and Steve looked at him to hand him back the wine list, you blew out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. “I think we’re just going to stick with water, thanks.”

When the waiter left, you said, “You can have a drink if you want to, don’t let me stop you.”

Steve gave you a smile and shrugged. “To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what I was going to order. I’m not really a wine guy.”

This made you smile. It was a thoughtful gesture. 

Slowly, you unclenched your hands in your lap and hoped you hadn’t been digging your nails into your flesh hard enough to draw blood.

“So,” Steve began, and took a sip of his water, “how’s Matt?”

Acknowledge the thought. Let it pass over you. Acknowledge the thought. Let it pass over you. Acknowledge the thought, let it pass over you—

“Fine,” you answered, thankfully even. “He’s a busy defence lawyer so I haven’t seen him much lately. But that’s okay. He’s doing important stuff, you know. How’s the team been since I’ve been gone? Any interesting missions?”

Steve took the bait to switch topics and you were grateful. The two of you chatted for a while waiting for your meals and you felt . . . good. Things were going good. You weren’t drinking. You were sober and things were okay. You were getting through this.

Your phone rang in your clutch and you gave Steve a sheepish look. “Sorry,” you said as you reached in to turn your phone off.

A strange feeling spiked in you when you saw the name caller ID was Foggy Nelson. 

Foggy never called you. The two of you weren’t really close, you only hung out with each other when Matt was there. 

Why was he calling you? Maybe . . . maybe it wasn’t strange, maybe he really was just calling to hang out, maybe Karen mentioned to him that the three of you could hang out without Matt, maybe—

Steve must have seen the hesitation on your face, because he said, “You can answer it if you need to.”

You looked up at him. “I just— It’s Matt’s friend, and he usually doesn’t call me, so I’m just. . . .”

“Answer it,” Steve said, giving you a smile to show he wasn’t mad. “I don’t mind.”

You gave him a tight smile in return. “Sorry. It’ll just be a sec.” You picked up the phone and held it to your ear, fighting back a hiss as you said, “Hey this really isn’t a good—”

“Matt’s not breathing.”

Something shattered in you. 

You couldn’t think. You were sure all the blood had left your body. 

Not breathing

Not breathing

Matt’s not breathing

“What?!”

Foggy’s voice was urgent and he spoke quickly. “I found Matt unconscious in his apartment and he’s gasping like he can’t breathe— Claire won’t be able to get here in time and I know you can get here right away— Please hurry, Y/N, I don’t know how much longer he has—”

“I’ll be there.” You hung up and felt like your head was spinning. You stood and Steve stood with you.

“Everything ok—”

“Matt’s hurt,” were the words that came out of your mouth. “I have to go. I have to— God, I’m sorry, Steve, but I have to leave.”

“It’s okay, go,” Steve said, nodding. “Do you need me to call the driver—?”

“No, no,” you said. Panic thrummed fast and painful in your chest. “It’s okay. I’m sorry.” That was the last thing you gave him before you turned and ran out of the restaurant.

In the moments between getting outside and teleporting in a discreet place, your mind was racing.

God, why the fuck did you stay away for so long? What was the reason? It seemed to matter so little now. 

If Matt died— God, fuck, if Matt died— How could that be the last conversation you had with him? When you said those awful things? Fuck, when you told him he wasn’t worth anything— Is that what you said? You might as well have said that. Did you just give up the last five weeks you might have spent with him? For what? For what?

Oh, God, oh, God—

You teleported into Matt’s apartment, and there he was lying, bruised and bloody and unconscious, his body hidden behind the blurs of your tears—

“What do we do?” came Foggy’s panicked voice. “Do something!”

You snapped into action, leaning down and putting your hands on Matt. You listened to the way he was gasping.

“Help me,” you ordered, and Foggy helped you peel the top part of Matt’s suit down to bare his torso. You felt his body and pressed your ear to his chest.

“He has a collapsed lung, I have to poke a hole in his chest so the trapped air can escape,” you said, and you wondered if saying it out loud was more for you or for Foggy. 

You pulled your dress high over your leg and gathered the skirt around your waist, not worried about scandalizing Foggy as you reached for the knife strapped to the inside of your thigh. You grabbed it and all the memories of the textbooks you read and informational videos you watched came back to you, clearer than it ever had before. Your hand might as well have been the hand of the surgeon you watched on the pneumothorax video as you counted his ribs, braced your hand on his torso, then cut a small hole in the right place between his ribs. 

The gasping sound ceased as Matt inhaled deeply and exhaled successfully. Inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. Began breathing normally.

“Oh thank God,” Foggy breathed in a whoosh.

You stared, frozen, knife still raised.

“Y/N?”

He almost died. He had almost been dead. He almost died and the last thing you said to him was calling him worthless.

You dropped your knife and it clattered to the ground as you hurried to your feet and to the kitchen sink and you vomited.

You took a moment to rinse out the sink when you were done, then wiped your mouth and turned around, sliding down the side of the cabinets. 

Then you sobbed.

It was parts relief and parts guilt and you couldn’t stop yourself from crying in loud, messy gasps, tears pouring from your eyes in an unending stream.

Face buried in your hands, you didn’t notice Foggy coming over until he sat next to you. There was a moment of hesitation, then you felt his arms wrap around you and your head rested on his shoulder.

“C’mon, it’s okay,” came Foggy’s voice. “Matt’s okay. He’s breathing. He’s done this a bunch of times, he’ll be fine. I think he even said he dealt with a collapsed lung, once. He’s alright.” Foggy’s hand stroked your arm.

After a moment, your sobs subsided. Foggy said, “C’mon, we should move him onto the couch.”

Pulling yourself together, you helped Foggy move Matt onto the couch, take off his Daredevil suit, and put him in comfortable clothes. It worried you that he stayed unconscious through all of that, but Foggy didn’t seem worried, so you held onto that.

When you were done, the two of you sat in the chairs across from the couch in the living room.

