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a-soft-hornytiny · 2 years

Text

Repaired.

This is “Loved.“ pt. 2

Summary: Two weeks had passed when you decided to turn on your phone again. And it was a good decision because if he hadn’t called you that night, you wouldn’t have gone back.

Word count: 3.2k+ (whoops)

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Pairing: poly!ateez x neutral!reader

Warnings: depression, blaming, lots of crying (let me know if I missed something) be careful while reading.

Notes: it is time muahaha this is part two to “Loved.” I hope you will enjoy it just as much as the first part and I hope it meets your expectations hehe prepare for a lot of emotions. I usually try to include every member equally in poly fanfics but I had to put a few focuses here.

Taglist: after the cut (let me know if you wanna be added)

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The dorm had not been the same ever since you had left. The first few days had been pure horror, every single one of them could feel the pain of your absence with every minute. Even when they tried to find comfort in each other, it didn’t take long for their thoughts to go back to you. They were down. Powerless. Numb.

It was like someone ripped their hearts out. But not only once. Because every time they remembered that you left, they also remembered that it was their own fault. When even Yunho decided to skip their regular dance practice, the management realized that they had to do something. After three days of forcing them to work, the group fell into a strange rhythm.

Their apartment had never been tidier. But that wasn’t a good thing. Cleaning was the only thing that Seonghwa could do to keep you out of his mind, to avoid falling into this empty black hole and crying till late at night. And the others would have been worried if they weren’t so absorbed into their own worlds.

Hongjoong didn’t even come home anymore, always blasting loud music on his headphones to overpower the loudness of his own thoughts. The tracks that had been emerging from his studio were nothing but heart breaking. It was either a soft, flowing sorrowful melody or the heaviest beats and drums to which he screamed out the anger he felt at himself.

Wooyoung wasn’t much different. He hadn’t left the dance studio in days. He didn’t even allow himself to sleep on cushions, sleeping on the hard cold ground of the studio instead. He wanted to remind himself of how you must have felt, sleeping in their empty apartment while they were having fun with someone else. Every night he lied awake, thinking about your smile, your eyes, your love. And every day he danced until his body couldn’t take it anymore.

The same goes for Jongho and Yeosang. As soon as they were done with the daily schedule, they went to the gym and didn’t leave until late at night. They didn’t work out together but they were there for the same purpose. Overshadowing the pain in their hearts with physical pain. Pushing themselves through the hardest sets while ignoring every scream of their muscles to give them a break.

Yunho and San were the opposite, locking themselves up in their room the moment they could and playing video games until the sun rose. But instead of hearing their usual screams of victory or swears when they lost, it was silent. They just sat in front of their screens, pressing keys, for hours and hours until they fell into bed.

Gladly their manager came in once a day, forcing them to eat.

But one of them was affected the most. One that did neither of those things the others did to avoid thinking of you. Mingi hadn’t left his room, except it was unavoidable. Their manager put food in front of his door but most of the time he didn’t eat it. He spent all of his time in his bed, scrolling through social media or just lying awake, feeling nothing but an incredibly numbness in his body. He didn’t have the need to eat, to shower, or to sleep. He didn’t even notice falling asleep sometimes as it wasn’t much different from the state he was in anyway. His sleep paralysis was hunting him and going outside became harder and harder with every day.

But there was one thing he was consistently doing. And that was calling you every evening, hoping you would pick up so he could apologize and beg you to come back. So he could get rid of the guilt that was eating him alive. If only he had acted on his thoughts earlier.

Two weeks had passed when you decided to turn on your phone again. You had stayed at a little motel at the sea, taking a walk on the beach everyday and befriending the old local ladies. At some point you started meeting up with them for dinner, telling them all about your life and the reason why you were staying there.

And even the grandma’s were fighting over your decision. One side was very eager for you to forgive your boyfriends because there was no evil intent but the other side was pretty firm on the “if they really love you, they would’ve noticed” narrative. But in the end, they were the ones convincing you to check your phone because “it’s important how hurt they are by you leaving, this way you can find out if they understand and regret what they did to you.”. You felt horrible even thinking about their reaction and knowing at least one of them cried broke your heart. But the old ladies were right.

Tears swelled up in your eyes as you scrolled through your phone, seeing all the missed calls and messages. Even their management had tried to reach you. But soon enough you noticed a pattern. In the beginning you had missed calls from every single one of them but with time it was less and less. Only Mingi still tried to call you every day. You missed them a lot. It was always to quiet around you here and you weren’t used to that. You missed Wooyoung bursting into your room without knocking and hearing Jongho’s heavenly vocals while he was in the shower. Hell you even missed staying awake till late at night to eat with Hongjoong when he finally got home.

You were so lost in your thoughts that you didn’t even realise that your phone was buzzing. Mingi on the other hand was ripped out of his trance by the regular beep from his phone. He had gotten so used to “the person you are trying to call is currently unavailable, please try again later.” that it caught him totally off guard when his phone actually started beeping. His heart was beating up to his throat as he was holding his breath, waiting for you to answer.

You had taken the call out of reflex before you even realized who was calling you.

“Hello?” A deep shaking voice echoed through your phone, causing you to sharply inhale. A pain that you had never felt before shot through your body before you felt an unfamiliar feeling of relief, as if a weight was taken off your shoulders.

“Y/n?” Mingi asked again, his heart still pounding in his chest. You took a deep breath and collected yourself before answering.

“Hello Mingi, how have you been?” You responded, being met with silence. After a few seconds of nobody saying anything, you heard him quietly crying on the other side of the line.

“Min-“ You wanted to call out but you were interrupted by him sobbing. “I’m so sorry Y/n! You have no idea how much we miss you.. how much I miss you.. I should’ve said something! I knew that something changed but the least thing that we wanted was making you feel bad! Please believe me.. we didn’t mean to.. to hurt you.. to abandon you. We love you, please come back!”

You were completely taken aback by his sudden outburst and only noticed now that streams of tears were running down your face. Mingi was about to start talking again when you stopped him.

“Mingi. Take a deep breath. I can’t forgive you right now but I will come back to talk. Please tell the others.” You said emotionlessly, contradicting your current state of mind, before hanging up the phone.

Mingi hadn’t even realized that he had stood up. As soon as he heard you hanging up, he stormed out of his room, nearly running over their manager who was on his way to bring him food.

“Guys guys guys. Y/n is coming back! Y/n is coming! I just talked with - well I apologised - and it was a short call but but they are coming back to us! Only to talk though, but isn’t that enough? I mean I don’t know what is happening but-“ He immediately started babbling when he came to stand in front of the kitchen table where the rest of his members were sitting.

“Mingi Mingi slow down!” Yunho had jumped up from the table to give Mingi a hug and gently rub his back. Only now Mingi noticed how heavily he was breathing.

“So what happened?” Hongjoong asked in a stern tone, gripping his utensils harshly. The atmosphere in the room was highly tense as the seven other were waiting for Mingi to elaborate.

“I called Y/n. Like I do every night. And they answered. They said they will come back to talk and that I should tell you. Then they hung up on me.” Mingi said, calmer this time. But there was still no reaction from the rest of them. It was as if the information was still being processed in their brains, the fact that you were giving them a chance to make up for what they did.

“So.. Y/n will be back?” San’s voice sounded through the quiet room, to which Mingi nodded.

From the next morning on, the tension was high. Seonghwa ran around the dorm, cleaning up every little mess and making sure you would feel comfortable and the rest were trying to do some kind of work. But none of them could concentrate on a single task because their nerves were wrecked by the possibility of you coming back every second.

You had packed your back immediately after making the call and told the motel owner that you would be leaving in the early morning. Packed with your things, you said goodbye to the old ladies, that were surprisingly already awake at this early hour and took the next train home.

Home.

It felt so strange to you, this little word. But its meaning became stronger with every foot that you got closer.

And it was the strongest when you finally stood in front of the apartment door in the early afternoon of the same day. You had your keys in your hand but you hesitated. This isn't right. So you decided to ring the bell.

Time froze inside of the dorm as the bell echoed through the rooms. It took a moment of realization before all of them stormed towards the entrance. San was the fastest so he opened the door. To your surprise a bit too fast, causing you to flinch.

But it was clear that neither of you knew what to do now so you just awkwardly stood there before San took a step back to let you in. As you entered the living room, your boyfriends stood there, lined up, as if they were about to “8 makes 1 team” at you. You bowed slightly before waving awkwardly.

“Hello?” You asked more than actually greeting them and they mumbled the same back at you. Just like at the door, you stood there for a second before someone dared to say something.

“We’re glad that you’re back.” Yeosang said, his voice piercing through the silence. You hadn’t expected him to say something but somehow you were glad it was him. Because you knew it was sincere.

You nodded shortly before moving towards your room. The line that they were standing in split to let you through, it nearly seemed like they were scared to touch you, scared that you would break or disappear again. “I’ll be in my room for now.”

You weren’t ready to properly face them yet. Seeing them was overwhelming enough. You had missed them a lot, yes. But this dorm, this room also reminded you of the pain you had felt the last few months.

You locked the door behind you, sliding down with your back against it. You couldn’t help but start crying and you didn’t care that they could hear it.

Your sobs were ripping apart their hearts. San immediately buried his face in Wooyoung’s chest, who was still in shock from suddenly seeing you in front of him. Seonghwa went over to hug both of them, allowing himself to finally face the pain he was feeling. Even Jongho hid his face in Yunho’s body, much to the latter’s surprise.

It was already way past midnight when you heard a knock on your door. You were sure what to do but after waiting a bit, you decided to get up and unlock your door. You thought whoever knocked had disappeared already but shortly after the unlocking click of your door was heard, the someone pressed down the door handle.

“Wait who- San?” You stood right behind the door as he opened it to let himself in. His head was hanging down, his hands were holding on to his shirt and his whole body was shaking.

You didn’t know what to do but you couldn’t just watch as he collapsed onto the ground.

“San? Sannie? Are you okay?” You kneeled down next to him, trying to look him in the eye but he was hiding his face. Seeing him like this physically hurt you. Your heart was clenching and in your head two thoughts were battling. “They hurt you, let them feel how it felt” and “you love them, work on a solution and don’t let them suffer”. But no matter how you had been feeling, letting your loved ones suffer had no use.

“Come here.” You gently whispered before pulling San into a hug. He instantly adjusted to you, pressing his face into your body. He didn’t say anything, you didn’t say anything. All you did was sit there on the cold bedroom floor, bodies intertwined, for an unknown amount of time. With every minute of feeling his body pressed against yours you remembered why you loved him so much. His presence only could give you a peace of mind that nothing else could.

When you woke up the next morning, you were lying in your bed, cuddled into your blanket. San was gone and you started to think it was only a dream but you could still smell his scent on your clothes. Without looking at the time, you rubbed your eyes and walked into the kitchen to make yourself some breakfast.

“Good morning Y/n.” You were startled by the sound of Seonghwa’s voice behind you. “San told me what happened last night. Are you alright?” His voice was soft, calming even, just like it always had been. And much to your surprise, nothing was alright anymore. Hearing these words from the one person you had always trusted your deepest feelings with, made you lose control.

“No Seonghwa. Nothing is alright. I took a risk, I put so much effort into this. Into you. And what do I get in return? Being replaced. Do you have any idea how I felt? How it felt sitting at this damned table, waiting for you to get home only to be met with a oh sorry we already ate with someone better. And the worst part about this? I can’t even stay mad at you! From the moment that I left this appointment I regretted it. Why? Because I love you. Because I love every single one of you so much that it rips out my heart to stay away. I suffered from being here and I suffered from being away so can you tell me what the fuck I am supposed to do!?”

You didn’t even mean to throw all of this at him but it felt good. It felt good to let it out. All the frustration, all the anger you had been feeling. To just say it.

But all that Seonghwa did was take you into his arms.

“We love you too Y/n and I can tell you there was not a single second during the last two weeks that we didn’t regret making you feel that way. I’m so sorry… Please give us another chance, I promise we won’t make the same mistake ever again. You are our star, our guide. Without you we can’t work like we used to. Please allow us to continue loving you.” Those words. Those were the words you had been longing to hear for so long. And it was those words that helped you forgive them.

A few days had passed and you took your time to reconnect with them. Ever since you had been back, they treated you like a treasure, like the most precious being on earth. But there was one of them who couldn’t quite forgive himself yet.

It was Tuesday and you were on your way to visit Jongho at practice. Falling back into this familiar routine was strange at first put it somehow gave you a lot of comfort as well. As you got closer to his usual practice room, you already heard his heart wrenching vocals hammering out a ballad, as usual. You stood in front of the door, hesitating to go in while listening to his beautiful voice. Jongho was the one who had tried to contact you the most, after Mingi. He didn’t call you but he left you little texts nearly everyday.

Right when the song ended you collected all your courage to enter the room. Jongho was standing there, his back to you, typing something into the computer.

“That was perfect.” You said rather quietly, unsure if he could hear you. But he did, and he immediately turned around.

“Y/n! What.. what are you doing here?” He asked. You could hear both confusion and pleasant surprise in his voice. You gently put down your bag on the ground before walking towards him.

“It’s Tuesday.” You answered, knowing that there was no further explanation needed. “So.. what am I hearing next?” You flashed him a wide smile, trying to supress the emotions that were swelling up behind your mask.

Jongho quickly turned around again. “Isaac Hong - Without You” He said before the playback started playing. His voice was quiet, unsure when he started singing, barely getting through the first verse. You had goosebumps all over your body. The emotion he put into this song, the lyrics, the melody, everything hit a little bit too close to home. You wanted to cry but you somehow couldn’t. It was Jongho who suddenly stopped singing, hiding his face in his hands.

He didn’t even turn towards you when he started speaking.

“Why did you leave us? Why didn’t you talk to us? I- I would’ve- I would’ve said something.. I could’ve made you feel better! We made you leave… how can you forgive us?” His words were stabbing right through your heart. You were asking yourself those questions. How can you forgive them? How could you ever trust them again? But you needed to try. You couldn’t miss out on being as happy as you were before. You couldn’t miss out on loving them.

You wrapped your arms around his body tightly, taking his hands into yours. And that was when you felt his tears drop onto your skin.

“Don’t ever say you loved us again! Promise that you will love us till the end…” You giggled slightly as he sounded like a little kid demanding your hand in marriage. But if you can work through this, you can work through anything. And you had already decided not to leave ever again.

“Don’t worry Jongho. I promise I will always love you. All of you.”

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Tags: @jonghoisbabie @multidreams-and-desires @little-precious-baby @yunhofingers-writes @serialee @crimsonbubble @cometoceantrenches @em--ilysm @deja-vux @kawaiiloli00 @ddeonghwva @aaaaajonghooooo @sansbun @cookies-n-joong @plonys @hijirikaww @nari-nim @yunkiwii @mingi-ivity @racheloveyunho @seongsangsgf @jhmylove @lizsvcks @yunhobabygurl @leoninadecorazones @kerra-that-one-random-fangirl @star1117-archives @hoshischeekss @yeosangsbiceps @euphoric-emily16 @anyamaris @shinestarhwaa @seomisaho

Fic specific tags: @yeosangsbiceps @cookiechristie @danirael @camzpetite @butterfliesinthenightsky @lunarhwa @scuzmunkie @jiwelry0224 @parkthothwa8 @channiesbum @sookacc @s10an @just-a-really-bored-kpop-fan @jxrdxnh

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qqueenofhades · 2 months

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Hey! I just found your blog and followed yesterday. Came for the fact that you're the only other person in this webbed site actually say out loud that they liked Biden, stayed for the hope and determination and perspective. Anyway just wanted to introduce myself and I hope you're coping well!

Hello and welcome to you and the other sudden flood of followers that I got after yesterday's event. I'm glad to have you and hope you are all in on the project of Kicking Fascism In The Shriveled Testicles 2024, American Edition. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.

Biden was not my first choice (far from it) in the 2020 primary process, but when it became clear that he was going to win the nomination, I supported him early and often. Trust me, this was not a popular position, and it remains so, but so be it. By any reasonable metric, he is the most progressive president we have ever had, it is a crying shame that the media is so beholden to the Trump Teat of Drama that they gave him such a kid-gloved free pass and ratfucked Biden instead, and it makes me worry, a lot, for American democracy. I have always gotten a lot of "you support everything Biden has done so you're awful and going to hell!!!" messages, because this sure is a Webbed Site Where We Piss On the Poor, and like -- I don't. I had major disagreements with Biden, especially on foreign policy! But because I apparently did not performatively self-flagellate myself in every post about how awful he was but maybe I guess vote for him anyway, that got some people very mad! It's also true that there's literally nobody in the world anywhere, especially and including in Palestine, that would benefit from Trump becoming president again! Especially since Biden at the NATO summit recently and explicitly endorsed progress on the ceasefire framework he has been pushing for several months! So unfortunately, we live in a society where shitty choices are necessary, and that is part of being a grownup!

....anyway. Deep breaths. Rant for later. Glad you're here. I have been desperately trying to Not Politic for a bit, since doing so on social media in the year of our lord 2024 is a recipe for swift insanity, but the world keeps taking a large dump directly on those plans, and I guess someone's gotta do it. In more normal times (OH LORD WHEN), you can expect history (I am an academic by trade), random posts, various asks, and sometimes a great deal of fanfic for assorted blorbos, though the Horrors have done a number on that and I am also working on an original fantasy trilogy at the moment. (Still deciding whether I should bother trying to agent it or just publish it on Amazon/Lulu/etc.) I have turned off anon for the moment because otherwise my inbox would be a nightmare beyond comprehension, but I do generally enjoy talking about things and/or answering them as much as I can. I am old, queer, tired, fueled by coffee and spite, have been politically conscious since the first Bush Jr. term and have therefore seen all the Anti Voting nonsense before (quick thought: if it was going to deliver the perfect Leftist Messiah and/or stop a flawed candidate from becoming president, don't you think it would have done so by now?) So yes. Welcome again and I hope you will enjoy (if that is the right word for it) your stay.