You stared at Matt’s sleeping form, exhausted from the adrenaline leaving you and all the crying you did. 

Foggy’s voice broke the silence after a few moments, like he needed to fill it with something else. “So, uh. You look nice. Where were you?”

“Uh.” Your head was still spinning; you were still frazzled and worried about Matt. “I was on a date.”

Foggy was very surprised by her answer, and so he couldn’t stop the word from leaving his mouth, “What?” From everything he’d seen between Matt and Y/N, it was clear to him that the two of them were stupidly in love with each other even if they both didn’t realize that yet. So the fact that she was on a date, with someone who was not Matt— “Why?”

You were still having a hard time processing things right now. You stared at Foggy, your mouth slightly parted. What did he mean ‘why’? Did you need a good reason to go on a date with someone? “. . .I don’t know how to answer that.”

“With who?” Foggy followed up.

“Um. Steve Rogers.”

“Captain America? Damn.”

You continued to stare at him, confused at why he was reacting this way. “. . .Are you in love with me? Because this is a wildly inappropriate time to confess. Your best friend is unconscious.”

Foggy’s eyes narrowed as she came to the wrong conclusion. “No, I’m not in lo— I have a girlfriend! You know that I have a girlfriend!”

She simply continued to look at him, and then looked back at Matt, as if this conversation exhausted her too much. Foggy decided he could save any follow-up questions for another time.

After another little bit, you told Foggy he should go home and rest; you would watch over Matt. It took him some convincing, but he finally conceded. He told you to call him if you needed him, even if it was the midnight of the night, and he left.

You continued to watch Matt. To listen to his breathing, mostly steady if somewhat strained.

You don’t know why you remembered it in that moment. The unopened voicemail sitting in your phone’s inbox. Matt’s voicemail that he sent you a month ago.

You took out your phone and found it, pressing play and holding your phone to your ear.

“Hey.”

It had been a while since you heard his voice. The idea that you might never have heard his voice again cracked something in you.

There was a pause, as if he was figuring out what to say. “I know we aren’t talking right now. I know you don’t want to talk to me. I know we both . . . said some things. But I wanted you to know that . . . I know that the bad things you’ve been through doesn’t make you who you are. That isn’t what I meant. I was just . . . worried. I just want you to be okay. And I want you to know that . . . I’m here. When you want to talk. If you want to talk to me again.” He took a breath. “I care about you. A lot. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

When your voicemail box signalled the end of the message, you put the phone down and cried. And cried. 

The first thing Matt noticed when he woke up was that his whole body hurt. But that wasn’t really unusual for him, especially considering the fight he got into that he barely had the strength to drag himself back to his apartment after. 

The second thing he noticed was that he was lying on the couch. He tried to remember if he had passed out here or on the floor.

The third thing he noticed was the soft clothes on his body, not his Daredevil suit, so someone must have changed him out of it. Foggy, maybe, or Karen—

And the fourth and final thing Matt noticed, was Y/N.

He recognized her smell, the shape of her body, the sound of her breath. She had moved one of the living room chairs closer to the couch and was now curled up in what must have been an uncomfortable position, sleeping. Her eyes were screwed shut tight, her expression pinched, and her whole body tense. 

What was she doing here? Was she okay? So many questions ran through his mind, but the loudest words in his head were,

She’s here. She’s here.

Y/N shifted, and by the small intake of breath Matt could tell that she was awake now. Matt could tell Y/N was staring at him.

He didn’t dare breathe.

“Hi,” she finally whispered, barely more than a breath.

“Hi,” he whispered back.

“How are you feeling?”

Matt tensed. Her voice sounded wrecked. “You know. Hurts but I’m okay.” He wanted to know why she sounded like she had been crying. “What happened?”

And then her face broke and a sob left her mouth, and suddenly she was up and on the couch, wrapping herself around him, holding him so tight it hurt in his injured state but he didn’t worry about that, he just let her press her face into the crook of his neck and cry. She was shaking. He wrapped his arms around her back and braced her against him.

“Foggy called me,” she sobbed. “He said you weren’t breathing.”

Oh.

She was crying because of him. Because he got hurt.

Dimly in the back of your mind you thought you should be holding him more gently, you should be careful of his injuries, but the only thing you could think was that he was okay and he was not dead and you never wanted to let him go again.

“I’m sorry, Matt,” you sobbed. “I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean what I said. You mean everything to me.”

She wailed, and the sound broke his heart and tears sprung to his eyes and his face crumpled. He squeezed her to him and he didn’t care if it pressed on his chest and made it hard to breathe.

“I don’t know what I would do if you were dead,” she cried. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed away for so long. I’m sorry the last thing I said to you was so fucking awful. I was in pain and I didn’t understand what I was saying but that’s not an excuse. If you had died and that was the last thing I said I would’ve never forgiven myself.”

Matt had never been sure. What he meant to her. Since he got her back after she’d been missing for twenty years, it was difficult to say where things stood between them. Besides her withdrawal delirium that prompted the You were the only person I ever really loved, she never said these things out loud. 

But maybe he was looking for words when he should have been looking for actions. The way she risked her life to save his. The way she stayed to help him when he was in the darkest place of his life, when he said so many terrible things to her and tried to push her away like he did with everyone else. The way she stayed in New York because he asked her to. The way she got sober because he asked her to.

The way she kept all her horrible, traumatic memories. Because he asked her to.

And he had kept asking himself why when the reason was so very clear. She cared. She cared about him. He was worth something to her. He meant something to her. And she was a broken, sobbing mess at the idea that he could have died.

I don’t know what I would do if you were dead. There was a time where you wanted to say those words out loud but you couldn’t. When you couldn’t let Matt see your heart that way. When you still lived behind walls and you weren’t ready to take them down.

Now you said the words freely, let them pour from your mouth, let the bricks lay scattered at your feet, let your heart be bare and raw. Because you had to say the words. He had to know.

“A lot happened when I was unconscious, huh?” came Matt’s voice, and it brought a foreign sort of relief and amusement to your chest and you couldn’t stop the small laugh that left your mouth. 

But it ceased when the guilt returned. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I didn’t want to hurt you like that.”

“I accept your apology,” Matt said. “I know you didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean a lot of things I said when I was struggling, too.”

Some weight left your shoulders and your sobbing began to subside, and you breathed in Matt’s smell and felt grateful that he was alive. He stroked your back and you felt comforted by the motion.

And then you pulled back so you could look at him. There were tears running down his face as well and you let yourself wipe some of them away with your hand. Tried not to let yourself overthink the gesture. “I know I’m not . . . good at saying what I feel. I think it’s because I haven’t felt anything for a really long time. Even before the alcohol and the drugs. I didn’t have the luxury of feeling. If I let myself feel I’d fall apart. So I did everything I could not to feel. And when I got the chance, I kept myself numb. I don’t even know if I was good at talking about my feelings when I was a kid. I don’t think I was. I think I’ve been running from myself longer than I even remember.”

A memory graced you briefly. Of being fifteen and realizing something you felt. Something you were afraid of saying out loud. Something you were afraid to tell Matt.

“But I’m going to . . . try,” you continued. “To say what I feel. Not when I’m in withdrawal and sick with delirium and too weak to stop myself. Not when I’m angry or upset and things come out wrong. Something I choose to say.” You paused, collecting yourself. “You’re my family, Matt. You’re the only family I have. You know me. I think you’re the only person who does. If I lost you I’d be alone.”

You’d thought a lot about if anyone really knew and understood you and realized that of course it was Matt. Even though you’d changed so much and only recently come back into his life. He was the only person who knew you from before, the only person capable of seeing you past the monstrous mask you wore. But more than that. When he didn’t even know it was you, he was the only person to reach out his hand and ask you not to kill. To attempt to save your soul. There was still so much he didn’t know and so much you hadn’t told him, but he still knew you. He (metaphorically) looked at you and told you that even though you were different (even though he was different), there were still parts of you that were the same. He saw that. And you were physically incapable of lying to him. You didn’t believe anyone else would be capable of seeing more than what you wanted them to see. You the pretender. You could not hide yourself from him. He was the only person capable of knowing you in the ways you didn’t want. To be truly known. All of it. That made him your family and you didn’t know if anyone else could come close to that.

And that knowledge fucking terrified you but you didn’t know how to say that part out loud.

Family.

You’re my family.

How many times had he thought the same thing? When they were just two orphans in Saint Agnes, when all they had were each other. When she went missing, when they finally pronounced her dead and had her funeral, when he felt like he lost a part of himself, like when he lost his father. When she left a void he didn’t know how to fill anymore. When he considered Foggy his family but it never felt the same.

You know me. I think you’re the only person who does. It was the same for him. Besides Stick, for a long time Y/N was the only person who knew about his abilities. Foggy was his friend and he knew Matt in most of the ways that mattered, but he didn’t know about the Daredevil part of him for the longest time. And when he knew, he didn’t understand it. There was a time in Matt’s life when he thought Elektra was the only person who saw him for what he truly was — but that wasn’t right, either. She saw the violence in him but not the good. She couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t kill. Both Foggy and Elektra saw parts of him but not the whole.

Y/N saw all of it. When she returned to his life, she saw the Daredevil part of him and she understood and accepted it. More than that, though she killed like Elektra killed, she stopped when he asked. She understood the point behind it — maybe not the value of human life but the way killing harms your soul. And when Matt was close to breaking his rule, she pulled him back. She who had killed so many and didn’t see the value in human life. She saw it was important to him and tried to stop him from making a choice that he could not take back. 

Elektra had once said to him, “You hide from yourself. You don’t let anyone in.” And it was true. And he’d tried to let Elektra in but there were parts of himself she refused to see. When Y/N came back into his life, he didn’t let her in; she tore her way in. She wouldn’t let him hide from her and she wouldn’t let him hide from himself. She kept reminding him of who he was when he was so broken and she found a way to keep him from losing himself. And though not killing Fisk had ultimately been his own choice, she had never left his side. Would have let him kill Fisk if that was his choice. And would have stayed to remind him of who he was had he done it. She never tried to tell him who he was, like Elektra or Foggy or Karen, who saw him in different and incomplete ways — Y/N just knew. And kept reminding him until he saw it for himself.

If I lost you I’d be alone. That’s what he was so fucking terrified of. And he needed her to know that.

Matt’s jaw worked but he nodded. Then he took a breath. “I was afraid of losing you. I lost you once before. I didn’t want to do that again.” At some point in the hugging and tangling yourself around Matt, his hand found your upper thigh, and he gripped it as he spoke. It was a comforting pressure on your body. He used his other hand to hold yours, and you held it tightly. “I was afraid you’d run away or do something reckless you hadn’t thought through . . . like erasing your memories.” He pressed his lips together, pausing to sharply inhale through his nose. “Maybe it’s selfish to be afraid that you’d lose memories of us when you just want your pain to be gone—”

You pressed your hand to his chest as you interrupted him, “No, you were right. It would hurt me, too, if you did something like that.”

In the hours after Matt did not die, you got some clarity on the whole situation. You tried to see it from his perspective. What you would do if he wanted to erase all his bad memories. If he told you he’d rather . . . rather be a blank slate than deal with the trauma. It would hurt you, if he made it seem like your memories together meant so little.

Your heart seemed to be beating really fast in your chest, a forgotten but not unfamiliar feeling whispering in the back of your mind, with your hand over his heart and his hand on your thigh and holding your hand, with the two of you so close—

The feeling disappeared as soon as it arrived, before you could label it, the moment you remembered that there were other things you wanted to say. You took your hand back and shifted your body so your feet were on the floor. You kept your hand wrapped around Matt’s.