#finnglas #ask

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jess-fae · 11 months

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MERMAID AU

Note; this is my first time writing fanfic on here so pls if smth is wrong tell me cus i want to improve i maybe wanna write this out one day but i aint promising it

Excuse the horrible britsh accent

Summary; Hobie is a pirate captured by the British navy and one day Y/N a mermaid finds him

Trigger warning; violence, thoughts of death and angst lost of it

✦ Hobie Brown one of the most known pirates in the Seven Seas was captured by the British navy not too long ago for piracy

✦ after they sunk his ship they chained him to the small wooden boat swimming beside the lieutenant's ship

✦were he stayed trying to plan his great escape, yet unbeknownst to Hobie he had caught a mermaid's attention by playing his guitar every night

✦ sure the lieutenant had many men go down there and try to take the guitar from him but they all failed

✦ so Hobie kept playing every night stealing his sleep

✦and every night the mermaid would watch him from afar; you would have eaten the man long ago usually, he was easy prey after all, all men were with your siren song

✦but you didn't know something about him that didn't sit right with you, maybe it was his never-ending rebellion against the bad man's doing

✦or maybe it really was just the enchanting way he played the guitar with

✦You didn't know but you watched him for hours at a time carefully in the comfort of the darkness so no one could see you

✦That was at the least till a bigger wave hit the small boat he had stayed on and Hobie dropped his guitar into the cold ocean

✦fear lay over him as he desperately tried to get his beloved guitar back but the chains on his legs held him tight

✦Don't do it you had told yourself, interacting with humans could end badly especially when helping them

✦ but you didn't listen, instead you swam after the guitar which was way below the water now, and brought it back up

✦that when your eyes meet with his for the first time

✦Now Hobie wasn't an idiot, every pirate knew to stay away from the merfolk but you held the thing he cared for with the most

✦you saw his hesitation and laid the guitar inside the boat before backing off a little

✦eyes never leaving his, you noticed the change within them, you noticed the fear

✦you looked down at the instrument and back up at his eyes, you wanted him to play again

✦meanwhile the pirate had thought these were his last moments on this earth

✦the pirate who was always so sure that he would escape death, was now fearing it

✦Yet he wondered why the mermaid in front of him hadn't ripped him apart and eaten his heart

✦ following your eyes he found what they looked at, "Ya wan' me to play?" the mermaid nodded

✦and he did so, maybe he earned your grace? it was strange after growing up with stories where merfolk was such a cruel folk

✦ for the next nights this would repeat, after some performances, you would bring him shiny seashells and other trinkets you would at the bottom of the ocean

✦however horror had laid over you when you realised why you enjoyed the pirate company so much

✦it was no longer just his songs and melodies, the charm that Hobie had used on countless variants of people had worked on you

✦ the small touches he had allowed himself to after realizing you wouldn't bite his hand off and his glamouring words had cast a spell on you

✦ so much that you became more careless and aware of the dangers caused by others than him

✦so one night you had climbed into the wooden boat again, listing to him ramble about one of his many stories where he ruined the navy plans

✦"If ya wan' to eat me go ahead dove, I've been unda ya spell for long" his hand rested on your cheek watching as his thumb carefully stroked over your cheek

✦ yet there was no spell made from your voice, you didn't even dare use it in fear it might cut him

✦hobies eyes watched as his thumb traced your lips, only shortly connecting with your eyes before they also mimicked his

✦you wondered what he would taste like, not his blood or flesh but the way humans taste each other

✦the distance between the two of you became unacceptable far apart

✦so unacceptable that you decided to close it, not caring about the million reasons to not kiss a human out of love

✦but by the sea it felt so good, like waves crashing against each other

✦air became irrelevant, only needing this feeling to survive

✦"I think I am in love with ya, dove." Hobie said resting his forehead against yours

✦Turning at the same time a seaman walked along the deck of the ship hearing the pirate's voice, he laughed thinking Hobie had gone completely insane

✦so he looked over the edge to have his jaw falling to the bottom of the sea

✦going to wake the captain to tell him about the mermaid

✦they wasted no time to capture the unexpecting creature

✦a net was thrown over the edge and the small wooden boat was pulled up

✦fear washed over you, as you and Hobie tried to get rid of the net so you could disappear into the depths of the ocean but you failed and you landed on the deck of the ship

✦cloth was wrapped around your mouth, arms were tied together and dragged away from Hobie

✦inside the small cabin you heard the captain's cold voice speak "You ever heard the stories of mermaids being turned human?" his toothy grin scared you

✦as he lifted a blade "I always wanted to know if they were true, how about we find out." he threatened as he cut your beautiful tail apart

...

✦days later you woke up again hoping for it all to be a bad dream but as you looked down you saw that your once powerful mermaid tail and fins were now legs with feet attached to them

✦a shrill scream came rushing out of your lungs as you gripped and scratched your legs, hot tears falling down your face

✦ Regret came over you, you should have never come close to that human... but it wasn't his fault

✦The next days passed by, filled with pain and hate. The captain came inside to look at his creation ignoring the horror he caused

✦you didn't feel the same anymore, just a week ago you were feeling such bliss such love but now...

✦you couldn't feel anymore, you listened to the waves crashing against the ship hoping a storm would rip it apart and drown everyone on board

✦the captain no longer cared and you walked along the boat looking for one person only

✦you tightly held the stolen dagger close as you tried to find your way down to Hobie

✦down in the small wooden boat where everything began you hoped Hobie would understand what you were about to ask for

✦the pirate was happy to see you alive, especially after that tormenting scream that could have only come from you days ago

✦ neither of you said anything, you didn't even know how to start this, to begin with

✦"Do you know why Mermaids aren't meant to be turned into humans?" you whispered as you looked at the small waves

✦" 'cus it is cruel?" he answered ignoring how beautifully your voice was, no wonder you never spoke when you were a mermaid you would have enchanted him eminently

✦silence laid over the two of you again before you spoke "Hobie, I- I can feel this mortal body rotting."

✦salty tears came rushing over you again, was this the price you had to pay for falling in love with him?

✦Hobie was shocked and didn't know how to react so he just held you

✦you clenched the dagger harder before sitting up and holding it out to Hobie

✦ "I want you to kill me, I cannot live this life." you looked into his eyes once you would have felt such love but now you felt nothing

✦and even if wouldn't turn into seafoam like you sisters, this would be the only way to end this tragedy humans called life

Note: now don't worry I am working on part two where there will be a happy ending, I just don't wanna make this too long. <3

#hobie brown #hobie brown x reader #hobie x reader #fluff #angst #it gets worse before it gets better

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sm0lprism · 6 months

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Bite-Sized (8) - A BG3 G/t fanfic

This contains g/t (giant/tiny content) so if that isn't your thing, then I suggest you stop reading. Thank you!

Read on ao3

Summary: The group are finally ready to enter the Goblin Camp, and Ria is determined to join them...but what will she do when they refuse to bring her along? And, much to her horror, her brain is plagued by thoughts of Astarion of all people...and they aren't unpleasant.

Pairing: Astarion x f!borrower!oc (Tav) (slow-burn, Astarion is a complete ass but eventually comes round in future chapters)

Warnings: Course language/swearing

Word count: 3.4k

“Concentrate little istik!”

Lae’zel’s blaring voice shook Ria out of her thoughts, her tiny dagger gripped loosely in her hand as she stared at her target – a giant red apple that Wyll had spared from his rations.

“S-sorry!” she spluttered, shaking her head lightly. Her mind had been distracted since the events of yesterday when Astarion had offered to make peace with her. She noticed he had started to act differently around her this morning as well – his snidey remarks had severely lessened to a degree, instead of flat out insulting her, there was a layer of gentle teasing to his tone when he spoke to her. Not only that, but he had started to look at her differently, too. His gaze oddly softened when he stared down at her now, which made her stomach do somersaults each time he glanced her way with that look.

No, stop thinking about him, I need to focus.

At this rate, she would never be able to concentrate on Lae’zel’s training. While she was in the gith’s good books, she hated to think what would happen if she were to piss Lae’zel off.

“K’chakhi!” Lae’zel hissed, narrowing her gaze down at the borrower. “You are clearly distracted, little istik. I need your full attention if you are going to learn the ways of Creche K’liir.”

Ria had no idea what ‘k’chakhi’ meant, but judging by Lae’zel’s tone, it obviously didn’t mean something good.

“I won’t get distracted again,” she said, her voice wavering slightly. “I’m ready.”

Lae’zel pursued her lips in thought. “Chk. Go ahead, little istik.”

She gripped her small dagger until her knuckles turned white before exhaling slowly. Centring herself, she lunged towards the ruby-red apple with calculated precision before unleashing an array of slashes onto the fruit. Whilst the apple was still incredibly large compared to the borrower, the impact of her blade on the fruit did jostle it slightly.

Heaving a sigh, she stepped back as beads of sweat gathered on her forehead. She craned her neck up at the gith, hoping that her efforts were acceptable.

Lae’zel’s face was as hard as stone, revealing no sign of true emotion behind her cold glare.

Ria’s heart skipped a beat as the silence became louder.

After what felt like an eternity, Lae’zel finally spoke.

“That is acceptable, little istik. You have improved, albeit only slightly.” The very small traces of a smile tugged across her mouth.

Relief swelled in Ria’s chest upon hearing the gith’s words. At least she was making progress.

“You still have a long way to go,” Lae’zel mused. “But do tell me, what is it that has you so distracted? That cannot happen again if you are to truly learn the ways of my people.”

Ria hesitated, her mouth suddenly going very dry. Was it a good idea to tell Lae’zel the truth? Did she even want to tell her the truth?

No, I can’t tell her.

“It’s nothing!” Ria answered. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

Lae’zel arched an eyebrow, clearly not convinced, but she didn’t press her on the matter further.

“Chk. Fine, little istik.” Lae’zel dropped to one knee, her gaze focused on Ria’s small frame.

“Continue.”

Inhaling a deep breath, Ria emptied her mind and pushed the thoughts of Astarion out of her brain. There was literally no reason for her to be so distracted. She didn’t even like Astarion anyways – she would be out of her mind to even entertain the idea. Right?

Shaking her head, she returned her focus back to the task at hand. Lae’zel was watching intently and she could feel the gith’s gaze searing into the back of her neck. Gripping her dagger firmly, she swallowed thickly.

Just as she was turning to attack, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Astarion having a conversation with Wyll. In that moment her entire body froze, her gaze completely fixed on Astarion. She drank in his features, noticing how his eyes crinkled as he laughed at something that Wyll must’ve said, the smile lines deepening on his face. The exaggerated hand movements that he made as he replied to Wyll’s remark had such a flair that Ria couldn’t describe – she hadn’t noticed it before, had he always done that? She could almost hear her heart threatening to tear itself out of her ribcage.

And then – his laugh – why did that have such an effect on her?

“Tsk’va!” Lae’zel bellowed from above, shaking Ria out of her thoughts. “You are clearly too distracted today, little istik. We can resume when you are serious about this.”

“I’m sorry!” Ria quickly said moments before Lae’zel stomped off, the gith’s footfalls rattling the ground so violently that she nearly lost her balance.

Shit…well done, I’ve now pissed off the most terrifying person in the whole camp.

A knot began to form in her stomach, a manifestation of the shame that was threatening to swallow her whole during that moment. A long sigh heaved past her lips as she tried to process her emotions. Why was she getting so flustered over Astarion of all people? Sure, they had decided to start afresh the previous night, and he had been surprisingly nice to her after she had persuaded the group to rethink his feeding habits. But he had still tried to eat her, as well as everything else he had done. There was literally no logical reason why she was feeling this way, and yet…she couldn’t ignore the feelings that swelled in her chest.

Gods, something is VERY wrong with me.

Violent earthquakes nearly caused Ria to fall off balance as everyone gathered around the centre of the camp not far from where she was standing. Being surrounded by towering giants was certainly something she would never get used to.

“I think we need to discuss our plan of action,” Wyll announced. “The Goblin Camp is right up ahead. We should think about what we’re going to do first once we get there.”

“I think we should rescue the druid, Halsin, before we approach any of the goblin leaders,” Shadowheart chimed in. “Perhaps he could assist us with getting rid of the goblins.”

“Do you reckon we could grab a pint of beer while we’re there?” Karlach said. “I’ve heard goblins always have some kind of alcohol not far away. Oh, and food! Could we please eat something there too?”

Ria anxiously listened as her giant companions discussed their plans on infiltrating the Goblin Camp, her heart hammering in her chest. If she was going with them, she had to ask them about it now or it would never happen.

Once there was a moment of silence, she loudly cleared her throat, and sure enough, multiple pairs of giant watchful eyes were suddenly now on her.

“Please take me with you!” she exclaimed, her face growing hot as she felt nervous with so many large eyes on her.

“No, no, I’m sorry to say, but that isn’t happening,” Gale said firmly. “A Goblin Camp is no place for a borrower like yourself. It’s far too dangerous.”

“I agree with Gale,” Wyll added. “It wouldn’t be hard for a goblin to snatch you up – and gods forbid what kind of horrible things they would do to a borrower if they found one.”

Ria stared at her towering companions in dismay. This was not the response she had been hoping for at all.

“No, please, I’ve been training with Lae’zel!” she retorted. “I can look after myself. Besides, I could just tag along in someone’s pocket or something. I can be useful, too, sneaking into tiny areas unseen!”

“Tsk’va!” Lae’zel hissed. “You are not ready, little istik. Especially if this morning’s training session is anything to go by, you have a lot to learn.”

“For once, I agree with Lae’zel,” Shadowheart said. “It’s far too dangerous for you, Ria. You’ll be a lot safer here.”

“B-but-“

“I promise we’ll bring you along another time,” Wyll smiled down at her warmly, his gaze softening as he saw how distraught she was. “But I think it’s best if you stay in camp for today. You can tag along when we’re not infiltrating a camp full of goblins.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Ria protested. “It’s important that I go with you to the camp. There’s…there’s someone I need to talk to there.”

A hushed silence fell over the group as everyone exchanged confused glances with one another.

Oh, right…they don’t know. I can’t tell them about the goblins, I promised Astarion I wouldn’t.

“And who exactly would that be?” Gale asked, one eyebrow raised.

Astarion shot her a tentative look, his brows furrowed as he watched to see how she would respond.

“M-Minthara, one of the goblin camp leaders,” Ria answered truthfully. “She…I’ve heard that she knows some things about the disappearance of borrowers. I need to find out why – this is the only lead I’ve had on any of my kind in years!”

Gale gazed down at Ria tenderly, his eyes softening with a mixture of understanding and confliction. “I understand this is very important to you, Ria, but it is simply far too dangerous. However, I will ensure that we’ll discuss this matter to Minthara when we find her and press her for answers. You can count on that.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, soldier!” Karlach added. “We won’t leave until we find out everything that we can. I promise.”

Ria felt utter helplessness constrict her body as everyone seemed content on not letting her go with them. Her plan was falling apart right before her eyes. Not that she didn’t doubt that Gale and the others wouldn’t ask Minthara for her, but she had failed to mention the blood merchant aspect and she wasn’t sure how she was going to explain her knowledge of that to everyone without going back on her promise to Astarion.

“Please, I need to come,” Ria pleaded, desperation hanging from her voice. “You don’t understand how important this is to me!”

“Ria, you can be assured that the Blade of Frontiers will carry out your request,” Wyll said. “We will press Minthara for everything that she knows about borrowers and we won’t leave until we do.”

Ria felt her resolve crumbling away like jagged pieces of stone. While she had managed to convince the group about other matters, letting them take her to the Goblin Camp certainly wasn’t one of them. At least she knew that they would find Minthara for her and hopefully she would tell them everything that she knows. Despite this, feelings of frustration boiled in her chest knowing that she wasn’t going to be there to question Minthara herself.

Large tremors shook the ground once more as everyone started moving around her, giant feet narrowly missing her tiny frame as they all began to prepare for the mission ahead. Ria remained frozen in her spot, watching with wide eyes as her giant travelling companions shifted around like towering buildings. Feeling somewhat defeated, she meandered over towards the dwindling campfire and sat down on the dusty ground. For now, she would have to settle with being alone with her thoughts until the others returned.

Violent earthquakes suddenly jolted her from her spot on the ground and she quickly craned her neck upwards.

“I see you’re stuck with camp duty,” Astarion chimed from above, smiling down at her. “How unfortunate for you.”

Ria sighed loudly and buried her face into her hands. She didn’t have the patience for Astarion’s usual bullshit right now. “Please, I don’t want to hear it, Astarion. Just leave me be.”

“Alright, have it your way,” he smirked. “I guess I won’t offer to take you with me if that’s what you want.”

Her breath caught in her throat as his words vibrated through the air, her neck snapping up to look at him once more in disbelief. “W-what?”

“I think you heard me.” He dropped to one knee, his body casting a long shadow over her small frame. He extended his hand towards her, his palm facing up, beckoning for her to climb aboard.

Ria stared at his open palm. Her eyes widened open in utter shock; her jaw slightly ajar as she processed what was happening. Was he seriously offering to take her to the Goblin Camp? Her heart thumped fiercely against her chest as she tried to think clearly. Sure, she had seen a different side to Astarion the previous night and they had agreed that they would start over. But could she start to trust him so quickly? The last time she had been in his hands he had nearly ended her life.

“Well, do you want to come along or not?” Astarion asked, pulling her out of her thoughts. “I thought this was important to you.”

This might be my only chance. If I don’t go now then who’s to say I won’t ever get an opportunity like this again?

“Y-you’re really offering to take me to the Goblin Camp?”

Astarion flashed her a toothy grin. The glint of his fangs in the sunlight sent a flare of fear deep in her chest.

“Of course I am, darling. After what you did for me last night, it only seems reasonable that I repay the favour.” The tips of his fingers twitched ever so slightly, as if he was growing slightly impatient that she hadn’t clambered onto his hand already.

“Do you promise you won’t crush me?” Ria questioned, swallowing thickly.

“I’m not that careless,” Astarion said. “Besides, I would never waste such a perfectly good snack.”

Ria’s face fell, her skin growing hot as panic began to settle in her stomach. She knew he was most likely joking, but seeing his teeth in the light and how dangerously he loomed over her wasn’t exactly helping. However, there was another feeling there mixed in with her blatant fear. Her heart was racing, but not because she was scared – she felt oddly flustered by his comment, and that frightened her.

Astarion’s eyes instantly grew wide with alarm, his cheeky smirk vanished from his face and was soon replaced with something else – concern.

“Shit, I guess that was a little too soon, wasn’t it?” he said, a hint of worry laced his tone. “My apologies. I promise I have no intention of eating you.”

“Um, it’s okay,” Ria managed to choke out, inhaling a shaky breath. “I would strongly appreciate it if you didn’t refer to me as food related things from now on.”

Astarion nodded. “As you wish.”

Any sensible borrower would call her a lunatic for willingly climbing onto a vampire’s hand. But her determination to find more of her own kind managed to stifle her overwhelming fear. Very tentatively she climbed onto Astarion’s open palm, her heart racing as she felt his fingers curl slightly around her tiny body.

Glancing upwards, she was met with Astarion’s piercing gaze once more. A small grin danced across his lips as he stared at her standing on his palm.

“You are such a dainty little thing, aren’t you?” he mused.

Ria grasped onto his thumb for support, a small shiver rippling through her body as the icy coldness of his skin seeped into her own. Despite the drop in temperature, blood rushed to her cheeks upon hearing Astarion’s compliment. He had just called her dainty – another word for describing something small and pretty.

Hating him was so much easier when he wasn’t making her feel so flustered.

“And you are an oversized leech,” she snapped back, shaking away the feeling of shame tangled in her brain.

A rumbling chuckle vibrated through the still air. “Such a charmer.”

Astarion’s fingers softly folded around her tiny body, causing her to flinch from the movement, but her heart rate relaxed slightly as she remembered that he wasn’t going to hurt her. He cupped her towards his chest, his sanguine eyes peering down at her trembling in the palm of his hand.

“Astarion, we’re leaving now!” Wyll’s voice resonated loudly through her ears and immediately Astarion shielded his fingers around her tiny frame.

“I won’t be long!” Astarion responded, the sudden loudness of his voice startling her.

The world quickly shifted all around her in a matter of seconds, and she found herself being lifted upwards into the air. Before she had a moment to react, she was falling into soft, plush fabric. She turned her head upwards, a window of light shining down on her from above.

A single crimson eye loomed above her, fixated on her as she sat trembling against the fabric.

“Comfortable enough my dear?”

Astarion’s voice rumbled all around her, his words intensified now that she was so close to his chest and it sent vibrations throughout her entire body.

“J-Just don’t forget about me, okay?” she said shakily. “And remember to find Minthara. Please.”

The giant ruby eye staring down at her merely blinked, the corners creased ever so slightly, suggesting that he was smiling.

“Don’t worry, darling, I can assure you that you won’t be forgotten in there,” he mused. “It’s quite hard not to, your heart is fluttering so loudly in your chest.”

Heat quickly licked across her face like fire and she immediately turned away from his piercing gaze. His comment only caused her heartrate to increase and she felt embarrassment flaring in her stomach. It bothered her that, despite her small stature, he was still able to detect a tiny heartbeat such as hers.

Stupid vampire with his stupid super senses.

The shining light vanished from above as Astarion sealed the lip of the pocket, trapping her completely inside. She was in complete darkness now, and after a few moments of her eyes blinking, she slowly adjusted to the lack of light. Borrowers didn’t have Darkvision like elves, however, they were still able to see about 10 metres in front of them in very little light. It wasn’t as good as Darkvision, but it was still incredibly useful, especially for a borrower.

The pocket wasn’t as roomy as the tent that Gale had set up for her in camp, but it was big enough that she could stretch her legs if she pleased. She leaned her back against the wall of the pocket, or, rather, Astarion’s chest. If he were alive, from this spot this is where she would be able to feel and hear his heartbeat. But instead of that, she was greeted with silence. It was slightly unnerving, but she didn’t dwell on it.

I can’t believe I’m putting my trust in a vampire of all people…

Swallowing a lump that had begun to form in her throat, she ignored the clawing feelings of doubt swarming her brain. It was too late to back down now, and as much as she disliked it, Astarion was her best shot at finding out more information about her kind. She only hoped that Minthara would share any information that she may have, and if she didn’t…well, she would cross that bridge when she came to it. Shifting around in her position inside the pocket, she attempted to make herself comfortable. If anything, at least Astarion had excellent taste when it came to clothing – the fabric inside the pocket was incredibly soft and plush, and if she wasn’t careful, she could most definitely drift off to sleep.