“I need to . . . ask you—”

“I didn’t mean what you thought I meant,” Matt said, anticipating the direction of your question but not quite what you were about to ask. “I don’t think all you are is just the trauma you’ve experienced. I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry if it came off that way.”

“I know,” you said. “I listened to your message. I didn’t listen to it until tonight, but I heard it. I know that’s not what you meant. But I still . . . I have to ask you. . . .”

She swallowed, and she was trembling again. Matt held her hand tighter, held it with both of his hands, and he stroked the back of her hand and her wrist though she was turned away from him.

“I want to know . . . what you see when you look at me.” She said it like it was an effort to get the words out. “If you see . . . the blood . . . of all that I’ve done . . . for the Red Room. . . .” Her voice became a whisper. “The things you don’t know. . . . Can you still see . . . the ways I am. . .” She seemed to choke on the word, unable to get it out for a moment. “. . .ruined?”

The things you don’t know.

He always suspected that there were lots she had not told him yet.  He wanted to ask, but he knew that this wasn’t the time for it. Knew that that wasn’t what she was asking of him.

She seemed very far away from him now, and he didn’t want her there, didn’t want her to live in memories, wanted her here with him, and so he said,

“Well, first of all, I don’t see those things because I’m blind.”

Laughter bubbled up sharply and unexpectedly and pulled you from the memory that had grabbed hold of you. “Fuck off,” you breathed through the laugh, and you leaned back onto the couch and let yourself look at Matt again. There was a small smile on his face, like he was glad he was successful in pulling you from that dark place. He still held your hand and your wrist with both of his hands.

“I don’t see those things,” he finally said in a serious voice. “I just see my oldest friend, trying hard to make things better for herself.”

Something heavy left you, and the relief attached brought tears to your eyes again. You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak.

“And what about me?” Matt asked. “Do you see . . . bloody knuckles and . . . someone who doesn’t know when to quit fighting?” His tone was light but you knew his question was not.

“I told you what I see,” you said. “You’re my family. That’s all.” You didn’t have the words to explain all that you saw of him. You were always a woman of action, not words. But you hoped that he would understand. That him being your family meant that he meant everything to you.

Matt nodded. Her admission meant something to him, but he still wasn’t sure if . . . he believed it about himself. If he was more than what he said.

But that didn’t matter right now. Y/N was here, and she was okay, for the most part, and that’s all that mattered.

“I started going to therapy,” she said, and his eyebrows raised.

“Really?”

She nodded. “The telepath that I went to . . . she’s a therapist. She uses her telepathy to help people. It’s why she refused to erase my memories.”

Matt absentmindedly stroked her wrist and hand. “Is it helping?”

She thought for a moment. “I think so. It’s not easy. It’s so fucking far from easy. Sometimes I think it’s just about the worst thing I’ve been through. But it is. Helping. Things feel better now than before.” 

“That’s good.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m proud of you, Y/N.”

You smiled at him, and the feeling of lightness that rushed through you was almost overwhelming.

Fuck, what a concept it was to truly feel again. You were so used to numbing the pain and the grief and the trauma that you forgot you numbed yourself to joy, too. To all other good emotions. It had been a long, long time since you felt this way. You’d forgotten what it felt like. And the intensity of it brought tears to your eyes again but you didn’t mind.

You leaned forward and you hugged Matt again for a second, just needing it for a moment, just needing to remind yourself that he was here. With you.

And you were not in the Red Room.

(Not physically.)

When you pulled back this time, you noticed Matt grasping some of your skirt in his hand. His eyebrows knitted together.

“What are you wearing?”

“Oh, y’know,” you let yourself joke for the first time in a while, “I like dressing up when I go save my friend’s life.” 

“Sure.”

“I had a date tonight,” you explained.

“With Steve?”

“Yes. Had to leave before dinner. You owe me a meal.”

Matt looked like he was considering this. “How nice was the restaurant?”

“Pretty nice.”

“You know I’m a defence lawyer that gets paid in muffin baskets, right?”

“Tough. I’m taking you for all you’re worth, Murdock.”

Your stomach growled in a moment of great comedic timing, and Matt chuckled.

“C’mon, let’s get you something to eat.”

You looked at the non-existent watch on your wrist. “It’s like, three AM.” That was a guess, but you couldn’t be that fair off, right?

“It’s the city that never sleeps, we’ll find something. Just give me a minute to change.” Matt stood.

And made a noise like it pained him.

You were up immediately, putting his arm around your shoulders and wrapping your arm around his waist to brace his weight against you. “Maybe we should just stay here.”

He breathed out in a sound that might have been a scoff. “You’re so motherly when you’re sober.”

You rolled your eyes and fought down an amused smile. “I will leave you here and take your wallet.”

“Stealing from a blind man, that’s not very nice.”

You breathed a laugh through your nose, then looked to his kitchen. “We could eat here.”

“I don’t really have much in my fridge.” Matt knew he should eat better, but between how busy he was being a lawyer and being Daredevil it didn’t give him a lot of time to make proper meals.

“Okay, we’ll go to my place, then.” 

She gave him a moment, like giving him a chance to prepare himself,

 

and then he felt his surroundings change from his apartment to a different one. 

She set him down at what he could tell was the table in her kitchen. She went to the fridge and started pulling out things while Matt took a moment to take in her place.

It smelled like her.

“So this is it, huh?” Matt said.

You looked up at him, leaving your thoughts of what you should make for the two of you for a moment. “Hm?” 

“Your apartment.”

Your eyes narrowed as realization hit you. “Have you never been here before?”

“No.”

“Huh. I guess not.” There wasn’t any particular reason you had never brought him to your apartment. For the longest time, it just wasn’t home to you. It was just a place you slept. A place you kept your alcohol and drugs. Just a roof over your head and nothing more. 

The Doc encouraged you to change that. Decorate. Make it a safe place. Make it a place that felt like a home. So you did. You painted the walls with colour and you bought things to fill the space. In the places between your visits with the Doc and your outings with Karen, when you had nothing to do but sit in your apartment, it did make it better somewhat. You bought pillows and blankets and little lights to hang up in your bay window and it became a place you liked to read whatever smutty romance book Karen had recommended.

You fought down a smirk at the explicit nature of the last book you’d read and began chopping some ingredients for omelettes.

“Wait, you’re making us something? You can cook?” Matt teased.

You snorted. “I am an adult.” You shredded some cheese. You paused before saying, “. . .My therapist told me it would help if I ate better. If I put effort into making things and figuring out what kinds of things I like.” Food never really mattered to you before, not like that. It was just something that kept you alive. In the Red Room, it didn’t matter what you ate so long as you ate something. And somewhere along the way, after you got out, you kind of forgot that enjoying food was something you could do. That it was more than just sustenance. 

It was like your coffee. The way you took it black for so many years because you didn’t have access to milk or cream or sugar. Until you were reminded that you could have those things now.

Food didn’t seem to matter as much as keeping a good stock of alcohol and Oxycodone. Food was always secondary. What did food do more than keep you from starving to death? The alcohol and Oxy actually served a purpose — so it took priority.

But the Doc pointed out how food could be so much more than that. And how good it could feel to spend time on something, to make something, and be rewarded with something that was enjoyable to eat. 

You got the chance to figure out what you liked, too. That never really seemed important before. But it felt like something significant, now.

“I mean I’m not a professional,” you continued. “But I can do more than boil eggs or make toast.” You gave him a smile.

Matt didn’t want to bring up anything heavy again, not when she was smiling and speaking lightly and making them food though tears were drying on her face. On his face. But there was something he needed to say and he felt like he needed to say it now.

“I didn’t know where we stood.”

He heard her food prepping cease and felt her attention on him.

He continued, “When you found me again. Even after Fisk. I didn’t know where we stood with each other. So many things had changed since Saint Agnes. You decided to stay but you . . . were distant. I didn’t know how you felt about our relationship. I didn’t know what you thought about who I was to you. We never talked about it. You never talked about it.”

She didn’t say anything. Just listened.

“But the more I think about it, the more I think I should have realized,” Matt said. “You went out of your way to save my life. You kept coming back, even when I think you didn’t want to. Even when I pushed you away and said awful things. Foggy and Karen had given up on me, but you never did. You didn’t consider leaving until you made sure I was okay. And when I asked you to stay, you stayed. You did things to show me what I meant to you. That our relationship still mattered to you, even after all this time. And I’m sorry I couldn’t see that for so long.”

You nodded slowly, taking this in. And you had something you wanted to say as well. You took a moment to stare at the bricks that were once the walls you kept up and you refused to build them again, though it felt difficult not to. “. . .Your opinion of me matters to me,” you said. “I think it’s the only one that does. Sometimes I don’t care what I even think about myself. But you. . . . It makes it real. What you think about me makes it what I am.”

His eyebrows were pulled together and his jaw worked and he opened his mouth but you beat him to it.

“Don’t apologize again,” you said, knowing what he was thinking, about the awful things he had called you that he didn’t mean. “You don’t have to apologize again. I just wanted you to know. That what you think matters to me.”

And Matt knew what he had to say next. “You’re my family, Y/N. Okay?”

She nodded, and he could tell there were tears in her eyes as she smiled. “Okay.”

You made omelettes and you both talked about things that didn’t matter and reminisced about your past and laughed and for the first time in the fifteen years you were gone and the twenty it was for Matt, just like when you were kids, you stayed up all night and talked until sunrise.

A/N: Fucking hell this was long and a bitch to edit. There were a lot of parts I went over a bunch of times wondering if I should change it or keep it the same. Some feedback would be really really nice for this one.

Tag List: @stupidiout100 @coff3e-and-biscuits @caswinchester2000 @waywardsister1111 @ummvengers @asongofmarvelanddc @1971marauders @krazy-katt-lady @flowercrowns3438 @takethee @lov3vivian @burn-crash-rqmance @readers-posts

[tumblingghosts]

re: ask game

felix ratvinstill, the patron saint of rodents

because I would love to know any and all behind the scenes thoughts

of course! happy to yap about the rats <3

(i have an embarrassing about of lore about these rats)

i already mentioned a few things in these replies:

gaul's beef w/ felix & where the rat obsession started

clemmie is tired of felix's rat shenanigans

reference to livia worshipping taylor swift

max making sure the rat parade was not broadcast

expanding on those:

felix's rat obsession started shortly after his parents' deaths as a coping mechanism that no one addressed until it was too late & felix was irrevocably attached

it was still war time so there were a lot of rats around on the streets and felix had somehow managed to capture one (aesop) to keep as a pet turned support animal

max (president) was pretty concerned about the whole thing, but between the grief of losing family members and the ongoing war, he basically went 'kids will be kids ig' and let felix be

felix originally calling aesop 'mr rat' and would read him some stories (aesop's fables) to help him go to sleep bc that's what his parents would do to help him sleep when he was younger

aesop was named as such because he went 'storybooks' -> 'rat that helps me sleep' -> 'perfect name :D'

max (president) did have gaul 'check' aesop (without felix's knowledge) once it was brought to his attention that felix was letting aesop sleep in his bed bc he did not want felix to be killed off by a potentially diseased rat

(is aesop the same rat that felix originally caught? maybe. maybe not. gaul certainly isn't saying whether she modified aesop or gave a mutt replacement. maybe the rat she melted on their field trip as nine-year-olds was the original aesop. again, gaul certainly isn't going to say anything one way or the other)

anyway, that's how all of felix's rats live past 3-4 years 🐀

felix stopped collecting rats when the war ended (eight-years-old) because max (president) was able to convince him that it would be too much of a hassle to have more rats once transitioned from homeschooling to a school with others. max was not, however, able to convince felix to get rid of any of the rats (his original intent).