No, don’t fall asleep! Stay awake!

Using her fingers, she forced her eyelids to remain open, shaking her head slightly as she moved around inside the pocket to stay awake. There was no way she would allow herself to fall asleep inside the pocket of a vampire, despite her mixed feelings towards him.

Suddenly applied pressure squashed Ria inside her fabric prison, and she let out a startled squeak in response as panic spiked through her chest.

“As-Astarion!” she spluttered, her body being crushed by what she assumed must’ve been his hand pressing against the outside of the pocket.

“Sshhh,” a loud, rumbling voice cooed all around her that was somewhat muffled due to the fabric. “Stop fidgeting around in there, you are awfully distracting.”

Heat brushed along her face as she quickly ceased struggling. She was glad that he couldn’t see her face right at that moment.

“F-Fine, I’ll stop!” she said breathlessly.

And just as soon as it was there, the pressure was gone.

Ria inhaled a shaky breath, grasping at the walls of fabric for some kind of support as she steadied herself.

It was going to be a long day.

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silvfyre-writings · 7 months

Text

Misery and Misfortune Pt. 1 (BSD Fanfic)

Hello, hello, I bring you all some pain, and this time, I have a friend bringing the pain with me! This is a collaboration work between @hyaha-ha-ha and I, so I hope you all enjoy! CW: MCD, Gore, Body Horror

No one knows when it started.

No one knows how it came to be.

But everyone knows just how deadly it is.

I fear for those I care about.

I fear for everyone.

—Yosano Akiko

When the news of a mysterious infection making its way through Yokohama began, Yosano wasn’t even in the city to witness it. She’d been at the other end of the country, at a conference for doctors to get together and talk about the newest treatments. Although she wasn’t the most… conventional doctor, Fukuzawa had been insistent that she attend, so, she had. And while, she would much rather be tormenting her co-workers by strapping them down and removing their limbs when they were foolish enough to get themselves injured, she did have to admit that it was interesting to learn new things.

She also had a feeling it was a ploy to get her to experience things that normal doctors, with normal lives, and normal educations got to experience on a daily basis, which she did appreciate. Fukuzawa had always tried to give her a normal life—well, as normal as a life could be when it came to growing up with Fukuzawa and Ranpo who were very much not normal—after rescuing her from Mori all those years ago, and she’d been forever grateful. And while she didn’t regret how her life had turned out, there were times where she wished that her life had been different. That Mori had never plucked her from the candy store and whisked her away to war.

So with no hesitation, she packed a bag and hopped on the next train to Osaka, the goodbye’s of her co-workers echoing in her ears.

Goodbye’s that had involved warning Dazai against raiding her medicine cabinet—regardless of whether it was a joke or not—and telling Ranpo to eat an actual meal instead of his snacks for once, whilst also making sure that Kunikida didn’t stress himself out while she was gone because she knew him well enough to know that he would the moment she was gone. She’d made sure to check in with the younger members as well—because she did care despite her constant threats of bodily harm, and Atsushi and Kyouka still responded well to knowing that people actually cared about them—and had even made sure to have a quick break with Fukuzawa before her train. And it’d been nice, to see them all happy and smiling, and full of jokes and teasing quips.

It made her believe that everything would be alright.

Not that there’d been any reason to believe otherwise, because as chaotic and accident prone as her precious, put together, little family was, they were more than capable of handling any crisis that was thrown their way.

If only she’d known then, just how wrong she was.

The reporter on the news spoke of an infection of an unknown origin, bringing with it a rash, and open sores, along with a fever that could kill if it got out of hand. They also spoke of how it was unknown just how many people were infected, and that there was no reason to worry. Yosano wasn’t stupid though, and neither was any other doctor in the room currently. They all threw each other uneasy glances, and quiet murmurs broke out across the room, some groups discussing potential causes, and others already coming up with ways of treating it when they got back to their respective hospitals, even though, so far, it was restricted to just Yokohama.

And that was how the rest of the conference went; there was no panic, no fretting, only quiet discussion about what was going on in a city several hours away. Yosano herself, fell into the lull, keeping one eye on the news just like everyone else was, but focusing most of her attention on the people speaking. She wanted to go back and be able to prove that she’s actually learnt something while she’d been gone.

But the days passed, and the news became more frequent.

It was an infection they said, and medicine in this day and age, accompanied by the few skill users with healing abilities, meant that it wouldn’t be long before it was dealt with and forgotten.

It was an infection they said; no one had died, and it hadn’t been discovered outside of Yokohama yet, so it clearly wasn’t airborne, nor was it in the water.

It’s just an infection, Yosano told herself, watching as images of patients in hospitals flicked across the screen, dread filling her stomach that she couldn’t quite understand the origin of.

It’s just an infection, she continued to say, as the phone in her hand lit up with the President’s number.

Yosano wasn’t the type to believe in God; had never had a reason to with the life that she’d lived, with all that pain and suffering that she’d worked hard to put behind her. After all, what kind of God would just sit by and allow an eleven-year-old to suffer as much as she had? What had she done that was no bad to warrant that kind of torment? Not only that, but what God would endorse such a war to happen in the first place where she, a child, had needed to be on the battlefield?

After all these years, she still didn’t have an answer.

And when she arrived back at the Agency, and stepped into the infirmary, what little belief she somehow still had, vanished.

Yosano didn’t know what to think at first, when her eyes fell upon Dazai, his bandages unravelled and replaced with plastic covers that showed the gaping wounds being protected by them, the wires that were connected to him, monitoring his vitals, and the needle in his hand providing nutrition. Her heart skipped a beat, as she forced her eyes away from her friends almost… decaying form, to see Dazai staring at her, expression one that could only be attributed to pain, although she couldn’t be sure he was actually looking at her, eyes glazed with fever and staring right through her almost.

It was the weakest that she’d ever seen him, and she’d seen him on death’s door multiple times.

She stepped closer. “Dazai…”

Dazai’s eyes focused just long enough for him to notice her, and a smile grew on his face. “Yosano-sensei, how kind of you to rush back for little old me.”

“The President called me.” Yosano said, striding over to the bed and taking one of Dazai’s arms into her own to study it. This close, she could see the wound more clearly, see the bone underneath the flesh that had seemingly rotted away, blood leaking from the hole that was left behind. The sheer size of the wound concerned her; spreading up the length of the limb and disappearing underneath the gown that her colleague was wearing. Further up, she could see cracks in the skin on the right side of his face, not quite bleeding, but threatening to.

She’d never seen anything like it.

But she knew what it was.

Despite wishing wholeheartedly that it was anything but.

Yosano looked towards where Kunikida was sitting, looking more stressed than he ever had before. “How did this happen?”

“We aren’t sure.” Kunikida sighed, slumping forward to rest his head in his hands. He took a deep breath. “We pulled the idiot from the river about a week ago, and of course, he got sick from it. But then… he got worse. And now he’s like this.”

“Ah I’ll be fine. Now that you’re here, I’ll be fine.” Dazai interjected, tugging his hand free to drop back against the mattress. Neither Yosano nor Kunikida missed the way it dropped like deadweight, as there was no muscle to support the limb, nor the pained grimace that followed.

Yosano smiled, hoping that it conveyed the confidence that she did not feel in that moment. Her mind drifted away, back towards that of the news report about a mysterious infection spreading around Yokohama.

An infection that currently, had no cure.

Not that she would let that stop her.

She was Akiko Yosano, the Angel of Death. She wasn’t going to let some unknown infection get the best of her, not in her life.

“Well, Dazai.” Yosano said, reaching out a hand to smooth Dazai’s sweat-soaked hair, ignoring the heat that she felt, even through her glove. Dazai’s eyes focused on her once again. “Let’s see if we can’t get you fixed up.”

Yet, for all her efforts, Dazai continued to get sicker, and sicker. No matter what medicine she pumped him with, no matter how many times she and Kunikida cleaned the wounds, he just continued to waste away right in front of them. And because they weren’t sure how exactly Dazai had contracted the infection, Yosano made the decision to bar everyone but herself and Kunikida from the infirmary whilst they tried to figure it out; a decision that wasn’t well received. Atsushi had tried to force his way past her, desperate to see his mentor, but he’d calmed when Kyouka—bless her—had slid up to him and explained that Yosano wasn’t doing this to be cruel, she just didn’t want them to get sick as well.

Yosano had appreciated it, and promised Atsushi that the moment that Dazai was allowed visitors again, she’d let him know.

The first thing to do, other than manage Dazai’s symptoms, was discover how he’d even contracted the infection in the first place, which meant running through every aspect of Dazai’s life leading up until his collapse; a task made nearly impossible, not from Dazai’s unwillingness to talk, but because he was rarely lucid enough for them to even ask as the infection continued to ravage him. It’d gotten to the point where Yosano started to grow concerned that Dazai would die, so she’d made the decision to amputate his arm in a desperate attempt to stop the infection from spreading.

At first, Kunikida had argued, but he’d quickly given in when Yosano had argued back that at this point, they had nothing to lose.

It was one of the few times where she cursed being unable to use her ability on Dazai.

But after the surgery, Yosano felt nothing but relief when Dazai opened his eyes, and almost immediately cracked a joke about his missing arm, eyes clearer than they had been in a long time. It was almost as if Dazai hadn’t been sick in the first place, and once he’d rested from the surgery, she grilled him on what he’d been doing, what he’d been eating, and who he’d interacted with, but his answers had provided nothing.

All he’d been doing was walking around Yokohama, trying to find the ideal spot to die, nothing out of the ordinary for her eccentric friend.

But since it didn’t seem like Dazai would infect everyone else, Yosano didn’t see an issue with allowing the others to visit Dazai, although she did insist that they all wear masks and gloves just in case.

The last thing she wanted was to deal with an outbreak when she didn’t have a set treatment in mind.

“He’s going to die; you know that right?” Yosano was dragged out of her thoughts by the sound of Ranpo throwing himself up on top of her desk, twirling a lollipop in his hand. The words were harsh, and didn’t match the indifferent expression on Ranpo’s face, but Yosano knew better, knew just how much her oldest friend cared about Dazai.

Yosano sighed and glanced over her shoulder where Dazai was listening to Atsushi talk about his day, a bowl of half-eaten chazuke in his hand. “I know.”

Ranpo hummed. “Are you going to tell them?”

“They already know.” At least, she thought they did. She hoped they did, because if they didn’t… well, she didn’t quite have an answer for that. Yosano let out another sigh, and turned to face Ranpo. “Have you been asked by the police for help.”

“Not yet.” Ranpo said. “It’s only a matter of time though, since people are starting to die now, so I’m sure they’ll come begging for my assistance like they always do.”

“Do you know what’s causing it?”

“Causing it? Not yet. How it spreads? Yes.” Ranpo shoved the lollipop into his mouth, his attention focused on Dazai and the others surrounding him. “It’s through blood-to-blood contact, before you ask.”

Yosano frowned, filing the information away for later to deal with. She’d encountered infections of the blood before, but most of them had some other requirement involved for them to actually infect people; seldom was it as simple as blood-to-blood. But it would make sense for it to be so simply, really. It was common for the deadliest of diseases to be transmitted easily, that was what made them so deadly in the first place. And it didn’t make them easy to cure either.

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out.” Ranpo went on to say. “Dazai will die, but you did what you could, and he knows that. It’s why he’s still smiling, so people can remember him for that instead of rotting away in a bed.”

She didn’t think she’d done nearly enough to try and help, but it was nice of Ranpo to try and offer some comfort to her. She gave him a soft look. “Are you going to be okay? When he dies, I mean?”

Ranpo refused to look at her, his body tense. “It’s not like I have a choice. He’s dying whether I want him to or not.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ll say my goodbyes later once everyone’s gone.” Ranpo hopped of her desk and began to leave, stopping right beside her just long enough to speak quietly. “Just find a cure, okay?”

I will. Yosano thought, going back to her research.

She had to.

But just as Ranpo had predicted, Dazai died.

It was a painful death, it had to be with the way Dazai’s flesh peeled from his skin, leaving nothing but bone. It took days for him to finally pass, the fever finally becoming too much for his body to handle and causing total organ failure. Yosano had done everything she could to help, had tried everything she’d learnt over the years, but none of it had been enough, and in the end, all she could do was sit by Dazai’s bedside with Kunikida beside her, and hold her friends’ hand as he lost the fight to live.

“Don’t mourn me… too much, Yosano-sensei… we all knew I would be… the first to die…”

That was what Dazai had said in his final moment of clarity, and honestly, she wanted to smack him for it. Of course she was going to mourn Dazai, he was her friend, and he’d left a bigger impact on the Agency than he thought he had. He’d brought jokes, and joy, and that weird friendship of his that only Dazai could do, and she, along with everyone else, were going to miss him. She hadn’t cried when he died, too focused on keeping herself composed as she shared the news with those that hadn’t been in the room, and afterwards, there’d been so many tears from everyone else that it didn’t feel right for her to break down too.

But if she shed a few tears over a shared bottle of sake between her and Ranpo, who was to know but them?

After Dazai’s death, Yosano thought that the end of it.

They held a funeral, said their goodbyes, and did their best to push onwards. For a while, work was slow, on account of everyone struggling to cope with the subdued atmosphere, which eventually led to Fukuzawa making the decision to close the Agency for the week, just to give them the time they needed to deal and start healing. A decision that everyone was quick to follow.

Once that week was up, and everyone was back at work, things almost seemed to go back to normal. Well, not normal per se—because there was nothing normal about watching a co-worker and friend slowly waste away—but as normal as it could be. Although, for Yosano, life continued to grow more chaotic. The hospitals, having heard of her encounter with the infection, summoned her to see if she could try to help with the influx of victims, so most of her time was spent there, trying to help, but only watching more people die.

There was still no cure, still no idea on the origin of the infection, only a steadily growing death toll and fear amongst the general population.

And then she walked into the Agency, where she watched Kunikida collapse in front of her, blood spilling from the cracks in his face, and her heart stopped. Not again.

Like with Dazai, Yosano took Kunikida to the infirmary and refused entry to anyone that wasn’t her. She did what she could to get Kunikida’s vitals up, hoping that he would regain consciousness and be able to tell her how he got infected—which she already knew thanks to Ranpo deducing that it was contact with blood, but she needed to know when. Knowing when Kunikida had gotten infected would give them an idea as to how long it took the infection to present itself, and that kind of knowledge was vital in an epidemic.

But Kunikida never woke up.

And Yosano was forced to watch yet another friend die.

It was cruel, it was awful, and Yosano cursed every God that she knew of for allowing the most important people in her life to die from some stupid, incurable infection. She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry, but right now, she couldn’t. Right now, she had to be strong, had to provide a brave face to show the others that she knew what she was doing, that there was still hope to be had, even though she continued to lose it as the days passed.

Like Dazai, Kunikida’s flesh began to rot away, and honestly, it was a testament to just how much the human body could survive, as Kunikida’s arms were nothing but bone, yet he was somehow still fighting. And even though Kunikida was comatose, she kept him dosed on painkillers, just in case there was a part of him that was hurting; otherwise, she used the time to study the symptoms of the infection, to note how fast it spread and the order it happened in, comparing Kunikida’s suffering to Dazai’s and finding them almost the same.

There were a few variances, but that was expected with infections; everyone was different after all. Everyone’s body reacted to things differently; it was why Kunikida had started bleeding from his face first whilst Dazai rotted.

Not that it made it any less painful to know that.

This time, it was Fukuzawa that sat by her side as Kunikida slowly died in front of her. She appreciated the company, spent most of the time leaning against his shoulder as they sat in silence together. It was obvious from the tension in his face, that he was worried about the way that things were going, and that he felt a little helpless at not being able to do much more than support her. It was probably how the rest of the Agency felt, being trapped outside the infirmary as they were, and she felt guilty that she couldn’t risk allowing them to help her. She just couldn’t risk anyone else getting infected. It was already dangerous enough keeping infected people in the infirmary here, instead of taking them to the hospital like the government was asking of people.

“I’m sorry I can’t save him.” Yosano found herself saying, her voice quiet in the despair of the room. She ducked her head and stared at her hands. Maybe Shunzen was right. Maybe she was an Angel of Death after all, hands bloodied by the bodies of people she tried to save and failed.

Maybe she should just—

“You did what you could.” Fukuzawa interrupted before her thoughts could send her spiralling. He gave her a comforting pat. “Kunikida and Dazai know that.”

“But does everyone else?” Yosano retorted. “I’ve kept them from being here, to keep them safe, but for all I know, they hate me for not doing more!”

“They don’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

Fukuzawa tightened his grip on her, voice firm. “They don’t hate you.”

“But—”

“They don’t.” Fukuzawa insisted. “They merely wish that they could do more to help. Situations like this can leave many feeling helpless and we, are no different. You need not apologise for the decisions you make to keep us safe.”

Yosano bit her lip to keep the apology on the tip of her tongue from escaping, and just gave a single nod. There wasn’t anything more she could say on the matter, not without making Fukuzawa repeat himself. Her eyes rested upon Kunikida’s shivering form; death would come for her friend soon, and she resolved to let him be the last. She would do everything that she could to stop anyone else she cared about from succumbing to this infection.

Two days later, Kunikida died.

And this time, Yosano allowed them to grieve him properly.

She spent hours sterilising the room from top to bottom, removing all traces of blood, and covering the wounds that had killed Kunikida to prevent even the slightest drop of blood from escaping. And only then, once she was sure that the room was as clean as it could be, did she allow everyone to come and say goodbye. Yosano knew she’d done right when Atsushi stepped into the room, took one look at the man that had taken him under his wing, and promptly burst into tears.

She had to leave the room then.

She didn’t go far, just outside into the main office where she leant against the wall, listening through the cracked door as everyone shared their final words with Kunikida, shedding tears over the person that had supported their endeavours at the Agency the most. It warmed her heart to hear such words spoken, she just wished that he hadn’t had to die to hear them. And for the first time in her life, she tried to believe that Kunikida’s spirit was there, along with Dazai’s, watching over them and giving them the strength to continue.

They were going to need it.

In the wake of Kunikida’s death, Yosano found herself being called away from the Agency more often than not, the government and local hospitals hearing of their encounters, however brief, with the infection and wanting to know more about her findings in studying the infection. The people she spoke to sounded hopeful on the phone, and Yosano felt nothing but guilt as she crushed that hope into tiny pieces by being unable to provide any information that wasn’t already known. It also crushed her to know that she hadn’t discovered anything new about the infection, but there was a determination building within her, one born from the desire to not lose anyone else that she considered family.

The television in the Agency was permanently left on, at least one channel always reporting on the status of the infection, updating people on how many were infected and where the worst rate of infection was. As expected, Suribachi City was affected the worst; the ruined city had been cordoned off the moment the public discovered the method of transmission, with no one allowed to enter or leave, no matter what. This caused some argument, and a lot of distress, as it meant that the people trapped within the city were sentenced to a slow and painful death, without any means of relief.

Yosano considered herself capable of controlling her emotions, but after watching two of her oldest friends die to the infection, she couldn’t help but cry over the people in Suribachi City.

Weeks passed, and the situation worsened around them, but the atmosphere within the Agency was a positive one as no one else fell to the infection—mostly due to Fukuzawa’s decision for them to remain indoors unless absolutely necessary. Which wasn’t hard to do considering that in the wake of a deadly infection, people weren’t exactly scrambling for their services. This newfound free time of theirs was spent doing whatever kept their focus off the news; reading, playing games, swapping stories with each other. It was almost as this were just a casual sleepover instead of an attempt to stay safe.

Yosano couldn’t bring herself to relax, going over her notes over and over again until she would collapse at her desk. She couldn’t relax, no matter how many times the others pleaded with her to take a break.

She’d already failed them twice; she wouldn’t do it again.

So of course, the infection made her eat her words.

Rumours began to spread that those suffering from the infection would do their best to seek out contact with others, not because they wanted to infect others, but because the infection took their ability to stay warm. And who was warm but living, healthy, people?

This made the infection more deadly, considering all it took to get infected was the tiniest cut, and naturally, not long after the news had dropped, the death toll began to rose, bring with it, crushing despair and a lack of hope for their situation ever getting better. Yokohama was now in lockdown mode, a last-ditch effort to stop the infection spreading. No one was to leave, even to get supplies, and those that risked it, were left to die in the streets.

The hospitals turned their focus to those that were uninfected, ejecting the victims of the infection onto the streets, breaking their vows to save all lives no matter what, just to try and save who remained. These hospitals swore that they’d focus on finding a cure, and that when they did, the people they threw out would be welcomed back and treated, but it didn’t take a genius to know those were empty words. The infection was killing faster now, spreading even faster to try and take down as many people as it could.

It was a logical decision really, to sacrifice the lives of the few to save the lives of the many, but already, two-quarters of Yokohama’s population was infected, and one-quarter dead, so who were they saving really?

No one, that’s who.

So, Yosano wasn’t surprised when her more empathetic colleagues wanted to help those that had been abandoned, even if it was just venturing out to get people indoors, to get them food and water so that they may stand a chance of pulling through the epidemic. And try as she might, Yosano couldn’t stop them.

Kenji.

Kyouka.

Atsushi.

One by one she watched them die, her heart fracturing as she tried desperately to save them, only to fail. Even Atsushi, who’s skill allowed him to regenerate, succumbed to the infection in the end. But… Yosano learnt something from that, and she kicked herself over not considering it sooner. As Atsushi lay there in the infirmary bed, skin literally melting off of his bones, she watched as his body tried to fix it; the damaged skin would knit back together, as if he’d never been infected in the first place, only for the wounds to reappear days later.

It was an endless cycle, one filled with pain and agony, and ultimately, it ended with Atsushi losing his mind.

At that point, it was just her, Atsushi, Ranpo, and Fukuzawa left in the building. Everyone else was dead. And when Atsushi became infected, Ranpo retreated immediately—not that Yosano could blame her friend, for despite being confronted with death since a young age like she had, it was different when they were people you cared about, and Ranpo had been struggling ever since Dazai first died months back—which left just her and Fukuzawa to do what they could for Atsushi.

No one could tell them that they hadn’t tried, because they had tried so, so hard, to keep Atsushi alive, praying that his body would somehow fight off the infection and a miracle would occur.

But instead of a miracle, a curse came.

The tiger inside Atsushi had always been uncontrollable, and was only placid due to Fukuzawa’s ability making it so. But the infection must’ve broken that connection, because as Atsushi’s healing ability failed, and his flesh rotted worse than it ever had, the tiger broke free. Yosano found herself shoved across the room as the tiger lunged for her and Fukuzawa, and she could only watch as Fukuzawa drew his sword and sliced Atsushi in half.

But not before sinking his teeth into the older man’s arm.

“NO!” Yosano threw herself onto her knees by Fukuzawa’s side, blinking rapidly as if that would make the wound go away. Only a few feet away, did Atsushi lay in his tiger form, eyes wide and dull, devoid of life, and Yosano knew she should do as she did, and take notes on the infection’s progression in the boy, but she couldn’t bring herself to, not when she had to come to term with the fact that she was going to lose the man that rescued and given her a new life.

Her shout must’ve been loud enough to catch Ranpo’s attention from wherever he’d sequestered himself, for she heard the infirmary door open, and the shattering of a ramune bottle seconds later.

And despite the fate that was coming for him, Fukuzawa smiled at them both, covering his wound with a hand. “It will be fine.” He said, voice filled with conviction as it always was. “I believe in the both of you.”

“There’s no cure—”

“We’ll cure it.” Ranpo’s determined words interrupted her own hopeless ones, and Yosano turned towards Ranpo. His eyes slid to look at her briefly, hardened, and devoid of emotion, before flicking back to Fukuzawa. Despite the look on his face, she could hear the pain in his voice. “We’ll cure it, so you better fight, President. You aren’t allowed to die.”

“I will do my best, Ranpo.”

The stakes were higher than ever before, with Fukuzawa infected, not only because of how much he meant to her, but because Ranpo became absolutely unbearable the moment that the man that had saved them both became so ill, he was a far cry from their saviour now. She tried not to snap at her friend when he was short with her, or when he demanded more than she could give, but it was hard not to when it felt like he was about to start biting her neck instead of merely breathing on it with how close he lingered. She understood his distress, was feeling much the same herself, and wanted nothing more than to find a cure to stop Fukuzawa from dying, but there was only so much she could do. Realistically, Yosano had already accepted that Fukuzawa was going to die, had prepared herself for it to happen, but Ranpo hadn't. Like when Fukuzawa had been infected by the Cannibalism skill all those months ago, Ranpo camped out by the older man's bedside, refusing to move, to eat, to sleep, and nothing Yosano said or did could change his mind.

It wasn't until she finally sat down and documented her observations on Atsushi that she finally gained a bit of hope.

Atsushi had only lasted as long as he did because of the regenerative qualities of his ability, and it reminded her of her own ability. She'd never thought to use her ability on the infection, since Dazai was immune to her skill to begin with, and after he’d died, she’d automatically assumed it would be like any other illness, and fail, but perhaps this was different. After all, the infection caused massive wounds, and those were something she could heal. And even if she couldn't cure the infection, perhaps she could buy enough time for a cure to be found.

Perhaps she would be able to save Fukuzawa.

So as Fukuzawa grew sicker, she fought the urge to amputate his limbs to try and stop the infection. She had to wait for it to take hold more, if she wanted the best chance at defeating it, no matter how much it pained her to do so. It was hard, when the flesh began to melt off his bones, and he gave into the pain he was feeling despite the heavy amount painkillers she supplied.

And finally, the time came for her to use her ability.

It was the first, and only, time she did it, and she watched Fukuzawa's chest fall still, butterflies filling the room, apprehension filling her body as she waited for it to restart. And right where he'd been sitting the entire time, Ranpo sat, clutching Fukuzawa's hand within his own, squeezing tight. His head was ducked so she couldn't see what kind of face he was making, but she could see his lips moving, recognising the words as a prayer—so unlike Ranpo with his usually uncaring nature towards anything spiritual. But dire situations brought out the desperation in even the strongest of people, and Ranpo surely must've reached his limit by now.

Time ticked by, and still, Fukuzawa's chest remained still.

And then, just as she was about to shatter, she saw it. A breath.

A singular breath.

It was weak and shaky, but it was there, and Yosano dove straight into doctor mode, taking Fukuzawa's vitals, and making sure that he had enough nutrients going into him to keep his body as strong as possible. She didn’t dare believe it, didn’t dare hope in case it was just a lie. But as the day passed by, those breaths grew stronger, and by evening, against the odds of everyone else they’d already lost, Fukuzawa opened his eyes.

"Did you cure it?" Fukuzawa asked. He was tired. Strained. Barely conscious, yet there was pride in his eyes.

"I'm not sure." Yosano admitted, ducking her head. "We'll just have to wait and see. Atsushi regenerated his wounds, but... they would reappear days later."

"Yeah, but Atsushi didn't have your healing ability." Ranpo huffed, looking more alive now that Fukuzawa was awake and talking. Yosano reckoned that if he could’ve, Ranpo would’ve crawled onto the bed right that instant. "You've cured it, I just know it. President's gonna be the first one to fight this stupid infection off, just you watch."

Yosano sincerely hoped that Ranpo was right.

And as the days passed, with Fukuzawa appearing to grow stronger, Yosano's hope began to return, along with a little optimism. She’d cured it. Every day, she checked Fukuzawa over, and every day, there were no wounds. But still, she held her breath, just in case it was false hope, and the infection was simply waiting to make a comeback.

She’d cured it.

A week passed by with no changes, just growth, and Fukuzawa was able to get out of bed, taking his first steps since becoming infected. And this time, she cried. Because she'd done it. She’d cured it—she'd cured the infection, and all she'd had to do was use the ability that she'd once despised. Fukuzawa held her close, whispering quiet words of reassurance, telling her that he was proud of her perseverance. After that, she pulled away, smiling, and Ranpo took her place, throwing himself at the President and finally unleashing his own tears that he'd been holding back for months.

"I'm going to grab some food from downstairs. If you can eat something, I'll contact the hospital and tell them that I've managed to cure it." Yosano said, leaving Fukuzawa and Ranpo alone in the infirmary as she made her way to the storage area, where they'd stocked up on food before needing to isolate—thanks to Atsushi. She couldn't help but feel excited, moving with a skip in her step. Even though she was still upset at not being able to save her friends and co-workers, being able to save Fukuzawa had given her hope. There was no doubt in her mind that she would miss them for as long as she lived. All of them had left an impact on her, however long or short they'd been in her life for. Her heart clenched, but she forced the feeling away. There would be time to mourn after they'd stopped the infection running rampant.

And mourn she would.

She'd grabbed a decent amount of food, enough to host a small party that she believed was well deserved after everything they’d been through, and was just heading up the stairs when she heard a loud crash, and her heart stopped dead in its tracks.

"YOSANO!"

Like lightning, Yosano bolted up the stairs, the food in her hands falling to the floor, but she didn't care. That'd been Ranpo's voice, and he'd sounded terrified. Ranpo was never scared, never fearful, never terrified, which was how she knew it was bad. Yosano threw open the main door to the Agency, and dashed over to the infirmary, grateful that she'd left that door open when she'd left.

And then froze.

Red. That was all she could see. There was so much of it over the floor, over everything, that you almost wouldn't believe that the room had once been white. And in amongst the red, Yosano saw a petrified green; Ranpo, covered in more blood than she'd ever seen on him before. There was so much of it that she felt nauseous, a hand coming to cover her mouth, her arm wrapping around her stomach. Ranpo was holding onto something—no, someone.

Fukuzawa.

She hadn’t cured it.

"He just—" Ranpo tried to say, only to choke on his words. He raised a hand and stared at the blood, shocked. Whatever had happened had been fast, too fast for his genius brain to comprehend. Yosano could see it kicking into gear though, and she wanted to cry. "I don't know what happened—he was talking, and then—and then he was on the ground."

Yosano threw herself onto her knees beside the two of them, jamming her hand into Fukuzawa's neck only to recoil as the flesh sunk beneath her touch. What...?

Now that she was close enough, she could see that the wounds she'd cured had returned, but worse than before. Fukuzawa’s hands were nothing but bone, the skin and muscle sliding off his skeleton even in death. Where his skin remained, it was soft, sinking in places almost as if the elder’s insides were liquifying themselves. Where Ranpo clutched at his mentor, his hands left bruising imprints—although upon closer inspection, Yosano saw that the skin had actually broken, and was literally falling off around her friend’s grip.

And his face—his face—

It was cracked and split all over, blood and what looked to be brain matter oozing out of the cracks.

Fukuzawa was dead before he'd even hit the ground.

"I'm sorry, Ranpo, I'm so sorry." Yosano sobbed, bowing her head. She should've known it was too good to be true, should've known that it wasn't as simple as just using an ability. Why would it ever work that way? It wasn’t like it had worked before for her. And now Fukuzawa was gone, leaving just her and Ranpo as the sole survivors of this cursed infection.

"I'm sorry too." Came the shaky response, and Yosano lifted her head to look at Ranpo in confusion, uncertain as to why he was apologising when there hadn't been anything he could've done in the first place.

But then Ranpo lifted his hand, covered in Fukuzawa's blood, and through that blood, Yosano could see a cut.

A tiny cut, but a cut all the same.

And Yosano's heart shattered.

Please…

… no more.

#bsd #bungo stray dogs #bsd fanfic #yosano akiko #edogawa ranpo #armed detective agency #port mafia #body horror #gore #main character death #angst #infection au #writing #fanfic

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spider-mand · 5 months

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Grabbed @speedygoreman's last reply from this post because it was getting kind of long but I also wanted to rant a bit about that 2023 arc...

I had to tap out of reading that one. I really don't have the stomach for cutesy romance, so Valentine being immediately sparkly sugar sweet and the repeated focus on "cute cute cute" was... a lot. Then even the promised body horror elements, the symbiote, became a dog named Princess that talks in "papa take me for walkies" cutespeak. It was too much for me.

That's all personal preference though, I'm glad other people enjoyed Val and Wade together!

That complaint aside though, the premise didn't really make sense to me. Deadpool has so much baggage around human experimentation and being drugged into compliance, and the story hook for this one was... him agreeing to be an experiment (incubating that symbiote) while being heavily drugged by Valentine?

Then Valentine's just... look, it's not unusual for Wade to fall head over heels for a pretty face. What's unusual is for them to like him back, instantly, NO aversion at all to his face or his past or his everything. All he can focus on is "omgomg they called me cute eeee" instead of thinking "actually, that's really fucking suspicious..."

It was so off that I thought at first "oh, Valentine's going to be a villain?" Like there was going to be a big heel-turn moment where we found out Val was purposefully keeping him drugged out of his mind and distracted to give the symbiote time to grow into a huge threat. Like... how do you grow an evil alien? Manipulate an unkillable merc into protecting it for you by preying on his obvious desperation to be loved. Devious, tragic, and a trick Deadpool would very much fall for. You could even spin it so Valentine's being blackmailed, "it was a ruse at first but now I've actually fallen for you," and still get the "happy couple" ending without Valentine being the real villain.

Instead, no, it's just... Val and Wade are instantly in love, perfect, cutesy and lovey-dovey, the symbiote is instantly tame and they adopt it like a dog together, they move in together, check all the boxes of a self-insert wish fulfillment fanfic?

I know there's a lot of sentiment among fans to let Wade be happy for once, give him a break from being constantly hurt by the narrative - and I assume that's who they were trying to write this for. Give him the picturesque happy ending, at least for a while. I mean, there's always got to be some build up first, give him something to lose before he gets knocked back down - but having it given to him so fast, and so effortlessly, makes it feel kind of hollow.

Makes it feel like a too-quick setup for an inevitable "oh NO Val and Princess are DEAD, they were too pure for this sinful earth!" issue right around the corner.

#...ok rant over #wanted to at least skim-read the whole arc before rambling about it but this has been simmering in my head for a while #hopefully cool to screencap and tag you speedygoreman!

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lunarsands · 2 months

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Multi-SMP Fanfic: Which Fate’s Fairest To Us All – Ch 6

Characters: Mythical Sausage (1st), Rusty the Copper Golem, PearlescentMoon, Scott Smajor (1st), Mythical Sausage (2nd), Hermes, Mythical Sausage (3rd), Scott Smajor (2nd), Rocky the Goblin, and a couple of briefly mentioned cameos at the end!

WARNINGS: Character death (but they get better because Afterlife/New Life rules are in play), body horror

Chapter Summary: The group escapes the labyrinth at last only to run straight into a new battle against Sparrow and the sculk. Afterward, fate continues to have other plans for Myth and Smajor as they find their way to Sanctuary…

Sequel to Mirror Tenfold, Beyond the Wall and follows sometime after the events of Thou, O Kings, Fair Be You All.

(Also available on Ao3!)

[ Chapter One ] [ Chapter Two ] [ Chapter Three ] [ Chapter Four ] [ Chapter Five ]

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Chapter Six

That tide felt like it would sweep Myth himself away.

“It all started when he – well, when I did what guardian angels do, try to defend against evil, and vampires are the epitome of evil, right? My holy water didn’t seem to do much, so I ran away and he chased me down, and I ended up unconscious, and I woke up as his prisoner for him to feed off of whenever he wanted. He had taken my wings to display as a trophy and cut me off from the sky and sunlight. Eventually he weakened me enough that I ‘died’ – in a way – but I returned to life still in that dungeon but as a wither. Maybe there was something to that resurrection magic for choosing that particular creature for me to become, maybe some sort of influence after all, because I now saw the world from his point of view, and teamed up with him to spread despair in the world.

“But we were never fully on friendly terms. I snapped one day and withered my own wings, no longer allowing him that victory but staying at his side to continue down the path of evil. And then one day he came back dying from poison. And then he revived as an angel. And that was when my mind truly snapped, convinced he had stolen my holiness from me so he could turn himself into something more powerful. We both fell into insanity from the overwhelming need to get revenge on each other, and that’s how we ended up going through dozens of lives, all with different powers and different ways to murder each other, ignoring the rest of the world as we sought to kill the other a final time and win.”

Myth drew a deep breath. “I found a little sanity at some point, probably after I suffered five deaths in a row. Then I became a blazeborn, and Smajor became a gravital, and we had a stalemate going, and I led him into the Deep Dark hoping that a Warden would help take him down a few times. But we ended up going through the portal, and found ourselves in that labyrinth. And then we ran into our doubles, and when they got their previous powers back and I saw how my double looked at his Scott with adoration when he regrew angel wings… I snapped again. And instead of three of us working together to subdue Smajor, we all fought each other. It was that Scott who defeated me – subdued <i>me,</i> saying he had no intention of killing me despite knowing the exact weakness that would destroy me, and I came back to my senses.

“The other me dealt with Smajor and even tried to ‘fix’ him – using his wither powers, he temporarily removed Smajor’s soul and used some combination of his abilities to stabilize it, removing Smajor’s insanity and knocking him out, too. Then they flew off to try to find an exit. Which they did, returning to lead me out and that’s how I knew how to get here this time.”

Now he sighed wearily. “But just because Smajor was no longer insane it didn’t take away his need for revenge. So, that’s why he caused the death that made me a seraph. I was foolish to think that it was a reward for working together with the Mythical Sausage who was the complete opposite of me. I thought it was a sign to avenge everything Smajor had put me through for as many times as I saw fit. But I went too far, causing myself to become fallen. The celestial realm rejected me and punished me, turning my wings blood red to serve as a warning for others to stay away, that I wasn’t any kind of savior. But I didn’t care. I kept taking vengeance on Smajor. I took every life he had, in every form. No powers he gained could stop me. And eventually I became something more condemned than a fallen angel – I became a cursed one.”

Myth’s gaze went to Sausage. “That was the me you met. By then I had found the limit of the transformation magic in our world, and Smajor had no powers at all. But he didn’t die a final time, so I kept him imprisoned, because I could never believe he would change his ways. If he was allowed to go free, I just knew he would find a way to be a menace again, and he had plenty of time to figure out how since we’ve both been doomed to miserable immortality.”

Everyone’s attention was glued to this honest disclosure of Myth’s past. Scott and Ghast-sage had expressions of uneasy concern, while Sausage and Hermes had different amounts of sympathy clear on their faces. Rusty was silent, although his antenna did bob a few times.

“One time, the doubles we had met here appeared in our world – this was before Sanctuary, but the other seraph was in his final form and his Scott was some sort of purple sparkly creature that could call down meteor strikes – as you can guess, I fought with them again… but I really just wanted them to leave me alone. I had given up on redemption. Fate had already told me that I was cursed to be Smajor’s warden.”

Myth grimaced at the irony of the term, given what they had just been through. “Then, one day – after the Sanctuary incident – some kind of magical force teleported us to another world. It was the Superhero’s world.” Here, he cast another glance at Sausage. “Smajor’s double found him before I did, and used vampire powers to turn Smajor – giving him supernatural abilities again. Honestly, I’m just glad Smajor didn’t gain ten powers at once like those guys. The Superhero, his teammate, and I stopped them both, but I went too far again and… was ready to kill that Scott because I assumed too much about his preference for his vampire powers. The Superhero stopped me, things calmed down, a portal appeared that had what we thought were obvious signs it would take us home, and we left on unwelcome terms.”

He hadn’t wanted to admit the one part, worried that the Scott in front of him now would no longer trust him – a justified thought, as Scott took a hasty step back. Myth continued to keep his arms at his sides even though the lack of gesticulating as he spoke made him feel weird. “Something happened during the teleport once we went through. I lost sight of Smajor, and then suddenly I was turned into a phoenix. And then I stepped out of a Nether portal into your world.” He gave a nod to Scott and Ghast-sage.

“Everyone who came by assumed I was their ghast mage, so I pretended to ‘forget’ what had happened that made ‘me’ turn into a phoenix just so I could… well, wrap my head around it all. Rusty knew something was up, but he let me adjust to life there. It was… a nice break from the back-and-forth murder. I… had a chance to just live and learn new things, like all that technology you have. I, um, I tried to keep things in good condition for you.”