when felix was younger, i like to think he had one of those little red wagons to bring all his rats along everywhere. by the time he reaches the academy, he just carries them in his pockets and/or lets them follow him on their own.

asclepius is his medic rat (named after the god of medicine) and the first rat that clemensia was introduced to. she was severely weirded out, but came around after an asclepius alerted a teacher when she was having an allergic reaction (strawberry allergy headcanon from medea)

yes, felix did make clemmie thank asclepius for quote "saving her life", which she did do. her thoughts on felix's rats after that event were basically 'well, i guess this is a thing.....this is fine....' which felix took to mean that she was an ally against rat haters (livia)

max (rat) was the last (36th) felix had adopted. it was just a few months before the end, and he quickly became felix's support rat. max (president) was not present enough in felix's life to realize felix had named after him under nearly a year later.

max (president) knew about albanus (rat) but was fine with it because he thought felix was just honoring a dead family member. max (president) side eyes felix's interactions wtih max the rat all the time. marius and gnaeus are just grateful that no rats are named after them.

side note: originally, this fic was just supposed to be felix's perspective, but as i was writing, felix's pov sounded too 'rational' bc of how much he was coping, so dill's pov was added in for contrast (and get an outside view of the rat-related insanity)

the rat parade happens at heavensbee hall. the people in attendance were the mentors and tributes (and, of course, felix's rats). max (president) did not attend. gaul was not invited. livia was also not invited, but she showed up because she was insulted that facet was given a personalized invite.

felix wanted it to be bigger, but that was the compromise that max (president) was able to negotiate felix into agreeing to. there were cameras that felix insisted on being there with the intent to broadcast the event, but none were actually recording.

max (president) made sure that none of them were on and told felix after the fact that they had 'malfunctioned' so the rat parade 'unfortunately' was not shared. felix is very disappointed by this and has to be comforted by max (rat) when he can't host a second rat parade to make up for it.

no one ever believes reaper and dill when they go back home and tell others about the rats. eventually, they just fudge the story to stop people from pressing them for the "real" story (aka "the mentors were convinced by the tributes' humanity from interacting with them and realizing how bad things were in the districts & dill's mentor was able to use nepotism to stop the games" - basically the same concept minus the rats)

i didn't have any solid ideas after that, but i like to think that felix visits dill in d11 sometime in the future and she has to awkwardly explain to her family that 'this is felix ravinstill, yes, that ravinstill family, yes, these rats are normal and please don't say anything against it to his face, please'.

and there you have it! 🐀🐀🐀

thanks for the ask abyssal! :D

[sygneth]

I had this idea for a while now but I didn't really have time to go shoot photos, so finally I just digged through my old photos and found something I could use.

Postcards from Revachol vol. 1

The technique is digital painting on photos (photos are mine as well), don't worry I didn't paint all that

The thoughts behind this project (or a deep and thorough analysis of Revacholian [suppposed] architecture and urbanistic, long):

Ever since I played the game I have been thinking of how Revachol reminds me of my birth city (where I have been living for past 25 years) and I couldn't really get why. But then I started to think. And oh boy, not in a long time was I this happy to be an actual architect.

I know we have never seen any of Revachol besides Martinaise but what we know is that Revachol have been founded around 380 years ago. If the cultural/architectural periods in Elysium are comparable to what happened in our world, that would mean the city's beggings were in something baroque-ish, and it's golden age was probably at the turn of baroque and classicism. What is important is that Revachol is not a medieval city. There is no old downtown with a city wall and narrow, curvy streets. Baroque and classicist cities were all about good planning, composition, wide streets, representative buildings in strategic places, and later also good functional layout and generally being a good-to-live place. We know the city must have been a great, rich place, very representative, as it was said to be the capital of the world. It was a monarchy until the communist revolution some years ago, before the events from the game. What this pattern reminds me of, is actually the history of Saint Petersburg. Also a baroque/clacissist city, also a capital, also got through a communist revolution.

We also know that Revachol, or at least it's parts were based on a mashup of Paris and Tallin (the latter I don't know much about, unfortunately) with some 90's post-communist CEE climate sprinkled on top. Paris has been re-built at some point of its history (around 1850), the streets have been widened, the city structure got more organised, the facades of the buildings gained a characteristic style (there was an actual law how they should all look but it didn't work very well honestly, but still gave the city a more consistent style)

Okay. That was about St. Petersburg, Paris and Tallin. Where is my city in all this mess?

Let me explain.

My own city isn't one of those cities with old boulevards and medieval centers. It was a small city until 1820, when somebody noticed its potential and started to build factories. With the factories, there came workers and with the workers, a need for places to live in. The city developed quickly, but at that time the cities didn't really grow in an uncontrolled manner, it had to be planned. And those plans were mostly inspired by Paris and Saint Petersburg. The tenement houses in my city were practically copied from those one in Paris and the whole urbanistic design of the city was based on the urbanist laws in St. Petersburg. So now you can see why that was important.

Another thing is that both Revachol and my city are cities of immigrants. My own city at some point was said to be "a city of four cultures", are there was a similar number of Jewish, German, Polish, and Russian inhabitants. People came here to work in the factories from all over the country (or rather what have been the area of our country before the annexation, as there was no country of Poland in the XIX century) and they stayed, started families, and started to be from here.

And then, after WWII my country fell behind the iron curtain. In the communist times there have also been major architectural changes in here. Some of the buildings in city center were knocked out, some typical socialist architecture started to appear. In the pretty much city center there is a high-rise residential area of concrete blocks that are 20-something floors high. And looking at those blocks in the distance here really, like really reminded me of this part of my own city. And here we come to another point of this ridiculously long essay, but I guess that is the last of the important ones.