Myth briefly glanced at Ghast-sage, then lowered his gaze only to glance back again. “Then Smajor showed up. He had changed, too, into a fungal mage. He had accepted being mistaken for their Scott, too, but he somehow grew a conscience and wanted to find the versions of us that belonged there. I told him to go away because I didn’t trust his motives. Then he came back with news of where his investigations had led him: the Ancient City and its active portal. I knew what that meant. And he knew that I was the only one who would know how to get out of the labyrinth.”

Myth sighed regretfully. “I still didn’t want to trust him, and I didn’t know which option was better: both of us going in and unwillingly splitting up to find you, or only me and having no choice but to trust him to not destroy the portal behind me. And then I had no say in it, anyway, because sculk began to attack and he used his powers to fight it – and to fling me into the portal. And now that is what could be waiting for us on the other side.”

Myth brought his hands forward to look at them as he curled and uncurled his fingers a few times. “Guess I also now have what I need to stop the sculk and stop Smajor if he tries anything.” He nodded at Sausage and Hermes. “At least you can safely go through your portal. It will let you out where you entered. My plan is to go through with them, destroy the sculk if it’s still there, grab Smajor, and come back here. All of you must destroy your portals after that, and any others you find in your worlds to stop anyone else getting stuck in this limbo dimension – and stop any of that mutated sculk from escaping here.”

Hermes slowly panned his gaze over the entirety of the portal cluster. “What about the rest of these? And what if there are more spots like this in here with more portals?”

“I’m going to drag Smajor through each one and back to warn the people in those worlds. I’ve got infinite time to do it.”

“Mate, that’s going to take too long.” Hermes began ticking off a list on his fingers. “You’ll lose him every time you come back in. He could escape through any of the other portals while you’re trying to find him. More people might wander in while you’re busy in just one world trying to convince them. You might meet people who want to stop you.” He shook his head emphatically. “I think you’ll want to leave this to someone who has more experience with navigating the multiverse.”

Myth scowled, all too aware of the logistics; a second later an amused smirk crossed his face. “Ah. So, if the Guardian of Realities’ job here wasn’t to guide us out, it was to learn about this problem and travel around to deal with it. Then I guess there’s no use for Smajor and I after all. Makes enough sense. But I still need to collect him before I go home, so let’s get moving.”

Feeling a little drained from all the talking – as well as feeling redundant yet again – Myth flew up to the portal that once led to his new life. He waited before entering, giving Scott a few seconds to teleport Ghast-sage and Rusty to the inner edge of the portal frame before saying to them, “Escape as soon as you can when we’re on the other side. I’ll still be the one to handle Smajor and the sculk. Protector!” he then called down, watching Hermes pick up his father to make it a little easier to reach their own portal. In an effort to offer the sincerest thing he could think of, Myth said, “Good luck. May the pearlescent moon’s guidance speed your travels.”

He didn’t hear Sausage gasp. The swooshing sound of the teleportation magic was already taking hold.

~*~

Myth was alert for Smajor’s position as soon as the Ancient City came into view through the swirling particles. When he caught movement to his left he spun toward it, spreading his wings to shield Scott and Ghast-sage behind him. He made a shooing motion with his right hand, signaling them to move away. He trusted them to take cover further back or even defend themselves from any encroaching sculk, because he was dead set on catching Smajor before anything else.

With his attention firmly turned away from the portal it was easy for additional figures to slip out of it and also run for cover.

As he leapt toward the suspicious movement in front of him, Myth prepared to utter the unsettling noise that he fully expected to get Smajor’s attention. However, Myth was the one who came up short at the sight awaiting him. At first it seemed Smajor was attacking Sparrow – except he was human again, or human-ish; at the very least, Myth was very certain that Sparrow had been a copper golem the last time he had seen him.

Next he noted the blotches of sculk all over Sparrow’s body, including both skin and clothes. Then there was the distinct fact that Sparrow was standing over Smajor, pressing closer and closer to the fungal mage’s throat with an unusual-looking strand of sculk vein.

Of important note was also that there was absolutely no mycelium near Smajor. His back was against a large unbroken carpet of sculk, and despite the flicker of spores around his hands revealed by the light of nearby soul lanterns, the strand wasn’t converting, either. Meanwhile, there was a visible bubbling effect occurring where Sparrow held it.

When tinier bits of sculk vein oozed out of these bubbles to land on Smajor’s chest and face Myth knew where to focus his attack. He pounced, reaching around from behind Sparrow to grab the strand, grasping it directly next to Sparrow’s hands. Myth registered the wire-like feel of it before activating his powers. Within less than a second the whole length of it was crumbling due to decay.

And as Myth had suspected, Sparrow yelped in pain when the decay touched his hands.

The sculk-possessed humanoid’s instincts were to jump away, but Myth closed his arms around him. He refrained from using any more decay – he needed answers, not a disappearing pile of dust while Sparrow’s consciousness revived elsewhere. He did, however, finally utter the bone-chilling breath of a wither, intending to strike some fear into Sparrow.

It was Smajor who emitted a terrified gasp and began a frenzied attempt to slide away backward. He failed to move an inch. Myth now saw that the fungal mage was not just lying on the sculk but was actually trapped by a sludgy form of it that was clinging to his robes.

Smajor really wasn’t the culprit here. It was Sparrow.

“Let me go!” the now-struggling Sparrow yelled. “Intruders must be eliminated!”

Myth scoffed at the irony. “Well, I guess that means I need to be eliminated, too. Don’t really care for that. How about you settle down instead? We need to talk.” Maintaining a tight grasp on Sparrow with one arm, Myth leaned to the side to grab a fistful of sculk out of the ground. He brought it around to hold it in front of Sparrow’s face. “You might be able to play fungus tug-of-war with him, but I can make it so no one has any ammunition.” He crushed the sculk in his hand. The ashen remains fluttered down before Sparrow’s eyes.

Sparrow thrashed wildly in response, forcing Myth to turn around in an effort to keep him restrained. “No! How could you do that to us?! This is our home! Our domain! You’re the ones who don’t belong here! You can’t stop us! We can keep spreading from anywhere and we’ll keep coming back no matter what you do!”

“You’re right about him and me not belonging. But I think we’re exactly what this world needed: two people who are very good at destruction.” Myth’s gaze flicked to a flurry of orange particles in the distance. In the next second he was shoving Sparrow into Scott’s arms; they disappeared immediately, and once he saw the transporter reappear on top of a sculk-free deepslate wall, Myth plunged his hands into the sculk at his very feet with a roar.

Decay shot across the entire surface in an expanding radius around him. Smajor dropped onto the layer of solid deepslate below as the muck trapping him crumbled away. He coughed from the stale remnants that floated in the air before those, too, dissipated. He stayed where he was, simply watching the wave of decay as it continued ever outward. However, he abruptly scrambled to his feet when he saw other faces peeking out from around a deepslate pillar – one that was partially held up by sculk. He ran toward it and flung his hands out, sending a line of mycelium across the floor and up the pillar, replacing the sculk just as the spreading decay was about to reach it. Smajor then fell backward, chest heaving before he recovered enough to sit up again.

Sparrow’s distorted voice rang out. “No, no, no!! Where are the guardians of this city?! Rise, Wardens! I command you!” His voice lost all semblance of itself on the final three words.

The ground underneath Myth rumbled and churned. Before he could react, numerous large clawed hands thrust upward out of the resulting rubble and grabbed him, pulling him down through the displaced floor with bits of deepslate cutting at him on the way.

Scott teleported to the spot but even he was too slow to do anything – the deepslate reformed itself into solid ground right before his eyes. Sparrow laughed in triumph.

“Ohmygod!” Ghast-sage shouted from where he was hiding. “Th-They can just do that?!”

Scott squatted to touch the floor. Surely it would start crumbling away when Myth unleashed his powers in order to destroy the Wardens that had grabbed him, and surely he could make deepslate decay just like the sculk…

A sound like the reversed shattering of glass interrupted the horrified silence that had followed. From behind the pillar Smajor had prevented from falling came a small bolt of orange energy that ricocheted rapidly off of thin air. It struck the ground where Myth had disappeared. Scott drew back, startled, but then lowered his hand again. He could swear the surface under his palm was growing warm.

No, it definitely was.

He leapt away a breath before the deepslate turned molten and buckled upward in the shape of a volcanic cone. A blazing form burst from the center – Myth, his wings and upper body aflame in hues of glowing orange. A split-second glimpse of his eyes revealed twin blind embers as he continued soaring straight up. A deafening hawk-like screech rent the cavern. Myth crashed right into the ceiling a second later.

No one saw what happened to him in the aftermath. While they had been watching him, the volcano in the floor had doubled in size and its sides had begun to protrude. It exploded outward, covering the entire area in a blanket of burning lava.

~*~

The next thing Myth became aware of was a voice that sounded an awful lot like Hermes and might have been asking Myth if he could hear him. He lifted his head from the oddly warm ground. At the corners of his fuzzy vision, he could discern the fading light of lava disappearing into cracks before the rest of it began to cool. He was confused by the orange tufts at the top of his line of sight. Groggily maneuvering a hand out from under his prone body to touch them revealed that it was his own hair. He shifted a wing into view. His feathers were orange again.

This universe really was dead-set on wanting him to be a phoenix.

He sat up, keeping his hand to his head, while Hermes kept plying him for a response. Myth’s ears were ringing, so the words weren’t clear, plus he was still processing the fact the young man was there. “Wha… You were… Your own portal…” Myth mumbled. “How’d you… get here?”

Hermes’ voice continued to be muffled by the thankfully now-dulling ring, so Myth tried using his eyes to gain information. He saw the blurry figure of Sausage standing over someone, talking to them. The blur was resolving itself slowly, so Myth squinted at the sitting figure. The red shape that bobbed along with their head movements clarified into a mushroom cap. Myth tried to lunge onto his feet, a warning on his lips.

He fell flat on his face instead. He had been revived once again, yet he didn’t feel particularly refreshed in the energy department this time around.

“Easy, mate,” came a gentle reproach from Hermes as he lent Myth a hand in sitting up again. “You smacked into the ceiling pretty hard. We figured you could withstand the heat better than the others, so we recovered them first. I’ve got to say, the resurrection magic of this world is fascinating to witness.”

Myth looked to where Sausage stood. There were four bodies near him: three laying on the ground with Rusty pacing next to one of them and the last one sitting up as the chat with Sausage continued. Now Myth could tell there was a difference; although there was the white hair under the mushroom cap like Smajor, the clothes were Scott’s.

Myth’s body froze up as a realization began to dawn in his brain, but his gaze was able to slide to the other figures. The identical fungal mage was there, in the same robes as expected with his satchel beside him. Next was Sparrow, lacking the sculk that had marred him before. And then a face identical to his own right down to the orange beard and hair, if not minus the extensive scar, with orange-feathered wings splayed out underneath him, and wearing the Ghast Mage’s robes.

Understanding settled over him. He let a bitter smile cross his face then he slouched, letting an invisible weight off his shoulders. He turned his head as Hermes sat down beside him. “I need you to explain again why you’re here. I didn’t catch it the first time.”

“Sure. We were about to go through our portal but Dad said he sensed something from the Staff and insisted we follow you guys. You were already moving away when we came through, so we took cover to watch what might happen. Dad was trying to figure out what the Staff wanted, then that gemstone in it shattered and released some sort of magic beam out to where you got dragged underground. After that things got kind of dicey because a massive lava eruption happened after you flew out of like, a volcano-looking thing. Or maybe the volcano spat you out and the lava followed. N-Not to say you caused it,” Hermes quickly amended. “I’m not sure how conscious you even were at that point, and that was before you hit the ceiling.”

Myth put a hand to his head as if feeling for a bump, shifting his gaze to his boots. “I don’t remember anything between the Wardens pulling me in and a few minutes ago. But it’s obvious Smajor and I have to go soon. This world doesn’t need two phoenixes and fungal mages.” He started to push himself up, then felt a wave of dizziness, so he sat back down. “…After a little more rest.”

By now Smajor had awakened and was talking quietly to Scott. His movements were sluggish as he picked up his satchel of mushrooms and opened it. However, once he began pointing inside as the two chatted his energy seemed to pick up a bit. Myth kept what he felt was a reasonable amount of wariness, although perhaps he had given enough warnings about Smajor up till then that Hermes and Sausage could handle him.

The former Ghast Mage woke next. He snuck a few glances at Myth between observing the two fungal mages. Myth didn’t feel like chatting with him, anyway, so it was for the best that the other stayed where he was. He instead turned his mind toward composing a strategy for his next move.

As if privy to his train of thought, Hermes asked, “Are you still planning to go back in that labyrinth?”

“Of course. What else is there?”

“Well, I think you should come with my dad and I to Sanctuary. You could rest up a little more so you’ll be in better shape to chase down your unfortunately assigned ward over there when you get separated. It will be more comfortable than sitting around this cave. Plus, these guys will have their hands full going around destroying all the Ancient City portals here. In Sanctuary Dad and I can help keep an eye on Smajor.”

With the amicable-sounding conversation from the two fungal mages floating his way Myth admitted that this would, perhaps, be the better option.

~*~

After swapping clothes with their doubles, Myth, Smajor, and the rest of their new group stood watching from their hiding spot as the rightful phoenix and fungal mage of that universe walked away, Sparrow trudging wearily along between them and Rusty looking over the former Ghast-sage’s shoulder. Sparrow was still dazed from his experience, having been mumbling is distressed sorrow over having fought with his friends, and was apologizing profusely to Scott for trying to kill him.

They all thought it best to not involve Sparrow in the confusion of doubles from other realities; he had no memory of Myth destroying the sculk or of the Wardens dragging Myth underground. All Sparrow said he could recall was some kind of large explosion, comparing it to TNT.

After waiting ten minutes to make sure they were gone, Sausage held the Staff aloft – incidentally showing that it was back to its mossy and red-mushroom bedecked appearance – and a moment later Myth found himself blinking against bright sunlight streaming through tall stands of bamboo. A path with assorted flowers decorating random spots meandered away in front of them, splitting to the left to go up a slope to a small building while the rest of the path passed through a variety of trees, beyond which were the homes and businesses of Sanctuary itself. Myth cast a glance over his shoulder. Behind them was a giant tree stump with a giant white tulip growing atop it. Below the tulip and slightly to the right was a Nether portal.

He assumed this was a coincidence.

Sausage and Hermes walked past behind him, so Myth fully turned to watch and wait for a sign to follow. Now he saw a second, large-ish tree with a hollow in the middle near the roots. Squinting, Myth could see an armor stand inside. It was here that Sausage placed the Staff on one side of the armor stand while Hermes placed his trident on the other. A shimmer appeared over the front of the hollow as they exited.

Sausage smiled as he returned to the visitors, tired wrinkles appearing on his face. “Needs to recharge. Let’s go refresh at the tavern!”

As their host led the way, Myth none-too-subtly tossed glares at Smajor from the corner of his eyes. Smajor peered at him once with a neutral expression then lowered his head, keeping pace between Myth and Hermes the whole way.

The ambience of a breeze off the sea and call of animals hidden by trees and bamboo was a stark contrast to the stagnant isolation of both the labyrinth and the Deep Dark. When they reached the town proper Myth saw people of every race and species going about their day. Some of them called out greetings to Sausage and Hermes. There was a reverence in a few of the tones, as if they were addressing a king – or maybe it was Hermes’ status as a demi-god. Either way, the Protector and his son responded as friends rather than as rulers.

Upon reaching the tavern Sausage flung the door open and cheerfully called out, “¡Regresamos! ¿Cómo están todos? ¡María! ¡Justo a quién quería ver!” He crossed between tables to a person who, to Myth’s eyes, looked like an anthropomorphic rabbit wearing leatherworker gear. She had been helping an Allay change out tablecloths in the booths along the wall, but spoke an excited greeting then began chatting away with Sausage in his native language.

Hermes waved Myth and Smajor toward the bar. The latter hesitated. “Come on. Take a seat. My little brother can mix up some drinks to your liking. Best bartender in Sanctuary! ¡Hola, Rocky! We have newcomers!”

“¡Hola!” said a gravelly voice from behind the bar. From below behind the bar. Myth was about to sit on one of the barstools but curiosity seized him so he leaned over the bar to see what this brother of a demi-god might look like. He ended up making eye contact with a short, green-skinned person wearing similar brightly-colored clothes as the people around town. They uttered a strange sort of chirp in response. “¡Ay! ¡Papá! ¿Qué te pasó en la cara? ¡Y el pelo!”

Hermes laughed. “No, no, hermano– this is one of Dad’s dobles from another reality.”

“Oh. You could have warned me!” The small fellow chirped again. He added a sort of gargling sound afterward, then went about getting some clean mugs.

Apparently replying to these vocalizations, Hermes said, “Something to give everyone a little pick-me-up. No, I think you can leave out the redstone zest for now. We’ve had enough high blood pressure for one day.” He sat down as Myth settled onto the barstool, explaining, “Rocky is adopted from the goblin kingdom. He goes back and forth between languages in the same sentence, kind of an assimilation quirk of goblinfolk when they intermingle with other cultures they’re exposed to.”

Smajor had remained standing, hovering near the end of the bar. When Rocky stepped up onto a wooden ledge to place a mug in front of him, Smajor lightly shook his head. “No thank you, actually. I think I would rather just sleep. Using up my mana twenty times in a row is exhausting.” He continued to avoid looking at Myth – which was difficult, since he wanted to address Hermes.

Rocky uttered a “Prrrt” and stepped down. He then brought the mug over to Hermes and slid it next to where the young man rested his elbow, making an indiscernible comment. He then exited the bar, walking around to where Smajor was. “Follow me, Don Sombrero de Hongo. We offer the most comfortable rooms in all of Sanctuary to visitors.”

“I have no idea what you just called me,” Smajor said wearily. “But, whatever. Show me the way.” As they headed up the staircase Maria followed, one hand casually resting on the pommel of the dagger stuck through a loop on her apron.

Sausage came over to sit next to Hermes. He pulled over the mug Rocky had left, holding it between his hands. “Maria will keep an eye on him. Just in case.” He took a sip from the mug then let out a satisfied sigh. “Ah, it’s good to be home. I’ll start sending explanations about the Ancient City portals to the other empires in a little while. For now, these old bones need to rest!” He sighed again before taking a long, noisy sip of his drink.

Hermes casually cleared his throat. “Speaking of Ancient Cities, I have a proposal for you.” He swiveled his barstool toward Myth. “I have more training to do as Apprentice-Guardian-of-Realities, and obviously that means I have to go visit a bunch more worlds. You want to go around the multiverse in a round-about fashion. So, why don’t you travel with me? Using the Staff to get around will be much more efficient than having to go through that labyrinth over and over again. Sounds kind of lonely to me, really. Might as well have someone along who can vouch for what’s going on in that place. And I can help you avoid any realities that you’ve already been to – by the way, do the mobs in the Superhero’s world have ten powers, too?”

Myth stared back blankly for a moment, confused by Hermes’ blithe tone. The young man clearly hadn’t gotten enough of a taste of how dangerous it was to be around him. “I wouldn’t be alone, technically,” Myth blurted. “I’m taking Smajor. And there is no way I would risk bringing him along with that Staff there to tempt him—”

Sausage, hands resting around his mug again, calmly interrupted, “Well, there isn’t a Scott in this world anymore, so it wouldn’t cause a cosmic paradox if yours stayed here. Under my supervision, of course. Everyone is welcome to take shelter in Sanctuary, after all.” A small smile graced his visage, his age-lined eyes holding gentleness and patience as he looked at Myth.

Old buried resentment threatened to surface until Myth realized that this was a look of understanding and acceptance, not the pleading insistence of a shining seraph who wanted a cursed angel to give up his pain before he was ready. Still, his voice came out in a grumble. “You can’t be implying that I should stay here, too. You and I still make a paradox.”

“I’m the Guardian of Realities! Come on, now! I can cheat a little bit to make an exception for myself! And for whichever of myselves happen to find their way to my doorstep! But, ehhh, it is probably a good idea to leave with Hermes regularly. Just so no overarching multiversal powers-that-be don’t catch on, if you know what I’m sayin’. It’ll be fine! Don’t you worry for a minute! The multiverse has a job for you, after all!”

~*~ EPILOGUE ~*~

Three months later…

Sausage walked out of the former L.O.R.E. headquarters after bidding everyone farewell, his sunflower-styled walking stick in hand. The items from the rift incident had been carefully packed away to be replaced by an ever-growing pile of charts and arrangements of different colored string across a bulletin board. The latter was to illustrate which realities shared similarities, noted mainly out of the interest in which ones were parallels of each other. The charts recorded spatial coordinates for each reality and the types of worlds that existed within them.

The initial team of two had grown during their travels throughout the multiverse. The debriefing room currently accommodated the likes of Blood Pearl of Mythland, an accomplished reality-hopper herself, who had been seeking a way to save her dear friend the Farmer King of Helianthia from fated doom; a Time Witch named Cleo who was on a quest to fix her own fractured timeline; and Interstellar Paladin Sparklez, who had been attempting to teach the ways of balance to the multiverse after his goddess, Lady Ianite, sacrificed herself to save his world.

Sausage had listened in enough times to acknowledge that Myth had gotten the hang of things, so he felt he could take his leave. He stopped off at the tavern and the bakery, procuring a picnic basket on the way to fill with some supplies, then headed off into a denser part of the bamboo forest outside of Sanctuary. He stopped briefly near a weather-worn stone memorial to check on a patch of unique flowers with an equally weather-worn wooden sign in front of the small border that surrounded them. The two species of flowers, which only grew in that one location in all the world, were thriving as they always had, so he continued on his trek.

A few minutes later the tall bamboo began to be overshadowed by the caps of giant mushrooms. Shorter clusters of them hugged the sides of the path along the way, some of mixed red and brown, some just one or the other at different heights, and even some warped and crimson fungus were there standing out amongst the mundane colors.

Then he reached the main mushroom grove, where the path itself turned to pure mycelium while around it was grass of a rich, deep emerald color. With even more of the giant mushrooms providing shade overhead, the air felt cooler as well as holding a comfortable dew point, making it seem like a completely different biome had been plunked down in the middle of the bamboo jungle.

Sausage leaned on his walking stick as he admired one of the giant mushrooms that had three joined stems, noting how it had the shape of a brown mushroom but with the bright orange specks found on a warped fungus.

A polite yawn behind him made him turn; Smajor stood there holding the last basket that Sausage had brought out, tiny mushrooms piled up to the point they were going to spill out if he tilted it. “Hello, Protector,” he greeted in a neutral tone. He had adopted the title to use for referring to him, never once calling Sausage by name. “What brings you out here?”

“I just thought I’d stop by and check on things.” Sausage held up the new basket, not needing to include this also meant offering his guest some food and drinks.

Smajor gently set down the one he had been carrying then waved a hand, causing two red mushrooms big enough to sit on to spring up behind himself and Sausage.

“Ah. Thank you.” Sausage leaned over to set his basket down on the ground too, then leaned on his walking stick again as he carefully lowered himself onto the provided seat. “It’s looking very nice out here. It feels serene. I’m particularly impressed with that one, there.” He gestured to the three-stemmed mushroom. “It reminds me of a kingdom I once saw. They also had magically-grown mushrooms in different colors, although that was attributed to special crystals that had been planted alongside regular mushrooms.”

“I thought I would experiment a little with the types I can conjure. As for that particular one…” Smajor paused, his eyes seeming to go distant for a second, then he continued, “They remind me of… home. From a long, long time ago. This place is very bright in comparison, so it’s not going to be a perfect imitation. But when the sun sets and the light is just right… It feels like my own little private piece of a twilight forest.”

There was a wistfulness in his voice that reached Sausage’s heart. “I’m glad you’ve been able to make a place for yourself during your time here. You’re always welcome in town, too, whenever you like.”

A frown pulled at the corners of Smajor’s lips, but he didn’t take out any of his bitterness on the well-meaning old man. “No, I’d rather stay here. Talking to nature suits me better than talking to people, and I definitely don’t want to run into Myth by accident. And I don’t want him to come here.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s too busy to pay a visit.”

"Either way, he will never stop looking at me like he thinks I'm going to murder you all if the wind starts blowing from another direction." Smajor sighed in feigned-resignation. "I mean, I still want to see him dead, but since that is extremely unlikely to ever happen, I'll stick with never seeing his particular face again. Out here is my peace, and if you want more reasons to stop feeling obligated to invite me to town, then think of it as me staying out here makes it safer for everyone. I want to keep it that way.”

THE END

[post-A/N: That wraps things up for Myth and Smajor, along with the Past Unmasked timeline! Well, unless I get struck by more inspiration out of the blue. Obviously this went far beyond a couple of darkfics written for the heck of it and an AU based on a friend's artwork, so who knows! But I do want to focus on other Empires S1 stuff and potentially one more fic for Soul Liminality 2, so please stay tuned! I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read these bizarre AUs of mine, with a special shout out to those who left comments! The encouragement is greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for staying with me through the development of these characters and their wanderings away from canon. I hope you'll enjoy the fics I write in the future!]

~*~*~

Translations:

¡Regresamos! ¿Cómo están todos? ¡María! ¡Justo a quién quería ver! -We have returned! How is everyone? Maria! Just who I wanted to see!

Hola! – Hello!

¡Ay! ¡Papá! ¿Qué te pasó en la cara? ¡Y el pelo! - Yikes! Papa! What happened to your face? And hair!

Hermano - brother

Dobles - doubles

Don Sombrero de Hongo - Mister Mushroom Hat

#alsmp #nlsmp #empires smp #alsmp fanfic #nlsmp fanfic #empires smp fanfic #mythicalsausage #scott smajor #empires hermes #mythical sausage #soul liminality #lunar yarns

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cannedbeefaroni · 2 years

Text

Real Men (Burt Fabelman x Fem!Reader) (Angst)

Update: here’s part two. It contains smut btw

Summary: An artist breaks down from burnout in a park. A passerby takes notice and shows her sympathy. Content: DEPRESSION, HOPELESSNESS, DADDY ISSUES, HURT/COMFORT, PINING, COULD BE ONE-SIDED, NOTHING OUTRIGHT ROMANTIC HAPPENS

Reader is referred to as she/her, and is an art major in college. She is in her mid 20′s.

(this fic is inspired by the song Real Men by Mitski. is it still cringe to name fanfics after songs?)

Though honestly sir, all I wanna do

Is get naked in front of you

So you can look me up and down

And tell me “well done girl, you’re looking good”

She ripped the pages from her pad one by one, crumbling each one into balls before tossing each one into the trash next to the park bench she sat on. Some went in, and others rolled onto the floor. Her hot, flushed face ran with cold tears. The spring breeze sent chills to her face, reminding her of how exposed this pathetic expression was to the public. Hunching over, she buried her face in her hands, wishing she were home instead.

Unknown to her, a passerby took notice of her distress, but once she heard approaching footsteps, her body froze. She knew the person would just carry on, not saying a word, but the fact that they were close enough to see every moment of her breakdown made her feel so much worse. The footsteps came to a stop, as she heard the cracking of bones of a person bending over, and the crumbling of paper next to her. To her horror, she looked up and saw a man unfolding one of her drawings, observing her work.

“It’s beautiful… Why did you throw it out?” The man said, glancing back and forth between the page and her.

She froze, wanting to just disappear. She dreaded the judgment of older figures, and this man looked as if he could be one of her stone cold professors. Between the white button-up, glasses, and demanding presence of a man with experience, she felt like she was about to get drilled into

“I messed it up… I’m really bad at drawing landscapes.” She admitted sorrowfully. She was unfamiliar with being approached by polite strangers; she felt backed up against a wall. She dreaded awaiting the man’s response.

“Aw, don’t say that. You’re clearly a talented artist. You shouldn’t be that hard on yourself.” He sat on the opposite end of the bench, leaving a large gap between the two. She became tense, knowing he was going to engage in more conversation with her. “So, why are you drawing in the park?”

“I have to draw from life, it's for an assignment,” she answered sheepishly, staring down at her lap.

“Is it a high school art class?”

“What?! I’m in college! I go to an art school,” she blurted out, her stomach churning at being mistaken for a teenager.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I just never have met anyone who’s gone to school for art… but I suppose the world needs professional artists as well…” he seemed to have trouble understanding the idea of an art school.

“I’m trying to get into the industry, and a fine arts degree will make that easier for me.”

“I’ve never been to a school like that myself, but I imagine it’s just as stressful as any other college,” he tried to relate.

She wondered how long ago he graduated college. It was hard to tell his age, but he definitely looked old enough to have a wife and kids. Well, technically she was also, but she had only just reached the age where marriage was on her mind. On the other hand, he seemed to be at the age where his life is figured out, and he’s already created the family he’s always wanted. The way he acted reminded her of a kind and caring father; similar to the type she’d meet while visiting a friend’s house as a child. His demeanor made her smile, and she couldn’t help but trust him already. Ironically, that fact made her also feel wary of him, being unsure if people that nice can actually be genuine.

“So, you don’t do landscapes; I wonder what kind of artist you are?” he hummed inquisitively to break the silence. Strangely enough, he did seem interested in her art. Her eyes lit up at the question, excited to discuss her interests with him.

“I love to draw people, as in portraits and studying human anatomy. I want to be an illustrator, but in order to do that I need to improve my background art. That’s why I had to take this landscape class… It’s just so frustrating. It’s just so boring to me,” she rambled to him, flailing her hands around as she spoke to emphasize her points. He nodded along as she spoke, grinning as he looked at her with sincere eyes.

She felt flustered every time her eyes met his, and she took notice of his expression. She wondered if he looked at her this lovingly even though she was just a stranger, then she couldn’t imagine how much love he gave his wife and kids. The thought wouldn’t leave her mind, and she felt embarrassed for wondering about his personal life so much. She didn’t know a thing about it. Perhaps he didn’t have a family at all, but that was hard to believe when he was so nurturing by nature.

“I’d love to see your other drawings, if that's okay.” He looked back down at the drawing she threw out, tracing his fingers along the paper as he admired her work.

She winced at the question, knowing exactly how this would go. She recalled all the times her family, teachers, and classmates would laugh in shock at her anatomical drawings. She worried he’d get the wrong idea about her, and assume she’s some kind of pervert. Or maybe he’d get the wrong idea and start seeing her sexually, as most men tend to do. She spiraled in split seconds as her trust in him dwindled in these hypothetical situations. What if he thought the nude female models she’d drawn were her?

“I draw naked people,” she sternly blurted out, trying to set the record straight before facing embarrassment. “I have to draw naked models from life in school. I don’t want you getting grossed out by it-”

“Hey, hey, don’t worry. I already know that. I’ve been to museums; I’ve seen my fair share of nude art,” he cut her off, trying to ease her worries. “Of course, you don’t have to show me. I’d just love to see you in your element.”

Silently, she passed her sketch pad into his hands. He carefully grabbed it, and began flipping through the pages delicately, as if it were fragile. He spent a considerate amount of time on each page. His eyebrows raised and his eyes widened as he whispered “wow” at the still life’s and figure drawings. He took everything in wholeheartedly. He reached a page with self portrait studies, and paused on it for a little bit.

“Are these of you?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

“They’re gorgeous… and they really look just like you!” he praised.

She wanted to gasp at that comment. He just indirectly called her gorgeous, and that little bit of praise made her want to explode. Her face grew even hotter than it was when she was crying earlier, and she worried that he could somehow feel the heat emitting from her. She continued to speak, but it was difficult to concentrate as he stared at her so damn innocently.

“I have to draw portraits pretty often. I don’t know anybody who’s willing to let me draw them, so I end up having to draw myself a lot. Sometimes I’m required to draw other people, so when that happens I get stuck.” She rambled until her voice trailed off, trying not to talk too much.

“Your friends don’t let you draw them?” He raised an eyebrow. .

“I-I don’t really have any friends, actually. But not because no one likes me; I just… keep to myself too much. I’m fine with it. I don’t really mind being alone,” she nervously laughed as she spoke, trying to seem like what she was saying was actually the truth.

“I’m sorry. That must be lonely…” He frowned in an almost perfect inverted smile. “I hope you know it’s perfectly normal for girls your age to be shy; but I find you charismatic.”

“I’m not as young as you think I am… I’m in my mid twenties,” she stated as politely as possible, trying to assert herself.

“You’re still very young, but you carry yourself as a mature young woman. I’m sorry if I made you feel like a child. Just shows my age, I guess,” he laughed nervously.

“You can’t be that much older than me. I thought you were in your early thirties.”

“Oh, I wish” he chuckled loudly at the assumption.

Her heart sank as she realized he was probably old enough to be her father. Her head dropped in embarrassment.

“Though, I was going to say that if you need someone to draw, I’d gladly be your model,” he grinned.

“That’d be really helpful, actually… Thank you.” She lifted her head, almost beaming. Despite how shy of a person she was, drawing random strangers was second nature to her. He passed back her sketch pad, and she readied her pencils.

“So, what pose should I do?” He asked giddily, clearly excited about being drawn.

“Um, just lean your arm against the bench and rest your head against your hand.”

She reached over, guiding his arms into position. After doing so, she realized that had moved closer to him, and even touched him. The fact that such a simple thing stuck with her made her mad at herself. Brushing it off, she sat back and began sketching. Starting with round shapes to build the body, she took in just how soft and round everything about his man was. His head shape, body, eyes, and smile were all so pleasantly round. She avoided drawing his face, so she wouldn’t have to make direct eye contact with him. Eventually, she finished rendering the folds on his shirt, the strands of hair, and even the shadows on his skin.

She looked at him to see him staring back at her. It only just hit her that he was watching her draw this entire time. The way he stared with such a gentle expression was mesmerizing. To her, it felt like his gaze was one of yearning. She wondered if he thought she was beautiful, just like she thought of him. Her heart raced as her desire to capture his expression on paper intensified, but no matter how much she rendered, every stroke felt incorrect. She wasn’t doing his beauty justice, and her thoughts beat her up over it. Eventually she was basically finished, and she held the drawing back to observe from afar. She wished she could’ve tore it up and started over, but she didn’t want to waste his time.

“Can I see?” He asked eagerly, leaning over to get a glance at the page.

She looked up at him with worried eyes, and darted them back at the page as she continued to observe her work. “It’s a little rushed…”

“Come on, let me see!”

She turned the sketch pad around, showing him the portrait. He took it into his hands slowly, staring at it in pure awe. As he occupied his vision, she stared intensely at him. He was wonderstruck.

“There’s no way you drew this so fast,” he laughed in shock. “This is so… indescribable! I’d buy this off you if it weren’t for your assignment.”

“Thank you,” she replied blankly.

Staring at the ground, she tried to hide her embarrassment from his overwhelming praise. It felt almost patronizing, but then she realized she hadn’t been praised for her work in so long. Usually, people don’t bat an eye at adult artists, and she only felt like a prodigy up until age eighteen, when she graduated high school. It was strange being appreciated at all, especially by someone she just met.

“Am I really that handsome? You made me look so flattering.”

“All I did was draw what I saw.” She wondered if she portrayed him more idealized than he actually was, like a schoolgirl doodling her crush.

“Well, it must be a given, since all of your art is so beautiful. The way you view the world must be so… unique.”

“You’re probably… the kindest man I’ve ever met. I hope that doesn’t sound weird.”

“No, not at all,” he smiled sincerely, looking directly at her. “I like to appreciate talent when I see it, and you, my girl, have it.”

That was it. That was the final straw. Her heart was practically threatening to be spat from her throat. The tears from earlier had returned, but the feeling was different. She wasn’t convulsing; she just sat there with tears pouring like a faucet. Foolishly, she looked up at him, eyes wide open. He saw the droplets dripping down her chin and staining her top. She choked out the words “thank you,” trying to somehow salvage the conversation.

“Oh, poor thing… what’s wrong?” reacting instantly, he placed her pad on the side of the bench, and slid over to sit closer to her. He leaned toward her slightly.

“No, it’s nothing. I’m being silly,” she dragged her palm across her face, smearing the tears away.

“But I saw you crying earlier too… are you okay, doll?”

She sniffed and wiped her nose with the side of her hand before throwing her head back, leaning against the back of the bench and staring at the sky. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Patiently, he waited for her to continue speaking.

“I don’t know… if I’ll get anywhere with this.”

“With what specifically?”

“I don’t know. In art. In life. In every way.” She sighed deeply.

He watched the tears roll down her face as her head was leaned back. There wasn’t much he could do besides watch, as he didn’t want to encroach on her space. “It’s too early to say that. You have so much to look forward to.”

“It feels like… like every time I try I fail. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make a career for myself at all. My only talent is art. If I can’t do that…” she didn’t finish her thought.

“But you’re doing it. You’re in college.”

“What comes after that?”

He shifted closer to her, leaning over. “You’ll figure it out. Don’t talk yourself out of your own happiness… just because you’re scared.”

“If I can’t make a living for myself, I’ll have no one to rely on. I don’t think I’m the kind of girl who can get married. Then my family… is a whole different story.”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘not the kind of girl?’”

She stuttered, embarrassed. “I’ve been rejected too many times to count.”

“That doesn’t mean there's something wrong with you. You just haven’t found the right one yet.” He scoffed at her statement in disbelief that she believed she was unlovable.

She pulled her head down and hunched over. “I just want to be happy, but it’s so hard,” she started sobbing.

He felt horrible sitting there, watching her fall apart. So desperately he wanted to do anything that could change her mind. “Do you need a hug?”

She nodded as she leaned into him to rest her face on his shoulder. His arms rested around the back of her shoulders as she weakly wrapped hers around him. He gave her reassuring pats on the back. Even though the hug was from an awkward distance, she couldn’t recall ever feeling so happy to be hugged by someone. She felt like she was sinking deeply into his warmth and softness. She wanted to never let go. In fact, the thought of letting go made her cry even more.

“You’re gonna be okay…” he tried to let go, but she pulled him back in. He reacted with a shocked grunt. “God, you’re gonna kill me,” he laughed hoarsely.

She quickly let go and wiped her face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-“

“No, it’s completely fine. Things are really tough for you.”

The two of them sat silently at a distance from each other again. She sniffed and wiped her nose with the side of her hand, feeling embarrassed of how gross she felt.

“Hey, I was wondering,” he broke the silence. “If I’m ever in need of an artist, for whatever reason, I’d want to get in touch with you.”

“You’d want to commission me?”

“Yes! I’d love to have a piece of art by you on my wall. Your style is beautiful.” Every word he said hit deeply. She couldn’t understand why he was so genuinely captivated by her.

She wrote her phone number on a sheet of paper, ripped it out of the pad, and handed it to him. He neatly folded it and placed it into his shirt pocket.

“If you want, I could give you mine as well. You deserve to have someone you can talk to. Although, It’s fine if you don’t want to. I am just some old fart you met at the park, after all.” He laughed as he looked at her with squinted eyes.

“I think you’re a nice old fart, at least,” she sputtered through laughter. She passed her sketch pad and a pencil over to him, allowing him to write on it.

“Oh, all this time, I didn’t even think to ask your name. I’m sorry, how rude of me,” he said bashfully.

“It’s (Y/N),” she said.