There are no modern-looking skyscrapers in Revachol. Taking the technological level of development on Elysium seems similar to the ~90s in our world, there should be technologies to build high. The thing is, there is either no money for that or no need (or both). I know this is a general tendency of European cities (Paris, Stockholm or Amsterdam doesn't have any modern American-style skyscrapers too), but this was something I noticed about my own city a long time ago before I even considered studying architecture. The highest buildings are those high-rise multi-families, churches, and chimneys. In Revachol we see the chimneys of the power plant as the most prominent thing in the city panorama.

One more thing is the socio-economical aspect of my city. The golden age of the city passed with the XXth century. The city was poor, neglected, and dirty, the city center was a place where people were actually scared to go in the night. There still are parts of the city where I would rather not go after dark. Times have changed, but the renewal of the city takes time, and what we still have, are tones of half-empty tenements, with closed or barely-alive little shops on the ground floors, tired people, and a lot of graffiti everywhere. And especially hearing of Jamrock, I just couldn't take the visions of familiar places I walked myself thousands of times off my head.

(The last one teeny-tiny detail. Unimportant. But if anybody got here, I have to mention it. Remember how I mentioned the industrial character of my city? It was actually mostly the fabric industry.

And we know Precinct 41 has its seat in the old silk factory. That's all. That's all I had to say).

Even though Łódź is not nearly as big as Revachol, I feel like there are particles of her. They are hidden under the roofs of tenement houses, in the abandoned shops, in the smoke of the cigarettes of strangers at bus stops. They are not easy to find and most people will pass by not even noticing. But if you know where to look, maybe they will let you find them.

Or maybe she will find you.

[vulpiximisa]

Me to my sis: bro you didn’t tell me all saints street had a stupid wolf man in it

Sis: ???? Was that the secret to get you to watching it???

[all-hallows-street]

All Saints Street Extra Comics Translations 1-3

Apologies for the delay! We are finally publishing translations for the All Saints Street manhua.

We will be uploading them on this drive for now and later upload to mangadex. I will have to ask you to NOT SHARE this drive PUBLICALLY, feel free to share it privately.

Example of what to do: sending the drive link to friends on discord.

Example of what not to do: posting the drive link to twitter. We are going to start with some older extras that were never translated to get a good idea for a workflow and fix problems as they rise. After that we are going to prioritize translating chapters 486-500 (why? well, if you know you know) so we can also start working on simultaneous text translations for new chapter releases. What I mean by this is that as soon as a new chapter comes out, we can upload an english text translation alongside it, like the japanese translation team does now.

Here is an example with the bonus comics:

I am also hoping this will be a good accessibility feature. Likewise, I am releasing to the public the table I translated from the japanese group. It is a rough Work-In-Progress table, but for me it has been an invaluable whenever I have to look up a certain chapter. I even made a search engine to look up chapters by character appearance.

Meanwhile we will be going back and re-lettering chapters that have been translated by independent efforts and uploading them to Mangadex. We have obtained permission from both @saints-street-translated and @wan-sheng-jie for this! After that the translation will continue in two fronts: the comic translations from 501 onwards and releasing text translations for new comics.

Translating the whole manhua will be a looooong process. Right now, we have text translations for all extra comics, but the lettering has been going slow. That's why we are still open to more volunteers to join us for the role of cleaner/typesetter! You don't need qualifications or even software (we will get it for you cough), just time and a disposition to learn.

TL;DR

ASS manhua translation is resuming.

Older Extra comics will be translated first.

We will translate 486-500 ASAP.

We will release text translations for newer comics.

We will remake the translations for 405-485 to upload to MangaDex.

 We need YOU to typeset the ASS comics into English!

[wonder-worker]

Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth of York: Queenship

"As an English queen consort, Elizabeth of York, like her mother, had a web of family connections that became the focus of her major patronage activities" - Michelle L. Beer

"After the safe delivery of their eldest sons, both queens Elizabeth gave thanks by founding chapels. Elizabeth Woodville's was in fact eight years after the event and probably as much a thanksgiving to Westminster Abbey for sanctuary as to God for her son. The chapel was attached to the old Lady Chapel of the abbey and dedicated to St Erasmus, a saint invoked against birth pains as well as patron of sailors which made him an unusually apt dedicatee given the king's absence abroad at the time of Prince Edward's birth. Elizabeth of York's foundation was more immediately linked to the birth of Arthur at Winchester, a site chosen for her lying-in by Henry to associate his first-born with the legendary king after whom he was to be named. Here Elizabeth founded a chapel dedicated to Our Lady." - J.L. Laynesmith

"In 1499 Elizabeth of York wrote to the prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, asking for a literal carte blanche of presentation to the highly desirable, centrally located living of All Hallows, Gracechurch Street, London, for which Elizabeth Woodville and her husband had also wanted preferment" - Derek Neal

"Both queens were granted rights of presentation to canonries and prebends in the royal chapel of St. Stephen, Westminster." - Derek Neal.

"Most of the border patterns (of The Fifteen Os, printed by William Caxton and co-sponsored by Elizabeth of York and Margaret Beaufort) are of stylized flowers, mythical beasts, and semi human creatures, quite possibly reused from other books, but one is of a vase of gillyflowers, the emblem of Elizabeth Woodville, whose family had been such important patrons of Caxton, and just over half-way up the margin these flowers lead into a rose branch, crowned with the emblem of her daughter's marriage, the Tudor rose, as if in reference to Elizabeth of York's adoption of her mother's patronage." - J.L. Laynesmith

"In 1480 she (Elizabeth Woodville) petitioned Pope Sixtus IV to allow her subjects to enjoy the indulgences attached to the newly re-established feast of the Visitation, even if the office was recited in private. She also expressed to the Pope her desire for the 'devotion of the faithful of the realm for the [Ave Maria] to be increased more and more'. The Pope obliged by attaching indulgences to the use of the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the recitation of the Ave Maria at each Angelus bell. He also dictated that copies of the letter granting these indulgences be exhibited across the country, thereby ensuring that everyone knew not only of the opportunities to gain indulgences but also of the queen's intercessory role in their spiritual welfare. … Elizabeth's daughter, who of course shared her name saint, was apparently inspired by her mother to develop the devotions still further. Following her petition in 1492, the Pope granted 300 days of pardon to anyone reciting the salutation three times at each tolling of the Angelus bell.” - J.L. Laynesmith