“Mine is Burt. It’s been a pleasure meeting you”

#burt fabelman #burt fabelman x reader #the fablemans #paul dano #paul dano x reader

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motifenjoyer · 1 month

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❤️️❤️️❤️️ :3

i have multiple wips so i'll talk abt All of them

this may get long, so.

icdwd - aka i couldn't dance with death if i tried!! its a zero escape fic mostly exploring a potential (loveless) relationship between akane and mira. its abt a lot of things i realize i never rlly touched upon in my other works?? for context im aromantic and i like. Constantly talk abt it even to my allo friends esp abt the constant amatonormativity the world likes to throw at us. specfically how ppl feel pressured to be in a relationship. why? well, various reasons: to fit in, to be seen as "more mature" (aspecs tend to experience infantilization and this doubles if ur autistic), to be seen as human, bc u feel like itll make u whole, bc u dont realize theres another option!! ive always hced my favs as aro ever since i realized it, but i always used to focus on the ace part of my identity. so i never rlly got to write a fic that explores aromanticism, aside from a fic i wrote four years ago in which leorio and kurapika hxh r in a qpr

another thing is i have ocd and for that reason, i dont like to write abt sexual topics . but in this fic, ive been sorta delving into that (its literally nothing just a fade to black that immediately goes to like the character waking up in another character's bedroom) and idk i think it shows my growth in a way?? that im willing to finally write that stuff without my ocd trying to kill me??? idk its . smth

im also having a Lot of fun writing akane and miras dynamic. i think, with me hcing them as aro (akanes aroace and miras an aro lesbian), i feel itd stand out more compared to other mirakane fanworks and interpretations . like this isnt a relationship ur supposed to root for!!! its abusive, its messy, its Uncomfortable, gory, and both women have ulterior motives. idk i like writing abt two unabashedly flawed queer women and having them navigate a relationship when one has no experience while the other has experience but whose disability prevents them from connecting w others (akane has a similar struggle), idk!! its an interesting dynamic

queerpei - i like a lot of the descriptions i wrote. im so used to writing akane that its soooo weird writing in the headspace of anyone else. but junpeis introspection is fun, like he has a mind of his own... i have this experience when writing akane (im plural so. go figure) and even when writing diana

angelus custos - so im kinda in the planning stage for this one but . Wow. im so proud of myself and how far ive come with this project, and just in general?? i used to primarily be a fic writer until 2018, when i decided to dabble in making my own characters. its always been bittersweet, bc my friends (all artists, never writers) would tell me to just make ocs instead of fanfic and my 12-14 yr old self would always be upset by that. so my characters never rlly came into their own so to speak

until This Year. ive been watching this rlly awesome youtuber named local script man. he's a screenwriter but a lot of his advice can apply to writing as well. i dont remember which video it was, but he talked abt how a characters' motivations can serve as fuel for smth deeper, like an insecurity for example. which THEN can serve as a backstory. and idky but it all clicked in my head?? character work became so much easier when i applied this to my process. i no longer had trouble w coming up w things that seemed to come naturally to most. bc i Know im good at fleshing out characters, i just needed to know how to do it for original work, even tho ive had friends praise my characters in the past

but yeah thats prob the best part of the story rn . im still having trouble w what their voices would sound like, speech patterns and the like, but thatd prob come around when i actually write the damn thing lol

BtSoyT - the idea itself has me so excited!!! ive been watching some horror movies, specifically recs from my friend @zebatverse hehe, and idk i feel like ive been getting more inspo and knowing what i'd wanna do if i were to write horror . i have several other ideas besides this in my notebook but this is one i wanna write the most. i even made a moodboard for it ^_^

#angelus custos #queerpei #icdwd #BtSoYt #holy shit i wrote so much IM SORRYGHFJGFDHJHFD #feel free to pace urself bc i jumped from topic to topic #i prommy i dont write like this in my work lol #asks

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sweetlywingedcreation · 5 months

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Hi! 🙂

Ok, now I need to see Benny, or to know more about Benny and the time loop...

OH BOY!! You have no idea what you have just unleashed :}

Okay so Benny is from my original story Time and Again which I have been working on for about a year? Maybe 2? I haven’t made very much progress but I have a vague idea of where it’s going?

Anyway.

TaA is about Prince Benjamin of the White Pine Kingdom who’s on his way to his 8th (iirc) betrothal hearing (man has been rejected once a year for 7 years…). He’s accompanied by his Knight and Guard Sir Aspen of the Glade who at one point was his best friend until they both became to busy with their duties. Aspen came back into his life when they were both 18 and he was stationed as one of the prince’s main guards but their relationship was never as close as it once was.

Now they’re 25 and have no idea how to talk to each other without an underlying sense of awkward professionalism.

On their way to the meeting, they’re attacked by a group of lizard men with smokey eyes who take out a bunch of their men. Aspen is able to take them down but ends up mortally wounded. While comforting Aspen Benny is taken out by one of the lizard men who had one last burst of energy.

As he lay dying he makes a silent wish for a second chance and you’ll never guess what happens next… he wakes up back in bed with a very healthy Aspen greeting him like he had that morning.

A part of me wants to continue rambling about the plot but the other part of me wants to keep it a secret lmaoooo

Currently the only stuff I have done for it is a sketched out PMV, an unfinished animatic, a confession scene that I will probably rewrite but had to unleash it on the world, a story playlist, and like 1 actual image of Benny

It’s main inspirations are: Re: Zero and like a handful of Stranger Things Steddie time loop fanfics back when I still liked Stranger Things. Now that I’ve played In Stars and Time there might be some influence from there too (specifically Loop influencing TaA’s Goddess of Life and Death)

I love my fucked up little guy… he goes through so many horrors and he’s burrowed so deep in my brain.

I may write a lil Time Infection AU piece based on that one post about telling someone about the loops and having them be pulled in. I think that would absolutely break Benny’s lil mind.

Like imagine…

You’re shouldering all of this trauma loop after loop, watching the man you love die because you’re too weak to save him. There’s a part of you that’s so pitifully lonely and another part that’s relieved that he’s oblivious to it all. That he won’t have to deal with the pain and suffering you do.

One loop you slip up, you finally break down and come clean. You tell him everything, the death, the loops, how you love him. He loves you too, he always has, he never stopped.

And then he dies. Again. The loop starts over.

You wake up and to your abject horror he doesn’t say his usual starting lines. Instead he looks to you with pain and confusion and TERROR. He remembers. He doesn’t remember all of it but he remembers the past loop. He remembers dying. He remembers you love him.

He remembers…

He’s not supposed to remember.

Yeah… like ughhh it’s such a good concept but it doesn’t work in the story I have written!!!! But I wanna write it ANYWAY!!!!

Also thank you so much for asking about him!! Sorry for going wacky crazy mode lmao, I’m going to go work on his PMV a little more now tee hee!

#benny #oc posting #time and again!#long post #jas rambles #time loops #falcatamandarina

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nalyra-dreaming · 1 year

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Hey, I love your blog! I have so far only read the first book and I know about Nicki only from fanfics and I’m pretty new to this fandom 🥹 I have some questions (if you want to answer them):

• Which year was he turned?

• When did he die and when/how did Lestat learn about it?

• Why did he go insane/Why did Lestat just leave him with the coven?

Thank you in advance! 💕

Hey dear!

So glad you enjoy my little corner!

Also welcome to the fandom, I hope you enjoy your time here!

These are quite difficult questions^^. I'll try to answer them as best as I can, but I can only do some of it by inferring them. (Also, these are obviously the book dates^^, some of these will (need to) change in the show.)

____

Nicolas de Lenfent is supposedly Lestat's age.

He was my age perhaps, and quite tall, and when our eyes met I remembered who he was. Nicolas de Lenfent, eldest son of the draper, who had been sent to school in Paris.

Lestat was (supposedly) born November 7, 1760. He goes to Paris with Nicolas after the wolves, which he hunts at 20:

In the winter of my twenty-first year, I went out alone on horseback to kill a pack of wolves.

I interpret the "winter of" as 20+, because Lestat later refers to himself as having been 20 when he was turned.

Which gives us the year 1780 as the year Lestat was turned (likely December?! or beginning of 1781), since November is quite late in the year). Lestat has been a vampire for a short while in March.

One night in march, I realized as Roget read my mother's letter to me that I could read as well as he could.

Lestat is a vampire for about half a year before he turns first his mother, Gabrielle, and then Nicolas.

So I would put Nicki's turning in 1781.

Lestat learns about his death in a letter that Eleni wrote him.

Our Oldest Friend, maddened by the excesses of Our Violinist, finally imprisoned him in your old residence. And though his violin was given him in his cell, his hands were taken away.

"Our Oldest Friend" here is Armand, btw, who cut off Nicolas' hands and starved him until he broke fully.

But N., maddened by the pain and the starvation, for this can alter the temperament completely[...]

Lestat reads this letter in Cairo, and he reaches Cairo a month after leaving Greece, and there he had read letters noting the following:

Before I ever left Greece, I'd been hearing disturbing news from English and French travelers of the troubles at home.

King Louis had been forced to recognize the National Assembly.

Which puts Nicolas' death in the year 1791.

As per the why he went insane... (I'm pulling a bit from an earlier post of mine, but will expand here further)

Nicolas fought against the status quo and his father's expectations from an early age, in fact that is one of the things that bonded him and Lestat. Only he did it... in, let's call it "defiant darkness", in the gloomy intent to self-destruct and thereby hurt his father even more.

It's why he tells Lestat later that he expected and wanted them to fail in Paris, but Lestat (and he) didn't.

Nicolas was depressed before he got turned, and he hid it from Lestat for the most part, concentrating all that he was on his music instead. When Lestat disappeared (from their bed!!!!) no-one believed him, no-one believed his story, and when the gifts that Lestat sent arrived the bitterness of being excluded just made everything a 100 times worse.

When Armand kidnapped him to pressure Lestat he was thrown into the midst of horrors, and perceived rejection, and he used the guilt Lestat felt for having had to abandon him to make him turn him. Which... drove Nicolas over the edge.

Nicolas was already doomed before he became a vampire. He only endured for a while because he could continue to play the violin in the theater.

Lestat saw no alternative as to leave him with Armand - Nicolas wouldn't stop playing the violin manically and he was at times catatonic, and at times feral, and had to have vampires with him when out.

All this is the genius of Our Divine Violinist, but we must now be with him every waking moment. To force him to write we tie him to the chair.

He is overwhelmed by his powers, dazzled and maddened by his vision.

And... last but not least - Nicolas despises Lestat in the end, for the light he has.

From Eleni's letter:

He despises you as much as ever. When we suggest that perhaps he should go to you, he laughs and laughs.

As noted above, Nicolas expected them to fail and die in Paris, but they didn't... and in a way he despairs through that even more.

The rage thickened his voice again. "You didn't drink yourself to death in the gutter. You turned everything upside down! And for every aspect of our proposed damnation you found exuberance, and there was no end to your enthusiasm and the passion coming out of you-and the light, always the light. And in exact proportion to the light coming out of you, there was the darkness in me! Every exuberance piercing me and creating its exact proportion of darkness and despair!

Which is why Lestat simply... had to leave him behind, unfortunately.

It's really quite tragic.

___

Hope this helps - let me know if you want/need more! 💕

#Anonymous #nicolas de lenfent #the vampire chronicles #vc #vampire chronicles #lestat de lioncourt #the brat prince #iwtv lestat #nickistat #book quotes #the vampire lestat #timeline

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moonjxsung · 10 months

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omg i heard we were trashing exes.

i'm gonna try to keep this short but i was with this piece of shit for almost four years so he did quite a lot of damage and trauma.

my first bf was in high school, i was vvvvv clueless about serious relationships and what was normal and what wasn't. anyway,

man said ily like two weeks in, told me we'd get married, bought me things as his way to get me to not be mad at him instead of actually apologizing for what he did. he had me convinced that id be nothing without him, that no one would love me the way he did and wouldn't love me after him cos of how much he fucked me up.

he had a serious god complex and really put himself on a pedestal, he was the smartest person and would not hesitate to bring others down for his own gain. even me his own damn gf. (keep in mind we dated in high school and now i'm 22 and he's still the same to this day.)

i grew up being called dumb and stupid by my peers so he used the fact i grew up believing i was a dumbass to his advantage to convince me that he's smart so he knows what's best. he looked down on me, talked down to me like i was a clueless child and he was simply leading the way.

even if he knew little to nothing about my friends and family cos he never tried to get to know them he would take the opportunity to shit on them whenever i'd rant about issues that came up. he tried to control which friends i was allowed to hang out with by making a good and bad friend list and showing that to my mother.

(at the time our relationship was rocky and she reached out to him cos she wanted to know i was okay. instead of telling her that she could trust me he makes a fucking list)

he ruined relationships with friends we shared, eventually isolating me from everyone. he became my support system and only friend.

bro had me feeling like anything and everything i did was wrong. looking back he never went out of his way to get to learn about what i liked, my hobbies and shit but was more than happy to give me every little detail about his interests when i'd ask him. he criticized everything i liked or did.

bro was the definition, the human fucking form of a manipulator, gaslighter and overall toxic human being. love really makes you stupid and blind to the fucked up shit that happens in a toxic relationship so it wasn't till i got out that i realized the shit he did to me wasn't normal (don't even get me started on the other shit that would literally need a big ass trigger warning)

my ex after him was 10x better but even if that ex did the bare fucking minimum of communication, respect and being a decent human i was like "omg this hasn't happened before" "omg is this normal?"

this ex was actually great but the fact i was in awe of the bare minimum means the toxic ex really had my bar on the floor

anyway ily star

~ 🌸

BESTIE :( I am so fucking sorry oh my god he sounds like absolute fucking SCUM :( the fact that all of us have a horror story about some ex is actually so alarming like WHAT is it with men that they just go around treating everyone like fucking garbage WHYYY are you even seeking out a relationship then???? And then people wonder why we love forms of escapism like fanfic or romance as a genre bc we love imagining healthy love and intimacy… as a form of escape from the complete opposite we’ve been dealt 🤕 I hope you’re far far away from him now & staying both safe and healthy!! None of those shitty ass fucking men deserved you anyway and I’m manifesting so hard that you find someone actually worth your time who gives you all the love n respect you deserve. Swear we could make a fucking emotional support group on here with how many of you guys have horror stories abt men 😭😭 sending you all my love annonie I hope you heal from all you’ve been dealt :( I love you always 🫂💓🫶🌙⭐️

#🌸 anon #ask

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trekkele · 3 months

Note

what are some things about the execution of zur en arh that you especially liked? seeing different takes from the norm is so refreshing 👀😊

Ok sure let's hope I don't misremember things like last time

1. Seeing one of Bruces contingency plans fail. NO HEAR ME OUT. Things like tower of babel aren't Bruce's plans failing, they're the plans being used in the wrong way. As a contingency plan, Zur failed because he was meant to keep Batman in line, instead he became be worst parts of Batman without any of Bruce to temper him. And it was impossible to fix it without drastic action - technically Bruce killed a part of himself to kill Zur.

2. A very clear picture of how bad Bruce withouts his humanity could get.

3. The sort of slow building horror of "what the fuck is he doing" "wait why is he doing that" "oh my god is that really Bruce?? It is???" "how long has he been like this?" "How did we miss this?" "It wasn't him but it was but who is he now" and obviously, "how long has this been going on and how did we miss this"

4. Ties back to 1 but CONSEQUENCES. FOR. STRESS. you cannot convince me Zur didn't get a hold that deep because Bruce hasn't taken a fuckin seat in like two years. It's been thing after thing and he hasn't taken a break yet and the universe basically said "ok sit down brain parasites be upon ye"

5. The batkids took very little bullshit from Zur-Bruce actually. Like yeah there's some iffy moments here and there but mostly they were ready to throw down

6. Damian being the hopeful one. I know people hate his writing in this run, I love how he's such a little daddy's boy he was convinced the whole time that something was deeply wrong. And he was right!! It's such a nice change i think.

7. They resolved the clone storyline within the run with no chance of (this particular) baby Bruce coming back. I expect some fanfics to keep him tho.

8. Maybe I said this already but Zur being recognizable as Bruce. The absolute worst parts of him that none of them want to see, but they all, deep down, expected him to be capable of.

9. Another part that I know other people didn't like but Jason insisting on being the one in the Lazarus suit, and Bruce accepting his decisions as a capable adult/vigilante

10. Bruce reaching out for help, accepting what was offered instead of insisting they play it his way, and taking responsibility and apologizing for what he/Zur had done. Like, the entire run emphasized that Bruce landed in this mess by isolating himself and insisting things be done his way, so the ending being him reaching out and asking for help is perfect

These are all my opinions! There are a lot parts of this run that could have been better, but I think that's down to opinion and preference and also space. But I do prefer shorter storylines that are contained to a single title so I'll accept the mediocre if I have to.

#I want to reread this run soon #asks

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imaginatorcreates · 1 year

Text

Hold On, If Love Is The Answer, You're Home

09 May 2023 — 11 May 2023

Summary: The Neighborhood is beloved by each other, especially by a little necromancer. How far will he go for them?

Word Count: ~5.1k words

TW: Talks of death and corpses, and a mild bit of blood. This fanfic is based on a horror project, so just be warned overall.

Author's Note: The hyperfixation that this project has on me is strong. I chugged this out in 2 days. This is a Fantasy AU that was inspired by Discord chats about D&D and Welcome Home's cast. The cast are all living, breathing, bleeding creatures here.

Yes, the title is from "Touch" by Daft Punk. Yes, I listened to cottagecore playlists while making this. This is now my longest fic to date.

I'd also like to thank @/isleofair for helping me edit this! Your comments will forever feed my soul.

If there was one thing that was clear among the large adventuring party, filled with all sorts of beings from different lineages and backgrounds, it was that they stuck together through thick and thin. Despite everyone’s differences, they all somehow melded together into a coherent and admirable group. The Neighborhood, they called themselves. Certainly, they acted like good neighbors would, bound together like a family.

When they entered a town, eyes always swiveled towards the party. Whispers floated around and through them as people wondered about them. Where were they from? How did they meet each other? How many of them, hypothetically, were willing to stay behind for another? Conversations related to the latter topic usually died down when the flash of a metal ring around two of the party’s fingers became visible or when a quick peck on the cheek was exchanged, but they would almost always start up again when eyes became locked onto a voluminous blue pompadour.

There was something about that being with the pompadour. Maybe it was his perpetual half-lidded eyes, covered in eyeshadow that feathered outwards into his skin. Maybe it was his easy-going grin, one that seemed to always be on his face as he walked among his party members. Maybe it was his short stature, making him seem so much more precious. Maybe it was the way he interacted with his neighbors, going along with them as they talked with him, with nothing but a quick yelp as he was dragged along to explore.

This time, the party had walked into town for a quick shopping trip, but had instead gotten dragged into the festivities. After hearing from the citizens that they had to stay over for the big bonfire at the end of the day, The Neighborhood decided to book a few rooms at a local inn, if only to celebrate with the town (and for a moment of relaxation for themselves).

“Wally! Look at this!”

Wally looked up from his spellbook, its pages more so covered in doodles and artistic renditions of how to cast spells rather than written notes like most others might expect. He felt a hand gently place something on his head. His field of vision became smaller as the object atop his head shifted. A giggle rang in his ears as he blinked in confusion.

“D’aww! It suits you!”

Wally closed his spellbook and fixed the wide-brimmed hat so he could properly see. His eyes locked with Julie’s, a big grin painted on the taller horned girl’s face. “Really neighbor?” he asked, his voice soft and monotonous.

Julie rapidly nodded her head and shook her hands in excitement. “Yeah! Doesn’t our wizard need a hat fitting for his profession?” She reached over and adjusted the hat for Wally, balancing it so it wouldn’t fall yet not ruin his pompadour. “Now you look like a real wizard!”

“Oh, I see.” He rolled his eyes upwards as far as they would go in an attempt to look at the hat atop his head, but to no avail. “Was I not a real wizard before this hat?”

“Nooooo,” Julie said in a sing-song tune. “But you look more wizardly now! Oh! I have to find Frank and Eddie now! I found some things for their anniversary!” The sorcerer gave Wally a big hug before she ran off into the crowd, the occasional shriek from others being the only indicator that she was halfway to throwing caution to the wind.

Wally watched her retreat for a minute before removing the hat — Oh! It had a pointy top! And were those silver stars on the dark fabric too? — and placing it back on the stand. He looked around the crowd before slowly walking in a random direction. Maybe he’d run into some of his neighbors like he did with Julie.

He had already seen Howdy haggling the prices down on certain supplies that “were overpriced as hell!” He had almost never heard the quad-armed neighbor sound so irritated, and a soft smile quirked at the corners of his mouth. It wasn’t as if Howdy couldn’t just steal the supplies away, but he instead chose to pay fairly. “From one businessman to another, I endorse being civil about it,” he said when Sally asked him one day.

Poppy, on the other hand, easily accepted the prices given to her for healing potions. The easily-frightened avian of The Neighborhood said that after she collected enough healing supplies, she would be in the inn’s kitchen helping out with baking. “If there’s something that helps me relax a little, it’s when my feathers are covered in flour and the smell of freshly baked goods are coming from the oven.” Wally certainly found the baking process delightful to watch, and could feel the anxiety that normally radiated off their cleric fade away as careful measurements turned into a delectable dessert.