"Elizabeth Darcy, the lady mistress of the nursery for Elizabeth Woodville's children, was appointed to the same post for Elizabeth of York's children, probably as a result of the younger queen's childhood affection for Darcy." - J.L Laynesmith

A couple of reasons why this interests me:

- Elizabeth Woodville was the first English queen since Philippa of Hainault to raise royal daughters, with almost a century and five other queens in between them. I don't think there's ever been such a huge gap in that regard before, which means that Elizabeth would not really had any direct precedent or source of inspiration to follow beyond what was ideally, conventionally expected. Clearly, judging by the fact that her daughter was widely considered a successful queen and emulated several of her mother's own activities, Elizabeth did her job well.

- There's a strange, persistently recurring trend in historical fiction and general histories that tends to make the relationship between the two Elizabeths contentious and/or distant, or tends to emphasize their polarity in whatever capacity, or tends to prioritize Elizabeth of York's relationship with her uncle Richard III and his wife Anne Neville than her own mother (and her own father, tbh). This speaks volumes of the vilification and negative depictions of Elizabeth Woodville in contemporary media, but also the tendency to use Elizabeth of York as a cipher for historians' own thoughts about historical figures rather than a historical figure in her own right. This is particularly prevalent in Ricardian and Ricardian-leaning media, the latest shining example being Alison Weir's "The Last White Rose". On the other hand, a few sympathetic Tudor analyses tend to (understandably) focus on re-evaluating Elizabeth's relationship with Margaret Beaufort and debunking the irritating misconception that they didn't get along. But in the process, Elizabeth of York's relationship and inspiration from her own mother gets lost and forgotten in the mix, when it should in fact be highlighted the most. It's frustrating, because Elizabeth Woodville was evidently her daughter's most important role model: Elizabeth of York was regularly at her mother's side during her childhood, observed her successful queenship for 17 years, and, as we can see, directly mirrored several of her mother's activities during her own tenure as queen. Interestingly, as the 5th quote shows, even when she co-sponsored a book by William Caxton with Margaret, Caxton himself clearly associated Elizabeth of York's patronage to her mother's influence. It's a shame that only a few specific historians tend to focus on the connection between mother and daughter, as I think there's a wealth of analyses to be made on it.

- While both Elizabeths were English queens, with a web of family connections that they used to their and the crown's benefit, their situations were definitely not the same and should not be treated as such. Their different status prior to their marriage meant that their respective families and actions were always going to be viewed and treated differently, for one. More importantly, though, Elizabeth Woodville was the first Englishwoman to be crowned queen. Her English family's advancement and involvement in national and local politics was to be expected, but it's important to keep in mind that it was not precedented. It simply hadn't happened before, and it wasn't expected to happen again. Elizabeth Woodville was very much a novel queen in that regard; certain aspects of her queenship were very unique and unprecedented for that time, and she was the one who established the precedent of using her homeborn family as a network of politics and patronage that all later English consorts followed. In contrast, by the time Elizabeth of York became queen, this was a comparatively more established and familiar practice, followed by two former consorts, her mother and Anne Neville. So, even apart from their differing status and the propaganda against them, it makes sense that their activities were regarded differently, both by contemporary detractors and subsequent historians. There's also the fact that Elizabeth Woodville and her relatives had far more direct power and involvement with the Crown Prince's council, household and administration than Elizabeth of York and her relatives did, which we know massively contributed to the commentary and/or criticism the former received.

Sources:

Michelle L. Beer, "Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain: Catherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor, 1503-1533"

J.L. Laynesmith, "The Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503"

Derek Neal, "The Queen's Grace: English Queenship 1464-1503"

[brokenmachinemusings]

can someone give me donghua recommendations plsplsplspkspksplsplspsl i need to watch more donghua. im not picky as long as its good my fav donghua so far are link click and beryl & sapphire which are just… the basic ones lol. i also like legend of xiao hei and all saints street. uhhh i DONT like kings avatar i think the writing is boring af sorry (watched like.. 8eps). i know i could just browse thru bilibili til i find something interesting but bilibili has TOO MUCH STUFF!!!! id much rather get smth recommended. pretty please😢

also what i failed to mention is mxtx works. i do like them & their adaptations but im not looking to (re)watch them. id rather watch something much more underground as long as its good. or hell doesnt even have to be underground just something good but not from the echochamber of the same 3 series that get mentioned (dont get me wrong i fucking love link click as much as i could rewatch it again and again but i think we all know thats literally the most popular donghua outside of like, tgcf or mdzs)

[megafreeman]

Saints Taxi

Several months after the Third Street Saints have re-established their presence in Stilwater, the gang started conducting their own criminal activities within the city. The deal was very simple, set up a stronghold in one of the neighborhoods and use it to run a local operation in that district.

This seemed simple on paper, but the problem arose in practice. While the strongholds did a great job giving the Saints a strong presence in those neighborhoods, they struggled spreading the operations outside of Saints controlled territories; especially when the Saints controlled neighborhoods weren't next to each other.

As the leadership of the Third Street Saints struggled to figure out how to solve this issue, Boss (Zack) realized something about the city. After Ultor gentrified a large portion of the city, Stilwater became a tourist trap of sort, and the taxi industry has been booming, with there never being more taxis on the streets.

So what if the Saints started their own taxi service in Stilwater, and used the taxis to blend into the Stilwater's traffic as they smuggle the goods all around the city unnoticed. Boss then made a call to his cousin Jamie O'Connor (pictured above) (full bio), who for the most of his life worked as a cab driver in London, and offered him to move to the United States and run the cab business for the Saints. He agreed, marking the start for the new era of the Third Street Saints.