If he remembered correctly, Sally was also in the inn. The goal of the little star of a performer was to write out the script for her next big play, which was the party’s free pass to staying in the inn if it was well-received. She had wanted to share the story of their latest adventure, as fully embellished as she possibly could; laying out the characters and the setting, bringing it to life first on paper, then with her neighbors the next morning. She was originally conflicted about it, as she wished to explore the bustling market with the others. However, the promise of licking the mixing spoons and getting first dibs on the baked goods seemed to convince her to stay. At how quickly her quill flew over parchment at that agreement, Wally couldn’t help but think that she was probably already done by now and keeping Poppy company.

Frank and Eddie were most likely browsing the market together. It was a bit of a surprise when outsiders first laid eyes upon the married couple. Frank with his perpetual frown, furrowed unibrow, and almost endless knowledge on Lepidoptera, was happily married to Eddie? Eddie, who always seemed to have a polite smile on his face and had trouble remembering certain things? It could be hard to believe at first. But the soft looks, gentle kisses, and quiet understanding between the couple was undeniable. Eddie had all the power in his body to easily down a fully armored person, but also had the gentleness of a butterfly as he folded spare parchment into complex shapes for his neighbors. Frank’s exterior could be described as spiky as the thorns he could conjure from the ground, yet out of everyone, Julie was the one who first romped freely through it without a care in the world.

“Hey buddy!” a deep voice lazily called out.

Wally shook himself out of his thoughts and craned his neck upward. His grin widened and his pace quickened. After a few bumps into others, he was considered close enough for his bestest friend Barnaby to reach out, slip his large hands under his armpits, and gently throw the wizard into the air before wrapping his arms around him in a tight hug.

“Barnaby! Hello my friend,” Wally said as he rested his cheek against the other’s shoulder. It was damp, and a familiar wet dog scent entered Wally’s nose. “Oh, neighbor. What happened to you?”

Barnaby chuckled and shrugged with minimum movement so as not to disturb the party’s wizard so much. “Oh, just got caught in the butt end of a joke. ‘M not hurt Walls, promise.” He pressed his short snout against Wally’s shoulder and let out a throaty rumble of content.

Wally nuzzled into Barnaby’s shoulder at this show of affection. His grin softened when he saw how fast Barnaby's tail was wagging. It took everything in him to not drop his spellbook on the ground. He willed his fingers to stay curled tight around the spine, willed his grip to not go limp like the rest of him every time he was embraced in a hug.

“How have you been? Did you find anything nice?”

“Oh, not really.” Wally's tone might’ve reflected discontent over this situation from how monotonous it sounded, but the pair had been friends for long enough that Barnaby could read his friend easily. The combination of a sigh and the willing lean into the hug (however that may be like for the smallest being) led to there being no need to worry.

“Ahh, it’s alright buddy.” Barnaby released Wally from his tight hug and set him back on his feet. “I found a joke book written by an up-and-coming comedian here. Some of the jokes are pretty funny.” A grin slid onto his face and an eyebrow quirked upwards as he asked, “Do you wanna hear a few?”

Wally nodded. “I always love hearing your jokes Barnaby. They’re the most.” He slowly started to make his way back to the inn, the setting sun causing their shadows to elongate on the cobblestone ground. The canine neighbor walked alongside him and started to share some of the jokes he’s picked up, with the shorter of the pair giving a faltered laugh after each of them. His eyes showed more of what he shouldn't fully express though. They furrowed slightly as he processed the punchlines, then lit up as understanding hit. He made sure his shoulders shook to show that his laughter was genuine, and for the funnier jokes, he added the action of closing his eyes.

Wally was at home with each and every one of his neighbors. He loved how each of them came together and formed not just an adventuring party, but a family. He watched each interaction made with each other with close eye contact, his dark eyes following them carefully. He would give up the world if it meant that they could all stay like this. Happy. Together. A family.

------

A gasp. Air got sucked into his lungs. Out. In. Out. Breathing was so hard. Shouldn’t it be natural? It certainly felt natural if Wally thought about it. But the more he thought about how natural breathing should come to him, the more difficult it became. It was as if his lungs were stuffed with cotton.

Where was he? The ground was cold and hard. He willed his limbs to move, slowly awakening as if they had come out of a deep slumber. They were numb, and moving them felt foreign, as if he didn’t have full control over them. Wally slowly got up, checking his belongings as he did. He still had his spellbook, as well as his traveling backpack. Catching his appearance in a mirror, he felt his heart skip a few beats at the state of his appearance. His perfectly styled pompadour was halfway to falling over, his hair already leaning over and threatening to cover half his face. His eyeshadow was smudged and were those dark circles under his eyes? He inwardly grimaced, his smile not faltering just yet, save for the corners turning downwards.

He fixed his red ascot as an attempt to ground himself as he muttered, “Where are your neighbors? Find them first. They’ve seen you like this, even worse than this.”

He turned his head around to fully take in his surroundings. He seemed to be inside someone’s house. The walls were painted bright red, black and white accents protruding through the almost garish color choice. A large, almost equally red plush chair sat in the middle of the room Wally was in. Next to the chair was a table that reached up to the armrests, and on the table was a red contraption that he never saw before. It was roughly trapezoidal in shape, with a round dial on the front. Atop it, a curved shape lay in a cradle with a coiled cord that connected it with the base.

The wizard looked around him. Where was the exit? He glanced at the window with yellow panes in the shape of a cross. Outside it was pitch black. Oh. It was probably nighttime then. Was this a special room the inn gave them in exchange for Sally’s performance? He could still remember the little star’s flushed face as the crowd gave a standing ovation.

But, wait. That didn’t make sense now, did it? The performance was in the morning, so why give a luxurious yet tacky-colored room before that fact?

As Wally slowly made his way to the window to try to take a closer peek outside, he felt his shoe catch on a loose floorboard. He yelped as he tried to regain his balance. He ended up taking a few feeble, panicked steps towards the plush chair, to which he felt the floorboards shift beneath his feet and confirmed his destination was in fact, the chair.

He fell onto the chair, his back hitting the backrest roughly and one of his hands knocking onto the side table. Not a moment had passed before —

Ring! Ring!

The contraption was ringing.

Ring! Ring!

Wally didn’t know what to do. He reached for the ringing device, then paused in midair. What would happen if he touched it, much less picked it up? He’s had his fair share of magical items end up being cursed or otherwise having unwanted side-effects. What if this was another one of those?

Ring! Ring!

It kept ringing.

Ring! Ring!

It wouldn’t stop until he did something about it, wouldn’t it?

Ring! Ring!

His throat felt dry. A heavy pit started to form in his stomach. Why was he hesitating so badly?

Ring! Ring!

A sharp, unseen object pierced through his hand. He cried out in surprise, then hissed in pain as he felt something like string wrap around his wrist. It forced his hand down, forced his fingers to curl around the curved part of the contraption, forced him to pick it up and bring it close to his ear and mouth.

The ringing stopped.

His breathing still felt heavy.

“Hel – ” He paused. Swallowed. Then, he tried again. “Hello?”

A pause.

Then, a voice on the other end. “Hello.”

The voice was smooth and deep, with creaks and thumps throughout the room almost accentuating it. Wally unconsciously curled inwards as the hairs on the back of his neck rose. The pit in his stomach grew heavier. It felt as if someone was watching him. If only some of his neighbors were here! While he wasn’t as much of a glass cannon as someone might make him out to be, it was undeniable that it was easier to land a hit on him if he didn’t give his full attention to a fight.

“Where am I?” he asked. He hoped that whoever was potentially watching didn’t see how his smile wavered, nor hear how his voice wavered.

“You died on my land.”

Wally’s heart nearly stopped right there. His hand gripped the talking device tighter, and his other hand curled into a tight fist. His eyes darted around the room, looking for any indication that this was a dream. He didn’t dream very often, for sleeping was a tough thing for him. He still remembered the first time he had to explain to the other neighbors that him murmuring “I’m sleeping, I’m sleeping” was to help him achieve sleep. Insomnia was never a good thing, especially when it would last for what felt like forever.

“Oh. Ha ha ha. That’s a funny joke.” It had to be a joke, right?

Clearly the being on the other end didn’t find this to be a laughing situation, as the strings around his wrist tightened. He cried out in surprise, but bit his tongue to prevent himself from crying out further. He mustn’t show weakness, even when the invisible strings around his wrist dug deep into his skin, drawing blood. As he felt the crimson liquid start to run down his arm, soaking into his clothes, he exclaimed, “Okay, okay! So, what if I’m dead? What about my neighbors?”

The strings stopped digging into his skin, but he could still feel them there. Waiting for him to misbehave again. A pause on the other end. “You all died on my land. Fifty years ago, you all died on my land.”

“That’s…not true, right?” Wally nervously chuckled. “We always make it out alive. Injured, cranky, tired. But alive.”

“Delusional fool,” the being on the other end spat. “How confused are you to believe your own lies? Must I show you undeniable proof?”

It didn’t wait for Wally’s answer. Before him, the floorboards flipped onto each other, parting and making way for a hole to appear. A putrid stench rose from the hole. Wally was deeply familiar with it, being a necromancer. Something was dead and rotting in there. Normally, it wouldn’t bother him. But the ominous way that the being spoke made his stomach churn, a cold sweat breaking out across his body.

Something — no, someone — rose from the hole in the room. It was humanoid, large. Wearing clothes fit for a jokester who could easily pummel someone with their bare fists. Light blue, slightly curly fur.

Their head detached from their neck, rising alongside the body.

Wally’s smile dropped.

“BARNABY!”

Wally leapt out of the chair to reach towards his best friend, ignoring the way the strings dug into his skin. This was a bad dream, was it? It was only a bad dream, right?

His fingers brushed against Barnaby’s arm. It was cold.

His head spun. He felt nauseous. His knees buckled under the revelation setting in. Another sharp piercing through his other hand, more strings around his wrist. Wally felt himself being lifted up by the strings around his wrists, yet he had no energy in him to fight back. His mouth was contorted into a deep, forlorn frown. The ground blurred, but he rapidly blinked it away. No. He mustn’t show weakness here. Not now.

He was alive. Somehow. He was talking to someone. He was The Neighborhood’s necromancer! He could revive them all! That thought wormed its way into his mind and burrowed itself deep. It grew roots so ingrained within him that if someone were to try to remove it from his mind, one might as well be removing his entire brain.

“I can bring them back,” he whispered. The idea slipped past his lips and into the air. It sounded viable now. “I can bring my neighbors back. I can bring them back!” He thrashed against the strings, ignoring the pain and the blood. “I can bring them back!” He stared at Barnaby’s cloudy eyes, his own wide eyes with feverish energy. A smile wormed its way back onto his face. “I can bring you back, Barns. I can bring you all back.”

The room shook. The floorboards rattled and the walls creaked. Windows and doors opened and slammed shut. The voice from the end of the device laughed loudly, echoing through the room. It sounded closer, not restrained to the device. It sounded like it came from everything, everywhere, all at once.

“AH HA HA! What a delusion you live under!” the voice sneered. “This could be an illusion I’m showing you! Didn’t you hear me? You’ve been dead for 50 years!”

“Then why am I awake, talking to you?” Wally asked back. His voice was strangely calm. Gone was his initial panic, instead replaced with resolve for his goal. He tilted his head. “I would be dead too.”

The voice paused, as if contemplating what to share with the wizard. “The combination of your party’s magic, combined with the natural enhancer of my land, prevented your bodies from rotting normally. It prevented you from being found. It prevented your souls from departing. It prevented me from contacting what was left of you. It took fifty damn years before the magic had faded enough for me to contact any of you.” A slam of a door enunciated the being’s frustration.

Wally mused this over, then looked around the room. “So, my friend’s bodies are still relatively well preserved, correct?”

A creak. Wally hummed and asked, “So I could revive them. Then we would move off your land, and we won’t bother you again. How does that sound?”

“Your bodies and magic have already infected my lands. There’s no point in your offer.”

Wally’s smile dropped at the edges before rising back up. He wasn’t going to lose his second chance at life, at seeing his friends’ wishes come true. They died all too soon for that. They were all still so young. “Then you join us in our adventure. You become part of our neighborhood. You become our neighbor. You are welcomed here, you are home.” If he had inadvertently given this being a name, no one had to know but himself. He widened his hands as if offering a handshake. He widened his smile, put on as much charm that he had in his disheveled appearance.

One minute of silence lapsed into five. Five turned into ten. Wally’s smile started to drop, and his fingers slowly curled inwards. “Please. I’m begging you.”

Another minute of silence passed before he felt his feet touch the floor, then the strings around his wrists relaxed until he didn’t feel them anymore. He rubbed the thin cuts and wished that Poppy were here to heal them.

“I’ll allow it. However, you must hold up your end of the deal. I’ll join your little party, until you die again. And you won’t die again in the same way you died before, oh no.” This time, a more visible string formed and wrapped around Wally’s neck. It tightened, yet didn’t raise him off the floor. Just a threat. “Your magic will be supplemented by my own, but there’s a time limit on how long it’ll last. Slowly, your friends will rot again. It’ll be your job to make sure they’re unaware of that, for only you will be aware that you’ve died for 50 years.”

To be burned by such knowledge made Wally’s head hurt, or maybe he was getting tired. After all, he had woken up from a 50-year slumber.

But for his friends, he agreed. “Deal.”

The string around his neck disappeared, and Barnaby's body was lowered back into the floor, the floorboards flipping over the hole. “Deal. Never forget this,” the being said.

Wally felt his stomach drop, his head spun. He dropped to the ground and struggled to keep his eyes open. Between heavy blinks, he saw the room disappear, black fading over the red. The floor became colder and foreign. The last thing he remembered was staring at the window as a large black eye shook and stared at him, red running down its lower pane.

------

When Wally awoke, it took everything in him to not immediately throw up. Everything around him smelled like death and rot. He untied his ascot from around his neck, cleaned it with a quick spell, then cast another spell to make it smell like Poppy’s apple pie as he tied it around his nose and mouth. Cinnamon, apples, and warm pie crust filled his nose as he took deep breaths to calm himself down.

Fifty years.

He and his neighbors were dead for fifty years.

And only he should know of it.

He steeled his nerves and slowly got up. He had his spellbook, he had the help of the being. He just needed to trust in his magic. It was dark outside. Perfect. If he did this quickly enough, he should have enough time to revive them before the sun rose. It wasn’t as if he needed sleep anyways, his mind was too loud right now.

Julie. She needed to find her sisters again and see how they were all doing. She had three of them, right?

Sally. She still needed to have a play fit to perform for the galaxy. Something only fitting for a star like her.

Howdy. He needed to have enough funds to replace his destroyed shop. Then, he needed to send extras back to his very large family.

Poppy. She was looking for her cousin, right? She had mentioned him a few times as she baked, a sad smile etched on her face.

Eddie. He wanted to remember where he was from. He knew his mother was waiting for him, but where?

Frank. His greatest dream was to document a rare butterfly he’d heard about as a myth since he was a child. To prove it was real.

Barnaby. Ever since his mother died, it was as if his jokes were an attempt to connect to her again. He said she’d always loved and laughed at his jokes. So, his wish was to make the best joke ever, enough to make her spirit laugh from the afterlife.

And Wally’s wish? He just wanted more time with his neighbors. The time he already had didn’t feel like enough. He loved them all too much for their adventures to end so suddenly. He didn’t even have enough time to blow them all goodbye kisses.

He gently pulled his friends closer together, every one of them cold beneath his hands. Every one of them preserved unnaturally by magic, but nonetheless putrid-smelling. He occasionally retouched on his ascot when his mind couldn’t numb the sensation or when the smell of happiness started to fade away. His mouth tasted like metal, so somewhere in the process of preparing for his biggest spell he had bitten his cheek or tongue.

He took out his paintbrush, opened his book, and channeled his magic through it. It flowed from the bristles like paint, and he painted the magic circle exactly like in his notes. The complex insignia was next. The spell listed several rare and expensive materials for a singular resurrection spell for a singular being, but would it work with all of them?

He had to try.

Wally stepped into the middle of the magic circle, surrounded by his neighbors, his friends, his family. As he continued to paint his magic into reality, he started to chant the spell. It was long, and a singular mistake could result in tragedy. A few minutes into the casting process, his magic circle suddenly surged with extra power. His eyes widened but he didn’t falter.

More magic, more chants. Something felt as if it gripped his heart and squeezed it like a stress ball. He gasped in shock but he had to recover quickly. His throat was becoming dry, but he couldn’t stop now. Magic continued to flow from his brush, the strokes becoming wider and sharper.

His friends’ bodies were reverting back to their normal selves. Gone were their grave wounds, their limbs were being stitched back together. He could even see a bit of color in their cheeks. His grin widened. It was working!

Almost as if the being that was lending him its power sensed his excitement, his heart clenched again. Something dark was crawling up his body. Cold, thick, liquid. It edged around his eyes before digging itself behind his eyelids, behind his eyes.

It hurt. It hurt so badly. It was like lemon juice was being poured in. He wanted to stop and cry and tear whatever this was out. But to lose concentration of the spell?

Never.

At the crescendo of the spell, his friends’ bodies started to rise. He rose as well. He was reviving all of them. He would do it.

Then, it was over. He painted the last symbol, said the last word. Their bodies slowly floated down, the insignia and magic circle disappeared, and the second his feet touched the ground, all the extra magic that had flowed through him temporarily left him. His body, starved for energy, started to shut down.

Perhaps he should do this more often. It would certainly cure his insomnia. “Ha ha ha,” he whispered. Before his eyes closed, he remembered his neighbors stirring, a hand pressed against his forehead, and a cry of “He’s burning up!”

------

According to Poppy, he had used so much magic that he contracted a magic-induced fever for a week. Magic-induced fevers were a tricky thing, as the use of healing spells only seemed to aggravate them, especially in the beginning days. So each neighbor had to wait for their wizard to naturally break the fever.

“Oh honey,” she murmured between his waking moments, “it’s okay. I don’t know what you did, but shhh. Focus on healing up, okay?” A handkerchief dabbed at his eyes and cheeks. Was he crying? He couldn’t remember the last time he did.

When his fever finally broke, and he could handle walking around without looking as if he would tip over if he took one too many steps, The Neighborhood packed their things and set up to travel to their next big town.

Wally was quiet on their first few days of traveling. He smiled and nodded and laughed when his neighbors talked with him, but speaking actual words was difficult for a bit. It was as if the excess of magic he had to use had chased away his voice. Or maybe it was the shock of seeing, hearing, feeling, his neighbors around him again. Alive. Happy.

Unaware.

He couldn’t let them know. He could never let them know.

When he started to speak again, Barnaby was the first one to give him one of his bone-crushing hugs. Wally remained as limp as ever in them, but he nuzzled into them harder than before.

“Missed hearing you buddy,” Barnaby whispered to him.

Another thing that bothered Wally was that his eyes hurt. They starved for things. In private, he found that if he stared at something for long enough with the intent to consume it, almost comical bite marks appeared in the object and that craving was reduced. He could also blink to initiate the eating process, but blinking scared him. In the dark of the night, if he widened his eyes enough, yellow crosses appeared in them.

“Hello Home,” he whispered, when his neighbors were fast asleep and snoring. “We’re forgotten Home. It’s as if we never existed for 50 years. I don’t think they remember that either.” He picked up an apple that he had bought earlier that day. He stared at it, and bite marks appeared in the flesh. “Do you see our adventures? I hope that you enjoy what we do Home.”

In his head, he heard a creak, like a door swinging on its hinges.

“That’s good, I think.”

Wally placed the apple core down and curled up to sleep. He closed his eyes, and murmured “I’m sleeping, I’m sleeping, I’m sleeping” until his consciousness faded away.

He had his neighbors back. He had a new neighbor. And he would cherish them for as long as he could.

Until death did them apart.

#Ima Writes #writing #my writing #original writing #welcome home #welcome home puppet show #welcome home the cast #tw: horror #tw: death #tw: corpses #tw: blood

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